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Chapter Text

The last time he saw Doflamingo, Rosinante was eight years old and splattered head to toe in their father’s blood after Doflamingo shot and killed him, then cut his head off with the same knife he used to protect Rosinante. His last memory of Doflamingo is watching him run away, their father’s head clutched in his arms like some great prize.

What he knows of Doflamingo now, he knows through navy reports, the news, rumors, whispers. He hears that the man is bloodthirsty and vicious. He’s ambitious and strong, and his crew is made up of devil fruit eaters, each of them a fearsome opponent in their own right.

Some who claim to have seen Doflamingo in his weaker moments will talk about how Doflamingo would drink himself soft and whisper to them about his younger brother, and how much he misses him, how he wonders if he’s still alive.

Rosinante doesn’t believe those stories though. He doesn’t believe Doflamingo would let someone live if they’d seen him showing any weakness. He hopes they’re true, though. He hopes Doflamingo still thinks about him, still misses him, still wants to see him. He’d be lying if he said there wasn’t a part of him that had accepted this mission because 15 years after their separation, he still thinks about Doflamingo. He still misses his brother. Sometimes he will wake up alone in his quarters at Marineford and for a moment he will look around for Doflamingo, expecting to see him sleeping on his side right next to Rosinante, always facing him.

But then he remembers it’s been 15 years since Doflamingo held him tightly to keep him warm while they slept on the floor.

Rosinante had heard endless stories from other Marines about their big brothers. He heard stories about big brothers who had joined the Navy and inspired their little brothers to join too. There were big brothers who picked on their little brothers, but defended them from anyone else who dared to pick on them, and there were big brothers who would do anything for their little brothers. Doflamingo is one of those types.

Rosinante remembers when Doflamingo would hold his hand tightly and take him into the city to walk through the alleyways and pick through trash cans until they found something to eat. He doesn’t know where Doflamingo got the knife, but he kept it nearby at all times, grabbing it whenever he heard the sound of footsteps nearby. Whenever they found food, they would split it up. Doflamingo would give Rosinante the fresher food, or bigger portions, saving equally fresh food for their mother. Sometimes Doflamingo would intentionally pick moldy food out of the trash to bring to their father.

If they were caught by the people in town, Doflamingo would immediately stand in front of Rosinante to shield him, holding out his knife to show that he was ready and willing to fight. Rosinante would tug on his shirt and cry, begging Doflamingo to just run away with him. He didn’t want to see his aniue get hurt again. But Doflamingo is confrontational, enraged, indignant that this is their life now, that the townspeople blame them for the pain caused by other Celestial Dragons. He’d drawn blood a few times, each time reveling in the victory. Sometimes their attackers had something with longer range than a knife, like a plank of wood. Doflamingo would try to take hits for Rosinante, unless he was beaten so hard he blacked out. But when he and Rosinante both woke up, Doflamingo would reach for his hand and hold it tightly, and guide him back to that rotting shack.

Sometimes when Rosinante is on the front lines of a battle, he will feel the ghost of Doflamingo’s larger hand around his, holding it tight to reassure him. You can do it, Rocy.

It’s funny to call on that memory now, as he approaches the Donquixote Family’s hideout. He needs his big brother’s reassurance to give him the courage to reveal himself to his big brother.

You can do it, Rocy.

Rosinante squeezes the ghost hand, and approaches the Donquixote hideout. He hopes Doflamingo won’t kill him on sight. The ghost hand squeezes tighter. Rosinante doesn’t know how to announce himself at a pirate hideout. Was knocking appropriate?

He knocked on the metal door. No turning back now.

Doflamingo is excited, yet wary. It’s been 15 years since he last saw his little brother. This man sitting in front of him certainly looks like his Rosinante. He’s extremely tall, towering over everyone else in the Donquixote family, aside from Doflamingo himself. His hair is even as Doflamingo remembers, light blonde and just a little wavy. The only worthwhile thing their useless father ever did was give Rosinante his beautiful wavy hair. Doflamingo remembers combing his fingers through it as they lay shivering together on the floor of that rundown cabin, Rosinante crying into his chest.

“You look like him,” Doflamingo starts, not wanting to get his hopes up, but oh how can he not, when this man looks up at him with the same cinnamon colored eyes he remembers looking into when they were small?

“But I need to make sure.” Doflamingo is nervous. He wants this man to be Rosinante. He wants him to answer correctly. He wants his Rocy back at his side.

“Where were we born?”

“In Mary Geoise, in the Red Line.” Rosinante responds softly. He’s only speaking because they’re alone, Doflamingo having excused the rest of his crew at Rosinante’s request.

Doflamingo’s heart pounds. He’s never told anyone where he was born.

“Our Father’s name?”

“Homing.” Rosinante says, and looks up at Doflamingo, meeting his eyes, “The last time I saw you, you had just shot him and cut his head off.”

Oh. It’s him. This man is his Rocy. No one else had been around when he’d killed their father, no one else had witnessed it. But Doflamingo can’t settle his excitement now, he’s convinced this is his precious baby brother but he wants to keep asking him questions, he wants to revel in the thrill of hearing him answer every question correctly.

“Our mother, what happened to her?” He asks, a huge grin on his face, barely able to restrain his excitement.

“She got sick. She died in that rotten little cabin we lived in.” Rosinante hates the memory. He watches Doflamingo’s response, knowing that his thrill appears to be a strange response to being reminded of their mother’s completely preventable death, but this is his brother, and he understands the thoughts running through his head. Rosinante is answering correctly, and Doflamingo is excited.

“What about-” Doflamingo starts, but he’s cut off when Rosinante motions to his own left eye. He sees the subtle shifts of muscles in Doflamingo’s face, realizing what he’s referring to.

“Your left eye. The villagers. They tied us up. Hung us from windows. I was happy that mother didn’t have to go through that. They insulted us. They fired arrows at us. An arrow took your eye.”

“Rocy…” Doflamingo’s voice is soft, in disbelief. Without a doubt, this is his baby brother.

Rosinante doesn’t speak in front of anyone else. He tells Doflamingo that yes, he was traumatized by their last memory together, watching his big brother slaughter their father, but he was traumatized by their separation too. He was only eight when they were separated, but he thought about him often, which is true.

Doflamingo seems willing to accept any story Rosinante tells him that indicates there was some long-lived unbreakable bond between them, despite how long they’ve been separated. He eagerly accepts Rosinante’s story, revels in being the only person to hear his voice. He gives Rosinante a code name, not wanting to share his name with anyone else. The code name is Corazón, Spanish for heart, because Rosinante, his heart, has finally returned to him.

Rosinante tells himself it doesn’t thrill him to be Doflamingo’s heart, to be his precious baby brother, to be able to demand his attention whenever he wants it and to receive it with an indulgent smile. He tells himself this, over and over, and each time he says it, he believes himself a little less.

Doflamingo gives his Corazón a feathered jacket that matches his own, and watches him accidentally set himself on fire several times while trying to light a cigarette. Doflamingo soon bans Rosinante from lighting his own cigarettes.

“I will light them for you.”

“But what if you’re in a meeting?” It’s his first panicked thought. What if Doflamingo is busy and can’t come light his cigarettes? How will he get his nicotine fix??

“Then you walk into the meeting and ask me. There are no secrets between us, my Corazón. You are free to walk into any of my meetings at any time to demand my attention.” The sincerity in Doflamingo’s voice and the achingly sweet smile on his face fills Rosinante’s chest with a fluttery feeling.

Rosinante does just as Doflamingo says. He walks into a meeting, cigarette between his lips, and he leans over in front of Doflamingo to wordlessly ask him to light it.

The pirate Doflamingo is meeting with laughs when he sees the behavior, but he’s silenced when two pairs of red eyes turn to stare at him.

“Something funny?” Doflamingo asks, taking the cigarette from Rosinante’s lips and putting it in his own mouth, casually lighting it up and inhaling before he returns it to Rosinante’s lips with an almost loving expression.

“Uh… Just, kinda weird, I guess.”

“My Corazón is a little uncoordinated. He has a tendency to light himself on fire instead of his cigarettes. I don’t want him hurting himself or burning down the hideout. It’s a safety precaution.” Doflamingo explains, his tone of voice so calm and reasonable that the pirate ends up feeling silly for questioning why Doflamingo would light his brother’s cigarettes for him. He doesn’t even question the indirect kiss.

Rosinante remains, leaning against Doflamingo from behind, one arm around the front of his shoulders as he leans over, pressed against Doflamingo.

The power Rosinante feels is incredible. He can see how uncomfortable the pirate feels, watching the two of them, but he knows the man doesn’t dare open his mouth to share his opinions again.

Rosinante had walked into many of these meetings to have his nicotine addiction handled by his big brother, who buys Rosinante’s cigarettes and carries them around in his own pocket to make his Corazón come to him. At first Rosinante had Doflamingo light his cigarette, and then he would leave. But then he started lingering. He would stand near Doflamingo, or sit near him, leisurely smoking his way through the cigarette.

Once he had been exhausted from a fight that had broken out near their hideout, he had let loose while fighting in a way he never did during his time in the navy. He had strangled a man with his bare hands, broken another’s arm, and pulled out the gun his brother had given him, shooting a third man point blank in the head. Doflamingo had been absolutely overjoyed by his performance, praising him as if he hadn’t just murdered two men and maimed a third. His exhaustion from said fight led to him dozing during Doflamingo’s meeting later that afternoon, his head landing on Doflamingo’s shoulder. He’d noted a pause in the conversation, followed by Doflamingo’s soft voice speaking only to him.

“Do you want to stay there or put your head in my lap?”

Rosinante couldn’t believe his ears. This was so thrilling, having his big brother dote on him like this. Yes he wanted to lay his head in Doffy’s lap, he wanted his precious big brother to spoil him. He immediately plopped his head into Doflamingo’s lap, looking up at him with a dazed, happy expression before he relaxed, closing his eyes.

That time, he heard whoever Doflamingo was meeting with stutter at the sight of their behavior. But they had enough sense to not question Doflamingo, unlike this idiot Doflamingo was currently speaking with.

Emboldened by the memory of Doflamingo openly spoiling him and allowing Rosinante to use his lap as a pillow, along with this pirate’s obvious discomfort, Rosinante realized he wanted to toy with him and make him even more uncomfortable. He sits next to Doflamingo, then swings his long legs up onto the couch, and plops them down across Doflamingo’s lap as he smokes his cigarette. Rosinante leans against the back of the couch and turns to him, seeing how the pirate is staring openly.

Doflamingo does not mind his behavior. Why would he tell his precious Corazón that what he’s doing is wrong? Is it wrong for two brothers to be affectionate with one another? It’s this pirate who is in the wrong. He is wrong for questioning their behavior and for staring at his Corazón.

Doflamingo grabs his wine glass and throws it at the man, who stares at Doflamingo in shock as he’s doused in wine and shattered glass.

“Eyes on me. This meeting is with me.”

“But your… Brother…? He-”

“What about him?” Doflamingo challenges the pirate. Rosinante just watches the pirate, expression unchanging, his eyes seeming to ask ‘What about me?’

The pirate at least knows when to admit defeat.

“N-Nothing. Please, continue.”

The meeting continues and Rosinante isn't paying attention. His eyes are on Doflamingo's hand, which is resting comfortably on Rosinante’s calf and idly stroking it as if Rosinante is Doflamingo's own personal fidget toy. His other hand waves around as he speaks, acting as punctuation for his dialogue, but the other hand stays on Rosinante’s leg, occasionally wandering low enough to slide under the cuff of his pants to firmly rub his thumb over Rosinante’s ankle bone as the rest of his hand wraps around the ankle and holds tight, his grip possessive.

The cigarette smolders down to the filter and burns Rosinante’s fingers. Rosinante cries out in pain and Doflamingo's conversation halts so he can turn toward Rosinante with a concerned expression on his face, wanting to make sure he's okay.

“Your cigarette burned you?” Doflamingo asks, holding Rosinante’s wrist with the same hand that held his ankle. He rubs the bones in Rosinante's wrist and holds it tight, the same way he held Rosinante’s ankle, then presses his lips to the singed skin of Rosinante’s fingers and brings Rosinante’s hand up to press his face against the backs of his fingers, looking at Rosinante very seriously. Doflamingo’s attention always makes Rosinante’s heart pound. He can’t look away, not when Doflamingo is looking right at him and nuzzling the back of his hand.

“Go get that cleaned up and bandaged. I don't want anything to happen to my Corazón.” Doflamingo’s fingers tangle with Rosinante’s, careful to avoid the barely injured skin.

Eventually Doflamingo's meeting partner clears his throat, reminding the brothers that there is a third party present in the room.

They part and Rosinante leaves the room and immediately walks into a wall, dazed and unfocused and thinking only of his precious big brother’s warm hands and the soft kiss he can still feel on his fingers.

Chapter Text

After so many years apart, Doflamingo is absolutely starved for Rosinante’s presence. It had already been a few months since Rosinante suddenly showed up at the Donquixote Pirates’ hideout, but Doflamingo still wants his little brother next to him at all times. Rosinante’s seat at the dinner table is right next to Doflamingo’s, he has free reign to wander in and out of Doflamingo’s office at his leisure, and his bedroom is next to Doflamingo’s. Whenever Doflamingo's responsibilities take him away from the hideout, he will grab Rosinante’s hand and bring him along.

Before long, the Donquixote Pirates are preparing for their first mission since Rosinante’s arrival. Doflamingo had allowed some young pirate on a distant island to fly the Donquixote flag on the condition that he never lost a fight, but Doflamingo had received word that he’d lost a fight, but continued to fly the Donquixote flag despite Doflamingo telling him to take it down. So now he had to go find the little punk and show him what happened when you disobey Donquixote Doflamingo.

Shortly before they set sail, Doflamingo brought Rosinante onboard the Numancia Flamingo to personally show him around the ship before anyone else boarded. When Rosinante wandered ahead of him to explore the ship, Doflamingo watched carefully, his observations telling him that Rosinante appeared to be familiar with the general layout of a ship. His Corazón has not provided any details about where he has been for the past 15 years. Doflamingo has not asked. There is an unfamiliar thorn of fear inside him that is afraid of what Rosinante’s answer would be. Doflamingo had spent so many days and nights and months and years longing to have his brother back, and now that Rosinante has returned, Doflamingo doesn’t want to think about where he’s been all this time and why he hasn’t volunteered any information. He can worry about the possibility that Rosinante is a threat later, some other time, some other day.

They tour the decks, the store rooms, the galley, and last, Doflamingo shows Rosinante everyone’s sleeping arrangements. Several rooms are reserved for sleeping. The Executives shared a room, the officers shared a room, and recently some children had joined the crew, so they were all granted a room to share. Doflamingo, of course, had the largest room to himself, set apart from the crew’s sleeping quarters.

“You will stay in here with me,” Doflamingo grins as he shows Rosinante their new shared bedroom on the ship, standing close behind his brother as he walks into the room. Rosinante is looking around the room, at the large bed, at his brother’s questionable taste in bedroom decor, his heart pounding as he listens to Doflamingo’s declaration that they will be sharing this room when the crew sails. Rosinante is an Executive, one of only four Executives. The room shared by the other three Executives has more than enough room for him as well. There is no functional need for Rosinante to share Doflamingo’s room. But Doflamingo wants him in his room. He has already rearranged his daily life to keep Rosinante at his side all day, and now he wants to keep him nearby at night too.

Rosinante looks around their shared bedroom with a shiver running through him, thrilled that Doflamingo is so open and bold and completely shameless about wanting Rosinante at his side at all times. Rosinante feels a sudden urge to act up a little and play the part of a cute little brother. He can feel Doflamingo standing almost directly behind him, so he lays his head back against Doflamingo’s shoulder and looks up at him with a little grin. Perhaps it’s just the weird angle, but Doflamingo appears to be blushing just a bit.

“The other Executives are going to be jealous if you give me special treatment, Doffy.” Rosinante intended to move toward the bed, wanting to flop onto it and see how comfortable it was, but instead he felt Doflamingo’s long arms slide around his chest and wrap around him, pulling him backward until he landed against Doflamingo’s chest. Doflamingo leans his head against Rosinante’s, quiet for a moment as he feels Rosinante’s warmth and the movement of his torso as he breathes steadily.

Even though it’s been months now since his Executives told him there was a man outside the hideout claiming to be Doflamingo’s younger brother, sometimes it still feels unreal that Rosinante is right here. More than once, he had woken up in his bedroom in the hideout, absolutely certain he just dreamed that Rosinante had come back. But every time he left his bedroom, he would see Rosinante in his own room still asleep on the bed, or heading toward the dining room for breakfast, or falling in the hallway, or he would smell cigarette smoke in the air and spot Rosinante outside on the landing, looking over the scrap yards of Spider Miles as he smoked.

Rosinante feels Doflamingo’s fingers dig into him, as if he’s afraid Rosinante will disappear or leave again.

“Doffy?” Rosinante slides his hand over one of Doflamingo’s hands and squeezes. He feels Doflamingo flinch.

“Call me something else.” Doflamingo’s voice is muffled somewhat as he speaks into Rosinante’s hair, before lowering his face to press into the feathers of his coat. “The other Executives call me Doffy. I want you to call me something else.”

This time, Doflamingo feels Rosinante squeeze his hand a little tighter in response to the request, so Doflamingo wraps his arms a little tighter around him.

“Something that only you get to call me.” He wants to keep Rosinante’s name to himself, his voice, this nickname, whatever his brother will give him, he wants it.

“A new nickname…” Rosinante lingers in Doflamingo’s arms as he thinks. His embrace is almost too tight, but Rosinante doesn’t want him to loosen his grip. Doflamingo holds him so tightly he feels his ribs press against his brother’s arms with every inhale.

“Aniue? Like when we were kids.”

Doflamingo appreciates the throwback to their childhood, but that’s not what he wants. His lack of response, vocally or physically, tells Rosinante as much. The nickname was cute when they were kids, but now it feels too formal, too distant.

“What about…” A silly idea came to mind, and since Rosinante was in a silly mood where he was playing up being the little brother, he went ahead and said, “Nii-chan?”

Doflamingo buries his face further into the feathers of Rosinante’s coat, a deep shudder seeming to shake him from head to toe. He shifts his face more toward Rosinante’s ear so he can hear him speak.

“It’s perfect.”

Rosinante is so shocked that he can’t stop a little snort of disbelief erupting from him. He feels Doflamingo stiffen defensively, attempting to remove his arms from around him, but Rosinante holds his hands tight and won’t let him go.

“I wasn’t laughing, I promise.” Doflamingo’s grip loosened enough to allow Rosinante enough room to turn in his arms to face him, slowly reaching up to put a hand on his brother’s face. Doflamingo is wearing his sunglasses, as always, and Rosinante carefully, slowly reaches for them and pulls them off. In Doflamingo’s eye, the other eye lost when they were captured and tortured as children, Rosinante sees wariness, hurt, and a desperation and tenderness he never thought his brother was capable of feeling.

“I wasn’t laughing,” Rosinante repeats, holding Doflamingo’s face in both hands now, “I was surprised. I never thought you’d like being called nii-chan. But if that’s what you want, nii-chan, that’s what I’ll call you.”

It’s absolutely intolerably cute of Doflamingo to want to be called something as cutesy as nii-chan, and Rosinante is doing his best to restrain more shocked laughter. He knows there’s a possessive element to Doflamingo’s behavior, an attempt to make up for the lost years. Doflamingo wants things that are special between them, exclusive to just the two of them, or things that belong only to Doflamingo, things like Rosinante’s name and voice. But moments like this, when Doflamingo is open and vulnerable and needy because they’re alone, these moments belong only to Rosinante and he is greedy for everything Doflamingo will let him take.

Chapter Text

The first thing Rosinante notices about the small island of Notice is how affluent it seems. He’s standing on the deck of the Numancia Flamingo, observing the town as the ship sails toward the docks. The buildings are beautiful, covered in a shining white substance that makes each building seem to sparkle in the sunlight. Rosinante is transfixed by the sight of an island full of shining buildings. Every window and door he can see is lined with ornate detailing, and every home seems to have a full, blooming garden. It looks like a dream.

As the Numancia Flamingo sails even closer to the docks, there’s even more for Rosinante to see. The people he sees walking around are all nicely dressed, the wood of the docks he steps out onto is well-maintained, and looking around, he doesn’t even see any litter. From where he stands near the ship, he can see an outdoor market with well-built and sturdy looking stands filled with produce and attractive wares for sale. The people walking around also seem very friendly with each other.

The island seems too wealthy to have a pirate infestation, but according to Doflamingo, this is the place where the Cork Pirates had established their base. The Captain, Corky, had made a deal with Doflamingo that he could fly the Donquixote flag as long as he never lost a fight. Then he refused to take the flag down after losing a bar brawl against the Porcupine Pirates. Rosinante had given Doflamingo such a look when he explained this, refusing to believe these were actual pirate crew names. But then Captain Porky of the Porcupine Pirates showed up at the Donquixote hideout with the wine cork collection he’d stolen from Captain Corky of the Cork Pirates after winning the bar fight. All of this was too ridiculous for Rosinante to even think about, so he just nodded along, and now here he was to reclaim the Donquixote flag with the rest of the crew.

As friendly as the townspeople are with one another, their temperament changes when Doflamingo approaches some men in the market who were chatting together. Doflamingo is attempting to look friendly and approachable with a smile on his face, but he is mostly incapable of smiling in a non-threatening manner. The men are on their guard, with their hands appearing to hover near hidden weapons. Rosinante is quick to catch up with his brother and stand cautiously behind him to guard his back, his hand also discreetly hovering near his hidden gun.

“Good afternoon. I'm looking for the Cork Pirates. I heard their base is here on this island. Do you know where I might find them?” Doflamingo is fully aware that these men are wary of him, but he isn’t interested in causing chaos on the island. All he wants is his flag.

“Depends. Are you here to cause more trouble?” The men are clearly unsettled, not wanting any more pirates on their island after all the trouble the Cork Pirates have caused, and it's hard to tell from Doflamingo's appearance if he's a pirate, mafia, a businessman, or a pimp. Doflamingo lets out a laugh that seems to unsettle the men a little more and make them reach for their hidden weapons, which prompts Rosinante to throw them a warning look as he also reaches for his hidden weapon.

“Not for the island, no. But I am going to cause lots of trouble for the Cork Pirates.”

The men like Doflamingo’s answer because they calm down immediately and eagerly point him down the street with further directions to turn right at the next street. The crew has taken over a local bar as their base, the Donquixote flag flying high outside the building. Doflamingo thanks the men for their help and starts toward the next street before he realizes that most of his crew had scattered to the marketplace, drawn in by the beautiful wares for sale. He could see Diamante holding up bolts of cloth to examine the embroidery as he eagerly allowed the saleswoman to talk him into buying it. Giolla had a small basket in hand filled with cosmetics that she appeared to be haggling over. Gladius was looking at a selection of imported hats, having accidentally exploded his own hat during the trip to Notice.

Despite the annoying task that brought them to the island, Doflamingo is in a very good mood today and feels no need to make his crew hurry up their purchases. He and Rosinante are alone together at the end of the street, the weather is nice, and he’s eager for the sun to set so he can show Rosinante something special he’d found during his first trip to Notice.

Doflamingo reaches for Rosinante, his hand settling on the small of his back, then sliding around to rest on his hip. Rosinante smiles at him and settles his hand comfortably over Doflamingo's, both of them perfectly content to wait together.

One by one the rest of the crew arrives, and Doflamingo is only a little annoyed by all the purchases they’re carrying as they all start walking down the street toward the bar.

“We’re confronting another pirate crew, what are you going to do with all that??” He sighs, but they’ll figure something out. Maybe they can stash Diamante and Giolla’s scarves and makeup in a bush somewhere. He isn’t truly mad though, because whenever he glances behind him, he can see Rosinante still there, just behind him. Doflamingo reaches behind himself with an outstretched hand, and his smile grows wider and warmth blooms in his chest as Rosinante’s hand immediately slides into his and squeezes tightly.

The street is short, and very soon the bar is within sight, with the Donquixote flag flying from the top of the building. But even without the flag it would still be easy to tell which building had pirates inside. The building’s windows are broken, glass scattered in the street, with broken chairs and other broken furniture strewn around. There are no people walking around and talking here, and through the shattered windows they can hear the raucous sound of drunk pirates yelling, laughing, and fighting.

The only sign of life on the street beyond the pirates inside the bar is a group of kids outside, staring through the windows at the pirate crew inside with awestruck eyes. When they hear approaching footsteps, the kids look up, eyes going wide as the Donquixote Pirates come closer.

“Are you guys pirates??” The young leader asks as he runs up to them, clearly wanting to hear them say yes, they’re pirates. Doflamingo looks over the kid curiously and leans over to get closer, intending to playfully intimidate with a wide smile on his face. The boy stumbles back a few steps as if afraid Doflamingo might try to take a bite out of him, but he’s still excited that there's an entire pirate crew standing in front of him.

“Who’s asking? Are you pirates?” Doflamingo is teasing, but the boy stands up a little straighter, excited that this pirate thinks he’s also a pirate!

“Y-Yeah! We’re the Bellamy Pirates!” He declares, and his friends behind him cheer in agreement, but they’re too scared to step any closer. They conclude that standing seven feet away still counts as standing behind their captain.

“Oh? Then you must be the Captain? Are you Captain Bellamy?” Doflamingo grins. The boy nods quickly, almost overcome with excitement that an actual pirate is calling him Captain Bellamy! Doflamingo takes a knee in front of the boy so he isn't looming over him. “Nice to meet you, Captain Bellamy. I'm Captain Donquixote Doflamingo of the Donquixote Pirates. Were you planning to do anything about that crew in there? They seem to be disturbing the peace.”

Bellamy's face lights up as he recognizes Doflamingo's name. The Donquixote Pirates! He's about to loudly and excitedly tell Doflamingo that he's heard of his crew and always looks through the news coo for articles about them when Doflamingo redirects his attention to the bar filled with rowdy pirates. Bellamy looks toward the bar nervously. Him and his crew had been peeking through the window because they wanted to see actual pirates. They had fun watching them throw things around and yell and start fighting, but as far as actually going inside to confront them…

“Um. W-We were working on a plan!” He insists, trying to look like the idea of going inside the bar to confront the Cork Pirates isn’t terrifying.

“Oh, you were? I was going to bring my crew inside so we could take care of them, but if you already have a plan then we won’t interrupt you, Captain.”

Rosinante knows he shouldn’t be watching Doflamingo messing with this kid and thinking about how cute it is, but it’s adorable. The kid is taking this so seriously, he obviously wants to impress Doflamingo so badly.

“Um! I-I wouldn’t stand in your way, Captain!” Bellamy says quickly. He really doesn’t want to go into the bar to try and take a stand against the Cork Pirates. He’s pretty good at fighting, but he doesn’t think it would go well if he tried to challenge the pirate crew inside the bar.

“You won’t mind if we get these pirates out of here? I wouldn’t want to steal your glory, Captain.” Doflamingo is speaking to Bellamy completely seriously, Captain to Captain.

“I wouldn’t mind at all, Captain! Our plan isn’t really finished, anyway.” Bellamy is plainly relieved that he doesn’t have to drag his friends kicking and screaming into the bar.

