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fanaticsnail · 1 year ago

Text

My Favorite

(Image Source: Artist: Inpolariis)

Masterlist Here

Word Count: 5,114

Summary: Sir Crocodile has founded a league of highly trained assassins named "The Choirs" - all coded after the nine choirs of angelic influences. You are his favorite: his prized "Seraphim" who's ferocious brutality is only outmatched by your incredible beauty. Not truly knowing if your affection is all an act to continue being paid a wage in berry, he has not made a move of his own aside from calling upon you to sit on his knee of an evening, and have you utter praises into his ear. It is only when the two other members of the Cross-Guild begin flirting does he find his limit being tested. Will he bend, or will he break?

Themes: Boss!Crocodile x Assassin!Reader, lap princess, Croc is in love with you, begrudgingly in love, mutual pining, “I don’t want to fix him, I want to make him worse”, wealth, Cross-Guild dynamics, partial Buggy x Reader, partial Mihawk x Reader, sign language, afab!reader.

Notes: This fic is dedicated to the wonderful @discordantwritings who wrote a beautiful Benn Beckman fic recently. I had to return the favor with some Cross-Guild content, although it became quickly a Sir Crocodile fic. Based on this prompt, because it has a hold over my very soul.

Tag List: @sordidmusings @feral-artistry @carrotsunshine @cinnbar-bun @writingmysanity @gingernut1314

The broad right hand of the brutish Sir Crocodile massaged his temples beneath his thumb and index finger. He began rotating them in an attempt to rid the swelling migraine caused by the crackled whines pouring from the lips of his clown companion. Barely paying attention to the whinging words strung into messy sentences, his ears pricked and spine tingled at the knowledge there was another presence within the hollow chambers of the Cross-Guild meeting space.

Bringing his hand away from his temple, his smirk broke the displeased position of his lips, as his eyes rose to meet with the yellow hue of the gaze of the swordsman. Mihawk narrowed his eyes, no longer processing Buggy’s words as he attempted to locate the source responsible for the expression change of the larger gentleman in front of him.

“-And I wasn’t the one responsible for that screw up, so I shouldn’t be the one paying for it. Really it should go to the one with the most berry. Who was it again? Between the reptile and the hawk, who has the most-.” Buggy’s voice halted as the shadows split to reveal your presence, stalking closer to the largest man in the room with an aura of silent danger.

Mihawk reached for the hilt of Yoru, ready to strike your approaching silhouette: armored and cloaked in the darkest black to blend within smoke and shadow. Your hood concealed your face, your facial mask shieling all but the intensity of your eyes smeared in darkened war paint. You made no sound; no tap, no whisper as you wordlessly approached Sir Crocodile.

“Returned so soon, my Seraphim,” his voice purred, leaning back in his chair while placing a thick cigar between his teeth, “Did all go according to plan?” You wordlessly bent your knee, bowing your head to the large gentleman to whom you entrusted your implicit loyalty. His smile drew further up his scarred face, the purple hue of his eyes dancing with a dangerous twinkle at your wordless confirmation.

“Good,” his voice praised you, reaching for his lighter lying atop the table. You rose to your feet, quickly reaching for the golden object, flicking open the lid and igniting the flint to spark its flame. Sir Crocodile leant forward, holding his eyes firmly on yours as your concentration was fixed on the task of lighting the tip of his cigar.

He narrowed his eyes, noticing a small smear of red atop the darkened warpaint and streaking down your face mask and onto your leather breastplate. He sighed, reaching into his left hand breast pocket and fishing out a silver handkerchief and passed it to you within his index and middle fingers.

“Is it yours?” he asked, gesturing to the blood congealed and spattered against your uniform.

“No, sir,” you whispered with no vocal tone depicted within your silence. He hummed in response, narrowing his eyes as he scanned your body further.

“Are you unharmed and unmarked?” he asked, his left brow raising in question. You stiffened your shoulders, arching your chin within the air and confirmed with a simple utterance of: “Yes, sir.”

“Very good, my Seraphim,” he complimented further, inhaling a deep lungful of the nicotine laden cigar smoke, exhaling through his nose. Buggy did not know what to make of this interaction, feeling completely and utterly ignored as Mihawk and Sir Crocodile’s eyes and attention remained fixed on your statuesque figure clad in cloak, leather and dark plated armor.

