"Ask and you shall receive" :)

Hello, my lovely readers! You wanted a sequel; you got it! Uh yes, I'll repeat that once more. THIS IS A SEQUEL. If you haven't read Unspoken Affection, my advice to you is to open up a new tab and start there instead. There is backstory and information there that you will be missing if you bypass Part 1. Just click on my name and you'll find it :)

Anywho, a couple of housekeeping things of course. I feel like I must warn you that there are triangles (or more like webs) all over this thing. Expect pairings on top of pairings on top of pairings - dunno how deep I'll go into all of them, but I'm letting you know now this story is not just about Raph and Leo, though it is majorly centered around that. Also, I might as well state that there is somewhat of a T-cest WARNING. Such a topic is not for everybody. I get that. That's cool. If it's not your thing, you don't have to read the story. Won't hurt my feelings if you don't. 'Nuff said.

Errm, as far as updates go I'm not sure how consistent I'll be; it's probably going to fluctuate so bear with me.

Disclaimer: Five-finger discount...Uhhh just kidding, they're borrowed. Not my characters!

Anything else I'm forgetting I'm sure I'll mention later. So proceed, read, enjoy and as always, let me know what you think!

They were sitting on the step above the pit, each pair of knees innocently leaning into the same space. Despite still being slightly pale in hue, Donnie had that false-modesty puff to his chest, occasionally stretching his arms behind his head and doing a poor job of biting back a proud smile as April examined the crack in his shell, which was healing well and no longer needed bandaging.

"Does it still hurt?" she asked, tracing her finger along the length of it.

Donnie's head shook. "Nah, not so much. I think maybe in another month or so it will have completely regenerated, though there's a ninety-seven point six percent chance there will still be a visible scar left."

She nodded. Her next comment was lost beneath Casey's cackle and Mikey's defeated whine as the young turtle lost more life points on Atomic Robo-X across the room. Leo hardly spared a glance for them, he watched instead as April and Donnie both smiled and shared a chuckle, gazing at one another in a way they probably weren't aware of.

The eldest turtle was sitting on the opposite side of the pit with his chin on his fist and his elbow on his knee. Super Robo Mecha Force Five was playing, as it always seemed to be, its pixilated colors flashing in blues and reds across his face, but in his consideration it had no precedence.

He wondered what it must be like for Donnie when April smiled at him like that.

Leo sometimes caught the blush in his brother's cheeks whenever Donnie realized how very close he was to April, or if she noticed him staring at her. And occasionally, the blue-banded turtle would shake his head whenever his younger brother let slip something he hadn't meant to say and then stumbled over his words and acted intensely awkward around her.

Leo wished he wouldn't. He knew Donnie would have a much better shot with April if he just relaxed, if he didn't worry so much about what she thought of him. Don could be a thoroughly remarkable turtle when he was simply being himself and not purposely trying to come off as "cool," in which case, most times, he failed epically and blossomed into the most klutzy, ineloquent ninja genius the world of martial arts and intellectuals had ever seen. Playing cool worked for Mikey and Raph, and even Leo himself sometimes, but it was most unfortunate that Donnie was lacking in that aspect.

"Kinda sad isn't it?"

Leo glanced up as Raph lowered himself beside him and flashed half a smile.

Despite the little flutter of nerves that suddenly tickled his stomach, the turtle in blue returned a gentle smirk and shook his head.

"Nah. He's cute."

Raph snapped his gaze up with a furrowed brow and an instant heat flared up in the older turtle's cheeks.

Leo cleared his throat. "I mean in a dorky kind of way, just because you can tell he's trying so hard … She does like him though."

Raph's expression smoothed out a bit and he looked back across the room. "She tell you that or somethin'?"

Leo shrugged, leaning back on his palms. "No, but … It's not like she understands him any better than we do. Why else would she talk to him so much?"

"Because he's a stalker and won't leave her alone."

Leo's smirk returned and he bumped his brother's knee with his own. "Oh come on, Donnie's not that bad. Look how she's smiling at him."

They both tilted their heads over their shoulders, crowns leaning innocently into the same space as they observed April and Donnie's interaction in a not-so-discreet manner of staring.

It was heart-warming, while also terribly frustrating. Sometimes Leo wished he couldn't see so much of himself in his younger brother. Sometimes he wished Donnie's utter and complete fascination with April didn't mirror how he knew he'd once been about Karai. And, what was more, he wished he could think of Karai without feeling a hollow ache in his chest, which now only twisted and tightened into a guilty knot whenever Raph was near.

His shoulders dropped and he glanced toward his red-banded brother out of the corner of his eye, trying not to make the gesture obvious. But Raph was already peeking at him too, and upon catching one another in the act they both looked away quickly.

Raph shifted and cleared his throat but said nothing as Leo now stared at the floor with warm cheeks and a shudder that rippled through his arms and made his fingers flex against the cold cement beneath them. Silence drifted between them like a sardonic thread tying a knot around them, forcing them together to occupy the same space without their willingness to do so.

