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sordidmusings · 11 months ago

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Fixing What Ifs (Mihawk x F!Reader)

A/N: For this ancient request (told you they are not forgotten just severely neglected 💀). I really hope I captured the type of scene you were looking for! Debating on writing a follow up smut because sex as the culmination of pining?? That's that good good right there that is.

Listening to: Prove Your Love - Fleetwood Mac, Go Slowly - Radiohead, Love Song - Lesley Duncan

Word Count: ~4.5k

Warnings: Fem!reader, a gratuitous amount of mutual pining, kind of bantering?, Mihawk leans opla in that he has such sass, a few flashback scenes, Mihawk is a Man who does not know how to deal with being in love, but he’s trying like a lot, I mean he even kisses your wrist, probably idiots in love, there's one brief allusion to Buggy cuz I Need Him

Snippet:

“You say that as if we’re too old to have options.” He spoke quite steadily, but you noticed his golden eyes flicking to you, ravenously seeking your reaction. You knew he was trying to cover at least a little; your equal skills in observation were a beauty and a bane to him. It was your favorite source of bickering, giving you many lines to smile at when you were stuck in lonely nights tracking targets.

“You are in your forties,” you teased. Again, you took a sip to think. You meant to find some words to match his characteristic tone (“Joints still working well enough to properly share a bed?”), but instead what came out was “though you’ve aged better than I imagined in our twenties”. You blamed that you had finally looked over and taken in his face, sculpted angles all alive and aglow in the torch-light. There was also that defined chest that he maddeningly always insisted on showing everyone. You probably would too, looking like that.

“You should know by now I always exceed expectation,” Mihawk said without a hint of gloating, just simply stating an absolute fact.

“There’s still many places I’ve yet to see that proven,” you responded, words coy and teasing but smile easy and affectionate. Mihawk would need much more intimacy before he admitted how that smile stalled his thoughts. You would need much more boldness before you let him know you noticed when you managed to halt his breath.

~ ~ ~ ••• ✦✦✦ ••• ~ ~ ~

“I’ve chosen another I want you to try. Push your glass this way,” Mihawk prompted gently. Years of knowing him let you pick up the hints of eagerness hidden under his usual drawl.

You watched Mihawk’s hands and forearms work as he opened another bottle to share. He had foregone his coat tonight, instead draping himself with a well-cut white shirt, sleeves rolled to the elbows and buttons undone to below his sternum, of course. Toned muscle danced under his skin with every twist and turn, leading you to great distraction throughout the process of him serving you. After enjoying the sculpt of his large hand while it gripped the full bottle to pour your glass, you changed your attention to the luxurious material of his shirt, fluttering over his chest and playing against tanned skin and his heavy gold cross. You wished you could find an excuse to pull at that hem, testing the softness of the material and making it reveal more for you.

The dark green bottle thumping back down on the bartop brought your attention away from your companion and back to your refreshed drink. You did feel a bit guilty that Mihawk’s description of the new wine was going near completely ignored (you at least caught the words “oak barrel-aged”, flattered he remembered your offhand comment about that preference from months ago). You just couldn’t get yourself to pay attention; your mind was swimming through multiple years at once any time it wasn’t grounded by his visage. Wistfulness had a stranglehold on you tonight, keeping you locked between painful yearning and bittersweet nostalgia. The comfort of hearing his smooth voice accompanied by the quietly unfolding lives of every stranger in the bar did reach you, however. You took solace in that while you went for your first sip.

“You’re much quieter than usual,” Mihawk prodded with dry displeasure. That displeasure was interrupted when he got to enjoy your usual show of flicking your tongue out to lick your glass and then your lips upon the first taste.

You took another, much longer sip of your drink to delay the need to respond. It was an easy choice of diversion; the wine was exquisite as always. You’d tell him as much if you were more in the mood for the gloating, simpering glow he’d get from earning a stroke to his ego from you.

“I thought you’d like that,” you offered quietly. You swept a fingertip around the slick rim of your glass, mindless in your feeling and seeing and doing. This absent state let Mihawk watch for every detail of the action to better imagine how that trailing fingertip would feel against his skin.

“Clearly you’re not as observant as you think,” he dug back, this time with much more amusement warming his voice, yet not quite enough to completely melt the snideness out.

