**These short fics WILL contain Tcest. Please mind the tags!**
Chapter Four
Prompt: Midnight
Rating: T
Pairing(s): Leonardo/Donatello
Tags: Turtlecest, Romance, First Kiss, Soft and Sweet
Summary: With a new year comes a new beginning.
~*~.~*~
Dark and uncharacteristically quiet, the almost empty lair seemed to be waiting, as if it was a living creature, holding its breath while the clock finished ticking away the last solemn minutes of a long, agonizing year.
Raphael had gone out with Casey to view the city's celebrations from a rooftop overlooking Times Square. Michelangelo was at April's, watching the festivities on her tiny television, playing board games and eating too much junk food.
They both needed the distraction, needed to be with friends, needed the chance to live again, if only for the smallest of moments. It was the normalcy of simple joy that they had missed the most.
Donatello hadn't wanted to go with either of them. He wasn't ready. Instead, he sat on the couch, a science journal he wasn't reading open across his knees, Dick Clark muted on the tv, watching the minute hand on the clock move upward toward the twelve.
A soft clinking noise sounded to his left, loud enough to finally pull his eyes away from the circle of numbers. Turning his head he found Leonardo, backlit from the light of the kitchen, walking toward him. Clutched in his right hand were two fluted glasses, and in his left a chilled bottle of cheap champagne.
"Where did you get that?"
"I'll never tell." Leo teased as he set the glassware on the coffee table.
Donatello grinned, flinching only a little when Leonardo began to wiggle the cork back and forth until it finally came loose with a loud 'POP!' The pale, golden drink fizzed pleasantly as he poured a little for both of them.
Eyeing the clock, Leo picked up both glasses and stood there, the barest hint of a smile on his face as he waited expectantly.
Standing slowly, Donatello set his book aside and took the offered champagne, watching Leo's face closely as the leader grabbed the remote to unmute the tv. The quiet roar of the crowd far above their heads filled the space around them. The clock on the screen showed two minutes till midnight.
Of their own accord Don's eyes flicked to the farthest corner of the lair, to the ornamented shoji screen, closed and dark, untouched for five long months. Unexpected tears blurred his vision, but he quickly blinked them away.
A cool hand came to rest on his cheek and Don looked back to find the same tears mirrored in his brother's eyes.
"We honor him by moving forward," Leo whispered. "By celebrating these small moments, by living... for him and for everything he taught us, but more importantly for each other... for the one thing we've always wanted, but resisted, because he would not have understood."
A shiver passed through Don from his head all the way down to his toes and suddenly the lair seemed far too empty. His voice wavered as he replied. "They should be here... with us."
Leonardo shook his head. "They need reassurance that the world didn't end when he closed his eyes for the last time. They need to see it and hear it and touch it to know that it's real. But you and I... here, right now... we only need each other."
A rush of air escaped Don's lungs, the glass in his hand chimed softly as Leo tapped it against his own. They each took a sip, the bubbles tickled as they burst... and together they smiled.
The cacophony of the crowd in Times Square surged with excitement as the numbers began to flash.
TEN…
Gooseflesh crested a wave across Don's skin as Leo's fingers curled securely around the back of his neck.
NINE…
The thunk of their plastron's coming together could barely be heard over the din.
EIGHT…
Overwhelming, the scent of champagne, the incense Leo burned in his room, and something deeper, heavier, permeated the air between them.
SEVEN…
Don gripped the edge of Leo's shell, convinced he would disintegrate like the bubbles in his glass if he dared let go.
SIX…
In slow motion Leo leaned in and pressed their lips together, the kiss filled with an urgent passion that had long been forbidden.
FIVE…
Their skin sizzled where they touched like the fireworks that were only seconds away. Leonardo breathed in... and licked a path across Don's lower lip.
FOUR…
Distantly Donatello thought that his brother was supposed to have waited until the stroke of midnight. That the kiss should have come only as the harmonious melody of Auld Lang Syne drowned out the sounds of everything else.
THREE…
But the thought was fleeting, and when their tongues twisted together the heat of Leo's mouth threatened to consume him. It lasted the shortest of moments and Don whimpered when Leonardo moved away, taking the delicate glass from his hand, setting it, along with his own, safely down on the coffee table.
TWO…
A breath and then he was back, pulling Don with him down onto the couch, molding the lengths of their bodies together, eager to find the rhythm that would entice the others to join them... when the time was right.
ONE…
Explosions of light flashed and boomed, the crowd cheered, the music swelled... but deep underground they were oblivious to it all...
Should auld acquaintance be forgot, and never brought to mind? It was a year that saw their entire world turned on its end, but out of the rubble would come a new beginning. A future, open and bright, that the four of them would build... together.
~*~ tmnt ~*~
