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roosterforme · 6 months ago

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Yours Truly, Bradley Bradshaw Part 8 | Rooster x Reader

Summary: It has been too long since you heard from Bradley. Perhaps something went wrong. Or maybe he was avoiding you. Just when you start trying to accept that the last few months were too good to be true, things start to turn around again.

Warnings: Fluff, angst, language, Bradley being sweet

Length: 3000 words

Pairing: Bradley "Rooster" Bradshaw x Female teacher!Reader

Check out my masterlist for more! Yours Truly, Bradley Bradshaw masterlist

Days went by. With only two weeks left of Bradley's deployment, you weren't really expecting to receive air mail at school with your name on it, but you certainly did miss it anyway. Your students asked about him every morning, wondering if he'd sent a new email, hoping for another video with Marty. But you got nothing in either of your email inboxes.

He was on your mind almost constantly. What happened on his mission? Did the Navy decide it was okay to cut off communication right when you were completely attached to hearing from him? Did this really mean you had to wait until the aircraft carrier arrived back in San Diego?

It was right before your students were due to arrive in your classroom that you had perhaps the most distressing thoughts of all. What if something went terribly wrong and he didn't survive? Or what if this was simply his way of ghosting you before he had to see you in person?

Jayden raced in ahead of the rest of your class, calling your name along the way. "Did Lieutenant Bradshaw write back yet?"

You pointed him toward his desk as you shook your head. "I already explained that he may not have time to respond before his deployment ends."

Jayden just bounced in place in front of you. "Then that means he can visit us when he gets back!"

Now a small group of your kids surrounded you, and you wished more than anything that you could tell them that Lieutenant Bradley Bradshaw, their beloved pen pal, would definitely be visiting your classroom in a few short days. Instead you told them, "Please, take your seats so we can start our Natural History lesson."

This turned out to be your new normal. Every time you got an email notification, you jumped to unlock your phone, but it was never a message from Bradley. When you saw a box tucked in your mail cubby in the school office, you ran for it, only to find the science supplies you ordered weeks ago had arrived. You even forced yourself to go back and read some of the old emails from him, just to make sure it all really happened, but his words left you aching for more.

...I like giving Gorgeous teachers butterflies...

...You'd look adorable snuggled up in your bed. But then again, when aren't you completely Gorgeous?...

...Gorgeous girl, you're messing with my head...

...And it's not a matter of if I touch you, it's a matter of when...

After nearly two weeks had gone by, you tried to figure out if the USS Theodore Roosevelt was back in port, but short of driving to North Island to see for yourself, you couldn't seem to find a solid answer online. And if you did drive there and found it at the dock, what were you supposed to do? Contact the US Navy? If they told you that nothing happened to Lieutenant Bradshaw and that he was perfectly fine, you'd be mortified. If they told you something in fact did happen to him in the last two weeks, you'd be devastated. That's assuming you could even get them to give you any information at all which was doubtful.

On Friday, you were on the verge of tears as you got ready for work. "You're being ridiculous," you whispered, and that fact made you want to cry even more. You tried to take the time to make yourself look presentable, thinking that may be the key to having a good day. Your outfit was cute. Your makeup looked nice. But you weren't smiling, and you didn't feel like doing so at all.

You grabbed your bag, hoping the short ride with your favorite playlist would be enough to get your spirits up, but all you could think about was how you probably weren't cut out for life with a guy in the military anyway. Waiting around like this to see what was going on was making your stomach upset, and you weren't getting enough sleep. When you closed your eyes, you just pictured a very kissable face with a scarred cheek and big brown eyes.

"You need to focus," you scolded as you parked your car and headed into the school with your ID badge. You had eighteen kids who required your attention, and you'd once again give it to them, because you were fantastic at your job.

This morning, Violet was the first one to mention Bradley in passing, and you had to shake your head. "Please find your seats. If I hear from Lieutenant Bradshaw, I promise I will let you know. I'm not hiding any letters or emails from you all, okay?" You tried to smile as you said, "I'd like to hear from him every bit as badly as you would. I can guarantee that."

You struggled through your morning lessons, often reminding yourself that you needed to focus on your students. Then you sat quietly at your desk with the classroom lights off during lunch, scrolling back through the dozens of emails you'd exchanged with Bradley on your phone. You pulled up the picture of the sun setting behind him in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, and even though you tried, you couldn't find anything other than the most sincere expression on his handsome face.

Maybe he would text you this weekend, letting you know he was back and your date was on. You had to believe he would still contact you. When the bell rang, you counted to ten, and then your students came flooding back through your classroom door. They wanted to tell you all about how Jasper from Mrs. Wynn's class got in trouble during lunch, and you humored them before saying, "I'm sure none of you would misbehave like that in the cafeteria."

"No way!" Henry promised.

