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First time it happens Rosinante is five years old and can't explain why the ornamented vase in the living room is broken.
The shards are lying spread around his feet like a horrible stardust, a beautiful mosaic of something suddenly irreparable and ruined completely.
Hands trembling, Rosinante’s frozen, the memory of the accident plays out again and again - the elbow, turning around, the crash, spray of colors, shards, shards, shards, sharp edges on the floor, he didn't mean to.
He didn't mean to.
Gasps around - Rosinante! and are you alright? and don't move, dear, are you hurt? Where? Show mama, but when his parents ask what happened the words are gone, whisked away, not where they're supposed to be. They are not working, clogged somewhere inside, under or around the tongue, stubborn and shut, and Rosinante doesn't even know why.
The vase is broken and he can't explain.
Emotions overflow him in a violent rush and he cries them out, loud and hard, because he's five and scared and he broke the vase and it's no big deal, mama and papa never yell at him, but somehow it also is and it's too much, too much, too much.
Mother shushes him, picks up, hugs close. Rosinante hiccups the scare out, burying his face deep into her soft garments. Something tugs at his shorts.
“You're just clumsy, eh? It's fine,” Doffy says, neither angry nor worried, “slaves will clean that up. You can make messes, so stop crying, Rosi, and let's play.” He emphasizes that statement by pulling on fabric once more before letting go.
And it's as simple as that, suddenly. Rosinante, though still shaken, sniffles and nods, trusting his brother. He always knows what to do. Mother smiles and ruffles their hair.
He comes after Doflamingo to the corridor and out, away from the mess, one hallway, two, three, to one of the playrooms. Soft carpet, toys around, Doffy rambles on and laughs, waits for Rosinante to speak up and when he still doesn't, just brushes past it like nothing happened and talks some more. The words slowly come back.
There is no such a thing as going for a word with Corazón.
In a literal sense, of course. It's a figure of speech, but fits the man so well it could as well be cut out just for him.
Meeting with the Heart Executive means quiet lurking, dark corners and peeking shadows. The uncertainty of not knowing what the man truly thinks. An uncomfortable silence with a fog of cigarette smoke hovering around, thick and heavy, while the eyes scrutinize you in a way you're never quite able to describe in other words than unnerving. It is a note written and shown, always sparse instructions scribbled in the deafening silence, orders, to the point, concrete. (Is there a space on the paper for more?)
A power tactic, ones say. A handicap, spit others. The wide, wide smile of his brother says nothing.
Corazón is a silent man, leading a silent life of closed lips and permanent smile pigmented wide and sharp on a stoic face. Actions speak louder than words though. And every fiber of Corazón is screaming.
They are six and eight and they are leaving their home forever. To taste a new life, they were told. To be a human amongst humans.
Neither of the brothers are particularly excited, but only one of them is scared and it’s the numbing feeling spreading inside and over his mouth that tells Rosinante something is off again.
The crash of a broken vase plays in the background of his mind, but the sound's out of reach and buried deep somewhere within. Not exactly a memory, but a feeling that persisted long enough to permanently stick, like the crunching shards digging into skin.
“We're going to see the truest world of them all!” cheers father, mother smiling softly by his side.
Doffy is frowning but says nothing.
Rosinante isn't frowning, but he's confused, which is a near similar thing. He probably couldn't describe what's on his mind though, even if he'd tried. Feeling buzzes inside, hums. He doesn't understand it, so just decides not to think about it much.
When they're sailing away, the towers and walls of the Holy City are the color of a shimmering, blinding whiteness. Like a gemstone inside a chest with the lid cracked open, a string of light shines through and lights it up and gleams and burns.
The wind blows, pushing their caravels and pennants further and further away from the city - now only a line drawn on the horizon, getting smaller and smaller and smaller. Rosinante listens to Doffy's complaints, and watches it slowly disappear.
No one waved them goodbyes.
Mother's hand covers his, warm, soft, known. “How are you feeling, my dear?” she asks. “Do you want to go inside?”
Rosinante wants to tell her he's alright. Wants to tell her there's no need, he can stay, he can watch, he wants to watch. Wants to ask her why they are leaving and where.
