I Lied

silly little doodle before I sleep <3

This kinda made me cry a little

Experimental "comic" 🐒

Turtle pile, but this time with a good ending

Ok so. Disclaimer. This is my first fic ever and its about @somerandomdudelmao rottmnt AU. (this shows how much I am into this AU, it's seriously a masterpiece)

I was thinking about the arc just before all the turtles (past and future) reunited... and I had an idea of how the turtles would react to a sick Future!Donnie.

anyways, here it is!

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After coming back to life in another time branch, bringing back his brothers from the apocalypse and concluding that death is fixable, Donnie forgot that he is not actually omnipotent, God or a perfectly oiled machine.

This grounding truth became obvious when one evening, while he was working on the time-machine, his movements became sloppier, and a pounding headache started to grow from the sides of his head. The irrational part of his brain (a very little part of his brain to be honest) brought him back to his time branch, in those days in which the symptoms of the krang infection started manifesting. But no, he shook his head as if to obliterate that stupid irrational thought. It’s not possible that the krang infection remained in his body, both Barry and Mikey confirmed it.

Now, he just had to hide it from the rest of his brothers, which could be quite a challenge given the fact that they now lived all together and there isn’t an active apocalypse that is trying to kill them at any moment to distract them. Nice.

 Thankfully CJ was spending the night with their younger versions and April.

But really, it wasn’t that bad, after running a few quick tests on himself he found that the reason of his unwellness lied in the fact that his body became accustomed to the terraformed New York’s weather… aka as dry as the fucking Sahara Desert. Right now, in the normal New York it’s almost winter and let’s just say that the sewers’ humidity index is a tad bit higher than what he is used to…

Suppressing a few coughs, the softshell decided that it’s time to go to catch a few hours of sleep. He stood up from his chair, missing the heat and pressure it provided against his shell. Galileo… he hasn’t worn his battleshell in ages.  I have to add it to the list of things to do; now it’s not the right time. He lethargically made his way to his bed and carelessly flopped down. It was in that moment that he realized just how tired he was, his eyes burned from looking at his computer’s screen too much, his head was now throbbing in a very piercing way and all his body felt heavy. If it wasn’t for the fact that he was utterly exhausted he would have noticed a big red figure looking at him from the doorway of the lab.

When Leo woke up after a long and (finally) continuous 8 hours of sleep, he wasn’t feeling as relaxed as he thought. The slider looked at the time twice to confirm the amount of hours he actually slept, but not even a truckload of confidence could erase the deep feeling of anxiety in his gut. The anxiety wasn’t unusual; it was a feeling that he had to come to terms with during the difficult times of the apocalypse. What bugged him was that he hadn’t felt this particular type of anxiety for almost two years. The twin sense. But Donnie was ok; he was the one that brought him, Mikey and Raph to safety, he wasn’t frail like the last time he saw him, he didn’t have eyebags that were darker than the night sky. He. Is. Ok.

Groaning, he decided that it was time to get up, at least to shake off his irrational thoughts and to see with his own eyes that his brother was indeed fine and healthy. When Leo arrived in the kitchen he was met with the mouthwatering smell of Mikey’s pancakes. God he didn’t even realize how much he missed them. Raph was already at the table  eating the pancakes, he smiled at the view, he would have never thought this moment could ever be possible, but here we are.

“Hey, Mr sensei? You done staring? Do you want the pancakes or not?”. The box turtle was leaning on the stove, his air put up in a bun, on one hand he had a spatula, on the other a ladle with some pancake batter in it.

“Good mornig hermanos! Michael, my dearest brother, right now, to my eye, you are an angel that has just blessed my day. I would die for just one piece of your pancake”. His orange brother chuckled and poured the mix in the pan. “No more dying, please. I’ll make as many as you want; go sit down”.

The slider made his way to the table, sitting in front of his older brother. He looked around, trying to find some trace of his twin.

“Has Donald already eaten?”

He knew that the answer was going to be negative; Donnie has always been a night owl, never too eager to wake up early in the morning. What he didn’t expect was his red and big brother to freeze mid bite.

