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Leo was eight years old. He was curled up on the bathroom floor, breathing through a thick miasma of nausea, and he could hear his father just beyond the door.
“Ginger ale would be lovely, I’m sure Blue will appreciate it, thank you my son.” Splinter said, that well-earned fond-warm they all flourished like plants reaching towards the sun underneath.
“What about food?” Raph’s little lisp, barely ten but touting his double-digits wherever he went.
“Hm.” Splinter replied, and the fond-warm was replaced with something else. A cooler worry. “Something very easy to eat. Your brother has a hard enough time with food already.”
Leo stared at the drip of condensation tracing its way down the porcelain toilet, the words bouncing back and forth and back and forth in his mind.
What did that mean? Leo didn’t like that statement being assigned to him, when he didn’t understand what it meant. He wanted to protest, because he’d never thought about it before. Food was food. He ate it, except when he didn’t want to. But Donnie didn’t want to eat food lots of times, because it had a weird feeling or it wasn’t right. And Mikey hated vegetables and had to be bribed. Leo didn’t think he had a ‘hard time’ with food.
Leo didn’t want to be a ‘hard time’. He wanted to be Dad’s smiley baby, the one he didn’t have to worry about. Dad worried enough already, same with Raph. It wasn’t a big deal, he wasn’t having a hard time. He was fine.
Dad must’ve been referring to something else. Leo must’ve not understood what he meant. Maybe it was just right now – which was true. The stomach flu was killer. And he certainly had a hard time with food at the moment.
Yeah. That was it.
[]
Leo was ten years old. He started to play a game where he would see how long he could go before someone noticed he hadn’t eaten, then he would eat and smile and pretend he hadn’t been playing the game at all.
[]
Leo was twelve years old. He crashed into Mikey on the skateboard ramp and broke his wrist.
Mikey cried for hours. Dad’s fur was damp with the tears, holding his good hand and talking Leo through making a splint.
Leo’s fingers shook the whole time, hot-heart beating directly in his throat and choking him. The guilt bloated up and took over, and –
It was three days before Leo actually realized he hadn’t eaten. He kept pushing it back and pushing it back, the knot of shame in his stomach impossible to work beyond, instead hovering over his baby brother and doing every possible thing to make his life easier after he ruined it.
But Mikey was spending all his time with Leo, and there was something knowing in his eyes when he requested pineapple on his pizza. Taking his piece and looking at his older brother expectantly.
Leo took a piece and ate it, the guilt overfilling his stomach. He ended up laying on the bathroom floor for three hours afterwards, arguing with himself over and over that it would be insane to puke it up. That the cramps in his stomach were just because he’d forgotten to eat, not because he needed to expel the sustenance before it nourished him when he didn’t deserve it.
Because that would be insane.
[]
Leo was fourteen. He hadn’t felt hungry in six weeks.
Maybe. It was hard to tell. He’d still been eating, because he wasn’t stupid. But he realised that hunger wasn’t a sensation he’d experienced in ages. With his well-earned age and wisdom he began to wonder if maybe there actually was something wrong with him, because no one else talked about appetite as if it was this fleeting bird they were trying to catch with their bare hands.
He ate when his brothers ate. He ate what his brothers ate. In the same way he did before he came out, he agreed with statements of hunger like he agreed with assessments of women’s hotness. That it sounded like a thing he should be saying.
And even still. Raph offered him a smoothie and said, “It’s nice and easy, I know you’re got a weird relationship with food.”
“What?” Leo said, audibly offended. “I do not.”
Raph looked at him for a long minute. He said, “Alright. Well, you can have it anyway. Mike put extra blueberries just for you.”
“Score.” Leo said, and sucked on the straw to hide the strange-caught blush on his cheeks. Why would he feel caught? There was nothing wrong with him. He ate all the time. He was eating right now. Raph needed to mind his own business, obviously.
[]
Leo was almost sixteen. He discovered that no one asked questions about being green if you brought them food.
His insomnia had him laying awake all night, trying to figure out what he was meant to do with the fact that his little game sometimes meant he was left with food that would be a crime to throw away. Gourmet meals cooked by Mikey. Bottled drinks stacked on his sword blade in the dojo by Raph. Candies thrown at his head by Donnie.
It felt weird. Insomnia often felt like his body was firmly pushing him back to remind him not to take more than he deserved. The food thing kinda felt like that too – don’t take too much. Don’t reach out for yourself all the time. Other people needed it more.