"That's what I like to hear," you told him with a forced smile. "Once you're all in your seats, we'll start our math lesson. Maybe I'll put a few aviation problems on the board at the end if you show me how well you can focus for the next twenty minutes."

You had just started copying the first fraction that you wanted to discuss from your notebook onto the board when there was a sharp knock on your classroom door. You sighed and let your forehead rest briefly on the white board, knowing that another disruption would completely derail your kids after all the lunchtime nonsense. When you turned to face the door, they were already starting to chatter with each other.

"Come in!" you called out, and every head in your room whipped around to see who was there and what they wanted.

When the door swung open, the room went silent. The first thing you thought about was how peculiar it was to see someone in a khaki military uniform standing there. Then your eyes slid up that tall, muscular frame as your lips parted in surprise. As soon as you met his gaze, he smiled and said, "Hey, Gorgeous."

You couldn't speak. As he took a full step into your classroom and pulled the door closed, you finally noticed he was holding some pretty flowers. Then he was heading your way, his combat boots squeaking ever so slightly against the tile floor with each long stride. Bradley Bradshaw wasn't hesitating at all as he made his way directly to you while your students started talking again.

"It's Lieutenant Bradshaw!"

"I knew he'd come visit us ever since I asked him to!"

"Does this mean his deployment is over?"

"Why does he have flowers?"

He didn't stop until he was standing right in front of you, and the butterflies in your belly were fluttering so much, you were convinced you could float off of the floor. You weren't sure what else to say, so you simply whispered, "Bradley."

His smile grew as he said, "I love the way that sounds when you say it." You could only squeak in response, and his warm gaze flicked from your eyes down to your lips. At this rate you'd be a puddle at his feet in the next ten seconds. He swallowed hard, cheeks flushed as he leaned in closer, taking another small step forward until his boot gently bumped your shoe. His voice took on a raspier edge as said, "You told me you wanted me to kiss you as soon as I saw you."

He didn't stop slowly closing the distance, and when you reached out and let your fingers tangle with his, you whispered, "Please." Then you closed your eyes as his lips brushed feather light against yours. You gasped. He was here. Nothing had ever felt as good as this in your life. You opened your eyes to find him grinning right in front of you, and you chased him for another one of his dreamy kisses.

"Lieutenant Bradshaw kissed her!"

"I think they're in love!"

"They are definitely going to be girlfriend and boyfriend!"

Bradley wrapped his fingers around yours a little tighter as you and he laughed, and he ducked his head before looking up at your class. His cheeks were the most alluring shade of pink as he told them, "Hey, I hope you don't mind that I decided to surprise you and your teacher."

"We don't mind!" shouter Oliver as he was practically sitting on his desk now in excitement. All of the kids were bouncing with anticipation, and you couldn't stop smiling as Violet clapped her hands together.

"Great, because I brought my responses to your last batch of letters, too. I can't thank you enough for being my pen pals for the last few months. You made my time away from home a lot more fun." He turned to look at you before softly adding, "And you made coming back home feel really good."

You wanted to kiss him again. You wanted to run your fingers along his scars and press your lips to his skin in their wake. You wanted to bury your nose against his neck and inhale the smell of his skin and his uniform collar. You wanted to feel his mustache on your lips. Instead, because every eye in the room was on the two of you, you told him, "I'm really happy you're here." You tugged on his hand so he was standing front and center, and you turned to your kids and asked, "What do we say when we have a special guest visit us?"

"Thank you!" they all shouted in unison.

"That's right," you told them. Then you looked up at Bradley, and he handed you the flowers with a crooked little grin, and that's when you noticed he had a small notebook in his hand as well.

"Can I call each kid up to get their letter?" he asked, as if you would deny him anything at the moment. "Then I can put faces to all of the names."

You were still definitely at risk of melting. "You wrote each of them a personal letter again?" you asked him, holding your flowers to your chest and trying not to swoon.

"Yeah," he replied, opening his notebook to show you. He stood there, looking devastatingly sexy, tearing out a page for every kid. He called each of them up and talked to them for a minute. He remembered the name of Jayden's dog. He remembered that Violet loved neon-colored everything. He remembered that Henry said his grandfather was in the Navy. He remembered so much, and he was so willing to indulge all of their questions.

You just stood there with your flowers and watched this endearing man captivate all nineteen of you with his words. He let Oliver try on one of his insignia pins. He drew a diagram of an aircraft carrier on your white board. He met your gaze more often than not. He smiled at you every time he did. He told your students that the reason they were so smart was because you were such a good teacher. The butterflies were here to stay now.

When you looked around, you noticed that your kids were cherishing their personal notes just like you were your flowers. You didn't want this afternoon to end, and yet, as soon as the first bell rang at three o'clock, you jumped to attention. The sooner your students cleared out of the room for the weekend, the sooner you could hopefully have a few minutes alone with Bradley before he wanted to go home and rest.

