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Leo groaned, an arm over his bloodshot eyes and sunken puffy bags. He laid in his bed, uncomfortable and tired, like he had been doing for the past 4 hours. And now he had a headache. Great.
There was no way he was going to sleep now, so he slowly sat up and swung his legs over the side of his bed. He rubbed at his eyes with his index and thumb, trying to soothe his mind before it turned into a full blown migraine. Should he traverse to the kitchen for some water and ibuprofen? Or stay in his cold, dank, dark room with his lumpy mattress? Even though the latter was seemingly more appealing to his pain-ogled brain, he sighed and reminded himself that he couldn’t read Lou-Jitsu comics to pass the time with the pressure behind his eyes building by the second. So he wrapped his beloved blanket around himself and steeled his knees to stand.
Draxum Threw-Leo-Off-A-Roof Baron said that Leon would most likely never fully recover from what he went through, having hip and knee problems for the rest of his life. That wasn’t a particularly easy pill to swallow—and Leo totally didn’t take it out on his room the moment he was alone, no siree —but he managed. He had his whole family to back him up, and Dee even let him help design his mobility aids! He had his braces for everyday wear, and arm crutches for bad days or even if he just needed the extra support. But right now he would forego all options, since he was just making a trip to the kitchen and back.
Such a short trip didn’t mean no hiccups though. As Leo eased himself up, he could hear his joints cracking like bubble wrap. He let out a grunt as his hip refused to pop, even as he moved it around a bit. Okay, maybe he would snag an arm crutch on the way.
He held his blanket tighter with one arm as he grabbed a crutch with his right, making his way out the door to the somehow colder subway station. As he took a moment to rearrange himself, he could hear shuffling coming from the kitchen. Did an animal get in? Or one of the annoying villains that can’t seem to leave them alone? Cough—Hypno and Warren—cough cough. If it was them, Leo was going to beat their ASSES. You do not wake up a turtle this late and get away with it—even if he was already awake but that’s not the point. He started to speed his way over, an anger in his step as he riled himself up. He went to sass them off until he saw who the true culprit was.
There stood his dear brother Donnie, rummaging through the fridge at an almost frantic pace, a mug held in one hand as his robotic ones helped him search the shelves. He, surprisingly, hadn’t noticed Lee yet, seeming lost in his own world, which was a bit worrying for the turtle. Leo knew Don was partially deaf, but he was still usually aware of his surroundings. Leon had his crutch echoing throughout their near empty subway, for Pizza Supreme sake.
“Donnie?” He whispered. No response. Dang it, Don, he didn’t want to wake the others.
“Don!” Still no response.
“Dee!” He hadn’t gone above a whisper-yell, but it was just enough to get the softshell’s attention. It might’ve worked a little too well, Leo realized, as the purple turtle nearly jumped out of his skin, fumbling with the mug. What really shook Lee, though, was the utter fear that shown in his twin’s eyes; like he was about to be murdered. Dee pulled his hands to his chest in defense, ultimately letting the mug drop.
Earlier...
Donnie laid on his bed and glanced towards the clock. 2:00 am, on the dot. He sighed. He couldn’t stop thinking about what Michael had said the other night. He had tried to just bury himself in his work to rid the thought process from his brain—and succeeded for a little while—but his mind always wandered back. Finally, he sighed and opened his laptop. It wasn’t like he was going to get any sleep tonight anyway. He let curiosity take over. He only ever gathered info in the context of Leo when it came to regression, but he had never really considered… himself, in that category. His brain just didn’t think of that as an option for him, even though some of his brothers did it. That is, until Mikey said that one-off comment, affecting Don’s brain way more than he was comfortable with. Not in a bad way, he concluded, no, he had nothing against age regression, he just…hadn’t thought of it that way.
And so, he started his research, finding the aspects that he identified with, and even exploring areas he hadn’t thought to before. Different fandoms, aesthetics, age ranges. He filtered out anything sexual, of course—that stuff gave him the ick. Childhood should be innocent, not…that. He grimaced.
He kept mindlessly browsing, looking into some other topics he’d been meaning to investigate, until he stumbled upon an image. One of a creature that fell under the category of ‘uncanny valley,’ it’s distorted face staring at him through the monitor. Looking at him. He gasped aloud. He suddenly felt cold, and his stomach dropped. All the imaginary hairs on his body stood on end, and he slammed his laptop shut. His brain was whirling with sudden panic and he knew needed to calm down, immediately.
Donnie, unfortunately, had not been very honest with his brothers about how the Technodrome had affected him. Once it had connected to him mentally, he saw images he wished he never had, entities that should not exist just because of how disturbing they were, how he wished they would stop peering into his mind, and it reminded him of just how scary nature, science, and especially the unknown, could be. He wasn’t sure if those experiences were made up by his brain as a side effect, or if those husks had existed at some place in time, but he wished he could just move on from the whole ordeal. Alas, genius can never prevail, apparently.
