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The streets were still heaving with revelling Dressrosans when Crocodile crested above them in a scatter of sand, casting his disdainful shadow upon their merrymaking as the wind carried him to the royal palace.
Those oblivious, oh so loyal subjects would be at it for an entire week, but Crocodile spared them no more mind than he already had.
He didn’t care about them. He hadn’t come for them.
But grand and gaudy remnants of the parade were still obvious and unavoidable at every inch of the town: pink and gold streamers covered every storefront and banners bearing a certain slashed smiley were plastered fanatically across every home. Distant pops and crackling of fireworks were endless, lighting up the night sky wherever Crocodile idly glanced. Music lilted from below, those revelling Dressrosans dancing with joyous abandon in the streets. Lush native flowers scattered the dusty roads, turning even the gutters beautiful.
Crocodile would expect nothing less.
This was the most important event of the year for peasant and gentry alike.
The celebration of their new king and saviour.
Donquixote Doflamingo’s birthday.
“You’re cutting it close.” The King himself chided softly, sing-song and without turning around when Crocodile finally descended upon the balcony of his fittingly lavish quarters.
“Hello to you too.” Crocodile drawled as he sauntered through the ornate balcony doors and brushed himself off. At Doflamingo’s unusual silence at his rare arrival, Crocodile narrowed his eyes wryly. “And who are you and what have you done with my bird? Where’s my usual welcome?”
Interrupting his own sullen silence, Doflamingo tutted pointedly at the ticking clock hanging above the fireplace, an unhappy reminder that midnight was rapidly approaching.
He must have been fuming to the point of spitting fucking feathers if Doflamingo was beyond words for once and wouldn’t even look at him. If not even some deeply craved sweet-talk was enough to drag Doflamingo out of his mood and warm that unthinkable, glacially cold shoulder.
He must have been hurt too. Deeply.
Crocodile didn’t sigh, but it was close. And he’d be long dead before he ever apologised.
Still. It wouldn’t do.
“I’m here now.” Crocodile placated in a murmur, needlessly and generously. And then told him bluntly. “Stop pouting. You know it ages you worse than usual.”
“I don’t pout.” Doflamingo pouted. “I brood. And you missed my parade. The feast and the ball, too!”
“Good.” Crocodile replied dryly and barely repressed a grimace at the memory. “Last year was bad enough. I still have nightmares about twenty-three courses just for tapas and flamenco dancing in the dawn.”
“You still danced with me.” Doflamingo grumbled and after a peek at Crocodile’s extremely pained grimace, threw his hands up and blustered. “Oh, you’re no fun!”
But Doflamingo was smiling.
Brimming and bright, the second Doflamingo laid eyes on him. He couldn’t help it. Always smiling, always for Crocodile. Purely, painfully happy just at the mere sight of him, late or not, and something deep and dark and wanting writhed in Crocodile’s cold, darker chest.
Some things never changed.
(And if the sight of his finally smiling bird eased Crocodile in return, well. He’d be dead before he admitted that too.)
Doflamingo’s smile sharpened slyly over the broad slope of his shoulder when he lifted his arm, a bottle of arak in his hand and two crystal flutes dangling from his crooked fingers. “You’re so late I almost opened this without you.”
Crocodile smirked faintly as he crossed the intricately tiled floor, tilting his head knowingly. “You wouldn’t.”
“No, I wouldn’t.” Doflamingo agreed with a sweet cackle of laughter, sorely missed music to Crocodile’s ears. “Lucky for you.”
“Well lucky for you, I have something you’ll enjoy even better.” Crocodile promised, sweeping into the room beside Doflamingo in a soft burst of sand that had his little bird shivering with delight and anticipation and worse.
It didn’t take Doflamingo long to help himself to Crocodile’s personal space like he owned it and it took him even less to get his hands on Crocodile too. Doflamingo easily caught Crocodile by the shoulders and draped those lethal arms over them, forearms crossing loosely behind Crocodile’s back to gather him close, not a sliver of space left between them.
