#I included the last one because we all know

[y3sterdaysproblem]

smoke and mirrors - chris sturniolo

chapter two

summary: your best friend Matt backs out of plans you had made together, so you replace him with his brother. the only problem is the two of you can’t stand each other.

{enemies to lovers, fake dating}

includes : explicit language, fluff, smut(penetration, oral, fingering, etc.), angst if you squint, lots of bickering, slow burn

wc: 2.5k

-

part one

“Like this?”

“No! Like… move your hips over.”

“Chris, this feels wrong!”

“Yeah, because it’s you! Come on, just come here for the picture.”

You groan and scoot closer to Chris on the bed, slinging your leg over his hips. He was laid flat on his back and you were on your side facing him. You guys had agreed on pretending to be each others’ significant others for a short amount of time, and right now you were trying to get all the pictures you could. This was the third photo position you guys had gotten yourselves into, each one getting more intimate than the last. Your mindset was, the more pictures you took at once, the less you’d have to spend time together.

“Okay, take your picture,” you tell him, throwing your arm over his torso and looking up at him.

Chris looks down at you, your faces inches away from each other. “God, you’re so impatient. Don’t you just wanna cuddle like this for a minute?” He smirks a little before grabbing his phone with his left hand, placing his right hand on your bare thigh, snapping the picture like that.

“Okay, good. Now, uh… I don’t think you’re gonna like this next one,” Chris pushes your leg off of him and you sit up, peering down at him.

“Fuck you,” you say harshly. “What now?”

He smiles and pats his lap, and your jaw drops. “No,” you shake your head. “No way, I’m not getting on your lap.”

Chris groans. “I am not going to get hard at the thought of you on top of me if that’s what you’re worried about,” he promises.

“Yeah, well, you already think I’m hot so I don’t know,” you tell him, disgusted. “Can’t we do something else?”

Chris reaches out and pinches the back of your arm, clearly unamused. “Dude, I didn’t say I personally think you’re hot, I said you’re hotter than this chick. Big difference. Besides, I’m hot, too, and you know it, so come on, sit on daddy’s lap.”

You grimace at his word choice. “That just made me want to do it even less,” you say, but despite your words, you scoot closer until you’re next to him, then swing your leg over him and sit on his lap, your crotch sitting directly above his dick.

“See?” He smiles, reaching out to place a hand on your thigh again, even though the camera wasn’t out yet. “This isn’t so bad, right?”

You can’t help it when your throat goes dry at the feeling of his hand on your leg, and he was partially right. Matt was attractive, Nick was attractive, and unfortunately the short end of the stick with that reality was that Chris was also attractive, though you’d never say those words out loud.

You snap out of it quickly and grab your own phone to distract yourself, but Chris reaches up and grabs your phone out of your hands, putting it on the bed next to him. “Gotta look interested in me, baby,” he coos.

You groan and cross your arms, body shaking slightly as you did so, making Chris suck in a quiet breath. “Don’t call me baby, we’re not actually together.”

“Stop wiggling, yeah?” He asks you, hand on your thigh gripping tighter than it was before.

You raise your eyebrows at him, staring down with a clear attitude present on your face. “I thought you would be fine and not get hard.” You mocked him.

Chris meets your eyes. “I said I wouldn’t get hard at the thought of you but you keep moving around and I only have so much self control.”

You cringe, focusing your attention on your lower half where you no doubt start to feel the beginnings of an erection forming where your bodies met. “Can you hurry please?”

Chris picks his phone back up and opens his camera, but couldn’t resist the nasty comment that sat on his tongue, begging to be spoken. “Maybe I just wanna feel you a little longer.”

Your jaw drops, face heating up uncontrollably. “Chris!”

Chris rolls his eyes at your aggressive tone. “Just kidding, jeez. Here, put your hands here.” He pulls up the hoodie to make it look like he’s shirtless and then grabs your hands, placing them both on his stomach so you’re leaning over him, your cleavage peeking through the neckline of your shirt. With the angle change and your weight shifted onto your hands, part of you wanted to tease him, and you had no idea what was coming over you in the moment, probably just the fact that you hadn’t been in this position in so long and you were craving the attention and validation of a man, wanting to feel someone fall apart underneath you, but you quickly remind yourself who you’re dealing with when he speaks again. “Oh perfect,” he says, holding his phone up to take the picture. “That’s definitely going in my spank bank.”

“Ew, Chris!” You screech at him, smacking him on the head before standing up off the bed completely. “We’re done for right now, you’re insanely gross.”

Chris laughs at you and pulls his hoodie down, sitting up on the bed. He moved quickly, but you caught on to the quick dip of his hand in his sweatpants, clearly waistbanding his dick, but you don’t mention it and he sure as hell doesn’t either. “I’m just messing with you,” he says.

“Yeah well I’m over it,” you huff, crossing your arms again.

“Alright, get out of my room then,” Chris points to the door, and you happily oblige, leaving his room and heading up the stairs, making your way to Matt’s room where you find him sitting at his desk playing games and Nick laid on the bed playing on his phone.

Matt turns his head and smiles at you. “Hey, love. How’s being Chris’s girlfriend going?”

You groan loudly and drag your hands down your face. “Fucking terrible!” You cry. “He’s so pervy and gross and just awful to be around. I don’t know how you guys deal with him all day every day.”

Nick laughs in response. “We actually like him and he likes us.”

You shudder and grab the blankets from underneath your body, shimmying under them. “I’m taking a nap, hopefully that’ll cleanse me from the objectification I’ve endured.”

Both the boys laugh at you and go back to what they’re doing as you get comfortable and close your eyes.

Before you dozed off you found yourself wondering what things would be like if Chris wasn’t so annoying and how life would be if the two of you got along. Would you guys actually stand a chance at being in a relationship? Would either of you have feelings for each other that weren’t so negative? You’ve never thought about these possibilities before, and though it scared you slightly, you brushed it aside and let yourself drift off to sleep.

-

The four of you sat around the kitchen table later that night eating Italian food that Matt had gone and picked up, and the room was silent apart from the chewing noises that filled the air. You know the food is good if everyone is quiet you always say. But unfortunately, the sweet silence is interrupted by Chris clearing his throat and setting his fork down.

“So,” he starts, looking towards you. “I’m thinking we go on a date.”

You almost choke on your food, eyes widening. “What?!” You yell, mouth still full of food.

“Ew, swallow first. And yes, but not a real date, obviously. My idea is you can go to a fancy restaurant with Matt or something and he can take pictures of you looking all dressed up and just send them to me.” Chris suggests, and it’s not the worst idea in the world. Free dinner in a nice restaurant with your best friend? Sounds like a win win to you.

“You should’ve led with that, fuckface. Almost made me choke,” you tell him with furrowed eyebrows, wiping your mouth with your napkin.

“I typically do make women choke,” he replies with a smirk.

Everyone at the table groans in disgust at his dirty comment. “Too much,” Nick says loudly, waving his hands in the air.

Chris just laughs. “So is that a yes?”

You look at Matt and he shrugs his shoulders. “I’m fine with it,” he tells you, and you nod your head in agreement.

“Great!” Chris smiles, clapping his hands together. “I’ll make reservations for you guys and let you know when it is.”

You guys both nod and go back to eating your dinner.

After everyone was done eating, you guys migrated to the couch, where you ended up sandwiched between Matt and Chris, though Chris left a decent amount of space as opposed to Matt who sat nearly hip to hip with you.

“What are we watching?” You ask, grabbing a blanket off the back of the couch and throwing it over yours and Matt’s body.

“Get a room,” Chris grumbles, looking over at you and Matt snuggled up under the blanket.

You look towards him and smile. “If you wanna cuddle with me just say that,” you tease, kicking your feet up onto his lap.

He instantly shoves your legs off of him and scoots farther away from you. “Gross, get your feet off of me. You wish I wanted to cuddle with you, slut.”

Matt and Nick both whip their head up to look at Chris, and he immediately drops his head down towards his lap, knowing he fucked up. “Chris,” Matt spits. “Too fucking far, apologize or get the fuck out.”

“Matt, it’s fine,” you tell him, tucking your legs close to your body. Chris had never really gone that far, but you weren’t super surprised by the words he said, though it stung a little bit.

“No, it isn’t. I get you guys have your little arguments but that’s not okay,” Matt tells him again, voice as stern as the first time.

Chris sighs and picks his head back up, but only focuses on the tv in front of him, still not playing anything. “Sorry, didn’t mean to call you a slut.” He mumbles.

You just nod your head and look over at Nick and then look up at Matt. “Can we just put something on please?”

They agree and start scrolling through the streaming services, trying to find something to put on.

If you tried to think about it, you never really could pinpoint the exact moment you and Chris started acting like this, it just kind of became your guys’ normal. You’d all known each other since high school, and you clicked with Nick and Matt instantly, and you always thought Chris would come around, but he never did and your relationship never got any better. The more you hung around, the more hostile your relationship got, and the more you adapted.

It started as teasing, a “shut up” here, a “you’re so annoying” there, but as you guys continued to see each other, it just got meaner and meaner, and you’re so used to it now that you can’t imagine life without it, which is why it was so hard to imagine how he was going to act at this wedding when he had to pretend he didn’t hate you.

You guys ended up just putting on a movie you’d never seen, some chick flick rom com that only you and Nick were interested in, so you weren’t surprised when Matt and Chris grabbed their phones and started their endless scroll, until Chris looked up and over towards you.

“Hey,” he starts quietly, and you turn your head to look at him. “Can you, uh.. can you come take a picture with me? She’s texting me right now and thinks I’m lying about you. Which I guess I am, but, whatever. Just for a second?”

You think about it for a couple of moments, not really sure if cuddling up with Chris in front of his brothers is something you necessarily want to do right now, but you also don’t want to ruin the deal you two had made with each other, so you lightly nod your head and remove the blanket that covered you and Matt, scooting closer to Chris.

“How do you want to do this?” You asked him, and he just patted his leg.

“Just put your legs over mine and scoot real close, that’ll be fine. I can snap it really quick,” he says, and you oblige, scooting a bit closer than before and swinging both of your legs over one of his, draped over his thigh. You leaned your body into his, and he placed his hand on your thigh, tucked between both of your legs.

“Good?” You ask, eyes flitting up over his face. He nods and lifts his phone up to take a photo, taking a couple before looks over at you and reaches your gaze.

He takes a deep breath while staring at you, hand still resting on your thigh. “I’m sorry,” he says, voice low so his brothers couldn’t hear, but it was so quiet you almost didn’t hear him. “I really didn’t mean to call you that, it just slipped out.”

You’re shocked at the fact that he offered an actual apology, considering the fact that he’d never said sorry unless his brothers had told him to, so something about this felt a little bit more genuine than usual.

You offer him a tight lipped smile and nod your head. “I forgive you,” you tell him just as quietly.

He pulls his hand out from your thighs and taps your leg lightly. “Good, now go back to cozying up with my brother before I throw up.”

You laugh and do as he says, moving away from him and back towards Matt, who smiles sweetly at you, taking up the same position as you had with Chris, placing the blanket back over you both.

As you sat there and watched the movie, you couldn’t help but steal a few glances towards Chris, watching as he played with his lip with his free hand while he scrolled, or how he giggled to himself every time he saw a video that he found cute. The way he peeked up at the tv every so often to see what was happening, then went back on his phone to pretend he wasn’t interested in the cheesy movie.

What you were completely clueless to, though, was the way he did the same thing to you, watching as you laughed along with Nick, or how you cuddled closer into his brother, his hand rubbing your arm sweetly and habitually. He even watched the way your eyes started to flutter towards the end of the movie, clearly too tired to head home, just like most nights.

Maybe you weren’t that bad or annoying, but he was so deep in it now that he felt he could never turn back, never admit that maybe one day he’d like to be close to you like you were to his brothers. He had no idea that you’d take him up on that offer in a heartbeat.

-

a/n: part two!!! thanks for all the love on part one!!

taglist

@liiixsturniolos @madelinesturn @st6niolo @mattslolita @ifwdominicfike @sophand4n4 @chris-hallelujah @sophsturns @ariana2saucyy @045696 @m-sgirl @scorpioosworld @byhrxb @vickytaa @taelovesmattsturniolo @secret-sturniolo @theboredknightcat-blog @slvtf0rchr1s @flouqissss @gabri3la-sturns @delilahsturniolo @starstrucktyrantinfluencer @vanillsstuff @avasturniolos @hornyformatt @sturnlsstuff

[anyroads]

This is great and all but I need people to understand that it took Republicans almost 3/4 of a CENTURY to undo the labor rights and anti-trust laws FDR and his Congress enacted because they embedded them so well in the country's legal system.

And that was because FDR wasn't just president, he had a Democratic Congress - both House and Senate - to work with.

If you take anything away from this post, I hope it's that the President isn't enough on their own. You need to vote, and you need to vote down ballot. There's another Congressional election in 2 years, as there always is. It will matter if the Senate flips. Right now Trump has the presidency and the Senate and the Supreme Court. And you know what, I know that some people reading this are going to be the ones who don't want their activism to take real effort. No no, listen, I'm not judging you right now - no one knows you're reading this post, no one knows you're the one who loves armchair activism but doesn't want to actually leave the house or interact with people to actually do any of it. You can request a mail-in ballot online. You can vote without ever leaving the house. No one has to know how you vote, or that you voted at all. Burn the little sticker they give you for all I care. And then do some phone banking. You don't have to go door to door, no one has to know you're helping. But phone bank. Every cause you support does phone banking. Environmental orgs, trans support orgs, civil rights orgs, they all host phone banking before elections, where they give you a script and a list of numbers, and all you have to do is make some calls to people who are already in line with that cause and ask them to go vote.

But fucking vote. Because this post? This is a circle jerk hoping for a last ditch effort of a dying flame that we could have ignited more instead of let go out. And a big reason why is that most people on this hellsite have no understanding of basic civics, including how the US government works, let alone even the most recent history of what that government has done. The president isn't enough. Historically their power has been checked by the other two main branches of government (and who knows how that's about to change). The last time the Democrats had a solid hold of two branches of government - the Presidency and Congress - they changed labor laws and enacted anti-trust laws that led to half a century of the middle class expanding and fair enough pay that a kid working a summer job could buy a car. Now Republicans have all three branches of government (basically everything except the House, whose power can barely check the Senate right now) and want to do the exact opposite with their power. Whatever your activism it, it doesn't stop you from voting, and is useless if no one votes.

joe biden, you stupid fuck. listen to me. Crimes are legal for sitting presidents as long as they’re official actions. Listen: Joe. You have one chance

[antimonyandthyme]

body swap, for carcar or even landoscarcar?

He wakes up, disoriented. It’s not even light out yet, why the fuck is he awake? His throat’s a little sore, his hips are a little sore. Jeez. Didn’t even bother to put some pants on last night, and did he chafe his ass on like, the sheets or something? Wow. He’s sore all over. A settled, pleasant kind though, a muscle ache too deep for him to reach. Maybe he can skip the gym today, hop on a stream, relax. Grab Carlos for a round of golf before he leaves, if he’s not too busy mapping Monaco on his bike.

He turns to his left. Claps a hand over his mouth, shrieks into it.

Like, he’s groggy. He doesn’t have the remnants of a disaster headache, so he’s not hungover. But it’s early, and he never wakes up early. Must be why he’s hallucinating.

When he can bring himself to look again, Carlos is still there. Close enough that Lando can hear the air whistling softly through his teeth.

Lando shifts uselessly, stares. That’s Carlos, alright. He’s always been a loud sleeper. Back in their McLaren days, when they’d shared hotel rooms, Lando had taken voice recordings to prove to an adamant Carlos that he snored. The memory makes his lips twitch. It’s nice Carlos looks well-rested. Better than he has in awhile. A pretty trophy will do that for you. If he wants, Lando can choose to waste precious time counting Carlos’s lashes while he figures out what to do. He’ll lose count at probably a hundred.

That’s Carlos, alright.

What were they doing last night? Surely Lando would remember. The party was loud, raucous, the Prince of Monaco victorious here at last. All podium finishers present, fourth place included. Drinking, laughing, cozying up to one another. Carlos and Oscar smiling tentatively at each other after sharing just one couch, animosity seemingly forgotten. The prickly itch crawling under Lando’s skin, until Charles finally manages to bag him a set. The music, beats pounding a tattoo into his brain. He remembers all of that.

Surely he would remember taking Carlos’s clothes off. He’s wanted to for—

Lando slaps both hands onto his cheeks, hard enough to sting. He needs to take a leak.

He squeaks out of the bed, as quietly as he can. Trips over a pair of jeans that look vaguely familiar, rams his toe into the wheel of a suitcase that definitely wasn’t there last night. Finds the bathroom, closes the door with a silent snick.

Fumbles around like a dunce for the light switch, right there where all light switches usually are.

Flicks it on. Shrieks for real this time, without his hands to cover the noise.

It’s a good thing Carlos has always slept like the dead. To be absolutely fucking certain, Lando peeks his head out.

Yep, still asleep. That’s Carlos, alright.

Deep, deep breaths. As deep as he can go without passing out. He returns to the mirror. Feels for his face like it’s a foreign object.

Which it is. Because that’s Oscar Piastri, looking right back at him.

--

He means to start off with something useful. Something like, Hey, do you remember what drugs we were on last night? E? Salvia? Because mate, these are the strangest withdrawal symptoms I’ve ever experienced. Or even something funny, like Haha, now I know what you look like naked. The fans are going to have a field day.

Instead, what comes out of his mouth is, “Why are you sleeping with Carlos?”

“Good morning to you too,” Oscar says, after the longest pause on planet fucking earth.

He didn’t mean for that to sound as sulky as he did. But he’s sore all over, and his lips, which are not his, but Oscar’s, feel extremely kissed, and he definitely does not expect that to make something in his chest twist tighter than a coiled spring.

“Aren’t you going to answer?”

“What did we drink last night?” Oscar says, unsurprisingly choosing to be the level-headed one in this conversation.

“Something bright green, something ocean blue. Dunno. Lost track during the set.”

“Lando,” Oscar says patiently, in Lando’s voice. Which is just all kinds of weird. “Something green, something blue, doesn’t sound all that normal.”

“I knew that DJ couldn’t be trusted.”

The world-weary sigh Lando receives makes his skin prickle with heat. Things have been happening. The car’s gotten faster. From his grandmother to the mechanics, everyone’s been talking about a chance he could pull like magic out of thin air. It’s not his fault he wasn’t paying attention. At the club, or to every encounter Carlos and Oscar had prior to this that has led them here.

“Look, I’m gonna—where are you?”

“In Carlos’s room,” Lando says, rudely, unhelpfully.

“Right. I’ll. I’ll be there in. We’re staying just, two blocks away, right? I’ll be there in ten. Could you. Could you please, just—”

Lando expects him to say something totally condescending. Please just don’t freak out. Please just don’t do anything until I get there, because I’m being responsible and you’re being a baby.

“Just, go back?”

“What?”

“Be next to him, when he wakes up?”

Lando swallows. The acid from yesterday must be making his stomach churn. Oscar—in Lando’s fucking voice, sounds smaller and more hopeful than Lando ever wants to hear himself sound.

“I don’t want him to think.” Oscar stops. Lando can practically see him scrubbing at the back of his neck. “I don’t want him to think I left, or anything like that. Could you—”

Lando hangs up.

The earnestness. The, the audacity.

The phone rings again, and Lando hangs up again, out of pure spite. He paces wildly, in front of the mirror. Each time he turns on his heel he imagines his body morphing back into what’s right. Each turn smacks him with the image that Oscar’s pale, freckled skin turns splotchy red when he’s angry.

What. A useful thing. To know.

It’s been half an hour since he’s woken up. Which means, oh fuck. Fuck. Carlos’s body clock has always been impeccable. Eight, on the dot, he springs out of bed like it’s a wonderful thing being alive at that hour, and then goes and makes coffee without fail. Which means in three, two minutes, Carlos will open his eyes. And, and he’ll be alone in bed.

He’ll be alone. That’ll make Lando feel better, right? Carlos will be alone, and then Oscar will no longer be a problem, and then the itch under his skin will disappear, for good.

Carlos will be alone.

He flicks off the light, slips out of the bathroom. Bangs his toe again on that damned suitcase. Slides under the covers, adjusts himself into a position he hopes might be believable. Head on one hand, face tilted toward Carlos. Body leaning, reaching. Always reaching. Eyes half-closed.

But open enough so that he can see the exact moment Carlos wakes. See that small, relieved smile. See the way Carlos clicks his jaw askew, the way he always does before making a decision. Then feel Carlos run the backs of his knuckles against a face he wishes were familiar.

[mv1simp]

Slow Down♥️

Max Verstappen x Driver!Reader (SocialMedia!AU)

I’m so down if you’re ready, I’ll show you if you let me, girl (she said fuck me like I’m famous, I said okay)

You and Max Verstappen are very well known in the media, for having one of the most volatile rivalries in the sporting world. But Ferrari’s Princess and Redbull’s Mad Max send shockwaves through the paddock when your PR teams confirm you’re officially dating. The public have a hard time believing it…until your sex tape gets leaked on Twitter a month later. Social Media!AU

Content includes: 18+ MDNI, smut, trying my hand at a SM! AU for the first time!!, dom! Max and switch! Reader, size kink, sexism, max being a feminist king

Everyone always said there was a thin line between love and hate. Frankly, you find it to be sexist bullshit, rolling your eyes everytime some interviewer or your friends or trainer would make some sly comment about so what’s going on between you and Max, with a suggestive wiggle of their eyebrows. Nothing, just him trying to run me off the track repeatedly and giving me 4 bruised ribs in Singapore when he clipped me illegally, you say with an annoyed tone. You know that if you were a man, and not the first female driver in decades in F1, you wouldn’t be getting randomly shippedwith all the drivers. And for gods sake, Verstappen off all people was the most laughable idea. The man was either being a violent menace on the track or an autistic twelve year old off it, you think vehemently. You two had stayed well out of each others way in your Haas seat last year, with you leading the mid pack in the suboptimal car but Max remaining well out of reach at the front of the pack. But this year, you’d earned yourself a Ferrari seat and were ecstatic to finally be able to compete for a WDC.

That was, until you and Max Verstappen suddenly started to keep getting caught in each others crosshairs. What started as polite indifference between two coworkers blew up into a PR frenzy, with you and Max completing for the top step in the podium every race weekend. He thought you a reckless driver, getting lucky in a rocket ship this year and trying to sink her claws into something she can’t handle. You thought him over arrogant, a man who couldn’t handle losing to a girl, his fragile ego unable to handle losing a 4th WDC to a Ferrari driver who was only in her second F1 season.

And then, two months out from the end of the season, everything changed between you and Max. On a night out in Monaco with your friends, celebrating being home from triple headers, you’d had the unfortunate experience of being cornered by some drunk, sexist creep who thought he was entitled to touch you. He’d been stronger than you expected, pinning you in a dark alleyway and you just when you starting to freak out, Max of all people practically threw the guy off you. He’d angrily spat at the drunk to pick on someone his own size or he’d break his jaw next time, before leading you to his car with a gentle hand. Normally, you found Max’s far larger frame to be annoying, another way for him to intimidate you when he glared downwards. But that night you couldn’t help but be grateful for the muscular, tall man and his attentive blue eyes as you willingly follow him with wide, doe eyes.

The ride home had been silent, you nervously clutching the large sleeves of the hoodie Max had given you from his backseat. And when you’d thanked him for his help, saying you appreciate him looking out for you even though he hated you, he looked at you with genuine surprise. I don’t hate you, he’d said. Well, I suppose we have had our differences on the track. You snickered at this, muttering that’s one way of putting it. Max chuckled, making you peer at him curiously as you’d never heard him do that in your presence. He was actually very handsome, you noted, without an angry scowl on his face or that Redbull helmet covering him. Then you tell your tipsy brain to shut up because where the hell had that thought suddenly come from?!

But really, I think you’re a pretty amazing girl off the track, Max continued. It must be hard being the only female driver, but you always have something good to say to the dumb interview questions you get. And I’m not going to stand by and let any woman be felt up by some creep. Even if it’s the Princess of Ferrari, he adds with a smirk. You rolled your eyes at this, stepping out of his car as you reach your apartment. And when you offer him his hoodie back, he tells you to keep it. You can use it to stay warm at the next race - it’s Brazil, very rainy. Did I mention I’m called the rainmaster, incidentally? You burst out laughing at his lack of subtlety, and he smiles at having distracted you, making the scared look in your pretty doe eyes from earlier disappear. Fuck off, Verstappen, you giggle, and for once your words have no real bite.

By the time your second F1 season is over, and you’re receiving your trophy for the world championship at the Prizegiving Gala, the first female to do so, you and Max Verstappen have became good friends. Maybe something more, from all the time you’ve started spending together off the track gaming, playing padel, and going out drinking. You were far too afraid to ever say something to him, knowing the media response to the first female driver dating a fellow driver would be absolutely brutal. Besides, you had no idea if Max remotely felt the same way about you - his type seemed to be pretty models, not aggressive drivers who spent half her time plotting his downfall.

You’re surprised when he finds you at the after party, late into the night, where everyone is to plastered to note that the fallen Redbull champion is taking the winning Ferrari Princess to a private level on the yacht. If you think I’m going to apologise for breaking your winning streak, you can try again, you announce dramatically as you grin at him, 5 drinks in and pink lips loosened, letting him know you were jesting. Wouldn’t have it any other way, Princess, Max hums, coming to stand so close to you that your heart rate quickens when you feel warmth radiating from the taller, muscular driver. Besides, I’ll be taking the cup next year, anyways. Enjoy the high while you can, he says in his Dutch accent, all cocky.

You let out an outraged gasp at this, forgetting how close you two already are as you step towards him, accusing hand pressed against his firm chest. But before you can say anything, Max’s gorgeous blue eyes drop down to where your manicured nails are touching his pecs. And then he looks down further, to where your plush tits have pressed up against his abs, your cute red corset minidress pushing your cleavage up temptingly. There’s no mistaking the dark desire that swirls in his intense gaze as he looks back into your wide doe eyes. And then he’s leaning in, finally, you think, and then your brain wakes up and you remember who’s in front of you. We can’t, Max, you say breathlessly, dazed by how attractive he looks when turned on. Why not, the Dutchman demands, cocky as usual. You don’t want this, Princess? His large hand brushed your jaw, tilting your face upwards when you try to look away. Your breath hitched from the contact, and you’re sure he can feel how fast your carotid pulse is beating. It’s-it’s not that I don’t want to, you say with a blush, making a pleased smirk appear on Max’s lips. But I’m the only female driver on the grid, the public would tear me apart if they found out I hooked up with another driver on the grid-

Fuck what anyone else thinks, Max says passionately, the familiar spark of defiance in his eyes. I know the fallout from something like this would be much harder for you as a woman than me, and I waited till after the championship fight finished. No one can contest you didn’t win the cup with your own sheer skill. But now that it’s finished, I can’t hold back anymore. Your jaw drops from Max’s heated confession, never having guessed the handsome blonde would reciprocate your buried romantic feelings. And I don’t mean some one night stand or summer fling, he continued boldly. I want to be your boyfriend, I want you all to myself properly.

You must have had too many G&Ts, you hear yourself say distantly, cause you’re not even a little bit cute and shy like you normally are off the track, Verstappen. He smiles gently, knowing you were using humour to deflect from the swirling emotions within you. Maybe, he murmurs, bending down to rest his forehead against yours. Or maybe you look so fucking gorgeous in this red dress I knew I couldn’t hide how I feel anymore. When he feels your hand graze his chest, pulling him just a bit closer, he knows what you want. Pressing the gentlest of kisses to your glosses lips, he pulls back to make sure you still wanted more.

But he didn’t need to have any doubts, because you’re staring up at him sultrily, desire having darkened your own wide, doe eyes. This time you’re pulling him back onto your lips, your arms wrapping around his broad shoulders so that there’s not even a millimetre of space between you too. He groans into your mouth as the months of tension come to a head, the two of you languidly exploring each others mouth with tongues.

Even if you’d woken up the next morning regretting your decision, there was no way you could turn down Max’s offer of a relationship. Because even if you had still hated him, the sex that night on the yacht has been so incredibly mind blowing, by far the best orgasm you had ever experienced, that you knew you’d never meet anyone who could fuck you so perfectly again. So you hesitantly said yes, let’s try this for real, Max over a late hungover brunch the next morning. The rest had been history - the two of you had spent the last 7 months in a secret relationship, not wanting the chaos of the media to ruin your relationship before it could even start properly. Max has proven time and time again you’d made the right decision saying yes, being the perfect boyfriend, dedicated to all your needs and wants, spoiling you endlessly and making you laugh whenever you had a bad day.

Sometimes things were hard, of course. Like when you two had tensions during a race, your private relationship doing nothing to dampen the competitive spirit you both shared. But you’d both make up after, whether it be with a long debrief and strategy talk on how to avoid an incident next time - or your personal favourite, some angry make up sex. Like you’d suspected, Max was an absolute sex god and you two enjoyed a very healthy sex life, exploring each others kinky preferences. So when you’d have to be away from each other for long periods, busy with planning and meetings at your separate team bases, your boyfriend came up with a solution once the nudes and phone sex didn’t quite hit the same.

Filming yourselves during sex seemed like a certain recipe for disaster, given how famous the two of you are and the consequences of anything got leaked. But the temptation was too great as weeks drag on without the touch of your boyfriend - so you agreed, just this once, to try it out.

Well, that had certainly been the plan. But the video had been so so nice to watch again and again anytime your pussy ached for Max that you can’t resist making more. And then last month when your teams had finally given the okay for an official announcement on your relationship, and the media response had overall been surprisingly positive, you two get too comfortable and Max accidentally sent the video over DM to you, instead of the encrypted chat you normally use.

And that was when shit hit the fan.

No, Max, go away, I don’t want to see you, I don’t want to see anyone ever again! The blonde Dutchman sighs he leans his head against the closed bathroom door with a worried expression on his face. You’ve locked yourself in his Monaco penthouse’s bathroom for the past 4 hours, not coming out despite how much he’s pleaded. Please, schatje, he tries again. I know it’s bad, but we’ll get through it together. Twitter’s already banned any links of the video and both our PR teams are doing damage control and so many of the grid drivers and journalists were calling out the website that had leaked the tape. Please, I just want to see you, you can’t be locked in there forever and reading all the stuff online alone.

