Fic: This Is Victory (hollow And Cold).

Fic: This is victory (hollow and cold).

Part: One

What if.. Mikey’s portal drags home a cold dead corpse.

I would like to preface this by saying I completely blame @goodlucktai for their amazing Incredible story, raised on little light for putting this idea into my head. Guys go check it out the fic, it’s amazing it makes me so so sad but there is also so many good things in it 😭. Personally speaking I don’t think there’s anything I can write that will ever come close to what Tai can do, but as a famous internet post once said, write your shitty pots. So here we goes ppl

Tw: major character death, grief, suicide idealisation, getting disowned, disassociation, starvation, slight description of injuries and inaccurate medical advice

But I promise, there is still hope even in this.

“Casey! When I get to the other side you close that portal!”

Everything stills. The world falls static.

“What..?” A foreign voice enters the fray. Ah. Cj thinks distantly. It’s mine.

A series of thoughts shoots through his mind. Faster than the battle drones Uncle Tello used to make, faster than the joy rides Uncle Mi used to give.

He sees empty eyes, forced smiles. Screaming voices stained with the weight only grief, hunger, thirst and stress can give.

He thinks of Michelangelo in the brief moments he has met the turtle, so bright and so energetic. And then he remembers his Uncle Mi twisted into something quiet, slow and outwardly peaceful.

He remembers Monty, so stoic and so very angry. Yet so very indulgent when it counts. Out in a blaze of guns and glory. Standard-issue shoulder pauldron shoved into shaking hands. You will do great things Princey. He remembers Monty’s mother. Whose name he never got, forever in a daze, staring at walls of nothing. A hallowed husk like so many of the living ghosts that wandered their dusty halls. He remembers Miwa. So tiny, so fragile. So young. Too young. No amount of their anything can ever replace or beat modern medicine.

His Uncle Tello, bitter, grumpy; burnt out and constantly overstimulated from the dirt covered and squishy pink hell they’ve found themselves in. But sometimes on better days he cocks his head to the side, with a face that almost smiles at Cj and says, “Come Jones Junior; I appear to have some scraps we need to dispose off.” Which is code for we’re going to give your Pa an aneurysm and make things go boom.

He remembers his family. Tired, thirsty, hungry, eyes on them constantly. Countless sleepless nights in hushed voices arguing, strategising, weeping. They thought he didn’t hear. But children always have the biggest ears and the longest standing shelter on earth is only so large.

First and foremost. Cj knows. He knows with heart wrenching certainty. If there was any way to make peace with the present Hamatos it would all be over now. They’ll hate him. They will. They will never forgive him for this.

Maybe if this was his Mom, his Auntie April, his Da-Uncle Mi, his Uncle Tello, his Grandpa Drax. Whatever else Master Raphael and Master splinter might have been to him. They might just forgive him but these people are not them. They have not been softened with a lifetime of knowing Cj. He doesn’t have that baby of the family privilege. He doesn’t have any privilege at all. It’s only been a day. Less than that technically.

Even just the thought of being hated by his family. Any version of them, curdles something in his core. Every fiber in his being lashes out and screams at the younger version of his sensei. (Oh but it was Leonardo wasn’t it? Oh, what has he done?) In ways he hasn’t done since he was 8 years old, because poor 8 year old Casey hadn’t quite figured out how to breathe through the hunger pains. I’m a healer. I’m supposed to stop these things. Please, I already let go before you can’t make me do this again-

“Leo no! There has to be another way!”

But this Leonardo says;

“We’ve tried everything Case, he’s too strong”

And deep down Cj knows that too. Much like the lies his family told him. “We can win” He knows otherwise too. Just like if he does this, he knows he’ll be left with nothing too.

But his family will still be here, surrounded by food, clean water, light, and endless amount of comics or magazines they could possibly want. They will be free.

They will never know gnawing hunger or sapping thirst, nor will they know the ever present hum of runhidenotsafe. They will never know the unique kind of suffering that comes from grasping for strength to just open your eyes and breathe in a world that has already long given up on itself.

Cj has seen the future. He has lived and breathed and sometimes, even thrived in an era where the krang came. Where the sky was a bloody brown instead of this clear dark blue and people were driven to insanity and killed from the common cold. Where the sour smell of rot piled everywhere. No matter how much or how hard you scrubbed.

He remembers his Sensei, his Pa, wise, comforting, always ready with a witty comeback or a brilliant plan. He remembers his Commander O’Neil, his Auntie April, rousing, quick and endlessly enduring, the steady voice of reason where even Sensei’s wit dulled. But they were tired, so very tired. The burden of leadership and grief and all the aches and pains of hunger and thirst that can never be quenched, already a fully dressed tomb just waiting for them to hang up their coats and admit futility to the unsurmountable cold.

