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Several times during their short-lived stay at the O’Neil barn, Leonardo’s brothers had hesitantly approached him to ask what it had felt like. They had all tried, in their own fallible ways, to pretend like they had other reasons for asking, but it was evident enough in the fact that none of them had had the guts to say what it was.
The brainwashing.
The first few times, Leo had brushed it off with a shrug and noncommittal grunt, which was easy enough, because he hadn’t felt much like talking those first few days anyway, and his brothers hadn’t pushed him for more. Then, once, after that night at the campfire, Michelangelo had found him alone. It was late, after midnight, and Leo had stepped out of the barn for a moment for some fresh air. To clear his mind.
Leo had closed his eyes, focusing on the dirt and dust between his toes and not (definitely not) the phantom pressure around his wrists from too-tight bandages, the claustrophobic presence of the black chest plate (he didn’t need it, he was a turtle , he had a shell , it was a sheath , a piece of decoration marking him as the Shredder’s blade), the space over his wrist where to blades used to sit—
A light crunch to his side alerted him to the presence of another body beside his. Leo opened an eye, slowly releasing his clenched hands from the dirt he’d unconsciously been clawing at. Mikey waved awkwardly, took a step forward, and cautiously sat down next to Leo.
“Sorry for disturbing you, bro—I was tryin’ not to startle ya. I didn’t want you to react badly or nothin’ by just jumpin’ on ya, so I thought, well…” Mikey trickled off into an awkward silence.
Leo exhaled slowly. He hadn’t noticed he’d been holding his breath. “Nah, you’re fine, Mike. Don’t worry about it.”
Mikey smiled, some of the tension leaving his unmasked brow as if he’d been expecting rejection. “Thanks, bro.”
There was a brief and hesitant quiet, and Leo could tell the need to say something was eating at Mikey, who was fidgeting with the tattered ends of his mask, which he wore around his neck like a bandana.
“It’s okay, Mikey. You can say whatever it is you wanna say.”
A beat passed, and then, softly, as if Mikey was worried it would cause (again) Leo’s undoing, the question: “What, um. What—was it like? For you?”
Another beat, then a half-chuckle, the exhale one makes when they know the question someone’s going to ask but are startled anyway. “Heh. I don’t know. Bad? Honestly, Mike, that whole experience—it was like a blur. I remember everything that happened, but it all felt like someone else doing it. I didn’t feel like me at all. It didn’t—it didn’t feel good.”
Mikey hmm ed at that and shifted his weight, leaning back to rest his head against the barn. He seemed happy to leave it at that, and Leo turned to face forward again, glancing up at the stars that dotted the night sky.
The two sat for a while, the silence finally settling into something comfortable. Afterward, Leo couldn’t help but notice that no one tried to breach the subject again. This was no doubt Mikey’s doing: an attempt at warding off overbearing, concerned brothers out of respect for Leo for sharing his space with him. Leo didn’t complain.
---
Now, it’s months later and the boys are shadowboxing an entirely different (it’s not even their third) apocalypse. The Shredder ( Saki, Oroku Saki , Leo thinks—now that he’s gone there is no more Shredder, only the man who wore the title) is dead, their father is the leader of an ancient ninja clan spearheading a brewing gang war, and Raphael’s gone and adopted himself a fucking dinosaur (“Raph, I get she’s cute, but bringing a baby triceratops into our home is a recipe for disaster—come on, back me up here, Donnie!” “Well, firstly, she’s a protoceratops, not a triceratops, and—” “And she’s MY pal who’s stayin’ with ME.”). But Leo isn’t thinking about any of that. He’s floating.
Leo’s lying facedown, arms outstretched, maskless and wrappings off, in the pool in their lair that connects to the outside world. He’s trying not to think about the various microbes and macrobes ( not a thing , chides the Donatello that lives in Leo’s brain) that are likely enthused about his little swim. He’s trying not to think at all.
He’s especially trying not to think about the fact that he had been lying to Mikey—however many months ago it had been. Because it hadn’t felt bad, and that was the part that scared Leo the most. His brothers had been seeking some affirmation that Leo was truly back with them and out of the Shredder’s grasp. So he had lied, or at least avoided parts of the truth. The sensation of being brainwashed, of giving up control…it hadn’t felt bad. It hadn’t felt at all. In fact the mindlessness was sort of…peaceful.
