So things weren't going well for poor Alex, her brain was completely fried, the pretty eel lady had decided to sit right next to her. This didn't help one bit.
All she kept thinking was: Am I gross? I'm sweating an awful lot! What if I smell? What if I smell myself? Wait no! That's gross Alexandra, don't sniff yourself, that's weird!
Either way the girl was in a gay panic, she could hear Namur and Haruta talking to the mermaids, but Alex couldn't bring herself to even attempting to join the conversation. She couldn't even say her name without stumbling over every single letter.
Why am I such a dumb butt? They probably think I'm stupid or something! How couldn't I not even say my own flipping name?!
Alex cringed internally as that dumb memory of her lame introduction played over and over in her head.
Haruta on the other hand found their sister's behaviour hilarious, turns out that Alex couldn't talk to girls. She was sat there, red faced and sweating profusely, the eel mermaid was particularly concerned, worried that Haru's silly sister was feverish.
No, Alex was just very gay.
It was pretty obvious that she was only interested in the ladies, the butler dude barely got a glance, which Haru thought was funny, the guy was pretty handsome too. Or well the red-head thought so anyway, though they weren't interested in people like that.
Namur liked girls, which was annoying because he'd talk to them about it and Haruta didn't even get that stuff. So it was great, he could talk to Al about that now, they wouldn't have to put up with listening to his crush of the week anymore. Like Pops, they were about as interested in people that way as they were with their daily chores, which was not at all. They liked dinosaurs, food and fighting, among other things and that stuff wasn't one of them.
Haruta continued to grin, watching Alex slowly becoming one with the booth, her lion ears flat, the girl's weird dimensional hair having grown out all long and tail puffed up like an alarmed cat.
Namur was sat there, big smile in place telling the Mermaids what had happened to him and where he was living now. They all seemed pretty preoccupied listening to his story, which they couldn't blame them for, the ladies had obviously been very concerned with what had happened to their brother, which made Haru happy. They were pleased that he had been missed, that people had given a damn about him, even if his bastard of a bio-dad hadn't.
"Hey, butler? Can you get some water for my little sister? She needs to take her meds." The red-head asked nonchalantly, making the grouchy Emo-Merman to scowl, but he obliged, disappearing for a moment behind a bar in the end of the café and when he reappeared the butler was carrying a glass. He placed it on the table with a huff, giving Haru an irritated sneer, he seemed annoyed that nobody had any interest in him, which the kid wasn't surprised by, not with his bad attitude. Though they supposed that was actually some people's type, the bad boy emo, with a rude demeanour presenting themselves as a tortured soul.
Ugh, Haru found it all stupid...
"Hey Al, take your meds" They said to Alex, she didn't respond only continuing to stare down at her clasped sweaty hands, Haru sighed, pushing the glass of water right into her field of vision. The girl finally seemed to notice, she pulled out the bottle from her cloth sash, which received a raised eyebrow from the eel lady. Al went bright red, or at the very least went redder, which Haru was unsure how that was even possible, but this proved that their little sister was even more hopeless then they had first thought... Alex brainlessly unscrewed the cap, though she was hardly paying attention to the tablets that she was absently tipping into her open palm, no, Alex's single eye was fixed on the pretty smiling mermaid next to her, she might as well have been a mindless vegetable. Then the idiot proceeded to toss about fifteen pills into her agape mouth, Haruta dove over the table, forcing her to spit them out before she swallowed them all.
That did not end well as one might imagine...
Haruta was not amused anymore, her little gay dumbass of a sister almost overdosed because of- actually the red head had no idea, all they knew was that Alex was stupid around pretty women, to a dangerous and ridiculous degree.
Namur had disappeared at some point, apparently gone to speak to his old 'employer' Aka- His Auntie. His mother's sister, the original owner of the mermaid café. Haruta had no intention of interrupting such a meeting, not when their brother had been very close to both his late mother and his aunt, it was only through terrible and unfortunate circumstances that Namur had been left in the awful custody of his bastard of a bio-father.
The shark often reminisced about his mother, from what the ginger had come to understand she'd been his sunshine in the darkness, sadly he'd lost her when he was about eight years old, they were unsure of the cause, but from the way Namur avoided the topic, it was more than likely far from a natural incident.
This did leave Haruta with the unfortunate joy of babysitting their moronic sister for the time being, they didn't enjoy being forced to be the responsible one, they liked the idea of being the cool older sibling, just not the less fun aspects, like making sure that Alex didn't die from dumb lesbian disease... such as choking on her own drool or forgetting how to breathe.
This was going to be such a pain in the ass.