"We need to pack up," you announced, finally setting the bouquet down on your desk while Bradly affixed his pin back on his uniform shirt.

"Do we have to?" whined Jayden. "Lieutenant Bradshaw like just got here!"

He had in fact been in your classroom for over two hours, but you couldn't blame them for wanting more. Bradley cleared his throat and looked at you as he said, "I could come back again?" with that sincere gaze you were already weak for. "Spend a few more hours answering questions? Maybe bring some engine parts with me?"

You bit your lip before you could whimper out loud, and he started to head in your direction. "We would love that," you told him.

"Yeah?" he asked you as your kids erupted into a rowdy mob, grabbing all of their belongings as the final bell rang.

"Mmhmm," you hummed, waving lazily to your students as they shouted their goodbyes to both you and Bradley. His steps had him reaching you right as the last few kids left your room, and you whispered, "You'll come back?"

He reached for your hand as he said, "I'll do anything you want, Gorgeous." He must have been able to read the needy look on your face, because when you tugged on his hand, he came all the way to you. His other hand ended up at your waist as his lips found yours, and this time, the feather light kisses deepened as you parted your lips. Bradley groaned softly, kissing you just right, and then he whispered, "I've been dying for this."

Your arms went around his neck, kissing him a little frantically, melting at his touch and the feel of his soft, wavy hair between your fingers. "Me too," you told him before pulling his bottom lip gently between yours. He backed you up until you bumped into your desk, and all you could think about was how good his weight would feel on top of you.

Your skin felt too hot when he finally broke the kiss, panting softly as you ran your thumb along his scars. "I didn't like not hearing from you the past two weeks," you told him, and his brown eyes softened even as his hold on you tightened a little bit. "It was... kind of scary."

"I didn't like it either," he told you. "And I was going to text you immediately when we docked this morning, but then I decided to just come here instead." He grinned as your fingers crept back up into his hair. "If they didn't let me sign in with my military ID in the front office, I don't know what I would have done. I just wanted to see you."

You kissed his chin and said, "Usually I hate surprises. But this one was perfect."

"Okay, see, that's good information to know," he rasped. "I only got a ride home long enough to throw my duffle in the front door and hop in my Bronco. I stopped for the flowers, and then I just wanted to get here with my notebook."

You tipped your head back and whispered, "How am I supposed to deal with how sweet you are?"

"Oh! That reminds me," he muttered, rubbing his hand along your back before releasing you and strolling over to where he left his notebook on Oliver's desk. The way your body wanted you to follow him was surprising, but it gave you a chance to look at him again from head to toe as you stood next to your desk. There was nothing out of place on this man, and you pressed your lips together as his bicep flexed against his shirt sleeve. He tore another sheet of paper from his notebook and said, "I have one more note to deliver."

He walked back over to you, and when he held it up with a hopeful look, you took it from him and read.

Hey, Gorgeous. I couldn't wait one more minute to see you. And now that I'm here, I don't want today to end. Is there any way I can convince you to let me take you out for our first official date tonight instead of tomorrow? Bradley

When you looked up from the page, his eyebrows were raised, and that crooked little grin was hovering close to the surface. "I know I said to plan for tomorrow, but I can't fucking wait that long."

You bit down on your lip, shocked by how much better today turned out to be than you could have ever imagined earlier this morning. "Yeah. You've convinced me, Bradley. Tonight sounds perfect."

With that, you were treated to a little smirk beneath his mustache. He carefully took the sheet of notebook paper from your hands, set it down next to the flowers on your desk and proceeded to kiss you senseless.

----------------------------

He's going to make me hyperventilate. Those kids were SO excited to have him in their classroom, but they were nowhere near as excited as Gorgeous! He's home! And he wants to have his beach picnic and takeout and makeout sesh immediately. Thanks @beyondthesefourwalls

PART 9

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cetitan · 5 months ago

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But can I get an agree for how the way a lot of people are gay online is just really, really boring? I understand there are more of us now then there used to be. But even when they try to be cool they're boring. Everybody sells iconography and experiences to each other. When I see top surgery scar art of a video game character, the same emotions I feel when I see an ad for Old Navy are accessed.

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omgthatdress · 7 months ago

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An Analysis of the Ubiquity of Mall Brands in the late 1990s to early 2000s, or

I Fucking Hate These Guys

by OMG!thatdress

If you were a tween to teenager from roughly 1997 to 2004, chances are, you were left with profound life-long trauma caused by someone wearing Tommy Hilfiger, Abercrombie & Fitch, Ralph Lauren, Nautica, American Eagle, The Gap, Old Navy, or, if you were came along a little later, Hollister or Aeropoastale.