“Thank you for your understanding, Captain. So we’ll clean those pirates out of the bar and then after that, you can keep things peaceful around here.” Doflamingo bargains with the kid, who nods enthusiastically.

“Oh, one more thing, Captain,” Doflamingo turned to Diamante and Giolla, motioning them over, “My crewmates bought a lot of stuff at the market, could you keep an eye on their purchases while we’re inside the bar?”

Bellamy smiles and nods, happy that Captain Doflamingo has entrusted him with a task, even if it's something mundane like guarding scarves and makeup. Doflamingo stands and glances behind himself, making sure all of his crew is accounted for and someone wasn’t accidentally left at the market. He smiles, catching sight of Rosinante behind him. He offered his hand once again, and Rosinante accepted it, holding tight as the crew went inside to confront the Cork Pirates.

The inside of the bar was lavish and nicely decorated. The countertop of the bar was made from marble, and the tables and chairs were made from rich, dark woods. A pile of broken chairs lay in a corner of the room like trash, and the tufted booth seating had been sliced up by swords and knives. The bar had obviously been a very nice establishment before the Cork Pirates took up residence inside.

Doflamingo looks around and spots the captain in a booth against the wall, a terrified young barmaid serving them drinks while trying to avoid getting grabbed by one of the pirates. She sees Doflamingo storming over and hurries away, her instincts telling her that the approaching pirate crew is far more dangerous than the crew she's been dealing with.

Rosinante’s hand is captive in Doflamingo’s, so he approaches the captain alongside his brother while the remainder of the Donquixote crew fans out, getting ready in case a brawl breaks out. Rosinante keeps an eye on the pirates behind them, his free hand on the gun tucked into his pants.

“Doflamingo! Didn’t expect to see you all the way out here in Notice. What can I do for you?” The captain leers at him, speaking in an obnoxiously loud voice. Rosinante is distracted by the man's hat. It looks like it's made of used wine corks. Doflamingo has made plenty of outlandish fashion choices that Rosinante has never questioned, but a hat made of used wine corks is a step too far for him, and he barely pays attention to the conversation as he wonders why a pirate would choose to make and wear a hat made of used wine corks.

“Corky!” Doflamingo did not enjoy hearing the man refer to him by just his given name without the respect he was due as the captain of a very infamous pirate crew. “You know why I'm here, Corky, don't play dumb. We both know you're not quite as stupid as you look.”

“‘fraid I've been hitting the drink a bit hard, Doffykins,” Doflamingo loses his smile for a second. Doffykins is much worse than just Doflamingo. “You'll have to jog my memory for me.”

Between the little grin on his face, the nickname, and the way he's attempting to force Doflamingo to tell him what he did wrong, as if it was such a small thing that it's slipped his mind, Captain Corky's offenses are coalescing within Doflamingo to set him off at record speed.

Rosinante realizes with horror that the captain is also wearing a vest made of used wine corks. What is wrong with this man? He wants to look away but he can't.

Doflamingo doesn't want to give in and explain the captain's poor behavior to him, but he also doesn't want to stay here all day.

“We had a deal that you could fly the Donquixote flag as long as you never lost a fight.” The little sickening grin on Captain Corky's face at securing such a small victory irritates Doflamingo so much.

“Oh yes, that! Well then, why are you here, Doffle-Waffles? I haven't lost any fights.” Captain Corky looks utterly relaxed for a man who is playing with fire by harassing Donquixote Doflamingo.

Doflamingo is doing his best to ignore the nicknames, but they keep getting worse and he can't stop thinking about them. The man just called him Doffle-Waffles.

Rosinante is wondering if the captain has a wine cork belt buckle or other accessories.

“That's not what I've heard.”

“Ah, well then, whoever you spoke with must be a liar.” Captain Corky shrugs off the accusation easily and finally remembers the drink in his hand. He swallows about half of it in one go. Rosinante spots wine cork cufflinks. “Anything else you wanted to discuss, Doffykiddles?”

“Captain Porcupine-” “Oh, my dearest Ming-ming, everyone knows you can't trust Captain Porcupine, he's a damn dirty liar. It's okay if he fooled you though, you're still young and you didn't know. You'll learn in time.” Captain Corky laughs wistfully, “Ah, the naïveté of youth!”

Rosinante feels Doflamingo’s hand twitch, gripping his hand a little tighter in irritation as he gets closer and closer to losing his composure while still trying to control himself because he does not want to let Captain fucking Corky win this psychological battle. He can tell that just holding Doflamingo's hand isn't enough to calm his anger, so Rosinante comes a step closer and leans his head against Doflamingo's shoulder. A moment later he sees a foul grin cross Captain Corky's face after taking notice of the intimate gestures between the two men who inarguably appear to be closely related. He's found what he thinks is an out from this entire conversation and he's not going to let it go.

“So, Mingles, who's this young lad here? I don't recall seeing him the last time your crew came around here. I would've remembered seeing such a handsome young man hanging off of you like this. Did you go and find yourself a boyfriend, Mingle-Tingles?” The captain has the confidence of a much stronger and competent pirate to be provoking Doflamingo this way. When Doflamingo initially doesn't respond to him, he turns his attention directly toward Rosinante.

“Got a name, Handsome?”

Rosinante does not want to be called handsome by a man who thinks used wine corks are an appropriate material to create accessories with. Captain Corky directly addressing Rosinante appears to be Doflamingo's final straw because he immediately redirects their conversation back to the original point.

“He is my brother and you do not need to know his name. Now, as I was saying. You lost a fight against Captain Porcupine, so you are going to return my flag to me-”

“Hold on now. Brother? That's a bold move, Doffers, even for you. A pirate captain going around with his brother holding his hand and clinging to him like a lover?” He scoffs, giving them a derisive look that finally succeeds in pulling Rosinante away from his open judgment of Captain Corky's wine cork accessories.

The rest of the Cork Pirates have overheard their captain’s accusation and one by one they all turn to look curiously at Doflamingo and the nameless brother.

White hot anger licks through Rosinante like a flame. Doflamingo is already releasing his hand and advancing on the captain, but Rosinante squeezes his hand to get his attention. Doflamingo turns to him, giving him a look of confusion when Rosinante shakes his head. Is Rosinante seriously telling him to not fight this asshole?

But then Rosinante moves fast and grabs the captain by the front of his shirt and drags him out of the booth and onto the ground. Before the captain can yell in protest, Rosinante is sitting on his chest with the captain’s arms trapped under his knees as he starts raining punches down onto his face.

The bar erupts in chaos. The Donquixote Pirates unleash hell on the pirate crew while Doflamingo catches a few who were advancing on Rosinante for attacking their captain. Doflamingo loops his strings around wrists and pulls them tight, severing hands that held guns pointed at his Corazón. He stays close to Rosinante and protects his back, unable to resist the urge to occasionally look back at him as he continues to assault Captain Corky’s face, his fists flying as he takes out his anger on the man, and in turn, Doflamingo’s anger as well.

He hears the sickening crack of a bone in the captain’s face and Doflamingo feels… Giddy. He feels light and fluttery and happy with a deep warmth starting in the center of his chest that radiates outward! His face is split with a wide, terrifying grin as his strings stop another pirate intending to hurt his Corazón. He is absolutely elated to see his Corazón swing his fists into the captain’s face and break his nose and jaw and cheekbones and turn him into a gasping, wheezing red pulp. He deserves it, for so many reasons. He deserves it for his brazen behavior with Doflamingo, for the nicknames, for implying that there was something wrong with Doflamingo and Rosinante for holding hands or that there was something wrong with Rosinante for laying his head on Doflamingo’s shoulder. Doflamingo does a happy, energized little twirl as he protects Rosinante’s back and uses his strings on one of the Cork Pirates like a garotte.

“Please…”

Rosinante stops his fist as he hears a gurgly little plea, cupping a hand around the shell of his ear to get the captain to speak up.

“Please… Stop. Please.”

Rosinante waves to Doflamingo to get his attention and motions to the captain. It was Doflamingo’s turn now for the talking part. He stands and steps away from the captain, only for Doflamingo to duck in close, a blood-streaked hand reaching for Rosinante’s face to hold his cheek lightly.

“Good job.” Doflamingo presses a kiss to his cheek, wearing the soft smile that only Rosinante gets to see. Doflamingo takes the same position Rosinante had taken on Captain Corky’s torso, knees pinning his arms, his heavy weight resting fully on the captain’s chest.

“Oh, did I hear a crack when I sat down, Corky-poo? Was that your ribs?” Doflamingo asks, pressing more of his weight down on the captain’s rib cage until he coughs and gurgles a plea to stop. “So, Captain. Let’s try this again. Do you remember the deal we made all those months ago?”

“Yes,” The captain gasps pathetically.

“And that deal was?”

He listens to Captain Corky wheeze his way through it, repeating the agreement they’d made. The captain is clearly in pain with every word he says, but Doflamingo just grins as he whimpers and chokes on blood as he forces each word out.

“Yes! Good, very good!” Doflamingo giggles, clapping his hands for the captain, “So here’s what’s going to happen. If you want me and my crew to leave, you are going to go retrieve my flag, then put it in your mouth, and crawl back to me on your hands and knees. And then you’re going to apologize to my brother for being mean to him. You hurt his feelings. Didn’t he hurt your feelings, Corazón?”

Doflamingo looks up at Rosinante for his input, but when he sees Rosinante he forgets to breathe for a moment. Rosinante is standing there in front of him with the top buttons of his shirt undone, revealing some of his chest and beads of sweat on his skin while his heavy feathered jacket hangs off of one shoulder to allow more air flow. His hair is disheveled and sweaty, his fringe hanging in his eyes and partly obscuring them. Captain Corky’s blood is splattered across Rosinante’s face as he slowly inhales from a cigarette, then turns toward Doflamingo and the battered captain as he exhales a cloud of smoke.

Doflamingo just stares at him, in awe of how beautiful his brother looks right now, every thought in his head gone except for the sudden, burning urge to hold Rosinante’s face in his hands and taste the nicotine on his lips.

“Doffy-nii,” Rosinante’s velvety voice, so rarely heard outside their locked bedroom, pulls Doflamingo out of his daydream. Rosinante grins at his brother, his pale cheeks flushed from knowing Doflamingo was very openly and brazenly staring at him and admiring him.

“What was I-” Doflamingo can’t seem to recall what he was doing before he saw Rosinante standing in front of him, looking so beautiful. Rosinante kneels beside him, leaning in close. His face is suddenly very close to Doflamingo’s, and Doflamingo wants to lean in even further and close the remaining distance between them. Rosinante is enjoying having his big brother’s undivided attention and he wants more.

“He needs to apologize to me,” Rosinante reminds his brother, taking a long drag on his cigarette. The defeated Captain Corky lays under them, forced to watch the two brothers flirt as they discuss how extensive of an apology he owes them. “He was so mean to me. He made fun of me because I love my Doffy-nii.”

Rosinante pouts so cutely for Doflamingo before he lays his head on his brother’s shoulder. Doflamingo sets a hand possessively on Rosinante’s head, his fingers digging into his hair as Doflamingo presses an urgent kiss to the top of Rosinante’s head. After that display, Doflamingo is eager to do anything Rosinante asks of him. He would burn the entire island to the ground just for him.

“You’re absolutely right, my Corazón. He needs to apologize for hurting your feelings. Or is there something wrong with a little brother loving his big brother, Captain Corky?” Doflamingo’s words are hurried, urgent, frantic, his heart racing from the thrill of his precious little brother acting so cute just for him.

“N-No, there’s nothing wrong with it!” Captain Corky wails.

Doflamingo supervises as the captain slowly gets to his hands and knees and crawls to the door of the bar, leaving a trail of blood in his wake. Diamante heads outside to supervise the removal of the flag, and the captain's slow return inside. While he's outside he retrieves his and Giolla's purchases from the kids since this mission is almost done. And while he’s unsupervised, he takes one of Giolla's new lipsticks from her bag and tries it on, grinning at himself in his small compact mirror.

Captain Corky crawls over to Doflamingo, the flag in his mouth, blood dripping from his nose and staining the fabric. Doflamingo is grossed out but takes the flag and walks toward the door, his crew behind him. As part of his apology, Rosinante had demanded that Captain Corky hand over his wine cork hat, wine cork vest, wine cork cufflinks, and any other wine cork accessories. He’s going to throw them into the ocean.

Outside, Bellamy and his friends can barely contain their excitement. They start cheering and chattering as soon as Doflamingo is outside, informing him and the rest of the crew about how cool they looked while beating up the bad guys!

Doflamingo grins and kneels in front of Bellamy, offering him the flag.

“This is the Donquixote flag. I let Captain Corky fly my flag as long as he never lost a fight. But he lost a fight, and you saw what we had to do. You and your crew seem really tough though. Much tougher than the Cork Pirates. So why don't you take this? You have my permission to fly it as long as you never lose a fight, okay?” It's cute how happy Bellamy is to accept a blood and snot covered flag that Doflamingo doesn't really want anymore. He just didn't want Captain Corky to keep flying it. But he doesn't see any harm in letting Bellamy keep it. Kid just wants to play pirates.

“We won't lose any fights, I promise!” Bellamy is starry eyed as he looks at Doflamingo and clutches the flag to his chest.

“Alright. This island is under your protection now, Captain Bellamy.”

Giolla looks for her purchases before they leave, but when she sees that Diamante has them, she's immediately suspicious. She digs through her bag and checks each lipstick before finding one that's already half used.

“Buy your own damn lipsticks!” She shouts, smacking his arm as the crew walks back toward the Numancia Flamingo.

Once they're on board the ship, everyone retreats to their rooms to rest. Doflamingo removes his jacket and throws it onto the bed, stretching his arms over his head with a groan.

Rosinante is stretched out across the couch, looking tired after the brawl. He hears Doflamingo's footsteps and looks up, smiling when he sees Doflamingo coming closer to sit beside him, then leaning in closer to rest their foreheads together.

“You were amazing, my heart. You are incredible to see in action.” He presses kisses against Rosinante’s forehead, nose, and cheeks, and hovers over his lips as he speaks.

“Thank you, Doffykins.” Rosinante can't resist the urge to tease his brother. He watches Doflamingo freeze, his head hanging.

“That is the only time I will let you get away with that.” He warns, but there's still a small grin on his face. Rosinante is the only person in the world who can get away with calling him something so revolting.

“I won't do it again, I just wanted to see your face.” Rosinante laughs, looking like an angel to Doflamingo even with the blood streaked across his face and with his bleeding knuckles.

“I'm going to get some food from the galley. And something to clean you up.” Doflamingo kisses Rosinante’s forehead, letting his lips linger against his skin before he pulls away and leaves the room.

Some time later, Doflamingo returns to their bedroom and opens the door, expecting to see Rosinante on the couch, but he’s moved himself to the bed. Rosinante sits up, apparently having fallen asleep, and for the second time that day, Doflamingo is struck dumb by the sight of his brother. Rosinante had stripped off his bloody shirt and his black coat, and he was kneeling on the bed with Doflamingo’s pink jacket pulled around himself. His hair is adorably disheveled from sleep, and his beautiful warm cinnamon eyes are unfocused and hazy as he tries to wake up.

Doflamingo’s eyes rake over him, taking in the exposed stretch of Rosinante’s neck, shoulder, and upper chest as the pink jacket slips and reveals his brother’s pale, scar-riddled skin to him, and how can he help but notice that the newest scars on his brother’s skin match the pink feathers of his own jacket? Rosinante’s skin looks like a canvas filled with marks that Doflamingo personally chose the color of to paint onto his skin and brand him with.

He doesn’t know the stories behind most of the scars, but he wants to bite every single scar on Rosinante’s body to claim them all as scars he left.

They eat the food Doflamingo brought from the galley, then they lay in bed together for a while, relaxing together before Doflamingo spots the setting sun through the window in their bedroom.

“The sun is setting! Rocy, get up. I want to show you something.” Doflamingo slides out of bed, expecting Rosinante to immediately follow, but when he turns and looks, Rosinante is still laying in their bed, trying to burrow further under the pink jacket and hide.

“Rocyyy, get up!” Doflamingo grabs Rosinante’s wrists and drags him to the edge of the bed. Rosinante whines at the rough treatment. He was sleepy and warm and he didn’t want to move! They struggle with each other for a moment, Doflamingo trying to drag him out of bed while Rosinante resists being moved.

“Please?”

Rosinante is half on the bed and half off after being dragged, and the sound of Doflamingo saying please stuns him so much he falls the rest of the way off the bed and hits the floor. Whatever it is that Doflamingo wants to show him, it’s good enough that he’s willing to say please, so now Rosinante wants to see it.

He stands up and considers getting a clean shirt, then decides against it, opting to just wear Doflamingo’s jacket instead. His brother understands his intention when he sees Rosinante walk toward the door of their bedroom, his eyes hidden behind his sunglasses as always, though his sharp inhale betrays his interest in Rosinante’s choice.

“You’re wearing my jacket out?” Doflamingo slides his arm around Rosinante’s waist, fingers digging into his hip through the feathers, grip possessive and needy.

“Yes. Your jacket is warm and I don’t want to look for one of my clean shirts.” He buries his nose inside the collar and inhales, smelling Doflamingo’s cologne. “And it smells like you, nii-chan.”

Rosinante watches his brother try to control himself, feeling how his hands shift and slide around, resting on his waist, then his hip, then grazing over his thighs. Doflamingo is restless and his thoughts are racing, wanting to show Rosinante how much he enjoys seeing him with his jacket wrapped around his bare chest, but also… There is still something to show him.

Doflamingo settles his hands at last around Rosinante’s waist, laying his head on his brother’s shoulder to give himself a moment to settle down. Rosinante’s hands settle on his head, his fingers combing through Doflamingo’s short hair. The petting helps him calm down, and soon they’re leaving the ship together, heading toward the beach as the sun continues to set.

Rosinante doesn’t see anything at the other end of the beach, so he’s not sure what Doflamingo wants to show him so badly, unless he wants to watch the sunset together. They stop walking and Rosinante looks toward the setting sun admiringly, but Doflamingo urges him to turn around and look back at the town.

Rosinante gasps, his eyes going wide as he casts his eyes across the island full of beautiful houses. When they sailed into town that morning, the sun was shining down on the houses and making them sparkle. Whatever material was used to construct these homes not only reflected the sun, but it picked up colors reflected by the sun.

Behind the brothers, the sun was setting and filling the sky with shades of red, orange, yellow, and blues. The material on the houses picked up all the shades reflected in the water, making the houses all look as if they’d been painted in a magnificent swirling collage of colors.

“What do you think?” Doflamingo asks, his arm sliding around Rosinante’s shoulders to pull him closer.

“It’s gorgeous,” Rosinante whispers, like he’s in a dream and afraid a louder voice will wake him up and end it. “What is that? Why does it sparkle like that?” He’s never seen anything like it. He reaches for Doflamingo’s hand on his shoulder and holds it tightly as they stood together, watching the colors reflected on the houses start to change and shift into deeper tones as the sun went down.

“It’s amber lead from Flevance.” Doflamingo turns to watch Rosinante as he watches the colors changing in front of his very eyes, like he’s watching a magic show. His Corazon is so open and expressive, a smile growing wider and wider on his face as the orange and yellow shades bleed into blue and purple tones.

“This is amber lead? I’ve heard of it, but I’ve never actually seen it before. It’s so beautiful.” Rosinante knew amber lead was a beautiful shining white that made Flevance look like an illustration from a book of fairy tales, but why had no one ever mentioned that it could reflect colors like this?

“Do you remember our family history lessons from when we were little, Rocy?” Doflamingo asks. Rosinante immediately looks confused, trying to connect their lessons from when they were little to the present moment.

“Family history?” He doesn’t know what their family history might have to do with amber lead or Flevance, but he knows Doflamingo will connect the dots eventually. “I remember there were twenty kingdoms, and each kingdom was ruled by a king. Then those twenty kings and their families moved to Mary Geoise and became Celestial Dragons. The Donquixote Family ruled Dressrosa before they moved to Mary Geoise.” He can’t remember the name of the family that was ruling Dressrosa now.

“I want to reclaim our ancestral kingdom, Rosinante.” Doflamingo takes both of Rosinante’s hands in his and squeezes them before releasing one hand to reach up and gently hold his brother’s face in the palm of his hand, his thumb rubbing over Rosinante’s cheekbone as he gazes at him with such a tender, loving expression that Rosinante’s heart immediately starts racing.

“Dressrosa rightfully belongs to us. After we reclaim our kingdom, I’ll cover the castle in amber lead for you, so every sunset will paint itself on the side of our castle.”

Rosinante is speechless. Doflamingo wants to reclaim Dressrosa? The current royal family has been in place for over 900 years, do they even have a claim to the throne after so long? And if Doflamingo wants to reclaim Dressrosa, then more than likely, there will be violence. Blood will be spilled. Doflamingo will kill the sitting royal family to ensure there will be no attempts to reclaim the throne.

He wants to be more upset. He should be more upset. He doesn’t want innocent people to die. That’s why he’s here, isn’t it? He’s here on a mission to stop Doflamingo, so he won’t hurt more innocent people.

And yet…

“Our kingdom…” He whispers it, afraid to say it louder. The idea of it is foreign and it feels strange on Rosinante’s tongue, but it brings back memories of their mother, her voice nearly forgotten but not yet completely gone. He remembers their mother sweeping them both into her arms and kissing their foreheads as she fondly called them my little princes.

“You deserve so much more than Spider Miles,” Doflamingo’s arms sweep Rosinante into a tight embrace against his chest. Doflamingo was so happy every morning he woke up at the hideout and found Rosinante still there, still in his life, still within reach. Most mornings he would find Rosinante on the landing outside the hideout, smoking a cigarette with the ocean breeze ruffling his hair. He was so beautiful, but beyond him was the wastelands of Spider Miles, an island full of scrap metal and smokestacks to serve as his backdrop. With every passing morning that Rosinante had to look out over an island of trash, Doflamingo felt more and more frustrated with himself that he wasn’t providing what his precious baby brother deserved.

“You deserve to take your rightful place at my side, on the throne in our ancestral land.”

Rosinante feels like he’s waking up from a dream. Everything seems to come into sharper focus as reality sets in. Doflamingo wants to overthrow the royal family of Dressrosa. If Rosinante participates, there is no way he’ll be able to explain it away to the Navy. If he doesn’t participate, there’s no way he can explain it away to Doflamingo.

He knows that he came here intending to take Doflamingo down.

He knows that he was never fully committed to that goal.

He knows that Doflamingo has done terrible things, and if Rosinante doesn’t stop him, he will go on to do worse things.

He always knew that one day he would have to pick a side.

And in his heart, he had always known that he would pick Doflamingo.

Chapter Text

Although it’s been months now since Rosinante’s arrival, most of the Donquixote Family has remained wary of him and his intentions. Diamante, Trebol, and Pica in particular remember Rosinante from when he was a child, and they remember how his sudden disappearance broke Doflamingo’s heart.

Ever since Rosinante’s unexpected return, the rest of the Family thinks Doflamingo has even been straight up naive. It was suspicious that Rosinante would suddenly return after 15 years away, and it’s maddening that Doflamingo hasn’t even asked him where the hell he’s been for 15 years! But Doflamingo is their captain, and they can’t question their captain’s decisions.

After a few months, they even find themselves wanting to believe that Rosinante is truly loyal to Doflamingo and he has no ulterior motives. They all share the same goal of working toward expanding the Donquixote territory and making Doflamingo the next Pirate King, but also, they want Doflamingo to be happy. And it’s obvious that Rosinante makes him happy.

But after the incident on the island of Notice, the Family feels like Rosinante has made it clear that his loyalties lay with the Family and Doflamingo. Now that they can see that he is just as protective and defensive of Doflamingo as they are, they’re finally starting to warm up to him more.

And to Rosinante’s surprise, he’s also starting to grow closer to some of the members of the Family. He’s starting to care about them.

In the Donquixote hideout, there is an extensive library filled with books the family has collected during their travels around the four blues. Rosinante is seated on the couch in the library with Giolla beside him, an art history textbook opened up on her lap. Rosinante can see where her thumbs have worn the pages soft from flipping through it so many times. There are slips of paper sticking up at various points throughout the book. Each piece of paper has the name of a Donquixote Family member on it.

“I always loved art when I was a child,” Giolla is smiling fondly as she flips through the book with ease and familiarity. Rosinante listens and looks at each page as she turns them. “I was always drawing on any scrap of paper I could find, sometimes I’d draw on the walls if there was no paper. I’d paint on everything. My parents were artists too. They didn’t want to stifle my creativity. Sometimes they’d paint on the walls with me.”

The pieces of paper spread throughout the textbook are to mark out the favorite artist or art movement of each Family member. In her hand is the newest paper slip, with Corazón written out in Giolla’s tiny, perfect handwriting, ready to mark out whichever artist or art movement is his favorite.

“Who is your favorite artist? Or your favorite art movement?” She asks, eager to hear his response.

“I… I don’t have one.” He admits, and he notices how her eyes go a bit wider in surprise because this is the first time he’s spoken directly to her. It feels strange that he’s known her for a year now, but this is the first time he’s spoken to her directly. Rosinante knows that most of the Family was suspicious of him for quite a while, and it’s taken them all until now to start to trust him. But it’s taken him a year to start to warm up to them as well.

“When we were little- me and Doffy-nii, there wasn’t any art where we lived,” It felt so weird to think about the profound lack of art in their childhood home in Mary Geoise, but when he thought on it, no one they had known in Mary Geoise had any art adorning any walls. He sees how confused Giolla is about this too and grins, laughing softly. The sound of his voice and laughter in such a short span of time surprises her even more. “And then when Doffy-nii was ten and I was eight, we moved, and our lives… It was really difficult, we were more concerned with survival than art.”

Giolla nods and doesn't pry for more details. She's only heard bits and pieces about Doflamingo's childhood. When Rosinante arrived, the Family’s curiosity about their captain’s early childhood had revived, but when they all tried to weave together the different facts they knew, it produced a story about Doflamingo and Rosinante living in poverty after living in affluence, and surviving a series of traumatic events. Diamante hinted that they had been lynched. Pica recalled the knife a young Doflamingo had threatened him with while standing protectively in front of an even younger Rosinante.

Giolla had decided long ago that she doesn’t want to and doesn’t need to hear the whole story. Based on what little she does know, it makes perfect sense to her why the brothers are now just a bit too close to each other. No one else could possibly understand their trauma like they do.

But she also can’t fathom where the hell they were living where there wasn’t art.

“There was a time right after I turned 18 where I forgot all about art for a while,” Giolla admits to him, still turning the pages in the textbook, then pausing to allow him to look at all the pictures, “My parents had recently died, and I had to learn how to take care of myself. When you’re in a difficult situation like that, survival is all you can think about.”

For the past year, Rosinante hasn’t really wondered much about any other Family members. Whenever he did think about them, he considered them more as an extension of Doflamingo rather than thinking of them as his own crewmates. He hasn’t bothered to get to know any of them because he had arrived with a mission that would end with all of them imprisoned in Impel Down, so there was no point to getting to know them. But now, a year onward, the importance of his mission is dimming. He no longer finds himself glancing around the hideout, looking for evidence he can bring in when he has the crew arrested. Instead, he's reading maps over Doflamingo's shoulder and helping him navigate a path for their next voyage, or formulating attack plans with him. He’s no longer thinking of the other Family members as ‘Doflamingo’s crew’. They’re Rosinante’s crew. Giolla is his crew.

