mater - "mother"

"Why did you do it, Doffy?" his mother had asked, kneeling in front of him in the braided sunlight of his room. Her voice soft and calm. Her hands resting on his shoulders. It was the only memory he had of her that didn't fade, because it had happened so many, many times.

Because he had destroyed things. Crayons and toys. A little frog the slave children loved. His own nails.

Why...

xxx

...did you do it?

The ship must've been at least three miles from the island by then, but the fire could still be seen climbing, clinging and clinging to life-a lurid beacon consuming every speck of green and chip of brick. Smoke bled out into the horizon beyond them, seeping into a gory sunset.

The corpses they'd left in a mountain. Doflamingo wondered what that must look like now, doused in the flames, charring into nothing.

They'd almost obliterated the town. Save for that one boy, whom Doflamingo had left to flee god knows where. And...

"How dare you disobey your captain," Trebol spat, mucous hardened around Jora's ankles. Her hands were wrenched behind her back, held there in Trebol's damp hold. The rest of the Family stood further off, huddled almost unconsciously together. They peered at her in disbelief. Baby Five worried her lip, half-hiding behind Buffalo's arm. Jora did not look at anyone.

"Forgive me, Young Master."

Trebol sniggered, opened his mouth to make some brutish retort, before Doflamingo silenced him with a glance. He walked to Jora through an echoing silence. Her shoulders flinched when she saw the tip of his shoes, but her gaze did not lift. Wind blew across the deck, ethereal fingers combing through his hair.

"You knew what your orders were, Jora."

"I did."

"And what was to be expected."

"Yes."

"But you chose not to follow them," Doflamingo said softly, "And disappoint me instead."

Her whole body jolted, as if he'd kicked her, and her head bowed further, chin almost resting against her chest.

"I didn't want to," she whispered, "I never wished to."

"But you did," he said, "You have. Why, Jora?"

did you do it?

Doflamingo's eye twitched. His gaze flashed to the rail and then the masting. He wasn't sure what he'd thought he see.

"Because they were children," Jora croaked, "They were just...I had to."

"Idiot," Trebol said and Diamante snorted. "Women." They didn't need to hear anymore, moving in to hurl her into the depths. Jora didn't defend herself. She kept staring at Doflamingo's shoes and the string of pearls swayed about her neck, shivering white. And out of nowhere, he remembered then how she use to find them tacky, could go on at someone for hours about the travesties of heavy jewelry, and had only taken to wearing them because Dellinger had...

"Stop."

Trebol and Diamante froze. Eyes turned to him, even Jora's as she finally raised her head. They were runny and black with mascara. Doflamingo considered her. He knelt down, casting a shadow across her body.

"You really should be punished," he said, "But I know you miss him. And that it's been hard."

Jora's face scrunched up and the tears came loose, fat ones dribbling down her lining chin. She sobbed, hand fisting against her chest. She was an echo of herself four years ago, identical down to the rawness of the nerves and the pain of the words. "H-He was my baby. My little boy. I was a mother..."

The wind shifted again. It smelled of mist and drizzle. Doflamingo stood up. He thought he would've been angry, but he wasn't. It was easier to assess his feelings on the open sea. His head didn't pound. The past didn't gnaw on his mind. "Let her go."

Many a face gawked. The Family murmured amongst each other. Diamante released her within half a heartbeat, while Trebol stammered something in complaint, before Doflamingo looked at him again and he hurried to free her legs. Jora did not stand, remaining collapsed on the deck floor and gazing up at him in surprise.

Her voice was hoarse when she spoke. "...Young Master?"

"I'll chalk it up to sentiment," he said, "And a mistake. But Dellinger's gone, Jora. He's not coming back. Nothing you do is going to change that now, so don't make the same mistake twice."

And that was it. Doflamingo turned and walked off, leaving his family standing there stock-still, and intent on hunting down the drink he hadn't had in near two days. Baby Five tried to reach for his coat as he passed. At least three different hands rushed to hold her back. ("Baby," Buffalo hissed, "leave him alone.")

He didn't even notice, descending the stairwell towards his quarters. The wind flowed after him, slipping through the crack of the door as it shut. It was at the base of the stairs that Doflamingo felt hands on his shoulders, gentle as first rain and he spun around, for a second eager, because he thought inexplicably that it was Rosi. That he'd left his room at last and wasn't mad anymore.

