#addams! tmnt au fanfic | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

pioneer-10 · 1 year

Text

Can I Exist?

@lackablazeical‘s addams family au has a chokehold on me, so I wrote a fic about Usagi for it.

Content warnings: Unreliable narrator, cognitive dissonance, manipulation, [perceived] physical abuse, and gaslighting. Please let me know if I missed anything and I’ll add it as well.

His room is not how he left it.

Usagi knows this because he’s checked the closet seven times now, and his kimono is just as missing from its place as it was the first time he looked.

“No,” he murmurs to himself. “No no no nonono no, it can’t be.”

Except it is.

His last piece of his family, of his life before this never-ending nightmare that’s become his existence since, gone. Gone without a trace, without any idea of…

Usagi’s stomach twists as a cold chill of realization settles over his shoulders. He does know who stole the kimono, because there’s only one yokai that could…

Him.

Leo. His stalker - no, his tormentor, who’s been messing with him for several months now - leaving notes in blood on his desk, sliding skin-crawling letters under his door, spray painting the entire building outside his window with horrifying declarations of his "love." Nobody else could have known about the kimono's importance - even Leo shouldn’t have known, but Usagi’s more or less gotten used to that bastard’s ability to find out about things he has no goddamn business knowing.

It has to have been him.

Usagi’s running before he can stop himself, adrenaline turning his veins electric as he flings open his apartment door and bolts outside. Leo had written instructions on how to get to his home on the back of one of his many letters, instructions that Usagi had never in a million years thought he’d actually be following.

But he is, because he can’t just lose that kimono, not after everything he’s been through. It’s the one thing he has left of home and goddammit, he won’t lose that too. He tries not to let his mind rest on the chilling thought of Leo stealing it from his room while he was asleep, either.

The Hidden City's streets are as alive as ever, but Usagi hardly notices the crowded alleys or the smell of smoke as he winds his way towards the human world and what lies just beneath it.

The sewers.

His heart is pounding, and his throat feels like sandpaper by the time he finally reaches the sewer tunnels. The smell alone is nearly enough to make him turn back, nose turning up at the awful stench as he gingerly takes a step into the dank air. He’s never been up here before - it’s not safe being this close to the human realm, not to mention…well, everything about the sewers, really. Usagi hates everything about them already - the smell alone is enough to make him want to crawl out of his own skin, and the fact that he didn’t think to bring a flashlight in his mad dash to the surface hasn’t helped matters at all. The shadows feel like they're watching him, and he can feel hidden eyes on his back with every step he takes.

A sound like a muffled shout echoes toward him, and Usagi freezes with a jolt of fear that briefly roots him in place. He doesn’t know that voice, and his mind screams danger danger danger when he forces himself to move again, pressing against the tunnel wall with a shaking breath.

Of course Leo’s not alone up here, he thinks. Of course there’s more of them. Usagi slinks forward, even more cautious than before as he feels his way along the wall, listening to the shouting grow louder and louder…

He turns a corner, and the scene he finds himself witness to is one of the most horrifying things he’s seen since…

Since…

Kenichi’s screams echo in his head, and Usagi’s skull throbs like someone’s hitting it with a hammer as his back burns and burns and burns and his brother’s blood drips onto the cold stone floor before his eyes. The knife digs through flesh and then bone, and his brother's screams turn to whimpers as the blood flows more freely, and all Usagi can do is -

Watch.

Three other turtle yokai are gathered around Leo, who’s been strung up by his arms like some kind of horrifying pinata as they take turns swinging at him with a metal bat. He’s unconscious, eyes closed and body limp as it swings from the ropes tying him to the ceiling.

“It’s Raph’s turn!” the biggest of the three tears the bat away from the hands of the smallest, and before Usagi can stop himself he bolts forward. Leo’s sword is laying haphazardly on the ground and he reaches for it, grasping the handle and swiping it upwards in a single swift motion.

“Get away from him!” The other yokai stumble back, blinking in surprise as Leo’s limp body drops to the ground - Usagi reaches out to catch him before the concrete can, mind whirling with a thousand thoughts.

But there isn’t time to think, as the smallest of the brothers swings a fist at him with a snarled curse. Usagi lurches backward, struggling with Leo’s awkward weight in one arm as he lashes out with the sword he still grips in the other. To his surprise, he’s answered not by the howls of the yokai brothers, but by a whoosh of glowing blue. Usagi’s eyes go wide, and in a panic he stumbles through the open portal as the largest brother reaches after him. It snaps shut behind him with a pop, and then he’s…

Where is he?

It looks like he's back in the sewer tunnels somehow, and he's far enough away from Leo's brothers that he can't hear the echo of their voices anymore. Usagi sinks to his knees, tearing away the last of Leo’s bindings and carefully adjusting his hold on his shell as his head lolls against his chest.

I did it, he thinks, equally horrified and proud as he carefully gets back to his feet. I saved him. I saved him. He half-expects Leo to snap his eyes open and laugh at him; tease him for being so gullible and funny - but he doesn’t, just as still as he’d been when Usagi first found him.

And he hadn't even found his kimono…Usagi’s heart sinks as he begins making his way back to the Hidden City, stopping every so often to readjust his grip on Leo. Maybe that was why Leo had stolen it, he reasons with himself - maybe he was the way he was because his brothers were so horrible to him that he knew nothing else. Maybe, if he could get him away from that, maybe…

Maybe he wasn’t a monster, not really, not beneath the surface. Maybe Usagi could help him, maybe he could fix this and do something good, something right. He’d already failed his own family, but maybe…maybe this could make up for it, in some small way.

Maybe helping Leo could make the pain of leaving his family hurt a little less, a part of him thinks, desperately. Maybe he can prove to himself that he isn’t completely useless after all if he can help someone, anyone, even…

Even him.

His mind is made up. Usagi is careful to support the turtle’s head as he carries him back through the Hidden City, ignoring the stares he gets from other Yokai and the kaleidoscope of neon assaulting him from all directions. He’ll have to take the next couple of days off work, he thinks tiredly, as his apartment building reveals itself in the smoke. He'll have to make sure Leo is okay after…

After…

Usagi remembers the sound of the bat hitting his plastron and shudders. How long had Leo been strung up like that? Why were his brothers hurting him? Did it have something to do with his kimono, somehow? Had they made him steal it?

Usagi has far too many questions, and not nearly enough answers.

His apartment is exactly how he left it when he returns, and Usagi hates that he can’t stop himself from checking everything anyways, from the items on his nightstand to the drawers in his kitchen just in case something moved even though Leo’s right here, there’s no way he could’ve possibly done anything while he was gone -

He carefully lays Leo down on the small sofa in his living room, locating a soft blanket to cover him with so he doesn’t get too cold. He feels on edge even though the turtle is still clearly unconscious, as if he could at any second jump up and make his life hell all over again.

And what if he does? a terrified part of him asks. Usagi stands in silence for a long time, staring in silence at the stalker-reduced-to-

Reduced to what? A victim? A reasonable person twisted into unrecognizability by circumstance?

Usagi hesitates, then takes a seat on the chair across from Leo.

It’s going to be a long night.

#addams! tmnt au #addams! usagi #addams! leo #addams! tmnt au fanfic #addams! tmnt au fanart #jupiter draws #jupiter speaks

133 notes · View notes