Chapter Text
Spencer calls down from the crow’s nest, alerting the crew of a ship on the horizon.
It’s mid-afternoon; the sun shines down reflecting off the water gently lapping against the ship’s hull. Rosinante is in the midst of a game of poker with Shanks and Buggy, trying to figure out which of them is more likely to risking cheat a higher score. They look up at the same time he does, their attention drawn by Spencer’s warning. Shanks and Buggy are immediately excited. Rosinante isn’t not excited, but he certainly feels more trepidation than the other two. He’s not as good at fighting as they are, and doesn’t feel the same joy in it, but he doesn’t dread it the way he used to. The crew has worked hard to make sure he can defend himself, both with a sword and a gun.
Vice Captain Rayleigh pulls out a spyglass that the Captain immediately steals. Vice Ray’s sigh is so put upon that it makes Rosinante giggle, just a little bit, but the humour dies when he sees Captain Roger’s face. It’s unlike him, so dark that a cold feeling washes through Rosinante. Beside him, Buggy and Shanks are craning their necks toward the ship as if they’ll somehow see what the others can’t, so they miss the expression. They don’t miss it on Vice Rayleigh, though.
The crew watches as the Captain calls Gaban over to confer with him and Vice Rayleigh. It doesn’t take long before they’re nodding in agreement, and Captain is calling the crew to their battle stations.
Vice Rayleigh doesn’t let Rosinante and his brothers get far. “Not you three. You’re waiting this one out below deck,” he says in a tone that brooks no debate. Of course, the others try anyway.
“What?!” Buggy demands at the same time Shanks says, “That’s not fair!”
Rosinante stays silent, watching like he always does. Nervousness pricks across his skin. Different means wrong. A break in routine means danger.
“Now,” Vice Captain Rayleigh orders. Something in his voice makes all three of them freeze even amidst the chaos on deck.
Rosinante moves first. He grabs both Shanks and Buggy by the wrist and tugs them after him, towards the safety of their cabin. They’re already speaking to each other in harsh whispers. Rosinante ignores it. He doesn’t even breathe a sigh of relief when they reach their quarters; he knows his brothers far too well for that.
“This is so unfair!” Shanks says as soon as the door closes behind them. “This is our home too, we should be there to defend it!”
“For once, I agree with you, much as it disgusts me,” Buggy says, crossing his arms over his chest with a deep scowl.
“Maybe they just want to keep us safe?” Rosinante suggests. He already knows what the response will be.
“Because we’d be so much better off waiting for it all to go to hell,” Shanks snaps. He’s tense, unusually so--more than he’s ever been before a battle. Rosinante has never seen him show anything less than total confidence in their crew’s abilities.
“Don’t be an idiot, Rosi. What if some creepy fuck gets past them and down here? We’d be all alone,” Buggy adds.
Rosinante shrinks back. He mutters a quiet apology. Buggy scoffs, but Shanks softens.
“Sorry,” Shanks says. He sighs and runs a hand down his face, reminiscent of Vice Captain Rayleigh. “I just worry. There’s not many reasons they’d keep us away.”
“Fuck their reasons. I’m not giving up without a fight,” Buggy says, clenching his hands in a way that means he’s nervous but doesn’t want to show it.
Rosinante swallows dryly and says nothing. He spins the beaded bracelet on his wrist, a gift from the crew on his twelfth birthday. Shanks and Buggy start bickering about how best to make it back onto the deck. Rosinante doesn’t bother listening. He takes several deep breaths the way Gaban and Vice Captain Rayleigh taught him, silently counting in his head. It doesn’t help settle the knot his stomach is tying itself into.
The distraction lasts until the sound of the first cannon. All three of them jolt at the sound, and then Shanks and Buggy are on their feet. Shanks goes for his sword; Buggy for his knives.
“Come on,” Shanks says. The tension has returned threefold.
Rosinante hesitates. They won’t force him to follow, he knows; he shouldn’t follow. He’d be a liability during a fight, but they’re his brothers and it’s dangerous and what if they get hurt? He gnaws on his lip until he tastes blood. Another cannon fires. Nothing has hit the Oro Jackson yet, but the crew is good at defending her. Captain Roger prioritizes his crew over his ship, but that doesn’t mean he’ll let her go down without one hell of a fight.
