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Leo woke up with a start, breathing heavy and shallow, eyes moving rapidly in the dark. The dark of the prison dimension, the cold of steel hitting his plastron, the glowing red the last thing he sees before- He shivers, wrapping his arms around himself. It had been 6 months since the Krang invasion, and though he was—for the most part—physically healed (thank Pizza Supreme for his super mutant healing), he was neglectful of his mental state. It was just too hard to deal with right now, and he didn’t want to worry his lovely-also-suffering family. He had to be strong, for them.
But tonight, this thought process flew straight out the window and into the dumpster below as tears started to well in his eyes. The heels of his palms scrub at the tears as he tries to reassure himself; I’m in my room, I’m safe, I’m in my bed in my room. In spite of his efforts, the tears only continue to flow, his body continues to shake, his mind continues to yearn for a childish sort of comfort, and he knows he needs to find Dee before his nausea gets the best of him.
And so, gathering up his soft blanket and convincing himself that Krang Prime wasn’t in the dark corners surrounding him or directly outside his room, he stood with crackling knees and hips. He didn’t have time to pull on his knee braces, what if Donnie was in trouble? What if Krang Prime was in HIS room?! With hurried vigor he ran through the scary dark of the subway station to his twin’s car, almost forgetting a quick knock before bursting into Donatello’s room.
Donnie stirred to the recklessly loud thumping quickly approaching his door, whipping around in panic when it was thrown open. This effectively twisted him up in his blankets and he fell hard off the mattress, straight onto the metal flooring. Ouch. He glared up at the perpetrator only to double-take when he found none other than his shaking, tear-streaked, heaving brother. His face softened.
“Nardo..?” Half-whispered, accompanied with a squint.
Leo stood there for a second, staring down at Donnie with blanket in hand, before his knees buckled. He crumpled to the floor as he reached out for his twin, sobbing with tears renewed.
“Deee!”
Donnie half-crawled half-scurried to close the few feet between them. He gathered his twin in his arms and Leo latched onto him like his life depended on it.
“Shh, shhhh, it’s okay Lee, let it out. I’m here, you’re safe.” He held Leo’s head as he cried into his shoulder. Donnie started to rub circles on Leo’s shell as Leo broke in his arms, whispering comforts as he cradled him. Despite what Leon thinks, his family worries about him even when he tries to hide and push down his emotions. You don’t just go through something like that and come out fine . But they don’t want to push him, letting him know that they’re here for him when he’s ready. Which is why Donnie isn’t surprised about tonight. Ever since Leo started waking up in the early hours from his night terrors, he’s left his door unlocked, always prepared when Leo comes running through.
It isn’t like they didn’t hang out during the night regularly before; Leo’s always had trouble sleeping, and Othello Von Ryan can’t put a project down to save his life, so it was a common occurrence for Leo to stride on over. This was…different. Leo always seemed more vulnerable, small, young , during these times. Donnie just wished he would explore this side of himself in a healthier way. He was no Mikey, but he had a feeling this could help Leo with that whole coping thing Angelo was always on about.
Eventually, Leo had calmed down, going from heavy, gross sobbing and snotting on Donatello’s shoulder to the occasional hiccup and sniff. At some point Leo’s fingers made their way to his mouth, his other hand clutching Donnie tight, and his blanket on the ground in front of them. He was definitely Dee’s baby brother right now, that much Donnie could tell. Don reached up on his desk to grab a tissue and pulled back a little to start cleaning off Leo’s face, much to Leo’s chagrin. He whined and squirmed a bit, but stayed relatively still for Donnie so his face didn’t feel as icky.
“There we go. Doesn’t that feel better? Of course it does, these tissues are of only the softest variety.” Donnie said proudly, still speaking softly. It is the middle of the night, after all.
Leo let out a wet giggle at Donnie’s antics. Somehow he always managed to cheer him up; must be a twin thing. He let go of Donnie and reached for his blanket, leaning back on Don as he started to rub it on his face. The soft texture always helped to calm him down, no matter what headspace he was in.
Not much got to Donnie, but he had to keep himself from cooing at his twin in his lap. He was too adorable for how sassy he usually was, even though his fingers were probably super gross right now. Eugh. Donnie reached again to open his desk drawer, holding Leo with one hand to keep from jostling him, and pulled out a blue pacifier. He turned back down to Leo and pulled his fingers out of his mouth.
