Disclaimer: I don't own Amphibia!

Title: But I am not a vessel for your good intent

Summary: Sasha breaks her ankle and gets smooches from her gfs.

Pairing: Sashannearcy

...

She's not yet used to Wartwood's difficult terrain.

Toads have chipped stone and ugly gray halls that are cramped and miserable. Toads have ancient and imposing buildings with little touches like ancient moats with fish bigger than a town hidden beneath them. You need plans for Toad architecture. Frogs have short, squat little houses that have survived more natural disasters than the average teenage girl does bad hair days. Frogs have straight, narrow fields that randomly dip off into zappapede nests. Frogs have weasels that sneak into town during hibernation and tend to eat at least one of them a year and they're? Just okay with that? For some reason? (And Sasha had offered to slay it, of course, just as a "look at me and my big dick energy" kind of thing, but then that mayor guy went on about it eating omelets now and getting named Deborah. Like. Okay. Still past murder though.)

The plus side to this debacle is that the Newts are just as clueless, and usually have a much harder time getting their footing in the swamp.

The not-so-plus side to that is that when one goes rolling down a hill, Sasha is too close behind to alter her own course, and they go down in a giant heap of frustrated, sweaty confusion. She grabbed the Newt's tail and tried to maneuver herself to the top, only to get elbowed in the neck and go down directly on her boot.

In the movies, there's a noise. A sharp, cracking sound. And maybe there is. Maybe the blood pouring in her ears just nullifies it. But Sasha feels the moment her ankle breaks, hears herself let out a noise so guttural and animalistic she's not entirely certain it actually did come from her, and then she's alone at the bottom of the hill. She looks at her hand and finds the fleshy star-shaped sign of an amphibian that has successfully dropped a limb and skedaddled.

"Damnit!" she bellowed, throwing it into the bushes.

"Lieutenant!" Grime called, landing by her side in a single hop. The old Toad had to heave for breath through his pointy teeth as he examined her. To a stranger, this might look intimidating. To Sasha, he needs a glass of water. "Are you- oh. I don't think that's supposed to go that way."

"Never would've guessed," Sasha hissed, wiping away some tears with vigor. This isn't Sasha's first rodeo with broken bones. That was when she was twelve and she fell off the top of a pyramid and landed elbow-first on some quarterback who needed to eat more. "Get moving, knucklehead! They're gonna get away!"

Grime shook his head. "Doubtful. Look." He strolled casually over and pulled a single piece of shell out of the dirt. It was muddy, and brown, and before all of this Sasha never would've known what it was part of.

She hissed in a wary breath. "Mantis nest."

He nodded and tossed it aside. "Once the babies are done cannibalizing, those spies will be top of the menu. Let's get you back to that stupid Frog town."

Sasha doesn't argue him, though she really wants to. There's no telling how capable the Newts would be, and they were crafty- she could very well expect one to toss the other to the babies and run. She glared into the dingy forest as Grime helped her up, leaning heavily on him to avoid putting weight on her left leg, and told herself that the mountains were basically impassible on a good day, not to mention this close to ice season.


"You're not looking so hot, Sash," Marcy rasped around her breathing device, little happy wrinkles forming at the edges of her eyelids.

Sasha fell into her chair and set the crutches aside. "I know, right? I may never recover."

"Hmm," she said, taking hold of Sasha's hand. Her voice is ridiculously soft. "Maybe not."

To say Marcy is doing unwell is an understatement. She looks, for lack of a better word, like shit. Rescuing a stab victim from a pickling jar of nightmares tends to leave everyone exhausted, but especially the victim. In the time since that escape, Marcy has hardly been able to get out of bed, and her wounds have needed around-the-clock care.

It'd been tactical, setting her up in the Fwagon. Logical. Should Wartwood fall, Marcy is mobile and ready to run. It's why Sasha let herself be shuttled into the Plantar's basement when the Sundews refused to rent to her again. It's why Sasha spent the night staring into the dingy rocks, hand clutched around an old photograph, trying to ignore the niggling guilt of leaving her friends to sleep like this for so long.

Still. She looks pitifully small in Hop Pop's bed.

"Didja get the spies?" she asked, eyes drooping.

Sasha does what she does best- she touches her friend's shoulder, squeezes gently, and lies to her face. "Yeah, Marbles. We got 'em."

Marcy sighed with a deep relief and shifted so her cheek was touching the girl's hand. "I never did like those guys," she slurred. "They always stole my lunch money."

"You got lunch money?" Sasha asked, a little jealous. She'd been living off of army rations for half a year. Toad army rations. A carton of milk and two soy chicken tenders sounded like heaven.

"No," she replied, sullen. "'Cause they'd always take it."

If anything, Sasha knew she was on some damn good pain relievers. "Well, it won't happen again."

There is no gentle knock, no warning. One second they're quietly enjoying the others' presence. The next, Anne is slamming the door open, sword still clutched in her shaky grip. Sasha's hand immediately went to her boot for her own, but it fell away just as quickly as she looked at every inch of mud and grit crammed into every orifice of her body.

Marcy lifted her head and squinted. "You look like hell, Anna-banana."

"I heard the news," she said, shoulders heaving with exhaustion. "I came as fast as I- I ran. I ran a lot. I'm, like, really tired."

"It's a broken ankle, Anne. It's not..." Sasha broke off, unwilling to say something serious. Because that would have to have an again added to it, and no one is ready to talk about that. She held her hand out for the weapon. "Give me that and go take a bath, alright?"

Anne hesitated. Sasha didn't pretend to know how hard things were on her end. She and the Plantars were working hard on their own things. At least Sasha had a bed and breakfast on the regular- the benefit of being the strongest, she supposed. It felt more like a curse. "Are you sure? I could-"

"Anne," Sasha said. "We all agreed on one thing. What was it?"

She groaned. "Dirty girls fresh off the battlefield don't get sleepover snuggles." Chastised, she handed the blade over, then the scabbard. "Fiiinneeee, but only so I can collect a billion board games and warm jim-jams from the house."

"I expected no less, Boonchuy."

Anne leaned in to kiss Marcy's cheek, doubling back for her own. It'd be a lie to say she smelled great, but Sasha missed her so horribly she almost pulled her closer for a hug with no end goal. But then she felt the crust of dirt on her cheek, and she thought, you know what? That could wait an extra half-hour. She scrubbed fruitlessly away at the site with her hand. "Gross."

"Can't get away from my love that easily, Sash," Anne hummed, eyes twinkling deviously. "You're stuck with me."

"You say that like it's a bad thing," she tsked, and even with the horrible world awaiting them outside these walls, she couldn't help but feel warm as her fingers intertwined with Marcy's. Maybe a little sick leave wouldn't be so bad after all.

Author's Note: I have a huge soft spot for these three as a battle trio lol. Ngl though, Marcy is absolutely high off her ass during all of this.

-Mandaree1