Chapter Text
Tap.
What a night to have trouble sleeping.
It had only been a couple of days since they freed Oroku Saki’s soul from the confines of the Shredder. The stress of it all had left Mikey’s sleep schedule all kinds of screwed up.
He had no walls to spray-paint this time, and he’d pretty much exhausted all of his colored pencils (Leo had borrowed the sharpener and lost it), so Mikey was stuck with his thoughts.
Unfortunately, his painting supplies had been at the lair when it had gotten destroyed. They had plans to go back to the lair at some point to see what they could salvage from it, but now was not the time.
Donnie had eventually let what happened slip to Ms. O’Neil, purely by accident of course. That led to them having to tell her the whole story. Everything with the Foot, Shredder, and their lair getting destroyed. It certainly helped Ms. O’Neil to understand why they were all at the apartment all the time.
She’d taken a week off of work to be there for them emotionally. Mikey had to admit that it was nice.
The other three turtles had managed to start remodeling Hera’s room. It was fine, since she wasn’t expected to come back for at least another year (if she didn’t drop out, of course), but it also made Mikey feel bad.
Just like him at the lair, they were trying to get any sense of normalcy. But unlike him they didn’t have their own space to do it with. They had to share the one room. Initially, Mikey considered moving over to sleep in there, but they were already crowded enough without him invading their space. He didn’t need to ruin another thing for them.
He’d ruined the family at first by getting taken by the sewers, and then his knowledge of the Hidden City brought on by that was how they got involved in the Draxum mess later. Not to mention that ever since they’d reunited it had been a nonstop disaster.
But it was fine now.
Wasn’t it?
Mikey had stayed up incredibly late every night just thinking of that one question. Sure, the Shredder was gone, but that didn’t mean they were safe. They didn’t have a lair anymore, they still had the not-quite gone threat of Big Mama looming over them, and truly nobody knew what happened with the Foot Lieutenant and Brute. All they knew was that Cassandra had left them behind at the Shredder’s wishes. They weren’t confirmed dead and could still come back with a vengeance, possibly trying to get something else to serve other than the Shredder.
But the one thing Mikey couldn’t shake was that those were all things that wouldn’t have happened if it hadn’t been for him.
He’d been the one to suggest they go to the pool the day they’d found Mayhem and fought Draxum the first time. He’d been the one to suggest they deal with the Oozequitos, leading them to meeting Big Mama and Leo being thrown off the roof and permanently damaging his shell (Donnie had finally forced him to let him check further). He’d been the one to suggest they go look for stuff at the Grand Nexus hotel, which eventually led to them finding the final piece of the Dark Armor. He’d been the one to accidentally further encourage Cassandra to seek world domination, which probably got her to ally with the Foot again. He was the one that brought up the weapon and released Karai.
But at the same time, he’d been the one to introduce them to April and their mom. He’d been the one to introduce them to what was now one of their biggest interests. He’d been the one to believe in Draxum, and finding Draxum initially got them their cloaking brooches and original weapons. Finding Big Mama gave them an advantage later when fighting the Shredder. Finding the piece of the Dark Armor helped them to be there when Shredder was finally released, so they could stop him the first time. Encouraging Cassandra had eventually led her to allying with them instead, helping to save them from the Shredder. And thanks to him they’d all been at the Crying Titan to stop the Shredder in the first place.
It was a confusing thought train of guilt, and he hated that it kept coming back every time he wanted to sleep.
No amount of tapping his fingers together or counting every single little line in the ceiling was helping, and it was exhausting.
He just really wanted to stop thinking about it for once.
Mikey grabbed the top of his blanket and yanked it off himself. He stood up, glancing over to April’s bed to make sure he hadn’t woken her up. But she was still laying in bed, asleep with Mayhem curled up on top of her stomach.
And so he left the room with his blanket, being careful to close the door gently as he left. As quickly as he’d exited April’s, he entered the room his other siblings were staying in.
Almost immediately, Leo turned to him. “Hey Mikey. You’re still awake?”
“Yeah,” Mikey said, rubbing his face. “Trouble sleeping, as I can see you two are also suffering from.”
Raph laughed slightly. “Yup. Usually I’m good with fallin’ asleep. I think I gave up my ability to Donnie t’night, though.”
Mikey turned to look at where Donnie was. Half of his blanket was knocked off of him, exposing him sleeping in literally the weirdest position ever. Like Raph said, in a rare showing the softshell was out like a light.
“Good,” Mikey said. “He sure needs it.”
Raph sighed, scratching the back of her left hand. “Honestly, we all do.”
Leo laughed and flopped back onto the bed. “Ain’t that the truth. I’d give up my face marks for one decent night of sleep recently, and that’s saying something!” He let out a sigh, “but you are right, Mikey. Don hasn’t let himself sleep for the past few weeks. It’s good that he’s getting it now.”
Mikey nodded, suppressing a yawn. “And you and Raph are right that we all need the sleep, too.
“Yeah,” Raph said, “which is why you’re gonna lay down right now, bud.”
Mikey wasn’t the one to complain about the offer to get to sleep, so he walked over to an area in-between where Donnie and Raph were sleeping on the floor until Ms. O’Neil could buy them all proper beds. (Not like the subject hadn’t been brought up before, Mikey just didn’t like mattresses.)