The red-head was sat with their arms crossed, frowning with slight annoyance as they watched Alex like a hawk. Haruta eventually lent back in the booth sulking somewhat, slight pout on their face, they didn't really know what to do. They were almost tempted to drag their little sister away, at least she might have been semi-functional... but that would have been rude, which normally Haru would have no problem with, however out of respect for their brother they'd be polite and pleasant.
"Oh my gosh you're just the cutest little thing" The eel lady cooed at Al for the hundredth time, causing both the ginger and the Emo Butler to roll their eyes in unison, she had her arm around the girl's shoulders, fussing over her like she was some kind of cute little poodle or something, all Alex did in response was make zombie like mumbles, blushing bashfully trying to hide her face. Well at least their dumbass siblings were both enjoying themselves, they could hear Namur in the back laughing, he sounded so damn fucking happy!Haruta was so fucking pleased!
At some point cookies had appeared on the table in front of the group, they were quickly devoured by a absolutely livid Haruta, stuffing them into their mouth munching away loudly, sharp scowl firmly in place, their feet tapping angrily. What they hadn't noticed was the Mermaids surrounding them were starting to look slightly anxious, the two kids were just a little too odd for their liking, on one hand the little blonde girl seemed perfectly harmless, in fact she might just keel over if they weren't careful, but the other one... the little red-head was a different matter, they seemed- pissed? Upset? Jealous? No matter what the ladies tried to say or do, the kid just carried on with their attitude. If it wasn't for Namur they probably would have been less concerned with upsetting them, might even gone as far as to kick them out.
The Eel mermaid, or rather Hilda as she was called was the only one that was completely unfazed by the tense and awkward atmosphere, she just carried on as she would do normally, no wonder she was so popular, the woman never seemed to care about the situations they often found themselves in. After all when they got rowdy customers, especially nasty of the human variety, Hilda was always sent to deal with them. She had quite the way with people and their in line of business that was quite an amazing trait to possess.
After a bit more time had passed in tense silence Hilda finally spoke up, turning to the young blonde girl with a sweet smile, making said child blush and look down, shoulders rigid, hands tucked to her chest. The eel lent straight into the girls face, making her fall backwards, another thing that Hilda was good at, not respecting peoples personal bubbles and then shoved a photograph in front of Alex's good eye. "You remind me of my eight year old son, you look just like him! I could just squeeze you, he's such a good boy too."
Alex's went as white as a sheet, frozen in place almost as if turned to stone even...
Haruta burst out laughing, curling into themselves wheezing and gasping for air "Alex you just got Mommy zoned!"
The girl could of been blown away in the wind as she crumbled from the painful shock of being compared to the hot eel lady's eight year old son, the boy in the picture was indeed blond, but that was basically the only thing they had in common. The kid in the photo was a pufferfish, with extruding lips and a body that had the shape of a literal balloon. Alex was crying inside, at the utter embarrassment and realisation that she might look like a pufferfish and the fact that she'd just been compared to a eight year old boy.
In the background Haruta continued to bawl their eyes out as they laughed at Alex's destruction. It was that day that the blonde girl decided that the red-head was evil, simply the worst...
_______
Back on the Moby Dick the crew had lots to do, surprisingly they got more done when Whitebeard was out of the way, he had the bad habit of meddling in things that he needn't be sticking his nose into, meaning everyone was getting their work done for once, without the sudden intrusion of their father.
Well that's the way Marco saw it anyway, it was quiet, pleasantly so, since he had become the first division commander he found that he had much less time to be as chilled out and carefree as he had been as a kid. While the blond was only twenty, he acted like an older, much more stressed out man, always going back and forth between the other divisions, making sure everything was running as it should be. That was on top of his medical studies, after all he'd always dreamed of being a doctor.
It was just a shame that he had decided to take the first division commander position when one of his brothers had left to start his own crew, Marco often kicked himself for that, but he had almost felt obligated to take it up when Pops had offered it to him, how could he say no? He could of done that, he could have easily have done so, however as Pops first son, he felt it only fitting to take the role.
It didn't help that his father was like a big kid half the time, not in the sense that one might immediately assume, Pops was perfectly capable of taking care of himself and others, it was more along the lines of the important jobs that a captain should be doing, that never seemed to get done, like reading reports or managing the costs of his huge family, which Marco would like to point out was his decision... the Yonko just couldn't turn away anyone who was homeless or without a family. While it was a noble thing to do, it also meant that most of the funds they did manage to acquire was spent on feeding the massive hoard of children he had gathered or repairing the ship when it was damaged.
