#scraps of words

[bisonandbubbles]

Tendou, watching some of his teammates fake dating: boy, have I read enough fanfiction to know where this is going

Kawanishi, sitting next to him on a bench, on his phone: it better well not be written by someone who indulges in angst, then

Tendou: yea it better not

Kawanishi:

Tendou:

Tendou: is there something you'd like to share about your internet experience, Taichi?

Kawanishi: I gotta go

[w1ndarchr]

me to those players forcing me to heal and blaming me if one of them died

also i made a tiktok account, heh.. find me there😼

[the-meme-monarch]

hey. y’all notice how many other toons don’t seem to like rodger/his investigations.

i could be wrong and also some of these i picked out don’t have to with this specifically, but i get the feeling it might be because he’s like. acknowledging and digging into What Went Wrong, the shutdown and dandy’s operation, and trying to get them to as well. and i get the feeling a lot of the toons are still in the denial stage of grief.

[takinoverthetardis]

so last year i made good omens valentines' cards and then i moved on from my david tennant related hyperfixation and gained a david tennant related hyperfixation so now you get more david tennant valentines' cards enjoy your night

[screwpinecaprice]

Copying artstyle off of older Steven and Connie concept art for the heck of it. (And chibis. ┐⁠(⁠´⁠▾⁠｀⁠)⁠┌)

The proportions felt awkward to draw, I did end up stretching them a bit. Haha

[nopanamaman]

What’s the deal with Tsar and Arthur?

Today we’ll look at the two most popular members of Sanya and Yura’s friend group, Tsar and Arthur, a.k.a. Anger Management. How did they meet? What’s their life like? And most importantly, why the hell are they so angsty?

Let’s start with the older one.

Arthur Sokolov

Joining the orphanage

Arthur was brought to the orphanage not long after being born. He never met any of his parents.

Growing up in a state-funded shelter meant developing a clear understanding of what kinds of behaviours will and won’t result in getting your shit kicked in. You can’t be too cocky, and you can’t be too weak. Follow the hierarchy, but don’t let your fear of elders show.

Arthur learned to navigate that little society well. He had earned respect among kids his own age and younger, and avoided being pushed around by the older teenagers too much. Less due to a noble heart and more because of being too proud to act like a doormat. 

However, that didn't make him immune to peer pressure.

Correctional psychiatry

Business trip.

Many low-end orphanages across the former USSR had been essentially transformed into incubators for future gang members. “Businessmen”, either by bribe or threat, came to these institutions to recruit impressionable children into their organisations. One such uncle visited Arthur’s foster home.

For kids like him, the course of action was simple:

misbehave;

get sent to a mental institution for corrective treatment;

sneak as many bottles of trihexyphenidyl as you can into your bag during your stay;

leave the hospital as normal;

transfer the trihexyphenidyl to a gang representative and get your paycheck.

Under that business model, Arthur became a frequent guest at psychiatric wards. Having witnessed their indifference and medical callousness firsthand, he had developed a massive disdain for all kinds of mental health professionals.

It started even before joining the gang, of course – way before. It’s hard not to foster a vendetta when you get thrown to the looney bin for any misstep. At first he tried to honestly convince the doctors working there that he was fine, but he eventually realised it was futile: they were always in on the punishment.

Hustling continues

Arthur and Ivan at 15 and 17 respectively.

As Arthur grew older, he got more deeply involved with the gang’s activities alongside other kids. This meant participating in transfers, standing watch during certain deals, acting as a “treasure man” (i.e. hiding drugs in agreed upon places for clients to pick up), and so on. Fights were frequent.

He knew it was a slippery slope, but getting out was not an option – not an easy one, at least. This was the period during which he grew close to Ivan, who was commonly assigned to work with Arthur and other children from their institute.

They bonded on the basis of wanting to leave the business, though for different reasons: most of all, Ivan didn’t want to disappoint his grandma.

Getting out

First meeting with Yura.

The sudden disbandment of the gang was a relief to both Ivan and Arthur. A major member got caught and ratted almost everyone out, except for the dozens of orphans involved. So while Ivan went to turn himself in, Arthur got to walk free.

Before going, Ivan suggested Arthur replace him at his pop’s car repair salon. The boy seemed to have a knack for fixing things, and the two had developed a trusting relationship over their time working together.

While everything was looking fine, Arthur still wanted to destroy all traces of his activities - even those that couldn’t reasonably be tracked down to him. This led to him encountering Yura. Despite the very rocky start of their acquaintance, they went on to hang out together pretty regularly.

