morrigan-cotk95

[morrigan-cotk95]

Silly AU where abyss is thwarted because LBH had his Shizun read plays to him before, he'd use puppy dog eyes and get his Shizun to read out plays to him and so when SQQ starts his speech it takes Binghe like a few lines before he realizes SQQ sounds just like he does when he's reciting a monologue... specifically a villain monologue.

He's just confused listening and watching his Shizun who is not saying his own words but reciting something...he can tell and he is so confused.

LBH starts questioning and SQQ is freaking out and system is blaring and SQQ has no idea what to do...LBH has totally cottoned on to system knowing somethings going on and system ends up panicking and breaking ground beneath LBH's feet.

System is now in damage control mode because it can sense dangerous levels of anger points directed at it specially.

SQQ is wondering what he did wrong he said everything right? At least he didn't have to push Binghe but his poor little white lots will still be blackened he doubts he's dodged all the death flags.

System is encouraging him that no you will still die...we-YOU should hide...please.

System trying to get SQQ to run away from plot while LBH is chasing his future empress and what ever the fuck is in his poor Shizun's head/soul. (He tells MQF about it... he has all the peak lords helping him chase him down...expect SQH who is also on system lead road-trip for it to save it's own skin... cue MBJ joining hunt.

System: NEW MISSION FOR HOSTS HIDE!

SQQ/SQH: ...From what?

System:HIDE ME!

[morrigan-cotk95]

AU/fic prompt where Shen Yuan does not pull off the ruse at all. All the peak lords look at him like 'no, nowhere enough contempt in that look that ain't Shen Jiu' but no one calls because while observing trying figure out possession they see his knowledge of things not just Shen Jiu BUT no one else should know like you are casually talking about a creature that for all we know has been extinct for millennia and casually mentioning about things going on no ones told.

All of collectively decide he's a god. (Apart from Shang Qinghua who hasn't noticed all this because he is doing ALL THE PAPERWORK while the other peak lords are in front of their WTF conspiracy board. He doesn't know what they're doing he doesn't care he just wants a nap.)

Just all peak lords sure Shen Jiu died and now there's a god in his body.

Luo Binghe of course hearing they're mutters and instantly being like 'yep makes perfect sense Shizun is perfect' and then turning to Meng Mo and being like 'how to I court a god?'

After Shang Qinghua and Shen Yuan meet other peak lords looking and listening in on them talking in ANOTHER LANGUAGE THEY HAVE NEVER HEARD AND NO RECORD OF and saying things that make no sense and are like 'both gods, that little shit was a god this whole time...I MADE A GOD THE BUDGETING?

Meanwhile Luo Binghe trying become demonic emperor and gain all the power like 'ok if I take over the entire world I think i should be able to start courting Shizun... maybe all 3 first? when I can start sending courting gifts to a god?'

Bonus Mobei Jun caught on right away there was something up with Shang Qinghua and quickly decided god and has an entire council of demons trying to figure out how to court a god... they have no basis for this. Can you bride nap a god? is that allowed? what courting gifts would even work? Mobei Jun has been beating him up because the council couldn't stop him doing something but since he hasn't been responding figure they need something else.

Just Shen Yuan and Shang Qinghua convinced they have fooled everyone just like 'don't be suspicious' while everyone else is like 'We've connected the dots... they're gods'

[morrigan-cotk95]

“Rise Raph would be unfazed by 2012 Mikey’s hijinks because he’s so used to Rise Leo’s.”

No, you don’t understand, that’s the problem. If you put Rise Raph with the 2012 Turtles, he would be expecting all the jokes and pranks from Leo. He would be very much prepared to deal with “Leo mischief,” not “Mikey mischief.”

Even if he perceives 2012 Leo’s more “serious and responsible” attitude, he’d still be highly suspicious of it and waiting for the other shoe to drop. He’d spend so much time watching over Leo, waiting for his serious mask to slip, that he wouldn’t even register Mikey setting him up for an epic prank until it was far too late.

He would be right to expect that the 2012 turtles would have their own hijinks like his own brothers. However, having it come from a Mikey—the baby of the family—would be a betrayal he was not expecting.

