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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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[ Well, he doesn't sound not here for it. Awfully casual. But casual's always sorta been Leo's comfort zone. At a certain point, Raph needs to stop being surprised about it. Leo got mutant oozed and hogged all the face man.

It makes it hard to get a read on him. He knows him, he loves him, but they speak different languages sometimes. Usually about really important stuff. In other news, the sky is wet, the grass is blue. That's not right. Whatever. Raph knows what Raph meant to think.

There's a lot he wants to get into. Thinking about it. Like, he touched on the most important things, the "I love you" and "never do it again" and "it falls apart without you." It wouldn't hurt to really drill those in, though. He definitely needs to lay out that there was no hero move to what he did at all, just him being the most terrified he's maybe ever been in his life. Needs to-- not put off the Responsible Disclosure, because it'll be easier on Leo to know what they know, and everyone isn't gonna be busy in other rooms forever.

But first, maybe something he knows from experience is probably a Leo-need right now, not simply a want. ]

It was some big mystic portal energy thing. Mikey's arms. I mean, you probably picked up on that. But I guess he can just do that now? Rip through dimensions?

[ He never got the memo about it. Not that it was a bad thing to have suddenly on the table, at their lowest. ]

It kinda-- ate at him. Started to. So me and Donnie hitched up, took some of it on. Between Dee and Draxum, we'll probably know what the situation is pretty fast. What's gonna help him most. He can boss the rest of us around about bein' his hands for a while. Take it easy. [ And if Draxum has to go out and do some villain-adjacent activities to secure things that will be helpful, well, they're all on lair lockdown for the foreseeable future anyway, so they wouldn't know about it and wouldn't be looking if he did.

Raph idly scratches at the floor a little bit with his thumbnail. There's something meditative about it. About feeling it. If he's honest, there's also a tiny bit of a selfish comfort to laying out a status report. Like a mental checklist to ward off worst case imaginings, only saying it out loud. Another form of doing headcounts. ]

Donnie's banged up. Big hit. Rough landing. I think he's movin' alright, but he's kinda cagey, even for him. I dunno if it's a stress thing or what. So maybe don't poke the bear too hard when he's fixin' you up. [ Because 'fixing up' sounds better than 'assessing how much of a jigsaw puzzle you are right now.' ] Pops and April and Casey look way tired, but they seem solid. Nothin' a nap on the good cushions won't help. I mean, I'm guessin' with Casey, I don't really know him. I feel like a nap wouldn't hurt the guy.

[ Pops and April always have good cushions dibs. Casey can have third dibs because he's a guest. Or possibly lives here now? That's a later thing to figure out. For now, he can have some guest privileges as a treat. ]

We're all here. We're good. You did good.

[ Obviously apart from the stuff he yelled about already, which he was totally the most right about and not biased about at all! Source: he said so. Obviously. ]

[Oh?

OH!

Yeah. Of course, Raph would want to give him a run down. It's good to hear. All the details and vague ideas of plans to move ahead are good to know. Leo almost visibly relaxes by the time Raph is talking about Donnie (and he really should check on the two of them, his other brothers, they left to do their own thing and haven't come back yet-) letting his head sink back down into the cushion.

And by the time he finishes, Leo's eyes are closed in utter relief. So it sounds like they all made it. Good.]

We'll figure Casey's situation out tomorrow. Should probably find a way to contact April's parents and let them know she's all right.

[Even falling apart, Leonardo can't stop his brain from thinking. No, he has to make plans, even one step plans, to scratch the itch.]

I figure delivery's out with half the city busted up, but think we have anything we can make here?

April's probably got leads on how to reach 'em. Could start there.

[ Humans are supposed to be into family plans for disasters, aren't they? He hopes so. If they gotta ninja buddy system escort her home or to a meetup spot safely, so be it.

"Figure Casey's situation out tomorrow" is a good plan. In his opinion. A little bit because it's nice to know he didn't miss out on like, any "yeah of course you can stay here with us or whatever" developments.

Would've been a weird night if they got to that mid-alien-invasion, but you never know. ]

And we always got somethin'. Leftovers. Like a hundred boxes of noodles. [ Many already open and only half-full even though some are the exact same types of noodle, for reasons beyond Raph's comprehension. ] We can do food. It just won't be anything fancy.

