#a miracle and a disaster all at once

[plastiquefruit]

isn’t it FUN

When you stand up and your brain just fuzzies out and your eyesight starts going dark and it takes every scrap of will to remain upright and not collapse like a heap of disconnected bones

Yeah.

F U N

[littlexdeaths]

when band practice doesn’t go as planned…

older brother’s best friend eddie x fem reader

warnings: keith is the unnamed freak in this au, alluding to some some spicy activities so 18+!

it’s a recipe for disaster masterlist.

“dude, when did your sister get so hot?”

eddie’s head lifts at the mere mention of you, but his jaw clenches when he notices that gareth is all but oogling you from inside the garage.

you’re at the end of the driveway, dressed in a red and white gingham bikini top and the shortest pair of shorts imaginable— washing your car. why you’d chosen to do this during their scheduled band practice is obvious to him, but it has your brother groaning in annoyance.

“jesus, don’t talk about her like that. that’s my baby sister.”

sid throws a sideways glare his friend’s way, to which gareth just holds up his hands in defense.

“i mean… he’s not wrong,” keith says under his breath which earns him a guitar pick to the forehead.

“it is a tad distracting,” jeff chimes in.

“oh for christ’s sake—- hey! mouse!”

you perk up at the nickname, resting your soapy hands on your hips. “why can’t you go to the damn car wash like a normal person?” sid shouts your way, oblivious to the way your eyes meet eddie’s behind your sunglasses.

or the hint of a smirk that’s tugging at the corner of your glossed lips.

“and why can’t you close the garage door if i’m too distracting?” you fire back, enjoying the way the rest of the guys quickly divert their attention away from you.

your brother is a little stunned by your response, not used to hearing you talk back to him. instead of trying to reason with you, he just flips you the bird. to which you mirror him with a playful grin. when they go back to practicing and you return to washing your car, eddie feels like he can breathe again.

he, by some miracle was able to hold his tongue during that entire interaction, as he knew he’d say something he’d regret later if he opened his big mouth.

because if your brother had any idea of what he planned to do to you when practice was over— he’d be a dead man.

but try as he may, eddie can’t keep his eyes off you the rest of practice.

he’s so distracted that he fumbles through most of the songs in their set list. and he completely fucks up his big solo when glances up to see you leaning across the hood of your car. with your ass perched in the air as you guide the soapy sponge along the metal frame. it’s safe to say the rest of the guys are throughly annoyed once they wrap things up.

eddie is just grateful that his guitar has been able to hide the raging boner he’s been sporting for the last half hour. or he’d really be fucked. but as you glance up at him innocently from under your lashes, eddie knows better.

and when he bends you over his lap later, it’s more than deserved.

[chiefdirector]

Earthquake | Tim Bradford | The Rookie

Earthquakes were nothing unfamiliar to the residents of Los Angeles, so much so that if there was a period of time without a quake, it would be seen as some form of miracle or divine intervention. After having many quakes and natural disasters, you adjust. Tim never had to adjust to the infamous LA earthquakes, he was born and raised here. Something like a quake was just another Tuesday to him.

Before he would have scoffed seeing his colleagues so disturbed by the idea of a quake, but now he felt sick to his stomach. He could feel the nausea rise up his throat as he called out over the radio again, hoping that his fears would be satiated.

“Control, this is 7-Adam-100. Status report in Detective (L/N).” He said, trying not to let his voice shake as the ground did moments ago. “Control-“

He was cut off by the gruff reply of some poor control officer who would no doubt feel the wrath of Sargent Bradford. “No reply. Detective (Y/N) is currently unreachable.”

Quickly, he raised the radio back up, this time practically barking his question out. “When was the last time you had contact?”

Tim held his breath as the radio remained silent for a moment. He did not believe in anything supernatural but by god did it feel like time stopped.

“Over an hour ago; at 15:42.”

“Goddammit,” he snapped, almost throwing his radio across the briefing room.

Seeing his rage, Chen sidestepped away from his current line of trajectory, quite liking her head without a radio sized dent in it.

The first quake had hit at approximately 15:47. Tim knew what (Y/N)’s silence implied. He tried not to think of the worst case scenario, but he couldn’t help himself. He wasn’t used to nice things, he wasn’t used to being happy and now that he had finally found joy and happiness, it was only natural that the universe would take it away again.

“Tim,” Chen said timidly. If Tim did not know any better, he could have mistaken her for a child in the way she was slightly cowered away from her. “I had control send her last location to our box, we can go now. I’m sure Grey won’t mind.”

He quickly snapped out of his thoughts, channelling almost all of his energy into the task ahead of him. The small fraction of energy he left aside was to stop him from assuming the worst; thinking of all the horrific outcomes would do him no good.

—-

Tim was never one to spend time with his feelings, if anything he repressed them. When he was a kid, his father used to tell him that emotions were weak, and that ‘real men don’t feel.’ He had taken that mindset into the military, and into the LAPD. It was only when (Y/N) had started to break down his walls did he let himself feel emotions properly for the first time in years. It was like seeing colour for the first time. However, despite all the good it did him, he couldn’t help regretting it slightly as he sat in the passenger seat of the shop, watching Chen drive closer to when (Y/N) was last seen.

“Can’t you drive quicker, Chen,” He snapped, flickering his eyes from her to the road and back to the patrol officer once again.

“Not without breaking fifty traffic laws,” She rebutted. Now that he wasn’t her training officer any more, she would have given him a bit more attitude but now isn't the right time for that, even she could recognise that. “We’re nearly there, the GPS said that her shop was last seen…”

Chen’s words trailed off as the two officers watched as a car wrapped around a tree came into view. The front was completely smashed, with glass and shrapnel landing almost everywhere. There was a small trail of smoke coming from the engine. The car was easily recognisable as one of the LAPD patrol vehicles, the exact same type that Detective (L/N) had left the station in that morning.

Without thinking, Tim sprinted out of the vehicle whilst it was still moving. Without waiting for Chen to stop, he moved with near inhuman speed towards the wreckage. Trying to see if there was any sign of life from within.

“(Y/N)” he called, looking in through the shattered window. Blood was spread across the steering wheel and the driver's seat, glass haphazardly brushed aside from the spot. Tim recognised her handbag tucked in the passenger footwell. IT was the only sign that she had been in the car at all. “Please, baby, say you're here.”

“Any luck?” Chen said, jogging over to his side. Tim needn’t respond though, the tragic look on his face said enough. “Oh god, she isn’t… is she?”

Bradford just shook his head “There’s nobody here. Completely empty. Call it in.”

Lucy nodded, taking a step away to report what had been found. Tim just sat leaned against the car. Briefly he shut his eyes, trying to ground himself back to reality. A part of him wanted to pinch himself to wake up from this nightmare, but another part of him knew that it wasn’t a dream at all.

Slowly, he began to move himself upwards when he heard a rustling in the shrubbery. On instinct, he raised his weapon, calling out for the intruder to raise their hands. He got no such reply except another round of rustling, except it didn’t sound like it was caused by the wind, it sounded too human-like to be anything natural.

Keeping his paces light, he followed the sound as made his way into the shrubbery. He made it only around twenty feet before he saw the cause of the rustling. (Y/N) lay leaned up against a tree, dried blood sat on her forehead and down her left cheek. The rest of her face seemed like it had already started to swell and bruise from the impact. The most jarring thing was not the injuries or the dirt decorating her body, but it was the light-hearted gratin she wore.

“Hey Timmy,” she said, voice light and airy, as if he had woken up early on a sunday morning and not that she had almost died.

“(Y/N),” he practically cried rushing to her side. He gently cradled her face, trying to get a better look at the gash on her forehead from where she had slammed into the steering wheel. “What happened? Are you okay?”

She flashed him another grin as she raised her hand to rest on top of his. “I’m fine, mildly concussed maybe, but I’ll live. And the car crashed, I was knocked off the road when the quake hit. There was nothing I could do to stop it.”

“Why didn't you call for help, do you know how worried I was?”

“My radio is in the car, which was on fire by the way.” She said, almost too lightheartedly for the situation, before her tone turned sombre, “I’m sorry I worried you.”

He kissed her forehead. “Just don’t do it again, I don’t think my heart could take it.”

Ignoring her protests that she could walk by herself, he moved to pick her up bridal style and carry her back to his shop, where Chen was waiting for him. Sure, he was prepared for an earthquake, but Tim wasn't prepared to lose (Y/N), not now, not ever.

Masterlist

@rookietrek @kmc1989 @augustvandyne

[tumblingxelian]

Chloe Knows:

Apparently game Chloe knows Marinette is Ladybug, so I wrote this:

Summary: Chloé Bourgeois is perhaps the last person Marinette expected to see on her roof after having lost the Miraculous to Felix.

Chloé Bourgeois is also probably the person Marinette least wants to see on her roof.

Unfortunately, or perhaps fortunately, Chloe knows more than she's ever let on and that complicates things, but it just might end up helping too.

Chloe Knows:

The last thing Marinette expected to deal with right now was Chloe hanging out on her roof, arms folded and tapping her yellow jacket impatiently.

It was also the last thing Marinette wanted to deal with, save maybe finding Hawk Moth waiting for her. & that thought just sent her gut into a tailspin, so Marinette forced open her ceiling hatch and stalked onto the roof.

Chloe zeroed in on her instantly, hissing, "You kept me waiting!"

Marinette barely resisted the urge to grab and shake the blonde, because she had only just finished re-tethering herself after the disaster of losing the Miracle Box.

Still, she had just enough restraint to only force her way into Chloe's space, grounding out, "How did you trick my parents into letting you up here, Chloe?"

The blonde blinked confusedly, "I climbed?" She motioned to a discarded pair of gloves sitting in the rooftop bin. "Why would I talk to your parents about that anyway? This is our business."

Marinette tried very hard to parse that question but she was still trying to process Chloe having scaled her walls!?

"Because they-, I-" No she as not dealing with that right now. "Chloe we don't have business!" Marinette settled on, arms flailing.

"Normally we wouldn't, you made sure of that-"

"Oh I made sure of it?"

"Yes you," Chloe huffed, somehow the one affronted, "When you got me to be terrible for my mother, then made it impossible for me to be good as Queen Bee by taking Pollen. Now you go and lose her & the others? I thought you were at least cunning to pull that scheme off Dupain-Cheng, or are you just lucky!?"

Marinette technically 'heard' what Chloe said, but she didn't have the wherewithal to react to it. Not right now as her whole world felt like it was suddenly unreal and empty and yet crushingly full all at once.

"Hah, haha, what are you t- talking about? Me, take a pollen? I don't know what that is? I don't even like wasps!"

Chloe dragged her hands down her face, screaming into her palms, "You cannot be this thick, no one can, for the- I know you're Ladybug, I've known your Ladybug for ages. Now tell me how you lost the Miraculous!"

"I could never be-"

Chloe stepped forward, counting off on her fingers.

"Rena is Alya, Nino is Carapace, Sabrina the Hound, Max is Pegasus, Kim is monkey guy and Zoe is Vespera, very petty of you, kudos really. Need I list more?"

"I"

"I've seen your Kwami, do I need to grab your damned earrings!?"

Marinette's hands flew to them, and she flung herself back, then started to giggle, maniacally.

"Hahaha, of- of course, this is a nightmare! All a nightmare! I didn't fail, Chloe doesn't know anything, I didn't get tricked by Felix and doom Paris! Hahaha- OW!"

Chloe pulled her hand back and out of pinching distance.

"You're awake Dupain-Cheng & finally answered my question to boot. Felix, ugh!! What, did he pull that stupid 'I'm Adrien' stunt and you just tripped over yourself?"

"Actually-" Tikki cut in gently, drifting out of her bag. "There was no tripping that I recall, & he'd had help this time, as Adrien wished to stay in Paris so it was more believable."

Marinette felt like her throat was closing up as she rasped, "Tikki, why!?"

The Kwami turned to her, big eyes doleful, "I am sorry Marinette, but it was obvious she knew and has evidently known for sometime. I felt you continuing to try and cover this up would only make things worse not better."

"Good thing too, I was about to tackle her and shake you out of that bag-ah!"

Marinette grabbed Chloe, spun her around and trapped her against the nearest wall. Eyes wild and frantic, the command phrase to transform dancing on her lips.

"Where's Hawk Moth? What's your game Chloe!?"

"If this was a game I'd be having fun, also," Chloe brought her hands up, and sharply but lightly 'chopped' her way out of Marinette's grip with the sudden pressure on her elbows and then shot out of grabbing range.

"Uhu, you had your chance to straddle me and passed it up."

Marinette's overtaxed brain wanted to 'scream' at that particular mental image. But Ladybug Brain was taking over and she snapped.

"How long have you known? It can't be that long or Hawk Moth would have found out already. After Penal-Team, no after-"

"Are you kidding? I've known way longer than that," Chloe boasted.

"Then why doesn't Hawk Moth know? Why didn't you just Akumatize and bring him the Miraculous!?" Marinette hissed.

"Because I don't want him to win, obviously!"

"You say you want him to win all the time!"

"I say stupid stuff when I'm angry, sue me!"

"Marinette!" Her parents called, and she could hear them racing up the ladder and nearly tripping over one another in a bid to make it to the rood.

Tikki vanished back into her purse and Marinette stood stock still frozen as her parents clambered out. Her mother hugging her close and her dad stepping between her and Chloe.

"How did you get up here?" Her father groused.

"Marinette, are you OK?" Sabine asked, fretfully.

A million and one excuses flew through Marinette's exhausted brain. Class project, Chat Noir dumped Chloe on her roof, she was Ladybug & Chloe had come to yell at her- No wait, that was the truth!

"What business is it of yours?" Chloe snapped back, evidently not intimidated by her father.

"Because this is our home, and our daughter and you are trespassing." Tom rumbled.

Chloe leaned to the side and looked at Marinette, still in her mothers arms, and then pointedly looked 'past' them.

"That doesn't answer my question, Marinette and I's business is none of yours."

Her mother frowned, "You've never had business with our daughter, just sharp words at best. You have no right to her or anything here."

"Ch- Chloe was just checking up on me, after Monarch's announcement." Marinette rambled, trying to piece the pieces together into something workable that wouldn't send Chloe into a fit.

Both her parents looked stunned and also like they wanted to ask if she was concussed.

Fortunately, Chloe managed to pick up where she'd left off.

"Exactly, we certainly aren't friends, but I felt obliged to check up on someone else I knew Ladybug wouldn't check on."

"What?" Her mothers hug tightened, and her voice actually quivered.

Her father looked between the two sides, seemingly lost for what to do with himself.

The pieces fell into place and Marinette came to the truth, in a sense.

"I was Multi-Mouse, when my science teacher god Akumatized, Ladybug needed someone who was good at multitasking."

"Marinette," Her father rushed forward and pulled her into a hug that knocked the air out of her lungs.

"I... I helped her, I did OK I think."

"You got the Miraculous back so you did your job," Chloe cut in, neither warm nor scathing.

Her mother evidently didn't agree, "It shouldn't have been her job, either of your jobs. You're children!"

"Mum, dad, it's fine, really it's fine!"

Her mother ran a hand through her hair, "I feel like there's something you aren't saying sweetheart."

She glanced at Chloe who was watching the exchange with an inscrutable expression. Some strange mix of confusion and almost starvation like hunger that was honestly painful to perceive.

