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colibrie · 4 days

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HOW ABOUT THAT @somerandomdudelmao DISASTER TWIN REUNION, HUH

Went a little feral to the tune of 2.2K words of self-indulgence. What else is new?

~~~~~~~

Donnie can't sleep. More accurately, he won't sleep. Not until he's done. He'd never been one to leave a project unfinished; death and resurrection hadn't changed that.

He taps incessantly, repetitively, on a keyboard and screen, the motions long since past inputting data and now only serving to keep him awake. The repetition is soothing, easy, and - counterintuitively - he finds his head drooping forward into sleep-

And he snaps back upright. No. Not until he can confirm Leo is okay.

Leo is behind him, he knows. Breathing. In bed. Asleep. Very much alive. And-

He jumps and whips around as a thud sounds behind him. "What the-"

Leo is on the floor.

Well, that answers the question as to whether his twin is awake.

For a fraction of a second, part of him wavers uncertainly. He loves his idiot twin. The question he hasn't been able to answer is whether his reaction to Leo waking up will fall on love or idiot twin-

"Leo!"

He can hear the exasperation in his voice, and yep, it's the latter. He takes a knee next to Leo and hauls him into his arms, lecturing him all the while, and if he can hear the annoyance in his voice then Leo sure as hell can. Sleep deprivation for the purposes of keeping his brother's soul alight had done nothing for his temper. "I swear to God, all you had to do was make a sound! Why are you such a difficult patient?"

He deposits Leo carefully on the bed - "Sit still!" - and checks him over, running every scan he can think of and making sure his brother's new body really is in good working order, spouting increasingly irritated commentary all the while. Of course the fall didn't hurt him - Leo is tougher than that, and Donnie does better work than that - but he still can't help the rising anxiety in his throat.

This almost didn't happen.

"-stupid, stupid selfless idiot!"

Donnie almost couldn't save him.

"Grrhh-"

Leo nearly died for real. Permanently beyond Donnie's reach. Well and truly gone-

"Do you have any idea how close you were to having nothing left to save?"

And now here Leo is, in perfect health, sitting on Donnie's bed with a big dopey grin on his face as Donnie chokes on his anxiety and damn near shakes himself apart-

Oh for fuck's sake.

"Hey. Are you even listening?"

Leo speaks up for the first time since he's woken up, voice shaky from disuse. "D-Donnie?"

And that is not a goddamn answer to anything Donnie has been saying, because of course it isn't. It's Leo. He's always had his own priorities. "Yeah. No. You're not fucking listening." Donnie heaves a long-suffering sigh, sinking back into the routine comfort that irritation at his twin provides. "At least you're talking." Small favors. "Although I'm surprised you're not throwing your stupid jokes at me." Even smaller favors.

He stops short as Leo's hand closes around his wrist, drawing Donnie's arm to Leo's plastron. "You're real," his brother breathes, looking from Donnie's hand to Donnie himself with tears streaming down his face. "You're real!"

And then, in the space of a thought, Leo's joy breaks, his smile turning desperate. "Are you?"

For a moment, Donnie stares at his twin, wondering at the sudden change in expression. He takes a breath-

And the part of him that had lain dormant for so long after he'd woken up - the part of him that had been screaming for his twin's safety ever since they'd recovered the few scattered embers of Leo's soul - gasps to life, blooming like a time-lapse video of a flower and reaching to the edges of Donnie's soul. Leo had called it their twin sense, and Donnie hadn't had it in him to argue after a while. Whatever it is, it's back, connected to Leo's renewed presence, and-

Donnie's heart floods with emotions. Relief and joy sprout quickly and are nearly swept away in a tide of exhaustionanxietyfearfearfearfearFEAR-

But down beneath it all, steady against the rising wall of terror, is the little blue spark of hope that his brother always carried. His core. The thing that let him continue on in the face of insurmountable odds, and lent that same strength to everyone around him. A ninja's greatest weapon.

It's Leo. It's Leo-

And Donnie can't leave him alone in his fear. Not when there's no need for it. Not when they're safe.

He lets that breath out, and sits next to Leo on the bed. "Mhm. I'm alive. And you're alive. We're safe. The Krang are gone." That's all the news that's fit to print, or at least the most important parts. What else does he have to say?

Oh.

"I'm sorry I..uh…"

He's sorry he what? Died? Left a mess for Leo to deal with? Didn't do enough while he was alive to keep everyone else alive in turn after he was gone? Kept his brother's soul in a fucking mug, because that was the only way he could ensure he wouldn't break it while Leo was still fragile? All of the above?

…yeah, it's all of the above.

He owes Leo one hell of an apology, and he's never been good at any of this, so instead he shrugs haplessly and leans forward, pulling Leo into his arms and hanging on tight.

It's a matter of moments before Leo has him flat on his shell on the bed and is sobbing into his arms. Normally he'd hate seeing his twin cry, but it's proof of life - proof that Leo made it, that his soul is intact enough for him to still be Leo, that he's alive and awake and here - and Donnie will take it.

And if he's squeezing Leo back pretty hard himself, well, that's fine too. Nobody else needs to know.

~~~~~~~

Donnie is yelling at him.

Donnie is strong enough to have picked Leo up off the ground, well enough to be on his feet without support, running tests and reading Leo the riot act over his latest boneheaded maneuver - in this case, forgetting he was missing an arm and falling out of bed.

Donnie is yelling at him, because Donnie is here to yell at him.

And Leo is smiling, because he couldn't be happier. He lets the words wash over him, draping over his shoulders like a favorite cozy blanket that he'd lost so many years ago, and he basks in the warmth that is his brother's voice and smiles.

It's enough to interrupt the yelling for a question, though he doesn't really hear it - just keeps smiling, and says Donnie's name, and it's so nice to be able to say it with a smile now, because Donnie is here-

-he is, right? This isn't just a dying hallucination on Leo's part, right?

(It couldn't be- he remembers his death, remembers breathing his last, remembers being trapped- but this-)

He reaches out, taking Donnie's wrist in hand, and pulls his brother closer to him. "You're…real…" It certainly feels real - skin and scales, softer than his own, and his fingers barely fit all the way around the wrist instead of encircling them with room to spare - and he stares down at it, tears rolling down his face as he finally looks back up at his twin. "You're real!"

The Krang show you what you want to see.

The thought strikes him unbidden, turning his joy and relief to ice. It's a well-known fact: a Krang infection can show its host what they want to see, visions of comfort and family and home, and extract intel from the host's reactions. He knows that- he knows that, and-

And he'd died surrounded by Krang- and even if he couldn't see or hear or feel, he knows he'd been held captive-

But it's Donnie- he wants this to be real- he needs this to be real- he wants his twin back so badly he can't think, and the idea that this could be a Krang hallucination is almost too much to bear-

"Are you?" He can hear how choked the words are as they leave his lips, but he needs to know-

And Donnie stops, and sits down next to him, and tells him everything he wants to hear - everything he could've ever wished for. They're alive. They're safe. The Krang are gone. It all sounds too good to be true.

