A/N: Hi! Trying my hand at one non-sucky fanfiction piece...not so sure about it though. It took me quite a bit of time to complete this…I hope I don't kill your enthusiasm for this awesome fandom and even more awesome crack couple. I have tried to edit it as much as possible but feel free to point out inconsistencies, bad grammar and/or OOC-ness. Constructive criticism and suggestions are always welcome.
DISCLAIMER: If I owned One Piece, it would have long since self destructed.
Dinner Date
She could only attribute her thirst for the affluent lifestyle to this.
He was touching her. Granted, it was merely a hand. Probably the most surprising bit of it all was that she wasn't averse to it. At all. Well, it was a 20% discount for couples but they were just using the offer as an excuse for the physical contact.
Right?
The maitre d' opened up a table for them and she smiled and thanked him charmingly. She ignored his raised eyebrow and how he was itching to pass a comment. He was probably jealous that the man hadn't helped him with his chair.
"I never knew you had it in you to be civil, Ms. Nami."
There. He said it.
But she wasn't going to let it get to her. Not tonight. She was here to enjoy this restaurant and their finer offerings with someone else footing the bill. She sure as hell wasn't here to enjoy the pleasure of his company.
She just smiled at him sarcastically and went back to adjusting the napkin on her lap.
"Would the lady like to order?" questioned a good-looking garcon who'd come to take their order. He reminded her of Sanji immensely – especially the way he was completely ignoring the man on the table and how he looked like he was going to break into an impassioned noodle-dance any second now. Probably someone from Baratie...
"Your finest wine and a lobster dinner." She answered refusing the menu.
He raised an eyebrow from the menu he'd been scrutinizing.
"A steak, medium-rare." He said finally and the waiter loped away after scribbling down their orders.
She was partially surprised, expecting him to take his meat extra-rare. She bit back the remark but immediately regretted it.
"You're an expensive woman."
Well, she had expected it.
"I warned you." She answered, easing back into the comfortable seat trying to seem... comfortable.
But comfortable wasn't what you wanted to be when you were sitting opposite a pirate whose previous bounty had been roughly twelve times yours.
He mirrored her action, sinking into the cushy chair and resting his elbows on the armrest, he hooked his fingers together and took to observing her.
She didn't smile at the attention. She lowered her eyes, fiddling with her oversize clutch in her lap. In reality, she was extracting her weapon from it, masking the action under the table. She hadn't been a cat burglar for over ten years without learning a bit about being prepared for any eventuality.
And with him, it was always hard to tell.
'Always' was probably a bit of a stretch – considering how she'd known him for only a week, maybe two. She wasn't a huge believer in the whole idea of a first impression. Not since Luffy. Or Chopper. Or Robin. Or anybody else she'd encountered since she'd declared herself a Straw Hat pirate.
He was different.
She had never, in all her life (with probably the sole exception of Arlong and his fishman cronies) hated someone so much at sight. The only thing she had hated more than him was the idea of being indebted to him.
So he had saved her captain. While it did not mean that he owed her dinner or anything, it definitely meant that she owed him a date.
She.
Him.
Date.
It wasn't the best idea to express gratitude. And to be completely honest, she wasn't all that keen on it either.
Oh, who was she kidding? She was bored out of her mind. Being stuck on a pleasant spring island with ample beaches for a month was something she thought she needed. But being cooped up on a ship with a childish D carrier whose sole purpose in life (except for the title of 'Pirate King' and good skirmishes) seemed to be FOOOOOD... wasn't the best idea in the world.
Just because she had categorically refused to let the man roam around and wreck havoc did not mean she was a cold hard bitch.
No.
Wait.
She was.
But she wasn't going to take lip from someone who severely lacked foresight. One would think that, at nineteen years of age, he would choose to grow a brain.
He had cried "But Naammii..." in that incredibly irritating tone which had caused her to smudge her first map of the northern coast and spill ink all over the rest. That was when she had changed into a pair of jeans and a shirt, withdrawn some money from her safe, ignored Robin's omniscient smile, slung her purse and barged out of the ladies quarters.
He had grinned at her unashamed, ignorant of her rage.
She had left his face barely recognizable from her beating.
They had made a trip to a store dedicated to cartography and while she shopped, her dearest captain had whined. Continuously. Loudly. Not to mention, he had taken it in his head to poke... things.