Shanks waits. Rosinante follows before he can change his mind. His hand is sweaty as he holds his sword. It feels too heavy in his grip.
They creep through the hall and toward the stairs, up to the deck. The crew is too occupied to notice them taking shelter behind a nearby stack of crates.
A large ship of brilliant white and gold is pulling up alongside the Oro Jackson. The sunlight reflects off of it, making it hard to look at. Rosinante has seen such a ship just once before. It was the one that brought his family away from Mariejois, to the island that would be their grave. The knot in his stomach tightens until he can’t breathe.
Beside him, Shanks tenses. “It’s them; Celestial Dragons,” Shanks whispers with such vitriolic hate that it makes Rosinante flinch.
It’s worse than that, Rosinante realizes as soon as he catches sight of the people on that ship. These aren’t just Celestial Dragons; they’re Knights of God.
Things happen quickly after that, as battles often do. There is no conversation, no parley between Captains and no requests made. Knights of God do not bargain.
Petermoo takes a shot that hits a Knight directly between the eyes. It doesn’t slow the man for more than a moment. Of course it doesn’t; they’re blessed by their god, their covenants making them immortal. They can’t be killed; they can barely be wounded. They are the hands of the Empty Throne, of supreme justice; the arbiters of fate. They do what they must with a terrible efficiency that outstrips even that of the navy, and they do not leave survivors.
There aren’t many of them, but there’s enough to put up a fight. Rosinante recognizes some of them, though he can’t remember their names. It’s been too long.
Why are they here? It can’t be for him. Rosinante is no longer a Celestial Dragon, at least according to Mariejois. Unless, could Doffy’s plan have worked? Did he make it to Mariejois with- with-
It would mean Doffy is alive. The thought terrifies Rosinante as much as the possibility of Doffy’s death does.
They watch until one of the knights scores a lucky hit on a crew member. Then Shanks is bristling with anger. He’s up over the crates and gone before Rosinante can so much as grab his sleeve. Buggy curses loudly but follows. Rosinante remains where he is, paralyzed. He doesn’t know what to do. The violence is so loud, the sound of gunfire, clashing blades, and shouts mingling in the air. He curls up, hidden behind the crates, his hands covering his ears like maybe if he can block out the noise the bloodshed will stop. It doesn’t work, of course. It’s like something out of one of his nightmares.
And then the nightmare gets worse. A man steps behind the crates, sword in hand. Rosinante looks up and meets the eyes of a killer, the dark, bloodthirsty look he recognizes from somebody who wants other people to hurt.
The man isn’t the only recognizable one.
“You. You’re Homing’s brat, Donquixote,” he says, just loudly enough for his voice to carry, and Rosinante’s heart stops.
He hasn’t heard that name in years, not since his father died and Doffy left. He never shared it with Captain Roger or the crew, selfishly hoping that it would stay in the past, but the past never stays dead for long—not like people do.
There are flashes of red and blue weaving through the chaos. Rosinante prays to a god he no longer believes in that they stay away. This man could slaughter all three of them without a second thought. Nobody else is close enough to help. He sees Vice Captain Rayleigh trying to reach him from the corner of his eye, but Rosinante already knows it’s futile. There’s too many enemies between them.
He cowers when the knight reaches for him. Once, he might have thought they meant safety, but Rosinante has spent half his life in the lower world. He knows now that the Knights of God have a different reputation here, one that is well earned.
If any mercy exists in this world, perhaps they’ll just kill him, but Rosinante stopped believing in mercy at the same time he stopped believing in gods.
He braces himself for whatever comes next when a blast of Conqueror’s Haki makes his head spin. There is a flash of red hair and a black-coated sword that slashes the air. Blood spurts across the deck. The Knight’s outstretched arm falls, severed just below the elbow. Around them, the battlefield seems to stop.
Shanks stands in front of Rosinante, chest heaving and clothes stained with blood. He holds his sword like Captain Roger and Vice Rayleigh taught him, a stance Rosinante could never quite master.
“Don’t touch him,” Shanks growls, and for a moment, Rosinante is eight years old again, hearing his brother’s furious screaming as every villager in sight drops, his Will dosing even the fire destroying what’s left of the manor.
