Underneath it all

by obviouslystupidandlame

Summary:

Long walks late at night are Leo's only escape from his family's smothering in the aftermath of the Kraang.
Usagi can't seem to stop messing up and disapointing his loved ones so he begins spending his nights trying to better himself no matter what it takes.
They help each other see the light in the darkness.
//

Notes:

Its my first time posting a story publically so please don't be too mean i promise ill improve!! I'll try to update regularily unless I get hit with ao3 author curse so please bear with me. I only reference from my own experience so I'll try my best to show accurate depictions of any stated mental health issues, disorders, etc.

Chapter 1: Who knew meeting new people could be this easy?

     There was no good reason why anyone should be up this late at night let alone someone who, not too long ago, had his ribcage practically obliterated by the alien-demonic version of gum stuck to the back of your shoe. Well, no reason that he wanted to explain to his family. And yet… Leo just couldn’t help himself but to drag his previously mangled body out of his room and creep through the sewers.

     Call it terrible decision making, unnecessarily reckless, or whatever but little besides maybe his dad or Raph’s disapproving stare could stop him from making his nightly rounds through the sewers and abandoned subway routes.

    Thankfully, Donnie’s overprotective nature bordering on concerning amounts of paranoia came in handy when it came to preventing any wandering human, or really Yokai nowadays come to think of it, from trespassing too far and compromising their position.

    Although in Leo’s opinion, the large BEWARE, DANGER! and STAY OUT! signs complete with hidden eerie noise machines probably drew more attention than a plain ole “Do not enter or face fine” billboard. Blowing money in this economy? But, he digressed, trying to stop Donnie from being dramatic was as pointless as trying to stop the sun from shining. And besides, who is he to judge anyways when they do their job just fine with like 85.7% accuracy. Never mind the occasional thrill-seeker looking for cryptids in New York’s great underbelly.

   If he was only walking around and staying hidden there would be no reason for all this secrecy. As much as they feigned normalcy, he knew they were still walking around eggs around him. One too many panic attacks and self-sacrifice attempts tend to do that he guessed.

     Despite his best efforts to assure his overbearing family that No. I can go portal my way to get pizza by myself and NO I don’t need you hovering over my shoulder every time I want some freedom- and then as they became more frustrated with him, or after a particularly difficult group sesh with Dr. Delicate Touch, his pleas morphed more into a Yes, I value my life, no I won’t needlessly throw myself in harm’s way- etc. etc. he was still kept under watchful eye regardless of if he thought he needed it or not.

     Barry was definitely in the doghouse after his little, “Perhaps we should put him on suicide watch if he can’t be trusted to value his place in the family” comment because no amount of ‘He threw me off a roof!’s could expel the thought from his family’s head. He wasn’t suicidal! Just because he thought he was worthless without his brothers, a failure and didn’t deserve to eat occasionally, didn’t mean he wanted to kill himself he deserved it really. Minor self-esteem issues, however? Maybe. Suicidal? Hardly. (probably)

     The entire debacle was rather silly in Leo’s opinion because, Yeesh. If his mental health doesn’t do him in, the lack of privacy certainly would, but all that remark earned him was teary eyes from Mikey and a broken glare from Donnie, which was the absolute opposite of what he meant to happen. Tough crowd.

     To add insult to injury the constant surveillance seemed to double,Thank you Donnie, not including the tracker imbedded near his trapezius (that Donnie still refused to admit existed). If a guy wanted to spend some time ruminating alone in his room or in the bathroom, it was really difficult when a nosy brother peeked his head in or knocked on the door every 15 minutes as a sort of ‘checkup’.

     It was all part of the safety plan he halfway slept through the explanation of involving like a billion steps including monitoring his meals, sleep schedule, search history, which is like basically every other aspect of life when you’re bedridden and moping.
     Even worse, somehow his already horrifically boring days morphed into uncomfy makeshift therapy sessions that made the reclamation of control in his legs even more wonderful.

