Disclaimer: I do not own One Piece

Drabble Summary: Zoro is the perfect first mate because he and Luffy are the same side of the coin – even if people didn’t believe it.

Just the name of the green haired swordsman made Luffy shake with excitement. He had to have the so called demon as part of his crew. And when Zoro told him that he would join under the condition that Luffy not spoil his goals, the straw hat man felt another shiver of excitement as he whispered back, “I wouldn’t have it any other way.”

No Captain was good without a First Mate that had equal conviction. That was what One Piece was all about, a group of great friends having great adventures on the great sea all for one thing – their goals. Zoro…Zoro was just the man Luffy wanted in command next to him. The swordsman didn’t know it but they had a lot in common.

“Zoro, I want to talk to you.” He called after dinner as the other was heading towards the mast for a quick nap. Even though the entire crew turned to look at Luffy, the rubber captain only waved his first mate to follow as he made it towards the storage room.

“What is it, Luffy?” The man asked with genuine concern. Luffy couldn’t hide his smile as brought his arms behind his back and leaned forward.

“I think…I made the right choice in making you my first mate. If anything happens, would you promise to help Nami map the world and Usopp to be a great man of the sea? Help Sanji find All Blue and Chopper find a cure for every disease?” He tilted his head, licking his lips as he continued. “Robin needs a family, that’s her goal. So be that for her, please and make sure Franky takes care of the Thousand Sunny?”

Zoro’s look of surprise because the topic was brought up vanished to a look of respect. “For you, Captain, anything.”

Oh yes, Zoro made one fine first mate.

Red hair, slim body -- Nami was definitely a beauty, Luffy reasoned as he listened to her rant about the proper use of the mast. Like Luffy needed to know they needed it to continue sailing. He also wanted to use it as a swing, and as captain he felt he had right to do so, but that was beside the point. No, taking the time to look over Nami, made Luffy understand why Sanji was crazy for her.

Not that she was his kind of woman. Too strong willed. No, Nami belonged with a man who would take care of her and her dreams. She needed Sanji to tend to her every demand until she was ready to cool off enough to let anyone approach her.

And yet, as she brushed back an annoying strand of red hair out from her lips, where it had stuck, Luffy couldn’t hide his smile. “Hey, Nami.”

“What Luffy?” She yelled.

“If you keep scrunching your face like that you’ll get wrinkles faster.”

A high heel and a polished black dress shoe really hurt when aimed at the same time.

“Captain Usopp was there to save the day!”

The crew just continued their own conversations amongst each other, ignoring the sixteen year old who was carrying on their recent battle as if none of them had been there. Luffy rested his head on his hand as he ate, nodding as he listened to the story. Chopper’s eyes sparkled with delight at the part where Usopp had flung himself over the bomb to shield the rest from the explosion. In all reality, the crew had used Luffy as a slingshot to throw the bomb back.

“Ah! Did this all really happen when you and Usopp ran after the boss, Luffy?” Chopper turned to Luffy, eager to find the truth in the story.

From behind, Usopp looked like he was about to break at the thought that Luffy would fix his fables with the truth. The strong coward would become no more than the object of ridicule that he grew up in. His life, Luffy had long since decided, was so boring he had to fabricate these stories to make him look better. Sometimes the stories seemed very believable and made Luffy interested to hear the rest. Other times, the stories were so ridiculous that the captain couldn’t help but lean in to see where it would lead to.

“You should have seen him, Chopper!” Luffy cried loudly, making the other members jump. “He was attacking the enemy with all sorts of cool attacks!”

“Hahah! That’s right!” Usopp laughed loudly before continuing his tale with more conviction since Luffy had supported it.

It was a given that if Usopp ever accomplished his personal goal of becoming a man of the sea, Luffy was also going to push the liar into the goal of being the best fantasy writer ever!

A curled brow twitched as the cook moved the cooking meat around in the frying pan. “Watching me isn’t going to make the food come any quicker, Luffy.” Sanji murmured. Groaning, the Captain laid his head on the table. “Why don’t you do something productive while I cook?” He flipped the meat with a skilled shift of his arm. Luffy watched entranced before getting up to set to his assigned duty.