I cannot overstate to my young followers how over-saturated these brand names were in teen culture at the turn of the millennium, the extend to which EVERYONE was wearing them, and yet, in a weird way, how light the imprint they actually left on fashion history was.

Watching iconic teen shows of the era, you don't see any of them because a.) TV teenagers tend to be way cooler and more stylish than awkward and desperate real teenagers actually are, and b.) these brands were all copyright protected, which kept their names and logos off the airwaves.

Look in a middle school yearbook, however, you'll see it. Look at your aunt and uncle's high school photo albums, you'll see it. Ask any late Gen X or early Millennial. It was real and it was fucking awful.

The big question is why? Why? WHY, GOD WHY?! There's a lot of answers to that question.

First of all, I'm going to cite this absolutely wonderful article from Collector's Weekly about why everyone's grandma had a hideous orange couch in the 70s, and give the most simple and straightforward answer: it's what was available.

This is when the concept of online shopping is still very much in its infancy, and the hub of American consumer culture was still your local mall. If you needed new clothes, you went to the mall. And guess what stores were at every local mall? You guessed it.

For the second answer, I'm going to dig up this utter relic from the early days of internet meme-ing, that has nonetheless stuck with me and had a profound impact of my understanding of how popular fashion works:

I'm pretty sure that the reason Abercrombie & Fitch manages to survive as a brand today rests solely increasingly middle-aged Millennial men whose sense of style has refused to evolve past the shit their mom bought them in high school.

And why the hell would they? Nobody wore Abercrombie because it made them stand out or feel special. I'm still pretty convinced that nobody actually *liked* the aesthetic or thought the clothes actually looked good. You need not look past the basic color palette to understand these were not brands meant for uniqueness or self-expression.

While Britney Spears pranced around stage in her iconic neon colors and body glitter, American teenagers existed in a never-ending hellscape of washed-out neutrals, faded denim, and American flag primary colors.

All of which served its exact purpose: it was safety. It was a way to appear cool if you didn't want to go through the ordeal of actually having a personality or a sense of style. Which, of course, goes back to point number one: it was just shit you bought at the mall because you needed clothes.

It wasn't enough to save you once the school bully caught that whiff of autism and/or queerness on you, but it was enough that you could blend into the herd and pray no one ever noticed you.

Underneath it all was a very subtle undercurrent of class and classism: to wear mall brands was to declare to the world that you could indeed afford to shop at the mall. It meant you weren't, god forbid, poor.

Status symbol clothing goes back to the invention of clothing itself. The concept of brands as status symbols is still very much alive and well, its just more limited to actual luxury brands nowadays. One need look no further than your favorite high-end children's clothing website to see that rich parents still very much think it important that you know their five-year-old is wiping its boogers on Versace.

None of these brands were actual high-end luxury brands, but they still advertised and presented themselves as such. Their ads featured signifiers of "all-american" (read: White) wealth: yachts, skiing, horses, beaches, shirtless dudes with chiseled abs playing verious sportsballs.

The color palettes and cuts mimicked the preppy "Ivy" style of the New England old-money elite, along with their hobbies and lifestyle. You may not actually own a horse, but you can wear a polo shirt. You may not be able to run without breaking your ankle, but you wear the same shirt as the dude holding a football in the ad.

It was an elitist, White and skinny image that didn't age well into the diversity and body-positivity of the 2010s.

In 2003, a lawsuit was filed against Abercrombie & Fitch alleging systematic racial discrimination. People of color were rarely hired, and if they were, they were given jobs in the back, away from customer view. In 2005, the U.S. district court approved a settlement of $50,000. A few years ago, Netflix released the documentary White Hot: The Rise and Fall of Abercrombie & Fitch which admittedly I haven't watched yet because my hatred runs too deep to remind myself of its existence.

youtube

It was a hatred of Abercrombie & the (white, thin, neurotypical, heterosexual) conformity that it represented that drove me screaming into the loving arms of Hot Topic and Linkin Park. Jordan Calhoun wrote an excellent article for the Atlantic about his experience growing up poor and Black and not fitting in to the Abercrombie aesthetic.

I would be very remiss if I didn't bring up the "urban" mall brands of the early 2000s: Fubu, Sean Jean, Ecko, Baby Phat, among others. They were favored by Black teenagers and White teenagers who wanted to be Black. I know there's a lot to be said about these brands, but I'm too Caucasian to really be able to talk about them with nuance. Maybe someone else will, and I will be very happy to listen.

As much as I hate Tommy Hilfiger, I really do have to give him credit for recognizing the incredibly lucrative "street wear" market and selling power of hip-hop. While most of these mall brands kept their image sparkling White, Tommy made Aaliyah his brand ambassador and regularly appeared in the wardrobes of popular rap and R&B artists of the time.

