#no one wants to give them shell injuries because that feels really bad | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

luveline · 11 months

Note

Hi Jade! First of all thank you for bringing back the zombie au, it is my absolute fave! Second, if you are taking requests for it currently, maybe r (with Robin maybe?) goes and finds a gift for Steve just to make him smile (which may or may not make him break into tears with how vulnerable and emotional he's been with all the stuff he's been through?) Thank you for all your lovely writing!

thank you anon! fem!reader, 8k —You, Steve and Robin make a risky trip for non-essentials to improve your quality of life at the camp. Steve's feeling stressed, you try to make it better, and Robin finds a cat in the display section of the mattress store.

tw for zombie apocalypse typical implied violence and gore, food insecurity, injury

"We'll call it something really cool," Robin says, "like Y/N and Robin's ultimate quest for cleanliness."

Robin is a little dirty today. She's scraped her hair back into a tiny ponytail, and it flicks out at the back of her head like a feather duster. You think it's adorable, and you lean around her shoulders to try and touch it. Steve pulls you back bodily.

"Stop touching her," he says.

"Just her hair," you say.

"No, because you know how ansty she is, it's like poking a sleeping dragon."

"Shut up! Shut up, loser, I haven't been antsy at all, I'm planning a girl's trip as we speak."

You laugh and fall back into Steve's arms, the kind of laugh that makes your chest feel tight and your eyes scrunch closed. A girl's trip is definitely one way to put it.

"I'm just saying," Steve says, not just saying at all, "that you're dangerous right now. Next time I'll let her touch your hair and you can bite her hand off."

"She can touch my hair. I don't know if you've noticed, Harrington, but that right there is my very best friend."

And okay, it's not true, Steve and Robin have the strongest friendship you've ever seen, but there is a truth behind it —you and Robin get along well. It would be difficult not to love her, she's a gem, and she cares about the person you care about most in the world at the same level (though in a different calibre).

You worm out of Steve's arms to give her a quick hug. Steve steals you away again and you laugh as you go, flopping your weight onto him and almost knocking him flat onto his back.

You, Robin and Steve are sitting around the campfire in the centre of camp. It's rather big and blissfully hot, the sky a velvet black that hides the smoke. Children sit with droopy eyes to the left, some with parents and most without, though the community is full of good people with great hearts who've swooped in to help look after them. Already, an older woman named Matildhe seems to have gathered a brood of six children, all young, and all wanting cuddles. To the right, Jeremy Livingstone and Joyce Byers plan the unplannable, a map of Michigan at their feet held down by stones. Jonathan sits by his mother's legs with a baby in his lap, her sleeping face pressed to his chest. He taps her back absent-mindedly. "What about here?" he asks, drawing a circle with his finger. Will, his younger brother, moves the flashlight beam to follow his direction.

Despite the fire, the wind bites at your backs, a nippy chill. Steve has solved this by becoming your windbreaker, or so he claims.

"She loves me," you murmur.

"I love her," Robin agrees.

"That's why you can't come on our girl's trip," you say.

"Girls," Steve says, measured, "I'm unsure, but I'm starting to think that you think you're going somewhere without me."

"No, we know you'll crash the party. But we're going to pretend you aren't there," Robin says.

Her chipper attitude makes you laugh for the millionth time tonight. Steve laughs in tandem behind you, his breath fanning warmly over the shell of your ear.

It smells like woodsmoke and pine needles meshed together here, two smells that alone are nice but together give you a headache. You wrinkle your nose and sit up properly, worried about squashing Steve or hurting his bad knee. "The smell is so strong out here," you say.

"Shit, this guy bothering you?" Steve asks, pointing his thumb at the fire.

"Kick his ass, Steve," Robin says.

"Are you losers drunk?" Dustin asks.

You twist on your butt to face him, Steve's favourite sixteen year old standing in the dark wearing two coats and three scarfs.

"Are you cold?" Steve asks. "Come and sit with us."

"We aren't drunk, just happy," you say, gesturing for him to do as Steve said.

Dustin sits by the fire with you, groaning. "What is there to be happy about?"

You bite your top lip. Dustin is so young, and he's lost a lot. More than he ever should've had to lose, twice, his sense of normalcy destroyed. You don't blame him for being depressed over what is possibly the most traumatic thing he will ever have to experience. You don't want to offer him empty platitudes or tell him how to feel, and Steve doesn't want to either, but he can't watch him mope. He loves him too much.

"Dusty," he teases, "don't be so down. Haven't you seen this glorious and ridiculously enormous bonfire we have going on?"

"I see it," Dustin says from behind gritted teeth.

"Hey, do you want to sleep in our tent tonight?" Steve asks, a tad more seriously. "It's warmer with more people, and it's not as crowded as you think it'll be."

"No, thanks."

"You could drag your tent closer," you say, quieter, trying not to smother him or embarrass him with parenting he never asked for.

"I don't like being near the boundary. You guys might be okay with ending up as geek chow but the rest of us have common sense."

"Well, we didn't really have a choice there," Robin says.

Which is true. The kids all get to sleep in tents close to the fire, and the adults are a row behind. You guys aged out of the kids category a long time ago, so you're the ones who'll be eaten first, but you're also the ones who'll hear the can alarms when they ring on the tripwires first.

Steve sleeps with his baseball bat anyhow.

You disentangle yourself from Steve's grips and meet his eyes. He doesn't need you to tell him, but you give him a look that hopefully says, Maybe you should talk to him. Eyebrows raised gently, lips pursed.

Steve sighs like he's preparing himself and shuffles around you. He doesn't begrudge Dustin needing cheering up, you know that. He probably just wishes he could offer Dustin more than, "We have food and water and a place to pee."

Robin crawls right to your side and sets back on her haunches. "Here's what I think we should do."

"Wait, you don't wanna wait for Steve to explain?"

"Nope, he'll say no. Me and you have to find the best way to sell it so we can actually go."

"You aren't kidding about the girl's trip?"

"Nope. Look, the situation is dire. We know where the mall is, we've been there tons of times. The whole group can't go and we don't trust most people to keep us alive anyways, so me, you and Steve will go. We'll sleep there or something too, so there's no pressure on us to rush back and stress out Steve."

"Wouldn't it be safer to hurry back?" you ask.

Robin hums. "Maybe. Uh, if we travel at night like I've been thinking about doing I don't think we could hurry back."

"At night?"

"We're basically nocturnal at this point." You dip your head toward her mildly. She drops the slight facade she'd had, "I would feel better. If we went at night."

The College, the community you and your group had inhabited until recently, was attacked and destroyed by raiders. They were likely drawn by the black smoke of the small bonfire in the quad of the campus, lit to celebrate a quasi-thanksgiving. It wasn't supposed to end up the way it had.

Robin got attacked. Steve was there to help her get away uninjured, earning himself a black eye. She can't sleep if she's by herself anymore. You hate yourself for not being there to protect them.

She's afraid of being attacked by people rather than geeks now. Travelling at night increases the likelihood of dying via geek (you can't see them, they can smell you), but it vastly decreases the chance of meeting other people. It makes sense that a night time excursion is her preference.

You just don't know how you feel about it, and you have no clue how you might convince Steve to go along with it.

"So you want us to hike to the mall at night. Is it on the map? Where even is it?"

"I don't remember the name, Steve'll know it 'cos we've been there, but what matters is that I know for a fact there's a fancy soap store. I need soap, Y/N. I can't take this anymore. And if I don't brush my teeth soon I'm going to scream, my finger can only do so much."

Occasionally three of you take a pea sized dollop of paste and rub it over your teeth in an effort to feel less disgusting, the same way that you wash with a rag and cold water behind the treeline, and dunk your clothes in the river without detergent. Water is a good cleaner, but eventually there's a funk in the clothes that can't be washed out without soap, or Robin's current issue: oily hair.

Without soap and toothbrushes, you feel about as disgusting as a person can feel. If you don't make this trip soon, you'll be in the exact same boat as Robin, one bad stain away from screaming.

"And the fancy soap shop definitely has soap?"

"Definitely. And there's a department store with blankets, too. We could really improve the quality of our miserable lives."

"You don't have to convince me," you say, though it might not hurt in actuality. You're hesitant to leave the camp, but if Robin's leaving she can't go without Steve (who would never let her go alone), or you, because you refuse to be separated from Steve (or her, honestly). "It's Grim Fandango who needs greasing." Grim being Steve.

Steve has managed to wrap an arm around Dustin. You're half-expecting Dustin to be wriggling under his touch, desperate for an escape, a teenage boy allergic to both sincerity and affection, but Dustin's dissolved like jello powder in boiling water, totally slouched into Steve's side. Steve's hand runs the younger boy's upper arm briskly.

"It'll be okay, dude, I promise. We've come this far," Steve says.

"I'm just tired," Dustin says quietly.

"Maybe we should sell it, as uh, an enrichment trip," you suggest to Robin. "We can get stuff for the kids, some board games or something." They need an escape.

"I miss my books," Robin says.

"Holy shit, me too. Steve says you can tell the plot of every Agatha Christie novel from memory, is that true?" you ask.

"Only the good ones. Can I lie down on you?"

You let Robin lie down with her head on your thigh. It can't be comfortable but maybe it's better than the floor, or maybe it's just nice to be close to someone. You like having Robin with you. You'd been so apprehensive of her when you met, not because she was Steve's best friend —though that did worry you to some extent— but because you had trust issues to the neck and she was the first person beside Steve to be nice to you without motivation. In this world, that doesn't check out.

"What ones do you know?"

"Murder on the Orient Express?" she offers.

"Okay. Set the scene, Buckley."

Steve returns just after the detective finds out that Ratchet has been murdered. "I love this part," he says.

"Then let me tell it."

Robin spins for a while, but you peel away from the fire before you're too tired to stand and retreat to your makeshift tent. It's a tarp held up by two sticks and a blanket on the floor, but it works to keep away the rain and most bugs. There's not quite enough room for you three, but there's also literally no other option, and none of you mind. You squeeze in like tinned sardines, sleeping in your coats and shoes.

In the morning, you and Robin attempt to sell your idea to Steve over lukewarm oxtail soup. You and Steve share. Robin had to tip half into a bowl for someone else. The rationing is going okay.

You could've ended up with a can of garden peas, or chopped tomatoes.

"It's actually better if it's only us, you see, because we can sneak around and it'll be much quieter. And they don't need us here right now, everything's settled. And me and Y/N want to so we should."

Steve wraps your hand around the can of soup so you don't touch the hot bottom. He doesn't look like he's even remotely listening to Robin, his eyes on your face and his hands not far behind. He neatens you up, so to speak, scratching a little dirt speck from your cheek and folding the rolled collar of your shirt. "This," he says finally, his hand curling behind your neck, "sounds like a very bad idea."

You shudder happily as he starts to scratch your neck down to your shoulders. "Steve, what's bad about it? We'll be like the Three Musketeers, travelling in darkness, a mission for the people."

"Did you ever read that book?" Steve asks, his hand dropping to your shoulder, where it stays for a reverent second. You look gross and he still wants to squeeze you.

"No," you admit, lips on the sharp edge of your soup. You take a careful sip.

"We get there quickly, spend a night on the mattresses at the department store, and… Hey, why don't we go live in the mall?" Robin asks.

The idea of a real mattress is seductive, but not that much.

"Because we don't want to paint a huge target on our backs?" you ask.

"I'm kidding." Robin peers down at her soup unhappily. "I really hate oxtail."

Steve noticeably flickers. He meets your eyes, and you think he's speaking to you in his head. Fucking hell, I can't believe what I'm about to agree to.

"If you can convince Mrs. Byers to delegate us an actual weapon, then okay, fine, we can go to the mall." He stretches out his mostly healed knee and rubs it with both hands. "Fuck. A knife. Actually, I want each of us to have a weapon. So if you can somehow magic that into being, we can go."

"I don't see why we even had to ask permission," Robin jokes, "like it's the sixties or something." She springs up to her feet, forces her oxtail soup into the hands of one of the preteens by the fire, and beelines for the small crowd of kids surrounding one much taller Joyce.

"You'd still come with us even if you didn't want to," you say.

"Yeah, obviously. Robin's right, this isn't the sixties. That being said, if it was a worse plan, I'd tie you to a tree."

"I could be into that," you tease, pleased when he scoffs through a laugh. His elbow drives into your side. "Stop, fiend."

