Archive of Our Own

Leonardo hadn’t really slept since the incident. He didn’t know why. He just hadn’t.

Maybe he was still in shock. If he was it wouldn’t serve as a surprise to him. Or anyone for that matter. After all, the incident was single-handedly the most traumatic and life-threatening experience he’d ever been through, that no amount of training could ever possibly prepare him for. Even if it had been almost two weeks ago now. Everyone had their fair share of scars - both literal and figurative - and everyone had their own methods of covering them up.

Growing up, Leo had always noticed how Raph and Mikey seemed to be much closer than the rest of them - To a point where he’d jokingly begun calling them twins one day, which received an eye roll from Donnie followed by a long explanation about how they were quadruplets so therefore that title was pointless, but that didn’t stop Leo from still doing it to this day. And ever since the incident, that had somehow become even more apparent. The two were almost always together. Always playing video games together, always eating together, always watching YouTube together, always together. Leo had no problem with it. Why should he?

He’d also noticed their dad was a lot more affectionate with them than he’d ever been before. He was much more physically affectionate with them, hugs, forehead kisses, even just a gentle hand on their shells. Leo understood. He couldn’t even begin to imagine how terrified his father must’ve been during the attack. He’d been thrown across the city, breaking his leg in the process and had to watch from a distance as Superfly tortured his children, listening as their screams rang out through the city. And in the end had to rely on the very creatures he’d feared all his life and had raised his children to fear all their lives, humans. Splinter had watched his sons almost die right in front of him while there was nothing he could do. So Leonardo understood his father’s behaviour in recent months and he was more than willing to comply.

As for Donnie… well, Leo had always known that Donnie was probably the most reserved of their family. Preferred to be left alone to watch his anime or new Kpop music videos. He still accepted and welcomed hugs, but the second he’d notice the playful headlock soon evolve into a wrestling match, he’d get the heck out of dodge as quickly as he could. It had been different once, years ago when they were much younger. But they weren’t as young as they were back then, and though Leo had been a little hurt that his youngest brother didn’t want to spend as much time with them as they used to, he understood that Donnie had simply grown to appreciate his personal space. And Leo was willing to respect that.

After the Superfly incident however, he was starting to grow concerned. Donnie almost never accepted any form of physical affection at all. He would completely dodge Splinter’s attempts to hug him and then pretend like he didn’t realise that’s what he was trying to do or that he just hadn’t noticed. If someone ever placed a hand on his shoulder, he would pick up said hand and move it away. He would uncomfortably shift away if someone ever stood or sat too close to him.

Initially Leo hadn’t cared, because he knew Donnie really appreciated his personal space, so he figured that it wouldn’t be too big of an issue and that in a few weeks he’d be lunging himself at Raph 20mph for eating the last grape flavoured pop tart and attempting to strangle him to death while Leo and Mikey struggled to pull them apart. But as the weeks passed by and nothing changed, he started to grow concerned. Especially after an incident two days ago.

He couldn’t remember the exact details leading up to the exchange, all he remembered was he was sitting on one of the couches in the living room, talking to Wing Nut. He couldn’t remember what they were talking about exactly, something to do with music. He could see Donnie in the corner of his eye standing in the doorframe, looking down at his phone. He remembered Splinter walking up to him and reminding him of a chore Donnie had seemingly been trying to avoid doing, because he then groaned and said he would get round to it, but he never actually finished his sentence. Instead he groaned, said he would get round to and yelped. The sound was high pitched and full of surprise, like a screeching parakeet, and was followed by the sound a of a smack.

As soon as he heard it, Leo sat up in his seat and turned to the source of the sound. Throwing off the hood of the oversized hoodie he was wearing so he could see better, but what he did see was more than a little confusing. Donnie was still stood in the doorway, but his phone was held in one hand which had now fallen limp at his side, while his other was wrapped over his lower plastron, he stared at their father with an expression that seemed to be a mix of surprise and guilt. Splinter was stood before him, his back was facing Leo so he couldn’t see his father’s face but he did notice the way he held his hand close to his face and the slight tremble and how the skin was already started to turn bright pink.

After a few moments Donnie’s eyes flickered away from Splinter and instead around the room, acknowledging everyone’s presence and all the eyes perceiving him. Leo noticed that Raph and Mikey - who had been sitting at the table playing some kind of card game with Mondo Gecko, Bebop and Rocksteady - had also looked up at the sound and were staring questioningly at their purple clad younger brother. Donnie took a step back, mumbled an apology, shoved his headphones over his head and, clearly embarrassed, turned around and left the room.

