semilethal | LEO - POST MOVIE

[The hug is all right. He's trying to get over that, the instinctive reaction from hours ago (it really was just hours ago, not even half a day ago, that they were fighting, that Raphael was trying to kill him, was clutching around his neck firmly enough to dangle him over the edge of the bridge like he was a fly-) by staying in close.

But his chest rattles with a breathless chuckle.] Eeeew, don't- Don't call me that, don't call me old or grandpa, gross.

[But it's good. It's such a good relief to have him back. And if nothing else? He can keep this between them, leader to leader. The two obviously older brothers. It won't fix things all around, but it can at least repair this between the two of them.]

And "Best Ninja" remains to be seen. I'm workin' on that one.

With a long way to go. [Gotta get that little jab in there. Leo feels shaky, like he could break apart at any moment, but Raphael's already troubled him enough with that breakdown. He needs to be strong for the others while they heal. They went through so much to get him back, and he- he can hold it together for them until they're okay.

Raph pulls back and snuffles (snorts) hard, smacking himself on the cheeks until he feels a bit more evenly keeled.] Plaster'll probably be dry by the time they finish that pillow fort. I'll carry you down there.

[That wasn't even a real breakdown, bro! Leo doesn't look quite ready to let him go, still keeping one hand on him. Afraid any second he lets go, Raphael will be ripped from them again and Leo couldn't bear that, he couldn't do it a second time like that.]

Awh, you don't- You don't hafta do that. I'll be fine. [And he lowers his voice a little.] Might help Mikey feel better to see me up on my own, y'know?

Nice try. You ain't movin' one inch for the rest of today, got it?

[Look, Raphael is not afraid of Donnie. ...but he was real big mad.]

Oh, well if that's the case, then I guess I'm staying here. I'll take a fresh cucumber water and my reading materials.

[Donnie was indeed real big mad. And - well. Leo doesn't really know how everyone else is feeling about his decisions today. He almost doesn't want to face it, lest they also all be big mad.]

[oh gonna play the diva card? lmao u thought]

Sure. You go ahead and ask April to cut you up some cucumbers. [And watch her struggle against her impulse to pour that cucumber water on you, scrub.

Raphael just picks up the entire cot like it's a couple of grapes and starts maneuvering it and Leo out of the medbay.]

Uh. Raph?

[Is what he manages to get out before the cot is UP and MOVING, and he is clinging to the sides of it for dear life.]

Donnie might kill you for moving this out. [Donnie's going to kill them for a lot of things probably, this will just be bottom of the list.]

[Dramatic. Like he's gonna drop you WHOOPS- no false alarm, he's okay, just almost tripped.]

Sounds like Donnie needs to work on stickin' around if he wants people to do stuff a certain way! [...a bit long-winded, but you get the picture.

Mikey gives a cry of joy when Raphael and his cargo appear around the corner. The pillow pile has turned into an impressive bedsheet fort, and Mikey crawls through several "hallways" before bounding over to his brothers with his hands clasped.] Leo, Leo! We gave you the biggest room even though it was going to be a ballroom mostly because we couldn't get the chandelier to stay up!

[That's real long winded, but Leo at least gets the picture. His breath catches at that almost-trip though, clutching to the side bars of the cot before being set down.

And gosh darn it, if Mike's enthusiasm isn't contagious. He wants to look better for him at least.]

What? No, you didn't do that. Also maybe I wanna be in the same room as you guys, did you think of that?

[Mikey crawls from where he was climbing on Raph to instead climb onto Leo's cot in order to give him full-force "I'm so touched I love my family" eyes from up close. Raphael lumbers off to check out the fort while Mikey searches for a way to cling to Leo without disturbing his injuries.]

Awwww. Why do you think you got the biggest room, Leo? So we can sleep over!

Okay, then it's not my room, it's our room, Mikey.

[But how can he be mean to those eyes. He'll use his other arm that did not hug Raph to hug Mikey, give both arms the hug workout now.]

You guys put a lotta work into this one, huh? Looks good.

[This close, Leo may be able to see the odd marks on Mikey's hands and forearms, nearly Lichtenburg in style if not for their precise geometric shape. It doesn't keep him from returning his brother's hug, as close to climbing into his lap as he dares without agitating Leo's wounds too badly.]