Giolla turns another page in the book and Rosinante’s eyes widen as he looks over the examples printed on the pages, a soft gasp leaving him. Giolla smiles brightly, and sticks the paper with his name on it in the page. She’s thrilled that she’s finally landed on something that Rosinante likes.

“Fauvism.” She repeats the name at the top of the page to him and hands him the book to let him look closer and read about it. Giolla gets up from the couch and goes to the shelves full of books, digging through them with a specific book in mind.

“Fauvism…” Rosinante parrots her, “That’s the artist?”

“That’s the art movement. There weren’t many artists who were part of the movement, sadly. You and Waka sama, it’s so interesting that you both would pick such bold art movements when there was no art in your childhoods. What kind of horrible place has no ART??” She’s been trying to keep her judgment to herself but after saying it out loud she can’t do it.

Rosinante just smiles as he looks at the book. If only she knew that ‘horrible place’ was Mary Geoise. But as he becomes more and more enchanted by the bold colors and heavy linework in each example piece, he has to agree with her just a little. Everything was so white in Mary Geoise, so stark and sterile. The houses in these pictures are bright and welcoming.

“So, fauvism is a grandfather of sorts to the abstract art movement, which is my favorite art movement. Well, all art influences other art movements, but you can see how fauvism led to movements like abstract art.” Giolla finds the book she was looking for and returns to Rosinante, standing in front of him and handing him a book about Fauvist art and artists. Rosinante has never really felt excited by the idea of art, but now he is. He can't wait to flip through the book.

Giolla walks away from him again, but this time she’s approaching the one wall in the library that has no shelves in front of it. The entire room is lined with shelves that are absolutely packed full of books, and the excess books are stacked on the floor. For the entire year he’s been here, Rosinante has wondered why there were no shelves in front of this one wall, but he realizes he’s about to find out why.

“I don’t like asking what someone's favorite color is,” Giolla tells him as she stands in front of the empty wall, her eyes seeming to shine as she considers all the possibilities of art, “It doesn’t tell you anything about who a person is. But when you know who their favorite artist is, or what their favorite art movement is, then you can see what it is that makes their heart beat faster and what sets their imagination on fire!”

Her voice is impassioned as she speaks. Rosinante watches with wide eyes as she uses her devil fruit abilities to create a fauvist thought cloud that she throws at the empty wall of the library room.

An unseen paintbrush uses thick strokes to create a distant range of pink mountains with slashes of deep blue showing the shadows between peaks. The sky behind the mountains is a deep orange, while the highest part of the sky is a much lighter orange. The gradient between the shades is painted on with wide strokes, yellow shades peering out between the orange with no attempt to blend. The foreground is colored in the bright greens and yellows of early autumn, supporting scattered yellow, blue, and green trees. A stream cuts across the valley at the base of the mountains, winding between trees and reflecting the yellow of the overhead sky as low blue bushes dot the banks of the river.

Rosinante feels overwhelmed from the display. He's surprised by the tears that well up in his eyes as Giolla's abilities splash bright colors across the wall, creating an amalgamation of the pictures he saw in her book. When she finishes and the wall is covered in bright colors from wall to wall, floor to ceiling, the tears fall and his heart is pounding and he doesn't understand why.

Giolla gently sets her hand on his cheek and wipes the tears away, a huge smile on her face. It's always exciting to see someone appreciate art for the first time, especially when they feel it so strongly that they can't help but cry.

“It's fascinating, knowing what someone's favorite art movement is. It’s like a peek into their soul.” Giolla sits back down beside him and opens up the art textbook again, flipping to one of the sections marked by a piece of paper. The art movement in this section looks very similar to Rosinante’s new favorite art style. The paper has Doflamingo’s name on it.

“This is post-impressionism. Waka sama stopped me here when I asked him to look through this book with me. Fauvism evolved from post-impressionism.” She seems excited that Rosinante had selected an art movement that was basically the younger brother to Doflamingo’s preferred art movement.

Giolla stands from the couch and creates another thought cloud with her abilities and throws it at the wall. The painting is remade in front of Rosinante’s eyes, but in post-impressionistic style. The lines are smaller, the colors are more blended and more reflective of reality, but where the painting has lost the thick outlines and bright colors, the painted sunset has gained swirling, fluffy clouds, and the smaller lines show that the yellow-green ground is covered in grass and dotted with purple and orange autumn flowers. Once the painting is completed, Giolla uses her powers to bring back the thick lines and bright colors, the detail fading, but the ecstatic blend of colors remains. It’s easy to see how the two art movements influenced each other, and it’s incredible to see Giolla use her abilities like this. He’s seen her use them in fights before, disarming their opponents by turning their weapons into abstract representations of guns, but being able to see her use them like this feels special. He feels like Giolla considers him to be part of the crew now, and not just Doflamingo’s brother.

Rosinante carries the book about Fauvism to his and Doflamingo's bedroom and finds Doflamingo hunched over his desk, studying a map with a look of frustration on his face until he looks up and sees his brother. Then his expression softens, his stress evaporating. Rosinante feels his heart squeeze in his chest. He feels compelled to go over to Doflamingo and stand behind him where he sits, his arms loosely around his brother’s shoulders.

“What’s this?” Rosinante glances at the maps, seeing ocean currents sketched out in pencil. Rosinante understands currents better than Doflamingo, so he suspects that his brother's frustration comes from trying to consult a reference about currents and match it to his map.

“I'm trying to figure out our route to Rakesh.” The leaders of Rakesh had recently started allying with pirate crews that were enemies of the Donquixote Family. He wanted to make an example of them. Doflamingo noticed Rosinante was holding a book and he took it, looking over the cover.

“Fauvism? Ah, you were speaking with Giolla.” He grins and rises from his chair, stretching the stiffness out his long arms and legs before opening the book to a random page. The paintings he sees on the pages are reminiscent of the sunset-painted houses they saw in Notice.

“She said your favorite art movement is post-impressionism.” Rosinante doesn't really know anything about art, but after finding out that the art styles they both like are connected, he wants to learn more.

“I liked it best in that book she likes each of us to flip through, yes. I believe she told me fauvism came out of post-impressionism?” Doflamingo is intrigued that they both picked art movements related to each other.

Doflamingo takes Rosinante’s hand in his and guides him to their bed. He lays down, tired of staring at maps. Right now, he would much rather look through the Fauvism art book with Rosinante. As Rosinante gets onto the bed, Doflamingo grabs his wrist and yanks him closer, making his little brother topple over, his face ending up in Doflamingo’s chest. Doflamingo laughs and wraps his arms around Rosinante, hugging him tightly and feeling his stress over planning routes melt away.

“Doffy-nii!” Rosinante pouts as he struggles to his knees, but Doflamingo just grins, very pleased with himself. Rosinante turns onto his back and rests his head on Doflamingo’s chest. Doflamingo’s hand is immediately on Rosinante’s head, his fingers carding through his wavy blonde hair. Doflamingo is beyond pleased that Giolla has finally decided to pester Rosinante about his favorite art movement. He is fully aware that the rest of the Family has not been very quick to trust Rosinante. It’s not in the nature of a pirate to trust easily. But knowing that she asked tells Doflamingo that she’s starting to trust Rosinante.

Rosinante flips through the book, holding it open so Doflamingo can see too.

“The sky is so beautiful in this one,” He points out a picture with a yellow sky, the canvas partially filled with dense clouds. The upper portion of the clouds are darker, and the lower portion is pink. A valley sits below the clouds with a river snaking through, reflecting the yellow sky. Because of the shadowy upper clouds and the pink shades on the lower part of the clouds, Rosinante can tell that it's a painting of a sunset, although the sun is outside the frame. “That’s such a neat idea! It’s a painting of a sunset without the sun!”

Doflamingo agrees that the sky in the painting is beautiful. It’s a fun art style, very playful and bold. But what he likes more is listening to Rosinante talk. He’s never heard him talk this much before! He could lay there for hours, listening to Rosinante tell him about every single detail he likes in every single painting in that book. Doflamingo never could have imagined that listening to someone else talk about something could make him feel this happy, this peaceful.

Days later, the Donquixote pirates are on their way to Rakesh, following a route that Rosinante helped Doflamingo plan out. As the ship gets closer to Rakesh, Rosinante is starting to feel extremely troubled. It seems that he is beginning to make a name for himself as a pirate. He didn't think much of punching Captain Cork's face in while they were on Notice, but apparently his attack was just violent enough that the story has made its way into the rotation of pirate stories he overhears on nameless islands when the Family docks the Numancia to resupply. A pirate that makes their way into stories that get passed around is a pirate that may soon find themselves with a bounty.

They arrive in Rakesh, and together the Family approaches the warehouse that holds all of the island’s treasure, ready to give the island leaders a hard lesson about what happens when you betray the Family. The warehouse is already full of thugs when they arrive, and immediately there’s a fight.

Rosinante is there with them, fighting alongside the Family. But as he fights, he’s thinking about why they’re here, and why he’s here. He tells himself that he’s part of the Family, that he’s growing closer to them and considering them his crew, but his presence is a betrayal and the guilt is starting to eat away at him. The distracting thoughts make him sloppy and create an opening that one of their opponents is quick to notice. Rosinante saw the man pull a gun and aim it at him. Before he could fully process what was happening, he was knocked to the ground. Doflamingo is hovering over him, shielding Rosinante. The Family sees a gun pointed at Doflamingo and they leap into action, taking the man down.

Doflamingo stands and helps Rosinante to his feet, and in the moment between the Family being distracted by the man with the gun and the moment Doflamingo is distracted by helping Rosinante stand, another man emerges from Doflamingo's blind spot and pushes a knife into his side.

Rosinante stares at the knife, watching blood start to seep out and stain Doflamingo's shirt. In the next second, he looks up and sees the man who did it. He looks gleeful. Triumphant. When Rosinante tries to remember the sequence of events, it comes back to him in pieces, in single images.

An image of a knife in Doflamingo's side, the blood starting to soak his shirt.

The attacker's smirk.

The attacker, terrified now after seeing the expression on Rosinante’s face.

The attacker, fleeing as Rosinante chases him down.

The attacker, on his back on the ground, his nose broken.

The attacker, on his back on the ground, his nose broken and face bruised and bloodied.

The attacker, on his back on the ground, but further away, as if Rosinante had been grabbed from behind and hauled off of him. Rosinante can't tell if the man is dead. He's pretty sure he didn't kill him.

Rosinante is dropped next to Doflamingo, and his rage calms when he sees that Doflamingo is okay and has already stitched up his wound.

Looking around, it seems like the fight has already ended. Rosinante is bewildered until he hears Diamante speaking to him. He quickly figures out that Diamante had grabbed him by the back of his coat and lifted him off the man that stabbed Doflamingo, scruffing him like a kitten.

“Didn't think you had that kind of fight in you!” Diamante is impressed, “Guess I should've figured after how you fucked up Captain Corky on Notice.” Although Rosinante had been much more aware of himself during that attack, and the captain was still conscious afterward. The man Rosinante had just attacked was still laying on the ground, very still.

Diamante fills in the details that Rosinate missed, starting from the man who aimed a gun at him.

“So he aimed the gun at you, Doflamingo knocked you over, then the rest of us saw the gun was pointed at Doflamingo now, so all of us ran at the guy with the gun. That wasn't a great plan, maybe half of us should've attacked and the other half should've been on standby for any other attacks, like a guy standing in the shadows waiting for an opportune moment! Next time, next time. We'll do better next time.” Diamante is much calmer about Doflamingo's wound than Rosinante is. The fight is over and they're cleaning out Rakesh's treasure, but half of Rosinante’s attention is on the makeshift bandage on Doflamingo's side as he recalls how the Family was here to show Rakesh why you didn't betray the Family, but the only reason why Rosinante was even here was to betray the family.

“So then,” Rosinante snaps himself out of his thoughts. Diamante isn't finished with his story. “That guy came out of the shadows, stabbed Doffy, you looked at the knife, then the guy, and ohhh man, I've never seen a look like that on someone's face before. You looked like anger incarnate, and you tore off after the guy, he was running and yelling and you just kept after him and jumped him, and then you were punching him over and over, and he kept screaming, but then his screams started sounding kind of wet? Meanwhile, he was making so much noise that it was distracting the rest of the Rakesh crew, so the rest of us took them out while they were distracted. They looked like they wanted to come rescue their guy, but then they'd have to get close to you, and you looked scary!”

Rosinante was pretty sure he killed the guy. When they walk out with all the treasure, the guy is still on the ground right where Rosinante jumped him.

What bothers Rosinante the most is not the knowledge that he probably killed the guy. He's in the Navy, he's killed men before and received medals for it. What bothers him is that it's his fault Doflamingo got hurt.

He shouldn't care this much. If Doflamingo is injured, he'll be easier to take down and arrest, but instead of waiting one second more to let the guy stab Doflamingo again- Rosinante is enraged with himself for even thinking about allowing that to happen.

The Numancia Flamingo sets sail, the crew eats, then they retire to their various rooms to sleep off the fight.

Rosinante sits on the bed in his and Doflamingo's bedroom, pouting and miserable as he watches Doflamingo move around the room, a clean bandage on his side over the wound.

His thoughts are a mess, jumbled between his waning loyalty to the Navy and his growing, burning loyalty to Doflamingo. He's furious with himself for getting so distracted that Doflamingo got hurt. After all of his Navy training and all the training he's received from the Family, he still let himself get distracted, and he let Doflamingo get hurt.

“You've been sulking since this afternoon.” Doflamingo stands in front of him, looking down at Rosinante. He rests his palm against his little brother's face, seeing tears start to well up in his eyes as he looks at Doflamingo. His stern expression wavers as he sees the tears.

“Same crybaby Rosi.” He whispers, his voice so fond, so loving as he leans over and kisses under both of Rosinante’s eyes.

“I'm fine, Rosinante. It was just a stab wound. And you made sure he didn't hurt me again. You did well.” Doflamingo presses his forehead against Rosinante’s, his thumbs stroking over his baby brother's cheeks.

“But you got hurt. I let you get hurt, Aniue.” Rosinante doesn't even hear that he used Doflamingo's nickname from when they were children, but Doflamingo is alarmed when he hears it. Rosinante is so upset and scattered as the memory from today plays again in his head like still images; the gun, Doflamingo protecting him with his own body, the knife handle in Doflamingo's side.

His memories begin surfacing all at once and he remembers every other time Doflamingo stood between him and danger, protecting Rosinante with his own body.

The townspeople hated them so much they would chase them away if they were caught digging through the trash for food. Rosinante remembers hiding his face in the back of Doflamingo's stained and torn shirt, trying to be brave and not cry as Doflamingo moved backward, pressing him against the dirty alley wall. One of Doflamingo's arms was wrapped around Rosinante, his other arm thrust forward as he brandished his small knife against adults who felt they were in the right to attack starving children.

They learned not to eat their food in the alley and carried it away with them to the open field near the shack they lived in. But the problem wasn't where they ate the food, the problem was that they even dared to look for food in the trash. They deserved nothing but pain, and anyone who saw them was more than happy to appoint themselves as the judge, jury, and attempted executioner. There was no hope even for the children of Celestial Dragons, it was best to put them down while they were still young. He remembered everything the townspeople yelled at them while they chased them and beat them and tried to tear Doflamingo away from his brother so they could beat both of them bloody.

Rosinante could feel the impact of sticks and kicking feet through Doflamingo’s body as he tried to keep Rosinante safe against the ground, against the alley wall, against his chest. Rosinante’s memories flashed through each attack until they ended with Doflamingo smiling at him, laughing it off like he wasn't covered in cuts and bruises as he reached for Rosinante’s hand.

“Rosinante!”

He gasps and sits up straight, and looks around. He's not eight years old and reaching for Doflamingo's bruised and bleeding hand after they escaped from the townspeople. He's twenty two and Doflamingo is looking at him with concern all over his face, and a bandage on his side.

“Where did you go? Were you in Downs?” Doflamingo asks softly, referring to the small town full of people who hated them. Rosinante didn't even realize he'd started curling in on himself, begging under his breath to old ghosts, pleading with them to stop hurting his aniue.

“Yeah.” Rosinante whispers. Doflamingo pulls him into his arms, against his chest, and Rosinante holds him desperately, trying to hold back a terrified sob.

“I want to keep you safe!” Rosinante cries into his chest. In his thoughts he's mixed up and confused and doesn't know if the threat to Doflamingo is himself or someone else.

“I want to keep you safe too.” Doflamingo's voice is so calm and commanding, it cuts through some of the confusion muddying up Rosinante’s head. He grabs onto Doflamingo's voice and words and anchors himself on them. He wants to keep Doflamingo safe. Doflamingo wants to keep him safe too. He lets everything else fade into the background and focuses on their mutual goal of keeping each other safe.

“You are my precious baby brother, Rosinante,” Doflamingo stands so close to him, right up against him, holding Rosinante’s tear-streaked face in his hands, cradling it like something precious as he gazes at his handsome little brother and presses a kiss to his forehead, “I love you, Rosinante.”

Rosinante feels his breath catch as more tears fill his eyes. He knows, they both know, that this is more than just an affectionate familial exchange between brothers.

“I love you too, Dof…” Rosinante stops, feels his anxiety and grief sloughing off as he's suddenly faced with the strangest conundrum, “I was going to call you Doflamingo but that feels so weird.”

Despite the gravity of the moment, with Rosinante fresh off a traumatic flashback and Doflamingo picking that as the correct moment to finally confess to himself and to Rosinante that his feelings are beyond brotherly, somehow the idea of using Doflamingo's entire name is the weirdest, most uncomfortable part of this for Rosinante. He can't even remember a time when he'd ever used his brother's full name, but it felt inappropriate to call him Doffy-nii when his intention was to confess his feelings.

Doflamingo laughs sharply because he agrees completely. It sounds extremely weird to hear Rosinante saying his whole name.

“Call me whatever you feel comfortable with, but I need to hear you finish that sentence.” Doflamingo moves even further into Rosinante’s space, his knee on the bed beside him, their mouths closing in. He needs to hear Rosinante declare his love, just as badly as Rosinante needs to say it to him.

“I love you too, Doffy-nii.” He says, and in the next second, Doflamingo has him on his back on the bed, leaning over him as he kisses Rosinante.

Rosinante throws his arms around Doflamingo’s neck to hold him close as he opens his mouth to Doflamingo, kissing him desperately and feeling his brother’s long tongue lick inside his mouth.

The kiss is urgent and fast, leaving them both breathless within moments, forcing them to pull away, panting.

Rosinante smiles up at him and hugs him close. He’ll hate himself later for letting Doflamingo kiss him before he admitted to the truth of why he was here.

After a long voyage back home, Doflamingo eagerly pulls Rosinante off the boat and back to their room, allowing the rest of the crew to unpack the ship. Doflamingo slides his hand around Rosinante’s waist and holds his hand with the other, twirling them both into the room. He feels excited and giddy, his head and heart still ringing with Rosinante’s confession, and his adorable giggle and nervous little smile as he struggled with which of Doflamingo’s names to use when he confessed.

Rosinante lets Doflamingo lead him into a little half dance on the way into their room, where Doflamingo sits him down on the edge of the bed and leans in, pressing short, fast kisses to Rosinante’s lips before he starts to pull away.

“Doffy-nii…” Rosinante whines, putting his arms around Doflamingo’s neck to keep him there.

“I need to go get something. I’ll be right back.” Doflamingo promises him. Rosinante pouts but lets him go. Once Doflamingo is out of the room, Rosinante throws himself back against the bed with a sigh, stretching out his arms and legs. Part of him hopes Doflamingo’s immediate plans include a nap. Another part of him is hoping for something much more exciting than that. Rosinante lights a cigarette while he’s waiting, quietly puffing out smoke when there’s movement by the door. Doflamingo walks in holding a velvet bag that Rosinante immediately recognizes as Giolla’s makeup bag.

Doflamingo closes the door behind him and comes back over to the bed, sliding a knee on either side of Rosinante’s thighs and sitting himself down on his brother’s lap.

Rosinante’s heart gives a little jump as he feels Doflamingo’s weight settle on his lap, his long, slim legs spread wide to accommodate Rosinante’s thighs under him. He watches Doflamingo open up the bag and remove a hand mirror, a pot of red lipstick, and a blue liner, setting them on the bed by Rosinante’s head.

“Hold still.” Doflamingo instructs as he opens up the lipstick first and dips a finger in, then gently starts to paint Rosinante’s lips. Rosinante feels the pad of his finger against his lips and presses a kiss to his finger. He reaches up and gently removes Doflamingo’s glasses and feels his heart beat a little faster when Doflamingo doesn’t even respond to the removal of his glasses. He’s focused on his task and feels safe with Rosinante, so he feels no need to acknowledge the action.

Doflamingo is concentrating, carefully coloring in Rosinante’s lips. Then he re-applies the color to his finger and sets it at the corner of Rosinante’s mouth, and drags a line of color across his face to his ear. He repeats the motion on the other side and sits back to admire his work. Rosinante reaches for the mirror, but Doflamingo sets a hand over his to stop him. Rosinante obeys, understanding that he’ll get a look at the finished product when Doflamingo is done.

He lifts the blue liner then, and Rosinante holds extremely still as his brother puts the point of the liner against the skin under his right eye, and begins drawing. Rosinante feels the liner go down, then up, then down. It feels like Doflamingo is drawing triangles. Then he starts to color them in.

“Ever since you’ve returned to me, my dearest Rosinante, you have been…” Doflamingo seems to struggle for the right words as he gazes over Rosinante, laying so obediently under him with the sunlight from their bedroom window lighting up his blonde eyelashes, “You’ve been a dream. You’ve been so indulgent of my every request. Even allowing me to keep your name to myself.” Right after his return, Doflamingo did love that Rosinante only spoke with him. His voice had belonged only to Doflamingo. But it really does make him happy to know that Rosinante is finally finding his place in the Family, and if he has to relinquish Rosinante’s voice for that, then he’ll manage. After all, he knows that his Corazón would never deny him anything, and Doflamingo is not yet done requesting things from Rosinante. With every passing week, he wants more. He wants to put a mark on Rosinante, something that says Rosinante is his. There's always the option of asking or telling Rosinante to get the Donquixote jolly roger tattooed to his back or chest, but even that isn’t enough for Doflamingo. A jolly roger tattoo would be easily hidden under a shirt.

Doflamingo wants to mark Rosinante’s face. As soon as anyone lays their eyes on Rosinante, they will see the designs Doflamingo put on him. They won’t know what it means, but that doesn’t matter to Doflamingo. The meaning is for himself and Rosinante. But anyone who looks at his Corazón will see the mark of ownership Doflamingo designed for him.

He sets the liner down and admires his work. Doflamingo hands the mirror to Rosinante to allow him to see what Doflamingo has drawn on him.

Rosinante looks at the bold line of the exaggerated lips, at the burst of blue under his eye. He can't help but notice that Doflamingo chose complimentary colors and big outlines that remind Rosinante of the day they lay in bed together browsing the book about the Fauvian art movement. He likes the look of the colors together and the heavy lines, but he doesn’t know what either of these mean to Doflamingo.

“The eye is divine light,” Doflamingo explains when he sees Rosinante look toward him, “Because we are divine, my love. We are Celestial Dragons.” He lifts Rosinante’s hand and presses kisses against his knuckles. He doesn’t care what the so called nobles of Mary Geoise have to say about it.

“The eye is also because you, my heart, are my eyes. With every fight we have walked into together over this past year, I know you are watching my back. I know you are protecting me from any attacks, and any attempts at betrayal.” Doflamingo's gaze rakes over his Corazón's made up face and his eye with blue rays radiating underneath it. His expression is so soft with love and adoration as Doflamingo looks at him that Rosinante immediately feels guilt flooding his chest. How can Doflamingo trust him like this? Doesn’t he know that Rosinante is here to betray him?? He doesn’t deserve his brother’s trust. He doesn’t deserve to wear this makeup when the meaning is so heavy and it isn’t true! He isn’t protecting Doflamingo from betrayal, Rosinante is the betrayal.

“And the lips,” Doflamingo continues, arched over Rosinante as he continues to look at him with such a soft gaze, his thumb rubbing at the line of color on Rosinante’s lip, “Because in the underground, I am known as Joker. So those who know who I am will know what this mark means on you.”

With each word, Doflamingo leans in closer until his breath is hot against the lipstick on Rosinante’s mouth. Rosinante reaches up and grabs the front of Doflamingo’s shirt, his grip trembling as the competing thoughts in his head start screaming at him

He doesn’t deserve this.

“I need to tell you something.” The words spill out before Rosinante can stop himself from speaking.

“What is it?” Doflamingo’s lips are still hovering so close to his own and he wants. He wants to pretend it’s not important and just lean in and kiss Doflamingo, but he can’t. Not with the knowledge of what he came here to do hanging over his head. Over both their heads. Not now that Doflamingo wants to brand his face with something this intimate. Not now that they’ve admitted they love each other. Rosinante can’t keep lying to him.

“I’m a Devil Fruit user.” He knows it sounds like a weird thing to admit at such a moment, but this is the much easier secret to tell, and Doflamingo will be furious after the second secret. Rosinante really isn’t sure what Doflamingo will do after he learns the truth.

There is clear confusion on Doflamingo’s face. He opens his mouth to speak, but Rosinante quickly activates his ability on him.

“Calm.” He says, and he sees the surprise on his brother’s face when he speaks, but no sound comes out. “I ate the Nagi Nagi no Mi. The Calm Calm Fruit. It allows me to cancel sounds. I’m going to remove the calm field from you, but I need you to let me speak first.”

Doflamingo nods slowly. Rosinante can already see suspicion and irritation on his face.

“The other thing I need to tell you is… Where I was for the years we were apart.”

It’s harder to tell him this when Doflamingo is still sitting across his thighs. He can feel Doflamingo’s warmth and his weight, and he knows that as soon as he’s done talking, that warmth and weight will be gone.

“The night you killed father, I walked away from his body and ran into Marines. Specifically, I ran into Admiral Sengoku. He took me home with him. He raised me as his son. When I was 16, I became… A-A Marine.” Rosinante feels tears fall from his eyes as he looks up at Doflamingo. He can see his eyes widen in disbelief, a thousand questions fly across his face all at once, but he stays quiet. For now.

“A year ago,” Rosinante’s voice is shaking. Does Doflamingo even know that the hard part is still coming? “Sengoku asked me if I would accept a mission… To infiltrate the Donquixote Pirates. To take you down.”

He’s not sure what he’s more afraid of at the moment, the possibility that Doflamingo might kill him, or the possibility that he might just kick him out.

“I accepted because… D-Doffy-nii, I never stopped missing you. I used to… I would wake up in my room sometimes and see that I was alone, and I was confused because I was expecting to see you next to me. Even after five years apart, ten years apart, every so often I’d wake up and I didn’t know why you weren’t there next to me. And pretty much as soon as I got here, I… In my heart I knew I was going to fail my mission.” He sniffs, wiping the tears from his eyes and smearing the beautiful makeup Doflamingo put on him.

