#thank you for giving me such inspiration

[gummi-ships]

Kingdom Hearts 2 - Bulky Vendor

[jkvjimin]

❝The lights we saw in each other Were saying the same thing The starlight that shines more in the deepest night❞

happy birthday, em! @jinstronaut 💜

[yourlocaltreesimp]

A soul, so familiar

Synopsis: Fae Rulie. He’s swooning and is being equally adorable and dumb about it.

Note: This is my only day off since… like what? mid august? No clue when i’ll actually have a moment to breathe again. So here’s the product of me being the largest rulie simp to walk the earth.

☆⋆｡𖦹°‧★

Link had a problem, and quite a large one at that. You see, what you must understand is that through his many gruelling adventures, holding the entire triforce, and the general shit show that is his life, he has not much learned about his body. Or at least he’s still rather unfamiliar with the bizarre nature of his fae bloodline.

At most it’s lead for some very funny, if not embarrassing, moments. Like the time he’d accidentally dropped 100 rupees for a single jar of honey, being so craved for sugar he’d decided in some odd part of his mind to pay the man back. And of course that time he drank so much mead and woke up in the middle of a forest he never recalled entering.

There was very little of himself that he was aware of. Aside from his own experiences, he had no way to tell what exactly he was capable of.

For the most part, He was ok with it. After all, it was the source of very little discomfort. He’d gained a good control of his magic to harm and to heal accordingly, he keeps an extra emergency jar of honey just in case, and tries his hardest to not accidentally make promises. The line between hylian and fae had blurred to the point where he was simply just himself.

Amidst the crowds of people, he didn’t feel much different. Of course, they don’t get the acute cravings for sugar to where they’d gladly go bankrupt. And sure, they don’t have to worry about uttering deals that literally bargain power over people’s souls. But for the large part, Link was normal.

He could experience life as any other person did.

Well, that was before he fell head over heels for you.

He was a dork. That much was expected by everyone— including himself. There was no hiding the flush that adorned his freckled cheeks and spread all the way to pointed ears. Everything you said and everything you did was target to fluster him. Watching you dance and cackle by firelight had his heart radiating with warmth, his nerves spitting and cracking with the wood. He wished, quietly, longingly, that one day he could envelop you as wholly had the fire did. To caress your skin with such soft, reverent light and only serve to highlight just how striking you were.

His ears would wiggle just slightly at the sound of your laughter, hardly disturbing the soft curls of light brown hair. He’d swoon over the music of your laugh, or your voice when caught on something interesting, not noticing how clearly it showed to anyone willing to look.

He bore his genuine, crooked grin. Not just to you, but to the world. He found joy in every little moment in the usually missed corners of his day, because he could find something that tied back to you.

His life had suddenly been filled with so much colour and so many senses that he’d never had or felt before. And as much as the bubbling feeling scared him, he found himself wanting to protect you. He couldn’t let you, this burning streak of fire that had given so much depth to his one shot at living, be snuffed out.

He wanted so badly to adorn you in spells and wards to keep you safe from others and their prying eyes. The people of his home are not safe, but perhaps with the right words and the right magic he could keep you safe.

He didn’t let himself, he couldn’t.

He’d never whisper a single blessing into your skin if you weren’t the one who’d requested it.

But the feelings persisted. His love for your strengthened without any tending to, as did his desire to protect you, to hide you away and keep you safe and comfortable. And such was his problem: to love you so much in a manner that no hylian could understand.

He doubted even you would understand just how much you’re loved.

Regardless, he’d been an anxious wreck for weeks before he could even begin to come up with the obvious solution to his problem. If it were the fae part of himself that demanded so fervently your company, then perhaps catering to it would ease his yearning.

So he began to leave you gifts. Practical things at first, things he could explain away. Some new tools he’d seen you’d been eyeing, a nicer pack to keep all your belongings together, a fluffier bedroll to provide you good comfort… Some clothes he enchanted lightly to keep you safe.

But that slowly shifted. Of course, he only got more giddy the more you’d don the items he’d gotten. He’d gotten you much more since then, but none of them could compare to the engraved silver ring he’d just gotten.

The band was carved to make two hands holding a heart, an intricately carved crown on top, all set together in a small velvet bag and placed carefully among your items.