Despite yourself, you smiled. Years of rivalry softened you to affection. Over those years of pushing yourselves and each other, bitterness became respect, respect became comradery, and comradery became admiration. In you, that admiration had long bloomed into devotion, petals bursting open in a stalwart stand against his consistent frigid air. Some days they withered, but then he would reach to you, hearten you, or defend you in a way that would have new buds growing more and more numerous until you had a field that could withstand winter's chill, turning to ice sculptures in each frost instead of decaying pulp.

“I blame your wines,” you chuckled, still taking yet another sip despite the accusation. “They have me stuck reminiscing.”

“I’d advise against that; it’s a trying endeavor. Wouldn’t want you to hurt yourself,” Mihawk teased, doing a great job of masking his fondness with wry wit. He did venture to expose his curiosity, however. “Where and when does your mind have you trapped?”

“Our first meeting.”

Mihawk barely managed to keep from choking on his wine. He didn’t want to tip you off on how much that memory affected him. And it would be a shame to waste such an expensive drink.

“Why would you be thinking of that ridiculous affair?” There goes the effort at keeping you in the dark.

“What?” you asked with mock shock. “The only thing that was ridiculous was how little you trusted the top marksman to do her job.”

“You didn’t exactly scream competency,” Mihawk defended, hiding his fluster behind rudeness and the rim of his glass. The dim lighting of the bar would have hid it for him anyway; the few torch chandeliers did wonders for turning him to a living Baroque painting, but they were known for their shadows more than their breadth of hues.

“That is one thing you always did have on me,” you relented easily, more set on imagining the immaculately groomed and glaring warlord who first saw you than needing to keep a score with his modern counterpart at your side.

~ ~ ~ ••• ~ ~ ~

“They asked for me for a reason, you’re more useful elsewhere.”

“I’m useful everywhere you’ll find,” he dismissed easily, as sure of that fact as in the rising of the sun each day. You were a hard one to shake, but the way his namesake hawk’s eyes cut through you had you feeling exposed and vulnerable. It had you needing to make him just as small as the little pieces his endlessly picking gaze had shredded you into.

“Then go be useful as something other than my shadow. Some of us are actually working.” Even in your exasperation fueled anger, you sounded more like you were asking than telling. The ease with which he commanded was yet another skill you’d spotted on him so quickly in these few days together that had you feeling out of your league. You were beginning to think he took great joy in your mounting discomfort with the way he hovered around, always looking for another soft spot to peck at.

“You’ve been laying at this spot for days, Viper, with nothing to show for it,” Mihawk said, phrasing the truth quite unfairly. Viper was the code-name gifted to you in your work; the snakes could sit still as the dead for weeks, waiting for the one moment that prey finally crossed their path. That same dedication was what he was attempting to disturb now. “I could have rooted the rats out within the hour of mission's start.”

“Then it’s a good thing this task is mine and not yours,” you spat back, finally finding the will to sound truly mean. There was much you were uncertain of but your methods were a strong sense of pride and no one got to question them. “I’m sure the trafficking victims would do really well avoiding harm in the slaughter you’d start. They are known for being battle-ready after all; I’m sure they’re just playing victim right now so they can partake in a song-worthy escape and claim their glory.”

“You think I have no skill to guard and fight at the same time?”

“I think it’s not worth the risk to innocents just to feed one man’s insatiable ego,” you grumbled, spreading yourself out on your familiar and beloved blanket to begin this day’s long watch. You lined one eye with the one-of-a-kind scope of your rifle, taking comfort in settling into your power. “Better to wait until they show themselves and pick them off from miles away, letting them panic at the suddenness of death from a foe they’ll never see.”

Your memory never granted you Mihawk’s perspective on your first job together. You never figured out that he was hovering not from hatred of your perceived incompetence but an uncontrollable need to have you in his sight. He’d never had to contend with such an impulse before and found himself completely at the mercy of its whims. Garp was not happy with the freshly titled Warlord; he was meant to be helping eradicate the rebel legion that had taken this island over to ravage it for resources (humans included), not keep checking out their prized sniper like he’s a fifteen year old with his first female fixation.

~ ~ ~ ••• ~ ~ ~

“Surely I can be of much more entertainment to you in the present than in whatever foggy memories you have,” Mihawk said, successfully bringing you back to him.

“Yes you can,” you admitted with too much authenticity and affection for your tastes to just leave that flavor in the ari. After a moment of thought, you softly bumped your shoulder with his and added, “You’re practically a whole circus over there, how ever could I look away?”