With a gasp, Leo resurfaces and rolls onto his back, savouring the ability to take huge breaths in and out. Not for the first time (though generally in more dire circumstances), he’s grateful that turtles can hold their breaths for so long underwater. As he lies there, enjoying the feeling of water rippling past his ear-holes, he hears a slow creak, some rapid footsteps, and the muffled slamming of a door.
This isn’t unusual by any means. Any of the four turtles would have their reasons for sneaking off in the middle of the night. But something—an ancient instinct—pulls Leo out of the pool and back into the lair, sloughing off the water limb by limb like a wet dog.
He tiptoes past an unconscious Mikey strewn at the foot of the couch, video game controller loosely in hand, and nearly trips over Pepperoni, whose back is nestled into the plastron of an equally unconscious Raph, who in sleep has finally lost the scowl Leo fears is becoming permanent.
Leo exits the lair and finds himself climbing the ladder to the roof of the old church, where a silhouette sits fiddling with something that sparks here and then, casting Donnie in ghoulish light.
Leo quietly makes his way over to his brother and sits next to him, close enough to make his presence felt but giving Donnie the option to back out if needed. Leo’s brother can be unpredictable with how he responds to touch—sometimes he can’t handle it, and sometimes he leans into it like he’s trying to be absorbed entirely.
“Heya, Don. Whatcha working on?” Leo inquires, glancing at the object Donnie is tinkering with, then comfortably settling his gaze forward.
From their spot up on the church’s roof, the blinking city lights in the far-off distance mimic the twinkling of stars, something that Leo hasn’t seen since Northampton. New York is his home, is all of theirs, but Leo would be lying to himself (he does a lot of that these days) if he said he didn’t miss the quietude of the countryside.
Donnie hmm s quietly in greeting but keeps his gaze fixed on his little project. Leo doesn’t mind. These days he finds it easier to talk when fewer eyes are on him—yet another lingering side-effect of his time under Shredder’s claws he prefers not to think about. He doesn’t think about it. About how he’s scared that if someone looks at him, really looks closely at him, they’ll see through flesh and shell and into a soul that can’t tell up from down—a soul that may or may not fully belong to him. He doesn’t know which would be worse.
Someone who knows his brother less might assume Donnie to be ignoring him, but Leo can see Don processing the question in the way his brother’s fingers pause hesitantly over the wiring, how he flicks the same switch on and off more times than necessary before moving on.
Eventually, an answer comes, and it’s in a careful, practised voice. “Oh, you know. One of Harold’s projects I’m helping him work on. I’d tell you the specifics but I don’t think you want to hear all of that right now.”
Leo chuckles. “Yeah, probably not tonight, Don. Some other time, if you want to, though.” There’s another moment of silence before Leo finally pushes the question. “So what are you doing up here anyways?”
Donnie fiddles with a knob of some sort, then sighs and seems to switch the device off. It stops shooting sparks and folds in on itself, collapsing into a quarter of the size it originally was. “Same old. You know.”
Leo does know.
They all get nightmares. After what they’ve been through, it’d be crazier not to. It had taken some careful pressing to get Raph to admit he still dreamt about being on the streets during that first year, and while Mikey was forthcoming about having bad dreams, even the most emotionally intelligent of the four was hard-pressed to divulge what those dreams were actually about. As for Leo, well. Leo’s sure based on the number of times his brothers have cautiously informed him that he still talks (and sometimes walks, though it’s now rare) in his sleep that they recognise the ghost that haunts him. And Donnie…
“It’s like I can still feel it, you know?” Eventually comes Donnie’s voice. It’s small and drenched with insecurity, which feels absolutely foreign coming from Donnie. “My shell,” he continues, and Leo listens, rapt. “I get phantom pains, or something like that, which is weird because I have a new shell. Even if I can’t feel this one. It’s all metal, no nervous system or anything.”
Donnie trails off, and Leo waits patiently for him to continue. After a beat, he does.
“It’s like—it’s—it’s—it’s like, sometimes it feels like I’m wearing someone else’s skin, literally. There’s this weight always attached to me and it’s supposed to be a part of me but it isn’t.” The words come out all at once. Tears begin to pool in the corners of his eyes and Donnie pulls his mask down around his neck to better swipe them frustratedly away.
“It feels—it—it feels—” He cuts himself off in the way he always does when Donnie’s pissed at himself for not finding the exact right word for what he’s feeling. It pulls on Leo’s heartstrings and grinds up against that old animal instinct Leo’s beginning to recognise is an unearthly need to protect his brothers. Maybe it’s love.