And then Donnie offers him an apology and a sad half-smile, pulling him into a strong hug-

And the ice in Leo's mind shatters in a flood of warmth as his twin sense opens for the first time since Donnie's death. He feels his twin's irritation, and deep-seated exhaustion, and a choking wave of guiltguiltguiltguiltguilt-

And beneath it all, steady and strong as ever, the thrum of unending determination, powered by an unfathomably deep well of love. It's the backbeat to the melody of Leo's life, the point-counterpoint to his own heartbeat- it's something he'd never had to live without until he did, but it's back, rushing in to fill the silence he'd known with the strength to go on and the knowledge that he is loved loved loved, strong and overwhelming and all-encompassing in the way only Donnie can love-

It's something the Krang could never imitate.

This is real. This is all real-

He throws himself against his twin, toppling them both over on the bed as he clings to Donnie, unable to stand even a fraction of an inch of space between them, as though he could push their hearts together through their plastrons, and he cries, sobbing out worry and terror and grief and the slow, crushing exhaustion of a losing battle finally lost. He cries as though the world was ending - and it had, once when the Krang had invaded and again every time he'd lost a member of his family, over and over until he'd sent his last hope through a portal that had cost his littlest brother his life and succumbed to death himself.

And now he's alive. Here, wherever here is, with Donnie. Clinging to his twin, and being held in turn as Donnie gently sits them both up, never letting go as Leo cries himself out.

It takes a while - long enough for Leo's gaze to settle into a stare and his thoughts to settle into a comfortable static. He's alive, Donnie is alive, and he has no fucking idea what else is going on, but he's just going to be okay with that for now.

His thoughts rouse enough to inform him of something wrong - the line of tension Donnie is carrying down his neck and over his shoulders. That won't do. Leo could try to massage it out with one hand, maybe try to get Donnie to talk about it, but Donnie never likes to talk about it, and Leo isn't one for slowly soothing away tension when he can just take an axe to the release valve instead. Plus, it gives him something definite to focus on, instead of…this whole situation. Whatever 'this whole situation' actually is.

Donnie had mentioned his stupid jokes, right?

"H-hey Dee?" His voice wavers from disuse, thick with tears, but he pushes through. "Why did- why did the tree buy a camera?"

"What?" Oh, Donnie is not going to see this coming. Excellent.

"To do a photosynthesis." It's nowhere near the level of pizazz he normally uses for a punchline delivery - he's still too tired and frazzled and clinging to Donnie entirely too hard for that - but that beautiful pause of a terrible joke sinking in tells him it had hit home nonetheless. Donnie moves - he can hear the telltale slap of face meeting palm - and then breaks down into helpless laughter, smacking the back of Leo's shell as the tension Leo had felt in his twin's shoulders abruptly relaxes. Good. It worked.

"This is so fucking stupid," is all Donnie manages as his laughter fades, and he slumps fully against Leo with a murmur. That's...abrupt. Sure, Leo had felt Donnie's exhaustion, but he hadn't realized it'd been that bad. He takes hold of Donnie, gently laying him down on the bed to rest-

Remember what happened last time Donnie fell asleep next to you.

He gasps sharply at the thought - not again NEVER again - and keeps his hand steady as he moves, laying both fingers gently against Donnie's neck and feeling for his pulse. It's easy to find, strong and steady and even, like it had been before the infection had taken Donnie's vitality and then his life.

But he's alive, and healthy, and sleeping. He's okay. And Leo-

Leo moves his hand to the side of his own neck. His pulse is also easy to find, quickened with the adrenaline of an unknown situation and multiple consecutive shocks to his system.

Okay. Take stock. Assess. Figure out a plan from there.

He's alive. Donnie's alive. The Krang are gone. And everything else…is a big fat question mark, with no easy answers and no indication as to where to begin looking for them.

Well.

Uh.