“You ok big guy?”

Sensing the mood shift, Mikey approached them, putting a comforting hand over the snapper’s left shoulder. “You know you can talk to us Raphie” he smiled.

Raph sighed putting down the fork and placing his right hand over Mikey’s.

“I know… I just…” He sighed again, this time looking directly at Leo. Were those worry lines on his brother forehead? “'Look, I’ll bite the bullet or whatever. I have been having trouble sleeping, you know, with all the ‘I haven’t slept in more than 5 years' situation, and it’s fine! It really is! I know that it’s difficult to adjust, but I kind of liked my old routine. Back in the apocalypse I used to patrol the base and make sure you all were ok… it was the least I could do”.  The snapper lowered his gaze, frowning deeply. “The only person that Raph had some trouble looking after was Donnie… at the time I didn’t realize it, but at some point, he started to lock the lab the night… I guess that was when he started getting sick.”

That was a stab in the chest for all of them. No one had noticed their brother’s decaying health; it took Casey to physically make contact with Donatello’s ribs to get them to open their eyes at the situation. Leo didn’t particularly enjoy thinking about how irresponsible of a leader, of a brother, he had been... everything could have been avoided if he just thought about doing periodic checkups on his brother, it wasn’t that absurd, but he overestimated the softshell’s capabilities of taking care of himself. Right now, though, his twin sense was screaming at him, and he had a feeling that Raph wasn’t just expressing his feelings in a little breakky therapist session. “Raph… look at me.” He searched his big brother’s eyes. Black eyes met black eyes. Red bandana met red stripes.

“What’s wrong?”

“Tonight, I heard Donnie cough. Badly.”

In that moment, Leo’s heart shattered.

After  a few freezing seconds that felt like ages the cold dread was broken by Mike, bless his heart, he really was an angel.

“let’s not worry too much about what we still don’t know. This place is quite dusty, it could have been that, right? We’ll let him sleep it off and in a few we are going to check on him.” The mystic warrior squeezed his brig brother’s finger (his hand was too big).

Leo looked at his little brother, one could have been fooled by his light smile, but that smile wasn’t reaching his eyes, and his hand was gripping too much Raph’s finger.

 The slider took a deep breath, he had to say it, to voice it in some way or he was going to go crazy.

“Do you guys think it could b-“

A loud crash interrupted him mid-sentence. Raph stood up immediately “It came from the lab!”.  Mikey started levitating, his eyes becoming that fluorescent hue of orange and began to sprint-fly towards the lab, followed closely by his brothers. They soon arrived at the lab which, thanks to Draxum’s interior design sense, didn’t have heavy metal doors that are extremely difficult to open.

“DONNIE?!”

Mikey’s scream was like an arrow to their chest, a waterfall of panic washed over Leo. Why didn’t he go to his twin sooner? Why didn’t he dare to check his brother? Why couldn’t he learn from his mistakes?

The lab was still dark, the only source of light were a few LED lights that Donnie started installing to the time machine and the original green/yellow lights. In the shadows only one thing cold be distinguished, their brother’s body on the floor, next to his lab chair.

“shit shit shi- Raph turn on the lights!”

The slider reached next to the softshell Mikey, he had a hand on his forehead, he was trembling slightly, his eyes had come back to their natural color. “L-Leo… He won’t wake up! I-I tried to call him, but he doesn’t respond “.

Raph returned and put his big hand on Mikey’s shell and began making circling movements to try and soothe him, but his eyes were glues to his other little brother unconscious body.  In the meantime, Leo had already taken on his role of medic, assessing the pulse and the breathing, noticing also the deep dark eyebags. He sighed in frustration; Donnie wasn’t  going to get out of this easily. “He definitely has a fever, but other than that I can’t say anything more…”  

The first thing that Donnie noticed was that his shell was cold. On a more accurate analysis, he found out that all his body was cold. Cold and sore to be more specific. Mh… he would rate this nap a solid 1/10. Wait. Nap? He didn’t remember falling asleep and his bed surely wasn’t this cold. As he slowly regained consciousness he became aware of other sensations and stimuli, like the pounding headache in his temples, dry throat and someone who was touching him. Right now the feeling wasn’t particularly appreciated.