It'd be very easy and very reductive to say that the changing ideology of the 2010s was the downfall of preppy mall brands, but really, the thing that truly killed them was the downfall of the mall itself. Shopping habits changed, and logos and brand names no longer held the power they once had.

The moral of the story is that being a teenager is fucking hell, and these popular brands both offered the safety of conformity and a status symbol to hold over the heads of the poor and uncool. The irony is that everyone who hated them as teenagers (read: ME) and the freaks who grew up to truly love the power of self-expression through personal style (read: ME) became the truly cool people. If you wore Abercrombie you grew up to vote for Donald Trump.

GO GOTH. PREPS SUCK. THE END.

#1990s #2000s #Tommy Hilfiger #Abercrombie & Fitch #Ralph Lauren

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goodlucktai · 2 months ago

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9, raph and leo?

dialogue prompts

9. “I know, I know it hurts.”

When Raph was eight years old, the twins decided they needed their own bedrooms and, like with all other things they had ever decided, they made it everyone else’s problem. As a united front, the two of them had the capacity to wear down a squad of Navy Seals in a manner of days, let alone one overtired single father.

The campaign for separate bedrooms turned out to be a long con. Donnie had been denied an evil science laboratory by Splinter multiple times, on the grounds of it being dangerous, and Donnie being seven, and evil being bad. But a room of his own could be whatever he wanted, and he wanted a lab.

It took most of a week for Splinter to discover that the twins were still doubled up in the room that was ostensibly Leo’s while Donnie’s was being used for nefarious purposes, but by then Donnie had installed an electronic lock on the door that he built out of components gutted from old kitchen appliances and was fully ready to die on that hill.

While Pops and Donnie were locked in a contest of wills that would ultimately go in Donnie’s favor (because Splinter’s achilles heel back then—and even now—was that he thought little turtles at their most sulky and unreasonable were just adorable) Raphie had looked at Leo with a confused frown on his face.

“How come you went along with it, Lee? You didn’t even get your own room.”

Leo shrugged, bright gold eyes shining with interest as he watched his twin and his father argue back and forth. He was following it carefully, probably ready to join in if it looked like Donnie was going to lose—more engaged than he ever was playing video games or flipping through comics.

At the time, all Leo said was, “Just wanted to see if I could.”

Raph thought it was because he was a troublemaker, and he maintained that idea up until Mikey—intuitive beyond his years, even as a sweet little six year old—said he figured it was just that Leo’s head went as crazy fast as Donnie’s did, only in ways that didn’t involve breaking and building things.

A full decade later, Raph knows Mikey was right on the money. Looking back, he sees a kid who was wickedly smart and terribly understimulated. Leo didn’t create trouble for the heck of it, he just liked having problems to solve. He wanted conversations and tricks and puzzles, he needed hoops to jump through like dolphins did on TV, or else he’d get cranky and sneaky.

Their world became a much simpler, more peaceful place once Leo got his first phone and discovered an online chess app with a leaderboard.

All this to say, Leo has had a mind for strategy since before he could talk in full sentences. He’s a natural-born leader, and after the failed Krang invasion, he really stepped up and took it seriously. Raph is so proud of him he doesn’t have words big enough to contain the size and shape of it all. It isn’t as hard as he had imagined it would be to let go of the reins and give Leo the room he needs to shine.

Some days are better than others. For the most part, Leo says jump and his brothers don’t even ask how high, they just shoot for the rafters. Their teamwork is cohesive, as solid as it was when they initially realized their ninpo, and Raph thinks he’d feel sorry for the Shredder if that guy showed his face in their town again.

But there are also days like today, when Leo says something that Raph’s big brother meter pings as Leo being silly, stirring shit up for lack of better thing to do, and he doesn’t linger on it past that initial knee-jerk impression.

They’re working with a group of mutants out of Hell’s Kitchen, mutants who are walking the line between vigilantism and outright crime. They’re rough around the edges, but good-natured for the most part. The turtles kept bumping into that other group as they crisscrossed around the city until finally their leader, Old Hob, said, “Why don’t we just get on the same program instead of stepping on each other’s heels?” and a tentative partnership was formed.

It’s been a week since then, and in that time Raph and his brothers have been firmly adopted by the grown-up mutants, who ask pointed questions about what time they went to bed the night before and whether or not they had a decent breakfast and how their online classes are going.

“This must be what having overbearing aunties is like,” Donnie said to April on the phone none-too-quietly, and Sally, feline mutant and aforementioned overbearing auntie, knocked her knuckles on his battleshell reprovingly. But that about summed it up.

There was one spanner in the works, and that was Liam.

——

“Anyone else getting bad vibes from that guy by the way?” Leo says one day.

