I Wouldnt Be Here If I Didnt Finish.

　　　　　　❝ i wouldn’t be here if i didn’t finish. ❞

　if minion island had only been rosinante’s entrance into hell, then where he existed currently was in its deepest trench.

the ninth circle: betrayal. the lowest sin. the blackest sin, furthest from the light of heaven. reserved for those who betrayed their family, their country, and their god.

as far as the family was concerned, rosinante had committed all three sins that night with his 'silly little plan' to snatch up law, the op op fruit, and run to the nearest marine base. the moment he hid law away in a chest, and admitted to his brother's face that law had eaten the fruit doflamingo had been searching years for, rosinante should have been fated to die. should have.

but death would have been too simple a punishment, wouldn’t it?

instead the spy awoke a week later, alive but very much not well. his wounds were patched enough to no longer be teetering on edges between worlds of the living and the dead. his captors refused him the ‘mercy’ of painkillers, allowing the brutal sharpness of cracked ribs and aches of torn muscles to keep him tethered to the living when he longed for death. 

each day since had been its own nightmare. an odd nightmare, where he was still granted the "respect" of his brother's stupid title for him, given jobs to do just as always, and allowed to live in the palaceーbut little respect anywhere else. one where he was recognized as the king's brother, but fitted with a revolving assortment of shackles, collars, and arm binders depending on how "cooperative" he had been on any given day.

prince rosinante is a bit screwed up mentally, he remembers hearing diamante lie once after a failed attempt to get a blacksmith in the city to break them off. poor guy'll have fits where he tries to hurt himself sometimes, so these are just a precaution for his bad days when he's extra schizo. it’s not the most comfortable, so he’ll get whiny about it, but the young master would just die if something happened to his baby brother, y'know? 

yet, rosinante wouldn't go as far to say he was treated like a slave, but more like an unruly child. it was as if doflamingo had regressed back to when they were children, back when rosinante was still meek enough to be led around by the hand and willingly obedient to his every beck & call, and was forcing him to play along, too.

　　 it was a strange hell, the poistion he found himself in.

❝ i'm starving, ❞ he announced. ❝ do i have permission to eat now? ❞

ㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤ @code01746 liked this for a starter ! : ̗̀➛

       Silence.                it  was  something  the  king  seemed  to  be  surrounded  in  now  adays.  just  the  silence  and  the  endless  ocean  of  thoughts  that  seemed  to  storm  within  the  cavity  of  his  skull.   In  the  dimly  lit  corridors  of  the  grand  palace  that  Doflamingo  claimed  as  his  own  kingdom,  the  air  was  thick  with  tension.  The  echoes  of  his  footsteps  reverberated  off  the  opulent  walls  as  he  made  his  way  back  from  a  clandestine  meeting  with  Kaido,  the  ominous  emperor  on  the  north  side  of  the  New  World.  The  subject  of  their  discourse  was  the  manufacturing  of  SMILE  fruits,  negotiations  over  the  production  of  the  artificial  Devil  Fruits  that  had  become  both  a  commodity  and  a  curse  to  most  who  have  come  across  them  or  have  been  unfortunate  enough  to  consume  them.  not  that  it  mattered  to  him.  as  long  as  he  got  what  was  promised  from  the  transaction  he  couldnt  give  a  single  fucking   care.   reclined  on  the  opulent  sofa  in  his  lavish  palace,  a  bottle  of  fine  wine  clasped  in  his   hand,  his  pierced  tounge  lapping  the  corner  of  his  lips  of  the  liquid  that  spilled  down  to  his  chin.  His  mind  swirled  with  the  intoxicating  combination  of  alcohol  and  his  motive  for  immortality.  having  a  kingdom  under  his  rule,  people  who  worshipped  him  as  a  god,  a  god  who  had  somewhow  showed  up  when  it  was  most  conveinent  and  gave  them  salvation  from  a  moment  of  disaster.  he  was  their  savior.  thier  god.

Dressrosa  flourished  under  his  rule.  he  made  it  a  paradise,  a  utopia  that  he  deserved.   he  was  brought  back  from  the  abyss  of  his  thoughts  by  the  soft  clicks  of  someone  approaching  his  lavished  space.  heterochromatic  brillant  blues  and  golds,  cold  and  calculating,  fixed  on  the  approaching  figure.  he  could  immediately  point  out    who  it  was  by  the  way  he  walked  alone.  it  was  his  sibling.  Corazon's  entrance  had  disrupted  the  suffocating  silence  that  lingered  in  the  air,  a  silence  that  was  about  to  shatter  like  glass.  it  was  probably  for  the  best. 

