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How many times had he been here, now? Grieving, crying, boasting? How long had be been pretending? Pretending that his dearest Cora-san still lingered in the living world, spirit carried on by his brother, looking for glimpses of him in that strained smile. In the short time since Doflamingo had been locked up, Law had constantly been coming to and fro, bribing guards to let him see what he’d become. To let Law see how Doflamingo had shrivelled into less than a man, less than the great pirate he once was. No longer a Heavenly being, no longer a demon, no longer human at all. He was nought but a prisoner now, bound by chains. A small part of him also came here—to these dark and musty halls, tainted by ash and frost and blood—to let Doflamingo see the same of him. To let him know how much Law had improved (and fallen apart, piece by piece, fragment by fragment) in their time apart.
He would’ve preferred him dead. Should’ve. Would’ve.
That gash-like smile should be something no man should ever have to gaze upon again, whether it be in life or dream, in fever or health. It should be something that no man ever should want to see. Yet Law longed for the torment, for the lingering memory of those eyes looking back at him as a sharp heel ground into his back, forcing him into the dirt. Doflamingo should be dead to the world entirely, and it appeared most had already gotten over the shock of one of the Warlords being defeated and imprisoned. Most had gotten over their fears and anxieties, most knew nothing of the full extent of Doflamingo's fate, his defeat, what he had done. Most knew nothing but freedom now that he was gone. Even the people of Dressrosa rejoiced, their strings abandoned.
That should be what Law was feeling, too. Freedom, hope, escape.
Rather, only longing consumed him. The longing to see him more than imprisoned, more than tortured, more than dead. Perhaps it would’ve been better if Doflamingo were never born at all. If he had never been conceived of godly blood, had never been raised from child to man, then back to child, immaturity and insanity clouding his mind. If he had never left Mari Geoise, never cursed the world with his presence. Perhaps then, Law would’ve died in a mound of bloated bodies, in the burning, white-choked, smoke-soaked city of Flevance, chasing ghosts of family and friends before he, too, was shot. If Doflamingo had never existed, had never appraised Law as he was proffered before him like a prized good, had never accepted his plea…
Maybe Law wouldn’t be here, standing before his cell, trembling as he stared into rose-tinted glasses, having already shed his own. (Had he abandoned them at all? Or just replaced them with a new shiny shade of pink tones just for Cora-san.) Maybe, he would not be sleepless, clammy from the weeks of nightmares, of fever dreams consumed, confused by that face, those fingers, that widening grin as he appraised Law once more. Although, now he was not an object to be seen, now he was an equal to be heard. Or perhaps, just a toy to be played with, as he always was. After all, Dressrosa was the land of toys, and Doflamingo was sovereign.
Law didn't quite know which was worse.
A laugh barked through the quiet corridors of Level 6, high and loud and him. The other prisoners did little more than turn their heads, used to the grating sound of his laugh, of his teeth gleaming in the dark, used to the sound of hate-stained joy.
“Chasing ghosts again, Law?” The voice asked—hoarse and rasped by years of smoke and gin—echoing from deep inside the cobbled cell, sea stone chains clinking against one another like wind chimes in an invisible breeze as the figure strained upwards to see Law through the dim glow. Pursing his lips, Law stared back at the shadowed figure, seeing little but the glint of tinted glasses in the low torch light; the shine of yellowed teeth spread into a too-wide grin. Cobbles wobbled as Law shifted his weight, the mere idea of being still, being complacent, making him sick to his stomach.
Responding only with silence—steeled, a forced façade of calm and normalcy—Law quietly opened the door the second the lock clicked to allow him entry, stepping forth into the all encompassing darkness, leaving behind the dimness of the guard’s torch and welcoming the blackened walls of Doflamingo’s new home. Metal doors clanged shut behind him with a screech, leaving him and Doflamingo alone in the musty gloom, with the latter looking up at him with a knowing smirk that made his skin crawl and his throat seize. Knees frozen in something akin to fear, he choked on his grief as he forced himself to walk up to Doflamingo, who was spread out in a crucifixion against the floor; arms spread wide and tied down by thorns of stone; hair overgrown until it fell across his forehead in a great halo of golden hair.
This was no God. No Christ. This was a mockery of holy men, a demon in disguise. Or maybe just a man. Was man not worse than the devil, inventing his own tortures and evils every day, creating his own hell on earth, perpetually churning the water of hate on the prayer wheel of life.
Law supposed he was just as bad as Doflamingo, in that way. They were both human, no matter how both of them deluded themselves.
Exhaustion immediately took hold of his already foggy brain, sea stone twisting his mind, vision skewing and wobbling until he wasn't quite sure what he was seeing. Cora-san? Doflamingo? Someone else entirely, and he had just walked to his death for the simple reason of loss? None of these options were preferred, not even the sweet sight of his Cora-san alive. For if he was alive, then that would mean Law had failed him, had abandoned him trapped down here in this damp fortress for years on end, with little more than silence to accompany him.
