Can't give up actin' tough
It's all that I'm made of
Can't scrape together quite enough
To ride the bus to the outskirts
Of the fact that I need love
"Middle Cyclone" -Neko Case

-Acceptance-

"It's okay."

The first voice Leo really processed in the haze of everything was Donnie's.

"You're okay, but this will sting. Okay?" Donnie asked.

And because Donnie asked, Leo followed his brother's voice and nodded. His skin was on fire anyways, the air was too hot. He barely felt two sets of hands lift him but he really felt the boiling water they placed him in.

Leo couldn't suppress the groan or the feeble efforts to thrash out of the tub. Someone held his shoulders to keep him down.

"Burns!" Leo gasped out.

The pain woke him up, gave him momentary energy to open his eyes.

Donnie was in front of him with a plastic cup, Leo knew what was coming next and he didn't want it.

"The water is cool." Donnie filled the cup as he spoke and poured the water around Leo's neck. The hands gripping his shoulders held him firmly in place. "About sixty-five degrees actually."

Leo still tried to escape, white knuckling the edge of the tub. Searing hot needles were piercing into his skin and everything in his body wanted to get out of the tub.

The hands behind him struggled, but not because Leo was overpowering them. "Donnie… I don't like this," Mikey said wearily.

Another cup went up around his neck. "In a minute or two he will calm down," Donnie said quietly. "Then we'll get his hands in and let him soak before slowly raising the temperature of the water."

Leo tried to breathe through it, but everytime Donnie poured a cup of water down his back he groaned out at the sensation of a million fire ant stings. Every time Donnie applied boiling water to his skin he also touched Leo's hand with his own searing hot ones.

It felt like another eternity before he stopped trying to raise himself out of the tub and let himself drop further into the tub. The water went from painful to just uncomfortable. Mikey pressed his face into the top of Leo's head and kept pushing him down until the water was up to the underside of his jaw.

Donnie started focusing on his hands then and Mikey just held the side of his head so he wouldn't dip too far into the water.

He blinked away tears and forced himself to inhale deeply at the same time he dropped his hands under water. A little diluted red moisture was left behind where his arms had been and they practically screamed Raph's name.

A new different type of pain hit him. What had happened to Raph? The last time he was Raph he had been shot in the chest-

Donnie was holding him steady, so was Mikey. "Leo," Donnie said firmly while rubbing his knuckles into the center of Leo's chest. "Breathe-"

"Raph-" his voice was practically gone.

"Is on the couch sleeping. The bullet didn't penetrate past his plastron. He wasn't exposed to the same harsh cold you were. The sooner we get you warmed up and bandaged the sooner you can see him."

Mikey hummed in agreement and Donnie pushed Leo back down into the tub.

Carefully, Leo allowed himself to ease back down, his tail pinched beneath him painfully and he moved his hand to adjust the angle even though his brothers were right there.

Donnie shuddered when Leo moved it, looking away for a second. Behind Leo, Mikey made a whimpering noise. That adjustment seemed to ripple through all of them and cause Leo to look down at the water in shame.

When Donnie recovered from the sight he unplugged the tub and let three inches of pinkish brown water out before adding hot water.

"Mikey, why don't you go make sure Raph is okay."

"Want me to bring tea for Leo when I get back?" Mikey asked, already heading for the door. Desperate to get out of the bathroom now.

Donnie nodded while mixing the hot water into the cooler water.

When he shut the faucet off again he paused for a moment with his hand still in the water. He stared at the wall while he spoke. "Mikey is gone, Raph is on the couch. You need to tell me everything Eric Webb did to you."

Leo looked away further, taking his hand away from his tail and wiping his sore face.

"I won't push anything on you such as an exam but-"

"I wasn't raped." He left off the word, "again."

Donnie's shoulders relaxed, his face did not. "I still need to know Leo." His voice was that of a doctor or a parent. "I don't need to know how I just need to know where you were hit so I know where to look for injuries. We'll deal with everything else later."

Leo nodded once, rubbing his arm under the water. At least this time he could play the self comforting behavior off as trying to get warm. It was clear he had messed up by leaving. Raph wouldn't be hurt, he wouldn't need more medical attention.

He just wanted some peace.

He thought it would be in that hotel room.

"I really screwed things up-"

"Injuries first," Donnie said, not making eye contact. He stared at the wall exhausted and annoyed, his fingertips halfway into the water.

Ashamed of his own behavior and overwhelmed by his own selfishness as of late he told Donnie about every injury he received in the order that it happened. From his initial fight in the hotel room to what happened on the boat without any of the details Donnie didn't need… like almost getting his head caved in with a tire-iron.

Or what exactly happened to Eric Webb. He fell off the boat… he was dead. Leo had no doubt that he died. Eric wasn't an enhanced human… Leo was still unsure if he imagined it. By the time Raph had found him out there he was so cold he was half insane.

"Out of the tub," Donnie prompted.

Leo was going to protest that he didn't need help standing but his legs were weak. Donnie supported him as he stepped out of the tub, his legs throbbing as all the blood in his half thawed body went to his feet.

Lightheadedness pushed aside as he sat down on the toilet lid and leaned back against the tank. Donnie helped Leo dry off, gently blotting his skin. Most of the cuts were clotting on their own but outside of the water the pain was more noticeable and Leo couldn't help but hiss as pressure was applied to bruises yet to fully form.

The door opened, Mikey set Leo's tea on the counter. "Anything I can do? Raph is completely knocked out."

Donnie avoided Mikey's eyes as he crouched down on the floor of the bathroom in front of Leo. "Good, good," he murmured. "You can encourage Leo to drink his tea but his body temperature is up high enough that we can move to passive rewarming like we did with Raph."

The tub was draining still, Leo could hear the water gurgling through the pipes. "How did you get me out of the tub?"

