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Leo felt like shit.
He’d been feeling keyed up all day. There was a constant ache in his gut that refused to go away, the buzz of anxiety swirling like bees in his stomach.
His mind was going at a thousand miles an hour while his body was on autopilot. Despite him really wanting to be more present, his thoughts kept drawing him away from reality. The dissociative zoning-out BS was getting on his nerves.
The intrusive thoughts that just had to join the party were super inconvenient. Some stupid brain chemicals kept clicking the ‘you should kill yourself’ button at every minor inconvenience. It was as if every fiber of his being was fighting against having a decent day for once.
The worst part, though? He had no clue why the hell he was so dang stressed.
Nothing had gone wrong that morning. Leo had enjoyed a nice, chill breakfast with his bros. Mikey, by using his compression gloves and pacing himself, had been able to make something all on his own for the first time in ages. Raph and Donnie were in good spirits as well. Heck, he had been too!
For some reason, however, his brain decided to be extra anxious out of nowhere. The bad vibes hit and the rest of the day went to shit. (Man, he was on a roll with rhyming.)
He first noticed it when he was out on a patrol-slash-rooftop-run with April. The cool, gentle breeze blowing on his face warmed something inside him. After spending the weekend inside resting his ankle, he was restless and full of energy.
Yet, he couldn’t pay attention to how nice the moment was. He was a bundle of nerves tied up in a sagging bow. The anxiety was a constant thrum in his stomach that refused to leave. Not even the exercise could make a dent in it.
His feet harshly hit the ground as he leaped from roof to roof. The world around him was a blur that he hardly noticed passing by. He kept zoning out and couldn’t keep up with his sister’s rambling about how college was going.
“You good, Baby Blue?” April asked. He glanced over and saw her brow furrowed with worry. “You’re pretty quiet today.”
“Huh?” Leo tripped on his foot clumsily, barely managing to catch himself. “Oof. Yeah, I’m good.”
“Don’t give me that.” April elbowed him playfully. “C’mon, talk to me. What’s going on with you?”
Leo rolled his eyes. “Just don’t feel well. It’s not a big deal.”
“Why didn’t you say so earlier? You should’ve told me that you’re sick!”
“Ugh, I’m not sick,” Leo snapped. Realizing he was getting far too upset and didn’t want to be mean to her, he took a deep breath and tried to calm down. “Sorry, sorry. I’m just kinda on edge today.”
“Aw, how come?” She gave him a sympathetic look.
He tiredly shrugged his shoulders, clearly done with the conversation. “I dunno.”
The pair lapsed into silence, the city still bustling below them. Time slipped by quickly, like sand in his fingers. Before he knew it, they were back at the manhole cover.
April made sure to give Leo a tight hug before he went back to the lair. “Hope you feel better, Leo.”
“I’ll try.” Leo hugged back tighter. He eventually, reluctantly, let go, leaving him alone with the demons in his mind. The slam of the metal lid rang in his ears.
Once he got home, he began flitting from activity to activity in an attempt to try and soothe his nerves, to no avail.
He tried doing some skateboarding at first. Unfortunately, he was too exhausted from patrol to do more than glide around. Movement was nice after being cooped up for a while, sure, but it wasn’t enough to hold his attention at the moment. The sensation of his feet pressing against the ground felt far away, like it was happening to someone else.
When Mikey came in to practice as well, Leo skedaddled as quickly as possible. He wasn’t in the mood for doing tricks and wished to stay out of his brother’s way.
Next was continuing his CPR and first aid course. He’d been redoing them since his certification had expired a few weeks ago. All he had to do was watch some videos and then practice what he’d learned in real life. The only downside was that there were fifty-seven videos he was required to watch.
Even if it technically didn’t matter since he was a mutant and would only be helping his family, he still did it anyway as a refresher.
(…Plus, it was a good excuse for him to pull out the Genius Built practice dummies and prank his family with them. There was nothing like waking up and finding a plastic version of your brother staring at you ominously.)
However, he found himself unable to focus because of the anxiety lingering in his chest. This was important info that he definitely didn’t want to miss—what if there was another world-ending threat and they were pushed to the brink of death once again? Frustrated, the slider sighed and slammed the laptop shut.