     These nightly walks were a chance to breathe after significant smothering and if he didn’t come back more hurt than when he left, Donnie promised not to spill the beans. Can we get a round of applause for twin brothers!? And to think that all it took was a weighted blanket, his favorite flavorless juice and tearful eyes to get him to agree! Well, that plus a mutual promise to give hourly updates or else, but who sweats the details when freedom is on the horizon? Losers who don’t get to walk around in damp smelly sewers- that’s who.

     The deeper he went however, the more pressing the innate sense of being watched began to creep up his spine. Call it ninja sense or the past months of false ‘alone time’ his family allotted him, but something was... off. An extra sound had joined the low thrum of cars overhead and the stead drip of some hidden faucet. A sound that sounded vaguely like… panting? Weird… but maybe it was a stray rat or something, so he continued his trek and prayed that some hideous evil rat king didn't decend on him even if that would be a funny way to go.

     It wasn’t until he was unceremoniously shoved against a wall and the scent of soggy fur invaded his nose that he maybe regretted not trusting his gut decision to turn tail and return to the warmth and safety of his bed. A quick, Damn. The guys are gonna kill me, flitted through his mind as he felt his knee begin to ache, before he tried to get a closer look at his mysterious attacker.

     Fur that probably used to be some shade of white before being caked in blood, dirt and grime and obscured the majority of his vision, So the dude was Yokai, but dark red eyes that almost seemed to glow peered curiously at him.
He waited approximately 1 minute for the stranger to speak but after the time came and passed, he had no choice but to break the silence. So, he was impatient, sue him.“So… are we just going to stand here or are you going to introduce yourself?”

“Who are yo-” And just like that a warm furry body passed out into his arms. Oh, he has bunny ears. Nice.

Chapter 2: A no good absolutely terrible day

Summary:

Usagi's been kinda sucky recently but like its barely his fault sorta.

Notes:

ok i just wanted to put this one out there bc I had a burst of inspo and im impulsive

Ok so this day SO wasn’t going well for Yuichi.

Woke up late, was scolded by his asshole boss at the job he wanted to quit for clocking in like 2 minutes past usual, stepped in a puddle- successfully soaking the new pair of pants he JUST scrapped up enough cash to buy, and to make matters even more miserable he completely forgot to let his roommate know he was going to be out later and now he was locked out of his apartment during a torrential downpour.

A shitty day to close off a shitty week of what was feeling like maybe the worst year of his life. Was he being dramatic because things really sucked right now? No.

Things sucked to him right now more than probably anyone ever in the history of the entire universe for all he was concerned- minus maybe when his totally cool ancestor Miyamoto was forced to battle a whole horde of evil bloodthirsty spirits like a thousand years ago.

(Or a couple hundred or something the story was kinda blurry and he was like five and dumb when Aunty told it to him)

At least back when a hole tore through the sky and the Undercity shut off from upper New York he had an excuse to not to show up at his dead-end undercity job. No way to get there if he wanted to! Even the sketchy entrances through trashcans had been completely sealed- so screw you Mr. Pays Me Minimum wage!

Thankfully, with a cloaking broach clipped securely in the pen pocket of his shirt, he had been given a bit of freedom to walk around and help those in need, and once night had fallen, he made sure to do a good lap with his trusty katana to scope out the area.

After a lap and a half- the half largely done out of boredom once he realized that those icky pink alien-monster things people had posted about sighting were nowhere to be found and vanquished- he had returned home around 2 a.m. and remembered with a guilty conscious that it was his night to cook dinner. Fuck.

Hopefully she forgot all about that.

Maybe this was his karma. His forgetfulness had been the straw that broke the camel’s back, and roommate’s patience had finally run dry.

As selfish as it was though, he really hoped not because finding Yokai to live with above ground was a horrid experience that he didn’t want to go through ever again.

After a second Ms. Eats with her Mouth Open and a Mr. Snores Obnoxiously, he had almost given up hope of finding the perfect someone that didn’t make him regret ever being born a rabbit.

Thankfully however, Kitsune had been there to save the day and all he had to deal with was occasionally finding things he though he had lost placed around the house.

He hardly ever remembered losing them anyways and she never touched what really mattered so it was worth it. No more snores, no more loud phone conversations, no more deadly boring monologues, and here he was- squandering his last hope at fixing his circadian rhythm.

