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spectrumscribe · 7 years

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These Days

Inspired by both my utter salt for the current brother-brother dynamics in canon, and the song These Days by the Black Keys.

Previous part, first part, and AO3 version of the series.

Now with a narrative soundtrack to the first four chapters, found here on my 8tracks.

Chapter summary:

To tell a child who they're meant to be, that they have a single destiny, a single future, is to set them up for failure.

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Part Five.

“From now on,” Leo says, continuing despite the shocked noises Raph and Mikey are making. “I’ll be our Sensei, and I’ll expect your respect for that position. It was our father’s dying wish, and I’ll see that I carry it out.”

He sits straight, head held high, and squares his shoulders for the new responsibility he’s just accepted. It’s been long enough spent mourning; he needs to stand back up and continue to be the leader he is to his family. Their father is gone and Leo spending his nights and days missing him won’t help anyone.

He needs to be strong. He needs to be unfaltering. He needs to be the Sensei his father knew he would one day be.

This is destiny. He needs to meet it head on, for the sake of his remaining family.

Raph might take some talking into it- he always does with these things- but at least Leo knows Donnie and Mikey will accept the change in things. While Raph remains someone Leo has to watch for the occasional insubordination, their younger brothers are reliable to always follow orders in the field. It eases some of the worries in Leo’s mind, of something going catastrophically wrong again and this time he’d lose everyone and not just one person-

Donnie nods vaguely, and seems off in his head again. He’s obviously agreeable to how things are going to change, which won’t be much if they’re truthful. Donnie always can see the bigger picture to things, and Leo appreciates that he understands how it’ll play out from now on.

Mikey meanwhile is still giving him a confused and somewhat doubtful expression. “Are you sure that’s what Splinter said?” he asks, stressing his words.

“Yes,” Leo replies confidently, zero hesitation in him. It’s the truth. It’s the truth and it’s the last truth his father ever told him. “He told me,” His throat clenches for a brief moment. “a few hours before we went to rescue Karai and Shinigami.”

Mikey opens his mouth for a moment, and then closes it. Staring at Leo. Donnie remains quiet, eyes focused on something past Leo.

Meanwhile, Raph’s expression slowly shifts, from confused to awe in a strange way, and then he says a quiet, “Huh,” and scratches the back of his head. “You know, I kind of knew it’d happen someday, but… wow.”

Leo smiles warmly. “I know. It was a lot to take in, but I’m proud to do this. It’ll be a bit of an adjustment, even for me, but… this is what he wanted.”

This is what their father wanted. For him, for them, for all of their futures.

It’s a heavy burden, but he’s more than willing to bear it. After all, it’s what he was always destined to do.

He’ll always miss his Sensei, miss being a student and having someone to look to for advice. But, everyone has to grow up sometime, and this is his time to do so. Leo’s been heading for this point his entire life, and all that’s left is to accept it.

He does. He accepts it, and he’s ready. Ready for the responsibility of being a true leader, a Sensei. A mentor to his whole family.

He can do this. He’ll do exactly what his father wanted him to, and he’ll do it without hesitation. This is what the rest of their lives are going to look like; him, at the head of their family, and his brothers, following his lead as they embark on whatever comes after their war.

Leo keeps smiling as Raph starts teasing him about testing his skills one more time before really accepting Leo’s mentorship, and Donnie and Mikey remain quiet as they digest what Leo’s told them. They’ll accept it fully soon enough, no rush. After all, they’ve got their whole lives ahead of them to do so.

But then Leo wakes up one evening, weeks after that first one, and finds Donnie and Mikey’s beds empty.

It takes a while to notice it. After he gets up, Leo goes straight into the dojo. A short prayer to his father’s altar, and then he gears up for an early evening solo training session. Just to warm up, to erase any lingering fatigue from a restless day’s sleep.

He likes training. It’s simple, straight forwards. More familiar than his own name is. Even when nights or days happen where it feels like his world’s been flipped upside down, or he’s struggling to find even ground to stand on, there’s always training. There’s always the sound of his swords slicing through the air, constant and comforting until he sheathes them.

He loves training. Loves it. There’s nothing else so simple, so easy to control. Every move planned, every step placed as it’s needed, every intake of breath steady and patterned.

It’s just him, the dojo, and his swords when he’s training alone. It’s possibly his favorite state to be in, out of all the states he’s been in. It’s definitely better than his worst ones.

He stops somewhere around eight. Exactly one hour of training complete and done with. Leo’s legs and arms burn pleasantly, and he feels collected in his wits. Ready for another evening with his brothers, their friends and whatever the night will bring.

He goes into the kitchen after a rub down, and finds that there’s still no one else awake. Not unusual, since Mikey tends to sleep through most of the evening these days, and Raph refuses to rise before eight thirty. God knows when Donnie will; either he’s already awake and has been awake all day, and will crash soon enough from a sciencing spree. Or, he’ll stumble out of whichever room he passed out in, grab coffee, and disappear back into wherever his head is this evening. Leo rarely knows, and doesn’t ask unless it’s vital to a mission for Donnie to be in good form. Their father always seemed to trust Donnie to know what he was doing anyways; Leo sees no reason to change that method of handling Donnie’s eccentricities, now that he’s the one in charge.

Raph joins him in the kitchen five minutes past the half hour, and blearily steals a piece of Leo’s cold dinner leftovers.

“You know when Mike’s getting up?” he asks after a yawn. Raph bites into the quarter of grilled cheese he stole, chews, and swallows. “I want real breakfast food for once.”

Leo shrugs, and sets down his most recent sci-fi novel pick. He only got it a week ago, and he’s taking his time to savor. “Maybe you should go wake him up. He shouldn’t sleep in so long anyways, it’s not healthy.”

“Mgh, yeah, guess I should. He’s such a little shit when he first gets up, though.”

“Like you’re not,” Leo comments blandly.

Raph shoots him a glare, which Leo ignores, and then stalks back out of the kitchen. Apparently, Leo’s brother’s need for warm food overrules his annoyance with having to deal with a sleep-stupid Mikey. Leo will have to snitch off that platter of whatever Mikey whips up, before Raph and their brother eat everything.

Donnie should really show himself soon, otherwise he won’t get a share of it at all.

Leo finishes the last bits of his grilled cheese, just as Raph comes back into the kitchen.

“Did he say somethin’ about going out at all tonight?” Raph asks. “Because he’s not in his bed.”

“…not that I remember?” Leo says, thinking back to the previous night. All he gets is Mikey’s usual string of nonsense; all of it melding together into a cloud of meaningless noise.

“Text him. I’m gonna poke in the lab and see if he’s bothering Donnie again.”

Leo nods, and stands up from the kitchen island. Raph and he separate, going opposite directions in their home. Leo hears the lab doors pulled open as he ascends the stairs into the bedroom hallway, and he heads towards his room to get his t-phone off the desk where it’s been charging.

On a whim, he stops to open the door into Donnie’s room; just to see if Donnie’s asleep and Mikey’s been messing in the lab unsupervised.

Leo opens the door completely when he sees no one is in bed, and scratches his throat idly. Odd, since he hasn’t heard any explosions or yelling from the lab this evening so far, and neither of those is ever absent when Mikey starts interfering with Donnie’s things, while Donnie is still present.

Leo turns to walk away, and then pauses in the open doorway.

Wait.

…has Donnie’s room always been so empty looking?

Leo hears footsteps approaching, and he steps backwards into the hallway again. Raph comes towards him with a terse grimace, and before Leo can ask him about the contents of Donnie’s room and if he’s imagining things, Raph says-

“They’re not in the lab, and the door out to the garage tunnel was open. The Shellraiser’s gone.”

Leo’s brow furrows. That’s… weird. “Are you sure they’re not in there? You know how lost Donnie gets in all those machines of his-”

“Yeah, but there’s something about that too,” Raph interrupts. His grimace gets deeper. “You ever notice that his lab isn’t as crowded as it used to be?”

“…what?”

“Like. Most of his shit is gone. Gone, gone. Not wrecked or pushed to the side, but… missing.”

Leo stares at Raph, trying to make sense of that sentence. Maybe Donnie’s just spring cleaning and Mikey is helping him, as unlikely as those scenarios are. But… what about his room? Donnie never gets rid of anything in there; he’s always packing it away into some nook or cranny to save for later, claiming they never know when they might need something.

Leo steps out of Raph’s way and points into Donnie’s bedroom. “You should look at this, then.”

Raph turns towards the open doorway, and moves closer to it. He reaches in, and as he turns on the light, Leo’s suspicions are confirmed.

The shelves of Donnie’s room are strangely empty, only a few books and miscellaneous objects left on them. His bed is neat and made, in a way it never is. His stacks of laptops are all gone.

Leo doesn’t see Donnie’s bo staff anywhere, and his brother hasn’t left it behind anywhere in nearly two and a half years.

Mikey isn’t in his bed. Donnie’s stuff is missing. The Shellraiser is gone.

“Raph,” Leo says, feeling a little displaced from things. “Go look in Mikey’s room again. I’m texting them right away.”

Raph goes to look, and Leo goes to grab his phone. There are no texts from either of their brothers, nothing to explain where they might have gone. Leo sends a quick message to them both, asking where they’ve gone off to, and why Donnie’s rooms are so empty.

Raph comes back before Donnie or Mikey replies, and he’s starting to look the way he always does when he’s angry as well as worried.

“There’s nothing but garbage in there,” Raph says, which isn’t unusual, because Mikey’s room has always been a trash heap, but- “Literally just garbage. Everything else is gone.” Which is weird. Like Donnie’s empty room, lab, and the missing Shellraiser are weird. “Even that stupid stuffed bear he’s got is missing, and he never lets that thing leave his room.”

An uncomfortable feeling settles in Leo’s stomach.

Leo’s messages remain unanswered, but he sends another text anyways.

What’s going on? Where did you go?

Still no answer.

“Maybe they told April or Casey?” Leo suggests, taking his eyes off the small screen in his hands.

“Maybe,” Raph says in a way that means he doubts they did.