But it wasn't Rosi. It wasn't anyone.

Doflamingo frowned, standing there for a blank moment in the middle of the hall. He turned and kept walking.

xxx

He worried her.

She started checking his hands at bedtime. She read many books and asked him weird questions he couldn't ever seem to answer right. She spoke to Father early in the dawn when they thought he was still sleeping. They talked about him. Or Mother did. Father never liked what she said, about how Doflamingo was different, that there was something wrong inside him and she feared Mariejois didn't have the help he needed. Father laughed it off. He told her she was overthinking things, that boys would be boys and tried to cheer her with a change of subject.

Doflamingo would sneak onto the landing, head tilted towards the slip of light. He'd wondered all the time back then if there was something wrong with him too. He was bored. He was restless. He was empty. He would never stop feeling, somehow, someway, like he was missing something and he couldn't have told them why. Didn't know why himself.

"I'm sorry," he finally said one night, in the week before his brother was born, when his mother had just finished reading to him. She looked surprised.

"What for, darling?"

"For not feeling the right things." Doflamingo stared at the page spread open in their laps. "For being me."

Mother said nothing. There was silence for such a long time that he peered up into her face. Her expression was still. The lamplight in her eyes gathered, brighter and brighter, until he realized it was the reflection of tears. Maybe he shouldn't have spoken at all.

She hugged him and he didn't know why. She squeezed very hard. He hugged her back.

"Doffy," she'd whispered, "I need you to remember something."

xxx

They set a course for Spider Miles. Senor Pink was concerned about his wife, who had texted several times asking him to come home, fretting about their son who'd fallen ill almost a week ago. Doflamingo granted the request without much thought. Vergo had said Barrels would waffle for some time over which location to meet at, and he was getting sick of the ship anyway.

The hollows of it kept moaning, as if dying men were layered within the walls. The sounds felt as if they'd only grown louder since they'd left the island behind.

And Rosi still wouldn't speak to him. He wouldn't even come out of his room. Doflamingo obsessed over whether he was eating, what he was even doing in there, why was he being so goddamn difficult when near everything Doflamingo had ever done was for...and then he had to calm himself down again. He'd expected this. It wasn't a surprise. No one ran before they crawled and Rosi would come around in time. He had to have patience. It's what she'd always told him-

A floorboard creaked at his room's entrance. Doflamingo's head shot up, knocked out of his reverie. A small, round shape stood in the shadows. He had to blink a moment before he could discern it as a person.

"Law?"

The child walked in. Doflamingo realized then that the large mound over him was actually Rosi's coat and stopped himself from flinching. It dragged along the floor as he moved, one hand keeping it in place, the other cradling a book.

"What are you doing? It's almost midnight."

"Buffalo snores," Law said, even though Buffalo had always snored and Law hadn't been bothered by it for years, "What are you doing? Sitting in the dark like a freak."

Doflamingo sighed, resting an elbow on the armchair. He didn't have the energy to squabble tonight.

"Just thinking."

The boy seemed confused a moment, as if he'd been revving up for another spat that had disintegrated before his eyes. It was another second, before he recomposed himself and brought the book higher to his chest. "I've got a question."

Doflamingo glanced at the tome. Intro to Navigation. He was almost certain Law had already read through the thing three or four times.

"...Do you really?"

"That's what I said, isn't it?"

"The stuff in there's rudimentary. You could ask anyone about it."

Law's mouth twisted.

"I don't want anyone. I want you."

He was blushing before the words had even fully left his mouth. Doflamingo's brows shot towards his hairline.

"Shut up," Law snapped, before he could say anything, "Shut up, don't start. Are you gonna help me or not?"

His brows were furrowed so tightly it almost looked painful. His small body was trembling, whether from the draft or exhaustion it was hard to say. The feathers of Rosi's coat, which he clung to with such insistence, sifted as he teetered beneath their weight. Doflamingo's face softened a fraction. He gestured him over.

"Alright. C'mere, boy."

There wasn't another chair and he could hardly leave Law standing, so he pulled him into his lap. Doflamingo had assumed he'd complain, but there was only silence. Instead, the child set the book aside entirely, letting it fall somewhere on the desk and clenched his free hand now in Doflamingo's shirt. It was surreal.