That was where the idea came from. Leo snuck out at night when he couldn’t sleep and brought tupperwares to hand out to anyone sleeping rough on the streets, often leaving it by their sleeping head. But occasionally he’d chat, if they were up – asking about how getting their new ID was going, or if they wanted him to swing back with some dog food.
It led to a bizarre, almost hysterical moment where he stood in the convenience store staring at the dog food wondering if maybe that was what he was meant to be eating. And the ridiculousness of the statement actually burst him out of his self hating bubble a little, like hey dude come on, let’s tone it down.
Donnie caught him coming back. That wasn’t the end of the world or anything, because his twin snuck out to scavenge for parts in the middle of the night all the time.
Leo tried to be So Normal about dropping the returned tupperwares back into the sink. Donnie was standing in front of the coffee maker, presumably negotiating for more coffee.
“Have fun?” Donnie asked.
Leo froze. That same caught feeling, unsure if Donnie knew what he was doing or if he was just making a broad statement.
“Slash gen.” Donnie added, not looking up from his task.
“Yeah.” Leo said, slowly.
“Good.”
Leo tried, “Can I have a cup?”
“Absolutely not, it’s two AM.”
“You’re making coffee for yourself literally right now.”
“I’m not encouraging your bad habits.” Donnie replied, scoffing. His hands tightened on the counter. “What’s the tupperware for?”
Leo felt that cold wash of horror at being caught. Why did it prickle him with such shame? “I am tuppering my wares. Nevermind, D, enjoy your coffee.”
“Leon.” Donnie said, something in his voice that Leo did not like.
“Smooches.” Leo blew him an obnoxious kiss. “Going to bed! Love you!”
“Love you too.” Donnie said, a little defeated, at the same moment Leo turned the doorway and practically sprinted down the hall to get away. Not cool. He’d have to find some other solution.
[]
Leo was sixteen. He almost died.
He thought a lot about his intentions during the invasion, dragging the Kraang in and locking the door. He laid awake wondering if it counted as death, even if it was only death in the sense of the word that he no longer existed on Earth for a period of time.
But mostly he thought about how he ended the world in the first place. About what it meant to be a hero. About how maybe his lineage was onto something with the whole sacrifice thing, because it seemed to actually create real solutions. Hell, one might even say it removed pesky problems. Can’t fuck things up if you’ve sacrificed yourself for the greater good. It was taking the so-called gift of life and actually doing something with it, even if you’re not there to see it.
Except maybe sometimes you are there to see it.
Leo just didn’t know what he was meant to do, how to go forward with this. It felt like Mikey breaking his wrist after Leo crashing into him, but instead it was Mikey’s crackled scars up both arms, it was Raph’s flinching from mirrors and possibly irreparably damaged eye, it was Donnie’s scarred shell. It was the torn up city of New York, it was …
He probably spent a bit too much time wishing that he’d stayed in the prison dimension where he belonged. Lock up the boy pretending to be a hero when all he did was make things worse, it’ll be better for everyone.
Yeah. Leo was well aware that his mental state was shit. Being aware did nothing to improve it, however, other than a bitter kind of frustration. He also didn’t want to think like this. Being angry at himself for being in a shit place mentally just made him both fucked up and pissed off.
All of this to say that Leo… forgot to eat. It was incredibly low on his priority list of ‘work out in the dojo until he collapsed’ and ‘lie in bed and hope he spontaneously became a different person’.
He was laying in bed. On his desk, there was a gingersnap cookie that Mikey had made him. When he brought it to him three days ago, it was still steaming from the oven with crystalized sugar on top. Leo had given him his best reassuring smile, a fresh batch of his own made just for Mikey, and thanked him profusely. And then when Mikey left he put the cookie on his desk.
Three days ago.
That was a problem. Leo really needed to eat that, because he didn’t want Mikey to think he didn’t like his baking. Especially his gingersnaps. Leo fucking loved those things. Sometimes. Other times the sight of it was like a big sigh of effort, like the expectation that he would eat it simply because he liked gingersnaps was too much. An unbearable weight that made him want to hide underneath the blankets and pretend he didn’t need to consume to exist.
Great idea, actually. Leo pulled the blanket over his head.
The next time he got up, he took the cookie that his brother painstakingly made specifically for him and threw it in the garbage. And also thought with a sort of mild hysteria, hm, this may be a moment of no return.
[]
Leo was sixteen. He was very lightheaded.
