Anecdote Of a Father To His Slumbering Child

by Jester310

Beautiful in every way, from soft blonde strands and cute little nose down to his pudgy feet, Doflamingo feels he's the luckiest father in the world to be granted a child so loving, so sweet and so cheerful. These are their tales. These are simply short side stories of 'A Child Feels All." Warnings on major father-and-son fluffs.

Title: Prologue 1

Pairings: Doflamingo x Sabo with other side characters

Warnings: Major fluff moments and grammatical errors.

A/N: This is barely side stories of one of my delayed projects 'A Child Feels All.' I wrote this in a spur of moment and nothing more. And just a small information for those who has yet to read it, Sabo is a child born with the help of surrogate mother considering that Doflamingo is gay, but still wants a child of his own nonetheless.

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SCENE 1: If Pretence is what Binds us together, then Lets Play Pretend Forever

"Hey Sabo…" Doflamingo called for his eight year old son from behind his glass as he languidly sipped on the bourbon whiskey.

Even with his eyes still fixated on the night bulletin, he still felt the tiniest movement on his laps where Sabo was currently lying on. The little blondie somewhat had long established that his laps was the perfect spot to be lying on despite there were expensive designer couches scattered inside the living room. Surely the velvety cushions were much more comfortable than his laps, but the single father didn't want to exert himself in doing the mathematic.

"Hmm…?" On his stomach across his father's laps, Sabo did make the tiniest shift, but that was probably because he wanted to get a better grip on his handheld console game. Tonight, the boy has given himself a mission to climb at least two more levels before going to bed and he was hell bent on it.

"What if…" A short pause lingered at the end of sentence as the man mulled on his next words. The child on his laps was listening, that fact he was certain, but Sabo was probably too lazy to make any apparent indication.

"… I tell you that you're actually not my child?"

In instant, Sabo put his game on pause mode, and craned his neck slightly to give his father a sideway look.

"What?"

For another ten or perhaps fifteen seconds, the blond man kept his gaze forward as if he was contemplating on his words just now. Then, he looked down on his child and gave a casual shrug while he swirled whatever drink left inside the glass.

"Allegedly speaking." Doflamingo added. "What would you do?"

Just by expressing the possibility caused something inside him to clench, leaving an extremely horrible sensation, enough to make him wanted to throw up, right here and then. Sabo was his child, his flesh and blood and he should have that solid fact buried twenty feet under so that no doubt could as much as twist the reality.

But then, why the 'what if' question even rose up in the first place? It was as though he wanted to hurt himself with answer or decision his child could be making. The very same answer to his own insecurity. There was nothing unnatural for Sabo to demand his 'real' father's whereabouts and choose to live with him instead. Someone who's better than him. He was a helpless father after all, that much Doflamingo was aware. He didn't know how to cook, he didn't know how to clean, he kept on forgetting to separate the coloured clothes when he did the laundry and he couldn't keep track on everything in the house. Like yesterday, he had forgotten to do grocery shopping and his child ended up eating dry cereal without any milk for breakfast this morning. He even as clumsy as his little brother sometimes that he accidentally splashed red wine on all over Sabo's homework and the boy ended up having to redo them again.

Sabo didn't answer his father immediately and let his gaze lingered on the man's slightly frowning face. It was very rare, in his opinion at very least. The boy drawled his answer, seemingly enjoying the way Doflamingo fidgeted in his seat as if he couldn't even bear to be inside his own skin. The silence was too much for the father to handle and with every passing minute, Doflamingo felt the coil inside him tightened, ready to puncture his heart and lungs.

"If you're not my dad and my real dad is somewhere out there,"

On instinct, Doflamingo closed his eyes. To brace for the worse. To brace for the pin prick answer like—

"… Then I'm going to keep on pretending that I'm your son."

… What? What?

Doflamingo snapped his eyes open and looked down where his son had his attention back to his game as if the conversation was never there in the first place. The boy even hummed his own tune as he swung his legs back and forth, not caring when his feet occasionally hit his father in the shoulder. For a split moment, he could have sworn that Sabo smiled at the end of his sentence just now.

All of sudden, the man felt the world before him blurred. Something was pricking his throat, his eyes, and skin and it took every ounce of his will to ward off the tears from spilling down and caressing his cheeks. It hurt. Every inch of his body—inside and outside— was hurting so good at that moment. Without thinking, Doflamingo bent down and hunched his upper body over Sabo's smaller frame until his forehead touched the small back of his son's. His breathing was a bit shuddery and the boy must have noticed it since he had paused on his game once again. What the boy had not noticed was how his words just now affected his father greatly.

"Thank you." Doflamingo whispered with rasped voice and gave the clothed back a soft kiss.

"Thank you." He repeated. Despite his helplessness as a person, his son still needed him, still wanted him as a father. Earlier, he had expected a pin prick answer and yet, what he received was nothing that he had anticipated.

He has received a cooling salve to mend his own insecurity.

