30 Kisses: Ben and Shanks - Numero 7
Oct. 18th, 2005 10:22 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
dethoratsTheme: Alcohol
Title: Hangover
Rating: PG
Word Count: 2209
Time: No Idea. I worked on it on and off.
Something isn’t right this morning. He hurts, but it’s not the right kind of pain, not the kind he’s used to. It’s not the nagging pain of his back that will go away once he’s stretched and had a hot shower, muscles sore and cramped because Shanks has managed to kick him off the bed once again and he ended up spending most of the night on the unforgiving planking of the deck. It’s not any of the dull aches that plague his feet or his temple or his arm or his shoulders or any number of other places where he’s been shot or stabbed, made to bleed and forced to endure more than just a stitch or two, spots that let him know without fail when the weather’s about to change. And it’s not delirious, not-quite-in-his-body but not-not pain of fever and ague that he gets every couple of years because he was an unlucky child who caught the nasty version of Herin’s Blotch Disease, the kind that recurs even into adulthood and makes him stay in bed and endure Shanks healing, but nasty, tonic concoctions.
For a moment he thinks that maybe they’ve ended up at a Spring island again and he’d just forgotten. Luck has never been exactly on his side. In his more bitter or wry moments, he has decided that maybe Shanks got most of his fair share, except that he at least has all four limbs intact and so who knows where their apportioned share of luck went? Allergies are an unpleasant affliction that make his head pound, his ears roar and burn, his nose alternately stuffy and runny, and even turns his stomach when too much mucus ends up in it. It’s his misfortune that cherry blossoms in particular bother him, because Shanks loves nothing so much as a good party. Cherry blossom viewings are an excuse to drink and make with the merry on most Spring islands. Too many times he has found himself huddled in the bed, several well-used handkerchiefs wadded up in disgustingly moist balls on the floor around him while outside the revels of the crew barely reach his pained and ringing ears. But then he remembers, through the haze of pain that has enveloped him, that they are on a Fall island and it’s in the winter phase so nearly all the plants are dead and can’t be harming him this way.
There are several things that he allows himself to feel pride and self-satisfaction over. Not many, because he’s not that type of person, and also because Shanks has a way of finding out and finding ways to deflate a man’s ego although he does it mainly for fun rather than spite. He’s proud of his knowledge, of his education, of the fact that he knows many things about the world they live in. He knows more than just about every person currently sailing. This is not to say that he always lets that show or that he’s a know-it-all or that he claims to know EVERYTHING. Long ago he learned that with wisdom comes knowing just how much one DOESN’T know. And he knows that he doesn’t know people, not the way Shanks does, not the way Yasopp does, not even the way Mihawk does, even though that man is inscrutable and solitary. But he does know pretty damn near everything else and it’s saved them more than once. He’s also proud of the fact that he’s a member of one of the greatest pirate crews on the ocean, and of what they’ve accomplished. In his weaker moments, he’s even proud of the bed he shares, both occupants, the constant and the occasional. But perhaps most of all, and this is the one thing he WILL openly brag about, he’s always been proud of the fact that he doesn’t get hangovers.
Light seems to strobe before him, flashes of reds and oranges that pulse in time to the unbelievably harsh pounding of his head, the spot right above his left eyebrow. There is an answering pain beating in counterpoint at the base of his skull and, strangely, in his knee and one big toe. He shifts a little, just to see if the light will go away, and that sends his stomach churning. It had to have been aswirl before but now it is like the sea at a confluence or the tide hissing through a rocky shore. For a moment he thinks he might vomit, but the thought only makes his head throb more, makes him aware that his tongue feels swollen and thick and everything he can taste when he moves it weakly across the back of his teeth is rank, foul. It tastes, he realizes dimly through the all consuming hurt and overall grossness, like sour apples. And then it hits him. The cider, the old man, Shanks. Oh God, he had a feeling he had been very, very stupid. Somehow it was always worse being stupid when you were supposed to be very smart. A corner of his brain decided to uncurl from its whimpering to helpfully offer up the idea for him to mull over when he wasn’t wishing he was dead. This must be what a hangover felt like.