Leo frowns, and texts their friends anyways. Both of them reply within a few minutes, and say the same thing. They don’t know where Leo’s brothers have gone. Leo doesn’t truthfully answer their questions about why he’s asking; no sense in worrying them just yet. Not when there’s a high chance that Mikey’s just convinced Donnie of some convoluted scheme, somehow involving all their things disappearing, and the two of them will just come home soon enough. Or, it’s Donnie who’s gone and gotten a harebrained scheme in that unfathomable skull of his, and the two of them are off getting into b-team shenanigans. It wouldn’t be the first time.

Leo still feels a curdle of worry in his gut, even with those assurances to himself, and shoots his brothers one last polite text reminding them to not be late for midnight training. Hopefully, it’s nothing; just his brothers getting up to trouble and not anything more.

Leo keeps that thought close to his chest, and doesn’t let himself worry too deeply. If he knows his brothers, they’ll probably resolve whatever’s going on on their own, or call for help if they can’t handle it. That’s the knowledge uses to soothe his concerns, and he lets it push the majority of them away.

And then Raph finds the note.

Me and Donnie are taking a vacation a break from home for a while. Just a few weeks or something. I’m really sorry but we just

We’re fine. There’s no bad guy or mind control or something something evil plot whatever. It’s just us b-team younger bros taking some time to ourselves. We’ll be back soon.

Or whenever we sort out our shit which will be who the fuck knows when, like ha ha you wouldn’t believe the stupid stuff I got up in my head it’s one big fucking disas

I can’t tell you where we went, and we didn’t tell anyone else. It’s a private thing for us, we just need a little time a secret retreat thing, like from anime or something. Chill time from home and chill time for you two from us. Win win, right? I’m sorry, I know it’s a bad time but we just

Sorry we didn’t give you a heads up but we were pretty sure you wouldn’t let us we wanted it to be a surprise!

Surprise!!

Take care, we’ll come home whenever. Enjoy the vay-cay, kay?

Leo calls Mikey right after finding the nearly illegible note, the crossed out words making everything else that much harder to read.

He doesn’t get an answer.

He calls again.

No one answers.

He calls Donnie.

Donnie doesn’t answer either.

He calls them both again, and again, and again.

Neither phone line is picked up. All Leo gets is the dial tone and then voicemail. Again and again.

Raph calls their friends meanwhile. April and Casey, the Mutanimals- even Karai, and by extension, Shinigami. Not one of them knows anything about what’s happened.

April comments she’s been getting less texts from Donnie lately, seen him hardly at all. Leatherhead- using the communal phone of the Mutanimals’ hideout- says he hasn’t seen Mikey in a while either. It’s not a comforting sign.

After the first two hours of calling and texting, to their brothers as well as their meager social group, Leo is beginning to get annoyed. A little hurt as well.

Donnie is more than smart enough to take care of himself, and Mikey is… well, Mikey. He made it through Dimension-X; he can make it through a couple nights on the streets of New York, especially with Donnie along for the ride. Leo knows that they’re not likely to be in any real danger, even with the military still side-eyeing them for the Tokka incident, and Don Vizioso’s anti-mutant sentiments. Between the two of them, they’ll be fine however long they want to drag out this misadventure.

But, Leo is annoyed that they picked up and left without warning, without asking him permission. Their Sensei, their leader. He’s the one who makes final calls in this family, and the last two people he really expected to go AWOL have up and disappeared with hardly a goodbye. The messy note Mikey left them isn’t nearly enough of an explanation to anything.

And, he’s hurt. Because a vacation from the somewhat stifling walls of the lair would be nice, and they haven’t done anything as a group in a while. Leo feels excluded, considering that Donnie and Mikey will probably cook up all sorts of shenanigans together, and he’s been left out of it. Raph, too. Not very fair of them, since the four of them have always shared experiences equally. Including the fun ones.

They could have at least hinted that they were thinking of doing this. Really. It wouldn’t have been that hard to give him and Raph a heads up. A surprise- sure, that’s one way of spelling purposeful exclusion.

Leo is mildly worried, but mostly annoyed and surly. If anything, he expects Donnie to get sick of Mikey’s over-exuberance sooner than later, or Mikey to get bored of whatever long-winded science spiel Donnie has gotten caught up in tonight. They’ll come home soon enough, since he knows the two of them are such polar opposites they can’t share close quarters for more than a few hours without snapping.

One way or another, they’ll be back soon, and then Leo can sit them down and give them a thorough talking-to about desertion without warning, and disrespect to authority in general. Maybe he’ll ground them, too. He can do that now; he is Sensei.

“What’s the smile for?” Raph asks moodily, glancing away from a comic he’s likely not really reading. He’s as annoyed and put-out as Leo is, the two of them sitting in the living room as they while away the hours until their brothers return home.

“I’m going to ground Donnie and Mikey for a whole week,” Leo says smugly. “whenever they get back, because I can and they deserve it.”

Raph considers that for a moment, and then grins. “Sounds about right. Forgot you could do that now.”

“It’s a perk of being Sensei,” Leo replies.

“Don’t go gettin’ a big head over it, though. And don’t try that shit on me.”

“I won’t if you don’t force me to.”

Raph’s good humor slips for a moment, and Leo sees that they’ve neared the line between seriousness and joking.

“Sure,” Raph says, going back to his comic. “whatever you say, Sensei.” He says the last bit with more than a hint of sarcasm, which Leo benevolently lets slide. He’s got enough problems with their brothers at the moment; no point in picking a fight with Raph right this second. If he did that every time Raph was rude to him, they’d never get anything done.

Leo chooses to brush away his concerns about his brothers and their issues with listening to his orders; returning to the novel in his hands. He’ll address Raph’s belligerent mini-rebellions sometime later, as well as Donnie and Mikey’s impromptu runaway attempt; which can’t last much longer than tonight and possibly tomorrow. They’ll drive each other nuts until they come home, and then everything will go back to normal once Leo’s punished them sufficiently for worrying their family.

The situation is still well under control, despite the first few hours of mild panic and anxiety. He’ll just wait for them to come home, talk to them about their poor choices and recklessness, and then they’ll all settle back into their routine again.

Simple, and all he has to do now is wait, and keep Raph’s temper under watch. Nothing unusual about their evening, just the two of them, except…

The lair is oddly empty, missing Donnie and Mikey’s presences.

Leo turns the page of his novel, and doesn’t think about that.

Leo texts his brothers once more before he goes to sleep, reminding them that what they’re doing is irresponsible and inconsiderate to the whole of their family. His other texts and calls remain ignored, and the final text does as well.

He’s a little miffed about that. Just because they’ve decided to take a trip doesn’t mean they should be ignoring him. It’s dangerous to them all to fall out of contact, not to mention plain disrespectful to Leo’s position as their Sensei.

He tucks those annoyances aside, and goes to sleep a little before the sun rises fully aboveground.

He wakes up expecting… he’s not sure what he’s expecting, but a quietly empty home isn’t what it.

Donnie and Mikey’s beds are still unslept in, and the Shellraiser is still gone. Leo’s phone has no texts from anyone other than his friends, asking if Donnie and Mikey have been located yet.

Leo expected his brothers to come home, at least one of them, sometime during the day or late afternoon. Donnie, because he never strays from his work in the lab longer than a few hours, or from their multiple vehicles needing attention in the garage. Mikey, because Leo’s youngest sibling is prone to lackadaisical jumps in interest, and is surely missing his games and TV by this point. One of them. Both of them.

Neither of them are home.

It’s just Leo, up at the same time as he always is, standing in a large, silent home. Alone.

He frowns, but tells himself that his siblings are due home soon enough, even if they’ve lasted on their own longer than he thought they would. Maybe their tolerance of each other’s eccentricities has gotten better without him noticing. Maybe they’re just being stubborn. Leo doesn’t really care; he just wants them back home where he can keep an eye on them both.

He goes through his hour long solo session. It’s not as calming as he’d hoped it to be, but he’s fine regardless. By the time Raph wanders out of his bedroom, twenty minutes past the half hour of his usual waking time, Leo is collected in his own mind again.

Raph gives him a mildly exasperated look, edging towards frustration. “They’re still not home?” He asks, clearly having checked the same signs as Leo.

Leo shrugs. “No. I texted them again, but I haven’t gotten a reply even once.”

Raph narrows his eyes, and heads for the fridge. “Assholes. They could at least text back. Or I guess Donnie could; he’d probably give a better explanation than Mikey.”

Leo hums agreeably, because that’s a true enough assumption. “Pass me the milk? My coffee needs more than I thought.”

“Uh… can’t,” Raph says, lifting the carton out, squinting at the inside. “It’s kind of basically empty.”

“What? But Mikey said he went grocery shopping just a few days ago.”

“He probably thought he did, but forgot,” Raph says with a roll of his eyes. He tosses the carton into the trash and goes looking in the fridge again. “Probably got distracted somewhere along the way, jeeze. And those two think they can make it on their own…”

Leo grumbles, and sips his not-milky-enough coffee. Mikey had been saying he was on top of all the grocery runs; all the evenings he’s been in and out the past while should have given him ample time to pick up what they needed. Likely speaking, Leo and Raph’s brother had been lying about actually being on top of things, and been just goofing off instead.

Leo adds milk to his list of items to take care of, and finishes his coffee. He’ll reprimand Mikey when he gets back for lying about his chores, particularly about one they all depend on.

There’s no hot food, again, and he and Raph have to settle for cereal without milk and dwindling leftovers.

Leo texts Mikey once for the forgotten chore subject, and then again as the night goes on; all without a single reply from either b-team member. The ignoring thing is definitely on purpose, which is really starting to bother Leo. They could at least say when they’ll be home, or where they’ve gone to hide and play.

Honestly, sometimes he thinks he’s the only one their father managed to raise with any sense of social awareness. Or any sense of responsibility.

Leo feels very often like he’s the only one to take their clan code, family code, anything code seriously. Their father’s word, as well. He doesn’t understand why Raph so often rebels, or Mikey flat out ignores, or Donnie just doesn’t even notice. The ways of their inherited clan, of their father’s teachings, are everything to Leo. Something to hold onto now that Splinter has passed, to provide stability and guidance. And yet his brothers still wander from them.