He’s not quite twelve again when the Knight recoils, caught somewhere between moments. When Rosinante looks at the sword in Shanks’ hand, he sees the glint of a gun instead.
Seconds later, Vice Captain Rayleigh is there, attacking the Knight with the type of reckless brutality Rosinante hasn’t seen from him before. The Knight is forced to the ground, and then stops moving altogether, his Voice disappearing despite his proposed immortality.
The rest of the Knights of God retreat. Vice Rayleigh doesn’t move from the position he’s taken up in front of them. Shanks doesn’t either. Buggy appears at Rosinante’s side, but if he says anything, Rosinante doesn’t hear it. Everything is numb and far away, like he’s dreaming, or maybe drowning.
He can still feel the Haki coming off Shanks in waves. It makes his stomach clench, nausea swelling like the tide.
“Are any of you hurt?” Vice Rayleigh asks when the deck is clear of enemies. His voice gives nothing away.
Rosinante shrinks back further while Shanks and Buggy answer. The silence where his voice should be is heavy.
Vice Rayleigh’s hand tightens on his sword. “Gold?” he asks pointedly.
Rosinante opens his mouth to reply, but no sound comes out. It isn’t his Devil Fruit either. His throat feels paralyzed, something knotted in it, suffocating him.
He shakes his head instead.
“He says he’s okay,” Buggy answers for him, much to Rosinante’s relief.
Vice Captain Rayleigh takes a visible breath. Rosinante can’t see his expression, can’t gauge his reaction, and that is a whole new level of terrifying.
“Go to your cabin. We’ll deal with this later,” Vice Rayleigh says, and for once, Shanks and Buggy don’t argue.
The tense set of Shanks’ shoulders finally eases. He turns and reaches for Rosinante.
Rosinante flinches. He can’t help it. The memories of fire and blood are lingering so close to the surface that he can hardly breathe. He pretends he doesn’t see the flash of hurt on Shanks’ face, but it fills him with sickly guilt nonetheless.
Worthless worthless worthless.
Buggy helps him up instead and supports him as they walk. It’s appreciated. Rosinante isn’t sure he can make it otherwise, with how violently he’s trembling. No one speaks, even when they return to the safety of their small cabin. Buggy gently pushes Rosinante to sit against one wall, his head tucked between his knees. The silence is deafening, oppressive, like a physical weight pressing down on Rosinante’s chest.
He forces his head up after just a few breaths, something nameless clawing up his throat, wondering if maybe this is it, if they hate him now. Buggy sits in the middle of the room looking lost, and on the other side, Shanks is-
Shanks is crying.
It’s so quiet that for a moment, Rosinante thinks he might have accidentally activated his devil fruit. It might explain some things if he did, but no, he can still hear the gentle creak of the ship’s hull and Shanks’ unsteady breaths.
Rosinante has never seen Shanks cry before.
“Shanks?” he makes himself say, and this time, Shanks flinches.
“I’m sorry,” Shanks says. He’s trembling, his arms wrapped around his knees like he’s trying to make himself small. It’s wrong. Shanks has always been larger than life, but the misery pressing down on him now is deep and old. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry.”
There’s something about seeing Shanks so upset that makes everything Rosinante feels seem small in comparison. Rosinante’s fears are old beasts long nipping at his heels, but this worry for Shanks carving out his chest is entirely anew.
“It’s- it’s not your fault,” Rosinante says. “I didn’t have to come.”
Shanks’ distress doesn’t ease. If anything, it worsens. “It is,” Shanks says, his voice muffled in his arms. He sounds miserable. “It is because they were after me.”
That’s- Rosinante doesn’t know how to reply to that. His mind comes to a screeching halt. Thoughts trickle back in slowly, this time not coated in fear.
Rosinante was six the last time he stood in Mariejois; half his lifetime ago. He doesn’t think of it often. He tries not to, really. They’re memories he only revisits in dreams, but now, thinking of Shanks in the same context as Mariejois, of Celestial Dragons and Knights of God, there is an almost-memory of red hair and a childish laugh.
“You’re a Celestial Dragon,” he says weakly. The room feels like it’s spinning. You have a brother, he doesn’t add. Sometimes family is better left unmentioned.
Shanks lets out a sob. Buggy is watching Rosinante warily, waiting for a reaction, but all Rosinante wants to do is laugh, because oh how that self-loathing is familiar. Rosinante feels like he’s looking in a mirror.
The Celestial Dragons are evil. They are responsible for the greatest horrors in the world. Rosinante sees it, he feels the guilt of it pressing down on him every time they pass through Sabaody, every time they stop on an island with stolen children and shattered lives. He has thought for a long time that he is no exception, that the evil in his blood has condemned him the same as it did his parents, but he can’t think the same of Shanks. Shanks who is kind, who loves freely and with his entire heart, who sees the unspeakable parts of the world and neither revels in it nor turns away.
Rosinante’s parents loved too. They were kind, in their own way, raised in a world where kindness was a facade and cruelty a currency. It didn’t save them, but they tried. Rosinante is starting to think that maybe that matters.
Buggy, it seems, isn’t about to let the silence speak. His eyes are sharp, hardened by the sound of Shanks’ quiet tears. “That man, he recognized you.”
Rosinante’s heat seizes. His throat closes up. It shouldn’t be so hard to admit, especially now; what use is keeping secret a curse that another shares? But he has never known how to put it into words. He doesn’t know how to explain that there is fire still living beneath his skin, that Rosinante has never stopped burning. Part of him still lives in that manor, listening to his father beg for their lives and his brother scream, knowing they are condemned for their blood.
Maybe worse, though, is being here and now, hearing Shanks cry over the same thing, so Rosinante does the only thing he can when his words lock themselves behind gritted teeth. He pulls out his notebook, worn from two years of heavy use. Vice Captain Rayleigh showed him how to replace the pages when he filled it up, and how to save the ones he wanted to keep. It’s half filled with maps now, rough sketches or sections of much larger ones that won’t fit on a single page. He pulls out a pen and flips to a blank section. His writing is messier than usual. Each stroke is a confession like the crackle of flames.
Me too.
He lets them both see the book, but looks pointedly at Shanks.
Buggy looks between them, his face rapidly shifting through several expressions Rosinante can’t name. It might be funny, in a different situation. Instead, all he can do is present the truth and wait for judgement.
“You mean you’re a Celestial Dragon too?” Buggy asks. He sounds offended. “Aren’t you lot supposed to stay up in that big city of yours?”
Shanks’ head snaps up, wide eyes glued to Rosinante. Rosinante swallows dryly and pretends not to see them. He can’t, not if he wants to be able to explain.
Usually, he writes. My parents left Mariejois when I was six. They wanted to live like humans. They died when I was eight.
He’s skipping over large chunks of the story, and he’s sure they know it, but it’s all he can bear to explain. Let them remember the scars on his arms and legs and put together the rest themselves. Beyond that, well, they both know how he ended up on the Oro Jackson.
Shanks looks genuinely speechless for the first time since Rosinante met him. Then he lets out a laugh that sounds more like a wheeze.
“Of course,” Shanks says. “I mean, what else should we expect? The only two Celestial Dragons raised outside Mariejois and we both end up on Gol D. Roger’s ship.”
Three, Rosinante writes, even though it hurts. I have an older brother, but I don’t know where he is.
It feels better than admitting that he doesn’t know whether Doffy is even alive.
“Thank the seas for that. I don’t think I could handle that many of you,” Buggy snaps, but it lacks his usual heat. He huffs. “Two Celestials is bad enough. I think we should just throw Shanks overboard and keep you, Rosi.”
“Hey!” Shanks says, immediately offended.
Rosinante giggles, the tension easing from his shoulders when Shanks flashes him a quick smile despite his red-rimmed eyes.
“Are you two okay now?” Buggy asks, ignoring Shanks’ reaction. “Because I really can’t handle you both crying, and I think Gaban is still busy.”
Shanks takes a deep breath and scrubs his face with an arm. “Yeah,” he says, swallowing dryly. “Yeah, I’m okay.”
Rosinante nods. “Me too.”
“Thank the sea and skies,” Buggy mutters. He straightens. “Now, how are we going to keep Vice Rayleigh from turning us into Sea King bait?”