From somewhere he heard a voice say “Fuck” in a tone that was half croak, half groan. After a beat where the lights flared and he could feel his pulse in his teeth, it occurred to him that it had been his voice. Oh what a miserable state he was in. And he didn’t even know how it had happened! There were precautions one could take when one was drinking. He’d learned them before he was ten. Growing up in a school, there were always student parties and student hangovers and the occasional mixer thrown by one of the teachers. Alcohol flowed freely through most educational centers, he’d learned, although some places were more open about that fact than others. The University hadn’t been a party school, but it boasted excellent and unusual booze as well as some rather inventive cures and palliatives. When he’d gotten old enough, and even more so once he’d enlisted, he’d learned that the most effective cure, that of abstaining from drink, just wasn’t going to happen. He wasn’t equipped to be a crusader for temperance, although he full well believed in moderation. And then Shanks had sailed into his life and had deep-sixed any and all thoughts of just having the occasional nightcap.
Peer pressure was never something he’d succumbed to before. Maybe in part because he had never had that many peers. But Shanks, and his small crew of ruffians, had a way of driving a man to drink. They could make one crazy, which was the way he’d fallen, or they could be so jovial that it was nearly impossible to resist joining them. And if a body could manage to hold out, and was doing so for reasons other than dealing with religion or personal choices, they weren’t above spiking a drink or two. Alcohol helped grease the wheels of Shanks’ crew. It was what kept some of them from going stir crazy after weeks of sailing without anything to change the flat blue scenery. It was what eased tongues and loosened lips and shared memories and created newer, more embarrassing ones. Everyone developed some kind of tolerance after the first few months. Currently he could make it through about fifteen mugs of average grog or eight shots of the harder stuff before he began to feel even the slightest bit tipsy. There were others with higher tolerances, but the captain himself wasn’t one of them. Survival instinct had perhaps led him to this state, or else it could be attributed to his greater body mass. Whatever the reason, Shanks would be well on his way to intoxication before he would even feel the beginning effects of drunkenness.
This was all for the best because he could watch out for the captain and keep him out of most forms of trouble. Besides, someone had to be alert enough to haul the drunken man back to the ship and remember the way for the rest of the crew. The key, he’d learned, was to drink plenty of water in between glasses of alcohol. It also helped to not enter a bar on an empty stomach, but one had to be careful what one ate beforehand. Bread usually worked well for sopping up liquor. There were certain herbs that helped too. He always made sure to take a painkiller before he dropped off to sleep when he’d had a bit too much. It made the next morning infinitely more bearable. Always, always he was careful. Too many times watching Shanks, too many times having to deal with everyone else and not wanting to endure their agony while having to put up with his own, had made him cautious and well aware of what he was doing. So how in the world had he ended up in such a state?
As he debated and pondered his predicament in between bouts of pain, his bladder decided to make itself heard. Groaning, but making sure to keep it soft because it seemed that even the faint rustling of his skin against the covers made his head pound, he slowly cracked open his eyes. The room swam before him, aswirl in color that hurt his to look at, light stabbing all the way into the back of his skull. As he finally began to focus, a blob of red intruded, leaned over from above. It took him several moments to realize it was Shanks, an expression so smug on his face that he was tempted to risk establishing a full foundry in his skull just to move quickly upward and smack it off. Gods, he hoped he never looked quite that self-satisfied whenever Shanks woke up the next morning after a bender. He was pretty sure he didn’t, because HE was the one that had to deal with a hung over captain, a task that certainly no one envied him for.
“So, how does it feel Mr. I-Never-Get-Hangovers? Enjoying yourself?”
