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tangledinink · 9 months

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In lieu of a new chapter-- I'm Sorry, Teenage Mutant What Now? one-shot! In which Leo cannot sleep, and events occur as a result. NOW UP ON ao3!!! Or, read below the cut!!!

It was another one of those.

Those little loops he got into sometimes.

Insomnia was kind of like that, funnily enough. Really hot-and-cold, waxing and waning, on and off, or at least it was for him. So sometimes, it really wasn’t so bad. He’d sleep relatively well for weeks at a time. Granted, it was never as simple as just laying his head on the pillow and falling asleep (could you imagine?), but with a little bit of work, he could eventually manage to get himself off to dreamland and get a good six or seven hours. And that was awesome, by Leo’s standards! It was great when it was like that!

But that was when it was good.

Sometimes, it was harder than that. Sometimes, it took herculean efforts to get himself to sleep each night. Sometimes, he’d be lucky if he got three or four hours, no matter what he did, with the occasional all-nighter sprinkled in here or there, just for the fun of it. And that was less than ideal for, like, a lot of reasons, obviously, but at least it was tolerable. That was kind of the usual for him, quite frankly, and he knew how to operate under such circumstances by now.

So, you know. Sometimes it was good. And sometimes, it was hard, but overall okay.

The real problem came when things… got away from him.

He knew how to weather a no-sleep kinda night. He was comfortable with taking the occasional L and just grinning and bearing it for the day. That was fine, it happened, not a huge deal. He could handle all that.

Two all-nighters in a row? Okay. Now we’re starting to run into a problem, but still not anything insurmountable. Things will probably suck for the day, but he’s capable of muscling his way through and remaining (mostly) functional. That’s what they made Red Bull for, obviously.

It’s on the third night, usually at around one in the morning, that he always starts to think that maybe he might be in real trouble. And that was really his downfall. The thinking.

Despite his best efforts, he’d always climb into bed on the third night, intending on getting, like, some bomb-ass sleep, finally, because surely his body is ready for it after two nights in a row, right? But then always, without fail, that stupid little voice in his head would eventually go,

Oh my god, is this the start of a Loop?

And he’d go, NOOOO, why did you say that!? Why would you jinx us like that!? Now the insomnia heard you!!!

And that would be that. A self-fulfilling prophecy. His stupid, dumbass brain would go, oh no, what if we get stuck in a Loop? and then his anxiety would kick in, grabbing onto the thoughts and sinking its teeth in and going, oh no, oh god, please, we’ve gotta sleep, this is night three, we can’t keep going like this! and his heart rate would pick up, and all his nerves would flash on stark and bright, and all the cogs would start spinning in his annoying, useless brain, everything switching on and going into overdrive…

Which, of course, would simply ensure that he wouldn’t be getting any sleep that night.

And then, all of a sudden, he’d be in a Loop.

That was when things were truly bad. When he was ‘Looping,’ so to speak, trapped in these dumb little circles, endlessly worrying and stressing about his inability to get to sleep and keeping himself awake. And the longer he went without sleep, the more panicked he’d get, and the less ability he’d have to keep himself in check and apply, you know, actual reason or logic to anything. And then he’d start getting desperate. He’d just do more and more stupid things to try to get himself to sleep, and he’d freak his family out and scare them, and then feel awful about it later.

He wasn’t allowed to hang onto his own trazodone prescription anymore because he had once, in a state of overtired delirium and panic, accidentally taken too much.

He had been fine, really, it wasn’t like he took that much-- he mostly just gave himself a killer headache. But he sure had freaked Dad out. And maybe also himself.

He hated worrying them. And he knew they all already worried about how much he slept as, like, a baseline, let alone when things were bad, even if bad only came around every few months or so. Especially because it wasn’t like he wasn’t trying. He really was! He tried so frickin’ hard. His dad had dragged him to, like, a dozen different sleep doctors and specialists or whatever (that brave soul, he always shook like a leaf every time, which Leo also hated,) and they’d tried twice as many different medications and tricks and home treatments or whatever, but nothing actually, truly fixed the problem. Not forever, anyway.

The point was, it sucked.

He didn’t like it.

It was stressful, and it was unpleasant.

And, quite frankly? It was scary.

And the longer he was awake, the scarier it would be, because the longer he was awake the less he could trust himself. When he was like this, even the simplest of tasks would suddenly become so freaking hard.

Leo was not a chef by any means, but he was competent enough that he could at least do simple things like make a sandwich or cut up an apple for himself. But he only had to nick himself with a knife once, clumsy with sleepiness, for his Loop Self to suddenly be terrified of the kitchen.

