Chapter 16
Monkey vs cat
The moment Garp released the three of them in the entrance of a house full of dust and the sound of hinges behind them, Nami thrashed around like a cornered lizard trying to get away from her tail. But unlike what would have happened if she were a lizard, Nami couldn't break free from Luffy's suffocating arms, the boy were clinging to her like a tick while the old man took off his coat and threw it on the sofa in the entrance.
"I thought that when you grew up my toothache would disappear, but I will need new teeth from clenching them so much because of you, bastards!"
Ace snorted, but it was Luffy who responded from behind Nami's shoulder.
"This time it wasn't our fault, gramps!"
Ace nodded as he threw himself onto the couch and kicked up a tangle of dust.
"It was that posh kid Nami knocked out fault and, of course, of your dear marines. They're more corrupt and have less morals than the mounta…"
Garp interrupted his grandson with a fuss as he leaned over him and grabbed his chin to check the wounds that framed his face.
"There is corruption even in corner bars, kiddo. The best way to beat them is from the inside, you going to the sea with a pirate flag it's not the fucking way."
Nami, silent since Garp left her on the ground, snorted at the man's idea and, for her misery, the old man's gaze captured hers in a matter of seconds.
"So… we're talking too much if we have part of the Arlong crew right here, aren't we, Cat Burglar?"
She stirred, hurt by such direct and incisive words. Luffy surrounded her more tightly, almost suffocating her, and for a few moments she wondered if he was punishing or anchoring her to the ground so she wouldn't run. His embrace overwhelmed her in every way, accustomed to being cold in the face of danger, not suffocating heat.
"And what difference does it make to you, geezer? I have the right to do what I want with my life."
The man limped up from the couch and she prepared for the blow, but instead of heading directly to the corner where she was, he turned around, entered what must have been a small bathroom on the ground floor, and came out with a first aid kit which he threw at Ace before sitting next to him and grabbing cotton and a bottle of alcohol.
"I'm a Marine, girl, by definition I put pirates like you behind bars." She twisted her mouth, but from a distance it seemed more like a reproach than a threat. "Start talking girl, it's time for it. If I didn't leave you at the mercy of those officers it was because of what you have done for my grandchildren, but I have no mercy for your kind."
She squirmed, weighed down by Luffy's arms until she detached herself from him and was able to approach the wall more precisely, longing to find a wall that would protect her back. She had always had a certain appreciation for the roundness of the walls of Arlong Park, because, although she hated the structure, she also felt covered by the sides.
Her friend leaned over her, frowningly evaluating those words that didn't quite sink in to him. Luffy wasn't particularly sharp and Nami, between cramps and chest pains, longed to see betrayal marked in those innocent eyes. It's not that she liked leathery emotions, but she needed to feel the bitter taste that settled in her throat, the stinging sensation in her arms that promised to tear hope from her gut.
She needed to grab in the memory Luffy's disappointment before she left, because she felt unable to live with the heartbreaking hope of seeing either of them again when all they could offer her were impossible dreams.
"I don't understand, Nami, you can't be a pirate if you hate us."
She laughed, hunched over, her hand on the wall behind her.
"I don't hate you, Luffy, because you're not a pirate. I told you what real pirates are like, I told you that they were scum, that you should never trust how far a pirate can go to get what he wants. I warned you and you didn't listen to me. It's your fault for not listen."
The teen denied vigorously, still rooted in the phase that preceded a painful acceptance.
"No, Nami, you're not like that."
A cruel, anodyne laugh grew deep in her throat to transform into the cruelty she needed to keep going.
"I'm not what? I already told you I'm a thief. I have lied to you, I have played with you and I think it's time for me to leave. What do you know about me?"
The boy placed his feet on the ground and the innocence transformed into a seriousness that bordered on anger.
"You're lying now, Nami, not before. Yes, you're a thief, but you only steal from bad guys. You're not bad, you don't like pirates and you have fun with us. You're my friend, fool, so if you have problems just ask for help. But don't pretend you're evil when you shared your lentils with us."
Luffy took the lead of the conversation and Garp, despite the fact that he seemed to be taking center stage in the room, left the burden to him.
Ace snorted from the couch and Nami's rage bubbled like foam.
"You'd better keep quiet!" she shouted at the convalescent before he could open the mouth. "If it hadn't been for them arresting you, I would already be with my sis… with Arlong!"
"You love talking like you're the worst person in the world when what you're saying is that you decided to save me rather than go with that pirate. I'm sure he's the one who left your face in a mess. Or not?"
