Yet another long voyage. It was always easy to forget on the Grand Line just how big the Blues were in comparison. Each one was an enormous expanse of water multiple times larger than the Grand Line. Coming back to experience these peaceful seas, Luffy could see how the most famed and feared ocean earned its reputation.

It wasn't just the unpredictable weather. Or the barely navigable island chains. Or even the fearsome opponents. Though of course all of those contributed in their own way. Those were merely the entry fee. No.

The real threat of the Grand Line... It was how cramped the place was.

A pirate could sail the East Blue and it might take years for them to face any real hardship. There were marines, sure. And they did their jobs (though the Captain was starting to have doubts about that given recent events). But if you were a competent sailor with a decent navigator you could avoid them easily enough. The sea was predictable and that made the marines predictable. Don't go where the big dogs are and you'd be fine. From Luffy's understanding that came down to simply 'don't go to Loguetown'. Oh, and that one place somewhere in the middle of the sea where some secret project was happening. All you had to do was be smart and to avoid those places and you could become a fearsome pirate with a respectable bounty. Kuro was proof of that. For all of his reputation, the man was nowhere near as smart as he thought he was.

But the Grand Line? An entirely different situation. Gramps had called it a crucible. It was a place where all kinds of different people came together wanting to prove themselves. And because of the tight confines of safe travel routes they quickly found each other and came into conflict. And when that happened, well, you either made the cut or you didn't. And if you did? That didn't mean it would end. For pirates, they had no choice but to keep going. The Marines had a way to traverse the Calm Belt and escape the chaos, but pirates were lucky if they ever found such a thing. No, once they were in, that was it. They would fight and strive and survive until they couldn't anymore.

And then there were Marines. Like him. They weren't driven by necessity like the pirates were. Whatever a pirate's motivation to tackle the Grand Line, it became secondary once they were actually there. Marines didn't have that kind of desperation so all they had instead to drive them forward was whatever motivated them to enlist in the first place.

Could that ever match against a will to push onward or die trying?

"Captain Luffy!"

Luffy startled, jerking in his spot on the rail of the Saul's aftcastle. Glancing behind him he saw who he expected on placing the voice. "Hey, Nami. Need something?"

"You changed our course," she answered, a hint of accusation in it.

"Ah, yeah," Luffy said with a limp shrug. "We were going to head to Base 16 to offload the prisoners but..." he trailed off as he realised much as he liked and wanted to recruit the girl, she wasn't a marine. "We've... Got secret things that need taking care of. We'll be able to offload most of 'em at our new destination."

"Only most?" Nami asked, not caring to comment on Luffy's idea of playing things close to the vest was to just say 'secret' and hope people left it at that.

"Yeah, the mook pirates. The big names we need to make sure we get credit for. I mean I don't really care but my crew would get mad if they somehow lose the bounty. If it's important to them it's important to me. The big names like Buggy and Kuro we'll keep on the Saul. Safer that way anyhow."

"Buggy..." the redhead echoed quietly memories flashing through her mind. "Could I talk to him?"

"Hmmmm," Luffy grumbled, abandoning his bird-like perched posture for sitting cross-legged on the rail. "Not really supposed to..."

"Oh, come on, what could it hurt?" she cooed gently, moving close and running a hand along his arm.

"Hmmmm..." he grumbled again, "Not supposed to let civilians talk to prisoners..."

"Please?" she asked again, pressing a little closer to him, batting her eyelashes.

"Hmmmm... Yeah, okay!" Luffy nodded firmly, grin spread across his face as he spun and stood to face her.

"Really? Thank you, Captain!" Gone were the fluttering eyelashes and the coy flirting, replaced with a woman celebrating an easy victory.

"Yup! You enlist with my crew and I'll let you talk to him!"

"Ghk!" Nami stopped in her tracks and awkwardly shifted back to her flirting attempts, the abrupt change not going flawlessly, her fluttering eyelashes looking more like she was having a mild seizure. "Oh, Captain, surely that isn't necessary! I just want to... to ask him something! That's all!"

"No, it's pretty necessary! Regulations and all."

"But Captain..."

"Hmmmmm..." Luffy went back to grumbling. "Okay. I'm pretty flexible... Heheh," he giggled as he twanged his arm like a rubber band, "How about... You can talk to him with me there–"

"Great!"

"– And you can enlist when we've dealt with Arlong!"

"... Great!"