Sabo twisted his body around so he could slouch on back instead. He only grinned when Doflamingo kissed his forehead, just below his hairline before the man scrunched his nose nuzzled it softly against his son's own—a rather particular gesture that both of them has practiced since Sabo was still in his diaper. The eight year old laughed and returned the gesture, not even bothered with the fact that he was probably too old to be this attached to his father. The fact that he made his father happy overpowered any logics out there.

And he really did make Doflamingo happy and something unpleasant to unfurl themselves inside the man's chest. All this moment, from the day his son was born, he has always thought that he would be the one's giving everything. Yet, here he was, just learning that the child in fact, has been giving him something that he thought he could never have in this lifetime.

A family and a place where he felt like he belonged to.

SCENE 2: Money And Status Are Good To Have, But A Child's Love Is Much Better Than Angels Raining Down On Me.

In less than two weeks time, there would be a big party to be held in the main Headquarters building which was meant to celebrate Sabo's second birthday. That year's celebration was slightly special and meaningful since that was the year where the toddler had said his first word. Of course, such words like 'mama' or 'dada' weren't the ones that slipped out from the child's mouth and brought forward dramatic tears to everyone…

It was beyond dramatic.

In fact, his first words have been 'Famingo Bashtard'. Asshole Crocodile had sneakily whispered that phrase into the boy's ears and surprisingly enough, Sabo had picked it up and rolled them in between his tongue without so much effort. Indeed his son had said the word he wanted to hear for a very long time right after that, but the happiness of being a father was killed by almost an half.

Up until now, he still bore grudges on that incident.

"So Sabo," Diamanted practically had to kneel down to match his height with the toddler perched on Doflamingo's laps before showing Sabo the brochure containing more than two dozen cake designs. The tall, lanky company executive had somewhat offered himself to handle this years' birthday cake. Doflamingo at first digressed at the idea. After all, although he has befriended the other since the beginning of their high school years, the fact that Diamante was a twisted man with equally twisted ideas always left him with an extremely larger than life of unsettling gut feelings.

But surely Diamante had different ideology if it's concerning his child, right?

… Right?

Diamante ignored his friend's inner dilemma and focused on Sabo instead. While secured by Doflamingo's hand around his tummy, the soon-to-be two year old boy still reached out and grabbed on his fancy, musical note tie bar clip. The executive only chuckled and allowed the child to run his curious fingers across the clip while he flapped open the brochure for Sabo to take a look at.

"Which cake do you want for your birthday, hhmm..?" Diamante ran his slim fingers through the fine, blonde strands and the Sabo made a ticklish noise when they scrapped the spot behind his ears.

"Just pick anything as long it doesn't look twisted as the idea in your head."

From a distance, just by the glass cabinet, Crocodile murmured and gave the file in his hand another flip. For the last two hours, he has been searching a quotation record for a particular item from five years ago and since the server holding all the company the virtual data was down on that day, the man was forced to search the hard copy instead.

The executive hissed and rolled his eyes, disregarding Crocodile's position which of course, higher than him. "This year is special and I want the boy to at least pick his own cake for his birthday."

From the frown, Diamante's quickly softened his features as he went back to the boy. "So which one?" He pointed several images on the brochures to assist the boy in his pick. "Look, this one you can get rainbow layers and you can doodle anything on the cake yourself with edible marker. Pretty nice, right?"

Sabo only hopped excitedly and said words which sounded more like a language from another dimension that were strung together. The boy development in talking was probably a bit behind, but knowing that the little blondie was indeed healthy was all Doflamingo needed to know.

"Ren-bow!" The toddler squeaked at the multicolour cake before his gaze shifted to the one his father was pointing at.

"That one's a fish tank. That's nice…" Kissing the child's smooth cheek, Doflamingo nodded at the picture again. There were even iced shaped fishes adorning the side of the aquarium cake. "What's that thing they use to make water thingy on the top?"

Diamante took a quick glance at the mention watery thingy spread on top of the cake in picture. "Smashed jellies I think—ooh look, Sabo! This got little bears on them."

"Leoo bears!" Again the boy giggled, seemingly with no decision that came into his innocent mind.

While Sabo seemed rather fascinated with all the yummy looking cakes, Crocodile had closed the file in his hand and sauntered towards the tiny fiasco cantered in the middle of the sofas inside Doflamingo's office. He then tilted his head to have a quick glance of the cakes brochure.

"That's definitely not bears. It looks more like a creepy creature that comes out straight from nightmare."

At once, Doflamingo scowled. "Stop ruining things, Crocodile." The blonde practically hissed in between his teeth. "We're having a moment here, why do you have to ruin it?! What the hell is wrong with you?!"

Not only had he taken no heed of the blonde's outburst, Crocodile made unreadable expression as though there was nothing amiss with his words just now.

