Chapter Text
Leo didn't tell anyone, but it was only when it reached six months after the invasion that he was fully confident that he had spent more time out of the prison dimension than in it.
Well, okay, it wasn't true that he hadn't told anyone. Sensei knew, because that was unavoidable. And he'd told his therapist, blanketing it in about fifty jokes. Luckily his therapist had the same self-deprecating humour and took it in stride, patiently letting Leo dance around the topic enough that the well-worn path surrounding it made the contents clear enough to discuss.
But his therapist didn't count, because he was getting paid to hear about Leo's shit and when he told that guy things it didn't matter because he didn't cry and it wasn't the end of the world and then they talked about coping mechanisms. And sometimes memes. They only went through two other therapists before they found this one, which was good because between Leo and Sensei they ended up having quite a lot to say once they got going.
It also took six months for Donnie to not only install the port on his stump and wait for the site to heal, but also to finish the fabrication of the prototype arm he'd single-handedly created for Leo. And today they were going to attach it for the first time and Leo was going insane.
"Do you think it'll look cool?" Leo asked, sitting absolutely incorrectly on Hueso's couch, upside down with his head hanging off. The coiled necklace kept sliding down to bang his teeth.
"I think it will look like an arm." Hueso replied, not looking up from the paperwork he was sorting through at his desk.
Leo whined a little. Donnie had kicked him out of the lab and told him to go find something better to do about an hour ago specifically because of the whining, and so he'd come to bother his favourite Tío. Hueso pretended he didn't want him there, but the blue couch that had appeared in his office with a mini-fridge specifically stocked with his favourites said otherwise.
"Do you think it'll be really strong?" Leo said, kicking the wall repetitively with his sneakers. They were hand painted by Mikey on the canvas with familiar red stripes.
"Depending on the what material it is made of, it will likely be more durable than flesh." Hueso replied, shaking a pen to get some more ink.
Leo tried to keep his voice steady, like it was still a joke, "Do you think it'll hurt?"
Hueso paused his motion. Leo avoided his eye when he glanced over, pulse too-quick.
"I think that you should tell your brother immediately if it hurts." Hueso said, slowly.
"Yeah." Leo agreed, half-heartedly.
"Sensei?" Hueso prompted.
They switched as easy as breathing. "You got it, Tío. I'll make sure."
Leo blinked hard back in and scowled. "Not fair."
"You share a body, Pepino." Hueso returned to his paperwork, unperturbed. "It is within his right to tell someone if it hurts. Even if you wouldn't."
Leo grumbled but didn't argue further. He kept kicking the wall. He checked his little Jupiter Jim watch next to the handmade bracelet on his wrist just as his phone chimed in his pocket.
"Finally!" Leo flipped off the couch, heels over head. Spread on Hueso's expensive carpet, he read the group chat messages.
Donnie: it's ready. return at your leisure, you two
Donnie: though please let Leo make the portal
Sensei scowled and stole the hand to type, 'That was one time -s.'
Leo took it back and double-texted, 'WE WILL BE RIGHT THERE -L'
Less than a month ago Sensei had used Leo's ninpo try to make a portal for visiting Casey and ended up in Québec. Turns out using ninpo for the first time in over a decade was not like riding a bike.
"Thanks for the company, bone man!" Leo shouted, giving Hueso a drive-by hug as he crossed the room to scoop up the sword he brought. He couldn't wait until he could carry two again. "See you later!"
"Waving with both hands." Hueso drolly replied, just a hint of a smile.
"You bet!" Leo blew him a kiss, effortlessly formed a portal and leapt inside.
The world spin and swirled and recentered. Leo burst into Donnie's lab at top speed. "Let me see, let me see, let me see!"
"Patience, Leon." Donnie flicked up his goggles, gesturing for Leo to take the seat beside his workbench.
Leo flopped gracefully into it, used to this treatment as they'd worked on getting the port set and calibrated. He'd spent hours in this chair scrolling memes on his phone while Donnie worked on it. He said, "You said it's ready! It's ready right?"
"It's ready." Donnie confirmed, smoothing his fingers in a circle around the pristine port, checking the inputs. "Can I get a number from you?"
A grimace. Leo admitted, "Two. But it's fine! I want to do this today!"
He was only a two because he'd been so excited that he'd barely slept last night, and when he got overtired the nightmares were worse and he'd ended up in a really shit dream where he woke up and couldn't remember if he escaped or not. So he was just a little hazy today.
"Tell me if that changes." Donnie requested.
Raph let himself in the lab with Mikey on his shoulders, holding his smaller ankles. "I thought you said it was ready."
