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talentforlying · 7 months

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a moment in time, #7, or 14!

07. wish they had taken more time to savor while they were in it.

he's in the kitchen with his sister, and they're still in their funeral clothes.

it's a funny sight: cheryl in her nice black dress, purple rubber gloves up to the elbow, doing the washing up with her good pearl earrings in. he remembers, a few years back, how she'd sworn off ever wearing jewelry around that bloody disposal again; how he'd fucked up snaking the drain trap for her little silver chain so badly he'd almost burst the pipes, while she fretted and moaned about it being a gift from tony, how silly she was for not checking the clasp, how cross he'd be if he knew how she'd lost it.

really, it should have been HER snaking the drain, since she was the one who actually knew how and john had always been lost with household things like that, but that was just the way they did things, most of the time — he'd offer to help, and she'd let him. didn't have to do any good.

thinking back, he wonders if it'd been a sibling sort of thing, watching your kid brother flounder just for the shit of it; if she'd just liked laughing behind her hand at him whenever he tried something that should've been bloody SIMPLE and fell flat on his face. other times, he wonders if it'd been a mother sort of thing: giving him the chance to do all the little shite he'd never learned how to. letting him go until he gave up or got it, then pointing out the way to do it that was miles easier, honestly, you silly bleeder, how've you survived all these years faffing about like that? you'd take the ring road to the toilet if you didn't leave the door open to see it.

they're talking serious things as they wash and dry; gemma, two years out from her brush with kidnapping and seeing ghosts at granddad's funeral. cheryl shit scared, trying not show it; voice wobbling as she asks him whether he thought something had happened. he can't look at her when he consoles her, because he doesn't know; he doesn't lie to his sister. tries not to, anyway. deflects to talking about her husband, because he knows it'll make her mad, and they're constantines: they do pissed better than they do sad.

besides, cheryl's always loved her husband the same way she loved their dad: with her eyes shut tight.

used to be that he resented her for it, before he was old enough to understand. how could she not know? how could she leave? how could they meet years later with her telling him their dad wouldn't really hurt anyone, couldn't hurt anyone, oh john you know what he's like, and him with scars smarting under his shirt sleeves and a ringing in his ears that will never fully go away, wanting to scream i know what he's like, but do you? did you ever? did you even fucking care?

but he's grown, now, and so has she; left the anger behind with gemma's first diapers and tony's resurrection crusade membership and the house in liverpool they won't ever go back to. it doesn't matter anymore. they've outlived him.

he makes her laugh. her laughter makes him laugh. one day they'll be older than their dad ever was, and hopefully happier, and they'll stand in her kitchen at christmas and new year's and do the washing up in purple rubber gloves, and it'll be just like this, but without their funeral clothes. nothing hanging over them except the sound of leslie gore crooning from a room away and their first glass of red for the day. gemma all grown, with friends and family of her own to do the washing up with. tony hopefully shafted in the divorce, or at least being a little less useless in a far corner of the living room.

he didn't want to stay like this forever, then — wounds still raw and fears still fresh, memories of his dad's hair burning in the crematorium. both him and cheryl sad and scared, putting on faces so the other can get by. but he will. god in heaven, he will.

she doesn't quite get to be older than their dad, in the end. fifty-nine, and still too young. too bloody young.

jesus christ, cheryl, he wasn't supposed to outlive you, too.

@thedipshits / A MOMENT IN TIME PROMPTS

#abuse mention /#abuse mention cw #ask to tag /#sibling death /#sibling death cw #WHOOF this broke me a little to write he loved his sister So Much #cheryl masters my love you're going on the multi too and we are getting you that divorce baby girl #thedipshits #( headcanons. ) I'M JUST LIKE THE BASTARDS I'VE HATED ALL ME LIFE.#( answered. ) THIS IS JOHN CONSTANTINE. FUCK OFF.

