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desceros · 8 months ago

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At the top of this hill, you’re going to break up with Leonardo.

It’s a beautiful late afternoon. Endless fluffy clouds, sweet breeze, perfect temperature. Donnie’s sensors have been quiet all day. Food is plentiful, water is clean and cool, faces are smiling. Hope is tangible, cupped in your hands, sipped, nourished. These things are never permanent, but it’s a perfect day.

And you—you’re about to ruin it.

He’d found the trail on his last patrol, he’d said. There are even a few trees, still, untouched by the war that has stolen so much. A little sanctuary of life, not too unlike the bunker deep underground the Hamato Clan has built with blood. It’s vibrant, enticing your eyes to bounce from place to place, unable to focus on one piece for too long when something just as lovely is naught but a few paces away.

There are no birds singing about, not anymore; but your ears ring all the same with the low murmurs Leo strings through the air like fairy lights. Promises he’s made and plans to keep; stock that needs to be taken for supplies; his nagging suspicion that Donnie’s still not getting enough sleep even though he promised he’d try; Raph getting used to his new mechanical limbs one day at a time; Mikey deciding to just let the hair grow out instead of trying to keep it shaved; April asking him to ask Donnie if he can artificially trigger menopause because she’s so tired of having to deal with her periods in all this mess; Casey Jr.’s first training session, his chubby little arms making it difficult to swing a sword until he pouted and pointed at Donnie’s bo instead.

It’s a constant stream that erodes at your heart. Leo’s always thinking about everyone else. Not once since the day the Technodrome fell from the sky have you heard him be selfish. On the contrary—

—your eyes fall to his arm. Where it would be. Guilt swallows you whole, breath seizing like a steel claw upon your lungs to keep you dizzy, and you look away.

Your memory of the night a little over a week ago is as sharp as if you could relive it at will. Silently waiting in the lounge in his shirt as they’d left on a night raid, holding it to your nose as if swimming in his scent would keep him safe. The air tearing open with familiar blue light and bringing with it the stench of blood. Donnie’s eyes wild as he yelled for you to grab some towels. Raph, mangled, barely alive; Leo clutching at his shoulder above a bloodied stump; Mikey coughing crimson even as he scrambled to unsteady feet to help. Later, the only warmth in your body coming from their blood coating your hands, face wet with it or tears you didn’t even know, Donnie telling you they’ll all live, but barely. That Leo had pushed Raph out of the way. Saving his brother, losing his arm. How his last conscious words had been a request for Donnie to check in with you.

You. Weak, useless, pathetic. You had been the last thing on Leo’s mind. Just the thought makes you sick.

It’s an old scar you carry on your heart. The knowledge that you’re not enough. All you’re good for is helping with the bunker: moving things around, trying to stay positive, making warm food if you’re lucky. In return, all you give him is worry. You’re just one more imposition on his mind, one more thing for him to think about, an albatross about his neck. On the edge of death, he’d thought not of his brothers, or himself. He’d thought of you. His last thought, a burden. Wretched.

No more, you’ve decided.

He’ll never say it; Leonardo is endlessly, endlessly kind. He knows your heart is a delicate, fleshy thing. That you’re nothing without him. He’d never even think about ending it, especially not to admit a weakness he pretends he doesn’t have. So you’ll do it for him. The last act of love you can give him: letting him go.

…But you’re weak. Terrified. Selfish. Greedy for each last little second you can claw to your time. So you’re quiet, trailing just a little behind him on this last walk you’ll take with him like this. One last memory for the long cold nights where you’ll forever be sleeping alone, knowing at least that he doesn’t have to worry about you and satisfied with that.

Yeah. At the top of this hill, you’ll break up with him.

It comes, closer and closer, with each step. Too soon. You’re not ready, you think, throat going tight, fingers clenching into fists, fighting the urge to clutch at his arm and beg him to let you stay. Panic lies acrid, metallic on your palate. You swallow it down. Infuriated, you keep silent, and put one foot in front of the other, marching forward ruthlessly. No. You will be strong, for once in your life. You’ve asked him to carry you for too long. No longer. No more. No more.

The incline crests, and despite your resolve, you’re stunned and unable to speak.

