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Nami remembers the sound of all that Belle-mere is; her mother sprawled on her back laughing, mud-streaked from head to boot with the long strands of her hair plastered along her cheeks, neck. Nami remembers the feel of her large, Marine hand wrapped around one ankle; of being held upside down, hissing and spitting—struggling red-faced and cursing the smile on her mother’s face. And Nami remembers the softness in Belle-mere’s eyes, too—something her child self is too angry at the world to recognize until there’s time and distance and loss between this and now, though it was always there.
“Not bad, kid!” Belle-mere hollers, pleased and proud. “You almost had me that time!”
“You liar!” Tiny fists swinging, Nami lashes out—but Belle-mere just holds her out a little farther, laughs a little louder.
“No, no—I’m serious!” she grins. “You’re gettin’ better! Soon you’ll be able to throw a punch as good as your sister.” Then, without warning, she lets go.
Shrieking, Nami tumbles down into a heap as she splashes back-first against the muddy ground. By the time she scrambles to her feet, it’s too late. The wet sludge soaks through the fabric of her already grimy, dirt-stained shirt and clumped up the matted hair at her neck, and she wails, angry and humiliated.
Belle-mere just grins back, one eyebrow raised as Nami stomps her tiny shoe—and it splashes. Nami can’t decide which is worse—the feeling or Belle-mere’s amusement. She settles for both.
“This is stupid!” Nami shouts, fists bunching at the edge of her shirt. “I can fight good enough already—and I don’t need to, anyway!” The mud stings her eyes and she sniffs, not because she’s about to cry (because she’s not) but because it’s cold. And it’s gross. And she’s tired.
Belle-mere snorts, crossing her arms, and as she says, “I thought you wanted to make maps. What’re you gonna do, draw Conomi over and over again?” Nami scrubs at her face with the backs of her hands and the grit burns her skin.
“No,” Nami shoots back, because how boring would that be? What’s the point? A whole book just of the archipelago? Hardly a world map. Genzo might like it, but—
“Then you’re gonna have to leave home someday,” Belle-mere says, suddenly just a little bit serious, “and the sea’s a big place.” She crouches down, the worn-off holes in her pants squelching as she kneels in the mud, and Nami turns her head so she doesn’t have to look at her.
“So?” Nami snaps, “I can already beat Nojiko, and I bet I could even take out Genzo if I aimed for his balls—”
“Nami!”
“—so I’ll just join a crew and they’ll be full of strong people who’ll keep me safe and I can just draw and not worry and it’ll be fine.”
As her grimy fingernails dig into the skin of her palms, she hears Belle-mere sigh—and then her mother’s calloused fingers tug at the hem of Nami’s threadbare shirt, straightening it even though they’re both a worse mess than usual (and the afternoon isn’t over yet). Nami sniffs again and bats her hands away—and Belle-mere sighs again, soft and fond. Then she beams.
“I hope you do—wouldn’t that be nice?” her mother laughs, holding up her hands. “I bet you’ll find all kinds of weirdos—they’d have to be, to wanna hang around you!” And as she says it, she ruffles Nami’s hair with one broad palm and Nami smacks at that, too. “But what about me?” she chuckles, “You’ll be off having great big adventures and I’ll be here worrying my little girl’s gonna get her ass handed to her the minute they turn their back.” As Belle-mere sits back on her haunches, Nami kicks out at one of her knees and Belle-mere just lets her.
“Then I’ll just beat ‘em so they’ll think twice about leaving me alone!” Nami declares, and Belle-mere blinks at her—then laughs again like this is all a joke. Nami resents her for it, just a little, though she can’t quite figure out why. Her feelings feel too big.
“Sure you will!”
“It’s not funny!” she says, but her mother just keeps cackling—so with a snotty, gummy breath, Nami screams— “I’ll have a big, expensive ship and a chef that cooks me real meals and a bath that’s always got hot water and clothes that don’t have holes and—and there’ll be so many good fighters I’ll be able to draw a million islands and never have to worry and they’ll never make me do anything I don’t want to—”
And as she rocks on her heels and stands, Belle-mere grins. “Well, then you’ll have to bring ‘em back so I can meet them!” she says, and Nami knows their break is over because her mother’s already slipping into a sparring stance—and she wonders how far she’d get if she just hit the ground running into the trees. (Just a few feet, probably. Barely.)