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percentstardust · 1 year

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i wanna talk about the youngest jacobs sibling. i do not know if levinson will ever elaborate on him. we don't even know his name. nate nor any of his family members have mentioned him. but, i have developed a head canon for the youngest jacobs son and this is what i am going with. i don't care what canon comes up with for him. this is how i am filling in the blanks for him.

nate's younger brother's name was holden. while nate is not close to aaron, nate was close to holden. the two of them were closer in age. their age difference was only two years apart while nate is four years younger than aaron. nate was extremely protective of holden. he would always defend holden from cal and his toxic masculine ways. the two of them would spend time together often. holden looked up to nate and he was just as attached to his older brother as nate was to him.

while on vacation in the bahamas, holden died. aaron was left to watch his younger siblings. nate was thirteen at the time and holden was ten. aaron's attitude was annoying him because of he was acting like having to watch his brothers was such a heavy burden. so, nate decided to go off with holden on his own. he was old enough to watch himself and his brother in his eyes. aaron would be the one in trouble, not him. he would take care of holden and he would get rewarded by their parents. nate and holden decided to surf. holden didn't have much experience, but, nate did and he would teach him how to. unfortunately, the waves were too rough for both of them. both of them were knocked off of their boards. by the time nate surfaced, holden was nowhere to be found. he searched frantically, but, by the time he was able to find him, holden had drowned.

nate still blames himself to this day despite the fact holden's death was an accident. sometimes he thinks his parents and brother blame him for holden's death. maybe they do. he's never bothered to ask them. every time marsha and cal tried to remove holden's things from his room, nate absolutely threw a tantrum. they gave up on removing the items from his room and the items are still in there. nate sits in there sometimes. he cleans and dusts and makes it look like someone still lives there.

#& head canons ( nate jacobs )#& head canons ( all )#sibling death cw #drowning cw #no i am not adding tragedy to make nate sympathetic but i think something tragic happening to baby jacobs is why they never mention him #besides levinson being a shit writer

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colnerys · 11 months

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yknow... thinking about how kira was almost numb to death. when her own father passed away its been at least more than half her life fighting and killing so she just can't even cry anymore. all she can do is act on violence. anger is the only emotion she really knows anymore except she wasn't even... really angry. she was living for the fight at that point, not the end goal.

so I think about how when she pretty much watched her little brother sacrifice himself so she can be safe... with the Intel that would once n for all drive the cardassians out of bajor??

it was the first time she really felt anything besides manufactured anger (and aside from the one time she shot a mother hara cat by accident ).

and this is why in a post occupation world kira is much more affected by the deaths around her. once she started feeling she can't stop and part of her healing is allowing her to care unapologetically and that involves so much vulnerability.

she just cares so much and truly believes that no one deserves death — even dukat as much as she wants him dead she also knows that he's important to a lotta innocent people (his kids like ziyal) who don't deserve to feel grief like that.

but god was she close to killing him so many times. and so many times she resisted and reined herself in.

#* 𝐏𝐎𝐒𝐓 : ooc #death cw #family death cw #sibling death cw #parental death cw #thinking abt her again and i love her so much

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renisence · 1 year

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@frozyn pressed ♥ for an Arvo Volkov Starter

Despite his willingness to tag along, Arvo could still feel the eyes of this groups survivors constantly on him. Stealing was never something he would've done before, but after the apocalypse, when his sister got sick, he was desperate. The one bottle he'd managed to get hadn't even been used in the end.

He'd brought it back to them as a show of good faith, but the fact he'd tried to rob them of anything at all, caused the trust they could've had to be harder to build up. He walked along the path, snow crunching under his feet. He supposed he could understand. It's not like he hadn't been untrustworthy.

Though, the stares felt piercing. He raised his hands up, rubbing at his upper arms and chewing on his lip lightly. Humming a lullaby he'd sung to his sister only days ago. He couldn't help but think of her, her death so fresh on his mind.

He managed to keep himself from crying, maybe because he didn't want to seem weak, or maybe because he didn't want the tears freezing to his cheeks.

#death tw #death cw #sibling death tw #sibling death cw #death mention #sibling death mention #frozyn #{{ muse: Arvo Volkov }}

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conflictaverse · 2 years

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Okay, but the end of Star Trek V

KIRK: Yes. ...I lost a brother once. [Looks at Spock who has recently come back from the dead~] But I was lucky, I got him back.

LIKE IS SAM CHOPPED LIVER TO YOU JIM? I AM GOING TO SET EVERYTHING ON FIRE.

#death mention cw #sibling death cw #fucking ready to fight jimothy kirk #jimothy tyrannosaurus kirk #is his name now #since we're being Disrespectful

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becomingsea · 2 years

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Good news everyone! Spock’s “I understand how you must [feel]” line in Operation-Annihilate! just got way worse now that he knew Sam too! And also lost Michael!

