Chapter Text
The very first call Yoshi made as a free man was to his lawyer.
He had a duffel bag at his side, and the rain was pouring down enough that he’d been tempted to simply find shelter until it stopped. He had to blink blood-warm water out of his eyes every second as he tried to fumble his way discreetly down the street, sore as hell and one eye swollen shut from that… Scientist.
It would be a quick thing to find a 24 hour café, maybe give some sob story about being mugged. Yoshi was very good at selling a story.
But he hadn’t felt rain in more than seven years, and according to a magazine he’d glimpsed at the newspaper stand he’d begged change off of, it was summer. He wasn’t going to catch a cold. It wouldn’t kill him, and he had to move quickly, before Big Mama, or Draxum, or his own exhaustion caught up with him. Besides… The babies were probably fine with water, right? They were… Turtles? One didn’t seem like that kind of a turtle, but it was probably fine.
It was all going to be fine.
The zip to the duffel was open, for air. The turtles were squeaking every now and then, nestled in stolen shirts and jackets, and Yoshi had removed a glove so that when he intermittently snuck a hand down in the bag to reassure them (when they started fussing like babies because he had a duffel bag full of little green babies) he could feel their cool little hands patting and squeezing his own. The occasional bite as well, but. That was fine.
He knew babies were supposed to have… Skin contact? When they were born? But they were turtles so maybe it wasn’t the same. And also they weren’t ‘born’. And the nibbles didn’t hurt anyway, they were more teething bites than anything.
Oh god, did they have teeth? He thought he’d checked, but Yoshi didn’t even know what to do with human babies, or turtles. Did they teeth? Did they drink milk? Did milk kill normal turtles? He’d assume it would, milk was a mammal thing.
He was so bad at this. He felt panic start to take hold, his heart beating hard enough that he felt dizzy, the sidewalk and surrounding buildings tilting dangerously in his vision. Someone coming the opposite way (he couldn’t tell their gender or anything between the panic and the voluminous raincoat they were swamped in) gave him an odd look, and dropped from the curb down into the street to avoid him on the sidewalk.
He’d thought of getting a pet before; a lizard, or a snake. Snakes were cool, his coke dealer had a boa. But his filming schedule and dojo hours didn’t allow for much more than a ficus he’d killed within a month.
And now he had four children.
The duffel at his side wiggled and squeaked and Yoshi realized he hadn’t removed his hand for quite a time, fist clenched. His hand was now damp with more than rain, and he drew it out and shook the remains of saliva off, drawing in a shaky, raspy breath and smiling down at the little coal button eyes peering up at him from the open zipper, the biggest of the turtles still faintly drooling. For lack of his hand to gum on, Red resumed his gnawing on his own fist.
Yoshi gently discouraged him, sticking his own finger in and chucking the little one under the chin. The tail resumed wagging again, and he could make out the wiggle of the strange tongue when Red opened his beak and panted happily, making little huffing noises.
Yoshi’s heartbeat slowed from the gallop of panic, even as his throat tightened and something aching started in his chest. The rest of the turtles started jockeying for attention immediately, peeping like a passel of birds, and he was forced to lift the bag slightly on a knee to keep it out of the view of any nosy passers by. “Yes, yes. I know, you are hungry. We will get you something to eat soon. I just… Have to make a phone call.”
There was no way they understood him, but it looked like the sound of his voice had a positive effect. The squeaking intensified, and he could even feel the larger one's tail thumping harder in delight through the bag.
Which brought him back to the task at hand. To a grimy phone booth with a splintered plastic panel on the door, covered in graffiti and smelling faintly of piss. He didn’t let the duffel touch anything, even though it was a tight fit, hugging it to his side as he tucked the phone between his ear and shoulder and started mindlessly hitting the buttons.
It was muscle memory. He’d had to phone his lawyer quite a lot in the past. Even after seven years and multiple concussions, he remembered the number even before he remembered his old address in Hollywood.
Yoshi’s breathing fogged, a slight chill now settling in as he listened to the senseless rattling buzz of the call connecting, and he brought the duffel closer, hoping to share a little body heat. Now that he wasn’t in the rain and his clothes were sticking to his skin (and the shock was wearing off), he found himself getting cold.
He’d managed to steal a hoodie off a clothesline outside of the exit to the Hidden City, so he wasn’t flashing anyone with his V-neck. Sexy as it was, he was trying to remain low profile until he got his feet under him, and he was pretty sure even after seven years someone might recognize his tits.
They were incredible, after all.
The line picked up.
“... Hello?”
The voice sounded slightly older, slightly annoyed, and Yoshi realized he didn’t know what time it was in California. Or what time it was here, for that matter. He didn’t have a watch. It could be two in the morning for all he knew, and he was astonished Sal had even picked up.
