Archive of Our Own

His chest feels heavy, like he’d dropped one of Raph’s twenty pound dumbbells on top of his plastron, and what was it that Mikey was always being reminded of by his big brother? Always have a spotter.

He usually did. As the designated baby of the family, Mike always had three older brothers over his shoulder. Always. But now, if he were to turn around, he’d find the room empty and still and there was nothing there but the haunting shadows of what once was.

He flips the grilled cheese over in the pan, buttered bread sizzles and yellow, American cheese seeps from the edges. It sticks to the bottom of the pan in thick, greasy blobs and although he was hungry ten minutes ago when he flicked the stove alive, now that he watches it as he guides it around the pan with the tip of his spatula, does he feel his gut suddenly close off, as if protesting such a thing.

He swallows thickly, wetting his throat does nothing to quell the unease that swirls around inside his stomach. Things are off. Really off. And he doesn’t like it.

It’s as if his brothers harshly spat words still hung heavy in the air like faint cobwebs, ready to tangle him up the moment he crossed the room. He sucks in a breath and kills the stove. He can’t eat.

He won’t. He knows it’s childish, to pull such a stunt as hunger strike but if that was what it took to gain just a fraction of their attention on the matter, then he would.

The farmhouse is now eerily quiet. Still. So void of all it’s usual life it normally held with their presence: no N64 played from the living room with Donatello’s commentary. No clicking bottles where Casey would come bustling through the door as he cradled every alcoholic beverage he could from the back of his truck.

He leaves his sad, grilled cheese in the pan, looking so perfect, he if anything is a turtle that sticks to his morals. There’s a high chance that once Raph slinks out of his room, sniffing something out around the kitchen, he’ll come across the abandoned snack and take it for himself – so it wouldn’t be a total waste, at least.

And despite his rising anger and hurt, he has the sense to sling his coat on before he leaves, fitting his hat on over his head (being bald really was a bitch in the winter) and he leaves without bumping into anyone, skipping down the porch steps, he feels a thrill warm up inside of him as he darts into the woods, finally understanding why Raph liked running off like this – it was kind of fun.

Fresh snowfall crunches beneath his step, leaving behind the heavy shape of his boot, it doesn’t take long for his tracks to quickly disappear under the new snow that blankets the ground.

The trees, bare, cast long shadows across the forest floor, it has always felt like such a world away from New York, here in the countryside away, but it was something entirely different during the winter months; it felt like a different universe the way the light seemed softer, calmer. The way birds would watch him from the treetops with big, watery eyes. The shuffling of creatures in the bushes, like a rabbit or a fox, scurrying away from his presence, it was different from the sewer rats that he’d usually encounter when he wanted to go for a walk back home.

And the air. It was fresh and crisp, and he could feel each breath settle icily in his lungs. It felt like he was well and truly alive out here, each little step and breath expanding his very soul into something much bigger and better than it could ever grow in the cramped home he was used to usually.

He walks around aimlessly for about ten minutes, mindful that he doesn’t wander off too far when he feels a buzz in his jacket pocket.

Sighing, he fumbles to grab it, unlocking the screen with an impatient swipe of his thumb, it’s Leo.

He answers him on the second ring, not being able to get a word in edgeways by the time he’s pressing it to the side of his head, there is his brother’s voice, panicked and demanding.

“Where the hell are you?”

Mikey sighs. Dots of snow float down from the heavy sky overhead; grey and impatient as dusk begins to fall upon them.

“Needed a walk,” he tells him with a shrug of his shoulders, like he can see. “I’m heading home now.”

In reality, Mikey could do with more time outside of the house – away from the fighting and the atmosphere that was brewing between those walls and windows. Away from the hair pulling and the name calling that made him feel about an inch tall and about ten years younger than he actually was.

Their arguing was petty and pointless. It left a gaping ache in his chest as soon as he would hear voices climb higher and higher and footfall grow heavier and angrier.

