#rheawritesforfun

They’d been laying inside their room in silence, pressed flush together as they lounged, refusing to move a single muscle unless it was in order to offer eachother a chaste and loving peck, maybe even a brisk squeeze of the other’s cozily dressed form. The late weeks of fall turned Leo into an even needier partner that happened to require lots of cuddles and the warmth only a soft and hot blooded Alba could offer.

Not that she disliked indulging him.

The giant mutant laying prone under her could become so cranky that he’d remind her of a spoiled toddler.

Catching onto his adorably unaware reaction, she explained further, "your face did the thing when we saw Donnie walk by."

Said thing was a barely visible and unintentional twitch his left brow would do whenever he noticed something he’d found amusing, but had decided to keep to himself regardless. So upon understanding what she’d been referring to and choosing to overlook the simmering adoration he couldn’t help feeling over how much attention she still payed him, as she was perfectly capable of noticing even the smallest of his expressions, facial or otherwise, he thought back to what had caused him to react in such a way.

Honestly, they’d been together for a while by then—they were married—and she could still summon butterflies into his stomach by simply acknowledging him.

Ah. He still hadn’t answered her.

Right.

"Nesting brain rot."

It was Alba’s turn to feel confused, so she kept silent as she processed his input, not sure whether she’d missed any memo on strange mutant turtle behavior. It surely didn’t ring a bell.

As it turned out, Leo’s brainiac purple-loving twin had very recently begun hoarding pillows, which was quite the change. He’d gone from barely using the single one he used in order to support his head during the dangerously few hours of sleep he’d squeeze into his routine, to amassing as many as Leo himself had added to the bed he shared with Alba.

He had just caught sight of Donnie sneaking yet another fluffy pillow into his room.

If he had counted them correctly, that had to be the sixth one that week.

It was Wednesday

He recognized such sudden and significant behavioral change with ease, he had gone through it himself a few years prior.

Still lacking understanding, Alba propped herself onto her elbow in order to better face Leo and repeated after him, "nesting brain rot?"

The moment she was at his line of sight, his mouth curved into a grin. She’d been laying pressed to him for so long that one of the older scars on his carapace had left an inprint on her chin.

"Yep," he nodded, “you noticed how we own lots of pillows?"

"'s hard not to," she kicked one of the smaller ones off the comforter to make her point, pulling a lazy chuckle out of him.

"Well, it's our nest, I built it for us,” he wrapped his arms back around her and pulled her back down, closer to him, easing his chin on the crown of her head. “It’s for me to share with you, my mate."

Alba remembered him calling her as such a handful of times previously, mostly on occasions when his blood would run hot, often accentuated by a hiss or a guttural growl. According to Iris, who had very eagerly explained its significance to her, it turned out that among mystic beings with certain instincts, it was pretty common to use said expression to refer to their selected partners, something akin to a soulmate.

"I chose my lifelong companion,” he brushed the tips of his fingernails across her jawline, “and I made us a nest."

Alba shifted once more to glance around at the many differently shaped and colored pillows that adorned and framed their large bed. Truth be told, she’d always felt safe and at home whenever she rested on the absurdly cushioned frame, though that could’ve been easily explained by his sparkling presence alone.

She could really do with less pillows.

"I believe that Donnie has finally made up his mind about Iris and couldn't help but build a nest for her in anticipation."

Alba felt the corners of her lips rising in glee.

Donnie and Iris—she loved them both so much—had danced around eachother for what felt like forever: they’de gone from agreeing on a near antagonistic acquaintanceship to cozying up into a hesitant friendship, which soon evolved into a warm companionship, during which they’d began to flirt lightly when they thought they were being sneaky about the glances they’d steal at eachother.

Thinking back on it, hadn’t Iris begun hoarding pillows too?

Alba decided she had to check whether her friend had also resorted to such antics the next time she visited.

Then, another thought popped into her head.

"Didn’t you begin piling pillows when you we—"

His palm colliding with her mouth as a slight blush tinted his cheeks underneath his mask silenced her somewhat effectively.

Leo had  just turned seventeen when he first succumbed, right around the time when the worst of the wounds he’d gotten from the invasion, from the Kraang, had healed enough so that he didn’t need any aid to walk around on his own.

"That was all the turtle brain!" He peeped halfway through his desperate sentence, youthful chirps making their way out as she giggled against his cool and calloused hand.

Sheepishly, but glad at her refusal to insist, he lowered his hand back to her hip, massaging into her flesh tenderly as he remembered when he’d just started to act in such a territorial way towards her. The nest had just been the beginning for him.

Shortly after he’d nearly doomed humanity, even if nobody blamed him, having come so close to losing everyone he loved made something click within him and before he could realize, he’d proceeded to take up space in Alba’s room. He’d visit and “forget” little odds and ends on the most random places.

“It’s just so that you won’t forget me,” he’d joked when she called him out on it. In truth, he had been marking his territory and just as he would leave some of his belongings in her room, he would also “borrow” some of hers to place inside his own.