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“Come here, cub.” A big paw wraps itself around Leo’s shoulder, pulling the small turtle closer to Tiger Claw. He can feel the tiny pinpricks of claws digging into his skin, but he has the luxury of being unconcerned.
Following the command soundlessly, he peers over at what Tiger Claw is pointing out to him. He never says much, but Tiger Claw is fine with that. Outside of their hideout, they subsist off of essential conversations only, aside from learning opportunities such as these. Inside isn’t much different, Leo notes, but there’s a higher chance of banter or personal chats, at least; Leo’s lucky enough to see the side of the tiger not many others have.
“Smell this,” Tiger Claw demands, and Leo does. “Tell me what you find.”
“Rot. It’s past salvaging.” There’s something else there, but he’s scared to mention it for fear of ridicule. Or worse, disappointment.
Tiger Claw stares at him for a beat, and Leo’s insides make quick work of tearing themselves apart before he speaks again. “And what else?”
“It smells… sweet. Sweeter than normal.”
“And why is that?”
At this, Leo finds himself drawing a blank. He doesn’t know why; dogs and other dead animals smell better than this, and that’s a crazy thing to say about rot. Mangled beyond recognition, the carcass offers him no clues.
‘It is a human,” Tiger Claw explains, and Leo recoils. Humans, down to their very corpses, were dangerous.
Instead of admonishing him for showing fear, Tiger Claw chuckles and pulls him closer to his side, close enough that Leo can feel the laugh reverberate in his chest. He leans into the comfort in the face of his biggest fear. “Do not be wary, my cub. This human can do you no harm. They are suitable meat, if caught in time. This one is too far gone, but one day when you are old enough we can hunt for fresh meat.”
“I’m old enough now!” Leo bites out. His indignation at being sidelined winning out over his common sense. He’d known to never back-talk, he’d learned that lesson years ago under a different Master.
Again, Tiger Claw merely laughs. “You will be soon, cub. Patience.” He stands up, helping Leo to his feet after the boy stumbles to get up. They remain hand-in-hand the rest of their hunting trip, and Leo lets the smell of human rot roll over his tongue.
----- CHAPTER BREAK -----
His thoughts stray as he stares at the tiny shell in front of him.
Leonardo is splayed out on his front - a
plastron
, the young boy had called it - in front of him, legs split out in a w-shape not unlike a dog and in a way Tiger Claw knows will cause his knees to ache later.
The position exposes his tail. Leonardo had hinted that this appendage was
sensitive
. Tiger Claw does not ask him to close his legs.
He scrubs the bristle brush down the back of his shell - carapace - paying extra attention to the grooves between the bigger pieces. The boy had started to smell of filth and rot from the things he could not dig out of his shell himself, and it is the reason he had suggested a shared bath to the turtle.
Leo groans, and Tiger Claw’s hand tightens on the handle. It was not the only reason.
“C’n you go lower?” his cub mumbles, and Tiger Claw’s hands shake as he bites back a reprimand about bossiness.
He shouldn’t be doing this.
But Leonardo looks back at him with those big eyes of his, blue like innocence and trusting like a fool, a gaze that makes Tiger Claw’s stomach squirm tossed carelessly over his shoulder, like he knows what he’s doing to the older man.
Maybe he does.
Tiger Claw’s hand strays, scratching the bristles as low on the shell as he dares.
His eyes zero in on the way Leonardo wiggles his bottom slightly in response, his ears picking out the soft sigh over the scratching.
Any reservations he has over this fly out of the window. But now is not the time or the place to push, not this late at night, and Tiger Claw contents himself with finishing his cub’s bath and walking him to bed.
----- CHAPTER BREAK -----
“Daddy issues?” Raphael drawls, slinking out from the shadows like the snake he is with a charmer’s smile.
“Shut up,” Leo hisses, staring daggers at the ugly scar on the other turtle’s plastron because he doesn’t have the guts to meet his eyes with the inferno on his cheeks. “Shut up or I’ll fucking
kill you
.”
Raphael snorts. “No you wouldn’t.”
No, he wouldn’t. Money’s on them being related somehow, and Leo can be an idiot but he’s a
loyal
idiot. He wouldn’t kill his maybe-brother.
He thinks about it a lot. Has at least thirty plans. But he wouldn’t put them in place unless asked.
