Chapter Text
“What is AO3?” asked Usopp, his long nose almost touching his cellphone as he stared at the screen. Fluorescent light went straight to his eyes and Sanji thought it couldn't be healthy.
“A what?” Sanji asked, coming closer. Usopp was staring at a white and red page. Being he spent many years locked away, and a couple without a penny till the Baratie started profiting, Sanji wasn't the best with technological things. The one that knew the most and felt proud to call herself “chronically online” was…
“AO3?!” Nami shouted from the navigation room and her loud (princess-like) steps resonated. In a second she was in front of their eyes frantically smiling.
Anything that made her beautiful Nami happy was bound to be a good thing, so Sanji stuck around to hear all about this Ao tree.
“You know it? Kaya told me we were in it” Usopp said, a little skeptic of Nami's frenetic energy.
“What?!” she jumped and took Usopp's cellphone from his hands.
“What is it?” Sanji asked, a little worried that information of the crew was visible for everyone on the internet.
“It's a platform where people write stories” Nami said, pushing Usopp away, who was trying to get his cellphone back.
“So people are writing stories about us?” Usopp asked, muffled against Nami's strong hands.
“Exactly”.
“Of course. I'm sure my fame as Captain Usopp, the fiercest pirate on the sea, precedes me. I'm sorry if my fans disturbed any of you” he said, now giving Nami a little bit of space.
“You have fans? That's so awesome Usopp” said Chopper and Sanji jumped in surprise. Everyone was gathering around because of the noise. Robin watched calmly from afar and Zoro was coming closer with a (barbarian-like) stomp and a frown.
“What is happening?” he asked.
“Kaya found a platform where people write stories about me” Usopp answered grinning.
“Stories?” Zoro asked, his frown deeper.
“Yes, you know, the things with letters?” Sanji said, frowning back, “you see, letters are like dark marks on a page-”
“Shut up cook” Zoro spited out, way angrier than was reasonable. “So… is there like, information about us? About the crew?”
Sanji nodded, looking at Nami now. He was also concerned about that. Fame wasn't something necessarily good, it could be dangerous for them. Luffy's journey to become the pirate king was bound to bring attention, but having a page dedicated to track their movements was not good news.
“Nah, it's about silly stories, not pirate information” Nami disregarded their concern. And Robin sighed far away, suddenly uninterested in the conversation “There are stories about other crews, also, so we are not at disadvantage”.
As she said that, Nami kept scrolling on Usopp's phone, more interested in what she was seeing than what she was saying.
“How do you know so much?” Zoro asked with an eyebrow raised at Nami. She stopped scrolling and looked at him with narrowed eyes.
“Do not attack our amazing navigator, Marimo” Sanji snapped, “she surely was trying to see if she could find any information on other crews, right?”.
“Riiight” she said, not very convinced and gave Usopp his phone back. But it wasn't long till she was looming over him and pointing at the screen. “Look” she added, quickly, “our cook is the most written about in these fanfics”.
“I- What?”. Sanji was astonished, people were writing about him? He was the least interesting person on the crew!
“What are they writing about?” came Chopper's sweet voice.
“Well…” Nami looked elsewhere, “about dating him”.
“What?!” Sanji was astonished. People were writing about dating him?! People wanted to date him? Even fantasized about it?
“Most of them are y/n” Nami mentioned. Was this Whyen so in love with him that she wrote fanfics about him? That was so romantic! “That means it is a self-inserted fanfic, where you pretend you are the one in the story” she then explained. Ah, so no beautiful Whyen waiting for him. But thousands of beautiful different women dreaming about him! How could he manage to court them all at the same time? “We can also see his pairings here” Nami pointed at something on the screen.
“Pairings?” Usopp asked.
“Yeah, they pair you with someone they think you'll match with and write a story about that, and here you can see the other one's name, in grey. For example…” Sanji peeped as she started scrolling down all the “y/n” fanfics and landed in one called Stealing all the riches! (and your heart), “This one is about me and Sanji”.
Me and Sanji
Me. Sanji.
Me.
Sanji.
Sanji looked up at Nami with tears already in his eyes. People thought he and Nami would make a great couple?! Truly it must be true then! They were experts in love, cupid even, they must know what they were writing about.
Nami made a clear effort to not look into his puppy eyes (because she was a shy lady, who wouldn't want to show her emotions, clearly). Finally, she sighed and looked at him with both arms on his hips and her eyes closed. “You are not allowed to read any of the fanfics that pair us together, you understand?” she said. Sanji immediately nodded.
“Of course Nami-san, this is something so intimate, so inappropriate. I would never do such a thing”. She nodded and quickly squatted down to look at Usopp's phone again.
“Here is a fanfic of you two” she pointed at the tittle on the screen You can lie to me (but your heart can't) and Usopp squealed.
“About us two? Usopp and me?” Sanji reiterated and Nami nodded with a bright smile on her lips. But… but… Usopp wasn't a pretty lady.
He looked at his crew mate, who was holding the cellphone with iron-hands. “You can't read about mine either, I'm a married man” he said with a strangled voice and avoiding his eyes.
“Of course! What. Why would I wanna read about you?!” Sanji took a step back horrified. He didn't wan't to know anything about holding Usopp's hand and sailing into the unknown.
“Is there a fic about any of us?” sweet beautiful Robin asked behind him. Nami looked at her weirdly but nodded.
“There are a couple for Sanji and Robin, Sanji and Franky, Sanji and Brook” she started counting. Brook looked at him and wriggled his eyebrows, or where his eyebrows would be, and Sanji felt sick. Why would people look at their crew and think about them being in a relationship? That was crazy!
