#Luffy questioning his own adequacy is one of my favorite angst

[charkyzombicorn]

It was a stupid thing to forget. Usopp knew that. It was a monumentally stupid thing to forget, but he had.

Luffy and him were skimming the ocean a bit away from the ship, because wind was strong so Sunny was moving fast and scaring the fish. It was normal, Usopp was always dragging one of the crew around while he swam because people just couldn't swim as fast as him. Then he saw a bigger fish a bit deeper down. He told the human on his back "Wait here, I'll be back in a sec" and bucked away and into the ocean in less than a second, diving deeper and deeper after that huge fish - it was bigger than he thought, and further down. Usopp wrestled with the fish he could barely get his arms around for a second before giving up and forming himself fully into a seal to bite at the fish until it stopped moving. He changed his upper half back to grab the fish again before looking up to swim back, expecting to see kicking human legs just under the surface, like he did every time he left Nami from where he was carrying her for a second.

But Luffy was gone. Because Luffy can't swim.

Usopp took way too long looking for that bright red cartigan, and swimming them both back to the ship so Luffy could get the water beaten out of his chest. Usopp distanced himself once he saw Luffy breathing again, because he didn't think someone that almost drowned their partner and captain should eat and chat with everyone else like nothing happened.

So he took Franky's watch, took his dinner plate and went up to camp in the crow's nest.

Then Luffy came up, filling the room with noise before he even got the trapdoor open, ignoring how Usopp was sitting on the floor under one of the windows, wallowing, immediately sitting so close next to him that their shoulders touched and going on about a joke Brook told him that he forgot half of on the walk from the galley to there, as if he hadn't almost died because of Usopp, completely ignoring the slight rasp his voice still had from all the coughing as he rambled on and on.

"I didn't mean to." Usopp blurted, and Luffy stopped talking so suddenly it made the room feel empty. "I forgot you couldn't swim."

Luffy stared blankly at him for a second before snorting. "Usopp's a little dumb, huh?" He said, and from anyone else it would be an insult.

"I guess I am." The sniper responded.

"I haven't been able to swim in twelve years." His captain told him, and Usopp said nothing. "You've never seen me swim." Not entirely true, in Usopp's dreams where he grows old with Luffy, they always swim side-by-side. He supposed in hindsight that that couldn't actually happen.

But Usopp the liar nodded anyway, and Luffy was quiet again for another minute.

"You wouldn't have liked how I swam. Shanks always said I looked stupid." Luffy said finally, and Usopp looked up at him for the first time that conversation. "Gramps didn't teach me the kitty puddle or anything, just threw me in the water every time I beached myself until I learned to keep my head above water. I basically just flailed around."

Usopp leaned his head to clunk into Luffy's next to him. "I wish I could have seen."

"I could flail around on the floor?"

"Pfft-- No. I think I'm good for now."

Luffy leaned a little more into Usopp - head to head, shoulder to shoulder, knee to knee. "I won't ever be able to swim, you know. Even if I want to and you want me to. I can't."

Usopp knew, objectively, that that was true. It still made him sad that some of his favorite dreams would never come true.

"Does Usopp need someone that swims?"

Of course he didn't. Maybe. Possibly.

"No." Usopp said with the same confidence he used for any lie he told.

Luffy leaned even harder on Usopp, until he ws halfway in his lap. "Then I'm happy." He said, always eager to believe Usopp.

Usopp sat in the quiet of the crow's nest while Luffy drifted off on his shoulder, and wondered.