The clinking of plates to the table was the only sound left in the room before Luffy took his usual seat again, resting his head on his hands.

“Hey, Luffy, can I ask you something?” Sanji finally asked.

Luffy smiled eager to be of service to his crew. “Sure!”

“I want you to be serious now! No funny stuff.” Sanji hissed and Luffy nodded his head quickly. The cook lifted a small portion of his stir fry and dropped it on Luffy’s plate. Before a greedy hand could snag the food, the chef stopped Luffy. “This is a new recipe I picked up at the last port. I was hoping, since a hobby of yours could be eating, you could critique my cooking once in awhile. Praise is all fine and dandy but how am I suppose to be a chef without having any suggestions?”

“Huh?”

“Give me your honest opinion of what you think of my new recipes. Actually taste the bloody food! What do I need to work on?” The chef took a seat across from Luffy. Still happy to be of some help, Luffy brought his fork into the rice and brought a small portion towards his mouth. It wasn’t often that he slowed down to eat. Having lived with just his brother, food was a rare aspect and he’d been taught to eat the meal before it disappeared. He’d also learned that tasting the food was for people with too much time on their hands. He should be happy with any kind of substance, no matter what it tasted like. Setting it on his tongue, he slowly chewed and savored the taste.

Sanji’s cooking had always sparked something in him. There was just nothing like it, but he could understand where Sanji was coming from. Most people that tasted his food had nothing but good things to say about it, but there was no way developing better meals if there was nothing to fix. Swallowing, Luffy leaned his head back. “You…tend to use too much spice.” He finally said before holding his hands up in defense. “Not that it’s bad, no one can taste the difference unless they’re really looking for it!”

Lighting a cigarette, Sanji leaned back. “Spice. Damn, it’s always the spice. Thanks for the help, Luffy. Call everyone for dinner.”

“I’m sorry!”

The blond just smiled. “Its fine, I needed to know. Really, Captain, thanks for the help.” Luffy couldn’t help but smile back.

“Fuck you, bastards! I don’t need your gratitude!” The little reindeer danced around, showing the opposite feeling than his words as the crew smiled. The more recent marine attacks had left some physical damage to the crew so one by one they were taken into the little doctor’s office to be fixed up. Afterwards, when asked if they felt a little better the group had told their little doctor that they felt “better than ever!” Luffy, having to prove his point, rocketed himself over the ship – much to the mortification of everyone on deck. All too eager to save one of his many role models, Chopper jumped in after – only to suffer the same fate as the other.

Not even a minute later both were fished out of the sea and wrapped up in warm blankets in the reindeer’s office. With a shake to his fur, Chopper started to rush around and clean the mess that had been left just prior to their more recent “underwater” adventure. Luffy, not able to do the same maneuver as the reindeer had, just remained seated sniffling sickly. They could have told him before he did the “Super Cool Triple Turn with a 360 Summersault” that the water was cold! “You’ve been sniffling a lot the last week, Luffy…” Chopper approached nervously.

“Ah! It’s just the cold weather, Chopper! I’ll get over it!” The captain laughed childishly. Standing up with a stretch, Luffy made it towards the door. “Well I’m going to go see what Zoro’s up to!” He was able to leave when Chopper, in ‘human’ form grabbed him. Thrown back against the bed (without hitting the wall), Luffy let out a gasp trying to regain his breath. “Oi! What was that for Chopper?”

Coming over to the bed with his stethoscope, Chopper frowned. “I’ll be the judge if it’s okay to go out to play, Luffy.” He began examining his captain for the third time that day. After the examination, with a blanket pulled up and under his chin to keep the cold away, Luffy found just enough strength to hum out softly.

“You really are a great doctor, Chopper.”

And with the same large smile he usually had when receiving praise, Chopper danced to and fro, “Fuck you! I don’t care what you say, bastard! Hehe!”