It’s confusing and irksome. But, Leo supposes that it’s just another sign of why he was destined to be the next clan leader, and his siblings were not. Clear as day, he’s better suited to the role.

Now if his brothers would just listen to him properly, everything would be perfect.

Leo spends the rest of the evening and night fielding concerned texts from April and Casey. They’re not getting answers from his brothers either and they’re actually starting to really worry. Leo reminds them not to; he knows his brothers better than anyone, and he knows they’ll be home soon. There’s nowhere else for them to go, and no one besides their small social group to reach out to. The moment they do, Leo will know minutes later. They can only avoid him and Raph for so long like this, without causing serious worry in their friends and annoyance in Leo and Raph.

Either they’ll come home tonight, or they’ll reach out to one of their mutual friends and reveal where they’ve gotten off to. In any case, it can’t be much longer until his siblings come home.

Leo hopes it’s soon, since Raph has begun stalking around moodily, rather than just sitting and reading. The punching bag is getting a fair amount of use the longer the night goes on, and Leo has a feeling Raph will have a lot to say to their wayward siblings, once they’re home. They all know worrying Raph just makes him mad, and the longer you worry him the madder he’ll get. It’ll just get more dramatic the longer things drag out.

Likely how things will play out is their brothers will come home, Raph will snarl and smack them a little for making him worry, Leo will give them a stern lecture of responsibility and dedication, the two of them will be grounded for a week, and then Donnie and Mikey will apologize for having worried them so much. After that, it’ll all go back to normal.

Leo is confident in that scenario, even as his texts go unanswered and April and Casey begin expressing real concern.

Leo is confused why he wakes up the third night, and finds still only Raph in the lair with him.

The Shellraiser remains gone. Donnie and Mikey’s things remain gone. They remain gone.

Leo is just plain annoyed at this point. How much longer can they really stand each other and keep up whatever ridiculous plan they have going? Not to mention the increasingly frustrating radio silence on their end.

You’re being incredibly immature, not even replying to our texts, he texts Mikey. And, I thought out of the two of you, at least You’d be sensible enough to know when to cut the shenanigans, to Donnie. It’s a little passive-aggressive, but Leo feels he’s in the right at this moment in time. They’re being ridiculous, and he and Raph are suffering through unnecessary worry for it.

Not to mention they’ve missed multiple training sessions. How are they supposed to remain a well-oiled machine if one half of their team doesn’t even show up for training? Just because the Shredder is gone doesn’t mean they’re safe. They have to stay in shape, keep their reflexes sharp.

Donnie and Mikey don’t reply to his texts, and don’t come home either. Leo feels his annoyance grow about that, as well as his small pool of worry.

But that’s nothing compared to the steady climb of temper that Raph has going on. Three days, not a peep, and Leo is stuck with Raph alone as his brother reaches his tipping point. When he gets worried, Raph gets mad- he gets mad about everything, it sometimes feels- and he tends to take it out on either whatever’s causing him worry, or the nearest person/object.

The punching dummy must feel special, getting so much attention.

Leo stays outside Raph’s range, and rolls his eyes as his brother grumbles and gripes.

Finally, on the wayside of late evening and after another unsatisfying breakfast of cold food, Raph throws his hands up and says, “I’m going back to the Mutanimals. Mikey’s probably been hanging around there, and maybe he’s let slip to Leatherhead where they’re hiding out.”

Leo considers the idea for a moment, and then decides to agree. It’s a solid enough guess; the idea of Mikey going to his favorite friend’s home and accidentally blabbing where he and Donnie have snuck off to. To add to that, Leo will check in with April again in case Donnie’s done the same with her.

His concern dies down, now that they’ve got a plan of action. Sometimes, even though their behavior’s purpose escapes him, Donnie and Mikey are predictable in where they’ll fall. It’s why they’re the B-team, and Leo and Raph are the A-team. Simple reasoning.

Mikey hasn’t been to the Mutanimals’ home at all, as it turns out. No phone calls either.

Raph kicks a nearby skate ramp as they get that news, startling Mondo Gecko enough he leaps to the other side of it. Leo just frowns and crosses his arms, staring up at Slash.

“Are you positive they haven’t been here,” Leo asks again. “and that they didn’t, say, tell you to cover for them if they have?”

Slash’s own arms are crossed as he glares down at Leo. Leo refuses to shrink under the glare. He knew Slash when he was still Spike; munching on leaves and acting as Raph’s confidant. He’s not scared of the tortoise.

“No, they haven’t, and no, we haven’t,” Slash growls out. “I wouldn’t keep that sort of thing from you, never mind from Raph. If they’d been here, you’d know already.”

Leo keeps frowning, nearly glaring himself, before he lets the expression drop. “Okay. Sorry for the suspicion, but… we’re just really starting to worry. They won’t reply to our texts at all.”

Slash’s own expression softens, and he puts a large hand on Leo’s shoulder. No one’s done that since his father died, and it feels somewhat uncomfortable. “I understand you’re feelin’ worried, Leo. Raph, too. I’ll keep my eye out for Don and Mike for you, and give word soon as I have a location or sighting, promise.”

“That’d be really appreciated,” Leo says truthfully, even as he subtly shakes off Slash’s hand. “Thank you for that, really.”

“And you will tell us the moment you see them, correct?” Leatherhead rumbles from his position beside the skate ramp, near Mondo. The large croc mutant is giving Leo a serious look; one that means he really does want Leo to tell him the moment they find his brothers. Leo figures it’d be best to do just that, because while Leatherhead has mellowed over the years, his protectiveness of Mikey remains a real trigger for his anger. At least it’ll work in their favor, the croc mutant’s desire to see Mikey and Donnie safe being the same as Leo and Raph’s.

“Of course,” Leo agrees easily, giving an encouraging and confident smile to Leatherhead. “and then I’ll send Mikey your way right after, alright?”

Leatherhead nods slowly, accepting Leo’s words of comfort.

Raph, however, growls out, “Yeah, right after I’m done knockin’ the little turd’s head straight again. Donnie’s too, if this keeps up. God.”

Leo sighs at Raph’s, as usual, aggressive language and poorly hidden concern. It’s been grating on his nerves, almost as much as his own worry has been. And really, talking like that in front of Leatherhead probably isn’t the smartest move. If Leo can control his own worry, then Raph should be able to, too.

They make a stop by April’s home on the way back to their own, to check in if she’s heard anything from Donnie as well as to just say hi, but find her room dark and empty. No other lights are on in the apartment either, which means Kirby is sleeping and they’re not welcome.

It strikes Leo a little odd, that April is gone so late in the night without even a greeting their way, but he settles for just shooting a questioning text. She doesn’t reply immediately, which makes him frown. Does anyone on this team respect his authority anymore? He’s beginning to doubt it. And it’s odd feeling, too. They’ve come so far as a team, been through so much and come out stronger for it. It’s bizarre how they’re falling out of sync; first Leo’s brothers, then April…

The feeling that he’s losing control of his own team, not long after becoming their Sensei, is another tick on Leo’s list of frustrations. He’s worked so hard for so long- and just when he’s achieved what he views as the final step, they start tearing up his hard work?

His father trusted him to keep their family together, to guide his brothers and friends. The fact that his team is trying to break away like this, break up everything he and they have worked for- it’s just not something he can tolerate quietly.

He’s worried about his brothers, and partially about April, but he’s starting to be more so angry with them. He doesn’t understand why any of them are doing the things they are, and that lack of understanding just makes his anger harder to tamp down on.

Raph bumps into Leo as they get home, and his brother snaps “watch it” as he does. Which makes Leo’s eyes narrow, and his own carefully controlled temper hitch for a moment.

“Just because you’re worried, doesn’t mean you get to be rude, Raph.”

“Piss off,” is Raph’s imaginative response, stalking away further into the lair.

Leo’s mouth forms a flat, unimpressed line, and his words are just as. “I already have two brothers being troublemakers at the moment, I don’t need another.” When Raph keeps walking, Leo raises his voice. “That means you, Raph.”

“Oh go fuck yourself, Leo,” Raph snaps back over his shoulder. “I got enough problems; I don’t need you nit-pickin’ everything I do, too. I’m not your lackey.”

“No, you’re my student, and I’m your Sensei, and you’re supposed to listen to what I have to say,” Leo’s tone gets sharper with each word, like the prickly feelings in his chest do. “Whether you like it, or not.”

His brother pauses, and turns to give a narrow look. “I told you not to try that shit with me,” Raph says in a low tone. “Splinter might’ve said you got all that authority, but I’m not gonna roll over and let you make me fall in line. I’m not Donnie or Mikey.”

Leo scoffs. “Like either of them are doing that at the moment.”

“Maybe they’ve got the right idea.”

Leo’s flat grimace turns downwards.

“What did you say to me?”

“I said,” Raph says, taking a step back towards the lair entrance. “maybe they’ve got the right idea. You’re kind of a jackass when you get it in your head like this, fearless. So maybe you might wanna step off before you lose another student of yours.”

Leo’s fists curl themselves, and he feels prickly hot anger rise up in him. “Excuse me?”

“You heard me,” Raph says, teeth bared, his entire posture asking for a fight. “Back off.”

Leo takes a slow breath, and then steps down the stairs. He strides slowly across the stone floor, right into Raph’s space as his brother does the same. Leo is taller, so he looks down at Raph as they don’t break eye contact.

“Are you really so desperate to be the rebellious second son,” Leo says, slow and pointed. “that you’d spit on what- what your own father, our father, told us? The very last thing he ever told us?”

The flash of pain and grief Leo sees in Raph’s eyes is what he intended to put there. Raph doesn’t get to act like he’s the only one angry, or hurt, or worried; not when Leo is just as. Their father’s word is something Leo still holds higher than anything, and to have Raph defy it so openly, after all the grief they’ve gone through since Splinter’s death- it’s not something Leo can let slide.

Raph’s shoulders rise as his teeth clench, and Leo more than expects the tide of fury that follows.

“You take that back,” Raph hisses through his teeth.

“Am I wrong?” Leo asks, because he’s tired and tense and Raph doesn’t get to act like this. Not without someone pushing back against all his antagonistic behavior. “You were always looking for a reason to push the boundary of his rules, and now you’re looking to do the same with mine.”