So instead of fleeing, Nami shouts back, “No way!” and scrubs the sticky hair out of her face so she can see better. She’ll need it. “Once I leave, I’m never coming back! I hate it here!” she says, and she means that, too.
But Belle-mere just nods like she’d been expecting that answer, serene, and holds her hands out in a defensive position. “Then you’ll have to be extra prepared so I won’t get so worried I come check on you,” she teases. “Wouldn’t that be embarrassing? Your mom showing up to lecture your big, scary crew—”
“They’ll be bigger and scarier than you!”
“Aw, no one’s scarier than a mom. Now—fists up, let’s see that grapple again. Maybe you’re so mad you’ll actually land a hit this tim—oof!”
Nami tells herself later that the plan—which really is a good plan—only goes to shit at the hands of both idiots she’s waist-deep in conning. She also admits (after several drinks and severe distance) that they only make out as well as they do because of them, too. Of course, Moron One thinks it’s an adventure—he’s a little too easy to convince—and she spends less time than she should bribing Moron Two with the promise of alcohol, but it’s not arrogance that lowers her guard. It’s something else. Something worse. Like contagious stupidity or—
Fresh-painted, small, and tangled with sloppy ropework, the ship is an easy mark—practically screaming inexperienced crew across the sardine-packed harbor to anyone with a keen eye. Nami isn’t even surprised to find it empty, its captain and crew long-wandered off into town for supplies (or drinks or company) without a single man left behind.
Infiltration is as complex as scaling the hull and descending a rope ladder; only a single padlock stands guard at the cargo hold, and really—she’s doing them a favor, showing them the holes in their security. Teaching them a valuable life lesson about the ruthlessness of pirates. Grinning, she fills her bag to the brim with honest-to-god gold and turns on her heel—
—into the muzzle of a pistol.
“Well, well—look what the cat dragged in,” the bounty hunter sneers. “Didn’t expect you to show up.” Nami holds her ground as he gives her a smarmy once-over. She can physically see the numbers rolling through his head. Like recognizes like, after all, and they’re two kinds of the same beast.
And she is a beast.
Even as one hand inches for the weapon on her leg, Nami bats her eyes, curls her shoulders inward—and doesn’t loosen her grip on the gold. “Oh, gosh! Sorry! I must’ve boarded the wrong—”
“You might not be worth much to the World Government, but I’d bet a pretty penny more than one local base would pay cash for Arlong’s girl.” He sneers. “You’ve certainly pissed off more than a few—and pirates, too.” Then he grins, cocking the safety on his gun. “All else fails, I’ll hand you over to them. If you behave, I might ju—”
Nami swings, using the heavy gold’s momentum to her advantage as she smashes her bag’s metallic bulk into the bounty hunter’s head. It’s impossible to tell if he’s even aware of what hits him; one second, he’s a mountain of mean muscle—the next he’s a silent heap on the floor.
Nami curses.
The trap is so obvious she could die of shame right then and there—except not, because then she’d lose the treasure.
Priority one: escape.
Priority two: deal with the holes bored in her intelligence by association, probably.
She rolls her shoulders, breathes, and ascends the ladder to peek on deck—only to find Luffy and Zoro surrounded by gunmen (and swordsmen, and whatever-the-hell-that-weapon-is-men). Of course.
Nami curses again.
To their credit, neither look particularly bothered. Luffy has one finger jammed so far up his nose Nami wonders if he’s scratching the underside of his brain (if he has one at all), and Zoro—well, it’s impossible to tell if he’s meditating, sleeping, or dead, until one of the gunmen kicks him (despite the protests of another) and all Zoro does is snore in response. Unconscious and stupid.