Beautiful isn’t exactly the right word for the view before you. A hellscape, ruined by Krang, stretches out as far as the eyes can see. And yet, you can think of no other to replace it; there are no enemies, no victims, no worries to be seen. It’s a quiet stretch of the world, tucked away, expansive and hidden all at the same time. Something strong tightens in your stomach like a wish. The world can look like this again. The fight isn’t hopeless. You’re all still alive, years and years and years after it was said you wouldn’t be.

“I wanted to share it with you,” Leo says after a quiet moment of just breathing, drawing your gaze to him.

Just like that, your chest rends and bleeds. He’s haloed in the setting sun, eyes looking out over the view from where you’re standing; calm, relaxed, mouth set into something that’s just a hint of a smile. Nothing is forced. His shoulders are low, mask dancing in the wind like little fingers are playing with the tips.

“This?” you ask, speaking for the first time since he took your hand and portaled you out of the bunker to the bottom of the trail, surprised when you hear the croak in your voice.

He, too, seems surprised. He turns and looks, but when his eyes settle on you, his face melts into something even warmer than the sun.

“Man, I didn’t think it’d make you cry,” he teases, reaching out his hand and brushing his thumb along your cheekbone, first one, then the other. “Though I guess I can understand it. I kind of wanted to cry the first time I saw it, too.”

“You did?” you say, soaking up his touch, the way he looks back over the scenery with an expression you don’t quite have words for but feel, a little, like you understand all the same.

“Yeah. I can’t really explain it. But I knew I had to bring you here.”

“Me?” you echo, making him look away from the sprawling landscape and instead to you. “Why me?”

The relaxed look on Leo’s face frays a little on the edge, and you watch as the lines between his eyes deepen. “…I’m tired,” he says, his hand falling to your throat to let his fingers caress sweetly to your nape. “I’m so tired. Everything always hurts. Every day, we lose someone. Some day, it’s going to be someone close to me. I’m scared. I don’t want to fight like this anymore. I want—I want to sleep in. Read my comics. Take you on an ice cream date. I wish I could go back in time and get that key so none of this ever happens, and we can just have a normal life.”

You feel your mouth round in surprise, shocked to hear what he’s saying, then even more when he uses his grip on you to pull you a little closer, press his forehead to yours as he closes his eyes and sighs in relaxation like he’s sinking into a warm bath.

“You work so hard. Do so much. I wanted to bring you here. Let you breathe a little,” he whispers. “I don’t give you enough. You deserve better than me. I’m sorry.”

It’s the breeze on your cheeks that let you know you’re crying again. With a sniffle, you raise your hands, cupping his cheeks and just holding him close. Nuzzling him a little, rubbing your nose against his beak, savoring the familiar feel of his skin against yours, the way he presses kisses to your face like he’s sipping a fine wine.

It’s hopeless. You can’t do it, you decide, threading your fingers in the tails of his mask, caressing the edge of it with your thumbs, opening your eyes and seeing the full weight of the adoration in which he bathes you the moment he looks upon you. Golden, rich, the dying embers of the sun cast him in an aureate glow that makes your heart wail at the agony of ever not having this. You can’t do it. You can’t live without him.

Weakly, smiling, you close your eyes again and whisper the confession. “…I was going to break up with you here.”

Leo freezes, his face stricken, lips pressing together hard with resignation.

But you continue, soothing him before he misunderstands. “I didn’t want to be another burden for you. I feel… guilty, sometimes. A little selfish for wanting your eyes on me when you have so much. I know you worry about me, and… I thought I could make it easier if… if you didn’t have to.”

The incredulous barked laugh isn’t the response you’d expected, but it fits so, so perfectly for the way he looks at you like you’re mad. “Are you—? You’re kidding, right? You are the opposite of a burden,” he swears, vehement and even a little rough as his hand finds the small of your back and hauls you into his plastron. “You’re the only reason I haven’t lost my mind, or snapped and killed Donnie when he gets into one of his moods, or lost hope, or—or—You—I’d be lost without you. Don’t—Don’t ever say that again. I need you. I need you.”

The words are a balm on your wrenched heart. Tangling your fingers in his cloak, you hide your face in its folds, burning from the inside as you feel him tuck his beak into the corner of your throat, scenting you, pressing you to his mind like a flower. You tremble in his hold, brows furrowing hard, heart thundering against your rib cage until it hurts.

“…It’s… It’s really beautiful, here,” you whisper, words trembling, face turning towards his so you can silently ask for a kiss. No guilt, no worry, only honey and blue blue blue.

