Summary: Luffy is Santa, the crew is late on schedule and Nami has to make it work, like always.
* One Piece: A Christmas Carol *
* December 21 *
Something, Nami thinks bewilderedly, has clearly gone wrong if your chief engineer and most reliant staff member asks you to shoot him.
"Please", Usopp says without batting an eye and tinkers around with the coffee machine. Good luck with that. That bloody thing wasn't working since the beginning of Advent season. Continuous operation.
"Sorry", Nami says brusquely and turns back to the map she is working on. "But I'm a bit busy at the moment."
"It'll only take one second."
"I've got no time. Ask Zoro."
"I did", Usopp answers and points his chin towards the door. For a moment Nami wants to ask what went wrong. She quickly decides against it. She has enough on her plate already.
"Still can't. Only three days left until Christmas and I still have mountains of work to do. I don't have time to shoot you." Usopp presses some buttons and with a beep the heavenly scent of fresh coffee fills the room. Nami does her best not to look up from her desk. She fails.
Usopp leans against the counter and eyes her thoroughly.
"What?"
"No offence, but you look like shit. You should take a nap. Or a shower."
As if he is one to talk. He must have spent the better time of his week in a coal pit because she knows that this is not his natural skin colour. Furthermore his afro looks as if he had tried to investigate a power point. With his tongue.
"I don't have time to sleep. Or shower. I'm not finished with the itinerary and I can't find Zoro anywhere. He was supposed to do the planing, damnit!"
Usopp wheezes.
She glares at him. "You know where he is."
"You really ought to clean up this place." Usopp is only trying to change the subject, Nami knows that and yet she is tempted to bring up the snow canon which crashed through her window a few days ago and nearly squashed her. Needless to say who was responsible for that accident.
Does he really think that she would pave her office with buckets if the roof wasn't partly missing?
"Usopp", she says instead.
"Yeah?"
"Get out."
His face turns ashen. "Yes, ma'am."
He sets down his cup and quickly disappears through the door. Nami sighs. Finally some peace.
"By the way", Usopp says and his head reappears in the doorway. "Can you get me the boss? It's kinda important." Before she can answer, he's gone again.
Grumbling, Nami gets up and fishes a carmine red cup from the shelf. After days – scratch that, weeks – of none stop work she'd really need a cuppa now, she thinks and presses a button on the coffee machine. The result is a flickering display and a cloud of steam that engulfs her from head to toe. No coffee.
Nami picks up the cup Usopp left on the counter. Empty. Blast it!
She makes herself some black tea instead. As she leans agains the counter and waits for the steam to evaporate, she counts the teabags peeking out from her cup. One, two, three, four. She empties it in one gulp even though the water is singing her throat.
Three days to go – her personal countdown of hell.
With a heavy heart she grabs the pile of documents Zoro should have seen to weeks ago, and marches through the door with new determination.
On her way out she nearly falls over the motionless body of Zoro, who is lying spread-eagle across the whole corridor, surrounded by an ungodly amount of bottles. She looses her grip and the neat pile of paper scatters over the floor like a snow avalanche.
Zoro doesn't even wake up when he topples out off the window and into the dark and freezing night of the Arctic winter. Nami gazes after him as he disappears over the edge of the giant glacier. One moment later a rain of empty bottles follow Zoro out into the icy abyss below.
Nami doesn't bother to close the window, she can't die anyway so it's highly unlikely that she was going to freeze to death. She starts picking up the scattered papers and ably ignores the puddle of mulled wine in the corner which is slowly turning to ice.
Maybe some of the bottles will hit Zoro on the head and knock some sense into him, she thinks as she straightens and steps out into the storm.
That makes her feel a tiny bit better. A tiny weeny bit.
When Nami walks in, Luffy sits crosslegged on the sill in front of the open window, stares down the icy cliff and doesn't acknowledge her.
"What are you doing?", Nami asks after setting down her stack of papers on Luffy's desk. He never uses it anyway.
"Fishing", Luffy answers without turning around and sure enough he is holding a fishing rod in one hand.
"Luffy, it's a two-hundred foot drop to the ocean and by this time of the year, it's already frozen over."
"Hm", Luffy hums absent-mindedly and waves a hand at her. "Have you seen the flat iron?"
"No", she answers brusquely. "I'm not your maid. Robin's the one who's always doing your clothes."
