#why anon

No tension. No static. Just that warm, weightless drift of thought when the body finally lets go.

And then it happens.

Soft. Sudden. Undeniable.

A flicker in the bond like a thread catching the breeze, then tightening. The connection pulses once and then opens.

Trebol’s breath catches.

Because he sees you.

Flash.

Like sunlight glancing off a mirror, gone too fast to catch, too sharp to ignore. Like a secret murmured on instinct, not intention.

You're sitting at a café table. A pen is tucked behind your ear, ink smudging your fingertips in a way that suggests you’ve been at it for hours. There’s a grin on your face; not polite or practiced, but the kind that tugs unevenly at your mouth, like you’re trying not to laugh at your thoughts. Wind stirs a loose piece of hair across your cheek. You flick something off your collar. You lean forward. You breathe.

And you look real.

Not a voice in his head. Not a phantom pressing sarcasm into the edges of his mind. Not a ghost layered over glue and dreams and shame.

Just you.

Warm skin. Eyes too clever to stay still. The tiny wrinkle between your brows when you focus too hard. That necklace he’s only ever sensed in passing; he sees it now, hanging slightly askew, scuffed from wear. A piece of armor disguised as jewelry.

His voice was low and almost reverent.

So that’s what you look like.

It only lasts three seconds.

And it hits him like a collapsing star.

“...Oh. That’s what you look like?”

The words are barely out before the air leaves his lungs. His wine glass slips from his fingers and shatters at his feet, but he doesn’t notice. The soulbond lights up in his chest, crackling like wildfire in a dry forest.

He has a full-blown telepathic meltdown.

“You’re real. You’re really real.”

You feel it instantly, like someone hurling a can of paint at the inside of your skull. The connection surges, heated and breathless.

“OH MY GOD. Were you spying?!” You shout, standing up so fast you nearly tip your café chair. “ Did you just peek?!”

“I didn’t mean to! You slipped in!”  His voice is too loud, too close. “You popped in like sunshine in the dark and I—I saw your nose and your eyes and your little SMIRK and I’m gonna pass out.”

“DO NOT romanticize my face.”

“Too late,” he groans. “It’s seared into my entire brain. You’re gorgeous. You’re sharp. You have a real face and functional hands. I’m spiraling.”

You slam the bond shut like a window in a hurricane.

He spends the next hour pacing his room like a man who just saw God and immediately asked if she was taking applications. He sketches your face five times. Every single one looks like a deranged gremlin in various stages of flustered awe. He screams into a pillow. Loudly. The compound hears and assumes someone died.

He tries to say your name aloud. Stutters. Tries again. Nearly bites his tongue.

Meanwhile, you’re curled up on your couch with a cold towel on your forehead, muttering into the quiet like it might save you.

“This was supposed to be a deterrent. How is he worse when he's well-adjusted?”

Trebol, on the other side of the sea, stands in front of the mirror.

His hair is tied back. His jawline sharp. His voice clear. No slime. No nervous glue-crutching in the corners of the room. He stares at his reflection as if it has just become useful.

And then he whispers, quiet and certain.

“I get it now. Why the bond wouldn’t show me before. I wasn’t ready.” He touches the edge of the glass with his fingertips, as if hoping to touch you through it. “But I saw her. And she looked like she’d survive me.”

He grins. No lisp. No slime. Just teeth, trouble, and the terrifying possibility that he might deserve a future.

And for the first time in his life, the reflection doesn’t scare him.

-X-WHAT?-X-

You’ve spent years surviving this bond with dignity, sarcasm, and carefully constructed defensive rituals. You’ve made it through the sticky nightmares, the unsolicited telepathic wheezing, and the war crime monologues. You’ve maintained your mental stability through sheer stubbornness and caffeine.

And now… you’ve seen him.

Not the cartoon. Not the biohazard. Not the lurching menace of damp trench coat lore.

Him. Upgraded.

He’s still loud. Still chaotic. But sharper now. Cleaner. There’s intent behind his movement, purpose in his eyes, and a soul that is, against all odds, trying to become worthy of the bond he once mocked.

But you?

You’re not falling for it.

He’s a Donquixote executive. Dangerous. Weaponized. Loyal to the most unstable crime family in the hemisphere. He throws glue bombs and ponders morality over wine like a cursed philosopher.

So you assume quietly, firmly, and with the well-practiced poise of someone who’s had years to prepare, that he could never love you. Not really. Not deeply. Not with comprehension. That he could never see you for what you are and still want the whole terrifying package.

Real feelings aren’t part of the package.

And then he proves you painfully, devastatingly wrong.

You’re sitting alone. Window open. Hair tied up. The evening is soft, fading into night. The bond is still. Muted. Just a quiet hum at the base of your spine. He hasn’t spoken in hours.

You’re journaling. Absentminded. Quick shorthand entries. Soulbond bleedover. Battle notes. Grocery list. And then, half a line. Practically a sigh in your thoughts.

It’s not like he’d ever be interested anyway. He’s him.

The second you think it, the bond snaps tight.

No warning. No build-up.

“EXCUSE ME?!”

It slams into your brain like a divine slap. You nearly fall off your chair.

“What,” he snarls, “did you just think about me?”

Your pulse spikes. Your pen flies across the room. “How long have you been—”

“I wasn’t listening in. I was giving you space. I was minding my business. But you just— dropped that in the middle of a grocery list like it was casual!”

“You weren’t supposed to hear that!”

“You think I wouldn’t be interested in you? You think I wouldn’t be—what—incapable of loving you?”

You try to retreat, try to shut the bond, but he’s already pushing forward.

“I floss for you now.”

“Oh my God.”

“I went to a dentist for you. A dentist, woman.”

“This isn’t—”

“I shaved my chest because I thought maybe you liked smooth. I googled what exfoliating meant. I stopped saying ‘sticky’ in combat because you said it was disturbing.”

“Trebol—”

“WHAT do you mean ‘he’s him’?! You think I don’t want you?”

You scramble for composure. “I meant—you’re you! Loud. Wet. Scary. You threw a man off a balcony because he blinked too slowly.”

“And yet here I am, spendin’ every third day trying not to mentally LICK the bond whenever you sigh too pretty.”

You freeze.

“…What?”

“What do you think I’m doin’, huh? Stickin’ around for the ambience?”

He’s pacing now. You can feel it. The bond humming like a live wire in your spine.

“I’ve been letting you roast me because it’s sexy. I take psychic notes. I brush my hair now because you called it ‘matted glue spaghetti.’ I moisturize because you mocked my elbows. I wanna bite you.”

Your brain flatlines.

“Not like kill bite. Like—ugh—bonded sea beast claiming a treat bite. Y’know, affectionate unhinged. I’ve rewritten my trauma coping strategies because you called me a moldy swamp uncle.”

In his defense, he does sound vaguely tearful.

“Do you even KNOW how insane you are? Just walking around, thinking I’m the problem while you look like that, and talk like this, and laugh like fate made a dare outta you?”

You try to shut the bond.

You try hard.