In this moment he wants nothing more than for Donnie to drop the reins he’s attached himself to and realise it’s okay for him to not be perfect, okay to let go of the need to be the master of his own mind. Why can’t you see that you’re already good enough for us , Leo wants to ask, wants desperately to beat down into Donnie’s big dumb brain so that he never has to hear his little brother sound so utterly broken ever again, but he doesn’t.
He doesn’t, because it’s the same question Leo’s asked himself every day since he’d let himself get captured by the Foot Clan, and the answer is always the same: Because nothing will ever be good enough for the people I love.
“Claustrophobic?” Leo eventually finishes for him, finding the word Donnie isn’t able to. Donnie nods. “Yeah,” Leo says gently, looking down at his knees. “Yeah, me too.”
Donnie pulls his knees up to his chest and brings his chin to rest upon them, not seeming to have anything more to say. Leo takes the opportunity to glance toward him and studies his face. There’s something in Donnie’s expression, in the set of his shoulders and line of his mouth, something he clearly wants to address, but he can’t seem to find a way to.
“Don,” Leo prompts softly. Donnie tilts his head slightly towards Leo in response. Leo continues. “I’m gonna hug you now. Okay?”
Donnie considers for a moment, then gives another almost imperceptible nod. At this cue, Leo scoots towards him, closing the distance between the two. As he wraps an arm around Donnie’s shoulder, it’s suddenly obvious how much taller than Leo Donnie is now (and Leo’s hardly the shortest anyhow).
A pang hits Leo as he realises just how much older his little brothers have gotten in the past year. He isn’t quite sure how their ages work anyway—do the years they lived in their past lives count? Their turtle bodies have only been alive a few years now, but between the ache in his joints and the tireless pounding in his skull from carrying the weight of the world, Leo isn’t certain the word “teenager” even applies to him anymore. How many lives lost does it take to reach adulthood?
The two sit in silence, Donnie melting into Leo’s arms like a half-turtle-half-child non-newtonian fluid. Leo’s more than happy to stay here for as long as Donnie needs; he’s loath to admit that he himself needs this too.
Eventually, Donatello is the first to break the silence. His face is still buried into the crook of Leo’s shoulder, so his words are muffled when he says, “I think I’m ready to talk now.” Leo releases him slowly, immediately missing the comfort of human( ? ) contact, which he thinks he’s probably deriving more from than Donnie.
Donnie looks down at his hands again, rolling his knuckles calmly as he pieces his words together. “It’s not…the fear that gets me,” he slowly says. “I have nightmares about that day, y’know, of almost dying, and Rocksteady’s hammer, and waking up in a body that isn’t mine.” Leo wants to stop him there, to pull Donnie against his chest and remind him he’s safe now, promise him he won’t ever have to relive it again, but with the restraint he prides himself so much on he keeps his mouth shut and lets his brother continue.
“And, I mean, it’s bad , but it’s not what really gets to me. Like, yeah, I went through this traumatic thing—we all did—and I’m not going to get over it right away. That’s normal, right? You know, given the lives we all live one of us was sure to get messed up real bad sooner or later, so I made sure to read up on trauma responses, and I’m not sure how much human psychology is like our own since we don’t really have the data to understand it all, we’re more like individual case studies...”
However he was struggling before, Donnie seems to have found his words now, and they tumble out of him like a dam has burst as Leo tries his best to keep up.
“—but, I digress, the panic and the trouble sleeping and everything; that’s like, normal , right? It’s supposed to happen. I’d be more worried if someone almost died and it didn’t bother them at all. But it’s the illogical responses that get to me. Like I keep asking myself all these questions and they’re all what-if s, like what if I’d planned an escape route , or what if I’d programmed Metalhead with better defensive measures , or what if I’d been strong enough to just beat Bebop and Rocksteady on my own , and it’s just—”
Unleashing his thoughts seems to have also let loose a flow of frustrated tears that Donnie’s been trying to keep at bay, and he stops himself momentarily to wipe his eyes again and collect himself enough that his voice stops hitching.
“And the problem is it’s pointless . Not just pointless, it’s counterproductive to keep obsessing over these questions because the past happened and there’s nothing I can do to change that—believe me, Harold and I have put in the effort and if time travel was possible we’d have figured it out by now—so it’s dumb and irrational and illogical to waste time or processing power on problems that don’t have a solution.”
Leo recognises the Donnie that’s talking now—the one that speaks about himself like he’s a machine, with a logic engine and central processing unit instead of a brain and a heart, as though he doesn’t deserve to be treated like a person unless he can be better than one—and he hates it; not for existing because despite being composed of the worst of his attributes this Donnie is still his brother and Leo could never hate that; rather he hates that he’s resurfaced now, and that it’s taken Leo so long to notice that Donnie was spiralling. That’s irrational too , the helpful part of Leo’s mind supplies, and both are true: Leo should have intervened and he wishes he had, but Donnie is just as strong as the rest of them whether he admits it or not and if his brothers don’t want their pain to be seen then he couldn’t’ve spotted it anyhow.
“And if I’m wasting all this effort trying to answer a question that shouldn’t exist, it means I’m not spending as much time as I should on solutions for the future—like, Shredder is gone, and we took Bebop and Rocksteady and Karai’s mutants down, but knowing this family it’s far from the last time we’ll be in that kind of danger, and you—”
Donnie’s voice breaks at this point, and he’s given up on trying to keep his eyes dry, but he doesn’t stop now. Leo sorta thinks he can’t. Don takes a big, shuddering gulp of air and keeps going.
“You and Raph and Mikey are so strong, and I’m just…not. Not like you guys are. I mean, Raph and Mikey held their own against Rocksteady and Bebop with hardly a scratch , and I had Metalhead who was supposed to be the culmination of my advanced technology and it still was a bloodba—it wasn’t even a fair fight. And I know , I know I bring something to this team, I’m objectively the smartest one here and so logically I know my presence is helping in some way , but I’m still just not smart enough .”
Donnie stops here, long enough for Leo to wonder if he’s done and if he should say something now, but then Donnie shrugs and gives a defeated shrug. “So if I’m not strong enough, and I’m not smart enough, then when will I be?” Enough, is unspoken word that hangs in the air between them.
Donatello may be The Smart One, but Leo isn’t stupid. He knows he doesn’t have an answer to that question, at least, not one that Donnie will accept. Instead, he responds in a language he knows Donnie understands.
“You’re right,” Leo says simply. “It is illogical. Because you’re not a machine, bro—as much as you’re trying to be. And nobody expects you to be one.”
Donnie scoffs, a half-cry-half-laugh that makes Leo want to puke his guts out and also slay every monster that’s ever lived so he never has to see his little brother this wracked with insecurity ever again. “Well, duh,” he chokes out. “I know I’m not a robot. You guys literally put me in one and even that didn’t take.”
Leo chuckles, because if he didn’t chuckle he’d just cry. “Exactly, bro. All we need from you is you. Whatever—or whoever—that is.”
Donnie smiles mirthlessly, and blinks a few remaining tears from his eyes. Heaving a sigh that sounds two lifetimes heavier than it should, Donnie leans back on his arms, gaze turned towards the never-quite-black New York night sky. “Emotions suck,” he says miserably.
“Yeah,” agrees Leo, rearranging his posture comfortably as he prepares to wait for the first few streaks of dawn to break the city skyline. “They do.”
---
Splinter is dead.
Everyone is gone.
Leo thinks his world might have ended.
---
Raph leaves.
Eventually, Donnie does too.
Leo doesn’t try to stop either of them. He knows even if he wanted to, he couldn’t. The stench of death follows the four of them, and biting his tongue, Leo thinks, How is this fair ?
How is it fair that you get to move on peacefully into the afterlife and we’re left to bury the ghosts you unearthed?
Then he hates himself immediately for it. He hates himself for harbouring resentment towards his father when he sacrificed his own life to save everyone else, then he hates his father for making it so that Leo had anything to be resentful about at all. Hamato Yoshi had been a difficult man in two lifetimes, and now, it seems, in death as well.
Leo decides pretty quickly that his complicated feelings towards his father don’t bear much thinking about. He hates the trail of death that seems to follow his family everywhere they go, so instead he throws himself into life. He breathes it back into the O’Neils’ withered greenhouse, like every plant he convinces to blossom is a promise, or penance, for every life left in his or his father’s wake. Sometimes, in precious moments between consciousness and mindlessness, he’s able to stop being Leonardo Hamato: Ninja Turtle or Leonardo: jonin of Clan Hamato , or Leonardo: son of Master Splinter and he can just be Leo.
It’s just him and Mikey in Northampton now; at least, he thinks Mikey’s still here—Leo spends all his time in the greenhouse and as far as he knows, Mikey’s still holing himself up in his room with that cat they found. Leo wants to talk to him, he knows he should, but he also knows the part of him that needs to be there for it is gone. Maybe it died with Splinter, or left with Raph, or Donnie, or April. Maybe it’s been gone for a while, since Slash. He doesn’t know. He’s been fighting for survival, acting the leader for so long he isn’t sure he still knows how to be a brother. He doesn’t know if he is one anymore.
In the end, it’s Mikey who approaches him first, teary-eyed and nearly hysterical over his inexplicably lost cat. “Don’t worry, Mike. We’ll find him.” He knows how much that cat means to his brother—it’s basically been Mikey’s only lifeline since everything went down. Leo feels horrible all over again, because he wouldn’t have needed the cat if Leo had just been there.
The search for Klunk is fruitless, and by the time Mikey is willing to give up and Leo gently coaxes him back inside before they both catch pneumonia, the country sun is a breath away from the horizon, casting long shadows against the snow dunes no one’s bothered to clear up. Leo steals a hasty glance at Mikey, expecting him to be distraught, but instead he looks defeated.
The effervescent twinkle in his eye is gone, his brow and mouth are set in a hard line, and when Mikey raises his head to meet Leo’s gaze the air between them is cold. Everything about him is so un-Mikey that Leo’s blood chills, and for a second, his chest constricts and he wonders if he’s lost his brother for good this time. With a burst of strength and resolve Leo didn’t know he still had, he decides he can’t be the one to let that happen.
“Um, thanks, Leo,” Mikey says, quiet and lifeless. “I’m gonna go to bed now.” Without waiting for a response, Mikey turns and shuffles towards the stairs, and Leo lurches.
“Wait,” Leo says with an urgency that betrays the rock in his throat. He grabs Mikey’s wrist and is momentarily relieved at the warmth that still emanates from his brother. He doesn’t miss Mikey’s flinch, though, and he relaxes his grip until Mikey’s hand is just loose in his. “Sorry,” he says, quieter this time. “Just—do you need to talk?” The words are hard to push past his throat and even harder to hear, but Leo sees Mikey’s eyes flit upwards to meet his and for a second, they soften.
“Here,” Leo says, letting go of Mikey’s hand to gently tug on his sleeve. He sits down on the staircase and after a moment, Mikey joins him. Leo knows he needs to be the one to say something, so after taking a second to find the right words, he says, “Mikey, I’m—I’m sorry. I should have been there for you—I should have been there for all of you. But I was too—I was…” He stops. He doesn’t have the words he’s looking for.
“You felt like the world ended and took you with it.” Mikey supplies slowly. “And you forgot that some of us’re still here.” Leo whips his head towards him to see the slightest wink of a smile on Mikey’s mouth—it’s strained, and painful, but it’s there.
“I—yeah,” Leo finishes. “I think…I think you’re right, Mike. God.” Leo tries desperately not to cry because if he cries, Mikey will cry, and now is really, really not a good time for that. “How is it that you’re always right?”
Mikey looks at him quizzically.
“You know,” Leo continues, and maybe a tear does find its way down his cheek. “I keep thinking about you, and Father, and how when Splin—when Father killed Shredder and took over the Foot, you were the first to say that it wasn’t right, and I just wonder, if we all—if we had all been a bit more like you, if I’d followed your lead, would we still be here now?” Leo’s voice trails off into barely a whisper. “Would he still be here?”
Mikey looks at him with tears in his eyes and fuck, Leo’s gonna go to hell for what he’s going to do to the people who put his baby brother in such an awful world. “Don’t be like that, Leo,” Mikey says with a horrible tremble in his voice. “It wasn’t your fault. You—you were under a lot of pressure to be leader, and pressure from Dad, you couldn’t have known.” Mikey puts a tentative hand on Leo’s arm. “We didn’t choose this.” He offers up another smile, a proper one this time, despite his quivering lip.
“ Hah ,” Leo huffs. “Come on, Mikey, I’m supposed to be the one comforting you here, not the other way around. Who taught you to be such a grown-up?”
“I know you’re the oldest, Leo,” Mikey says slowly. “But you don’t gotta be the one taking care of us all the time. Sometimes we can—we can take care of you, too. And I didn’t do so great at that, either.”