“Why were you watching?” he deflects, stepping into Raphael’s space and delighting in the fear stink the other turtle hadn’t fully worked out. Of the two of them, Leo would win. Raphael knows that.
Raphael steps back.. “Had a deal for you, but family drama’s funnier.”
“Deal?”
“Bounty hunting. Ten thousand.”
“Only?”
“Word is it’s a test,” Raphael leans forward, whispering conspiratorially, “for The Shredder.”
Leo stiffens. “We don’t want anything to do with him,” he growls. “Leave us -”
“Not ‘us,’ moron. You.”
Dodging the finger jabbing at his chest, Leo makes to backflip off the roof because Raphael hates it and he suddenly needs to vacate the premises immediately. “Goodbye, Raphael.”
On his way back home, he thinks of ways to grovel to Tiger Claw. The older man was right, always.
----- CHAPTER BREAK -----
His knee was shattered. Sensei had waited for a week, but once it was clear the same mutagenic healing that cleared bruises and cuts overnight did not apply to shattered bones, he grew impatient and decided to test his healing factor elsehow.
Leo rubs the scar tenderly, almost reverently. The rat didn’t break him, no matter how hard the monster had tried.
In the name of a perfect soldier.
It’s like this that Tiger Claw finds him: hunched over himself in a corner, soothing old scars that had no right to hurt and breathing heavily through panic he had no right to feel. It’s embarrassing and he knows this, but his efforts to quell the feelings are futile.
Tiger Claw surprises him. A paw reaches out, claws so completely tucked away the action is more than deliberate; retracting them so far was a pain and he was bearing that pain for
little Leonardo, so fragile
.
He shuffles back before he realizes what he’s doing and waits for the blow when he comes to himself. It never lands.
“Cub,” Tiger Claw whispers, voice gentle but hitting Leo harder than a slap. “Cub, come out of there.”
The silence is not a surprise. His vocal cords lock themselves up all the time, even in situations more mundane than this. Still, he tries to choke out something close to a refusal.
Instead of releasing the claws and dragging him out (Leo rubs his arms at the memory of Sensei doing the same), Tiger Claw shuffles closer into the closet. “My cub, you are safe with me.”
Leo shakes. He’s
never
safe, not with Sensei or in the sewers or anybody else. Tiger Claw is no different.
But then Tiger Claw bundles him into his arms, manhandling his locked-up limbs with ease and holding him close as a baby. “You are allowed to be scared,” he assures, and Leo chokes at the way the words help to loosen the knot inside of his chest. He’s too old to be acting like this.
And then Tiger Claw is kissing the top of his head, gentle as a father, and all the times Leo had accidentally referred to him as ‘dad,’ within his own head burst forth and he buries his face in Tiger Claw’s chest, sobbing. “I’m sorry,” he blubbers, and Tiger Claw (dad, dad,
dad
) shushes him with another kiss.
“Do not be sorry, cub. Instead, use that fear. Allow it to make you stronger.” His fingers find Leo’s chin, dwarfing his head but gently angling it up all the same. “You have a warrior’s spirit, Leonardo. I am so proud of how far you have come.”
The words settle lightly in his heart, bright and hot enough to burn his cheeks. “Thank you,” he whispers.
Tiger Claw smiles warmly and leans down to press a kiss to his neck that has Leo burning for another reason. “Do not thank me,” he rumbles low in his chest.
Forgetting the tear stains on his cheeks, Leo shifts to a more comfortable position on Tiger Claw’s lap.
----- CHAPTER BREAK -----
“
Mmnf
, fuck, fuck,
fuck
,” Leo drools onto the hand he slaps over his mouth, but he’s too far gone to care. Neat freak as he is, the toy pounding inside of him feels too good to worry about a little spit. “
Shit
.”
He pulls it out and feels it drag along his over-sensitive walls, whining at the sensation.
“Shit,” he pants again, drawing in a ragged breath at the stab of pleasure-pain he gets from pushing the dildo back in, and reaching for a pillow to muffle himself with. Tiger Claw had left for a supply run earlier, but that didn’t mean he couldn’t come back early.