He watched happily, swooning over your soft smile as you slipped the ring on and thanked him for it. The kiss on the cheek made him utterly buzz, more than any life spell ever could.

Silver jewellery was the finest gift among the fae. It was their most precious metal and happened to be the most common form to supplement large payments. But this particular ring was notable to the traveller for one particular reason, its use in courtship.

He was over the moon the next few days, unable to even look in your direction without a nervous smile and flushed cheeks. Not only had his dearest love accepted his courtship, but you treat him so softly. His very soul tried to reach out, to cradle and cherish yours when he was too shy to do so.

And for once in the story of his life did he feel the warmth returned.

He could catch similar longing stares and could find trinkets and clothes he doesn’t remember buying.

It was almost burning, the sense of being loved. He wasn’t aware of how something he’d spent so long pining for could be so foreign. Yet at the same time it’s so homey. Being loved by you felt so routine, so familiar to him that he couldn’t find it within himself anymore to be shy, as if in some other lifetime you’d done the same.

As if he’s already bashfully linked pinkies with you or spent sunny afternoons braiding the stems of flowers.

There was a tangible amount of tension between the two of you, the longing hope to be loved as wholly as one felt for the other.

When you finally kissed, your lips were sweeter than any honey and he could convince himself to not let go.

[canisalbus]

.

[cherubheartz]

you guiys remember the cupcakes creepypasta?? yeag

[poorly-drawn-mdzs]

“Almost Christmas” means it wasn’t Christmas!

(2023) (2024)

[saixria]

Your art is so good! ^^

If your requests are still open, ya think a pic of broken arm Athena/recovering Athena could be having Odysseus or Telemachus signing her cast?

THANK YOU!! I LOVE THIS IDEA TOO MUCH I had to draw both of them HDKSKA (my requests are always open btw!) (I hope you don’t mind how late I am 💀)

[herbarimoon]

"A you-shaped hole in me"

Inspired by this post ⬇️

[angoryt]

Sleepover turned therapygroup

Zahndrekh thought that it would be a great idea to throw a midnight tea party for some people who seem to need an opportunity to relax. Imotekh was not very much interested in the invitation, until he was befuddled by hearing that Orikan had been invited, and accepted? At which point he thought he might as well give it a shot.

And so the Sautekh emotional support club was formed.

[making-you-in-spore]

Tee hee! I request you make something that makes you happy in spore with no obligation to post it or share it if you don’t want to. I want it to make you feel joy. I hope it brings giggles to you when the road gets hard.

i made some lindwyrms the other day

and a chickatoo

as well as a radien

and cactimani

[kordeliiius]

A Cut From Every Cloth

Series of vintage photo mockups to commemorate Tarsier Studios turning 20 this year, featuring the main members of their pantheon in cultural clothing

Outfit descriptions and references below

Little Nightmares

Six - Japanese hakama, haori, and hair ornaments Mono - Swedish Dalarna suit Runaway - Embroidered Baju Melayu with headwrap

LittleBigPlanet Vita and Tearaway Unfolded

Sunshine - 19th-century Yorkshire dress with bonnet and lace shawl Atoi - Scottish tartan kilt and flat cap Sean - Regency-era suit with cybernetic motifs Flounder - Ringmaster uniform with Russian punk rock motifs Marianne - French folk dress with gothic accessories Otis - Appalachian denim overalls with decorative trim

The Stretchers, Statik, and Fists of Plastic

Red medic - Mexican serape wrap and sombrero Blue medic - Zoot suit with fedora and metallic accessories Dr. Ingen - Victorian pinstripe suit Hero - Hainanese bamboo dance costume

The City of Metronome

Ten - Irish-inspired coordination with walking hat and Galway boots New - Bai and Hmong Hoa-inspired outfit with traditional headdress and Hong Kong embroidery

[blueberrythefrog]

Got inspired from another user turning him into that one frog that stares at you. (Don't know who you are, but thank you for your service), so here, have autism kinitopet creature Alt Without the Text:

[cowandcalf]

Thanks again @mayberrycryptid for tagging me! I love that @trickster-archangel created such a great ask! Thank you so much!