“Don’t do that, your fingers are probably covered in germs. Here.” He took off the cover and held the pacifier in front of Leo’s mouth, but Leo blushed and squirmed, whining.
“Oh Galileo, I’m not going to judge you, I got this to help you. You’re meant to use it. Plus, it cannot be comfy to have wet wrinkly fingers.” Leo looked at the pacifier, then at Dee, then back down, debating. He was still hesitant. What if Dee was lying? What if it was a trick? He knew Donnie would never do that, but he was still anxious.
“If you take it we can go to the kitchen and get some chocolate milk?” Now that had Leo’s attention. Usually Dee didn’t like any of them having sweets this late at night (the caffeine-addicted hypocrite), so it had to be something special. He looked at the pacifier for a couple more seconds before opening his mouth. Dee gave it to him and patted his head as Leo laid it back down on his shoulder, seeming a bit more relaxed.
“Good job! I know that was hard, so thank you. I just don’t want you getting sick.” Donnie smiled down at his younger twin, and in turn Leo buried his blushing face in Donnie’s shoulder, a little embarrassed but definitely more comfortable. They had started introducing things that might help Leo in this headspace a few months ago, but he was still just getting used to it, so getting past the initial embarrassment sometimes needed a little encouragement. Not that Donnie minded. If Leo needed a little help with doing something that was good for him, Donnie was more than willing.
“Alright, come on Nardo. I can’t carry you to the kitchen so I’m going to need you to get up. Would you like to stay here on my bed until I come back, or would you like to come with me?” Leo thought about it for a moment before realizing how scary the darkness was, and he didn’t want anything to happen to Dee! So it was decided, he would go with for his prized choccy milk.
Leo tapped Donnie’s plastron, and he got the message. Donnie helped Leo onto his feet with a little difficulty since he wouldn’t let go of his blanket and wasn’t wearing his braces, but once they were up and Leo seemed stable he headed towards his door to go out to the kitchen. Leo quickly followed, slipping his free hand into Donnie’s. Dee let a small smile rest on his face at the action, and gave a quick glance back at Leo before heading out of his room.
It wasn’t far to the kitchen, and once they were there Dee lifted a surprised Leo onto the counter, not wanting him standing for too long with no support. Leo gave out a little squeak and giggled, bringing the blanket up to cover his face.
Donnie chuckled, “Where did the baby go? I could’ve sworn I put him right here, he’s not that fast!” He looked around like he couldn’t see Leo peeking above his blanket.
“S’p’ise!” Leo flung his arms out, giggling and dropping the blanket in his lap.
“Gasp! There he is! What a sneaky little guy I have, isn’t that right, baby blue?”
“S’eakyyyyy,” Leo laughed behind his pacifier, hands over his eyes peeking through his fingers at Dee.
“That’s right!” He booped Leo’s snout before turning to the fridge. “Alright, lil ninja, time for that promised bribe, and I am a man of my word!” He lifted out the chocolate milk and grabbed a sippy cup from out of the back of one of the top cabinets. It was light blue with a unicorn sticker on the front, courtesy of Donnie and much to the excitement of Leo. He really had to get Leo some unicorn stuff…but those were thoughts for his amazon shopping cart. Right now he had a tiny Leo to look after.
After filling the sippy cup a little above half—didn’t want too much sugar— he screwed on the top and presented it to Leo.
“Voila! One chocolate milk, my good boy!” Leo smiled big at him, reaching out and making grabby hands.
Donnie chuckled, handing it to him, “Alright, alright, I know where your loyalties lie.”
Leo looked up at him from the cup in his hands and Donnie thought he just might die from how cute his next words were:
“‘ank yew, Deedee. ‘ove yew!” Leo took out his pacifier and handed it to Don, who took it with one hand because the other was too busy covering his mouth, keeping himself from saying the omigosh you officially beat Mikey for the cutest brother award in this moment train of thought out loud. Meanwhile Leo was none-the-wiser of his brain-function-disabling adorableness and started chugging his chocolate milk like it was what he was born for.
