Chapter Text
Rosinante was chased down on a regular basis, after that. He isn’t entirely sure how to feel about it. He keeps letting it happen.
The idea was amended, edited as time passed, as being in the middle of a fight was usually a good way to miss picking up a call, among other things. Grace period, rejecting the call, a little system that Rosinante hated to admit made something in his chest settle.
Any time that something became unsettled again, he left. No note, no plan, no letting someone know, he didn’t usually even take anything, he just… grabbed his coat and started walking. Even that he didn’t always grab.
The den-den, of course, was never left behind.
If he needed time to himself, he could silently communicate that when his brother called. Part of the system. Pick up and drop the call immediately. Doffy usually still sought him out, after, but not immediately. He trusted Rosinante to sort out what he needed when he was called, and wasn’t that a shock? His brother, Doflamingo, taking a hint.
Humoring his little brother’s games.
The rest of the Family (-and Blues, that name still sits funny-) don’t know about any of it. They know that Rosinante- quiet, clumsy oaf that is only here because of blood- disappears sometimes. Most of them learned not to care about it, all of them had their own dealings or jobs to take care of at times.
He knows some of them speak nastily of him behind his back, to his face, to Doflamingo even at times. It’s waved off or ignored, mostly. Never nipped in the bud. Oh, they wouldn’t hurt him, since Doffy created that ‘Rule of Blood’ as soon as Rosinante showed up… but words, apparently, were free game.
It… didn’t quite upset him, somehow. Oh, it made him hate them, of course. Hate the pestering, the laughs, hate the Executives, hate Trebol and Diamante the most, the most gleeful of them to throw verbal stones in this glass house of ‘Family’. But he never… snapped. Not so far, at least. Apparently, he found out months in, Doffy was waiting for it.
He’d Left again, that night. Hadn’t even stayed for dinner, which tipped off Doffy, which he hadn’t considered. Rosinante hadn’t even picked somewhere to sit and brood ruminate for a time before the first call came. He didn’t snap, but he did pick a place he knew Doffy would hate to even look at, on an impulse. Reminded himself to tell Doffy not to destroy this one after, this time.
If his brother was a monster, and he knew the monster was after him, what did that make Rosinante, when he wandered wherever and didn’t minimize the casualties? When he didn’t have the energy to care, not then, not until the next day when he saw the remains?
Doffy had sneered at the hidey hole and barely said anything before all but scooping Rosinante up and moving them elsewhere. Not the house, in a turn Rosinante was too removed to expect. Just a quiet room in some empty building, less offensive to the senses than the dive bar he’d found by spite.
Doffy had sat next to him, watching him and chattering his observations about the city in turns, until—
“You do know it’s because they’re jealous of you, right, Rosi?”
When Rosinante looks up, Doffy is staring him down. It takes him a long moment to catch up to the subject shift. He pulls out his notepad, for the first time that night.
‘Who?’ Who could possibly be jealous of Rosinante? He had nothing that wasn’t gotten out of pity or reluctant obligation. He isn’t a weakling, but he hates fighting, doesn’t have any of the skill or relish or determination worthy of even speaking of. He’s alive, maybe? He isn’t sure the dead had the capacity to be jealous, though.
Doffy laughs, a quick bark of disbelief. “The Family, of course.” What. “You can’t expect that much logic from them, Rosi. They’re still only human.”
Rosinante doesn’t want to get into the way he twisted that word into a disease. ‘Jealous of what?’
“Come on, I know you’re not actually stupid.” Doffy throws that arm around his shoulders, pulls him in, as he always did after Rosinante Left. “You’re my flesh and blood little brother, after all. It’s not a secret you’re special, and they’re not.” He smiles, lazy and cruel. “And they know, no matter what they do, or how much they prove themselves… they can’t even come close to your level— even at your worst, you’re better than them. And they hate that.”
Doffy laughs at his own twisted truth, and Rosinante forces down a shudder he had no other way of hiding. Maybe his brother was wrong in the details, but he did have a point, damn him.
The sycophants he surrounded himself with do hate Rosinante. They see the obvious: how lacking he is, compared to Doflamingo. How much his brother shields him, from almost everything else. The blatant favoritism is absolutely the biggest factor, even if it has one obvious blind spot.
‘You don’t care ?’ The question added after a moment’s hesitation, avoiding a fight. He never won fights with his brother.
That smile sharpens. “Of course I care,” and, oh no, Rosinante knows that quiet. He can’t hold back the shudder this time, in the face of Doffy’s cold fury. “I hate it. But if I shut them down, do you know what they’ll do, these weak-minded things? They’ll simmer. They’ll whisper and they’ll plot, and they will compress it all down until they’ve just about had it and do something absolutely fucking ridiculous in a pique of base, jealous want.” The arm around him is carefully taut, edges pointed outwards but still wrapped around his throat. “So. I can’t take from them this one little outlet they’re using to rage against how small and lesser they are.”
Rosinante nods carefully, looks down at his clasped hands, resigning himself—
“But you can, Rosinante.” It’s said softly, like a secret. A secret he already hates but needs to hear. “And you will, eventually. It’ll come to you. Overcome you.” He laughs lightly. “I don’t think you’d even need to speak. You just need to remind them you really are greater. Don’t just take it.” Tighter, a desperate hiss. “We are still gods down here, Rosi! Gods meant to inspire awe and fear in these animals. Don’t let them forget it.”
Rosinante is carefully still, measuring his breath with the slow glow and fade of his cigarette.
Slowly, muscle by muscle, Doffy’s grip relaxes. Becomes comforting again.
“You’ve got a spine in there somewhere, little brother,” says the sheathed edge. “I’d like to see it more. Especially when not used against me. That spine is what had you in that rat-hole earlier, I know it is, you little shit!” He says it with a laugh, ruffles his hair. “If you’d wanted more time, you knew how to tell me, and you didn’t. You just went and found the most disgusting place you could make me chase you into. I won’t be mad if you used that spite against someone besides me, you know.”
At some point in his heel turn, Doffy starts to bustle them both to their feet. He pats out the smoking part of Rosinante’s coat, starts guiding them to the door.
“Do me a favor and figure out a different way to spite me that doesn’t leave us smelling like piss, eh Rosi? Don’t roll your eyes at me, anyone who even looks at that shit-hole would get hit with it…”
Ah, damn, Rosinante almost forgot— ‘Don’t wreak this one. City’s running out of decent dives.’
Possibly too late. He catches Doffy’s hand stilling out of the corner of his eye, before both raise in surrender. “Ah, you know me too well! Fine, fine, the rats need a place to go too, I guess.”
Rosinante won’t know how bad the damage is until morning. If he goes out of his way to look, that is. Random people, caught in the crossfire of the monster’s hunt. Blood on his hands, in a way. Should he wash them, if the blood just keeps coming?
He shouldn’t listen to his brother when it comes to how to treat others. He really shouldn’t.
(Until he does. One day he snaps and shatters Trebol’s cup with a bullet, inches from his face, after one too many passive aggressive notes on his abilities or lack-thereof.
Doffy laughs for far too long about it. Rosinante finds an absolutely ridiculous hat, sitting on his bed the next day. A gift with Doffy’s hideous taste.
He almost doesn’t wear it.
It’s soft and warm and well made. It keeps his brother’s fingers from carding through his hair, when he knows that comfort isn’t deserved, one way or another. One of the few things that protects him and makes his brother harmlessly happy.
Trebol is quieter towards him for a week. Outwardly. Inwardly, Rosinante hates to admit his brother was right.
He’s not a god. However, striking fear into the heart of one who wronged you… maybe he could see the appeal.)