It was awkward, and Leo hated that. Things had never been awkward between him and Raph. Difficult, sure. Frustrating, yes. Fun even, absolutely … But awkward? It didn't seem right. They were brothers. There wasn't supposed to be awkwardness there. That was something reserved for blushing adolescents who spent their time avoiding the very same space that they wanted to fill—like Donnie and April, who apparently were never going to admit that they were hopelessly smitten with one another. Raph and Leo weren't like Donnie and April …They weren't.

Raph cleared his throat again. "So …" he said slowly, staring down at his fingers. "It's been about two weeks now. Are we just gonna ignore it?"

"Ignore what?" Leo asked, staring as innocently as he could.

Raph met his gaze and his eyes turned hard, glossing over with that infamous glint of nerve. The two brothers regarded one another for a long while, both fully aware of what Raphael was talking about, but Leo said nothing to let that on, and those green eyes succumbed to a pitiable kind of anger.

Raph shook his head. "Classy, Leo," he grumbled, pressing his palms against his knees to stand.

Leo's heart skipped an odd beat and he snatched his brother's wrist to pull him back down. "Raph …"

His eyes fell on the hand he had on his brother's arm, and he was suddenly all too aware of how firm and mature the muscles under Raph's skin had become as they coiled and shifted the slightest bit beneath his palm. He immediately took his hand away, bringing it back into his own bubble.

He watched his fingers flex and took in a large breath. "I—"

A pair of bellows cut him off, charging up from behind them like a freight train, and Raphael was suddenly gone from his side in a blur of green, orange, and black. He reappeared again under a pile of limbs on the floor of the pit as Mikey and Casey double-teamed him to the ground.

Leo dropped his head to the side with a chest-deflating sigh and unenthused frown, watching as Raph's temper sky-rocketed within a five-second time span. Mikey and Casey's laughter was quickly suffocated as the red-banded turtle plunged his knees and fists into very sensitive places on their bodies to shake them loose. He then proceeded to beat them into the ground until they choked for mercy.

"The hell's the matter with you two?" he shouted over their groaning as he pushed himself to his feet and stepped away from them.

"Dude," Mikey whined, sitting up and nursing his already welting jaw.

"We were just playin' around." Casey groaned, pressing a palm to his nose and then taking it away again to observe the blood smearing his skin. "What's your deal?"

Raph glared at them and said nothing, muscles so tight that Leo could see his veins pressing against his skin.

He seemed to notice he was under watch and his bright green eyes shot up at Donnie and April who both looked quickly away as though afraid he'd pummel them too. Leo heard him growl under his breath before he turned stiffly and climbed out of the pit.

And the blue-banded turtle was aware of the exact moment that those hot, green eyes fell upon him, but he did not meet them. Instead, he stared straight ahead with an expressionless face and waited for Raph to stomp off and slam himself in his room, before releasing his breath through his nose and letting his head rock forward on his neck.

"What's with him?" Casey asked, pulling Mikey to his feet.

"Oh, he gets like this occasionally. Probably had a run-in with a cockroach or somethin'," Mikey said.

Despite their blossoming bruises, they chuckled. Leo shot a glare at them.

"You don't know what's going on with Raph," he snapped. "Leave him alone."

They blinked.

"Sorry, Leo," Mikey said, his mask creased on his brow, voice turning up at the end as though his response was more of a question.

Casey turned up his palms as though to assert their innocence. "We just thought that—"

"It doesn't matter," Leo said, getting to his feet to walk away. "I'll go talk to him."

He felt the tension leaving with him, as though it was attached to his shell like a spool of thread, unraveling the further he walked. Only it seemed the spool had a pretty endless supply of strain on its spine. He didn't feel any more relieved when he reached Raph's door and he knew once he crossed the threshold to his brother's room any hope of being pacified with where he and Raph stood would quickly become a childish fantasy.

So he hesitated for a moment and distinctly heard Casey's voice say, "So, what's up with him?"

"Sunk if I know, dude," Mikey said.

Leo sighed. He leaned his forehead against the door and closed his eyes, counting to himself, pausing for a flimsy moment of meditation—like that was going to help. Even without this "thing" hanging over him and his brother, he'd always known that the best way to approach Raphael with anything was by using the temperamental turtle's own method of eradicating problems. Leo would just have to force his way through it, no preparation necessary—at least none that would help.

So he lifted his head and knocked.

The door opened before he could even drop his fist.

"Took you ten more seconds than it should have," Raph said, turning away immediately.

Leo let himself in and closed the door behind him.

He stood just inside the threshold, not daring to go any further, and watched his brother throw himself down on his bed and chuck a shuriken at the ceiling where it joined a nest of them just above the place where Raph's head went. Leo shuddered. He didn't know how Raph slept through the night like that. Then again, Raph cared little for the danger he often put himself through.

"What were you going to say?" the red-clad turtle demanded, now concentrating on balancing his sai on his finger directly over his face.

"Nothing," Leo mumbled, looking away at a dirty towel hanging from one of the cymbals on the old drum set Raph never played.

Why did he even have that thing?

"Alright," Raph said with a tone that seemed forcibly detached. "Then fuck off."