Didn’t mean he couldn’t hear Leo’s wails bouncing down the hallway. Didn’t mean he wouldn’t storm into his room, the familiar fury of a parent finding their kid up to no good shining in his eyes. Didn’t mean he wouldn’t punish Leo, using his big paws to pin him down and -
Leo jerks into the toy, pressing the pillow harder against his face to muffle his cries. Fuck, fuck.
Tiger Claw pinning him down and having his way with him, punishing him how he sees fit, raking his claws down Leo’s arms and pulling him closer with them, crushing him beneath his massive frame.
With every thought that crosses his mind, his movements grow harder, more insistent. He thanks all of the training that helped build endurance and then bucks at the thought of training.
Tiger Claw manhandling him into place, Tiger Claw using that deep rumbly voice to correct him, Tiger Claw watching him train and seeing something in him, something
desirable
.
Tiger Claw holding him down and splitting him in
two
. Tiger Claw being so rough Leo’s head slams against the wall with every thrust. Tiger Claw holding him so close, so tight, he has bruises to remind him who he belongs to for
weeks
.
“Hah…
Ha~ah
.” A few more thrusts and Leo’s coming, arching on the bed with a desperate wail.
In his comedown, he doesn’t notice his door shut, nor Tiger Claw silently retracing his steps to the front of their house.
----- CHAPTER BREAK -----
His arm is killing him, but he grits his teeth and stands as he has been taught to do since before he could walk. A job not done is a stain on their record, and hell hath no fury like a perfectionist scorned.
He takes a precious second to observe the wound and make sure he won’t die. It’s deep, needs stitches, but if he does his fucking job he won’t bleed out any time soon. If he did his fucking job right the first time he wouldn’t be bleeding at all.
He can feel Tiger Claw watching from the sidelines, silently observing. It’s even more of a push to kill the man, because this was one of Leo’s first solo targets and he did
not
want to disappoint Tiger Claw, not when he’s come so far, not when he’s gotten used to the life he’s living. He can’t afford another mistake.
So he stalks forward, watching as the target writhes in his own piss. Leo can’t feel sympathy. Not with his arm smarting halfway to hell and a newfound motivation sparking in his veins. Regardless of what he did to land himself on a hitlist, the human truly deserved it now.
And it’s because he’s focusing so hard on being perfect he messes up in the worst way.
Locked in his head, he doesn’t notice the way the human fumbles for a gun hidden under himself until it’s too late, doesn’t notice where the bullet landed until the human’s head is cut clean off and he has time to parse his thoughts from the panicky static clouding his head.
The only word that comes out of his mouth is, arguably, the worst one he could have chosen. “
Dad!
”
Tiger Claw slumps against the wall, thrown backwards by the force of the bullet. A big, wet red bloom unfurls on his shirt, expanding until it’s the only thing Leo can see. Rushing forward, he barely manages to stop himself before he faceplants into Tiger Claw’s chest. “No, no, no, dad, dad I’m sorry,
no -”
The world is a haze for him, marred by red and the wet on his hands. He doesn’t stop blubbering until Tiger Claw grabs his wrists with bruising force, prying them away from the wound, and it becomes clear the man had been talking to him for a minute. “Leonardo, cub, stop. I am fine, I am fine. It only grazed my side.” He lifts his shirt, barely wincing at the movement. Leonardo can’t stop himself from tracing the skin around the wound.
“You… you could have -” he chokes before he can finish, vocal cords freezing in his throat. His forehead bumps against Tiger Claw’s, and that is enough for now. He can’t bring himself to touch anymore, to reach out for more than he has taken. Tiger Claw is wounded because of
his
shortcomings and failures, and he’s still comforting
Leo
?
Leo pushes away, but Tiger Claw pulls him back.
“Hush, my cub. It is alright. I am alright. I am here, breathing. You can feel me.” Cradling Leo’s head in one of his hands, he grabs for his injured arm with the other. “Let’s get home and patched up. Then we can discuss what went wrong.”
Leo flinches away again, and Tiger Claw picks the frozen boy up with ease, even with his injury.
But Leo’s too sick with worry for the action to kickstart the butterflies in his chest that it usually does.
By the time they get home, cleaned up, and the punishment sorted (only a ban from solo missions for the next couple of months, which leaves Leo trembling, waiting for the other shoe to drop), he’s forgotten about his slip of the tongue earlier.