Leo exhales and shrugs. “I think…I think we were all just doing what it took to survive. And…maybe now we can start to live again.”
Mikey is silent at that, so Leo pushes him, just a little. “So… do you need to talk about anything?”
Mikey wrings his hands and sighs, which turns into a sniffle, which turns into a choked sob. “It’s just that everyone keeps leaving. Especially the ones I try to keep. The kids, and Dad, and Slash, and Raph keeps walking out every time he gets too pissed off, and what if this time he doesn’t come back? I can’t—I can’t keep everyone here. With me. Together.”
“Oh, Mike,” Leo breathes, and pulls him into a hug. He doesn’t tell Mikey he’s wrong. He doesn’t have the heart to lie to the kid, to tell him that this life of theirs is destined for anything other than loss and grief and heartache. And despite Leo’s stupid heart screaming at him that this is his baby brother, and it’s his job to protect him from the world’s harsh, mean truths, Leo knows that Mikey is far too grown up to want to hear those lies.
“Sorry,” Mikey sniffles into Leo’s shoulder. “I don’t—I don’t want you to have to worry about me too.”
Leo puts a hand atop Mikey’s head gently, holding him even closer. “I don’t think I can promise that no one else will leave,” Leo says carefully. “I don’t know if Raph’s coming back. But that’s ‘cus it’s his choice. This time, if he decides to, he can.” He pulls back so he can look Mikey in the eye. “We have each other. No one’s lost anymore.”
Mikey hiccups. “Yeah,” he says thickly. Leo wraps an arm around Mikey’s shoulder.
“I know you’re not really little anymore,” Leo says softly. “But I love you, baby bro.”
“Thanks,” Mikey sniffs, and wipes his nose with the sleeve of his sweater. “You too.”
“I’m sorry about Klunk.”
“I really miss him.”
“I know.”
---
Donnie comes back that night, with Jennika. And Raphael.
(Klunk does, too.)
If Jenny and Raph look slightly banged up, Leo doesn’t mention it.
If Raph doesn’t meet his eye at all that first night back, Leo doesn’t mention it.
The turtles decide they’ll move to Mutant Town. For the first time in his life, Leo will devote himself to building something new instead of precise destruction. Not yet, though—they need a few more days in Northampton to prepare. Donnie has to pack up his workshop, Mikey’s belongings are strewn around the house, and Leo needs to decide which of his plants are strong enough to survive the winter, and which he’s bringing to New York. Amid the commotion, Jenny wanders. Raph lingers. Like a phantasm, or a revenant.
It’s in Leo’s greenhouse that he and Raph find their first moment alone together since their fight with Bishop. It feels like an eternity ago, though Leo supposes that when any day could be your last, six months is eternity and then some.
Raph coughs into a fist, leaning against a shelf of plants with faux nonchalance. “Leonardo,” he mumbles stiffly. Leo fights to keep from raising his brow too visibly.
“Raphael,” he acknowledges. “You need me for something?”
Raph shifts uncomfortably. “Nah,” he says. Then, “Maybe.” He pauses just long enough to elucidate the tremendous internal battle he seems to be having, and eventually spits out, “Oh, fuck me. Yeah, we need to talk.”
Leo breathes out slowly and sets the potted plant he’s been tending to down on the counter. He turns to face Raph and says, “We do?”
Raph winces a little, having just realised the hardness with which he’d spoken. “We—shit. I need to talk. To you. Please.”
Leo softens. He can’t help it. He wipes his hands on a rag nearby and comfortably slips his hands into his pockets. “Alright.”
Raph starts, then cuts himself off, then tries to say something else, before shutting himself up again. This process repeats itself for the better part of a minute before he finally grumbles, “Oh, to hell with this. I ain’t good at this mushy crap so I’m just gonna say what I needa say. And then you can tell me to piss off or whatever after that, Leo, but first, you’re gonna listen.”
It’s a little funny, watching Raph work himself up like this, and Leo can’t help but think he’s missed the big idiot. Despite his vehement declaration, Raph seems to be looking up at Leo for affirmation, so he nods at him to continue.
“Okay. Well, alright. So. I know the past few months have been bad. And I know I have a habit of runnin’ away when things get. Bad. But it ain’t ‘cus—I—I ain’t running away from you guys. I’m running away from me .” Raph’s raising his voice a little, like the louder he talks, the more convinced Leo will be.