“ghh- cough- cough”

Where was he??

“ie? Yo- th us? Donnie??”

A rough hand was positioned on his forehead. Ew it’s sticky. Gross.

“Leo?”

He slowly opened his eyes, his retina adjusting to the blinding lights in his lab. His lab? Wait the last thing he remembered was getting up to go rest, he was starting to feel shitty and- Ohh fuck.

“yeah, ‘oh fuck’. Donnie, it’s quite important, look at me.” He directed his gaze towards the source of the voice, to his left. Leo was on his knees, worry lines dug into his forehead. Behind him there were his brothers, both of them had similar expressions on their faces.

“Donald?” oh right, focus.

“yeah?” God, his voice was raspy.

“Do you think you can get up on you own?”

He really really really (3 reallys) hoped so. “I- yeah I think so”. The softshell began to get on his elbows, ignoring the blinding pain on his back and how much his vision was swaying. He couldn’t ask for Leo’s help. Not right now, because now thing are different, he is fine, he isn’t weak, frail or uncapable of doing the most basic things, like getting up or walking aided by a stick, like an old men. He had it, he fixed it. He managed to sit upright, his vision went black just for a few seconds as his body was trying to adjust to the change of position. When his vision returned normal, his eyes were met with a comforting and warm light which definitely wasn’t coming from the lightbulbs of the lab, it was coming from Mikey’s ninpo. His mystic brother was so gentle that he didn’t even realize that he was floating mid air.

“wait Micheal, I can walk, I swear”

He heard a few scoffs, coming from different directions.

“yeah, keep telling yourself that. Dummy.”

The warming feeling of his brother’s ninpo was a bit too comforting and sleep felt like a good idea.

“Donnie please try not to fall asleep”. This was Raph, he used his ‘big and responsible brother voice’, oh how much he missed that.

“mh, just resting my eyes”

Suddenly he flopped on the big couch in the ‘livingroom’. Mikey was in front of him, a frown of worry on his face. “Leo, I’m going to use my ninpo a bit harder now, I think you should stand back a little.”

Leo actually listened to Mikey, his gaze though didn’t leave the softshell. Raph looked worryingly at Mikey “Are you sure you are going to be alright?”

Mikey raised his arms towards Donnie, “Don’t worry big guy! A little Krang research didn’t aver hurt no one!”

Wait, Krang? It was in that moment, that Donnie realized that his brother thought that he was still infected. That he was still sick and weak. His brother was going to risk overusing his ninpo on a little cold.

“No wait Mikey!” Cough cough. “It’s not the Krang, I’m sure of it!” another cough.

Leo walked closer to the couch, positioning in front of him, his eyer on fire. “Donnie don’t be stupid. You couldn’t see it coming the first time, so why would you predict it now? Why wouldn’t we check after finding you unconscious?! We can’t lose you AGAIN Donnie! You can’t fix everything! And even if you can, sometimes prevent is better than cure!” His brother’s eyes began to water. “I can’t keep losing you… please let us check”.

Raph reached the slider and put a big hand on Donnie’s shoulder, “Leo’s right Donnie… we can’t be so sure, things are already too complicated right now, let us be sure about at least one thing, let us do it. Let Mikey check.”

The box turtle turned to him with a  bright smile, “It’s going to be quick, trust me”

Cold shivers run through the softshell’s body, and resulted in a shiver. “promise me that if you start feeling that something is off you are going to stop.”

All his brothers looked at him with an unreadable expression.

“Said the turtle who fainted, probably because of exhaustion.” Ok fair enough.

“touché”

The process was actually quite quick. As soon as Leo and Raph took a few steps back Mikey began to glow (he never got tired of seeing it), and when his little brother took his hands a hot sensation ran through his body, banishing the shivers from just a few seconds earlier.