[morrigan-cotk95]

Liushen kinda day

[morrigan-cotk95]

Shen Qingqiu, Shen Xuan and Meimei (12) are having tea outside and watching Shen Yuan tell Luo Binghe all about a new plant in the sect garden several yards away.

SQQ: *sips tea* he's not good enough for Shen Yuan.

SX and Meimei nod and sip their own tea.

SX: Counterpoint. We're protective and no one would be good enough for him.

Meimei and SQQ nod, SQQ clearly still reluctant.

Meimei: He is a good cook.

*various noises of Shen Agreement*

SX: And he's an Emperor now so, he can afford to spoil A-Yuan at least.

Meimei: More than the Sect Leader can anyway.

SQQ:... ...do the three of you talk shit about YQY when I'm not here?

Meimei: ...Noooo?

SX: Yes. (to Meimei) We don't have to lie to him he can't stop us.

SQQ storms off in a huff just as Shen Yuan and Luo Binghe come to join them.

SY: What's wrong with Er-ge?

Meimei: He found out we talk shit about YQY sometimes.

SY: Pff, of course we do. He's not good enough for Er-ge.

SX and Meimei nod and sip their tea.

Meanwhile, LBH heard the whole conversation with his demonic hearing and is struggling to keep a straight face.

[morrigan-cotk95]

Liu Qingge:*feels the shifting spiritual energies of his students sneaking up on him*

Liu Qingge: Hey!

*most of the students flee, one particularly bold one steps into view though*

Liu Qingge: Kssst! *he pulls out a spray bottle*

*the last student scurries off*

SQQ (who came over for tea): ...Shidi has such an interesting relationship with his disciples.

[morrigan-cotk95]

SQQ: Ok that's it! *pulls out paper and a brush*

SQQ, narrating his letter out loud: Dear Liu Qingge, please accept Ming Fan into Bai Zhan Peak-

Ming Fan: Shizun no!!

SQQ: As he has decided he knows better than this master he must continue his cultivation elsewhere.

Ming Fan: I'm sorry Shizun!

SQQ: I trust you will be able to handle any further uncouth-

Ming Fan: *gasps*

SQQ: and unfilial -

Ming Fan: *starts crying*

SQQ: behavior. He is good at organizing things perhaps you can put him in charge of the armory.

Ming Fan: *falls to his knees* This disciple was wrong Shizun! Please don't send me away!

SQQ: *folds and seals letter dramatically*

SQQ: *hands it to Ming Fan* take that to the kitchens and burn it- then I don't want to see you again today!

Ming Fan: *sniffling* Yes Shizun. Thank you Shizun! *leaves*

SQQ: Oh hello Shidi I didn't see you there.

LQG, who is just here to show SQQ the weird bug he found on his last mission: Shixiong has such an interesting relationship with his disciples.

[morrigan-cotk95]

Full Shen Twins Comic!

[morrigan-cotk95]

How would Draxum react to Gio being alive and present in the Good Timeline? Does he even remember there being another baby turtle back when the explosion happened during the turtles mutation?

Also! I hope your day has been great!

this also became a happy birthday gio fic <3

x

Draxum sips coffee from a mug that says You Float My Goat and surveys the chaos unfolding before him like a land surveyor. 

The turtle lair has become something of a second home to Baron Draxum over the last couple of years. A reluctant, grudging second home—let him make that very clear. He was adopted despite his best efforts, digging in his heels and leaving claw marks behind as he was dragged along by the current. 

Likening the Hamatos to a tidal wave is putting it kindly. They are a catastrophic weather event just waiting to happen. But there was only so long a person could swim against the tide before they either drowned or accepted the new direction their life was going. Draxum half-drowned half a dozen times on the way here. 

He’s fairly certain that no one believes him when he complains about biweekly family dinner. He doesn’t even believe himself half the time. 

It’s hard to believe when he has taken to lingering, well past an acceptable time to make a beleaguered escape—like earlier, when the dessert and coffee came out, and no one asked if he was staying longer, they just poured him a cup. 

The flourless chocolate cake was rich without being overly sweet. Which was probably why one of the servings received a healthy scoop of whipped cream to top off the ganache, and why Giorgio endured a round of good-natured teasing from all sides with a straight face when that plate was set in front of him. 