“Shut up.”

Leo pushes on, because he’s been keeping himself so tightly wound and clashing with Raph has always pushed him over the limit. Their brothers are missing, their friends are no help, and Leo needs an outlet. Raph gets to lose it- so why can’t he? “Our father made one, one last request, and you can’t even respect that. No, you have to keep pushing and pushing and keep looking for another reason, as always, to start yet another fight with someone-”

Raph’s shoulders shake. “I said shut up.”

Leo’s lips curl back, and he keeps going. Keeps going with all the hot-terrible things that’ve built up inside him for years. “-because you’re bored, or tired, or grumpy, or hell, just feel like it, because you’re the second son who’s just jealous he didn’t get to be the first son, or the leader, or hear the last request our father ever made to us-”

Leo cuts off, because Raph punches him in the jaw.

Leo doesn’t talk to Raph the entire fourth day. Raph doesn’t talk to Leo the entire fourth day.

Neither of them makes any effort to breach the bitter, frustrated silence in their home.

Leo’s jaw, chest, and shoulders hurt from where Raph laid into him. From the way Raph limps slightly in and out of the kitchen- the single moment of eye contact between them the entire night- Leo knows his brother is also smarting from their fight.

They haven’t fought like this is a long while; most of their disagreements remaining in words only. Physical fighting hasn’t been brought into things for possibly years. Mostly, it was Raph and Mikey who got physical in their arguments. Or, it was Raph who got physical; Mikey just ran his mouth until he got shut up.

Leo is properly angry now. Angry with Raph, for causing extra trouble Leo does not need to deal with right now, and angry with their brothers for causing this fight in the first place. It’s Donnie and Mikey’s fault, disappearing and stirring up discourse in their family. If they’d just stayed home, stayed in line, then Leo and Raph wouldn’t be fighting, and neither of them would be angry with their brothers.

Leo’s bruised jaw throbs when he touches it, and it feels like his rising and receding temper.

Four days without even a how do you do and Donnie and Mikey stubbornly remain out of contact. April continues to be AWOL, another person Leo can’t keep track of, and Casey’s texts and calls keep being useless check-ins to see if there’s any new info. The Mutanimals’ are unhelpful, Karai won’t answer her phone, and Shinigami only picked up hers once to tell Leo they’re busy and can’t talk-

Everything is falling apart, and Leo blames his younger brothers for causing it all the happen.

“What would you do, father?” Leo asks the altar, rubbing his throat scars. They itch tonight, like the ones on his leg so. They always itch when he starts getting really stressed out.

He looks at the pictures of his father, at the one center of the altar, and waits for an answer.

None come to him.

Leo stares at his father’s photograph for a moment longer, feeling the ebb and flow of grief that strikes right to his core, and then turns away.

He goes and sits where his father always did, Splinter’s favorite meditation spot in front of their tree. A part of him is comforted by the action, and another is saddened that he is even allowed to sit in this spot now. A part of him remains angry; a part of him is hurt and tired.

Mostly, he’s frustrated, and he just wants his brothers to come home so things will go back to normal.

Leo closes his eyes, and tries to meditate away the worst of his anger. It only works to a point.

He sends another few texts to Donnie and Mikey, reminding them they have to come home, that they should know just how much grief they’re causing everyone with their increasingly ridiculous stubbornness, and that the longer this goes on, the worse the consequences for them all will be.

After they’re sent, he finds he doesn’t really feel better for writing those things out. He reminds himself that his words are justified, that he’s in the right- but it doesn’t really matter either way. He gets no answer.

The fourth day ends like so. Leo goes to sleep, tight and unhappy in his chest. He doesn’t even say good morning to Raph before that, and the messages in his phone do nothing to fix anything.

The next evening, there’s an unspoken resolution to the argument. Raph wakes up a full half hour past when he usually does, and sits down across from Leo; who has added an extra half hour solo workout session. Neither of them says sorry, but the fight is dropped regardless.

They finish the last of the bread together for toast, share the butter bowl by passing it back and forth, and Raph gets the jam from the fridge when asked. Maybe he feels badly for throwing the first punch, like Leo feels badly for going too far with his words.

Leo doesn’t ask. He takes the jam, eats his bland tasting whole wheat toast, and silently agrees to the ceasefire.

“Casey says April stopped answering her phone,” Raph says conversationally, a little while after breakfast. The two of them are in the dojo; Leo doing slow tai-chi, and Raph doing bicep curls with a weight. “You think it’s because she’s with Donnie and Mikey?”

Leo breathes out slowly as he moves through his steps, thinking on that idea. “Possibly. She and Donnie are close, so I wouldn’t put it past him to have convinced her to do something like that.”

“Hn. I’ll bet Mikey did somethin’ like that with Leatherhead. Slash keeps saying they haven’t been through, but you know… we didn’t get to talk with Leatherhead directly.”

A good point. “Do you think we should try them again?”

Raph grunts, and switches hands. “It wouldn’t hurt.”

They finish the half-hearted workout, and take the Party Wagon over to the Mutanimals’ hideout. The exchange goes about as well as Leo should’ve expected.

Raph’s temper had only just been mildly curbed from their fight, and Leo’s refocused calm slips easier than he wants it to. He admits in private that they’d gotten a tad forceful and sharp with their allies, after the fifth time Leatherhead had growled that he didn’t know where their brothers had gone, or why they’d gone.

An unsettled itch is making itself home in Leo’s spine, standing in the Mutanimals’ base and arguing without any real gain or purpose. That itch persists, prickly and unpleasant, and it does nothing to help Leo’s negotiative skills during the argument.

Leo might’ve snapped a little, and Raph definitely yelled a bit. Even if it resulted in Leatherhead rising up and reminding them how much larger he is than them, and Slash yelling right back at them that they’re all just as worried about Leo’s brothers- a part of Leo feels at least a little better, having gotten a chance to vent a portion of his frustrations. Even if it’d been misdirected.

The itch remains in his spine and senses, even as Leo turns away from the Mutanimals and goes to exit the hideout. He tries to brush it off along with the residual angry feelings festering in his chest, and it only stays with him for another few blocks from the hideout.

They leave no more informed than they had the other times. And, as they drive past April’s apartment, they see no sign of lights on at all. Either she’s asleep early, for the first time in a long, long time, or she’s still out and about and completely AWOL. Leo is betting on the second.

“D’you wanna check for sure?” Raph asks in a subdued tone, leaning out the passenger window. Now that he’s gotten out the more explosive parts of his temper, Leo knows he’ll be less likely to cause any more fights.

“No,” Leo replies, and pushes down on the gas. “I seriously doubt she’ll be home.”

“’cause that’d be too easy,” Raph mutters belligerently. Leo hums in agreement, and drives them back home. He’d take them to check in with Karai and Shinigami, but when he’d called earlier he had been told very clearly, and curtly, by Shinigami that they were still busy with something. And then she’d hung up on him, because people were just so polite to Leo lately.

They meander with errands for a while; hitting the nearest grocery stores and picking up the food Mikey had failed to bring home like he was supposed to. They have to actually commit property damage tonight, slicing the wires of cameras to avoid being seen. Usually, it's Donnie’s job to hack the system and set up a video loop for however long they’re inside.

But then, Donnie isn’t here, because he’s missing just like Mikey is.

The abandonment of their jobs only serves to further ruin Leo’s mood. Raph’s sullen silence notes clearly that he feel the same way. They grab what they need, and don’t talk about their current grievances out loud.

The drive home is quiet; just the groceries in the canvas bags between them making any noise. It’s probably for the best, since their moods would likely spark another fight. Leo’s jaw is only just starting to stop feeling painful. He doesn’t need a twin on the other side.

They get into the tunnel garage, parking the Party Wagon and getting out, just before Raph’s t-phone rings.

When he answers it, Leo sees Raph’s eyes go wide.

“You fucking kidding me?” Raph spits. He yanks back open the car door. “Get the hell back in, Leo. Mikey just left the Mutanimals’ place.”

Leo spares a fleeting moment of confusion, shock- and then burns rubber.

They get there too late, and have no luck scouring the surrounding area for any sign of Mikey. Leo curses loud as Raph does, because it figures the one time Mikey really utilizes some of his skills and brainpower, it’s to keep avoiding his own family.

When Leo marches into the Mutanimals’ hideout, he does so with the intent to chew out Slash, for letting Leatherhead overrule his team leader’s orders, for letting him overrule Leo’s orders about immediately tipping them off of Mikey’s location- but comes up short as Leatherhead looms over him and Raph both.

A stutter in his momentum, but Leo recovers and says, “We had an agreement. The moment you heard from or found my brothers, you were supposed to tell me, tell us both. Not- just let him run off again- do you know how worried we’ve been about him-?”

“You have no right to be,” Leatherhead abruptly growls harshly. And that makes Leo stop for a moment, if only because of the absurdity of that sentence.

“Excuse me?” Leo says, and he means every bit of sharpness to his words.

Leatherhead takes a step into Leo’s space as well as Raph’s, and Leo is reminded once again that he’s much smaller than the crocodile mutant. He takes an involuntary step backwards as Leatherhead’s maw of teeth opens in front of him.

“You have. No right.” Leatherhead says again, huge fists curling and uncurling; claws on display. Leatherhead’s eyes move slowly to Raph, and narrow with open hostility. “Neither of you do. And…” He turns back to Leo, and in that second, Leo remembers that he’s never actually won a fight against Leatherhead.

“You are both very lucky Michelangelo told me not to do anything.”

“...what the hell are you talking about?” Raph asks, equal parts furious and confused.

Leo’s hand is on his sword before he realizes the subconscious movement; because Leatherhead’s deep throated growl goes right through his plastron. He feels Raph similar tension beside him, and knows his brother’s hands are on his sais. None of them move.

The large mutant looks down at them for a long moment- and Leo can feel him looking down on them in more ways than one- before saying, “It’s not my place to explain,” and turning his back on them.

Leatherhead leaves, long tail dragging across the floor, and with the parting words of, “Leave my home, and leave your brothers alone. That is all I have to say to you.”