After a few minutes the warm feeling was already gone, replaced by the sewer’s humidity.

Mikey smiled at his brothers “Donnie was right, there is no Krang.”

“told you so” cough cough.

A general sigh of relief could be heard from all of them.

“it’s this place’s fault, it’s too cold and humid compared to what we were used to.”

Leo flopped on the couch, right next to him and punched him on the shoulder. “Oh no! It’s totally your fault! You have again neglected your health like the workaholic you are! You can’t keep doing it!”

Mikey sat on the floor in front of them, “Leo… why don’t we argue later? Dr Delicate touch is going to pay a vist for sure,” he looked at Donnie, who was looking like he could fall asleep in any moment. “why don’t we make a turtle pile? It’s been ages”.

A turtle pile. Everyone remembered the last time they did it. That time Raph was a robot with a metallic and cold voice. Donnie was as frail as a stick, he was so weak that he couldn’t even sit.

But this time it was different.

Raph was real.

Donnie was just under the weather.

Death is fixable.

They are ok.

They are together.

------------------------------------------------

the End. Comments and suggestions are always welcome!!

House rules are sacred

*affectionate

the parallelism (or cit?)

I recently did a binge watch of Blue Lock. As soon as this scene with Chigiri and the creepy long black aired guy (Aryu) popped up...

I could not think about this scene with Kurama and the creepy long black aired guy (Karasu) yu yu hakusho.

the only thing that differs is that in the first case Aryu compliments Chigiri's hair, in the second case Karasu basically told Kurama that he had shitty human hair LOL

the struggle is real

me: *has to study for very difficult exams that are not too far away*

brain: you should write a fanfiction

me: brain, I have litterally never wrote anything in my entire life, now it doesn't seem like a good time...

me: I really have to focus

brain: :(

me: ...sigh ok, but just a short one! Then we can go back and focus!!

brain: :D

me: *never focuses again*

It’s this time of the year again!

The Future!Donnie and baby Casey fluff I didn't know I needed. My heart is melting

Can I get some Uncle Tello- Baby/Toddler Casey Jones Jr bonding fluff? Their bond is just so cute and funny to me & I just keep thinking about Donatello "I don't like kids, but if anyone even breathes wrong in Casey Jr's direction I will not hesitate to take someone out" Hamato aka 'the grumpy, protective uncle who grows to love his nephew very much but would never willingly admit it outloud (especially to his twin. Too bad for him Leo most likely already knows. again. twins lol ). Cause I can imagine poor guy had a hard time coping with the fact that CJ can destroy anyone's "emotionally unavailable bad-boy" image with little effort if you give him the time. And Donnie learned the hard way 😂

I am SO sorry this took so long! This prompt is golden and I love it, here you go!

--

Donatello tolerates children. He doesn't hate them because, believe it or not, there is a difference between the two.

He understands from a logistical standpoint that children function differently from adults. They're still navigating the world, cry when a need isn't met, laugh when you tickle them or someone falls on their face, and put everything and anything within reach in their mouth to figure out what it is and if they can eat it. Most of the time, the answer is no. 

Donnie understands that, so he tolerates children. And as the world caves in and he's forced to intermingle with more humans and Yokai than he'll ever see (the numbers dwindle daily, but who's counting?), his tolerance builds. Though his position in the Resistance—Keeping Everyone Alive Under Six Feet of Earth and Limited Oxygen—keeps him cooped up in his lab and limits his interaction with people in general, on the odd days he's not locked in there with a sign that reads 'Keep Out or Get Bit', he'd say he does a decent job. Take that, autism.

It's on one of these odd days Cassandra Jones kicks the door of the mess hall down with enough force to send it flying, holds up a dirty bundle with a squirming thing inside and screeches. “I have acquired a child!”

And that was that.

Well, not really; there was a lot of screeching, demanding, explaining and even more frantic demanding involved. But Donnie barely remembers most of it. He'd been busy staring at the little pink face peeking out from the ragged cloth wrapped hastily around a tiny body, wondering how and why anyone would abandon him.