When you don’t reply, only sniffling through the door, he sighs again and slides down the door, making himself comfortable. A few minutes later he hears the door unlock and your red, crying face peeking through. Oh, schatje, he croons soothingly as you drop down into his arms and bury your face in his thick neck. He rubs soothing circles along your back as you sniffle that Everyone’s saying such horrible things, Maxie. How am I going to face going on the paddock ever again?

He reassures you firmly that you two would go hand in hand, united on the paddock with your heads held high, because you’ve done nothing wrong. He’d been doing the media game a lot longer than you and knew this scandal, like everything else, would get blown over with time. After your quiet sobs settle with his comforting words and tight hug, you pull back to look at him and apologise for shutting yourself away and not checking in on him. It’s your leaked tape too, you say anxiously. How are you feeling about it, baby?

He eases your concern again, telling you honestly that in the grand scheme of things, although it was a little mortifying he’s had worse in the media. Besides, it’s gonna be satisfying to crush whichever little fucker leaked the vid, he says vehemently. Any anyone who’s saying any bullshit sexist comments about you sleeping your way into F1 or anything is getting hit with a defamation lawsuit from legal, he declares, making your heart swell from his protectiveness. You still aren’t convinced, though. Are you sure, Max? I remember in that particular video, you can’t see much of my body but there’s definitely a lot of shots of your…

Dick? Your boyfriend finishes with a deadpan expression, That’s fine. Besides, I’ve nothing to be embarrassed about. You know the hashtag Verstappen’s third leg is trending on Twitter now? You giggle at his nonchalance, making Max smile at seeing you cheered up. You’ve finally having processed what happened enough to maybe see a bit of humour in it. True, I suppose it could have been worse, you muse. The Las Vegas video could have been the leaked one. Imagine how batshit the fans would have gotten if they saw the handcuffs were for you, not me. Max laughs genuinely, blue eyes looking fondly at your mischievous expression. The familiar Ferrari fire he adored was back in your own pretty doe eyes.

Or worse, the Barcelona one, you tease as you lead him to the kitchen to start making dinner. Scrolling through hundreds of posts and spiralling was calorie consuming work. I think Twitter would have shut down if they found out Max Verstappen likes being called daddy in the bedroom.

Your boyfriend’s face goes adorably pink as he stammers at your unexpected roast. Hey-hey now, schat, that was just one time okay? You’d just accidentally said it and it caught me off guard-

You grin playfully, giving him a kiss on the cheek because he looked too cute to resist. Sure, baby, so off guard you lasted 5 seconds after that. His face goes even pinker, reaching the tips of his ears now as he shyly looks away. For all his fierceness on the track, you loved how sweet the Dutch Lion was off it. Giggling, you put him out of his misery by handing him a knife and tell him to get to work chopping the tomatoes. You knew no matter what came your way, you would be fine with Max by your side.

—————————————————————————

A/N: okkk so what did u guys think at my first attempt at a social media AU ahaha. You know I love to yap I fear I included too many Twitter screenshots, I ALWAYS GET CARRIED AWAY. Anyway this was super fun pulled me right out of my writers block!!! Hope u enjoy xx

[honeygrahambitch]

"In the right pile we will put the suits we keep and in the left pile the suits you are no longer using. Okay?" Will explained. "Hannibal?"

"Remind me, dearest, why are we doing this?"

"Because I don't have place for my own clothes. And that says a lot since you fucking have a dressing room and three wardrobes."

"I don't mind sharing them with you."

"Yes but for once I would like not to search for my clothes between your suits, Hannibal. Last night when I couldn't sleep I decided to count them. Do you know how many suits you own in total?"

"Including all seasons?"

"Including all seasons."

"Seventy-three." Hannibal replied innocently.

"Seventy-three, Hannibal." Will repeated, crossing his arms over his chest. "You don't even wear all of them anymore."

"There are so many reasons I am keeping them. Some of them are pieces of art. Some bring back fond memories."

"Let's make space for new memories." Will said. Even if his sentence was too cheesy for his own taste, he forced a smile. He knew that he had to try his best if he wanted to obtain results.

"Fine."

"Great. Let's start with this. I haven't seen you wearing this in years."

"I'm keeping it. It makes your eyes pop."

"It's your suit."

"And it matches your eyes."

"As I was saying..." Will said patiently and threw it into the left pile. Only seventy-two more left.

"This one."

"I'm keeping it. The fabric is spectacular. Don't you find it unique?"

"Okay. You can keep it. Next. Definitely not keeping this."

"What do you mean? Remember how three months ago I put this suit jacket on you when you were cold? I associate it with you now and I treasure it dearly."

Will groaned and threw it into the right pile. It would probably take ages to get to a conclusion.

**

"This?"

"It makes my waist appear incredibly snatched. Don't say you don't like it."

"This?"

"We can throw it away. Because I have one which is identical. I found it so wonderful that I had to get two."

"You are sick. This is worse than being the Ripper, you know, right?"

"I really like suits. Condemn me for that."

"Whatever. We are done. We threw away six. Six, Hannibal. Six out of Seventy-three."

"And my heart aches for them. What are you doing?" Hannibal asked as he saw Will suddenly searching for something on his phone.

"Ordering myself a wardrobe from Ikea."

[goodlucktai]

till you can breathe on your own

rise of the tmnt word count: 20k i wrote this fic for the turtle trenches server’s november gift exchange ! my giftee was @acewithapaintbrush and ace’s prompts were “found family, leosagi, wholesome disaster twins, and splinter being a good dad to the boys.” instead of being normal and picking one i decided to create an au that included all of those things at once and this is what i came up with. ace i really hope you enjoy it <3 happy turtle day ! title borrowed from keeping your head up by birdy

read on ao3

x

When Leonardo was eight years old, he and his best friend survived a house fire.

The blaze was put out thanks to a passing yokai with a magic spell for rain newly purchased that she was happy to use to help, but two of the children attending lessons there came up unaccounted for. Panicked neighbors searched for upwards of an hour only to find the boys fast asleep in a cart of clean linens parked out front of the bath house. 

There was a faint trace of mystic energy lingering around them but no one came forward as the one it belonged to, and they wouldn’t be able to explain what had happened. One minute they were trapped and frightened, and the next everything was blue and they were safe. 

Ultimately the rescue was credited to a powerful good samaritan who wished to remain anonymous, and the townsfolk collectively decided to be grateful for the miracle without unraveling it any further.

Leonardo’s friend moved away while his house was repaired, and Leonardo was returned to where he belonged at the local orphanage. He smiled when the matron fussed over him, even though he didn’t feel like smiling, and continued to pretend like he didn’t hear the other kids calling him bad luck.  

“You’d think someone would want him,” one of the older kids whispered during lunch. “Last time we had a turtle here they got snatched up in like a week.”

“Miss Toto says that way of thinking is archaic,” a tiny otter yokai piped up with remarkable authority, given that he clearly didn’t know the meaning of the word he was repeating. “Kameko has as much of a chance as the rest of us do.”

“Clearly,” the older kid muttered. 

Leonardo, who wasn’t Leonardo yet—who was called Kameko by the orphanage matron because she wasn’t especially creative, and Lucky by the other kids so they could be mean in a sneaky, underhanded way, and Stripes by his best friend, who mattered more than any of them—spent a lot of time dreaming of having a chance. 

He had no way of knowing that at the same time, miles away and a city above, an early-middle-aged man run ragged day in and out by three energetic children and sloughing through a persistent sadness was dreaming, too. 

The man was dreaming of his own childhood; a garden with a pond and lines of laundry drying in the late summer sun, a delicious smell sneaking out the kitchen window where jiji was grilling fish for dinner, his mother lifting her head to grace him with a smile he once took for granted. 

In the dream, she had to reach up to hold his face, because he was the same age now as she was when she died and several inches taller than her in adulthood. She didn’t mind his fur or snout or big rounded ears, and if anything the involuntary twitch of his whiskers only made her smile deepen. 

“My sweet boy,” she murmured, “I’m so proud of you.”

“How?” he choked out. He clung to her arms. He had a thousand things he wanted to tell her. All that came tripping out was, “How can you be?”

“Because I know how big your heart is,” she said, her tone leaving no room for argument. “You love so richly and earnestly. Even after that was taken advantage of and betrayed, you found more room in your heart for your little ones. Your little turtles.”

The thought of his sons pierced through the gloom of self-hatred like an arrow of light, as simple as flipping a switch in a dark room. He wouldn’t trade a moment with them for anything—not even for another moment with his mother. The overwhelming grief and love coexisted as naturally as two little otters holding hands at sea.

“But don’t you know?” she asked. “Can’t you feel it? Did it get lost in that big heart of yours? One of your children is waiting for you.”

He jerked as if electrocuted, going stiff and still beneath his mother’s hands, because she couldn’t mean to say what it sounded like she was saying. 

That tiny fourth turtle with the blue-patterned shell and bright gold eyes—the first one to smile and reach up to be held, the one that had fallen during their frantic escape and was left behind in the crush of the destroyed lab—the one the little shrine in his room belonged to, even though he didn’t have a proper photo, or a decent idea of what Blue would have looked like grown into personhood—the one that a corner of his heart belonged to, even now, even still—

“He’s alive, my darling,” his mother told him. In the dream, she sounded so certain. The clan symbol on her obi seemed to glow, a warm, shining thing that cast all darkness and doubt aside. “Go and bring my grandbaby home, okay?”

Hamato Yoshi woke up with a gasp, half-blinded by tears. 

——

The boys took the news as well as they possibly could have. It would have felt wrong not to tell them—cruel to keep them in the dark, even if it would shelter them from a hope that might only lead into a dead-end. 

They already knew of their fourth sibling, having long-since discovered the little shrine in Splinter’s room during a pre-Christmas snooping several years ago, but there hadn’t been much that Splinter could offer them when they peppered him for information and eventually those eager questions tapered off. They had only had a few months together in Draxum’s lab before Splinter could stage their escape and bring the facility down behind them—before tragedy had carved a hole into their brand-new family—and that wasn’t long enough to have more than a handful of stories to share. To do the baby’s memory anything resembling justice. 

But since waking up from that dream, Splinter had reached out with his ninpo in the way he hadn’t done since he was very young, like stretching out an atrophied limb, and he felt it. A fourth presence in his heart. It was a very faint echo somewhere far away, like an imprint of smoke left in the sky after a firework. Distant now and fading, but once-bright. Once-blue. 

And he knew. He knew Leonardo was alive.

“Red, you are in charge,” Splinter said, jittery with anticipation. He spared a moment to cup the snapper’s cheek in his palm, brushing his thumb over the rosy-colored diamond pattern there, and added, “Aunt June’s phone number is on the fridge if anything happens—but nothing had better happen! April can visit but you are not allowed to leave our home until I return.”

Red nodded several times, twisting his fingers together. He had inherited Splinter’s anxious heart, but he took being the oldest very seriously, and failure more seriously than that, for all that he was only nine. 

“Are you going to get Leo?” Orange piped up, bouncing in place. He had, in fact, not stopped bouncing since he had gleaned the gist of the conversation that began nearly a full hour ago. “Are you going to bring him home?”

“I am going to try,” Splinter said, kneeling so that he could poke his youngest baby playfully in those ticklish spots on his sides that always elicited a sunny giggle. 

Orange trilled in glee, and then he pulled his limbs and head into his tiny shell the way he often did when he was overexcited or overwhelmed and continued making turtle noises to himself from inside there. 

Splinter caught the talkative box shell before it could clatter to the floor and offered it to Red, who held it to his front the way he hugged his stuffies. 

“Okay my sweet boys,” Splinter said, “stay here and be good and I will see you in a short while.”

Purple trailed him to the front door, or what served as such in their repurposed underground home. After tugging on his coat and boots, Splinter turned to him and crouched down so they were at something approaching eye-level, even if eye contact did not seem to be on the table this morning. 

“You said we hatched at the same time,” Purple surprised the hell out of him by saying. His recalcitrant softshell son very rarely spoke aloud unless asked a direct question, and here he was volunteering whole sentences without preamble. “You said he came out of his egg right after me. He had stripes, and eyes like mine. You called us twins.”

Leonardo was not a forbidden topic in their home, but he was a bit of a sore one. It ached to press on the bruise that was their missing part. Purple in particular had a difficult time making himself understood and being understood in turn. He was also incredibly stubborn, and hard to match wits with. 

A twin must have sounded like a dream. Splinter wondered when Donatello had first shaped this little wish out of clay, and how often he spent taking it out and admiring it, wearing the rough edges into smoothness, giving it substance and character until all that was missing was the life. The color. 

“He was not the same species of turtle as you,” Splinter said. “But you did hatch together, and you did have the same eyes. Blue would fuss at bedtime until I placed him on your shell. You tried to take chunks out of the alchemist’s fingers whenever he parted the two of you.” For tests, he didn’t feel it was necessary to add. He offered his hands, and added, “So that is what I called you. My twin babies.” 

After a moment, Purple took his hands. His mouth was a firm line, golden eyes glued to the floor. There was enough of a wet shine in them that Splinter’s heart strained with the need to right every wrong for him at once. 

“I will find him, Donatello,” Splinter said. “Now that I know he is out there waiting to be found, there is nothing that can stop me. It might take a long time, but we have waited quite a while already, haven’t we?”

Purple nodded, and then stepped forward to bury his snout in the front of Splinter’s coat. It meant that a hug would be not only tolerated but appreciated, and Splinter didn’t hesitate to wrap his arms around his little boy. 

“Go on now,” Splinter said, only when Purple had extracted himself. He turned the child around by the shoulders and propelled him back to where Orange and Red were waiting. “I love you, little monsters,” he called loud enough to be heard by all three of them. “If the lair is still standing when I get home, you will get ice cream.”

Their noisy cheers followed him down the tunnel, warming him more effectively than direct sunlight ever could.  

And now Splinter was back in the Hidden City, although he had sworn to himself he would never return. 

His heart was racing, every nerve a livewire, so prepared he was for danger around each corner. He had hoped that the mad alchemist died in the destruction of the lab—had comforted himself with the fact, even, on those nights he woke up from bad dreams—but with Blue’s miraculous survival, Draxum might very well have lived too. Like a cockroach. 

And so he was hesitant to trace his steps back to the ruins of Draxum’s lab. He was not even sure if he would be able to find it. There was a restless, dislocated thing inside of him that made standing still a painful exercise, he so badly wanted to run and run until he found the little turtle he was looking for—he just didn’t know where to go. Where to start. The Hidden City was larger than he remembered.

“Excuse me,” someone said, startling him. He turned to find a short beetle yokai in a rumpled button down shirt and slacks standing just behind him, mandibles clicking idly. The beetle smiled and said, “I’m sorry, I couldn’t help but notice you seemed lost. Can I help in any way?”

It was Splinter’s first instinct to deny the apparent kindness. Lena—or Big Mama as she was called—had carved out the remains of his idealism as deftly as a gardener pulling up the last stubborn weed in a flower bed. People, he had been taught, were rarely kind for no reason. 

But April’s mother was a force of nature in her own right, and had bullied Splinter into friendship with her within a week of their children meeting. A New Yorker to her core, June O’Neil had only needed a moment to adjust to the sight of a mutant rat and three mutant turtles, at which point any lingering strangeness was overshadowed by the relief of finally having another single parent to commiserate with. She was on-call for every scare, every tantrum that left Splinter feeling out of his depth, every milestone. She refused to allow him to wallow in self-pity while he had three little boys to raise. 

June was the sole reason that there were a few shoots of hope growing in the ruin Lena left of him, stubborn and resilient and flowering. People were rarely kind for no reason, but rarely did not mean never. There was goodness to be found if one took the time to look for it. The risk did not always pay off, but the reward when it did was worthwhile every time. 

And so Splinter took his heart in his hands and faced the stranger and said, “Yes, please. If you’re able. I need help.”

The beetle yokai, a friendly, down-to-earth character named Cricket, listened to the bare bones of Splinter’s story and immediately began to guide him down the street. It was a street that would not have looked out of place in Osaka in the 80s. There were storefronts with neon signs and restaurants with enticing noren doors and the steady foot traffic of thousands of yokai milling about their day. No one paid a tall rat mutant any mind. 

“You’ll want the Chamber of Decisions,” Cricket said with a certainty that settled one small inch of the chaos in Splinter’s heart. “There will be someone there who can help you find your son.”

The beetle yokai took time enough out of his own day to show Splinter all the way through a startlingly mundane municipal building to a floor with a placard on the wall declaring it the Civil Courts. He even waited in line with Splinter, making pleasant conversation, until it was his turn to step forward and address the employee behind the front desk.

“Goodbye,” Cricket said at that point, stepping away. “And good luck!”

He was gone before Splinter could thank him, and the gazelle yokai behind the desk repeated, “Next,” in a tone that suggested she would be deeply unhappy to say it a third time. 

“Yes,” Splinter said quickly, “sorry, that’s me.”

“What is your name?” the yokai asked briskly. She had long spiraling horns and a long, narrow face, deceptively delicate. She wore a badge on a lanyard around her neck that read Helena, Court Clerk, and then a mess of characters beneath it that did not look like English or Japanese. 

“Hamato Yoshi,” Splinter replied by rote. When he spoke, a small crystal hovering unobtrusively above the desk glowed a clear spring green. It seemed to indicate his truthfulness, because the yokai didn’t request any further proof of identity. 

“Hamato?” the yokai, presumably Helena, said with a spark of interest. She read something from the text that populated on the holographic tablet in front of her and then added, “We have a backlog of forms here for you. It has been a long time since someone has claimed tenancy of your clan’s branch house in Neo Edo. I assume that’s why you’re here?”

“Uh,” Splinter said intelligently, “no. What?”

“The Hamato Estate,” Helena said. She seemed less than impressed with him. “The one that has been sitting in disrepair and bringing property values of the neighborhood down for more than a century. That has nothing to do with your visit today?” 

The Chamber of Decisions was very human in structure, and the bureaucracy was completely disarming. Splinter didn’t know what he showed up expecting to find here but he sort of felt as though he was walking through a lucid dream.

“Sorry, no, I—I was unaware my family had any dealings in the Hidden Cities at all. I was raised in Japan. In—a human city in Japan. And now my children and I live in New York.” 

Helena’s expression cleared with understanding, her attitude suddenly more helpful as she seemed to realize Splinter was not being willfully obtuse. She opened a drawer of the filing cabinet beside her desk and rifled through it until she came up with form after form that accumulated in an intimidating heap. 

Splinter bit the inside of his mouth so that he wouldn’t say something unfortunate. He was catching up to himself, the surprise and uncertainty of the situation he had found himself in fading into the background, his single-minded focus sharpening into a point once again. 

Blue had waited long enough to be found. It was deeply unfair to make him wait even a moment more. And unfair to Splinter, too, who just wanted to be given a direction that he could run in until he could scoop his son up and never let him go again. 

“Excuse me,” Splinter said, wrestling with himself until a semblance of good manners won its cage match with snarling impatience, “but I am here because I was told you might help me locate a missing child.” 

The gazelle’s head jerked up, hooved hands stilling. “What missing child?”

For the second time that day, Splinter explained his situation to a stranger. Not the whole thing; not the nature of his or his sons’ mutations, or the desperate life-or-death struggle that preceded their flight from the destroyed lab into the nearby city—this city—and then ultimately New York. But the gist of it. The fire, and the baby who fell from his arms, and the long years he has spent mourning a son he thought had died. That much he imparted as succinctly as he knew how. 

Helena punctuated his story with clipped nods, listening intently. She sifted through the stacked bundles of paperwork and withdrew two or three that she placed on the top of the pile. 

“We will register you and your children as citizens of the Hidden Cities,” she said firmly when Splinter had finished detailing the dream that led him to believe his son was alive. “Your clan has already been established here for centuries, so this will not take long. As a citizen you will have the full weight and reach of this court’s resources behind you. We will locate your son.” 

If there had been a chair behind him, Splinter would have collapsed into it. As it is, he only swayed on his feet for a moment, before mustering a hoarse, “Thank you.”

After the dream of his mother, Splinter had been feeling acutely guilty of the way he had left his family name well behind him, crafting a new identity for a new life in America. Now he was only grateful that Lena and that lunatic Draxum would not think twice about a rat mutant named Hamato Yoshi, or his children.

It felt surreal to write down their names—Raphael, Michelangelo, Donatello, Leonardo. For so long, they had been only his precious joys. The human world was not one he could trust to appreciate them. The O’Neils were a shining exception, one in a million. So his little family was kept a well-guarded secret. 

And now here he was, signing an official document that gave his turtles another place to belong, a place that could not be taken away by a mad alchemist or scheming spider. 

“If you come with me, I can take you to the appropriate department,” Helena said, cordial and efficient as she placed the last of the paperwork in a folder that glowed a friendly green before disappearing into fragments of light that spelled out ‘FILED.’ “It’s lucky you came when you did. We have a witch on retainer, and we would have called her in for this, but she’s already working from the office today.”

“Right,” Splinter said, smoothing down his shirt with nervous fingers. 

He didn’t know what his expression was doing, but it seemed to give the gazelle yokai a sense of urgency. She hustled him down a couple of halls and through more than one doorway that seemed to lead to another building entirely, until he was hopelessly lost somewhere in the depths of the administration.

But the office he finally stepped into was one that wouldn’t have looked place in any of the high rise buildings in FiDi, with an executive desk of solid wood, a neat row of filing cabinets, a less neat wall of overflowing shelves, and sparse, impersonal decor. There were a few oddities—self-watering hanging plants suspended in front of the window, and a glowing crystal levitating above the desk where a computer might have sat otherwise—but nothing that made Splinter’s animal hindbrain balk at the door. 

The young woman sitting behind the desk looked up and smiled, round brown face dimpled and kind. Half of her voluminous braided hair was piled on top of her head in a neat bun, while the rest framed her shoulders in interchanging plaits of black and mint green. Her long, pointed ears were pierced a dozen times each and dripping in tiny precious gemstones. 

“Hello there, Helena and friend,” she greeted. “Can I help you?”

“Nimue, this is Hamato-san. He recently had a prophetic dream that a child he lost in infancy is, in fact, alive,” Helena replied promptly. “We’ll need a spell for finding.”

It sounded actually insane when put so plainly, but she spoke in a way that reminded Splinter of his former account manager, no-nonsense and judicious. The young lady behind the desk took them both seriously and stood, brushing her braids back over her shoulder.

“I’ll start at once,” Nimue said. “It’ll only take a few minutes.” 

“Summon me if you need anything else,” Helena said briskly. “I’ll be finalizing the documentation up front.” 

Both yokai and witch were very perfunctory about the whole thing, as if it was business as usual. It went a long way in disarming that last kernel of doubt that Splinter had harbored every step of the way here.

With the doubt uprooted, there was space at last for painful, smothered hope to burst into full and violent bloom. 

He was shuffled into the adjoining room and into a squashy loveseat. This area seemed much more like a witch’s workshop; there were tricky, delicate glass instruments whirring away under their own power at a carved wooden table in the corner, and stacks of heavy leather volumes on all the shelves and flat surfaces, interspersed with jars of things like feathers and stones and shiny beetle shells. Dried herbs and flowers dangled in neat bundles from a rack on the ceiling, where motes of something too colorful to be dust floated in wandering circles. There was a small furry animal curled up to sleep on the arm rest of the chair opposite Splinter’s, light brown with a darker brown band across its eyes. When it lifted its head at the sound of the door closing, Splinter realized it was a ferret. 

“Please excuse the mess,” Nimue said, “I’m really not here that often so I tend not to prioritize organization. I know it’s a sad excuse.”

“I’m a single father parenting thr—four boys,” Splinter replied, heart skipping a beat at the self-correction. He would be parenting four. “The last thing I am qualified to judge anyone on is tidiness.” 

Nimue laughed. “I’ll take it! Now, I told Helena this would only be a moment, and I meant every word. There are lots of disclaimers and policies I could bog you down with, and probably ought to, but I know they’ll just go in one ear and out the other. You’re here to find your son, and that’s what I’m going to help you do.”

“Yes,” Splinter breathed. “Please.”

“Of course! A spell for finding is one of my favorites, not in the least because it’s super simple.” 

Nimue sat across from him, lifted the ferret off the arm of her chair and into her lap, and then held out both her hands. Splinter took them without second-guessing it. 

“Magic draws so much from nature,” the witch went on. As she spoke, various pieces of glass or crystal in the room began to glow, as if her voice contained a brilliance that could be caught and reflected back. “In our spells, we use plants, stones, animal shed—things given by the earth—and sometimes energy generated by a storm or the sea. A friend that I graduated university with channels power from lightning. Very flashy, but very hard to pin down.”

A pool of light formed between them, beneath their joined hands. It was flat and still, like the surface of calm water. Four little jewels in bright candy colors shone through—red, orange and purple clustered together, and blue clear on the other end. Splinter’s heart ached; he knew them. He knew them. 

“At its core, it’s orderly,” Nimue said, her voice calm and smiling. “The most powerful rituals I know of are tied to star charts or phases of the moon, because even celestial bodies follow a pattern. Magic wants to make right. It wants to return things. And so a spell like this costs absolutely nothing. A lost child belongs with their family; that’s as fundamental a thing as gravity.”

She let go of Splinter’s hands and turned her own to catch the pool of light in the cup of her palms. She closed her hands together, as if compressing something as tight as possible between them, and then with a sudden jerking motion, flung them up and open. 

The light spread between them in a translucent, shimmering curtain. It looked like a chart, or a map, though not one Splinter had any hope of reading.  

Nimue hummed in what could either be surprise or delight, her smile showing teeth. 

“Oh, look at how clear and bright they are,” she cooed, “shining like stars. You must be so proud. And here’s little boy blue,” she added, pointing out the lonely light living by itself, isolated from the others. “He’s in Sawara Town, not too far from here.” 

Splinter’s heart was a frantic drum inside his chest. He wasn’t sure if he’d taken a single full, deep breath since he woke up from that dream that brought him to this moment in the first place. He twitched with the urge to scoop those colorful, twinkling little lights out of the rest and hold them close, hold them safe. 

“So what now?” he managed to choke out. “Are you going to teleport me there or something?”

Nimue laughed again, scritching the ferret’s ruff with the tips of her fingers. 

“Teleport? I’m good but I’m not that good! I’ll call you a cab.”

Not even two full hours later, Splinter was walking up the main street of Sawara. It was a bustling rural town with a mighty canal for a heart, filled with wooden fishing boats and framed by thin wisps of willow trees. Machiya-style houses rambled along in tight rows on either side of the waterway, most of them with front doors and shutters slid open to display shop spaces. 

Splinter stopped at a dry goods store to ask for directions to the orphanage, and the storeowner pointed him toward the sprawling estate at the edge of town, tucked into the natural bend of the river. 

He was floating in that dream feeling again. Everything was two inches left of reality. He was half-prepared to discover that this day felt impossible because it was impossible and he should have known better than to believe it could be this easy. He was half-prepared for someone to yank the curtain back and reveal the wizard was just some guy running a long con the whole time. Splinter had always, always been the punchline of a bad joke. 

But he promised the boys he would find their brother. He thought of Purple’s eyes, wide with hope, and his quiet voice saying, “You called us twins.” He thought of that sweet baby he had only briefly been anything like a father to, the first of the four to smile at him, the first one to want to be held by him. 

Resolve filled every chamber of his heart until it overflowed from there and filled the rest of him for good measure. That floating, dreaming feeling scattered into painful cognizance. 

He was Lou Jitsu. He was Hamato Atsuko’s only son. If life had taught him anything, it was how to take a punch. He would follow this road to wherever it led, and if Blue was not at the end of it, then he would find another road to follow. He would walk forever if he had to. He would let his heart get broken a hundred thousand times. 

Splinter let himself through the gate and strode up the meandering path toward the front of the house. He wondered if he ought to announce himself, and then discovered a doorbell half-hidden beneath the leaves of a drooping hanging plant. He rang it, and squared his shoulders, and waited. 

After about a minute, the door slid open to reveal a harried-looking pangolin yokai with a squirming raccoon child in her arms. It was a scene immediately familiar to Splinter as a pre-naptime battle of wills. 

“Oh, hello,” the pangolin said, offering a smile as she managed not to drop the uncooperative toddler with a deftness that spoke of years of experience. “My name is Tomomi, I’m the matron here. How can I help you?”

“Hello,” Splinter replied, returning her bow automatically. He realized suddenly that he probably should have been practicing what he would say in this moment, because he was coming up blank. “Ah, my name is Hamato Yoshi, and I’m—I’m, uh—I’m here for my kid.” 

Nailed it. 

“You may need to be slightly more specific than that,” the matron said, bemused. 

“Right,” Splinter said. Specifics. He could do specifics. “I had a dream. And then there was a whole thing with a witch and a finding spell. Uh, I have documentation? That the court clerk sent with me?” 

Tomomi maneuvered the child into one arm and reached for the papers Splinter offered with her freed hand, all of them stamped with Helena’s imposing seal. As she read, her eyebrows made a shocked jump toward her scaly hairline. 

Splinter’s heart fluttered madly. His chest felt like a cage full of restless birds. 

“My son was lost to me when he was a baby, and I believed that he was dead. Something happened recently that—that revealed him to me. It showed me that he was still alive. If he’s here, I—I want him. I have always wanted him. He has three brothers who have been missing him, too. He has never,” Splinter faltered, and had to swallow twice before he could go on, “he has never been unwanted, not even for a single day.”

“Oh, my spirits,” Tomomi murmured, crouching to let the little raccoon yokai slide free and then dart victoriously away. She straightened again, a hand pressed flat to her chest as she passed the papers back, perfectly stunned. “If he’s here, and he’s yours, I’ll help you however I can. What can you tell me about him?”

Splinter said, “He’s—he’s a little turtle. Eight years old. His shell is—just, one moment.” 

