Guests

Characters: Bepo, Straw Hat Pirates. Rating: K. Warnings: None

Having half of the Straw Hats invading their precious home was not, in reality, as fun as Bepo had thought it would be. Not only were all the fun ones he'd got to know not among their current guests, but he also realised that, barring their captain, the advance party to Zou had been made up of the saner members.

Pirate Hunter was a good a place as any to start. He kept himself to himself, or so it seemed, but Bepo was getting fed up of the sensation of that single eye boring into his back whenever he did anything. Being watched was uncomfortable at the best of times, and being observed in the safety of his own ship was downright horrendous.

On the other end of the spectrum was Iron Man Franky, who seemed to have no concept of volume or the way his high-pitched exclamations reverberated within the confines of an enclosed metal ship. Bepo had taken to stealing his nakama's hats when he could, even though they barely fit on his head and some of them got upset (especially Penguin, who flew into what Bepo could only describe as a temper tantrum when he found his hat on the mink's head), to try and defend his ears from the worst of it.

Sogeking, now called God Usopp according to his latest bounty poster but Bepo thought that was far too egotistical, especially when he wasn't even a captain, was the most bearable of the group. He wasn't too loud, didn't stare too hard, and liked to join in their games. But he was also a tinkerer, and told the most outrageous lies. Bepo was a fan of stories, but the egotistical nature of Sogeking's tall tale often got too much even for him. On second thoughts, maybe being called God reflected the self-centred nature of his stories perfectly.

Worst of all was Nico Robin. Despite her similarities to his own captain – Bepo didn't need anyone to tell him that Ohara was innocent after what he knew of Flevance and the World Government – she'd been a terror in the underworld for many years, far longer than Bepo had ever spent dipping his paws into the smaller shadows in Law's pursuit of Doflamingo and Bepo didn't trust her at all, even if she was Mugiwara's nakama and Law kinda trusted him (as much as Law trusted anyone not a Heart Pirate). Law seemed to have some sort of mutual respect for the woman, but Bepo had long since given up attempting to decipher Law's reactions to people (he still wasn't sure that trusting Mugiwara was a good idea, even if he had helped take down Doflamingo; surely Law hadn't forgotten the damage the rubberman had done to the Tang two years ago?).

Nico Robin also asked questions. They weren't simple questions, either, like 'how long have you been a pirate' or 'how long until we reach Wano?' No, the woman asked awkward things, with a smile on her face as if she already knew the answer and was just confirming things for her own amusement (she'd asked him how his wrists felt and if Penguin, Shachi or Jean Bart had shared any tips with him, and that was almost worse than her outright saying she knew what had happened on Zou).

The current target of her curiosity was his origins. She'd seen Zou, but she'd also met him in Sabaody and knew he'd been with Law for a long time (ten years, she'd said, and Bepo wondered where she'd got that incorrect number from when all her other information was scarily accurate) and had surmised that he'd joined in North Blue. Naturally, that led to questions like why he left Zou, how he got to the Grand Line, and how did he meet his captain.

None of those things were particularly private – anyone in the crew could answer those with ease and he was surprised she hadn't gone snooping the way she seemed to do with everything else – but Bepo didn't like her curiosity. It felt as if she was trying to lay him bare so she could pull him apart until she knew exactly how he ticked, and he hated it. His own nakama were of little help, most of them far too interested in her chest for reasons that Bepo still didn't understand, even after watching Penguin and Shachi go through puberty and everything that had entailed. Ikkaku had struck up a firm friendship with the woman, and Bepo had caught the pair of them giggling at something more than once. Ikkaku giggling never boded well, and Nico Robin was not a reassuring addition.

He wanted Chopper back, he grumbled to himself. The reindeer was intelligent conversation. While not a mink, he understood many mink principles on a far better level than the humans. Not to mention he'd caught Law – currently banned from his abilities – once muttering about how he'd have preferred 'Tony-ya' to not go on a stupid suicide mission. Bepo had surmised that the tiny doctor was also intelligent conversation for his captain, and watching him attempt to keep his sanity as he ran around after the nosey Strawhats poking around where they shouldn't only cemented his opinion that Chopper would have been a better guest.

For Bepo, the true intelligent conversation had been Nami. While bound by the human limitations of navigation, she had that sixth sense of a true navigator and Bepo wanted to see her in action. But as it was, she'd ended up on that stupid suicide mission along with Chopper and why were all the decent Strawhats off to die? Soul King's music would have reverberated so much more sweetly than Iron Man Franky's toneless attempts to sing, and Black Leg was an amazing cook.

Well, at least Mugiwara himself wasn't with them. Bepo didn't want something that volatile in the Polar Tang while she was submerged. Just because he could swim didn't mean he was at all interested in suddenly having to when another hole got punched in the Tang.

Luffy has not been forgiven for blasting a hole in the Polar Tang on Amazon Lily... I got a request for interaction between Bepo and Robin, but it evolved into a sort of character study of the Straw Hats from Bepo's PoV instead.

Robin's 'incorrect number' regarding the number of years Law and Bepo have been together comes from what could be an inconsistency between the manga and the SBS; in the manga Law states that he's known Bepo for ten years, while the SBS states that he's known him since he was 13 (making it 13 years ago as he's currently 26). It could be an inconsistency, or it could be Law twisting the truth a little because the Straw Hats don't need to know everything about him and his crew, especially as Law seems rather determined to keep his crew away from them.

Thanks for reading!
Tsari