#critter instincts activate under stress. this means time to cuddle and hold and hug and cuddle and snuggle and cuddle and hold and cuddle a

[randomwriteronline]

It was Nokama's fault. Of course it was Nokama's fault. It had to be Nokama's fault, because Nokama always got him to do what she asked.

Because they were friends, and he could never deny Nokama anything she asked.

So there he was. Standing before a big, stupid something that he recognized but refused to address as it should have been, perfectly frozen, glaring at what little he could see of a Ruru and Mahiki and Komau as they peeked through the barrier in their work.

His friend nudged him forward, saying nothing. He gave her a tired look; she squeezed his hand in her own with a small sad smile and crawled into the structure to help, leaving him to decide what to do on his own.

He felt so exhausted.

Whenua's head perked up beyond the barrier to look him in the eye.

"We're working for you too, you know," he said simply. "I don't think anybody would complain if you got up here. Maybe even lent us a hand with that Matatu of yours."

"Whenua," Nokama murmured.

"I know. I know."

Matau just leaned over and extended a hand towards him invitingly without a saying single word. Nuju took it, allowing himself to be hefted into the structure by his fellow Turaga.

It felt comfortable and enveloping in the best of ways, like a light embrace draped over one's shoulders. The flooring was soft yet perfectly solid under his feet; considering the rocky outcrop on which it was perched did not have a shape that could have been considered pleasant to lay or even just stand on, they must have been hard at work for quite some time now.

He watched them as they went back to their business while he could not move an inch.

His limbs seemed filled with molten lead. No matter how much he told himself to at least do the bare minimum, even just get out of the way so he could allow them to work on the spot he was occupying, his body simply did not register his demands. He was stuck in it like a pebble fallen deep into a too thin vein, blocking the until then streaming flow behind as it struggles in vain to push through, only managing to clog it further.

Steady hands grasped him and dragged his unmoving form back - both to reality, and towards an edge of the structure that evidently the others had deemed complete.

He was sat down with little force on the soft pavement; a lukewarm palm pressed slightly on his back to force his posture straight before he hunched miserably towards the floor. Something about the action reached into his entrails to unlock something, an uncomfortable feeling of resignation he had been trying to crush between his gears for days: weakly, he shut his eyes hard and leaned back as far into Onewa's chest as the other allowed him.

His fellow Turaga said nothing, grazing the back of Nuju's head with his mask.

The silence was unpleasant.

He couldn't bring himself to break it.

Fingers covered in scars, that had been broken many times, caressed his arm - he found his eyelids flying open all of a sudden, caught by surprise despite swearing he had been aware and alert. Had he dozed off? While they'd been working? Some useful member of the team he was, at a time like this nonetheless. Matau met his gaze without accusing him of anything: he offered the colder being half of an embrace that he accepted wholly despite a tired dullness dampening any display of appreciation with a lack of enthusiasm, eyes sinking into the greenish shoulder.

Nuju felt the two press against him as they leaned further onto him, as though they were the ones in dire need of support; it wasn't long before Nokama and Whenua's rustling stopped, and their weights too gently added themselves to those already pinning the Turaga of Ice to his seat.

His whole frame shuddered, wrecked by a sudden chill.

Arms tangled around him to trap him within their loving web. The other four swayed his body gently alongside their own, pushing and pulling him with a magnificent tenderness to lay him down, down with them, in their embrace, in their nest, falling into place against each other like puzzle pieces of a still incomplete enigma, haunted by the void they could not fill but trying, at the very least, to bring one another a glimmer of solace despite the absence cutting into their limbs and chests.

Nuju curled tighter into the affection surrounding him to try and stave off the lack of heat.

-

The firespitter was dragged away from the Agori healers who discharged him with feverish vigor and many hurried thanks that Whenua forgot to speak out loud and Onewa had to relay for him - they would compare the frenzy of the Turaga who came to pick him up to that of many mice, or bugs, scuttling about as fast as they could to grab all sorts of crumbs with their quick little fingers before anybody could chase them out of the room.

He was weak, still, during the first few days, and so the others had agreed that nobody was allowed to see him. If any of the Toa wanted to catch a glimpse of him they would either have to wait or seek audience at the foot of the nest he'd been hushered into, only being allowed any closer by a unanimous vote.

There was no need to fear for his condition anyways: he was being cared for in more ways than the healers could have provided, and they knew that.

Vakama had no intention of removing himself from his kin's embrace, either.

No matter who asked to see him he remained willingly lodged between them, kept warm by their presence around him as his body struggled to heat up in the way his element demanded he be able to, safely tucked within Nuju's arms; he clung to the Turaga of Ice in his sleep as hard as the other clung to him, and surrounded by friends in one another's grasp they slept better than they had in weeks.