Donatello wasn’t stupid. That ship connected to his brain. And after—even during— the act of being forcefully removed from the main console, he knew something was wrong. He didn’t notice anything too major at first—just minor dizziness and vision blurring—so he brushed it off until he could let himself stop moving; until he knew his brothers were stable and safe . For about a week, nothing had come up. Donnie had also been running himself ragged, updating security, taking care of his brothers, keeping an eye on the news. At the end of this first week, that was when his symptoms really started.
There, in the corner of his lab, was one of those things . Distorted, almost human-like, but not . He stared right at it, paralyzed, and it stared right back. Almost into him, with a primordial hunger. For hours. Time passed with Donnie both ignorant and well too aware, and eventually he heard a knock on his door. Donnie whipped his head towards it, and in just as little time, he looked back to the corner and it was gone. Leo announced breakfast, but Don could barely hear. He was just as panicked as when it was there, trying to convince himself it wasn’t real, couldn’t be real.
That day, he had gone to his bedroom, put up a ‘Do Not Disturb’ sign, and had taken enough melatonin to knock out a horse. After testing the entire corner of the room with no result or evidence of anything out of the ordinary, he thought it could’ve just been lack of sleep. But soon, similar things occurred whether he got sleep or not. Breathing on the back of his neck, eyes in the corner of his room, scratching noises on the wall. And sometimes he would experience it again, with the same flood of terror. After a brain scan, he couldn’t find anything too abnormal, but then again he was no doctor. This wasn’t his science of choice. He didn’t want to get Leo involved though; he had too much work to do to be put on bedrest, and his brother had his own healing to do. If he had to guess, he found that it was most likely something akin to a type of schizophrenia or psychosis, but he didn’t really know or want to think about it that much. He was just hoping it was a temporary thing, and found ways to deal.
So there he sat, looking around in the darkness while doing a breathing exercise, trying to tell himself that these visions were not real, that he was in no danger. He needed a drink. He grabbed a battle shell and hyped himself up to get out of bed, and to enter the dark outside his door, an inevitable journey to get to the fridge. Eventually, after enough back and forth with himself, he jumped up and hurried himself out to the kitchen, trying to ignore everything his brain was telling him while his hands unconsciously clenched and unclenched. He grabbed the first mug he saw from the cabinet and opened the fridge, looking frantically for his flavorless juice and ignoring how the sudden cold made a shiver run down his shell. Where was it, where was it? He needed it, he had to calm down and his juice was comfortable, familiar. So where the fuck was it?! He needed it otherwise they would get him, they would get him and they would—
“Dee!” A shatter.
He nearly jumped out of his skin as his body reeled away, finally settling his frenzied eyes to look at his brother, that was Leo, he confirmed. Though, he couldn’t stop himself from glancing at the lanky figure looming above Lee, sucking in and letting out a shaky breath.
“Woah, Don, are you okay? What’s wrong?” Don just shook his head viciously, continually switching between looking at Leo and it. He wouldn’t have been able to utter a word if he wanted to.
Leo looked behind him, confused and worried; those feelings amping up when he saw there was nothing.
“Dee, what is it, what are you looking at? Talk to me, hermano.” He couldn’t help but start to panic a tiny bit at the sight of his twin, shaking and hyperventilating, at seemingly thin air. He wasn’t going crazy…was he? Had an experiment gone wrong or something?
Donatello couldn’t move. He was utterly terrified, a feeling that overtook his entire being. With every ounce of will in his body, he moved his slow and trembling hands to sign to his brother, “Help.”
With that, Leo quickly avoided ceramic shards to lean his crutch against the counter and move towards his brother, who grasped towards him like his life depended on it, feet unmoving. Don buried himself into Leon, gripping him like he was protecting him, or that maybe like Leon was protecting Don. Even so, he kept his head so one eye could always look around the room. God, he was shaking like a leaf. What was scaring him so bad? He followed Don’s gaze to see it was mainly fixed on the spot previously behind him, and decided he would get him away from whatever he thought was there.
“Why don’t we make our way back to your room? I’ll wrap my blanket around us and protect us from the monsters, okay?” Donnie grabbed Leo harder, if that was possible, and slowly nodded. Leo started to move, and Dee tensed, but soon moved with him, albeit a bit awkwardly while he maintained eye contact with the spot of air that seemed to wrong him. He only looked away when he saw potential fleeting threats at the corners of his vision, and it scared Leo how wild his eyes looked. They made their way back to Don’s room as quickly as they could in that position.
Man, being Raph would be so nice right now. Usually, Leo would be able to pick Donnie up no problem, but now he had stupid bad legs to worry about. He was only a bit steamed about it.