Something shifted next to Doflamingo and when he turned his head sideway, he saw his little brother began to stir from his nap and before long, the executive who held the same rank as Diamante sat up, yawning as he did so. He scratched his head few time, tousling his blond locks towards every direction before crawling closer to his brother and nephew. Taking a quick glance on the brochure and the toddler perched on Doflamingo's laps, Rocinante managed to add the two and two together even in his half drowsy mind. After all, it didn't take for a genius to figure what the issue was.

With a newfound enthusiasm, the younger brother wordlessly pointed at the cake with a large smiling sun wearing sunglasses as the main decoration.

In front of him, Diamante scoffed at the idea. "Sunshine? Really? Did you pick that because it's yellow or is it because the sun is wearing the same shades as you?"

Rocinante pouted at the accusation. So he had things for smiley things, especially if those smiley creatures could bring the brightest smile out of his favourite little nephew.

At this point, Doflamingo couldn't even decide who the children in this room are. These two so called executives who more than often had childish bickering whenever they were in each other presence—although Rocinante never spoke in their argument—or his child…

"Sha-sun…" This time too, Sabo tried to get the pronunciation in a most correct way, but failed horribly. Instead of giving up, he looked up at Crocodile and silently asked for the man assistance by pointing the sunshine cake. "Sha-sun?"

Crocodile raised an eyebrow and let the answer lingered for a moment. In return, he brought his hand slightly forward and used his pointy finger, or to be exact, the middle phalanx of his pointy finger to nudge the child's lips gently. The raven haired man seemed to have his own method of showing his affectionate side towards small creatures and Doflamingo had long noticed that since Crocodile used to utilize the same gesture when dealing with his own son. Of course, Crocodile was born with a super ego and refused to admit the fact.

Only for a while, Crocodile allowed the child to suckle and have a small bite on his hand with those little baby teeth before he kneeled down and removed his finger as he did so.

"Sun-shine." He corrected the boy's word just now as he stared into the soft baby blue eyes which were akin to Doflamingo's and Rocinante's. If he let these idiots to be in charge with Sabo's educational, the child would probably still speaking gibberish by the time he reaches five.

"Sun-sun."

"No…" Patient with the boy's continuous mistake, Crocodile tried again. "Sun."

Sabo mimicked him. "Sun."

"Shine."

"Shine."

"Sunshine."

"Sunshine." Finally, the boy got the word and smiled brightly when Crocodile gave a satisfied nod. Pleased with his achievement, Sabo then pointed at another cake design on the brochure—an angel birthday cake.

"Angel." Crocodile simply said, apparently sensing the toddler wish to learn more vocabularies.

For a moment there, Doflamingo was afraid that Crocodile would be referring the angel as 'A Retard Chick With Equally Fucked Up Wings.'

"Angee…?" Unable to roll his tongue in a correct way, Sabo had spoken the word wrong again and frowned at his inability to mimic the man.

"Angel." The raven haired man repeated. Only this time, he showed the boy on how to utilize his small tongue to make the 'L' part more apparent. And once Sabo succeeded, the child cheered and clapped his hands together.

"Angel! Angel!"

Diamante laughed at the boy's antics, the dagger staring competition with the younger Donquixote just now was forgotten. "Aren't you a smart little munchkin… Unlike some other two blondies I know." The executive pretended that he didn't notice the deep scowl carving the Donquixote brothers' forehead and continued, "So do you have your pick?"

When young Sabo tilted his head in contemplation, Diamante went on. "Which one does Sabo like the best?"

Clad with an overly joyous aura, the child called Sabo simply answered, "Dad-dad!"

Everyone in the room paused and stared at the smiling child with a flabbergasted expression.

"No, boy." Diamante tried again. "What I meant is, which one in the picture—"

"Dad-dad!"

From the boy, the executive shifted his gaze towards the father who had a rather stupid, happy grin splitting his face into half. "I know what he meant, but if I were to put your face on it, it would be one hell of an ugly cake."

"He's totally wasted on you." Snorting, Crocodile chided on.

"What's that supposed to mean?" A frown was pulling the corner of Doflamingo's mouth.

In return, it was Diamante who snickered seeing that he was aware of what Crocodile had meant just now. "He's a sweet and well mannered kid and you're a twisted combination of a helpless dude and soulless. I've got to be honest, sometimes I feel sorry for him."

Doflamingo rolled his eyes while he tried to keep Sabo in place since his son was flailing his hands around in excitement, enough to knock his shades off. The squirming got even worse when Rocinante has begun poking and tickling the boy's side. "Ooh, shut it. Just get him the tiger shaped cake."

"I thought the idea was to make him choose."

"U-huh. Keep doing that and you'll be kneeling here until he turns four." The father mumbled as he squeezed the socked feet gently to stop his son from kicking too much. "Besides, he practically likes everything on the menu. It's not like we didn't give him the right to choose or anything."

"Point taken." As he stood up, Diamante flexed his legs a couple of time to remove the tiny ache that has developed from kneeling too long. "Maybe we should add cupcakes with paw prints."