[ But he doubts Leo's really fussed about comprehensive and fancy as much as doable. Two steps ahead thinking about stuff. Raph doesn't mind being those couple steps back, honestly.

He hesitates. ]

Anything else on your list, boss man?

[ Raph's ready to big brother, right-hand turtle do his best to round up whatever Leo needs rounded up, but also he knows he's kind of pushing off the hard topic. If he keeps on that, Leo might hear it from Mikey or Donnie, which could be... messy. Messier? Maybe be mad that Raph didn't tell him first even though he asked him about it more or less directly.

Raph's always had problems with that. The breaking not-exactly-great news. ]

[Hearing that confirmation about the food - even just noodles - has his muscles loosening up a bit. Though he wants to go do it himself, stretch out and do something. Mikey's usually the one in the kitchen, but Leo's no slouch either. They could both probably spruce those noodles up into something more than the sum of its parts.

But Mikey's hands are likely fucked given what Raph is telling him, and Leo isn't sure how high exactly he can lift his arms. He felt something in his shoulders tear mid-fight (or mid-beating? He doesn't want to think about it, don't thįnk̀ ͢abou͜t̨ ̸it̴ s̸t͏op th̛i̸nk̀in̕g͢ a͢b͠ǫu͢t ͡it̨

A deep breath. Slow exhale. Maybe not so deep. His whole chest hurts, even more when he tries to breathe and move and he should just walk himself to the med bay and start doing damage control for himself.

Later. He'll do it later when everyone's finally asleep. Not like he'll get a wink anyway, when does he ever?]

Figure everyone's handling first aid already. So... Nah. Nothing else. Not unless you had something, Boss Brother?

[ They'll have to rely on the non-turtle fam to make the noodle dream a reality. Or, pending nap status, Mikey can Ratatouille Raph around and simply force him to do better.

He just doesn't see the need to evolve cooking skills past the complexity level of "I have sometimes in the past made grilled cheeses or boxed macaroni." For reasons only partly related to having hands so big he can palm their dad like a basketball, and the complications therein.

But. Okay. Rip the band-aid, Raph. That's your opening. It's as much of a brotherly duty as any other, aka a privilege not to be taken lightly.

Boss Brother absolutely gets a snort, though. Dork.

(He misses being a bunch of dorks. Sneaking into pools and gardens and arguing about stuff that doesn't even matter. He misses when being scared of what else they might lose if the next Shredder-sized thing cornered them again didn't take up so much space.

He doesn't know how a person works on balancing that, but maybe he should start trying harder. After this stuff starts settling down, anyway.) ]

There's, uh... there is somethin' you should know. And you're not gonna like it. [ Nailed it, nailing it, definitely the reigning champ of being good at giving his brothers news that they will almost certainly hate. ] I think it'd be worse not to tell you, though. So. I'm gonna offer you Captain Cuddles for emotional support first. If you want him.

[ Touching Leo unannounced seemed like a bad time. In general. It's no hardship to forewarn that he's about to hold a teddy bear up to the pillow pile. ]

[Leo's still on edge. His nerves are still on fire both from pain and that brush with not-death because it certainly wasn't death he was welcoming, it wasn't his only perceived exit from that dimension after doing what they needed done. No, it wasn't that. The empty silence in that place, only the sound of being slammed into cement and foundation crashing into his shell, the cracks he heard splintering across his plastron and through his chest-

Breathe. There's a bear in view that he's fairly certain he had just handed to his brother.]

Sounds like you might need it more than me. ['You're not gonna like it'. Hard to say given the everything they just got through. He's certain he would be thrilled to hear any more news, because it means they're still alive to get news.] What is it?

[ Not even differentiating of bears enough to be sure which one he handed over. Cruel and unjust. Well. It's not like Raph's not right here if Leo changes his mind about that.

In the meantime, oh Cap'n, we're really in it now. ]

Do you... remember a couple years ago? When we all got real gung-ho about traditional Hamato training for a minute?

[ Or what they all thought was traditional Hamato training but it was kinda a step to the left of the true heart of it, skewed by their dad's childhood trauma and perception, and everyone learned a valuable lesson about being who they really are. He guesses.

