Leo felt drained and weak in every aspect possible after everything he had endured and confessed. Mostly numb, but there was the weak feeling lingering around. He wanted to sleep so he wouldn't have to think anymore, but no matter how badly he wanted to and how heavy his eyes felt, his mind just wouldn't follow the command. He just laid on his side, facing the wall, waiting for sleep to come. He remembered that sleep meant a potential nightmare, but being awake and waiting for the day to end was just too long of a wait, he'd rather face a nightmare. He was just waiting for something to happen, he guessed. It felt like time possibly couldn't go by slower than it was, but if it could, he wouldn't be surprised. He heard a light tapping come from behind him. He didn't hear it for a bit again, so he ignored it, but the tapping returned, a little more louder this time. He turned around just enough to turn his head and look behind him.
"Sorry, did I wake you, bro?"
"N-no," Leo replied quietly. "Sorry, I didn't hear you come in."
"You're good, dude. Ya care if I sit?" Leo shook his head, watching as Mikey timidly went towards the bed and sat on the edge. "I wanna show ya somethin', if you're okay with that. I dunno if you're in the mood to or not, but if you're not, I can show ya later, no prob."
Leo carefully turned onto his carapace and slowly sat up. "What is it?"
Mikey slid himself from the edge of the bed to Leo's side, leaning on the headrest and pulling out his T-Phone. He opened up his gallery, looking for something. As he searched for the particular something, Leo caught glimpses of pictures that Mikey had taken over the past couple of months of them at the farmhouse. Some pictures were of Mikey posing with some of the chickens- - some were blurry as a chicken tried going away and Mikey trying to get it to stay, or of the chicken attempting to peck at Mikey and Mikey trying to avoid it. Leo smiled a bit. There were pictures of Casey and Donnie seemingly arguing about something, with April and Raph just rolling their eyes in the background. There were pictures of Raph that looked to be of him telling the two teens to maybe 'knock it off' and them looking flustered as April laughed in the background. There was a short video after that picture, and another picture following the short video of Raph looking flustered and everyone else laughing.
Curious, Leo quietly asked "wait, what's that?"
Mikey stopped scrolling, looking at Leo. "Which one?" Leo pointed to the short video, and Mikey immediately snickered a bit. "That's a great one. Okay so lemme tell ya what happened. Donnie and Casey were arguing and whatever, and Raph was gettin' tired of it, so he went up to them and was like, 'could you two be more annoying? Stop fighting and say you're sorry or whatever, fighting doesn't help anything,' blah blah blah. April and I laughed, 'cause Casey and Donnie looked embarrassed being lectured. It was funny, y'know? And I said somethin' I kinda regret- - but not really, if I'm bein' honest- - about Raph, and- -" Mikey stopped to laugh a little bit. "I said, 'you guys better listen to Dada Raph, he's serious' and that's the picture of everyone laughin' and Raph lookin' kinda mad. Here, I'll play it." Mikey tried to control his laughing even before he played the video, turning it all the way up. Wouldn't he know it, how Mikey described it is how it played out, but seeing and hearing the actual scenario go down was more amusing than the description. Leo fully smiled and chuckled a bit. "I know it's not that funny, but it was stupid funny, if that makes sense."
"Anytime Raph looks embarrassed, it's funny," Leo replied, still chuckling a bit. "You should send that video to my T-Phone."
"Sure thing, bro! Right after I find the thing..." Mikey clicked out of the video and continued scrolling, carefully looking at every video. "Where is it?" He mumbled to himself. There were pictures of Ice Cream Kitty, there were random and somewhat sneak-up pictures of the others, and there were some pictures of the nature outside that were taken pretty well. "...finally! Found it." Mikey clicked on a video. "Okay, so whenever we could pull Raph outta the house, he'd have us do sparring and stuff, sometimes made us play turtle hunt. I was wondering if you could tell me what I could improve on and whatever? It's been in the back of my head forever, and even though I know that I've probably done so much better since then, there's this dark cloud in my head that's telling me that I haven't. I dunno how to explain it... anyways, the others told me some stuff, but I wanted to hear from you, since you know about a lot of ninja stuff and you're smart and our leader. Your opinions are important to me."
Leo thought that given the condition he was currently in that he had no place to tell Mikey if he needed to improve on anything or not. Mikey was doing far better than he was in every aspect- - why would he need his opinion? And all the nice things Mikey said about him, he didn't think were true.
"I-I'm sure that whatever the others told you is all you need to focus on," Leo replied hesitantly. "I'm sure you're doing great, Mikey. Besides, it seems like that was months ago."
"I know, but I wanna hear from you, dude. You're really good in training and in real missions and stuff- - I don't care if it's harsh or whatever. Can ya at least just look at it?"
Leo glanced at Mikey, then looked back down at the screen. He sighed a bit. He wasn't going to let his thoughts get in the way of things for as long as he could. "...alright, play it." Mikey nodded and played the video, both of them falling silent. Leo watched Mikey carefully in the video. Whenever there was something he thought seemed iffy, he asked Mikey to go back a couple of seconds. Leo found his focus shifting on the others in the video, noticing things about how they performed, and before he knew it, the video was over.
Mikey looked up at Leo. "So... you look like you got a lot to say," Mikey said, sounding a bit nervous. "Don't hold back, dude."
