Here we go everyone, I figured I'd give you, my lovely readers, some delightful traditional hurt/comfort.
Enjoy!
It was so cold. Even the pitch black surrounding him was icy. Leo swung his head around, trying to find a hint of his whereabouts, but was rewarded with only the sinking sensation of disappointment in his gut, and the burn of fear in the back of his throat.
There was something familiar about where he was, the dank dampness, accompanied by the smell of dirt and stone. Not to mention, there was something evil in the darkness, something watching him, something that made the young leader hunch in terror. Leonardo shivered, pulling his hands up, so to rub chilled arms, but quickly found both were tied down to a chair. The turtle yanked and pulled, struggling against his bonds, breath mere wheezing gasps of horrified panic. No good, he couldn't budge. Testing his feet, Leo found that they too were tied down, and no amount of pulling would free them. He was helpless.
"Leonardo…" a voice hissed in the dark, fingers skittering across a metal surface, dragging a mane of tangled hair behind it, "it is going to find you…it will have revenge…"
"No, nonono," the strong warrior's voice was reduced to the pitiful whimper of a child, tears welling in the sapphire eyes, "not again, please, not again, I can't do this again, I'm not strong enough,"
"It will make a pretty new suit…it will take your name…"
The footsteps were drawing closer, and no matter how Leo struggled, he couldn't escape, "Please," he begged, voice hitched on a sob, "don't…don't touch me…I want to go home…please, don't touch me…D-Daddy….please, make it go away…."
The feeling of hair sliding along his arm, and then a maw of needle sharp teeth clicking in the darkness, the stench of the creature's breath as it whispered, "It's coming for you…and you will not escape it, ever again!"
"Ra-aph, D-Donnie," Leo wept, body tense, trapped in a sustained convulsion of disgust and fear, shoulders hunching as he tried to protect himself, "Mik-key, somebody…help me…"
"Nobody is coming….it will never let you go."
He was powerless…. helpless…. the skin walker had him again, and he couldn't escape. Any strength or wisdom he had, any plans he'd divined, all were rendered moot. He was a mighty ninjutsu warrior, he could take down entire armies of foot ninja by himself, but he wasn't any of that here. Here, he was nothing more than a child sobbing in the dark. None of his training could save him. He was all alone. The broad shoulders heaved as he wept, tears splattering the green skin of his thighs, terror beating razor tipped wings inside his chest, making every heartbeat stab through muscle and bone, agony pounding with each erratic beat. He couldn't breathe, he was so scared, he wanted this to stop.
"Please, go away," he pleaded, "please, please, go away,"
"Never…it will live on..forever…it owns you, Leonardo!"
Spindly fingers closed around his throat, and the sensation of a cold blade danced along his collarbone. Throwing his head back, in one last ditch effort to escape, Leonardo screamed.
….
Raphael sat awake in his hammock, grumpy topaz eyes retracing the familiar crack in his ceiling for the umpteenth time. He couldn't sleep, and while he knew why, it didn't make it any easier to deal with.
He shouldn't be so upset; the night began pleasantly enough. April and Casey had stopped by to surprise the small family with some exciting news. The human couple had found out that April was pregnant, and to say that they were thrilled would be an understatement. Michelangelo had hugged April so hard; he literally picked her up off the floor spinning the woman around, with Leo and Donnie quick to do so as well. Master Splinter merely winked at the woman, no doubt the rat had known for some time, but chose to remain quiet, allowing April the opportunity to give the news herself. Casey was close to tears, exclaiming his impending fatherhood as if he had managed to shut down all gang activity on every street in New York by himself. Even Raphael couldn't keep his emotions in check as the brawler found himself tearing up when April called him Uncle Raphael, confirming that they would be a part of the baby's life.
It was a night of celebration, quickly followed by their usual Friday night routine of board games and movies. This was when the problem started.
Casey had brought a new horror movie over, it was barely June, but that still meant it was close enough to Halloween to start watching scary movies. Not that Raph cared, he enjoyed a slasher flick as much as the rest of his brothers. However, tonight's film was a little different. It followed a group of archaeologists and geologists who were trapped in an abandoned mine, which was enough to set the brothers on edge, but when it became apparent that they were being hunted by a creature in the dark, their leader in particular found it very difficult to watch. The blue ninja sat on the floor, legs crisscrossed, and a heavy quilt around his shoulders. Despite being under a blanket, however, Raphael could still see Leonardo shivering, blue eyes wide and haunted. Through the small gap in the blanket, the brawler watched his leader's calloused thumb unconsciously trace the outline of the scar on his calf, where the skin walker opened his artery.