But Rosinante doesn't really know what to say, how to say it, what he feels, and so the lips remain closed with all the words locked up behind them.
“Who did you send us?” the mayor hisses through gritted teeth. “He's a mute.”
Doflamingo laughs, the sound sharp and deep. “So?” It echoes through the high ceiling of the mansion’s parlor, bounces between coffers and back to the priceless leather sofas they're sprawled on. “Got nothing to say to him?”
“Was that supposed to be a joke?”
“You tell me. Was it?”
Mayor huffs with irritation, blotchy purple from anger and not at all pleased. His glass hits the table, the rim creaks, liquor leaks onto the lacquer wood between them, such a waste.
“We were supposed to do business together,” he spews from beneath the curling mustache, “but I guess youngsters like yourself don't know what that means.” One tip of a wrinkly hand and the bodyguards square up behind the man, knuckles and necks cracking. Sneers spread from face to face like a disease of caries and beer-stinking breath.
Doflamingo's smile widens, canines glinting in the chandelier's light. “Believe me, I do. Corazón.” Rosinante looks up from where he's leaning on the entrance, cigarette wedged between teeth. “Our dear mayor doesn't like our partnership! Seems we need to terminate our contract before it even begins. Do the honors.” He doesn’t have to turn around to know the flintlock glints, he can see the reflection in the mayor’s widening eyes.
His brother work’s a craft, Doflamingo became certain of it the moment he saw Rosinante’s bullets piercing their target for the first time. A quiet work, with a purple dome of silent set on top in an exact precise range to cover up the place, movements as calculated as reflexive. Windows shatter, bodies fall to the muted cacophony of Rosinante’s creation, and it all lasts less than a couple of breaths.
Cigarette smoke fogs the golden frames and handles, drifts lazily around and up like an ever present voile. Doflamingo inhales deeply. And chuckles. “That's what I thought.”
He stands up and looks at the mayor's body crawling to the entrance, the only one left alive.
“I needed a figurehead, you see, but your deputy will have to suffice. No one disrespects my brother.” Fingers bend and the strings rush to the mayor’s throat. “No one.”
People hate them, Rosinante learns. Then learns it again and again and again.
He's six and the mansion burns down to the ground, flames, walls cracking, smoke everywhere. Screams chase them to the edge of a town, then further down the cluttered outskirts. Out of breath, Rosinante looks back and catches a glimpse of what was supposed to be their new home - a lone dot between the shadows, a torch smoldering against the night sky.
He's six and a half and his mother is buried in a shallow grave. A small lump of earth in a clearance amongst the wreckage, to the left of the wilted flowers growing on a pile of waste.
Father pulls them close. “Everything will be alright, boys. We'll push through this,” he says, but his eyes are thick with tears and voice wobbles. Doffy grits his teeth and stomps away, but Rosinante believes him, he doesn't know why.
‘Everything will be alright,’ father says, repeats, he speaks and speaks but rarely goes out of the hut and nothing really changes even when he does.
Rosinante's seven and hunger pangs won't let him sleep. The gnawing pain wakes him up in the middle of the night, makes his head spin every time he tries to stand up. What little food they're able to scavenge from the garbage and bring back is never enough to fill the empty stomach or even tone the craving down.
One particularly bad night, Rosinante cracks his eyes open to the weight pressing on his arm and Doffy's dark silhouette sitting by his side. “I'll fix this,” his brother mumbles to himself, gnawing at his nails, clutching Rosinante's hand in a death grip, “I'll fix this, I'll fix this, I'll fix this, I'll fix this-”
He's eight and shackled to the windowsill alongside his family. Rosinante pleads, over and over, that's all he can do. Sweat drops down with tears and snot and the world is burning. It all falls on deaf ears, because hatred is a cruel, blinding thing no amount of begging can undo.
Words have never been so worthless, thinks something inside.
When Doflamingo screams - all goes quiet.
—
Rosinante can’t choke a word out after that. He looks around numbly, not quite seeing anything, all that the eyes lie on just blurs into unintelligible colors. Indistinguishable, like a spray of ceramic shards.