They got back to Dee’s room in pretty good time nonetheless. Don immediately pulled Leo into his room and shut the door, locking it and flapping his hands for a second before he went back to clinging to Leon for dear life.
“Okay, Donnie, what’s going on? I need some info here.” Donnie sucked in a breath, and whispered so quiet Leo had to strain to hear it.
“They’re here, they’re gonna get me.” Lee's heart dropped.
“Who? Who’s gonna get you?”
“Them! Those…things, they…” His breath hitched, and with that, Donnie started to sob out of desperation and fear. And that took Leo back. Donnie didn’t just cry. Sometimes he couldn’t even if he wanted to. So, Leo took Don’s head to his shoulder and started to pet him while rubbing the parts of his shell he could reach under the armor. He knew that was soothing for him.
“Please, Leo, I don’t want them to kill me, I don’t wanna die, I don’t want—” He trailed off into something incomprehensible, words jumbling in his breakdown, and Leo’s heart shattered. He could feel Don’s fingers digging, grasping at his shell, and he pulled his twin impossibly closer. He put some pressure into the embrace, hoping to ground him.
“Shh, shh, it’s okay, Don. I would never let them hurt you. Why don’t we move to your bed, Dee, huh? I’ll protect you, they won’t get you, I promise.” Dee nodded frantically and Leo sat on his bed, gathering Donnie in his lap and wrapping his blanket around his whole body. He made sure Dee was as tucked into him as he could get. He kept whispering reassurances of safety to Don in an effort to ground him further, along with the soothing motions of his fingers and the steady pressure of the hug.
Don tried to focus on these comforts and block out the false stimuli his brain was reading, all the scary things it was telling him, and eventually, after who knows how long, Donnie’s breathing had become more even. His heavy, muted sobbing had reduced to the occasional hiccup and shaky exhale.
Worry was evident on Leo’s face, his thoughts running this way and that. Are these threats real? If they aren’t, what does that mean for Dee? What the hell happened?! He took a breath. He needed to be calm for Don. Panicking will only make the situation worse, and he knew Dee did not need that right now.
Once he was sure Donnie was in a more stable mindset, he asked softly, “Dee, how long has this been going on?” He got a small whimper in response, to which he let out a small sigh and laid his head on Don’s.
“So a while, huh?” Donnie hesitated before he gave a small nod.
“I’ll wait to be mad at you ‘til later. For now, I want to make sure my twin is okay. How do you feel?” Donnie slowly detached himself from Leo’s hold—though it was obvious he didn’t want to—and started to slowly sign.
“Scary. Not as much now. Crazy.” He paused. “...Small. Too small. Scary.” He shook his hands out after, trying to calm himself further. Donnie guessed that after learning age regression was an option for him—and not just a set box—his brain decided that this fresh info was going to be put to use instead of just shutting down the way he usually did when it got this bad. The way that Leo brought him out of his spiral probably didn’t help either. It was scary, this new feeling. Especially when paranoia still lingered at the back of his brain, ready to take over at a moment's notice.
But Lee was here, he reminded himself. He’d protect him. He put his arms around Leon’s neck and buried his head. He didn’t want to deal with anything right now. Especially not those…he scrunched his face.
Leo gave out a heavy sigh once more, this time accompanied by a soft smile, as he wrapped Dee up in his arms to move them into a lie down position on his bed. Donnie resituated himself with his head on Leo’s chest, his fists grabbing his plastron the best he could. Leo felt the hard edges of the battle shell and frowned. That was going to be a bitch to convince Don to take off, but he could deal with that in a bit.
“So, you said small, do you think you’re regressed right now, Dee? Do I have a little turtle tot on my hands?” The nickname made Don crack a tiny smile, despite how his night had been going thus far, and he gave a small nod.
Leo chuckled, “Not the best intro, huh?” Don shook his head.
“Do you think it was because you were so scared?” Leo was trying to see what had gotten them here, since he was pretty sure Donnie had never regressed before; he would have said something to Lee if he did. Then again, he hadn’t known about a lot until now. Dee gripped him a little tighter in response, his mouth tightening as he nodded.
“I saw something on my laptop, ‘nd then it got bad. I didn’t mean to.” Dee’s voice was quiet and shaky, and Leon was sure that someone was stomping on his shattered heart now. He wished he could take all the pain away from his currently younger twin, but some passed-midnight cuddles would have to suffice for now. Leo rubbed up and down the side of Dee’s shell.
“You aren’t in trouble, bubs, don’t worry. You can always tell me about this stuff, okay?” Donnie sighed in relief and sagged into Lee a bit more, calmed by the small nickname they used to use as kids. Leo looked down at Dee, watching him scrub the dried tears from his face. He reached over to grab some of the tissues from off of Don’s desk to help him out.