"What the fuck," Leo whispers to the room at large, as though the walls could answer.

~~~~~~~

(A world away and still very close, a younger pair of twins cling to one another the way a drowning man clings to driftwood: desperately, clutching tight, as though letting go will spell their doom. Neither of them know where the emotions came from, or why; all they know is that each of them are damn glad the other is alive, and they'll do everything they can to make sure that continues to be the case.)

(What the fuck, indeed.)

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colibrie · 4 days

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A Twin Thing - Finale - 16 years old

Due to formatting, this chap is best read on A03 Rated: G Summary: How much do you know? His twin’s brow furrows deep, and Donnie looks tired, so tired when he finally whispers. “Everything.” Leo’s face pales. His eyes sting again at the corners. “E-Everything?” Everything.

A/N: This chapter is a sort of reversed mirror to the last one and intersects, if you skipped chap 6, the story will make sense but it will lose some clarity. If you elect to reread the pain train, I'm sorry in advance but also you're welcome for how this slots into place.

::CH1::CH2::CH3::CH4::CH5::CH6::

I also recommend a little bit of background ambiance music to help bring the feels home. Set this playlist to loop on your spotify (or wherever you like your jammy jams) and read: Home and Reunion -- Alkis Livathinos (From Hue OST)

~~ 16 years old ~ Finale ~~

“Mikey, it’s over,” Raph urges him gently.

Donatello releases a shuddering breath, not yet willing to face his youngest brother’s grief when he is still choking on his own. But Mikey’s voice rings clear and determined across the empty parking lot.

“Leo never gave up on us. I’m not giving up on him!”

The air around them sparks to life with electric golden light as Mikey groans with effort. Turning in surprise, Donnie feels a stir deep within himself the moment that the air before his little brother splits into a golden seam. He inhales sharply, several more tears escaping as his eyes widen.

“Mikey?! Whatever you’re doing-- don’t stop!!” Raph instructs as he rushes forward.

Donnie follows hot on his heels towards the inexplicable pull of what lies beyond that spark of mystic power. It pulses with an energy that tickles at the edges of the void throbbing in his chest. As he grasps his little brother’s shoulder tightly, he never takes his eyes off the glowing golden light ripping open space before them.

“We’re here, Mikey. Together!”

Mystic energy disseminates through the three of them and crackles their skin with Mikey’s golden light. The doorway opens into a dim lifeless space, filled with decaying frozen remnants of destroyed ships and krang carcasses.

With every inch the portal grows, Donatello feels the cold emptiness inside him shrink and fill with a presence he had not realized belonged there until this moment. A tiny mote of fury, a splash of humor, a blaze of passion, a wave of loyalty, and the warmth of a love he took for granted every second of every day of his life because Donnie has never once had to go without it until now. A presence he never wants to feel the lack of ever again.

Golden light illuminates Leo’s bruised face, and the dum dum has the gumption to smile as he reaches towards them, “Heh... took you guys long enough!”

Raph projects his arm through the portal without hesitation to pull their brother out of the darkness, but the menacing glint of a scarlet eye rears its ugly head behind Leonardo. The tears that still leak from Donnie’s eyes spark into seething streaks of violet mystic energy as he growls with unbridled rage at the Krang. Shaping his fury into a massive drill, he aims straight and true for the monster who nearly ripped his twin from him, buying just enough time for Raph to get Leo through the portal and into their waiting arms as Mikey closes it behind them.

The ringing he had heard is gone. As is the icy void in his chest, the aching emptiness he had felt when the krang portal snapped closed. Falling to his knees, Donnie studies Leo’s bruised and broken body in silent horror, words having left him as his head fills with a faint buzz of pain from... well everywhere.

“Leo?” Raph asks nervously beside him.

“Hey,” Leo answers tiredly after a brief moment, finding the strength somehow to offer them a smile. His gaze travels over each of his brothers’ faces, reaching Donnie last and pausing. The swollen skin around his eye twitches and his brow wrinkles slightly with concern as he eyes Don’s unusually obvious distress.

Donatello’s eyes water again as he feels the question that goes unspoken between them.

You good?

Pressing his lips into a tightline, Don minutely twitches his head in a nod and releases a shuddering breath when words cannot form on his tongue. Leo understands, because of course he always has, and moves his gaze elsewhere taking in their surroundings.

“ Ewww! Are we in Staten Island?”

Raphael pulls all his brothers into a hug full of relieved teary laughter as they cling to each other, shaking from the adrenaline and emotions still running high between them. He feels the way Leo winces through his laughter, an echo of a sharp sting in his own chest follows. Slowly, carefully, he reaches for Leonardo’s hand, the one that isn’t trembling and squeezes. Leo finds his gaze again with wide eyes, searching his face as if seeing something new, before squeezing back. Don feels his face grow damp again, and doesn’t bother to stem the fresh flow of tears this time.

He doesn’t let go of Leo’s hand. Not while they wait huddled together for April, Casey and Papa to get to their location. Not as they all pile into the ‘acquired’ van that will get them back to safety. Not for a moment during the long ride to get back into the city through the chaos and wreckage the invasion had caused. Not as his body temperature slowly drops, despite being surrounded on all sides by his brothers. Not when his eyes droop closed in spite of everything racing through his mind telling him to stay awake.

Voices murmur around him, but he’s reached the stage where he can’t understand them. It’s all just radio static. No one presses him for words he can’t find. He sits quietly, breathing slow and shallow through the pain, hand still locked with Leo’s where his twin sits propped up against Raph’s chest. Mikey is pressed close beside him, arms folded carefully in his lap unmoving when normally he’d be playing with his phone.

His little brother is in pain, Donnie realizes. It radiates off of Raphael as well, in the tenseness of his muscles, and the way he grinds his jaw. Leo is like a beacon of it, pulsing with hurt and yet still finding it in himself to keep smiling, making soft voiced jokes probably to soothe all of their nerves and to keep himself awake. They should all stay awake...

Donnie should be planning their next move, should be assessing each family member's damage to know what they’ll need when they arrive home. With Leo out of commission, he’s going to need help. Did his brothers shred the manuals for all of the medical devices in the medbay like they did for the Turtle tank? Maybe he should just send the digital backups straight to their phones for ease of access... Do they even have enough supplies for how injured they all are? He tries to move through a checklist of what he knows is stocked in their small, about to be proven inadequate medbay... only to find his thoughts moving like a spoon through a thick lumpy soup. Nevermind that he cannot recall exactly what is in stock at home, they definitely are going to need more of everything , and should make a pit stop before reaching the lair.

He tries to say as much, only his tongue clicks in his mouth and no words leave him. Trying again results only in another series of clicks, ending with a very soft chirp.

Leo catches the small noises immediately, looking at him with increasing concern. The distortion of unintelligible words continues around him and Don blinks slow, almost doesn’t open his eyes again. His tongue clicks again trying to form words, except it gets stuck in a long strangled sound that nearly makes him gag this time.

“Donnie, you okay buddy?”

Raph is speaking now, and it takes real effort to drag his eyes up to his eldest brother. The larger turtle moves his hands tiredly, there’s something wrong with his right arm. Donnie can tell by how stiffly he moves and the sloppiness of his hand shapes.

[[ Sign? ]]

Don swallows thickly, clicking again. The fingers of his free hand lift and twitch through the pain, but the signs won’t come, locked in his mind.

“Hey Dee, you with me?”

Donnie shifts his gaze to his twin who’s right eye has nearly swollen shut, Leo squeezes their still laced fingers and it hurts . Everything hurts .