Marinette licked her lips and pressed on.

"Chloe was right that Ladybug might not check up on me. At least not in a way I could see."

"She's usually such a good hero?" Her father said, sounding despondent.

"It's because I asked her too! I... When I was Multi-Mouse, I used the other Miraculous. A lot. I shouldn't have, but nothing bad happened!" she hastily added, at her parents near frantic looks of worry.

"Ladybug warned me, but I misunderstood and she said even though I was OK this time I shouldn't use magic again for a long time. I was upset, I wanted to help her, I-"

Why was she crying?

"I wanted to be a good hero, but I just screwed up and now," she was sobbing. Gods she was sobbing in her mothers arms.

"There there, my treasure, I am sure you were brilliant, let it out," her mother stroked her hair while her father hovered protectively, one large hand rubbing circles on her back.

Fortunately, Marinette had already cried her heart out once tonight and was too tired for a truly spectacular breakdown.

She managed to half slip her mothers grip, wiping at her eyes. "Thanks, both of you," she glanced at Chloe who was back to not quite staring at them. Her face was a mask of forced, haughty neutrality that looked like it was being kept in place with wires buried beneath her skin.

"Thanks for checking up on me Chloe, and for somehow not telling Hawkmoth our, my, anyone's identities when he had you Akumatized all those times." Because she still needed an answer to that, only the fact Tikki hadn't seemed panicked was keeping her grounded.

Chloe swallowed, hands clenching and unclenching before she spoke.

"Yes, well, I might not be Queen Bee or a hero anymore, but ridiculous circumstances demand ridiculous actions. So for tonight I'm a hero and it's the duty of a hero to look out for people. Even one's they hate."

OK, ow.

Chloe pressed on, "As to identities," She shrugged. "If that idiot Hawkmoth, Shadowmoth or whatever he's calling himself had that kind of control he wouldn't have to wait for people to break before getting them under his thumb. Even when I let him in the last few times, I never let him dig deep and I'd just kick him out if he tried to paw at any of my secrets."

Marinette felt like her heart was going to collapse in on itself because, "Even knowing everything you do, you just- I can't- I don't understand you at all Chloe!"

That actually seemed to draw the blonde up short, "That's a surprise, I thought you knew me better than anyone. You're certainly good at," Chloe looked at her parents ten back to Marinette, "Hitting my weak spots when we come to blows."

It felt like there was a lot to unpack there and for the first time in a long time, Marinette knew she'd actually have to spare no small amount of time and thought on Chloe's inner workings.

For now though.

"Even if you 'can' just kick him out."

"You know I can!" Chloe stomped her foot. "You saw me do it when I was Penal-Team!"

"That's my point! Isn't that like willingly helping him!? Other people have to be tricked!"

Chloe scoffed, "Tricked she says, don't over-sell it, it's being angry or sad, or whatever and taking a deal. Besides, does it look like I'm helping? I played soccer for an hour then quit."

"You had a bunch of people trapped in deadly orbs Chloe!"

"So what!? People try to kill me all the time! Ivan tried to smear me on the pavement! Nathanial tried to chop my legs off! Mommy murdered me and no one cared! No one!"

There was a choked edge in that but Chloe pressed on. "Because it's not a big deal, and anyone trying to make it a big deal is just looking for sympathy points, so there." 

She huffed and unfolded her arms, "Anyway you've clearly got people to tend to and I got what I came for. See you at school, Multi-Mouse."

With that she marched across the rooftop to her sky-box. "I'm not climbing the walls again if I don't have to so I'll just leave out the front and avoid the stray dog."

Before she reached the door, Marinette was surprised to see her mother reach out and gently grasp Chloe's shoulder.

"Chloe," She said firmly, as the blonde practically froze up, looking half ready to bolt, or shout. "Thank you for checking up on our daughter, that was a good thing and for whatever it's worth. People should have cared, I'm sorry those who should don't."

There was a moment where Marinette honestly expected Chloe to start crying, to fling herself at her mother and howl and sob. She was sure she saw something glisten in her eyes before Chloe wiped it away, and swallowed.

Her voice was rough as she said, "It's... Thanks, or whatever, doesn't matter. I don't need anyone's help."

"Everyone needs someone, so if your feelings change, don't be afraid to ask, people can surprise you. Especially if you don't break into their house." Her mother said the last part with a sort of forced, hopeful smile.

Chloe nodded, like taking an instruction, a rasped something escaping her lips before she achingly pulled away and climbed down the ladder.

A million and one feelings, questions and terrors still swirled in Marinette's mind but as her father and mother gently guided her down the ladder, intent on hot coco and comfort talk. She knew they'd have to wait. Could wait, until she was rested and ready.

Even still, a part of her would linger on the question of Chloe. What to think, to feel, to do, certainly. But also on the quieter, more uncomfortable thoughts.

Like who someone who felt they had no one would turn to if they were desperate and at the end of their rope.

'& it's not just Chloe either, who does Chat Noir have besides me?'

It was an uncomfortable thought, but one buoyed by a new revelation. No matter how omnipotent Hawk Moth seemed, no matter how all knowing he claimed to be; he was clearly far less than that.

It wasn't much to build on, but it was something, a foot hold from which she could dig in her heels and drag him down from his perch.

Golden hair flashed in her mind again and another thought echoed in her head.

'One good foot hold may be enough to bring down Hawkmoth. So what could it do for someone else?'

Because no matter what she said or had done, Chloe made a choice tonight, and had been making choices for longer than Marinette realized. Not having fallen down the slope but merely standing on the brink.

'But she took a step back tonight, to somewhere I can reach.'

& maybe all Marinette needed was one good foothold to pull Chloe all the way back, perhaps Farther than she'd ever been, or Marinette even realized was possible. 

It was a tender little hope, strange and unsure, but somehow, in Marinette's mind, it felt like solid gold. 

NOTES:

Wrote this is one sitting, then edited it, I hope it reads well XD

I have no plans to continue this, though if someone else wants to take it and run with it please feel free. I kind of envision Marinette re-inviting Chloe to the class group chat as a sort of olive branch and them slowly working through their respective issues.

Also Chloe turning up at Felix's with a tazer and the same martial arts skills that let her fight Mayura to a stand still and possibly, violently reclaiming Doosoo, cos you can pry Jock!Chloe from my cold dead hands!

[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. 

[magics-neptunes-things]

Clouds

Trigger warning : Angst, car accident, hospitals.

PART 2 (Ona's POV) IS HERE

______________________________________________________________

Celebrating a new victory for FC Barcelona, you find yourself with almost all of your teammates in an establishment which has been privatized just for you. It's now 2 o'clock in the morning and you saw Mapi and Ingrid slip away more or less discreetly already one hour ago. You think you were the only one to see them go and you couldn’t help but wink at Ingrid when your eyes crossed. She blushed slightly before raising both eyebrows in your direction.

Well maybe you weren’t in the best position to tease her, Ona was sitting on your lap with her drink in her hand while talking with Alexia. Even though you’ve only been together for a one year and some more, you can’t deny that you’re already totally crazy about the spaniard. You met the summer she came back from Manchester.

You had already met her several times on the football fields, already noticing her beauty, but when you got to know her more it was like love at first sight. And by a real miracle, it seems that the feelings are shared. You still wonder every morning when you wake up next to her how a woman like Ona Batlle could focus her attention on you.

Lost in your thoughts, you come back to earth only when you feel her lips gently land in your neck.

"Dance with me?" she asks and you smile lightly.

"You know that I'm a terrible dancer"

It was true. You're a forward and you have good dribbling skills, but when it comes to coordinating your moves on a dance floor, we’re not far from disaster.

Ona pouts and you roll your eyes. That’s enough for her to jump on both legs with a big smile, understanding that you just gave up.

"So smitten"

You hear Alexia teasing and make her a grimace over your shoulder as Ona drags you to the dance floor, making her grin in return. Alexia is your bestfriend and you know she's in really very happy you found someone to be happy with. And the Someone being Ona Batlle, she didn't understand why she never thought to introduce you before.

You have to admit that you have fun with Ona on the dance floor. You weren't really dancing, more goofing around, laughing and swaying when the music go soft.

That's actually where you are, your arms keeping your girlfriend very close to your body. Her hands are around your neck and you kind of got lost in her beautiful eyes. She kisses you and you happily kiss her back for some minutes. You're maybe not out for the rest of the world, but your friends and family know about you two.

"Shall we go home?" you ask a little after.

Ona nods and after taking the time to say goodbye to the girls who have not left yet, you find the fresh air of the Barcelona nights. As you are just next to your appartment, you choose to crash here for the night. Ona being a little smaller than you are, she would wear one of your shirt for the night.

You smile when the spaniard grabs your hand to walk, arching an eyebrow.

"I’m not sure being like this gonna keep people from suspecting that something is happening between the two of us, Love."

Ona shrugs, looking at you from the corner of her eye.

"Well maybe that way people will stop imagining that you’re dating that B team guy."

She pretends to throw up and you can’t help but laugh. That was like two weeks ago for a gala, you posed with this boy for a simple photo and Twitter practically caught fire. So did your secret girlfriend’s jealousy. Your parents are conservative, so you’ve never talked openly about your sexuality. That probably played a big part in this case.

"You know you have no reason to be jealous"

"Yes. Still."

You smile once more and kiss her cheek before crossing the road. From that moment on, everything seemed to be idling. The headlights of a car approaching too fast, the squeaks of the tires and the terrified cry of Ona after the impact. You just had time to take her in your arms and push her out of the way of the car. That's the last things you can remember.

******************

When you wake up, you can't feel anything, but in a good way. You can't open your eyes either, but you feel like you're floating. Remembering a conversation you had with Ona while looking at the stars on her balcony, you make the decision that you are simply lying on a cloud. As the time pass, you begin asking yourself what you are doing on this comfy cloud. That's when the memories came back and first you wonder if Ona is safe. You heard her scream before going numb but it wasn't a cry of pain, physical at least.

And then, you wonder if you are dead. But if that means you saved Ona’s life, is there a better way to die? Probably not.

You feel something a little bit after, that surprises you, even makes you panic a little. Something touches your hand and you feel your heart racing. Strange, for someone dead right?

"What's happening?"

Man this voice, you could recognize it between a thousand, even distorted by anxiety like now. It's Ona's voice.

"Looks like she’s reacting to your touch. That’s pretty good."

You don't know this one, but if she can make feel Ona better, you like her already. The tonality make you imagine an old lady, with grey hair and glasses. Ona stay silence after but you can feel her fingers gently caressing your hand.

"I don't know where I can touch you without hurting you more" she mumble, making you wonder what you look like.

******************

You get bored and wonder what would happend if you just let yourself fly higher. If you let go. So you let yourself go and you start to feel lighter and lighter.

Until you were punched in the chest, brought back to your cloud.

The force of the blow cuts your breathing briefly and a new voice, which you also know very well, sounds in your ears.

"Oh no, don't you dare do that. Not now that I finally managed to convince your girlfriend to come home, shower and change."

Well excuse yourself Miss Putellas but what the hell are you doing on my fluffy lovely cloud? That said, the firmness of her voice changes you a little bit from the sweetness of the one Ona is talking to you with. So you stay on your cloud until your lady comes back. She does a little later, after a door slammed.

"What the hell happened?"

You feel her hands touching your face as Alexia’s voice explains in the background what happened, explaining that everything is fine now.

******************

Time fly again and you wake up in a middle of a conversation. Ona is here once again and you realise that she's talking with her mom.

"I'm so mad at her" you hear Ona say.

"I understand. But I'm more grateful. She saved your life."

You can perfectly picture the scene, Ona in her mother's arms while she gently rocks her. Ona's mother as always been affectionate, even with you. You were at first surprised by the welcome hugs, but it's kind of nice. Your parents aren't really fond of the life you choose, being gay and a football player, so you don't really catch with them a lot. But it's ok like this for you.

"What am I gonna do if she doesn’t wake up Mama? I can’t live without her"

Ona’s voice is choked, meaning she must be crying. And it makes you want to do it too, or at least make her understand that you are still there and that you can hear her. But you don’t know how to do it, even opening your eyes seems impossible. Thanks god, her mom is here.

"She will wake up, Ona. Your story isn't finish now."

A silence passe only interrupted by Ona’s sniffs.

"Your brother is here"

"But I told him not to come" Ona frowns.

"As if he was going to listen to you. He knows you need him and you are as stubborn as each other."

A new silence comes, smaller this one.

"Will her parents come?" Ona's mother ask.

"No. They said they’d come when she woke up. Not sure I’ll let them in though."

While Ona seems angry with this information, you're not really surprised. Like you said before, your parents aren't really supportive of you. Their only daughter did not really meet the expectations they had. You haven’t seen them since Christmas two years ago, last year you spent it with Ona and her family. As for the summer holidays, you preferred to fly away to rest in the sun with your friends and Ona. In any case, they themselves did not mention a possible meeting.

******************

Time has continued to stretch, but you have no idea how long you have been there, floating on your cloud. What you do know is you’d like to know how to get back to your people. You have daily visits, Alexia, Ona’s parents and brother, your teammates and obviously Ona who seems to camp by your side.

Ona talks to you often, makes you listen to music or keeps you informed of your condition. You apparently have bruises all over the place, four broken ribs and a dislocated shoulder. With serious head trauma, but contrary to the doctors' fears, you have no cracks in your skull. You were relieved to learn that you had nothing on your legs. That way you will return to the fields easier.

Alexia tell you about Ona, usually being there when your girlfriend leaves your bedside to take care of herself. Alexia encourages you to come back to Ona, explaining how much she needs you. She sometimes adds that she also wouldn't mind to have her bestfriend back.

Others, like Ingrid, Aitana or Lucy, stay here in silence, but their presence are great too. Some of them take your hand too, usually Ingrid. You hate being alone but you have to admit that you really rarely are. Even Laia flew back from Manchester for some days, wanting to be here for Ona.

******************

"Today is our birthday"

Ona's voice is sweet as always but the information startle you a little. The day of the accident, you still had two weeks to think about a memorable day for your girl. You already had the gift, but not the rest. You had not imagined that so much time had passed since.

"I found the necklace, I didn't mean to but I was looking for one of your hoodie and the box just fell on the floor."

She speaks quickly, as if she expected you to wake up and scold her. Once again you can easily imagine the expressions on her face, the way she would look her shoes and the slight reddening on her cheeks. Instead, you feel your heart swell with love for her a little more. And the bip of the monitoring - that you’ve been hearing for some time now - seem to want to transmit the information to Ona by accelerating a little.

She's closer now, you can smell her shampoo as she gently strokes your hair. When she talk again, her voice is a whisper.

"The necklace is beautiful, but I promise you’ll never have to give me anything again if you wake up today. I want nothing but your presence by my side. I miss you so much."

You miss her too, you have to admit. You miss hugging her, kissing her or watching her like the creep you are while she's sleeping.

So this time, you try to open your eyes, with all that you have. It take some time, Ona keeps talking, but you can’t focus on what she’s saying and the efforts you’re making at the same time.

It takes you some time, but you eventually succeed.

Everything is too bright suddenly and you close your eyes immediately. The hum of Ona’s monologue stops instantly and you hear the sound of a chair rattling the floor. But you try again, this time long enough to allow your eyes to get a little better at the ambient light. You feel the mattress sag at your waist, before your eyes can finally focus on the one thing that really matters. Ona’s face.