It was a good thing Shanks was whispering because otherwise he would have killed him. As it was, the sound, combined with the tone, had set his ears to ringing again. He was a bit ashamed that instead of a curse he let a small moan escape from him as he began to slowly lever himself up. Sitting wasn’t really any improvement. It made him feel dizzy and set off his stomach again. The toilet was looking more and more appealing, although the side of the ship would work too for both his needs.
“Damn you look pathetic. Here, drink this.”
Shanks was whispering still as he held out a cup.
He forgot himself and shook his head, had to throw out his hands to steady himself as the world spun. He knew what Shanks thought of as a hangover cure – alcohol. And he wasn’t about to take that route any more than he let the captain as long as he was quick enough to catch him.
“S’okay. It’s just coffee. I know ya wouldn’t want ta drink anything else.”
Even coffee sounded like a bad idea at the moment, what with the way his stomach was flip-flopping. But then he noticed the bottle of painkillers tucked in the man’s sash and decided it wasn’t all that awful after all. Sure enough Shanks handed them to him as soon as he’d accepted the mug. It would take a little while for the stuff to kick in and he had a feeling it wouldn’t do much more than take the edge off. What he really needed was to piss and maybe vomit and then drink a lot of water and sleep some more. His knees were wobbly when he tried to get to his feet and he failed on his first attempt at getting up. On the second try, a warm arm snuck under his own, hand reaching up to curl around the ball of one shoulder. The pale smile he managed was watery, weaker even than his muttered “thanks.” Shanks merely nodded and guided him over to the door.
The captain had just propped him up against the wall, leaning him there to go and open the door when he paused. The redhead grinned up at him, his smile softening when he tucked a strand of stray hair back behind his ear. The words were quiet; full of affection and appreciation for all the times their situations had been reversed. “Good morning.” And then he kissed him, sour taste, fuzzy teeth, swollen tongue and all, exactly the same except that this time he was the giver rather than the recipient. Ben managed to return it, tasted the familiar flavor of rum, smelled it on his breath. For a second he forgot his hangover but then his head and his stomach and his bladder reminded him that he still had other needs. This time when Shanks started laughing as he helped him out the door, he felt good enough to give him a quick elbow to the ribs.
Title: Hangover
Rating: PG
Word Count: 2209
Time: No Idea. I worked on it on and off.
Something isn’t right this morning. He hurts, but it’s not the right kind of pain, not the kind he’s used to. It’s not the nagging pain of his back that will go away once he’s stretched and had a hot shower, muscles sore and cramped because Shanks has managed to kick him off the bed once again and he ended up spending most of the night on the unforgiving planking of the deck. It’s not any of the dull aches that plague his feet or his temple or his arm or his shoulders or any number of other places where he’s been shot or stabbed, made to bleed and forced to endure more than just a stitch or two, spots that let him know without fail when the weather’s about to change. And it’s not delirious, not-quite-in-his-body but not-not pain of fever and ague that he gets every couple of years because he was an unlucky child who caught the nasty version of Herin’s Blotch Disease, the kind that recurs even into adulthood and makes him stay in bed and endure Shanks healing, but nasty, tonic concoctions.
For a moment he thinks that maybe they’ve ended up at a Spring island again and he’d just forgotten. Luck has never been exactly on his side. In his more bitter or wry moments, he has decided that maybe Shanks got most of his fair share, except that he at least has all four limbs intact and so who knows where their apportioned share of luck went? Allergies are an unpleasant affliction that make his head pound, his ears roar and burn, his nose alternately stuffy and runny, and even turns his stomach when too much mucus ends up in it. It’s his misfortune that cherry blossoms in particular bother him, because Shanks loves nothing so much as a good party. Cherry blossom viewings are an excuse to drink and make with the merry on most Spring islands. Too many times he has found himself huddled in the bed, several well-used handkerchiefs wadded up in disgustingly moist balls on the floor around him while outside the revels of the crew barely reach his pained and ringing ears. But then he remembers, through the haze of pain that has enveloped him, that they are on a Fall island and it’s in the winter phase so nearly all the plants are dead and can’t be harming him this way.
