A/N: This is a now belated birthday gift to the great captain Usopp! I posted it on his birthday on tumblr but got lazy about posting it here. Enjoy!

Usopp rubbed at the bruising lump forming on the crown of his head.

"Would you cut it out with the 'great captain Usopp' speech!" Sanji snapped.

Zoro came up alongside him, his arms folded over his chest. He sighed, giving Usopp an exasperated look.

"We've got one idiot captain already, we don't need another."

Usopp's mood deflated. He'd been so relieved with their victory and proud of his own part of it, that he might have gotten a little carried away again. He knew Luffy was their captain, but couldn't he just pretend a little bit?

Well, apparently Sanji and Zoro didn't think so, and from the look Nami was giving him, he'd guess she didn't think so either. He sighed, the thrill of their battle fading fast as he approached the Merry with a heavy heart.

It wasn't like he didn't know Luffy was their captain. He was well aware of that fact, actually. But he still wanted to be the one in charge. Not that Luffy wasn't a great captain if you ignored all the awful predicaments he got them into. The one in charge was always needed though, and he wanted to be needed.

He was well aware that he didn't have any outstanding strengths. He didn't have Nami's instinct or mind for navigation, or Chopper's ability to patch up even the gravest wound. He couldn't cook like Sanji, and unlike Zoro, he was useless in battle. Even Robin had a vast knowledge of the Grand Line and every island in it, which was more useful than anything Usopp could offer.

Sure, he was a good shot, but he couldn't even use his gun. Smoke bombs and illusions might have made for good tricks, but he'd learned how useful they were in battle the hard way.

All in all, he was really expendable, and while he didn't think his friends would ever do that to him, the knowledge of it alone was enough to hurt. Even they must have thought so, keeping him along to humor him but not actually taking him seriously.

So yes, sometimes he liked to pretend he had some actual value. Sometimes he called himself the captain, even if deep down he knew it wasn't, and never would be, true.

He sighed heavily again.

"Usopp," Luffy called from his spot on the rail of the Going Merry. "Aren't you coming?"

Usopp looked up and noticed that already their ship was leaving, drifting some distance away from the slowly sinking enemy ship they'd just defeated... the one he was still standing on.

"Hey!" He cried. "Wait for me!"

He waved his arms, hoping to flag them back down before they'd gotten too far. They were leaving without him! He'd lose them if he didn't get on board soon! They really didn't need him, he supposed, if they'd decided to leave him behind.

"Hold on, Usopp!" Luffy called out before flinging a stretched out rubbery arm in his direction.

Usopp had barely formed a word when there was a sharp tug at his midriff, sending him flying, screaming all the while, towards the Going Merry.

He landed on Luffy, the two of them tumbling into a heap on the wooden deck. Usopp groaned. For a rubber man, Luffy still had some sharp elbows.

He finally managed to gather himself mentally and sat up, facing a beaming Luffy.

"Don't worry, Usopp! We wouldn't leave you behind!" Luffy proclaimed.

Usopp wasn't too sure about that. He wasn't a very memorable person, after all, so if Luffy hadn't happened to look over the railing at him, they probably would have been half way to the One Piece before they even noticed he was no longer with them.

Usopp stood up and brushed himself off. "Yeah, thanks, Luffy," he muttered as he passed by, on his way below deck.

"If anyone needs me, I'll be down in the canon deck," he said aloud.

No one acknowledged him, and he wasn't surprised that no one came to find him until dinner.

The next day, Usopp woke up in a slightly better mood. Not that he'd forgotten how badly his day had gone yesterday, but today was a new day, after all, and there were new adventures to be setting out on.

He woke up just a bit earlier than Luffy and used that to his advantage, quickly scrambling into his shoes and making for the galley. If he made it on time today, maybe he could get a whole plateful of food down before Luffy came and cleaned house.

Only Sanji and Robin were in the kitchen when Usopp arrived. Robin greeted him with a quick smile before returning to her book and losing herself in the words. Sanji, on the other hand, was currently distracted.

"This thing," he growled, twisting the knob for the stove burner back and forth. No matter which way Sanji turned it, the stove remained unlit, and he was becoming increasingly agitated by the second.

Usopp watched him struggle, swearing and cursing the stove all the while, until finally the cook brought one foot back, ready to launch a deadly kick at the offensive piece of kitchen equipment. The stove would not survive, that much was certain.

"Sanji! Wait!" Usopp called, intervening just in the nick of time. He managed to save the stove from total destruction, but from the look Sanji was giving him, Usopp was the one in danger now.

"I can fix it!" He shouted quickly, hoping to defend himself from the fiery cook's wrath. "The stove! I can fix it!"