It takes a full minute, after Leatherhead ushers Mondo out of the room with him and it’s just Slash and Dr. Rockwell left- but Raph explodes into the furious shouting he always does. He and Slash both bellow at one another, defending and accusing and taking turns with each, while Dr. Rockwell futilely tries to mediate the growing fight.

“I don’t care if he’ll ditch you guys if you talk- he’s my little brother, he’s your family, OUR FAMILY- Slash I swear to god, tell me what Mikey told Leatherhead or I’ll-”

“-I can’t! Leatherhead’s our heaviest hitter, we lose half our fighting strength if he goes-”

“I. Don’t. CARE-”

“-well I DO, this is MY TEAM on the line, Raphael-”

“-and this is MY LITTLE BROTHER-”

Leo stares at the direction Leatherhead retreated in, and feels a sickening coil of anger and insult rise up in his stomach. It’s joined by the swirling confusion of what the hell Mikey told Leatherhead to make him so mad, and Leo can’t manage the tide of emotions as they mix together. The spread to his head, and he feels a buzz start in the back of his skull.

He joins the fight with Slash. It’s not much of a relief from the noise in his head.

Leo doesn’t care if Slash was forced into silence- he should have called anyways. Mikey is their brother, and Slash knew exactly what he was supposed to have done. Dr. Rockwell too, who Leo doesn’t forget during the fight. If anyone in the Mutanimals should have seen sense, it’s the primate. And yet, and yet.

None of them called when they should have, and Leo’s brother slipped out of his grasp a second time.

He and Raph only leave the hideout because Slash decks Raph across the face, sending the smaller mutant sprawling on the floor, and orders them to leave. Dr. Rockwell adds a quieter sentiment to that, which is that they leave only until everyone can talk rationally.

Slash snaps at the primate to stay out of things, barely beating Leo to it.

Raph is still snarling and shouting at Slash- Leo doesn’t catch all of it, but it has to do with Slash throwing the trust Raph placed in him back into his face. He grabs his brother by the edge of his shell, resulting in the snarling being turned on him, and hauls Raph to his feet.

Leo glares at Slash, whose large fists remain curled and ready to throw a second punch. There’s a cut across Raph’s cheek, from Slash’s spiny knuckle cartilage, and it’s dripping red steadily across the scales of his cheek.

“We had a deal,” Leo hisses as a final statement. “You said you would call us.”

“Get out,” Slash spits back. “I’m sorry, but get out.”

They get out.

Raph tears into his punching dummy, not seconds after they enter their home, and Leo goes to the dojo.

He draws the weapons he’d been restraining himself from.

Leo’s swords slice through the air faster and faster, cold anger settling in his body even more now that they’re away from the situation. There’s nothing to cut, but Leo acts as if there is. As if there’s an enemy he can’t see, but can cut down anyways, and send the severed limbs rolling across the mats one after another until he gets to the head and then-

His sword slashes across the tree trunk, and Leo jolts out of his haze.

He stares at the gash in the bark; inner wood exposed and splintered. It’s a fresh wound on a trunk that hasn’t been scoured in years. Not since they were children and learning to aim their throwing weapons.

The gash is wide enough to fit his finger. It’ll take years for it to grow over.

Leo dully realizes his arms ache and that he’s out of breath. His scars itch and his knee burns from lack of care with his movements.

Leo sheathes his swords, and turns his back on the damage he’s done to the tree.

His footsteps feel shaky as he leaves the dojo; Leo can’t tell how long he’s been shadow fighting, but it’s been long enough that as he emerges, he finds Raph surrounded by stuffing and sand.

Raph turns a dark and miserable look towards Leo, and doesn’t move from his position sat among the ruins of the former punching dummy. The cut on his cheek has scabbed, and it twists as Raph speaks.

“I’m gonna kill that idiot,” Raph says, low and angry. “Pulling this shit, makin’ Leatherhead turn on us and fucking up everything- I’m gonna kill him.”

Leo’s confusing swirl of offence, anger, and hurt rise in his throat, and he’s inclined to agree with Raph’s temper for once.

The sixth night comes and goes. Leo spends it with Raph, scouring the whole area surrounding the Mutanimals’ residence. They circle the hideout further and further out, searching for signs of a hidden lair entrance.

They don’t find any, their messages continue to go unanswered, and the night ends with an even sourer note than that. Leo finally decides that going to see Karai face to face might be the only way to get her to talk to him, and goes to see her while Raph goes to see Casey.

Leo drops onto the church rooftop, expecting to be let inside by the hidden sentries on top of it- but is stopped by a black and red ninja appearing out of the shadows.

“Master Karai is indisposed of for the evening,” She says, calm and cool. “You’ll have to come back another time.”

Leo nearly splutters. Really? Still?

“Couldn’t I wait inside for her?” Leo asks, keeping his voice level despite his annoyance. He’s already dealt with so many incredibly frustrating things tonight; he doesn’t want to have to add another check to that list.

“No. When she returns, Shinigami left explicit instructions to keep anyone from bothering the master. I apologize for the inconvenience, kappa-san, but you will have to come back tomorrow.”

That won’t do. Leo needs to have at least one thing go right this week, and being able to talk to Karai might help him figure out how to fix all the other things. “I’m her brother,” Leo says, exasperated. “Can’t you guys make an exception for me?”

The foot ninja’s response is as deadpan as her mask.

“No.”

Leo bites his tongue, tamping down on rude words that want to come out. He nods tersely. “Alright. I’ll see you tomorrow, then. Tell her I was here. Please.” The last part is an effort to get out, the accumulated grievances in Leo’s life putting a strain on his politeness and patience.

“I will tell master Karai you wanted to see her, don’t worry,” The ninja gives a shallow bow. “Goodnight, kappa-san.”

Leo bows in return, and continues to bite down his frustrations. He leaves the church roof in an even worse mood than he’d been in before.

He stares at his phone when he gets home, at the unanswered conversations in his messages. He hadn’t ever cared before, but now he wishes that Donnie had programmed the t-phones to show when someone read the sent messages; at least then Leo would know they were seeing his texts.

He’s angry, and hurt, and really getting worried. Six days is longer than he’s ever known his brothers to be mad at him, or at Raph. And the longer things drag out, the more Leo feels he’s losing control of his life.

The seventh night, an entire week into Donnie and Mikey’s disappearances, comes and goes similarly. The lair remains half empty, their texts and calls unanswered, and even with attempts to negotiate with Leatherhead for information, they get nowhere.

Leatherhead growls when Raph tries to speak in the conference call, threatening and deep, and hangs up on them. Slash calls back, but they don’t get anywhere with him either. Slash is stuck between them and Leatherhead, who has made it very clear he’ll leave the Mutanimals if Slash tries to hand over any information about Mikey.

Leo and Raph, especially Raph, push for Slash to reveal it anyways. Once Mikey is home and can talk Leatherhead down, everything will be fine. It won’t be that big of deal for Slash to tell them about Mikey and Donnie’s whereabouts, especially with their safety on the line.

Slash doesn’t budge.

“Donnie and Mikey’ll show up soon enough, I can’t risk losin’ Leatherhead because I went behind his back. And I don’t even know much more than what Leatherhead told us after Mikey swung through. Pushin’ me for info won’t be worth it. Besides, they’re not in any serious trouble, and how long d’you think they’re really gonna be gone? It’s already been a week. They’ll come back sooner than later.”

They’ll come back sooner than later.

Leo’s been telling himself that all along, but it’s already been a full week. The longest he’s ever known Donnie to hold a grudge is a few hours, maybe a day, and Mikey can never seem to stay angry longer than a few seconds.

It feels so unlike them, doing this.

And Leo still doesn’t even know why they are. Leatherhead clearly knows, and even as Raph tries again to get Slash to tell them, it looks more and more like that knowledge will be kept from them.

They could have at least hinted at why they left. If it’s some petty argument they had and Leo forgot about, then he’ll apologize. If it’s a petty argument they had with Raph, then Leo will make Raph apologize.

It’d be as simple as talking it out, and then things could back to normal.

Leo feels annoyed and worried, the way his brothers haven’t done so.

It’s not like them. It’s not like them at all.

The eighth night, Leo finally gets to see Karai. It’s a brief spot of calm; the stress in his chest lessening just for being with her in the church.

“I just don’t… understand,” Leo confides in her, watching his sister strap gauntlets and hidden knives to her person. He’s been allowed inside the headquarters, but warned Karai will be leaving soon enough. He’ll take what he can get, even if he feels pushed aside and ignored. “They shouldn’t have anything to be angry about with us. I’ve been trying to pick out something that’d piss them off to make them do this… and I get nothing. We’ve been doing just fine. Why would they run off, and then make Leatherhead angry with us, too, if everything was going fine?”

“I don’t know, Leo,” Karai says, sliding her signature tanto across the back of her hips. She turns to face Leo, crossing her arms. “Maybe they really did just need some time away from home, like you said Mikey’s note explained.”

“Yeah, but… that doesn’t explain Leatherhead’s behavior. If it’s really just a vacation, then why turn him on us like that? I just can’t figure it out. None of this makes any sense. It’s all so… out of character for them to do this. Right?”

Karai shrugs. “Maybe. You’ve known them longer than I have, obviously speaking. But I do know they’re capable of taking care of themselves, that much I’ve learned over the years. They’ll probably be back soon.”

Leo folds his fingers together, squeezing his six digits against one another. He stares at the floor under his feet, tracing the carpet designs of Karai’s private weapon inventory. “Everyone keeps saying that… but they won’t even respond to my calls. I’m worried. Aren’t you?”

“…truth be told, no,” Karai replies evenly. “Like I said, they can take care of themselves. I know they’ll be fine from personal experience; don’t forget how many times I tried to off you four when we were enemies still. You should just give them space until they come back.”

Leo grimaces, feeling now familiar worry and frustration rise in his throat. “But I’ve been telling them to come home now, or at least contact us. I’m their Sensei; they have to listen to me about these things. I gave them orders.”

Karai snorts. “Yeah, and how well did that work out?”

Leo looks up from his staring contest with his feet; sending a displeased look in Karai’s direction. “This is serious, Karai. You shouldn’t make a joke about my brothers disobeying a direct order from their leader- who knows how much danger they could get into if we don’t stay in contact?”