With shaking hands, he crammed the documents into his jacket pocket and withdrew his phone instead. His pictures weren’t sorted into albums, because 99.99% of them were all pictures of his children or April, rendering any attempt to sort them entirely redundant. That did mean he had to swipe for a moment before he found a decent photo of Orange’s carapace, and the warm yellow pattern of his scutes. 

“His shell pattern would be very similar to his brother’s, you see? And his eyes were this color,” Splinter went on, swiping to a picture of Purple glaring resolutely away from the camera, golden eyes distinctive even when narrowed and averted behind thick prescription glasses. “He was—he was very sweet. Very talkative. He wanted to be held all hours of the day. He—”

“He’s here, Hamato-san,” Tomomi blurted, eyes huge. 

“He’s… oh.” Splinter stared back at her, phone still extended dumbly in his hand. He felt frozen in place. A gust of wind would probably have been enough to knock him clear over. “He’s here?”

The matron seemed to be in disbelief herself, staring at Splinter as though he was a figment of her imagination and if she moved too suddenly he might disappear. 

“I can’t believe it. After all this time.” Then she shook her head, and wrapped professionalism back around her shoulders like a trusty cloak. She said, “Please come with me to my office, I’ll have Kameko brought to us there.” 

Kameko. Turtle child. Splinter didn’t know how he felt about that name, but kept it to himself. He was minutes—minutes— away now. If he absolutely had to go crashing through every single wall in this building one by one to find his child, that was entirely within his power. He would save that as the nuclear option, but not remove it from the table entirely. 

“He really is the sweetest thing,” Tomomi said. “No trouble at all, helpful as can be. Incredibly smart for his age—he’s leagues ahead of his classmates.” 

Like his brothers, Splinter thought, with a sort of dazed, wondering pride. All of them were happy little boys with distinct, dynamic personalities, but June—who had been a parent for one whole year longer than Splinter and had the added experience of helping to keep a dozen nieces and nephews alive, and was therefore the expert between the two of them—had often expressed surprise at how quickly the turtles tore through their learning material. 

Donatello was an unstoppable force that had yet to encounter an immovable object, but Raphael and Michelangelo were both well ahead of the curve, too. Splinter wondered, sometimes, if that had been part of Draxum’s design for them. 

“The younger kids adore him, though the older ones ostracize him a bit,” Tomomi was saying. “He’s had a number of failed placements, I’m afraid. Just bad luck.” She winced, as though the word left a bad taste on her tongue, and hurried to add, “It’s been hard on him since his friend moved away. He really deserves this. You’ll see.”

She was clearly trying to upsell the kid, as if to preemptively change Splinter’s mind about giving him up. As if there was any force in the universe that could even dream of being strong enough to compel him to do that. 

The orphanage as they walked through it was noisy. Kids in clothes that were second-hand but clean and well-fitting chased each other down hallways and in and out of rooms at speed. The building itself showed the inevitable wear and tear that came of hordes of children putting their marks on the place, but it was not dirty, or drafty, or in any sort of disrepair. No one looked hurt or underfed. There was a comfortable amount of clutter, plush toys and books and electronics scattered about the den they passed by. In all corners of the house there was shrieking and laughter and the thunder of little running feet. 

Yoshi was feeling a hundred thousand things right now, all of them in immediate conflict with each other and jostling for first place, but relief was chief among them. He had, in a shadowy corner in the back of his mind, feared the worst upon hearing his child was living in an orphanage. At a glance, the bulk of those fears were dispelled. It was good to know that he probably would not have to raze this place to the ground for their poor treatment of Blue. He could not imagine that would endear him to Helena. 

Tomomi leaned into an open doorway and called out, “Ren, please find Kameko and have him meet me in my office, okay? It’s important that he comes quickly.”

“Okay, Miss Toto!” someone called back, and then a tiny otter yokai went zipping away.

“I don’t know all of his hiding spots, I’m afraid,” the matron murmured, opening another door further down the hall and inviting him inside. “I don’t want to take you on a wild goose chase and waste a second more of your time. You’ve waited long enough already.”

“Thank you,” Splinter said. He sank into the seat she offered him and twisted his fingers, a nervous tic that his eldest son had inherited from him directly. “You said—he’s ostracized by the older kids? Why?”

Tomomi moved around the office, preparing cups of tea with hot water from an electric kettle. She said, “Yokai are very superstitious, as you well know.” Splinter did not know, actually, but nodded to maintain the ruse that he had been a rat yokai his entire life. “Turtles are viewed as—well, lucky. But since every single one of Kameko’s placements failed for some reason or another, some of the children decided he must be an omen for bad luck instead of good. It’s silliness, Hamato-san. But as much as he claimed it never bothered him, I’m sure it must have.”

Splinter had to take a moment to absorb that. Blue was a miracle. The fact that he was alive at all—the Hamato clan in its entirety must have spent every scrap of its allotted good fortune for the next billion year

Bad luck, he thought with a bewildered scoff. Where?

He held the teacup between his hands but forgot what to do with it. He was doing his best to listen to Tomomi but all of his attention craned toward the door instead. Riveted to each pair of footsteps that thundered past, each bright, energetic voice, each unfamiliar spark of qi… 

Splinter stopped breathing a second before a knock sounded on the doorframe. 

“Miss Toto,” a young voice called. “Renren said you wanted to see me?”

Tomomi glanced at Splinter sidelong and then called back, “Come on in, sweetie. There’s someone here who wants to meet you.”

He was unaware of moving, but somehow Splinter turned in time to watch the door rattle open, and there he was. 

In a neat coral pink and cream-colored jinbei, knees dirty from playing outside. Not quite grown into his stripes yet, still huge bright red crescents that took up most of his face. Eyes the same color as Donatello’s, the same shape as Splinter’s. Alive. Healthy. Small for his age. The brightest thing in this little riverside town. 

Leonardo. Blue. 

A painfully dislocated piece of Splinter’s long-broken heart clicked neatly back into place.  

The boy blinked and then smiled widely. He was all at once perfectly charming, happy to be standing there. Tomomi smiled back at him like a knee-jerk reaction and ushered him inside. 

“Hi!” Blue said brightly. “Nice to meet you!” 

Splinter could only sit there and take him in. His smile. The sound of his voice. He was so alive. 

“Kameko, this is Hamato Yoshi-san,” Tomomi said, steering the turtle closer to Splinter’s seat. “He’s come all the way from the human world to find you.” 

Blue’s smile faltered for a split-second, giving away his confusion. He had probably been fed a lot of lines from people looking to adopt a lucky turtle into their family over the last eight years, but this one was brand new. 

It was hard to explain to his little face that he had been—left behind. That Splinter had spent the entirety of his life mourning him. That looking at him was like looking at a ghost. Splinter did the best he could, grateful that Tomomi stepped in to pick things up wherever he faltered. With her help, he didn’t make an entire mess of the conversation.

“I have brothers?” was the first question Blue asked when they had finished. “I really do?”

“Yes, you—here, you can look,” Splinter said clumsily, offering his phone again. Offering anything. 

The turtle looked up into his face, and then over at Tomomi, and only took it after their combined reassurances. He was hesitant with the device even then, as though half-expecting Splinter to change his mind and berate him for handling it at all. 

But when the camera roll came up, Blue’s breath hitched, and all his uncertainty blew clean away. He blew up one of the photos and swiped through them that way, full-screen snapshots of a life he had missed out on. He stared intently at each picture as though doing his best to memorize each one in as much time as he was allowed to look. 

“What,” he started to ask, and then darted a quick glance up at Splinter again. Splinter nodded, heart in his throat, and Blue dared to continue, “What are they like?”

Carefully, Splinter shifted closer, until he and his son were side by side. Reaching around him, Splinter said, “Raphael is your biggest brother, and a year older than you. He may appear spiky and imposing, but he is actually very sensitive, and fond of stuffed animals and Barbie movies. I call him Red because of his rosy diamond patterns.” 

Blue mouthed ‘Raphael,’ drinking him in. 

The next few pictures were a blurred mess, Splinter’s attempt at taking photos while managing chaos as his boys helped in the kitchen the morning of April’s tenth birthday. Finally he landed on a clear one of Orange, covered in a dusting of flour, a comically large mixing bowl of funfetti cake batter in his arms that he had insisted he could handle without help. 

“This is Michelangelo. He is the youngest, only seven now. He is silly and spirited and will probably take over the world one day. We’ll all be better off with him in charge, I think. He would work all day long to win a single smile from someone he loves. Can you guess what his nickname is?”

Blue traced his little brother’s sunny spots with his eyes, overwhelmed. Still he guessed correctly, a soft-spoken, “Orange.” 

“Yes,” Splinter said. “Our crazy Mikan.” 

“Then this is—” Blue said, swiping on his own to a picture of the only remaining sibling. “Purple?” 

“Mm. Donatello. He is about a minute older than you, if that. He is smarter than any one hundred people put together, and creates spectacular things out of scraps and discards. But he struggles to make himself understood, so often opts out of talking at all. It does not mean he does not have anything to say.” 

This final photo rattled Blue completely, because there was an obvious likeness there. Donatello’s striking eyes were a mirror image of Leonardo’s own. There was no argument to be had about it—they were related. 

Remembering Purple’s burdened little hope, Splinter can’t help but add, “I once made the comment to him that the two of you could be twins, because you hatched together, and you were inseparable for every moment after. Donatello has latched onto the idea. And because of who he is as a person, I’m pretty sure he will die on that hill.”

Tomomi looked politely confused by the slang, but Blue huffed out an involuntary laugh, which was Splinter’s goal in the first place. 

“What’s, um,” Blue asked, “my name? Those ones—they all match. They’re artists. We talked about them in class once. Did I—did I match, too?”

“You did,” Splinter replied at once, trying to sound completely normal about the question. “I named you Leonardo. You were fearless, you wanted to see everything, you wanted to be everyone’s friend. Nothing could slow you down.” He reached out, telegraphing every inch of the move as he made it, and cradled that precious striped face in one careful hand. “My little lion. My Baby Blue.”

Leonardo didn’t cry, though it looked like he would like to. He reached up and seized Splinter’s wrist in both hands instead, clinging with the disproportionate strength Splinter was used to from raising his brothers. The four turtles were meant to be weapons, genetically altered to that end, but Splinter had taken one look at the freshly mutated babies and instantly resolved that he would secure a normal life for them if it was the last thing he ever did.  

He felt every inch of that resolve rekindled in this moment. He would do anything. He would topple a hundred laboratories, fight a thousand warrior alchemists, survive a million rounds in the Battle Nexus. If that was what it took to keep his Blue, to bring him home. He would do all of that in a heartbeat. 

“Well,” Tomomi said, unselfconscious about the tears she was blotting away, “let’s just get a few things signed away, and Kame—ah, Leonardo can start the first day of his new life! Sweetie, how about you go and get your things packed? You can say goodbye to your friends, too.” 

Blue pressed his cheek more firmly into Splinter’s palm, not wanting to go. Not wanting to test the limits of this strange, perfect dream. Splinter understood completely, and would prefer that his second-youngest child never left his sight again. 

But he didn’t want Blue to be afraid. He didn’t want to teach him fear.

So Splinter packed away his own anxieties and said, “Why don’t you hold onto my phone for me? It seems I will have my hands full with paperwork. It would be a lot of help.”

“Okay,” the little turtle said, reluctantly drawing away. He kept the phone in a tight grip. “I’m a good helper. And a quick packer! I’ll be right back!” 

“Don’t forget to say goodbye!” Tomomi called after him, but she was only talking to an empty doorway, the door itself left open and Leonardo’s running footsteps already halfway down the hall. “I wish I could bottle up some of that energy and keep it for a rainy day,” she said lightheartedly, getting up to close the door herself.

“I know what you mean,” Splinter said, fully sincere.  

“We really don’t have a lot for you to sign here, since the Chamber has already processed the lion’s share of the paperwork, and he’s rightfully yours to begin with,” Tomomi explained. “I just need you to hear a few things.” 

Splinter nodded, giving her his complete, undivided attention for the first time since he arrived. She didn’t seem to know what to do with it, flustered as she shuffled through a drawer of file folders.

“Ka—Leonardo,” Tomomi corrected herself again ruefully, “has had a rather hard time. I’ll give you a copy of his file, since he’ll pop back in here at any moment, and I hate to discuss it in front of him, but it’s important for you to fully understand. He’s been handed a lot of disappointments in his life. Please be patient. It might take him a long time to really trust you.”

“Then it’s a good thing we have the rest of our lives,” Splinter said firmly. “Blue could be a crazy man-eating alien for all I care—but if he’s going to terrorize humans, he can do it at home.”

The pangolin yokai laughed. “I’ll quote you on that. I also wanted you to be aware that we had a bit of a scare recently. He used to go into town to practice kendo every evening. A few nights ago, some of the other students decided to run around and cause trouble by the hearth,” her curt tone made it clear what she thought about that, “and started a fire that consumed the house. Leonardo was one of two children trapped inside.” 

“A fire?” Splinter parroted, halfway out of his seat in a second. He thought of the densely populated town down the way, the rows of houses he had passed that were all made of wood and straw and rice paper. Houses that would go up like tinder with a single misplaced spark. 

His baby, in a burning house. 

“He was rescued, and only sustained some minor burns and smoke sickness,” Tomomi was quick to reassure. “We had the boys both seen by a healer first thing. I’m letting you know because I would want to know, and Leonardo is unlikely to mention it at all.”

For a moment, Splinter could only imagine the horrifying what-if scenario; what if Leonardo hadn’t been rescued? What if Splinter’s dream had come a day too late? What if they had discovered Leonardo had been alive and that they had already lost him a second time? What if they had never discovered him at all, and he had died as a child that everyone believed nobody wanted?

Yoshi, he could almost hear his mother scolding him, clear as day, what good does it do you to think about that? It did not happen. Life is happening now. You will miss it if you don’t pay attention. 

“Yes,” he said belatedly, bobbing his head. “Right. Anything at all you feel is important, please tell me.”

They only had ten or so minutes to talk before Blue came back at top speed. Along the way he had collected that little otter yokai, as well as a fluffy owl in a pink yukata and a lizard whose green scales shimmered into a dull yellow as Splinter watched. 

“Koko’s leaving again?” the lizard demanded. “Is Ren gonna get that whole room to himself now? That’s not fair.”

“Shut up,” the owl said to her sharply, then turned to ask, “Is he really leaving, Miss Toto?”

“I’m afraid so, Susumu,” the matron said. “Have you all said your goodbyes, darlings?”

The question caused the otter child to burst into tears instantly. Leonardo was quick to drop his bag, shove Splinter’s phone into the pocket of his shorts, and scoop his little foster sibling’s face up in his hands. 

“Renren, don’t cry! How am I supposed to be brave if the bravest person I know is crying, huh?”

“I’m not crying,” the otter sobbed miserably, “I’m just, just so happy for you!”

“Great, I won’t even have to miss you, because Ren’s gonna keep repeating every single stupid thing he’s ever heard you say,” the owl complained, but she put her winged arms around them both and squeezed. “Bye, Koko. I hope these are your people for real this time.”

“Thanks, Suzy,” Blue replied, bonking their heads together lightly. “Take care of yourself or I’ll haunt your dreams!”

“Haunt your dreams,” Ren parroted thickly. 

“And if you see Snowy—” Blue added in a quieter voice. 

“I’ll tell him everything, don’t worry,” Susumu said, and hefted Ren away with her when she stepped back into the hall. 

That left the lizard girl, who looked as though she wanted to shrivel into a tiny bug and disappear through the floorboards with the attention of everyone else focused on her. Shoulders hunched, she whacked Leonardo in the shins with her long tail. 

“I think you should start biting people,” she announced.

“Niji,” Tomomi said warningly. 

The lizard lifted her chin, scales shifting from yellow to defiant red. “I mean it. If this new dad is mean just bite the hell out of him. Then he’ll send you back here and no one else will want you and we can age out of the system together and go start a gang.”

“Niji!” 

“Deal,” Blue said, and they shook on it. It was precious. 

Later, when all goodbyes had been made and Blue had been cried on by the pangolin matron and it was finally just the two of them making the journey back into town, Blue looked up at Splinter and said, “I won’t really bite you, Hamato-san. I just wanted to make Niji feel better. She tries to sound mean but she worries a lot.” 

“You have my full permission to take a bite out of any grown-up who tries to hurt you in any way,” Splinter said, smiling at him. He was carrying his child’s bag over his shoulder with one hand, the other clutched tight in both of Blue’s. “And you can call me whatever makes you comfortable, but Hamato-san is a little stuffy, don’t you think? If you don’t want to try ‘dad,’ how about Splinter?”

“Splinter?” Leonardo bounced on his feet. “Is that a code-name? Do you have a secret identity?”

The walk was long, but it went by quickly, peppered by question after question once Blue seemed to realize Splinter did not mind answering them. 

Where do you live? Have you always lived there? What’s California like? What’s New York City like? Do you know lots of humans? Are they nice? Who’s April? Will my brothers like me? 

Splinter answered, and explained, and reassured. Mostly, he listened to Blue’s animated voice that did its best to fill any empty space it found. Blue was not the jaded, angry child that Splinter himself once was, even if he had just as much—if not more—reason to be. But he was not a naïve boy, either. Hope had been all but trained out of him by now, the way it had clearly been trained out of Niji back at the orphanage. It was still there, clinging on with the tips of its fingers, but only just. 

And when Splinter tilted his head back and laughed at the clever joke Blue came up with on the spot, he saw that fragile little hope peeking out at him in the form of a crooked smile, shy and earnest and daring. 

Afternoon had given way to evening by the time they arrived at the edge of town where the cab was waiting. The driver, a skeleton yokai, was a local, and seemed happy to idle there and let the meter run since it was on the City’s dime. 

He glanced up from his sudoku book when Splinter and Blue approached and belted out, “Well, look who it is! Hey, kiddo!” 

“Hi Benny!” Blue shouted back. “¿Cómo estás?”

“Estoy bien, niño. And you’re doing just fine, too, huh? Guess I won’t be giving you many rides anymore. Hopefully this one sticks.”

Despite his flippant tone, the last remark was clearly aimed at Splinter. Splinter, for his part, held his son’s hand a little tighter and tried not to let the implications sting. Blue was so used to being shuttled back and forth that he was on first-name basis with the guy doing the shuttling. Blue had a reputation in this town as being an unwanted, oft-returned orphan. 

Splinter was simultaneously offended by anyone who would deem his precious child an unworthy addition, and endlessly grateful he had not been snatched up before his family had a chance to claim him. 

“This one,” Splinter said, flinty, “will stick.”

The driver muttered something in Spanish that made Blue muffle giggles behind his hand, and Splinter magnanimously decided to ignore that. The two grown-ups affected a playful antagonism for the duration of the hour and a half car ride, bantering back and forth, because anything that made Blue forget himself enough to lean forward against his seatbelt and fill the cab with chatter was worth doing. 

Benny did not let them go after dropping them off until Splinter agreed to bring the children to visit Benny’s cousin’s restaurant in Neo Edo sometime soon. Only then did he lower a bony hand out the driver’s side window so that Blue could bounce forward and bump their fists together.

“Nos vemos, chiquito,” the skeleton cabbie said fondly. “Have a good life, got it? We’ll have problems if you don’t.” 

He pointed warningly at Splinter, letting him know exactly who the problems would be had with.  

“See you, Benny!” Leonardo said. His eyes were wet, but he did not let his bright smile slip an inch. Splinter had worked with professional actors less talented than this nine year old boy. “I’ll be good, promise!”

“You are already good,” Splinter couldn’t help but interject, brushing a hand over the crown of the little turtle’s head. “That’s quite enough of that. Let’s be happy instead.” 

——

Raphael’s initial impression of his newest little brother was that he was very brave. 

He was tiny, not much bigger than Mikey, with bright yellow stripes on his arms and legs, and two big red ones on his face that curved over his cheeks and eyes. Pops carried him into the lair when he first brought Leonardo home, because the tunnels that wound to and around their house were dark and maze-like. Sometimes Raphie got lost in them if he strayed too far and he’d lived there forever. 

Raph remembered thinking how small Leo was, in a huge, confusing place, surrounded by people he had never met before. It would have been overwhelming for anybody, but he didn’t cry at all. He smiled instead, big and silly, like there was nothing in his whole life he needed to be scared of, actually. 

As Raph got to know him, he realized that Leo very rarely wasn’t smiling. 

He was even smiling a little bit as he poked his head through Raphie’s doorway in the middle of the night.  

“Hi,” Leo whispered, even though he could tell Raph was awake. 

He was doing that thing he always did, greeting first and then hanging back to make sure he was welcome. He never just walked into a room or jumped into a conversation. Raph probably wouldn’t have noticed Leo did that if he hadn’t heard Aunt Junie and Pops talking about it a few days ago. 

Raph wiped his eyes on his blanket quickly and tried to sound like he hadn’t been crying. 

“Hi, Leo. C’mere.”

The smaller turtle crossed the room at a run, climbing up into the bed and under the offered comforter. Raph pulled it up over both their heads when he was settled. The dark, warm space beneath the blanket felt the way Raph imagined the inside of his shell would feel if he could hide there. He squeezed Lamby until she glowed from the star on her belly and laid her between them so they had just enough light to see each other by. 

It was a familiar ritual for Raph. It was what he always did for Mikey and Donnie when they sought him out after bedtime. 

“Are you okay?” Leo asked in his quietest voice. 

“I’m okay,” Raph assured him quickly, feeling stupid about the tacky feeling on his cheeks and his puffy eyes. “Don’t worry about Raph.” When Leo’s brow wrinkled, not comprehending why he shouldn’t worry if he felt like it, Raph quickly said, “What about you, buddy? Why are you up?”

He had definitely been asleep when Raph had peeked in on him and Donnie earlier, but that didn’t mean a whole lot. Leo only seemed to sleep for a couple hours at a time. He always dragged his feet at bedtime, as though a good night’s rest was a concept that applied to other turtles, but not to him. If he didn’t share a room with his twin, it would probably be impossible to convince him to go to bed at all. Raph wasn’t looking forward to the contest of wills they’d probably have every single evening once Leo’s bedroom was finished.  

‘Miss Toto says I’m a night owl,’ Leo had announced at breakfast during his first week at home when Pops asked him how he slept. ‘I don’t know what kind of turtle that is.’ 

Mikey giggled, and Donnie said, ‘It’s not a kind of turtle, it’s an idiom.’

Overly-offended, Leo squawked, ‘You can’t just call people idioms!’

The conversation got so silly from there that Pops forgot about asking in the first place. Leo was really good at making people forget they asked questions. But that just made Raph hold onto his questions really tight until he got an answer. Even if it didn’t really matter—he didn’t want Leo thinking he could get away with sneaking around it when it did matter. 

His little brother’s eyes were big and dark in the blanket cave. Sure enough, he didn’t try to weasel out of answering. 

“Sometimes I lived in places where I couldn’t sleep,” he said. “I got used to it.” 

“Why couldn’t you?” Raph asked, frowning. 

“In one house it was really noisy,” Leo said easily enough. “The badger family that lived there was crepuscular. That meant they mostly were awake before the sun came out. Just a little bit of noise is enough to wake me up, so I started being crepuscular , too. Only kendo practice and all of my school classes were in the daytime, so it didn’t work out.” 

To Raph, that sounded a lot like Leo wasn’t able to sleep at night and didn’t have time to sleep during the day. He can feel anger stirring deep in his heart, because it wasn’t fair. That badger family got to have Raph’s brother when he should have been here, and they didn’t even take care of him. How hard could it have been to give one little turtle a quiet place to rest? Pops found a quiet place for four of them in New York City.  

He reached around Leo to lay a hand flat on his carapace. The scutes there were hard and smooth, unlike Donnie’s spiny, leathery shell and Raph’s rough spiky one. It was slightly flatter than Mikey’s domed shape, but otherwise entirely familiar. And it was second-nature to rub in slow up-and-down motions, because that’s just what you did with little turtle shells when the little turtles inside couldn’t sleep. 

Leo blinked a couple times, all fast and surprised, as if he’d never had a shell-rub before in his life. Raph hoped that wasn’t true. 

“Why are you up?” Leo asked, never one to be waylaid for long. 

Fair was fair. Raph felt embarrassed about it, but since Leo had answered his question, he said truthfully, “I had a bad dream.”

He was maybe a little bit prepared for Leo to laugh or make fun or—something. But Leo said, “Sorry, Raphie. Bad dreams are the worst. Do you want to talk about it, or talk about something else?”

It sounded very practiced, like he had either said it a lot or heard it a lot before tonight. But it still loosened a tight little fist deep in Raph’s chest somewhere that was clutching really hard to worry. 

Carefully, each word picking its tentative way out, Raphie described the dream he’d had the best he could. It had already faded from memory for the most part. The definite edges were gone and all that was left was the nightmare soup—the dark room and his pounding heart and the loneliness that was big enough to eat him whole if it wanted to. 

“I dreamed I didn’t have anybody,” he mumbled out. “I was all alone. It felt like I’d be alone forever.”

“I had one like that before,” Leo said quietly. “I ran all the way to Snowy’s house to make sure he was there. He let me in through his window and we had a sleepover. Why didn’t you have a sleepover with Donnie or Mikey? You wouldn’t even get in trouble for leaving the house like I did since they’re just right down the hall.” 

“I’m the biggest,” Raph said, the truth of his life that had always been and always would be. “I’m responsible for you bozos. I look after you three, not the other way around.” 

He made sure Leo knew it wasn’t a bad thing, poking him playfully on the end of his beak until he scrunched it up. It wasn’t a bad thing. It was the best thing about being Raph. 

“All by yourself?” Leo asked. “Everybody needs help. Even Jupiter Jim has a sidekick.”

Ever since his siblings had shown him those movies, Leo was a big fan. And it was hard to argue his logic, because Red Fox was a character they all loved beyond reason, and Raph would never dream of saying Jupiter Jim didn’t need her. 

But it was different. 

Raph knew that he could be bossy. He didn’t mean to be. Sometimes it took Donnie crossing his arms and baring his teeth to make Raph realize he’d been nagging. Sometimes he didn’t know until Mikey started shouting that Raph had been talking over him. He really didn’t mean to. 

He just hated not knowing what was going to happen. Every accident and surprise—Donnie wandering out of his room for bandaids when his latest build managed to cut past his gloves, Mikey’s experimental stir fry setting off the smoke alarms, Pops juggling too many things at once and dropping something that shattered on the floor—made Raph feel sick. It made him feel unsafe. 

“I just want to be careful,” Raph managed to force out. “That’s all. I don’t want anything bad to happen. I don’t want it to be my fault. I don’t want to mess up and let you guys down. I don’t wanna be—”

Alone. 

Leo nodded solemnly, his cheek pressed against the pillow. Eyes all big and serious and older than the face they peered out of. 

“You’re the best big brother I’ve ever met,” he said, sounding so certain that Raph was a second too slow to doubt him. “You care so much. You care enough for a hundred turtles. I didn’t know anybody could have a heart that big.”

Raph blinked, feeling fresh tears sting his eyes and slide down his face. Donnie would have frozen in distress, like the whole world stopped spinning when one of his siblings was hurting and Donnie stopped spinning right along with it. Mikey would have jumped in for a sticky octopus-style hug, because there was nothing broken that he couldn’t fix by wrapping his arms around it and holding on tight. 

Leo didn’t freeze and he didn’t jump in. He landed somewhere in the middle of those extremes, shuffling closer and putting his problem-solving face on. He tugged on a corner of the sheets beneath them until enough of the blanket came up that he could use it to wipe Raph’s face free of tears. He did everything so earnestly, as if each tiny moment meant the world to him.  

“But guess what?” he went on. “Everybody cares about you that much, too. I can’t even think of something you could do that would make us not want to see you every single day. If you were ever alone it’d only be ‘cause you got lost, and then we’d just burn the whole city down to find you again. We’d never leave you behind.” 

Leo smiled, not the big shining one. This one was different, lopsided and sweet. Raph had only seen this smile of Leo’s a handful of times and it was already so important to him. 

“You know that in your heart, I think,” Leo said. “You just get stuck in your head, that’s all.”

“Yeah,” Raph whispered, feeling wobbly and see-through. 

“It’s okay, Raphie. I can remind you. Just give half of what you’re worried about to me and we’ll share it. I’m on your team! I’m your sidekick! Nothing’s as scary when you have backup. As long as I’m here you don’t have to be scared of anything.” 

Raph’s words got stuck in his throat. He had no idea what he might have said if they hadn’t. Instead he pulled Leo in snug against his plastron, safe beneath his arm. Lamby ended up smushed between them and her glow turned off. Leo wasn’t afraid of the dark, so it was for Raphie’s sake when he worked the stuffed animal free and squeezed the light in her middle back on. 

Maybe Raph cared enough for a hundred turtles, but Leo was brave enough for a thousand. He wasn’t afraid of anything. 

“Deal. And as long as I’m here,” Raph said, “you can sleep.”

“Raphie, I told you,” Leo complained. “I’m a night-owl-badger-turtle. Can I just play Professor Layton on your DS? I’ll be really quiet.”

But Raph knew all the tricks. He put his hand back on that slim shell and scritched idly along the blue-patterned scutes. Leo’s eyes drooped almost immediately, though his big frown was slower to fade. He was so small and so stubborn and Raphael loved him completely.

“Everything you wanna do tomorrow will still be there when you wake up,” he said, borrowing those words straight from Pops, as well as the fond tone he said them in. His own bad dream was the last thing on his mind. It was easy to smile and add on, “You can sleep. Raph’s not gonna let anyone bother you. I’m on your team, too.”

Leo didn’t reply right away. He leaned back enough to look up at Raph as though he was waiting for him to take it back. When he didn’t, because of course he didn’t, Leo curled his arm tighter around Lamby and tucked his head back under Raph’s chin and didn’t say anything at all. 

Raphael imagined what it would have been like to grow up together—having Leo’s certainty and cleverness in his corner when Raph didn’t know what to do, Leo’s courage and silliness when Raph was scared, Leo’s smile that made the darkness shrink no matter how big and impossible it seemed to be at first. 