"You let me guide you from the tub to the toilet," Donnie said, he lined up his bandages and butterfly stitches on a towel on the floor. He turned to Mikey, "Remember when I had to give Raph a tetanus shot last year?"

"I remember having to distract him while you poked him," Mikey said, but it came off with the tone of a question.

Donnie sighed, "Nevermind. Stay with Leo, I know he had one three years ago but… just to be safe."

He stood up and left, closing the door behind him but Leo's eyes were stuck on the tub. Mikey sat down on the tub edge obstructing his view.

"How did you get me out of the tub?"

"I didn't, I was with Raph in-" Mikey frowned, getting off the tub. "Well, uh, when I heard Raph pounding on the door and counting I woke up and came upstairs."

Mikey looked back at the tub before speaking.

"You were unconscious, Raph was confused because he heard you fall and then you talked to him but Donnie still checked your head over." Mikey pointed to the door, "I just stood there, watching. Raph and Donnie put you on the floor and dried you off. You had a fever. Donnie and I stayed up all night taking turns trying to get your fever to break.

"Raph carried you to your room. Then in the morning he went to tell Master Splinter you were sick. Master Splinter came in, confirmed you were sick but said there was no need for all of us to watch over you. He tried to tell us you would be fine alone. Donnie argued that your fever was too high to be left alone but Splinter wasn't backing down. Raph challenged him enough, I kind of blocked it out. Back then I think Splinter kind of knew we were doing something we shouldn't be doing-"

"It wasn't something we shouldn't have been doing, it was the natural result of our circumstances." Donnie came back with a capped syringe and ushered Mikey to move. He smeared a spot on Leo's shoulder with rubbing alcohol "You've had a tetanus shot before, I'm just going to inject you in the shoulder aaaaand I'm done."

Leo had barely felt anything, so many other things hurt much worse. He watched Donnie place a tan bandaid over the spot.

"Why are we talking about this?" Donnie asked, resuming his previous position next to Leo's legs.

Mikey sat back on the edge of the tub, "Leo wanted to know how we got him out of the tub when he came home from… yeah."

They didn't want to say rape, Leo didn't want to hear the word anyways.

"Oh." Donnie said, pausing and looking at Leo's ankles. "I really screwed that up. I was too cowardly to stand up to Splinter, I had convinced myself that he had our best intentions in his heart, but looking back he clearly did not… especially not yours, Leo."

Mikey shifted forward, to touch Donnie's back. "I didn't say anything either though. It was Raph who got Splinter to relent, and then he told us to just stay with Leo and he would warn us when Splinter got done meditating."

"A good thing too because your fever was awful," Donnie said while wiping antibacterial ointment over the open cuts on Leo's legs. "Your ankles were bruised on the inside- but I…"

Leo hadn't even looked at his ankles back then, the pain in his tail was so bad that most of his focus was there. Had he been that sick that they were worried something bad would happen if he was alone?

"How sick was I?" Leo asked.

Donnie held Leo's foot off the floor, cupping his heel in one hand while wrapping gauze with the other. Tying Leo to the bathroom. "If we were humans, we would have taken you to the hospital."

Leo moved his tongue around in his mouth, over his teeth. "I…" was forced to eat my own shit. He hesitated. "If I ate something, or a small amount of something went down my throat, would that make me more sick?"

"Depends on what the something is Leo."

To distract himself he picked up the tea cup Mikey had placed on the counter and drank. The chamomile and spearmint tea blend was soothing on his raw throat.

Donnie wrapped Leo's left leg slowly and gently, his hands trembled and behind him on the edge of the tub Mikey was looking down at the floor. "You were forced to eat something?" Donnie asked.

He felt his stomach turn over, he nodded, that was all he could do now that he was imagining it again. He kept his jaw clenched shut.

"Was it something from one of their bodies?" Donnie asked. "Semen?"

Leo shook his head.

"That's good, uhm, generally speaking ingesting your own semen or blood even isn't too dangerous. There are exceptions but it's mostly harmless." Donnie said, putting Leo's leg back down. "But it wasn't semen or blood was it?"

He shook his head, he wanted to ask them not to tell Raph. Something about admitting to Raph that he ate his own shit seemed… no it wasn't fair to Raph. It just put a whole new horrible twist on every time Raph had told Leo to choke on his own shit.

Well now he had.

He could say from experience that it was awful.

And doing so probably made him sicker than he would have been had he just gone home instead of hiding under that overhang until the storm passed. Which meant he couldn't blame getting tied to the bed on being sick, because he only got more sick because of what happened on the bed.

"Poop is trickier," Donnie said. It was possible that Donnie was the only one in the world who could say that with a stone face and compassion.

Leo hadn't realized he had squeezed his legs together and pushed his arms into himself until Donnie started talking.

"Because while there is a small chance that eating your own waste will cause you to become ill… it's rare. In humans it can cause problems, in turtles it wouldn't at all. Seeing as we are mutated turtles if you ingested anything that came from yourself, aside from it being highly unpleasant, there would be no side effects."

Carefully Donnie took the cup away from Leo, placing it back on the sink, and started to apply ointment to the places where the zip ties had cut into his skin. Pulling his arms away from his body, exposing him.

"You were really sick. The kind of sick humans get from eating their own waste more closely resembles food poisoning. You were ill for weeks. You would have been in really bad shape had you not even gone on that run. You didn't make yourself sicker by eating anything."

There was a pause only filled with the quiet sound of Mikey outlining the tile on the floor with his toes.

"Were you forced to eat something?" Donnie asked.

He wouldn't tell Donnie what had happened, further proof that he wasn't over any of that night. That this whole night had only served to get Raph nearly killed. If he had wanted to scare his brothers then he succeeded. He had also set his procedure back. He upset scheduled time off April and Casey took to help them with the days following.