Tiger Claw has not.
----- CHAPTER BREAK -----
Michelangelo’s lollipop crunches in his mouth and Leo feels his eye twitch in kind. He had no desire to spend time with the youngest of the Inoue twins, but Tiger Claw had told him to “play nice,” while he attended business in the other room, so he was playing nice.
As the sons of a wealthy business mogul, Leo found the Inoue twins more than annoying despite only spending minutes with each of them. They had everything handed to them on a silver platter.
Leo scraped through his childhood by the skin of his teeth.
But they weren’t cruel. And that had to garner them some kind of credit.
Michelangelo shifts in his seat, crunching the last few bits of his candy. He’s fidgety, flighty. Leo’s set on edge being around him and his constant flurry of movement.
So he waits with his heart fluttering in his ribcage until the other turtle gives up on staying quiet and says something. “So, Tiger dude is, like, your dad, right?”
Leo stiffens. He had only called Tiger Claw “dad,” once before, but he meant it with every fiber of his being, more than he had meant anything in his life. Tiger Claw was there for him, taught him, took care of him,
loved
him.
“It’s complicated.”
He did not want another father.
Michelangelo hums and kicks his legs like a child. “Yea, I thought so. Y’know, being in here as often as I am,” he gestures at the plush office space with a chuckle, “I tend to hear stuff.”
For once, he doesn’t have to force the mean expression on his face. “What does that mean?”
“Nothin’. Want to play Uno?”
“No, I want you to tell me what the
fuck
you’re trying to imply,” Leo snaps, losing control of everything he had been taught and spilling all of his cards onto the table.
They hear footsteps, and Michelangelo must realize he’s running out of time because he claps a piece of paper into Leo’s hand with a pleading expression, abandoning his manipulative Uno game. “I know dads don’t look at their kids like that, and I think you know that, too,” he whispers, sounding for all the world like this is the most important information Leo will hear in his life.
Their parents step into the room, Mr. Inoue happy to have a problem taken care of, and Tiger Claw eager to start another hunt. When he leaves, Leo throws the paper into the first trash can he sees without looking at it.
----- CHAPTER BREAK -----
He is going to kill Donatello Inoue in the next hour.
The oldest Inoue twin has been shadowing him with the stealth and silence of a bull since they left the Inoue compound, paying far more attention to the person on the other end of his phone than where he puts his feet.
Leonardo has learned over the course of his life that, generally, when trying to kill someone it is best not to let them know you’re there, lest they try to do silly things like fight back or run. Donatello, who has been raised on a silver spoon, does not seem to know this rule.
“What are you doing?” he eventually hisses, stopping in an alley a couple of blocks from his target. He’s entertained this long enough, but any farther and he risks compromising his mission.
Donatello does not look up. “Following you, to make sure this job is done right. Last time it was messy.”
“What the hell do you know about how to bounty hunt the
right way?
”
“I know that my father specifically requests for it to be neat.” Donatello lets the words hang in the air for a second. He meets Leo’s eyes. “And I know that you can’t be older than fifteen.”
“If you’re worried about experience, I’ve been training for six years. I’m perfectly capable -”
“I don’t doubt that.” Finally, Donatello pockets his phone. Leo can feel himself relax slightly at the idea of the other turtle taking this somewhat seriously.
“Then what do you care?”
Twelve years of training go down the drain as Donatello backs him against a wall before he can think, an arm on either side of his head to pin him in place. If he couldn’t anticipate a lanky teen pinning him, is he really ready for this job?
He barely manages to catch Donatello running his mouth again over his stuttering heart. He hates being caged in. “Do you think it’s normal for children to kill people? Do you think any of what you do is normal? You should be doing teenager things, not - not
this
. That tiger is
brainwashing
you -”
A sharp yelp and a spray of blood and Donatello’s stumbling back, clutching his cheek.
Later, after Leo presents his successful mission to Mr. Inoue, he and Tiger Claw bow to the man and his sons. Tiger Claw is livid, eyes hardly ever leaving the bandage on Donatello’s cheek.
“Apologize,” he growls, claws scratching at Leo’s shell as he pushes him forward. “And I will deal with you later.”
Leo does, swallowing around the bitter lump in his throat. He can’t stop shaking, and he doesn’t know if that will make his punishment worse.
