artbyremi

[artbyremi]

fr

“What if I write it and it’s bad-”

WHAT IF YOU WRITE IT AND ITS GOOD? WHAT IF YOU WRITE IT AND ITS EXACTLY WHAT YOU WANTED? WHAT THEN????

[artbyremi]

Prettyyyy sure I received an Ai art scam comment on one of my stories. Fighting really hard between the urge to reply something petty and snarky or just deleting the comment.

[artbyremi]

Yeah shut up

[artbyremi]

hear me out...

'classic Goofy shorts' style series but it's Max doing adult things for the first time.

c'mon Disney... it's so gen Z you'd be the cool kids on the block

I mean they made Goofy shorts about quarentine, why tf not?

[artbyremi]

TMNT - 110%

Summary: Maybe Leo's definition of "giving his all" wasn't really the good example he wanted to set for his brothers after all.

Leo knew he was being…a little bit of a hypocrite, okay?

If there was one thing he tried to prioritize, it was taking care of himself and his family. He couldn’t take care of his family as well if he didn’t greet each day in the best shape of his life. Who knew when or where some new threat would crop up? He had to keep sharp, be ready. Danger wouldn’t hang back to oblige him if he hadn’t gotten enough sleep the night before and wanted just five more minutes. He tried to get to bed on time, tried to get his brothers to do the same.

Dad had eased up a little with their newfound horizons broadening but the curfew was never explicitly lifted, you know? And as much as Donnie rolled his bloodshot eyes because he thought Leo couldn’t see in the darkness or Raph groaned that he was such a mom, Leo knew they would regret it if they stayed up on their phones till three in the morning and then had to be at school by eight. He knew because he’d be the one trying to drag their sorry butts out of bed and the first thing he’d see when their eyes cracked open was the Cain instinct.

But if there was something else he really, really tried to prioritize, it was giving 110% of himself to whatever he did—striving to succeed, really committing, following through. He had always tried to set that example for the three sets of younger eyes on him, and now there were…so, so many more eyes on them, on him, on mutants at large. Looking for faults. Waiting for a slipup. Constantly staring, scrutinizing, studying.

So much studying.

Next to Donnie, Leo, Raph and Mikey didn’t always get the props they deserved for how smart they could be. Leo couldn’t be prouder of Don for taking such strides, taking the honor classes by storm, but that didn’t mean the others suddenly had the wiggle room to put in less effort, Raph. So when the offer of extra credit came along, how could Leo say no?

He’d always had some trouble with that. Saying no. But that just meant he was a go-getter and once he was committed, he would follow through. He had to.

Leo liked to read but he was more of a one fic at a time kind of guy so he didn’t bounce details around between plots. Mikey could juggle like fifteen different tabs open without losing track; it was a skill that probably would have served all of them well as they jumped from subject to subject. It was hard not to get overwhelmed with all of his books—and the diverging trains of thought tethered to them—scattered across the table.

He had no one to blame but himself for the fact that it was already eight PM. He and April had their thing after school (their thing, their time together and no one else’s! Who would have thought he could be so lucky?) and it was just so easy to lose track of time when he was with her. After prepping tomorrow’s morning announcements, they had technically done some studying together too but Leo had read segments of the work without really absorbing them, too busy sneaking glances and trying to get his stomach to stop flip-flopping at how attentively she was leaning in toward him to listen.

What to tackle first? He had that one test practically first thing in the morning so he could study for that before it got too late, while his mind was freshest, but if the most pressing information got buried beneath everything else he studied afterward he might struggle to dig it back up when it was early and he was tired, and getting off on the wrong foot for the first test would have him feeling off about the others and whenever he got too off balance, he had a terrible tendency to just—blank, freeze, and then what was the point of studying if he hadn’t retained it?

Okay, okay, okay. He was getting into his head; he could already feel his stomach stirring, ready to somersault for entirely different reasons. Deep breath. Just pick one. One step at a time.

One step at a time was nice in theory but slow and steady didn’t win the race against this clock. It felt like he had barely faceplanted into his pillow before his alarm was going off—and he had to be the first one to get up or his brothers would take over the bathroom, he wouldn’t get his morning routine in and it would throw everything off from the get-go.

Test in the morning (with just five minutes of paralysis over Question 18, that was a new record, a step in the right direction). Turn in two papers in the afternoon (he had double and triple checked that he put it in this folder! Why wasn’t it there?! Had he grabbed one of his brothers’ by accident? It was—oh, okay, okay, it was fine, abort, it had gotten stuck to the back of another worksheet). Panic just a little bit when the teacher reminded everyone about that encroaching deadline he had totally spaced while studying everything else, vent about it to April, and…panic just a little bit more (read: a lot more) when she asked about his edit of her upcoming news report. Which he had also totally spaced.

That was what he was supposed to work on when he got home last night, because allegedly he had already done his studying when he was with her. He must have apologized for his oversight a dozen times already but no matter how easily she tried to shrug it off, saying he could just get it to her tomorrow, he could still make out the disappointment diffusing the spark in her dark, beautiful eyes. He had let her down; he hadn’t made her a priority! How could he focus on his reading, how could he focus on anything else with that knowledge kicking him in the ribs?

He’d finish the edit and get it to her as soon as he got home, he promised. He had to make it up to her.

Except it wasn’t as soon as he got home, because Dad and Scumbug wanted everybody together for a family dinner. Did he look as awkwardly cringy when he was making eyes at April as his dad did with his girlfriend? At least Leo tried to be subtle about it. Watching them flirt so openly at the table, with the pressing knowledge that every minute he sat here was one that April (and his homework) had to wait on him, didn’t do much for his appetite. Cramming his food always resulted in cramps but he did what he had to do to get out of there and get to work.

He spent longer than he should have on the edit, polishing up every minute detail. She was the face of the show but for some reason she still liked him enough to make him a part of it. He had to support her to the best of his ability; he had to pull his weight, he had to prove he was worth her time and trust. Between overanalysis, several breaks to the bathroom (dinner really was not agreeing with him) and his brothers butting in to tease him for putting so much work toward his puppy crush, April had probably already gone to bed by the time he sent it. But he did get it done.

Now…homework. He couldn’t divide his attention up as evenly with that deadline looming but anything he didn’t feel confident in by the end of the night, he could brush up on it in homeroom tomorrow.

He wasn’t sure what time it was when he went to bed. To be honest he had gone out of his way to avoid looking at the clock; he was pretty sure he didn’t want to know.

He got an 84 on yesterday’s test. 84. Really? Still a passing grade, still a B, but that B did not stand for “best”. It wasn’t his best effort; he and his teacher both knew it. It was a new low. He hadn’t gotten anything lower than a B+ since he enrolled and even that was hard to take as much pride in next to Donnie’s slew of A’s. Just two measly points separated him from Raph’s lackadaisical B- average.

Extra credit it was then. He had to buckle down and bump his percentages back up before anyone started asking questions. Commit.

Donnie came out at some point for a glass of water while he was studying that night. Naturally Leo chided that he should be in bed and his brother gave him a sort of squinty, unimpressed look that sniffed of hypocrisy. But Leo was up studying, not mindlessly scrolling. It was different.

(A part of him wanted to ask how Donnie did it, staying up so late and still accomplishing so much during the day. Maybe he was just built different. A very small part of him almost wanted to ask for help with this paper but that would mean letting Donnie in on his situation, and Donnie was a bit of a blabbermouth. If word of his lower grade got to Raph—which it inevitably would, in a sewer this small—Leo would never live it down. Was the teacher’s pet on the verge of crapping the bed? No. No. He could do this.)

The next morning he must have hit snooze on his alarm without even realizing because sure enough, the others got to the bathroom first. Granted, that gave him enough time to chug a couple cups of Dad’s revitalizing morning tea to serve as breakfast and blunt the dull pressure in his brain, but his eyes were still embarrassingly puffy during morning announcements. He could only hope April didn’t notice. Until she did.

“You okay, Leo? You look tired. We can pack it up early today if you—”

“Oh, no, I-I’m good.” He had already set her back enough with the late edit already. “Let’s do this.”

She was great as usual, confident, eloquent. He just wished his footage could do her justice. The boost from his morning tea had worn off by lunch so he had impulsively gotten a soda from the vending machine. He hadn’t even really enjoyed the flavor he got; he just picked whichever one looked like it had enough caffeine to get him through the rest of the day—and it had, but it also made him a little shaky. Reviewing the first snippet, he found his camerawork wasn’t horrible, just…passable.

Passable wasn’t good enough, that was the whole point. Passable camerawork, passable grades. He had to step it up.

“Maybe I just didn’t have the right angle. That’s my bad, April, I’m sorry.”

“Eh, it looks okay to me—”

“No, no, let’s just do a retake real quick.”

It didn’t feel “real quick” but he wasn’t going to complain when retaking it was his idea in the first place. He focused. He locked in, holding so tensely still for the next round of filming that he kind of forgot to breathe. By the time they had something he was satisfied with, that pressure headache had crept back in from the peripheral. Looking at the final take, however, April agreed it was a good thing they had reshot it so the extra effort was more than worth it. He had done well.

When he got home, he just needed to pour that same dedication and focus into his big deadline, turn it and his other reports in and then he could relax over the weekend. Right? That deadline was tomorrow, wasn’t it? And tomorrow was Friday?

Technically it was Friday already, he mused with a halfhearted chuckle (why would he chuckle at that? It wasn’t even trying to be a joke) as he dug the heels of his palms into the pressure behind his eyes—very, very early Friday. It had been a little hard to keep up with which day was which this week when he was consistently up to greet them past midnight.

Waaay past midnight, Leo realized, a little distantly startled. Were his bleary eyes reading the clock wrong or were there really only a couple of hours before his alarm was supposed to go off? He hadn’t even gone to bed yet; he was about two-thirds through his last report.

Either he could cram the last of it tomorrow in the period before or…was it even worth going to bed at this point? He was already right here with all of his sources out and if he went to bed now, his brain would just stay stuck on the fact that he hadn’t finished what he’d started.

It occurred to him then that all-nighters weren’t exactly the good example of self-care he should be setting for the others.

But they weren’t out here right now to see and get the wrong idea, and it was just this once. A single all-nighter; he wasn’t making a habit of it. The rest had just been late nighters. It was one more day. One more day and then he could actually get to bed at a reasonable hour and sleep in on Saturday.

Or so he thought, until his second period started roping kids together for a group assignment due in a couple of weeks, and he got stuck with the infamous class clowns who he knew for a fact would spend the whole time stirring up trouble. The teacher had probably hoped by putting him there, he would set a hardworking example for them too, inspire them to put some effort in.

He knew better. When he asked in the group chat how they wanted to allocate the work, one was offline, another left him on read, and the third sent about fifteen completely unrelated memes like this was their Discord. That basically answered his question anyway. Either he sat back and left them out to dry, which would put another dent in his own grade too, or he carried the whole project and presentation for them and only got a fourth of the credit. Great. Might as well get a head start on that, he decided grudgingly—but that could happen on Sunday. He had promised himself Saturday at least for sleeping in. He needed it.

And then Dad sprang a surprise training session on them that morning.

Leo enjoyed training, most days. He enjoyed the family time, friendly ribbing, lighthearted bets over who would hit the mats first, who would stay down the longest. He enjoyed it less when Raph noticed how cranky he was and, instead of doing the smart, loving thing, taking it a little easier on him, giving him space to breathe (as Leo would have, if Raph was in a bad mood) he goaded him. Not overtly, not enough that Dad would call him out on it, but through little sneers and smirks and half-stifled snorts and skeptical raised eyebrows whenever his form trembled or he lagged behind in his sets.

Maybe Dad had picked up on Leo’s mood too because he wisely did not ask them to spar. Good. If he had the chance, Leo might just have yeeted his brother halfway across the lair. (He doubted he could have actually mustered the energy for that but imagining it was spitefully satisfying.)

He went back to bed Saturday afternoon but the nap he took was a fitful one. Mikey was watching Part 34(?) of an apparently riveting horror game Let’s Play; both he and the YouTuber kept gasping and yelping overdramatically at anything that moved. Shouldn’t the jumpscares have lost their nail-biting edge by Part 34?

Leo stifled a groan in his pillow. He had another headache but there was no way he’d be able to sleep it off with the Let’s Player dying over and over again; their character let out this grating, earsplitting scream for every death screen. No doubt he would hear that scream in his dreams.