The procedure loomed like a storm cloud still. He clenched his tail to himself harder, not that it moved. It never moved. Still hurt when he tried to move it. He shifted his throbbing sore legs, stinging underneath the bandages.

"Yes." He said it quietly, voice cracking and raspy. Helped with the hot tea just a little.

Donnie nodded, wrapping Leo's arms with a tender touch. "Do you want to-"

"No." Leo choked back the urge to shatter, to tell Donnie about the gag. About almost suffocating.

But…

~o~0~o~

"You must understand, my son." Master Splinter's voice was stern, cutting Leo's protests off. "A team only survives in the hands of a strong leader. I have given you ample time to sort yourself out, it is time we move this disturbance of yours along."

Leo swallowed again, if he could say goodbye they wouldn't allow him to leave. He could mouth for help, he knew he still looked sick.

The very idea of leaving had him shaking. As if there was ice being held on his neck.

His Sensei studied him. "You want to be a good role model for them, do you not?"

"Yes, Sensei."

"Is this the behavior of a good role model?"

"No, Sensei."

"Then you understand why you must leave?" Master Splinter asked.

He still couldn't go; he was injured… he was broken.

Master Splinter stayed quiet. "I will not always be here to guide you and your brothers."

"Hai, Sensei," Leo breathed to the floor.

"You will leave tonight and you will come back when you are fit to return, no sooner." He continued, his eyes never held the same warmth they did during family meditation. Alone his father was colder, meaner. "Your brother's are in a critical time, they need strong guidance. I cannot give them that guidance if you are here, distracting them with your troubles."

Leo could not remember the last time his father had been nice to him alone. In front of his brother's he was a warm spirit… but when Leo came to report on a mission his father would always criticise and pick. Leo's plans were never good enough, his orders were never perfect like Sensei's would have been.

Deep down he wondered if Sensei knew of the hotel room, of the horrible vile things Leo had experienced. How he had let his guard down and allowed for such a horrible thing to happen to him.

For a ninja, capture should have been impossible.

"You will leave, tonight. For their own good. Do not allow your own selfishness to keep you here.

"Hai."

Hai.

~o~0~o~

Donnie ran his hand over the top of Leo's head. "Just… let's give him a moment," he said to Mikey who was closer now.

It wasn't a panic attack but it made him want to shrivel up. It was obvious now that his father had sent him away, and while part of him realized being sent away was the wrong thing for his father to do… Another part of Leo knew that he had still failed his family.

"Raph said you weren't out there to kill yourself," Donnie said. His hands smelled like antibacterial ointment. "And he said you went to the hotel room to… accept what had happened there."

Donnie spoke carefully, massaging Leo's neck gently, trying to work out the lingering knots until he could speak.

Instead Donnie massaged tears out of his eyes. Blood and heat rushed to his already beaten face. He was destined to have a fat lip and bloated cheeks from Eric.

"I failed to do that too," Leo said, crumbling in on himself and slightly away from Donnie's hands.

Donnie didn't pull away though, and Mikey sat on the floor and pressed his face to the side of Leo's thigh, right above his knee.

It wasn't helping him pack away the tears he didn't want them to see.

"Do you think it's possible that you went back to the hotel not to make peace with what happened... But instead to make peace with what did not happen?" Donnie asked.

Leo tried to covertly wipe his face dry, Mikey didn't fall for it. He balled up some toilet paper and pushed it into Leo's hands, urging him to use that instead.

Donnie rubbed the top of his shell. "There is no way to be at peace with what you went through."

Ah great Donnie, that's what I needed to hear . He cupped his face more, not even bothering with the tissue paper.

He sniffed up snot the best he could before speaking. "I need to meditate on tonight," he said with an unmistakable stuffiness, trying to stand up but finding his limbs too heavy. The frustration of it was nearly unbearable. It seemed everything he wanted to do wasn't happening.

His brother's didn't help him stand, Donnie took his hand. "Meditation won't bring you peace either-"

"I know that," Leo groaned. He gave up trying to get up. "It was just- I've been through worse things, I- you have no idea how many times I've had a gun pointed at me- I don't- I don't- Even tonight- I'm supposed to be able to handle this. I've handled everything else!"

He pushed his voice to be as loud as possible but it didn't rise past a strained raspy talking level. While there was no mental trauma from what happened with Eric on the boat, his body was feeling the physical toll. The only thing that Leo couldn't scratch out of his head was the split second of relief on Eric's face before he fell overboard.

Was that actually what happened?

And if it did, why was that glued to his skin more than the tire iron or almost being thrown overboard?

"Leo," Donnie eased gently. "Come back, please. I'm not mad at you, no one is. This is hardly your fault-"

"But it is my fault!" Leo cut in, shrugging them away through the stiffness that wrapped around his body. "I've been through so much, but this won't leave! It would have been better if they tortured me!"

His voice cracked like if used to when he was twelve, fitting for he sounded like a child throwing a tantrum. Mikey had backed off, staying quiet. Maybe under Donnie's guidance or just because the situation wasn't his wheelhouse.

Neither of them would meet his eyes.

Donnie took in a shaky breath. "Leo… they did torture you-"

"It wasn't torture," Leo argued. His frustration rose. "They just touched me there, why did it have to be there? I would have told you if it had been anywhere but there-"

He gulped down air and pinched his legs together.

Mikey made an uncertain noise, stepping forward then backing away.

Leo wished he would just hug him.

"The manner in which you were raped was torture," Donnie said. He sat on the tub edge across from Leo. "We can all say with some amount of hypothetical certainty that if you were tortured without a sexual element you would have sought medical care afterwards. Comparing this to any other experience won't work, nothing would be applicable. This will take years to process and cope with."

"I felt dirty," he gasped out. His chest hurt as badly as his tail did. He couldn't help but try to clamp it up even though it only caused pain. "I felt dirty in here and-" he placed his hands over his pelvic region and felt sick.

He felt used.