But he feels the hesitation. The spike of heat. The chaos behind your forehead.

And then he sends it.

A vivid image. A projection from the bond.

You. Beneath him. Not threatened. Just caught. Pinned. His weight bracing you like a promise. Not crude. Not violent. Just deliberate. A heavy coat dropped to the floor. His sleeves rolled up. His expression is focused. Lips parted. Smile gone—just raw intent.

And he says, low and dark:

“Tell me again how I’m not interested.”

It’s not entirely gross.

You rip the mental tether like it’s made of barbed wire. You throw a shoe at the wall. You grab the salt. You put a frying pan in the freezer because it feels like the only way to regain control.

And far away, Trebol leans back in a chair, hands behind his head, grinning like the apocalypse is flirting with him.

Because he felt it. The one thing you didn’t mean to let slip.

You’re not disgusted. You’re terrified.

Because he’s no longer a punchline.

Then he leans back, closes his eyes, and whispers:

“You can run, sweetheart. But I already know how you sound when you're curious.”

.

.

.

It’s been a few days since The Incident™. The one with the vivid telepathic image you still can’t talk about without needing an exorcism. Your brain has not recovered. Your dignity’s on life support. The bond’s been quiet. Not gone, just tuned to a low simmer like a kettle you’re trying to ignore.

You’re in bed with a book, using sarcasm as emotional armor. It’s not working. You’ve re-read the same paragraph five times and haven’t absorbed a single word.

Because you can’t stop thinking about him.

He’s not some miracle glow-up bishounen. He’s still Trebol; lanky, twitchy, twitchy again for emphasis, but he’s… changed. He flosses now. Uses real soap. Speaks in complete sentences without sounding like a haunted accordion. He still makes the same unhinged raccoon expressions, but beneath them?

There’s sincerity.

And somehow, that’s worse.

Because he’s not suddenly handsome, he’s something more dangerous than that.

He’s sincere. And you can’t dodge sincerity the way you used to dodge mucus.

Then it happens.

You feel him.

Not with the usual fanfare of noise and stickiness, but like the ghost of warmth pressing against your spine. Subtle. Gentle. Present.

No screaming. No glue. Just… him.

“You there?”

You don't look up from your book.

“No.”

A beat. Then the faintest chuckle.

“Heh.”

You hate that it makes your heart twist like it’s trying to peek around the corner of your denial.

“I've been thinking.”

“Oh no.”

“…About why you never said you thought I didn’t want you.”

You still.

The pages blur. The words stop meaning anything. You stare at the same sentence for so long that it could be written in another language.

He doesn’t fill the silence.

He waits. Choosing his words like they’re fragile. Like they’re worth something.

“I figured you were scared of me,” he says finally. “That made sense. I was a mess. Loud. Mean. Drippin’ from places nobody should drip. But I didn’t think you thought you weren’t… wantable.”

You swallow. Your throat feels too tight. Your chest hurts in a weird, sideways kind of way.

“And that—uh. That’s been bouncin’ around in my skull like a broken marble. Loud. Real loud.”

He laughs, but there’s no humor in it. Just nerves.

“I ain’t got a pretty face. Never did. I ain’t charming. I ain’t got that princely thing goin’ on. Or abs. Or good posture—though I’m workin’ on it. But I got a heart. I got you stuck in there. Clean. Like… deliberately. You moved in.”

The bond warms.

Not hot. Not suffocating. Just… steady. Like a hand braced at your back.

He continues.

“I ain’t tryin’ to trap you. Not anymore. I’m just sayin’—if I ain’t your nightmare anymore, maybe I can try to be somethin’ better.”

You blink hard.

He keeps going, voice steadier with each word.

“Not perfect. Not pretty. Just… not disgusting. I’d like to earn a better version of myself. And I’d like to show it to you, if that’s allowed.”

The book falls out of your lap. You sit upright, too aware of your heartbeat.

Your heart’s trying to do a three-point turn between ‘ugh’, ‘maybe’, and ‘This slimy bastard will not move me’.

“You’re still weird.”

He huffs a breath. “Yeah. You’d hate me if I weren’t.”

“…You still twitch when you get excited.”

“But I bathe now, so it’s charming.”

You pause.

Think about the man you met through psychic migraines and glue-stained threats. The man who laughed like a crow in a trash fire. The man who now, somehow, wants to be better, just to stand near you without making you flinch.

You take a breath.

“…You’re not handsome, Trebol.”

A soft laugh crackles through the bond—no offense taken. No defensiveness. Just… acceptance.

“I know.”

You hesitate.

“But you’re better.”

The silence that follows is rich and heavy, like soil after a rain.

“…That’s the nicest thing anyone’s ever said to me. I think I’m gonna do pushups now. And write a poem. And maybe floss again just in case.”

You almost smile.

“Thanks, marshmallow.”

You don’t slam the door this time.

You don’t snarl or shut down or brace for slime.

You just sit there. With your book in your lap. Your heart slightly tilted. And the strangest, most dangerous thought curling up at your feet like a hopeful stray:

Maybe sincerity’s harder to run from than glue.

You didn’t mean to be soft. You were tired. You had a long day. You just… felt him hovering in the bond. Not loud. Not needy. Just there.

So you let your thoughts drift toward him. Not sharp, not defensive. A quiet ripple, not a wave. Not affection exactly. But something close. Something kind.

“I don’t hate you,” you thought, letting the words settle like a blanket rather than a blow. “You were a child. You didn’t make the glue. You just survived in it.”

Silence.

For a moment, you thought he hadn’t heard you. Maybe the bond had slipped. Perhaps he’d pulled away. But then, quiet and fragile, like glass in the dark:

“…I’ve done a lot of awful things. And no one ever told me I could stop.”

The words landed with a quiet kind of violence. Not sharp, not cruel. Just heavy. Unavoidable.

You’d been mad at him. Justifiably. Righteously. But this, this wasn’t the monster in your mind. This was something worse. Something smaller. Something sad.

This was a boy no one had saved, grown into a man no one had corrected.

“I was loud ‘cause quiet kids get stepped on,” he said, voice low and raw. “I was sticky ‘cause people let go of me. I hurt people so they wouldn’t leave first.”

He didn’t say it for pity. He said it like someone realizing, maybe for the first time, that the house he grew up in had always been on fire, and he’d just assumed everyone else lived that way too.

You breathed in, then out, letting the words land.

“You were never the problem,” you said quietly. “But nobody ever stopped to help the kid in the middle of it. That’s not your fault.”

He didn’t respond right away.

Then faintly, you heard it. Breathing. Hesitant, shallow.

You hadn’t even known the bond could carry that.

It wasn’t performative. It wasn’t seductive. It was just him.

Crying.

Not the kind of crying that demanded attention. Not sobbing. Just quiet, steady heartbreak, like a pressure valve finally hissing open after years of silence.

“I used to dream about someone like you,” he said, voice hitching. “Not a girl. Not a soulmate. Just… someone who wouldn’t look at me like I was less.”

There was a pause. Then a shaky breath that might’ve been a laugh if it weren’t so broken.