She had hesitated. She knew she had. But it was the usual hesitation barely anyone would notice. The kind she made whenever she agreed to something she never intended to follow through on.

And as the marine bade her follow him to the brig she found herself really examining what should have been a simple, breakable promise like the hundreds of others she had made. Really, was it a promise she would break? 'After they dealt with Arlong' implied they definitely would...

A life beyond Arlong... Rarely had she indulged in such idle fantasy when Cocoyashi were still counting on her even if they didn't know it.

Nami wasn't certain they could 'deal' with Arlong. But if Marines from headquarters couldn't, she would be back to enjoying Arlong's not so tender mercies. Back to her cage. Back to their deal...

But then. Did she really expect the fishman pirate to honour it, in the end? She thought herself better than any pirate, but she still lied and cheated to get what she wanted. Why would a pirate not stoop to such things to keep what they wanted?

"We're here," Luffy said as he unlocked the door to the brig, the marine standing guard giving the orange haired girl some side-eye as they entered the dingy room.

"Wow. That's a lot of pirates."

The brig wasn't large. Only logical as the ship itself was very much on the smaller side for a warship. And with the two crews captured, the Buggy Pirates and the Black Cat Pirates, the walls were lined with unwashed criminals chained to rails. There were so many, makeshift bunks had to be made so the prisoners could be stacked atop one another. Separated at corners of the room were the four most dangerous. Cabaji, Mohji, Jango and Kuro getting their own little spaces and secured tighter than the 'mooks' as Luffy described them.

And there in the middle, head detached and sitting on a barrel that more than likely contained the rest of his body, was Buggy the Clown.

"Well, you wanted to talk to him," Luffy said, gesturing at the slack jawed head with its eyes rolled back. "There he is."

"Is he even conscious?"

"Hey, pretty girl! Is this a conjugal visi– UGH!" A mook leered, only to get popped in the face by Luffy, soundly knocking him out.

"Dunno, let's find out. HEY, BIG NOSE!"

"Huwahhhh ahhh ya... flashy... fucker..."

"He's awake."

"Can we wake him up more?" Nami pleaded.

Luffy shook his head firmly. "No can do. That's what salt water does to Devil Fruit users and I'm not gonna let him out just for a chat. Too much of a risk."

"But–"

"Nope. Sorry. You want to talk to him, talk to him like this or not at all."

The girl sighed but decided to take what she could get. She had started to pick up on some of the Captain's mannerisms by now, at least insofar as how to sway him. Put simply, if he directly said no you would need to move the seas themselves to convince him otherwise.

She marched up to the clown pirate's head, grabbed it by the hair and slapped it across the face. "Hey, Buggy!"

"Huwahhhhh..." It murmured, before the eyes seemed to roll around, recognising the girl holding it. "Wahhhh... Red... Headed... Witch!"

"Nice to see you too, Buggy. I need to ask you something."

Slightly working its jaw seemed to be the closest it could get to sneering at her. "Took... my map... Took my freedom... Got... nothing else for you... Witch... Suck my... flashy... balls..."

"HEY!" she growled, using her free hand to grab and honk the clown's nose.

The clown's face wrinkled up but it gave no other reaction.

"Why did you keep to your offer! You wanted me dead, why not just kill me?"

"Haaahaaa..." What came out of the clown's mouth might be considered a laugh, if an especially sleepy one. "Didn't... Want to... I have... some standards... But never thought you'd... agree... Gave my word..."

"You gave your word?" she echoed incredulously. "What the hell is the word of a pirate supposed to be worth?!"

"Fuck off... Witch..."

A chuckle erupted in one corner of the room. "You don't know much about real pirates do you, little thief? OW!"

Luffy looked at his fist as it snapped back into place from punching Cabaji. He shrugged. "Sorry."

"I know plenty about pirates," she spat at the chained up acrobat.

"Do you? Pirates are free, thief. They see the chains of law and order and long for another path. They serve no authority but their own. If they make an agreement, they'll do what they can to honour it, even if they don't want to."

"You're lying."

Cabaji shrugged with what little movement his chains allowed. "You said it yourself. It's what the Captain did, isn't it?"

The navigator's brain turned the conversation over in her mind. She would have to think more on it but she got all she could from this. Putting the head back on its barrel, she turned and followed Luffy out, the guard securing the door behind them. "Thank you, Captain."

"No problem," he replied casually, watching his future navigator chew on her lip and seem to shrink in on herself, clearly stewing over what the pirates had said. "Did you get what you needed?"