She looks at you too, looking too stunned to speak.

"Nice necklace" you mumbling, your voice hoarse and broken from not being used for two weeks.

Ona kind of broke down, bursting into tears and lying half on you, her face buried in your neck. You slowly raise your arm - your muscles all seem numb - to caress her hair.

"You're awake"

You hear Ona repeat this phrase several times, before she gets up to look at you again.

"You're awake" she says again, this time while looking at you.

"I love you" you prefer answering, focusing of what matter for you. Not being able to say it back for so long was kind of frustrating.

She smiles between her tears and kiss you with all the love and tenderness she have. You reciproque the kiss as well as you can, and just when Ona pulls back you hear the door of your room being open.

"They didn’t have the coffee you like anymore, I hope it fits you. They’re all filthy in this hospital anyway" Alexia grumbles without looking in your direction.

"Well hello to you too Miss Putellas" you said.

Alexia turns in your direction so quickly that you wouldn't be surprised to learn that she have a stiff neck. The surprise made her drop the cup of coffee she was holding in her hand and it took her a few more seconds to rush to the two of you.

And for the first time since you are here, you hear Ona’s laughter ringing in the room.

[000marie198]

What were to happen if Sonic and Tails both became babies? Y'know, besides Knuckles and Amy having to wrangle their clingier than usual sibs.

Imagine two gremlin twin kittens who just got reunited staring at you with these faces:

:3 :3

Moments before disaster strikes

.....

But this happens after they are placed in the same space together and make friends.

The first instinct of baby Tails would be to pounce on his fellow age mate cuz he wanna play

The first instinct of Sonic would be to yip in terror and roll away from the fox and tremble while still curled up in a teeny ball. He won't know it but his action will make baby Tails pause and tilt his head in confusion and then curiously approach the still trembling ball to nudge it. It pricks him due to quills and he also yips and scuttles away, then whimpers and sniffs, holding his bleeding snout.

The hedgehog, recognizing the sounds as expressions of pain and fear and not sensing anything else for a full minute uncurls slightly to make a little peek at the kit, he's cautious but also curious.

They don't really have the memories of their lives but the general instincts and bonds are there and seeing the teary blue eyes and soft sad sniffles... Little hoglet is not able to handle it and uncurls completely and whimpers too.

He hurt the other. He doesn't want the other to be hurt. He's really sorry he hurt the other.

Little hoglet stumbles towards the sniffling kit and pats him with his little paws over and over till baby Tails stops tearing up with a hiccup and stares curiously at the hoglet.

Baby Sonic let's out an open mouthed smile. Tails gets curious and comes closer, which reactivates the hedgehog instincts and Sonic rolls away again.

Baby Tails realizes the other one can get scared if he comes close without warning or pounces so he doesn't do that. He just sits and waits, tails lightly swishing back and forth, watching baby Sonic till he calms down and uncurls, meeting the fox replicating his earlier smile.

Big wide eyes staring at each other and slowly they both become comfortable enough to actually start communicating, in babbles and gestures but it's still communication.

In a while, Sonic's stomach growls, he has always had higher metabolism okay. Baby Tails starts sniffing around to find him something to eat. He sniffs something he likes, FLIES OUT OF THE PEN, locates a cookie and brings it to Sonic. The hoglet muches on it and offers it to Tails after 3 or 4 bites. Tails also munches on cookie.

They start competing on who can munch louder, it's a miracle one of them hasn't choked on a crumb while giggling so much.

They bond over chocolate cookie :]

........

There's a lot more moments we can add afterwards, aka once the two have become friends. .

Both babies would literally have that package deal, Do Not Sperate level separation anxiety specifically and only when it comes to the other.

Knuckles would carry Tails away to feed him something and Sonic would start wailing and reaching, Tails doing the same. They are very loud and they won't shut up till you reunite them, which will end up in close hugs and sniffles

There was that one time Amy had to take Sonic away for a little bit to give him a bath and Knuckles had to fight to hold a frantic clawing fox kit away, especially when Sonic's cries of sorrow turned into screeches of fear. This was so not easy.

Tails bites both their older friends after that while Sonic naps in the background all freshened up and tidied.

........

You cannot leave the babies unsupervised anywhere! They will work together to escape one way or another no matter where and they will drive everyone nuts looking for them only to be found inside a barely ajar cupboard with cereal scattered all around them and blinking like deer caught in a headlight.

......

You give one of them a toy or teether or rattle and they'll fight over it and scream. Sighing, you take away the toys. Next time you make sure to give both of them identical toys. They still look at the other and try to snatch it, starting another fight.

.......

There are two gremlins rolling around and flying all over the house, getting into the craziest, unreachable places. Sonic just scuttled under the fridge, Tails is perched on a ceiling fan. Everything is scattered

.......

The next time baby Tails pounces on the hoglet to play with him, Sonic doesn't curl up in fear

[ravenelyx]

I love you in every timeline - Prologue: In Search of Lost Time

Pairing: Sebastian Sallow x Fem!Reader

Words: 1.9k

Chapter Warnings: angst if you squint, Harry Potter characters appearance, no name appearance (not even y/n dw), some swearing, use of 2nd person for the reader (I know I know but I promise it makes sense for the story)

Summary: "He turned around, and the world seemed to stop around him. She had followed him: into another timeline, into another universe.". In which Sebastian, in his search for a cure in the Dark Arts, finds himself 100 years into the future and meets his most trusted companion's descendant (who looks far too similar to the girl he was once secretly in love with).

A/N: this is the first english fic I've written, so I'm terrified. Anyway, Trimetravel! AU with Sebastian Sallow. Some background info: Reader is not MC; Reader is a Gryffindor, MC was a Slytherin; MC was a Pureblood, Reader is a Muggle Born. Also, english is not my first language so if you find any mistakes, I deeply apologise. Not proof-read (for obvious reasons).

→ Find the rest of the fanfiction here on AO3 :)

"For we are not as faithful to the being we have most loved as we are to ourselves and sooner or later we forget her — since that is one of our characteristics — so as to start loving another." - Marcel Proust, In Search of Lost Time

If a chasm had opened under Sebastian's feet and swallowed him all the way to the depths of hell, he would have gladly accepted his demise there and then.

Unfortunately, its mercy seemed to be out of business that day — or any other day in his life, really.

Sebastian paced the corridors, a frown adorning his face; he had just come out of the Headmaster's office due to the absolute disaster that had occurred to him just a few hours prior.

After weeks of research, he had finally found something that could help him, a breakthrough with which he could finally achieve his goal. An artefact so powerful that it could break the fabric of time and space, something that could help his poor sister live a happy and healthy life again. He did not care that they were not on speaking terms at the moment: he would find a way to talk to her so that she would take this last chance. He would force her if he had to. It was his last hope, and Merlin knows he had tried everything.

If he had known about the artefact's effects earlier, he would have thought twice before using it.

"So, Mr Sallow, could you be so kind as to tell us how you came to be in our time?" the Headmaster, who had earlier introduced himself as Albus Dumbledore, had asked him.

Truth was that not having stopped dwelling with the Dark Arts in search of a cure for Anne had led him to find himself in another timeline instead. His face twitched: in terms of unlikelihood, the scales seemed pretty unbalanced.

It had been a brief conversation, really, with Sebastian omitting some details (like his friendship with an Ancient Magic wielder or the murder of his uncle, for which he bore full responsibility) and grimacing against his own will when the Headmaster had looked at him through his half-moon shaped glasses as if asking him, 'Why are you lying to me?'

He had pushed the thoughts away as quickly as they had come: it wasn't like he could read his mind... or could he?

Sebastian breathed a sigh of relief when the Headmaster had dismissed him after giving him specific instructions on how to behave until they found a way to return him to his timeline — one of which was, "Please don't inform anyone of your condition unless it's absolutely necessary." That had seemed quite reasonable to him, so he nodded.

The artefact was damaged, as expected, and unlikely to work again unless a powerful form of magic came into contact with it and repaired it: something like Ancient Magic, perhaps, or a miracle.

"I see you're still causing trouble everywhere you fare, aren't you, Mr Sallow?" the familiar voice of Phineas Nigellus Black had mocked from his portrait, effectively startling him. Sebastian had looked up and into the eyes of his old Headmaster, his mouth falling open at the sight of him. He looked old, weary, and angrier somehow — yet, in a way, he had brought Sebastian some form of comfort, almost. A sense of familiarity.

Before he could have said anything, Black had disappeared, and a woman with severe blue eyes and long robes had escorted him out of the office.

-

Sebastian looked around at his familiar surroundings, which would have been almost comforting if not for the nameless faces looking at him with curiosity: Hogwarts students tended to recognise each other effortlessly, and anyone who didn't fit into that bundle of familiarity was to be ostracised. He remembered all too well when he was the one helping the new fifth-year find her way around those same corridors, except he didn't need guidance: this was his home, after all.

But he did have a guide, and she wasn't as charming a student as he was either.

The Head of the Gryffindor House walked right next to him, a stern expression on her face made even more prominent by the shadow of her large witch hat. The woman Sebastian had come to know as Minerva McGonagall was also the Transfiguration teacher and Deputy Headmistress, at least it seemed that way, which was no doubt why she was accompanying him rather than the Head of his own House.

Sebastian decided not to ask himself any questions and do what the Headmaster told him to: attend class, fit in, and pretend to be either a transfer student or someone with a complex background — he hadn't decided which story to tell yet (and both, in a way or another, would be true).

The clacking of Professor McGonagall's shoes stopped so abruptly that he almost would have missed it if she hadn't started speaking.

"You're about to meet two of your new classmates. Prefects of the Gryffindor House." She raised her left arm in their direction, and his eyes followed it to two red and gold robes leading into warm faces.

"I am pleased to introduce you to Ms Hermione Granger—" she gestured to the girl with curly hair to her left, who wore a friendly smile all while maintaining a serious and clean look, "—and Mr Ronald Weasley." Sebastian's eyes shot to the boy to his right when he heard the familiar name, and to be honest, he might not have needed an introduction at all: the red-haired boy gave him a wry smile, his freckles standing out even more in the natural light. He would have recognised those features anywhere.

Finally, Sebastian noticed their uniforms. He didn't pay much attention to the boy's — he himself also wore a very similar one, uncomfortable and informal as it seemed to him — for his eyes were fixed on the girl's. She was wearing a grey cardigan with red and gold trim, the colours of her House, and her skirt was much shorter than he remembered, with black denier tights covering the rest of her legs. Sebastian felt himself blushing slightly and averted his eyes.

He wondered why the Slytherin prefects were unsuited to the situation: at the end of the day, he was a Slytherin, too. Sebastian didn't undergo the Sorting again — the Professors didn't seem to deem it necessary, not to mention the Hat had recognised him from his shelf, too. He didn’t forget easily.

McGonagall turned back to Sebastian and briefly adjusted his robes, her face softening slightly, "For the time being, it is best if you don't draw attention to yourself. We will find a solution," she straightened her posture and nodded at him, "Welcome to Hogwarts." She turned on her heels and walked away, leaving him with the two Gryffindors.

He studied their faces for a moment, searching for the right words to say, deciding on which story to tell, but the only thing he could muster was: "How come you're Gryffindors?"

The two students stared at him, appalled, and he mentally slapped himself. He wanted to correct his statement and explain his intention, but the girl stopped him before he could even form a coherent thought.

"You're wondering why they asked us to guide you and not the Slytherin Prefects, am I right?"

Either his question wasn't that unclear, or the girl had excellent deduction skills, and judging by the epiphany on the other boy's face when he understood the meaning of her words, it was most likely the latter.

Sebastian sighed inwardly and nodded, mentally promising not to stumble over his words again.

The boy — Ronald, Sebastian recalled — chimed in: "Because otherwise you'd have to deal with Malfoy, and he's an idio—" the girl slapped him on the arm and gave him a warning look before turning back to Sebastian.

Malfoy, Sebastian thought. A family of the Sacred Twenty-Eight. It was clear why a Weasley would want nothing to do with him.

Sebastian wondered if they still held the same values as in his day: if the Malfoys were still blood maniacs, and so was the person they spoke of, or if he wanted to distance himself from his family as Ominis did. Judging by Ronald's opinion of him, Sebastian did not think that was possible, but then again, he did not know the fellow. Maybe, Sebastian thought, things had moved on after a century: no blood wars, discrimination or superiority complexes. Perhaps this was all just a simple rivalry between two students from different Houses.

"Professor Dumbledore thought us to be best suited for this difficult situation. No other student but us knows about your... misadventure," said Hermione.

To call it a "misadventure" would be an understatement , Sebastian wanted to say. As it turned out, however, he didn't need a story to tell. He didn't know whether to feel betrayed by the Professors who had decided to disclose that information or relieved that he didn't have to go through it all alone. A beat of silence followed, in which Sebastian could only nod at the girl's words, and then it was interrupted abruptly.

"Where have you been?" called a voice from the end of the corridor, directly behind Sebastian.

He turned around, and the world seemed to stop around him.

He definitely didn't have to go through it all alone because there she was. Standing a few feet away from him, looking straight at him, was the person who had accompanied him on all his adventures.

She had followed him: into another timeline, into another universe.

He felt his lips twist into a grin, and he beamed at the sight of her. Had she been looking for him?

He frowned a little as he noticed her expression: she seemed annoyed, almost angry. Perhaps she had no intention of following him and had just ended up here for no reason? Were the two of them connected on a deeper level than he thought? Or perhaps she was just worried for him and angry he didn't look for her too?

The girl started to walk towards them, and his smile widened even more the closer she got.

She was almost there when he realised she wasn't sparing him a glance.

Instead, her eyes were focused on the red-haired boy next to him, who was staring at her in horror, looking completely terrified.

Sebastian looked back at the girl, finally noticing the red and gold tie around her neck where a green and silver one usually belonged, a crease in her eyebrows that wasn't there before, and her eyes were a different colour than he remembered.

What the hell is going on here?  he thought, staring at her wide-eyed.

"Ron, for God's sake, I've been looking all over for you! Do you intend to give me back my book before class starts, or should I pull a new one out of a hat because you can't use your own?" she threw her hands in the air disapprovingly.

Ron stuttered briefly before hesitantly pointing at the Slytherin boy next to him, "I've just had too much to do. Prefect stuff, you know."

The girl scowled at him before turning to the said boy, her eyes softening slightly. "Oh! You're the new fifth-year!"

Sebastian's eye twitched. How bloody ironic.

"I'm Sebastian Sallow," he replied feebly, body stock-still like marble.

"Nice to meet you," she smiled politely.

And then she introduced herself.

His breath caught in his throat. Sebastian could have recognised that surname anywhere, but her name fell completely deaf on his ears.

You weren't her.

--

→ Chapter 1

[vidavalor]

It's really funny that Aziraphale didn't-- from the get go-- just miracle Gabriel some damn pants.