That had been two days ago. When asked what happened, Splinter explained that he simply went to touch his hand to his youngest son’s belly, but when Donnie felt the very unexpected sensation of a hand on his plastron, he’d been so surprised that he slapped his father’s hand away without thinking.

And since then, no one had really seen Donnie around the lair. They would occasionally catch him stealing some of the leftover vegetarian pizza from the kitchen, or slipping out of the lair in quite the hurry, as if he had somewhere to be - already with his headphones on and blasting Talk That Talk by Twice on the loudest volume he could handle, so calling out to him or trying to get his attention was futile. It was like he was avoiding them as much as possible.

Tonight Leo had stayed up late into the wee hours of 2 AM, playing Cards Against Humanity with Raph, Mikey, April, Mondo Gecko, Leatherhead and Rocksteady. They had wanted to invite Donnie but they couldn’t find him anywhere, so Mikey sent him a message which their youngest brother read and responded a full eight minutes later that he wasn’t feeling up for it. They’d felt bad as they had been trying to organise a time to play when Splinter wouldn’t be around to catch them playing a game they were ‘Far too young to be playing!’

After a few rounds, Leo decided that he was starting to get tired and the fact that out of sixteen rounds he’d only won one - Answering ‘A romantic Candle lit dinner would be incomplete without…’ with ‘An older woman who knows her way around the penis’ - was not worth trying to impress his crush, when he clearly wasn’t any good at it anyway.

When he walked into their shared bedroom, he was surprised to see Donnie laying in his tent, seemingly fast asleep with the covers pulled over his carapace as he lay on his plastron. His head rested on top of his folded arms. His laptop was in the tent beside his head, and it was still on, playing the episode of some Kpop variety web series. There was an open half full packet of Doritos on the floor in front of him, as well as a plastic cup with a little bit of bubblegum flavoured soda sitting at the bottom. He was even still wearing his mask and his glasses. The youngest turtle was not wearing his earphones, despite the wire clearly being attached to the laptop, as well as the slow, rhythmic rise and fall of Donnie’s back as he breathed and the low churring sound of a turtle deep in slumber.

Leo sighed and squatted down in front of the opening of the tent. He watched the South Korean band on the screen try and fail horrendously at a game of The Whisper Challenge for a few seconds, before slowly reaching into the tent and pausing the video. He closed the laptop and slipped it out of the tent, careful not to nudge his sleeping brother. He slipped the laptop inside of its case and placed it slumped against the shelf which contained all of Donnie’s little gadgets he’d built over the years.

He then grabbed the open end of the chips packet and slowly bent it backwards, cringing every time the bag made a particularly loud sound, until he sighed with relief once it was already closed. He then grabbed the cup, shrugged and drank the rest. He didn’t even like bubblegum, but he supposed it was better than wasting it. He stood and set the empty cup and half eaten bag of chips onto a table in the corner of the room.

One last time, Leonardo reached into the tent and this time lightly pinched his brother’s glasses and slowly manoeuvred them up and off Donnie’s head. He had to stop and hold his breath once when Donnie stirred, but thankfully didn’t wake, only moved his head and his left shoulder by a few inches. Eventually he was able to fully remove his little brother’s glasses and breathe a sigh of relief as he folded the glasses over and placed them on the table beside the chips packet and empty cup.

Leo stretched and yawned, walked across the room to his own bed and sat down on the squeaky, old mattress. He slipped off his knee and elbow pads and removed his belt, organising them neatly into a Nike shoe box, which he then shoved under the bed. He yawned one more time as he loosened the knot of his mask and slipped it down his face until it rested loosely around his neck.

Finally, he threw his legs onto the bed and laid down, pulling the covers over himself as he did. After about seven and a half minutes of tossing and turning, he thought he was finally beginning to doze off… only to still be wide awake another seven minutes later. He groaned and turned over so that he was now lying on his left side rather than his back and tried to run over some techniques for falling asleep he’d looked up one day when he was much younger. He tried counting while breathing slowly, but just as he got to 12, he opened his eyes in confusion.

Perhaps it was just his tired brain trying to conjure up some strange sound to keep itself entertained, but he could’ve sworn he’d heard something. Something which sounded like a voice. It was faint, and he couldn’t tell of it had even been a word or just a sound. He sat up and looked around the room to see if he could find the source of the sound, but he saw nothing. He glanced over at Donnie and found him in a slightly different position than earlier, but nothing out of the ordinary.