Imagining it made Raph’s heart ache. He thought about the future instead, and how they’d live in it together forever, and keep each other safe and make each other brave.

When Leo finally dozed off, Raph was only a few minutes behind him. He didn’t have any more bad dreams.

——

Sometimes Mikey felt like he had to shout to be heard. 

Raph and Donnie were his big brothers, and they were also his best friends and secret-keepers and partners-in-crime, but Mikey was their little brother first. He just wished that wasn’t the only thing he was. 

Donnie liked Mikey’s company and never kicked him out of his room, but Mikey wasn’t allowed to touch anything in there, because Donnie didn’t know how to share. Raphie loved to carry Mikey when he got tired or the stormwater runoff in the tunnels was steep, but he didn’t seem to understand that sometimes Mikey didn’t want to be carried. He could walk just fine on his own! He could outrun all of his siblings, actually, without even breaking a sweat. 

Michelangelo knew that he was loved—he had never wasted a single second wondering about that—and he loved his family so much that he could fill the sky with it the way the sun filled it with light in the summertime. 

But he wasn’t listened to. It would be nice to just be listened to sometimes. 

Today Mikey watched avidly as Leo showed off his cool sword. He had been folded into their afternoon martial arts training seamlessly, like he’d always been there. Dad assessed his skill-level and announced that he was not very far behind the rest of them at all, because he had been training in something he called kenjutsu ever since he was little. 

“You are little, pipsqueak,” Raphie said playfully.

“Everyone’s a pipsqueak to you!” Leo retorted.

Splinter smiled proudly and said, “My Blue. You’ll be unstoppable one day, you know that?” Leo radiated joy at Dad’s approval and threw himself headlong into learning ninjutsu alongside his kendo, eager to do well. So he split his time, and in the last half Leo broke away from his brothers to the other side of the dojo, where he practiced the sword. 

He hadn’t brought much with him when he moved in, but his bokken was his pride and joy. It was made of shiny red wood and the handle was wrapped in bright blue cord and there was a little white rabbit charm dangling from the guard. 

“Last year Snowy’s big sister snuck up to the human world for a senior trip with her friends, and she brought us both souvenirs when she came back,” Leo had explained the charm happily. “Like hush money, only bunny-shaped! So way better.”

Dad snorted, and Leo seemed to grow two inches taller at having made him laugh. 

Unlike everything else he owned, Leonardo didn’t offer the sword out to be held or touched. It wasn’t quite like the way Donnie guarded the things important to him, because Mikey didn’t think Leo would hiss at anybody for getting too close—Leo probably wouldn’t even get mad. But at seven whole years old, Mikey knew a thing or two about hurt feelings. If Leo wasn’t willing to snap at somebody for taking his stuff, Mikey would just have to do it for him. 

An hour into training, Mikey was about to snap for a different reason. 

“Mikey, you’re doing it wrong,” Raph said again. “You keep going too fast.” 

“I know, ” Mikey said back through his teeth. He’d done it a billion times, he knew that. Raph didn’t need to keep saying it. 

“If you know, then do it the right way,” his biggest brother replied, not giving an inch. “I know cartwheels are fun but we’re doing kata now. You can play later.”

Frustration boiled inside him. Mikey knew the right way to do the forms, but he was bored. He wanted to do it faster, he wanted to add a flip or a handstand, something to make it more interesting. He didn’t like training at all sometimes—Donnie was quiet and unenthusiastic, and Raphie was bossy and made them start over until they got it right. It was better when April was there, because April could quell the boringest and bossiest of brothers with a single sharp look and then take Mikey out for froyo, but their sister only joined in on the weekends. 

Leo glanced sidelong at Splinter as he slowly began to lean his bokken up against the wall. When Dad didn’t stop him, he put the sword down quicker, then trotted over to fearlessly interject himself into the middle of the brewing storm. Donnie watched him go with round eyes, always one to remain adamantly on the outside of any confrontation.  

“That was really cool, Mike,” Leo called out, beaming. 

Mikey, who had been clenching his fists and preparing himself for another big brother to gang up on him, blinked. 

“Huh? Really?”

“Yeah, really! I can kind of do a handstand, but I can’t flip all around like that.” He thumped his knuckles on Raph’s carapace as he passed by, but his shining smile was all for Mikey. “Can you teach me?”

“Really?” Mikey said again, and then excitement swooped in before he could be confused for longer than a second. Bouncing on his toes, he exclaimed, “Of course, Lee! I can teach you right now!”

“I still have to learn this tricky ninja stuff first,” Leo said. “Can we do it after training instead?” 

“Sure! I can help you with the kata, too, I’m really good at it,” Mikey said eagerly, falling into line beside him. He demonstrated the proper form carefully, so that his newest big brother could follow along. “Like that, see? You’ll get it! Try with me this time!” 

He didn’t realize he was mimicking the same thing Raphael told him every time he fumbled in the dojo—his mind jumped straight to the first helpful thing he could say and that was it. He also didn’t catch the wink Leo sent at Raph over his head, or the way Raph’s shoulders loosened from where they had been bunched up by his ears, the way they always bunched up before a disagreement. 

When Leo first came home, Aunt Junie had said that they all needed to be patient with each other and give Leo time to adjust. Like when Piebald’s tank water needed to be changed and they had to do it a little bit at a time, because even a whole bunch of good, fresh and clean water would be bad for her all at once. 

Aunt Junie was right about everything, but maybe she just didn’t know Leo well enough yet. Maybe Leo wasn’t like Piebald at all, and jumping straight into a brand new tank was actually the best thing for him. 

Because Leo seemed so happy to be there, always smiling and in a good mood. Teasing Donnie like he knew exactly where to poke to elicit playful snaps instead of vicious ones—talking Raph’s ear off about the Disney movies their big brother watched with him and singing along once he knew the words—forming inside jokes and super-complicated extended handshakes with April within minutes of meeting her—following gamely wherever Mikey tugged him along to like he couldn’t wait to be a part of the fun. 

The immediate problem was that Donnie, Raph and April loved Leo just as much as Mikey did, and they all wanted to spend time with him, too. But they didn’t always want to spend that time doing the same things. That afternoon, it became an issue.  

“Me and Leo always watch a movie after lunch,” Raphie was saying, brow knit stubbornly. 

“Yeah, so let him do something else for a change,” April replied, poking Raph in the shoulder with the corner of her bedazzled phone case. “I told him about Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of Nimh and he wanted to read it. I downloaded the audiobook for us to listen to.”

“Can’t you do that later?”

“We’re building something,” Donnie bit out, impatient enough to speak up instead of just slinking away on his own. 

For his part, Mikey tugged on Leo’s sleeve. “Leeeee, color with meeee.”

Leo didn’t say anything to any of them. He seemed to be frozen in place by all their noise.

Once, when Mikey was way littler than he was now, Dad found a baby bird that had been swept through a grate into the tunnel during a heavy rain. He let Mikey hold it after Mikey promised he’d be careful. They emailed a video of the bird to a wildlife rescue person they found online who said that it looked about three weeks old, and had probably only just left the nest when it hurt its wing. It was a quivering palm-sized ball of brown feathers and beady eyes. Mikey could feel its frantic heartbeat in his hands. It didn’t look big enough to have left its nest. It was hard to believe anything that small could just be on its own in the world. 

Right now Leo reminded Mikey of that bird. His smile had faded to almost nothing, eyes round and worried under their bright red stripes. The longer the arguing went on around him the bigger and more worried his eyes got. 

Then Dad said, “ Enough.”

He had his disappointed frown on as he strode in from the kitchen, sleeves still rolled up from washing the dishes in the sink. He didn’t miss a beat in lifting Leo up into his arms.

“What did your Aunt June tell you all?” Dad said sternly. He included April in his pointed look, even though Aunt Junie was mom to her. “If the four of you can learn to share pizza and video games without killing each other, surely you can learn to share your brother’s time.”

They all shuffled, feeling scolded, and April was the one who said, “Sorry, Leon.”

“It’s okay!” Leo said immediately, smiling brightly at her. But he was still clutching Dad’s shirt with both hands and wasn’t squirming to get down even a little bit. It made Mikey feel bad all the way to the bottom of his stomach. 

“Why don’t you let Blue decide what he wants to do this afternoon?” Splinter suggested in that tone that made it obvious it wasn’t actually a suggestion. 

“Yeah, Leo, you should pick!” Mikey said right away. 

Leo hummed, looking much more like his normal self than he did a moment ago, but he still had one fist bunched in Splinter’s sleeve. Very, very carefully, like he was afraid it wasn’t the right thing to say, Leo offered, “Raphie, you said you’d show me how to skate. Can we?”

“Sure, big man, that sounds fun!” Raph said, all fast. He came over and put out his hands, and when Leo reached back, Splinter allowed the snapper to take him. Raph tossed Leo in the air and caught him again, surprising a squeaky noise out of him that became a giggle. The mood in the lair shifted back towards bright, like magic. “You’re gonna be skating circles around me in no time, Fearless.”

“I wanna watch!” Mikey shouted gleefully. And even though Donnie hated sports, he settled next to Mikey to watch, too, close enough that their shoulders bumped. When Mikey swayed playfully to the side, it made Donnie sway, too. 

April rolled her eyes, like it was very typical of one of her little brothers to want to waste the afternoon skateboarding, but she insisted upon getting pictures of Leo all kitted out in borrowed helmet and knee- and elbow-pads, in poses that got sillier and sillier by the second.  

The afternoon raced by like it had somewhere important to be, punctuated by the rolling and click-clacking of skateboard wheels on the wooden ramp. Leo learned to ollie and shuvit, picking up speed and gaining confidence as he went, but he also learned a lesson the rest of his siblings had learned years and years ago. 

He learned to trust Raph’s hands to catch him. He learned not to be scared of falling because Raph would always catch him. 

In no time at all, Leo’s laughter was bursting out of him in bright, ringing peals. It was easy to forget, just for a minute, that he hadn’t been right there with them all along.  

Mikey felt like there was a sun inside him, he was so happy. He didn’t know what to do with all of it, where he could possibly hold it. So he did what he always did when he felt too much. He popped inside his shell. 

From outside, there was an instant clatter and a thud, the fast-rolling sound of a loose skateboard shooting away, and April calling out, “Woah, Leo, are you—”

Then Mikey felt the familiar sensation of being picked up. His shell was compact and the perfect size for other little turtles to hold. Mikey felt warm and snug, and loved to be held, so he just curled up happily like a cat in a box. 

Outside, he heard them talking.

“He didn’t mean to!” Leo said, so fast it was all a jumble of words bumping into themselves. 

“Who didn’t—Mikey?” Raph said. “‘Course he did, he does that all the time.”

“No, he—he’s good, he doesn’t—” Leo sounded alarmingly like he was going to start crying—something Mikey hadn’t even known it was possible for him to do. “Please don’t let him get in trouble, he’s good. He’ll be good.”

“Of course he is good,” Splinter said, his voice coming closer from where he had been keeping an eye on them from the sofa. He sounded the way he did when Mikey or one of his brothers was sick, worry and love all twisted together. “All of my babies are good. Even when they are dissecting kitchen appliances or flooding the bathroom or sneaking the last donut out of the box that I had been saving, April.”

“I have no idea what you mean,” April said unconvincingly. “What’s a donut?”

“Mmm-hm. That crazy little citrus fruit you are holding is not in trouble, Baby Blue,” Splinter added. 

“Why would he be in trouble?” Raph asked, sounding like something was hurting him. 

“Sorry! I had different rules before,” Leo replied. The arms holding Mikey’s shell were tight, and he could hear the heart he was being held against racing, quick and frantic thump-thump-thumps. “I’m really sorry!”

“No one needs to be sorry,” Splinter told him gently. “No one has done anything wrong. And for future reference, in case you are confused, you will never be punished for hiding inside your shell. You are a turtle, and it is an important part of you. Would you scold a caterpillar for spinning a cocoon?”

“No,” Leo whispered. 

“There you are.”

There was a beat of silence, heavy and thick. Mikey wanted to come out and look around but he thought that if he interrupted the conversation they would start to talk about something else. 

“It wasn’t that bad,” Leo finally said. “I was only there for a little bit, the house where they—so it wasn’t that bad.”

“I’ll be the judge of that,” Donnie said in a loud voice. He said it like ‘judge’ meant ‘monster who bites people until they die,’ even though Mikey was pretty sure it didn’t.

It surprised Mikey at first when Donnie started interjecting loudly at things, because he never used to do that. His jokes were always ones slid in under his breath, and his smile when they made Mikey laugh would be quick and sideways and half-hidden in the collar of his bulky hoodie. 

Now he didn’t hide near as much as he used to, and was a lot less secretive about things he wanted his brothers to hear. Mikey thought that maybe he had wanted to be close to them all along, he just didn’t know how to get there. There wasn’t a bridge between where they were at and the island he ended up on. Then his twin came along. 

Aunt Junie called Leo an instigator. She said it laughingly, and told him he was just what this family needed. She was, after all, right about everything. 

“We’ll discuss it later,” Splinter said. He came closer, and Mikey’s stomach swooped as he was lifted up higher from the floor than he already was—Dad must have picked Leo up again, and Leo was still holding Mikey. “Come here, my little turtles. Ah-ah, you are not getting out of this, O’Neil. In fact, you must hug twice as hard so that your mother is here in spirit.”

Silliness was the best medicine. No gloomy mood could outlast six people cramming together for a big group hug. Raph tripped on the skateboard and almost toppled everyone over and the sudden lurch made Leo giggle. Mikey came out of his shell to join the embrace, managing to get one arm around Leo and the other around Donnie and squeezing for all he was worth. 

Mikey and his brothers kept close to each other even after Splinter left to take April home. A pillow fort was constructed in the TV room and they turtle-piled in there with all the best blankets and stuffed animals and snacks. Leo was quieter than usual and sat tucked against Donnie’s side, like he was absorbing his twin’s strength and stubbornness since his own had run out. 

“Hey, Leo?” Mikey asked, when the movie Bolt was over and Raph was snoring and Donnie was a tiny ball tucked under the snapper’s sprawled arm. Mikey knew that Leo would still be awake.

Sure enough, Leo said, “Yeah?” 

“Why don’t you cry when you’re sad?”

For a little while, the only sound besides Raph’s honking snores was the song playing on TV as the credits rolled. I made a wish upon a star, I turned around, and there you were, the song went. 

“People don’t like kids who cry,” Leo finally said. “No one will want me if I don’t behave.”

Mikey blinked, turning his head to find Leo’s face in the dark. His heart was twisting around unhappily in his chest. It hurt. 

“Raph cries all the time but we still want him,” Mikey said. “He’s Raph.”

“Yeah, of course,” Leo said quickly.

“And I cry, too,” Mikey added, the hurt moving up into his throat. “People want me.”

“Because you’re the best, Angie,” Leo told him. “You guys are the best.”

“Whoever told you that stuff before lied,” Mikey said, clinging to his hand. “They lied. You’re my Leo, and you belong here, and we want you. Don’t ever leave us no matter what. Okay?”

Leo nodded, short and punchy. He was shivering like he was cold. Mikey scooted over so he could curl into Leo’s side, because he was a lot of things, but he was a little brother first. And sometimes—when that meant that he was always welcome, and arms would always open for him, and he could snuggle in and be held tight no matter what—that was the best first thing to be. 

“Promise?” he checked.

Leo turned his face, so he could press his cheek to the top of Mikey’s head, and whispered, “Promise.”

The thing Mikey remembered the most vividly about that injured bird they once found was how restless it had been. How ready to fly it was. All it needed was room to get better and grow a little more. A safe place to land. 

‘Look at this guy,’ Dad had said the morning they released it, smiling at the eager noises happening in the shoebox in his hands, ‘ready to leave us in the dust.’ 

‘Will he come back?’ Raphie asked.

‘I don’t think so, my dear. This isn’t his home.’

It was Leo’s home, though. His place to come back to. They just had to keep showing him that they’d catch him. It wasn’t scary to fall down here, because someone would always catch him.  

——

A true photographic memory had never been proven, but Donatello was a scientific marvel in more ways than just the obvious. He remembered everything he had ever seen. The farther back his memories went the less clarity they retained, until they were mostly just emotion given body and movement—but they still were.

When Donnie, Mikey and Raphie found the shrine in Papa’s room, and Papa sat them all down to explain that they used to have another brother, who couldn’t be with them anymore, Donnie suddenly remembered a steady weight on his shell. He remembered not being able to settle for bed unless the weight was there, clicking and purring until they both drifted off to sleep. 

Oh, he thought, we’re orphans. 

The thought didn’t make sense, because Donnie knew what the definition of orphan was, and their parent hadn’t died. He had never abandoned them. He was, at that moment, gently wiping tears off Raphie’s face and trying to come up with answers for Mikey’s endless questions that didn’t all boil down to life is unfair. 

But it was the only word that felt weighty enough for the truth of it all. 

Donnie was a brother who had lost a brother. A twin who wasn’t a twin anymore. There wasn’t a word for that. He looked it up. 

And then, when Donnie was eight years old, he didn’t need a word for it anymore. 

When he had imagined Leonardo growing up, he imagined someone who was just like him in every way. Someone who understood him effortlessly because they were two halves of a whole. Ten minutes after meeting him again, Donatello felt silly about his initial hypothesis. 

Of course his twin would be his polar opposite—they filled in each other’s empty spaces. Leonardo, who was friendly and talkative, spoke up when Donnie’s voice failed him; Donatello, who was observant and defiant, had no trouble baring his teeth at every hurt that Leonardo would have let roll off his back. 

Leonardo lied with every inch of his body and he did it cheerfully; Donnie would always default to the truth even if a lie would have been kinder. Donnie wanted so badly to be close to his brothers but didn’t always know how to get there, a closed door standing between them that he didn’t have a key to; Leonardo had never met a locked door he couldn’t circumvent and pointed out a neat shortcut here, a handy window there. 

Leo took Donnie’s hand and led the way forward; Donnie held on tight and made sure Leo didn’t stumble, since he was always looking up and never down. 

They found each other in the middle. Maybe if they’d had that middle place all along, Donnie would be able to communicate better, and Leo wouldn’t need to pretend so much. Maybe that’s still the way things would be one day. Donnie imagined a drawing of them, purple leaking past his lines and blue leaking out of Leo, like Mikey’s watercolors mixing on the page, spreading until they filled every gap, completing the picture.

All four turtles were in the dojo, doing cool-down stretches. Mikey had skipped the post-exercise routine and moved on to rolling around on his carapace instead, singing Fireflies to himself with twice as much energy as Owl City. Raph just rolled his eyes and made sure to step around and over his littlest brother as he cleaned up. 

Splinter, who had been checking his phone repeatedly all afternoon, stood up swiftly and said, “You boys stay here and finish up. I think we’ll order in for supper today, so agree on something or I will order the worst soup you can think of. ”

Mikey stopped rolling and sat up with a horrified gasp, because he had opinions about soup. 

“Manhattan Clam Chowder!” 

Ignoring that, Splinter said, “I will be right back.”

Donnie watched Leo watch him go, and knew that his twin’s mind was racing even though his breezy smile hadn’t budged an inch. Leo worried constantly, maybe even more than Raphie did. He was always buzzing with what-ifs, like his brain was a jar filled with angry bees—what if he did something wrong? What if he made someone mad? What if he was too noisy, took too much at supper, didn’t help enough with chores, what if, what if, what if? 

Donnie knew, because sometimes Leo told him. After bedtime, when they had to whisper so Splinter’s keen ears wouldn’t catch them staying up late, sometimes Leo would ask, “Did I mess up today?” 

And Donnie would have to jerk his thoughts onto this new track—this crooked, narrow road that Leo was always running on, with its confusing roundabouts and bridges to nowhere and unpayable tolls. 

He wanted to say that Leo could mess up a billion times and still never reach the end of Donnie’s love. Like how the unobservable universe was so big that light from the Big Bang still hadn’t reached Earth from over there. It was as big as that. 

But Donnie struggled with words even when they weren’t monumentally important ones. And Leo’s face would look so afraid in the dim light of the glow-in-the-dark stickers on the ceiling, those constellations in Leo’s new room that matched the ones in Donnie’s down to the last star. He would be convinced that this was the day he did something bad enough that Papa sent him away. It didn’t matter that that would never happen, because even impossible things could be scary.  

So instead of what he wanted to say, Donnie would tell him, “You were good.” 

It would always make his brother smile and sink into the pillow, like all that worry was the only thing propping him up. Then they would talk about a hundred other things until they forgot to whisper, and Papa or Raph inevitably found them out and carted a giggling Leo or an unrepentant Donnie off to his own room. 

One day, Donnie was determined to make it stick. Even if Leonardo was the worst person in the whole world, he would still be Donatello’s person. That made him the best. It was unquantifiable. No one was a better subject matter expert than Donnie was. He’d stake the scientific reputation he didn’t have yet on it in a heartbeat. 

For now, he nudged Leo’s knee with his foot. 

“Hey,” Donnie said, “let’s be ninjas.”

Leo’s smile turned into the grin that Donnie preferred, the crooked laughing one. He only cared about good behavior when he thought he was being graded on it. Otherwise he was the first to encourage sneakiness, because if there was one thing Leonardo believed in, it was having all the information available all the time. 

Donnie knew that was how Leo kept himself safe in those other places he lived in before he came home, those places he didn’t like to talk about. The ones that taught him not to cry when he was sad and not to hide in his shell when he was scared. 

If there was one thing Donatello believed in, it was that Leo should feel safe, even if that meant breaking a rule or two or a hundred. 

“Where do you two think you’re going?” Raphie said suspiciously before they’d made it more than two steps. “Pops said to stay here.”

“Or else we’ll get gross soup,” Mikey piped up. “Instead of really good soup, like creamy chicken chili. Or minestrone!”

“Angie, it’s too hot outside for soup,” Leo said patiently, verbally dodge-rolling Raph’s question by humoring Mikey. “If we ordered a bunch of soup the delivery person would cry. You don’t want taco salad in a tortilla bowl? Or an Italian hero with extra pickled cherry peppers?”

Reminded of the whole wide world of food delivery possibilities, Mikey started rattling off all of his favorite meals without pausing for inconsequential things like air. Raph sighed, because it instantly became twenty times harder to agree on supper. Leo beamed up at him, like he didn’t just do that on purpose.

Donnie knew an opening when he saw one and slipped out of the dojo first, following the sound of Splinter’s voice to the front of the lair. 

“...haven’t told him you were coming. I did not want to give him a reason to be anxious all day,” Papa was saying, sounding anxious himself. “He’s so prone to worry, it just eats him up. I thought once you arrived, I would go back in and let him know you were here, and we’d—get it rolling fast, get him all swept up, so he didn’t have a chance to be afraid.”

“Dad knows best,” an unfamiliar voice said kindly. 

It made Donnie’s spine go straight, all of his attention sharpening to a point at this sudden proof of a stranger in his home talking about his twin. He inched forward on silent feet to peer around the corner. 

A big creature stood with Splinter, a few inches taller than him and covered from nose to tail in large overlapping scales. She had a curved spine that created a hunched-forward posture and a long narrow head similar to an anteater’s. With the big tote bag hanging off her arm and the green sundress she was wearing, she looked like an animal librarian straight out of one of Mikey’s chapter books. 

She didn’t seem dangerous. But Donatello watched her with narrowed eyes and wished he hadn’t left his bo behind in the dojo. 

“As for moving,” Splinter was saying, “I am still uncertain. My boys would be able to—to go to school, and make friends, and play in the sun. That would mean the world to me. But the house in Neo Edo needs a lot of work, and the Hidden Cities are dangerous, too. For a multitude of reasons.” 

“And you have family here in New York, as well,” the stranger said, her tone understanding. “It is a lot to consider. You haven’t brought up the possibility to the children yet?”

“I haven’t. Blue’s life has been in upheaval enough as it is. I wanted him to have more of a chance to get settled. Besides, it is not a decision that needs to be made right away. We can discuss it as a family and decide together.”

“Of course, Hamato-san,” the stranger said warmly. “These follow-up assessments are mandatory, and, I’ll admit, an excuse for me to visit with my little ones again. But there isn’t a doubt in my mind that you’re doing right by him.” 

Donnie let go of his suspicion just long enough to wonder about the possibility of moving away from New York City. He wouldn’t want to be apart from April and Aunt June for any extra amount of time. But it sounded like he would be able to go to school in that Neo Edo place and he would like that a lot. 

“Here I am,” Leo’s voice said in a whisper as he stepped up beside Donnie. He was holding his bokken across his shoulder, probably because he wouldn’t have had a chance to store it properly and come listen in on Papa’s conversation without Raphie catching him again. “What’d I miss?”

But he was already looking around the corner for himself, and that smiling expression he was wearing changed in a heartbeat to something pale and shocked. His arms fell to his sides. 

“Miss Toto? Why is she here?”

His voice was too loud. Both adults glanced over at where Donnie and Leo were standing, and Donnie felt caught. But Leo took a couple quick steps closer, dragging his sword behind him like he didn’t care at all that the shiny finish might get scuffed on the concrete. 

Papa looked pale himself somehow. “Blue—”

“Am I going back?” Leo said, getting louder. “Are you giving me back? Why? What did I do?”

“You didn’t do anything,” the stranger said, hands clutched tight in front of her chest. Her eyes were wide. “It’s okay, sweetheart.” 

“No, you said!” Leo shouted at Splinter. “You said, you said you wouldn’t, you said I could stay, you said I was good! I was good, I was! I did everything I’m supposed to!” 

“Baby, I would never send you away, ” Splinter said, arms open to scoop him up, but Leo stumbled backwards out of reach. Leo couldn’t hear him or anybody else, heaving in frantic gulping breaths. 

The sword in his hand started to glow, as if a light had turned on inside it and was shining through patterns carved up and down its length, even though the whole thing was solid wood and didn’t have any carvings a light could shine out of. The shine got brighter and bluer until Donnie had to squeeze his eyes closed against the glare. 

When he opened them again Leo was gone, but the light was left right where he’d been standing—a perfect circle cut out of thin air, the color of the sky in summertime. It was humming, the way things with an electrical charge hummed, and spinning as playfully as a pinwheel.

“Oh, my spirits,” Miss Toto breathed. 

“Did he just,” Splinter croaked out. 

Of course, Donnie thought, finally solving that big puzzle in the back of his mind.  

Donatello was the first of Leo’s siblings to notice the healed burns on his hands, if the others had noticed them at all. Faint discolorations, smoother than the rest of his textured skin. They didn’t seem to hurt anymore but Donnie worried about them anyway. 

He had gone straight to Splinter with his observations, hovering at the other side of the kitchen table waiting to be acknowledged; but Splinter had been too engrossed in the contents of a folder to notice the round eyes level with the tabletop staring unblinkingly at him, like a fox stalking a bird.

‘Papa,’ he said. Splinter jolted in his seat, slopping tea over the rim of his mug.  

‘Holy—Purple! You will give me a heart attack one day, and then who will feed you?’ He closed the folder and turned his chair, and Donnie trotted around to his side. ‘What’s up, buttercup?’

‘Leo burned his hands,’ Donnie said.  

Splinter’s face did something funny, and he asked quickly, ‘Did he hurt himself just now?’ 

‘No. They were there already. How?’ 

‘Ah. How did it happen?’ he clarified. Donnie nodded, and Splinter weighed his words for a moment before he said, ‘A few days before he came to live with us, the house where Blue took his kendo lessons caught on fire. But someone rescued him—plucked him and his friend right out of danger and left them safe in a basket of clean blankets. We are all very lucky.’ 

Donnie had shivered, and bonked his forehead against Splinter’s arm so his father knew to wrap him up in a tight hug until the shivering stopped. He didn’t want to think about Leo trapped in a fire, so instead he thought about the person who had rescued him. 

‘Who?’ he asked when he could manage it.

‘Who saved them? No one seems to know,’ Splinter said. ‘The boys only remembered a blue light.’ 

Leo saved himself, Donatello realized now. He always saved himself. It was the only thing that made sense. The proof was right in front of them, burning like a star in the living room. 

But now the edges of the circle were wobbling, and then compressing, the whole thing beginning to shrink. A door closing, with his twin on the other side. 

Donatello didn’t need to think about it. He heard a cut-off gasp from the scaly anteater, and Papa yelled “Purple!” but he was already running. He ducked his head to clear the top arc and hopped over the bottom, disappearing neatly through the blue seconds before it dwindled into nothing. 

In just one step, he had gone from the lair under New York to a big open countryside. He’d never seen so much greenery in his life. It was cooler here, and quieter—even with the rush of the river nearby, it was easily half the average decibel level of Manhattan. He could smell fish and sesame oil and salt, a hint of smoke, damp wood—town must have been behind him. Ahead of him, the footpath he was standing on winded away toward the water.

Donnie headed forward. There was a big house up the hill to his left and he could hear other children there. But the door hadn’t taken him to the house. It had led him here, trudging through mud and weeds along the bank, until he rounded the bend and found exactly who he was looking for. 

On the opposite shore, Leo was hiding under a rocky outcrop, where the stones of a towering cliffside formed a secret alcove. Sunken boulders in the water created a natural ford where Donnie could cross and he plunged right in. 

Leo must have heard him coming, but he stayed curled up small. He was crying so hard his face was red and his eyes were squeezed shut, which made Donnie’s eyes sting, too. He hated when his siblings cried. He hated not knowing how to fix it. One day he’d invent a solution for everything that hurt them.

Until then, he’d crawl into this muddy hole, and scratch his knees and palms on the rocks, and put his arms around his twin. It was the right thing to do because it was what Raphie and Mikey would do. It made Leo cry even harder, and that hurt Donnie’s heart more than anything else in his whole life ever had, but he just held on tight.  He’d be one of those stones that the river crashed against. Nothing would move him until he decided to move. 

When Leo quieted into hiccups and wet-sounding sniffles, Donnie thought it was safe enough to let go of him with one hand. He used the other to wipe Leo’s puffy face with the balled-up end of his purple sleeve. 

“Don’t leave again,” Donnie said. “You promised Mikey.”

