'Ship Happens'
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Screenshot from anime
Oneshot: Reader x Sanity (Rocks D. Xebec if you blink) Length: 3 K+ Rating: 16+ (Language) WARNING, ONE PIECE CHAPTER 1155 SPOILERS BELOW
You lost a Davy Back game and woke up navigating a warship full of war crimes. Now the captain wants to go to God Valley. You do not want to go to God Valley.
“That’s the third time you’ve sailed past it,” Rocks growled. His voice rumbled across the deck like thunder caught in a throat, heavy and close. He looked ready to erupt, teeth bared in a snarl, hands twitching like he couldn’t decide whether to throw lightning or throw you into the sea.
You didn’t even glance up from the compass. “Wind shifted.”
“The wind didn’t shift,” he snapped, boots grinding against the deck as he stormed forward. “You shifted. The island’s right there.”
You tilted your head, squinting out across the water where God Valley sat on the horizon like a rotting tooth. Jagged cliffs rose out of the mist like something from a bad dream, and the air tasted too clean, too quiet. “I think the map’s wrong.”
“I drew the map.”
“Exactly. Probably wrong.”
Behind him, Whitebeard was visibly struggling not to laugh. His shoulders shook like a damn earthquake. Kaido wasn’t bothering with subtlety, already doubled over and wheezing like he’d been punched. Big Mom had taken a break from chewing the crew to chew on a cannon instead, treating it like a crunchy breadstick. Shiki was hovering in the sky, idly skywriting the words “GET ON WITH IT” using the edge of his flying sword like a paintbrush dipped in arrogance.
Rocks kept walking until he reached the wheel, jabbing a thick finger against the wood next to your hand. “Turn. The ship.”
You gently placed your gloved hand over the wheel. Calm. Steady. Possessive. Like you were guarding a shrine and he was the heretic. “Here’s the thing. I don’t think we’ve really thought this one through. An island full of Celestial Dragons, armed Marines, and possibly gods playing dice with mortals? That sounds very much like a you problem, Captain.”
He stared at you, hard and unblinking. “It’s about to become your problem, Navigator.”
You sighed. Long. Loud. Rude. “I’m just saying there are a lot of other islands out here. Normal ones. Plunderable ones. Ones that aren’t wrapped in divine judgment and crawling with people who turn genocide into party tricks. Why this one?”
“We’re going,” Rocks said slowly, “because they don’t know we know they’re there. And they have—”
You gave him a skeptical look. “And I’m not going because I think they absolutely do know. Maybe they’re just sitting there, polishing their gold thrones, waiting for a bunch of suicidal pirates to come walking right into the net.”
His eye twitched.
You gestured broadly to the horizon. “What about a nice detour? Maybe we take the long way. A scenic route. Maybe we don’t sail into a divine stronghold like we’re trying to win an award for Most Likely to Die Loudly.”
Rocks stepped closer. The deck creaked under the pressure. His shadow fell across you, deep and cutting. “You swore loyalty to my crew.”
You blinked. “I said ‘I’ll try not to let us crash.’ That’s very different.”
The two of you locked eyes. Silence thickened the air.
Behind you, Shiki had changed the skywriting to say “Seriously, just fight already.” Whitebeard was coughing from laughter. Kaido had started making bets with the crew on whether you were going to get punched or promoted.
Rocks flexed his jaw. “You have ten seconds.”
“To do what?” you asked, without flinching.
“To turn the ship,” Rocks howled, veins standing out like thunderbolts carved into flesh. “Or die trying. You think you can defy me?”
“No,” you said calmly. “I know I can’t. That’s why I keep rerouting us while pretending to be confused about where the sun is.”
“The sun?!” Rocks bellowed, reeling back like you’d just punched physics in the throat. “The sun hasn’t moved!”
“Exactly,” you said, eyes wide with faux solemnity. “Suspicious.”
Big Mom finally snapped the cannon she’d been chewing on clean in half. The crew stared as she tossed the pieces overboard with a grunt of admiration. Kaido was bent over the railing, wheezing like he’d swallowed his own club. Shiki’s skywriting now read “I’M INVESTED.”
