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It was fucked up really. How all of this had begun.
Leo didn’t want to use the box cutter sitting on his desk, (he had borrowed it from Donnie two days ago and didn’t want to get blood on Donnie’s shit), so instead he had to get… creative.
He had about four thousand half empty soda cans sitting in his room so he ripped the tab off of one, forming a jagged and sharp edge.
‘Your brothers broke their promise, they should pay,’ his head whispered.
Somewhere deep down Leo hated everything that was happening. He hated the self harm, he hated the ridiculous anger he had built up against his brothers for skipping one skating thing, he hated it all.
But alas, the guilt he felt was overwhelmed by a sea of other feelings. Mostly spiteful, raging anger that was sure to consume the paper it was using as fuel swiftly.
Tears streamed down his eyes and yet he couldn’t stop smiling. In some cruel way he was proud of himself for reacting so horribly. Through his current cracked and bloody view of the world this felt like the mature thing to do.
Leonardo wanted his self harm to reflect his current silly little feelings, so he chose to carve a deep smiley face with bloody cross eyes and a too wide smile into his left bicep. He would have done it somewhere no one would have seen it, like where his ankle wraps go, but then his family wouldn’t be able to admire his handiwork if he did that.
He flopped onto his bed lamely tearing through his skin with his shitty tool. It was bleeding just a touch but not enough to satisfy Leo’s typical standard for self harm. He pushed deeper into his skin but still ended up with lines no thicker than paper cuts.
Hell, these were just glorified paper cuts with some teenage angst thrown in.
Finally, Leo stood. He walked the three feet to his desk to grab the box-cutter.
It was purple.
It reminded him of Donnie and his brothers.
Holy shit.
Leo fell back to his bed and threw the soda tab across the room as if he had just realized it was burning his fingers. He stared at his injury in pure horror, shocked he would do something like that. It was almost like he had switched personalities and just realized he was actually hurting himself.
Fuckwhathadhedone.
The box cutter immediately reminded him that his brother, his dear twin brother, was probably working hard to help the team right now with his big brain.
And Leo had just been self harming to try and get back at him for doing that instead of what Leo wanted.
Mikey had said he was tired and wanted to go to bed early.
What kind of fucking brother gets mad and overreacts like this when his little brother is sleepy and wants to go to bed?
And Raph had been running errands for dad and Draxum.
Who the hell gets offended by someone who just wants to help his family, THEIR family?
What was this?? What was all of this???
It was messed up is what it was.
Leo looked down at his bloody arm and sighed. It wasn’t a bad injury physically but mentally he knew something was deeply and truly wrong with him.
He had been stupid and impulsive, letting his feelings take the wheel instead of his logical brain.
He needed help.
~
Leo shuffled his feet the whole way to the living room, right hand over his injury. Of course, his dad was sitting there cackling at infomercials like always.
Leo wanted so badly to go to his brothers for this instead of their father. He wanted to hide in Raph’s arms while Donnie wrapped him up like a mummy and Mikey drew little doodles on the bandages, but he knew he didn’t deserve that. They didn’t deserve that either. None of them were emotionally mature enough to fix his problems for him.
Only Splinter could handle the responsibility of keeping them safe, (even from themselves), that was his job as a parent after all.
“D— dad?”
‘You don’t deserve help.’
The thought had come out of nowhere for no reason. It vanished as swiftly as it came but Leo still heard it. He still heard the sinful thought. He persisted though. Listening to those thoughts had landed him in this situation, it was time to listen to what little logic he had and dig himself out.
“Yes blue.” His father never turned away from the vacuum advertisement on the projector.
“Dad, can you turn around please?”
‘You shouldn’t be this much of a burden.’
Splinter groaned before twisting in his chair to face his second oldest. “What can I do for you blue?”
Leo couldn’t do this anymore. He couldn’t hold it together, it felt difficult to breathe. He tried taking deep breaths like Mikey had taught him, he really did, but those didn’t seem to be working at the moment.
“Dad, I'm sorry.”
Like that the dam broke and Leo was completely overwhelmed with guilt. He couldn’t breath through the watery emotions flooding his lungs. Nothing felt even remotely okay.
Somewhere distantly he registered falling to his knees and tears running down his face. Somewhere distant he heard the show pause and Splinter run to his aid.
Through his rambling and ugly sobbing he hit on the following points:
He was a terrible brother
He deserved what he had done to himself
His brothers had the right to an apology
When his sobs had quieted down and the room was left in a silence that wasn’t quite awkward but certainly wasn’t comfortable either.
“My son,” Splinter began. Leo tried his best to shush his obnoxious sniffles. “I believe you have made a mistake today. But not one so grand it cannot be fixed.
Leo whimpered “are— are you sure?”
Splinter had just a hint of a smile on his face. “Yes, I am.”
~
About 15 minutes later Leo was softly swinging his feet in the medical ward as his father finished bandaging his arm. “You’re lucky they weren’t deep cuts, they most likely will not scar.”
Leo just nodded blankly.
“My son.” Leo found his feet more interesting than his father’s words at the moment. “It is okay to make mistakes, so long as we recognize them and improve after. You have already made the first step as you clearly regret what you have done. We can work on improving tomorrow, tonight I want you to rest and do something you enjoy. Can you do that?”
Leo looked up with pathetic droopy eyes. How the hell was he supposed to do that when what he needed to do was apologize to his brothers.
Splinter seemed to read his mind. “Blue, you should not apologize to your brothers for getting upset with them. I know that might make you feel better, but this is a situation where it is better for them to not know. It will only hurt them to know they hurt you.”
He nodded pathetically and stood. Before he could take a step though Splinter was wrapped around his legs in the best hug he could offer. “You did the right thing by coming to me blue, for that I am proud.”
“Okay, thank you.”
After the hug ended, Leo was about to walk out before turning back to his dad. “Can I–” he started, “can I tell them that I self harmed? I think they’ll be more worried about the bandages if I don’t.”
“Of course, just avoid the details.” Splinter winked at the end as if they were both in on a little secret. Leo didn’t want to be in on this secret, not at all.
-
Dad had told him to relax and enjoy himself. Leo only really enjoyed himself when he was with his brothers, which meant he had to go find one of them. His first thought was Donnie since the softshell most likely hadn’t left his lab since he was forced to come to breakfast this morning.
Leo didn’t knock like he was supposed to when entering, instead he just walked up behind Donnie and wrapped his arms around him. All that accomplished was sandwiching the chair in a hug and scaring the shit out of Donnie. “Hey, what the f— Nardo?”
The slider let out a soft chirp of acknowledgment. Donnie seemed to notice Leo’s weird behavior because he stood up and turned to give Leo a real hug. “Hey buddy, what’s—“ he cut off when he saw the bandages on his twin's arm. “You did it again, didn’t you?”
He couldn’t hold it in anymore, Leo began crying.
Donnie slowly walked him over to the couch and they both flopped down into the many soft, purple pillows. Leo slowly explained through the flow of tears that yes, he self-harmed again, and no, he could not explain why. They sat there for a while until Leo slowed his sobs.
Then they played video games until Raph and Mikey walked in, (Donnie definitely texted them, that little snitch), and both gave Leo big hugs.
“Remember what you told me last time I self-harmed?” Mikey asked, “it’s okay to have bad days, so if I’m allowed to have bad days so are you.”
Leo chuckled at the sweet sentiment. “Damn my flawless logic,” he joked.