"Clothes?", Luffy sounds confused and turns around to look at her. For a moment Nami fears that he might overbalance and topple backwards out of the window, but of course he doesn't. But then again, that might not be a tragedy.
"Yeah, clothes. What else would you need it for?"
"Flatfish!", Luffy states and grins from ear to ear.
"Flatfish?"
"Flatfish."
For a brief moment she tries to understand this strange comment – and fails.
"I need some signatures", she says instead and pulls a pen from her pocket.
Luffy leans the fishing rod against the windowsill, hops down to the ground and stalks over to her.
"Some letters came this morning", Luffy says casually while he endows each paper with something that does not resemble a signature in any way.
Interesting. They didn't get much post out here in the Arctic.
"And you didn't open them?"
Luffy stops scribbling and looks at her with round eyes. Of course he didn't.
Nami sighs but begins to search without further ado. The is no point in Protesting anyway. Meanwhile Luffy sprawls out on his chair and putts his feet on the table. After a short time she hits pay dirt: The three letters are pinned to the inside of the wardrobe with darts.
"You should shave, Luffy", Nami says absent-mindedly, while she plucks the letters from the wood.
Luffy only waves her off. "I'm Father Christmas. I'm supposed to have a full beard." He drags his fingers over his black stubble.
"If we did things the traditional way you would have to put on fifty kilos and wear heavy robes." Nami eyes his sleeveless shirt and thong-clad feet.
"Don't have to overdo it", he declares.
Nami sighs, more to herself than him, and opens the first letter.
Sand grains trickle out of the envelope and bunch up on the ground. She'll clean that up – later. When Christmas is finally over and she had some days off. Maybe in August.
Nami reaches into the envelope and pulls out a note and picture. She looks at the picture first. It shows a young man, not much older than herself – sing praise to eternal youth – with black hair and a cowboy hat, sitting topless on the head of what seems to be a giant lizard. He's waving at the camera.
"Your brother Ace", Nami says and instantly has Luffy's attention. He stops what he had been doing – folding documents into paper boats – and grins from ear to ear.
"Oh yeah? Where is he? What's he doing?"
"In the Sahara", Nami answers and skims over the card. "He's free until New Year's Eve and decided to take a vacation. He wishes you a merry Christmas and says that he sends the letter so early because he knows you never open them."
"Course he knows me", Luffy grins and rubs his nose. "He's my big brother."
Nami tears open another letter and immediately recognises the delicate handwriting. "And this one's from Sabo. And it's addressed to me. He asks me to wish you a merry Christmas and pass on many … cuddly squishy kisses."
"Oh. Is he on vacation, too?"
"Nope, still on the Easter Islands."
Easter Islands, Nami thinks longingly. It could have been them. Sunshine, green plants and the vast blue ocean. But no, they are stuck here with "Father Christmas" in the middle of the bloody Arctic.
A hundred seasons, a hundred endless seasons of managing the Christmas festive makes her wonder again and again every damn time if she chose the right job.
She remembers that all those years ago Koala made a huge fuss when Sabo announced that he chose Easter. Sabo had nothing of a bunny, Koala said, and if anything she didn't want to be stuck painting eggs for the rest of her eternity.
Nami would give anything to be in her shoes. Even Ace's job sounds better to her with every passing year. Only one evening, shooting colourful lights into the sky, bit boring no doubt, but the rest of the year was off. But of course, when Luffy's grandpa decided to retire, Luffy wanted Christmas. Of course Luffy had to aim for the top … By now Nami understood why Monkey D. Dragon legged it the day Garp announced his retirement.
Well, there is no use crying over spilled milk so here she is now, seeing things through. Until the bitter end if she has to.
Nami looks at the last letter and reads the addressor. Boa Hancock. She throws it strait into the bin. If it's from Boa Hancock, than it's the usual declaration of love and right now Nami is really not in the mood for it.
Boa Hancock is human and there is really nothing special about her. Apart of course from the fact that she is extremely beautiful, extremely rich, extremely powerful and also head over heals for Nami's boss.
Two years ago, Luffy crashed through the roof of the bathroom of this Chinese Empress on Christmas Eve whilst trying to climb through her chimney. Nami really doesn't want to know how he managed that. Any other guy would have been executed on the spot, but not Monkey D. Luffy. No, he had to get himself a fangirl.
