..I Wouldn't Blame You If You Did

..I wouldn't blame you if you did

More crossover shenanigans, because being able to write silly drabbles like this is great for scratching that writing itch, and @lukas6246 is amazing for letting me play with their blorbos. Peepaw Leon and little brother Leo are theirs, Eshra is mine.

Of course they met while shopping for clothes.

"That color would look great on you."

The rumbling baritone nearly makes Eshra drop the length of fabric he's been examining and look up in surprise, his shoulders tensing and his crest flaring on instinct. Usually he's more aware of his surroundings, but apparently he's been focusing so hard on whether or not he likes the shimmery white wrap that he hasn't even noticed the approach of the, uh… Woah.

Eshra looks up. And up. And up some more. The yokai(?) standing next to him is huge in all senses of the word, easily over seven feet tall and built to match, with lime green skin and a… a shell on his back? Eshra takes a step back, both to put a little distance between them and get better idea of what he's looking at.

A turtle, he realizes. There's a giant, bipedal, talking turtle standing next to him, browsing the clothing racks without a care in the world. The Hidden City really does have everything.

"You think so?" Eshra drops his gaze back to the cloth in his hands, and that's when he spots the pair of eyes narrowed suspiciously at him from around the giant turtle-man's shell. He leans back just a bit to get a clearer view, and his brow ridges lift when he sees those eyes belong to a miniature version of the big guy. His kid?

As though oblivious to the impromptu staring contest going on behind him, Big Turtle replies, "Sure, it'll stand out really well with your feathers." Bold as you please, he plucks the wrap from Eshra's fingers and holds it against the iridescent blue and green feathers adorning his arm. "See? And it goes all rainbow-y when the light hits it. It'll look great."

"Leon." That comes from Little Turtle, who is still watching Eshra like the feathered yokai is crafting some nefarious world-ending plot right there in the clothing store. "You said we'd get boba."

Leon, huh? Eshra files that information away for later.

Big Turtle -- Leon -- glances under his arm at his fun-size companion. "We just got here, champ," he says with some amusement and obvious affection.

"Yeah, but I'm literally dying of thirst. Look! I'm wasting away!" Little Turtle slumps dramatically against his… uncle… big brother… whatever and turns the biggest puppy dog eyes Eshra has ever seen up to the big turtle. It takes everything in the yokai not to snort at the theatrical display.

"Okay, okay, we'll go get boba." Leon seems entirely unaware of the little con artist's manipulation, or maybe he's just used to it. He looks at Eshra then and gives him the biggest, warmest smile Eshra has ever seen, and it promptly turns the little yokai's insides into mush. Oh no. "Seriously, get the wrap."

Then he's letting his seven foot, several hundred pound bulk be dragged out of the store by a kid not even half his size, a kid who is still tossing suspicious glances in Eshra's direction. Suddenly, on impulse, Eshra hurries after them.

"Hey, hold on!"

Leon stops, despite his Mini Me's attempts to continue to tug on his arm. He cocks his head at Eshra, whose crest ruffles in sudden bashfulness.

"Would you, uh. Would you like to get coffee sometime?"

There's that smile again. "Sure. Actually… how do you feel about boba?"

Beside Leon, Little Turtle looks borderline apoplectic, but the expression vanishes the instant Leon looks down at him. Interesting. "That okay with you, little bro?"

The answer is obviously reluctant. Equally obvious, however, is the teenager's apparent inability to say no to his older brother. "Yeah, that's fine, I guess."

"Great!" Leon offers a hand to Eshra, and the yokai only now realizes that the turtle's right arm is entirely prosthetic. "I'm Leon, and this is my, uh… little brother, Leo."

Taking the offered hand and giving it a polite shake, Eshra blinks. The same name? Okay, kinda weird… but now his curiosity is piqued, and he's going to chase it down no matter how hard the little one, Leo, is trying to set Eshra on fire with his eyes.

"Nice to meet you both. I'm Eshra."

Been listening to this song since last night, and apparently, I'm having the best day ever?? I'm about to cry over how happy I'm feeling today. This is dope

Here's a doodle from the prosthetic page

Someone confiscated peepaws prosthetics✨️

I lost motivation to finish this after the second outfit

then @so-called-yokai 's oc Eshra held a gun to my head and said, "Dress him."

So i dressed him :]

Behold; my questionable taste in fashion!

It was supposed to be four outfits loosely inspired by the turtles, but i completely lost motivation to do raph's one :,]

(I blame so-called-yokai for the third one, giving me fashion ideas for peepaw)

Individuals under the cut!

I know my clothes drawing skills aren't the best, so it's not perfect, lol. Just part of the journey I'm on

Work wear, of course. cause that's definitely one of my favorite kinds of clothes, ngl

You can blame so-called-yokai for the sheer croptop and skinny jeans since they didn't stop me when i brought up the ideas, lol

This was the original one! I decided to try dressing him up and had future mikey floating around my brain, then i decided to try making more, and uhh, here we are :p

And of course, i just had to try to draw so-called-yokai's oc Eshra! Gave him a matching colour scheme while i was at it, lol

I 100% recommend checking their writing out! They're really skilled, and we have recently teamed up to make a crossover AU! 'Semi-Feral Polaroids'! They're writing these adorable snippets about my nardo, leo, and their oc!