"Sounds good."

"Alright then," Together with unhealthy smirk and low chuckles, Diamante paced across the room towards the door while mumbling, "Now which bakery should I terrorize this time…"

Even after a minute Diamante had left the room, Doflamingo couldn't help himself from staring at the door with mixed emotion. "That sounds so wrong…"

"Hmm…" Crocodile didn't seem disturbed with the executive's plot just now and went to stroke Sabo's cheek with his knuckle before looking at Rocinante. "Corazon, if you have that much time napping around like a content sea cucumber, you might as well help me find the files and gather quotation data."

Before Rocinante could as much open his mouth—although there would be no actual syllable coming out anyway—, Crocodile had grabbed him by the arm and continued dragging the younger Donquixote off the sofa and across the carpeted floor. The blond man somehow was akin to uncooperative cat and Crocodile had to fight the urge to grab him by the back of his neck if that would make the executive move faster.

"Where the hell is overly-touchy-and-overly-annoying Trebol when we need him? That man always good at finding stuffs…" Crocodile hissed under his breath as they approached the door with Rocinante still flailing helplessly under his grip.

Once the duo exited the room, Doflamingo then turned his son around so that Sabo could stand on his laps.

"Fufufuffufufu. So am I your favourite person? Really?" The man chuckled when Sabo answered him with a laugh instead before head butting him softly.

Doflamingo tried again while keeping his hold firmly on the boy so he wouldn't accidentally fall backward. "Who's your favourite, Sabo?"

"Dad-dad!" This time around, Sabo answered his father without a slightest hesitation and the child appeared more ecstatic and bouncy when he noticed the wide smile adorning Doflamingo's face.

"As do I…" Doflamingo nuzzled against the boy's button nose and repeated, "As do I, Sabo."

SCENE 3: Today I Have Learned That a Little Compromise Isn't A Bad Thing After All

A large weary sighed escaped his parted lips as Doflamingo flopped down on the couch, relishing on the softness of the cushion. Work has been hectic lately now that the company has secured another large sum contract. Too hectic indeed that even his meals and sleeping hour were compromised till the point he had loses some weight and dark circles clung under his eyes almost as if they were his second skin. The colour was still light however, so Dolamingo could easily hide them with a touch of concealer.

As he allowed his head to fall further backward and into the backrest, the blond could hear shuffling noise, the sound of chair being scrapped against the tiles and water running coming from the kitchen area—telltales that his son was still wide awake and now probably making something for supper. They soothed him, the noise that is. It reminded him of other people living in the house. An empty house with only chairs and tables and staring window somewhat seemed sad and perhaps a little foolish. In fact, it couldn't be referred as home. Just a block of bricks and cement.

Soon after, the scuttling noise ended. Then, came the deafening silence and soft, barely there, footfalls. It was closing in and the moment the sound stop, it was the exact moment Doflamingo opened his tired eyes only to have the image of his son filled his vision. Clad in his night wear—a sea blue short john pajama set featuring tucker truck—, Sabo was seen sipping on his whole grain soy milk before the boy thrust something towards him which appeared to be a nail clipper.

"Cut my nails." The boy demanded as he dangled the clipper right in front of Doflamingo's face.

At least five seconds was taken for the man to actually comprehend his son's request just now given that more than half of his mind was somewhere in between reality and sleeping land. Once comprehended, Doflamingo gave two sets of tired blinks and murmured, "It's night time, Sabo. You know I can't clip your nails at night. I might end up clipping your whole finger…"

The boy didn't budge. "Cut my nails." Sabo repeated again, obstinate with his need. Even when Doflamingo let out a soft, exasperated groan, the little blondie still wouldn't yield and stood on his ground.

Doflamingo pursed his lips and closed his eyes again, slightly displeased with the boy's persistency. Odd. Sabo wasn't one to be this stubborn, not to mention selfish when it comes to his own needs. Laid-back and trouble-free, his only child has never insisted on unreasonable things and thrown tantrum even when he couldn't join the boy for a walk in the neighbourhood park, or when he couldn't pick him up from school, or when he couldn't return home fast enough to send him to bed, or when he couldn't watch the Sunday cartoon with him or—

Just then, the man felt as if realization had smacked him across the face three times. If common sense could be materialized into a living organism, it would have probably punched him in the gut over and over again. Of course. Of fucking course. So that's what this is all about….

For his son to be this desperate in seeking his attention, Doflamingo really felt like royal shit.

Even though three millions of his brain cells were probably dead by now, Doflamingo forced his eyes open and felt his heart clenched when Sabo was still standing in front of him. Still waiting for him to act more like a father and less like soulless idiot.

"Let me see…" Doflamingo beckoned for the other's hand as he straightened his posture from further slouching into the cushion. "They're not that long." He concluded with a soft murmur while he inspected Sabo's fingernails and noticed a trace of disappointment lingered heavily above the boy's head, but dissipated almost immediately when he said, "Fetch me the file."

