Threads of Fate
Rosinante x Reader
cw : reader and Corazon are both marines, established relationship, very severe angst, corazon meets his end, couple arguing, bittersweet end // wc : 2.5K
You once were bitter.
You once said atrocious things.
You once pushed away someone you should have kept close.
With each step taken on the soft duvet of the snow, its audible crunch noise fusing with your ragged breath to fill the dead surrounding silence, your mind inaudibly traveled down the memories it contained.
Donquixote Rosinante.
The way he suddenly joined the marines. How his smile at first made him look like an incompetent fool. A fool who was ridiculously clumsy. Constantly slipping at the worst opportune moments, yet somehow managing to produce results. Much to your annoyment. A fool who left you no choice but to keep an eye on him. Not because you cared. But because sparing yourself from the earful of superiors was a must. Had knowledge of how this personal involvement with him would evolve reached your ears, you would’ve recoiled and kept to yourself. With each moment sown in the passing of time, intriguing sides of his personality weaved itself to your conscience. His kindness. His attempt at positivity. Even his smile seemed to make him less of a fool.
Well shit.
A fool had embroidered an assemblage of feelings into your heart. Each stitch tugged at your heartstrings until your whole body became a puppet of the troublesome sensation. Stomach churning, face reddening and eyes swaying. Thankfully the fool also had the same condition. Reciprocating feelings with his large grin and an embrace so wide it left you floating in his arms.
Then came the happiness. The stolen moments during work. The modest time together at marine bases. The planned day offs. The prude holding of hands. The flashing of his heartwarming smile. The meeting of impatient lips. The running of love hungry bodies. The promises of a shared future.
The news of his upcoming undercover mission.
It had broken the spell casted upon you by the clumsy fool. The threads around your heart had grown so thick through the passage of time. So elaborate. So delicate. So intricate. Yet ever so fragile. No matter how sturdy embroidery was, it still remained vulnerable to sharpness. It was all that easy to cut a thread. After all, all it took was knowing that the one who weaved the pattern one day decided to halt the continuation of the project. Therefore making it hard for the person who had once been patternless to comply.
“Why would you propose to do such a dangerous mission?” Bitter words flowed from your lips while your gaze held resentment and betrayal.
Rosinante stood on the other end of the sitting room, leaning against the window, glancing at your restless form that paced around. “Because he’s my brother and I know what he’s capable of. Doflamingo must be put down.”
“That doesn’t mean you have to be the one to do it!” Your hands extended towards him before lowering in a fist.
Rosinante avoided your gaze. “He’ll be more inclined to let his guard down because I’m his blood brother.”
“He’s a madman!” You exclaimed without regard for your lover's feelings. “He wouldn’t be swayed by some brotherhood bond. If it was so easy, he wouldn’t have parted ways with you in the first place.”
“That’s because I was a different person as a child.” His lips curved downward at the mention of the past.
A sigh escaped your lips. “Rosinante, please reconsider this.” The two of you had been content together. And now you found yourself desperately grasping that reality.
Sending a warm smile to ease any concern, Rosinante took on a softer tone. “I promise to write to you and call occasionally when I can,” he tilted his head in a way that he knew usually made you fold.
However it served as fuel to the rage that boiled inside of you. “Is that supposed to make me feel better?! While you’re out there pretending to be mute in the lion’s den, I’m supposed to nod and smile in relief through every one of your life signals?!”
His eyes widened at the backlash, while his hands raised in a defensive manner. “You don’t have to put it that way.”
“You’re right, because it sounds ridiculous!” You exhaled through your nose, momentarily halting your pacing. How could he act so dismissively towards the situation when his life was on the line?
“I swear I’ll be alright.” Rosinante put a hand on his chest, forming a thumbs up with the other while his grin flashed towards you.
Truthfully, your blood boiled more and more with his every word, but you decided to take a deep breath to make your point. “I don’t care how many promises, pacts or pledges you make, this is not a great idea. You will be exposed to constant dangers and you cannot guarantee your safety.”
