#u know in video games. when sometimes there are levels where you're the guy on the ground and there's another guy telling you where to go ?

[ru5t]

@peranarkia //> Open Waves.

"Incoming broadcast to line K03... If any generous 'joys are out there..." A voice whispers through the static across a radio line that they pray reaches zones four and five. "The robotics field in zone 2... I'm hiding... Too many to fight alone. If anyone, anyone, can come and lend help, I'll make a fair trade when we both make it out alive... Please..."

  The dusty crackle almost passes right on by her, sprinting through signals as she is. It's a broad scan. The kind she sets up to combat the empty silence of the open desert, never really stopping on anything in particular but weaving through one frequency to the next, generating a stream of babble. So much idle noise that, funnily enough, what stands out is a quiet whisper.

  Tech sets her book aside to grab for the transmitter, hastily shuffling back to live line. At first it seems empty, some stretch of quiet static. Then it kicks up again. The call brings a tilt to her head the new voice on the end of he line can't see, of course. It's not often than an SOS goes down a locked line — then up come the words robotics field and suddenly it all makes sense. She locks in to transmit back.

  “You gotta be the luckiest unlucky bastard I ever ran across,” she opens, bypassing hello's and oh no's entirely. She knows the bot dump like an old pair of boots knew who broke 'em in. Including the part where if they catch you there they absolutely swarm. No fighting that, short of being bulletproof or going out with a bang and just so many bullet holes. “If you're already pinned there's no way I could get there fast enough, but here's the lucky part— I'm more use t'you all the way out here anyhow.” Multi-taking ahoy; while running it down, she drags her bag close and hauls out the rest of her gear, the transmitter pinned between he shoulder and cheek so she use both hands. “Now. Next time it won't get you ghosted straight off you poke your head outta whatever hidey-hole you're in an' tell me how close you are to that reeeeaaal tall stack, the one with the long yellow beam stuck out of it. ..Looks like it's givin' you the finger?”

[icycoldninja]

Hello!! Can I request for a platonic one for the Sparda bros with Nero and V? Like what if the twin have a younger sister who got most of their mom’s features, but still as strong as them. She’s kinda like Nero, stubborn, reckless, but has a big heart and like the twin she got an obsession with video games

Please n thank u 🙏

Yes, of course! Enjoy 💜

Sparda boys + V x Reader platonic headcannons

¤ Dante ¤

-Dante is reminded of you guys' mom every time he looks at you. You're basically a younger clone of Eva, which is both a good thing and a bad thing, because as much as he loves his mother, he is reminded of everything that happened when he looks at you.

-Dante trained you to be as strong as he is, (Vergil helped too) and is glad you turned out to be a badass devil hunter just like the rest of your family.

-Dante loves you, as any big brother does, but, being your sibling, he is obligated to argue with you at least twice a day.

-Will steal your food when you're not looking, especially if it's pizza.

-Sometimes your arguments turn into full on wrestling competitions where the victor usually isn't clear for several hours.

-However, Dante will always be around to play games with you when you want him to.

■ Vergil ■

-Vergil is that overprotective older brother that scares away all your friends and potential dates cause he doesn't trust them.

-He takes very good care of you because you remind him of his mother, whom he failed to protect. He'll make up for it now by protecting you.

-He'll train you to be a swordswoman who is at least half as good as he is so if you're ever in danger and he's not around to help, you can defend yourself.

-You are the only person who can get between him and Dante and stop a fight without getting injured or called deadweight in the process.

-Still, as siblings are inclined to do, you guys still fight a lot, usually over menial things. For instance, Vergil will insist you misplaced his copy of William Blake, you'll deny it, an argument starts, Vergil rises from his seat in anger, discovers he was sitting on it the entire time, and sits back down sulkily as you give him the silent treatment. About an hour later you'll be back on speaking terms.

-Doesn't know how to play video games because he's your boomer bro, but he won't object to being taught.

□ Nero □

-Nero finds you to be the cool aunt, though you're really more like his best friend since you have less of an age gap.

-Plays video games with you all day, every day, whenever you want.

-Is amazed that you have the power to stop an argument or fight between Dante and Vergil and that they actually listen to you.

-It must be because you look like their mom, Nero reasons, and he's right. Also, the fact that you look almost like a carbon copy of Eva means that Nero gets a chance to bond with his grandma and aunt at the same time.

-Loves to spar with you to test your strength and see how well Dante and Vergil trained you.

-Is really more fond of you than he is of his own dad.

● V ●

-V, being the human half of Vergil, knew who you were and had some level of familiarity towards you, but carried none of the brotherly love Vergil had.

-Because the memories he gained from Vergil are somewhat fuzzy, he mistook you as Eva herself when he first saw you and had to do a double take. Then when he saw you and Trish standing side by side, he thought the two of you were twin sisters.

-Does not know what video games are as he's only ever read poetry, but with your guidance, he might learn...someday...when he finally understands that the controller is not magic and that the TV is not a window to another universe...

-Is very glad you're as strong as the Sparda twins because his condition warrants a bodyguard, ashamed as he is to admit it. You, the younger sibling, must now protect her older brother's human half because said human half is trying to protect you.

-V cares for you, and even though he doesn't see you as his sister, he does see you as a very dear friend.

-He will divulge Vergil's secrets to you, and also spill the beans on how this MOTIVATED man feels about his baby sister so you can use it to tease him later.

[changbinsboobs]

You guys are blowing this “changbin being bullied” thing way out of proportion. They all tease each other, Chan has literally said so on lives before. Teasing each other is just how some friend groups are. Particularly in countries like Korea and Australia. I have had friends in the past who teased me about things like that but that didn’t mean they were mean people or that we weren’t friends. That’s just how some friend groups are. I don’t really like the way they talk to each other sometimes either but saying that they’re bullies is going a bit too far. And that clip of Lee know saying “You are the loser! You die! I kill you!” Was literally him joking around. Changbin was upset that he lost and Lee know was teasing him for it, so of course he looked upset. He honestly looked more annoyed than upset. I agree that it is kind of rude of them to call each other “fat” or “pigs” or “ugly,” but changbin is not the only one that gets teased. They poke fun at Han for being messy, they tease Felix for not being good at gaming, they tease Chan for being “old” and they’ve called Lee know a pig too. I’ve seen clips of changbin telling Lee know that he needs to work out more. There’s also a clip of Lee know and changbin during kingdom where Lee know has a busted lip and admitted that changbin actually hit him. And changbin gets visibly angry that Lee know said that on camera. I’m not saying this to make changbin seem like a bad guy, I just think that saying he’s the only one that gets teased is a bit silly. He can clearly give as good as he gets. This is honestly just how some friend groups are, and saying that they don’t like each other is just mind boggling. They are literally known for being close. They hang all over each other. They’re always feeding each other and comforting each other too.

I don't really agree because ur friends teasing you about something they KNOW you have a complex on and feel insecure is just straight up shit behaviour. Ur friends teasing you on something the whole "world" insults you about is straight up shit behaviour. Maybe we just have different tolerance levels or views but overall i never understood the whole teasing dynamic among friends, unless its just really pure humor and once in a blue moon etc. why do you want to bring a friend of yours downs for some funs? Even if its genuinely with good intentions if you see that the person on the receiving end isnt confortable with that maybe u should adjust instead of intensifying your teasing. Also all ganging up on one is just unfair and ugly. To me thats betrayal, having friends they know you have a complex and them continiously picking on that "as a joke". In fact i believe "bullying" like that its even worse than actually bullying because its in the clothes of a joke and if you speak up you're made to feel crazy, cuz its just a joke and you're too over sensitive yadayadayada. Now ur not only being picked on but also gaslighted. I just dont see how you can compare teasing someone once in every hundred video that they suck at gaming, with callign someone fat of ugly, or singling him out or putting him down in some sort of way, almost in every video. I also dont understand how you can compare that with them calling chan old, when he in fact is not, and we all know that, he knows that, and ufjgkgk just the whole vibe around THAT teasing is so much different.

Also the part with "he can give as much as he gets" is wild to me cuz i've never seen changbin teasing anyone maliciously, and at that i haven't really seem him teasing anyone unprovoked. If he "teases" people its mostly chan, han, seungmin or lee know according to my memory which serves them right. In my opinion he's way too nice and doesn't give AT ALL what he's getting back. He's doing the bare minimum to "defend himself" and equal the slates a bit but as i said i think he's just way too humble and kind hearted to actually give back what he receives.

Also the thing with lee knows busted lip made me snort cuz what😂 that was a "skit" or whatever its called. Changbin didn't really bust his lip it was makeup for the stage, they all had those😂

[ceeceetumbles]

ok hello i'm the anon that said you were my fav writer (which still rings true ily💖) and i had this idea and i know you'd be the absolute best at making it into a story (if you want) so leo's got this s/o and they get killed during the events of the movie. well after the kraang are banished and all that april gets him a build a bear kinda teddy bear that was his s/o's fav color with a heartbeat and a voice box of their laughter (hopefully you know what i mean here lol) so leo like cuddles this thing to death every night and brings it with him everywhere he can and he looses it one day or the heartbeat sound stops working and he gets rlly mega freaked out and that's when his bros realize he has a bad attachment to the bear so they try and help him move on as best as he can? does this make sense? i thought of writing it myself but i couldn't hold a candle to your talent so i was hoping you might maybe wanna write about it?? if not it's cool and i appreciate you very much

-💖 anon

ehehe i Love the level of detail u put into this >:))

also you're too kind :')) I've never posted fanfiction before and y'all have been so sweet and encouraging ahhh

okay I've never been to build-a-bear so i just used teddy bear town so i could kinda improvise how it worked! but my google history is still like "build a bear heartbeat" "can you wash build a bear in washing machine" "how does build a bear voice box work" lolol

anywizzles! hope u enjoy! I'm always open to any feedback u guys have, positive or negative - I'd love to be a better writer haha and i appreciate hearing what works and what could be better

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rise of the teenage mutant ninja turtles fanfiction ~ Leo x female self-insert ~ tw/cw: character died in the past; characters dealing with grief and mourning; a graphic nightmare scene <3

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He still sees her in his dreams.

He doesn’t believe in ghosts, but her memory is sure haunting him, night after night after night.

Every time he dozes off, she’s there.

Sometimes the dreams are sweet: her hands on his face, her lips on his mouth, her voice and her smile and her warmth.

And then she fades away.

He’ll wake up reaching out for her. His hands will stretch after her and he’ll gasp her name and she’ll smile softly and then as more and more consciousness wafts back to him he’s forced to understand, to remember. She’s gone. She’s dead.

And sometimes the dreams are nightmares. Sometimes he’s forced to watch her die, again and again and again and again. He’ll get so excruciatingly close to saving her. But she’ll rot away in his hands. Sometimes he is her, feeling the life drain out of himself as he falls to his knees above himself and gathers himself up in his arms.

Sometimes he kills her. Sometimes he is the Krang, hardening three of his tentacles into sharp points and piercing her body right where it is the most vulnerable. Sometimes he feels her blood coating his hands, and he stumbles back with a gasp, and rushes to the bathroom to wash and wash and wash but his hands are red, red, warm and wet and red, and the more he washes the more the blood spreads, until he is covered and dripping in the bathroom, and then when he turns he sees his brothers, open-mouthed and angry, and then when he turns around again, frantically, he sees his reflection in the mirror and it is her, blood-bathed and sobbing.

He hasn’t been sleeping much at all.

It’s been three months since that day, and he’s been spending most of his nights awake. Watching Donnie work, or trying to read, or playing video games, or anything else he can think of to keep his mind switched on. But obviously, he can only go for so long before his body begins to shut itself down. And then he has to sleep. Lost, restless, anxious sleep. He wakes up sweating, drawing in the sheets, shaking and afraid. He naps in the daytime, exclusively; when he wakes back up, there will be brothers ready to distract his minds and his nervous hands. The nighttime is too dark and lonesome and unforgiving to wake up from a nightmare in.

But he won’t tell anyone about any of this. He won’t show it.

All the others make no secret of their grief -- even Mayhem curls up in her old hoodies and whimpers himself to sleep. But Leo? Leo is so carefree and so cheerful and so accepting of it all that April can tell he’s hurting worse than anyone.

April sighs to herself.

She’s standing in the production line at Teddy Bear Town, armed with Raph’s free-bear frequent buyer card, holding a bear husk in her favorite color, waiting to upload a message into a voice box to place inside of the bear. She has the recording up on her phone already, a voicemail from her to Leo that she had asked Donnie to send to her.

Finally, the recording station opens up, and she places her phone next to the microphone. She takes a breath and hits “play.”

“Hiii, my love,” her voice croons. “I miss you. It’s been, like, what, two days? I miss you. I’m on my way back right now but I literally can’t wait until I get home to talk to you again. Call me back. I love you. My lovely, lovely Leo. I love you. Bye. Kisses. Mwah.”

It hurts to hear her, her voice warm and happy and innocent and so, so alive. April bites at her lip and ends the recording.

She puts the voice box in the bear, and a heartbeat heart in the bear; and then when she takes it home she douses it with her favorite scent.

The bear goes in a nice box and she takes it to the lair.

“Heyy,” she says, poking her head into the living room. “Is Leo here? I have --” she drops her voice “-- the bear.”

“I think he’s asleep in the room,” Mikey says. He’s eyeing the box, obviously desperate to see the bear.

“Do you think he’ll mind if I go give it to him now?” April gives in and reaches into the box, pulling out the bear and handing it to Mikey so he can examine it. “I can put it next to him or something.”

“I think he’d like that,” Raph says, softly.

“Okay.” She reaches out her hands and Mikey reluctantly hands the bear back.

“It smells just like her,” he says, his eyes getting watery.

April hugs him and then carries the bear over to the bedroom. She tries the door and it opens easily; she steps inside and glances at Leo in bed.

He’s twitching, twitching, whimpering gently and turning like a rotisserie chicken. The sheets are winding around him, tight, tight. His forehead is pale and sweaty.

“No,” she can hear him mumbling. “No. No. Please.”

She immediately shakes one of his shoulders, and he jolts awake, lunging at her but too constricted by his sheets to move much at all.

“Whoa! Leo!”

He struggles against the sheets for a moment before recognition comes back into his eyes; he freezes, wide-eyed, muscles still tense and quivering.

He doesn’t speak.

“Hey. Hey. You alright?”

He doesn’t speak.

April sighs gently and untangles the sheets from around him.

“I know,” she whispers. “I know, I know. We’ve been through a lot. You… you need anything?”

He shakes his head and forces a smile on his face. There’s not usually anyone with him when he wakes up. He just powers through the aftereffects of the nightmares on his own. He’s never had to deal with the embarrassment of attention.

“Oh, Leo,” April sighs softly, and pats his shoulder. “You know you can always talk to me if you need to, right?”

He nods.

“I got you something,” she says, reaching into the box and then changing her mind and just putting it down on the bedspread. “You can look at it after I leave, okay? I love you. Take care of yourself. Remember that you can talk to any of us, anytime. I love you.”

And then she’s gone, and he’s sitting up in bed, his heart still pounding, his palms sweaty, his ears ringing. She shouldn’t have seen that. No one should ever see that.

He sighs and rubs at his temples and stares at the box. Finally he reaches forward to grab it, and pulls it back towards himself, and opens it and reaches inside. His fingers make contact with something soft and fuzzy, and his blood stills when he recognizes the scent.

It’s her. It’s her smell.

He pulls out the bear, his heart pounding again, and examines it in the low light of his room. It’s her favorite color. He presses his face against its belly -- it smells like her. It’s soft, and cuddly, and it smells like her.

Each inhale feels like a stab wound.

He squeezes the left paw and she starts to talk.

He sits, silent, wide-eyed, barely breathing, staring at the bear as her voice talks at him. Her voice.

He lays down again, clutching the bear to his chest with a death grip that would probably strangle it if it could actually breathe, pressing the paw again and again and again. Listening to her talk. She’s talking to him.

“My lovely, lovely Leo,” she says. “I love you.”

Leo breathes in. Long, and shuddery, and then before he knows it he’s on his side and in the fetal position: choking and coughing on hoarse sobs that rake at his chest with each breath.

He tries the other paw and it’s a heartbeat. Soft, and gentle, and it doesn’t stop as long as he’s holding on tight. He shoves his face into the bear’s stomach again, and the heartbeat thumps reassuringly against his forehead.

He curls around the bear like it’s the only thing holding him afloat.

He wakes up eventually, after a dark and dreamless sleep, and the first thing he notices is that the pillow and the bear are both damp. The space under his eyes is damp, too.

He presses the left paw again.

She speaks.

“I love you,” he tells her. The last time he said it, she was bleeding out in his arms. He holds the bear tight to his chest, squeezing it like she’s come back to him.

He leaves his room to get a snack in the kitchen -- hungry, suddenly, and much braver with her scent held close. He’s pressing down on the right paw, feeling the synthetic heart beat against him.

April is still over; she’s sitting in the living room, watching TV with Leo’s brothers. Their eyes follow him. He pretends not to notice.

He feels so tired. He’s holding the bear so tight, and he feels so tired.

He goes into the kitchen and opens the fridge and stares at the shelves for a while, feeling the cool air nipping at his beak and the heartbeat pulse against his plastron.

Finally, he just closes the fridge door and walks back into his room. And he sits on his bed, and presses his face against her scent, and squeezes the left paw, again and again.

“I love you,” she tells him. “Hi, my love. I love you. I miss you. I love you. I love you.”

He falls asleep again.

His brothers and April peek their heads into the room and see him: wrapped around the bear, curled tight against the wall, still and quiet.

“He looks so calm,” April whispers. “He was… kind of freaking out earlier.”

“You think the bear’s helping??”

“I hope so.”

Leo will not let go of the bear.

He takes her around the house, clutched in his arms; he takes her to the grocery store and the pizza parlor; the only time he leaves her is when he’s heading out on patrol. He doesn’t want anything to happen to her. She sits tucked under the covers when he’s away.

He will not let go of the bear.

It’s been seven months since her death when he misplaces the bear. (She’s been tangled up in his sheets and thrown into the washer. But he doesn’t know that. All he knows is that she’s gone.)

He runs into the living room, panting, shaking, grabbing Raph by the shoulders.

“She’s gone!” he screams, pulling Raph’s face close to his own. “Have you seen her?? She’s GONE!”

“What?? Who’s gone??”

And he screams her name and then bounces from foot to foot, waiting for Raph to do anything, to say anything; and finally he just runs off again, back to the bedroom, tearing apart anything and everything he can get his hands on. She’s gone.

“I should have had Donnie put a tracker,” he rambles, running back into the living room and starting to rip off the couch cushions. “She’s gone. She’s gone. Where could she be?? She was in my room!! In my bed! Right under the covers! Someone took her, right?? I don’t know where else she could be. Oh no. I lost her. I lost her. No. No.”

“Leo, calm down --” Raph starts to say, but Leo wheels around and stares at him, pale and wringing his hands together, and so Raph stands up and starts to look with him.

Eventually all four brothers are looking; and finally Mikey screams from across the house and Leo drops everything he’s holding and chases the sound of his voice, frantically, until finally they slam into each other in the doorway of the laundry room and Mikey presses a familiar lump into his arms.

She’s damp, and floppy, and her fur is kind of weird now, and her scent is greatly subdued, but it’s her.

Leo shoves his face into her belly and squeezes her tight in his arms, catching his breath for a moment, gasping in whatever remnants of her scent he can get. And then he presses one of her paws, and then the other; and there’s just a staticky gurgling from one paw and nothing from the other.

“No,” he says, starting to panic again. “No, no, no, no, no, no, no --”

“Leo, what is it? We found it for you --”

“She doesn’t work,” he mumbles. He presses the paws again, frantically, desperately: “She doesn’t work. Where’s her voice?? Where’s her voice?? Where’s her heartbeat??”

“Leo, calm down. It’s okay. We’ll get you a new one, alright?”

“No,” he says again, starting to flap his hands. The bear shakes along with them. “No, no, no, no, no. I can’t just replace her --”

“It’s a bear, Leo. It’s fine --”

“No!”

“Leo! Calm down!” Raph reaches out for him, trying to wrap him in his arms so he’s safe and constricted and starts to settle down; but Leo dodges away and holds his bear tightly, securely, backing into a corner of the room.

“She’s broken,” he mumbles.

Raph and Mikey exchange a Look.

The three non-Leo brothers discuss the matter later that night, once Leo has gone to bed. They discuss the matter of him, and the bear. The decision is unanimous: they have to talk to him about the way he feels about the bear.

They corner him first thing in the morning.

“Hey,” Raph says softly, as soon as Leo stumbles bleary-eyed into the kitchen, dangling the bear by one paw. “How you doing, buddy??”

Leo shrugs and feels around in the cabinet for a box of cereal.

“We have to talk about the bear,” Mikey says.

“Look, we understand that you love it, and the last thing we would want is to take something that you love away from you -- but we’re getting worried about you, Leo. It’s not quite healthy to get so attached to a toy like that.” Donnie rubs at his arms.

Leo squeezes the bear against his chest.

“You guys don’t know what you’re talking about,” he snaps. “I can love my bear if I want to. It had her voice in it, remember? And her smell? It comforted me.”

“But, Leo --” Mikey starts.

“No! No ‘but leos’!”

“But, Leo -- comfort and dependence are two very different things. You’ve gotten dependent on that bear. And we know you miss her, and the bear reminds you of her, but --”

“Stop talking about her!” Leo shouts. “Her, her, her -- you didn’t know her! You didn’t love her! Not like I did!! Stop talking about her like you understand what it meant to lose her!” And he squeezes his fists together, relaxes, squeezes again. “You don’t understand what it meant to lose her.”

“Leo, we do understand,” Raph says, gently. “We loved her, too. Not quite the way you did -- but we did love her. We lost her, too.”

“But we’ve been able to move on,” Mikey adds. “And of course we haven’t forgotten her, and we haven’t stopped missing her -- but we understand that she’s gone. And that she’s not coming back to us. You have to deal with that, Leo, with the root of it all -- you have to understand, and you have to move on.”

“Move on?? You’re telling me to just move on from losing her?! It’s only been seven months! And besides -- besides -- I’ll never be able to get over her. She’s the sort of girl you don’t just ‘get over.’”

“Leo, Leo, I know. We all know. It’s not easy for any of us! We miss her, too; we’re grieving, too; but --”

“But you didn’t kill her,” Leo says, softly, and his grip on the bear loosens slightly.

“What?”

“You didn’t kill her,” Leo says. “Your hands aren’t stained red every time you look at them --” and he leans heavily against the kitchen counter.

“Leo, you didn’t kill her.”

“But I did. It’s my fault the Krang are here in the first place. If I hadn’t… if I hadn’t…”

He presses the back of a hand to his eyes and breathes, breathes, steadies himself.

“If I hadn’t made a mess of things, none of this would ever have happened. It’s my fault the Krang were here.” His eyes are getting hot, wet, messy. He keeps wiping at them, over and over. “It’s my fault. You’ve never screamed it at me, amazingly. I don’t deserve you guys. But you know it, I know you do; it’s my fault that the Krang got here in the first place. If I hadn’t goofed up so bad, then they would still be in that prison dimension -- and she’d still be -- she’d still be --”

He doubles over at the kitchen counter and slides down to the ground, hunched over, grinding the palms of his hands into his eye sockets and screaming silently.

“Leo.” Raph sits down next to him, and sweeps his little brother into a tight hug. His own eyes are misting over. “Leo, none of us blame you…”

“But you should,” he blubbers. “You should. It’s my fault. Don’t say it’s not, just to try to make me feel better. I know it’s true --”

Mikey and Donnie kneel down next to them, wrapping their own arms around Leo, and Raph encloses all three of them in his arms.

They sit on the kitchen floor, hollow and grieving and sobbing. And Leo has the bear squeezed against his chest still, tight, tight, because he can’t let her go. he can’t let her go. he can’t let her go. he can’t let her go. he can’t let her go.

But two mornings after that, there’s a scrapbook on his bedspread. It’s filled, cover to cover, with her. Her favorite things, her favorite color, pictures of her, and the whole thing is drenched in her scent.

There’s a note attached to it, from all three of his brothers, and April.

You don’t have to move on just yet, the note says. We understand that. But try to focus on her, okay? Try to focus on her memory. She’d rather have you remember her than have you freak out over losing a bear that sounds like her. You know she would.

Leo agrees. He thumbs through the pages, and she smiles up at him from each picture. He can still hear her voice in his mind, and feel her hands on his cheeks.

He imagines that she’s there with him, in the room, right now. What would he say to her?

I’m sorry I killed you, he would say. It was incredibly stupid of me and I am so, so, so sorry.

I forgive you for killing me, she would say. And then she would sit down next to him on the bed and hug him, long and hard and tight. It’s been rough? Right? I’m so, so sorry for that. I never want to hurt you, Leo --

Don’t apologize for that, he’d say. It’s not your fault. You didn’t do anything wrong.

But look at you. Look at how sad you are. I’m sorry. I’m so, so sorry.

No. Don’t be sorry. I’m happy to be sad over you. It means that I still love you. I still love you, so much; but the love is just spilling over from inside of me. I have nowhere to put my love for you. I’m happy to be sad over you.

You’re funny, she’d smile, and then she’d hug him tight again and kiss his forehead.

He shuts his eyes. He misses her, so, so much.

But okay. Okay. For his brothers’ sake, he’ll try. Maybe that’s where he can put his love for her -- he can put it on his brothers. He can try his best to make them happy.

He sighs through his nose and tucks the bear back under his covers. Okay. She’ll stay there today.

He’ll see her tonight. He’ll hold her close tonight.

And he’ll keep her alive, keep her alive and well, with the love that’s inside his heart.