NOTES: Welcome, unsuspecting vic-I mean, readers! You've just unwittingly embarked on an epic journey filled with situational irony, awkward interactions, shameless fangirling and a whole heaping spoonful of snark. And expletives. Oh, boy, are there ever expletives. Hide the children!

Characters will be as true to their canon selves as possible because OOC-ness makes us sad, but keep in mind that most of this stuff will be played for laughs. We wanted something light and funny to turn to as a break from our more serious fics. This is a story that will poke fun at itself rather often, but be prepared for something resembling a Plot to rear its head because apparently we just can't write pointless crack anymore. Hey, it'll be great. You'll laugh. You'll cry. You'll get an inexplicable urge to shower us with money, I mean, reviews. Yes. Mwahaha.

Obviously neither of us own One Piece. If we did, a certain couple of things would have gone differently and a certain narcoleptic human incendiary would still be falling asleep face-first in his curry at inopportune times.

Chapter 1: Motherfucking SANJI

"So parody. Much self-insert. Very humor." –Shibe

"TORAFURUGA ROOMU E YOUKOSO!" Jess wailed from the passenger seat as 'Dr. Heart Stealer' blared out of the speakers.

"Oh yeah, turn that shit up." Not taking her eyes off the road ahead, Kade reached over and cranked the dial until the windows practically vibrated. "I love Law's fucking manly voice," she remarked with a saucy wink.

"So manly!" Jess grinned back.

Anytime Jess rode in the car with Kade, they would inevitably listen to that same song several times in succession. Luckily neither of them had gotten sick of it yet—and why would they? The two best friends were fortunate enough to have been cut from the exact same exceedingly dorky, anime-themed cloth, as it were, and as such unwaveringly enabled each other in all of their ridiculously nerdy endeavors. This, of course, included fangirling over two-dimensional male characters featured in popular pirate manga.

What the hell else did friends do together?

"WE need to watch more One Piece when we get back to your house!" Jess practically had to shout over the song.

Kade immediately agreed. "Damn straight, we do!" Not as if they hadn't been having a One Piece marathon since the day Jess arrived at her apartment for their annual vacation together, anyway.

You see, despite their current imitation of a couple of giddy teenagers, Jess and Kade experienced normal and rather mundane lives when they weren't together. When apart, they were both quite cleverly disguised as a couple of grown-ass women. They had careers. They had money. They had soul-crushing debt toward which most of that money went. They had stupid, boring responsibilities.

Speaking of which...

"—HOLY SHIT! LOOK OUT!"

Both women immediately shrieked as a car came careening over the median, barreling toward them at an alarming speed as if it were out for blood.

You know all those movies where time seems to slow down before the character dies in a sudden, tragic accident? Well, that's all a bunch of buttery bullshit. In fact, if anything, Father Time is bitter old douchebag who hits the fast-forward button on your ass like he's skipping the fluffy bits in the midst of a crime thriller. A final 'fuck you' in your last moments alive. You don't even have time to wish you'd had your last savory slice of pizza or even wonder if you'd remembered to change your underwear. It happens in an instant.

Jess's arms braced instinctively for impact as Kade slammed on the brakes, but it was too late—there was a sickening crunch of metal as Kade's small Toyota Corolla was struck by an SUV-shaped battering ram and then violently ploughed off the road by the still-moving suburban.

The small sedan was filled with inane shrieking as it was sent tumbling off the side of the road and crashing into a ditch.

Cue the Michael Bay-esque explosions.

(Just kidding—not everyone has that kind of budget.)

Instead of being engulfed by a violent and searing hellfire, the world simply went dark. Faded to black in an instant, as if a switch had flipped. For a moment, they felt nothing but an odd sense of peace as the darkness washed over their minds. It felt as though they were floating, weightless and disoriented…swimming through nothingness.

What the fuck, right?

But then, all of a sudden, as quickly as the black nothingness had wrapped itself around them, it was gone.

Kade became aware of the need to draw breath first, and the inability to do so second. Panic surging through her veins, she began to choke on the lack of oxygen, limbs flailing helplessly. It was then that she was struck by how ice cold everything felt.

Just what the crap kind of bullshit afterlife was this?!

Her body propelled itself upward, running on pure instinct and unadulterated panic. Finally—and rather unexpectedly—she broke through to the surface, gasping and coughing as she desperately attempted to inhale every bit of air that her lungs would allow while struggling to keep afloat amidst the water.

Wait…WATER?!

Eyes wide in some amalgamation of bewilderment and fear, she looked around frantically. "JESS?!" She coughed, inhaling some of the salty water in her haste to locate her best friend. She didn't have a clue what was going on, but they were supposed to be together. "JESS!"

