Work Text:
Doflamingo is always nine years old when he wakes up from a nightmare. In the haze of sleep - with shaking hands and pounding heart, hot tears splashed across his face before he even opens his eyes - he is nine years old, no matter how many years have passed.
Doflamingo, the ten foot tall king of Dressrossa, stumbles from his room, wine bottle in hand, and shuffles through the dark palace corridor, pushing his way into the first executive room that he comes across.
He takes a pull of wine, before worming his way between Trebol and Diamante, who he's glad are sleeping together tonight.
Crawling into bed with Trebol and Diamante means that he is ten years old.
He is safe, and the mob cannot hurt him, the rotten food cannot sicken him, and his father cannot look at him like he is something revolting. He is ten, and the gang has taken him in, and he is safe, and he is loved.
Diamante sleeps soundly even with ten feet of little boy suddenly wedged up against him, but Trebol always sleeps light, and he wakes up to smooth Doffy's hair and pull him closer to his frail body.
Doflamingo never falls back asleep after the nightmare, but he dozes between the two men, and lets the years wash back over him as the grey dawn starts to peek through the curtains.
The familiar snores and heavy breathing, the warm, lanky bodies pressed around him. It is familiar. It is good. The nightmare retreats further and further, as the years layer on his adventures with the Donquixote family. The gang in the North Blue. Their first pirate ship. The journey to the Grand Line.
And through it all, Trebol and Diamante, and Pica and Corazon.
Doffy's smile starts to return.