"What's this?" he had asked, brandishing an incredibly rare hand carved glass sextant. He had also laughed immaturely at the name of the instrument as the shopkeeper had begged him to put the thing down. Then, he had dropped it...
"Hahahahahaha, OOOPS."
...but caught it just before it fell to the ground and shattered into pieces.
"Oooh, that was CLOSE!"
The proprietor had passed out. She had collected the things she wanted to buy, dropped a ten thousand Beli note (which was merely worth half of the actual total cost of her purchases), carefully placed the sextant near the cash register and seen herself out.
He carelessly walked out of the shop, unsuspecting of anything.
"YOU IDIOT!" she had screamed, whacking him numerous times with her sturdier shopping bags before dumping the same in his care.
"You drop one of these and I WILL KILL YOU. Do you understand that?"
"Yeth. I'b thorry." He had replied through swollen lips.
His apology didn't mean squat moments later when he beckoned a certain furry hatted man and his... bear towards them, apparently overjoyed.
"How is Mr. Straw Hat anyway?" he asked, suddenly eager to make conversation and she was yanked back to the present.
"Ask him yourself."
She aligned her head towards the plate glass window, admiring the fading rays of the sun, anticipating her dinner and covering the ornate mosaic above their heads in bubble enclosed cumulonimbus clouds. Once the bubbles embedded themselves in the miniscule grooves and she confirmed the same after a glance in her handy compact mirror (and, yes, Robin's lipstick was still holding). She slid the Clima-Tact back in her purse and hooked a part of the bo-staff in her thigh holster.
Her emergency escape plan in place, she relaxed slightly. She leaned forward, resting her elbows on the table and her chin on her interlocked fingers.
"Lovely little bistro, ne pas?"
Her attempt to act natural had spiralled out of control. But being a veteran, she was undeterred. She ignored his raised eyebrow and shot him her most beguiling smile. He, in turn, seemed to ignore her sudden urge to spout French nonsense.
She smiled inwardly. It had to work, after all. It was an immensely fancy restaurant and she had chosen to wear a black, floor length silk evening dress slit to mid-thigh. She could be really charming in gowns. A hint of cleavage helped.
Sadly, contrasting to her, he wore a sort of...rubbery (?) tuxedo jacket over his usual clothes. It didn't help that he hadn't relinquished the fuzzy hat or the nodachi.
Just another reason why the garcon had treated her differently.
The garcon in question returned with their dishes piled in his arms. He described her lobster in exquisite detail almost making her water at the mouth. He served her wine and questioned her assessment on its bouquet. He was getting too friendly when the Dark Doctor grunted menacingly.
The garcon's response was dumping his order before him unceremoniously with a dull, "Your steak dinner, Sir."
He then scared the man off with his trademark sinister smirk.
She couldn't help it.
"Jealous, are we?"
He swilled his wine and took an experimental sip. Apparently satisfied with its taste, he spoke.
"You have no idea."
Their meal continued in silence with the ambient din and the rhythmic clinking of cutlery the only things audible. It appeared that he was somewhat cultured. She missed cultured...or at least relatively civil. Well, with Robin it was good but otherwise a meal on the Thousand Sunny was a...battlefield. You didn't get to eat if you weren't quick with your mouth or the least bit cautious.
She loved her fellow nakama but for god's sake...was it too much to ask for a little sophistication as opposed to their usual uncouth behaviour?
Not having anything to fill the silence, she looked out of the window again. The sun had set completely and the numerous street lamps were beginning to light up. The shopkeepers were peddling their wares even more enthusiastically, completely undeterred by the dawn of night time. And they had taken to the streets – literally. It was like a street fair of sorts.
She observed the shoppers as they casually flitted through. A certain dark haired woman sporting aviators on her wide forehead caught her eye from her vantage point, a good two floors off the ground.
Sure enough, an ear sprouting from a palm was camouflaged just under the window sill.
She cursed Robin inwardly.
She then cursed the fact that she couldn't do so out loud.
Robin was leaning against a lamp post with a book in her hand but she knew by experience that the woman was probably staying sharp for bounty hunters, fellow pirates, Marines and Chopper. Sure enough, the reindeer was blushing hard – hard enough for her to discern from that window. Somebody had paid him a compliment...obviously.