He remembers how much his family loved him. How hard they tried to scrape together any piece of warmth for him. Tired Golden-Orange heaves himself into the air, to scoop Cj into his arms. Busy Blue who takes any meagre time he has to himself and spends it with Cj. Prickly Purple finds away to colour all his armour a shade of teal, even his siblings are still decked in occasional shades of grey. Overstretched Green always ready to pull her brothers back and scold; too guilty, too smothering, too harsh. Stop. You’re hurting the kid.

If Cj doesn’t close this portal, if he keeps this open, if he disobeys-the Krang will just come back through. And they will plunge the earth into a bloody, poisoned hell.

And he knows that if not Leonardo, then someone else in their stupid, selfless, self-sacrificial family will take up the mantle of resistance, unable to stand idly by at people’s suffering. Because these people are good, so very good. The Hamatos will fight, they will try. And they will lose.

The force of their ire will break him. The thought alone makes him sob, hiccuping in a way he hasn’t done, not since he was found shrieking over a cold Uncle Tello and had to be wrenched away, kicking and screaming. But still holding on. Even to the very last second and beyond. Because he is Cassandra Jones Junjor and a Hamato in every way that matters and he could never leave family behind. At least back then he couldn’t feel mom die

But the apocalypse.. that long, slow, painful march to inevitable death, will break him too. It wasn’t always bad, they had fun, karaoke nights, hilarious attempts to make birthday cakes for kids like him. But fuck.. that doesn’t change the fact that they still lost. That they will all still loose. Cj doesn’t know if he can willingly doom them all again because that’s what he’s going to do isn’t it? They were all so tired, so hungry, so thirsty. How can he let them go through that again?

He remembers how much happier, and how much lighter they always looked in those old scarce photos.

Selfishly, Cj doesn’t know if he can survive through another 20 something years or however long they make it this time, through that hell again. Forced to slowly watch again, as the Krang chip away at his family. Chip away at the people he called his friends till everything, bright, lively and kind was carved out;Uncle Hiro I’m sorry, I’m so so sorry-

They will never love you again. A voice thunders, like the death roll of their final march just this morning where Cj was still breathing in corrupted air under rusty skies. If only he died there with them. Anything is better than having to do this.

I know. Cj shakes, trembling fingers wrap around the key. Casey can see the division between young and new, old and worn and knows he cannot let it blur and become one.

“Casey! Urgh-please!”

Anything. I will give anything, Casey weeps. Anything as long as they live. Casey squeezes his eyes shut.

And just like with Uncle Tello,

Casey finally lets go.

The portal to the prison dimension slams shut with a glorious boom.

Leo, I love you. I’m sorry.

I wish I got more time to know you.

They scream at him. It’s Muffled, like the sensation of sound in the aftermath of a live grenade. They hurl all manner of abuse and venom at his face. He thinks he might be crying. Or maybe he’s not. His head feels tangled like the heaps of crusty old wires, Uncle Tello will never get the chance to unravel.

The shattered body of their Leonardo lies between them, like territory lines drawn between begrudging survivor groups. Cradled by a shaking soft shell. The blurry shapes of familiar voices once desperately calm and patient now roar,cutting and rightfully angry. It falls on his ears. He tries to grasp it, he does. He’s ruined everything, the least Cj can do now is listen.

But exhaustion gnaws at his very bones. Head pounding.

Nothing can explain this.

Nothing will justify this.

Severe head trauma, and shattered, collapsed carapace. Possible bruised and punctured lungs via pieces of loose carapace as the overall structure caved in, resulting in internal bleeding in the lungs and eventual asphyxiation. Patient chocked on his own blood. The field medic immediately drones internally, years of experience and training unable to be shut off (or rather, trained to never shut off) as listless eyes drift down to meet the unmoving slider.

It seems the one-sided eye contact is what finally breaks the softshell’s stupor. “Don’t you fucking dare.” The teen snarls, teeth flashing in all the ways he used to bare it at unwelcome visitors. But never at Casey. Never for long.

Wake up Jones. This is not your Uncle.

The rest of the group falls silent, shocked to see their previously silent family member speaking.

“You don’t get to look at him.” Achingly gentle, the purple branded softshell sets Leonardo onto the tiled floor.

Donatello stands. “You.” He hisses, pointing at Cj.

“You did this.”

Somewhere, somehow Cj manages to gather enough of himself to incline his head slightly in agreement. It’s the least he can do for them.

“Leave.” Donatello orders.

And like the good soldier he is, Cj does. Disappearing into the tunnels.

