Chapter Text
"Wait, wait, wait, so he thought you stole his lunch even though you had never spoken to him?" Leo repeated, unable to believe what April had just told him. "Or, really, done anything even just, involving this guy? And he decides to blame you for his pack of lunch disappearing and even decides to push you from your seat because of it?"
The simple amused smile and nod from April was all Leo needed to continue on his rant.
"Oh, come on!" He scoffs, irritation slowly tinting his words the more he spoke. "I don't care that this guy was a fifth-grader. That is so uncalled for! I mean, it's one thing to be suspicious of who could've taken your lunch, maybe even a bit angry when asking who had it. But, accusing the first person you saw, and then getting physical with them for no reason, even if that reason was over lunch- that's an extreme jump to make!"
Over the past few hours, April and Leo have been exchanging stories they haven't heard from each other yet. The two were having a one-on-one sleepover at Aprils, a rare occurrence since all the turtle brothers would usually jump at the chance to hang out with their human best friend. The only reason they all weren't here right now was that Leo had been the one to ask April privately if they were able to sleepover, later informing his father he'd be heading over. Which had, of course, confused his father quite a bit, plus his brothers when they overheard, since they always slept over at Aprils together. However, after a bit of explaining of just wanting to hang out with her alone and fixing the misunderstanding that he had not forced April to not invite the rest of them. Leo eventually had his brothers and father letting him go, though only after the promise of getting some of April's sugar cookies and an apology for not telling them beforehand.
"Yeah, true," April replied, playing with a loose string on her nightgown. "But the guy got a trip to the office before I could even get up off the floor. I had a few small bruises from how hard he pushed me to the ground, a little shaken up too since I just got shoved by someone two grades above me. But Ms. Gonzalez had helped me to her classroom and gave me some sweet lollipops, so it wasn't all so bad."
Leo made a face at what had happened to her when she was younger, feeling bothered that someone would do that to his best friend. "Yeah, but that still sucks, and it still makes me mad someone would even do that to a third-grader."
"Yeah, yeah, be mad all you want, but it happened," April said, waving her hand in a shooing motion towards Leo, her amused smile growing. It was always pleasant having the turtles be concerned for her, as long as it wasn't too overbearing. "But it's your turn now, so spill the tea. What's the absolute worst thing that happened during lunch-hour when you were a kid?"
Leo hugged the unicorn-themed pillow closer to his chest, placing his chin on the plush object, thinking for a moment. "I think I was about, maybe five or six, and Splinter had gone out to go search for some more food for us to eat for lunch since we ran out. When he got back, he was limping and was holding his side. It scared me and my brothers half to death when he almost tripped over the toys we didn't clean up, which was what he told us to do when he left. Turns out, Dad hurt himself pretty badly. I don't remember how, but falling over our toys wouldn't have helped at all." Leo paused, looking away from April and down at his sock-covered toes for a moment. "Yeah, that had to be the worst lunch ever. We were all too worried over Dad to even want to eat the cereal he found."
April nodded, patting his shoulder comfortingly. "Yeah," April said, her tone now soft and understanding. "I knew you guys had to stay down in the sewers when Splints had to go up top sometimes, but I didn't know something like that happened."
Leo gives her a bit of a sad lop-sided smile, "Yeah, well, it happens sometimes," April simply nods in agreement as Leo sits up straighter, letting her hand fall off his shoulder while brushing off the gloomy feelings that came with remembering that memory. "But anyway, no more angsty childhood stories." He points accusingly at her, his grin back full force, making April's smile return as well. "I've been angry and sad enough for one night after talking about events like that for almost an hour, and would rather ask the question."
"Oh, and what's the question, Leon?" April asks, crossing her arms and raising an eyebrow at the turtle in front of her.
"Wanna bake some sugar cookies for the guys?" Leo answers, raising both his nonexistent eyebrows, moving them up and down while following his sentence with a "huh, huh?" causing April to break out into giggles. Trying to make her laugh more, Leo then decides to push his face closer to hers while continuing his ridiculous facial expression and huh's. Though he was victorious in making her giggles turn into full out laughs, the consequence from that action was falling off the bed with a high pitched yelp from her frantic attempts to push him back being a bit too successful. Having him land on his shoulders, legs framing his now pursed and offended face, butt up in the air, and April now curled up on the bed, holding her stomach from how hard she's laughing.