“I don’t want to,” Leo choked out. “But they—” 

“That anteater wasn’t there to take you away,” Donnie told him matter-of-factly. “Otherwise Papa would have caused a scene. She was just there to visit. It sounds like we have a house around here somewhere, and Papa is thinking about moving. But he hasn’t decided yet. If we did move, you’d come, too.” 

Leo pulled back to stare at him, all dirty and wet and miserable. After a moment, he mumbled, “Miss Toto is a pangolin. Anteaters don’t have scales. You’re dumb.”

“You’re dumb,” Donnie replied, heart lifting like a balloon at Leo sounding more like Leo. “Papa will never let anyone take you away. You don’t have to be good all the time.” His twin’s eyes fell down to look at the muddy stones between them. He didn’t say anything, but Donnie could tell he didn’t believe it yet. So Donnie presented the facts: “Raph is bossy and acts like he’s right even when he’s wrong. Mikey never does what he’s supposed to and makes huge messes with his paints and cries when he gets in trouble. And I’m mean. And I bite. But Papa loves us, even when he says we make him want to tear his hair out. And he loves you.”

“How do you know?” Leo asked, like he’d like to be convinced, but he was still clutching at his old truths instead of this new one. 

“Because I know everything,” Donnie told him plainly. “I’m smarter than you and the older twin so you have to listen to me.” 

Leo made a quiet noise somewhere between crying and laughing. His eyes were gold like Donnie’s. Would that ever stop being amazing? Probably not. Here was Donnie’s other half, the most important part of his heart, back where he belonged. He really was dumb if he thought Donnie was ever going to lose him again.  

They walked hand in hand to the house on the hill, which turned out to be the orphanage where Leo used to live. A few of the kids in the yard gave them strange looks, but Leo didn’t stop to say hi to any of them, which told Donnie everything he needed to know. 

A boy with amphibian features stepped right in their way. He had big protruding eyes and webbed hands and a round, flat head. His mouth stretched from ear to ear when he opened it to call out, “Back already, Lucky?” 

It caused a twitch to pass through Leo’s whole body, not a flinch but not not a flinch, either. He smiled back automatically, and Donnie knew he was about to play along with whatever mean joke was being played on him, because Leo was smart and always knew what the quickest way out of a bad place was. 

But Donnie was smart, too. And he didn’t care about getting out as much as he cared about getting results.

He stopped in his tracks and twisted his head around on his neck in the way that always freaked April out. She said it made him look like an alien from a horror movie, so naturally Donnie practiced it in the mirror a bunch of times. 

He’d never had the chance to use it on anyone else until now. He was pleased with the way it made everyone in the yard stand really still. 

“You know turtles eat frogs, right?” Donnie said. “I heard they taste good with ginger and scallions.”

Heard from his baby brother who had an unhealthy obsession with the Food Network, anyway. 

The frog boy shut right up, his throat ballooning defensively—prey instinct to make himself a more difficult meal. 

“It was nice to see you guys,” Leo said brightly to the terrorized crowd of his former foster siblings, circling behind Donnie and pushing him bodily into the house. Once the door was closed behind them, he added, “They all think you’re an oni now! It was just a nickname, Tello.”

“Good,” Donnie said, smug. “And it’s not just a nickname if you hate it, Nardo.”

Leo took his hand again and led him down the hall. There was a landline phone in the matron’s office that they could use to call Papa. It seemed like a majority of the kids were out of the house, making the most of the sunny day, because they didn’t run into anyone else.

“It’s ‘cause I’m bad luck,” Leo said suddenly. “Turtles—you know, in the stories—they’re good. Since I kept coming back to the orphanage, the older kids started saying it’s ‘cause my luck got messed up. That’s why they call me that.”

“You’re not bad luck,” Donnie said, wishing he’d taken a good bite out of that frog kid after all. “You’re the luckiest thing that ever happened to me and Mikey and Raph and April and Papa and Aunt June. That’s a lot of luck for one turtle and you saved all of it for us. But if you don’t like that name I won’t let anyone call you that anymore.”

Leo hesitated long enough that Donnie knew he was about to do something very brave, like tell the truth, even though a lie would be safer. 

Sure enough, he said, “I don’t like it.” 

Donnie nodded. He’d make sure their brothers and sister knew, too.  

The door slammed open again behind them. Donnie turned around, ready to pick another fight with another stupid bully and maybe show off his sharp canines this time, but the kid who appeared in the hallway wasn’t one of the ones they’d passed by in the yard. 

It was a white rabbit with long ears tied in a topknot. He had a bokken strapped to his back, glossy black where Leo’s was cherry red, handle wrapped in gray cord instead of blue. The rabbit was completely out of breath, bracing himself with a hand against the wall while his shoulders heaved, and he stared straight at Donnie’s brother like Leo would disappear into thin air if he so much as blinked.

“I saw the blue light and ran all the way here,” he huffed. “Give me your hand.”

Donnie bristled at this stranger telling his twin what to do, but Leo’s face was pure sunshine. He shoved his hand out immediately and the rabbit took it, neither of them bothering with so much as a hello. Uncapping a marker with his teeth, the rabbit scrawled something on the inside of Leo’s palm. 

“This is my new phone number,” he said, not letting go of Leo’s hand even when he was done writing and the marker was put away. “When you didn’t call at our usual time,  Auntie asked if you even knew her number, and I realized you only had the number for our house that burned down. And when I called here, Miss Toto said I’d just missed you. And Suzy said you got adopted for real and went to live in New York and weren’t coming back.” 

His eyes were big and wet and his mouth was wobbling, but he stubbornly wasn’t crying. From this close, Donnie could see the charm dangling from the guard of his wooden sword—a little blue turtle. 

“Don’t ever disappear again, Stripes,” the rabbit said. “We promised to stick together forever.”

“Forever, Snowy,” Leo told him, in his voice that meant he meant it. “I always come back.”

It wasn’t until Donatello and the rabbit were sitting in the den, watching two tiny sheep yokai kill each other for their turn on an ancient Nintendo 64 while Leo used the corded landline in the office, that introductions were made. 

“Who are you?” Donnie demanded bluntly. He’d heard enough about ‘Snowy’ that he could probably write the guy’s biography if he had to, but somehow Leo had never mentioned his best friend’s actual name. 

“Usagi Yuichi,” the rabbit replied. He hesitated, sizing Donatello up, then asked, “Are you his family? His actual one?”

“I’m his twin,” Donnie said, feeling prickly and overprotective. He’d only had Leo for thirty-two days and he would defend his spot in Leo’s life with violence if the situation called for it. “He has a big brother and a little brother at home, too. He doesn’t need any more than that.” So there, he thought. 

To his credit, Yuichi got the gist of Donnie’s bottom line quickly. Instead of any of the reactions Donnie was waiting for, Yuichi wrinkled his nose.

“Yuck, I don’t want to be his brother. I’m going to marry him someday.”

Donnie considered that carefully, and decided it was acceptable. They shook on it then quickly jumped apart when Leo wandered back into the room. He collapsed on the sofa between them with a gusty sigh.  

“I think we’re grounded,” he said. “But everyone was shouting too much for me to be sure. They’re coming to get us now. Splinter said stay in this exact spot and wait for him or he’ll have a conniption. What’s a conniption?”

“It means he’ll cry a lot,” Donnie replied. 

“I don’t know how to get to New York,” Yuichi piped up, frowning. “Nee-chan says it’s really big, too. How am I supposed to visit?”

Leo slid his bokken from his belt and laid it across his lap. There wasn’t a single etching or carving on it anywhere, the glossy lacquered finish completely unbroken. If Donnie hadn’t seen those strange glowing runes for himself earlier, he’d have a hard time believing in them now. 

“When I really need to go somewhere, a door opens,” Leo said. “It happened when your house burned up, Snow. We were trapped inside but I got us out. I’ve never done it on purpose before but I think I could. Maybe.”

“Not by yourself,” Donnie said immediately. He didn’t want Leo to get the wrong idea that his family would let him go traipsing off through magic windows all alone. “Or Papa really will have a conniption.”

Leo smiled down at his hands, that crooked, happy smile. He didn’t say anything, which Donnie knew meant he still didn’t believe it all the way yet, but he would someday. He was too smart not to. 

When Splinter arrived nearly two hours later, Donnie didn’t notice him at first. He and Leo were busy conducting experiments, since they had a magical sword on hand and some time to kill. They had collected a bit of a crowd at that point, Leo’s actual friends clustered around him—including a tiny otter who made it abundantly clear why Leo was a professional Mikey-wrangler within seconds of meeting the kid—as he tried to make his bokken glow again. 

“It’s not gonna work,” Niji said with absolute authority. Her scales were teal for now and she kept hitting Leo’s foot with her tail to be annoying on purpose. “Or it would’ve worked already.”

“Google how many tries it took to invent the lightbulb and get back to me,” Donnie replied without looking up, scribbling notes on the back of an algebra worksheet he stole from a bookbag lying on the floor nearby. The lizard girl hissed at him and he hissed right back. 

“Your brother’s mean,” the tiny otter dangling over Leo’s shoulders said with obvious delight. “He made Midori cry.” 

Midori was, of course, the frog yokai that Donnie had threatened to eat. Word got around quickly it seemed—half the room was keeping a healthy distance from the turtles. Donnie tried not to look smug about it, but he didn’t try very hard. 

“He’s nice to me,” Leo said, squinting in concentration. “I think he only makes bullies cry.”

“Doesn’t Midori make fun of you, Renren?” Yuichi asked, poking the otter’s diamond-shaped nose. 

“Yup!” Ren wriggled happily, getting in everyone’s way, obnoxious and noisy and loved for it. “That’s why Koko’s brother is mean and cool. Next time Midori tries to call me a name, I’ll show him the picture Suzy took of his face all puffed up like a balloon!”

“I shouldn’t encourage this,” the Suzy in question, a fluffy owl named Susumu, said primly. “But Midori is such a jerk. I made like twenty copies of the photo in case Miss Toto finds out.” 

“Then I expect to find twenty copies on my desk before bedtime, young lady,” Miss Toto announced firmly, and a ripple of chaos spread through the room as a dozen kids realized their guardian had come home without warning. Even some of the ones who weren’t actually doing something wrong scattered with the ones who should have been working on chores or homework. 

That’s when Donnie realized Splinter was standing in the doorway, looking like he’d just been watching over them for a little while. 

He waved and said, “Hi, Papa. I found Leo.” 

“Don’t you wave at me,” Splinter snapped. “You are in so much trouble, mister. Jumping face-first into a portal! Who raised you?”

“Is that a trick question? I don’t like those.”

Leo shrugged Ren off his shoulders and stood up fast, shoving both his sword and the otter into Yuichi’s arms. When he faced Splinter, he looked like he wanted to hide inside his shell and live there forever, but he only hunched his shoulders and tucked his chin instead. 

“It was my fault,” he managed to say. “I yelled at you and ran away and I’m sorry. I’m really sorry. I won’t ever do it again. I’ll be—” 

But by then, Splinter had crossed the room in a few swift strides, and scooped Leo up into his arms the way he’d wanted to back in the lair, and Leo was too startled to speak.

“You can’t just disappear like that, Blue!” Splinter chided fiercely. “Red and Orange are frantic, June keeps forgetting herself and trying to call the police, April just about stormed the Hidden Cities on her own, and I was ready to sell my soul to the nearest witch for another finding spell! It is a whole mess back home!” 

He rubbed his furry cheek on the top of Leo’s head and closed his eyes. It was the closest Donatello had ever seen his father get to tears and it made him feel uneasy. Donnie shoved his notes into Yuichi’s already-full hands and scrambled over to tug at the front of Splinter’s jacket. He was lifted up immediately and Splinter held them both. 

“You are my precious treasures, and I had no idea where you were. Do you have any idea how frightened I was?” Splinter said. 

Donnie watched Leo’s face wobble and scrunch up miserably as he struggled not to cry again. His twin was the only person he’d ever met as stubborn as him.  

“Sorry,” Leo mumbled, “sorry, I’m sorry.” 

Papa’s next breath shuddered out of him. He squeezed them extra tight, and kissed each of their foreheads, and then said, “It’s okay. It’s okay now. We are all going to go home, and have a long talk after this, but it is okay .” He looked right at Leo until Leo nodded slowly. Then he added, “But you’re both grounded until you’re at least thirty! You are never leaving my sight again! If you think I’m joking, you have another thing coming!” 

It was his silly-scolding voice, and it soothed the last of Donnie’s worries. Leo’s worries weren’t gotten rid of so easily, but somehow he managed to have more hope inside him than fear. 

So he was brave enough to lay his head on Splinter’s shoulder and say, “Okay, Papa.” 

That surprised Papa so much he nearly fell over. The tiny yokai children in his path squawked in alarm, and Donatello laughed because the suddenness of the almost-fall made his stomach swoop. 

A moment later, just a second behind, Leonardo laughed, too. 

——

When Leonardo was fourteen years old, he split his time between the yokai world and the human world almost evenly. 

Neo Edo was where their ancestral house was and where they went to school. It was where they had nosey neighbors and block parties and parents night at the junior high, where people recognized Leonardo and his brothers at a glance and collectively referred to them as ‘Yoshi’s boys’.

But there was a part of Leonardo’s heart that belonged to New York City. His portals to the lair always opened up easily, even eagerly, giving the truth of the thing away to anyone who knew what to look for. 

It was home. The first one Leonardo had ever had that he could believe was his to keep. 

“Blue,” Splinter called from the doorway of the living room, pausing on his way through to the kitchen, “what are you doing?” 

Leo, more out of boredom than anything else, was poking Raph in the face while he tried valiantly to read the last chapter of his book, and then looking innocently away every time his big brother leveled a glare at him. 

“Nothing, daddy,” Leo called back in his sweetest voice.

“Orange, what is Blue doing?” Splinter tried next. 

“Invoking the Cain Instinct,” Mikey answered without lifting his eyes from his canvas, three days in on his latest painting and fully in that headspace where time and space didn’t exist and he would only eat if someone physically put a sandwich or something in his free hand. That didn’t stop him from knowing exactly what his brothers were up to at any given point.  

“For what purpose?” Splinter asked.

“Dee went to pick up April from work and the twins are like ninety percent of each other’s impulse control,” Mikey said. “Also Lee is just like that as a person.” 

“That’s true,” Splinter conceded, and stayed to watch the show.  

When Raph finally slammed his book down it was Leo’s cue to gleefully scramble to his feet and run for his life. He shrieked with laughter when he was caught and scooped right off the floor in seconds. 

Raph’s act of revenge was aggressively nuzzling the top of Leo’s head with his cheek, rumbling playful turtle sounds at him that wouldn’t have convinced a single living person that he was actually angry.  

Leo could have hidden in his shell if he wanted to—and no one would yell at him for it, or threaten to crack it open to get him back out, or do anything more than carry it as carefully as they carried Mikey’s until they found a comfy place to put it down—but he didn’t want to. 

Ever since he was a little kid who first crawled under his big brother’s blanket after a nightmare, who first learned to skate while holding onto his big brother’s hands, he knew where he was safe. 

“Is that the sound of Nardo making someone’s life more difficult than it needs to be?” Donnie’s voice rolled drolly from the entrance of the lair. “Note my tone of utter disbelief.”

Leo squirmed around in Raph’s arms until he could free one hand and make a grabby motion toward the sound of his twin. Even if he couldn’t see him, he could smell him, and Donnie had definitely come home with Starbucks. 

“I’m rolling my eyes,” Donnie said, but he crossed the room and put an iced coffee in Leo’s waiting hand anyway. 

“Boys, I got the keys to the roof!” April hollered from the turnstiles. “It’s go-time, baby!”

“What roof?” Splinter asked suspiciously. 

“One that I’m definitely allowed to be at and have keys for,” his honorary daughter replied, lifting her chin. Not even the FBI would be able to crack her. 

Raph set Leo on his feet, then swiped his cup away and took an annoying slurp before Leo managed to snatch it back. 

“You don’t even like coffee!” he complained. 

“Big brother tax,” Raph replied unrepentantly, making his way over to begin the perilous undertaking of extracting Mikey from his creative process without losing a finger. 

“Try not to end up on the news,” Splinter said, knowing when to pick his battles. “April, you are in charge. Red, you are also in charge. Blue, you are in charge in a third and different way.” 

“Can I be in charge of Donnie?” Mikey asked, raising a paint-smeared hand.

“Of course you can, Orange,” their dad said. 

“I’m running away,” Donnie announced to the lair as a whole. 

The familiar noise washed over Leo like sunshine. He totally understood why regular turtles could bask in that stuff for hours. He sipped his latte and drew a gleaming silver katana from over his shoulder, an ancient bunny charm dangling from its bright blue guard. 

Leo smiled up at Splinter as he passed him in the doorway, never missing an opportunity to duck in for a hug. His dad always tucked him under his chin and held him tight, as if he was still that little eight-year-old boy terrified to death of being abandoned. 

“Have fun, my Baby Blue,” Splinter said. “And if you don’t come home with a cheesecake for your poor father, don’t bother coming home at all.” 

Leo snorted and started to laugh, and by then Mikey had had enough lingering around, whining at the top of his lungs, “Come on, Lee, let’s go already! It’s Cannonball Day!”

“Yeah, Fearless, lead the way,” Raph rumbled fondly.

Donnie stood there watching him with steady gold eyes exactly like his own, and said, “We’re all waiting for you.”

Leo grew up in an orphanage, an unwanted bad omen, and now he had two houses and two hometowns. He was one of four brothers and he loved them with a conviction that he hadn’t known existed outside of storybooks when he was a child. He had a shortcut home from anywhere and a family who would fight god to keep him. 

Hamato Leonardo—who was called Koko by his old friends, and Stripes by his best friend, and would always be Blue to his dad—was a very lucky turtle. 

[hotvintagepoll]

Vintage movie recommendations for getting through these dark times? 🙏 Looking specifically for anything joyous, especially if it's queer/progressive for its time. Thanks!!

ooh ok! that's a big ask, because queer/progressive doesn't always show in the ways we expect in older movies. still, joyous i can do, and as poly as I can I'll try for:

the talk of the town (you knew i would say this). jean arthur, cary grant, ronald colman are all tangled up in all sorts of ways, legally but also including in each other's pajamas. it's free on youtube and tubi last time i checked!

singin' in the rain (you also knew i would say this). cosmo brown, weird little third wheeling queerplatonic ideal that you are. gene kelly, debbie reynolds, and donald o'connor have fire chemistry and all three of their characters love the other ones so truly and with such joy they break all of hollywood with the power of song. (it is gorgeous and sublime that the story is built so only these three ever actually engage with the musical format—the format that is, in universe, the way of the future—structurally equating music and musicals with love. no one else gets a song or a villain number or a little ditty that's not a literal musical number. only these three break the story and heal it at the same time.)

the adventures of robin hood—i swear to god will scarlett is good for nothing else besides being robin's hot little friend. will alone makes this movie queer for me. also, watching a movie about a socialist uprising against a cruel and unjust government sure feels apt! for no particular reason! (this one is also on tubi.)

the philadelphia story—jimmy katharine and cary are absolutely a threesome in this movie and it's a crime they didn't just make more of this movie, again and again, forever. is there a plot? they're all by a swimming pool, it's hot, there's champagne. what else do you need for a film. oh yeah there's some discussion of autonomy and women's rights and wealth and class and marriage, some of which i disagree with, but i think mostly it's katharine hepburn in an evening gown and jimmy stewart in a white terry cloth robe and cary grant standing there not minding in the least. (content warning: there is one instance of a racial slur [not directed at anyone but still there], and one shove. also on tubi.)

the lady vanishes—i love this movie, so much, couldn't tell you why (i can: michael redgrave is here being hot). there are two bit characters who read as queer coded (they are also obsessed with cricket and are mocked for being english by the narrative, which is nice), and there's a weird plucky joy in michael redgrave's performance that feels like a departure from your usual Solid Very Serious Male Heroic Main Character. this movie does trend mildly xenophobic in a very England-in-the-30s type of way—there are shady "foreign" characters and other batshit stereotypes—but nothing I think that would cause direct offense. (let me know if I'm wrong on this though and I'll tag accordingly). this one is free anywhere and can be watched on youtube.

the wizard of oz—i know you've probably seen this before but it's worth seeing again. yes you're allowed to cry at the end i always do

[pinkslipxox]

Hey! I have a request. Not sure if you are taking them at the moment? If not, please ignore this. This idea has come from personal experience lol, I was in the store today just going to pick up some random things but I came across a baby section, they had cute little toys and a cute crib. It just really made me realise how much I want to have a baby one day.

Maybe you could make a fic, Billie and reader go to the store late at night in their pj's because billie wants to pick up something silly (you can decide) and the reader just wanders off while she's waiting and comes across a baby section and just can't help but think how much she really wants to have a baby with Billie one day. Billie comes over and asks us what we are thinking about, and we just look at her and tell her how much this really makes us want to have a baby. And to our shock, Billie says she wants to have a baby too. Just all fluffy.

- Thank you so much 💓

ahhh how adorable! Manifesting that one day you have your baby, angel xx ilysm 🫶❤️

———————————-———————————————

“Billie, I can’t believe you,” you say between laughs as your wife parks the car in the near empty grocery parking lot.

“My love, we can’t have hot chocolate unless there’s whipped cream. It’s like a sin,” Billie proclaims with playful determination, sending a wink to you.

You shake your head fondly at her with a smile. Being married to Billie included random yet memorable moments like this. One minute the two of you were laying in bed, the next you two were up making hot chocolate because the two of you collectively thought that waiting to fall asleep was boring. Yet in the midst of making said hot chocolate, Billie discovered that there was no whipped cream to be found in the fridge. Which explains why you two are in the parking lot of a grocery store twenty minutes before closing time.

Hand in hand, you and Billie hurry inside the grocery store. It is brightly lit and a few shoppers can be seen buying their last minute purchases. You and Billie come here so often that the both of you already know whole store like the back of your hands. It is also the most convenient location since it’s less than a ten minute drive from your house— five minutes if Billie is driving.

“Billie, I just remembered. We’re out of laundry detergent,” you muse and Billie nods.

“Okay. How about you get the laundry detergent and I get the whipped cream? And then we meet back here,” she suggests and you smile.

“Sounds perfect,” you reply and Billie kisses your forehead.

“Don’t get lost, Y/N,” she smirks and you playfully roll your eyes at her.

You watch Billie walk off for a moment before making your way to the aisle where the laundry detergent is. And despite your best efforts to resist, you find yourself looking through the baby aisle. On the shelves are everything an expectant parent might need for their child— formula, diapers, baby monitors, strollers. Your favorite thing to look at are the clothes. Especially the little shoes.

Having a family has always been a dream of yours. To hold a baby boy or girl in your arms, kiss their little face, inhale their newborn scent, and watch them grow up. You’ve yet to talk to Billie about it. She’s so good with kids, and it makes your heart melt whenever you see her interact with them. Sometimes you even dream of you and her with a blue eyed baby boy or a blonde haired baby girl with your eyes.

Only time will tell.

“There you are, my love,” Billie exclaims as she walks over to you with the whipped cream in her hand. She smiles at you and then looks at the baby outfit you’re admiring. Then, with a playful smirk, she teases, “I don’t think that’ll fit you, Y/N.”

You smack her arm playfully. “Oh, shut up, Bills.”

“What are you thinking about, Y/N?” Billie asks after a beat of silence. She then adds, “And don’t just say ‘nothing’, you always say that.”

You laugh softly at that. She knows you so well. That’s what makes her the best wife in the world. She’d also make the best mother in the world. Next to Maggie and your own mother, of course.

“It’s just… looking at all this stuff makes me want to have a baby,” you hum, a hint of hesitant in your voice. You then turn to Billie, sliding your hand into hers, squeezing it gently. “Don’t you ever think about having a mini you or me running around the house, Bills?”

“I do, actually,” she confesses, much to your shock and delight. Her voice is soft and warm, and a gentle smile tugs at her lips. “I want to experience everything life has to offer with you, Y/N. It’s just that… well, I assumed you didn’t want kids because we’ve never talked about it before.”

“Of course I do, Billie. More than anything,” you murmur as happy tears begin to swell up in your eyes.

Billie chuckles. “It’s settled, then. Let’s have a baby, Y/N.”

“Oh, Billie,” you sigh, content, as you wrap around arms around her, your heart swelling with love and excitement at the thought of having a child in the near future.

“I love you, Y/N Y/M/N O’Connell,” Billie murmurs softly, and you can hear the smile in her voice.

“I love you, too, Billie,” you whisper, kissing her cheek.

“How about we buy that outfit? You know, for motivation,” Billie says and you nod enthusiastically, loving the idea.

“And the shoes?” you request with a pout as you hold up the cutest little pair of Converse.

“Whatever you want, mama,” Billie chuckles and kisses the top of your head.

Mama.

You love the sound of that.

[zepskies]

Restless Nights

Pairing: Dean Winchester x F. Reader

Summary: After a tryst you instigated in the backseat of his Baby, you and Dean have started something new. He’s just not sure that you’re as “all in” as you claimed to be.

AN: As promised, here's a bonus one-shot to follow Maybe More Than Enough, though it can be read as a stand-alone. This is based on a request from @lacilou, one of my lovely Patreon members!

Bonus! It fulfills the @spnfanficpond monthly prompt. (Can’t give it away until the end though!)

Request: A Dean story based on the song “I Remember You” by Skid Row.

Word Count: 1.2K

Tags/Warnings: Angst, fluff, implied mentions of sex, bit of a twist ending… 

Dean woke to the sound of pouring rain hitting the roof of the bunker.

It must’ve been some torrential downpour, because it took a lot for him to hear anything of the outside world from inside this place. Good thing the old heaters kept out the January cold, too. Nothing worse than frigid rain.

Blearily he cracked his eyes open, unearthed an arm from where it was tucked under his pillow, and carefully raised his phone to check the time, trying not to let the light from the screen burn his retinas in the still dark room.

4:00 a.m.

He groaned. Goddamn it.

He turned over onto his other side to face where you should’ve been lying next to him. He frowned when he saw nothing but the sheets pulled back and a dented, empty pillow.

No matter how he fought it down, a small tinge of worry, and the beginnings of disappointment churned in his gut. His brows furrowed.

Did you regret it already?

After his first make out session with you (turned more session) in the backseat of his Baby, you two struck a tentative agreement to figure what this could be—more than hunting partners, allies, and friends. Despite the fact that you kissed him first (a fact he didn’t easily let you forget), afterwards, you’d been a little hesitant about what came next.

“We take it day by day,” he’d told you, with a sizzling kiss that stole your breath. “All I know is…this feels good.”

It felt right. You had definitely agreed with that.

Dean sighed through his nose, turning back onto his other side. It wasn’t unusual for him to be a light (restless) sleeper, but the handful of times you’d joined him in his bed had been beginning to make his nights calmer. He was actually starting to sleep through until morning.

What’s more, after years of looking into your eyes and seeing all the possibilities of what if, he was finally getting to make those images solid, and real. He could touch them, taste them, feel them under his calloused hands. He finally had you for real.

He looked past your empty spot in his bed and didn’t see your phone, or any of your rings on the nightstand. They were the first things you put on in the morning, and the last things you took off at night.

If those were gone…

His disappointment was settling high in his chest now; an ache approaching pain.

Until he heard the light sound of bare feet padding back toward the bed. Your hand slid gently up his arm, and after the surprise wore off, the corners of his lips tugged upwards. Your hair was a bit wild and frizzy. It tickled his neck and shoulder when you leaned in to kiss his cheek.

“What’s this?” you whispered, swiping two fingers between the crunch in his brows. Dean relaxed with a small smile.

“Nothin’,” he claimed. His voice was deep and rough with sleep. “Had an appointment to get to or something?”

You smiled and settled into bed, embracing him from behind. He turned onto his back and welcomed you over, with an arm curling around your waist. He rested his hand on yours when it smoothed across his chest.

Subtly glancing down, he didn’t find any of the silver you wore on the daily, including the ring with a small turquoise stone he’d bought you a couple weeks ago, on a hunt in Denver. That one, you now almost never took off.

“I put them away in a drawer,” you said, wiggling your fingers under his hand. Your hand felt dry, and a little like you'd been handling something dusty. Had you been up reading in the library again, lost track of time? “When I woke up, I saw one fell off the nightstand. Have a feeling it had something to do with the bedframe knocking against it.”

At that, Dean couldn’t contain his lazy smirk.

“My bad,” he said, sounding anything but sorry.

You laughed, shaking your head. You still laid a kiss below his shoulder before you settled back down. He gave your waist a gentle squeeze, pressing a kiss of his own to your forehead. A deep breath fell from between his lips, and his eyes closed.

A question was on the tip of his tongue. Where you were, why you got up. Was it something he could help with? Or was it one of those moments you needed to have alone, not unlike the times you gave him to settle with his thoughts, after a hunt gone sideways. If it was important, you’d level with him, wouldn’t you?

So he let it be.

In the morning, you somehow once again managed to get out of bed without him feeling it. He didn’t hear you either. Curiosity led him down the hall and glancing inside the cracked door of Sam’s room. It was empty, his running shoes gone from the side of his bed. Dean rolled his eyes.

All right, Lance.

Oh, wait, that was biking. …Whatever.

Dean’s next path inevitably took him down to the kitchen. His stomach was already percolating—in need of good coffee and (hopefully) good food.

The smell wafting from the kitchen surprised him, however. Cinnamon apples?

He turned the corner, and there he found you.

The fuck?

You looked a bit of a mess. Your hair was thrown up into a haphazard bun, and you’d stolen his apron. Though in his eyes, you made it look better, the white fabric hugging around your curves like you were Rachel Ray or something. You were frazzled when he came downstairs, but happy to see him. You beckoned him over and sat him down at the small kitchen table.

“Sweetheart, what’s going on here?” he asked, eying you curiously.

“Just stay there!” you called from the kitchen. He heard you opening the oven, cursing when you nearly dropped something.

What the hell were you doing baking before 9:00 a.m.?