Caught somewhere between bewilderment and panic, Nami decides it’s half a miracle they haven’t gotten themselves killed yet—today or every other day before—with the self-preservation instincts of a spawning salmon. As she stares at the crowd, she wonders if this is it; if this is the moment she ditches them as a decoy, slips back down through a porthole (treasure and all), and solves two problems in one. Cuts ties and leaves them behind.
Then, across the pre-battle quiet of the deck, Moron One locks eyes with her and beams.
“Hey, Nami! Nami! Did’ya steal everything you wanted?” Luffy hollers, happy-go-lucky as can fucking be—completely giving them all away.
As one, the bounty hunters start shouting, pissed and swinging as they descend as much on each other as her crew marks, the act dropped with three targets on board. Heads swivel and Nami ducks—then smashes her forehead against the wooden hatch ledge.
As she hisses through her teeth, she hopes (naively) that this is a nightmare.
When she peers back over the edge to scan the deck, she wonders if she should pray for it instead.
Above the cacophony, Zoro grumbles, “Oh, is she back?” thoroughly unconcerned. He tilts his neck left, one eye still closed, as someone’s foot whizzes past his head in a kick aimed for the temple, and doesn’t even look at the guy.
“Yeah!” Luffy chirps back, “I just saw her come up the ladder—” Four men turn and Nami drops again and swears violently. “—which is good, because I’m hungry.”
(It’s not a nightmare. She knows that.)
“Thank fuck—I was getting bored,” Zoro gripes back. “Let’s get the hell out of here. Where is she now?”
“I dunno.”
(It is, unfortunately, her life.)
Nami grits her teeth and for the second time, sticks her head back up, already working her brain through at least four different escape plans; how far is she from the dock? Can she navigate the town without being followed? Will the weight slow her down—?
“See!” Luffy shouts again, this time gesturing directly toward her as he turns back to Zoro as he stands—both still completely ignoring the chaos around them. She decides if they ever meet again, she’ll kill him.
Then Zoro says, “Huh, guess you’re right,” slow and lazy, and she amends the thought to both.
As the bounty hunters regroup, Luffy lights up—all smiles and teeth and bright eyes—grins, “Told you!” and waves at her. Fucking waves. “Hi, Nami!”
Without thinking, Nami raises her free hand and waves back.
She feels insane.
She has felt, she thinks, a little more insane every morning since Orange Town.
By the time she catches herself, it’s already too late. She’s a wide-open target above, and the low, ominous groan of her own victim coming-to echoes from below. She has to make a decision—fast.
Ditching.
Right.
Despite the crowd, up has the clearer escape route, so Nami ducks a swing and hauls herself on deck, loot still tucked tightly against her back (because it’s a sloppy trap right down to the fact that they’ve used real gold as bait, and gold is gold is gold). Even if she loses the idiots, she’ll still have something.
Toward the mast, Luffy ducks a blade and Zoro—swords still sheathed with one apathetic hand resting on their hilts—sidesteps a whipped pistol. They’re not even paying attention. They’re not even trying. Forget salmon, they’re like birds who fly into the same building twice. They don’t understand the danger (because how could they; neither have bounties and they don’t know who she is—) but still—they’re so—
They’re just—
“What the fuck are you guys doing?” she shrieks, finally abandoning whatever shreds of stealth she has left and reaching for the collapsed staff strapped to her thigh. There’s a crash through the hatch behind her, and as she lashes out toward the ankle of one charging bounty hunter (who’s hollering to high heaven and telegraphing every hit like an amateur), one meaty hand grasps toward her leg. It’s mostly luck that she rolls out of the way in time, and she comes up pissed—but Luffy just blinks wide and innocent as he jumps over another swing, eyes only for her even in the fray.
“Are you done yet? Can we go?” he asks—whines, really. “I want lunch!”
She knocks the wind out of yet another fumbling gunman mid-shout, “I told you—fuck off—I told you to stand watch!” and the man goes down wheezing just as another roar of anger rises up from below. Nami can’t help the calculation in her head. No matter how many easy marks they flatten, this is clearly an outfit—inexperienced bounty hunters banding together, safety in numbers for a cut of the profit. It is, Nami thinks, good business. It’s also really fucking inconvenient.