Only for a split moment, the father of one could have sworn dandelions and rubber duckies were blooming around his son as Sabo practically walked towards his room with little dancy steps.

While the little blondie was still with his little mission, Doflamingo loosen his tie, shed his coat and vest and threw them towards the adjacent couch. He fiddled with the topped three buttons of his working shirts and undid them one by one with few flicks of his fingers. By the time Sabo returned to his father, the man were already sitting crossed leg on the cushion in which the boy immediately hopped and sat on Doflamingo laps without any encouragement. The father winced slightly when he felt the muscles in his thighs just snapped.

He really hated to admit this. Sabo has gotten a bit heavy for his liking… And he would really love to blame Eustass Kidd for feeding his kid a little bit too much.

Quietly, Doflamingo snatched one ply of tissue from the coffee table and readjusted the living bundle on his laps to better position where he wouldn't have to cringe with every shift the boy made. He placed it underneath Sabo's hand before working on the boy's nails. Once he began, Doflamingo did the job with such calmness despite his rapidly depleted consciousness—starting from the outside of the nails towards the centre in long swift strokes. Each stroke was firm, but not hard enough to break. Similar to his, Sabo's slender and almost feminine fingers were to be envied by both women and men. Still, Doflamingo made sure not to make them appear too feminine by scarifying the unnecessary extension and only file the edges and perhaps a little bit on the flat area in order to create a nicely rectangular shape.

One by one, the blond man gave manicure to his son, all the while the said son only sat there on his laps with the small back pressed firmly against his torso. Sabo was silent the whole time as he rested his head on his father's chest, seemingly content with the small attention he was receiving. He didn't even bother to switch the channel as he sat there and listened to Doflamingo's steady breathing above him.

Doflamingo didn't notice this at first, but the more they sat there, pressed close to each other, the more he noticed the small changes about Sabo. Like how the boy seemed a bit bigger than the last time he held him, or how his blond strands appeared courser and longer that they tickled the underside of his jaw or how he smelled like raspberry rather than his usual cocoa soap. He didn't even know how the his Sabo received the very small—barely perceptible— scar on his right index finger or since when he had gotten it.

To think that he had missed so much of the boy's development…

"I cut my finger with scissors during art class." All of sudden, Sabo mumbled as though his father's inner monolog reached him.

The blonde man paused momentarily—he was on the forth finger by now—before replying, "When?"

"Last month." The eight year old replied. He received a temporary silent treatment by his father as Doflamingo inspected the smaller hand thoughtfully.

"Why didn't you tell me?" Doflamingo felt the living bundle shifted slightly and Sabo shrugged.

"It wasn't that bad."

"Doesn't matter. Just tell me anything…" With his fingers, the blonde man nudged his child's jaw to make him looked up. "—every single little thing. Alright? And be more careful next time."

In returned, Sabo only grinned and nodded. "Okay!"

Chuckling, Doflamingo gave a soft kiss to the blond head and continued with his task. A very large part of him was glad that Sabo still had that selfish nature because by him being selfish was the only way for the father to be selfless.

"When will Uncle Roci be back from Flevance?"

"Hmm?" Doflamingo lifted Sabo's right hand and smooth his finger over the boy's nails to make there weren't any jagged surface. "He was supposed to arrive by this afternoon. But knowing him, he probably made some stops and wondered off before going back. Why?"

Pressed close to him, the man felt his son wiggled in excitement. "Nothing. I told him to buy lots of candies from there. There's this new, big candy store just opened in Felevance. They say that the first one hundred customers would get seventy-percent off! I hope Uncle Roci could make it…"

"You may want to watch your sugar, boy. The last time you went to dentist, you ended up kicking the doctor's balls and made him sound like a dolphin giving birth."

"It's okay. I'll make sure to brush my teeth after I eat them!" The nonchalant and guilt-free answer only made Doflamingo frozen in his seat while he stared at the boy before him with slightly wide eyes. Sabo must have been under the impression that kicking someone in the groin was only a natural basis since small laughter erupted deep inside the boy's chest.

The cavity itself wasn't the main problem. It was the hyper activeness aftermath that seemed to serve as an actual crisis. Doflamingo only shook his head and braced for the worst that could happen after Rocinante returned home later with sacks of sweet treats.

They stayed like that for a while, talking about what could be measured as insignificant things, about anything; about every little thing that happened recently while Doflamingo proceeded filing his son's left fingernails. They talked, they laughed and sometimes, he poked the boy in the tummy just to make eight year old squirmed. Nothing big or serious. But did he enjoy this seemingly little moments? Yes, yes, yes and definitely yes.

By the time he finished filing Sabo's nails—all ten of them—, as if on cue, the front door was slammed open. The person who opened it probably wasn't doing the slamming thing on purpose. Or rather, he was most probably just tripped right in front of the door, resulting a quite dramatic fall with face planted into the ground beneath him.