He went to go do some chores or something because he was just that bored, but Raph shooed him off. Stress-helping had become one of his older brother’s favorite coping mechanisms as of late, and apparently he had already done everything.
“I appreciate you trying to help out, but ya really don’t have to.” Raph patted him on the back with a proud grin. “Raph’s got this covered. You go and relax, Lee. ”
Hah. If only it were that easy.
Instead of cleaning, he sauntered off to Donnie’s lab to bug his twin. When he entered the lab, the purple-clad turtle didn’t even look up at him. He had his face buried in his tablet. It looked like he was playing a rhythm game—probably Project Sekai, if Leo was thinking of the right special interest.
“Leon!” Donnie growled. His fingers continued flying across the screen. “I swear to god, if you ruin my all perfect, I will rearrange your organs alphabetically.”
Leo snorted. “Oh my god. You’re such an iPad kid, dude.”
Donnie grit his teeth and let out a cat-like hiss in response. “Leave.”
“Alright, alright, I’m leaving. Sheesh.” Leo gave him an unimpressed side-eye before turning to go. “I’ll let you keep praying to our lord and savior, Hatsune Miku. Later, Dorkatello.”
“Gasp! How dare-!” Donnie’s shout was cut off by the slam of the gigantic metal door, making Leo chuckle.
Out of ideas, Leo trudged back to his room. He flopped on the bed and sighed in defeat.
The thing gnawing at his intestines continued no matter what he did. No matter how hard he tried, it refused to go away. He couldn’t find solace even while he was happy. It was so frustrating that it made him want to hit something.
He rolled over and sat up against his pillows. In an attempt to distract himself, he picked up a comic book off the floor and flipped through it.
When he’d last read this issue, he’d left off at the part where Jupiter Jim’s spaceship had crash-landed on an alien planet. Now it looked like Red Fox was checking to make sure everyone was okay.
Jupiter Jim was unconscious, hurt, and trapped in the wreck. Red Fox ran over and started pulling out the piece of metal from his arm-
Wait, what was she doing? Why in the world would anyone immediately pull out the object? It’s probably reducing the bleeding, and taking it out so haphazardly would cause more damage!
Jeez, that sounded like something Donnie would say. His medic mind was starting to think like his dang training course…which he should be doing.
Ugh. He couldn’t concentrate. The only thought on his mind was what he hadn’t done yet: his CPR and first aid training. He was already exhausted from simply existing today, yet he still had to finish it soon??? Totally unfair.
Leo felt kind of bad for not getting it done earlier. Like, he was procrastinating on watching videos. How silly was that?
He knew he needed to finish viewing them soon, but the last time he’d watched them he ended up anxious. It made him feel like he was actually in an emergency situation. Patching up his family because they were badly hurt wasn’t something he wanted to think about.
Actually, now that he thought about it, the videos sort of reminded him of the aftermath of the Shredder.
…
Oh, wait.
Ohh. Ohhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh.
He was triggered! The videos triggered him yesterday, and that’s why he was so anxious now. He’d been subcl- subcun- subconchshell- his brain put him on edge. God, things made so much more sense now. How hadn’t he realized it sooner?
Those dang instructional videos made him think about treating his family’s gruesome injuries from the Shredder, and that would obviously disturb him!
It also could’ve been the fake gore reminding him of the invasion. Or, maybe it was the fear that his family would have to face a life-or-death situation again? Might’ve been a subconscious thing too, like a weird fight-flight-freeze-etc-etc reaction.
Dang, PTSD sucked. Not only would his brain just decide to be upset because he randomly got reminded of “the horrors,” as Donnie liked to call them, it also refused to tell him that’s why he was upset.
Well, it didn’t matter whatever it was that started this whole mess—he had to deal with being triggered regardless. Leo did not want to feel like this for much longer, if he could help it.
Sighing, Leo rubbed his forehead to try and dispel the headache growing behind his eyes. He quickly shut the comic book he was reading and set it on the bed. His head was pounding for no particular reason, so he took a sip from the stagnant cup of water beside him before heading out of his room.
Since he wasn’t in the mood to talk about his various traumas, he decided to seek out a brother for comforting company. After all, he could certainly use a break from the whole ‘conceal don’t feel’ schtick at the moment.