He’d spent six hours in the dojo already today, on and off. He kept thinking he was done, then whatever he tried to do next the maggots in his brain would all scream, have you done enough then he’d be right back in there. Another kata. Another.
Everything began to spin around the beginning of hour six. Something about it made this thing roar up inside him, snapping and biting at his heels, convincing himself that the fragile physical form was something he could work through, that he would stop being dizzy if he just. Pushed harder.
If he was lucky – well, if he was lucky, he wouldn’t have been a mutated turtle for one thing – but if he was lucky then he would’ve had the little dizzy spell alone and uninterrupted. Unfortunately, his brothers only seemed to get more annoying and hovering since the invasion, like they were convinced he’d leap into another portal to his death if they didn’t set eyes on him every once and a while.
He didn’t really understand. Mostly because like… wasn’t that the natural conclusion? The hero saves the day? Raph wanted him to be a hero and yet denied him the chance at penance. The only logical conclusion he could come up with was that they didn’t want him to pay for his sins with death , they didn’t want to hang him on the cross. No, they wanted him to use his life to make up for his wrongs.
Cool. Leo could do that. If only they would stop trying to directly impede that objective.
“Don’t you think you should take a break?”
The predictability of the comment was equally annoying. Everything seemed annoying right now – an edge to the world, like he was only rough edges to catch and scrape. His head rung like a clocktower bell, hollow and brass, and he grit his teeth against the urge to snap at his nearest victim to leave him the fuck alone.
Instead Leo kept his lips sealed to hide his irritation, giving a closed-mouth smile at Raph leaning in the doorframe.
Maybe the tick of his jaw gave him away, because Raph said, “Don’t give me that face. I know you didn’t have lunch or dinner and you get grumpy when you’re hungry.”
Was he hungry? Leo didn’t feel hungry. He felt something else – loud and cacophonous, a writhing mass inside. Since he was well aware snapping back that he wasn’t grumpy would only prove the point, he merely rolled his eyes and returned to the punching bag he was giving a real hard time.
Raph’s footsteps came further in. Damn it. His brother grabbed the punching bag, holding it still, and stupidly worried eyes peered around the bag. He said, plain, “Talk to me.”
Leo felt the instinctive ‘how high’ reflex from years of being Raph’s second hand-man. It was just as swiftly overwhelmed with that consuming annoyance, an ocean wave of it pouring salt water down his throat. He jabbed the punching bag specifically to knock it into Raph.
“Oof.” Raph said, but was otherwise unmoved, giving Leo his best unimpressed stare. It was one of a catalogue many, all of the flavours Leo had gotten to taste before the invasion. He said, simple and imploring, “Leo.”
“It’s chill, Raph.” Leo said, and man. The room was really far away from him right now. He needed to – he needed. Um. He spun around, attempting to get away from Raph, but something about it made everything fling up in the air. Like the universe pulled up as his traitorous flesh yanked down. Helium in his brain. Knees full of static.
His feet fumbled and ears went from the far-away to ringing so loudly it overwhelmed everything else. With how his body felt so weightless, he barely noticed the fall, the grey swallow of his vision – it had been building and building until not even his iron grip will power could hold the loss of consciousness back a moment longer.
The ringing kept going. The grey opened up. Two big hands on either side of his face. A disgusting feeling, the rush of syncope leaving a hot taste in his mouth along with the pulsing nausea and cold clammy skin.
“That’s not ideal.” Leo slurred, the moment he had access to the control of his vocal cords again.
“It’s chill, Raph.” Raph mocked in a high, panicked voice. “I cannot believe you just passed out on me. Are you serious right now?”
“I’ve never been serious a day in my life.” Leo replied, trying to squirm away from the hands still bracketing his face. “I’m fine. I just stood up too fast.”
“You were already standing!” Raph replied, leaning too close, high at that shrieking level. If he wasn’t careful, he was about to summon the whole crowd in here. Leo did not want a larger audience for his shame, thanks.
“I’m fine.” Leo repeated, as if repeating it would make it true, and managed to get enough feeling in his hands to bat Raph’s away from his face. “Let a man breathe.”
Raph leaned back, not looking any less worried. Leo was not making the words happen to fix this little boo-boo right now. He just needed – he just needed …
Something. To be left alone to shrivel up and die. No, that’s not right. To make the world better, with the second chance he’d been gifted – no, not that either.
To be better. To create a Leo worthy of the concern painted on Raph’s face.