Whitebeard crossed his arms and muttered, “Just let them live. They’re the only reason we haven’t died of boredom yet.”
Rocks looked one moment away from biting the mast in half. He jabbed a furious finger toward the distant silhouette of God Valley, a speck of cursed land rising like an accusation from the sea.
“If you don’t turn this ship toward God Valley,” he growled, voice dropping to a dangerous quiet, “I will throw you there myself. Piece by piece.”
You squinted toward the horizon. Then at the wheel. Then at him. Then back at the wheel. And sighed.
“…Fine,” you muttered, jamming the rudder into place with a deliberately sulky shove. “But when I get vaporized by divine wrath or stabbed by some purebred Celestial Dragon’s ceremonial fork, I am haunting your logbook.”
“You already haunt my logbook, idiot,” he snapped. “Focus.”
With great theatrical suffering, you turned the ship. The hull groaned, sails billowed, and slowly the ship swung back around. Straight toward fate. Straight toward the one place every voice in your body screamed to avoid.
Straight toward God Valley.
Rocks grinned, a slow, cruel smile that made it very clear this man had never once worried about divine consequences. He looked like a demon watching the gates to hell creak open and wondering which foot to stick in first.
You stared at the island with exhausted loathing. “Stupid island. Stupid gods. Stupid captain. Should’ve stayed in cartography school.”
No one believed you’d joined the Rocks Pirates voluntarily. Not even the crew.
You’d been press-ganged by fate, blackmailed by a man who thought ‘mapmaking’ meant drawing targets, and very possibly cursed. You had lost a Davy Back fight when you were four rums in, and high on confidence. It was slapjack. Slapjack. You had been destroying him until your reflexes caught up with your blood alcohol level, and the world turned sideways. You lost your balance, then your freedom.
You were lucky he didn’t take your hand clean off when he finally won a round.
Now here you were, steering a warship full of living disasters toward a god-haunted island like it was just another Tuesday.
The wheel creaked as you leaned into the turn, muscles tight. The wind shifted again. Or maybe that was just your guilt trying to help you escape. You couldn’t tell anymore.
Then the silence hit.
Long. Cold. Absolute.
The kind of silence that came before bad decisions and battlefield massacres.
You glanced behind you.
Rocks was still there. Unmoving. Watching. His eyes were slits, that eerie stillness settling over him like a curse coiled to strike.
“If you don’t keep this ship going towards God Valley,” Rocks said, voice quiet and soaked in that lethal calm that always came right before things exploded, “I will tie you to the mast.”
A beat.
“Again.”
Your eye twitched.
You didn’t flinch. Just slowly turned your head and gave him a flat, soul-deep look that said you had been through it and were done. Absolutely, cosmically, universally done.
“You wouldn’t.”
He stepped closer.
And smiled.
Not the kind of smile sane people smile. No. This was the kind of grin that made war veterans dive behind furniture. The kind that came with background organ music and permanent trauma.
“Do I look like a man who wouldn’t?”
You stared at him. Long. Hard.
Unfortunately, he did.
He looked exactly like a man who would tie you to the mast with cursed rope, whisper something about “unleashing your inner potential,” and then summon a lightning storm with his bare hands.
While yelling ‘character development’. Because he had.
“That was one time,” you said. “One time I got seasick and fell asleep at the helm.”
“You dreamed we were being hunted by priests and veered us straight into a sea king’s mouth. In the middle of the night.”
“That’s subjective—”
“We lost five crew members,” he said, pointing a finger for emphasis, “and my favorite cape.”
You blinked. “You have like nine capes.”
He roared, “That one was haunted!”
“Then it’s in a better place!” you shouted back. “Maybe haunting the sea king now!”
“Don’t deflect,” he snapped, jabbing a thumb toward the looming island. “Steer the ship.”
You groaned like a martyr. “Fine! God Valley. Certain doom. Hope you enjoy whatever divine nightmare greets us. I’ll just be down here, screaming into the rudder.”
Rocks nodded, satisfied. As if you’d finally seen the light.
Then he paused. Tilted his head.
“You’re still going to try to swerve at the last second, aren’t you?”
You gave him a toothy grin.
“Do I look like someone who wouldn’t?”
