Author's Note: Hi guys! Back with another story! For those of you who reviewed and liked In Celebration of Us, thank you so much! I so enjoyed writing that story and am thrilled many of you enjoyed it as well.

I recently had the first half of my wisdom teeth extraction done and have been working on Fuse Box while recovering. My goal for this piece was to originally be a one shot, but when I still wasn't done after almost 6000 words and had much more story to go, I knew it needed to be broken up into chapters.

As always, I hope you enjoy the story! Please review with your thoughts. I do find it helpful when writing to know how people feel about the story! Now, onward to the meat!

Disclaimer: I do not own TMNT.

"All I'm saying is that you need to cool down!"

"I don't take orders from you!"

"Nobody is saying that it's an order, just reality! You're out of control right now!"

Out of control like this fight was becoming.

Michelangelo groaned deeply as he looked up towards the ceiling. He had been tucked away in his room for almost an hour at this point. Regardless of the many ways he tried to, it was impossible to drown the voices out. One voice trying to be heard while the other just roared. His two eldest brothers' verbal warfare volleyed back and forth.

It started simply because of the growing concern for the angry brother.

"You have NO right to lecture me on being out of control." Another snarl came through the closed door. The statement was pure acid, and Mikey was sure that it had eaten a hole right through the door as it made contact. He peeked through his fingertips to see that, despite his confidence, the solid wood had remained intact.

"Leo, bro, I'm just worried about you." Raph's voice was soft, but it may as well have been a shout to Mikey, and it made him sit up straight. His brother's voice echoed something unusual for the turtle. Gentle and taken aback. It sounded… hurt. Apparently, the acid had done some damage after all.

"Yeah, well, how about you worry about keeping away from me." Leo's voice was low and threatening as he let off another spiteful round. Mikey heard a solid thwack from the punching bag, followed by a slam of the dojo doors. Next thing Mikey could hear was the muffled, albeit angry, sounds of Leonardo training.

Just like he had been for the last three weeks.

Heaving another sigh, Michelangelo slowly rose from his bed and stealth to his door. He didn't want to make any unnecessary noise. The three younger brothers were walking on the proverbial eggshells, and while Mikey probably wasn't going to set Leo off by just coming out of his room, he didn't want to chance cracking an egg.

Opening his door, the youngest peered out into the hallway. He was greeted by the sight of his brothers' bedroom doors, closed and uninviting. He scanned the length of the hallway, just have his eyes fall on the last door at the end of the hall. Mikey bit his lip as he looked at the final door.

The door that belonged to his Father.

The father that was now gone.

Rubbing his eyes again, Mikey headed toward the main living area to survey the damage. When he got to the end of the hallway, he could see Raphael sitting on the couch, slumped forward with his head in his hands. Donnie was next to him, resting his chin on top of his folded arms that rested on the couch back. D's eyes looked hollow, no, worse. They looked defeated.

"Hey, guys." Mikey's voice was meek at best and felt like a pretty lame start after such a verbal beat down from the eldest. Raph merely blew out a big breath, and Michelangelo caught a hint of a growl towards the end of it. A sure sign that Raph was stuck somewhere between confusion and losing his patience. Now the trick was waiting to see which would win out. After the agonizing hour Raphael had just gone through, he had probably earned the right to blow his own top. However, after a moment, he replied just as meekly as Mikey had moments before.

"He's unhinged." Patience had won out. Mikey looked over to the doors where the rampaging eldest laid. It was an alternate reality, it had to be. It was the only thing to explain the current state of the union.

"Well, unhinged is probably the right word for it," Donnie said flatly "But what are we going to do? Leo just won't listen, it's like he's locked himself away. He just hasn't been the same since… dad." The last word barely fell out of Donnie's mouth.

"And how is that fair to us? We lost our father too!" Raph quickly shot back. He kept it low, not wanting the conversation to carry too far, but you could hear the familiar hotness he so often carried. The patience had barely won it seemed.

Mikey sadly looked at his brothers, suddenly feeling very lost. What could they do? Leonardo, the least ballistic, the most even-keeled, the most mature of them, really hadn't been the same since Sensei had died. First, he was just a walking cloud of grief. It hadn't gone unnoticed by his brothers, just accepted because they were all like that. Then it switched back into high stakes mode with the realization that the Shredder was still, impossibly, alive. Then, at last, the family tasted sweet, final victory. Mikey could still see clearly Leo walking from the smoke and the haze of the fire that had broken out, the Kuro Kabuto in his hand, announcing the finality of their victory. His eyes fierce and hard. Mikey thought it was so cool, his brother, looking like the part of the grizzled war hero. They had fought against the odds, and there his big brother stood, representing the glory and honor of what they had accomplished. It was like a scene out of a movie.

The day or two that followed, Leonardo seemed to experience the briefest sense of relief. He was tired and still weighed with grief, but again, nothing that the rest of them weren't experiencing. Not much had been said in those couple of days. The four of them had bunkered down in the lair to recuperated and process the recent events.

Then came on the raging storm. It had happened out of nowhere, while they were sitting at the kitchen table eating dinner. Donnie had asked a simple question that Mikey couldn't even remember now. Something about what Leo wanted him to do about the hooey-what-sit. The generator maybe? The usual techno-babble that Mikey tuned out effortlessly. What he couldn't tune out was Leo's response to their brother.

"I don't know, genius! That's what you're for!" It had stunned all of them, even Raph. Raph normally would have spoken his mind, loudly, at Leo for being such an unnecessary jerk. But it was almost as if Leo himself hadn't said it because it wasn't necessarily what he said but how he said it. In all their lives they had never heard him say something so venomous to any of them. The word dripped with almost pure… hatred. The four of them remained in silence for the rest of the meal. After which, Leo secluded himself in the dojo and practiced for hours on end.

At the time, the three of them rationalized the uncharacteristic outburst due to the fact that Leo was now adjusting to his role as leader of the home, not just the team. The brothers had lost their ballast, and Leo was the one who was expected to fulfill the humongous hole that Splinter left. The three youngest knew this was a difficult transition for their brother. To Mikey, it also felt unfair. Raph, Donnie and himself could continue being normal teenagers who missed their father. Leo now had their weight on his shoulders with no one for him to look to.

Yet, to their disappointment, the outburst was not a single incident. The anger had not only continued, it grew worse. Leo became sullen, isolated, unwilling to participate in the normal day to day. Donnie and Mikey one night had tried to draw him out with the promise of a Space Heroes marathon but all that served to do was to get a very agitated Leonardo to go on about how he didn't have time for such trash because of his need to train. Another night, Raph offered to go to with him on his topside training run, but without skipping a beat Leo shot the idea down, saying that Raph would only slow him down. After that, Raph had gone about his normal tactic of butting heads with Leo, purposefully pushing his buttons. That lasted for about four days before it they all realized that Leo was actually relishing the combativeness. After that, Raph switched gears completely. Just like Leo had become this tyrannical ball of fury, Raph had become even-tempered and calm. When Donnie had asked him why the drastic change in his normal ballistic nature, Raph simply shrugged and told him that he knew what it was like to be consumed by anger. He also knew, he admitted, how helpful it was to have a voice of reason.

That first sign of rage had been three weeks to the day, and now it took next to nothing to set Leo off. Tonight's argument was proof of that. Leo had been brooding over a cup of tea in the living area, a rare sight since the nightmare began. Raph had approached him, wanting to tell his older brother that he was there if he wanted to talk. Leo's psycho transformation had been impossible for all of them but had clearly been the worse for Raph. Despite the way that they often butted heads, Raph and Leo were actually very close. Sure, it had been awkward, if not awful, between them when Splinter had chosen Leo to be the leader. Their relationship was strained for a long time. For reasons Mikey never understood. They could both be just so damn competitive, he supposed that Raph couldn't help but feel like he lost to Leo what they had both trained for over time. But it all changed after Leo's coma. It was like it woke Raph up and he remembered what life was like before the power struggle, how tight he and his eldest brother had been. Confidants, allies, friends. It's why during that time as Leo laid battered he never left his side. And when Leo finally did awake, a new care for him developed in Raph and it remained. Raph finally found peace with not only Leo's leadership but also his own place on their team. And now, seeing his older brother losing it, when he also was hurting so badly, was slowly killing him.

"I hate being in this position," Raph muttered. Mikey focused his mind back to his older siblings. Raphael hasn't moved a muscle since Mikey came into the room, still sitting slumped and loose, almost like a rag doll. Raph continued "Is this how it feels for him? When I'm angry? Because it sucks."

"Nah brah, this is different. Leo's definitely un… hedged?" Mikey found the word fit oddly in his mouth, realizing that he wasn't sure if he had ever heard it before. He had definitely never said it before.

Thankfully, Donatello came to his rescue. "Unhinged Michael. It means that Leo's mentally unbalanced."

"Say what?"

Donnie sighed "Think of it like a fuse has popped. Remember when I showed you how that worked when you first tried to set up the entertainment system in your room? A lot of energy, in this case for Leo, stress, has overloaded the circuit and now the T.V isn't working because it's been cut off the energy it needs." Donnie knew it wasn't a perfect analogy, but it would suffice for the baby of the family.

"So…" Mikey stuck his tongue out, trying to follow D's train of thought. He rubbed his chin a few times before snapping his fingers "So the fuse box needs to be check!"

Raph snorted "Yeah dingus, but how do you expect to check the fuse box on Lame-o-nardo? Crack open his shell, see if he really is a heartless piece of metal after all?" Raph had started off strong, but his voice got weaker, almost cracking, as he continued through his rant.

"You don't mean that Raph." Donnie spoke gently as he put his hand on the back of Raph's shell. Raph's body heaved up and down once, silent, but obviously fighting for control over his own emotions.

"The hell 'I don't'," He breathed "Why shouldn't I? I've been trying to reach him for weeks now. Yelling is doing no good. Patience is doing no good. Giving him space is doing no good. It's only going to go so far before I blow a "fuse" myself and kill him for being such a damn jerk! He won't listen to me. He won't listen to you. He doesn't listen to anyone!" Another heave of his shell. When he sagged back down, his posture seemed more dejected than thought possible of the stubborn brother. Mikey's face fell, his heart full of hurt. This really was taking a hefty toll on Raph.

Mikey looked up at the dojo, then back to his two immediate older brothers. He bit his lip and looked back at the dojo. The shuffling from behind the sealed doors was fierce, quick, and unyielding. Mikey swallowed. Ironically, he was going to step on an egg after all.

"I guess it's my turn to try."