"Hahaha! No, I don't think I did," she laughed bitterly. "That's the thing about asking if someone's honest. You can never trust the answer."

"Does it really matter if you can trust their word or not?"

"Huh?"

"There are pirates out there, the nicest people you'd ever meet. Don't care much about the whole 'pillage and slaughter' thing, kind of look down on it too. The kind of folks who pick a fight only if they've got a damn good reason. They just want to live freely, by their own rules. Then you've got ones like Kuro... Or Arlong. Piracy is a means to an end for them. They don't care about freedom. They want things. Money, fame, power, even just to hurt people. Now which kind of pirates should you trust?"

"Well, since you're a marine I feel like you're going to say 'neither'," Nami jibed. "They're pirates, after all."

"Close. They're people," Luffy corrected with a grin. "Anyone can lie. Pirates can lie. Marines can lie. Civilians can lie. What people say doesn't matter near as much as what people do. If someone's not causing problems I'll happily drink with 'em. If they are? Well, I punch 'em until they stop."

"That's a pretty simple way to look at it," Nami laughed.

Luffy shrugged. "Worked for me so far."

-(-)-

The Baratie was a nice idea, Luffy decided as he looked over the gigantic floating restaurant ship with its fish head figurehead. A restaurant out on the open ocean along multiple travel routes. A spot of civilisation on what would be a long journey no matter which way you were coming or going.

Luffy knew he was sick enough of hardtack and other marine provisions that he was ready and willing to shell out the cash for some real food.

The other marine ship docked with the restaurant would have been difficult to miss. While it was by no means comparable to the battleships seen nearer the heart of the Grand Line, it still held a significant size difference to the Saul. And as the smaller ship docked at the restaurant, a pink head of hair appeared over the rail of the larger ship.

"Captain Luffy, Sir!" Fullbody shouted, eager but trying to maintain propriety. "Permission to come aboard!"

"Granted, Lieutenant!" Luffy shouted back.

With no further prompting the pink-haired marine, hopped up onto the rail of his own ship and then down onto the deck of the Saul, only a slight bending of the knees betraying any effort in the feat. The young officer seemed to have spent much more effort on his appearance to mixed results. The hair and the scar running from his cheek down to his jaw tended towards the roguish but the suit... Oh, the suit. One would not think a suit in such soft colours as white and duck-egg blue to be so loud. On the whole, he looked like a sleazy club host. Or possibly a bouncer given the knuckleduster he had one one hand.

"Good to meet you in person, Sir!" Fullbody said, saluting once again. "How is your comms officer faring?"

"Recovering well, Lieutenant, thanks for asking."

"That's good to hear, Sir."

A silence fell between the two officers, only broken by the waves and the Saul's crew securing the ship to the restaurant's dock.

"What's with the suit?" Luffy asked, never one to shy away from satisfying his curiosity.

Fullbody coughed awkwardly. "Well, you see Sir, I was, err, well this whole situation really was a lucky break for me. This was actually supposed to be my vacation but one thing led into another and the Krieg situation wasn't an opportunity I could pass up. But at the same time... Well, I was with a lovely lady and I'd hate to disappoint her." The Lieutenant looked wistfully up to his ship and saw said girl leaning over the rail, pouting. Smiling, he blew the woman a kiss which only made her pout harder.

"So... The suit is for her?"

Looking back to his superior, Fullbody cleared his throat awkwardly. "Well, I had planned to take her to dine in the restaurant today. You arrived sooner than I thought you would, Sir."

"Oh, well that's no problem, Fullbody! You'd have to fight to keep me out of that place after eating provisions for so long!" Luffy said with a grin. "Tell me, do they serve red meat?"

"Ehh, ahh," Fullbody uttered, looking from his superior back to his date and realising how badly things were falling apart.

"Oh, yes, a real meal sounds lovely!" a new voice joined the conversation, an orange-haired girl coming in close with the marine Captain and linking her arm with his.

"Oh? Oh!" the Lieutenant's expression shifted from worry to relief to joy, "We would of course be delighted for you and your companion to join us, Captain! With your permission, Sir, I'll just go inform my date of the change in plans."

Luffy half shrugged, half nodded in response, good enough for Fullbody it seemed as he leapt back over to the hull of his ship and started climbing.

"What was that?" Luffy asked, looking down at the slightly shorter girl, more specifically at their linked arms.

"Me doing you a favour," Nami smirked up at him.

Luffy shrugged. "If you say so. I still get to eat meat, right?"

"Yes, Captain," she sighed with a roll of her eyes, "You still get to eat meat. Now go dress up. A suit, shirt and tie, something that's not... that," she ordered, looking his outfit of vest and shorts up and down and clearly finding them wanting.

"Why? I hate dressing up!" Luffy whined.

"Because it'll make working with him easier if you help him impress the girl. Help him out and he'll help you out."

"Hmmmmm..."

"Just go get dressed already!"

-(-)-

"Hey, Captain, you clean up pretty nice!" Cassidy called down to him from her usual spot in the crow's nest.

"Thanks!" he called back before muttering to himself, "Doesn't make me like it any better though."

"Ready to go, Captain?"

Turning to look, he saw Nami appearing from below deck, moving with what felt to him like exaggerated grace and poise. She wore a cream dress with wine-coloured ruffles running rings around the sleeves and body. "Whaddya think?" she asked, giving a twirl, "Not bad for a rush job, huh?"

The wolf-whistles from the crew made clear their approval better than words could.

"You look great," Luffy said shrugging. "You usually do, though."

She sighed. "Well, I guess that was mostly a compliment," she said with hands on hips before strolling over and taking his arm. "Shall we go? We wouldn't want to keep the Lieutenant waiting."

"Sure," Luffy agreed, inwardly disappointed that with her hanging on his arm like this he couldn't just fling himself at the restaurant with his rubber powers.

The pair disembarked from the ship, making their way to the restaurant proper via rowboat to avoid ruining their clothes. At the entrance, Fullbody seemed to be entertaining his date with sweet talk, kissing her knuckles affectionately as the other... 'couple' approached. "Ah, Captain!" he startled, straightening to stand to attention once again.

"At ease, Fullbody," Luffy said, giving permission for the junior officer to relax. Fullbody wasn't on his crew so as far as Luffy was concerned, didn't need to suck up to him quite so much. "And feel free to call me Luffy."

"Ah, yes si– Err, that is, thank you Luffy," Fullbody answered with a much easier smile. "Oh, but I'm forgetting my manners! "Moodie, this is Captain Monkey D. Luffy from Marine HQ. Ca– Luffy, this charming and lovely woman beside me is Moodie."

"It's nice to meet you, Captain Luffy," said Moodie, the woman blushing girlishly at Fullbody's effusive compliments.

"Nice to meet ya!" Luffy greeted with a grin. "This is Nami."

"A pleasure," Nami greeted, curtseying slightly.

"Shall we, then?" Fullbody asked, leading the way into the restaurant proper giving the greeter their reservation, he requested a table for two instead of four. Tourist destination or not, the Baratie was a restaurant in the middle of open ocean. There were plenty of spare tables.

"What are you doing?" Luffy asked Nami in a whisper as they were escorted to their table.

"With what?" Nami responded in kind.

"The whole nicey-nice thing with the curtsey and stuff."

The navigator's expression turned sour. "You think I can't be nice?"

"The first time we met you punched me in the face."

"And the first time we met you deserved it!" she retorted. "Look, sometimes you need to be nice, sometimes you need to punch someone in the face. This is a time to be nice." As she adopted her pleasant expression once again, she added as an afterthought, "Also if you eat like a rabid animal I'm going to stab you in the leg."

"Nice Nami is mean," Luffy pouted.

"Your table," the blond greeter... Waiter? Informed them, depositing menus before wandering off to the kitchen.

Luffy moved to take his own seat until he realised Nami had snagged one of his fingers. She discreetly gestured to her own chair. It was a good couple of seconds before he picked up what she was putting down and pulled the chair out for her.

The foursome settled into their dining experience, Nami explaining to Luffy with the patience of a saint that this was a fancy place so food was served in multiple courses. So no, he could not order 'meat' and be done with it.

As they waited for their first course to arrive, Luffy and Fullbody began to talk work without realising it. "Yeah, that Gin, we caught him trying to make his way to Loguetown in a little boat. Half-starved. He was a tough bas–, err fellow even then but not too much for me!" Fullbody bragged with a one-two punch into open air.

"It's been pretty scary knowing a man like him has been on the ship," Moodie added, shuddering.

"Ah, yeah. We've got a few we need to hand off to you guys also," Luffy nodded along.