Which could happen to anyone trying to improve as ninjas, honestly. ]

[That's.... an interesting start to whatever it is Raph needs to tell him. Leo listens. Even if his nervous energy is kicking up, hands needing to be doing something. So he picks idly at the threads of this one pillow; it's a little loose and just this one specific thread of stitching that's started to come loose, if he just picks and tugs at it gently maybe he can -

Wait, right, Raph is asking him something and he should respond. Not get caught up in his own thoughts of ...]

Yeah? I remember. It was cool, but it wasn't us. Whhhhy, what about it?

[There has to be some reason Raph's bringing this up. They're all kind of weird sometimes, but Raph wouldn't just use this as a lead in topic for no reason.]

[ He drops an affirmative little mm-hmm in the middle there somewhere.

A guy really has to stop to think about how weird their lives are that this is where he's starting, sometimes. They were weird before all the heroism and ancient clan arts and aliens and saving the world, but like... man. ]

It turned out we could do that ninja mind meld thing, right? Reach each other?

[ What were you even worked up about, Raph. Easy. Straightforward. Next part's the big one, but you're the biggest brother, so just keep carrying. ]

[An alarm bell rings dimly in the back of Leo's mind at that. Something he should be more worried about, the information coming shortly after these hints and clues. They struggle through the concussion though, leaving Leonardo at a loss of why this is bring brought up.]

R....Right.

[There's something, some reason, and Raph doesn't just bring that training up for no reason so there has to be something, even as his nerves are starting to pick up on the anxiety. Had something happened, did they mind meld at some point? He would remember though, that's an active thing they have to do, so why wouldn't he remember that, no it must be something else.

But his nerves feel like they're igniting into flame, scorching under his skin and as a heavy leaden weight settles into his gut threatening to bottom out into the pillows underneath him.]

[ Raphael, long-time master of the cautious lead-in technique. Of telling himself to rip off the band-aid but also telling himself to peel it off very slowly, and both are awful.

Big brothering is hard. Sometimes it feels like there's no good answer to any problem.

He can wallow in that whenever he wants. Not now. ]

The radio cut with the portal.

[ A repeat, in one of several patented gentle tones. ]

But we were still with you, Leo. We-- we reached.

[ He's normally prime "you are not alone" is always good material, good news, but.

It's complicated.

Sometimes something happens and the only relief is knowing that it's not touching anyone else. ]

[It's very complicated. It's complicated in a way it shouldn't be, but these specific set of circumstances makes it so.]

Reached what?

[He's a little slow still; how many times had he hit his head today? Been slammed into walls and concrete? Enough to wonder when it finally does start to hit him. Wat Raphael means with those words - they mind melded while he was there. Didn't they.

Shit.

If Raphael is watching, he can see the way Leo's eyes widen, scared and vulnerable, for just a split second before he schools it back. His hand slowly closes into a fist around some of the pillow fluff he's piled in.

What did they hear? How much did they hear? What do they know about what he was thinking?

No, there's no way. He would have heard them back. Wouldn't he?]

Not a good joke, big brother. [His words tremble, the final leaf on a tree as the winter breeze threatens to whisk it away, clutching tightly to the last hope it has to stay anchored.]

[ Ah. Yeah. There it is. He doesn't need both eyes up to snuff to catch that.

He wonders how much of Leo refusing to take stuff seriously heading up the team was really just Leo being scared and doing double time to cover it up. How much closer should he have been looking? ]

Sorry. [ For many things, but at this specific point: ] Not a joke, bud.

So...

[He hesitates, just to breathe. Get his breath. Where did his breath go? It's left him, empty and hollow at the thought of his brothers having heard what might have been his final thoughts before they got him. Had he been too stuck in his own head and, oh yeah, almost dying too much to have heard them in turn?]

So you definitely heard how I got it. [A denial to the end. Clinging to the last vestiges of hope that they hadn't heard his fear, his agony. Nothing he would ever have wanted them to hear from him. Leo brings a hand to wipe the back of it against his mouth, as if he can still feel the phantom tingle of blood on his lip from before. But he can't stop shaking.]

[ There's no real easy part to explain. Only sort of different parallel levels of hard. Not a lot of ways that seem simple, or at least not that Raph knows how to make come out simple, to turn into something safe, a reassurance. ]

We... felt how you took it. Got what you were thinking. If we got all of it. You were-- things went in and out, sometimes.

