Chapter Text
Leonardo’s brothers are dead.
It’s a given fact, a short sentence with ineffable perception.
But he knew it from the moment he saw their eyes, lolling, rolling, fading, embers of life flickering as he held their hands, begging them to keep breathing minutes after the labored fall of their chests stopped. Desperation clawed at his face as his throat tore from sickening sobs.
Begs, prayers, none of it worked.
“Leo?” He had croaked.
“Raph- Raph you're still with me? Raph!” He almost let out a wet laugh before he saw the look on his face. His little brother's face. It all felt too real.
“Leo I don’t think- I don’t think I’m gonna-”
“Don’t finish that. Don’t you dare finish that.” He took his hand, fat tears rolling down his cheeks. “We’re gonna make it and we’re gonna go to school, okay?” Leo said, as his back bled out. “You, me and Donnie. We’re going to-“ Leo choked up. “We’re going to go to April’s prom and we’re gonna make a lot of friends, human friends.”
Raph laughed, a short breathy thing. “And I can join the wrestling team?”
“And you can join the wrestling team.” Leo nodded, his knees burning from the heat of the pavement. He put the back of Raph’s charred hand to his forehead.
“Sounds good.” Raph’s lip wobbled. “I’ll be waiting for you.” And he smiled, for the last time he smiled, but no monstrous teeth showed. No ugly features, no claws. For once Leo imagined it. Them, accepted.
“I love you, Leo.” Raph managed through short gasps.
“I love you so so much.” He responded near instantly, but his brother wasn’t there to hear it.
He held Raph in his hands, cause this was Raph, right? Death hadn’t changed how he was missing a tooth from trying out rollerblades, nor had it changed how his face was sculpted or the muscles underneath his skin. His brother was still here, but not his brother.
“Not my brother.” He wailed, because it was a nightmarish thing, inky black and slosh. “Please, anything but my brothers.”
But Donnie had been crushed under a 1.5 ton mass of speeding metal, thrown by their enemy.
Mikey had died at the mercy of that claw.
Raph, surrounded by flames and broken shell, succumbed to his injuries, just after throwing that stupid vial into that stupid blowhole.
He had witnessed each death, his hesitance being the cause of another.
The skies cleared and water splashed over his injuries, water from helicopters attempting to put out the flames.
And they did this, for what? Acceptance? Their Dad was right, he should’ve known.
He should’ve protected them.
This thing in his hands was nothing more than a corpse, a reminder of what his brother stood for.
—
The next thing he remembered was the ambulance, sitting in the back with a lightweight blanket on his shoulders.
He remembered wiping tears from his face out of instinct. He remembered how April approached him from a building, running. She set a hand on his knee and he didn’t react.
She asked where they were.
Leo looked at his hands, grime and blood worked into the crevasses and injuries.
“Dead.” He had told her, a simple word. Such bluntness could almost be mistaken for sarcasm. But, clearly, the look on his face said otherwise.
He looked at her, eyes dull of any shine that would’ve harbored them. “We aren’t going to make it, are we?”
Leonardo wished he hadn’t. It would’ve saved him from hearing the wails of his father, prevented the looks that eyed him like a ghost.
Prevented the hugs, the tears.
The numbness.
The 57 staples in his shell, snaking in a solid line to his front and over his chest, sewing him together again, like patching back the fur of a teddy bear who’s synthetic heart had just been ripped out. Sometimes cracks would branch too far, and additional staples were added to keep him together.
He could almost hold it, the leftover shard of his heart. It glowed and cracked and fizzled, angry it had just had 3/4ths of itself stolen.
“You did.” She confirmed, brow knitting together.
“I really, really wish I hadn’t.”
She looped her arms around his neck. “Don’t say that, don’t ever say that.”
So, he decided to bite it down, the regrets, the worries.
She didn’t need to hear it anyway.
He heard the paramedics discussing how they found him that day, clinging to the body, shaking, not making a sound. Leo was so used to silence then, he instantly quieted as he saw them approaching, his fierce loyalty doing everything but pry him from his brother's side. By then, the flames had quieted to small flickers, and he heard them speculate on how long he had been out there.
His father was sitting beside him then.
“April?” He asked, wondering where she had gone.
“April left 20 minutes ago Leonardo. She needed to talk with her parents.” His father had tear streaks down his face, Leo could tell he was trying to be strong.
“It hurts.”
“Your shell?”
“No, no.” He gently clawed at the front of his carapace, pointing, poking, tapping. “ hurts .”
He fell against his fathers shoulder, a thousand yard stare on his face. “Hurt.” He repeated the first word he had ever learned. Skimming his knee, pointing to a brother, chastising a brother.
His father took his hand, holding it. He needed to tell him where it hurt, then his dad would bandage it and it would all be okay again. There was a longing in that, hollow and narrow, like a path he was too scared to quite cross. He’d feel awfully better if someone else was there, holding his hand the entire way.
“Lost.” He spoke his second word, one with many uses.
And in more ways than one, he felt like a kid again.