Chapter Text
Donquixote Rosinante is eight years old, and two days after his father was shot to death right in front of him, he wakes up to the sound of someone screaming.
It’s deafening, clawing its way out of their throat like they physically can’t keep it down. His ears are ringing, ringing, ringing (just like before—) and he curls up in a ball and puts his tiny hands over his ears to muffle the noise, but it keeps going, loud as ever.
Vaguely, he can hear shuffling around him, muffled yells and complaints and curses. It reminds him of the fire, of people shooting arrows at him and his family, of terror, of rage. The smell of smoke and blood clings to his senses even now. (The scream gets louder.)
Suddenly, the voices abruptly cut off as footsteps close in, and someone roughly grabs him. The scream reaches a desperate pitch and Rosinante feels himself starting to thrash against the hold. Weak fists crash against an unaffected body, and the bite he etches into a white sleeve does nothing. Panicked thrashing turns into writhing, and the scream just won’t stop—
“—y, hey. Boy!” a voice suddenly barks, and the droning screech finally drops in volume (but he can still hear it— “Focus on me, okay? I need you to quiet down a bit.”
…Oh.
He’s the one who’s been screaming.
The realization sinks in quickly, and he blinks lethargically, eyelids crusted over with gunk and tears. He hasn't done that in… a while. Since those first few nights on the run, when the terror had been too much that it manifested in his dreams. It had kept happening until he accidentally led some bad men to where his family were sleeping, once. He's woken up without sound ever since.
The noise that had accompanied him from the second he had woken up dies in his throat, caving in on itself until the only thing left is ragged breathing. Now that he isn’t deafened, he can hear the sigh of relief from whoever is holding him (and others, he distantly notes) before it’s replaced by the sound of muttering and people exiting the room.
Finally, the man steps back and lets him go, and the face he’s greeted with is startlingly familiar; the man from before, with the same weird, ball-like hairstyle, the same kind face, the same black glasses. He looks tired, almost, but his eyes are attentive, darting across his face with something close to worry.
“There you go,” the kind man rumbles. “You’re alright. You’re safe.”
He tilts his head at that, brows knitting together. Is he, really?
As he mulls it over, he spares a glance at his surroundings, now that he isn’t screaming his throat sore.
He’s in some sort of medical room, he thinks, with sterile white beds, complicated machinery and tools he’s never seen before. He can’t quite remember if it’s supposed to look like that; the last time he’d been in a room like this was back in the Holy Land, after he’d scraped his knee for the first time. Mamma had been so worried, fussing over the blood, but Tata had given them both a calming smile and reassured them that he was gonna be fine, and Doffy seemed to have not been affected by it other than staring at him with that look of his, so it must’ve been okay, right?
(Doffy had given him that same look after he had vomited his last, meager meal up, their murdered father laying just feet away from both of them.)
The kind man's hand lifts and then lands on his shoulder. Suppressing a flinch at the touch, he tries his best to look him in the eyes. It’s polite to look people in the eyes, Tata had told him. You were giving the commoners the respect they deserved.
“This is the sickbay of a Marine ship,” the man explains, and Rosinante's eyes brighten just slightly at the familiarity. “We found you some hours ago back on that island, and you fell asleep quite quickly afterward… well, until now, that is.”
The kind man cracks a small grin. “And let me tell you, that was impressive! I’ve never heard someone scream that loud and for that long, and I’ve been alive for much longer than you. You must have some seriously good lungs.”
…The only response he elicits is a blank stare.
The smile falls quickly after that, and the kind man awkwardly clears his throat. “Anyways. My name is Sengoku. I’m one of the Admirals.” He tilts his head. “Is it alright if I can get yours?”
Rosinante chews on the question, and his lip, for a moment. It's been a long time since he’s had to introduce himself. And he clearly wants to know, right? So he should know.
He nods, and opens his mouth to speak…
…and nothing comes out.
He blinks again. His mouth closes, and then opens again, and he tries so hard to speak, he promises, but the only thing that escapes him is a wounded squeak.
“Oh dear,” the kind man— Sengoku-san— mutters, and his face is even more worried now. But it starts blurring, and Rosinante is starting to hear his breathing and heartbeat more than anything else again. Then, almost jarringly, another hand grips him, and Sengoku-san gives his shoulders a light squeeze. “Hang on, boy,” he soothes, “don’t freak out on me again. You’ve probably just exhausted your lungs a bit.”
Rosinante feels himself nod, sounds going back to normal, and Sengoku-san starts smiling again.
“Good, good,” Sengoku-san praises, and he feels something dislodge in him. Fear, maybe. The man really is kind…
The older man stands up, and Rosinante’s neck cranes and creaks as he tries to follow his gaze upward… to which he only succeeds in tilting back so far that he loses the fickle balance he has on his own bed, tumbling back into the pillows without a sound. Sengoku-san stares down at him with confusion for a bit, but he eventually makes sure to gently pull him up again. Rosinante wishes he could apologize for always being so clumsy, but his voice is doing a very good job at not helping him now, so he guesses he has to wait until it comes back.
“I’ll have to go now; can’t leave my men unattended for too long, and there’s still a few days to go until we reach Marineford.” Marineford? Rosinante vaguely remembers the name from one of the other Saints' complaints. “Get some more sleep, alright? I’ll send someone to come in with breakfast later.” He pauses, and squints down at him. “And a doctor, so you can get that throat checked.”
Without much fanfare, the man reaches back down again, but this time to give a stilted pat to his head, strong enough that his head slightly wobbles from the force. With that, he steps back, and without another word, he turns around, and exits the room.
Leaving him staring at the wooden door, on an unfamiliar boat, going toward an unfamiliar place, and with strangers who might be just like those mean ones back there.
(He doesn’t sleep for the rest of the allotted time.)
== ❤️ ==
Marineford, as it turns out, is a gigantic place. Not bigger than the doors they had to enter through (or Pangaea Castle—), but large enough that he looks out at it, turns around…
…and goes to hide back on the ship.
Sengoku-san finds the little nook he’d tucked himself into immediately, however, and he’s so distracted by the fascination over how fast it had gone- how do you do that?- that he doesn't process that he’s already been dragged into the middle of a crowd.
And there are… so many people.
The streets are overrun with them, pouring in and out of residential areas, or carrying miscellaneous, or patrolling, or simply going about their daily lives. The hustle and bustle caused by it is overwhelming, clashing sounds and smells and sights that only succeed to turn his mind into mush. Instinctively, and maybe unconsciously, he shies away from it, clutching what little bit of the coat hanging from Sengoku-san’s shoulders that he can reach and wringing it within his cracked hands.
Sengoku-san glances down, and seems to notice his apprehension, but he only responds with a smile that tries so hard to be comforting, before he urges them both forward.
The ensuing trek stretches on for what feels like hours. The crowd notices their entourage, and many of them wave, or nod, or walk over to exchange a few words and pleasantries with Sengoku-san. Though they’re mostly discouraged from doing anything else when they glance down, and spot the raggedy child clinging to his coat.
…Rosinante thinks he’s very lucky that he’d gotten a change of clothes and a shower before this. The sorry state of him would have most likely sent them into an outrage. The most he gets now are weird looks or curious stares, which… almost feels worse?
(Better than the looks of utter disgust from the Holy Land. Better than the hatred and the vitriol from—)
The thought vanishes with a shake of his head. His nose scrunches up, and he fights the urge to grimace; why can’t he stop with that? It’s been two years, why is he still thinking about that bad place? Tata had been right, it had been nothing but toxic. Ruining the minds of everyone born as a Celestial Dragon.
But it had also been home, a voice whispers. It sounds too much like Doffy. It had been safety. And that’s something we haven’t experienced in years, huh?
…It's then, of course, that he's completely interrupted.
“SENNY!”
The voice thunders through the surrounding sounds like a gunshot, with just as little care for the peace as one, and Rosinante flinches hard enough that he accidentally yanks on Sengoku-san’s coat, and it’s by sheer virtue that he even is holding onto it that he doesn’t slip and fall onto his back. Heart beating out of his throat, he glances up at the man— and blinks, when he sees that the expression Sengoku-san has on his face is one of picture perfect exasperation, not fear.
A man rockets into view with reckless abandon. A very tall man, black-and-gray hair in disarray as he skids dangerously close, cancelling his momentum just in time to slow down a few inches from Sengoku-san— and is then promptly stopped from doing much else by a hand pressed into his face, pushing his head away.
“Oi, oi, watch it—“ the man grits out.
“Garp, what have I told you about scaring the locals?” Sengoku-san admonishes, the perfect picture of exhaustion, though his tone doesn’t have as much heat in it as it should.
“Hey, it’s not my fault they can’t take it!” the mystery man- Garp, apparently- bites back. “And they know the drill by now anyway.”
Sengoku-san lets out a long-suffering sigh, the grip he has on Garp’s face loosening— and that’s when the other man suddenly lashes out, yanking him into a tight headlock. For the first time since Rosinante had met him (which, admittedly, is a very short window of time), Sengoku-san loses all sense of composure, lip curled in anger as he tries to escape the grip, sputtering the entire time. Garp lets out a triumphant laugh, unbothered by the assault.
"Let—me—go!"
"HAH! Never!"
Sengoku-san aims a strong-looking elbow right into Garp's stomach, and while he visibly jolts, it only succeeds to make him laugh even harder.
“Anyway,” Garp says, expertly dodging a swipe at his face, "what took you so damn long? You said you’d be away three weeks tops, so why—“
And that’s when Garp’s eyes, stormy gray and intense, find Rosinante, and he feels his heart sink.
“…oh,” the man eloquently, dully intones. “That’s why.”
Sengoku-san takes the opportunity to wrestle out of the headlock, panic flashing in his eyes, but Garp has already crouched down. (Rosinante takes a careful step back, but still makes sure to hold onto Sengoku-san's coat. For safety.)
“So ol’ Senny also has a kid now, huh?” Garp rhetorically asks, completely ignoring Sengoku's immediate denial. “You’re tiny! And scrawny! A Even a light breeze would kill you! Why hasn’t he fattened you up yet?”
He reaches a hand out, and Rosinante has to fight the urge to run before it lands on his head. The ensuing ruffle through his hair is enough to jostle him, but thankfully not enough to trip him. Might be because of his posture- tensed up and rigid like a statue.
Sengoku-san lets out another sigh at the sight, and with a swat to the back of Garp’s head (eliciting a squawk from him), he turns toward Rosinante.
“I’m so sorry about him,” he tiredly sighs out. (“Hey!”)
Rosinante doesn’t know what to say- can’t say anything, even- so he levels a quiet nod at him in response. Sengoku-san seems to remember this, too, as he awkwardly averts his eyes again, before they land back on him.
“This,” Sengoku-san gestures at the other, abruptly switching the topic, “is Vice Admiral Garp.”
Garp grins down at him, all teeth and lethality. “Nice to meetcha. Sorry about the scare, I kinda just do my own thing around here—"
”For no good reason…” Sengoku mutters bitterly from nearby.
"—and apparently bein' 'The Hero of the marines' or whatever means I get to do whatever the hell I want. Either that or it's the good ol' Monkey D. charm!"
Rosinante feels himself go completely, utterly still.
D?
Suddenly, every cautionary tale, every warning, every punishment smacks him in the face. D, the enemy of the Gods. D, monsters who will eat him for the crime of being a Saint. D, the scourge of the earth.
Garp- Monkey D. Garp, a man with the name of a demon- lets out a laugh, but the only thing he can hear is static.
Run! A cacophony of screeching voices yell. Run until you physically can't anymore, run before he catches you, run run run RUN—
By now, Garp's amusement has faded. He's picking his nose, staring down at him with a vaguely confused expression.