A few yards away, said Jess came popping out of the water like an alien chest burster, choking and sputtering for dear life.

"KADE!" She shrieked back, using the last of her precious Cadbury mini egg-fueled energy to swim towards the voice of the other girl.

She began panicking as she realized that her stash of Cadbury mini eggs was gone—she'd been saving those since Easter, carefully rationing them out, and had saved the lion's share for her visit with Kade. Was her face wet from the water she was so clearly in, or from the tears of her loss?

Jess finally reached Kade, clutching at her for dear life as panic started to set in. Her chest heaved as the dark water swelled around them, her mind conjuring up visions of giants of the deep ready for a snack. They were both madly treading water, and there was no telling how deep it was.

Her eyes locked onto Kade's and she gripped the other girl's shoulder tightly. "I'm...I'm scared...where...what...what...?" Jess began to shake, feeling the start of a panic attack coming on. If only she still had those Cadbury mini eggs. Their crispy outer shells were like medicine... She gulped thickly, pushing the thoughts of candy away. "I...I thought we were going to die before, and now I'm SURE WE ARE!"

"Shit, I don't know, I…" Kade felt so confused. She couldn't begin to figure out what the hell had just happened! There were no bodies of water like this one in Colorado! She did her best to support Jess with one arm as they struggled to remain afloat. If they gave in to panic, they probably would die—and that would make this a disappointingly short story.

Still, what the hell were they going to do? Kade's brow furrowed in thought as she squinted into the distance, eyes burning from the salt water splashing into her face. How considerate, Mother Nature. Shit, Father Time ought to hit that—they'd make the perfect couple.

Nothing around them for miles and miles. Just deep-blue nothingness…not even a horizon to be seen. When she spoke again, Kade's voice trembled, and she wasn't sure if it was due to the cold or the adrenaline rush.

"Okay, we have to start s-swimming. D-don't think about it, just keep swimming!" She urged, giving Jess's arm a tug.

Jess remained frozen in fear. "I can't...I can't...I can't...this...this is a nightmare. You know how much I'm afraid of deep, dark water...since I was a kid..." Her breath started coming in short gasps and her eyes bulged as she belted at the cruel heavens, "WE'RE GOING TO DIE OUT HERE!"

"We are NOT going to die!" Kade insisted, despite how little evidence she had to back up that claim. She kept prodding Jess along, refusing to look back. If she stopped to look back, she'd most certainly lose the will to keep going. "We're going to f-figure this out and f-find some help! And Jesus fuck, it's cold!"

Jess began shivering as she realized how cold the water was. The adrenaline rush she'd been experiencing was beginning to wane ever so slightly. "Man…this is the worst…THE WORST! There's probably a Great White or something hunting us while we're swimming."

"Oh fuck, don't say that!" Kade exclaimed between chattering teeth as they continued to push forward.

But Jess couldn't stop her mind from racing, and she shivered more intensely at the thought of those murderous sea creatures. Suddenly in that moment, terrified as she was, the only thing she could think about was that mellorine idiot that haunted so many of her thoughts and dreams: Kuroashi Sanji. She should be thinking of her family, but hey, she was a diehard fangirl. Let it never be said that Jess wasn't devoted.

She was just about to ask Kade if she was thinking about her own One Piece crush when she heard some deranged laughter coming from a disembodied voice.

Jess first thought it was Kade finally having lost her mind, and let's be honest it's been a long time coming, but just in case she turned to her best friend incredulously and asked, "Do you really think this is funny?! Or was that just a panicked laugh? Goddammit I could go for some Cadbury mini eggs right now…"

"What?" Kade did her best to give Jess a look of utter confusion, although it was hard to tell if she'd been successful because she couldn't actually feel her own face. "What the hell are you t-talking about?"

She was beginning to wonder of Jess had gone delirious, but all of a sudden she began to hear the same sound. Turning her head this way and that, she caught sight of something in the distance, afloat on the choppy waters and drawing ever-closer.

Gasping, she shouted, "SHIP! It's a ship!" Kade began to wave her free arm over her head in a frantic manner. "HEY! HEEEEEEYYY! SOMEBODY HELP US!" She screamed out, accidentally swallowing a mouthful of water in the process and vaguely hoping that nobody had peed in that spot recently.

Jess's mouth dropped open, flabbergasted. "HOW DID WE MISS THAT?" She began yelling and waving her arms as well attempting to push herself up higher out of the water like a dolphin. How did those slick fuckers manage to do that, anyway?

The two women continued screaming like banshees, or maybe sirens since they were in the water. Was this the ocean? The water certain was salty…

"HEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEELLLLLLLLLLLLLLLP!" She and Kade continue to warble and the dark shape seemed to change course and head towards them.

