Chapter Text
Exhaustion when waking up in the morning was nothing new to Leo. Hell, it was rarely ever different than that. A good night of sleep was just too rare for the young adult.
This particularly uninteresting Wednesday morning was no different. When his alarm went off at five, Leo rolled out of his bed, nearly falling off in the process, and stumbled to his feet. He ran a hand through his hair and glanced around the room, squinting his eyes against the darkness, to see if he could find a fresh change of clothes. His gaze landed on the hunched figure of his younger brother, slouched over his desk and asleep on top of the half finished blueprints for another one of his personal projects.
He sighed softly and picked his way across the vaguely cluttered room to rest his hand on Donnie’s slowly rising and falling back. Other than Leo, Donnie was the only one who could survive with such a screwed up sleep schedule, but even then he needed to sleep sometimes too.
He kissed the top of Donnie’s head and picked up his clothes, slipping into the bathroom to change and comb his hair out quickly. He paused when he heard a door creak open, before remembering Mikey also woke up at the crack of dawn to make breakfast. The only reason Leo hadn’t chewed him out about it yet was because he knew that without breakfast, anyone who crossed Raph’s path wouldn’t survive the day.
He trekked down the stairs and watched in the entryway as Mikey went about trying to make breakfast as quietly as possible. He looked dead tired, and Leo wondered idly if he’d spent the night at the park again, but he decided it was unlikely. Mikey seemed a bit more open with them since then, so Leo had little reason to not trust him (he hoped. He hoped this wouldn’t backfire on him).
“Morning Mikey.”
Mikey jumped slightly and looked at Leo before relaxing slightly and letting out a quiet chuckle. “Hey, Leo. Forgot you wake up this early.”
Leo walked over and ruffled his hair before grabbing a yogurt out of the fridge. Mikey looked at him. “Not staying for breakfast?”
“I can’t.” He sighed, glancing forlornly at the empty coffee pot before opening the yogurt. “But I’m not spending all day in a class. If you leave some for me, I can eat it for lunch.”
Mikey perked a bit, eyes lighting up. “Okay!”
Leo smiled as he watched Mikey get back to what he was doing, seemingly fueled by the idea of Leo finally getting a chance to eat his cooking again. He licked some yogurt out of the container as he moved towards the door, but paused when he saw Raph asleep on the couch. He sighed softly and wandered over, standing over him and wondering how long he could stand there before Raph woke up.
“Hey,” he finally muttered, reaching out and poking Raph’s stomach with his toe.
Raph groaned and batted at his foot. “Go away.”
“You fell asleep on the couch again.”
Raph opened an eye and glanced around the family room before closing it and burying his face into the couch cushion. “Shit.”
“Your neck okay?”
“It’s fucking fine, idiot.” He lifted his head, and then let it fall back on the couch. “Just go to work.”
“Whatever you say.” Leo turned on his heel and picked his keys up off the counter, licking another bite of yogurt out of the container.
“... Leo?”
“Hm?” Leo paused as he was halfway out the door and ducked back into the house to look at Raph.
“Just… stay safe.”
Leo watched Raph hide his face back in the couch, before he smiled. “Sure thing, Raphie,” he teased, mimicking Mikey’s pre-puberty voice.
“Don’t call me that!” Raph shouted in sync with an offended, “hey!” from the kitchen. Leo quickly shut the door behind him, laughing, before Mikey could throw a frying pan at him.
He sighed as he sat in the car and started it. He sat back and stared out the front window as he waited for the AC to kick in before pulling out of the driveway and heading off down the street.
Traffic was usually light this early in the morning, so Leo wasn’t too concerned about making it to work on time. Plus, the stop lights always seemed to work in his favor, so he only ran into a couple of red lights.
One of these red lights happened to be at the busiest intersection just outside the parking lot into the Starbucks. He leaned back against his chair, tapping his fingers against the wheel as he waited in the turn lane for the light to turn green.
He had a few seconds before the initial impact where something felt off, like some hidden instinct was telling him that he needed to get out of the way. He tightened his grip on the wheel, chewing on his lip and waiting for the feeling to pass. It’d go away eventually, right…?
He was aware only of the deafening screech of brakes behind him before suddenly, and with the ear splitting sound of tearing metal, he was thrown against the steering wheel and his vision went black.
“This morning, there was an accident at the intersection near Jefferson and Douglas involving a texting driver and another driver not able to respond to the crash in time.”
Raph glanced up at where the news was playing in the background dimly from the living room. Splinter had turned it on before going back upstairs to take a work phone call, leaving the brothers to listen to it.
“I just don’t get why people can’t simply put their phone away to drive,” Mikey muttered, spreading butter on his pancakes.
“It’s dumb, but I guess it’s understandable,” Donnie muttered as he glanced at something on his phone.
Raph rolled his eyes, wondering if that was intentional, and looked back at the screen as he hunched over his plate of food. The news reporter appeared to be going over a diagram of how the crash had gone- rear ended and then T-boned.
“Damn,” Raph grunted. “Car must be totaled.”
“I hope the driver is okay.” Donnie finally looked at the television. “If the car was beat up that bad-”
The reporter paused. “It appears we have identification of the drivers, now that paramedics have arrived on the scene.”
Raph started to shut the reporter out as she listed off the names of the drivers who’d beat up the smaller car, before his blood ran cold at the final name.
“... and Leonardo Hamato appears to be the owner of the car caught in the middle.”