Leo really didn't feel like he was in the right to speak his mind. But Mikey wanted to hear his thoughts, so he took a minute to collect his thoughts. "...honestly, not everyone was performing the best they could in that situation."
"What do you mean?"
"I-I mean," Leo felt a little anxious as he spoke, trying to calm down. "I'm sure you all tried your best, it just... looks like none of you were fully into it. Like, your body language and execution looks insincere from how you all would usually do in training. I don't know if it makes sense, but it looks like none of your hearts went into it. Honestly, it looked kind of rushed and did on purpose just to get the training over with. Did something happen that day?"
Mikey exited the video and looked at his gallery. "...I mean, around then, it was the first couple of days we came to the farmhouse."
"Training was probably the last thing on your minds, and from everything you guys did during the invasion, you all probably needed a break in every way possible. Throwing yourselves into training could have waited until you felt better than before and that you could give your all. That applies to training and actually fighting. You have to give it your all. A lot has happened since then. That was just an off time for everyone, so don't focus on one bad session. I know that you've shown what you can really do since then, Mikey. Just remember that there's no shame in giving yourself a break if you need one, especially after all you've been through."
Mikey was quiet for a moment. He then suddenly rested his head on Leo's shoulder. "Thanks dude, I didn't know I needed to hear that 'til ya said it."
Leo glanced down at Mikey. Knowing that he made Mikey feel less bad, despite everything that's happened, made him feel less bad himself. "I'm always here for you, Mikey, don't forget that."
Mikey only showed a small smile, but it was a warm one. "You're a great brother, y'know." Leo didn't reply to that. "And ya should take your own advice."
"What do you mean?"
"You're goin' through a lot- - cut yourself some slack. You need it. The last thing anyone wants is for you to push yourself to the brink. We're here for ya, don't forget that."
Leo was at a loss for words. Whatever he was going to say would probably be self-deprecating, so he thought it was best that it was forgotten. He didn't want to drag down Mikey just because of his negative thoughts. He played what Mikey had just said in his head, trying to register it. 'Yeah, I'm going through a lot, but I brought it upon myself, so do I actually deserve a break?' Leo thought to himself.
"Leo."
Leo snapped out of his thoughts and glanced down at Mikey, who wasn't looking at him. He had a slight pout on his face, and he looked both stern and hurt.
"...stop overthinking." Leo tensed up a bit. How did Mikey... "Just for a couple of seconds. Hear me out, alright? I know that you're not feeling good about yourself. I know you're being hard on yourself for whatever went down back home. I know you think everything's your fault. Listen, dude, none of us think that it's your fault. It's no one's fault. We can't change what happened..." Mikey paused as he choked up a bit. "...but we can't give up. We can go back and drive all the Kraang out when we're ready. It's okay to be sad. We're all sad. But just try to remember, that no matter how far being happy again seems, you will be happy again. You just gotta hang on, bro. Nothing can change if ya don't try. Just try. You've got us to help if you want help. You're not alone, okay? People love ya- - we love ya. And I know that sometimes, even family and friends aren't enough, or ya don't wanna reach out because ya don't wanna upset us. But we're always here for ya, bro. We've got your back. We look up to ya. I look up to ya. If we can help in some way, we will help you, dude."
"...what are you saying?"
"I... I'm sayin', take care of yourself, dude. I know everything looks and feels like there's no hope, but there is. It might not feel like it for you now, but there is. Just try to take care of yourself. And I'm not talkin' just physical wise, I'm talkin' mental and emotional wise, too." Mikey wrapped his arms around the arm of Leo's that he was leaning against. "There's gonna be setbacks, but that doesn't mean that there won't be new opportunities waitin' for ya. Try as best as ya can."
They both fell silent for a long while. It wasn't an awkward silence, but it felt like there were words hanging in the air, waiting to be said. Leo suddenly cleared his throat a bit and sighed softly. "Thanks, Mikey. I'll... try my best."
Mikey looked up at Leo, giving Leo a small smile. "Alright, sap's over," Mikey announced, making Leo chuckle a bit. "Ya wanna watch some of the other videos I took?"
"Sure," Leo replied.
"Here," Mikey handed his T-Phone to Leo. "You can choose the videos."
Leo scrolled all the way to the bottom, wanting to try to watch all the videos Mikey had. He clicked the first one, which was just him and Ice Cream Kitty seemingly solving a late night mystery together. There were some sneak-up prank videos, which were always amusing. There were some videos of Mikey setting up the camera and playing some music, recording the dance routine he had created for the song. Leo liked those a lot. There were so many videos played to the point the stars finally caught Leo's attention from his peripheral view and he realized how long he'd been watching videos. Leo shook his head to himself and smiled a bit.
"I can't believe how long we've been watching these vi- -" Leo stopped mid-sentence as he saw that his brother had fallen asleep. Not wanting to wake his brother, he didn't bother finishing the sentence. Leo slowly reached for the edge of the blanket draped around his waist and lifted it up carefully, draping some over Mikey and making sure that he couldn't get cold. Leo continued watching videos since he wasn't feeling tired. Eventually, though, he watched so many to the point where his eyes started going heavy even though he still wasn't sleepy. His eyes fluttered shut, and trying to keep them open was an effort Leo felt was useless, so he kept his eyes closed and listened to the audio. He thought he would stay awake to the audio, but he quickly fell asleep. Before he could reach the REM stage of sleep, he thought to himself, 'not a bad way to end the day.'