"THANK THE MAKER THEY SAW US!" Jess exclaimed and took a deep breath; all that dolphining was tiring her out.

As the ship grew closer, her eyes grew wider and Jess began to wonder if maybe it was an illusion and the two of them actually had gone mad or maybe they were hovering between life and death in limbo or purgatory, even though neither of them believed in that sort of thing…

The front of the ship came closer and there was no mistaking the familiar figurehead. Jess sucked in a gasp along with a gallon of water and gripped Kade's shoulder, shaking it in fear and trepidation. "Kade…I think we're already dead. Yeah…we're definitely dead."

Kade's mind was attempting to process those words. Dead. They were dead? Were they? She certainly didn't feel very dead, aside from having lost all feeling in her limbs.

Suddenly, one particular scene from Pirates of the Caribbean popped into her head—you know, the one in 'At World's End' where all the dead people were in rowboats. What if this was just like that? Had they simply missed their rowboat? Could that even happen?

A chill that had nothing to do with the icy water washed over her and Kade gritted her teeth, swallowing once before continuing to wave her arm and shout. She nearly laughed in relief as the ship sailed nearer, although something was awfully familiar about it. It wasn't just any old vessel. Not a cruise ship or a ferry or a tanker. No, that ship…she had seen it before. Many times before, in fact, and as her eyes become trained onto its enormous lion-like figurehead, she inhaled sharply—only to sputter and cough as she choked on more goddamned sea water.

"Jess!" She wheezed. "Am I going crazy, or…?!"

"N-no…I …I see it, too…so we're both crazy. That's…that's why I think we're already dead. No way in HELL would we ever see the Sunny Gou in real life…oh…wait!" There was ONE PLACE that this might not be too uncommon a sight…

Kade paused in her one-armed flailing, turning her head to give Jess a blank, frozen look.

Jess continued, her voice growing excited. "Maybe we're off the coast of Japan! DON'T FUCKING ASK ME HOW, but they're the only ones who would have a life-size version of the Sunny! Didn't we always say we wanted to go to Japan together? And then like LIVE at the One Piece store?"

She didn't even wait for Kade to agree or acknowledge what she said before she barreled on, her voice increasing in pitch. "Maybe now's our chance! Though we had to go through fiery doom to get here! I'm going to steal that life-size version of SANJI." Stars lit up her eyes but faded a moment later. "No…that can't be it. We've got to be dead…SHIT! Unless this is just a dream…in which case I better be waking up any minute now!"

"Fuck if it's the most realistic damn dream I've ever had!" Kade replied, now slurring her words due to the whole 'unable to feel her fucking mouth moving' special effect that went along with treading freezing cold water for more than twenty minutes. "This goes beyond lucid dreaming. This is FUCKED UP!" She squinted across the waves as the ship that was most definitely the Sunny Gou—or at least, a pretty sweet replica of it—sailed closer. She had to marvel at the sight; it was far bigger than she'd ever imagined a replica ship from a pirate manga would be.

As she and Jess searched carefully for signs of a crew on board, they could just barely make out a couple of individuals roaming the deck. But before they had another chance to shout for help, a rope ladder was thrown over the side, followed by a shout that neither one of them could hear.

Kade strained to make out what was said, but it was lost amidst the wind and the waves. She looked back at Jess. "Come on, let's get over there. It's gonna be okay! Okay?"

Jess nodded numbly. "Well! This is going to be a really great story we're going to get to tell for the rest of our lives if nothing else. Oh God please let us be in Japan!"

As they swam closer to the side of the ship, she strained to hear the muted speech from up above, trying to make out any words in Japanese. If they were Japanese, she could at least halfway talk to them; she wasn't fluent yet, though learning the language of anime had always been one of her life goals ever since she became a fucking weeb at the tender age of fifteen.

The ship itself up close was even more fantastic, like a work of art; it was put together so well, right down to the very last tiny detail. Female and male voices called to them from up above, asking if they were okay.

Jess sighed. "Well, that's not Japanese I'm hearing up there," she shivered as they began the climb up to the deck of the pirate ship of dreams, and as the wind hit them it only exacerbated the cold.

"OIIIIIIII, GRAB MY HAND!" A hyper voice from right over the railing yelled, male but not deep, and he threw something down at the two girls.

The fuck?!

A female voice reprimanded him almost immediately. "What are you DOING?!"

Kade was reaching for it—something long, like a flesh-colored snake—as it stretched down, and the moment her numb fingers grasped it was the moment she realized it was NOT, IN FACT, A ROPE LADDER, but some kind of appendage.