Living with the knowledge that the man who had permanently changed the state of your heart lived everyday with a foot in both death and life would be the start of countless worries and anxiety.
“Dangers are part of the life of a marine. We’ve both experienced it.” Rosinante pointed out with a shrug.
“Except our missions aren’t expected to drag for many years. We’re not some kind of secret agents. Nor were we trained for it.” A hand ran through your hair in desperation.
With the smile now long gone from his features, Rosinante spoke more seriously. “But this is what I want to do. Something I have decided for myself.”
“Without any regards for me whatsoever.” The words came bolting like an accusation. You didn't mean to, but felt too sweet up to dismiss it as a slip of the tongue.
“That’s not true. You know you mean a great deal to me.” He shook his head, leaving behind his leaning stance against the window to emphasize his claim. He had even taken a step towards you as though it was to contain all of his sentimentality.
Your body took a step back in response while your chest grew heavy, your gaze wavered and your voice lost its edge. “If so then why do I feel like I don’t have a say in the matter? Why do I feel like I’m the one being unreasonable right now? Why do I feel like I’m the only one who’s trying to protect us?!”
“I understand and hear your worries. But you must trust in me saying that I will come back to you.” Rosinante tried closing the distance by taking strides in your direction but froze when he saw you moving further back.
“I do not trust in a man that throws his life away.” You sternly affirmed, holding your gaze with his before lowering it.
A stream of sorrow drenched Rosinante's features at your sight. At your words. “It pains me to hear you say you have such little faith in me.” His voice mirrored the desolation of his emotions.
One of your hands grabbed your opposite arm, clutching the skin while your lips took on a dejected pout. “It pains me more to be the only one constantly trying to fight for what we have.”
“I put in just as much effort.” Rosinante expressed, slightly upset that his actions were being shoved under the rug.
But you were dead set in your pettiness. “Yes, when you weren’t obsessively buttering yourself up as a marine no matter how much I worried seeing you overexert yourself, until you eventually made it in the good books of Rengoku and smiled at me like nothing happened.”
“I already apologized for this.” Rosinante said with patience.
“And will you apologize in the future for this too if you don’t come back to me as a corpse?” Your eyes met his, and this time he looked away.
A silence reigned. Thick and heavy. Leaving behind a trail of uneasiness.
“You know you did this to me,” you almost inaudibly said.
“What exactly?” Rosinante asked with furrowed eyebrows.
“This whole feeling and falling in love thing. It was never what I sought when I joined the marines. I even surprised myself thinking of maybe quitting this dangerous lifestyle in the hopes of having a more stable future with you.” The confession came with the increase of your heartbeat and the burning of your cheeks.
Rosinante remained silent for a moment. “Right.” He slowly nodded. “I’m sorry I brought this upon you.”
“Excuse me?”
An underhanded move on your part but why was he apologizing?
“I’m sorry I made your job more complicated for you. I’m sorry you’ve fallen in love with me only for our goals to differ in the end.”
The words came hammering at your chest and accelerating your already speeding heart. With his innuendo, you found yourself lightheaded. “I-ls that it?” You asked, almost baffled.
Rosinante slid his hands in his pockets. “It depends on you. My feelings still and will continue to remain, but my mind has been made about infiltrating the Donquixote family and whether or not you wish to walk alongside me through this path is up to you.”
You found yourself able to breathe more easily. “If I do agree then what will happen?”
“We will start considering our mutual future together in seriousness once I return.” He gave a look both serious and earnest that seemed to speak more of his convictions than his words.
It slightly unsettled you. And in all honesty, you almost fell prey to it if not for your original desire to not let him go. “Why later and not now? Why waste more time when we can do it now.”
“My brother is a threat and no future can be entertained as long as he remains with the power to ruin it all. I don’t want to see you hurt.”
How could someone be so stubborn about walking to their impending doom.
“Rosinante, if your brother cares about you enough to let you join his crew, surely he’ll be considerate enough to leave both of us alone!” You were losing patience from this back and forth.