He turned to ask you what was going on (and if you needed help), but before the words could come out of his mouth, you came over and carefully set down the pie in front of him. The rich aroma, the golden flaky crust, the flecks of cinnamon and glossy apples peeking out from the divots in said crust—it all had Dean’s mouth watering, and his shocked gaze fixed on the shiny pastry.

He startled a little when he felt your hands on his shoulders, sliding part of the way down his arms. You kissed the side of his head.

“Thought I wouldn’t remember, did you?” you teased. “Happy Birthday, baby.”

Dean’s throat constricted. He tried not to show it, but your gaze gentled when he finally met yours, like you were seeing through all his layers anyway. He realized then what you were probably working on last night, and he really couldn’t fucking believe it.

He’d forgotten his own birthday. Couldn’t see much use in celebrating, when year after crappy year…

But he closed a hand over yours on his shoulder, and he brought your hand to his lips.

Every word he couldn’t yet say to you was etched in that single gesture.

AN: Short and angsty sweet! lol And the monthly prompt was "pie!" 🥧 For Dean of course. 😂

Hope you guys enjoy this one! 💜

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[veronicaphoenix]

the unmaking of a warrior | epilogue pt. 2

word count: 10k | reading time: 40mins. aprox. | series masterpost | my works ✨

Tags & trigger warnings: this takes place 2 years after the events that took place in epilogue part 1. Established relationship, dad!noah, angst, fluff, pregnancy, birth giving (flashback), mentions/descriptions of blood, sexual innuendos regarding bondage/rope play, skinny dipping, sexual content including oral sex (fem. rec.), p. in v. unprotected, creampie). Fluff, fluff, and a lot of fluff because dad!noah dad!noah dad!noah 🥹 can't get enough of him. I've wanted to write dad!noah for ages and he's finally here. And again, I've never given birth, i've never been pregnant, so excuse my lack of accuracy on that matter. If there's anything I've missed, please let me know. x

Nearly two years later

Winter had lingered longer than usual, but at last, spring had arrived, bringing with it a burst of color and warmth. The sun was gentle, neither too hot nor too faint, while a soft breeze carried the scent of blooming flowers.

As soon as the weather brightened, Noah and I began spending more time outdoors—whether it was venturing deep into the valley, lounging by the river’s edge, or simply relaxing in our garden.

This morning, I sat on a blanket spread across the grass in the front yard, with Trouble resting behind me. Her large, furry body made for a perfect backrest as I watched Levi carefully pick flowers and place them all over Trouble’s fur. At first, Trouble lay still, tolerating Levi’s enthusiastic flower-decorating, but as the pile of blooms grew, she huffed in mild protest. Once, she even let out a low growl, and I gently reminded her that he was just a baby, before telling Levi to give her a little break.

“But she looks so pretty!” he insisted, his version of “pretty” sounding more like “piuti”.

“She’s already got enough flowers on her,” I said. “Why don’t you put some on Mommy instead?”

“Yes!” he shouted, delighted by the idea. He wobbled over to me on unsteady legs, and began placing the flowers carefully on my hair. 

His shoulder-length brown hair, which we had only trimmed a couple of times since he was born, had been neatly tied up in a bun earlier that morning. But after hours of running and playing a few soft strands had escaped and now hung loosely, framing his sun-kissed face. He looked so much like Noah.

When one of the flowers fell into my lap, I picked it up and held it out to him. 

“Do you know what this one is called?”

He took a quick glance and shook his head before resuming his task of adorning my hair.

“It’s a daisy,” I told him.

“Daisy,” he repeated slowly. 

I reached for the basket sitting nearby, filled with a mix of toys and snacks. Levi’s attention was quickly diverted when I picked a box that contained fresh strawberries cut into tiny pieces. Their sweet fragance filled the air when I removed the lid. I picked one out and held it out to him.

“Strawberry?” he asked, his eyes wide with excitement.

“Strawberry,” I confirmed, smiling. I brought the fruit to his mouth, and he took a small, eager bite, juice dribbling down his chin. I wiped it away with my thumb. “One more?” I offered, holding up another.

He nodded, this time more vigorously as he leaned in for a second bite, his tiny hands grabbing at mine to get the strawberry faster into his mouth.

With a full mouth, he mumbled something incoherent, his eyes darting to the basket, no doubt looking for more treats. I reached inside and handed him one of his toys. He eagerly accepted a wooden cart and started to roll it back and forth over my legs. At least that was better than him rolling it on Trouble’s fur and igniting her fury. 

I spotted movement on the path leading from the village. A tall and slender figure made itself visible as it approached us, and that familiar flutter in my stomach came back. I couldn’t help but smile at the sight of my husband. 

Noah was walking toward us. He looked so effortlessly striking wearing all black, his katana at his side and a radiant smile meant just for us. His hair, tied back in a loose bun, was longer than it’d ever been, and one loose strand was swaying gently with the breeze. 

He wasn’t alone.

Nestled against his hip was Sakura, one of her small hands on his shoulder, grapping tightly at his clothing. Though she was Levi’s twin and nearly two, she couldn’t yet walk, but that didn’t slow her down—she was happy to crawl everywhere. Her brown hair was tied up in a tiny bun to match her Papa’s, and it gave her an air of determination and pride. She loved mimicking him in everything. She was a courageous and bold little one, just like Levi.

“Look who’s coming,” I said to Levi, drawing his attention toward the path.

Levi’s eyes widened, and a grin spread across his face as he spotted Noah and his sister. 

“Papa!” he called out, his small body bouncing with excitement. He started to run toward his father but stopped when I pulled him back toward the blanket, keeping him close.

As Noah reached us, he bent down just as Sakura squirmed in his arms, extending her body and arms toward me. I scooped her up, cradling her close and planting a kiss on her cheek, her little nuzzle against my chest filling my heart.

With his arms now free, Noah crouched lower and scratched Trouble’s fur. 

“What happened to you?” He teased. “You look more colorful than usual.”

Trouble huffed, but as soon as Noah was laughing, she lifted her head to lick his hand. Noah smiled, rubbing her head before turning his focus to Levi.

“Hey, little warrior,” he said warmly. “How you doing?” He swept Levi up with ease and tossed him into the air, eliciting shrieks of joy. Levi giggled uncontrollably, his laughter filling the air as Noah caught him and repeated the throw.

Once Levi settled, he pointed excitedly at Trouble, his eyes sparkling. 

“Look, Papa! I put flowers on her.”

“I saw it. That’s a ton of flowers.”

Levi beamed proudly, then, as if remembering something important, pointed to me. 

“I put flowers on Mommy, too!”

Noah’s eyes shifted, softening as they landed on me. I was holding Sakura in my arms, who was eagerly nibbling on a piece of strawberry now. Our gazes met, and in that moment, for just a couple of seconds, everything else faded. The warmth in Noah’s eyes was as if it had just struck him again how lucky he was to have me by his side, as his wife. His gaze held mine, filled with both admiration and love, and I felt the familiar heat rise to my cheeks.

“She looks soooo priti!” Levi shouted, his voice high with excitement.

Noah’s lips parted.

“Prettiest girl I’ve ever seen.”

His words sent a rush of warmth through me, and despite all the years we’d spent together, I still found myself flushing under his brown eyes. 

But the spell was broken by Sakura’s small voice. She raised her hand and waved it, her tiny fingers catching Noah’s attention. 

“Me?!”

Noah sat down beside me on the blanket, letting Levi wander off to pick more flowers.

“You,” Noah began, poking her cheek, “are the prettiest babygirl I’ve ever seen.”

Content, Sakura gave him one satisfied smile, a bit shy at her Papa’s compliment as her cheeks tinted pink and she defleated in my lap. 

Noah laughed. I would never get tired of the way he smiled at our children—of the joy they brought him.

A couple of minutes later, distracted by her brother’s doings, Sakura crawled out of my arms and followed Levi, and Noah and I both watched our twins explore their little world. 

“Was she okay?” I asked Noah without taking my eyes of the children. 

“She was as good as ever,” he told me. “Sat still on her spot during most of the training session, clapping everytime someone lifted their sword. Pretty sure she’s ready for a nap now.”

Seeing her playing lively with Levi raised some doubts. 

When I turned to look at Noah, I caught him staring intently at me. A second after, he was leaning over me, tucking some hairs behind my ear and kissing the corner of my mouth. 

“You look beautiful today,” he whispered.

“You said that yesterday,” I retorted, but the grin spread through my face nonetheless. 

Noah shrugged, still leaning to me. 

“I am merely stating facts.” 

I tsked my tongue and placed a hand on Noah’s jaw to bring him to me and kiss him on the lips. Right as I was doing so, we heard a yelp. 

Sakura, who had been crawling with purpose, always trying to catch up with her more mobile brother, had stopped by a bush. With her tiny hands she had tried to reach up for a flower perched higher than she could comfortably grasp. And as she tried to stand on wobbling legs, she toppled over, a small gasp escaping her as she fell back onto the grass.

Noah was up in an instant, rushing to her side before I could even react, his speed startling in its swiftness. Levi stopped what he was doing to look between his baby sister and his father with wide eyes,

I exhaled, seeing Noah scoop Sakura up into his arms, checking her. She wasn’t hurt, just surprised. I watched Noah’s face contorn in concern, and I was suddenly thrown back in time, to the day the twins were born.

We hadn’t known I was carrying two babies. After I had given birth to Sakura earlier than expected, we thought the ordeal was over. I had been sore, exhausted, and overwhelmed with joy as I held our daughter in our arms and then when I passed her to Noah. But before I could relish much in the moment, my screams pierced through the room, Sakura had been taken out from Noah’s arms, and he’d been ushered out.

To this day, it was still the worst and best day of Noah’s life. 

He thought he was going to lose me, unaware that the pain that was seizing me had to do with the fact that there was still another baby inside me, desperate to come into the world. Levi had been bigger than Sakura from birth. Noah held this belief that he’d been taking care of his sister inside my womb and he had been a gentleman and let her out first. However, the contractions that came with him were at full force. The surprise and intensity of it all left me feeling drained, my body struggling to cope. The second birth had been arduous, and by the time Levi was born, I was too weak to stay conscious. I had also lost a lot of blood.

After Levi’s birth, Rika had rushed to find Noah. 

“What happened?” Noah had asked, frozen as they placed his babygirl back in his arms, but the familiar cry he heard didn’t come from the baby he was holding. His mind was racing. He looked around. Then, he spotted Milla not too far. She was holding his babygirl. In a heartbeat, the truth hit him. He was holding a boy. There were two babies. Twins. 

His gaze flickered back to me immediately, terrified of what he would see. He spotted me, pale and unmoving on the futon. Panic filled his chest as he stared at the blood beneath me. 

“She is… She’s going to be okay, right?” he asked, because there was no other possible question—or outcome. His voice had barely been steady as he held our son close, unable to tear his eyes from my motionless form.

Rika reassured him. 

“She’s going to be okay. She lost a lot of blood, but she’ll recover. She just needs time. In the meantime, you need to be with your children.”

As she said this, Rika placed Sakura into Noah’s free arm. He stood there, arms full, cradling both babies at once. He looked down at them, their tiny faces nestled against his chest, his long arms able to hold both of them securely. His heart swelled with joy at the sight of his twins—one boy, one girl—but worry gnawed at him because I wasn’t there to share the moment.

Noah carried them over to where I lay, sinking down beside me on the futon. He sat quietly, overwhelmed by this mixture of happiness and fear. Our children drifted into sleep, their little breaths soft and steady. Soon, we were alone. The four of us—my family. 

Hours passed, and eventually, I began to stir. My body ached, and my vision was blurry at first. I blinked, trying to focus, my head heavy on the pillow. The first thing I saw was Noah, sitting by my side, his face drawn with exhaustion and relief. He was whispering softly, his voice low and calming, but it wasn’t until I tilted my head slightly that I realized who he was speaking to.

There, lying beside me on white blankets, were two wide-eyed babies. Both were staring up at their Papa, their small bodies wrapped in soft cloth. The boy yawned, his tiny hands stretching out as he blinked at the world. Sakura’s dark eyes were fixed on Noah’s face, her little fingers twitching as if already reaching for him.

I blinked, disbelief flooding my mind. Two. There were two.

“Noah...?”

He turned to me, relief spreading through him like a soothing balm as he realized I was awake. His smile was tender, and though his words were quiet, the weight of them was heavy with love. 

“We have twins,” he said, as if he still couldn’t quite believe it himself. “We have two of them.”

As Noah sat back down beside me, holding Sakura close, Levi resumed his flower hunt, and I cherished the fact that our children had been born in a safe space where they could explore and grow to be who they wanted to be. Noah’s presence beside me had always felt like an anchor, always there when I needed him, but since he’d become a father, his attention and support had doubled. He caught my eye and smiled, as if reading my thoughts. I smiled back, feeling that familiar tug of affection, the one that never seemed to fade, even after everything we’d been through.

Just as I reached over to brush a stray petal from Levi’s hair, a soft rustling behind us caught our attention and I saw Rika approaching.

Noah stiffened slightly, always on alert. Rika smiled warmly, hands clasped together as she approached the front yard.

“There’s someone here to see you,” she announced. She lingered just long enough for my heart to stutter with curiosity—and a hint of worry. Sensing the suspense, she quickly added, “It’s your grandmother.”

The tension eased from my shoulders. Beside me, Noah chuckled, shaking his head.

“Always keeping us on our toes,” he said with a grin, glancing down at Sakura, who perked up at the mention of a visitor, at the same time as Trouble thumped her tail excitedly. 

Grandma had always been a frequent visitor, long before Noah and I were even married. I’d tried to convince her to move into the Sanctuary, but she loved her little house in the village too much. It wasn’t far, and she promised to visit often—and she did. Her visits had only become more frequent after learning she would soon be a great-grandmother, a title that seemed to fill her with boundless happiness.

Noah stood, settling Sakura back onto the blanket next to me. 

“I’ll go give her a hand,” he offered, knowing Grandma could use the extra support these days, now that she leaned on a walking stick. She’d probably appreciate Noah’s arm to hold onto.

As Noah walked toward the path from the center of the Sanctuary to greet her, I leaned back on my hands, watching him go. He moved with that quiet strength, always so sure of himself, even when the world around us felt uncertain. It was hard to believe how far we’d come since the chaos of the twins’ birth—the exhaustion, the fear, and then the joy that had followed. Now, here we were, with two vibrant, curious children and the life we’d always dreamed of.

Sakura, back to her usual determined self, began to crawl toward Levi, her hands gripping the grass as she tried to keep up with him. Levi, busy with his bouquet of freshly picked flowers, spotted her coming and toddled over to meet her halfway, offering a dandelion he’d plucked from the ground. 

Inside the house, the air was warm and filled with the comforting scent of tea brewing. Noah was in the kitchen, preparing cups for everyone while the children played on the floor. I sat across from my grandmother, listening to her stories, her voice like a soothing melody.

Before long, Sakura set her sights on Noah’s katana, which hung temptingly on its stand by the entrance. Her little body wobbled on all fours as she began her mission and crawled toward it, her eyes gleaming with determination. I watched her from my seat, knowing Noah wouldn’t let her get far. Sakura seemed to sense this as well, for she paused midway and tilted her head to peer toward the open kitchen, where her Papa was busy pouring tea. Cleverly, she veered toward a cabinet, hoping to slip out of his sight. It was a smart tactic, but despite her stealth, the soft patter of her tiny hands and knees on the wooden floor soon caught Noah’s attention. Pausing, he raised his brows at the suspicious sound. The noise came again, like a small animal sneaking through the room, then silence. A grin tugged at Noah’s lips.

Moments later, a tiny hand peeked out from behind a piece of furniture, and Noah stifled a laugh as he resumed his work with the tea. 

Without looking up, he said, “I can see you.”

The instant he spoke, Sakura knew she’d been discovered. Her hands slapped the floor with renewed urgency as she crawled faster. 

Setting down the kettle on the kitchen island, Noah stepped out and scooped her up just before she could make her grand escape. Her little body squirmed in his arms.

“Not so fast,” he teased, tickling her belly.

Sakura’s giggles echoed through the room, filling it with a joyful energy that made all of us smile. Her small hands immediately reached towards his katana again, her fingers curling in the air toward the glimmering handle as she babbled the word: “Kitana, kitana!”

“That’s Papa’s. You’ll have to wait a little longer.”

Noah bounced her in his arms as he carried her back to the living room. 

Grandma, who had been pleasantly observing, had a spark in her wrinkled eyes as she laughed.

“She’s going to learn her way with a katana before she learns to walk, isn’t she?”

I couldn’t say no to that, looking at our daughter, whose fascination with her father’s sword was growing by the day. Noah set Sakura on my lap, her tiny hands still making grabby motions toward the weapon in the distance. She was relentless.

“She’s got a strong will, that’s for sure,” Noah said, watching her as she tried to wiggle free from my grasp to make another attempt for the katana. “Just like her Mama,” Noah added, casting me a glance before heading back to the kitchen to retrieve the tray with tea and snacks. 

“With a father like you, it’s no wonder she’s drawn to swords,” I teased back. 

Noah chuckled and finished preparing the tea, the soft, floral scent of jasmine filling the air as he brought the tray over to the low table in the center of the room. The sliding doors were open, and a breeze swept through the space, carrying with it the scent of the garden and the occasional sound of Trouble chasing chickens outside. 

“Levi, come sit with us and Grandma,” I called softly, watching Levi abandon the block tower he was building. He ran over with his usual burst of energy, his brown hair messy and strands hanging loose from his earlier play. 

Sakura was already seated beside Noah, nestled against big pillows that propped her up comfortably. Her eyes were wide with curiosity as she watched her Papa take a sip from his tea. Noah handed me my cup. He smiled knowingly as he passed a cup to Grandma, then turned his attention to Sakura. 

“You want some?” he asked. Immediately, he dipped his index finger into his cup and offered her a tiny drop.

Sakura leaned forward, her tiny pink lips pursing as she tasted the warm tea from the tip of his finger. Her eyes lit up, and I couldn’t help but chuckle. Of course she loved it—she was my daughter after all. 

Noah glanced at me. 

“Just like her Mama.”

After a while, with Levi nestled between Sakura and me, enjoying some snacks, I kept an eye on them, waiting for any sign they might be ready for a nap. Despite the day’s activities, however, both twins seemed wide awake. As the adults chatted, I didn’t notice when Levi, responding to Sakura’s insistent whispers, dipped his finger into my tea to offer her a few more drops.

It was Noah who caught him. 

With a slight frown, he said, “Levi, stop giving tea to your sister.”

“But she likes it,” Levi replied earnestly.

“You won’t like it when she gets all wired and keeps you up later,” Noah warned gently.

Levi blinked, likely not fully understanding his father’s point, but he obediently wiped his finger on his shirt and muttered a soft, sweet “Papa says no more” to Sakura, who looked at him with hopeful eyes.

A while later, with the twins still wide awake and showing no signs of tiring, Noah decided to take them out to the garden to burn off some energy. 

“Come on, you two, let’s tire you up,” he said with a grin, scooping them up. The twins squealed with delight as he hoisted them up high.

Once they were in the garden, he set each of them on one of his shoulders, holding them steady with his hands.

“Papa! ‘s very high!” Levi exclaimed. 

“This is called weight training,” Noah told them, pretending to strain under their combined weight. Levi and Sakura giggled, clutching his hair for balance as he wobbled dramatically. 

“Hey! Easy on the hair, little minx.” 

He pretended Sakura was about to slip off his shoulder, making her squeal, then shifted his balance as if Levi were the one tipping off the other side. Their peals of laughter echoed across the yard. It was the most beautiful sound I’d ever heard—made all the more precious because it was Noah who was causing it.

Noah held them firmly, with the practiced ease of a father—and a Samurai, of course— who would never let them fall. Eventually, he set them down, and the two darted off across the grass. A short while later, Levi discovered a fallen wooden branch, smooth and straight—perfect for his purposes. His small fingers gripped it with a sense of destiny, and he swung it around with wide, serious eyes. 

“Papa!” he called. Then announced proudly, “I Samurai!”

Sakura, his biggest fan, started clapping her hands as she sat on the grass, hair messy and her face alight with admiration for her brother. Noah chuckled, kneeling down beside Levi, his own eyes twinkling.

“Show me your stance, little warrior.”

Levi straightened up, glancing at his father with fierce concentration, and clumsily attempted to imitate Noah’s stance, one foot forward, knees slightly bent. His little face was full of focus as he held the stick in front of him, eyes narrowed. Noah bit back laughter, unable to hide his delight at the sight of his son’s determined expression.

“You look like a real samurai, Levi,” Noah praised, giving him an approving nod. “But remember,” he added, “a samurai must have patience and strength.”

Levi nodded solemnly, gripping his wooden “sword” with purpose. 

“And they look after their baby sisters!”

Noah nodded. “They look after the girls they love,” he corrected. 

Sakura crawled over at full speed to join them bouncing on her hands and knees with enthusiasm. Noah, still kneeling, extended his arm to offer her support in case she wanted to try and stand up. 

From our seats in the living room, Grandma and I watched the scene unfolding in the garden. The sliding doors were open to the porch, and the breeze carried the sounds of Noah’s laughter and the twins’ gleeful squeals inside. We sipped our tea as we observed the little family scene—my little family.

 “Noah is so devoted to the children,” Grandma commented, “and to you. It makes me so happy to see this man so committed to his family.”

“I can only imagine how devoted he’ll be when there’s three of them,” I said, almost absently.

Grandma turned to me, her eyes widening in surprise. 

“Three? What do you—?”

I gently placed a hand over my stomach. 

“I think there’s a third one on the way,” I whispered.

“Oh, darling!” she exclaimed, immediately wrapping me in her arms. I hugged her back, feeling her love and excitement surround me. As I glanced over her shoulder, I caught sight of Noah looking toward me from the garden, a quizzical expression on his face. I waved him off with a quick shake of my hand, signaling that everything was fine.

“Does he know?” Grandma asked, pulling back and searching my face with a mixture of tenderness and curiosity.

“Not yet,” I replied. “I don’t want him to start worrying about me or the baby too soon. He’d only stress himself out and live in a constant state of panic.”

A soft, delicate smile spread across her face as she nodded in understanding. One last glance down at my stomach, and her eyes showed a new light as she processed the happy news. 

“You’ve built such a precious family,” she noted, squeezing my hand. “This is what you deserve.”

I nodded, feeling the truth of her words settle in my heart. It was everything I’d ever dreamed of.

My attention drifted back to the garden, where I spotted Sakura crawling across the grass again, her little body wiggling as she explored every inch of the ground. Levi toddled after her, a tiny, determined protector, keeping an eye on her every move as he held the stick in his hand. When Sakura reached out for a small, spiky stone, Levi waddled over, furrowing his brow in concern. 

“No, sis! Don’t touch!” he scolded in his limited but emphatic vocabulary, holding out his hand to stop her.

Despite her brother’s warnings, Sakura only giggled, flashing him a mischievous smile before crawling even faster, forcing Levi to chase after her. His little legs moved quickly, stumbling slightly but with determination as he followed her across the garden. Watching the two of them, Noah leaned back on the grass, a proud smile spreading across his face as he witnessed the bond between our kids. 

When Sakura crawled back to her Papa, Noa brushed a stray wisp of hair from her face. 

“Why don’t we practice your walking skills a little bit, huh? Enough crawling around,” he said, tapping her tiny nose. “Until you can stand on your own, babygirl, how do you plan on holding a katana?”

Sakura probably only caught the word “katana”. Nonetheless, she raised her arms up to him, and with his help, she planted her feet in front of her. Levi, always eager to be part of his sister’s milestones, scrambled to her side. He grasped her small hand. Noah placed his huge ones around her little body.

“Come, sis,” Levi encouraged. He tugged her hand forward, his eyes never leaving hers as he and Noah helped her up and steadied her. Sakura wobbled, almost losing her balance. She took a shaky step, then another.

Levi coaxed her along with a beaming smile, glowing with pride at his sister’s efforts. 

“You’re doing it, sis!” he said, pulling her forward with all the enthusiasm his small frame could muster. Sakura responded with another happy squeal, her trust in her brother absolute as she stumbled forward, gripping his hand tightly.

From the edge of the garden, Trouble lay stretched out under the sunlight, her black eyes tracking every move. She watched Sakura’s attempts with rapt attention, her tail swishing with encouragement as if cheering on our little one.

Sakura took a few more shaky steps, her hand still gripping Levi’s for balance, until she finally lost her footing. But just as she began to teeter, Noah scooped her up into his arms before she could fall. Sakura clung to her Papa, and Trouble, as if sensing the moment, lifted her head and let out a triumphant howl, celebrating our tiny human’s success.

Noah laughed, cradling Sakura close as she snuggled into Noah’s chest, exhausted but utterly thrilled, while Trouble wagged her tail even harder, her proud gaze following. It was as if she understood the victory of Sakura’s steps and was just as invested in every small victory as the rest of us.

As Noah held Sakura, her head rested against his shoulder, her hair now loose—the bun undone, and the hairband lost somewhere in the garden. Her eyelids began to flutter, the day’s activities finally catching up with her. She gave a little sigh, her fingers curling sleepily into his shirt as she drifted off. Noah turned to Levi, extending his free hand. 

“Come on, buddy.”

Levi obediently took his father’s hand, and together they headed back inside, with Trouble padding along behind them.

Once we were all back in the living room, Trouble trotted over to me, her keen eyes meeting mine with a knowing glint. She pressed her nose against my stomach, nudging me softly. I stroked her fur and gave her a gentle “Shh,” hoping she’d keep our little secret just a bit longer. 

Meanwhile, Noah adjusted his grip on the now-snoozing Sakura, and glanced at Levi, who was yawning and rubbing his eyes.

“Let’s get you two to your room for a nap,” he murmured, giving Levi’s hand a squeeze. Levi didn’t protest, his tiredness starting to show. “Go give Mama and Grandma a kiss.”

Levi leaned in and placed the softest kiss on my cheek, whispering, “bye, Mama.” Then moved to hug Grandma.

As they made their way to the twins’ shared bedroom, I watched them disappear down the hallway and Trouble settled down beside me, resting her head on my lap. I scratched behind her ears.

After a little while, Noah came back.

“They’re both out like lights.” He settled into his seat with a relaxed sigh, picking up his cup and taking a long sip of his tea. He noticed Trouble, who was still comfortably nestled with her head on my lap. “Hey, big girl,” he said with mock indignation, arching an eyebrow. “Where’s my share of the cuddles?”

As if understanding his request, Trouble lifted her head from my lap and trotted over to Noah, plopping down beside him with a huff. He scratched her behind the ears and ruflled the fur on her neck. She leaned into him, accepting his attention with her usual grace.

The peace didn’t last long, though. Less than an hour into their nap, I noticed Trouble’s ears perk up, her attention shifting to the hallway. She slipped away from us, heading toward the children’s bedroom. 

She had sensed them waking up. 

Sakura and Levi weren’t the type to cry when they woke; for the past year, they’d developed a habit of waking each other with little noises and soft giggles, almost as if inviting each other to play. 

I got up and followed Trouble, who smoothly squeezed through the gap Noah had left in the door.

When I opened it fully a moment later, I found Levi already out of bed, his face alight with excitement as he tried to wrestle with Trouble, charging at her and pushing with all his tiny might. Trouble looked thoroughly amused as she lay there with perfect patience, moving just enough to make him feel like he was putting up a real fight. His laughter rang out as he finally managed to clamber onto her back. In response, Trouble rolled over gently, pinning him beneath her massive paw in a playful but controlled move.

Not wanting to be left out, Sakura, who was obviously also awake, crawled over, her eyes fixated on Trouble’s tail as it swished enticingly from side to side. With a little pout, she reached out, trying to grab it, but Trouble swayed it just out of reach, starting a game of chase. Sakura crawled faster as she tried again and again to capture the elusive tail.

“Catch Trouble!” she called. 

Levi, now up on his feet, toddled around the room with all the confidence of a young explorer, and Sakura was quick to follow, her rapid crawling fueled by her intention to keep up with either her big brother of the wolf. Her little hands slapped against the floor as she tried to match their pace, but every so often, she would fall just a bit behind, her face scrunching in frustration.

Noticing this, Trouble ever so heedful, decided to pad over to her and lay down directly in her path, as if offering a solution. Sakura’s eyes lit up, and she eagerly clambered onto Trouble’s back, settling herself with a triumphant smile as she shouted “catch!”. With her tiny hands buried in Trouble’s thick fur, she held on tightly as the wolf rose slowly, careful with each movement and letting her enjoy her “victory”. Then, with Sakura perched securely on her back, Trouble began to walk at a measured pace, following Levi’s toddling path around the room. Sakura squealed with joy, her laughter bright as she held on, her little body bouncing with each step.

I watched them all, my heart full as I leaned against the doorframe.

Come evening, we prepared for the nightly ritual of bath time, one of my favorite moments of the day, while Grandma prepared dinner. I’d insisted she leave it to us, as she was our guest, but she insisted on cooking while we took care of the children. Noah and I filled the tub with warm water, adding just a hint of baby shampoo that filled the air with a soft, sweet fragrance and created a layer of frothy bubbles on the surface. After I undressed Sakura and Noah undressed Levi, we eased them gently into the water, ensuring their little bodies had time to adjust to the warmth.

Sakura, a water enthusiast, started kicking her legs right away. The instant her tiny feet touched the water, she sent splashes flying toward me, Noah, and her little brother, setting off giggles that only grew louder as she saw our crinkled faces.

Once seated in the tub, Levi joined in the fun, slapping the bubbles with his hands and gathering foam to blow into the air—a trick he’d picked up from watching me when they were a bit younger. Noah and I washed them carefully, shampooing their hair, which sometimes turned into a bit of a juggling act as they squirmed and giggled, forcing us to keep a steady grip so they wouldn’t slip beneath the water.

“Close your eyes,” Noah called out when it was time to rinse their hair. They both complied, but Sakura’s face always tensed a little, still a bit wary of the water streaming over her head and face.

Finally clean, smelling fresh and looking irresistibly pink-cheeked, with their skin moisturized and their hair tangle-free, we bundled each of them in thick, fluffy white towels, wrapping them snugly into two little burritos. They looked up at us, eyes half-closed, as if already starting to sink into the cozy warmth, the softness of the towels hugging their tiny bodies.

