I want you to T-pose. Turn your right thumb up and your left thumb doen and look at your right thumb. Move your arms up and down a bit until you feel a nerve running from your armpit to your palm. Now turn your right thumb down and your left thumb up, and look at your left thumb. Keep your chest facing forward and your shoulders back. Move your arms again until you feel that nerve again. Keep alternating between these two for a minute, or look at each thumb thirty times each.
Now sit down. Put your left hand firmly under your left buttock, palm down. Keep your shoulders back and put your right hand over the crown of your head, very gently pulling it to the right. Do this for thirty seconds, then do it again but with your right hand under your right buttock.
These are stretches for the nerves in your arms, and are very good for people who sit behind a computer a lot, or fibre artists, or you name it. Do them daily. They will hurt in the beginning, but keep doing them, even after the pain has gone, or it will return and you'll have to start all over.
TMNT (Human/Magic AU)
Part 1 of the Unbound AU
Word Count: 0.9k
Read on AO3
Bottles and cans litter the concrete, the garbage and sticky floors of the bar a testament to a night of revelry. This is not uncommon here, even on a Tuesday morning, but still the hulking figure that picks his way through the mess swears in annoyance at the inconvenience. Somebody will be through later to give it a cursory clean, but it’s far too early for anybody that he employs to be up and working.
The front door of the bar creaks open, and a stream of sunlight spills in that feels as out of place as the man that steps through it. He’s a much smaller man than the one who turns to greet him, and his freshly ironed slacks and ill-fitting blazer only serve to highlight the litheness of his frame. As he steps across the threshold and the door slams shut behind him, he adjusts his horn-rimmed glasses, surveys the room, and sniffs in distaste.
“What are you doing here Stockman?” The larger man growls, rising to his full height and flexing his hands dangerously. “I said I would call you.”
“You said you would deliver the sample by yesterday morning,” Stockman speaks calmly, either completely oblivious to or utterly unaffected by any attempts at intimidation.
“There was a complication.”
“Oh?” Stockman removes his glasses and begins to clean them. “My understanding is that I am to be informed of any setbacks to the project.”
The tattoos winding around the larger man’s arms begin to glow a sickly purple, and he takes half a step forward.
“Settle down, Hun,” Stockman’s voice drips with contempt, “You need me, remember? Or have you found some other way to locate an All-Source that you’re keeping in your back pocket?”
Hun lets out another low growl and sneers, but the tattoos fade.
“That’s what I thought. Now,” Stockman puts his glasses back on. “I thought your people had tracked down a covenant witch.”
“We did.” Hun reaches behind the bar, pulls out a dusty half-empty bottle of Ten High and opens it one handed.
“So what happened?” Stockman waits, tapping his fingers against his leg as the other man drains the bottle in one swig.
“She fought back. Took out a few of my guys too, but we managed to grab her.” Hun wipes his mouth and reaches back for another bottle, this time doling out a hefty pour of Lagavulin 16 into a dirty glass that was left out on the counter and taking a deep sip.
Stockman grimaces in disgust. “I fail to see the issue. Where’s the sample?”
“Idiots lost the dagger,” Hun’s eyes flash with anger, “We can drain her the fuck dry, won’t do shit without it.”
“Ah. Magic,” Stockman mutters, “So much more finicky than science. What’s next then? How long to create a new covenant dagger?”
Hun pours himself another glass. “We don’t need to. We know where it is.”
“Is it lost or isn’t it?”
“Some PI has it,” Hun’s massive hand tightens around the bottle, “He was already looking for the witch.”
“You have to be more careful.”
“First of all, fuck off,” the larger man speaks through gritted teeth, “Second, the PI is a coincidence. He has no idea what he’s sticking his nose into. Her family’s been looking for her, best we can tell they hired the guy before we even got involved. Our diviner says the guy tracked her down to the alley where we bagged her, found the knife.”
“Bad luck.”
“Fuckin’ terrible luck,” Hun leans on the bar, “She might be the only pure covenant amortal in the state. We don’t have a lot of options.”
“Then you have to move quickly, and you have-”
“I don’t tell you how to do your goddamn job,” Hun cuts him off, slamming the bottle down on the counter. It shatters, and the remaining liquor flows freely across the bar. Stockman doesn’t flinch, merely raising one eyebrow at the mess.
“I need a timeline then,” he says curtly. “This is delicate work, and I need to know when to expect the sample.”
“Tomorrow.”
“Good,” Stockman nods, seemingly satisfied with the answer, “I assume your people will…take care of the girl and the PI? This is not a project I’m willing to go to prison for.”
“Just do what we hired you to do,” Hun snarls.
Stockman presses his lips into a thin line and turns swiftly on his heel to leave. As he places a hand on the door knob, he pauses.
“My original prototype is archaic,” he says over his shoulder, glasses glinting in the sunlight as he cracks open the door, “But it detected something last night, and again this morning.”
“You found one.” Hun’s face is a mask that is further obscured in the shadows thrown against it from the light of the open doorway.
“Indeed. A powerful one, and close.”
There is a sound of glass clinking against glass as Hun pulls another bottle out from behind the bar, “And you’ll be able to track them?”
“The covenant witch is the last sample I need,” Stockman says, “Once I have that, I can find any All-Source in the western hemisphere, down to the building they’re in.” He steps out of the dingy bar and into the bustling New York morning. Behind him, Hun runs a hand through his hair and heaves a sigh.
“Bring me my sample, Hun,” Stockman calls back, “And I’ll bring you your All-Source witch.”
The story is Leo and Mikey centric but let me be clear, every one of these characters hits the mark with characterization and dialogue and the descriptions of the landscapes in the American West are just ASDOIHAOSIDHOSAHFOISAHFOIASFHOFH WHY ARE YOU STILL READING MY BS GO READ IT
TMNT (Human/Magic AU)
Part 1 of the Unbound AU
Word Count: 5.9k
He’d seen things tonight that should have been impossible, had travelled three thousand miles in an instant, had learned that an entire strange world existed under his nose; and somehow, the hardest piece of it all to take in is the most mundane part of the whole thing.
Michelangelo. Eager, and scared, and so eerily familiar.
A younger brother, stashed away in the house their mother grew up in, hidden from them by their father. Nothing about it makes sense, and Don still isn’t sure how he feels about the whole thing. The family resemblance is undeniable - he looks like Leo’s much smaller shadow as they grin in unison when the couch unfolds with a startling thud.
Read on AO3
Chapter Six: Donatello
“This thing’s supposed to be a hide-a-bed,” Donatello swears under his breath and yanks on the handle in a third unsuccessful attempt at unfolding it. A small cloud of dust rises from the ancient couch in response to the jostling, lodging itself seemingly entirely in his sinuses.
“That’s ok,” Mikey says brightly, holding the Book of Shadows to his chest as Don stifles a coughing fit, “I can just sleep on it in couch mode.”
“Are you sure?” Don wheezes, eyes watering as he places the paisley cushions back on the stubborn piece of furniture. “Raph’s room is still up for grabs. His bed’s probably a little less dusty, and a lot less full of rusty springs.” He pushes down on the couch to demonstrate, eliciting an alarming series of creaks and another puff of dust from it.
There is an extra fully functional bed in the house, which is what Don had in mind when he offered the spare room; he had assumed that Leo or Raph would have moved into their dad’s much larger room by now, but it’s still completely untouched. As they were showing Mikey around the house, Leo had pulled the door shut wordlessly and moved on. Don didn’t need the look Raph had shot him afterwards to understand that their oldest brother wasn’t ready to confront that particular landmine just yet.
They ended their tour in the cluttered attic, and Raph had offered to sleep in the basement so Mikey could use his bedroom for the time being. But Mikey seemed enamoured of the top floor despite the dust and stacked boxes, which Don could understand - between the vaulting slatted wood ceilings, the stained glass bay window, and the cozy brick fireplace on the east wall, it was pretty much a dream space for any teenager.
“Yeah,” Mikey says now with a smile, “I like it up here.” They both turn to the sound of footsteps on the stairs to the attic; they’re far too light to be Raph, so Don isn’t surprised when Leo pushes through the door with his hip, arms occupied with a laundry basket full of clothing and blankets.
“Ok, found the stash,” he announces, dropping the basket onto a faded blue armchair, “We’ve got sheets, a couple of quilts, a -” he stops abruptly, staring at the couch. “You know that’s a pull-out, right?” Mikey’s mouth twitches at the corner like he’s trying not to laugh.
“I’m aware,” Don replies drily, “It’s stuck.”
“Mind if I…” Leo trails off, uncertain and awkward in a way he only gets when he’s very uncomfortable. They’re going to have to talk about this new weirdness between them at some point, but for now Don just steps back and gestures towards the couch. Leo begins taking off the cushions again, and Mikey places the Book of Shadows down on a nearby crate so he can help.
The crate bends a little under the weight of the massive book, and Don tries not to be too obvious as he glances at it with curiosity. He’d been able to look at it a little back in San Francisco, but not nearly as thoroughly as he would have liked with so many questions that needed to be answered.
Magic. Innate magical abilities. Don would have scoffed at that if he hadn’t seen it, done it, felt it himself. He can’t stop thinking about the feeling that coursed through him when he froze the demon who attacked him, like rooting, reaching down into the earth and finding something he’d buried and forgotten.
He’d seen things tonight that should have been impossible, had travelled three thousand miles in an instant, had learned that an entire strange world existed under his nose; and somehow, the hardest piece of it all to take in is the most mundane part of the whole thing.
Michelangelo. Eager, and scared, and so eerily familiar. Here now, diligently following Leo’s instructions on how to wiggle the frame of the pull-out to unjam it, brow furrowed in deep concentration as he works.
A younger brother, stashed away in the house their mother grew up in, hidden from them by their father. Nothing about it makes sense, and Don still isn’t sure how he feels about the whole thing. The family resemblance is undeniable - he looks like Leo’s much smaller shadow as they grin in unison when the couch unfolds with a startling thud. Mikey’s explanation about a magical connection also lends credence to them being related, but none of that evidence is bulletproof and Don isn’t quite ready to accept it all as fact. Either way though, Michelangelo is half-starved, practically a child, and potentially a target for powerful demons. It would be unconscionable for them to have let him go back alone, brother or no.
“These might be a little big on you, but they should fit ok,” Leo is saying now, a small smile crossing his face as he passes a space themed pajama set over to Mikey. It’s wistful, and when Don catches his eyes there’s something soft and fond there.
“Aren’t those my old pjs?” He knows they are, can picture the pattern exactly; they were favourites of his, but he hasn’t worn them since he was about twelve. He hadn’t been a particularly big kid at that age either; at nearly fifteen, Mikey is just small.
“From before you got tall,” Leo smiles a little wider at that, and Don feels for a moment like they’re on stable ground for the first time since…well, for the first time in a long time. It’s so hard to place, this rift between them. He almost wishes they’d had some kind of massive argument, something he can pinpoint and dissect and examine and fix. But somewhere along the line, somewhere in the hospital or Leo’s fallout with their dad or the thousands of miles between them, they just started drifting apart.
“Found them!” A triumphant cry from downstairs interrupts Don’s thoughts, followed swiftly by Raph thundering up the stairs and through the door.
“Told you we had extras,” Raph brandishes two packaged toothbrushes towards Leo. He tosses one at Don, who catches it easily, and hands the other one to Mikey. “Toothpaste is on the counter in the bathroom downstairs.”
Between the four of them, it’s quick work to make up the bed, but by the time they’re done Mikey looks ready to fall asleep on his feet.
“Well, I’m ready for bed,” Raph announces, eyes fixed on Mikey. “Need anything else kid?”
“No, I’m ok,” Mikey chews at his lip and looks to the floor, clearly struggling with some kind of internal debate.
“You sure?” Leo asks, and he’s steady and calm and unrelentingly kind in a way that reminds Don of when they were younger, before he was weighed down by the world. Something breaks in Mikey’s face, and suddenly he’s pressing the heels of his hands roughly into his eyes.
“Whoa, whoa,” Raph steps forward and places a hand on Mikey’s shoulder, alarm plastered across his features, “Are you-”
“No, no I’m ok,” Mikey’s breath hitches as he drops his hands. “It’s just…thank you guys. For everything.” Raph gives his shoulder a squeeze, and Leo looks like he’s using every ounce of willpower he possesses not to wrap the kid up in a hug. It’s probably wise of him, Don muses, since Michelangelo is looking a little skittish as it is.
“Of course,” Leo says softly, “We’re all just downstairs, if you need anything at all. Good night.”
“Night kid,” Raph ruffles Mikey’s hair, earning a small smile from him before he heads for the stairs. Leo follows closely behind, but Don hangs back.
“Hey, um…do you think…uh,” he stumbles over the words a bit, trying to figure out the best way to phrase his request before just blurting it out. “Do you think I could borrow the Book of Shadows? Just for tonight?”
Mikey blinks at him owlishly. “Borrow it?”
“Yeah,” Don rubs the back of his neck, trying not to look too awkward, “Just to read for tonight, I’ll give it right back. And I won’t have any food or drinks near-”
“You don’t have to borrow it,” Mikey seems bemused as he hefts the book up, “It’s yours too.”
Don takes the book, surprised to find it’s even heavier than it looks. “Oh…uh. Thanks.”
“No problem,” Mikey smiles and then taps the book, suddenly serious, “Just don’t read anything out loud. It doesn’t take much for some of the spells to go off.”
“Got it.” Don nods solemnly, shifting the weight of the book to one arm and picking up the toothbrush Raph had brought him before turning to leave the room.
“G’night Don,” the voice is shy behind him, and when he looks over his shoulder Mikey is clutching his old pajamas anxiously.
“Night An-” he stops short, confused at the nickname that’s about to roll off his tongue. Angie. Where did that come from?
“Good night, Michelangelo,” he amends, and heads downstairs.
-
Don finds a few blankets neatly folded on his bed that weren’t there an hour ago. Leo must have put them there, a thought which has him smiling to himself. His room always was the coldest, and for as long as he can remember Leo had always taken great pains to ensure he was insulated from it.
It’s a little odd, being back in his old room; he was here over the holiday break, but that was a blur of funeral arrangements and grief. Plus, this time it’s somewhat permanent. He lives here now, for better or worse. It hasn’t even been two full years since he left for school, but he feels like a stranger here, like he’s an actor on a set made to look like his childhood home.
That’s just growing up though, right? One day everything fits, and the next you’ve outgrown it, walked into a world that’s so big you have to fill the space and suddenly your old life feels…small. He wonders how Mikey must feel, wrenched from a life limited to one house and fewer people than you could count on one hand.
Probably not awesome.
He sets the Book of Shadows on his desk and flicks on the old brass banker’s lamp next to it. Between still being on California time and the events of the day, Don knows there’s absolutely no way he’s getting to sleep tonight. Tomorrow will suck, but he’s no stranger to all nighters; he settles into his desk chair with a sigh and begins flipping through the book.
It doesn’t seem to be organized in any obvious way, with pages dedicated to cosmology, spells, history, potions, and creatures scattered throughout. A good chunk of it isn’t even written in English, with pages in Latin, French, and a host of other languages; he recognizes Japanese kanji and Chinese hanzi, though he’s more familiar with the former. There are even a few sections written in Cyrilic, which he knows next to nothing about.
He’s not sure how much time has passed when he decides he needs to raid the bookshelves in the living room to see if there’s anything that can help with translation. Tucking the book under one arm, he heads downstairs, noting as he passes the grandfather clock in the entryway that it’s nearly three in the morning.
“Can’t sleep?”
He’ll have to ask Raph later about his journey to becoming a shadowy Bond villain, but for now he just glares at his brother as he flicks on the standing light in the living room and waits for his heart to stop pounding.
“Is this like a thing you do now?” Don grumbles as he sets the book down on the coffee table and begins scanning the shelves. “Sit in the dark waiting to scare people?”
“Man’s gotta have a hobby,” Raph smiles, but there’s a strain behind it that makes it seem more like a grimace. “You, uh…you wanna talk about it?”
“About what?” Don finds the section he’s looking for and grabs a well worn copy of Oxford’s Basic Japanese-English Dictionary. “Our brand new magical super powers? Or the demon that tried to kill us? Or the whole ‘dad was hiding a kid in San Francisco’ thing?” He drops into an armchair and sighs heavily.
“Or we can talk about something else,” Raph raises an eyebrow. Don flips through the pages of the dictionary cover-to-cover, then sets it next to the Book of Shadows.
“How’s your shoulder?” The towel that Raph had been using as an impromptu sling is balled up in the corner of the couch, and his arm is propped up on a throw pillow.
“Good, actually,” he gently lifts his arm and rolls his shoulder slowly to demonstrate, “A little stiff, but I think it’ll be more or less back to normal in a few days, as long as I do the physio crap.”
“That stuff Mikey used really works, huh?" Don debates his next statement for a moment before continuing. “It seemed like it was bothering you a lot, even at the airport.”
“Ah. You noticed that.” Raph looks down and the corner of his mouth tugs to one side.
“Of course I did,” Don says softly, his traitorous brain summoning an image of his brother on life support with his right arm bound firmly against his chest, the least of his many injuries after the attack. To think he wouldn’t notice that Raph’s chronic shoulder issues had flared up, to think he doesn’t watch for it like a hawk, doesn’t constantly worry that one day they’ll start seeing worse complications from his many injuries…well, it’s laughable, really. “What happened?”