Curled up on the beach littered with junk, he buries hands in the sand, takes them out. Watches the lumps slip from his palms, little grains. Smoothens the surface. Buries them again.
Something nearby kicks the trash, tramples the rotting planks, throws the sand around.
“I hate this place,” Doffy rages, voice raspy, fists clenching, unclenching, fingers twisting, “I hate everything.”
Do you hate me too? Rosinante thinks but doesn't say it. His throat is dry and raw from crying. Everything smells like salt and rot and smoke, though the last one probably whiffs just from Rosinante's mind alone. Or maybe their clothes. Skin on his arms peels near the chafing, it hurts.
He smooths out the sand once more and jabs a finger in it.
I want to go home, he writes, not sure why. To whom, Doffy? Himself? He only knows his brother has read the words when a half-choked growl resounds behind his shoulder.
Doffy looks like he wants to say something, but grits his teeth and stomps away.
Rosinante buries his hands in the sand, barely feeling the tears streaming down his face.
—
Doflamingo holds the gun. “I'll fix this,” he grits.
Their father's smiling. He says something, an apology, but his words have never changed anything and they don't change anything now.
Rosinante screams.
The gunshot is louder.
Law looks at the mismatched shoes, then further up the washed jeans, hearts splattered on shirt, at the dark hood and black feathers. The man's face, a face of a clown, glides over him with a neutral, almost bored expression. The eyes are focused though, sharp. Law doesn't like it.
“What are you looking at?” he spits, perfectly aware of the sickly pale skin hugging his bones, and he's ready to lash out with the first unwanted comment.
The man snorts, ignoring the question completely, and strides to Doflamingo. He snaps his fingers and leans over the captain.
Law observes as a purple membrane rises and expands into a perfect dome around them both, sees the crimson lips move but doesn't hear a sound. Then the field falls down just as quickly as it appeared, shrinks and squeezes back beneath the man's fingers.
Doflamingo smirks. “You're right, just like me,” he muses, in a playful yet thoughtful tone. Red lenses turn towards him. “Welcome to the Family, Law.”
Later he learns the man's name. Or rather a title - Corazón. The missing Heart Executive, Doflamingo’s own biological brother. Law learns that he never speaks and rarely smiles. An impossible contradiction of clumsy and deadly, a serious fool with a gun and hearts painted all over his shirt. Corazón doesn’t wear his heart on a sleeve though - wary and withdrawn, the pirate’s rarely seen without a thick cloud of gloom hovering around him like a cigarette smoke clasped tightly around the feathers.
But just as Law has almost convinced himself the organ in that scarred chest had to wilt at some point and die completely, it turns out it was a bleeding one all along. Just hidden well, somewhere deep, (like Law’s own). It became obvious when two years later Corazón grabbed him by the collar and sailed to a six-month journey to cure an incurable disease.
The sound of a slap is so loud the whole hallway stops to watch the scene.
Rosinante's fourteen, a freshly baked marine, just receiving a lesson on responding and discipline.
When they call you - you listen, when they ask you - you respond. Simple rules, rooted deeply in what's already known about respect and basic courtesy. Lieutenant Commander thinks of himself as a pillar of rules and structured justice, and is convinced he can teach those lessons well.
Rosinante is fourteen and the left side of his face is burning. Eyes are burning too, with unshed tears threatening to fall, shame crushing him to the ground.
Faces watch, faces observe, faces sneer and snarl.
“This will teach you to answer me, when I speak to you.”
Isn't it tiring? Always the same dance. The demands for words, for time. Others have so many. (His aren't good enough.)
‘Speak louder,’ they say. ‘I can't hear you,’ they complain. ‘Don't mumble,’ they snap.
And yet, none of them listens.
Not everyone is graceful with the way they speak, but only Rosinante's clumsy enough to stumble over words and fall before they even leave his tongue. A crime, apparently, to the rest of the world.
‘You're just clumsy, eh? It's fine.’ Is it? ‘You can make messes.’ Can he?
