Chapter Text
Water Seven was behind them and they were now, officially out of range of the hand thrown cannon balls. Just clear skies ahead and ocean upon ocean beyond. Who knows what islands might await them next? Usopp took a moment to catch his breath, stealing a glance at the rest of the crew. Everyone was all smiles, even Zoro. It felt so good to be back, for real this time with no mask to hide behind. Except he had never been on this ship before after so maybe it was more of an arrival. A fresh start. A whole new ship, so much to discover. He hoped he still had a bed. He wasn’t sure if he had been factored in during the whole make a ship from scratch process. They probably forgot all about him in the excitement. Worst comes to worse, he could always sleep in the corner of the room on the laundry.
Luffy had already move on, flopped on the deck moving his arms and legs back and forth
“GRASS ANGELS!”
Usopp looked down in shock, the deck really was grass. Springy underneath his hands. He had noticed his landing on the ship had been soft but he had been too busy crying to give it too much thought.
Chopper seemed to also have discovered the new deck and had begun munching away at the grass
“Oye I just planted that!” Franky yelled
Chopper popped back into his smaller form
“Awww but Franky I am hungry!”
“Why didn’t you say something sooner?” Sanji stomped off to the kitchen, grumbling about stupid hungry people
“Oye shit cook bring me some snacks too!” Zoro called out from his position on the ground, he had lay down beside Luffy and closed his eyes. Usopp gave him maybe a minute or two of wakefulness before he was truly napping. If Zoro was horizontal he was asleep. Maybe he would try to stay awake for snacks. The battle was on, Sanji vs Zoro. Food vs Zoro’s ability to stay conscious in a horizontal position. Stay tuned.
A yell came from the kitchen. The crew minus Zoro ran over. Sanji was speaking gibberish and tears were running down his face. A gleaming kitchen lay out before them. But all Usopp could see was the fridge. It had finally happened, after all of Sanji’s threats and complaining, a fridge with a lock. No more late night raids but on the flip side no more going hungry because of getting caught up in one of Luffy’s plots.
“Awww not a lock”Luffy groaned. Usopp inched away from him and whistled looking at the ceiling. Who was this strange straw hatted individual? Never seen him before in my life officer. Luckily Sanji was too busy victory dancing (high kicks for the curious) around the fridge to notice. He suddenly froze mid high kick and turned his head towards them. Usopp shit exactly one brick.
“What are you guys doing here! Out! I need to familiarize myself with this kitchen and I can’t do that if you all are crowding in here trying to steal scraps!”
Nami coughed
And Sanji turned his frozen kick into a spin.
“Of course not you Nami swaaaaaaannn. And Robin swwaaaannnn”
Franky let out a big laugh
“I am glad you like it Cook Bro! I can leave but don’tcha want the combination for the lock first?”
He held up his hands to reveal a small slip of paper. Franky continued
“Even I don’t know what it is. The locksmith just handed me this and I set it aside for later”
The kitchen was suddenly very quiet. All heads slowly but surely turned to look at Luffy. The captain in question was idly spinning on one of the kitchen chairs.
“What?”
Before anyone could answer Sanji leapt over to Franky(in a single bound) and grabbed the paper out of his hand, read it and ate it.
Luffy jumped out of the chair and marched over to Franky
“Do you have any more snacks?”
“....No”
“I am your captain now. And the rule is any cool snacks must be first given to the captain. Understand?”
Usopp rolled his eyes. Looks like every time Sanji gave the women of the crew treats first was mutiny then. Luffy wasn’t smiling though, standing on his tippy toes to try to get into Franky’s face. Franky looked over to Nami and Usopp who just shrugged. Luffy would forget about this five minutes or whenever he ate something, whichever came first.
Franky patted Luffy’s shoulder
“Sure thing Captain”
Luffy spun away from the relieved and slightly perplexed Franky to confront his cook.
“And Sanji! You said you were going to make snacks right?”
Sanji already had the fridge open inspecting the contents and waved back at Luffy
“Give me five minutes”
It took a bit of work but Franky managed to shepherd them out of the kitchen insisting there so so much cooler things to see.
