#explanations

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“Look, I’m sorry,” Leo murmured as soon as he sensed his brothers’ presence on the rooftop behind him. He felt obligated to be the bigger person and start this off with an apology, as long as it didn’t undermine his prior points. “I’m not sorry for what I said. I meant every word of it. But I am sorry for how I said it.”

There was a hesitant scuffling of feet, probably Mikey. Don made a noise as if he were going to be the first to respond, only to be bluntly beaten to it by Raph.

“Nah. We obviously weren’t hearing ya right when you needed us to before so if you gotta shout it to get through some thick skulls, you shout all ya want.” He of all people would know that was what it took sometimes.

But Leo hadn’t wanted to resort to shouting. He hadn’t wanted to break the news of something so important to him through an outburst but he was just…so frustrated. Honestly it had been a long time coming. He was sick of the snipes about Karai being his “girlfriend”, fed up with them thinking he was on some quest to be her knight in scaly armor, fed up with the quirked brows and coy smirks with too many implications behind them whenever he admired the craftsmanship of the sword Usagi had gifted him or remarked on his prowess when they sparred.

Couldn’t Leo just say what he meant without anyone else reading into it unnecessarily? Couldn’t he just admire a gift from a friend without it meaning anything more? And why were misattributed romantic feelings automatically considered “more” anyway? Why wasn’t friendship valuable enough in its own right?

Leo valued clarity and control in all areas of his life. One of his biggest pet peeves was being misunderstood; as such, others’ reactions and assumptions were some of the most galling things outside of his control.

“You’ve really never felt that way, though? You’ve never even thought about it?” Mikey ventured—genuinely now rather than teasing, but Leo had to stifle another irritated sigh regardless.

“On the contrary, I’ve thought about it at great length. More than I ever wanted to, honestly; more than I should probably have to, just to come to terms with it. I’ve watched you guys rotate through all your crushes on fictional characters, Captain Janeway and Hawkgirl and Arcee, and there I was trying to dissect every scene they were in to see whatever you saw in them. It’s not like I couldn’t tell they were designed to be aesthetically pleasing. I have eyes. But…I always wondered if or how I could feel whatever you were feeling and I never did.”

“But you told us you had a crush on Éowyn from Lord of the Rings, remember? You said that straight to our faces.”

“I know, I know. Just…bear with me for a tangent like we do for you, Don, okay? Just hear me out.”

“We're listening.”

Exhale frustration, inhale focus. “At the time I think I was trying to convince myself as much as you guys because I didn’t know how else to phrase it. But looking back on it now, it’s like…there’s a difference between admiration and attraction. I thought I could have a crush on someone like Éowyn because I admire her passion and bravery and drive…and obviously the skill with a blade didn’t hurt either. I didn’t want to imagine myself being with her; I wanted to be like her. And Aragorn. And when it comes to real people in my life, Usagi. I respect and admire him and want to learn from him. I do like him! But not in that way. I respect Karai’s efforts to become the truly honorable warrior the Shredder never let her be. I try to be open and engaging and welcoming to her to prove second chances are possible, not because I want her in any way. All I want there is for her to be better. I want…” He drew a sharp, steeling breath. “When it comes to that kind of relationship, I want for nothing. Because I don’t want anything.”

He couldn’t tell if their silence was just a thoughtful one or a skeptical one. The idea of it being the latter made his stomach churn. How much more upfront could he say it? What would it take to explain in a believable, understandable way? Would it take them just as long to accept it as it had taken him to find peace with himself? Months? Years?

“I wasted so much time picking myself apart, overanalyzing all my little interactions with my friends and worrying that they’ve been getting some message I don’t mean to send, like you apparently thought. Testing myself to see if this was some limitation or barrier I had to break through to—what, succeed at another milestone of life? Check a box? You would have been proud, Don, I went down the whole list of theories. Maybe I’m just a ‘late bloomer’, maybe if I look at enough pretty people in movies or magazines or shell, scope out someone on the street, maybe something will click. Maybe I’m prioritizing my training by habit like I always do and all that ‘fun’ stuff will somehow come later. Even though it doesn’t sound fun to me and it never has. That’d be typical of me, right, being no fun? Or maybe I’m instinctively repressing those feelings because I know a mutant’s chances of having a ‘normal’ life with a partner are slim to none.”

He didn’t have to glance back to sense Mikey wincing then. He had always harbored the highest hopes for that particular brand of “normal”.

“And you guys are free to keep dreaming of that and striving for it if that’s what you want," he added firmly for his benefit, narrowing his eyes at the city below, imagining a scenario where Mikey lived in an apartment down there with the light of his life and a couple of mischievous little gremlins. It would suit him. But not Leo. “That life being a long shot for us, it should make me feel bad, like I’m missing out, but it doesn’t! It makes things easier for me. And as soon as I realized that, I felt bad for not wanting ‘more’; I wondered if it’s wrong not to feel that way. But not feeling it doesn’t feel wrong, and then I wondered if that’s wrong too. If I’m wrong somehow and just complacent about it.”

His palms bit into the rough surface of the rooftop, knuckles paling as he tightened them against the edge. His throat tightened with them.

“But it wasn’t complacence. It was acceptance. Master Splinter had to convince me it was okay to accept acceptance, just so I could stop obsessively meditating on it to try and find some root problem to blame. Why I don’t or can’t care like everybody says I should.”

Don’s initial intake of breath was sharp but his voice was painstakingly gentle. “Leo, we know that isn’t true. You have feelings. I’m really sorry we hurt them but we do know you care.”

“So can you let that be enough?” he pleaded, twisting toward them with a fretful snap and swirl of his mask tails. Don looked worried. Mikey looked just as off balance and unsure as he’d sounded when this conversation started. Raph looked…strangely unreadable but Leo couldn’t find it in himself to analyze whatever was behind his eyes when his own were starting to burn. “Just trust me to know myself and how I feel or don’t feel. I love my family more than anything. I love my friends as friends and that’s it, that’s all I want. That’s all I need! And if you care about how I’m feeling, I need you to stop making jokes as if it’s not enough. I—I need you to believe me. Please. Even if you can’t accept it, even if it’s just to placate me or for my own peace of mind, even if you don’t really get it—”

“I get it.”

Raph’s voice was so uncharacteristically low, the brimming anxiety of Leo’s spiral and the whistle of the wind this high up almost drowned it out. When he did a full-on double take, however, pushing himself upright to face him, Raph jerked a small nod to reaffirm he had heard correctly.

“I do. I get what you’re sayin’. At least a little.”

“…What do you mean?”

Swaying awkwardly, Raph turned his attention to some unidentifiable speckling on the rooftop; it was hard to tell if he was stalling or taking the time to mull over whatever he wanted to say. Mikey tried to pipe up once, only for Don to nudge him back into patient silence. When Raph eventually spoke again, it was slow, tentative; he had never tried to put this into words before.

“Well…y’know, sometimes I look at Casey and how sappy he is with April, cuddlin’ and kissin’ and holdin’ hands and all that and I wonder…why?” He dropped his shoulders in a heavy shrug. “Like how is that doin’ anything for ya? I try to imagine that kind of stuff and it doesn’t do much for me.”

Leo’s heart turned even as it lifted, hoping against hope he was hearing this right, that he wouldn’t be the one to misinterpret or misunderstand now. “…Really?”

“I mean yeah, I had a thing for Hawkgirl, that wasn’t a lie. She was pretty hot for a cartoon character.” The silence must have felt just as oppressive to him as it did to Leo now that it was aimed curiously in his direction. He opted to fill the space with a coughed “Let’s be real, she’s still hot.” Mikey dipped his head with a wordless, agreeable noise. Leo blinked. “But the scene where she and GL just kissed didn’t do it all for me. Not like I disliked it but for me it was always more about the…uh…tension.”

“Not the solely romantic side of it,” Don clarified cautiously, earning another small nod.

“Right. So…maybe I don’t get everythin’ about where you’re comin’ from, Leo, but sorta half getting it is better than nothin’, huh?” He twisted his mouth, rubbed the back of his neck and concluded, “So I shouldn’t have assumed you felt the same way as everybody else on all the same levels, and I shouldn’t’ve been givin’ you a hard time about Karai. Not bein’ into the sappy stuff but thinkin’ you were, feeling…removed from it, it kinda just made it easier for me to clown on you when it should’ve made it easier for me to read the room. M’sorry.”