Leaning forward, Sir Crocodile ushered you to stoop forward to receive the next whisper of a command parting from his lips for your ears alone.

“I have laid out a new uniform for you to wear,” he uttered intimately, reaching up his left hand with his golden hook threatening to touch your shoulder. “See to it you are bathed, perfumed and clad in the ensemble within the hour,” the tip of his hook brushed with the rivets of your shoulder plate, dragging down your bicep to the inner crevice of your elbow, “And I will have you sat as my trophy upon my knee for the evening, my Seraphim.”

At that final utterance, he withdrew his hook from your arm and focussed once more on your eyes now depicting a darkness within usually withheld for victims beneath your concealed daggers.

Bowing to your boss, eyes now closed, you rose from your deep and respectful stoop and paid no mind to glance at the other two members of the meeting space. If Sir Crocodile found no reason to introduce you to these men, you did not deem them important enough to care who they were. Silence followed you as you trailed outside of the room, resubmerging yourself within the shadows and hastily making your way to the suite gifted to you by your boss.

“Baroque Works employee, Crocodile?” Mihawk uttered, his eyes fixed on the exit you withdrew from.

“A thing of the past, Hawk,” His smirk not leaving his face for each deep inhale of his cigar, “I no longer put my faith in an amassment of bounty hunters to get their hands dirty for my berry.” He took the butt of his cigar from his teeth and pushed the ignited end against the glass tray with his thumb. “No, my faith is no longer spread to the many, but to the few.”

“How many o’ them you got?” Buggy’s nasally voice chimed in, his brow furrowing and lips curling back in an uneasy smile, “Like twenty or thirty?”

“I have nine,” he confessed, eyes now bored with the conversation and lip curling down into an arrogant snarl, “And that one,” he gestured to the door with his chin, “Is my favorite.”

“Why?” Buggy asked, his voice cracking in a small apprehensive whine at the end of his question, “What does that one do that the others don’t?” Sir Crocodile’s lips curled into a darkened grin, his teeth revealed in the light.

“You will see.”

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After bathing and cleaning yourself of the debris and carnage of the last assignment, you glanced at yourself in your large, ornate mirror. Looking over the new uniform set aside by your boss as it clung to your body, you couldn’t help the pull of a shy smile at the corner of your lips.

Of all of “The Choirs” founded and financed by Sir Crocodile, it was no illusion that you were absolutely and without a doubt his favorite. Your titles held your specialist skills as covert assassins within your roles; each skilled with a unique ability to complete your tasks to the utmost quality.

Principalitie, Archangel, and Angel were charged with gathering information and relaying it from a great distance. They were to look like civilians; innocent and coy with the ability to blend into a crowd seamlessly.

The Devil-Fruit users; Dominion, Virtue, and Power, were charged with carrying out tyrannical punishment and wrath without care for the casualties they caused under the utterance of a single command from your hook-handed leader.

Cherubim and Ophanim, the two of the higher in the chain of command, followed your explicit instruction in covert operations taken either together or separately. They were your trusted confidants, you could even call them your friends if it were not too bold to say so.

You, his ‘Seraphim’, were silent and embraced by shadows with such flawless success that it was rumored you were born in them. You were lethal with your daggers, your skill with a blade a sight to behold before life was drained from your intended target. The last thing they saw as their breath was claimed by your hand, was the ferocity in your blown pupils and lengthy eyelashes beneath the dark warpaint smeared atop your eyelids.

Glancing over your features once more, the pale white of the dress held stark contrast to the dark armor you adorned almost an hour prior. While your armor kept all of your features hidden to the world around you, the anonymity shielding you from emphasis on your features; this dress left little to the imagination.

The deep hook of the backless dress clung low to your hips in an ovular shape, bodice dipping down to above your navel with a thin band of fabric dancing above your cleavage to suture the bust shut with barely any support. The length of the dress halted little below your hip bone on the left-hand side, the right hand side down to the ball of your ankle to allow for the straps of your gold heels to be revealed with each step you took against the floor.