"What's the matter with you?" he muttered, but obligingly rested a palm against the small, narrow back. "Didn't you have a question?"

Law didn't answer, throat bobbing as he swallowed once instead. Was it the moonlight making him look green? Doflamingo kept one hand on the child, the other ghosting out to drag the trash bin closer when the boy spoke. "Why are you fighting with him?"

He stiffened for only a second. "I'm not fighting with him. He's fighting with me."

"Why?"

Doflamingo shrugged, all pretense, as if the question hadn't been eating away at him for days. "Because his perspective is off. He sees things...in the wrong light. It needs correction."

"Cora-san says you're the one who sees things wrong."

He barked out a laugh. Of course. "Is that so?" Doflamingo leaned back in his chair. "I see things wrong? He spares a thought for every drop of blood in this world except his own, but I'm the wrong one, am I? Well, Cora-san knows where to find me, boy, if he has grievances to air. That is also if he ever plans to stop acting like such a..."

He cut himself off, lips pursing as he glared out the porthole a moment. Law stared up at him, eyes large with confusion. They flickered with surprise when Doflamingo tried to set him on the floor.

"Never mind. It's late. Go sleep."

"But-"

"Just kick him if he keeps snoring-"

Law grabbed his arm.

"What happened on that island?"

The child's face was so pale, his cheeks mottled white. They looked at each other and Doflamingo didn't speak at length, before he smiled, lips peeling off teeth.

"Justice, Law."

"Cora-san didn't think so."

"He will. In time."

"I don't want this."

"Want what-"

"Was it because of me?" Law's grip tightened on his sleeve. "Is this happening because of me?"

Doflamingo stared at the top of his hat. The most detached answer would be yes, in every sense, technical or otherwise, it was because of Law. That his brother wouldn't talk to him or look at him, that that hellhole ever came back into their lives. If Doflamingo were to grasp blindly at something to blame, it would invariably fall upon Law's small, bony hands. All of it.

He thought this once. Twice.

But when he opened his mouth, he found himself saying only one thing.

"No." He pushed the hat's band out of the child's eyes. "It wasn't because of you."

xxx

"You'll be a big brother soon," she had said, "Do you know what that means?

He shrugged. It wasn't the answer she wanted, but he honestly had no idea. He wasn't sure it meant anything.

"I have to sleep with ear plugs in?"

She blinked and then laughed, a delicate sound that he'd forget in time, even though he'd hold onto it for as long as he could.

"Maybe. Probably actually," She ran a hand through his hair, rubbed his head until he huffed and nudged out of her reach. "But it also means...you have a job now."

"...a job?"

"Yes. Your brother will be very small. This whole place, this entire world, will be brand new to him. He won't know what to expect of any of it, and he'll need someone to watch out for him and protect him. Someone to listen to him. And make him happy."

xxx

Law came with actual questions after that. It wasn't a particularly new thing for him to do and Doflamingo had long lost count of how many times the brat had accosted him in the hallway or on deck, sometimes in the middle of calls, to ask questions. Now though, in the shuffle of days it had taken to reach Spider Miles, there seemed to be a routine forming.

Every night, just past the minute of dusk, Law would appear in front of him like clockwork, no matter where he was. He always had a book with the most complex subject imaginable and at least one question that took Doflamingo over twenty minutes to explain. It got to the point where he just waited around for Law in the lounge. It was better than the boy catching him drinking.

Rosi's coat was still draped around his shoulders. Doflamingo didn't ask for the story as to why. The kids in general, seemed the only people his brother would have any contact with at all.

And therein was the final staple of this curious new habit of Law's. He'd always have something to report on Rosi, whether it was what they'd spoken about or how he was looking. Mostly, there just seemed a lot of cigarettes and silence. Doflamingo wanted to feel annoyed at Rosi, letting a child run back and forth just to affirm he was alive. But somehow, he felt like Rosi didn't know and Law was doing this all on his own.

"You really have changed."

Law lifted his head, gave him a quizzical look. "What?"

Doflamingo shrugged and Law scowled, ever a fan of his crypticness. It was a little more thoughtful of an expression this time though, in place of aggravation.