“I was supposed to report back and tell them where you were. They were going to send ships to capture you once I… Once I subdued you. But I couldn’t do it. I don’t want to take you down, Doffy-nii, I want to stay with you.” He hopes Doflamingo still feels the same after this.

“With the plans you’ve been making about Dressrosa, and… And telling me you love me… The guilt has been killing me, and I know… I know you’re furious, Doffy-nii, I know you’re mad, but I had to tell you because I love you too and I want that future with you, I want to help you take over Dressrosa, I want to rule next to you, I want to stay here with you! So… Please… Please don’t hate me.”

Doflamingo is too still. His eye is wide, staring right at Rosinante’s face, but it’s not focused. His thoughts are racing and his heart is pounding and everything Rosinante just told him is repeating over and over in his head.

Rosinante is barely breathing. He’s too terrified to move. He wants to take it back, he wants to eat a time travel devil fruit and go back to the day Doflamingo killed their father and just stay put in the woods with his hands over his eyes so he couldn’t see their father’s headless corpse bleed out. He wants to undo this confession and just take it with him to his grave.

“Doffy-nii… Please…” He sniffs as the tears fall down his face. He hates seeing this side of Doflamingo. The cold fury, the trembling, shaking rage. He wants to see his side, the soft side, the Doflamingo that smiles at him and kisses him and calls him his heart, his Corazón, his love.

“Please, I love you.” Rosinante’s hands are shaking so much as he reaches up slowly, afraid to touch Doflamingo, but he needs reassurance. He needs to know that Doflamingo still loves him.

“I love you-” His palms settle on Doflamingo’s face to stroke his cheeks and try to calm him, but a second later, or less, too fast for either of them to understand or process, Doflamingo has both hands around Rosinante’s throat and he’s squeezing.

There is so much inside Doflamingo’s head. There’s anger. So much anger. Confusion, heartbreak, love, fear, where is the fear coming from, why is there fear?

Doflamingo blinks and returns to himself. He feels his hands squeezing and he sees that it’s Rosinante’s neck he’s squeezing as hard as he can. That’s where the fear is, the fear that he’s going to kill Rosinante.

Doflamingo immediately releases his grip and Rosinante gasps, coughing roughly as his throat tries to pass air through his injured airways and refill his lungs.

Doflamingo is torn as he stares at Rosinante, part of him terrified at himself for what he’d just done, or tried to do, while another part tells him it’s what Rosinante deserves for what he’s done. How dare he just return to Doflamingo’s life after depriving him of his light for fifteen years, how dare he make Doflamingo fall in love with him and then tell him that he’s a Marine. He came here with the intent to betray. To undo everything Doflamingo has done. To throw him in Impel Down. To stand on the other side of the bars and smirk at him as he rotted alone in the depths of the sea without Rosinante’s light in his life.

He can’t stand the thought that Rosinante didn’t come back to him because he needed Doflamingo as much as he needed Rosinante. He came back to destroy him.

He hears Rosinante’s voice, rough and harsh from Doflamingo choking him. Doflamingo realizes then that his hands are still around Rosinante’s throat. Rosinante isn’t fighting him. He has Marine training, he could fight Doflamingo off. But he doesn’t.

He won’t.

“Doffy-nii, please… I’m sorry, I’m so-” He breaks off to cough violently and heave a few agonized breaths before he continues, “I’m sorry. I love you. Please, please, don’t…”

Rosinante looks at Doflamingo, scared of his cold silent rage and the hands on his throat, but he chose Doflamingo. He chooses to trust that Doflamingo won’t kill him.

Doflamingo does consider it. Rosinante has displayed such perfect obedience, such complete and total submission… Rosinante’s life is his. And he can do whatever he wants with it.

His hands tighten again, but Rosinante remains peaceful under him, watching him with love and pleading in his eyes as he strains to breathe. He won’t fight back. He would lay there peacefully as Doflamingo choked the life out of him.

Doflamingo releases his hands again, and this time he moves away from Rosinante, standing beside the bed as Rosinante gasps and coughs violently, limbs shaking as his body tries to move fresh oxygen into his blood.

Doflamingo leaves their room and doesn’t come back to the hideout for hours.

Rosinante’s makeup is ruined from the tears. He washes it off, and doesn’t put it back on. He doesn’t deserve it.

Chapter Text

The first few days right after Rosinante’s confession are unbearable.

Doflamingo is consumed with anger as his thoughts race and fill his head with an unending cacophony of fury and hurt.

Why would Rosinante do this to him? Why would he even come back if he hated Doflamingo so much that he wanted to take him down? But he can’t entertain the idea that Rosinante hates him for very long. Doflamingo questions himself, asks himself why he’s so willing to believe that despite what Rosinante had confessed to him, he does love Doflamingo. He’s furious that Rosinante had come back with the intent to take him down. But he trusts the love he’s seen in Rosinante’s eyes and felt in his hesitant but longing touch during the small, quiet moments they’ve shared, and he knows that what he feels when Rosinante looks at him and lights up with a smile or when he blushes while struggling to use Doflamingo’s entire name instead of a cutesy nickname, that feeling within him is love. He loves Rosinante, and he knows Rosinante loves him.

Which only makes the betrayal hurt more.

For two days, Doflamingo remains in their the bedroom, feeling numb and alone. Their the bed suddenly feels too big. All he can think about is how empty it feels and how he misses seeing Rosinante’s shirts on the floor, his feathered jacket on the couch, or on Doflamingo’s desk, or on their the bed. He can almost see Rosinante tangled up in the sheets on their the bed. A smile cracks on his face, remembering a morning when Rosinante had abruptly awoken himself up by tumbling to the floor. The sheets had gotten tied up around Doflamingo as well, which pulled him across their bed and off the side, landing on top of Rosinante on the floor.

At the end of those two days, Doflamingo finally realizes that he doesn’t even know if Rosinante left the hideout or not. He leaves the bedroom in a panic, fearful that Rosinante may have left him again, but after a few minutes of frantically searching the hideout, he finds Rosinante on the landing, a cigarette in hand.

It's absolutely unbearable to look at Rosinante and know that he had, at some point, made a plan with his adoptive father (the Fleet Admiral of the Navy, no less!) to arrest Doflamingo. But he’s also so relieved that Rosinante is still here, still in front of Doflamingo and within reach. In need of comfort, he instinctively approaches his brother, but pauses as he sees the evidence of what he did to Rosinante. There is a ring of blue and purple bruising around his neck, his throat imprinted with the shape of Doflamingo’s hands. One of Rosinante’s beautiful honey-gold eyes is red with blood, and the fair skin underneath is flecked with petechiae where his delicate capillaries broke. With Rosinante’s pale skin and golden hair, the lurid colors of the bruising look even more vile and sinister.

He wouldn’t blame Rosinante if he left.

“Doffy-nii?” He asks, and his sweet, smooth voice is raspy and rough. It kills him that Rosinante’s voice has gone so raspy and rough because of what Doflamingo did to him. Doflamingo thinks back to the day Rosinante laid his head on Doflamingo's chest with the book about Fauvist art open in front of them, chattering away in his deep, soothing voice about his favorite paintings pictured in the book. He would love to show Rosinante his favorite post-impressionist works and talk about the similarities between the styles, and just exist next to him. He hopes that someday they can return to a moment of peace like that again.

“I just… Wanted to know where you were.” Doflamingo responds, feeling the urge to flee so he doesn’t have to look at the purple finger marks on Rosinante’s throat anymore. He turns to leave, but out of the corner of his eye he sees Rosinante move toward him, haltingly. Doflamingo stops for a second to hear him out, but when Rosinante coughs, whether from smoking or being choked, he loses his nerve and flees before Rosinante can speak.

Rosinante is miserable and afraid. He doesn't know if he's allowed to still be at the hideout. He doesn't know if he's allowed to keep his black feathered jacket or his position as the heart seat and the title it comes with. He can’t stand the thought of no longer being Doflamingo’s Corazón. The idea of someone else taking his title enrages him. But Doflamingo never kicks him out and never sends someone else to do the job for him, so Rosinante moves back into his old bedroom. Doflamingo never takes the coat away, so Rosinante clings to it, needing to anchor himself to something, anything that makes him feel like there's a chance that Doflamingo still loves him.

In his bedroom, Rosinante feels cold and alone. He misses walking into their room while Doflamingo was reading, intending to grab his cigarettes and leave, only for Doflamingo to get up from the couch and grab him, pulling Rosinante back to the couch or onto the bed, flopping them both down together with Rosinante laughing and play-struggling the entire way until they landed.

He misses waking up to Doflamingo, fully-dressed and ready to start the day, leaning over to press a kiss to Rosinante’s cheek before he left their room. He misses hearing Doflamingo murmur an apology for waking him up. He misses the smile on Doflamingo’s face whenever Rosinante entered a room, the way Doflamingo would reach for his hand, the sudden feeling of Doflamingo’s hand on his hip or his shoulder. He misses the knowing smile on Doflamingo’s face whenever he gave in to Rosinante’s exaggerated bratty little brother performances. It’s painful to wake up every day and exist in the same space as Doflamingo, wanting to reach out and bridge the gap between them, but he doesn’t know if he’s been forgiven, or if Doflamingo can forgive him.

The brothers still sit next to each other at meal times, but Doflamingo’s posture is rigid instead of relaxed, and Rosinante avoids everyone’s gaze, keeping his eyes turned downward at his plate. The distance between them spreads discomfort through the rest of the family. The Donquixote Family has grown used to the sight of Rosinante leaning against or laying on Doflamingo as if he were Rosinante’s own personal body pillow. Similarly, they are also used to seeing Doflamingo with his arm around Rosinante’s shoulders or waist, his long fingers either stroking Rosinante’s cheek or tucked just under the waist of Rosinante’s jeans to feel his bare skin and the cut of his hip bone. But now, neither of them speak to the other, or lean in close to flirt or play around.

They have no idea what happened between the brothers, and neither offers an explanation, though the bruises on Rosinante’s neck offer some clues. The bruises remain for weeks, the gruesome colors slowly fading from blues and purples to nauseating greens and yellows.

The uncomfortable distance between them remains long after the bruises have healed. Rosinante no longer seeks out Doflamingo, and Doflamingo does not go looking for Rosinante. These changes in behavior rattle the rest of the family. It’s strange to find Rosinante sitting by himself with Doflamingo nowhere in sight, and equally bizarre to walk into Doflamingo’s office and realize that Rosinante isn’t there with him.

Rosinante has fallen silent like when he first arrived, though what had originally seemed to be a silence born of an inability to speak has become a cold, numb silence. Rosinante’s eyes are bloodshot, and rimmed with pronounced shadows.

Doflamingo has taken to sleeping on the couch in his bedroom. He tried to sleep on the bed the first few nights after Rosinante’s confession, but he was never able to actually fall asleep. He would lay awake, remembering the expression on Rosinante’s face as Doflamingo’s hands tightened around his neck. Fear. Terror. Desperation. Hope. Love. Acceptance. He would think about how Rosinante used to sleep next to him on this bed, and how he would pout and whine when Doflamingo woke him up early, how he would yawn and stretch and rest his face against Doflamingo’s chest and look up at him with sleepy eyes and flash that radiant smile at him.

Doflamingo strips the sheets off and replaces them, but sleep still doesn’t come. He decides that perhaps the location and orientation of the bed is still too familiar. Machvise comes to his room to consult with Doflamingo about a troubling development with another pirate crew, but when he sees Doflamingo in the middle of rearranging his furniture, Machvise decides he can ask someone else.

Normally, when Doflamingo is indisposed or unavailable, Machvise would turn to Corazón, the first mate. But where Doflamingo was looking for new sheets and moving furniture, Corazón was nearly catatonic, spending most of his time haunting different locations throughout the hideout, chain smoking his way through packs upon packs of cigarettes. He has to settle for consulting with Trebol and Diamante, and then Pica as a tiebreaker when Trebol and Diamante start arguing with each other.

Doflamingo rearranges the furniture in his bedroom a few times before he decides it’s not enough to just change the location of the bed when the mattress is still the same mattress where he almost killed Rosinante.

The Family wakes up one morning to find that Doflamingo’s mattress has joined the scrap metal outside the hideout, and some workers from the more populous part of Spider Miles are delivering a new mattress.

Doflamingo can’t stand that the last time they were in the bed together was when Doflamingo choked Rosinante. He can’t stand looking at the bed and seeing it empty with no sign of Rosinante anywhere. Logically, he knows Rosinante is still in the hideout, in the next room over, but his absence from this bedroom, this bed, his absence from Doflamingo’s side is intolerable, and no amount of new sheets or rearranging the furniture or changing the mattress will fill the empty space in the bedroom, in the bed, or at Doflamingo’s side.

A few days pass, and the Family finds that Doflamingo had ripped the bed frame apart and thrown the pieces out the window, into the scrap heap outside. Doflamingo does not replace the bed, and opts to sleep on the couch.

The weeks go by and the Family settles into an uncomfortable new normal. The brothers do not speak to each other. They still haven’t told the Family what happened or why Rosinante had bruises around his neck, or why Doflamingo had become obsessed with interior decoration before deciding to trash his bed. The Family knows that they can’t question Doflamingo’s behavior, and if they try to, he will just lash out at them. They also know that Rosinante has completely shut down, and won’t respond either. So all they can do is adjust to this new normal.

But one day when Señor Pink returns to the hideout after talking with some of the Family’s lower level thugs in town, he spots Rosinante seated on a wooden box by the shore, steadily working his way through a pack of cigarettes as he stares out at the water. He has no idea how Doflamingo or Rosinante can continue to live like this. The silence at mealtimes is absolutely maddening, and he can’t stand watching other members of the Family flinch when they hear Doflamingo throwing furniture. This is his family, and he’s not going to stand by and watch it fall apart without at least trying to help.

Doflamingo is so stuck in his thoughts right now that trying to reach out to him is a lost cause. Señor Pink has heard from Giolla and Gladius that Rosinante talks to them, so he hasn’t completely shut everyone out. Señor Pink decides to start with Rosinante.

Rosinante hears footsteps approaching him from behind, but they aren’t Doflamingo’s footsteps and they don’t sound like someone attempting to approach him quietly with the intent to attack him, so he doesn’t turn around.

Señor Pink doesn’t exactly have a plan in mind regarding how to nudge Rosinante, so he decides to just wing it and hope for the best as he sits down next to Rosinante on the wooden box. Out of the corner of his eye, he sees Rosinante look toward him, a subtle acknowledgement. Señor Pink is quiet for a few moments before he starts to speak.

“You know how Giolla found that fish-man baby the other day? She’s been sending me on all these ridiculous errands into town to get this fish and that fish because she thinks the baby’s a picky eater. I had to go into town today to talk to the money launderers and I found out there’s another woman in town who adopted a fish-man baby. So I went to talk to her to ask about what she’s feeding her baby, but her baby is a completely different type of fish-man from Giolla’s.”

“Dellinger.” Rosinante said softly.

“Sorry?” Señor Pink hadn’t even been expecting Rosinante to speak, so it caught him off guard.

“Giolla named him Dellinger.”

“Oh, right. I keep forgetting the kid’s name. So this woman in town, her fish-man baby is a goldfish type, and Dellinger is… What is he, again?” Señor Pink asked, looking at Rosinante.

“A fighting fish, I think?” Rosinante isn’t completely sure. Giolla had mentioned to him that she had looked through a lot of books to try and figure out exactly what type of fish-man Dellinger was, but she wasn’t completely satisfied with where she’d landed.

“Yeah, a fighting fish! So this woman in town, her fish-man baby eats seaweed, shrimp, things like that. I’ve brought back all these different types of fish for Giolla to feed to Dellinger, but he spits everything out. You got any ideas?” Señor Pink looks at the cigarette in Rosinante’s hand, which had nearly burned down to the filter. A moment later, Rosinante shakes his hand in pain as the cigarette burns him.

“Maybe meat? He’s already got sharp teeth.”

“You know, that’s not a bad idea. I’ll run that by Giolla.” Señor Pink excuses himself, leaving Rosinante on his own for a few minutes before returning.

“She thinks it sounds like a good idea. You wanna run into town with me and grab some meat for the kid?”

Rosinante looks surprised by the suggestion. Señor Pink feels a small pang of guilt. He’s never really interacted with Rosinante before, has he?

“Or you can stay here and continue to keep watch over the sea.” Señor Pink slips his hands into his pockets as he waits for Rosinante’s response.

Rosinante had felt so numb for days, unable and unwilling to go anywhere or do anything, too consumed with grief and regret to stray too far from Doflamingo. But after spending days upon days listening to the sounds of Doflamingo endlessly rearranging the furniture in the bedroom they used to share before ultimately destroying what used to be their bed, Rosinante finds he is more than ready to go somewhere, anywhere that’s far away from the hideout. Somewhere he knows he won’t hear Doflamingo destroying things they used to share.

The walk to the shopping area of Spider Miles isn’t particularly scenic, and it’s more than a little hazardous for Rosinante, who keeps tripping over the scrap metal. Señor Pink does his best to help Rosinante stay upright. The walk is silent until they’re halfway to town, when Señor Pink finally decides to speak up and share something with Rosinante.

“Did Waka-sama or Giolla tell you about when the Family first found out about you?” He asked. Rosinante’s expression implied that he didn’t feel one way or another about this question, but it’s the exact same mask of schooled indifference he’s worn for the past few weeks whenever he sees Doflamingo or hears his name. And besides, Señor Pink has been through enough battles with Rosinante to know that if he doesn’t want to hear this, he’s more than capable of shutting him up.

“So this happened the year I joined the Family, ten years ago,” Señor Pink starts his story, noting how Rosinante’s posture was now stiffer than usual, “Waka-sama was 16. I wasn’t familiar with his usual behavior patterns yet, but this one day in July, he started drinking. And he kept drinking. Then he drank some more. He drank until he got to a point where he was having a hard time sitting upright. I was going to help him to his room, and when I got in close to help him stand up, I heard him crying.”

Rosinante’s breath hitched, his heart starting to beat a little faster. Did Señor Pink say this happened in July?

“And then I heard him mumbling,” Señor Pink continued. Rosinante had an idea about what Doflamingo may have been mumbling. “He was crying and speaking very softly, but I heard him saying ‘It’s his birthday today. It’s my little brother’s birthday. His name is Rosi and he’s 14 today. It's been eight years since the last time I saw him. I miss him, Pink.’”

Rosinante takes a deep, shuddering breath. He remembers so many birthdays where he wished he could see Doflamingo, just once, even briefly in a crowd. 14 year old Rosi would have been overjoyed to know that he would reunite with his big brother in the future. He's not sure what 14 year old Rosi would think about abandoning the Marines and becoming a pirate.

“Later I asked the rest of the Family about it. Diamante, Pica, Trebol, and Vergo knew about you, of course. Vergo said you were 8 years old when he met you. But no one else in the Family had ever heard about you until your 14th birthday.” Señor Pink still remembered how uncomfortable the Family looked, watching their captain hang off of Señor Pink’s shoulder and cry softly on the way to his bedroom.

“Never saw him get that drunk again. But every year on your birthday, he’d lock himself up in his room and drink alone. Once in a while I think he'd start getting curious about looking for you, but the search never went very far. I think he was scared he'd find out you were dead.” Señor Pink wasn't usually one to ramble on aimlessly, but if it helped Rosinante and Doflamingo to kiss and make up and stop making the Family so damn uncomfortable, he could keep going for hours.

The scrap metal turned to pavement, which brought them into town. Rosinante had only been to the downtown area of Spider Miles once or twice, and only briefly. He felt distinctly uncomfortable as all the shopkeepers and townspeople around them took notice of their arrival and waved at Señor Pink.

“Señor! Weren't you just here? Did you forget something?” An older woman teases him with a playful look on her face. Señor Pink lowers his shades enough to wink at her, sweeping her hand into his to kiss the back of it to make her giggle and blush.

“I came right back into town when I realized I forgot to tell you how beautiful you look today, madam.”

She giggles like a young girl, leaving her hand clasped in his, unwilling to be the first to let go.

“Oh, and who is this?” She looks to Rosinante, towering at Señor Pink's side. “Good morning! I've seen you around a few times, but I've never caught your name.”

Rosinante is caught off guard, and he suddenly realizes how out of practice he is at talking to people who aren't part of the Family or enemy pirates. He has a moment of panic, his eyes darting toward Señor Pink in the hope that he'll take care of the introductions, but Señor Pink gives him no indication that he will handle introductions.

“Um. Hi. I'm. I'm Corazón, I'm Doflamingo's brother.” He finally manages to explain himself. The woman looks delighted.

“I didn't know the captain had a brother! So lovely to meet you, Corazón!” Her smile is so genuine that he's left a bit confused. The townspeople liked Doflamingo?

“Wonderful to see you, madam, but we're here with a task from Giolla. We're trying to figure out what to feed the new fish-man baby she found.” Señor Pink tells her in an effort to excuse them.

“Dellinger.” Rosinante says softly.

“Oh, right! Dellinger. His name is Dellinger.”

“Well you'd better go see to that, then. Lovely to meet you, Corazón!” She waves as they walk away, leaving Rosinante still feeling bewildered. He follows Señor Pink since he doesn't know his way around, and they end up outside a small restaurant.

“Lunch? My treat. I've been to a lot of islands and eaten at a lot of restaurants, but this place has a roast sandwich that's unparalleled.” Señor Pink doesn't really give Rosinante an opportunity to refuse, and guides him toward the outdoor seating area. The available seating is for customers of average height, and Rosinante is hesitant to sit on them. He stands aside and waits while Señor Pink goes inside to fetch some of the wait staff and get him a properly sized chair.

While he waits, Rosinante’s thoughts drift back to the anecdote Señor Pink shared with him. Did Doflamingo really start crying on Rosinante’s 14th birthday? Did he miss him so much? Given how their relationship has escalated since his return, he wants to believe it. He wants to believe that Doflamingo missed him and yearned for him as much as Rosinante did for Doflamingo.

“Here we go, found a stronger chair!” Señor Pink returns with the chair and sets it down for Rosinante. They both sit and scan through the menus in front of them.

“So. Gotta admit, I'm a little curious what the hell went down between you and Waka-sama.” Señor Pink appears to be looking right at Rosinante, but because of his sunglasses, Rosinante can't tell exactly where his eyes are looking. But he feels like he's being examined all the same.

“Neither of you have said anything to the rest of the Family about what went down. Usually I wouldn't butt into someone else's domestic issues, but it's been weeks now, and the entire Family is walking on eggshells. You included. I don't know exactly what to call your relationship with Waka-sama,” Clearly it went beyond the boundary of a normal relationship between brothers, “But I know it's not healthy for you to be this scared of him. So tell me.”

“His anger is justified,” Rosinante sighs, staring at his menu, “He could've kicked me out. But he didn't.”

“We all saw those bruises on your neck. Whatever you did, he punished you. Enough's enough.” Señor Pink falls silent after this when a waiter appears to take their orders. Señor Pink orders his beloved roast sandwich, and Rosinante follows his lead and orders the same thing. Once the waiter departs, they resume their conversation.

“So what happened?”

Rosinante sighs. There's no way he can tell the rest of the Family about his near-betrayal. His relationship with them is still so flimsy, and if they knew, there would be no chance of building it back up.

“I'll leave it to Doflamingo to decide if he wants you to know.” If Doflamingo wanted to tell the Family, there was nothing Rosinante could do to stop him.

“But also… I admitted to him that I'm a devil fruit user.” “So?”

“I ate the Nagi Nagi no Mi,” Rosinante snaps his fingers, “Silent.”

Señor Pink looks around bewildered when he realizes all the sound around them is gone.

“I can do that, or I can cancel out all the sounds a person makes, or the sounds made by items they interact with. I kept it a secret because it's a suspicious devil fruit power for me to have after being gone for 15 years.” Rosinante sighs, his thoughts drifting back to his fight with Doflamingo. He'd been so scared that Doflamingo might actually kill him.

“Ohh, that makes sense. Hey, that's pretty useful, make sure you keep that silent skill going while we're talking.” Señor Pink had chosen a table away from the rest of the customers just to keep eavesdropping to a minimum, but this was even better!

“That's all I can do with it, though. Just those two things. It's only useful enough to be suspicious but not useful enough to do anything else.”

Señor Pink nods, letting the silence fall between them for a while until their food arrives. Rosinante removes the silent field, and they hear their waiter start to speak again, mid-sentence.

“-two roast sandwiches and five beers, one for you, Señor, and four for your companion.” The waiter sets down four beers in front of Rosinante and he's never been so happy to see alcohol.

“Will that be all for you?” “For now, yes.”

The waiter leaves, and Rosinante activates another silent field over them as he opens one beer and gets started on it. Four beers is nowhere near enough to get him drunk, but it's a start.

“I used to think my devil fruit was completely useless,” Señor Pink tells him while working on his beer, “It seemed like a cruel joke. Can't swim in the water, but I can swim through solid materials? I can swim on land? Ridiculous.”

Rosinante had to agree. He did think Señor Pink’s devil fruit sounded ridiculous at first, even worse than his own. But then he saw how Señor Pink used it in battle.

“It took a while to figure out how to use it. But eventually I figured out I can swim under buildings, up walls, and that I can carry someone with me while I’m swimming. You’ve seen me use that technique, right?” Señor Pink looked up from his sandwich to Rosinante.

“I have.” It had been incredible to see. Señor Pink had grabbed one of their opponents, dove into the ground, then started swimming up a wall while still carrying the man, and dropped him onto the ground.

“Have you tried to figure out other ways to use your fruit?”

Rosinante feels some color come to his cheeks as he shakes his head. When Sengoku had given him the fruit, he told Rosinante that the fruit was capable of the two skills he used it for. He’s never wondered if it was capable of more.

“No way that’s all your fruit is capable of. I’ve never heard of a fruit that only does two things like that. You need to experiment with it, listen to it, feel what it can do. Look at Waka-sama and the insane things he can do! With string!” Señor Pink is absolutely terrified of Doflamingo’s creative thinking, but he has to admit the bird cage is genius.

After finishing their food, they go to the butcher to buy different types of meat for Giolla to try out with Dellinger. While Señor Pink is inside the store, Rosinante lingers outside with a cigarette, his thoughts consumed by Señor Pink's suggestion that there's more his devil fruit might be able to do. He feels betrayed by Sengoku, who only told him about silent and calm. When he ate the Nagi Nagi no Mi, he understood how to activate the two skills, but the basic understanding that came with eating the fruit did not provide any additional information about other possible ways to use it.

The door to the butcher opens and Señor Pink walks out, carrying a very full bag.

“I got a little bit of everything, even the innards. Maybe the kid wants to eat guts.” Señor Pink shrugs, and starts walking back toward the hideout with Rosinante following behind. The walk is quiet for the most part, until the hideout is within sight. Señor Pink abruptly stops walking and Rosinante stops too, watching him curiously.

“Hey, use your silent thing.” Señor Pink asks, snapping his fingers in imitation of Rosinante. He hesitates for a moment, but then activates his skill, as requested, shrouding them in silence.

“About your fight with Waka-sama. There were two things you fought about. There was the devil fruit, and then the other thing, the one you’re keeping secret,” Señor Pink looks up at Rosinante, his eyes visible under his sunglasses, “Are you a marine?”