(Plus, if he closed his eyes and didn’t think too hard, she could maybe sorta be considered his first friend since moving)

Hopefully he was just particularly unlucky and his sorta friend had just fallen asleep or was listening to music with headphones again instead of her just ignoring his frantic bangs on the door.

Please please please just be sleeping.

Just in case though, he thinks he’ll make her a really elaborate breakfast come morning, when he’s hopefully finally let back inside (or else must pay for breaking a window) and then hopefully she’ll feel too guilty to abandon him.

Ok maybe a little shitty of him- but desperate times call for desperate measures.

Maybe he shouldn’t have lost his key earlier that week. Or maybe keys shouldn’t be so small and easy to lose through the holes of the vaguely hideous, thrifted pants he had promised himself to replace months earlier, thank you very much.  

Can’t blame a guy for wanting to be fiscally responsible!

And look what happens when he finally takes the time to buy new ones- they get totally soaked and nasty and dirty and, oh my god that’s another trip to the laundry matt, and more money spent, and he’ll probably fall into a pile of trash on the way back or something else stupid and avoidable and whoops! there goes that week’s paycheck.

At least this time though he could curse the weather and shake his fist at the sky like some sort of crazy man instead of all the blame entirely being on him.

One undeniable benefit of being in the bustling city instead of some vegetable farm in the middle of nowhere Japan, was that there were no aunts or nosy neighbor farmers to judge temporary lapses in sanity. In the city, everyone kindly fucked off and minded their own business. What a town.

In the meantime, he’ll do some window shopping (creepily staring into expensive establishments) or maybe finally work on his katas, so he doesn’t get his ass kicked in the final round next time he signs up for the Battle Nexus.

Okay maybe training is the more responsible choice. Fine!

A few blocks away there was this abandoned warehouse that was perfect for working out without bothering anyone nearby because there was no one around. Weirdly so. But it was useful, and he wasn’t about to look for gifts in a horse’s mouth or whatever the saying is.

 And besides! If Usagi let ration and reason dictate what he did and didn’t do he probably wouldn’t be in New York in the first place! And that’s going super well so far.

So well in fact, he sent part of his paycheck back home just to prove to Aunty that he hadn’t made the biggest mistake in his life, and she was right to send him off across the ocean with a bag of money (he quickly blew on food) and expensive clothes (he either lost or had stolen while he was camping out for a permanent place).

Super.

For all she knew, he was happy, healthy, loved his job, had made more friends than he could count, all the while maintaining the highest standard of honor befitting of a new samurai. Certainly not standing in a dilapidated old building on the verge of collapse, trying and failing to reach the level of calm required for any sort of meditation.

But as they say, what you don’t know can’t hurt you, and the last thing he needed was to see her disappointed glances as he returned home with his tail between his legs.

Maybe she wouldn’t mind. But maybe she would hate him for the rest of his life, and he would die sad, and his ancestors would hate him, and he would hate him, and he would be dead.

Being dead would suck. Especially this young when he hadn’t had the chance to do more than screw up. And let people down and disappoint and piss people off and whatever else terrible he had managed to do over his admittedly short spin with independence.

Now it all feels even worse. He sucks. Like genuinely.

It was times like this where he would much rather be rotting in his bed, but after a while the guilt seemed to seep out of his pores, soaking his bed and filling up his room and his lungs and his arm was so itchy itchy itchy and his eyes were tearing up he couldn’t breathe and he couldn’t breathe and-

 Okay. He’s fine. He’s not about to freak out, his heart isn’t racing, the room isn’t moving, he’s being stupid, and he needs to stop.

In all honesty he should have stopped months ago when these little ‘episodes’ really started to make an appearance in the thinning patches of fur across his forearms but even Usagi wasn’t THAT confident in himself.

He just wished that out of all his shortcomings being too pathetic to live on his own wouldn’t be one of them. He could push through. He could. Even if he failed at everything else, he could do this. He had to.

Okay maybe no more meditation. Being left to your thoughts and self-doubt was high-key overrated anyways.

Inner peace his ass.