“I thought maybe that person didn’t exist. Or maybe I wasn’t allowed to have ‘em unless I took them. But then you…”

Another pause.

“You talked to me like a person even when you hate me. Even when you call me moldy. You still see me.”

You closed your eyes. Because there it was.

Not guilt. Not pity. Just that terrible, aching thing that happens when someone stops being a caricature in your mind and becomes something real. Not the loud, twitchy menace you had built defenses against. But a man, raw and uncertain, trying to be someone worth seeing back.

You had spent a long time with people like him. Traveling. Listening. Offering what you can. This world was full of broken things trying to heal with whatever tools they had left. You had helped warlords and wanderers, pirates and ghosts in skin. It had never been about fixing them. Only seeing them. And reminding them they could choose something better.

“You’re not a good person,” you said softly.

“I know.”

“But you’re not beyond saving.”

A beat. Then, almost too fragile to catch:

“…Does it count if I wanna save myself now too?”

You swallowed.

“It’s the only time it ever really counts.”

The bond stays open through the night.

No words. No visions. No panic.

Just breathing.

Yours. His.

Like a quiet promise.

-X-Branching Out?-X-

Trebol’s Redemption Arc, as Experienced by the Donquixote Family

(Told in increasingly concerned reactions.)

Diamante – Peak Shiny Bro-Narcissist Energy

It starts on a Tuesday.

Diamante strides into the courtyard, sunglasses reflecting the sun, confidence as loud as his cape. He’s halfway through rehearsing a dramatic insult when he notices it.

Trebol. Sitting. Upright. On a bench.

Reading.

No twitching. No muttering. No glue pooling under the stone bench like a threat to society.

Diamante slows to a halt, baffled. Trebol turns a page. Calmly. Like he has fine motor skills. Squinting, Diamante leans closer. Trebol isn’t just reading. He’s writing in a journal.

“Is that a notebook? Are you journaling?” Diamante asks, voice pitching into near-hysteria. “Is this some kind of glue-based poetry?”

Trebol looks up. Peaceful. Composed. “It’s called shadow work,” he says, tone eerily calm. “I’m addressing my childhood maladaptations.”

Diamante walks directly into a decorative bush and stays there.

Sugar – Goblin Child, Agent of Chaos

Dinner is the next red flag.

Trebol sits at the table. Eats with a fork. Chews with his mouth closed. No slurping. No cackling. No inexplicable substance leaking down his chin.

Sugar stares at him the entire time like she’s trying to solve a murder mystery.

“Who are you,” she finally hisses, “and what did you do with the booger man?”

Without looking up, Trebol hands her a fork. A clean fork. “Wash your hands before dessert, sug.”

She screams and climbs the ceiling like a startled marsupial.

Baby 5 – Sweet, But Mistrustful of Growth

She finds him later, near the training hall, folding towels. Not stuffing them into a closet and not leaving them vaguely damp on a chair. Folding. With corners. Like a hotel maid with self-worth.

Baby 5 halts mid-step, brows knitting in visible concern. Trebol hums softly. There’s no mucus. No muttering. He’s just… folding laundry with the eerie serenity of someone who’s been to at least three guided meditation sessions and cried during two.

She creeps closer, like she’s approaching a wounded animal or, worse, someone who knows their emotional triggers. “Are you—did you get possessed by a ghost who believes in boundaries and drinks herbal tea?”

Trebol glances over his shoulder. Calm. Gentle. Clean. “Just therapy,” he says. “And floss.”

Baby 5 clutches her chest like she’s been hit with a defibrillator. “That’s worse! Ghosts can be exorcised. Therapy has stages.”

He smiles. Smiles. Like a person. “I’m in the processing phase. I named my inner child Jellybean.”

She makes the sign of the cross with a hairpin and backs out of the hallway in silence.

Later, she’s seen whispering to a confused Pica that “the glue has evolved sentience” and “we may be in danger.”

Buffalo – Loyal Himbo™

He sees Trebol walk by in a fitted coat. Not draped. Not crusted with old incidents. Fitted. With actual shoulder seams and a cinched waist.

Buffalo’s mouth drops open like a trapdoor. “Wait. Hold on. Hold—he’s got a waist now. Trebol’s got a WAIST.”

He turns in a slow, horrified circle, arms flailing.

“GUYS. He has bone structure. I repeat—he has internal scaffolding! He’s got definition! Like a person!”

Someone in the back murmurs that Trebol’s gait is suspiciously normal. Baby 5 faints. Pica swears he heard Trebol say ‘pardon me’ in the kitchen.

Doflamingo immediately bans further commentary under threat of death, exile, or worse—team-building exercises.

Doflamingo – The Warlord Cult Leader Himself

At first, he’s amused. Maybe Trebol’s doing a bit. Some kind of long-con performance art. Doffy respects that.

Then he notices Trebol didn’t glue any of the visiting nobles to the ceiling. That… was weird.

Then Trebol skipped the maniacal cackling during dinner. He didn’t threaten anyone’s ankles. He thanked the cleaning staff.

Now it’s getting unsettling.

He calls Trebol into the throne room like it’s a performance review.

“You’ve stopped screaming in the hallways,” Doflamingo says, watching him over steepled fingers.

“Mhmm,” Trebol replies, hands in his coat pockets, posture shockingly upright.

“You didn’t glue any of the accountants to the ceiling this month.”

Trebol nods. “Yeah. Turns out that’s not a healthy conflict strategy.”

“You didn’t even laugh when I set that mayor on fire.”

Trebol tilts his head. “Not everything’s funny. Turns out that’s repression.”

There’s a long silence. Doflamingo leans back slowly in his throne, eye twitching.

“…This is about your soulmate, isn’t it?”

Trebol nods again. Calm. Measured. Like a reformed cryptid in a relationship with a certified therapist.

“She said I wasn’t disgusting,” he murmurs. “And I had to sit down for like… four hours.”

A pause.

“Turns out I’ve been living like a man who expected to rot. But now I’m flossin’, boss.”

Doflamingo picks up his wine glass. Stares into it like it holds answers. Then mutters, quietly, “I hate character development.”

Crew-Wide Emergency Meeting, Unscheduled

Dellinger arrived late with a smoothie, took one look at the chaos, and didn’t even bother with a chair. Everyone was already yelling.

“He’s emotionally regulating!” someone shrieked.

“He offered me a napkin!” another added, visibly shaken.

“He said ‘thank you’ to a subordinate. And he meant it.”

“I walked past him this morning,” Buffalo said in a hushed voice, “and his hair smelled like mint. Mint.”

“I think I saw him cry,” whispered Gladius. “Like… not while laughing. Just… cry.”

Doflamingo, half-dressed and fully fed up, slammed both hands on the table with a force that cracked the wood.

“He has a crush.”

Silence.

“A soulmate crush.”

Diamante burst into muffled sobs against his cape. The velvet absorbed most of the sound, but not the drama. Pica let out a keening wail in full stone form that cracked a support beam and made three chandeliers rattle.

Baby 5 stood up with trembling resolve, eyes shining with tragic, misguided loyalty.