Likewise, Leo though typically perfectly capable of navigating the streets of the city, but only had to get a bit turned around and confused on a single occasion for his Loop Self to be petrified of leaving the house alone-- even if he had found his way in a matter of minutes that first time.

It only took him sending one stupid sleep-drunk text to the wrong person by mistake for his Loop Self to become too frightened to text people for fear of somehow sending something awful to the wrong person and promptly destroying his social life.

It didn’t matter how unlikely or niche the fear was. Every time he got like this, his Loop Self would find more ways to be anxious and more things to be terrified of. And the longer he was awake, the more paranoid he would get.

This was his fourth night.

This wasn’t the longest Leo had ever stayed up, but that was of little comfort to him at the moment. During the day, it really wasn’t that bad. Like, yeah, Loop Leo would always be there, kind of whispering in his ears, but it was a lot easier to ignore them in the light of day. He could still be a person during the day, at least, mostly, even if he was afraid the entire time. But at night? Once it was dark out and the rest of his family had gone to bed?

That was when Loop Leo truly came out to play.

And looping he most certainly was doing, pacing anxiously through his room and tugging at his hair, his nose wrinkled up as he scowled.

You should lie down. Like. Get in bed? So you can sleep? You can’t go to sleep if you’re not laying down, and you need to sleep, Leo pointed out.

What if something happens while we’re asleep? Loop Leo countered. Besides, we can’t lie down. Laying down makes us feel like we’re losing it. Can’t you feel how much energy we have?!

That’s not energy. That’s anxiety, Leo argued from his current spot, way in the back of his own mind, trapped in some tiny metaphorical cage. But, of course, he was ignored.

‘Cause the real bummer of the matter was that the later it got on nights like this, the more ‘Loop Leo’ and ‘Leo’ kind of blurred together, until they were basically just the same person.

He paced for a while, spiraling around his room. He checked the locks on all his windows, and then he went downstairs and checked all the doors and the security system. He then almost set off said security system because his brain was so foggy and moving so slowly that he nearly mistyped the password. And then when he realized his close call, he had spent some time stressing about that, too, laying on the couch with his face buried in the pillows, because he just didn’t wanna be in one place right now, and besides, his room felt too small to be in anymore.

Leo groaned softly, rolling over onto his front, pulling the pillow over his head as he did so. He thought quietly to himself that he should have asked Dad for sleepy drugs, but then he would have worried Dad, and Dad would be stressed, and he didn’t even know if it would work for sure, and what if he poisoned himself, somehow, actually?

That’s literally why Dad holds onto the drugs. So that doesn’t happen. Just go wake him up! He won’t mind. He’ll give you the drugs. He’ll give you the correct dose!

Nope, absolutely not. We cannot do that. Leo whined to no one in particular, rubbing at his face with his hands and rolling over onto his feet again. And he kind of stumbled a bit, and nearly fell over, but he didn’t.

He couldn’t stay in one place anymore. It was driving him crazy.

He went down to the Lair. He played video games for, like, an hour and a half, and he lost every single one. He thought about playing Minecraft or something simple like that, but he was afraid he’d accidentally fuck it up and then be crushed about it later, so he didn’t. He laid out the gym mats with the intention of practicing some of his gymnastics routines that he was working on, and then thought, what, are you crazy? Right now, like this? You’ll break both your legs. You’ll get a head injury and die. So he put the mats back away.

His sleepy brain thought about messing with some of Donnie’s stuff for a minute, ‘cause it might be funny, and then the anxiety brain went, are you insane!? And so he talked himself out of it at the last minute, heading back upstairs.

He checked all the windows and doors, (again,) and then peeked his head into his Dad’s room, just to make sure that he was still there and alive. He was, and was furthermore snoring softly in his bed, and Leo internally sighed in relief. He did another lap around the ground floor before he went up to the second, and did the same exact thing. Checked all the windows, and then checked on Mikey and Raph. And, just as he expected (or rather hoped?) they were both there. Mikey was all curled up in bed, snuggled up with his pillow, and drooling slightly on himself. His limbs would kind of twitch every now and again as he dreamed, and Leo smiled a tiny bit at the sight. Raph was splayed out across his mattress, amongst all his blankets and pillows and stuffed animals, his limbs flopped out in every which direction. Leo watched him for a little bit, too, his arms crossed over his chest as he leaned against the doorframe, watching as his chest slowly rose and fell with each breath.

He stayed there for a few minutes, lingering on each family member for a spell before he finally moved on, closing the door behind him as he quietly could.