Instead, he was all well... hello, supreme archangel that my husband once said was beautiful... it does appear that you really have *no memory of who you were whatsoever and are just colossally hot and dumb* oh Lord, this is both terrifying and absolutely hilarious, wait 'til Crowley sees this... here, just drape yourself in my thin, tartan blanket, Jim... that's it, oh that's perfect actually, you look like I'm living out some Roman fantasy over here... just don't answer the door and stand there... wait, no, you need to be doing something... here, take this YELLOW. FEATHERED. duster and clean our books... oh, at this point I don't know if I'm trying to make Crowley jealous or amused or both or if after he gets over the shock, he's going to very into this and I don't really care which... ok, don't answer the door, I'll be right back with my demonic paramour who once asked me on a date around making fun of a statue of your dumb ass and who literally loathes you for trying to murder us and for being an all-around general prat and once he gets over the WTF anxiety fit he'll have and the fact that we need a plan for this disaster, I really think he's going to be very amused that it took me all of fourteen seconds to turn you into our domestic house boy... not actually, old chap, don't worry, we've evolved into a serial monogamy we don't really talk about at this point but one day, he will laugh very hard at this and I do so love to make him laugh...

*goes to coffee shop to explain that there's a bit of trouble and it's terrifying but it's also, at the same time, hilarious and just wait 'til Crowley sees who's playing tartan toga servant boy in the bookshop... whole bloody neighborhood now thinks (knows) he's the kinky old gay bookseller so might as well just lean into it... this'll top even making the Archangel Michael miracle me a bath towel, Crowley...*

Nina: Morning, Mr. Fell! Details, please, on the stark naked Don Draper that just walked up the street and hugged you hello in front of the entire neighborhood.

Crowley: YOU WUT

Aziraphale: Thanks a bunch, Nina. I never know what to get him for his birthday and now you've ruined it.

[kiyo-cant-write]

I kind of forgot I did ask you about your favorite character and dorm. Sadly is not align, but is okay. I do want to request for Jack 👉👈🥺

About his chef card, imagine his crush is the judges and trying to impress them. While they would like to see Jack perform.

jack trying to impress his crush in culinary crucible ✧･ﾟ

.

Thank you for requesting! I actually love Jack!! I love the whole cast a lot and while he isn't my bias, I think he's cute. So this was fun to write. I like the concept of beastmen but I am a dog owner so xD

.

Summary: Jack is participating in the Culinary Crucible with his childhood friend, Vil Schoenheit. To his surprise, one of their judges is... [Name]??? Things just got interesting.

TW/CW: None

Notes: gender-neutral reader, the reader is Yuu/Ramshackle Prefect, they/them pronouns for the reader, the reader is implied to be a first-year

Guest Stars: Vil Schoenheit, Rook Hunt, Idia Shroud

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✧･ﾟ: ✧･ﾟ: ✧･ﾟ: ✧･ﾟ: ✧･ﾟ: ✧･ﾟ: ✧･ﾟ: ✧･ﾟ:

Jack Howl

Jack was already going to try hard, now he's trying harder.

Vil actually has to stop Jack and tell him to breathe.

Jack is appreciative to have an upperclassman paired with him for the Culinary Crucible because he is sweating bullets at the idea of [Name] eating his food as a judge. What are the odds?

Will they like it? What will they say to him?

He wanted to do a good job for them.

Vil comments that his tail is wagging up a storm.

Jack denies it but Vil just laughs softly like the radiant upperclassman he is, knowing Jack's feelings for [Name].

Jack is trying so hard that he's almost messing up the recipe.

He is making macarons and Vil says they are hard to do.

He really wants [Name] to like them.

Jack always strives to be his best and this is no different.

He will impress [Name] with his awesome cooking skills!

Vil thinks that it's going to be quite some time before those two realize they like each other. All the same, though, he's sure they will be happy when they do.

Jack had been starring off into space for far too long and Vil wasn't having any of it. He had joined the Crucible to learn more about cooking, to see if it was something he could do while maintaining his beauty. It was hard to focus on such a task when he was watching this lovesick little puppy staring toward the judges' table where Idia Shroud, [Full Name], and Rook Hunt were sitting.

"Jack, I have had just about enough of this nonsense," Vil told him.

"Huh? What?"

That snapped Jack out of his daze. This caused him to almost mess up the task he had been mindlessly doing. It was a miracle that nothing had exploded in their face thus far with Jack's spacey mood as of late.

Vil sighed. Why were all of the first years like this?

"Jack, I need you to focus. Your behavior reflects on me as well, you know. As an upperclassman," Vil told him, pausing his own task of mixing for a moment to shoot Jack a pointed look.

"Ah, sorry," Jack offered before his eyes drifted back to [Name] again.

They were so pretty. And they were going to be judging his work? Then he had to do a good... No! A perfect job! He would impress them with his work and then they would say what a good job he had done. It was all worked out and planned for. Perfectly, if he said so himself and—

"Jack."

"Huh? What? Sorry, Vil. Did you say something?"

"I said, you'd best focus on the task at hand... My word."

Jack could sense Vil's annoyance with the situation and he was frustrated with himself too. If he was distracted, he wouldn't be able to impress the judges. He had to focus. Shifting his stance, he got back to work making the macaron batter.

Vil continued his own preparation across from Jack, watching the younger boy every once in a while to ensure he was working and not daydreaming about [Name]. It was a good thing they were allowed to use magic in this event or they would surely fall behind on time.

[Vil & Jack - Cooking Montage]

As it would happen, they completed the macarons without any kind of disaster. Vil was thankful that it was all nearly over. Wasn't that a good thing? He would have this experience for his career and not get splattered in cake or lit on fire because of Jack's lovesickness-induced negligence. The things upperclassmen do for their underclassmen...

"Ready?" Vil asked Jack.

Jack nodded, ears perking up as they were about to present their creations to the judges. Vil smiled at that. He just couldn't stay upset with him. He knew Jack meant well by all of this.

"Let's do this!" Jack said, grinning.

Together, the actor and the first-year presented their culinary masterpieces to the judges. The array of judges had varying reactions. Rook stood up immediately and praised the simple staging of the food, ready to give 100 pts on sight for the beauty of it all. Vil shot him a look as he did this.

"I'd like to know how it tastes as well as how it looks, Rook," he chided.

The Pomefiore Vice Housewarden nodded as he tried both Vil's cake and Jack's macarons, eyes sparkling the entire time. He seemed to thoroughly enjoy the food with his animated reactions to it.

Next came Idia Shroud who attempted to eat macarons with a fork (one of the ghosts mumbled about this being a "crime"). He prodded the food with the utensil and ultimately only took a few bites, pushing the plate away after that as he attempted to avoid the eyes of both Vil and Jack alike.

Finally, there was [Name]. They tried a bite of the cake Vil had made and smiled at the taste of it, giving Vil a thumbs up. [Name] might have been the only person on the judging panel who knew what they were doing. They moved to the macarons, picking up one that was a bright shade of orange and taking a bite.

"Mm, this is good!" they said, smiling.

Their reaction was enough to make Jack's heart soar. He had done it, or he thought he had. Still, the scores could tell.

In the end...

A 10 from Rook (obviously, he was about to faint from the mere thought of eating the food almost as soon as he had seen it).

A 2 from Idia (now Vil was ready to throw down but he hid it).

And a 10 from [Name], melting Jack's heart in a single motion of holding up their score marker.

Vil sighed as he went to speak to the ghosts, followed by Rook Hunt for some reason but Jack didn't ask questions about it. Vice Housewarden stuff? Maybe? Probably. Jack had other things on his mind. Tail wagging behind him, much to his chagrin, he made his way over to [Name], calling out their name to get their attention.

"[Name]! Hey. I'm glad you liked... what I made," he told them, a bit sheepish about it all.

"I did! They were good!"

[Name]'s smile was the sunshine that came through the clouds after rain, that was what Jack was feeling when they praised his work.

"Uh, I have some extras if you want more?" Jack offered.

"Eh? Really? Sure!" they said, "Grim wanted to try some, or I think he would like to. That cat sure loves his food."

"Ha, sure!" Jack agreed, "Let me go get that for you."

"Thank you, Jack! I really appreciate it!" [Name] told him.

Jack's face reddened at the words. It was so simple but it got him.

He made his way back into the kitchen, tail wagging up a storm and face growing redder with every passing minute. It was painfully obvious what this was but Jack couldn't figure out why his heart was racing and he felt so... floaty?

Vil watched from a few feet away with the ghosts (and Rook). He sighed, he might have to step in if Jack remained unawares.

A minute later, Jack walked back to [Name] with some packaged macarons for them.

"Ah. Here you go, [Name]."

He handed them the package.

"Thanks again!" they said as they put the package of food in their bag, "I'll tell you what Grim's thoughts are too if you want."

They giggled as they spoke.

Jack only nodded, trying his best to calm down the heat on his face.

"Sure," he told them.

"Alright, it's a date!" [Name] said before heading off to their next period.

The wolf watched as they left the dining hall. What was he going to do? What would he say? Was it a date? Had he been on a date before? He tensed up at the thought that there was some protocol for this.

Who would he ask? Ace would laugh at him. Deuce wouldn't be able to help. Grim wouldn't be able to either. He didn't want to tell Ruggie and Leona... That left...

Sighing, he walked up to the table where the two Pomefiore students sat, taking an empty spot next to the dorm's housewarden.

"Hey. Vil... I'd like to, uh, ask you something," he said, trying not to seem as nervous as he was about asking an upperclassman something like this, "If it's not a bother."

Was he supposed to ask his upperclassmen about these feelings? They did say they would be there for their underclassmen... Right?

"Oh? And what might that be, Jack?" Vil hummed.

.

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…Imagine the rest yourself~ <3

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✧･ﾟ: ✧･ﾟ: ✧･ﾟ: ✧･ﾟ: ✧･ﾟ: ✧･ﾟ: ✧･ﾟ: ✧･ﾟ:

Thank you for reading! Likes and reblogs are appreciated! Do NOT repost my writing/headcanons as your own >:c Check the top of my blog for the inbox status and read the rules before requesting. This is not a twst-only blog! ^^

[merakiui]

Mother

yandere!kabukimono x (female) reader cw: yandere, unhealthy behaviors/relationship, obsession, pregnancy, implied codependency, brief mentions of murder/death, brief mention of childbirth note - recently i was inspired to write a kabukimono story, so i hope you can enjoy it!

i. the miracle of life.

There is a little human growing within you.

Kabukimono has never heard of such a phenomenon, but according to you it’s a normal facet of life for all creatures. He, who has only ever interacted with men, young and old, and the occasional grandmother, has never known the word pregnancy. It’s a complicated concept he struggles to parse at first—like that first sip of sake or the stickiness of a sweet. It’s something that leaves you pleasantly rounded like a ripe lavender melon, softens the skin on your bones, and allows you to grow into the kimono that was once two sizes too large. It’s something you speak of with overwhelming warmth, a fondness so enticing it’s almost tangible. It’s something the men at the furnace discuss with great pride and merriment, swapping stories of their beautiful, beloved wives and the tiny miracles that dwell within the womb, adoration painted upon weathered countenances. 

Miracles. Kabukimono has heard the word once or twice. Miracles, as he has come to learn, are wonderful things wrapped in silks. Newborns swathed in softness. Frail humans who manage to overcome illnesses that are said to snuff both body and soul with the excruciating passage of time. Sometimes a miracle is simple and not nearly as exciting as tales of heroes and villains or a mortal fight for recovery. Sometimes a miracle is waking up to begin another day. Sometimes it's torrential rain battering thirsty farmlands. Sometimes it’s a delicious meal prepared by a loving hand. 

If Kabukimono’s existence were to be defined as a miracle, it would be both a grandiose, gilded lie and bittersweet flattery all in one pretty package. Miracles are wanted, loved, and accepted. Disasters, curses, failures—however you wish to name the wandering puppet—are unwanted, despised, and abandoned. Kabukimono may not know every truth of this vast world, but this is one he’s understood from the moment he awoke in a lonesome pavilion. 

There is a little miracle growing within you. 

“Although they’re not very little now,” you remark, taking his cold, bloodless hands in your warm, blood-filled ones.

You guide them to your belly, secured snugly with a hara-obi, and he averts his gaze, if only to be respectful of the bare flesh you’ve put on display. The men at the furnace note he often stares at you; they’ve said it’s unbecoming of a young man to fix licentious eyes upon a maiden. Once, they joked of repentance for invasive gazes: A man who strays too far from his honor when a lady is involved shall gouge his eyes out and present them to her in hopes of earning forgiveness. Kabukimono, unable to comprehend the sarcasm or the laughter, procured a shard of shattered glass, raised it to his eye, and was promptly stopped by a very concerned Niwa. 

“Now listen here,” he had said, addressing the group of chuckling men, “it’s not very honorable to trick others.”

Kabukimono knows that there are two types of tricks: the painful kind and the painless kind. Betrayal falls under the painful category. Swapping his bitter tea for sake falls under the painless category (though he was not spared of the dizzying, disorienting effects or the subsequent hangover). Had he sliced his eyes from his skull, he wonders if he would have felt the sting, the agony, the fluid filling empty eye sockets—if such fluid even exists within his unique anatomy. Kabukimono is grateful for Niwa, for he often rescues him from painless tricks that may turn painful should he follow through with blind trust. 

And, had he truly lost his eyes that day, he never would have had the pleasure of looking at you like he does now. 

“Not very little…” he parrots, and he can practically feel the heartbeat from your miracle the moment his hands rest upon your belly. It shimmers in the candlelight, but that’s only because you’ve applied herbal oil meant to soothe weary muscles and prevent stretch marks. “How big will it become?”

You hum, idly trace patterns onto the tops of his hands, and say, “It’s difficult to approximate. Imagine…a very big lavender melon.”

Kabukimono can do that. He peers past you at the purple pile on the table, spoils from his last walk. He always returns with too many, but then pregnancy leaves you with a voracious appetite and sometimes you can eat more than one melon in one sitting. It’s very admirable, so he brings more each week and you never stop him. 

“That’s big,” he mumbles, awestruck, and he slides a hand across the width of your stomach. “How does it fit?”

“It’s a miracle.”

“Oh.” He leans closer, suspecting he feels movement from within, and he’s proven correct when something shifts under his palms. His eyes, blown so very, impossibly wide, flick up to yours. “It… It moved!”

“Of course,” you say, smiling, and your eyes are the prettiest gemstones in the moonlight. He could stare at them forever. “They kick and squirm often. This, too, is the sweetest miracle.”

“How so?”

“A restless baby means they are alive and well within.” You look like a statue of the gentlest goddess when you cradle your stomach. “It’s all I could ever hope for.”

Curiously, Kabukimono withdraws his hands and lifts the hem of his silks to view his own flat, porcelain stomach. He presses a palm against synthetic skin. It’s cold, but there is life crackling beneath his hand, just barely contained within the frame his mother personally sculpted. 

Mother. It’s another word he knows well, but he cannot seem to apply it to anyone other than his creator. But, as he has come to learn, a mother is meant to provide and protect. His mother is currently absent, so she cannot do those things. 

“You must have something you want.” 

Kabukimono lowers the fabric, cinches it tight, and peers at you. “Something I want?”

“Like a miracle of your own.”

“I am unable to conceive a miracle.”

You stare at him for a moment before laughing a quiet, melodious laugh. “It doesn’t have to be a child. It can be anything you want.”

His hands rise to his chest and he intends to admit his true wish—a heart and a place amongst humans—but instead he says, “I would like a mother for myself.”

“Do you not have a mother, Kabukimono?”

