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[The day has been exhausting.

That's the real word here. Exhausting. Physically, sure, but emotionally? Unparalleled exhaustion. April, Splinter, and Casey got a van from somewhere that they all quietly piled into, the brothers half carrying Leo in, and the ride back is quiet. Leo's a fucking mess of bruises, some broken bones, busted up face, who knows what else under the shell. Not that anyone else is in stellar shape, but it's enough when April has to take a sharper turn than expected, Leo ends up shifting against Raphael's shoulder while they ride.

He doesn't say anything, but he doesn't make any motion to move away either. He's too tired, too much in the feeling of 'oh god everything hurts make it stop' to try consciously moving himself.

It isn't until April pulls to a stop at one of the larger entrances to the sewer that Leo starts forcing himself to move, pain shooting up his nerves like fire. But he keeps one hand clenched on one of his katana that Casey had returned, the other out... somewhere. He'll find it eventually once he has the strength to portal himself to it again.

But he stops to make sure the others are coming along.]

Almost home, guys. [Maybe if he hopes and crosses fingers, that didn't sound as bad to them as it did to his own ears.]

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[ Yep. Another triumph for the record books. The one that only they're really keeping. Another long road-- not to clearer pastures, because from the sound of things, New York took about as much of a cumulative beating as their family did? But Raph guesses it's still worth the trip. It's still an away from the worst of it.

He doesn't make any move to shift Leo. Doesn't mention it. Partly for obvious reasons like "who tells their completely busted-up little brother to lean somewhere else at a time like this?" Partly because he's a little selfish, and he's maybe felt every possible emotion in the past few hours including ones only reserved for shrimps and burnt-out light bulbs, so it's nice to focus on the uncomplicated relief of the contact for a while.

Everyone's here. Leo's here. Right in reach. And they're-- they're all them, and it's fine. Will be fine. And if Raph lets himself touch down on the what-ifs and almosts and what-happeneds right now, thinks too hard about wanting to crawl out of his own skin, he's not gonna be any good to anybody.

So a shoutout instead, to that thing Leo is saying. It sounds extremely bad and like he misses the benefits of adrenaline a lot. Mood. Still, better be supportive. Home is good. Evidence: the low-energy woo Mikey also offers. ]

Almost home. [ Raph straightens up with only the most elegant™️ of grunts. ] Take it easy, alright Leo? We gotta get you situated first.

[ A good rule of thumb is that someone with broken bones and bruises galore and a busted up face and who knows what else is not allowed to do a stroll through the sewers on their own feet. That's priority. It impacts the entire economy of their weirdo ninja parade procession. ]

[They'd won, though. Saved New York City. Saved the world. Stopped the Krang. Sure the city's half destroyed, but so what? They managed to repair and rebuild after Big Mama's city-wide battle arena situation happened. They can do it again from this.

But god what he wouldn't give for his adrenaline to still be pumping. Instead he's pretty sure Raph said badump badump because his pulse is all he can hear in his own ears. Which, can't be right. Raph doesn't say "badump badump", if he says any onomatopoeia, it's "smash".]

Huh? [Leo turns to follow up on that, face Raph but overshoots and ends up swinging an arm around Mikey who, gracefully as any good brother would do, takes it and decides maybe Leo needs a hand here. Leo stumbles half a step backward while they all walk and he stares at Raphael.]

Didn't catch that?

[ Hindsight is 20/20. It also kicks in after about three seconds, and Raph kinda doesn't know what he expected. It's very on-brand.

He said something and didn't immediately get on it. That's on him. He turned away for two seconds to help Pops down from the van, because last time he saw him before the ride back was--

-was??

Escape pod. Yeah. Obviously. Jeez. It's been a weird dang time.

Bold of Leo to basically swoon meanwhile, wow. If Raph stops to lose two or three years off of his lifespan seeing it in motion, that's simply the cost of doing older-brother business. He was born for this. ]

I'm saying you shouldn't be walking. I was actively saying it!

[ Unbiased evidence! Clearly! That he is right!

Not that it's not like an impressive miracle that Leo is even still conscious right now. ]

[He hears it that time, the words crawl through the sludge and molasses that is Leonard's processing brain. But if he doesn't walk, how will he get inside their home? Mikey nudges Leo while they walk, trying to turn him back forward so it's easier.

