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“Thousand Sunny is an incredible ship,” is the first thing Jinbe says to him, after Onigashima.
Franky grins back, proud beyond measure, and says, “Isn’t she?”
No, back a step.
Franky is huddled in his workshop on Karakuri Island, and Kitton has just asked him why he hasn’t fixed his face yet.
It’s a fair question, all things considered. The horrible burned wreck makes Kitton flinch to look at. Franky’s sense of smell is completely shot, and the eyes and ears aren’t doing particularly great either. He’s got to get around to it sometime. But.
But.
“I can cover it up, if you like,” Franky offers, although actually doing that would be decidedly un-SUPER. “There’s more furs around somewhere.”
Kitton snorts with a child’s omniscient disdain. “You’ll just cause another incident. And make it even worse.”
Okay, that’s- Well it’s not fair, the incident with the tiger rug had happened because he wasn’t used to accounting for trailing fabric, he’d pick something less billowy this time and be marginally more careful around open flame. He can see where Kitton’s coming from, though.
He says, “Alright, alright, alright.”
There’s borscht heating over a hastily thrown-together stove and Franky’s been scribbling at blueprints for hours so his brain is fuzzy. He wants to finalize the design for his hands tonight, get it all in order before he kills the nerves in his left wrist and starts working one-handed. He probably won’t, now that Kitton’s come to visit, which puts him a few hours behind schedule.
Well, nothing a little caffeine injected directly into the veins can’t fix. He is working with a deadline, after all.
“Why won’t you fix your face?” says Kitton. He’s poking at the stove. Franky wishes he wouldn’t, because Franky put it together in about thirty seconds out of scraps when Kitton walked in the door carrying a pot of soup bigger than his own torso, and the detailing’s all wrong. But more than that, he wishes Kitton would stop asking about his face.
One and a half years ago, Franky winked out of existence to Luffy screaming, jagged and broken; one and a half years ago, Luffy issued orders from a distance, solemn and unhappy; one and a half years ago, Franky looked at himself, a busted heap of scrap metal and burnt flesh, and pinned Luffy’s new bounty poster on the wall.
There’s no Sunny here, to outfit with wonders. There’s just him.
Franky nudges Kitton away from the stove. “I can’t,” he says. “Not yet.”
“But why?”
Cheeks that inflate like balloons, no, color changing eyes, no, no, maybe eyes that glow? no but he’ll make something else glow in the dark, something funnier, he’s got space inside his metal skull for wires, he learned that from Brook, maybe, no, probably not teeth that shoot lasers, something’s gotta shoot lasers for sure though, ears? nose? mouth? hair? skin? something funny. Something SUPER funny. There’s no greater love. Whatever he does, it needs to be funny, and it needs to be perfect, and it needs to make Luffy laugh.
He’s wasted rolls of drafting paper on it. On whatever it’ll be. On whatever absurd thing he’ll hammer himself into, shipwright without a ship, ship without a crew, crewman without a captain.
Well he’s figured out his hands, finally, at least, huge hands for lifting small hands for detail, useful all the way down and SUPER amusing, too, he can see Luffy’s eyes sparkle as he reveals them. He’s got his shoulders in place, and he’s done most of the work on his legs. But his face.
But his face.
He looks at Kitton, who flinches back at the sight of him. He says, “You’ll see.”
Jinbe steers Thousand Sunny like an extension of himself and Franky feels it in himself, feels himself tack, pitch, skid across foam, his sails pull in at Nami’s command.
This is what Thousand Sunny was built for, board by board, nail by painstaking nail, Franky hammering his soul into the seams to go with his wishes and his dreams. This helmsman, and this navigator, and this crew at the ropes.
And this captain.
Luffy is halfway up the mainmast but he pauses briefly, hanging on by an arm, to shoot Franky a grin that should be invisible in the chaos. Isn’t.
No greater love.
Maybe that’s a ship’s purpose, shipwright’s purpose. To see within herself, to hold herself steady, to know and know and know the cracks and flaws and framework, to hold steady no matter what comes, to, in the end, go down without the captain, steady-unsteady into the depths, crew seen smiling safe to shore.
Maybe. Probably. That’s part of it.
No, back further.
Franky stands, half-naked, weeping in a cocktail of agonies. His head hurts, and his balls hurt, no thanks to Nico Robin, and his heart hurts, no thanks to the Family, no thanks to Iceberg, no thanks, no thanks, no thanks.
There’s a howling in his heart, under his skin, half of him gone already between the boards of his ship of dreams, the work of his hands, and he wants to go with it, free, and he can’t, and they want him to go, forgiven, and he can’t, and he can’t.
And there’s trouble, and the Straw Hats need to go, and Franky is bawling on the ground, half-naked and humiliated, rock and shell digging into his skin, shadowed over by the ship of dreams. And there’s no greater love. There’s no greater love.
And: “Whoa! Franky! You still haven’t gotten your trunks back?” says Straw Hat Luffy, who not so long ago was spitting in the face of the world and who, now, is saying “Whoops. Here, take them!” and tossing them down, laughing, hopping up on the railing.
Franky scrambles up, makes the catch, SUPER, looks up and finds looking up at Luffy to be akin to squinting at the face of the sun. Swallows, mouth dry, half-himself. Tightens his fists against inevitability.
“Get on, Franky,” orders Luffy, all imperious impatience, all possession. There’s no greater love in the world than a craftsman’s for the work of his hands, than a crew’s for a ship come alive, than a burning flag.
There’s so little of Franky left beneath the skin pulled taut over his metal frame. The greater part of him exists outside himself, exists in the grass and rivets and paint of the newborn ship of dreams, exists as sinew and bone for a ship that needs neither, has both.
“Get on my ship,” orders Luffy, possessive, imperious, claimant of everything Franky left for him to take. Claimant of more than that. Claimant of Franky, and Franky’s dream, and Franky’s ship of dreams Franky built for him to claim.
So Franky, who is Luffy’s ship and shipwright, who is Tom’s student, who still hasn’t put his trunks back on, steps towards that greater part of himself.
A ship’s devotion expresses itself as steadiness, as sturdiness, as good fortune with knots and winds. A shipwright’s devotion is similar, Franky has learned, problems fixed before their sharp-eyed navigator can turn them into issues, patched yardarms and bolts tightened past midnight.
Sometimes, Luffy finds him smeared in grease, spotted in rust, metal bits scratched and scuffed as he works at some particularly stubborn repair right through breakfast. Luffy pokes Franky until he puts down his tools, then, and lifts Luffy up in oil-stained hands to lounge on his shoulder.
Luffy says, when he’s sitting up there, hand dangling obtrusively into Franky’s field of vision until he fidgets around and replaces it with a foot, “Franky’s so cool!”
“Yow!” answers Franky, flattered, tossing a wrench up to him to hold. “You bet!”
Luffy giggles. Bends the wrench in half absently, but it was a spare anyways. Leans in to whisper in Franky’s ear. “I bet Sunny loves you almost as much as I do.”
If Franky’s tired enough, or even if he isn’t, that’s when he starts crying. Luffy dangles off his shoulder, or reaches up to hold down Franky’s nose, or taps Franky’s shoulder like he’s checking for a ripe-enough watermelon, and Franky lets him, listens to Luffy laugh to himself as Franky finds himself a rag, wipes off his hands and his tears.
He’s glad he waited, about his face. Luffy swaps Franky’s hair again, ends up with the castle preset, uses the towers as handholds. Franky smiles to himself, remembers full-bellied laughter.
No greater love in the world than a craftsman’s for the work of his hands. Than a ship’s for her crew. Than a crewman’s for his captain.
He shows Luffy through the issue, after that, talks him through the whole thing although knows Luffy doesn’t understand a word of it, falls asleep sometimes even, but it’s more for Franky’s sake than Luffy’s, anyway. If he wanted an engineer’s opinions, he’d ask Usopp. He probably will ask Usopp, later. But for now, Luffy, and Franky half-asleep, and Sanji coming down with breakfast for the both of them.
A ship’s devotion is a wholehearted, constant thing. A shipwright’s is the same.
Back further.
“Franky,” says Tom, guiding his child’s hands on a saw, “there is no greater love than a craftsman’s for the work of his hands.”
Again, again, again.
“Thank you for treasuring me,” says the Going Merry, miracle ship. Flames lick up her figurehead. “I was truly happy.”
Further, further, further.
“Idiot,” says Iceberg. “You’re an idiot. Who wants to build weapons?”
Again.
“Sogeking, shoot down that flag,” orders Franky’s captain-to-be.
Further. Further.
Cutty Flam, a thrown-away thing, scrambles to his feet. “Mister!” he shouts, abrasive. “Take me in! I got thrown out of my home!”
Again.
“Get on my ship.”
“Let us see,” says the Elder Star, demon who can heal from anything, who came from nowhere, sacred spider crouching untouchable at the top of the world, who hovers a claw over Luffy’s prone form.
Luffy who just fought an Admiral hand-to-hand, Luffy who laughs like nobody but Tom has ever laughed, Luffy who Franky built and rebuilt himself for, Luffy, defiant, sunlit, King-to-be.
A ship’s duty is the safety of her captain and crew. Franky doesn’t hesitate.
STRONG RIGHT! and Luffy out of danger, carried safe in the palm Franky made huge for him. No greater love. “So even the guys who rule the world,” says Franky, Sunny, and he laughs too, proud beyond measure, defiant, spitting in the face of the world, Luffy’s ship and Luffy’s shipwright, “want our captain’s head, huh?”
There. Perfect.