Work Text:
The kitchen is quiet after you leave.
It takes Leo a moment to realize what just happened. The sticky sweet melon that clings to his skin like blood. The silence that hangs like a guillotine over his neck. The machine that he’d built himself. A throat, tight, that begs for the press of the knife.
Slowly, he looks at Donnie, and his stomach twists into a knot. He’s seen Donnie angry over the years. They’re twins; he knows his brother better, he thinks, than he knows himself.
But this… He’s never seen his twin like this. Face twisted with rage, vibrating with it. So furious and hurt his eyes well with tears despite the fact he refuses to let them fall.
Leo waits for the lashes. God, he fucking deserves them. He wants them. Some kind of self-flagellation, pious in his attempt to seek the light of redemption.
Hit me, he begs, pressing his lips together and feeling them wobble. Please. Hit me. Make it worth it. Please.
…Donnie doesn’t. He doesn’t punch, or hit. He doesn’t touch Leo in any way. He doesn’t even move, not for a moment. Not until Mikey takes a step forward, hesitant, towards the door like he doesn’t understand what just happened. Only then does he take in a deep shuddering breath and spin on his heel to leave the kitchen without another word.
Retribution, Leo thinks, hollow, tilting his head back and closing his blurring eyes. Nothing. No punishment to let him atone. Only this wretched, wretched guilt that has been eating at him every moment like an eagle pecking him apart the moment he begins to wonder if he’s finally felt the end of it.
You hurt that poor girl, he thinks, feeling his eyes burn. His best friend looking at him with icy hellfire eyes. With a gaze so empty he couldn’t see the depths beneath the broken black. Are you happy now? Are you satisfied? Does it feel better knowing you aren’t the only one in pain?
“Leonardo,” Splinter calls quietly, and Leo’s face cracks. He’d been yelling. Donnie had been yelling. You’d been yelling. There’s no way Splinter hadn’t heard. The awful things he’d said about Donnie—the awful things about you.
“…Yeah?” he answers. His voice is barely a croak to his own hearing.
Splinter doesn’t say anything, and again, Leo feels the lapping ocean of despair at his jaw. His lungs go tight, his diaphragm quivering in his chest. Won’t someone say something?
Leo looks at his father, and the disappointment on the rat’s face breaks his mask a little. Yelling he can take. He expects the vitriol, the fire, the mad fury. He expects the hate. But this—this quiet shame. A pitiable dysphoria grips him like a vice, making his skin crawl for the need to claw outside of his flesh and abandon the moment like a misfitting shell.
“…Is it true?” Splinter finally asks. His hands are behind his back. He’s giving a kindness Leo hasn’t earned; a chance to deny it. To defend himself. To protest his rightful treatment.
“…Yeah,” he whispers, casting his gaze to the side. He can’t manage to look his father in the eye. “…It’s true.”
Splinter pinches between his eyes. When his hand lowers, he looks tired. Older than he should. Fatigued in a way that scares Leo, makes his throat tighten as a mortal realization that his father’s time is finite, and he’s wasting it with this cruelty.
“…That poor girl,” Splinter mutters, shaking his head and turning away. That, he thinks, maybe hurts even worse than Donnie’s quiet anger. He bears it. There’s nothing he can say.
Leo follows his father’s departure with his eyes, and catches Raph in the doorway. He, too, wears a similar expression to their father; but he has more of Donnie’s rage, like it was too much for him to carry and some of it had to spill out somewhere.
Raph, too, is silent. Only the ambient sounds of the lair fill the space, forcing Leo to taste his pulse on his tongue. Metallic. Cold. Inhuman.
“…Do you think she meant it?” Mikey asks in a tiny voice, his hands wringing together at his chest. He looks like he could break into ugly sobs at any moment.
No more turtles, no more sewer trips, you’d snapped, the words so final it feels impossible to muster the fake bravado to comfort his baby brother.
Raph seems to agree. “…She sounded pretty serious t’me,” he says, glowering at Leo. But then he sighs, rubbing at the back of his neck. “Let’s just… give ‘er some time. Let everyone cool off. Give people a chance t’ breathe.”
Encouraging words from an effective leader, Leo thinks, clenching his teeth together so hard his jaw aches. Has he learned nothing? Has his blind jealousy really set him so far back? Is his progress from that pathetic teenager who ruined the world truly so fragile?
Mikey follows Raph out of the kitchen. Alone in the black abyss between the walls, Leo pulls out a sword and looks at his reflection in the gleam of the blade. He looks—sick. Pale. The kind of face that would have you fawning over him, pulling him close to rest the back of your hand on his forehead like that’s going to give you any kind of useful information, grabbing your phone and ordering in some soup for him to eat while the two of you crashed on your couch and watched some JJ.
His chest hurts. It’s been hurting for weeks. Again, he touches his cracks to see if they’ve widened, but the pain is all inside.
What did you do?! Donnie had hissed. And the answer comes as he presses his hand to his shell and feels the tacky remains of his hope he could fix his mistake. No—not a mistake. Donnie had made a mistake. Everything, everything—It was no accident. And this is the inevitable end, finally coming due. Melon, sticky like blood, coating his hands like he pierced you with them himself.
His fingers curl into a fist. With a swing of his arm, he cuts open a portal. He’s not sure where it’s going; only that he needs to be alone.
Leave me alone!
With a wince, he steps through and finds himself—somewhere. A rooftop. It’s dark and cold, and city lights glimmer before him like tiny stars. His ninpo feels stretched, like fairy dust in his fingers. Huh. Further than he probably should have gone. His instincts really took alone and ran with it.
Gingerly, he finds the edge of the rooftop and peers over the side down to the concrete, dozens of flights below. He sighs, then curls into a ball and stares at the night sky.
…You like the stars, he thinks, remembering the handful of times he’s caught you lingering on your fire escape looking up. It had been one of those little things that took to his skin like sandpaper, because Donnie likes the stars, too. One more reason that would have his brother looking at you—as if he needed any more. Same favorite movie. Same cute wrinkled nose when something grosses you out. Same work ethic. Same impulse to give and give and give to try and weigh your worth. Same secret stare filled with a quiet longing, just subtle enough that Leo’s sure he’s the only one to notice.
Disgusting, he’d thought once. You couldn’t be real. It was all a facade you were performing. Then, endearing. A charming personality too deep to fake. A soft shoulder given at will. Affection grown too late.
Pressing his lips together, he pulls out his phone and sends you a single text he hopes you’ll see.
sent (10:48 a.m.)
i’m sorry. i’m so, so sorry. can we talk? please? please talk to me. please.
Unsatisfied with the ability to reach out over text, he folds in on himself, hunching over and hoping, a little, to disappear. He sits on the rooftop, listening to the traffic far below, feeling the heat sap out of his muscles, for—hours, it feels like. He’s not sure. Only when his phone vibrates does he stir, checking out of obligation in case there’s an emergency. A blind spark of—terror? rapture?—that it might be you responding.
…It’s not, of course, of course. You wouldn’t text him so quickly. Probably never will again. A fool’s hope. When he sees instead that the message is from his twin, he gives a wry smile and sends back a snarky response to hide the hurt.
dontron (12:34 p.m.)
You need to come back immediately.
sent (12:34 p.m.)
finally ready to rip my head off? i’d thank you at this point.
dontron (12:34 p.m.)
She’s missing.
The air in Leo’s lungs freezes solid, his stomach clenching and the world all around him coming to a halt. Before he can remember to breathe, before he can worry about stretching his ninpo too far a second time, he’s cutting open a portal, reaching long and hard to get back to the lair, following the raised voices until he reaches the cistern.
“What’s—?!” he pants, though he’s cut off when Mikey leaps into his space with a panicked face.
“She was supposed to meet April for lunch, but she didn’t show up, so April called and it keeps going to voicemail and she’s not answering the door when Casey knocks and”—he takes in a deep breath as his voice starts to trail off towards hysterics—“we need you to portal into her apartment because something might have happened and I’m scared and she was so angry and—”
Portalling into your apartment. His throat tightens, and the conundrum makes his head spin. He needs to see you. Needs to know you’re safe. His shell itches with the need to know you’re okay, to get his hands on you and feel your flesh whole and safe in his palms. His family needs him. You might need him.
But—You’d forbidden him from coming in. Closed your space off to him. He’s already broken so many promises. He’d sworn to himself he wouldn’t break this one, not until he convinced you to let him back in.
He sucks in a breath, sharp as a knife, and shakes his head. “I—I can’t. She told me not to come back.”
