Chapter Text
“And I found love where it wasn't supposed to be
Right in front of me”— Amber Run
· · ─ ·✶· ─ · ·
The Red Force moved under a strong afternoon wind.
Aurelia stood at the helm with her logbook, one hand on the wheel, eyes on the horizon.
“Auri.”
She didn’t turn. “If Lucky sent you, tell him no.”
A quiet laugh came from behind her.
“And here I was hoping you’d be happy to see me,” Shanks said.
Auri glanced back. Shanks was standing beside the helm for no reason she could see, smiling like he was exactly where he wanted to be.
“I usually am. Right up until I find out you’re here on someone else’s behalf.”
Shanks put a hand to his chest. “That’s brutal.”
He moved up beside her anyway and leaned a hand on the wood near the wheel. “We’re making good time.”
“I know.”
“The wind held.”
“I know that too.”
Shanks grinned. “You always this pleasant when someone agrees with you?”
“No. Sometimes I’m worse.”
That got a laugh out of him.
Auri looked back down at the logbook and made another note. “You’re hovering.”
“I’m the captain. I’m allowed.”
“That’s not how that works.”
“Sure it is.”
She gave him a flat look. “You have no actual job up here right now.”
“Ouch.”
“You’ll survive.”
His grin only widened.
That was the problem with Shanks. Most people backed off when Auri answered them like that. Shanks seemed to enjoy it.
He stayed where he was, shoulder close to hers, eyes shifting from the water to her hands on the wheel and back again. If she noticed how often he looked, she gave no sign.
Maybe that was for the best.
Years of this had taught him one thing very clearly: he could want all he liked. It didn’t change what was in front of him.
Auri turned the wheel a fraction. The ship adjusted. Her knuckles brushed his where he’d planted his hand.
She didn’t pull back.
She never did.
That was what made it worse.
“Auri.”
“What?”
He almost said it.
Not all of it. Just enough to make a mess.
Instead he nodded at the page in her hand. “You missed a mark.”
She looked down at once. “No, I didn’t.”
“Third line.”
Auri frowned, scanned the page, then narrowed her eyes and looked up at him. “You’re lying.”
Shanks looked smug. “Was I?”
“You ass.”
He laughed, louder this time, and from farther down the deck Benn Beckman looked over.
Auri shook her head and shut the logbook. “If you’re going to stand here, be useful.”
“Finally. Recognition.”
“Don’t push it.”
She nodded to the wheel. He took it for her, and she stepped in close to adjust their heading by sight. Her shoulder brushed his arm. Her hand slid over the spoke beneath his.
Shanks went still for half a beat.
Auri either didn’t notice or didn’t care.
“There,” she said. “Try not to ruin it.”
“No faith in me.”
“Not in navigation.”
He handed the wheel back with a wounded look that convinced no one.
Auri went to check something near the rigging, speaking briefly with one of the crew. Shanks watched her go without bothering to hide it.
Beckman stepped up beside him, cigarette already lit.
“You’re getting sloppy.”
Shanks didn’t look away from Auri. “About what?”
Beckman took a drag. “Come on.”
That got the smallest twitch of a smile out of him. “She hasn’t noticed.”
Beckman glanced sideways. “That your standard?”
“It’s the important one.”
Beckman let that sit for a second. “You planning to keep pretending this is nothing?”
Shanks’s smile thinned.
Out by the mast, Auri pushed hair back from her face and checked the line tension with quick, practiced hands. Confident. Focused. Entirely herself.
“No,” Shanks said. “I’m not pretending anything.”
Beckman exhaled smoke. “Then what are you doing?”
Shanks finally looked at him. “Leaving it alone.”
Beckman held his gaze. “Because she’s with him.”
There was no point dodging it.
Shanks looked back toward Auri. “Yeah.”
Beckman was quiet a moment. “Must be killing you.”
Shanks huffed a laugh with no humor in it. “I’ve lived through worse.”
It was an answer, but not much of one. Beckman knew better than to push when Shanks sounded like that.
At the helm, Auri looked over. “Are you two talking about me?”
“Always,” Shanks called back easily.
She stared at him.
Then at Beckman.
Beckman took another drag and said, deadpan, “Mostly your attitude.”
Auri snorted. “Good. I work hard on it.”
Shanks laughed again, and this one was real.
By evening the crew had drifted into their usual habits—cards, drinks, pointless arguments.
Shanks sat on the steps with a bottle in hand, one knee up, watching the sun drop.
He heard Auri before he looked up.
“Mind if I sit?”
He shifted at once to make room. “Never.”
She sat beside him, close enough that their shoulders nearly touched, and stretched her legs out in front of her.
For a while neither of them said anything. They didn’t need to. It had never been difficult to be quiet with her.
“Too calm,” Auri said at last, staring out at the water.
Shanks took a drink. “Thought you liked calm.”
“I like predictable.”
“Difference?”
“Yes.”
He looked over at her. “All right, navigator. Explain it.”
“Predictable means I know what the sea’s about to do. Calm just means it hasn’t done it yet.”
Shanks grinned. “That’s a little grim.”
Auri made a small sound that might have been a laugh.
Then, almost absently, she said, “Caelan would like a day like this.”
Shanks kept his face the same and took another swallow before answering. “Yeah?”
“He hates crowded harbors,” she said. “Says people get stupid when they rush.”
“Smart man.”
Auri glanced at him. “You remember?”
“I remember him.”
That seemed to amuse her. “He’d be pleased to hear you said that.”
“Then spare me. I’ve got a reputation.”
She laughed under her breath and shook her head.
Shanks looked out at the water again.
It would have been easier if Caelan were a bastard. Easier if there were something to hate. But from what he’d seen, the man was steady, capable, good at what he did, and Auri cared for him.
That left Shanks with nowhere to put any of it except back where it belonged.
“He is good at it,” Auri said. “Running the port, I mean.”
Shanks nodded once. “Seems like it.”
She looked at him a little longer this time. “You’re being quiet.”
Shanks smiled faintly. “That bothering you?”
“It’s unnatural.”
He laughed softly at that and tipped the bottle in one hand. “Maybe I’m tired.”
Auri gave him a doubtful look. “I’ve seen you stay up half the night drinking and still wake up trying to start a party.”
“Now you’re making me sound irresponsible.”
“You are irresponsible.”
“Ouch.”
“And loud.”
He grinned. “You say the sweetest things.”
Her mouth twitched despite herself.
The quiet settled again, easy enough on the surface.
After a while Auri stood and picked up her logbook.
“I’ve still got things to finish before we dock.”
Shanks tipped his head back to look up at her. “Don’t stay up half the night doing them.”
“I won’t.”
She started to go, then paused. “And don’t let Lucky get you drunk enough to start singing.”
“No promises.”
“That’s what I thought.”
She walked off and Shanks watched until she disappeared below deck.
Beckman came up beside him a minute later. “You could make this easier on yourself.”
Shanks let out a quiet breath. “How?”
“Stop standing so close to her all the time, for one.”
That got a short laugh. “Not likely.”
Beckman nodded once, like he had expected that answer. “Didn’t think so.”
For a few seconds they watched the light burn lower over the water.
Then Beckman said, “You really going to leave it alone?”
Shanks rested his forearm on his knee, bottle hanging loose from his hand. “Yeah.”
“Even if she never sees it?”
Shanks’s expression didn’t change.
“She’s happy,” he said.
Simple as that.
Final enough that Beckman didn’t answer right away.
The sun dropped lower. The ship held its course. The crew carried on behind them like always.
From the outside, nothing had changed.
Only Beckman knew better, and Shanks figured that was already one person too many.