“Yesterday, you said you’d like to sit down and catch up if you weren’t so busy. If you really meant that… I hear tomorrow’s gonna be a shore day, at least for those of us who don’t have a real role on your ship, so I was thinking…” Buggy shrugged, trying for nonchalant. “I dunno. Maybe we could do that? Can you spare an hour for me?”
“Yeah!” Shanks grinned, so wide and bright Buggy could hardly bear to look at it. “Absolutely, I’d love that. But forget an hour, I can give you the whole day if you want.” When Buggy frowned, puzzled, Shanks explained, “I was about to ask you to make time for me.”
i am no doubt repeating myself, but: @midydoof is so good at faces i can hardly stand to look at this. just—augh, my heart.
for any new readers: this is part two of eight of the long, post-marineford part of this shanks/buggy series! this part is a little over three thousand words, and sees buggy eating breakfast, telling tales, and making plans with shanks.
158 notes
·
View notes
Hi I hope it’s fine but I love your writing and I think it could be hilarious soooooooooo
*Breath in*
You know freaky Friday? And how many shows try to resolve an argument by switching roles/bodies???
*brace myself*
Can you write some headcanons about the idea of shanks and buggy switching bodies/roles?
BYE DONT THINK ILL OF ME
*runs away while crying*
oh, right, i did promise i’d come back to this in a month, didn’t i?
well, anon, you may have guessed that the reason i couldn’t fulfill this request at the time is because i was writing a fic for the one piece fanwork exchange involving this trope! if i had told you my thoughts, and then a couple weeks later an anonymous author published a fic for that exchange which just so happened to incorporate many of my thoughts… well, it wouldn’t have been very anonymous, now would it?
i ended up not finishing the fic in time (orz) but that means i have plenty of thoughts to share! so, a shanks and buggy bodyswap. let’s get into it.
my opfwex bodyswap fic (which i am still writing, but i’m indulging myself and writing the long version now, so it’s gonna be A While before it’s publishable) involves shanks and buggy accidentally getting themselves… cursed with involuntary bodyswapping powers as kids? i think that’s the most succinct way to describe it. they do not break the curse before roger disbands the crew, so they continue to bodyswap off and on for decades before it gets resolved.
now that you have that context, here’s some bodyswap thoughts for you!
as kids shanks and buggy are decent mimics of each other. shanks can’t quite talk as rudely as buggy does, nor buggy as nice as shanks, but physically they do an excellent job. and anyway, they’re never far from each other so they can course-correct pretty quickly.
(no, they don’t tell roger or rayleigh. they got cursed while waiting for the crew to come back from laugh tale—if they reveal the truth, they’ll never be left on their own again!)
shanks does not handle the chop-chop fruit powers well at first—he literally falls apart. i hc (with some support from canon) that devil fruit powers are harder to control the more emotion you’re feeling, and while shanks can repress like nobody’s business there’s still an adjustment period. buggy spends most of that adjustment period laughing at him, or hiding him under a blanket if an adult approaches.
it takes buggy a few swaps before it occurs to him that there are advantages to being in shanks’ body. haki’s a mental thing, and muscle memory can only get you so far in a sword fight, so he can’t do any of shanks’ special tricks. but he can swim again.
their impressions of each other get a bit outdated, after roguetown. they can’t exactly correct each other’s impersonation anymore, you know? and sure, neither of them have changed that much since they were kids, so it’s not terribly inaccurate, but it feels… off.
(no, they don’t tell their crews. shanks can’t bring himself to talk about buggy, and how would buggy explain his connection to shanks?)
things that should give them away: buggy manages pain with pills instead of alcohol; shanks offers closed-mouth smiles instead of toothy grins; buggy tells shanks’ crew stories about the old days, if in vague terms; shanks offers advice to buggy’s sword-wielding crew members.
of course, as far as their crews know, they’ve always been this way, so the crews explain the inconsistencies away. shanks is just having a bad pain day. buggy’s being more generous today.
(neither shanks nor buggy worries about being found out. after all, who would ever think of bodyswapping?)
the only time buggy attempts to communicate with shanks is the first time he swaps with shanks to find him missing an arm. he digs up ink and paper and stares at them for ages, unable to find the right words before they swap back.
(shanks left buggy messages a few times, early on. buggy hid his stationery, and shanks took the hint.)
they swap for a couple hours while buggy’s making his roundabout escape from impel down and shanks is sailing for marineford, so they aren’t surprised to reunite, though they pretend otherwise. buggy grumbles something about shanks’ shitty timing, and that’s the most either of them acknowledges the swapping.
it’s been a long time since shanks saw buggy’s face in anything but a bounty poster or a mirror. longer since he’s properly heard his voice or touched him. he spends a lot of time, during the handful of days they’re together, just watching him, listening to him talk, sitting too close.
buggy does the same, but tells himself it’s so he can better fool shanks’ crew the next time they swap.
a couple of shanks’ crew see something familiar in the way buggy acts. some of them pass it off as the kind of similarities you find in people who were raised together, but one or two have their suspicions. beckman probably gets the truth out of shanks later; he won’t let on to buggy that he knows.
so hey, remember ‘who would ever think of bodyswapping?’ as it turns out, mihawk would. (well, it helps that he’s the only member of cross guild who knows shanks. he recognizes that look in his eye, even on buggy’s face.) he’s not happy to learn he’s sometimes sharing a tent with the man he’s worked so hard to avoid.
8 notes
·
View notes