#maybe everyone has already read this one

[businessmilk]

Chapters: 2/? Fandom: Succession (TV 2018) Rating: Explicit Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings Relationships: Greg Hirsch/Tom Wambsgans, with hints of Roman/Gerri, the Roy siblings, Minor or Background Relationship(s), Greg Hirsch & Tom Wambsgans Characters: Tom Wambsgans, Greg Hirsch, Roman "Romulus" Roy Additional Tags: Mutual Pining, Touch-Starved, Almost Kiss, Post-Season/Series 03, a bit of a Roman character study, Intimacy, tomgreg through Roman lens, Accidental Voyeurism, Overheard Conversations, Sexual Tension, Unresolved Sexual Tension, Rating May Change, accidental Roman Roy character study, Forehead Touching, Hurt/Comfort, Angst, Canon Compliant, Post-Canon, Hugs, Roman doesn't know how to handle emotional intimacy, Imagining the face journey of Keiran Culkin, Sexual Content, Not Actually Unrequited Love, Tenderness, Repression, Roman hopes this doesn't awaken anything in him, Implied/Referenced Abuse, Roman Roy experiencing tomgreg shrimp emotions in real time, Pining, if I don't get this exact scenario in season 4 Jesse Armstrong I'm on your doorstep Summary:

No one had ever held Roman in such a way, and here he was, watching the two weirdo peripheral members of the family find solace in one another. God. How fucking desolate, how cold, how fucked up was the Roy family, exactly, that the only source of genuine, intimate warmth that Roman had witnessed… was between his weird cousin and his fucking brother-in-law? --- Post season 3. During Connor's engagement party, Roman is sent on a quest to rummage through Greg's hotel room to find out if he was the mole that sold them out to Logan. While there, Greg returns home early with Tom in tow, and Roman, hiding in a cleaning closet, is forced to witness the full, deranged spectrum of Tom and Greg's relationship over the span of about an hour.

[ryllen]

x

[theotherbuckley]

Okay but Tommy drops out of high school — he told his father he was gay and he told him he could either be homeless or go to military school. He goes to military school and joins the army and he likes flying the helicopters because it means he doesn’t have to do any of the killing himself. And he makes some friends.

There's one guy who's like the squad leader who's a few years old and built like a Greek god and Tommy's young and a little bit in love. And they're friends maybe even family because this whole group of people spend every waking (and sleeping) moment together. And they all talk like a family and they all say they love each other and tease each other and it's nice. And one night it's just the two of them trading a flask of some sort of alcohol that Tommy doesn't know the name of and the man asks Tommy why he joined the army and where he wants to be in five years and Tommy trusts this man. He's half way in love with him so he doesn't even think twice before he tells the story about the time he came out to his family and his father nearly beat him to death before sending him here. And the conversation tapers off after that and he doesn’t register the change in the air but when he wakes up the next morning he’s being dishonourably discharged because he poses “unacceptable risk to the high standards of morale, good order and discipline, and unit cohesion that are the essence of military capability”. He knows what that means.

Tommy joins the fire department because he doesn’t know what else to do. He represses anything regarding his sexuality because he knows now that it’s wrong. He almost feels like he has a family again because his captain seems to like him and some of the guys are cool even if they say things he doesn’t agree with. And then he starts agreeing because maybe they’re right and he’s wrong and he’s just inherently wrong. So he follows their leads and is just straight racist because that’s how he can fit in.

And then a black lesbian woman joins and says she’s a black lesbian woman and Tommy doesn’t understand that either because you can’t be queer you just can’t be because it’s wrong.

But he nearly dies and and an Asian man saves his life and a black lesbian woman comes up with a better idea than any of them had and she tells them she’s no different and she is just as capable. So he improves himself he does and he tries to be better but he still can’t be who he is because the last 2 times he was honest about that he was betrayed.

Tommy leaves the 118 and “don’t ask, don’t tell” is lifted and he meets this guy he likes who likes him back and the 217 don’t seem to have a problem with the gender neutral pronouns and he slowly but surely lets himself open up again and be who he is and when the thing with that guy doesn’t work out because he’s moving to New York and Tommy’s not sure he’s ready to leave, it’s okay because his crew is there and they support him and he can still be himself.