He won't be conscious for long. It's fear, anxiety, a need to see them all home that's keeping him up on his feet.]

Okay, neither should any of you.

[He doesn't know exactly what all Mike and Don encountered trying to take the console, but he didn't miss that Donnie's battle shell is gone. Or the faint fractal markings going up Mikey's hands and forearms. And Raph-

...Raph. Leonardo meets Raphael's eyes for a moment, a breath before he looks away again. Is part of his subway-car-room still busted up from their argument the day before? How has it only been a day.]

I vote we all take naps once we're inside.

[ The way he hates every time one of his brothers gets him on a technicality that he can't truthfully disagree with. Betrayed by his own kin. His Little Guys.

Raph isn't vibing with arguing the whole way home. Is the thing. Which is probably all this 'who should and shouldn't be walking' road leads to.

Arguing doesn't work on Leo, like lecturing doesn't work on Leo, like trying to have a heart-to-heart doesn't work with Leo unless Leo is already open to it, and saying I ran into so many walls learning to ride this bike because it didn't come with training wheels, listen to this stuff I learned about how not to run into so many walls doesn't work.

And it's like, it's not even Leo's fault at this point, because Raph is the oldest and Raph knows these things don't work with Leo, and he knows that he can be overbearing, and he knows he has-- issues. With letting stuff go. Snapping turtle joke here.

Anyway, he doesn't want to make it a whole thing right now. Leo's had to handle enough without someone getting on his case right after he saved the world. (Heart-shattering, world-stopping, temporary but very real grief whomst? That's sitting in Raph's chest with everything else he doesn't know how to deal with and can't afford to think about yet.) Last thing he needs is to feel worse. ]

You guys have fun gettin' your pillows all Staten Island-y. I call dibs on first shower.

[ He catches Casey's attention, jerks his head towards Leo very meaningfully. Watches him practically trip over himself to come up on Leo's other side. Mikey might retire to his traditional Raph's Shell villa eventually, but in the meantime the less weight on him and Leo, the better. Raph would have just started scooping up brothers, aches and pains be damned, but he's actually not a hundred percent sure he wouldn't break something no matter how he picked Leo up right now? And Donnie looks like he might bite anyone who tried.

Maybe later. Easier to keep taking headcounts like this, anyway. Rear guard settles his nerves. Plus whoa, as an additional totally coincidental life hack: it's not that his brother can't look at him if he's plausibly in a space in the group that just wouldn't be sensible for his brother to keep looking at. ]

[The new angle of his arm and shoulder being lifted with Casey has Leo hissing and whining while they walk. But he turns his head to look at Raph one more time over his shoulder, worried and scared before he schools it back with the pain throbbing throughout every single vein he can feel. Which is nearly all of them. Should that be happening? Should he be able to pinpoint where every single blood vessel in his body is? He's pretty sure not.

The rest of the walk is quiet from everyone, save the occasional sounds of soreness and aching from bruised muscles and potentially broken bones and at least one cracked shell. And it's enough of a surprise to Leonardo that Casey's the one that sits him down and starts administering first aid as best he can. Turns out the kid keeps first aid supplies in his fanny pack too. (And had Future Leo taught him that? It seems like something Future Him would do, Future Him had it together.)

But there's only so much a bandaid and gauze wrap can do, so eventually Splinter takes up helping with Mikey and Donnie while Leo goes to grab the biggest pile of pillows in the living room and collapse face first into them.]

[ Raph has already derailed the shower plan. Donnie wants blood and to "swab residue" and "if you get tap water in that eye right now I'm wiping your Nintendogs data, go sit down."

But Raph is the boss of Raph. Raph doesn't want to sit down and think about anything or feel like his skin is crawling or worry about if something is gonna grow back or-- non-issues. Not thinking. Raph is the boss. So he decides to start hauling in pretty much all the pillows and blankets he can wrangle. The living room is going to become public sleeping space. Almost definitely. Teddy bears? Yes. In case of emergency, break out T-Bone 2: the sequel to T-Bone, tragically lost to time in the old lair. He sets that one down for Mikey to grab after he's gotten his arms cleaned and wrapped. Special privilege.

There's a lot of Draxum-calling in their future, probably.

Leo, he sees, has become one with the pre-existing pillow pile. Still breathing. If everything weren't what it is right now, this would be business as usual. It's not business as usual, so it's-- a relief. If there's been a big invisible fist clenched around Raph's heart, it loosens the fingers a little.

Casey is cool. For getting a start on that first aid. Raph doesn't know all that much about him or what he's like, apart from what he'd consider high-risk behavior encouragement earlier on. Which looking back? Should've accounted for that. Apocalypse future. Maybe the kid needs some outlets.

He keeps what he would consider a reasonable, non-startling distance when he drops his bedtime supplies mountain. Startling not necessary. No... accidental looming? ]

If you're gonna nap, you have to tell me or it's entrapment. [ Is it?

Doesn't matter. It's the principle.

Leo's probably not gonna get a good long stretch of uninterrupted sleep until he's out of the concussion window anyway, because of his whole situation, but just in case. ]

[The initial response that gets is an otherworldly groan into the pillows. He's right, though. Leonardo knows he isn't going to get any uninterrupted sleep any time soon. There are too many things - clean up of the lair, clean up of them, first aid, food, getting April back to her parents, they gotta figure out what the heck to do with Casey (did he have parents? It didn't seem like he did, where is he staying, who will he stay with, does he just live with the turtles now?) there's too much.

Even the soft pillows he's piled doesn't feel right. The weight of responsibility and his own injuries is overpowering. They'll all have to take turns in the med bay one by one. But for now?]

Only if you suspect it, big brother. [As deep a breath as he can manage. He's probably bruised or cracked a few ribs. Well. He didn't. Krang did it. Same difference. And then lets that breath out carefully.] Just need a few minutes.

[ Conscious: check. Noise of complaint: honestly kind of reassuring. ]

It's my job as a big brother to suspect everything.

[ Except when his baby brother is about to self-sacrificially seal himself away in a prison dimension with a big angry impossible to beat outright enemy that'll have a huge grudge to take out on him, assuming that the exploding creepy spaceship didn't kill him first. When his baby brother is about to do all that and probably knows he's about to do that and sends him away first.

Is it even as easy as that, sends him away? Raph's the one who listened. He's the one who left him.

(But who catches Donnie and Mikey if he doesn't listen?

This is the problem, this is the whole problem, this is his whole problem, it's the whole literal nightmare scenario, where it feels like- like picking between everything and everything and everything, all three everythings--)

Maybe he's losing his touch. Maybe he should go back to the blanket quest. Clean some stuff up. Maybe he'd feel more settled by channeling some sharp-edged energy into his surroundings, by going through the rooms, securing the perimeter. Because stewing will turn into spiraling and spiraling won't do anyone any good, and he's not even that bad off, and there's probably a million things on the docket, and, and, and.

Raph fishes out a Preferred Blanket, chucks it on the ground between his blanket mountain delivery and Leo's pillow pile, and carefully flops onto it like he's some kind of big weird guard dog. In sight. In reach.

Because ultimately heavier than anything on the scale is that he hates the idea of leaving Leo in here by himself. If by "hates the idea," one means "briefly thought about that conceptually and it made him wanna gnaw a cinderblock into crumbly little pieces."

Which is, at least, a routine baseline emotion for Raph. It's actually very calming for him. Enough knee-jerk anxiety to pull his attention away from the other billion emotions trying to get processed all at once, but not so much that he can't soothe it just by staying put. ]

I wanna yell at you so bad. You know that?

[The idea of being alone right now might be Leonardo's worst nightmare. Not one he would acknowledge consciously, not one he may even realize he has. But it is. He'd been so sure for those brief moments-

The idea of moving is one step below that. Not quite a nightmare because he is awake and aware of it, knows that he will have to move eventually. But everything is sore, and laying down in any capacity may have been the worst mistake he could have made. There's stuff to do, and he's fairly certain he's not getting up again. He will, however, turn his head to face his brother, only one eye visible from the pillow-pile he's started sinking into.]

No, I did not, but now I do.

[He can guess why. His brother was likely as scared as he was through the whole thing. That shitty one liner he gave over the radio was not his best move, looking back. It likely only made him more upset. But then again, Leo was sure at the time. While he hadn't had the conscious plan when he portal'd Raph to go after their brothers, it was something he realized there wasn't a choice in. Not as he watched the Krang start to stalk toward him, coming right back from the edge of the portal. No, Leo knew that moment there wasn't any escape from it. Running away would have meant the end of their world.

He wonders a lot of idle things, did the whole way home. He has questions he wants to ask. But asking would open the door for a lot of hurt and conversation Leo isn't ready for.]

Probably gonna be here a while. [An invitation? Or just an observation.] I don't think I'm moving again until I have to.

[ Raph huffs. Which is like sighing for someone who operates on 110% emotional intensity. It's basically exactly the same.

He tries to gather up some yelling energy. Flexes his fingers a few times. What would it do right now? Heck, where would he even start? All those thoughts he was thinking on the walk home, about the arguing and the getting on Leo's case, the great-granddad versus Pops energy of it all, still very important. ]

Yeah.

[ Yeah, Leo will be here, yeah, Leo's probably not gonna be on the move for a while. Yeah he thinks he does want to yell? Yelling happens with most of his feelings, so it's a safe bet. Yeah, yeah, and yet.

Raph makes a frustrated noise and runs a hand down his face, and whether or not that's a little bit painful is his business. ]

I love you. [ He found a slight percentage of yelling energy after all, and he's applied it.

There's a world where Leo's not here. There's a world where he's gone and none of them said it in the moment. Technically that was this world for a couple of minutes. ]

Don't you ever do that to us again.

[ Raph would feel around for a blanket or a teddy bear to throw, for emphasis, but dare he say, even a thrown bear might not be ideal with all the bruising. Not with as hard as he usually throws, anyway. ]

[There's probably some very real symbolism to think about regarding himself and Krang being locked away together forcibly separated from their siblings and how they both reacted to it. But it's so far from his thoughts as Raph's words sink in: I love you. They do, they all love each other. He doesn't doubt it for a second, nor would Leo ever hold that back from his brothers either. He wonders if the Krang siblings actually cared about each other? It almost seemed like they didn't. He could swear he never remembers hearing anyone's name spoken between the three either.

Nothing like him and his brothers.

No, his brothers care about each other, fight about and with each other, yell at each other. It's why he, despite never really enjoying being yelled at, appreciates it now. He relishes Raph yelling at him, trying to make him swear never to put himself in danger like that again. Because it means he cares. He knows that now; had an idea before but it never really sank in until that fight on the bridge. If his brothers didn't care, he wouldn't hear Donnie fussing over Mikey's hands and forearms in the other room, wouldn't have Splinter and April in the kitchen trying to put literally anything edible together they have left right now knowing these boys need something simple in their stomachs.

No, despite not enjoying being yelled at, Leonardo cherishes it right now. Hell, he half expects Raph to find a teddy bear or blanket to throw for emphasis.]

And what was I supposed to do, let him take over the world? [Another half-breath that he can manage, a slow controlled exhale. He starts to shift, roll over and his hand grips at his side. Leo puts some pressure on the spot - the same side that had bothered him after the subway collapse, the soreness having gotten only worse since Krang taking out his grudge in that dimension - just to relieve some of the pain.] Look... I won't. All right? Hopefully, it won't ever come to that again.

[ "What was I supposed to do," he says. "Hopefully," he says. The tone of it all.

Ugh. Teenagers.

Raph refuses to let the fact that he too is a teenager surface in his mind palace. It wouldn't serve him right now. ]

Hope-nothin', sassyshell! Won't. End of sentence. You think Raph won't come over there and give you the most medically unsound noogie of your life?

[ He absolutely will not, for myriad reasons. One of them being that it would just end up being a non-noogie-shaped very careful hug, which he has no issue with, apart from the fact that he'd have gone over there with noogying intent.

In hindsight, the fact that he simply chooses to not acknowledge the world-destroying first half because he gets it makes Raph feel a way. Mad. Extremely, viscerally sad. Terrified. So several ways.

He fishes around for a bear after all, but it's just for personal reasons. ]

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AU - 2044 LEO IN 2022

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