You didn’t expect the long and tired sigh to deflate the man next to you, leaving his upper body draped on the bar. The sound seemed to have come from so deep in his lungs that it was born from his very soul.

“Please keep all talk of circuses and especially clowns to a minimum,” Mihawk pleaded into his forearms. He lifted head to look at you with one of the grouchiest and most sour faces you’d seen on him in a long time, before plopping it back into his arms. The whole thing was only made more endearing with the way the bar had pushed his hat askew.

“What’s with that look?” you laughed. “You usually save that one for Shanks.”

“I wish it was Shanks,” he grumbled petulantly. Your laughter always brightened him back up and he longed to turn and see the beauty of it on your face, but instead chose to keep to his brooding to prolong the sound just that much more.

If it wouldn’t send him up the wall, you would have told him how much you adored when his brooding turned pouty. It sapped him of his persistent decorum and made him feel closer - more touchable. The slouch it brought out in him always had you valiantly fighting the urge to wrap his curved chest in a firm hug. It was unfair how perfectly suited for one he looked, resting his elbows on the bar and opening him and his luxury shirt and his warm skin up for your reaching hands and arms. You shook your head after a mourning sigh and took another sip of heady wine.

“I wish it was Shanks too. It’s been too long since I’ve seen him.” The soft spot you always showed for the Red Haired Pirates only threatened to drag Mihawk’s mood low again. It was amended slightly by your cute, happy gasp before you said, “We should go visit them soon! I’ve got a bigger chunk of free time after the next two months.”

Mihawk was always amazed by how easily tiny little gestures from you perked him back up and got his heart leaping. All you did was choose to say “we”. He wished and wished that it was always “we”, but he’d take what he could get. Even if it meant dealing with the usual treatment whenever you were both with Shanks and his crew.

~ ~ ~ ••• ~ ~ ~

Mihawk was not fond of the look Shanks was sending his way. It was all too smarmy, built on equal parts smugness and giddiness. Disgusting.

“You dog! When I tried to imagine what could have the unshakable Dracule Mihawk off his game I never would’ve guessed it was our dear Viper,” Shanks teased cheerily, bumping his shoulder into the rigid one of the swordsman next to him. Mihawk was affronted - he nearly spilled his drink from Shanks’ boorish behavior.

“Didn’t know she was yours,” Mihawk grumbled, attempting to sidestep Shanks’ prompts to have him speak his infatuation aloud.

Shanks was fighting poorly to hold in his laughter; Mihawk was absolutely sulking while he watched Yasopp teach you more gun spinning tricks. You and the sharpshooter were always all joy and play, easily finding common ground in marksmanship but with the added fun of showing your separate specializations to each other. Each bout of laughter from your direction brought another brooding line to Mihawk’s furrowed brow. This standoffish air was his habitual defense against the raw ache he’d been tending to since the two of you met.

Every time I try to play, I end up wounding her, he lamented. Why can I not earn your laughter?

~ ~ ~ ••• ~ ~ ~

Mihawk lightly shook himself of the memory. On instinct, he turned to look at you and found you already looking at him but not really seeing him. He quietly huffed through his nose at losing you again to your own mind. He decided to give you a moment before getting to the bottom of whatever it was that had you in your funk. Beyond selfishly wanting your rapt attention, he was worried for you. You were prone to take pause and think long, especially when in quiet company, but you seemed truly lost in your own mind, taken against your will.

Mihawk’s accurate read on you was more proof of the years tentatively building rapport with each other. That intimacy you shared, which lacked the intimacy you so craved, was what had you held hostage in one of the many examples of your entwining lives.

~ ~ ~ ••• ~ ~ ~

The quiet in the air was broken only by Mihawk’s calm breathing, his occasional quiet sips of today’s wine, and the gentle rustle of a turning page. Your own breathing was silent, having gone so long and smooth it was imperceptible due to an instinct trained in so no need of your body could get in the way of your shot. Luckily, your targets were always at such a great distance that Mihawk’s casual lounging would never alert them that they were being hunted.

“It’s been twelve hours since you’ve eaten,” Mihawk told you in a bored tone, eyes never leaving the pages of his book. You made to ignore him and continue your work, but he had never been able to stand your attention off of him for long. “Almost three since you’ve taken a sip of water.”

“Sorry, Mom, I’m a bit busy at the moment,” you mumbled back evenly. You had long lost the majority of your bitterness toward his nitpicking, instead just glad he was around and saying anything to you.

