#and i realized that i've been filling out applications since i was like 18 and have never gotten a single call back on any. ever. | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

quinloki · 1 year

Text

Quicksand

Fem Reader x Sir Crocodile

CW: Language, violence, blood, moral ambiguity, murder, sexual themes and situations, yandere, angst with a happy ending, a referenced instance of physical abuse. 18+ only

Chapter 1 - Table of Consent -

Chapter 14: After While, Crocodile

The days dragged on. Rain Dinners went under entirely, and quite a few people were caught up in the fall out. You didn't hear from Miss All Sunday, and it was almost a month before Alvida called you.

"(Y/N), oh girl I am so sorry," she begins, and you cut her off.

"Don't be. It's okay, I'm... I'm not exactly alright, but I'm doing okay. I tell you though, the hardest part right now is job hunting." You have the phone tucked against your shoulder; you were filling out applications when she called.

"Yeah... Yeah, Rain Dinners has been in the news so much and no one wants to deal with the fall out. But you're a great worker, you'll be back on your feet before anyone else. Well, Buggy might beat you." She admits, laughing in disbelief.

"Buggy? He's not locked—I mean, he wasn't tangled up in everything, huh?"

"I'm just as surprised, but no. They held him for a couple days and then let him go. I've been trying to figure out what happened to everyone, and got distracted, I should've called sooner."

"... Nah. I, uh... the shock, I wasn't really... good for a few days. This is better, don't sweat it, Alvida." You try to sound reassuring but hearing from Alvida hasn't done much except make you miss Crocodile all over again.

"Hey, hon, I'm not going to get into things over the phone, but do you want me to have Buggy reach out to you? I know he could use your help if he's going to get things off the ground."

Your soft spot for your hyper stressed boss was winning out over your inclination to avoid everything to do with the Grandline Metro and just move. You sigh and resign yourself to your fate.

"Yeah, you can give him my number." You stare at what is probably the 20th application you've filled out since yesterday and sigh. "It's going to be hard to find any kind of Coordinator job for a while, when the only thing people are thinking about is how coordinated Rain Dinners imploded."

Alvida snorts derisively, and you can almost picture the look on her face. "You're not wrong. Alright love, I'll pass the word along. Don't be surprised if you hear from him today, he's about as relaxed as you'd expect."

You and Alvida talked about small stuff for a few more minutes before you said your goodbyes. You closed your laptop and went about mindlessly tidying up. You had been struggling to keep up with chores, but in the last week you realized if you did bits and pieces here and there when you had the energy or needed a distraction that it helped you keep up.

Having some kind of job would likely help, especially if that job was coordinating Buggy with the rest of the world. He was good for keeping you distracted.

Alvida wasn't wrong, it wasn't even an hour, and your phone was ringing. When you picked it up, however, it wasn't Buggy's voice as you had expected.

"Hey, Buggy." You managed to sound not completely deflated when you answered.

"Miss (Y/N), my apologies, it seems you had expected someone else." The soft chuckle that followed the smooth words had done nothing more except cause your heart to drop into your stomach.

"Mr. Donquixote... I was, expecting someone – how do you have my number?"

"Oh please, Miss Wednesday, I think we're beyond trying to maintain pretenses at this point." He says with amusement.

You felt your blood run cold and wondered for a moment if you'd ever feel warm again.

"... Why have you called me, Mr. Donquixote?" You manage after a moment's pause. You're not going to address the questions you have, because you're pretty sure you already know all the answers to them anyway. No sense in verifying the specific kind of cat that has just been released from the bag.

"I think you have a better question to ask me than that, Miss (Y/N), and please, call me Doffy."

You pondered for a moment, stepping yourself through the questions you had. Was he the one who had cloned your phone? Well, of course – he wouldn't know you were Miss Wednesday otherwise. That meant he was probably the person who had been trying to get into your apartment. It also meant he knew at Baratie's that you and Crocodile were dating, but he wasn't willing to admit to his involvement with your phone, and your statement about having earned the meal was a good enough excuse he hadn't decided to argue against it.