I gave that topic a lot of thought and I just want to let you in on my POV. I go with the two separate worlds that are the mind of a civilian and the mind of a SEAL and I'm convinced neither of the guys would ever say 'I love you' in a manipulative way. They really mean it when they say it.

In 7.01 Danny is worried out of his mind for Steve and fears the worst. He has hoped that this terrible accident and the GW to the liver would bring Steve to his senses about how to treat his body with much more care. Instead of saying "I'm so worried about you. I don't want to lose you and when you keep being so reckless, I fear burying you before we have a chance of enjoying life outside Five-0 because I love you" … instead of saying that Danny rants at Steve and tries to make him guilt-ridden by accusing him of being ungrateful. Danny is passive-aggressive, we've experienced this before (the stakeout episode.) And Steve wants to calm Danny but instead of saying "Look, Danny, I'm a SEAL and my body is just another tool. I will never change. I don't want to change because that's who I am. I need to prove myself every day because I'm wired like this. That's who I am. My oath comes first, always. I don't mind dying to protect others. I know it's difficult to understand my world and how it works but as long as I can walk, I'll fight. I don't do rest-ups and stuff like that. It's not how my mind works. It's not what I want" … instead of saying that, he says that he loves Danny and that his love for him has nothing to do with how he treats his body.  

(And just for the 'proving always something' stuff: McRaven explains why every SEAL no matter how far he'd come has to prove himself every day of his life. He had a horrible parachute accident and almost got torn in half. When he was able to walk again he mingled with his men on the daily PT course and dragged himself through it, his body not quite fit yet from the accident. One sailor came up to him and said 'Why are you doing this? You don't have to prove anything anymore' and McRaven (Admiral) explains with vehemence why this sailor was wrong. Because every SEAL must prove himself every day of his entire life. Always. No slack. Never. Ever. Not one second. So, there you go and it makes more sense to what Steve is dealing with and why he doesn't want to take a break not even for the people he loves because it's who he is!)

Neither Danny nor Steve express what they really feel and mean. In the end, (7.01) Steve only agrees to take a few days off because he isn't doing well. He always rubs his fist against his heart. He knows that his body needs to rest but he only does it because he needs to, not because Danny has asked him to. He never rests. That's not what SEALs do. And in 10.22 he just can't live the way he did not even for Danny he can stay. He needs to go away. And in both moments his 'I love yous' are meant in the most honest way. From my POV.

Some information to understand SEALs better:

I guess, one needs to understand a SEAL's mind to make sense of what they do to their body. I only can refer to all the articles and books I read, to the podcasts I've been listening to held by former Navy SEALs where they exchange life experiences as a SEAL. I will add all the links to those great podcasts at the bottom of my little meta so you can hear and read for yourself. Resting and taking care of injuries isn't really on the top of their list.

SEALs are a special breed, and they treat their body differently. It's a tool that is used until it breaks and even broken, they use it until they collapse only to recover as fast as possible to jump right back into the game. It's what they do. It's how they are wired. They aren't successful because they treat their body carefully and respectfully, or living healthily. They are successful because they stress the physical laws to the max and even further. And they are trained to do that in every second of every day as long as they live. I don't speak for all of course, and my horizon is limited but what I learned so far fits Steve's behavior.

Just an example of what aspirants in BUD/S need to endure and want to endure because it's voluntary and they could ring the bell anytime, but they have a goal, and no matter what they rather die than give up. They deal with concussions, broken bones, dangerous infections, and near-drownings, many of them suffer from SIPE (Swimming induced pulmonary edema) from surf torture and they just keep going. After BUD/S, especially Hell Week their body is wrecked.

There was this article I posted once: Death in Navy SEAL Training Exposes a Culture of Brutality, Cheating, and Drugs

And here you can listen to the podcast with Jocko Willink and Rich Diviney talking about attributes, drug abuse in BUD/S, and why training must be hell and only hell among so many great other things.

And here you can listen to the podcast with Jocko Willink and Admiral McRaven talking about life in the Navy, being a SEAL, and all the missions they experienced. Wisdom of the Bullfrog. A fantastic podcast I highly recommand.

And as for Danny - he learns to speak his mind and express his deep worries later on in the season when Steve got hit with a portion of radioactivity from the dirty bomb. There he finally could just tell Steve how much he is worried and there Steve admits that he is worried too but he needs to keep going.