What wasn’t overrated was making good use of the makeshift dummy he had built out of a few pillows, a mannequin someone left on the street and dirty old rope that had been molding on the floor when he first discovered the place.

Modern day Da Vinci if you asked him! But better. Wayyy better. Sure, he couldn’t paint the Mona Lisa, but could Da Vinci think of the genius that was sharpie eyebrows that formed an angry ‘V’ line? I bet not!

Sure, it had to be propped up next to a rotted beam because he had miscalculated how difficult it was to repair the splintered plastic of the mannequin’s stand, but beggars can’t be choosers and nowadays between the two, he was most certainly a beggar.

A couple of hours’ worth of well-placed kicks and stabs with his tanto later and he was really starting to regret foregoing breakfast that morning.

If he knew he was going to be late anyways and then be yelled at and then have to suffer a 9-hour shift of the sort of agonizing despair no money and asshole customers can bring, he should have at least gotten a breakfast sandwich from the bodega. Fuck.

Hindsight foresight whatever, his head is killing him.

Maybe if he had at least grabbed a water bottle or his cloaking broach before leaving but Noo His job was so close by, and it would be dark enough by the time he got home that didn’t need his very expensive cloaking broach only a hoodie.

A hoodie that now definitely wasn’t going to cut trying to buy some Advil from a Seven-Eleven on a good day let alone if the cashier turned out to be some sort of Yokai hater and ended his pathetic existence the second he stepped into the fluorescent lighting.

What a fucking day.

A day that was about to become even worse if that creaking and cracking was what he thought it was.

Suddenly, to Usagi’s displeasure building up into pure anger, the ceiling began to crumble and cave in as that stupid old rotten beam fell in on itself.

That goddamn mannequin. Fuck my life.

Despite speed being most rabbit’s claim to fame, the piercing ache beating through his skull was as effective as tar in terms of slowing him down and dulling his senses. So, he did little more than a pitiful little hobble towards the entrance before falling to the floor as the walls began to collapse on top of him.

It was a miracle at that point that he had started to hear the foundation crumble at all with how hard his brain had been pulsing in his skull.

A split second after hitting the ground, Usagi could feel heavy wooden planks slam down onto his spine, the dirt transferring onto his fur and dust filling his lungs.

Water began to rain down on him along with bits of rock and in the distance, he could hear sirens distant but steadily approaching the remains of the warehouse along with his deep wheezes and grunts of pain.

There go his plans of not disturbing anyone, but at this point what had gone right?

After a minute of total chaos, and once the shock had died a bit his ears began to ring, and he could taste the salt of tears along with rain and blood in his mouth. Or maybe he was imagining things. This felt like a good time to cry.

Voices? He thought, but a second later he realized he was talking. What was he saying? It sounded like pleading.

Maybe.

Not much made sense when your knee was bent in a very wrong way and the lights were popping and the sirens were approaching and oh no, nononono what if the police saw him and locked him up and took away his weapons before he could commit seppuku and he died dishonorably and his Aunty was staring at him again and his great ancestor renounced him and he died alone, in prison and not in battle like the kind of hero he dreamed about since he was small and-

Deep breath. In and out. In and out.

Now was not the time to freak out, now was the time to get the hell away from this disaster as quickly as possible before he was locked up and experimented on.

Right now, all he wanted was to be back at home, on the couch watching old western reruns and imagining himself there, dueling a formidable foe to save the town, walking back to the saloon to hear cheers of his name and free beer with a cowboy on his right and a cowgirl on his left.

Perfect. But now wasn’t the time for dumb fantasies. Today had been full of him being dumb and useless.

Usagi tried to drag himself forward, but he must have been hurt worse than he realized with the lack of any sensation coming from his left hip downwards.

After pushing aside some rubble, he frantically began to drag himself towards an opening that had formed while the sirens seemed to gain more speed.

Every inch was met with agony from his head, through his spine and down into his fingertips where he was sure one of his claws had been severed far too deep. Ouch.

In the wake of his body, a trail of blood was left behind, warm and thick coming from who knows where. He was too afraid to look anywhere but forward. Coward.

He wanted to go home. Coward.