Karai rolls her eyes at him, and says, “Leo, they’re big boys. They’ll be fine.”

Leo blusters. “But I don’t know that for sure! They won’t call, won’t text- how am I supposed to really know they’re okay?”

“You could try trusting them,” Karai says, still not treating the situation with the gravity it deserves.

“I do trust them!” Leo snaps, and then he collects himself as Karai raises an eyebrow at the outburst. “I do trust them. It’s just. I want them home, where I can keep an eye on them. I can’t make sure they’re safe if they’re off gallivanting who knows where.”

Karai shrugs a second time. “I don’t know what else to tell you, Leo. Sometimes you can make something happen right away, and sometimes you just have to wait for the next step to presents itself.”

Leo starts to say that that’s not something he can do, they’re his brothers and he needs to find them, ask them what’s going on and why they’re making it happen-

But April walks in through the side door to the armory, and Leo’s thought process derails itself.

“April??” He exclaims, staring at his friend, decked head to toe in black and silver gear. She freezes, wide eyes going to him.

April raises a weak wave to him, giving an awkward half-smile. “Oh. Uh. Hi, Leo.”

Leo recovers from his utter shock, and says, “What are you doing here? Where- is this where you’ve been all week? I’ve been calling you like crazy, and you couldn’t even text back once to tell me?”

“I’ve been- busy,” April says, not looking directly at him. Her feet shift on the carpet, arms crossed behind her back, and Leo spots the bright red mark on her shoulder guard right then.

“You joined the Foot clan?” He gapes incredulously. “Without telling me?”

April’s eyes flicker to him, and there’s an unusual intentness to her examination of him. Leo doesn’t know what to make of that; he’s too busy feeling like someone’s yanked the rug a little bit more out from under his feet.

April joined the Foot clan? And she hadn’t even dropped a text with him to ask permission, or give notice, or anything??

“I hired her,” Karai says, interrupting Leo and April’s stare off. “She owes me a favor, I like having someone who isn’t a complete moron work for me. It worked out alright.”

Leo looks between the two of them, dumbfounded and utterly shocked. “But- she’s my student. I didn’t give either of you permission for this- I wouldn’t have given either of you permission for this! My brothers are missing, Karai, I can’t lose any more teammates than I already have!”

Karai raises her brows, unimpressed, and April says something too low for Leo to catch.

“What?”

“I said,” April raises her voice. “that last I checked, I didn’t have to ask you for permission to make my own choices.” She continues, despite the stare Leo is giving her. “I. I needed something to do. I needed something to keep my mind off Splinter, and help with Donnie and Mikey. Karai gave me a job, and… it’s been good. I’m sorry I didn’t tell you, but the last week has been hectic. I couldn’t have my phone on half the time, and the rest I was training or sleeping.”

Leo keeps staring at April, and it feels like he’s looking at someone who only just resembles his friend.

April has new armor, rather than her old black and yellow tracksuit. Her hair is braided back tightly, and Leo counts least three different types of concealed weapons around her waist; to add to the sword across her hips and the tessen fan on her thigh. She looks more like a Foot clan ninja than she does a Hamato one, and it feels like a betrayal.

“How- how could you do this?” Leo asks, throat tight and his fists tighter. “You didn’t tell any of us, didn’t even bother to try- don’t you care that Donnie and Mikey are gone? This isn’t the time to be running around, or goofing off-”

“I haven’t been!” April cuts him off. She draws herself up, squaring her shoulders and looking him dead in the eye. “I’ve been all over the city all week, with Karai and Shinigami- I look in every neighborhood we go through. I check with every lowlife we beat up if they’ve seen them. I’ve been searching for them since the very first night, Leo, so don’t you dare try to say I’ve been goofing off.”

Leo reels, caught off-guard by April’s defensiveness. Why is everyone like this lately? His brothers never ran off like this before, April never snapped so blatantly at him- what’s even going on with his family anymore?

Leo shakes off his shock. “Still. We need you with us, April, not… what have you even been doing all week?”

“She’s been helping me take back my territories,” Karai interjects before April can speak. Leo’s eyes turn to his sister, who is standing with a straight back and commanding posture. “We have a lot of ground to cover, since most of the Foot’s territory claims were nullified when Shredder started going crazy. Practically the entire city needs to be beaten back into the submission, and having a well-trained psychic on the team speeds things up.”

Leo gapes for a second time, head spinning to catch up with all the implications of that explanation. “You’re- you’re starting up the criminal activities of the Foot again? April, you’re helping them? After everything we did to take them down?”

April averts her eyes a second time from Leo, turning her set expression towards the sword rack instead. “Karai is different from the Shredder. This is different.”

“This is business,” Karai says, striding across the room towards April. “It’s what the Foot clan does best, and it’s what I was raised to inherit. And I’ll see to it I get every damn scrap of power I was promised, just to give Shredder one last ‘fuck you’.” She glances over her shoulder at Leo, and shoots a raised eyebrow his direction. “And really, Leo, what did you expect me to do once I got control of the clan again?”

Leo is at a loss for words.

He feels betrayed in so many ways. All their efforts to dissolve the Foot clan’s hold on New York, and Karai is undoing all that work deliberately? April knew that, and willingly is helping? And neither of them saw fit to even mention it to him?

He considers both of the women in front of him as close friends, as family, and yet they did this. Just like his brothers ran off without a goodbye, and just like Leatherhead, one of the very first mutants they ever met besides themselves, turned on him.

“How could you?” Leo asks, and he’s not sure if it’s April or Karai he’s talking to.

April still won’t look at him, and Karai’s attention is stolen by a Foot ninja appearing in the open doorway.

“We’re ready, master Karai,” He says in a low voice, bowing as he does. Karai nods, and dismisses him with a wave of her hand.

“We’re going now,” She says, turning back to Leo one last time. “Sorry to cut this short, but I have a limited opportunity to raid an enemy warehouse of a hefty weapon’s cache. If we see Donnie or Mikey, we’ll call, but otherwise our phones won’t be on. Good luck finding your brothers; we’ll see you later.”

And then Karai walks out, following the ninja that had come to retrieve them. April starts to follow, but glances back once more. Her expression isn’t one Leo can’t read properly; showing no hint of what she’s thinking at the moment.

“April,” Leo says, hurt creeping into his chest.

April ducks her head, turning her back on him. “I’m sorry, Leo,” She says stiffly. “but I have to go.”

April walks away, following the same dark hallway Karai had disappeared into. Leo is left alone in the armory, by himself and short yet another two members of his family.

Leo spends all of evening ten searching for his brothers.

If they won’t contact him, and Leatherhead won’t give him any information, then Leo will just go find them himself.

It’s easier to just keep running all night, over rooftops and subdued streets, than it is to think. First his brothers, then Leatherhead, and now April…

They’re all slipping out of his control, and it makes Leo feel like he’s slipping, too.

He’s supposed to be their leader, their Sensei- and none of them are respecting his authority at all. Maybe Leatherhead isn’t technically under his direct command, but the Mutanimals have always been a backup to Leo’s team. The rebellion is sudden and unexpected, and Leo has to bite down harder and harder on his frustration with the other mutants.

April, too. He’d never expected her to just- go off. Ditch them all and join a completely different team. He’s angry with her for doing that, and for refusing to take back her choice.

The only spot of good in that snarl right there, is that at least Leo knows she hasn’t been hiding his brothers from him. If April is still searching for Donnie and Mikey, than she didn’t have any hand in them disappearing. It’s a slim comfort, that.

Leo finds no suitable spots for his brothers to live. Most buildings are too likely to be intruded in, and he can’t find any traces of an underground lair entrance. And when he goes underground to double check, the sewer tunnels offer no better trails to follow; just damp corridors.

He’s circling outwards from the lair’s location; combing the city for his brothers. Despite the steady search pattern, and the long, long few hours he spends going everything with an intent eye- he finds absolutely nothing.

He’s worried. He’s angry. He’s really starting to get close to being truly furious.

After everything they’ve been through together, after everything he did to make this team work- his brothers and April ditch him.

He’s their leader. Their Sensei. They shouldn’t be able to do this.

Leo goes home to a mostly empty house, tired and aching in his legs. None of his messages have been answered, and Raph is only present for a moment; side-eyeing Leo only once before he locks himself in his room, and starts up a racket with his drum kit.

Leo takes his turmoil of frustrations and goes to the dojo.

His swords slice through the air fast as he can push himself. His knee complains, the tender healed muscles protesting under the long hours of stress- but he pushes through the ignorable pain.

He loses track of time for a bit, narrowing his world to just the steady movements he knows so well. The thoughts of his family defying him, ignoring him, and abandoning him- they fade to a dull buzz on the edge of his mind. It gives Leo, for a time, space outside the growing anxieties in his chest.

He only stops once his arms have started to shake badly, exhaustion catching up with him completely. Leo’s sword tips scratch the mats as he lowers his weapons; breathing coming fast and harsh.

The clock on the wall reads nearly seven in the morning. He’s long past his routine bedtime.

That’s just one more part of his life that seems to be unraveling itself.

Leo doesn’t go to bed, so much as passes out as soon as he’s horizontal. It’s hardly any relief.

The second week passes, without a single sign of acknowledgement from Mikey or Donnie.

Leo hasn’t had good food in a while; he didn’t notice until Mikey left that his brother had taken over majority of the kitchen tasks. Nearly everything he and Raph scrounge up is either instant, burnt, or a combination of the two. It makes for a lot of sullen mealtimes, and more often than not leftovers no one really wants to eat.

The fridge is starting to make a weird clunking noise when the fan comes on. Either something is plugged, or slipped out of its spot, or who knows what. They could pull it out and take a look, but neither of them even knows what they would be looking at. The appliances were always something Donnie took care of.

Both the crap food and the crapping out electronics make the mealtimes unpleasant. Mostly for the reminders they represent.

The table has two too many chairs for its current occupants. It’s unsettling, both of those stools remaining empty for how long they have.

April is increasingly scarce in their social group; the only hint she’s still around at all comes through Casey, relaying that he’s seen her during the day, and brief glimpses of her in the church when Leo drops by. When April passes Leo by in these moments, her eyes linger on him with a look he can’t decipher.