She's barely able to say anything, her laughter breaking up her words as she tries to breathe. "L-Leo-hahaha, oh my god-" She wipes at her eyes, slowly making it over to the other side of the bed. "Leo you-hahaha, y-y-you okay? Oh my god, that was- hahahaha, f-funny as hell. I wasn't expecting you to-" She snorts, holding a hand over her mouth to stifle the sudden loud burst of laughter as she remembers Leo's face when the realization of the bed not being under him struck. "I-I didn't mean to push you off the bed, though." When she finally looks over the edge at Leo, who now had his arms crossed under the two legs that were still on either side of his head, his face a complete failure of trying to look upset at her for laughing. April let out the loudest laugh yet, head hitting the bed as she had to look away before she died of the hilarity of how he looked.
She tried to speak up again, to say anything, but every time she meant to or looked down at Leo, she started up another fit of laughter. It was after she made a hilarious inhuman sound while laughing that Leo's last ounce of self-control failed him, and he started laughing too, finally sitting up as he did so.
It took a few more moments of both of them laughing together before they were finally able to calm down, stand up, and head towards April's kitchen. Once in, Leo jumped into the nearest chair, grinning brightly still as he watches April grab all the ingredients needed for the sugar cookies since he, and Donnie, were forbidden from touching the fridge or pantry after they both nearly destroyed them one day. Well, except Donnie was allowed to touch them when he was asked to fix either one. The lucky-charmed turtle. The blue moon marshmallows and four-leaf clovers were on his side for being a tech whiz.
"Okay," April set the ingredients down on the counter before pointing a finger towards Leo. "I know you ain't goin' to help me make these cookies, so your in charge of watching them and making sure they don't burn. We know I'm not as good at these things as Micheal." She turns to take out a big pink binder from a little wall bookcase, flipping through the ingredients until she finds the right one, running her finger over the words, double-checking she got everything correctly.
"On it, chef O'neil!" Leo says in a deep voice, sitting up straight and saluting playfully. April only smiles, rolling her eyes at the action as she starts doing what it says on the plastic-covered paper, leaving Leo doing nothing but wait till the cookies are in the oven to do his assigned job. As he looks around for something to occupy him for the time being, he takes notice of the new changes to the place.
Even though Leo's been here more times than he can count, he can always find something new in April's apartment. It could be a new piece of decor Mikey made for her placed on the hallway walls, some new objects on the fridge from her Dad or Sunita, the colorful magnetic letters rearranged on the freezer door, or sticky notes here and there with new reminders everywhere. Right now, though, there was only one thing new in the kitchen, and that was the small warm-colored rectangle placed on the side of the fridge, almost out of sight.
From over here, he couldn't specifically make out what it could be other than a cute magnet, even though the colors were oddly familiar. Different shades of orange and pink? From how much he loved to surf the internet, something with differing oranges and pinks could have been from anywhere, maybe even from something Mikey could've drawn somewhere within their house.
But something about the way the different colors were, what's the word? Layed out? Organized? Placed? No, the way the colors were layered on top of each other in that kind of pattern just made something in his brain yell at him that it looked familiar, and it was bugging him that he didn't know from where.
Leo squinted at it, deciding whether or not to get up and get a better look at it. It only took a few moments before he slumps in his seat, moving to face the dining table, crossing his arms on it, and placing his head on top of his arms comfortably.
Eh, whatever, it was probably from April's Dad since it didn't look unique enough to be from Sunita. If he's curious enough about it, he'll just ask April later.
~0~
"They're a little hard this time but, I bet everyone's gonna love them!" Leo compliments, taking a large bite out of the cookie he decorated in blue and yellow frosting.
"Yeah, well, better than last times," April stated, taking her large bite of the green and white frosted sugar cookie. "I still can't believe I burned the bottoms of them."
"Yeah, well," Leo licks his hand clean as he looks to April, already grabbing a plain cookie with his other hand. "You were busy trying to do homework with Sunita and were running all over the place. It was gonna happen," He shrugs. "It's not that bad."
He grabs the icing filled pastry bags with purple and pink colors as April agrees with him. He grins back at her as a reply while he places the cookie down on the comic themed child's plate April gave him to use, probably too afraid of him breaking the glass ones. Leo sets the end of the pink pastry bag on top of the cookie and squeezes a considerate amount of frosting on one side of it before repeating the same thing on the other side with the color purple. He continued to do different designs and colors with April on each remaining cookie, falling into a long comfortable silence.
Minutes passed as the two sat facing each other from either side of the table, taking the cookies from the cooling racks and placing the cookies within a plastic container once they were finished making them all nice and colorful. Yet, still being mindful to leave five unfrosted ones for Donnie since he didn't like the added sugar.