"It is ready!" Donnie replied. "Take a seat, gentlemen. The main attraction will begin in a moment."
Nerves bundled in Leo's stomach. 'What did it feel like? The first time it attached?'
'Weird.' Sensei replied. 'But the port process has already been different than mine. With more time and resources I think that Donnie has created you something that will exceed what I experienced.'
Leo took a deep breath and trusted him. Donnie brought over the arm, pulling away the cover to reveal it.
Sleek. Not shiny, but matte, with perfect cuts of Leo's stripes, and rounded fingernails. It was a tasteful grey otherwise, almost an exact mirror in size to his left.
"Ooooh!" Raph and Mikey chorused, clapping.
Leo would have chorused as well, but he was busy fighting the nerves wrestling inside him. It was wonderful. He was so excited. He was a little scared.
"We're calling this Prototype One." Donnie explained. "I've come to understand from conversations with Sensei that the other-me started with an oversized arm to let Sensei grow into it, since he did not have the resources to make him a new one every single time he grew. But I do, and I love making things, so growth will only give me more opportunities for innovation."
"Looks great, D." Leo said, honest. It was really awesome.
Donnie brought the arm over and set it on his lap. It was actually not as heavy as he'd been imagining. His twin pointed to small indents thumb-and-finger apart on the casing. "Here is the release. If at any point you wish to remove it, just push on both points simultaneously. The arm is durable, you are welcome to let it fall to the floor, just avoid crushing your foot."
"Got it." Leo agreed. He was practically vibrating, all tangled up in nerves and excitement he couldn't tell them apart anymore.
"Breathe." Donnie said.
Leo breathed. Or, more accurately, Sensei breathed. They were both there, working together. Donnie waited until he was satisfied then lifted the arm off his lap to line up with his port.
"Installation is easy. Square peg, square hole. I trust you can manage that." Donnie said. "I am going to latch them together. There will be a brief moment as the two interface, but it shouldn't be too noticeable. I'm hoping to reduce the time and any movement delay over prototypes. Once it connects you will be able to move it. Are you ready?"
"Yeah." Leo said.
"Don't hold your breath." Donnie said, catching Leo doing just that. "Keep breathing. On the count of three. One, two, three."
On three, Donnie pushed the prosthetic arm in. It pulled on the port, suddenly adding weight to that side of his body, even as Donnie held the elbow in place to support it. A beat of about three seconds before there was an audible click.
Leo waited. And a second later, pins and needles erupted up his arm. His right arm. They didn't hurt, more like a sudden flood of sensation for a limb that had fallen asleep. He gasped in surprise, reflexively reaching out to grab it. Feeling the numb-push when you banged a sleeping limb, a scattered burst of sharp TV static.
"Okay?" Donnie prompted, tight.
"Weird." Leo said through his teeth.
"Weird bad?"
"Weird weird." Leo squeezed the fake arm and felt the feedback. It didn't feel real but it felt like something.
"Keep breathing. Tell me if it needs to come off."
Leo kept breathing. The prickling tingles settled down, leaving just a foreign sensation. He said, "It's okay."
Donnie turned the arm in his grip and tapped on the thumb. "Do the nerve endings reach down here? Can you move your fingers?"
Leo hesitantly thought about moving his fingers. They moved.
"Raise your arm up?"
The arm went up.
Raph and Mikey cheered. Leo grinned at them, waving with his brand new hand. Then he turned to Donnie, opening his glorious arms. "I have been waiting so long to do this."
Donnie sighed, looking put-upon for show, then opened his arms as well.
Leo dabbed.
"Leo!" Mikey shrieked with laughter.
"Bro." Raph chortled.
"Such a shame that you have both arms and now I will never hug you again." Donnie deadpanned.
"Aw, D!" Leo lunged for his twin to catch him in a hug anyway. Donnie dodged.
Leo chased him around his lab, crashing into the workbenches until he had Donnie pinned in a hug on the floor. Despite himself, Donnie was smiling.
Raph pulled them apart by the scuff, grinning. Mikey bounced on his heels and said, "Show us! Show us!"
Leo hopped up, flexing his new arm and marvelling at how it followed his every unconscious move. There was a small noticeable delay, but otherwise fluidly followed his command. A delighted laugh broke past his lips and his eyes sparkled.
"It works." Donnie said, looking at him with his growing smile splitting his face. He jumped up and down on his heels and exploded in a flurry of happy stimming. "It works!"
Leo mirrored the stim with his twin, shaking out the energy from his fingertips. All six of them!