The edges of Don's vision are as dark as the bruises ripening along all of their bodies. In lieu of answering, his eyes fall shut as a violent shiver runs through him and he whimpers. Gravity does something funny, and Donnie hears what might be his name frantic on Mikey's tongue.

Only then does his grip on Leo’s hand finally loosen, and all fades to unforgiving black.

The anxiety, fear, and pain they have all been suppressing throughout their hard won fight bubbles up the moment Donatello keels over like a limp noodle. For several minutes, the back of the van is pure chaos, raised voices, worried cries, upset tears and distressed movement, before Leo can finally wrangle everyone’s attention and energy into effective triage. Not a single one of them is whole, but they do their best to follow his shaky instructions.

Everything in his body aches like a raw nerve, so much so that Leo could hardly feel the steady undercurrent of his twin’s echoing pain beneath his own. He can’t know everything that his little brothers endured when he separated from them inside the technodrome, but even just the blow that broke through Donnie’s shield at the top... Leo intimately knows the power behind those blows. He should have known -- should have realized sooner that Don could not have remained unscathed after such a direct hit. He should have been paying attention to everyone's condition...

Leo fights back the pure panic that washes through him when darkness starts to edge at his own vision. He can’t pass out on them too, they need direction and with Donnie out cold, there’s no one else with enough medical knowledge to walk them through dressing the wounds they’ve suffered, or using the equipment in the medbay. It takes Leo a moment to realize the scared whimpers he’s hearing distantly are his own. He’s waited too long, and now there is no telling who will konk out next, and whether or not they’d even wake up again.

“Easy, Leo. Just one step at a time. We’ll get through this together, like we always do, okay?” Raph assures him with a gentle squeeze to this shoulder.

He must be speaking out loud, but he can no longer hear himself above the ringing in his ears. He’s floating as the room gets dimmer. No, no, no, he doesn’t want to be alone in the dark again.

“My son,” Splinter’s voice is the gentlest he has ever heard it as his pink hand brushes over his brow, “We’re here, you’re here with us, you're safe now.”

Casey nervously pipes up, but he’s so very far away to Leo, “Isn’t there a medical facility we could go to?”

“T-There aren’t any that would be non-human friendly yet, Casey,” Even April sounds shaky.

“Barry-- we should call Barry, omigosh-- do we even know if he’s okay?? April could you, o-ow eheh...” Mikey’s weak laugh is a poor cover for his obvious pain as he pulls out his phone and nearly drops it when handing it over to her. His hands are shaking too much to work it. Leo tries not to think about nerve damage and how little he can do to reverse that...

“Nice thinking, Mikey...” Leo offers weakly and shivers as his eyes droop against his will, “Could-- could someone... turn on the l-lights...please?”

Several frightened voices call his name as he sinks deeper into the darkness, feeling small and terrified . Alone. Again.

The Krang’s laughter echoes ominous around him and Leo feels his breath start to freeze in his lungs as--

Familiar warmth fills his chest, easing the chill, calming his breaths, sharing the pain . Leo wants to cry when he feels the presence somehow standing with him.

I’m here.

Relief battles against the agonizing memory of that cold dark void, trapped, terrified, alone--

Please-- please don’t leave me alone--

I won't.

Leo believes in those words, and finally lets go of conscious thought.

The next several hours are a haze of agony and severe anxiety every time he wakes up dazed and unaware of where he is. Pain is always the first sensation, followed by dread, and cold. The endless cold vastness of dead space, alone --

I’m here.

Leo clings to the comfort of those words and fades out again.

Splinter and Draxum argue quietly when next he wakes up. He can’t really understand what they’re saying through the fog of hurt. It takes them a moment to even realize he’s staring dully between them as if following a ping pong match.

“You shouldn’t be alive ,” the yokai sounds oddly fond as he injects something into Leo’s IV bag that makes the world go soft around the edges. There’s a thump followed by a grunt from Draxum.

“What I mean is. I am. Glad. That you. Are not extinguished,” he finishes awkwardly.

“I still h’ven f’got you... you threw m’off a buildin’,” Leo slurs, barely able to keep his eyes open from the heavy combination of drugs keeping his pain and stress levels manageable.

“And he still has not apologized for it,” Splinter gruffs, smoothing a hand over his brow. Leo closes his eyes and drifts away again before he can make out Draxum’s haughty laughing rebuttal.

Another laugh echoes sinister around him in the dark and he tenses.

I’m here.

He relaxes .

The next time he wakes up, it’s with the dissociative numbness that only comes from a very strong cocktail of painkillers. He’s on his side... man he hates sleeping on his side, leaves such a bad crick in the neck... The dull pulsing throb in his shell even through the haze of medication tells him why it must be so. Bit by bit he registers his surroundings.

Mikey is curled up carefully beside him. His little brother’s head is wrapped, and he can see a line of butterfly stitches peeking under the gauze. His mind moves like molasses through the fight, recalling the hit that separated them. How Leo had cracked his shell for the first time (but not the last) against the concrete slabs surrounding them, but Mikey-- Michelangelo had smacked head first into one. Mikey's hands are also bandaged up from fingertips to the elbows... and from what his blurred vision reveals, Leo has even more bandages all over his own body along with a few casted limbs. Mikey’s bandaged palm is on his plastron, just over where his heart beats. He’s so unnervingly quiet and still in his repose, so unlike the vibrant Michelangelo he knows, that it makes Leo’s heart speed up in fear . The machine he’s connected to beeps in tandem with his rising heart rate, betraying his conscious state.

“Hey, Leon~” he can hear the smile in Mikey’s tired voice before he drags his eyes back to his little brother’s face. The skin under his eyes is bruised and puffy, no doubt from long hours of too many tears and not enough sleep.

He croaks what is supposed to be Mikey’s name. His eyes blink closed for a long moment, and he jerks to fight it, feeling several injuries protesting at the violent movement. Groaning at the residual throb now thrumming throughout his battered limbs and shell, he shifts his gaze around the room desperately until it lands on another brother.

Raphael is squished into a chair that’s just barely big enough for him, one arm in a sling, an eye hidden under bandages, and his cheek smushed where it rests against his less injured shoulder. He will definitely have a crick in his neck later... Raph’s good hand is curled protectively over the crown of his Donnie’s head where he lays with his back to Leo in the bed opposite him.

His single eye that isn’t swollen shut widens in horror at the sight of the bloodied bandages all over his twin’s back. The heart monitor picks up the pace again.

“Hey, hey--” Mikey shushes him softly, patting his plastron gently.

“Whas--”

“It’s okay, Leo--”

“H-happen--” his breath stutters as his chest aches from the pressure of his quickening breaths against his broken ribs.

“Leo please, take it easy,” Mikey’s cracking voice finally makes him tear his sight away from twin’s unmoving form to his little brother now openly crying before him. “He’s gonna be o-okay. You’re both gonna be okay.”

“Mikesh, whappen--”

“I can’t talk about it right now, kay? M-Maybe later?” Mikey takes a shaky breath and wipes his cheek with a bandaged arm before hissing in pain.

“O-Okay, Migs,” Leo slurs, his eyes are drooping, but he forces his only good hand-- were they all just a band of one armed, no-armed ninjas now or what -- and clasps the hand Michael still had against his heart. “Wer gon be good, yeah?”

Michelangelo gives him a watery smile and nods, “Yeah.”

Leo’s eyes shut against his will. As the darkness surrounds him, he shudders. The glare of a red eye falls upon him. No, not again--

I’m here.

Leo holds tight to that like a shield.

Raph’s chair is now between their beds when consciousness finds him again. His big brother is asleep once more, but someone has found him a neck pillow to brace under his chin. The result is him snoring like a chainsaw. Leo’s eyes are gritty and he wants to rub them but moving is so hard so he just blinks several times.