“Oh, you know,” Raph waves the question off, “I’ve been bouncing for a few bars every now and then. Had to toss a guy the other night, moved it the wrong way.” Don’s a little surprised to hear that Raph is working security again, a gig that his brother has historically disliked tremendously. Money must be tighter than he thought.
“Ok, well…be careful,” he shivers, suddenly missing the warm spring in California, “Please.” For a second, Raph looks like he might protest, but he simply nods, tosses Don a blanket from the couch, and walks over to the fireplace. In less than ten minutes, a cozy little fire is roaring and the room is warm.
“I know why I’m down here,” Don says as Raph settles back into the corner of the couch, “What about you? I thought you went to sleep after we got the attic all set up.”
“Tried,” Raph stares into the fire, the light reflecting and dancing in his eyes. He’s silent for a beat. “You said I ‘went full Cassandra’, back in San Francisco.”
It feels more like a segue than a question, but Don nods, “It just seemed like you knew what would happen.” He pulls the blanket around himself tighter. “And in Greek myth, Cassandra was a prophet who-”
“No, I got the reference,” Raph laughs a little ruefully, “It’s just…that’s why I can’t sleep. I keep thinking about it.”
“About what?” Don isn’t entirely following whatever train of thought has left the station here.
“When you went to get the door, I shook Mikey’s hand,” Raph says after a moment, “And as soon as I touched him, I saw…the future, I guess. Or a future.”
“How would that even…” Don trails off, something in the haunted look on Raph’s face stopping him from further questioning the exact mechanics of prophecy. “So...what did you see?”
“I saw Mikey. I saw him walk into the entryway and get killed by a blast of lightning.” Raph’s studies the flames intently, and he speaks in a low, rhythmic monotone. “And then you. And then Leo.”
“Jesus,” Donnie mutters, trying and failing to come up with something better to say.
“I just keep…” Raph rubs his hands over his face and looks at Don, something terrible in his eyes, “I thought I was going crazy, like a nervous breakdown or something. I wanted to ignore it, and if I had-”
“But you didn’t,” Don heads him off before he can reach his conclusion, “You saw it coming, and you stopped it.” Raph silently tugs at a loose thread on the couch, brows furrowed in thought.
“This magic shit is kind of…” he leaves the statement unfinished, pulling the thread further out of the couch and casting a suspicious glance at the Book of Shadows.
“Terrifying?” Don supplies helpfully.
“Fucked up,” Raph laughs, “Is what I was going to say. But yeah, that too.” And yeah, fucked up and terrifying is a good description for it. Maybe that was why their dad had kept all of this a secret from them - less than an hour into the whole thing and they’d all nearly died. It’s something Don’s been pondering; secret life in San Francisco aside, why had Yoshi bound their powers? Why hadn’t he prepared them at all for this world they were apparently part of? How long was he intending on keeping them in the dark - would he ever have told them about Mikey, about any of it?
But these are all questions that can’t be answered, can’t be quantified, so dwelling on them doesn’t make much sense. Their dad is gone, but there are still at least a few sources of information on all of this; one is sleeping upstairs, but the other is right there in front of them. Don leans forward and flips open the book.
“Hopefully there’s something in here that will make it a little less fucked up,” he murmurs, leafing through the sturdy pages.
“Need a little light reading between semesters?” Raph stretches out on the couch, smirking to himself, and Don tries not to react to the reminder that he still hasn’t told his brothers that he isn’t actually enrolled anywhere for the fall.
“No. No, actually I - um…”
He has Raph’s full attention now, and for a moment he considers confessing the entire school situation. It’s there, right there and so easy to just say it. What does it even matter now, after their lives have been entirely upturned? Why should he care about his academic achievements, or lack thereof? Why should he be worried about the surprise in Raph’s face when he finds out, or the guilt in Leo’s? And he barely knows Michelangelo, so why does the idea of disappointing him somehow make him want to throw up? Why-
“Dude,” Raph kicks the table lightly, jolting him out of his spiral, “You froze the fire.”
“Huh? Oh.” Sure enough, the fire that was merrily crackling a second ago is now stock still, stopped in time like a photograph. “Is frozen really the right word? It’s more like paused.”
“Well unpause it then,” Raph gestures at the tableau. Don waves a hand at the fire, feeling stupid.
“I don’t think I know how,” he shrugs when nothing happens, “I’m not sure how to control it yet.” As he says it, the fire springs back to life as if to prove his point. “See?”
“You’ll figure it out,” Raph says with a confidence Don doesn’t feel, “You always do.” And that’s the thing, isn’t it? He’ll figure this out, and he’ll figure out the school thing; he has plenty of time to do so, and much more pressing things to worry about.
“Yeah,” he says quietly, “Yeah, I’m sure I will.”
“You ok?”
Don nods, and Raph looks at him incredulously.
“I am, I swear. Just a weird day. The weirdest day, maybe,” he says, attempting to keep his voice light, though it sounds a little strange to his own ears. He leans forward and raps the book with one knuckle. “I’m going to try to find that ward spell so we can do it in the morning.” Raph purses his lips like he wants to say something, but decides against it and begins arranging the throw pillows into a little nest that he eases himself into, still careful of his shoulder.
“Well I’m gonna try to sleep,” he declares, resolutely squeezing his eyes shut. Don tosses the blanket he’d been using at Raph’s face, amusement replacing his earlier anxiety as his brother tucks himself in so that only his head is poking out from underneath.
“You look like a baby bird.”
“Thank you,” Raph grins, snuggling deeper into his nest, then poking his head back out suddenly, “Oh, hey.”
Don looks up from the Book of Shadows, “What?”
“If you get bored of that,” he nods towards the book, “And you still can’t sleep-” he wrestles his good arm from under the blanket and points at the counter between the kitchen and living room, “See that pile of papers over there?”
“Yeah,” Don rises to walk over to the counter and begins shuffling through the papers, “What is-”
“It’s, uh…all the loose ends, I guess,” Raph withdraws his arm under the blanket and looks into the fire again, “From dad. Well, from him dying.”
“Oh.” Don isn’t sure what else to say to that.
“There’s a lot there, and Leo refuses to let me help him,” Raph sounds annoyed, “I have to go through it when he’s not here.”
“But he needs help.” The answer is too obvious for it to be a question.
“I’m worried about him, Don.” It sounds like a confession, an admission of guilt, as though worrying about their older brother is some kind of betrayal.
“Yeah,” Don sighs and pushes up his glasses, “Me too.” If he hadn’t already thought Leo was struggling in the wake of their father’s death, the randomly rattling jars and breaking shelves in San Francisco would have been a dead giveaway. Shout out to magic powers in that respect at least; Leo’s going to have a much harder time pretending he’s totally fine now. “I’m here now though. I can help, at least with this stuff.”
In the time it takes him to grab the Book of Shadows and move it to the counter with the stack of papers, Raph has drifted into a somewhat fitful sleep, leaving him to peruse his reading materials with only the sound of the crackling fire to accompany him.
He’s here now. He can help.
–
Don is already on his third cup of coffee when the first hints of sunrise start spilling through the windows. Leo comes downstairs not long after, dressed in neatly rolled up jeans and a loose green sweater. Don has heard him grousing about the auction house dress code, so he must not be going into work today. Raph is deep asleep on the couch, and Leo absently reaches over the back to fix the blankets on his way to the kitchen.
“Still take it black?” Don slides a mug over to him.
“Good memory,” Leo smiles, taking the mug with both hands.
“Steel trap,” Don taps his temple with a pencil and waits for Leo to take a few sips before continuing. “So I went through some of this stuff last night.” Leo looks at the papers on the counter, face falling as he realizes what they are.
“Donnie, you don’t have to-”
“I want to,” Don interjects, “Besides, I have nothing else to do right now.” Leo’s mouth twists for a second, but it slowly shifts to a crooked smile as his eyes drift over the tidy stacks of envelopes arranged in a line.
“Alright,” he takes a long swig of his coffee, pulls up a stool and sits on the opposite side of the counter, “Walk me through it.” And Don does, carefully explaining how he’d sorted everything; one stack for things they could tackle immediately, one for the items that required they find additional information from their father’s files, one for anything they’d need a lawyer’s help with, and one for anything they could put off until the rest was taken care of.
“And I also found the ward spell, I think,” he concludes, opening the Book of Shadows to a page marked by a sheet of looseleaf with his roughly scrawled translation on it. “I had to translate it from Japanese, but according to this-” he flips it to a page that discusses the use of spells in different languages at length, “-the incantation should work just fine either way.” He stops, looking to Leo for a reaction. For a frightening moment, he thinks his oldest brother might cry, but Leo merely blinks rapidly a few times and takes the sheet of looseleaf.
“This is - thank you Don,” he says, scanning the page, “We’ll need to get some of this stuff. There’s a shop that’s actually close to Tandon - I could give you a tour, if you want? I didn’t go to the engineering school much when I was at NYU, but I had a few friends who…”
Leo trails off, fidgeting with the edge of an envelope. It’s earnest and open, this offer to show Don around a school he’d been heartbroken to leave after he had to take over paying for the house. It’s an olive branch, but Don can’t take it, can’t lie so blatantly to him.
Just tell him, you asshole. But he can’t do that either, not after what Raph had said. Leo is letting him help, really help, and confessing his failures is only going to have his brother default back to parent mode. So.
“I’m pretty beat actually,” he mumbles, and it’s not technically a lie, “I haven’t slept yet. Jet lag, all that.”
“Oh, yeah, of course. Maybe next time,” Leo says lightly, and he doesn’t look or sound hurt, but Don can feel it. Fuck.
“It’s just…you know-“
“Oh my god,” Raph groans loudly from under his blanket, “Could you guys stop acting like you didn’t live together for seventeen years? You absolute freaks.”
“Good morning to you too Raphael,” Leo smiles wryly at Don. “He’s still not a morning person.”
“We are kind of being stupid though, right?”
“I’m a delight in the morning,” Raph grumbles, sliding up into a seated position and rubbing his eyes, “And you’re being extremely stupid.”
Don snorts at that, and Leo looks at Raph like he’s debating between fratricide and hugging him. Instead, he turns back to Don.
“He’s right,” he says softly, “I’m sorry. For not keeping in touch better. I wanted…well, I didn’t want you to have to deal with all of this.”
“I know,” Don rises from the stool and begins fixing a coffee for Raph, “I’m sorry too. I could have called more. And I should have told you that I was coming back.” I’m sorry for leaving. I’m sorry for missing dad’s death. I’m sorry I’m still lying to you.
Leo looks like he’s about to say something else, but without warning a column of shimmering lights appears in their living room. Raph jumps off of the couch, swearing as his legs get tangled in the blanket. Before anybody else can react, the column fades to reveal Michelangelo.
“Holy shit,” Raph mutters, on hand clutching at his chest, “You’re gonna give me a heart attack beaming in here like that.”
“Hey,” Mikey is a little breathless as he greets them, and looks like he’s doing his best impression of a pack mule; he has an overstuffed backpack strapped on, a duffle bag slung over each shoulder, and is holding Don’s large suitcase with both hands. “You guys left your stuff in San Francisco.”
“Mikey,” Leo moves to help him unload, “You, uh…you went back there by yourself?” Raph, right behind him, elbows him lightly on the non-impaled side.
“He means one of us could’ve come with you,” he says as he relieves Mikey of his duffle bag.
“Oh,” Mikey carefully sets Don’s suitcase on the ground and shrugs out of his backpack, “Well I figured you guys might still feel crappy from the trip here, and it’s no trouble for me. It’s kind of fun actually, before last night I’d only really ported around the house.”
“Thanks,” Don murmurs, grateful to have his bag back but mostly relieved to be done with the earlier conversation. Mikey beams at him, practically glowing with pride.
“No problem,” he sets his bag down next to the couch and strides into the kitchen, “You guys want pancakes? I can make pancakes if you have flour and eggs and like…baking stuff.”
Leo looks a bit flabbergasted at the bundle of energy currently opening all of the cupboards, but he smiles warmly.
“I think we have flour and eggs and baking stuff,” he glances at Raph, who nods and gives the ‘ok’ sign. “I have to run out and get some things for the ward spell, but I’ll be back soon.”
“I’ll come with you,” Raph slings his duffle bag over his good shoulder and heads for the stairs, “Just give me a minute to change.” Mikey looks after him, face falling.
“Don can stay with you,” Leo says quickly, looking to Don for confirmation.
“We’ll save you guys some batter,” he replies, inexplicably pleased when Mikey perks up. In the time it takes Raph to come back downstairs in ripped black jeans and a t-shirt of some band Don’s never heard of, he and Mikey have found all of the necessary ingredients and made a huge mess in the process.
“Good luck,” Don calls out as his two older brothers put on their jackets and head for the front door.
“We won’t be too long,” Leo grabs his keys, then turns back, his face screwed up with worry, “If anything happens, if another demon attacks or something…”
“I’ll port us both out,” Mikey chirps as he measures out flour into a mixing bowl, unphased. Leo smiles, relief clear in his eyes.
“Go,” Don waves a spatula at him, “We’re fine.”
“C’mon, we’re burning daylight,” Raph opens the door, and Leo follows.
-
Just over an hour later, Don is stuffed with pancakes and only still awake by the grace of the obscene amount of caffeine he’s consumed over the morning. He’s moved the Book of Shadows to the coffee table to continue translating, this time using Wheelock’s Latin in an incredibly frustrating effort to decipher a page that seems to discuss different forms of magic. Mikey is seated cross-legged on the floor, reading a copy of Watchmen he found tucked away on the bookshelf.
It’s nice, actually, quietly reading together; it reminds him of study marathons with April, or trading comics with his brothers on Sunday mornings when they were kids.
A knock at the door startles them both, their heads whipping towards the sound in tandem.
“Are they back?” Mikey asks, voice low.
“They wouldn’t knock,” Don mutters, closing the book and slowly rising to his feet to peer out the window. A man stands on the steps, gazing up at the building with his face turned away. He doesn’t look like the demon in San Francisco; he’s wearing a long, blue-grey trench coat that’s tailored to fit snugly, and what appear to be moderately expensive shoes. “Maybe a lawyer or something?”
“What should we do?” Mikey’s eyes are wide, “Do you want me to port us out?”
“No, it could be important,” Don steps back from the window and squares his shoulders, “I’ll answer the door, you be ready to get us out if he turns out to be a murderer.”
“I usually need to be touching somebody to take them with me,” Mikey bites his lower lip in thought, “Last night was weird.”
“Understatement,” Don quirks an eyebrow up, and Mikey lets out a nervous laugh, “Ok, you hide behind the door then, and I’ll make sure to stay close.”
They get in position, Mikey easily pressing himself into the corner next to the doorframe. There’s another knock on the door, and he locks eyes with Don and nods firmly, hand raised and ready to make a swift exit if needed.
Don exhales slowly, and opens the door, keeping one hand wrapped around the handle and within Mikey’s reach. The man looks like he was about to knock for a third time, but drops his arm as soon as the door swings open.
“Can I help you?” Don adopts as aloof a tone as he can manage.
“Leonardo Hamato?” Up close, the man’s outfit is well-fitted and made of a quality fabric, but worn past its prime. He’s younger than Don would have guessed based on the clothing, probably mid to late twenties. Under the trench coat, he spots what is either suspenders or a holster, and his grip on the door handle tightens reflexively.
“Who’s asking?”
“Sorry,” the man reaches into his pocket, pulling out a wallet before Don can get too paranoid that he’s going for a weapon of some kind. He opens it, removing a plastic ID and a business card. “Miyamoto Usagi.”
He passes the business card over to Don; it’s plain, white with a deep blue serif font that simply reads ‘Usagi Investigations’, and on the back there’s a phone number and a Manhattan address.
“Why are you looking for Leo?” Out of the corner of his eye, Don can see Mikey curling up like a cat ready to strike.
“I’m a private investigator,” Usagi holds up the ID card by way of explanation, “And I’m looking into a missing person. I was hoping to speak to Mr. Hamato in a consulting capacity. I went to Blackwell & Webb, and was told by the owner that he’s the person to speak to.”
“The auction house?” Don relaxes a bit, and Mikey tilts his head behind the door. Leo is an intake specialist there, a job Don is fairly sure Leo only took after leaving his grad program because it pays well and has reasonable hours.
“Yes,” the investigator slides his ID back into the wallet, “They said he might be able to identify something for me, but that he’s not at work today. Is he here?” Usagi glances over Don’s shoulder.
“I’m his brother,” Don holds up the business card with two fingers, “He’s out, but I’ll give him your card.” Usagi nods and reaches into his jacket again, producing a few glossy photos of a knife in what appears to be a dumpster.
“Give him this too, if you don’t mind,” he hands over the photos. “If he can tell me anything at all about it, have him call me.”
“Sure.”
“Thank you,” Usagi gives a curt nod and steps off of the landing, “Have a good rest of your day.”
“You too.” Don closes the door, revealing a nearly-vibrating-with-excitement Michelangelo.