“Fuck what she told you, she’s not answering her phone,” Donnie hisses, getting close enough that Leo can smell the coffee on his breath. Feral. An animal barely contained. “Do something useful for a change and open that portal or else I’ll tear the building apart one brick at a time to get inside. So help me, if something happens to her while you’re here waffling like a coward, I—”
Donnie’s voice shrivels up. He straightens his spine and glares. In his wet eyes, Leo can see his unsure reflection. Weak. Pathetic.
“Leo! Aren’t you worried about her?” Mikey wails, tearing at his forearms with sharp nails.
“Let’s go. Of course he isn’t. He doesn’t give a damn—” Donnie starts, but Leo cuts him off as he feels his hackles go jagged.
“Don’t you put words in my mouth,” he snaps, causing Donnie to roll his eyes violently.
“Please. I didn’t put anything into your mouth. You said as much yourself. To her face!”
“I told her how it used to be,” Leo spits. “Not anymore.”
Donnie scoffs. “Oh, because treating her worse than a dog is perfectly fine so long as you change your ways after she’s useful to you.”
“I love her, too!” Leo snarls, curling his fingers into fists and tightening his arm muscles so he doesn’t plant one on his twin’s jaw. One boundary, at least, he’s yet to cross. “Just because it’s different doesn’t mean you’re the only one who—”
“Enough!” Raph barks, cutting off the argument before it can get any more heated.
“He has five seconds before I’m going,” Donnie warns, borderline hysterical.
Raph nods. “Leo. Open the portal. I’m not asking.”
Pulse throbbing in his ears, he finds himself almost grateful for the command. An order to follow. An excuse to come close again in a manner where you won’t hate him for it. Quickly, he cuts open the portal to your bedroom, and follows his brothers through.
His heart twists into a gordian knot when he smells the familiar curl of your wax warmer in his beak. A sense of home, of comfort, twines around his vertebrae like a flowering vine; but the thorns of worry pierce, sure and painful. He follows behind where Donnie tears opens the door to your living room, hoping to god you’re on your couch and about to give him the tongue lashing of his life for crossing your line in the sand.
The couch is vacant. The kitchen is empty. A sudden vision of you, splayed on the floor in a pool of your blood, makes his stomach twist. No, no, no, no—He leaps forward, checking the ground, nauseous at the thought of your corpse. Nothing. The window is shut. The door is locked.
You’re… gone.
“…I don’t understand. Where’d she go?” Mikey asks, peering around.
Donnie makes a broken sound, and Leo whips around to see his twin staring at a disturbing sight: your phone on the counter, face down. A tendril of panic courses through his nerves; you always keep your phone on you. Only once before has he seen you leave it unattended, and the relief on your face had been clear even beneath the reluctance to take it back.
Someone has you. That must be it, he thinks, feeling his blood pressure spike as adrenaline floods his veins. They’ll fucking pay for it, too. His fingers curl around the hilt of his swords, teeth gritting as that familiar drive to protect family flares white-hot in his chest—
—only for it to snuff out to dust when he turns towards the kitchen, thinking to look for clues, and spies an odd shape in your trash can. A familiar shape. A gift he’d spent an entire afternoon pouring over, agonizing, laboring to pick the perfect one.
His sword clatters to the floor out of loose, inert fingers. He exchanges it instead for the picture frame.
…It takes him a moment to realize that his brothers are talking to him. His ears are buzzing. He can’t understand. A hand finds his shoulder, and he turns to see Raph’s annoyed face fall to concern. “…Leo?”
He can’t speak. He can only lower his gaze back to the picture frame, startled when a drop of water impacts the glass. No; a tear, he realizes, touching his cheek numbly and feeling the evidence. He wonders if this is what Donnie felt coming out of the hivemind. Like he’s here, but not. Like there’s a piece of him that should be here but isn’t.
“…She’s alive. And safe. I can feel her,” Mikey croaks, glowing a soft orange next to your couch. “…But I can’t find her. It’s like… It’s like she’s pushing me away.”
“She said she wanted to be left alone,” Raph reminds, though it feels like he’s describing a wound. His fingers are curled into fists, tight at his hips, shaking.
Stroking his fingers down the side of the photograph, Leo thinks about the look on your face when you’d told him about this picture. The intensity of the floral bloom in his chest. The way he’d thought, in that moment, that maybe he understood what Donnie saw in you.
“…あなたは一人じゃない,” he mumbles, feeling the weight of his brothers’ stares on his shell. He ignores them in favor of tender thoughts of you, curling his fingers around the frame and holding it gently against his plastron like a newborn, fragile and new.
Hope. Your hope.
Turning around, he levels a stare on Mikey. “You said you can feel her?”
“Yeah. Somewhere,” Mikey says glumly. “But…”
Leo bends down and picks up his sword, checking to make sure he didn’t ding your floor as his mouth curves into a wry smile when he thinks about you and that damned security deposit. You’ll have his hide if he bangs your place up. “…Come on. She’ll be back.”
“We don’t even know where she is!” Donnie protests, his fingers going tight on your phone when Leo reaches out a palm to take it, clutching it to his plastron like it’s worth its weight in gold. “No! I’m going to find her!”
Donnie’s nigh inconsolable, Leo recognizes. Frenzied. Wild-eyed. He’ll have to say something to comfort his twin, to give him, too, a piece of the August sunrise Leo’s borrowing from you to keep himself on his feet and not on the floor where he wishes he could be.
“She’s here,” Leo says, tapping his own plastron over his heart. “Mikey can feel her. And she’ll be back.”
“How do you know that?!” Donnie wails, his eyes starting to well up again. Distressed in a way Leo’s never seen his twin, before. “What if—What if she’s—?”
Leo jerks a thumb over his shoulder. Playing it cool. Donning a confident mask. Hoping he’s right. Trusting, for his brother’s sake, for his own aching heart, in how well he knows you. “She left her viola.”
Three sets of eyes follow his gesture and land on the black case tucked in the corner. Donnie’s lips tremble, but slowly, he reaches out and drops your phone in Leo’s waiting palm.
“We’re not—We’re not gonna look for her?!” Mikey says in disbelief, causing Donnie to scoff wetly as he scrubs at his eyes with the back of his forearm.
“I don’t care what Leo’s stupid, half-brained plot is. I’m not resting until I know she’s okay. It’s impossible to just fall off the face of the earth without a trail. I’m going to find her.”
As expected, Leo thinks with a fond, exasperated sigh. And, a little guiltily, he realizes he’d been banking on Donnie saying just that; as much as he wants to respect your space, he, too, feels the coil of worry in his gut. He tucks it away. Not yet. Not yet.
“…She’ll be back,” Leo assures again, looking to your photograph and taking in the long rays of the morning sun and pinching a bit of that orange-gold warmth that had kept you going for so long. “The Hamato clan sticks together, after all.”
Mikey’s eyes go wide. “I thought you said—”
Raph’s hand lands hard on Mikey’s head, and Leo’s heart thumps when he sees a small slice of satisfaction on his brother’s face. “Leo’s right. We just gotta think like ninjas t’ find her again. Right, Don?”
“Already on it,” he says, tapping away at the computer on his wrist. Grimly, he looks at Leo. After a long, withering stare, Donnie’s face turns back to his wrist. It’s more than he deserves, Leo thinks, letting the quiet rage in Donnie’s frigid voice hit its target. “…You and I will be having a serious discussion later when I can think straight.”
Helping him again and you’re not even trying, Leo thinks. He nods, and cuts open a portal. “Yeah. Sounds good,” he agrees; and with a flash of blue light, he brings them all back to a home that feels a bit too big for the people inside of it.
Leo enters his room without so much as looking at anyone else. Almost. Almost. Carefully, he props the photograph up on his bedside table. Almost. He strips off all his gear, then crawls into bed. Almost.
He looks over his shoulder. The room is empty. He’s alone.
Finally, Leo clutches the pillow he keeps that’s about the same size as your torso. Wrapping his arms around it tight, he burrows his face in it and feels his face crumple. The mask drops. Buried agony billows like wildfire, scorching his nerves, his chest wrenched open and bleeding like his shell has once more been torn asunder.
“…Please, be safe. I didn’t mean it. I’m so sorry,” he chokes over and over into the cloth, clawing it close to his face, wishing it was your ears and not his hearing his pleas, his entire body shaking from the force of his sobs as he remains haunted by the blurred sight of your hope in the trash. On and on until he grows nauseous enough to dry heave, somehow numb and flayed all the same.
The one thought echoes like a curse. An endless abyss. A forever nightmare. That empty stare you’d given, like your heart was now that place, and he’d been the one to send you there.
Come home. Come home.
I’m sorry.
Come home.