There are several things that he allows himself to feel pride and self-satisfaction over. Not many, because he’s not that type of person, and also because Shanks has a way of finding out and finding ways to deflate a man’s ego although he does it mainly for fun rather than spite. He’s proud of his knowledge, of his education, of the fact that he knows many things about the world they live in. He knows more than just about every person currently sailing. This is not to say that he always lets that show or that he’s a know-it-all or that he claims to know EVERYTHING. Long ago he learned that with wisdom comes knowing just how much one DOESN’T know. And he knows that he doesn’t know people, not the way Shanks does, not the way Yasopp does, not even the way Mihawk does, even though that man is inscrutable and solitary. But he does know pretty damn near everything else and it’s saved them more than once. He’s also proud of the fact that he’s a member of one of the greatest pirate crews on the ocean, and of what they’ve accomplished. In his weaker moments, he’s even proud of the bed he shares, both occupants, the constant and the occasional. But perhaps most of all, and this is the one thing he WILL openly brag about, he’s always been proud of the fact that he doesn’t get hangovers.
Light seems to strobe before him, flashes of reds and oranges that pulse in time to the unbelievably harsh pounding of his head, the spot right above his left eyebrow. There is an answering pain beating in counterpoint at the base of his skull and, strangely, in his knee and one big toe. He shifts a little, just to see if the light will go away, and that sends his stomach churning. It had to have been aswirl before but now it is like the sea at a confluence or the tide hissing through a rocky shore. For a moment he thinks he might vomit, but the thought only makes his head throb more, makes him aware that his tongue feels swollen and thick and everything he can taste when he moves it weakly across the back of his teeth is rank, foul. It tastes, he realizes dimly through the all consuming hurt and overall grossness, like sour apples. And then it hits him. The cider, the old man, Shanks. Oh God, he had a feeling he had been very, very stupid. Somehow it was always worse being stupid when you were supposed to be very smart. A corner of his brain decided to uncurl from its whimpering to helpfully offer up the idea for him to mull over when he wasn’t wishing he was dead. This must be what a hangover felt like.
From somewhere he heard a voice say “Fuck” in a tone that was half croak, half groan. After a beat where the lights flared and he could feel his pulse in his teeth, it occurred to him that it had been his voice. Oh what a miserable state he was in. And he didn’t even know how it had happened! There were precautions one could take when one was drinking. He’d learned them before he was ten. Growing up in a school, there were always student parties and student hangovers and the occasional mixer thrown by one of the teachers. Alcohol flowed freely through most educational centers, he’d learned, although some places were more open about that fact than others. The University hadn’t been a party school, but it boasted excellent and unusual booze as well as some rather inventive cures and palliatives. When he’d gotten old enough, and even more so once he’d enlisted, he’d learned that the most effective cure, that of abstaining from drink, just wasn’t going to happen. He wasn’t equipped to be a crusader for temperance, although he full well believed in moderation. And then Shanks had sailed into his life and had deep-sixed any and all thoughts of just having the occasional nightcap.
Peer pressure was never something he’d succumbed to before. Maybe in part because he had never had that many peers. But Shanks, and his small crew of ruffians, had a way of driving a man to drink. They could make one crazy, which was the way he’d fallen, or they could be so jovial that it was nearly impossible to resist joining them. And if a body could manage to hold out, and was doing so for reasons other than dealing with religion or personal choices, they weren’t above spiking a drink or two. Alcohol helped grease the wheels of Shanks’ crew. It was what kept some of them from going stir crazy after weeks of sailing without anything to change the flat blue scenery. It was what eased tongues and loosened lips and shared memories and created newer, more embarrassing ones. Everyone developed some kind of tolerance after the first few months. Currently he could make it through about fifteen mugs of average grog or eight shots of the harder stuff before he began to feel even the slightest bit tipsy. There were others with higher tolerances, but the captain himself wasn’t one of them. Survival instinct had perhaps led him to this state, or else it could be attributed to his greater body mass. Whatever the reason, Shanks would be well on his way to intoxication before he would even feel the beginning effects of drunkenness.