Nami sighs, puts the letters of Luffy's brothers back into their envelopes and lays them on the desk.
She collects the signed papers.
"Isn't that Zoro's job?", Luffy asks and looks around the room as if he expects him to jump out from behind the door and sing Ding Dong Merrily on High. "Where is he? I ain't seen him in days."
"Taking a walk", Nami says sharply.
"Alone?", he asks aghast. "But he'll get lost again."
"He'll probably be back by New Year's."
"Oh, come on!" Luffy crosses his arms over hid chest and makes a face. "Christmas without an elf, that just bites!"
Dragging Luffy out of his office goes better than expected. At least that's what Nami thinks before she hears Franky calling out to them across the courtyard. He stands in the gateway of his workshop and waves at them through the storm. Before she can prevent it, Luffy already slipped out of her grasp and disappeared into the hall. Franky follows him back inside, probably to show off his newest addition to the sled.
For a while Nami pauses in the courtyard as if frozen, before she turns on her heels and heads towards Usopp's factory, leaving the cries of "Super" behind.
"Worthless", Usopp swears and waves a fir branch at her, that has clearly seen better days. "Over. Dead and gone. Kaputt."
Nami regards the broken branch. Yes, she can see that.
They are standing in one of Usopp's green houses. Usually they are the only places on the whole continent where lush green can be found in abundance. This one however is littered with upturned roots and dead bleached wood.
"The whole crop is ruined", Usopp rants on and points at the empty soil around them. "Somebody must have mixed the seeds of the trees with my Pop Greens before I planted them."
"What of it?", Nami asks and tries not to loose it here and now.
"What of it?! Everything was fine yesterday and over night – poof! The Pop Greens ate them. Shrivelled them, destroyed them! There is not a single Christmas tree left!"
"Then why don't you use the Pop Greens instead?", she asks and lets her gaze wander around the room.
"And kill off the human race? They are magic, Nami. I can't simply hand them out like cut flowers."
Nami nods. "Where are they now?"
"Green house four, where they were supposed to be in the first place."
Her eye catches on the red flowerpot standing on the windowsill.
"What about those winter roses you grew last week?"
"You must be joking!"
"Not in the least."
Usopp stares at her with wide eyes, then he looks down at the sad excuse of a Christmas tree. "Well, I suppose … "
"Do it", she tells him and leaves the greenhouse.
What she doesn't tell him is, that it was her who fell over the buckets of seeds in the court yard all those months ago.
Usopp's attempt to grow the winter roses into tree size ends with the green house exploding. Shards of broken glass as long as a forearm are flying through the air, get stuck in the wall of Franky's workshop like grotesque nails and nearly scalp Usopp in the process.
Nami hears the bang and manages to ignore its consequences until Luffy comes trotting into her office. The time Nami needs to explain to him that she is not a doctor is enough for him to leave a puddle of blood on her itinerary.
"While we're on it, is somebody dead?", Nami asks.
"Nope", Luffy says cheerfully and wraps his west around his arm to stop the bleeding. "But one of the stables is gone. It looks funny."
Before he finishes speaking Nami storms past him out into the snow. Usopp stands in the courtyard staring at the damage, one third of his afro missing and looks worse for wear.
Nami curses him all the way from here to the equator but it doesn't help. The reindeers are gone all the same.
* December 22 *
On the morning of December 22, Nami excepts that the reindeers wouldn't be coming back until the big day. The less said about her efforts to rope the elks of Tundra Inc. in for the task, the better. Furthermore, yesterday's storm left behind a pile of snow on her table which finished the coffee machine off for good. Her maps are also ruined.
All things considered, the level of destruction is by far not the worst Nami has ever seen, but this year she just doesn't feel like it.
It still can't keep Nami from covering todays calorie requirements with caffeine as she did since the beginning of Advent season. Sanji doesn't own a coffee machine, but the cup he brews for her is so strong it nearly dissolves her spoon. On top of that Nami is pleasantly surprised to find out that redrawing the lost itinerary goes a lot faster if she doesn't have to constantly get up and search for new a inkpot because the old one froze over. The kitchen has no holes in the roof either. The drawback of her current sitting arrangement: the sweet smell of cinnamon and almond nearly turns her stomach.