Donnie came to in order to stop Leo from drinking it all in three gulps, chuckling, “Lee, you have to drink it slowly or your tummy will hurt. We don’t want that, baby bug.” Leo pouted, but brought the spout back up to his mouth and drank at a slower pace, instead of gulping like he wanted to. He only drank for a minute or so before his eyelids started to droop. He leaned forward against Dee, putting the sippy cup on the counter, and Don put his arms around him to make sure he didn’t fall off.
“Is my little brother too tired to even finish his milk?” Leo pushed his head into Donnie’s shoulder and shook it, but his body betrayed him in going almost completely lax against Dee’s. He grabbed his blanket and brought it up to below his chin, fidgeting with the texture in his hands.
This is when Donnie realized Leo might just be a little too young to walk his way to either of their rooms, so he propped him up and put his pacifier in his mouth.
“I’ll be right back, okay Lee? I’m just going to grab something in the living room.” Leo freaked out for a second, but realized he would still be able to see Donnie since a subway is a bit of a forced open concept when there’s almost no one there. So he brought his blanket up to rub his face and started swaying side-to-side as he watched Dee walk to the side of the couch with tired eyes. Turns out, Donnie left one of his spare battleshells right under the couch, y’know, just in case of an emergency. He slid it out and it unfolded to its full expanse, putting it on his back and rolling his shoulders. When he turned back, Leo was giving him a worried look.
“Don’t worry Lelo, I’ll take it off when we get back to my room, I just need it for a quick minute.” Donatello hadn’t been the most… consistent when it came to removing his battleshell when he was supposed to. He wore it for a full week after the invasion. But he was getting better! And besides, right now was about taking care of Leo , he could stand to wear it for a few minutes if it meant helping his brother.
He walked over and gave Leo a soft smile.
“Is it okay if I carry you to my room for the night, baby blue? It looks to me like you might be a bit too small to get there on your own right now.” Leo looked at him with heavy eyes, his paci bobbing slowly, and it seemed he could barely comprehend what Dee was saying to him. Instead of verbally answering, he chirped and leaned up against Donnie. It looked like he could fall asleep right there. Dee cooed silently as he wrapped his arms around his baby brother, staying there for a second just to enjoy the moment. But only a second, he didn’t want Leo to fall asleep right there on the counter, so he moved one hand under Leo’s thighs and kept one on his back for support while his metal ‘extra hands’ came in to help support Leo’s weight as he lifted him onto his hip. Before he walked off, though, he pocketed the sippy in his battleshell to clean later.
Leo shifted a bit, but was ultimately comfortable before Donnie started walking back to his bedroom. It was lulling, walking around in someone’s arms. It gave him a sense of safety he hadn’t felt in a while. Maybe he should ask Dee if they could do this more often, or maybe even Raph would be up to it, the big softie. By the time they reached the door Leo was almost completely asleep, slumped in his big brother’s arms and feeling younger than usual in this headspace. That realization might have scared him if his big twin Dee wasn’t right there to protect him, but he was, so Leo didn’t have anything to worry about.
Donnie entered his room and went straight for the bed. He could feel Leo’s breathing evening out, and didn’t want to keep him from getting to sleep since he knew how hard that could be for the turtle. So as gently as he could, he lowered Leon onto the bed, and when he started to protest Don threw off his battleshell as quick as he could to gather Leo back into his arms.
“It’s alright, lil Lee, I’m not going anywhere.” He pulled Leo’s blanket over him and took his comforter over both of them, pulling the red slider close to his chest. Leo snuggled close into Dee’s shoulder, hands in front of him in loose fists as he chirped a couple times.
“I know, Lelo, you’re a tired tot. Get some sleep, I’ll be right here when you wake up.” Dee started to rub slow circles on Leo’s shell while gently scratching his head, causing a sort of purr from the small turtle, and in only a few of the most comfortable minutes of his life, Lee was out like a light.
Donnie smiled to himself. He liked taking care of Leo, he just wished Leo would let him do it more often. Maybe let their brothers help out too. He might be able to talk to Leo about it, in the morning. Right now, though, he had a little Leo to cuddle, making sure he gets the much needed sleep he deserves.
And maybe it was the fact that Leo hadn’t slept that good since he was a real baby that he agreed to maybe let Dee and their brothers help him, but he wasn’t going to tell Donnie that.