"Senny, I think the kid's broken."
And suddenly, Garp is forcefully yanked up. His protests fall on deaf ears as Sengoku-san herds him away.
"—op it, I can walk by myself!"
"Don't you have anything better to do than bother this poor kid?"
"Well, there are some recruits I need to put the fear of the kami into—"
"Then go do that!" Sengoku-san snaps. "Just- let me deal with the boy alone, okay?"
"Fine, fine! But update me later, alright? And don't forget to tell Tsuru! She'll kill you if you don't!"
"Are you daft? Of course I will! Now shoo!"
With a wave backward, Garp disappears into the crowd, and the surroundings return to relative piece. Rosinante barely registers this, however, still staring at the spot the Vice Admiral had just been in. It takes Sengoku-san crouching back down for him to react, and he only turns to look at him when he's gently nudged.
"Are you alright?" Sengoku-san asks, voice level and calm.
Rosinante feels himself nod, a slow, numb thing, expression neutral. Though Sengoku-san tilts his head, staring into him, he seems to take it at face value. He gives his own nod, and then stands back up again, before urging them both forward. He doesn't pay attention to his surroundings anymore; more focused on the buzzing of anxiety under his skin.
Welp, the voice that sounds like Doffy sighs. We're dead. You killed us, idiot. Now we're walking into another trap with vermin who have the ability to tear us into millions of pieces and it's all your fault.
If they find out who we are, we'll be really lucky to have a quick death, Doffy sneers. Or maybe they'll torture us like the other guys. A pause. Doesn't matter. I'd kill them all anyway.
Rosinante opens his mouth to retort, but before he can, his foot catches on a sudden obstacle; a slab of stone. It’s only by miracle- and Sengoku-san’s quick movements, grabbing the back of his shirt- that he doesn’t fall and crack his skull open. (Not like it would be any worse than what we’ve been through before, Doffy whispers again.)
“Seas, kid. Didn’t you notice there were stairs there?”
Hm?
His gaze traces the slab he had almost tripped on, then follows it upward to the next one… and the next one… and the next one, up until he physically can’t see or distinguish them any more.
Ah.
Okay.
Sengoku-san sighs, bracing his hand on his knee as he sinks down. Turning Rosinante around, he moves to dust him off, a wry chuckle escaping him. “You really are clumsy, huh? I thought you just had balance problems at first, but I guess not.”
His cheeks flush instantly, and he averts his eyes as shame claws at him. Of course it’s his fault he trips. It always is. He’s been a klutz his entire life- even developed a reputation for it with the Saints. They would always look at him strangely, maybe yell at him or at his parents, that they should check out what’s wrong with him. Try to fix him, maybe; a Celestial Dragon should never be this clumsy, be this much of a failure.
(Maybe he was just born wrong.)
A hand musses through his hair, interrupting his thoughts, and he glances up at Sengoku-san again.
“Tell you what, I’ll carry you up the rest of the stairs so we can prevent an accident like this from happening again. Okay?”
Sengoku-san’s warm gaze flits over him, and for a moment, it almost sharpens. So much that he can almost feel it, studying every inch of him for any hint of… hesitation? Fear? He doesn’t know. But he doesn’t want to let him down— the man had helped him, after all— so he chews his lip again and nods.
Sengoku-san nods, too. “Okay,” he repeats, and, with a heave, hoists him up into his arms.
As they move upward, the grip he has on Rosinante is… gentle. Comforting, almost. Just tight enough to prevent him from slipping, but loose enough that his range of movement isn’t limited. A hand presses his head to Sengoku-san’s chest, bracing it softly, and he finds himself curling into it. Breathing in his scent. He’s almost disappointed that it smells like oakwood and incense and, weirdly, metal, and not lavender like Mamma or old books like Tata, and he realizes…
…it reminds him of the way his parents had held him. Almost the same way, but with love and care packed into every hold, every caress of his back and head. Just like this, he had leaned into the touch, forehead pressed into their chests as he breathed in their familiar scents, surrounded by warmth and affection and safety.