Wait, wasn’t there a Frozen song about that? He and Mikey had watched the movie together quite a few times when they were younger. Eventually the youngest stumbled on reviews of the movie and figured out the villain guy wasn’t all that good.
Maybe they should watch some more animated shows together. They were the only two that liked serious animated series—Raph liked lighthearted cartoons and Donnie preferred video essays—and it had been a while since they’d had the chance to watch one.
Wait, hold up. He was dissociating, wasn’t he? Dissociation was, annoyingly, kind of a constant for him, and it often was worse during episodes.
He needed to focus. Unblurring his eyes, Leo got back to thinking about the topic at hand: finding a brother to chill with.
But who to go to? He didn’t want to bug Mikey when he already had enough on his plate. Plus, Leo didn’t want to dump all his problems on the youngest. Maybe Donnie? Eh, he didn’t want to stress out his twin.
That left one option, who just so happened to be the perfect turtle for the job. Raph had said he was going to watch a movie in the den a bit ago, so it would make sense to check there first.
Leo silently snuck into the living room, keeping his steps light in case the snapper had fallen asleep. Since Raph had been having nightmares more often, he was more prone to taking a doze on the couch or while hanging out with his younger brothers.
He leaned over to find the eldest conked out, his soft snores matching the rise and fall of his chest. The TV was still on, though it was clear someone had come by and turned down the volume. Leo climbed over the couch and carefully sat down beside Raph, who stirred at the motion.
“Mm…Leo?” Raph slurred. He was so used to little brothers coming into his room in the middle of the night that he could always tell which one it was. “You ‘kay?”
Leo shifted further into Raph’s chest. “Yeah. Go back to bed, big guy.”
“Mhm…” Raph sleepily adjusted his arm to hold Leo. “G’night.”
“It’s the middle of the day,” Leo whispered.
The warmth of his older brother was comforting, but it didn’t soothe the thrashing anxiety burbling inside him. Closing his eyes, Leo tried to think about anything besides the invasion and the Shredder.
…Unfortunately for him, trying not to think about something just made him think about it more.
“Ugh,” Leo grumbled as he sat up. His brother’s arm twitched but he didn’t arouse—a win for Leos across the world. He wiped a hand across his face in exasperation. “This sucks.”
“What sucks?” Mikey’s bright yet worried voice spoke from behind the pair.
“Wha-?!” The slider flinched in surprise. “Oh hey, Mikester. When did you get so sneaky?”
“We’re ninjas, dude,” Mikey said. “So, what sucks?”
Leo looked away, rubbing his hand on the back of his head. “It’s nothing, don’t worry.”
It wasn't that Leo didn’t want to talk about his feelings. Okay, maybe it was kinda that. But his main problem was just that he felt so…weak. He was a ninja, for Pete’s sake! He shouldn’t be getting so upset over fake blood.
“Leeeeoooooooo.” Mikey raised an eyebrow ridge at him.
“It’s really nothing,” Leo insisted. “I just…feel like garbage over something stupid.”
Mikey waved a finger at him. “Ah-ah-ah! Your feelings are never stupid. What happened?”
“Dude, it’s seriously not a big deal.” Leo hugged his arms together. “I can handle it myself.”
“But you don’t have to,” Raph grumbled suddenly, making Leo jump. “We’re your brothers. We want to help!”
Leo sputtered, gaping at him. “When did you wake up???”
Mikey giggled at the display. “To be fair, we weren’t all that quiet.”
“Eugh boy. Now there’s two mother hens breathing down my neck.”
“C’mon, Lee.” Mikey gave him the biggest, wettest puppy dog eyes ever. “Won’t you please tell us what’s wrong?”
“Oh my god, fine,” Leo huffed fondly. “My stupid PTSD got triggered by a stupid first aid course video, that’s all.”
Mikey frowned. “I’m sorry you’re not feeling well. Is there any way I can do that would help you feel better?”
Leo shrugged.
“Maybe a movie marathon would help?” Raph offered. “You can pick what we watch first.”
Okay, Leo had to admit: that sounded nice. Still, he hesitated—he really didn’t want to be a bother. No matter how many times his family told him it was okay to ask for help, he still felt like a burden whenever he tried to.
Footsteps from behind him drew his attention.
“Has anyone seen Leo? April asked me to check in on him since…” Donnie paused, only just noticing Leo laying on the couch. He blinked a couple times as he processed the scene in front of him. “Oh. Uhm. Salutations, Nardo, he said without a hint of awkwardness.”
“You should really start wearing your nerd glasses again,” Leo teased.
Donnie crossed his arms indignantly. “Scoff. I’m wearing contacts, you dumb-dumb. Additionally, glasses are not nerdy.”
“Then why are you the only one in this house who needs them?” Leo smirked.
“April wears them too, you know,” Mikey piped up. “Though, then again, she’s also pretty smart.”
“Exactly!” Leo exclaimed. “C’mon, every nerdy character has glasses. You’ve gotta admit it, Dee.”
“I admit nothing,” Donnie huffed. “Segue—what’s going on here? Is this a turtle pile that I wasn’t informed was occurring?”
“Oh, we were going to do a movie marathon,” Mikey supplied. “Or, uh, if Leo wants to, anyway.”
All eyes turned to him. “I…” His brothers all looked so excited, he couldn’t resist. “Oh, what the heck. Sure.”
“Woohoo!” Mikey cheered. “I’ll call April and let her know.
“Don’t forget to ask CJ,” Leo chimed in.
“Ooo, good idea!” Mikey climbed onto the couch and jumped over the back. “Can you set up the projector, Dee?”
Donnie smiled. “Obviously, Michael.”
“Raph’s gonna grab snacks,” the snapper offered. “What do you guys want?”
“Popcorn, plain.”
“Dibs on the gummy bears!”
Raph turned to Leonardo. “What about you, Lee?”
Leo looked around the room fondly, the familiarity of it all making him grin. “Popcorn with extra butter, please. Oh, and can you grab me some of that leftover pizza?”
Raph saluted him. “I’m on it!”
“Hey April!” Mikey’s voice echoed through the hallways back to the living room. “Wanna join us for movie night?”
The projection of the movie illuminated the dark room with its soft glow, colors constantly shifting and changing. Chatter from the Lou Jitsu movie was like white noise, nearly incomprehensible and quiet to the red-eared slider.
Leo laid on the couch with his back against Raph’s side, his head tucked in his older brother’s warm arm. He could feel the rise and fall of his chest with every breath. In the embrace, Leo felt protected.
His legs were draped across Donnie’s lap. The stentorian, electronic tunes his twin had on leaked through his headphones a bit as he bobbed his head to the beat.
Casey sat cross-legged on a blue bean bag, thoroughly engrossed in the film. The look of excitement, awe, and second-hand nostalgia on his face warmed Leo’s heart.
April and Mikey sat on opposite sides of the scruffy teen on their own beanbags, glancing at Casey every minute or two to gauge his reaction to the movie.
He would occasionally ask questions that led to Angelo pausing the movie and explaining how things work in the past. It was both hilarious and sad that Casey didn’t know that the French were people or that they were even real.
(Like, straight up. Apparently he thought they were a species of animal or a pop culture thing, since his sensei made the same kind of jokes as he did with, like, Taylor Swift and pigeons?)
(…Leo planned to ask about that later.)
“Then what the heck happened to France?!” Mikey exclaimed.
“Don’t ask me! I have no idea.” CJ raised his hands in defense. “We were pretty connected across the globe up until the end, and I never heard of anyone going to and from that place. Maybe they didn’t join the rebellion?”
April shrugged. “You’d think the French would be the ones joining the rebellion. I mean, what about the French Revolution??”
“Exactly!” Mikey shouted. “That’s their whole thing!!”
“Wait, Raph’s confused. What does going in a circle have to do with the French?”
Leo, who had barely been holding it in this whole time, burst out laughing. Everyone’s heads snapped to him in surprise.
The joy was contagious. Soon, they were all cackling hysterically. It wasn’t even that funny, but it was the first time they had all felt this happy and silly in forever.
They were here—alive and safe.
A weight had fallen off of Leo’s shoulders, the jittery unease dissipating. He could finally fill his lungs with air once again.
Leo paused for a moment to catch his breath, tears in the corners of his eyes. “Oh my- oh my god, I love you guys. You’re the best.”
“Love you too,” the others said in unison. They all stared at one another before howling with laughter once again.