As of today, Arthur continues to do part-time at the workshop alongside Ivan. Both are committed to never getting back into the criminal business. Unless you count Sanya's Dynamo. Which you shouldn't. Having experienced what actual gangs are like, Arthur finds it hard not to look down at the girl's little roleplay.

Tsar

Joining the orphanage

Before coming to the orphanage, Tsar lived with his grandma. She died when he was 6. Since his parents had lost their parental rights due to alcoholism a couple years prior, there was only one place for him to go.

Tsar had a very hard time adjusting to the rigid hierarchy of the foster home. He was lucky enough to catch Arthur's attention and, in a sense, got scooped under his wing. The boy disliked relying on the older kid too much, but was too weak to stand on his own.

Gang involvement

How come mom lets you have two trips to the mental ward

Since Arthur got dragged into gang activities earlier than Tsar, the younger kid felt jealous. He, like most other children, fully bought into the romanticised idea of criminal life that was pushed by the uncles visiting the orphanage.

But as years went on, he saw the toll it had begun to take on Arthur. Tsar had taken a couple of correctional trips to mental wards as well, though he'd never participated in any illegal schemes. Those times were bad enough - he couldn't imagine going there again and again on purpose.

By the time Tsar would be old enough to get recruited into the business, Arthur forbade him from it. The kid still wanted to join to prove his worth, to earn his share, to show his guts. But his trust and respect for Arthur were stronger.

As much as he hated the idea, he stuck to the sidelines.

Contact with parents

Teatime with family.

Tsar’s parents reached out to him a couple years after he was transferred to the orphanage. He could only meet with them under supervision up until he was 13 years old. Afterwards they were allowed private meetings.

Today, he occasionally comes to visit them at their apartment. They still drink, but to Tsar, they just seem quiet and pitiful. He usually lends them the pocket money he receives from the orphanage. He knows they won't return it.

Anger Management

Ural models are known for their incredible durability and a baffling number of switches.

Tsar found a creative release in music and wrote songs to vent his frustrations. The orphanage had an old acoustic guitar that he learned to play, but it got completely broken when the boy was 13. After Arthur joined the workshop, he bought a black Ural from Ivan’s dad for cheap, upgraded its port, and gifted it to Tsar.

As it turned out, Ivan’s dad was hopping from one band to another in the 80s-90s, so he was happy to accommodate the kids' creative endeavours. He allowed them to use the spare garage space to practise and even supplied an incomplete drum set.

Tsar begged Arthur to back him up with drums. The latter begrudgingly agreed to learn them, but ended up really enjoying hitting barrels with sticks. Right now their band has a tiny local following, mostly in the face of Sanya Kazarina.

Some notes

I remember sitting down and reading about actual orphanage experiences in the post-soviet space – it was eye-opening, but also gave me a lot of material to work with, as heartless as that probably sounds. A lot of things simply clicked into place.

I didn't go into too much detail here, but FYI, I've downplayed the severity of certain situations. Trauma aside, I'd say both Tsar and Arthur got quite lucky in the end.

[suckishima]

lmaoooo the kuroken is strong with the crunchyroll subs

[whaliiwatching]

fake to real relationship speedrun record

[dandysworldhcs]

Episode hc.

There was an episode in the early 2000s where the toons go to the beach and bring Shrimpo with them.

Shrimpo pushes Scraps into the water and she takes him with her and he like. Just stops moving.

Scraps gets help from Sprout, Sprout brings him out of the water, Shrimpo isn't waking up, Sprout shakes him really really hard

AND SHRIMPO LETS OUT THE MODTLY GASTLY SNORE KNOWN TO MAN.

Sprout, in a fit of pure fear, chucks him into the dirt behind him.

Shrimpo wakes up n he's all mellow.

Like. No yelling. He's not angry AT ALL.

In fact, hes like "Hey dude wassup" and then he almost falls asleep again. But Sprout is all like "WHAT THE FUDGE????????"

Some important parts of that episode that lores the shrimpo:

He goes to get a sandwich from a cooler, boxten is by the cooler, boxten gets all scared (rightfully so) and gives shrimpo his half-eaten sandwich covers his head. Shrimpo's like "Dude that's your sandwich" and gives it back and then walks away and boxten is all like "what the hell".

Finn tries to provoke shrimpo, but the shrimp just goes "Dude... what are we................" And then walks back to the water and just floats away.

Eventually at the end of the episode, everyone is uncomfortable and tries to get shrimpo away from the beach but he gets angry and starts biting everyone and when they get back to Gardenview the episode cuts to a part of shrimpo in his room and it's shown that it was all an act to bully the toons in the worst way possible by making them think that their beloved angry guy wasn't angry any more.