And now, he can’t experience it anymore. Never will. He’ll only be able to in his memories; memories of a different, simpler time.
…For a single, fleeting moment, he hates.
He hates Tata for bringing them away from the Holy Land, away from the norm. He hates Mamma for dying, for leaving them. He hates Doffy for shooting their father and abandoning him. He hates every single thing that has ever happened to him, from the moment they stepped foot on the world below.
But then, as quick as it had arrived, the feeling fades, and with it, the rest of his energy.
He spends the rest of the trek burying his head into the chest of a man he’d only met yesterday, and trying not to burst into tears as the world feels like it crashes around him for the third time in his short life.
== ❤️ ==
A plate of crackers innocently sits on the table in front of him.
Rosinante doesn’t know how long he’s been staring at them, frozen. Long enough that the hushed conversation near him has morphed into an argument that rises and falls in volume like the tide. He’d tried so hard to listen, at first, but then the yelling had started and his mind began to swim with sense memories of rope burns and fire and yells and screams and I will kill each and every one of you—
—And he’d blinked back to reality when Sengoku-san had come to check on him again, brows pinched with some unidentifiable emotion between frustration and worry, and pushed the plate over and urged him to eat something.
He knows he has to. He really does! But he also knows that the last time he ate something like this, his stomach had hurt so bad and he’d felt tired for days after that. He’d worried everyone sick. He really doesn’t want to do it again, to burden anyone like that.
“You can’t just bring every single kid you find, Sengoku!” the stranger in the room hisses. Sengoku-san had briefly introduced him as Kong while they made their way here. The current Fleet Admiral.
“This is not a normal kid—“ Sengoku-san sighs out, now clearly exasperated.
”Bullshit!” Kong counters, lip curling. “I can accept refugees from tragedies, I can accept families of recruits, but this?”
From the corner of Rosinante’s eyes, he sees the moment the man gestures at him, and fear sinks into him. They’re talking about him.
“We can’t pick up charity cases everywhere or the pirates will think we are weak. As an admiral, you should know this.”
Sengoku-san peers back at him, and he must have taken in something about him, as alarm crosses through his expression before it smooths out into… determination?
“Respectfully, sir—“
“Respectfully my ass, we’ve been talking about this for half an hour—“
“—This charity case is one of the children of a missing family of Celestial Dragons.”
Both Rosinante and Kong flinch. But while Rosinante curls up even further, hiding his face with his knees, Kong just stares. At Sengoku-san, and then at him. Then, he stumbles back into his chair, shell-shocked.
“This kid’s a Celestial Dragon?”
Sengoku-san nods. A satisfied twitch of his lips ghosts his expression before it smooths back out. “Yes, sir. I was handed a report that a public corporal punishment of a family had been committed on a nearby island, and I saw it fit to investigate. But when I got there, I was already too late; the father was dead, the mother had been gone for years, and the brother was nowhere to be seen. Worse, I found the kid in a scrapyard.
Here, he reaches into his coat, and throws a stack of papers on the desk. He doesn’t need to look at it to know what it’s about.
“The missing family was identified as a branch of the Donquixotes during the travel back. Specifically, the family of four that defected two years ago; Donquixote Homing, Donquixote Aurea, Donquixote Doflamingo… and Donquixote Rosinante.”
Silence reigns, for a moment, heavy and draining. Rosinante can feel goosebumps on his skin, pricking and uncomfortable, and for a moment, he just wants to dig his nails into it and—
“…Fine.”
He startles. So does Sengoku-san, he notices, as he turns toward the two for the first time this entire conversation. Kong is reclined in his chair, tenting his hands in front of his face in exhaustion.
”Fine. We’ll keep the kid.” Kong sighs. “The Donquixote case has been a cold one for years, and while it's nice to know what happened to them, we cannot, under any circumstances, let the public know. Especially that Celestial Dragons are vulnerable, even if they had renounced the title of one.”
