Whumpril Day 22: Recovery Setback
Anonymous asked: Oooh! 22. Recovery Setback for Leo during the farmhouse/Shredder attack arc would be amazing! Thank you! (The thanks is regardless of if you write or not because you write a ton, and you're always a joy to see on my dash.)
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As soon as he realized he was falling, Leo’s instinct was to ensure it would be as quiet a collision as possible but that didn’t make it any less painful. Fire bolted through his leg as he twisted in a hasty, clumsy bid to catch himself on the bannister, only to misjudge the distance and slam his arm into it. The sling didn’t do much to cushion the blow and biting his tongue barely stifled the strangled sound that lodged in his throat, somewhere between a yelp and a curse.
He might have been better off just freefalling; ultimately he ended up sprawled akimbo on the stairs anyway, breathing as heavy as if he’d been running.
Running, lungs catching with the cold, feet on fire from the raw slap and scrape of the concrete. Don’t stop, can’t stop or they’ll—
Shuddering, he hugged his bound arm, fingering the sling in the hope that its texture would ground him. The joints in his hip and ankle were happy to remind him where and how he was too, throbbing urgently for attention. He swore he could feel them re-swelling already. To his even greater frustration, his eyes welled with them.
Master Splinter would fret. Mikey would slap ice packs all over him like a slab of frozen meat. Don would foist the crutch on him again. Raph would rip him a new one for daring to walk without it at all before he was “ready”—and all because the steady, capable student in his mastery of balance and grace and awareness of his surroundings had simply missed a stair in the dark.
His fingers dug further into his arm of their own accord, a deep, punishing pressure, before he sniffed hard and forcibly redirected them to the bannister to drag himself up.