“I’ll kill the girl,” she declared solemnly, hand already hovering over a missile launcher. “We can bring him back.”

Doflamingo didn’t even look up from his chair. He just hissed through gritted teeth.

“We don’t kill her.”

The room held its breath.

He finally lifted his head, face cold and calculating.“We resolve her.”

Sugar, from the corner: “What does that even mean?”

“You wouldn’t understand,” he muttered. “It’s soulmate cult stuff.”

-X-Five Minutes-X-

Trebol has a fantasy.

He doesn’t tell you, not directly. He never would. But the bond slips, just enough to let it through.

You’re folding laundry and mumbling a grocery list under your breath. Soft, absent-minded rhythm to your hands. It’s the kind of moment he was never supposed to witness—the sort of peace he was never supposed to want.

And then it brushes against your mind.

Not words. Not even images. Just feeling.

Intent, like a held breath.

Heavy. Focused. Gentle, but dense with the kind of hunger that has learned how to wait. Like someone cradling water in their palms, terrified to spill a drop.

What He Sees in His Mind:

Five minutes.

That’s all he wants.

Not forever. Not even a night. Just long enough to be near you without shame. Long enough to memorize the slope of your neck and the way your brow furrows when you’re thinking. Long enough to stop building you from scraps of sarcasm and stolen glances and finally just... see you.

In his fantasy, he enters carefully. No fanfare. No glue.

He wears a clean jacket. Something dark and simple. His hair is tied back. His mouth is pressed in a taut line because he doesn’t trust it not to tremble. He smells faintly of mint.

You’d look up from whatever task he interrupted. Maybe startled. Maybe irritated. Definitely unimpressed.

“You’ve got five minutes,” you’d say flatly. “Don’t slime anything.”

He’d smile. Not to charm. Not to mock. Just because that sentence, so utterly you, would feel like coming home.

That’s what minute one is for.

“You’re real,” he’d murmur. “You've always been real, but now you’re here.”

You’d cross your arms. Give him that look. The one that says, 'Don't get cute.'

“This is what you used your five minutes on?”

“Course not,” he’d reply, voice rasped with nerves and reverence. “That’s just minute one.”

You feel it. All of it.

And when the bond fades again, leaving you alone with your laundry and your thoughts, your hands stop folding.

Because your heart is still counting down.

Four minutes to go.

Minute Two

He’d ask what your favorite tea is, not out of politeness; out of honest, squirming curiosity. You’d refuse to answer, because it’s him, and that’s safer. So he’d guess instead. Something wildly wrong. Something offensive to your dignity. “Chamomile with six sugars?” You’d glare. “Try that again and I’ll end you.” And he’d grin, not because he was right, but because you spoke. Because your voice reached him, and even in irritation, it meant he was real enough to rile you.

Minute Three

He’d apologize. Not the dramatic, sweeping kind. No begging. No performative sorrow. Just quiet. Careful. Honest.

 “For every time I made you feel small. Or scared. Or cornered.” It wouldn’t be rehearsed. It would feel like it had scraped its way out of his ribs, raw and crooked. And it would hit you in the chest like a memory you didn’t know you were still carrying because he means it.

 Because maybe, he always did. But now he’s learned how to say it.

Minute Four

He wouldn’t reach for you. Not yet. He’d settle a hand on the edge of the table instead. Inch it forward until the space between your knuckles hums with heat. So close. So almost.

And he’d whisper: “If this is the only time I ever get, I want you to know…” 

A breath. Wobbly. Barely tethered.

 “I was never afraid of being unloved. I was afraid of being loved… and wrecking it.”

You wouldn’t answer. Not right away. Because now you’re unsteady. Because you can feel the sincerity in your bones, and it hurts.

Minute Five

He still wouldn’t touch you unless you let him. And if you did, just the barest brush of fingertips. The inside of your wrist. A single thumb tracing the beat of your pulse like it’s sacred. Like he knows what he’s holding.

“You changed me. Without even meanin’ to,” he’d murmur, hoarse and reverent. “And I’ll spend every day makin’ sure I deserve that.”

The bond would ache. Not loud. Not sharp. Just full. Warm. A low, golden hum, like something holy and private cracking open in the quiet. And then he’d stand before the five minutes were up. Because he said he would. Because for the first time in his life, he’s choosing control over craving. Integrity over indulgence.

But as he walks away, as the weight of him lifts, you feel the last whisper, curling low in your ribs, aching sweet and dangerous:

“But gods… what I could do with five more.”

-X-

It started with a breeze.

Not a literal one. Doflamingo didn’t do metaphors, not before lunch, but a poetic muttering that wafted out of the upper west hallway like a scented candle of concern. The sort of thing you hear from someone who’s either deeply in love or going to jump off something high.

“She’s like a breeze that cuts through rot,” came the voice, low and wistful.

Doflamingo’s sunglasses slipped halfway down his nose.

“Trebol.”

“Not talkin’ to you, boss.”

“You’re talking in generalities, Trebol. Like a man who listens to sad music in the rain. Again.”

There was a pause.

“I journal now.”

Doflamingo turned so slowly it was practically a religious gesture. “I swear to the Celestial Dragons, if I see one more handwritten list of goals with bullet points like ‘ask about her favorite soup,’ I’m going to FLAY something.”

Somewhere down the corridor, Diamante could be heard pacing. “He gave up the glue,” he muttered like a man reciting his own death warrant. “What’s next? Therapy retreats? Juice cleanses? Apologizing to civilians?”

Sugar, meanwhile, had been quietly sharpening knives. “I could fake an assassination attempt,” she offered, arms folded. “You know. Snap him out of it.”

“Snap him out of it?” Pica wailed from the corner, voice echoing like grief through gravel. “I tried his guided meditation circle, and he told me I was ‘brave for showing up.’ I cried for fourteen minutes.”

Buffalo, bless his ever-swirling heart, was the most shaken of all. He stood near the balcony like a haunted man.

“He made a joke about emotional boundaries,” he whispered. “With correct usage.”

That was it.

No more drip-fed panic. No more whispered updates about Trebol’s mint-scented hygiene routine or his newfound fondness for folding fitted sheets with precision. Doflamingo stormed into the war room.

No one sat. No one.

He slammed his hand down on the table with the finality of a gavel. Or a guillotine.

“I am done. I. Am. DONE.”

“This half-man, half-Elmer's-glue rebrand has gone on long enough.”

He turned, cape flaring, voice rising to theatrical crescendo.

“Trebol. Bring her here.”

The silence that followed could’ve chilled soup.

Trebol, who had been doodling in the margins of his affirmation journal, blinked. “Wait, her? As in… my soulmate, her?”

“YES, Trebol. Your ‘she called me moldy but then gave me hope’ soulmate. The woman. Bring her. I want to see if she’s real—or if you’ve been soulbonding with a fever dream and a scented candle this whole time.”

He hissed, dragging a hand down his face.

“We are either reclaiming your villain arc, or I’m buying you matching robes and sending you to join Ivankov’s therapy circus in Impel Down.”