"No, fiend. Take the force of my elbow." He nudges you.

You elbow back. He elbows harder. You potentially give him a bruise and feel extremely bad when he "Oofs," aloud.

"Sorry," you say, climbing up on your knees to put your arms on his shoulders. "Sorry, sorry, sorry."

He shoves you away from him and you're evil, you're selfish, you want him to dote. You fall flat on your back in the dirt and grass, covering your smile with the crook of your elbow so he doesn't immediately know you're fine.

"Shit," he cusses, kneeling between your legs, moving to hover over you. "I didn't mean to knock you down…" He sees your smile. "You lying conniving trickster."

You smile harder, lips pressed together and your chest light as a feather for the first time in days, until suddenly he's squished on top of you and pressing down. "Ow," you fake, wriggling away from him. "I think there's a twig in my brain."

He wriggles with you. "You suck, you made me think I hurt you."

"Don't be a wuss, I get hurt all the time, how do you even know I'm not hurt?"

He sighs all quiet and lifts your head off of the grass. "I can't see through your hair," he says, "did it actually hurt?"

You take his face into your hands. Your fingers are very cold, but he doesn't flinch.

"I'm messing with you, H."

"When did that nickname catch on?"

You rub his cheeks with your thumbs. Fingers behind his ears, you smooth over his short scratchy stubble affectionately. Quick, you lift your chin and touch your lips to his. It's hardly a kiss.

He leans down slowly and makes it a better one.

"Stop," Robin says, kicking you in the ribs. She isn't cruel about it, more of a toe touch.

"Oh, hi, that was a quick rejection," you say, frowning.

Robin beams. "Actually, we've been approved. One knife apiece and a request for children's clothes. Get packing!"

She whizzes off in another direction, seemingly to pack and gather the allocated weaponry.

Steve drops his chin back down to you.

"Does she have secret things we don't know about?" he asks.

You scratch his scalp, "Mm… I'm not supposed to tell you."

He sits up. You frown.

"She really has a secret stash?"

"No, Steve," you laugh. "No, of course she doesn't. Where would she hide them?"

Steve yanks you up by the arm playfully. You pretend to fight him, but it's no use. You'll do anything he wants you to.

—

Steve didn't necessarily think that a hike through the outskirts of an infested city would be easy, but he also hadn't realised it would be this boring. Especially a trip he's already made in the past. Boring and kind of hard.

It's not because you aren't capable —you might've taken a hit when The College collapsed, but you've mostly recovered, and your endurance is good. You have the best survival skills you've ever had, and Robin is similarly ready for whatever it is that might get thrown at you. Too bad preparation doesn't make you a ninja.

He isn't at his peak and he was no man of steel beforehand, and although he was good enough to keep you both alive, he's not sure if it's still true. Plus, he wasn't expecting to feel so moody.

You're marching on like a true warrior next to him, your hand around his wrist and swinging gently, your eyes on the ground. Steve's flashlight carves a weak path through the dusk. Soon, it'll be completely dark, and that's when he imagines his worrying will reach a fever pitch.

For now, he tries to be chill.

"Is my hand not good enough for you?" he asks.

"I figure you can pull away from me quicker if you need to if we're not, like, sewed together."

"You have weird hands," Robin interjects. "They're big. I wouldn’t hold them either.”

"That's why they're nice hands, Robin," you say. "Well, maybe they're just nice because I love him."

"I love him. Mostly. He still has weird hands," she says.

"You don't get it," you say.

You wrap your arms around his bicep and hug it quickly before backing away again. He thinks you kiss his coat, but he really can't tell.

"I don't think I want to get it," Robin says.

You're quieter when you ask, "Is that really true? You don't want to be in love?"

In the dark, and at night, it's quiet. It's nearly always quiet everywhere you go nowadays, but it feels immense this far from the camp. Steve is on edge. Too distracted for heart to hearts. But he wants to know the answer too, so he stays nice and quiet.

"I love that you're in love," Robin says lightly. "And I love you both. But I've seen you guys when you think you're going to lose each other, and surviving is hard enough without… that."

You let your hand slide down to his hand, your palm flat to the top, not holding it but holding him.

Steve clears his throat. "It's worth losing my mind every time she decides to wander off because of the peace she gives me when we're together."

"The peace?" Robin asks. She sounds like she wants to be incredulous but his sincerity has tripped her up.

"I'm with her and…" He can see the side of your face in the flashlight. You're smiling shyly, your gaze on the grass beneath your shoes. Footsteps rustle in the gap of his words. "I don't want to be anywhere else as long as she's there."

"It sounds like a toothache," Robin says.

"You know, I used to get bad toothaches all the time before we found you, and Steve made me a teeth guard out of a leather armchair with a pen knife and a needle and thread."

"Did you just make that up? Trying to convince me about the magic of love?" Robin asks.

"No, he really made it for me, I used to keep it in my nightstand," you say. He can hear your smile.

He made it because watching you cry from toothache left him feeling powerless. A guy who'd never even held a needle and thread before bent over his lap with a flashlight in the hours while you slept until his eyes burned because watching you sniffle made him feel sick. He can't describe the ache of it, loving you but not having kissed you, or even really told you, his girl so stressed at night your jaw had locked tight and you were reduced to whimpers each morning. Having to watch you pretend it wasn't happening until you couldn't, until you broke down crying with your hand wrapped around his wrist like it is now. Sorry, I'm sorry, I'm so sorry, Steve, I just– I want– I don't know– I can't–

He was useless. He was stupid. He could barely bring himself to rub your back because he thought another touch might knock you over.

Calm down, honey, he'd murmured. Just calm down.

He never could've imagined seeing you cry like that before he did. You couldn't move. You explained it like a headache when words became feasible again, which, Steve's had headaches; concussive migraines that were white hot and everywhere. So he could imagine it even if he'd never felt it, and there wasn't a single thing he could do about it. Willing to try anything, he'd even wondered if he could pull your tooth out himself. Mouth surgery is prone to infection, and he couldn't face levelling that amount of pain onto you personally. So rather than fix the tooth, he'd have to fix the stress. He couldn't fix the stress, so he looked for anything at all to ease the pain. Ibuprofen, codeine, even a course of antibiotics. And then, finally, the leather mouth guard. Leather stacked and sewed with sanitised, loving hands.

"It's weird what that kind of love can bring out of you," Steve says quietly, matching the surroundings. "I did a great job. I'm a seamstress."

Robin pretends to throw up generously and noisily. Steve shushes her. You, in a very good mood with no signs of calming down, laugh behind your hand.

"I can make you another one," he offers. He hadn't thought about it yet, but of course you don't have it anymore. Anything in your nightstand is lost forever.

"You might need to. I'll be a stressed mess all over again if we don't find some socks, I can feel my ankle bone piercing the back of my shoes," you say. No socks either.

Robin's flashlight turns quickly to the right. You and Steve flinch at the same time to guard the other, peering in the exposed direction. There aren't many trees around here, so all to be seen is yellow-green grass and empty air.

"Sorry, I got the heebies," Robin says. "Maybe it was your disgusting declarations of love."

"Hardy-har. Where the fuck do you think we are right now?" Steve asks.

"Wait, you don't know?" you ask.

"You have the map," he says back.

"Oh, right. But how do we navigate in the dark? We don't have a compass."

"I have the compass!" Robin announces.

"From where?" you ask.

"How did you think we'd get there in the dark, angel?" Steve asks you genuinely.

He doesn't have time to wonder if it's okay to call you angel. He's never done it before, but it felt right in the moment. You're kind of like an angel, protective and sweet and a symbol for goodness.

"I thought because you guys already knew where it was– we– we set off while it was still light! I assumed we'd just walk straight."

Steve and Robin laugh at you, but not without love.

You pretend to sulk for a while, though you shine your flashlight at the map when he asks, your arm threaded through his and face leaning on his shoulder. "I'm so confused," you mumble.

"Don't worry. I know where we are now," he says.

"No, I know where we are too, but I'm confused as to why I thought this was a good idea."

"This is a good idea because I've had greasy hair for two weeks and I feel like a worm," Robin says. "And we need blankets, and moisturiser, and to feel like real people."

Steve has a better list than that. He needs moisturisers for your cracked hands, antiseptic for the healing cut on your thigh. He needs shaving foam or at the least a goddamn razor, a new shirt, you both need underwear and you're in dire need of shoes that fit. He wouldn't mind a compression support for his knee, a pair of scissors, and most of all a box of cigarettes —a quick trip to the pharmacy would fix a lot of problems.

"I feel pretty real."

"You're real pretty," Steve says quickly.

"Yes! Oh, yes! Kiss?" you cheer, delighted at his swift wit.

Steve knows —he knows— you're putting on a brave face for him. He cried on your shoulder and you haven't cried since. You're being the strong one. You're trying to make it work.

You've always been the strong one. Steve has taken care of you so many times; held your hand in torrential rain when you were too tired to go on; scrambled through rotten floorboards to find you on your back and unconscious, fed you water in your sleep half-worried you were dying and there was nothing he could do to stop it. He's fought for you, the dead and the living —he would do worse for you. But you've done the impossible, surviving every ache and pain, coming back from things he didn't think you would. You crawled through glass for him. You stumbled in the dark bleeding and exhausted to do as he asked, to meet him at the end of an endless day.

He gives you the kiss you asked for. There's only one clue that you aren't as happy as you seem. Your breath catches as he leans down, like you thought he might not give you one after all.

It takes you hours to get there and way longer than you thought. You don't realise you're upon it until the grass turns to roads under your feet, and the road turns to parking lot. There's a shattering of glass spread over the floor like a spilled bag of salt that crunches under your shoes. Steve grips your elbow and the three of you creep inside past the doors. They're open, which is bad and good. Bad because someone's been here since the last time, and might still be inside. Good, because Steve's not sure any of you have the energy to open them.

"I don't think I have to say this, but please, let's whisper from here," Steve suggests.

"Damn, do we have to?" Robin whispers. "I was just about to start my rendition of Singing in the Rain."

You laugh through your nose.

"We'll go up to the bedding store, okay? And we'll grab some blankets, and then we'll find a storage room and barricade ourselves in."

"Steve, I wanna sleep on a mattress," Robin whines.

"But we don't know who's here," he says. "Buckley, I swear, I'll carry a mattress back to camp for you if that's what you want, but we have to live to see the morning first."

"It's not like we haven't done it before," you say, nudging her gently. "Can we go back to whispering? I'm really nervous. I don't want to attract anything."

"Sorry," Robin whispers.

Being outside in the dark had felt horrifying but mostly manageable. Being inside is terrifying too, and though your flashlights make it easy to navigate now that there's walls for the light to reflect off of, it's scarier knowing this is an enclosed space. You can only run so far in either direction.

Your fingers twist in the corner of his hoodie. He doesn't say anything. For a split second, he remembers you doing it in the past, before he'd even thought about kissing you, when you were scared and he was more angry than anything else (though not usually at you). He'd pretend he didn't feel it. He was a bitch but he was never cruel, and if you needed to scrunch the hem of his jacket in your hand to feel better then that was alright.

"You okay?" he murmurs.

"I'm okay. I think my cut is weeping."

"What?" he asks, head clicking as he turns to you. "Since when?"

"Not sure, it just feels weird, like it's wet."

"This is the kind of thing I'd love to know." Steve sighs. "The bedding place is up here somewhere. You can let me take a look at it."

You, Steve and Robin walk up the frozen escalators, your footsteps making banging metal sounds that echo through what feels like the entire mall. Hackles raised, Steve ushers you both into the bedding store, pulling Robin by the sleeve before she can stop to deliberate over blankets to the very back of the store where a door demarcates the Staff Only room.

"Listen," he whispers, "we are going to go in there back to back, just like we always do. Robs, I promise, as soon as I've checked her leg, I'll help you do whatever you want. Cool?"

"My leg is fine."

"If it gets infected, I know for a fact there aren't any antibiotics here," he says. They've looked. "We have to stay in front of it. Are you ready?"

"Steve, we're not amateurs," Robin says. She hums. "Okay, I might be, but you owe Y/N some respect."

"No, I'm an amateur."

"You're not an amateur," Steve says. "Girls, please."

"Can we veto 'girls'? I want to be dudes," Robin says.

"Robin–"

"Okay, okay! Let's do it."