When he’s finished, Tiger Claw pulls him up from the deep bow and wraps an arm around his waist to guide him out. For the first time Leo finds himself uncomfortable with the affection. He can’t understand why until a moment of weakness pushes him to look back.
Donatello’s eyes and Michelangelo’s frown stay trained on the arm, and they follow him out.
----- CHAPTER BREAK -----
“I am going to
kill them
,” Leonardo hisses, and Tiger Claw feels the truth in the sentiment burn in his chest like molten rock. “I am going to carve out their
tongues
-”
“Leonardo.” He refrains from using his cub’s name outside of serious situations. The scarcity garners him immediate attention when he does use it, and he’s proud that even in his rage, Leonardo listens. “Hush. I do not ask for you to -”
“I’m not doing this for you.”
Leonardo’s words crash into him, and it’s hard to breathe around the fire spreading to his cheeks. Tiger Claw swallows to gather his wits.
He’s dangerous, he realizes for the first time. Raising an assassin is raising a child until startled into the reality of their skills, and he’s having his ice bucket moment right now. He does not doubt that Leonardo would go after the men.
He does not doubt that Leonardo would succeed in his mission, armed with fury and a poisonous focus. Even where Tiger Claw himself failed.
Tiger Claw settles a massive paw on Leonardo’s cheek, and his son nuzzles into it like a kitten. “My cub,” he whispers, because no other words come to mind. No other words make it past the fiery pride in his chest.
Leonardo leans forward to kiss him, passing over pain medication when he pulls away.
When Tiger Claw awakens, a new display of human teeth sits on a shelf.
----- CHAPTER BREAK -----
"I love you," Leo says, and he means it with every fiber of his being. He means it irrevocably, eternally. Familial, romantic, platonic, he means it all.
"I love you," Tiger Claw says, and he thinks he means it enough. I love what you do for me, he means, I love what you can give me.
Leonardo knows the distinction between the two. He loves Tiger Claw all the same.
His old Master had been cruel. Leo had been beaten without remorse, given no chance to stand and hold his own against a man crumbling under the weight of his own pathetic grief. He doesn't know if his old Master loved him. Leo thinks he did, in his own way.
Leo loved his old Master. Loved, loved, loved, to the ends of the Earth. Loved, loved, loved, with every bone in his body.
His old Master had made good use of his love, until he had used it all.
Now Leonardo serves under a different man, and is happier for it. Tiger Claw loves him, in a way that's uncruel and caring. Tiger Claw loves him enough to teach him, to let him stand, to give him everything he wants and more.
He doesn't want anything to do with his old life. He does not want another Master, nor Father, nor Clan.
He does not want to kill Oroku Saki or to kill for the man.
The rat had talked about this man, this supposed beast, for ages. Leo's memories of the man taste of blood and dirt, as the name had swiftly been accompanied by a rough lesson to prepare him to continue a hundred years' war.
"I don't want anything to do with Oroku Saki," Leo tells Tiger Claw, and he means it with every fiber of his being.
"You will not have to see him, cub," Tiger Claw replies, and Leo knows he would watch the world burn to honor the vow.
He buries his face in the man's neck, toying with so many names to call Tiger Claw in this moment. Protector, Teacher, Father, Love.
"I love you," he whispers, so fiercely it's like he's never loved before.
Tiger Claw trembles underneath him.
Leo begins to think that part of that love is the love of the power he holds over the man.
----- CHAPTER BREAK -----
"Your tiger daddy do that to ya?" Raphael slinks out of the shadows, coming to sit next to him on the rooftop.
He's pointing at the bruises on Leo's thighs, pretty blues and purples he had begged for Tiger Claw to brand him with the night before. If Raphael is worried by those, he'd hate to see the bite marks Leo has buried under his wrappings.
"Yes." Maybe if he makes Raphael uncomfortable enough (as uncomfortable as he's pretending he isn't) the other turtle will leave him alone. "Street life hasn't been treating you well."
And it hasn't, in truth. Raphael's skinnier now, enough muscles to survive barely hanging onto his bones and a hungry look in his eyes to match.
Well, eye.
Raphael angles his face away so that Leo can't see his new eye patch, drawing into himself without noticing. "Ah, it's fine. Xever's tied up at the moment with ol' Shred Head. Took some getting used to."