As each of their names were being mentioned, Robin, Franky and Brook told Sanji they didn't feel comfortable with him reading about them, and Sanji just nodded, dumbfounded. Again, why would he want to read about his crewmates being in a relationship with him? Him courting them? Them reciprocating? Actually nuts.
“There is even one where Chopper is your son” Nami said and Sanji smiled warmly at Chopper. That was nice. Maybe it wasn't so bad.
“Sanji is also paired with Luffy” she commented, and everyone gasped.
“Luffy?! He is underage!” Sanji shouted, exceptionally disgusted. He wasn't old enough to make it unthinkable, but it was extremely weird. Luffy was a weird guy. The idea of someone having romantic thoughts about his captain was crazy. “Isn't that illegal?”
“Nah, you can write about everyone” she dismissed him with a hand gesture and kept reading. “It looks like Luffy's fanfics are mainly fluff anyway” she added.
“Fluff?” Usopp asked, again.
“Like, they are sweet, there are no intimate scenes”.
“There are intimate scenes in the others?!” Usopp and Sanji shouted.
Was this an adults-only page for desperate people? And he was in it?!
Sanji lit up a cigarette with trembling hands.
“Well yeah, and also alternative realities, friends, family… You can write about anything you want, but the smut and lemon ones are the most common”.
“What do lemons have to do with this?” Zoro asked, looking at Nami with an eyebrow raised. She blushed.
“So, we are on a website, which is not controlled by any government, where people exchange borderline pornographic stories about minors, and we can't do anything about it?” Sanji checked he got it correctly.
“You are a pirate” Nami looked at him with bored eyes, and beggan looming over Usopp to get a hold of his phone “you live to be free every second of your day, why are you so scandalized about this?”.
“It's the love-cook, we all know he's old school” Zoro answered and Sanji glared at him. He could be very modern, thank you very much.
“I wanna see who is the most paired up of all of us” Nami commented, brushing off Zoro's attempt to start a fight. Sanji wished he wasn't as curious about this so he could smack Marimo's face correctly.
“That must be Robin and Franky, no? Because they are actually dating” Usopp said, pointing at his crewmates and looking at Nami for answers like a little boy.
“Well, not necessarily. Actually, most of the time people like to write about things that aren't real, to experiment and create a different world. So it's more likely that the main pairing is not a real couple”, she said as she scrolled and typed things Sanji didn't understand.
Maybe it would be something obvious like Robin and Zoro, their strongest pirates (not that Sanji was ever going to say that outloud) and the most known out of all of them. Or maybe him and Nami, the true pairing, the love that conquers all, the match made in heaven-
“It's Zoro and Sanji” Nami announced blankly. Everyone got silent. Sanji slowly turned to look at Zoro, who was blushing. And everything was too much.
“What?!” Usopp shouted.
“What do you mean Zoro-bro and Sanji-bro?” Franky started.
"That's unexpected” Robin stated calmly.
“Like, as a couple?” Franky kept questioning.
“That I would like to see” Brook laughed deeply.
“Oh my goooood” Chopper started screaming, running around the deck.
“What?!” came Usopp again.
“As in, kissing each other? Holding hands?” Franky asked again.
“As in fucking all sweaty and hard” Nami answered with an evil smile, looking directly at Zoro and Sanji, who kept trying to put some distance between each other.
“What?!” Usopp shouted one more time.
Zoro was silent and red from his green-mudy hair to his neck. Sanji was then left to answer. Explain… Explain what?! He wasn't the perverted psycho that wanted to play with dolls with his crew. And, if he were, he wouldn't pick Zoro and himself out of all people.
“This doesn't make sense” he said out loud.
“That's true!” Usopp came to the rescue. “They are fighting all the time! I haven't even seen them say thank you to the other one once. What sort of romantic story is that?!”.
“Well, it's called enemies-to-lovers and it's a very popular trope” Nami, still with an evil smile, began to explain calmly, “that means that people ship two characters that fight a lot, because they are repressing their feelings. Love and desire come in the way of punches and insults. They end up confessing at the end of the fic, and fucking, or sometimes they fuck, and then confess”.
That was so un-chivalry. Who would make love with a woman before telling her they loved her? Barbarians only. And now, because of some twisted fate, he was virtually entangled with the only barbarian in the crew.
“This is all your fault” he snapped to Zoro, who was still very much red, but that didn't stop him from looking ugly at him.
“How is this my fault?!” Zoro shouted, strangely emotional. He wasn't the only one embarrassed, Sanji wanted to say a thing or two.
“You are always on my nerves, being an idiot and a useless Marimo, and now because of that there are dirty stories written about us!”.
“You are the idiot, useless love-cook!” he shouted back, clearly not very creative with insults right now. Sanji prepared himself for a fight, throwing his cigarette and looking as Zoro got his hands on the grip of his swords, when he noticed everyone's eyes on them. Nami's evil grin turned into a malicious laugh and, to his astonishment, everyone began laughing.
“I get it now” Usopp said, wiping away a tear.
“What do you get?” said Zoro with clenched teeth.
"Don't tell me you are going to start to pair them!” Nami said, and began laughing again.
“No, no, that would be weird, I actually know them so I understand they fight out of spite, not pent up sexual frustration” Usopp explained, a little shy, “but I understand why people would see it as a sexual kinda thing”.
“What? Why?!” Sanji was horrified all over again. What about two manly men solving tension by physical fighting was sexual?!
“Well, you are always so aware of each other, it's like you are paying attention to everything the other one says and does” Usopp's thin eyebrows went up and down in a funny grin.
“That's because he's always saying stupid things” Sanji and Zoro said in unison, and every argument that they could give was destroyed after that.
Everyone laughed and refused to hear them out.