“That was,” Mikey’s eyes are wide, “So cool!” Don exhales heavily, unable to stop the grin that spreads across his face. “You were like in a cop movie or something! ‘Who’s asking?’” He says the last part in a gruff and low voice that sounds nothing like Don’s.
“It was…pretty…” the words evaporate from his tongue as he takes a closer look at the photos.
“What?” Mikey leans in.
“That’s latin for covenant,” he points to an engraving on the hilt of the dagger, “I’ve been translating a page in the Book of Shadows on sources of magic. It could be a coincidence, but one of them was called ‘pactum’. Covenant.”
“Oh, yeah,” Mikey nods at the photo thoughtfully, then looks up at Don. “You saw the english version of that page, right?”
“Seriously?”
Mikey nods again.
“Alright, show it to me. We’ve got some reading to do.”
TMNT (Human/Magic AU)
Part 1 of the Unbound AU
Word Count: 5.3k
Because he knows how their magic is connected; knows it in the way he felt safe with them almost immediately, in the way his own magic thrums happily with them all in the same room, and in the way Leo looks at him now with eyes that look so much like his father’s.
“Mikey,” he pulls out a few chairs, sitting in one and gesturing for Mikey to join him. Raph leans on the counter and faces them, while Don angles towards them and turns the tap on to fill the sink.
“Yeah?” Mikey’s voice is almost a whisper.
“What is your dad’s name?”
Read on AO3
Chapter Five: Michelangelo
20 Hours Ago
It’s not working. The stupid spell isn’t working, and Mikey has been chanting for what feels like literal ages. Maybe it has been - he thinks he heard the clock strike midnight, and he’s not sure how long ago that was. His voice is hoarse, his back is sore from sitting in the same position for so long, and he can feel tears of frustration stinging the corners of his eyes.
This has to work though, so he doesn’t stop. It’s been months since dad visited, and despite the fact that he’s not supposed to leave the house, Mikey has to find out if he’s ok. Even if he wanted to listen to his dad and stay put, he’s risking starving to death if he hangs around much longer. He used the last of his small reserve of cash to order food nearly four weeks ago now, and the pantry is down to half a box of crackers and some rice. He can’t stay in the house anymore, but if he leaves he’s a sitting duck.
Unless he can get this spell to work. To Unbind a Witch’s Magics, the title had read, right next to another one, To Bind a Witch’s Magics. Dated November of 1987 and both in his father’s handwriting, Mikey had found them scrawled in the margins near the back of the Book of Shadows.
-
“Wait,” Raphael jumps in through a mouthful of green pepper and sausage pizza, “What the hell is a Book of Shadows?”
“Good question,” Donatello mutters.
“Oh,” Mikey is nervous, and keeps forgetting that they don’t seem to know much about…well, anything really, “I can show you actually, one second!” He gulps down another bite of pizza and runs out of the kitchen before they have a chance to say anything.
It’s up in the attic, and it’s heavy, so by the time he gets back down with the book he’s panting a little and his legs are burning. He pushes aside a pizza box and sets it down on the table with a thud.
“It’s like…kind of a book of spells, I guess?” He explains as Don leans forward to flip through it, “But more than that. It’s got all sorts of stuff in it. Most witches have one.”
“Witches?” Raph raises an eyebrow at a particularly gruesome illustration of a person being disembowelled by a gremlin-esque creature.
“Yep.”
“Have a Book of Shadows?”
“Usually.”
“And your dad wrote this?” Raph taps the leather-bound book and looks pointedly at the other two.
“Well not all of it, but lots,” Mikey nods, “It was passed down through the family. It’s pretty old.”
“And the family-”
“Let him finish first, Raph,” Leonardo’s voice is gentle as he cuts off his brother. Raph screws up his face but gestures for Mikey to continue.
“Um, ok,” he fiddles with a piece of pepperoni, “Well like I was saying, the spell didn’t work. I kept at it until like two in the morning, but then everything started shaking”
Don purses his lips as he closes the book with great care. “Like an earthquake?”
“Yeah, exactly,” Mikey confirms, “Only way smaller. Like just in the room I was in.” He’d checked, actually, later in the day - from what he could tell through the windows, nothing had changed, not even a knocked down tree branch or anything.
“I felt the same thing,” Don stares determinately at the untouched pizza on his plate, “At the same time, sounds like.”
“We did too,” Raph indicates himself and Leo. Don’s eyes snap to him, and Mikey tries not to react too much; it does line up with a theory of his, though.
“You didn’t say anything,” Don says, only mildly accusatory.
“I didn’t want to freak you out,” Raph says dryly, “Seems pretty tame now, comparatively.”
“Still,” Leo is thoughtful, “We all felt it.”
“Yeah,” Mikey says carefully, pushing forward in the hope that he can explain everything else before he drops his theory on them, “Anyways, after the shaking I think I fell asleep. The whole thing was really…tiring.”
-
12 Hours Ago
How long has he been here? Weeks or months or years or forever, it doesn’t matter. He’s always been here. In this house, trapped, terrified, waiting for the shadows and the silence to swallow him up, draining a little more each day and one day he’s sure he’ll wake up and there will be nothing left.
He was free once, he’s certain. Everywhere, at once, flickering and bright and not stuck here, not alone. But that’s not right, is it? He’s always been alone.
And that’s not right either; they dance in the corners of his memory, holes in his heart shaped like people, and he’s drip-drip-dripping out of them and he can’t stop. He can’t remember what happened, how old the missing pieces are, how worn down the sharp edges have become.
They are eroding. There was love there once, home, steady and constant and beating. There were people, but they left, and they forgot, and then they drip-drip-dripped away from him and left behind a canyon. He tries to hold on, to conjure their forms from the wells of his memory, but they slip through like water, like they always have.
And now he’s drowning, sinking silently into darkness, and through an ocean of water he can hear his father’s voice whisper his name.
Mikey opens his eyes on the attic floor, disoriented in the space between awake and dreaming, surrounded by the burnt out remains of the spell. He must have fallen asleep, or passed out; he certainly feels awful enough for it to have been the latter. If he’d felt unwell before due to lack of food, it was nothing compared to how he feels now. The room spins a little as he pushes himself into a sitting position, and his stomach churns. Breathing is a struggle, like there’s something pushing down on his lungs preventing them from expanding all the way.
Something must have gone seriously wrong with the unbinding spell. It’s not uncommon for a spell to go awry, especially with a less experienced caster. Mikey has dabbled a bit, but mostly he’s been relegated to watching while his father and guardian did the actual casting. Even then, he’d really only seen them do it a handful of times. Historically, they were hesitant to use any magic at all for fear of attracting too much attention.
We have to lay low, Michelangelo. Story of his life.
“Whelp,” he grumbles to the empty room as he struggles to pull himself onto a nearby chair, “Pretty low now, that’s for dang sure.”
And really, he gets it, he does. Magic can be dangerous, and is something to be taken seriously. Anybody practicing witchcraft or using their innate magical abilities risks drawing nearby amortals with sinister intentions - according to Mikey’s dad, at least.
But he doesn’t know what else to do at this point. His very existence draws amortals like moths to a flame, and-
–
“What does that mean?” Don asks, expression guarded and a little scary. An image of the interrogation room from Law & Order pops unbidden into Mikey’s mind.
“Oh, um,” Mikey stammers, “Well my powers…ok, um, you remember how you froze that guy?”
Don nods and raises an eyebrow. “Hard to forget.”
“Yeah, well,” Mikey continues, somewhat bolstered as he recites what his father taught him like some kind of textbook on tape, “That’s an innate magical ability, like a super power basically. Some witches have them, some don’t, and there’s a bunch of different ones. It’s something you can just do, more or less at will. You can also cast spells, which all witches can do, and-”
He trails off as varying degrees of incredulity spread across their faces.
“Go ahead kid,” Raph says after a moment, schooling his features into a more neutral expression, “It’s just a lot to take in.”
But these are the first people he’s talked to in months, and a voice in his head urges him not to blow this. If he pushes too hard, if he tells them too much, they’re just going to leave and he’ll be right back where he started. Trapped here.
Alone.
His heart begins to pound at the thought, and Leo must have a sixth sense or something because he leans forward and places a reassuring hand on his shoulder.
“You don’t have to tell us anything you don’t want to,” he says easily, and there’s something in his voice that makes Mikey relax almost immediately, “But we’re with you. We believe you. After what just happened, it would be stupid of us not to, right?” Mikey laughs wetly at that, only realizing then that he’d been on the verge of tears.
“Yeah, right,” Mikey sniffs, then steels himself and continues, “Ok, um, well…my innate abilities are…leaky? I don’t really understand it, but I guess I kind of always give off some magic, even when I’m not casting or using my powers. It draws other amortals, the ones who feed off power or just like to hunt witches for the fun of it. My dad bound my magic when I was little so it wouldn’t be as bad, but he couldn’t fully bind it. Just kind of lessened it, I guess. I’m only really safe in the house, behind the wards.”
“What about when you leave?” Raph asks with a frown.
“What do you mean?”
“Like when you go to school or…like the park,” he clarifies with a wave at the kitchen windows, “Or wherever teenagers go here.”
Oh. That. Like the people on TV.
Like a normal person.
“I um…I don’t,” Mikey says, and his voice sounds strained even to his own ears, “I’ve never been to school. Or a park, technically.” All three of them look completely crestfallen at that, and he is suddenly desperate to avoid their pity. “It’s ok! I’m homeschooled, all the normal subjects plus the witch stuff. And we have a little courtyard in the back that’s covered by the wards, so at night I can go outside whenever I want. It’s - it’s really nice.”
Apparently this is not a comforting explanation, because Leo has the same pained look he did when he was bleeding on the couch, Raph looks like he’s about to punch somebody, and Don has pushed up his glasses to pinch the bridge of his nose roughly. Mikey can practically hear his own pulse, anxiety rising as the silence stretches between them.
Leo is the one to break it, heaving a sigh before speaking. “Has your dad ever told you why your magic is leaky?” He makes air quotes around the last word.
“No,” Mikey shakes his head, “He says he’ll tell me more when I’m older.”
“How old are you?” Don asks as he sets his glasses back into place.
“I’ll be fifteen next month,” Mikey puffs up a bit at that. He’s nearly an adult, after all.
“Fourteen,” Raph mutters, “And you’ve been here by yourself?”
“That’s why I’m worried,” Mikey chews at his lower lip, a nervous habit that he’s never been able to break despite his father’s gentle chiding, “My dad wouldn’t just leave me here for this long. I think something might have happened to him.” Raph glances over to Leo, who gives the tiniest shake of his head.
“Ok, so the unbinding spell didn’t work,” Leo brusquely changes the subject, “Why were you doing it in the first place, if it’s helping to keep you safe?”
“I needed to go out and look for my dad. And get food and stuff. I thought that if I had all of my magic, I could fight off any demons that might come for me,” Mikey reasons, “Didn’t exactly work out like that, obviously.”
–
Three Hours Ago
This must be what a hangover feels like. Mikey’s seen people complain about it on tv at least a dozen times, and now he kind of thinks he understands.
All of the symptoms he’d felt when he woke up in the attic have steadily grown worse throughout the day; his head is pounding, his stomach is in knots, his pulse is racing, and he’s so dizzy now he can barely stand. He’d tried watching tv as a distraction, but daytime tv sucks and his joints are aching now too - the only relief he’s been able to find is lying on the cool marble tiles in the sunroom.
This is why you don’t just cast spells on a whim, he muses, trying to keep himself from ruminating on the reality that he now faces.
His dad is still missing. He’s still alone. He’s still unable to defend himself. He’s still starving.
Only now, he has the added bonus of being sicker than he’s ever been in his life.
He squeezes his eyes shut, trying to force back the pooling tears that threaten to spill over. He takes a deep, slow breath just like his dad taught him, but it’s difficult when it feels like there’s a ton of bricks sitting on his chest.
He’s going to die here.
His breathing quickens, small shallow gasps of air that he can’t control.
He’s going to die in this house, and nobody will know. Nobody will even miss him.
His hands are shaking, trembling with weakness, or terror, or both.
Through his panic, Mikey slowly becomes aware that the hairs on the back of his neck are rising. There’s a shiver down his spine and a tingling in his skin; it feels like he’s being watched. He pushes himself up with some effort, looking around the room as he does.
“Hello?” he whispers, voice small and swallowed up by the empty house, “Is somebody here?”
–
“Yeeeeeah,” Raph interjects again, brows furrowed, “I think that might have been me?”
“How?” Don demands.
“I dunno,” Raph throws his un-slinged arm in the air, “I had a dream on the plane, just like he described it. Thought it was kind of weird at the time, but now I’m thinking it was some hocus pocus fuckery.”
“Raph,” Leo sounds exasperated, “He’s fourteen.”
“I know swears,” Mikey finds himself a little offended at the idea that he’s too young to curse in front of. “I totally swear. Sometimes.” Raph shoots an amused look at Leo, who looks a bit like he’s trying not to laugh.
“So you,” Don gestures to Raphael, “Had a dream about Michelangelo. And then he,” Don points at Mikey, “Sensed you in the house? How does that work?”
“I’m not sure.” And Mikey really isn’t. Powers can work in strange ways, and he’s not exactly an expert. Throw in the apparent connection between the four of them and things got even more complicated. “But I’m glad. I was worried I accidentally summoned a demon into the house or something.”
“Maybe you did,” Leo glances in the direction of the front door, “Are you sure we’re actually safe here?”
“Yeah,” Mikey does his best to sound confident, “There was a big burst of magic when you guys got here. Probably big enough that the wards couldn’t hide it. But they should protect against any more amortals coming into the house, as long as we don’t open the doors for them.” He didn’t mean to sound like he was blaming anybody, but a guilty look crosses Don’s face. He adds quickly, “It’s ok, you didn’t know.” Don looks at him, surprised, but doesn’t say anything.
“You keep saying ‘amortals’,” Raph rests his chin on his good hand, “What exactly does that mean?”
“Right, yeah,” Mikey mulls for a moment on how to best explain to them, “Well that’s just one word for it, but basically an amortal is anyone who isn’t mortal or immortal.” They all look at him blankly, so he continues. “Well depending on who you ask, they’re mortals who have been granted magic, or they’re immortals who have been corrupted by mortality.”
“You know what,” Raph waves his hand and grabs another slice of pizza, “Forget I asked. Doesn’t seem that important right now.”
“It’s just a general word for magical beings,” Mikey presses, “Witches, demons, angels, yokai, monsters, fae, oracles, any supernatural type you can think of. Amortals.”
“And you’re saying that you, and all of us,” Don gestures around the table, “We’re amortals.”
“Witches, yes,” Mikey nods, debating explaining to them how witches differ from other amortals and deciding against it.
“I’m just going to roll with it at this point,” Raph shrugs and takes a massive bite of his pizza.
“Back to the safety issue though,” Leo says, “You’re sure nobody can get in here?”
“No amortals,” Mikey nods, “Which is why I was so surprised when you guys came in.”
–
One Hour Ago
Mikey managed to drag himself up to his room shortly after the non-encounter with the non-entity. He’s not sure who or what he sensed in the sunroom, but whatever it was, it’s long gone now. Hopefully it’s not some demon that’s secretly lurking in the basement or something, but honestly at this point he’d welcome an end to his misery.
As he lies in his bed, shivering under the covers and feeling quite sorry for himself, he hears what sounds an awful lot like the front door swinging open. For a moment he wonders if he’s hallucinating, but then he hears footsteps.
It should be impossible; there’s a large deadbolt that should keep out anybody looking to commit an old fashioned break and entry, and incredibly strong wards that should keep out any amortals looking to murder him.
And yet. There are creaking floor boards and low voices coming from downstairs. At least two people, maybe three, it’s hard to tell. Mikey pushes his comforter back and rises shakily to his feet, fighting back the bile that rises in his throat. His brain feels like it’s pure liquid sloshing around in his skull as he makes his way out of his room and down the hallway as quietly as he can. The voices get louder as he gets closer, though they don’t seem to be moving towards him. As he approaches, the low hum becomes a little clearer and he can make out a few words; they’re talking about doctors, and a hospital, which doesn’t exactly seem like the sort of thing demons would chat about.
He creeps closer and peers through the banister to see three people gathered at the bottom of the stairs, one of whom is holding a family photo that he’s taken down from the wall.
That really doesn’t seem like a thing a demon would do. He grips the railing with both hands to take some of his weight off of the stairs, and moves further down towards the landing to get a better look. It’s all going really quite well, and Mikey is silently singing his own praises on his newfound stealthiness when he steps onto the landing, causing the old wood to emit a creak that’s about as sneaky as a banshee’s wail.
All three of them turn and lock their eyes onto him at once, and the one holding the photo steps in front of the other two protectively. If that doesn’t give it away, their matching features do - these three are almost certainly related.
Mikey stares at them, paralyzed with fear and indecision; they could very well be demons, but the one in front has kind eyes, eyes that remind him so much of his father’s it catches him off guard and his breath hitches. The weight he’s been carrying in his chest all day feels impossibly heavy as he looks down at them.
They’re all so familiar, and the thought that he knows them somehow keeps burning through his brain, like a movie he watched half asleep or a dream half remembered. He knows them, but there’s no recognition in their eyes, and for some reason the fact that these strangers don’t know him is like a knife in his gut.