“I do… I did.” He shakes his head, finding that the admittance is too troublesome on his tongue. “I’m…unsure.”

You nod, your features softening with understanding. “Perhaps something else then?” Kabukimono reaches out to touch your belly, hesitates, and draws away, conflicted. You offer an encouraging smile. “You can touch. I don’t mind, and I don’t think the baby minds either.”

And so he does.

“I want to see your miracle when it’s brought into the world,” he whispers, speaking more to your baby than to you. “And I would like to know the miracle of life.”

As if in response, your little miracle kicks.

ii. the miracle of death. 

Your little miracle almost fell from the sky that envelops it.  

On the way to the furnace, a man bumped into you and you were sent stumbling on uneven ground. Kabukimono does not want to think of what could have happened if he hadn’t been a few steps behind—if he hadn’t rushed to your aid with a quickness rivaling lightning. He’d caught you in his arms and, noting the raw panic sullying such a friendly face, could only exhale a slow, relieved sigh. 

When you fell, you were holding your belly, shielding it as if it was worth more than your own life. When you fell, the man who had been the catalyst for this short-lived horror did not jump in to catch you. When you fell, you were a sliver away from tragedy. 

Kabukimono tastes red-hot anger in his throat, but he cannot understand where it’s coming from or why it consumes him entirely. But he must get it out of his system. It’s unpleasant and wrong and sordid. He doesn’t like it. Not at all.

And so, later that same day, he repays terror tenfold and leaves the man clinging to the strand he calls life.

“I won’t allow you to take my miracle away.” It’s spoken like a fact, shot through with syllables of deadly certainty. The sharpened tip of his blade prods at the man’s abdomen, a warning, a threat, and a promise all at once. For nearly taking a life, you shall pay for it with your own.

“Your mother?” the man had sputtered, terrified and confused, sticky with sweat and tears. 

Kabukimono does not let the man speak again, for the sword sinks into his stomach, and unease morphs into painful torment. To be certain the man won’t survive, Kabukimono twists the sword, sullies his hands in the process, and yanks it free with startling strength. Blood speckles a pristine canvas. It’s warm and wet.

He did not say mother. He did not. You’re a miracle. You are not his mother. You will be a mother to your miracle, not him because he isn’t a miracle. 

He did not say mother. 

Kabukimono finds himself sitting across from you now. There is a ghastly tear in crimson-spattered silks. You suspect the truth in the liquid staining his attire. Surely you must. But you keep your lips pursed and thread the needle through with expert fingers, humming as you work. Kabukimono sits primly, watching you with bright, indigo hues. You hum a melody he has never heard before.

“Are you okay?”

“I’m uninjured.”

“I’m glad.” You snip the excess string away and tuck the needle into your sewing kit. “It’s fixed. I’m sorry if it looks a little awkward. I’m not the best at—”

“It’s perfect,” he insists, admiring the stitching as if it’s the most valuable thing in all of Teyvat. Irreplaceable, for no one could replicate your exact pattern, and that’s what makes it so special. 

“Would you like to talk about it?”

He’s quiet for all of two minutes before the silence shatters his resolve. “Your miracle…” He frowns, suddenly ashamed. “He almost hurt your miracle…”

“But he didn’t, and I have you to thank for that.” You hold your hands out, palms up, and add, “Your hands aren’t meant to break and destroy others. You were given these precious palms to embrace others, to protect others, to respect others.” 

Slowly, he places his hands in yours. His seem to weigh heavy like a grimy sin, yet somehow all it takes is a single touch from you and all of his filth is cleansed. His fingers curl around yours, entwining like vines.

“I will embrace others. I will protect others. I will respect others.”

You squeeze his hands reassuringly. “When you’re upset, rather than acting rashly, take a step back and sit with your feelings. If the unpleasant thing persists, come to me and we can discuss. But please don’t take your frustrations out on others. You weren’t made to hurt others.”

“Then if I was not made for destruction, what else could be the purpose for my creation?”

To that, you’re unable to produce a satisfactory reply. Instead, you pull one of your hands free, lick your thumb, lean towards him, and scrub the blood from his cheeks. He blinks at you, unaccustomed to such consideration. The men at the furnace often tease him for trailing after you like a lost, little duckling, seeking your approval and affection. Tonight, since the men are nowhere in sight, he thinks he can allow himself to be greedy without any admonishments from Niwa or Katsuragi. You sure do like that (Name), huh? the latter often muses, exchanging wary, furtive glances with Niwa, as if both are preparing to weather a calamity. 

Kabukimono always speaks the truth unless he must take care to conceal it. So when he tells them, I like her more than I like the world that surrounds me, he means it. Because without you there is no world.

“Thank you, Mother,” he murmurs, as if it’s a secret, a title not meant to be uttered by him. 

Oh, he said it again. He said mother. 

iii. the miracle of motherhood.

Kabukimono kneels at your bedside like an angel of death dressed in the purity of white. He watches you throughout the hour, listening to your cries, your groans, your hisses, while a grandmother assists below, whispering soothing consolations that somehow reach Kabukimono’s ears despite the shrill noises that fill the room. Kabukimono has learned she’s a granny who delivers life, so he puts his faith in her to take good care of you and your miracle.

The process is much longer than he anticipated. Though you’re covered in sweat and tears, your chest heaving, your hand searching for him in the midst of the commotion, you are the most beautiful miracle he has ever known. He closes his hand around yours and you squeeze so hard you might just tear his wrist from the joint. But it doesn’t hurt him, and he spends the afternoon at your side, watching the toll the miracle takes on your body.

He never blinks, burning the scene into his retinas. 

Some time later, you are holding your miracle in your arms, tears tracking down your cheeks in salty streaks. Kabukimono watches mother and child with wide, adoring eyes. After all this time, your miracle is finally here! You’re holding such a fragile human and there is love trickling from your lash line. Kabukimono wants to cry with you, but the tears won’t come. 

So instead he smiles. You seize his wrist and drag him down to where you rest, and the smile widens.

“Your miracle is leaking,” he observes, and you snort in amusement.

“Crying,” you correct, bumping your forehead with his. “She’s adorable, isn’t she?”

Kabukimono is inclined to agree, but your eyes are not on him. For the first time in the many months he’s been acquainted with you, he is not all you see. Somehow that saddens him, carves a hole into him, but he can’t mourn. He shouldn’t. He’s come to learn that the miracle of childbirth is an occasion worthy of celebration. He should be happy for you—and he is—but there is a pang in his chest. Something is not fitting where it should. Something is amiss.

“I think I’ll name her…Aika.”

“Is it common to give miracles names?”

“Of course. Everyone has a name, even you. We’re all given one the moment we’re born.”

Even me… 

Aika continues to cry and you rock her to and fro in your arms, shushing her with a song. She settles within minutes, lulled to sleep, and you follow shortly after. He refuses to leave your bedside, preferring to watch over you like a dutiful guard.

Kabukimono weighs his two warring wants: a name of his own, generously given by his mother, and you. In this very moment, you are attainable. A name, however, is not. But perhaps he can survive without one if it means you’ll accompany him through nameless wandering.

He’s only ever whole when he’s with you. 

iv. the miracle of rebirth. 

The Balladeer stands at an all-too-familiar doorstep. He has since swapped his pure linens for a shroud of darkness, and he’s taken on a new alias (he refuses to call it a name, for only you can grant him one). You haven’t changed in the many years that have since followed, for you are not fully human like him. Yet you veil yourself in the wonders of humanity, always empathetic in nature, tainted with weak emotions. You will never be human, but then neither will he and there is catharsis in similarity. The both of you stand on equal ground in that regard, or so you might have thought. 

He is better because he feels nothing, or so he believes. Perhaps, in the center of the labyrinth that is his mind, he recognizes his flaws and the fact that he is worse because you can accept the many aspects of humanity. 

Shrugging these irritations away, he composes himself, squares his shoulders, and knocks thrice. He could forego etiquette altogether, kick your door down, and force himself inside for the sake of a cruel surprise, but he refrains from doing so. He suspects your newest miracle might tumble from your sky if he shocks you and then you will never know the sweet cycle of motherhood again.

You know better than to ignore Death when he comes knocking. The door opens wide; there’s no need to crack it and peek through the thin sliver when you’re already aware of the person who awaits you on the other side. 

As he has observed over the course of many months, you do have another miracle, hidden under the softness of a floral-patterned kimono. He smiles at you, sharp and wicked under a blanket of stars, and spreads his arms for a hug.

“Mother,” he says in a sarcastic singsong, knowing it unnerves you terribly when it spills like sin from his lips. “It’s so nice to see you again.”

Like an old habit, you welcome him in. Beyond your doorstep, the corpse of your most recent lover lies slumped and bloodied, decapitated and disemboweled, dragged so far there’s a vermilion trail marking the path. Sometimes you think these humans are not killed by The Balladeer but rather by the sheer ferocity of the hatred and anger he harbors. He’s always diligent with each of your lovers, swooping in the moment he catches their scents, like a predatory cat finely tuned for slaughter. 

He palms at your stomach, uncharacteristically gentle. “Aren’t you just full of miracles, Mother?”

There is a little human growing within you, and The Balladeer has made it his duty to bear witness to the birth of each one of your miracles.

[captain-hawks]

Hello hello! I've recently discovered your writing and am going absolutely WILD over it, especially your kn8 fics!!

But I would love to request Kenma Kozume(timeskip) and bathroom/shower with the reader as his roommate and helps him destress after a long day of working for his company and youtubing !!

collaboration

kenma kozume x f!reader

Kenma's nearly content to ignore his accidental discovery of your late night activities...until the sight of you wearing one of his shirts snaps the last remaining fragile threads of his willpower.

wc: 1.1k

c: 18+ only, and they were roommates, streamer!kenma, camgirl!reader, (guilty) masturbation, handjob

SPICY SLEEPOVER WEEKEND — PART V

It’s a miracle, Kenma thinks to himself as he lays one palm flat against the smooth tiles of the shower wall, that he’s lasted this long.

His cock hangs erect and flushed between his legs, precum leaking from the tip, and a satisfying flood of pleasure surges through him when the fingers of his other hand close around its girth.

Eight months he’s lived with you in this two-bedroom apartment, eight months of soft, mumbled ‘good morning’s over coffee and late nights spent watching bad movies and playing video games on the couch. 

You’re his roommate.

You’re his friend.

And he’s spent the last two months trying to forget about his accidental discovery of what exactly you’d fucking meant when you grinned at his streaming set up the first day you moved in, idly commenting that you “stream on occasion, too.” The answer to his question, though incredibly belated, came in the form of your tits on his computer screen late one night as he fervently searched for material to quell the aching need tented in his sweatpants. 

He didn’t realize it was you, not at first. Not until you moved over just enough as you began to finger yourself to reveal a familiar, brightly-colored collage of posters behind your bed. 

Kenma likes to think he’s been a decent roommate—he’s gone to whatever lengths necessary to think of anything but the swell of your perky tits and the sight of the slick arousal staining the inside of your thighs while he’s jerked off in the days since. He even blocked his own access to the website you stream on to avoid any future misclicks driven by selfish temptation and curiosity.

(Kuroo laughed so hard he cried when he told him and proceeded to call him a masochistic idiot.)

He might have even been able to move on past the entire thing unscathed…if he hadn’t stumbled out of his room today after streaming a grueling, infuriating six-hour-long raid to the sight of you bent over in front of the fridge wearing nothing but a t-shirt and pale pink cotton panties.

That still was nearly a recoverable offense, if not for the goddamn fact that the black t-shirt in question was his.

Even now, with his eyes firmly screwed shut as hot water pours down his back, the sight of KODZUKEN written in large, white letters across your shoulders is an insistent, hungry echo against the darkness of his eyelids. 

Just this once—

Kenma lets himself remember the way your tits bounced as you scooted back across your mattress, the shape of your pert nipples, the way your hips arched up off of the bed when you slipped two fingers into your cunt. 

All the blood in his body rushes to his cock. His head drops against the tiles, water sliding down the damp strands of his hair as steam fills the room. His balls ache.

He’s a fucking terrible roommate.

Kenma strokes his cock and bites his fist and wonders if you’d let him come all over your tits. 

(He wonders if you’d wear that shirt while he fucks you.)

He shouldn’t be doing this. He shouldn’t be fucking his fist wishing he was sinking his cock into the tight, wet heat of your cunt. His chest shouldn’t be heaving at the thought of burying his face between your thighs and lapping at your swollen pussy until you’re whimpering from overstimulation.

And suddenly, as disasters often go, a few unfortunate events occur simultaneously—

The bathroom door Kenma left unlocked in the midst of his frustration bursts open.

You loudly announce that you need to brush your teeth quickly.

And Kenma groans your fucking name while he’s pumping his throbbing shaft, the sound easily carrying across the bathroom tiles.

Kenma freezes, and everything goes silent, save for the sound of the running water pouring from the shower head. 

“Don’t stop on my account.”

He gapes, turning to look at the shadow on the other side of the frosted glass of the shower door.

“Can I help?” you continue when he doesn’t respond.

Kenma knows he’s never quite had a way with words, but now he’s well and truly at a fucking loss in this moment. 

“Why?”

Your soft laugh goes straight to his dick. “Because I want to.”

When the shower door slides open partway, you’re still wearing his shirt, and Kenma allows himself a brief moment to freely take in the sight before him. 

“Hope you don’t mind I borrowed this,” you tell him, lips quirking upward in a smile as you tilt your head to the side slightly. “I may have accidentally left something in your drawer to make up for it.”

Kenma blinks, but he doesn’t have time to ponder over what you mean, because a moment later, you’re leaning into the shower just enough to wrap a hand around his shaft. He exhales roughly, taking a step backward, the door of the shower pressing into his shoulder blades as he turns his head to the side to glance at you.

He’s so hard, it hurts.

You run your teeth over your bottom lip as you stroke him, fingers deftly sliding up and down his length, breathy sighs leaving your lips as he gives in to the urge to rock his hips forward into your touch.

“Have you been watching my streams?” you ask him, lips hovering against the shell of his ear.

“Once,” he exhales sharply as your fingers clasp his balls before stroking from his base to his tip, thumb sliding over the precum that continues to steadily leak out.

You smile at him, like you know how fucking hard he’s been trying to maintain some modicum of respect for you as his friend. And then you send all of his good intentions spiraling in to a fucking ditch—

“That’s a shame. Personally, I like watching yours right before I stream.”

He knows beyond a shadow of a doubt that he’s never been this hard in his life, not when your fingers are wrapped around his cock in the shower while openly admitting that you livestream yourself masturbating to him playing video games.

And because you clearly know no mercy, you tack on, for good measure:

“We could collaborate…”

Kenma comes so hard he nearly blacks out, his hips sloppily jerking into the grip of your fist as he slams both hands against the wall and groans, hot, sticky ropes of cum spurting from his cock and painting the gray tiles below.

—

Later, after Kenma finds a lacy, red thong nestled amongst the shirts in his dresser, he doesn’t feel bad at all when he fucks his fist with it wrapped around his cock.

—

And while he’s not quite ready to run the risk of someone on your streaming site recognizing Kodzuken while you’re whimpering and gasping as you ease yourself down into his length, his viewers are none the wiser when you take his dick into your mouth from beneath his keyboard in the middle of his next raid. 

