Hi, everyone! I don't have much of a forward for this, I wrote it up in about an hour to get out of my writer's block (and practice writing feels) and decided it might be worth posting. I'm about five years without practice for fanfiction, so please go easy on me! I'm sorry in advance if it sucks, I'm going to try my best to get better! My apologies in advance for any stupid typos that might be hidden in this thing, too.
Everything belongs to Oda, not me. He's the best.
It was evening on the Thousand Sunny, almost a year after Luffy's proud coronation as the Pirate King. Somewhere in the calm waters of East Blue, we had been spending time away from trouble as best we could for some well-deserved vacation time. There was still, of course, plenty of fights here and there. However, almost all of them were instigated by lowly-populated marine squads and no-name pirate crews. Apparently East Blue didn't have much to offer in terms of opposition these days... Though I suppose being in the middle of the ocean with no land or trade routes for miles and miles really cuts down on threats.
Most of the crew was enjoying a late-night feast in the kitchen, followed by a friendly game or two of cards at the table. However, I had taken a step out for a minute to sober up after a drinking challenge with Zoro. I won, of course, but it always takes a tad bit more than I'm comfortable with to take him out. Luffy was kind enough to tear himself away from the cards and come with me, though I'm pretty sure he just agreed to come along to get out of a bad hand. He's good at lots of things… but cards isn't one of them, I guess.
We were just sitting together on the ground, with our backs to the setting sun. There was so much I wanted to talk about; private time with any of the crew members, much less our captain, was pretty hard to come by. But it was so calm and quiet that I couldn't really bring myself to say anything. I glanced over at him out of the corner of my eye, and smiled softly. He was staring intently at the ground, completely silent for the first time in what felt like forever. It was relaxing, but kind of off-putting; I couldn't for the life of me figure out what was so interesting about the floor to him.
"What is it?" I finally asked after some time, squirming a little in discomfort.
"Our shadows are overlapping," he noted, pointing forward at the deck below our bodies. "Now they're just one big, silly-looking shadow."
Raising an eyebrow at his bizarre answer, I inched away from him a bit. "Not if I move away, see? Now they're apart again." Glancing up at him, my eyes met with his irritated expression and he snorted half-indignant at me. He wrapped his weird rubber arm around my body a few times and pulled me back against his side awkwardly, unravelling it quickly and putting an arm around my shoulder normally as if that were a logical thing to do. I had half a mind to ask him why he didn't just do that normally in the first place, but decided against it. After so many years at his side, I realized that sometimes it's better to just let him be strange without analysis. Life is a lot less stressful that way.
"I like it better when they're together. It's like we're sharing… or something." he scratched his head clumsily, like the gears in his head were a little stuck. I think I understood what he was getting at though.
"Just let go of me already, stupid." I growled, shoving his face a little with my hand for leverage to move away. He snorted a little and let go, but the moment his hand left my skin I could feel his breath on my shoulder. It was hot, warmer than the air around us at least by a little bit.
"So what comes next?" he asked in an unusually serious tone, lifting up a lock of my hair with one finger gently. I flinched a bit, mostly out of surprise from the intimate sort of action he'd done, but didn't get up or walk away. Finally we were going to talk about things that actually meant something… for better or worse, I guess. "Your maps… they're almost done, aren't they?"
He was right. I'd been working tirelessly for an eternity to get the maps done. They were spotless, accurate, and most importantly, nearly completed. It was all thanks to him that I was able to brave the New World; with anyone else in charge of the journey, I'm not sure if my dream could have ever come true. "With our current momentum," I started lightly, daring not to meet his eyes as I spoke; I wasn't sure if he wanted to hear this or not. "I should… finish within the year."
He smiled brightly, and tipped his hat down to cover his eyes in a dark shade. "That's great… everyone's dreams are coming together so well," There was a long silence. "But you never answered me, you know? About the next step, I mean."
"I, um…" To be honest, I had been keeping the thought of my next move on the back-burner for a long time. I couldn't give him a firm answer, but talking about it probably couldn't wait any longer. We'd left it alone in lieu of just having fun without care for ages, now.
"You mean you don't know?" he raised an eyebrow. "But you're so smart. You always know what's coming next."
"I mean," I started, unable to hide the exasperation in my voice. "I set out to map the world. I've done what I meant to do, you know?"
"And you helped me achieve my dream, too." he pointed out, simply.