Seeing how Moodie cringed at hearing that, Nami decided a change in subject was in order. "So, how has your time in the East Blue been besides that, Lieutenant?"

"Peaceful," he said simply. "It's nice to just get away from patrolling the entrance to the Grand Line."

"Oh, you were doing that too?" Luffy asked.

"Yeah, lot of pirates trying their hand at joining the big leagues but we showed them what for!" the Lieutenant laughed. "It's nice to just spend some time relaxing before getting back to it."

"Huh. It was the other way around for us. Nothing on the Grand Line and then we get ordered out here for no reason and we're suddenly up to our eyeballs in pirates and corrupt marines. It's weird."

Fullbody's lips pursed at hearing that. "You were ordered away also?"

"Yeah, it was weird. Reassigned but with no new orders. We just started pirate hunting because I was bored."

"A-ha-ha-ha, it seems a bored Captain Luffy is a terrifying thing!"

Moodie laughed along with her date as Nami murmured into her wine, "Don't I know it."

Voices of other diners seemed to carry to the table in whispers that were perhaps a little too loud to actually be whispers.

"Isn't that Iron-Fist Fullbody over there?"

"Oh my! Isn't he a Lieutenant from Marine HQ?"

"So dashing!"

Fullbody's reaction seemed to be to preen while trying very hard not to look like he was preening.

The first course of soup was served and enjoyed. Occasionally Luffy would get a little too enthusiastic about enjoying it. Anyone paying attention would perhaps have noticed Nami's fork disappearing from the table briefly and Luffy would quickly calm down again.

Suddenly, a commotion was heard outside, and in the door appeared a marine with a bloody face. "Lieutenant Fullbody, sir! It's Gin! He's escaped!"

"What?!" Fullbody yelled, kicking his chair back as he got to his feet.

"We don't know where he's–!" the enlisted man continued before the bang of a pistol sounded, the marine coughed and fell forward revealing the form of the so called Demon Gin calmly entering the restaurant.

"Nami, stay here," Luffy ordered, moving toward the front of the restaurant to intercept the pirate.

"No argument here," Nami agreed.

As the two marines continued to move to halt the pirate and arrest him again, Gin seemed to entirely ignore them, instead choosing to sit at the nearest empty table. Only empty as the people nearest Gin had fled as soon as he appeared. "Food. I don't care what."

The blond waiter from before approached the pirate fearlessly. "Is he insane?!" Fullbody asked aloud. "Waiter, stay away from that man, he's dangerous!"

"What can I get you?" the waiter asked, ignoring the marine's warning.

"I don't care, just bring me food." An unholy gurgle erupted from the pirate's stomach as he said it.

"... Got it," the waiter answered, heading into the kitchen.

Fullbody gaped as he watched the blond just casually go to serve a pirate food after killing a marine right in front of him. "Captain, we have to capture him now!"

"Fullbody..." Luffy said, "Lieutenant," his voice had gone cold, "You said he was half-starved when you captured him. You did feed him, yeah?"

"I... But... Sir, he's a pirate!"

Luffy sighed through his nose, the sound more like the snorting of a bull. Fullbody didn't see the fist coming as it snapped his head back, the force pushing him back a step to stay on his feet. As his face came back into view, blood was running in rivulets from his nose, his expression confused and angry. "Sir?!"

"Mister Gin, I apologise for your treatment," Luffy said to the shock of every other patron. "The Lieutenant here will be paying for your meal, and then you will be detained once again."

"Confident of that, are you?" Krieg's man asked, only moving enough to say the words.

At that moment, the entrance was filled once again, this time by Bruno and Cassidy.

"Yep."

"Sir, with all due respect, have you gone mad?!" Fullbody exclaimed, voice made slightly nasal from the damage to his nose.

"Lieutenant, I am sick and tired of marines trying to justify starving people to me. I don't care how your CO ran things, if I see anyone treating people with less than with basic dignity, they'll get what you just got at best."

"So much for this being a time to be nice," Nami muttered in the background, holding her head in her hands.

"Huh. A marine with his head on straight. Imagine that," the blond waiter remarked as he came back out. "And for the record, if your Captain hadn't done it, I sure as shit would have. Your food." He dropped the plate on the table and before his hand even came off it, Gin was shovelling food into his mouth.

"... Fullbody, did you get anything out of him about Krieg?" Luffy asked quietly.

