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rainsometimesNew fic. I wanted to tackle Franky/Usopp, but this turned out more as Franky->Usopp, and even that not very clearly. There may be a bit more wish fulfilment to this than usual. (Though most of my longer fics do have something of that in them.)
This fic has gotten extensive and invaluable beta by![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
tonko_ni, who is a treasure indeed. The faults and flaws in it remain my own fault.
Title: Superfluous Necessities: An Ode to Confusion
Pairing: Possibly Franky->Usopp; some Franky->Robin, but not in focus
Spoilers/setting: After Thriller Bark: spoilers up to and including chapter 489
Rating: PG for swearing
Summary: Franky makes a possibly hopeless attempt to sort out his feelings
Disclaimer: The characters of One Piece are created by Eiichiro Oda and are owned by him and Shuisha Publications. They are used here without permission. This fanfic is for entertainment purposes only and not to be used for profit.
Franky thought he knew how things stood by now.
Strawhat Luffy was his captain and had his whole allegiance, and for a proud man who had been his own leader of men that hadn’t been that easy to give. As for his heart, he felt he’d fallen in love with all the Strawhats together, drawn to their strength as a team before he really knew them well as individuals, though by now they’d all snuck their way separately into his heart too, from the steely swordsman to the starry-eyed reindeer doc. Pretty much a band of lunatic misfits, in his opinion, and not too unlike the Franky Family in that regard – though with more ambition and even less common sense. And they’d all come together to gather around Monkey D. Luffy, whose drive and dedication and unbelievable stubborn mindless courage and loyalty was the one thing holding them all together. Franky wasn’t the brightest guy in the universe, perhaps, but he was still pretty damn super, especially this week, and he could recognise all that and respect the hell out of it.
And if someone were ever to put him on the spot and demand that he disclose who, if any, among his crewmates had a special place in his heart, he might hem and haw and finally mutter something about hair so dark it was nearly black, about curves you could drown in and beautiful almond eyes that seemed to know half the secrets of the world and could see right through you as if you were made of glass; about the most infuriating, most charming little smile; about deceitfully delicate-looking but actually very very devilish hands indeed; about a heart that had grown up and endured far too much super-bad darkness and loneliness but had somehow – amazingly, improbably – managed to shine through and fight on, the heart of the strongest woman he had ever known. And then after being forced to mutter all that out he’d probably twiddle his thumbs and glare as he’d entreat the interrogator to keep mum about all that, because he wasn’t at a point yet where he wanted his feelings known, damnit – man, that woman was hard to approach! – and then he’d hastily slink away and pretend to work very hard at some machinery problem, probably.
And Usopp? Well, he was just a pal and crewmate who he liked hanging out with a lot, both because they happened to share many of the same interests and because the guy was just so damn easy to get along with. An occasional helper with Franky’s work, he might have become something close to an apprentice if he hadn’t been too independent-minded for that, with plenty of his own projects to work on (but then again, Franky had already kinda assumed that and had designed the Sunny accordingly).
As the shipwright, Franky had taken over a function that Usopp had previously fulfilled in the crew, without training and therefore not very well. The guy had helluva lot of dedication, true – almost scarily so, in a way – but that in itself couldn’t get the job done. Still, it would have been easy to understand if Usopp had felt stung at being put aside and kept himself aloof from his replacement.
But if something like that ever weighed on him he hit it well behind wide, cheerful grins and a seemingly ever-present eagerness to learn more – or at least he did when Franky was around. And even if you couldn’t really boss him around and berate his work the way you would with a real apprentice, it was still pretty nice to have someone to talk to who seemed to get at least half of what he was saying, and was also genuinely interested in learning about the other half. Usopp was obviously dead set on being a pirate first and everything else a distant second. But Franky felt he’d take what he could get and be happy for some good company.
And that was all.