Sanji backed down slowly, relaxing slightly and stepping back. He lit himself up a smoke and his stance relaxed, but the visible blue eye continued to glare at him.

Usopp turned quickly, reaching into his bag and pulling out a few tools he might need. It was a nervous work; with every inhale Sanji took from his cigarette, Usopp flinched: sure, the cook had finally run out of patience. Fortunately for him, Sanji's patience lasted until he'd managed to find the problem.

"It's just a bad connector here. It's come lose," Usopp explained. "If I just push it… there."

Usopp pulled his head from the stove and turned to look at their cook. Sanji was no longer glaring at him, instead he was looking interested, peeking over Usopp's shoulder. Usopp moved over a little to let him see easier. He talked Sanji through each step as he put the stove back together.

"There," Usopp announced. "Give it a try."

Sanji turned the knob for the burner. Instantly, flame danced up on the stove top, and Sanji let out a triumphant cry.

"You fixed it!" He exclaimed, raising a hand over the fire, far enough away to avoid the burn, but close enough to feel the heat. "Now I can start on Robin-chwan's breakfast," he swooned.

"I told you, I'm quite fine, Cook-san," Robin smiled to him.

"Of course, but I wouldn't want a lady as beautiful as my Robin-chwan to starve for long!" Sanji wiggled about happily, and Usopp could hardly keep from rolling his eyes.

He decided that since breakfast would take a while to cook, he had some time to work on one of his newer inventions. He'd work at the kitchen table, Sanji wouldn't mind as long as he cleaned up before breakfast was served. This way he'd still be able to save his plate from Luffy when he arrived.

"Usopp," Sanji stopped him with a leg barring the way.

"Thank you," Sanji smiled sincerely. "If it weren't for you, we'd all be eating pickled onions and raw eggs for breakfast."

Usopp shuddered in revulsion. He was glad he managed to fix the stove as well.

"Of course, it was no problem for the great me!" Usopp declared proudly.

Sanji rolled his eyes and let the younger man past, booting him slightly in the rear as he went, but when he finally served breakfast that day, Usopp noticed his portion was just a little bit larger than everyone else's.

Usopp was going to spend his afternoon in the cannon deck. It was the safest place to test some of his weapons without incurring the wrath of Nami. Unfortunately for him, he'd barely made it halfway across the deck before he heard her voice, calling to him from her tangerine grove. He ducked his head, hoping if he kept himself small, she wouldn't notice him.

"Usopp!" She shouted. "I see you down there, and if you ever want me to give you any allowance again, you'd better get up here!"

Usopp winced, pausing on the deck and weighing his options. On the one hand, he really, really didn't want to go up there. On the other, if he didn't have money, he couldn't buy supplies, and that effectively put his weaponry back in the useless category.

He sighed heavily and turned on heel, making his way up to the tangerine grove.

"About time," she sniffed when he finally arrived. He might have been dragging his feet a little bit to avoid the inevitable.

He expected to be yelled at for something. Surely, he did something wrong, why else would she be calling him? He braced himself for the onslaught of shouting and monetary threats that were sure to leave him with a headache. Instead, however, a blue metal bar was placed into his hand.

"I don't know what happened," Nami frowned, "but the release mechanism on this one isn't working," she looked up at him, her brown eyes pleading. "Can you fix it, Usopp?"

"Of course I can," he assured her as heroically as possible. "I built it, didn't I?"

She beamed; not her usual devilish smirk, but a genuine, honest smile. It was a little unnerving and very distracting, and for that reason it took Usopp a little longer than he would have thought to actually fix the device. It was a simple fix though; thankfully, just one bad spring he easily replaced.

"You're lucky it wasn't worse, or I might have had to rebuild it from scratch," He told her smugly, scratching at the side of his nose.

"You'd do that?" She asked in wonder.

"Well, don't you need this weapon?" He asked, confused. "I thought it helped."

"It does."

Her smile was all the warning he got before she pulled him into a tight hug. He was caught off guard by the unusual display of affection, and for a moment he was unsure how to react.

"I'd be useless without you," she murmured into his ear. "Thank you, Usopp."

With a final squeeze she let him go.

He left the tangerine grove a little flustered, very confused, and quite pleased with himself.

Usopp set his tool bag down, hopping up on the side of the rail with his fishing rod, ready to catch their meal for the next day. Sanji's supplies of meat dwindled pretty quickly between islands, no thanks to their gluttonous captain. It was a good thing Usopp was pretty good at fishing.

"Usoooppp," Luffy whined from beside him. His line was tangled, and he looked at his sniper pleadingly. "Sanji says I can't have any dinner if I don't catch at least one fish, but they won't bite."

Usopp sighed, propping his own rod against the rail. "Well, you'll never catch one like that," he lectured. "You have to keep your line from getting tangled, or you'll have a hard time hauling anything in."