Leo closed his eyes, then pushed himself away from the door and walked over to sit on the end of his brother's bed. "What do you want me to say, Raph?"

"It's not about what I want you to say, Fearless."

"Then what do you want?"

Raph tossed up his sai, watched it turn to dive back for his face, and caught it by the tine just before it could poke him in the nose. "I want you to stop ignoring me."

Leo sighed. "I'm not ignoring you."

"No, you're just acting like nothing happened, and it's stupid. It's not like I'm acting any different."

Leo scoffed under his breath. "No." He agreed—to the most extreme degree. If anything, over the past couple of weeks, Raph had been even more pissy than usual.

He sat up. "But you are. I mean, come on, Leo, why d'you have to make this all weird?"

"Because it is weird," Leo said, widening his eyes on his brother. "It's weird, Raph."

Raphael's cheeks burned a dim shade of red. "That's not what I meant," he said, stuffing his arms across his plastron. "I mean, we're still brothers … Right?"

Leonardo looked away, suddenly unsure how to answer that question.

"Right?" Raph insisted, slapping his arm hard enough to leave a sting on his skin.

Leo hardly batted an eye at it. He brought his shoulders up. "Yeah," he said, trying to make it sound obvious as he looked back at the turtle in red.

"Okay." Raph nodded once, as though he'd just proven a point. "Then we've always got that. Everything else …" His green eyes glazed over and he went quiet, the rest of his sentence hanging in the space between them like a tether ball waiting to be served.

He pulled his knees up to his chest and looked toward the wall.

Leo bit the inside of his lip and looked down at Raph's rumpled sheets. "Maybe we should start over."

He could feel it when his brother's eyes turned back on him. "You watch too much goddamn TV."

Leo coughed a laugh that died quickly. He shrugged again. "What do you want to do then?"

When he looked back at his brother, Raph's gaze was already steady on him.

He shook his red-banded head. "Let's just … forget it."

Leo frowned. "But you just said—"

"I just said let's forget it," Raph snapped, eyes turning hot.

"Raph …"

"Leo, I'm serious. Forget it. It doesn't matter."

"Of course it matters!"

"To you?" Raph challenged.

"Yes!" Leo said, offended that his brother would think anything less of him. "I'm not that shallow, hot-head."

Raphael narrowed his eyes. "Fine then. We'll just …"

"Put it to the side." Leo shrugged.

Raph raised a brow. "Are you waiting for something?"

Leo grimaced, eyes automatically shifting everywhere else around the room. He shouldn't have felt like he'd been caught under a spotlight with a jar of stolen cookies in his hands. And yet when he responded, he himself could hear the waver in his voice.

"No." He kept his eyes averted and rubbed the back of his neck.

He hated how tangible his brother's gaze was, that he could feel Raph's eyes tightening on him. "This is about Karai, isn't it?"

Leo scoffed and looked at his brother as guiltlessly as he could. "No!"

"Bull freaking shit."

Leo pursed his lips and dropped his gaze again. That was the one thing he'd always hated about Raph. He was the one person that always seemed to see right through him—with those bright green eyes of his. Why were they green? For some reason that seemed weird.

"Alright, Fearless, I'll tell you what. Since you want to play undecided, I'll give you until we get Karai back to make up your mind about where you want to be in this little triangle here."

The heat returned to Leo's cheeks like someone was switching a light switch on and off. He gazed at his brother with perfectly round eyes. Even after sixteen long years of putting up with him, sometimes Leo was astounded by Raph's inherent boldness. But then again, that was Raph—any and everything that made him uncomfortable was something to take a swing at. He never allowed himself to be pushed backward. He'd keep stomping forward, whether Leo was with him or not.

"So …" Leo began slowly, leaning his palms back on the bed. "You're actually letting me decide?"

Raph cocked a brow and stuck up his nose as though none of this really mattered to him. "Ball's in your court, bro. I did my play."

The blue-banded turtle tilted his head skeptically. "And you're not going to argue?"

Raph scoffed and turned his face away, bottom lip poking out. But when Leo didn't say anything else he narrowed those greens eyes back on his leader and turned up his palms. "What else do you want, Fearless?"

"I thought this was about what you wanted."

The younger turtle snorted. "I dunno what universe you live in, chief, but where I'm at, I'm pretty sure it isn't … 'Least it doesn't look that way."

Raph dropped his eyes to the side and didn't look back at his older brother anymore, which gave Leo an inch of freedom to watch the side of his face, though this hurt more than he expected it to.

In the moment, Raph didn't look like Raph—not the stubborn, iron-fisted, fire-breathing, smug Raphael that Leo knew. Rather, he looked more like an aged man, disappointed with the life he'd been leading all these years, only now realizing that what he wanted was too far to reach for, too late. It tied a knot in the leader's stomach to see his rebel this way—a warrior backing away from a fight he was too afraid to lose. Leo didn't want that. That wasn't the kind of spirit he knew his immediate younger brother to have. As much grief as that rebellious, hard-headed essence had given him all this time, Leo would've rather Raph had that spirit back right about now.