[gremnda]

I took a break from commissions for this. Here's the fic that made me insane

[geolato]

hello everyone, with the tit tour approaching, i would like to make this Public Announcement™️: since i will not be attending at the tit tour, my blog (geolato on tumblr which you are looking at right now) will hereforth feature tit tour spoilers. i will be of course tagging said spoilers to preserve the attendees spoiler free experience, if they desire to have one. the tag i will be using is #dnptit spoilers for all rebloged posts, with the addition of a bunch of other tags if i feel the need to make an original post which if you follow geolato here on tumblr you will know rarely happens. i will be tagging anything remotely close to referencing tit tour spoilers. feel free to block said tag if you would like.

thank you.

[trainingdummyrabbit]

in conclusion the most poignant thing about ruina is its running theme of Imperfection. imperfection, focused not on its flaws, but on the miracle of it existing to begin with. imperfection not as a failing, but as a triumph. its cracked, broken, deeply in need of repair-- but it's real and its ours and it exists. despite everything it exists and that enough is a relief beyond words, beyond expression. to present a toppled structure not as a conclusion, but an opportunity.

its the choice-- and the joy-- of looking forward, unflinchingly, and facing it. one step at a time.

[cloudysfluffs]

i think getting tickled would fix him

(ns//fw and/or fetish blogs please dni🙏🙏)

[mimicteruyo]

Reading through a WIP draft: "hmm, the romance aspect of this fic is so secondary that the main scene where it plays out actually feels pretty jarring. Which makes sense since this is supposed to be gen and the original concept required the ship to NOT be included, but maybe I should cut it out to make it—"

*furiously makes notes to add more context and weight to the shippiness as well as another romantic scene*

[cordeliawhohung]

Please please PLEASE YAP JUST A LITTLE BIT ABOUT IN LIMBO PLEASE IM DOING THROUGH WITHDRAWALS

okay you can have one (1) crumb!

[ajxrn-archive]

I need to be put in a waffle iron or something

[giallos]

a truly terrible idea has latched hold of my gremlin brain which is, buck and tommy do break up so that buck can pursue eddie because either tommy thinks buck is in love with eddie or buck feels like he should be with eddie because everyone else keeps suggesting there's something more there BUT buck/eddie getting together changes their dynamic so much that neither of them are enjoying themselves (and they're worrying about losing what made their friendship so special because of all the changes to the dynamic) AND buck and tommy keep hooking up [air quotes] platonically (with tommy stumbling into inconvenient feelings and pining pathetically for buck while fucking him) while buck struggles to sort out intense feelings toward eddie (which obviously have to be romantic of course) vs. his calm, more settled feelings toward tommy (they're not as intense as his feelings about eddie so they can't possibly be romantic) blah blah long story slightly less long but buck realizes he's been in love with tommy the whole time and was having trouble separating strong but platonic feelings for eddie from his romantic feelings toward tommy and then tommy's like "newsflash asshole i've been in love with you the whole goddamn time"

i'll never write it because it's irredeemably stupid and i value my peace but it IS sitting in my hindbrain tormenting me right now

[arolesbianism]

Mental health shit is kicking my ass but at least I have my silly guys

[tar-frogs]

to listen to hozier is to realize that to love and lose and fear is to live and admire and trust and to just simply be and exist and there's nothing more beautiful than life itself and the beauty of being alive and there's nothing more beautiful and breathtaking than you because you are everything and everything is you and you deserve to feel it all.

everything. every heart break. every piece of misplaced trust. every first love. everything lost. everything known. everything forgotten. everything stolen. everything, because everything can be seen and felt through you. and because of you. and just. you.

you know?

[suncaptor]

there's something specifically inside my head that is closing up that makes trusting anything so hard. i have to manually keep my mind open to the potential of anything being significant. i am so used to things being bad and things hurting and things not working and being powerless that it takes an exorbitant amount of mental energy to make sure I don't let myself shut down possibility. and I do it because I never want a certainty inside of me besides love to rule anything. but I want my brain elastic again. i want it open like breathing. it doesn't erase the unfairness or the critique or any of the bitter-built philosophy.