He worked to untangle the fine fishing line. Luffy looked on, picking his nose in boredom and twitching around, distracting Usopp. He was no help and a terrible student, not even paying attention while Usopp gave an important lecture on good fishing rod care.

When the line was finally untangled, Usopp handed it back to Luffy.

"Now the trick to catching a big fish is to have a proper bait," Usopp informed him. The sniper reached into the bucket they kept for such bait and pulled out one of the little fishes inside. "If you don't have a bait, nothing will be interested. But don't kill the bait either, it's better if it can still move around."

Usopp hooked his bait fish through the lip, holding it up to show Luffy how the fish still wiggled, desperate for water.

"Here," Usopp handed him the rod. "You go ahead and cast that one out. You'll have a fish in no time," he promised.

Luffy did as he was told, sending the baited line out to open water, a fair distance away from their ship.

"Now we wait," Usopp nodded.

It didn't take long, although the monstrous sea king had not been the kind of catch he'd expected. He'd nearly been eaten himself, all while Luffy laughed triumphantly about how much food he'd get to eat that night. It was lucky for Usopp that Sanji had been nearby and landed a fatal blow on the monster before it sank teeth into the sharpshooter. Although that might have been more to do with Sanji's excitement for a meal than it had to do with protecting him, but Usopp wasn't going to complain.

"Good job, Luffy," Sanji said, thoroughly impressed. "For this you just might get fourths tonight."

Luffy hooted and hollered and hooked an arm around Usopp's neck.

"Did you hear that, Usopp? Fourths!" Luffy cheered. "All thanks to your teaching!"

Usopp smiled sheepishly. He wasn't sure he could take full credit for this one, but he also knew it was useless to argue with Luffy. Besides, he had taught Luffy, even if he hadn't expected an outcome quite like this.

He accepted the gratitude but quickly made his escape. Luffy was starting to get that hungry look in his eyes, and he was a biter.

Dinner that night was a wild celebration. No one threw a party quite like the straw hats. And the best way to celebrate extra food was to quickly eat it all. Luffy was certainly trying on that part, eating more than enough to swell himself up to twice his size.

Usopp busied himself with telling Chopper and Robin tales of the adventures they'd had before meeting them. They both made an excellent audience. Robin always laughed at the appropriate times, and Chopper's eyes sparkled with delight at every new part.

"Really?! Giants are that big?!" Chopper practically wiggled in his seat with excitement.

"Of course they are! They're giant!" Usopp laughed.

"I would have liked to have met them," Robin smiled. "I imagine they'd know the world much differently than we do."

Usopp wasn't sure how to respond to that, so he didn't. Instead he continued his story, moving on to their escape from little garden. Chopper fell out of his seat when Usopp mentioned the giant fish that nearly swallowed them whole, and Robin made several inquiries about Nami's illness after that. Most of those were better pointed at Chopper, since Usopp could only barely remember the details and had none of the medical knowledge.

He left them to talk, hoping to be able to get another glass of the juice Sanji had made. Before he could get very far, a hand on his shoulder stopped him. It was one of Robin's, sprouting from his back. He didn't think he'd ever be used to something like that, but he swallowed his discomfort and turned to face her.

"Thank you," she mouthed as Chopper continued informing her about the fine details of Nami's illness.

He had a slight spring in his step when he turned and headed for the fridge again.

The night air was cool against his skin. With all of them partying away in the galley, it had gotten quite warm, and Usopp just needed a moment to cool down. The wind tousled his already unruly hair, and he looked up at the sky for any sign of clouds that Nami might need to know about. There were none, just the endless abyss of light spotted darkness filling the night sky.

Someone leaned against the rail to his left, and Usopp turned his head to see Zoro leaning with his back against the rail, arms folded over his chest, and looking as serious as ever. When he caught Usopp's eye, however, a rare smile formed on his face.

"Good job with that sea king. Luffy's over the moon about it," he said.

"But I didn't-"

"Luffy can't fish to save his life," Zoro interrupted. "So I know he didn't do it alone."

He had a point there that Usopp couldn't deny.

"You did a lot of good today," Zoro said to him. "It's a good thing we have you around."

And with that he was gone, leaving Usopp standing at the rail. Usopp felt as if he'd had a brick dropped onto his head, and then a light bulb went off.

His skills in battle weren't the most useful or important. He couldn't cook or navigate the ship or heal people. He wasn't worldly and knowledgeable about much more than basic things. He wasn't the captain of the ship. He wasn't any of these things, but that didn't mean he wasn't important. All day today his crewmates had relied on him just like they did every day.

He might not have been the captain, but this crew would be lost without him.