(I'm loving it so far <3)

Have nice day

CHECK OUT MY FRIEND! HE'S DOPE!

THEY WROTE THIS TO TORMENT ME ABOUT OUR SHARED AU (Semi-Feral Polaroids) AND IT JUST BROKE ME

(This specific text isn't canon to our shared au that he writes snippets about, but as an alternate possibility it sure was nice :,] )

Have nice day

Maybe he sees an older yokai back then. Fifteen, twenty years on him, maybe? Hard to tell these days, with the war making everyone old before their time. Still pretty, though. Still vivacious. But starting to show his age just a little. Maybe he wonders what this little yokai was like… before. Before time and war wore him down and dulled his feathers, muted his smile. Maybe he wonders what it would be like to see the pretty yokai dancing for himself, for the sheer joy of it, and not just trying to distract and entertain the little ones from the hell they live in, wearing a smile that never quite reaches his eyes. Years later, but also years before, maybe he sees a pretty, vivacious yokai dancing for the sheer joy of it near the fountain in the Hidden City. Dancing like nobody's watching. Dancing like he doesn't care if they are. Their eyes meet across the square, and Leonardo knows those eyes, even if they don't yet know him.

We all know I'm never going to actually write this fic, but the concept is living rent-free in my head now.

THIS

THIS RIGHT HERE??

THIS IS PURE SKILL, AND I JUST HAVE TO SHARE IT

What's Your Favorite Flower?

A little thing I wrote after considering what Eshra's answer would be. Takes place during the Bad Future™.

Rating: G

It’s such a minuscule thing, really, and in a normal world, a sane world, he never would have noticed it. Why would he? But the world isn’t normal, and it isn’t sane, and it hasn’t been for years, and so in this hellscape of shattered shades of gray all overlaid with a hellish red sky, the tiny splash of yellow catches his eye.

On feet as quiet as a cat’s paws, the yokai dips and darts across the torn up, rubble-strewn asphalt of… Bleecker Street, he thinks, near 11th, his dancer’s steps carrying him towards that incongruous dot of color. Every sense is in overdrive, like they have been since the invasion, but nothing trips his internal alarm, and he allows himself this brief moment of curiosity.

It’s a dandelion, he realizes after a frankly embarrassing number of seconds. Miraculously, the little yellow blossom is still clinging to life in this broken world, stubbornly reaching for the demonic sky and spreading its leaves to catch what little true sunlight might still filter through the red haze.

Eshra’s breath catches in his throat, an unexpected upsurge of emotion he has to swallow down hard, lest he risk making a noise and giving away his position. He reaches out almost without realizing it, his fingers stopping a hair’s breadth from the sunny petals. Somehow, even here, at the epicenter of the apocalypse, life endures. It persists, in spite of death, in spite of ruin, in spite of the krang.

The urge to protect the tiny flower, to uproot it and carry it somewhere safe, out of the reach of careless hound claws and crushing droid feet, is almost overwhelming. The fear of some mindless krang zombie shambling across this particular patch of broken concrete and heedlessly snuffing out this tiny spark of life has Eshra reaching for the dandelion again, for a moment intent on digging it up and spiriting it to safety. He nearly has his claws in the dirt before he stops himself, something that might be his conscience nipping at the edge of his mind. What right has he to impose his will on this precious, stubborn little thing? Why does he think he knows better? He draws his hand back, clutching it against his chest and instead simply taking a few cherished moments to just… look. Look and breathe and have just a minute’s worth of peace.

He goes back every day after that, each time terrified he won’t remember where the dandelion is, or worse, that something has happened to it while he’s been away. Each time, though, his fears are unfounded, and he finds his flower right where he left it, still as bright as the sun they can no longer see and still as insistent that it is going to live.

The day he spots a puff of white instead of the usual splash of yellow, Eshra’s heart jumps in his chest. Almost without care he hurries the last few dozen yards and crouches down next to the dandelion, which has turned from a sunburst blossom to a tiny cloud, and he's smiling a smile he’s forgotten he has. The yokai cups his hands around the seeded flower, a scrap of cloth in his fingers as a shield between the dandelion and the rest of the world. Then carefully, so very carefully, he blows on the puff, which shivers and quivers and at last releases its grip on its scores of minuscule seeds, allowing them to float safely into Eshra’s makeshift net.

After folding the cloth into a secure little sachet and tucking it into one of his supply pouches, Eshra finally lets himself touch his flower, a single delicate fingertip resting on the now bare seed head.

“Thank you,” he whispers, soft as the dandelion’s seeds, “for reminding me.”