[ Sorry, little brother. We mind-melded with you kind of on accident, stepped in on you while you were getting slowly murdered.

We mind-melded with you and you frayed at the edges, like you couldn't reach back to us, your thoughts kept blipping in and out like whatever he was doing to you over there was breaking off pieces, and it was worse every time--

(You told yourself I'd take care of them, I couldn't even stand up.)

No. No easy or good parts at all.

He would've just assumed Leo knew if Leo hadn't asked. Knew and didn't wanna talk about it.

If Leo didn't know, then Leo didn't feel them. Hear them. Raph doesn't know for sure where the scales tip on the comfort of connection versus knowing his brothers had a backseat view. He has a hunch their scales are all pretty similar.

It wouldn't be fair not to tell him, though. It wouldn't be fair to push it off for Donnie or Mikey to end up telling him later, either. ]

[The scales weigh even, a feather's weight the only real difference with Raph's experience outweighing Leo's. But it doesn't change the result. The way Leonardo sits in the pile of soft comfort he'd gathered for himself, completely still and still trembling; he's shivering if he thinks about it, unmoving as the dead if he doesn't.

He hadn't heard them. He hadn't felt them. His subconscious, his heart reached out for the faintest of connections, a yearning to not be alone. It found his brothers but the emotional path back to Leo was winding and confusing, emotions and thoughts he'd never really had before muddying the waters.

He's glad to know, so that when Donnie and Mikey shoot him those looks of worry and guilt, he'll know what it's about. He won't have to sit and wonder what he did, like he usually does. This time it was his own heart betraying him in an instant.

Leonardo takes a heavy gulp before finally letting go of the cushion in his grip. Ducks his head and turns his eyes away for a second.]

Y-yeah. It, uh. [Ahem. More sure, this time. Fake it hard enough you believe it yourself.] Not gonna lie, big brother, it was a little rough. But - hey, it's all right now.

[ What a Leo response. He doesn't know what else he expected, because it is Leo, but for some reason that's the thing that Raph gets caught up on thinking. What a Leo response.

Like if he doesn't look at things, they go away. Like if he doesn't try to hold something up, it makes it easier if it falls down. Like he didn't hear that and try to scrape together little walls of denial to hold against it, shaking while he went. ]

It's not all right! [ If he sounds offended by the very concept, it's only because he is. It's not all right. Maybe all of them will be all right, eventually, but what happened won't be.

Raph doesn't get it, honestly, how all the dodging helps Leo, what he gets out of it. He never has. There's stuff he doesn't get when it comes to any of his brothers, that he'll never get, because knowing and understanding are different. They do their own things, they still love each other. As much as they mess up with each other, they try to make space.

(Getting them turned secondary, somewhere, to watching out for them. Trying to keep them all safe.)

He wishes the two of them spoke the same language about some of this stuff, though. He doesn't want Leo to not be Leo, but if he could-- if he could just figure out how to translate to a middle ground somewhere.

Raph holds Captain Cuddles over his face for a few seconds like he is either heroically refraining from smothering his own brother, or hoping that this is the day he unlocks a secret teddy bear ninpo that will get rid of the headache he's been growing for the past few hours. Neither motive strictly true nor strictly false.

He inhales. Exhales. A nice controlled breath. He retracts... the protective bear-rier. ]

Leo. If you're not up to talk about it. I won't try to make you. [ Goodness knows it would be a knock-down drag-out tooth and nail scrape to try to make Leo have a real talk if he doesn't want one, and Raph's not sure anyone has the collective energy for that. Including Leo.

He is so calm actually. He has always been a very calm person. ] But it's not. All right.

[ Dare he say, it's the chief reason he wishes it was possible to go back to his roots and simply bite Krang what's-his-face until he stopped twitching. Which is saying something. He's got a pile of reasons. ]

[He can't help but notice Raph sounds offended by the very concept. Probably because he is.

Still. The fact remains there just isn't anything that can be done about it now. They got him out, and now they all have to live with the consequences of their (his) actions. It feels still weirdly off kilter. They were on the same page for that short moment when Raph was able to break free of the Krang's control, and then they all worked together. They were vibing, they were coordinating. And now back to ... not quite square one, but near enough.

