Leo does not stop, because every time he looks at the tiny, fluffy, angry kitten that was his twin brother two minutes ago, he like physically CAN’T handle it. He’s been laughing for those entire two minutes and he’s getting a little lightheaded.
“Sorry, sorry,” Leo wheezes, tears streaming down his face.
Raph pinches the bridge of his nose. “You’re not sorry.”
“I’m not sorry, look at him.” The kitten Donatello skitters backwards on the sofa and hisses at him. Leo opens his hands and makes kissy noises. “C’mere Tello-lello, don’t you want a snuggle?”
Donnie makes a swipe for his face, claws out, but Leo dances backwards with his super fast ninja reflexes. Donnie tries to scratch Leo even when he’s not a cat, so it’s pretty par for the course.
Leo spreads his hands innocently. “Come onnn.”
“Leo,” Raph says, exasperated, probably envisioning Donnie taking Leo's eye out. “You can't tease him the whole time.”
“You have no idea how long I can tease someone,” Leo says haughtily. “But for real. I promise I'm not gonna hurt you, D. Just hoping to help with some data collection.” The data being: are those tiny fluffy ears really as soft as they look? Can we get a cuteness rating on the little toe beans, a standard ten scale, please?
Leo reaches out a hand for Donnie to sniff, which he bites immediately and mercilessly. OW. Okay. That one's fair. An acceptable sacrifice. Leo scoops the tiny kitten into his arms. Donnie meows angrily at him, high and shrill, probably scared. But Leo is an expert in Donatello and this is no sweat.
“Look, you’re okay, D.” Leo puts his hand on Donnie’s back, the fragile, shivering thing in his arms. “I’m not gonna hurt you. Promise.”
Donnie meows again, weaker. Leo’s not a monster. He knows it must be scary to be suddenly so small and so vulnerable. Earlier Donnie was backed into the corner, hissing, in full panic mode.
Leo tucks Donnie under his chin and hums, trying to convey incredibly warm and soft vibes. The gushy stuff, the sort of embarrassing sappy shit he would N-E-V-E-R say out loud even with a gun to his head, the I would die for you thing and the you’re safe with me I promise thing. Maybe one time when they were eight, Donnie found Leo hiding under his bed during a thunderstorm, and he crawled in there with him and rested his head on Leo’s shoulder, a flashlight and a book with too many big words for Leo to really understand but what he did understand was that his twin was there and he was safe.
“I’ve got you,” Leo says, so softly he has plausible deniability. Donnie brushes against his chin and Leo can feel his little heartbeat slowing under the feather-soft fur. Really really quietly, he starts purring.
“The scene that will give you, personally, the most joy.”
Thank you for the prompt!! A fluffy little modern AU FenHawke:
Hawke’s knees are creaking something awful as she makes her way up the stairs, bag of specially-requested croissants in hand, along with a little sack of something Fenris called ‘star anise’ and methodically described to her before she went out. Someone else enters the stairwell, cold wind licking at her heels, and she hastens her steps, wrapping her coat more tightly around her.
Something rich and aromatic hits her nose when she steps through the door, keys jingling in her hands, placing the bag of croissants and star anise on the floor. She can hear Fenris milling about in the kitchen, somewhere around the corner, humming along with a Fereldan Satinalia tune playing off his phone. She smiles, hangs up her coat.
“Love, I got the anise,” she calls, slipping off her boots and stalking to the kitchen. The knees still creak but a little less painfully – Fenris likes it warm in the apartment, especially when winter and fall are balancing on a knife’s edge like this. The rich smell gets stronger, and she finds him standing over a large pot, stirring. His eyes flash at the bag of spice, and he takes it from her hands, tearing open the seam and giving it a long sniff.
“Perfect. Thank you, Hawke,” he says, selecting a few pieces and dumping them into the pot.
“Whatcha making?” she asks curiously, coming to peek at the contents of the pot – rich, dark red liquid with a few citrus fruits and various spices she recognizes as Tevinter floating. Fenris pulls her by the waist with his free hand, and she angles her mouth to brush her lips against his jaw.
“You’ll find out. My mother used to make it, for Satinalia.”
She only hums contentedly into his collar, and she listens to the rumble in his chest as he sings along quietly to the song, wrapped as she is against his side. The next song in the album comes on – a slow, jazzy favourite of hers – and her fingers go to his shoulder, taking care not to press on the old ache.
“Dance with me?”