Leo sighed and went to lay back down again, but he heard the sound again. It was much clearer this time. Definitely a voice. But also not any particular word. It almost sounded like a whimper. And this time he also saw movement. Movement coming from the tent. Leo kept his eyes on Donnie, waiting for him to move again. He must’ve been having quite the dream, he thought.

Not a moment after he thought that, Donnie moved again, followed by what sounded like a groan and a sharp intake of breath. Leo watched in almost complete darkness of the room - Save for some light leaking out from under the door that lead to the living room, and beyond that the dining room where he assumed the others were still playing Cards, but trying to be as quiet as possible, because it was almost completely silent out there - as his brother rolled onto his back, his breathing picked up its pace and he began groaning even more, with a pained look on his face.

That was definitely no dream his little brother was having.

Leo wasted no time in jumping out of bed and rushing over to the tent. He flipped on the lamp - squinting at the sudden light so close to his face - and placed a hand on his brother’s arm, trying to gently break him out of his trance. “Donnie? Donnie, wake up!”

But it didn’t work, instead it only seemed to cause his brother even more stress. His breathing picked up its pace even more one might assume he was having a panic attack in his sleep and his groans turned to sobs, fearful sobs to be more specific. Or perhaps pants-shitting terrified was a more appropriate term for it.

Leo grit his teeth with anxiety. He pulled his hand away and immediately moved it to his shoulder, hoping that might help. “Donnie! Donnie, please, wake up!” But of course it didn’t.

He sat back stunned as Donnie began sobbing much louder. “Donnie! Donnie! What?! What’s happening-?! Hey!?”

Leo glanced over to the entrance to the shared bedroom, expecting to see Raph, Mikey, April, and at least some of their roommates to come bounding in at the sound of the sobs, which were only continuing to grow louder. But his eyes almost welled with tears as he realised they were the only two in the lair at that moment. Raph and Mikey had both agreed to walk April home, as it was already late. Leo knew this because he’d offered to go with them if he were still awake. They must’ve already left and forgotten to turn the light off. Splinter had gone out that for a fancy night out with Scumbug - as fancy as one couple could manage as a giant mutant rat and mutant cockroach - and they likely wouldn’t be back until the sun was almost up. As for their roommates, well… most of them liked to get out and about around this time. They liked to indulge in the fact that they no longer had to live in the shadows and would simply walk around for hours, basking in the cold air of New York City at night. Leatherhead, Mondo Gecko and Rocksteady must’ve decided to join them a little later than usual.

Feeling his own breathing begin to increase its pace, Leo quickly grabbed Donnie’s hand with both of his own and held it, gently running his thumb over his brother’s fingers. Cursing himself, Leo noticed Donnie’s phone inside the tent, beside where his laptop had been and snatched it up. Thankfully, Donnie didn’t have a lock installed on his phone, so Leo was able to very easily open up Google and type up - one handed - ‘How to wake someone from a nightmare’.

“The best thing to do is wait for it to pass but speaking to them in a calm and soothing manner can provide comfort.” He whispered to himself, noticing his voice shaking with fear. He could do that. He just needed to calm himself down first.

Donnie was still sobbing, now accompanied by groans with the occasional whisper that sounded like ‘No’ or ‘Please! Stop it!’

Leo took a few deep breaths, trying to calm himself. He sighed. “Donnie?”

Donnie wasn’t quieting down, but Leo didn’t know what else to do so he tried again. “Donnie? It’s me, Leo. It’s okay. You’re okay. I’m right here. I’m right here. It’s okay.”

Leo kept this up for another three minutes or so, repeating words and phrases along the lines of ‘You’re okay’ ‘You’re alright’ ‘I’m right here’ ‘You’re safe’. until finally Donnie seemed to have calmed down enough that he was no longer thrashing about under the sheets, and his sobbing had quieted down to heavy breathing. Leo sat back, feeling relieved.

He wondered if this was the first time this had happened. He doubted that. He couldn’t remember the last time his youngest brother had had a nightmare this intense. He used to get them all the time when they were younger. Especially when he was stressed. He knew Donnie had been prone to insomnia the past couple of years, but he wasn’t aware of any intense nightmares in the past five years or so.

Suddenly, his brother’s strange behaviour over the past two weeks made sense. The going to bed later then everyone else, the staying up late until everyone had already gone to bed, being the first one up in morning. If he was having nightmares every night, no wonder he was acting so distant. He didn’t want anyone to see him in such a state.