"Right," I nodded, pulling my knees to my chest. "I never… really wanted to think about what comes next. I love everyone here. I love the crew, and Sunny. But I love my home, too."
He let out a heavy sigh and looked off into the sea beyond us for a moment before turning back to me. "Nami. Are you happy?"
"What?"
"Did you do your best? Do you feel like you're all done?" his voice was stern and shockingly mature, but his eyes reflected something of a deep shine as he spoke. "This is your life's work we're talking about here, after all." When his words' logic registered, my chest and my heart got tight and strained like a rigid iron fist was trying to squeeze it until it popped.
"...No. I'm not done." I whispered, tears threatening to drip down my cheeks. Expecting him to respond, I waited quietly, trying to keep my body from shaking. But when he finally did speak, what he said wasn't at all what I was expecting him to say.
"Don't leave."
Clenching my fists tightly, I growled and tackled him onto the deck of the ship, pinning him down by the shoulders as hard as I could muster. "How could I?!" I wailed in frustration, my tears dripping down straight onto his chest as I held him down. "I'm happy, of course I am, but I'm not satisfied! What if I decided to map the ocean floor? And then we can circle the sea over and over… t-to record weather patterns of the whole world!" I lifted one hand to wipe my face. To my surprise, Luffy took advantage of the moment my hand retracted to quickly sit up and grab my wrists. His legs were circled around my body, and his face was so close that I thought his eyes might just pop out and hit me in the forehead or something stupid like that.
"You're capable of so much more," he said firmly, gripping my wrists harder and leaning in even closer to stress his point. "And... I can't live without you-" My heart skipped a beat at this. "-you know? I need to keep sailing, or my life will be over. There's still stuff I wanna see. And there's people I wanna meet. Isn't it the same for you? So I won't let you go."
I smiled, nodding as he calmed down a bit and loosened his grip on my wrists. "Geez," I started jokingly, tapping him lightly on the head. "Pirate King, you're so selfish that you won't let a poor girl go home to her family even though she misses them so much?"
"Huh?" He recoiled in shock for a moment, staring in disbelief before he hugged me tight enough to almost knock the breath out of me. "I'm super selfish. The worst, even! But don't go… You wanna visit Cocoyashi again? We can! But you're staying with me forever."
"Forever?" I said teasingly. "Those are some tall orders, stupid captain… what if I meet someone rich and handsome someday?"
"Tch," he scoffed. "As if there's anyone out there more rich than me…"
"How would you know?"
"Agh, whatever, I'll just get you to steal it all from them, then! Geez!" he was obviously getting upset, so I just laughed it off and let it go. "Nami…" he whined, grabbing my waist between his calloused, war-conditioned fingers. "Please." He hid his face in my neck, but I may have seen a tear appearing in the corner of his eye beforehand. Could have just been the light playing tricks, though.
"I was just kidding," I reassured him, going to pat his heading softly. But right before my hand made contact with his head, I felt something wet make contact with the base of my neck. It was hot, and almost kind of… slimy. "L-Luffy!" I squeaked, punching him in the shoulder. When our eyes met, I realized that his expression was no longer sad, but one of heated determination. Had I pushed him too far? Was he angry? But what the hell, was that his tongue on my neck? "What was that?"
"I'm gonna kiss you." he nodded once determinedly. "That'll definitely make you stay, right?"
"Y-you," I stuttered, unable to believe what I was hearing. A wave of heat washed over my face quickly as I lifted a hand to cover my mouth. "Obviously you don't need to do that, idiot! I already decided to stay."
"How do I do it right?" he asked, apparently choosing to ignore what I'd said. Upon inspecting his face for any sign of insincerity, I couldn't find anything at all but genuine seriousness. I paused for a minute, steeling myself to be thoroughly embarrassed, then slowly repositioned myself in his loose embrace to face him properly.
"You don't usually ask stuff like that in this kind of situation, you know! But if you must… th-then, run your hand through my hair like this…" I replied cautiously, slowly taking his hat off his head to run my fingers through his soft, short black hair. My head was screaming at me to stop, hit him, and run away while I had the chance, but my heart wouldn't let move. Part of me really wanted to explore this side of our captain; the side everyone was certain didn't exist at all. So that's what I was going to do. He hummed almost inaudibly in a way that sounded very pleased and copied my movements with his own hands. I was half-expecting him to tear my hair out on accident or something, but his technique was somehow very smooth and inviting. I shuddered a little and let my hand drift over to caress his cheek as he stared down awkwardly. Did he really want this? Second-guessing myself, I moved my hand away from his face reluctantly. But before I could move too far, he leaned to the side to nudge my hand with his cheek.
