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Cheering erupted around the table as Donnie bravely stuffed one more marshmallow into his mouth. He threw his hands over his head with a choked sort of mouth-full-of-mallow cry of victory.
April walked into the kitchen at that very moment and stopped dead in the doorway to stare.
The cheering, from both Donnie’s brothers and Casey, stopped as all heads turned to April. Don tried to close his mouth and found that he actually could not, so he grinned guiltily instead.
“Donatello,” she said with the full force of her big-sister voice, “spit those out before you choke.
He brought his hand up to his mouth and turned out the sticky mess.
“Into the trash!” she cried. They had never seen her move so fast as she dove for the bin and brought it to Donnie’s side.
The laughter started anew as Donnie, face purple with flushed embarrassment, was dragged over to the kitchen sink to wash his hands. Mikey and Raph clung to each other, tears gathering in their eyes while their stomachs ached with the sheer force of their laughter.
The group was spending a week at the farm to get away from it all for a while. Raph and Mike, resident sweet tooth committee, came prepared with multiple bags of marshmallows and chocolate. Maybe tooprepared. Three days in, they had yet to be able to consume any s’mores. They were drowning in cold autumn rain.
Donnie was returned to the table with freshly de-stickied hands. April paused in the doorway to give them all a narrow, calculating look, then snatched the open bag of marshmallows off the table. It went with her to the living room, where she and Splinter were marathoning ‘I Love Lucy’.
They dutifully groaned and complained as she walked away with the bag. As soon as she was out of earshot, Mikey reached into a tote bag under the table and withdrew a brand-new package.
“I wiped the floor with your measly fourteen marshmallows!” Donnie declared to Mikey. “I had seventeen.”
Mikey turned his snout up, eyes closed. “You forget, dear brother, that if you cannot close your mouth, it doesn’t count.”
The chaos began anew.
“You never closed your mouth!” Don cried.
“To be fair,” Raph muttered, “I don’t think he ever can.”
“But I coulda!”
Leo sat back with a smile, watching it all unfold like one of Sensei’s television stories. Raph met his eyes briefly, and they both suppressed a smirk.
What Mike, Casey, and Don didn’t know is that over the summer, Leo and Raph had a wild hair in the middle of the night and ended up in the kitchen, roasting marshmallows over the open flame of the propane stovetop. They'd laughed as they burned their fingers getting too close or touching the scorching hot fork after pulling it away from the flame, and before long they were goofing off more than making a snack. He couldn't even remember how or why it happened, but he crammed 20 uncooked marshmallows in his mouth before he had to stop, only because Raphael was laughing so hard he almost passed out, and waking the household became a real concern. Raph knew what he was doing when he looked at Mikey and said, 'bet you can't fit ten in your mouth'.
The squabbling around the table died down as Don explained his theories about the turtles' disproportionately large mouths. Casey, who had only managed to fit a mere six mallows in his average-size human mouth, nodded along.
"—honestly, I'm just glad we ended up with teeth," he finished.
Casey nodded. "Mhm, mhm, 'n that's also why I should be declared winner. You all cheated!"
Raph preempted the following shouts from Mike and Don. "Ya got it all wrong," he said, propping a foot on the leg of the table and tipping his chair back. "Leo's the winner."
All eyes turned to Leo, then back to Raph.
"For being most boring?" Mikey asked. Leo stuck his tongue out at him, and the younger brother happily returned the favor.
“Fer getting’ twenty marshmallows in that smug little face ‘a his.”
Mikey and Don’s jaws dropped right away. Casey just threw up his hands in defeat—seemed like that big mouth of his was strictly metaphorical.
Mike whirled on Raph. “You’re fibbing!”
“I swear to turtle-god!”
He slammed his hand down on the table. “Swear on our mother’s grave!”
“We don’t have a mother,” Donnie deadpanned.
Mike whirled again to face Don, mask tails trailing behind him. He gasped theatrically and pressed a hand to his plastron like he was clutching his pearls or something. “We did too! She’s probably in turtle-heaven now, turtle-god rest her turtle-soul.” He turned on Raph again. “Swear on Chuck E. Cheesus!”
Raph slapped a hand on the table and raised the other one as if he were swearing on an invisible bible. Turtle-bible? “I swear! Guy’s got a black hole in there or somethin’.”
“Ooh, so that’s where it all went. Instead of getting taller, Leo just got a big mouth,” Donnie teased.
Leo felt his face get hot and ducked his head instinctively to hide it. “It’s not like I’m gonna be this height forever.” He purposefully avoided the s-word. “I’ve got time for another growth spurt.”
The table went silent.
He looked up to find everyone else already staring at him.