“Leo?” The sound of his nickname startled him from his train of thought, he audibly gasped and looked down to find Donnie with a look of confusion mixed with fear in his still Misty eyes looking up at him.

Leonardo blinked, noticing he too had a few stray tears building up in his eyes. “Donnie…” His voice was shaky and he realised he’d been holding his breath - for how long exactly he wasn’t sure, but given his reptilian biology it could’ve anywhere between a few second to a whole fifteen minutes. He shook his head, wiped the tears out of his eyes and held his youngest brother’s hand in both of his own. “I- sorry I… Are you okay?”

Slowly, Donatello sat up and looked around, taking in the darkness of their room, without removing his hand from his brother’s hold. “W-what…”

“You had a nightmare.” Leo answered quickly.

Donnie’s expression didn’t change, he remained staring at the wall beside Leo’s bed, with a confused, dazed expression, avoiding eye contact with this brother. Leo watched him for a few seconds more. He noticed his eyes darting around, trying to force his vision to adjust to the dark, or maybe trying to process what he’d just seen in his head, he wasn’t sure. He suddenly shivered, retracting his hand away from his brother’s hold and grabbing his shoulders with both hands.

Leo reacted instantly, moving his hands up but didn’t let them go anywhere near his brother. “It’s okay, you’re okay. You’re home now.”

Donnie was still silent, he turned around to look at the entrance to their bedroom, noticing the light seeking in around the curtain, but no sound came from beyond the room. “It’s just us… Raph and Mikey are walking April home… I think. Dad and Scum-bug are still out and I don’t know where the other guys are.”

Donnie stared at the curtain for a few seconds, slowly blinking. Leo noticed he was shaking. “You don’t wanna head back to bed yet?”

The younger turtle squeezed his lips shut and nervously shook his head. If Leo weren’t already sitting on the floor, the way his brother looked so terrified of something that wasn’t even there would’ve brought him to his knees. He grinned, painfully. “That’s okay… we can hang out until you’re feeling ready?”

Donnie finally looked at him. “That okay?”

Leo nodded. He stood and held out his hand for his younger brother to take. Donnie did and Leo led him over to his bed on the other side of the room.

“Come on, DeeDee-“ Leo almost choked as the nickname left his lips. That was one they hadn’t used in a good couple of years now. But Donnie didn’t seem to notice, that or he didn’t feel like responding.

Leo threw himself backwards onto his bed, the mattress roared in pain from the sudden weight slamming on top it. He sat with his legs dangling over the side, and Donnie slowly sat down next to him in the same position.

“You wanna talk about it?” Leo asked softly, hovering his hand over his younger brother’s own. Donnie gave no indication for him to move it away, so he looped it around Donnie’s hand so that their palms met with Leo’s - Slightly smaller - hand underneath.

Donnie seemed to think about it for a few moments and then shook his head. “It was horrific.”

His voice broke and he sounded as though he was about to break out into sobs all over again. Leo had to resist the urge to throw his arms around his youngest brother and hold him, not knowing if Donnie would be up for physical contact in that moment.

“That’s okay… wanna just talk? Take your mind of it?” He asked.

Donnie swallowed and nodded. “You played Cards Against Humanity?”

Leo chuckled, remember the chaotic events of the night leading up to his decision to leave the game and hit the hay. “Yeah.” He remembered how loud they’d all cackled whenever a particularly horrid card had been read out and momentarily felt the panic rise within him. “We weren’t too loud were we?”

Donnie shook his head. “Not too loud, I just kept my headphones on. Watched my shows.”

Leo nodded. “BTS?”

The younger turtle nodded again. “Yeah… and Demon Slayer. I’m already on Season 3.”

“Ah… favourite character so far?”

“Well I really like the main character, Tanjiro. Inosuke is really funny too. Probably Shinobu… the lady with the butterfly hairpin. She’s badass in like a smart way you know?” Donnie rambled.

Leo nodded as his youngest brother proceeded to infodump about the anime for another three minutes. He tried to keep up, asking questions, nodding and laughing along, he’d initially only struck up the conversation in an attempt to keep his brother’s mind away from the nightmare but as he continued to talk, Leo couldn’t help but think it sounded interesting, and maybe he’d give it a watch some day.

“So who won?” Donnie asked after a particularly long rant about a moment at the beginning of Episode 21 that supposedly had him wanting to scream “WTF” at his laptop.

Leo scrunched his brow in confusion before realising Donnie was referring to the card game. “Huh? Oh… probably Mike.”