He knew. He knew you two were in a relationship and he was a Warlord. He should've been calling Officer Smoker or whoever he wanted with that tidbit of information.

"Why am I not in jail, Mr. Donquixote?"

"Fufufufu," the laugh sends cold chills down your back. "There's the question I was expecting. Why do you think, Miss (Y/N)?"

"If I may be frank," you request, the energy quickly draining from your words.

"I prefer it, my dear."

"... I don't care." You take in a deep breath and let it out slowly. "However you hope to utilize me, or even abuse me, Mr. Donquixote, I do not care. If my options are your amusement or prison, I will walk myself to the nearest station and confess."

There was a long silence, and for a moment you weren't sure if he hadn't hung up on you, but then that amused chuckle bubbles up again. "How delightful! I'm afraid to say I have been unexpectedly amused by you Miss (Y/N), most unexpectedly. Well, then I shall leave you be for now. Do take care Miss (Y/N), he did so much to see to it that you could survive free, after all."

There's a click, and then line's certainly dead now. You look at your phone for a second and nearly hurl it across the room in frustration. You hadn't wanted to give that fluffy pink bastard a moment's satisfaction and you ended up doing so anyway.

The sick bastard had gotten off on your sour mood, and you weren't even sure why. If he had intended to worm his way into your good graces, then he would've come at you softly. To offer support, or comfort, or he probably would've provided you with proof that someone else had cloned your phone and used it to gain your trust.

Instead you're fuming, because it feels like he's pulling your strings despite you being fully aware that that's what he's doing and you can't do anything to stop him. Manipulative bastard.

Your phone rings again and this time you take a second to look at the number. Buggy's name pops up and you relax before you answer it.

"Hello," you say, no long confident in who'll be on the other end.

"(Y/N)!" Buggy screeches in such joy you have to move the phone away from your ear for a second. "Alvida told me the good news! I would love for you to come work for me. No one else has your work ethic and I need to get things up and moving as soon as possible. I can pay you well, there's plenty of investors on the front end of this, and once we get the feet moving it'll be bringing in solid revenue."

"I – Buggy, what even is your business?" You ask. There's comfort in talking to Buggy. It was nice to have something unchanged screaming into your ear this way.

"Hahaha, I never did say, did I? It's an odd jobs service. You know, need a security guard for a night or few? We've got that. Day laborers, armed escorts, coordinators, temp office workers, factory personnel, that sort of thing. Anything and everything. Buggy's Delivery Service is here to deliver you the service you need!" The well-practiced line makes you smile. "Flashy, right?"

"Sounds like an organizational nightmare." You admit honestly. "Do you have things categorized so you can maintain numbers by service? Do you have specific service leads, group leads, and district organizers? How are you going to maintain records? Do they need to be hard copy for privacy reasons? I hope the HR department is robust, personnel for come and go work like this can have a pretty high turnover rate. How're you going to protect against people hijacking your service networks for out of pocket or illegal activities?"

You sigh a bit at the silence that follows. "Buggy."

"Please work for me, (Y/N)." Buggy's voice sounds to be on the edge of tears.

"I have conditions."

"I have a pen and paper." Buggy says, and you're quite sure he does. It only took you two years to get him into that habit to the point that he started taking notes no matter who was talking to him.

"I want competitive pay, not some flashy amount. I want you to give me authority to hire and fire, at least for 366 days. I need to be able to organize the system and the people with autonomy. After 365 days, I'd like to switch back to an internal coordinator role, and maintain internal relations between branches, teams, districts, groups, and such. I'd even be open to acting as a secondary secretary for you again." You say, speaking just slowly enough to allow Buggy a chance to keep up with his writing.

There's a bit of silence as he finishes writing, and you can hear him muttering softly as he goes through and re-reads what he wrote. "Competitive pay, hire and fire, internal coordinator, secondary secretary. That's easy enough!" He says triumphantly. "Do you want to go over the current details and logistics first thing Monday? I should have enough time to do a 2-hour walkthrough at 3pm."