—

You wake up with the driest mouth in the world, your head bumping from hunger and bad sleep —the floor still feels like the floor, no matter how many pillows you have— to sounds just outside of the door.

You hike up on elbows and feel your heart climb into your mouth. Steve's hand is on your neck, and Robin's foot is over your calf, and this is a very bad time to be locked in, especially weighed down as you are by fleece blankets.

"Steve," you whisper, blindly reaching out with your own hand. You accidentally smack him in the face with the base of your thumb. "Oh, shit, sorry. Steve, there's something outside."

He's impressively alert when he opens his eyes. He couldn't have been sleeping deeply. "What kind of something?" he whispers back, sitting up.

He pushes the blankets away and climbs onto his knees. The noise happens again, quickly followed by a smash and a third sound like a thump.

Robin flinches awake next to you. You put your hand on her shoulder, hoping it says, Hey, it's fine, you're fine.

"Where's your bag?" Steve asks you, standing up tall.

It's disgusting, but you're holed up in the employee bathroom. As far from the toilet and sinks as physically possible but with a buffer from the door. Staying in a storage closet hadn't been possible, the staff room door hanging off the hinges enough to not close, and the storage room a medium space crammed to bursting with mattresses and shelves of sheets that wobbled threateningly when touched.

Your bag is somewhere under the blankets. You scramble onto your knees and search for it. You'd put your things away for the sake of neatness. Silly move.

"Here," you say, pulling out a flashlight for Steve. He takes it into one hand, pen knife in the other unsheathed. "It's probably a geek."

"Yeah. Can you put your shoes on?" he asks, not unkindly.

You shake yourself and do as he asks you to. Robin helps you up. Steve creeps to the door, waiting for you both before he opens it into the main floor.

"I don't think we need the torch," Robin says.

Daylight illuminates the room through the windows set in the west wall. You all squint and step out, arms in defensive positions, treading softly so as not to be heard.

Another thump. You can't hear footsteps, exactly, just the occasional, irregular thump. Geeks are usually noisier. Dragging steps. They'll walk into walls if they're following a specific scent.

Steve turns to you both and raises his eyebrows. Brace yourselves.

He hits the butt of the knife into the wall three times.

Nothing shows itself. You stand frozen for a few minutes anyways, even when Steve and Robin decide they want to venture further into the room and scope out the place. You watch their backs, heart still pounding and with no signs of stopping.

“Oh, fuck,” Steve curses.

“What?” you and Robin hiss at the same time.

“Come here. Y/N, come over here,” he says, like you aren’t already half-way across the floor to meet them.

Steve gestures at a showcase bed with velvet purple sheets. They’re not even dusty, no signs of time or wear, nothing to speak of a different age. Nothing, that is, beside the dead bird on the pillowcases, and the carpeting of fur surrounding it. It's odd for Steve to point you towards any gore, and you're a tad shocked, until he takes your forearm in his hand and pulls you in front of him. "See?" he murmurs.

He points to the pillow. You follow his finger.

Robin speaks first. Correction, Robin squeaks first.

"Is that a cat?" she asks, all the excitement of her discovery squashed tightly into a frankly impressive whisper-shout.

Robin refuses to move after that. She begs Steve for some of the dried jerky (of unknown origin and animal) from the rucksack and lays down on her stomach when the tugged tabby you've found flees beneath the bed frame. "Here, kitty," she murmurs, her gentlest tones. "Come on, killer, I need your help."

Steve nudges you.

"Oh, you're talking to me?" you ask Robin.

"I need your help," Robin insists, looking at you from over her shoulder. Her hair is limp around her face, her cheeks flushed red with excitement. "She has to know we're all friends."

"Watch my back?" you ask Steve.

He sits on the end of the bed, "Don't have to ask."

You set down carefully next to Robin and peer under the bed for the tabby. Your arrival has scared her half to death.

"Maybe she's only used to seeing geeks," you say.

"Maybe she thinks we're geeks," Robin says agreeably.

"Me and Steve found a dog once, but he wouldn't let us touch. He begged for food and then he ran away," you say.

"The dog wouldn't let you touch him, or Steve wouldn't let you touch the dog?" Robin asks, waving the jerky around.

"A bit of both."

"Kitty," Robin sings.

"Oh, god, this is comfy as fuck," Steve mumbles, laying down in bed. "Robin, you have to get up and watch your six, babe."

You and Robin laugh in sync and aloud at his 'babe'. It's you who stands and continues taking mild guard. You're not worried about intruders anymore, thinking that any company would have presented itself already, but you like keeping them safe. You take check of every corner of the room, spinning in the world's slowest circle. Robin baby talks to the cat under the bed while offering scraps of jerky. Steve, having curled away from the bird, lets his fingertips brush your thigh each time you turn.

"Getting dizzy?" he asks.

"Yes. And hungry, too, which is a weird feeling together. Can I have some of the jerky?"

Steve offers the bag. "If you're hungry, eat what you want, but if you can keep it to a little portion just in case we can't find anything else, honey…"

You stop spinning so much to eat jerky. You eat more than you should, you hunger a cruel, sharpened thing that jabs from your stomach and up into your diaphragm. You hand Steve back the bag before you can eat someone else's share and decide to focus on the other negatives in your life, like your shoes.

"Can we look for shoes soon?" you ask.

"Yeah, honey," Steve says. Honey, honey. His voice is soft with an ever-present fatigue.

"I don't think this cat likes me very much," Robin says, still singing.

"She's just scared. Maybe if we leave and come back again she'll realise we're friendly," Steve says.

"Yes sir." Robin stands, brushing herself down. "Oh, ew, Steven, how can you lie there? You know the cat's probably spayed all over that bed, right?"

Steve springs up. "Okay, ew."

“It’s okay,” she says. “Let’s go get some new clothes.”

It’s harder than it should be. The three of you move from store to store on high alert for what has to be an hour, searching for practical, fitting clothes. The time for modesty is over, and you take turns changing in front of one another while the others make sure you aren’t about to become naked geek feed. You’re so unclean that putting clean clothes on feels wrong, but you do it anyhow. You double back to the store with suitcases and bags and fill a suitcase to bursting point with the clothes that Joyce requested for the children. You sit yourselves down at some point, always exhausted, to try on sneakers. The relief of finding and changing into a pair that fits cannot be understated. When you’re sure there’s at least pants and a sweater for every child, you pack up and head for the fancy soap shop.

Robin is ecstatic. Ideally, you can all carry one bag on your shoulders and pull one suitcase, so you each fill a bag with soaps and brushes and powders, figuring that if you find food or medication worth carrying you can empty one of the bags rather than double back.

“I’m sorry we didn’t actually sleep on a mattress,” Steve says.

Robin shrugs nonchalantly, kicking aside an empty helium tank with her foot as you pass by a card and gift store. She’s grown less happy as time goes on, unsatisfied with the day's events. Finding nice soap hadn’t felt important with no water around to use it. The cat was rabid, you’re all living off of jerky and river water, and now you have to hike home again in the dark, hours of fear and tenseness.

“I miss your car,” Robin says.

You hadn’t ever been in Steve’s car, but you say, “Me too.”

“Maybe we should find a real tent,” Steve says, apparently not listening.

“Isn’t that kind of mean?” Robin asks.

“I mean, if the others wanted a tent, they could’ve come.”

“I don’t think it's mean,” you say. “But I don’t see how we can carry it.”

“I can carry it,” Steve says. “Just a small one. Big enough for us.”

“Does us include me?” Robin asks.

Steve laughs. “Duh, it includes you. It’s Y/N that’s gonna have to sleep outside.”

“Or me and her can have the tent and you can be our watchdog.”

“We can’t, um, stay outside forever, right?” you ask quietly.

Steve puts his arm over your shoulder for a quick squeeze. “No, we can’t. We’ll find somewhere permanent soon. There’s barely any geeks the more we get into Michigan, who knows. Maybe there's none at all up top. But…" He lets you go. "I'll find somewhere."

"Steve, you sound ridiculous," Robin says. "'I'll find somewhere,'" she quotes, voice deepened.

Robin might joke, but you feel reassured by Steve's promise. You keep your head up for the rest of the day.

—

Later, much later, when you've travelled back to the camp with aching everythings and taken the world's coldest bath in the river nearby, you, Robin and Steve pitch your brand new tent and near collapse. It was night when you finally reached the camp that day, and so it was morning by the time you laid down. Steve has to admit that bathing and building a tent in the dark had been fun, annoying and indicative of the situation but a pleasure anyhow, to hear his favourite people in the whole world trying not to shriek at the cold water, overjoyed and laughing as you finally washed your face with real soap, and terrified that the river would knock you down.

You're shaking with the cold now in his arms, practically sitting on his thigh as you brush his still damp hair back from his eyes.

"I can't believe you're still cold," he says, kissing the line of your jaw affectionately.

Robin, despite hours without sleep, had volunteered to help Sarah corral the younger kids for some early breakfast. Steve thinks it's because she likes Sarah. Your theory was that she's generous enough to give you a half hour of privacy. She's good like that.

Whatever it is, you're alone for the first time in days. It's no different than when you're with friends, only you're touchier and Steve's an honest fool.

You wrap one of your new blankets tighter around your shoulders and shift. "Am I hurting you?"

"Nope." He squeezes you tightly to his front. "You're shivering. Put your hands under my shirt."

You do it quickly, smiling like he's given you the world. "'Member when you'd let me do this? Even when we weren't really dating?"

"We were dating," he says.

"What, before or after the taco truck incident?"

"Before," he says sharply. He pauses. "Alright, maybe not then. But we were definitely dating when you'd put your hands in my shirt. You don't do that for just anyone, I'm not a run around."

"Steve, you used to let me sleep in your lap. Like, a month after we met."

"'Cos you get so damn cold," he says. You're still shivering. He rests his cheek against your neck. "If I didn't let you, you'd spend the whole night shivering and making these really sad sounds."

He's not even teasing. Just being honest.

"I'm sensitive," you say.

"You're used to sleeping indoors like a normal person."

You ease off of his lap. He doesn't want you to; he'd keep you close forever. Plus, he feels guilty cuddling you in front of Robin because he knows public displays are uncomfortable, so he wants to really take you in while he can.

"I have something to tell you," you say.

"Oh?"

"Or, something to give you. But I can tell you something if that matters."

"Tell me anything." Everything. He wants to know everything you have to say.

"Well… well, before this happened…" You rummage through the bag you'd brought home with you, the tip of your tongue peaking out. "You know, before the world half ended, I wasn't– I don't know if I can say it."

"Please?" he asks.

You pull something into your hand. "Alright. I didn't think I'd ever fall in love. And then the world ended, and I really didn't think I would, but you found me and I love you, so it wasn't true."

He thinks about it. You, years ago, when he'd see you in the halls at school or walking home. He doesn't have much recollection of you beyond that, but it aches in a weird way to think you'd been walking around feeling like you wouldn't be loved.

Steve licks his lips. "I get it, because I kind of worried the same thing. Like I'd keep loving people more than they loved me."

"And then you met Robin?"

"Exactly. She taught me more about love as my best friend than any of the girlfriends I had."

"Well, I didn't get a Robin back then, but I have you now, and I guess I want you to know it's important to me," you say. "I know things are so hard right now, I know," —you clear your throat as emotion creeps in to your tone— "you put on a brave face for me. I know you're tired. But I keep going for you, and you keep going for me, and I want you to have something so you remember that even if I'm… not around."

Steve sits up straight. "Hey, you're not going anywhere."

You blink rapidly.

"Where is it that you think you're going without me?" he asks, softer.

"Nowhere. But I just need you to know how much I loved you."

"Love," he corrects.

"How much I love you," you agree, sniffling. You look around at the tent floor, your shoulders raised just so. "Sorry, I'm not gonna cry or anything, I just hate thinking about it."

You hand him something wrapped in a new sock. He bites his lip to stop from laughing at the wrapping and unpeels his gift.

It's a watch. Silver, heavy, glass unscathed and hands tick tick ticking. Steve doesn't know if the time is accurate. His old watch broke a long time ago, but this one looks vaguely similar.