[flashfuture]

I'm gonna be real. I think many comic fans in DC and Marvel are completely stuck on how the character was written in whatever run they read first. And are now unwilling to engage in good faith with Any comics. Not every comic needs to be ground breaking reinventing the wheel. Just like not every comic needs to stick to the status quo but fans seem to somehow want both happening at the same time.

And I've said it before but having multiple weeks to ruminate on issues gives people time to nitpick where when you read entire runs at once they seem much better than they are. A story is a sum of its parts and we get slow-fed the parts. Yes sometimes the whole is a cake filled with sewage. But sometimes we're just eating the cake flour first. I think fans, myself included, could really start being a little more patient with how comics come out. Every comment section I look at, tumblr, twitter people are so unhappy with new comics. And it's because we're going into it with a predecided opinion on how a story should be when we're not the ones telling it. Again sometimes the author is dogwater and the story is trash. But then again... are old comic arcs we cherish any different?

[sibillascribbles08]

Regardless of What Happens

Whaaat it’s 2023 what if I wrote some Bad Future Jasonnie

Gonna just go ahead and give the heads up for implied sexual content and offscreen canon character death. I’m gonna get crunchy with it like I haven’t already with literally every other bad future thing I write.

Even if the conversation ended with another joke from Leo and both of them laughing, dread still hung like a lead weight at the base of Donatello’s chest. It was such a risky plan, a miracle he even convinced Leo to go along with it. Hacking into Kraang tech, even with all his research he knew it could go backwards so fast. He may not be able to over power it.

In less than twenty-four hours he may not be alive anymore.

Dying didn’t entirely scare him. He accepted death a long time ago.

He just hated the idea of what he might leave behind.

He hadn’t discussed the plan with Mikey yet. He’d have to, or Leo would do it for him. He’d already talked about it with April which ended with them screaming at each other. He’d apologize later, but still announce he was going through with it. She may never forgive him. He understood that.

A lot of people might not forgive him if this idea failed. Including Mikey. Including Casey. Including Leo.

Including...

Donatello glanced in the main computer room. Jase sat in there, like he often did, water bottle in hand as he scrolled through recent drone data. The purple dragons had become allies not long after the invasion started, though there was a ton of friction between them for a while. The need to survive eventually came around to friendship, despite how much Donnie would still bicker with them all from time to time. They didn’t do much field work, but their work with the programming and tech was a life saver on many occasions. It kept some of the workload off Donatello and meant they had backups if something happened to him.

And Jase knew Donnie’s tech better than any of them. Not long after becoming friends, Jase quit following at Kendra’s heels and often turned to Donatello instead. Late nights working on tech became so routine that, even on their nights off, they’d often hole up in each others rooms just to talk.

Donatello often denied the feelings that developed from that. After losing Raph, the idea of letting it become anything more terrified him. Because something could happen to Jase, or something could happen to him, and wouldn’t that just make the loss all the more painful.

But then again...

“How long are you just going to stand there staring?”

Donatello straightened up and glanced at Kendra who stood next to the door now. Right, she was also in the computer room. He absolutely hadn’t been paying attention.

“Lost in thought.” He crossed his arms and met her glare before sparing a glance in Jase’s direction. He turned in his chair, eyebrow raised, but then soon got back to work.

Kendra followed his gaze. “Uh huh, one guess to what you’re thinking about.” She flicked him on the nose.

Donatello snapped at her hand. “Oh yeah? And what’s that?”

She gave him a smirk when she rolled her eyes, then turned her head. “Hey Jeremy, wanna go get a snack?”

Jeremy leaned up from his work. “Huh? But we--”

Kendra must have given him a look because he suddenly straightened up. “Oh, yeah, sure, you want us to bring you something Jase?”

Jase just gave them a non-committal hum and kept scrolling.

Kendra’s smirk remained on her face as she stepped past Donatello and then shoved him through the doorway. He clenched his fists, about to try and insult her when the door closed in his face.

What was the big idea?

She couldn’t possibly know could she?

Donatello chose to ignore it for the time being as he walked up behind Jase’s chair, looking over the screen himself. All activity normal, from the look of things. A nice reprieve from how things were less than a week ago. Still, he didn’t trust it to last. Quiet moments like this often meant the Kraang were poking around for a weak point to strike. They’d learned to grow patient when the war lasted more than one Earth year.

Jase finally got to the bottom and turned away from the screen. “You need something, Donnie?”

