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When breathing became as painful as everything else, Doflamingo had to accept that he was dying.
He'd been grimly determined not to believe it: to ignore the way his body was inevitably decaying around him. A prolonged, agonizing death. He was almost proud of Law.
It was that one attack that had done it. The Gamma Knife, Law had said. Sure, Doflamingo had stitched his insides back together, but they hadn't had nearly enough time to heal before the Marines had slapped seastone cuffs on him. Impel Down was not a place renowned for its medical care. Had this been Law's plan all along? Leave him to rot from the inside out, alone in the dark? Doflamingo doubted it. Law was as vicious as a rabid dog; he'd wanted Doflamingo to bleed out under his own hands. He'd wanted to take his revenge out of Doflamingo's skin and bones. Doflamingo should have put him down years ago.
And yet, still, he couldn't help but be a little proud. All this, all of Law's success-- it came from him. He had taught the boy, aimed him at the world like a weapon. If only he'd been able to keep that weapon for himself. What a glorious thing Law might have become then.
On his back, trying to breathe, Doflamingo closed his eyes. He should have been truly alone; isolated from other prisoners, separated from guards except for meals and the rare visit. It should have been silent.
But there was a soft sound of movement above him. Rustling feathers and near soundless steps. He didn't open his eyes.
"Somehow," said an almost-unknown voice, "I really believed you'd make it out."
Doflamingo didn't answer. The voice was an impossibility. He was hallucinating-- or dreaming-- or maybe this was what happened when you died.
The sounds of movement got closer, as though someone were sitting down beside his head.
"You're not real," Doflamingo informed the apparition.
There came no answer but a soft sigh.
An uncomfortable silence of several minutes passed. Or maybe it was less. When every breath was agony, moments stretched out like raindrops on glass.
"You must be triumphant now," Doflamingo finally said, indulging his madness. "Little Law finally got revenge for you. Soon you can rest in peace, or do whatever it is you're waiting for."
A laugh. "I'm sure you won't believe me," was the reply, "but it brings me no joy to see you like this."
"No, I could believe that," Doflamingo said. "Soft-hearted. Just like father. You very nearly fooled me, you know?"
"I did fool you. At least for a time." Oh, he was proud of that, wasn't he. "But I suppose you're right. I was too soft-hearted to kill you, at least."
If it had been possible, Doflamingo would have snorted. "You never even tried."
The fingertips of one hand gently tapped his forehead twice. "That's the difference between us then, isn't it?"
"You never tried," Doflamingo said, "and I never hesitated."
"Precisely."
Doflamingo opened his eyes.
Sitting beside him, looking down at him, was the figure of his late little brother. He looked almost as he had the day he'd died. He was missing his makeup and hood, but he still wore the same coat, the same ridiculous heart-printed shirt. There was a smear of blood at the corner of his mouth. His eyes were very tired, and he did not smile.
"I'd say you look well," Doflamingo said, "but I'd rather not lie."
"That's a first," Roci replied. He looked so young, still, frozen at twenty-six. Killed at twenty-six. Strange to think that people might not realize immediately they were brothers, if they saw them together. Age and death had made them more strangers than a decade apart.
"Do you know how often I imagined your voice?" Doflamingo said. "That's the one thing I could never forgive you for. You kept your voice from me. I must have promised a thousand times that I would kill anyone who'd ever hurt you, if only you would speak to me. Did you laugh? Was that a joke to you?"
"You forgave me for everything else?" Roci sounded surprised.
"I'm not pleased you took Law and the Ope-Ope," Doflamingo said, "or that you betrayed me for the Marines, of all people. But you've been punished for that already."
"Atonement in death, hm?" Roci smiled sadly. "I really hated you, you know? For everything. For Father. For leaving me. For making our family name one of piracy and death. I was afraid that if I spoke, you'd be able to hear how much I despised you."
Doflamingo laughed out loud, not caring that it felt like broken glass in his chest. "Oh, Roci," he said. "For such a petty reason? Really? I wouldn't have minded your hatred."
"Wouldn't you?"
"Not when I love you so much."
"Some kind of love," Roci replied. Bitter, as bitter as his pomegranate eyes. "I hated you, but couldn't kill you. You killed me, even though you loved me."
"Didn't you love me?"
"Of course. Still do."
An odd relief, to be loved by the brother he murdered. When he turned his head to the side, Doflamingo could see the gore dripping down Roci's chest from countless wounds. Countless, only because Doflamingo had begun to suspect he would not have time to count them all.
"How'd you do it?" he asked. "Law wasn't with the Marines. How'd you get him out of the Birdcage?"
When Roci grinned, his face lit up. Alive and bright, even dead. "I didn't. He was in one of the chests your men took from the Barrels Pirates."
"Son of a bitch," Doflamingo said admiring. "No offense to Mother, of course, but-- you bastard. Clever little thing. Never gave that sort of ingenuity to me. We could have used it."
"Yes, I'm aware. I had a vested interest in undermining you, remember." Still smiling, but sadder, he looked away. "I've regretted it, sometimes. It hurt him."
"Thirteen years looking for revenge, and he stumbled at the finish line," Doflamingo mused.
"Hardly. He's out there, and you're in here."
"Only because of his alliance with Strawhat," he disagreed.
"Does the method matter?" Roci asked. "He still got his revenge. Even if he wanted you dead by his own hands-- he's still going to have it, even if it took a while."
Yes, Doflamingo could feel that. Could feel the slow betrayal of his organs within him, turned to Law's cause. "I wouldn't have left you," he told Roci. "If you'd just waited. If you'd come with me in the first place. I never would have left you."
"But you did." Frustration. "You did leave me. Nothing ever mattered to you so much as what you think you deserve. And if anyone dared to interfere with your carefully arranged world, all compensating for a throne we never should have had-- well, it doesn't matter that we were family, did it?"
"Father deserved it," Doflamingo hissed.
"And so did I? And so did all of Dressrosa-- innocents, Doffy, don't you get it? You're so powerful. You could have done something good."
"Like you?" Doflamingo retorted. "Good little Marine, in your perfect uniform? I found your file. You certainly looked miserable. I suppose that's good for you, though. Builds character."
The melancholy emanating from Roci was so thick that for a moment, Doflamingo imagined he could feel it-- and then he realized he could, regret dripping at the edge of his perception as though it had leaked in. Not his own, but still palpable.
"Not the Marines," Roci said. "Took me too long to figure it out, but the whole Government is rotten. Look at what they did to Law. I never did manage to do the right thing with my life, but I know it has to exist. I know it wasn't what you were doing. But there's a right thing somewhere."
"And why should I bother looking for it?" Doflamingo sneered. "Look at what they did to us, Roci! Us, who should have been as gods to them! Do you really think we deserved that?"
"No. We didn't. I agree, it was terrible. It should not have happened. But does it then follow that the whole world deserves your revenge?"
"Yes."
"Really." Not a question: judgment.
"They're all humans. They're all guilty."
Roci was quiet. "Let's say you're right," he said finally. "You have lived your life seeking revenge on the world. Is it fair, then, for you to die by the actions of those who have been harmed by your seeking revenge? All the pain you've put into the world, now returned to you. And," he interrupted any response Doflamingo might make, "this isn't a matter where your supposed status should insulate you from the reciprocities of humans, because Law was avenging me."
For a long time, there was quiet.
"You're here because I'm dying, aren't you." It was a question to which Doflamingo already knew the answer.
Silence. Doflamingo could feel ripples of grief.
"You said you hated me," he said. "Do you still?"
Feathers spread like a pool across the floor as Roci lay down beside him, on his back, shoulder to shoulder. "No. Not much point in it, anymore."
Shoulder to shoulder as they were, Roci felt warm. That didn't seem right. Doflamingo didn't question it. "Will you stay?"
"Of course."
Doflamingo closed his eyes again.