Donnie’s back is still to him in the next bed over, but his bandages are only tinted pink this time. He shivers at the memory of the blood and his heart monitor skips a beat. Raph snorts and stirs in his chair, his one good eye peeking open. He starts when he notices Leon awake.

“Leo!” He winces, realizing how loud his excitement is, and looks over at the other bed, “Sorry Mikey just fell asleep, so we gotta be quiet.”

Leon squints at the other bed and sees a slip of orange bandana over the curve of Donnie’s bruised shoulder. Distracted, he traces all the visible injuries on his twin that he can see from his limited vantage point.

“Why’s Don give’m a run fer my mummy?” he mutters, brow furrowed as he drags his eyes up to Raph and slowly lifts one corner of his mouth in a smile.

Raphael watches him wide-eyed before rubbing a hand over his maskless face with a quiet groan, “You did not just say that on purpose. It’s the drugs. I’ma chalk it up to the drugs--”

Leo tries to shift to get a better look at the other bed’s occupant only to end up whimpering as pain stabs through him. When it’s over, his eyes are watering and Raph has gotten up from his chair to reach for him.

“Why’s Donnie lie that? Wha’ happened?” he wheezes out.

“Easy, did ya want to move a bit? Raph can help, tell big bro what ya need.”

“Raphie, don’t-- yer putin’ t’much stress on yer injuries, I just know ish,” Leo grunts as he tries to wriggle away from Raphael’s touch, breaths quickening and the damn monitor broadcasting his agitation .

“Okay, okay, look I’m sitting, witness me sit. There, ya happy?” Raphael doesn’t quite manage to hide a grunt of discomfort as he settles down. “Don’t say I told you so, I will get a sandal, don’t try me.”

Leo manages a true giggle at that, breathing becoming easier before pinning his older brother with a knowing look, “Yer dodgin’ my ques’... ques’.. Jus’ answer.”

Raphael sighs but offers a lopsided smile, “I guess you an’ Donnie wanna compete even in this, huh? You guys keep waking up out of sync. Very un-twinlike of ya. Demanding answers about everybody, without ever thinking about yourselves.”

He trails off, swallowing thickly and looking over at the other bed where their little brothers rest.

“Whas happen, Raph?” Leo insists again, “Tell me?”

“It’s been a long three days, bro.”

Leo gapes, “T-Three days ?”

“Yea, lemme fill ya in,” Raph’s eye is shining with unshed tears even as he smiles at Leo and reaches out again to rub a large thumb across his brow back and forth. Leo’s too honest when drugged to pretend he hates it, so he chirps softly instead and half closes his eyes as he leans into the petting.

“Barry actually came in clutch, probably woulda lost my eye if he hadn’t been here... When the bandages come off, we’ll see how my vision is. Arm’s broken, shell’s busted, some burns from... from that stuff,” Raph pauses with a shaky breath, going silent for a long minute and just breathing.

Leo blinks his eyes open, he can finally open both of them again, though his right one still feels sore. His big brother is looking into the middle distance, never stopping his gentle touch over Leon’s brow.

“Raph?” Leonardo says barely above a whisper, wrapping his good hand around Raph’s wrist, “S’okay, ya dun hafta if--”

"Mikey's got a lot of bruising and one hell of a concussion. He’s still getting around on his own the best out of all of us though. Donnie--" Raph interrupts his attempt to offer an out of the conversation, looking over at the other bed, and pride rolls off him like the single silent tear that rolls down his cheek, his voice is slightly thicker when he continues, "Mikey said that blow at the top wasn't the only one Donnie took for him that day. Dee did a good job being The Big Bro while we were both uhh... occupied . Kept Mikey safe . But his arms, Mikey’s arms haven’t stopped shaking, so Casey's been doing most of the cooking. It's been an experience learning that Casey knows next to nothing about spices. But well, Mikey, Dad and me take turns showing him what to add in. You gotta watch the kid drink some cinnamon cocoa, you’d swear it was the nectar of the gods...”

Leo huffs a laugh, and feels relieved when it brings a smile back to Raph’s face.

“That’s been helping keep Mikey distracted too. He's... not doing so good with being separated from anybody for too long right now."

Leo thinks back to waking up with Mikey curled up beside him. Looking back at his twin's bed and seeing him tucked against Donnie, clinging in much the same way he had to Leo at that time.

"He's taking turns," Raph explains, following his gaze, "Sometimes he sleeps with you, sometimes me, right now it's Dee..."

"Whas happen to Don? Why’s he s’hurt?"

"Donnie... he-- he got ripped out of the control console. Dee's not very talkative right now but Mike was there. To control the ship he said Donnie had to..." Raphael shudders, closing his eye briefly, "Said he had to integrate with it through his shell... Then that hit from that asshole... He keeps waking up looking for you, like he thinks yer still in... in that place. I’m guessing concussion stuff? Won’t calm down ‘till he can see ya. Haven't seen you two so keen on each other since we were little. It'd be cute, if everything else wasn’t so..."

"F'dged?"

"Did you censor yourself on purpose?"

"Nuh...fud. Fug... Fudgeh...f'rget it..."

Raph actually laughs, and Leo feels a million pounds of stress dissipate at the sound, chest aching with not a small amount of pride to have inspired even a little bit of humor in Raph. Things can't be so horrible, if he can still make Raphael laugh.

"Wer... gon'be okay, right Raphie?"

"Yea, little bro. We're gonna be okay," Raph's voice trembles but he's smiling as he says it, thumb never pausing its soothing motion across his forehead.

It's too soon when sleep tries to claim him again, blurring Raph’s words and making them almost unintelligible in the fog creeping back over his mind. He whines and shifts trying to fight it.

“Shh, Leo, rest. Raph’ll be here when you wake up,” Raphael promises.

He has no doubts that Raphael will keep that promise, but he isn’t afraid of being alone while awake .

What he fears is being alone and cold in the dark. Alone and floating in the vastness of space. Alone under the beam of a red eye . Alone--

I’m here.

Leo weeps, but it’s from relief .

The next time he blinks into quasi-awareness the pain has somehow doubled, like two conflicting songs being played in the background, low enough to not compete with each other, but loud enough to make out the lyrics of both if you chose to focus. Whatever drugs were in his system must be running low if Leo can feel his twin’s agony alongside his own... Or maybe it’s Donnie’s morphine that has run its course and his twin is in enough suffering that even he can feel it. Has he been projecting on Donnie this whole time too? The thought curdles his stomach with worry .

His movement is sluggish as he shifts to look for his twin. He’s still in the bed across the way, however this time facing towards him. With his mask off, it’s easy to see the harrowed creases of Donnie’s forehead. Sweat beads on Donnie’s brow, and there’s an ugly bruise discoloring the whole right side of his face, cheek puffy with swelling still. His arms are curled in front of him carefully, one is casted to below the elbow, the other has a stiff wrist brace, a phone still cradled loosely in his better hand. Leo frowns, knowing his dum dum brother has probably been trying to work on whatever nerdisms he can while barely being able to use his damn phone. The steady beeping of the heart monitors they are connected to is somehow nerve wracking and soothing all at once. It at least lets him know his twin is stable, and there are no immediate concerns.

Mikey sighs in his sleep nearby and Leo’s gaze jumps to his little brother, curled up asleep in the chair between their beds that Raph usually occupies. There’s a teddy tucked in his bandaged arms, one of Raphael’s, and he’s smushed into the large pillow draped over the arm of the chair. Though Mikey is small, it still can’t be comfortable to sleep there.

“He won’t sleep outside the medbay. Hasn’t since we got back,” a warm human hand brushes over the back of his neck and he jumps before the slow soothing motions make him recognize the touch, “Hey, it’s April, you’re alright... You said that out loud by the way.”

“Why I kep doin’ that--”

“The drugs I’m sure, or the concussion, or both probably. Either way, you’ve been a wealth of entertainment, especially when you’re extra out of it,” April chuckles, and something cool and soothing is being applied to his shell.

“Fugg, nooo-- What I say?” Leo whines, hissing when shifting pulls a wave of fire through the cracks in his shell. April shushes him quietly, placing a hand on his shoulder to squeeze gently, thumb tracing over one of the yellow stripes on his skin.

