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A Hymn for Thieves and Lawmen (6069 words) by Dave Strider Chapters: 2/?

Summary: Doflamingo's heart soars to have his beloved brother finally returned to him, and nothing will stop Doffy from smothering him with all the affection he knows how to give. All Doffy wants is to make Rosi a part of the criminal family he's built during his brother's long absence.

Rosinante has no heart beating in his chest. He is secretly the subject of the World Government's first attempts at what will one day be known as a Pacifista, and with the government watching through his eyes, and listening through his ears, could he disobey even if he wanted to? The longer Rosi spends with his brother, the more he desperately wishes he could.

The household was in shambles. Doffy, all broad smiles, had picked a wounded stranger up off the doorstep in his arms and introduced him to all of them as his brother, Rosinante. He had demanded that everyone should be happy to see him; and then he had spirited him off. Clearly, Doffy said, his brother had been through some terrible trauma, and he needed space for now.

Trebol had to restrain himself from listening at the door. Having to shoo little Baby 5 away from doing the same thing made it easier, but it was still a struggle. He called the other executives into the lounge and poured tall glasses of wine.

At least Diamante and Pica didn't look any happier than he felt. He glanced at Corazon's empty chair and wished he were there. Doffy would have let him into the room with him and his brother, Trebol was sure of it.

He downed his first glass of wine quickly and poured another one before any of them even spoke.

It was Pica who broke the icy silence first with his quiet voice.

"It can't be his brother. He died. Didn't he?"

"Sure fucking thought so." Diamante crossed and recrossed his long legs, fishing for his cigarettes in his front pocket. "If he didn't, why the hell show up now?"

The circle was quiet for another moment.

"He wants something," Trebol declared finally. He stared down at his wine. "Hey, hey it's obvious, right? When do unwanted relatives show up?"

Diamante snorted and sat forward. "When they need money."

"When they need money." Trebol nodded. Obvious. It was obvious. "Look at him, eh? Probably up to his ears ruined in gambling debt and came to the last person in the world he thinks he can get a few berries from."

"Bastard," Pica snapped.

"So what do we do?" Dia asked. He lit up his cigarette with a flick of the lighter and the scent of it tickled Trebol's nose and made him sneeze.

Wiping his nose with his hankerchief, he frowned. "You know what a soft heart Doffy has. He'll give his brother anything he wants."

"He'll get taken advantage of," Pica said softly. It was just what Trebol was thinking too. If they weren't careful, a leech like this could take all kinds of advantage of Doffy's sweet nature.

"It's up to us to make sure that doesn't happen." Trebol finished his second glass of wine. His hands felt steadier as he put it down. "We'll keep an eye on him, find out exactly what he wants, and make sure we can show Doffy he's no good, eh? Honestly, it shouldn't be that hard."

Dia nodded, puffing away at his cigarette. "If he's just here to milk Doffy for cash, he'll pick up on it. Especially if we point it out. Probably it'll piss him the hell off, you know? Wouldn't want to be Doffy's brother when that happens."

Trebol mirrored Diamante's mean grin back at him. "Neither would I! That's if he really is Doffy's brother, which I expect is exactly what the young master is working on ascertaining right now."

He hoped so, anyway. Doffy had sounded absolutely certain of it already but…

The idea of Doffy stripping his brother to look for scars and birthmarks flashed through Trebol's mind and he pushed it away as it heated his face.

He swallowed, his mouth dry, and continued. "Hey, hey, but we better do our part, too. Dia, send somebody out to follow his trail. We need to know where he came from."

Diamante raised his cigarette. "Already sent Pink out on it, Tre. GIve him an hour or two and we'll know as much as there is to be known."

"Good man." That was a relief at least. Trebol would make his own inquiries based on whatever it was that Pink brought back.

They'd figure this out. This interloper wasn't just going to show up after how many years and disrupt their carefully built lives, and take advantage of Doffy, and pull him away from his real family.

Absolutely not.

Trebol wouldn't stand for it.

He poured a third glass of wine.

This was not the welcome Rosinante had been expecting. He had been ready to be interrogated. He had been ready to answer demands.

He had not been ready for Doflamingo to spirit him away into his bedroom, scoop him into his arms, and start sobbing.