Whoever had called the police must have don’t it as soon the building’s structure began to fail if the tires screeching onto the end of the street were what he thought they were. No time to reach some dark alleyway or corner so he looked for the next best thing.

A bit closer on the street nearby, it seemed like a construction crew was working on the sewers below. Yellow tape blocked out a large area and within it was a small box formed by orange cones where Usagi thought there was an open manhole.

Whether or not it was a trick of the light didn’t matter by now, it was either succumb to whatever the men in uniform would do to him or make a mad dash with what felt like the last of his energy.

Blood stained his fur and seeped down from his brow, blinding him along with the rainfall and deliriously he wondered if he resembled his ancestor Miyamoto. Maybe they’d both have an iconic facial scar to show off their rugged good looks.

Thankfully, it hadn’t been some mirage formed from blood loss because he was in no state to move something so heavy, and with a wheeze and groan he reached the opening. Just as the ambulances and police cars pulled up to the scene.

Slowly as possible he lowered himself down the ladder on the leg he could actually feel.

As soon as he touched base, he began to limp as far away as possible until he had no choice but to slump against the wall and try to regain his strength.

The moment of rest slowly cleared a bit of his mind or maybe it was the pain or both, probably both. So, he ripped the tatters that were left of his shirt and finally looked down at his bottom half.

The thick denim of his new-ish jeans covered most of the damage good purchase, so he rolled them up to his mid-thigh and made an amateur tourniquet to hopefully lessen further damage.

A clearer mind also allowed him to hear the varied steps of someone walking closer and closer to him.

He left his tanto back at the wreckage so he pressed his body as close as possible to the wall and stayed as quiet as possible so hopefully they could pass by without any sort of confrontation.

Wait though what if someone up above had seen his sad scooching and followed him down here? What were they going to do to him? Why was someone in the sewers so late at night in the first place?

A sense of unease began to build up from deep within Usagi’s chest. Whoever this stranger was, they were a threat until proven otherwise and here he was, defenseless and bordering on the edge of consciousness.

As they slowed their approach, he knew they must have heard his quick breaths or maybe the blood still dripping from his limbs.

It was either attack first or wait and see what they would do to him, so he lunged out of his hidey hole and threw his weight against them, knocking them both onto the against the wall.

The shock of feeling his bones rattled yet again caused Usagi’s mind to blank but he regained composure just quick enough to hear a mutter of;

“So… are we just going to stand here or are you going to introduce yourself?”

What? Who was he? Rude! Rude and green. Who asks for a name before introducing themselves anyways? A dick probably.

Who cares if he was better looking up close? He was a personality sorta guy anyways. Sorta.

So, Usagi gave the mystery asshole a harsh glare before responding with a hopefully threatening, “Who are yo-” and then the world went black and Usagi’s dreams were filled with red stripes and angry mannequins.

 

 

 

Notes:

thank you sm comments and kudos are always appreciated ૮ ˶ᵔ ᵕ ᵔ˶ ა

Chapter 3: The Surprise Visitor

Summary:

leo decideds to be kind and usagi is unappreciative

Notes:

sorry for the super long hiatus i lowk lost confidence in my writing ability and I didn’t wanna update w trash so I procrastinated. Hopefully y’all can find it in your hearts to forgive me.

Ok so this was not very good. Not only was Leo who knows how far from home with an extremely weak body, but now he had a fluffy stranger to maneuver back to the med-bay. Great. Even his midnight escapades had to be interrupted with shit he frankly never signed up for in the first place.

And to make matters worse the guy was caked with dirt, grime, and whatever else that Leo hoped wouldn’t stain his hoodie. You would think Mr.Rabbit would have had the decency to at least tidy up a bit before attacking him and then passing out bloodied and bruised.

First things first though, he needed to address these open wounds. With a bit more effort than he would ever admit, he transformed a pen he’d been fidgeting with into one of his trusty katanas. Making portals had felt a bit icky since the invasion but admitting that meant also admitting that he maybe probably perhaps wasn’t completely over the whole thing which would unfortunately prove his family right.