"You gave me a necklace, once, with a little diamond. I know I don't have it anymore, I shouldn't have taken it off. But you gave it to me when I was miserable, and I know you're not miserable, but–"

"I am," he says, rubbing his thumb over the watch. There's a tiny diamond set at the bottom of the clock face. He has no idea why, but the idea that you saw it and remembered his gift that long ago, that you wanted him to know you love him, that pays for some truth. "I'm miserable. I'm so scared for us." He breathes out hard. "Sorry."

Steve's eyes tear up. He tries not to let it show, but he's looking down at the watch and his vision is blurring, and he's thinking Fuck, fuck, I'm crying in front of her again.

You shuffle across the plastic floor toward him and clutch his hand. He's shaking minutely. You must feel it.

"It's okay, baby," you murmur.

He ducks his head.

"It's okay. I know," you say.

"I know that you know," he says.

"But it's hard," you prompt.

"Yeah."

You needle your arm behind his neck and him close. He can't hold back anymore, throwing his arms around your waist because why would you say that stuff to him? You're so evil, you're horrible, you're the very best thing that's ever happened to him and he loves you and what if you do die? Nobody will ever, ever be like you. There's no one out there with your smile, nobody who turns at the sound of his voice as you do, happy before you've set eyes on him and ecstatic when you have.

And if you live (please, God, if you live), Steve wants to give you a better life than this. He's constantly panicking because he doesn't know how.

But you don't mind. You don't love him less for the situation.

"I don't even know what to tell you," you say, stroking the hair at the back of his neck tenderly, "cos I tell you I love you so much it doesn't feel like what I mean. I love you. I love you, Steve."

He hugs you until he's not crying, wishing his cheeks would dry themselves when he finally raises his head and kisses your cheek. "Thank you," he says roughly.

Steve sits back and wipes his nose. You offer the sock. He laughs and bats it away.

"I love you, too," he says. He thrusts his wrist at you. "Strap me in?"

You fasten Steve's watch and, in what's becoming a theme, you kiss his pulse.

"Sorry things have been so hard," you say, adjusting the watch until it's sat comfortably.

"You make it easier."

"Guys!" Robin says, forcing her way into the tent with an exuberant smile on her face. There's something in her arms, a wriggling mass of matted fur. "Look! The cat followed us home! I'm gonna name him Stinkyboy! Or Shark. Get up, I need help catching a fish!" She waves the cat's paw at you both. "I knew he liked me!"

—-

the Steve zombie au

#steve zombie!au #steve harrington x reader #steve harrington x you #steve harrington x y/n #steve harrington #steve harrington fic #steve harrington blurb #steve harrington drabble #stranger things x reader #stranger things fic #steve harrington imagine #steve harrington fanfic #steve harrington fanfiction #stranger things #stranger things 4

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misteria247 · 1 year

Note

Do you have any head cannons on a 12 non-verbal Leo… like if his throat injuries start to bother him a lot more?

Ooooooohhhh boy do I got some-

Like I've stated before Leo isn't much of a talker due to his vocal chords acting up sometimes. He only talks when he needs to or when he's forgotten about his injuries. However when he does push his vocal chords too far and ends up going silent it usually results in this.

When Leo's voice gets incredibly bad, his brothers almost know immediately. It's the way that Leo acts, he's more quieter than he usually is. He'll swallow a bit more, and when he speaks or clears his throat there's a barely concealed flinch of pain and discomfort. Leo of course will try to act like nothing's wrong but it becomes quite obvious that Raph, Donnie and Mikey are already in on his little game and are already going into protective brother mode. Once they enter into that mode Leo will most times just accept it, knowing that arguing is pointless, especially since he can't speak.

Mikey's the first one to help Leo, by essentially becoming one of his main voices in talking to people or talking to him and keeping Leo's openings of possibly talking to a minimum. They'd come up with a system the two of them, which they later teach to Raph, Donnie, April and Casey. Whenever Leo needs Mikey to speak for him it's usually in little signals of sorts. Tapping on his little brother's shell or shoulder, drumming his fingers on Mikey's hand, brushing up against his shoulder. Leo doesn't have to say a word for Mikey to catch on fairly quickly, the youngest Hamato being so in tuned with his brothers. Mikey's also a bit more watchful of Leo, always watching him for little ques to let him in on how his throat's doing. Leo doesn't mind it, in fact he's quite relieved that Mikey's able to understand him without words just as well as he does with words.

Donnie's the second one to come to Leo's aid when it comes to his throat and damaged vocal chords. Donnie's first step is to get Leo a cup of tea, or more specifically a special medical brew that Donnie himself had created to help aid and soothe Leo's throat. He also checks him over, making sure that his vocal chords aren't getting worse than they already are. Leo let's him do as he pleases, mainly because he can't really say anything without being in agony and it makes his little brother feel better to examine the oldest Hamato. Once Donnie's done he'll be in mother hen mode afterwards, tending to his older brother's needs (though Leo is perfectly capable of doing it himself) and making sure that he has the right stuff in helping to aid him. Donnie and Leo had also taken up sign language should such a situation like this occur, and the two will often times be nothing more than a flurry of hand movements as they converse to give Leo's throat a break.

Raph's the last to help Leo out. Since he's not exactly chatty like Mikey nor is he medically inclined like Donnie, it's Raph's duty to be the support of Leo. And by support I mean he becomes a temporary speaker of the clan and family in Leo's stead. While Mikey is the speaker of Leo's unspoken needs, Raph's the speaker for everything else. This includes important things and missions should Leo's vocal chords decide to give him hell. Due to how close Leo and Raph are, it's not difficult for them to communicate with one another. Silent conversations spoken with tiny movements or eye contact with one another or just a simple small hum from Leo and Raph's able to figure out exactly what his older brother wants. It's honestly quite freaky to those who don't know how close the two eldest boys are, but to those who personally know them it's a pretty normal occurrence.

And if April and Casey are around when Leo's voice gives way they too do whatever they can to help their friend.

April who's also taken up sign language will have conversations with her friend, taking Leo's mind off of the pain and discomfort that he's feeling. She'll also give him reassuring squeezes and gentle rubs on his shoulder or shell to let him know that he can take as long as he needs to speak. April's incredibly patient with Leo, and if his vocal chords are so sore that he's not even up for signed conversations, April will then just sit quietly with him, offering her comforting older sister presence to the hurting leader.

Casey meanwhile gives Leo that much needed dosage of normalcy. While Leo appreciates his brothers and April's care and efforts in helping him during this thing, he's still Leo who if he gets overwhelmed by being unintentionally babied so much, will most likely flip out, sore, swollen throat and vocal chords be damned. With Casey he makes sure to treat Leo the same way as he always does, reassuring Leo in some way that he's not being invalidated by his family and that they still see him and hold him in a normal viewpoint.

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nobodyfamousposts · 1 year

Note

How would the doll's react to the whole Krang situation and would they feel their possession thing similar to akumatization and try to enter the prison dimension with the horse to wreck their already wrecked lives? Or would they comfort the turtles for all the trauma the Krang caused them?

Mmm...a bit of both. The Dolls want revenge, but they of course want their Ministers of War friends to be healing and comfortable.

...whether they want to or not.

(In the med bay, post movie events. The bros are still somewhat injured and in various states of bandages.)

Raph: (Sitting still)

Littlebug: (Pats a bandaid on the hole in his shell)

Raph: Thanks!

Littlebug: (Pats his shell)

Chaton: (Hugging Mikey)

Mikey: (Hugging back) Thanks lil guy! I feel better already!

Donnie: (Scanning Mikey and Chaton) I should hope. He’s absorbing the remaining mystic power from your body left by your attempt to open the portal.

Mikey: …so my fever is going down?

Donnie: Sigh. Yes.

Mikey: You’re my lil nurse buddy!

Chaton: (Purrs then hiccups)

Mikey: Wait. It doesn’t hurt him does it?

Chaton: (Becomes increasingly jittery)

Donnie: Like a sugar high apparently.

Chaton: (Ready to face smack some meanie-flies!)

Mikey: Wait—no.

Donnie: …maybe we should send him back to his mother and let her handle it?

Littlebug: (Also wants to face smack some meanies)

Raph: No. Your Mom would kill us if anything happened to you.

Littlebug: (Huffs because she wouldn’t be in any danger! She would just throw some things from far away!)

Raph: No.

Littlebug: (Just a few pebbles? Pleeeeeeease?)

Raph: And just how big are the pebbles?

Littlebug: (Side eyes a pile of fist-sized rocks before moving in front of them to hide them from view and making an inch gesture)

Raph: Yeah no. Let’s just leave the Krang where they are.

Littlebug: (Looking very unhappy)

Mikey: No really! You don’t have to do anything! The Krang are…err…

Leo: They’re in Time Out!

Littlebug: (Frowns but acknowledges that Time Out is a big punishment)

Leo: That’s right! So they’re all in time out so they can think about what they did. And they’ll be staying there until they’re sorry and ready to apologize.

Donnie: Which would likely be never. (Is hushed by Raph)

Leo: So let’s maybe give the Horse Miraculous back to Mama and not worry about making any more portals to prison dimensions?

Littlebug: (Nods in acceptance)

Mikey: That’s right! We should be more focused on Leo's injuries.

Leo: Wait what?

Mikey: The bad guy beat him up pretty bad.

Dolls: (Eyes widen and look at Leo in outrage)

Leo: Guys, I’m fine! Really!

Littlebug and Chaton: (Hug Leo)

Leo: Mikey, I just got them calmed down!

Mikey: Don’t worry! Leo was only trapped with a killer alien in an inescapable prison dimension for ten minutes!

Dolls: (Hug more fiercely)

Leo: But I’m fine now, really! Just some bruises and scrapes. Give me a week and I’ll be back on my feet!

Mikey: After sacrificing himself to save the world knowing he would be trapped forever with the killer alien with no escape!

Dolls: (Gasp)

Mikey: And letting the killer alien beat him up and slam him into concrete after having sent his beloved brothers away from the fight so they couldn’t help him!

Dolls: (Cling to Leo, teary-eyed)

Leo: …you’re doing this on purpose, aren’t you?

Raph: Well, that's one way to keep them out of the Prison Dimension...and Leo in bed.

Leo: Like you can stop me!

Raph: Are you reeeeally gonna move and upset the Dolls that very clearly worry for your well being?

Leo: (Looks down, realizing he'd have to move the Dolls to get up)

Dolls: (Look up at him, puppy eyes)

Leo: (Gasps and looks at his bros) You planned this!

Mikey: (Winks)

Raph: You're a horrible patient, Leo. We'll take whatever advantage we can get.

Donnie: I agree with Raph. Mostly so I don't feel guilty.

Leo: Betrayal! Betrayal on all sides!

Raph: You can get over it after you REST, Leo!

Leo: (Huffs and leans back in bed, arms crossed) ...I’m gonna milk it for ALL the croissants now.

Donnie: You can try.

Leo: AND I'm having them bring Camembert!

Mikey: NO!

Raph: Leo!

Donnie: Don't you DARE!

#ml crossover #rottmnt crossover #dolls au #dolls au au #littlebug #chaton noir #rise raph #rise mikey #rise donnie #rise leo #rottmnt movie

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extrasfromthevoid · 2 months

Text

Sibling Saga (part 1/5)

@tmntbestsibscompetiton

Raph and Milo have my favorite sibling dynamic because they're both the eldest of the bunch and feel a responsibility to protect their brothers. Milo feels it strongest as the elder sister (and the oracle), but Raph still has that protective brother inclination he has in the canon. It's a bit reduced though since he doesn't have the pressure of being the oldest and biggest, and being the team leader. With Milo in the picture, Raph is just the biggest.

For Raph, Milo is like...his personal hero. She's strong and kind and always gives it her all to protect them, and Raph wants more than anything to protect Milo back in turn. This is the moment in their childhood that really solidified that for him.

For Milo, Raph is the brother she has the closest bond with. He's her little shadow and someone she trusts to protect their family should she be absent. She adores his bold spirit and how he's unafraid to express his interests and joys. She's also the only one in the family to show any interest in wrestling, so Milo and Raph frequently watch together. Unlike Raph, Milo doesn't have a favorite wrestler as she just enjoys watching the performances and cheering alongside her biggest little brother.

(also, I believe in field-medic!Raph supremacy. He takes the relatively minor/everyday injuries while Leo takes the more in-depth surgical knowledge. If you've got a bad scrape or burn or flesh wound, you go to Raph. If you've got broken bones and potential internal bleeding, you go to Leo)

[fic below cut]

“And stay gone!” Milo shouts, waving her bokken threateningly as the dog runs back down the alley from whence it came.