“Enemies often look like friends, Michelangelo,” he can practically hear his dad’s voice ringing in his ears. These guys look utterly bewildered though, and there’s something about them that leaves him longing to trust them. He leans on the banister for support, not sure how much longer he’ll be able to stand let alone how he’ll fight them off if they do attack. His stomach lurches, and he thinks he might be sick.
“Who are you?” Mikey demands, trying to sound confident and in command and not like he’s about to drop. There’s a buzzing in his ears now, and as he clumsily takes another step towards them it swells and becomes a chanting that they don’t seem to hear; his gut flips and his heart stops beating, and the world begins to shake and light is given form above them and -
–
“And that’s when I passed out,” he concludes, watching them carefully for their reactions.
He left out a few parts, like the fact that they seemed so familiar and how much Leo looks like Mikey’s dad. The longer they talk, the more he sees it; they all have certain mannerisms and features that remind Mikey a little bit of his dad now that he’s looking for it, but with Leo it’s striking.
“Are you feeling ok now?” Leo asks him, and there it is again, in his concerned eyes and soft voice. Yoshi.
“Much better,” Mikey nods, blinking back to reality, ”Food helped.”
“You seemed better even before you ate,” Don points out.
“Yeah,” he affirms. And here’s the part he’s been dreading, the part that might make them leave, the part that could guarantee he spends the rest of his life alone in this house. But he has to be honest with them, so he bows his head and inhales deeply to center himself before continuing. “I have a theory about that.”
Their eyes could burn holes in him, and for a second he feels an overwhelming urge to run, to hide, to avoid this feeling of being completely exposed like some kind of gazelle on a vast plain waiting to be picked off.
But then Leo throws him an encouraging smile, and Don’s eyes soften a bit, and Raph slides over the box with the last slice of pepperoni pizza.
“Well don’t leave us hanging kid,” he says as he leans his chair back to balance on two legs. Leo sends a sidelong look of disapproval, but Mikey notes that he repositions himself so he’d be able to catch Raph if he were to tip the chair over.
It looks nice, having someone there in case you fall.
“I think the spell worked,” Mikey blurts out, “The unbinding spell, I mean. I think it worked, it was just delayed. It was kind of…sitting in me all day. That’s what made me feel so bad. It was just there, waiting.”
“Waiting for what?” Don asks, voice low.
“Us,” Leo murmurs, wincing when Raph slams his chair back down to all four legs. Mikey nods silently and buries his face in his hands.
“I’m sorry,” he says, voice muffled by his palms, “I think I accidentally dragged you guys into this. I think our magic is connected somehow, and the unbinding spell released all of it together. I’m so sorry.”
He waits for them to say something, too afraid to look at their faces.
“Mikey,” Leo is the first to speak after what feels like an eternity, “It’s ok, we’re not…we’re not mad at you. You didn’t do it on purpose.” Mikey spreads his fingers apart so he can look through them. Leo is leaning forward, one hand reaching out, poised in mid-air like he’s not entirely sure what to do with it. Raph and Don both look somewhat distressed, but neither of them seem angry. Mikey drops his hands into his lap, twisting them into the front pocket of his sweater.
“And besides,” Raph clears his throat, “It’s kind of cool. We’re like the X-men now, basically.”
“Great,” Don rolls his eyes but his words have no real bite, “We’re mutants.” He stands and begins to clean up the mess on the table, diligently avoiding spilling anything on the Book of Shadows that still sits in the middle. Raph helps as much as he can with only one free hand, and Leo sets to the proper disposal of a bunch of broken glass that’s been collected in the dust pan.
Mikey gathers the dishes and watches them, how they speak to each other and the things they don’t say and the way they move in tandem even when they’re not entirely on the same page; they love each other. He picks up the Book of Shadows, staring at the embossed family symbol on it as something passes over him, an ache or a longing or a wish maybe. When he was very young, he used to pretend he had brothers; imaginary friends, his dad had said, and now he wonders if some part of him knew they were out there.
Because he knows how their magic is connected; knows it in the way he felt safe with them almost immediately, in the way his own magic thrums happily with them all in the same room, and in the way Leo looks at him now with eyes that look so much like his father’s.
“Mikey,” he pulls out a few chairs, sitting in one and gesturing for Mikey to join him. Raph leans on the counter and faces them, while Don angles towards them and turns the tap on to fill the sink.
“Yeah?” Mikey’s voice is almost a whisper.
“What is your dad’s name?”
The steady hiss of water fills the room, white noise that drowns out the sudden heavy silence. Don and Raph are both watching him intently now, and Leo’s leg twitches nervously, betraying his calm expression.
“Yoshi,” Mikey says, and for a second his heart plummets because what if he’s wrong and these really are just strangers?
“Hamato?” Leo’s hands are clasped tightly now, and his features are taut. Mikey can feel a little surge of magic from him as one of the cupboard doors rattles on its hinges. Raphael’s eyes narrow and lock in on Leo, who relaxes his hands slightly.
Mikey nods, dropping his head to look at the floor.
“And your mom?” Leo speaks slowly, measured and careful. The magic ebbs away, and the rattling stops.
“I never met her,” Mikey swallows, still holding the unwieldy book in front of him like a shield, “Dad says she died when I was little. But her name was Shen.”
Somebody turns the tap off, and there is the sound of chairs scraping against the floor. Mikey looks up to see Raph and Don have come back to the table and are looking at Leo with equally unreadable expressions.
“Ok,” Leo seems to be at war with himself briefly before taking a deep breath, “We came here because this is our father’s house.” Mikey’s heart is pounding against his chest, and he feels a bit like his brain is about to float right out of his head.
“You’re…you’re my…” he can’t bring himself to say it. It feels so fragile, a truth like porcelain that will shatter if named.
“Pretty sure we’re brothers, squirt,” Raph breaks into a grin, and Mikey could cry with relief.
“It does seem like the most likely explanation,” Don runs a hand through his cropped curls and exhales forcefully, “Although I still don’t understand why dad would-”
“My dad!” Mikey exclaims, then corrects himself, “Our dad, I guess. But you guys must-do you know where he is? Is he ok?”
He watches their faces crumble, and the faucet is drip-drip-dripping, washing him away and drowning him in their silence; his pulse begins to race, and his stomach drops, and he knows what Leo is preparing himself to say.
“He’s not ok, is he?” His voice is thick around his tightening throat, and he can’t stop the tears that are already spilling over.
“I’m so sorry Mikey,” Leo murmurs, and his eyes are bright. Behind him, Raphael wipes at his eyes ferociously and Don bows his head. “He had a heart attack in December. He…he died the same day.”
And the dripping is a hammer, a thundering in his ears, a furious river that pulls him apart piece by piece. His edges are washing away, peeling off of him in little bits he can’t hold onto. Leo is talking, or Raph, or Don, and it’s urgent and panicked but he can’t bring himself above water long enough to understand or even care. He can’t breathe, and he’s not sure if it’s because he’s drowning here in his kitchen or if he maybe just forgot how.
Dad.
He’d known, he’d known deep down that his father would never abandon him like this unless something had happened, but he’d hoped he was wrong.
First Beren, now Yoshi.
He didn’t get to say goodbye to either of them.
He can’t breathe. He’s washing away, and his chest is burning, his lungs screaming for air.
He wants his dad.
They’re shouting now, he thinks, but he can’t really hear them above the roaring in his ears. His fingers hurt as he tightens his grip on the Book of Shadows, a tenuous lifeline connecting him to his father.
And now there are lights surrounding him, tiny dancing things that converge around him and Leo and Raph and Don, and dimly he realizes that he has lost control over his powers and tries to reel back before -
The light grows so bright that he has to squeeze his eyes, and he recognizes the skipping sensation that he feels in the pit of his stomach whenever he uses his innate magical power - the ability to teleport to another place.
When he opens his eyes, the light has faded and he’s standing in the living room of a house he’s never seen before, still clutching the Book of Shadows to his chest. He panics for a second before he sees Leo, Raph, and Don, all on their hands and knees looking vaguely ill, but mostly alright.
“I’m…I’m so sorry, I didn’t mean to…” he stammers, shocked out of his anguish-stricken state by the sudden change, “I don’t even know where we are.”
“This is our house,” Leo looks up from the floor and then clenches his eyes shut again with a groan. Mikey kneels down beside him and places a hand between his shoulder blades.
“The first few times can be a bit jarring,” he mumbles, absolutely mortified, “I’m so sorry.” He turns to the sound of Donatello violently retching into a potted plant. “Oh god, I’m so sorry, I’m so-”
“It’s fine,” Raph winces and reaches out to pat Don’s back. “Saved us the cost of the return tickets.” Don nods, wiping his mouth and rolling onto his back on the hardwood floor.
“I’m sorry,” Leo sits back on his heels and grips Mikey’s shoulder firmly, “I shouldn’t have told you like that.”
“No,” Mikey loosens his grasp on the Book a little, “It’s fine, I…I don’t know how else you would have told me. I kind of knew, it just…it’s hard. I’m sorry I freaked out.” They’re all looking at him now, that same pity in their eyes. “I think I just need some time, I’ll go back and leave you guys alone, I’m so-”
“No!” They all speak at once, and Don sits up quickly with a grimace. Mikey isn’t sure what to say.
“Stay here,” Don’s a little breathless, but insistent, “At least for the night. We have an extra room.” Mikey looks at Leo, who smiles warmly.
“Please,” he says simply, “Rest, take whatever time you need. In the morning we can set up some of those wards you mentioned. If, uh…if dad could do it, I’m sure we can figure it out.”
“Are…are you guys sure?” Mikey hardly dares to ask.
Raph stands and pulls back the curtains covering the nearby bay window to reveal a slightly worn but tidy row of brownstone houses across the street, and massive high rises in the distance.
TMNT (Human/Magic AU)
Part 1 of the Unbound AU
Word Count: 5.5k
The shaking, the noise, the light, the cataclysmic feeling of being rent open and broken apart and set free and put back together again - he can’t explain any of it. He can barely describe the sensation in his chest, like something dormant and dangerous and unspeakably ancient has awoken there; he certainly can’t explain why it’s there or how he suddenly knows that it always has been, tucked away and waiting to be unleashed.
And the fact that it all feels right somehow, like some missing piece has slotted nicely back into place, is completely beyond Leo's ability to put into words.
Read on AO3
Chapter Four: Leonardo
The world didn’t fall apart, the house didn’t crumble on top of them, and nobody got hurt, not really. They’re ok, or at least that’s what Leo keeps telling himself.
They’re ok, except Don looks terrified, and Raph is clutching his shaking arm tightly to his side. They’re ok, except there’s a strange feeling in Leo’s chest that he doesn’t want to think too much about, like a roiling under still waters, a gathering storm that’s rising within him. They’re ok, except they’ve just finished easing a still-unconscious teenager onto the closest couch - a teenager who has been living in a house their father hid from them for years apparently.
The room in which they find themselves is cozy, with a bit of a Victorian feel to it; wood shelves line the walls, stacked high with books and an assortment of knick-knacks, some of which are easily identifiable as antiques that Leo would normally be delighted to examine in depth. There is a second arching entrance across from the one they’d come through, and next to it is a large brick fireplace that looks like it hasn’t been used for some time. The overstuffed and currently occupied couch sits opposite a pair of puffy armchairs, all arranged in a circle around an ornate coffee table at the centre of the room.
“Sit,” he directs Raph, pointing to one of the armchairs and hoping his younger brother won’t rankle at being told what to do. Raph simply drops into the chair with a thud, which is simultaneously relieving and worrying.
“He should put ice on it,” Don mumbles, still sounding dazed.
“Good idea,” Leo nods and guides Don into the matching chair, “You guys stay here, watch him.” He gestures to the kid, who is still out but breathing evenly. “I’ll find some ice.”
“Shouldn’t we call an ambulance for him or something?” Raph’s eyes are glued on the kid, worry plastered across his features. And he’s right, of course they should get some proper medical care, but something inside Leo screams at him that it’s not the right move.
“Let’s give him a few minutes,” he’s moving on autopilot as he speaks, grabbing a nearby throw blanket and draping it over the prone form on the couch. Tucking it around the boy’s shoulders, he can feel bones protruding out and makes up his mind to get some food as well.
“Leo?” Don’s voice is small in a way it hasn’t been in years, since the two of them sat in a hospital waiting for Raph to either wake up or stop breathing, “What was that?”
And there’s distance between them, Leo felt it in the airport and in the car and even as they entered the house, but he’d still tear this place down with his bare hands if it meant he could protect his youngest brother. Add it to the long list of ways he’s failed, because he can’t think of anything to do or say to ease the fear radiating off Don in waves.
“I don’t know,” he says after a moment, unable to come up with a better answer. The shaking, the noise, the light, the cataclysmic feeling of being rent open and broken apart and set free and put back together again - he can’t explain any of it. He can barely describe the sensation in his chest, like something dormant and dangerous and unspeakably ancient has awoken there; he certainly can’t explain why it’s there or how he suddenly knows that it always has been, tucked away and waiting to be unleashed.
And the fact that it all feels right somehow, like some missing piece has slotted nicely back into place, is completely beyond his ability to put into words.
“What about the kid?” Raph leans forward, wincing as he jostles his arm, “I can’t be the only one who sees it, right?” And while Don frowns deeply at this, Leo knows exactly what he’s talking about.
“Yeah,” his voice sounds distant to his own ears, “Yeah I see it.” And it’s impossible not to see, really - the boy looks, for all the world, like a Hamato. Besides the one on the staircase, Leo has spotted half a dozen photos of him and their father, as well as a few more with the man Raph claimed to have seen in the hospital. And there’s that striking familiarity, like somehow he knows the kid but just can’t place where or how they met.
“Do you think he’s our b-”
“That doesn’t make any sense Raph,” Don interrupts him, voice pitched to near hysteria before he checks himself and continues in a whispered hiss, “That’s insane.”
“So what, you think the kid’s a squatter?”
“Maybe,” Don huffs.
“Who’s been taking photos with dad for like ten years?” Raph points out the extremely obvious. “C’mon Donnie, you’re smarter than that.”
“Ok, the photos - how was dad even in them?” Don counters, and neither of them have an answer for that. As far as Leo knew, Yoshi hadn’t been to San Francisco at all since their mother’s funeral, and had barely even left New York City for the most part. “And more importantly,” Don continues when they don’t respond, “Why would he hide a son across the country? Why would he ever keep something like that from us?”
“Seems like he kept a lot from us,” Leo mutters, moving to grab his bag from the hallway.
“Ok, yes,” Don whisper-yells after him, “But there’s a pretty big difference between hiding a house and hiding a person. He wouldn’t - he wouldn’t just do that.”
“Kinda looks like he did, bro,” Raph grimaces, “I’m sure he had a good reason.” Leo holds back a scoff at that, opting instead to grab the box of granola bars he’d packed out of his bag and toss them to Don.
“I’m going to find some ice, and see if the phone works so we can order some food,” he says as Don turns the box over in his hands to see what he’d caught reflexively, “Stay here, and give some of those to the kid if he wakes up. He looks…hungry.” It’s an understatement, but the thought of saying out loud that the boy looks like he’s been slowly starving in this house for months makes Leo’s stomach churn with something an awful lot like guilt.
He heads for what he hopes is the kitchen before either of his brothers can protest. The layout of the house is a little confusing, but his sense of direction doesn’t fail him and he quickly finds it, flicking on the light switch as he enters. The lack of food as he scans the cupboards is concerning, if not surprising, but he does find a half eaten box of crackers and a small bag of uncooked rice in the pantry.
What is surprising is the extremely robust supply of dried herbs and spices, some of which he doesn’t recognize at all. An entire wall of shelving is devoted to the collection, which is an assortment of oddly shaped jars, all labelled in the same looping hand-writing that he recognizes immediately as his father’s. He pulls down a green-tinged mason jar filled with mustard seed, gazing at Yoshi’s elegant script and fighting the sudden urge to throw the thing through one of the many-paned kitchen windows.
The tiny seeds chime against the glass in a small symphony, and the feeling he’s been ignoring swells, a rising and eerily familiar tumult deep within him that takes his breath away.
His father, the man who’d raised them on his own since their mother died, the man Leo had looked up to and loved with his entire being, who he’d trusted more than anything, even after everything with the hospital and Raph; Yoshi had been lying to them for years. No matter what the kid in the other room wakes up and says, it won’t change that simple fact. Their father had an entire life that they knew nothing about, and now whatever secrets he’d been keeping are coming out of the woodwork. Leo clutches at his chest with his free hand, suddenly aware that his heart is pounding and his lungs are catching and -
The top shelf gives a loud crack and several glass jars fall off, shattering on the floor and shocking him out of his spiral. The tumult in his chest subsides rapidly, like a pressure relief valve has been opened.
“Leo?” It’s Raph calling in an uncharacteristically quiet voice from the other room, Leo assumes so as not to startle the kid.
“It’s fine,” he calls back as loud as he dares, staring at the broken glass littering the kitchen floor. “I’m fine, just, uh…a shelf just broke.” Looking up he can see that the wood on the top shelf has a split that runs horizontally almost the full length of it, and now tilts precariously downwards. He ponders how something like that could happen, coming up blank and deciding to file it under ‘things to figure out later’.