There’s something performative about it, his usual pomp and charisma with a plastic edge. Mikey tilts his head like a service dog who just caught the scent of a potential medical emergency. Donnie looks up from his phone, eyes keen the way they only are when he and his twin are about to communicate with the telepathy they’ll deny they have.

But Raph is having a bad pain day, and his well of patience for shenanigans is much shallower than it normally is.

“Leon, don’t start,” he says, rubbing the slider’s head playfully to take any sting out of the dismissal. “If I have to put up with any middle child nonsense today I’m gonna scream.”

There’s a beat, his second-youngest brother visibly hesitating on a mental fork in the road. He’s gotten so good about being forthcoming but his first impulse is still to play along, deny, conceal-don’t-feel. He still has this idea in his head of what a good leader is supposed to be, and he’s still willing to whittle parts of himself away that don’t fit that mold.

To his credit, Leo tries again. “I don’t like him,” he says with less certainty.

“You don’t have to be best friends with the guy,” Raph replies. There’s enough warning in his tone that Leo knows to drop it. “Just get along until we go home.”

He works his shoulder, trying to do something about the solid ache it’s become, and Leo’s eyes drop to the mass of scarring there and then flit away. He starts to outline the route their patrol is going to take, reaching into his belt bag for the jar of Tiger Balm he’s taken to carrying with him and handing it over to Raph as he talks.

Raph smiles, the warmth in his chest ballooning up to swallow the impending impatience and annoyance brought out by pain. That warmth stays with him through their whole run, even as Donnie video-calls April and deadpans “POV you’re tailing some guy who didn’t get the memo that armed robbery is cringe as hell,” even as Mikey goes out of his way to jump and tumble off a fire escape in time to give Mondo a high-five as he skates by in the opposite direction, even as Leo progressively gets quieter the closer they get to their two AM check-in at the Mutanimals’ railyard base.

Looking back, Raph can count all the red flags he missed and hates himself a little more for each one. Leo sometimes causes problems for fun, and he likes to see what trouble he can get away with or get himself out of, and he is a downright menace to society when he’s bored—but he’s good. He’s sweet, and charming, and wants to help. He wouldn’t have raised an issue with the other group of mutants, potentially cutting ties with useful allies, unless he had a decent reason to.

And that reason, Raph discovers that night—after information has been exchanged and all that's left is to hang out at the base watching TV and playing table tennis until Splinter inevitably texts to remind his sons of their curfew—is Liam.

He doubles back into the meeting room where he left his phone and sees the goose mutant has put himself between Leo and the only exit, head lowered on a serpentine neck, beak open to show a flash of sharp teeth in a display that Raph’s animal hindbrain reads clearly as threat.

His grip on the doorframe causes it to crack.

“Leo,” he says in a voice he doesn’t recognize.

His little brother’s head jerks up, half-hopeful, half-disbelieving. Later, Raph will hate himself for putting even a sliver of doubt in Leo’s mind, for unknowingly invalidating his feelings. Leo should never be surprised that his big brother showed up for him. He should never have been left to fend for himself in a situation that made him uncomfortable, especially after he found the courage to be upfront about it.

“C’mere,” Raph says, lifting an arm—a little turtle’s cue to tuck themselves safely against Raph’s side.

Whatever his expression is doing, it’s caused dead silence to blanket the room like a foot of packed snow. Liam looks markedly unhappy to see Raphael standing there, but Leo runs to meet him.

A strategist, a faceman, a leader, and barely seventeen years old.

“We were just talking,” Liam says with a lightness that rings as false.

“Next time I find out you and my brother were just talking, I’ll wring your skinny neck,” Raph replies, matching his tone. Liam may be twice Raph’s age, but he’s half Raph’s size, and Raph has gone head-to-head with the Krang general and the Shredder and walked it off each time. Raph is fully prepared, in this moment, to murder this fucking goose.

Leo taps on Raph’s carapace, just as one of his violent inner voices is lifting its head in the back of his brain and considering making an appearance. On Leo’s end, a warning that someone else is coming from down the hall. On Raph’s end, a reminder that his first priority is the one he’s holding.

He turns, keeping Leo beside him, in time to see Hob appear around the corner. The cat mutant stops dead in his tracks, slitted eyes moving from Raph, down to Leo, to the doorway beside them, and back again.

“Problem?”

“We’re going home,” Raph says, a rumble in his voice he wouldn’t know how to temper even if he wanted to. “And we’re not coming back. Don’t call us unless someone’s dying or there’s another alien invasion.”

“Knock on wood,” Leo mumbles near-silently.