Leo sighs. He sounds tired. He sounds wrung out.

“Okay,” he says, not even asking why Mikey was out anyway, there’s a good chance he understands without having to. “Be careful. Okay?”

Mikey scoffs. It’s supposed to be the kind that is lighthearted and easy; the kind that comes to him naturally but instead it’s venomous and mean.

“Yeah.” He says shortly. “Right.”

He hangs up the call before Leo can chastise him on his sudden attitude and pockets his phone away huffily.

He hates being treated like a child. He hates feeling like he’s constantly being pulled apart in these scenarios, each brother having a hold of a leg or an arm, dragging him to their side of the argument, he wishes he could have no part in it at all – to just retract into his shell and hide away.

He trudges through the snow towards the house. No doubt the tension will still be thick. He’ll make a dinner that nobody will eat. He’ll spend a night staring at the wall thinking of all the ways he can fix this and wake in the morning feeling tired and anxious, carrying the weight of all their unspoken emotions.

Mikey shakes his head, snowflakes fluttering from where they’d clung to his hat, he blinks them out of his face and carries on moving forward.

He walks for another good three minutes when something big moves in a far off bush, making him freeze in his footsteps. 

The air is still, hanging by his head in cold wisps, up above him, birds whisper to one another in hushed song. The bush rustles again and Mikey becomes acutely aware of how empty his belt pockets are that usually occupied with the combined weight of his two nunchuck.

Heart beating thick in his throat, he crouches down low, fresh snow crunching under his boot, he narrows his eyes to get a better look at what it is that emerges from the shrubbery.

It’s… a deer.

His heart sinks all the way down to his stomach with instant relief. Standing up slowly, a weak laugh trickles out past his lips, quiet enough not to spook the creature as it noses the fluffy, white snow with its snout, hoofs tapping to dig beneath to reveal the ground, it remains entirely oblivious to the mutant's presence.

“Wow,” Mikey breathes. Back home there wasn’t a lot of room to encounter wild animals that weren’t rats or mice or the odd raccoon that didn’t take kindly to Mikey’s best attempts to rescue it out the storm drain.

He doesn’t think he’s ever seen a deer before in the wild. He doesn’t think any of his brothers have before, meaning he was totally getting bragging rights about it when he got home.

Not that they’d probably believe him, but still. He washes the thought away as he tries to indulge himself in the moment. The deer looks only young, skinny. He’s not so sure how to tell but it looks like it might be a female deer. 

He can’t remember what they’re called but he’ll poke his head around Donnie’s door later and ask him; as good as any reason to talk to his big brother about something that wasn’t about family issues.

The animal keeps on sniffing at the ground, momentarily becoming intrigued with what the bush might offer her before she’s wandering off behind the bush in search of something else.

Mikey feels inclined to follow her.

Small, light steps, being a ninja proves for him to stalk the deer rather easily. He keeps a safe enough distance as he idly follows her around, ducking behind trees whenever she stops, he finds a comfort in just watching her mooch aboht the forest without a care in the world.

“No family to worry about,” he scoffs playfully, voicing his thoughts to nobody. “What a life.”

He follows the deer for a good ten minutes when his phone buzzes in his pocket. 

The deers ears swish back, head jerking upwards, it’s obvious that she heard it, even from back here.

Mikey tuts, reaching into his pocket he blindly holds the button down to silence it. 

Leo could wait. What else did he want him home for? To play mediator to their childish bickering? Unlikely .

He moves forward, careful not to scare her anymore, when suddenly—

Up ahead, a crow screams, wings flapping against wings, it’s apparent there’s two of them caught in a tiff in the tree up ahead, it disturbs the silence and sends the deer darting off into the thick of the woods, kicking up snow behind her, Mikey whines pitifully as he eyeballs the empty space now, deer-less.

Arguments really did ruin everything. 