It's a completely idiotic thought brought on by my insomnia, but last night I suddenly realised that Steve’s 'I love you' at the end of 10x22, before leaving Danny (thus doing something he knows will hurt and/or disappoint Danny), has absolutely the same meaning, tone, and purpose, as Steve's 'I love you' in 7x01, when Danny is trying (and failing) to make him reason and not throw his life away. It's basically the only method Steve's devised to stop Danny and offer some sort of justification for the shit he's about to pull, despite knowing he's doing something wrong.

Ok I swear in my mind it made sense, but after today and with only a few hours sleep I'm not logical anymore!

ok so! here is my take on it but I would love to have others chime in cuz this fandom has the bestest metas and thinkee thoughts.

sneakily tags: @cowandcalf @stephmcx @ellena-asg @teruel-a-witch

Steve is a SEAL and SEALs get a ton of training. He's also a mess, thanks to shitty parenting, trauma of his mom's death and Freddy's death and his dad's death, and a whole lot of PTSD, on top of a pretty rough re-entry into civilian life.

I think Steve honestly means it when he says it both times, but he is still being emotionally manipulative. He is taking the counseling and doing what he is trained to do--use the tools he has been given to achieve the end goal.

What's really awful, but heartbreakingly accurate, is we're also seeing in both scenes how Steve can so easily fall into Doris' pattern of emotionally manipulating her family.

Thats the problem with abuse and trauma. People are so comfortable with these patterns that form such a huge part of their lives that it's seductively easy to repeat those patterns, even when they fighting tooth and nail not to.

This is also why so many stories about survivors make me do a hard eye roll. Being a survivor is not about suddenly being magically all better. Being a survivor is stepping into the shower and realizing that something you did at work last month was super shitty--and then feeling super guilty it took a full month for you to even grab a clue.

So yeah, you'e right but I believe Steve's not consciously aware of what he is doing. And I have always read Danny's expressions when Steve says it as Danny going into 'dad' mode.

Kids will often go through a 'I love you' phase where they try to wriggle out of consequences and Danny really seems to be like, Uh huh. I didn't buy it when Grace did it when she was three and I am not buying it now. But if you really want to act like a toddler, Steven, I'll humor you and say 'I love you' back.

cuz lets be honest, Danny humors Steve a lot😂😂😂

[piece0fbreadd]

Them

[klunkcat]

kitchen counters

part of the "live to let you shine" collection

rise of the tmnt word count: 2.7k

archer au belongs to @goodlucktai but they've been more than kind and let all of us expand the larger universe with them on this journey. Check out the link for future instalments by my lovely collab partners.

Art in this chapter is by the lovely @soldrawss

it's a delight and an honor to play in this sandbox with you all <3 read on ao3

He got up. He started the coffee machine, making sure to put the exact scoops needed and enough leftovers for an eventual third cup if it was that kind of day. It always was that kind of day. Today he was thinking he’d make avocado toast for breakfast. April had brought a bag of avocados yesterday, sometimes the variety was more effective than even a third coffee. 

Sometimes his brothers almost smiled. 

There were motions to this sort of thing. You made things with your hands to keep them from shaking, you washed blankets and folded them on empty couches. You kept the TV on playing old movies just to pretend it wasn’t silent. 

He’s been moving in the same path for long enough to be an expert. No one notices. He doesn’t need them to notice. 

The coffee pot is full, the kitchen is warm. If he’s alone then he’s alone and finding tasks to be busy with. To keep his hands moving. 

“Hi,” A voice greets him. Mikey blinks up, he’d been making toast, probably; half unconsciously. A familiar dotted face stares back, impassive and steady. 

Giorgio, the last little light. It pulls a smile on his cheeks from some tired place within himself that’s still curved comfortable and safe. “Hi sweet kid, want some breakfast?” 

Gio settles himself against the counter, arms crossed and wide eyed. He nods slowly. 

It’s one of those mornings again— he’s aware of the way the silence clings to the bones of this place, shaves it cold and hollow with memories no one wants to think on. There’s no movement down the hall to Donnie’s lab, but the door is shut fast and firm. The wide open spaces where the skate ramp had once stood are stark. It’s a morning that feels haunted, except they’d all want for the haunting if they could. 

“April brought groceries?” Gio asks quietly. It’s more a prompt than a genuine question.

Gio had fallen into their lives at a point where the safety net had more holes than threads to hold. He was young, had the signs of a life hard won and fought through, but he tried. Absorbed absolutely anything his family would give him, even when it was nothing at all. Dark eyes, taking in any and all of the light he could just to find himself. 

It was a tragedy in three parts just to watch him thrive off wavering candlelights and embers, wandering around the halls like a detective finding hints of some past crime. 

Mikey squares himself. Finds that thread left in him that’s farther and farther away every day. Gio deserves the light, he can make some for him. He can. 

“She did, I’m going to introduce you to the wild world of avocado on toast today. How’s that sound?” 

Gio shrugs, curiosity flickering in his dark gaze. He’d take anything any of them laid out for him like it was a gift. Mikey’s throat ached with the old wound of wishing. 

“You know, it’s funny. The first time I ever got my hands on fruit like this was because of April. Hard to buy things in stores, you know?” Gio did not know, Gio grew up somewhere far away in between pages, but he tilted his head at Mikey like he understood anyways. Mikey’s grin grew stronger. “I think it was peppers. Thought it would be neat to make these stuffed ones I’d seen on TV, use up all these special spices. Man, they were good .” He turns back to the fruit in front of him, carefully and easily slicing around the pit in the center. 

“Raph had two, ate them so fast I didn’t even see them go. So I thought I’d make him a third. Asked if he’d want this next one with more spice.” He shakes his head fondly. “And he just sort of squints at me, you know? He says, ‘are peppers not always spicy?’ So that’s how we found out he was allergic. The guy didn’t even stop trying to eat them after.” 

Gio huffs a breath, it’s as good as an outloud laugh. The bones in Mikey’s hands feel warmer as he carefully scoops the halves of the fruit into a bowl. 

He knows the version of Raph that Gio knows is… different. That he barely talks, let alone plays along. It’s another ache, another ghost. Mikey scoops out the pit from another avocado, and crushes it in with the rest. 

Mikey doesn’t want the kitchen to be silent. He’s so, so tired of silence. “You want to hear a story?” 

The quiet telltale noise of a kitchen chair sliding back answers his question for him, Gio props his chin up under his hand. The pilot light in Mikey’s chest flickers fondly. 

There are a thousand versions of a thousand moments he could pick from, they all hurt like pressing on an open wound. Some are more like bruises, though. Some he thinks are better to hurt. 

“There was this chef I knew. Had this crazy accident with mutagen, somehow instead of using it to make his cooking show more popular it made him desire eating people. Go figure.” He scoops out a portion of the spread onto a piece of toast, scraping it across as he talks. “Had a vendetta for people that told him no, funny that. He’d decided once that his whole plan would be to poison every other potential competition, which was crazy but you have to believe me when I say his pastries were actually that good.” 

“Better than yours?” Gio cuts in softly. 

He’s so, so grateful for the little bits of love Gio’s found here. How he radiates all of it back out so loudly in his own way. “Hah, I learned everything I know from watching him, but I will take that compliment.” He grabs two plates and slides them across the table, dragging his knuckle gently across Gio’s cheek as he goes. 

“We drove Raph up the wall. ” He remembers fondly. “He was dead set on trying to teach us to handle problems, and we were distracted by how delicious these things were.” 

Gio arches a brow. Mikey laughs, holding up a hand. “Survival instincts developed later.” 

He sits across from the kid, who hasn’t even made a move for his toast. Dark eyes serious and trained on him like anytime Mikey talked about who they had been before. Echoes of echoes, ghosts haunting themselves. 

“You wouldn’t believe it. All of us blearily goofing around and Raph panicking, trying to get us to take any part of it seriously. And our blue just walks up to a guy we needed information from, sweating up to his eyeballs and manages to charm his way almost entirely through the whole thing.” 

His smile turns inwards. They’d all relied on Raph so much, then, but there’d been these moments where Leo would just… clue in to what needed to happen. Pull an answer out of thin air like he’d known it all along and was just hoping someone else would give it a shot first. He’d always seen twenty steps ahead. 