#THIS IS FINE I'M FINE #death cw #c;; sam kirk #c;; spock #sibling death cw

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debtsunpaid · 2 months

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a moment in time #7: wish they had taken more time to savor while they were in it. / a cheryl pov to this drabble.

she's in the kitchen with her kid brother, washing up while he dries; they're still in their funeral clothes, and the way he's slopping dish water down the front of his nice, clean shirt makes her want to laugh and cry all at once. only a week ago, she thought she'd be wearing her funeral clothes for his.

in a way, they've been funeral clothes for him for as long as she's had funeral clothes to wear.

it's not that he's always been trouble — not that it's always been his fault when he is, either. it's just that ... you get a feeling about people, sometimes, even from the very moment you meet them. you get a feeling that they don't belong.

john's never really belonged anywhere, not even when he was young. too smart by half to be a dockworker's kid, too curious to stand on politeness when there were questions to be asked instead, too sweet ( sometimes ) to be the kind of boy they had at school — to even consider that he might become a man, eventually. too little to win a fight, and too sensitive not to cry. too angry: at dad for being cruel, and at the police for taking him away, and at her for being too old and too much of a girl to understand, and at the world. too sad.

even now, he doesn't quite belong in her kitchen, at her house, drying her dishes. he's supposed to be ... more transient than that, more of an idea of a brother than the real flesh-and-blood. he's like one of the stray cats that gemma feeds out in the garden, stays for a night and laps up a bit of kindness and then disappears back over the fence; god knows where he goes off to, who else he struts up to with his tail held high and his big, baleful eyes, or whether he'll ever come back again. but you take it for granted that he'll go nonetheless, and trust that he can take care of himself. you have to, or his absence will just keep breaking your heart.

secretly, cheryl doesn't think he finds very much kindness out there in the world alone. he keeps coming back, after all.

when the police had come to the door to tell her about dad, before she knew it was about dad, her heart had broken then. she'd seen the hats in their hands and thought about those funeral clothes upstairs in her closet, folded neat and dark and waiting, the same ones she'd bought the first time they'd all thought john had died — thought about how she'd have to take them out to iron them, and how gemma's wouldn't even fit her anymore at her age so they'd have to go get new ones. thought about calling up that eccentric vicar from clapham to get all his friends together again so she and gemma and tony wouldn't be the only ones at the funeral.

thought about how dismal and silly it was that she almost knew what to do by heart, despite only ever having done it once before. because she'd always gotten the feeling that john didn't ever really belong anywhere, except for in that crazy crowd of queers and weirdos, and that meant he belonged at his own funeral better than anywhere else in the world.

oh, dad ... it was horrible to feel so much relief when they'd said "thomas". and then they'd told her how, and oh, the horror, horror, horror.

john consoles her when she tells him so, a steadying hand laid on her arm. a part of her thinks it ought to pass right through her like a ghost's; pass right through and break her heart again, the way he's always passed in and out of her life.

she doesn't know why she thought he might show up for the funeral. maybe she'd hoped if he did, it would prove for certain that it wasn't his.

or maybe she'd hoped it would mean that all that business between him and dad when they were young was really just squabbling. just a hippie and the old guard butting heads — not something she had to think about when gemma started having her nightmares. when her daughter's eyes slid away the night before in the same way john's do now when she asks him what he thinks, if it's possible, how it couldn't be something like that, could it?

he doesn't tell her NO. he just tells her DON'T.

dad hadn't been well when john was little, was the problem. he'd been sick, and on the drink, and he'd behaved badly. but he'd gotten better by the time gemma came round, and john ... john had run so far away from all of them, and john had gotten worse. she doesn't even want to picture gemma getting worse. which is why gemma has to stay close to home, and not pick up too much from her uncle john: because gemma has to be happy, the way john never is. the way john never could be. because cheryl has to protect her daughter better than she protected him.

sometimes when she spills tea in her little kitchen, she remembers how it had dripped into john's hair when a mug had shattered against the wall above his little head, and she gets so angry. at the world, and at dad, and at herself, for thinking she was simply too grown-up to let that happen to her. for thinking john would grow up knowing how to stop it all by himself.

sometimes she thinks she's always belonged just as little as john, and she's just gotten better at pretending, because she's never not had someone to pretend for.