“Ask Donnie to show you later, he records everything,” She answers bemused, before continuing her work at his shell, “Raph’s gone to take a shower, I promised him I’d change your shell dressing and stay ‘til he was back so Mikey didn’t get anxious. You doing okay? Need anything?”

He cranes his neck to give her a tired smile, “Not f’me... Dee, Dee’s in pain tho. Needs mo’meds.”

April looks at him silently for a long moment, before turning to look at Donnie, seeing the discomfort now broadcasting on his sleeping face. When she looks back at Leo she raises a brow over the rim of her red glasses.

“Is this one of your freaky twin things?”

Leo grins though it makes half his face ache.

April shakes her head with a small laugh, “Well, thing is Donnie asked for us to back off his painkillers. Makes his mind too fuzzy to work. Yes, I know he shouldn’t be, but--”

She trails off avoiding his gaze.

“Whas it? Whas wrong?” When she doesn’t respond right away, Leo’s heart monitor picks up in rhythm, he prompts her again, “April, tell me...”

“Donnie’s been remotely upgrading the Lair security. Said it was serious, that it couldn’t wait. We still have the key-- and we’re in no shape to defend it if anyone tries to take it right now. He won’t--” she hesitates again, before steeling herself with a slow breath, “He won’t say what exactly, but he saw something when he took over the ship.”

Leo’s mind is spinning in a million directions. The technodrome-- he asked him to hijack it. Raph told him, Donnie integrated into the ship-- it’s what caused such terrible injuries to his shell. Guilt twists his guts as he stares at his twin.

“He was adamant we let him work, and after everything, well... we agreed as a family. Sorry Leo, you were asleep for that meeting, and something tells me it was for the best,” April finishes with a sigh, rubbing his arm soothingly as his heart monitor beeps in warning.

“No, no--” Leo’s brow furrows, eyes never leaving his brother, “I trus’ Don. If ‘e says it needs t’happen, then, it neesh to... Hey, Big Sis?”

April squeezes his shoulder again and he can hear the smile in her voice, “What’s up little bro?”

“Could you...”

Leo’s fading again. He hates being this tired all the time, being unable to hold more than a three minute conversation before the darkness claims him again. When he shivers at the memory, April must mistake it for cold because she pulls the blankets tighter around him.

“Ask Raphie t’put... put our besh togesh peas?”

“You got it, that’s an O’Neil promise.”

He tries to thank her but the shadows take over his vision. This time, he doesn’t simply wait in the void of his memory's making. He’s pushing through the terror and reaching, pushing out of the darkness, towards the familiar warm light he can always feel inside him, until he hit the barrier his twin has always kept around himself to buffer their connection. But something doesn’t feel right, something is different, off about the arrangement this time. He isn’t being kept out, rather something is being kept in . He pushes further, bumping along the edges, with a little more pressure, a little more insistence each time until he finds a soft spot, until something gives, until he can slip into a crack past his brother’s defenses and--

Leonardo nearly shrinks back at the inescapable tangle of horror .

Everything feels slimy.

And slippery.

And slithering.

I’m here!

Flashes of translucent pink-violet tentacles surround him and Leo is consumed with a dread and disgust so violent he chokes down the urge to vomit. His head is full of images, most flashing faster than he can process, and he’s thankful because those that he can glimpse are nothing but death and annihilation, but he pushes through the pulsing and the writhing terror of it all until--

I’m here, Dee!

Another wall, the dam behind which Donatello has always withheld his emotion. Pink fleshy tendrils encase it like a tomb, only a sliver of violet light peeping through here and there. It nauseates him, but Leo pulls and tears against the tumorous growths, ripping them away from his brother’s essence, reaching for the light.

Let me be here for you too!

The horrifying images stutter like a film projector getting tangled in the feed and the pictures start to burn away. He pushes harder , reaches deeper into the nest of awful sensory nightmare .

I won’t leave you alone with this!

The tendrils slowly slide away from the cracked walls in near shambles but somehow still standing, and in their place he is wrapped with a distant echo of gratitude .

In the place between memory and dream, he floats...

You-- You’ve ruined everything!

Every ache in his body makes itself known. So much so that he cannot tell if he is recovering from the worst beat down of his life or still enduring it. In the distance, something beeps rhythmically and fast... too fast.

And now... my wrath will be reserved for you alone .

He floats. In a blanket of darkness, with carcasses of decaying krang amalgamations, of fragmented ships and wreckage. The cold seeps into every pore of his being, choking the warmth out of his skin.

You think you’ve won?

I’m here!

No, he chokes on the blood pooling in his mouth, and in his lungs from the impact of each hit.

You wretched

I’m here!

His chest aches for the sweet lightness of air, but instead there are claws beating him down.

Little

I’m here!

Down, down, down, down, under the glare of a red eye...

PEST!

Leo~!

Deep into the crushing weight of his own terror.

Wipe that grin off your face! I’M HERE~!

He whimpers breathless, tensing, waiting for the blow that will break him. The swing comes down and he feels--

FURY whirling around him like a hurricane, violently dispelling the memory of the blow that broke nearly all of his ribs. Melting the breath frozen in his lungs and he gasps for air, mind spinning and dizzy with foreign emotion. Burning away the beam of scarlet in the darkness until it shifts into the soft hazy LED white of the overhead can lights Donnie had installed in the medbay last year.

Two sets of heart monitors are screeching with elevated heart rates in the distance. Distance? Leo blinks and the tears flow over his face leaving uncomfortable trails of moisture, but he can’t move. Fingertips lightly pat his plastron with a repetitive motion. He struggles to focus his doubled vision to the casted arm moving frantic in front of him, back and forth, back and forth in a familiar sign, over another’s chest. It repeats again and again, along with a careful tapping on his bandaged plastron.

His mind finally registers the sign for breathe and Leonardo gasps around a broken sob, closing his eyes and shaking apart. With the release of all the tension in his body comes the pain of every injury he stressed during his panic. Another sob tears from his throat and he curls up as much as his injured body will allow. The din of half a dozen voices begins to filter through his frazzled mind. Whimpering a pathetic broken sound, he wishes only to hide from everyone, yet he doesn’t want to be alone .

Protectiveness washes over him in a soothing wave, gradually quieting his broken sobs into soft whines of discomfort. He reaches for Donnie’s hand and holds it carefully, wary of causing any pain to his damaged wrist. Don folds a hand around his in a firm grip and squeezes. It takes several moments, but soon the room falls silent save for the calmed beeping of their heart monitors and Leo’s hitching breaths as he winds down slowly.

“Where’d everybody go?” Leo pretends his voice isn’t so wobbly several minutes later as he finally uncurls to look around them.

Donnie releases his hand momentarily and signs more calmly now, but the motions are still made awkward between the cast and the brace.

[[ Asked them to leave us. ]]

The sound of quiet sniffles in front of him draws his eyes up to his brother’s face and Leo is startled to find Donnie’s eyes shining with held back tears as he glares at the bed covers between them. Leo studies his brother trying to understand the feelings Don cannot express with the same ease as himself and their brothers always have. He reaches out into the ephemeral space between them, spirit stretching in a motion made natural from years of practice, until he can brush up against his brother’s edges and--

It is like walking up to an overburdened dam, the violet walls are meters thick, tall and imposing, and yet they groan and buckle with the immensity of what they hold back, spider cracks spreading like wildfire along the surface, leaking tiny jets of emotion that lap against his ankles in little waves. Just behind the immense barrier, an ocean of feeling that Leo has only ever caught glimpses of before, threatening to burst forth at any wrong move.

In front of him, Donnie continues chewing his bottom lip hard enough that he will be bleeding soon if he does not stop.

“Dee?” he whispers, and as soon as he has Don’s attention, motions to his own mouth, “Want something else to chew? Maybe the blanket?”