“I did!” Luffy calls across the deck, almost indignant. “I am watching! Zoro—” He clotheslines a charging swordsman with his forearm and Zoro yells a wordless Hah? back, more bullshit than an old man hard of hearing. Nami thinks it would be a mercy-killing. “Zoro—we watched, right? We’re watching right now!”
“Speak for yourself,” Zoro scoffs back. “These clowns aren’t worth keeping my eyes open for.”
And before either of them—or Nami herself—can say anything else, one of the bounty hunters (puffed up with all the spit-shouting bravado of someone in command) yelps, “Pirate Hunter Zoro! Sir!” with so much heartbroken indignation (like he’s just been called bland by a crush) that Nami can’t help it—she laughs, right then and there, right in the middle of a fight.
It’s a great, startled guffaw that sends her a step backward, as surprised as the throng around her—because she can’t remember the last time that’s happened; not laughter in a fight (because never), but the strange little glimmer of something in her chest that’s caused it.
As her heels hit the edge of the deck Nami realizes she’s being pushed back toward the docks—toward the railing, away from Luffy and Zoro. They’re still crowded near the mast at the center of the fight as they keep the fodder busy, and she’s being herded toward escape, gold and all—whether the bounty hunters realize it or not. A glance over her shoulder tells her the drop isn’t bad; a well-timed roll will save her ankles, and if she can toss the bag over first she won’t have to worry about the weight of her treasure—or of leaving it behind.
Maybe she is going insane.
Unsure what to do with her laughter, a gunman fumbling a too-long rifle at too-close range freezes, so Nami takes the opening for what it is and flattens him, even as she huffs out what might (might!) be giggles. Luffy, however, is both oblivious and less than amused. “Zoro! That’s not fair! We promised—next time—”
“I didn’t promise shi—”
“Oh, for fuck’s sake—” Nami shouts. “Fine! Yes! I’m done!” She adjusts her grip on the rough canvas bag and heaves, hauling it in an arc wide enough to mow down two more charging enemies before she lets go. It tumbles toward the docks, crashing against the wood with a metallic, moneyed cacophony of wealth. Then—she turns back. “Come on! Let’s go!”
Immediately, Luffy perks up—already laughing as he swings—finally, finally doing something—and Zoro yelps as one of Luffy’s stupidly-elongated arms snags his collar.
“What’re you—no—fuck—”
But Luffy just beams, “Let’s go!” without listening.
As Luffy reaches out for the railing, the meaty head of Nami’s first victim finally emerges through the hatch, already cursing and screaming, “You bitch! Fuck the Navy, I’ll kill you mysel—”
And Nami feels her heart leap into her throat, because he knows—
Luffy doesn’t even hesitate—just smashes one scrawny fist dead-center into the bounty hunter’s face from across the deck, punching with so much lethal force that Nami can hear the bones of his nose CRUNCH! as he careens backwards. And as the asshole disappears like he’d never even been there, the bounty hunters around them gawk—both at Luffy’s arms and the fact that he’s just taken the largest of them out in a single hit. Or maybe a combination of the two.
And then Luffy’s grabbing her wrist, ignoring Zoro as he hollers about the manhandling (as if Nami hasn’t seen Luffy launch them both off into the sunset nearly half-a-dozen times now), and cackling. His Devil Fruit limbs flatten more than half the bounty hunters in a single sweep—then Nami’s being tossed in a tangled, screaming, joyous heap over the rail.
(Except—Luffy’s aim is terrible because of course it is, and they bounce off the docks, treasure and all, on their way directly into the sea.)
Zoro hauls them both out of the ocean close enough to dive back and retrieve her bag. It’s half-empty by the time he hands it to her, and she decides she already hates whatever lucky asshole finds the rest of her gold scattered across the coastline in a few days—but it’s still more money than they’ve had in weeks.