Rosinante closes his eyes to the stridency of yelling and lecture, and imagines himself back in that old playroom in Mary Geoise. Pastel walls, toys and soft carpet beneath, he's back there playing with his brother. The words slowly come back, they don't.
—
“What happened?” Sengoku leans over him, big and overwhelming with worry and kindness the size of the whole office room. His giant frame blocks nearly all the sunlight seeping from the window.
All Rosinante can hear are the muffled waves washing the cliffs below and the tired sigh weighing on his mentor's shoulders. It's such a well-known sound by now. Anticipated. Dreaded.
Rosinante's cheek is stinging. Rosinante's lips are shut. He's not looking up, even when he's spoken to, eyes glued to the floor. And he doesn't reply.
One could expect the lesson to stick by now. It didn't.
“I understand it, Rosinante, I really do,” Sengoku's voice rumbles, deep chest, deep sound. Big and massive, heavy, fills the room, fills the space.
The planks are even, floor thoroughly cleaned, a job well done. Rosinante always trips while mopping. Clumsy, clumsy, always clumsy. Floorboards laid out perpendicularly to each other, they look nothing like porcelain shards. Rosinante can feel the phantom vase tipping anyway, but reaches out inside his mind and holds it firmly in place. Sengoku's gentle. Sengoku's kind. He understands. (Right?)
“Show me?” A question. This one is easy.
Rosinante tips his head to the side, waiting for a big hand to engulf the throbbing chin.
“... It'll bruise,” the admiral says finally. It will. It already is, probably, judging by the clouded look and darkening eyes flicking over his face.
Nothing new, Rosinante thinks.
Why is that? something hisses back. It sounds like his brother. His brother’s gone.
“I will talk with the commander, this is unacceptable.” The admiral straightens up, ready to leave, but then hesitates a bit, clears his throat. “I know it's hard for you, Rosinante. But you have to… you have to open up to people. You have to force yourself a bit. Control it. You're no longer a little kid, you're a marine-”
Rosinante doesn't listen any further.
The vase slips from his mind's grip, he hears it fall, hears it crack, hears it shatter. Colorful pieces and shards.
He doesn't know what he feels, but Doffy would've probably called it anger. (It hurts.)
When Sengoku's done, Rosinante nods in agreement - yes, he understands, yes, they'll work on it together - but he doesn't mean it. Liar might he be, but didn't he and Doffy do everything to survive? Everything they could? No difference.
—
“I feel like I'm losing him, Tsuru. He's a wonderful boy, brilliant in his own way, but he’s so stubborn, why won't he listen?”
Tsuru looks up at Sengoku from behind the newspaper she's trying to read. The only stubborn one she sees, sits right in front of her.
Outside, the ocean rumbles. Waves bulge, their crests arched and growing, but it’s quiet inside the admiral’s office.
“Give him time,” she huffs, “and don't press. You're just stressing him all over.”
“I'm just trying to help him, Tsuru.”
“You're clearly doing the opposite.”
“How otherwise will he learn? The world won't wait for him, he needs to toughen up eventually.”
She doesn’t respond for a while, just scrutinizes him with narrowed eyes. “Not everyone’s like you,” she says finally. Sengoku's features harden.
“Exactly. Not everyone's as lenient as me. I can't shield him forever, Tsuru.” He looks away, at the sea, the darkening storm. “He can’t live like this, he has to push through this. I’ll teach him.”
As a seasoned strategist, she knows a losing battle with the signs outspread before her. A woeful thing to observe.
—
‘This is unacceptable,' his guardian said. And yet it happens again. And again. And again. Rosinante's chin stings, swollen and bruised with a red mark of impertinence, hand-shaped. He tries to give his guardian a note this time, to explain what happened, why it happened, but when he presses the pen on paper his mind goes blank. Silence lingers like a tangible thing around him. After a while, the admiral sighs, such a heavy sound, so heavy, and takes the paper away.
Lips sealed shut - Rosinante doesn't open them around Sengoku again.
People came to be wary of Corazón in an almost equal measure as they feared Doflamingo himself. The Donquixote's second in command, the captain's right hand man. The only one Doflamingo truly listens to.
