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“What were you thinking?”
It was another night spent huddled in the kitchen in the hours between the night and the morning, a cup of hot chocolate nursed between his hands as he leaned his hip against the island. Leo was across from him, blinking lazily into the open fridge as if something of substance would magically appear if he stared into it long enough.
Of course, at his words, Leo's gaze flickered back towards him, face furrowing and tilting to the side in confusion. “Whatever do you mean?”
“Oh, don't pull that shit with me,” Donnie retorted immediately—the words spilling out of him without meaning to, leaving him to fumble with a suddenly sour tongue before following his declaration with a, “You know what I mean.”
Leo frowned at him and shut the fridge. “Jeez, someone woke up on the wrong side of the bed. “
The words were said cautiously, eyes suspicious and calculating as they flickered across Donnie’s form, never quite reaching his eyes. And—
In his defense, Donnie technically had.
His day had started out rough: the memories of black flesh oozing under his skin and slimy tentacles caressing his back and an explosion of green across the horizon giving him a very rude awakening that had sent him jolting into awareness. His legs had gotten tangled in his blankets, and with a nightmare still fresh on his heels Donnie had panicked, thrashed, and promptly fell face first onto the floor.
Quite the embarrassing way to start the day. That, of course, had been at five in the morning, just four hours after he'd finally settled down for bed. The clock on the oven read 3:25.
He hadn’t even meant to start the conversation in the first place. But his tired mind had been replacing that explosion of green over and over and over and he needed to get the grief in his chest out before it swallowed him whole—but of course, like most things with Donnie, it just had to start with him failing to properly communicate what he felt.
“I'm trying to be serious here,” Donnie said.
Leo winced, face pinching as regret flickered across his face for the briefest of moments. “I know.”
“So you're being obtuse on purpose then.”
The regret vanished. Leo folded his arms across his chest, leaning back against the counter with an aggravating stupid little smirk.
“Hm, what do you think?” Leo asked, giving his chin an obnoxious little tap. “You're the brainiac of the family. “
“I think you're an idiot—”
The words fell out of his mouth before he could stop them, sharp and venomous and no, I don't mean it like that, but it was far too late to take it back.
“—Big whoop, we all know that—”
“—And I think that– wait, are you agreeing with me?” Donnie backpedaled, feeling his face twist in absolute disbelief.
Leo's arms tightened, shoulders growing tense and stiff. “What is it you always say? Yes, that is literally what I just said?”
The impression was the most normal, unemotional part of his words.
“Scoff. I do not sound like that. I'm much more sophisticated,” Donnie said, even as his heart thrummed in his chest with wrong, ninpō tingling up and down his spine in a concern that wanted to reach out and press against his brother because what do you mean.
“Ehh, I don't know. Hard to be sophisticated when you're a nerd. “
And there was that stupid smirk again, Leo finally meeting his gaze with the most plastic expression Donnie had ever seen on his brother.
“Says you. And you're doing it again,” Donnie pointed out.
“Doing what?” Leo asked back cheekily. It was as infuriating as it was concerning—because if his brother’s confusion had been real he would not be putting up the mask that he was, would not be dancing around the subject like he was.
They both knew what he was talking about, though it had not been mentioned by name. After all, it had only been a month since that day.
“Intentionally being an ass to get me off your metaphorical back,” Donnie said. His grip around his mug was painfully tight with worry.
“Can't a guy make a joke or two?” Leo said back, but Donnie could see the chips in his mask as clear as day. “Is that such a crime?”
“And there you go again,” Donnie muttered. His heart twisted in his chest as he pushed himself off the island, setting his mug down as he tried to gather himself. He hadn’t meant to have this conversation like this, and he didn’t want to keep messing up. “I really am trying to be genuine here, you know.”
For the first time the entire interaction, Donnie managed to let his actual feelings seep into his voice—the genuine worry settled under his skin like a bruise breaking free into open air.
That did not go unnoticed by Leo: his entire face falling, gaze fixing firmly on the floor as he tensed ever further, hunching in like he wanted nothing more than to curl in on himself and hide away.
“I… I know,” Leo said quietly. Sadly, almost, seeped with an upset resignation.
“Then answer my question,” Donnie pressed softly.
“What do you want me to say?” Leo asked. He sounded so tired.
“What do you have to say?” Donnie asked back, taking a small step forward.
Leo huffed a laugh, though nothing about the situation was particularly funny. “Well, ideally I wouldn't be having this conversation. “
“Me too.”
Donnie’s heart hurt. He was, to be so very blunt, sad. So heart wrenchingly sad because nothing in his 16 years of living even remotely compared to the devastation he had felt watching the sky explode and realizing his brother was gone, and he wanted nothing more than to trap Leo in his arms and never let go so he would be safe and nothing like that would never happen again but he couldn’t. He couldn’t, because Leo was doing everything in his power to avoid explaining himself and dodging every smidgen of concern expressed.
“So we're in agreement then? We end this awkward convo and pretend it never happened as we live our lives in blissful ignorance?”
The attempt was weak. As if Leo could sense he was fighting a losing battle.