Draxum is watching him now, the newest addition to their number. He’s sitting cross-legged on the floor of the den with his hands out in front of him, while Leonardo uses his hands to rewind multiple skeins of yarn into balls. He has said all of six words all evening, but it’s far from a standoffish silence, and it’s absorbed easily into his brother’s general mayhem. He’s watching Leonardo work like nothing more interesting exists on the planet, at least until Michelangelo plows into the room with a messy armful of his own art project for the purpose of parallel play. 

The tiny spotted turtle that Draxum had not had large hopes for. It was significantly weaker than its counterparts, and prone to sickness. He had even, he recalls with an uncomfortable feeling in his stomach he refuses to acknowledge or name, considered discarding it altogether once or twice. 

He saw the portal open as the lab folded in, he saw the spotted turtle vanish in a sharp cut of light. It was two times a lost cause. Draxum will never admit how many hours he spent searching the wreckage of his life’s work for the helpless creature anyway.

And here the lost cause sits, broad-shouldered and solid, as if nothing has the power to move him. 

“Ugh,” Leonardo says abruptly, interrupting Michelangelo’s stream-of-consciousness chatter to project his voice across the room where the rest of his siblings are sitting around the island, “April, you are such an Aries.”

He almost certainly hasn’t been listening to April’s story, he had just decided she had gone uninterrupted for too long—the prerogative of obnoxious younger siblings, Draxum has learned against his will. Leonardo is facing the wrong way for anyone in the kitchen to see the little smile on his face that only comes from successfully stirring the pot. It’s a secret just for Michelangelo and Giorgio and—incidentally—Draxum.  

Their human sister whirs around to gape at the back of Leonardo’s head as if stunned by the audacity. 

“Coming from a GEMINI of all people,” she starts hotly. 

“Woah now,” Raphael says, lifting his hands, but it’s too late. Donatello has already lowered his phone. 

“What is that supposed to mean,” he says in a tone that suggests there is no right answer. 

“I’m a Pisces,” Mikey pipes up cheerfully, laying on his stomach and kicking his feet and getting glue seemingly everywhere but on the collage he’s making. He lifts a messy hand and pokes a magazine cutting to Gio’s cheek; the residual glue on his finger is enough to make it stick, a crooked pink star damp enough that lettering from the opposite side bleeds faintly through. Mikey giggles, and the sound of it settles soundly in Draxum’s heart like a bird returning to its nest. It must feel similar to Gio, because his face softens the same way. 

“I’m a Cancer,” he replies gamely. 

“What,” Leo says, not a question. “No you’re not,” he goes on, “because if you were a Cancer, your birthday would be, like, next week. We’re not prepared for that.”

Gio blinks at him, face giving nothing away. 

Leo says, “Gigi. Tell me it’s not next week.”

“It’s fine,” Gio says. “It’s not until the fourteenth.”

Mikey lets out a hysterical bark of laughter, quickly smothered by a glitter-covered hand. Because everyone in this family could sniff out a trainwreck three days before it happened, drawn to trouble like bees to honey, the other three have tuned into the conversation occurring on the living room floor, and it’s Raphael who says, “That’s today.”

Gio frowns, unconvinced. “Is it Monday already?”

“Okay, people, focus up,” April says, clapping her hands together, “we have less than four hours to pull off the best last-minute twentieth birthday party this town has ever seen. I need everyone to bring their A-game.”

“Oh, oh, we gotta go to that party store on 8th,” Mikey says, scrambling to free himself of paste and newspaper pulp and ribbon. “They’re open till ten and they have piñatas!”

“Loving the energy, Michael,” Donnie says, “but if you touch me before washing your hands I will have no choice but to kill you and then myself and Georgathan’s party will be off to a rough start.”

“Wait, someone has to get Pops,” Raph realizes, as he picks Donnie up by the shell in one hand and Mikey in the other and holds them an arms length apart, “if he misses out on choosing Gio’s birthday cake he’ll never let it go.”

Leo uses Gio to push himself upright, leaning his weight on Gio’s shoulder while he maneuvers his forearm crutch into place. Gio supports him by sitting still and steady, unable to do much else with his hands still wound in blanket yarn. 

The slider points at him, eyes narrow and forbidding, mouth a firm line. 

“I’m forgiving you this once because you genuinely have no concept of time and one of us should have asked before now and added it to the family calendar. But next super important date you keep a secret, we’re fighting.”

“Noted,” Gio says solemnly. 

While his siblings hold court in the kitchen, he patiently works the yarn off his hand and twists it into a hank, setting it neatly out of the way on the pile of finished yarn balls. There’s no salvaging whatever Mikey was dreaming up, but Gio puts lids back on paints and twists glue caps closed. 

Of all the turtles, this one comes the closest to the vision Draxum had of them—soldiers. Powerful and resilient and obedient, doing what needed to be done, never talking out of turn. The runt of the litter, the one he had given up on for the most part, turned success story. 

It makes him unreasonably unhappy. 

“You’re not seriously going to eat more cake, are you?” Draxum says for lack of better thing to say. He doesn’t usually have to fill silence in the turtle lair. Silence is a critically endangered species here. “You had a piece at dinner, and half of Blue’s.”

“Birthday cake is different,” Giorgio says plainly, which means yes, he absolutely will. 

He isn’t wearing his gloves. There are pale scars on his palms, long-healed, that are too neat to be anything but intentional. The marks on his arms and shoulders are easier to look at because they, at least, are random and incidental. All of them are little miseries no child should have had to live through. 

Least of all, Draxum thinks, a child of mine. 

“You know, your brothers have two birthdays each.” He doesn’t realize he’s going to say it until he does. “The birthdays that Splinter chose for them arbitrarily when they were infants, and the accurate dates I had recorded prior to their mutation. They have unilaterally decided their arbitrary birthdays are their real ones, and treat the dates I gave them as freebies. An excuse to make me buy them food and presents more than anything.”

Yoshi cackled when he got wind of the whole thing and encourages the behavior with glee. He calls it seventeen years of back due child support. 

Draxum does not say that he feels some small warmth when turtles show up at his door, uninvited and inconvenient but never unwanted. He wouldn’t hate to see Giorgio adopt the obnoxious tradition, but he doesn’t say that either.

What he does say is, “If you’d like, I can tell you when your second birthday is. I haven’t forgotten.” 

Gio stops what he’s doing, watching Draxum with dark unblinking eyes, totally implacable. 

What would he have been like, if he had been allowed to grow up with the others? He was a fussy baby, only ever happy when he could shelter next to his siblings. He cried easily, wanted to be held always. How much of that child would he have outgrown naturally? How much of that child never grew up at all?

What feels like an hour later, Gio says, “If you want.” As if he has no idea how to 

Give them an inch, and the Hamatos will flood your life with nonsense. You will never know another moment’s peace. You will forget, altogether, what it felt like to spend your days alone. No one is immune to or exempt from their nature. 

And Draxum, for better or worse, has been adopted. 

“Enough,” he says, setting his mug aside and standing at full height. The teenagers all stare at him owlishly. Draxum frowns at them for a moment longer, to be sure he has their attention, and says, “If we are doing this, we are doing it right. No one does fireworks like fire yokai. Michelangelo, April, you’re with me. We’ll pick up the Caseys on our way.”

“Explosion brigade,” April whoops, and bumps fists with Mikey, who is still very much in air jail.

“I think I should be in the explosion brigade?” Donnie interjects. 

“We want NYC to still be standing tomorrow, Tello,” Leo says patiently. He’s studying Draxum with a furrowed brow, gold eyes darting between him and Gio as if he’s looking for evidence of the conversation they had out of his earshot. “All good?” he asks, protective streak a mile wide to those who know what to look for. 

“All good,” Gio says, smiling at him. “You know, Casey Junior is a Leo,” he adds, entirely for the round of gasps he receives. 

“Isn’t that July too?” Mikey shrieks. 

“That little sneak!” April says, whipping her phone out to send a strongly-worded text. “He was sitting right there when we were planning the twins’ party and he said nothing. Gonna try to pull a fast one on me? I don’t think so, pal.”

“Nice try, throwing Junior under the bus, but we’re still getting you a piñata and a birthday cake and all the balloons these bozos can fit in the tank,” Raphael rumbles, nudging Gio’s shoulder with his elbow. 

Gio exhales, his familiar ghost of a laugh, that blink-and-you-miss-it good humor. It’s barely anything, but it always makes his little siblings glow with happiness to hear, like they’ve won something worth bragging about. 