A puff of warm air released from the younger turtle’s nostrils in a manner of amusement. “Not surprised. You loose?”

Leo shot him an unamused look. “You know me too well.”

“Yeah, because you’re painfully unaware of how uncool you are.”

Leo grinned and laid his head back. He’d noticed Donnie had stopped shaking a while ago, and his posture was much more relaxed. And though he spoke no louder than a whisper, he no longer sounded like he was about to break out into sobs with every word. “Guess that’s what I get for being in charge of you guys all the time. Oldest sibling who has no time to learn to be funny.”

Donnie scoffrd and Leo could’ve sworn he’d seen a grin cross his brother’s face. “That is such bullshit… We’re quadruplets. It doesn’t matter which one of us is older and which one of us is younger.”

Leo’s grin faded. Growing up he’d had the responsibility of being the oldest placed on him very early on. Splinter knew that he couldn’t raise four mutant turtle children completely on his own, so he found himself a helper in the form of his oldest son. Often Leo would be expected to be Splinter’s second-in-command, right hand man, lieutenant, leader when he wasn’t around you name it. If someone got hurt during training, Leo would be expected to fetch the first aid kit. If the TV broke again, Leo would be on standby while Splinter tried his best to fix it - this was before Donnie came across a few stray magazines on engineering in the sewers one day and decided he’d discovered his life purpose. If Splinter had a migraine, Leo would usher the younger three out of the room, fetch his father some ibuprofen, turn the lights off and keep the guys out of the lair until their father felt well rested. Of course, that didn’t mean Splinter expected him to be a second parent to his brothers 24/7, he understood his oldest son was just as much a young lad as his brothers were, he just needed a bit of extra help sometimes and Leo as the oldest was always expected to be that extra help. “I’m the oldest. I’m supposed to be responsible for you guys.”

“You don’t have to be.”

Leo wasn’t sure how to respond to that.

When they were young, it never seemed to matter to them. Being quadruplets they were the same age, so it didn’t really matter who was the oldest, or who was younger than who or who was older than who. But that didn’t stop Leo from always keeping his eye out and having a soft spot for his youngest brother.

Their father had spontaneously decided Leo must be the oldest one day as he seemed to develop the quickest of them. He began to understand concepts the earliest, emotion, object permanence, even holding small objects without breaking them or dropping them. And of course he’d been the first one to start speaking. Raph had followed soon after. Then Mikey. And finally Donnie.

Splinter had assumed that either he was just a bit of a late bloomer, had some kind of developmental disorder, or the easier option, he was the youngest. He opted for the easiest option. It made the most sense to him at least. After all, he was already smaller than his brothers.

“You feeling any better?” Leo asked after a few seconds of silence.

“A little bit.” Donnie shrugged, a clear indication that he didn’t want to discuss it.

“Have you been getting them often? The nightmares I mean.” Leo asked.

Donnie was silent for a few more seconds. “I think I’ve had the same one like… seven times in the last two weeks.”

The oldest turtle swallowed, trying to think of a response. “I mean I… I kinda get it. I haven’t really been able to sleep since the thing with Super-fly. I don’t why. I-I know that insomnia and chronic nightmares are really not the same thing. But yeah I… I think we’re all still coping with the whole Super fly thing and what he did to the city, and what he did to us, when he grabbed us and he made the whole city think we were monsters but-“

Donnie sighed, prompting Leo to almost instantly shut his mouth. “It wasn’t about Super fly…”

“It wasn’t?”

“No! It was that lady.”

Oh.

That lady.

That lady who spoke like she was from another planet and didn’t fully understood human languages yet, who’d knocked them out, dragged them back to her labs and hooked them up to a machine to harvest their blood to create super-soldier monsters.

When Leo remained silent, Donnie sighed and grabbed his head harshly with both hands. If he had hair he’d very likely be ripping it out in that moment. “The Superfly thing was bad enough but that lady… she… she was going to… I’m sorry I just can’t say it.”

“It’s okay. You don’t have to.” Leo reassured him, sitting closer.

“I...it was normal at first, we were all in the lair, a bunch of things I don’t really remember. And then we were all together in those labs and y…” he stopped and Leo realised he’d paused before saying ‘you’.

“It’s okay. I what?” He asked, morbidly curious to know what had happened to himself in Donnie’s mind.

Donnie swallowed and through the darkness Leo could see the tears building up in his eyes once again. “Dad didn’t get to us in time. They moved on from Raph and then started draining you. But… but they-they-they didn’t stop like they did with Raph and Mikey, they just k-kept-kept going and I-I think they even sped up the process. And-and-“

Truthfully, Leo was starting to feel more than a little terrified.