He made his way back up to the third floor. And he kind of had one of those ‘out-of-it’ moments for a second there and got dizzy and sort of blacked out real quick and almost fell, but then he didn’t. He caught himself, so it was fine, totally fine, but he still kind of rushed a bit the rest of the way up the stairs because suddenly he was sort of scared to be on them.

Once he reached the top, he ended up sitting in the hall for a bit, clenching and unclenching his fists and staring up at the ceiling. Eventually, he laid down on the hardwood floor, curled up on his side, and closed his eyes, like somehow this would be the fix and laying in the middle of the floor was the answer and he would finally be able to fall asleep like this. He stayed there for maybe five minutes before he gave up and got back to his feet, and he wandered towards Donnie’s room to do the exact same thing he had just done on the last two floors.

Very carefully, very quietly, he cracked open the door, leaning through the doorway to peek his head in, blinking a few times to adjust to the lighting.

And Donnie was there. Bundled up in bed beneath his weighted blanket, fast asleep, just like the rest of his family. Just like Leo had known (hoped) he would be.

See? Leo told himself. He’s fine. Everyone is fine. Chill.

And that should have been enough, right? That should be fine. He had physical eyes on him. He could see him, right there, literally, like, five feet away.

The problem was that Donnie always slept under the covers, with his big weighted blanket layered up on top, curled up into a little ball. And his back was on Leo right now, facing the wall, leaving him with only a view of the back of his head.

So he couldn’t see if he was breathing or not.

This is stupid, Leo protested. Of course he’s breathing. Why wouldn’t he be breathing?

What if he’s not? Loop Leo countered. Something could have happened. He could be dead.

He’s not dead. And even if he was, what would we do about it? Cast Revivify? Use a Max Revive?

Maybe he’s dying.

Maybe he’s dying right now.

Maybe he just stopped breathing, just now.

Maybe he stopped breathing just before we came in, and he’s still alive, but not breathing, and we could still save him. What if we’re watching him die right now? What if he’s dying right now in front of us and we’re just watching him?

What if he’s dying, and he dies, and then we’re just one person instead of a set? What if we have to live without him? What if we never talk to him again? And we can’t ask him for help with our homework ever again, or play Mario Kart with him, or show him dumb botany memes that make him laugh? What will you do when you see a stupid science joke and you wanna send it to him and make fun of it with him? What then?

What if he dies and leaves you and you let it happen?

He’s dying right now and you’re watching it happen.

Do something!!!

Leo’s feet were moving before he even realized they were.

He kind of stumbled a bit in his rush, not being the most coordinated person at the moment, only just managing to avoid face-planting right into Donnie’s bed frame. He kind of ended up flopping against Donnie’s bed, half falling on top of him, grabbing onto his blanket to hang onto and using his free hand to grab him and shake him.

“Donnie?” He hissed frantically, practically digging his nails into his brother’s form through the blankets. “Donnie!? Wake up!” He tightened his grip as his heart climbed up into his throat, because oh my god, he was dead, he wasn’t waking up, and he didn’t know what to do, and he was about to start screaming for their dad--

“Wha--? Leo? What the fuck is-- The house had better be on fire--” Donnie slurred, his voice weighed down with sleep, and Leo kind of paused for a moment, stopping dead and staring at him.

All he could hear was his own heartbeat pounding wildly in his ears.

And then he sobbed, immediately throwing his arms around his twin and clinging desperately to him.

Donnie chirped in surprise, sort of floundering, his eyes wide as he stiffened.

“Leo? What’s going on? What’s wrong?”

“I-- I thought you were dead--” Leo wept pitifully, burying his face against his shoulder.

“... Why would I be dead?”

“I-- I couldn’t see you breathing!!!”

“Leo, what the hell are you talking about? And why are you in my room?”

Leo hiccuped weakly, because, like, he didn’t actually have a good way to answer that? Hostage-Leo rattled the bars of their metaphorical mind cage and fucking wailed because oh my god, STOP, you are embarrassing yourself and being soooo fucking insane right now and it is NOT CUTE, get it together right this fucking instant!!!-- But actual, physical Leo did not have it together. Not in this instant or any of the following instances. He just wept and burrowed in closer to Donnie, hugging him as tight as he possibly could, and he knew he was probably pissing him off and he had just woken him up and he probably didn’t like this, but he had just--

He had been so fucking scared that he was dead.

He had been so scared that he was gone forever, and he’d never ever see him again.

Donnie sighed deeply, reluctantly wrapping an arm around Leo as he whimpered into his shoulder, giving him a few awkward pats on the back.

“You’re totally sleep deprived, aren’t you?”

“Y-yeahhhhhh…”

“Are you in a Loop?”

“Mm-hmm…”

“How many days has it been?”

“Foouuuurrrrrrrrr…”

“Jesus christ, Nardo.”