Her breath comes out in ragged huffs and her left arm stings painfully, but at least the threat is gone.

Exhaling heavily, Milo puts the bokken on her back again and turns back to her brothers. Raph is curled protectively around Mikey, Leo, and Donnie, his spiky shell facing outwards defensively but a noticeable tremble in his shoulders.

“Everyone okay?” She asks, crouching down to them.

Mikey pops out of his shell and nods. “I’m okay.”

Donnie mumbles something Milo can’t quite catch.

"Donnie and I are okay too,” Leo says.

Milo nods. “And you, Raph? You were really taking the brunt of that,” she says, eyeing the sluggishly oozing scratches and the scuffed sections of his shell and shoulders, and a couple of scrapes on his legs from when he hit the ground.

He turns to look her in the eye, about to answer her when his eyes abruptly focus on Milo’s arm. “You’re hurt!”

Glancing down, Milo finds that the aching wound on her arm is a lot more visually distressing than she thought. At some point, the dog had lunged for her face and Milo put her arm up in a rising block to defend. Instead of sinking its sharp teeth into her face, it sunk them into Milo’s forearm. She didn’t think much of it at the time. It hurt, sure, but she could still fight and the threat was still present. So she kept going.

She hadn’t realized it was so deep until now as she watches the blood dribble down her arm, off her fingertips and splatter on the pavement of the alley.

“Oh. It’s okay, Raph. It’s just a scratch,” she says, trying—and clearly failing if her brothers’ expressions are any indication—to hide her profusely bleeding arm.

Raph pivots fully to face her, releasing their other brothers, who are circling, clearly torn between wanting to help and wanting to vomit—mostly the latter in Donnie’s case—though Mikey is visibly on the verge of tears.

Milo hisses a little in pain as Raph pulls her arm out between them to inspect her injury. Her heart breaks a little at the sad whine that comes from her little brother as he gets a clearer look at the damage.

The distant noise of the human city suddenly becomes less distant and Milo is starkly aware of how exposed she and her brothers are.

“Come on. Let’s go!” She hisses, abruptly herding her brothers towards the manhole.

Milo doesn’t relax until all five of them are safely sequestered in the cool dampness of the sewers and out of sight. Leo wastes no time climbing up onto Milo’s back and Donnie onto Raph’s shell with Mikey—the latter a little grumpy about being beat by Leo to his favorite spot, that being Milo’s back.

With the looming danger gone, Milo lets herself relax. However, Raph immediately starts pulling Milo along—thankfully by her uninjured arm.

“Whoa! Raph!” Milo exclaims in surprise.

“We gotta bandage your arm before it gets infected,” Raph stats firmly.

From his perch on Raph’s shell, Donnie nods. “No repeats of The Incident, dear sister,” he declares.

Milo grimaces, thinking of the ugly, puckered scar on her left thigh and the miserable sickness that followed the injury that caused it. Her brothers hadn’t left her side for a month as she’d been bedridden with a high fever, even after she’d recovered thanks to the medicine Dad brought her from the surface.

Admittedly, Milo’s a little surprised they remembered given it was four years ago now, but she’s also quite touched. Still, Milo wishes they wouldn’t worry so much about her. Worrying is supposed to be her job.

Quietly, Milo relents to letting Raph tug her along as Donnie, Leo, and Mikey chat loudly amongst themselves. When they return home, the three youngest dismount from Raph and Milo.

“We’re gonna go tell Dad what happened,” Leo declares.

Donnie goes rigid. “Wait! Leo, maybe Dad doesn’t need to know all of it—!”

He’s gone—Donnie and Mikey on his heels, begging for Leo to minimize their own involvement in the events leading up to their close encounter—before Milo can object, and Raph pulls her towards their designated med bay.

It’s just a small side room, nowhere near as impressive as Baba’s was, but in the years that Milo has lived with Dad, she’s found that none of them need anything near the level that she had with Baba. They’ve got a fairly robust stockpile for dire emergencies like broken bones and cracked shells, but the bulk of their medical supplies are bandages and anti-bacterial salve because that’s most of what they need.

Raph immediately bee-lines for the metal box covered in stickers that sits in the lowest cabinet—well within easy reach for their smaller brothers just in case they need it for whatever reason—and sits on the ground in front of Milo. Silently, she does the same, watching as Raph picks out the salve tube and cotton swabs and gauze wraps from amongst the collection of bandaids and gets to work.

They sit in silence for a while as Raph applies disinfectant and looks over the bite mark on Milo’s forearm.

And then…

“You shouldn’t have done that, sis,” Raph mumbles.

Milo starts. “Huh? Of course I had to do it, Raph!” She protests. “That dog was really mean and it could have hurt you all really badly.”

Raph’s eyes shine wetly. “But you got hurt protecting us…”

“I’m your big sister, Raph,” Milo says quietly as Raph wraps her injury.

“It's my job to protect you. I don’t mind getting a scrape or two out of it.”

His beak scrunches irritably at that, tears spilling from his eyes. “But if you’re protecting us, who’s protecting you?” He asks.

Milo doesn’t have a good answer to that. She doesn’t see herself as someone who needs protecting. She’s supposed to be the one doing the protecting. If there comes a day where that isn’t the case, then that means that Milo isn’t doing her job right.

She’s about to say as much when Raph continues.

“You matter so much to us, Milo. I hate it when you risk yourself like this,” he admits. He wipes his tears on the back of his arm and when he meets Milo’s gaze, it’s with a look of absolute determination. “That’s why Raph’s gonna to protect you right back!”

Milo finds herself chuckling at that. “Okay, sure.”

“I’m serious!” Raph protests, face flushing with his indignation.

“You’ll see! When I’m bigger, I’ll be able to protect all of us, just like you!”

Despite herself, Milo can’t help the warm, fuzzy feeling that blooms in her chest. She smiles fondly at her little brother.

When he wraps her arm, Milo turns the favor right back on him. Raph’s injuries are a lot more superficial than Milo’s but are more numerous. They’re giggling amongst themselves, picking through the selection of novelty bandaids when Dad comes stumbling in, Leo, Mikey, and Donnie shuffling sheepishly behind him.

“Green! Red! Are you both alright?” He exclaims.

Dad doesn’t even wait for them to answer before fretting over them both, looking visibly pained by the deep, still oozing bite wound on Milo’s left arm. Even now, little spots of red peak through the bandage, but not enough to warrant changing it right now. Later, definitely, but it’ll be fine until the bleeding stops completely.

“Oh, Green…”

“It’s alright, Dad,” Milo assures him. “It’s just a flesh wound.”

“Milo…that dog bit you pretty deep…,” Mikey whimpers.

“Yeah! What if you get rabies!” Leo shouts. “Are we gonna have to get you to a human hospital? Rabies is no joke! You’ll die from it!”

Donnie elbows Leo sharply in the side. “Nardo, that dog definitely didn’t have rabies,” he states calmly. “It was just aggressive and poorly trained. Still, our dear sister is at risk of infection. Who knows what that beast put in its mouth before biting her.” Donnie sticks out his tongue at the thought.

Dad exhales shakily and ruffles Milo’s hair, messing up the strands she has tucked behind her green bandana. She laughs, putting up a token protest against the show of affection.

“At least you all are alright,” Dad says.

“Of course we are!” Milo beams. “I’ll always make sure we come home safe.”

Raph shoulders in, pouting. “And I’ll make sure sis comes back too!”

Dad smiles softly, visibly relieved. “I am glad to hear it,” he says.

“Now. You’ve all had a trying day. How about some fruit?”

All five of them cheer, following their dad to the kitchen, and leaving behind the mess of bloodied cotton balls and torn up bandaid wrappers, the ordeal temporarily forgotten.

(But Raph never forgets the oath he made this day. Even if Milo admittedly didn’t take it very seriously, so sure that no matter what happens, her little brother will never have to shoulder her burden of safeguarding their family alone.)

#void’s art #void's writing #rottmnt oc: milo hamato #rottmnt #rise of the teenage mutant ninja turtles #tmnt best siblings competition #raph is definitely the brother that hates milo's habit of bearing the weight of the world on her own the most #he WANTS to help but for the longest time milo doesnt really let him #milo trusts raph to look after their brothers but...not her #in her eyes: SHE'S the one that does the bulk of the protecting and while she knows she cant be everywhere at once--#--milo often forgets herself in that; confident she can power through whatever stands in her way (even tho she doesnt HAVE to)

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acciotwinz · 1 year

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Having faith - Matthew Fairchild x reader

Request: Ok, so I binged Chain of Thorns in a day and I need more Matthew content!! Literally anything Matthew Fairchild would be great! // Maybe hurt!comfort or angst with comfort. I need that reassurance and comfort after the entirety of what my baby went through in CoT.

Thank you so much for your request! I hope I did it and Matthew justice.

As always, kudos, comments and reblogs are appreciated!

Matthew is sure he’s never run faster in his life.

One moment, he's relaxing in his flat in Whitby Mansions with Oscar, getting ready to go to bed and the next, he's rushing across London to get to the Institute as quickly as his legs can carry him.

Times seems to run slower than it should, making the trek feel never ending. His heart is beating so hard it feels ready to burst out of his chest. He can make out people shouting at him to be careful as he darts in front of hansom cabs, on and off the sidewalks. He's not even sure he's wearing shoes or a coat. The only thing that Matthew can really concentrate on, other than moving forwards, are those five words in the fire-message from Thomas.

"Matthew, Y/N's hurt. It's bad."

Thomas has never lied to him. He has sometimes sugarcoated or ignored things, but he's extremely truthful and if he's being that short, saying it's bad.. Matthew can't stop to think about that too deeply or he will never make it to the Institute. And he needs to make it there. Y/N needs him. Matthew doesn't remember how exactly he made it to the infirmary. He knows that James was there, keeping him from tripping over his own feet, while Lucy is trying to reassure him that she'll be fine after some rest. Thomas keeps apologizing as they wait outside the doors for Brother Zachariah to let them through.

"What happened?" He needs to swallow a few times and yet, his voice sounds as if he hasn't used it in days.

Thomas sighs, looking away for a moment. "It was sudden. It was supposed to be a boring patrol, like all the other ones have been since Belial died. There was nothing out of the ordinary."

Matthew closes his eyes for a moment, anger coursing through his veins, "Clearly there was or Y/N wouldn't have been hurt!"

"We were heading back to the Institute when a ourobas demon sprang from seemingly nowhere. It slashed Y/N's back and bit her shoulder. She hit her head on the way down while she was trying to get it off her. I got her back as quickly as I could but she'd lost a lot of blood and was struggling to stay conscious or make any sense. Will insisted she get looked over by Uncle Jem."

James claps his shoulder, squeezing it and letting his hand rest there, "She'll be fine, Math. Uncle Jem is with her, he'll make sure she's right as rain in no time."

Matthew can see that Thomas is blaming himself, knows that he should be consoling him and making sure he knows it's not his fault but he can't. Because what if Y/N lost too much blood? What if her head injury leaves her a shell of herself? There are so many horrible possibilities running through Matthew's mind.

He wants a drink. Desperately.

Y/N's disappointment is the only thing that stops him from running to the kitchens in search of alcohol. Not that she would ever outwardly chastise him. She would simply smile sadly at him and help start his journey over again. He won't put her through that again, not when he's not sure what her condition actually is. He doesn't even realize that he's shaking until James shrugs his jacket off to put it around his shoulders.

"Are you okay, Tom?" Lucy's voice breaks through Matthew's mind fog and for the first time since arriving, he notices how tired and strung out Thomas looks. "I'm fine," the boy replies, "I just can't stop thinking about it. It's all my fault that Y/N's hurt. I should have been more careful."

James shakes his head, "No, it's no one's fault but that demon's."

Thomas just gives them a tight smile and Matthew lets himself slide to the floor, his head dropping to his hands. He can feel James' eyes on him but he ignores it. He leans against the wall, fidgeting with the ring James gifted him after their parabatai ceremony.

Time passes slowly, the sun peaking over the horizon and creeping under the infirmary doors, illuminating the hallway with soft orange hues. One by one, his friends fall asleep. Lucy is leaning against James' shoulder, Thomas has his neck bent at a weird angle where his heads rests against the wall and James has his head nestled in the crook of Matthew's neck. But Matthew doesn't want to sleep till he sees Y/N.