He opened his mouth, then closed it, trying to search for the words. It seemed like a bad idea to just start with the whole “hey I might be dying tomorrow” topic.

Jase studied his face for a second before standing. Not like it did much. All these years and Jase barely gained another inch while Donatello sprouted up over a foot and a half. Jase didn’t even reach his shoulders now.

“Donnie?” Jase tilted his head. “Everything okay?”

“I...” He ground his teeth together for a second. “No. Not entirely.”

“What’s wrong? The drones aren’t reporting anything worth noting.”

“It’s not them it’s...” His arms tightened across his chest. He really didn’t know where to begin with this. “I finally got Leo to approve of a desperate plan of mine.”

Jase’s eyes went wide, only to narrow a second later. “What kind of desperate plan?”

He ground his teeth again, unable to meet his gaze. “I’m going to try and hack into Kraang tech.”

“What?” Jase snapped, trying to stand on his toes just to get closer. “Donnie, I know you’re joking. We talked about that dozens of times before. Even if it’s possible the risk is--”

“I know what the risk is.” Donatello snapped. “But look at us, Jase. Ever since Casey--Cassandra dropped our numbers keep dwindling. All our plans are coming up empty. People who were once our allies keep getting turned on us. If I can make this work it could change everything.”

“And if it doesn’t work?” Jase’s voice cracked and he finally grabbed Donatello’s coat in order to pull him down. “What happens to you then? You also just become one of their pawns? They could--”

“I’m aware.” Donatello took in a shaky breath. “That’s why Leo’s going to be there. So if I fail he can--”

“Are you serious!?”

“Jase--”

“No. No.” Jase shoved him back. “I’m not letting you do this.”

God damn it, this was going about as well as his talk with April did. “Jase, we’re running out of options.”

“That doesn’t mean we should jump straight to something like this. I want you to look me in the eye and tell me the statistics of you getting out of this alive.”

Donatello tried to turn his gaze, but he couldn’t hold it. Rather than focusing on Jase’s eyes--so dark brown they were almost black--it kept moving to his messy hair, or the scar on his ear, or the thin line of stubble that made it clear he hadn’t bothered shaving in a few days.

“Donnie.” Jase insisted.

Donatello took a deep breath and forced his eyes to focus. “About seventeen percent.”

“That’s nothing. You can’t be serious. I’m not letting you do this until you can at least get that number higher.”

“We don’t have time for that.”

“You’re just giving up, aren’t you?” Jase’s voice crack again. “That’s what this is.”

Air got caught in Donatello’s throat before he could deny that.

“I’m not stupid, Donnie. I’ve picked out the things you’ve said over all those late night conversations. You’ve thought this war was pointless for years. That if--”

“If it lasted more than a year, we had no chance of winning. I know.” Donatello snapped back. “But I kept going, didn’t I? If I wanted to give up I would have years ago but I didn’t because...”

Because Raph. Because Mikey. Because Leo. Because April. Because Cassandra and now Casey. Because...

Gods, he knew why they were all so upset with this idea. He knew why they kept trying to convince him otherwise. How could he possibly explain to them that he wasn’t scared of dying if it gave them all the chance to turn this whole thing around. The only thing he was scared of was...

He reached out and held Jase’s faced in his hands, so suddenly that his friend’s sharp anger gave way to shock.

“Jase, I’m so sorry.” His breaths felt so unsteady, like he’d forgotten how to do it, like there just wasn’t enough oxygen in the air.

“For what?” Jase bit his lip to keep his voice from stuttering. “For being an idiot?”

“Yes.” The word barely left his lips when he exhaled. Then he pulled Jase into a kiss.

His friend went rigid under his grip, and he thought, briefly, that maybe this had been a very stupid idea.

Then arms were being thrown around his neck and Jase kissed him back, hard. The sudden tug almost had Donatello stumbling forward, so he responded by moving his hands and lifting Jase off the ground.

The motion forced them apart, but only for the length of a breath. Now looking down at him, Jase kissed him again, somehow even harder than the first time. Teeth and lips pinched together. Jase’s hands couldn’t seem to find a place to settle as they ran over Donatello’s cheeks to the back of his head, constantly bumping into his goggles. He was about to toss the damn things to the side. Not close enough. Somehow they weren’t close enough.