“I love y-youuuu…”

“Why didn’t you ask Dad for meds?”

“I don’t knowwww…!” Leo sobbed, because how the hell was he supposed to explain that, actually, he was too scared to do that because what if he somehow accidentally poisoned himself and died? That just seemed like wayyy too much to try to unpack at four in the morning, quite frankly.

“Oh my god. You’re so stupid…”

“Y-yeah…”

“And you’re totally losing it, I assume?”

“Mmm…”

“Okay,” Donnie sighed, patting Leo’s shoulders a few more times. “Come on. Get up.”

Leo whined loudly, tightening his grip in response and curling up closer to Donnie, all but koala-clinging to him while Donnie huffed a bit at the increased weight.

“Lee, come on--”

“Please lemme stay! I promise I, I won’t w-wake you up again--”

“You can stay, Nardo, but we’ve gotta go get meds first, okay?”

“Noooo…”

“Yessssss,” Donnie insisted, imitating his drawn-out, whiny tone, trying to pry his brother off of him. “Come on. You’re fucked up, so just let me fix you already, dum-dum. We’ve just gotta go downstairs and get your meds from Dad, alright?”

“I don’t wanna take meds…”

“Yes, you do, your brain is just operating at an even lower capacity than usual right now,” Donnie insisted, finally managing to worm his way out from under Leo and get up to his feet. Leo whimpered, a tiny bit of panic flaring up in his chest, attempting to chase after him and grab him back, but Donnie quickly danced out of the way, purposefully standing just out of arm’s reach.

“Come on. I’m going downstairs to get Dad. So if you wanna hang out and not be all by yourself, you’re gonna have to follow me,” he said firmly, crossing his arms over his chest and fixing him with a hard stare.

Leo groaned softly, taking a moment, rubbing at his face with his hands and crying for just a tiny bit longer. He was feeling very miserable and frightened, as well as feeling very stupid for being so miserable and frightened. But even more than either of those, he just felt exhausted, and so very much did not want to have to get up or move or do anything else.

But even more than that-- he didn’t wanna be alone.

Finally, after several long moments, Leo gathered up just enough resolve to get to his feet, only wobbling a little bit as he did so. He reluctantly followed Donnie out into the hall, hanging onto their hand like a lifeline and sniffling softly. Honestly, he was being so brave about this. As soon as they approached the stairwell, however, he stopped short, digging his heels in with a whine and pulling back against the other.

Donnie sighed, his shoulders slumping with quiet exasperation.

“Leo, we’ve gotta go downstairs, remember?”

“Dee…”

“Leo.”

“I don’t wanna.”

Donnie quirked a brow.

“Okay, and?”

“I’m gonna fall down,” he hissed out, his voice absolutely drenched in worry, cracking the tiniest bit at the end. Much to his chagrin, he could feel himself tearing up again, but what if he did? He almost had coming up! What if he fell down and fractured his skull or something? Or even worse, what if he fell and took Donnie down with him, and fractured his skull?

Donnie absolutely rolled his eyes at him.

“Leo, you’re not going to fall down. You are literally an award-winning acrobat. And I am also literally an award-winning acrobat. And I am holding your hand right now,” he said, shaking his arm as if to demonstrate. “And they’re stairs. I think that we can handle it with our powers combined. It is fine. You’re not gonna get hurt. I’m right here. Chill,” he pressed. “Are you ready?”

Leo wrinkled up his nose, hesitating. Donnie narrowed his eyes.

“Okay, look,” he huffed. “You can stay here if you want, but I have to go downstairs to get Dad so we can get your meds. So you can either wait up here, and I’ll be right back, or you can come down the stairs with me and we’ll go together. It’s your choice.”

Okay, fine. He’d brave the stairs. If he had to choose between risking the trip down or letting go of Donnie, who had literally just almost died, (... kinda,) then the stairs were definitely the lesser evil.

Inhaling sharply and steeling himself, they started the trip downwards.

And would you believe it?

They were fine.

He got a little overwhelmed and dizzy at a few places, but each time Donnie kept a hold on his arms, hanging onto him to make sure he stayed upright until it passed, and, hey, you know what? It turns out that he was, in fact, still fully capable of walking down stairs. Who knew? Hahaha…

Once they were on the ground floor, Donnie wasted no time in heading down the hall, towing Leo along by their connected hands into their dad’s room.

“Dad,” Donnie hissed softly, reaching over to try to shake him into consciousness. The poor man had been dozing quite peacefully up until now, and sort of twitched and snorted in his sleep slightly, mumbling to himself.