Suddenly, Kong slams his open palms on the desk, sending the papers flying up into the air, before he levels Sengoku-san with a glare that has Rosinante turning away again, skin crawling even more.
“But,” he grits out, “he is your responsibility. Not mine. Not any other Marine’s. Yours. If you saw fit to take this kid with you, then you sure as hell have to raise him. That’s an order from your superior.”
Rosinante musters up the courage to glance toward them again, and sees the two men staring at each other, stuck in a standstill. Both of their expressions are hardened with something close to fury, and while Kong’s is closer to undisguised, Sengoku-san’s almost seems normal… until he focuses on the down-turned brow; his clenched fists; his tightened jaw. (For the first time, and not for the only time, Rosinante knows just how scary he is, when he isn’t being friendly.)
“Understood?”
The air is tense, and for a few, agonizing seconds, Rosinante thinks Sengoku-san didn’t understand. That this responsibility is gonna be too much for him. That he’s scum of the earth, that he’s gonna hurt him one day and will never remedy it, just like—
“Understood.”
And then, Sengoku-san glances back at him again. His stoic face quietly, inexplicably, softens at the sight of him, and then…
…he gives him the smallest, kindest smile in the world.
Like he’s already decided that he’s worth it. (Like he matters.)
Something tiny in Rosinante’s chest cracks, and as tears gather behind his bangs, he feels lighter than he’s ever felt in years.
== ❤️ ==
“Welcome to your living quarters for the time being, kid.”
Sengoku-san pushes an odd-looking door open, and Rosinante abruptly realizes that he doesn’t even remember how they got there in the first place. He doesn’t have the time, nor the energy to process further, however, as the older man gently herds him in and gently closes the door behind him.
For the first few seconds, he can’t register much; he feels strangely floaty and tired, disconnected from the world around him. He can barely see anything around him beyond it until he physically forces himself to look around, to take in the environment.
The only things he can describe what he is met with is… minimalist. It’s completely unlike the mansions in the Holy Land, or the temporary home his family had years ago, or the dilapidated shacks they had been forced to live in, and maybe, that is a good thing. Most of it is wooden, but it’s a polished sort, shining from the sunlight trickling in from a latticed window. Mats cover the floor until a certain point just a few feet away from him, and there’s a seating area nearby, peculiarly placed lower to the ground, with pillows as chairs.
Any other details fade away, however, either discarded from his mind or taken over by the fog that’s steadily encroaching his thoughts. It is, however, interrupted by a noise next to him.
“—and this is the genkan,” Sengoku-san finishes, suddenly, and oh, he hadn’t heard any of that. Oh no.
Sengoku-san begins removing his shoes and then steps onto the mats, prompting Rosinante to do the same. Mechanically, he follows the Admiral over to the seating area, and plops himself down on one of the cushions.
This time, he catches what the other is saying. “Do you want something to eat?”
A loud grooooowl answers for him.
Sengoku-san, for his part, takes it in stride and nods. “You didn’t eat the crackers I gave you, so… is there anything else you want? Cookies?”
Immediately, Rosinante wildly shakes his head. He’d felt the same as when he had tried crackers the last time.
Sengoku-san stares. Averts his eyes. “Pizza? I think I could go to one of the restaurants for that.”
Another shake of his head. Sengoku-san visibly shrivels, and begins to sweat.
“Bread?” His voice is so small and desperate that Rosinante would have almost laughed in any other circumstances. Instead, he sticks out his tongue.
An inescapable silence passes through them. Sengoku-san stares at him, then at the wall.
“I need to buy more food, then.”
Rosinante shrugs.
Sengoku-san lets out a long-suffering sigh. “Then we have to stick to fruits for today. Is that alright, or do you want something else?"
Rosinante thinks, for a moment. Then, he lifts his hand and tries to vaguely mime a pen, to the best of his abilities. Fortunately, Sengoku-san seems to interpret it the correct way, as he exits the room, and then quickly returns with a paper and pen in hand. He sits down, this time, and intently gazes at the paper, waiting for Rosinante to write—
Brassica oleracea, is what he writes, handwriting shaky and barely coherent from years of no access to any form of writing supplies.