He had only barely had time to take stock of his surroundings– stone walls, crates doubling as tables– before he was pinned on his back on the nicest piece of furniture in the room– a very large and handsome bed that smelled heavily of floral perfume.

Doflamingo pressed his face into the crook of his shoulder, arms around him. Though he knew his brother's sunglasses were askew and poking into his neck, Rosinante could barely feel them, or the tears that he was noisily gasping out.

Rosinante wasn't sure what to do. He hadn't expected something like this.

He'd expected his brother to be cold, aloof, suspicious. All the things attributed to him as a feared pirate captain.

But at the same time, maybe he should have expected it? Doffy had always been clingy– domineering?-- when they were together as children. Always grabbing for his hand, or putting his arms around him.

What would Rosinante's handlers think when they went over the recordings when he reported in? When they saw his vision blotted out by oiled pink feathers, and heard the feared captain Doflamingo sniffling and gasping into his neck?

They would find it pathetic, wouldn't they?

Did Rosi find it pathetic? Was that the source of the twisting ache in his stomach at the close contact? It must be. It was pathetic. If a marine behaved like this he'd be whipped and locked in the stocks for an hour.

Rosi would know. He'd gone through the same when he was younger.

He lay there as Doflamingo sniffled and stroked his hair. "I missed you, Rosi," he said, over and over.

Rosinante was sure his hands were shaking when he put his arms around his brother in return, for the first time in many, many years. He had to, he reminded himself, he had to play the part that was expected of him. It wasn't that he had missed his brother–

No, no that wasn't true, and he couldn't even fully articulate the lie even within his own mind. He had missed his brother terribly, for ages and ages. He had woken up in the darkness reaching out for a hand that wasn't there, time and again.

But his brother was a monster. And the hand was a claw. And his honeyed words were poison.

Rosi held him tighter, anyway. He held him tight and he failed to push away the old memories of his body close to Doffy's– hiding in fields and patches of garbage, his brother flattened on top of him to keep him hidden.

He smothered the choked noise in his throat with his power.

Doffy finally caught his breath and learned up, seeming deeply hesitant to move even an inch away from him. He straightened his glasses and reached down to wipe Rosi's face. His brother's warm thumb on his cheek streaked wetness across it, and Rosi realized that he had been crying too. He hadn't noticed it, it had just… happened.

The knot in his stomach tightened as he looked up at his brother, whose sharp face was red and puffy with tears.

"I missed you so much, Rosi. What happened to you? Where have you been all this time? Are you hurt badly?"

This part at least, he had been prepared for. He reached up and touched his own throat, opening lips to mime speaking, and shook his head.

Rosi had spent three months mute when they had been operating around his throat. The experience had impressed on him how much simpler it was to remain silent, and how people's expectations changed when they knew you couldn't speak.

And Rosinante did not trust himself to speak to his brother.

The tone of his voice. A hesitation at the wrong time. A couple of words not carefully considered. Any of those things could give away the game and bring Doflamingo's suspicion on him. If he spoke, his brother would know. He would know he was here to betray him.

So he had decided to play mute.

His power made it easy, and the scars around his throat sold the lie. Anything that was necessary to communicate, Rosinante could write, which would give him the time to carefully consider his words without arousing suspicion by his hesitation. He could keep messages short, and he could keep any lingering trace of the wrong emotions out of them.

It would be easy. All he had to do was not say a word no matter how much his brother pleaded.

Doffy had only barely managed to catch his breath enough to check on his brother. His face was sticky with tears, and his eyes hurt from crying, but he knew he'd been inconsiderate. Rosi was hurt! Rosi hadn't even spoken a word since he'd pulled him in the bedroom, just soft little huffs of air as he cried.

He wished he had a handkerchief to wipe both their faces, but that would involve getting up and moving from Rosi's side, which he refused to do yet. He wiped away some of Rosi's tears with his thumb instead, like he had when they were little.

Every reminder of those days was like a knife in his heart.

Rosi wasn't dead! What had happened to him? Could they have somehow found him if they had just looked harder? Was it his fault they had been separated for so long?

No. We combed the whole area top to bottom. We looked for days. Pica kept looking for him for me even after I left for Mary Geoise. Rosi must have been gone somehow, or been hidden.