Maybe he should just start poking at the group project today and then take his breather on Sunday. It wasn’t easy to relax with it just hanging over him. The sooner he broke through the sense of dread and started, the sooner it would be done and over with.

But that didn’t mean he wouldn’t send an uncharacteristically petty, passive aggressive message to the group chat about it first. The meme guy was just as quick to make him regret it, dunking on him for the typos which totally threw the context of his message off into something crass. When the teasing got to the mortifying point of “You kiss O’Neil with that mouth? 👀”, Leo frantically pitched his phone across the room, wished he hadn’t because he should have blocked that guy before throwing it, project or no project, buried himself as far as he could under the blankets and tried to pretend what followed wasn’t an anxiety attack.

Try as he might to convince himself he was fine—not to convince everyone else because to anyone with at least three brain cells, it was obvious—Leo was being an idiot. No surprise there but Raph hadn’t expected it to go on this long.

This was fine. He was fine.

~~~~~~~~~

Leo was a stress case—also not a surprise—but he usually managed to keep his head on straight enough not to let his life totally spiral out of control. Sure, he might slip up and say something cringy and out of left field, only to realize how bad it sounded hours later and look like he might just turn to dust on the spot. Sure, he might come home smelling as rancid as his vibes because trying to make friends had him sweating like a faucet (Seriously, though, how did it get so bad? He smelled worse than the wrestlers’ locker room, and the wrestlers’ locker room smelled worse than the sewers) but it hadn’t affected his grades or his ninja-ing or his…general Leo-nerd-o-ness like this before.

Beyond keeping them physically safe, Raph wasn’t his brothers’ keeper. He wasn’t like Leo, butting in on the others’ business, wanting updates on every little part of their lives, telling them to get to sleep on time, cajoling them to come to him if they needed anything, getting nosy about their problems with well-meaning but ultimately annoying advice. If anything Raph ought to be glad the last few weeks had kept Leo busy enough with his own thing so he, Don and Mike had some room to breathe.

But whatever his own thing was, it wasn’t looking so good from where Raph stood, and neither was Leo. The bright-eyed, bushy-tailed teacher’s pet would usually be running from one class to the next like a chicken with its head only half cut off—organized chaos. Now he was slogging through it all like some kind of swamp zombie, dead-eyed, shaking and shambling, just trying to make it from one checkpoint to the next on the map.

Most nights, whenever Raph happened to roll over and crack an eye open, the light was still on in the kitchen. It annoyed him a little bit more every time. Some people were trying to sleep around here, even if Leo wasn’t. The first week or so he had at least tried to keep it quiet when he eventually made his way into the bedroom but now he was just bulldozing his way through, uncaring or apparently not noticing how many things he kicked or clattered around before faceplanting into his bed—if he made it there at all.

Donnie had often been chided or teased for falling asleep in inopportune places or positions after a late night or two so when he’d found their oh-so-responsible curfew king drooling into his textbooks one morning, of course he seized the opportunity to rag on him about it. He had expected Leo to get all sheepish and flustered and flounder for an excuse. Imagine his surprise when out of nowhere Leo straight up flipped his lid and nearly flipped the table with it. He didn’t actually follow through on the latter, his temper wasn’t as destructive as Raph’s, but apparently today his bark was just as bad as his bite. Definitely sharp enough to wake everybody else up before their alarms.

Dad couldn’t mediate the fight as efficiently when they were on a time crunch to get to school so Don and Leo had spent the day avoiding each other, which was super awkward at lunch. Raph and Mikey tried to act natural as always, hoping the others would catch on and play along, but when Leo slunk off to the vending machine for a soda to replace the one he had just finished, he didn’t come back. (Wasn’t he the one who always backed Dad up when he talked about how bad caffeine could be for them?)

Once they got home, Donnie tensed as if expecting the tirade to start back up where it had left off. Instead Leo heaved his backpack off like a bag of bricks, pulled him into a hug and got all weirdly weepy about it, like he never wanted to let go. Honestly it made his apologies even more uncomfortable than his freakout.

When Dad chimed in to say it was likely the effect of “raging hormones”, everybody decided the incident was best left in the past as soon as possible. Leo, as expected, was back to his seemingly endless homework in a hurry, though who knew how much he was actually absorbing when his attention kept flicking back to Donnie every ten seconds—probably spiraling about whether or not his apology was actually good enough, whether or not he was actually forgiven, how he could possibly make it up to him, how he could do better in the future, blah, blah, blah.

Raph might have felt sorry for him, being tortured at the hands of his anxiety brain, if he hadn’t known this blowout was totally preventable. He had tried to coax Leo to let it out a couple of weeks ago, during Dad’s spur-of-the-moment weekend training. Even back then Raph could sense some kind of pressure was building, the crankiness before the storm. What else could he do to get a better feel for it but try to provoke it to the surface? If Dad had let them spar back then, Leo might have actually cut loose and Raph could have taken it. Who else could? But since then he had started getting sloppy in training too.

Look at that. Leonardo and sloppy in the same sentence, in regards to training. Raph never thought he would see the day. When they got to spar this weekend, Leo might as well have just flopped down on the mats from the get-go like a test dummy and let them sit on him. It wasn’t nearly as fun to beat him when he wasn’t in top form.

Raph still gloated and gave him a hard time about it, of course, because that was his job. Iron sharpened iron, Dad once said. Leo would fan his flame into a blaze and then he would plunge that searing hot iron into Leo’s calm waters to make him steam. By keeping it competitive, they worked against each other together to make them both better. When he jabbed at him this time, however, Leo got this look on his face like the iron had just gone straight through him. He didn’t steam, he just sank.

It was…kind of sad.

Splinter must have thought so too, considering he kept Leo after their workout for a talk, just like a teacher keeping him after class. (That had been happening more often too, come to think of it—as in the fact that it was happening at all, and he always seemed to come out of it with extra extra credit work to do.) Dad had gone out of his way to drive the other boys off so they wouldn’t eavesdrop on the conversation, so naturally they discussed it amongst themselves in their room instead.

“You know how he was doing those practice question sheets at lunch the other day? He still only got an 81 on that algebra test,” Mikey reported. “I only saw cause he almost put it in my folder when we got home. Not sure how the guy mistook orange for blue but…”

“I’m surprised he can still see color with those rings under his eyes. I think he’s double-mutating into a raccoon.”

“I’d totally help him study if he just like, asked,” Donnie sighed. “The other night I offered to stay up with him to review his notes for geography but I don’t think he even heard me.”

“It’s not geography that’s got him this out of whack; it’s the stupid group project,” Raph huffed. He had gotten lucky with his assigned group mates; they were smart enough to know he wouldn’t take it lying down if they tried to heap more than a fair share of the work on him and they cared enough about their grades that they wouldn’t try it in the first place. The other side of the room, however…

For so many years school was something they could only dream of. They were the unofficial face of mutant kind so despite how drastic and overwhelming and stressful the change had felt at times, despite it being not nearly as fun as they had imagined, Raph tried to be on his best behavior. On that much, he and his brothers were all on the same page. He kept it cool and chill and friendly. He didn’t pick fights (as often) but Leo’s so-called teammates had set Raph’s teeth on edge from day one.

When they weren’t disrupting the entire class, they harassed the students in their orbit in underhanded ways they thought no one would notice. Raph only perceived it because he had pulled similar tricks to pick on Mikey without Dad’s notice. Now that he was an outside observer of such things, those weren’t his proudest moments in hindsight, but Mikey was his little brother. He knew Raph loved him more than he could ever love picking on him; he knew he didn’t mean any true harm. These guys had no such qualms.

Most of Leo’s current spiral probably could have been avoided if he would stop being stupid enough to pull back-to-back all-nighters but those jokers weren’t making it any easier to stop. This assignment had turned Leo into the reluctant ringleader trying to herd a circus of feral cats. They walked all over him with Cheshire grins and claws out, leaving him holding the bag of blood, sweat and tears.

Bullies who slid under the radar by making themselves out to be little more than class clowns? It wasn’t fair. But unless they got ballsy enough to pull a real stunt on any of his brothers within Raph’s jurisdiction (and potential punching range), something big enough to actually merit breaking his streak of good behavior, it was out of his hands.

“Well, tomorrow’s presentation day, right? Once that’s done he might loosen up a little,” Mikey offered with an optimism Raph and Donnie didn’t share. Raph knew from watching Don and Don knew from experiencing it that it was way too easy to go down the slide of night owl crunch time; it was a lot harder to pick yourself back up, especially with new assignments coming in every single day. Their first summer break had never felt further away.

Maybe that was what Leo was dreaming about the next day in class, considering he really didn’t want to wake up from it. Kind of rude that he’d held out until it was Raph’s group stepping up to give their presentation but on the other hand, the subject they had agreed on wasn’t Raph’s first pick. If he was trying not to sound bored talking about it, he couldn’t blame his brother for being bored to sleep hearing it.

Good to actually see him getting any sleep. He hadn’t come to bed last night. How Leo was going to hold it together for his own group’s speech, Raph didn’t know, but for that he would have to wake up first. He tried not to wince on Leo’s behalf when the teacher called his name, what, three times? But he didn’t lurch back into the world until one of his group mates jabbed him in the soft spot between his plastron and carapace with a well-concealed pencil between his fingers. He didn’t use the eraser end. Strike one.

Raph’s hand tightened on his own pencil of its own volition, an intrusive thought painting him a picture of what he could do if he flung it with a ninja’s precision, but he did the smarter thing, took a deep breath, and offered a lopsided smile of support. Leo didn’t glance at him to notice, too busy scrambling toward the front with his papers. One of the others “accidentally” gave the back of his shoe a flat tire on the way up there, forcing him to do an awkward little skip and a hop that made a couple of the girls giggle. Strike one and a half.

“Life in the mid—um, in the middle of t-the early—” Geez, he was stuttering worse than Donnie. He hadn’t sounded this bad in the morning announcements. Had he chugged another soda since then? Shaking fingers creasing his outline as he tightened his grip, he squeezed his eyes shut to recenter. “This…presentation is meant to give you an—some insight into life in the early Middle Ages. I—we’ve established a timeline between some of the most significant events and h-how they would have affected members of, uh…each of the…”

What was it people always said? That everything seemed to go wrong in slow motion? To Raph it was like a blink. As Leo spun toward the PowerPoint screen, he swayed back. One of his group mates idly shoulder-checked him, not hard, just enough under the guise of helping him find his balance (strike two) and that last little push was enough to topple him like a tower of Jenga blocks.

It was one of Leo’s many worst case scenarios—publicly embarrassing himself, causing a scene, making a bunch of people worry and fuss.

Until he registered the dull, numb thud of Leo’s body in his ears, Raph hadn’t remembered it was one of his worst case scenarios too. One of his brothers falling and not getting back up, while Raph struggled to get to him through humans standing in his way.

In this case those people were a bunch of gasping and gawking students, not real threats, but by the time he shoved and scrambled past them to Leo’s side, the Three Stooges standing over him were already in action. One was filming it on his phone, unfazed, unfeeling. The second was crouched down, clicking his fingers somewhere near Leo’s ashen face, whistling as if to wake up a dog.

“Yo, you good?” the third called, prodding his foot against the back of Leo’s head with more and more force each time, letting it roll off the toe of his shoe and thunk against the floor like that would bring him around, and Raph…

Raph saw red. Raph saw the butt of a gun cracked against Leo’s skull to send him sprawling out cold. Raph saw someone literally kicking him while he was already down and now—

Three strikes, you’re out. He barreled into the leg attached to that foot and got him on the ground with one heave.

It never did unravel into slow motion like they always said; the rest only became a blur from there until he was sitting with Leo and that stupid stooge in the nurse’s office. They were wise to put him in his pile of ice packs on the other side of the room, where they’d have ample warning before Raph could make strides to get his hands on him.