[thefallennightmare]

Miracle-four

Pairings: Noah Sebastian x Reader

Warnings/Tropes: forced proximity, slight enemies to lovers, slow burn, smut, angst, fluff, mentions of death, and swearing.

Summary: Reader is the merch girl for Bad Omens. It wasn't what she wanted to do with her life but when her mother got sick with Alzheimer's, reader took a job where she could to help with the costs. She thought it would be a one-time gig but the longer she was on the road with them, the harder she fell for Noah Sebastian; even if he wanted nothing to do with her. She needed a miracle to save her mom and her future.

Author Note: I wanted this to be a slow burn/enemies to lovers but god damn it's so hard to write because I already want Reader and Noah to get together.

Tags: @ada-clarence @nonamessblog @thescarlettvvitch @malice-ov-mercy @crimson-calligraphyx @theoneandonlykymberlee @yumikitten @blackveilomens @cherrymedicine13 @thebadchic @notmaddihealy @jay02bo @beaker1636 @jakekiszkasguitarpick @punk-pr1ncessxoxo

With a loud sigh, I rubbed the sleep from my eyes and walked towards to front end of the bus. On this bus, I shared it with Davis, Matt, and Bryan, and sometimes one guy from the band would pop in every once in a while: except Noah. At least if he did, it was when I was asleep or not around. Especially lately, Noah and I avoided each other. After the disaster of a dinner a couple nights ago, I refused to speak to him even about work. I went to everyone else instead of him if I had a question, which I didn't often since I knew what I was doing.

I didn't want to think about Noah right now. Not when my mind should only think about my mom.

Lana told me that even though my mom was having a lot of good days, she still refused to speak to me. I'd be lying if I said my heart didn't break but I couldn't cry about it. I needed to focus for work and not give anyone a reason to figure out something was wrong.

We were close to the next city, less than an hour away, and we would hang out in Dallas for two days before heading out once more. Matt mentioned he had a surprise for everyone so called for a bus meeting which is where I found everyone with two surprise visitors.

Folio and Noah.

Giving a small smile to the former, I sat next to him at the table and he returned a smile. Noah was sitting on the long couch of the bus, chatting quietly with Bryan. They must have joined when we stopped last and I was asleep.

Noah's eyes burned hot at the side of my face but I ignored him as I bumped shoulders with Folio. We had been texting a bit the last couple days and have gotten pretty close; no romantic feelings involved. Folio had been a great friend and someone to vent too. I never told him about my mom, though. That was something I would take to the grave.

"Where's Jolly and Nick?" I asked.

"They stayed on our bus. They wanted the peace to sleep."

I nodded before pointing to Matt, who was standing at the front of the bus rubbing his hands together. "Any idea what this is about?"

"No fucking idea," Folio chuckled.

With my phone buzzing in my hand, I dared a peak at the notification to see another subscriber to my Only Fan's page. I didn't have many followers but enough to keep some money coming in. I could pay Lana her first paycheck and the extra income coming in was nice. I wasn't rolling in money but wasn't struggling on how to pay for things. With being constantly surrounded by the guys, I wasn't able to post much, just one other video and a few provocative pictures. I never showed my face, only from the neck down and never naked. I always had some short of clothes or underwear or an arm covering the private areas. Maybe that was the reason I had little subscribers, but it was the rules I set for myself when I started this.

"So, I bet you're all wondering why I called this meeting," Matt spoke while clapping his hands.

Folio muttered a joke to me under his breath which earned a loud laugh from me. Everyone looked our way, and I leaned back into the booth cheeks on fire.

"What's so funny?" Matt quirked a brow.

Noah's eyes pinned me to my spot as I glanced over to him. Something flashed behind those brown iris' while his jaw ticked.

"Nothing, Mr. Dierkes. Please continue with class," Folio joked with a smirk.

I had to bite my lip so I wouldn't laugh again.

"As I was saying," Matt began ignoring Folio. "It's been a week on tour and we've all been working tirelessly to make sure every show fucking rules. But there has been some tension within the group."

"I don't think you feel the same tension as some of us do," Noah said with his eyes on me.

Our eyes matched with intensity, and I let out a deep breath wondering what he meant by that.

Tension? Of course, there was tension between us but that's because we disliked each other.

Folio noticed I was ready to speak, so he pinched the bare skin of my shoulder which caused me to yelp out in slight pain.

"What the fuck was that for?" I seethed.

He nodded towards Matt to continue on, who looked displeased at being interrupted by our antics yet again.

In our days of texting, I told Folio about how it irritates me how Noah acts around me when we're alone versus when others are around. I also may have told him about my tiny feelings for Noah, which Folio told me it was pretty clear how I felt. While I thought no one noticed, Folio saw the stolen glances, the way my body reacted differently when Noah was around, or the way the corner of my lips curled up when Noah spoke or sang.

Always so perceptive.

I tried to get out of him why Noah was so upset about that night in Chicago but Folio refused. He said that was Noah's secret to share.

I tasted blood with how hard I bit my tongue and reluctantly gave Matt my attention.

"Since we'll be in Dallas for a few days, I rented an Airbnb for us to stay at as a way for us to bond or whatever the fuck. There's a pool and grill we can have a pool day on our off day," Matt said with a smile.

My heart sunk deep into the pits of my stomach. At least when we stayed in hotels, I had my room, sometimes doors down from Noah. But now, all of us staying in a house means it would be harder to avoid him.

"Is that necessary?" I questioned.

"Yes," Matt deadpanned. "If you want a hotel, book it on your personal card."

Low blow.

"Whatever," I grumbled while crossing my arms.

He simply gave me a large smirk before speaking again. "The only issue is that there aren't enough beds so some people will have to bunk together or sleep on the couch."

"You've got to be kidding me," I muttered while running a hand down my face.

I didn't care the house situation, I would sleep on the floor if I had too if that meant I wouldn't share a bed with anyone, especially Noah. I liked these guys but not that much.

Folio patted my shoulder and whispered low in my ear.

"Maybe you and Noah should bunk together. Team bonding or whatever."

"Fuck off, Folio," I playfully smacked his chest before rising to my feet, his arm falling away from me. Noah was still staring at me and I knew with how close Folio and I had been, he wasn't happy. His jaw clenched so tight, and his hands balled into fists in his lap.

I didn't bother giving him another glance as I turned my back to him to retreat into my bunk to mentally prepare for this team bonding bullshit Matt set up.

Okay, I had to admit. This house was fucking sick.

There were large floor to ceiling windows that looked out onto a beautiful backyard and if you looked past that, you could see the city down below the hill the house was on. It was a large open floor plan with a living room, kitchen, and bar with a pool table off of the dinning room. Upstairs was an open loft area with a large sectional couch and four bedrooms.

While I was in my bunk on the bus, the room situation had been decided by drawing matching straws. No one bothered to ask for me to draw because somehow by the Gods below, Noah was the last to pick and was only left with the color red.

Jolly and Nick.

Bryan and Davis.

Matt and Folio.

Noah and I.

When Folio told me the sleeping arrangements, I wanted to cry in anger. It seemed as if no matter how hard I tried to avoid Noah, something yanked us back together. Folio offered to swap with me but I declined, already deciding that I would sleep on whatever couch was provided.

A warm presence encased around me, making the hairs on my arm prick, and I peered up to my left seeing Noah standing next to me in the house's entryway.

"You can have the bed. I'll sleep on the couch," he said.

I blinked, somewhat surprised that he offered that. I fully expected him to lock me out of the room.

"I'm smaller than you. It might be better for you to sleep on the bed," I offered.

Was I being nice?

My body shivered at the thought.

Noah shook his head then hoisted his back over his shoulder. "Take the room, angel. You're the only girl here. You should have some privacy."

Was he being nice now in front of the others? They all stood less than a few feet from us.

Did I wake up in the twilight zone?

When I went to protest yet again, he shot me a look that caused my lips to pull tight together. We stood in silence for a few moments and I let out a soft breath.

"Thank you."

Noah made a noise in his throat and his eyes glittered as they darted between mine. His large hand brushed away hair from my face and I leaned into his touch, all the pent up anger between us melting away.

The question weighed heavy on my tongue as I pursed my lips a few times.

"Why do you call me angel?" I finally croaked out.

His hand was now wrapped around the back of my neck, the pads of his finger pressing deep into the skin, and shrugged.

"It feels right."

I raised a brow. "What if I don't like it?"

"Too bad. It stays, angel," he dragged out the last word with a large grin.

Irritation flared inside of me but before I could say anything, the warmth around my neck was gone as Noah walked away. I blinked after him, watching as he tossed his bag onto the couch before stepping outside into the large backyard.

"Soundcheck is in one hour!" Matt called out, his voice carrying through the open space.

With that, I forced my feet to take me upstairs to the bedrooms so I could get ready. The only room left was the closet one to the stairs and directly across the long sectional couch. If Noah would sleep here tonight, he'd be able to look right into my room and see me laying in bed. The thought made something ignite in my stomach but I ignored it.

This was the only room with a bathroom attached which made me wonder if the guys purposely gave me this room. As I placed my things throughout the room since we were going to be here for a few days, my phone rang loudly from its spot on the bed as I was in the bathroom and rushed to answer it in time.

"Hello?" I asked breathless

"Hi dear. How're things?"

I smiled into the phone at Lana. "Good. I'm going to be heading to the venue soon to set up. Everything alright?"

"Well," Lana started.

My ass fell into the bed with a groan and prepared myself for what was about to come.

"What happened?"

"Your neighbors found your mother in their bathroom this morning; in their shower."

I pinched my eyes shut with a groan. "Please tell me it was the Johnson's. They know what's going on with her so they would understand. Well, as much as I hoped they would."

"Yes, thankfully. I was able to bring her back home without incidents."

"Good," I let out a long breath. "How is she now?"

"She's fine, in her room resting but-."

"I don't like the sound of that but," I noted.

"Y/N, I know you love your mother and want the upmost best care possible for her."

I nodded. "But."

"But I think your mother would be better in a home where someone can watch and monitor her twenty-four hours of the day. I can only do so much especially when she takes off."

I swallowed the lump in my throat, not wanting to cry. This conversation was one I knew I was bound to have at some point. My mothers Alzheimers was getting progressively worse and soon, I feared there might be a time where I couldn't handle it.

But now wasn't that time.

"I'll think about it," I said after a few beats.

It wasn't a lie, per se. I would think about it, way down the road.

"I'll see if she wants to talk," Lana said.

"No, it's alright. I don't want to bother her."

I couldn't stop the sob that escaped my lips.

"Alright dear. I'll call you tomorrow."

After we said our goodbyes, I let my phone clatter to the floor at my feet then plopped down onto the bed. Tears pricked at my eyes and I dug my palms into them, hoping it would force the tears away. My mom was the most important person in my life. We were all each other had after my father died, so being so far away from her when she needed me the most made the guilt rip me apart.

Was this job worth it? Was the money worth it?

These questions kept replaying in my mine over and over as I laid on the bed staring up at the ceiling. A few tears escaped drying to my warm cheeks. The money was worth it; it had to be. I still wasn't making a lot of money from Only Fans so whatever I made doing this, I needed.

There was a soft knock on my open door and my breath hitched when I noticed Noah leaning against it. How long had he'd been there? Did he hear my conversation with Lana?

I sat up in bed while covertly drying my eyes.

"The manager at the venue said the set up for merch has to be in the hallway downstairs. Is that alright?"

I shrugged. "Yeah, I've been put in weirder places so it's fine."

Noah gave a curt nod while crossing his arms over his chest. I suddenly felt small under his eyes and rose to my feet hoping that watching me gather my things to get ready it would be a silent dismissal. But no, he continued to watch every single movement I made.

"Is there anything else you need, Noah?" I asked with a sigh, finally looking at him.

His black shirt clung to the thick muscles of his arms and chest. His brown hair had fallen into his face in a tousled mess from being on the tour bus the majority of the day.

Noah was breathtaking in every single way, and my core practically begged for some kind of friction.

Not now, traitor.

"Have I mentioned how much I love hearing my name coming from your pretty little mouth?," he mused while licking his own.

My legs squeezed together, my body screaming with that small release against my core, but I refused to let him know how bad he was affecting me.

"Is that it?" I asked.

Noah said nothing as he walked over to my open suitcase and riffled through it, obviously looking for something.

"What are you doing?"

My heart raced as I watched him, knowing that if he picked up that red t-shirt, he would find the variety of sex toys I use for my videos. What he found, though, was something I hadn't expected him to. An old shirt of his that I borrowed from the last tour. It was the second night and Bad Omens played a sold-out show. The crowd was alive the entire night and every one of us was buzzing with excitement. Once we returned to the hotel that night, we all jumped into the outdoor pool even though it was pretty chilly that night. Noah offered his dry shirt to me so I could warm up which at the time I took gratefully.

That night was before the night in Chicago. Before Noah's attitude toward me changed.

It got buried along with my other things after the last tour and forgotten about.

Bullshit.

I may have worn it to bed some nights; so much so that his scent had faded while ago.

Noah tossed the shirt over to me and I caught it just before it hit me in my face. My lips stuttered trying to come up with an excuse because I still had it.

"Wear that."

"Excuse me? I asked irritation lacing my words. "Since when do I take orders from you on what I wear?"

He closed the distance between us in two large steps, his fingers tilting my chin up towards his face. Our lips were so close, I could almost taste the beer he must have had before coming into my room. And the hint of bourbon and spice from his cologne filled my senses.

So warm and familiar.

"There's a reason you kept it, angel. Might as well wear it."

Noah's voice was dark and heavy, laced with something I could pinpoint. His eyes were just as dark as his words and I swallowed hard. My body flared with desire, heat pooling between my legs, and I let out a breathless whine eventually nodding.

"Good girl," he breathed across my lips.

His eyes darted from mine down to my lips where it stayed for a long moment before he dropped his hand from my face then left me standing in the room with a heavy wetness and an ache between my legs.

[psychedelic-ink]

𝐃𝐞𝐚𝐝𝐡𝐞𝐚𝐝 - 𝐂𝐡𝐚𝐩𝐭𝐞𝐫 𝐎𝐧𝐞 𝐨𝐟 𝐈𝐎𝐀𝐃𝐊

Pairing: FEDRA!Javier Peña x firefly!reader

Genre: slice of life, smut, romance, angst, enemies to reluctant friends to lovers, TLOU AU, minors dni

Summary: Javier, a former member of the Federal Disaster Response Agency in Kansas City, is haunted by the guilt and violence he indirectly caused by not taking action when he should have. After fleeing Kansas City in the aftermath of Kathleen's violent overthrow of FEDRA, you and Javier seek refuge in an abandoned train in the middle of a forest.

As you and Javier turn the train into a living space and learn to navigate the dangers of a post-apocalyptic world, you gradually overcome your differences and form an unlikely bond. But when your pasts catch up with you, you must confront the demons that haunt you and make a choice that could mean the difference between life and death. Will you choose to protect each other and find a way to build a new life together, or will the ghosts of your pasts tear you apart?

word count: 4.5k

chapter summary: you and javier get off on a rocky start.

warnings: canon typical violence, arguing, a brief reference to Ellie and the main TLOU plot, no y/n

Deadhead - A railcar or locomotive that is being transported empty, typically to be used for future shipments.