“If I was your mother, I would’ve commanded you to just let me take the target out in the first place so we could leave this boring island,” Mihawk complained.

“You really gonna take a swing at them from two miles off?” you asked, smiling as you imagined the chaos wrought from such an action. It would be a catastrophe, but it would also give you quite the show. Over your time knowing him, you’d seen Mihawk’s innate beauty and untouchable prowess countless times, but it was never enough to sate you.

“You’re not the only one who can hit a target from that distance,” Mihawk reminded you and you hoped you weren't imagining the tone of a smirk shaping his voice.

“Yeah, but I’m the only one of us who won’t cause a tsunami in the process,” you giggled at him.

Again, your diligence robbed you of the chance to see the poignant longing overtaking Mihawk’s face when he smiled at you. He relished every step he’d gotten closer to being the source of your joy.

~ ~ ~ ••• ~ ~ ~

“You’ve disappeared again,” Mihawk complained after sending a haughty tut your way.

You offered an apologetic smile and were happy that he accepted it readily. All those memories, years of feeling, and liquid courage built a full storm inside of you until you knew you needed to allow yourself some time in the eye of it. Being surrounded by the roaring weather would be nerve-wracking but you hoped the calm at the center helped protect you from those shredding winds. You blew a heavy sigh over your drink, refusing to look from its dark, blooded tint when you asked, “Have you ever wondered what it would’ve been like if we were together?”

He didn’t answer right away. Usually Mihawk was a man who was quick with his words, as sure in speed and precision with their strike as he was with that of his sword. You respected that sureness and bold weaponizing of his thoughts, but you deeply appreciated that, with you, he would take the time to truly parse his words when he felt the need. It suited your nature better; your patience was as legendary as your ability to shoot the wings from a fly that was miles off from the end of your rifle.

“You should know by now I always exceed expectation,” Mihawk said without a hint of gloating, just simply stating an absolute fact.

“Mihawk, my dearest adversary and cherished… friend,” you hesitated on the word, never having claimed him as such to his face before. He rewarded your bravery with a gentle bump of his knee against yours and with the bare fondness that began softening his stare. “We have been playing this game, dancing this dance, for decades now. Am I really meant to believe that one question changes everything?”

“The right question can,” he asserted immediately. He opened his mouth to continue, but for once you were the one striking quick with your words.

“You are a man who does not hesitate,” you accused, staring cuttingly into his focused gaze, not backing down at the way it became shielded. “If you want something you take it.”

“And?” Mihawk prompted, tone the most biting it's been all night.

“And,” you repeated. “And…”

You sighed in defeat and turned back to your drink, closing yourself away. He was more than smart enough to know where you were going with that, but he insisted on making you be the one to say it. You wouldn’t allow him to make you insult yourself, especially after you had ventured to bring up the tenuous topic in the first place. If he refused to argue or even acknowledge your conclusions, then you’d let your drink be the friend to assuage those old hurts. The echoed sigh to your side did little to move you from your new stake out with your wounds and your wine.

Mihawk pinched the bridge of his nose, resisting the urge to call you foolish so his own mind would stop branding him with that word. He had been ever vigilant of you throughout the years, not only in an effort to soak you in every moment he could, but also to latch on the moment he noticed you offering him a true opening. You had finally bared your throat to him and he had managed to fail at your final test to check that he would not stoop to bite - that he would only beg to kiss.

While taking his next sip of wine, Mihawk extended an olive branch in the form of a thigh pressed firmly into yours. He was barely able to keep in the frustrated growl that pressed at his chest when you shifted yourself away. You did turn your eyes to him out of curiosity, however, but he missed the look completely, too busy reassembling himself. It let you watch carefully as the flaming lights turned his hat’s extravagant feather amber in their glow when he lifted it off his head to place on the bartop. It let him run his fingers back through his thick black curls, trying to shake his disappointment off with the teasing of his strands.

He looked over at you and finally caught on to your observing. Mihawk let his regret pour over his face, even letting his lips twitch into a momentary, rueful smile. You replied with a tired smile of your own. In the end, it turned sweet and loving; a bad habit of yours with the swordsman. You pressed your thigh back to his.