Donnie nodded with understanding. "And that's to be expected," he said calmly. "When you are violated in such a private and personal space everything about it just being an injury gets thrown to the wayside. You did not deserve how that day played out."

"I know," Leo mouthed, willing himself not to sob.

Donnie waved Mikey closer and then leaned forward to hold Leo's knees. "What I mean by that is you deserved for us to come save you. When it started raining we should have gone looking but we didn't. We stayed here. You were not only victimized by The Sabors, you were neglected by Master Splinter and us-"

He shook his head. Mikey came to sit on the floor and. "I'm the leader, I'm not supposed to get-"

Raped.

His face pinched up, a whine started low and horrible in his throat. His brother's looked at him with sympathy, reaching to take his hands as the first choked cry clawed its way violently from him. Shaking his whole body and blinding him with tears again.

"The Sabors are dead, you cannot make peace with them," Donnie said, squeezing Leo's hand tightly with both of his. "Master Splinter is gone, you cannot confront him. We are the ones you have to make peace with."

He continued to sob, for the first time about not being saved. About Splinter sending him away, and the betrayal he felt and still felt towards the two brothers holding his hands right then and the one asleep on the couch oblivious to the current breakdown.

"And while you make peace with what we did wrong, we will focus on doing the things you need to recover. If you work to get to us, and we work to get to you, we can meet again one day and rebuild this bridge we lost."

Mikey nodded, holding Leo's right hand with both of his own he pressed his forehead against his knuckles. He rocked back and forth on the rug.

Leo swallowed and nodded, phlegm filled the back of his throat.

Everything hurt so bad.

"I'm sorry we didn't save you," Donnie said, his voice sounding barely better than Leo's. "I'm sorry."

Mikey edged closer, "I'm sorry too, Leo."

His shoulders quaked, throwing him into another fit of sobbing. Both Donnie and Mikey stood up to hold him, to rub his shell and whisper reassurances into the top of his head.

They did that for a long time. Until Leo couldn't cry anymore, until his sobs were more like dry heaving. Emotional and physical pain drowned him for a long time, zapping the last bit of energy he had before his brother's gave him some privacy to use the bathroom.

They were back in the second he was done, helping him down the staircase and leading him to the reclined lazy boy in the living room. It looked more like a nest of pillows and blankets though. With reassurances about pain medication and everyone sleeping downstairs he allowed them to ease him down and cover him.

Sleep came moments later, seconds after swallowing some pain medication and closing his eyes. The phantom sensation of Mikey and Donnie kissing him on the forehead was the only thing that followed him into his dreams.

~o~0~o~

At some point while Leo was sleeping like the dead, Mikey or Donnie applied that weighted blanket over him. This was extremely unfair as it made Leo very comfortable right where he was and extremely reluctant to move.

Even more unfair was when someone, likely Donnie, folded back the blankets and listened to his chest with a very cold stethoscope.

Leo grumbled his displeasure. The invader murmured something and fixed the blankets before leaving.

Sleep washed over Leo once again. The lair was filled with the familiar scents of his family, the ambient noise of pipes and water snuggled around him as he dozed in and out.

~o~0~o~

The next time Leo woke up his body was mad about several things. The fact that he hadn't moved in seventeen hours. The swelling in his face was prominent enough that turning his head and brushing up against the pillows hurt. He hadn't used the restroom since last night and that uncomfortableness was making itself known.

Given everything Leo felt like a sloshing bag of fluid as he crawled out of the lazy boy. After tending to his immediate needs he would ask Donnie for some pain meds and permission to crawl right back into that chair nest.

Of course Mikey had other ideas, the second Leo was out of the bathroom his little brother was leading him to the kitchen. The room was filled with the pleasant smell of cream of wheat and honey.

"Try to eat something-"

Mikey couldn't finish his suggestion before Leo was pulling the bowl closer and eating feverishly. For the first time in a long time food felt good, it was a little hot but that wasn't going to slow him down.

The sound of grumbled protest didn't pause Leo's eating for a second. He had been far too upset and exhausted from the night before to do more than swallow the water needed to take pain medication.

"I got it, I got it." Raph grumbled sitting down next to Leo. His glare was towards Donnie though. "I don't need you babying me!"

Donnie raised his hands in mock surrender, eyes hollow with puffy bags under them. Leo guessed his brother would be tired for a while.

All of them would be.

The more time that passed, the clearer his mind. The reality of it slammed into him again clamping his throat closed and slowing his eating. He felt like he was moving through a bowl of hot cereal, slow, lethargic. He took small bites to keep his brothers from questioning him.

Raph's hand reached over and rested on Leo's wrist. "You doing okay?" he asked.

Leo nodded once, "Yeah." His throat was tight.

"So do we look for that guy? Eric Webb now?" Mikey asked sitting down.

The way Donnie and Raph spun their heads around suggested that the youngest wasn't supposed to mention that with Leo in the room.

Too late to cover up whatever their plans were that day Donnie sighed. "He hasn't turned his phone back on, and looking through the very blurry CCTV footage at the docks his car hasn't moved."

Their eyes drifted to Leo and he looked down at his breakfast instead. In his own selfish pursuit to make peace he inadvertently ripped away his siblings chances at revenge. Eric falling off the boat was not the answer they wanted.

If they even believed him would be another problem entirely.

"Leo…" Donnie said. If his voice was anymore placating he would have shrunk down under the table.

"I only remember Raph saving me," Leo explained, fiddling with his spoon. Raph's hand was still on his wrist. There was a subtle and comforting squeeze from his brother as he talked. "And what I remember from Raph saving me isn't entirely accurate anyways. The cold was worse on me than Eric. There was a monologue I may or may not have encouraged. We struggled at some point… it's fuzzy."

Of course they wouldn't take that, at least Raph wouldn't. Even if the chains and zip ties evaporated into thin air he still wouldn't have been able to stand up.