... and sometimes john makes her laugh in the same little kitchen, smiling past all the questions and the maybes and the past, and cheryl realizes that he could belong here, if nowhere else, if she would let him. here, in a quiet home. here, with gemma to set a good example for. here, to make mistakes that won't put him in the ground.

( like snaking a drain so awfully that he almost floods the house, and slopping dish water down his funeral shirt as he dries; good intentions gone awry, but known for good, and safe to fail. )

because it hasn't always been his fault that he's trouble, or that the funeral clothes were bought because of him — maybe she built the backyard fence too high, the day she left, and he had to practice the jump so often that it just got easier than staying. maybe they only put out kindness when he comes calling for it, only ever enough to slake a thirst, not ever to be full.

he could belong, because he just looks so tired, even with a smile; the way she feels inside. because he still showed up in his funeral clothes, despite the fact that he wasn't there, and cheryl can't help but wonder if she's been dressing him up in childish anger all this time when it never truly fit, because he wears grown-up grief like he was born into it.

he had been, after all, hadn't he?

she didn't want to savor any of it, back then; her grief, her daughter's terror, her brother's loneliness, her father's ghost. she'd wanted it all to just ... to go away, like a bad, bad dream. john had gone, that evening, fixed her problems and kissed her cheek and wished her well; back over the fence again. gemma had gone later, years later, though none of them had known it then, and like the strays cats she used to feed, it was all they could do to hope she might come home again.

but cheryl always remembered that afternoon, every time she snapped on her purple washing-up gloves. remembered how she'd ironed out her funeral clothes. remembered how gemma had still trusted enough to tell her mother everything, and had hugged her as they cried. remembered how her little brother had water down his shirt and a smile that belonged in her home as surely as the wine glasses and the washing up gloves.

she never did wear those funeral clothes for him, in the end.

#ask to tag /#abuse mention /#abuse mention cw #sibling death /#sibling death cw #parent death /#parent death cw #this shit grabbed me in a chokehold and REFUSED to let me go so now y'all are stuck with it enjoy <3 #CHERYL HC. ( there's more to this story than i've been letting on. )#CHERYL STUDY. ( i knew he'd get it wrong but i just played along. )

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yabee-tea · 8 months

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Soooo... how's your day going?

After reading that update I couldn't help but wonder "what if Donnie couldn't reach in and yoink Leo" and then I couldn't stop thinking about it kshdksh

@somerandomdudelmao (hi)

#my art #not my au #cass apocalyptic series #future donatello #future leo #tmnt #rottmnt #cw sibling death

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angelpuns · 8 months

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CW WARNING FOR SIBLING/FAMILY DEATH, CW DEATH. Please let me know if I need to add more warnings!!

Finally finished this comic redraw of one of my oldest and also saddest comics to date :)

I originally planned for this comic to become a part of a bigger future/apocalypse au, but with the tmnt iteration and other projects I wanna work on, I figured it's best to shelve it. Not to mention I didn't have too many plot ideas anyway! It was pretty much a lost ronin lost years type au where Leo is haunted by his brothers :)

I also wanted to post this all at once due to the sort of...twist? I didn't want to have it sit there where you guys wouldn't know what was happening next. Best to get the hurt out of the way all at once!

I hope everyone enjoys it, I really enjoyed doing the extra color and finishing on this comic!! Also F!Donnie's design was pretty fun to draw!!

I don't have a link to the og version because I never posted it here, but I love seeing the huge improvement in dialogue and just drawing in general. It looks a lot more finished <3

Anyway, new birthday special update tomorrow! I hope that is enough comfort for you all because I will also get back to posting the spinoff comic and it is....similarly devastating to this one (no spoilers though <3)

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intotheelliwoods · 2 months

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This is Part 1! Part 2 can be found here~

Masterpost

#cw implied sibling death #tw implied sibling death #implied character daeth #btw #tumblr user @sad-leon is 100% to blame for the idea of an imaginary big leo #<3 #rottmnt #rise of the tmnt #rise leo #leonardo hamato #if I forgot some tw/cw tag lmk #2 arms left #<- oops forgot au tag haha

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tangledinink · 9 months

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i can regret the situation without regretting my choices. i would never take it back.

