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Crocodile razed the ship with great torrents of sand, targeting swaths of marines and simply sweeping them into the ocean. He strode across the deck toward the stairs, letting his crew clean up behind him. He watched as Daz put himself between the marine captain and Crocodile's path. He smiled, giving his first mate a thankful salute.
Below deck, Crocodile killed more marines, slicing them with razorlike waves of sand, or draining them dry until they had nothing left.
The marines were too proud. That was their sin. They thought that because they had Doflamingo under sea-stone chain there was nothing to worry about. There was no need for a personal escort from an admiral, or even a vice-admiral to bring a beaten prisoner to Impel Down.
It was calculated of course. The marines and world government spent so much time making sure that pirates fought one another. Exactly so that they didn't have to deal with this sort of thing.
But he had to laugh at how wrong they were. How badly they had misjudged.
Even if Crocodile hadn't come, Doflamingo's family were on the way. They'd contacted him, having found out through their frankly astounding informational channels that Crocodile was on the hunt.
You idiotic sons of bitches, Crocodile thought to himself. Getting other people to help him is Doffy's thing.
Two years after Impel Down, Crocodile was starting to see the appeal.
Doflamingo had asked him for an alliance back then, too. Crocodile had turned him down. Hadn't had time to explain what was going on in the heat of a pitched battle. Probably, he'd been a little too proud to try.
He wasn't too proud now.
Crocodile kept the guards cowering outside of the brig alive long enough to get the key from them, but only that long. He threw the corpses to the boards and barged into the miserable room, scanning the cells.
Doflamingo was laying on the floor, bruised, beaten. His finery taken away from him, and forced into a set of striped clothes all too familiar to Crocodile. The huge pirate looked diminished, pale, and sick already, and Crocodile couldn't blame him.
He was surprised when Doffy jolted up to his feet anyway, seeing him. The effort must have been immense. Like the smile on his face.
"You came!" The tone carried a mixture of equal surprise and delight.
Crocodile felt himself flush, the trail of scar tissue over his face going pink.
"What was I going to do, let you rot?" Crocodile grumbled.
Doflamingo probably had thought he'd let him rot. After the way they'd parted. There would be plenty of people who would say that's exactly what Crocodile should have done.
He grabbed Doffy's wrists probably too roughly, judging from how he winced as Crocodile twisted the key and pulled the cuffs off. Crocodile blew a breath through his nose. The marines had had fun kicking Doflamingo around, obviously. He could see the red, raw patches of skin as the cuffs dropped off him where the stone had bit into flesh.
It made him remember his own, in Impel Down.
How could he leave anyone to that fate? Especially a man with whom he shared so much history, even if not all of it was bright.
By way of apology, Crocodile explained. "At Marineford you were still a government dog. And in my way."
"We're both off the leash, now, Crocco-babe." Doffy rubbed his wrists. "But it's too bad, if it had been the two of us together—"
Crocodile put his hand over Doflamingo's mouth. "No what ifs, Doffy. Let's just do this now."
'What if's' were too painful.
Doflamingo licked his hand before he pulled away, still grinning. "Anything you say, my knight in shining armor."
"You're ridiculous," Crocodile snorted, wiping his hand on his coat. "Come on, there are still some marines to kill. You want to kill marines, don't you?"
"Boy, do I!" Doflamingo laughed that nasty laugh of his, and all Crocodile could do was shake his head.
"You're ridiculous," Crocodile repeated.
They fled the brig and back up to the deck of the ship where Crocodile's pirates were, as he'd assumed, still tangling with the marines. A cheer went up from his crew when they saw him and Doflamingo— the marines on the other hand, were not as thrilled to see them.
He shared a glance with Doffy, and the two of them both smiled. Killing marines shoulder to shoulder was not a pleasure the two of them had indulged in a long, long time. Not since before they'd become collared dogs of the government.
The dogs were off their leashes now, and they bit, hard.
Marine blood spilled across the deck, coaxed from their veins by strings and blasts of sand. The two men laughed, Doflamingo covered in splashes of crimson, and Crocodile as ever, dry as the desert.
A thrill of relief when through Crocodile. It had been two years since he'd become a pirate again, but this was the first time that he had the joy of one of his old fellows from back in the day at his side. His rivalry— and occasional cameraderie— with Doflamingo had been another relationship that the threat of the world government had snuffed out. Not as completely as the one with his first mate, but here and now, reveling in the destruction of the marine ship, it brought home to Crocodile everything he had lost.
Everything he had given up by trying to play the game safely, and with patience. And more importantly, by trying to play the game alone.
Letting them separate them, it was clear, was how the government had won.
Crocodile refused to let it happen again.
When the ship was clear, he barked an order to his crew to deal with the bodies, and to strip the ship for any usable supplies.
Then he grabbed Doffy's shirt, and wrenched him hard, pulling the tall, gawky bastard down to where he could kiss him. Before Doflamingo could even register surprise, Crocodile's lips were on his, and his tongue was in his mouth.