Placing the mustard seed jar back on the shelf, he gingerly makes his way over to the pale green phone on the counter, careful not to step on any of the broken glass. Last year’s phone book is tucked away next to the phone, and although the selection isn’t as good as New York there are still plenty of pizza places listed that deliver. After ordering an admittedly absurd amount of pizza for sake of variety, he locates a broom and sweeps the glass into the dust pan for later disposal, then moves to inspect the freezer. He sends a thanks to the universe when he finds it blessedly well stocked with ice packs, and he’s wrapping two of them in a yellow striped tea towel when he hears a crash and a shout from the other room.
Abandoning his task, Leo rushes back to find a scene that would be almost comical if he hadn’t already been having one of the most stressful days of his life. Donnie is a tangle of limbs, having clearly tripped backwards over the small side table next to the chair Leo had left him in; he’s sitting up, legs still over the upturned table, brandishing a granola bar in one hand and the box like a shield in the other. Standing next to him is Raph, injured arm reaching protectively in front of Don in a way that must be painful. Crouched to make himself look smaller, other arm outstretched with palm up in a calming gesture, and an uncommon patience written in his features, everything else about Raph’s stance reads like a man trying to tame a wild creature.
Said wild creature comes in the form of the boy, now wide awake and backed against the nearby fireplace, clutching an iron poker like it’s a battleaxe. A split second after Leo barrels into the room and takes in the tableau, he realizes he’s in a somewhat compromised position as the boy whips around to face him and raises the poker above his head threateningly.
“Hey, relax kid,” Raph speaks easily at the same time as Don shouts a strangled “Don’t!” from the ground. Leo raises both hands slowly, somewhat less worried for his own safety when he notices how the kid sways where he stands.
“We’re not here to hurt you,” Leo steps forward against his better judgement, shaking his head at his brothers as they tense visibly, “We didn’t even know you were here.”
“Who are you?” The boy demands, voice strong despite his unsteady legs. “How did you get past the wards? Are you demons?”
“Wards?” Don lowers the granola bar in confusion.
“Demons?” Raph straightens up and drops his hands, equally baffled. The boy frowns and lowers the poker slightly.
“You’re amortals,” he says, tone accusatory, “I can tell you are, so don’t lie.”
“I don’t think we know what you’re talking about,” Leo keeps his tone as even as he can, mind racing trying to figure it out, “We’re definitely not immortal.”
“Not im-mortal. A-mortal,” the kid now looks as befuddled as the rest of them. “Wait, you…do you really not…who are you?”
“Let’s start there,” Leo gestures towards the couch, “We’ll tell you who we are, you sit and eat.” Don, now extricating himself from the side table, waves the granola bar he’s holding in the air. The boy’s knuckles go white as his grip on the poker tightens.
“Keep the poker,” Raph suggests, also noting the death grip, “You can brain us if we try anything.” Don scrunches his nose at this, but slides the snack onto the coffee table in the center of the room before righting the side table. There is a moment of tense glaring between the four of them that reminds Leo of a Clint Eastwood movie, but then the kid warily shuffles over to the couch and jams himself into the corner so he can see all of them at once. He doesn’t take the food, or relinquish the poker.
Baby steps.
Leo waits for Don and Raph to sit back in the chairs, then sits on the opposite end of the couch and steels himself to upend this kid’s life.
“I’m Leonardo,” he starts after failing to come up with a better opener, “This is Raphael, and Donatello.” Raph throws up a couple of fingers at his name, while Don gives a curt nod. As he speaks, curiosity piques in the kid’s face and he leans forward a little, loosening his grip on his improvised weapon.
“Leo?” He murmurs, almost to himself. “And Raph? Don?”
“Erm…yeah, that’s what most people call us,” Leo offers a smile, “Our names are a bit of a mouthful.”
“No, no it’s just…” the kid looks down, an unreadable expression flashing over his face, “Nevermind. Sorry.”
“Don’t be,” Raph jumps in, reaching over to Don and grabbing another granola bar from the box, “Nobody uses our full names.” He rips the wrapper one-handed and takes a bite, nodding towards the one still untouched on the table. “You should eat. You look like you’re about to keel over again.” He’s not wrong - the boy looks better now than he did when they’d first arrived, but he’s blinking a little hard and breathing a little shallow for Leo’s liking.
Raph sends the bar sliding across the table with a flick of his good arm, and one corner of the boy’s mouth twitches upwards.
“This better not be drugged,” he mumbles around the beginnings of a smile, before he opens the package and takes a bite. Don raises an eyebrow, taking his own and tossing another to Leo.
“Cheers,” Leo raises his, watching with relief as the kid happily downs the rest of his bar in a few bites.
“Alright, well…my name,” the boy places the empty wrapper back on the table and seems to consider his next words carefully, “is Mikey. Short for Michelangelo.” Raph looks pointedly over to Don, who simply pushes his glasses up his nose and stares stubbornly at his half-finished granola bar.
“That’s weird, right?” The kid’s - Mikey’s - eyes are questioning as he meets Leo’s gaze.
“Yeah, a little,” Leo affirms, then takes a quick breath and pushes forward, “I’m really not sure how to say this, so I’ll just come out and tell you. We’re here because our father - “
The doorbell cuts him off, and for the second time today he is struck with the overwhelming compulsion to strangle somebody.
“Food?” Raph guesses. “That was fast.”
“I’ll get it,” Don pushes himself out of the armchair.
“Thanks,” Leo fishes his wallet out and hands a wad of cash to Don, who exits the room. There’s an awkward moment of silence while they wait, and then Raph reaches across the table with an open hand.
“Well, hey,” he smiles, warm and easy and gruff and so fully Raphael that Leo could burst with gratitude for his younger brother, “Nice to meet ya Mikey.”
Michelangelo hesitates for a second, then grins back and leans forward to return the handshake. Their hands touch, and then a lot of things happen at once.
Raph gasps and closes his eyes, his grip tightening on Mikey’s hand and his body lurching forward in a violent spasm. Leo moves without thinking to catch him, but Mikey is already there, arms under Raph’s and legs trembling with the effort of keeping him from hitting the table.
In the same breath, there is a loud bang of a door flying open and a startled cry from Don in the entryway. Torn between his brothers, Leo swears under his breath and races to the front door, which is where he starts questioning his own sanity.
Donnie stands about ten feet back from the door, trembling hands raised in front of him defensively, eyes locked on a figure in the threshold of the house. Leo follows his gaze to a man about as tall as Don but much bulkier, dressed in an assortment of layered fabrics that make him look like he just came from a renaissance fair. Three things really stand out about the man, though; one, growths that resemble thorns protrude from his skin, emerging out of deep fissures that make Leo a little nauseous to stare at too long; two, his eyes are a deep, blood red, with no whites whatsoever; third, and most upsettingly, he hangs impossibly in mid air, frozen in a lunge with his hands inches away from Donatello’s throat.
“Don!” Leo moves to pull his brother away from the attacker, still trying to understand what he’s seeing as he does.
“Holy shit,” Don breathes out as he ducks under the man’s hands and scrambles to stand behind Leo.
“Are you ok?” Leo tries to catch his eyes, but Don is still staring at the frozen figure, “What happened?”
“I don’t know, he charged through the door when I opened it, and I just - “ Don flicks both of his hands forward in front of him by way of explanation, “And he kinda just…stopped, and…it felt like…” He presses a hand against his chest, apparently at a loss for words.
“Something woke up?” Leo supplies, still feeling in his own chest the hint of something familiar and old and powerful. Don nods, almost imperceptibly.
“What the hell?” Raph wanders in from the living room, looking a little dazed but no worse for the wear. Before Leo can speak the question on his lips, Raph answers it with a small shake of his head and a dismissive wave of his hand. He’s ok, or at least close enough to ok that they can talk about it later.
“Oh, you can freeze,” comes a genial voice from behind Raph as Mikey pops his head around the corner, “That’s handy.” He looks thoughtfully at the thorn-skinned man for a second. “Try not to let Thorns here unfreeze. One sec.” He heads back to the living room, leaving the rest of them utterly perplexed.
“Try not to let who what?” Don mutters, peering around Leo’s shoulder at the intruder.
“Mikey, do you know this guy?” Leo calls after the kid, receiving only a hum of denial from the other room in response.
“I must have taken too many painkillers,” Raph tilts his head as he joins them in examining the motionless attacker. “Either that or I’m having the weirdest dream ever.”
“I’m seeing the same thing you are,” Leo leans in to get a closer look, then replays Raph’s statement in his head, “Wait, how many did you take?”
“It was a joke. And you worry too-” Raph stops speaking abruptly, looking around the room with sudden anxiety, “Wait. I know this. I saw this.” Leo doesn’t have a chance to ask him what he’s talking about before Raph turns on his heel and barrels into Mikey as he comes back from the living room, iron poker once again in hand. They both hit the ground just in time to narrowly avoid being struck by what looks like a bolt of lightning emanating from the hands of the now-definitely-not-frozen man in the entryway.
Another bolt cracks through the air, and Leo feels like he’s watching the scene in slow motion as it arcs towards Don. And he moves, strains to reach his brother before it hits, knowing with perfect certainty that there’s no way he can get there in time; and sirens are going off in his head, and the world is falling away, and he can’t stop it and-
Don throws his hands up in front of him, and the bolt stops in its tracks, hanging in the air just like the newly-dubbed ‘Thorns’ had been a few seconds ago. Don’s eyes are wide, darting between the frozen bolt inches away from him and the enraged man.
“Move!” Raph hauls himself up and grabs Don, pulling him around the corner and out of the line of fire where Mikey already waits. The bolt unfreezes and hits the wall, splintering a pane and sending wood shrapnel flying across the room.
“Leo, come on!” Raph leans back around the and gestures with his good arm for Leo to join them.
But the wall behind where Don was a second ago is destroyed, Raph is too injured to do anything but retreat, and Mikey is staggering out of cover on shaky legs, clutching the iron poker like he’s about to rush into battle. Leo can feel the storm swell in his chest again, steady like the tide and wild like a hurricane, and almost entirely out of his control.
Something like muscle memory takes over as he steps in front of Mikey and raises his right hand, fingers outstretched towards the man. The swell is a maelstrom now, and somehow he knows exactly what to do with it; with a sweeping gesture, Thorns is sent crashing into the bottom of the staircase. It doesn’t seem to slow him down much though, and another bolt of lightning arches across the room, only missing Leo because Raph has already sent him sprawling to the floor with a very well timed sweep of the legs.
“Ow,” Leo groans, and Raph gives an apologetic shrug before ducking to the ground to avoid another bolt. Leo throws out his hand wildly, and this time a vase flies across the room and hits the man square in the face.
“Nice shootin’ Tex,” Raph mutters, disbelief painted across his face.
“Freeze him!” Mikey shouts to Don, who nods and sets his mouth in a grim line of concentration. He flings his hands in front of him in the same gesture he’d used to stop the lightning bolt, clenching his fists in frustration when nothing happens.
“It’s not working!” He ducks down to avoid another bolt, “What do I do?”
“Breathe, find a calm center, visualize, and -” Mikey repeats the gesture to demonstrate. Leo doesn’t have time to think about how his father used to say a longer version of the same thing, because the man is up and lurching across the room at Michelangelo with a knife he apparently pulled out from one of his many layers of clothing.
Leo’s body moves on its own accord, like he’s done this a thousand times, hand arcing through the air as though throwing a javelin. The iron poker wrenches out of Mikey’s hands and sails across the room, moved by Leo’s will and bone-deep instinct to protect this kid; he feels a burst of grim satisfaction when it buries itself in the man’s eye, followed immediately by revulsion.
Thick black bile pours from the wound, and Thorns takes a few more stumbling steps before collapsing to his knees and toppling forward, driving the iron deeper into his skull. Raph pulls a stunned looking Mikey behind him as the man claws feebly at the poker for a moment before falling still. As they watch, the thorns embedded in the man’s skin begin to push out, forming into long vines that wrap around the body. The vines thrash and twist in on themselves, tightening into a smaller and smaller bundle until they give a final convulsion and then disappear, leaving behind only a pool of inky black blood.
“What,” Raph says, breaking the horrified silence in the room, “The fuck.”
“The, um…I read that the thorns are a fae thing,” Mikey answers hoarsely after a few moments, waving a hand over his own face as if it explains anything, “So…iron.”
“Right,” Raph mutters and runs a hand through his hair, “Of course.”
“Did Leo just kill a pizza guy?” Don sounds shell-shocked. Leo stares at the pool of unnaturally dark blood and fights the urge to be sick.
“No, no,” Mikey is quick to respond, shooting a reassuring look Leo’s way, “That was a…well some kind of demon, I’m not sure exactly what. An amortal who wanted to kill us, probably from one of the more demonic adjacencies, and-” He stops, looking around at their blank faces, “And you guys really have no idea what I’m talking about, do you?”
“Does it have anything to do with Leo going full Jean Grey? Or Raph going full Cassandra? Or that guy going full Palpatine? Or me going full-” Don pauses in his rambling, “Actually I can’t think of a mythological or pop culture reference for causing pure energy to freeze mid-air.” He shoves his glasses up his nose emphatically.
“Sailor Pluto could stop time,” Mikey muses, “But that’s not really…the same…” He trails off, wilting under Don’s exasperated glare. “Not the point, sorry.”
“As long as the pizza’s still coming,” Raph opts to ignore them both, nudging the blood covered poker with one foot and making a face. “Or maybe I’ll just skip dinner.” The blood is congealing, glistening on the iron, and Leo’s stomach flips over itself and he’s starting to feel a little dizzy and -
“Uhhh,” an unfamiliar voice interrupts from the doorway, and they all wheel around to face a very startled looking teenager carrying a large stack of pizza boxes. “Sorry, the door was open?”
Raph and Mikey scramble to block the viscera from the delivery guy’s view while Don gathers up the wad of bills he must have dropped in the initial chaos of the attack.
“It’s ok, we um…like to leave the door open,” Leo tries to smile as he takes the pizza.
“Dude,” the delivery guy’s eyes go wide, “Are you ok?”
“Huh?” Leo sets the boxes on a side table.
“You’re bleeding man.” The guy points to Leo’s left side, where there is in fact a red stain spreading slowly across his white t-shirt; which, he supposes, would explain the slight dizziness that increases when he sees the source of the blood. Don is suddenly beside him, propping him up under the elbow with one hand and shoving bills at the delivery guy with the other.
“You must have popped a stitch,” he lies easily, and Leo hastily nods in agreement after a moment’s delay. “Thanks man, keep the change.”
“Are you sure? Do you need me to-”
“We’re good, thanks!” Raph sounds almost chipper as he ushers the guy out and shuts the door a little too hard behind him before turning back to them. “Jesus, Leo.”
“I’m ok,” he grimaces, trying not to look at the protruding shard of wood that seems to have pierced through his shirt and into his side. “I think it just kind of…skimmed the surface. It’s not that deep.” Don’s grip on his elbow tightens at that.
“‘Not that deep’ he says,” Raph grumbles, “You’re a kebab, you idiot.” Leo lets them frogmarch him back to the living room and onto the couch. Mikey, who Leo belatedly notices wasn’t with them anymore, charges into the room wielding a jar, several towels, and a first aid kit.
“I can help!” He sounds so enthusiastic Leo can’t help but smile. “I know how to do this!”
Don raises a skeptical eyebrow, but steps back with Raph when Leo nods. They watch, wincing in sympathy as Mikey uses a small pair of surgical scissors to cut Leo’s shirt away, revealing the wound in full. And Leo was right, he’s pleased to note; it’s not that deep, but it’s definitely a little gory. The splinter isn’t terribly thick, but it is long - four or five inches at least, and it’s wedged under the skin along his ribs, entering and exiting like a sewing needle. It sticks out from the exit wound about half an inch, pulling at the skin and causing it to tear at the edges.
“Was that from that lighting bolt thing hitting the wall?” Don looks nauseous, and more than a little guilt ridden. “Leo, I’m sorry, I should have-”
“No,” Leo cuts him off as Mikey unscrews the lid of the jar, gritting his teeth at the memory of the bolt about to strike Don with what almost certainly would have been a killing blow, “No. That would have…this is better. I’m fine, really.” A pained look crosses Don’s face, and he crosses his arms tightly over his chest.
“Looks worse than it is,” Raph claps Don on the back and kneels next to Mikey, “Anything I can do to help?”
Mikey shakes his head, tongue sticking out slightly in concentration as he dons a pair of nitrile gloves and swipes up some of the thick substance in the jar with a pinky finger. “Nope.”
And in one swift motion he gently grips the splinter in his other hand, pulls it out, tosses it to the side, and coats the entry and exit wounds with the substance before Leo can even flinch. It stings a little, but very quickly the area goes numb and the bleeding slows to an ooze. Mikey grabs a suture needle and begins stitching everything up, hands steadier than Leo had expected given that they still hadn’t managed to get more than a granola bar into him. Don mumbles something about putting the pizza out and exits the room.
“You really know what you’re doing,” Leo says, impressed.
“My guardian was a doctor,” he speaks softly, a catch in the back of his throat that makes Leo’s heart ache.
“Your guardian?” Raph has moved over to Leo’s bag, rummaging around until he pulls out a clean shirt and tosses it over.