He tugged that thought back. A sliver of logic managed to slip through the haze that rapidly took over his brain. He pulled away from this kiss, and Jase started to follow him before he must have also regained his senses.

His cheeks, already bright red, somehow got darker as the color spread to the tips of his ears.

“Oh my god.” Jase’s hands moved to Donatello’s shoulders. “What am I doing?”

Donatello couldn’t help but smirk. “I thought that was obvious.”

Jase managed a glare as he lightly smacked the side of his goggles. “Don’t be such a smart ass, Von Ryan. What are you doing? What are we doing?”

“Well, I was kissing you.” Donatello dropped his grip just a bit so the pair of them were at eye level. “Because, I confess, I’ve wanted to for a few years now even if I tried to pretend I didn’t.”

Jase breathed out a laugh. “Huh, I guess we really are doing the same thing.” He leaned close, peppering kisses from the corner of Donatello’s mouth up his cheek. “I just always figured I wasn’t... That you were so far out of my league...”

Donatello snorted and turned his head to meet his lips. “So smart but so stupid sometimes. Out of your league? Really?”

“Shut up and just look at yourself.” Jase kept kissing him. “The most brilliant mind of our time, strong, tall, gorgeous--”

“Oh?” Donatello raised an eyebrow. “You think so?” 

“Don’t sound so smug.” Jase shot him a glare before his hand ran up Donatello’s neck and then rested on his cheek. His thumb pressed against the corner of the turtle’s mouth before tugging his lip down. “But yes.”

Oh. Oh. That finally made a lot more sense. “Wait, is that why you kept staring at my mouth whenever I grinned at you?”

“What can I say? I like ‘em sharp.”

“You’re such a freak.”

“Takes one to know one.”

Donatello tried to lean in for another kiss, but Jase’s hand held him back.

“But jokes and flirting aside,” his tone shifted. “This better not be some stupid confession made because you know you aren’t making it out of this stupid scheme of yours.” 

“Um... not entirely?” He tried to smile. “I just... I denied it for so long because after losing Raph it felt like... Like if I let myself have this I’d just be asking for it to get ripped away from me.”

“So you decided to do that to me instead.”

The impact of those words hit him so hard he almost dropped Jase on the floor. The lead weight in his chest dropped to his stomach. “I...”

“You’re such a bastard.” Jase mumbled as he kissed Donatello again. “Such a bastard and I love you. I don’t want to lose you.” His voice cracked again. A sob briefly escaped before he took a deep breath to tug all of it back in. “And I also hate myself for not saying anything sooner. I hate myself for not even being friends sooner. I hate that it took the world ending for us to become friends. I hate...” Another shaky breath. “I hate thinking that if this never happened, if the world was peaceful, would we still hate each other? Would we still be enemies? I don’t... I don’t know what world I’d prefer to live in if that’s the case.”

Donatello studied Jase’s face, once again his mind screaming that they weren’t close enough.

“I want us both to survive this.” Jase pressed their foreheads and their noses together. “I want us to win and try to get back to some kind of normal life again. I want the two of us to... I want...”

Another firm kiss, and this time when Donatello returned it, Jase moaned. Nails lightly scrapped against the back of Donatello’s neck, making him shiver. Jase parted his lips and Donatello followed suit.

Not close enough. Not close enough.

Jase barely moved away when he stopped, breath brushing past Donatello’s cheek when he spoke. “Your room or mine?”

The haze in his brain returned ten fold, but that sliver of logic fought to stay on the surface. “Are you sure about that? We--”

Jase’s hands practically slapped against his cheeks before he smooshed Donatello’s face. “I know I’m not going to stop you from doing this stupid, idiotic, reckless idea of yours. And if this really is some stupid, last minute, desperate confession then let me have this. Your room or mine.”

He said that last sentence so forcefully that the sliver of logic finally vanished in the haze. Donatello barely kept himself from pinning Jase to the nearby desk. “Yours.”

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

Donatello must have dozed off. Not too surprising, considering the past few sleepless nights due to the stress and well... what just happened.

Jase lay curled up under his arm, pressed against his chest, not quite asleep but definitely not all awake either.

Donatello didn’t want to move. He really didn’t want to move. He at least allowed himself another few quiet seconds, pressing his nose to Jase’s forehead.