For a brief moment, Gio looks back at Draxum. 

“I’d never turn down free cake,” he says. 

[morrigan-cotk95]

Heard this song and jumped to do this

[morrigan-cotk95]

hold the world to its best (8/8)

rottmnt word count: 2k pairing: raph & OC title borrowed from light by sleeping at last part of the archer au

(prev) (next)

x

Raph has been April’s little brother since about two weeks after they first met when he was six years old. He’s always been Splinter’s baby and will never outgrow that no matter how big he gets, forever his dad’s ‘sweet little apple pie.’ 

But he’s never been one of the younger turtles before. He’s never had a big sibling who was like him in ways his father and sister weren’t, by limitation of species or mutation. At eighteen years old, it was quite the curveball. A not-unwelcome adjustment period.

Raph remembered wanting, more than anything, to make a good first impression. He seemed to be the only one worried about it. 

A few weeks after Gio moved in, on an afternoon that Mikey had unilaterally decided he didn’t wasn’t going to share Leo’s attention and had summarily kicked everyone else out of the medbay for the duration of their Jurassic Park movie marathon, Donnie had decided to make his boredom their eldest brother’s problem. 

Raph sat on the couch as Donatello did the same thing he did with Gram-gram, the same thing he did with April once upon a time, where he showed off machines he had built and unfinished projects he was still building in a bid to impress, the way a cat might proudly present a dead bird.  

Gio didn’t seem to get tired of the seemingly endless show-and-tell production, gaze attentive and engaged. His words were short but sincere each time he said something along the lines of, “Very cool.”

Donnie chortled, dark and sinister, steepling his hands like a cartoon villain. “Yes,” he intoned, “at last. The validation I crave. Today George, tomorrow the world.”

Before he scuttled off to find some other piece of tech to drag out of his lair and parade around, he gave away how pleased he actually was by flopping across Gio like a wet noodle for one of his trademark limp-armed hugs. 

The full deadweight of a teenage boy, plus his shell, plus his shell’s shell, would have winded anybody who wasn’t prepared to have it tossed in their lap without warning—but Gio’s oof was barely audible. His surprise was more obvious. 

His hands had hovered for just a moment, the most uncertain Raph had seen him up until that point, this terminator of a brother who never flinched and never faltered and never second-guessed what the right thing to do was. And then they drifted down to land on Donnie’s shoulder and the top of his head, and when nothing happened after a few seconds except for Donnie’s content turtle trill, they settled into place more firmly. 

Donnie bonked his head into Gio’s stomach affectionately before he scrambled up from the older turtle and over the back of the couch, creature mode activated. When something in the next room clattered to the floor in his wake, followed by the comically loud sound of breaking glass, Raph almost gave into his first, second and third impulse to plant his face in his hands and swear. 

“Sorry. He’s excited,” he said instead. “We don’t, uh, get to meet new family very often. Just say the word and I’ll sit on him.”

“He’s fine,” Gio replied immediately. “I just wasn’t expecting it.” 

He sounded like he meant it. All his bewilderment from a moment ago had already been packed away like it had never existed at all. Gio’s dark brown eyes only met Raph’s for a split second before moving away to the Netflix show being projected onto the wall that neither of them were really watching. 

Raph was nervous about good first impressions, but he seemed to be the only one. Everyone else was throwing the full gamut of their inexhaustible personalities at the spotted turtle like they needed him fully amalgamated into the family in as little time as possible and were willing to work nights to make it happen. 

And Gio was proving to be totally implacable, a far cry from the rest of the reactive, chaotic clan. Nothing they did ever seemed to rile him up or rub him the wrong way or really do more than make him blink. 

April called it Gio’s capybara energy. She kept sending videos to the group chat of the most unbothered animal on the planet chilling with hawks and alligators. It wasn’t entirely off the mark, but only where his siblings were concerned. The Giorgio that Leo told them about, who squared up to the Krang in the prison dimension without so much as flinching, was much more likely to try to take a bite out of any predator that came too close to his flock no matter how much bigger than him they were. 

“Was he different in the future?” Raph asked curiously. “Donnie?”

There was a long pause before Gio answered, “He was older.”

That made sense. Raph guessed it wasn’t the strangest thing in the world for his little brothers to outgrow being so demonstrative, but he couldn’t really picture it. It was hard to imagine a Donatello who didn’t crawl into Raph’s arms any time of day or night when he needed a good bear hug. 

He resolved to get more cuddles in while he still had a Tweedle Dee receptive to cuddles.

“Raph can’t imagine growing out of hugs,” he admitted a little shyly. “That’s, like. What my arms are for. You know? I don’t even know who I’d be otherwise.”

Gio was looking at him with an expression that Raph didn’t recognize. Someday he would know how to read his big brother’s neutral bearing as easily as he could pick apart the charmingly faultless smile Leo always hid behind, but in that moment he had no idea what Gio was thinking. 

“You were older, too,” Gio said.

Raph rolled that around in his mind like a marble, trying to decide how he felt about it. 

CJ had told them little odds and ends about his family, when he could bring himself to talk about them at all, and the picture he painted was one that Raph struggled to place himself in. 

He liked to believe he’d be like CJ’s Uncle Rapha when he was older, strong and steadfast and capable—carrying the weight of everyone he loved without ever letting them down. He really wanted to never let them down. 

Gio was still watching him. Something about having the spotted turtle’s undivided attention made Raph want to keep asking him questions. He was suddenly closer to understanding why their little brothers were so keen to pester Raph twenty-four hours a day. 

“Can you give me just one spoiler?” he wheedled. “Was I still a good hugger in the future?”

Gio exhaled, the ghost of a laugh. It wasn’t an entirely happy sound, but he was smiling crookedly when he looked away again. 

He said, “One hug from you could have saved the whole world, Raphael.”

Raph didn’t get it then, but he does now. 

Because now Gio is this tiny little thing, holding a teddy bear as big as he is and looking up at Raph with huge hopeful eyes, because all the hugs Raph’s little brothers grew up with as the norm are absolutely not a given in his life. Because while Raph was sleeping in turtle piles and splashing in rain puddles as his dad held his hand and squabbling over the biggest piece of cake for dessert, Gio was alone, raising himself, going hungry. He was hiding from thunderstorms under the bed. He was learning that he was unwanted, that nobody would come for him when he cried, and that it was better not to cry at all. 

Yeah, Raph thinks, tears pooling in his eyes and spilling over when he blinks. One hug would have done it. 

He picks the baby turtle up the way he’s done a hundred times over the course of the last week, that spotted shell small enough to fit in the palm of his hand, weighing next to nothing. Gio had to be taught how to be held, but he’s an old pro at it now, tucking himself against Raph’s shoulder with a sigh better suited someone ten times his age. His fingers clutch at the front of Raph’s shirt, always wanting to clutch at something, usually only having his own hand to hold.  

He’s so little. He shouldn’t know the first thing about hardship, not when he’s this little. 

“There’s not a single version of you that I don’t like,” Raph says firmly, the second he’s certain his voice isn’t going to wobble and break. 

He can’t see Gio’s face from this angle, but he can picture the stubborn pout on that spotted face as clear as day. 

“You like the Gio who’s cool and strong and smart,” Gio mumbles, as close as he’ll come to arguing outright. He’s rubbing the tiny fold of Raph’s shirt that he’s holding between his thumb and forefinger, like he’s trying to commit it to memory. “The one who fights monsters. You said so.”

“I do like him,” Raph says. “But I also like the Gio who’s a bit silly. The one who eggs the twins on even when they’re at their noisiest, and lets Mikey draw all over his arms with paint markers, and would eat cheesecake for every meal if we’d let him. Does he sound familiar?” 

It takes the toddler a moment to answer, but when he does it’s with a very shy, “I like cheesecake.”

“You sure do.” Understatement of the century, honestly. “And you let our brothers get away with everything under the sun, because that is apparently a fundamental law of the universe when it comes to you,” Raph says with a lightness he doesn’t really feel. “You’re my brother and that’s all that matters. That’s never ever gonna change. Whether you’re four years old or forty or a hundred. I’m always gonna be right here to give you all the hugs you want.”

Gio nods just barely, a whisper of movement against his shoulder that Raph barely feels. 

Raph remembers how tentative he was with Gio when they first met, holding back from him because he was stupidly preoccupied with making a good first impression. Because Gio was so cool and so reserved, and Raph didn’t know where he fit as a little brother when for so long he’d been the biggest.  

Back then, there’s no way he could have known that Gio used to be this child who never took an inch more than what he was given. Who would sit outside until he died of exposure unless someone opened the door for him. It just wouldn’t occur to him to come inside and claim a seat at the table for himself. 

And how much of Raph’s nervousness read as rejection to the brother he was still getting to know? 

And how many times has Gio worried about the same things Raph used to, fitting in and making a good impression, earning love that should have been his from day one?

It’s never just been given to him. He’s always had to work for it. 

“I don’t love big Gio more than I love baby Clem,” Raph says. His heart could burst with how much love it’s holding, actually. He needs about half a dozen more to fit it all comfortably. “I love both of you, all of you, forever and ever and ever. Okay?”

“Okay,” Gio says in a tiny, wobbling voice. His fist in Raph’s shirt is white-knuckled, like it would take an act of god to move him. Raph would like to see god fucking try. 

“What do we say when we need to feel brave?” Raph nudges gently. 

“I’m not alone,” Gio recites. He leans back and looks up at Raph, an expression on his face that Raph recognizes as the same one that used to mystify him when Giorgio first moved in. The one that used to leave Raph guessing what his older brother was thinking, since he didn’t have the first clue how to read him back then.

It was hope all along. 

Two days later, the curse will finally expire in an explosion of smoke that ruins lunch prep and ends the life of Mikey’s favorite ceramic mixing bowl when he drops it in surprise. Three people lunge forward at once to scoop the baby out of the way of the broken shards underfoot, collide with their solid twenty-year-old brother instead, and end up football tackling each other into a pile on the floor. 

“What,” is all Gio says, at the bottom of the stack, followed quickly by, “Donnie?”

“Eurgh,” Donnie replies, face-first in the concrete. 

Gio sits up, taking stock of him, then the rest of the room in short order. There’s a wrinkle in his brow that spells confusion, but otherwise his expression is the resting murder face that gives away nothing. It’s much harder to take it seriously when they all have seen first-hand what it looked like on his little baby face.

“GIOOOO!” Mikey hollers, collapsing on the eldest turtle in an enthusiastic embrace that Raph is quick to get in on. Donnie is only more firmly squashed where he’s caught in the middle, and starts scrabbling uselessly for freedom like a trapped raccoon. 

“We were in the Hidden City,” Gio says slowly. “There was a witch.”

“We’ve got a lot to catch you up on, Gigi,” Leo says, joining the pile on the floor because he would stroll amicably into hell if that’s where his brothers were hanging out, and only complain about being left out in the first place. “But first you owe me like a gazillion naps. I aim to collect.”

“We’re under strict orders from Barry not to overwhelm you with details till you’ve had a chance to adjust,” Mikey announces, curtailing the dozens of questions Gio must have. “Up up! We can’t adjust on empty stomachs! And since the pancake batter is all curse-smokey, may it rest in peace, it must be deli sandwich o’clock.”

Gio is clearly unhappy with the missing time, but he can’t argue with proof in front of him that all little brothers are present and correct and accounted for. Everything else takes a backseat to that. One gray-green hand drifts to his empty wrist where a faded friendship bracelet usually lives, and alarm sprints across Gio’s expression clear as day when he doesn’t find it there. 

“I’ve got it,” Raph says immediately, reaching into his pocket for it. “We kept it safe.”

“Oh,” Gio says. He’s never explained the importance of the bracelet to any of them, and seems surprised that they’ve been paying close enough attention to guess as much on their own. He slides it back on, and brushes the pad of his thumb over the fraying ends the way Raph has seen him do a thousand times, and says, heart in his hands, “Thanks, Raphie.”

Later, they’ll fill him in. They’ll show him all the pictures, the tiny baby hoodies, Splinter will cry on him a bit, April will dramatically mourn not having his big round cheeks to squeeze anymore, and through it all Gio will look a little embarrassed, a little amused, and a little bewildered. 

Much later, when Leo’s dead to the world asleep with his head in Gio’s lap, and Mikey is sitting on the back of the sofa with his legs draped over Gio’s shoulders and his chin propped up on Gio’s head with his headphones on, and Donnie is sprawled in Raph’s giant beanbag giggling evilly at whatever he’s doing to people in his Minecraft server also with his headphones on, Gio glances sideways at Raph. 

“Sorry if I was a lot to deal with,” he says. “People used to tell me I was nothing but trouble when I was little.”

Raph has to wrestle with a dozen things he’d like to say to that before coming up with, “Well people didn’t know what the hell they were talking about.” It comes out a dangerous rumble, and he can’t help but add, “Anyone would have been lucky to have you, Georgie. Those families before us had no clue what they were throwing away.”

Gio looks away quickly, half a rueful smile on his face. Not buying it, not really. He might believe that Raph believes it, but he always believes the best in his brothers. 

Nice words don’t leave scars like the ones he carries on his hands, and he learned all the wrong lessons for years and years before meeting the people who loved him the right way. 

That’s fine. Raph has time. And he also has it on good authority that just one of his hugs could save the world. It is, after all, what his arms are for.

He seizes Gio without warning and hauls him into a crushing embrace. He’d feel bad for waking his little brother up if they weren’t going to wake him in a little bit anyway to try to salvage some pathetic approximation of his semi-regular sleeping schedule. As it is, Leo just groggily crawls away to shove and elbow his way onto the beanbag next to his twin instead and conks right back out again.

Above them, Mikey giggles. In his arms, Gio sighs. But he’s happy, Raph can tell. He knows what it looks like. He knows how to find it.

He hopes whoever he is in the future will still know how to find it.

[morrigan-cotk95]

[morrigan-cotk95]

Shen Yuan Is little clingy

[morrigan-cotk95]

SVSSS AU/fic prompt where none of Cang Qiong sect are ok with SQQ in the water prison and instantly plan break out they arrive to see SQQ with whip marks LBH over him looking angry... and all the protective instincts kick in they scoop up SQQ and nope out there.

LBH is trying to explain but they are not listening you abandoned him, we had grieving widow SQQ for years and now your back and trying to hurt him?? You join Huan Hua?...HUAN HUA!??? YOU GAVE UP SQQ FOR HUAN HUA?? THE FUCK!?

SQQ is freaking out because no, this is not plot, please stop your going to start a war! and all peak lords are like 'worth it'

LBH keeps showing up and trying to break into sect so he can apologize properly to Shizun but none of the peak lords are having it and he can't even bride nap him because SQQ is now the most protected person ever. So many talismans and wards and peak lords on guard... as well as NYY and MF.

While SQQ is like 'No i deserve it it's fine I need to go back' and everyone like 'WELL WE NOW HAVE TIME LETS UNPACK ALL THAT'

[morrigan-cotk95]

who has time for tears?

[morrigan-cotk95]

i drew these for one of my coolest friend's ever httyd au!!

first up is wilbur and techno

you should totally go and read the first chapter that's up on ao3

https://archiveofourown.org/works/65507107/chapters/168619177

reminder that this was made pre-everything that happened and this is purely based on the character and not on the cc, we do not support that man at all.

[morrigan-cotk95]

Shen twins au where Shen Jiu's qi deviation (the one that killed him in cannon) almost kills him and messes up his cultivation (and health) to the point where he won't be able to act as peak lord. Though SJ, refusing to let anyone knows this (show vulnerability) decides to get someone to cover/pretend to be him. Cut to Shen Yuan, who is a rouge cultivator, being dragged into the role of peak lord (only YQY and MQF know its not SJ).

Everything goes as it dose in cannon though SY dose talk to SJ to give him reports on what's going on. SJ lectures him about being too nice and ruining his reputation but SY doesn't listen.

Anyway, after the immortal alliance conference SJ is finally ready to retake up his role, which is great because SY isn't all there mentally. People chalk the personality change to SQQ grieving. Plus, SJ doesn't feel as terribly about everyone after hearing SY talk about them so positively.

I think LBH reunion with his shizun would just SJ chewing him out for causing SY so much grief. At this point he dgaf about not letting LBH know that him and SY are different people, his twin is hurting. LBH realizes that SY regretted what he did and decides to track down SY. I'm guessing this doesn't go too well but LBH doesn't think SY hates him so they do get to talk at some point

Anyway they get married eventually, SJ hates this