LuNa: The Gossips
Luffy glowered at Sanji who only frowned, and pulled the pack away, "No, you said you were quitting."
"Just one!"
"Forget it," he said, lighting one of the cigarettes to smoke it himself. "You gave these to me, Luffy, so I'm not giving any to you. Understood?"
He twitched, staring at him and the cigarette before he turned away with a groan.
"It's your own fault," Usopp said, raising a brow at him.
Luffy returned to sorting through his clothes to toss out all the new ones he had bought.
"Eh? Hey, Straw Hat, you going to return those or what? What if your girl really did like 'em?" Blinking, Luffy looked at Franky.
"She's my girl?" His eyes widened, and he stood up straight just as the cigarette dropped from Sanji's gaping mouth, "She's my girl! Hahaha!"
Zoro and Usopp smacked the air, "You just realized!?"
"Hold it there, asswipe."
Brook stood in front of Sanji then, facing Luffy, "Yes, wait, I would still like a pair of those panties."
"Hey!"
Zoro raised his hand, "He can have a pair, but I want the rest."
"Shut your mouth, cactus!" Sanji punted the skeleton out of the way before stomping toward Luffy, "You can't say she's yours just yet! Nami-san's still upset with you. Remember, you got what you wanted. She's miserable now."
"I can fix that," he said.
"Don't say baseless things, halfwit!"
"I'll do it right now!" He said, "Nami doesn't need to miserable anymore!"
With such said, he turned to go, slamming the door shut behind him before he raced to the girls' room. When he poked his head in, and only saw Robin who smiled at him, he left to go search the other rooms.
He found her on the stern's balcony.
!#&()+
She blinked at the sight of him before turning to face the ocean, "It's fine. The joke's over, okay? The wedding's off."
"Okay."
Biting her lip, Nami put her hand on the railing to steady herself. She turned to go after a while, but stopped short when she realized Luffy was still standing there, "Luffy?"
He dropped to a knee, looking up at her as he said, "Nami, will you marry me?"
She blinked before she scowled, "What makes you think I'd marry you after all of that? I was so ... humiliated! Is that what you like to do to girls, Luffy? Because I don't like it!"
"No! Nami, I was just pretending to act like a jerk!"
"Well, you sure fooled me! How is that supposed to make me feel any better!?"
Luffy stood up, still blocking her way out, and she hung back against the railing, watching where his hands were, "It's not. Usopp told me to act more like the others, but that didn't work, and he said I should tap your butt and stuff, but none of those helped either, and then he made me go ask for your panties, and that always got me into deeper trouble than all the others!"
Flushing in remembrance, she dropped her eyes, cinching her skirt down her thighs more. She said, "And you were trying to scare me away?"
"Yeah! I was supposed to make you miserable."
"Well, congratulations," she said, "you win. You don't have to make me go through all of that again just for some laugh or kick or ... whatever. I won't go through that again, Luffy."
His voice quieted, "Nami, I'm not-"
"And you were like them," she said, lifting her eyes to look at him. "You acted just like them, Luffy. Drinking like Zoro, and asking for my panties like Brook ..." She bit her lip before she said, "Sanji-kun's womanizing and cigarettes ..."
"I quit," he said.
Her face turned angry, and she straightened as she clenched fists at her sides, "You think that makes up for everything!? You humiliated me, Luffy!"
"Nami, I'm gonna be me again," Luffy said. "I know that I made you miserable, but I wasn't myself."
"You're just going to be yourself, and think that everything will go back the way it was? That can't happen," she said. "It'll never be the same again."
"I hope so."
She blanched, raising one of her fists, "What's that supposed to mean!?"
"Nami," he said, stepping forward, and her eyes widened, freezing. "I don't want you to not be miserable."
Staring at him, she then shook her head, clutching at the sides of her head, "Luffy, that doesn't even make any sense. I keep telling you why you can't just do this anymore. It hurts."
"Tell me how. If me being myself doesn't make you not miserable, tell me what will."
"N-no," she said, "I'm telling you that I'm not putting up with it anymore. You won't see me dancing to your little tune anymore, mister! I've had it!"
His brow furrowed, and he stepped closer, making her edge back, "I'm not joking around, Nami."
"Stop it! You can't just start grabbing me again and think that'll do something for me because it doesn't. I'm not that kind of girl, Luffy."
"Then I'll grab you!"
"What'd I just say, you idiot!?"
Luffy surged forward, lifting up his hands to reach for her, and she flinched away, holding up her hands protectively, "Kyah!"
He had grabbed her hands after she had held them up for protection, and she attempted to struggle, and push him away, but he was persistent, squeezing her hands tightly so he wouldn't release them. She stood there, shaking with her eyes shut tight, and her face turned away, holding his hands tightly to keep them from grabbing anything more.
Yet, Luffy smiled slowly.
Nami's eyes fluttered open after a moment, facing him then with her big, brown eyes since he hadn't reached for anything else.
"If Nami is miserable," he said then, "I want to be miserable with her. I don't want her ... to be unhappy all by herself."
"Luffy," she said with a sigh, "what does that even mean? I don't want either of us to be upset. Please, just forget about it - you don't have to pretend for me. It'd just make it worse."
"Nami, I wanna be together."
Beginning to shake her head, she dropped her gaze, "No, it's not possible. We don't fit."
