Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

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Leo huffed a sigh for the umpteenth time that very morning. It had been almost three full months since the day that his brothers had finally pulled him out of the hell he had courageously (note: stupidly) trapped himself in. Everyone had been walking on eggshells around the topic of the invasion.

Mainly because they believed he was asleep, or too drugged up, since they avoided it outright whenever they knew he could hear them. He didn't even really understand why they were all so cautious about it!

He means, it's not like he lays awake at night after having vivid and nerve-racking flashbacks of sharp metal and pink, oozing flesh. Nope.

And his body was still relatively all in one piece!

… Mostly all in one piece.

Whatever.

His previously intact limbs were still intact now and in the same condition as the last time he had gone and run a mental checkup on himself.

Really, his bones hadn't been that bad when he had been pulled out of the portal and into his sobbing brother's arms. As sad as that needing to be said felt to him. But no one will just leave him alone!

Well, Junior, he could actually understand, what with the poor kid having technically lost his ‘ Father ’ twice in the span of less then a week. As weird as that thought was.

And Mikey, being the baby of the family. The box shell was also the most touchy-feely sibling of the rather emotionally stunted family aside from himself.

And Raph with how much of a worry wart the bid snapper was on a regular basis.

Also his Dad as well, given, well, he was his Dad.

April had pretty much been rather busy with her own family troubles to be too much herself. But she would text him for updates pretty ten times a day, having known that not even a God's will could keep him off of and away from his phone.

And Donnie, somehow, had managed to get even more Donnie-like then how he had usually been before… the invasion.

But, well, no, no, okay, he can understand their behaviour. He can, really, but that does not mean that he had to like it! Or that he has to put up with it.

Their worry was making them all act so damn overbearing towards him - and don’t get him wrong, he loves them and all that they had been doing for him. But it was all just so… much. He can't take it anymore!

He sighed again, louder, deeper, and purposefully more obnoxious this time than he had the last, looking for some kind of a reaction in his twin. Which he doesn't get.

He glares up at the ceiling of the med bay above him, tracing the same grooves and cracks that he had been staring at for weeks now. Ever since his big old ouchies had healed enough that everyone else deemed it appropriate to not keep him drugged up for pain relief.

Using his good arm to push himself up, he takes a look at his surroundings. In a corner on the other side of the room, he spies his dear brother decked in purple working away on something while hunching over top of a desk like some goblin.

Narrowing his eyes at the current turtle mutant of his ire, he sighed again, making sure to put in enough emphasis so that he sounded even more aggressive than last time. He scoffs as he sees his purple twin not even offer him a flinch under his stare or a hint of acknowledgement. Giving up, he flops back down onto the bed with a soft hiss as he jumbles his broken arm.

Tired of just staring at the same ceiling over and over again, he wiggles himself over onto his side. His right side, that is, given that his left arm was still bound in its damn cast. He winces as he flops his broken arm a little harder than he had meant to onto the mattress in front of him.

Feeling his annoyance start to hit its peak with how soft and comfy his pillow was making him feel, he picks it up and throws it at his twin. Flopping back down onto his side, Leo ignores as he hits the softshell square in the back of his head.

“HEY!”

Startled, Donnie squawks and falls out of the chair he had been precariously perched on top of, yelping as his ass lands hard onto the floor. He grabs onto the spinning chair he'd fallen from and tries to pull himself up enough to yell at his brother.

Hauling himself up onto his knees, the budding complaint on the tip of his tongue dies out as he takes in the depressing sight before him. He stares over at the only occupied bed in the med bay, two empty cots between it and the door. He had been about to yell at the slider lying there about how annoying it was that he had been so insistent on interrupting his work.

But looking at him now, his slumped form facing away from him and sagging into the mattress was just a sad enough sight to stop him from doing so. His twin was probably just feeling lonely or attention-starved or something.

Leo had always been a lot more in touch with his emotions and wants then the rest of their family liked to think they were. So being stuck in here, alone and on mandatory bed rest for so long had probably been eating away at the slider.

Donnie looks down at the piece of furniture that he is still leaning on in thought. He didn't like where his brain was leading him, Leo hadn't even been here that long! Forget about their accelerated healing, he still needed to rest, rest was good for him, he had to rest.

But… if it would help...

‘Fuck it, Raph and everyone else can come and yell at me about it later.’

The mutant sighed and resigned himself to his fate. He pulled himself up with the littlest bit of strain, finally back on his own feet. He stretched his arms up above his head, leaning backwards till the pressure in his spine released with a satisfying amount of pops. He brings his arms down to then bend them in front of him and swings his torso left and right to get at his hips and stretch the tightened muscles in his lower back.

Sighing and placing his balled-up fists against his waist, he steels himself to walk over to the bed. Standing there for a very awkward moment, he sits down on the edge and twiddles his thumbs in his lap. His brain starts doing some kind of mental gymnastics as he tries to figure out where he should start.

He opens his mouth to say something but closes it a couple of seconds later after no sound comes out. He leans a little bit more over his brother, flinching at the side-eyed glare that meets him.

Leo scoffs at the others' presence and adjusts himself to slide further away from the softshell. He pulls one of the blankets covering him further up to over his shoulders. He buries his beak into the fabric and picks offhandedly at a strand of loose thread coming off of it.

The slider could feel as the older stared pointedly at the back of his head, but he didn’t care. He was mad and he wanted for his brother to know it. He tried to shake him off when he reached over and placed a hand on his blanketed shoulder, but the other mutant was very much not having any of it.

“Look,” Donnie sighed, straining to find the right string of words that would work to appease the angry slider. “We only want what is best for you-”

“YOU THINK THAT I DON'T KNOW THAT!”

Donnie jumped off of the bed as the turtle below him shot up, turning to face him with a snarl curling his lips. The purple-clad mutant turtle placed his hands up in front of himself in a placating manner.

“You think that I don't know that you all care about me, that you are all worried about me?”

“Well news flash, Donnie, I do!” Leo grinded his teeth together to try and stop himself from lashing out further and Donnie flinched at the sound. “Just leave me alone!”

“Bu-!”

“Go, Donnie!” Leo flopped back down onto his side, hiding a flinch from the pain flaring in his arm as he pulled the blanket fully over his head. “Just… go.”

Leo sniffed and rubbed his snoot into the arm he lay his head on. He clenched his fist into the blanket he was still gripping at the hem of and blinked, his vision growing blurry.

His shoulders shook as he scrunched his eyes shut and dug his teeth into his bottom lip, trying not to let out any sound at all. The taste of blood dripped onto his tongue and his sharp canines pierced the skin.

He hadn't heard any hints of the softshell moving away, so the older must still be hovering over him from behind. Leo was about to sit up and tell him to leave again when he felt something being placed onto the blanket beside the back of his head.

“I-I’m… sorry, Leo. I hope that you feel better soon.”

Footsteps moved away from his makeshift nest and the door behind him opened and closed. Leo sniffed again and waited for the sound of his twin to finally go and disappear down the hallway.

Feeling that he had waited for long enough, he sits up just a smidgen and reaches out of his hole with his good arm to feel around. His fingertips graze along a sheet of paper and he grabs it, sitting up so that he can read what was on it. He rubs the blanket against his cheeks to rid it of the few tears that had managed to escape without his notice.

He squints at the paper in his hands, holding it close to his face and wishing that he'd had his glasses on. He sighed and stretched his arm over to put the paper on his bedside table.

He stretched a further inch or two forward in order to open up the drawer, reached inside and grabbed ahold of his phone and charger. Leaning carefully over to the other side of the bed, he plugs his charger into the socket on the wall and then his charger into the port of his phone.

Trying to turn it on, he frowns as he realizes that its power has drained and the device has now gone flat since last he had gone and used it. He drops it onto the bedside table and spots his pillow placed carefully at the foot of his bed. He hadn't even felt Donnie putting it there.

Leo stretched slowly towards the pillow to grab it, trying not to jostle his aching joints any more than necessary. His legs had been pretty badly hurt during his… extended vacation with the Kraang. But with his accelerated healing and a lot of assistance from the others, he was pretty much walking perfectly again already!

Well, he had to wear a brace on his left leg in order to help him as well. But poe-tae-toh, poe-tah-toe and all that, yeah?

Leo chuckled softly to himself as he dragged the pillow back up to the head of the bed. Frowning at the surrounding mess of his blankets, toys and his pillow, he started moving stuff around him till it was all put in what his hindbrain deemed the right place. It might not be his nest, but it was still his nest, you know?

Finally feeling satisfied with what he had done, the slider flopped down onto his pillow. The pillow in question having been situated by him in a way so that it allows for him to sit up with support for his back. Digging around beside himself, he pulls out his phone with a happy little chirp to see that it had now gained just enough charge for him to turn it on now.

Doing so, he jumps at the total onslaught of notifications that fill up the screen as the light blinds him. He turns down the brightness and waits for his eyes to regain their ability to see things without those white splotches covering everything that he stared at before turning back to the screen.

Ignoring all social media updates and news articles, he goes straight to checking his text messages. He sends a couple of quick ‘ I’m good, nothing hurts and I’ll see you later ’ texts in response to various people before landing on a number that stops him. Smiling to himself and snuggling in, he opens it with an unintentional haste to read the message.

Thumper: how are the bones today, princess?

Scoffing to himself at the others' audacity, he types back a quick reply.

You: absolutely delectable, milord

You: and how is your pride? I saw that last fight of yours

Leo picked anxiously at the case of his phone as he waited for the other to reply. And he didn't have to wait for long, the other number responding to him rather quickly.

Thumper: did you now?

Thumper: and you didn't come to offer this poor knight your handkerchief for luck, milady?

You: did you want it?

Thumper: just a mere glimpse of your face would have been enough

Leo buried his face into a random squishmallow that Raph had gifted to him and squealed. He blushed red when he pulled away and noticed the toy to be a bunny. A stupid bunny. Like the one that he was talking to currently.

The two of them had met a while ago, right when Leo had turned fifteen. Like, the day before kind of when.

He had taken to hanging around Big Mama quite a bit after the whole shredder thing had happened. He ended up seeing the old lady as a kind of parental figure that he could go to and discuss and talk about certain things that he couldn't discuss with either of his two fathers.

The woman had eventually wormed her way into becoming a mother figure to the slider, especially after he had realized that his dad was definitely never gonna be a good reptile biologist. Draxum either, really, considering how neither of them had ever picked up on the fact that he was actually female. Except for Big Mama, that is.

Well, he was only biologically female, at least. He still felt like a male at times.

Only at times, though. The internet had called it ‘ genderfluid ’ when he had finally gotten around to it and looked into just what all of those things that he felt had meant.

And as an obvious consequence of publicly spending so much time around the well-known mob boss, Leo had gained quite the amount of public interest. Not quite the best kind of interest, either, hence ‘ the bunny ’.

His mother - if Mikey could claim Draxum their father, he could do the same of Big Mama - had thought it a good idea to ‘ hire ’ him a bodyguard of sorts for the slider. And he uses the quotation marks because it hadn't been so much a hiring as it was assigning one of her best nexus fighters to follow him around.

E.g. the bunny.

They had basically hated one another when they first met, but over time, the two had begun to grow closer. Becoming as close as actual friends almost, joking and prodding at each other in a snarky manner.

Although as of recently, Leo had begun to think it possible that the two of them could be something a little more than that. But no, the other only thought of him as a nuisance whose stupidity would sometimes force a laugh out of him.

And his brothers would very likely try to tear the guy apart if they ever found out about him, especially after the whole invasion ordeal. That is, if they hadn't already found out about his stints with the guy in the underbelly of the hidden city.