Just to hold him again. Just to brush his smiling lips across Crocodile’s forehead and temple. Just to bury his nose in Crocodile’s hair and breathe him in so deeply Crocodile was near smothered between the arms wrapped around his back and how greedily Doflamingo’s fucking lungs expanded against his chest. He could feel the flutter of Doflamingo’s heart against his own, that eternal smile against the crown of his skull.
In Doflamingo’s arms they were swayed side to side, the bird getting his dance from Crocodile after all.
Crocodile hid his twitching mouth in Doflamingo’s chest and let him.
And then Doflamingo leered down, spine bending in an impossibly inhuman angle. He was so massive he kept Crocodile in his arms even as their foreheads touched, tongue unfurling from his smirking mouth as he purred. “A sip of you?”
Crocodile scoffed but felt himself warming beneath the collar and heat settle in his gut at the ridiculous attempt at flirtation that always worked. He squeezed Doflamingo’s maddeningly tiny waist in warning and stared up at him wryly.
“Later. But first, this.” And he reached into his coat and pulled out the bottle he’d spirited across two whole Blues.
Doflamingo was on it almost as quickly as he was on Crocodile.
He snatched it from Crocodile’s proffered hand and brought it to the soft light of the chandelier above them. Then up to his startled face. And going so far as to hitch his glasses atop his head when he couldn’t quite believe his eyes to get a better look at it. Or worse, since he was half fucking blind.
“This is Déesse.” Doflamingo finally said, stunned as close to speechlessness as Crocodile had ever witnessed him to be in his entire life.
“Really?” Crocodile asked sarcastically as he shucked his coat and draped it over the back of one sprawling brocade loveseat.
He sank heavily into it with a little groan of appreciation at the luxurious plushness of it. That Doflamingo wasn’t already crawling into his lap was unsettling. That Doflamingo was silent and still again was even worse. But Crocodile wouldn’t preen at the ridiculous, endearing reaction. Not yet.
“This is my favourite.” Doflamingo said lowly, a frown creasing his brow. He hadn’t blinked once, like if he looked away for a split second the bottle might disappear from his hands. “The vintage, the vintner. The label. Everything.”
“I’m aware.” Crocodile said, smug incarnate.
“Are you?” Doflamingo choked a disbelieving laugh. “This vintage and its vintner doesn’t exist anymore. This shouldn’t exist, Crocodile. Do you know how much this is worth? You could buy an island with this. A fucking big one. There’s no way you just had this lying around and there’s only one place in all the seas this could have survived.”
It was Crocodile’s turn for abrupt silence. A damning silence if ever there was one.
“You went to Micqueot.” Doflamingo finally dragged his gaze from the bottle and gazed down at Crocodile. The bare, naked eye contact was almost unbearable in its intensity. Milky blue and blind, and blood-on-sand maroon, and both full of something Crocodile couldn’t name, for his own sake. “For this. For me. That’s why you’re late.”
This was not the reaction Crocodile expected. He expected the bottle to be squawked over, himself fawned over, and the wine half-drained already and tasted mostly from Doflamingo’s fawning mouth rather than from a glass of the stuff of his own.
Not this fucking…reverence.
Crocodile considered lying. The clock struck midnight while he considered. It wasn’t even the twenty-third anymore. He had no reason to play nice. Not ever, but especially not anymore. He should lie.
Instead, Crocodile nodded. There was no point denying it, even if he had the distant, violent and mortifying urge to. It was ridiculous. It was a bottle of wine. Why was he choking on his own tongue like some flustered, lovestruck fool? Like the bird? It was just a bottle of wine.
Crocodile almost believed himself.
It was Crocodile’s turn to be stared at like he might disappear if Doflamingo blinked, like he was the only thing in the world. That gaze was relentless, it always had been. It kissed like a knife. Ached like a gaping wound.
The urge to preen died a sad, little death.
Crocodile cleared his throat and slicked back his already perfectly slicked hair, glancing at the wall beyond Doflamingo’s shoulder. He was suddenly desperate for a cigar. Or a Marine raid. A fucking meteor strike. But he was no coward. He’d endured the New World and survived to burden the harrowing tale. He could survive this too. He wouldn’t be a coward now.
“Some suicidal idiot dropped the bottle I won in a poker match last year. I was saving it for something special. I supposed today of all days and your new title and throne was special enough.” Crocodile drawled. He rolled his eyes up to meet Doflamingo’s burning gaze. “You’ll be delighted to know that idiot doesn’t have hands to drop anything else with ever again. Or a scalp to cover her empty skull.”
Doflamingo nodded distantly, hands wringing the bottle to his chest protectively. His gaze was likely to flay the fucking skin from Crocodile’s bones. It was insane. That Crocodile wanted even more than just that simmering gaze on him was even more insane. He didn’t care.
“I know it’s your favourite. I know it’s rare. I went to Micqueot and found another bottle myself because I wouldn’t trust any other fool with it.” Crocodile told him bluntly. “Not for this.”
The truth tasted strange on his tongue. Strange, excruciating, but not unbearable. And the look on Doflamingo’s face? It might just be worth it.
For you went unspoken but heard clear as crystal.
“And the lucky bastard sommelier I bought it off said he had his eye on an island.” Crocodile added wryly. “A big one.”
“You could have stolen it.” Doflamingo murmured.
“No I couldn’t.” Crocodile corrected instantly. He pulled a face and amended flatly. “Too many witnesses.”
“You could have just left it.” Doflamingo insisted, almost spluttering and still frowning in disbelief. “Probably should have.”
Despite the underlying mortification of this entire ordeal, Crocodile repeated softly. “No. I couldn’t.”
Doflamingo bit his lip and stared hard down at the bottle, smoothing a reverent thumb over the gleaming gold calligraphy of the label. Crocodile knew it wasn’t really the gift that had him like this, the expense or the distance of it. It was the thought. It was Crocodile thinking of him. An act of love, even if they would never say the words.
“Doffy.” Crocodile said quietly. “Did you really think I wouldn’t come?”
“Uh.” Doflamingo said smartly and completely unbothered, despite how truly hurt he probably was at the question and the answer. If anything he sounded slightly incredulous. “Yeah? You’ve done a lot worse to me over a lot less, Croco-sweet.”
And well. That was fair, Crocodile could admit. He inclined his head in assent with a rueful smile. “Alright. But not for this. You mean more to me than that. You know that.”
“Yeah.” Doflamingo repeated in a flushed huff. Lying, but if he didn’t know before, he did now. He swallowed and rubbed the back of his neck, because even now the simplest of Crocodile’s affection hurt him worse than the very worst Crocodile could ever do to him. “But…just you, here, is enough. It always is, Crocodile.”
“I know.” Crocodile echoed softly. The raw sincerity was not lost on him. He ached at it and the distance between them was suddenly unacceptable. That was fucking unbearable. “Come here.”
Doflamingo didn’t need to be told twice.
Arak and Déesse and flutes were swiftly tabled without a second thought as he stepped over the whole damn thing and into Crocodile’s waiting arms. Doflamingo made an admirable attempt to curl himself up into Crocodile’s lap but he was simply too fucking big. He spilled over onto the loveseat, legs dangling and bulk crushing, and still Crocodile hauled him closer.
A year older for both of them and still nothing had changed, still a perfect fit. Doflamingo wrapped himself around Crocodile, sighing in shaky bliss as he fit himself into all of Crocodile’s empty spaces like they were made for him. Didn’t even matter that Crocodile couldn’t breathe. They were.
“I miss you.” Doflamingo mumbled into Crocodile’s neck.