At one point in the movie, a member of the team had been grabbed by the ankles and dragged into the darkness by the unseen creature. Leo lost it then, the turtle swiftly jumping to his feet, and mumbling something about how he forgot to do a kata, and practically fled to the dojo, still clutching the blanket. Raphael sighed. No one was really able to focus on the film after that, especially the brothers. When they went to check on the eldest later on, he was meditating, and seemed to be alright. At least, he'd said so. They knew better though. Which was why Raphael couldn't sleep. Nights like these weren't too frequent thankfully, they'd gotten a lot fewer and farther in between lately, as Leo moved past that horrific experience in the Nexus. However, every once in a while, the brawler could almost sense the bad night to come, and he'd stand watch, waiting for the moment his brother would need him.
That still didn't soothe the frustration he felt though.
It wasn't Casey or April's fault for picking a movie that reminded Leo of one of the scariest moments of his life, Raphael knew that. They knew about the abduction, but they weren't told the intimate details. Enough to understand why the leader was weak, and having to recover when they came home from the nexus, but they didn't know what happened, or what the creature looked like, or even where Leo was being held. So, they had no way of knowing to avoid things like that. The idea of staying away from abduction movies wasn't even explicitly talked about within the family. It just, sort of, happened. Plus, Leo didn't get vocal about his triggers, trying not to burden others with them, so April and Casey probably didn't even realize that there was a problem at all.
Raphael drew in a deep breath, holding it, before releasing it slowly through his nose. It wasn't their fault for not knowing.
"Raph!"
The brawler sat up, liquid gold eyes wide as Donatello burst into his room, "What's up, Donnie?"
"We need you," the genius didn't need to say anything else; Raph knew.
Leo was having a night terror.
They learned a long time ago that the safest person to pull their leader out of a nightmare was Raphael. It was an unfortunate side effect of being highly trained ninja. While they may know on a subconscious level that they're having a nightmare, it's harder to turn off their instincts which are hotwired directly into their bodies. After a rough night of bad dreams, it wasn't uncommon for one of the brothers to greet their father the next morning with a black eye from trying to wake each other out of a panic induced, semiconscious state. Plus, Leonardo's diligence in training made him particularly difficult to restrain, as while he wasn't the biggest out of his brothers, he still was coherent enough even in sleep to land some devastating blows. It quickly became clear that the best sibling capable of safely restraining the eldest until he was lucid, could only be the strongest turtle in their clan. Raphael had the size, and the bulk that could hold their leader down, and not suffer too badly for it.
It was a position that Raphael both held great pride for, and dreaded, as it was something that broke his heart to see every single time.
Stepping into the room, the brawler once again felt his heart crack at the sight. Leonardo was writhing on the bed, occasionally kicking or striking out at some unseen foe, sweat glistening on his scales, even as he whimpered in the dark. The room was lit only by a small wax melter that the eldest would use sandalwood scents, or his current favorite, eucalyptus mixed with lavender and vanilla. The light from the wax melter would brighten the room enough to take away the feeling of the cellar, but also to not be considered a nightlight. Leo hated the pitch-black darkness after his experience, and while no one had given him grief over it, he was ashamed of needing a light in his room while he slept. Tonight, it seemed the small device offered very little comfort.
"….no…. make it stop…. please, go away…. don't touch me…." The blue ninja whimpered softly; his voice fragile as it begged.
The brawler shivered, both in anger at the skin walker, and in sorrow that Leonardo was forced to endure the experience over and over in his dreams. Pulling in a steadying breath, Raphael crawled into the bed, pulling the blankets out from around and under the eldest, then gently picking him up, he cradled the trembling frame against his chest. Another thing they'd learned, with this particular nightmare, the one with the skin walker, Leo responded best to the sensation of being skin to skin with his brothers. Something about the familiar feeling of rough, calloused scales and the unforgiving hardness of their natural armor, helped Leo come back to reality. Taking the shivering arms, Raphael braced them across Leo's plastron, then wrapped the eldest in a firm hug. Now came the hard part. Raph began to gently jostle the eldest, rumbling as soothingly as he could into their leader's ear.
"Come on, Leo, wake up, buddy,"
A whine of distress was Leonardo's only reply, the eldest's breath hitched, heart rate picking up to the point that Raphael could visibly see it pumping underneath the heaving plastron. The brawler gave his brother another shake, "Leo, yer havin' a nightmare, ya gotta wake up,"
"Please," the eldest gasped, tears leaking out from the corners of clenched eyes, the eldest jerked in Raphael's hold, straining to escape, "please, go away….Raph…Donnie…Mi-Mikey…hel-lp…."
Raphael bit back the hot tears blurring his vision, losing his cool wouldn't help anyone. The brawler tightened his grip, resting his head against Leo's, "Come on, Fearless, yer safe, we got ya,"
"Please," Leo sobbed, "please go away," The broad shoulders shuddered, their leader suddenly struggling to pull air into his lungs, his gasps quickly withering into spasming pants.
"I don't like how he's sounding," Donnie muttered, leaning forward to check his heart rate, "he hasn't had a night terror this bad in months."
"I can bet that it was the movie that did it," Mikey murmured, worried baby blues pinned on Leo as the youngest perched on the bed near Raph, "even I wasn't sure I could finish it."
Raphael sighed, remembering the days when Michelangelo was the biggest horror flick nut out of all of them. However, when a family goes through something this traumatizing, it was understandable that their taste in movies would change. Donatello placed a finger on Leo's neck, searching for his pulse, but reared back when the eldest recoiled, kicking out with both legs, and a strangled scream ripping out of the tense throat. Raphael held the eldest down, pinning Leo's arms so to avoid their leader accidentally hurting himself or any of his brothers. That was when Leonardo finally snapped out of the nightmare, his sudden awakening as drastic and painful as ripping a bandage off an open wound.
Horror filled sapphire eyes popped open, the turtles breath speeding up into quick and shallow gasps, the hazy gaze swinging drunkenly around the room, searching for a landmark to focus on that would tell him his location. Another distressed whine, accompanied by panicked kicking and writhing, and Leo was once again fighting against Raphael's hold. The dark space probably still looked too similar to the cellar, even with the dim glow from the wax melter. He obviously didn't recognize where he was. Leonardo's heart rate picked up once again, hammering against the brawler's forearm, warning him that they needed to calm the eldest down and quickly.
"Leo, it's me!" Raph snapped, giving his brother a healthy shake.
He didn't like being so rough, but sometimes that was the only way to shock Leo out of the nightmare. "Ra-Raph?" The eldest finally called, his voice small and afraid, head twisting around to try and find his younger sibling, "I c-can't see,"
"Mikey, get the lights," the hothead instructed, raising a hand to shield Leo's eyes so the sudden brightness wouldn't startle him. Shock overwhelmed the muscular frame, reducing the blue warrior into a shivering ball as Leo slowly became more lucid.
The blue warrior's muscles jumped and twitched, evidence to the intense fight or flight instinct pumping through his veins. Eyelids fluttering, the sapphire gaze adjusted to the light, jumping to greedily drink in the sight of his bedroom, and his brothers. By that point the leader had officially stopped fighting the firm embrace, melting against Raphael, soaking in the soothing body heat from the warmest turtle. "Oh," he breathed, head falling back against his brother's shoulder as a new wave of tears flooded the relieved terrapin, "I'm not there," he gasped, more to himself than anyone else, "I'm home… I'm home…"
"There you go, aniki," Mikey soothed, a calloused thumb rubbing comforting circles into the chilled arm, "just breathe, bro."
"It was…a dream?" Leo's question, a strange amalgamation of hope mixed with cautious skepticism, as if he were bracing himself to be thrown back into the cellar and all its deathly roommates.
"Yeah, aniki," Donnie said, taking their leader's hand and giving it a comforting squeeze, "it wasn't real, you're at home in your room."
Blue eyes widened in guilt, probably because Leonardo realized the time, and connected the dots, "I woke you up?" Shell, they hated his voice sounding so fragile.
"Yeah, but it's fine, bro," Michelangelo reassured, "I mean, how many times do you help me and Donnie with our nightmares?"
Leo didn't answer, and the brawler could feel as the young leader withered in his arms. Raphael looked down, checking on their leader, just in time to see shame burn its way across Leo's haggard features. The eldest clenched his jaw, throat convulsing as he fought against the angry sobs clawing their way out of trembling lips, "I'm sorry," he whispered, closing his eyes in a pitiful bid to hide from his own weakness, "I'm so sorry,"
"Hey," Donnie scolded gently, brown eyes narrow, "what are you apologizing for? Because it better not be for the nightmare."
Leo hunched his shoulders, trying not to anger his siblings, but unable to deny the self loathing twisting his face into a grieved snarl, "I'm pathetic," he spat, a sharp exhale even as his body continued to shiver feebly, "you shouldn't have to deal with this-or me, you should be asleep and not-not…." Leo choked, the sobs he was battling so valiantly against gaining ground, "not babysitting your older brother because he's too pathetic…because I'm not strong enough…to watch a stupid movie!"
By this point, Raphael wasn't restraining so much as hugging the eldest, and shell did he need it. Leonardo refused to look at his siblings, clenching his eyes shut with a visage of self hatred so intense, it scared Raphael to see it. "I just want to be over it," the eldest gasped, sounding so broken it shattered the younger brother's just to hear, "I just want to be better…I want to stop being a burden…I just wish it was over!"
Heartbreaking sobs shook the turtle, the blue warrior drawing up his legs, Leo clearly wanting to hid his face between his knees. Raphael didn't allow him to, though, he jerked his head at the younger brothers, and Donnie and Mikey gladly answered the summons. Purple, red and orange cradled the struggling leader, pulling him close in a silent reminder of their love and support, "Its okay, aniki," Donatello comforted, touching his forehead to Leonardo's, "I know it's frustrating, but no one is expecting you to bounce back as if nothing happened. This is normal, the nightmares are normal, and we're not mad. We're here because we love you, not because you're a burden."
"I should be stronger than this, though," the eldest moaned, "to be a mess like this after a nightmare, I might as well be a tot again. It's ridiculous, you shouldn't have to deal with it!"
"Dude, what you went through was," Mikey struggled to find the right word, his silence stretching out until the youngest could only sigh, choosing to nuzzle close to his big brother, "it was traumatic," he decided, "and just because you have nightmares about it doesn't make you weak or pathetic. It just means that you're trying to heal, and healing hurts sometimes."
"I can't escape it though," Leo wept, curling into his brothers, hiding his face in Donnie's shoulder, "no matter how hard I try…I wasn't strong enough to escape it then, and I'm still not strong enough to escape it now."
It was Raphael's turn to speak, and the brawler opened his mouth slowly as his gravely voice addressed the sobbing leader, "Leo, ya don't have ta be strong enough," he stated, voice tender and full of loving concern, "bein' strong enough means that ya have ta fight every battle alone, and last I checked, yer not alone. Ya got a team, ya got us, Leo. And just like I know that ya would move heaven and earth ta rescue any of us, or father or Casey and April, we would fight any enemy and risk it all ta save yer shell. Whether from the shredder, or the skin walker, or yer own head, we're gonna fight ta keep ya, because yer ours, and we don't give up what we know is ours without a fight."
"What was the scary thing you said the night you demolished the warehouse of purple dragons?" Mikey asked, a playful smirk on a grieved face, "They mess with what's mine, they get hurt? Same applies to you dude, but for us."
The tears were gradually slowing down, Leonardo leaning more and more heavily into Donatello as exhaustion took over, "But, what if it comes back?"
"It won't, it can't get you ever again," Donnie stated.
"How can we be sure?" The eldest asked, begging for proof of their safety.
"Well, for one thing," the engineer replied, tone smug, "it can't come back because Raphie set it on fire!"
That statement startled a giggle out of the eldest, Leo wiping tears away, even as he melted into laughter, "He what?!"
Raphael paused, that's right, they never talked about getting him out. Leo had been struggling with the physical recovery so much, the family once again fell back into a bad habit by pretending that everything was fine and never actually sat down to talk about what happened. They knew Leo had been tied to a chair the majority of his time in the cellar, but only because their brother had different odd triggers that could set off a panic attack. Such as wooden chairs with arms and a straight back, those were things Leo refused to even go near, much less sit in. It took a month before the eldest could stand the sensation of their father's fur on his face again. Plus, the aversion to dark holes in the ground. The first time they visited April, and she asked them to help her carry boxes up from the basement, Leo discovered the hard way that the wooden stairs leading down into the dark would send him into a spiral of terror. Poor guy was left frozen and clinging to the door jam, shivering like a kitten in a storm, it took all three of them to make him let go so they could shuffle him back upstairs.