But, knowing them, they very likely might. What with all of the cameras that Donnie had shoved everywhere he could think of, Raphs big brotherly worrying and dear little Mikey's younger sibling's snoopy-ness.

April was fine, she had pretty much known about the guy from the very beginning. Since Leo had first met him around the time that they had started doing ‘Girl’s Nights' together with Sunita and Cass around that time.

And Cass especially, as the two of them had grown rather close to best friend territory after one evening. The other two cancelled on them at the last minute, after they had already met up together and they thought it such a waste when they already put in the effort to get there to just get up and leave.

The ex-foot recruit and he had found that they had a striking amount in common with one another that night. Whether from daddy issues to their self-worth issues and all the way to their strong liking to hitting things as they worked their way from the arcade to some underground fight club, the two got along like a spark to a dead forest.

Hell, the girl was the only one that she had even introduced to his unfortunate and fluffy acquaintance. She even went down to the Nexus to record his fights for him so that he wouldn't miss out on a second of watching the man work magic in the arena. And while he did appreciate her effort, really he did, he still would have much rather witnessed such a spectacle with his own eyes in person.

And with his hands, as he had taken to helping patch him up after fights. Big Mama had never willingly let him step foot back into that arena after that first time. She liked to claim it was for his own well-being, that she just ‘ couldn't stand seeing her baby hurt’ , but he knew that her pride and ego were still bruised from how easily he had fooled the old Yokai.

His thoughts are interrupted by the sound of another notification popping up on his screen. He taps on it and sends a bored glance at the screen before bolting upright with a hiss and a flinch from the pain when his brain processes what the new message says.

Big Blue: Hey baby blue, how are you feeling today?

Another thing that had happened to him just before he had turned fifteen. Wow, a big and important number for him there, huh, universe?

Around the time that they had finally defeated the shredder and the whole ‘dad forcing him into the leader position’, he had gotten really into working on his Ninpō. He had spent weeks perfecting his portals, furthering his reach with them, the time it took to open one, and opening multiple portals at the same time until the power was as second nature to the slider as simply breathing was.

And somehow, in the midst of all this, he had done this. He had created some kind of reality-bending group chat. It, from what he had deduced, had been opened as a gateway of sorts to versions of him that inhabited realities alternate to his own.

There were technically only four of them currently with access to the chat room, with himself included. But sometimes there would be others that would pop in and make a surprise appearance every now and then.

These ‘visitors’ presence didn’t tend to be very strong or anything so the others didn't really tend to stay in the chat for that long. Because of this, he didn't really count them as official members of their fun little cult.

Because, really, when you shove a handful of individuals with roughly the same ideas, thought processes and chaotic personalities without the title of leadership hanging over their heads, what else were they supposed to do?

It had been roughly a few months over a year in the real world since this phenomenon had been created and talking to each other near-daily over that time had really settled a few things into place for them:

• They were all blue-coded

• They were all named Leonardo

• They were pretty much forced into taking up the mantle of leader of their clans one way or another

• They were all some flavour of mentally ill and/or gay

Oh! And:

• They were all in unanimous agreement of turning the chat into a cult that centred around the sliders’ cat, Gorgonzola

The little guy looked as if he was some regular old house cat, but in reality, it was some strange shape-shifting creature that he had come across during his time in the Prison Dimension. He had found pretty quickly that the Kraang was for some reason afraid of it, so he had worked tirelessly to get the creature onto his side.

And, after a while, it worked! Yippee!

His efforts and giving up his pride in stupid little acts to prove that he wasn't a threat to it hadn't ended up being for nothing. Which then made it harder for him to prove he could also benefit the creature in return, but it all worked out in the end.

The other Leos and he had called the chat the ‘Council of The Blues’ and referred to each other as ‘Brother Blue’ or ‘My Brother in Blue’. Like the Leonardo that they all were, they were bloody hilarious.

And they all got him.

Kinda.

As it turns out, it seems as though it was only Leo and his brothers that had been created with the intention of fighting - winning - in wars. All of the other mutants’ mutations had been purely accidental in nature.

Viles’ of mysterious, glowing liquids being mistakenly knocked over during chaos and falling onto testing animals and their ensuing mutations being some unforeseen consequences of that. Yikes. But he digressed.

You: feeling peachy big blur

Best Blue: sure you are

You: and how r u then, huh? hows your knee bitch blue?

Big Blue: Hey! Watch your language baby

Big Blue: there are children present @Biggest Blue

Biggest Blue: Hey!

Biggest Blue: I resent that

Biggest Blue: and babys younger than me!

Best Blue: and?

Leo laughed to himself as the two of them started fighting with each other. Yawning so wide he hears his jaw make a clicking noise, he smiles wearily down at the screen as Best Blue starts to egg the other two on. Ah, he could just feel the parental pride welling up deep in his chest at the sight.

These old sticks in the mud had come a long way since the whole ordeal had started. They all seemed to be so stressed out with taking care of both their families and their homes. Leo just felt so proud of the fact that he had given them an out to act like the stupid kids that they should have been freely.

Yawning again, he puts his phone down on the same side table from before. Paper crinkles audibly as the device lands on top of the note that he will definitely remember to read later.

He rubbed at his eyes with a fist as he shuffled his pillows around so that he could lie down more comfortably. Once he was done with that, he flopped down and snuggled into the warmth of the nest with a churr and a light smile.

He pulled the blanket up over his shoulders and sleepily nuzzled his beak into his fluffed-up pillow as his eyes slipped closed. As his breathing finally evened out, he missed the door opening and someone stepping next to him as his phone dinged again.

Chapter Text

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Casey 'Casanova' Jones Junior ran a hand through his freshly conditioned hair for the umpteenth time in the past five minutes. The act was an old habit that he had picked up as a kid and was sure he would keep on doing long into his adult life.

His uncle Michael had always been one to pull at his own mystically grown hair whenever he was feeling either frustrated or stressed out. Which he often had been, something that his sensei had often joked would lead to early hair loss as a way to try and lighten the always-soured mood.

The box shell would spend almost all of his time stuck in the med bay whenever he and his mystics weren’t needed out in the field or to deal with any unruly citizens in the base.

Given that Sensei had been the one in charge of most things medical - and by proxy, Mikey - Casey had seen quite a bit of the youngest Hamato siblings. And being that he had spent more or less as much time with him as he did with Sensei, it had come as near no surprise to anyone when Casey had started copying the box shells' little mannerisms.

His sensei had been the one in charge of pretty much everything that could be considered medical everywhere they went. The slider had just about never left whatever base they occupied unless it had been required of him. And even then, it had been rare - the other Hamamtos being rather strict on that front.

They had never told him why though. Everyone would only say that he was too young to understand and that they would explain it to him when he had gotten older, a promise that had never come to fruition. And because of this, the slider had ended up becoming Casey's primary caregiver whenever both of his parents had to step out.

The young adult had been pacing back and forth in front of the closed med bay door for the past three to five minutes now. He needed to ask this of his sensei, but -

The man was dead.

That wasn't the same person who had so painstakingly raised him after his parents passed away on the other side of that door. No, that was a child. A child even younger than he himself currently was, that had been forced into a war that he was never meant to be in and had willingly - so stupidly - given his life for them to keep theirs.

Or at least, he had tried to, since he was still very much alive and currently busy occupying a cot on the other side of this door that he found himself too afraid to pry open.

Getting increasingly frustrated with the thoughts racing through his mind, Casey brought a hand up to nibble at his nails - a filthy habit, really - and therefore didn't notice as the sound of muffled voices had begun drifting out from inside of the room.

Nor did he hear as they quickly tapered off and the sound of someone on the other side making their way towards him.

What he had heard, however, was the sudden woosh as the twin door in front of him slid open.

“Gah-?!” Red eyes met with brown while the palm of a dark green, scaled and clawed hand met with the pale flesh of his very human mouth.

Casey stood there bewildered as Donnie quickly pushed him away from the now-open door. While the mutant stubbornly kept his hand clamped over the human's mouth, he turned around to tap at the keypad on the wall, the doors sliding closed again after a second. Letting out a breath of relief that he had escaped physically unharmed, Donnie stood there staring vacantly out into space.

The human gazed expectantly at the mutant as the other watched the closed door, his stance making it seem as if he were just waiting for the moment that it swung open and smacked him right in the face.

His fingers flexed a bit as he refused to move an inch, but he remained aware of his surroundings enough not to stab or cut into the other's skin with the sharp tips of his claws. Casey's eyes flickered from the mutant to the door and back again. He moved his arm up slowly and - careful not to startle the other - pried the hand covering his mouth away.

“Uhh, Don-?”

Donnie’s head whipped around to face him and he worried for a second over the loud crack noise the turtle's neck had made.

“Casey, my boy!” He flashed the human a rather unnerving, toothy smile, and held it for a few unblinking seconds before dropping it like it never happened. “What are you doing here?”

“Uh..” He blinked, pointing to the door with a minor hesitancy. “Sen-”

“ - is resting! ” The mutant snapped his whole body around to fully face the other, only to grab him by the shoulders and hold him firm as he stared into his eyes while he spoke. “Leo needs his rest, Casey.”

Casey blinked rapidly, more than enough to compensate for the other lack thereof. He peaked out of the corner of his eye at one of the hands on his shoulder and took note of the slight shake to the limb. Moving back to his face, he started to wonder just when the last time that he had had a proper sleep was.

“Yes. Sleep is very important for someone's healing, Uncle Tello, I do remember that.” He gave a light knock to his own head and chuckled. “I was practically raised in the med bay, remember?”

Donatello, having been caught off guard by being referred to as uncle so easily, accepted the others' words without fault. “Yes… yes, of course.”

“Mhm!” Casey nodded. “And as someone who is still healing physically, you only want to help Leonardo with that, correct?”

Donnie nodded, his mouth gaping as he sluggishly tried to predict where this conversation was going.

“And to help someone else, you do understand that you need to be able to help yourself first, correct, Uncle Tello?”

“Yes…” Donnie agreed unconsciously with the other before he finally figured out where the other was heading with this line of questioning. “Wait! No, no, no, I still have work to do-!”

“Dona- tello… is this the behaviour of a world-renowned - world-saving scientist?” A line his sensei had used many a time. “I don't think so, mister. You want to outshine even Draxum one day, do you not?”

“Well-” the turtle rolled his eyes as he started to argue before one look from the human stopped him. “... yes… ”

“And what do good little scientists doo? ”

“...”

He waited for the other to answer him, but all that he got in return was a rather annoyingly blank look. He sighed and dropped the customer service smile as he started to feel his mood darken against his wishes.

“Sleep, Donnie, they sleep.”

“Bu-”

“ No. If you want to help Leo - if you want to help anyone, then you need to sleep.”

It looked as if the slightly taller than him mutant still had something to say in protest to his sound logic and he tsked at that.

“How can you expect yourself to be able to fix a problem in your equation without the proper knowledge? Knowledge, which you can only gain unskewed access to after properly resting your most powerful asset.” He reached up and jabbed the softshell on his big forehead, hard enough that the other's head moved back as he hissed. “Your brain, Uncle dumb-dumb.”

Donnie opened and closed his mouth a few times before dropping his head to hang between them with a sigh. He gave the human one last squeeze on his shoulders before letting go and moving a few paces back to give the other some air.

“You're right.”

Ah-hah! Still as effective a method as he remembered it. Thank you, Sensei, you manipulative genius, you.

“And I’m sorry.”

Casey blinked. He didn't… expect the apology. “You are?”

“Yeah, I am… you know,” the two made eye contact, “Leo had taught you well.”

“He did?” An eyebrow was raised, the scepticism that the human felt at the sudden switch-up made clear.