“No.”
“Right,” Leo said, followed by a shaky, exhausted sigh. “Of course.”
“This is hard for me too,” Donnie said. It took everything in him to not force Leo to understand—to tangle their ninpōs together and bare his soul on display, to press his heartache and fear in until it was undeniable but he couldn’t, because Leo had been closing himself off in every possible avenue and if Donnie pushed too hard, he would be locked out entirely. But fuck did he yearn for the simplicity of not needing to find the perfect words or the perfect phrase to express himself. “And you know I hate expressing vulnerable emotions, so that should speak volumes of how much we need to have this conversation.“
“Do we, though?” Leo rebutted. One of his hands moved to fidget with the string of his hoodie. “Why can't we just move on? We won, we saved the day, we were heroes. End of chapter, put the book on the shelf.”
“There's still the epilogue left,” Donnie said. He took another step closer. “And the sequels.”
“Not every story has an epilogue, y'know, Mr. I Actually Read Books.” It was clear that Leo was still trying to get Donnie to drop it, but with a different tactic. Had it been any other scenario, perhaps it would have worked. But so close together, Donnie could smell the upset rolling off his brother.
“You could do with some reading, honestly. I'm surprised you even know that word,” Donnie joked lightly, finally taking the final step to slide in next to where Leo was standing.
“Oh har har,” Leo muttered.
“Besides,” Donnie continued, “ Our lives have barely started in the grand scheme of things. This is but a chapter of the biographies they'll write about me.”
“Only you?”
“Only me.”
Leo had seemingly nothing to say to that.
Not that Donnie was particularly opposed: it gave him time to think about what he wanted to say—how he could possibly express his feelings without accidentally making everything worse.
It was hard to keep his composure when Leo was right next to him and so, so very obviously upset, especially when that was half of the reason that Donnie was upset. But he– he needed to know before he drove himself crazy.
“Do you just not care?” Donnie eventually asked.
“What?” Leo replied, voice raspy and startled.
“Sorry, let me be more specific: do you care if you die?”
It was a bold question. But it had been festering away in an awful corner of Donnie’s brain since the day Leo had so willingly thrown his life away for the sake of being a hero.
“What makes you ask that?” Leo said, as if he didn’t know full damn well what Donnie was talking about.
“Are you being serious right now?” Donnie snapped. He winced at his own tone of voice, but did not take it back.
“Right,” Leo breathed. “Sorry.”
Another long pause.
“…Well?” Donnie encouraged, moving his gaze at last from his tragically discarded cup of hot chocolate to study his brother.
Leo had given up all pretenses of presenting himself as okay. He had curled in on himself entirely, head bowed and hands tightly clenched around the fabric of his hoodie. The sight made Donnie’s heart clench.
“I do care,” Leo admitted at last. “Maybe more than I should.”
And—
… what?
“I don't think there's a way to care too much about living,” Donnie said slowly, heart fluttering in his chest with the beginnings of anxiety.
“If you care too much, you get selfish,” Leo shrugged. It was clear he was trying to sound nonchalant, but it came out tired and sad, words mumbled and eyes never leaving the floor. “Put yourself before others above all else and all that.”
“I don't understand how that's a bad thing. Self preservation is important,” Donnie said, for lack of anything else he could possibly say. Selfish? To want to live? It rang alarm bells in Donnie’s brain and he hated it and he hated that he didn't know how he was supposed to fix this.
"Not when you have the fate of the whole world on your shoulders,” Leo argued softly, and every single train of thought in Donnie’s brain came to a screeching halt.
“What do you mean by that?" He could not stop an almost desperation bleeding into his words, entire body going rigid with anxiety.
"Does it really matter? The day's saved, hurrah, we can all move on." The attempt was weak.
“That was pathetic, even for you,” Donnie's dumbass said before he could think it through.
"Thanks,” Leo huffed, and it left a sour taste in his mouth and twisted his heart even further.
“Seriously though, what did you mean by that?" Donnie pressed. He was only a step away from outright pleading, and it felt like he was losing his mind trying to justify that making any sense in a way that did not imply very serious and scary things about what was going on in his brothers head—things he very much did not want to be true and could not handle being true but were so possible given everything and that was why he was pushing so hard when ordinarily he'd run far away from a conversation like this. He needed to know if– he needed to know. “How is there any reality where you can care too much about living?"
"I don't know,” Leo shrugged unhelpfully.
“I think you do,” Donnie countered. Please talk to me.
Leo said nothing for another long while. A long while where Donnie stood there, heart beating loudly in his chest with worry, feet rooted firmly to the floor under the paralyzing weight of a concern with nowhere to go. Until eventually:
“It's… it's stupid,” Leo said—small and shaky and so startlingly unlike him.
“Most things you say are,” Donnie said, in an attempt at a joke that he regretted the second it came out of his mouth.
Leo did not immediately respond. But his next breath hitched, scent exploding with a new wave of upset, and when Donnie turned he could see the gloss in Leo’s eyes and the wobble of his beak.
"Shit, are you crying?" Donnie asked, heart dropping to the floor.