However, despite all that, they'd never said a thing about the skin walker's fate. Maybe it was time to rectify that and give Leo some closure.
The brawler gave a careful shrug, intending to appear casual, while also shoving Leonardo into a tighter hug, "Ya know I hate bugs," he stated, "and that thing was on par with spiders, and ya know my motto with spiders…kill 'em with fire."
Leo released a bright stream of laughter. The tense muscles loosened, sobs diminishing to weak sniffles, even as pure and utter relief overflowed from sapphire eyes, "So, it's gone?" He asked tremulously.
"It better be," Mikey grumbled, "because I can't think of anything that could survive being set on fire, and then locked away, because trust me, dude, I saw the knot Raph made of the chain. You'd need a blowtorch or a circular saw to get through that tangled mess."
If anything could survive an experience like that, the skin walker could, the blue ninja thought with a shudder. However, he chose to focus on the new piece of information, "Did you really set it on fire?" Leo asked, twisting his head up to meet the topaz gaze of their resident hothead.
"Darn straight I did!" Raphael sputtered, chest swelling in pride at the memory, "even though, it was more Donnie, I just smashed all those jars of chemicals on it. Donnie's sun lamp thing is what set it on fire."
"Wouldn't have caught fire without the chemical reaction," Donatello hummed, satisfied that their distraction was calming the leader down from his night terror, "so, the victory is technically yours."
Raph shrugged, "I'll take it,"
Leo shook his head, a smile slowly growing on damp cheeks, "You set it on fire?!"
"Is it really so hard ta believe, bro?" Raphael chuckled warmly.
"Actually no,"Leonardo giggled, the absurdity of the concept lessened when applied to Raphael, "it's incredibly on brand for you, Raphie, I'm just impressed that you managed to set the skin walker on fire in the middle of a rescue mission."
"But, isn't that what happens every time Raph is in charge?" Mikey asked, batting his baby blue eyes in seeming innocence, "I might be wrong, but I'm pretty sure that any time Raph had to take the lead, something ended up on fire."
"Yeah?" The brawler challenged, pointedly ignoring Donnie's helpless giggles, "And in any of these imagined scenarios, did the thing in question ever not deserve ta be set on fire, Mikey?"
The youngest made a show of thinking it over, prompting another round of laughter, "Maybe?" Michelangelo said with a shrug, "I don't know, bro, we kind of have a bad habit of exploding stuff."
"You say it like it's a bad thing," Leo snorted.
"Yeah," Donnie whined, "I love it when things go 'splodey!"
"Especially gross disgustin' things that deserve ta go 'splodey,"Raph concurred.
Leonardo released a sigh, and the brothers noticed his eyes growing heavy. No doubt the guy was ready to drop, however, a note of fear remained in the sapphire gaze, making the leader grow tense once more. Michelangelo grinned, "Who wants a slumber party?"
Donnie gave an enthusiastic nod, even as a sleepy smile blossomed across the eldest's features, "A sleepover sounds good to me," Leo murmured, frame slumping against Raph's plastron.
"A'right, we'll have a slumber party," the brawler grumbled, though anyone listening knew he didn't actually mind.
Within the space of five minutes, Donatello and Michelangelo had drug in extra mattresses, as well as extra pillows and blankets, and the quadruplets were piled on the floor. Raphael and Donnie had Leo sandwiched between them, while Mikey snuggled up to Raph. After the light had been turned back off, Leonardo quickly fell under the folds of sleep, happy to be wrapped in the arms of his siblings, head firmly cuddled under Donatello's chin while Raphael had his strong arms in a loose hold around Leo's waist. Giving the battered and scarred shell an affectionate nuzzle, Raphael closed his eyes with a smile.
Leo may be the family protector, but as long as he was around, Raphael swore to be the one who guards the guardian.
Well, that was quick. I hope you like it, I know it wasn't incredibly deep, but I figured I should check in on Leo's recovery. I mean, you don't just get over something like that.
Thank you for the reviews, and I hope to see you all next time!
The name of the chapter for the letter O! Off-road!