As soon as he’s able, Luffy demands food—then, without waiting for either of them, he grabs Nami’s wrist and takes off toward the town like they haven’t just made an entire scene on the docks. One fist still clutching at their haul, Nami has no choice but to stumble after him, pulled along as Zoro shouts—already sprinting to catch up as Luffy literally sniffs out their next meal.
Against all odds, they stumble into a bar with open seats, lively music, and the discreet kind of crowd—although she’s learning slowly, slowly, slowly to accept that Luffy carries luck around with him the same way Zoro wears sweat; it is a universal constant.
By the time they’re lined up in a row at the bartop—perched on stools with Luffy squished between them so he doesn’t run off again—the salt on her clothes has dried stiff and her skin feels sticky. Her hair, too, is its own kind of tragedy, clumped and matted, shaking out sand every time she moves her head. Nami wants a shower fervently and deeply, like she’s never bathed before in her life.
Predictably, neither Luffy nor Zoro seem bothered by their own disarray. They’re disgusting, both of them—that much she’s keenly aware of—but for the first time (watching him giggle, watching the way the criminals around them stare at him, too) she wonders how Luffy must feel—what the limits of his Devil Fruit might still mean when he’s out of the ocean itself. And yet, no matter how much it might weigh him down, the dried seawater certainly doesn’t stop him from pounding on the scuffed wood and demanding, Food! Food! Food! like he owns the place.
To her credit, the bartender doesn't comment on their appearance (a trio of swimmers likely not the worst thing she’s seen—today, even), but she gives Luffy one long side-eye before looking the rest of them up and down. Nami can read people well enough to know she’s gauging their ability to pay—and how much shit she’s willing to put up with, regardless. Nami knows what they must look like, and it certainly doesn’t scream easy customer.
Still, she acquiesces—and then gets a whole lot nicer when Nami slides three gold coins across the counter and says, “And beer, please,” with a healthy bat to her eyelashes.
The bartender rolls her eyes but grins, and though Nami knows she’s not looking her best she still knows her worth—so she winks right back—
And Luffy says, “Is something wrong with your eye?” a little too loud.
Before Nami can reply, already sputtering, Zoro snorts, “No,” with a mean kind of grin, one cheek propped up on his hand, elbow resting on the bar. “She was flirting—”
And Nami immediately reconsiders every decision she’s made in the last hour. The last week. The last month, even.
The bartender, another easy mark Nami’s just lost—just hiccups out a laugh, undeterred. “Anything else I can get you folks?”
“Juice!” Luffy chirps without an ounce of shame (or hesitation), tapping his hands on the table again—excited. By juice.
Nami scowls at him, now even more thoroughly embarrassed. “What—are you five?”
And further proving her point, he sticks his tongue out at her like a toddler. “Juice is good!” he declares, and she can’t actually argue with that. “Everybody likes juice. Even Zoro likes juice.”
“I like beer,” Zoro grunts. “That’s different.” He lifts one hand to get the bartender’s attention, just as Luffy nods—
“That’s wheat juice—”
—and Zoro turns to look at him genuinely, innocently baffled—and a little scandalized for good measure. “Well, yeah, but don’t describe it like that. And why do you even know—”
Luffy frowns, “Why not?” and Nami decides to kill them both in their sleep.
Amused, with one eyebrow raised, the bartender hums, “I’d say beer’s tea,” and Luffy nods sagely, contemplative even though Nami knows damn well there’s not a single coherent thought bouncing around the empty cavern of his head; Zoro, to his credit, just raises an eyebrow back. The bartender rolls with it. “Right, so… a juice and two beers—”
“And food!”
“—and food,” the bartender nods, now thoroughly charmed because it’s genuinely, physically impossible for anyone not to be fucking charmed by Luffy.
Nami decides it will be a slow and painful murder.
“Okay, fine—juice is good,” she hisses, just to have something to say so Luffy will stop looking so fucking pleased with himself. “But juice at a bar?”
And like she’s the stupid one, Luffy says, “So what? I wanted juice so I got it. I can do whatever I want.”