This was all for the best because he could watch out for the captain and keep him out of most forms of trouble. Besides, someone had to be alert enough to haul the drunken man back to the ship and remember the way for the rest of the crew. The key, he’d learned, was to drink plenty of water in between glasses of alcohol. It also helped to not enter a bar on an empty stomach, but one had to be careful what one ate beforehand. Bread usually worked well for sopping up liquor. There were certain herbs that helped too. He always made sure to take a painkiller before he dropped off to sleep when he’d had a bit too much. It made the next morning infinitely more bearable. Always, always he was careful. Too many times watching Shanks, too many times having to deal with everyone else and not wanting to endure their agony while having to put up with his own, had made him cautious and well aware of what he was doing. So how in the world had he ended up in such a state?
As he debated and pondered his predicament in between bouts of pain, his bladder decided to make itself heard. Groaning, but making sure to keep it soft because it seemed that even the faint rustling of his skin against the covers made his head pound, he slowly cracked open his eyes. The room swam before him, aswirl in color that hurt his to look at, light stabbing all the way into the back of his skull. As he finally began to focus, a blob of red intruded, leaned over from above. It took him several moments to realize it was Shanks, an expression so smug on his face that he was tempted to risk establishing a full foundry in his skull just to move quickly upward and smack it off. Gods, he hoped he never looked quite that self-satisfied whenever Shanks woke up the next morning after a bender. He was pretty sure he didn’t, because HE was the one that had to deal with a hung over captain, a task that certainly no one envied him for.
“So, how does it feel Mr. I-Never-Get-Hangovers? Enjoying yourself?”
It was a good thing Shanks was whispering because otherwise he would have killed him. As it was, the sound, combined with the tone, had set his ears to ringing again. He was a bit ashamed that instead of a curse he let a small moan escape from him as he began to slowly lever himself up. Sitting wasn’t really any improvement. It made him feel dizzy and set off his stomach again. The toilet was looking more and more appealing, although the side of the ship would work too for both his needs.
“Damn you look pathetic. Here, drink this.”
Shanks was whispering still as he held out a cup.
He forgot himself and shook his head, had to throw out his hands to steady himself as the world spun. He knew what Shanks thought of as a hangover cure – alcohol. And he wasn’t about to take that route any more than he let the captain as long as he was quick enough to catch him.
“S’okay. It’s just coffee. I know ya wouldn’t want ta drink anything else.”
Even coffee sounded like a bad idea at the moment, what with the way his stomach was flip-flopping. But then he noticed the bottle of painkillers tucked in the man’s sash and decided it wasn’t all that awful after all. Sure enough Shanks handed them to him as soon as he’d accepted the mug. It would take a little while for the stuff to kick in and he had a feeling it wouldn’t do much more than take the edge off. What he really needed was to piss and maybe vomit and then drink a lot of water and sleep some more. His knees were wobbly when he tried to get to his feet and he failed on his first attempt at getting up. On the second try, a warm arm snuck under his own, hand reaching up to curl around the ball of one shoulder. The pale smile he managed was watery, weaker even than his muttered “thanks.” Shanks merely nodded and guided him over to the door.
The captain had just propped him up against the wall, leaning him there to go and open the door when he paused. The redhead grinned up at him, his smile softening when he tucked a strand of stray hair back behind his ear. The words were quiet; full of affection and appreciation for all the times their situations had been reversed. “Good morning.” And then he kissed him, sour taste, fuzzy teeth, swollen tongue and all, exactly the same except that this time he was the giver rather than the recipient. Ben managed to return it, tasted the familiar flavor of rum, smelled it on his breath. For a second he forgot his hangover but then his head and his stomach and his bladder reminded him that he still had other needs. This time when Shanks started laughing as he helped him out the door, he felt good enough to give him a quick elbow to the ribs.