"Modern or old-school?", Sanji asks and places the chocolate onto the table in front of her. For a moment Nami eyes the figure wrapped in red and blue foil with a painted on straw hat before looking at the fat man with the white beard.
"Old-school", she decides and takes a sip of coffee.
"I second that", Sanji says and turns back to the stove of the gigantic kitchen. "The boss is not much of a sight to look at."
Nami breaks off Chocolate-Luffy's head and puts it into her mouth. After four weeks of running on caffeine only it makes her feel sick.
A thought suddenly crosses her mind. "Sanji?"
"Yes, my darling?", he flutes from the stove.
"Do you know what flatfish is?"
"Flatfish?" Judging by his voice, he is as lost as she is.
"Apparently it requires a hot iron."
Sanji shrugs and goes to fill up her cup.
She actually gets her work done and manages to forget about the reindeers for a few hours until reality catches up with her again.
While her view of the kitchen is blocked by stacks of paper, she would recognize those scuffling sandals everywhere. When Luffy steps into her field of vision he carries a block of ice, big enough to sit on, with a shape that distinctively resembles a fish frozen inside and makes his way towards the junk room.
She stares after him for a moment. Then she recalls the hot iron, puts two and two together and quickly gathers her papers.
By the time she slips out the door, Sanji finally seems to have come to the same conclusion and the sizzling sound of evaporating water can be heard from the junk room.
"Flatfish. Oh, that bastard."
She is halfway across the courtyard when she hears his yells - "At least use the silk adjustment not linen, you shitty man!" - and her thoughts are already somewhere else.
Sometimes, Nami thinks, Robin seems to be the only one who gets any work done in this place. But then again she can use up to a thousand arms simultaneously, so maybe that doesn't really count.
"You are the Spirit of Christmas, aren't you?"
Robin knows that it is not a question so she keeps on folding Christmas Cards without taking her eyes of her friend.
"So I was wondering", Nami mumbles and buries her head in her arms. "Can't you officially cancel Christmas this year?"
Robin smiles at her and shakes her head. "Don't disturb my arrangement system."
Nami looks up to where the tall shelves stacked with cards seemed to vanish into the sky. "Fear not."
Robin giggles quietly into one of her hands and pats Nami on the shoulder with another. "Don't worry", she says and sorts some cards into a nearby shelve labeled with the letter Y. "Things will work out. They always do."
Nami shakes her head and gets up.
"Poor humans", she says and makes her way to the door. "They wish each other a merry Christmas and expect a wise man with a beard. And what do they get instead? A wally with a straw hat."
"Don't disturb the cards."
When Nami goes to look for Luffy in Franky's workshop and sees Franky demonstrating the engine he equipped the sled with, she could have kissed him on the spot.
Once she finds the bill for the material expenses on her desk, she is glad that she didn't.
* December 23 *
On the morning of the twenty-third – which doesn't feel at all like a morning because she hasn't slept in days – a Christmas Miracle walks through her door. To her disappointment it comes in the form of Zoro who seems to have made his way back up the cliff in two days flat.
"Found him near some of those glaciers", Zoro explains to her because Luffy isn't listening. He's too busy tickling a tiny fluffy animal with a blue nose. "He was lost."
"You were lost, you idiot", the animal says. It tries it's hardest to look offended and in every other situation Nami would have thought that it was cute. But it's the day before Christmas, heavy storms sept through the holes in her ceiling all night and Franky had somehow managed to ruin the new engine for the sledge. And acting Santa didn't seem to give a damn.
"You're such a dork, Zoro!", Luffy laughs and holds the animal up by his midriff. "Even a raccoon has a better sense of direction then you. Shishishishi!"
"I'm not a racoon, you bastard!", it says and flaps with it's tiny hooves. "I'm a reindeer!"
"Gotcha, gotcha."
"Where are the others?", Nami asks but Zoro only shrugs and makes himself a cup of coffee on her machine. It doesn't do her the honour of exploding in his face. Later, if she finds the time, she will reprogram it. With an axe.
"That's supposed to be a reindeer?", Zoro says to no one in particular as he leans against the counter and has one lazy eye fixed on the animal. "Doesn't look strong enough to me to even lift a present, let alone pull the whole sledge."