It's only thanks to his marine training that Rosinante is able to keep his expression neutral, but the lack of a reaction is very telling to Señor Pink.

“Yeah, I’m pretty sure I got that one right,” He laughs and shifts his posture, like he’s getting comfortable.

“It’s just that over the year you’ve been with us, I’ve noticed a few things. Behaviors. On their own they don’t mean anything, but… I’ve noticed several.”

Rosinante’s heart is pounding. It was one thing to tell Doflamingo, it was an entirely different thing for the Family to know. Their loyalties are with Doflamingo, not Rosinante.

“I’ve noticed that you wake up really early. You’re up before anyone else, every single day. And during missions, if we’re going inside a building, you barricade doors and make sure they can’t be opened. If you see gaps in our formation, you close the gap. And your guns…” Señor Pink grinned and gave another little laugh, “You clean them very meticulously. I’ve watched you and Gladius at work. Gladius takes his guns apart, sets the pieces down, cleans everything, oils the pieces, reassembles his guns. You, though. It’s the way you take the guns apart. The way you set the pieces out. Everything is very neat, very orderly, it’s like you’re setting the pieces out on a grid. I can tell you’re experienced at cleaning guns.”

More than anything, Rosinante is annoyed with himself for letting these behaviors slip. He was trained better than that. But over the past few months as his loyalty to the Navy started slipping and his loyalty to Doflamingo started to grow, he’s not really surprised to find out that he got comfortable and a bit lazy in keeping up his facade.

“But you know what the most obvious thing is?” Señor Pink asks, still watching Rosinante for any reaction, any response. He’s given nothing.

“Your devil fruit. Not the fruit itself. It’s the fact that you only know how to do two things with it. There’s plenty of other pirates out there who are ex-Marines, and they love to talk shit about the Navy. Every ex-Marine turned pirate who got a devil fruit from the Navy all have one thing in common. They were all told what their devil fruit was capable of. And none of them questioned it. They never tested their abilities beyond what they were told their devil fruit could do.”

Despite all of his training, Rosinante can’t stop the flicker of pain that crosses his face. Even if he’s given up on fulfilling his mission, it’s still gut wrenching to hear that his Navy training that helped him stay undercover was ultimately his biggest tell. The obedience that had been drilled into him had shaped other parts of his personality without him even realizing it.

“Looks like I’m right, hmm?” Señor Pink asks, but even without Rosinante’s confirmation, it’s obvious from the look on his face. Señor Pink sighs and shifts his weight again, then sets the bag of meat down by his feet.

“I should’ve put the damn meat away before I started this conversation. This shit is heavy.” When he stands back up, he meets Rosinante’s eyes again, “I’m not gonna fight you, if that’s what you’re worried about.”

He watches Rosinante’s body unclench. He didn’t mean to scare the guy.

“I wasn’t exactly thrilled when I started piecing everything together. Obviously Waka-sama wasn’t either. But it’s been a year since you showed up here. We haven’t seen any Navy ships during that year. You’ve killed pirates alongside us, and we’ve all seen the violent rages you go into when anyone insults Waka-sama or hurts him. Maybe you came here with ulterior motives, but you haven’t done anything to follow through. It's obvious to everyone in the Family that you're loyal to Waka-sama, just like the rest of us.”

Rosinante has been silent this entire time, mostly from anxiety, but now his silence comes from emotion welling up inside him as he realizes that Señor Pink isn’t threatening him with what he knows. He’s showing acceptance in spite of what he knows.

“And if you were actually going to betray him,” Señor Pink doesn't miss how Rosinante curls in on himself when he hears the word betray, “You would've done it after your fight with him. But you didn't retaliate. You moped around the hideout looking like a kicked puppy waiting for its master to pick it up and apologize.”

Señor Pink takes a step closer and sets a hand on Rosinante’s shoulder, a smile on his face.

“Point is, you came here to betray him and us, but you didn't. You decided to tell Waka-sama the truth, and right now he's mad and you're hurt, but he didn't kick you out, and you stayed. The fact that you're here and alive tells me that Waka-sama will forgive you. And if Waka-sama decides to forgive you, who the fuck am I to decide otherwise? He’s our captain and we follow his orders, right?”

“Right!” Rosinante feels tears fall from his eyes as he barks out his response, his voice much louder than he intends for it to be. Now that it’s over, he’s almost relieved that Señor Pink figured him out and confronted him like this. The relationships he’s built up with the other members of the Family are fragile and new, and considering how badly Doflamingo took his confession, he was terrified that his new friendships with the rest of the Family would be destroyed also. But Señor Pink’s explanation gave him hope that the other members of the Family would fall in line with Doflamingo’s ruling.

Señor Pink grins as he sees the tears fall and he leans in close to smirk at Rosinante.

“One thing I didn't tell you about your 14th birthday, when Waka-sama got super drunk. When I got him into his room and helped him into bed, he was still talking about you. Chattering away like the proudest big brother. He told me you were a crybaby. Said your hair looked like a dandelion. Told me how everything scared you and you'd always run to him first and hide behind him. He said he never felt braver or stronger than he did when you ran to him because you knew he'd protect you.”

Rosinante is dumbfounded by these revelations. He's heard stories from Gladius and Diamante and Pica about all the things Doflamingo has done in their time apart. Each story spoke to Doflamingo's capacity for cruelty, his ruthlessness, his intelligence and creativity, and how quickly he had established a name for himself. Rosinante remembered hearing about Doflamingo's activities around the time he was 16 and Doflamingo was 18, when he saw Doflamingo's first bounty poster. He'd heard the stories, and they matched up with what the Family told him. Señor Pink's story lines up with the stories Rosinante kept close to his heart about Doflamingo drinking himself soft, the ones he didn't believe but wanted to think were true.

Some who claim to have seen Doflamingo in his weaker moments will talk about how Doflamingo drank himself soft and whispered to them about his younger brother, and how much he misses him, how he wonders if he’s still alive.

Rosinante doesn’t believe those stories though. He doesn’t believe Doflamingo would let someone live if they’d seen him showing any weakness. He hopes they’re true, though. He hopes Doflamingo still thinks about him, still misses him, still wants to see him.

The stories were true. Doflamingo never stopped thinking about him either.

Chapter Text

Some weeks back, Machvise had approached Doflamingo’s bedroom to try to speak with him about a pirate crew that was picking fights in their territory and had defeated a few crews that were flying the Donquixote flag. But Doflamingo had been too busy rearranging the furniture in the bedroom to even hear Machvise’s attempts to get his attention.

“I was unavailable,” Doflamingo sighs, “So you went to Diamante and Trebol? Why didn’t you go to Corazón?” Doflamingo trusts Trebol and Diamante to manage their own armies within the Donquixote Family, and they’re very good at it. But for higher level tasks like planning raids, planning routes, sabotaging troublesome pirate crews, or any other time Doflamingo is unavailable, he would hope that his crew would understand to go to his second in command, Rosinante.

Learning that Machvise instead went to Diamante and Trebol is testing his already thin patience. Diamante and Trebol have their strengths, but quashing a minor threat before it becomes a much bigger threat is not among those strengths.

Machvise fidgets, looking everywhere in the office except for Doflamingo. His eyes land on the couch, where a pillow and a rumpled blanket lay, evidence that Doflamingo has been sleeping on the couch for weeks. He looks away, looking everywhere except for Doflamingo and the couch.

“Corazón was… Busy.”

“Busy.” Doflamingo’s voice is flat.

“He wouldn’t respond when I talked to him!” Machvise says defensively, “This was a few weeks ago, when you started rearranging your bedroom and Corazón started sleeping in his old room!”

Machvise really doesn’t want to say anything along the lines of ‘This was a few weeks ago when Corazón was nearly catatonic and would barely respond to anyone’. But from the subtly tighter muscles on Doflamingo’s face and in his neck, Machvise can see that he got his point across. He had tried to talk to Doflamingo, and when that went nowhere, he tried to talk to Corazón. Both of them were so miserable and wrapped up in their own feelings, they were both useless.

Doflamingo feels several things at once. He’s upset to learn that the miserable, silent, unresponsive Rosinante he’s seen lately at mealtimes is the same Rosinante the rest of the crew sees. He knew Rosinante had gotten closer to several members of the crew, so he had assumed that Rosinante cheered up a little when Doflamingo wasn’t around, maybe chatted with the Family a little, but it seemed that wasn’t the case. But he’s also displeased to realize that his and Rosinante’s relationship drama was now affecting the Family’s territory. Doflamingo has been hesitant to talk to Rosinante one on one to resolve their problems, but this new development is going to force his hand.

Either way, this other pirate crew needs to be handled before they start getting cocky.

Shortly afterward, the Donquixote Family set sail toward the hideout of this troublesome little crew, determined to put a stop to their attempts to expand their territory by taking over Donquixote territory.

Rosinante enjoys the voyage more than he thought he would. The ocean air is refreshing, and the sun is warm on his face. In the hideout, all he could think about was how miserable he was and how much he missed Doflamingo. His misery and Doflamingo's mood had the entire Family on edge, afraid to talk to either of them, but now that they're back on the ship and cooperation is imperative to keeping the ship running, it's easy for Rosinante to just forget about his worries for a while and run around on the ship, helping the Family out with their various tasks.

Doflamingo stands on the deck outside his quarters, watching Rosinante go from task to task with a smile on his face. He watches Rosinante scurry up the ratlines to repair a rip in one of the sails, then he joins Diamante in checking the cannons to make sure each was loaded up with enough gunpowder and had properly long fuses. Following that, Rosinante eagerly helped Machvise throw the fishing nets into the water then haul them in later to inspect their catch. It had been so long since Doflamingo last got to see Rosinante’s smiling face. He can’t tear his eyes away, watching longingly from the deck as Rosinante laughs with Machvise while they gut fish for dinner later that night. Rosinante is right there in front of him, but Doflamingo misses him.

Rosinante looks up from his task, glancing around out of habit to seek out Doflamingo. He spots him on the upper deck and feels his heart jump in excitement as he reads Doflamingo’s posture. He looks like he’s been standing there for a while now, his eyes following Rosinante. He thinks he sees Doflamingo’s smile grow just a little wider when their eyes meet, and even if it’s a small interaction, it’s the most they’ve had in weeks. Rosinante offers a tiny smile in return, scared to do anything else and break this fragile, precious moment.

Doflamingo’s heart is racing as well as he watches Rosinante watch him. He wonders to himself why their relationship is still this strained and tense, when all he wants to do is run down to the main deck and pull Rosinante away somewhere quiet to kiss him breathless and feel his heart pounding under Doflamingo’s hand.

The moment lingers until Diamante walks up to Doflamingo, reminding him that they need to finalize their attack plans. Doflamingo is hesitant to let go of the moment, but they’re approaching their destination and he wants to make sure that this threat is properly crushed.

Doflamingo throws one more longing glance toward Rosinante before he walks away.

Rosinante deflates somewhat when Doflamingo leaves, brought back to reality where his hands are covered in fish guts.

“I’m a coward.” He mumbles, unaware that at that same moment, Doflamingo is accusing himself of the same thing.

Shortly before they arrive at their destination, the entire crew is called to go over the plans. Rosinante feels gutted when Doflamingo tells him he will be staying on the ship with Gladius. He didn’t call on Rosinante to formulate these plans, and now he’s leaving Rosinante on the ship while the rest of the crew executes the mission.

The following day, the ship docked at their destination. The crew readied themselves for a fight, then disembarked and headed toward the enemy crew’s hideout. Rosinante watches them walk away, realizing that if he was the captain, he would’ve decided to leave Doflamingo on the ship too. As complicated and troubled as their relationship is right now, Rosinante would only be a distraction to Doflamingo. He thought back to the previous day, when they caught each other’s eyes and couldn’t look away from each other, both of them so desperate for a soft, tender moment with the other. Mid-battle they probably wouldn’t stop and stare, but they might linger just a little too long, just enough to allow another pirate to get too close, and Doflamingo needed to be able to focus on the objective. So it was best if Rosinante remained on the ship.

He hates not knowing what’s going on in the battle, though. Rosinante has grown to trust the abilities and strength of the rest of the crew, but it’s maddening to not be there at Doflamingo’s side to protect him himself.

Once the crew has disappeared from their sight, Rosinante and Gladius head to a higher deck to give them a better vantage point, but not so high that they wouldn’t be able to get to the main deck in a hurry if the crew came running back. Staying on the ship while the rest of the crew goes into battle is maddening and boring. Gladius suggests a little competition to pass the time.

“What kind of competition?” Rosinante asks.

“Let’s see who can take apart a gun, clean it, and reassemble it faster.” Gladius suggests. He hands Rosinante one of his own guns to keep their competition fair and equal and give them the same gun to work off of.

The challenge sounds interesting, and it would keep Rosinante’s mind off of the battle being fought in the nearby warehouse.

With everything assembled, they start their competition. Rosinante’s own gun is nearby, in case the battle ends early and someone needs to assist the crew. They’re both focused and quiet as they clean each part of the gun, set each cleaned piece down, then move to the next piece. Rosinante is mildly distracted, his thoughts returning to Senor Pink telling him that the way he cleans his guns is so regimented and routine that it gave him away as a marine.

When he notices how far along Gladius is, Rosinante chases away those distracting thoughts and focuses on their extremely serious competition.

Ultimately, Gladius emerges triumphant, though he’s only ahead of Rosinante by a little bit.

“The only reason I won is because these are my own guns,” Gladius tells him as he checks over the gun Rosinante cleaned for him, “This type of gun isn’t used in the Navy, so you have no experience with it.”

Rosinante winces, realizing the entire crew knows his secret. He picks up his own gun and checks it over, deciding if it needs to be cleaned or not. He only just cleaned it the previous day after Doflamingo told them all their roles for this battle, and he needed something to do with his hands to keep himself distracted for a while.

Rosinante sighs and leans against the Numancia Flamingo’s railing, keeping his eyes trained on the warehouse the Family walked into. He’s not fully clear about what this other crew has been doing that made Doflamingo want to attack. Normally he knows more details about the mission than anyone else in the Family. But it doesn’t seem like Doflamingo is ready to fully trust him with mission details just yet.

“So everyone knows?” Rosinante asked. He can feel Gladius glance at him, before facing forward again.

“I believe so. Senor Pink figured it out first. I did notice some tell-tale behaviors. I compared notes with Senor Pink and then he confirmed with you. Then Pica overheard it from both of us.” There was simply no way to guard against Pica eavesdropping when he could become part of the walls without anyone knowing.

“Pica told Trebol and Diamante,” Gladius continues, noticing from the corner of his eye how Rosinante hangs his head and takes a deep breath, “Then I heard Trebol run into Waka-sama’s office to confirm with him, and Waka-sama confirmed.”

Rosinante feels sick. He’s only taken a few drags off his cigarette but he burns the rest in one long pull, needing the nicotine.

“So why haven’t you tried anything?” It’s bewildering to know that the entire Family has known about his confession for at least a few weeks already, since his walk into Spider Miles with Senor Pink. It felt strange to walk back into the hideout after that day. It felt strange that Senor Pink seemed to seek him out more, talk to him more. They were closer now even though Senor Pink knew what Rosinante had admitted to Doflamingo. “I know everyone’s loyalty is with Doffy-nii, as it should be. I came here to betray him. You know that now. Why haven’t you tried to do anything to me?”

Gladius is quiet for a while, analyzing Rosinante’s demand. There was a frantic tone to his voice, a distant look in his eyes, confusion on his face. The question isn’t directed only at Gladius. It’s directed at all of the Donquixote Family, a desperate bid from Rosinante to understand why they all would be so willing to let him get away with the worst crime any of them could commit against Doflamingo.

As Rosinante sat there, trying to calm down by focusing on the sound of the wind, and the gentle lapping of water at the side of the Numancia Flamingo, he started to pick out the distant sounds of gunfire coming from the warehouse the Family had disappeared into. At the sound of gunfire, both Rosinante and Gladius are on high alert, readying themselves for a fight if it comes to that.

“When I found out you came here as part of a navy plan to dismantle the Donquixote Family, I thought you were either the shittiest marine in all the Blues, or your heart wasn’t in your mission. Only the shittiest marine in all the Blues would end up protecting the pirates he’s supposed to take down,” Gladius is still looking straight ahead, and Rosinante is too, but Rosinante feels a smile spread across his face as Gladius talks, “And personally, I would never let some shitty marine touch my gun, let alone clean it, unless I knew that shitty marine would have my back in the same battle where I was using that gun.”

The pain of Rosinante’s confession is still fresh and raw for him and Doflamingo, but the members of their Family aren’t stupid. They’ve been watching Rosinante since he first arrived. They’ve watched him integrate himself into the Family, help plan their raids, secure weak spots in the hideout, open fire on pirates who dared to hurt any of the Family, and get to know them one by one. Maybe he arrived with an intention, but he had clearly never taken any action to carry it out. And the guilt he felt over his intention to betray Doflamingo clearly told them that he was no longer loyal to the Navy. He was loyal to Doflamingo, like every other member of the Donquixote Family.

“Yeah, I’m a pretty shitty Marine,” He agrees. They see the door to the distant building open up, and both of them stand up straight to assess the situation before they open fire. “To tell you the truth, my heart was never in the mission. My heart was always with Doffy-nii.”

Under his mask, Gladius smiles. As far as he’s concerned, Rosinante is one of them.

As the Family approaches the Numancia Flamingo at a sprint, they can tell the situation requires back up. Rosinante’s eyes search for Doflamingo first and he spots his brother with what appears to be a child holding onto his back. Diamante appears to be injured. Machvise is running with Senor Pink unconscious in his arms. This was supposed to be an easy and fast operation and he can’t tell if it’s been a success or not.

“Is Waka-sama carrying a kid??” Gladius is surprised. Rosinante sees a small band of pirates chasing after the Family. Most have regular handguns. Two have high powered rifles. One has a more powerful gun that looks familiar to Rosinante, but he is immediately less concerned with remembering where he’d seen the gun before upon realizing that the final pirate chasing after the Family appears to be a devil fruit user. While Doflamingo is running toward the ship, the pirate mimes rolling a ball over the ground toward Doflamingo, which trips him up and sends him to his knees.

Rosinante only barely stops himself from crying out to his brother. Doflamingo doesn’t need another distraction right now, not when he’s fighting against another devil fruit user while trying to protect the child holding onto him.

“Gladius, how are you at long range shooting?” He asks, “Can I trust you to take out that devil fruit user that’s after Doffy-nii?”

“Yes you can.” Gladius nods and is about to turn away to find a good place to shoot from when Rosinante stops him with a hand on his shoulder.

“My other secret, did you hear that one too? That I’m a devil fruit user?” “Yes?” “I’m going to use my skill on you. Any bullets you fire, any footsteps, anything you interact with won’t make a sound. Calm.” Rosinante squeezes Gladius’ shoulder. Gladius doesn’t feel anything different, so he experimentally taps his foot on the boards under them, surprised to realize there’s no sound.

Rosinante watches Gladius run off toward the quarter deck, which will give him a better vantage point and give their enemies less visibility to see Gladius. Rosinante had been practicing more with his skills, ever since Senor Pink told him he’s never known a devil fruit user who could only do two things with their devil fruit. He’s been working on strengthening his existing skills and trying to apply calm to more than one person at a time. At the hideout, he’s managed to get this to work a few times by applying calm to himself and Dellinger, but he hasn’t been able to reliably do it every time he tries. Rosinante wants to apply calm to himself so his bullets will also fly silently, but he’s terrified that he might accidentally cancel out calm on Gladius. And right now, Gladius is responsible for taking out the devil fruit user who’s after Doflamingo, so it’s more important to keep that calm active.

Rosinante stays near the gangway so he can pick off any pirates that attempt to get on board as the Family gets onto the ship. The next few seconds play out in slow motion as Rosinante watches them happen. Gladius hits the devil fruit user pursuing Doflamingo. The hit is devastating and destroys the pirate’s kneecap, incapacitating him. As soon as Doflamingo realizes what has happened, he laughs and turns around to run to the ship, and a moment later his smile is gone and red blooms on his side.

This time Rosinante can’t stop himself from screaming for his brother. He can feel in his throat how loud his voice is, but it sounds distant and muffled, like he’s underwater. The muffled sound of his voice is soon drowned out by the thunderous beating of his heart as his gaze locks in on the blood spreading on Doflamingo’s shirt and panic fills his thoughts and he wonders if he’s going to have to watch his brother die in front of him, so close but out of his reach. He watches Doflamingo fall to his knees and the pounding sound of his heart in his ears gets faster and louder and seems to manifest below his feet and the ground is shaking and he can’t hear himself screaming but he can hear his ears ringing and then everything is silent.

Rosinante wakes up later with his head absolutely pounding. He looks around and sees that he’s in his room on the Numancia Flamingo. When he sits up he regrets the motion because it makes his head hurt even more somehow, but he sees that the blanket spread over him is not a blanket, it’s Doflamingo’s coat. Rosinante pulls the coat against his heart and buries his face inside it, trying to remember what happened. He remembers screaming. He was the one screaming. Everything was rumbling. Was there an earthquake?

He remembers the blood on Doflamingo’s shirt.

Before he can panic and try to get out of his bed to look for Doflamingo, the door to his bedroom opens, and his brother enters, carrying a small tray with some food and water.

“Doffy-nii,” Rosinante calls to him and he’s surprised by how rusted his voice sounds. His voice seems to startle Doflamingo too. Before Rosinante knows what’s happening, Doflamingo is sitting on the side of his bed with his arms around him.

He feels his heart beating against Doflamingo’s chest, and he feels Doflamingo’s heart beating against his own chest. He feels Doflamingo’s warmth against him and the desperate grip of his arms. Rosinante settles into the embrace, wanting simply to enjoy it, but it’s been so long since the last time they held each other that tears come to his eyes against his will.

“Rosi,” Doflamingo murmurs into his ear, and his voice sounds as if he’s struggling too.

“What happened?” Rosinante asks softly. His head hurts so bad.

“Are you in any pain?” Doflamingo keeps his voice low, remembering how badly his ears were ringing after Rosinante’s… Outburst.

“Um, my throat hurts. My head hurts. My head hurts a lot.”

The room is dimly lit, which Rosinante is grateful for. He suspects that his headache wouldn't appreciate brighter lighting. He hears Doflamingo opening a folded paper envelope and sees him pouring the contents into the glass he brought, then he uses his strings to stir the mixture.

“Here, it's a painkiller. Probably won't taste great.” He warns. The sight of the water reminds Rosinante that he's absolutely parched. He eagerly drains the glass, ignoring the bitter medicinal taste.

“What happened?” Rosinante asks again, “Did you get injured? Are you okay?”

“I'm fine,” Doflamingo's voice is so strangely soft, and Rosinante doesn't recognize the expression on his face. Doflamingo lifts his shirt, showing Rosinante the bandage against his skin. “That devil fruit user. Gladius took out his knee, and stupid me, I turned my back on him and he shot me.”

“Shot you…” Rosinante’s voice goes soft as his limited memories return. The echoing screaming. The earthquake.

“What happened??” He tries a third time, more urgently than before, “Doffy-nii, please-”

“I will tell you, Rosi, but first I need you to eat.” Doflamingo is still holding the tray with food on it. He holds it out to Rosinante, who wants to argue and insist once more on hearing what happened, but now that his body knows there's food on offer, he is ravenous with hunger. The plate is filled with chicken wrapped in lettuce, along with other vegetables left over from their stocks also wrapped up in lettuce. Rosinante eats one after another, each one tasting better than anything he could remember eating before.

Once Rosinante has finished eating, Doflamingo sets the plate aside and reaches for Rosinante’s hand, squeezing it gently as he leans in close, pressing their foreheads together. Rosinante is quiet, overwhelmed to suddenly receive all the physical intimacy he’s been missing for months.

“You were unconscious for two days,” Doflamingo suddenly sounds completely exhausted, like he’s been trying to hold himself together for the entire two days but now that Rosinante is awake and Doflamingo knows he’s okay, the exhaustion is taking over.

“Two days??”

“Two days,” Doflamingo repeats, his hand cradling Rosinante’s cheek, his thumb brushing over Rosinante’s cheekbone. Doflamingo’s touch nearly distracts Rosinante from trying to get the rest of the story.

“The devil fruit user,” Doflamingo starts from a moment they both remember, even though he already shared this part, “Gladius shot out his knee, I turned my back, and the devil fruit user shot me. Right when I figured out what happened, I heard you screaming my name.”

He pauses for a moment, wondering whether to stick to just the facts or to elaborate and tell Rosinante how scared he was. He decides it’s only fair to explain the fear he felt in that moment, not from the gunshot wound, but from watching Rosinante screaming and not knowing what was happening.

“Your voice was so… Primal and raw. I haven’t heard you scream like that since…” It’s still hard for Doflamingo to talk about the day they were lynched, even when it's just himself and Rosinante talking. Rosinante’s anguished screams had reminded Doflamingo so much of the screams that tore out of him that day when they were so little, and Doflamingo had felt similarly helpless, unable to catch his little brother before he fell.

“Go on,” Rosinante tells him. Doflamingo doesn’t need to tell him what he’s talking about. He knows. Doflamingo breathes deeply and continues.

“Then there was this… Horrible, piercing sound, it was so high pitched! I thought the girl-” “Is she okay??” Rosinante cut in, eyes wide as he’s reminded of the little girl he saw clinging to Doflamingo’s back.

“She’s fine, she’s sleeping.” Doflamingo smiles so softly at him, and some of his willpower seems to break down as he presses a kiss to Rosinante’s forehead. His lips linger and stay there, not wanting to pull away. But the story isn’t over, so he has to.

“I thought the girl was screaming at first, but she was covering her ears and crying. I stuffed our ears full of string to muffle the sound and I kept running toward the ship, but then the ground… It wasn’t shaking, but it was rumbling. It was unsteady.”

“I felt that too!” Rosinante cuts in, finding it extremely strange that the solid ground and the ocean were shaking at the same time. Doflamingo just smiles, and even in the dim light of the room, Rosinante can see a tear in his eye.

“And then,” He continues, his voice breaking, “I saw you fall.”

Doflamingo stops speaking then, needing a moment to compose himself. He leans forward, resting his head on Rosinante’s shoulder.

Rosinante is hesitant, but he lifts his arms and wraps them around Doflamingo’s shoulders, holding his brother tightly. He lifts a hand to Doflamingo’s short hair and plays with it, feels how unwashed it is and his thoughts immediately fly back to his brother telling him he’d been unconscious for two days. He wonders if Doflamingo has even stopped to sleep during these two days. His head is still pounding, but he wants so badly to prolong this intimacy, he wonders if Doflamingo would let him wash his hair for him.

“Rosi, come back to me,” Doflamingo’s voice cuts through Rosinante’s distracted thoughts, giving him a little smack on the cheek. Doflamingo grins, laughs softly as he wipes away the tears in his eyes. “I’m telling you about the most recent worst day in my life and you’re daydreaming?”

“Worst day in your life?” Rosinante doesn’t fully understand what Doflamingo even means.