His mouth is soft against yours, making it feel a little like you’ve walked down an aisle and met him at the end. It brings back an old, ancient memory, before the sky had fallen, before he’d smugly called you his, before you’d slipped into his bed and given up the cot you’d used before. The first meaningful look, the first time his teasing hadn’t landed as much of a joke as it had before, a memory of sweet candy and bashful smiles.

Smiling against his mouth, you pull away just enough so you can remind him of it, too. “You know, you never did get me that other ring,” you murmur, lips catching against his from your proximity and leading you to kiss him again, then once more when you can’t resist.

“Not my fault you ate the first one,” he says, grinning in a way you haven’t seen him do in years.

“Not my fault you gave me my favorite flavor,” you retort back with a raised eyebrow, causing him to huff a laugh.

“Maybe it is, though,” he says, looking at you with eyes that are so affectionate you wonder how you could have ever possibly thought to take this away from him. “Enchanting me like this. Making me want to spoil you. Getting me wrapped around your finger and dooming me to a lifetime of wanting to keep you.”

You don’t know what to say to that, too flustered, too dazzled, too smitten, too too too. But for this, too, Leo has an answer, as he reaches to the end of his cloak where he’s gone and tattered the edge again. You make a vague mental note to sew it back, as you always do, only to gape when he takes it in hand and clumsily tears a long strip from it.

“Leo!” you protest, momentarily miffed that he’s made your future work more difficult; then quieted when he nods down to your left hand.

“Help me with it. I’m only half as good at knots as I used to be,” he says cheekily.

It takes you a moment to realize what he means, but the moment he does, your throat folds shut after a single choked noise tip toes out. It takes some effort, him with one hand and you trying to coordinate with him, but slowly you get the strip of blue tied around your wrist in a messy bow.

“There,” he says, holding your hand in his, smiling fondly down at the way he’s marked you as his, his thumb brushing against the side of your adorned wrist. “It’s not a ring, but it’ll do for now.”

“Leo,” you warble, looking hungrily at his face, pulse singing in your veins when he meets your gaze and smiles easily. The last of the golden light clings to his skin like jewelry, and you hold your breath until you can’t any longer.

“You’re stuck with me, now. No take backs,” he says, clasping your wrist in a firm, steady hold. “When we win. I’ll bring you back here, and we’ll do it for real. Promise.”

Gently, you wipe under your eyes and nod, filled with so much you can’t even begin to pluck it apart. “Y-Yeah. Promise.”

Satisfied, Leo threads his fingers together with yours, giving you a coy smile that makes him look easily ten years younger. “All right, let’s head back. I’m looking forward to a warm meal and an even warmer bed. I’ve been practicing, and I think I worked out how I can still do that thing you like where—”

“Don’t,” you cut off, feeling your face burn hot when he laughs like he’s a teenage boy again, teasing his partner about sex for the first time. Charmed, stupidly in love, you decide to indulge him a little. “Shame. I’ve enjoyed being on top.”

“I’m sure we can work something out,” Leo promises throatily, pulling you close and nipping at the edge of your jaw, then chuckling when he has to catch your fumbled step down the hill. “You good, sweetheart?”

“…Asshole,” you mutter, though your smile is brighter than the last few minutes of the hallowed sunset behind you, eyes catching on the way your long shadows melt together and stretch on and on and on.

I suddenly remembered I can draw animations

#THIS WAS SO FUN!!!!!! THANK YOU #tmnt #rise #leonardo/reader #rating: t #my fic #still casually chewing my arm off re: this art. god. thank you for this wrenched heart i will raise it well

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greekowl87 · 7 years ago

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Ouch! list --> 10: panic attack 😉

10. Panic Attack

A/N: First off, sorry for getting to this so late. Hopefully, this turned out okay and a bit on the long side. It just kinda of kept…growing…and yeah. And inspired after the latest awesome MSR tidbit. Spooning is a thing. Sorry.

Mulder did not recall exactly when the panic attacks would occur. Most definitely after Samantha was taken. It plagued him as a teenager. He managed to redirect all his energy into his studies and swimming at Oxford before Phoebe Green came along. The panic attacks would only come in the dead of the night. After Quantico and during his stint in BSU, the panic attacks still came at night, not as often, but it also morphed into a weird insomnia that kept Mulder from completely losing himself to the monsters and the world he had to venture too. Diana was a reprieve, but she left too, and that was one of his worst panic attacks to memory. All he had was himself and his x-files down in his little dusty basement office where no one bothered him.