No one stops him.

Tags

alternate universe rottmnt save rottmnt rottmnt future april rottmnt future donnie rottmnt future mikey unpause rottmnt rottmnt future leo short stories canon divergence short fiction healer cj healer cj au healer cj: this is victory everyone is having a bad time thank goodness this isn’t canon to the au amiright? just Casey’s rationale on closing the portal is canon okay nvm I take it back a lot of things here are canon except Leo’s death so uh hey.. you’re welcome for the early spoilers?😂 help I wrote this instead of sleeping 😭

✨Masterpost 💫

Rottmnt au: Healer Cj

So ngl this is turning out to be bigger than I thought so uhhh Master post it is!

[how Case lost his Ninpo]

[Mikey and Cj shenanigans]

[Helper]

[Time to Panic!]

[Hath no fury like Healer Jones]

[Dynamics]

[Oiling gears and changing shifts]

[Fic:So let’s try this again]

[Team up of the century]

[Rage]

[You are 15, nobody else thinks so tho]

[Lorreeee]

[Snippet/Fic:The broken off branch]

[The greatest thing we’ve ever lost]: [ 1 ],[ 2 ]

[There were children, even among the end]

[The Shrine(s)]

[Growing Pains]

[Little pockets of sunshine]

[Fic:Stand ready]

[High fi-wait. High three?]

[The thing that started it all]

[Updated Cj ref]; Tw for dead plants/animals

[Ref for April but with Ninpo✨]

[Ref for the Turtles]

[Collab: Mystic battle]

[Fic:This is victory(hollow and cold)]

Other rottmnt stuff:

[Gift for Biconic]

[Pheobep’s 2k DITYS]

[Angie my boi]: 2

[VINDICATTIIOONN]

Tags

my art art doodles procreate digital art rottmnt save rottmnt writing save rise of the tmnt masterpost unpause rottmnt rottmnt season 3 short stories healer cj healer cj au healer cj asks

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themulitipurposechannel

7 months ago

Hello! I need medication for life to prevent my lungs from collapsing, this implies permanent treatment with steroids, oxygen therapy, control of oxygen in the blood and antibiotics to prevent the development of bacteria in the lungs.

I'm afraid I have to insist on this because it may be the only way to get my treatment.

I need medication for life to keep my lungs from collapsing, this costs around $700 per month.

Things are really tough on me,I can’t afford. Please donate🖤

Idk if this is real, but in case it is I’m just gonna throw this out there in case it reaches ppl who can help.

Tags

chronic illness charity

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themulitipurposechannel

9 months ago

*GASP a double update?? I swear I had more story driven/lore things planned but this grabbed ahold of my brain and wouldn’t let go. So Friendly reminder that Junior is most definitely a gremlin. Cuz you can’t convince me that Mr “I was raised by the Hamatos, O’Neil and by one very feral Casey senior” did not come out of it the slightest bit unhinged. It’s just a little.. subdued rn. But mark my words once he gets settled in.. hehe the P!Hamato fam are in danger. LET MY BOI CAUSE CHAOS, he makes doctor delicate touch proud XD

Timeline wise this takes place much further down the line (maybe a year or 6-8 months after the invasion??) where Cj feels more settled in with the P!Fam/ is no longer constantly bogged down by grief/survivors guilt/ feeling that he betraying the older part of his family by loving and feeling settled with the P!Fam(not that he doesn’t still feel it but ya get what I mean, he has more good days than bad days). Hence his more jovial (chaotic) behaviour and his Ninpo being back.

Tags

art procreate digital art rottmnt save rottmnt april o'neil memes rottmnt donnie rottmnt april hamato ninpo hamato yoshi rottmnt splinter unpause rottmnt donatello hamato crack post healer cj healer cj au your honour da boy is feral Cj gremlin supremacy let him be silly as a treat

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themulitipurposechannel

4 months ago

Aww Kana is indeed adorable sorry for the wait and thank you for your patience 😁, Merry Christmas @1cat200 and thank you so much for this fun opportunity! And thus concludes this mystic battle haha! In the end Cj’s grief/deeply buried Big bro instincts just rlly couldn’t be hidden XD , Hanako gets to live(?)another day and Cj gets distracted from pulling Heather back into his draining circle and well.. doing his.. more permanent version of.. ‘his worst’

Heather Hamato Challenges Healer CJ To A Mystic Battle! Be Warned, Heather's Got Top-notch Ghost Mystic

(For more info on Heather and her twin brother Makoto visit my blog and search for the tags #Heather, #rottmnt next gen, #Makoto and #Rising to the challenge au!)

It’s not cheating XD

Mystic Tech in a Mystic battle haha.