Trebol looked up from his pages. There was a strange stillness to him now, not syrupy, not erratic. Just… calm. Measured. Possibly terrifying.

“You sure?” he asked quietly.

Doflamingo’s eyebrow twitched. “What?”

Trebol rose to his full, gangly height and smoothed the front of his coat with dignified menace.

“She’s scary,” he said. Not mocking, not joking. Just honest. “Like, emotionally literate scary.”

Doflamingo’s voice was ice. “You used to be scary. Now you quote her like scripture and smell like eucalyptus.”

The Donquixote Family braced themselves. The bond was about to become a reality.

God help them all.

-X-Home Invasion-X-

Trebol explains, cautiously, that his boss wants to meet you. You assume it’s a trap.

It’s not paranoia. It’s self-respect.

The Donquixote Family doesn’t exactly have a sterling reputation for brunch invitations and warm welcomes. You’ve read the reports and heard the whispers. Felt the residual damage from Trebol’s earlier years like smudges on the inside of your ribs.

But Trebol’s voice is different this time. Less wheedling. More grounded. Like he’d rehearsed this. Like he didn’t want to mess it up, not because he was scared of you, but because he respected you.

“You can say no,” he says quietly. “But I think… if you see what I’ve built, you’ll know I meant it. That I’m not just different around you. I’m different, full stop.”

Then, softer, almost sheepish: “And if he’s gonna threaten to glue me with my own snot back to the wall until I prove you exist, I’d rather bring you in willingly.”

You weren’t going to say yes.

Not because you’re cruel.

But because you’re careful.

You’ve survived this bond. You’ve endured the late-night whispers, the overwhelming presence, the fear, the sharp grief that came from feeling him before he even knew who he was trying to become.

And somehow, against your better judgment, you watched him change.

You heard him learn how to bathe without slime. Speak without shrieking. Care without crushing.

He’s still strange. Still deeply Trebol. But he’s… honest now. Trying, in a way that feels scarier than threats ever did. Because now he’s not hiding behind the chaos. He’s just a man, with sharp teeth and messy roots, trying to earn something real.

But that doesn’t mean you trust the others.

It doesn’t mean you trust Doflamingo.

So when Trebol says, “He wants to meet you,” you sit up straighter. Let the silence settle between you like a steel door.

And then you say, firmly:

“I’m not going.”

Trebol nods.

No pleading. No guilt trip. Just… acceptance.

“Okay.”

Because he already knew.

And you’re glad he doesn’t know where you live.

You are wrong.

-X-CAUGHT-X-

There’s a knock on your door.

You open it, already prepared to swing on a tax collector, a missionary, or a very determined bird.

But it’s not any of those.

It’s him.

In person.

Trebol.

You freeze.

He’s taller than you knew; Enormous, lanky, twitchy, jittering faintly like he’s running on nerves and espresso. But his hair is brushed. His coat is tailored. His teeth are clean. No goo. No gunk. No bodily horror in sight.

And worst of all?

No smirk. No leer.

Just a painfully sincere expression that makes your stomach drop.

He raises a hand in a sheepish little wave. “Hey, marshmallow.”

You slam the door halfway closed on reflex. Then open it again. Then slam it again.

Then crack it open.

“What the hell are you doing here?!”

“I came to see you.”

“You were not invited.”

“I know,” he says calmly, like this is a social call and not a horror movie.

You squint at him like you’re trying to peel back a disguise. “How did you find me?”

He blinks. Then shrugs. “I always knew where you were.”

You just stand there, stunned. Brain buffering. “You—you what?”

“I didn’t come before,” he says, scratching the back of his neck, “because I wasn’t ready. But I always knew.”

“That’s not comforting!” you snap.

“I didn’t say it was,” he replies, weirdly soft.

You stare at him like he’s grown a second head. Which would be less disturbing, frankly, than whatever this emotionally stable version is.

“You’ve been tracking me?!”

He lifts his hands, palms open, empty. “Not like that. Just… keeping tabs. Quiet ones. You’re important.”

“That’s worse!”

Trebol tilts his head, considering. “I guess it is. Sorry. I didn’t mean to creep you out. I just… couldn’t let you disappear. Not when you’re the only thing that’s ever made me want to be something else.”

You point at him, voice going high with disbelief. “You cannot just show up! This isn’t a romantic gesture. This is breaking and entering, emotionally.”

He nods solemnly. “Totally fair. But I didn’t break anything. Yet.”

“Yet?!”

“I brought no slime,” he offers helpfully.

You open the door wider, against your better judgment. Your sense of dignity tries to intervene. Your survival instincts kick in.

But he just stands there. Fidgeting with the cuff of his sleeve and not pressing forward. Not assuming anything. Looking at you like a man hoping lightning will strike twice.

You should shut the door. You should yell. You should point to the sign that doesn’t exist but should, the one that says No Reformed Henchmen or Soulbonded Strays Allowed.

But he keeps talking.

Softly. Carefully. Like someone who knows the shape of a trap because he used to be one.

“I didn’t bring backup. No glue. No weird gifts or sob stories.”

He lifts his hands, palms open, empty. No slime. No tricks.

“You don’t owe me five minutes. You don’t owe me anything,” he says, voice a little steadier now. “I just needed to see if you were real. Out loud. Not just in my head. Turns out you’re worse.”

You arch an eyebrow.

“You got legs,” he explains. “And a face. And I think I’m about to combust.”

The worst part? He means it.

Not as a line. Not as a trap. Just as truth. Earnest. Ridiculous. Raw.

You open the door a little wider. Mostly out of shock. Maybe a bit out of instinct.

He doesn’t move.

He just stands there on your porch. Like the wind-up toy of a man you knew, paused mid-transformation. Terrified to overstep. Reverent of the moment.

It’s the quietest you’ve ever seen him.

And maybe, just maybe, that’s the only reason you don’t slam the door again and throw a shoe for good measure.

He doesn’t try to step inside. Doesn’t even toe the threshold. He just stands there on your porch like a man trying to court a thunderstorm with a heartfelt monologue and bad hair.

“I used to be disgusting, y’know,” he says suddenly. “Not just the glue. Me. Inside.”

You squint. “Hell of an opener.”

He nods solemnly. “But then you yelled at me. Like, really yelled. And I… listened. And now I think I’m becoming something I can live with. Even if you don’t want me.”

That one lands with the grace of a thrown wrench.

“I came here just to tell you that,” he adds. “That you changed me. That I’m better now. And if this is all I get—just this one visit—I’ll take it.”

You stare at him. Blink. Then stare some more.

Because you don’t have a script for this.

Not for him to stand still. Not for the absence of goo. Not for feeling safe.

Not for Trebol, formerly the horror show of Dressrosa, who looked at him as if his mere existence had restructured his worldview.

“…You’re still not handsome,” you say at last.

“Not even a little,” he agrees instantly.

“You look like you stress-chew pencils and spiral over basic affection.”

He chuckles. Soft. Almost boyish.

“I do. It’s tragic.”

You exhale like the tension’s trying to leave through your knees.