In a rare show of humility, propelled by the heat of your thigh warming his and the sweet crinkles your smile brought to your eyes (Just for me, he thought with doting greed), Mihawk took your hand and bowed himself low to touch his forehead to your knuckles. His thumb soothed gentle circles into it while he stayed lowered to you for a few long breaths. He was eager to enjoy the feeling of your skin and the decadent scent of your perfume, strong now with the proximity of your wrist. You had chosen something sultry and heady with its deep notes of orchid and amber and wood, all calling to him until he acted with thought a millisecond behind instinct.

He flipped your hand over, slowly and gently, cradling it palm up in his large hand. Still stooped, he had to move scant inches to brush the tip of his nose across the thin skin on the inside of your wrist, savoring the pull of your perfume going deep into his lungs and leading his mind to a content haze. He sealed the small caress with a feathery brush of his lips over your pulse, wishing he could make himself press harder to feel your heart thump against his lips. He longed to know if it raced with the same jumping cantor as his.

When he sat back up he was met with a vision from his dreams. You had fully turned your face to him and it was lit with a deep flush made more rosy in the fire-cast light of the bar. No ambient chatter nor clinking cutlery could keep his ears from delighting in the hitch of your breath in and the contented sigh out. Another smile indulged him, this one easily crowned his favorite with its happy chuckle, pressing cheeks, and bare affection.

“I am a man who takes what I want,” Mihawk confirmed your words delicately. He continued to hold your hand, now enfolding it in both of his. You felt bright tingling shooting from the contact and the press of your thighs. They made you twenty again, staring down the most handsome and insipidly arrogant man you’d ever met and cursing your heart for its clear choice. “I take what I want, not who I want. People aren’t for the taking, little viper.”

You laughed at the title, never feeling it sat quite right. You felt you wore it well at work only. The imagery it brought up of femme fatales and their hypnotizing looks and lethal wit made you feel like a young girl cloaked ill-fittingly in her mother’s best event wear, barely able to peek your head out of the wool coat dwarfing you. Mihawk noted your discomfort with the title throughout the years but never found the proper words to have you see that all who said it were reverent when they saw how well the word wrapped over you.

“What if-” again you hesitate. You scrunch your face in anger at your nature, but before Mihawk had time to bring a hand to your face and soothe it back into a smile, you force out the words. “What if I am for the taking?”

Mihawk’s thumbs stopped their massaging and you felt his thigh jump to tense against your own. Staring into his widening eyes and how they glowed so beautifully - too beautifully to be within your reach - you immediately wished you could suck the words right back into your lungs. You made it this far though, so you instead worried at your lip and clung your hand onto Mihawk’s stalled hold.

Finally, he unfroze.

“For the night only?” Mihawk probed, wanting answers but worrying about making you close off again.

“Do you only want the night?” You tossed back to him, unwilling to turn this propositioning into a confession of the long years you have built a deep and sturdy love for him, no matter your attempts to welcome others into its halls.

“What I want,” Mihawk said, gentle and deliberate in coloring his tone with humble honestly, “is to be what you want.”

You were taken aback by the confession, but you were even more awed by the look he was giving you. He was still slightly stooped, broad shoulders gently curved and bent towards you, pulled down under the need to lower himself below you but body still gravitating towards you with the magnetism he’s been weak to since you first crossed paths. Framed by those shoulders and his wild curls, Mihawk looked to you with the sadly tinted longing you had felt seize you in his presence all this time. While the furrow of his brow and glimmer of his eyes had your brain buzzing with more hope than you’d dare let it host before, your chest squeezed at the conflict you saw in him; you knew that torment in your very bones.

“You always have been,” you whispered on a trembling breath. Mihawk’s eyes went wild for a moment where his whole body tensed and you felt his urge to pounce on you steal the oxygen from the room. He thanked the gods for a majority of his life spent learning control and restraint, while he got himself in order and pressed the firm kiss he’d longed for to your wrist instead.

“Come with me,” Mihawk commanded through lips still pressed to your skin, though it was the closest you’d heard him to begging in your entire life.

You let yourself partake in a longtime wish by moving your other hand to card your fingers back into his thick hair, happy to find that it was just as soft as you had imagined. Their trailing came back around to have your palm cup his jaw. He leaned into the touch, tickling your hand with the rub of his precise facial hair when he allowed himself one small nuzzle into your loving hold. That hand guided him up to meet your eyes so he could see the love you held for him finally displayed openly in all its abundance.

“Wherever you ask me to, I will go,” you promised.

~ ~ ~ ••• ✦✦✦ ••• ~ ~ ~

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