Logically, he knew why. Babies smell, they're defenceless, needy and loud. All recipes for disaster—death—in the alien apocalypse. Logically, he knew it was better to cut your losses and ditch, lighten the load, ease the burden and raise your chances of survival. 

Emotionally, irrationally, he wanted to find the blood mother and kill her himself.

Regardless, Cassandra had claimed him, named him—Casey Jones Jr, of course—and the Hamato's had a new family member. 

Cass was a mother, and Donnie was suddenly an uncle.

Cassandra, despite herself, is a great mother. She feeds, clothes, bathes and teaches Jr with the ferocity and vigour she's always had in spades but dipped in a new warmth and love Donnie never would have associated with her. It's unexpected, but Cass wouldn't be Cass if she weren't screwing Donnie's perception of reality in her every waking moment.

April and Raph dote on him something awful with baby voices and whatever toys they find or have donated to them by other understanding and indulgent parents. Mikey cries when he takes his first steps. Draxum gifts him a Yokai necklace made from dragon teeth and scales.

(“He can eat them once his feeble infant teeth fall out,” he explains while stoically cradling the giggling infant on one clawed palm, outwardly indifferent yet impossibly gentle. “They will harden his skin and strengthen his bones to iron. No Krang would dare stand in his way.”

“We are not,” April says, “feeding dragon teeth to my nephew, Draxum.”

“As his grandfather, I should have some say in his dietary requirements. Cassandra agrees with me!”

“I will bury you, Draxum,” April growls in a tone that promises unspeakable violence. “I will bury you deep.”

“... understood.”)

Leo lets him chew on his mask tails while rocking him to sleep. He also cries like a bitch when the little pink thing looks him in the eye, drool dribbling down his chin and his gummy smile miles and miles wide and says—“Weo!”

(Donnie thinks Splinter would have loved him just as much. Shared with him the stories and legacy of their clan, sang to him the same old Japanese lullabies, enthralled him with the tales of Lou Jitsu, everything he'd wanted to do should he ever become a grandfather.)

Donnie doesn't see Casey much. Not by choice, but he's a busy freaking turtle and one-year-olds are notoriously for being loud, distracting little things that Donnie cannot afford, now more than ever.

He knows their chances of winning the war are slim at best and impossible at worst. Hope can only take you so far, crazy mystic powers or not. They've already lost so much of their world. They've already lost Dad.

So Donnie needs to focus, work and keep working so they won't lose anyone else. Anything less than the best possible outcome is not a thread of logic he is willing to follow.

Then there's a knock at his door.

Without turning from his multiple screens, mystic or otherwise, Donnie grunts, “It had better be good—”

Cassandra bursts through the door, blazes across the room, dumps something on Donnie's lap—“HOLD THIS I WILL RETURN SHORTLY SHUT UP AND THANK YOU FAREWELL!”—and slams the door behind her on her way out.

Donnie sits bamboozled in his chair in the aftermath of her whirlwind. He stares at the scorch marks her feet left on the floor, the angle his door sits at after she'd slammed it near off its hinges—

“Ba!”

—and at the one-year-old pink thing she'd left to drool on his lap.

“Oh hell no, hell no—Cassandra Bernid Jones!” he hollers to no reply.

How in the shit could she do this to him?! Why in the shit?!

Junior giggles at Donnie's misery, kicking his bare feet madly and clapping damp hands. He must've had his fingers in his mouth. Joy.

“Cassandra, come back for your child or I will feed you to the nearest Krang Hound!” Donnie shouts. Unsurprisingly, his only answer is more of Junior's incessant giggling. Pudgy fingers reach for Donnie's face and Donnie lifts him higher, further away. Junior shrieks with joy.

Growling, Donnie activates the mechanical arms in his shell to carefully lift the child off his lap as he stands, holding him at a fair distance. The child is delighted by this and kicks harder, screaming with unbridled joy and having the time of his life. Donnie stares, fighting a scowl and a flinch because dear god how can something so small be so ungodly loud?