Of course he wouldn’t try anything now. He knew the teachers were showing mercy, letting him sit with his brother until they got in touch with Dad. Or maybe they were just killing two birds with one stone, letting Dad think he was just coming to pick up his sick son, only to yank him and Raph into the principal’s office for a talk before they could escape.

Still. Raph had already made his point; he wasn’t about to waste his time on another round with that punk when Leo was just coming to again.

“…Hh—Huh? Wha’ time is it?” he slurred, flinging a hand out in search of his phone. The nurse had dimmed the lights to let him rest. Was he honestly so out of it, he habitually assumed it was morning in the lair and he had to turn off an alarm?

It wasn’t the kind thing to do but on a frustrated impulse, Raph smacked his hand and made him jump. Then he took it back, squeezing his brother’s fingers with enough force to make him groggily wince, just a little.

“Time for you to stop,” he muttered, terse and…yes, tired.

It took Leo a few minutes to pry his eyes fully open, gauge where he was and what must have happened. Raph could pinpoint the exact second that last realization hit by the gross sweat that broke out on Leo’s palm and the shudder of panic and shame that swept through him.

“The presentation—“ he choked out. “M-My grade—”

“—isn’t gonna mean jack squat if you drop dead before graduation, idiot.” An exaggeration, perhaps, but Raph was not in the mood to see his body hit the ground again anytime soon.

“I…I-I know.” Leo heaved a tremulous sigh, swollen eyes fluttering closed again. “I know.”

Raph tried to tell himself he wasn’t his brothers’ keeper, beyond keeping them physically safe, but he hadn’t been paying enough attention, too wrapped up in his own stuff along the way to get the jump on this and do it right. This incident just meant he had to do better. Focus up, buckle down, be ready to keep them physically safe from themselves sometimes too.

Commit.

[artbyremi]

Whumpril Days 7 & 10: Restless & Bandages Pt. 1

Read on AO3 -> Here

The same day the boys are accepted into human society, they also get to experience their first trip to the emergency room

Leo was still trying to wrap his head around the last twenty four hours. The day had been a lot to say the least. Superfly had been mutated into some kind of mega-mutant-kaju-thing and then went on a rampage through the city. Through the help of their fellow New Yorkers, they managed to de-mutate him, saving the city, and in return had been accepted into human society. 

They were featured on the news, in a positive light this time. Just as the sun was rising, the boys were being bombarded by reporters for answers to questions and by random citizens asking for either photos or autographs. One lady even asked Mikey to sign her baby, which he gladly did with no questions asked.

Cursive wasn’t a skill Splinter had found important enough to teach them so none of the boys had very elegant looking signatures, besides Mikey who had been practicing his autograph for the day he became famous. Leo felt a bit embarrassed that his autograph ended up being a bunch of chicken scratch and he wasn’t quite sure if he was supposed to sign Leo or Leonardo. 

The humans had accepted them.They wouldn’t need to hide anymore. They wouldn’t have to steal to survive. They could go to high school and Leo could ask April to prom, if he managed to muster up the courage that is. It was everything they ever wanted and yet it was simultaneously one of the most overwhelming days of their lives. 

Leo had never been around this many humans before, well, humans that knew he was there at least and something about it was making him excited and nervous all at once. He tried to push down the nervousness as a reporter shoved a microphone in his face and asked for his name. 

“You, blue turtle,” shouted another, trying to shove the other reporter out of the way. 

Another microphone was shoved in Leo’s face, “Just how long have you been living beneath the city?” 

“Umm, fifteen ” Leo looked to his right, expecting to see his brothers but they had been lost in the swarm of reporters that were surrounding him. 

Another microphone was pushed toward him, “Are you the ones behind the series of grocery robberies in downtown Manhattan?” 

“How did you come to be?” 

“Are you aliens?” 

“Are there more of you?” 

“Where are your parents?” 

Leo’s heart was beginning to race as he was asked question after question. He kept looking to his sides for his brothers but all he saw was a crowd of unfamiliar faces. “Umm,” he muttered. Then he heard the familiar sound of Raph yelping and someone shouting for medical attention. Leo desperately wanted to escape the barrage of reporters and get to Raph but he could barely move in the crowd that surrounded him. 

“Raph!” He called out, his voice was a bit strained, but he shouted again for his brother. 

“Alright, back off all of you,” April said as she pushed her way through the crowd. “This is my exclusive!” She stood directly in front of Leo to block him from their view. ”And if you want a quote you can message me on instagram @AprilO’Neil07!” 

April grabbed Leo by the arm and pulled him out of the crowd. He felt his cheeks flush slightly as her skin made contact with his. She grumbled something under her breath about reporters not understanding personal space or boundaries then looked back at Leo with a small smile, “You good?”

Leo nodded, staring at her hand on his wrist, “Uh-huh,” he squeaked. Then cleared his throat, “Is Raph okay?” 

“He will be.” 

When Leo was reunited with the rest of his family, they were surrounded by several police cars and ambulances. Splinter was speaking with a few officers, using a stick to keep his weight off of one of his feet. 

It looked broken. 

Leo pulled away from April and ran up to his father, “Dad , what happened!?” 

Splinter turned away from the cops. “Leo!” He carefully cupped Leo’s cheeks in his palms, seething at the mix of grime, dirt, and blood he was covered in. “Are you in any pain,” he narrowed his eyes, “and don’t you dare lie to me, Mister.” 

“I’m fine . Where are the others? Are they okay?” 

Splinter let out a frustrated sigh, “Yes, they’re in the ambulance getting looked over which you should be too. I saw those cracks in your brothers’ shells. I imagine yours is much the same.” Leo let out a loud yelp, tears stinging his eyes as he felt Splinter’s cool fingers brush up against the injury. 

The crack. 

Leo hadn’t thought much about it since he’d been squeezed in between Superfly’s palm with his brothers and now that he was thinking about it, it was all he could focus on . He could feel the cold morning wind worming its way into the crevice where the two halves of his shell had split. The scutes that surrounded it were caked in a layer of dried blood. 

The adrenaline from the fight must have worn off because suddenly he was very well aware of every injury he had sustained in the last twenty-four hours. His whole body felt like it was on fire. His head was pounding, his cuts burned, and his bruises ached. He never thought he would long to be back in their old little sewer home after being accepted into society. He thought he’d want a nice apartment in the Bronx with his own bedroom and bathroom. 

He let out an involuntary sniffle. He wanted to be back in their homey little lair more than ever. He wanted to crawl into his bed and sleep until he didn’t hurt anymore. He wanted to feel safe knowing that his brothers were only sleeping a few feet away and his dad just down the hall. 

Leo bit down on his lip as hard as he could without drawing blood. He didn’t want to cry. Splinter was already worried enough and April was nearby but he couldn’t help it when a few tears slipped. 

Splinter pulled him into a tight embrace, while still being careful of the crack. Leo leaned into the touch and let his eyes fall shut as a few more silent tears fell down his cheeks. 

The next hour was a blur to Leo. He was rushed into the ambulance, where his brothers were being looked over by paramedics. It wasn’t set up for multiple patients so the three brothers were all squished together in the one bed. A thick layer of white bandages had been wrapped around each of their shells. The bandages had been tinted a deep burgundy, where the cracks were on their shells.

“Leo!” Mikey winced as he tried to jump up to hug Leo but was quickly told to sit back down by one of the medics. Leo took a seat beside him, intertwining their fingers together as the paramedics wrapped Leo’s carapace in layers of bandages. Mikey’s hand felt unusually cold and yet also sweaty.  It hurt as the bandages were tightly wound against his crack. He tried to shut his eyes to ignore it but that only made him feel more sick and a bit dizzy. 

Leo looked over at Mikey when he felt the younger’s grip loosen on his hand. Leo felt his heart skip a beat, Mikey was slumped over, his head leaning against the wall of the ambulance. 

“Mikey!” Leo tried to shout but his voice ended up getting caught in his throat so it came out more like a hoarse cry. 

“Holy shit!” 

“My son!” 

The paramedics took immediate action. Raph, Leo, and Donnie all got off the bed and huddled by Splinter in the opposite corner so the paramedics had room to lay Mikey down. 

The three boys each held tightly onto the scratchy fabric of Splinter’s makeshift kataginu. Donnie buried his face into their father’s chest and sobbed. Splinter muttered something that Leo couldn’t quite understand as he carefully held Donnie closer to his heart. Leo and Raph exchanged a worried glance then grabbed on to each other’s hands and  squeezed tightly. It was all they could do to not join Donnie in his loud sobbing. 

The paramedics administered a shot with some medicine into Mikey’s arm and then he woke up several minutes later. Everyone felt a wave of relief spread throughout the ambulance. The three brothers rejoined Mikey back on the bed, tossing their arms around him eagerly. Splinter cupped his cheeks in his palms then nuzzled his nose against Mikey’s beak. 

“Daad,” Mikey giggled as Splinter’s whiskers tickled his skin. 

“What the hell was that about?” Raph demanded, looking over at the paramedics, who were cleaning up the syringe they had just used. 

“Mild hypovolemic shock,” one of them responded. 

Raph, Leo, and Mikey all looked to Donnie expecting a translation. 

Donnie rolled his eyes, crossing his arms over his plastron. “You all act like because I like computers, I know everything.” 

“You’re the smart one,” Raph argued, a bit playfully. 

Donnie let out a huff, rolling his eyes once again. “Last I checked, I’ve never been to med school.” 

One of the medics chuckled at their banter, “He passed out from blood loss. We gave him a bit of Epinephrine so he should be feeling better at least until we get you all to the hospital.” 

“We just aren’t sure how he lost enough blood to pass out,” another medic added, “His shell didn’t seem to be bleeding that much.” 

The brothers all exchanged anguished glances. 

The milking. 

Mikey had experienced the brunt of it. Leo kicked himself for not checking in on him earlier. He had to have lost at least a few pints of blood. It was no wonder he passed out. 

“We sorta,” Raph started. 

“Had our blood milked when we were captured by TCRI,” Donnie finished. 

The two medics exchanged sick looking glances, both unsure how to respond.  “Yeah, that’d do it,” one finally said. 

When they arrived at the emergency room, it became clear just how much medical dramas had embellished things. They assumed it was going to be chaotic with a lot of frantic screaming and rushing around as they were rushed to the operating room. Instead, they were each helped out of the ambulance and into wheelchairs and slowly taken inside. It was all very casual. It actually helped Leo relax a bit that all the doctors and nurses were acting so calm. 

As soon as they were inside, things felt even farther from the medical dramas Leo had seen on TV. The hospital was either overpopulated or understaffed, maybe even both because there were hardly enough open rooms available.

Leo had to bite down on his lip to prevent himself from tearing up as he was wheeled down the hall from both Mikey and Donnie. He felt even worse for Raph who ended up on a completely different floor and he didn’t even get to see where his dad went. 

Leo sat alone in his hospital bed. An IV had been poked into his arm to administer some medicine for the pain and he was told by a nurse that the doctor would be in soon. For the time being all he could do was sit and stare at the ceiling while he tried not to let himself get too overwhelmed thinking about the last twenty-four hours. 

He was doing his best to hold it all together but he couldn’t help the few tears that stung his eyes. He didn't want to be in this cold, sterile hospital room. He wanted to be with his brothers and father, back at their little sewer home. Leo tried to shut his eyes to sleep while he waited but as soon as he got close to dozing off, the doctor entered. 

The older man introduced himself then immediately began asking Leo a barrage of questions that he didn’t know the answers to. Was it not obvious by the situation that this was his first time ever being seen by a doctor? How was he supposed to know his blood type or average resting heart rate? The most medical attention he’d ever had was Splinter giving him stolen over the counter drugs for the flu or cleaning up a few cuts from rough housing with Neosporin. 

Miraculously Leo was in good shape for someone who had just fought a giant kaju monster.His cuts and scrapes were minimal, nothing was deep enough to need stitches and he had somehow escaped a concussion, despite having been knocked out by a hit to the head.

The biggest concern was the massive crack going down the center of his shell. Leo didn’t have a doctorate and even he knew that. 

“I’m not familiar with turtle shells,” the doctor began. “But I know it’s fragile and vital for your survival so I’m not comfortable operating on it.” 

Leo felt his heart sink, “But we can’t just leave it like this.”

“Right,” the doctor reassured, “We’re gonna call in a reptile specialist so you'll just need to hang tight for a couple of hours.” 

A couple of hours!?

“Can I at least see my brothers or my dad?” Leo asked in a small voice. 

The doctor let out a sympathetic sigh, “I’ll see what I can do, Kiddo.” 

Since Splinter had only broken his foot, he was able to visit each of the boys while a nurse pushed him in a wheelchair. 

“Dad!” Leo shouted as he saw the familiar rat enter the room. 

“Don’t you dare get up, young man!” Splinter ordered as he limped over to Leo’s bed, ignoring the cries from the nurse to stay off his foot. 

Leo tossed his arms around Splinter’s neck taking in his familiar scent. “How are Raph, Donnie, and Mikey?” 

“They’re all doing just fine,” Splinter replied as he released the hug so he could get a look at Leo’s face. “Have you eaten yet?” 

Leo shook his head. Food had been the last thing on his mind but now that Splinter mentioned it his stomach was feeling pretty empty. “I’m not hungry.” 

Splinter’s brows furrowed, “Leonardo, you need to eat something.”

Leo leaned back against the bed, letting his head fall to the pillows as he let out a miserable groan, hoping his dad would take the hint that he was not in the mood. But Splinter refused to leave him alone until Leo ate a few pieces of toast. It was dry and a bit burnt but he had to admit he did feel a bit better with something in his system. 

Soon later, a veterinarian came to fix up his shell. Leo had been given the good drugs and was out for most of the process so he didn’t remember much of it. When he woke up, the crack in his shell had been sealed with a light blue epoxy and reinforced with a few staples. It looked like an old piece of pottery that had been repaired with kintsugi. 

Leo had been a bit nervous about any possible scarring on his shell. He didn’t want to sound narcissistic but he liked his shell and was worried that some ugly scarring would make his already low self-esteem sink even lower. 

He craned his neck to look at the blue splintered pattern across his carapace and smiled. It looked pretty sick, like a rad battle scar. Maybe even April would find it cool? Heat rushed to his cheeks as he thought about how she would react.

What if she thinks it's pretty? Or cute? Or handsome? 

Leo sank back into the bed. Whatever she thought would come later. For now, he just wanted to be discharged from the hospital so he could be reunited with his brothers and go home and sleep. Besides the brief bit of time he was out for the operation, he hadn’t slept in over twenty-four hours. 

Sleep was calling to him.

[artbyremi]

[artbyremi]

Whumpril Day 6: Hazing

Read on AO3-> Here

After being offered an exclusive spot on the varsity improv team, Mikey must first prove his dedication.

Owww.

Mikey sat on the edge of the curb rubbing his ankle.When he tried out for the improv team, he wasn’t expecting much. He certainly wasn’t expecting to be offered a spot on the varsity team as a sophomore. He had been so excited for his first club meet that he’d spent hours practicing material on his brothers. Which ended in a sai being thrown at his head. 

When the meet finally came, Mikey was pulled aside by the club president, Nikki Brenner and told he wasn’t officially a member yet and he would have to prove his dedication before he could start attending meets. He was told to meet Nikki and the rest of the cabinet on the roof of the school next Thursday so they could initiate him. 

Mikey thought it was a bit odd that he wasn’t told about the initiation sooner but thought nothing of it. He really wanted to be a part of this club. So the following Thursday he did exactly as they said and met with the group of them on top of the school, where they dumped a bucket of ice water over his head and made him recite a monologue he had memorized. 

He thought that would be the end of it but things only escalated from there. Nikki urged him to perform more elaborate things all while they filmed him. It made sense at the moment. Mikey assumed they needed to see that he could embody the physical side of improv so when they asked him to demonstrate his flexibility, he did it without question. 

Everyone was mildly impressed that he could do the splits and a perfect back handspring even with his clunky shell. He thought the whole ninja thing would have made that obvious but apparently even being a mutant turtle carried with it the slow turtle stereotype. 

It was a bit annoying but not worth getting too upset over. He just laughed it off and asked what they wanted him to do next. Nikki handed him a blindfold and instructed him to do the back handspring again. 

Mikey was really starting to question if all the club members' initiations were like this. He took the blindfold and tied it around his head then performed a near perfect back handspring. Splinter making them run katas while blindfolded hadn’t been completely useless! 

The group of officers absolutely lost their minds. Nikki gave him a clap on the back of his shell, “That was so sick!” 

“So I’m in?” Mikey asked hopefully as he pulled the blindfold off his face. 

“Welll,~” the officers looked at each other then back at Mikey. One of them placed a hand on his shoulder, “ Almost.” Nikki placed the blindfold back into his hand and smiled. 

From there things only continued to escalate to more and more dangerous stunts. Even he knew that performing a blindfolded triple backflip while wearing roller skates and his arms tied behind his back wasn’t a good idea. It felt like something that Raph would dare him to do and he would jokingly pretend to do it just to get a reaction out of Leo. 

But being surrounded by his new club officers, he felt an odd desire to impress them. What if they didn’t let him join if he refused? 

Looking back on it, he wished he had. It wasn’t worth all the cuts, bruises, and maybe broken ankle. If this is what he had to do to be a part of the varsity improv team, then he didn't want to be a part of it anymore. Maybe the Junior Varsity team still had spots available? 

Mikey stared down at his ankle. It was swollen and beginning to turn several different shades of purple and blue. Further up his leg, were a series of cuts, scrapes, and bruises. There was a particularly bad cut on his calf that had blood oozing out of it. 

He had hoped the swelling would have gone down by now. He’d already received several texts from his dad asking why he wasn’t home for dinner. Mikey had bullshitted an excuse that he’d gotten caught up with the club meeting and was on his way home but he’d sent that over half an hour ago and his ankle wasn’t feeling any better. 

Mikey poked at his ankle which immediately caused him to wince. 

How was he supposed to get home like this? 

“Mikey?” he heard a familiar voice call out from behind. 

He shot his head back towards the entrance of the school then forced a smile, “Oh, hey, April.” She had just exited the school, carrying her helmet under her right arm and spinning the keys to the moped with her left hand. “What’s up with you?” 

She shoved the keys into the pocket of her jacket then took a seat beside him. “I’m more concerned about what’s up with you.”  

Mikey gave a nonchalant shrug, “Oh, y’know nothing much.” 

April glared back at him, “That’s,” she poked his ankle, “not nothing.” 

Mikey tried to hold in a yelp but the pain from her touching his swollen skin was too much and he let out an embarrassing high-pitched squeal. His cheeks tinted a deep red and he averted his eyes, “I just had my club initiation,” he muttered. 

“Sorry,” April cocked her head, “Club initiation?” 

Mikey nodded, turning his head to look back at April. “Uh-huh,” he proudly patted his chest. “I was proving my dedication to the improv team!” 

“Dedication?” 

“Yup!” Mikey nodded, “I was doing some stunts for the cabinet and it got a little out of hand and I ended up having a bit of an accident,” he mumbled the last bit but then quickly switched back to smiling. “It’s no big deal though! My ankle’s just kinda swollen.” He wigged his foot as to show her. 

“Yeahhhh,” April stared back, her eyebrows pinched with worry, “That’s not normal. I think they were hazing you, Dude.” 

Mikey blinked. She had to be mistaken. There was no way. “Are you sure? Maybe it’s just something the bigger clubs do– no offense but the newspaper club only has like ten members .” 

“Well, where are all the cabinet members now?” April asked, looking around the empty parking lot. “Why didn’t someone someone help you get home or gotten you ice or–”

“Okay, okay,” Mikey muttered, his cheeks tinting a deep red. He should have trusted his instinct that something was off. “I guess I should have known. Why else would they have offered me a spot on the varsity team?” 

April paused, “No,” she helped him to his feet, making sure to keep any weight off his ankle. “You wouldn't have known. Which is exactly why they did it.” She gave the ground an aggressive kick, “Uggh, what assholes! I’m gonna have to give Nikki Brenner a piece of my mind the next time I see her stupid face.” 

Mikey let out an awkward laugh. It was kind of weird. He was used to having his brothers as his protectors; he never imagined that he’d be adding a fourth one to the mix. “You and Raph both after he finds out about this.” 

“I’m sure,” April said, then let out a heavy breath. She brushed her locs behind her ears then smiled back at Mikey, “Let’s get you home. I’m sure everyone’s worried.” Mikey nodded then allowed her to wrap his arm around her shoulders so he could keep any weight off his ankle. 

Within a few minutes, Mikey was situated on the back of April’s scooter with his arms wrapped around her waist. 

Leo was gonna be so jealous~

[artbyremi]

You should write the most niche, indulgent fiction that appeals to you specifically, because it will be much more artistically authentic and valuable than corporate slop that has been focus tested to death to appeal to the widest audience possible.

Write for yourself and you will always be making authentic art that has an uncompromised vision, and you will gain an audience that appreciates that.

[artbyremi]

Whumpril Day 5: Neglect

Read on AO3-> Here

Donnie experiences the consequences of sleep neglect.

Donnie wished he hadn’t watched so many Vsauce YouTube videos growing up because of course he ended up testing into honors chemistry. His brothers and Splinter had all encouraged him to take it even though that meant Donnie would be in a separate class. If only he had known just how much additional work honors chemistry would be, he may have saved it for at least his second year of school. 

It wasn’t that he didn’t understand the material or couldn’t keep up with the fast pace. It was just quite literally a lot of work and Donnie still wasn’t quite used to the fact that he couldn’t spend all his free time scrolling anime forums on his phone or wracking up more hours on Forza Horizon.  

His teacher expected them to make extended outlines of two-three chapters of their textbook with vocab words and definitions per week and that didn't account for the other homework and lab reports they were still required to do. It was like his teacher failed to remember he had other classes with homework too. 

Donnie sat at the kitchen table at around 9:00PM, kicking himself for procrastinating once again. He pulled out a few binders and his laptop from his school bag then cracked open an energy drink and took a big swig. 

“Is Dad seriously letting you drink that?” Leo asked as he dunked a tea bag into a cup of hot water. 

Donnie wouldn’t classify Splinter as a health nut type of parent but energy drinks or an overconsumption of caffeine tended to make the boys all jittery and hyper so it had been banned in the lair. They were allowed soda with caffeine but coffee or energy drinks were usually a no-go.  

“Well, not if you tell on me he’s not,” Donnie muttered, allowing a bit of irritation seep into his tone. 

“That stuff is so bad for you.”  

“Well, I have a massive lab report due tomorrow so I need it to stay awake.”

“Why didn’t you start it earlier?” 

Donnie glared back at Leo, hating that he was right because yeah maybe he should have started his report at least before the sun had gone down. The call for an afternoon nap and a few hours of mindless scrolling had been too strong and he was majorly regretting it now. Even after a sip of the energy drink, the desire to go to bed was still tempting. His tent was cushy and homey with soft blankets and fluffy pillows. His head was dying to be tucked in, his eyes closed and some relaxing rainstorm sounds playing on his lap top. 

For a moment, he considered taking the bad grade or rushing it during homeroom but he had two lab partners, who he promised he would finish the report to. It wouldn’t be a great look for him to turn in mediocre and clearly rushed work. 

So Donnie cracked his knuckles, took another sip from the energy drink and began typing away on his laptop. The lab report itself wasn’t too hard, it was just the whole actually doing it part that was annoying. That was the problem with a lot of Donnie’s schoolwork. He found most of his classes fairly easy; it was just hard to find the energy to do his homework after draining his social battery at school all day. 

He knew he needed to find a better routine because pulling these late nights only made it hard to focus at school the next day. Plus with his current straight A’s, he knew his teachers and probably Splinter were going to push him to take more advanced classes next year. His math teacher mentioned putting in a recommendation for him to take AP pre-calc next year, if he continued to get perfect scores on the chapter tests and quizzes. Which so far he had. 

It was a little overwhelming. 

His teacher had talked his ear off about how AP would do him so much good. It would get him a head start at gaining college credit and would set him up for a successful future. Donnie had all but passed out when he mentioned college. 

Couldn’t he have a moment to enjoy being in high school before he even thought about college? It would be a lie to say it had never crossed his mind in the past but those had all been silly little dreams about going to MIT, majoring in computer science and then starting up his own indie game studio. 

Now, with college being a very real possibility, he didn’t feel ready for it. He didn’t want to leave home. He didn’t want to leave his brothers or his Dad or April. He was just starting to get the hang of this new life and people were already asking him to think about the next step. 

He wasn’t sure how to tell his teacher that he wasn’t sure he wanted to take AP classes. 

The weeks that followed were much the same. Donnie would procrastinate his homework after school until the very late hours of the night. He would rely on energy drinks and pure willpower to keep him going. He knew he couldn’t keep this up and that it was bad for his health but he just couldn't seem to get himself to stop. Everyday after school, he didn’t want to think about homework; he just wanted to nap for a bit, maybe play some video games, scroll on his phone, or even just nag his brothers. 

Leo being Leo, tried to get Donnie to stay after school to do his homework with him and April. But he found being alone with April and Leo, even if the two weren’t technically dating, made him feel like a third wheel. Plus there was only so much of Leo embarrassing himself that he could take before the second hand embarrassment became unbearable. 

Splinter had taken notice of Donnie’s near constant exhaustion too and tried to get him to drink some Sleepytime tea and go to bed early, but it didn’t help much. Donnie would still end up procrastinating his homework and having to stay up late to finish it. He didn’t understand how his peers had already been doing this for eleven years and none of them seemed completely exhausted. To be fair, he hadn’t been doing himself any favors by procrastinating so much but he just couldn’t seem to break the cycle. 

One night Donnie was up late, studying for a big test for his Honors Chem class. After receiving a B- on his last test, he knew he was actually going to have to study for this one and not just review his notes the period before. He had told himself he was gonna start studying as soon as he got home from school but as was routine, he got distracted. 

It wasn’t until after 11:00 that he finally sat down at the table to study. He popped open an energy drink then poured it into a mug and discarded the can so Splinter (and Leo) would stay off his case about his overconsumption of caffeine. 

By the time he had finished rewriting all his notes and completed the study guide, he had lost track of time. He let out a wide yawn, his eyes feeling so heavy, that it hurt to keep them open. The energy drink really wasn’t doing him much good. He took off his glasses so he could rub at his eyes, a weary moan slipping out of his mouth as he set his head on top of his books. 

“Donnie?” 

Donnie looked over at the curtain that led to their bedroom, Mikey was standing there holding up a portion of the curtain with one hand while using the other to rub sleep from one of his eyes. “Donnie?” he repeated, “It’s like 3AM.” 

“Oh, hey, Mike,” Donnie mumbled, then went back to staring at his notes. His head felt so foggy that the words were beginning to blur together. It didn’t help that his handwriting was atrocious from his hands being so shaky while he was writing. 

He could faintly hear Mikey saying something but his ears felt clogged and the pounding in his head made it difficult to focus. Before Donnie knew what was happening, Mikey was pulling him by the arm and leading him toward the couch. “Where we going?” he slurred. 

“To sleep,” Mikey said sternly. 

Donnie wanted to argue that he still needed to study. He still needed to do his practice test and maybe review his notes a few more times but the allure of sleep was too strong.

Once the two of them sat on the couch, Donnie’s head fell to Mikey’s shoulder and his eyes slipped shut. Mikey draped an old blanket over the two of them and wrapped his arms around Donnie’s shoulders pulling him closer to his plastron.

Donnie knew what he was doing and it was evil. Everyone knew Mikey gave the best cuddles. It was getting harder to resist the overwhelming urge to fall asleep. “Did Leo send you?” Donnie mumbled against Mikey’s shoulder. 

“Nah, I sent myself. I notice things too ya’ know.” There was a slight hint of offense in his tired voice. 

“Yeah, I know,” Donnie sighed. “You’re smart.” 

“Just go to sleep,” Mikey insisted. “It’s embarrassing sitting next to you in class when you do it there.” 

Donnie didn’t have the energy to be embarrassed. He just let out another sleepy sigh and nuzzled his head against Mikey’s plastron, finally allowing himself to succumb to sleep. 

Splinter found them like that the next morning. They were a tangle of sleepy turtle limbs, intertwined together on the couch. The blanket was half on them and half on the floor.  Donnie was on the top and being bigger than Mikey was squishing the smaller boy half to death, but Mikey didn’t seem to mind. He kept his arms wrapped around Donnie and his face nuzzled into the crouch of his brother’s neck. 

Splinter shook his head and chuckled under his breath then snapped a photo of the two. He was grateful Donnie was finally managing to get some much needed sleep. For a moment he wanted to let them stay like that for the rest of the morning but then he questioned his abilities as a parent if he let them skip the first half of school. He also doubted he’d be able to let them get away with that if Leo and Raph had anything to say about it. 

Splinter picked the blanket up off the ground then tucked it back over his two youngest boys. For now, he would let them sleep.

[artbyremi]

Desperate Plea: A Call For Relife‼️ 🥀

Hello, It's Momen Al Madhoun, writing from the most miserable area in the whole world, I am deeply thankful to all of you. Your support means the world to my family

🍉🍉🍉 I urgently plead you to keep sharing our campaign with your friends, family, and acquaintances

15 months have passed as if it were 15 years, and suffering increasing day after day 😔

Our health is decaying, we have NO IMMUNITY to fight diseases. No healthy food to feed our worn cells. Finding a quiet, clean place for us to get some rest is IMPOSSIBLE! I'm in urgent need of serious financial support so that I can take action and save my family! Our faces speak the misery we're going through! my children can't bear the ruthlessness of war life… pain and cold does not allow either of them to sleep 💔

I found in drawing a way to relieve stress and describe what we are experiencing, but even this i was deprived of, due to the difficulty of obtaining good internet and electricity for a sufficient time If you are interested in art, you can check my blog and find my artworks, i hope you will share them and support me to continue fighting and trying Every share and donation brings us one step closer to saving my family's lives. Your support, no matter how small, holds the power to rescue my loved ones from grave danger There are no words can describe how many times we have been displaced The situation we're living now is really hard to imagine Where do we Go?

Imagine the vastness of this universe, we cannot escape to a safe place far from the war

🍉🍉🍉 We rely on your donations to have a shelter and provide basic daily necesseties. We need your contributions and support with us, no matter how small it may be for you, but it makes a difference for my family 🙏🏻 Please, Support us with 5$, 10$, or any donation you can make and it will be really appreciated 🙏🏻

Please, Support us with 5$, 10$, or any donation you can make and it will be really appreciated 🙏🏻

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[artbyremi]

Whumpril Day 4: Threat

Read on AO3-> Here

While at a party, Raph overhears a group of guys making some comments about Leo. He sets things straight.

Leo was the oldest. 

Raph wasn’t quite sure how exactly Splinter had figured that out considering he hadn’t even been there for their hatching. Splinter would say it was just his father’s intuition. Raph didn’t really have an argument against that so as far as the family was concerned Leo was the oldest and Mikey the youngest with Raph and Donnie being stuck in the middle and everyone knew that being a middle child was the worst. 

Raph couldn’t begin to count the number of times Leo had pulled the, “Cause I’m the oldest,” card. It drove Raph absolutely up a wall because what did it matter if Leo was the oldest. They were quadruplets so he was probably older by like five minutes at the most. 

Leo may have been the oldest but Raph was the biggest. He had just been born that way. It was one of the few things he got to hold above Leo so he took absolute advantage of it. Whether that be by moving the peanut butter to the top shelf just to mess with him or by holding their toy train above his head when they were little. 

As Raph grew older, he learned that being the biggest meant he was also the strongest and that came with its own slew of responsibilities. Sure Leo had leadership skills to lead their little clan but Raph had the strength to protect it. Which was something he took very seriously and that didn’t change when they started high school. 

Raph never really understood the archetype of a character who abandons his family or friends for popularity and now being in high school he still didn’t understand it. Sure, his brothers all did cringy and embarrassing things from time to time but Raph couldn’t imagine a reality where he chose to abandon them for a shallow friendship with some try hard high schooler, who just happened to have a lot of friends. Raph honestly thought all of them were taking this high school thing too seriously. 

Maybe it was because he was on both the hockey and the wrestling team but for some reason the popular crowd was just drawn to him. He got invited to a lot of parties which by turn his brothers were also invited to because Raph didn’t want to go to any parties without them. He was sure Splinter wouldn’t let him anyway. Always stick together was the number one rule in their family after all. 

One night Raph found himself alone at a party. All his brothers had plans and he was bored on a Friday night so he thought it would be fun to go to Joey’s party. After a bit of begging and promising to be safe and back before curfew, Splinter allowed him to go. 

Joey was a senior and also on the wrestling team. He was funny and smart and everyone seemed to like him. Raph considered him a bit of a try-hard and not in the way that Leo was a try-hard. Joey was a try-hard in the sense that he cared way too much what everyone thought of him, which made him come across fake as all hell. 

Recently, he and a bunch of his other try-hard-y friends had broken into the school on a Sunday and let loose a bunch of chickens that wreaked havoc all over the building. It was supposed to be a harmless senior prank but apparently chickens and computer labs don’t mix and it ended up costing the school a fortune to repair the damaged computers. Not to mention they had to cancel school on Monday and the faculty was still scrambling to figure out who did it. 

Joey and his friends had been smart enough to get one of the tech kids involved, who managed to turn off all the school’s cameras. The only reason Raph knew they did it was because Leo and April had been there that night practicing for the morning announcements. It had been a bit of a shock when Leo had arrived home hours after curfew covered in chicken feathers and with peck marks all over his body. 

At the party, Raph found a group of his friends from the wrestling team and they all sat together in a corner and hogged the snack table while they complained about homework and matches they had lost. 

Raph was having a pretty good time until he overheard Jo group of guys talking. 

“Did you see this?” One of the guys laughed, shoving his phone into another’s face. 

“Dude, that’s so embarrassing.” 

Raph wouldn’t have thought anything of it, if he hadn’t accidentally peeked at the phone screen, while he was refilling his soda. It was a clip of Leo and April on the morning announcements. 

April put on a big smile as she finished reciting that week’s lunch menu. She’d come such a long way since the whole Puke Girl incident. Joey and his friends had been the ones to spread that awful viral video in the first place so it was a little weird they were watching the morning announcements, especially at a party of all places. 

In the video, Leo smiled at April then looked at the camera, “Today is a B-day as in beautiful,” his voice wavered a little then he looked back at April with a dorky grin, his cheeks dusted with a light pink. 

Raph gave a little smirk. He had been too busy trying to catch up on his math homework that he hadn’t paid any attention to the announcements that morning. He was gonna have to grill Leo for this later. 

B for beautiful, seriously!? And then he goes and looks at her like that . Could he be any more obvious? 

“That’s sick,” One of the guys laughed. 

“At least he’s not going for the pretty ones.”  

Raph’s heart stopped. 

What?

One of the guys zoomed in on Leo’s face and took a screenshot. It was a particularly unflattering image. Leo was mid blink, mouth open as he was still talking and his face red as ever as he stared over at April. “Dude, it’s so obvious.” 

“I bet she’ll go for it.”

The other shook his head, “Nah, even she’ll be freaked out by it—I mean he’s not even human.”

Raph had heard enough. Sure, what Leo did was a bit cringey and Raph would absolutely tease him about it later but he would not stand for anyone to be making fun of Leo or April . “Hey,” he said as he approached the two boys. 

The two looked up from the phone and then greeted Raph with a bored, “Sup, Man.” 

One of them held up the phone to show Raph the screen. “You see your brother this morning on the announcements?”

Raph just narrowed his eyes at them, “Yeah so what? He’s doing the announcements.”

The three boys looked to each other and then back at Raph. “But dude, it’s so obvious.”

“Does he seriously like her?”

“It’s no wonder he follows her around school all day like some kind of creep.” 

Leo’s crush on April was obnoxious and embarrassing and Raph would absolutely make fun of Leo for it until he either got together with her or moved on to another crush. Leo would happily take every opportunity he could to hang out with her but never had he pushed the limits into creep territory. There was no doubt that Leo was attracted to April but his crush was built upon an overwhelming respect for her. Sure it was cringey but at the end of the day Raph was always team #Aprilnardo. 

“Hold on,” Joey pinned the photo to a text message and began adding recipients. “I gotta send this to everyone.” 

“Delete that photo,” Raph said bluntly, arms crossed over his plastron. 

“ What?”

Were they seriously trying to play dumb. 

“Delete the photo,” he repeated, a hint of anger sneaking into his tone. 

Joey rolled his eyes, turning to smirk at his little posse. “Why are you making such a big deal out of it?” 

“It’s just a dumb picture,” one of the others said with the same stupid knowing smirk as Joey smothered across his face. 

“If it’s just a dumb picture, why are you trying to send it to half the student body?” Raph asked. 

“It’s just a joke,” one of the other friends said. 

“Yeah, why are you being so serious.” 

“I didn’t know you were so sensitive.”

Raph tried not to let his anger show, recalling a lesson from Splinter. He took a deep breath, “You send that picture and Principal Owen may just find out who was responsible for the senior prank.” 

At that Joey’s face fell. “Are you trying to threaten me or something?” 

“Are you gonna delete it or not?” 

For a moment, the two boys just stood there, glaring dagger at each other, their noses practically touching. Joey’s little posse just watched as they waited to see what they would do. Realistically, Raph knew he could take him. Sure, he may have been a senior on the varsity wrestling team but Raph had at least fourteen years of ninja training under his belt and he would be the first to admit he had a pretty mean right hook. 

Joey must have realized this too because he backed off. “Fine,” he snapped, deleting the photo. “I guess I just didn’t realize you mutants were so~ emotional.” 

Raph let out a deep breath ignoring the comment. Though that didn’t make him want to punch this kid any less. “Whatever,” Raph grumbled as he walked away back over to his group of friends. “I don’t care what you guys do, just leave my brothers out of it.”

[artbyremi]

Whumpril Day 3: Sore

Read on AO3-> Here

Leo wakes up sore after a day of intense training.

Leo woke up early that morning with a crushing soreness coursing through his body. Ever since joining human society and beginning high school, the boys hadn’t had as much time for their usual training. Splinter was worried about them getting rusty so he was beginning to make them do 5AM training on Saturdays. 

It wasn’t exactly what any of them wanted to do on one of the only days they actually got to sleep in. Leo usually loved training and was often one to advocate for more practice but even he wasn’t exactly enthusiastic to be waking up at 4:30AM every Saturday. 

That particular Saturday Splinter had really worked their asses off. They started off with some stretches and then jumped right into warm up exercises which included wind sprints across the dojo, 50 flutter kicks, 50 box jumps, and then ending with 50 push-ups. 

Maybe Splinter had been right to worry about them getting rusty because Leo was already feeling winded after just the warm-up. 

Once they finished, they moved onto running through katas. Leo hoped Splinter would choose an easy one so they could slowly get back into the swing of things but of course luck was not on his side. Leo practically collapsed on the floor once he heard the words, “Kanku-Dai,” pass his fathers lips. Not only was it one of the longest and most physically demanding forms they knew, it involved a lot of quick stance changes and 180° turns all without a moment to take a breath. 

After running through the kata for the fifth time in a row, all four of them collapsed on the ground, sweaty and out of breath and they still hadn’t even gotten to sparring. 

Once training was over, Leo was sure every muscle in his body was screaming. Even a good night's sleep hadn’t helped because his whole body was still throbbing with soreness. 

Leo tried to close his eyes to ignore the pain and catch a bit more sleep but all he could focus on was the overwhelming pounding in his temples and the aches in his muscles. He let out a weary moan and rolled into his plastron, pulling his pillow over his head.  He was not looking forward to school that day. 

When Leo woke up again it was to the sound of his alarm. Which only reminded him of the hell that the school day was gonna be with his body so sore. He hugged his pillow tighter to his head to drown out the annoying noise. 

He almost managed to fall back to sleep, when a pillow hit his head from the direction of Raph and Mikey’s bunks. “Leo,” Raph shouted with a certain tiredness to his voice. “Turn off your damn alarm!”

His brothers were probably just as sore and exhausted as he was but they were all gonna have to get up and face the day eventually. Leo would admit he didn’t really know much about school attendance records but he knew he didn’t want a single tardy on his.   

With a weary groan, he reached over to the bedside table where his phone was plugged in and pressed snooze. He just needed a few more minutes. As soon as he pressed the button, the alarm immediately stopped. Leo let out a satisfied sigh and then fell back into his bed to catch a few more minutes of peaceful rest. 

Fifteen minutes later, Leo sat up in his bed and let out a weary groan, his body screaming at him to lay back down. It was 6:24AM and he still needed to get dressed, do his morning bathroom routine, and walk to school all by 7:20AM. 

Leo swung his legs over the side of his bed, letting out another groan as his muscles continued to scream at him. He looked around the room, half expecting to find his brothers’ beds empty but was surprised to see all three of them still sound asleep. “Guys,” Leo muttered as he stood up and headed over to their shared bureau. “We need to get going or we’re gonna be late.” 

His brothers all responded with groans. Raph and Mikey both pulled their blankets over their heads and turned their backs to Leo. 

 “Go back to bed, Nardo,” Donnie griped, then zipped up his tent. 

“Fine,” Leo grumbled. He really didn’t have the energy to fight with them about it. Splinter would eventually be in to wake them if they didn’t get up soon. 

Leo buttoned up his blue plaid top then pulled on a pair of khakis, before heading toward the bathroom. If his brothers were gonna sleep in, at least there would be no one to complain about him taking too long in the bathroom. 

Twenty minutes later, Leo emerged out of the bathroom feeling a bit refreshed though still quite sore. He rubbed at his shoulder blade as he walked into the kitchen. 

Splinter was sitting at the table, drinking a cup of tea while he did a crossword puzzle. “Morning, Leonardo,” he greeted as soon as he saw his eldest son. 

Leo took a seat at the table, “Morning,” he mumbled, now rubbing at his opposite shoulder blade. He knew he should get up and make himself some breakfast or at least grab a granola bar or a pop tart but he just felt so tired. But he was already gonna have trouble getting through class with his sore muscles, he didn’t need to add being hungry on top of that. 

“Do you want some tea, Leo?” Splinter asked. 

Leo looked to his dad and gave a sleepy nod. Splinter stood up then went to fetch the tea kettle and another cup. Leo let out a weary sigh and let his cheek rest against the table. His head was starting to hurt and his calves were aching. All he’d done was walk from his bedroom to the kitchen and it felt like he’d run fifteen miles. 

Splinter returned with the kettle and a tea cup. He placed the cup in front of Leo and began pouring the drink. “You’re up early today.” 

Leo shook his head as he rubbed at an eye. “Not really,” he mumbled. “I’ve gotta leave in like ten minutes or I’m gonna be late for school.” 

Splinter blinked, almost over filling the cup of tea, “What?”

Leo picked up the cup to take a small sip. “I said I need to leave soon or I’m gonna be late for school. You should really wake the others. I tried but they won’t listen to me.” 

Splinter let out a small laugh then set his hand on Leo’s shoulder. “My son, normally I would agree with you.” 

Leo stared back at his father with a bewildered expression. He couldn’t understand why Splinter wasn’t acting with a bit more urgency. They were all going to be late if they didn’t wake up soon. Leo set the empty tea cup on the table, “But?”

“But today is Sunday.”

Oh. 

Oh. 

Leo froze in place, his cheeks beginning to heat up.  “Right,” he muttered. They had training on Saturdays so of course today was Sunday. Leo plopped his head in his hands and let out a weary groan. He’d just been so caught up with how sore his body felt and worrying about how he was gonna make it through the school day, that he had never stopped and considered what day it even was. 

Splinter gave his shoulder a loving pat, “Why don’t you go back to bed, my son?”  Leo just nodded and trudged his way back to his bedroom. His brothers were never gonna let him live this down.

[artbyremi]

Whumpril Day 2: Lies

Read on AO3: Here

April dresses Leo's wounds after a fight; he swears it doesn't hurt.

“It doesn’t hurt?” April asked as she tied a bit of gauze around Leo’s arm. He’d gotten into a bit of a tussle with the Purple Dragons after they had attempted another robbery of a local bodega. Leo had told April over the phone it wasn’t anything too bad, just a few cuts, scrapes, and only one stab wound. She hated how casually he talked about it. No one should ever be that casual about getting into a fight with a gang. Even if it was the Purple Dragons. 

Leo shook his head, “Nope,” he said confidently through gritted teeth. . 

April sighed as she continued to dress his wounds. She’d known him long enough to know when he was lying. 

The gauze she had just wrapped around his arm was already soaking deep with crimson red blood from the cut in his forearm. Angel had cut him pretty deep with her karambit, leaving a messy jagged cut in its wake. April felt nauseous just looking at it. She couldn’t even begin to imagine the pain Leo was in. 

No matter what he tried to convince her. 

April didn’t understand it but she could tell Leo put on a bit of a facade in front of her. It was as if he was afraid to show off his more vulnerable side to her. 

April dug around for another roll of gauze in the first-aid kit she had spread out across her bed. Never in her life had she imagined she would own this many first aid supplies but it was a necessary thing when you were best friends with four ninjas. 

April grabbed a roll of gauze and then walked back over to Leo, who was slumped over in her desk chair, holding at his arm. “You being real when you say it doesn’t hurt,” April asked as she knelt in front of Leo and began wrapping more gauze around his bloody arm, tying it as tight as she could without causing him more pain. 

“Uh-huh,” Leo said, nodding his head, wincing as soon as it caused a bit too much movement.“I mean it doesn't feel good but I can handle it,” he said as he rubbed a small bruise on his cheek with his good arm. 

April tied the gauze into a knot then went back over to her bed to grab an instant cool pack. She squeezed it between her fingers then began to shake it until it felt cold. “Here,” she said as she pressed the pack to his cheek. He immediately relaxed as the cool plastic made contact with his skin.

He gave her a soft smile, “Thanks.” 

“No prob,” she said as she let out a sigh. “How’s the cut–the one on your arm, I mean.” 

Leo looked down at his bandaged arm then held it up to April to show that it was still dry. April let out an internal sigh of relief. She was pretty sure the bleeding had stopped so that meant he didn’t need stitches. 

Probably. 

April wasn’t exactly a medic but she did her best to recall everything she had learned in the mandatory first aid class she took during her freshman year as well as the assistance of some helpful Youtube videos. She was amazed at how many online tutorials there were on how to fix a cracked turtle shell with common household items or how to properly stitch up an open wound on a reptile. 

“And you’re sure you're not in too much pain,” April tried again. “Cause I got Advil if you want it.” 

“I’m good!” Leo insisted, still holding the cool pack to his cheek. April could tell he was holding back tears. She wished he’d just get over himself and just admit he was in pain. This whole tough guy facade was not a cute look on him. Leo shot her a big smile, “Thanks for all your help, April. You’re the bes–”

Before he could finish talking, April cut him off, “I can tell you're in pain! Stop lying to me.” 

Leo froze and just stared at her for a moment as a shameful blush spread across his bruised cheeks. “Sorry,” he muttered. “I just didn’t want to make a big deal out of it.” His voice was quiet and a bit strained. 

“Well, of course it’s a big deal. Leonardo, you were stabbed!”

Leo looked down at the ground, “I shouldn’t have gotten stabbed in the first place.” He looked back up at her tears forming in the corners of his eyes, “I should have seen Angel coming. I should have knocked her down or blocked her or something,” he sniffed. 

“Hey-hey,” April knelt down in front of him, placing her hands on his shoulders, “I know you're good but you’re not perfect, Leo.” 

“What if my brothers had been there?” He said with a bit of panic in his voice, “Or my dad or you? What if one of you gets hurt because I miss a hit or a block or-” 

“Hey, breathe,” April instructed, taking her own deep breath and letting it out to demonstrate. “That didn’t happen and it’s not gonna happen.” 

Leo frowned,“How do you know? TCRI or Cynthia could come after us again and I need to be prepared.” 

“But there’s been no sign of them since the whole Superfly-Mega-mutant thing.”

Leo just stayed quiet, averting his eyes from hers. April let out a sad sigh. He wasn’t totally wrong. It wasn’t impossible for a small sector of TCRI to still be out there. The boys weren’t exactly hidden so if they wanted to find them, they could. 

“Okay, you're right,” April relented. 

Leo popped his head up to look at her, “Really?” 

April shrugged, “I mean TCRI could still be out there and it’s good to be prepared and all but,” she paused, emphasising the last t, which got Leo’s attention. “That doesn’t mean you can’t admit you're hurt now.” 

Leo glanced back at the ground, cradling his injured arm to his chest. He grimaced then looked back at her with tears in his eyes. “It hurts like hell.” April pulled him into a hug, letting him bury his face into the fabric of her sweater. “I promise I’ll train harder. I’ll do better next time.” 

“Shut up,” April muttered as she lightly wrapped her arms around him, careful of his many injuries. “You did your best. I’m just glad you’re okay.”

Leo let out a relieved sigh, “I think I’ll take that Advil.”

I dunno if I'm really happy with how this turned out. :/ But I'm really gonna try to do all thirty days of this

[artbyremi]

it really is crazy how quickly people were willing to just let chatgpt do everything for them. i have never even tried it. brother i don't even know if it's just a website you go to or what. i do not know where chatgpt actually lives, because i can decide my own grocery list.

[artbyremi]

Hellooo! How are you? I love ur fics!!! they make me wanna try writing for the first time 😼💜⭐️

I’m good! How are you?! 😂

Omg. I’m literally so flattered. You are too sweet! 🥹🥹 I’m so happy my fics are encouraging you to try writing! I’d be so excited to see whatever you write!

[artbyremi]

Avo-Phylactic Shock ch.2

Read on AO3-> Here

Everything was fine. 

Totally fine. 

Completely fine. 

Totally normal.

April wasn’t standing in the middle of the dark room, holding up the body of her half-conscious best friend. 

No

Everything was definitely fine. 

April adjusted her grip around Leo’s waist then swung one of his limp arms around her shoulders. Leo’s head knocked against her side, a bit of drool running down his chin. He was pale and his breathing shallow and wispy.

This was not fine. 

There was no use lying to herself, anymore. It helped for a moment, but now it was time to face reality. The second he passed out, April could feel her heartbeat quicken, her palms sweat, and her thoughts swirl. It was an all too familiar feeling to April, the signs of an oncoming panic attack. 

Lying to herself was all she could do to prevent the possibility of a breakdown and a breakdown had been the exact opposite of what April needed. What she needed was to take a deep breath and keep her head straight. As an aspiring journalist, she needed to be able to handle stressful situations like these and for Leo to get help she needed to pull herself together. 

April wiped some of the sweat from her palms then let out a deep breath. 

Everything was gonna be fine. 

April crudely carried—well more like dragged, Leo to the chair on the other side of the room. To give herself some credit he was about an inch or two taller, slightly slim yet still packed with muscle, and also carrying a massive shell on his back. April considered it a win that she was even able to drag him. 

As soon as she had Leo, to the best of her ability, situated in the chair; she pulled out her smart phone and dialed the infamous three digit number that she had hoped she’d never have to call. 

It wasn’t easy to explain to the dispatcher what had exactly happened because April wasn’t even sure herself. It was like Leo had been fine one moment and then the next he was breathing funny, with a rash spreading everywhere and then suddenly passing out into her arms. It reminded April enough of the severe allergic reaction she had when she was eight, to pull out her EpiPen and give him a dose. She knew she’d probably get some flack from the hospital for sharing meds but she had been desperate. 

Besides, the EpiPen had helped some anyway. Leo’s airways had cleared up and the swelling, from what April could tell, had gone down a bit. His pulse was still rapid and the red rash was still way too prominent for April’s liking. 

Of course, her liking would be none at all but nevertheless. 

She stayed by Leo’s side, sitting on the edge of the chair so he was leaned up against her chest. She had one arm wrapped around his shoulders and the other holding her phone with the dispatcher, on the other end. 

April stared down at Leo, still unconscious but breathing. It wasn’t exactly the most even breathing. It was coming from his mouth, loud and labored with a soft whistle to it. He would probably be embarrassed if he were awake but damn it, it was the most comforting sound April had heard since Leo had passed out.

Labored breathing was still breathing and breathing meant alive . Any signs that Leo was still alive were all she really wanted at 

She couldn’t think about the alternative. 

April took a deep breath to center herself. 

Everything was gonna be okay. 

She stared down at Leo, resting against her side. She’d never seen him like this before. He always seemed to have everything together. Never anxious or awkward like April and always down for whatever. It was one of the many reasons he was an amazing film partner. 

April was sure he was the only person on the planet that she could ask to film her in the most bizarre and sometimes dangerous of places and he would always be down. He was the reason she had footage inside the abandoned TCRI building or the remains of Superfly’s machine that fell into the Hudson. 

April had never thought she’d gain the confidence to take her reporting to the next level. For once, becoming an investigative journalist felt realistically attainable and with the views on April Tonight; her dream was practically already coming true. 

It wasn’t all thanks to Leo. April knew to give herself some credit but he was there with her 100% of the way and that did a number on her self confidence.

April stared back down at Leo. He was still unconscious with no clear signs of waking up anytime soon. April let out a sad sigh, then situated her phone between her shoulder and her ear so she could reach for one of Leo’s hands. It felt wrong to see him so feeble. She intertwined his numb fingers with hers then squeezed his hand tight. 

He didn’t react. Not that April had really expected him too but secretly she’d hoped that he would wake up and this would all be over. They would go back to recording like nothing had happened and then afterwards they would go to Chipotle just like April had promised. 

She’d been really looking forward to that. 

Maybe it was a little silly of her to be looking forward to some cheap Mexican food, but as much as she and Leo had hung out together; they had never gotten dinner together. She knew it was just a friend thing but there was just something about eating dinner together that made her heart race. 

Once the paramedics arrived, everything felt like a blur. They began asking April question after question as they loaded Leo up onto a stretcher and began hooking him up to a bunch of machines that April could only assume were for breathing and vitals. Somehow that only made her panic more. 

Leo wasn’t supposed to be like this. He wasn’t supposed to be hooked up to machines, being taken away in an ambulance. He was supposed to be healthy and fine and very much alive. 

The paramedics let April ride in the ambulance. They would have had bigger things to worry about if they hadn’t let her in that damn van. She didn’t care that she wasn’t immediate family. She wanted to be there by his side until she was sure he was safe. 

---

When Leo woke up he wasn’t in the dark room, in fact he wasn’t at the school whatsoever. To be frank he wasn’t quite sure exactly where he was and wasn’t really feeling up to figuring it out either. 

His entire face felt hot and swollen and his throat raw and sore. There was also a massive pounding headache that started in his temples and wrapped around the rest of his head. Leo tried to take a deep breath but found his airways constricted. Every breath felt like it was struggling to make it through his narrow airways and to his desperate lungs. In a panic, he tried to gasp for more air because there certainly wasn’t enough making it to his lungs. But his attempts were futile. The more he gasped the less air that managed to reach his lungs.

He couldn’t breathe. 

He wanted to scream out for someone to help him but his body felt too heavy to move as if he was being held down by sand bags. He could hear unfamiliar muffled voices all around him but his eyelids were too heavy to open. Besides he was sure even if he could see, he wouldn’t have been able to make out the faces in his panicked state. 

His lungs burned for oxygen as Leo gasped for another breath. A miniscule amount of air squeezed its way through his constricted airways but it wasn’t nearly enough to satisfy his hunger for that sweet sweet O2. 

He heard the voices again. They sounded a bit more panicked then before but Leo ignored them as he continued on his quest for the simple ability to breathe. For a moment, he was sure he was going to pass out. His head was beginning to feel dizzy and his lungs burned for air. Then he felt a stab in his arm and some kind of mask being placed over his face and he relaxed. Whatever it was, it was forcing more air into his lungs. His head still felt dizzy and his stomach was rolling with nausea, which he assumed must have been from his onslaught of panic just a few moments ago. 

Leo leaned against the unfamiliar bed, and let out a sigh. 

“Easy there,” he heard someone say, then a familiar hand clasped his own. 

Dad. 

Leo relaxed slightly. If his dad was there that meant everything was okay or at least would be soon. He could worry about what was going on later. For now, he would let Splinter deal with everything. Leo nuzzled his cheek against a scratchy pillow and dozed back off to sleep. 

Everything was fine.

The next time Leo woke up, he was much more aware. His body still felt heavy but he managed to sit up with a loud grunt.  He rubbed his eyes with his hands and then blinked groggily and his surroundings. From the bright lights, beeping of a heart monitor, and IV stuck in his forearm, he knew he was in the hospital. 

Leo didn’t love the idea of being in the hospital, especially not after his last visit to the hospital after the whole Superfly ordeal. Having his shell cracked had to be one of  the most unpleasant things he had ever experienced, not to mention the mental torment that had come along with that incident as well.

As soon as the doctor had left the four of them alone in the hospital room together, Leo remembered breaking down into a fit of tears and sobbing harder than he ever had in his whole life as he pulled his three brothers into a tight embrace and held on as if life had depended on it. He wouldn’t have blamed them for making fun of him for being such a big baby but they had been crying too so he would have just called them out for being such hypocrites. 

It was overwhelming enough being back in the hospital, at least back then he’d had his brothers with him. This time he was all alone and with a very hazy memory of how he had gotten there in the first place. He’d remembered feeling a bit dizzy and sick while he had been filming at the school with April. His skin got all hot and bumpy then his throat got tight and there was a searing pain in his upper leg. 

Leo leaned back against the flat pillows and let out an exhausted sigh. His lungs burned as he did, bringing involuntary tears to his eyes. Suddenly, he felt very aware of just how sore he felt. Oh, God. He sat back up and broke into a loud fit of hoarse coughs. He didn’t remember feeling nearly this bad back at the school with April. 

Where was April, anyway?

A wave of panic fell over him as his mind began to race with all the possibilities. Where was she? Had something happened to them back at the school? Was that why he was in the hospital now? Had TCRI found them? Had Cynthia Utrom found them? Had something worse found them? 

“You finally awake, sleeping beauty?”

“Huh?” Leo was brought out of his spiraling anxious thoughts by the sound of Raphael’s nonchalant voice. He looked over toward the doorway where he found Raph leaning against the doorframe with a juice box in hand. Leo felt so relieved to see Raph that he wanted to get up and throw his arms around his brother but with how sore his body felt and the constant nausea swirling in his gut; he wasn’t quite so sure he could even handle standing up. 

Raph took a sip from the juice box as he strided into the room and took a seat in the chair beside Leo’s bed. “ You’re dramatic as ever,” Raph groaned, tossing the empty box across the room into a small trash bin by the door. “Gave everyone a huge scare. Dad’s been going absolutely ballistic. It’s completely your fault if he becomes an almond parent now and I will never forgive you if he bans all the good junk food in the lair.” 

Leo’s brain was scrambling to keep up so he just blinked, “what?” he cringed at the sound of his own voice. It was deep and raspy, making him sound like he’d been an avid chainsmoker for years. 

Raph kept talking, “And holy shit April. I’ve never seen her like that.”

At the mention of April, Leo tried to sit up in the bed but was immediately greeted by a stabbing pain in his chest. “What happened to April?” He managed to croak out through gritted teeth, gripping at his plastron, “Is she okay?” 

“She’s fine,” Raph reassured as he handed Leo a bottle of water. Leo accepted the drink and eagerly took a big sip. It felt cool against his sore, dry throat but brought him little relief. Honestly, it only made him more aware of how much his throat hurt and how thirsty he was. At least his attention was off his lungs.  “She’s ust a little shaken up after you swelling up like a balloon and passing out and all.”

“I passed out?” Leo coughed, water spewing out of his mouth, down his chin and all over the blue hospital gown he was wearing. 

Raph nodded, “Right into her arms like the dramatic little damsel you are.” 

Leo huffed, giving Raph a little slap to the knee though he couldn’t help but blush at the thought of April catching him. I guess it’s kinda cute that she caught me. “But why’d I pass out in the first place?”

“Dunno it was because of something you ate apparently.” Raph shrugged, “Doctor said you had something like MODs or anaphylactic shock. But beats me at whatever the hell any of that means.” 

Leo’s face fell. He didn’t have any better idea of what any of that meant than Raph but it certainly didn’t sound good. “Wait–so what exactly happened to me?” 

“You had an allergic reaction,” Raph said bluntly. “You passed out. You couldn’t breathe. You had this really gross looking rash and your face was all swollen and puffy so you looked even more ugly than usual. Also you puked all over April in the ambulance so good luck sleeping at night knowing that.”

Leo practically choked on air, “I did what!?” 

There goes all hope of April considering him anything even close to attractive. 

Congrats, Irma. 

Raph snorted, then gave Leo a playful flick on the forehead. “Just messing with you.” 

Leo glared back at him, “Not funny,” he snarled as he swatted Raph’s hand away. 

Leo flopped down on the bed, letting out a weary groan; his stomach doing a little flip as his head hit the pillow. He covered his face with it then let out another pathetic groan. His head was starting to pound again and the acrobatics going on in his stomach weren’t much fun either. “Where is everyone else anyway?” 

“Cafeteria,” Raph muttered, casually resting his feet up on Leo’s bed. “Mikey finally convinced everyone to go eat so of course that’s when you decide to wake up.”

Leo pulled up the scratchy blanket and then rolled onto his other side so he was facing the wall rather than Raph. He had already worried everyone half to death by landing himself in the hospital; he didn’t need any more help feeling guilty about it. 

While Raph pulled out his phone seemingly to text the family group chat, Leo’s eyes focused on the plethora of medical equipment that surrounded him. He couldn’t even begin to guess what most of it did and he had a feeling he didn’t want to know either way.  

The heart monitor let out an annoying beep every few seconds and he could feel an odd sense of coolness where the IV was stuck in his forearm, feeding him some kind of medication. He felt sick looking at it so he moved the blanket to cover it. 

On the ground next to the bed, was a small portable machine with a tank of oxygen connected to it; the mask itself was strewn on the floor. Leo vaguely remembered being put on his face but his mind felt hazy

Leo felt a mix of nausea and guilt as he looked at it all. He pulled the pillow back over his head and closed his eyes. He wanted to fall asleep and wake up back at home in his room, tucked snuggly in his bed, while Splinter brought him a warm bowl of okayu and a cup of chamomile tea but he couldn’t even manage to doze off. 

His brain was far too active. 

Everyone had come out here because of him. April had to stop filming, Mikey had to leave improv practice, Raph wrestling practice, and Donnie computer club. Even Splinter probably had been in the middle of something important too and Leo just had to go and ruin everyone’s afternoon by having some kind of spontaneous allergic reaction. Raph had said it was from something he ate but he was sure he didn’t eat anything odd. He was probably just unlucky as usual and his body just decided it was going to malfunction. 

Raph gave him a little nudge with his foot. “Didn’t say it before. But I’m glad you're awake.” 

Leo turned back to his other side to make eye contact with Raph. He looked genuine for once. Leo gave him a small smile, “Thanks.” 

“You really scared all of us,” Raph said as he punched Leo’s shoulder maybe a little harder than he should have. “Just wouldn’t be the same without you trying to boss the rest of us around all the time.” 

Leo rolled his eyes, “Yeah, love you too.” 

Raph flicked him on the forehead again, “Yeah, well, get better soon so we can spar.” 

“What? So I can just beat you again?” 

“You won’t.” 

“Will so!” 

“Will not!” 

“LEO!” 

Their childish bantering was cut off by the rest of the family, as well as April, entering the room. Before anyone else could, Splinter ran right up to him, pulled him into a tight embrace and began asking him question after question. Leo’s head was squished in between his father’s neck and his shoulder as he made direct eye contact with April across the room. She immediately put her hands in her pockets and glanced at the ground. 

“Are you okay?” “Does your chest hurt?” “You aren’t still swollen anywhere are you?” “How’s your breathing?” “You don’t feel lightheaded do you?” 

“Dad, I’m fine! I promise,” Leo insisted as he tried to pull out of Splinter’s tight embrace. Truthfully, he did kind of want a hug from his dad. Burying his face in the familiar soft fur and letting himself just be held for a sweet moment sounded like absolute bliss.

But after this whole ordeal, he really didn’t need any more help looking like a helpless baby in front of April. She was already considering replacing him as her cameraman/editor on April Tonight. He really didn’t want to give her even less of a reason to want to hang out with him.

“Daaad,” Leo whined as he continued to pull away from Splinter’s chokehold on him. 

Splinter released his grip on Leo then cupped both of Leo’s cheeks in his hands. “My poor baby.” 

As soon as those words left his mouth all the blood in Leo’s body began rushing to his face and he pulled away from Splinter. “ Dad!” He could hear the sound of his brothers snickering and he fought the urge to give them each a little kick. He didn’t have the energy for that anyway. 

Splinter glared at him then crossed his arms over his chest, “Oh, I’m sorry for worrying about you! Anaphylactic shock is not something to take lightly, young man.” 

There was that word again. Everyone was throwing it around as if Leo was supposed to have any idea what it meant. He could put the context clues together that it wasn’t good. 

“You are so lucky April is such a good friend and gave you her EpiPen. The doctor said it could have been so much worse.” 

Leo glanced back at April across the room. He gave her a thankful smile but she didn’t notice it because her attention was focused on staring at the floor. Leo turned back at Splinter. “Sorry for scaring you but I promise I really am okay.” 

Splinter embraced him again, “Please, be more careful next time. You know there are some human foods that your body just can’t handle.”

Leo nodded, “I know but I swear I didn’t eat anything on the no go list.” 

“Oh, yeah,” Donnie flicked him on the forehead, turning Leo’s attention toward his younger two brothers, who were standing on the opposite side of the bed. “April said you had guacamole.” 

Leo nodded, “Yeah, but that’s salsa. We can eat salsa just fine,” he said as if it was the most obvious thing because to him it was. They had all eaten chips and salsa plenty of times. 

Donnie let out an exasperated sigh, then adjusted his glasses, “Nardo , guacamole is made from avocado you gave yourself persin poisoning.” 

Oh. 

Leo could feel all the blood rushing to his face as his brain processed what exactly he had done to himself. He knew avocados were particularly bad for turtles. He might as well have drunk a bottle of bleach, picked out his gravestone, and then said his goodbyes.

He felt so so stupid. 

He knew avocados were poisonous for turtles and he knew they were harmless to humans. He should have known to ask April what the ingredients in any of the salsas were before trying them. Especially since he hadn’t even heard of guacamole before trying it. 

He hadn’t been thinking. 

He’d been too wrapped up in his stupid jealous emotions over Irma. 

It was dumb. 

He was dumb. 

He had created this whole mess. 

April was amazing and Leo was glad that other people were finally realizing that too. He couldn’t monopolize all her attention. He was being selfish and she didn’t deserve that. 

Leo stared at her from across the room. Her face was red and her eyes puffy, and she was still fixated on the floor. He needed to get over this silly little puppy dog crush of his. 

---

April pulled her sleeves over her hands and stood in the back of the room, trying to hide herself behind Raph and Mikey. Poisoning the guy that she maybe had a little bit of a crush on was surely not the way to take things to the next step. She could hardly look at him without being overwhelmed with guilt.

How could she have let this happen?

She should have known better. Of course there were foods that were completely safe for her but toxic to turtles. She might as well have given an entire chocolate cake to her cousin’s pet chihuahua. 

The doctor came to visit Leo one last time and gave him a clean bill of health before himself and Splinter signed Leo’s discharge papers. April was glad they were finally leaving, she wasn’t sure how much more of seeing Leo in a hospital bed she could take. Especially knowing she was the reason he was there in the first place. 

Raph and Mikey both shouted something about raiding the cafeteria one last time before and April thought this was the perfect opportunity to run away but as soon as she turned toward the door, Leo called out to her.  

“April?” His voice was still hoarse and raspy. 

April felt her heart skip a beat. She couldn’t face him but she also couldn’t ignore him.  She plastered a confident smile on her face then turned to him,“Yeah?” She asked, unable to hide the slight quiver of her voice as both Splinter and Donnie passed by her leaving her alone in the room with Leo.

Great. 

They were both silent for a moment just staring at each other until they both blurted out, “ Sorry!” 

“Hold on—why are you sorry?” April asked, “ I’m the one who practically poisoned you!” She pulled desperately at the sleeves of her sweater, pulling them far past her arms. “I should have known. You’re a turtle after all. I should have known you might not be able to eat all human food. This coulda been,” she gasped, “You coulda.” 

“Hey,” Leo grabbed one of her wrists. She looked back at him, blinking away tears. He was staring back at her with kind eyes and all April could think of was how she didn’t deserve it. He was too sweet, too understanding, and too perfect . She was lucky to even just be friends with him. 

“ I’m fine,” he said in a candid tone, his voice still a bit hoarse. 

“But you almost weren’t and it could’ve been so much worse,” April sniffled, desperately wiping at her eyes. She internally screamed at herself to pull it together. Crying wasn’t helping anything. All it did was make her look more and more pathetic in front of Leo. 

“But it wasn’t. You gave me that EpiPen,” he gave her a look as if to ask if that was the right word. 

April nodded, “Well, I know you're not really supposed to share stuff like that but I had to do something.” Even if that something went against every warning her doctor had ever given her. They were both exceptionally lucky that Leo wasn’t allergic to the epinephrine as well. 

Leo gave her a crooked smile, “Well, thanks.” 

“I’m just glad you're okay,” April mumbled as she crossed her arms over her chest. 

Leo leaned back in the bed, letting out a weary sigh as he let his eyes fall shut, “You could have left hours ago. Thanks for staying.” 

April nodded, “Of course.” It was true she could have left hours ago. She could have left as soon as Splinter had gotten there but what kind of friend would she have been to leave him. “I wanted to stay.” her voice got caught in her throat, “I wanted to make sure you were okay.”

Leo smiled at her with half-lidded eyes, cheeks tinting a light shade of pink, “You’re so sweet,” he murmured. He paused for a brief moment before uttering, “I’m sorry about today.” Then let his eyes slip shut and let out another loud sleepy sigh. 

“Wait, Leo?” April asked, giving his arm a slight shake before he dozed off. 

He opened his eyes halfway, “Hmm?” 

“What are you sorry for?” 

Leo was quiet for another moment before finally saying, “I ruined everyone’s afternoon all because I was being dumb.” 

April adjusted her glasses on her nose, “Being dumb?” 

Leo nodded, leaning back against the pillows, “Yep,” he sighed, popping the p. 

“I’m gonna need some more clarification because that doesn’t really explain much.” 

Leo fidgeted with the blanket in his hands, his cheeks turning a noticeable shade of red. He seemed a bit more awake then he had just a few moments ago. “Um,” he mumbled, averting his eyes. “I just,” he looked back at April, his face somehow managing to get even more red that April worried he had somehow developed a fever on top of everything else. Then he took a deep breath and looked back at April. “I think you're really really cool, April!”

April blinked, her own cheeks beginning to tint a deep hue of red. 

“And I’m really really glad I get to be your friend! And I’m really glad we get to spend so much time together working on April Tonight so when you brought up Irma and her camera skills I thought,” his voice trailed off as he tried to hide his face behind the blanket. “I thought maybe you didn’t want me to be a part of the show anymore. That you’d rather have Irma help you,” his voice got quiet, “And that maybe you and Irma were.” 

April stared at him blankly for a moment trying to process everything he had just dumped on her. How did he not understand that there was no April Tonight without Leo. He was her partner. She thought that she had made that clear before. 

And her and Irma? 

It took her a moment to understand what he was implying but once it did her face went bright red and then she laughed; a bit louder then she had intended. Leo just stared at her as if she had completely lost it. 

“Leo,” she said, catching her breath. “Irma’s not really interested in that kind of thing.” Leo blinked back at her as if he couldn’t grasp the concept that some people were just not interested in pursuing romantic relationships. “Besides, she's not really my type.” 

“Oh?” Leo fidgeted with the blanket some more, “Wh-what is your type then?” 

April felt her heart pound against her chest. Part of her wanted to scream stupid idiot boys who can’t take a hint but she didn’t have that much confidence. “Oh, y’know,” she muttered, glancing off to the side. Her heart kept pounding. That wasn’t a friend thing to ask. 

Then it dawned on her. 

Did the thought of her and Irma being a couple bother him? 

April looked back to Leo, his face was still red, and he was gripping tight to the thin blanket. She could tell his palms were sweating and she could see the inner turmoil going on in his brain. 

“Leo?” 

“Yeah?” he asked as he wiped his sweaty palms on the blanket. 

“Were you jealous?” 

Leo froze, the redness on his cheeks spreading even further across his face. That had been answer enough for April. “M-maybe,” he croaked, averting his eyes. “ I told you I was being dumb.”

April felt her own cheeks begin to heat up and she blinked, a look of bewilderment crossing her face. Had she been the one unable to take a hint? 

In a moment of bravery, April grabbed Leo’s hand in hers, intertwining their fingers together. She prayed she was reading all the signs correctly or this was about to be incredibly embarrassing. “Leo,” she gave him an awkward smile, “You don’t have anything to be jealous about.” Her voice came out strained and quiet. “April Tonight isn’t anything without you and-,” she paused, trying to catch her breath. She was sure her heart was attempting to beat out of her chest. “I think you’re really cool too!” She would have been embarrassed that her palms were getting so sweaty in his hands, but she could faintly feel his own palms getting damp with his own nervous sweat. 

Gross. 

But comforting. 

“Once you're feeling better, let's still go to Chipotle like we promised.”

Leo gave a shy smile and nodded, “Yeah, that’d be nice.” He gave her hand a squeeze then forced a smile, “It’s a date?” 

April squeezed his hand back, nodding, “Yeah.”

On the outside they both tried to remain cool and collected but on the inside the two of them were absolutely melting.

“Cool,” Leo squeaked. 

April nodded, “Mhmm, cool.”