Shred Head is a ridiculous name. It's kind of cute.
"My offer still stands, you know," he says, throwing the words out there and hoping they'll stick to something. He'd invited Raphael to join him on missions, taking a hit here and there, or working together and splitting the profit. Anything to get him from looking so gaunt. "We have to stick together, out here."
"And get fucked by the tiger on the reg? No thanks, I'll pass." Raphael guffaws. "I don't know what weird daddy romance shit you two have going on, but leave me out of it."
A dark feeling swells inside of him, but he pushes it down, not looking to have another body to clean up tonight. Especially not of someone he could grow to like. "He wouldn't be fucking you."
"Touched a nerve, huh?"
Leo's hands twitch to his swords. "Shut up."
"I don't know what you see in him," Raphael continues, stupid or foolish or reckless or stubborn or all of it. "When I'm right here."
Leo stills.
"We could be brothers."
Raphael edges closer, blocking the throwing knife with one of his own and pressing a second to Leo's throat. "Afraid?"
"Never."
"Good. I could make you bleed just as pretty."
Leo jerks his head forward, smashing it into Raphael's beak and throwing himself backward while he's stunned. His heart is racing, pulsing erratically and he seethes at Raphael for making the traitorous thing start up. He'll cut it out himself if he has to.
"Think about my offer, Raphael."
As he makes his way home, the bruises on his thighs feel dirtier and dirtier. He just wants to sleep.
----- CHAPTER BREAK -----
They brought out the alcohol an hour ago, but Leo hadn't touched it.
Raph had begged him to, telling him it would be funny, then that it was a special family occasion, then that he needed to loosen up, point-blank. Still, Leo refused.
Donnie and Mikey had taken his abstaining with more grace than Raph had, only offering once and sharing a look when he told them no.
Leo would never touch alcohol again, not if he could help it.
But as it was a family function, in a way, he had let his guard drop slightly. They had found out that they were all siblings after all, separated at birth through some twist of fate and set on vastly different paths.
Donnie and Mikey, a cushy path of luxury. Leo and Raph, a path where the comfy couches and bright lights of the room the twins had rented out had them flinching with uncomfortable laughs.
The two of them naturally sat closer together. It was always safer to have someone covering your flank.
"So your dad was okay with you guys usin' this room? Letting
us
use this room?" Raph takes another swig of his beer. His shoulders are tight.
Donnie and Mikey share a look again, and Leo knows the truth instantly. Their father did not approve of the two of them. Their father did not know about this room, or the fancy champagne and beer, or the fact that the bounty hunter kid who had given his eldest son a scar across his perfect face was now playing a half-hearted game of Uno with him.
Leo snorts, and lays down a stack of plus two's.
"He, uh. He'll come around," Mikey assures, sneakily laying down a yellow seven so Raph wouldn't flip the table again. Leo liked him for that.
'They'll never tell him,' Raph mouths, and Leo snorts both for what he says and Donnie's offended reaction to it.
"Do your parents know?" Mikey asks, and the fondness he'd felt for the kid three seconds ago vanishes.
"I don't have parents." He bites. Raph seconds the notion with a wave of his beer in Leo's general direction.
"What about Tiger Claw?" Donnie prods. Prodding, prodding, always prodding. Doesn't anyone ever get sick of prodding into his life?
"He's not my parent."
The two of them back off at the venom in his voice, and he lets himself relax again, if only slightly.
----- CHAPTER BREAK -----
Sometimes, he feels wrong for this.
Leonardo writhes underneath him, hands raking down his back, and he cannot help the guilt curdling in his stomach.
He should not be doing this. Not with a child. Not with his child.
But then Leonardo arches up to meet him, and the guilt is chased by something stronger than morals.
Leonardo is his cub. He takes good care of the boy, teaching him everything he knows and more to give him a good life. He took him in when his previous father had left him among ashes and ruin with a broken leg and a far more shattered spirit.
He loves the boy.
Surely, it is not so far to assume that the boy loves him, too?
He told himself that as he bathed the child, scrubbing the places on his shell he couldn't reach.
He told himself that as he helped him get dressed into his gear for the first few months, before he could learn to do it on his own.
He told himself that as he fed the boy, as he tucked him in, as he taught him and pushed him and loved him.