Blood smeared across his face, the wetness of it making him vulnerable for a moment. But Crocodile didn't care. Doflamingo wasn't going to kill him— not now, not in the middle of their triumph. Not when he'd come to his rescue and Doffy had called him a 'knight in shining armor'. To think otherwise was nothing but madness— paranoia. The fear of connection that kept them all from rising up, together.
Doffy wrapped his arms around him, sighing into his mouth as he swooned, and Crocodile ran his fingers up Doflamingo's spine. He tingled with fevered passion, at the kiss, at the shared killing. At their true and bloody reunion.
Doflamingo's glasses shone in the light as the kiss broke, and he grinned like a loon. "Hey, Crocodile, want to team up?"
Crocodile chuckled, slinging his arm around him, and leaning into his large body. "I was thinking something like that, yeah."
"Good, good!" Doffy cackled. "I'll need your help to rescue my family first—"
Crocodile shook his head. "Nope."
Doflamingo's smile faded. "That's a bit heartless of you, Crocodile, and here I thought we were going to help each other."
Crocodile smirked and fished out a cigar. Even in the moment of triumph, he couldn't resist winding the flamingo up just a little bit. "They're already on their way."
Doffy's smile returned, more brilliantly than before. "Is that so?"
"Yep. They were coming after you themselves, but I got here first. We spoke on transponder. They should be here soon."
"It's like it's my birthday," Doflamingo cooed. "Have your men found my coat? The marines didn't throw it out, did they?"
"I wish they had," Crocodile growled. But there was no teeth in it. He was just glad to see him, big stupid pink coat and all. "But I'm surprised anyone recognizes you without it."
Doflamingo opened his mouth to answer, but he was cut off as Daz called out from across the ship.
"Transponder call from the Donquixote ship, captain. They'll be with us in half an hour."
Crocodile waved his hook. "Good! Then get everyone back to the Ebon Teeth, and we'll leave the marines some wreckage to search for."
"Aye, captain!"
Doflamingo swung his arm over Crocodile's shoulders, leaning low with him again. "I see you're in the mood to piss off the government. Trying to seduce me?"
"Hardly. But our goals are aligned." Crocodile said, finally lighting the cigar he'd been holding and taking a few slow puffs. Despite the rebuke, he offered the lit cigar to Doflamingo.
Doffy didn't smoke much, but he did like to take puffs off of what other people were smoking. He especially seemed to like to snatch up Crocodile's cigars. He looked frankly delighted that he'd just handed it to him this time.
He took a shallow puff, seeming, as usual, to enjoy holding it more than smoking it. "Well that's fine since I'm already plenty seduced, handsome."
Crocodile rolled his eyes. It was obvious that Doflamingo was trying to fluster him. And the annoying thing was that it was working. Well, at least a little annoying. Less than usual though.
He elbowed him in the ribs and shook his head. "I guess its lucky for me that I never managed to shake that stupid crush you got on me when we were kids. Works out, since now for some god forsaken reason, I want your company."
"Some god forsaken reason, he says," Doflamingo laughed. "Come on, Croccy, you can admit that you like me."
Crocodile grinned and snatched the cigar back from him, and kissed him on the lips. "Once upon a time I'd have said 'not under torture'."
"And now?" Doffy gave him a sly look.
Crocodile leaned his head against his arm. "Don't push your luck."
Doflamingo leaned down and rested his chin on the top of Crocodile's head. Crocodile was sure that by now the rest of his crew were staring, but well, they could damned well stare. Doflamingo was just like that, he'd always been like that.
"What if I want to push my luck, Croccy?"
Crocodile sighed, a great breath of smoke escaping his lips. "I guess today's the day for it. Hell knows I've been pushing my own luck. And planning to push it further."
"Soooo?" Doffy urged him.
Crocodile chuckled, and leaned his head into Doflamingo's collar bone. "Yeah. I like you pretty alright for a giant flamingo bastard."
"I knew it!" Doffy cooed. "My knight in shining armor…"
Crocodile bit back a 'don't get used to it'. After all, maybe he should. Crocodile had been too proud to accept his help back at Marineford, and look how things had ended up.
Now, here they were, killing marines together.
Maybe they'd fail. Maybe they'd all be hanged together. But at this point, Crocodile was tired of hanging separately.
"I'm no fucking knight, Doffy, I'm a pirate," he grunted instead.
"My pirate in shining armor."
Crocodile scoffed at the imagery. As if a pirate could be a hero to anybody. But something tugged at the back of his mind. The beginning of an idea. It was ridiculous. But time and time again, didn't it seem like ridiculous worked?
Maybe, if they were working together, they could conjure a world where people saw marines for the scum they really were, and the pirates as the heroes. It would be a hell of a trick to make it work, but Crocodile was ready to try crazy things, now.
"Yeah, you know what? Sure, Doffy. Your pirate in shining armor."