He grinned back, wider, sharper, entirely unholy.
“That’s why I already prepped the mast,” he said.
Your face fell.
You turned.
And sure enough—there they were. Ropes. Dangling from the mast like cheerful execution decorations. Knotted. Waiting.
“You absolute lunatic!” you shrieked.
Whitebeard burst out laughing and clapped once, hard enough to rattle the sails. Shiki started taking bets on how long it would take you to chew through the rope this time. Big Mom offered to do the knotwork. Said she was very good with knots. Said it twice.
You gripped the wheel like it might save your soul.
And Rocks? Rocks leaned against the railing like a smug war god, arms crossed, wind tugging at his hair, watching you steer directly toward the most cursed island in existence with that look in his eye like he already owned your bones.
God Valley loomed.
Cliffs like knives. Storm clouds swirling like courtroom wigs. Lightning flashed with the kind of judgment only divine bureaucracy could invent. The air tasted like iron and impending lawsuits from the heavens.
You narrowed your eyes.
Then you narrowed them harder.
Then looked over your shoulder.
Nope.
Absolutely not.
You backed away from the helm. Casually. Quietly. Like the deck was made of glass and you were nothing more than a gentle breeze with absolutely no intention of desertion.
One step.
Two.
Rocks glared.
Shiki squinted at you. “Why are you walking like that?”
“I left something below deck,” you said smoothly, gesturing vaguely. “Bathroom. Anchor. Ghost. Something.”
“Your dignity?” John offered without looking up, his drink half gone.
You flipped them both off with grace and precision.
Then bolted.
Straight over the railing.
Splash.
Sweet ocean freedom. Saltwater salvation. The siren call of anywhere else. You kicked away from the ship like the sea itself had opened its arms and promised better management.
Half a dozen escape plans bloomed in your head at once. You were already choosing your fake name (captain Definitely Not The Rocks Navigator was leading the charge) when it happened.
Something grabbed the back of your shirt.
Not your arm.
Not your shoulder.
Not your waist, romantically.
Your. Shirt. Collar.
You were plucked from the ocean like a feral cat caught stealing fish.
“Absolutely not,” Rocks muttered, hauling you out of the sea with one arm like you had personally disappointed Poseidon. Water streamed down your legs. Your boots made tragic squelching noises. You rose from the waves like a soggy, blasphemous offering to the gods of bad decisions.
“PUT ME DOWN—”
“I will,” he said calmly, already striding back across the deck. “Right after I tie you to something useful. Like the helm. Or the cannon. Or my patience.”
You kicked.
You flailed.
Gloriosa ignored you both studiously.
You made sounds so guttural and violent that even Big Mom paused mid-bite and muttered something about sea-witches.
“I WAS TRYING TO ESCAPE TYRANNY. WHERE’S GILL HE’D UNDERSTAND!”
“You were trying to escape your job,” Rocks corrected, not even winded. “Which is treason. And frankly, embarrassing.”
“You’re embarrassing!”
“I conquered an archipelago last week using nothing but a pebble and a scream. You think this is what’s going to break me?”
You hissed like an offended eel as he stepped over the fallen cannon Big Mom had eaten earlier, ignoring the crew’s growing cackles. Whitebeard had to sit down. Shiki started sketching your wanted poster with the phrase WANTED: For Cowardice and Excessive Sogginess.
He reached the mast.
The ropes were still swaying, practically giddy.
“Don’t you dare—” you snarled.
“Oh, I dare,” he said.
“This is an abuse of power!”
“This is restraint,” Rocks said. “You haven’t seen abuse of power until I decorate the sail with your bad attitude.”
You clawed at the air. “You’ll regret this!”
“No, I’ll sleep better. Everyone will.”
Big Mom grinned wide enough to terrify the horizon. “Oooh, do the ankles. They kick so funny when it’s the ankles.”
“I will bite everyone on this ship,” you howled as Rocks looped the first rope. “Mark my words!”
He ignored you.
Tied the second knot.
Then patted your head like you were a freshly captured pet. “There. Secure. Happy?”
“THIS IS KIDNAPPING!”
“It’s only kidnapping the first twelve times. After that, it’s tradition.”