"He won't be mad forever. You're brothers."

"Where did that come from-"

"He told me once you were all he had," Law said, and Doflamingo froze. "Back when you were kids."

His head cocked as he stared up and up at Doflamingo, like the thought that they had ever been kids was barely conceivable. Something was dragged in Doflamingo's chest, a ragged, fire-in-lungs sensation. He broke their gaze.

"Did he?" he muttered, though really he wanted to ask, So why'd he run? Why'd he leave?

Why won't he look at me?

xxx

When they arrived at Spider Miles, Senor Pink made a beeline for the main town, needing to catch a ferry there to the quainter, neighboring island where his family resided. Doflamingo eyed the piles of scrap metal in front of the waste processing plant, the harsh fissures that branched through the dirt and how some of the mounds had been thrown into disarray. There'd been tremors around Spider Miles lately-tectonics and brittle crusts and ancient earth trucked to the surface. Conditions for a landslide.

"Careful," he warned Senor Pink, or the back of his head anyway as the man hurried down the gangway, "Nearby islands could be affected too."

A distracted wave was made at him, along with a mumbled promise to return in a couple of days. For that matter, half the crew was elbowing their way down the ramp. It seemed Doflamingo hadn't been alone in feeling stir-crazy.

"Are you going to come out?" he said, hands stuffed in pockets, "You could probably use some sun at this point."

Silence.

"The town has new stores open. There's one selling dried plums."

Nothing.

Doflamingo's hands were curling into fists. It'd been nearly two weeks and he was so fucking tired of talking to a closed door. He honestly just wanted to kick it down and it was only through some desperate clutching at his own patience that he refrained.

This was all getting ridiculous. How long was his brother going to moan and snivel over a handful of wretches that had destroyed their lives? How could he be this hopeless? Doflamingo didn't understand.

"Rosi," he said, "Please."

But the door stayed where it was and Doflamingo, after another minute, stormed away before the red in his vision could blind him entirely.

xxx

"And that's me?" He did not mean for the skeptical note to crawl into his voice. It was easier now to sort through what his mother meant though. A job. He could understand a job. "Why me? He's gonna be a Dragon. He won't need me."

Mother's eyes flickered. "Why would you say that?"

"Because Dragons don't need anybody," he recited, eager, certain he'd said something right this time, "Not even each other."

But Mother did not smile. She looked, if anything, sad again.

"Maybe that's true for Dragons," she said, "But it isn't for brothers and it isn't for family. That's what you must see each other as, darling. Before Dragons, or world nobles. Before anything. You're family. Nothing in the world matters more."

Her fingers drifted for a moment over his chest, where his heart beat.

xxx

His foul mood brought a deafening tension upon the base. Most of the men got the message and scuttled off. He knew they were throwing his name around town to get free food and services (a magnet for future headaches), but at the moment he couldn't have given a fuck. All he really wanted was a tumbler and something at least ninety percent proof swirling around inside it.

Trebol, with his knack for finding Doflamingo when he least wanted to be found, sidled up. "How about a walk, Doffy?"

Diamante leered from behind, gibbering about a saloon that was serving absinthe by the barrels. Doflamingo didn't retain much beyond that part. They didn't have to cajole him for long.

Word of his immunity with the Marines had beaten them back to Spider Miles. Doflamingo wasn't a stranger to being kneeled to, but the display when he stepped into the saloon was on a new plane. Tankards and plates actually shattered as people hurried to fall to the floor, stools being knocked over and swears uttered beneath the breath. The nervous barkeep looked like he couldn't decide whether to bow as well or take their orders.

Doflamingo made it easy for him.

"I want the hardest shit you have," he snapped, only half paying mind to Trebol as he demanded the crowd to bow lower, lower, to grind their noses into the floor. He and Diamante were heralding him as if he'd come to slay a dragon or something and free the town from tyranny. Doflamingo was just annoyed. He could get a whole room of nobodies to kowtow in his shadow, but not his own damn brother to speak to him?

He was on his third shot by the time another pirate crew barged in, hollering insults and challenging him. They must've been new. Doflamingo didn't even turn around.