Perhaps  it  was  the  weight  of  their  shared  traumatic  past,  but  he  held  a  sympathetic  soft  spot  for  his  younger  brother.  a  smirk  eternally  plastered  across  his  face.  The  echoes  of  his  leather  shoes  reverberated  off  the  marble  walls  till  it  came  to  a  hault  before  him. 

           ❝             What  do  you  want,  Rosi?    *     Doflamingo's  voice  was  smooth  and  low,  a  chuckle  leaving  his  lips.             ❝             Shouldn't  you  be  off  somewhere  playing  the  good  cooperative  little  brother  and  doing  some  tasks  i  assigned  to  you?    *   

　@todesgeduld // continued from [here]

　　❝ exactly. i'm being silly, duh. ❞

　a success; rosinante got a smile and law didn't even try to redirect his embarrassment by snapping back about how he should 'act his age' or 'stop treating him like a kid'. but, really, whoever said there was a certain age where you had to stop acting goofy?

rosinante straightened up from his position on the flooring, curling out of an attempted somersault that he was sure to feel in his back by tomorrow morning. oh well.

　　 ❝ from this angle, you just looked a little extra stern. are you focused, or do you have something on your mind? ❞

also, for reference to be used in said longform thing i'm writing, i am doing... math.

by the end of rosinante & law's six month trip, he has ~15 maps with an average of what looks like 4-6 hospitals marked off on each.

so, over six months (~182 days), rosinante took law to at least 60-90 hospitals, which is roughly a new hospital every 2-3 days.

　　❝ yeah. i knew everyone, in a way. at least in the old days, not so much now. my adopted father used to be in a pretty high position with the marines, so i got shipped a lot of places and worked with a lot of people. ❞

　it genuinely had been so long since rosinante had spoken to anybody about his former life with the marines he often didn't know where to start. but not here; bellemere was a focal point, a rare connection he had with this girl and her story. somehow, he knew everything he wanted to say, but had no idea what to say at all. would this be stressful? comforting? cathartic for him, but painful to her? was he pushing too much to even want to bring this up?

but he couldn't help himself. when the subject came to law, oh, he could talk for hours.

　 ❝ my kid found me, actually. we didn't... start off in the right place, though. i doubt it was as sweet a story as it was with your mom & your sister; i kept trying to get rid of him for two years, i wasn't planning on getting attachedーfor his own good, he shouldn't have been around meーbut it just... happened. it was hard, and i... almost died a couple times, but i don't regret a day of it. i'm sure your mother didn't either. ❞

Talking about her mother always brought a sickening swirl of emotions. Happy, sad, anger, bitterness. It was odd, wasn't it? That she and Law each had a marine in their past. She had never attempted to talk about it with him --- neither of them were particularly the types to open up about that sort of thing, on the other hand. Nami only did, when people asked --- and it just so happened, Rosinante was one of the few brave enough to do so.

Her hands placed politely on her lap --- occasionally, she reached to stir the tangerine tea, although she didn't feel much like drinking it. She was much too captivated, by the thought of speaking to someone who had memories of her mother. They were so hard to come by, now, especially since she was so far away from Genzo and Nojiko. Even when she had shared a village with them --- Nami was permitted to only rely on her own memories. Some of which, were the memories of others --- stories passed around the village, which she had caught wind of, by happenstance.

"Did you know her? --- My mother, I mean..." Nami questioned, eyes lighting up. Despite how large the institution of marines were, she couldn't help but hope that Rosinante knew her. That he had stories to tell, about his time with her. There was only so much Nami could squeeze from the Cocoyashi villagers.

"A kid came along for you, too... hm, don't tell me you found yours in a war-torn, destroyed village, too." A sardonic tone and a soft smirk. She handled it in the only way she knew how: a wry sense of humor. A little good will went a long way, too, but there were several reasons she chose not to open up about her past. It was a quick way to make anyone uncomfortable.

　　❝ that's nice people speak for 'is being neurotic', ❞ he quipped.

　rosinante scratched his face. suspecting was one thing, but having his suspicions vindicated in plain language to his face was a strange feeling. conflicting. it stirred up those memories again, and he could have sworn his old bullet wounds were starting to hurt. itch. he nodded along, his dull red eyes conveying an understanding, yet sad: 'thought so.'

　❝ i'm more civilian than marine nowadaysーhonestly, if sengoku quits one of these days, i won't even bother reporting on pirate activity that i see when i'm up northーbut i get your point. would be a bit strange for you to drop everything you're doing and telling your crew you're off visiting some hermit in the woods, wouldn't it? ❞

❝ Not neurotic. Just...a tad bit overbearing. ❞ he remarked, a smile on his usually stoic features.