“I think I’ve grown somewhat complacent since you returned to me, Rosinante,” Doflamingo sighs and rests their foreheads together again, “I fell so in love with you, and you became so indispensable to me. You gave me your love, your loyalty, and your strength. Even after you told me why you came back to me-” “I’m so sorry, Doffy-nii-” “Let me finish, beloved,”

The soft tone of Doflamingo’s voice and the nickname leaves Rosinante breathless. He couldn’t keep talking if he tried, his ears ringing with Doflamingo’s deep voice calling him beloved.

“Even after you told me why you came back to me, as furious as I was… I knew you loved me, Rosinante. I still trusted your love for me. So I knew, despite… Despite the way I treated you…” It pains Doflamingo to admit out loud what he did to his precious little brother in a fit of rage, but trying to lessen his crimes with euphemisms hurts even more. Rosinante has been living with the pain of the Family speaking out loud about the original intent behind his arrival, so the very least Doflamingo can do is confess to the appalling way he treated Rosinante.

“I knew that even though I choked you,” Doflamingo’s voice strains, remembering the bruises around Rosinante’s throat and his bloodshot eyes and the cracked sound of his voice, “I knew you wouldn’t leave. Because you loved me,” “I love you,” Rosinante whispers, wanting Doflamingo to know that his love is not something of the past. Doflamingo chokes on his words but continues.

“Because you were loyal,” “I am loyal. Your goals are my goals, Doffy-nii,” Rosinante’s eyes are misty as he swears his love and allegiance to Doflamingo.

“Rosinante,” Doflamingo feels incomparable joy and peace and brotherly irritation all at once and he laughs as tears fall down his face, “If you keep interrupting me with such sweet words, I'm never going to get my point across.”

“Then will you stay here with me until you've made your point?” Rosinante’s head hurts less now, the painkillers blissfully kicking in. He feels better now, more like himself, and he's missed Doflamingo so much that he wants to tease him and play around with him and flirt with him and bask in Doflamingo's love.

“I have no choice,” Doflamingo gives in and curls his fingers under Rosinante’s chin to pull him closer, “I have to stay here and keep trying to get my point across even while you keep interrupting me by being cute.”

Rosinante’s heart is pounding. He's so happy right now, doing nothing more than sitting next to Doflamingo while they smile at each other and flirt and try to get their fill of each other like addicts forced to go too long without a hit.

“I knew you wouldn't leave me, my heart, but I realized that you can be taken from me.” Doflamingo tells him, and Rosinante feels his breath catch.

“It was terrifying,” Doflamingo explains as he pulls Rosinante’s face a little closer, close enough to feel Rosinante’s breath on his lips, “It felt like too much. There was the battle, Señor Pink and Diamante were injured, I was trying to keep that little girl safe, then that bastard shot me, and you… When you started screaming, I didn't know what to do. I felt helpless, like when we were small. You were screaming and screaming, and it hurt to think, but I was trying to get Diamante toward the ship and keep that girl on my back, but all I could think about was you. And then… You blacked out. But from where I was, I didn't know what happened. I didn't know if… If you got shot, or something else. I thought I watched you die in front of me.”

Doflamingo’s voice breaks and he goes quiet, breathing deeply as he calms himself down, squeezing Rosinante’s hand tightly. Tears fall from his eye regardless, and Rosinante leans in and kisses them away. Doflamingo’s other hand lifts to rest on Rosinante’s face, his fingertips tracing the familiar lines of his brother’s face. Doflamingo touches Rosinante’s strong brow ridge, his high cheekbones, and when his thumb rests on his brother’s lip, Rosinante presses a kiss against it.

“Can’t even tell you how relieved I was when I found out you were just unconscious. But then you stayed unconscious. Every time I came in here with water and you were still unconscious, I got more scared that I’d never see you open your eyes again. And I’d have to live with knowing that the last time I touched you was when I… Choked you.” It’s easier for him to say it this time, but it still hurts.

“Whatever lingering feelings I had about you being a marine,” Doflamingo feels Rosinante wince, so he presses a kiss against his temple, speaking softly with his lips against Rosinante’s skin, “All of them disappeared when I saw you pass out and fall onto the deck.”

Doflamingo trails kisses down the side of Rosinante’s face, pulling his brother into his arms and holding him tightly against his chest.

“I am so sorry, my heart, for lashing out at you and choking you.” His lips linger over Rosinante’s, waiting for his response, but the moment he finishes his apology, Rosinante is already delivering his response.

“Forgiven, you’re forgiven!” He speaks in one quick breath, as if the words had been on the tip of his tongue from the moment he saw Doflamingo enter the room. Rosinante pushes his lips to Doflamingo's eagerly, leaning so heavily into the kiss that his body weight forces Doflamingo to lay back against the bed with Rosinante hovering over him. Doflamingo can feel the urgency in Rosinante’s kisses and the way he presses himself against Doflamingo, like he’s trying to fold them up together.

When they pull away, they’re both breathless. A smile breaks over Rosinante’s face, and even in the dim room, Doflamingo feels like he’s been bathed in the warmth of the sun after a long, cold, dark winter.

After spending two days awake attending to Rosinante, the girl, and his duties as the captain of the Donquixote Family, Doflamingo stops trying to fight exhaustion and gives in. He lays on the bed with Rosinante, the mattress crowded with both of their giant bodies pressed together. Rosinante wraps his arms around him and strokes his hair and makes rude personal comments about how dirty Doflamingo’s hair is.

“Can’t believe these manners,” Doflamingo mumbles with his face pressed into Rosinante’s chest. He can feel the muscle and strength in his little brother’s body, but there’s also enough fat in his chest to make him extremely comfortable. Doflamingo never wants to get up. “I am your onii-chan and I deserve some respect.”

Rosinante gives him a deep, full-body sigh and Doflamingo grins, excited that he’s managed to annoy Rosinante just a little bit. It's been so long since they were able to tease each other like this and he's missed it so much.

“You know damn well I didn't mean it like that,” “I do,” Doflamingo admits, but he's still grinning as he listens to the exhausted tone in Rosinante’s voice.

“Can I wash your hair for you? Later, after we've slept.” Rosinante asks, his fingers still lovingly petting Doflamingo's short hair. Doflamingo's hair is so short it's not like it takes a long time to wash it or even dry it. But now that Rosinante has presented the idea, he wants to be greedy and ask for more. He wants Rosinante to always be the one washing his hair for him. He wants to feel Rosinante’s strong fingers rubbing over his scalp and his neck. He wants Rosinante’s undivided attention.

“Only if you agree to wash my hair every time I need it.” Doflamingo's voice was muffled by Rosinante’s chest but he didn't want to pull his face away.

“I would agree to nothing less,” Rosinante holds Doflamingo’s head against his chest and kisses the top of his head. His heart hurts so much from how happy he is, and how right it feels to hold Doflamingo again and feel his heavy, warm weight pressed against his body.

They fall asleep together on Rosinante’s bed, both of them in desperate need of more sleep. A few hours later, Doflamingo is the first to wake up. He’s so used to Rosinante waking up before him that it takes Doflamingo a few minutes to realize his little brother is still asleep. Waking up before Rosinante is a rare treat.

Doflamingo gazes at his sleeping brother, admiring the slope of his nose, the angle of his jaw, the width of his mouth. Rosinante’s beautiful gold hair is longer than he remembers, longer than the last time he had the chance to hold him in bed and admire him. His hair hangs in front of his eyes, so Doflamingo reaches up and gently brushes it out of the way.

Doflamingo reaches up and gently brushes Rosinante’s hair out of his eyes, revealing his pale lashes and eyebrows. He remembers their neighbors in Mary Geoise, how those cruel children used to make fun of their blonde eyelashes and blonde eyebrows. Rosinante was so small at the time, Doflamingo wonders if he even remembers. It only happened a few times before Doflamingo beat it out of them, so more than likely, Rosinante has no recollection of the kids who used to tease them.

As Doflamingo admires his corazon’s beautiful resting face, his thoughts return to two days ago, to the moment he watched Rosinante open his mouth and scream in agony after watching the blood spread on Doflamingo’s shirt. At the time, Doflamingo’s main concern was getting his Family safely back onto the ship and protecting the girl. But now that he has a moment of peace, Doflamingo allows his thoughts to linger on what he recalls of the incident.

He recalls that before he’d blocked off his ears with string, Rosinante’s screams had seemed to warp in pitch, drifting from primal screams of grief to the piercing, shrill sounds that had prompted him to stuff his ears with string. And after that he felt the rumbling start. The incident was so strange and unexpected, the opposing pirate crew hadn’t tried to take advantage of everyone’s confusion to attack. They simply tried to escape whatever was happening, same as the Donquixote Family.

But the strangest thing of all, he now realized, was that the rumbling stopped the very second Rosinante blacked out.

Chapter Text

During the two days that Rosinante is unconscious, Doflamingo does not sleep at all. He keeps himself distracted with sailing the ship, taking inventory of damages to repair when they return to Spider Miles, keeping vigil over Rosinante, and chatting with the girl he brought on board.

She stays in Doflamingo’s bedroom, since he isn’t using it himself. She’d been amazed by how wonderfully soft the bed was, how warm and comfortable the blankets and pillows were, and how the linens smelled of the product Doflamingo used in his hair. She buried her face in the pillows when he was gone, breathing in the scent and smiling, waiting for him to come back.

During her first day on the ship, he seemed sad every time he came back to the bedroom. She asked him why, but he didn’t answer. He only asked if she was comfortable, if there was anything she needed. He asked her about herself, which confused her at first because no one had ever shown an interest in her before.

“What’s your name?” She didn’t think she had one.

“What did your mother call you?” Useless. She didn’t understand why he looked so pained when she gave him her answer.

“Where is your mother?” She didn’t know. Her mama abandoned her. Why did he look so sad when she answered? Was she answering wrong?

“No, no, you didn’t do anything at all wrong, okay? I look sad because your answers make me sad. But I’m not sad for me, I’m sad for you.”

Doflamingo lets her stay in his big comfortable bed, and he brings food to her. She eats what’s offered and when he asks if she wants more, she isn’t sure how to answer. She does want more, but she knows food is scarce. She knows that’s why she was abandoned.

More pain on his face when she tells him this.

Doflamingo remembers the pain of hunger. He remembers the humiliation of begging, the helpless sorrow of being ignored, the joy of finding some stranger’s unfinished leftovers in the trash, the shame of having to watch Rosi go hungry. He hears her stomach growl and he refills her plate without another word. After every bite she stops and insists she’s done, so Doflamingo falls back on one of the tricks he used to play on Rosinante to make sure he ate enough.

“We’ll share, okay? That way you can make sure I’m also eating enough.” The relief on her face is the same as the expression Rosi used to wear when they were small and Doflamingo made the same offer while giving Rosinante more food. Doflamingo fills his spoon with food and watches her as she fills her own spoon with food.

“Oops, hold on, I don’t think we have the same amount of food. Look, do you see how your spoon is so much smaller than mine?” He’d scoured the kitchen trying to find a spoon small enough for her tiny hands. His own spoon would look like a shovel if she held it.

She looks at her little spoon and nods.

“It doesn’t hold as much food as mine, right?” He let her look at his much bigger spoon, “I think if you take two bites of food while I take one bite of food, then it’ll be equal. Does that sound right?”

“Umm… Yes!” She examines her small spoon then smiles at him, pleased that they’ve figured this out and the food will be distributed evenly.

They work together to clear the plate of food, and once they’re done, Doflamingo is satisfied that the poor girl has a full belly.

He walks her to the bathroom and stands guard outside the door until she knocks to let him know she’s done. The calf of his leg is longer than she is tall, and she can’t keep up with his pace, so he lifts her and lets her sit on his forearm, holding her close to his chest so she can see what he sees.

They’re in the middle of the ocean, surrounded by sunlit water on all sides. The sky is full of fluffy clouds, and around the ship she sees people she recognizes from the island where Doflamingo saved her.

“Hey! Is this the little lady who held onto you like a monkey?” A man even taller than Doflamingo leans in close and makes her squeal in surprise and tuck her face into Doflamingo’s chest.

“Whoops, my bad!” She hears him apologize and hears the scuff of his shoes as he backs away.

“This is the same little monkey, yes,” Doflamingo smiles at her and she feels warm and happy, like she always wants to see him smiling at her. Mama never smiled at her.

“What’s your name, little monkey?” The man asks. She’s about to open her mouth and tell him that her mother called her Useless, but Doflamingo gently sets a finger over her mouth.

“She doesn’t have one.” “But I told you, mama called me-” “The word your mother called you is not a name.”

The tall man looks pained, just like Doflamingo did when they talked about her name.

“It's not? Then what is it?” “It’s simply not a word that is an appropriate name for such a sweet girl.” Doflamingo tells her with a smile. She giggles, satisfied with that answer.

“But then what is my name?”

The tall man looks at Doflamingo, as curious as she is to hear the answer.

“You don’t have one yet, but that’s okay. When my…” Doflamingo flounders, unsure about how to refer to Rosinante to someone outside the family. And their relationship is very tense right now, even though Doflamingo plans to apologize to Rosinante the moment he’s awake. But he doesn’t know if Rosinante would feel comfortable with Doflamingo calling them partners, or some other term. Although once the term ‘partners’ surfaces in his thoughts, he hates it. It doesn’t sound right, it doesn’t describe them at all. He needs to table this and try again later.

“When my brother wakes up-” “Ouch.” Diamante gives a little snort. “Just brothers, huh?”

Doflamingo stares at him, and thankfully he gets the hint that he needs to shut up or Doflamingo will string him up by his ankles and dangle him in the water. Then his expression goes soft again when he looks at the girl.

“When he wakes up, we'll pick out a name for you, okay?”

She's excited to find out what her name is.

Doflamingo carries her around the ship and lets her meet more of the crew, but they stay away from the topic of names. Doflamingo promises to give her a proper introduction to everyone later, once she has a name.

He brings her back to the bedroom when she starts yawning, and sets her back down on the bed to let her rest. She watches him close the door behind him and buries her face into the pillow, smelling the product he uses in his hair.

Doflamingo goes to the bedroom next to his and sees that Rosinante is still unconscious. Every time he comes to visit and he finds his brother still unconscious, Doflamingo feels his entire body grow heavier with exhaustion.

He sits in the chair he dragged beside Rosinante’s bed and watches his little brother sleep. The past few months have been truly terrible. He doesn’t know how to act around Rosinante. He doesn’t know how to forgive someone else. He doesn’t know… If Rosinante even did anything that needs to be forgiven. He doesn’t know how to beg someone else for their forgiveness.

Before Rosinante came back to him, Doflamingo used to spend Rosinante’s birthdays getting drunk and trying to forget that his little brother was somewhere else. He used to think that nothing hurt more than knowing his little brother was somewhere out in one of the Blues and not with him. But it hurts so much more to see Rosinante every day, within his reach, but unable to touch because of his own behavior. He misses Rosinante.

Doflamingo thinks about what he told the girl, how he and Rosinante would pick a name for her. The thought bubbles up inside him and fills his heart with warmth and excitement. Naming a child with Rosinante. The two of them, side by side, with the child they named together.

He scoffs at himself, at his sappy behavior. Rosinante hasn’t even met the child yet.

What might she want to call them? His executives called him Doffy, a privilege earned through their loyalty and long years of service to him. The rest of the crew called him Waka-sama. Rosinante calls him Doffy-nii, his own special nickname to use because no one else is Doflamingo’s precious little brother.

But he wants the girl to call him something different. Him and Rosinante. He hopes she’ll pick different names for them, something outside the rigid hierarchy the rest of the crew has to use in reference to them.

He tells himself to stop thinking any further along these lines. He knows where these thoughts are going. They’re too indulgent, too exciting, and he’s the only one even considering this. He doesn’t want to get his hopes up.

But the thoughts come anyway, invasive and insistent.

Papa. Papaíto. Apa. A handful of the traditional nicknames from Mary Geoise that a child might use for a father. Would she want to use any of those? Would she pick something else?

What would they call her?

Their little dragon.

Doflamingo is filled with so much longing that he can’t breathe for a moment. A tear falls from his mangled eye and he wipes it away. He knows that for now, these are just his own private fantasies. The girl doesn’t even have a name yet. They can’t pick out a name for her together as long as Rosinante is still unconscious.

“Please wake up, beloved.” He whispers this wish to Rosinante each time he leaves the room, hoping that the next time he comes to visit, Rosinante will be awake and waiting for him with a smile.

The following day, Rosinante is still asleep. The girl clearly notices that Doflamingo is distracted and asks him what's wrong.

“My brother…” It doesn't sit right on his tongue. Diamante was right to call him out. The girl is watching him, waiting patiently for him to finish the sentence he awkwardly cut off. Doflamingo mentally cycles through a series of options before one finally feels right.

“My other half,” He starts again, and the term feels so perfect that he can't stop a smile from coming to his face, even though the next half of his sentence is upsetting, “You saw him the day I found you. He was on the boat, the one who was… Screaming.”

“He hurt my ears!” She pouts, dramatically covering both of her ears with both hands.

“Mine too,” Doflamingo smiles at her adorable behavior. “But he's been unconscious ever since. I'm worried about him.”

“Un-conk-shus?”

“He's asleep. He won't wake up.” Doflamingo feels something painful lodge itself somewhere between his throat and his heart, the phrasing too painful to repeat. He needs a moment to calm down after that so he can continue talking.

“That's where I go when I leave this room. I go to his bedroom next door to visit him, hoping he'll be awake.”

“Can we go visit him?”

“You want to? He's asleep, he won't be very talkative.” In spite of the seriousness, the dumb comment makes him smile, and his smile makes her smile.

“I want to!” She likes Doflamingo, so she wants to know the people he likes. He looks pleased by her request.

“Alright, let's go see him.” He picks her up out of the bed and carries her next door, where Rosinante is still sleeping. She notes the pain on Doflamingo's face when he sees his sleeping brother.

“Why is he un… Un-conk…” She frowns, mad that she can't remember the word Doflamingo pronounced for her.

“Unconscious,” Doflamingo repeats for her. He sits in the chair beside the bed and lets her sit in his lap, since there are no other chairs in the room. “He ate a devil fruit, you know what those are?”

“Oh, yeah! I know what those are! I ate one!”

“You did? Do you know which one?”

“The Arms Arms Fruit!”

Doflamingo wasn't sure what that meant. Could she grow extra arms? What a weird fruit.

“I see. And what can you do with your fruit?” He asked her cautiously.

“I can turn my hands into knives! Or guns!” She immediately turned her left hand into a knife and her right hand into a gun, eager to show Doflamingo.

She could turn her body parts into weapons?

“Amazing! Can you turn your hands back into hands?” Doflamingo had said many strange sentences during his life, but that one was pretty weird. The girl was quick to comply.

“Where did you find that devil fruit?”

“Those pirates had it. I was hungry and I went in their building to look for food and I found a fruit! It didn't taste good. After that I heard them yelling about a devil fruit and I was going to hide until they stopped yelling.”

So she'd taken it from that pirate crew. They had already been a pain in the ass, but they would've been an even bigger pain in the ass if one of their crew had eaten it instead of this little girl who had wound up on Doflamingo's ship.

“My crew can train you to use those weapons, so don't take them out unless we're training you, okay?”

She nods enthusiastically, and Doflamingo looks back to Rosinante, hopeful that their talking had woken him up, but he remained asleep.

“Rosinante… He ate a devil fruit. It lets him cancel out sounds.”

The girl looks confused. Doflamingo is too.

“But he screamed. It was really loud.”

“It was,” Doflamingo agrees, “He's not supposed to be able to do that. I think what happened is he got really upset and lost control of his devil fruit powers.”

“Why was he upset?”

“We've… Been fighting for a few months.” “Why??” She was genuinely distressed to hear this. She saw how sad he was whenever he came into the bedroom after visiting Rosinante and finding him still unconscious, and she saw how love and joy bloomed on his face when he called Rosinante his other half.

“Why? Because…” How did he explain this simply enough for a small child to understand? “How much do you know about pirates and marines?”

“Umm. I know that marines hate pirates and pirates hate marines!”

“So this will be easy enough for you to understand. You know that I'm a pirate?”

“Yes!”

“Okay. So, me and Rosinante were separated when we were little. A marine found Rosinante and raised him, while I became a pirate. The marines planned to have Rosinante join my pirate crew and then arrest me. So Rosinante did join my pirate crew, but then he told me about the plan, and I got really mad at him and I… I hurt him.” He hated saying it even in simple terms to a child. This child in particular seemed to have already developed a rigid and very well defined sense of right and wrong, and he knew where his actions would fall according to her judgment. He knew where they fell according to his own judgment too.

“You did?” She looked distraught, and looked Rosinante over, seeing no visible wounds. “How did you hurt him?”

There was simply no way he was going to tell a girl her age what he did to Rosinante.

“I can’t tell you. But it was bad. He had bruises for weeks afterward and I felt sick when I saw them.”

“Did you tell him you’re sorry?”

“Not yet. But I’m going to as soon as he wakes up.”

“Good!” She smiles at him, pleased that Doflamingo understands what he did wrong and he’s going to apologize. Her little smile fades as she tries to process something that’s confusing her.

“If you have a question, you can ask me.” Doflamingo assures her.

“What did Rosinante do wrong?” She looks at him with her big blue eyes full of confusion, then looks at Rosinante. Doflamingo follows her glance and feels more of his waning energy leave him as he watches Rosinante and hopes that he’ll start moving while Doflamingo is looking at him.

“You said a marine found him and raised him, and there was a plan for him to become a pirate with you and arrest you, and he became a pirate, then he told you about the plan. What did he do wrong?”

Doflamingo has beaten himself up over this many, many times in the past weeks and months. At the time, he was furious over the perceived betrayal. But later when he calmed down and had to face the grim reality of what he’d done to his other half, he had to admit to himself that Rosinante had done nothing wrong.

“Nothing.” Doflamingo admits out loud, feeling a tear well up and fall down his face. “At the time, I was mad because I thought he joined my pirate crew because he wanted to be with me. And then he told me about the plan. So I felt like he actually joined my pirate crew to arrest me and then decided not to. It felt hard to trust him.”

“But he told you!” She yells suddenly, glaring at Doflamingo with all of her tiny might, “It doesn’t matter why he joined in the first place!! He told you about the plan, so he decided he wanted to be with you!!”

Doflamingo is stunned by how easily she explains away any of his lingering concerns.

It doesn’t matter why he returned. He decided to stay.

“You’re so smart. Do you want to be the captain?”

“Yes!”

“Well, I’m the captain, so you can’t actually be the captain, but we can go steer the ship, how about that?” He stands from his seat, lifting her into his arms again as she giggles, eager to steer the ship.

Before they walk out, Doflamingo turns to look at Rosinante one more time, hoping his eyes will open, but he continued to sleep.

“Please wake up, beloved.”

The next time Doflamingo visits, Rosinante is awake. Doflamingo is eager to apologize and overjoyed that Rosinante forgives so quickly. Doflamingo wonders if he was the only one prolonging their pain.

Doflamingo has been awake for too long, and with the comfort of knowing that he’s forgiven, he falls asleep with Rosinante at his side.

When Rosinante wakes up again later, Doflamingo is still in bed with him.

“How are you feeling?”

“Much better than the last time I woke up.” Rosinante sighs. The headache is gone and he feels like a brand new man.

“I wanted to talk to you about something,” Doflamingo starts, and Rosinante turns toward him, curious, “It’s about the girl.”

Rosinante moves to lay on his side to face Doflamingo, neither of them overly eager to leave the bed. Doflamingo plays with a stray thread in one of the blankets thrown over them, and Rosinante knits his fingers between Doflamingo’s, holding his hand.

Doflamingo tells him about the girl. How she was abandoned by her mother because their tribe was starving. He sees the moment Rosinante remembers what hunger was like, and the pain he feels knowing the girl went through that. And then he tells Rosinante the worst part.

“I asked her what her name was, and at first she told me she didn’t have one. I pushed her a little further and she told me her mother called her Useless.”

“She what??” Rosinante sits up immediately, suddenly full of energy and anger. He’s eager to find this woman and make her suffer, but he’s on a boat in the middle of the ocean and they have no idea how far the girl traveled on her own or where her mother might be now. Now he’s full of energy and anger without a target and he groans unhappily.

Doflamingo sits up next to him and reaches for Rosinante’s hand, the gesture redirecting his little brother’s attention immediately.

“We need to pick out a name for her.”

“You didn't name her?”

“I wanted us to pick out a name for her together.” Doflamingo's voice is soft, hoping Rosinante will understand his thoughts and feelings behind making the girl wait for her name. It would have been easy to just give her a name and tell Rosinante what it was when he woke up. It's different if they pick out the name together. His hand is still extended toward Rosinante.

It takes Rosinante a moment to notice the mix of apprehension and hesitation on Doflamingo’s face, along with the nervous clench of his jaw.

There were a few times Rosinante could remember Doflamingo expressing a desire for children. The first time he had mentioned such a thing, Rosinante’s heart had still been wavering between the navy and Doflamingo. The thought of bringing children into a pirate crew had horrified him at the time, but also, the thought of a child… His and Doflamingo's child… Their little dragon… The mental images had plagued him for days, imagining the two of them embracing their little dragon.

The second time, Doflamingo was talking in his sleep, telling a dream Rosinante how he wished they could have their own little dragon. Rosinante had been awake in bed next to him and listening to his sleep talk with his heart aching, the guilt of his mission starting to weigh on him while Doflamingo dreamed of a family with Rosinante.

It wasn’t that Rosinante didn’t want children. But between the danger of the life he’d been leading at the time and the whirlwind of a relationship between him and his brother and the overpowering feeling of impossible that had been hanging over them, he didn’t think it was something that could or should happen.

But that was then. And now, so many of the roadblocks that stopped Rosinante from sharing this particular dream with Doflamingo were gone now. He’d admitted to his mission. He’d decided to stay loyal to his brother. Their relationship had survived their devastating fight. They were closer now than they were before, and Rosinante no longer feels like this is impossible.

And when they take Dressrosa back, they’ll be able to protect their children better. They can provide a stable home.

Rosinante sets his hand in Doflamingo’s and squeezes it tightly, feeling Doflamingo's nervous energy settle.

“What names did you have in mind?”

Doflamingo lit up, relief settling on his face.

“I wanted to name her Dulcinea,” “After our mother?” It's such a sweet, sentimental gesture to name a child after their mother. Rosinante feels an ache in his heart as he thinks of their mother, so kind and understanding, and her pitiful end. Then he thinks of the girl’s pitiful start to life, and how gifting her a Celestial Dragon’s name feels like a rebirth for their mother and a promise to the girl to protect her and keep her safe and happy.

The girl is sitting on Doflamingo’s bed when the door opens, scrap paper and a pen in her lap serving as temporary entertainment until they return to Spider Miles. Doflamingo hadn’t been planning on picking up a random child during the mission, so the ship wasn’t well equipped to keep a young girl entertained during a long voyage back to their hideout. She watches both of them enter the room with wide, curious eyes until she recognizes Rosinante and smiles brightly.

“You’re awake!” She then quickly turns to Doflamingo, pleased to see the soft and happy look on his face. These past two days, even when he was smiling, she could tell that he was sad beneath the smile. But now that Rosinante is awake, his smile is genuine.

Rosinante is confused at first, but he realizes that Doflamingo must have brought her along to visit while he was unconscious.