The day was warm, the sun bright. Small petals flew further away from the green grass, colorful flowers moving left and right with the soft caress of the wind. The vest Javier wore dug uncomfortably into his chest, his rifle slung over his back and pistol snug on his hip. The lovely weather mocked him, taunted him. It was a lie. A facade. The color, the white clouds, the green grass— all of it seemed muddled now. If he tried hard enough he could see specks of blood, tainting the visual that could as well be a spitting image of a Van Gough painting. 

But despite it all. Despite knowing it’s a lie, despite knowing the horror, he still wore the letters; F E D R A— Federal Disaster Response Agency. He liked to think that they were doing some good. At least they drove the wretched infected underground, right? They did one good thing, so that made the killing, the rape, and the torture okay. 

Right? 

“Fuck me.” he muttered into the wind, hoping the words, later on, would be carried back to him, reminding him that hey, at least I knew something was wrong. 

He noticed someone walking up to him. He was expecting it, really. Micheal Coghlan. The man who by some goddamn miracle still carried goodness inside of him. The type of goodness that would radiate through the cracks of skin and bone, the type that would bring light to a person’s face. 

Micheal had a limp. 

It was caused by someone Javier knew but didn’t particularly like. He saw it happen. He still heard the bone snapping into two when he closed his eyes at night. The man stood next to him and Javier observed him from the corner of his eye. Once upon a time, he could call his face roguishly handsome. It wasn’t a sharp face, round around the edges, with a bit of stubble; shaved by his sister no doubt. His eyes were kind, a darker shade of brown compared to his own, lips thin and chapped. Thirsty. 

Javier cleared his throat, hand going to his waist, he pulled out his flask and offered it to him. 

“Water?” 

He took it without an answer. Drank it in a way where water droplets would stream from the corner of his lips, his gulps loud. It made Javier feel awkward. Micheal stood a bit straighter when he offered the flask back. It was empty. 

“So what did you want to talk about?” Javier asked. 

Micheal smiled and crinkles appeared in the corners of his eyes. “The people.” 

It’s a bird violently flying into the window that wakes you. 

Your eyes open fearfully, your heart beating a mile a minute. Your breathing is uneven. Dust clings to both the inside of your throat and skin. Eyes still wide open, you stare at the ceiling of the train. The seats you managed to sprawl yourself upon are uncomfortable, jagged metal sticking into your skin, making ugly marks and dents. When your breathing calms, and body relaxes, you slowly get up. 

The weather is hot, yet gray clouds decorate the sky. The heat of rain, you like to refer to it as. You can barely see the sun, the light of it filtered through the gray, painting the world into a muted color. Fitting. 

You hear a snore and direct your gaze toward the sound. You see the boots that belong to a man that’s sleeping a couple of rows ahead, too big to truly fit and get comfortable. Javier Peña. You heave yourself up by grasping the heads of the seats, your legs aching and stumbling like a newborn doe’s. His shirt is unbuttoned from the top, revealing golden, scarred skin. Your eyes trail further down, and they don’t stop until you see the gun strapped to his waist. You think about how easy it would be to just take it, to shoot him and try to find your people. 

Then you remember. They’re all gone. You have no people. Marlene’s words were clear;

The girl’s gone. No more soldiers, no cure, no nothing. The fireflies are dead; you’re on your own now. 

A chill crawls up every inch of your skin. Why are you even here? Why are you with him of all people? You’re not sure yet. It’s much easier to dislike him when he’s not speaking and his eyes are closed. 

You hate that when they are closed, the only memory of them is him being struck with fear, the flames behind you mirrored in his eyes. Kansas City quickly became a place of destruction and death. It was unexpected and with every fabric of your being, you wished you had never seen it. 

“Why are you watching me?” his voice startles you; it’s deep with sleep. “It’s creepy.” 

“I was thinking about taking your gun and shooting you.” 

“I’ve always loved an honest woman. What stopped you?” 

“I have no place to go.” 

“Neither do I, as you know,” he says. He finally opens his eyes, but only to stare at the ceiling in a similar way you did not moments ago. “So where does that leave us?” 

You don’t understand what he’s asking you. The air is still.  Javier takes a sitting position, his elbows pressed into his knees and hands hanging loosely between his legs. 

“I say we stay here,” he says, voice firm.

“The train?” you ask, confused.

He shrugs. “Why not? It’s covered pretty well, it’s far enough for people to see and close enough if—god forbid—we want to head back into the city.” 

“You want us to live together?” 

“I want us to turn this into a living space. After that leave, if you want,” he rubs his thumb into the corner of his lips. “Though I wouldn’t really advise leaving, and I definitely need your help.” 

“So I should stay because?” 

“Safety. Security.” his smile is bitter. “What else can a person want during the end of times?” 

“Someone they can trust.” 

“You can trust me.” 

You look him over. He must’ve sensed your immediate hostility because his gaze slowly moves to you. He returns your suspicion in like, contemplating what to say. You don’t trust him. He doesn’t trust you. Javier’s fingers twitch and his hand moves to clap over his pocket. He lets out a sigh of relief when he feels the familiar shape of a cigarette box. 

He licks his lips again. 

You gaze out the windows. They’re thick with dust and vines, the outside seems a tad bit brighter now, the gray clouds clearing up a bit. 

“Being addicted must be hard,” you mutter. “What are you going to do when you run out? Sacrifice yourself for a box of Marlboros?” 

He chuckles. “Maybe. Who knows. I’m not out of stock yet.” 

“Not a very comforting thing to hear from a man that’s arguing that I should trust him.” 

“It’s not like I said I’d trade you for a pack of cigarettes.” 

“Who knows. That’s what you said, right?” 

He sighs and gets up. He walks down the narrow hall of the train, hands brushing over the headrests. You follow him outside, and just like you suspected, the weather is grossly warm with no light. The dry weeds crunch under your boots. Javier pulls out the crumpled pack and offers you one; you shake your head. You’re surrounded by trees, with little to see except the sky.

“Wouldn’t want to dry out your stock faster.” 

“That scared of what I’ll do if I run out?” he smiles, placing the butt of the cigarette between his lips. “I’m trying to figure out if you’re paranoid or smart.” 

“Paranoia works.” 

“I guess that’s true.” he mutters, lighting a match. “So what are you going to do? Stay or leave?” 

Javier inhales deeply, his lips not too tight not too loose. A soft groan vibrates from the back of his throat and he lets go of the smoke. Your eyes follow the dance of it, twisting and dissipating like the vapor on the first exhales of winter. He places the cigarette back between his lips and tucks his hands behind as he leans back into the metal surface of the train.  

He waits as you think. It’s ironic really, the fact that you’re actually contemplating staying with him. Needless to say, FEDRA and the fireflies don’t have the best relationship, but you guess that’s all behind you now. There are no organizations at this moment, no rebellions. Just him and you; two people looking for a way to survive. 

You turn to stare at the train. It’s nearly completely intact— there are six cars and the locomotive. If you stare hard enough you can spot the tracks buried under the moss and grass. It would take a lot of work, but indeed it was possible to turn it into a living space. 

“Give me a gun,” you say and he smiles. 

“What makes you think I have more than one?” 

“Then give me the one.” you press. 

“The first thing you said to me this morning was that you wanted to shoot me.” he pushes himself away from the metal surface. Pulling his cigarette away from his lips, he stands an inch away from you and holds your gaze. His smile disappears as smoke fans across your face, making your stomach churn. “Are you going to stay?” he asks. 

“If you give me the gun then sure.” you tilt your chin up. “I don’t trust FEDRA.” 

“I’m not FEDRA anymore and you’re not a firefly.” 

“You were once. I think you can see why I have my reservations. You weren’t just any FEDRA soldier, you were a part of it in Kansas City. I heard horror stories about that place.” you rub your eyes, trying to erase what they had seen. “And I actually witnessed the fables.”  

Javier takes a step back then, admitting defeat. Something horrific seems to cross his face, a series of violent images perhaps, or maybe it was the loss of his “friends” whatever it was you don’t pay much mind to it. Everyone has pain. Even children who are meant to be carefree and happy. You’re surprised when he suddenly hands you the gun, cigarette loose between his lips. You take the weapon. It’s heavy in your hand, cold between your fingers. 

“Satisfied?” 

“Very much so, yes.” you don’t smile, but you pull an expression very similar to it. He exhales another breath of smoke, and you push the gun under your waistband. “Where do we start?” 

“You can’t be serious, Carillo.” 

It was dark and he could barely see the figure of his colleague. Javier had the intention of stepping forward and taking the gun from the other, but he stood there instead, heart beating in his throat. His stomach churned, bile thick on his tongue. Carillo didn’t bother to look at him. There was a man that was on his knees in front of the captain, his head bowed, shaking like a leaf. Carillo aimed his gun at him, his jaw tense. 

“You rather them kill us?” 

“I rather none of us kill each other.” 

Carillo finally turned to him then. Javier would expect the captain’s eyes to soften but they didn’t. 

“You heard what happened in the other QZ’s,” he spat. “Soldiers being killed, murdered. The people rioting. We can’t let weeds grow free Peña, he already killed one of us. You heard the rumors to overthrow FEDRA.” 

Before Javier could say anything a gunshot echoed, a body fell lifelessly to the concrete. He didn’t move. He didn’t even twitch. He just watched. Carillo placed a hand on his shoulder and the skin under Javier’s shirt burned—his stomach trembled then. 

“Ya no vivimos en un mundo de misericordia. Elige un bando.” 

Pick a side. 

Carillo left, Javier followed. Without thinking, his hand went to his empty flask. The cool metal under his fingertips did little to soothe him.

It’s odd being here with him. You feel trapped by nature, by circumstance. Nothing is the same and nothing would ever be the same. You lean over and sweep out the glass into a tattered bag. Javier had decided on burying the glass or anything else you might find and have no use for down into the dirt. You didn’t have any objections to that. When you lean over to pick up a piece of a broken wine bottle, you feel the gun Javier gave you pressing into the skin of your hip. 

You always hated cleaning before the outbreak. Now it was a soothing thing to do. It felt normal. A reminisce of the past. Still, you can’t help but feel sick from being at ease. Change has to happen. But with the immune girl gone, and the fireflies basically disbanded (at least that was what you could tell from Marlene's massage) there is nothing you can do. 

You see Javier approaching, a sheer amount of sweat coats his skin, his shirt clinging to his body. Surprisingly, he’s silent. You had expected him to talk, to pry into your past life. But he seemed to be content with just cleaning for now. 

“We should scout the area,” he says when he catches your gaze. “Look for abandoned houses, supplies. Maybe we can find a fruit bush or something and plant some here for food.” 

“You do know there’s no way this is going to be like…a peaceful suburb residence right?” 

“A man can only dream.” 

He wipes a bead of sweat from his brow and your curiosity gets the better of you. 

“I need to ask,” you say and he piques with interest. “Why FEDRA? No offense but you don’t exactly look the type.” 

“I remember you saying that the first time you saw me.” 

“Still surprised you didn’t shoot me then, considering who I was.” 

“No offense but you didn’t exactly look the terrorist type. I didn’t know who, or what, you were.” 

“We weren’t terrorists.” 

“So you guys didn’t plant bombs?”  he asks sounding amused. “You didn’t kill people?” 

You narrow your eyes, heat pooling under your skin. “Only pieces of shit like you.” 

“I thought I didn’t look the type?” he sighs and shakes his head. “Look I’m not going to argue the ethics of it all and you’re definitely right. The things they—we did, FEDRA, It’s inexcusable. But don’t come here and tell me the fireflies were squeaky clean.” he takes the broken bottle from you and throws it into the bag. “I don’t want to fight about this. I don’t want to argue with you all the time. I’m not telling you I’m a good person, I don’t understand why you have to remind me. I know I’m not.” 

Silence follows. Your anger shifts into guilt and you push those feelings down. He gives you one last stern look before turning his back to you. 

“But neither are you so let’s stop bulshitting ourselves. And if you’re going to start interrogating me about my decisions—about my past— I recommend you not cuss me out a minute later.” 

His steps are loud as he leaves. You notice he left the bag behind, meaning that you managed to rile him up enough that he just had to get away from you. You probably deserved that. You don’t understand how he can shove the past aside so carelessly, how he can just forget what he’d done, what you’d done. But he was right, you aren’t a good person. Unlike him, you enjoy believing that you are. Joining the fireflies…it made you believe that you were doing good, that you were better and more noble. The killings you did were for the greater good, the people that ended up under the rubble of explosions were just a sacrifice that needed to be made—you told yourself that, again and again. 

Maybe you aren’t as bad as FEDRA but you aren’t that above it either. 

You contemplate going after him. Apologize without actually apologizing. You remember a time you used to break the tension by making a joke, how did you do that again? You can’t quite remember. 

You shake your head and continue to clear out the debris. He’ll come back. You can think about what to do then. 

Javier does eventually come back, but not before the sun had set. 

The stars appear one by one, and you hate to admit that you’d worried about him. Being alone is worse than being with someone you hate. 

Dirt and dust sit uncomfortably on your skin. After an entire day of work, you managed to clear out the broken glass, rust metals, dead insects, and rodents (you shudder at the memory). Now all of it lays outside, waiting to be taken further away from the train. 

“Where were you?” you ask when he arrives, you notice a bow strapped to his back. “And where did you find that?” 

“Careful, it almost sounds like you were worried about me.” he grins as if he hadn’t stormed away from you when the sun was at the very top. You decide to let it slide. He lifts two rabbits and your eyes go wide. “I went looking around a bit. Found this in an abandoned cabin, then did some hunting. Assuming you’d be hungry.” 

“Thanks. I…actually forgot that we need to eat.” 

“Help me build a fire?” 

You answer. “Sure.” 

The process of building a fire has become as natural as breathing air. If it were a couple of years ago, most people wouldn’t know how to build a fire but that wasn’t the case now. You doubt that anyone who had survived in this world did so by not knowing how to create flames from scraps of wood and dried leaves. Even the children know. That’s just the world they grow up in now. 

Your eyes constantly follow him whenever he moves and you can’t decide if it’s due to old habits or is it because of something else. He has a bizarre aura about him. Something that you can’t quite read. He’s soft. You’ve met a lot of FEDRA soldiers back in the day, have argued and fought against them, but you never met someone like him. He has a bite to his words, but you see the kindness swirling in his eyes, suffocating him from the inside out. It’s an odd contrast and makes you feel uncomfortable. 

He’s a man that has been beaten down by the world and the system. Him asking you to stay here is his way of giving up on everything he wanted for the world. You can see it as vividly as you see the stars. Just glimpses of his backstory winking down at you. 

The flames come alive, roaring and eating the rabbits whole. Javier had taken the job of cooking for himself, patiently watching the fire, he pokes the sizzling meat from time to time. 

“You like cooking?” you ask, and your eyes water when the wind blows the ashes into your face. 

“I did,” he answers without looking. “I wouldn’t really say I particularly enjoy cooking this.”

You cross your legs as Javier hands you a branch, skewered with rabbit meat. You take a moment to examine the branch, noting the rough texture of the wood and the way it's been stripped of any leaves or twigs. The delicate slices of meat have been threaded onto the branch with care and precision, each one spaced perfectly apart.