He doesn't want to know what they heard. But he does. He wants to know because he can't do anything if he doesn't know.

Leonardo remains quiet for an uncomfortably long time - not very long in the grand scheme of things, but long for Leonardo. His eyes go from staring at the ceiling, to the door his brothers are standing just on the other side of, then back to the interesting stain on the ceiling above him.

When he does finally speak, it's quiet. Almost a whisper, just for Raphael and Captain Cuddles.]

What did you hear?

[ Every day, a wish that looking out for little brothers came with some kind of a helpful guiding hand or official rule book. That every single weird, impossible, exhausting, horrible thing his family went through had a how-to-handle in the corner somewhere.

Raph never has seen much return on those wishes. But he guesses that not knowing what he's doing never stopped him from the doing part any other time. For his brothers, he'd dangle off the front of a train barely laying the tracks down in time for a million years.

Leo's silence makes the flip from guilt-inducing to "to be fair, he did give me a minute when I needed it" to a little worrying to regular worrying to just on the cusp of terrifying, and then he speaks up again.

Processing time isn't the kind of thing Leo usually needs. The content of the question, the low volume, makes the build-up make more sense. Private issue. Not for potential prying ears of brothers or sisters or dads or kids from the future who maybe heard Raph raise his voice and are trying to figure out if that's gonna escalate.

He pauses, because of course he does. This follow-up question, he's not sure he actually wants to answer. But he kinda brought it on himself. ]

You were scared. [ Quiet to match. Raph can do quiet. Deliberate pace, measured tone. Just another hard part to run at until it's over. ] You were glad we were safe. You wanted Pops. You thought I'd take care of everyone.

[ He would've, probably. Figured it out. There's not much of a budget for hope, pushing through to try to do that. To make sure that if he couldn't manage one of the things he's always worked for, if he couldn't keep all his brothers safe, he could at least not let Leo down after the fact.

There's not much budget for hope, when getting his hopes up before Mikey literally started ripping open the universe to get their brother back would make it impossible to scrape himself together a second time, if nothing happened.

So now he's the one who told Mikey to stop.

He'll always have to live with that. ]

You thought you were gonna die there.

[ Raphael doesn't expect that that one is much of a secret.

It isn't a wholly complete play-by-play, but it's a lot of the important ground covered. ]

[He takes a slow, deep breath.

Okay.

That's... It's almost too personal. Hitting too close, but it's true, and it's right.

He really did think he was going to die. That was one of the last thoughts he had as he drifted, before he saw that gold light above him and his brothers reaching out. He wasso sure.

Leo lets out the breath, slow and controlled. Normally he's impulsive. Normally, Leonardo says the first thing that comes to mind, doesn't think twice about it. Thinking ahead, sure, plotting out conversation starters and branches as they go along. But this? ...No. It's too much, really. He never wants to talk about this again after they close this conversation.

Leonardo nods once. Starts sitting up, his breath catching with a hiss and he grips at his side that aches with a pain he can guess at.]

All right. That's - what I wanted to know. So. [Okay, okay sitting up straight is painful. He'll have to go get it wrapped up and lay down for a while.] So there's nothing else to say about it.

[ !

Brother in motion. Raph trains a close watch on him, attention rerouting from the Captain Cuddles Experience, because of course he does.

Ribs. Not a huge surprise, considering... this whole situation. Could've rested up a little getting carried home but noooo, Raph, none of us should be walking anyway or whatever.

Raph isn't really mad. He's not sure he's even like, annoyed. He thinks maybe he's just sad and worried and guilty and it helps to go through some of the beats he might hit on a normal day. Everything there is to think about that's not what he doesn't wanna be left to think about is worth tacking on.

There's a lot to say about it. It's hard parsing what he'd be saying for his own sake versus what would actually do Leo some good, though, and that goes against the whole point of the saying. ]

Wrong. But like I said. I'm not gonna make you. [ Something to revisit down the line, depending. Dad'll have the best odds of making headway with Leo out of any of them, chances are.

But. Still.

Raph looks down and away again. Taps his fingers against the floor. ]

... Scale from one to ten. Honest answer. [ Very important. ] About how much hug do you think those ribs could take if I was really careful?