Along the deck was a wooden platform, it seemed a little out of place. He approached it cautiously, maybe it was a trap door? Nothing jumped out to maim him so he ended up standing atop it. He jumped in the air but landing didn’t produce a hollow sound. So no trap door, natch. The remaining crew stared at him, it felt good to be taller than Robin for once. For luck he struck a pose pointing up at the sky. Sometimes you just had to pose. Robin clapped. He wasn’t sure if it was sarcastic but he would take it. Having finished his brilliant performance he called out
“What’s this for Franky?”
Franky grinned arms crossed beaming with pride
“A spot on deck for tinkering”
Usopp turned to him with stars in his eyes
“Really!”
Nami coughed
“It would also make a pretty good sunbathing spot to be honest”
“Oh and I made an actual workshop just wait until you see it”
So they had given him a thought after all, maybe.
Luffy bounced over to Franky
“So what else you got?”
“I’ll show you the brain of the Sunny”
Luffy looked over to front of the ship
“Ewwwwww I wanna see!”
And took off running helmsward. Franky managed to snag Luffy’s left arm
“Not that way Bro!”
Realizing his mistake, Luffy jumped up and just kind of snapped back to his arm barreling into Franky somehow not knocking the shipwright over.. Being a cyborg had its perks huh. A robot sniper did have a nice ring to it. They made their way through Nami’s orange trees, after she carefully inspected each one. As she did so Usopp wandered around a bit trying to see if he could find anything else interesting. On the opposite side from his tinker spot (name pending) was a long shallow box, full of sand.
“Oye Franky! What’s with the sand? Is it a leftover from the lawn or something?”
He cautiously poked the dirt with a finger. Maybe Franky was growing killer worms, they could grow to the size of a battleship and even fight a sea king. What were the eating habits of killer worms? Did they have to go for walks? As Usopp was mulling over his new career as a killer worm farmer Chopper had made his way over to check out the dirt.
“Watcha looking at Usopp?”
Usopp opened his mouth to explain his killer worm theory when Luffy slingshotted himself over almost knocking the dirt and the vicious flesh eating worms (killer worms are rarely friendly) out of the box
“Did you guys find buried treasure!?”
“We found sand”
“So there must be treasure underneath duh! Usopp is so stupid isn’t he Chopper?”
Chopper nodded hesitantly, and Usopp rolled his eyes. Gotta love Luffy logic.
Luffy hit his hand against his palm
“Pirates hunt buried treasure, which is under the ground. The ground is sand and this is sand. So there has gotta be treasure under it!”
“Did someone say treasure?” Nami had joined the treasure hunt. Usopp smelled sulfur.
“Yeah! Nami help us dig for treasure! Finders keepers! On the count of 3 we all put our hands in to look! 1-”
Nami knelt down, shoved her hands in the dirt and began feeling around
“Nami! You cheated!”
She just looked back and stuck out her tongue.
“Usopp make Nami stop cheating!”
He was not going to even try that one. He liked his head lump free thank you very much. There was a small cough behind them.
Usopp stole a glance behind them and managed to catch sight of one of the rarest sights on all the seas. Robin was laughing. Not a smirk or cold snicker, an actual belly laugh. She caught herself though and catching her breath tried to put on a straight face
“I thought I was the archaeologist of this crew”
“Oh right! Robin go get your little shovel and help us dig up the gold!”
Beside Robin, Franky held up his hands.
“I hate to break it to you, but there isn’t any treasure in that. It is a flower bed”
“Oh yeah? Where are the flowers then?”
Luffy looked over to Usopp and stage whispered
“Franky wants all the gold for himself. So greedy”
Nami sat down with a huff. Usopp inched away from her, just to be safe. Franky was lucky he was made of iron; but depending on how pissed off she got, she might take a wrench to him. It wouldn’t be that hard. Unscrew him piece by piece, gather up all the copper and gold wires inside and sell ‘em for scraps.
“Hey iron weirdo, where’s my gold?”
“In the safe under your desk” It was a quick practiced reply. Franky was learning.
Nami wiped her dirty hands on Luffy which arguably just made her hands dirtier.
“Good. So can you explain to these idiots why you have a box of sand?”
Franky shrugged “Like I said it is a flower bed. And it isn’t all sand. Some of it is loam”
Luffy, Chopper and Usopp nodded sagely
“Loam” no idea what that means but it sounds cool so it must be true.
Robin held up a hand “If I may,” she paused and Luffy opened his mouth but Usopp was faster and slapped a hand over it. They were all finally back together, no need for Luffy to say something so dumb that Robin tried to throw him overboard.
Robin continued as if nothing had happened
“Franky was so kind as to provide a flower bed, it was my responsibility to find the seeds. I had not gotten the chance to plant them yet before your Grandfather gave us that touching send off”
Nami clapped her hands together in excitement, her anger at Franky apparently forgotten
“Oh what are you going to plant? Roses?”
Robin held up a small cloth bag. It had a simple yellow flower drawn on it and underneath it said ‘Seeds” how enlightening.
Robin explained further “Not roses but tansies. Seaside tansies to be specific.”
Usopp gulped and asked the question that may well cost him having a fully functional back.
“Aren’t those you know...weeds?”
Instead of giving him a taste of Seis Fleur as he probably deserved she nodded. She knelt down and began planting the seeds one by one as she went on..
“Exactly. Nearly impossible to kill, can grow almost anywhere and love the sea. Sound familiar?”
“A seaking!” Luffy shouted triumphantly and having solved that puzzle turned around and made a break for the kitchen.
“IT HAS BEEN FIVE MINUTES! SANJI SNNNAACCKKK TIME!” there was a moment of silence followed by loud and very enthusiastic yelling.
“So much for the library visit” Nami sighed.
“He didn’t have any books in there anyways” Franky pointed out then stopped for a second “Can Luffy read?”
In unison the surrounding crew replied
“It is a mystery.”
Loud laughter interrupted their musing on the literacy of the captain. Looking back on the grassy deck below they saw said Captain doubled over laughing. Zoro was still laying on the grass looking up at him rather nonplussed. The kitchen door slammed open and Sanji walked out with his arms full of pink. Usopp blinked and suddenly the space beside him where Chopper was supposed to be felt empty and Sanji was kicking away a pink missile. Usopp shook his head, apparently he was the only one who actually used stairs like you were supposed to instead of jumping off the railing at the slightest provocation. He made his way over to the stairs to join in on the fun only to realize they weren’t there. Instead there was a yellow slide.
Usopp looked back to Franky who was also making his way over
“You actually put a slide in?”
“Of course I did, slides are super”
Can’t argue with super slides, you just slide down them. So Usopp did. It was the most fun and least deadly thing he had done in his life. Perfect.
”Guys you won’t believe this! Franky actually put a slide in!”
So starry eyes greeted him. Sanji, Luffy, and Chopper were on the ground rolling in the grass crying. Zoro was now beginning to draw his swords. Usopp ran over.
“Wait Zoro what are you doing?”
Zoro turned towards him and finally Usopp saw it. Bird shit dripping down the left side of Zoro’s face. Turns out sleeping on the deck had its down sides. A news coo or some other lucky bird is going to give you a parting present. Usopp slammed his hands over his mouth and shook his head slowly backing away. If he just managed to not laugh he could get out of this with all of his limbs still attached. He needed a distraction. Releasing his mouth he yelled out, disparately pointing to his right “THE BIRD THAT DID IT IS RIGHT OVER THERE! GET IT BEFORE IT GETS AWAY” and like clockwork Zoro ran to the left. The guilty or not so guilty news coo pecked at the lawn smugly.
Having finally managed to stop laughing Luffy lifted his head from the grass
“Sanji can we eat news coos?”
The cook hummed to himself “They would probably taste good sautéed in garlic”
“No one is eating the only thing that brings me actual news of the outside world. We need information you idiots”
“Whatever you say Nami swaaaaaaaaan”
Luffy’s ears perked at this
“Can we eat a swan then?”
Usopp slapped his forehead. Just another day on the Sunny. The first day of many. Who knows what stupid shit they could pull next. God it felt so good to be back. He had missed this so so much. There was one thing bugging him though. They had forgotten to do something, something important.
He grabbed Luffy by the ear dragging him over and head jerked at everyone else to join up. Robin handed Zoro a handkerchief and he nodded a thank you as he cleaned off his face. Finally they all huddled together. Franky was the only one left out and was beginning to pout. Usopp put forth his master plan.
“On the count of three” the stars aligned and for once in their lives they actually managed to say something in unison
“ONE,
TWO,
THREE,
THANK YOU FRANKY!!”
Turns out cyborgs can blush.