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Crocodile and Mihawk have been staying in Launch Town on Entrant Island for the past two months. They are fifteen and twelve, the current youngest bounty hunter duo working in the mercenary market, dawdling on the last island in South Blue before Reverse Mountain.
It has been raining on and off for the past several weeks, the weather hectic due to close proximity to the Grand Line, alternating between light drizzle and volatile heavy hail. The humidity and cold, oppressing, confine them to the humble inn where they booked a shared room during their long stay.
In the hostelry communal area at a corner table, Crocodile is irritated, tapping his notebook with a quill and rereading this one sentence in the academic textbook detailing various types of haki application. Mihawk has picked up some bad habits from the sailors and brusque mercenaries that frequent the inn, popular convergence in town where information is traded between tankards of ale. Mihawk has his shirt buttons undone all the way down and his feet on the table, mimicking those lowlife mannerisms like any other impressionable child, and it is another source that causes Crocodile needless exasperation.
They have lost their status with their homeland, but Mihawk was once child king of the richest city-kingdom in this particular swath of ocean. Mihawk was royalty, not a sea urchin, and he should not be acting like one. “Mihawk,” Crocodile says, emerald green eyes narrowed, fingers curling around the quill. On his hand, four gold jewelry rings gleam.
Mihawk tilts his head to the side and ignores the wordless reproach. He clings the massive kriegsmesser sword to his chest, hugging the blade tip, allowing the flawless white edge to dig into his stomach and the bend between his arms. A sword so sharp that it slices open every single provisional sheath made for her, but incongruously does not damage the tender flesh of her owner’s skin nor the thin fabric worn upon his back.
Crocodile lets out a sigh, pushing back the stack of messy notes on the table with the stump at his left wrist, and goes back to the textbook. Crocodile has done his part managing their limited wealth the past two years, surviving on their own off bounty money, hitchhiking from ship to ship, traveling to various South Blue islands. Crocodile is good at accounting, and very good at killing people for financial rewards, but suitable prey is getting scarce.
Gemstone rings custom-made to accommodate the slight changes in their finger sizes, fine cashmere and cervelt, gold chains and silver buckles and quality leather boots. They are not exactly living like the common folks, with Crocodile vehemently insisting that they at least dress like the nobility they were. That means they need a steady influx of cash, so perhaps a decision needs to be made whether they should chase their quarries into the perilous Grand Line. Crocodile’s sand logia devil fruit power gives him practical invincibility in South Blue, but that could change after entering the most dangerous stretch of ocean, hence his current diligent study.
Mihawk though. Mihawk is content with growing tomatoes in a flowerpot and having the mulberry silk shirt unbuttoned all the way down, their father’s pendant cross hanging from around his neck. Mihawk does not care enough to offer an opinion.
Crocodile might have been annoyed if he was not so ridiculously fond.
Mihawk looks his way and smiles, subconscious echopraxia mimicking perfunctory expression, and Crocodile feels this sudden need to... to check, to make sure his little brother is still here. Quill returned to the inkwell to free up his right hand, Crocodile reaches across the wooden table to touch his little brother’s face, the warmth of skin contact. The movement tugging down his long shirtsleeves, revealing the barest hint of bruising around his wrist.
A sharp chiming of the brass doorbell announces the arrival of new guests. A squad of ten young marine soldiers taking shore leave for some casual fun, and Crocodile quickly retreats back to his secluded corner seat and ducks his head down.
It does not work.
Crocodile is seen, for all outward appearance, as this fragile disabled young girl dressed in tight binder shirt and frills, fifteen and barely out of youthful adolescent years, helpless and lonely. Those heathens approach him like houseflies drawn to fresh fruit. Ignore them, Crocodile thinks, when that group of junior navy seamen start talking to him, something about wishing to buy her a drink.
“Not interested,” Crocodile says, deliberately speaking to the volume on the table.
When a calloused peasant hand wraps around his arm, the intention is probably to be gentle, but that unwanted hand is laid over the harsh ugly bruising at his wrist. Crocodile does not wince, does not hiss, but he is forced by that unwitting affront to turn his emerald gaze up in a subdued glare.
Only to see one basic bright red rose, presented to him like a pitiful gift.
Oh great. It is that lieutenant from the local marine base bounty exchange center, perhaps twenty years old, that young man has been trying to flirt with Crocodile whenever he brought in a catch, and he has chosen this day to make another courting attempt.
Crocodile examines the innocent flower, the dewdrops on the petals from the outside rain. The lieutenant is waiting for his reply, pine green hair and wet justice coat, idiotic boyish grin and unfounded optimism, with his entourage of navy friends making encouraging catcalls at the back, and...
Mihawk stares, silently from across the table, head tilting to the side with unblinking ruby red eyes. There is a mystifying question to his gaze and abruptly Crocodile stands, reaching to grab the rose as if he were reaching for a lifeline.
Only for there to be a prick on his fingertip.
The rose has thorns, causing fine desert dust to subtly sprinkle, his body crumbling on reflex at the evocation. Another plant with thorns that took his ability to stand normally forever, the type of agonizing chronic pain that stings like a reminder of the price he has paid with every single step he takes, because everything fucking hurts him today.
The young navy officer is talking, pointless babbling that drones on and on like the weak mizzle pitter-pattering on the window glass. “... mean you accept?”
Crocodile snaps back to attention, gazing up at the taller man. “Excuse me?”
“My offer,” the man says, gesturing at the rose. “Lunch? Dinner?”
Crocodile can feel the grimace twisting his lips, and the throbbing at the base of three fingers, the rain making the amputation-replantation injuries ache. “Perhaps another time,” Crocodile replies, returning the rose into his suitor’s hand. “I have been feeling rather... under the weather, recently.”
“Oh, okay,” the man says, dejected, but then he beams, grinning wide again. “Can I have a kiss before I go, please?”
Crocodile sighs, brushing his long hair back and tipping his head up. If he is going to make a point, he might as well see the circus act through. The navy lieutenant is delighted, tall and muscular, easily encompassing the bounty hunter’s slender feminine frame in his broad shadow. Thick arms going around the small back, a hand holding the snatched waist.
The kiss however, is rather disappointingly brief.
Their lips barely brushing against each other, when they are both distracted by a sudden gasp from the lieutenant. Large hands letting go as if burnt, from feeling the raised contours of crisscrossing whipping scars hidden beneath tight binder cloth.
“You are injured,” the navy man is quite shocked. “Who hurt you?”
Crocodile pushes him back, firmly, and now that man’s scrutiny falls to the distinct handprint bruising at his right wrist. “I am a bounty hunter, officer,” Crocodile says, impatiently. “Certain occupational hazards are expected.”
“Ah. I didn’t realize...”
“That I actually have gotten my hand dirty?” Crocodile steps away. “Having second thoughts?”
“No. Never,” the lieutenant quickly shakes his head. “I love you. I want to help you, however I can. If you are putting yourself in danger due to financial troubles, I can—”
“That’s getting a little ahead of yourself, officer.”
“Gosh, sorry. Yes. Yeah, you’re right.”
“No need to hurry. We can do this one step at a time.”
“Yes. Yes, of course.”
“After the rainy seasons.”
“Yeah. No problem, see you around when—”
Crocodile practically pushes that man back outside into the wet deluge, holding open the wooden entrance door with another chiming of doorbells. The marine brigade of ten people follow after their commanding officer, laughing and joking, whooping like idiots in the rain.
Fingers hurting, legs hurting, flanks and hips and wrist and groin, everywhere hurts. Crocodile lets the door slam shut in a rather brusque manner, earning him a disapproving glare from the innkeeper behind the reception counter, before returning to the corner table with a grumble. Mihawk still has his feet on the table and Yoru to his chest, and for all intents and purposes has not moved an inch, like a wax statue. “I plan to go out with... whatever his name is, once the rain stops,” Crocodile says, as an unnecessary declaration.
Mihawk is perplexed, the barest frown is the only indication that he has heard. Sometimes a doll, sometimes an animatronic that comes alive.
Crocodile exhales, rubbing a hand down his face. “I know there is some misunderstanding between us, but we cannot keep doing...” Crocodile stops, shaking his head and turning away. “You know what, never mind. I am going to book another room for myself tonight. I am tired, goodnight.”
Mihawk watches the older boy leave. “Tonight. Goodnight,” Mihawk echoes quietly, and then turns to watch the entrance door where the marines had been. “Tonight. Goodnight.”
As late evening falls, mild rain soon turns into relentless hailstorm, and Mihawk breaks into the newly booked separate room at midnight, effortlessly cutting open the iron lock with the pendant knife. Crocodile is instantly roused to wakefulness, sitting up in bed, before finding himself with an armful of his little brother. Scattered sleet ice and graupel sprinkled all over the unbuttoned black shirt, and white kriegsmesser sword abandoned on the floor.
Crocodile can barely make out silhouettes by the weak overcast moonlight from the window, drowsy with sleep, and then Mihawk is holding up something in his small hand. It is a flower, this delicate wilting rose, presented like a genuine gift.
“What are you doing, Mihawk?” Crocodile asks, taking the flower, this time mindful of the thorns. “What is this for?”
Mihawk curls his legs up, folding himself comfortably into Crocodile’s lap, and then points at his own mouth, the downturned curve of his lips. “My kiss,” Mihawk says, as a simple demand.
“What?”
“Flower, for a kiss.”
Crocodile remembers. The incident from a few short hours ago, and then he realizes that Mihawk has completely taken the wrong conclusion. “That is not what I was trying to...” Crocodile groans, resigned, and then gives up, leaning down to kiss Mihawk on the temple.
Mihawk is not satisfied though, and whines, “This is not the same.”
“I am not supposed to kiss you on the lips, Mihawk,” Crocodile says, voice strained.
“Why?” Mihawk asks, and Crocodile opens his mouth to explain. Because we are brothers, he should say, but the answer dies in his throat, the implicit understanding between them of the palace secret that must never be uttered aloud.
“You know why,” Crocodile says instead.
“No, I don’t. I do not know why,” Mihawk counters, challenging with an undertone of threat. “Why is this so different? Why is this crossing the line, after everything else we’ve already done? You started it, Crocodile. You don’t get to play the fucking victim—”
Crocodile tips Mihawk’s chin up and kisses his little brother on the lips.
It successfully calms him down. The temperamental moodswing quelled, trading for a tender pressing of lips, chaste and fleeting. An innocent shared breath between them in the secrecy of the night.
“Feels weird,” Mihawk says.
“Of course it would,” Crocodile mutters.
Mihawk leans up, wanting to try again. Crocodile obliges. Their second kiss is slightly better, gentle and sugary sweet, with a little bit of tongue and a little bit of teeth.
“It’s nice. I like this.”
“Don’t get used to it.”
Their third kiss, their fourth, their fifth, and then something changes. A heat that starts to feel good, too good, and fundamentally wrong. Crocodile pulls away in an abrupt panic, but Mihawk clings onto him and kisses again. A child fascinated by a new toy, and his tiny fingers curled around his older brother’s right wrist, perhaps accidentally or perhaps deliberately, over the gruesome blotting purplish handprint bruising.
Fitting perfectly.
The culprit that caused the damage.
And the reason Crocodile is reading related textbooks on haki and devil fruit power interaction now, having been injured again after two years. A false sense of security, the protection offered by logia intangibility that made him almost mistakenly believe himself to be physically untouchable.
Mihawk wraps his arms around Crocodile’s shoulders, another kiss and another kiss, this adorable broken little boy that hides a ferocious monster underneath his unassuming human skin.
A lightning flashes in the hailstorm, an ephemeral moment that lights up the room. Their eyes, ruby red and emerald green, catching on a splash of bright color on the pallid white bedsheet.
The forgotten flower that caused everything, dewdrops and soft rose petals, but there are now brown spots on the corolla that Crocodile has failed to notice minutes prior. Bloodstain, camouflaged by the brilliant hue of the rose, only to be revealed once darkened by the gradual passage of time.
“Mihawk, where did you get this flower?” Crocodile asks, between one kiss and the next. “Did you kill a navy officer from this marine base?”
“Hn. No...?” Mihawk says, kisses, kisses, with cherubic honesty. “It wasn’t only one.”
Crocodile pauses, and then chuckles, helplessly, despairing at this paradoxical feeling in his chest that might still be affection regardless.
Somewhere outside in the streets there are ten marine corpses growing icy cold beneath the torrential hail, an officer and a squad of seamen, so the decision has been made after all. As it is unwise to stay where they could be prosecuted for homicide.
They are going into the Grand Line.