The furrows in Don’s brow deepen and he chews harder, almost spiteful.

“Donnie, stop-- please ,” Leo squeezes the hand he still holds hard enough to know it has to hurt, but it works as intended.

Donatello closes his eyes with a sigh, tears finally leaking from his eyes as he does, but stops chewing. He keeps his eyes closed, brow creased, silent save for his shaky breathing. In the space that only exists between their souls, Leo senses himself still wrapped up in a feeling not his own. He’s being guarded , he slowly realizes, from the tremor of fear still waiting in the back of his mind along with his horrid memories, from the festering wraiths still tugging at his twin’s edges.

For as long as Leo can remember, this has been his role, reaching out without hesitation whenever he sensed his twin needed. He cannot recall a time when their connection has been so free flowing. So... reciprocated, even with everything Donnie was still holding back . It almost feels like they don't need words. Leo is fascinated, and projects his curiosity through the open channel between their spirits. Donnie doesn’t withdraw for once, and the dam groans as the cracks spread.

He looks at Leo with a knowing clarity, then shifts his gaze away with a shrug.

For so long Leo has reached out, and while not exactly rejected, Donnie never reached back. His walls permanently affixed between them and growing thicker with every year they got older, with every year Donnie thought himself wiser to what he deemed Leo’s childish whim of their ‘twinhood.’ Leo thinks he senses shame and immediately responds with reassurance.

Donnie scoffs aloud, and tries to pull his hand away, but Leo won’t let go, he laces their fingers together and holds tighter.

"You kept being asleep whenever I'd wake up,” Leo whispers between them, slightly off balance from the new sensations and the extra set of emotions coursing through him, but still manages a shaky smile, “Hi.”

The sudden fondness that spills over the top of the dam and waterfalls onto him makes his eyes mist up.

“T-This is new...” his voice cracks on the whisper. Guilt follows heavily at the admission.

“What’s wrong?” Leo asks gently.

The feeling intensifies, until Donnie looks away, covering his face with his casted arm. Leo finally shakes their hands loose at this, and Donatello seems to take this as a bad sign because he whimpers and curls in on himself.

With everything in his body stinging like a raw nerve, Leo drags himself closer, inch by agonizing inch until he can throw his own casted arm around Donatello’s trembling shoulder, careful of his injured shell. His twin releases a shuddering breath, chirping a confused little whine as he blinks up at him in surprise.

Leo offers his own consoling chirp as he settles and meets Donatello’s gaze.

After a moment of silence, Don offers a lazy salute sign with his mostly good hand.

[[ Hi. ]]

"There you are," Leo half smiles.

Donatello presses his mouth into a thin line, and Leo knows it’s to prevent himself from chewing on his already tattered lips again. His twin’s throat works, and his jaw moves but he only makes a few agitated clicks, no words finding their way to his tongue. With a deep breath, Donnie shapes several frustrated signs.

[[ Why are you comforting me?? ]] His hands point between them with sharp jerky movements.

Leo looks blankly at him, because isn’t it obvious? He’ll chalk it up to the major concussions they’re both still recovering from.

“Because you’re having gross feels time... duh?”

[[ What about you? ]]

“W-What about me?” Leo stutters and tries to laugh but it’s weak.

“Leon,” Donnie croaks his name out loud, thick with frustration.

“Not everything's a competition, Donald," Leon huffs with false bravado to hide the inadequacy that chokes him as he looks over his brother's battered form, “It’s not about me.”

It’s what he comforted himself with, in the cold . In the dark . Through the pain . And the fear . When he was sure he would be dead .

Donnie shivers before him staring intently, as if he can feel every thought in his mind. Donatello moves his hands, but aborts the signs too soon for Leo to catch his meaning. He waits through several false starts patiently before Donnie finally reveals his thoughts.

[[ Mad at you. ]]

Leo chuckles, disheartened , "Yea, what else is new?"

He feels alarm bubble back at him.

[[ NO. ]]

Donnie stresses with a long click in his throat.

[[ Not like that -- Not good at this . ]]

His twin heaves a frustrated breath as he motions between them before curling his hands towards his plastron and scratching.

“Are you... trying to have a heart to heart with me, Donbon?” he can’t help but tease, it’s his default coping mechanism.

[[ Stop! Being serious . Pay attention. ]]

Donatello’s glare is scarier without his eyebrows on, and no one will convince him otherwise.

“You have a captured audience, bro-- literally. I can't go anywhere,” Leon wiggles his casted limbs to emphasize.

“ Leo ,” Donnie speaks aloud again, his voice cracking on the name. And Leo quiets at his seriousness and watches his twin sign solemn.

[[ You left us behind. ]]

“I’m not apologizing for that,” Leonardo growls around the knot in his throat, looking away stubbornly. “I did what had to be done.”

[[ Could have worked together--]]

“You were miles away, Don! You got knocked out of the sky! After that hit, I didn’t even know if you were stable, or alive , or--” Leo cuts himself off when his voice cracks, clearing his throat, “There wasn’t another way. Either three of us walked out of there, or none of us did. The latter was not an option I was gonna entertain.”

Donnie is nearly seething, his hand movements twisted awkward between the cast and the rage bleeding from his spirit.

[[ There always is another way-- ]]

“We had one shot, and I took it. If I hadn’t --”

Leo feels the aching darkness of the prison dimension in his mind and trembles, remembers the flashes of doom from his twin’s dreams and they both shiver in tandem. Taking a calming breath, he tries a different approach.

“Don, if you’d been the last one up there, what would you have done?”

[[ Thought my way out!! ]]

“Yea well, I’ve never been as smart as you...” Leo grumbles, hunching in on himself. His chest pangs with the feeling of wrong wrong wrong .

His brother tries to speak again, but the words die on his tongue as he smacks his lips together in annoyance. His fingers curl closed at his chest, wordless there as well. Leo feels the frustration building, the dam rumbling between their channel, and acts on instinct.

Tell me this way?

Donatello’s eyes snap up to his in surprise. Doubt filters through to him.

S’okay. Just try?

Donnie stares at him in silence, until his eyes begin to take on a watery shine again.

Gone.

Leo shakes his head in confusion.

You were gone.

He watches as Donnie taps the middle of his plastron absently.

You were gone, from here.

Leon remembers the cold of the prison dimension. How it felt like it was not only surrounding him, but was coming from inside him, and wonders now how much of that had been their disconnection. Donnie shivers with him at the memory, closing his eyes with a stuttered breath.

You can finally feel me?

He can’t quite hide the longing, the years of loneliness he has endured in the question.

Donnie stares at him in growing realization.

Didn’t understand. So I just...

Pushed me away...

Remorse floods into him, and the strength of it chokes the air from his lungs. He pushes through the wave with ready forgiveness , wrapping his twin in it.

The dam groans louder, like a wounded beast in its death throes.

Donnie curls in on himself as much as his injuries will allow, rubbing the uncomfortable dampness gathering once more in his eyes. He tries to pull away as usual, and it pains Leo to give up the flow of their connection even a little bit, after so often starving for it, after finally getting a taste of what it could be like. For so long, Leon has existed alone in this space, that he doesn't remember how open their channel now is. He doesn’t think about how any of his thoughts echo between them as Leo lets go, like he always does for his twin’s solace.

His twin shakes as he tries to sign.

[[ You took away our choice. ]]

“I’d do it again,” he holds firm to his self-sacrifice , and then--

The dam erupts .

Leo’s chest jams with a cacophony of feeling as the barrier crumbles, the full impact of all of his twin’s repressed emotions crashing over him, into him, through him all at once like a tsunami rushing ashore.

Grief.

Despair.

Loneliness.

Loss. Loss. Loss. Loss. Loss. LOSS.

“Donnie--” Leo almost can’t breathe from the weight of the anguish flowing out of his twin.