Nami blinks for a moment, and the next second Chopper the reindeer is as tall as a tree, ten times as heavy, spots antlers the size of metal bars, glares at Zoro with red angry eyes and the rest of her ceiling is gone. Luffy on the other hand is falling all over himself. "You're a monster! That's so cooooool! Hey you, little monster! Would you guide my sleigh?! We'll find a way to make your nose glow!"
Nami takes a deep breath, tries to regain her centre, finds herself strangely relieved that the sledge problem is finally of the table and chases the whole bunch of idiots out of her office. One glare seems to do the trick.
Later that night, when Franky complains about having the remove the new wheels he just put of the sledge, Nami coldcocks the bastard.
In the middle of the night, the present factory catches on fire. Nami spends exactly ten minutes making sure the goods are safe and regretting profoundly that Missy Zusman won't get her pink fluffy unicorn for Christmas before she lets bygones be bygones and returns to her desk.
Five minutes, she thinks as she buries her face in her arms and closes her eyes, just five minutes.
When she wakes hours later on Christmas Eve, it's because of the sound of an electrical guitar.
* December 24 *
It's already late and the Arctic night is almost at its darkest when she stumbles into Luffy's room to find him laying on the sofa, dead to the world. Usually Luffy is full of energy and all over the place. But once he sleeps, he sleeps like a log.
Even the soundtrack of Go Tell It on the Mountain that shakes the whole cliff to the roots doesn't even make him twitch.
After running around his room for thirty minutes Nami looses her patience and simply hauls him up by the scruff of his neck. Luffy mumbles something unintelligent and definitely not G-rated when she drags him into the shower and makes it very clear to him what he was to do.
"Where is your costume?", she shouts over the tunes of Hark! Those Harold Angels Rock! And turns over the contents of his ward rope for the fifth time.
"No clue", Luffy calls from the bathroom and hums along to the guitar solo. "Ain't seen it in ages."
"And you didn't – I don't know – search for it?"
"Huh?!"
"Never mind! Stay right where you are!"
Maybe she will be lucky and also find that rifle while she's at it. Because right now she has no calms about shooting the symbolic figure of Christmas.
Brook is on his thirteenth performance of Jingle Bell Rock when she stumbles through his door.
"Have you seen the costume?"
He strikes a few more tunes. "Would you like some tea?"
"Costume. Where?"
"My apologies, I haven't seen it since last season. And I don't even have eyes to see with. Yohoho-"
"Help me search."
"It would be my pleasure. Would you like some cookies?"
"Shut up."
"But Nami - "
"You talk an awful lot, Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come,."
Then she starts tearing his room apart. She finds the costume in one of his drawers, among his collection of frilly santa panties – she so didn't need to know that – with a huge stain on the trousers that faintly smells like Christmas pudding.
She doesn't bother closing the drawer and marches towards the door, leaving Brook with his panties, the mess and his guitar. She vows to come back later with a petrol can and a lighter. On her way across the hall she can already hear Brook playing his next song.
" Have a holly jolly Christmas, it's the best time of the year "
She is going to shoot him! She is so going to shoot him! … Once she finally finds that rifle.
"The Santa hat is missing." It seems that even in the state of half undress and already late for the Big Show Luffy still manages to make her life hell.
"Do tell."
"But Naaaamiii!" For all that he is centuries old, he still whines like a little kid. "I can't go without a hat."
"Yes, you can."
"But that just sucks!"
She grabs the old and frayed Straw hat from his spot on the desk and plants it firmly on his head.
"Okay?"
He grins from ear to ear. "Hell yeah."
"Good. Now go. Get the hell out" She pushes him towards the door and goes to the shelf to search for the broom to clean up that sand on the floor. Before she strangles him.
"Hey, Nami?" She turns around and sees Luffy standing in the doorway, with his hat and an open jacket.
"Yeah?"
He smiles at her. "Merry Christmas." Then he's gone.
She still stands glued to the spot long after the door snaps shut behind him.
" … Merry Christmas?" The rifle, that stood right behind his open office door the whole time, seems to mock her.
In the end she decides against the broom, merely opens all the windows and lets the heavy Arctic storm do its magic. She watches the sledge climb high into the sky until it disappears into the night, and suddenly it falls like scales from her eyes that she forgot to make it snow the past few days.
She takes a deep breath and exhales slowly. She closes her eyes.
So there would be no white Christmas this year. Sue her. As if she didn't have better things to do.
Maybe next season.
And on this I wish you guys a Merry Christmas.