The weight on the stump was a little disorientating and admittedly sore. It had been an arduous healing process and as much as he wanted to jump the gun, Sensei insisted on a lengthy recovery. The older turtle's stump had hurt like hell for over a decade because he'd rushed it.
There was no need to rush here.
A couple hours later Mikey and Leo had taken over the kitchen table. They were trying to make stickers.
"Aw man." Leo said. "Fine motor movements are hard because of the small delay. And since I've been using my left for like six months so it would actually be easier to use than my right."
"So a positive would be that you're ambidextrous now?" Mikey asked, sticking out his tongue a little bit as he worked.
"I guess." Leo scoffed, then felt his shoulders tighten. A sore spot he didn't want to poke.
Whether or not Mikey noticed, it was hard to say. He kept scribbling intently at the sticker paper and said, "I've been really looking forward to getting your arm because I felt it was like, the last thing that needed to happen."
"Oh yeah?" Leo said, not really following. He'd scribbled out a few designs with his right because he didn't want to cave and use his left when he'd been waiting so long.
"D's shell is healed and he can wear his battle shell again. Raph got his eyeball lasered. And I've got these cool guards!" Mikey wiggled his fingers in the air. They were compression arm guards that helped to reduce the shaking.
"Raph did not get his eyeball lasered." Leo had to correct. "There's no lasers in cataract extraction, it's a lens replacement, you cut into the--"
"Ew, stop, enough, I don't wanna be thinking about eyeball surgery." Mikey interrupted, hands up. He'd painted his arm guards, much to Draxum's sighing since he'd had them made specially made for him. They were bright and colourful. "The point is that we just needed you to get your arm back and we got everything fixed!"
Words dried up in Leo's throat. He didn't want to be horrifically pessimistic but muttered, "Yeah, and Raph's got a huge scar over his eye, D still can't sleep without a weighted blanket, and your hands can still shake when you take the guards off."
'If you didn't want to be horribly pessimistic, you failed.' Sensei said, changing the colour scheme of their sticker mid-way through.
Leo mentally stuck his tongue out at him which gave Mikey enough distraction to bonk him with a marker. "I don't mean fixed as it, like it was before. I mean that we've taken care of all the things we could physically do to help ourselves. Now we can go forward properly with our new starting point without anything holding us back."
Leo rubbed where the marker hit him, one eye shut. "Pretty sappy. Your therapist tell you that?"
"Yup!" Mikey dug in the pile of markers intently. "What did yours say about the arm?"
They saw each other twice a week. Leo had sat on his floor last session pinging a bouncy ball against the far wall ranting about how he didn't think he'd deserved how much work Donnie had put into the arm.
Honestly, talking about wanting to kill himself was easier than tackling the behemoth that was his self-worth. Every time his therapist tried to bring it up all the muscles in his body locked up and he wanted to sprint away from the situation at top speed.
So they came to a compromise. If Leo said something self-deprecating, his therapist would silently hand him the list of cognitive distortions they were working on.
Cognitive distortions were a concept that the thoughts someone had did not line up with the reality of the situation. Leo would identify which ones the thought fell under, then his therapist would give a thumbs up and let him continue. Apparently this was just step one, learning how to identify what the thinking was. Next would be challenging. Leo wasn't looking forward to challenging.
Leo had sat there and spouted off about how it was his fault anyway (personalisation) and that he felt like it meant he didn't deserve the effort (emotional reasoning) and Donnie probably had so much better uses of his time (mind reading).
Having to pick apart his every thought really took the wind out of his sails, even if they weren't at the challenging stage yet. His therapist didn't argue with him but raised an eyebrow at him for each of the cognitive distortions that he pointed at as he spoke.
That was Leo's half of the session, the other half being Sensei trying to come up with as many positive memories of his dead family as he could. He avoided thinking about them because it hurt, so his trauma would trigger bad memories at random and bury the happy ones. Sometimes the happy memories made him cry more than the sad. Which meant they took a three hour nap when they got home.
Leo didn't know how to explain to Mikey that his therapy process was a lot less sagely advice -- which he got enough of from Sensei, thank you -- and more his therapist bonking him on the head to painstakingly pull apart the way he thought and point out how fucking stupid it was.
(... labelling.)
Instead he said, "I dunno, we just chatted a bit. Forewarned is forearmed, after all."
More markers were thrown at him in quick succession. The small delay in raising his right arm meant they pelted him in the face.
After lunch Leo cleaned his room. He might've been putting it off for a while in anticipation that he'd have two hands and it would be easier. But leaning over to pick stuff up over-balanced him with the new weight on the side and he kept falling over. That meant it quickly turned from any actual productive cleaning to dancing along to his music.