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themulitipurposechannel

8 months ago

[Fic] So let’s try this again:

- See I wanted to make this a comic but then I felt it would lack a certain nuance and complexity of character povs that I wanted to to delve into. Cuz man there is just so much to say about these two and their dynamic, Soo Fic it is! Pls go easy on me, guys I’m not much of a writer and these guys are hard to write for me 🥲

—

“Wow, guess Donald was right.” Came a chuckle, “You are like a little shadow.”

And Casey freezes, hands barely hovering over Leo’s arms. Suddenly he’s seven years old again, caught red handed peeking through a little crack into meeting room.

A crooked grin, spreads itself across the slider’s face. “Hey shadow” His voice lilts playfully. So much younger and so much lighter yet still so achingly familiar, that if Casey hadn’t already spent 10 days into past? the present? being punched with that oh so wonderful cocktail of grief-nostalgia-fondness, he would have burst into tears already.

Instead, Casey smiles wryly. Awkwardly shuffling away from the bedside. “Sorry I didn’t mean to wake you. I just wanted to check on your injuries”. He raises a brow “I can go if you want..?”

“Nah it’s cool. I’ve been sleeping lots anyways.”

“You were in a coma” The human deadpans.

“Eh.. same thing.” Sensei-no just Leo now,shrugs.

“It’s really not.” Casey snorts. A beat. A pause. And then because he’s been holding onto this for too long and his mom didn’t raise no coward. And Uncle Mi didn’t teach him to be the kind of person who doesn’t apologise. Because Leo’s been awake for two days now, cmon Casey you can’t hold onto this forever-

“I’m sorry.”

“Whaat? I’m sorry? Sorry for what?” The slider laughs, tilting his head to the side. “Did you ruin my very rare first edition Jupiter Jim saves a cat comic?”

“Well..no.”

“Then you got nothing to be sorry for” Leo smiles, a clear attempt at lightening the mood.

But Casey won’t let him. This needs to be said. Nervous, the teen wrings his hands together. “I meant what I said in the tunnels.”

“Ah. That.” The blue toned slider falters ever so slightly. “It’s fine!” He grins brightly, casually waving Casey away. Too casual. Because of course he is. They are different. But Sensei and Leo shared a past together once. And it shows.

“You were right,” Leo continues, “I was being arrogant and I wasn’t listening to my team itz all good.”

“Well yeh, I wasn’t wrong there.” Frustrated, Casey yanks a hand through his hair. “But I was being too harsh. I was expecting you to be like Sensei when I shouldn’t have. It’s not fair.”

“Yeh… You shouldn’t have.” Leo agrees, looking away. Uncharacteristically quiet from what Casey has seen of him over his two day (and currently halfway through his third) long coherency.

Oh Shell, He’s just made this worse didn’t he?

“That’s not what I meant” Casey’s hands ball into fists. Should he hug Leo? Would that be too weird? Hugs were for family, he was only a stranger. “I- I’m not good with words.” The ravenette groans, wringing his hands together again.

“It’s not about you. But it’s not not about you, you know?” He gestures to the bed ridden turtle emphatically. “It’s about all of you guys. Your family loves you. Their Leo, not Master Leonardo. You don’t need to be anything else. You’re enough just the way you are. Michelangelo wouldn’t have opened that portal otherwise. They need you, just as much as you need them.”

An indiscernible flash flickers across the other’s face. But he quickly relaxes back into a smile. “Hmm.. If you say so” Leo drawls, perfect mask. Perfect play. But something in his shoulders ease ever so slightly. So Casey has hope that there is something that sticks.

A silence then descends upon the Med Bay. It drags on and lingers. Both parties not knowing what else to say. Casey’s about to go excuse himself, when Leo opens his mouth. “You know we’re your family too right?”

The younger teen blinks. “Huh?”

“We’re your family too.” The turtle repeats. Narrowing his eyes firmly. “Look, I dunno what’s been going on this past week. but knowing the others, they’re probably just trying to figure out how to broach that ‘ole subject with you without making you uncomfortable”

Wisely Cj only hums and says nothing. Knowing whatever he says would sound about as unconvinced as he feels. Tell that to my Ninpo he wants to say bitterly. Tell that to every conversation he’s turned stilted and cold, because he’s slipped up and believed for a second that things were one and the same.

(When mom died, April it was you brushed my hair. And taught me how to tie my hair.

Michelangelo you always encouraged me to draw on our walls till the last of our chalk was gone.

Donatello you let me sleep in your lab even on the days you banned even Sensei from coming in.

And Leo- .. Leonardo you were everything. You who used to tie my shoelaces and the first to come running when I cried.