"I didn't plan on making it out of there,” Leo confessed shakily and something in Donnie broke . "I was supposed to die in there.”
Leo cut himself with a sharp inhale that trembled under the weight of barely repressed sobs. “And I was– I was okay with that."
Oh.
“…You were?" Donnie asked—voice meek and small as his own eyes welled with tears in response.
"No."
Donnie desperately tried to quell the lump in his throat, mind pulling a complete blank as emotions overwhelmed every logical thought. "But you just said—?"
"I thought that I– that I had to be okay with that. Dying alone at 16. Being a martyr. Carrying on the– the family legacy, y'know?" Leo laughed, wet and strained, and there was nothing humorous about it. "I mean, I've spent my whole life doing things wrong and messing up, and there was my golden chance to get things right!"
Leo raised a hand to scrub at his eyes. His voice trembled and shook under the weight of barely suppressed emotion—a tinny and weak and cracking thing as he said perhaps the most devastating thing possible. “I thought maybe I could make someone proud."
"Leo…" Donnie said, and nothing more. He couldn’t, not when faced with such raw upset because he had thought, he had foolishly thought that Leo was actually sure of himself and yet it seemed they were so awfully similar—
"But I was scared,” Leo sobbed at last: tears sliding down his cheeks as a shudder ran throughout his entire body, and then it seemed he could not stop. "I still am scared. All of the time. I'm scared of my own shadow, if you can believe that. And it's– god, I don't even know.” Another awful sob that had Leo physically turning away from Donnie, face buried into where his sleeves covered his hands. “Sorry."
"Don't apologize,” Donnie rushed to say, desperate to provide any sort of comfort. He placed a careful hand on Leo’s shoulder as Leo struggled to stop himself from crying too. “It's… good, to talk about things."
He felt awkward. Out of place. He needed to do more, to say something to rectify the situation or offer comfort but he couldn’t.
“Yeah,” Leo choked out in agreement, barely managing a few breaths before the syllable made way for another sob.
"So let me get this straight,” Donnie started, if only to try and make sense of what was happening before he started breaking down too. “You believe that you're supposed to be okay with throwing your life away for the greater good, except you're not actually okay with it at all and that makes you selfish, for some reason? Is that correct?"
Donnie didn’t want it to be correct. He wanted his brother to be happy and carefree and confident and he wanted things to be normal again.
Leo did not respond immediately—still wrestling with his own breath and choking back his cries. "Hit the nail on the head there, bro.”
"It's not selfish to want to live. You should want to live,” Donnie told him firmly. He didn't know what had made Leo come to that conclusion, but it was so backwards and wrong and oh god did make him so sad that Leo actually thought that. “And for the record, I am so proud of you, you big dummy. Even if I'm angry at you for pointlessly putting yourself at risk."
Angry wasn’t the right word, but Leo could probably tell by the way Donnie was barely keeping himself together either.
"You're just saying that,” Leo mumbled, and oh. “You don't actually mean it."
"Well, you can't read my mind, so you don't know that,” Donnie retorted. He wanted nothing more than to ignore Leo’s clear boundary and shove their ninpōs together if only to make him understand . “I really do mean it, even if I find expressing emotions… difficult."
“Yeah…. I guess.”
"Nope, no guessing allowed. You know I speak only in facts and evidence."
Leo did not respond, but his mouth twitched in the briefest hint of a smile. A victory, then.
"And… please don't be okay with sacrificing yourself,” Donnie asked quietly, trying and—to even his own ears—failing to hide how much the idea truly messed with him. Not that he even should because Leo needed to know that Donnie cared about him but the thought of open vulnerability made him want to start bawling like a little kid (and maybe, on another day, he would, but it was not that day). “That family tradition is a load of bullshit. I'm not eager to repeat that experience anytime soon, if at all."
"Yeah, I didn't enjoy that either,” Leo said wryly, lifting his head up at long last to scrub at his eyes with a soft sniff. “You're right."
Thank Galileo.
"As I normally am,” Donnie said, managing a tiny speck of humor despite everything.
He studied his brother for a moment.
"Would you like a hug?" Donnie offered. I would like a hug, is what he did not say. Please give me a hug.
Leo, so very evidently feeling much better, replied with none other than a ridiculous, "Are you gonna bite me again?"
"Oh, that was one time– just c'mere, you big dum-dum,” Donnie grumbled with a relieved smile, and then he finally reached out and tugged Leo into his arms.
Leo went without protest, hands snaking across Donnie’s middle to loosely grip at the back of Donnie’s sweatshirt and eyes pressing into the slope of his shoulder. Donnie allowed his head to drop town, pressing their temples together as he squeezed Leo against his plastron.
It did not take long for Leo to relax into the embrace, growing limp against Donnie. And if his breath grew shaky with tears once more, Donnie did not mention it—simply beginning to carefully rock them as he let himself sink into the embrace as well, the tight thing in his chest finally starting to unwind.
"I love you,” Leo mumbled, voice muffled by fabric.
"I love you too,” Donnie murmured back. “Dummy."