Rosinante shook his head. “It’s not just about us, but also the countless other people who will be hurt if he stays on the loose.”
Marines and their goddamn sense of justice.
“For god’s sake, can you stop being so considerate and learn to be selfish? This is about our future! Our happiness!” You almost rolled your eyes.
“I can’t!” Hearing him raise his voice startled you. “I cannot think of either as long as he remains.” He finished on a quieter note.
He had told you of his past. Bleak, gruesome and cruel. No child would get out unscathed. A heap of trauma was to be expected and yet you couldn't help but add, “you mean you cannot do anything until you get closure. Not done by anyone else but by you specifically.”
Thankfully Rosinante was good natured enough not to send daggers to you through a glare as his gaze remained serious yet not without affection. “Then you realize why I must stop him.”
“So you won’t deny it? Wanting closure?” You arched one eyebrow.
“No. I do desire to put an end to him for my own sake too,” he admitted in a hushed tone.
“This is ridiculous,” you mumbled.
“Do you… understand now?” Rosinante took the opportunity to take careful little steps towards you.
“Yes. I understand perfectly well that there is no hope in you putting us first.” Your words, accompanied by your cold gaze, froze him.
And silence fell. One in which both of you replayed the memories of years together like a lifetime flashing before one's eye before death. It held the reality of the situation on a silver platter.
“Is that your choice?” Rosinante asked, his lips forming a thin line.
“Yes.”
The crisp air of the winter island tingled your cheeks, violently brushing past them. Your lungs inhaled a trail of frost that propagated in your entire body, chilling its temperature until even your coat failed to warm you. Selfishly you had asked to be transferred under vice admiral Tsuru who was known to desperately sail after the Donquixote family. And through those similar self interested measures did you ask to venture the island for a proper assessment of the damages left done, promising to bring in a report afterwards. As such your steps led you in search of someone who had rendered you a crying mess one too many times over the past years.
You weren’t walking to be forgiven. The slow pace that led you upwards the island weren’t about to run asking for intimate threads to be weaved again. Your irregular breaths who faltered under the pressure of the weather did not desire to reunite with a familiar taste. Your eyes that struggled to discern one thing from another wouldn’t hunt for a glimpse of approval. You desired nothing. Such behavior would only be embarrassing. The decision that had been yours made everything slip out of your grasp. Embroidery wasn’t a one person thing. It was a forged bond between its weaver and the threads. Working together. The threads had already thinned through the unaccommodating passage of time and the weaver had long since been gone. There was nothing left to salvage. Starting over wouldn’t be the same. No pieces were exactly the same.
Simply, it was that wrenching, skin peeling sensation, burning down your gut which turned your stomach upside down that egged you forward. Further and further ahead until you noticed a familiar figure draped in a black feathered mess laying about in the snow. A splatter of blood surrounding it.
Ignoring the mess that surrounded the area, you rushed onwards. Your breathing growing into a wheeze. Your heart racing until it amounted to nothing but a pound in your head. Your ears ringing, preventing noise from reaching by mirroring the dull silence of snow. And your body temperature that had once been chilled found itself rising into such a burning mess that it left sweat running down as an aftermath.
The closer you got, the weaker your legs became. Until finally your knees found themselves unable to support you anymore. With this forced crawling position, the reality presented itself bare at the level of your vision.
The foolish smile hidden behind an unknown tattoo made it too evident that it was him.
A blur came to seize your eyes. Inaudible sounds and lamentation failed to exit your trembling open mouth. Your entire body shook under its weight, crashing like a boulder on the still form that gathered snow now that the pristine color had recognized it as a part of the land. While your hands clutched unfamiliar fabric and your cheek robbed against what should have been warmth, the wails and sobs found their way into the world. Blazing your throat in their passage to fill the silence with absolute terror. The tears that streamed found themselves exchanging their heat with a foreign cold, burning themselves deeper and deeper into the fabric like a healing spell.
You now are broken.
You now said your farewells.
You now clutched someone so tightly, regretting not having tried harder to keep them close.