"I missed you so much, Rosi. What happened to you? Where have you been all this time? Are you hurt badly?"

Rosi opened his mouth to answer, but no sound came out. Soft eyes wide, he clutched at his throat, and shook his head.

Doffy's mouth went dry as he understood the gesture. Rosi couldn't speak?

He clasped his hand over Rosi's, over his throat. "You can't speak?"

Rosi shook his head softly.

Doffy looked once more at the wounds and bruises over Rosi's body– and now that he paid more attention he saw the scars as well. His brother. His poor baby brother. Someone had hurt him. Today, and in the past.

Someone was going to pay.

"Is that new?" Doffy asked. "When you were hurt today?"

Rosi shook his head again. He felt his fingers close around his own.

"I'll kill them," Doffy promised, his voice coming out in a hiss as fresh tears stung the edges of his eye. "I'll kill whoever hurt you. Today, and any time."

Another shake of his head and this time Rosi pulled him closer. Doffy squeezed him. feeling sick and dizzy. Doffy had lost an eye to the mob so many years ago. And Rosi had lost his voice and who knew what else when Doffy hadn't been able to watch over him.

"It'll be okay, Rosi, I promise." His voice, usually so smooth and confident, broke slightly. It was the same promise he had made to Rosi years and years ago, and he hadn't been able to keep it.

Rosi reached up and stroked his fingers through Doffy's hair and he felt a soft thrill at the gesture.

Rosi needed him. After all this time he still needed him. And this time Doffy would keep him safe. He had the power to do that now, not like when they were children.

"Are you hurt badly? Let me see your wounds, Rosi. If you're cut I can stitch you up."

Doffy hoped that his brother didn't need any stitches, but he was still proud of the trick, and wouldn't it be nicer to put his threads through his brother than their doctor poking him with needles?

Rosinante froze like a frightened deer and pulled back, shaking his head, and Doffy realized he must have made a faux pas of some kind.

"Oh! I don't mean with a needle," he promised. "With my powers…"

Still, Rosi shook his head. He put his fingers together and shook them in the air. Doffy stared, trying to figure out what he was doing.

Rosi stared back at him. He raised his other hand and repeated the gesture against the flat palm of it.

Writing! It suddenly struck him that Rosi was miming writing.

A flood of relief went through him and he smiled. Of course, they could communicate like that!

Doffy waved his hand and his threads grabbed a notepad and pencil from the top of one of the crates nearby. He sat up, still straddling his brother— loathe to move any further away– and he handed him the implements.

Rosi scribbled on the paper and showed it to him.

[I don't think it's as bad as it looks.]

"I'd still like to look, Rosi. What happened?"

Another scribble.

[Marines.]

Marines. Of course it was marines. The fucking marines were always throwing their weight around. With the shabby way his poor brother was dressed, Rosi wouldn't have even had to do anything particular to make himself a good target. Like anyone else, they loved to kick around anyone they thought they could get away with.

He hissed and balled his fists. "I'll send out a hunting party."

Rosi grabbed his wrist and shook his head before quickly writing again.

[It doesn't matter. I just came to find you. And I did.]

Doffy's anger softened just a touch as his heart overwhelmed him. He probably would still send out a hunting party– the marines couldn't be allowed to think they owned the place– but it could wait. It could wait because his brother was here. His brother had been looking for him. They'd finally found each other.

And Doffy would forgive him for being frightened that night in the shack when their father had to die. Rosi was young. He was soft. He didn't understand.

He must have understood now, or he wouldn't be here.

"I'm glad you're here, Rosi," Doffy cooed gently at him, hoping it would reassure him. He put his hand on his brother's cheek. "Let me take off your clothes and see how badly you're hurt."

Once again, Rosi was grateful for how circumstance fostered a tolerance of his hesitation, because he fumbled completely when Doffy asked to take off his clothes. His instinct was to say no– he should be appalled at the very suggestion.

But it was another thing that brought back an unpleasant sting of horrible nostalgia. Doffy stripping him down, checking his bruises and cuts, looking him over for ticks and leeches from when they had to hide in brush or in streams. It had always made him feel safe, back then, to know that his brother was looking out for him. To feel his hands on his stinging, bruised skin.