Yoshi couldn’t breathe for a moment, at the sound of a voice, a voice he knew. He felt his eyes grow hot, even as he heard Sal on the other side ask again, his voice tinny and increasingly annoyed, with an edge of… Something, in his voice, that Yoshi couldn’t place quite yet.
He’d sort of thought…. Maybe he wouldn’t get this far.
Yoshi had tried escaping, of course. He’d broken his leg jumping the walls, he’d taken a dive in the battles, he’d stopped eating, until they… Until...
He’d tried everything. Big Mama had him caught in a web he couldn’t escape, and he kept struggling, and striving, until finally the only thing he could do was…
Nothing.
He’d done nothing.
He’d stopped fighting.
They’d still thrown him in the ring of course, even after he said no more. The first time he’d simply sat down, legs crossed. The Yokai pit against him had uncertainly remained on the other side, shaking, convinced it was some kind of trick until the crowd had booed loud enough that Yoshi’d been dragged out by the guards at big Mama’s order. Not kindly, either. They’d beat him bloody and put him back in his luxury cell with the rose water and the pillows, and the full length mirror for him to see how it looked when they were done.
Just like Big Mama wanted.
The second time, the yokai had perhaps heard the news and decided to take her shot at the Champion, and this time they almost didn’t get him out in time. His arm had been hanging on by a thread, and Big Mama had to pay a Witch quite the pretty penny to get it reattached.
Yoshi doesn’t remember it, beyond the pain. But he didn’t remember much at all, this past year. He remembered the fights he would not go in, and he remembered the door that stopped opening, food being put through a slot instead of being brought in by guards. He remembered being moved to the new room, with ten guards that he did not even speak to, resignedly walking without even fighting as he would have before. (He was grateful there was no mirror this time, just a smooth stone wall with a grate for drainage.)
He’d just… Stopped. Like a toy that had wound down and would not move forward, no matter how hard it was shaken.
Yoshi had learned his lesson before, about not eating, so that continued. But they could not make him fight. He would not. Whoever thought they could out-stubborn Hamato Yoshi, was in for a long, hard struggle. If jiji could not control him, then the woman who’d betrayed him did not have a hope in hell.
(Her name was Aranea, but she insisted he call her Big Mama, since it’s what her friends called her, and how stupid he’d been. He’d thought she was trouble, thought she had connections he might not enjoy associating with. But she’d been so smart, funny, and beautiful. She loved big glass jewelry as much as the real deal, and listened to vinyl records with an unlit cigarette in her lips, and she’d kiss him every time like she wanted to devour him whole.)
“I’m going to hang up, I don’t care how hard you mouth breathe here pal, either shit or get off the pot.” Sal was saying, and Yoshi jerked hard enough that his head collided with the plastic booth, his breath coming out in a tremble, and this time he realized he was crying. He pressed his forehead hard against the wall, regardless of the scratches and the oil of fingerprints smudging it.
There was a chorus of concerned peeping from the duffel, and Yoshi realized he was hugging it tightly. Not tightly enough to hurt the children, no, but he could feel them wiggling fitfully, small peeps and chirps and what sounded like whimpers. His voice cracked, as he asked “Sal?... Munroe?”
At the tail end of a long pause, came the quiet question. “... Who is this?”
Yoshi took a deep shuddering breath in, but it didn’t change the exhale coming out as a cracked, tearful sound. He didn’t care- Sal had seen him at his worst. Sal had spoken to his Grandpa Sho; Sal had passed out NDA’s; Sal had picked him up from the ER after three different Hollywood parties, before Yoshi had wised up and quit the hard shit.
He hadn’t let himself think of how much he’d missed having someone in his corner until he heard his pissed off Brooklyn voice over the phone. What a change, that he was here in New York, and Salem Munroe was back in Hollywood- no doubt better off without the cheesy action star that had made his life a living hell. “Hey there cool guy, it is uh. Me… Lou. It’s Lou.”
There was a long silence on the other end, and Yoshi clenched his gloved hand into a fist over his head, where he had it pressed tightly enough to the booth wall to hurt, curled around himself. The leather creaked, and he slowly brought it down on top of his head to fist in his wet hair, eyes still hot and throat choked up, shutting his eyes and just listening to Sal breathe.
He was so tired.
“... I’d say this better be a fucking joke. But it better not be a joke. You better have the wrong name, and the wrong fucking number pal.” The breathing he had been listening to got quicker, enraged, and Yoshi couldn’t help grinning at the floor of the phone booth at the Brooklyn slant Sal’s voice took the angrier he got. “Because if this is a fucking joke, you’re a grimey piece of shit, and I’m going to kick your ass so hard you’ll be flossing with my toenails!”
Yoshi never thought he’d be happier to hear someone pronounce ‘foo-cking’ in his life.