Until she came in.

Special Agent Doctor Dana Katherine Scully who rewrote Einstein as an undergrad and was determined to debunk him with her skeptical and scientific know how.

And that’s when, for the first time in his long memory, the panic attacks ceased. Until her abduction.

Full force. It struck him full force one night while he sat on the couch in his dark apartment when he had her files before him spread out on his coffee table. He clutched her gold cross that he now wore, pinching the small cross between his index finger and thumb, trying to imprint her on him somehow. He choked her name out in sorrow, as a lifeline, crying out for his partner and the woman he had unknowingly fallen in love with.

The darkness surrounded him, encroaching on the last light he had left in hope of her return, the panic attack growing like brewing storm ready to destroy what little sanity and hope he had left. He couldn’t breathe. He couldn’t breathe. He kept his hand pressed to his chest, trying to imprint the cross against his upper sternum. The tears were threatening to appear, no, it was like a dam had broken and he was drowning, unable to breathe.

It was like that for weeks and then she was miraculously returned to him and her family. And the surprising thing? She did not leave. That’s when the frequency of the late-night-early-morning phone calls increased. She always answered. At first, he tried to keep it strictly work-related, but their calls began to grow more personal in nature.

And she was still there. With him

Then the Twin Cities. A death fetishist named Donnie Pfaster and his macabre obsessions. And his unfortunate partner, Scully, caught in his web.

Her petite five foot two partner is made of stronger stuff than he had ever seen. He helped her up from the corner, untying Scully’s ropes as she cast a wary eye as Pfaster was dragged away.

He needed to make sure she was in one piece. “Why don’t you sit down until someone can take a look at you?” he asked her softly.

Mulder’s heart ached as bleary blue eyes focus on a particular spot on his bedraggled tie.

“Mulder,” she began, taking a breath and slowly exhaling it. “I’m fine.”

Mulder recognized the tightness in her voice, the uncertainty that was ratching in her chest as her breathing became sharper and shallower. He knew what was coming. Hesitantly, as this was new territory, he crooked his finger and gently tilted her head upwards, bring her eyes to meet his.

Mulder knew the paralysis that the mind could wreak havoc, either from a panic attack or horrible trauma, which is what Scully experienced. Her control slipped and tears stream down her face. At a loss to do anything else, Scully had always been the strong one to chase away the demons. His panic attacks, with the exception of her abduction, had all but ceased. Mulder just simply wrapped his arms around her and pulled her to his chest. She kept her arms around her self at first, as if trying to keep everything physically inwards. Mulder kissed her hair, wordlessly urging her to open up, and as if answering his pleas, she coiled herself around Mulder’s tall form, burrowing beneath his large trench coat, and cried.

… .

“Mulder,” she said softly outside of her motel room. “I’m fine.”

“Scully,” he began, unable to find any other words.

He wanted to tell her how easily she fit into his arms. How she could feel safe with him. That is was okay to cry. That, in the coming hours, her shipwrecked emotions would show its ugly face again, and she would lose control. She would panic.

“Mulder, I’m fine,” she whispered. “I promise.”

Don’t make a promise you can’t keep, he thought.

“Scully, I just think–”

“I didn’t ask you, Mulder. Good night.”

Without another word, she shut the door in his face. He licked his lips and nodded to himself. He looked down at his feet and heard her click on the tv and start the shower beyond the locked door. He would leave their adjoining door open just in case, even cracking it. He would stay up for her, he would wait for forever if he had to.

… .

Scully saw the scrapes on her face and bright red-turning-purple bruises emerging over her pale skin on her back and side of her ribs as she tore. The adrenaline was finally wearing off and her brain was finally able to process the night. The fear. The uncertainty of her death. The fight or flight instinct kicking in. Mulder. At this point, her body was on autopilot and she had placed her self in the scalding water, as she absently began to scrub her skin roughly over the already injured skin, marking her pale body even worse in punishment (was it punishment?).

Scully stopped immediately. Her last thought was of Mulder. Him holding her. Protecting her. But Pfaster. Pfaster was there. Looming over her. He wasn’t a man. Wait. Demon. No wait. He was human. Pfaster was a human. He bleed. But he loomed over her, not a man, but something else. He was looming over her.