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sad-leon · 2 months

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Part 1

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percentstardust · 1 year

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❝ agh, i can’t breathe — ! ❞ ( from madi griffin in her Marvel v. to Yelena )

emptying out my askbox | @aigonakru

"Okay, okay. Little one, let's take deep breaths." Natasha would do this with her during the years of the Snap. When she would have these types of panic attacks. Natasha was finally there for her and finally able to help her. It was such a short time, but, it was enough to make the ache of losing Natasha hurt even worse.

"I'm going to take a hold of you so you can some focusing more on me, okay?" Her hands reach out, they take a hold of Madi's smaller arms. "Just looking in my eyes. Take a deep breath in and out. You're going to be fine. I'm here and I'm going to help you."

#aigonakru #& answered ask ( yelena belova )#verse; post avengers endgame #wow she has adopted madi now #sibling death cw #panic attack cw

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kiaxet · 8 months

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HOW ABOUT THAT @somerandomdudelmao DISASTER TWIN REUNION, HUH

Went a little feral to the tune of 2.2K words of self-indulgence. What else is new?

~~~~~~~

Donnie can't sleep. More accurately, he won't sleep. Not until he's done. He'd never been one to leave a project unfinished; death and resurrection hadn't changed that.

He taps incessantly, repetitively, on a keyboard and screen, the motions long since past inputting data and now only serving to keep him awake. The repetition is soothing, easy, and - counterintuitively - he finds his head drooping forward into sleep-

And he snaps back upright. No. Not until he can confirm Leo is okay.

Leo is behind him, he knows. Breathing. In bed. Asleep. Very much alive. And-

He jumps and whips around as a thud sounds behind him. "What the-"

Leo is on the floor.

Well, that answers the question as to whether his twin is awake.

For a fraction of a second, part of him wavers uncertainly. He loves his idiot twin. The question he hasn't been able to answer is whether his reaction to Leo waking up will fall on love or idiot twin-

"Leo!"

He can hear the exasperation in his voice, and yep, it's the latter. He takes a knee next to Leo and hauls him into his arms, lecturing him all the while, and if he can hear the annoyance in his voice then Leo sure as hell can. Sleep deprivation for the purposes of keeping his brother's soul alight had done nothing for his temper. "I swear to God, all you had to do was make a sound! Why are you such a difficult patient?"

He deposits Leo carefully on the bed - "Sit still!" - and checks him over, running every scan he can think of and making sure his brother's new body really is in good working order, spouting increasingly irritated commentary all the while. Of course the fall didn't hurt him - Leo is tougher than that, and Donnie does better work than that - but he still can't help the rising anxiety in his throat.

This almost didn't happen.

"-stupid, stupid selfless idiot!"

Donnie almost couldn't save him.

"Grrhh-"

Leo nearly died for real. Permanently beyond Donnie's reach. Well and truly gone-

"Do you have any idea how close you were to having nothing left to save?"

And now here Leo is, in perfect health, sitting on Donnie's bed with a big dopey grin on his face as Donnie chokes on his anxiety and damn near shakes himself apart-

Oh for fuck's sake.

"Hey. Are you even listening?"

Leo speaks up for the first time since he's woken up, voice shaky from disuse. "D-Donnie?"

And that is not a goddamn answer to anything Donnie has been saying, because of course it isn't. It's Leo. He's always had his own priorities. "Yeah. No. You're not fucking listening." Donnie heaves a long-suffering sigh, sinking back into the routine comfort that irritation at his twin provides. "At least you're talking." Small favors. "Although I'm surprised you're not throwing your stupid jokes at me." Even smaller favors.

He stops short as Leo's hand closes around his wrist, drawing Donnie's arm to Leo's plastron. "You're real," his brother breathes, looking from Donnie's hand to Donnie himself with tears streaming down his face. "You're real!"

And then, in the space of a thought, Leo's joy breaks, his smile turning desperate. "Are you?"

For a moment, Donnie stares at his twin, wondering at the sudden change in expression. He takes a breath-

And the part of him that had lain dormant for so long after he'd woken up - the part of him that had been screaming for his twin's safety ever since they'd recovered the few scattered embers of Leo's soul - gasps to life, blooming like a time-lapse video of a flower and reaching to the edges of Donnie's soul. Leo had called it their twin sense, and Donnie hadn't had it in him to argue after a while. Whatever it is, it's back, connected to Leo's renewed presence, and-

Donnie's heart floods with emotions. Relief and joy sprout quickly and are nearly swept away in a tide of exhaustionanxietyfearfearfearfearFEAR-

But down beneath it all, steady against the rising wall of terror, is the little blue spark of hope that his brother always carried. His core. The thing that let him continue on in the face of insurmountable odds, and lent that same strength to everyone around him. A ninja's greatest weapon.

It's Leo. It's Leo-

And Donnie can't leave him alone in his fear. Not when there's no need for it. Not when they're safe.

He lets that breath out, and sits next to Leo on the bed. "Mhm. I'm alive. And you're alive. We're safe. The Krang are gone." That's all the news that's fit to print, or at least the most important parts. What else does he have to say?

Oh.

"I'm sorry I..uh…"

He's sorry he what? Died? Left a mess for Leo to deal with? Didn't do enough while he was alive to keep everyone else alive in turn after he was gone? Kept his brother's soul in a fucking mug, because that was the only way he could ensure he wouldn't break it while Leo was still fragile? All of the above?

…yeah, it's all of the above.

He owes Leo one hell of an apology, and he's never been good at any of this, so instead he shrugs haplessly and leans forward, pulling Leo into his arms and hanging on tight.

It's a matter of moments before Leo has him flat on his shell on the bed and is sobbing into his arms. Normally he'd hate seeing his twin cry, but it's proof of life - proof that Leo made it, that his soul is intact enough for him to still be Leo, that he's alive and awake and here - and Donnie will take it.

And if he's squeezing Leo back pretty hard himself, well, that's fine too. Nobody else needs to know.