The toons are taught that they love shrimpo just the way he is and its uncomfortable any other way.

-the blood golem anon

(SORRY FOR THE LONG HC I HAD SO MANY IDEASSSSS)

ough...blood golem anon.....youre changing mr...... AAAAAAAAAAAAAA

[bisonandbubbles]

Hanamaki: It is much more difficult to play tennis with a bowling ball than to bowl with a tennis ball.

Matsukawa: Which doesn't concern us because we play volleyball.

Hanamaki: just a little bit

Matsukawa: just a little bit

[scarlettaagni]

he's not any kind of support

based off this banger of a post, that I reference every single time I describe what Sunder does to people

[oceangirl24]

AI Scraping Response from r/AO3 mods

AO3’s Data Was Scraped For AI: What To Know

News/Updates

Hi all—as you may be aware, there’s been an incident regarding the Archive’s data being used to potentially train generative AI.

It seems that a user by the name of nyuuzyou conducted an unauthorized scrape of the Archive, both artwork and writing (as well as at least seven other websites) and uploaded the dataset to the machine-learning website Huggingface. This only scraped publicly available works—archive-locked works do not appear to be a part of that dataset. The works in the set are from as recent as March of this year, and comprise all publicly available works before then.

AO3 is aware of this, and they have filed a DCMA takedown to Huggingface, where the data has been made temporarily unavailable (aka nobody is currently able to use it for training). In response, the uploader filed a counterclaim to try to get it reinstated—though as Huggingface’s Terms of Service don’t allow uploads of any content the uploader doesn’t own the rights to, it’s unlikely that their counterclaim will succeed. However, the user also uploaded the dataset to two more websites after the Huggingface takedown: modelscope and datafish. These two sites are based in China and Russia respectively, places that do not always respond to DCMA takedowns—however, the upload to modelscope does appear to have been taken down/deleted as of writing this. (We also cannot link to these websites as Reddit has them shadowbanned).

The website Paperdemon has more information about the timelines, other websites affected, and how to request a DCMA takedown to Huggingface (which will hopefully not be necessary, but a good resource in case the counterclaim succeeds.)

As scraping like this is unfortunately hard to control, the best option we can recommend as a subreddit is to lock your works to only be available to registered archive users (as they are less likely to be scraped, though this is not foolproof). For readers, if you do not have an account, you will need to make one to be able to view archive-locked works. You can find a link to our most recent invite request thread here, or add your email to the signup waitlist on AO3 to get an invite directly in a few days.

~Cthulu (and the rest of the mod team)

Original post is here.

[gaycrittercentral]

BEHOLD!! I made an entry to Skunkape's 2023 Holiday Contest! :'Dc I worked so fuckin hard on it hhhrhrhrhgdhsjglshgjdjfh and let me tell you, I do not at all hope to win but I do hope it makes Steve snicker. Just the thought that he'll be seeing it is wild. Hope it makes y'all snicker too ehehehe!!

[a-most-beloved-fool]

For the ask prompt game...

Spirk #17 to distract

"Report," Kirk ordered. The word buzzed low against Spock's ear, quiet and audibly tense.

"Less than two minutes until they reach our location, Captain," Spock replied promptly. "Commander Scott will need at least another eight before the transporter is operable again." His voice was equally hush, despite their perceived solitude. He had seen carelessness take far too many lives during his time in Starfleet; he would not allow it to take his captain as well - and, illogically, Spock could not quite dispense of the phantom sensation of eyes on the back of his neck.

"We'll need to bluff it," Kirk decided, looking grim.

His gaze was strangely intense against Spock, full of rioting emotion, and, almost, Spock wished to look away. He did not. Instead, he nodded, holding steady eye contact.

The odds, Spock knew, that Kirk's gambit - whatever it may be - would succeed were... poor. The guards had, after all, seen their faces. But Kirk would keep fighting right until the bitter end, and Spock, of course, would be right beside him.

Solemn, he vowed, "I shall follow your lead," though he knew Kirk would not have doubted it. Still, the unnecessary words were well worth the way the tension around Kirk's eyes melted away, the somber set of his mouth slipping instead into a golden-edged smile.

Almost wonderingly, a soft chuckle fell from those lips, incongruous in their surroundings and entirely treasured. "What would I do without you?" Kirk asked, reaching up to exert gentle pressure on Spock's bicep.

I pray you never need find out, Spock made to say, getting only so far as drawing in breath before the sound of distant footsteps drew them both from their quiet moment, snuffing the words before they could take shape. "Eighteen seconds," he said instead, after rapidly adjusting his calculations. Faster than anticipated.

