#anyway you can pry the star!leo has chronic pain headcanon from my cold dead hands

[mystic-blue]

a quick little brainrot dump for @ashwii 's celestial au because i'm obsessed <3 also might have made it a hint angsty bc i'm incapable of anything else...fair warning i haven't written in a HOT minute because grad school has consumed my life so sorry if this makes no sense : D

Leo watched from a distance as Mikey chased Raph, both of them grinning brightly and bounding with endless energy. Mikey's laughter echoed through the space between nearby planets, bright and ringing. Donnie sat perched on Earth's moon, calling out the occasional encouragement, but it was unclear who he was rooting for.

Sometimes Leo wondered why they all chose to stay here. There were galaxies upon galaxies to explore, endless maps of stars and open space, planets and asteroid belts all begging to be traversed. Their sense of self and domain had expanded greatly since their inception over a trillion years ago, after all. Leo twirled a constellation between his fingertips and thought about the stars he could sense at the edge of the universe, creations he had never seen himself.

He was about to move closer, to join Donnie, when a sharp pain flared to life in his abdomen. Leo winced as a distant star caved in on itself, Leo attempting to block out the pain and the distant agony. He tried to describe it to his brothers once when they were younger, but they had only ended up distressed and terrified. A dying star was an excruciating experience, a piece of Leo burning away with a ferocious intensity, consuming anything within reach. When he was younger, the pain was an unbearable constant. Now, it was an old wound, a familiar sprain that never healed. Stars perished all the time, a chronic ache in Leo's celestial bones that he had learned to bear with time.

(Sometimes he looked at Raph and wondered how long they had.)

Leo's instinct was to flee toward the dying star, some fruitless attempt at getting there in time to make sure they weren't alone at the end. Realistically, Leo knew it would make no difference. The few times he had tried to do that when he was younger had not ended well. Either he never made it far because of the overwhelming pain, or he got burned by the proximity.

He longed to visit every star in the sky, to let them know that he was there, that he cared about them, knew them. But he and his brothers lingered here, instead.

Sometimes Leo wondered why they all chose to stay here. Leo thought again about the stars he could sense at the edge of the universe. They were newer, brighter, and endlessly chaotic in their naivety.

He yearned to witness them.

If he were being honest, Leo and Mikey were free to roam, unrestrained in the breadth of their domain. Mikey was like Leo in a way, wincing every time a meteor burned away from existence, going quiet and distant for a while. Leo understood the pain of it more than Raph and Donnie ever could.

Donnie's domain was not nearly as extensive as Leo's and Mikey's, contained to the moons within this galaxy. Even still, he had room to move, to explore. Sometimes he said he could sense moons outside of this galaxy, a gleam of insatiable curiosity lighting up his eyes. It looked a lot like the way Leo felt when he expanded his awareness to all the places his constellations reached.

Leo tipped his fingers forward, palm up, and watched a shower of stars tumble off the ends of his fingertips. Mikey crowed with victory and Leo looked up to find him perched on Raph's shoulders. He was already melting a bit against the flames on Raph's back, but Mikey wasn't in danger yet. Leo caught sight of Raph's indulgent yet fond grin and it all made sense.

They had the entire universe to explore, sure. But Raph was here. The endless expanse of the unexplored universe and all her secrets and adventures meant nothing if Raph wasn't there with them. It was cold out there between suns anyway.

The burning ache of the dying star went dull in Leo's gut almost simultaneously with the heady thrill of a new one being born at his collarbone. Leo grinned, his smile full of starlight and eyes composed of the cosmos.

He joined his brothers, dragging Donnie into the chaos, in time for Raph to remove Mikey from his shoulders and begin their game of chase anew. He wouldn't trade this for the universe.