The intensity makes his skin pebble, and he shivers against the sensation of too much too much!! The bleed through is so strong he can't tell if it's coming from his twin, or himself, or both . He makes to move his arm away, to give Donnie more breathing room, but when his twin chirps in utter distress, he aborts and stays put. Overwhelmed with sentiment, he moves closer on instinct until their foreheads knock together gently, closing his eyes against the tears streaming suddenly down both their faces.

I’m here.

You’re back.

I’m here, Dee.

You’re back.

I’m here. I’m here. I’m here. I’m here.

You’re back. You’re back. You’re back.

Silence settles between them as Leo waits for the crunchiness of the air against their skin to die down, to stop buffeting them until they feel raw. Time crawls like molasses around them while the wave of emotion ebbs and recedes, and their breathing calms, and their eyes stop blurring with salt and water. His soul is dragged over three miles of prickly reef while churning through the waves and back, and still he reaches .

I’m still here.

I’m here too.

Donatello nods, watching him like he can see every doubt in Leonardo’s mind now. It’s unnerving and yet Leo feels somehow... comforted .

I won’t push you away anymore...

Leo grabs a corner of the blanket and uses it to wipe at Donnie’s tear soaked face. His twin protests with several annoyed clicks deep in his throat, but doesn’t actually try to stop him. Instead, he grasps another part of the blanket and returns the favor as Leo exhales a watery laugh smothered by cotton.

Promise?

When he releases the blanket, Donnie stares at him solemnly as he places his pointer finger against his lips, then brings the hand down with the palm flat against his top of the thumb-side of his curled fist.

Leo squeezes his eyes shut and bites his bottom lip so he doesn’t tear up again and nods. They rest quietly for several long minutes, comfortable with the silence in the room because of the welcome noise of their hearts beating in tandem.

With a stealing breath, Leon braves a question, feeling as though he already has the answer.

How much do you know?

His twin’s brow furrows deep, and Donnie looks tired, so tired when he finally whispers.

“Everything.”

Leo’s face pales. His eyes sting again at the corners.

“E-Everything?”

Everything.

The thought echoes between them as Leon’s breath quickens. As his memories treacherously turn back to the glare of a red eye in the dark. The desolate isolation of his torture under outraged claws--

I’m here, Leo.

And just like that, his mind’s eye turns gently away from the horror, and instead is swathed in violet light until he blinks it away. Fresh tears paint his face.

“C-Can you see it?” Leon whispers, trembling.

“More like... feel it...” Donnie confesses into the quiet between them. He looks away with a shrug. “But, I record everything so... after your first dream, I pulled up the file.”

“What?” Leo’s voice pitches high with alarm.

Did you watch??

Donatello looks back at him, calculating, and then nods.

“Why-- why did you watch that, Don?” His chest heaves with something between annoyance and betrayal, and he tries to shrink back from his twin. “I didn't want you to know... I didn't want a-anyone to know--”

So you wouldn’t be alone.

“What?”

With what happened.

“I'll erase the file if you want. Delete it, shred it-- corrupt the file so it can never ever see the light again,” Donatello speaks with a clear concise wrath , purple scales flickering with furious mystic energy for a split second. “Just like that monster .”

The angry response Leo was gearing up short circuits in his brain, and he stares. Donnie stares back, unblinking.

I can’t do the same here...

But whenever it comes back to you.

I’ll feel it.

And I’ll be here.

You won’t be alone with this.

At the silent promise, Donnie won’t look at him. He’s too busy studying and picking at the little pills on the sheets between them. Leo gawks in awed silence for long enough that Donatello starts to squirm. Then he whispers.

“What about you , Dee?”

Leo remembers the sickening slithering horror crawling within his twin’s dream and a shiver runs up both their shells simultaneously.

“You record everything right?” He gives him a tired, very small grin. Donnie glares at him and his silence is answer enough. Leon has the gall to laugh.

“ Curse your deductive skills, Nardo...”

But then Donatello takes a shuddering breath, eyes distant.

What It showed me though...

That’s only here.

Leo gets a flash of what he’s sure the future would be like if they had failed... if they yet fail. He begins to realize what has haunted his twin for days, what has urged him to struggle through the pain, and fatigue, and injury to reprogram miles of code, to bolster up defenses, to protect . He pushes past the dread sense of inescapable horror with the same defensive ferocity with which Don had dispelled his own bad visions.

You won’t be alone with this either.

Whenever It comes back...

I’ll be here too.

Don watches him quietly with the same pensive stare he gets whenever he’s solving a puzzle. When he finally finds his voice again, he doesn’t ask a question, he offers a conclusion as he taps lightly over his plastron.

“You’ve always been here, haven’t you...”

Leo’s heart skips a beat, and his heart monitor blips out of rhythm in protest. The answer gets caught in his throat, and he can barely breathe around the hope swarming around his heart.

“So... how would you rate my ability to finally accept that you were right about us all along?” Donnie asks.

“Huh?”

“That we are, in fact, twins ... have been all this whole time,” Donnie blows out a long breath of defeated acceptance, looking flatly at Leo as he continues, “Very unsatisfying, very very unsatisfying, wish Donnie were less of a dum dum sooner --”

“Satisfying. The most satisfying ‘I told you so’ in all of existence,” Leo croaks, shuffling close again to bonk their heads together gently, “To the scale of infinity squared--”

“Technically ‘infinity’ constitutes all numbers, so you cannot multiply it or--”

“Shut up , Donnie, please let me have this...”

Donatello sticks his tongue out between his teeth and bites it with an irritated chirp, and that’s as much of a concession as he’s going to get from his twin.

Leonardo feels somewhere deep in his soul, like he has had this conversation before. In another place, in a forgotten time, but the pieces don’t line up quite the same, like the image shifted midway in the making somehow from despair to hope. All he can do is blink in confusion, and let the unexpected tears that have sprung forth fall. He is so over how much his tear ducts keep betraying him today.

He grasps his twin’s hand once more, overwhelmed with the sense of déjà vu. When Donnie does not pull away, rather grasps back, he knows his twin feels it too. Leo allows Don to enjoy the peace they’ve found between their connection for exactly three minutes and eighteen seconds.

Wait... so are we mind melding?

No. This is strictly a Twin Thing, open parenthesis trademark close parenthesis.

I’m pretty sure we’ve at least talked like this with Raph and Mikey during fights.

Well, I don’t feel their feelings, thank Hawking. And as for speaking, we could probably do it first . We just... never tried...

Leo grins slowly.

Shut. Up.

I haven’t said anything.

You’re literally THINKING it.

Am not.

Nardo, you’re ruining the moment!

C’mon Donbon, you know it’s not a moment unless I do...

And Leo laughs through his tears, squeezing his twin’s hand tightly, extending the warmth he feels inside to surround his twin, because despite everything he's not brave enough to say it aloud. And his twin--

Donnie squeezes his hand back just as tight, smiling small and lopsided as tears roll down his face too. Warmth surrounds Leo in return, and that tells him everything he needs to know.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ A/N: I have.... so much more in my brain that did not fit into the context of this fic. So I will continue with this universe via the other brothers’ stories. I have spent way too many hours crying over these turtle children to stop at this story alone. Please come along on the journey with me if you liked this story. Thank you to all the beautiful commenters and especially those who cried with me in the last chapter. Thank you for feeling these feels with me. Much love~💜💙💖🧡

Donnie and the bros using sign language inspo was derived from so many incredible artists, but my main influence was HappyFoxx-art's Aftermath comic. This also inspired my thought process on how severe the boys' injuries might actually have been and got a lot of my wheels turning on what recovery might look like for them. Shout out to all authors/artists juggling aftermath stories or arcs because holy bajeebus handling that many characters in one setting is challenging.

If anyone is interested in some cutting room floor talk, feel free to ask me questions here or on my tumblr. Thank you all!

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