"Hush," he chided the bartender when Diamante and Trebol went to work. The man swallowed his scream. At least that was one less noise in the clamor of snapped wood, whizzing bullets, general crying and running that followed. When Trebol and Diamante sat down on the stools next to him, he was fairly certain the place was either deserted or littered with corpses.

"Why is he so mad?" Doflamingo slammed his glass down, the rim of it already cracking in his grip. "After what they did to us."

"He's a plain idiot," Diamante said, guzzling a pint himself. Trebol set his hands on the counter-top, warping the polished wood. "Or something more dangerous."

He raised his hands again instantly when Doflamingo swung towards him. "A joke, a joke. Only a joke, Doffy."

"Not a good one." Doflamingo hissed, glasses gleaming red.

"Ignore 'im," Diamante was saying, "Just ignore 'im. He didn't mean it. You know he talks outta his ass sometimes."

That was true enough. Doflamingo exhaled, smoothing out his raised hackles. He needed to calm down. He didn't want to get into any more fights with family members.

Trebol grinned again and gestured the bartender over, snatching the bottle right out of the man's hand and refilling the drink himself. Doflamingo missed the warning glare Diamante shot over his head at him.

"They didn't deserve his concern," he muttered.

"You're right," they both said, "They didn't. Look at your eye-"

"No." Doflamingo downed the rest of his drink in one gulp. "They-"

And the shuttered doors swung open again. A mane of dirty blonde hair swaggered through, mouth curved into a giddy smirk.

"You guys are the Donquixote Family, aren't you?"

xxx

Bellamy of Nortis. Ran from a rich town to play pirate on the seas. What stupidity. If he could go back, he'd never be...

"Let us under your umbrella...the Donquixote Family is the pride of the North Blue...we wanna become a pirate band just like you guys!"

But never say there weren't paths to his heart. Doflamingo did enjoy flattery, if done in the correct manner.

So he gave the brat permission to the Jolly Roger. He didn't have particular confidence the group would contribute anything to it, but having another shipper in Paradise could be convenient for business.

"Yes!" Bellamy pumped his fists in the air, almost jumped up and down. "Yes, yes!" The rest of his crew crowed in suit. Diamante snarled at them to get lost already, but Doflamingo waved it off. They were small fry, but they could appreciate his enterprise and the way things should run.

It was nice to know at least someone did.

xxx

"You can't forget that, Doffy. Please."

xxx

"The Will of D."

He twitched, muscles along his spine tensing. Law hopped onto the couch beside him, book already held open. The page this time was covered in long columns of clumpy text, parts of the ink faded and yellowed. Doflamingo recognized his own scribbles in the margins, random notes he'd taken down during his teenage years, picking apart the phrases and ideas that had actually made sense. Which were few and far in between. Historians had had a lot to say, and yet absolutely nothing to say, about the Void Century.

"Hm, don't know much about it."

"Liar," Law accused,"You know everything."

It wasn't even a grudging allowance or implied with a drop of embarrassment. Doflamingo chuckled, propping his chin beneath his knuckles.

"Well, it was a secret clan, borne out of a hazy period of time. You ought to cut me some slack."

"No." The book was thrust into Doflamingo's lap. Law's chin jutted, like he didn't accept the idea that there were things Doflamingo didn't know. "Tell me."

He sighed. "Alright, alright." But there really wasn't much to tell. Speaking about the Clan of D also made his insides crawl. The tale of their coming storm had been such a common thread of forbearance in Mariejois that it still stirred in his marrow. Like the blood itself remembered.

"It's an inheritance," he explained, "People crop up with the initial every few decades or generations. Usually the relevant lines keep it a secret."

"Why? What would happen if they didn't?"

Doflamingo shrugged. "The Celestial Dragons have no fondness for them and they're known as the natural enemies of god. You can imagine the consequences for yourself."

"...oh."

"Blood remembers," Doflamingo said, thumbing through the heavy book. He looked out the darkening porthole across the room. "Even renegade blood."

"What do you mean?"

Doflamingo didn't answer. It was a messy business the boy didn't need to know about.

"Hm, why the sudden curiosity anyway? You've gotten...so diverse with your interests lately."

The little face peered at him. His body was swallowed in the ruffle of his brother's feathers. Shadows writhed at the foot of the couch, slices of sunset and twilight snaking about their legs. Doflamingo did wonder, sometimes, what the child thought of him.