“Mm.” Donnie clicked his tongue and spun around on his heel. “Welp! I'm off!”

“Wha- wait!” He jumped forward and grabbed a hold of the mutant's arm. “Where are you going?”

“To bed. What, you wanna walk me there? Maybe tuck me in under the blankets? Read me a story?” Donnie jokingly asked with a snort before seeing the genuine look of consideration on the other's face. “What, seriously? ”

“Well… yeah.” He nodded. “You had become rather well known for often needing a tranq and being chained to the bed in order to get a proper rest back in the rebellion.”

“I was?” The softshell seemed almost appalled by the idea, but he could totally see it happening with Leo there.

“Mhm.” Casey grabbed onto the softshell by the arm and started dragging him down the hall to his bedroom as he talked. “Especially whenever something happened that required Sensei to have to leave the base for some time. You never did too well mentally when separated, none of you did. It was almost like you guys had been designed that way. Strange.”

“Yes.” Donnie tensed his shoulders at the observation and stared ahead. “ Strange. ”

The two walked in an awkward silence for the remainder of the time that it took them to reach the mutants’ room. A familiar wooden door eventually makes its way into their line of sight and the both of them let out a sigh of relief.

After the invasion had subsided enough for them to regroup and sort themselves out, they had realized that - once again - their home had been destroyed. Or at least, the underground subway station had gotten fucked up enough that they had all unanimously agreed that they wouldn't be able to live there for much longer - if at all. Especially not with how critical a condition their collective mental and physical health had been.

But, by some unknown miracle, Big Mama had been ever so kind as to ‘Gift’ one of her many estates for them to live in. Everyone else had thought it to be either some kind of a trick or a ploy to win their father over, but all that Donnie had cared about was the fact he had been given free rein to renovate the building as he wished. And the building was enormous!

*There were a plethora of empty rooms in the building, enough so that each of the more permanent inhabitants had gotten a whole room each to themselves. Inside of these rooms were walk-in closets large enough that the younger, not quite so human residents had taken the chance to nests and burrows inside of so as to not overtake their original bedrooms. There was plenty still plenty of space left over to fit all of their clothes - although admittedly, they did not have much to fill it with, to begin with - and whatever else someone might want to stuff inside of a wardrobe.

They had seen and taken the chance to go and create their own safe little hobble that was their alone. These were gladly made out of all kinds of soft materials that they could get their green, scaly hands on.

And all of this at the costly expense of Big Mama's wallet, of course.

And with that being all in only the one wing of the estate, there had still been plenty of room left over for everything that they could have thought to add in the rest of the house.

Leo had gotten a brand spanking new med bay filled to the brim with all of the supplies and equipment that he could ever possibly dream of needing.

Raph got a gym with a roof and walls sturdy enough that the big lug could do all the laps and jumps and whatever else and not have to worry about the building possibly collapsing around him.

Splinter had gotten a movie theatre, with shelves fully stocked of every piece and form of media that still physically existed for the softshell to get his claws on.

Mikey got access to such a large kitchen he had almost passed out from joy the first time he went in. He only frowned a little when he found out that he would have to share the room with everyone else in the building before he thought of all the fun he could have bonding with Draxum in there.

Donnie had an entire basement level that he had immediately claimed as his lab. Well, half of it, as he, rather unfortunately, had to share the other half with Draxum. The ram yokai needed somewhere to teach all of them, though mainly Michael as he showed the most promise, about Mystics and Ninpō and how the two worked both separately and together.

There was an open-concept library that housed three stories worth of centuries-old literature. The best part was that there was no living librarian to hiss at them for making too much noise as the place had a mystic guide in place that would take them to any and every book they could have wanted. As long as it was actually in the library, a shiver running up Donnie's shell when he remembered that they had had to learn that the hard way.

And there was still so, so much more. It had been over half of a year and it still felt to them as if a new and yet-to-be-used room was showing up every other month.

Overall, it had been a great way for them to heal and recuperate after the ordeal they had all gone through and the injuries they sustained. The turtles had been the most damaged out of them all, as they had actively gone and thrown themselves into the most danger.

Raphs shoulder had ended up more damaged than they had anticipated, the adrenaline having hidden most of his pain till he had calmed down. He was still able to use it as the damage had not required amputation, but he had come uncomfortably close for anyone to being the opposite.

The part of his shell that had been pierced by the kraang's tentacle, while still bad - their shells were practically their spines - was such a clean through cut that not much had needed to be done to it. The most he’d had done was being put under while bone cement had been added to stop tiny fractures from becoming larger and some metal plating to hold it all in place while he got better.

And then the snappers eye, well that was practically - entirely fucked, now. It hadn't been removed as it didn't cause any danger to his health by being left in, but now he couldn't see out of it at all. Donnie had still gone and made a bionic one for when he grew tired of having to turn his head to see what was in his blind spot.

Mikey had not managed to sustain that much damage to his physical person. His arms still held the mark of lighting running up along his forearms, a now permanent reminder of how he had ripped open that portal for Leo.

Because of Leo.

They didn't seem to do him too much harm, the box shell joking that it felt like he had turned into some kind of key that had unlocked a dam of energy in his body. Every time he used his Ninpō or grew his Mysticism, his scars would light up as if they had become a measure of the power he used.

And Donnie had understood how the youngest had felt, Raph as well. Those same marks having crawled up the arms the eldest two had laid unto the smaller mutants' shoulders to lend their own power in support.

It did leave the other rather jittery, however, and he had grown to enjoy the stability that the occasional wearing of some compression wraps would give him. He wouldn't show it in front of the others, but they could all see that it bothered him when he wasn’t using his Mystics. That there had been at least a little bit of nerve damage done to his hands and even if it wasn't enough to worry a doctor, it was enough to have bothered him.

The slider had gone and cracked a joke that now he was like Doctor Strange after he had woken up from his forced coma as they discussed it next to him. Very on-brand for the turtle there.

And now Leo… well, Leo was fine.

Really - somehow - he was fine.

He had had some scarring and obviously healed trauma to his shell, a broken arm from when the mech had tried to grab him as he was pulled through the portal and a freshly dislocated knee, but other than that?

He was fine.

His injuries had been nowhere near as bad as what they could have been. Nowhere near as bad as what they should have been.

Not after that extensive beating that they had all heard over the Comms that that chewed-up wad of gum had given their dear blue-coloured brother. Sister. Brister?

But then there was the dehydration and the near starvation and don't even get him started on how some of those cuts and tears in his paler-than-what-was healthy flesh had looked almost years older than they possibly could have. Even though the softshell knows that the slider had not had any such injuries only days prior to Casey and the invasion and the mere minutes that he had spent trapped in that hell hole.

Draxum had hypothesised that the stress and trauma of the situation may have affected his Ninpō, which in turn had affected his already accelerated healing abilities. Go being a weapon of war!

Well, Donnie had hypothesized that there was something that the slider wasn't telling him - them. That there was something that the slider wasn't telling them.

‘ But really, I am that dumb dumbs’ twin! ’

The softshell clicked his teeth together at his thoughts, absentmindedly scratching at a mark on the arm opposite to the faint glow of lightning.

He didn't even stop to think about the similar ones lining the length of his aching shell. The marks that had only appeared after he had been ripped out of the control panel to the Technodrome.

‘ We can tell each other anything-! ’

“Donnie?”

The turtle jumped out of his thoughts at the call of his name and spun around to see Junior staring down at him. The guy was only a few inches taller than him and that was just enough that the mutant had to tilt his head up to meet the human in the eyes.

He shook his head as he ignored the others' concern for him and moved towards the door of his bedroom with haste like it was his only source of salvation. And really, he did feel that it was. Junior seems to have sucked up all of his version of Leo's life lessons and mannerisms like a damned human sponge.

If he hadn't been told otherwise and shown physical, hard-to-deny proof, he would have assumed that Leo had pulled a Draxum and cloned himself. Or just added a significant enough amount of his own DNA to some random kid that it had actively affected their personality.

He walked over to his bed and felt a burning on the back of his neck. Turning back around, he saw Casey leaning against the door frame and raised an eyebrow ridge. “Wait, you do know that I was joking about you tucking me into bed, right? Because I am not often able to properly convey my intentions to other peopl-”

“Yeah, yeah, I know, you green goof.” Casey rolled his eyes and waved the other off. “Did you know that I had been entirely serious about drugging and chaining you up so that you would actually sleep a healthy amount?”

“Oh?” Donnie asked, mildly intrigued by the potential for stories.

“Not a good thing.” Casey clarified before the other could go and get any dumb and stupid ideas, knowing that the expression on the others' face would only lead to much unwanted chaos.

“Oh.” Donnie deflated as all the joy and science-related jokes he had just thought of were sucked right out of him.

“Yeah, Sensei really took his role as the - often only - medic pretty seriously. You would be healed under his watch, whether you wanted that or not.” Casey laughed at what was probably some funny memory for him but only sounded like a very true horror story to Donnie.

“... yeah, that does sound a lot like Leo.” Donnie nodded solemnly in agreement.

The softshell pulled off his hoodie and threw it somewhere onto the floor. He left his sweatpants and tank top on, suddenly too drowsy to bother taking them off. He shucked off his fluffy slippers, not currently caring where they went and pulled the blankets to his bed back.

The mutant flopped down onto the mattress belly first and landed with a huff as he bounced a little. He army crawled his way up the bed until his head could lay comfortably on top of his pillow. He nuzzled into the object with the tip of his beak, sliding his arms underneath and pulling it closer to semi-cuddle with as he yawned.

“Alright story boy, go ahead.”

He ignored the human still leaning against his door frame as the man scoffed in disbelief at him. “ What? No-”

“No, no,” he shifted his head just enough to make eye contact, “you came here to tell me a bedtime story so chop-chop, tell away.”

Casey rolled his eyes before scoffing again with a shake of his head. Pushing himself off of the door frame, he shifted to stand beside the foot of the turtle's large bed.

“Alright, fine - you big baby - if it is a story that you want, then it will be a story that you get.”

The human made a grunting sound while he rubbed up and down the length of his throat like he was adjusting his voice to come out deeper than what it already was. He did this until he felt satisfied with the look of utter disgust on the mutants' face and coughed into a closed fist before striking a pose not unlike Shakespeare's ‘To be or not to be’.

“And the other thing is, my sister had a baby and I took it over after she passed away -”

“Oh my god.”

“- and the baby lost all its legs and arms and now it's just a stump, but I take care of it with my wife and… and it's growing and its fairly happy… and it's difficult -”

“ No. ”

“- because I’m working a second shift at the factory to put food on the table but all the love that I see in that little guy's face, it makes it worth it in the end.”

“...”

Casey coughed like he was trying to hack up a lung and swallowed with a grimace at his sore throat. He loosened up his theatrical stance and shoved a hand into the front pocket of his jeans before speaking again in his regular (though now a little scratchy) voice with a nod. “True story.”

The two stared quietly at each other as they shared a moment of silence together after that performance. Junior sniffed and itched along the bridge of his nose as a cover to try and stifle a giggle. It worked until the corner of Donnie’s mouth turning up in a smile caught his eye and his knees buckled as he doubled over and let out a crackle.

Donnie shoved his face into his pillow as he snorted so hard that it shook his whole body. He pulled away and leaned over the edge of the bed to grab a slipper, different to the ones he had been wearing earlier. Still shaking with glee, he chucks the footwear and hits the other square on the back of his head.

“Get out of here, you damn goof.” The mutant yawned again and rubbed a hand against his bleary eyes. He melts into his pillow as his eyes slip closed and his shoulders finally fall lax.