"Wait, don't stop doing that…" he grumbled, guiding my hand back to his warm skin. "Anyway, um… now like this?" he grumbled, slowly moving to stroke my cheek and down my neck with the back of his hand. There was an obvious blush growing on his ears as he stared intently at my hair, my chest, everywhere but my eyes. Leaning to the side so close that my lips almost touched the redness on his ears, I whispered to him in the most sensual voice I could muster.
"You have to look at my eyes too."
He gulped loudly then finally made eye contact again, now obviously very aware of the look of desire written all over my face. His eyes flickered back and forth blankly between my eyes and my lips as he leaned very slowly forward.
"Now can I...?" he asked quietly, in his usual tactless tone, so close that the hotness of his words heated my lips. My entire body was on the verge of melting in his arms, if he made this go on any longer. Apparently he was in actuality feeling very much so the same, because the moment I made the slightest nod, he hungrily took my lips in his and slid his hand onto the back of my head. His fingers knotted themselves deep in my hair, tugging back slightly to give himself a better angle. As always, he was coming across as a very fast learner.
"Now, what, do I, do?" he managed to ask between swift kisses. I gripped at his shirt desperately, worried that I may fall over and hit my head on the deck if he was any more forceful. In reply to his somewhat poorly-timed question, I bit lightly at his bottom lip and licked gently in the same spot. He growled and leaned his forehead against mine in response and we shared a brief moment of heated eye contact. Immediately he dove back in, shooting his tongue past my lips, and rubbing it along mine harshly. I gasped a little and moaned into his mouth, pulling him forward to hover over me even more. I could feel him smirking a little against my mouth; his tongue wrapped around mine in a weird way, and it dawned on me that he was using his rubber powers inside of my mouth, which I'd obviously never really experienced before. Naturally my eyes shot open in surprise and, in doing so, I realized (even more to my surprise) that his eyes were still half open.
"Luffy!" I pouted, trying to catch my breath. "Your eyes are… d-driving me crazy. Always close them while you're kissing, okay?"
"Got it, sorry," he replied in an oddly husky voice. He quickly dropped his hat on my head and pulled me back into another deep kiss in one motion, which was both startling and incredibly comforting. His eyes were closed tightly in concentration this time, so I let mine flutter shut once more as I succumbed to the Pirate King's carnal assault. "Is this good?" he asked, lifting my chin up to keep our lips nearly connected as he spoke. I could only moan softly again as he kissed me over and over. My lips were starting to burn from the aggression, but I didn't want him to stop. "Don't go away… don't go away."
"I'm not," I said, angrily grabbing him by the cheeks to make him pause and pay attention to my words for a moment. "Stop talking like that, alright?"
He frowned, then darted down to kiss at my neck. "Say it again."
"I'm not… going anywhere, okay?" I stuttered, trying to resist a whole slew of desires rising in me at that moment. "You're impossible sometimes. I've said it a thousand times already."
"Don't… meet some stupid rich and hot guy, either..." he said a little more quietly, biting down on my shoulder. I gasped at the sensation and fell into his body, losing the ability to hold myself up anymore.
"Obviously not," I frowned, my body shaking slightly in his arms. My eyes were hazy and my face was practically on fire, but I could tell through the heat and haze that he was in a very similar state. Finally he was beginning to calm down, at least. "Do you really think that's what I want?"
"I hope not." he said simply, furrowing his brow.
I smiled a bit, running a hand through my thoroughly messed up hair. "By the way, Pirate King, was that kiss, by any chance… premeditated?" I teased, taking in the sight of his disheveled appearance with a sense of triumph, even though he'd definitely done most of the work. "So much energy… if I didn't know any better, I'd almost think you have feelings for me or something."
"What?" he squeaked out, dumbfounded either at the idea of what I was insinuating or merely at the fact I was insinuating it in the first place.