Gio shifts. Reaches for his toast and takes a careful bite. Mikey pulls himself back to the present, makes sure his smile is warm and fond. 

“If we’d had you back then, I’m sure you’d have thought we were all completely off our rockers. Raph would have been delighted to have a back up.” 

He loves you, Mikey thinks. He does, I swear. He’d have loved to have loved you. 

The kid hums, considers. “Depends.”

“On?” 

Gio shrugs. “How good were these pastries?”

The kitchen is warm, the laugh that bursts from him is bright. Real, for a second, caught in this space between loss. He faults that for the way he forgets himself.

“Leo would have loved you,” he says. 

The moment freezes. Ices. 

Gio’s eyes are shining, but careful across from him. 

He doesn’t say his name; he thinks it, a thousand times a thousand ways, but he doesn’t say it. He can feel the flinch like a wounded noise in the stillness of his home. Ghosts misplaced and unsettled. 

Right. 

The smile fades. 

He misses the flash in Gio’s eyes. 

“You know,” Mikey makes himself say, a limping version of his usual cheer strangling itself in his voice. “I think I’ll save the rest for later. Maybe when Raph and Donnie are up.” 

“Right,” Gio says, softly. 

Raph and Donnie are never up. Dad’s room is a black hole. April hasn’t stayed in the lair longer than saying hi in months. Ten years stretches itself long and warped across the stone floors, a shadow that never sits right. 

“We’ll try again tomorrow,” He says to Gio’s careful dark gaze. I’m sorry , he means. I don’t have more to give you. I’ll be better next time. 

Gio shifts, scoops Mikey’s plate from in front of him. It’s okay, it means. I know. It’s plenty. This is enough. 

There were motions to this sort of thing. You tried to be someone larger than yourself. You watched your family drift farther and farther away. You were never enough on your own. 

The coffee pot is full, the kitchen is empty. He can’t pretend his hands don’t shake when he stops moving. 

Gio didn’t need a lot of love, he thrived like a weed on the barest scraps of it; a dandelion pushing through old slabs of shattered concrete. A kid growing despite himself in the middle of a ruined family. 

He should have it, though. The kind that was loud, was obvious. Didn’t need explanations or excuses, the kind that just was. 

Mikey’s family did love Gio, he knew they did. It was just… All of their love had gone somewhere else. Down a rabbit hole, following a comet in the night sky. Flashfire quick and burnt up in the atmosphere. It existed, it was there, but quieter; the feeling of heat after the sun has left.

Raph sometimes brushed his hand across Gio’s head when he made the infrequent journey from the practice area to the front door. Dad called him ‘Grey’ in the same way he’d used Orange and Red and once, Blue. April had gotten into a kick of looking for all the types of food Gio had missed out on through his ambiguous years before them, roped the kid and Mikey into trying out recipes together too. 

Don kept looking forward. Mikey couldn’t ask anything more of him. 

The love was still there, though, because it always was. It just wasn’t always the kind that Mikey thought the kid deserved. The kind he himself had been lucky enough to know when he was younger. 

You should get to be greedy, Mikey thinks, watching the kid try and fail another time to breach the threshold into Donnie’s room. You should never have to question it. 

A larger lump in his throat he clears away with a harsh blink, sorry Leo, you left me pretty big shoes to fill. 

“Morning,” He tries for a smile, forcing everything else back under the constant thrum of movement he’d been surviving off for ten years and four months. Gio blinks up at him, as unphased as ever by his brother's complete lack of interest. 

Mikey notes it anyways, the twinge of a furrowed brow, the unsure creep of his shoulders. He stores it in the place behind his heart he’s built for all the protective instincts he doesn’t know what he can do with. He puts a hand on the kid's shoulder. 

(He leans into it, of course he leans into it. Fractions of fractions of a family he should have always known.) 

“Hi Mike.”

“Hi, I have something for you.” 

Gio’s perpetually flat expression melts into a sidestep of curiosity. “For me?” 

Mikey giggles, rubs a hand across his spotted head. “See any other little brother’s around? Yes, for you, kiddo.” He leads them towards the kitchen, to the bench stools against the counter. He tries to make it bright in here, he remembers the kitchen always being warm. The kitchen should be warm for him, too.