~~~~~~~

Donnie is yelling at him.

Donnie is strong enough to have picked Leo up off the ground, well enough to be on his feet without support, running tests and reading Leo the riot act over his latest boneheaded maneuver - in this case, forgetting he was missing an arm and falling out of bed.

Donnie is yelling at him, because Donnie is here to yell at him.

And Leo is smiling, because he couldn't be happier. He lets the words wash over him, draping over his shoulders like a favorite cozy blanket that he'd lost so many years ago, and he basks in the warmth that is his brother's voice and smiles.

It's enough to interrupt the yelling for a question, though he doesn't really hear it - just keeps smiling, and says Donnie's name, and it's so nice to be able to say it with a smile now, because Donnie is here-

-he is, right? This isn't just a dying hallucination on Leo's part, right?

(It couldn't be- he remembers his death, remembers breathing his last, remembers being trapped- but this-)

He reaches out, taking Donnie's wrist in hand, and pulls his brother closer to him. "You're…real…" It certainly feels real - skin and scales, softer than his own, and his fingers barely fit all the way around the wrist instead of encircling them with room to spare - and he stares down at it, tears rolling down his face as he finally looks back up at his twin. "You're real!"

The Krang show you what you want to see.

The thought strikes him unbidden, turning his joy and relief to ice. It's a well-known fact: a Krang infection can show its host what they want to see, visions of comfort and family and home, and extract intel from the host's reactions. He knows that- he knows that, and-

And he'd died surrounded by Krang- and even if he couldn't see or hear or feel, he knows he'd been held captive-

But it's Donnie- he wants this to be real- he needs this to be real- he wants his twin back so badly he can't think, and the idea that this could be a Krang hallucination is almost too much to bear-

"Are you?" He can hear how choked the words are as they leave his lips, but he needs to know-

And Donnie stops, and sits down next to him, and tells him everything he wants to hear - everything he could've ever wished for. They're alive. They're safe. The Krang are gone. It all sounds too good to be true.

And then Donnie offers him an apology and a sad half-smile, pulling him into a strong hug-

And the ice in Leo's mind shatters in a flood of warmth as his twin sense opens for the first time since Donnie's death. He feels his twin's irritation, and deep-seated exhaustion, and a choking wave of guiltguiltguiltguiltguilt-

And beneath it all, steady and strong as ever, the thrum of unending determination, powered by an unfathomably deep well of love. It's the backbeat to the melody of Leo's life, the point-counterpoint to his own heartbeat- it's something he'd never had to live without until he did, but it's back, rushing in to fill the silence he'd known with the strength to go on and the knowledge that he is loved loved loved, strong and overwhelming and all-encompassing in the way only Donnie can love-

It's something the Krang could never imitate.