Talking to Corazón means talking to the head of the Family. Not directly, not in the face, but everyone knows the crimson smile to be an extension of Yaksha's own grin. You disrespect one - you disrespected the other, and both are inclined to teach that lesson once.
It took him a really long time to realize, to put all the pieces and puzzles together.
People are not safe.
Not on the island, back then, and not here, in the marine base, either. Not anywhere, it seems, and the thought stings and scorches, howls with loneliness and bitter, hard to swallow truth. They are, simply, not safe anymore, perhaps never were.
Places he felt at ease in drifted away, burned down, crumbled, got covered with a thick hoarfrost of unmet expectations. The close circle of people who Rosinante trusted, with all his heart, shrinked and dwindled from a single digit to nothing.
His words are for nobody, because nobody waits for them and listens when they come. Because nobody is safe. The vase falls and shatters and sprays the shards everywhere over and over and he's too tired to pick it back up.
This is fine. (It's not.)
Rosinante doesn't have to speak. (He wants to.)
It doesn't hurt. (It does, it does, it does.)
A spy who doesn't speak, isn't that concept interesting? Not many missions one can take with such a conspicuous cover.
But that's the only job Sengoku was able to fetch for him, when it became painfully obvious Rosinante wouldn't fit into any other position within the navy's structure.
“He can gather information-” they talked over his head, as if he was not even there - Sengoku and two other commanders, one of them personally responsible for Rosinante's unit and very, very disappointed. Rosinante was eighteen at the time, and didn't have a say in his own future. “-with that devil fruit of his. It'd be a waste not to use it. And he won't spill any secrets either.”
“He trips more times than stays upright, I don't see it.”
“It could be a good disguise-”
“ Where? You can't cover it up forever, I saw it myself, he's not able to. Good aim aside, he's too tall, and clumsy. And he doesn't even speak, everyone will figure him out with a first conversation. That job needs finesse and subtlety, which he lacks. Such defect doesn't have a place in the navy's ranks.” Rosinante could feel the eyes boring into him. He didn't even twitch, just kept looking straight ahead, the rims of white coats bright at the edge of sight, justice proudly embroidered on back.
“So what, you just want to waste a devil fruit just like that? He’ll be fine, we’ll train this out of him.”
“As much as I'd love to argue, this is not my call. Rear Admiral, sir?”
His guardian looked like he considered the offer greatly, gave it a deep and adequate thought, but Rosinante knew the decision was made the moment Sengoku organized that meeting.
And that's how Rosinante became a spy, neck-chained to the navy's desk with occasional missions popping up from time to time. These he likes. A breath of freedom in between the reports and meetings and training and eyes and demands and disappointments.
He works alone now, mostly. A blessing he wasn't even fully aware of how much he needed until he tasted it on his tongue. A visible change that translated into success, apparently, as the gold-embellished epaulets rested now on his shoulders. A white coat of a senior officer, a commander, Sengoku was so proud. Yet, to Rosinante, it looks just like any other white coat walking through those rigid halls. Justice. He doesn't know what that means.
People salute more when Rosinante walks by. Listen to his scribbled orders, to the dot. Clacking shoes and fingers touching tense foreheads, straightening spines. No hand slaps him anymore. No one talks to him either.
“Corazón.” Something nudges his side. “Corazón.” Rosinante looks up from behind a book. “Look.”
A tan hand pushes the hardcover down and shoves a colorful page right into his face. Leaning back, Rosinante blinks at the words and pictures invading his space. An article, about the Kingdom of Alabasta and their slowly averting pirate crisis, from what little he was able to read so far. Doflamingo grins from ear to ear.
“A certain pirate became a hero, liberating the towns left and right! Crocodile has become cocky.”
Rosinante takes the newspaper to inspect it closer. Indeed - the pages sing honeyed praises towards the pirate, his smirk alone takes half the front page decorated with the glorifying epithets and titles. ‘Could our country finally see the long-awaited stability-’ as if. There has to be more to this than meets the eye, Rosinante's sure of it, Crocodile’s not the altruistic type.