It was in that calm, sweet silence that Leo finally remembered why he had decided to come over at April's alone, why he hadn't told his family till the last minute. Why he was in such a rush to get over here once he made his promises and apologies.
He had been distracted by April's company, his anxiety falling away almost the moment he had come through the window to be met by a cheerful and excited April earlier that night. All his previous plans of talking to April going out the window when they had their probably-longer-than-an-hour-long conversation that ended after he asked to finally bake cookies. It was ironic he remembered to ask April about making the cookies, but not the real reason behind why he promised to bring some back home in the first place. Probably because they've all individually requested so many batches from her by now. But that wasn't the point!
Was he still going to bring it up? How would he even start the conversation? He had forgotten every plan he had racing through his head throughout the whole day. How do you even talk about these things? He knows his family is going to be okay with the entire situation. Why wouldn't they? Their family was already strange and all different from one another, open and accepting about that fact too. Though everyone in their family was born that way, including April. So, it was the same with him, right? But it doesn't feel like it, oh why was he freaking out about it. There was no reason to freak out about it! It was regular! So many people have been through something similar to what he was going through. He just needed to find the right time to just get it off his chest before doing anything about it, and then-
"Hey, Leo, are you okay?"
Leo's fingers flexed suddenly, squeezing the pastry bag as he jumped, being severely startled from his thoughts, the cookie he had stopped decorating after the realization hit him, now colored in a mountain of blue. Leo laughed nervously and placed the bag down, getting the used butter knife to smooth out the icing, a sheepish look painting his face.
"Uh, yeah? Why wouldn't I be Apes?" Leo cooly replied, plastering his signature smile. "Just got caught up in an interesting thought, that's all." He chuckled again, noticing his hands were starting to get sweaty and shakey. Well, that's not a good sign.
April raises a skeptical eyebrow at him but doesn't say anything as she looks down at her plate. He places his cookie in the container with hers, grabbing one of his last ones.
Deep breaths, Leo, you're here to have a fun time with April and talk. Get it over with now that you've remembered what you wanted to talk about. Even if you don't know what to say, but it doesn't matter. You chose April for a reason. Suck it up and take deep breaths. She'll help you. Now, say something.
"Hey, April..." Leo inwardly grimaces at how scared his voice sounds. April looks up, concern bright and visible on her face. Well, here we go. There's no turning back now. "Can I ask you a question...?"
April's concern only seems to deepen, but her voice was encouraging and reassuring as she answered, "Yeah, what is it?"
Leo doesn't stop frosting the rest of the cookies, using it as a distraction. April, however, has all her focus on Leo, the cookies forgotten on her plate and cooling rack. His heart is starting to race, his hands beginning to tremble more and more as he tries to not look at April anymore, just the cookies and his breathing. Just frost the cookies and breathe, just frost the cookies and...
"I- uh, um, I uh, I-" He lets out a jittery breath, closing his eyes for a moment before looking at the swirl of red he was drawing on the cookies as if they would save him from what he was going to ask. "What, um, do you do when..." He racked his brain for something to describe what he was trying to say without actually saying it. "When you think you might be different? Like, not the turtle thing, or you know the whole," He nervously laughed, "The-the whole everything else that I am or any of us, since you know my brothers are the sa-"
"Leo."
"Okay, I'll stop ranting!" He quickly responded, trying to not crack any jokes or force himself to not abandon the topic altogether. "I just- I think I might..."
"Leo, if you don't spit it out, we're gonna be here all night-"
"I know, I know but-"
"Leo, just say it, it's okay, nothings gonna happen."
"I know that! I know it won't but-"
"But what?"
"I don't know!"
"Leo, you're making this harder than it has to be. Just say it!" April's concern was most likely off the charts now, with how vague he's being. He could hear it in her voice and how she's looking at him from the corner of his eye. It reminded him of how she looked when she has to remind Donnie that his worth to her and the team isn't measured by his creations. "I'm not gonna bite your head off, especially if you're getting this worked up about it. I mean, I haven't seen you this worked up for a long time! You're always so chill like-"
Leo quietly spoke up, making April stop, blinking at Leo before frowning, not catching what he had said, "What?"
Leo bites the inside of his bottom lip. Of course, he had said it too quietly for her to hear. Leo groans in annoyance before planting his face onto the table with a soft thud. He was losing his will, and it was his fault for not just saying it directly already or anything at all.
He stays silent for a moment before he responds slowly.
"I don't know if I'm a boy, April..."