“I…T-Thank you,” Leo managed haltingly. “I guess I shouldn’t have assumed the same about you. I didn’t expect…” His eyes stung all the more fiercely but he did his best to blink it back and keep his voice level, not wanting to make Raph feel any more uncomfortable or exposed than he might already. “Really, thank you. For telling me. Us. I always thought I might be the only one who felt differently.” I thought I was alone.

“Yeah. Same.”

“Okay, okay, so if I’m getting this right,” Mikey began, hands lifted in anticipation of walking through it, “it’s like—I dunno, curry? Raph prefers the spicy curry, Leo isn’t hungry, and Donnie and I are down to eat whatever suits our tastes. Is that it?”

After a few beats caught off guard, contemplating this unexpected analogy, a rueful attempt at a laugh found its way past the lump in Leo’s throat. “Yeah? I guess so, if it helps to frame it that way. But am I right to think that’s also your totally not subtle way of trying to lighten up the subject and hint you want to pick up some curry for dinner?”

Mikey’s lopsided smile and “You got me” gesture were sheepish, a little shy. “Consider it a peace offering?” His hands dropped then so he could fidget with his fingers, sobering. “Cause even if I didn’t know how you felt about all that, I definitely knew you were ticked off about all the teasing and I kept pushing anyway. So…yeah, I’m sorry too.”

Seeing him own it eased the lingering knot of tension in Leo’s shoulders just a little, letting him soften. “Apology accepted. As long as I get first dibs on the extra naan bread they always throw in our order.”

“Aw, come on! I thought you just agreed you weren’t hungry!” Mikey complained, winning snickers from Don and Raph too, but once they petered out one last worry dug its claws under Leo’s skin, needling at him to blurt it out.

“So you’re—okay with this? We’re cool? This isn’t going to change how you think of me, right?”

“Well, yeah. Of course it changes things.” When Leo flinched Don hurried to add, “But it’s a change for the good. We learned something about you and just because it’s a surprise, that doesn’t automatically make it a bad thing. Because you’re right, I am proud of you for working through all of those questions to understand this about yourself. And I’m proud of you for being open with us about it now so we can understand too. It’s something new for me to think about.”

His eyes and voice hardened with fervor, the fierce protectiveness that always ran as a quiet undercurrent beneath his mild-mannered surface until it had just cause to surge—in this case, to wash away any doubt.

“And in no way does that mean I’m going to think any less of you. You either, Raph. You’re not lesser because you don’t feel the same way we do; if you never have, then in my opinion there’s nothing less about you because there was nothing to lessen in the first place. It’s a net neutral.” Raph snorted faintly and Don held up a finger to ward off the snarky remark about applying bottom lines to something like this. “All that to say, you’re my brothers and I love you no matter what. Period.”

“Ditto. We’re cool,” Mikey assured. Upon a moment’s consideration he couldn’t help but chuckle. “Actually I’m kinda relieved. I was already running out of lovey-dovey lines to throw at you; now you’re saving me the trouble of coming up with any more.”

“Oh, well, as long as my lack of a love life is convenient for you.” Leo rolled his eyes but he was smiling as he noogied and then nudged him to get moving in the direction of their favorite Thai restaurant. The smile Don sent Leo and Raph in turn was wide and warm enough to combat the wind chill up here even after he turned away to follow Mikey.

Before Raph could trail in their wake, Leo sidestepped, tentatively nudging his shoulder with his own.

“Hey, I…I’m sorry if all my stuff coming out like this made you feel put on the spot or pressured somehow to get into yours. I wasn’t trying to…I mean, I didn’t know. Don’t get me wrong, I’m glad you said something but you didn’t have to if you weren’t ready.”

“Tch. Duh,” Raph huffed, shouldering him back a little harder. “I wouldn’t have if I wasn’t.”

“You sure?”

“Yes. Trust me to know how I feel.”

“…Okay.” Most times when Raph used his own words against him, it felt like a condescension or a counteract, a shot across his bow. This time, however, he said it because they were in the same boat—or at least the same fleet. They were in this together. Relief rattled loose any last remnants of the knots keeping him tied down, rooted to this rooftop and his fears. “Okay.”

We’re okay. We’re good. That’s all I need.