Gio lets himself be led easily, dark eyes wide and trusting. He is a nineteen year old built in heaps and parts and scraps off self determination, of needing to survive and surviving it alone, but sometimes it all melts into something malleable; something Mikey can almost see the shape of, reaching all the way back half their lives into the past. He tries to be a good big brother the way he learned. 

He holds out a sweater, fresh from the dryer and as soft as anything with wear. Bright red and too large, the perfect shape Mikey had always thought, to feel like you were carrying home with you in your arms. 

“Loved to borrow this thing when I was younger. Figured it was time to pass the mantle officially,” He tosses it to Gio. 

The kid stares at it, at him. Holding it as though the sweater were a fine piece of china and not a decades worn old thing they’d all lovingly had a hand in weathering. Mikey huffs a laugh, feels his smile hang lopsided. “You’re supposed to wear it, Gogo.” 

His jaw works. “Isn’t it…” he hesitates, gaze snapping over to the practice room. “Isn’t this Raphael’s?” 

Raph’s, Mikey thinks with heartbreak in his hands. Raphie’s. Formalities don’t belong here, I’m sorry I can’t make you believe me. 

Mikey nods. “Mhm. Said you should have it, you know. Little brother special.” 

He hadn’t really, he didn’t say much of anything to anyone. He’d seen Mikey take it, though. It was as good as giving. 

Gio’s dark eyes snap up to his, something overwhelmed building in his expression before he scrunches his hands and pulls the whole thing over his head. Mikey is right, it’s far too big. The bottom of it brushes his shins. 

“It’s too big,” Gio says quietly. 

Mikey’s not having that today, he shakes his head, stepping forwards. “No, it’s perfect. Exactly right. You’re practically as tall as me, kid, do you think I pulled this off any better when I was your age? Right of passage.” He bends, and carefully tucks the ends of the sleeves into themselves, rolling it all to Gio’s forearm. 

“See? Perfect fit.” 

There’s a moment— Gio looking up at him, eyes wide. Sleeves poofed and large, hood a halo around his neck— he sees a flash of blue. 

“Yeah?” Gio says, flatly as he does. Mikey thinks he detects a hint of nerves in there, something akin to a kid who was once shy. He nudges Gio’s chin with his knuckle. 

“Would I lie?” He grins. 

He isn’t expecting the serious stare in return. “No,” Gio says, confidently. Without hesitating. Like it isn’t a hole puncher through the core of him, like he’s maybe been hearing the ‘they love you’s’ all along, like he can feel it in the hems. 

The kid looks down at the sewn on pocket at the front, shoves his hands in delicately like he’s unearthing a spider web from the dew. “Thank you,” He adds, after a moment. “I won’t wreck it.”

Mikey’s heart springs another leak. “You couldn’t possibly, buddy.” 

When the opportunity came, Gio jumped at the chance. Mike let him, god help him, he did. Fighting himself and the cobweb reminders of a brother he was trying to save, that it wasn’t a trade. That he wouldn’t, that losing Gio would be another piece of himself left behind. 

It didn’t help that Gio had folded the sweater so nicely. That he’d pressed it into Mikey’s hands and smiled in that tiny, sweet way of his, that he was sure Raph would want it back. 

He’d want you back, he’d wanted to say. He just doesn’t know it yet. 

Gio looked at him like forgiveness and regret all in one. 

Sometimes it goes like this: 

You’re a brother, you’re a part of a whole, and then you’re a part of a fracture. Sometimes you love, and you love, and you lose anyways, and what’s left behind is still beautiful, but it looks like somewhere you’ve never been before. You miss what it was, but the places where you were are small and curved and perfect, and what you’d had to become in the remnants is not anything like it had been at all. 

Sometimes someone has to go, and it’s not always you. He tries to be okay with that, he doesn’t think he does a very good job. 

[rizaposting]

Happy Royai day!!! 💙💛

Also works nicely for today's Royai Week prompt: Appreciate... Roy is very, very appreciative. Be sure to grab your Lieutenant firmly to let her know.

insp picture under the cut

saw this picture going around as a "draw your ship like this" meme and knew it was perfect for royai, even if this wasn't my original idea for today (I ran a bit short on time aaaaa). I'm still glad I was able to do something this year! 😌