It gave poor Marco a great deal of migraines and sleepless nights, wondering how they were going to survive when they were always broke. This brought the Phoenix back to his current predicament, really it was more of a worry than a predicament, it still made him rub his temples and pinch the bridge of his nose. Not long ago a Merman from Neptune's Court had come along to see them, he wanted to know when the king could meet up with Pops, who at this point in time was fast asleep and the blond was not waking him up. It had been hard enough trying to convince him to go to bed and getting him to actually stay there was another thing entirely.
Stupidly their father had decided to get up at his usual time in the morning, even after spending almost a fucking week awake, he had stubbornly gotten up even when he was practically dead on his feet, determined to carry on as normal... In the end they'd slipped some sleeping pills into his coffee, something nobody would have gotten away with if he had been fully rested...it had taken some time for it to finally knock him out, once out cold, a group of them had dragged him to bed.
That had been hard in itself, moving a twenty-one foot tall man made of nothing but muscle was just painful, he lost count of the times they had knocked Pops into walls, doorframes and tables before they had gotten back to his cabin.
Either way trying to convince this idiot to listen to them wasn't happening, it didn't matter how many times he told him that Pops wasn't available, he would just accuse them of being rude, blah, blah, blasphemous, blah, pirates are bad, blah, blah, humans... it was just an endless cycle, it wasn't getting them anywhere, however Marco refused to tell him what was happening and why Pops was not available. He didn't care how good of a friend the King and their captain were, there was no way in hell that he was letting it slip that his father was in a vulnerable state, it seemed the rest of his siblings were in agreement with him.
Though this left them in an annoying circle with this guy...
"Look for the last time our captain isn't available, I can pass on a message but that's all that I can do, yoi" Marco said with a tired sigh, he looked up into the face of the Merman with half-lidded eyes, he had his arms crossed, but if the blond was being honest he'd love to throttle this guy with a great deal of force.
"And I am telling you, pirate, to summon your captain at once, it is highly disrespectful to ignore the commands of the Royal adviser of this great nation!" The sea-horse man snapped for the millionth time.
"We already told ya, he ain't available or don't you understand basic Japanese!" Thatch yelled back, he was much less civil, he looked pissed off and unlike Marco, who would only think about shaking the Merman, his brother would actually throttle this guy violently. The brunette was chilled out for the most part, he let things slide most of the time, but that was only to a certain point, eventually even a pretty patient guy like him would snap and this was the breaking point for him. Marco couldn't even fault him for that, this situation was becoming a pain in the ass.
Just as the sea-horse opened up his obnoxious mouth again another Fishman appeared, leaping onto the Moby Dick without any worry, landing on the deck in front of the arguing men with a loud thud, Marco didn't recognise him. He was blue, quite heavy-set, his hair was both black and blond, two tusks protruded from his lower jaws, his strong arm was placed on the Merman's shoulder as he asked "What is going on?"
"Jinbe? I thought I told you I would deal with it!" The sea-horse grumbled, the Jinbe fellow didn't seem all that bothered by his sharp tone, he simply answered in a calm voice "Seems as though you aren't dealing with it, all I see is an argument breaking loose."
"These pirates aren't complying! They refuse to summon their captain, even when it is the king who sent us here to deliver a message! It is compl-" The whale shark put his hand up cutting him off, he turned to Marco and Thatch with a raised eyebrow in questioning. Finally! Someone reasonable! The Phoenix thought relieved, they might actually get somewhere with this Fishman around.
"As I've said countless times already, our captain is unavailable at this moment in time. We can take a message, but your friend here wouldn't take that for an answer, yoi"
"I see, may I ask why that is? Surely the King would be concerned over his old friend, he spoke very highly of him. I am sure that he will want to come here to check on Whitebeard himself , which I'm sure nobody has time for. Neptune-Sama has a council meeting today and I fear he may try and skip out on it." Jinbe told them in a friendly and calm voice, Marco had taken a liking to this guy, he got down to the point which he could appreciate.
Not to mention there was just something very sincere when he spoke, with a sigh, he glanced sharply at the Sea-Horse before looking back up at Jinbe. The whale-shark seemed to get the message, he lent down whispering something in the Merman's ear, with a huff, the man retreated, giving a backwards sneer at Thatch and left them alone.
"He is gone, do not worry the only person to hear the reasoning will be the King" Jinbe reassured as he put his hand to his heart and bowed his head a little and surprisingly enough Marco believed him. Thatch gave him a raised eyebrow, a silent question: Do you trust him? The Phoenix nodded firmly to his brother, the brunet grunted in response before walking back off towards the kitchen to leave Marco to explain in peace.
"Where do I start, yoi?"