“What!?” he demanded.
“Oh you sweet summer child,” Mike muttered, shaking his head.
“Human males tend to stop growing height-wise around sixteen or seventeen,” Don said matter-of-factly.
Mikey broke the silence, leaping out of his chair to throw his arms around Leo’s neck. “Aww! It’s Leo’s turn to be the littlest brother!”
He tried (with no success) to shove Mikey off. “I’m still taller than you!”
“Pff, that ship sailed a long time ago, baby bro.”
“Does this mean I’m in charge now?” Don asked.
No one acknowledged him except Raphael, who flatly said, “No.” And added for good measure, “Beanpole.”
“Butt face,” he fired back.
“You are not taller than me!” Leo insisted again. Mikey continued to hang off his neck, cooing at him.
“Fellas, fellas,” Casey said, standing into a stretch. He placed a hand on Mike and Leo’s shoulders and leaned down. “Yer both short.”
Casey was promptly boo’d out of the room, getting jeers even from 5’10 Donatello, but he left with a laugh.
“You’re not taller,” Leo grumbled again.
“There’s a way to prove that y’know,” Mikey said, singsong.
Donnie grabbed his staff from where it leaned against the table and used it to hook the strap on his ever-present duffle bag and drag it over. From within its depths, he withdrew a tape measure and grinned.
Mikey shoved away from Leo to bolt upright. “Me first!” He smacked his shell against the drywall beside the kitchen door.
Leo groaned.
Raph clapped him on the shoulder as he passed, getting closer to properly spectate. “What’sa matter, Fearless? Scared you’re wrong?”
Leo only gave him a withering glare and, knowing that meant Leo knew he was wrong, Raphael let out one of his deep-chested laughs.
Donnie marked the wall with a pencil and Mikey stepped out of the way so he could measure. “Looks like the height to beat is five-five.”
Despite knowing that it ultimately didn’t matter at all, Leo’s stomach twisted. He was the leader—the appointed oldest son! He didn’t want to be the short one. But his brothers started jeering at him, with Raph making scarily accurate chicken sounds, so he sighed with the weight of nineteen years spent as the eldest of four brothers and shuffled over to bonk his shell against the wall.
Don rested the pencil against the crown of his head and made the mark behind him. He drew his mouth into a thin, grim line.
“What? Am I taller or not?”
Donnie handed the pencil to Raph and stepped aside. “Corroborate my findings, please.”
Raph grinned. Mikey bounced on his toes impatiently.
“No cheatin’,” Raph mumbled, making a show of bending over to make sure the pencil was level. Suddenly, he barked a laugh right in Leo’s face.
Leo jumped away and shoved him, still cackling, backward into Mike.
Donnie measured the mark while Mike and Raph quickly devolved into wrestling on the kitchen floor. They paused as Donnie drew back with the results.
He sighed. “Sorry Leo—”
He didn’t get out any more than that before Mikey exploded with excitement. He attacked Leo from the side, wrapping his arms around his chest and shoulders and squeezing tight, damn near lifting him off the ground. “Yeah BOY! Who’s the baby now, huh?” He pinched Leo’s cheek. “Who’s your daddy? Who’s the tall one? M—!”
Leo’s elbow dashed away from his side and right into Mikey’s solar plexus, just hard enough to make him release a breathless oof. He doubled over with a hand on his leathery plastron. Raph grabbed Donnie for support as he started laughing.
Leo looked down at him and shrugged. “Looks like I am.”
Mikey coughed. “Okay,” he croaked out, despite his apparent lack of oxygen, “I had that coming.”
Donnie put his hand on Leo’s shoulder. “My condolences, heightless leader.”
Raph wheezed.
***
Later that evening, Leo found himself without much of anything to do. He was too wired to sleep, but he had been coerced into meditating and training only once a day on their little vacation. He tried reading in bed and letting the sound of the rain on the tin roof coax him to sleep, but he couldn’t focus on the words. For once, the philosophy and war tactics weren’t interesting to him. He stood and stretched, then went down the stairs and straight out the front door.
The stars, usually so brilliant and comforting out here, were buried deep beneath a blanket of dark clouds. Leo watched the horizon anyway, hoping to catch sight of a star through the rain.
He sat in the old wooden porch swing, realizing with a little bit of a grumble to himself that his feet didn’t touch the ground. He pointed his toes to reach out and push off the ground every so often, gently swinging himself. The rhythmic creaking of the chains above was relaxing to him—this place was one of the few things in his life that brought back only happy memories.
He was fully relaxed into the swing, just starting to get chilly in the humid autumn air, when the front door opened. He made eye contact with Don as he stuck his head out, then retreated and closed the door behind him.