“—and I want two beers.”
“Oh, for fuck’s sake—”
Not even listening (or listening and ignoring her), Zoro waves his free hand in Nami’s general direction. “She’s paying,” he says placidly, and the bartender nods again.
“Juice—food—and three beers, then.”
“No shit I’m paying,” Nami snaps back, even as Luffy giggles between them. “But it’s coming out of your cut for emotional distress—”
Zoro scowls, “Emotional—what?”
“Because you’re terrible pirates and you morons wouldn’t know stealth if I shoved it up your asses—” she seethes, and in her peripheral vision she sees the bartender's eyebrows shoot up even further. Immediately, Nami realizes what she’s said—but the bartender just clears her throat.
“I’ll get that right in for you—” she says, already scooting back down the line.
Nami lets out a growl of frustration and figures there’s a fifty-fifty chance the whole place is crawling with Marines in half an hour. She hopes they can at least get their drinks first.
“That’s stupid,” Zoro says broadly—to no one in particular—and Nami’s fairly sure he’s only disagreeing for disagreement’s sake. On principle, even.
Luffy isn’t having it, though. “I can be stealthy,” he declares. Nami just blinks back because her brain refuses to process the sentence. As he squirms(and swings his legs, and swivels his stool), already so many minutes past his capacity to sit still even with the promise of food, Luffy laughs, “It’s just boring, so what’s the point?”
And now it’s Zoro’s stupid, idiot turn to nod his stupid, idiot head like Luffy (Luffy!) has said something wise. “See?” he says, still leaning on one hand. Nami wants to smack it out from underneath his cheek so he smashes his head against the counter, but she’s not sure she could get around Luffy fast enough to make her dreams a reality. She can dream, though—if anything, she imagines the look on Zoro’s face in the aftermath with serene, crystal clarity. It doesn’t particularly help.
“The point,” she says, “is not getting in a fight. The point is not dying,” and it’s like she’s speaking in tongues. The two of them just stare at her, blank and uncomprehending. “The point—”
“The point is that you hate fun,” Zoro states, plainly matter-of-fact, and Luffy nods.
“I do not—what?”
Luffy pouts. “That’s kinda sad, Nami,” he says, a genuine distress in his voice that only lasts half a second. “We should fix that! We should have more fun like today!”
Nami blinks at him, aghast. “Today wasn’t fun—”
“Well, you didn’t die!” he says, frowning, brow furrowed. “And we got treasure. Isn’t that fun?”
“That’s the bare minimum on both accounts.” Nami wonders if murder would count as mutiny if he’s not really her Captain. “And besides—”
She doesn’t get the chance to finish her thought (of course) because suddenly, the ear-splitting hum of a fiddle strikes up from the corner of the bar—and then someone’s sitting at the piano, and another stands with a horn, and—
Hey, the boys are back from their break!
The effect is immediate. Luffy, utterly incapable of focusing on any single thing for more than five goddamn seconds, lights up as the musicians begin to play. It’s some jaunty, small-town tune Nami’s never heard that sounds exactly like every other seaside ditty she’s ever encountered, but even as she hisses, “I’m talking—” Luffy just swings his legs off the edge of his barstool and grins at her, barely able to contain the bouncing in his bones. She glances aside toward Zoro for some measure of commiseration, only to find him nodding along to the beat so imperceptibly she might’ve missed it if she weren’t already looking for an excuse to be mad at him—and he’s staring, too—not across the room but at the freak between them, enraptured.
The look makes it very hard to maintain the momentum of her anger, but she is extremely well-practiced. And stubborn. And petty. And—
Luffy swings his head back and forth to look at them both with a maniac kind of grin on his face and she knows, desperately, that she needs to dig her heels in even harder as he declares, “We’re getting a musician next!” on what should be a total whim—except Zoro doesn’t look the least bit surprised. Nami isn’t entirely sure if it’s because he’s learned to roll with Luffy’s bullshit or because this has come up in conversation before. And she suspects, more than anything, it’s a combination of both, when the bartender returns soon enough with a tray of their drinks and Zoro scoffs—
“No, we’re gonna find a cook first. I’m tired of you eating all of our shit,” as he grabs two of the steins, already turning to watch the building performance as a quarter of the bar abandons their food to dance.