I can recite the lines from so many different Lou Jitsu movies I never got to see.)

He must not hide it as well he thinks. Because Leo shoots him the most exasperated -are you serious look-.

“Dude, Dad and Raph found a subway car for you. April snuck you a discount at her new workplace. And shell-!” Leo throws his hands up, “Donnie let you fix our cameras, and don’t even get me started on how Mikey lets you help him in his kitchen even though I’m his favourite brother and I’m banned.” Leo grumbles, crossing his arms together.

“I- I guess you do have a point .” Despite his best efforts, Casey ducks his head down and his eyes begin to burn. Boy, Casey is really starting to hate how much sense Leo is making. For all the differences between Sensei and Leonardo, why did the universe have to give them the one similarity that lets them talk their way into whatever they want and making Casey agree with them? Perhaps.. perhaps what Casey had Misconstrued as polite obligation was maybe something deeper after all.. ?

“Course, I do. I’m awesome.” Leo smirks, flicking his mask tails with a flourish that has Casey resisting the urge to groan and roll his eyes.

“I know it won’t be the same. But you are family Case. I promise you. All of this means something. We won’t let you be alone” His eyes soften, “You’re my family.” And it’s true, Leo does not know Casey. In his eyes, it’s been a little under 72 hours since he’s met Casey. And only 48 hours since all hell broke loose. But hell could have been so much worse and he can see everything.

The expertly wrapped bandages around Mikey arms and Donnie’s shell, the carefully filled resin over the hole, they had so graciously given his biggest brother’s shell, with such precision his beloved purple twin couldn’t hope (nor want) to achieve. Corners of the med bay that had been gathering dust now suspiciously clean. Faithfully ushering their sister to and fro the lair. Heck even the way the oily haired teen (which ew gross, someone really had to go teach that kid how to wash his hair) was hovering over him now, taking shifts so his father and brothers and sister could rest.

Casey didn’t have to do those things. He owed them nothing. They weren’t the people who raised him. He could have just up and left once the initial invasion was over, he didn’t have to try so hard. Once it became clear that Leo, and by extension the others, were nothing like the people Casey grew up with. But he didn’t, he stayed. He cares. He cares so much.

And Shell, if that didn’t make Casey family, Leo didn’t know what will. If he could tolerate Baron ‘you threw me of a roof’ Draxum into his family he can definitely accept Casey.

A strangled noise breaks him from his thoughts, Leo comes back to himself to see a sniffing, now crying Junior.

“Ok bring it in, little brother” Leo grins smirking fondly, spreading his arms wide (because yes, of course one of the first things Leo asked, once he established Raph, Donnie, Mikey, April and dad were ok. Was what was Casey’s age. He needed to know if he could rub his age into Casey’s face. He needed his shit-eating grin older brother rights damn it!). Immediately, Casey rushes forward sobbing, wrapping his arms around the turtle as tightly as he can without further aggravating the other boy’s injuries.

“I’m so glad you’re here Leo.” He chokes out wetly, the tears he had been holding back for this entire interaction now freely flowing because truly, this was all he really wanted. He could never and would never ask the present Hamato family to be crushed under the same weight his guardians had been. All he asked was to be loved, and not alone. And sure he still had a lot of doubts but maybe, just maybe, Leo was right and he wasn’t as alone or unloved as he thought.

(He is future boy, freshly uprooted and fumbling blindly but maybe, just maybe not nearly the lone orphan without a home)

“I couldn’t have lost you twice” Casey shudders, burying his head deeper into Leo’s shoulder.

“And now you won’t. It’s all thanks to you.” Leo replies determinedly, tightening his grip around the other boy. And then in a much quieter, more vulnerable voice, he adds,

“I’m so glad I’m here too.” Because he was, Leo most truly and definitely was.

(And somewhere, deep down subdued, not so isolated teal begins to tentatively reach towards waiting blueredpurpleorangegreenwhitepink maroon and pulse a little less weakly again)

Tags

save rottmnt writing found family rottmnt leo rottmnt casey junior fic unpause rottmnt short stories healer cj healer cj au listen folks I’m trying my best

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themulitipurposechannel

9 months ago

Oiling gears and Changing shifts: Part 1,<Next!>

Oh hey look I’m making a comic! Ngl not entirely happy with this but welp that’s what practice is for XD

Tags

art procreate digital art rottmnt save rottmnt rottmnt donnie rottmnt casey jr hamato ninpo unpause rottmnt casey junior donatello hamato healer cj healer cj au oh hey look the girlies are talking 👀 boi I sure hope nothing bad happens Leo’s here too but this ain’t about him XD

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