“Mm-hm,” the kid hums but doesn’t elaborate further, still deep in concentration as he ties off the last stitch and tapes a large piece of gauze over the entire thing. He sits back on his heels and grins at Leo. “Good as new!”
“Thank you,” Leo stands up and stretches cautiously, happy to find that it doesn’t hurt at all, “Really, thanks.” Mikey looks down, not fast enough to hide the small smile that crosses his face.
Leo peels off the tattered and bloody remains of the shirt he’d been wearing; as he uses it to gather the refuse from the first aid session, Mikey turns to Raph.
“I could, um…I could make you a sling? For your shoulder? And the salve will help that too.”
Raph looks like he might give into his usual knee-jerk reaction to insist that he’s fine, but then Mikey picks up a towel with a hopeful little smile and he immediately steps forward, heaving a theatrical sigh and presenting his shoulder for treatment.
By the time Don comes back, Leo is in a fresh shirt and Raph’s arm is firmly bound in an expertly crafted sling.
“Ok, pizza’s on the counter, plates are out,” he announces, straightening his glasses and looking directly at Michelangelo, “And I have a lot of questions.”
“Back atcha,” Mikey shoots a finger gun in Don’s direction and waltzes past him, “Starting with why you guys broke into my house.”
“We didn’t break in,” Don says peevishly as he follows the smaller teenager into the kitchen, but there’s a camaraderie in his voice that belies his irritation, “We walked in.”
Their banter continues, fading to an unintelligible din as they move farther into the house. Raph looks over at Leo with a one-shouldered shrug and heads after them, leaving him standing alone in the living room. He doesn’t follow right away, suddenly overwhelmed by what’s waiting for him; everything he’s ever known has been completely upended in the last hour, and now he’s living in a world where maniacs who shoot lightning from their hands are trying to kill his brothers.
There’s so much he doesn’t know, and the prospect of further uncovering Yoshi’s secrets isn’t exactly doing anything to relax his nerves.
Breathe, calm centre, visualize. His father’s voice echoes through his mind, and he clenches his hands into tight fists, digging his nails into his palms at the thought. The tempestuous feeling in his chest, which had taken a backseat in the aftermath of the demon attack, is starting to feel like an old friend as it rises once more within him.
Breathe, calm centre, visualize.
And as he leaves the room to join his brothers, the shelves rattle ominously behind him.
TMNT (Human/Magic AU)
Part 1 of the Unbound AU
Word Count: 4.1k
“It’s not even shut,” Leo frowns, and pushes gently on the door with his fingertips. It swings open with a loud creak, and Raph casts a wild glance around the quiet suburban street to see if they’d drawn any attention. Nothing.
They look at eachother, a collective and silent agreement passing amongst them to press forward. Raph doesn’t mention it, but he suspects they can all feel the same something in the air as they cross the threshold of the house. There is a heaviness here, a weight that settles over him as they step into the entry hall.
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Chapter Three: Raphael
Raphael Hamato hates flying.
He’ll never admit it to anyone, least of all his brothers, but being trapped in a metal coffin hurtling through the stratosphere and packed ass to ankles with a bunch of sweaty strangers is basically a nightmare. And yet, here he is, overpriced water in one hand and his roughly packed (and barely small enough to pass as carry-on) bag clutched in the other. Leo is inches ahead of him, helping an elderly woman into her seat and lifting her hefty bag into the overhead compartment. At this rate they’ll never make it to their row. Raph keeps the thought to himself and nods politely to the woman as they continue.
Honestly, other than having to endure an unexpected flight, he has to admit that this whole San Francisco thing has actually worked out pretty nicely. It’s weird, yeah, but a pretty good distraction from the sure-to-come questions from Leo about where he’d been last night. His older brother had let it go, but Raph would eat his hat if it didn’t come up again at some point.
It’s not that he wants to keep secrets from Leo, or that he doesn’t trust him. It’s just the last few years have been so hard, and there’s a vicious little voice in Raph’s head that whispers that it’s his fault. Sometimes he catches Leo, head bowed, fingers pressed tightly to his temples, face tight, leg shaking - it’s only ever for a second or two until he’s spotted, and then like some kind of shapeshifter Leo’s features smooth, back straightens, hands relax.
If you could take a punch, things would be easier. Leo and Dad wouldn’t have fought. They’d have been ok when Dad died. Leo wouldn’t feel so guilty. He wouldn’t worry so much.
He tries to stamp the thoughts down whenever they arise, but they’re persistent little buggers. On some level he understands that it’s not his fault. Sure, Dad and Leo (and even Don from time to time) had always griped at him about the MMA circuits being too risky, but it’s not like he was injured in the ring. How could he have known another fighter would get so enraged after a loss that he’d be jumped in an alley and beaten nearly to death? And there’s no world in which Raph would have guessed it would be Spike, one of his closest friends in the circuit, that would snap and try to kill him after a match.
Still though. It feels like he should have seen it coming, should have been able to fight back and prevent the worst of it. The day of the attack and the following week are a blank spot in his memory, on account of his brain being mashed to a pulp; most of what he knows came from attending Spike’s trial. Don and Leo still won’t really talk about it, which, fair. The whole thing was way more traumatic for them, again on account of the pulpy brain. He’s sure he’d be messed up if he could remember a damn thing about it, but as it stands he only has a few jumbled images for his trouble. He can dimly recall lying on wet asphalt, wondering when it had rained. Sirens, and lights, distant pain and then darkness, and his father standing next to a tall doctor with long hair who looked sad and determined and brighter than the rest of the room.
“We’re right here,” Leo interrupts his reverie with a vague gesture to their row, and reaches out a hand for his bag. “I can…” He trails off when Raph wordlessly surrenders the duffle to him, frowning briefly before hoisting it into the overhead compartment with ease. “Shoulder bugging you?”
Raph slides past him into the window seat, careful to keep his expression neutral as he responds, “Just a bit stiff today.” He should have put up a bit more of a fight - normally he would insist he could lift the bag up himself, but truthfully, after last night he’s not sure he can. It had felt ok when he got home, a pleasant surprise after having to tap out on a particularly nasty arm bar, but it had stiffened up as he slept; now there is a dull, throbbing pain that aspirin is only taking the edge off of, and he can already tell he’s not going to be able to lift anything above his head for a few days.
“We can pick up a heating pad when we get there,” Leo muses, “Have you been doing your physio? Did something happen? We could grab some equipment too, or -”
“It’s fine Leo,” he interjects, not unkindly, “Just the weather. Don’t make me regret letting you help me out.” The last part is teasing, and his brother relaxes into his seat with a wry smile. Raph lets his breath out in a soft sigh, relieved that he doesn’t have to confess to Leo that he’s been dabbling back into the regional circuits again these past few weeks. They’re small fights, lower stakes and not especially brutal. It’s a decent way to bring in a little cash, and frankly he’d missed it in the two years since the incident. There’s nothing quite like it; that surge of blood in his ears, that frenzied din of the crowd, that satisfying moment when the first connection is made and the fight is really on. Sometimes he wonders if there’s something wrong with him that inside the ring is where he feels the most alive, but mostly he’s just glad he finally made it back in.
But Leo and Don will lose their minds if they find out, so Raph isn’t going to tell either of them unless he absolutely needs to.
Leo grabs an in-flight magazine and starts leafing through it while Raph watches the ground crew in amusement as they haphazardly toss luggage into the plane. When that show is over, he grabs his own magazine to distract himself as the engines begin to rumble beneath them, flipping through the pages but not actually reading anything.
“I hate flying,” Leo remarks with a lazy flip of the page. The engines roar to life and they begin the taxi down the runway.
“Yeah?” Raph closes the magazine on an ad for some bank depicting a smiling white couple with perfect teeth and a house in the suburbs. “Me too.”
And if Leo notices him gripping the arm rest for dear life as they rattle down the runway and take off, he doesn’t say anything.
—
The sun streams through ornate stained glass windows, dappling the tiled floor with dancing light that refracts and folds and flickers back in on itself. A curly haired boy in a baggy sweater lies on his back in the middle of the large room, small and sad and alone.
He’s scared, and so familiar; a song at the edges of memory, a laugh echoing through empty hallways, a grazing touch that fades before its source can be identified. The boy rolls to his side, pushes himself up with some effort, and peers around the room.
“Hello?” he whispers, shaking hands twisting into his sweater, “Is somebody here?”
And now Raphael is in the room too, stepping into the sunlight, no longer a silent observer. The room feels as though it’s underwater - the sounds are garbled, his limbs are heavy, the details are difficult to make out. The boy rises on unsteady feet, seemingly unaware of Raphael’s presence.
And now the boy is walking through the house, wandering corridors that don’t make sense, moving farther away from the bright room, and Raphael is following but his body is sluggish and the air is thick. The boy needs his help, of this he is certain. Something pulls him away from the house now though, away from the boy he has to protect, save maybe. He feels it tugging at his chest, gently calling him back to his body.
“I’ll find you.” The words are thick in his throat, difficult to get out, but he needs the boy to know. “I promise.”
—
Raph opens his eyes to Leo standing in the aisle and pulling their bags down. Almost everyone else has already left, with only a few other stragglers gathering their belongings.
“I can’t believe you slept through the landing,” Leo says, tossing Raph’s bag into his lap.
“Mr Late Night,” Raph grins and stands with a stretch, careful of his shoulder. The strange dream is already fading, and he chalks it up to the high altitudes and airport food.
They disembark and make their way through the San Francisco International Airport towards the exit where Donnie and April are supposed to meet them, happily skipping the baggage claim where a slew of annoyed onlookers wait for their luggage.
“I don’t know why anybody checks a bag,” Raph says, stepping onto an escalator after his brother. Leo isn’t paying attention, scanning the crowd below them as they descend, until his eyes settle. He nudges Raph and points - and sure enough, there’s Donnie, standing next to a girl who looks infinitely cooler than him and clearly still trying to spot them amongst the horde of passengers. Raph waves with his good arm, and Don’s eyes flick over and lock onto them. His face immediately splits into a wide smile, and he shuffles around a gaggle of kids and their harried parents to meet them closer to the bottom of the escalator.
Something in Raph relaxes, a tension he hadn’t realized he’d been carrying. He was happy for Don when he got into CalTech, of course he’d been happy, and relieved, and so fucking proud. But there was also a feeling of…wrongness, that he hadn’t been able to shake, especially after Dad died. His dorky, bright, kind little brother, across the country and completely out of reach except for the odd phone call - well, they’re fixing it now.
He pushes past Leo and hops off the escalator well before his step has reached the landing, chuckling at his older brother’s strangled yelp of protest. Ignoring the sharp twinge in his shoulder, he unceremoniously drops his bag on the ground and sweeps Don into a hug. The girl beside him (April, he assumes) laughs, smile wide and eyes sparkling, and Raph feels a surge of gratitude towards her.
“Put me down doofus,” Don gripes, but his voice is warm and his arms are wrapped tightly around Raph’s neck. Leo appears next to them and reaches out a hand to April.
“Hi, April?”
“April O’Neil,” she returns the handshake with a bemused grin, “You must be Leonardo.”
“Leo is fine,” he reaches down to grab Raph’s bag, “And thanks. For driving Don, I mean. And for picking us up. And…well, thanks.”
“It was nothing,” she waves a dismissive hand as Raph deposits Don back onto his feet, “Always happy for a road trip, especially with this guy.” She pats the guy in question, smoothing out his ruffled hair. Don’s eyes soften, and Raph knows that look - his brother is absolutely smitten. He raises a questioning eyebrow at his younger brother, which is met with a look that says unequivocally, “shut the fuck up about it.”
“It’s not nothing,” Leo interrupts their silent conversation, “Thank you April. It means a lot.” It’s a simple statement, but Leo has this way of seeing people, and making sure they know they’re seen. April blushes a little, and dips her head in silent acknowledgement.
Raph reaches out his own hand to her and introduces himself as Leo pulls Don into a quieter embrace. Their oldest brother’s eyes are soft and sad over Don’s shoulders, and Raph makes a mental note to check in with him later.
“Alright boys,” April turns on her heel once Don and Leo break apart, “Follow me!” They march out of the airport to her car, telling each other about their travels as they go. The conversation is a little stilted, like they haven’t quite found their rhythm again after living apart for two years. Raph is very aware of his place in the middle as Don and Leo dance awkwardly around any topic that goes deeper than turbulence or road conditions, but they make it to April’s car (a little yellow Acura that has seen better days) without incident. As they squeeze their bags into the already crowded trunk, April unfolds a comically large map of the city.
“I picked it up at the last gas station,” she declares by way of explanation, and points to a spot in the upper left corner, “Prescott Street is here.”
“I can navigate,” Don reaches for the map and proceeds to wrangle it with him into the passenger seat of the car.
“You didn’t call shotgun,” Raph raises his voice so Don can hear inside the car, “I’ll let it slide this time.” He waits until Leo gets in behind April and quickly fishes out an aspirin from his bag, popping it into his mouth and swallowing it dry. The rear bumper of the car looks like it might fall off in a stiff breeze, so he shuts the trunk gently before taking his seat, holding his right arm close to his side.
“You ok?” Leo’s voice is low with concern as Raph twists around awkwardly to grab his seatbelt with his left hand. April and Donnie don’t hear them over the radio blaring Tubthumping, but he shoots a glare at Leo anyways. His older brother is more of a general worrier, but even now Don gets quiet and moody whenever a reminder of the attack comes up. They’ve got enough to deal with right now without that particular storm cloud darkening the proverbial doorstep.
“Fine,” he whispers back, struggling to buckle the belt up and nearly growling in frustration when he can’t. Leo’s hand twitches like he’s holding himself back from taking over the task, and finally Raph gives up. “Can you-” Before he finishes the request, Leo is already reaching a steady hand over to hold the buckle in place. Raph clicks it in and slumps into the seat.
“That bad, huh?”
“Not great,” he admits, “It’s fine though. It’ll get better, just needs a bit of time.” Leo frowns, but doesn’t say anything.
In the front, Donnie and April are heartily singing along to Chumbawumba.
“I GET KNOCKED DOWN! BUT I GET UP AGAIN!”
Raph waggles his eyebrows at Leo, who gives him a look he knows means the conversation isn’t over, but joins in the impromptu sing-a-long even so.
“YOU’RE NEVER GONNA KEEP ME DOWN!”
As they drive through the hills of San Francisco, California sun warming their skin and ocean breeze whipping into the open windows, it’s easy to forget why they’re here. It’s a simple thing to push back the remnants of a dream he can barely remember, to ignore the looming dread building in the back of his mind, to just enjoy being with both of his brothers for the first time since their dad’s funeral. But it’s there with him as they wind closer to the house, a creeping sense in his gut, tightening like a fist around his throat, and he can’t shake the feeling that they’re heading straight for a cataclysm.
–
They ascend the steps slowly, all three of them walking as if in a dream. They’d said their goodbyes to April, who’d tearfully promised Don to visit him in New York as soon as she was able. Raph still feels a little guilty about not inviting her inside, but she’d insisted that she had errands to run and people to visit in the city.
And now here they are, staring at their own reflections in an intricate stained glass window set in a heavy oak door.
“Do we…do we break in, or….” Don’s question remains unfinished.
“Would that even count as a break-in?” Raph muses, “I mean, isn’t it technically our house?” He looks at Leo, who is ignoring them completely in favour of leaning in closer to the window to peer into it. “Leo?”
“It’s not even shut,” Leo frowns, and pushes gently on the door with his fingertips. It swings open with a loud creak, and Raph casts a wild glance around the quiet suburban street to see if they’d drawn any attention. Nothing.
They look at eachother, a collective and silent agreement passing amongst them to press forward. Raph doesn’t mention it, but he suspects they can all feel the same something in the air as they cross the threshold of the house. There is a heaviness here, a weight that settles over him as they step into the entry hall. Orange light from the low sun bathes the room like fire, catching dancing motes of dust as they gently float to the ground. Silence permeates the house, and it’s difficult to summon the will to break it.
A chandelier hangs from the high ceiling in the center of the room, and directly across from the front entrance there is a wide staircase that winds around and up to the second floor. Lining the walls of the staircase are dozens of photographs, one of which catches Raph’s eye. Stepping past Leo, he approaches the bottom of the stairs to take a closer look. Many of them are old, people he’s never seen before in vintage photographs that look like they should be in a museum. One of these he recognizes as a great grandfather from their mother’s side, but this isn’t what draws him in. Heart in throat, he reaches out a shaking hand to take down one of the newer pictures, a smaller 5x8 in a plain wood frame.
“What are you-” Don stops speaking abruptly as he peers over Raph’s shoulder at the photo. It’s innocent enough, could even be mistaken for one of those stock photos of happy families that they sell the frames in. In it, two men are seated on a wicker bench on either side of a small boy sporting a wide grin that is shy a few baby teeth.
“That’s dad,” Leo points to one of the men. And he’s right, of course, it is their dad (albeit with a few less greys than he’d had when he died), smiling gently at the boy. Looking to the left of the entry hall through a set of wide french doors on the far side of the next room, Raph can see that the picture was taken in this very house. Neither of those details, however, are what has him gripping the photo like a lifeline.