“I swear I’ve never been to Dallas…”

“Dad! Wake up!” Donnie pressed, a bit louder now, nudging him a few more times, until finally, their dad startled awake, his head jerking upwards as he blinked blearily.

“Hm…? Purple…? What’s… What’s wrong…?”

“Mom, I frew up,” Leo mumbled sleepily, extending his shoulders forward slightly to try to do the pose. Donnie whipped around to absolutely glare at him.

“Are you seriously quoting a fucking meme right now!?”

Leo giggled softly, maybe a bit hysterically, covering his face with his free hand and slumping against Donnie. His brother sighed loudly, rolling his eyes and scowling.

“Father, Leo needs his trazodone.”

Their dad was still clearly half-asleep, and it took him a second to process this, but to his credit he caught on fairly quickly, looking between the two and humming softly.

“Of course, of course…” he said, rolling over slightly in bed so he could begin shuffling through the drawers of his nightstand. Donnie, in the meantime, hoisted Leo off of himself, shoving him instead onto the bed.

“Sit.”

“You too!” Leo protested, and Donnie grumbled.

“Yes, okay, I’m also sitting. See me sitting?” He said, gesturing to himself with a flourish as he plopped down by his brother’s side, elbowing him a bit. “Here. Move over. Not, not there, there-- Stop it. If you fucking touch my face I’m going to fucking end you I swear to god--”

“Blue,” their father interrupted, tapping his shoulder to get his attention. Leo blearily turned to face him, blinking slowly, and his dad very carefully pressed a little white oval pill into his palm. “Here.”

Leo stared for a moment, processing. And then he picked the pill up in his fingers, examining it carefully.

One. There was one of them.

And he was pretty confident it was trazodone.

And there was just one. And it was 150mg. He was supposed to have 150mg. This should be… right. It should be okay. He was… 80% sure. He counted a few more times, just to be safe.

“It’s the right dose, Blue. It’s alright. I double-checked,” Dad assured, passing them over a glass of water from his bedside table as well. “I promise it’s okay.”

“You’re fine, Nardo,” Donnie mumbled, having already flopped down onto his stomach, curled up against his twin’s side. He reached over so he could rub Leo’s back. Or maybe kind of smack it. Flail his arm at it? “Dad won’t fuck it up or poison you. Please just take your meds.”

And Leo considered this for a second. And yeah, okay.

He supposed that checked out.

He was still scared. But he took the pill anyway, tipping his head back to swallow it down.

“Thank you,” Dad said, resisting a yawn, plucking the water back from his hands to place out of harm’s way before patting his back a few times. “Come on. Lay down.”

Donnie muttered what might have been agreement, snuggling his way under the covers, his eyes already closed. Leo hummed softly in response, and then very slowly, carefully, eased his way down in bed beside the others.

He blinked up at the ceiling, shifting a bit to settle in, laying his head down against the pillow. Donnie adjusted the blankets around Leo, yanking them up over him, wriggling somewhat to force Leo to scootch over slightly so he could curl up against his side. And on his other side, Dad settled in as well, rolling over slightly so that he could wrap an arm around Leo.

And so Leo settled in, too.

And he waited.

Waited to see if the drugs were gonna kick in properly and knock him out or not.

And it was kind of nice, at least, because he could feel both of them breathe like this.

He started doing that thing he tried to do sometimes, where he made a mental list of some random category in alphabetical order, because, in theory, it would help you get to sleep. He was doing comic book characters this time, rolling his tongue around in his mouth as he stared up at the ceiling.

Astro Boy. Batman. Catwoman. Daredevil. Eddie Brock. Fantastic Four. Ghost Rider. Hawkgirl.

He was surprised when, in his second rotation through the ABC’s, he heard Donnie very softly mumble.

“Are you asleep yet?”

Leo gaped for a moment.

“... You’re not?”

“No, dum-dum. I’m waiting for you,” Donnie whispered in response, and he heard his father very softly hum on the other side of him, drawing him in just a bit closer and giving him a gentle squeeze.

“... You don’t have to--”

“Shut up,” Donnie interrupted. “Are you doing the deep breathing thing?”

“... No, I’m doing the alphabet thing.”

“Okay. Keep going,” Donnie bade, nuzzling up against his shoulder slightly, and Leo couldn’t help but smile.

“Yeah. Okay,” he whispered into the darkness of the room, laying his head back down again and settling in properly this time, sandwiched between the two.

“Oh. Also, I love you too. Let the record show that I said it back.”

Leo laughed a tiny bit.

He closed his eyes.

Iron Man. Jean Grey. Kitty Pryde. Lightspeed.

… Moon Knight… Nightcrawler…

…Obelix…

…

… Professor X…

…

… … …