He stands still for a moment, in case the deer decided to return, however, the woods grow still and quiet and so Mikey decides that perhaps now was a good as time as any to head home.

He takes a step forward, unaware of the steep hill that is hidden under the thick blanket of snow, sending his body jerking forward, he falls before he can catch himself, tumbling down towards where the deer had been before, he lands soft in the snow below.

“Crap,” he mutters as he pulls himself up, dusting himself off lightly where snow now clings to all of him. He looks up towards the slope he’d tumbled down: it was steep, probably climbable had it not been for the icy that cling to the ground and the thick layer of snow that made it impossible to even get a grin on the floor.

Sighing, Mikey spins in a half circle, taking in his surroundings. There was a chance that just around the large brush and the row of trees would put him back on his path, despite not knowing the woods as well as he should, he decides to set off in that direction.

What he doesn’t know is that his shell cell lays abandoned in the snow, muted and forgotten.

He trudges through the thicker end of the woods, darkened by the overhead trees that tower above him, it doesn’t help that time ticks on, the sun slowly creeping towards the horizon, it sets him on edge to even imagine becoming lost in the dark out here, alone.

“Pssh,” he says out loud, flapping a nonchalant hand like it’ll calm his rising nerves. “I know my way home. I’m fine.”

And in all his confidence, he does think he’s heading the right way. If he cranes his neck backwards, he can see glimpses of the sky. All he has to do is emerge out of the brush and look out for the smoke from the house (Leo usually put the fire on this time of day) it was going to be fine.

He’s in between two thoughts; what to eat when he gets home and what comic he should either start or finish when he makes a terrible, unpredictable mistake.

He boot hits something large and metal, and suddenly the snow beneath his footstep jumps up, huge metal teeth protruding from underneath, they sink themselves into the flesh of his ankle, white hot pain renders him entirely mute as he stands on one leg, blinded by the pain that jerks through his lower half of his body.

He falls into the snow, his trapped leg now bent at an odd angle, courtesy of the weight of the bear trap he’s stepped in that keeps it from tipping over, his face pressed against melted snow and that’s when he finally screams.

He’s scrambling, gloved hands desperate to free himself from the agony, it’s no use. His pants are shredded, his booted foot tries to kick out but it does nothing but shred his skin and muscle to hell.

He sobs, a series of short gasps trapped in his throat, it feels like he’s drowning on his own sorrow as he writhes around uselessly in the snow.

Adrenaline finally kicks in, taking away the edge, he’s able to sit up, still a blubbering mess, he glances down at the situation he’s found himself in.

There isn’t really a great deal of blood — just specs of it dotted about in the white snow, he knows that the trap is keeping him from bleeding out. If he rips it off his leg, he could do himself more harm than good. 

His chest is heavy and achy. His hands are trembling and despite the fact that most of his body is wet with snow, he feels about a million degrees too hot.

Shock, Donnie’s voice in his head tells him. You’re in shock. 

He hums meekly, as if to acknowledge the voice in his head's nugget of knowledge. He reaches down and feels around the metal mouth of the trap that is tight around his leg.

Hissing with pain, he’s hoping it’s a mixture of all the emotions in his head right now that are keeping it feeling numb. He knows leg injuries were nothing to sneeze at but this… he gulps. This could be a really big problem.

Sucking in a shaky breath, he lies flat on his back. His jacket is soaked now, both with snow and with sweat, he moves slowly as he reaches into his pocket for his phone.

His heart sinks into the earth when he feels it’s not there.

“No,” he cries, fat tears leak from his eyes. Snot gathers beneath his beak. He imagines he’s not a pretty sight right now. “No. Please.”

He’s realizing now, as his gut churns uncomfortably, that he must’ve dropped his cell on the fall down the slope. It must be sat there, waterlogged and useless about a good half a mile away.

He looks up towards the darkening sky — he can’t see smoke. He must be further away from the farmhouse than he thought. 

Panic grips at his ribcage, rattling them like drums. 