“What’s going through your head, man?” Raph said, in a low whisper. “Come on. Talk to me.”
Leo created and discarded twenty plans to get his big brother off his back before settling on: “I’m really tired. I didn’t sleep well last night. Do you wanna help me to my room?”
Calculated give up. Yeah, he hadn’t slept well, no position quite comfortable, no way to quiet the noise in his mind. But being tired was a much better explanation for passing out than – whatever was going on with him.
Malnutrition, vitamin deficiencies, anemia, low blood pressure, cardiac issues – all those wonderful statistics in textbooks he poured over now more than ever, trying to study to be the Best Possible Leo – they bubbled in his mind helpfully. But that wasn’t necessary, because Leo ate. He quietly gaslit himself into believing his own lie – he was tired. He needed rest.
“I can help you.” Raph said, and he didn’t look nearly as relieved as Leo had been hoping. Raph loved to help! Why wasn’t he happy to be helping? Maybe it was something to do with the flicker of surprise when he pulled Leo to his feet, appraising his figure with narrowing eyes.
“Thanks, big bro.” Leo pat his shoulder, talking loud and distracting. “You know how it is, the night just flies by sometimes – I obviously need a nap or something! Don’t you fret about me, okay?”
He poked Raph right between the brows. It did nothing to ease. But at least Raph brought him to his room and not the kitchen.
[]
Leo was – sixteen? Probably?
He was pretty sure. It was just – he’d woken up from a nightmare. And everything felt. Off. Wrong. Distant and unsure.
The idea of Hamato Leonardo just seemed so incredibly abstract, like he wasn’t even a person, like he was – hollowed out. An idea that had life breathed into it, a performance in a play, and now that had deflated and left this rubber casing. Floppy and useless.
In his dream his skin kept flaking off in large patches. The lurch of terror when he saw himself in a waving, blurred dream-reflection and tried to piece himself back together. Then he realized that he did not have a soul, he was just the puppet, and he could not breathe if he did not have lungs. Empty. Empty.
Then he woke up, wild eyed and with a choked-off scream, fiercely biting down on his tongue hard enough to stop the sound before it got far, flooding his mouth with blood. Unfortunately, the sensation that he did not have lungs continued into the waking world, the gasping for air seeming did absolutely nothing.
There was suddenly a baby brother in front of him. “Shit!” Leo backed rapidly into the wall.
“Sorry.” Mikey apologized immediately, hands up all innocent. Showing off the bandages still on his wrists, inadvertently. “I did knock.”
Leo had not heard that. He kept his shell to the wall and covered his face with his trembling hands, and swallowed all the blood before saying in a remarkably well-performed voice, “I’m fine, Mikey, I didn’t mean to wake you.”
“You didn’t, I was already up thinking about stuff.” Mikey scooted closer on the bed. “Do you need a hug? Or like some hot cocoa?”
“I’m fine.” Leo repeated, in that eerie, uncanny valley voice that sounded oh-so-normal. His hands were still covering his face, however.
“Hmm.” Mikey said, bouncing the mattress a little bit.
The reverb of it jolted Leo in the strange thing he was pretending was his body. It felt like all his bones clacked together. There was more blood in his mouth and he swallowed it again, making his stomach do a somersault. Oh, don’t puke the blood, that would definitely be traumatizing for his little brother to witness.
Deflect, deflect. Leo cleared his throat, the slick coating of copper and the swirl of his stomach acid mixing a delicious cocktail, “You were up thinking, huh. What’s on your mind?”
“You.” Mikey said, because he was never one for subtly.
The stark honest truth lurched his already sensitive stomach, dropping out the floor of it. He peeked one eye out his fingers, to try and judge Mikey’s face on how much he should be worried about the statement.
Yikes. Shit. Fuck. God dammit. Mikey was staring at him with something – something indescribable, like maybe the ground was collapsing or his dog was dying or – heh, dog food in a convenience store – and Leo, Leo –
Hand clamped over his mouth, he pushed past his sweet loving wonderful baby brother so he could heave bile and blood into his trash can. It stung like hell , burning all the way up his esophagus, and his stomach squeezed into a tiny little ball, and fuck that was painful, and –
Mikey rubbed his shell and said quietly in his ear, “Hey, it’s okay. You’re alright.”