"You okay there, Roci?" Doflamingo called and appeared to be calm with the incident just now. He heard a pained grunt as a respond. In his dictionary, nobody died in his house and that was all he needed to know.

Seconds later, Rocinante entered the living room and dropped his luggage by just by the entrance as he rubbed his bruised head. His journey towards the father-and-son duo was halted midway when the tall man again, tripped on his own leg and fell forward.

"Welcome back, Uncle Roci. How's your trip?"

With his face still pressed firmly against the tiled floor, the younger Donquixote brother made a thumb up gesture. When he finally did managed to peel his face off the floor without strangling himself with the string of his hoodie, Rocinante flashed a warm smile towards his brother and nephew. But with bruised head and red nose, he looked more like a homeless hobo and less like, well, a well off person, especially with that silly, shaggy hair and goofy smile.

Since Rocinante has lost faith in his own legs that would probably make him trip again, the executive practically walked on his knees across the sitting area while dragging three extremely large recycled shopping bags with him. Take it from Doflamingo, now his brother appeared a lot like a fucked up, disabled leprechaun who has never seen a better day.

Then again, Doflamingo didn't want to comment on his brother odd behaviour, especially not when the said brother was hugging and squeezing Sabo in his chest and gave his nephew a small peck in the forehead.

"Ooohh! Ooooh!" Still perched on his laps, Sabo hopped excitedly after seeing the content inside the bags. "Is this all of them?!"

The soundless man only grinned and nodded.

"This is plenty, Uncle Roci! Did you manage to be the first one hundred?" Sabo's smile faltered a bit when his uncle shook his head. "Then these must be expensive."

Rocinante shook his head again and patted his nephew's head to assure it was fine. For a while, Sabo had this guilty look on him. But after more reassurance patting from his uncle, the boy's mood bounced back tenfold and he hugged the man and murmured, "Thanks, Uncle Roci!", into Rocinante's shoulder.

With an enormous satisfaction, Sabo quickly opened the sweets filled bags and peered inside. What greeted him was definitely, candy, chocolates, cookies and of course, more candies—the kind of view that made the boy to smile from ear to ear and Doflamingo to cringe visibly. If his kid doesn't get a cavity by the time he finished those monstrosity, then clearly the tooth fairy was slacking off and having a hoola hoop party with equally twisted fairies in the southern island.

"Can we open this one, dad?" Straight from the bag, Sabo held out a packet filled with what appeared to be chocolate cookies with a cream centre, dipped into mocha cappuccino chocolate.

An extremely nasty foreboding escalating inside Doflamingo and he knew he had more than enough reason to be considering the boy's history with candy.

"Now?"

"U-huh! Please, daaaaaaaddddyyy… I don't have school tomorrow."

To be honest, Doflamingo wasn't really fond of the idea. Not now, not tomorrow, not ever. Because even the syllable 'Sabo' and 'candy' didn't blend together that well. But the way Sabo punctuated his endearment only made his inside all warm and fuzzy and a bit light headed. If that wasn't enough to waver his decision—not that he had any—even Rocinante decided to join the play by flashing a puppy look next to his nephew. No matter how much Doflamingo wanted to say how extremely ridiculous his little brother looked at that moment, he couldn't bring himself to. Because Rocinante did manage to pull it off, with that pouty lips and imaginary dog ears clamped to the back of his skull and the small pleading whine erupted—

Oh, he gave up.

"Fine… Just one, alright? " Hand reaching out, Doflamingo took quite a handful of Rocinante's blonde lock at the side and tugged on them enough to make the younger Donquixote hissed. There was no reason behind the action to be honest. It was one of those spur of moment thingy.

Caught off guard, Rocinante didn't get to do much of retaliation, save for slapping his brother's hand off his head. He scowled and rubbed on the sure spot, certain that he was missing few strands of hair due to Doflamingo's mean ministration just now.

"Dad, that was mean!" Sabo exclaimed, but laughed afterwards when Rocinante had somewhat managed to get his fingers stuck in his own hair.

Snorting, Doflamingo flopped back into the cushion, causing Sabo to fall sideway while still laughing. As soon as the boy regained his breathing back to its regular pattern, he sat up and stared at his father's exhausted form, studying his face intently.

"You should go to sleep, dad." Doflamingo heard his son murmured next to him. "You don't look so good."

Head pressed lightly into the backrest, Doflamingo opened his eyes and pinched the eight year old nose lightly in between his fingers. "I'm okay."

"You have circles under your eyes. See?" To emphasize his point, Sabo poked the slightly discoloured skin just below his father's left eyes. Doflamingo only chuckled in return and took the small hand into his and squeeze it gently.

"I can easily sleep them off tomorrow. Don't worry about it, hhmm?" Before the eight year old could say another word, the man quickly added, "Go get some bowls from the kitchen for you to put your cookies. It'll be one hell of a mess if they get all over the floor…"

Despite feeling sceptical over his father's remark, Sabo wanted to respect his father words. He slid off the couch and padded his way towards the kitchen. Not long after the boy entered the kitchen, Doflamingo too, slid off the couch only to settle himself on the floor to join his brother along with the sweet treats brought by him. Sugary tit bits were never in his favourite list, but all these fancy packaging had rather picked his interest.

His fingers were about an inch from grazing the first packet he found from the bag before a words filled paper filled his vision. A confused frown knitted his brows together as Doflamingo reared his head a bit before reading the lettering.

'Sabo's right, Doffy. You look like shit. Go to sleep.'

Looking up from the paper, Doflamingo saw his brother made a sleeping gesture then pointed at him.

"It's actually amazing at how your handwriting sometimes can be more annoying than your voice, little brother." A deep sigh pushed the older Donquixote brother to lean his back against the sofa as he lifted one knee close to his chest. "But really, Roci. I'm fine, alright? Because if another person asks me this question again, I'm really going to start throwing tantrum." The man laughed softly to casual it up.

Unsatisfied with such casual act his brother was trying so hard to muster, Rocinante twirled the pen in his hand a couple of time before he started writing again. Doflamingo pinched the bridge of his nose. This is going to be a very VERY long conversation. He heard the sound of paper being torn and looked up again at the note held by his brother.

'You need to take a better care of yourself. You've once told me that no one would be able to save the world or even the people around him if that person doesn't even know how to take care of himself.'

More scribbling followed after. 'Sabo is your world, right?'

Doflamingo ran his slim fingers through his short blond locks, giving a sideway glance to make sure that his child was still out of an earshot. The scuttling noise was still there, right in the kitchen. Sabo was probably making drinks and just for once in a while, the father really hoped it was something that was not… caffeinated.

"Well… Back then when I said that, Sabo wasn't even born yet. Or I had too much whiskey that time." Doflamingo took a box caramel filled chocolate and began tossing it in between left and right hand.

"It's just that," Placing the box back on the floor, the man clicked his tongue slightly. "Ever since Sabo was born, it feels like time just keeps on going faster. It's too fast that I can hardly keep track on everything around me. Like tonight, I've just noticed there are so many changes about my own son that I've missed and who knows what else I've been missing so far when I was in the office, signing contracts and throwing meetings."

Shoulder sagged, Doflamingo had this kind of hopeless look, like he didn't have any slightest idea on how to handle the turmoil raging inside him. "Roci, I don't want to be that kind of person who twenty years later, find himself signing a will and then realizes that he didn't spend nearly enough time with those he cares most about."

"I don't know what to do, Roci…Our parents were the most horrible creatures ever existed and the exact moment Sabo was born, I had promised myself that I would be a much better parent. But now I've just missed those important moments of my child's life to the point that I didn't even realize that he got injured at school. I'm not even sure if I'm doing things the right way."

Rocinante grabbed the notebook from the coffee table to write his reply, but only realized that he was out of paper. He pursed his lips with slight annoyance, jutted his neck a bit to make sure his nephew was still hustling and bustling in the kitchen and looked at his brother who had his hand on the next packet from the bag—a chocolate bacon.

"I'm out of papers… and it's tiring to write so many words at once."

The older brother was clearly startled with the familiar, yet uncommon voice that he snapped his head up so abruptly only to see usually soundless Rocinante was ready to speak some more. Rocinante—no, both of them had initiated forbidden rule for Rocinante to let his voice known to the world and the reason behind the rule was a bit complicated to be expressed in words. Sabo was long educated to be aware of such taboo, but they have yet to reveal the real story as they deemed that the time was still not in their favour. Perhaps in another few years…

"Doffy," Rocinante cleared his throat to reduce the grogginess seeing that he hasn't used his voice for a quite some time. "As a person, you're an asshole and soulless…"

Doflamingo scowled. This was probably Rocinante first words in God knows how long and the idiot has decided to pick those as his first sentence. Really now.

"You haven't spoken for so long due to you-know-what. And now that you do, somehow I feel like punching you in the face." The older blond almost scoffed at the way his brother reared backward to where he would be out of reach just in case his older brother decided to use the throw pillow to smother him senseless.

Now that Rocinante was certain that he was at safe distance, he took off his detachable hoodie, swirled it in his hand and continued, "But you're amazing as a father and a brother." The younger looked sideway again to make sure no incoming footfalls. "I don't have kids on my own and I'm not sure if I ever going to have any, so I'm not really in the position to say anything. But if there's one thing I know is that, there're no perfect parents out there."

When Doflamingo appeared to have something in mouth, just ready to spill it, Rocinante quickly continued, "You're not monolithic God, Doffy. You're human. You can't expect to be someone who can manage the company on his own, deal with clients and paperworks, attend about twenty meetings every week, brainstorming on how to expend the business and all the while still have the energy to spend time twenty-four seven with Sabo."