Leo was allowed to be left alone around the point that he was willing to sign commitments to life without being held at metaphorical gunpoint, but everyone still liked it better if he didn't shut the door when he was alone. So he left it open, and that's where Raph was standing and tearing up.
"What!" Leo dropped his hands mid-dance move. He'd been enjoying the return of symmetry, even if the drag of the new arm on his port was getting sorer as the day dragged on. "My dancing's not that bad!"
Adam Lambert's 'For Your Entertainment' continued to belt in the background as Raph scrubbed at his face and said, "Sorry, sorry! I didn't -- I just -- you looked so happy."
"Eugh boy." Leo said, moving to the door and pulling Raph by the hand. "Come in, big guy."
Raph sniffed hugely, composing himself. "There wasn't even anyone around, you weren't performing."
"It's a good song." Leo grumbled, patting Raph's arm. "How'd you know I'm not performing for Sensei anyway?"
'You call that performing? Four out of ten.'
'Four?' Leo replied. He couldn't help but have his own amusement join with the flood of Sensei's swimming around their body.
"It's not a bad thing, Leo." Raph amended, and squeezed Leo's hand. "It's a really, really good thing."
"Ah." Leo didn't know what to do with that. "Want to dance with me?"
"You call that dancing?" Raph said, eyes still wet but sparkling.
Sensei stole the front to laugh, tapping the quick 's' to his mouth and saying, "Can you rate it out of ten?"
Leo blinked back in and jokingly snarled, "No, I don't wanna hear it!"
"Four." Raph said.
Leo threw his hands in the air.
April and Casey came by because they wanted to see the arm. April immediately challenged him to an arm wrestle and lost. Then Casey did and won because he cheated, stealing future-April's trick to poke them with a pin at the right moment. The brat.
Afterwards she offered to paint his new nails and Casey wanted his done too. They talked about meaningless shit. Leo sent his Snapchat streak of their nail party.
Sensei had never once felt he could assign the words 'carefree' to his kid. Casey always had an overinflated sense of responsibility and even as a young child would anxiously watch whatever was happening with a little wring of his hands, on-guard and ready. Symptom of the apocalypse or being Casey, Sensei had never been sure, just always tried to take as much of the burden off his shoulders when he could.
He knew that it wasn't healthy to linger on the 'what-ifs', but he couldn't help and think that of everyone, if he could only save one, then he was glad it was Casey. His family had known peace when they were young, even if they lost it. Casey never even had that.
Blue nails and a carefree laugh, jostling April's shoulder with a wink that wouldn't be unfamiliar on a red-striped face. Then turning that smile to Sensei.
Sensei smiled back. He couldn't find it in himself to regret his choices as much in the face of that smile.
When it was time for them to go, Sensei hugged Casey until his kid started to squirm and complain to be let go. Leo was happy to linger as long as Sensei wanted. After all, he loved to hug his brothers.
The groupchat pinged after the two left.
April: raph said leo was listening to adam lambert instead of MCR earlier
April: nature is healing
Leo went to text back and discovered his prosthetic thumb did not activate the touch screen. He typed one handed instead and put, 'i'm literally in this groupchat -L'
April: i know <3
Leo rolled his eyes and went to Donnie's lab. "Hey Dontron, I can't text with this thumb."
"Really?" Donnie met him at the door, flicking down his goggles and inspecting the arm. "I thought for sure I checked that. Or maybe that was in earlier specs and I forgot to carry it over. Sorry, Leon. I'll fix it. You should probably take a rest anyway. Do you want to take it off or me?"
"You can." Leo turned his shoulder towards him, not wanting to fumble it onto the ground just yet even if Donnie said it was durable. His twin pressed his fingers into the indents and popped it off. The immediate change of load made him feel weightless.
Leo's blood went cold.
Distant fuzz. Unfocused. A slight sway, and he realized he was dissociating at about the same moment Donnie did.
"Number?" Donnie put the arm down on his workbench, abandoning it entirely to approach Leo instead. His hands hovered but didn't touch.
Far, far away. Leo inhaled. Communication.
'Help?' Leo asked, because his muscles felt like spaghetti.
Sensei joined the dizzy fray to help raise a zero fist.
Donnie swore and said, "I'm going to touch your side."
Leo let it happen, Donnie's arm threaded around his shoulders to lead him to the chair. He sunk heavily in it, unable to get his head to turn or gaze to focus beyond the middle distance. His mind was still screeching, the breathless and terrified hangover. The weight difference between his right and left throwing him completely off balance. Lost, cast out to sea. To space. In a void, darkness and --
And Donnie's voice. "You are Hamato Leonardo, either or both. You are safe at home and you are so very loved. You are in my lab and we just disconnected your new prosthetic arm. You are going to be okay. I would never lie to you."