Kirk nodded, some unreadable emotion hiding in the soft crease between his brows.

"Forgive me, Mr. Spock," Kirk said softly, and Spock did not have time to question what he meant before Kirk was pulling him down by his shirt, dragging their lips together with great urgency.

Quite suddenly, Spock found that his mind was entirely blank. Strange heat flickered through his whole form, and his universe narrowed to only Kirk, all soft and human-warm, who was pressed flush to his chest and kissing him.

One, then two seconds stuttered by in which Spock thought no thoughts at all, struck utterly motionless in the face of such unexpected attentions. He only felt, swept away by the sensation of pliant lips against his own and warm fingers stroking through his hair, gently mussing.

The very first thought to break to the surface was simply, Jim. A wave of emotion flooded in with it, astonishment and affection sweeping over him in such quantities that he felt nearly lightheaded.

The second was, We will be caught, and Spock jolted as something near to panic rose up inside his gullet, urging him to take Jim into his arms and run.

The third, however, was not his own; it was pressed into his katra from the outside by Jim's careful fingers, his clever mind slipping easily past Spock's shields. Play along, he said, projecting deliberate calm through their connection. Still, Jim was unpracticed in telepathic arts, and beneath that false serenity Spock could feel a tangle of guilt and determination, bitter and writhing.

The truth came to Spock in one fell swoop.

Jim's gambit... was this.

His lips and his hands, which pressed themselves so tenderly to Spock's skin, were not for him.

It was not love which had drawn his captain into his arms, but mere utility. Jim had realized what Spock had not: though they could not hide themselves, they could, perhaps, distract from themselves.

Two men attempting to look inconspicuous would only draw suspicion. Two men locked in a romantic embrace, however, may be overlooked - or even deliberately ignored. Few were comfortable with looking closely at the private passions of strangers, and fewer still would see reason to. Those searching for them, Spock hoped, would not. There would be no logic in halting an escape attempt solely for a kiss, after all.

Therefore, in order to escape unnoticed, they must be convincing.

They must seem, to any observers, to be completely and entirely immersed in one another, with no care for anything going on in their surroundings, and no fear of discovery.

Two lives, purchased with a kiss.

It was entirely logical, then, for Spock to part his lips, inviting Jim's tongue to dip inside of the wet cave of his mouth and meeting it with his own. If a groan rumbled deep within his chest, it could surely only help their cause; there was no need to swallow it down.

This disguise would, Spock observed as Jim's tongue flicked gently at his mouth, be far easier to maintain than it had any right to be.

It was a terribly simple matter for a man in love to behave as though he were a man in love.

The difficult part, then, would be remembering that it was a ruse. Already, heat bubbled deep within Spock, aching want suffusing his every neuron. Every faint brush of flesh sent golden tendrils of telepathic energy sparking across his skin, and it was all Spock could manage to hold himself back from pressing hungry fingers to Jim's meldpoints and sinking into that wonderfully enticing mind.

Instead, Spock slipped a hand beneath the hem of Jim's shirt, rucking up the cloth until he was tracing patterns across a smooth expanse of golden skin. He flexed his hand, allowing his nails to scratch carefully along Jim's spine, and did not permit himself to consider reaching upwards, to Jim's face - or worse: downwards, beyond the waistband of his pants.

He wondered if Jim would have chosen this, had he known how very much Spock wanted.

Perhaps it was selfish of Spock to allow it.

Still, he could not force himself away - not when Jim's life was at stake. The kiss was his lifeline, and so the kiss must remain.

The touch of their minds, however, did nothing to aid Jim. It was solely for Spock's benefit, taken from Jim without his knowledge or intent.

That, Spock could end.

If Jim was to unknowingly place himself into the hands of someone who wanted more than he would wish to give, then Spock would take it upon himself to be his protector - even if the one he must protect against was himself.

And so, Spock opened himself to every offered touch, and girded his mind against every stray thought, until not a single wisp of golden energy could find its way past his defenses.

When Jim's thigh nudged its way between Spock's legs, Spock spread his stance wider, allowing him to press closer, and did not let himself feel. His hands grasped and squeezed at the soft flesh beneath them, drawing quiet gasps from a pink-flushed throat, and no pleasant hum buzzed against his fingertips, carrying with it the flavor of human emotion. Jim nipped at his lips and pet at his hair, and Spock pressed every scrap of yearning deep down within himself to where they couldn't emerge.

Eyes closed and spirit aching, Spock kissed him.

_____________

from this ask game

[cent-scratchnsniff]

doodles and stuff. struggled with painting until i gave up

[kiaxet]

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.)