I stayed behind in the bathroom to clean up as Noah carried our little bundles over to our bed. I gathered the twins’ bath toys, placing them in a basket, then paused just outside the doorway to watch. Noah knelt on the bed, playfully towering over their tiny forms as they lay side-by-side, snug in their towel cocoons. He was using his playful, bedtime voice. 

“Who are Papa’s favorite little warriors?” 

Sakura and Levi gurgled and giggled under their Papa’s attention. Levi reached out, and Noah leaned closer, letting the tiny fingers brush his cheek, only to “accidentally” shift so Levi’s hand tapped his nose instead. Noah widened his eyes in surprise, prompting a delighted laugh from Levi. With a grin, Noah lifted Levi’s chubby feet, playfully nibbling at his toes before turning his attention to Sakura, who had been watching his antics with wide-eyed fascination. 

“What about you?” he asked. “Are you a brave little warrior?”

Sakura stretched an arm toward him, and he took her tiny hand, pressing a kiss on her knuckles. Then, tracing a line down her face, he murmured, “You’re Papa’s fearless princess, that’s what you are,” finishing with a tender boop on her nose.

He unwrapped her towel just enough to blow soft raspberries on her belly, then did the same to Levi, sending both of them into fits of giggles as they tried to curl up as if trying to escape.

“Who’s got the giggles now, huh?” Noah chuckled.

Noticing me in the doorway, he reached out a hand, and I joined him, bringing over the kids’ pajamas from the drawer. 

The next morning, Sakura was suprisingly the first to wake, her little voice calling for me. I could tell immediately that she was hungry, so I scooped her up and took her with me as I sat in the rocking chair in the room, where the quiet of the early morning enveloped us like a cozy blanket. As I fed her, the soft light filtering through the window illuminated her delicate features, and I couldn’t help but smile at how sweet and peaceful my daughter looked, with her Papa’s same eyes and hair.

“Slept well, babygirl?”

With her hands around the bottle and her lips glued to the tip, her eyes found mine and she nodded. 

Once she was fed and fully awake, I reminded her that Levi was still asleep, so I carried her with me back to the master bedroom, where Noah was still tangled in the sheets, lying on his stomach, shirtless, with one hand tucked beneath a pillow.

“Papa,” Sakura called.

Just hearing her say his name was enough to coax a smile from him, even with his eyes still closed. I let her climb onto the bed, and she crawled right over to him, nudging his tattooed shoulder with a soft insistence.

“Papa!” she repeated, louder this time, her tiny hands pushing against him.

“Yes, babygirl?” Noah mumbled, rolling over slowly to face her.

Sakura babbled something that neither of us quite understood, and we shared a laugh, enchanted by her morning enthusiasm.

“I know, I know,” Noah replied, stretching his arms overhead as he sat up, the sheets slipping away to reveal the entirety of his muscled tattoed torso. 

After a few moments of morning cuddles, Noah got dressed and decided to take our daughter out into the garden, where they were greeted by Trouble. They settled on the porch, where Noah cradled our baby girl in his arms, the two of them framed by the glow of the rising sun.

As the first light of day crept over the mountains, Sakura cooed and babbled happily, her little hands pointing at the sky in wonder. Noah murmured softly to her, sharing snippets of thoughts and observations about the world. He pointed out the way the colors changed in the morning light, the birds flitting about, and the way the leaves shimmered with dew.

After the entire family woke up and had finished breakfast, Grandma called out the children into the living room. 

“I have some surprises for you, little ones. Come here sit with Grandma.” On the floor in front of her were colorful packages wrapped in bright paper, each adorned with shiny ribbons. “Look what I brought for you!” 

Levi dashed over, tugging at his sister’s hand to urge her to crawl along behind him. 

Grandma began by handing them each a small package. Levi ripped into his with the fervor of a true little boy, revealing a set of brightly colored building blocks. His eyes widened in awe. 

“Look, Mama!” he exclaimed, holding them up proudly.

Sakura, on the other hand, took her time, delicately unwrapping her gift with tiny fingers. When she finally revealed a plush white bunny with extremely long ears, her face lit up with pure joy. She hugged it tightly to her chest, her delight evident as she nestled her head against it.

“Do you like your new bunny, sweetheart?” Grandma asked, her heart swelling with happiness.

Sakura nodded vigorously.

After unwrapping the toys, Grandma reached behind her and brought out two beautifully folded outfits.

“For my little warrior,” she announced, holding up a small, traditional outfit for Levi—a miniature warrior’s attire, complete with delicate, intricate details that mimicked one of his father’s. “And for my little princess,” she continued, revealing an elegant white kimono adorned with tiny embroidered blossoms.

We’d kept both children in modern, comfortable clothes—soft cotton jumpers, leggings, and joggers that allowed them to move freely and easily. But seeing these traditional clothes, made with such care and attention, felt like a small window into the past, connecting them with the roots of their heritage.

Levi darted over to Noah, who was sipping black coffee by the garden, one hand cradling his mug while the other rested on Trouble’s thick fur, who stood at Noah’s waist even on all fours.

“Papa! Can you help me wear this? I’m going to be just like you!” Levi’s eyes sparkled with excitement, the bundle of cloth and miniature armor pieces clutched in his tiny hands.

Noah set his coffee down and motioned Levi closer. He knelt, carefully fastening each part of the outfit, steady hands adjusting every strap and buckle with the same focus he might bring to his own armor. Levi stood stock-still, his chest puffed out proudly. When Noah finally stepped back to take in the sight, Levi looked every inch the little warrior. 

Noah chuckled softly, reaching out to smooth our son’s hair. 

“Looking good, Levi,” he murmured, feeling a tug of pride at the familiar look in Levi’s eyes. It was like seeing a younger version of himself, bold and ready for anything. “Did you say thank you to Grandma?”

As if realizing his mistake, he turned around and shouted, “Thank you, Grandma!”

Grandma’s smile only grew bigger.

As we admired Levi’s transformation, I noticed Sakura still sat on the floor, a look of frustration and sadness spreading across her face. She was tugging at her sweater, trying to pull it off by herself, her little face scrunched up in concentration—and then she started to cry silently, overwhelmed by her desire to join in but unable to undress on her own.

“Oh,” I muttered as I walked to her and kneeled down. “Baby, it’s okay. We’re going to help you.”

“No need to cry, come on,” Noah interjected, scooping her up and settling her on his lap as he took a seat on the couch. “Arms up, baby.”

She lifted her arms, sniffling a little as he gently pulled off her sweater and guided her tiny arms into the sleeves of her kimono. He adjusted each fold with care, and then tied the delicate sash around her waist. Once she was dressed, Noah lifted her and propped her up on his thighs. She stood there, balanced in his hands, her big eyes taking in the soft white fabric that flowed elegantly around her tiny frame. The kimono’s delicate folds shimmered in the morning light and made her look like a tiny princess straight out of a storybook.

“Look at you. My beautiful babygirl,” he murmured, pressing a kiss to her cheek.

Sakura stood still, gazing up at him with a tiny blush blooming on her cheeks, her admiration shining so openly that it made Noah chuckle.

“I think your daughter might be in love with you,” Grandma commented with a smile.

“You have no idea,” I interjected, and all of us laughed. 

I walked over to them, smoothing my hand over the soft, white fabric of Sakura’s kimono, adjusting a fold even though Noah had already done it perfectly. She gazed up at me, her big eyes bright with excitement, and I couldn’t help but smile, my heart swelling as I took in her joy.

“You look absolutely beautiful, sweetheart,” I murmured, brushing a stray curl from her forehead. I glanced at Noah, letting a playful glint spark in my eyes. “Daddy did a great job.”

Noah smirked, a mischievous glint flashing in his eyes. 

“Pretty good with belts and knots, aren’t I?” he murmured, his voice low enough that only I caught the edge of his joke. I shot him a wide-eyed look, barely able to hold back my laugh. Typical Noah, sneaking in a comment like that while Grandma and the kids were right there. Lucky for him, everyone else seemed blissfully unaware.

Then, with that familiar, warm smile, he slid his arm around my waist and tugged me closer. He didn’t even have to say anything for me to feel how much he loved being here with us, with his family.

Sakura watched us, her little face brightening as she glanced between her father and me. “Papa, kiss Mama,” she piped up, clapping her hands together.

Noah chuckled, his gaze meeting mine with a look that held years of shared stories, a million unspoken words. Then he tilted his chin up, I bent down, and he kissed me, a soft press of his lips that was so familiar yet always felt like a quiet thrill. Sakura’s giggles filled the room, the kind of laughter that made everything feel lighter, as if we’d slipped into one of the fairytales she loved so much.

After spending time with Grandma and taking a walk down to the heart of the sanctuary that morning, we met Rika’s family and other neighbors. Lunch was a communal affair in the main hall, where the air was rich with the scent of fresh rice, vegetables, and miso. Levi and Sakura spent the afternoon running about, playing with Rika and Milla’s children, giggling as they chased one another—eighter on two or four legs—, and even cautiously patting and feeding the deer that roamed around.

Trouble stalked nearby, her tail held high and a low, protective growl rumbling every time one of the other animals got too close to Levi and Sakura. She was overprotective, and it was clear she took her self-imposed role as a guardian seriously. 

Eventually, we made our way back to the house, the golden afternoon light filtering through the trees. While Noah went outside to feed Trouble, Grandma approached me with a knowing look in her eye. She took my hands in hers, her warmth and wisdom wrapping around me.

“Why don’t you and Noah take some time for yourselves?” she suggested. “I’ll stay here with the children.”

“But you only just got here,” I protested, reluctant to impose. “You don’t need to jump right into babysitting duty, Grandma.”

She gave a small laugh, her eyes crinkling.

“Maybe because I think Noah should know the news,” she said.

I paused, feeling a soft swell of emotion at the thought. Her hand squeezed mine as she looked into my eyes. 

“I know he’ll be even more protective and likely won’t let you out of his sight for a moment, but he deserves to be part of this journey and not miss a day. Let him share in the joy and excitement with you.”

I took a deep breath. She was right, of course. Noah deserved to be a part of this new chapter from the very beginning, and I could already picture the joy in his eyes when he found out about the life growing inside of me. 

I bit my lip, but eventually nodded. With my heart grateful, I gave Grandma a warm hug.

After a quiet moment, I made my way outside, finding Noah as he leaned against a tree, watching Trouble with a satisfied smile as she finished her meal. He looked up as I approached. 

“Why don’t we go out for a bit?” I suggested, doing my best to sound casual.

Noah raised an eyebrow, casting a glance toward the living room where Levi and Sakura were happily playing with Grandma. 

“Again? I think both the kids and Grandma might be tired…”

“Just the two of us,” I clarified, cutting him off with a small smile.

He turned back to me, his expression shifting from confusion to understanding, realization dawning in his eyes. 

A slow smirk crept across his face. 

“Just us?” he murmured, his tone lower.

“Yes,” I replied, extending my hand toward him. He took it without hesitation, his warmth making me feel all the more eager to share this not-so-little secret with him.

Inside, we gathered a picnic basket and filled it with a blanket, fruit, and other snacks. We said goodbye to the children, who didn’t seem too preoccupied with us leaving thanks to Grandma’s presence. As we made our way to the door, Trouble followed us, glancing over her own back every two seconds, clearly undecided between following us or staying back with Levi and Sakura.

“No worries, Trouble. You’re in charge here,” Noah told her. She hesitated, giving us one last look, before trotting back inside and settling herself protectively beside the children, her tail curling around Sakura and tickling her in the face, making her scrunch her nose and cover her face with her arms. 

Noah and I left the house with a loving laugh. 

The weather was perfectly warm and clear as we set off up the path toward a hidden pond not too far, eager to savor the last few hours of sunlight. It was a secluded little haven we had discovered just before I got pregnant with the twins—a place Noah and I had made our own, keeping it a secret even from the kids for now. As much as we loved being parents, we cherished our time alone, too. Though Noah hadn’t said it outright, I could tell from the glint in his eyes how much he appreciated Grandma’s gesture in giving us this moment to ourselves.

We spread out the blanket on the sand surrounding the pond, the warmth of the late afternoon settling over us as we unpacked apples, peaches, berries, and pastries from the basket. Noah settled down and I knelt beside him, reaching eagerly for one of the chocolate pastries. But before I could take a bite, he gestured for me to sit between his legs. I moved over and leaned back into his arms, savoring the comfort of his warmth and the easy rhythm of his breath against my neck.

With his arms wrapped around me, he held a box of berries in front of us and began feeding both of us, occasionally rubbing a blueberry over my lips to tease me, pulling it back with before I could catch it. When I gave his thigh a playful pinch, he yelped, and I turned my head to meet his gaze with a glare that said, “You deserved that.”

After a while, with our appetites satisfied, I relaxed against him, my head resting on his shoulder and his chin gently perched on mine. His cheek brushed against me, warm and slightly rough—just the way I liked it. His arms held me close, my hands resting atop his as we took in the view together: the slow sway of the water, the vibrant reflections of the sun across the pond, the birds soaring overhead, and the flowers tilting upward as if reaching for the fading sun.

I felt the soft ghost of Noah’s lips graze the crook of my neck, where my skin was exposed. Instinctively I tilted my head to give him more access.

“I love the way you smell,” he murmured, his voice a low vibration against my skin. 

“What do I smell like?”

“Hmm. Lavender and… baby powder.”

I snorted, laughing softly. 

“So do you,” I teased, leaning in at an odd angle to nuzzle my nose against his cheek. He pulled a face.

“Please don’t tell me that,” he groaned. “A Samurai smelling like baby powder? Not exactly intimidating.”

“It makes you a responsible, caring dad.” My voice softened as I looked up at him, our faces so close I could see the flecks of darker brown in his eyes. “You’re the best father to our children I could’ve ever asked for.”

“Because you and our kids deserve only the best,” he replied, his hand sneaking up to touch my chin with a finger. He tiped it up. Then his palm cupped my cheek and he brought our lips together. 

We kissed under the trees, surrounded by the earthy scent of the forest, birdsong, and the rustling of leaves in the breeze. Gradually, my body melted beneath his touch, and he shifted until I was lying back on the blanket, his mouth never leaving mine. 

Since the moment I got pregnant, Noah’s affection and care had grown, and he had never stopped showing how much he loved me and how beautiful I was in his eyes. He was a grown man now; gone was the teenage boy I’d watched training tirelessly on my father’s grounds. But his heart remained unchanged, and every now and then, he’d still wear that peaceful expression while he slept—the look of that young boy I’d first fallen in love with. Now, Noah was my husband, my soulmate, but he would always also be the boy that stole my heart.

Lying on the blanket, his hands explored my body, slipping beneath the fabric of my kimono to find my skin while my fingers trailed through his hair, drawing soft sounds from his lips that stirred a warmth deep within me. I hooked a leg around him, arching to meet him, offering myself without hesitation. Noah murmured something against my mouth, and as I ran a hand down his back to slip beneath his shirt and touch his muscles, his grip on my waist tightened.

“Behave,” he ordered, his voice rough. His eyes remained closed as he untied the laces of my kimono, spreading the fabric to either side and exposing my skin to the open air, a chill raising goosebumps.

“Or what?” I teased, nipping at his lower lip.

When he opened his eyes, they were dark and narrowed, though a playful glint lingered in them. 

“Or I’ll find a good use for this belt,” he replied.

“Oh? And then…?”

His brow lifted, slightly taken aback by my boldness. 

“Then I’ll place these berries on every spot that makes you shiver,” he murmured, his fingers tracing down the valley between my breasts and along my sides, tickling lightly. My giggles bubbled up, and he laughed with me, though his intent was clear. “And I’ll eat every one of them off you before letting my tongue wander between your legs.”

Heat pooled low in my belly, but I maintained a calm facade. 

“And you’re going to act so indecently out here in the open?” I teased, tilting my head toward a nearby deer quietly grazing in the shade.

Noah followed my gaze. 

“They’ve witnessed far filthier things than that, done by you,” he teased right back.

I couldn’t suppress a wide smile before his mouth descended on mine. In a matter of minutes, my underwear was gone, and Noah was making good on his promise with focused, deliberate devotion. I lay exposed on the blanket, berries scattered across my stomach as his mouth traced every inch of me, savoring each berry he plucked from my skin. He licked away the juice that dripped from them, glancing up at me every so often. 

Eventually, he shed his clothes as well. I watched him with a blissful smile, sated from my first climax, his skilled mouth having left gentle love bites along the inside of my thighs as the breeze carried away my gasps. When he finally entered me, I felt complete, holding tight to his shoulders as he moved within me, my legs locked around him and my eyes fixed on his. I lifted my head to meet him in a kiss, tasting the faint tartness of raspberries lingering on his tongue.

“Sometimes,” he said, his voice strained as he withdrew slowly, inch by inch, making me feel every exquisite part of him, “I still can’t believe you’re mine.”

I tangled my fingers in his hair and pulled him back down to me. 

“I’ll be yours,” I whispered hoarsely against his lips, my nose brushing his, “until the end of days, Noah.”

Our eyes locked, and as we moved together, he would reach up every so often to tuck stray strands of hair behind my ear or simply to cup my cheek with quiet affection. At one point, his hand wandered to the box of berries beside us. He held a strawberry to my lips, feeding it to me as he held still within me, his body warm and solid against mine.

“Sweet?” he asked hoarsely. 

I nodded, my cheeks flushed, overwhelmed as always by the press of his heavy body and his cock filling me completely.

“That’s exactly how you taste,” he murmured, punctuating the words with a deep, slow thrust that left me gasping. “No,” he corrected himself, withdrawing slightly, his muscles flexing under my hands as I clung to his biceps. “You taste even sweeter.” He thrust again, harder this time, drawing a cry from my lips. “That’s it,” he coaxed. “Let the Gods hear you. Let them know how good I make you feel.”

“Please, Noah,” I pleaded. “I’m so close.”

He knew, and he didn’t hold back, guiding me to the edge and staying with me as I fell, a soft whimper escaping my lips as his name echoed through the trees. He followed soon after, his released spreading through me, our bodies trembling together as we clung to each other, complete in the quiet of the forest.

Not long after, Noah led me to the water. We cleaned ourselves off, then I wrapped myself around him like a koala. He spun us in circles, making me laugh until my sides ached.

When we emerged, my hair dry because I’d kept it tied back with a kanzashi stick, we dried off and slipped back into our underwear. Feeling utterly content, I lay down on the blanket, my hair spilling around me as soon as Noah pulled at the stick with a cheeky smile. He settled beside me on his stomach. He’d collected a small bundle of flowers—jasmine, sakura blossoms, and a few other delicate wildflowers. One by one, he began placing them over my belly, just as he had done earlier with the berries. When my skin was adorned with petals, he tucked the last sakura blooms in my hair.

The sight of those particular flowers stirred memories. They were a tender reminder not only of our daughter now, but of all those years ago when Noah would visit me at my grandmother’s village home at night, stealing moments with me under the moonlight and the sheets. He would leave in the early mornings, just before sunrise and before I would wake up. When I did, he was gone, but he always used to leave a bunch of sakura flowers on the pillow as a reminder of his love.

Now, the flowers were a reminder of our past and everything we had endured—of the strenght we had found in each other and how much we had accomplished, of the man and the woman we had become. 

“I have to tell you something,” I murmured, feeling the nervous tickling settling in my lower pit. 

He paused, holding a jasmine in his fingers, his eyes bright with curiosity. Without another word, I guided his hand to rest on my flower-covered belly. I watched as his brows furrowed, and then his eyes widening as he began to piece it together. The jasmine slipped from his fingers, settling delicately at my navel.

A quiet breath hitched in his throat as he took in the meaning of my gesture. His eyes filled with wonder, his lips parting slightly as he looked down at my belly, his hand pressing carefully—almost reverently— over me, protective and awestruck.

His question—“Are we having another baby?”—uttered so softly and carefully, as if he believed saying it too loud might shatter the truth of it, melted me. I nodded, my smile bright and cheeks warm, the blush deepening at the comfort of his strong hand resting over our child—our third. 

I felt weightless, floating in a dreamlike state as I looked into the warmth of Noah’s brown eyes, seeing the light of love and devotion that always glowed there. Not a day went by that he didn’t express how lucky he felt to have found me and to have fought for me—to had me fight for him—, how proud and grateful he was that I’d given him not only my heart but a family. I had given him happiness, the kind he’d been raised to believe he’d never deserve. 

After a beat, when the news settled in, his lips found their way to my flower-covered stomach, pressing a tender kiss right where our little one was already learning the love of their Papa. 

Back at home, our girl Sakura and our boy Levi played together, blissfully unaware that soon they’d have someone new to protect, to dote on, to share their world with. Just imagining their excitement and fierce protectiveness over their new sibling made me laugh, my eyes misting. Noah must have been thinking the same. He pressed his cheek against my bare skin. When his eyelashes fluttered, they sent a ripple of lovely goosebumps across my body. 

My hand slipped into his hair, fingers threading softly as we lay there together, wrapped in the quietness of our deserved joy. I had a husband, an adopted wolf, a daughter, a son—and another baby on the way, created from the endless love I shared with Noah—my soldier, my warrior. 

My Samurai.

✨ Author's note:

*cries* *cries more* *cries some more*

*continues crying*

Thank you, thank you, thank you for reading this story, for all your support, for encouraging me to keep going after I posted the first part (which was supposed to be a one shot). Thank your for sharing your thoughts, for commenting, for reblogging, for messaging me about this fic and sending my brain on overdrive with your brainrots. Writing this story has been a dream, firstly because I always wanted to read a romance story with a Samurai and Noah made the perfect muse for it, second because it gave me an excuse to do a lot of research on Japan and its culture and history. This is in no way an accurate historical fic, but there's so much I've read online and s much I've learnt. I wish I could've made this fic into something better and make it more accurate—perhaps longer, too. But I'm currently very happy with what we've created together, yes, together, because half of this wouldn't exist without all of you that have showered me and my works with love and care. I'm forever thankful and glad that writing and sharing these so many words have brought me close to so many of you wonderful creatures.

I hope you know that, while this is the end of the fic, I have some exciting plans for the future involving samurai!noah. I don't want to say more for the time being, but don't say goodbye to him just yet.

I hope you loved reading this as much as I loved sharing it with you and reading your comments and reactions.

Thank you from the bottom of my heart. 🥹

V. 💕

*proceeds to sob*

Taglist:

If I forgot someone, I'm so sorry! I love you! There's just so much going on in my head!

@girlfromrussia-universe | @kankuurohs | @somebodyels3 | @missduffsblog | @respectfulrebel

@badomensls | @shilohrosechicken | @moreyoulove-moreyouknow @concreteangel92 | @alwaysfightforwhoyouare

[v88sy]

There are some blogs optimistic about Tommy back at some point, what are your thoughts about it?

I don't want to get too optimistic, because that's how we got ourselves here in the first place. Let's be honest. This was always a possibility and was even laid out as a possibility in the articles/interviews, we just chose to get too high on the hope. We were treating it as a sure thing and that was never the case. We duped ourselves a little on this one, and yes, I'm absolutely including myself.

Now, as many have pointed out (which I absolutely agree with) if you were to be completely oblivious about the articles and/or what they said, the breakup very much looks like it's open ended. It looks like something that's unresolved or meant to be resolved at a later date. They made it something that could be resolved. Something like moving away or wanting completely different things in life is a lot harder to work through and more definative. They clearly both want to be with each other. Tommy said he wanted to be Buck's last. He said he wouldn't be able to deal with the (what he thought was inevitable) heartbreak. You only get hurt that deep when you lose something you wanted that bad.

This is honestly the first time we ever heard Buck even utter the words "engaged" or "married" to any of his SOs. I do think it's something he wanted down the road, I just don't think he was there yet, and that's absolutely fine. The relationship was still very new. There was clearly a lot they didn't know about each other yet.

It was far too soon to make the commitment of moving in, and Tommy was just trying to stop things from getting any further before he got too deep (too late, me thinks.)

If you remove the clear bias of the journalists writing these "exit interviews" (is that even a thing in television?) they start to sound much like your run of the mill interview they do with every main after they have a major storyline play out on screen. Look at the direct quotes, not what the journalists are inferring for themselves.

All that being said, I'm not getting my hopes up, and I'm not planning on watching live again until I have a definite as to where the storyline is going, and if that takes until the final episode ever, so be it. I will get back to it eventually. Until then, I'll be keeping tabs on what's going on through Tumblr.

Now, this is just a little thought in my brain that has absolutely nothing to back it up whatsoever. I think maybe either Lou needed this break to get away from the bs and finish his role on SWAT, or they gave it to him and he's taking it.

We know he was surprised, but what he was surprised about was how soon it happened. Tells me that at least a temporary break was planned, just not until further down. Or maybe he only meant the disagreement.

We very much know Tim likes to plan out his story about 5 seconds in advance, there could be a tentative plan to maybe bring Tommy back down the road, say, after the midseason hiatus. Could even be the "project that may or may not be happening" that Lou had mentioned.

Buck is my favorite character, but I'm not interested in seeing him regress or go through the same storyline for the millionth time. If he doesn't at least try and fight for Tommy or talk things out with him, it's just more of the same season 5 Buck. I love 99% of the other characters too, but they also suffer from the Groundhog's Day writing and I'm just old and tired.

[ratcash-wasgud]

Lmao hey arcane fandom

I'm going to spew my two cents and try to get yall to see why I will defend Cait with my WHOLE LIFE IF NEEDED

I love Vi too btw, don't get me wrong, they both need their foreheads kissed

EDIT: Also, I'm gonna put this here since ppl thought othervise: This is not a post against Vi, she's my goat, she needs to retire from bad shit happening to her. This is a post defending Cait, since she's the character getting the most hate rn, and I will defend basically every arcane character with my whole chest (exepct Heimerdinger, fuck that hoe)

Spoilers

Ok, let me start with the whole breakup scene and the things that led to it, since that's basically one of the biggest points in this argument. I'm going to be honest, I kinda feel like Vi was a little af fault there. Because now, because Caitlyn couldn't kill Jinx, even when she could've, she will have to do the whole hunt again. AGAIN. And we know Cait is only hurting Zaun because she WILL comb through an entire city just to find Jinx, and nothing else. She doesn't hate the people of Zaun. And it could've stopped at that one incident with the grey IF she killed Jinx. But she didn't, because Vi stopped her. Again.

And let me tell you, if I went through all that shit, WITH the support of my bae, just to be stopped at the last moment I'd be pissed too.

"Oh, but Caitlyn didn't care if she accidentally killed the kid," let me remind yall of that moment when Jayce accidently killed a kid in season one with the hextech weapons, and wanted to stop using them, but Vi was like, "hey, it happens a bunch here, let's not stop using these things for fighting!" And literally said "He knew what he was signing up for." But now she suddenly cares about one kid? Plus what's the chance of Cait ACTUALLY missing? And even if she did, and killed Isha...Jinx killed multiple people yall, probably even kids (including her brothers) but yall love her (me too but that's besides the point).

Cait is now driven by revenge. And let's not pretend we didn't see this change coming. The whole bullet board thing she had on the floor in season one, the dedication to free a random prisoner just to get clues about Silco...she was always dedicated to her craft. And the raige started to appear in her even in the final episode, where she got KIDNAPPED BY JINX, let me remind yall, and she had to literally free herself. Just imagine how traumatic that shit was for her. Then, when she could've shot her abductor, her bae stops her, letting Jinx slip away and go on to kill her mother. But, she's still not blaming Vi, and wants her on her team, just to be stopped at the last moment again.

Next thing is the fact that she becomes a dictator...well, she could've said no when Ambessa said her name, right? Yeah, no. That's not how it works. She couldn't have been like "yeah, no, I don't wanna do allat, I'm still kinda liking the enemy after they keep attacking us, so ima pass on this one", for some reason. Ambessa literally made sure that she can't pass this up. Plus she caught her almost right after she returned from Zaun, and leaving Vi. She was in a vulnerable, revenge hungry state.

Ok, yap session over, I'm writing this at 1 am, and I have work tomorrow at 6, so I'm cooked, but Cait Cait Cait Cait Cait Cait Cait

[austenpoppy]

Guys, I love both Dickory and Dickbabs. Everybody hates Annual 2 because, 1) it spits on Dick's character, 2) it spits at us in the face, 3) it makes a mockery of all ships, 4) the timing doesn't make any freaking sense. If you read New Titans, there is just no way Dick would or could have cheated in that moment in time, not after what happened with Mirage, when he was blaming himself for being raped and not recognizing Mirage was posing as Kory, when he was holding on to his relationship with Kory so tightly as his last source of happiness after losing Joey, Raven, Danny, Arabella, Vic in many ways, and there was also something going on with Clark (was he believed dead ?).

But let's not stump on poor Dick during that time in New Titans. Please. Let's not make up things that weren't there. And let me convince you there was no domestic abuse involved.

The images I put below are, at least the way I interpreted them, a dream sequence imagined by Kory in her sleep, which we know because right after, before the scene itself ends, there's an image of Kory waking up in her bed in the middle of the night due to Dick's incessant ringing. Plus, the very tone of that sequence seems off, exaggerated - like a dream would be.

New Titans #99

And if you're wondering about Dick's tattered costume when he comes in Kory's flat, let's just say the art is inconsistent - Dick had, as you can see, no visible hole in his costume after Kory blasted him if that sequence were real, so I don't see why we should consider this a real scene on that basis alone.

As for the random strangers, they're...not random strangers ? The guy Dick punches in the face is a paparazzi who was photographing him along with other paparazzi right after Kory broke up with him, and were harassing him and taunting him/making fun of him - they heard Dick shouting after Kory.

New Titans #97

Yeah, if you look at it I guess it's still assault under US law, but frankly you'd have to be a saint not to punch one of those slimy buggers in the face after everything that went down. Also, Dick doesn't seem to like paparazzi much - years later, he was less than pleasant to the people harassing Alfred in the Vesper Fairchild murder.