Leonardo's eyes stare up into his own, open and so, so trusting. Tiger Claw decides that's close enough to love.
Or tells himself that, anyway.
----- CHAPTER BREAK -----
“You are getting rid of it?” Tiger Claw rests a paw on Leo’s stomach, a steady pressure to distract from what’s hidden underneath his plastron.
Leo pauses. He hadn’t wanted to, in truth. He wanted something solid, something more physical to bond him to the older mutant for longer than either would be alive. Tiger Claw could never leave if he had a child to keep him tethered.
But their lifestyle is not good for a kid, and though Leo knows he would love and care for it as best he could, it’s cruel to bring one into a life such as his.
And Tiger Claw doesn’t want a child.
“Yes,” he mumbles. His hand curls over Tiger Claw’s, intertwining in a way that he can pretend is a parental shield around their child, full of love and awe. It’s one-sided, though, at the end of the day, and Leo’s not an idiot. “I’ll- I’ll take the pill tonight.”
“Good boy.” Tiger Claw rumbles. It vibrates in Leo’s skull.
He tries not to cry as he takes the pill. He knows he’s not ready, he’s only a child himself, but he loves the clump of cells inside of him so much it hurts, and he can’t bear to look in the toilet at the bloody mess he leaves behind.
Tiger Claw takes him that night as a reward. Leo tries not to cry then, too.
----- CHAPTER BREAK -----
“He got me pregnant once.” Leo runs a cloth along his katana, nonchalance in the face of the grief stabbing at his ribs. “I wanted to keep it.”
“That’s fucked up,” Mikey says. There’s no sugarcoating or pity in the words, and Leo’s grateful. A simple statement for what should be a simple situation.
Tiger Claw got him pregnant at fifteen. That’s bad. He should be glad he got rid of the child before it ruined his life.
He
should
be. He is not.
“I wanted it,” he repeats, and Donnie sighs from behind him somewhere. Leo stopped taking tabs on their locations a while ago.
There he is. Donnie walks around to Leo’s field of vision, tapping at a test tube. “That stuff’s complicated Leo. Don’t beat yourself up for it.”
“And besides,” Raph throws an arm around Leo’s shoulders, pressing his face close. Dangerously close. They still don’t know what they are, yet, caught somewhere between two fucked up kids and lovers.
Leo doesn’t want to put a label on it. He won’t put a label on it.
“Did you
want
the kid?” Raph continues, oblivious to the way Leo’s glaring or just not caring enough to heed the warning. His eye twinkles in the light of Donnie’s room, and Leo has a very brief urge to rip it from its socket and give Raph a matching set. He doesn’t, but he could. “Or did you want a tie to ol’ pussy cat?”
Mikey and Donnie look on in confusion, and Leo grumbles that the least emotionally competent of them all managed to pin the nail on the head. “Shut the fuck up, I swear.”
“Got it.” Raph winks. Or blinks.
----- CHAPTER BREAK -----
“Mmnf, wha…?” Leo wakes up to movement and a heat between his legs he’s familiar with in any other context. It’s insistent, pushing at him even through his daze.
A paw stops him before he can sit up. “Hush, cub. Stay still.” The heat takes shape, an elongated something pistoning between his thighs, and Leo shivers at the sensation.
“Wh’t’re you doin’?” The urge to shove his face back into his pillow is strong, but the pressure building in his groin is stronger, and he experimentally rocks back. He’s rewarded with a groan.
“None of your concern, cub,” Tiger Claw soothes. The movement becomes erratic, Leo feels himself shake with the bed. It would be enough to wake him up were he not so insistent on staying in this hazy dreamland.
By the time Tiger Claw finishes, Leo has already dozed off.
When he wakes up, he realizes the action for what it was. Maybe he should feel betrayed, or used.
But he doesn’t.
The memory warms him, he likes the idea of being forced into something pleasurable. He likes being there for Tiger Claw, whenever he needs it, giving up his love and his body willingly at any minute of the day. He is wholly devoted and Tiger Claw finding use for him at all hours is something that makes him squirm in his alone time, fingers tracing absent shapes lower, lower on his plastron.
Maybe this isn’t normal. But Leo had accepted that what he and Tiger Claw had was special long ago.