Doffy reaches out and takes the paper back, scrutinizes the article with a slowly growing mirth. “See, I have a plan, Corazón.”
Rosinante perks up at the words.
A plan, he mouths, then looks around to spot the other Executives. He knows that tone, the distinct tinge of fun laced with a tad more darker undercurrent. A note Rosinante uses to convene their meetings goes as far as halfway out of his coat pocket, when Doffy shakes his head and motions at him to follow. “Just you and me,” he says, walking down the bow. “When I’ll present them with the idea, they’ll lose their shit and agree to my every whim, you know how they are. I need more… level-headed opinion.”
As strange as it may seem like, it doesn’t strike Rosinante as anything unusual. Conversations like this one happen between them from time to time. Book forgotten, he puts the note back into his coat and goes after Doffy, to the private section of the library abutting the captain's quarters. Doflamingo’s fingers flick over the volumes, then his brother takes out three books - Holy Kingdoms and Their Rulers, The History of Grand Line - Islands of the New World - volume III, Tales of the Forgotten Sea - an Anthology. He puts them on the coffee table one by one and looks Rosinante in the eye with a growing, sharpening grin.
“Say, what do you know about Dressrosa?”
Sometimes, when he’s alone, he thinks about the past. Nothing in particular, just scattered images playing in an unorganized loop. Father’s face here, mother’s smile there, Doffy’s laugh. Playrooms. Flames. Sengoku’s heavy, saddened, disappointed stare. Messages written in sand.
Cigarette smoke drifts up, up, up. When he blinks, it dissolves, and the clock’s hand ticks a little bit farther than it was before.
His brother's not gone.
The report stares at him with glasses, feathers, with a smile.
Sharp and vivid, printed on pages with dots of fresh ink. The Donquixote, screams the headline, swirling decor of a bounty poster hugging Doffy's face like a cruel crown, a new frame attached to an old family photo. Letters curl around and demand - DEAD OR ALIVE, they scream, 80 MILLION, they call for.
Rosinante can't believe it.
The pages rustle in his grip and it's music, tightened chest, a breath.
Alive, it keeps singing, alive, alive, alive.
—
Rosinante wakes up with a pounding heart, a gasp and an unpleasant churn in his stomach.
Nightmares are playing a familiar tune in his mind and even through the thick blanket of silence and with eyes wide open, he can still hear them. Gunshots and flames.
That day Rosinante's not able to give even the simplest order. Hands trembling, he feels the icy wave of panic slowly flooding him and sinking down, when he's trying and failing to put the thoughts on paper. Unfinished word stretches with a crooked line, pen presses so hard it almost tears through the page.
The marines before him start to fidget with nervous energy, waiting for the instructions that won’t come. The commands are swelling in Rosinante’s throat, clogging and bulging and he doesn’t know if the numbness spreading over fingers derives from adrenaline or something else. He can almost hear the phantom crunch of shards under his shoes.
Rosinante dismisses the small squadron with a wave of hand he can’t quite feel and wonders what the hell he’s supposed to do.
—
“A new mission for you, Commander.” Never addressing him by the surname, is he? “The one only you can do. No more side-missions, no more training recruits, full undercover.” Both worry and pride color Sengoku's voice in a familiar patchwork, as the admiral places papers on a desk in his office. Doffy's face grins on top of the files.
Rosinante's twenty-three and the world once again swerves in an irreversible direction.
He expected this. Dreaded too, but mostly expected. Heart skips a beat or two anyway.
What do you need me to do? He slides the note towards Sengoku.
“Information gathering, at first. Pointing locations, analysis of his crew, his plans, everything you can learn will be helpful.” Sengoku looks him in the eye. “We need to bring him down, once and for all, it went too far for too long. He'll face justice, Rosinante, I promise.”
That word again, justice.
Rosinante still doesn't know what that means.
They slaughter both pirates and civilians alike, depending on who ruffled feathers at the higher up's table. His job requires him to listen to people, so he does. And what he learned from the tired mouths, angry eyes, bitter smiles… it didn't paint a pretty picture.