"Sooooo do we need to go into one of the bedrooms to get the actual reason instead of the Fearless Leader one?" Mikey asked, propping his chin up on his arm and raising an eyebrow.

Leo cleared his throat unable to look Mikey in the eye. "I uh… I need to keep it to myself for now."

"Let's not follow up the traumatic experience with guilt tripping him into telling us something he's not ready to," Donnie cut in. "We already made major progress on that front yesterday."

Raph and Mikey mouthed something between them, Leo wouldn't have noticed had Raph not accidentally squeezed his wrist.

Because Raph was still squeezing his wrist, holding him here in the kitchen. All the feelings Leo had when Raph came to his rescue flooded back hard, wrapping around his chest and buzzing under his ribs.

Finally he was home.

~o~0~o~

After brushing his teeth and gingerly washing his face, Leo was herded back to his nest of pillows and blankets and told by his brothers to continue resting. Leo had argued. There were things they needed to go over, he had slept long enough. His resolve to stay awake morphed into claims that he was going to rest his eyes momentarily.

That lasted for all of a minute.

The collection of pills Donnie had Leo swallow after breakfast weren't just pain killers. Leo knew it, Donnie knew it too, and more importantly they both knew that he was too beaten down to bring it up.

So it was no surprise when he woke up hours later that he was still in a haze. Usually Leo could wake up quickly, but the influence of foreign chemicals made that impossible. Waking up came in waves. Sometimes it was a few sentences from the television that would do it. A new ice pack being draped over his face would have him open his eyes, if only for a moment before he slipped back to sleep.

The sound of an air pump and a hushed argument made him turn his head but didn't really wake him up.

When he truly did wake up, the clock on the cable box said it was seven in the evening. The TV was on the local news and muted. The lights in the lair were off. Their sleep patterns would be completely off for the next few days Leo guessed. He yawned and it hurt his face, pulling the tender flesh taught.

The next few days would be sore.

Raph was back on the couch with the remote in his hand, he didn't look to be in any pain. His chest looked fine but the memory of him being shot still made Leo grimace, his guilt wasn't dampened yet. On the floor between the couch and the lazy boy there was a standard sized air mattress where Donnie and Mikey had crashed. Leo smiled at his little siblings tucked close together and asleep, Mikey's chin rested on the top of Donnie's head. The same position that Mikey took with Leo the night he admitted to the hotel room. A blanket was tucked around them, judging by how smooth and neat the blanket was Raph had done that.

He adjusted his weighted blanket and stretched. Limbs sore from bruising and inactivity.

"You need anything?" Raph asked, scrambling to turn the channel to something else

Leo pointed at the TV and ignored the motion blur around his arm, he wanted to know if there were any reports of bodies floating to shore. "Can-"

"Food- I'll get us food- snacks! Wha' do you want Leo, applesauce?" Mikey slurred almost drunkenly as he crawled out of the bed on the floor. "I'll get you applesauce," he affirmed.

After unintentionally summoning his brother to push apple sauce on him, Leo almost considered faking sleep. They hadn't woken him for any meal after breakfast. Or maybe they did and he didn't remember. Judging by how funny he felt he couldn't really trust his memory.

"It was on the five o'clock news, a body was found in the water a few miles from a speed boat owned by Eric Webb," Donnie said as he untangled the blankets and got up. He walked to the wall first to flip on the lights. Raph groaned and put his pillow over his head while Donnie took away Leo's ice pack to look at his face. "You may have a hairline fracture somewhere. I palpitated the area and couldn't feel anything, the swelling is going down."

Donnie squished the gel matrix of the ice pack around before setting it gently back over Leo's face on the worst of the swelling. Now cool again Leo relaxed into it and closed his eyes. "Is Eric dead?" he mumbled.

He wanted to be sure.

"The body they found matched his description. I'm guessing it will be a few days before they release his name." Donnie adjusted Leo's blankets further up around him, smoothing it over his chest. His hands lingered on Leo longer than they needed. He went over the same spots multiple times.

"Hey," Leo mumbled. "It's okay, I'm okay."

His brother gave him a doubtful look.

Well, he was okay if they left off the suicidal thoughts, eating disorder, broken tail, horrible depression… the reassuring smile he was trying to give Donnie slipped away. He shifted to free his arms so he could take Donnie's.

"I'm not going anywhere," he amended. He tried to squeeze his brother's hands but his fingers were stiff and didn't curl all the way. His hand simply twitched against the other turtle's wrists.

Donnie stared at him, not convinced by this. As if Leo had a long track record of running away when things become too stressful.

"Yeah you aren't," Mikey said with the entire snack cupboard in his arms and one very large bowl of applesauce that he handed over to Leo. "And if you do Donnie will find you, again."

Mikey then chucked a bag of Ruffles at Raph's shell before dropping the rest of the snack on the mattress.

"Hey how did you find Leo so fast?" Mikey asked, giving Donnie a curious look.

On the couch Raph removed his pillow from his head to look at the suddenly very quiet turtle that was hyper fixated on smoothing the blankets over Leo's chest. "Yeah how did you know exactly where Leo was?" Raph asked, squinting.

Leo frowned too, for the first time he actually started questioning the circumstances. How did Raph even locate him at night in such a vast space. "You knew I was in the ocean?" he asked.

"Well yes, how else would Raph have found you?" Donnie said, now avoiding everyone and looking around at their home. "I directed him over the phone until we lost signal."

"Yeah but how did you know where he was, like… exactly where he was?" Mikey pressed.

"I-might-have-put-a-micro-chip-in-him," Donnie mumbled into his closed fist.

The bag of Ruffles fell to the floor. Yellow chips skidded across the hard cement. "Wait what did you say?" their owner asked.

"You put a tracker in Leo!?" Mikey yelled while crouching down to eat the chips off the floor. Leo didn't know what to handle first. His brother was eating chips off the floor and his other brother put a tracker in him. One of those was really bad.