She took unconscious bites of lobster meat interspersed with sparse sips of her wine as she stared out of the window and down below. She knew that Nico Robin was nothing if not ten years older than her and that much sneakier. Running from the World Government for over twenty years can do that to a person.
She turned her attention back to her present company. She was not going to lose to the Oharan.
Silently, most of the meal had been consumed though a third of the wine was still left over. She squashed the urge to smirk triumphantly – this whole 'thing' had gone by surprisingly smoothly. He speared the last bit of his steak and chewed on it thoughtfully. She concentrated on finishing her dinner.
After swallowing, he placed his cutlery on his plate and picked up his wine glass by its bowl. After taking a restorative sip, he put it down. He leaned forward, eager to make conversation.
"So," he started in his characteristic lazy drawl, "How long have you been in love with your captain, Ms. Nami?"
She almost spat out the forty year old wine. The question caused an instinctive blush to rise on her cheeks. She swore she heard Robin laughing. Taking a moment to compose herself, she then looked him dead in his eyes, enunciating each word of her next question clearly.
"What the HELL did you just SAY?"
He chuckled darkly, clearly delighted by the reaction he had incited from her.
"You heard me."
He wore that incredibly smug smile which she loathed dearly. She could tell that he took incredible pleasure in knowing that he could get under her skin. Figuratively speaking.
He leaned forward, the tattoos on his fingers clearly visible to her.
"So, how long?" he questioned again and she massaged her temples with her fingers.
"I am NOT in love with Monkey D. Luffy." She replied, a hard edge overtaking her voice.
"Really?"
He leaned back, sounding sceptical at her declaration.
For some reason, now that that bastard had started off this thought process, it was hard for her to let go. Wine and lobster was off her mind and all she could do was stare at him in abject horror.
Fine, so she admired the man. She was annoyed by most of his antics and he was, without doubt, a tough captain to sustain. She owed him too much. He'd become a permanent fixture in her life now (as had her fellow crewmates) and she could hardly imagine life without him (them).
That did not constitute as love.
"Just because I tend to steal his shirts and sleep in them does NOT mean I am in love with him!"
She realized, albeit a bit late, that she had declared that part out loud and rather shrilly. He grinned sardonically and that was when another thing hit her – he was only getting a rise out of her by shooting in the dark at a topic he didn't know anything about.
Her eyes widened briefly but then shrunk back to their normal proportions after she set down her wine glass. Controlling her rapidly increasing anger, she activated the last part of her emergency escape plan (because it probably couldn't get any worse than this). It gave her two minutes, two and a half tops.
Plenty of time.
"It means, I like those shirts." She completed in a completely different tone. He could tell that something had changed – she could see it in his eyes. He could be surprisingly perceptive – she took it as the reason why he continued to evade arrest without much fanfare and fights.
"Right..."
He smirked derisively and she decided that she had to take action – and fast.
She slapped her palms on the table and her chair slid back noisily as she stood up. She didn't care if she drew attention, all she wanted to do was beat the stuffing out of the man sitting right in front of her, enormous nodachi leaning against his chair be damned.
It wasn't her kind of thing. She usually chose to intimidate men through debt collection and sheer confidence and this man here was not affected by either. He was too…shrewd to fall for those tactics. His smart mouth didn't help.
She had to do something relatively unorthodox.
She grabbed the front of his shirt and pulled him upwards.
"Don't you DARE question me." She spat warningly. Cool as ever, he regarded her interestingly.
"I never knew you were so forward, Ms. Nami." He drawled loud enough for the other patrons to hear, "I am afraid I-"
Before the man could utter another word, she had let go of him and was quickly stalking to the exit. She wanted to get out of there as fast as possible, well before her plan was activated...
"Oh mister, that pirate over there is trying to dine and dash!"
…and making sure that he wouldn't leave, collateral damage or not.
"Hey, what are those bubbles?"
The sentence was followed by a blinding flash of light. She didn't bother turning around but instead drew out the rest of her Clima-Tact from her clutch and took a moment to equip them on her thigh holster along with the lone bit of her bo-staff. Then she high-tailed down the stairs as fast as her strappy stilettos could take her.
She didn't know that descending two flights of stairs could take so long. She was running as fast as possible and yet, it seemed to take several lifetimes to burst out of the doors of the building.