Why was he – ? ah. The sobs had punched through all his defences, like a streaker breaking ranks and tearing across the football field. Free now and no way to reign back in. The sensation of his lack of lungs from his dream seemed only doubled now that he was choking on vomit, knees on the floor, little brother visibly seeing the strings of bloody saliva from his mouth.
“Dude.” Mikey said, and that was not good, because the horror sounded distant and removed, almost vague.
Leo scrambled to shove sobs back into his mouth, biting them back like pushing the feral dog into its cage, and explained himself before Mikey could assume the worst, whatever the hell that was – “I bit my tongue. From the nightmare, I bit my tongue.”
“Oh.” Mikey replied. He didn’t sound too relieved.
Leo coughed and spat into the trash. He sat back and shut his eyes against the terrible spin. He felt his whole body sway with it.
“Don’t pass out again.” Mikey snapped, his hands bracing either shoulder.
Urgh, that meant his brothers were sharing notes. Leo had been foolishly hoping Raph hadn’t told anyone about that. “Just a little off balance. I’m right as rain, Angelo. Promise.”
He even crossed his heart and gave a winning grin.
It did not assure Mikey in the slightest. “You’ve got blood on your teeth.”
Eugh. Tough crowd. Leo ducked his head and ran his tongue over it, cursing because it was his damn tongue that was causing issues in the first place so that definitely wasn’t fixing anything.
“That’s gotta taste awful.” Mikey volunteered. “Can I make you some cocoa?”
The idea of something that sweet was… well. Leo was more suited to the nightmares and the blood than chocolate. He compromised, “Coffee?”
“You aren’t going back to sleep?”
Leo gave a sparkling laugh, careful to not open his mouth too wide. “After that horror show? Pass.”
“Wanna play Mario Kart, then?”
Leo agreed, and made Mikey happy when he didn’t grab coffee. Only because he didn’t want to wash the taste of blood from his mouth.
[]
Leo was sixteen. Maybe the real point of no return was standing on the bathroom scale and feeling like he’d finally won something.
[]
Leo was sixteen. He was cold.
He was a turtle. Turtles get cold, okay? Ignoring the half-human part, and ignoring that really most of the time they never actually seemed too affected by cold. Maybe that was the genetically modified supersoldier part – which, Draxy you could’ve totally made me perfect why’d you have to make me, you know, the everything that I fucking am – but they were still turtles and turtles were cold blooded. That was his line and he was sticking to it, thank you very much.
However it made the bones in his hands creak when he moved them. Old scars ached , burrowed thickly into his knotted tissue. He was careful not to outstretch his hands in front of an audience because the fine tremor was starting to become rather noticeable. Plus his teeth kept chattering which was just fucking embarrassing.
Plus there was this stupid headache that hung over like fog and refused to go away. It was just all miserable and he knew he deserved every moment of it, he just… he was cold and tired.
“Blue.”
“Heya Daddio.” Leo said, the smile only wobbling a little at the edges of his mouth. He leaned over the back of the armchair to give his Pops a full show of his smile. “Need something?”
“Yes. It is cold in here. Get me a blanket.”
“As you wish!” Leo hopped over to the storage closet, somewhere between hating the way everything hummed too loud in his ears and enjoying how light his steps felt. He fetched the big fluffy sherpa blanket. He dumped it directly on his dad and drowned him in it.
“You’re welcome!” Leo chirped, and before he could turn to leave a ninja-like hand shot out from the depths and caught his wrist. It actually hurt a little, but Splinter immediately amended his grip to something looser.
“It is cold in here.” Splinter repeated, gravely, somewhat ruined by the muffle of sherpa blanket.
“Alright, alright, but I get to pick what we watch.” Leo said, throat somewhat obstructed by his heart punching up his esophagus. It was an old memory, when the heating wasn’t nearly as Genius Built, and Splinter would bundle up all the turtles in his lap when it got cold, wrapping them in blankets and watching movies all day. Like the cold was a treat, time with dad, instead of something scary.
Leo peeled open the blanket and climbed underneath, sprawling his legs over Splinter’s lap and curling close. Furry arms came around his waist, and then – Splinter blurted, almost sounding like surprise: “You’re so small.”
Despite the thick wool blanket, something chilled poured through his veins. Leo said, numb tongue nearly tripping on his practised lines, “I’m bigger than you, Pops.”
“I meant …” Splinter tightened his grip, then let it fall weak, shuddering a breath against Leo’s arm. “Nevermind. Let me just hold my sweet baby blue and be so glad you are here.”