As sweet as she can, Nami flashes the bartender a grin that might only be a little strained at the edges, and—without comment—slides three more gold coins across the counter. She isn’t entirely sure if they’ve avoided a backroom call to the Marines yet but the bribery is worth the shot, especially as Luffy starts dancing in place, fumbling with the straw in his fruity little beverage and spilling half. The bartender says nothing but takes them anyway and Nami has to respect her for that, at least.
“What you morons need is a ship,” she says. She resists the urge to pinch the bridge of her nose if only because it would block her vision long enough for Luffy to pull something stupid (probably) so she just reaches for her own drink as Luffy giggles—
“You mean we need a ship!” with the straw finally caught between his teeth. “Otherwise what’re you gonna navigate?”
And Nami glares. “I don’t need a ship to navigate. I’m steering you two ju—fuck off—!” Before she’s even had the chance to process the goad Luffy has already laughed again (louder) and shot off his stool, drink in-hand, unable to stomach a party without being directly involved. “Fuck you!”
She hears Zoro laugh and almost tosses her drink at him but doesn’t, because that would be a waste of mediocre beer. He’s already on his second when she cuts her eyes over to glare.
“He’s talking circles around you,” he says, grin shit-eating.
“I’m letting him.”
Zoro just rolls his eyes. “He’s good at that, you know. Talking through people.” He doesn’t look the least bit put-out, even if he’s speaking from experience.
Luffy’s laugh carries across the building, stirring up a frenzy alongside the chaos in his limbs as he locks arms with a woman who might be sixty-five at the youngest estimation and swings—underlining her glee as she reaches for the next person at her table, and the next, and the next. Nami squints at him. Drinks.
“You’re just saying that because you’ve barely got two thoughts to rub together,” Nami retorts. “You’d be confused by a toddler.”
And for once, Zoro doesn’t rise to the bait. She sees him huff once, half a laugh, one elbow thrown back to rest against the bartop as he says, “Suit yourself,” and drinks around a shrug—and Nami wants to curse but that would feel like losing when she’s not even sure what they’ve bet—
And then there’s an off-key twang! from the violinist as one of his strings break and the music pulls to a stuttering halt. Amid the chorus of laughter and disappointed whines, Luffy’s hollered, “Nami!” hits the ceiling—and then, in a rubberband ricochet, he’s zipping back to the bar as the musicians regroup—and that starts the frenzy anew, because what the fuck did you just see that holy shit he just—
He scrambles back up onto his stool with the last scraps of their cover trailing behind him and she hisses, “Luffy!” but it falls on deaf ears—on a stupid kid’s pirate smile—on—
“Watch my cup!” He beams, holding the mostly-empty, probably-spilled drink out to her with sticky hands. “I don’t have enough hands to carry it and dance—” and even as he shoves it into her hands, beer practically hurled out of the way and only caught just in time, he whips his head back around to Zoro. “Do you think there are people with more than two hands on the Grand Line? I bet we’ll find one! Don’t you think that would be cool? Let’s get one on our crew—”
“Could be interesting,” Zoro hums, but the music has already restarted even around the insanity Luffy’s horrifying devil fruit powers have left in his wake and Luffy is, as usual, gone. The women he’s swung back into his stupidity don’t seem the least bit phased, giggling along with the dance as their husbands smack their tables, pointing and yelling—
Nami can’t resist the urge to bite his chewed-up straw because she’s never known Luffy to leave anything unfinished and it’s his fault, really, if she drinks the rest of it out of spite—
The rest of his orange juice.
She watches him wrap an arm each around two thugs hellbent on killing him and sing at the top of his lungs, all teeth and joy, and they’ll need to get out of here soon, Nami thinks. Any second now. Before the Marines show up. Any second. Any second.
She’ll leave any second, surely.
Just one more second and she will.