“Who’s the kid?” Donnie mutters, grabbing an edge of the frame to bring it closer, “He looks so…”
“Familiar,” Leo steps back to examine the other photos on the wall, “I’ve seen him before, I swear.”
“I know this guy,” Raph’s voice comes out strained, pitched and warbling as he tries to make sense of what he’s looking at. The other man in the picture, with one hand on the boy’s shoulder and the other resting regally on the arm of the bench - he’s seen this man before. Don looks at him, eyes wide with curiosity. “I saw him. With dad.”
“In New York?” Leo’s interest is piqued as well.
“At the hospital,” Raph mutters, “I don’t remember much, but…” Don’s face falls, and he can see a pained expression flicker across Leo’s, but he continues. “He was a doctor, I think. I remember him standing in the room next to Dad.” And he’s certain, absolutely certain that this is the same man; he has the same solemn eyes and upright posture, the same striking cheekbones and rich ochre skin, the same long hair styled into locks and tied up in a half bun.
Leo eases the picture from his grip. “Raph,” his voice is low, gentle, thick with that same guilt and sadness that fills the room whenever the attack is brought up, “I talked to all of your doctors. None of them looked like this. And dad wasn’t…” Leo’s eyes harden and his lips purse around the words he’s searching for.
“I didn’t see this guy either,” Don jumps in with a sharp look at their oldest brother, “Doesn’t mean he wasn’t there though. There were a few times we had to leave, maybe he was there when -” He stops abruptly when the sudden sound of creaking stairs pierces the otherwise silent house.
They all turn to the source of the sound in tandem, and Leo pushes in front of Raph and Don before they’ve had a chance to register what they’re looking at.
A boy stands on the landing, older than the one in the photo Leo is now holding, but definitely the same kid. He looks down at them with wide eyes, almost comically frozen in place under their gaze. And there’s something about him, something Raph can’t put his finger on immediately but floats back to him through the murky haze of memory; this is the kid he dreamt about on the plane. Raph can hear the blood thundering in his ears as the boy’s eyes flit between the three of them. And here, with the kid in front of him, he’s struck by an unmistakable familiarity, far beyond that of a dimly remembered dream - somehow, he knows this kid. And then he sees it, with ice cold clarity; the kid has the same sharp jawline Don shares with Shen; his hair is a deep auburn to their raven black, but it falls over the same wide cheekbones that Raph’s does; and though his eyes are golden-brown, they are the same shape as Yoshi and Leo’s darker ones.
The kid stares at them through their father’s eyes, unblinking and unmoving for a moment until he seems to snap out of it and takes a few steps down the stairs.
“Who are you?” He puts on a tough voice, but it quivers, and that’s when Raph notices how thin he is, how his legs shake and he leans heavily against the banister. He’s young, no more than sixteen at the oldest, and small, and as he takes another shuddering step towards them it becomes clear that he’s sick, or starving, or both. Before any of them can answer, there is a rumbling noise that seems to come from deep in the earth below them.
Later, Raph will try to make sense of what happened next. He’ll try to reason with himself that it was an earthquake, that of course the chandelier would begin to rattle on its chain above them, though it won’t explain the strange light that flows around them and fills the room and becomes so bright he can barely see. He’ll tell himself that the dreams were a coincidence, and that he doesn’t believe in fate or destiny or magic of all things. They were under intense stress, he’ll recall, discovering what was hidden in that house in San Francisco. People see strange things, experience all kinds of weird shit when they’re stressed out like that.
In the moment though, he’s scared, and he knows deep in his gut that something is happening that he can’t explain in the framework of the world he has known his whole life. And then he’s terrified when the kid’s eyes roll back in his head and he pitches forward, completely unconscious.
All three of them surge forward to stop his fall, but Raph has a fighter’s reflexes and makes it there first. He catches the kid’s full weight (and it’s not enough, why is he so damn light?), fully wrenching his shoulder as he does so. Leo and Don are a split second behind him, supporting the boy’s head and helping Raph get him down the stairs and into the relative shelter of a doorframe as the house shakes around them.
And the light gets brighter to the point that it’s painful, and the rumbling gets louder, and the air becomes so heavy he can barely breathe. There is a static in his ears and sharp smoke in his nostrils and thick atmosphere like electricity on his tongue.
Later, much later, Raph will understand these events, but now it simply seems like the world is ending around him. He pulls the boy closer, crouching next to Don as Leo curls over all of them like he can stop the world from hurting them with nothing but the shield of his body and the sheer force of his will.
The light gets impossibly brighter, and he can feel it now, a physical thing that surrounds them and seeps in and around and through them, that sings to his blood and his bones, ancient and unyielding and unleashing and theirs.
And then the light is gone, and the world goes black.
Also oh my muffins, I was trying to find scenes in the show where they were in the same shot and almost all of them were hugs. They hug a lot. It’s initiated by Mikey most of the time, but I thought it’s really cool to see how chill Donnie is with it. Mikey is one of Donnie’s safe people, and that’s just?? So dear to me??
TMNT (Human/Magic AU)
Part 1 of the Unbound AU
Word Count: 2.7k
“Why is the address of the house such a big deal?” Raphael grumbles on the other end of the phone line, “That seems like the least important part of this whole ‘Dad had a place in San Francisco that he never told us about’ thing.”
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Chapter Two: Donatello
Donatello Hamato doesn’t remember his mother, at least not in any way that’s meaningful. Memory is a tricky thing, and he suspects that what few distant images he’s retained are just constructs his mind has created from photographs and stories his brothers and father told him growing up.
He wasn’t even four when Shen died in a car accident, barely remembers the small funeral they’d held for her in San Francisco, where she’d lived as a child. He does, however, have a distinct memory of the sprawling manor in which it had been held. He can picture the wraparound porch, the arching ceilings, the stained glass windows, and the odd weight of history in a home he’d never stepped foot in before. Apparently it didn’t make as much of an impression on his older brothers though, as is evidenced by the extremely frustrating conversation he is currently having.
“Why is the address of the house such a big deal?” Raphael grumbles on the other end of the phone line, “That seems like the least important part of this whole ‘Dad had a place in San Francisco that he never told us about’ thing.”
“Can you please just check?” Having failed to notice that he’d gotten himself tangled in the phone cord while pacing around the small room, Don stumbles and cracks his shin on a coffee table. “Fuck! Fuck fuck fuck.”
“Cool your jets, I’ll find the stupid letter.”
“No, that’s not - ah, I mean, thanks,” Don puts down the phone and checks his shin for the bone that is surely protruding out from it as he waits for Raph to return. A bruise is forming but by-and-large the leg remains intact.
“Ok, got it,” comes a quiet voice from the plastic pink handset. He grabs it and presses it to his ear as his brother continues, “It’s…1329 Prescott Street.” Don freezes, mind racing to connect the dots of the situation.
“You still there?”
“It’s the same house, Raph. It was on Prescott Street. That’s the house where we had Mom’s funeral,” Don squeezes his eyes shut, not quite sure why it matters so much that his brother believes him.
“Ok,” comes the reply after a few seconds, “I mean I guess it makes sense, if Dad owns the place and wanted to have the funeral in San Francisco. I honestly don’t remember. But hey, you’re the brain.” Don huffs at that. “I just mean that if you say it’s the house, it’s the house.” And isn’t that just like Raphael, to be irritating as hell and unquestioningly behind him in the same breath?
“It probably doesn’t matter,” Don says, but some part of him screams that it does matter, it does. “It’s just weird. It’s weird he wouldn’t tell us, or set anything up, or even tell his lawyer about it so we knew it was there. You said the letter was…what, again?”
“Unpaid water bill. The city tracked down his address in New York, sent it here.” Don can hear various thumping and clanging noises on the other end, and assumes Raph is packing his bag with his usual care and attention to detail.
“And Leo wants us all to meet there? Why not just call?”
“I don’t know, man,” Raph mutters, “He was pretty wound up this morning. You know how he gets.” Don does know, better than most - better than Raph, even, since he’d had the good fortune to be in a week-long coma while Leo spiralled himself into the knot they were all still trying to untangle. Don had a front row seat to the whole thing. He’d watched as Leo paced the small room like a caged animal while Karai tried to calm him down, as he spoke to doctors in hushed tones, as he called basically everyone they knew in an attempt to reach their father after Yoshi left them alone at the hospital on the fifth day. And while Leo slowly unravelled, Don had kept a bedside vigil; holding Raph’s swollen hand as gently as he could, reading his homework out softly in the hopes his brother could hear it, hauling in medical texts and researching every term he’d managed to glean from overheard conversations.
He tries not to think about any of it too much. It shakes him, rocks him to his core to think about how close they’d come to losing Raph, and all for what? Those ridiculous boxing or MMA or whatever fight clubs he insisted were perfectly safe? How many times had Leo begged Raph to stop? How many times had Don watched them argue, staying quiet on the sidelines, oscillating between agreeing with Leo and recognizing that Raph had to do what he loved? Once or twice he’d broken down and confessed how much he worried, how he couldn’t sleep when Raph was out at a match, how he’d read about injury rates and long term effects on fighters. He still wishes he’d pushed harder, had laid the guilt a little thicker, but as it was Raph would just put a reassuring hand on his shoulder and tell him everything would be fine.
“Yeah,” Don realizes he’s been quiet for a little too long, “Yeah I know how he gets. Ok, well…” He trails off as the front door of the apartment opens and April walks in, shooting him a quizzical look.
“Who is it?” She half-whispers dramatically, dropping a hefty bag of groceries on the formica table.
“Raphael,” he grabs a bag of baby carrots from her haul and rips it open.
“What?”
“No, not you. April’s here.” She pops a carrot in her mouth and gives a wave, grinning like Raph can see her. Don rolls his eyes at her, for which he receives a carrot to the forehead.
“April…April….”
“O’Neil,” he supplies. April raises an eyebrow.
“She’s your roommate?”
“She’s a friend. Here to study.” The eyebrow lifts impossibly higher.
“Right. Study.” Don can hear his brother’s shit eating grin from across the country.
“Shut up.” Raphael laughs at that, and Don heaves a sigh, “We’re off topic here. The flight. I don’t think I can just change it to go to San Francisco.” April straightens up at that.
“Can you cancel it?” she interjects, then speaks louder and towards the phone, “I can give you a ride to San Francisco. I’ve been wanting to go anyway.”
“There,” Raph sounds pleased, “Perfect, thank you April!” Don holds the receiver away from his ear so she can hear. “I gotta go though, our flight leaves…way too soon, Christ.”
“What time do you land? We can meet you at the airport.” They sort out the details and say their goodbyes, and then Don is left wilting under April’s scrutiny as he sets the phone down. She stares at him, crunching a carrot in a fashion that can only be described as excessively judgemental.
“Before you start,” he drops heavily onto the couch, “I didn’t tell him.” He leans down to fish his suitcase from underneath the coffee table and begins carefully tucking everything inside. He’s been staying at April’s place for nearly a month now, but is still living out of his bag - he isn’t exactly prepared to leave almost a week earlier than he’d planned, but at least it will be relatively easy to pack up his life in Pasadena.
“You don’t have to go if you don’t want to,” April sits next to him and offers the bag of carrots, her voice gentle, “You can stay here as long as you need to.” She smiles, that fond and knowing thing that always makes his heart beat a little faster.
“But you think I should go?”
“I think you should spend some time with your brothers.”
“You wouldn’t say that if you’d met them,” he grumbles, but he can feel himself smiling around the words. April does know him, and she’s right. He misses them; he’s just not sure he can face them.
“And,” she continues as though he hadn’t spoken, “I think you should tell them.” Don’s stomach clenches at the thought. It’s been well over a month now since he officially dropped out of his program at CalTech, and he still hasn’t been able to bring himself to tell Raph and Leo.
“I told Raph I’m moving back,” he pushes the now full suitcase closed and begins wrestling with the stubborn zipper, “And he told Leo this morning.”
“Did you tell either of them why?” She lightly elbows him aside and zips the suitcase with ease. “The whole story, I mean.”
“You mean did I tell them that I tanked all of my courses? That I got kicked out of the dorms and have been sleeping on a couch for the last month? That I’m not actually going to NYU? That after I basically missed the last year and a half of my dad’s life for CalTech, I had to drop out?” And oof, he can feel his chest tightening with every word as the air escapes him. He stops, focuses inward the way his father taught him as a kid, and takes a shuddering breath. “No. I didn’t tell them.”
“I’m sure they’d understand, Don.” April has this pained look on her face, and suddenly he’s overwhelmed by her pity.
“I don’t - I can’t, April. I just can’t. Not right now.” She nods, reaches to give him a squeeze on the shoulder.
“Ok. I’m going to pack, and then we can go.”
“Are you sure? It’s a long drive, and last minute, and - “
She gives the bridge of his glasses a playful tap. “If you’re sure, I’m sure. It’ll be fun!” And with that she waltzes off to pack, leaving him to ruminate in her living room.
He does want to tell them about his slide into academic failure - knows, even, that he’ll feel better once he does. But he’s also acutely aware that Leo will see it as a personal failing, just another sign (to him) that he isn’t cutting it as the eldest member of their little clan. He can picture it now, the misery that will seep into his oldest brother’s face before he manages to hide it. Of course Leo will be supportive, of course he will be; but he’ll be crushed, and Don can’t handle that. Leo doesn’t need anything else to add to the unending pile of crap that he’s already dealing with.
It’s been tough on all of them since their dad died, but it definitely hit Leo the hardest. They’d had a complicated relationship; they’d always been quite close, but after Raph’s time in the hospital Leo just couldn’t seem to forgive Yoshi for not being there. Don always figured that they’d work it out eventually, but he’d also figured their father was somehow invincible. He’d been wrong on both counts, about as wrong as a person can be. It was a Thursday when he got the call; he remembers because it kept pounding through his head that he was supposed to be home for the Christmas break on Friday. He’d tried desperately to get home in time, had bartered and begged and even yelled in the airport, something he’s still ashamed of. And he’d come close, had managed to touch down in New York by 11:43pm that same evening, exhausted and dishevelled and on the verge of fully breaking down as he raced to a payphone to check in with his brothers. But he’d known, the second he heard Leo’s voice on the other end, choked and wavering and not fully tethered - he was too late.
So no, he can’t tell Leo, at least not yet. He’ll go home, he’ll get something going for himself, and then he’ll tell Leo. And in the meantime, he doesn’t need to put Raph in the middle of it. He won’t be bothered by his situation at all - in fact, Don’s pretty sure that Raph would be happy to see him take some time away from school. But he can’t ask Raph to keep that from Leo. He pulls back his shoulders, straightens his spine, and exhales with a firm nod.
“I can do this.”
“Hell yeah you can!” April exclaims from behind him and drops her suitcase with a heavy thud, causing him to jump and crack his other shin on the coffee table. She slaps a hand to her mouth to cover a laugh, “Sorry! Sorry, didn’t mean to interrupt the pep talk.”
Don narrows his eyes in mock anger as he checks the fresh wound, “Eh, at least they’re matching now. You ready?”
She slides the rolling suitcase towards the door with a nudge of her foot and grins widely at him. “Born ready.”
–
The adults are crying above him, raining tears down like their grief could drown him, and he knows he’s too small to swim away.
A house, bigger than any he’s been in before, vaulting and ancient and hiding and hidden. He’s lost in it, terrified and alone, and it has swallowed his mother and he’ll never see her again. Where are his brothers?
Crying, in the distance - a child, a baby, smaller even than him. He turns to the sound, and there are bright lights and the crying is louder and he needs to help him, needs to remember, needs -
And now he is grown, almost as tall as the grandfather clock in the corner, and it’s chiming and calling and there are footsteps behind and above and all around. There is smoke in the air, the scent of musty paper and the acrid crackle of power.
And now he isn’t there, but watching as a thin boy with hollow eyes and a dusting of freckles makes his way down an oak staircase. The boy looks like he hasn’t slept, maybe in days; he sinks onto the bottom stair, like his legs can’t hold him anymore. And now he’s looking up with eyes like beacons, eyes that are jarringly familiar, and the bright lights are everywhere and there is static drowning out all other sound, and the static gets louder and louder until it is the sound of a baby crying, and the boy is mouthing something but the crying is too loud and -
“DON.”
—
“Don!”
He wakes with a start, takes a moment to orient himself - he’s in the passenger seat of April’s car and they’re coasting down an arid California highway towards San Francisco.
“You were having a nightmare,” April casts a sidelong glance at him as he blinks rapidly, trying to put the odd dream out of his mind, “Are you ok?”
“Um,” he pontificates, rubbing his eyes, “Yeah. Didn’t get enough sleep last night I guess.”
She taps a cup of coffee that she’d apparently picked up on a gas stop he’d slept through. “Want some?”
“You’re an angel, Ape.” She grins at that and cranks the radio, blasting Naughty by Nature as he takes a deep sip.
Sometimes he wonders what he did to deserve April’s friendship. Whip smart, funny as hell, and the kind of person who would offer her couch to a classmate who she’d known for less than a year; the kind of person who would drop everything to drive a friend across the state without even knowing why. He’ll tell her, before they pick up his brothers. About the house in San Francisco, the house he’d mourned his mother’s death in, that his father had kept secret, that’s pulling him like gravity inexorably and inexplicably towards it. He’ll tell her about the earthquake she slept through last night, the shaking walls and rolling floors that sent him sprawling but didn’t knock anything out of place. He’ll tell her about the looming fear that his brothers will see through his lies about NYU in a second, that he’ll have to watch the disappointment and guilt in Leo’s eyes as he confesses his failures at CalTech.