So no his hands didn’t tremble and no his heart didn’t ache, trying to make a portal the size of a house cat. As quick as he could he grabbed the spare medkit that he’d thankfully left on his desk and began the process of cleaning this guy up before he died of a gruesome infection before he was able to explain exactly what he was doing down here.

As time passed anger and vitriol he had felt after the rabbit collapsed had ebbed away into a cautious curiosity.

It took a good hour of careful ministrations to get him into a near acceptable state. Half of the time spent cleaning and bandaging with the other half spent digging through thick fur for hidden cuts and moving around the rabbit’s dead weight

And fuck he felt bad for the guy (considerably less bad than he would he felt had he not practically bowled him over) but god did it feel good to be useful again. To not have someone breathing over his neck every five seconds, when he was trying to do shit as simple as make a cup of coffee.

After he had finished patching the stranger up to the best of his abilities he began the careful process of lifting him up bridal style to hopefully carry him into an empty med-bay bed. Hopefully without triggering any stupid Donnie alarms because explaining why he had yet again disobeyed his family’s wishes and endangered himself again this late at night would be the cherry on the cake on this late night disaster.

After opening up his shaky portal, he heaved the rabbit’s dead weight and hooked him up to the IV, because WOW did the guy look worse for wear. The closer he peered at his face, the darker his eye bags looked and the more gaunt his cheeks appeared.

He looked around Leo’s age so maybe seventeen or eighteen but it was hard to tell when he was fast asleep, looking like he lost a fight to mummy.

Even though he currently seemed pretty harmless, the sting of Leo’s back hitting the cold concrete sewer walls hadn’t yet left his mind, so he decided to cuff his hands and feet to the bed’s rails.

Better safe than sorry in case he had saved some sota homicidal maniac, hellbent on brutally murdering him and his family. Been there, done that, got the t-shirt.

Now the issue had shifted to how he was supposed to break the news to his family. Couldn’t exactly say the guy stumbled in with the hundreds of cameras and microphones Donnie had installed within a mile radius of the base.

But… if he admitted he was walking around the train tunnels and sewers late at night, that would also put a target on his back and his midnight sprees would become practically impossible. Donnie would probably install a sensor to trigger when his door opened and not tell him like he always does when he tries to be caring and ends up being creepy.

Or worse, Mikey would cry and maybe dad and everything would be his fault all over again.

In the end, he decided to say that he had been going through another one of his frequent night terrors (kinda true), and had been spooked so badly he had tried to visit Hueso for a talk (lies). He didn’t portal straight there because he was trying to listen and heal a bit more (kinda a lie), and had coincidently stumbled upon this ivory stranger (truth).

The story stretched the truth a bit, but Leo figured that what his brothers didn’t know couldn’t hurt them, and what great storyteller didn’t exaggerate and embellish a little bit. Consider his story simply an homage to entertaining predecessors thank you very much.

Breaking him out of his thoughts, his patient began to squirm and mutter under his breath. Curious, Leo leaned in, which proved to be a big mistake when the rabbit's eyes snapped open as soon as he got close.

The restraints around his wrists and ankles unfortunately didn’t stop the stranger from bashing his head against Leo's, sending him tumbling into the ground.

Clutching the spot where a knot was definitely going to form on his precious skull, Leo looked up to see the rabbit’s eyes, one scrunched in obvious pain, the other frantically darting around the room, clearly looking for a route of escape.

Surprising, he was quiet even after the collision which was good for the whole ‘not alerting Leo’s brothers’ plan, but Leo could tell his thoughts were racing, likely between trying to figure out where the hell he had woken up, why he was restrained, and what the hell was Leo’s role in this.

In an attempt to reassure him, not that he really deserved anything after knocking Leo over their first meeting, and rattling his brains the second, he stood up and walked back towards the bed, maintaining a comfortable distance in case the guy tried anything funny again.

Just as the guy opened his mouth, Leo cut him off with a “Nice way to treat the guy who just saved your life.” Because at the end of the day he deserved a moment of being a petty asshole after busting his ass for a guy who had spent practically all of his moments of consciousness glaring at him with anger.

His reluctant patient stared him down a second time before choosing to respond.

Notes:

Also I aged everyone up because i wanted too. oops.