“I am, thank you,” Rosinante tells her, feeling a pang of distress as he realizes what an awkward response that was.

A second later, he feels panic rising within him as he realizes he’s never interacted with a child her age before and he has no idea how to talk to her. The only children he’s regularly interacted with were the baby-faced 15-year-old Marine recruits he was given to train up, but he was paid to yell at them. There were a few occasions where Garp would show up on base with his three grandsons, and even though the boys enjoyed climbing on Rosinante, his interactions with them didn’t teach him much about how to talk to children, considering how different they all were. The eldest was disarmingly polite and well-spoken, the middle child was sullen and withdrawn and didn’t talk to anyone but his brothers, and the youngest behaved like he’d been raised by a troop of monkeys. None of those experiences had prepared him for having to interact with an 8 year old girl.

It had been a while since the last time Doflamingo saw Rosinante freeze up like a terrified rabbit. The last time must have been when they were children, when Rosinante was no older than the girl sitting in front of them right now, watching Rosinante in confusion.

It was bewildering to think that Rosinante had gone into battle at Doflamingo’s side and aided the Donquixote Family many times with his ferocity. He had cut throats, pumped their enemies full of bullets, and done unspeakable things with his bare hands. But faced with an 8 year old girl, he locked up.

Doflamingo gently sets his hands on Rosinante’s sides and squeezes, trying to get his brother out of his own head.

“I think Rosinante may still be tired,” Doflamingo says to cover for him. He feels Rosinante jolt under his hands as he snaps out of whatever bog of anxiety he’d gotten trapped in.

“Yes!” Rosinante affirms, and continues to be mortified by himself.

“Deep breath, Rosi,” Doflamingo whispers in his ear. Rosinante immediately obeys and takes a few deep breaths to calm himself and tries again.

“Um, I think Doffy-nii told you we were going to pick out a name for you?” He tries to sit casually on the edge of the bed but sits too close to the edge and slips off, falling onto the floor.

Doflamingo is confounded as he watches his brother fumble and trip while trying to speak with the girl. He wants Rosinante to be the one to speak with her and tell her about her new name since Doflamingo has already been talking to her and bonding with her for two days, but at the rate he was going, Doflamingo wouldn't be surprised if Rosinante managed to throw himself overboard on accident before he ever told the girl her name.

The girl watches all of this wondering to herself if this really is the person Doflamingo was so sad about for the past few days. How can this clumsy weirdo be so special to Doflamingo?

Doflamingo sees the confused look on the girl's face and decides he needs to intervene.

“We'll be right back, alright?” He smiles at the girl, who brightens when Doflamingo speaks to her, and nods quickly.

Doflamingo hurries Rosinante outside the bedroom and sighs. Rosinante looks mortified, his gaze frozen on the ground as he relives the last few minutes over and over in an unending spiral of agony.

“Are you alright?” Doflamingo quietly asks him, squeezing his hand to ground him and help him out of his anxiety pit again.

“I am, I'm just so nervous.” Rosinante squeezes back, his eyes still fixed on the ground

“Why? She's an 8-year-old girl.” Who could turn her hands into guns, yes, but that wasn’t what they were talking about.

“Yes, but you want to give her our mom's name! Doffy-nii, I can tell how much she means to you just from that. And you've talked about…” He stops, wanting to pick his next words carefully. Doflamingo has mentioned children once or twice to Rosinante, once while he was asleep, but neither of them have actually spoken to each other about this yet. “You've talked about wanting kids before. And you wanted me to name her with you. I know you want her to be… Ours. Our little dragon.”

Doflamingo inhales once, sharply, then starts breathing in a slower and more controlled way. This is all the confirmation Rosinante needs to know that he’s right.

“I want her to like me, I want this to work, but I’m already messing it up. What the hell do I say??”

“Say hello, look at her drawing and ask her about it, it was a drawing of winged cats, I think. Ask her favorite colors so we know what clothes to get her when we return home, tell her what her new name is and then ask her if she likes her new name-” Doflamingo rattles off several topics so easily that Rosinante ends up even more nervous.

“I never would’ve even thought of any of those topics. How do you know how to talk to kids??”

“Because I've talked to them before?” Kids were magnetically drawn to Doflamingo and Diamante. Neither of them had a choice in the matter. No matter where the Donquixote Family went in the world, if there was a child on the same island, that child would find them, run up to them, and stare in fascination at how tall they were and how bright Doflamingo’s clothes were.

“Kids will tell you all about what they want to talk about, and if you try to change the subject, they will change it back to what they want to talk about. When you meet a child who doesn't readily provide that information, you can refer back to other conversations you've had with children and use that as your starting point.”

“I haven't really had experience with talking to kids…” Rosinante sighs and explains his limited interactions to Doflamingo.

“That's it?” Nothing but navy recruits and a captain's well-behaved grandchild, his emo grandchild, and his feral grandchild? This explained why he was so awkward when faced with a normal child. “Okay. When we go back in there, look at her drawing, tell her how good it is-” “It really is good,” “It’s adorable and I’m going to put it on our wall when we get home so I can see it every day. But tell her how good it is, ask her if she likes cats, just do small talk for a while so you’ll calm down. Then tell her we picked out a name for her, our mother’s name, Dulcinea. Ask her if she likes it, then ask her favorite colors and tell her that when we return home, we’ll get her some new clothes.”

Rosinante looks even more stressed now.

“That’s so much to remember…” “Compliment drawing. Ask if she likes cats. Tell her her new name, it’s our mother’s name.”

Rosinante feels better about the simplified list. He takes a deep breath to calm himself, then he feels Doflamingo slide a hand onto his cheek. Rosinante automatically leans into Doflamingo’s touch, starved for it after the past few tense months.

Doflamingo's breath catches in his throat as Rosinante rubs his face against Doflamingo's hand, his eyes closed as if the touch of his brother’s skin soothes and calms him to the point of sleep. He only meant to give Rosinante a little more reassurance before they went back into the bedroom, but he has also missed Rosinante’s touch during the last few months, and he wants to indulge when it's offered. He can't resist the urge to sweep his other arm around Rosinante and pull him close to steal a kiss.

Rosinante gasps in surprise and laughs against Doflamingo's lips before returning the kiss.

“You looked so damn cute when you leaned your head into my palm,” Doflamingo speaks softly to him, forgetting everything and everyone outside of the two of them for a moment, “I had to kiss you. You gave me no choice. You forced my hand.”

“Oh, did I? Is that all it takes to break you down, Captain? A little head tilt?” Rosinante does it again, breaking away from the kiss to tilt his head as he looks at Doflamingo.

“When it's you? Yes, that's all it takes.”

The easy way Doflamingo is flirting with him leaves Rosinante feeling like his entire chest is full of butterflies. They flirted with each other before Rosinante’s confession, but it was never so direct and never left him feeling like he was floating on a cloud made of bubbles.

Rosinante is still nervous when they go back inside, but he remembers the short list of topics Doflamingo gave him to talk about with the girl. He only trips a little bit on the way in, but the bed catches him before he hits the floor. He sits beside the girl, who looks at him, wary.

“Um. Sorry about before, I know I sounded weird. I’m not used to… Talking to kids. Can we start over?” His heart is pounding. Why does this little girl make him so nervous??

“Okay.” She says simply.

“Good! Thanks! Uh. I-I like your drawing. Are those cats? With wings?” It’s such a cute drawing he can’t stand it.

“Yeah!” Her eyes light up, pleased that he recognizes what she drew.

“You like cats?” “Yeah! I want a pet kitty someday.” She sighed dreamily, before her tone turned very serious, “A kitty with wings.”

“A cat with wings? I’ve never seen one before, but there’s still a few oceans we haven’t traveled yet. Anything’s possible. Hey, you wanna know how you can get Doffy-nii to get you a winged cat when we find one?” Rosinante feels more confident now that the girl no longer looks like she's annoyed by his existence. Now she looks intrigued, eager to learn how to manipulate Doflamingo to get what she wants.

“How?” She asks, sitting up on her knees on the bed and looking at Rosinante, wanting his guidance. Doflamingo is also interested to hear what Rosinante is planning to teach her.

“I’m gonna show you, okay? Then you can try it out on Doffy-nii.”

The girl watches him, her little face studying him very seriously. Rosinante replicates the little head tilt he did in the hallway, when he rested his face in Doflamingo’s palm. Doflamingo draws in a sudden, sharp breath when he sees what Rosinante is doing, and the girl looks back at Doflamingo and sees the slightly startled, slightly betrayed look he’s giving his brother. The girl giggles and looks back to Rosinante excitedly, pleased to learn this important secret.

“It worked!” She reports to him.

“See? I told you. Okay, your turn. Tilt your head and say, ‘Please, Doffy, I want a kitty with wings!’”

She turns to face Doflamingo, who tries to brace himself against this betrayal, but nothing could have prepared him for how overwhelmingly adorable the girl is when she looks at him with her big eyes and tilts her head to the side like a puppy. He wants to resist but he's already lost before she even opens her mouth.

“Please, Doffy! I want a kitty with wings!”

There was no way he could fight against such a sweet request. He sighs, wondering how badly this would backfire on him now that Rosinante has given her such a powerful weapon.

“Alright. But you have to give me time to find it, alright? I need to ask around.”

Now he has to find a winged cat somewhere in the four blues.

Siding with the girl against Doflamingo by teaching her how to adorably ask for impossible things makes Rosinante feel like he’s scored some points with her. Now he feels ready to share her new name with her.

“Hey, so, you know how Doffy-nii said we were going to pick a name for you?” She turns those big eyes toward him again, eager to learn what her new name is, “We decided to name you after our mother, Dulcinea.”

She lets out a tiny gasp, her face absolutely alight with joy.

“Dulcinea…” She whispers, trying it out for herself before she giggles and flops over onto the bed, her little legs kicking happily, “I sound like a princess! Princess Dulcinea!”

“Indeed you do, princesa.” Doflamingo takes over smoothly, freeing Rosinante from the burden of talking to an 8 year old girl, “I need to explain something to you though, okay? Your new name, mi princesa Dulcinea, is your own private name, okay? It’s a name that me and Rosinante will use for you, but only in private. We’re pirates, so usually we go by code names. So when we’re with the rest of the crew, or if we’re on a mission, you’ll go by the code name Baby 5, understand?”

“Baby 5,” She tests the name like she did with her new name. It’s fine, but she doesn’t like it as much as her new name, “Then what do I call you? Do I call you Doffy-nii?”

“No, that’s what Rosinante calls me. You can call me Doffy, or Waka-sama, or…” He pauses for a moment, trying to decide whether or not to introduce her to the idea of calling him Papa and calling Rosinante Apá. She’s only known them, really she’s only known Doflamingo for two days. She’s known Rosinante for all of ten minutes, and the first few minutes were extremely awkward. But even if she chooses not to, he wants the idea to live in her head, he wants her to know that he wants to hear her call him and his brother her Papa and Apá. So if she ever wants to, she’ll feel more comfortable doing so.

“Or if you’d like, once you’re more comfortable, you could call me Papa. And for Rosinante, you can call him Corazon, or your Apá.”

“Papa… Apá…” These names also receive a test run, as if she’s tasting them or feeling the texture of them on her tongue. The sound of her little voice repeating the parental nicknames, even just to try them out, hits both of them much harder than they expected. Doflamingo feels like he’s been winded when she says Papa, her voice popping on the P sounds. Rosinante feels his heart squeeze like he’s looking at a kitten licking a bunny as she tries out his nickname twice. First she tries it out with a higher voice on the first A, the same popping p from Papa, and a lower voice on the second a. Then she reverses it, her voice lower on the first A, with a popping o, and ending with a higher voice on the second a. She plays with the sounds she can make with these nicknames as though she's unsure which one she likes the sound of better.

Doflamingo needs to end this immediately, his heart can't handle the sound of her idly playing with the words Papa or Apá.

“For now, princesa, you can just call me Doffy or Waka-sama, and you can call Rosi Corazon.” He says hastily.

Now that Rosinante is awake, their sleeping arrangements are in question. The question lasts for all of five minutes before Doflamingo allows their little dragon to continue using his bed; he will sleep on the smaller bed with Rosinante in his bedroom.

Once the sun has gone down, everyone is tucked away in their beds. Machvise is manning the helm for the night, and he whiles away the hours singing sea shanties, his voice drifting through the walls of everyone’s rooms.

In Rosinante’s small bedroom, or perhaps it’s soon to be their little dragon’s own room on the ship, the brothers lay together, locked away from the world and wrapped up in each other’s arms. They still feel the joy and exhilaration of moving past their fight, but there are certain pressing issues they need to address.

“Why did you destroy our bed?” Rosinante asks. It had been so upsetting to listen to the sounds of Doflamingo ripping apart the bed frame by hand. It was only furniture, yes, but it was their bed.

At the time, Doflamingo had felt such an urgent need to dismantle and destroy any reminders of what he’d done to Rosinante that it overpowered anything else. Including any consideration regarding what Rosinante would think of what he was doing.

“I couldn’t stand sleeping in it or looking at it,” Doflamingo explains, his arms wrapped tightly around Rosinante, his fingers combing through his soft, wavy hair, “Whenever I looked at it, all I could think about was the last time we were in that bed together… When I almost killed you.”

Rosinante’s eyes fill with tears but he doesn’t try to hide them, and Doflamingo just holds him while he cries it out, wetting his brother’s chest with his tears.

“I thought you destroyed it because of me. Because of what I said. Because… I came here to betray you.”

Doflamingo’s thoughts return to the previous day, when he opened up his heart to their little dragon and she set him straight about Rosinante’s supposed crimes.

“Beloved,” Doflamingo kisses his forehead, then looks right at him, “Yesterday I was talking with Dulcinea while you were still unconscious, and she told me something that I already knew, but I needed to hear it, and you need to hear it too.”

Rosinante watches him, waiting to hear what he has to say. Doflamingo knows it will take a long time before he forgives himself for what he did to Rosinante, even if Rosinante was quick to forgive him. But he doesn’t want Rosinante to beat himself up over imagined crimes any longer.

“It doesn’t matter why you returned to me. You decided to tell me about the plan. You didn’t want it to happen. When you told me, you stopped it from happening. The fact that you told me about the plan is proof that you decided to be with me.” Doflamingo presses kisses to Rosinante’s forehead, his cheeks, the tip of his nose, and his chin as he speaks. He hears Rosinante start to cry. Soon he’s heaving deep, gasping, sobbing, wet breaths as tears flow down his face.

“So you forgive me?” Rosinante asks, desperation on his face.

“There’s nothing for me to forgive, beloved. You did nothing wrong.”

It takes a while before Rosinante stops crying. They both know it’s late, well into the middle of the night. Neither has spoken for at least an hour, content to enjoy the warmth of each other’s skin.

“That bed was nothing special, anyway. It was something I found in the scrap yard when we first moved into the hideout. It was functional, that’s all. I want to get something better for us. Something bigger, so I have room to escape when you start kicking in your sleep-” “I don’t do that!” Rosinante laughs, “If anything, I need a place to escape to when your prickly legs rub against mine.” “Oh? They’re prickly, are they?”

Doflamingo’s arms are already around Rosinante so he tightens his grip, trapping his brother against his chest as he moves his legs under the covers, rubbing the prickly hairs on his legs against Rosinante’s legs. Rosinante shrieks and laughs, shaking his head as Doflamingo viciously attacks him. When he stops, he enjoys the sound of Rosinante’s laughter, the sight of a smile on his face. He missed Rosinante more than he could say.

“There’s an artisan in town, in Spider Miles, she makes custom furniture. We should visit her when we return home.”

Rosinante is excited. He’s excited to go home with Doflamingo, he’s excited to pick out a new bed with him, their bed, and he’s excited to get to know their little dragon better.

Chapter Text

He should feel relieved.

He should feel nothing but joy.

Instead, Rosinante is anxious.

He's finally made up with Doflamingo and they've put Rosinante’s confession and Doflamingo's attempt to strangle him behind them. As wonderful as it is to be able to bask in Doflamingo's attention once again and to hear him call Rosinante any number of nicknames - beloved, my other half - Rosinante remains anxious.

It has been a long time since he first set out on his mission to overthrow Doflamingo. And it has been a very long time since he last checked in with Sengoku.

Shortly after they made up with each other, Rosinante’s mini den den started ringing. And ringing. And ringing. Rosinante showed it to Doflamingo and admitted it was the den den Sengoku gave him for his mission, to call back and report on Doflamingo’s activity. Doflamingo had initially eyed the den den suspiciously, wondering if Rosinante was up to something. But when he thought back on the past few months - how miserable they both were, how much Doflamingo hated himself for laying his hands on Rosinante’s neck and squeezing, how Baby 5 had glared at him and told him Rosinante did nothing wrong - he dismissed those thoughts. Rosinante was giving him the den den and told him exactly where it came from and who had been calling. There were no more secrets between them. Rosinante had chosen Doflamingo, and he trusted Rosinante with his crew, with his life, with his heart.

When the Numancia Flamingo returned to Spider Miles, Doflamingo carried the mini den den to his office and used his strings to carefully remove the accessories that turned the snail into a receiver. The snail wound up in a terrarium in Doflamingo's office, no longer able to receive calls, but the absence of calls was not enough to calm Rosinante’s anxiety.

Sengoku was trying to contact him.

“You’re going to scare the snail,” Doflamingo calls out to Rosinante, who startles, turning to look over at Doflamingo with a confused look on his face. “You were staring at the snail like you were mad at it.”

“Just… Thinking.” Rosinante sighs and leaves the snail alone to explore the terrarium. “The next time he tries to call, he’s going to hear that this den den is no longer in operation. He’s going to try a different way to contact me.”

Rosinante walks in front of Doflamingo’s desk, then stops, turns, and walks back the way he came, pacing as Doflamingo watches him anxiously walk back and forth.

“And if I don’t respond, he’s going to get worried.”

Doflamingo frowns, wondering what might happen if the Fleet Admiral got worried that something might have happened to his adopted son. They’d be waking up to marine ships outside the hideout.

“If he gets worried… He might dispatch a crew of marines to check on me.” Rosinante feels nauseous as he lays out his concerns and curses himself for not considering this. He’d avoided contacting Sengoku because he didn’t want to let him know what Doflamingo’s plans were. He didn’t want to see the hideout or the Numancia Flamingo surrounded by Navy ships ready to take Doflamingo to Impel Down! But by avoiding any contact with Sengoku, he may have accidentally brought about the exact thing he was trying to avoid.

“But if I respond…” Rosinante continued, clearly agonized as he met Doflamingo’s gaze, “If I tell him that I chose you…?”

Doflamingo immediately crossed the room to stand in front of Rosinante, his arms sliding around Rosinante’s waist.

“If I tell him I chose you, he'll probably dispatch marines anyway. No matter what I do, he might send marines.” Rosinante feels sick knowing that his original goal had been to surround Doflamingo with marines, and now that he desperately wanted to avoid that, it was likely to happen anyway. So far, he has been able to rely on his marine training to help support the Family during fights and territory disputes with other pirates or thugs, but if he has to go against an entire fleet of marines with the same training as him, he knows he will fail.

“No matter what happens, beloved, we’ll take care of it. Together.” Doflamingo tells him in a soft, calm voice, his hand pressed firmly at the small of Rosinante’s back as he pulls his brother closer.

Rosinante is still fearful, his mind’s eye subjecting him to thoughts of marines taking aim at Baby 5, at Giolla, at Gladius, and taking his new family away from him. He knows his fear comes from his own weakness. He feels undeserving to stand at Doflamingo’s side and to hear Doflamingo so sweetly call him beloved.

Rosinante has so far kept his gaze downward, too consumed by his thoughts and too insecure to meet his brother’s gaze. Doflamingo presses his hand to the side of Rosinante’s face, thumb under his chin as he angles Rosinante’s face up, wanting his brother to look him in the face. Rosinante complies, allowing Doflamingo to handle him and demand his full attention.

As their gazes meet, Doflamingo’s hand softens on Rosinante’s face until his cheek is cradled in Doflamingo’s palm. He studies Rosinante, observing the angle of his eyebrows, the tightness in his jaw, the upturned corner of his mouth. He watches the fear and anxiety melt away from Rosinante’s expression, leaving only the hope, the longing, the trust.

Rosinante can see himself reflected in Doflamingo’s glasses, and more than anything else right now, he wants to see Doflamingo looking right at him. He reaches up slowly, hesitantly, then slides Doflamingo’s glasses off his face and sets them aside on the desk. It’s been months since the last time Rosinante saw Doflamingo without his glasses, and the vibrant red of his eye seems even brighter and more intense than he remembers.

“Rosinante,” Doflamingo’s deep voice almost startles him during the quiet moment, “No matter what happens, we will take care of it together. Won’t we, beloved?”

Rosinante feels his chest tighten with emotion as Doflamingo repeats himself, wanting Rosinante to acknowledge his words, and he immediately nods. Right now, Rosinante feels scared and unsure of himself, but Doflamingo is offering his strength for him to lean on, and he accepts it eagerly. If the marines come for them, they’ll fight together to protect their family.

Doflamingo smiles, still holding Rosinante’s face, still admiring him. Rosinante is so beautiful, with his burnt honey eyes lined with blonde eyelashes, his wavy hair falling into his eyes that gazed so lovingly at Doflamingo, his smile almost too wide for his face, as if the artist who sculpted him wanted to include one small flaw to remind the audience that Rosinante was not actually an angel, but a being of flesh and blood just the same as they were.

And yet his too-wide smiles always made Doflamingo feel as if he was being bathed in the gentle warmth of the sun, and he remained convinced that Rosinante was an angel.

Doflamingo leans in close and presses their lips together in a soft kiss. The past few months have been hard, but knowing that Rosinante still feels that Doflamingo is worthy of his hope and his longing and his trust fills him with warmth and love and light.

Chapter Text

Rosinante has lived on Spider Miles for almost two years now since he first arrived with his ill-fated mission, but he hasn't often set foot in the downtown market area of the island. He's visited once or twice, but he had specific, concrete goals in mind at the time, and he left as soon as he'd completed his goal. Because his mission had been in the back of his mind, he never intended to stay on Spider Miles, so there had been no point in exploring or getting to know the locals.

Today, Doflamingo seems intent on lingering in the market, very slowly meandering toward this artisan Rosinante has heard so much about. As far as Rosinante is aware, their only goal for the day is to speak with the artisan and place their order, so Doflamingo is in no rush. His pace forces Rosinante to stop and pay attention to the stands in the market and see what's for sale and look at the other people who call Spider Miles their home. Doflamingo appears to know everyone, approaching each vendor with a charming smile and a knowledgeable question about their wares and business.

“How are you doing today? How are your sales?” Doflamingo chats with a woman standing behind a table full of hand thrown pottery and tableware, his hand easily and casually resting on Rosinante’s hip. Rosinante slides his hand over Doflamingo's and squeezes it, a pleased smile on his face as he looks at the mugs and bowls for sale, only half-listening to the chatter between Doflamingo and the woman.

“Oh, is this the brother we keep hearing about?” The woman asks with a big grin as she at last notices the similarity between Doflamingo and Rosinante.

“Is it?” Doflamingo asks, his posture straightening the slightest bit more as the woman finally notices. Rosinante turns red as the woman peppers him with questions, excited and eager to get to know more about this young man Doflamingo spoke about so fondly. He does his best to answer, but his thoughts are caught up on the knowledge that Doflamingo talks to the people of Spider Miles about him.

At some point, he hears Doflamingo saying goodbye for them, and then Doflamingo’s large hand circles around Rosinante’s hip and gently tugs him away to a different street.

“You… Talk to people about me?” Rosinante asks, his heart pounding uncomfortably fast. As they walk away from the pottery vendor, Rosinante hears music and sees a musician in the street, strumming a guitar and singing sweetly as citizens dance around him and toss coins into an overturned hat on the street in front of him.

“Of course I do?” Of all the reactions Doflamingo anticipated, this was not one of them. “You’ve lived here for nearly two years now, Rosinante. It’s strange enough that it’s taken this long for some of them to even meet you face to face.”

Doflamingo’s hand slithers from Rosinante’s hip and claims his palm, carrying his hand up to press a kiss to his scarred up knuckles.

“You have no idea how much I love to talk about my handsome little brother. I’m downright annoying about it,” His mouth stretches in a wide grin that grows even wider when Rosinante blushes.

“Whenever I come into the market, someone is going to hear about you,” Doflamingo continues as his other hand slides around the small of his brother’s back, “And whoever it is, I tell them all about my adorable and handsome little brother who is an incredible shot,”

Doflamingo pulls Rosinante against his body, eager to see how red he’s blushing, but he’s distressed when he realizes Rosinante is not looking at him. Instead, he’s looking at the residents of Spider Miles walking around them, mild panic on his face.

“Excuse you,” Doflamingo twists himself until he's face to face with Rosinante again, who still looks anxious even when looking right at Doflamingo, “Here I am, calling you handsome and practically begging for a kiss, and you're people watching?”

“What?” Rosinante is confused for a moment, then he returns to being anxious with a hint of confusion. “No! I'm not people watching. Doesn't everyone here know that we're brothers?” Rosinante is tense, clinging tighter to Doflamingo, wanting the safe comfort of his body nearby as he looks around with worry and concern. He searches the faces of people passing by, expecting to see disapproving stares thrown their way.

“Of course they do. I just told you; I tell people all about my handsome little brother all the time.”

Rosinante waits for insults to be thrown their way, he waits to see people glowering and pulling children away, but the disapproval never comes. The people of Spider Miles continue about their day as if nothing is out of the ordinary.

“What? Were you expecting them to disapprove?” Doflamingo asks, and the bashful look on Rosinante’s face before he hangs his head is enough of an answer for him. Doflamingo slips his hand under Rosinante’s chin and makes him look up at him. He hates seeing such fear and discomfort in Rosinante’s eyes, although he understands the hesitation to be so open with something considered so taboo among humans, even if the practice is considered natural and normal among the Celestial Dragonkind.

“I do so much for the people on this island,” Doflamingo explains in a gentle voice as his hand returns to Rosinante’s hip, his body beginning to sway to the musician's guitar music. At his insistence, Rosinante joins in, following Doflamingo's movements carefully so he won't step on his toes.

“They would never dare disrespect me by disapproving of my love for my precious other half. Well, not out loud at least. Not in front of me,” Doflamingo laughed as he danced around Rosinante’s clumsy steps, his strings helping to guide Rosinante’s balance one way or the other to keep him upright.

Rosinante feels the strings guiding and assisting him, and he decides to put his trust in Doflamingo, to allow him to guide his steps and keep both of them dancing to the music that fills the warm summer air. Doflamingo's smile grows, feeling Rosinante giving in and handing control over to him, trusting him to guide them both.

“I bring trade to Spider Miles,” Doflamingo continues as if there is not also an unspoken conversation going on between them, “I provide materials that are not native to these waters, I provide food when crop yields are low, I provide safety.”

Rosinante understands the unspoken message as Doflamingo explains everything he does for the people of Spider Miles: When Doflamingo brought trade, he received a percent of taxes paid by the residents. He brought materials from foreign lands and charged exorbitant prices for them. He provided food when it was needed and chased away the few pirate crews that thought they were a match for the Donquixote Family. For all that he did for the island of Spider Miles, he’d earned their trust and their loyalty. Doflamingo felt assured that if the Navy were ever to come asking for his whereabouts or recent actions, the people of Spider Miles would play dumb and protect the Donquixote Family.

