#and yeah Alvida claiming period pains is a common theme

[wordy-little-witch]

So I watched Oppenheimer ((mostly)) for the first time last night and decided some of the lines were. Really good. By golly they were GREAT.

But the movie itself kinda pissed me off, so I stopped about halfway through. Anyway, have some weird incorrect quote meets snippet looking shit bc I love competent Buggy and he deserves to be a lil mad genius

Crocodile had low expectations went he stepped out of the meeting room. Now largely, this would not come as a surprise. He always lowered expectations when Buggy was involved - it was the best he could do for his nerves. The clown was several ounces of unhinged, in both ways expected and entirely, indubitably, vivaciously NOT.

As it was, the logia user believed he avoided aneurysms by sheer luck in the beginning.

Nowadays things had settled more or less. The Guild was running very well, all things considered, their profit was steadily increasing, and every soul on the island had a job or niche they filled happily. He'd even found a few places where Buggy flourished.

This meeting was regarding one of those niches. Aside from being the front man and face of the operation, the clown was also their most skilled chemist, chief explosives expert, and general all-arounder. While he may not go toe to toe with another Emperor in a 1v1 fight, the clown made his uses elsewhere. He was not the blade, the smoking barrel, the weapon - he was the oil in the mechanics of the crew, the fuel to the fires and the one who, more often than not, made the weapons in their hands.

The most recent weapon was the topic for today.

And Buggy was missing.

Annoyed as he was, the logia user remained outwardly calm as he skirted around town in search of the wayward clown. At first, they thought the other may be helping with the legwork of the lower ranks - wouldn't be the first time, certainly would nit be the last - but none of them had seen hide nor hair of the Chairman in days. Unperturbed, Crocodile sent them back to work and continued the search.

Docks were a bust.

The gardens had no hint of blue beyond the specially bred flowers in the back.

The announcement tent was void of bright hair and red noses.

The circus tent had few humans, none of which had seen their captain.

Luckily, Mohji was quick to recommend the kitchens. It was not nearly yet time for a meal, he admitted, but when Buggy fixates on something interesting, he sometimes seems to forget he had a body, let alone one with needs.

That, too, of course, wound up being a failure.

He'd plowed through three cigars already in the impromptu adventures around the isle, and so he was quite close to losing his temper with the apparent and damning lack of clown. Pinching the bridge of his nose, he tried breathing deeply, carefully, working to dampen the embers of rage and fury from a blaze to something smoldering.

It was, ironically, Alvida and Cabaji, who deigned to metaphorically poke the bear otherwise known as their superior, Galdino bustling about back in the kitchens beyond the counter tops.

"What are you looking for?"

"Fucking Hell," he managed to grit out, shooting a look to the duo before him. Cabaji seemed to cringe back minutely, but Alvida just barely winced. "Don't suppose you've seen the damned clown today?"

"Not yet," Al shrugged with a frown, "but once Gal finishes up his... thing over there-" she gestured over to the candle man still aggressively piling snacks and drinks into a bag, "- we're going to find him."

"Well," the older man barked a mirthless laugh, "I can definitely tell you where he's not. Been looking for his ass since seven."

Alvida grimaced, nodding while her fingers toyed with the end of her mace. "Yikes. Meeting?"

"Obviously."

"Captain had a tendency," Cabaji cut in with a rueful expression, "to fixate far too long on something interesting - usually to... rather unpleasant results."

The logia user gave a low growl of a hum, flicking ash from his cigar. "I'll be sure to show him unpleasant once I find him. Bastard missed our meeting and still has yet to show."

The dark haired woman pursed her lips, eyes narrowing. One could nearly see the gears turning in her head. "For the weapons?"

"Somethijg like that," he nodded, "it was initially the firearms he was designing and testing, but it's since expanded to the bombs and other explosives he's been blabbering on about." Glancing down, he paused at the wide eyed look on the other two, shooting a glance over to see Galdino now quietly screaming to himself as he grabbed several first aid kits to throw into the bag. Arching a brow, he turned back. "... am I missing something here?"

"When was the last time you saw him??"

He paused, averted his gaze in consideration. Last glimpse of the clown had been.... what, when they'd gotten the shipment in for Mihawk's eyeliner? Buggy had been picking up something at the docks and had been practically vibrating, in casual clothes as opposed to his onesie suit as he jabbered some poor girl's ear off over a strangely colored box. The emblem had been for a chemical company, he believed, one of the few that Buggy actually trusted to order ores and such from. That had been back on the 23rd. He relayed this to the others.

Alvids winced. Cabaji sighed. Galdino went into the walk in freezer, sealed the door, and muffled screams were heard before he came back out with a tub of ice cream.

"He's probably at his workshop," the wax man stated plainly. "Mohji said he was there on his last shift."

"Shift?"

"Buggy wrangling," the woman answered simply. "When that idiot gets too invested, everything else falls away. Short of a crew emergency, he's essentially a hermit. We take shifts to check on him, make sure he eats or hasn't died somehow."

Crocodile vaguely wanted for a different plant in his smoke source if only to mitigate the pounding in his temples, but he simply nodded, gesturing for them to lead the way.

As it turned out, Buggy's general workshop was near his tent.

His experimental workshop was much, much further out.

And there was cackling coming from inside.

When Galdino took point, the other two fell into place at his back. Believing it to be far from necessary for such formations, Crocodile considered barging past them all.

Then the door swung open and a blue blur damn near slammed into the wax user.

Buggy was a veritable mess, smudges on his cheeks, a line pressed across his cheek bones and bridge of his nose, mildly irritated from the red-pink lines. The shadows around his eyes made the blue of his irises seem lighter than usual, especially with the glassy, manic spark to them. His hair was in a bun, mostly, loose strands bouncing with the many pencils, pens and.... beaker(???) tucked in there.

He was sans makeup, only the barest red stain to hip lips, Crocodile noticed, as the giggly man almost squealed.

"Guys! Oh em gee, hiiii~" His arms clung to the taller man, almost clambering up as her shimmied and bounced. "I did a thing," he blabbered excitedly, "and it's SO COOL and I wanna tell Croco-chan and Hawky and everyone and it's gonna be so cool, I promise, so super duper mega ultra cool and- OH HI CROCCY COME SEE!!!!"

As if the natural whirlwind of a clown was not bad enough, it seemed Buggy was running on pure liquid energy. Hands coveted in gloves clenched hard on his hook and bodily dragged him into the workshop as their owner seemed to word vomit in a language all too unknown for the businessman to follow. He caught a few bits and pieces of things here and there, trying to follow the other and rebalance himself - the blue haired man had nearly yanked him straight off his feet - when he caught sight of some chalk boards, cork boards and entirely too many letters, numbers, symbols and a graph, of all things, emblazoned nearly across the entire far wall.

Alvida sighed softly, earning a glance. She gestured back to Buggy.

When he turned, it was to be met with the clown bouncing on his toes, clapping as he looked between the larger man and a decently sized ball on the table.

Uncertain as to what exactly he was looking at and unsure of how exactly to handle this manic man, Crocodile simply blinked. "What... is this, again?"

"It's my prototype," the other squeaked, moving to rub his cheeks roughly with a grin, hands falling to shake roughly at shoulder height as he beamed. "See, I was working on those guns ya know. And so as I was doing the papers, I was thinking to myself, 'ya know buggy ol boy, you haven't checked the Idea Book in a while' and so I was like 'yeah, brain I haven't!!' So I DID and when I did, I saw some old theories on explosives and how Buster Calls work because the Navy is fucking batshit and decided anyone not good enough for them deserves to blow up so then I thought 'oh I wanna make my own buster call but BUGGY STYLE', so I went to my theory section and theory can take you only so far, so THEN I reached out to Emie-chan!!! And she had some AWESOME scientific journals because she works for Sky-Lines, that big big big lab, and I was reading them and it HIT ME, HYDROGEN!!!!" Small but calloused gloved hands caught Croc's hoop again as Buggy turns back to rambling, the former catching a few words here and there between the waterfall of words. Something about neutrons, chain reactions, and heavy hydrogen? He blanked.

"Buggy," a softer voice cut in. The two highest ranking men in the room turned, catching sight of Alvida and Cabaji both frowning, the former leaning into the latter while Galdino tried to hand her an apple. The wax man had spoken, looking to the captain. "I'm sorry to interrupt but 'Vida's been feeling unwell for a while-"

Immediately, the unstoppable hurricane of a clown seemed to practically teleport with the speed he got over there with. "What happened, what's wrong?"

"Cramps," she grimaced, hand moving to her abdomen. "No big deal, Bugs-"

"You haven't eaten," Cabaji cut in with a definite attempt at a worried scowl.

"I don't want to," she grumbled, taking hidden glances at Buggy.

The jester for his part took her hands gently. "You gotta eat, Vida, it should help your body settle."

She put on a show of deliberating, then, in a voice Crocodile had never heard from her before, she struck. "Will you eat with me?"

"Of course," Buggy assured, reaching out to take the apple in hand. A green one was handed to Alvida and they playfully bonked the two fruits together before biting into them.

Buggy hummed. "These are pretty good! Ya know, I don't think I've had this kind of apple before what kind is it?"

"Night night apples."

"What."

And then suddenly there was a thump, the other three quickly separating while Galdino pulled out the first aid kit, Alvida grabbing a cloth, and Cabaji checking other over for injuries.

Crocodile stared.

"What the fuck just happened?"

"Sometimes you gotta manipulate a clown into eating a drugged apple," Vida said without hesitation. "Any concussion?"

"Seems fine," Cabaji nodded, glancing to Galdino who quickly confirmed.

Once certain there were no wouldst, Alvida passed over the cloth and went to a filing cabinet, humming softly as she flicked through the folders before pulling out one covered in cutesy duck stickers, labeled 'for croco-baby' on the tab. She handed it over with a smile.

Now possibly far more confused than before, he took the folder and watched as the unicyclist picked up the clown easily and all three trotted out casually. He watched them head back to the tents, carefully avoiding prying eyes, and dip into Buggy's personal tent with no ounce of hesitation.

Fucking hell.

He needed a stiff drink. Or several.

He looked at the folder. A little duck sticker was winking at him, holding a heart.

Make that damned case.