Your mind begins to wander the longer you stare at yourself in the mirror. This was the most provocative and scandalous item your boss had ever asked you to don. You almost allowed yourself to rush to the conclusion that your boss harbored more than simple favoritism for you, you assumed you were wearing this ensemble to impress a guest with your presence on his lap.

Silence was nearly impossible with the gold-dipped base of your heeled shoes. Each step you took after exiting your suite echoed in a foreign clack that you were unaccustomed to creating with your foot-falls.

Immediately upon entering the large celebratory area of Sir Crocodiles casino, you scanned the perimeter of the room for your boss to begin your new role for the night: the princess sitting upon his knee and doting on him with small caresses and whispers of praise within his ear. This was not a role you were exposed to often, but one you did well enough for him to continue asking for you after the first night you played it.

You would be lying to yourself if you said you did not harbor affection for your boss. Nothing ever transpired between you after you had finished this role for the nights he asked you to fulfill. No brush of lips meeting yours, no writhing while sprawled out beneath him against the green fuzz of the gamblers table. He would bow his head in gratitude to you, his eyes blinking shut out of respect, and dismissing you without a further word.

Adoration, respect, loyalty, and your wage is what bound you to that man. At each moment he spent with you on his lap, or performing a deadly task for him, your desire grew. You knew, without a semblance of a doubt, that you would cast aside your wage with an instant for the luxury of remaining by his side. You loved him, and it was the only thing that truly frightened you.

After concluding your brief scan of the room, you noticed Sir Crocodile was yet to make an appearance to darken the tables with his brutish figure. However, you smiled upon meeting the eyes of ‘Ophanim’ dressed in a simple waiter's uniform, with her sleeves rolled to her elbows and shaking a steel container filled with ice, syrups and hard liquor. She shot you a wink, gesturing with her chin to wait with her at the bar.

An honest smile sprung to your lips as you grasped the barstool within your hands, taking a seat atop it and hooking your left knee over your right; the slit of your dress revealing the entirety of your left leg to your thigh.

Immediately as you began to open your mouth to converse with your fellow “Choir” about her latest mission, your eyes were thrust into an amassment of lengthy cerulean hair. The person seemed to ignore you as their voice informed your friend of his order of a fruit-forward and harsh liquor cocktail with an insane amount of complex ingredients. The products he asked for sounded as if it would split and separate, with the immediate souring of creamy liquid with the acidic elements.

Grimacing with your lips curled in disgust, the individual turned to meet your disapproving gaze: his eyes widening and breath hitching in his throat. A large, rotund red nose lay central to his features, his dark vest cinching his waist beneath a white shirt and dark trousers. He looked as if he was not comfortable wearing the assortment, as if it was a mask he was given to wear akin to your arrangement set aside by your boss.

“You are fucking gorgeous,” he stumbled over his words, the syllables falling from his lips quicker than he could silence them within. Immediately your grimace upturned into a smile, forcing a laugh to flee from you at his unbridled compliment. You arched your left brow up, leaning in close to the individual in front of you and tightening his dark tie with your right hand.

“You are very easy to look at, yourself,” you purred in return, assuming your flirtatious role with ease. You darted your gaze between his two teal eyes, a coy smile now pursing your lips together innocently, “And who might you be, bright eyes?” Your question had his heart swelling, his cheeks filling with a boyish fluster.

“B-Buggy,” he wheezed, gulping back his words and grunting out a small cough to mask his uneasiness. “Captain Buggy D Clown,” he attempted to meet his elbow atop the bar, missing the polished wood entirely and instead stumbling under the uneven distribution of his weight. As air met his elbow with the heel of his palm capturing his chin, he flew his head down and met it against the wood with a harsh thump.

Wincing in empathy, you immediately reached forward and claimed his cheeks within your palms and raised him back up to his former stature. You brushed his shoulders, readjusted his collar and checked over the rising swell atop his left temple.

“Honey, can we get some ice please?” you asked your colleague who attempted to halt her laugh behind her palm, nodding as she retrieved the frosty cubes and placed them within a checkered tea towel. She passed it to you and shook her head, you nodding your thanks at her for the object and immediately reaching for the blunt-force trauma the blue-haired clown brought upon himself.