Donnie wants to smash something. Ironically, the indirect source of his ire keeps that desire at bay, but it doesn't stop him from grinding his teeth.

He's busy running updates on their freaking security system, the only thing keeping the Krang from finding them and killing everything that breathes. Cassandra knows this, everyone knows this, he'd sent them an email about it! So why, in the ever-loving shit, would Cassandra literally drop her child off with the one person who has a history of only tolerating children? Sure it's his adopted nephew, but he can only last so much in the presence of his own blood relatives for Christ—

He doesn't realize he's hissing, a low guttural thing rivalled only by Raphael at his angriest, until Junior stops laughing.

As much as they postured and played with fashion, aesthetics and trends as teenagers, Donnie and his brothers are mutants, and by (non-freaky)human standards, they are not conventionally 'pretty'. And according to many honest human comrades, April included, they can be downright unnerving sometimes. Mostly when they're pissed off, their animal roots seeping through the cracks of the humanity instilled in them by a loving father. They growl, hiss, click and roar, bearing their teeth and snarling like beasts. It's worse for Donnie and Raph, the carnivores of the family and most prone to biting; Raph's size doesn't help, and Donnie has easily frightened some of their biggest and strongest Yokai allies with a flash of fangs or a warning hiss.

It's not something he likes about himself these days. It never bothered him until they were forced to interact more and more with humans who had no qualms pointing shit like that out, even now with literal aliens prowling their ruined world. Still, he's learned to roll with it like he does with everything else.

But Casey Junior looks at him—his peeled lips revealing sharp fangs grit tight in a snarl and a hiss he can't curb fast enough—and he starts crying.

Oh shit.

“Oh shit,” Donnie says, flapping his hands, ire forgotten as panic takes over. “Oh shit, the child is crying and I am the cause. Cassandra will kill me, then Draxum will bring me back as a zombie so Raph can kill me again.”

What the hell does he do? Make funny faces? Pretend to trip over and fall flat on his snoot? Kids love physical comedy, pain is always funny! Or maybe he—or—oh who is he kidding, he's screwed. And the baby is still crying, kicking his feet and red in the face. Donnie lowers but doesn't touch him, biting his lip as his thoughts race. Not even five minutes and he's proven he cannot handle a child. How does Raph do this? How did Dad put up with this for seventeen years—

Oh wait, there's an idea. What did Dad do?

Trick question: Donnie knows exactly what Dad did when they were younger, and eight times out of ten it worked. The problem lies with Donnie and his intense aversion to all things stinky and gross and loud, all of which Casey Jr is.

But Donnie has seen and lived with worse even before the world went to shit. He lived with Leo and Mikey as his little brothers; they piss him off like it's their personal mission, but he loves them so fiercely it's painful. He'd look death in the eye and double-dog dare it to do its worst for them.

This is his baby nephew. He's not been around nearly as long but surely, surely, Donnie can get over himself for him, too.

(Even if he is a busy turtle working his ass off at the end of the world. But family is different. Family trumps everything.)

So Donnie swallows, takes a deep breath, takes Casey from the mechanical arms before dismissing them into his shell—“I'm doing it, I'm freaking doing it—” and pulls Casey into his arms, holding him tight against his chest.

The crying doesn't magically cease as Donnie had hoped, but it dies down into kitten-like sniffles that do—something to Donnie's heart, squeezing and twisting it in a way he hasn't felt since Mikey was this small, maybe smaller. Whatever it is, it compels him to cup the back of Casey's ebony head and press his (grossgrossgross) face into the exposed crook of Donnie's neck.

“Um... there there,” he says clumsily, patting Casey's back with his other hand. “Cease your crying. It's making my knees hurt and my chest do weird, fuzzy things I don't have time for.”

Casey turns his head at Donnie's voice, frighteningly alert. 

Hm.

With a claw from his battle shell, he pulls his purple hood up, shielding Casey from the neon glare of his computer screens and LED lights around the lab. 