He set his blanket down on the floor. But before laying down on it, he made sure to straighten Donnie’s blanket first. Mikey was hoping he wasn’t imaging it when he saw his sibling’s face slowly turn to one of comfort.
And now he could lay down and sleep. And so he did, falling to his knees and plopping right onto his face in the blanket.
“Night!” Mikey said, rolling over so the blanket covered him.
Raph and Leo returned the goodnight wish, and Mikey curled up into his shell to sleep.
Whether it was simply knowing his siblings were out there, the faint buzz of their ninpo in the back of his head, or just the colder temperature of the room, Mikey was able to fall asleep almost immediately. No more worries about what was and wasn’t his fault.
Just full peace of mind. Something he’d been needing for quite a while.
————
Leo stared out the bedroom window. It wasn’t as if he could really even see much. It was nearly pitch black outside, only illuminated by a few street lamps that were too far away for anything close to be seen anyway.
But it was something to watch, at least. More than anything else in the room could offer. Sure, he could stare at the small light that they had, but eventually that would start hurting his eyes. He didn’t need to make his vision worse, especially if he was trying to get Mikey and Donnie to believe that he truly didn’t need glasses.
Did he? Yeah probably. Would he admit it? Hah, no.
Not being able to sleep was really annoying, but it was something he’d learned to get used to. It was annoying, but it was a familiar kind of annoying. The kind of annoying that he wished wasn’t there, but didn’t really know how it would feel for it to be gone.
It was something unfamiliar for Raph, though. She was right, she usually was good with falling asleep. The worst part was the comfort of knowing everyone was asleep also helped Leo to sleep, and since she was having issues it really amplified his.
He glanced over at Mikey and Donnie, both sleeping on the floor along with Raph. Donnie had kicked the blanket off of himself again, even though Mikey had placed it back over him not that long ago. Mikey had fallen asleep rather quickly, shut off in his shell likely as some sort of comfort thing.
So it was literally just Raph and Leo awake, since April was usually good with sleeping too. The slider sighed, scooting over to the edge of the bed.
“Hey Raph?” He whispered.
His sister looked up from her spot on the floor. “Hm? Yeah?”
“Do you think the Shredder’s the last thing we’ll have to deal with?” Leo asked.
Raph rubbed her eyes. “I dunno. Guess I’m hopin’ he was.” She scooted over until she was closer to the bed, leaning her back against the framing. “But who knows, really.”
Leo let out a small chuckle. Not because he found the concept funny, though. More so because that seemed to be his natural reaction to things. “I hope so, too. For all our sakes. I don’t know how well we’d be able to deal with anything else.”
Raph nodded, though it seemed half-heartedly. As if her mind wasn’t fully on the conversation. After a few seconds of silence, she finally broke it. “Leo? How would you react if I said, in the case that we did have to pick the fightin’ thing back up, that I didn’t want to be the leader anymore? And that I wanted you to lead us instead?”
Leo blinked at her. “Well, I’d be confused, to start. Why?”
“I’m not doing a good job, am I?” Raph asked. “I’m meant to protect us, and yet Shredder almost got us multiple times. Mikey almost got his essence ripped outta him! I know we never really assigned real roles, but you all were definitely countin’ on me to call the shots. I just don’t think I was ready for it.”
Leo bent over the edge of the bed, reaching down to pat his sister on the head. “Of course you weren’t, we’re kids! None of us were ready for what we had to go through. But you tried your best, Raphi, and we all know that. Besides, you helped us unlock our ninpo!”
Raph shrugged. “Still, that was mostly you guys. I just did the action that triggered it.”
“And it was all of us working together that unlocked it. Your leadership got us through everything!” Leo reminded her. “But I do get what you mean. Leadership’s stressful. Therefore, I present a secondary option!”
Raph looked up, “what?”
“Co-leadership.” Leo responded. “We work together, come up with ideas and share them. We both have our strengths in certain areas, and that’ll help. This way, neither of us have to face leadership alone.”
After a second of consideration, his sister smiled before looking back down. “I’d like that.”
Leo smiled in turn, even though Raph couldn’t see it. “Then that’s settled! In the totally unforeseen case that we have to start being cool and fighting people again, we work together to lead the team!”
He held out his fist over the side of the bed, and Raph turned around to return the fist bump. Afterwards, she stared forward for a bit. “Woah, look!”
She pointed at the window, and Leo turned to look at it as well. Raph got up, walking closer, as Leo scooted over to it on his knees.
Outside was still dark, but Leo could see the faint twinkle of light flurrying through the air. Catching the light of the lamps, Leo finally recognized what it was. Snow.
Leo leaned over the windowsill, watching as the snowflakes fell to the ground far below. Raph was standing by the bed, equally as entranced by the weather. They hadn’t had much chance to really appreciate snow before.
The slider almost wanted to go over and wake up Donnie and Mikey, but he finally decided against it. Let them sleep, they’d see it in the morning.
There, watching the snow, Leo began to feel the first waves of tiredness wash over his mind.
Maybe, even if it was just for just a little while, things would be okay.
THE END
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