“Are you alright Captain Buggy?” You asked him, holding your hand against the towel and pressing it firmly against the rising bruise. He clasped his left hand around your right, leaning into the touch you were providing him and closing his eyes.

“I like the way your tongue makes my name sound,” he confessed in a breathy gasp. You again found yourself laughing at his words, the melodic ring of your voice stirring something dangerous within the purple hues of Sir Crocodile’s eyes. He continued watching your interaction with Buggy from his place darkening the threshold of the entrance to his casino.

“What happened, Clown?” A voice called behind him, the curve of a pale shirt clinging to the back of a dark-haired individual you could barely see. Buggy apprehensively turned away from you and lulled his head towards the man with a snarling expression.

“It’s her fault,” he gestured to you with his thumb, “She was sittin’ on that chair all innocent-like, as if she doesn’t look like walking sex.”

“Hardly walking if she’s sitting,” the man called over in a bored and disinterested tone, without sparing so much as a glance in your direction. You found him intriguing, but you decided to match his energy and remain aloof to his comments yourself.

Turning away from the two men beside you, you began moving your hands in a flurry of wordless gestures to your coworker as discreetly as you could.

‘Where is he?” you asked her, watching her hands flicker in response as she continued to attempt to uphold her own persona as bartender.

“Approaching slowly,” she managed to signal to you, before she placed a glass of wine in front of the broody aloof gentleman beside the clown. The corner of his lips ticked at the corner, a whisper of gratitude depicted on his face as he turned to face you with the crystal glass rising upwards.

The small widening of his honey-coloured eyes told you all you needed to know within his gaze. Your head cocked to the side, your eyes wide and feigning innocence to the best of your abilities.

“My, my,” he commented, shamelessly raking his eyes over your body from your decorated toes to the follicles of your styled hair, “I do see why you would be the cause for such a stumble.” He expertly brushed the blue-haired man away from you, extending his right hand forward to seek out your own and collecting your four fingers within his grip.

He raised your hand to his lips, his mustache tickling the knobbed joints of your knuckles before his lips brushed against your flesh. Your eyes turned sultry, not once either of you breaking your eye contact against one another.

Unable to control the rapidity of the thump within his chest and the dry lump forming in his throat, Sir Crocodile began a stalking approach towards you. How dare they fawn over you. You: his favorite of his Choirs. His angelic muse and harbinger of brutality.

He knew you would make heads turn with the uniform he laid out for you, but he did not anticipate the primal urge swelling beneath him to pull you into himself and shield you away from their eyes. He wanted you all for himself, in any capacity you were willing to give it to him. He didn’t care that you were paid berry to serve him, it felt real enough for him.

“Dracule Mihawk,” he uttered against your flesh, withdrawing from his stoop and arching his back to puff his barely shielded chest to you, “And you are, my darling?” Before you could answer with your name, you felt a warm graze dancing up your spine. His breath tickled against your skin, tingling your spine beneath his lips as they pressed intent and longing to your flesh.

On any other occasion, you may have been alarmed by such attention from an individual without seeing their face. The cologne dancing with the whisper of his last cigar floated with each kiss against your skin, informing you exactly who was giving you such a touch.

He had never offered you this unbridled affection in the past, not allowing himself to give into his craving for you, and you not willing to test your place serving under him. This touch felt natural, his lips continuing to press into you, as you continued to hold your gaze on the eyes of the dark-haired man in front of you.

Sir Crocodile’s lips found your left shoulder, his purple eyes pulling the swordsman’s attention away from you to meet with your boss as he continued to map his lips up your neck to your jaw. His left forearm circled around your front, the golden hook firmly secured against his wrist collecting your chin beneath the smooth surface. He turned your attention away from Mihawk to look into his eyes through lowered eyelashes.

He leant forward, drawing your lips against his by the gentle tilt of his hook against your chin. Darting his tongue out to stroke yours, his nose brushed against your own as he circled his jaw to deepen the embrace. Your hands clutched the base of the stool you were sat atop to anchor yourself down for fear of floating to the roof. The hum of his lips in joy had a small moan pull from your lips the longer he was joined against you.

You felt his right hand brush against your bicep, curling his firm grip around it as he pushed his chest flush with your own with a gentle turn of your body. He pulled away from the kiss, his eyes immediately falling to your rapidly swelling and kiss-bruised lips, slightly smudged paint falling below the perimeter of your bottom lip. Tapping your chin with his hook, your eyes darted from your own gaze against his lips to meet with his purple eyes.

“My Seraphim,” the rumble of his voice and the small smirk of his lips had your attention hyper fixed and hanging on his every word. You held your gaze firmly affixed to his, watching as he turned away from you and greeted the men in front of you with the nod of his head and the small utterance of their names.

“Mihawk,” the rumble of his voice rubbing within his throat had your spine tingle with anticipation, “Buggy.” He turned back to meet your orbs that had not yet broken from his face, but raked your gaze over his face with half-lidded lashes. Your eyes continued to float in a daze against his lips and flittering back up to meet his gaze.

He extended his right hand in a gesture for you to take it, you reacting immediately by placing your hand within his larger palm to encircle his digits around it. You allowed him to pull you away from your former position atop the barstool, your heels clicking against the floor as he escorted you to the desired table for the night. Now in the shroud of seclusion, he leaned down and uttered a small apology in your ear.

“Forgive me,” he began, taking his seat within the plush armchair and patting his left knee with his right. Without hesitation, you gracefully placed yourself atop his thigh with the small flick of your hair, crossing your left knee over your right and arching your back.

“What sins am I forgiving, sir?” you asked him, feeling the dangerous caress of his hook brushing against your spine and collecting a small portion of your hair within its curvature. Your boss took in a deep breath through his nose, expanding his broad chest beneath his suit jacket. His exhale had a small quake to it, his eyes closing as he basked under your attention.

You reached your hands and began to dance your fingertips against the hem of his collar. Although this was a routine you had practiced with him over man a night on his lap, this touch felt almost forbidden as his brows furrowed.

“I should not have kissed you like that,” he uttered in a voice below a hushed whisper, “You deserve better than something so public. I desire you-... -for you to be treated as a seraphim I know you to be.” His vocal catch had your attention completely focussed on every word, your body leaning itself further as your hands halted their movement.

“I am not a seraphim, sir,” your lips were now almost brushing with the shell of his ear, your hypnotic perfume, intoxicating and mesmerizing the larger gentleman the longer your presence remained atop his lap. He angled his head away from you, exposing the side of his neck to reveal the rapidity of his heartbeat displayed against his pulse.

“And what are you, if not a seraphim,” he whispered darkly, allowing to be disarmed by your presence as he leant into your touch, yet away from the descent of your lips upon his ear.

“I am your seraphim,” you confessed as your lips grazed against the sensitive flesh of his cheek, his dark hair tickling against your eyes.

Sir Crocodile was glad he had withdrawn you to a secluded portion of his casino at this moment. He truly did not desire for the other two members of the Cross-Guild to notice how much of a grip you truly had around his heart, but refused to break away from your display of unrestrained physical affection. He knit his brows together, furthering their descent down his face as he processed your words.

“Because I pay you to be,” he uttered, leaning away from your touch and forcing the mask of his arrogance back onto his features. He dropped the hook from your hair, reaching his right hand into his left breast pocket to locate a thick cigar and his golden lighter. Placing the bitten end between his teeth and clamping down on it, he drew the flame up to his lips and attempted to ignite the end.

“I will return my wage to you,” you uttered quietly after swiping the golden lighter from his hand and reigniting the flame, “I have no need for it when you take care of me so well.” His eyes held an aloof boredom to his expression, refusing to meet with your face as you lit his cigar for him.

“And if my wealth was taken from me?” He questioned before inhaling the smoke from his cigar, exhaling it away from your face, “If I was to go to prison once more, what then?” Your eyes narrowed, your lip curling up to reveal your displeasure at the question.

“I would claw tooth and nail to free you from your confinement, sir,” you confessed, reaching your left hand forward and collecting his chin beneath your thumb and index finger, turning his jaw for his eyes to meet with yours once more, “And although living in luxury is a welcome experience, I would stand by you regardless.” His eyes depicted his craving for your words to be true, although not believing it yourself.

He began to open his mouth to speak, silenced by your words cutting through the air like your daggers meeting with the jugular of your foe.

“You have my loyalty, my blades, and my body at your disposal,” you leant forward further, darting your eyes between focusing on each of his. “Should you order me to jump, I will ask how high. Should you ask me to kneel, I will fall to my knees,” you continued, your grip holding more firmly against his chin, “Should you wordlessly aim your finger at an enemy, I would be a channel of your wrath as I claim their lives for you.”

Allowing a few moments of thick silence to swell between you, you felt the scrape of his hook trailing itself against your spine, hovering over the soft point of your rib and pressing his point firmly into your flesh.

“While your words are as beautiful as you are,” he whispered, looking down at the plunging neck of your dress and back up into your eyes, “They are as decorated by the impact of my wealth as your body is in that dress.” You narrowed your eyes at his comment, taking the expression as a challenge.

Shrugging away from the point of his hook, you rose to your feet between his legs and slowly drew your hands up to the thin straps on your shoulders. You hooked your thumbs beneath the material and began to slowly slip the material over your shoulders and down your biceps. Sir Crocodile’s eyes widened, immediately reaching his right hand and left forearm to halt your hands from revealing more of your flesh to him.

“What are you doing?” His growl should’ve had your actions stuttering in any other setting, but his rasp had your heart beating in desire in place of fear.

“I have already informed you that I will be returning my wage to you,” you cocked your head to the side, arching your back towards him and looking down at him under your lustful expression, “Why not start with the dress you claim to despise so much.” The rise of his fluster depicted in his eyes at your words had a smirk drawing up to decorate your lips.

“What has someone like me done to deserve such devotion from you, my seraphim?” he whispered, his right hand elevating the strap of your left shoulder and securing it firmly in its prior place. You followed suit with your right strap, securing it firmly against your shoulder and leaning further into his welcome embrace.

He leant his torso closer to you, his broad forearms circling over your own with his fingertips brushing against your skin. You began to open your mouth, confessing your adoration for your boss further upon the tip of your tongue before crudely interrupted by the presence of the blue-haired clown followed behind by the broody gentleman from earlier.

“Are we playin’ cards yet, Croco?” Buggy’s voice hitched as he met with an intimate moment shared between you and Sir Crocodile. Your boss’ hands caressed your skin, pulling you against his torso as he aimed his disapproving gaze over your right shoulder.

He growled at the interruption, his voice holding more feral animosity than he felt he should. You drew your hand up to claim his cheek in the palm of your right hand, looking down at him with your eyes holding your unspoken answer of lustful adoration at him. His breath hitched as his gaze met with yours, prompting his right hand to grasp the flesh of your back firmer within his spread fingertips.

“I recall you having barely enough berry to survive the last time we played, Clown,” Mihawk’s aloof tone called from beside him. Neither you nor Sir Crocodile paid either man any mind, too wrapped up in the intimate moment you were sharing holding one another.

You removed the cigar from Crocodile’s teeth in your left hand, stooping forward and claiming his lips beneath your own. Your nose brushed against his, the kiss as hastily departing in severance of the connection as it did in its descent. He arched his chin up, chasing your retreat with his eyes closed.

“Shall I get the table ready, sir?” You asked him in a subtle whisper, relishing in the small hum of pleasure falling from the lips of your boss. His eyes split slowly open, remaining half-lidded as he lulled his head on his neck to glance at you. The silver mark splitting his face danced in the illuminance of the soft bar light, his striking features appearing more chiseled under its glow.

“Please,” he spoke slowly, his tongue darting out and danced as the ‘L’ passed his lips. You raked his hair back over his scalp, replacing the fallen strands in their rightful place, while leaning down once more with a smirk.

“Right away, sir,” you purred at him while returning his cigar to his teeth, watching as he bit the tip with a small snarl. Turning and walking away to collect several items to place atop the green felt for your boss to engage in a game of cards with his two unlikely colleagues, eyes fixed on your back as you exited the secluded area.

“Who is she?” Buggy’s shocked voice cracked out the stuttered question also plaguing Mihawk’s mind. Sir Crocodile relaxed in his chair, inhaling the cigar smoke deeply into his lungs and holding it. Upon it exiting from his lungs, he confessed the place you held within his heart with the utterance of two words.

“My favorite.”

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