Old Hob doesn’t answer right away. It’s impossible to tell what the older mutant is thinking on a good day, outwardly recalcitrant and unfriendly, even though he has never snapped at Mikey’s cheerful rambling or Leo’s wheedling attempts to goad him into yet another chess match or even Donnie’s accidental ninpo-related shortage of every appliance in the Mutanimals’ kitchen. He and Sally and Ray and Herman all go out of their way to make their base comfortable and accessible to the turtles and Mondo and Pete, like it really matters to them that the younger mutants have a safe place tucked away that they can fall back on.

And Raph had appreciated that, up until now. Up until they proved it wasn’t safe, actually. Up until he’d seen a grown man leering meanly at his baby brother, just because he thought he could keep getting away with it.

When Hob does speak, all he says is, “Get home safe, boys.”

Raph shoulders around him, and collects Donnie and Mikey from the main room immediately. Mikey says, “Woah, are you guys okay?” and Donnie shoots a poisonous look behind them, like if he glares hard enough he can see back in time to what happened to put those expressions on Leo and Raph’s faces.

“We’re peachy, Miguelito,” Leo says, disquietingly convincing. “Just had a difference of opinion with our hosts is all.”

“Stay out of Hell’s Kitchen from now on until I say so,” Raph adds sternly.

Raph tells dad about Liam when they get home, because there is no universe where that doesn’t happen, and Leo immediately gets hauled into Splinter’s room for what sounds like a very serious conversation. Raph, Donnie and Mikey cluster shamelessly outside the door to eavesdrop, and some frightened thing in Raph’s heart lets out the breath it’s been holding when Leo says, “Nothing happened, papa, I promise. He was just weird.”

“Let him be weird to my Baby Blue one more time and I will show him exactly why your father was the undisputed Battle Nexus champion,” Splinter says. He cups Leo’s face and rubs his thumb over a striped cheek, as if he’d like to keep his son right there where no one had the capacity to hurt him. “Thank you for telling us. I’m so proud of you. I will actually kill him if he looks at you again.”

Leonardo smiles brightly, daddy’s boy of the family and glutton for attention that he is, those leftover dregs of anxiety in his eyes finally melting away.

“I think we should let dad kill him,” Donnie announces, eyes icy, tone flat.

“Nah,” Mikey says, disingenuously cheerful. “Next time we run into Liam I’m setting him the fuck on fire!”

“Language,” Raph scolds by rote, but his heart isn’t in it.

He can’t get that scene he walked in on back at the railyard out of his head. He can’t help thinking what if something worse had happened because I didn’t listen?

It feels like there’s a ghost in his chest, rattling his heart. He’s haunted by the what if.

——

After dinner, Leo looks at Raph meaningfully and points at the infirmary. Doctor Leo’s orders supersede all others, 100% of the time, so Raphael sighs and surrenders his controller to Mikey’s grabby hands without bothering to make the token argument. He keeps driving Princess Peach off the track anyway.

“Have you been stretching?” Leo says, feeling along Raph’s upper arm, where the muscles are visibly knotted. Even his careful touch hurts—that whole side of his body is tender with pain. Raph can’t help but flinch when his shoulder spasms and Leo hisses. “Shit, sorry, I know, I know it hurts. God, Raphie, you gotta say something before it gets this bad. I’m not afraid to bench you, big guy.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Raph says, amused by his little brother’s no-nonsense tone, warmed by the care Leo always takes with his family when they’re sitting in his infirmary and putting their hurts in his hands.

There’s nothing performative about him here. It’s just Leo, stripped of every false layer.

“Let’s try to massage it out,” Leo says, all his attention bent to the task. “Then we’ll apply heat.”

Raph hums, watching him work. His arm radiates pain, and he has to grit his teeth as Leo goes to work on the knots and the ache flares close to unbearable and wanes to a dull throb and then flares again.

“Hey,” Raph says before he can overthink it any more. “What would you have done if I didn’t see you and Liam?”

Leo pauses, but only for a split-second. He’s as good as cornered here, because there’s no way he’ll leave Raph when he’s in pain, and there’s nowhere to hide. Thankfully for Raph’s sanity, he doesn’t try to pretend he doesn’t know what they’re talking about, even if he takes a long moment to finally answer.

“Would’ve made Angie make me a Portal Promise to never be alone with him,” Leo admits. Flushing slightly, he mumbles, “It’s, uh, a thing we do—we both make portals, you know, so—it just means we have to keep that promise no matter what happens or what rules we have to break, and we won’t get in trouble later as long as we’re honest.”

Raph’s heart hurts. His little brothers are so sweet, and people exist in the world who would hurt them, and he has no idea how to reconcile that. He hates that both things could be true at the same time.

“Tello doesn’t need to be encouraged to stay away from people, and I’m pretty sure he can read my mind? But I would’ve told him anyway,” Leo goes on. “I tell him everything. I’d try to word it so he didn’t get angry enough to do something drastic, like, cut the brake lines on Liam’s Toyota Corolla. And I’d have to make it sound like you and I were on the same page, otherwise he’d go to you about it, and you’d—uh, be annoyed that I didn’t drop it, I guess.”