Looking up, she saw the window from where she had been enjoying her dinner. The same window had been reduced to shards of glass and the paint outside had been blackened terribly. The lightening had evidently been effective...a little too effective, if she were immodest.
Robin had weaved in through the crowds and was standing next to her, wearing her serene smile. Chopper looked a bit unnerved.
She couldn't help it – she grinned shamelessly.
"There, told you I could do it." she pointed at her handiwork, "You owe me twenty thousand Beli. Cough up."
Robin, still smiling calmly, reached into her wallet and drew out two notes of ten thousand each and placed them in her eager hands.
"We'll see about that." She said, adjusting her sunglasses despite the fact that it was dark out and she didn't actually need them, "Chopper and I will see you on Sunny."
She was confused at her words.
"What, I won't be coming with you two?" she spluttered, "What are you talking about Robin?"
Robin gazed at her briefly and then left with Chopper in tow.
She was flummoxed at their actions. She hadn't even begun to start processing what Robin could've meant when she felt a hand on her bare shoulder and heard a familiar voice.
"Well played, Ms. Nami."
It was out of pure reflex that she whipped around violently.
"What the hell?"
He seemed fine. Perfectly fine aside from a few scorches – mostly on his precious hat. She knew he had an idea about her weapons but she was pretty sure that almost no one could escape lightening. Except Luffy and he was made of rubber.
Speaking of rubber...
Her eyes widened when she surreptitiously felt the material of his jacket. Then she tried to rationalize how he could've completely escaped any harm.
"You really didn't think that I had no idea what you were doing, did you?"
"Excuse me?"
An arm of his snaked around her waist and he pulled her close. Again she noted how she wasn't completely repulsed by his action.
Instead of being furious, like any normal person, he was surprisingly calm…and thoroughly amused for some reason. It unnerved her to see that sinister leer firmly planted on his face.
"You see, Ms. Nami," he explained, as his grip around her flimsy waist tightened, "I believe in being prepared for every eventuality."
"So every girl you take out on a date wants to murder you?" she scoffed, "Actually, I don't find that hard to believe."
She smirked at her own witticism. To her surprise he grinned broadly as well. This in itself caused her lighter mood to dissipate.
"What?"
"For trying to electrocute me, some payback is inevitable."
"You're kidding, right?"
She raised a sardonic eyebrow. For some reason, even though she was in the presence of one of the more merciless pirates, a man whose very moniker struck fear in the hearts of civilians everywhere, she wasn't scared. At all. Usually she would've had at least ten thoughts about her self-preservation on the spot.
At the moment, however, she was uncharacteristically callous towards the whole situation.
It took some fifteen seconds of silence for things to sink in and for him to speak up.
"You know, Ms. Nami, this was a date."
She looked up at him again, suddenly aware of something amiss in his tone.
"What are you talking about?" she questioned cautiously, disturbed by the triumphant look on his face.
"You, me, date." His smirk grew wider, "Use your imagination."
She took a moment to stop herself from rolling her eyes in contempt.
"Let's see…would you like to be electrocuted once again?" she batted her eyelashes, sarcasm in her tone evident.
"You are to give me a goodbye kiss, Ms. Nami." He stressed. "You know, as per custom."
She gave him an incredulous look. Of course, he was right – nothing disgusted her more than her touching him willingly.
"Since when do you follow customs?" she countered, unnerved by the idea of more physical contact with him, "No 'goodbye kiss', I'm leaving."
Her brave and optimistic words were soon followed by several moments of struggling against his not-so-unpleasant grip.
"I am not kissing you," she declared hotly, "What are you going to do about it?"
"My arms seemed to have taken quite a liking to you, it seems, so you'll be coming with me."
Even though he had clearly declared his impure intentions she still wasn't as terrified as she should've been normally. It was unlike her but she wanted to push him…push him and see how far he would go.
"Uh, no."
"I don't believe you have a choice in the matter."
It was probably her defiant look that spurred him on.
"Don't you want your captain to come and rescue you?" he taunted gleefully, "Don't you want him to be your knight in shining armour?"
It got to her. She didn't think it would, but the remark irritated her.
"Shut up."
"What was that?"
