Work Text:
She's drunk, of course. No surprise there. All of Perona's most patently ridiculous ideas come to her under the banner of intoxication, and this one is no different.
"All right, do as you wish," says Mihawk, and Perona lets out a shrieking little giggle of delight.
She's nearly half a metre shorter than him, even including her boots, so the angle is less than ideal. Her first attempt, she makes in her incorporeal form, and ends up phasing right through Mihawk's face.
"I don't know what you expected," Mihawk says, while Perona dissolves into hysterical laughter. "Are we finished?" His bed is calling to him from upstairs like a siren. Roronoa left them to return to his room an hour ago, and may even have located it by now; at the time, he'd cited boredom with what he'd called Mihawk and Perona's 'bitchfest', but personally, Mihawk rather suspects it was a sudden bout of homesickness. Two years is a long time to be deprived of one's family, and the approaching reunion seems only to have sharpened his pain. By contrast, Perona's initial hysteria was a bullet passing through, there one moment and gone the next. Mihawk wonders at it, sometimes, but never asks.
"Okay, okayokayokay, lemme try again," Perona burbles, now hiccuping from the force of her laughter. She pulls herself together and teeters to her feet, then sizes Mihawk up with drunken seriousness. "Too tall," she decides, and tugs at his shirt. "C'mon. Down."
Mihawk sighs the sigh of a man facing bitter defeat, and folds to one knee. "Better?"
"Much," says Perona, and leans in. In the moment before impact, Mihawk sees her brow furrowed, her lips pursed, her cheeks puffed out with concentration. Then she's pressing her lipstick-sticky mouth against his forehead, humming a loud and drawn-out "Mmmm—"
Mihawk sighs again, and obligingly closes his eyes. It's difficult to win against someone like Perona; she picks her battles with such incoherent abandon that Mihawk is never sure where she'll attack from next. If given the choice, Mihawk would much prefer a good, clean brawl.
(Although, he supposes, as losses go, a kiss on the forehead is not such a high price to pay.)
Perona is still humming. Her wind-up would rival the most extravagant finishing move. Points for showmanship.
"—mwah!"
And now there's lipstick on his face. Charming. Perona seems pleased, though, as she inspects her handiwork. Of course she had to be wearing the black lipstick. It survived intact through three courses of dinner, coffee, dessert, an entire bottle of wine, and an impromptu midnight snack, but apparently Mihawk's forehead was the last straw. He can feel the waxy, sticky imprint just above his eyebrows, and the bow of Perona's mouth is smudged with bluish-grey.
"There," says Perona, sounding entirely too pleased herself. "Now you can go to bed!"
"How generous of you," Mihawk drawls.
"And now I'm going to bed, too," Perona declares. "Good night!" And she wobbles away.
Mihawk can only shake his head, and stifle his smile, and carry on up to bed.