But then he rolled over, looking for wherever he placed his gauntlet on the nearby desk to check the time.

Yeesh, it’d almost been two hours since he and Jase first started talking back in the main computer room. He couldn’t waste too much time laying around. He had to prep some things before tomorrow. He had to talk to Mikey, and April, and--

Jase shifted behind him. Then two arms wrapped around his stomach as his friend--boyfriend--pressed up against his shell.

“You’re not leaving, are you?” Jase mumbled.

“Not yet.” Donatello left the gauntlet next to the pillow as his hand rested on Jase’s wrist. “But I can’t stay here all afternoon.”

Jase tightened his grip. “Will I see you again tonight?”

Donatello wiggled himself loose, just enough to roll back over. “Most likely.”

“Good.” Jase kissed him on the collar, then the throat. “I’m not done with you yet.”

Donatello smirked. “Hm, dare I ask what that means.”

“Use your imagination.” Jase trailed a few more kisses, but slowed to a stop. “You are going to try, right? To stay alive, I mean.”

“Of course I am. But you know me. I have to be realistic. No matter how hard I try it may not...”

He didn’t finish the thought, couldn’t. Instead he reached up to hold Jase’s face, making sure his boyfriend was looking at him. “Regardless of what happens, I love you. No matter where I end up, I love you. One way or another, I’ll see you again. And one way or another, I’ll be sure to leave you a part of me you can carry with you.” He sealed that promise with a quick kiss.

Jase looked at him, almost star struck, before it fell back to his usual smirk. “Wow, where did you find that sappy piece of dialogue?”

“Oh shush.” Donatello smiled back at him as he tugged the pillow down over Jase’s head. Not a very comfy one, full of old clothes they’d scavenged for, but better than rocks.

A beep from his gauntlet had to ruin the moment. He rolled over to check it again, knew it was an incoming call from the noise. Leo.

Donatello forced himself to sit up and snapped the gauntlet back on his wrist before answering it. “Yes, Leo?”

“Donnie, where are you? I’ve been looking all over the base for you. Main computer room says you’re still in here.”

“I am.” He wiped his eyes. “I’m in Jason’s quarters.”

His brother’s silence made him realize what he just said. His palm slapped against his forehead.

“Wait. Is that why Kendra is insisting I owe her ten dollars?”

“Huh?” Donatello shouted into the gauntlet and saw Jase trying to hide himself under the covers. “What are you talking about?”

“Oh my god, oh my god, no. I swore up and down you two would never--”

“You had a bet?”

“Dude, half the family does. I should get your own recordings and show you just how you two constantly stare at each other. Like, fifty times I swore I was going to vomit.”

“Okay, where are you?” Donatello tossed the covers off his legs and started to scramble for his clothes. “I’m coming to kick your ass right now.”

“Hang on, I have to give Kendra ten dollars before you do.”

“Nardo!”

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

Jason didn’t know what he expected.

It was late a night when he saw Donnie again. He looked lost, then frustrated, then lost all over again. Evidently talking about the plan with the others didn’t go over too well. Part of Jason hoped that would discourage Donnie from trying it.

It didn’t.

So Jason clung to him like it was the last night on Earth, like if his lips left his, he would suffocate. Words were whispered back and forth, so quietly, but he remembered every one of them.

“I’m so sorry for doing this to you.” Donnie mumbled at one point. “I’m still not sure what’s worse. Telling you now at the risk of leaving, or you never knowing at all.”

At the time, he didn’t have an answer to that.

He didn’t think too hard afterwards, drifting off to sleep, because he assumed he’d see Donnie one more time in the morning.

But when he woke up, his arm reached out to find nothing. He groaned and sat up, opening his eyes to still find nothing. Just crumpled sheets and something round and grey sitting next to the pillow.

Jason fumbled for his glasses and put them on. Damn lenses that would never be clean again. They couldn’t spend the resources making fancy new ones.

He could see the object more clearly now. A simple speaker with one button on it. Donnie often used them to leave messages when bases had to be abandoned, leaving coded messages for other resistance members to follow.

But why was it here?

Jason swallowed before giving into his curiosity and hitting play.