You opened your mouth again.
He stuffed a damp rag in it.
“Shh. Navigator’s working.”
And with that, Rocks returned to the helm. The cursed island loomed in the distance like an insult. Lightning split the sky behind it in the shape of a skull.
You made a sound that could curdle milk.
Shiki gave you a ten for effort.
Kaido offered you a drink by pouring it over your head.
And somewhere, deep in your salt-stained, rope-bitten soul, you began drafting your revenge arc.
It would be long.
It would be petty.
It would be biblical.
There would be no survivors.
Shiki cheered from the crow’s nest. “Five minutes faster than last time!”
So you spent the approach tied to the mast like some very sarcastic martyr, soaked to the bone, fury boiling beneath the surface, muttering hexes under your breath in every tongue you could remember. Some of which you may have invented just for this moment.
The ship sliced through the waves, cutting a path straight toward damnation. On the horizon, God Valley loomed with all the subtlety of a divine middle finger. Black cliffs jutted like broken teeth. Clouds swirled as if whispering rumors to the thunder. Lightning forked behind it, flickering dramatically because of course it did.
And there you were.
Still tied to the mast.
Arms pinned behind your back.
Your hair dripped. Your dignity leaked steadily into the planks beneath you. You heard the footsteps before you saw him. Heavy. Deliberate. Far too confident for someone who routinely caused international incidents before breakfast.
You didn’t even bother looking up.
“You’re lucky I like you,” Rocks said, coming to a halt just a little too close. His voice was all smug amusement, like he wasn’t the reason you’d nearly drowned fifteen minutes ago. “Anyone else would’ve been ballast.”
He finally removed the gag, and you immediately hissed like a wet kettle left on too long.
You gave a long, theatrical sigh, tilted your head back, and thunked it gently against the mast.
“Can I at least be untied when we get there?”
He laughed. Low and pleased, like he was the main character and you were the side quest he didn’t know he needed.
“So you can make off with the Roger Pirates?” he said. “I don’t think so.”
You turned your head, just enough to look at him. Just enough to let the mischief in.
Just enough for your brain to whisper: Don’t say it. Don’t say it. Don’t—
“But sir,” you said brightly, “that’s prime breeding stock. Have you seen Scopper Gaban?”
Of course you said it.
You always did.
He froze mid-step like you’d just drop-kicked his ego.
And then, with perfect delivery, he muttered, “And I rest my point,” before turning to walk off, like he hadn’t just been emotionally stabbed in the thigh by a drive-by thirst comment.
You smirked, victorious.
“Also, Rayleigh has very stable boat energy,” you called after him. “I could build a future on that man’s anchor set.”
Rocks turned on his heel so fast the deck nearly caught fire.
“Do you want to be tied upside down?!”
You lifted your brows. “I’m just saying—if I’m going to be kidnapped at mast-point, I should be allowed a little window shopping!”
“You are not allowed to browse rival pirates like it’s a damn livestock auction!”
You shrugged as best you could, the ropes creaking around your shoulders. “You tied me up like a prize heifer, Rocks. I’m just leaning into the branding.”
His jaw clenched.
He stomped back toward you, fury simmering behind his eyes. But it wasn’t the clean kind. No, this was that cursed, complicated flavor of anger that came with being mildly obsessed with someone you wanted to launch into the sea and lock in your quarters.
He stopped close.
Too close.
The sea was loud. Your heartbeat louder.
He leaned in, breath brushing your cheek, voice low and dangerous.
“You’re playing a very dangerous game.”
You smiled. Sweet. Sharp.
“Good,” you whispered. “Because if I die, I’m haunting you in your dreams.”
He blinked.
Visibly flustered.
His mouth opened. Closed. Twitched.
Then, with the dignity of a man hanging by a thread, he spun on his heel and stomped off again, muttering under his breath like the deck had wronged him.
“Blasphemous little sea rat. Gaban, my ass. Can’t even take down an admiral. Ridiculous.”
Whitebeard whistled from the rigging. “Think you broke him.”
Stussy gave you a standing ovation.
Kaido tossed you a damp towel like a peace offering.
You let it flop over your face and whispered to yourself, “Next time, I'll bite.”