You raise your eyebrows in surprise, even though Buggy can't see. "I'm impressed. Is Alvida already working with you?"

"Her and Galdino," Buggy says with a sigh. "You could've just had faith in me, (Y/N)."

"I do have faith in you. I have faith in your ability to know you need good people around you." You say with a smile. "I'm glad I'm included in that; I haven't had much luck job hunting."

"I would've contacted you sooner, but the number I had for you was disconnected." He laments. "Fortunately, Alvida was able to do her gossip magic and track down a new number for you."

"Oh, huh. I wonder if I wasn't even listed. Sorry about that, I would've reached out sooner if I had realized it."

"Bah, it's fine. You probably needed the time anyway. You always worked too hard. It's kind of flashy in its own way, but you could probably use another month of sleep."

"Buggy, I will cry if you make me take a month off." You say it in an exaggerated pout, so he thinks you're kidding, but honestly you probably would. You needed something to distract you, and this was a great opportunity.

Buggy laughs. "I'll see you Monday, call me if you need anything before then."

"Will do, boss." You assure him and hang up.

Leaning back into your couch you let out a long sigh. You had plenty of savings, you could've managed for a long time before you would've needed to work, but even so this was a welcome result. You already know Buggy, and Alvida, and Galdino. You were also relieved to know none of them were part of the deeper parts of Crocodile's organization. You had assumed they were all aware of Crocodile's Warlord affiliation, though now, you guess the whole world knew.

In two months' time you, and just about all of Grandline Metro, had learned that Crocodile – or rather the organization he controlled, Baroque Works – had attempted to overthrow the government of an island nation. They had used a mix of propaganda and other illegal activities to cause the people to rise up in revolt, and the whole plot had been uncovered just before things had come crashing down.

You didn't know what to think of it all. It felt hypocritical of you to have understood he was a criminal without being understanding of just what that could entail. At the same time though, it felt like a matter of degree.

Sir Crocodile the Pirate was acceptable. Same for Warlord, Mafia Boss, Gang Leader, secret underworld mastermind – okay the last one was pushing it a little bit, but Crocodile the Overthrower of Desert Kingdoms just felt like too much.

Not that it mattered. Where the line was, and whether or not you were comfortable with it, were all moot. Suwani was in prison. The trial had been laughably short, and if you reached out to contact him in any way it could ruin whatever he'd done to keep you out of things. That was, for better or worse, the thing that made you want to forgive him no matter what he had done.

He had protected you.

There was absolutely no objective benefit for him to have done so. You didn't know any of his terrible secrets. You had nothing you could've given the Marines to help them win their case. If anything, you might've been able to be a sympathetic face to put on things.

It wasn't likely it would've worked, but objectively, he would have had more options available if he hadn't kept you away from everything. Especially since the Grandline Metro prison wasn't segregated by sex.

If he had just meant to use you then...

You let out another long sigh, looking up at your ceiling. Complicated feelings were, unsurprisingly, complicated. For right now, you didn't want to think about them. You didn't want to think about him. You needed to put one foot in front of the other, and move forward. You had plenty of time to sort everything out, there was no reason to try and decide tonight.

You may never come to a final answer.

"Whatever. For the next year all you have to do is organize Buggy's overzealous business plan. You won't have to worry about thinking about things like this, you'll be too bloody busy." You grumble into the empty air of your apartment.

Throwing yourself into your job wasn't the best coping mechanism, but it was better than nothing, and you had no prior experience in trying to cope with something like this.

#Quicksand #Sir Crocodile #Crocodile x reader #crocodile x y/n #one piece smut #one piece fanfiction #modern au #reader insert #yandere

14 notes · View notes

sir-sunawani · 1 year

Text

Quicksand

Fem Reader x Sir Crocodile

20 Chapters - 46,838 words

Read it on Ao3 or Wattpad

CW: Language, violence, blood, moral ambiguity, murder, sexual themes and situations, yandere, angst with a happy ending, a referenced instance of physical abuse. 18+ only