Work Text:
The paintbrush gives a violent jerk, swiping a blob of yellow across the canvas, ruining the image irreversibly in just a split second.
Mikey stares at it in awe for a moment, giving his brain a moment to catch up with him for a second as he takes in the state of his hard work, the picture now sliced in half with a fat, ugly smear.
He doesn’t allow himself to cry, instead grinding his back teeth together in a way that would make Donatello get up and leave from the overwhelming cringe, he tries to grasp at the edges of the canvas to lob it across the room but fails to do so when he hands jerk again, fingers curling themselves into tight, unbudging fists.
He hisses as pain shoots up and down his arms. He drops his brush, wet paint lands on the floor in splotchy bursts but Mikey isn’t so worried about a ruined floor.
He tries to work his hands out of their cramp, flexing and un-flexing his near solid muscle, but to no avail they remain locked.
He growls, impatient, rearing back his foot he decidedly kicks the painting across the room, sending it crashing into the wall opposite, it lands, paint side down, utterly and irretrievably ruined now.
Of course, his little outburst had drawn attention in the shape of Leo poking his head around the door. He eyes up his seething brother still sat on the floor, and then the sprawled out canvas, and then Mikey again.
“You throwing a party in here without me, Migel? Tsch. I’m hurt.” He leans eloquently against the doorframe, a teasing grin creeping across his face.
Mikey presses his knuckles against his thighs, grounding him, he squeezes his eyes shut tightly and presses his mouth into a hard, thin line.
“Not now, Leo. Please,” he says shortly, hoping that the harsh tone of his voice is enough to earn his brother off from any of his poking and brotherly teasing.
Apparently it is not, because Leo is padding into the room on soft feet, walking up towards the canvas, and all Mikey can do is watch silently as he picks it up and immediately frowns.
“Oh. Yeesh,” he says with a click of his tongue. Shaking his head he throws Mikey a look over his shoulder, a line forming between his brow, he tips his head at him, showing off the artwork like it wasn’t Mikey that kicked it over there in the first place.
“I’m guessing this isn’t some… arty farty impressionist pieces that’s more than just paint and paper, right?”
The cramping sensation, having finally subdued, allows his fingers to stretch back out again. The tremble slightly still as he rests them flat, splayed across his knees. An etching of pain still creeps up through his wrists, like there’s a heat burning beneath his skin. He sighs, heavily, lifting his gaze to face Leo who is more delicately setting down the canvas.
“No,” he tells him, eyes pricking with fresh tears. “Stupid hands again. Might need some more painkillers.”
Leo hums. If anything, Mikey might guess that the reason his older brother was poking around near his room was probably because he’d had an inkling that he was due a top up. The last few days had been hard, and Mikey, like the rest of his family, was still trying to cope with the fall out of saving the world.
He glances down at his hands. Scarred up and shaking lightly still, a wave of fear crashes into him.
What if… what if they never stopped shaking?
He doesn’t hear Leo cross the room to crouch in front of him. He does however catch onto the little wince of pain he makes once he’s sat on the floor in front of him, shifting himself so he’s as comfortable as he can be with his cracked ribs and broken collar bone.
“Yeah, I thought so,” Leo admits with a one armed shrug. “Hey. It’s okay. You’ll find your groove again. Took me a couple days to even crack a joke after I woke up in the medbay.”
It feels selfish to argue with him that it wasn’t the same. So he doesn’t. He sniffs. He slowly works out the knots still lingering in his palms.
“It sucks,” he tells him in a small voice, feeling younger than ever right now. “The one thing I used to cope and I can’t even do that.”
Leo chews on the inside of his cheek, thinking. A rare moment for his brother.
“Maybe you could use your feet. Like that movie. Oscar winning, dude. That could be your new thing!”
Mikey huffs a laugh. “Would it be pathetic to say I tried that already? And failed?”
Leo rests his cheek on his hand, he’s got a dozey look about him, probably having popped his own handful of painkillers earlier. He snorts.
“Not as pathetic as me watching the movie with dad like, seven hundred times. We wept like babies, Mike. Babies.”