Getting impaled by the Krang hurt less than this, Raph thinks. He feels sick.

“Leo—”

“I know,” Leo says quickly, a little too loud. “I know that I don’t always take stuff seriously. It’s not your fault for thinking—you know. You didn’t do anything wrong, Raphie. I just gotta grow up.”

This kid, who—like the rest of them—has already matured well past his age, well before he should have had to. Who’s terrified of letting his family down, who has so much he thinks he needs to live up to. Any perceived failure weighs on him like the death penalty, and Raph knows he had a hand in that.

He needs to listen. Even when he’s aching and short-tempered. Even when Leo is talking around something that scares him. Maybe especially then.

“Can we make a deal?” Raph says, reaching up to hold Leo’s hands still under one of his own. Leo is staring hard at Raph’s plastron and doesn’t seem willing to lift his eyes for love or money, but he jerks his head in a nod. “Next time I’m not hearing you, and it’s something serious like today was serious, tell me, and I’ll stop.”

Leo’s mouth twists a bit. If it were for anyone else’s sake, he’d get in Raph’s face and make himself heard no problemo, but it’s an entirely different story when it’s his own safety in question. That part of Leo that wants to always rely on his brothers is constantly at war with the part that believes he’s not supposed to need anyone’s help anymore.

It would be impossible for him to plant himself like a tree and refuse to be budged and demand Raph’s attention if he thought for one second that it would make Raph angry at him.

“What if we came up with a code word?” Raph offers, squeezing Leo’s hands. “If I’m being a stubborn punk, you can tell me the code word, and I’ll listen, and I won’t get mad. Even if it turns out to be a mistake or a misunderstanding. Okay?”

He finally gets a peek of gold as Leo dares to make eye contact. He looks embarrassed, like they’ve made a huge deal out of this for no good reason, and hiding inside his shell until everyone promises to pretend like nothing happened is looking more tempting by the second.

But he’s Leo, their fearless leader. He stared down that portal into the prison dimension without flinching. If he can do that, he can do anything.

“What word?” he finally says.

“You pick,” Raph tells him.

A smile creeps onto Leo’s face, picking its way carefully across shaky ground.

“‘Goose’,” he suggests.

"‘Goose’ it is," Raph replies firmly, committing it to memory.

He lifts his good arm and drags his little brother into a solid hug, ignoring the twinge in his back and side. Leonardo scrambles to return the embrace, shoving his face against Raph’s unscarred shoulder and clinging for all he’s worth. Which is a lot. He’s worth so much.

Later, when Raph’s got the electric heating pad on his arm and he and Leo are watching TikTok compilations to pass the time, Mikey comes through the infirmary door at top speed, waving his phone above his head like a maniac.

“Look what Mondo sent me!” he shouts at full volume. “I put it in the group chat!”

The video shared in the Mad Dogz chat shows Liam being kicked out of the railyard, his bags tossed into the road. Sally is going off at him at the top of her lungs, and Hob is standing by with his arms folded like he’s fully ready to let her maul the guy, and the rest of the grown-up mutants are making it pretty clear with their body language that the goose isn’t welcome anymore.

“Dunno what they saw on the security cam, but they effin’ hated it,” Mondo says in the recording, unbothered by the absolute chaos unfolding in front of him. “Good riddance, Liam sucks. Oh, Mikester, Hob wants to know if you guys’ll be back in the Kitchen for Herman’s D&D oneshot on Saturday so he knows how much food to order. He said you should bring your dad around this time—as if we need another boring old man in the group, ugh. Anyway, let me know and I’ll pass it along, dude!”

A weight Raph hadn’t even realized he was still carrying melts off his shoulders. Leo huffs under his breath, a disbelieving little laugh.

“Can we go, Raphie?” Mikey asks with wide eyes. “Don worked so hard on all our character sheets. He even 3D-printed custom figurines.”

“My bard is going to carry this team,” Donnie says loudly from the next room, because he’s never met a private conversation he wouldn’t shamelessly listen in on.

It’s so important to the Mutanimals that their young friends feel safe with them, and here’s proof of that in Mikey’s hands. Raph doesn’t fully understand why they care, but he’s grateful that they do. It didn’t hit him until now how much it hurt to have the railyard taken away—and how relieved he is that they can go back, after all.

He squeezes the arm he still has around Leo’s shoulders, prompting his brother to look up at him.

“What do you say, Fearless?” he says warmly. “Your call.”

Raph’s listening this time.

#rottmnt #rise of the tmnt #hamato raphael #hamato leonardo #a team #my writing #tmnt fic #prompt #magicalspacedragon #this kind of went all over the place but im super out of it tonight unforch :(

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