Leo blinked after him, confused, but not confused enough to leave his comfy seat. He didn’t have to wonder long anyway; the door opened again and his brother returned with a quilt bundled in his arms. He sat in the space Leo made for him and spread the blanket across their legs. Leo scooted just a little closer—Donnie was nice and warm from being inside.
“Am I bothering you?” Don whispered.
Leo breathed out a laugh. “No.”
He turned back to the horizon to keep his star-vigil. Lightning flashed in the distance. Nearly a minute passed before the rumble of thunder reached them.
“Aristotle popularized the myth that cloud collisions cause thunder and lightning,” Donnie said in a hushed tone. “Thunder is actually a sort of sonic boom that occurs when the air around the lightning is superheated suddenly." He fell silent for a moment, watching lightning play in the distance. "Lightning is roughly five times hotter than the surface of the sun.”
Leo nodded along. He thought cloud collisions caused thunder too, maybe he read it in a book somewhere once.
“What’re you thinking about?” Don continued to keep his voice low, and Leo appreciated it.
A smile curved his mouth without reaching his eyes. He considered lying to spare his empathetic brother the angsty nature of his idle thoughts, but Donnie would know if he did, then set Raph on him.
He took a deep breath as lightning flashed again. “Do you think I’d have been taller if it weren’t for…” he touched the place where his shell was still split at the shoulder. The utrom had been able to save more of his shell than Donnie would have been, with their scant supplies, but they still had their limitations. The broken and damaged scutes were only just starting to grow back, misshapen though they were. “If it weren’t for the Foot?”
He felt Don turn to look at him. He deliberately stayed focused on the creak of the swing and the patter of rain in the mud.
“Probably,” Don said finally. His voice came out hoarse. “You and Mikey did suffer the brunt of the injuries that could have damaged your growth plates. Your shell, Mike’s knees…”
Suffered. Hm.
“Stress, lack of sleep, improper nutrition, it all contributes to growth in human children. I imagine we aren’t much different.”
Leo’s mouth felt dry. “Well, on that list, I’m four out of four.”
He wanted to laugh about it. It was all over anyway—they had a warm, safe, above-ground home; all their enemies were dead, in hiding, or turned to allies. They were well-fed on marshmallows straight from the factory-sealed bag, rather than from a container of gooey marshmallow fluff that hadn’t been scraped entirely clean before being discarded. His height didn’t matter in comparison to those things, not even a little. But it still bothered him.
Growing up. Another key part of childhood that was taken right out from under him.
He realized he’d been silent too long when Donnie began shifting uncomfortably. They both drew a breath to speak at the same time, then laughed. Leo waved for him to go ahead.
“I was just thinking…maybe you would have been short anyway. Raph and I grew up in the same conditions and—” He gestured broadly at himself. “I’m five-ten. Raph’s five-eight.”
Suddenly Leo’s ten years old again, casually declaring he was stuffed before handing off most of his portion to whichever brother was hungriest—usually Raphael as he rapidly put on weight and muscle, or Donnie as he constantly shot upward. He smiled and decided to keep that one to himself.
The door creaked open and Mikey, much like Donnie had earlier, stuck his head out to look for his missing brothers. On seeing them, he started toward the swing with a grin.
“Still nursing your wounds, baby brother?”
Donnie glared as Mike lifted the quilt and inserted himself between the two of them. “Actually, we were talking about how you were probably destined to be short, but Leo’s growth might have been stunted by carrying your sorry shell around for years.”
“Donnie,” Leo laughed out.
Mikey snuggled against Leo’s chest and closed his eyes. “It's okay, I get to be big brother now. I’m gonna protect youuu, and lecture you about honooor, and wake you up early in the morniiing…” He tilted his face up, eyes suddenly serious. “If it bothers you, I’ll stop.”
Leo wrapped an arm around his neck to trap him in for a noogie. “No more than you usually bother me, shell-for-brains. Besides, you need something new to brag about after how hard you lost the Battle Nexus last year.”
Mike smacked his plastron. “Hey! Sensitive topic!”
The front door of the farmhouse swung open suddenly, the outer screen door thrown open with so much force that it bounced off the wall. Raphael came barreling out and stopped just short of them, threw his head back, and opened his mouth.
“RHENNTY-RHU AYEEY!” he shouted. The mass of marshmallows in his mouth moved as he tried so very hard to speak intelligibly.
“That was Raphael-With-His-Mouth-Full for ‘twenty-two, baby’,” Mikey helpfully noted.
Leo managed to shake off the stunned silence first, laughing a little before he said, “Congrats, Raph. You got the biggest mouth of us all.”
Raph spit marshmallows at him.