She was not in her bath in the seedy motel. No. She was back in that closest, trapped, and tied, her mouth gagged trying to scream.

The next thing she knew was that large, warm hands grabbed her flailing wrists, stilling her. “Scully! Scully!”

She looked wildly around the room and realized what was happening. The bright light of the bathroom blinded her and she focused on the warm, concerned hazel orbs of her partner’s eyes. “Mulder?” she whispered distantly. “What are you doing here?”

She looked wildly down, noticing her naked body. He immediately let her wrists go and turned his head, useless grabbing a towel and holding it out as he looked away. “Um, you were screaming.”

“I wasn’t. I would have remembered it.”

“You were.” He knew better than to recite spurting psychological analysis and profile her. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw her discretely stand and he winced when he glimpsed at the damage she took. “Um, I’m sorry. I’ll leave, Scully.”

She sighed, and wrapped the town around her small battered body and looked down at the draining water from the tub. When did she pull the plug? “No,” she sighed, “um, can you wait outside for me?”

“Sure. Do you, uh, want me to get you anything?”

She held the towel tightly around her and mumbled into it, “No thank you.”

“Just uh…”

“I’ll call your name.”

“Scully,” he paused, at the doorframe. “It’s okay to feel. I had…I had panic attacks for years after Sam was taken. It’s okay to feel.”

Scully kept her eyes closed, feeling tears, shattered into a million pieces completely abandoned. She imagined Mulder snaking his arms again around her, swallowing her whole, and shielding her from the evils of the world. And he did it all so selflessly. She raised her head and stared at the closed bathroom door.

Outside, in the bedroom, Mulder sat uncomfortably at the edge of the bed, flipping uselessly through the television as the antennas failed to provide any proper picture and instead gave the “ssssccchhhh” sound of garbled, empty air. Uselessly, he turned off the tv and saw Scully open the door wearing an oversized gray FBI tee shirt and loose sleeping pants. Her hair was damp, just like that first night in the graveyard. She watched him wearily as if she was debating on trusting him.

“I’m so used to keeping my emotions inwards,” she began softly. “You saw that when my father died. Your sympathy…” Scully caught herself. “You empathy…you genuinely cared for my well being.”

“Why wouldn’t I, Scully?”

She shrugged, keeping her arms around herself. She kicked at the stained red rug and walked cautiously towards him. “I’ve never…I’ve never been in a situation like that, Mulder. Completely helpless. Bound.” She shuddered and sat next to him at the far edge of the bed. “You said it was okay to feel. Did the panic attacks ever stop, Mulder?”

He leaned back on his hands thoughtfully. “Not until recently. There was a time about three months ago that they came back, worse than ever, but after about five weeks, they went away again.”

He gazed at the ceiling and then finally looked at her. She did the mental calculations and connected her abduction and return. The double-loaded meaning weighed heavily on her heart and she scooted closer to her partner. “What…uh…what happened?”

“A petite, arrogant doctor, proclaiming that science ruled all walked into the basement office and introduced herself with a handshake,” he said softly, letting the unsaid message linger between them.

Scully nodded. “Will you stay…just for tonight, of course?” She admitted after a long, painful pause.

“Just for tonight, of course. I’ll, uh, I’ll take the floor. Just let me grab a pillow and blanket from next door.” He moved to get up and she caught his hand and looked at her in surprise. “Scully?”

“Just…I want you close.”

“Whatever you want.”

Wordless, Mulder pulled back the blankets and she slipped in on the right side and Mulder laid down on the far edge of the left side of the bed. Quietly, she grabbed his hand and pulled his arm and body along like a blanket until he spooned quietly behind her. She sighed and turned out the light. The street lights danced in the shadows as he took a deep breath and kissed her temple. “Was it me, Mulder?”

“Yeah,” he confessed to the darkness, to her. “I don’t know why, but it was.”

Scully ‘hmmed’ and buried her face into the pillow. “Do you think I’ll heal, Mulder,” she asked in a rare moment of vulnerability.

“You’re the strongest person I know,” he whispered simply.

“Thank you,” she mumbled before drifting off to sleep.

#prompt #answered and asked #msr #xfiles #xf fanfic #msr fic #fox mulder #scully #msr ust #ust #txf #txf fic

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