“Come in,” you mutter. “Before the neighbors start assuming I’m holding you hostage.”

He doesn’t move. Not until you step aside.

Not until you make space.

Then, and only then, he steps in. Walks into your space like it’s sacred and flammable. Light on his feet. Careful with his hands. Not touching anything, like he’s afraid to leave a mark.

Then he turns.

Grins.

Not big. Not wild. Just enough curve to be a problem.

His grin hovers like a secret. Not loud, not leering. Just present. Like he knows something you don't, and he's waiting to see if you'll figure it out before he says it.

"You know," he says casually, "I used to think you were cruel. Then I realized you were just accurate."

You lift an eyebrow, unimpressed. "I called you a haunted glue sock."

He nods, utterly sincere. "Yeah. I put that in my affirmations journal."

You try not to laugh. You really, truly try. It slips out anyway. Short, sharp, and entirely too real. You cover your mouth, but the damage is done. He watches it as if it were something sacred.

He leans a hip against your counter. Not aggressive. Not looming. Just... there. Comfortable, in a way that feels more dangerous than if he had come in swinging. He smells like soap. Real soap. Possibly something expensive. You’re offended.

"You used to call me a problem," he says. "Now you’re looking at me like you’re working out the answer."

You snap, on instinct. "I’m looking at you like I’m trying to figure out which level of Hell you climbed out of—Trebol, neatly shaved. Articulate. With floss."

He hums, completely unfazed. "And still, you let me in."

He says it gently. No pressure. No demand. Just the truth, sitting between you like an open book. Somehow, without stepping forward, he moves closer. It feels like gravity. Like something pulling toward its center.

"I wanted to deserve this," he says. "Not just the bond. Not just five minutes. You. I let you mock me because it made you feel safe. But I listened. And now I want to see what happens when you stop running."

You open your mouth. You mean to answer. But the bond hums between you. Not loud. Not invasive. Just pulsing. Warm and honest.

He takes one slow step forward.

You could stop him. You know that. He is giving you that choice. And you do not take it.

"You don’t have to kiss me," he says softly. "I just want you to know something."

His hand lifts. Fingers, long and careful, brushing under your chin like you might spook and vanish.

"If you ever do," he murmurs, "it won’t be because fate told you to. It’ll be because I earned it."He smiles again. That same problem-curve. Just a little too proud. Just a little too soft. "Because I was the joke in your head for years. And I still waited for you to stop laughing."

That was about the time he won.

Not with a grab. Not with a smirk. With honesty. With stillness. With a hand hovering just above yours, fingers barely trembling in the space between. A look that said, If you give me even a little, I’ll wait. I’ll respect it. I’ll never go back.

And you?

You should shove him. You should insult him again, knock him down with one of the thousand quips you’ve been stockpiling for this exact situation.

But instead, your fingers brushed his.

Just barely. Like a truce made of skin and nerve endings.

"You used to be disgusting," you muttered, low and wry.

He smiled, soft and crooked. "And now I’m yours. So what does that say about you?"

You rolled your eyes. Of course. Of course, he had a comeback locked and loaded. It was practically in his bones.

But your hand didn’t move.

And neither did he.

After everything—after all the glue jokes, the nightmares, the emotional shrapnel you both picked out of each other over time—this was the quiet that settled.

He didn’t win because you gave in.

He won because, for the first time, you didn’t want to fight.

And that was when the bond began to hum again.

Not like a chain, pulling tight with fate. Not like pressure or pain. It hummed like a vow.

You had survived worse. You had survived the lisp. The mucus. The shrieking, the trauma, the dramatic poetry written in scented pen. You had even survived the mint-scented emotional growth.

But the sass? That was what finally broke you.

Because now he said things like:

“Oh, what’s wrong? You look like you’ve been thinking about it. Thinking about me. I floss now, baby. I got nerve endings and accountability. You’re in danger. I’m emotionally stable and just unhinged enough to make you blush. Admit it.”

You told yourself you were fine. You told yourself he still wasn’t handsome. You told yourself you were stronger than this.

You weren’t. Not anymore.

Not when he leaned in with that slow grin, no longer hidden behind slime or shame, and murmured,

“Give me five minutes and I’ll ruin you so good you’ll forget why you ever rolled your eyes at me.”

Against all good sense and years of battle-forged emotional armor, you folded.

You didn’t even kiss him at first. You just grabbed him. Fistful of his clean, fitted jacket, he hauled him close like a punch and a prayer.

Because you had mocked him for years, and he had been earning you the entire time.

And you? You had gone too long without a release that didn’t involve sarcasm or guilt. You were at your limit.

Your voice came out hoarse. “You have five minutes. No glue. No preaching. Just—shut my brain up.”

He looked at you like he’d just won the war, the crown, and the treasure map.

“Five minutes?” he echoed, husky with disbelief. “Marshmallow, that’s foreplay.”

It started with a snarl. Your snarl.

“You’ve been in my head for years. Years. Sass-dripping, glue-jacket-wearing, metaphor-abusing sewer poet.”

He grinned like a man who’d just found out the apocalypse was consensual.

“And yet… here you are. Clutching my shirt like you’re about to discover God between my moderately upgraded thighs.”

“Shut up. This is a logistical emergency. I need to climax before I murder you in your sleep.”

“Well damn, sweetheart. All you had to do was say please.”

It was a mess. A beautiful, stupid mess. But at least it wasn’t gooey.

He kissed like he’d been waiting since the Void Century; like someone who knew what it was to ache and had finally found the cure. There was heat in it. And worship. And just enough cocky flair to make your spine lock.

You punched his shoulder halfway through because he laughed when you moaned.

Laughed.

Like it was personal. Like he’d won a bet.

“Told you I was emotionally evolved and mildly feral!” he gasped between kisses. “That’s peak soulmate behavior!”

“Trebol, I swear if you quote your journal during this, I will revoke your climax rights.”

“I wrote you an ode in the margins,” he murmured.

At exactly four minutes and fifty-nine seconds, your soul left your body.

You became a statistic. A cautionary tale. A footnote in the long, tragic history of women who swore they wouldn’t sleep with the feral one. Your body went limp. Your bond thrummed with lazy satisfaction. You saw God.

And he was laughing.

“You okay, marshmallow?” he asked, smug and breathless, voice thick with victory.

“I’m going to tell people I blacked out and you robbed me.”

Trebol chuckled, low and unapologetic. “Baby, if I robbed you, I’d take your socks and your self-control.”

You blinked up at the ceiling. “Oh my God.”

“You never had a chance,” he said, and meant it.

The problem grew legs.

You were still reeling. Still trying to collect yourself, reassemble your dignity, and locate the bottom half of your brain. Across from you, Trebol, still shirtless, still glowing with the pride of a man who had committed a high crime of seduction, lounged against your headboard like a king on a freshly claimed throne.

“So,” he said, casual, cocky, “not disgusting anymore, huh?”

You narrowed your eyes and tugged the sheet higher over your chest.

“Debatable.”