“Aw.” Leo said. Something about it made his heart break. He didn’t know what to say. Why didn’t he know what to say?
Betrayed, he shivered, and snuggled closer to his dad. Splinter kissed his red stripe, where he slumped down, inadvertently giving him better access.
They watched Indiana Jones. Leo pretended he didn’t notice that his wrist had a faint outline where his dad grabbed it, or that he kept looking over at Leo with something sick like worry or pity or fear. He didn’t want to know.
[]
Leo was sixteen. He was hungry.
It was five in the morning. The hunger felt dangerous, like standing in front of a moving car. It was all consuming, as if making up for all the time he’d gone feeling absolutely zero appetite. It felt like starvation mode suddenly turned up, ten alarm bells, telling him at top volume UH HOLY SHIT YOU’RE GOING TO DIE!!!!
So Leo laid there and did not move.
That feeling of being unable to breathe carried over from his dreams into real life – or maybe it had bled into his dreams? Chicken or the egg really – and he walked around all day feeling like his lungs had been stolen. That there was instead a metal band wrapped around his chest, making the fruitless effort of drawing air for nothing a chore. He still tried to spend his time in the dojo, but it – it didn’t work. Because he’d stand there, swaying, breath coming in short pants. Don’t pass out. Don’t throw up. Don’t be anything but perfect. Don’t be anything at all. Disappear.
The hunger roared. It screamed. It wailed, a child locked in a cage, a child not eating because he’d crashed into his brother skateboarding but really wanted that pizza. An animal, created for nothing but destruction, raised for nothing but heroism, achieving nothing but failure. A wild dog. Better be put down.
The headache lived inside him. It was a roommate, a constant companion. That band around his chest ached in a way that felt scary, that felt like the slowed beat of his heart that he noticed the moment he laid down and shut his eyes. When he was still and unmoving he could hear it, the flood of blood rushing through his ears, but rushing wasn’t quite the right word. More like a lazy river. Unhurried to keep him alive.
Donnie had sat beside him at dinner. Leo was doing the thing he did best right now, which was talk enough, cut it up enough, push it around, get rid of it any other way – and Donnie held his hand.
Leo turned his smile to his twin. Keeping it exactly in place, the rubber mask over the rubber shell. “You good?”
“I’m good.” Donnie replied. He switched to his left hand to eat his own dinner, seemingly unbothered.
It took Leo until they untangled to realize his twin’s grip had shifted up to rest against his pulse. And something was haunted in Donnie’s eyes for the microsecond of eye contact before Leo was bursting from the room, desperate to escape what he had already known from nights laying there hearing the dooming sound.
Too slow.
But right now it was still five AM. Leo could hear how sluggish it was trying, and Leo thought a little hysterically – ah, maybe it’s broken.
Hah.
The hunger whimpered. It sputtered. It tried to beg, clawing up his throat, tearing his stomach lining, pinching his nerves. It whined. And eventually, it died.
When the feeling went away, Leo smiled at the ceiling, eyes crinkling. Good.
[]
Leo was sixteen. Sixteen. He was sixteen.
He couldn’t concentrate on a thing. His hands and feet started to tingle. He spent his time in the dojo stretching in front of a mirror. Wondering if he waited a little longer, if he’d just… get what he deserved. If he would just have the ultimate control – no one could drag him back from the portal, no one could take away his penance. He would give every part of himself. No one could take it away from him.
Then he walked into the living room to find his family sitting there, waiting for him, looking deathly serious.
“Woah,” Leo painted his best smile. “What is this, an intervention?”
A pin drop could’ve been heard in the resulting silence.
“Ah.” Leo felt that same horrible caught caught caught feeling. It almost took him out at the knees. “Shit.”
“Shit.” Donnie agreed. “Come here, Nardo.”
“Actually, I –”
“That was not a request.” Donnie spoke loudly over him.
Leo curled into himself, because he wanted to shrivel up and die.
“That is not how we discussed this, Donnie.” Mikey cut in, then continued smoothly, “Hi Leo. We all love you very much and we’d like to have a conversation with you. Can you have a seat?”
Leo stood in the doorway. He couldn’t feel his fingers or toes. He felt like there were two moments happening at once – the one where he bolted from the room and crawled in a hole to die in peace, and the one where he carried his carcass over to the bean bag and sat. And he wildly could not tell which one to make a reality.
It felt like giving up everything he’d worked so hard for. It felt like losing. It felt like the end of the world.
And the worst part was, he wasn’t even sure which option felt like that.