He laughs into her hair and presses his chin to her cheek, putting down his spoon and bringing that hand to her waist to join the other. They sway like that, listening to the crooning of the singer – she’s so warm, wrapped up in what feels like the very heart of him, his intoxicating smell overpowering even the rich aroma of what he’s making.
The song ends, but they stay like that for a moment, swaying out of tempo with the next number, until there’s a sound of hissing from the pot.
“Fasta vass,” hisses Fenris, pulling away and hastily reaching to turn down the heat. “It’s ready. Will you try some?”
She smiles at his earnest expression – she’s so undone by him, even after all these years. “Of course, love.”
The most important quote of the week from, “Yinka, where is your huzband” is on page 259. Yinka is in the hospital after her baby sister gave birth to her first child. With all her family around now they see it as a perfect chance to catch up since they’ve all been so distracted with their own personal life and the baby mothers new born child. As her mom and aunt that she calls “big mommy” press her about her new job and new boyfriend Alex, Yinka just can’t take it anymore. She can't bear the lies she’s been telling to anyone and she realizes that lying is what first got her into this mess and lying will not help her out of it. The only thing to do next is tell the truth no matter what the reaction may be or how hard it will be. Yinka goes on to say “doesn’t it say somewhere in the Bible that the truth will set you free? Or is that cool from liar, liar? Either way, it’s true.” She finally opens up and tells them that she lost her job, never got the promotion and Alex likes someone else.. Her sister.
First week back reading this book, I almost forgot what was going onnn. These couple of pages I read with my first week back were really good. I was only back for four days so I started a little late. I picked this as the most important quote of the week because it was about time Yinka dropped the act! I mean how long could she really lie for. It was getting embarrassing and she couldn’t even keep up with her own lies at this point. Yinka has been lying to her mom for weeks about having this promotion because she was too scared to hear her mother's judgment. As a Nigerian girl, I understand where she is coming from because I know how harsh African parents can be on their children. They usually have really high expectations of us because they didn’t have all the opportunities we have so they just want us to make the most of it and be better than them. But still, telling your parents news like this is hard and their reaction is harder. As for Alex. That news was like a bomb. It was crazyyy. When I read that my mouth really dropped, because Yinka truly believed he was the one. If you remember, she had a whole plan and everything. She really liked him and believed he really liked her.. But he was getting close to Yinka just to get close to her sister. Crazy. Heartbreaking. Painful. But, I think just ripping the bandaid off and telling your parents the news already will help her mend her wounds rather than keeping it to herself and lying to everyone. Speaking from personal experience I would know.
This was a truly staggering fact, since I usually did not read that much. Especially not in one month.
But the raccoon did an astoundingly good job at keeping Matia busy.
It was one third of her height, but it was a good, warm, firm pillow and companion.
He actually seemed to be quite considerate. And with it’s tiny, tiny hands, he was even a better companion than Mazin-fox. He even flipped the page for Matia to read. And looked like it understands everything when she read to him, even clapping - somewhat clapping - after she is done.
It gave her more fun in reading, so that was good.
Really, just watching the raccoon bring a book to Matia and her opening it carefully and reading to me was… adorable. Really adorable. And straight after, they rolled over the floor.
And sometimes Mazin-fox joined them, always the leader, bringing them to some place or another. Wherever he brought them, Matia came back with big eyes and chattered about fairies.
Or at least sparkly things.
But most of them time Mazin-fox kept me from doing things. Because he jumped on my lap and basically refused to move whenever I sat down with a book.
One wouldn’t believe how much more comfortable reading was with a soft pillow on my lap. I almost forgot the time, the fox sometimes nudging me for scritches, but otherwise… I got to experience this… book.
It really was not for everyone. I did not see my mind becoming a camel… or a lion… or even a child. It was explained later on, but… a teacher who was unhappy with his teaching? He had a point about women being better hosts than men. And men being stronger, which almost never is a good thing.
It really was not a good book by any means, reading that women are only meant to give birth certainly did make me frown.
But a lot of thoughts simply… stuck with me after reading it.
The main character was mostly a pretentious bastard who hated everyone. And was still sought out for advice. Nietzsche probably wrote about himself.
In the end, I could say what I wanted about the book, it did make me mutter and think. Mostly angry thoughts about the stupid person who wrote it.
The theme of enjoying life didn’t even… really come up. I might have tugged my foxes fur a little harder than necessary when reading it.
But now here I was, a little smarter than before. Not sure if I looked forward to another meeting… but certainly glad to be rid of the book now.
Hmph.
But maybe we would not even meet.
I went through my business the usual way. The market waited for no one. And maybe I was lucky enough not to meet him at all.