“I apologize for scaring you,” he says a decibel softer. Casey turns his head again in response, still sniffling but significantly calmer. “I am angry, yes, but I am not angry at you. It was unfair of me to show my ire that way, especially in front of you, child who is easily frightened by loud noises and yet is scarily perceptive of the moods of the people around you...”

Casey lays his head against Donnie's shoulder, blinking up at him with big watery eyes. Donnie blinks back.

This is... not awful. It's progress. Progress is good. This is good.

He tears his gaze from Jr's—as deadly a weapon as Mikey's eyes for sure—and sways from side to side the way he used to do for Leo when they were young and scared. He hums a tune under his breath, one from that Ghibli movie about little people; he can't remember the film's name but the song at the end was cute and catchy as it was corny. Even years later, he remembers the words—

“I'm 14 years old, I am pretty. I'm a teen tiny girl, a little lady. I live under the kitchen floor. Right here, not so far from you.” 

The sniffles die off, Casey's pudgy fingers grasping Donnie's torn hood, tiny nose buried against cool scales. Donnie keeps going, softly rubbing Casey's back the way Dad would rub his shell during Donnie's worse days. The memory brings tears to his eyes, so he shuts them before they can fall.

“Sometimes I feel happy, sometimes I feel blue. In my dreams O I wish I could... Feel my hair blowing in the wind, see the sky and the summer rain, pick a flower from the garden for you. Beyond the lane there's another world, butterflies floating in the air. But is there someone out there for me?”

By the end, Donnie looks down to see Casey fast asleep, sucking his thumb and drooling on Donnie's shoulder. For a breathless moment that lasts an eternity, Donnie is spellbound, staring at the little pink thing—a biological miracle someone had so quickly discarded on the barren streets of a dying world, a little life that had persevered despite every odd stacked against it, Cassandra's son, Donnie's little infant nephew—he cradles in his arms. For the first time he doesn't care for the slimy drool coating his shoulder, the bacteria or anything his body and brain would outright reject.

Donnie stares at Casey Jones Jr and finally pins a name to the fuzzy feeling in his chest.

Oh.

“Oh,” he says. Jr snuffles in his sleep.

---

When Leo turns a corner to find Mikey, Raph, April and Cassandra huddled outside Donnie's lab doors, he almost turns around to avoid the oncoming storm of Donnie's short temper. The gossip in him wins out in the end as he squeezes between Raph and Cassandra to peer through the crack in the door.

What he sees has him gaping like a fish.

Donatello Hamato—the Resistance's resident genius and hermit—sits languidly at his desk surrounded by screens, one hand tapping away at holographic screens, breezing through emails. The other arm curls around a babbling Casey Jr, grubby hands clenched tight on one of Donnie's old rubber fidget toys as he gnaws on it like a dog with a bone.

“The shipment from Asia's remaining base in Hong Kong should be arriving at the port between noon and sixteen hundred hours tomorrow,” Donnie rambles, eyes scanning a long wall of encrypted mystic text.

“Ba!” Casey cries around the toy, kicking his legs.

Donnie nods with a hum, scratching his chin. “Yes, I agree. Krang activity has intensified alarmingly at the Old Port since the refugee extraction six months ago, but there's no time to plan a safer route...”

“Ba dee ba!” Casey blows a messy raspberry. Not missing a beat, a mechanical arm pops from Donnie's shell to wipe the baby's mouth with a cloth before discarding it.

“You're right, Jr. I suppose there's no helping the matter. We must brief the teams as soon as possible to discuss the matter, rally what factions we have at our disposal—”

“Eeeee!” Casey screeches before bursting into giggles.

Donnie brightens. “Of course! We could send the drones! They're stealthier and won't incur a needless massacre at the hands of psychopathic aliens. If anything, we shall be doing the massacring once I've outfitted the drones with my newest Genius Built trademark mystic weaponry! Excellent idea Casey Jones Jr, what would I do without your added brilliance.”

“Don-NEE!” Casey cries.