[ As if he'd be anything else. (Except for the part of the night where he was anything else, where he got used for the opposite of basically the whole point of him, and how it makes him want to tack I'll be careful onto things for a hundred years as pure self-reassurance.

Except for that part.)

You nailed it, Raph. You don't sound like you've been heroically restraining yourself from grabbing up everyone in the lair at once to curl around like a spiky dragon at all. Or like grabbing all those blankets was not partly a plot to build a direct pipeline to getting to do that. ]

[He can't be upright for long. Leo's sat upright for about thirty seconds and that is thirty-one seconds too long. He needs to lay down again, but now he -

He wants everything and nothing. To not be looked at like he knows his brothers will look at him, but doesn't want to be alone. Wants the comfort of his own room, but with the blankets and tv and association of the living room. He can't have it all. He can barely have just this: the quiet moment with his older brother as they try to figure out what next?

Of course Raph is worried about that. Not simply because Leonardo is obviously hurt. Raph despite the anger issues is always gentle with the brothers. He would never deliberately hurt them.

(It wasn't him. It was an invader in their home, a virus in Raph's mind that Raphael fought against and ripped out like a rotten tooth. That was not him, and that is not who sits next to him now. Even if the slight bruising and aches across his neck are real, that Raphael wasn't.)]

Uh... Iunno, I'd say a four? Five if it's Mikey.

[ Raph sits himself up properly. Looks at Leo with what he would consider all very due scrutiny, head tilted. ]

Yeah, I'm gonna go with a two. [ Is there a truly kind way to say "we all look kinda bad right now but you personally look absolutely busted." Eh. No. Not for this occasion.

So he'll just try to be nice and safety-select appropriately on the hug scale to compensate. If a four's about what Leo can handle, why push to the limit anyway?

He'll just keep a close eye on the situation. Or, uh. Ear. Adjust as needed. ] Comin' at ya.

[ Achy post-adrenaline perks: truly helps this become one of the most telegraphed hugs Raph has ever initiated.

No need for Leo to meet him halfway on this one. He'll cover the travel costs and simply meet Leo where he's at. ]

[If he had more energy, Leonardo might say he would feel insulted. As it is? No, a two is perfectly acceptable.

(But even he can't help that split second blink-and-you-miss-it moment his breath stops as Raphael leans in for the hug, the way his blood feels hot and freezing at once before it melts into something lukewarm tolerable again.)

He doesn't have to lean further or meet his brother half way, but since he has a gauge on how tight this hug is going to be, he gets one good arm around Raph's shoulder to give a weak, shaky squeeze. His voice is still quiet though.]

Good to have you back.

[ Too much, maybe. Too soon. A little hitch. Put a gap between this hug and the next one. Won't hurt as much. Or maybe it's just that it'll be easier if he's not the only other person hugging Leo. He'll figure it out. There's time.

If Leo didn't get that arm around his shoulder, Raph would've gone ahead and cut it short. Better safe than sorry, better to check if this is actually okay while he can try to suss out if Leo is being up-front about it.

As it stands, Leo hugs back. So as it stands, Raph is grateful. Relieved in the way that only ever comes with this, the sharp anxious edges that only ever dull with this-- when it's quiet, when he's got his family in his arms, in sight, in earshot, when everyone is safe and anything that wants to change that will have to go through him.

It smooths over some of the pressure locked up in his chest, that grief with no more purpose, nowhere to go. Vents it out in one sharp, shaky breath, half a soundless laugh. The other half only counts as a sob if he cries, which he is so good at not doing. ]

You too.

[ Fine pair of bozos they make, up on the sacrificial scoreboard. Raph is tempted to retread the never again, please never again ground, but he feels like Leo might be hearing that from other sources in the next couple of days. So maybe not now. Maybe he'll keep him safe from that too, for at least a couple more minutes. ]

We're here for each other. All of us. Always. Right? [ 'Live laugh love' wishes it had that kind of power. ] Whatever you need, we got you. I promise.

[ If he ever does wanna talk about what happened, or never wants to talk about it, or needs to retire from the ninja life and go be a barista or something, if he needs someone to tuck him in and check under his bed at night, if he never figures it out exactly and just needs them to help carry the weight. Anything.

Raph has the authority to make family-wide promises when they're really obvious easy ones like that. ]

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