“I don’t know why and I can’t help it but when I get all worked up I just lose it. I do stupid shit like starting fights and punchin’ stuff and gettin’ conned into aiding a fuckin’ bioterrorist attack. And I just—at the funeral, I thought, I’m gonna lose it. If I had to see the look on you, or Don, or Mikey’s faces I was gonna lose it. And—and we’ve all lost too much. I couldn’t lose you too. So I took off, like some dumb idiot who’s scared his family’s gonna get sick of him because he can’t control his stupid temper.”
“Raph…” Leo takes a careful step forward and is cut off by a hand held in front of his face.
“Shut it, Leo, I said let me finish first, damn.” Raph looks up and blows air through his mouth. “I ain’t sorry for leaving ‘cus that’s what I needed to do.” He looks back at Leo. “But I’m sorry for not saying goodbye. Or writing. Or visiting. And as much as I clown on you for bein’ all ‘family this’ and ‘family that,’ you’re right. We need each other. I—I need you. All of you.”
With that, Raph lowers his shoulders and shoves his hands gruffly in his coat pockets. “That’s it. You can tell me to go fuck myself now.” Leo lets him kick his feet nervously at the dirt-crusted floor for a few seconds before grinning stupidly.
“You’re a moron.” He holds open his arms. “Come here.”
Mulishly, Raph stumbles forward into Leo’s chest. Leo wraps his arms around his shell and squeezes him, as if he holds on tightly enough he can keep his dumb little brother from ever storming off again. Eventually, Raph lifts his arms to return the embrace.
Later, it’s Leo who finds Raph sitting quietly on the porch, watching as the last of the sun disappears under the horizon. “Hey, bro,” Leo says softly, taking a seat next to him. “Whatcha up to?”
Raph sniffs. “Thinkin’. Contemplating.”
“Careful.”
“I will kick the crap out of you.” Raph’s retort is without malice, and Leo (somewhat) gently shoves him with his shoulder.
“What about?”
Raph stammers without conviction for a second. “I dunno. Everything? You guys movin’ to Mutant Town, and us setting up this Splinter Dojo. Being teachers and junk? It’s…it feels…”
“Weird?” Leo supplies. Raph eyes him.
“I was gonna say wrong. We’re just gonna go live a normal life? Bein’...upstanding citizens and all that? After everything we’ve been through? I don’t know, man, it doesn’t feel right.”
Leo sighs heavily. “You’re not wrong, man. Half of me says that it’s wrong to just move on like this. To act like S—like Dad dying didn’t change the world for us?” He rubs a hand over his head and wishes he’d brought a hat. “But the other half of me thinks it’s what Dad would’ve wanted. And yeah, I know it sounds corny to say that, but…isn’t this what he gave his life for? So we could have a chance at one?”
Raph remains stubbornly quiet for a while, then huffs, deflating. “Damn, why do you always have to make sense?” Leo laughs.
“Someone’s gotta.”
“Yeah.”
The silence between them is comfortable, and Leo is more than happy to let it remain that way, but something sits on his tongue that he knows he has to ask.
“Raph. Can I ask you something?”
“Mm?”
“Do you…do you really think we’d leave you? Because of your temper?”
Raph shrugs. “Aww, I mean. Ugh. Nah. You’re all too honourable for that. Family forever and no one left behind and all that. But you probably should. I mean. When my shit gets too difficult for you to keep putting up with.”
Leo sighs. “Well, I mean, yeah , but, dude. We aren’t…beholden to some ninja code about the meaning of family or anything. We care about you . I care about you. Your crap is a lot, sometimes, and it probably wouldn’t hurt for you to get a little more comfortable with your emotions. But we’ve all got shit going on. And you are part of this family. Like it or not.”
“Shut up,” Raph grumbles, but half-heartedly.
“You’ve been through a lot, Raph,” Leo presses on. “Some of it I can kinda understand, but not all of it. I probably never will. I won’t say that I like it, but I understand why you’d get mad so easily. You have a right to be mad. I think we all do. But I think we can work on it. Together, okay? No—no storming off and radio silence for six months. You’re right. We have lost too much.”
Leo grabs Raph by the shoulder and shakes him a little. “Alright, bro? I can’t lose you too.”
Raph says something under his breath that Leo doesn’t catch.
“What was that?”
“I said, hai , Sensei.”
