Chapter Text
The baby wouldn’t stop crying. The sound was shrill, echoing off the metal walls of the warehouse-turned-base. Outside, the sky was dark. They should have been asleep. They would have been, if not for the baby.
Trebol tried everything to soothe it. He held it just like Doflamingo did. He talked to it, fed it; he even made Pica change its damned diaper when needed. None of it mattered. The baby kept screaming like it had the last two nights; its little face scrunched up and its cheeks bright red. It was going to make itself sick again.
Doflamingo would be furious when he returned. He trusted them to take care of his brother while he made the trip to Mariejois with Vergo. Trebol assured him they could do it. There were three of them, after all. It couldn’t be that hard to take care of one baby.
It was.
Rosinante wasn’t even two yet, according to Doflamingo. It was just starting to have conversations with more than single words and garbling noises, though Doflamingo always seemed to know what it was trying to say. Trebol had seen it run and laugh while Doflamingo chased it, catching it in a hug and kissing its face to the sound of its piercing laughter. If it could do that, it should have been old enough to know that crying wouldn’t fix the situation.
“Would you shut that thing up already!” Diamante snapped from his bed. Apparently the earplugs he tried didn’t work.
“Hey hey, I’m trying!” Trebol said, hiking Rosinante further up in his arms. “It won’t stop!”
The bed creaked as Diamante stood. They all shared a small room in the back of the warehouse. Rosinante usually slept with Doflamingo, curled together in the same bed. Now, when Trebol tried putting it there, it cried. It didn’t want to sleep with any of them either, not that Trebol had any interest in sharing his space with a little brat. The only reason they put up with it at all was because it was Doflamingo’s brother.
“Give it to me,” Diamante said. Trebol passed the screaming child over, and Diamante held it at eye level. “Shut up, you shit,” he said. “Your parents are dead, do you understand me? Dead. They’re gone. They left you.”
“Diamante-” Pica said, but stopped himself at Diamante’s glare.
Rosinante was unperturbed. It kept crying. Diamante shook it. “Your brother will be back soon, so shut up.” When that didn’t work, he shook Rosinante harder. The cries became choppy as Rosinante’s head snapped back and forth. “Shut up and let us fucking sleep!”
Finally, Rosinante went quiet. He was limp and gasping in Diamante’s hold.
“There,” Diamante said, walking over to Doflamingo’s bed. He dropped Rosinante onto it. “Done. Now we can sleep.”
“Behehe, I guess it just needed a firmer hand,” Trebol said, relieved. He didn’t know how much longer he could have taken the screaming.
It wasn’t until the next morning that they realized anything was wrong. Trebol slept in later than he had in weeks. Rosinante woke early, which meant Doflamingo did, and Doffy wasn’t keen to let them stay in bed. Since Doflamingo left, Rosinante had taken to waking them up, usually demanding food or crying over a wet diaper. Always crying. Oddly, it didn’t do the same today.
Trebol sat up and stretched. He glanced at Doflamingo’s bed and saw Rosinante was still there. Maybe it finally realized they weren’t its friends. Laughing, Trebol joined Diamante at the rickety table for coffee.
Pica was the last to wake. Unlike Trebol and Diamante, he went to poke at Rosinante, probably deciding it was late enough that they should feed it or something. Trebol had half a mind to let it starve until it learned to ask nicely.
“Um, guys?” Pica said after a long moment.
“What?” Diamante asked.
“I think something’s wrong with Rosinante.”
Trebol and Diamante stilled, sharing a worried look. If anything happened to Rosinante, Doflamingo really would kill them.
“Hey hey, what’s wrong?” Trebol asked, though it was obvious as soon as he saw Rosinante.
It was in the same position Diamante had left it the night before, only now it was covered in vomit. Worse, its breaths were short and uneven.
“It doesn’t have a fever,” Pica said, wringing his hands. “I checked. If anything, it feels cold.”
The night wasn’t that cold, was it? They didn’t cover Rosinante in blankets like Doflamingo would have, but surely it would have crawled beneath them if it needed to. There was something about this, though, the vomit and the awkward position, that itched at Trebol’s memory.
“Hey, hey, do you remember that man who tried to break into the bakery?” Trebol asked.
“The one they beat to death?” Diamante asked.
“He lived for a few days before he died,” Trebol said. “He was sick.”
He hadn’t been able to walk after the baker caved his skull in. Everybody left him curled in the alleyway, covered in his own sick, his eyes glazed and his pupils different-sized. He looked a little like Rosinante did now.
“What?” Diamante demanded, clearly understanding what Trebol meant. “That’s impossible. We didn’t do anything to it!”
“You did shake it,” Pica pointed out quietly.
Diamante spun to face him, hands clenched into fists. “Don’t blame me for this! It was the one that wouldn’t stop crying! And besides, it isn’t like I hit it or something! Maybe it’s just sick. Try waking it up.”
Pica jostled Rosinante’s shoulder. When that didn’t work, he pinched Rosinante with increasing strength. That finally got a response, though not the tears it should have caused. Rosinante only whined, its eyes fluttering. It went tense, its arms and legs twitching. A gasping, choking sound escaped it for a long moment before it coughed up more watery vomit.
“Hey! Dammit!” Trebol said. “What do we do now?”
“Doflamingo is going to be really mad,” Pica said. “Should we try to find a doctor?”
“I don’t even know where to look for one!” Diamante said, his voice high with panic. “Fuck! Doflamingo is going to kill me!”
“Behehe, not if it isn’t our fault,” Trebol said, cocking his head as he looked down at Rosinante. This presented an interesting solution to a particularly annoying problem.
“But- but it is our fault,” Pica said.
“Doflamingo and Vergo aren’t here. Anything could have happened,” Trebol said.
Diamante stared at him. “You want to lie?” he hissed. “And say what? It fell? This doesn’t look like a fall!”
“Hey, the townspeople want it dead, don’t they?” Trebol asked. “Who’s to say they didn’t come looking?”
“But wouldn’t Doflamingo be able to tell?” Pica said.
“Behehe, not if it isn’t here when Doffy gets back,” Trebol said. “If the townspeople throw it in the water, how are we supposed to get it out?”
They were all Devil Fruit users. If Rosinante ended up in the ocean, well, that would be that.
“Diamante, I need you to get rid of it,” Trebol said. “Throw it in the water or leave it somewhere.”
“I can’t,” Diamante said.
“Behe, but you’re the best one to do it!”
“You do it!” Diamante said.
Trebol shrugged. “Alright, I will.”
“Fine, fine, I’ll do it!” Diamante said. He strode forward and snapped up Rosinante by an arm. He made a face at the vomit.
“Behehe, leave it somewhere Doflamingo will never find it,” Trebol said.
Diamante nodded.
“Are you sure this is a good idea?” Pica asked. “Won’t Doflamingo be upset?”
“He will,” Trebol said. He watched Diamante leave, catching sight of stone chimneys and clustered buildings. “But not at us.”
They’d take care of the townspeople in revenge for poor little Rosinante. Doflamingo would be none the wiser.