Before she could reply back, he closed the distance between. Their noses almost touching, she could feel his hot breath on her. Again, it surprised her – she wasn't expecting him to be warm. He made it next to impossible to avoid his eyes so, seeing no choice, she looked. Sure enough, all thought of warmth was driven from her mind when she encountered his intense icy blue irises. They were cold, so cold… and yet, Nami could feel her temperature rising.
She had bluffed through worse situations than this but here she couldn't even get her body to behave.
"Would care to repeat yourself?" the tone was low, coaxing, the same kind used on spooked animals.
She smirked defiantly, hoping to con him with her cool behaviour.
"Screw you."
His voice was a bare whisper.
"Wrong answer."
It wasn't something she was expecting to find out but she did. It was hot, volatile and disturbingly pleasurable. For the first time in her life, she was experiencing a short circuit of the brain. The sheer idea that she was actually enjoying this left her unable to process anything.
Who on EARTH did she have to kill to forget this?
He was tugging at her long tresses and his hands, previously on her waist, were lowering by the second. It was only when he nipped at her bottom lip that realization struck and her body, languid under his touch, spurred into action. Before she could react and keep him from discovering her weapons, he slowly disentangled himself from her.
She assessed the damage all the while remaining as stiff as a board. Her lips were bruised from his assault on them, she was having trouble breathing and her body was crying out for the heat it had just lost. He was leering satisfactorily. She swore there was a comment coming on from her less than zero reciprocation but she was surprised when he chose to simply take her hand and kiss it delicately.
"It's been a pleasure." He said as she stood there unresponsively, his words dripping with meaning.
He bent down and handed her clutch back to her. She took it, the weight coaxing all feeling back to her digits. He tipped his blackened hat at her in a mock-chivalrous gesture and then sauntered away leisurely, one hand in his pocket, the other supporting his nodachi.
The walk back to Sunny wasn't very long but to her it felt like ages. She could only attribute it to the alertness of all her nerve endings, making her flinch with every step. She couldn't even console herself with his wallet – the third one she had nicked in two weeks – because he was getting wiser to her tactics.
She had opened the said wallet to investigate once she were at a safe distance…nothing. Nothing at all was in there. No money, no ID – there was nothing in the wallet aside from a folded piece of paper...and a photograph?
She had smoothed out the note.
Try again, Ms. Nami.
She screamed out of frustration again. Only he was capable of making her feel so irritated and confused at the same time.
"What am I supposed to do with your shitty photograph?"
The howling winds seemed to hold no answers.
"Nami!" called her captain happily as she set foot on the deck, "Law left something for you."
She raised an eyebrow. That despicable man left something for her. She didn't expect that. When did he do it anyway?
"You didn't look, did you?" she asked, eyeing the package in his hands.
"Nope." He replied proudly and handed over the said package. She was surprised - now that was uncharacteristic of the usually curious Luffy. She decided to spare belting him in the head for the day.
"...What are you going to do with his shirt, by the way?"
And just like that, she recanted her promise and hit him hard in the head.
Sure enough, when she unwrapped the thing, she found that ridiculous black and yellow hoodie of his, accompanied with a note which (judging by the lack of gravy) had been left untouched by Luffy.
I hope you enjoy wearing this as much as Mr. Straw Hat's.
She screamed loud and long out of sheer frustration.
Somewhere over the ocean, heading to the next island, Trafalgar Law grinned evilly. He could almost hear the Straw Hat's navigator's screams.
"What are you smiling about, Captain?"
He waved away Bepo's question, imagining the flustered look on her face.
Omake:
Nami placed the things in a pile – a photograph, a shirt and a strand of hair which had been stuck on her dress. She disregarded the fact that it was really her trusted nakama who had goaded her into taking up the ridiculous challenge. She even dismissed the truth that she had probably tipped off the target adversary in advance. Right now she needed help.
"Robin?"
The dark haired occupant of the room looked up from her book.
"What's a black magic technique to curse someone?"
A/N: Just a little blurb regarding Luffy-Nami here…in my opinion Nami does have a thing for Luffy but she is of two minds here – in one case she is deeply impressed by the awesome Luffy and on the other hand, when she sees him otherwise (in his stupid mode), she tends to rethink her (supposed) feelings towards him ("Oh, God, this idiot?").
Either way, in the end, to her the nakama-ship is more important.
Again, your thoughts on this piece will be most appreciated! Thanks for reading! ^_^