“-And you were screaming and you arms and legs were turning purple and-“

Leo didn’t hold himself back anymore. Without thinking, he threw his arms around his youngest brother, with one hand planted gently on the middle of his carapace and the other holding his head to his shoulder, allowing his youngest brother to cry against him, hugging him tightly. “I’m okay, Donnie. I’m not hurt, I’m alive. Raph and Mikey aren’t hurt. Dad got there, he got us out, and we’re okay.”

“But what if he didn’t get there in time?” The younger turtle cried.

Leo didn’t know how to respond. Half because he wasn’t expecting that and the other half because he simply didn’t have an answer.

He sighed. “I… I don’t know what would’ve happened. Look, I know you probably don’t want me to say this but, it was just a dream. I’m okay. Everything worked out in the end, April got to Dad, told him what was going on and he showed up and saved us.”

“But what if he didn’t?” Donnie repeated. “What if he didn’t get there in time? What if April really did leave us? Hell, what did that lady really want us for? And how did she know about the mutagen?”

Leo sighed. Even after all these years, he still has a soft spot for his youngest brother. “Look… Donnie. I don’t have the answer for everything. I don’t know why the universe works the way it does. I don’t know what exactly that lady wanted us for, or how she knew about mutants. I don’t even know why she talked like that. But… if there’s one thing I do know is that nothing is ever going to hurt you again. I’ll make damn sure of it.”

Neither of them said anything else after that. They sat like this for a few minutes more, the silence occasionally being broken by Donnie’s sniffling. After about five minutes, Leo noticed that Donnie seemed to have mostly calmed down. He was still sniffling a little bit and his breaths were shaky, but he was certainly doing a lot better.

Leo supposed that now he finally understood the reason behind his brother’s strange behaviour over the past two weeks. He wasn’t just traumatised, he was embarrassed. He didn’t want to let his family - who he had a sneaking suspicion already thought of him as just the baby of the family just because he was the last son to start walking on his own and therefore needed to be protected and sheltered - see him in such a vulnerable state and their thoughts about him to be reinforced. Leo knew it was no secret that Donnie - when he wasn’t using the youngest child card to his advantage - would try to act as though he were much older than he actually was. Like he was one of the oldest of the bunch. Like he could be dependable, responsible, mature even, somewhat of a lancer to Leo’s leader and that he didn’t need to have an eye kept on him or need help with everything. But of course it didn’t always work. His pre-pubescent voice, the fact that he was the smallest and least athletic of the bunch and his habit of latching onto the nearest older brother when he’d get scared or startled would always betray him. So if they knew he was having nightmares every night, that could only reinforce what they’d always thought of him as. Leo wanted to smack himself.

“How come we don’t talk as much as we used to?” Donnie asked. “When we were little.”

Leo shrugged. “I don’t know.”

There were a lot of things he didn’t know.

“You wanna sleep in my bed tonight?” Leo asked. Donnie nodded. He stood so Leo could pull the covers and then climbed in beside him, or rather on top of him, with their plastron pressed together and Donnie’s head lay on top of Leo’s chest. Leo didn’t mind. What he did notice though was that Donnie was still shaking. He didn’t know how he’d only just noticed, but it was clear as day to him now with the current position. He wrapped his arms around his youngest brother, one hand placed gently but firmly on his carapace, and the other on the back of his head.

“You can sleep. We’re all okay. We’re all alive. And we’re all together.”

Donnie wouldn’t admit it for another hundred years or so, but he was actually really glad that Leo had offered to let him sleep in his bed. Because that was most certainly the safest he’d felt in the past two weeks. And for the first time in two weeks was the first one in the lair to fall asleep.

About ten minutes after Donnie fell asleep, Leo could hear the unmistakable sounds of his other younger brothers stumbling back into the lair, trying to be as quiet as possible while simultaneously trying to laugh as quietly as possibly. Leo kept his eyes shut, not removing his hands from Donnie’s back or head and allowed himself to seem like he was already fast asleep. So when he heard the curtain entrance to the room get pulled aside, followed by a few seconds of silence and desperate attempts to muffle snickers, he knew that Raph and Mikey had spotted the position he and Donnie were in and one was pointing a phone with the camera app on straight at the two of them, while they both tried not to give themselves away, unaware that they already had until Leo spoke up.

“If either of you dipshits wake him up, I’ll smack you.”