There was nothing to hide like this, no glasses or smirks or put-on scowls. No masks or acts, no prying-eyes. Just the two of them. So close that Doflamingo’s golden eyelashes brushed Crocodile’s jaw with every fluttered blink in time with Crocodile carding his ringed fingers through Doflamingo’s thin, golden hair and down the blush-warmed nape of his neck.
“I haven’t even left yet.” Crocodile murmured not unkindly into Doflamingo’s hair.
“I don’t care. I miss you.”
He’d be gone again by morning. They both knew it. Their reunions were as inevitable as their leaving. For once, Crocodile didn’t want to think about it. Not now, not like this.
Crocodile cupped Doflamingo’s cheek, eyes and thumb raking over that dear face, the sharp hollows of his cheeks, the noble hook of his nose. A face he’d know in the dark. Out of a hundred thousand. In death. The heights of his love were as unspeakable as they were unreachable. Doflamingo could never know. How could he? How could Crocodile even tell him?
Doflamingo reached up then and fit his spindly fingers between Crocodile’s, smiling as he felt Crocodile feeling him, smiling at simply holding his hand.
He couldn’t tell him. So Crocodile kissed him.
The soft, broken noise Doflamingo made was devastating and Crocodile kissed him harder, until something broke, until he tasted blood, until Doflamingo groaned instead. He was loud, shameless, perfect. His little bird. Crocodile’s eyes almost rolled into the back of his skull just from that, just from Doflamingo’s deep, desperate kiss.
A thunderous encore of fireworks barely registered in the background of Crocodile’s mind. Nothing else mattered. The fucking palace could’ve collapsed beneath them and he wouldn’t have deemed it worthy to notice.
But his eyes cracked open reluctantly at the incessant noise, and Crocodile saw through a haze the night sky lit up in bright pinks and brilliant golds, even bursts of green here and there. That painfully familiar slashed smiley dotted the entire sky. It was beautiful and a perfect stroke to that throbbing ego of his, a perfectly fitting celebration of the king.
The king, who couldn’t have cared less for any of it as he threw his arms around Crocodile’s neck and surged up for more. Doflamingo poured the hot slick of his ungodly tongue down Crocodile’s eager throat and kissed him like he always did, like it was the first time and the last.
“I’m glad you were born.” Crocodile murmured against his lips when they broke apart but lingered close, sharing the same fevered, heady pull of oxygen.
Doflamingo nodded, nod nod nod, right against Crocodile’s face. More rubbing than nodding. Dazed and kiss-drunk on Crocodile already. Love-drunk always. He couldn’t speak, mouth opening and closing like a fish, face all screwed up in pleasure. When he finally found his raw voice, he croaked. “You too.”
Crocodile scoffed. “You too?”
“What!” Doflamingo’s smile was lopsided, lazy and slow. “You can say it but I can’t? Fufu, usually I’m the one saying what you won’t.”
Crocodile arched a teasing brow. “It’s your birthday, not mine.”
Doflamingo shook his head. “But I am glad. You deserve to hear it.” Those lethal hands swallowed Crocodile’s jaw whole, thumbs sweeping tenderly at the jagged ridge of his scar. “I should tell you everyday. And I’m glad you’re here.”
“That sentimentality will get you killed one day.” Crocodile sighed. The ring on Doflamingo’s left hand burnt like a brand cupping Crocodile’s face. It burned so good and Crocodile’s right hand had never felt emptier.
Doflamingo giggled. It sounded the same as it did at seventeen in Loguetown, at twenty-five in Spider Miles, and now thirty-two in Dressrosa. His smile was boyish and blinding, unchanged by time. Eyes crinkled in joy so hard they were almost closed. “Is that a promise or a threat, my love?”
“Yes.” Crocodile grinned. Doflamingo simply beamed at him and brushed their noses, sealing the deal, the promised threat. Crocodile let him. “Happy birthday, my sentimental fool.”