"Sorry, I was just kidding." I shook my head, hiding the slight hint of sadness I felt at his reaction. The idea of Luffy having romantic feeling for anyone at all was in of itself totally ridiculous, though. That said, the idea of him even thinking of kissing anyone was considered totally ridiculous as well, yet here we were. Feeling more than a little bit awkward and confused, I moved to stand up, but he immediately pulled me back down and carefully (but rather forcefully) climbed over me so that my back was against the deck. He was propped up with his hands on either side of my shoulders, but his closeness made me feel completely trapped. There was renewed vigor in his eyes, with a hint of distress. It worried me. "Luffy…?"
"Hey, Nami," he started, staring into my eyes, holding what seemed like the weight of the world in his gaze. "Do you trust me?"
The answer was so easy that it sort of pissed me off. Of course I did, I told him so all the time. But in that position, with my mind on the verge of breaking from all of these new feelings, all I could do was stare at him. In the few short moments of silence his expression twisted into one of irritation, then anger, and lastly bitter desperation. Before I had the chance to get the words out, he captured my lips again, but this time more gently and vigilant than the last few. He put on enough pressure to pin my body against his ship's deck, but not enough for it to hurt. It was weird, being completely at his mercy. I wasn't sure if I loved it or hated it. It felt good, but I also had a moment of empathy for the opponents that fell at his hands over the past years. I tried the best I could to catch my breath, then decided that I needed to stop him before I let him go too far. My leg reluctantly raised up in between his, and he jerked up on response, apparently suddenly realizing what he was doing.
"I love y-"
"I trust you!" I exclaimed then recoiled in surprise, covering my mouth as I realized what I had interrupted him saying. All of my earlier worries were immediately thrown out the window to make room for the confusion and elation that filled my heart at his words. I wasn't sure if I was supposed to kiss him again, or say I loved him too; what if I'd misheard and he was trying to say something different? So I just stared back at him again, watching his shoulders heave as he tried (and failed) to stop his body from shuddering from the physical stress his emotions were causing. "Geez, Luffy, please calm down," I begged, grazing my fingertips down his arms to try to comfort him as his expression melted from one of mania to one of understanding.
He apologized and rolled back on his heels, letting me sit up completely. "Don't scare me like that, Nami." he laughed half-hearted. "I thought for a second that you were losing your trust in me or something. It's okay." He seemed alright now, but upon looking down I noticed that the hand he was propping himself up on was shaking slightly still. I put my hand on top of his carefully and smiled back, taking a seat next to his side. "So uh… weather patterns, huh? Sounds like it's gonna take a long time." he laughed, brushing a few strands of hair from my face as he spoke.
"Yup, a looo-ooong time. Think of all the adventures we have time for, now!" I nodded sagely, hoping that my words would help him feel better and leave the subject of the future alone for a while. I tried not to laugh as I felt his hand twitch excitedly under mine. "But, about what you were saying before…" I started, nervously retracting my hand from his.
"Oh, that?" his grinned widened. "I was trying to tell you that I love you."
"A-ah, yeah, I thought so." I coughed and looked towards the sea, secretly thanking the gods that we'd had this moment together without the interruptions that so commonly occurred on our ship.
"Th-then why did you ask?!" he wailed. "It's not easy saying stuff like that, you know!"
"Could have fooled me. Besides, I wanted you to say it again." I stuck my tongue out a little tauntingly, and he sighed loudly through his nose in defeat. With that, we settled down and leaned against each other for support as we stared out at the dark orange and pink water surrounding the Sunny. It felt amazing to have the weight of our unknown future lifted from my shoulders. And with the knowledge of Luffy's affection on my mind, it was like I was floating on the clouds. In a year's time, I would be happily ending one personal journey and beginning another; still by his side, of course.
"Oh, our shadows are overlapping again." he noted, pointing at the weird-looking blob of darkness on the deck that was sort of in the shape of our bodies together, but really long and stretched out.
"Mm… Not much longer though, since the sun is almost down."
"That's okay," he shrugged. "Since we'll always be together, we can just see our shadows mixed up together again tomorrow."
I snorted at the way he phrased it, but nodded in agreement. "What about the day after that, Pirate King?"
"Well, duh," he responded in exasperation, and put a firm arm around my shoulders again. "All the days after that too, obviously. Are you stupid?"
"I don't need to hear that from you!" I yelled, smacking him in the back of the head.
"Rrgh, you're still so mean…" Luffy pouted. "You're gonna pay for that later."
Thanks so much for sticking with me! It wasn't too bad, right? R-right?
I wonder how Luffy's gonna make her pay "later"... /shot
Hope you'll tune in next time!