Feeling safe around Doflamingo was the one terrible luxury that Rosi couldn't afford under any circumstances.

If he felt safe around the evil pirate he had come to infiltrate and execute, then he might falter. He might hesitate. He might give the game away.

But he couldn't refuse without arousing suspicion either.

He wasn't worried about Doflamingo discovering his enhancements. Those were all buried under layers of tissue, joined with muscle and with bone. Nothing short of a major surgery would expose him, and if he was in the position to need such a thing he was already as good as dead.

No, the danger of Doflamingo putting his hands on him was less material, and more existential.

Like so many things in his life, Rosi would simply have to endure it.

He nodded slowly, and to make sure he was understood, made a quick scribble on the pad.

Two dots and a curved line.

He spread his arms and let his brother undress him like when they were little.

Doffy felt a sting of relief as Rosi showed him the smiling scribble on the pad. He had been afraid, when Rosi hesitated, that he had gone through some trauma that would mean he didn't want to be touched, or undressed, even by his brother. The cruelties men inflicted on one another were myriad and hellish, to find out that his brother had gone through–

He banished the thought and smiled, reaching forward instead to unbutton the few still remaining buttons of Rosi's threadbare shirt and peel it away from his sweaty and bloody skin. The material was coarse and harsh under his fingers. Doffy could imagine what it felt like on his baby brother's skin.

"You'll have new clothes," Doffy promised. "Silk, and satin. Furs and feathers."

He remembered Trebol promising him the same when he'd come back to the North Blue. He'd been defeated and beaten on that journey, his simple clothes caked with mud and sweat when he'd returned. And when he'd fallen back in with Trebol and Pica and Corazon, they'd comforted him, and washed and fed him, and Diamante had given him his coat to wear, and Trebol had promised soon he would have soft and beautiful clothes.

He remembered how much it had comforted him, when he felt like he had lost everything, when he felt low, and bedraggled, to be cared for and be promised the world.

He laid his hands softly on Rosi's stomach, seeing the bruises forming there, and the bloody scrapes across his chest. His skin was rough, and there was hardly an ounce of fat on his body.

What had Rosi been through, that this was how he returned to him, fraught and frail like Doffy had been when he had stumbled his own way back to the North Blue?

Rosi looked down at him, as Doffy carefully checked his body over for wounds, his hands softly moving over every inch of him. It was bad. There were injuries that would take quite some time to heal. But Rosi was right. No broken bones at least, and no deep cuts.

He softly petted his hands over Rosi's shoulders and Rosi looked at him with big, hauntingly sad eyes.

"It's going to be okay," he promised again. "You're with us, now."

It was the same thing that had been said to him all those years ago. It was the most comforting thing that he could think to say.

As Doflamingo's hands lingered on him, the small hairs at the back of Rosi's neck stood on end. The soft, gentle touches were something he hadn't felt on his skin since he was a small child. He shivered under them.

He shivered too, at the promises. Doffy stood, and for a moment he walked across the room to fetch a basin, a pitcher, and a cool rag. Already Doffy was promising him riches. As he turned his back on him he promised him more.

"You're skin and bone, little brother. We have to feed you up. We have big meals around here."

Doffy knelt beside him on the bed and started cleaning him with the cool, damp cloth. It sent more shivers through him every time it touched him, except when Doffy washed his upper back, which felt like nothing at all, thanks to the old surgeries and scars.

All the while, Doffy cooed and made promises.

"Do you like jewelry?" he asked. "You should have some if you want it."

"We had a steam bath installed," Doffy said as he knelt down and washed Rosi's feet. "Have you ever been in one? Next time I'll give you a bath there."

Rosi's toes curled at the tickling touch. He felt dizzy at the unfamiliar, old sensation.

But more than that, he felt sick.

His brother was promising him the world, all the riches and evil of his ill-gotten gains. All the luxury that wickedness could buy. And through it all, we, we, we…

As if Rosi would be comforted to be at the sick heart of this nest of evil, surrounded by leering, malignant pirates who glutted themselves on lavish spoils that weren't theirs to take.

You're with us, now.

The promise was a warning, and it sent another shudder through him.

Doffy sounded so proud of it all.

Doffy's hands felt so good on his aching body.

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