“Here, I know you hate how gross crying aftermath can feel. Can Ol’ Leon help a brother out?” He smirked down at the small turtle, and only smiled wider as it prompted some eye contact and a small smile from Donnie himself. Dee nodded slightly and closed his eyes as Leo cleaned the rest of his face gently. He took a deep breath and shivered, finally starting to calm down all the way and settled into the soft fuzzy feeling that helped him to ward off the bad thoughts. He quite liked it, when there wasn’t anything so terrifying as there was before. Things were a bit simpler, and his thoughts didn’t seem so big. He started to lean his head back down into Leo’s chest as he finished wiping his cheeks, but Leo seemed to remember something.
“Hey, little guy, I know you must be real tired after all that, but why don’t we get that clunky battleshell off you first, okay? That way your big bro here can give you a proper shell massage, how does that sound?” Leo’s eyes were filled with nothing but warmth when he met them, but Donnie’s heart rate still spiked at the mention of removing his metal plating. Though, a shell massage did sound really nice right about now…He thought it over in his head, and figured it would be okay since Lee was here to protect him. He promised, and those are very serious things! After a moment, he nodded and sat up a little.
Leo had to hold back from audibly cooing over Dee’s thinking face. It was pretty similar to big Don’s, just highly exaggerated, and it made Lee’s heart explode. Once it was decided, though, Leo moved up with the turtle in his lap to help him release the battleshell from off his back. The mechanisms were pretty simple once you knew where to look for them, so Leo had no trouble in finding the latches.
He released them one by one, watching the eyes of the sleepy Donnie in front of him droop, until the armor fell off onto the bed. He pulled it to the side and rested it against the bed frame. Surely Don can put it away tomorrow.
Once it was off, it was like a weight lifted from Donnie’s shoulders—and quite literally, it had. He sagged forward and sighed with content. He hadn’t realized how much the straps had been digging into his skin, and now he was very glad to have it off. He leaned against Lee and stuffed his face into the crook of his neck, very excited about that shell massage he mentioned.
“That feels much better, doesn’t it, bud? C’mon, let’s get situated.” Leon maneuvered them both into laying down once more, this time with Dee staying very planted in his shoulder and curling his hands into loose fists at his chest. Leo brought his hand up to pet at Don’s head and neck softly, releasing another content sigh from the softshell.
When it seemed that was all Leo intended to do, Don spoke up about this injustice, “Bubba, massage? Please?” He peeked one eye up at him, and it just about melted Leo into a puddle right then and there.
“Of course, of course. Silly me, I almost forgot! Thank you for reminding me, angel.” The nickname made Donnie wiggle a little, in a good way. A smile came to his face and he buried his snout further in his current older brother’s shoulder. Leo aww’ed at him and made a mental note that he definitely likes nicknames, and to ask if there are any he really likes. As soon as he starts the shell massage, Donnie is sinking into him with his full body weight, any and all remaining stress leaving his body.
Before he can officially konk out, Don holds up a sign with one hand and shakes it weakly; “I love you.” Lee’s eyes twinkle slightly as his smile brightens.
“I love you, too, DeeDee. Goodnight, my favorite twin, sweet dreams.” He plants a kiss atop Donnie’s head, and Don wants this feeling of safety to last forever as he drifts off. His breathing slowly evens out, and Leo lets out a soft sigh. Whatever was he to do with his dear hermano? For as much as he preaches being open about all their symptoms and conditions, whether from the Kraang invasion or not, it seems he hasn’t been doing a very good job of that himself. You hypocrite dumb-dumb, you. He looks down at him as his thoughts wander.
The whole situation was very familiar, except the roles were reversed this time. He was glad to finally be able to start returning the favor to his twin. He deserved love and comfort, too, especially if he had been going through whatever this was. Alone. Lee metaphorically kicked himself. Why hadn’t he noticed sooner? Don said this had been going on for a while; how long? Since the Technodrome? That was half a year ago! His heart broke a little more, for the hundredth time that night. He was definitely going to have a chat with Don tomorrow, and maybe schedule a meeting with Dr. Feelings. Him and Mikey are gonna have to work together on this one.
Speaking of Mikey, they still had that playdate scheduled. In lieu of Donnie’s newfound regression, maybe he would want to join them? Start fresh and on a better note than tonight had been? He’d have to make sure to ask about that too. The more the merrier, in his opinion!
His thoughts continued as Leo held his younger brother close, making sure he slept soundly. He maybe even joined him in his dreamland, after a while. He guessed he would get some sleep tonight, afterall, with a side of pleasant dreams and warm affection.
And they totally didn’t scatter when they came out for breakfast to see Raph tapping his foot angrily next to the pile-o-mug, no sir. And if that meant they got chased around the lair by the big red turtle, what was a little extra exercise?