He tilted his head and pointed to a bright red bite mark on his collarbone. “You kissed me.”

“You quoted a haiku mid-thrust.”

Trebol had the gall to smirk.

“It was seasonally appropriate.”

You launched a pillow at his face.

He caught it one-handed and grinned wider, completely unrepentant.

“Five minutes,” he teased. “Imagine what I could do with ten.”

-X-The Climax-X-

You're fooling around. Sweaty. Laughing. Riding the shame high of ‘well, I guess I’m into reformed snot goblins now’.

It’s been good. Too good. The kind of good that makes you suspicious. You’re about to make a joke about how long it’ll take for the universe to punish you when it happens.

You get stuck.

Not metaphorically. Not emotionally. Physically.

Your wrists. Your hips. Just lightly tugged into place. Like someone hit the “stay” button on your entire body.

You go still. Very still.

“…Trebol.”

“Mm?” he replies, almost sweetly. “Yes, darling?”

You don’t move. Can’t move. “Did you just glue me to the bed?”

A beat.

“Might’ve… accidentally weaponized the foreplay.”

You twitch. Try to shift your knee. Realize something horrifying.

“MY KNEE IS STUCK TO MY RIBCAGE.”

“I can fix it!” he says, too brightly. “I won’t. But I can.”

And then it escalates.

Because you don’t hate it.

You should hate it. You should be halfway to a restraining order. But your breathing is ragged now. Your pulse is climbing. You’re pinned perfectly. Supported, spread, suspended like a trap built just for you.

You don’t even need to hold yourself up. His glue, his stupid, awful, hot glue, is keeping you open and helpless and exactly where he wants you.

And Trebol?

Trebol is thrilled.

“You’re blushing,” he murmurs, tone low and wicked. “You like it. I’m someone’s kink.”

“YOU’RE NOT MY KINK—YOU’RE MY CRISIS.”

“Oh baby…” he laughs, a dangerous kind of joy in it. “You are so not making it out of this room.”

What follows could only be described as war crimes of the heart. It’s a blur of growling, glue, and genuinely terrifying core strength. He holds you in ways gravity can’t. He presses in from angles that should be illegal. And every time you think you’ve reached your limit, he adjusts—slightly, deliberately—and ruins you all over again.

At some point, you scream, “I hate you.”

He grins into your neck and replies, “That’s just your orgasm talking.”

He says something about being “bonded in every way now,” and you punch him in the shoulder while crying through your fourth.

You are wrecked. Emotionally. Physically. Spiritually.

And still stuck to the damn bed.

By the end of it, you’re trembling. Drenched. Staring at the ceiling as if it had personally betrayed you. Your breath comes in short, stunned gasps. You’re uncertain if you still qualify as a legal citizen or if you now belong to Trebol under some questionable glue-based common law.

Shockingly, mercifully, he doesn’t kidnap you.

Instead, he kisses your temple, gently peels a few fingers free, and murmurs, “Stay here. I’ve got business to finish.”

You’re too stunned to ask what kind of business. Too tired to care.

As the door clicks shut behind him, you lie there, stuck and shivering, whispering to the ceiling:

“…I’m going to die sticky.”

-X-

Trebol’s Newest List, Leaving Piracy for Domestic Peace

Step One: Submit resignation to Doflamingo (Objective: Love Her. Don’t be disgusting. Maybe start composting)

Trebol just… shows up a month later.

Clean. Shaven. Slightly sunburned. Wearing an ironed shirt and the dumbest expression of hopeful romantic redemption you’ve ever seen.

You hear the knock. You open the door.

Trebol grins like a man auditioning for a toothpaste ad at a DMV.

“Did you escape?” you ask flatly.

“Nope.”

“Did you get kicked out?”

“Nah. I quit.”

You stare at him, silent for several long, cautious heartbeats.

“You quit piracy?”

He beams.

“I turned in my coat, my glue bucket, and my last morally compromising trench knife. I’m retired.” He gestures vaguely toward your hallway like it’s the throne room of his next arc. “I’m yours. Let me cook something awful and be your problem forever.”

You’re too stunned to close the door. Too confused to shove him off your welcome mat. He walks in. Like a man reborn. As if he hadn't once glued a mayor to a cannon.

Step Two: The Domestic Era Begins 

You wake up next to him the next day.

He’s humming.

Humming.

Wearing a bathrobe. Someone’s bathrobe. Possibly yours. Possibly stolen.

You sit up in a panic, blinking sleep from your eyes and sniffing at the air like a war refugee smelling a fire.

“...You’re still here?”

He looks over from the stovetop, spatula in hand, smiling easily.

“I live here now,” he says, chipper. “I’m your trashy ex-warlord live-in boyfriend with mild nerve damage and a glue fetish. Get used to it, sugar cube.”

You stare at the stack of pancakes he’s burnt so thoroughly they look like commemorative coasters. You watch him pour syrup directly onto the pan.

Then he turns, triumphant, and hands you coffee in a chipped mug that reads WORLD’S STICKIEST MAN.

You start crying.

Not a lot. Not dramatically.

Just a little.

Just enough for him to panic.

“Oh gods, what did I do?! Is it the mug? Is it the pancakes? Is it the robe? I took the robe because I missed you and it smells like soap and chaos—babe—”

He tries to comfort you and, in true Trebol fashion, does it backward. Literally hugs you from behind with coffee still in hand, nearly toppling both of you.

“I made it weird, didn’t I?” he mutters into your shoulder. “I got too domestic too fast. I’ll go outside and think about my choices.”

You sniff. Coughed out a laugh. Shake your head into your hands.

He’s an idiot.

He’s your idiot now.

Step Three: Adapt.

Kinda.

He tries baking.

Everything tastes like either glue or unspoken emotional trauma. The cookies are emotionally overcooked. The pie crusts are flaky in the way a reformed villain’s conscience is flaky—too much, too fast, and slightly burnt on the edges. He proudly presents you with a tray of brownies that somehow collapse and explode when touched.

You eat them anyway.

He tries gardening next.

The flowers bloom aggressively. Too aggressively. One of the sunflowers seems to rotate to follow your movement around the porch, and the basil hisses at the neighbor's cat. You don’t ask. You’ve stopped asking. There are worse crimes than cursed petunias.

When you catch a cold, he makes you soup.

It is, objectively, horrible. Too much garlic. A suspicious consistency. Possibly cursed by whatever dark culinary god governs men who learned affection from trauma and war crimes. But he blows on every spoonful and feeds it to you in bed, mumbling that it’s a “love potion. Garlic’s the passion herb.”

You can’t taste anything. You cry anyway.

He still twitches.

Still mutters darkly at inanimate objects like the blender that betrayed him in a past life. Still keeps one knife under the couch and another under his pillow, labeled "just in case."

But now… now he also kisses your forehead when he thinks you’re asleep.

You don’t let him know you’re awake when he does it. You just lie there, still and soft and quiet, as he murmurs things you were never supposed to hear.

“Y’know… didn’t think I’d ever be this soft. But here I am. Lovin’ someone without makin’ ‘em afraid.”

Your heart breaks a little.

Not because it hurts. But because it’s healing. You’d think loving a former war criminal would come with more danger. More explosions. More betrayal. At the very least, a dramatic betrayal involving glitter bombs and coded insults. But instead:

You get glue. Burnt eggs. A bathrobe that says "World’s Stickiest Snugglebug." And the warm, slightly sticky hand of a man who once held the world at knifepoint… now fumbling to have your heart instead.

Somehow, impossibly, you’ve fallen for the haunted glue goblin who brings you tea in cursed mugs and mutters affection like it’s a secret spell.

And so begins your quiet domestic life with a man the government once categorized as a walking biohazard.

Trebol still gets wild. Still twitchy. Still entirely too intense.

But when he looks at you now, it isn’t with obsession or desperation. It’s something gentler.

Peace.

That feral chaos still lives in him. It always will. But now it gets channeled into building uneven bookshelves with too many screws, sketching horrific portraits of you in pencil (“your eyes are chaos incarnate, sugar cube”), and crafting truly heinous glue-based sculptures that you keep anyway… because they make him beam like the damn sun.

He didn’t stop being Trebol.

He just stopped hiding the parts of himself he thought would scare you away.

You’re still in bed, dozing off the consequences of Round Two of “Five Minutes but it Lasted an Hour and a Half.”  Your legs hurt. Your soul hurts. Your pillow smells like war crimes and affection.

From the kitchen, you hear humming.

Loud. Off-key. Absolutely delighted.

Something is burning.

“Trebol,” you croak. “What is that?”

His voice floats down the hallway like a threat and a vow.

“Domestic happiness, marshmallow. Don’t ask follow-up questions.”

Moments later, he struts in wearing a bathrobe and a triumphant grin, carrying a breakfast tray like he just discovered fire.

Eggs. Burnt toast. A steaming mug with the phrase “World’s Stickiest Snugglebug” printed in Comic Sans.

You sip the contents cautiously.

“Is this… syrup or defense-grade adhesive?”

“Why not both?”

He says it like it’s romantic.

Mrs. Halberd, two doors down, calls a community meeting. Trebol had been spotted shirtless in the garden, carrying a five-foot bouquet of dying wildflowers and laughing at a pigeon.

“I’m not saying he’s dangerous,” she whispers. “But have you seen his glue?”

“He helped old man Rikshorn up the stairs last week,” someone else murmurs. “And gave him a potted cactus with a card that said ‘Friendship or Else.’”

Another voice, softer.

“He yelled ‘LOVE IS TERRIFYING’ at the moon… and then kissed her hand in the street.”

“...It’s kind of romantic?”

“No, it’s unsettling.”

“Is it? Because I think it’s weirdly sweet.”

No one agrees on whether you’re dating a man, a redeemed demon, or a reformed feral swamp poet with a criminal past and a Pinterest board titled “Cursed Domesticity.”

Trebol holds your hand when you go into town.

People whisper.

“Is that the ex-pirate?”

“He looks… less moist than his wanted poster.”

“I saw him buy carrots once. Paid in exact change.”

“Do you think she fixed him?”

“No. I think she just gave chaos a porch swing and lovemaking.”

You pretend not to hear. Trebol does not.

He grins. Broad and smug. Like a man with secrets, and he is.

He knows how you sound at 2 a.m. He knows how you say his name when you’re exhausted, annoyed, or in love. He knows how your fingers curl in your sleep when you reach for him.

He knows he’s not what you expected.

But he is exactly what you chose.

Trebol gets invited to the town potluck. He shows up with a suspicious tray labeled:

GLUE-FREE LASAGNA (Emotionally Sticky)

People eat it.

He wins third place.

Mrs. Halberd pats his arm with only mild visible hesitation.

“You’re still deeply alarming,” she says. “But I see the way she looks at you.”

Trebol tilts his head.

“How’s that?”

“Like you’re the best disaster she ever adopted.”

He stands a little taller after that.

Helps carry the chairs in. No glue.

Just his hands.

And maybe, something that almost looks like belonging.

-X-

Meanwhile, at the Donquixote Family Stronghold:

The Donquixote Family Is Losing Its Goddamn Mind.

There’s a wine glass embedded in the wall. Two more are already broken. Sugar is standing on the table, trembling with rage and betrayal. Pica is vibrating in the corner, whispering glue puns like a man possessed.

And Diamante—seasoned warrior, flamboyant fashionist, barrel survivor—is sobbing into a crushed velvet cape embroidered with “Trebol 4 Lyfe.”

Doflamingo stares at the room like he’s watching a slow train crash.

“He what?” he says flatly.

Sugar, hands on hips and voice shrill with disbelief, yells, “He quit crime. He turned in his trench knife. He’s… making soup, Doffy. Soup with garlic and sincerity.”

She nearly chokes on the last word.

Diamante, wailing, throws himself dramatically across the couch. “That’s the most terrifying redemption arc I’ve ever seen. And I lived in a barrel.”

No one corrects him. They all know about the barrel.

Doflamingo doesn’t blink. Doesn’t flinch. He just picks up a bottle of wine, downs a third of it like it’s tap water, and mutters darkly:

“He stuck it in her and then stuck to her everything.”

Sugar shrieks. Three plates shatter at once. One of them wasn't even hers.

“I thought we were his family!” she cries.

Pica, still rocking in the corner, is whispering to himself.

“Glue… love… he sealed the deal… he’s stuck on her… soulmate adhesive…”

“PICA, I SWEAR—” Sugar hurls a chair. “GROSS!”

It misses. It ricochets. It takes out a portrait of Trebol that someone had drawn entirely in grape jelly. No one admits to it.

Doflamingo drags a hand over his face, sighs, and leans back in his throne of gilded trauma.

“First Law gets weird,” he growls. “Now Trebol’s doing domestic foreplay and furniture assembly. What’s next? Vergo opens a daycare?”

“Vergo’s a marine,” Sugar reminds him.

“Well, that’s the only reason we’re not already knee-deep in chalkboards and protein shakes,” Doffy snaps.

Diamante lets out another sob.

“Do you think… do you think he still thinks of us?”

“Of course he does,” Pica says softly. “Every time he uses non-toxic glue.”

A single, ominous knock breaks the silence.

Everyone turns to look at Baby 5, who is standing in the doorway with a newspaper.

Her eyes are wide. Her voice was trembling.

“He got third place… in a lasagna competition. It says here the dish was labeled ‘glue-free but emotionally sticky.’”

The entire room screams.

-X-Honeymoon-X-

Cosmic Joke Status: Adhesively Stuck

Congrats! You’re now stuck with a reformed swamp scarecrow who brings you tea in cursed mugs, journals about your smile, and once glued himself to a wall over you.

He’s clean. He’s calm-ish. He hums now. And the worst part? You like it.

Especially when he growls at people who flirt with you like a feral ex-warlord turned emotionally available scarecrow husband.

He says things like, “You’re the only thing that ever stuck.” And now you’re the one who’s glued.

RIP your dignity. Long live your glue-scented soulmate.

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