She balked. "WHAT THE HELL?! GROSS!" Kade was so surprised that she momentarily forgot to keep herself afloat, and took in another big gulp of whale-pee-water by accident. She hacked and sputtered once more as she resurfaced, cursing as she grabbed ahold of the appendage to keep from going under again. Shit, whatever saved her ass, right? She'd worry about the freakiness later. "Just…just grab on, who fucking cares, here!" She reached for the second appendage and passed it over to Jess.

Jess face-faulted comically, her eyes widening at the thing Kade handed her. "THE FUCK IS THIS? OH GOD THERE'S A HAND ON THE END!" She shuddered but took it anyway, "Huh, it feels like rubber so maybe it's faaaaAAAAAAAKE!" Her last word morphed into a scream as she and Kade went flying upward and an alarming rate, slingshotting over the railing of the ship, the familiar grass covered deck coming into view at the apex of their airborne trip.

The deck of the Sunny was dotted with figures crowded around the source of the rubber appendages. There was more yelling from the female voice, some additional laughing from the young male voice and another deeper male voice was shouting loudly.

The world went topsy-turvy, then Kade and Jess hit the deck with loud thud, the impact somewhat absorbed by the soft grass they'd landed on.

"OW…FUCK, MY HEAD…" Jess complained loudly as she rolled over onto her side, searching for her BFF to make sure she was okay. "…We made it?"

As she pushed herself into a sitting position, holding her head in her hand, a small brown furry creature rushed up to the two of them and began fussy like a mother hen in its high voice.

Is that…?

Jess was about to marvel over the entity in front of her when she glanced up at the other parties on deck who were gathered around a boy in a straw hat and red shirt. He had black hair under the hat, a scar under his left eye, shorts with the fluffy white shit around the bottom, and a large x-shaped scar that adorned his chest where the shirt opened.

He was the perfect visage of Monkey D. Luffy!

Standing on either side of him, a man and a woman who looked incredibly like real life versions of Sanji and Nami were takings turns slapping the Luffy upside the head for his reckless behavior.

"You need to be more careful!" the Nami-like woman reprimanded the boy with another hard slap.

"SHISHISHISHI! But I got them, didn't I?!" He craned his neck to get a look at the new passengers on deck.

Meanwhile, Kade found that she could do nothing but gape; her jaw literally went slack and her eyes grew wide while she pushed herself into a sitting position and took in the scene before her. These people…this place… How was this even happening? She'd always joked about smoking crack, though to her knowledge had never actually tried it. Had someone slipped a little somethin'-somethin' into her drink that day?

Shooting Jess a questioning look, she muttered, "Um…yeah, I think…I think you were right. We gotta be dead…"

"You IDIOT!" The blond man dressed up like Sanji shouted to the Luffy lookalike. "What were you thinking, just grabbing total strangers out of the water?! They're—" He paused just then, having actually noticed the two ladies sitting on the grass. "They're…THEY'RE ABSOLUTELY BEAUTIFUL!" He crooned, immediately swaying from side to side as dozens of pink, balloon-like hearts inexplicably appeared all around him.

"Orrr we're high as fuck, that might be more likely," Kade added as she watched the spectacle, hoping like hell that she wasn't the only one seeing the array of pink hearts.

"MELLORINE, MELLORINE!" The Sanji lookalike was singing over and over. He rushed toward the two of them, and in an instant he'd managed to wedge himself between them and the small brown animal. "Hello! Good afternoon, lovely ladies! How may I be of service this fine day?"

Jess took one look at the Sanji and then whipped her head over to face Kade. "Now I KNOW I'm dreaming…" She trailed off, then whispered between gritted teeth to her bestie, "That's motherfucking Sanji…."

A second later, however, Jess decided she didn't care what the hell was going on. SANJI, the man of her dreams, was right in front of her, cooing like an idiot. She'd seen this a million times in the land of her dreams. That surely was a better thought than them being dead. Jess was a classic pessimist, but she heard they lived longer.

He was the most beautiful man she'd ever seen. His hair like spun gold, his eyes bluer than the midday sky. The way he was looking at her made her insides turn to mush. All coherent thought flew out of her head as her body moved on its own accord.

"Dead…? Dreaming…? Well, whatever the case is, I'm going to just do what I always wanted to do." Her lips split into a goofy grin as she reached out and touched Sanji on the cheek gently. "Hey…I guess you're here for another one of our famous make-out sessions, aren't you?"

Without another second of hesitation, Jess wrapped her arms around his neck and pulled him in for a long, toe-curling kiss.

End Notes: OH NO, it's a cliffhanger! What's going to happen? Will Sanji need an adult? Are Kade and Jess doing a lot of drugs? WILL THEY EVER EAT CADBURY MINI EGGS AGAIN? The horror!

Anyway, on a more serious note, a HUGE thank-you to Steven (darkwingedmemory) for the title idea! We were all, 'durh-hurh' and couldn't think of a goddamned thing, lol.