Donnie grimaced at Mikey. "Don't eat food off the floor, Mikey! You know Raph didn't sweep."

"Hey!"

"Hey yourself, Raph!" Donnie rounded on his brother. "It's a good thing I did put that tracker in him or else he wouldn't be here right now! So don't act like what I did was uncalled for or delusional! I'm not losing him again!"

They all stared at Donnie who was now standing before them with his fist clenched, his breathing harsh. Most terrifying of all was the way he was looking at them, like they were mad at him. Really Leo was surprised more than anything. A little freaked out, but it wasn't the end of the world.

Not like Mikey eating Ruffles off the floor.

"Okay…" Raph said, "I'm gonna ignore what Leo just mumbled because I think all those pain meds and sedative are catching up-"

I knew one of those wasn't a pain killer.

"-but dude… a fucking tracker? Just because Splinter sent him away?"

"And I thought I had abandonment issues," Mikey said, shoveling floor chips in his mouth like popcorn. "Welp Leo, I guess you're never getting away from Donnie at least."

He chewed on that, the idea that even if he ran it would be useless. Donnie had essentially tied them together at least physically. No wonder his suicidal thoughts have scared Donnie so much. He stirred his bowl of applesauce and took a bite as one does when drugged and faced with such startling news.

Donnie laughed at Mikey's statement. "None of you are getting away from me," he said, lowering his voice.

"What?" Raph and Mikey both asked.

"I'm not losing any of you again again!" Donnie screamed shrilly.

He was holding Leo's shoulder now, digging his fingers in like someone was going to reach down and pluck him out of their lives again. Maybe that was how Donnie felt, maybe that was how they all felt. Leo only learned recently that they were actually upset when he left. For so long he had just thought about himself and what he felt.

Leo stared thoughtfully at his brother. This was definitely something he would want to talk about when he had a clearer head. For now it appeared Donnie was trying to calm himself.

He removed his hand from Leo's shoulder and took a deep breath. "Master Splinter sent one of us away. It didn't matter that Leo was suffering from some unknown affliction, Master Splinter sent him away." He said in a dark, and somewhat condescending tone. "Do you not understand that? What was I to think? If Master Splinter could send Leo away one day he might send Raph away the next. He could send Mikey away too. Did you two just sit there and think oh it won't happen again? Splinter won't send one of us away like Leo. F-fuck!" he stammered.

Leo put down his spoon and traded his applesauce bowl to the other hand so he could grip Donnie's. He gave Leo a small squeeze back, his whole body was tense.

"It took me two months to get safe working trackers, and not ones that would just stick on your shells. I needed something permanent. And let me make it clear that they are permanent and I never asked because you would never have agreed!" he scolded both Mikey and Raph.

The former only reacted by staring open mouthed at Donnie while his hands blindly felt around for more savory floor Ruffles.

"Damn right we'd never agree to-" Raph stopped short and frowned hard. "Wait, you had trackers in us two months after Leo left?"

Mikey gasped, putting the pieces together. "I knew that request to let you bite my ass was suspicious!"

Well, maybe not the same pieces Raph had.

"You knew this whole time I was The Nightwatcher!?"

"Yes," Donnie confessed. "I couldn't say anything without revealing the tracker though. That does not mean I agreed with what you were doing. I also feared you would be sent away like Leo if Splinter caught wind of your vigilantism."

"Why would Splinter send Raph away for that?" Leo wondered.

Donnie looked at him like it was obvious but then softened his face. "At the time we had no idea what you did to get sent away. On our end it appeared you were very ill, I was thinking maybe you had Crohn's Disease or Celiacs. If you were sent away for something out of your control like a chronic illness I feared what Splinter would do if Raph was purposefully going against his orders."

"When a turtle says he's biting you ass you trust him. You have betrayed my trust!" Mikey said.

Joking or not, Donnie was at his breaking point. He ripped his hand out of Leo's and stomped up to Mikey towering over him and his Ruffles. "You can be mad!" he yelled, Mikey winced and shrunk down. "All of you can be mad!" he screamed as Raph came to put some space between the two. "But I am never losing any of you! I had nightmares for weeks! Part of me thought maybe Leo had committed suicide and Splinter was pulling the "your brother went away to live on a farm" card!"

Leo felt his heart drop into his stomach.

"Holy shit," Raph said quietly, cupping the back of Donnie's neck with one hand and holding the top of Mikey's with the other.

"Dude," Mikey added, voice full of hurt as he fought Raph's hand to stand up.

Donnie turned away from them and Leo caught a glimpse of his face as he walked by, his lips trembling as he mouthed something silently. "You guys didn't need to know, you didn't need to know, I lost my chance to talk to Leo and when he came back I didn't know how to talk to him." He whimpered in the back of his throat.

Knowing that noise, that soft cry for help that seemed to call upon some paternal instinct he had for all of his younger siblings, Leo was jolted into action. It didn't matter what preceded the noise, an argument, a broken irreplaceable possession. Leo was scrambling to find a safe place to put his applesauce so he could promptly stop Donnie from making that heart breaking noise.

"And that destroyed me," Donnie choked. "And then just the thought of you two leaving too, I had to, I had to. I would stay up at night on my laptop just looking at your t-two dots. I would watch Raph's Nightwatcher activities, I would watch Mikey drive to his jobs. I needed to know I needed to know!" he dropped to the ground on his hands and knees and bent forward, pressing his head into the floor.

They could not stand to watch their brother perform dogeza, there was something deeply disturbing about Donnie doing that to anyone but Master Splinter. It was an act that even as leader, Leo would be uncomfortable with.

"Come here little brother," Leo said, coming over to stand on his knees next to Donnie, lifting his head from the floor. "Come here, stop this at once."