And because they adored Doflamingo, by extension, they also adored the younger brother whose very mention softened the fierce expression on Doflamingo’s face and brought out a softer, happier, more human side of him.

Doflamingo lowers his lips to Rosinante’s, giving him a sweet kiss in full view of everyone in the market. Why would he ever want to hide away something as beautiful and pure as the love he has for his younger brother? Let the whole island watch. Let the whole world witness their love.

“If someone ever dares to show their disapproval, beloved, if they say anything that makes your heart ache, know that I will find them,” Doflamingo pets Rosinante’s face, deaf and blind to the world around them as his eyes roam the slopes and angles of his brother’s cheekbones and jaw.

“I will find them and I will kill them for making your heart ache.”

The wicked, terrifying grin that curls up on Doflamingo’s face clearly states that he is already enjoying the idea of punishing this metaphorical person who has committed the crime of making Rosinante feel uncomfortable. For a moment, Rosinante reflects, considering how he would have reacted to such a statement two years ago when he first arrived at Doflamingo’s door. He would have been horrified and confused, wondering how his brother could have gone so wrong during their years apart. Rosinante from two years ago would not appreciate such a promise from Doflamingo. But the Rosinante from right now decides that he’s tired of heartache. He's tired of pretending he isn't in love with his brother, he's tired of hiding it.

He's tired of hiding it from Spider Miles, and from Sengoku.

“We'll kill them together, beloved.” Rosinante pulls his brother closer and kisses him in front of Spider Miles, showing everyone that he loves Doflamingo as much as Doflamingo loves him.

He’s elated, but still nervous. It feels strange to be so open about their affection, but the more they walk around the market together, the more confident Rosinante feels, and the higher he holds his head. He’s never felt as much joy as he feels while standing at the side of the man he loves, the man who shares the blood that makes his heart beat, his very own flesh and blood who would kill for him if someone so much as hurt his feelings. Rosinante would kill for him as well. He already had. But he would mow down countless opponents at Doflamingo’s command and fight to the death to protect their family.

Hand in hand, Doflamingo leads Rosinante to the artisan he was so excited to see. Even at first glance, Rosinante has to admit that the woman is skilled. Her allotted sales area is larger than any other he has seen so far, so it seems that business is good, and it’s a good thing that business is good, because her sales area doubles as a show floor, filled with tables and chairs and beds and shelves and all other manner of furniture to display her skills.

Doflamingo travels straight toward a massive bed set up as a display for prospective customers. He circles it, eagerly examining the intricately carved details as both Rosinante and the artisan gravitate toward him.

“Exquisite,” Doflamingo mumbles approvingly, his fingertips running over the carvings as he openly admires her work.

“Would you be able to craft a bed that can support two men the size of myself and my other half? It should be able to withstand any vigorous activity that we might engage in.”

Rosinante flushed a little, his nerves still wary of what people would think of them. To his surprise, the artisan didn’t even flinch at his statement.

“Of course, I cater to clients of all heights and weights and sizes and number of partners. I have a supply of wood from one of the Adam trees for requests like this. My husband is a man of your size, and the Adam wood does a fine job of supporting our weight, no matter how vigorous the activity or number of partners.”

“Is that so? I had no idea Adam wood was so strong.” Doflamingo appears thoughtful for a moment, as if considering the many practical applications of such an indestructible wood. A new ship comes to mind, but as his thoughts fly and he begins considering things such as the cost of commissioning the Numancia Flamingo, built to hold a crew made up of mostly incredibly tall people, the thought of having to pay for enough Adam wood to build such a ship begins to make him nauseous and he dismisses it. For now, at least.

”Have you decided on the carvings you want?” The artisan asks, notebook at the ready to write down whatever Doflamingo tells her.

He has clearly thought about this at length. Doflamingo describes his idea to her, telling her a story that Rosinante recognizes. It’s a story about them. It’s their story. Doflamingo weaves and spins a story about two dragons who were separated from each other at a young age, all the while making certain to let the artisan know exactly how he wants the story laid out on the bed.

“I want their story to start on the end of the bed; this is where we find out that they were separated. Then their stories continue, each on their own side of the bed. Their stories converge on the headrest. This is where they reunite after a lifetime apart, so I want a joyous, celebratory scene here where the dragons are entwined with each other.” Doflamingo describes his ideas to the woman while Rosinante stands to the side, his heart racing now that he knows exactly how custom this new bed will be. It will literally tell their story.

“And now for my second order,” Doflamingo continues once the artisan had captured all of the details of the first order, “I want a child’s bed for our daughter,” He throws a smile at Rosinante, who feels a rush of soft feelings of love and tenderness overcome him as his brother, his lover, talks so openly about their daughter.

“She’s still very small, so she’ll need something she can grow into, or something that will grow along with her.”

“And for the carvings on her bed?”

Doflamingo pauses. He’s thought about this, but he never seemed to land on a definitive answer. He wants to give her a bed similar to the one he will share with Rosinante, something that reflects her story and what she’d gone through. But he doesn’t want a reminder of her abandonment carved into her bed.

“A baby swan that gets lost?” Rosinante suggests, immediately understanding why Doflamingo hesitated and why he didn’t have an answer for what her bed should depict. He doesn’t want to memorialize the most painful parts of their daughter’s short life either. “And she bravely tries to find her way home, and is found by two dragons who raise her as their own.”

Doflamingo smiles, considering the suggestion against their daughter’s experiences and how it highlights her struggles but removes the abandonment completely, focusing on her new home instead, with the parents who chose her.

“Perfectly stated, beloved.”

Once the orders are placed, Rosinante and Doflamingo are ready to go home. Rosinante feels like he’s met everyone in Spider Miles today, but he knows he hasn’t. He can’t help but feel a little bad that everyone had heard so much about him when he’d never made the effort to get to know anyone. But then, he had been like that with the Donquixote Family for a while, avoiding getting to know them because his imminent betrayal was always in the back of his mind. But he’d made his decision. It was never too late to get to know the people of Spider Miles.

Rosinante slides his hand into Doflamingo’s and squeezes it with a small smile on his face as they head toward home. Their path is almost immediately altered when they pass by a vendor selling books collected from all around the blues. Rosinante walks toward them as if drawn magnetically, his eyes locked on a book with an illustration of an ear on the cover.

Rosinante picks up the book and flips through it, thinking to himself about his powers and his recent attempts to strengthen his abilities. He thinks of Senor Pink, who figured out he was a Marine because he only knew how to do two things with his Devil Fruit.

But what else would he even be able to do? He could create a silent barrier around himself and someone else, maybe he could expand that barrier? And he could silence an object or person so it produced no sound. But how could he… Besides learning how to apply that to more than one object or person at a time, how could he learn to do more things with his devil fruit?

How exactly did his abilities work?

He flips through the book, skimming the text as he goes, pausing on a page about the inner ear. He stares at an illustration of the inner ear, a strange, spiral looking thing. The text tells him that the inner ear is responsible for both hearing and the sense of balance. He can’t help but wonder if something is wrong with his own inner ear. Is this why he’s so clumsy? Would his devil fruit be able to help him fix his balance problems?

The book is full of terms he’s never heard before. Individually the words make sense, but together, the new phrases clearly communicate that he is starting down a complicated path.

Electrochemical impulses.

Sound waves.

High and low frequencies.

He knows the words, he understands what they mean, but he wonders if having a better understanding of the science behind them can help him unlock new abilities. He will need more than just this one book to learn about hearing and sound.

“What's this?” Doflamingo comes up behind him and stands with his chest against Rosinante’s back, peering over his shoulder into the book. Rosinante smiles and presses a kiss against Doflamingo's cheek.

“It’s a book about hearing,” Rosinante shows him the cover of the book, then returns to flipping through the pages, “I’ve been working on my abilities, trying to make them stronger. But I’m not sure how to come up with new abilities with this devil fruit. Right now I actually don’t know if what I’m manipulating is the sense of hearing, or sound itself. So if I understand how sound and hearing work, I might be able to figure out how my devil fruit works. And if I know how it works, then maybe I can come up with new abilities!”

Doflamingo’s thoughts return to their recent battle and Rosinante’s unexpected outburst of power. Rosinante’s screams had been so high pitched and seemed to get more and more piercing as the ground shook below their feet. He didn’t know how Rosinante’s devil fruit worked either, but it seemed to be able to do far more than simply affect hearing and sound. Rosinante had caused a localized earthquake.

“Excellent idea, beloved,” Doflamingo’s eyes are scanning the available books and he soon spots what he’s looking for. He reaches out and grabs a book about sound to go with the book about hearing in Rosinante’s arms, and then he hands over a book about earthquakes.

“Earthquakes?” Rosinante is clearly confused and looks to Doflamingo for an explanation.

“Do you remember when I told you what happened before you blacked out during our last battle?” Doflamingo asks, not eager to relive the last moments of that battle or the days spent watching Rosinante sleep.

“Um… I was screaming, it became high pitched, and then the ground started shaking. And I could feel the ocean shaking the boat.”

“You caused the ground and the ocean to shake, Rosi. I know it was you because it stopped shaking when you passed out,” Doflamingo taps the book about earthquakes with a long, strong finger, “I don’t know how you did it, but you have that power within you.”

They return home, where Rosinante is eager to show his purchases to Senor Pink and Gladius and begin flipping through the books with them. Doflamingo sits nearby with Diamante, smiling as he watches his beloved open up more and more to their new family.

Chapter Text

“I don't want to!”

Rosinante sighs, gazing down at his tiny, pouting daughter.

“Dulce, you need to practice. You have a very powerful devil fruit, and-”

“‘And you need to learn how to aim’, bla bla bla! Fine, then I won't use guns! I'll just make a missile launcher, then I won't miss anything!” Baby 5 grins and turns her tiny arm into a surprisingly large missile launcher that Rosinante recognizes from her weaponry textbooks.

“Don't fire that!” He warns her, trying to recall his Marine training on how to take down an armed opponent. He quickly realizes that nothing he learned in the Navy will be helpful here because none of his lessons were about how to take down an armed child, especially not a child who could transform her body into a missile launcher.

“Why not?? It's the perfect solution! I don't have to learn how to aim, you can stop teaching me, and I'll never miss!” Baby 5 is confused as to why this solution isn't acceptable.

Rosinante is about to explain to her that a missile is too much weapon for most missions when his thoughts are interrupted by a small animal flying across his field of vision. As he registers that the creature is small and dark in color, a ball of dread settles itself at the bottom of Rosinante’s stomach and grows heavier with each passing second. The creature circles his head until he holds up his hands and allows it to land. The creature is a carrier bat from Sengoku, clutching a tiny box containing a tiny den den mushi.

Ever since Rosinante gave his first den den to Doflamingo, the bats had started coming by. The first one flew up to Rosinante while he was cleaning up the deck of the Numancia Flamingo, depositing the tiny box in his hands before flying away. One got caught in Giolla's hair. Dellinger tried to eat another one. The population in Doflamingo’s den den aquarium had expanded considerably, and now there was yet another den den sitting asleep in Rosinante’s hand.

Baby 5 is quiet now and quickly puts her missile launcher away, knowing from past experience that the arrival of a new mini den den made both Rosinante and Doflamingo extremely stressed.

“Go play with Buffalo, Dulce,” Rosinante tells her softly, his voice strained, before he heads toward the hideout to show Doflamingo the newest mini den den.

He isn’t keeping track, but he’s pretty sure the amount of time between each mini den den’s delivery is getting shorter and shorter. It’s only a matter of time before Sengoku decides to do something drastic out of desperation. Rosinante feels bad, and he knows he should reach out to his adoptive father, wake up one of these mini den dens and call him and let him know he’s alright. But the moment Sengoku realizes that Rosinante has no intention of completing his mission…

He’s going to have to face this someday, he knows. The longer he puts off answering the mini den dens, the closer he comes to waking up to a navy ship outside the hideout.

Rosinante lets himself into Doflamingo’s office, misery written on his face as he silently shows his brother the tiny snail asleep in his hand.

“Another one?” Doflamingo approaches his brother and takes the snail from him, admiring the colors on its shell. With so many former den den snails in his office, Doflamingo has started to become oddly interested in them.

“I’m going to need another aquarium after this one.” He states casually, not noticing how Rosinante winces behind his back and hates himself for not being strong enough to just call Sengoku and tell him that he won’t be returning to Navy HQ.

Rosinante dreads the thought of marines showing up when they least expect it, of still not being strong enough to protect his family from the mess he put them into. He’s made so much progress, he’s read the book about sound he got from the marketplace and he’s learned so much about his powers! He’s learned how to reliably keep two people under the influence of calm for as long as he needs to, he’s learned how to make his voice louder and carry further, and he’s been working on turning his silent field into a kind of shield, but… They’re all just defensive applications, he needs to figure out a way to use his powers to attack anyone who wants to hurt his family.

If he could figure out how the hell he managed to produce an earthquake, then maybe he’d feel less useless.

“Rosi, what’s that look for?” Doflamingo asks, his voice cutting through Rosinante’s self-hatred. His hand comes to rest on Rosinante’s cheek, and the warmth of his skin gives him something to focus on, something to distract him.

“You're worried about the den den?” Doflamingo asks, as if he doesn't know. Rosinante tenses, clinging a little closer to his brother's hand on his face as he nods.

Dooflamingo sighs and pulls his brother closer, feeling how his arms wrap around his waist as Rosinante tries to hide from all his fears and worries.

“Don’t worry about the den den,” Doflamingo tells him in a soft voice, “The family is strong. If the navy shows up at our door, there will be hell to pay.”

Rosinante shifts in his arms and looks up at him with anxiety all over his face.

“What if I’m… What if I’m still not strong enough to protect the family? To protect you?” Rosinante tried not to think of the past battles where he’d failed Doflamingo.

“The family protects the family. You don’t need to be strong enough to protect us all on your own. We protect each other, beloved. That’s what family does.” Doflamingo presses kisses over the top of Rosinante’s head as he holds his brother until Rosinante feels strong enough to face the world again.

Doflamingo knew that Rosinante was close to various members of the family, and he worked well with them, but there were still a few family members who were a bit distant with him. Perhaps if he got to know the others, he’d learn about their abilities and about them. And hopefully, as he grew to trust them, he would feel less pressure to be strong enough to protect the whole family.

“Do me a favor, beloved,” Doflamingo said, “Diamante is going into town today for an errand. Could you go with him and get another aquarium for the den dens?”

Rosinante stared at Doflamingo, a little surprised by the request. They were just talking about Rosinante’s fears that the navy would attack, and Doflamingo transitioned from that to a request to get a new aquarium for the den dens?

“Don’t give me that look,” Doflamingo snorted, “I want you to spend some time with someone else in the family and stop worrying about the den dens and the Navy for a day. That's why I gave you a silly errand to run.”

“Oohh, so that's why he wanted you to come into town with me. Funny!” Diamante laughs, seemingly unaware that Rosinante was struggling to keep pace with him and his much longer legs as they stroll into the market area.

Rosinante looks around, remembering when Doflamingo brought him here. He spots the various stalls they stopped at and he smiles and waves at the vendors, who all smile in delight when they recognize him and wave back.

“I thought you told me you don't know anyone here?” Diamante laughs, leaning over so he can greet the vendors too.

“Oh, Diamante! All I could see from down here were your legs! I didn't recognize you!” One vendor smiles, genuinely delighted to see Diamante.

“Aw, really?? I need to get louder pants so you'll recognize me anywhere!” Diamante laughs with the vendor, both of them aware that his orange velvet pants were extremely loud.

“Running errands with the young master’s paramour?” The vendor happily chats with him, unaware that Rosinante’s face has flushed completely pink upon hearing himself referred to as ‘the young master’s paramour’.

“Yeah! I need to pick up some things from Nana Ann, and Doffy can’t seem to stop breeding den den mushi, so the paramour here needs to pick up a second aquarium for him!” Diamante notices how flustered and distracted and excited Rosinante looks, clearly letting his new nickname bang around in his head.

Soon Diamante ends the conversation and pulls Rosinante out of his daydreams, and heads off with Rosinante nearly jogging to keep up with him.

Rosinante watches him, bewildered, as Diamante smiles and laughs and greets nearly everyone they pass. He thought Doflamingo knew a lot of the residents of Spider Miles, but Diamante seems to know every last person!

“How do you know so many people?” He asks in astonishment, “Doffy-nii introduced me to so many people the last time we came to the market, it felt like I met everyone. I was never very good at socializing. That was more Doffy-nii’s talent.”

“Eh, you’re just self conscious. We need to build up that confidence, then you’d probably know even more people than me. How the hell does an ex-Navy spy even get away with being bad at communicating?” Diamante laughs as he teases Rosinante, his voice is loud and commanding and fearless. The entire Family has heard about his past by now, and they’ve gotten over it, so it’s not so alarming to Rosinante now when someone mentions it.

“I was better at being undercover, rather than building networks,” Rosinante shrugs.

“How the hell does a guy who’s almost ten feet tall end up being good at being undercover??” Diamante laughs again, and with every laugh he draws more attention. More faces turn toward them, the citizens smiling when they recognize Diamante. Rosinante has spent years trying to avoid being seen, but it’s unavoidable when he’s next to Diamante, whose height makes both Doflamingo and Rosinante look short. Diamante couldn’t be undercover if he tried.

“Because I was so bad at building networks. I had to be good at something, and somehow it turned out that I was good at being undercover.”

“You know, it makes sense. This is gonna sound weird, but I swear it’s a compliment. But I’ve seen you during meetings, I’ve seen how casually you sit at the corner of a table. You look like you’re not listening, but then later after the meeting, Doffy always goes to you first for a rundown and you remember more details and more information than anyone else. You look disengaged, but you’re more engaged than anyone else, maybe even Doffy. So yeah, I can see how you wound up working undercover. But you know, I think you’ve got it in you to build networks too. You’ve got all the old ladies in Spider Miles charmed, and if you want to know how to get anything? They’re the people to ask.” Diamante winks at Rosinante, who looks surprised by what he’s just heard.

“I what??” What the hell is Diamante talking about? The old ladies?? He looks around, and he’s stunned to see that Diamante might be telling the truth as they pass by a stand in the market run by two white haired old ladies who giggle and wave at him as they walk by. In his surprise, his foot catches on the cobblestone street and he starts to fall, but Diamante dips down and catches him easily as the two women explode into giggles after watching him blush and stumble.

“You never noticed before?” He grins and sets Rosinante on his feet, “You’ve got all the little old ladies wrapped around your finger. You’ve got that big smile, pretty eyes and hair, and yeah you’re clumsy, but the older ladies find it endearing.”

All of this is news to Rosinante, who offers a shy wave to the women who were watching him. They both squeal and wave harder at him until he’s out of sight.

A short distance away, near the edge of the market, a table heaped in children’s toys and clothing catches Rosinante’s eye and he pauses, gaze lingering on a sunny yellow bow. Even though Baby 5 had a devil fruit that made her a one-girl army, she was such a girly girl. She loved ribbons, she loved dresses, and most of all, she loved stories with princesses wearing big bows on their head. Those are the story books she carries to Doflamingo or Giolla, asking them with excited, hopeful eyes if they’ll read to her. There used to be a hint of hesitation and fear when she asked, as if she was bracing herself for a rejection or dismissal. But Doflamingo and Giolla would always drop whatever they were doing and immediately sit down to read with her.

More than anything, Rosinante wishes she would come to him with a book and ask him to read to her. But he knows that as long as he’s her weapons instructor, it’s unlikely that she’ll want to spend any more time with him than she has to.

“Thinking about the kid?” Diamante asks, seeing the pained way Rosinante is staring at the bow.

“Yeah. I think she’d like this, but I don’t know if she’d accept a gift from me. She really doesn’t like me.” It hurt to admit it, but he knew it was true. She never came to him willingly. She always went to Doflamingo first and Giolla second.

“You’re really harsh with her when you're training. Are you training her the way you were trained in the navy?” Diamante’s question comes off casual and inquisitive, but it’s jarring to Rosinante. He thinks about the marines who trained him to use weapons, and how he wound up grudgingly respecting them, but he never grew to like them.

“Fuck.” He sighed. He couldn’t train her like a marine then try to win her over with a cute bow. There was no way that would work!

“Hit the nail on the head.” Diamante laughs.

“I don’t know how else to train someone to use weapons,” Rosinante admits, “And I can't be soft on her, she needs to know how to use guns correctly if she’s going to get the most out of her devil fruit! I want her to be able to protect herself!”

“All very important things, for sure, but don't forget: Gladius can teach her too. And if you want someone else to be the bad cop for a while so you can be the good cop, Gladius will do it. Not like he cares if the kid likes him or not. He can take over drills and you can be softer with her.”

Rosinante has been staring at the bow the entire time without picking it up, so Diamante picks it up and places it in his hands. Rosinante squeezes the bow tightly, thinking about how pretty it would look in Baby 5’s dark hair.

“Besides, the way she uses weapons is gonna be different from how you use weapons. With you and Gladius, your gun will always be in your hand. With Baby, her hand is the gun. Or her foot is the gun. Or both feet are guns! She can use weapons in a much more flexible way than you and Gladius will ever be able to use them, so rigid military-style drilling isn't gonna help her learn how to use her fruit.”

Rosinante hates what he hears only because he knows Diamante is right. He doesn't know how to teach her to use a gun if her foot is the gun.

“Also, you need to remember that you're part of the Family. You’re not just Doffy’s little brother, or Doffy’s…” Diamante struggles for a moment, trying to come up with a proper word to describe them. “What the hell do you two call yourselves anyway? Brothers? Partners?”

“Lately he’s been calling me his other half.” Rosinante’s heart feels fluttery whenever he hears Doflamingo call him his other half. Diamante doesn't seem as sentimental about the term as he tries it out in the sentence he'd been trying to craft.

“‘You're not just Doffy's little brother, or just Doffy's other half’… Hmm, no… ‘Just Doffy's… Brother Lover.’ Oh shit, that's worse.” Diamante snorts to himself, oblivious to Rosinante’s horror upon hearing the term ‘Brother Lover’.

It was accurate, yes, but Diamante didn't have to just lay it out like that!

“Well, anyway,” Diamante gives up on finding an agreeable term and returns to his original point, “Point is, all of us can train her. You don't have to take on the burden of getting Baby 5 combat-ready all by yourself.”

Rosinante sighs. He knows he has a problem with asking for help. He tries to take on too much and shoulder the burden himself. He needs to remember that the Donquixote Pirates are his family now too. They see him as part of the family, they laugh with him and give him shit like anyone else, they’ve completely forgiven his near-betrayal and accepted him as one of their own. He was the one still keeping himself separate from the rest of them.

They’re his family. They will fight to protect him as fiercely as he will fight to protect them. And that also means that he doesn’t have to struggle alone when he needs help with trying to train a tiny stubborn girl on how to use her extremely powerful and dangerous devil fruit.

“Her powers are so much weirder than just making her foot a gun. When I first started training her, I showed her pictures of different guns and she replicated all of them, but when she fired them, her guns acted strange. It turns out that her devil fruit powers don’t respond to reality; they respond to what she knows about the weapon or whatever she assumes to be true about the weapon,” Rosinante carries the bow to the vendor to purchase the bow, his heart beating a little faster now that he was fully committed to giving her the bow.

“I showed her a few different handguns from her textbook and she replicated them all and they all fired about the same and did the same amount of damage. I showed her larger guns and they did more damage than the smaller guns, but they still matched each other in the amount of damage they did. Then I showed her different bullets and asked her if she could reproduce those bullets in her guns. All of them did the same damage, even the dummy rounds. They fired like regular bullets!” He finishes his transaction, recalling how dumbfounded he was as he watched Baby 5 fire off a chamber full of orange-tipped dummy bullets into a training dummy that took explosive damage like it was getting hit with regular bullets full of gunpowder.

“So she can be creative with it! Let her get creative and have fun with her devil fruit! Wouldn't hurt if you got a little creative with your fruit too. You think about training so rigidly, like you're still in the navy! Lighten up!” Diamante ruffles Rosinante’s hair; Rosinante isn’t used to being handled like this by someone so much larger than him. “Doffy came up with that insane birdcage, if he can come up with something like that, you can figure out a cool way to manipulate sound in battle! I know you’ve been training your powers, what have you figured out?”

Rosinante tucks the bow safely into his pocket, eager to finish their errands so he can gift it to Baby 5. He follows after Diamante as he continues walking toward whatever their destination is.

“I can use calm on two people now. And when I use silent, I can carry the silent field around with me instead of having to stay in one spot. Um. Oh, I can make my voice louder! I can make the sound of it travel further than it normally would. And… Oh, and I’ve been working on trying to create a version of silent where the barrier doesn’t just cancel out all sounds from outside, I’m trying to change the frequency of it so it’s like an actual shield.” It sounded weird and fanciful to say all of this out loud, like a child telling an adult about their dreams for the future.

“You’re doing what?? That’s so scary, man, wow!” Diamante laughs, and Rosinante feels encouraged instead of disheartened. He’d been scared that Diamante would just laugh at him. Using sound to create a shield? It sounded ridiculous. “Are you serious? Can you really do that? You can manipulate frequencies?”

“Yeah, it turns out that’s how silent and calm work; they create an opposite frequency and it mutes sounds.”

“I know you’ve been researching the hell out of books about sound, but it sounds like you need to start looking at books about physics and the human body. You’ve got the potential to be one scary motherfucker on a battlefield, and I can’t wait to see you in action!”

Rosinante had been assuming that Diamante’s errand in town was something shady, so it was a surprise to him when Diamante knocked on a nondescript door outside of the market area and an older woman answered, beaming at him when she recognized who had come to visit her.

“Hey, Nana Ann!” Diamante grins at her, looking completely ridiculous with how much he has to squat down to get as close as possible to eye level with a normal sized human, “Heard your no good son stopped by and dropped off more of his old jewelry for you to store, so I figured I’d drop by and see if there’s anything you wanted to sell!”

“Oh, Diamante, dear! It’s always so nice to see you! Yes, he did leave more of his things here, the little rat! Where am I supposed to keep his things when he’s your size?? His shoes take up as much room as a chair!” She sighs, exasperated by her child, and disappears into the house to retrieve the items. Diamante makes himself comfortable, sitting down on her adorable brick walkway. Rosinante can tell that Diamante has made this trip many times from how easily he sits himself down, knowing just where he’ll be the most comfortable.

Rosinante hears the woman grunting and struggling with her boxes and he peeks inside, watching her pull large boxes full of jangling jewelry.

“Do you need help, ma’am?” He asks her. Nana Ana turns toward him and her eyes go a little wider and shinier, and she grins a little, flattered to receive an offer of help from such a handsome young man.

“Only if it’s not too much trouble…” She giggles softly as Rosinante ducks to enter her home and lifts one of the boxes with much more ease than she did. He carries it outside and sets it down, pausing when he sees the smirk on Diamante’s face.

“Didn’t I tell you?”

“Tell me what…?”

“You’ve got the little old ladies wrapped around your finger!” He laughs, and starts digging through the box, leaving Rosinante to blush pink as he heads back inside to fetch the rest of the boxes.