Bridget brings by a tray of tea and biscuits but leaves them for when the others wake up. The only thing Matthew wants, he can't have so he just sits impatiently.

Finally, the doors open and Uncle Jem walks out. Matthew jumps up, nearly sending James flying to the ground but he doesn't care. "How is she?!"

She'll be fine. Brother Zachariah's soothing voice reassures him. She lost a lot of blood and it took me some time to get the demon poison out of her system but she will make a full recovery. "You're sure?" Matthew's eyes fill with tears and he feels like he can breathe again.

I am certain, Matthew. She will need lots of rest and a few more iratzes but she will be fine.

"Can I see her?"

The Silent Brother nods, Do try not to wake her. She needs as much rest as she can get.

Matthew doesn't bother with a reply or a thank you, he rushes into the room to be with Y/N. Seeing her there, laying in a bed, pale and motionless finally makes the tears fall. He's seen her sleep in the institute library's chairs, on the couch in their hideout at the Devil's Tavern and this is a far scream from those moments. Her face is usually relaxed in sleep, with her mouth hanging slightly open and her eyes moving behind her eyelids as she dreams. Now, she's utterly still, her face contorted in a grimace as if even while unconscious, the pain lingers and keeps her from resting.

He takes a seat next to her bed, gingerly takes her hand in his his. He knows he should be keeping contact to the minimum, as it isn't proper for a gentleman such as himself but he needs this to keep what sanity he has left intact. At least she's warm to the touch and he can watch her chest rise and fall with each breath. Leaving a sweet, lingering kiss to her knuckles, he tucks their conjoined hands under his chin and finally lets sleep catch up with him.

-----

Y/N blinks her eyes open, slightly disoriented and with a pounding headache. She looks around the room and it takes it longer than it normally would to recognize the Institute's infirmary.

The sun is high in the sky, meaning that she's probably been here for hours. Her last memory is being with Thomas, making their way back to the Institute for their nightly debrief. They were laughing about something Alastair did and Thomas was taking great joy in recounting the fact. Her back itches and when she moves her head, a momentary blinding pain radiates from her left temple to the base of her neck.

Y/N groans, trying to bring up a hand to rub at her temple but can't because something is holding it in place. She looks down and sees Matthew fast asleep, his hand clutching hers under his head that rests on the bed. Her heart swells at the sight, feeling loved and cared for. It's almost enough to ignore the pain and stiffness of her body. Reaching out with her free hand, Y/N runs it delicately through Matthew's blond curls as she gently whispers his name. Matthew wakes with a start, eyes immediately darting to Y/N and when he sees that she's awake, smiling that blinding smile, he grins as his eyes start watering again. "You're awake."

Y/N nods, but the pain the movement causes makes her groan again. Matthew is quick to react, drawing his stele out of his pocket and gently placing the tip to Y/N's skin to draw a healing rune. Y/N feels the pain melt away as he finishes the design and watches as he kisses the fresh rune.

"Better?"

"Much," she replies with a smile, squeezing his fingers that have once again interlocked with her own. Her vocie is scratchy and her throat is dry but she doesn't want Matthew to move away from her. "What happened?"

Matthew sighs, leaning forward in his seat as his green eyes dart across her body, as if he's making sure she's fully healed. "I'm not sure. I know Tom has explained it to me but I was a bit too preoccupied to really take any of what he was saying in."

"You were worried about little ol' me?" she grins, trying to get him to relax.

Matthew's eyes blaze with anger at her brazen attitude. "Of course I was!" he doesn't scream, which is somehow worse. "Thomas sent a fire-message, saying that you were hurt badly and I had to sit outside the infirmary for hours before Jem came out to give us any news. You could have died, Y/N!"

Y/N struggles as she sits up, freeing her hand from Matthew so she can cup his face. "But I didn't. The job we do is dangerous, you know that. I always worry when you're out patrolling but I know you will come back in one piece. I have faith in your ability, Math."

Tears stream down his face, wetting her hands as he leans into her gentle touch. "And I have faith in yours. I just can't live with the idea of losing you."

Y/N brushes her lips against his, enjoying the hitch in his breathing. "I love you, Math. I will always do whatever I can to come back to you in one piece."

"I love you too."

The two lovers stay in the infirmary for the rest of the day, resting and finally loosening up enough to laugh about the whole situation.

And if Matthew leaves the room when it's time for sleep with the intention of getting a ring to propose with, that's only for him to know until he drops down to one knee when Y/N has made a full recovery.

#JJ writes #shadowhunters fics #the shadowhunter chronicles #matthew fairchild #matthew fairchild x reader #the last hours fics #matthew fairchild fic #matthew fairchild x reader insert #matthew fairchild x y/n

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fruitcoops · 1 year

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4/13 for a sequel of sorts to backslide? been lovin coops extra recently. p.s. this is the cutest of prompt lists :))

#4: A kiss on the temple

#13: Kissing scars either shortly or long after they’ve healed

Backslide; tw for past injury

Sirius was kissing him. Just kissing. Just gentle. Just focused. Remus watched him work in silence, letting Sirius guide his limbs like a doll. It was kind of nice, not needing to do any work. All he had to do was lay there and be loved.

That in itself was a refreshing change. He was tired of reassuring people over and over again, yes I'm okay don't worry it's fine just a partial one no you don't have to bring food yes I promise, especially his friends. It was embarrassing to know it had been that bad from their point of view. Their intentions were good, but Remus couldn't handle another minute of being treated like glass.

Sirius kissed the sensitive dip of his elbow and laid his head on the bed next to it with a long exhale, watching Remus watch him while the world went by outside.

"I'm okay," Remus said quietly. He reached up to push Sirius' hair out of his eyes and got a nuzzle on the hand for his troubles. He couldn't help but smile. "I'm okay."

Silver eyes tracked over his torso and settled on his other arm, still strapped to his body for another two days. At least the sling was comfortable. Sirius shifted and tucked his feet under the blankets they had kicked away. "I'm trying to believe you."

"I really am, baby."

"It's not that I don't trust you."

"Sirius," he whispered.

"It's not," Sirius repeated. "You would tell me if you were hurting. It's impossible to see this and not want to fix it, though."

We're both afflicted with chronic 'I can fix him', Remus thought as he let Sirius' hair flow over his fingertips. Look where it's got us. He let his hand fall and tugged on Sirius' sleeve. His visible care to avoid Remus' bad side when he scooted closer to lay on him made love beat like moth's wings in his chest; Remus buried his face in the soft cotton of his shirt and inhaled deeply, soap and laundry and Sirius, not a tinge of antiseptic. The cracking, aching thing next to his heart heaved a sigh of relief.

"It's just time and ibuprofen at this point. Kisses and cuddles are a bonus."

"I'll pass the message along to the guys."

He could feel Sirius' wry grin when he groaned. "Oh, god, no, I've been coddled within an inch of my life already."

"It makes them happy to baby you."

"I wish I knew why so I could never do it again."

"It's because you're so cute." Sirius went to give his cheek a playful pinch and Remus batted him away, laughing. A smacking kiss landed on his temple instead; Sirius pressed their faces tight together. Remus felt him relax, weighing him down like a giant heat pad, one thigh slung over his own and a hand tracing patterns on his belly. Sirius nudged at him once more before returning to his work, dropping kisses wherever he could reach.

He paused at the edge of the sling. Remus kissed the shell of his ear. "You can."

He did.

It was funny, being kissed there. Remus couldn't help the squirmy feeling it gave him, somehow more intimate than being kissed anywhere else. It would never be erotic--and judging from Sirius' reaction, he felt the same--but it gave him the same overwarm fast-pulsed charge that a suggestive hand on the knee might. It was being seen and known in the most blatant way.

Not today, though. No, not today.

"It's not fair," Sirius murmured. Remus shook his head and wove his fingers in dark curls. "I want--I want to take it all away."

"I would let you."

Sirius lifted his head an inch and let his lips linger on the shiny scar marking the pin's entry point all those years ago. Remus was sick of it and grateful. The pin had done its job. His shoulder was stronger, was set in place. The jerk-around hurt, but it was so much more bearable now. His skin cooled when Sirius turned away to put his head on Remus' bare chest. "I'll be here."

"I know."

#remus lupin #sirius black #coops #sweater weather #vaincre #lumosinlove #my fic #fanfic #hurt/ comfort #kisses #fluff #past injury

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kid-az · 9 months

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Astral Chain Legion personality Hc’s

I’ve been getting very obsessed with Astral Chain recent, and really want to share my headcanon’s about the five Legion’s, even if only a few people will care. (ALSO HEAVY SPOILERS FOR THE AXE LEGION!)

Sword (Stereotypical knight pal.)

-Stereotypical knight/samurai personality, very honorable, likes a fair fight, and heavily dislikes when an opponent or the Mc acts ”dishonorable.“ (Chimera’s by them using elemental attacks, and the player when they use grenades or consumables.)

-Is extremely interested in healing and medicine, specifically because such a thing is completely foreign in the Astral Plane. Can’t heal physical injuries yet, but managed to discover how to heal red matter corruption from individuals.

-Loves tampering with technology, particularly camera’s and other surveillance tech.

-Likes dogs, and wishes the Mc would adopt them as well. Also likes playing ball, especially when nearby people think there‘s a ghost haunting.

-Gets along well with Arm and Axe, but distrusts Beast and outright hates Arrow. Is best friends with the Mc.

Arrow (Little shit)

-In contrast to Sword, Arrow is more of an unscrupulous, pragmatic individual, preferring to keep a distance and use whatever underhanded tactics they need to win. This is why they disobeyed and abandoned Akira, as they did not appreciate their more dutiful, lawful personality. Only connects with the Mc when they see how much of a rebel they are.

-Is extremely competitive, and dislikes when they lose at a shooting contest. Has an intense, one-sided rivalry with Joey Wood, and is very bitter on how they lost so many times to him.

-Loves cats, and often plays with or pets them in Max’s safehouse. Is anlso interested in big cats, and wishes they were still extant. Likes pigeons and crows too, and often silently begs to to Mc to buy seeds to feed them.

-Hates Beast, but is decently cordial with Arm and Axe. Likes pissing Sword off, and doesn’t have the same animosity towards Sword as they do for them. Feels somewhat bad for Akira, especially when they discover they have clones.

Arm (Boisterous gentle giant)

-Gentle giant to living beings. Is very careful when interacting with people or animals, and often wishes they could see them. Likes performing “magic tricks” appreciating the surprise and praise people indirectly give them over such a seemingly impossible thing. Loves every animal, and is interested in learning about them.

-Really physically affectionate to the Mc and their friends, and often hugs them.

-The complete opposite to objects and chimeras. Loves obliterating dumpsters and other metallic objects that crumble, and is very glad to smash/blast any chimera’s they find, often offering to be worn as a suit of armor to do so.

-Is very jovial, and often makes sure that the Mc or other, non-beast legions are okay or relatively uninjured. Is very interested in food and coffee, and tries their best to prepare such things with mixed results. (Though has definitely gotten better at it post-game)

-Likes classical music, and wishes that genre was more common on the ark.

-Is friends with every other legion other than the Beast legion, who they outright hate. Somewhat misses their old owner Jin, and hopes that he isn’t overworking himself.

Beast (Not at all a good boy.)

-A rabid, murderous psycho of a legion. Loves brutally mauling any chimera or human their allowed to outside of other Beast chimera’s, who they actually formed an amicable relationship with (Comparable to a gang leader) before being recaptured. Was the only one that wanted to outright kill their owner.

-Completely hates anyone they deem as “weak,” the only ones not considered that being the Mc and other Beast chimera’s. Outright prejudiced against anything else, especially Shell chimeras, which they are very, very eager in ripping apart. Begrudgingly allows the Mc to ride them out of respect.

-Is very disturbed by dog’s and how much they resemble them and other beast chimeras, often hiding away from them out of fear.

-Really likes music, and often bops to that. Especially likes heavy metal when killing chimera’s.

-Hates the other legions, and that feeling is mutual outside of Axe, who considers Beast to be funny in a demeaning way. Completely hates their former owner Alicia, though to be fair they hate her as much as they do any other human.