For a second, he just looked at his family. Mikey was ready, his Doctor Feelings looking more like battle armour than anything else. The grim set to his jaw, prepared to put as much effort into this as he put into throwing skyscrapers or tearing apart the fabric of reality.
Raph looked… wary. Braced for disappointment. The already wobbling lip told Leo he thought that Leo had already made his decision and was leaving. And the sheer level of sorrow and fear on Raph from that assumption was unbearable.
Risking a glance at Splinter was dangerous, because he was a Daddy’s boy through and through, and indeed it struck like a knife. Carving out his shield, disarming his smile, because Splinter looked like he was in incredible pain. Tormented. Hurting.
He didn’t want to look at Donnie. He couldn’t bear to set eyes on his twin. He couldn’t – then he did look, like the last ditch effort, if he could look at Donnie and still walk away, then he was the king of self control and he could conquer any mountain.
Oh.
Donnie’s gaze met his fiercely. No holds barred. It said a thousand things at once. It said, you walk away Nardo and I am dragging you back and attaching you to machines and making you live whether you want it or not. It said, I love you and there is no way in hell you are disappearing on me. It said, try me mother fucker I will save you. I will. I will.
There wasn’t an ounce of strength left in his body, he’d given it all up, he’d handed it over and traded it in for paper-thin skin and bony wrists. There was nothing stopping the force of his twin bowing him over. He fell to weak knees. Breath punched from non-existent lungs. He shut his eyes and felt the hot tears streak from the corner of his eyes. He couldn’t run away. But he couldn’t come any closer.
That’s okay. Raph got up and gently scooped him up, a weightless sing of his heart at the easy way he was carried. Look at what I’ve done. Aren’t you proud?
“That’s not the word I’d use.” Raph said, choked.
Hm. Leo turned his tear-blurred eyes up to his big brother. “What word would you use?”
“Scared.” Raph said, and Leo was pretty sure he was crying too. “Scared out of my mind.”
“Why?” Leo asked, crying and shaking. Curling up into a tiny, tiny, tiny ball in Raph’s arms. They settled on the bean bag. The rest of the family crowded around them. Leo couldn’t look at any of them, he kept his burning eyes on the ceiling.
“Why?” Raph echoed, incredulous, then couldn’t reply further because he broke down into sobs.
“Oh, this was not how this was supposed to go.” Mikey sighed, and pulled a tissue out to try and help their blubbering oldest brother.
“I believe the question would be better turned to you, dearest brother.” Donnie leaned into Leo’s sightline, forcing him to look. “Why?”
Leo loved to dig his own grave. He was a master professional champion. “Why what?”
“Why on God’s green Earth haven’t you been eating?”
The chasm burst and exploded in his chest, that CAUGHT CAUGHT CAUGHT sensation ramped up to a thousand.
Leo tried to cobble together his mask, to pull the pieces of it together and form a perfect smile, and found that along with the weight, he’d lost that too. Shed that skin and left nothing but the shattered tears pouring down his cheeks, burning like fire, like hell was here. The pull of his lips instead created a tragedy.
“I’ve been eating.” Leo lied with such falsity it physically hurt to speak. He shook his head before anyone else could interject, because he was painfully aware how pitiful and shameful his attempt had been. “No. No. I… you guys know I have a weird relationship with food.”
It was a calculated give-up, and the very last one he had. To admit what they’d long known, and what he pretended hadn’t been true. A bit of a weird relationship. But not the whole truth. A relationship, yes. A little abusive. A little deranged. A competition he was desperate to win (to lose?). A game he played for fun. A game he played even when it wasn’t any fun. A game he was ashamed to be caught at. A dog burying their bone in the yard. A dog with its tail between its legs.
And Donnie didn’t give a shit. He said, “This isn’t just a weird relationship with food, Leon. This is wildly out of your control.”
That was a jab, because Leo had maybe never felt like he’d had more (or less?) control ever. He couldn’t breathe.
“You’ve lost an alarming amount of weight. None of us can remember seeing you eat anything in the past few weeks. Raph says you’re passing out in the dojo, Mikey says you’re having nightmares so bad you puke, Dad says you’re running about ten degrees too cold, and I’ve measured your pulse and Nardo I don’t fucking like what I’m seeing here.” Donnie’s voice went high and angry and scared. “This is not a weird relationship with food, there’s no damn relationship at all! So tell me. Tell me why you’re not eating, and we’ll fix it, and we’ll help.”