Still letting out a giggle here and there, Junior rights himself and stares at the other. His eyes crinkle at the corner with joy and his gaze softens as he listens to the mutant gentle breaths. “Yeah, night Don.”

The human walked over to the door and grabbed onto the handle. He flicked off the light switch to plunge the room into darkness and quietly shut the door with a soft click. His footsteps silently faded out of the turtle's ears and he smirked to no one.

Donnie pulls his arms out from under his pillow and shuffles around to lie on his side with his back to the door. He brought the wrist with his communicator attached up to his face and turned it on, squinting at the sudden glare of light in the dark room. He lifted his other hand up and started to tap away at the screen.

Quickly, he sends off a short list of commands down to the A.I. he put in charge of running his lab and-

The mutant softshell hissed and rushed to cover his eyes as the overhead lights were suddenly all flicked on at once. He gathers his bearing and flips himself around, stunned to see Casey standing there with his hand still hovering over the light switch.

“Chains and drugs, Donatello.”

“How did yo-?”

Casey raised an eyebrow at the other. “Did you seriously not notice that I was still in the room?”

“...” Donnie stared at the other before looking at his own hands. “... maybe I do need to get some sleep, after all.”

The human let out a hum and reached into his pocket. He pulled out a small container that rattled as he twisted off the lid and poured something onto the palm of his hand.

“Here,” he handed what the turtle found to be a small, lime green pill when he grabbed a closer look at it. “These are some meds that Sensei had made back in the resistance. I don't have very many left, but this is stuff that he used to use regularly and after a while, you got as bad - if not worse - at sleeping than he did, soo…”

Donnie took the pill with a mumbled thanks and sat up to grab his water bottle from the side table. He put the pill on his tongue and took a big swig of the bottle's contents as he threw his head back to swallow it all down. He gagged as the flavour the pill had left from sitting on his taste buds lingered and drank some more water to get rid of it.

“Thanks.” He choked out in between coughs.

“No problem.” Casey recapped the pill bottle and put it back into his pocket. “I don't remember much of any of what Sensei had put into this stuff, but the good thing is that you all would definitely need smaller doses as your other selves had built up an immunity over time. So it's a good thing that it’ll give Leo some time to figure it out and it’s some pretty strong stuff, so it’ll probably knock you right out for a good few hours-”

Obnoxiously loud snoring knocked the human out of his rambling. He looked over to see that the turtle had fallen over onto his side while he was distracted and had landed on his pillow, unconscious.

Casey smiled at the sleeping mutant and tugged the blankets out from under his feet, pulling them over top of the other. Then he pulled the device strapped to his wrist off and dropped it onto the side table along with the bottle of water that miraculously hadn't spilt a drop despite still being open and dropped onto the bed.

He moved over to the door and shut off the lights. This time, he stepped over the threshold and closed the door with a quiet click as he shut it. He made his way back to the med bay, having worked past his earlier nerves and wanting to get this out of the way before he went to retire to his own bed for the night.

And besides, it had been weeks since he had gone and snuck in the slider's phone for him. So he knew for a fact that he used any and every chance at being left alone to go on it.

Within reason, of course. The guy was still a medic and did, surprisingly, know when to not do something as dumb as prolonged screen time with a concussion. As minor as the injury had been.

He tapped in his personal code to the pin pad and quietly made his way inside of the room. He heard a rustling coming from the only occupied bed in the room and made his way towards it.

As he got closer, it had become increasingly clear that he might have waited just a couple of minutes too long to make his journey back here. He looked down at the peacefully sleeping face below him and sighed.

It felt so… odd. To just, you know, stare down at the face of one of the people that had raised him and realise that he was older than most of them now.

It made his insides feel all weird and… icky at the sight.

Just when he had gone to spin on his heel and leave, a buzzing vibration caught his attention. He looked down to find the source and spied the slider's phone sitting face up on the side table between his bed and the next. The screen had lit up with the presence of a notification and he didn't think to look away before he was reading the text that had come through.

Casey glanced from the now fully black screen to the turtle and smiled softly. He picked up a stuffed bunny toy and gently wormed it into the mutant's hold without disturbing him. The slider gladly grabbed onto it and nuzzled his beak into the stuffed animal's tummy with a sleepy chirp and a purr while he dozed.

The human rubbed a knuckle over the turtle's temple and pulled the blankets further up over him. He made his way over to the door and peered back with a soft smile at what he knew was to come. He sent a wish of sweet dreams before shutting off the light and closing the door with a soft click.

Thumper: goodnight my heart ♡

Chapter Text

~~~~~~~~

Leo frowned down at the small screen in his hand. He re-read the message repeatedly, trying to somehow psychically understand what the last thing the bunny had sent to him was.

Thumper: (Message Deleted)

Thumper: Night.

‘Night.’?

Just night?

What?

Why?

It had been just a bit over a week since his little fight in the med bay with Donnie - well, it hadn't been so much of a fight as it had just been the river that was his frustration finally spilling over the edge of the inner dam he had built. He did regret it a little that his poor twin had been the one to take the brunt of his anger, but that didn’t change the fact that he had meant what he had said to the other.

However, he hadn't been able to access his phone since then, so he had not seen the message until just a few moments ago. It had also been the only message Usagi had sent him since then, and he had been staring blankly at it, his brain bluescreening as he tried to formulate either a response or something else entirely.

It really shouldn't have had to be something that he lost himself in and yet here he stood, his thoughts spiralling as he tried to figure out what had gone wrong in their friendship.

Was the guy mad at him or something? Has Leo done something wrong that he did not like? What could he even have done to him?

Why did his totally-just-a-friend-and-not-a-crush delete a text he had sent him and what did the message say?

Did - did Usagi not… like him any more?

“- Lee?”

The slider flinched, letting out a yelp in surprise, losing his grip on his phone as he was caught off guard. He fumbled about as he tried to catch his phone with his only unoccupied hand before it could smash onto the ground. He tried to do so with both, had his other hand not been busy with holding onto the crutch that assisted him in staying upright.

The device slipped and fell too low for him to reach without ending up on the ground in its stead. The mutant scrunched his eyes closed as he prepared himself to hear the telltale smash of his expensive obliviousness to the world around him.

When nothing came, he peeked an eye open to see what had happened. A pale hand covered in faded, some near paper-thin scars held out his phone for him to take and his gaze travelled up the limb to see the face of his financial saviour.

“Junior?” He blinked at the human. “When did you get here?”

The man in question shrunk in on himself a little and the tips of his ears flushed pink with embarrassment. He brought his free hand up to run through his hair, stopping as he remembered that he had tied most of it back into a bun and switched to just swiping the loose hairs out of his eyes.

“Oh you know, just,” he shrugged, “been standing here for the past five minutes or so, now.”

Leo went bug-eyed as the others' words registered and he flushed a tint of red himself. “Oh! Well, why didn't you say anything, man? I feel mean now that I know you were waiting for me.”

Casey glanced at the frown that the slider sported and shrugged again. “Mm’ ‘unno.”

Leo blinked once, twice, and then shook his head. He grumbled something under his breath about the intricacies of the male brain and snatched his phone back with a quick thanks. “So, what exactly is the plan for today?”

Junior jumped to attention, reached into the back pocket of his jeans and pulled out his own phone. Turning the device on, he scrolled through his freshly installed list of apps and pressed on his notes. He scrolled through his different notes to find the specific one where he had been forced to type out and study the day's strict itinerary.

“Ah, let's see…” Leo watched the human nibble on his bottom lip as he searched for the right list. “Here! Come over and take a look at this.”

The mutant turtle shoved his phone into the pocket of his purple hoodie and hobbled his way closer, the foot of his crutch clacking against the marble tiling that covered the floor of the foyer. He rested the point of his chin on the man's shoulder and peered down at the screen, reading what had been written.

LEOS FIRST DAY OUT OF THE MANOR AFTER ALMOST DYING (Do NOT divert (I am serious Jr.))

By Hamato Donatello

• Wake up Leo and have him sorted to go by 0900

Casey shot a look back to the slider out of the corner of his eye, watched him yawn and checked off the box, ignoring the fact that it was almost thirty minutes later than that. Some additional boxes leached off of the first one, so he read them aloud for the other to confirm that they had been done. He didn't need the softshell to go and check the security cameras and doubt that the human wanted anything less than the best for Leo.

“Fed a healthy and nutritional breakfast?”

“Check.” Leo nodded and licked his lips at the memory. “Mike has been getting better at making those fancy Japanese omelettes.”

“Mhm.” Casey agreed. “Clothed in warm and comfortable clothing that is appropriate for the cooling temperatures and weather at this time of year?”

“Check.” Leo rolled his eyes. “It could barely even be considered breezy outside- don't look at me like that. I’m wearing more right now than I normally would in winter and the trees have only just started to change colour, let alone had any of their leaves fallen. I’ll be fine.”

Casey just stared at him a tad judgingly of his attire - blue jeans, red woollen sweater, Donnie's large purple zip-up hoodie shrugged on over the top and an orange beanie on his head - before sighing at the glare the slider threw his way and turned his attention back to the next thing on the list.

“New brace attached with ease and worn with minimal discomfort?”

“Yup.” The mutant wrapped his free arm around the human's waist and stuck his left leg with the navy blue brace wrapped around his knee out in front of them. He bent the limb a few times and swung it left and right until a sharp sting in the joint reminded him of just why that action was stupid. “... ouch. That would be a check.”

“Yeah… don't do that, maybe.” Junior sent him a judgmental side eye. “Up next, uh, ‘Crutch is sufficient and up to date and easy to keep a grip on’ ?”

“Yuh-huh.” The slider kept his arm wrapped firmly around the human's waist as he shifted to lean his full weight against him and lifted the crutch, his arm through the hold and gripping the handle. “Checkity-check.”

“Leo has bathed and brushed his teeth and changed his dressings and cleaned his wounds and there is No - underlined three times and circled once - chance of him gaining an infection at any point of his venture outside of the manor-”

“Christ almighty, Dee. What crawled up his ass and died?” Leo frowned at the extensive and - frankly - a little disturbed list that the human had received from the softshell. “Can we just go now? Donnie is probably watching us from the shadows right now and you know that they’re all just going to follow us around later on, anyways -”

“No, Leo, that is exactly why we need to do this. Now,” he ignored the others' over-dramatic groaning and shuffled around to hold the both of them upright as the slider insisted on dangling his entire body weight off of him. “Your arm? How is it?”

Leo stopped mid-whine about the unfairness of crippled life and stared over to the offending limb in question. It had been healing rather nice and quick, at least following the old goat's examinations of it, and so he’d finally had his cast removed the day before, much to the relief of his scaled skin.

Honestly, Leo had only barely stopped himself from speaking out at the time to disagree with the elder.

Back when he had been living inside of the Prison Dimension, an injury of that nature would have completely healed in half the time, easily, and he would have been back to jumping, hunting and climbing all over the place in no time flat. Maybe it had something to do with the atmosphere or the faulty gravitational pull of that hell hole, but everything just seemed kind of… faster in there than it did out here.

Or it was just the lack of a solar cycle that had screwed up his sense of time. It had certainly gone and fucked with his circadian rhythm. As in, he somehow had a semblance of one now, as sad as that was.

Leo internally scoffed. ‘How annoying.’

“Mm, it’s fine.” His eyes glanced up and caught the scrutinizing gaze looking down on him. “It is! ”

He removed the arm in question from around the other's waist and stood upright on his own two feet, leaning on his crutch for support. He held his arm up and stared at the brace that now covered it in place of his old cast.

“Eh, it's okay.” He shrugged. “It doesn't hurt… that much. ”

“Mmhmm,” Junior clicked his tongue, “and I am wholeheartedly, devoted to god, Christen white woman.”

“Oh, you are? Nice man, good on you for feeling ready to tell me!”

Leo snickered behind as well a formed fist as he could get with his brace on, trying - and failing - to hide his smile from the very much male and non-white human man.

Casey stared at the mutant not so silently giggling at him. His face remained blank for as long as he could hold that expression. Three seconds barely passed by when the human's own little smile broke out on his face against his will.

“Oh shush, you. But no, I am serious about your arm.” He nodded his head at the limb. “How is it fairing? I know that gra- Draxum had gone and cleared you for this outing and all, but -”

“Yeeesh. Re-lax, Future Boy, I’m all good and dandy and if I couldn’t handle it, you know that I would go and say something about it.” Leo laughed off the others' worry, shoving him to the side softly and picking up his backpack off of the ground.

“Man, there is just no doubt that you are my nephew, what, with the way that you worry about any and everything and person around you.”

“Huh?” Casey blinked. “Wait wha-?”

“Now let's go! There is a reservation at the best pizzeria in New York City with my name written all over the damn joint!” The slider started making his way over to the front door with the haste of a starved, one-legged man.

Junior followed suit, forgetting about his prior confusion to nag at the mutant about being more careful while he was using his crutch. He knows that Donnie wouldn’t mind fixing any damages done to the walking aid, but he does not want to have to explain to the softshell how it had happened in the first place. He shuddered at the mere thought of it.

~~~~

Given the time of year and the chilling temperatures outside, the atmosphere inside the Run of the Mill was almost uncomfortably stifling. A quiet level of chatter filled the air as patrons steadily filed in and out of the restaurant's only front entrance every twenty minutes or so.

It was around half past ten in the morning, and while the business was noticeably occupied, it was one of those slower-paced days. Employees were kept on their feet but still given enough downtime to get bored with their thoughts from the lack of action.

Over in a corner, one furthest from the majority of everyone else seated at their tables, sat a lone Yokai all by himself. The squeals of a small child rang through the room before the crash of a plate being knocked off of the table sounded out and the man visibly flinched at the sound. It just so happened that the man in question was also the owner of the establishment.

Hueso had taken up residence in a corner couch booth around in the back of his restaurant, business running slower this morning than usual. Most of the faces in the crowd he recognised were the normal patrons that tended to stop by for brunch, and a few that he didn't know dotted around here and there.

He wore his normal set of dress pants and white collared shirt without the coat, the article of clothing taken off and thrown onto the sewn-to-the-bench cushion beside him. His tie was nowhere in sight - he likely had not even worn it to work - and his sleeves rolled up to his elbows, out of the way so as not to get the white fabric dirty.

The skeleton ran a bony hand over the back of his skull and sighed, turning his head to stare over the pile of recently laminated menus he had just finished cleaning. He threw the damp rag in his hand down onto the table with a huff and placed the points of his elbows on the table as if in mock prayer, resting his chin against his clasped-together hands.

With little more than two hours until they would have to deal with the usual lunch rush and a lot fewer people likely to be seated than normal, it would have been quite easy for him to just get up and leave. Let his very capable and prepared for most anything staff be in charge for the rest of the day.

Hell, they had all even tried to force him to pack his things and leave, but he had been far too stubborn to stop and listen to their concerns for him.

Pretty valid concerns, really, although he wouldn't admit to that out loud for any of them to hear it. The best that anyone could get from him was a compromise where all he had to do was sit there and wipe down the menus that hadn't been done the previous day. Obviously, that wasn't going to be able to keep the aged Yokai occupied for very long.

He had even tried to go as slowly as he could, working over each and every cranny and groove in the menu's black leather backings before he had eventually grown tired of the childish behaviour.

With everything that had happened half a year ago and everything that had happened after, he just couldn’t find it in himself to step away for even a day. It was like something inside of him was trying to hold him hostage inside of his own place of business and livelihood and it nearly ached that he could not figure out what it was.

His eyes glanced around the walls of his restaurant and landed on one specific one that made the lump in his imaginary throat grow more noticeable to him. He stared at the wall lined with photos taken of the patrons who had entered his maze of death and won and felt a tear come to his eye as he chuckled lightly.

Just over a year ago now, his little pepino had come up to him one day and asked if it were possible for him to go through the maze of death again with his friends. Hueso will admit with a little bit of shame that at the time, he had thought the slider had been referring to re-entering with his brothers by his side.

He had not realised before then that the four of them had actually been related to one another and not just acquaintances by happenstance. But now that he was looking back, Kappa like them were not all that common around here and so it would make more sense for them to be family instead of four similar strangers coming together in one place.

So imagine the surprise that the skeleton Yokai had felt when, instead of the expected three young Kappa - who he’d grown accustomed to seeing close behind their boastful leader - falling through the portal the other had opened, the slider had pulled out one very angry-looking human girl and the even less expected son of one of his… less than morally alright with the law patrons.

The Yokai had been rather apprehensive to have the man stand anywhere near his dear Pepino at the time. Especially given the well-known-by-the-underbelly-of-the-Hidden-City kind of reputation that the guy's family has.

Don't get him wrong, he knows - has seen first hand - what the slider was capable of doing, but the short Kappa was still quite young, certainly by Yokai standards. But the other was far more experienced than him, by both the sword and way of the world and if Leo had been caught off guard or blindsided by his so-called friend?

Well, Hueso had not known what to think.

And maybe when he had gone and momentarily pulled the Yokai aside to tell him exactly that, and he had seen the way that the rabbit had looked to the shorter, the way that he had looked at him - as if he couldn't even comprehend why the elder would ever think him possible of doing such a thing, well maybe he thought that the guy might not have been as bad as the rest of his kin was known to be.

Maybe he had seen that there was something more to the pair's relationship than just the clear cover story that the slider had tried to feed him. A story very reluctantly and confusingly corroborated by his two new acquaintances.

The man sighed once more and closed his eyes with a tired slump of his shoulders, turning his gaze away from that trademark smile lest he go and shed a real tear. He lifted his chin off of his hands, only to then rest his forehead against them and mumble out a quiet prayer under his breath.

He gathered up everything on the table into a neat little pile in front of himself and made a move to stand up. He leaned the back of his legs on the lip of his seat while he checked and made sure that he wouldn't leave any unnecessary messes on the table for his workers to deal with in his wake.

Nodding to himself that he hadn't forgotten anything to be left behind, he gathered it all up into his arms and started to slowly shuffle his way out of the booth. He clicked his tongue in annoyance and stopped for a split second to turn back right at the opening, balanced himself with one leg in the air and made to lean back and grab the suit coat he had just remembered about.

But then, all of a sudden and without much - if any at all - warning, the door that covered the front entrance to his establishment was suddenly and quite forcefully slammed wide open.

It hit the adjoining wall hard enough that the hung picture frames had rattled and decorations sitting on shelves nearly toppled from the force. The resounding bang that had resulted from the impact had echoed throughout the restaurant, not a disturbance enough to silence the place entirely. The skeleton's ears had barely caught the voice that yelled for him over the confusion of his patrons at the early-to-mid morning chaos.

“Tio Hueso! Your favourite - and as far as I am aware - only Niblet is here~!”

“LEO! Be. Careful!”

Hueso cursed and swore in a way he would scold himself for later as he dropped everything he was holding to the floor. His arms flew around in a pin-wheel motion on either side of him as he rocked unstably back and forth on one leg. He swayed much like one of those blow-up wiggly guys until gravity won out against him and he could no longer keep himself standing upright.

The sound of rattling echoed throughout his now silent establishment as his bony body clattered facedown to the hardwood floor. He groaned as he lay there on the ground. He threw an arm up onto the seat cushion to try and gain some leverage to pull himself up, only to go and smash the top of his head right into a hard surface instead.

He groaned out again and clutched at the back of his skull, his eyes squeezed shut at the unexpected pain. Rolling over from his stomach to lay on his back, he stared up at the underneath of the table he had been sitting at less than a minute prior to the chaos that disturbed his peace.

‘Ugh,’ he thought, frowning, ‘yuck, is that gum stuck there?’

“Damn, old man, did ya really miss me that much??”

Hueso shut his eyes again and threw his arm up and over them with a scowl. “That is enough, Pepino, why is it that you always feel the need to come and harass me when I am at work -?!”

The skeleton ceased his all too familiar complaining right as his brain had finally had the time to process and catch up on what was happening. Gasping sharply, he shot upright like an old wound-up jack-in-the-box toy and this time, slammed his forehead straight into the bottom of the table. Clutching at the front of his skull, he fell back to the ground in pain once again, internally cursing having even gotten out of bed this morning.

“-elp him up, Case - !!” A voice called out, cutting through the ringing ache of both the back and front of his thoroughly bashed and smashed skull.

Right as he had opened up his mouth to try and say something in question of what was happening, a pale human hand shot out and grabbed him firmly by the ankle joint. Holding onto him, the skeleton Yokai couldn't utter a singular vowel before the tight grip on him was finally dragging him out from underneath the table.

The Yoaki lay there and stared up into the light on the ceiling, taking a few seconds to gather himself before rolling around a bit and groaning as he heaved himself into sitting up.

He rested his forehead on his knee and huffed before shuffling about so that he could grab onto the edge of the table and carefully heave his sore body off of the floor that definitely needed another sweep. He took a few seconds to wait for the room around him to stop spinning in dizzying circles before he even thought to look at the cause of the commotion.

But when he finally did, he swore he would have felt his heart stop beating for a moment had he been human enough to have a fleshy one.

“... Pepino?” His eyes widened as he stared directly into the face of someone who he had come to almost consider as his own child, feeling as if he were seeing a ghost. A slightly taller ghost. “Is that really you?”

He reached out with a hand, not expecting to actually feel the tips of his fingers graze along the scaled cheek of the apparition.

Leo felt as the hand of bones make contact just below one of the bigger red crescents on his face and giggled. He grabbed the hand with his own and leaned firmly into it, smiling brightly up at the older.

Without nothing but silence from the other answering him, he opened his eyes fully and stared at the skeleton's blank face, a worried little chirp leaving his beak at the elder who remained unresponsive.

“Tio…?”

Huesos eyes shook as he took in the sight before him. He wanted to take in every detail that he could, wanted to make sure that this was, in fact, the real deal.

Slowly, as if he were approaching a wild animal and didn't want to take the risk of scarring it away, he brought his other hand up and cupped the slider's other, unoccupied cheek. His thumb rubbed along the kid's cheekbone and the younger leaned into the touch with a happier chirp, his tail starting to wag behind him.

“Tio- ack!” Leo yipped and winced as the skeleton suddenly switched from gentle caresses to pinching and pulling at the skin of his cheeks as if he were some rabid grandmother starved for grandbaby interactions. “Why, Tio, why??”

“How dare you do something like this to me! Do you even understand how worried I have been about you this whole time?!”

“Ti- !”

“No! No, you do not get to try and charm your way out of this- look at you!! Damn it, Leonardo, you look as though you’ve just been through a years-long war!!”

“...”

“Just look at these scars! And those bags under your eyes?! When was the last time that you had gotten a proper night's rest, huh!??

He freed one of Leo's cheeks from his pinching, only to grab for his hand wrapped in a brace and gently wave it around in his face. “And your wrist is so thin that I can wrap my thumb and forefinger around it and have the two of them overlap- don't you dare make a joke about abnormally long fingers, I can see that look in your eye - when was the last time that you had even eaten something proper- Patricia!!”

“Sir??” Leo looked out of the corner of his eye and saw as a random Yokai in a server's uniform quickly stood at attention at the skeletons' sudden and loud call.

His vision was a tad blurry as his eyes had grown watery from both Hueso’s presence and his torture, but he could swear that the girl almost looked like she was some sort of a dragon. He tried to stare a bit closer at her while Hueso was distracted with giving her orders without alerting the elder to his attention beginning to drift from his lecture. He thought that maybe she must be new as he took notice of the pretty blue scales that covered the Yokais face and realised that he hadn't seen her around the restaurant or the city before.

“Go and tell the cooks to make one of everything on the breakfast menu at once!!”

“Sir, yes sir!” The Yokai - Patricia - gave her boss an almost comically exaggerated-looking salute before racing off into the kitchen, all too eager to comply with the elder's order.

“What, have you been starving yourself?” The slider felt himself startle when the others' attention was suddenly back on him, jumping to pretend that he hadn't just been watching the new girl. “And your leg! What has happened to your leg, Pepino, it’s -!!”

“Tio Hueso!”

“...” The skeleton huffed as he tried to catch his breath and blinked, staring at the younger in disbelief. Without saying a word further, he leaned down and quickly embraced his kid in a hug so strong he almost worried for the young Kappa's shell.

Leo squirmed around in the older's hold until he could easily pop out an arm and pat him on the back, feeling the Yokais’ breath stutter on his neck from where he had buried his head into the young mutant's shoulder. “This is a very confusing reunion, Tio.”

Hueso laughed a little bitterly and without faltering his hold on the younger, stood upright. He listened to Leo’s complaining about being carried around so easily while he moved to sit him down in the booth he himself had just been sat at earlier.

He stared down at the slider who looked up at him with a pout curling his beak and he laughed, which only made the others pout more pronounced. Hearing the kitchen door swing open behind his back, he turned his torso around to see that the waiter had come out with the first couple of plates and he rushed to help her. Placing them onto the table, he shooed the girl back into the kitchen and moved to sit in the booth opposite the slider.

He watched as the younger pulled off some of the layers he was wearing and his worry only deepened further, though he didn't show it on his face. He had thought when he had carried the slider before that he had lost some weight while he had been placed on mandatory bed rest. But as the younger pulled off his beanie, and his hoodie, and rolled up the sleeves of his sweater, Hueso couldn't help but think that there was plenty more that the kid's brothers had failed to mention to him last they had met.

His brow furrowed as he saw how much smaller he looked without so much padding shoved onto him and looked at what must be some new stripes on the other's face. An extra red crescent on each inner side of the bigger two and three stripes of yellow running from his bottom lip down, over his neck and underneath the collar of his sweater. “What has happened to you Leonardo?”

Leo sighed a sigh too tired for someone of his age, shuffling over to let the human who had come into the restaurant behind him into the booth next to him. “... That is a looonngg story, Tio.”

Huesos gaze softened in a way that made Leo flinch to look away from his face and the skeleton coughed and swallowed, clearing his throat of the lump that had formed in it. “I will always have the time, Pepino.”

Chapter Text

The sound of wood smashing into wood echoed against the spacious, high ceiling of the battle nexus training arena. Two fighters danced circles around one another as they sparred together in the centre of the ring painted atop the sandy ground. They huffed and puffed as they both wielded their own Bō staff.

One of the pair 一 a young snake-like Yokai 一 let out a sharp hiss as he failed to properly block his opponent's staff from wacking against the back of his knees. He fell down to the hard ground with a yelp and dropped his staff in the process.

He shook his head to clear the rage swarming in his thoughts and looked around for where the large stick had ended up. Spotting it lying just a few feet away from him, he leapt forward to try and make a grab for it. Just as the tips of his fingers were about to graze the polished wood, he felt a clawed foot stamp down onto his back.

His chin slammed hard into the ground as a sudden weight pressed right between his shoulder blades, yowling out as he bit down on his tongue. He growled and attempted to buck the other off him, glancing back just in time to see the end of his opponent's Bō staff heading straight for his throat. Eyes widening, the reptile's body froze as his muscles contracted and his eyes squeezed shut in fearful anticipation of what his brain saw was to come.

A few seconds had passed before he realised that nothing more had come of his opponent pinning him down, and he slowly peeked open an eye. He turned his head just enough to try and see what was happening, only to stop in confusion upon seeing the other frozen on top of him.

He paused to stare at the expression on the other's face before following their gaze. He looked over to the entrance to the training room and the Yokai who had just walked in. An angry Yokai who had stomped his way over to square up against a punching bag immediately after dumping his things in a corner by the benches.

A shiver ran down the snake's spine while he watched as the guy beat up the sack of sand as if it had insulted his mother after a bad day.

“Yeesh,” he mumbled, “that guy is a freak.”

“Come now, my friend.” Called a voice from behind. “That had not been so bad a fight as your first spar had been, yes?”

Tearing his eyes away from the sight, he met the wizened gaze of an old wolf Yokai. His fur that was once black as coal was now greying firmly, and he held out his only arm in offering to give the younger man a hand up.

The snake stared at and studied his face, noticing with a hint of relief that the elder had not heard what he had said. He took the man's hand in a firm grip and allowed himself to be lifted so fast that he practically flew from the ground.

Taking a step back after he was let go, he rubbed gingerly at the bones in his hand and the joint of his wrist. He stared at the wolf with a sparkle of wonder in his eye, amazed by the kind of strength he still had at his old age and after he had lost his other hand and part of his arm some years ago.

A growl and a particularly hard *smack!* sound off to the side caught his attention, and he glared out of the corner of his eye at the angry Yokai. The wolf saw his side eye and curiously turned to follow it. Seeing the same sight as the young snake had, he sighed deeply and shook his head, looking back at the other as he spoke.

“Ah, just ignore that one there, the boy is only feeling a bit on edge after not having seen his mate in so long.” The elder waved him off, glancing back over at the Yokai with a face full of pity and understanding. “You know how it is when someone that you care for is hurt and you aren't able to offer them help.”

"'His mate’? That guy seriously has one of those?” The snake asked, turning his head to raise a brow at the elder.

“Yes, indeed. Do you remember that little Kappa that roamed around the nexus sometimes? Comes in and does some medicine-y stuff?”

The snake blinked and nodded with a hint of hesitancy, getting the vaguest idea of who it was that he was talking about. “Kinda?”

“Ah, you had started just before the kid got all banged up, so you may not have known of him. But I did hear that he would be picking back up on his visits again sometime soon, so keep an eye out, yes?”

The wolf watched as the younger nodded before grumbling something unintelligible under his breath and walking away. He shook his head, huffed something about ‘kids these days’ and shot one last glance back over to the Yokai.

He winced as the guy gave a particularly hard hit to the hanging sack as if he had taped an enemy's face onto it. He hesitated for a moment over whether to go over and say anything to the guy or not. Deciding against it, he shook his head and moved over to help with coaching the next pair of trainees stepping their way into the ring.

But it did leave him wondering, though. Just what had managed to upset the young Yokai so much as to make him hold such anger in his punches?

~~~~

‘Stupid.’

*Smack*

‘Stupid.’

*Smack*

‘Stupid!’

*Smack*

‘Idiot!’

*Bang!*

Usagi snarled as he lifted his leg, swung his whole body around and bashed the heel of his foot hard into the side of the punching bag. Hard enough, in fact, that he believed the sack it would have gone flying back into the wall behind it if it weren't for the reinforced chain still holding it aloft to the ground.

His breathing heavy, he placed his foot back down on the ground and hissed through his teeth as the joint of his ankle gave off a sudden pang of pain. He bent slightly to try and rub at it before he stopped with a gasp of pain. The building sensation of being stabbed had grown too unbearable to handle anymore, and he stood back up with a hand clamped over his side and a grimace on his face.

Letting out a sigh, he decided that that moment had signified that he had done enough training for today. He started limping his way over to the bench where he had dumped his things a half hour earlier, before giving up after a few steps and just hopped the rest of the trip there.

Turning around on his heel, he flopped his butt down onto the worn out wood a little too roughly and groaned as he rubbed at the ache that now plagued him there as well. He let his body deflate as he sighed like an inflatable releasing air and leaned his head back against the wall, staring up at the ceiling with a blank look in his eyes.

It had been about a week now since the last time that he had spoken to the Kappa 一 or, well, since he had last texted him 一 and he hadn't been able to find the courage to say or do anything else since.

He groaned and squeezed his eyes shut as his brain decided that now was the time to take a march down memory lane and thrust his last text message to the forefront of his thoughts.

It had been pretty late in the night, him having just gotten back to his apartment after being patched up from a fight gone south in the Nexus. A slight miscalculation from his opponent of the night, who had apologised profusely afterwards and offered him a free dinner in consolation, which he had gladly accepted.

He remembered how his side had ached something fierce enough to have bothered him for the next few days that he had been stuck on some mandatory bed rest.

Having stiffly dragged himself under his cold sheets, he had picked up his phone to send a quick check-in text. He had thought that the Kappa would have likely been asleep by then, what with his healing from injuries he still refused to tell Usagi the cause of, but he had forgotten the trouble the other often had in regards to falling asleep. The two of them had talked for a little bit. Usagi had attempted a bit of flirting with the other, as well as his sister had been painstakingly teaching him to, and then that had been that.

Leo had not responded for a while by then, and the little note under his text that said it had been read gave him the idea that he had gone and finally nodded off.

His mother and older sister both had been drilling into his head to try and keep the Kappa happy, that this marriage of theirs was an important deal for both of their families. So he had known that a good mate would know to send the other a goodnight text.

So he did.

And maybe he sent a little more.

He lifted his head off the wall and let it fall back with a thud dulled by his fur. Doing it a couple more times, he exhaled through his nose as it had failed to do what he had been hoping for and induce a sudden bout of amnesia so that he could forget how self-conscious he had felt after sending that text.

Sure, the two of them would talk to each other like that all the time 一 even if it had been with a more friendly tone on the slider's behalf 一 but calling Leo ‘My Heart’ had just felt a smidge too… real for Usagi.

So when he threw back the pillow he had shoved his head under, smacked around for his phone in the dark and nearly blinded himself because he had forgotten to turn down the brightness to see that Leo hadn’t seen the message yet? He deleted it and sent back a simple ‘Night’ in its place.

And Leo hadn't said anything in reply to him for the last week, either.

Granted, he has yet to check his phone to see if that had changed today, as he had turned it off the other day so he could focus on his meditation (distract himself from his thoughts) and had come straight to train after it hadn’t worked. It was something that he knew for certain Leo would scold him for doing if he knew about it.

He couldn't help the smile that pulled at the corners of his lips at the memory of how enjoyable it was to watch the Kappa pout up at him whenever the shorter was upset.

Feeling the pain in his side spike again, he clamped his hand back over it and scrunched his face up. He frowned as his fingertips ran over the jagged edges of his stitches under the bandage.

The medic that had been on the rotation that night was unfortunately one that he had never gotten along well with, and the guy certainly made sure that Usagi could feel the doctor's distaste for him in the man's stitching. His frown deepened a bit at the memory, unconsciously moving his hand to poke at the healing injury in question like an idiot.

The rabbit didn't usually find himself enjoying when others would touch him, especially skin to skin, but when it was a necessary act because he was injured? Just horrible.

And yet, for some reason, he could never find it in himself to detest when his shorter partner would do so. In fact, he often found himself lying awake at night after the two would meet up. Just thinking about the sweet or earthy perfumes he sometimes wore or the little phantom touches the other would leave behind.

When his hand would graze against the others 一 even for a brief moment 一 a fuzzy tingle would shoot up his arm.

When Leo would grab onto him when they were in crowded places so as not to get separated, and he just felt so much… joy at the shorter wanting to have him around.

The feeling of the slider's warm breath against his skin as he was focused on patching him up.

How he would get this weird fluttery sensation in his gut as the other's hands glided across his bare body, effortlessly stitching him back together with surprisingly deft and agile fingers.

He enjoyed it, really, and he just couldn't fathom why that was. Why was this one different? Why didn't he shy away from the Kappa's presence? Why did he want to be closer to the other?

How much closer could the two of them get?

He sighed out a groan and rubbed the heels of his hands into his eyes and then down his face. Picking himself off the bench, he gathered up his things with a wince as he bent over and nodded his goodbye to the overseer of the training arena and the other fighters as well.

Ignoring as he felt their stares burning into the back of his head, he made his way out and up to the showers. On the way, he started thinking about how to talk himself out of participating in today's fight with his mother-in-law.

~~~~

“Oh, boo…”

Frida looked up from the book that she was reading in the corner nook to glance over at her mother's face. The arachnid in human skin held a hand to her cheek and frowned as she stared down at the screen of her phone with pinched eyebrows.

The younger couldn’t help but snicker as she thought of when Leo had shown her one of those human ‘Me-Me’ things. It was near-perfect imagery to compare her mother right now to when an old person tries to use new technology.

“What is it?” She asked.

Big Mama jumped a little, as if she had forgotten that the other Yokai was even there. She sighed and placed the phone screen down on the desk in front of her. Pulling off her glasses, the woman grabbed a little cloth out of her pocket and started cleaning them as she turned her chair to face the corner her daughter had plonked herself down in earlier.

It was almost hard to believe that almost two decades ago, that corner had been empty and hardly of any good use to her. Now, however, it was home to a crudely structured blanket fort that Leo had sweet-talked her first child into building with him while she had been stuck in a meeting. Some chairs she didn't recognise were stacked on either side of them with blankets to make up the roof and walls, and some light blue and yellow fairy lights strung up above them.

The sight had just made her crooked heart melt when she had come in to find the two cuddled together on a large bean bag and snoring away as some movie about wizards and goblets played on a laptop close to slipping to the floor.

She had not wished to disturb the duo, nor had she wished to leave them unsupervised, and so, after snapping about a dozen pictures from every angle and putting the laptop away so it wouldn't get damaged, she had spent the night on her couch. The furniture had ended up being more comfortable than she had thought, but her bed would have been preferred.

After she had had her daughter, through some less than morally acceptable means, the thought of the child being out of her sight for any amount of time would put her heavily on edge. So her solution had been to take an empty spot in her office with little to no hazards and turn it into a cute little playpen for her daughter to stay in as she worked.

It was hard being a single working mum while still wanting to be present and active in her daughter's life, but she had enjoyed watching as the pen changed as Frida grew into the Yokai that she was now.

She smiled at her child with warmth in her eyes and spoke. “Ah, it's nothing for you to worry about, my little Kappa. Just that dear Dmitri has given me a tidsy-bit of a warning about a certain bunny acting all out of sorts today.”

“Mm,” Frida nodded in understanding, “he did get a pretty bad injury in his last fight, and that was only, like, a week ago. And I think that it was Aiden on that night.”

“I see… a good doctor that one, but a distaste for rabbits, he has.” She closed her eyes and shook her head solemnly.

“Yes, Master Yoda.” Frida nearly cackled at the way her mother's expression changed to show how done with her child she was right now.

Big Mama groaned and picked up her phone again. She unlocked it and went into her list of contacts, scrolling through it until she found the right one, tapped on it and held the phone up to her ear to make a quick call.

When the source of her repeated ire inquired as to what she was doing, she waved a hand at her to mind her own business. Frida rolled her eyes and complied, leaning back into the massive beanbag and cushions and opened her book back up.

It was some human story that Leo had lent to her, part of a set, and the other had said to let him know when she had finished, and he would get her the next one and so on. She didn't quite understand a thing that was happening, really, she was just happy to no longer be an only child anymore.

Back with the spider, barely a moment had passed before whoever was on the other end of the line picked up, and the woman shot straight into business mode. “Yes, hello Franky. I would just like to tell you that uh, Miyamoto will not be entering in tonight's fight 一 what do you mean?”

The Kappa perked up at the sudden change in tone and subtly leaned in closer to try and spy on the one-sided piece of gossip.

“He’s already 一 by who?? She what? I didn't even know that the woman was back in the country, and she already feels the need to go and sneak behind my back and assume that she has more power than what she actually does!”

Big Mama scowled as she turned her chair around to look out of the large window behind her. She felt a pair of eyes piercing into her, and she let out a breath while pinching the bridge of her nose. Thanking the man on the other end, she quickly ended the call with her employee and moved on to look for another contact.

“Well, that does certainly seem to complicate some things…” The Yokai mumbled with a frown.

“Ma?” Frida asked, annoyed as her mother just waved her off once more.

Big Mama stood up from her chair with a huff and walked over to look out of the window at the cityscape before her. Hearing the telltale sign of a call connecting, she put on a cheery voice and sang out a greeting to the other.

“Hello, my little turtley-boo~!” She cleared her throat and put on a more serious tone. “It seems as if we have a slight change in plans to deal with here.”

Chapter Text

~~~~~~~~

“So, what's up next on the agenda for today, human boy?”

Casey looked up from his phone to shoot an unimpressed look at Leo's way. The two of them had just left Run of the Mill after being held hostage there for a couple of hours by Hueso. The skeleton had been reluctant to let them go until he was sure he’d fed the pair enough that they could feel their poor stomachs were on the verge of bursting as they walked along the sidewalk.

“ 'Human boy’? Really? You can't come up with anything more creative than that?” He stared into Leo's eyes, and while his face remained blank, he saw nothing but mirth reflected back at him. He sighed. “Fine. There's supposed to be a market up ahead that Dee wants us to go to 一”

“一 to better spy on us?” Leo suggested.

“Mm. Very likely. However 一 ” The slider perked up as the human's pace slowed to a stop and he pulled him in closer, leaning over to whisper his next words directly into the mutant's ear. “Markets are typically very busy places around this time, and it is very easy to get separated in them, especially when you would least expect it to happen, too.”

“Ahh,” Leo nodded, hoping (correctly) that he had caught the others' drift right. “So we should wait a bit just to lower their expectations of us before dipping on them to go and do our own thing.”

Casey smiled at him in a way that reminded Leo of his elder brother, and he couldn't have stopped himself from smiling back if he had tried. While it did disgust him a little that the mystery guy his best friend had been raving about for the last couple of months was his own brother, he was glad that the two of them had been able to create something so full of joy in a world so full of horrors.

“Exactly.” Casey's smile faltered just a smidgen, a strong sense of nostalgia washing over him as he remembered back to when his Sensei and he used to sneak around their base together and mess with everyone else.

“So,” Leo straightened up his stance so that he wasn't leaning on the other so much anymore and adjusted the strap of the backpack he wore, holding out his hand to the human. “Shall we go, then?”

Junior snorted before composing himself and reached out to interlink their arms together at the elbows, putting on a fake posh accent like some Edwardian gentleman. “Certainly, my dearest Nardo.”

Leo laughed along, and the two began moving forward, following the distant sound of a large crowd growing closer. “Oh, dear, don't let our old Donald hear you calling me by that nickname. The guy rarely shows us outright that he does care, and he tends to get quite possessive over his little tells that he’d come up with.”

Casey nodded in agreement and began recalling aloud some past memories of similar scenarios from his own childhood to the slider.

Such as that one time that Master Michelangelo had tried his hand at dating this one guy and ended up in a bad relationship with him. He hadn't seen for himself just what exactly Uncle Tello had done to the shark Yokai after he had walked in on the guy forcing himself onto the box shell, but the way that the Yokais screams had echoed throughout the entire base that day and the fact that he had not been seen after that, he could take a pretty good guess on how he'd ended up.

And if not that, then the way that everyone looked and acted differently towards and around the softshell after that confrontation definitely said that something horrible had happened.

He may have only been about eight at the time, but he still remembered how the softshells pristine (for the apocalypse with limited resources) white lab coat he always wore had turned a horrid shade of brown he'd grown familiar with for the rest of his life. No adult had wanted to be the one to explain to him what had gone down, but being born and raised during the end of the world, kid him had been able to put two and two together quite easily on his own.

Well, now that he was actively trying to look back on it all, he found himself feeling pretty damn glad that the Donatello he’d had to face upon his arrival hadn’t been the one hardened by the end of everything as they'd known it. Lord only knows he very likely wouldn't still be here if that had been the case at the time.

Leo laughed along loudly as he listened to Juniors reminiscing, agreeing wholeheartedly that Donnie very well had killed the guy.

Hell, given the environment was what it was, the softshell probably had even eaten some of the poor sod. The slider could certainly see himself doing the same thing, and his taste for blood wasn't as strong in his mind as his dear twin and oldest brothers were.

Casey looked over to him as the mutant threw his head back with a cackle while he watched one of the market performers tell a joke to the children, all huddled together around the man's feet.

His eyes caught onto the unnervingly sharp points of the slider's full set of flesh-tearing teeth and found himself silently agreeing fully with his statement. Having seen nothing but the softest sides of them all as they raised him, he would often find himself forgetting that the turtles really were all genetically engineered killers.

“Oh, oh, Junior, look over there!” Leo called out to him suddenly, breaking the human out of his reminiscing.

He turned his head to follow where the slider was pointing and smiled. “Does the royal highness wish to go over and rifle through the different boxes of shinies?”

“Oh, always. Casey, if I 一 and I do mean this 一 ever say no to being given something shiny 一” He turned to stare at the human with a surprisingly serious expression on his face for the environment. “ Stab me. And make sure that you do it a lot too, cuz it takes a surprising lot of effort more than you’d expect to keep any of us Hamamtos down for a decent amount of time.”

Casey chuckled, kind of 50/50 on how to feel in regards to the slider's statement, jokingly said as it was. His Sensei had made a similar comment to that after he had lost his arm, something that Casey remembered Uncle Tello had been very close to actually doing if Uncle Mike had not also been there at the time to remind him how Leo was already in enough pain and suffering as it was.

The two walked over to the stall still arm and arm before they got close enough to separate from one another. Casey went and stood off to the side with a look of boredom on his face as Leo moved to look over the table of odd little trinkets and bobs. The slider began to make some small talk with the old raven-like Yokai granny who manned the stall.

Junior shoved his hands into his pockets and turned his head to look around. He stared at all of the other nearby stalls until something of interest finally caught his attention, and he turned back just enough to call out to the other.

“Hey Lee, I'm gonna go over there and check out that, uh, place over there, kay?” The slider gave him a noncommittal hum, mostly ignoring the man who sighed and turned to start heading the other way. “Alrighty…”

~~~~

Leo shoved his hand into one of the little boxes in front of him, enjoying the feeling of smooth, polished rocks against his limey-green scales.

“Looking for something specific, are you?” The Yokai asked.

The mutant hummed and turned his gaze up from the box's contents. “... I guess.”

“Mm… a gift, perhaps? For somebody special, maybe?”

Leo caught the glint in her eyes and quickly looked back down at the assortment of trinkets. He felt as his cheeks heat up when his thoughts immediately moved to centre themselves around a certain white rabbit.

“... maybe… ”

The old crow watched his reaction and snickered when he started to fiddle around with the strap of his bag, looking anywhere but at her face. She turned and hobbled over to dig around in another box over on the other side of the table. “Oh, well then, I think that  I might have just the thing that you need there, dearie. What kind of a gift do you think that he would like?”

“He一? How’d you know that it was a he I was talking about?” Leo asked, his head shooting up to stare at the Yokai with a lifted brow ridge.