That was something Law could not forgive himself for. Not that he ever forgave in the first place. He was always one to hold a grudge.
Knees slamming against the ground with a thud, Law found himself unwillingly genuflecting himself in a twisted display of florid adulation, shuffling to settle himself in the warm crevice of Doflamingo’s parted legs, staring deep into those tinted glasses, sharing body heat in the freezing air. Panting, he forced himself forwards, more crawling than anything, pressing himself into Doflamingo’s chest, laid atop him like an altar. Gripping tight, he bunched those ratty garments—striped with black and white—into his quaking hands and breathed in the scent of him. The sweat, the grime, the choking scent of left-over cologne that somehow still lingered. With a shuffle of clothing, a clank of chains; Law extracted the sunglasses from atop his crooked nose, leaving him staring at one eye the colour of blood and one eye bloodied. Definitely Doflamingo then.
Why had he even bothered to hope?
Doflamingo did little but twitch at his actions, cheek spasming in a familiar habit of rage, tampered down and quietly kept close to his chest as Law slipped into his wistful memories. Clinging to the past even all these years later. Pressing his cheek to Doflamingo’s left breast, he listened to the jumping beat of his heart, imagining that Cora-san was the one who had taken the first shot on that day. Imagining that in that endless tundra, Doflamingo’s blood stained the pure innocence of his conscience and not Cora-san’s.
Law could only call it pathetic. He imagined Doflamingo felt similarly. Whether that be towards himself or towards Law, he had no idea.
“Perhaps.” He answered, finally, candid, hands coming to cup Doflamingo’s cheeks despite himself, turning his face this and way that, looking deep into the sallow crevices without knowing what he wanted to find. What stared back was a monster of magnitude unimaginable, face twisted into a too kind, too sweet expression. Sickly with its caramelised glee, a far cry from the gentle smile Cora once had. There was no crinkling of eyes, no scrunching of his nose or soft giggle as he teased law, only too straight teeth and a wide eye.
“Then I shall play my part, if you play yours.” Doflamingo muttered, turning to press a soft, dry kiss to Law’s palm, voice tainted with a tone so perfidious that Law was surprised he felt urged to believe him. Yet his response was so evergreen, so blithe. For a small, ephemeral moment, he saw Cora-san sitting before him, kissing his lead scarred hands, whispering to him in that soft smoke-soaked voice, smiling at him with that gap-toothed grin.
“Thank you,” He paused, the name coming out as caked between two harsh, punctured breaths, throat swollen with tears. “…Cora-san.” He finished, thumb gliding along the scar tissue on Cora’s eyelid, rough and scabbed beneath his shaky fingers.
This was familiar. Not in a bad way, in the manner with which most of his adolescence was tainted, but something soft and sweet, a memory clutched close to his heart. It was the one thing that stuck out as the only kindness afforded to him by Doflamingo. (He chose to ignore the fact he fed him, clothed him, taught him, sheltered him. He ignored all of that, for it did not matter, and was probably done out of selfishness and personal gain. This was the only thing he could truly confirm was out of love.)
In an unsure, bygone memory, he could just barely recollect (as sick as he was, feverish and dizzied,) there was a particular time, in the middle of the night during his first few months with the Donquixote Pirates. It felt much like this, head laid against chest, breath rattled with fear, comfort given freely as if it were not a luxury. He’d had a nightmare of some sort, the seething ash of childhood burning him down, forcing up the throbbing memory of bodies beneath him, bodies atop, staring at him with their wide unseeing eyes.
He awoke with a start, heart pounding, head racing, mouth gaped with a terrified scream, feeling ever so small atop his bed, mattress creaking with every gulped gasp of air.
For a moment, it was silent. No one came to collect him, to save him from the monsters slowly creeping closer.
Then Doflamingo rushed in, half-dressed, sweat-slicked and panting.
Law had no clue what he said, or what really happened at all. But he knew that when he awoke in the morning, he was in Doflamingo’s bed, pressed against his thumping heart, and clutched in his arms like the most precious treasure. Rather than escape, rather than force himself up and scream, Law closed his eyes and feigned sleep, drifting back into the quiet rhythm of breathing and beating.
Opening his eyes, he saw a smile, almost soft, looming above him. Calloused fingers combed through his knotted hair, slowly untying the tangled clumps of black. Perhaps he had gone back in time, fallen back into a child’s body, to a time where Doflamingo was soft. No. No, when Cora-san was soft.
Doflamingo had never been soft.
It was odd, seeing him without makeup, without that permanent smile etched onto his face in reddened swathes like blood, smeared along his cheeks.
That could be remedied, though. The harshness could be rounded, the sharp edges sanded down. It could be fixed.
Plucking a tube from his pocket, he uncapped it and raised it to his eye level, getting lost in the sculpted hues of bright red. This would be his first step. Cora-san always smiled, even when he frowned. Bright and wide and painted.