Even though the words were towards Donnie, Leo soon had Mikey and Raph hesitating to interact nearby and looking to him for how to help.

Donnie choked out again in a broken high sob that Leo hushed. He was determined to stay in dogeza with his face on the floor. Leo hugged him from above and gestured for Raph and Mikey to do the same. The best they could do now would be to refuse Donnie's apology. It wasn't warranted, as far as Leo was concerned it was Master Splinter's fault Donnie was pushed to such extremes.

"It's okay I'm not mad," Leo soothed, running his hands over Donnie's shell while Mikey got down on the floor to say something into the sobbing turtle's ear. "Can someone grab him some water?"

Raph stood up to get some water while Leo and Mikey used more force than before to coax Donnie into seiza. At least this way they could have a conversation as equals. Leo hugged Donnie to his chest while Mikey dabbed his face dry with tissues. Donnie held onto Leo's arms lightly, but leaned against him while gulping air.

They urged him to breathe deeply, Raph helped him drink water. Mikey kept drying tears and holding his hand. Leo reassured Donnie over and over again that none of them were ever leaving again, he knew how important it was to be reassured of those things. Irrational fears and paranoia do not care about the things that go without saying.

Leo could tell that Donnie's wasn't the only one calmed by the reassurances, and that was fine. There were some abandonment issues deeply rooted in their family now, but they were ones that would diminish over time.

"None of us will leave," Leo hummed, barely articulating now as he had said it fifty times over.

"You're stuck with us," Raph added, pressing the water glass to Donnie's lips again.

Mikey nuzzled his face into Donnie's shell. "Yeah, sucker." He then frowned, "Wait…"

Donnie laughed a little at that, still trembling but not crying. Leo hated to see any of them cry.

"We're all right here Donnie," Leo said, squeezing him tighter. He didn't want to rush the process but standing on his knees with no padding was beginning to hurt.

Donnie nodded, "I think I had a panic attack just now."

"And that's okay," Leo said. Mikey and Raph nodded and hummed their approval of Donnie's panic attack.

"We just going to let this slide though?" Raph asked, while they were still calming Donnie. None of them willing to make a move to stop this until Donnie did. "He put trackers in us…"

Leo closed his eyes and rested his head on top of Donnie's. So grateful to be home with all of them.

"It's a little creepy, but it's also kind of cute," Mikey said, cupping Donnie's face.

Raph scrunched his snout up, "How is it cute?" he asked.

"I dunno, we must be pretty special if he's having a breakdown over us," Mikey said in a gushy voice. "We should get him back for it though. Like, no crime goes unpunished."

Donnie turned his head away and huffed. "What're you going to do, spank me?" he asked.

"Maybe we will!" Mikey asserted, Raph nodded.

"Oh no, anything but that," Donnie said dryly.

A little more reassuring later and after their snacks were consumed, they tested out the limitations of the air mattress. Leo ended up sandwiched in a nest of brother's between Mikey and Donnie. Raph remained on the couch with his hand hanging down to rub Donnie's shoulder. There were murmurs about the trackers, and Donnie promised to show them how to use the trackers to find each other if they needed to.

It was a good enough compromise.

The following day on the morning news Eric's name was released as the drowning victim who was recovered the previous day.

~o~0~o~

Nervous hands fiddled with the IV, adjusting it again. Leo watched his brother run through his checklist, mumbling to himself as he made sure his tray of tools was ready. He fidgeted with the table placement.

His brother was stalling for time.

"Donnie, is there something wrong?" Leo asked.

"Hmmm?" Donnie asked, "No, no, just… no everything is fine. I have everything. I'm just... You sure you don't want Mikey or Raph with you?"

"I'll be fine," Leo said.

A day prior to the procedure Leo laid out who he wanted in the room with him, he decided on being alone during the procedure and then taking visitors once the worst of the sedative wore off. He expected to be loopy as hell but that only spared him from being aware of what Donnie was doing to his tail. He didn't want Mikey or Raph to suffer the noise of his tail breaking.

The operation table was the same table Leo had been examined on. A curtain was put up to divide his top half from his lower half. His legs were in the stirrups, he had resigned himself to this and the coming days of bed rest. He was at ease with Donnie's touch, and would swallow his pride over the bathroom situation knowing the benefits were worth it.

His heart was still racing, but only because he was naked and had his legs spread. Otherwise the reminder that it was Donnie he was here with kept him from backing out.

He watched his brother prepare a syringe and line it up with his IV port. Leo held his hand out to stop him. There was something that needed to be said.

"Donnie, look at me."

What met him were brown, sad eyes. His brother's nerves were making him nervous by association but he refused to show it.

"You are an amazing doctor." His brother looked away and pursed his lips, a rebuttal building behind his teeth. "You really are. All the things you have done for us over the years. Anytime we've been sick or had broken bones, you've always known exactly what to do. Whenever we drag someone home battered up my relief doesn't come when I see you've patched them up. It hits me the second we get them in this room and you start working. I can breathe knowing they are in really good hands."

Donnie shook his head, "There's a difference between setting a bone and breaking one. I guess it is only just now occurring to me that I will be breaking your tailbone… I… that feels so wrong to do. I know I need to, but it feels so wrong."

Of course Leo did not envy his brother's position, breaking a bone on purpose when someone was unconscious or unable to even put up a defense was dishonorable. This was different and Donnie needed to be reminded.

"I can't go to the bathroom normally, I can't have an erection, and it hurts like hell to move my tail." Donnie nodded as Leo spoke. "You are not breaking my tail, you are correcting my tail with my express consent. I have no delusions about everything returning to normal, but I do trust you. And I trust when you say fixing my tail will give me a better quality of life than I have right now."

Donnie shook his head. "All things considered, you would think I would be the one calming your nerves right now."

"I'm counting on whatever is in that syringe to do that," Leo said, folding his hand together and resting them over his chest. "You are going to do just fine. I just need to lay here."

Inhaling deeply, Donnie plunged the contents of the syringe into Leo. "I love you, I'll talk to you in a few minutes."

Leo nodded, slurred his own love and didn't remember anything that followed until Donnie talked to him a second later saying everything went smoothly.

~o~0~o~

"Ya said ya would tell me, but ya keep not telling me." Raph nudged him in the shoulder. They were on top of a building near their home, but it was a tall building with a good view of the sunrise. A good ending to a night of perhaps a little vigilantism that neither Donnie nor Mikey needed to find out about.

Leo hummed and tapped the edge of his mostly full beer can. It took Raph a long time to convince him to have a beer, and it felt weird to drink on an empty stomach while watching the sunrise. But they couldn't return the six pack those teenagers stole anyways and Raph argued he couldn't let it go to waste.

Leo agreed saying they could both have one and Raph could have the others at home, where it was safe to do so.

It didn't really count as a quote unquote "date," but it was some bonding time just for the two of them. It was nice in its own way. They could have headed back hours ago but for whatever reason they didn't.

Likely because Raph really wanted to know what happened to Eric and didn't believe Leo's claims about being too fuzzy to remember.

"I did," Leo agreed. "But whatever you think happened would be far more satisfying than what actually did." He focused more on the beer can and his arms, the scars were long faded now. The zip ties were a distant memory, so was that night on the boat.

"Hearing how that sick fuck died for real would be the most satisfying thing Leo, hands down." Raph placed his hand on Leo's shoulder and squeezed. "No shame in whatever you did to him, right?"

Leo suppressed the urge to laugh. He had found Eric's death strangely fitting, Raph wouldn't because it involved significantly less blood and Leo didn't actually kill him.

Fate just struck.

"Mid-sentence, something about I really don't remember now… he just stumbled and fell over the edge of the boat," Leo said, creasing his brow and letting his hand drop back to his side.

No, it hadn't sounded better saying it out loud.

Raph was dumbfounded, "You're joking."

Leo shook his head.

"No, no, you gotta be joking, no way he just-" Raph made a gesture that Leo didn't even bother looking at. "That's not… how is that fair?"

"I waited for a while after it happened. I thought he would crawl back on the boat," Leo said, remembering the terrible feeling of an uncertain death stranded on that boat. It never caused nightmares but… he was grateful his brother's still took their turns sleeping with him. "Thought the universe was playing a joke on me."

Raph shook his head, "That sucks Leo, I'm sorry-"

"No," Leo said softly, shaking his head. "It was good, it being a joke is good."

"How can that be good?" Raph asked.

Leo paused, his reasoning was fragile and it made him feel okay about the situation. It made him feel okay about the rape, not that being raped was okay at all… but it felt like he could be okay with moving on.

"Eric Webb walked around on that speedboat like he was born on a ship, Raph. That water was hard and the boat was going up and down. The last person in the world to fall overboard would be someone like that but it still happened. And that night that…" Raph took his hand and squeezed it knowing the next words without Leo having to say them.

Donnie had said it was important to say it anyways though, to validate it, and he was right.

"That night I was raped, I really was the last person in the world it should have happened to… and it still did." Leo said shrugging now, feeling himself tense and waiting for Raph to tear it all down or say something. Even though his support had been through the roof. "So when it happened to Eric, when he was talking about killing me one second and gone the next… it just put things into perspective."

Leo looked down at the street below swallowing when he felt Raph's hand rest on his carapace, rubbing him gently and not saying anything for a moment.

"Is it weird that seeing him go like that gave me closure?" Leo asked, his voice quiet but Raph would hear him despite it.

Raph shook his head. "Nah, no man." He pulled Leo closer, wrapping his arm around Leo's shoulders. "Still wish I could've smashed his face in or somethin' but I'll trade that if you got something out of watching him fall out of a boat."

"I got more out of that then lying in bed."

"Then… it was good," Raph said.

Leo smiled looking away, he had come a long way since those dark days. Since then his tail had been fixed, he hadn't purged, he still had some rough times with certain subjects whenever they cropped up but his brothers were there.

They were always willing to listen if he needed it.

One day he would open up more about what happened, when he was ready. He was done forcing himself to be ready though. Everyday was about moving forward and when he did look back he tried to give himself a little more credit.

He couldn't be expected to always keep his footing and never stumble.

Raph stood up, "Come on Jungle Boy. You ready, tonight is the night. And I told Mikey I would make you work up an appetite."

Leo smirked and held up his beer can, "I don't know, you filled me up on alcohol."

Raph took the can from Leo and started chugging it which prompted Leo to try to snatch it from him. Raph kept holding him back with his arm as they walked across the roof.

"I thought we agreed on one," Leo growled, not really giving his all into the fight.

"I was just finishing yours for ya, wouldn't want ya to spoil your appetite," Raph snorted.

Leo huffed and grumbled under his breath, "Fine."

Raph shook the last drops of the beer out onto the roof before storing the empty can away to get his ten cent return on later. "I'm just being… What does Donnie call it? A positive influence."

"Yeah, yeah," Leo said, shaking his head as they hopped down the fire escape. "Real glad I have you to drink my beer."

"You don't even like the stuff."

"I'm more so complaining about the principle of it."

"Well," Raph said as they approached the manhole cover. "You ready?"

Leo looped his finger into the holes and lifted the manhole cover Raph pulled it to the side and went down first.

"To eat solid food for the first time in years?" he asked while putting the manhole cover back in place above his head. "No."

Raph waited for him at the bottom of the metal ladder. "But…" he goaded.

"But…" Leo said, "I know you three will accept nothing less from me."

"That's the spirit."

Beta Reader: kalachelone

A/N on December 10th, 2020: The completed story (9 chapters and about 89,000 words) is already on AO3 under the same title and username if you wanna read ahead.