Sengoku-san stares, completely blankly, at the paper. Rosinante tilts his head. Then, it clicks— he might not understand!
Repollo.
Gracias.
There is still complete non-comprehension in Sengoku-san’s expression. Rosinante feels his cheeks redden, and compulsively, his brittle nails begin to pick at the skin around them.
Sengoku-san finally falls away from his statue-like posture as he sinks down, resting his head in his hands.
“I don’t get paid enough for this shit,” he mutters in the wrong language for Rosinante to understand.
(He's done something wrong, hasn't he? Oh no—)
Before he can reach out, do something to soothe the other man, Sengoku-san shoots up again. "Fruits it is."
He then abruptly rises from his seat and disappears into another room, leaving Rosinante staring into emptiness, reeling from the sudden change.
In the wake of the new silence, he feels his mind drift again. Not into any particular place, just… emptiness. Chopped impressions of memories of The Holy Land, before everything had gone wrong. Then screams, flashes of pain, despair, grief. A buzzing rises in his ears. His surroundings fade into nothing but blurry shapes and colors in the wake of nothing else to focus on.
He barely registers when a bowl of apples appears in front of him. He blinks, and suddenly it's there, innocently placed. Rosinante mechanically reaches out and, after checking to see if it has any spirals, bites into it. When he's done eating that, he moves onto the other…
…and the other…
…and another…
…until the bowl is empty, and Rosinante feels fuller than he's ever been in ages.
He would cry about it. He absolutely could. But he just feels… empty again. Numb. Drained.
Vaguely, he feels himself suddenly urged upward. A voice, muffled by the incessant buzzing, drones from somewhere nearby as he's guided away from the table. He forces himself to look up at Sengoku-san, but the man doesn't look back down at him.
The only time he does is when they reach one of the rooms, where Sengoku-san stays in the doorway once he opens the door. Rosinante listlessly stares up at him, watching him say some more words, before he reaches down to give him one of his stilted pats… and then he leaves.
He blinks. Blinks again, trying to register the change. Everything feels out of reach by now; nothing but a blank fog clouding his senses.
Numbly, he feels himself move forward, a weak stumble of a gait, until he reaches an obstacle. Registering a surface he can climb onto, he uses what little strength he has left to clamber upward.
When he inevitably collapses, he's shocked to realise that it's soft. A bed. It's nothing like the ratty, old beds he's been forced to sleep in for two years, or the stiff one in that Marine ship's sickbay. It's comfortable and clean and so unlike anything he’s ever been able to rest on in years.
Unbidden, his mind drifts again. Suddenly, he can feel a weight pressing into the surface next to him, and then another. A hand brushes through his hair, carding through it with gentle, knobbed fingers. The scent of old books and lavender waft through the room, now taking the form of his old childhood room, and if he focuses, he can hear Mamma's soft, melodic voice as she narrates a bedtime story, Doffy interrupting with endless comments about the story, and Tata's roaring laugh that shakes through his entire body but never quite reaches the hand moving through his hair, too mindful of ever disturbing him. They're supposed to be putting him to sleep- bedtime had passed ages ago- but neither of them can bring themselves to care. Rosinante feels happier than he's ever been in his entire life, and he wishes that the moment will never end…
…and then it does.
The weights lift. The smell of old books and lavender and the ceaseless chatter fade, and instead of staring at a fully furnished room, he stares at an empty white wall.
It's been two years since they'd left the Holy Land. Mamma had died shortly before that, and now Tata's dead, too, reduced to a disembodied head that Doffy left to tote around like a trophy. He's not sure if he'll never be able to see any of them again.
For the first time in two days, tears spring to Rosinante's eyes. Big, ugly globs of saltwater and snot. He finds himself pressing into the covers, too tired to move under them, and finally, his throat produces a single sound: a high, keening wail.
(He cries himself to sleep.)