"I want to be an executive."

"If I get cured," he hurried to say as Doflamingo stared, "If I get cured, I...want to become an executive. Like Cora-san."

"Do my ears deceive me?" Doflamingo grinned, and Law bristled. His pallor really was against him since the pink in his cheeks flared out like a beacon.

"You use to say I'd make a great right-hand man. Was that an offer or a lie or what?"

"I told you that once," Doflamingo said, leaning back in his seat, "But...no, it wasn't a lie."

"So it was an offer?" Despite a veil of apathy, excitement lurked in Law's expression. Doflamingo crossed his legs, faintly amused.

"It's always been an offer," he said, and flattened his hand on Law's head, pushing the hat over his eyes. The child sputtered, and Doflamingo chuckled, allowing his palm to be wrestled. "I'm a little surprised at you."

"Why?" Law snapped, lifting Doflamingo's hand off his head like a dumbbell. In a huff, he shoved his hat back out of his face. "Where else would I go?"

A cold, muted part of him tittered. Where indeed.

"You must remember everything you ask for, Law."

The boy snorted, as if he were offended at the mere suggestion otherwise.

"Not exactly conveying a lot of confidence in me."

"Oh, confidence is not what's lacking. My hopes are quite high for you. Always have been." He would've gone into an intricate description of the fire-and-ether future he was already seeing. Someone at last who could understand the bigger picture, who could pull the trigger when he was told to or needed to or ought to.

And again, he said none of it. The only thing he managed to give voice to was soft, as if it had sprung from somewhere else entirely.

"Aren't you becoming a delight."

Law rolled his eyes. Perhaps he didn't even realize himself then that he was smiling.

xxx

(He told Cora-san. He thought it'd been the right thing.

The man had looked better. He didn't reek as badly of cigarette smoke as the previous week and he smiled a little when Law shuffled in, sitting next to him on the window sill.

"You should get more sleep," he said, "You don't have to come every day."

"You don't have to stay here every day," Law retorted, though it was perfunctory by that point. He didn't understand why Cora-san wouldn't leave the room, but knew it was futile trying to convince him.

"Doflamingo told me something kinda interesting."

Cora-san stared out the window. Law thought his expression relented though. Just a bit. It was the first time in almost a month. He felt a little encouraged. Even more so, when Cora-san turned to him and asked, "About what?"

"The Will of D."

It was weirdly identical, how Cora-san and Doflamingo flinched at the words. Law was starting to question if there was more to the whole thing than he realized.

"Oh, yeah?" Cora-san said eventually, "...What did he tell you?"

Law explained the impromptu history lesson he'd received, noting especially the parts about the Celestial Dragons and the coming storm, which Doflamingo had seemed to linger on. If Cora-san was reacting though, he didn't let it show.

"Why were you asking him this, Law?"

He shrugged. "I was curious." The moon was ghost white that night. "And well...because I'm also one of them."

Something odd happened then. Even in hindsight, Law couldn't have described it well, not in any way that made sense. Cora-san shifted to him. The brush of his clothes was thunderous, the shape of his words echoed. As if all the sound had bled from the world.

"What?"

Law crossed his legs. He didn't think it had been a good idea at first, revealing the full breadth of it to a bunch of crazies, but...Cora-san was different. He could trust Cora-san.

"Trafalgar D. Water Law," he said, "That's my real name."

"Did you tell him?"

He blinked and must've taken too long to reply, because Cora-san suddenly snatched him by the shoulders. Almost shook him. "Did you tell him your name? Answer me, Law."

"W-Who? Doflamingo?" his eyes widened, "No. No, I-I didn't get the chance."

He was released. Cora-san thudded back against the sill, as if the energy had been drained out of him.

A cold unease began to settle in Law's belly. "What's going on?"

But the man shook his head. "What else did you say?"

And there was a certain note to his voice which Law had never heard before, which sounded remarkably like Doflamingo, and made Law obey without even thinking.

He told him. About the executive position and becoming the next Corazon. He had figured the fighting would stop this way. Because he didn't mind doing the things Cora-san wasn't able to. He didn't care. If the fighting stopped and everything went back to normal then he didn't care at all.

So he told Cora-san.

God, he thought it'd been the right thing.)