Luffy frowned, and squeezed her hands gently since their fingers had yet to separate. He said, "That's not true. You see? You fit right in my hands."
She blinked, lifting her eyes to said hands between them, and her lips parted slightly in awe, "Luffy."
"And I don't want everything to be the same again because that'd mean we wouldn't be together," when he squeezed her hands again, her own tightened around his, and Luffy smiled, feeling warmth flood through him from the little embrace.
"I like ..." she smiled then as her eyes filled with tears, "I like how they fit, Captain."
Laughing, he bent down to kiss the back of her hands, "Nami, marry me."
Nami smiled vibrantly, clutching tighter to his hands, "I will ... But, Luffy? Do ... Is that the kind of thing you like? The way you were touching me before?"
His cheeks turned almost purple at the memories, "It was ... It didn't feel right ..." Luffy looked down at their intertwined fingers before he smiled at her through his blush, "We'll find out what does feel right though."
Beaming warmly, she pushed him back and off the balcony into the aquarium bar. As he landed back onto the couch running along the fish tank, she straddled his lap as he blushed darkly. Nami said, "I want to see how the rest of us fits."
Luffy blinked before he smiled, and hugged her tight, their foreheads touching as he said, "Shishishi! You mean like this, Nami? I like it - do you?"
Her voice bubbled with laughter, and he felt like he was drowning again, so he went up for air, kissing her firmly.
!#&()+
When he returned to the men's bunk with slightly more wild hair, and a grinning, pink face, Sanji fell to his knees with a thud, and wailed.
"This cannot be!"
With a snicker, Luffy licked his bottom lip, turning to his locker to exchange his shirt for a long nightshirt.
Usopp whooped, pumping his fist into the air, "All right, Luffy!"
Franky gave him two thumbs up, "Nice, Straw Hat. So did you find the clitoris all right?"
Slamming their feet down, Sanji and Luffy frowned at him, "Nami(-san)'s not that kind of girl!"
Sanji blinked then, and looked at him, "Ah? Really?"
When Luffy just grinned at him, he fell to his knees again, pulling at his hair to bemoan.
Turning to his locker, he started sorting through the panties he bought before picking out the few nice, cotton ones, and tossing the bag at the sleeping swordsman, "Share some with Brook."
"Eh? Why're keeping those ones? Cheapskate," said Zoro with a deep frown when he rubbed his eyes awake.
"Well, Nami never said if she didn't like getting panties as a gift or not, so I'm saving 'em." He showed them to Brook and Franky, "These are nice ones, right?"
Sanji slapped the air, "They're not the experts! They're perverts!"
The two smiled, and waved at him bashfully, "Well, if you put it that way ...!"
"That's not a compliment!"
Snickering, Luffy hopped into his bunk with a pair to show Usopp instead while Sanji steamed at the two. He said, "And if she doesn't like it, Zoro can just have the rest."
"Mmm? What's the point in giving her panties you won't see? You said she's not that kind of girl," he said.
"Shishishi! I'll see her wear 'em when I'm King of the Pirates though," Luffy beamed happily, putting the pair under his pillow. "Oh, yeah!" He sat up then, pointing at Zoro and Sanji who both blinked at the finger, "I'm jumping into the ocean tomorrow, so you better watch me."
"Eeh!?" Usopp sat up, his voice shaking, "Lu-Luffy! What's that supposed to mean!?"
Sanji said first, "You need someone else to take your place on the schedule?" Throwing his head back, Zoro laughed wildly, slapping his knee in his hysterics. Sanji continued, "Wait, this means we're going to have to do a complete rearrangement of it! This'll take weeks to revise with our luck!"
"Don't worry, one minute, you'll find the time."
"Shut your trap, moss ball!"
"Make me, prince!"
Luffy turned back to a tired-looking Usopp with a smiling face, "Man, I can't wait until I'm the Pirate King!"
Chopper hopped into his bunk then, smiling up at him, "Luffy! So you're going have human babies with Nami? You're naming them, right?"
"Right!" Standing up in his bunk, this caused Sanji and Zoro to pause in their exchange to look up at him, "Monkey D. Rex!"
The reindeer wilted, "Maybe the crew could name the human babies ..."
"Monkey D. Elton is super!"
"Ah, perhaps, we could name him Monkey D. Ulysses the Third."
Usopp and Sanji slapped the air, "He'd be the first!"
Brook's skull tilted, "The first what?"
"Monkey D. Triton!"
Zoro stood then, drawing his blade from its sheathe to hold before his face, "Monkey D. Summer Mountain Stream."
"We're not naming a sword! It's a baby!"
"Monkey D. Rex!"
"You already said that!"
!#&()+
Robin's ear disappeared from the wall then as she smiled tenderly. She looked at Nami then, "Do you want to know what they're talking about?"
Looking up from her pillow, Nami blushed red, and shook her head slowly, "I don't want him to think he's lost my trust, and ... I would never want to lose his."
"I see," Robin said with a smile.
There was sudden, loud, uproarious laughter from below, and Nami turned a frown at the floor as if they could see it. She huffed, "I just wish they'd keep quiet at night, and let a girl sleep!"
Turning to her book to pick it up again, Robin reclined into her chair again with a more amused smile, "Yes, they are quite the gossips."
!#&()+
THE END