"No," the bloody Lieutenant answered, holding a napkin under his nose to stem the bleeding. "A lot of begging for food, yelling about not giving us Krieg, that kind of thing."

"... Bruno, keep an eye on Gin. Fullbody, with me. Waiter, can we talk to the owner?"

"Sure, he's working in the kitchen," the blond shrugged. "Also, not a waiter. I'm the sous-chef, Sanji."

The now named Sanji led the two marines into the kitchen, past multiple cooks giving Sanji side-eye for some reason. However, they also seemed ready to jump the pirate at any moment if the situation called for it. "Oi, shitty old man!" Sanji called.

"Stop callin' me that you little eggplant!" someone shouted back in a rough voice. The speaker appeared from under a stove, hat first. And then more hat. And more hat.

… It was a tall hat.

Following the hat was a rugged blond man with a moustache that may have been slightly inspired by Whitebeard's infamous facial hair. "Marines, eh? Whaddya want? Everything about this restaurant is completely above board."

Luffy shrugged. "Okay." The one word accurately conveying exactly how little the marine cared about the restaurant's operations. "We're here to talk to you about pirates."

"Oh, yeah?" the growling voice dropped an octave, "What about 'em?"

"We'd like your help in apprehending some."

"We would?!" Fullbody asked incredulously.

"We would."

The owner burst out laughing at the request. "Ah-Ah-Ah! That's not really the business we're in, kid! We feed people, not put 'em in irons."

"Well, for what we're planning you'll be doing both," Luffy assured.

The chef's eyes narrowed. "Just say your piece so I can say no."

"That pirate out there, Gin. He's starving. He was captured away from his crew but he's still fiercely loyal to them. He's the right hand man of Don Krieg. They wouldn't let him starve if they had a choice. That means they're starving too."

"And?" the owner scoffed. "I'd serve 'em the same as you, pirate or not."

"Has everyone gone crazy today?!" Fullbody exclaimed. "This isn't just an ordinary pirate crew. This is the Krieg Pirates we're talking about! Foul Play Krieg! If they come here, they won't just happily get a meal! They'll take your food, your ship and your lives!"

"I don't care what kind of men they are," Sanji interjected. "If they're starving, I'll feed 'em."

"And we want you to," Luffy agreed. "Gin is going to get away. Shut up, Fullbody."

The pink-haired marine's jaw snapped shut before he could call the Captain crazy again.

"Gin is going to get away, because we need to find and apprehend Don Krieg. As marines go, I'm pretty lenient when it comes to the label 'pirate', but men like Krieg have to be stopped for everyone's sake," Luffy told the chefs, before going into what he was planning. "We've got two options. We hope we can follow him back to Krieg by ship, hope he doesn't notice. That's not likely. Or, we could let Gin lead them here. You feed them at my expense, and then we capture them."

"... Kid," the owner growled, "Do you have any idea how ludicrous that plan is?"

"No?"

"I figured. Kid, from the sounds of it, you don't need my consent for this plan. You do what you're gonna do. We'll only have a problem if you try to stop me feeding people. We clear?"

"Yup." Luffy nodded firmly.

"Oh, also we need you to close the restaurant for a couple days."

The only surprising thing for Fullbody as he saw Luffy get kicked across the face was that the chef had a peg leg.

-(-)-

A/N: Alright. The Krieg thingy getting going. Also some character stuff for Nami that was important to get through before this bit really kicks off.

So butterflies! Luffy is friendly to Fullbody so no cannonball. No cannonball means no breaking Zeff's roof. No breaking Zeff's roof means Zeff is around to give Fullbody the right wine. Fullbody gets the right wine so he's less of an asshole (also the whole 'right in front of a superior officer' thing).

Fun thing looking at the wiki? Aside from this one scene in canon? Fullbody is actually a pretty decent dude. Go figure.

Also? To be clear? This wasn't me doing shipping of the pairing variety. I like the pairing but this is just the characters being the characters. Luffy did Nami a solid so she's repaying the favour (while also bilking him out of a free, moderately expensive meal).

If you would like to support me directly, there is now a way you can do so through popular donation platform that I'm not allowed to say the name of on this site. You know the one. Please consider helping out. As long as I'm receiving even a single dollar from someone who thinks my writing is worthwhile, I guarantee at least a chapter of something a week.

Thanks for reading.

EDIT: Oh, and big, big, big thanks to The Patient One for helping out at the eleventh hour on this one. Probably wouldn't have made the deadline without him.