This is real. This is all real-

He throws himself against his twin, toppling them both over on the bed as he clings to Donnie, unable to stand even a fraction of an inch of space between them, as though he could push their hearts together through their plastrons, and he cries, sobbing out worry and terror and grief and the slow, crushing exhaustion of a losing battle finally lost. He cries as though the world was ending - and it had, once when the Krang had invaded and again every time he'd lost a member of his family, over and over until he'd sent his last hope through a portal that had cost his littlest brother his life and succumbed to death himself.

And now he's alive. Here, wherever here is, with Donnie. Clinging to his twin, and being held in turn as Donnie gently sits them both up, never letting go as Leo cries himself out.

It takes a while - long enough for Leo's gaze to settle into a stare and his thoughts to settle into a comfortable static. He's alive, Donnie is alive, and he has no fucking idea what else is going on, but he's just going to be okay with that for now.

His thoughts rouse enough to inform him of something wrong - the line of tension Donnie is carrying down his neck and over his shoulders. That won't do. Leo could try to massage it out with one hand, maybe try to get Donnie to talk about it, but Donnie never likes to talk about it, and Leo isn't one for slowly soothing away tension when he can just take an axe to the release valve instead. Plus, it gives him something definite to focus on, instead of…this whole situation. Whatever 'this whole situation' actually is.

Donnie had mentioned his stupid jokes, right?

"H-hey Dee?" His voice wavers from disuse, thick with tears, but he pushes through. "Why did- why did the tree buy a camera?"

"What?" Oh, Donnie is not going to see this coming. Excellent.

"To do a photosynthesis." It's nowhere near the level of pizazz he normally uses for a punchline delivery - he's still too tired and frazzled and clinging to Donnie entirely too hard for that - but that beautiful pause of a terrible joke sinking in tells him it had hit home nonetheless. Donnie moves - he can hear the telltale slap of face meeting palm - and then breaks down into helpless laughter, smacking the back of Leo's shell as the tension Leo had felt in his twin's shoulders abruptly relaxes. Good. It worked.

"This is so fucking stupid," is all Donnie manages as his laughter fades, and he slumps fully against Leo with a murmur. That's...abrupt. Sure, Leo had felt Donnie's exhaustion, but he hadn't realized it'd been that bad. He takes hold of Donnie, gently laying him down on the bed to rest-

Remember what happened last time Donnie fell asleep next to you.

He gasps sharply at the thought - not again NEVER again - and keeps his hand steady as he moves, laying both fingers gently against Donnie's neck and feeling for his pulse. It's easy to find, strong and steady and even, like it had been before the infection had taken Donnie's vitality and then his life.

But he's alive, and healthy, and sleeping. He's okay. And Leo-

Leo moves his hand to the side of his own neck. His pulse is also easy to find, quickened with the adrenaline of an unknown situation and multiple consecutive shocks to his system.

Okay. Take stock. Assess. Figure out a plan from there.

He's alive. Donnie's alive. The Krang are gone. And everything else…is a big fat question mark, with no easy answers and no indication as to where to begin looking for them.

Well.

Uh.

"What the fuck," Leo whispers to the room at large, as though the walls could answer.

~~~~~~~

(A world away and still very close, a younger pair of twins cling to one another the way a drowning man clings to driftwood: desperately, clutching tight, as though letting go will spell their doom. Neither of them know where the emotions came from, or why; all they know is that each of them are damn glad the other is alive, and they'll do everything they can to make sure that continues to be the case.)

(What the fuck, indeed.)

#rottmnt #cass apocalyptic series #future leo #future donnie #fic #writing #cw sibling death #mention of it at least #referencing the scrapped movie storyboards because it's too good a beat to pass up #we have fun here #no gods no betas we die like NOBODY BECAUSE DONNIE FUCKING FIXED IT #I GUESS #twin sense shit is my FUCKING JAM #inexplicable mystic bonds between two halves of a whole? sign me the FUCK up #I couldn't decide whose POV to write this from so I just did both #which is WHY it's 2K+ words #it's not perfect but it's Good Enough and therefore it's getting posted #fuck it we ball

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