“That’s the opposite of what I want!” Leo burst, cheeks flushing with the effort of pushing back, trying to sit up in Raph’s arms and finding his strength weak like a kitten.
“Then enlighten me as to what you want.” Donnie snapped.
“I want this. I deserve this.” Leo ranted, and hey maybe this was the point of no return! Hysterical and broken, tears still pouring faithfully, trembling like a leaf and fragile like one too. “I want to make things better, I want to give everything I have to be better! Okay? Don’t you get it? This is better!”
“Do you think losing you would be better?” Donnie demanded, almost spitting with it, fury on his face and the sharp pinch of his brows.
“Yes!” Leo shouted, relieved that someone got it, someone spelt it out.
Then the sound of his own answer echoed in his ears, bouncing back and back and back, feeding into it over and over. And he could see the devastated faces of his family, like this was Staten Island all over again. Like it was the end of the world one more time.
And Splinter said, “Oh, Blue.”
Something crumpled. There was nothing left. Leo had nothing left. He’d given it all away. He’d lost it, pound by pound. Breath by breath. He gasped for air. There was none.
Donnie leaned their foreheads together. He said, the fierceness of his stare broken by the way his eyes were watering too. “I disagree with the premise of your argument. Your logic is flawed.”
Leo hiccuped. His whole mouth trembled.
“We can help you be better. But you have to trust us.” Donnie coaxed.
Leo had nothing left. He had nothing left. He had nothing left to lose. He gave a fragile, shaky nod.
Relief crashed over Donnie’s face, only showing weakness and vulnerability the moment he’d won, and he crawled into Raph’s grasp to clutch Leo close, crushing him. And only when he could feel every inch compared pound to pound with his twin could he truly appreciate what he’d lost. What he’d become.
Maybe where he could go from here.
[]
Leo was seventeen. His phone was chiming.
It was arguably the worst ringtone of them all. The one that sounded like a God awful piano riff slammed out with no care for anyone’s ears. He groaned, because there was only one person that could turn it off. He got up from his blanket nest and brought his chiming phone to Donnie.
“Ah, already?” Donnie said, reaching for the phone, flicking up his goggles. “Apologies, I lost track of time. Hey, do you want to hear about what I’m working on?”
“Not really.” Leo said, because he didn’t want to do this. He wanted to stay in bed.
“Do you want my headphones?”
“Yeah.”
Donnie handed them over. Leo folded them over his ears, sinking into the immediate sound of the Wombats that Donnie helpfully put on for him. Then he let Donnie lead him to the kitchen.
He didn’t bother voicing that he wasn’t hungry. Everyone knew that and it wasn’t worth the waste of breath. Because it was meal time, and that meant Leo was eating.
Leo sat at the kitchen table. Mikey was saying something just beyond the block of his headphones. He fidgeted with his hands in his lap, skin prickling, not looking forward to the part where he needed to eat. It sucked. Everyone was going to look at him. Except not, because he’d said it made him uncomfortable and they knew better than to stare. But Leo knew they wanted him to eat.
Donnie had told him that they wanted more Leo, not less. Mikey had told him that he deserved good food and warm things. Raph had told him that he was a person, not a hero, not a tool, not a dog, not an animal – and people needed to eat to nourish their bodies. Splinter had told him that there was no one who needed the food more than his sweet, wonderful, baby blue. It was there for him.
The Wombats sang. Mikey set a plate down in front of him. Leo clenched his fists in his lap. He wasn’t hungry.
Donnie sat on his left. Dad on his right. They talked around and to each other, muffled by the music. Leo finally looked at his food.
It was thick slices of roast. Still steaming, with buttery potatoes and veggies. Leo breathed. He breathed. His lungs inflated. It smelt pretty good. It was more than he deserved.
Donnie switched his fork to his left and held out his hand. Leo took it. His fingers felt cold in comparison. He wasn’t hungry.
Leo reached up to dislodge the headphones around his neck. Raph was bugging Mikey about something. Splinter chimed in with a laugh.
Donnie was ambidextrously cutting his roast with the side of his fork, not glancing over. He squeezed Leo’s fingers.
Leo leaned in and muttered, “I’m really not hungry.”
“I am.” Donnie said, placidly. “Eat with me?”
It was a bigger question. Eat for me.
He’d tried the nothing approach. There was still time to try the something approach instead. If not for his family, then who?
Leo picked up his fork.