Don't it, though?! Dad said we were gonna have to take it down tomorrow but you know what? I think we should pull saviors of the world card to keep it.

[He does see it, his eyes lingering on those marks and tracing them up from Mikey's hands to his elbows where they start to fade. Whatever Mike was able to tap into to get him out, he hopes it doesn't have any lasting effects. Or further use would make it worse.]

I mean, I'm sure between the fo- [Wait no there's April and Casey] six of us, we could get Pops to leave it up.

[Pops, who is currently taking a great deal of time making sure his chair can fit in the pillow-slash-blanket fort.]

Whaddaya say guys? Team effort?

[For a moment Mikey beams, his huge, gap-toothed grin that shows up when he's comfortable in the knowledge that he's surrounded by love and comfort-

only for it to slide off his face seconds later as he casts a worried look toward Donatello's lab.] ...we're not a full team right now, though. I dunno...feels weird.

[He follows his little brother's gaze and.. yeah.]

I know. It's... He'll come around. One of you will definitely have to go get him though. If it's me, he'll just yell at me some more.

[He lays his head back again on the now-only-a-little-mushy ice pack and stares at the ceiling.] Some pizza from Run of the Mill might be good to lure him out.

Leo...

[Mikey hesitates, hovering over his brother until Raph approaches, not really trying to hide that he was eavesdropping a bit.] Mikey, snack duty.

[It's not smooth, but Mikey just gives Raphael a semi-sullen look before sliding down off the cot. He takes one more moment to give Leo the quickest, gentlest cuddle he can manage before he leaves for the kitchen.

Raph folds his arms and looks down at Leo, disquiet plain on his face.] Run of the Mill probably ain't even open. The whole city's a mess up there.

[Man, Leo cannot ever express how much those brother cuddles mean to him now, the thought that he might never have gotten them again still on the forefront.

He watches Mikey go before Raph has to come rain on his nonexistent parade.]

Can't I have some wishful thinking? Senor Hueso's probably fine [Probably], he wouldn't let anything happen to that place.

[If anything, he can see Bone Man begrudgingly letting youkai hide out there from the damage while saying he hates it and doesn't want to but nothing stopping him. Hueso's a big ol' softy when it comes down to it.]

[Another sigh before Raphael -the truest testament to how bone-deep exhausted he is- sinks down and sits on a few pillows on the ground, holding his knees even if it means he has to crane his neck to look up at Leo on his cot. Maybe he'll figure out how to use the lever thingies on it to make it collapse down so they can just wheel it into the blanket fort, rather than make Leo move.]

April went to check on him, [Raph offers, picking at one of his fingernails, first with his nails, then his teeth. Half his body still doesn't feel like his.] I dunno what to say to him either. I don't like us spendin' the night apart, not after...that.

[He watches that motion, what Raph is doing. And he gets it, he really does unfortunately Understand it. How conscious had Raphael been for all of it? Was he aware of what his body was forced to do? Did he have any way to fight against it, or is it all jsut a big blank space in his memory for an entire day? Leonardo wonders and knows this isn't the time or place to ask.

(But then when's the next chance they'll have Mikey and Donnie out of the room? When one or both come back, they likely aren't going to leave again for some time.)

Leo carefully reaches for that hand.]

I know. I don't either, so I- Maybe he won't yell at her. I'd have to kick his butt if he does. [He knows Donnie won't. But it's nice to feel in control of literally anything, even if it's just saying something.]

[And unlike Donatello, Raphael takes Leo's hand almost immediately, all gentle care as per usual. His brothers are all so small.]

You know he won't. Even if he did, she'd straighten him out even better than any of us could.

[Jiggles Leo's hand slightly, pulling in a slow, tired breath before letting it out.] ...hey. [Looks up at Leo, tooth catching on his lip as he works his jaw, thinking.] I don't want you feelin' bad about this.

[Leo's fine letting Raph take the hand. It was freely offered as a touch point so Raph wouldn't just... chew his own hand off to prove he's in control. He still wants Donnie down here with them, still wants to make his brother understand now instead of in the heat of the moment like Leo did.

But he looks up at Raphael with those words.]

What? Please, it's me. We all got out, saved the world, nothing to feel bad about.

[He feels so bad about every moment of it. He will never be able to get that image of Raphael hovering over him protecting him from the Krang's stab out of his mind.]

Little brother.

[Gently shakes Leo's hand again, like he took Leo's hand to comfort him- which he did. Raph's not about to think he won't have his own nightmares later. He's very carefully not poking at the fuzziness of his memories between when the Krang interrogated him (tortured...? no, surely not) and when he woke up to see his brothers on that ship. He's not asking any questions, he's not turning that loss of time over and over in his head, because-

Because. Because- remembering won't do any good. Yeah. It'll just upset him, and everyone else. There's no reason to mess around with it.

But Leo's not like that. Leo acts like he doesn't have a thought in his head, but he's always thinking of what happened, what could happen, what he wants to happen. Raphael isn't the sharpest tack in the box, but he's not a complete fool. He saw the look on Leo's face when he put that escape pod on his chest.]

[He squeezes Raph's hand weakly, still a little shaky all things considered. He wishes he could fix this the way he could fix a lot of things. He wants his big brother to never have to think about any of this again, he wants his little brothers to feel safe and like they won't lose either of them again. He wants his family to be safe and happy more than anything.

And seeing the look on Raph's face tells him it's going to be a long road there. Probably some setbacks here and there, but probably nothing to stop the progress forward.]

Big brother. [He says it knowingly, that lilt in his tone that's annoying on the best days.]

[For a moment Raphael looks like he's about to argue, about to press. He holds Leo's hand a little tighter as if to keep him from running off (like he's going anywhere right now, though) but before he can get a word out, Splinter comes up and tells Raphael to go find a place to sleep and then do it.

And that, for now at least, is that.

Casey makes his way to Leo's side at some point and figures out how to lever the cot's hardware in order to sink it further down to the ground. It does have wheels, which Casey unlocks, Raphael had just found it easier to carry it and Leo both out of medical.

Casey and Mikey together maneuver the cot with Leo on it, protesting when he tries to get up (embarrassed over the fuss, maybe?), but it truthfully doesn't take much effort to get the cot under the blankets and into the aforementioned 'ballroom.'

Mikey piles pillows near and against the side of the cot for his own nest, eventually locating and corralling a drowzy Raphael over to their side as well. When Raphael lays back down he flings his limbs every which way, used to his brothers using him as a mattress wherever possible. Mikey does just that, happily squeezing between Raphael's arm and the cot by Leo's thigh, pulling a blanket over all three of them and burying himself beneath it until not even the top of his head is visible.

Splinter comes to tell them goodnight, takes a moment longer to pass a hand gently over the heads and shells of his sons, and disappears into a different section. Casey fumbles about awkwardly for a moment until Raphael grabs his pant leg and sleepily pulls him down into the pile. Eventually April joins them as well, casually draping herself over the other side of the cot with her own blanket, yawning a quiet 'good night' at Leo before settling down.

And so...they sleep. Some of them. With fits and starts, with one or the other or multiple members waking just to be shushed by the others.

At some point during the night -or perhaps now, the morning- Donatello leaves his lab and quietly bypasses the blanket fort, heading straight for the kitchen without a word or a sound.]

[Everyone sticking close by is nice. It's a comfort, in more ways than he can count. He can't remember the last time they did something like this - pillow-blanket-fort in the main area for them all to pile into. Somewhere down the line, they got used to having their own spaces, all of them rebuilding after Shredder destroyed their home, Leo moving into a rundown subway car.

But this is nostalgic in a way Leonardo didn't think he could be at sixteen. And while the others start dropping off to sleep, he lays quietly. Listens to their steady breathing, the quiet shuffle of fabric as they shift in their sleep. But insomnia is always his companion in the night, and Leonardo does not sleep. He knows if he does, only worse things will find him in his subconscious, so the mix of fear and natural insomnia become the mix with the sore muscles and bruised limbs.

Worse, probably, is the lingering taste of copper in his mouth. He's fairly certain the spackle is mostly dry now, and the pains are minimal as he starts to climb out of the cot long-ways and crawl out of the fort. Water is easy enough, he can get his own water. Even if he's a little slow going, it's fine.

But he stops in his tracks when he sees someone else in the kitchen.]

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject