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Normally, Raph wouldn’t pass out on a patrol night with just Leo alone. Not that he actually minded Donnie’s and Mikey’s presence, of course! It’s just that there were words and traits that he could only let out if the only person within near distance was Leo. Raph didn’t exactly know why when he knew that there was nothing really for him to hide from his younger brothers. Maybe it was a twin thing? Which was funny to him because even with that sentiment in mind, they were bound to come after each other’s throats eventually. (It was just as Mikey had said once: they can’t not fight even over the stupid things for a week, or God forbid Donnie would start to think that pigs can fly.)
But as Raph supported his zoned out brother while making their way back to the lair, he started to wish he'd never had that twin telepathy thing with Leo in the first place.
Or, no. Raph wished that he had spent his night watching Naruto with one patched up Mikey and a distressed Doctor Donnie. Because at least he wouldn’t have to deal with…this.
It was just so… unnatural of Leo to fall in love. And not the kind of “in love” feeling Leo has for Captain Ryan. (Or Karai. But Raph’s been doing everything in his power to forget that he accidentally fell in love with their sister.) But it was the kind of “in love” that had been responsible for the hearts growing out of Leo’s eyes for the past hour now. (Any minute now, Raph would just watch Leo’s actual heart break out of his shell and fly away, possibly back to Neo Edo if he needed to make it anymore obvious.)
And with a guy who was the complete opposite of Captain Ryan, to top it off.
“Come on, Leo. Snap out of it!”
Raph didn’t even know what Leo saw in that rabbit. At least Captain Ryan made sense. When Raph had been dumber back then, he even thought that Captain Ryan had his charm points that were more than enough to make anyone swoon for him.
With the rabbit samurai…well, he was just different. He was a decent sword fighter, yes. An even decent yo-yo (?) wielder, definitely. But he tended to be consistently distracted, even more than Mikey , when he wasn’t being called by his friends to “get back into his game”. He was loud and rash. He’d head into fights without thinking of who he was dealing with. And he was arrogant . Which was rich from Raph himself, knowing how he is. But at least he’s not as in-your-face with the pride as… him .
He was everything Leo—the brother Raph knew for the last sixteen years, at least—would have hated.
But as Raph watched his lovestruck older brother mumble the rabbit’s name over and over, as if trapped in his own la-la land with the samurai, he wasn’t so sure if he knew his twin anymore.
Or maybe the turtle Raph had been clinging onto this entire time wasn’t his older twin brother. Maybe those robots they fought back in Chinatown swapped the real Leo with this fake Leo because there was just simply no way he’s serious about this .
“This isn’t natural for you at all, man! You really can’t be serious about that guy. He’s such a…a…” Cringefail. Cringefail was definitely the right word to describe the rabbit from a while ago. But something in Raph told him that Leo would pounce him if he had continued that train of thought.
“He’s such a loser…yet so captivating and perfect that I can’t understand…”
At least Leo—the Leo that came back with him from Chinatown—still had his toes planted onto the ground. If that Yuichi rabbit guy had stayed any longer, Raph was sure Leo would’ve (quite literally) flown with him back to his city by now.
And Raph didn’t like that at all, inasmuch as he didn’t like the Leo he was dealing with.
“He pulled you to the side and infodumped you about all the Yokai he knew while me and his friends were busy with those robot thingies!”
“...So?”
“You weren’t even in the fight! You were just nervously laughing and using your sword as some kind of cane while leaning on the wall as if you’re trying to impress him, somehow!”
“And did you hear how he laughed, Raph? How his nose just… scrunched up and his smile had teeth in them,” Leo halted right in the middle of the sewers and grabbed Raph by the shoulders before shaking them. “His. Smile. Had. His. Two. Little. Teeth. Out.”
Raph didn’t even want to imagine whatever shoujo-manga filtered thought was messing with Leo’s brain when he talked about his smile.
(Oh no, nevermind. Even just thinking about what might be running through Leo’s mind at that moment was more than enough for Raph to feel sick. Curse Mikey’s shoujo manga for giving him definite ideas.)
“And water is wet, yeah, Fearless. But this is just absurd even by your standards.”
“...What’s absurd? Being bisexual?”
…What the heck is even going on at this point.
Actually, no. What did Raph do to deserve this?
This is ridiculous. Did the gods hate him this much? What did he even do to anger them? Screw facing angry Leo as the scariest thing Raph has ever experienced. Facing a lovestruck, sick in the head with love Leonardo Hamato was, based on the events of tonight, even worse.
“The heck?! No! Ya know I accept and love ya b—that’s not the point I’m trying to make!” Now it was Raph’s turn to shake Leo, as if trying to get him to snap out of his shoujo manga la-la land with him and the rabbit. “The point is that you’re being so out of character with…all this! What do you even see in that guy? He literally looks like some wimp you can beat up for lunch money. A-And his garb? His looks? No offence but you can literally find someone better than that, man,”
He would’ve understood crushing on the rhino (Gen, was it?) or the fox lady (Kitsune?) or even the cat (Chizu, that he was sure of). But the rabbit who looked like he was about to be knocked down to the floor by the flick of a finger?
Impossible. This entire night had been nothing but one fever dream, in Raph’s opinion. If this was a dream, Raph wished for his brothers to wake him up right now because no way was Leo looking at him with a very determined look and gripping onto his shoulders, as if desperate.
“Be real with me, Raph? Do I have a chance with him?”
Before Raph could answer however, Leo managed to fish out something from his belt. He pulled out a small shiny fragment, wrapped in blue cloth. “H-He told me I could go to his dimension any time if I wanted to. And–oh! What pizza do you think he’d like? I don’t think Neo Edo has pizza from the way he described it. And maybe I should bring the VHS player with me so I can show him Captain Ryan and–oh I hope he doesn’t mind sparring with me. He wouldn't, right? And I wanna listen to all the Yokai stories from him forever if it means I get to see that smile all that time and…”
Whatever Leo had been saying was now lost in Raph’s thoughts when he heard his T-Phone ring.
That was when he realised they had a home to go back to. By going home, it would mean he’d have to explain to Donnie and Mikey why their eldest brother was looking like a lovesick puppy wagging his tail at seemingly nothing.
And God forbid Raph be the one to explain all of this to their father.