At nearly midnight, everyone on the ship should have long since been asleep, but the leader of this association, the captain of their ship if you may, found himself lying in bed sleeplessly, listening to small waves lapping and dragging against the wood next to his head. He exhaled slowly, knocking his cover off to the side and moving to sit at the edge of the bed. Long slender fingers trailed over the table which sat next to the head of his bed, not stopping until they located the cold, golden hook which belonged where another hand should sit, at the end of his left wrist.
No sooner than the hook had settled onto his wrist, he heard a muffled commotion outside his door. He rose from the bed and pulled a robe around himself, half forcing a gruff expression to settle over his face. However sleepy and out of character he was, he knew he had to appear the same to his workers even at this hour. He cracked open the door and was greeted by the familiar face of his direct partner. The ravenette stood leaned against his doorway, her hair draping across her face, and her eyes still closed. Merely in his confusion, Crocodile's stern expression dropped, and he let the door fall the rest of the way open.
When the door had opened, the female took the opportunity to make her way into the room and let herself fall into his bed. This did nothing for the male but worsen the confusion which had overtaken him at her appearance in general. He slowly made his way to the bed to get a better look at her. Where she had fallen, it did not appear that there had been a moment she had been awake in the case of this encounter. Her legs lay draped off of the bed where she had just dropped her torso onto the mattress. In one swift movement, her legs fell to the bed. He used his right hand to pull the cover over her, being sure she was actually tucked into the bed correctly. There had to be a reason she had fallen into his room in such a way, but Crocodile was in no hurry to ask her what the reason was until she was actually awake.
After he had gone back to close the door, Crocodile sat back down on the edge of the bed. This time, however, his eyes were no longer on the wooden walls, but on the sleeping shape of Nico Robin in the bed next to him. While he did not understand why it was she had come into his room, he was not one to oppose an opportunity to admire the silhouette of this woman in particular. His hand moved to trail along the gentle curvature of her back, his fingers just barely skimming along the fabric of her nightshirt. When she did not so much as stir, he dared to repeat the action in the opposite direction, giving just the slightest bit more pressure this time, and letting the palm of his hand rub against her back.
His touch was greeted with a small hum from the sleeping female, her head turning in his direction, but her eyes remaining closed to show that she had not woken. Her back arched a bit to welcome in the touch of the hand, her mind finding comfort within it. Crocodile took this moment to lean to the side, as to get a better view of her, his hand sliding up into her hair. He was praised with another small noise at that touch, her lips turning up the smallest bit to show a hint of a smile he'd never seen before.
The male pulled away, but as soon as his hand left her hair, Robin's expression began to change and her face contorted. In no time, the contortion of her face had left her mouth hanging open and her brows furrowed, leaving her to seem almost pained. Concern covered the male's face, his hand pausing between the two of them as he thought of what he could do to get the look of distraught and pain on her face go away. As his hand moved, her eyes shot open and she moved to turn and sit up in the bed. Her gaze was distant and panicked, her arms rising to cross over her chest and each one rested on the shoulder opposite them. It was obvious that some part of her was trying very hard to keep her breathing under control, but there seemed to be nothing she could do to keep her breathing and demeanor under control.
While she stayed quiet for the moment, her eyes stayed locked on something Crocodile couldn't see, and a matching pair of tears streamed past her cheeks from each of her eyes. The male reached for her again, only this time his hand moved toward her face to wipe beneath one of her eyes. However, when his hand neared her face, her head snapped toward him and her expression switched to one of terror and flight. She gave a quieted shriek, one of her hands flying up to grab his wrist. While she was moving and reacting, the look in her eyes stayed just as far off as it had been before. She pushed against the male, the hand which was not on his wrist clenching into a fist and pounding against his chest a couple times.
Caught off guard, Crocodile took the blows before corralling both her wrists into the palm of his hand in order to immobilize them. He laid her backward on the bed, careful to keep his left arm away from her at all costs. If she so much as jerked one of her arms, he knew he could catch her with that damn hook he had yet to take back off, and that was something he was not prepared to take care of. With that hand behind his back, he leaned his forehead against hers in an attempt to calm the other. When he finally spoke, his words felt foreign in his mouth, and his tone was one he never imagined himself using when communicating with anyone; especially one of his employees.
"What are you seeing?" His voice wrapped the both of them in a velvet feeling, the corners of his lips turned down in obvious concern. "I want you to tell me everything you're seeing." As he continued to speak to her, Crocodile lowered his lips toward her ear so he could whisper to her, being sure no one else would wake up, at least on his accord. After a moment, her arms began to grow weaker and fall limp against the bed. He took this as an invitation to pull his hand from her wrists, letting it trail down one of her arms and then some, coming to rest at the dip of her waist.
Her voice came out in a breathy whisper, and she described to him all the horrors which were unfolding on the canvas of the backs of her eyelids. After a while of going through that same process, Crocodile's hand once again finding its way into her hair, Robin's eyes closed again. He knew all he could do was wait for her to wake up, but the process, it seemed, would be shorter than he anticipated. He removed his hand from her hair and rested it on the mattress as a way to prop himself up over her, and when he looked back to her, he was welcomed by blue eyes, glistening under a sheen of moisture.
Her voice came as before, only now it was broken and soft. "Where am I?" Hearing her voice in this state broke his heart, and his hand moved back to the dip of her waist, pulling her close against his chest. "It doesn't matter right now. What matters is that you're awake." A small smile drew up the corners of Crocodile's mouth, but the rest of his face remained just as concerned as he had been through the entirety of this ordeal. Accepting that she was going to be okay, and that she wasn't in any actual danger from the male positioned above her, she gave a light sigh and her eyes cleared as she seemed to come to her senses.
Crocodile shifted back to the table beside his bed and removed the golden hook, setting it back in its place on the table's center before seating himself at the head of the bed and pulling the female into his lap. Her head fell to his shoulder, and automatically, the hand was weaving back into her hair in an attempt to keep her calm. His eyes trailed over the features of her face, following each of the lines of her nose, her lips, her cheek bones. He finally settled back on her eyes, giving her frame a slight squeeze.
"Tell me about what you saw." He whispered to the female, his stomach dropping when he saw her face blanche. "What do you mean?" He sighed deeply, his hand resting on the side of her head so he could caress her cheek within the palm of his hand. She didn't remember anything that had just happened, did she? "Nothing. Forget I said anything and just focus on relaxing." A look of confusion spread over Robin's face, but it didn't take her long to accept it. She curled into the larger's chest, one of her hands moving to rest on his hip. Her slender fingers traced over the skin there mindlessly as she actually let herself drift back to sleep. The last thing she felt before falling into a deep sleep was the male's lips against her ear. She swore she could hear him say something, but couldn't make it out in the daze of sleep.
Next thing Crocodile knew, sunlight was beginning to creep through his windows. He opened his eyes, flinching slightly when he felt the headboard hit against the back of his head. "Wha-" He glanced down, the memories from the night before flooding over him as he looked down to the sleeping female who remained curled in his lap. He couldn't help but smile the slightest bit at the vision of her sleeping face, a hand moving back through her hair. He raised himself from the bed, laying Robin back down into the bed where he had just been sitting. Leaning over, Crocodile laid the lightest kiss he could muster on her sleep spread lips before covering her and moving away from the bed so he could get ready for the day.