She was possibly one of his strangest crew members. Not even Brook, the Human Skeleton, could top just how strange she was. One moment she could be the most mature person in the group and the next, without breaking her façade, could brighten the day for all her of sillier crewmates. She could be equally conniving just to please Nami while being sweet and angelic to please Sanji. She was a strong adversary for Zoro while could swoon even Franky with a charming smile as if she understood just what he was rambling about. But then there were times like now that Luffy just didn’t know what part she played in his crew.

During his watch, she had decided then was a perfect time to talk about her readings with him. Not on pirates or the meaning of his initial ‘D’, nor about regional food taste that Luffy was “full of knowledge about” according to Sanji. No, instead she was talking a war, over in the North Blue more than five hundred years before as if he was in the slightest bit interested. Samurais and “spies”, as appealing as they could be when talking about them with Usopp, seemed to lose their charm when Robin talked about them.

But not wanting to hurt her feelings (she was finally just talking without all those walls), Luffy let her rant with simple ‘uh-huh,’ ‘really’, and ‘continue, please’. And after all that, with a smile, she’d excuse herself to go to bed, leaving Luffy to ponder her strangeness more.

When the rest of the crew was around, once more he was treated like Usopp and Chopper, with childish antics and promises but as the sky would darken her behavior towards him would change to another lesson. Unable to handle it anymore, Luffy had stopped her before she vanished to the girl’s room. “Why are you telling me all of this history? I don’t really care…”

She smiled, tilting her head back. “Hm…I’m not sure…”

Oh she knew why. Luffy had to clamp his mouth during an argument with Usopp about knights armors being ‘the man’s dream’ not because of princesses and dragons but because of “the chivalric knight idealized bravery in battle, loyalty to his king, and would sacrifice himself for the greater good” – his ideal pirate! Curse that Robin and her know-it-all-ness rubbing off on him!

When swinging high in order to touch that blue sky, a sudden sound of snap drew Luffy’s attention too late as he rocketed forward and landed rump down in soft grass. Just as the wooden swing came to a silent plop beside him, Franky’s loud, almost shrill-like, voice came over the deck, “Luffy! What did you do?” The large cyborg walked towards the ruined swing, picking up the rope with an analytical gaze. “Damn, age must have gotten it; I’ll have this fixed in a jippy.”

“Eh?” Luffy uncovered his head, unaware he’d protected it. “You’re not going to yell at me for breaking it?” If it had been any of the other crew (besides Robin), they would have yelled at him for his inconsiderate behavior towards the ship. Even Ace used to punish him when he broke things around the farm house.

A blue eye brow was raised as Franky started back below deck where his workspace was. “No, why would I yell? It was an accident. The center of the rope was starting to rot outward. Your extra weight just contributed. Though it’s good that it was your rubber butt that hit the ground at that force or something would have broke – and I don’t mean the ship. But yeah, I should have this fixed up by dinner; I want to find a more suitable rope.”

“But I want to continue swinging; can’t you get it done before dinner?” Luffy rushed after the shipwright.

With a hearty laugh, the cyborg held the door open to ask the captain to join him. “I suppose I could get it done if a certain accident prone captain would help.”

With a wide smile, Luffy rushed to become a part at repairing a piece of the ship.

Luffy always loved music. Even when he was a little boy playing at the bar he would always sit still when someone would play the ancient piano sitting in the corner. It always filled him with a sense of serenity because anyone could be a musician, no matter if you were pirate or a marine. That was why he just had to get a musician in the crew – and fast. He knew that even with Zoro’s sense of inner turmoil, Usopp’s made up world, Nami’s rage, Sanji’s sophisticated nature, Chopper’s awe with the outside world, Robin’s intelligence, and Franky’s soft spot they could all find peace with music.

When that skeleton took out his violin, Luffy knew he had to have him. The afro-wearing skeleton didn’t even have to play a note and Luffy knew the man had embraced music as a way of life. He had to be good. The delicacy he had for the old piece of wood showed in how fine the craftsmanship was. Even falling over to stare at the ghost, the violin never fell into harms way.

He might have been told he’d said it too often to mean it, but Luffy knew the truth when he held his hand out with a wide smile. “Brook, come be our musician!”

And meaty fingers meet bony ones and Luffy knew that there would finally be serenity on the Merry.