He’s still bitter about her leaving them, abandoning the clan and team that made her a ninja, and Leo meets her eyes with a cold look whenever they enter the same spaces. He never gave her permission to leave them, not when they’re already missing two of their family members. This is the time when they should be banding together, searching for his brothers until they’re safe at home again. Not walking away from one of the most important things their first Sensei gave them.

April holds his cold gazes, and then looks away from them without a glance back. It makes Leo’s relationship with Karai tenser; his anger towards April bleeding into his and Karai’s conversations. She’s busy still, taking back the city and the power that the Foot lost. It’s not something Leo approves of in the least, and he makes it clear.

Karai brushes him off. Reminds him this is her clan, not his.

“The Foot might not have been my birth clan, but it’s the one that I’ll make my own regardless. I know you don’t like it, Leo, but this was always what I was going to do. I thought you knew that.”

“No,” Leo replies, and he knows his tone is lacking politeness. “I didn’t. And I thought you knew better than to follow in the Shredder’s footsteps.”

That remark gets him a sharp warning look from Karai. An even more so one from Shinigami, who is eyeing him from the sidelines of the throne room. The atmosphere cools to arctic levels, and Leo knows he’s overstepped his boundaries.

He doesn’t take it back. Because he’d thought Karai was better than this.

“…master Karai,” A tentative Foot ninja speaks up, from the doorway of the throne room. “I apologize for the interruption, but the Don is here to negotiate.”

Karai’s gold eyes leave Leo, and she turns her attention away from the slight. “Tell him to enter, if he can even fit in the elevator.” She doesn’t glance at Leo as she turns away, walking up the steps of her throne. “And see my brother out. Vizioso isn’t fond of mutants.”

Leo gives a narrow look after Karai, but leaves without responding. Better to leave before someone says something really over the line.

His phone remains full of unanswered texts, and the rooms in his home too empty. The argument with Karai makes those things all the harder to bear.

Two weeks and a half.

Raph joins Leo on and off for his searches. Leo’s started picking neighborhoods at random across the city; taking the Party Wagon to travel beyond their usual running grounds. He chooses places he thinks his brothers would want to be close to, whether for resources or the sights. None of the searches yield any results.

Sometimes they talk during the searches, but their conversations don’t stray from the modes they’ve started to fall into. Terse and clipped, or surly and touchy. Sometimes, they just fight. Pointless spats that don’t really have meaning or even connection to what they’re doing. About dinner and whose turn it is to cook, or the chores they can’t divide evenly between themselves, or any number of things that aren’t worth the energy it takes to fight about them.

Sometime they don’t speak at all during the searches. Tense silence without break or interruption. No one else is around to break the silence with an offhand joke or a long-winded explanation. It makes the empty spaces around them that much more obvious.

Leatherhead refuses to budge with his information, and Slash keeps telling them he can’t break the trust he has with the other mutant. At this point, it’s a stalemate none of them can break without doing real damage to their relationships.

Raph doesn’t yell at Slash anymore, his anger quieter and simmering rather than boiling and explosive. Leo’s own feelings and frustrations have done the same; without immediate or new antagonizing, he’s managed to form a steady baseline.

But that doesn’t mean the baseline is pleasant; hurt, anger, and confusion persisting in Leo’s mind even in quieter moments. It’s been days, and still no sign of their brothers. He doesn’t understand any more now than he did at the beginning why they’re doing this, or what’s causing them to hold out for so long.

Leo had thought his brothers would come home within a night or two. The end of the week comes, and they get no closer to finding out where their brothers have gone.

He’s less sure what to make of that than he’s ever been.

They see the first action they’ve seen in weeks, a few days into the third week of their brothers’ disappearance.

It’s just the Purple Dragons, causing trouble now that the Kraang and the Foot clan have moved elsewhere. Leo reached something of an agreement with Karai about the Foot’s criminal activities; if it was kept out of his territory, he’d turn a blind eye and stop fighting about it. He’s not sure if she did that because he asked her to, or if she did it simply to avoid dealing with his dislike of it.

The fight should be easy. It’s the A-team, with the addition of Casey, against four ordinary men. They’ve fought entire armies at this point; four humans shouldn’t be any trouble at all.

But, no one’s there to cover Leo’s left flank. Casey is unpredictable with where he places himself in a fight, and Raph is always on Leo’s striking right. There’s no one covering their shells or his left flank.

Leo gets a deep cut in his left shoulder, because he got careless and forgot Mikey is gone.

It’s not a bad injury. He’s had wounds ten times worse, and this one won’t take more than a few days to heal. It still hurts, though.

They beat up the Dragons, call it a night, and Leo has to do first aid on himself for the first time… a fair while.

Donnie’s not here to patch them up, so Leo has to clean and bandage the gash with one hand. It’s not as neat as it could be, but he gets the wide band-aid in place, and that’s all he really needs to do.

It’s a bit unsettling afterwards, realizing how many holes there were in their fight patterns. The whole of their group fighting style depends on having at least three components- they’re short half their team, which tripped Leo up, and Casey has never been an easy person to mesh with in a fight. At least not for Leo; Raph always did it with ease, and still does.

Leo faltered, because he’s too used to having someone there to cover for him.

The empty spots in their team are emptier than ever, coming down from the high of battle and finding the victory lacking. No one is cheering particularly loud, and what few injuries they received have to be tended to individually.

Leo misses his brothers with a striking bolt of emotion, and it’s followed quickly by the feeling of betrayal at their disappearance.

He’s angry with them. He’s missing them. He just wants them to at least tell him why they left.

Leo goes home with his remaining brother, and there are not nearly enough footsteps to echo their way there.

The Shredder looms in front of him, and Leo can’t even scream before the blades come down on him.

He feels his plastron split, long scores all the way down. The pain blinds him, and it sends his senses white with agony.

Another slash- to his knee cap- and a scream finally does work its way out of his throat.

He goes down, landing on his side and still screaming. It hurts. It hurts it hurts it hurts-

Leo’s eyes roll wildly, pain blotting any thought from his mind except for wanting it to stop. He feels the icy slush of the ground mixing with the burning hot blood running out of him; it sticks to his scales and gives the effect of magma meeting the arctic waters across his body.

No one is here, no one is here and he’s alone. He’s alone and he barely has the strength to drag himself across the cold ground. Dirt and snow turn to mud under his arms as he crawls, gasping and retching as agony throbs through him.

A shadow falls across his vision, and Leo looks upwards with fear.

Splinter’s figure stands nearby, snow falling delicately on his robe.

“-Sensei,” Leo gasps. He’s saved. He’s saved. He raises a hand, reaching desperately for his father to take it, pick him off the construction site’s cold ground and stop the steady bleeding from his body.

Splinter doesn’t move, just staring down at him.

“Sensei-” Leo’s voice cracks as he tries to raise his hand higher. “Sensei, please.”

Splinter remains motionless.

Leo’s vision fills, blurring. Hot tears slide down his cheeks. “Father- I can’t- h-help me, it hurts, please father it- hurts-”

Why won’t his father take his hand? Why won’t he help him?

Twin blades are stabbed through Splinter’s stomach, and Leo screams.

Splinter falls, and reveals the hulking figure of Shredder behind him.

No, no no no-

His father lays motionless on the cold ground, red growing in a thick puddle all around him. His wide dead eyes stare up at the ashy clouds above them both, filled with smoke and snow. Leo can’t breathe, lungs hitching and failing to fill as he pulls himself to his father’s body.

His fingers grip the very edge of Splinter’s sleeve, the damp fabric offering no comfort as Leo sobs. Broken and bleeding on the ground, nearly as dead as Splinter is.

His father is dead. He’s dead and no one is coming to save him. No one was ever coming to save him. Leo failed.

He failed and he’s alone.

A rough grip turns him over, and Leo meets the eyes of the monster that’s come to kill him a second time.

He struggles, weakly clawing at the huge hand that’s holding him in place. He’s screaming. He’s screaming loud enough it hurts. For someone, anyone, to save him, please, please can’t someone save him-

The Shredder raises his blades, and tears open Leo’s throat.

Leo wakes, and claws at his throat as he tries to breathe.

Its pitch black in his room, and he throws off the covers as he forces himself upright. His scars and lungs burn; his nerves on fire as he re-experiences the sensations of his injuries.

Leo retches, coughing and struggling to fill his lungs. It’s painful, his vocal cords aching as he pants fast and shallow. He’s been screaming, he can already tell.

The Shredder and his father flash across his vision, and he nearly falls on the floor as he stumbles out of bed.

He knows where his weapons are, even in the dark, and he gets his hands on his swords fast as he can. Alone in his room, Leo clings to the best defense he has. His heart is beating loud in his ears, and the feeling of being cut into pieces plays over his body again and again.

He feels like he’s dying.

He feels like he’s still there, in that construction site.

He feels like he’s going to throw up.

Leo curls around his swords, huddled on the floor of his room, and sobs.

No one comes to see why. Anyone who might’ve heard is asleep, or has been gone for nearly four weeks.

He’s alone.

Come home, he texts Mikey on the second day of the fourth week. I don’t know why you left. What did we do? Why won’t you answer me?

Please, come back home. If you’d just stop being so stubborn, we could talk about it.

What did you tell Leatherhead? Why is he so angry with us?

Mikey, what did we do?

Answer me.

Please answer me.

Mikey.

This isn’t funny.

If this is some stupid, drawn out joke, I’m not laughing.

Come home.

You’re making Raph worry, you’re making our friends worry.

You’re making Me worry.

Can’t you at least call us?

Mikey

Mikey come on

Please.

Just come home already.

April stops taking their calls completely. Leo doesn’t see her at all in the Foot clan headquarters, and Karai will only tell him she doesn’t want to see him at the moment.

He can only muster the dull feeling of confusion that night. It’s been so long since his brothers disappeared, the way April is breaking herself off from their group is only painful in the faintest way.

He doesn’t understand why she’s doing this. He doesn’t understand why Leatherhead won’t even look at him anymore. He doesn’t understand his brothers left and won’t talk to him.

He doesn’t understand any of it, and it makes a hollow pit inside his stomach.