He takes his own portion and sits across from you, the flames curling into the air in between. He doesn’t say a word as he takes the first bite. You watch him chew. The flames lick his face, the tip of his nose a dusted red. Javier swallows and when he does you bring a piece to your lips and slowly chew. It’s gamey, slightly sweet. Overall, tastes pretty damn good. 

Your lips twitch up to a small smile. Biting into it more eagerly this time, your stomach growls as you swallow. 

“This actually tastes pretty good,” you mutter, feeling the fat from the rabbit coating your lips. 

“Well, don’t go overboard.” 

“It’s the truth.”

When you lower your gaze back down to the meat, you don’t miss the way a smile curls at his lips. The night grows louder and you two finish the rest of your dinner in silence. You hear crickets, the leaves rustling with the wind. A sweet scent touches your nose, something like newly blossomed flowers. You look into the distance and all you can see is darkness. 

Your eyes play games with you, shows you shadows of people, tricks you into thinking that you and Javier might’ve been followed by Katleen’s resistance. 

You blink. 

No. 

There’s no one there. 

Your pulse skyrockets, your heart beating in your throat. Vibrating, you turn back to Javier only to see that he’s already staring at you. His look is one of understanding, his lips relaxed as his eyes flit around your face. 

“Are you alright?” 

“Yeah,” you breathe out. “I just thought—” you look back to the silhouette of trees. “I thought I saw something.” 

“The curse of the forest,” he answers, placing a cigarette between his lips. He realizes he doesn’t have his matches with him so he leans forward and lights it from the source. Javier’s face illuminates, and you see splashes of blood, of death. It lingers over his skin, curls around his throat, stains the white of his eyes. “It makes us see things we don’t wanna see.” 

“There was this girl,” you suddenly say, swallowing down the gasp that threatened to slip from your lips. He raises an eyebrow and sits back, listening. “Marlene told us that she was immune. I was supposed to meet up with them in Boston.” 

“Immune?” he scoffs. “Immune to what?” 

“Cordyceps.” 

“Bullshit.” 

“No, it’s true,” you answer with a sudden need to convince him. You’re not sure why. “She got bit and never turned.” 

“Did you actually see it?” he exhales a puff of smoke when you shake your head. He believes he made his point. “So what about this girl? Is there a reason why you’re telling me this or are you just that afraid of the dark?” 

You bite into your bottom lip, the sting offering a fleeting relief. “It’s not that I’m afraid. It’s just too silent. It feels…naked.” 

“Naked?” he asks, grinning, he steals the cigarette from between his lips and evens his gaze with yours. “We’re covered, cariño. Nothing to worry about.” 

“Famous last words,” you tease, ignoring how his tongue rolled as he mumbled cariño. “I guess I’m not used to it yet. There’s always something to fight. Someone is always lurking in the shadows.” 

He voices out the rest of your thoughts, “It’s like all the noise and chaos of the world has disappeared, leaving you with nothing but your thoughts.”

You take a deep breath of the crisp forest air. 

Emotionally, you want to lean into him. There’s a need in your chest that doesn’t go away but it’s tainted with the anger and the hatred of the organizations that tear you away from each other. He might’ve wanted to do good once, but he chose the wrong side. He thought fireflies were terrorists, and maybe to some you were. However, at least you weren’t fascists and tried to help the people. For better or for worse.

“It doesn’t hurt does it?” he says, guiding your attention back to him. Javier looks up to the sky, takes a deep inhale of smoke. It spills from his lips as he continues. “To have someone by your side.” 

No, you think as you get up and head into the train, it doesn’t. 

You don’t know what it is this time that wakes you up. There’s no noise. The only thing that convinces you that you’re not in a soundproof cell is the moonlight filtering through the dirty windows. You watch as the pine leaves move together, you’ve always enjoyed the smell of it. The sound of it comes like an afterthought, slowly gaining and getting louder. 

You get up when you feel the train shake. 

Javier is in the same spot that he always sleeps in, only a couple rows ahead. You move past him and you sneak a glance. His lips twitch and move as he sleeps. 

Stepping outside, you take in the same sight as before. It’s still eerie. 

Interestingly enough since the fire was gone the darkness seemed lighter somehow. A shimmering blackness. The moonlight probably helped. 

Dry earth cracks under your boots. The sound of the trees now mixed with something else, something violent and cruel yet beautiful. You feel the gun on your hip and travel deeper into the forest. The scent of pine and flowers that only bloom during the night stronger. The train is still visible so you don’t worry much about the distance in between. Your fingers brush over the tree trunks, you feel the moss, the sticky resin. 

You hear a click. 

Click. Click. Click. 

Just ahead there’s a clicker, moving with its arms bent and dragging its feet through the soil. Swallowing, you take a slow step back. Then another. And another. 

The chill of the night stings your skin, sticky from sweat and burning. The clicker turns in your direction and you stop moving, your one foot suspended in the air. It gains momentum, head twisting and turning. Very slowly you lower your foot, and your heart beats loud in your chest. Surely the clicker hears it. 

Fuck. 

The sound of the branch snapping underneath you was like a gunshot, reverberating through the stillness of the woods.

You don’t even get the chance to pull out the gun on your hip. 

You’re slammed into the dirt, all air forced out of your lungs. You struggle against it but it’s too heavy, too wild to be pushed off of you. The clicker screams into your face, the stench horrid. Bile builds in your throat and coats your stomach. You’re helpless. 

It makes a move towards your hands and you pull them away, its full weight suffocating you. Killing you. You can’t breathe. 

Tears flood your eyes. You know you’re about to die because you see your life flashing before your eyes, snippets of the past and possible future. You think of the fireflies, of Marlene. You see earth cleansed from the virus. 

You see Javier. He’s smiling, leading you in a dance around the wilting flames. You don’t push the thoughts away. You take them as a blessing in moments of lingering death. 

A gunshot echoes. You hear the bullet cutting through the air, whistling in the night. It sinks into the clicker’s shoulder, you hear another one, this time the bullet strikes its head.  The clicker collapses. Before you can shove the lifeless vessel away, it’s being lifted. 

You can breathe again. 

Javier is standing before you, his brows creased with worry. His lips are parted as if he’s about to say something but you beat him to it. You’re still gasping for air when you speak. 

“You had a gun.” 

“Yeah,” he heaves, sweat clinging to his chest and moonlight trickling down his skin. “I had a fucking gun.” 

Oh man, you guys have no idea how excited I am to finally be sharing the first chapter. I hope you guys enjoyed it, I'll probably be posting a new chapter every Saturday (the first 3 chapters will def go up and Saturdays, after that, if everything goes well, I'll continue it the same way)

A few thank you's are in order; @pedrito-friskito , @inklore , @fuckyeahdindjarin and @pedrorascal who listened to me go on and on about this and for their endless moral support ♥︎ and thank you to @laters-gators who beta'd this.

[exhaled-spirals]

« Known globally for highly stylized genre films depicting the gritty underbelly of society with brutal violence and crimes, South Korean cinema was long characterized by what one film critic famously called “dark blue filter thrillers” mostly made by and starring men. If women appeared at all, it was often as one-dimensional clichés, serving as plot devices like a femme fatale, a murder or rape victim, an innocent lover or wife, or a self-sacrificing mother.

To challenge this norm and support women filmmakers, some women started to not only watch female-driven films but also buy more tickets than they could even use for such movies in a campaign called “spirit-sending”— meaning they would be at the theaters in spirit. The campaign turned a surefire box-office disaster to an award-winning hit, saving the career of a rare female director.

“It was truly a miracle,” Lee Ji-Won said of Miss Baek, her 2018 debut film about a female former convict trying to save a little girl from abusive parents. The drama, which portrays the friendship between two abuse survivors, was such a rarity in an industry dominated by what Lee called “films with cops, gangsters, naked women, or rom-coms” that it was snubbed by almost all investors and distributors. One investor promised to fund it only if Lee changed the lead character to a man. Another bet that “the disaster-in-waiting” would perish in cinemas in a week—a warning that almost materialized, as the film’s opening-day sales were so poor that it was projected to sell less than a quarter of the tickets required just to break even.

“Everybody, myself included, was so sure that the movie would crash and burn, and my career was over—until weird things started to happen on social media,” Lee told me.

Impressed by the rare women-led film with complex female characters, made by an even rarer woman director, many women watched it again and again, buying tickets even when they couldn’t attend. Ticket sales rebounded sharply as #SendingSpirit became a viral hashtag that continued for months until the film broke even. Miss Baek eventually won rave reviews and swept major awards, and the same investors who’d once snubbed Lee began to court her, begging to see her scripts.

“The gesture of solidarity by all these women was just overwhelming,” Lee said, wiping away tears. “They, like me, were so thirsty for movies portraying women as complex, multidimensional human beings.” In 2021, she finished shooting her second movie, featuring some of the country’s biggest stars.

The “spirit-sending” campaign lived on to drive the success of other women-led movies, like the film adaptation of Kim Ji-Young, Born 1982, allowing such films to defy the boycott campaigns that often targeted “feminism-stained movies.” While the film was hit by thousands of 0 percent ratings even before its official release (causing a vast gender disparity in its ratings on the top web portal—2.99 among men and 9.45 among women), Kim Ji-Young eventually became a hit watched by millions at home. Female-driven movies have grown in numbers and ticket sales since, led by a new generation of filmmakers like Lee and some male filmmakers as well. »

— Hawon Jung, Flowers of Fire: The Inside Story of South Korea's Feminist Movement

[book--brackets]

DragonLance: Chronicles by Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman (1984-1995)

Once merely creatures of legend, the dragons have returned to Krynn. But with their arrival comes the departure of the old gods--and all healing magic. As war threatens to engulf the land, lifelong friends reunite for an adventure that will change their lives and shape their world forever . . .When Tanis, Sturm, Caramon, Raistlin, Flint, and Tasslehoff see a woman use a blue crystal staff to heal a villager, they wonder if it's a sign the gods have not abandoned them after all. Fueled by this glimmer of hope, the Companions band together to uncover the truth behind the gods' absence--though they aren't the only ones with an interest in the staff. The Seekers, a new religious order, wants the artifact for their own ends, believing it will help them replace the gods and overtake the continent of Ansalon. Now, the Companions must assume the unlikely roles of heroes if they hope to prevent the staff from falling into the hands of darkness.

Princess Academy by Shannon Hale (2005-2015)

While attending a strict academy for potential princesses with the other girls from her mountain village, fourteen-year-old Miri discovers unexpected talents and connections to her homeland.

Tress of the Emerald Sea by Brandon Sanderson (2023)

The only life Tress has known on her island home in an emerald-green ocean has been a simple one, with the simple pleasures of collecting cups brought by sailors from faraway lands and listening to stories told by her friend Charlie. But when his father takes him on a voyage to find a bride and disaster strikes, Tress must stow away on a ship and seek the Sorceress of the deadly Midnight Sea. Amid the spore oceans where pirates abound, can Tress leave her simple life behind and make her own place sailing a sea where a single drop of water can mean instant death?

Parasol Protectorate by Gail Carriger (2009-2012)

Alexia Tarabotti is labouring under a great many social tribulations.

First, she has no soul. Second, she's a spinster whose father is both Italian and dead. Third, she was rudely attacked by a vampire, breaking all standards of social etiquette.

Where to go from there? From bad to worse apparently, for Alexia accidentally kills the vampire -- and then the appalling Lord Maccon (loud, messy, gorgeous, and werewolf) is sent by Queen Victoria to investigate. With unexpected vampires appearing and expected vampires disappearing, everyone seems to believe Alexia responsible. Can she figure out what is actually happening to London's high society? Will her soulless ability to negate supernatural powers prove useful or just plain embarrassing? Finally, who is the real enemy, and do they have treacle tart?

Wayward Children by Seanan McGuire (2016-present)

Eleanor West’s Home for Wayward Children  No Solicitations  No Visitors  No Quests 

Children have always disappeared under the right conditions; slipping through the shadows under a bed or at the back of a wardrobe, tumbling down rabbit holes and into old wells, and emerging somewhere... else.

But magical lands have little need for used-up miracle children.

Nancy tumbled once, but now she’s back. The things she’s experienced... they change a person. The children under Miss West’s care understand all too well. And each of them is seeking a way back to their own fantasy world.

But Nancy’s arrival marks a change at the Home. There’s a darkness just around each corner, and when tragedy strikes, it’s up to Nancy and her new-found schoolmates to get to the heart of the matter.

No matter the cost.

Codex Alera by Jim Butcher (2004-2009)

For a thousand years, the people of Alera have united against the aggressive and threatening races that inhabit the world, using their unique bond with the furies--elementals of earth, air, fire, water, wood, and metal. But in the remote Calderon Valley, the boy Tavi struggles with his lack of furycrafting. At fifteen, he has no wind fury to help him fly, no fire fury to light his lamps. Yet as the Alerans' most savage enemy--the Marat horde--return to the Valley, Tavi's courage and resourcefulness will be a power greater than any fury, one that could turn the tides of war...

The Belgariad by David Eddings (1982-1984)

Long ago, so the Storyteller claimed, the evil God Torak sought dominion and drove men and Gods to war. But Belgarath the Sorcerer led men to reclaim the Orb that protected men of the West. So long as it lay at Riva, the prophecy went, men would be safe.

But that was only a story, and Garion did not believe in magic dooms, even though the dark man without a shadow had haunted him for years. Brought up on a quiet farm by his Aunt Pol, how could he know that the Apostate planned to wake dread Torak, or that he would be led on a quest of unparalleled magic and danger by those he loved - but did not know? For a while his dreams of innocence were safe, untroubled by knowledge of his strange heritage. For a little while...

Monk and Robot by Becky Chambers (2021-2022)

It's been centuries since the robots of Panga gained self-awareness and laid down their tools; centuries since they wandered, en masse, into the wilderness, never to be seen again; centuries since they faded into myth and urban legend.

One day, the life of a tea monk is upended by the arrival of a robot, there to honor the old promise of checking in. The robot cannot go back until the question of "what do people need?" is answered.

But the answer to that question depends on who you ask, and how.

They're going to need to ask it a lot.

The Once and Future King by T. H. White (1958)

Once upon a time, a young boy called "Wart" was tutored by a magician named Merlyn in preparation for a future he couldn't possibly imagine. A future in which he would ally himself with the greatest knights, love a legendary queen and unite a country dedicated to chivalrous values. A future that would see him crowned and known for all time as Arthur, King of the Britons.During Arthur's reign, the kingdom of Camelot was founded to cast enlightenment on the Dark Ages, while the knights of the Round Table embarked on many a noble quest. But Merlyn foresaw the treachery that awaited his liege: the forbidden love between Queen Guenever and Lancelot, the wicked plots of Arthur's half-sister Morgause and the hatred she fostered in Mordred that would bring an end to the king's dreams for Britain--and to the king himself.

Otherworld by Kelley Armstrong (2001-2012)

Elena Michaels is the world’s only female werewolf. And she’s tired of it. Tired of a life spent hiding and protecting, a life where her most important job is hunting down rogue werewolves. Tired of a world that not only accepts the worst in her–her temper, her violence–but requires it. Worst of all, she realizes she’s growing content with that life, with being that person.

So she left the Pack and returned to Toronto where she’s trying to live as a human. When the Pack leader calls asking for her help fighting a sudden uprising, she only agrees because she owes him. Once this is over, she’ll be squared with the Pack and free to live life as a human. Which is what she wants. Really.