Leo wiggled his toes. Sensei was breathing in time, picking out the different colours on the other side of Donnie's lab. They trusted him.
It was 3PM. He wasn't alone.
Donnie narrated their breathing. He helped them back to their room to lay down and stayed beside them on his tablet, muttering about fingertip density.
Leo curled up around his stump and tried hard to ignore the stinging in his eyes.
'What are you thinking?' Sensei asked, which was kind since he could just as easily pick it out of the storm of his thoughts if he wanted to.
'That I won't get to wear the arm now. And I want to. Even if it's got a little delay and it's a bit sore. It's not perfect and I probably won't wear it all the time, but I still want it. Donnie made it for me.'
'Distortion?' Sensei prompted, because he'd sat through all the same therapy Leo had by virtue of sharing a brain.
Leo grumbled. 'Catastrophization.'
'Correct. So why can't you wear it?' Sensei coaxed.
'Because I'm gonna trigger myself everytime.'
'There's things we can do about that.' Sensei reminded him, gentle. 'Maybe it was just because you weren't expecting it. Or maybe it will be a problem, and we can prepare coping mechanisms. We can desensitize ourselves to it, right?'
His therapist had helped him through actually saying the words 'prison dimension' out loud. His brain loved to go wobbly and terrified at even thinking the words, like it might somehow summon him back there. They did a whole bunch of exposure exercises which was actually hell, where you purposefully triggered yourself then did relaxation techniques to calm down over and over until the response wasn't so strong anymore. It sucked.
'If this is something you want, then it's important.' Sensei said, softly.
Leo grumbled again. He was staring at his beside table, where a sun-lamp shined on a plant in an octopus plant. It had grown new leaves thanks to his diligent watering.
Since he was a good kid, and he dug out his phone and navigated to his safety plan. He was supposed to use it in small moments as well so it wasn't as scary if he needed it during a big one. His therapist had assigned him homework to use it at least twice this week. He was just doing his stupid homework when he signed 'SP' to Donnie and held out his phone.
"Okay, Leon." Donnie agreed, having done this many times by now. "Let's take it from the top."
They ended up throwing ice in the bathtub for a while. Splinter found him there to take him to his therapy appointment. He had taken Leo to every single one of his appointments and sat in the waiting room the whole time to watch the terrible subtitled TV.
"What's our treat today?" Splinter asked, taking some ice himself and tossing it to shatter on the tiles. He gave a delighted chuckle.
Leo got a treat after therapy, anything he wanted. It was a bribe in the beginning when he really didn't want to go, but he was better about it now. The treats still continued. "Oh, let's get boba. D, you want some?"
"Hmm." Donnie gave Leo his phone back. "Sure. Get my usual."
"Duh." Leo signed a quick, 'I love you'.
Donnie signed it back. Splinter chuckled and said, "Come now, my Blues. Don't want to be late."
"Aw, you didn't get to see my arm." Leo complained, slinging his singular hand in his hoodie pocket.
"There's still time." Splinter said, unperturbed.
Leo followed in his footsteps. He got caught on his reply, Sensei there with him and doubling the inexplicable emotion in their throat.
The first time Leo ever sat down with his therapist, he was asked to make a goal for their sessions. It took the whole sixty minutes with a lot of jokes and a lot of deflecting, but he'd eventually answered, "My goal is to want to be alive."
It was a pretty complicated and subjective goal. To stop longing for death and instead living life. When asked at another session if he could remember a time when he did want to be alive, he knew that he had as a child but he couldn't recall what it felt like.
Since he'd slipped earlier, Leo felt a little like the world was always going to be backsliding into the abyss. But he also wanted to get back from therapy and show Dad his cool new arm. He wanted to tell Donnie why they freaked out so that they could make a plan for avoiding triggering him again the next time they took it off. He wanted Sensei to get to spend more time with Casey, because he loved Sensei, and that meant he loved himself.
Sensei had struggled with their lack of sleep the night before, feeling the physical feedback loop dragging him down and making him susceptible to the endless talons of grief. But he had also made plans with Casey for tomorrow that he was looking forward to. And he wanted Leo to be happy, because he loved Leo, and that meant he loved himself.
And they both wanted boba.
It wasn't exactly wanting to be alive yet. But it wasn't not, either.
After a moment, they said, "Yeah. There's time."