“Regardless of what happens, I love you.” The words from yesterday afternoon played back to him. “No matter where I end up, I love you. One way or another, I’ll see you again. And one way or another, I’ll be sure to leave you a part of me you can carry with you.”

Jason stared at the speaker in his hand.

Is this what he meant when he said that?

Suddenly an uneasy feeling twisted in his stomach.

He scrambled out of bed and put on his uniform. With everything ready he sprinted out of his quarters and towards the main computer room. No one else was inside yet, too early perhaps? He hadn’t even looked at the time. He wouldn’t. Vitals. He needed to check vitals. His palm swiped across the screen until it showed the correct list.

One of them was flatlined.

One of them was--

He hit the play button.

“Regardless of what happens, I love you.”

He hit it again.

“Regardless of what happens, I love you.”

Jason swallowed back the lump in his throat and forced his gaze to move over to the name next to the unwavering thread of life.

Again.

“Regardless of what happens, I love you.”

“Regardless of what happens--”

What happened?

Jason took off again. Leonardo. He had to find Leonardo if he was in the base. He’d know exactly what happened, right?

Did Jason even want an answer to that?

Most of the cave tunnels remained empty. Sometimes he passed by some rooms where people lingered, but none of them called after him.

He kept moving. Heading for the med bay. That’d be a logical place to look, right? He saw the doorway to it, saw April standing inside with her back turned. He opened his mouth to call out to her when his chest struck something metal. He would have fallen back if the culprit hadn’t caught him.

His hands rested on Leonardo’s prosthetic before he glanced at the turtle. His eyes were red, cheeks damp, but his expression was firm.

“Leo.” Jason tried to catch his breath. “What-- What happened? Where is he?”

Leonardo flinched, but his gaze only faltered for a second. “Jase trust me you don’t...” He swallowed. “You don’t want to go in there right now.”

“What happened?” He demanded as he pulled free. “What--” Only now with this distance did he get a good look at Leo’s sword. The red mask on the hilt was now perfectly complimented by the deep red stains that still lined the blade.

He felt so numb. Static formed in his palm where the recording pressed against it and slowly traveled up to his shoulder. This couldn’t be real. Maybe he was just having a nightmare. Any minute now he’d wake up in the real world and Donnie would still be right next to him, whispering a proper goodbye before he headed out on this doomed mission.

“Did he even try?” Jason choked the words out.

Leonardo grit his teeth, clearly struggling to speak for a second. “He gave it everything he had. It just wasn’t... enough.”

And what could he even say to that? The devastation was plain on Leo’s face. It’d probably be plain on April’s as well, and Mikey’s and even young Casey. Jase knew he wasn’t the only one being crushed by this, he never was when other reports of lost members came flooding in after a mission. He never was when he and his team watched those flat lines crop up one by one. In some ways this one should hardly be any different but the pins and needles in his arm hurt.

“Jase?” Leonardo took a step toward him. “Jase, I’m sorry--”

Why was he apologizing? This wasn’t his fault. It was Donatello’s stupid, stupid plan.

“Look, you should--”

As soon as the turtle reached out, Jason flinched backwards. His hand tensed around the device, causing him to hit the play button once more.

“Regardless of what happens, I love you.”

Leonardo’s eyes went wide.

“No matter where I end up, I love you.”

“Jase... where did you--”

“One way or another, I’ll see you again.”

Leo’s shoulders went tense before his left hand covered his face, clearly trying to hide his tears.

“And one way or another.”

Jason took off in the opposite direction. He couldn’t be doing this to Leo, shouldn’t be. The recording already wrenched his own heart in two, just what was it doing to Donatello’s twin?

“I’ll be sure to leave you a part of me you can carry with you.”

Jason kept going, all the way back to his quarters where he slammed to the door shut before sliding down onto the floor.

He hit the button again.

“Regardless of what happens, I love you.”

He double tapped this time, rewind.

“I love you.”

Again.

“I love you.”

I love you. I love you. I love you.

Jason failed to hold back his sob this time, loud enough that it drowned out the rest of the recording as it played from his hand. 

“I’m still not sure what’s worse. Telling you now at the risk of leaving, or you never knowing at all.”

Jason still didn’t have an answer to that. Was one truly worse than the other?

Or did they just hurt in different ways.

Again.

“Regardless of what happens, I love you.”