Part of the Bruce Wayne: murderer ? story arc

Do I hate that Kory broke up with Dick that way and blamed him for what went on with Mirage ? Heck yeah. Do I hate that Dick proposed to Kory as a last resort not to lose her ? Also yes. But I wouldn't say those issues were worse than Annual 2. It goes downhill after (you can guess I'm still fuming about many things that went on after that wedding, including but not limited to Kory's character progression being erased, and Dick shouldering the entire blame of their relationship's end and thinking he was too "self-absorbed" in the whole Mirage episode).

Thinking about shipping problematic pairs from last night…

Something that really annoys me is how everyone goes off on Nightwing Annual 2, but mention Dick and Kory’s wedding as a shitstorm of epic proportions, and you get crickets.

I own Nightwing Annual 2. In print. I paid above the cover price for it. (And I read comics digitally. I don’t own single issues in print much at all - couldn’t even fill a short box with my collection. Trades, yes, issues no.) Yes, it is heinously out of character for Dick to have cheated on Kory with Babs, no question. And the scene when Babs comes to the door to see Dick and is lied to by Kory, and leaves in tears and then Kory lies to Dick about it? Also very out of character for both of those women. Both of those moments are really serious missteps of writing, that is for sure.

Aside from those two parts, which I pretty much skip over when I read it anyway, I really like the book. Joe Bennett and Jack Jadson’s art is beautiful. It always is, but Bennett’s Babs is extra stunning and an A+ to them for remembering how tall Kory is. (Their run on Birds of Prey is also my favorite art on that book.) In terms of story, I love the rest of the memories Dick and Babs recount - getting locked in the safe together, Babs POV of when Dick tried to tell her how he felt about her, and the ending is heartbreaking and beautiful.

But, I mean, really. To like this book publicly is to rain down a storm of fandom haterade on yourself. Which, to be honest, fine. That kind of thing doesn’t really bother me in and of itself. It’s just the hypocrisy of it all. New Teen Titans 97-101 is at least as bad - worse, IMO - in terms of characterization for Dick and Kory and no one ever says boo about it. Dick hits total random strangers because fighting with Kory makes him angry. He gets physical with her, and she blasts him with starbolts. Straight up domestic violence. And still, crickets! I have a 13-page NOVEL about how many problems I have with the way DickKory has been written, at least half of which revolves around that engagement/wedding… (a lot of which is really angry and I hesitate to publish but had to write out for myself.)

But why? Is it because - other than TT!RobStar - there aren’t many real DickKory shippers left to either excuse or renounce it? Is it that DickBabs is an “actively sailing ship” and all of us shippers feel like we have to trip all over ourselves to make an exception of Nightwing Annual 2 so that people won’t hate our ship?

Like, what’s the deal here?

[thisfeelslike-iykyk]

love languages ࿐ ࿔*:･ﾟ

hp boys x reader (harry potter, ron weasley, fred weasley, draco malfoy, cedric diggory, remus lupin, sirius black, james potter, tom riddle) backtrack: inspiration: my post for pjo (here) that has the same concept

harry potter

giving: acts of service

harry always fights to protect those he loves, lest we forget the battle in the department of mysteries to “save” sirius, and even those he could not care less about (ahem draco). he’s self sacrificing, literally walking to his own death in the last book to save everyone else. and on a day to day basis, he goes out of his way to include or be nice to everyone, especially those who don’t really have friends, like luna or neville. he’s less about grand gestures and sappy love, instead preferring to care for his loved ones in practical ways.

receiving: words of affirmation

before harry went to hogwarts and met his friends, he literally received no love. petunia, vernon, and dudley would emotionally and physically abuse him. for that reason, I think harry would really appreciate someone praising him or just simply saying an “I appreciate you” or even “I love you”. also for that reason, I think physical touch might be a receiving love language for harry too.

ron weasley

giving: acts of service

oh gosh here we go, I already know there’s going to be so many “acts of service” guys on here. ron’s one of the most loyal people in the series, he’s always there for his friends and he is super selfless and protective of them. curse the movies for taking away his moment where he stands up on a broken leg to protect harry from a literal serial killer (well not really, but they didn’t know it at the time). he’s not the most, uh, articulate should we say, but he always helps his friends out.

receiving: words of affirmation

growing up in a family as big as his, ron got cast aside a lot. I mean, his literal deepest desire was to be noticed by others and not be overshadowed. and deep down he definitely knew that his family loved him, it was just kind of hard to see sometimes since his parents’ and siblings’ attention was always so divided. (side note, as an only child I could not imagine being in a family of ron’s size; one of my best friends has two sisters and she’s one of the nicest people I know, and I definitely think there’s a correlation) so if someone were to finally notice him and genuinely love him for who he is and tell him that, it would make him so happy. finally, he’s enough as he is. finally, he feels like someone loves him.

fred weasley

giving: quality time

quality time and acts of service are the big ones for fred. he’s willing to put himself into dangerous situations during the war (rip fred weasley, you deserved better) and the battle of seven potters. besides that, he thrives on bringing people together and making connections. he’s super friendly to everyone, a classic jokester, and he shows his love through the time he spends around people, especially george. they were always together. it hurts that they can't be anymore.

receiving: quality time

fred spent like all of his time with george when they were first starting weasleys’ wizard wheezes. granted, that was because starting a business takes a lot of time and effort, but it shows how fred is willing to spend time focusing on his passions. that led me to think he’d find it super important to spend time with his loved ones, and he would want his partner to spend a lot of time with him too. he uses humor as a defense mechanism and a coping mechanism, but deep down he knows that the war is actually dangerous and will have real consequences, such as bill getting mauled or george losing an ear. (or, you know, FRED LOSING HIS LIFE.) so he treasures every little moment with his loved ones.

draco malfoy

giving: acts of service

thinking about this was actually really hard. draco’s such a cold person, and he’s never shown love; all his selfless actions can be chalked up to fear and having no choice. so I had to look at when and why he married astoria. and this meant dipping into the cursed child, which I’ve never read fully but have read enough to be able to say I hate it and I don’t accept it. he truly did love astoria, even when his relationship with his parents suffered because of it. he became a better person because of astoria--miss  girl really said “I can fix him”. he even went so far as to disregard his father’s wishes when he wanted to let the malfoy line die with him. so I think when he really does find someone he loves, draco can be a pretty selfless person.

receiving: words of affirmation

gosh, just how much do people suck up to him? he was treated like a king in his early hogwarts years, and he loved it. I think the deeper reason is that he grew up without a ton of verbal affection from his family, so that’s something he craves from other places--a partner, or peers. the first time he hears an “I love you”, he’d be absolutely shocked and maybe turn cold or shut down. after some time and patience from both of you, he’d slowly begin to accept praise or loving words. if he’s feeling brave, he may even reciprocate them. only when it’s in the middle of the night and he’s pretty sure you’re asleep, though.

cedric diggory

giving: quality time

cedric spent a lot of time with cho when they were together; they would always go on dates and spend a lot of time together in between classes. it shows how much he values spending time with his loved ones. another giving love language of his is definitely quality time, because cedric is 100% a giver. he tipped harry off about the golden egg. he wanted harry to take the cup when they were in the maze. he’s just such a nice guy.

receiving: physical touch

this is for two reasons. one because I want it to be, and two because did you see his face when rita skeeter ruffled his hair in the movie? the guy was not having it, but I bet if the right person did it he’d be all blushy and smiley. also when harry went to the courtyard to tell him about the dragons, he was literally laying in his friend’s lap. and I can’t remember correctly, but wasn’t it said that he and cho would constantly hold hands? yeah. enough said.

remus lupin

giving: acts of service

remus does so much for others. he was one of the best defense against the dark arts professors for a reason. and even if his competition wasn’t so poor, I’m sure he would’ve been just as popular. he’s a natural mentor and caregiver, always there for others and sometimes neglecting his own needs because of it. he engages with his students on a personal level, especially harry, and he is always willing to put himself in danger for others, as seen in the battle of seven potters and the battle of hogwarts.

receiving: words of affirmation

this and quality time. for quality time, he spent a lot of time with his friends in school, and he spent a lot of time with harry when he was the datda professor. this time really helped grow his relationships and helped him feel close to his newfound family. as for words of affirmation, I think it’s obvious; as a kid, he never really had friends, and as a result he secretly yearns for encouragement and emotional support. kind words and whispered promises that everything will be okay. that is how remus lupin feels loved.

sirius black

giving: quality time

sirius spent so much time with his friends when he was young. he had a really rocky relationship with his family, so he gave all of his love to his friends. he and james were practically inseparable, they had such a nice connection. on top of that, after barely any human interaction for twelve whole years in azkaban, he treasures every single moment he has with his loved ones. it’s like every time he and his partner are together, he looks at them and can hardly believe this is real. but it is real. he’s out of azkaban, he’s free, and he has such an amazing partner to spend the rest of his life with. that’s decades! (I can’t with sirius’s death, I--no. he did not die.)

receiving: words of affirmation

sirius spent his childhood and adult life being rejected and ridiculed. that’s got to hurt, especially when he was literally in azkaban for something he didn’t do. he was so deprived of love and general human interaction for twelve years that I imagine he’d initially be kind of awkward or even scared when his partner first shows him love through praise or verbal affection. after a while though, he’d warm up and hopefully show that youthful, happy side of him again. also, he’d probably be big on quality time, since he got none of it at all during his azkaban years.

james potter

giving: words of affirmation

ah, finally someone who’s not acts of service or quality time! at this point I think maybe it’s just me. james is teasing and playful with his words; he’s very vocal about his affection and appreciation for his friends and loved ones. he did, after all, ask lily out pretty much every time he saw her. not at all like remus, who is a love letters and secret admirer kind of guy.

receiving: words of affirmation

james loved hearing praise and support. especially when he was in school. fuel his ego. that’s it.

tom riddle

giving: words of affirmation

I don’t think voldemort could physically feel love. I sometimes wonder if tom riddle and voldemort were different people, and honestly that’s a can of worms I don’t want to get into right now. I believe there’s some sort of theory that he can’t feel love because he was conceived while his dad was under a love potion? I have no idea. the important thing is that we all know how good tom riddle was at manipulating people. flattery gets you nowhere, they say, well clearly not if you’re tom marvolo riddle, because flattery got him everywhere. so he would use words to flatter people and show his admiration or appreciation of them, but was any of it actually real? I doubt it.

receiving: words of affirmation

honestly kind of the same deal with draco, but he's a lot worse. he wants to be treated like a king--scratch that, he wants to be treated like a god. he craves affirmation for his greatness and abilities. all his followers praise him endlessly, calling him “my lord” and sucking up to him. he also wanted his ideologies to be affirmed and supported by others. let’s face it, words of affirmation were just another way for him to prove to himself that he’s the greatest.

just a heads up guys, I'm so tired as I'm writing this so it was unedited

divider by @enchanthings

taglist: @loveinalocket, @raysmayhem-72, @stars-tonight, @toooster, @soft-likethesunset, @sheisntyou

[skania]

Final Akane + AquaKane Thoughts

There are so many things to say that I don't even know how to start organizing my thoughts lol I'll also be including my final thoughts about the "love triangle" while I'm at it, so this is probably going to get long!

I've written quite a bit about Aqua/Akane this past year, so I won't be going into detail into any of the things I've already discussed up to now. Instead, I'll just focus on my thoughts on this final set of chapters, as well as my overall thoughts now that the manga is over.

I'll start with the (few) things I liked:

The Good

I mentioned before that I'm a sucker for parallels, and that Aqua/Akane having so many is one of the reasons why I couldn't help but ship them. We somehow got some very good ones in these last few chapters. We even got a scene at the Aqua/Akane bridge, the one where Akane's relationship with Aqua began and ended.

Aqua saved her life at that bridge, without any ulterior motives. And it's that very bridge that is pictured as Akane says that she has decided to live on. The imagery is poignant and pays its respects to not only Akane's arc as a character, but also to the Aqua/Akane relationship.

More than that, the parallels we got confirm things that Akane and Aqua/Akane fans like me have been saying all along:

Through it all, Akane saw him as he is and embraced the broken him. Each time, she willingly chose to get closer to him. When Aqua tells Akane that he has been saved ever since he met her, I get it. I have no doubt that for Aqua, who has been desperately fighting alone for so long, being seen and understood and loved despite all his self-perceived flaws and the darkness in him must have felt like salvation.

Akane is the one who knows Aqua the best, the one who knows him the most, the one who sees him exactly as he is and who loves all of him. Akane doesn't romanticize Aqua's flaws and his self-sacrificial nature, and neither does she idealize his virtues. She just accepts him and does her best to support and understand him through it all.

Akane being the only one who can see through Aqua's plan is enough to prove this, but it's actually not the most meaningful way in which Aka confirmed it. The most meaningful way was actually this:

Usually, whenever Akane thinks about Aqua, she calls him Aqua-kun. However, throughout her entire monologue in the last three chapters, Akane never addresses him by name. She just calls him "You". The same "You" (君) that Aka emphasized in Chapter 63.

The "You" that encapsulates everything Aqua Hoshino was: both the Goro and the Aqua.

This was a very, very deliberate narrative choice that tells you that throughout the manga, Akane was the one who loved Aqua Hoshino exactly as he was.

Aka also uses another parallel to confirm that Akane was indeed lying to Kana when she claimed that she was over Aqua.

When she finally breaks down, Aka allows Akane to be honest about her feelings, and the parallel to the Aqua/Akane break-up tells us everything we need to know.

Akane never stopped loving Aqua. She has been in love with him all along.

Ever since they broke up, Akane has been sacrificing her feelings for Aqua in order to do what she thinks is best for him. Akane's priority has always been to see Aqua happy. She is willing to do whatever it takes to accomplish that. Back when she thought that Aqua needed to kill Kamiki, Akane was willing to shoulder that sin with him just so he wouldn't have to carry it on his own. When she realized that what Aqua truly wanted was to be free from his revenge, Akane was ready to deal with Kamiki on her own just so that Aqua wouldn't get his hands dirty. Then, when Aqua pushes Akane away, Akane becomes determined to stop him from killing Kamiki because she knows revenge is not what Aqua truly wants or needs.

But that's not all there is to it. Akane wants to be with Aqua, because she loves him. And it's precisely because she loves him, and because she thinks her love failed to save him, that she keeps her feelings to herself and is even willing to help another girl get close to him in her place.

So this chapter confirmed that the one who has been making the sacrificial play, the one who truly loved Aqua, was Akane. It is, essentially, the counterpart to Chapters 148 and 149.

It's no wonder, then, that Akane's feelings and her grief are the ones we follow immediately after Aqua's death. She goes to mourn him in the place he actually died, and when she's around his family, she keeps her pain to herself in order to not worsen their burden. We see her piece together what happened, we see her break, and then we see Akane put herself together and find some solace in knowing that Aqua kept her away to protect her.

Aqua is gone, and Akane is the only one to know Aqua's truth.

A lot of people spent the entire manga trying to downplay Aqua's relationship with Akane; claiming that it was a lie, a manipulation, or what-have-you. Now that the manga is over, we can say those claims were never proven.

At the contrary, until the very end, Aqua's thoughts & actions in regard to Akane were shown to back-up everything he said about her during their relationship.

Aqua could've lived if he had asked Akane for help in killing Kamiki, but he didn't want Akane to get her hands dirty for him. He broke up with her to not bring her down to hell with him, and when the options were to either die alone or make Akane bear the weight of a sin with him, the choice was quickly made.

At the end, he's even shown wanting the same thing Akane wanted: an equal relationship with her.

Unlike his thoughts about Kana (more on that later), which are just a 'might', this is something Aqua is purposeful about. It's something he is sure he wants. It's even the last thing he thinks of before wanting to see Ruby at the dome, which we all know was his dearest wish.

This also fits the panels chosen to be shown in the "romance" part of Aqua's montage: the moment he doesn't catch Kana's ball (symbolizing that their feelings don't connect) vs the moment where he chooses to kiss and date Akane for real.

Which brings us back to the moment they broke up. That chapter was titled "Going Astray" and we now saw where that wrong turn led Aqua: to his death.

So chapter 98, the Aqua/Akane break-up, is pretty much officially the chapter that leads us to the ending we got.

Which means that what I said back in this post still applies. If Aqua and Akane had been honest with each other during that phone-call in Chapter 97, things could've been different. But truth is, it's nearly pointless to think about it, because what this all comes down to is that Aka wanted this ending and he wanted it at all costs.

So nothing could have happened any other way, because Aka didn't want Aqua to be saved. He wanted Aqua to die so he could have his forced "bittersweet" ending.

This is why Aqua and Akane had to break up, it's why Akane is practically not allowed to interact with Aqua again after their break-up, and it's also why Akane never found out about Aqua being Goro's reincarnation.

Aqua was never meant to be saved, and Akane more than anyone could have saved him. So, of course, Aka couldn't allow her to do so. It's forced writing at its finest.

This is also why Akane isn't involved in Aqua's fatidic confrontation with Kamiki. While there is Aka's typical contrived writing involved in Akane leaving Aqua to his own devices at the most crucial moment, I do think it makes sense.

I've mentioned before that from the very beginning, Aqua and Akane's relationship has been based on trust and on choices.

Aqua once gave Akane a choice, trusting that she'd be able to choose what was best for herself. After Akane made her choice, Aqua did everything in his power to help her accomplish her goal.

Ever since, Akane has been trying to do the same for Aqua.

Akane wants Aqua to choose what's right for himself. She will always respect whatever it is that he chooses, as long as it is a true reflection of what he wants and needs. This is why Akane was eager to stop his plan to kill Kamiki, she could tell that Aqua was ready to sacrifice his own future to accomplish it.

That's why, once Aqua chooses to let Kamiki live, Akane is reassured.

Something has changed in Aqua. Akane notices this and believes that Aqua has, finally, chosen to not throw his life away just to deal with Kamiki. She trusts that he has.

Personally, I'd like to believe that Akane was right. Problem was that once Aqua knew for sure that Kamiki couldn't be saved, he switched back to his original plan. Something Akane couldn't have foreseen without knowing that Aqua was the reincarnation of a dude whose issues made him suicidal... which is yet another reason why Aka could have never let Akane find out about the whole reincarnation business.

So all in all, Aqua/Akane-wise, this is all well and good. On paper.

When it comes to the execution however, it leaves a lot to be desired, because Aqua/Akane is sadly majorly brought down by the spectacular way in which Aqua's character was (mis)handled during the second half of the manga.

The Bad

Goro has always been someone who thinks his life has no worth, and this belief is deeply ingrained into Aqua. That's why I could tell that his revenge plan likely involved killing himself and making it look like Kamiki did it.

I just didn't think that he would actually succeed, because it kind of goes without saying that the suicidal character getting to kill himself is far from being a satisfying ending. Even less so when said character has shown time and time again that he actually wants to live, he is just too broken by his guilt complex to believe he has that right.

For a while there, it even looks like Aqua will make it. That he has once again started to embrace that this is a life that he wants to live.

Sadly, once Aqua realizes that Kamiki can't be saved and that he poses a danger to Ruby, all of that flies off the window and "Goro" takes over. And by "Goro" I don't mean Goro the character, I mean all the bad habits that Aqua has due to his guilt-complex and survivor's guilt.

So Aqua goes and executes his original plan, killing himself instead of looking for a better solution. Which means he started off like this:

Only to end the manga pretty much the same way, except you can switch "If Ai's gone, this world isn't-" for "As long as Ruby can live on in this world."

Though, actually, it's even worse than that, because Aqua realizes that he was wrong — dying would bother him — only when it's too late.

It leaves a bad taste in my mouth because it's like Aqua had no development through the entire manga. Cut everything after his break-up with Akane and nearly nothing changes, except the motive behind Aqua throwing his life away: protecting Ruby (Sarina) instead of revenge.

It all feels even more pointless because Aqua's death rings hollow due to how badly his character was mishandled in the second half of the manga. After the break-up, Aqua becomes a "..." bot. His character isn't allowed to grow and neither is he allowed to explore his feelings in any meaningful way, to the point that he dies confused and not knowing who he was.

Pardon my bluntness, but how pathetic is this? 160+ chapters and literally none of this guy's issues were ever solved. His character goes nowhere, only so he can be sacrificed to make the ending bittersweet for Ruby. Though for me it wasn't even bittersweet; the ending fell flat on its face precisely because Aqua's character never goes anywhere, so it's hard to feel anything other than vague frustration and disbelief at how forced the writing is.

Even the Kami/Ai - Aqua/Akane parallels were wasted because both ships ended up in the exact same way: Akane and Ai both unable to save Aqua and Kamiki. I wouldn't even be surprised if those parallels are something Aka came up with on the spot while writing the Ai DVD.

I'm sure some Aqua/Akane truthers will say "all Aqua and Kamiki needed to be saved was to be with Akane and Ai, and Akane and Ai didn't realize that" and leaving aside my issues with that kind of co-dependency, once again, that's all well and good — on paper.

Sure, those of us who ship Aqua and Akane could see it that way if we wanted to, but... did Aka make a point of clearly stating this? No, he left it to the reader's imagination, which means it's just another blank to be filled with headcanon.

Personally, I'm pretty tired of doing that, because everything there is to like about the manga may as well just be the headcanons we have filled all those blanks with.

I always say that I prefer showing and not telling, but there's a limit to everything. Truth of the matter is, if this was supposed to be the case — and especially if it was supposed to be important — then showing isn't enough. Because the majority of readers aren't going to spend hours breaking down every single Aqua/Akane interaction to draw those parallels and reach that conclusion.

Aqua dying soothed by a song by his favorite idol (Ruby/Sarina) doesn't really do it any favors either, because fact of the matter is that people who were never invested in the Aqua/Akane relationship will just assume Aqua never loved Akane back. They'll be more distracted by Kana's tropey, shallow shoujo romance, and this is something Aka allowed in his manga right up to the very end.

Aqua and Akane were the only relationship in the entire manga that got mutual, gradual, organic, continuous development. But this all came to a halt when they broke up, so at the end of the day, they're mostly left up to interpretation.

It's underwhelming.

Most of all, if you ask me, it was a terrible move, because Aqua and Akane could've been the heart of this manga. If their feelings had been properly explored after their break up, if Aqua had been allowed to think of Akane in his last moments, if all this blank-filling had been actual text, they'd have been a tragic love-story for the ages.

But Aka didn't want it to be the heart of the manga, because he had already decided from the beginning that role should go to Aqua and Ruby. Alas, he completely failed at developing that, too, because to the very end there's only Goro and Sarina. That is the entire basis of the Aqua/Ruby relationship and dynamic, and it gets one single chapter where it's explored beyond that, only to immediately focus back on Goro and Sarina as Aqua lies dying.

Goro couldn't save Sarina in his first life, so he wastes his second to do it. He jumped at the chance to free himself of the burden of that guilt without even bothering to think of how much his death would hurt the very person he wanted to protect.

Which takes me to...

The Ugly

Turns out Kana was pretty much just a mixture between Fujiwara and Maki, after all. Except that unlike Maki, she never grows (Aqua literally has to die for her to do so) and unlike Fujiwara, she's overused instead of underused.

Aqua and Kana are portrayed as shallow to the end, and I'd even go as far as saying that the narrative pokes fun at Kana for it. Even during the funeral, she puts on a hat that's reserved for family members and it literally falls off her head when Miyako slaps her lmao

Since this is a manga and not real life, the way Kana's outburst was handled in that chapter is likely meant to be contrasted with the way Akane's own grief was handled, because it pretty much embodies all the differences between both of their relationships with Aqua through the manga.

Kana is focused on herself and on her pain. She thinks Aqua was murdered, but she still irrationally blames him for it, too blinded by her own pain. Aqua was murdered, but not being able to confess to him properly is still at the top of her list of grievances. She is also shown overplaying that one conversation she had with Aqua about Aqua having a death-wish, as if Aqua somehow agreeing to not say that he wants to die was some vital promise that he broke.

Meanwhile, Akane focuses on Aqua. On what Aqua felt, on why he did what he did, and on what he would have wanted. Even her wish to be by Aqua's side is expressed through Akane saying that she'd have been willing to shoulder his burdens with him, no matter where that led them. It is also Akane's understanding of Aqua that helps her to find some solace and to overcome his death.

Kana always looked at Aqua from the outside-in, idealizing and romanticizing him, while Akane was Aqua's partner in every sense of the word. That's why Akane gets all the insightful narration about Aqua while Kana just gets to make a fool of herself at his funeral.

So to the very end, the dichotomy between "Ai" and "Koi" does perfectly illustrates the contrast between the two sides of the Aqua love triangle.

Kana was infatuated with the Aqua that she built up in her head, and focused on what she wanted Aqua to do for her (support her unconditionally), and what she wanted to be for him (his only idol), rather than on Aqua himself as a person.

As for Aqua, during his last moments, most Aqua can say about Kana is that it might be good to respond to her feelings. Might. He spends the entire story knowing Kana is at his beck and call, he even makes fun of her for it (you're so easy to manipulate, yadda yadda), yet when the opportunity to date her presents itself, most he can say is essentially "it could be cool I guess." He even pictures her pulling on his arm to get his attention, while with Akane, he pictures himself facing her and looking straight at her.

So to Aqua, Kana was at most a teenage crush. His feelings for her weren't deep or relevant enough to have any sort of impact on his character, while he outright called the year he spent dating Akane his happy days. An entire year that he spent without Kana even being in his life, mind you. Meanwhile Kana was out there living an entire shoujo where she's the heroine and Aqua is the male lead 😂

That said, I still think Aqua, who I'm sure must've broken a record at being bad at understanding his own feelings, was likely mistaking admiration for romantic attraction, and that he would've realized this pretty early into dating Kana.

The anime is even clearer about this because Aqua's reactions to Kana are paralleled to Akane's who is, quite literally, a fan of Kana.

But even if he wasn't, it doesn't really matter, because it's shown very clearly that Aqua deeply values being understood (to him, it feels like salvation) and that Kana doesn't really understand him. So had they dated, Aqua would've had fun at first, sure, but his emotional needs wouldn't have been met; instead his job would've been to meet Kana's. It just would've never worked in the long term.

Now that the dust has settled, I can say for certain that if Aqua had been allowed to have a happy ending, it'd have been with Akane.

So once more, this is all fine on paper. The problem is that Aka takes it too far. The whole Kana business takes too much panel time for no discernible reason other than to... bait readers? I've even seen some say that Aka intended to mock them.

But even if that were the case, considering that those same readers are likely going to walk out of the story thinking Aqua and Kana are a tragic ship that loved each other because of all the bait, who's really the butt of the joke? Them or Aka himself?

Conclusion

I've always been pretty clear about being an Akane fan first and foremost. Despite all my Aqua/Akane meta, I had no emotional investment in whether she ended up with Aqua or not, as long as she got a satisfying ending. That said, by principle, I most definitely didn't want Aqua to end up with Kana, because that'd be like rewarding Kana for all her crying and whining when she never even tried to understand who Aqua was as a person and I've already gone through that in Naruto, thank you very much.

So the two silver-linings about this ending are that Akane stayed amazing to the end, and that Kana didn't have Aqua handed to her on a silver platter. But considering just how much panel time Kana's meaningless crush takes up in the narrative and how side-lined Akane got after the break-up, it feels like a pyrrhic victory lol

Akane is still the best thing about the manga, and I'd say that she got by far the best ending of the bunch. I'm not sure if I'd call it satisfying, because Akane's one goal was always to save Aqua and she didn't get to accomplish that. But at the very least, she got a good ending, all things considered. She got to protect what Aqua entrusted to her, and she got to show just how emotionally strong she is.

As for Aqua and Akane, AquaKane could've been incredible if only Aka had done them justice, but he didn't. I joked before that the Aqua/Akane development was so good that it's like it wrote itself, and I actually think that's exactly what happened. Aka made things up as he went along, and he allowed Aqua and Akane to develop together in ways he didn't necessarily plan nor foresee. But as soon as he started heading towards the ending he envisioned, he dropped the ship and left a lot of it to the discretion of the readers.

While I'm sure that'll be enough for some, I'm afraid it's not really enough for me. If you were to ask me if I'm satisfied with the way they were handled, my answer would be: not really, but it certainly could've been worse lol

In my opinion, they're the biggest wasted potential in the manga (which is saying something, because the entire manga is wasted potential), and their potential was wasted simply because they're the ones who could've actually led us to a happy ending.

Aka didn't want that ending, though. He cared for his vision more than about his characters, and his vision was literally just an ending where poor Ruby would be a star that shines brighter "the darkest things get". Nothing else mattered. LMAO. As if Ruby hadn't already gone through enough!

Oh well, at least we're finally free!

[woman-respecter]

part of what freaks me out is even women with good male partners (assuming they're cis men) are at extreme risk with what they plan to do to abortion rights across the country. my sister is engaged to a wonderful feminist guy who thinks the world of her, and she's also religious and not particularly inclined to get an elective abortion. (to be clear, she's pro-choice and very liberal overall - it's just about her own personal choice.) but she wants to have kids together and i'm scared because what if she has a problem pregnancy? we live in a blue state that JUST enshrined abortion rights in its state constitution per ballot measure but that doesn't help if we get a national abortion ban! my mom was basically begging her on the phone after the election to hold off on getting pregnant until we get another democrat in there, and overturn any anti-abortion national stuff they might pass. luckily, my sister is well-aware of all this, and is factoring in all this, but that doesn't mean i'm not still worried. even as a lesbian, i'm so scared i'm thinking of getting an implant just so the "your body, my choice" assholes can't assault me into a pregnancy i don't want, since those can last for years and i don't want an IUD (with how painful the insertion is according to every straight woman i know + i have a family friend who had one inserted wrongly and had to get two abortions because she kept getting pregnant anyway as a result)

like my mom keeps talking about how when she got pregnant the first time she miscarried and needed a D&C. pretty routine thing after miscarrying. but now the crazies are treating D&Cs like they're abortions??? this was not an issue at all when she got one in the 1980s. absolutely insane how bad this could get

yeah it’s super scary for anyone who wants to give birth right now. the worst part is that lib women like your family realize this but conservative women are going to be told that all our cautions about getting pregnant in a country without abortion rights is just “lib hysteria” or whatever and they will continue to get pregnant and suffer extremely preventable consequences, including death.