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Crocodile gnashed his teeth around his cigar as he stormed down towards the casino area of Rain Dinners. A trembling staff member had informed him that a guest was making a ruckus and had demanded to see him personally. Clearly, his staff were in need of discipline, if they thought it was permissible to allow some waste of space to intrude on their boss’ time. It’d been awhile since the bananadiles last had some human meat.
He slammed the double doors open, striding in with all the flair of a Warlord of the Sea. His eyes immediately honed in on the source of the trouble. An annoyingly familiar tall figure was perched idly on the edge of a poker table, towering over the crowd of nervous staff and gawking tourists who had all shied away to the edges of the room but were too curious not to watch.
It was only his pride and an abject refusal to show any sign of weakness in front of this particular person that stopped Crocodile from walking right out again. Instead, he stalked right up to the menace, using his Logia powers to propel himself upwards so that they were nose-to-nose.
“What. Are. You. Doing. Here,” Crocodile growled out.
Instead of being intimidated like a normal person would be in the face of Crocodile’s cold anger, Doflamingo had the audacity to smirk and lean closer. “Heard that a fancy new place opened up, and when I found out that it’s run by my favorite person, I had to come take a look.”
Crocodile’s left eye twitched. “Well, now you’ve seen it. So leave.”
“Trying to get rid of me so soon? And here I thought we had something special.”
Crocodile scoffed rather than deem that worthy of a reply. If he didn’t have this hero of Alabasta image to keep up, he would have torn Doflamingo apart and fed him to his bananadiles by now. But while it wasn’t beyond Crocodile’s abilities to quietly get rid of all and any witnesses, he refused to exert so much effort for this fucker.
Doflamingo reclined on his unconventional seat like it was a throne, his stupidly long legs stretching out in front of him, arrogance in every line of his body. “Is this the service you get in this casino? I’m surprised it’s still standing, if you treat all your paying customers this way.”
“If you aren’t happy with that, you can take your business elsewhere. We can survive without your patronage.”
Doflamingo huffed out a laugh before unfolding his lanky frame from the table. “So cold,” Doflamingo said with a chuckle, but instead of leaving, he stepped closer instead, irritatingly tall as as he loomed over Crocodile. His hand reached up to touch Crocodile’s face.
Crocodile slapped the offending hand away before it could cross into his personal space and followed it up with a hook pressed into the underside of Doflamingo’s chin. “Get out of my sight,” he snarled.
From one heartbeat to the next, the atmosphere in the casino turned stifling with the combination of Doflamingo’s bloodlust and Conqueror’s Haki. Crocodile heard several bodies hit the floor in a dead faint, and an ensuing scramble as the remaining audience finally decided to do the sensible thing and run away. He didn’t spare them a single glance, keeping his eyes on Doflamingo.
Donquixote Doflamingo was the biggest mistake of Crocodile’s early days at sea. Crocodile, in his early twenties with something to prove, determined to show the world that he could be the best. Doflamingo, seventeen turning to eighteen, with arrogance that knew no bounds and a conviction that he was owed the world. They'd been two young captains setting sail at the beginning of a new age of piracy, running into each other on port after port. The brat had dogged Crocodile through the Grand Line like a virulently coloured barnacle, making himself an absolute annoyance.
It was only natural that they had clashed. And then later, crashed into each other.
Doflamingo’s lips had been chapped like the heathen he was, and Crocodile had tasted the iron tang of blood from where Crocodile had split his lip. Crocodile would always blame the paint thinner the bar masqueraded as vodka for the fact that he had kissed back instead of throwing Doflamingo across the room like he should have. That had been Crocodile’s first mistake. The second, and third, and fourth were allowing it to continue, letting the younger captain corner him behind bars on the next few islands.
But they were pirates, and ultimately their top priorities would always be themselves. Seven years ago, Crocodile had limped off Port Chibaralta Island with Doflamingo left a desiccated husk behind him. They hadn’t seen each other since. Until now.
Doflamingo’s tongue flicked out to swipe over his lips, which were dry from Crocodile sucking the moisture from the air around them. The fact that Crocodile was unfazed by the cloying pressure, despite Doflamingo’s Haki having grown incredibly since the last time they had met, only made a sharp smile spread slowly over Doflamingo’s face. Without blinking, Crocodile dissolved his body to avoid the powerful kick aimed at his neck, growling with irritation as the shockwave smashed the slot machines behind him. Wickedly sharp strings sliced through the air, goring deep slashes into the marble floor.
But Doflamingo’s Devil Fruit had never been a good match for Crocodile’s, not when Crocodile could slip his body past the wires and sneak into the blindspots Doflamingo had never learnt to guard. The fight came to a standstill with Crocodile’s right hand around Doflamingo’s throat, fingernails digging in.
Like the madman he was, Doflamingo let out a breathy chuckle, the sound eerie in the acoustics of the destroyed room. Doflamingo’s sunglasses had been knocked clear across the room in the scuffle; unveiled from behind their colorful shields, those blood red eyes held the intensity Crocodile was familiar with. But more striking was the maelstrom of emotions hidden behind that wildness. Simmering obsession and the desire to ruin and something lost, like a child who had their favorite toy ripped away.
“You’re still the same. You’re different from him.”
The weight of those words, spoken with an almost disbelieving tone, made Crocodile pause. His fingers twitched involuntarily.
Him .
Frankly, Crocodile knew more about Doflamingo than he wanted to. It had turned into a routine of sorts, that after a night spent together, Crocodile would pretend to be asleep, and Doflamingo would blab on about everything and anything. Inane things, like an annoying dog in the last island and the fifty crates of red wine Diamante had looted from a merchant ship, but also surprisingly genuine things. Like his childhood, and his parents’ poor decisions. And again and again, his brother. The brother who he loved, and had not seen for more than ten years.
A few months ago, Crocodile’s information sources had brought him news of a certain incident in North Blue. That it involved Doflamingo was nothing to do with why Crocodile had paid attention to it. He liked to keep informed, that was all. The details had been sparse, but he knew at least this much – the prodigal younger brother had returned to Doflamingo, and then had betrayed him.
‘You’re different from him.’
“You don’t know anything,” Crocodile ground out.
Crocodile could do it. He could chain Doflamingo up right now, deliver him to the Marines for his own gains. But he also could have called the Marines on Port Chibaralta, back when Doflamingo had been left vulnerable by Crocodile’s own hands. He could have sold Doflamingo out as a stepping stone to get his Warlord position. But he hadn’t.
It was complicated, whatever Crocodile and Doflamingo had between them. Crocodile had never claimed to love nor care for Doflamingo. But by that merit, Crocodile had also never lied to him. There were no promises made, and so no promises to break.
“Crocodile. I’m heading back to the New World. Come with me.”
“No.”
This, too, would not change, no matter how many times Doflamingo asked. Doflamingo barked out a short laugh at the familiar terse reply, but it turned a little shaky at the end. Crocodile pretended not to hear.
‘You’re still the same.’
Later, Crocodile would fleece Doflamingo dry to pay for the damages, and kick him out of the country back to his crew. But for the time being, as Doflamingo grieved without shedding a single tear, Crocodile lit a new cigar and let the silence blanket both of them.