“Yes yes, I'll send the email and hopefully one of those dumb dumbs will actually read—wait, what did you say?” Donnie drops the screens and plucks Casey off his lap to stare him in the face with wide eyes. “Did—Did you just—did you just say—?”

“Don!” Casey giggles, wiggling in Donnie's grip. “Don don don don don! Don-NEE!”

Donnie stares and stares and stares. A stupidly happy grin splits his face in two. “Oh my god.”

“Oh my god,” Mikey breathes with a matching grin.

“Would'ja look at that,” Raph chuckles, his smile a proud, fond thing.

“Knew he had it in him,” April nods.

“Which means Leonardo owes me fifty bucks!” Cassandra quietly whoops.

Tearing his eyes away from the horrendously cute picture of his twin and nephew, Leo aims a sly grin at Cassandra. “I would if we still used actual money as a source of income or trade.” Cassandra's grin drops like a stone, and Leo fights an evil cackle that would make Draxum proud. “Cash hasn't been a thing in years, Cassandra dear. Get dunked on.”

“Bite my ass, you di—!”

The door abruptly slides open the rest of the way and they tumble to the floor in a heap. Above them, Donatello stands unimpressed, brow raised and one hand on his hip. Curled in his other arm, Jr babbles happily and reaches for Cassandra.

“Evening all,” Donnie drones as they clambered guiltily to their feet. “To what do I owe this displeasure.”

“Nothing at all!” Cassandra said, shooting Leo a poisonous glare before opening her arms to receive her son. “Thank you for looking after my child, I will take him back now and relinquish you from your—”

“A-bub-bub-bub!” Donnie turns slightly, putting Jr out of her reach. “I have decided that Jr may stay a few hours longer while I run the regular diagnostics and schedule that meeting you no doubt heard about while you were unceremoniously eavesdropping at my still broken door—thank you for that Cassandra, by the way—he is no trouble presently and makes an excellent rubber duck to bounce ideas off. Don't you agree, Jr?”

Jr snaps his head up to beam at Donnie. “Ah!” he says. Donnie's impassive face melts into a rare smile that Leo aches to see. He's not smiled like that since before Dad...

Cassandra's arms flop to her sides. April, Mikey and Raph stare, rendered speechless until April lifts a finger. “... er, Don, are you sure—?”

“Quite sure, Commander O'Neil,” the impassive mask returns, but Donnie's fooling no one. “Now if you don't mind, Jr and I are very busy bees and must get back to work, so begone. And while you're at it, please issue this new warning to the rest of the base: 'I have only had Casey Jones Jr for five hours, but if anything happens to him, I will kill everyone in this base and then myself.' Good day.”

“Goo' 'ay!” Casey chimes and Leo has a front-row seat to Donnie's delighted crooked smirk right before he slams the door shut in their faces.

There's a beat of silence.

Then Raph claps his hands. “So,” he draws out with a strained smile, “who saw that coming?”

“Me,” Leo sings.

“You bet against him!” Cassandra booms. “With non-existent money!”

Leo shrugs, motioning them to follow him down the hall. “Only on principle. I knew he had it in him. Jr is family and Donnie loves attention and family. It was bound to happen.”

“Aaand it was stupidly cute!” Mikey chimes, floating by them with his hands tucked under his chin.

Leo thinks of the tingle he'd felt in his chest hours ago when Cassandra first ditched—ahem—dropped Jr off with Donnie, of the familiar tune from an old, corny yet hopeful film from their childhood humming from the fringes of their Mind Meld, of the glee and soft, new, helpless love bleeding from Donnie's gaze, his smile, as Jr babbled his name.

Leo smiles. “Yeah. Stupidly cute.”

---

Reblogs are appreciated! Feel free to drop more requests! For those of you still waiting, thank you for your patience I will get to them soon! :3 <3

the pain

Me: *starts reading Elantris*

fandom: *dead*

fanfiction: *90% in russian*

posts on Lukel: *3*

posts in general: *7*

rip suga you would've loved 2024 humor

bonus: