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Crocodile hissed as the cold sting of the alcohol was gently pressed into his face. The wound across his face still fresh, a section of its stitching opening up in the recent scuffle he had with the man who was now tossing away the bloodied rag. Crocodile sat back, itching for a cigar that he didn’t have, watching with tired eyes as the only other person in the small shack moved around righting the fallen furniture.
“Sorry I tried to kill you,” Crocodile mumbled.
“It’s fine, but next time you should try harder,” the man replied with a slight smirk. Crocodile scoffed at the audacity of him, looking away and hoping the heat he felt creeping up his neck and face could be seen as anger. Leaning back in the chair he was sat in, Crocodile scowled as the man chuckled to himself and threw a couple of broken boards from a table in the corner.
“My name is Dragon, by the way. I wasn’t expecting anyone to be here, this house has been abandoned since I arrived on this island a couple days ago.” Looking around, using the word house was very generous, but Crocodile just remained silent. Dragon sat down across from him and grabbed the whiskey bottle he used to help clean up the opened stitching. After taking a swig for himself he offered it over to Crocodile as a peace offering.
Crocodile sat for a moment, just staring at the bottle. He instinctively reached for it with his left hand before remembering it was no longer there. An ache ran up the arm, but he quickly snatched the bottle with his remaining hand and took a large mouthful to distract himself from going down another rabbit hole regarding his own failings. He had just wanted to get out of the noise and hustle of the town, and after skirting around the outskirts found this small shack abandoned and empty. Or at least he thought, because after an hour or so of finally resting and trying to soothe the pain from his healing wounds an intruder barged into the space just as rain started to pour outside.
On instinct, Crocodile went on the attack trying to protect himself from the intruder which led to a rather embarrassingly short scuffle between the two. In his defense, as Crocodile tried to internally defend himself, he had just finished fighting off an infection in his stump and was only just getting the hang of his newly acquired devil fruit powers. The fight ended with Dragon pinning Crocodile to the dirty floor and forcing him to yield. At some point, his stitching on his face opened up which led to Dragon helping him have a seat on one of the overturned chairs and grabbing clean rags and a bottle of whiskey from the pack he dropped at the entrance.
“Do you, uh...have a name?” Dragon asked, taking the bottle back from him and setting it aside.
Crocodile couldn’t stop the eye roll or the scoff he did before finally answering him. “Of course I do. It’s Crocodile.”
The sound of rain hitting the roof of the shack, along with the pittering of droplets falling through a hole into a puddle in the corner were the only sounds for a moment. Crocodile watched as Dragon sat there just looking him over with unreadable dark eyes. It should make him feel nervous, or worried. For some reason it didn’t.
“Hm. Crocodile. A fitting name.” Dragon smirked and there was a glimmer in his eye that had Crocodile suddenly feeling like this was a bad idea, that he should leave and not associate with this man any further. That it would not be in his best interest, he could find another space to stay and be on his own like he has been doing for the past couple of months.
And yet…Something about him, Crocodile thought as he gave a smirk of his own back, something about him compelled him to stay.
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