Axe/Max (Grumpy but kindhearted dad)

-Has the fused personality of the Axe legion and Max, who the former absorbed out of respect for their bravery and selflessness.. Is upset about no longer being able to eat human food, but doesn’t mind that as he can protect his kids and civilians better.

-Just as much of a gruff but gentle-hearted guy as before, though now has a huge love for battling chimera’s. Is very happy to see his kid is rescuing and taking care of the cat’s, and couldn’t be more proud.

-Axe legion personality before fusing with Max was a mix between Sword and Arrow, being knight-like but also being very pragmatic in their fighting style. Did consider Max to be like a father, and felt bad about killing his human body, and so decided to mix his memories with their’s.

-Can be very overprotective, and often get’s in the way of enemy attacks to protect his kid. Felt terrible for having to kill Akira, but knew that they wanted them to do that to save humanity from Noah Prime.

-Gets along well with all the other Legions, and acts a mentor-like figure to them. Is good friends with Sword and Arm, makes sure that Beast doesn’t do anything dangerous to themself or others, and has a cordial, business business-like relationship with Arrow, as they help out in range combat. As stated previously, he is very proud and overprotective to Mc and Akira.

#astral chain #astral chain legion #sword legion #arrow legion #arm legion #beast legion #axe legion #astral chain headcanons #character headcanons #headcanons #platinum games

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citrusreadstoa · 1 year

Text

Reading The Hidden Oracle: Chapter 15 (SPOILERS)

I've figured out why Apollo feels more human than Percy. IT'S BECAUSE HIS NARRATION SOUNDS EXACTLY LIKE MY ANXIETY. That's what it is.

"I wished I had a doctor's note." Will is literally your son. I'm sure he'd give you a doctor's note if you asked politely. Does falling from heaven and being reduced to a shell of your former self count as an injury?

"Clarisse La Rue I could at least charm with my dazzling smile." *doubt*

"From here I could work my way up to scaring farm animals, then demigods, monsters, and minor deities." Nooohohooo he puts farm animals above satyrs!

"Suddenly, my fingers spasmed. I dropped the guitar in surprise." So, Apollo experiences on-and-off bursts where his powers come back, but they're temporary. This is definitely made purely for moments when Rick Riordan needs him to win a battle despite the odds being impossible.

"Chiara huffed. 'Idiota! Now I'll never get my turn!'" Damien and Chiara have a really cute dynamic. I ship it and I've known them for only three and a half pages.

"African nymphs Athena used to hang out with at Lake Tritonis." I looked up this lake only to find out that it either doesn't exist anymore or never existed at all :C

I love that the Victor twins are such advocates of "practice makes perfect" rather than just being good at everything. Idk why I expected that, but I'm pleasantly surprised.

"And, yes, of course it's possible for a demigod child to spring from [a homosexual] relationship." So... we're all asking the same question, right? Do they have belly buttons?

"I swear upon the River Styx--until I am a god again, I will not use a bow or a musical instrument!" Uhmmmmmm. So. Bad choice. And. I've seen the covers. Pretty sure he's got a bow and a quiver of arrows in at least one of them, so unless those are stage props, that oath ain't gonna last. How's he gonna fight? With a sword?

"I have a head injury . . . If I was acting strange, that's why." Why's this dude so worried about his reputation? Does he want to play the three-legged death race that bad? On an unrelated note, I recently found out that his name is Sherman because of the tank.

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moss-and-marimos · 4 months

Note

info dump to me about whatever media, OC's, albums, or anything else that comes to mind! :D (if you want to, that is)

infodump incoming about my dnd character

Grahhhhhh Percival makes me actually wild, hes a triton, he looks like this, sorry If ive showed you him before I cant remember

but this guy makes me actually wild. hes so unwell hes got so many issues. we've finally started getting a little into his lore in the campaign and I got to call his sister last session which is a big step, and hes finally getting comfortable with the party calling him nicknames which is a big deal because like very very early on campaign I told the other players that he was the type to silently judge you if you called him Perci instead of Percival if you weren't close with him, but last session was the first time one of the other people slipped and called him perci and I got to be like 'he doesnt react negatively' and theyre all like omg we got nickname privileges and im very happy about it at the same time unfortunately though, a lot of his development is kinda gonna go down the drain now because we've got a new player joining the campaign and its really gonna mess him up, he was finally feeling comfortable in the character dynamic, they just saved his life literally and that means a lot to him, but now a new person is joining and thats going to feel like a big betrayal of trust he had a party before this one a few years ago, when he was a lot newer to the surface, and they didnt really care about him or treat him well, and so to get healed by the others meant a lot, because the other party wouldnt heal him unless he was fully downed, always saying that he was overreacting because he was a kid (he was 16-17 at the time) which just wasn't true, this guy has a high pain tolerance and is used to hiding injuries from adults, and so to 1. see his party immediately heal him and for even the pacifist to start taking the fight seriously once he got seriously injured meant a ton, and 2. that they didnt immediately freak out at his blood being the 'wrong color' (his blood is blue) also meant a ton to him. this guy has issues he has so many issues. hes got some kind of complex about not being human enough and it messes him up, but the party has all been nice about him being nonhuman and it means a lot, even though he still tries to mask a lot of his nonhuman traits around them

in the future at some point the campaign is going to go back to the undersea and im trying to figure out how he would react to that. even though hes a fish and comes from the ocean, ever since he left at 16 I dont think hes ever, or at least not often, gone back. his parents were really awful, and hes scared to step very deep into the water because, even though he can breathe underwater literally, metaphorically it would feel like drowning. I think he might be able to put it aside for a little bit for the sake of the party and having to teach them how to move around underwater and stuff, but I definitely think it would mess him up pretty bad. he would also be happy to see his sister though, she's an artificer, and is probably going to be the one to give them the stuff that allows them to breathe underwater, he cares about her a ton and vice versa. ironic for him to be a fish with a fear of the ocean

fun little details about him: - he has a sending stone flavored as a seashell, his shell phone we call it, he uses it to call his sister and thats the only contact it has, and its a cowrie shell (his sisters' is a conch) - He really idolizes his sister, she pretty much raised him, she's the reason he dyes his hair white and wears it in a ponytail - This fish is transgender 💪💪💪 so is his sister too - He can bioluminesce and its one of his stims is that he makes the lights flash up and down his forearms - his name is a fish pun based on the genus perciformes

We got to do a thing recently where he was like actually scared, because he has a lot of issues with bodily autonomy and so being mind controlled is one of his worst fears/triggers, and there was/is a very real potential for that to happen, and its one of the first times the party has ever seen him scared and I love describing the changes in his body language. Most of the time he presents himself very confidently for lack of better term, very open body language, but when hes scared that changes, he doesnt lean back as much, his tail flicks, he clutches at his forearms (especially since one was recently injured when he almost died) and leaves claw marks in his leather bracers, etc

I have more I might put in another reblog bc this is getting really long

traumatized with so many issues -> 🐟

#my ocs #oc: percival #Perci my beloved !!!!! goes wild about this fucker

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nani-nonny · 6 months

Note

So now!! The waited part two AND ch 16 of WDS IS HERE!!!✨✨✨✨✨ AM SCREAMING

I really really love how when i wake up at like idk 7 AM or so in the morning only to see multiple notification and one of those are your fic notification!! It makes me already giddy and stimmimg trying to calm my heart before i start reading and then stops remembering i have a morning routine to do first before that!!

So back to the review (trust me, my heart STILL beating fast even remembering the fic✨✨ that's how badly am excited!), We start back at the kids FIGHTING tooth and nail for our peepaw's attention! I just looves it, it's funny and oddly wholesome, and leo begin a grumpy old man - with too much PTSD in that shell - is just sitting there and watching the drama unfolds while trying - keyword trying but not hard enough - to stop them ONLY to be saved by old man splinter 😂

Man why do i feel splinter WANTS to say " get use to it because it's gonna happen daily " and walk as the ghost brothers and sister give them their privacy that they needed, it is right that after the scary battle, the injuries and taking care of everybody? Big blue didn't have his time to let... Well.. Everything sink in his brain! It's like delay panic.

I feel so happy that splinter asked f!leo to go with him shopping because he not only needed some sort of quite but quality time with his dad! So they teleport to hidden city market and it does remind me of few funny things (something relate to my memories when i was just a little girl).

Splinter giving leo ONE job to do and he fail miserably - i don't kinda blame him, IT'S BEEN 20 YEARS! -.

I... LOVE how he is able to avoid scammers and pickpocketers, this screams how well aware leo is and i LOVE IT!! The cool vibes of " i may be old but don't mess with me! " vibes 🤩

He finally meets the 03 cat klunk! (03 tmnt Mikey had an orange cat i don't remember if it was named klunk or not), and just knowing her lower part is broken just BREAK my sensitive heart, i can't bear to see an animal hurt THIS bad especially if they can't defend themselves.

And we reach the 2nd part the spoiled clip part of the store owner, before we continue this guy reminded me of that one background guy in cass apocalypse comic where he was screaming at casey when leo turned smol? Remember him? Yeah he reminds me of that guy.

So back at store owner he drops jokes, insults and comments left and right - missus pfft - and we reach that champion pants, believe me i almost SCREAMED FOR THAT PANTS!! THEY FIT HIM!! tho he didn't wear it yet - wait is I'm blue fic, big blue wear them?? -

I honestly never thought leo would drop the WHOLE summary of his existence and war to the store owner but man, HE BELIEVED HIM?!?! WUT?!

So NOW leo - with cute little Klunk - going to find ol' splinter and he's fighting so hard for a discount - ngl that reminds me of my mom, she fought a guy for 15% discount - and then dropping the tea!🤣 i honestly wished i was there to egg him on " spill the tea sis! Spill the tea! ".

Leo luckily went back home without much difficulty only to see a new challenger had been added to the fight... CJ! Now my bet is with CJ! He will kick ass.

Am glad Klunk was there to calm everyone down because i think they would've been to the second phase; using REAL weapons.

I think because leo was older he was weak against orange's puppy eyes - AND EVEN SAID WE TOOK DONNIE IN 😂😂😂😂-.

But then realize blue is missing and that gets me worried a bit, maybe it's the part where he and blue play video games? Hopefully.

Oh geez I wanted to reply to this sooner but I got a bit busy

Anyways,

Leonardo not trying hard enough to stop the teens from acting up and messing around the lair is peak fatherhood. As long as he doesn’t hear crying then they’re okay /j

Delayed panic is perfect for Leonardo’s situation lol, it was one after the other for him. He honestly didn’t get a true moment of rest.

Splinter is lowkey trying to solve the issue with Leonardo referring to him as “Splinter” instead of “Dad”/hj. Gotta spend quality time with Leonardo to fix, even if Leonardo can’t do the one thing he asked lol

Leonardo’s awareness being so high is so important to me you don’t even know /j he won’t let any detail slip past him

Yes Klunk! I honestly spent a good amount of time thinking about what to name the kitty but then I remembered 03 Mikey’s cat and thought to give the kitty the same name as homage or I guess Easter egg to a really good show

The yokai clothing hop owner that Leonardo met was kind of inspired by the real talkative (questionable) guy from the first chapter of DMD hehe. But selling the champion pants is totally not referring to the battle nexus (in a silly way, we won’t be getting Leonardo in big mama’s ring) but I like to think that there are yokai who sell off brand battle nexus champ merch lol

And Leonardo admitting to his creation (although twisting the truth to seem a little more believable for the yokai) made me laugh a little because he said it either such conviction that it was believable lol

Leonardo returning to the chaos was a struggle there were so many people to take account for in writing but blue going missing kind of makes it easier

Sadly we won’t be getting the moment where Leonardo and blue play games and that won’t happen until Casey jr gets into school. :)

Thank you for taking the time to write this review(?) of ch.16! It means so much :))))) <33333

#whispers of distant souls #nani nonny answers #rottmnt #rise of the teenage mutant ninja turtles #rottmnt fanfiction #rottmnt future leo

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dandylovesturtles · 6 months

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This one is breaking the rules but aaaauuugh they're both really good prompts so I will do April and Raph Trick, just for you anon

(and answering this as a screenshot in case I ever want to write that other prompt too lol)

CWs: none really, other than some brief discussion of injuries from the fic

---

April's on a jet ski with Warren Stone when a very loud and repetitive sound comes from a fog horn in the sky. It takes her a moment to realize the sound is her ringtone, and it's actually coming from her bedstand. Blearily she blinks open her eyes and rolls over, fumbling until she finally grabs it and stares at the screen.