The younger gave Doflamingo a meaningful look. "You need to learn what and when to make small sacrifices. It's okay if you let the executives handle the paperwork and the clients so that you attend the parent-teacher meeting. It's okay for you to let Crocodile govern the company for a day or two so that you can look after Sabo when he's down with a fever. It's okay for you to send Sabo to my place if he still wants someone to play video game with him so you can get extra sleep. And it's okay if you didn't get to see him off to school as long you get to read him story at night. It's all about balancing things out, Doffy."

Silence reigned within the living room enough to make Doflamingo wondered what took Sabo so long in the kitchen. Boy, did he hope the little blondie wasn't doing anything that involved ice cream, bread and ketchup.

"So you don't think I'm hopeless?" The older Donquixote brother pinched and prodded the chocolate bacon in his hand, seemingly interested with the concept of having bacon flavoured candies mixed with white chocolate.

Faster than lightning, Rocinante snatched the packet from Doflamingo's, not enjoying the idea of having the sweet treat destroyed by his brother's curious fingers. "Of course you're hopeless. We both are." A single throw pillow was flying towards his head, but fortunately, the younger brother was a fraction faster to avoid it. He only grinned cheekily at his brother poor attempt. "But you're a great dad. Sometimes I really want to tell people what a horrible father you're. But I can't. Because you're not."

Doflamingo stretched out his legs to unfurl some of twisted knots in his thigh muscles only to have his feet stuck underneath the coffee table. He was a tall person after all. But he still stretched them regardless, only for five seconds before he folded them back.

"Thanks, Roci." The single father smile reached the younger. Doflamingo was about to grab the remote control when he was suddenly smothered by a full grown eight year old boy who insisted to cramped everything—the tray, three drinks and bowls—on his laps.

"Sabo!" Doflamingo exclaimed as he tried to put away the tray and glasses without actually spilling any. "Don't go jumping on people when you're holding glasses of lemon squash!"

"It's lemonade actually, dad." The boy only laughed when some of the content spilled onto his father's dress shirt as he passed one of the drinks to Rocinante. "What did you and Uncle Roci talk about?"

Almost instantly, Rocinante sprayed his drink across the table, only millimetres from hitting Doflamingo in the face. So Sabo had caught on his uncle's voice after all. In fact, Doflamingo was certain this wasn't the first time he had heard Rocinante's voice, but it appeared that more than often, his son decided to pretend he that didn't.

"Nothing much." Doflamingo heard the boy made a long humming noise before taking small sips from his drink as he leaned his side against his father's broad torso while using the arm as makeshift pillow. Part of him was glad that Sabo didn't press it further. He was a smart boy, really. Not to mention that since Crocodile played a big role in his education and discipline, Sabo has grown into an eight year old with strong self restraint. He knows which boundary not to cross or how to be patience even when his father and uncle were being dilly dally regarding certain subject.

"You know what," Taking two large gulps from the drink Sabo made, Doflamingo gently nudged the boy to sit up straight. "Dad's tired and he's going take some Zz's right now." But before Sabo could slide off completely from his father's laps, the man held him in place. "So tomorrow morning, how about we go to the park?"

The boy squirmed uncontrollably when Doflamingo poked him in the side. "And then pancakes?" Sabo asked in between laughter.

"Fine, you and your pancakes." Doflamingo patted his knees and Sabo slowly shuffled to the floor to join his uncle who was in middle of wiping the table with tissues. He drained everything in the glass, placed it on the table and gave his child a knowing look. "Where's my goodnight kiss, then?"

As per routine, the eight year old stood on his knee and gave his father a small peck in the cheek while exclaiming a loud 'Mmmuuaahh!' and smiled contently when Doflamingo returned the gesture with a brief kiss on the forehead.

"Remember, only one." As he stood up and flexed his legs, Doflamingo reminded the duo sitting on the floor and nodded at the packets of candies. These two were well known for their obsession with sweets and he somewhat felt obligated to keep their sugar at bay, especially at night. "And I better not catch you throwing jelly beans at each other."

"We won't." Sabo assured the man while he searched for the chocolate cookies which he had his eyes on earlier. His uncle seemed to find it beforehand and dangled it right in front of him, silently asking if that was the one he was looking for.

"Goodnight, dad."

For a moment or two, Doflamingo stared at his son who was in middle of emptying the content of his treats into the bowl before humming his acknowledgment. As he walked with legs heavy as boulders, Doflamingo took a heed of how busy his life was. So many daily matters to sort out, so many obligations to be met—as a father, as a brother, as a superior, as a friend, etc—. No matter how much time given, he knew it would never be enough.

That is why, from now, he felt the need to govern every of these aspects more wisely so that he could spend enough time for himself, for those people around him, for his brother and more importantly, for his child.

Now he just needed to learn how.

-END PROLOUG 1-

A/N: For the last few days, I've only had four to five hours of sleep and now I'm developing a major headache in which I couldn't tell even tell which is right and left anymore. Btw, I've just ate the worst waffle in the world and I wish miserable life to the maker.