Drake appreciated it. He sighed. Shit, he was in a tough place. He knew he could trust Rosi, that he wouldn't tell anyone, that they'd act as if everything was going according to the mission and the plan. It was one thing he could count on. What else was there? Especially if he might not make it back anyways?

The former Rear Admirals stood, walking over to the blonde, before sitting down beside of him, pulling over a chair, taking a deep breath. ❝ I can't go into too much detail, Rosi. Not many even know what I'm doing. To a lot of people, I'll be deemed retired. A traitor. A Marine turned pirate. A Member of the Worst Generation. A man with a target on his back. But...what I'm doing now...is a mission. If anyone asks, act like you didn't know. I can't promise to visit. This will take years. I might not even make it back. But, just know, I'll do everything I can to return alive. You cannot follow me, no matter what. Got it? Wouldn't look too good. ❞

THE MANY MEANINGS OF "HEY.": A PROMPT LIST.

i often have these ideas that have no real origin, but i can actually tell you precisely why my brain wanted this: i was listening to "hey, soul sister" by train on a loop and i got thinking abt the fact that we really do just say "hey" for so many reasons. and i wanted to make that your thought of the evening! so happy november, bon appetit, wrap up warm, DO NOT ADD TO THIS LIST, and enjoy your writings!

[ GREETING ]: sender says "hey" as a greeting to the receiver.

[ ATTENTION ]: sender, having just noticed something strange or remarkable, calls for the receiver to get their attention.

[ REASSURE ]: in a bid to steady the unsettled receiver, the sender lightly says "hey" to help them calm down.

[ ANGER ]: the sender sharply snaps "hey" at the receiver, clearly angry about something the receiver has just done or had done in the past.

[ IDEA ]: having been presented with a predicament, the sender suddenly unravels a solution, introducing it to the receiver by saying "hey…".

[ GUILT ]: having just done something that they know the receiver won't be pleased with, the sender sheepishly greets them once they arrive to see the damage.

[ GOSSIP ]: the sender turns to face the receiver conspiratorially, clearly eager to share some new gossip with them.

[ URGENT ]: the sender rushes to the preoccupied receiver, desperately shouting "hey!" to get them to focus on a far more pressing matter.

[ SOOTHE ]: after finding the clearly distressed receiver, the sender pulls them into a careful embrace, gently murmuring "hey…" to try and soothe them.

[ SMILE ]: the sender (who hasn't been smiling up until they actually see the receiver in front of them) lights up with a smile as they greet the receiver.

[ TEARS ]: the sender greets the receiver while very clearly in tears.

[ FAKE ]: alternatively, the sender (who has just been crying in private) hastily wipes away their tears and tries to greet the receiver casually (to varying degrees of success).

[ WARNING ]: when the receiver begins to say things about subjects that are off-limits to the sender, the latter gives them a warning by saying "hey…".

[ LAUGH ]: having found the receiver to be decidedly unhappy, the sender lightly catches their attention before doing something to make them laugh, or at the very least, grin.

[ PROTEST ]: after the receiver does or says something that the sender deems to be unfair, the sender tries to exact justice by saying "hey!".

[ BREATHLESS ]: having clearly just sprinted down to the receiver, the sender tries to catch their breath while greeting them.

[ SAVE ]: after just saving the receiver's life in a very heroic fashion, the sender smoothly greets them while helping them escape.

[ FLIRT ]: the sender meets the receiver in a social setting, and attempts to flirt with them with the very traditional pick-up line: "hey.".

[ APOLOGY ]: the sender, having recently done something that hurt or upset the receiver, reunites with them and addresses the elephant in the room by greeting them with a sincerely apologetic tone.

[ AWKWARD ]: after a particularly rough first encounter, the sender meets the receiver again, and awkwardly greets them with more than a touch of embarrassment.

[ GENTLE ]: having found the receiver in an emotionally compromised position, the sender closes the door and approaches them carefully, gently saying "hey…" to try and get them to communicate what has upset them.

[ HARD ]: preparing to deliver what they both know will be bad news, the sender tries to prepare the receiver by quietly greeting them in a solemn tone.

[ WAKEN ]: walking into the receiver's bedroom, the sender gently shakes their shoulder to waken them, and whispers "hey." to encourage the process along.

[ WHISPER ]: the sender gently whispers "hey" to the receiver to discreetly get their attention without drawing the attention of others.