Some of the earlier tension coiled up inside him seems to lessen, his eyes sliding over Leo’s shoulder to mournfully pout at his destroyed picture.
“Orrr,” Leo says, leaning in his field of vision with a wooden sway of his body. “Maybe I can be your hands for a while! Yeah!” He pulls himself off the floor, albeit a little shakily as he stretches out his still healing body, and brings the canvas back over. He shows it off with a grin. “Yeah. I’ll be your arms and hands, you just share your vision, little brother.”
Mikey huffs again. The yellow blob was now in the very faint, smudged shape of the bottom of his foot.
“You couldn’t even draw a stick man if you tried,” Mikey levels with him, full of mirth.
Leo picks up the paintbrush anyway, shrugging with his good shoulder. “True. But art is in the eye of the beholder. Or something. I dunno. Here.”
He turns the canvas back around to show off his quick handiwork. The yellow smear is now a more distinguished shape. Leo plucks up a marker and starts scribbling away.
“Mixed media,” Mikey muses, watching him carefully. “I like it. What’re you drawing again?”
Leo grins. Pen cap wedged between his teeth, he tells him.
“You’ll see.”
He works quietly for a moment, adding in bits and pieces of side by side commentary as he goes that draws bubbles of laughter from Mikey, undoing the knot of anxiety that was bundled up in his chest before.
“Okay. I think I’m done,” Leo announces after a while. “Da Vinci is pissing his pants right now because he’s so afraid of my raw talent.”
Mikey snorts, seriously doubting that, he still braces himself for the final result.
He turns it around and Mikey takes a breath.
It’s… definitely not a work of art, that was sure. And if anything, Da Vinci would be rolling in his grave, with no such piss in his pants.
“It’s. Uh. Okay this is stupid. But it’s your portal!” He chuckles weakly, suddenly overcome with an uncharacteristic amount of embarrassment, if Mikey notices the slight blush arising on his cheeks, he doesn’t mention it.
“You know. From what I could remember, anyway,” he adds with an air of nonchalance. “Those squiggles are you guys. Obviously. I got your looks down to a T.”
Mikey laughs, a bubbling of tears springing to his eyes. They do not resemble any of of his siblings except maybe Donnie’s square head. But the swirls of yellow and golden hues makes his chest go a little wobbly in his chest.
“Lee…” Mikey says with a breath. “It’s amazing. Well. Not amazing but it’s. It’s beautiful. Thank you. For saving my painting.”
Leo grins at him. “No problem, hermano.” Mikey can tell that he’s now itching to get away, so he doesn’t have to face any questions that might arise as to why he chose to turn his painting into the thing he saw when he thought he was going to die.
“Anyway,” he says, handing him the canvas, standing up with a little hiss of pain. “Hang that in the hall of fame. I’m off to get you some of the good stuff, ‘kay?”
Mikey hums, holding the art in his hands. He looks up, just before Leo exists out of the room.
“Hey, Leo?” He calls out in a small voice, stopping his brother in his tracks.
“Yeah?” He says.
Mikey runs a thumb over the edge of the canvas, careful not to smudge any of the wet paint still, he looks up towards his brother standing there.
“You know. If you’re gonna be my hands, I think I gotta do something in return.”
Leo blinks. Then blows a raspberry at him, waving him off with a flick of his wrist.
“Hey, you’ve done plenty, Angelo. No need to get me back. You already did that once. Ha. Get it?”
Mikey forced himself to laugh, a thin, tired sound escaping him. “But I mean it, Leon. You can… you can talk to me. I can be your ears or something.”
Leo’s beak wrinkles. Eyes flashing something playful. “And if we get Don and Raph onto this maybe we can get them to be a foot and a nose. Make a whole person, huh?”
Mikey hums. “Yeah. I guess.”
Leo hesitates, like he isn’t sure if he wants to haul ass out of there already or wait. He waits.
“Thank you, though. Bro. I appreciate it.”
Mikey looks toward the painting, smiling, it finally touches at his eyes, he tells him in a small, soft voice. “I know you do.”