Okay, so sometimes there were times when Franky felt a little less than super looking back upon certain events; when, for instance, he wondered if he shouldn’t have brought up the question of still-absent Longnose before joining the crew himself. In a way, that hadn’t been really…fair, had it? After all, maybe it had all been Usopp’s decision to leave the crew in that way when he couldn’t accept that the Merry was done for, but it seemed like the Family’s robbery of their money had been the catalyst, at least. And even if Franky had really really wanted that money and the Strawhats were nothing but unknown pirates to him then, maybe he still shouldn’t have punched so hard and taunted so much, maybe he ought to have allowed himself to be impressed by so much stubbornness and dedication, even when it was blowing up his walls.
But that was all water under the bridge, and Usopp had obviously forgiven him long ago, probably from pretty much the moment Franky had brought the Going Merry to shelter away from the approaching Aqua Laguna. And back then, Franky had figured vaguely that since he’d shown himself to feel bad about what happened and Usopp had seemed to accept that, things should be all right between them from then on. Especially since the guy was fighting right along with his old crewmates later, albeit in a ridiculous mask, but the important thing was that he was there, right? Franky had simply assumed the Strawhats would settle all that between themselves quickly enough, once the fighting had stopped – and then the Sunny-to-be had occupied all his hours and all his attention for the next few days. Afterwards, everything had happened too damn quickly and maybe it hadn’t been Franky’s place to question decisions the crew had made before he’d joined, no matter how much he might have contributed to the mess in the first place.
Anyway, it had all come out okay in the end, hadn’t it? And Franky felt like he’d had enough dwelling about dark stuff in the past and feeling guilty about them, when it made more sense to look ahead. He figured he was too super for that kind of thinking these days. Besides, the few times when he’d tentatively tried to say something – he didn’t really know what – Usopp had very quickly changed the subject into something happier, and had grinned widely and made it quite clear that he, too, preferred to live in the moment and look ahead to even brighter things, thank you very much. So who was Franky not to respect that, to insist on reminding him of the time he’d been a victim, when Usopp would rather be a crewmate and a pal? Besides, he liked Usopp too damn much as a friend to let a guilty conscience be a drag on how he acted around him.
Well, so. That was how things were in Franky’s eyes, and he couldn’t see any reason to think differently. Longnose was pretty super in his own way, though he wasn’t very good at feeling super about himself apparently; but he was only like a little bro, for all that. An excellent and very fun guy but still the weakest in the crew, and not even really a grown man yet (though nothing wrong with that, it was the same with Strawhat after all). And if sometimes Franky might think he felt something twinge or grow warmer inside him for no particular reason, when Usopp might be proud over a new invention or angry about dangers he hadn’t been told of or laughing his ass off at his captain’s latest impression, or frowning in intense concentration over his workbench, or smiling an I’ll-pretend-everything-is-fine-smile (it had taken Franky some time to recognise those); or, better, smiling just because he genuinely liked being with Franky – well, even so, all that still wasn’t anything as obvious as whatever it was he felt when Nico Robin was involved. (That devilish woman.) So Franky mostly just shrugged and put it down to friendship.
Except that…
Well, except nothing, really. That was pretty much how it was.
…Except he’d been kneeling on the grass in a bizarre gardenlike room inside Moria’s castle, one thas was full of weird animal zombies. He’d been run through by a super-fast ghost he couldn’t manage to avoid, although he knew its powers by now, and had again been instantly robbed of all his strength to go on. The negative ghost made him feel like he was the most unsuperlike being possible; the most terrible craftsman, most unworthy Strawhat, most pathetic gang leader and so on; who by all rights should be treated like a stray dog and ought to be reincarnated as the most lowly creature in the world. Stuff like that.
It was easy to be angry about it afterwards, and eventually even to laugh about it, as Samurai and Eyebrow and earlier even Strawhat had felt just the same. Looking back, there was something rather exaggerated about the whole thing. But it had really been pretty horrible right then. Luckily Usopp had turned out to be immune to the damn things because apparently he was far too negative to begin with and so the ghosts had no effect on him, or something like that. So Usopp had declared that he’d take over the fight and told the others to run ahead, and they’d been happy to take his word for it and get the hell away from that creepy ghost chick. But first he’d shouted to the ghost girl, Perona, that he wouldn’t let her lay a hand on his crew, and introduced himself as ‘Captain Usopp’, which was a new one on Franky.
Captain Usopp. Huh.
Obviously just a mock title for Usopp to use to prop himself up and try impressing the enemy with. But somehow, weirdly enough, those two words had made sense.
At least right then, they had. And Franky had suddenly felt like he understood some things a whole lot better. Though he wasn’t quite sure about what those things were, exactly.
Days later, when he mentioned something about it to an unusually glum-looking Sanji, with Franky being all casual-like and half-joking, Eyebrow-bro had lightened up a bit and nodded.
“Shit, you didn’t know?” Sanji had said, a smile tugging at the end of his lips as he lit up a cigarette in that nonchalant way of his. “Luffy’s our captain, of course,” he said easily. “The real one, always. But Usopp is our fake captain.”
Franky had raised an eyebrow and waited for more but Sanji hadn’t said anything, just grinning wider as he leaned towards the railing, his teeth glinting in the sunlight. Was he kidding or not? It was kinda hard to tell. Eventually Franky had given up and finally asked, “Are you putting me on or what, bro? What the hell’s that supposed to mean? Never heard of any crew where ‘fake captain’ was a real position.”
“Yeah, maybe other crews don’t have them,” Sanji had said with a nod and a shrug, squinting in the sun-light and looking pretty relieved at being distracted from whatever it was making him so goddamn serious recently. “Maybe they don’t need them. Or they don’t realise they do. But we do. And we know it.” He shrugged, again, smile quite fond by now. “You need a real one and a fake one. Things are just better that way, that’s all.”
And then he’d dropped the cig’s ashes into the sea and strode off towards the galley, humming softly and still grinning in an almost insufferable way, right until he spotted Nami in a new dress and changed his expression into something much sillier.
Franky had frowned a bit after him, scratching the back of his head as he stayed put by the railing. But that was mostly just for form’s sake. ‘Cause actually, what the cook had babbled had sounded about right to him.
You couldn’t tell yourself you’d fallen hard for a little bro. Not only did it not sound very cool, but – well, it wasn’t really like that, either; didn’t fit together in Franky’s head that way. Maybe he hadn’t actually fallen, not in that way – after all, he didn’t get all hot and bothered about him, except for an odd moment now and then which might just be sunstroke. Though you could get surprised at times when you’d forgotten how strong Longnose could actually be, or those times when he looked several years older – anyway, that wasn’t even the point.
…Now, what had the point been? Franky shook his head to try again to clear his thoughts, then sighed heavily as he started to pick out a song of complaint on his guitar. It really went to show he was getting just as nutty as the rest of them, didn’t it? This ‘fake captain’ nonsense.
He fancied he could hear Iceburg click his tongue at him and see him and giving him a tolerant-but-annoying smile.
“My, Franky”, he seemed to be saying, “but that does make a difference, doesn’t it? Doesn’t that mean he can be something else than a little bro, after all?”
“How d’you figure that, Dumburg?” muttered Franky back silently. “It’s just fake.” He started to hum “…it’s just fake, it’s just fake, just fa-a-ake…” as he kept plunking his guitar.
But Iceburg only shook his head and laughed at him, the bastard. And now Nico Robin turned up in his head as well, smiling in her super-wise way with eyes that were deep pools of knowledge.
“Maybe” she said gently, “it means you can give him your fake allegiance. A fake allegiance is still something.”
It all sounded hella weird still to Franky, even though it did feel right somehow. Mad pirate logic – but then again, Strawhat was a maniac and Longnose was a liar, so maybe crazy truths and necessary falsehoods still fit together around here.
“I thought I had it all figured out, figured out,” he sang to himself,
“But now all at once I’m in doubt, I’m in doubt,
Someone please tell me soon what’s it all about,
Oooh-oooh-ohh, it’s an ode to confusion.”
Brightened up by the song, he finished with a loud “SUUU-PER!” and an excellent finishing pose, because you shouldn’t let your standards down just because nobody seemed to be watching.
And then he left for the engine room to fill up with Cola and to check on things, making sure the ship that was his gift and his task and his treasure was doing just fine. But the way he figured, if there were snags here and there they’d get them sorted out. If things weren’t A-OK now, they soon would be. Because now he knew for sure he was crazy enough for this crew.
This fic has gotten extensive and invaluable beta by
tonko_ni, who is a treasure indeed. The faults and flaws in it remain my own fault.Title: Superfluous Necessities: An Ode to Confusion
Pairing: Possibly Franky->Usopp; some Franky->Robin, but not in focus
Spoilers/setting: After Thriller Bark: spoilers up to and including chapter 489
Rating: PG for swearing
Summary: Franky makes a possibly hopeless attempt to sort out his feelings
Disclaimer: The characters of One Piece are created by Eiichiro Oda and are owned by him and Shuisha Publications. They are used here without permission. This fanfic is for entertainment purposes only and not to be used for profit.
Franky thought he knew how things stood by now.
Strawhat Luffy was his captain and had his whole allegiance, and for a proud man who had been his own leader of men that hadn’t been that easy to give. As for his heart, he felt he’d fallen in love with all the Strawhats together, drawn to their strength as a team before he really knew them well as individuals, though by now they’d all snuck their way separately into his heart too, from the steely swordsman to the starry-eyed reindeer doc. Pretty much a band of lunatic misfits, in his opinion, and not too unlike the Franky Family in that regard – though with more ambition and even less common sense. And they’d all come together to gather around Monkey D. Luffy, whose drive and dedication and unbelievable stubborn mindless courage and loyalty was the one thing holding them all together. Franky wasn’t the brightest guy in the universe, perhaps, but he was still pretty damn super, especially this week, and he could recognise all that and respect the hell out of it.
And if someone were ever to put him on the spot and demand that he disclose who, if any, among his crewmates had a special place in his heart, he might hem and haw and finally mutter something about hair so dark it was nearly black, about curves you could drown in and beautiful almond eyes that seemed to know half the secrets of the world and could see right through you as if you were made of glass; about the most infuriating, most charming little smile; about deceitfully delicate-looking but actually very very devilish hands indeed; about a heart that had grown up and endured far too much super-bad darkness and loneliness but had somehow – amazingly, improbably – managed to shine through and fight on, the heart of the strongest woman he had ever known. And then after being forced to mutter all that out he’d probably twiddle his thumbs and glare as he’d entreat the interrogator to keep mum about all that, because he wasn’t at a point yet where he wanted his feelings known, damnit – man, that woman was hard to approach! – and then he’d hastily slink away and pretend to work very hard at some machinery problem, probably.
And Usopp? Well, he was just a pal and crewmate who he liked hanging out with a lot, both because they happened to share many of the same interests and because the guy was just so damn easy to get along with. An occasional helper with Franky’s work, he might have become something close to an apprentice if he hadn’t been too independent-minded for that, with plenty of his own projects to work on (but then again, Franky had already kinda assumed that and had designed the Sunny accordingly).
As the shipwright, Franky had taken over a function that Usopp had previously fulfilled in the crew, without training and therefore not very well. The guy had helluva lot of dedication, true – almost scarily so, in a way – but that in itself couldn’t get the job done. Still, it would have been easy to understand if Usopp had felt stung at being put aside and kept himself aloof from his replacement.
But if something like that ever weighed on him he hit it well behind wide, cheerful grins and a seemingly ever-present eagerness to learn more – or at least he did when Franky was around. And even if you couldn’t really boss him around and berate his work the way you would with a real apprentice, it was still pretty nice to have someone to talk to who seemed to get at least half of what he was saying, and was also genuinely interested in learning about the other half. Usopp was obviously dead set on being a pirate first and everything else a distant second. But Franky felt he’d take what he could get and be happy for some good company.
And that was all.
Okay, so sometimes there were times when Franky felt a little less than super looking back upon certain events; when, for instance, he wondered if he shouldn’t have brought up the question of still-absent Longnose before joining the crew himself. In a way, that hadn’t been really…fair, had it? After all, maybe it had all been Usopp’s decision to leave the crew in that way when he couldn’t accept that the Merry was done for, but it seemed like the Family’s robbery of their money had been the catalyst, at least. And even if Franky had really really wanted that money and the Strawhats were nothing but unknown pirates to him then, maybe he still shouldn’t have punched so hard and taunted so much, maybe he ought to have allowed himself to be impressed by so much stubbornness and dedication, even when it was blowing up his walls.
But that was all water under the bridge, and Usopp had obviously forgiven him long ago, probably from pretty much the moment Franky had brought the Going Merry to shelter away from the approaching Aqua Laguna. And back then, Franky had figured vaguely that since he’d shown himself to feel bad about what happened and Usopp had seemed to accept that, things should be all right between them from then on. Especially since the guy was fighting right along with his old crewmates later, albeit in a ridiculous mask, but the important thing was that he was there, right? Franky had simply assumed the Strawhats would settle all that between themselves quickly enough, once the fighting had stopped – and then the Sunny-to-be had occupied all his hours and all his attention for the next few days. Afterwards, everything had happened too damn quickly and maybe it hadn’t been Franky’s place to question decisions the crew had made before he’d joined, no matter how much he might have contributed to the mess in the first place.
Anyway, it had all come out okay in the end, hadn’t it? And Franky felt like he’d had enough dwelling about dark stuff in the past and feeling guilty about them, when it made more sense to look ahead. He figured he was too super for that kind of thinking these days. Besides, the few times when he’d tentatively tried to say something – he didn’t really know what – Usopp had very quickly changed the subject into something happier, and had grinned widely and made it quite clear that he, too, preferred to live in the moment and look ahead to even brighter things, thank you very much. So who was Franky not to respect that, to insist on reminding him of the time he’d been a victim, when Usopp would rather be a crewmate and a pal? Besides, he liked Usopp too damn much as a friend to let a guilty conscience be a drag on how he acted around him.
Well, so. That was how things were in Franky’s eyes, and he couldn’t see any reason to think differently. Longnose was pretty super in his own way, though he wasn’t very good at feeling super about himself apparently; but he was only like a little bro, for all that. An excellent and very fun guy but still the weakest in the crew, and not even really a grown man yet (though nothing wrong with that, it was the same with Strawhat after all). And if sometimes Franky might think he felt something twinge or grow warmer inside him for no particular reason, when Usopp might be proud over a new invention or angry about dangers he hadn’t been told of or laughing his ass off at his captain’s latest impression, or frowning in intense concentration over his workbench, or smiling an I’ll-pretend-everything-is-fine-smile (it had taken Franky some time to recognise those); or, better, smiling just because he genuinely liked being with Franky – well, even so, all that still wasn’t anything as obvious as whatever it was he felt when Nico Robin was involved. (That devilish woman.) So Franky mostly just shrugged and put it down to friendship.
Except that…
Well, except nothing, really. That was pretty much how it was.
…Except he’d been kneeling on the grass in a bizarre gardenlike room inside Moria’s castle, one thas was full of weird animal zombies. He’d been run through by a super-fast ghost he couldn’t manage to avoid, although he knew its powers by now, and had again been instantly robbed of all his strength to go on. The negative ghost made him feel like he was the most unsuperlike being possible; the most terrible craftsman, most unworthy Strawhat, most pathetic gang leader and so on; who by all rights should be treated like a stray dog and ought to be reincarnated as the most lowly creature in the world. Stuff like that.
It was easy to be angry about it afterwards, and eventually even to laugh about it, as Samurai and Eyebrow and earlier even Strawhat had felt just the same. Looking back, there was something rather exaggerated about the whole thing. But it had really been pretty horrible right then. Luckily Usopp had turned out to be immune to the damn things because apparently he was far too negative to begin with and so the ghosts had no effect on him, or something like that. So Usopp had declared that he’d take over the fight and told the others to run ahead, and they’d been happy to take his word for it and get the hell away from that creepy ghost chick. But first he’d shouted to the ghost girl, Perona, that he wouldn’t let her lay a hand on his crew, and introduced himself as ‘Captain Usopp’, which was a new one on Franky.
Captain Usopp. Huh.
Obviously just a mock title for Usopp to use to prop himself up and try impressing the enemy with. But somehow, weirdly enough, those two words had made sense.
At least right then, they had. And Franky had suddenly felt like he understood some things a whole lot better. Though he wasn’t quite sure about what those things were, exactly.
Days later, when he mentioned something about it to an unusually glum-looking Sanji, with Franky being all casual-like and half-joking, Eyebrow-bro had lightened up a bit and nodded.
“Shit, you didn’t know?” Sanji had said, a smile tugging at the end of his lips as he lit up a cigarette in that nonchalant way of his. “Luffy’s our captain, of course,” he said easily. “The real one, always. But Usopp is our fake captain.”
Franky had raised an eyebrow and waited for more but Sanji hadn’t said anything, just grinning wider as he leaned towards the railing, his teeth glinting in the sunlight. Was he kidding or not? It was kinda hard to tell. Eventually Franky had given up and finally asked, “Are you putting me on or what, bro? What the hell’s that supposed to mean? Never heard of any crew where ‘fake captain’ was a real position.”
“Yeah, maybe other crews don’t have them,” Sanji had said with a nod and a shrug, squinting in the sun-light and looking pretty relieved at being distracted from whatever it was making him so goddamn serious recently. “Maybe they don’t need them. Or they don’t realise they do. But we do. And we know it.” He shrugged, again, smile quite fond by now. “You need a real one and a fake one. Things are just better that way, that’s all.”
And then he’d dropped the cig’s ashes into the sea and strode off towards the galley, humming softly and still grinning in an almost insufferable way, right until he spotted Nami in a new dress and changed his expression into something much sillier.
Franky had frowned a bit after him, scratching the back of his head as he stayed put by the railing. But that was mostly just for form’s sake. ‘Cause actually, what the cook had babbled had sounded about right to him.
You couldn’t tell yourself you’d fallen hard for a little bro. Not only did it not sound very cool, but – well, it wasn’t really like that, either; didn’t fit together in Franky’s head that way. Maybe he hadn’t actually fallen, not in that way – after all, he didn’t get all hot and bothered about him, except for an odd moment now and then which might just be sunstroke. Though you could get surprised at times when you’d forgotten how strong Longnose could actually be, or those times when he looked several years older – anyway, that wasn’t even the point.
…Now, what had the point been? Franky shook his head to try again to clear his thoughts, then sighed heavily as he started to pick out a song of complaint on his guitar. It really went to show he was getting just as nutty as the rest of them, didn’t it? This ‘fake captain’ nonsense.
He fancied he could hear Iceburg click his tongue at him and see him and giving him a tolerant-but-annoying smile.
“My, Franky”, he seemed to be saying, “but that does make a difference, doesn’t it? Doesn’t that mean he can be something else than a little bro, after all?”
“How d’you figure that, Dumburg?” muttered Franky back silently. “It’s just fake.” He started to hum “…it’s just fake, it’s just fake, just fa-a-ake…” as he kept plunking his guitar.
But Iceburg only shook his head and laughed at him, the bastard. And now Nico Robin turned up in his head as well, smiling in her super-wise way with eyes that were deep pools of knowledge.
“Maybe” she said gently, “it means you can give him your fake allegiance. A fake allegiance is still something.”
It all sounded hella weird still to Franky, even though it did feel right somehow. Mad pirate logic – but then again, Strawhat was a maniac and Longnose was a liar, so maybe crazy truths and necessary falsehoods still fit together around here.
“I thought I had it all figured out, figured out,” he sang to himself,
“But now all at once I’m in doubt, I’m in doubt,
Someone please tell me soon what’s it all about,
Oooh-oooh-ohh, it’s an ode to confusion.”
Brightened up by the song, he finished with a loud “SUUU-PER!” and an excellent finishing pose, because you shouldn’t let your standards down just because nobody seemed to be watching.
And then he left for the engine room to fill up with Cola and to check on things, making sure the ship that was his gift and his task and his treasure was doing just fine. But the way he figured, if there were snags here and there they’d get them sorted out. If things weren’t A-OK now, they soon would be. Because now he knew for sure he was crazy enough for this crew.