You’re making us all worry, he texts Donnie, almost five weeks into their disappearance. You ran away and left almost nothing to explain Why.

Answer me, Donnie.

At least give me a reason.

You should be here. Both of you. Not

Not running around like this. Ignoring me, Raph, everyone.

This isn’t like you.

You’re acting like a kid. You know better than to make us worry like this.

Donnie

Please answer me.

At least tell me WHY you won’t answer!

What did we even do to you guys?

Both of you should be ashamed of yourselves. We’re all worried about you two.

Donnie

Donnie please

At least answer me.

Let me know you’re okay.

Leo rips himself out of another nightmare, screaming as he does.

This time, he’d had to watch all his brothers and friends die before he watched Splinter be killed. And then he’d died, too.

The image of all of them laid out, snowflakes and ash falling on their torn up corpses, forces Leo to get out of bed.

It’s the middle of the day, barely past noon, but he can’t even imagine going back to sleep.

He goes to the dojo instead, the one place he still can find a semblance of calm. Or, where he’d used to be able to.

Now, the katas he runs through are sloppy. His steps falter and skip. He can’t find his internal metronome, and the sickening anger inside Leo is only fed by that.

It’s just him and his swords, nothing else in the world. But this time it doesn’t work. The solution to his nightmares and fears has always been routine, his steady and dependable routine even with all the chaos in his life.

But he doesn’t have his routine anymore.

His father is dead. His father has been dead for months and is never there to greet him in the evenings, up just as early and ready to move through tai-chi with Leo. His altar is the only way Leo can see his face anymore, and it sends lightning hot flashes of grief through him every time he looks at it.

His brothers are gone. Donnie and Mikey aren’t there to move in and out of Leo’s space, following their own haphazard routines as the evening begins. They’ve been gone for five weeks and it’s left a gaping hole in Leo’s life, nearly larger than the one their father did.

Raph sleeps late, every night now. They talk tersely or they don’t talk at all, they fight about everything, neither of them can find any common ground anymore. They used to have a balance between them, the A-team, the best fighters in their family. They can barely get through an evening without one of them storming out or causing a fight.

April won’t talk to them, Leatherhead won’t talk to them, Casey and Karai and Slash are no help.

Everything is falling apart.

All. Because. His brothers left.

Leo doesn’t know how long he’s been sparring with the air, but his knee screams at him as he moves without care.

He’s furious. He’s broken through the numbness and he’s furious.

How dare they leave. After everything they’ve done and lost and fought to regain- they just leave him?

This is their home, this is their family- Leo is their leader, their Sensei, their brother- and they still just left?

They didn’t even say goodbye. Donnie and Mikey just picked up and left him and Raph. They abandoned their family and didn’t look back. They turned Leatherhead on them, have probably turned April on them- who will they take next? Casey? Karai?

Leo nearly killed himself for them, over and over. He spent his whole life trying to be the leader of their family, struggling to make the hard decisions and make the right hard decisions- he put hours and hours of time in, training himself until he was exhausted. He studied battle tactics and acted responsibly whenever no one else would. He was the best older brother and leader he could be and they still just left.

Everything he did for them, everything they did together- his brothers threw it all away and abandoned him.

He’s moving fast and jaggedly; all of his movements spurred on by anger and hurt. Leo’s sides burn as he heaves in breaths, pushing his body to keep going even as his arms and legs try to give out.

Leo catches a family photo out of the corner of his eyes, hung on the wall of the dojo.

He yells wordlessly, and slashes at it.

The frame and glass splinter, and his sword slices the photo in half. It falls to the floor as it’s destroyed.

Leo stops, staring at the destroyed piece of memorabilia.

The picture is of him and his family. Leo and his siblings lined up in front of their father, young and proud of themselves.

He’s sliced the two sets of brothers in half; Leo and Raph on one half, and Donnie and Mikey on the other. The beaming smiles from their younger selves stare up at him accusingly.

Broken glass and wood litter the floor around the halved picture, and Leo stares back at the snapshot of their shared pasts.

Why did they leave?

What did he do wrong?

His eyes sting, and Leo sinks to his knees.

He feels hollow as he kneels; the center of his chest empty and painful. His katana make the glass shards clink as he lays the blades on them, eyes locked on what he’s gone and destroyed.

Their father, who had been directly center of the picture, is sliced in half. One side of Splinter with each set of siblings.

It’s ruined the smile his father had been wearing that day, the split picture.

Leo’s grip on his swords tightens, and he bites his lip. He feels his shoulders shake, and it’s not from physical exhaustion.

Leo lowers his head, vision blurring completely, and feels utterly alone.

Leo sleeps whenever he can. Night, day, in between- he’s lost his routine completely, and with it his internal balance. Nightmares get him if he sleeps too deeply, and there’s only so many times he can take watching his family die.

The fury dies slowly, turning into a painful smoulder in his chest; dead center of the emptiness. He’s angry with his brothers, with his friends- but more so, Leo just wants things to go back to normal.

Things were good. They were moving out of grieving, they were moving on. They’d started their training sessions with him as Sensei, run a few mock missions with total success. He was watching his family rebuild themselves around the gaping wound Splinter’s death left them all. They were fine.

Why did his brothers leave?

He’s been asking himself that, texting the question over and over, leaving voicemails anywhere from ten seconds to five minutes long asking just that- for six weeks, over six weeks, and he still doesn’t have an answer.

Leo doesn’t understand what he or Raph did to make their brothers so mad. He’s racking his brain even now for a recent fight or disagreement severe enough to cause this- and he’s getting nothing. As far as he can tell, everything between the A-team and the B-team was the same as it always was. Which was fine, they were all perfectly fine.

Did he miss something? Had something happen without him knowing? If so, why didn’t his brothers talk to him about it?

Why did they leave? Why won’t they answer him?

At this point, Leo just wants to understand.

He just wants his family to come home.

Leo comes out of a deep meditative state one night, after attempting to reach a state of clarity he can’t seem to achieve anymore, to find Casey shouting at Raph. And April, who is dressed in her Foot uniform still and trying to pull Casey away from where Raph lays on the floor, holding the side of his face.

“Fuck you!” Casey yells, straining against April’s grip on him. “You- you’re my best friend and you think that’s okay? Why the fuck- I thought you were- you were supposed to-”

“Casey!” April snaps, hauling him backwards. “You promised me-”

“You were supposed to prove me wrong! You were supposed to own up to it and- and-”

“Casey!!”

“Fuck you!” Casey yells again, red in the face and looking angrier than Leo’s ever seen him. “Fuck you for that shit you pulled! Fuck you for being an abusive dickwad and thinking its okay-”

“CASEY!” April shouts, and she finally pulls Casey away from Raph. “You promised me you’d let them handle this themselves. This is Donnie and Mikey’s fight- not yours.”

“He’s my best friend,” Casey fires back, and his angry expression cracks, becoming something hurt. “He’s my best friend, and I didn’t see shit.”

“It’s not our fight. It’s not our place.” April says those things, but it looks painful for her to do so. She pushes Casey further away from Raph, herding him out towards the exit. “Come on. Get some air.”

Casey shrugs of her hands. “Get off me, I can do it myself…”

“Guys?” Leo finally breaks in, drawing attention to himself. All eyes move to him; Casey and April’s defensive, Raph’s wide and shocked. “April? Casey? What’s-”

“And you-” Casey cuts him off, a snarl twisting his expression. “Fuck you, too. You’re just as- you pulled the exact same shit-”

April pushes him again. “Casey, out.”

Casey growls, and seems to physically rein himself in. “Fine, fine. Let go- let go of me.”

April lets go of him. Casey gives them one last dark, furious glare, and then storms out of the lair. April watches him go, and then turns back to Leo and Raph.

Leo is startled by how coldly angry her eyes are.

“…April, what’s going on?” He asks, feeling lost. “What did we do?”

Her expression turns bitterly sad, and she turns her back on them.

“Ask your brothers that.”

She walks out of the lair, following Casey’s steps, and is gone before Leo can manage another word.

Casey stops speaking to them. It has the effect Leo expects on Raph. Fury, aimless fury, and a deep set wound of betrayal.

Their calls and texts remain unanswered, even as Leo and Raph ask them pointedly what Casey’s comments meant.

Their social group loses another member, and then it’s just Leo and his brother, and Slash. Karai somewhat counts, but Leo sees her so rarely it doesn’t feel like it.

The lair feels like an echoing cavern; cold and hollow. There’s no hum of Donnie’s machines and constant work, no background racket as Mikey plays his radio, t-phone, and the television all at once-

Their rooms are empty of life, and their lack of presence is somehow oppressive.

The nightmares worsen, Leo sleeps even less, and he still can’t understand why any of this is happening.

Leo stares at the photo of his father, set on the altar.

He’s kneeling partially out of respect, partially out of exhaustion. The only way he can feel anything besides slow swallowing numbness anymore is to work himself to the bone. It gives him near black sleep, at least.

Leo stares at his father’s image, and wonders where he went wrong.

He’d just been doing what he was supposed to do, what he was taught to do, and his brothers left anyways. He’d been trying his best, every single night, and his friends still all turned on him. Leo had tried to be everything his father had wanted, known, him to be, and everything has fallen apart anyways.

If he was always destined to be a leader, if he was always destined to take the mantle of Sensei, if this is what he’d been born to do…

…then why has he failed so miserably?

His phone rings, some infinite amount of time later.

Leo picks it up, off the table to the side of the dojo where he left it.

Raph’s caller ID is displayed, bringing faint disappointment to Leo’s heart, and he answers it.

“Raph? Hello?”

“-h-hey, Leo,” Raph gasps over the line. “I think- I think I need s-some help here.”

Continuation. (pending.)

#These Days tag #tmnt #tmnt 2012 #leonardo #raphael #My writing #ladies gentlemen and those who are neither #i present to you Trauma Boy!#in all his messed up glory #*throws confetti*#wow is this kid ever fucked up #good job splinter #really nailed the parenting right here #:/#boy howdy this took a long-ass time to get out #leave me your reactions and go listen to that new playlist #i need you to do both so i can keep feeling like a valid writer #thanks

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