This is bad. This is really, really bad.

He can’t scream for help. It would be futile, this far out into the woods at this hour. There’s a good chance that even if Leo was at home playing mother hen, watching the door for his arrival that it’d be even longer before he rounded up the rest of his brothers and got them searching for him.

He’s not been gone long enough to spark panic. Mikey isn’t sure how much longer he can wait this out.

There’s also the fear that someone will come back and look for this specific bear trap — he’s about 99.9% certain that actual bears don’t roam this part of the country, let alone this specific woods, but he has hear the odd wolf howl in the night. 

He shivers, the sticky heat now fading leaves him exposed to the icy cold.

He lifts himself back up to gingerly inspect the trap; it looks old— rusty would be the right word which is a good and a bad thing.

Good because there’s a chance that it’d been left here for some time, with no crazed hunter to come looking for it.

Bad because it was old and that meant it was probably spiking god knows what kind of disease right into his bloodstream where he sat.

He swallows thickly, bile climbing up the inside of his throat, he makes an attempt to see if it will shift again.

It only chews his leg with its sharp teeth and he flops back down into the snow with a whimper.

It was too heavy to lift to even attempt crawling back home. He had no energy anyway, to even sit back up again would send his head spinning.

The sky again grows a shade darker. Stormy skies slide in between the gaps provided by the trees. 

Snow begins to fall.

His brothers will come soon. He knows they will.

***

Leo pokes the tamed flames from the fireplace with the end of the metal stick, curiously rolling the half burning log as little ember flecks dance about before they descend up into the chimney above, he absentmindedly checks his phone for any signs of life that might exist there.

Just a blank screen. He sighs, prodding the log a little harder as it hisses at him.

Mikey was supposed to be back home ages ago now, a bubble of frustration swelling up inside of him like a bad boil ready to burst; his brothers never seemed to take his authority as both leader and eldest brother properly.

And he’d had enough.

It’s then that Donnie strolls into the room, standing by the empty couch, he hesitates, pausing as he reads his phone screen that is cradled delicately in his hands, Leo watches him carefully before he asks him, sitting back from the warmth of the fire,

“Are you able to track devices on those things?”

Donnie drops into the couch seat, not looking up from his phone, he’s still able to answer him.

“Yes and no. It depends on nearby cell towers.” He lifts his head now to face him. He sniffs, beak crinkling for a second. “Around here would make it pretty hard. You’d need to be in a pretty build up area to really pin it down.”

His thumbs dance across his screen before he pauses again to look up. He wears a frown this time.

“Why?” He asks.

Leo sets the rod of metal down, sighing, flames of orange and red dance about in the pit of the fire, dark smoke curling around the edges before it’s sucked up out of the room, leaving behind it’s ashy smell instead.

“Mike,” he explains. “He said he was on his way home from a walk in the woods. He’s not back yet and I think he should have been.”

Donnie thinks on it for a moment, chewing the inside of his cheek.

“It’s Mikey,” is his honest response. “He wanders. He gets distracted.” A smile touches across his lips.

“Is a little extra fresh air all that bad for him, after all?”

***

He blinks away the snowfall that gathers beneath his eyes, they melt across his skin, streaking it with cold wet, he doesn’t try to move again, his body weary and tired, he feels a thousand pounds too heavy to even roll his head to the side to avoid being blinded by the blizzard that falls on top of him.

His hand, now buried beneath a layer of snow, grows numb. He can’t feel his leg anymore, like it’d somehow just popped out of place, he welcomes the absence of pain, whilst he knows deep down, he should be worrying about the lack of feeling throughout his body.

What will kill me first? He wanders as he stares up at the black sky. If he squints hard enough, he can make out the faint twinkling of stars. The cold or my leg?

He can’t decide, even after laying flat for so long with nothing but those horrid, depressing thoughts, his stomach cries, and he chuckles weakly.

Maybe I’ll starve to death before anything else.

His only swell of hope is that he has definitely been gone long enough to spark worry between his brothers; he left around moon, spoke to Leo on the phone a little while after that. The sun had entirely sunk away now. The fire at home would be warm but dwindling. The grilled cheese would have been fully digested by now.

His teeth chatter together from the cold that surrounds him. That was a good sign. He knew it would get worse when he couldn’t feel the cold anymore — Donnie had warned him enough about the effects of hypothermia and how you’d grow warm before you died. He’s just lucky he’s got his coat and his hat on, but he’d fair much better back in his bed with the heater on full blast.

He tries to retract his arms into his shell, an instinct he hasn’t had to pull on in years, but it’s achy and uncomfortable, and his body screams out in pain when he subconsciously tries to do the same for his injured leg.

He shakes the snow off his body as best he can. Worst case scenario, his brothers do come looking for him but miss him because he’s buried under a hill of snow. He takes a shaky breath, more tears spring behind his eyes.

He doesn’t want to die like this. He hates home but he loves his family. He wants Leo and Raph and Donnie and dad. He wants to curl up on the edge of the couch and drink warm soup and play an old movie that has him falling asleep two thirds into it.

He calls out, voice raw and raspy, it’s all he can do.

“Help!” He cries, his voice carrying through the empty woods. “Please! Help!”

He starts to cry again, and he knows he needs to savour what little energy he has left, but it all bubbles up out of him where he can’t stop.

He sobs into a still woods, only the stars to watch him die.

***

Raph meets with his brothers at the barn, breathless and anxious in the way his fists keep furling and unfurling when he notes that Mikey is neither with Leo or Donnie.

“You didn’t find him?” He says, a touch distraught as Donnie shakes his head. 

Leo’s throat bobs before he speaks, swishing his flashlight out of his face, darkness shrouded them all.

“We went as far as the opening,” Leo tells him. “I can’t imagine why he would have gone any further but…” he turns around, throwing a look over his shoulder into the depths of the wilderness.

He turns back to face them, face fallen. “But I don’t get where he would have gone to? He said he was going for a walk. He said he was on his way home.”

It’s then that Raph steps forward; the past few days had been full of tension and unbridled spite between them all: it was easy to fall back into that method of squabbling and talking over one another, what with the panic and the frustration now boiling over. 

But right now Mikey was missing, in the cold empty stretch of woods that continued on for miles that they had so far left untouched since arriving here.

Snow comes down heavy. They knew his coat was missing off the back of the chair where he usually lazily slung it off after coming home so there was that.

But that would only do him so good, hours out here against this unforgiving weather.

“We’ll find him,” Raph assures his brother with a level voice. “We’ll take a direction each. Go straight for an hour and then come back.” The wind whistles at them, almost tauntingly. 

“We’ll find him,” he says again, this time it’s less for his brother, and more for himself. He needs to say it out loud, even if he doesn’t quite believe the words themself.

***

Mikey is certain he will die here. His corpse will freeze over, his body will be preserved almost perfectly (had it not been for his ruined leg, still ripped to shreds) and if his brothers don’t find him first, his frozen, lifeless face will be plastered across every news channel in the world. It will force his brothers deeper underground as theories of his existence will arise between the common people.

There will be podcast episodes from Middle American woman dedicated to him entirely. YouTube channels will divide three parter self made documentaries about who and what is is— or was. 

He might earn a name that isn’t his. He might gain a personality separate from the one he has. 

He will have lived an entirely different life to the one he knew, only because they will find his deceased form and create a story for him, because nobody else will know. 

And his brothers will grieve and mourn but in turn it will tear them apart like an explosive. It will ruin his family to no point of redemption.

He can’t cry tears because his face is too cold to allow it, but he still feels the same achy feeling in his chest regardless. 