“Asshole.” Leo cuffs Raph on the back of his head and dodges an elbow Raph throws at his side in response. He gets up slowly, rolling his shoulders and letting the aches and sores he’s accumulated over the years wash over his body. “Come on, let’s go inside before I go into hibernation.”
“Do turtles even hibernate?”
“Beats me.”
Raph gets up and Leo holds the door for him with his elbow, rubbing his hands together and feeling grateful he doesn’t have ears to turn red and cold. Before Raph walks through the doorway, though, he pauses. “Leo…do you think it’ll ever get easier?”
“Will what?”
“Y’know. Dad. Us. Everything.”
God. He doesn’t know.
“I don’t know. I think so? I don’t think we’ll ever have it easy. I don’t think that’s the kind of life we’re destined for. Man, I’m not sure it’s the kinda life we want.”
“Damn.”
“Yeah. But we’re alive, right? Our lives are…it’s more than just surviving. That counts for something.”
---
“I still dream about it sometimes,” Leo admits softly to no one in particular, on a quiet evening when no battle’s been fought, no life is at stake, and the boys have all returned home, collapsing into the living room furniture with exhaustion caused by nothing more than a hard-earned, well-spent day at the dojo. Home has found the ability to become peaceful in a way Leo’s never allowed himself to dream it could be.
Home isn’t four turtles and their dad in a sewer anymore. It isn’t four brothers and a couple of well-meaning, worn-out teenagers in a broken-down church. It isn’t an inherited headquarters and the promise of something grim and gristly on the horizon.
Home has become this. It’s the four of them (because that part never changes, it’s always been the four of them), the Splinter Dojo, and the impossible family they’ve built out of broken pieces around them. It’s Casey and April, because they’ve been there from the start, it’s Pepperoni and now Klunk, and somehow, sometimes, it’s Saki too.
“Me too,” comes an equally soft reply, so quiet Leo thinks he could have imagined it. But no, he didn’t, and he can just see Mikey’s half-lidded eyes peeking over Klunk’s fluffy body, across the room on the beanbag the two have cosily snuggled up in.
Leo’s got a leg dangling lazily off the couch, the other pulled up comfortably to his chest so he can rest his chin on his knee. He’s really, really tired but for once, it’s the kind of tired that a long night’s sleep can solve. Next to him, Donnie’s sitting cross-legged as he folds himself inward as much as he can to huch over the handheld console he’s glaring lasers at. Sit back, or you’ll ruin your eyes , Leo wants to say, but he bites his tongue because maybe tonight he doesn’t have to be the responsible one.
From the armchair sitting perpendicular to the couch, Raph lets out a truly heinous snore, so startling that Pepperoni jumps up from where she’s been comfortably nuzzled under his neck, shoots him an offended look, and jumps down proudly to curl up at the foot of the chair instead.
Unbidden, Leo giggles.
Isn’t it something?
The sound—the sight—of it is shocking enough that Donnie hits pause on his game and stares at Leo incredulously. Mikey’s looking at him with wide eyes too, and Leo feels a bit ridiculous. It is ridiculous, really, that something like a giggle has a place in their life. Then Mikey giggles too, and Donnie smirks, and Raph twitches in his sleep, which prompts Mikey to slap two hands over his mouth to silence his laughter, and Donnie rolls his eyes and goes back to his game.
“I don’t think I’m ever gonna stop dreaming about it,” Mikey continues, after a long pause. Leo doesn’t bother to ask what it is, because it’s something different for each of them. He doesn’t ask, because he doesn’t have to.
“Yeah,” Leo breathes, and maybe Mikey’s talking about the same thing as him, and maybe not. “Me neither.”
It’s true.
Leo will still wake up some mornings and take a half-second longer than he should to remember who or where he is. Donnie will find himself absently reaching over his shoulder to trace a calloused finger over cracks in his shell that don’t exist. On some days, a fog rolls over Mikey’s eyes and he spends the next week in his room, his only sign of life being Klunk’s tousled fur and fresh bowl of food. Raph will still be angry—will always be angry, though at what, he may never really have an answer for.
Wordlessly, Donnie leans over to rest a tired head on Leo’s shoulder. Donnie huffs at his game, grips the console inches from his face and Leo lets him because tonight he doesn’t have to be the bigger brother.
Time passes, and Mikey may be asleep because a second, softer snore has joined Raph’s, and Leo thinks he might follow soon.
This is nice, Leo lets himself think. This is okay.
He lets himself be okay.