The accusation sounded like a hammer on a bell. Luffy walked forward to her, immersed fully in the discussion.
"Don't lie, Nami. You told me yesterday. When I asked you who was punishing you, you said the name of this Aron guy."
"Arlong, Luffy, his name's Arlong !" she barked, tired of nonsense "And he is my real captain, not an idiot with childish dreams!"
The boy's face turned an angry red. He opened his mouth as if he lacked the strength to breathe and approached her with tense shoulders. Nami felt with two fingers on the wall in search of a crevice where she could find support.
"Take it back !"
"No!"
"You're my navigator, Nami, I don't care what you say! And whether you like it or not, I'm going to be the Pirate King. If you want to continue cowering there, scared to death and not asking for help, I don't care, you're going to watch me break the teeth of that bastard and his group for locking you up, for hitting you and for making you believe that you're bad."
"I don't need you...!"
"Well, that's enough!" With just three words, Garp nipped the argument in the bud, leaving behind a trail of disjointed breaths and locked screams. "From now on you are under my conservatorship, girl. So get used to the idea that you are not going to see a pirate again in the rest of your life unless it is to take him to prison!"
"But she's my friend!" Luffy exclaimed, outraged. An exclamation that both Nami and Garp ignored, immersed in a more important conversation.
"You have no right to forbid me anything! The navy has no right to tell me what to do!"
"I can and I'm doing it cause I'm your grandfather!"
She pushed herself away from the wall, enraged, to stick out her chest as she faced him.
"Since when?! I'm no one's granddaughter, man."
"Since I adopted you into the palace, haven't you heard it?"
She stomped her foot hard enough to make the old wooden board complain under the abuse. Although she remained calm enough to breathe hard and focus her thoughts.
What's matter what the geezer said? Nami couldn't care less that an old Marine had grandpa dreams. She forced down a shiver as she relaxed the shoulders and straightened her back. She focused on closing the door on those emotions she refused to catalog in the heat of the moment and crushed vain hopes before they were even born.
"Bah, I'm not listening to an old man with senile dementia and two idiots. I have to prepare a return trip, I've already wasted enough time with all this."
"You're better than me at self-deprecation. Awesome, Nami," Ace commented.
Garp stood up from the couch with a finger already raised in her direction. The threat made her step back again, her head buried between the shoulders, accustomed to the beatings from these types of big, mountainous men.
"Well, that's it. You are grounded! You're going to remain under my watch until I consider that you've forgotten that nonsense about running away with those damned pirates, you understand me?"
Nami shrank with each giant step until she felt like an ant in front of him, with the courage of feeling small bubbling in her veins.
"Respond. I asked you if you understood me, Nami."
"Fuck you." despite the rebellion that the phrase itself marked, her voice came out in barely a thread. "I can leave here whenever I want. I am free to do whatever I want. Anyway Arlong will come looking for me if I'm not the one who comes back. And you won't be able to do anything against him."
As she spoke, Nami turned quickly towards the door, but before she had even touched the knob, Garp grabbed her by the shirt and lifted her into the air as if she weighed nothing, just as if she were a cat at the mercy of its owner. The fear increased as she lost the contact with the floor and her willpower began to smoke in search of release.
"I don't want Arlong to hurt them" she nodded to Luffy and Ace, unable to find a way out of the quagmire she had ended up in, "and my people need me. My sister... if I leave her alone Arlong..."
Garp's face, darkened with defiance, softened at the last sentence the teenager whispered. Anxiety clawed at her arms and it was difficult for her to breathe without suffocating at the not-so-distant future of her village being devastated by the fish men if she didn't manage to escape from there in time. And meanwhile, she hung pathetic under the enormous hand of that old man.
"Don't worry about us, I'm going to beat up that Arlong man, Nami, you'll see when..." Garp silenced his grandson with a little smack before he continued with the tirade.
"Well, let's start at the beginning, shall we?"
The voice seemed foreign to the dark situation that had befallen her. Still with her feet in the air, she looked up, refusing herself to live afflicted by fear, the man's eyes seemed pleased with the girl's courage.
"I'm Monkey D. Garp and from now on you will call me Grandpa. Now start telling the full story before I decide to extend your grounding until your hair grows gray."
I hope you enjoyed the chapter, I had a great time writing it!
They have a lot to blame each other, but let's see how this whole trip is going, it seems to me that Arlong is taking a while to join the show hehehe