He moves again, shifting the heavy snow off his body, letting it slide away from his torso; it will only be a short amount of time before he’s buried again, but he knows he has to try. His arms feel detached from his body but he wills them into moving anyway. He can barely lift his head anymore, and he’s regretting the decision to not try and pry the trap off his leg some more when he was stronger.

If he were to try now, he might pass out. The opportunity had come and gone, fleetingly.

He lays there on the ground, watching the still, inky sky above him. Tree branches sway with the tickling of wind that passes by. It’s been long enough now — they will either find him in time, or not, he’s already half accepted his death here.

Then, he hears the soft crunching of snow nearby. Something brushes up against the bush, the few leaves left there rustle together in harmony.

Turning his head, disappointment swells in his gut; there are no brothers there to rescue him but instead there stands the deer from earlier, watching him from afar, her ears are pricked forward, nose twitching as she smells the air, no doubt she’d able to sniff out his wound.

He blinks away more snow. She takes a tentative step forward, her hoof slipping beneath a mound of untouched snow.

She moves closer, and Mikey remains still. He can’t move much anyway, but he watches as she edges closer towards his injured leg, her snout brushing against the mouth of the trap, he coughs weakly, startling her a few steps back.

“Sorry,” he rasps. Her ears swoosh back and forth. “It’s okay, girl. It can’t hurt you now. You’re okay.”

Had Mikey not have stepped in it first, chances are, she would have, the metal jaws of the trap would have taken her leg right off, and she would have stumbled into the brush and bled out alone. 

She doesn’t know this, of course, but Mikey allows the thought to warm him a little.

A silver lining, perhaps.

For whatever reason, he expects her to stay. Perhaps to nose around curiously, but she doesn’t. She smells his blood and she must decide that staying will only her her hurt in turn. Watching her turn around without care causes a pit to form in his stomach.

“Wait,” he calls out weakly. Her bobbed tail flicking back and forth without care. “Please,” he whispers. 

She doesn’t even look back.

***

Raph knows he should turn around now— playing by his own rules, it’s coming up an hour since he started going west and so far he hasn’t come across anything that would indicate that he’s anywhere near finding his brother.

The wind is bitter and cruel and so he half tucks his head down in his shell to shield himself from the onslaught of overpowering weather that he walks against.

He calls out his brothers name again and again, his voice swallowed by the wind.

“Mikey!”

He’s growing desperate. He doesn’t want to turn around.

“Mikey! Where are you?”

He stops, pausing in a clearing before the woods grows thick again. Up ahead is brush, darker and colder where not even moonlight can penetrate, Raphael is very much used to the dark, being a ninja, but it still leaves him feeling unsettled.

Something doesn’t feel right.

“Michelangelo!” He calls, voice strained and raw, it leaves the back of his throat feeling red hot.

He stills, awaiting a response that doesn’t come.

He waits a few more seconds when his phone buzzes in his pocket: it’s a mass text from Leo and Donnie. They haven’t found him either and they’re turning back.

Raph stares into the thick of the woods. 

He sighs deeply, ready to turn back, when something up ahead rustles, causing him to stop in his tracks.

It’s not his brother, but instead, emerging from the darkness, with white glowing eyes like stars against a night sky is a deer. 

A doe, to be exact, her speckled hide is evident, even with the dusting of snow gathered across her back, she doesn’t seem at all phased by his presence, instead her ears flicker back and forth, as if trying to communicate something to him.

“Mike?” He calls out again, and she doesn’t startle. She bobs her head once at him and then turns away.

Raph knows he must follow her.

The snow is thick and it makes it hard to see, so he’s quick on his feet as she disappears up ahead of him, his breath stolen from him by the freezing air that surrounds him.

He keeps low, blinking out the snow that lashes across his face. He is desperate to keep her in his sights, knowing somehow that it was important to follow her; he feels it in the pit of his gut.

She moves behind a tree and that’s when he loses her.

The blizzard has swept away his vision, rendering him half blind, panic swirling around his chest, he spins around, realizing now he’s entirely lost.

“Fuck,” he hisses. He grabs his phone out of his pocket: no service.

The woods here is too dense. He can’t get a visual on the deer now, or any opening at all that would indicate which direction he came from.

“Mikey!” He screams, the wind carrying his voice with a haunting echo. “Mikey, where are you!”

There’s silence. Deafening.

Then—

“Help.”

It’s so small. So meek. So weak that the blizzard nearly swallows it whole but he hears it. He freezes.

“Mikey!” He calls out again. 

He gets a second reply.

“Help. Please.”

He rushed forward, past the thick trees, past where he saw the doe last.

He runs so fast, he nearly trips over his brother laying there on the floor, half buried and about three shades of green paler than he should be, Raph nearly cries with relief as he collapses to the floor to cradle his brothers head in his lap.

“Oh god,” he breathes. His brother is ice cold to the touch, lethargic and his eyes are half glazed over. If he doesn’t get him home now, he’ll die. “Jesus, Mike. What happened.”

“…bear…” he slurs. His eyes slide shut and then force themselves open again. “…bear… leg… deer…”

It makes no sense to Raph at the time, and then and there he deducts that he needs to prioritise getting his brother out of the blizzard before he freezes to death here in his arms.

He checks his phone again — still no signal. 

He’s mentally debating what the next move would be, when suddenly:

“Raphael?”

There’s Donnie clearing the small slope, eyes round and petrified. He’s unable to say anything because Leo emerges in front of him, equally as confused.

“What happened?” Leo demands, picking up his brothers limp hand in his, giving it a gentle squeeze.

“He’s hurt,” Donnie concludes. “C’mon, we gotta get him outta the cold and back to the farmhouse.”

The last thing Michelangelo hears before he finally passes out in the arms of his brothers is Raph’s gruff voice, trembling with unbroken fear:

“Yeah. Like you gotta tell us twice.”

***

Mikey wakes up to a white ceiling and the faint hum of the plug in heater that probably shouldn’t be left running for more than two hours at a time.

The pain in his leg is dull and far away feeling, when he vaguely remembers a painkiller being pressed into his tongue a few hours ago, making the inside of his mouth taste like chemicals.

Leo’s voice is there, beside his head. He sounds tired, still. Wrecked. 

“You’ll be alright,” he informs him. He reaches across and moves the blanket that’s covering him up towards his chin. “The fever from your leg kinda canceled out the hypothermia.”

He clears his throat. “It was touch and go but… you’ll live.”

Mikey, unable to trust his voice at the current state of things, simply nods. The bed he’s found himself isn’t his, it’s Leo’s because Leo has the double bed because Leo is the oldest. The blanket that rests on the top of the sheets are Raphael’s and the wrappings around his shin are for sure the handiwork of Donatello.

He sinks his head into the pillow.

“Thanks,” he rasps. “And sorry, I guess.”

Leo’s stiff, emotionless facade crumbles away. A wobbly smile touches at his lip as his hand travels up to cup at his cheek.

“You don’t have to be sorry,” he assures him, voice the most gentle it’d been in weeks. “I know I for sure do.”

Mikey feels his eyes grow heavy, sliding shut without his permission, he only finds the energy to ask,

“How’d you find me, anyway?”

Leo is quiet for a moment, long enough that Mikey debates opening his eyes again to check that he was still here in the room with him, but he shifts on his seat, it makes a creaking sound, and he moves his hand away to instead fold it beneath his. 

It’s warm.

“We just always find each other, little brother,” he tells him, voice hushed like it’s a secret. “I don’t know how, but… we’re meant to always find each other. Okay?”

And Mikey is meant to then ask about the deer and the blizzard and the bear trap and the absurdity of it all… but the bed is too warm and Leo’s hand enveloped in his is just too comfortable, and so he sinks into a peaceful slumber.

He can always ask tomorrow.