(Or did he? He remembered Cora-san smiling a lot, but was that a mis-remembrance? A mere confabulation of what he wanted to see?)
He pressed the tip to Doflamingo’s lips, tracing the outline in a shaky hand, occasionally pulling away to scrub at the edges with a spit-soaked thumb. Following the curves of the top lip, then sweeping down to the bottom, losing himself in a trance. It was already starting to look better. To look correct.
Crimson glided along Doflamingo’s chapped lips, a layer of blood to match his lust for it. (Both of their lusts. For they each knew that blood offered tranquility when there was no more left to seep from a wounded man.) The waxy stain of lipstick dragged along his cheek, painting them in soft carmine, into a mockery of a smile. Cora-san always wore makeup, even when he slept during those darkened six months where Law did little else than sleep. He was sure that Cora-san took it off, but it was always when Law was in the throes of fever, unable to see, hear or think behind a cloud of cotton stuffing his brain.
Law raised his hand to Doflamingo’s pursed lips, using his sleeve to smudge the lipstick, mimicking the way Cora-san always wore his. Clumsily and off-centre and not exactly pretty.
It was always pretty. To him.
Next, he draw a thin tube of eyeliner from his pocket, tucking the lipstick back, shoving it into his pocket like he could pretend it never existed. He grabbed Doflamingo’s cheek and guided his face into a proper angle. It was difficult, due to the dark and his eyes not quite being used to it, but he managed, hiking himself further up Doflamingo’s supine form and laying the first stroke of blue below his right eye. This line continued into a great starburst, stretching wide across his cheeks and catching the crooked bridge of his nose. Law scribbled to fill it in, before using his fingers to smudge the bright azure to fill the lines.
It was by no means perfect. But if he squinted, if he unfocused his eyes and only stared at the makeup and hair…
That was Cora-san. He was sure of it.
Whilst Law was distracted, cupping Doflamingo’s cheek and looking into the eyes of what felt like Cora-san… he mirrored that gesture. A large hand cupped Law’s face, tracing over the distinct patterns plaguing his face, great white, chalky smears of minerals that had managed to linger. His face contorted into a grin.
“My, my… It seems all of my hard work has gone to waste.” Doflamingo said in a low voice, giving a strained smile—tracing along the border between pale white skin and tan, feeling along the chalky texture, savouring the way Law’s nose scrunched and his lips peeled back to bare his teeth. “Still plagued by your demons, are you, Law?” He asked, tilting his head, leaning in to press a chaste kiss to the large splodge on his cheek, tongue peeking out to lick at the milky epidermis. A hand reached out to grip his wrist, what would be a soft and perhaps intimate gesture became a threat, a warning not to pull away.
He remembered, vaguely, holding Cora-san’s hand. It was always soft, despite the callouses and burns. Gentle, despite his harsh and clumsy grasp. This was anything but soft, anything but gentle or kind or any other adjective that could possibly describe Cora-san.
Law jolted, trying to wrench himself away from Doflamingo’s grip. With this motion, his hands only tightened their grasp, bruising and breaking until Law swore he could feel his wrist beginning to fracture under the pressure. His devil fruit was useless here, in this great gilded cell, so attempting to use Room was pointless and would only sap him of energy further.
“Get away.” His jaw clenched, teeth grinding firmly against one another, so harshly that he thought his teeth might be ground to dust.
These marks, ineffable and impregnable as they were, spoke only of innocence, of a childhood long lost to flames and tar and the echoing gunshots of damnation. To dare to mention them, to dare to speak of them like they were a stain upon skin rather than a trophy of survival.
It was little more than sacrilege.
But, Law, as unforgiving as he tended to be, did not feel an urge to fight. Did not feel the flaming need inside his whitened heart to tear away and force Doflamingo into silence.
Simply, he sat up, forcing the hands away and looking down at the splayed form of that devilish man beneath him, down upon the man condemned to the quietest pits of hell. He forced himself to become un-deluded, seeing Doflamingo for what he truly was. This was not Cora-san, no heavenly angel come down to protect him, no apparition or spirit or loving reappearance of his saviour. It was too easy to rid himself of Doflamingo’s hands, watching at they fell limp, not even bothering to reclaim Law.
Law appraised Doflamingo, laid limp in his blackened cell, staring up with an unsure smile and shaking shoulders.
This was a sick man, he decided. One with a heart blackened by wickedness and pride. And he would not give Doflamingo the reaction he craved so desperately.
He pursed his lips tight, unwilling to speak when such vitriol rushed throughout his veins, and pressed a reluctant kiss to Doflamingo’s crimson stained lips before swiftly turning away—stealing a smudge from his cheek as a souvenir.
“Goodnight Cora-san.” He muttered, the door creaking open once more, bathing him in the dim light that felt like sunrise, and Doflamingo disappeared behind him, a mere wisp of the past.