The Yokai stared back, her eyes caught on the red stripes painted naturally over his own pain. His hand went up unconsciously as she spoke, feeling the scales of his face free of his mask, the original having been destroyed to nothing but scrap in the Prison Dimension and still yet to be replaced.

“Well, when you get to live as long a life as I have, you manage to pick up on a trick or two, my dear.”

The Yokai's explanation left much to the imagination. Leo was about to question her further before shaking his head and deciding against it. He watched her dig around in the box and thought of how to go about answering her prior query.

“Ah… well, an apology gift, I guess?” He rubbed his hand against the back of his neck and shrugged his shoulders. “I think that I might’ve done something to upset him, and he hasn't really texted me in like a week. I’ve asked him about it earlier this morning and he hasn't responded back yet, so I was thinking of maybe hunting him down later this afternoon to try and get some answers about it.”

“Ah yes,” she nodded her head, understanding what he was saying, “my dear husband was much the same as yours seems to be. Fickle-minded creatures, those men are, wouldn't know how to have a proper conversation with you unless you tied them down to a chair and forced the words out of them with a hot iron.”

Leo stared at her a little bug-eyed, nodding along more out of concern than in understanding. Did she just imply that Usagi was his husband? Ha, he thought, if only that were so. “Yeah… totally. ”

The old raven laughed, and Leo let out a nervous chuckle as well, playing along so as not to upset the elder. She pulled out a couple of random things before moving to dig around in a different box. A moment later and she hobbled her way over to a spot on the left, empty and dumped an armful of different little trinkets down with a loud and cluttered mess of noise.

“Alright, dear, come and pick out your favourite one!”

The slider stared at the Yokai before shrugging his shoulders and hobbling over to join her on his side. He gazed down at what his options were and hummed quietly to himself with a hand on his chin.

On the black tablecloth sat a few different objects, a few that he did not recognise immediately and a couple that he had absolutely no clue as to what they were. Must be something strictly familiar within the Yokai community, then.

There were a few different types of rocks next to some shiny crystals, something that he would definitely nab for himself, but not something that he thinks the bunny would enjoy. The Yokai gave off the aura that he had grown up living a bit more privileged a life than Leo had.

A fact that had annoyed him after he had learned of his father's life before he had had his unplanned for children.

Don't get him wrong, Leo did love his dad and could look back fondly on memories of his childhood, but that didn't change the fact that the slider (in all of his fourteen years old at the time glory) was allowed to feel a little stiffed after learning that his father was basically a millionaire and none of them had seen a cent of that money until rather recently.

Right next to the collection of rocks were some odd little shiny metal bits and bobs that had likely come from the humans up topside.

Some random old bottle caps, a paper clip bent a bit out of shape, a couple of coins, 一 pound? Or euros maybe? 一 and an odd bit of scrap metal that looked unsafely sharp around the edges. Not enough of his interest was being piqued by that pile, so he moved on to the next and the next, his face fixated in as neutral an expression as he could keep up so as not to offend, until something caught his eye and he paused.

Fixing his gaze on a small, green stone that he didn't recognise, a little voice in the back of his mind trilled happily as he moved to run a finger over the semi-rough, polished surface. The feeling wasn't something he would have normally sought out, but something told him that it would do very nicely as a gift for his bunny.

The old raven saw him reach out, and her eyes widened briefly at what he had picked before quickly hiding her surprise as he looked up at her.

“How much for this one?” He asked.

“Oh, that old thing? Well, I say that you can just take it 一” she saw him about to protest and shook her head defiantly. “Don't try and argue with your elders, child, it is rude. In fact, I do believe that that one happens to be one in a pair.”

Leo opened and closed his mouth, feeling like a fish out of water as he gave in and silently watched the elder as she moved back to shuffling her feathers through the boxes. A few seconds later, the raven hopped back and placed down another stone of similar shape next to its counterpart, urging him to pick both of them up.

Leo looked from the raven to the rocks, and back again and held up his free hand. “But I can't just take it for free, this is a market, I gotta buy it 一”

The Yokai rolled her eyes at his protest and picked up another rock. This one he did end up recognising to be a Hemimorphite rock carved into the shape of a rose and quite a pretty one, too. Enough so that the slider couldn't find it in himself to try and protest against it.

“Well, alright then, you stubborn child,” the old bird croaked, “if you must be something annoying about it, then you can buy this and then maybe the other two might slip into your pocket magically. Who knows, really, anything seems to be possible these days.”

Leo gaped at her before snapping his beak shut at her offhand comment about catching flies and just nodding along in agreement. “Yeah, okay.”

He 一 a tad reluctant 一 reached into one of his pockets and felt nothing inside.  He clicked his tongue and moved to pat at each of his other pockets one by one, and found himself confused when they were all much the same way.

He looked wide-eyed up at the old crows' expectant gaze and offered the woman a bit of a sheepish smile. Holding up a finger, he gestured for her to wait a moment while he swung his backpack around to hold it to his chest and rummaged amongst the contents inside of it.

The Yokai raised an eyebrow and huffed, growing more and more impatient the longer that the turtle took to produce some coinage. A figurative bead of sweat started to roll down the side of Leo's face as he began to search in spots that he had already looked in thrice now.

He could feel himself only growing more nervous by the second and felt as if a thousand different pairs of eyes were boring holes into the back of his skull from all angles as he stopped looking in the bag to stare towards and into the passing crowd.

His eyes scanned over face after face, pupils shaking as he felt his heart start to pick up its pace. His movements grew more frantic by the second as he failed to locate his human acquaintance. He opened and closed his beak, trying to pull his voice out from behind the dam of his anxiety to say something 一 anything 一 to the raven Yokai.

About how the human had his money, about how he had forgotten that he had even given it to the other for safekeeping, about how he didn't know where the other had gone off to, about how 一

“一 much?” A voice asked.

Leo's head snapped over to the source, and a blob of deep purple and white met his blurry eyes. He blinked a few times to try and clear his vision and paused at the white rabbit that now stood right next to him.

He stared at her face, having to tilt his head down as she was right about half a foot shorter than him, and thought to himself that she held a bit of a resemblance to Usagi before his gaze moved further down to follow along her arm and saw what it was that the woman was pointing towards.

His eyes widened a fraction more, and he felt his vocal cords shrink further when his beak opened to protest. The granny stared at the Rabbit with a winged hand on her chin and a contemplative hum in her throat. An agonising second more and she gave the newcomer the rocks total, the woman paying without question.

The raven picked all three rocks up and placed them into a little velvet baggy and pulled the drawstring shut before tossing it in the rabbit's direction. A hand from the man next to her shot out and grabbed the small bag in a tight fist, making sure that it didn't come close to hitting the woman in the face like it would have.

The rabbit threw him a quick side-eyed glare and turned to the slider. The smile on her face faded as she took in the young Kappa's shifty appearance and his avoidance of eye contact despite clearly having something to say to her, and she let out a sigh. She dropped her shoulders and loosened up her ‘Holier Than Thou’ persona 一 much to the chagrin of the man next to her, and sidled up to the mutant, speaking to him in a volume just below loud enough to be heard over the crowd.

Leo turned as the other got closer and tensed up. She held out a furred paw for him to take and smiled gently, speaking again as Leo attempted to read her lips over the buzzing in his ears. “Shall we go, then?”

The slider just stood there, and the rabbit gently pried her arm underneath his own stiff one, carefully coaxing the mutant out of the crowd. She waved at the merchant, who shared a knowing and slightly pitying look with her.

Finding a quaint little cafe with not a lot of people inside, she guided the younger to sit down in a quiet corner with a quick order for the Yokai, following behind her to go to the counter and buy something. She gently pried the crutch from his hands and leaned it against the table, and pulled his bag off next to place it underneath.

Sitting down in the seat next to him, she rubbed a hand over the back of his clothed shell and waited quietly for his shaking to subside.

Luckily, his breathing had not quickened enough to risk him hyperventilating himself into unconsciousness, but his mind had locked his body into moving on autopilot. He stared down unblinkingly at the clean surface of the table, and his eyes watered a bit, unsure if it was because they were getting dry or because he just wanted to let go of his defences and cry.  He sucked in a deep breath and forced himself to blink as his little, ahem, episode, finally started to fade away.

Not feeling as if he were ready to say anything, though more out of embarrassment at having had other people see him act like that, he just stared down at the table.

The man came back and placed a small plate down in front of him with a soft clink. Leo looked up at him and saw that he seemed to be some kind of black and tan coloured canine Yokai. A doberman, he thinks.

The dog stared down at him with a hardened gaze, and Leo flinched, turning back to the table. He caught sight of the plate and stared. The lady rabbit swung her head around to shoot a glare of her own at the dog before she turned her attention back to Leo and saw the subtle confusion on his face.

“Ah, I do suppose that you have yet to have met me properly before, right? My son isn't the most talkative little creature either, though, so I wouldn't try and hold it against you.”

She continued to rub absentmindedly at his shell while she talked, staring down at Leo in such a comforting and motherly way that it was beginning to make his scales crawl.

“How are you now? Are you feeling any better yet? Do you think you have calmed down enough to make the walk to the car, or would you prefer to just sit in here for a wee bit longer? Do you 一 Ace, pass me that cup 一 would you like some of this water to sip on?”

“Mm…” He didn't trust that his voice would work for him at the moment, so he just nodded and accepted the cup with a croaked out hum, before he paused with the cup pressed to his lips. “... son?”

He croaked out, and the rabbit Yokai just smiled so very motherly towards him, giving him a nod of her own. “Yes, I am Usagi’s mother. You can call me Ishi, sweet. I believe that there is a conversation that the two of us desperately need to have.”

~~~~

Leo stepped out of the sleek black car with a dazed expression on his face. He moved a few steps from the curb before startling as the door slammed shut behind his shell. He turned his head around to look at the source and met the glaring eyes of the Doberman bodyguard.

The two made a moment of uncomfortable eye contact before the window rolled down. Usagi's mother 一 Ishi 一 leaned her head out and tsked at the Doberman.

“Ace,” she chided, “that is enough out of you, you're acting almost as immature and annoying as my children are.”

The bodyguard reacted in a way that only a dog who knows that they had been caught doing something they shouldn't have and avoided looking at his boss’s way. Leo would have laughed if his brain wasn’t still feeling off from earlier. Ishi coughed into her hand, and with a soft smile, she turned her attention to the slider.

“Now dear, I have a few things to take care of before I can enjoy the coming show, so what I want you to do is go and find my son and then the two of you can go and make your way up to the family observation deck 一 or whatever it is called…” She waved her hand as the proper name deluded her for now, “do you understand?”

Leo gulped slightly and nodded. “Yes, ma’am.”

“Mhm, right,” she grumbled, giving up for now on trying to get the youth to drop the formalities. “And I want the two of you to talk things out, alright? That stubborn little fool never knew when to pull his head out of his arse and it was a real pain when he was just a wee thing, so I can only imagine how much worse the little bugger has become with age.”

Leo just nodded along, not saying a word for lack of faith that his voice wouldn't crack. The two shared their goodbyes, and she rolled up her window as the Doberman hopped back into the front with the driver.

Leo watched after the car as it drove away, his face so clearly reflected back at him in the smooth paint that he could see the worry in his own expression as easily as if he were looking into a regular mirror.  He spun on his heel and tipped his head back, gazing up at the colosseum that played host to the Nexus fights in front of him.

Breathing in and out carefully, he made his way over to the front entrance to go inside and begin his search for the most recent pain in his ass of a man. The list of questions to ask him when they met only grew longer with each agonising step he took, moving further into the bustling crowd. It appeared as if half of the hidden city had gathered here to watch as the modern-day gladiators performed in the arena.