Maybe he’ll even tell her about the pit in his stomach that is growing even as they wind their way up the I-5 with the windows down and the speakers blaring, the terrible question that’s worming through him like a cancer.
TMNT (Human/Magic AU)
Part 1 of the Unbound AU
Word Count: 3.3k
The Hamatos discover that they are the inheritors of a powerful magical lineage, and with it a whole new host of problems.
Leo struggles to move ahead in the face of a lifetime of lies, Raph wrestles with demons from his past and terrifying visions of the future, Donnie learns that all the time in the world won't get his life on the track he thinks it needs to be on, and Mikey finds a family he only ever dreamed he could have.
Meanwhile, demons and monsters lurk at every turn - can they stay alive (and pay property taxes) long enough to figure out what the hell is going on?
Read on AO3
Chapter One: Leonardo
A white wrap-around porch, an oak door, a stained glass window. Familiar, known, but the memory is unreachable now. The door creaks open and there is a young man - a boy, really, small and wiry and overwhelmed by a mop of auburn curls. He gazes out for a second, takes a hesitant step onto the porch, then retreats back into the house with a slam of the door.
He wipes at his eyes roughly, shakes his head, places a gentle hand on a photo hanging on the wall. Walks, on shaky legs, to a kitchen; it’s clean, well taken care of, but almost entirely devoid of food. The boy searches for a few minutes, finally fishing into a lonely box of crackers he pulls from the back of an otherwise empty pantry. He chews introspectively for a moment, nods curtly to the empty room and carefully returns the box to its shelf.
And now he’s marching up the stairs, up and up to the top floor of the sprawling manor, throwing open a door that creaks on rusty hinges like he’s going to war. A heavy book, candles arranged in a circle, the scent of sage and smoke and blood like copper on the tongue. The boy is sitting in the center, reading from the book in a hushed monotone, repeating the same words again and again.
The sun has set completely now. Stars blink into the sky above the haze of city lights, and crickets begin a chorus over the empty streets. The boy is still chanting, voice hoarse and shoulders sagging with fatigue. Wax has spilled onto the rough wood floorboards and the candles flicker and spit as their wicks burn low. Nothing happens.
And now a grandfather clock is chiming and the boy is stumbling over the words and the candles all go out at once. His face crumples into a mask of frustration, bitter tears forming and spilling over in rapid succession.
He looks so familiar.
And the world is shaking, pulling itself apart at the seams as the boy bows his head and weeps, oblivious to the destruction around him.
Leonardo Hamato sits up with a start, momentarily occupying the space between awake and dreaming. It’s especially disorienting as he realizes that the shaking shelves around him aren’t part of the dream he’d just been jolted out of. He stumbles out of bed and pitches towards the door as the floorboards bend beneath him.
“Raph!” A sinking feeling deep in his stomach propels him forward, ignoring sleep-heavy limbs and the relative safety of the doorframes in favour of locating his younger brother amidst the cacophony of the house straining around him. His breath catches when he lurches to the door next to his to find Raph’s room empty. Worry seeps unbidden into his voice when he calls out again, louder this time.
The quake stops abruptly, and the house settles into uneasy silence. Heart in throat, Leo races down the stairs of the old brownstone, past the first floor entryway and into the basement where his brother sometimes sleeps. It is immediately apparent that Raphael isn’t down there, but he does a lap of the large open space anyways. The drum kit is untouched, and Raph’s well worn collection of sticks is all accounted for; he can rule out a late night gig. Everything is in order on the workbench in the corner, which is a testament to Don’s organization system - Leo is distantly surprised that none of the tools seem to have moved during the quake. He turns back to the drum kit, noting only then that the sticks haven’t rolled even slightly away from their usual resting place.
He spares a glance at the punching bag that hangs in the center of the room and the aging furniture casually arranged in a circle near the washer and dryer before taking the stairs two at a time back up to the first floor. The stairs, like the rest of the home, are well over a century old and groan loudly in protest. At some point in its history, the house had been divided into separate units and the stairwell had been walled off - each floor has a separate entry off of the landing, and now Leo throws open the double doors that lead to the main floor.
Karai almost definitely doesn’t know where his brother is, but he finds himself heading to the old rotary phone mounted on the wall above the kitchen counter. Leo can’t say exactly what his goal is in calling her, but he’s moving almost fully on auto-pilot at this point. It rings for what feels like whole minutes before a bleary voice answers.
“Mmmhello?” It sounds like she’d been sleeping, although Leo can’t imagine how anybody could possibly have slept through what just happened.
“Hey, it’s me,” he rubs a hand over his eyes, chastising himself silently for waking her.
“Leo?” A rustle on the other end. “Are you ok?” They’d met in their first year of college at the history department student club, and had been fast friends almost immediately. And really, Leo could admit, she was more or less his only friend outside his brothers - he’d lost track of most of his classmates after he’d left his graduate program with only one semester under his belt.
“Yeah. Yeah, I’m fine,” he lowers into one of the bar stools next to the counter and rests his forehead in his free hand, “Sorry. That…quake, or whatever it was, woke me up. And Raph isn’t here, and-”
“Quake?” Karai sounds more awake now.
“The shaking? Like five minutes ago?” Maybe it hadn’t hit the Upper East Side, where she rented a small loft. “Doesn’t matter. Guess it didn’t hit you.”
“Or maybe I slept through it,” she sounds like she’s smiling, “Where’s Raph?”
“I don’t know.”
“And you’re freaking out.” It’s not a question.
“And I’m freaking out,” he acquiesces, noticing as he does that he’s been shaking his leg the way he always does when he's worried. “I hate not knowing where he is.”
“He’s probably just out with his friends.” She pauses, presumably to let him respond. When he doesn’t, she continues, “He’s 22, Leo. You have to give him some space or this whole ‘living together’ thing isn’t going to work.”
“No, I know, you’re right,” he presses a clenched fist into his knee to stop the twitching, “I just worry about him. Maybe more than I should.” He doesn’t say why. She knows. She had seen Raphael hooked up to hospital machines, battered and bruised and bloody beyond recognition; had sat with their family for hours while they waited for him to slip away, had celebrated with them when, by some miracle, he woke up instead. It’s been over two years now, but Leo thinks he’ll always be terrified that Raph will slip away.
“Do you want me to come over?” Her voice is softer now, tender the way it always is when Leo has pulled himself into knots, “I could help you look? Maybe that bar he plays at sometimes-”
But Leo has stopped listening because there’s the telltale wrestling of keys in the ancient padlock and the stream of muttered swears that always heralded Raph’s arrival. “Hey, sorry, I think he’s home. I’m gonna-”
“It’s fine, go. Don’t interrogate him. Call me later, nerd,” she laughs and hangs up. He hopes she’s able to get back to sleep, but doesn’t dwell on it for too long before hopping down from the stool. He bursts into the entryway at the same moment Raph storms through the front door.
“Jesus Leo,” his brother stops with a start, dropping his keys in the bowl next to the door, “You scared the shit outta me.” The sinking feeling in Leo’s stomach dissipates immediately, replaced with a familiar cocktail of intense relief and mild irritation.
“It’s…” he leans back to look at the large grandfather clock nestled next to the stairs, “Five in the morning. Where were you?” Raph raises an eyebrow at him, either in amusement or as a challenge - in case it’s the latter, Leo raises his hands in front of him in surrender. “Sorry, sorry. You don’t have to tell me, I was just - you know, worried. The quake-”
“You felt it?” Raph interjects, his collection of band pins clinking together as he shrugs out of his denim jacket, “I thought maybe I was going nuts.”
“It woke me up. Felt like the house was gonna fall apart,” Leo runs a hand through his hair. Raphael looks pointedly around the entryway, gesturing at the framed photos on the wall. One is slightly askew, but otherwise they are hanging just as they always have. Leo nudges the sepia toned portrait of their parents back into place; it tilts again as soon as he moves his hand away.
“Well I felt it outside too,” Raph is definitely amused now, watching with a grin as Leo attempts to balance the picture, “Down by 123rd, you know where that Smitt lady lives?” Leo nods, biting back a lecture on the dangers of walking alone at night. “The ground just started shaking, nearly knocked me on my ass. I think some car windows broke too, but I didn’t stick around to check.”
“I guess New York doesn’t really get earthquakes,” Leo steps back to assess his work, frowning as the picture slides askew once more.
“I’ll fix it later, it’s probably the frame,” Raph claps Leo on the back and sidles past him towards the kitchen, “And I didn’t think I was going nuts because of New York’s general lack of earthquakes.”
Raph grabs an apple from a bowl on the counter and begins rummaging around in one of the drawers, probably looking for a steak knife to eat it with, even though he knows it drives Leo crazy when he does that. “Nobody else on the block did…well, anything. No lights on, no shouts, no alarms. It was weird.” He pulls a small paring knife out with a triumphant flourish and slices into the apple, surveying Leo as he does.
“Everything seems fine in the rest of the house. Maybe we’re both losing it.” Leo doesn’t mention his conversation with Karai, or the tailspin he’d been in just a few minutes ago. There’s no way he’s getting back to sleep, so instead he opts to fill the kettle. “Coffee?”
“Nah. Gonna try to get some sleep before I have to head out. You around later?”
Leo nods, waving a hand over the stack of envelopes and papers strewn on the counter, “Yeah. Tackling the Pile. Took the day off.” The Pile, so named by a particularly aggravated Raphael, is an ever growing mountain of tasks associated with their father’s passing six months ago. Hamato Yoshi had been a practical man, but in this he’d clearly had a blind spot, and in the weeks following his sudden death Leo had been inundated with every loose end he’d left behind.
“Maybe we should ask Donnie for help.” Finished with the apple, Raph tosses the knife onto the counter where it lands on an envelope with a City of San Francisco seal stamped in the upper left corner. Leo picks it up for closer examination, noting with a small frown that it is addressed to his father.
“Why was dad getting letters from San Francisco?”
“I’ll take that as a no then?”
“No? What? Oh,” Leo realizes he's ignored the earlier question, “No, sorry, no I - I just don’t want to bother him with this stuff. Plus I don’t know how much he would even be able to help over the phone.” Their youngest brother, technically a genius, was in Pasadena finishing his second year at CalTech just shy of his 19th birthday.
“S’pose it’s as good a time to tell you as any,” Raph mutters with a grimace.
“Tell me what?”
Raph takes a deep breath, visibly steeling himself, “Don’s moving back.” For the second time since he woke up, Leo finds his breath caught in his throat. Before he can fully register the statement, before he can ask any of the questions racing through his mind (Why is he moving back? Did something happen? Is he ok? When? Why didn’t he tell me? Why didn’t you tell me? Did you think I’d be upset?) the blare of the phone ringing cuts through the buzzing silence thundering in his ears. When Leo doesn’t move to answer it, Raph shoots him an unreadable look and picks it up.
“Hello? Hey, Donnie, speak of the devil,” Raph’s voice is the kind of forced casual it always gets when he’s put in the middle of an argument.
“What’s wrong?” Raph asks sharply. Leo leans in, his own aggravation melting into concern. The space between him and his youngest brother is suddenly unbearable, a pull he feels deep in his chest but is helpless to follow. Raph’s shoulders relax after a minute of listening.
“Huh. It didn’t wake up your roommate? Yeah, no, that’s weird bro,” he looks more confused than worried now, “You’re ok though?” He throws a thumbs up in Leo’s direction. “I actually…um, I actually just told him.” There’s a long pause. “He’s excited to see you.” Another pause, during which Raph has the good graces to at least pretend to look contrite.
“No, Don, he isn’t,” he lowers his voice as though Leo isn’t standing right next to him, “I promise you, he’s not mad. Ok. Yeah. I’ll call back later, get some sleep, kid. G’night.” He heaves a sigh and turns back to Leo.
“Ok. Don’t be mad,” Raph starts, and Leo could strangle somebody in this moment if he weren’t such a calm, reasonable person. The kettle is whistling now, and he takes the opportunity to busy his hands with adding grounds into their small pour-over coffee maker.
“I’m not mad,” he realizes he’s speaking through gritted teeth and makes a point to unclench his jaw, “Why would you think that? Why would Don think that? Why would you guys not tell me-”
“He didn’t want - we didn’t want to stress you out,” Raph grabs the kettle and begins to pour. “Donnie’s been lonely, I think. Just having a hard time out there since…well, since dad. He’s transferring to NYU, it won’t affect his scholarship or anything. We’re picking him up from the airport on Friday.” He’s still draining the water slowly over the grounds; Leo can feel his chest getting tighter as his brother speaks. How could he have missed this? Don has been struggling, badly enough that he’s leaving his dream school to come home. His youngest brother was drowning, and he hadn’t even noticed.
“I’m such an idiot.” It’s a statement, calm and steady and the only thing Leo can think to say under the weight of the guilt that has settled in his lungs.
“Well yeah,” Raph gives him a gentle nudge with his shoulder, “But what’s that got to do with Don coming home?” He smirks, looking quite pleased with himself, and Leo can’t help but let out a soft laugh. “Seriously though Leo, it’s ok. He’s ok. This isn’t your fault, he just wanted to come back.” Of course Raph knows that Leo is blaming himself. It’s easy to forget sometimes how perceptive he could be. Middle child thing, Leo muses.
“Yeah, ok,” Leo watches the coffee drip down and Raph yawns widely, “I’ll call him later today. You should get some sleep too, Mr Late Night.” Raph rolls his eyes but grins as he heads towards the stairs. “Wait - what was Don calling about? It’s like two in the morning in California, isn’t it?”
Raph pauses at the living room door and turns, brows furrowed, “He said there was an earthquake there, but nobody else in the dorm seemed to notice. He was up studying and nobody else woke up or anything. Freaked him out.” The obvious is left unsaid, the lingering question of how it is that all three of them felt the same thing on different sides of the country, when seemingly nobody else had.
“Guess we’re all going crazy,” Leo mutters, debating whether to mention the dream he’d been awoken from, the chanting and the San Francisco skyline, the sprawling manor and the boy that he was certain he’d seen before. Before he can decide, Raph shrugs and heads up to his room, stairs creaking as he goes.
The coffee finished, Leo pours himself a mug and paces the kitchen while it cools. The Pile looms on the counter, and the grandfather clock in the hallway ticks away loudly, a metronome to his symphony of failures in the last half year. Unable to foot all the bills that came along with being an unexpected home owner, he’d had to ask Raph to move back in so they could keep their childhood house. Although he’d only recently struck out on his own, Raph didn’t hesitate, easing back into lockstep with the oldest Hamato like it was nothing. There is still this terrifying notion though, this niggling at the back of Leo’s mind that Raph couldn’t possibly be ok with giving up his newfound independence - that he has to be harbouring resentment, that it’s festering there underneath the surface waiting to explode and drive a wedge between them.
His coffee is still a little too hot but he drains it in a single gulp. It’s a pointless exercise, trying to read his brother's mind. Raph hasn’t done or said anything to indicate discontent, other than occasionally pushing back when Leo becomes too much of a “mother hen” for his liking. Donatello, on the other hand…
Leo knew they had been talking less. Where he and Raph had grown closer since Yoshi’s death, his youngest brother had drifted away - Leo had assumed he was busy with school and friends in California. Now Raph is telling him that Don’s been lonely this whole time, and the only thing keeping Leo from getting their dad’s old Pontiac out of storage and driving to California is the fact that apparently Don will be back in New York before he could get to Pasadena.
He fills his mug again and settles in the stool directly in front of The Pile. The first glints of the sunrise are beginning to cast a warm orange glow through the bay window at the front of the room, and for a brief moment he feels peaceful. The City of San Francisco envelope catches his eye again, and he thinks about the skyline in his dream, about the crying boy and the world tearing apart around him. He grabs Raph’s abandoned knife and uses it to slide the letter open, pulling it out and skimming the contents with growing curiosity. The morning light illuminates the room as he reads, bright beams highlighting the steam from his coffee as the sun crests above the row of nearly identical brownstones across the street from theirs. An idea forms into a plan, and he spends the next few hours making calls and draining his savings account. By the time Raph comes plodding back downstairs with bed-ruffled hair and bleary eyes, Leo is dressed and ready to head out.
“Call Don, tell him to change his flight if he can,” he grabs a pair of brown boots and shoves them on haphazardly, “I have to run to work quickly and let them know I need some time off.”
“Bwuh?” Raphael responds with an impressive eloquence for just having woken up from a short nap after a late night out.
“Pack a bag, and if you’ve got any shifts in the next week, get out of them.” Leo extends an arm to give Raph the letter. His brother’s expression shifts from bewildered to surprised as he reads.
“Is this real?” His voice is laced with incredulity, but he’s already grabbing his duffel bag from the front closet.
“As far as I can tell,” Leo pauses at the front door to grab the bright blue lanyard that holds his keys, “When I get back, we’ll head to LaGuardia. I booked us a flight for this afternoon.”
reblogging because this is my favorite way that the turtles have been rewritten into a modern time setting. fantastic backstory and twist on their origins, and god, the COLORS
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