5:03 AM is what she sees first, and she prepares herself to verbally murder whoever is on the other end of the line, until she actually pays attention to the caller ID and accompanying picture.

Raph. An old picture of him making a silly face for the camera.

She's suddenly wide awake. Raph would never wake her up so early on a school morning for no reason. Which means something's happened.

She swipes to answer before the ringtone dies, nearly yanking her charger out of the wall with how fast she raises the phone to her ear.

"Hello?"

"Um, hey, April..." His voice sounds hesitant, and April's suspicions are confirmed. "Sorry for calling so early, I just... wanted to catch you before you went to class."

"It's fine, big guy," she says, because it's Raph, and because his tone is screaming that something is wrong, bad wrong, and she could never be mad at him for calling her at any time when something is wrong. "What's up?"

"It's, uh... well. Something happened. It's... I don't even know where to start."

He's not telling her to meet them somewhere, so whatever happened isn't currently still occurring. April decides, then, to cut to the chase.

"Who's hurt?"

She hears Raph take a shaky breath, hears what sounds like a thud as he leans heavy against a wall. Then...

"Leo."

Blood turns to ice in her veins. She sets up fully in bed, pulling her legs to her chest and closing her eyes. Not again.

"What stunt did he pull this time?" she asks, but there's no heat to it, just the echoes of the distress she's barely holding back. Raph, at least, seems to understand.

"We don't know. We were chasing these yokai guys - there were three of 'em, so we split up. Leo chased one of 'em up onto the rooftops, and... uh..." Raph clears his throat. "We think... well, Donnie thinks he fell. Or was... maybe pushed."

Fell off a roof. April almost feels like she heard wrong, it feels impossibly mundane. Those boys have been running around on rooftops since before she knew them, and their shells are tough; she can't imagine any of them being too hurt by a tumble unless it was from really high up.

But she can tell from Raph's tone of voice that Leo was hurt - seriously. If this were a, "Haha, Leo fell and broke his leg," moment, she would have gotten that call from the boy himself.

She keeps her eyes closed, like that will somehow force reality away. Predictably, it doesn't work. "How bad is it?"

Raph takes too long to answer, and she fists her hand in the sheets while she waits.

"He's, uh... Well, he's breathing right now," he says, quickly, and she sucks in air too sharp and fast, "but he wasn't when we found him. And... I... I don't know, April."

April listens helplessly as Raph's voice cracks on the other end of the line. She wishes they were having this conversation in person, so she could give him the biggest hug she can manage, but that's not how life is.

"He's... he's not waking up. He's just... laying there. He looks so still, he... Even after the Krang, he never..."

Raph chokes up, and she can tell he's trying hard not to cry. She wonders if he's let himself break down yet, and thinks probably not, because he probably hasn't left Leo's side until now, which means he's stayed strong for Donnie and Mikey.

But Raph doesn't have to stay strong for her. She's the big sister, after all.

"It's okay, Raph," she says, her own tears starting to fall, her own voice shaky, but she only lets as much show as she needs, to encourage Raph in his own feelings. "It's okay. I'm here."

There's another thump from the other side of the line, Raph hitting the floor, if she had to guess, followed by one sob, and then another. And then she can hear him crying in earnest, and she lets him, repeating the same things over and over, I'm here, it's okay, let it out, I love you, we'll figure it out.

Later, April will get a shopping list of anything the boys need from Mikey. Later, she'll will trek down to the sewers and see her boys. Later, she'll take care of chores and harass Donnie into sleeping and do everything she can to cheer Mikey up. Later, she'll talk to Splinter and help him stay present for his sons. Later, she'll hold Leo's cold hand in hers and try to will her baby brother to wake up by force.

Right now, she has a different baby brother to take care of, one who needs her because he feels like he can't go to anyone else. The clock reads 5:14 AM, and that's okay. She'll be here as long as she needs to.

#dandy trick or treat #fic: i may be invisible but i still look good #rise april #rise raph

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coleyo · 1 year

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BITTW chapter four!

SUMMARY: A sudden attack on the lair startles Mikey, he is curious and goes out to see what they're dealing with, causing in Angelo's injury.

Angelo tied the new given mask around his face, taking the old one off beforehand and placing it on the floor.

sure enough, the tails were extremely long. They trailed down to the end of Mikeys shell! 'No wonder Leo likes hers so much..' Mikey smiled, stroking the tips of the tangerine colored mask. He'd let out a silent squeal, tapping his feet a bit. This made him really happy, but he couldn't figure out why.. the terrapin sighed, closing his eyes. Suddenly, a loud crash startled Micheal, the ground shook under their feet, causing them to collapse. The action knocked the air out of him. He inhaled sharply, switching out his new mask for the old one. Whatever was happening, he didn't want to risk roughing up the mask already.

His eyes widened as he scrambled back onto his feet, speeding out of the room. All he could hear were the Screams and shouts of both children and adults.. Yokai and Humans were running in different directions, leading Mikey to the conclusion that something.. bad was happening. "-W- wait, where are we going!" The boy cried out, looking around. There, he spotted Casey. A wave of relief overcame Mikey as he ran up to his companion. "-Casey!" Mikey turned him around. "-Mikey!? You should be hidden!" "-Hidden from what, what's going on?" He said with a hint of irritation. Casey exhaled deeply, "-The Kraang monsters, they're --" "-CASEY! Let's go." Leo cocked his head to the side, signalling his student. "-.. just hide, this is serious!" With that said, casey ran after Leo. Mikey whined, reaching out for Casey, but he'd disappear just like that. The terrapin looked in the opposite direction, spotting Commander O'Neil and sensei Angelo.. they were talking, but Sensei Angelo Looked rather frustrated. Mikey assumed this was a heated argument. Commander O'Neil shook her head before running off with Leo and 'Jones, Angelo pouted, calmly retreating down the narrow hall that lead to their room.

"What was that about .. no, what's all of this about!" He calls, noticing April, Leo, and Casey run out of the base..

Well... Mikey was curious. And curiosity kills that cat, so...

Oh well. He'd muster up the courage to follow them, though the ground was still shaking whilst shambles of debris fell from the rooftop. Michealangelo sighs, his legs feeling as if they were about to give out. But he had to know what this was all about, if he had to stay there for A While, why not get the gist of this whole... Thing? He had made his decision, a poor one in fact. Mikey snuck out of the lair. He couldn't have began to imagine how horrible it was beyond the lairs gates, sure, when he had first arrived things already looked.. bad, but, it was pure chaos.. those kraang dogs and bots were everywhere, but Leo seemed to be fighting them off pretty well. Casey was holding up fine, Amazing for a student, but.. commander o'neil was no where to be seen.. Mikey couldn't tell if this was a good or a bad thing; (Assumingly and most likely bad), but despite being scared, he just wanted to help because that's what they normally do in this own universe, but, He was teased relentlessly for his fears and taught to jump into action when needed... Well.. atleast that's what Raph told him. The mutant shook his head, ridding his mind of his thoughts as soon as he spotted one of the kraang dogs coming his way. They would shriek, backing away and tripping over a loose pipe in the ground. In the heat of the moment, Mikey grabbed the object as the dog jumped at him. It would pounce at the boy, causing Mikey to swing. He'd hit the critter, but that didn't do much damage. It only provoked the creature more, a spark of anger flares in it's eyes as Mikey sharply inhaled, silently praying to himself. It Clamped down on Mikey's leg, causing him cry out in pain. The critter dragged Mikey down, resulting in a cry for help but he was too far away for any of them to notice. He'd attempt to pull away, but his just made the iron grip held on his leg worse, if he moved any more the force of the bite would just get stronger by the second. Suddenly, Mikey's face was splashed with oil.. blood, maybe? That's up for debate. He would gasp, scrambling backwards while he had the chance. The mutant spotted a chain going through the bots chest, Covered with the oil. It was a brutal sight, That's for certain, but never in his life has Mikey seen the sheer amount of blood that has been presented in just one night. "-What the hell were you thinking!" A gruff voice said from behind. Mikey turned around, and low and behold, Sensei Angelo. They didn't look too happy.

"-Sensei!" Mikey called out, struggling to stand. Angelo rolled his eyes, helping his alternate up. Mikey could stand fairly well, but couldn't put too much pressure on his wound. "-Um- sensei, look.." the terrapin mumbles, pointing just behind his sensei. Angelo turns around, noticing a feral pack of kraang dogs coming his way. "-For the love of.." Angelo paused, glaring at Mikey, who had this worried look on his face. "-Go back to the lair, now. I want you to go to my dojo and do not come out until I get back.. if I do. Got it?" "What? Dude, No, i--" "-LISTEN to me. This is dangerous, and we can't risk losing another so just go." He demanded. Mikey looked off to the side and mumbled "-..okay..o- okay!" With that said, he ran off, leaving his sensei to fend for himself. Sure, Mikey felt bad, but he had mystic powers, so he should be fine.. obviously.

Once the boy had reached the lair, it was dead silent. Mikey was accompanied by the faint sound of water hitting the dust covered ground as shambles of stone fell to the pavement. It was like a ghost town now, compared to a few hours ago. He'd rub his temple, The mutants vision began to get blurry, but the dojo was just around the corner, quite litteraly. Mikey pulled himself together, stumbling towards the dojo. his breathing becomes heavier by the second due to the amount of blood loss. Luckily months prior, His Leo had taught them how to properly treat certain wounds. Though Mikey bearly paid any mind, he picked up on a few of the tactics. All they needed to find was medical supply. They would enter the dojo, collapsing to the floor and pulling themselves along the pavement.

Mikey's vision began to haze once more while they placed their shell against the patted walls. Their breathing began to slow down as he passed out. Everything happening now appeared to come as a blur, nothing but a meer memory. Something that Mikey could bearly remember. The last thing Mikey did was pull his knees up to his chest, burying his head into his knees.

7) !Thump!

Mikey awoke to a crash, Inhaling sharply.

"Damn it.." someone mumbled as another chuckled. The voices were very simaliar, he'd sit up only to realize that their legs were wrapped with cotton made bandage wrap and a bit of foam. They looked towards the corner of the room, only to notice Leo and Sensei Angelo. The first thing Mikey noticed about his alternate was his sensei's cape being off, oddly enough. Under it he wore a sleeveless black turtleneck and matching sweatpants, mainly to keep the bandages steady.

Angelo appeared to have the same bandages mikey had wrapped around his head, hands, legs, and shell. "-I- told you Leo, I'm fine.." they would scowl, pulling away from their older brother. Leo rolls his eyes, "Only trying to help." "-Yo', sensei!" Mikey coughed out. Leo looked in his direction and smiled. "Finally up? It's been a good hour or two, can't really tell.. anyways, what were you doing beyond the lairs gates? We told you to say inside. You're a kid, and you're not really.. skilled." "..but.. Sensei Angelo is teaching me how to--" "-Yes, I know, but that doesn't make a difference. Both of you were supposed to say inside, and now, his shell is cracked!", Leon pointed at the mystic warrior with a frown. "Don't forget the burn marks.." She would whisper. Leo shook his head, "-we get it. Lets go mike', I'll show you to Casey's room.. Its.. been a long day." Leo left the dojo, remaining upset. Mikey turned to his sensei. "..eh..", he'd press his index fingers together.

Angelo glared at the younger mutant, waiting for him to say something. "..What is it." The man grumbled, Mikey sighs. "..I'm sorry for leaving the lair and getting you hurt-- i was only Tryin' To help!" Mikey attempts to defend his actions, but was quickly cut off by his sensei. "It's whatever.. Go with leo already, our training will continue tomorrow."

Mikey nodded, leaving the room.. did his Sensei even care? Did he? Despite only being here for a day, Mikey already got sour, hostile vibes from his alternate self.. maybe if he presented the camera he found to him, he'd warm up a bit? Just maybe. Mikey then stepped on a piece of fabric, stopping dead in his tracks.

10)

It was the mask Leo gave him just a few hours ago. "There you are! For a minute there, I thought I lost ya'.." he said to himself, picking the object up. "Mikey?" Master Leonardo called, in which Mikey responded, "-Coming!"

#mondomikey #leosagi #rottmnt #shellshocked #tmnt #tmnt au #rottmnt au #tmnt 2012 au

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