“I need you to understand, Rosinante - this is serious. You may… He won't go easy on you, if he'd find out. He’d kill you. You cannot get caught.”
And what would you know? Rosinante thinks, but writes down: I understand.
Half-lies like this one cover up every inch of the marine coat he's wearing. He understands why the admiral says it, understands why he's being sent on a mission like that. Understands why the betrayal fills every space between the words, soaks into the paper pulp as an unspoken requirement. Can you do it for us? Are you able to snitch and lie to your blood and make the world a better place? Can you, can you? Rosinante can. Was trained for it, even long before the official MC01746 figured under his name in the files. Most of his life, basically, was a crisscross of held back tongue, unspoken lines, hiding from everyone and everything. (Nothing really changed, did it? Rosinante is so tired.)
The question is - does he want to? But no one asks him that.
So he signs up for the mission, not that he had any real choice in the first place.
On the day of the departure, a mist obscures the island thoroughly, completely. Shores are never empty, certainly not near any renowned marine base, but with a fog so thick it bleaches everything around, it certainly feels that way.
The goodbye is curt and tasteless. From his point on the board of a small cargo ship Rosinante can't even see the keep's outline. Not even a fracture of the stripped pattern flaking on the bricks. He turns his gaze towards the sea.
He doesn't look back.
His brother's not gone.
Rusty eyes stare at him from behind a familiar mop of blond hair, unfamiliar garments, and a tight-lipped yet sheepish smile he'd recognize everywhere. Rosinante.
Doflamingo crushes him in a hug.
Where were you? What happened to you? Why didn't you stay?
“Alive,” he breathes to the sweaty collar, “alive, you're alive.” His brother hugs him back - Rosinante, he’s got so big, Rosinante - and it's like the world's awry axis finally slotted back into place.
He makes him a Heart Executive right on the spot.
You didn't fix this.
A note that's an equivalent of a slap to the face. Rosinante knows this, he can see the exact moment his brother tenses upon reading the words. But it needs to be asked, addressed. The matter has been lying untouched, keeping him awake since he saw that wanted poster, and if there's ever a way for them to recover, to gain back what was ripped from them and what they themselves destroyed - they have to talk.
Doflamingo looks at the note for a long time.
“I know,” he says finally, a phantom gunshot echoing between them. Then - “I'm sorry.”
And it’s as simple as that, suddenly, unbelievably. Nothing actually changes in that moment, Rosinante knows it doesn’t work like that. The numbness that's spilled over his mouth and the dark weight trundling in his chest don't disappear, the future doesn't shine all that brighter, people don't rise from the dead and his brother doesn't ask for forgiveness. But…
Rosinante closes his eyes and exhales. Enough, he thinks, that's enough. A start. Very wobbly and sloppy and full of holes and maybe naive, so so naive, but a start nonetheless.
A small flicker of trust sprouts from the fissured ground, a small leaf rising its head up. One ceramic shard floating up and nestling back into place.
It fixes itself every time Doflamingo jokes and banters but silences every jab and sneer thrown into the Family’s face. When he doesn’t shelter the kids but never puts them in any real danger either. When he doesn’t bat an eye during the times Rosinante can’t put the words on paper quite right. Everytime Doffy waits for and listens to Rosinante's input, everytime he tells the crew to shut the hell up when they become impatient with his scribbled notes.
Everytime he spares a life he's dead-set on taking only because Rosinante asked him to.
It only matters to me as much as it matters to you, Doflamingo said to him once. Whether he referred to the silence permanently coating Rosinante’s lips or all the other million things around them - he didn’t specify. And it would be a damning statement - an admission to the heartless, monstrous cruelty lurking underneath the glasses and smile - if it only wasn’t so true. But it is. Not Sengoku who cared too much, nor the world that cared so little.
It only matters to me as much as it matters to you. And that - that changes everything.
“The marines. They ordered me to spy on you,” Rosinante whispers one day, when the slowly repairing vase sits safely on the mental shelf in his mind. “How are we going to use it?”
Doflamingo startles, then smiles so wide it has to hurt. Corazón smiles back.