⋆˚꩜｡⋆˚꩜｡⋆˚꩜｡⋅°❀⋆.ೃ࿔*:･⋅°❀⋆.ೃ࿔*:･⋅°❀⋆.꩜ ❀⋆.ೃ

Michelangelo remembers being sixteen.

He remembers nightmares that left him sweating through his sheets and choking on the shadows of Shredder’s claws. He remembers creeping through the lair in the quietest tiptoes he could manage because he didn’t want to wake Donnie. Donnie had been up for days back then, red-eyed and twitchy, hunched over blueprints and battle plans like a man already twice his age.

Not Splinter, he hadn’t gone to his father ever since he was young. Not Raph, he hadn’t gone to Raph because of the argument he had with Leo that morning and while Raph’s usually his second choice he skips his room that night and slips into Leo’s instead.

Leo didn’t ask questions, he never did. He just shifted, made room on the futon (the only one of them to follow in their father’s footsteps and hold his culture close to his heart), and when Mikey slid under the blanket, Leo started reading. His voice steady and soft, carrying the words of some old scroll Splinter had given him, something about courage and storms and the moon. Mikey didn’t understand half of it because he wasn’t fluent in Japanese, but that wasn’t really the point. The important part in his eyes was the safety of Leo’s voice.

That night, like a hundred others, Mikey slept without dreaming.

He thinks about that a lot now.

Especially when he wakes up with his chest tight, staring at the ceiling of his room, knowing Donnie’s awake in the next one over and refusing to knock. Especially when he finds himself in Leo’s room, watching as a film of dust covers his brother’s favorite books.

Michelangelo lingers in that room longer than he should.

The dust never settles quite right, not when he’s standing there with his fingers picking his nails, breath shallow like he might wake Leo if he’s too loud. Which is stupid, because Leo isn’t here, hasn’t been here for months.

But Mikey can still see him, in the way the futon is still laid out neatly, folded perfectly, the way Leo always did it. In the way the books on the shelf lean against each other like tired soldiers, their spines creased where Leo’s fingers used to turn the pages. In the little things like his incense holder with ash still clinging stubborn to the grooves, a blue ribbon marking halfway through a book Mikey hasn’t dared to touch.

He thinks about being sixteen again. Thinks about how easy it was, to slip into Leo’s shadow and let it cover him. Leo didn’t scold, didn’t tell him to man up or grow up or get out. Leo just shifted, just made room, like it was the most natural thing in the world to let Mikey crawl in and anchor himself against his side.

No one else has ever made him feel that kind of safe.

Now, Mikey stares at the empty futon and feels the safety leaking out of him like water through a cracked bowl. He tells jokes too loudly, he plays video games until his eyes burn, he builds model kits with Donnie even though Don barely notices him, because all of that is easier than admitting the truth.

He misses his big brother.

He misses the voice that used to read him into sleep, the patience that never seemed to run out, even when Mikey was at his most annoying. He misses the guy who knew when to push him forward and when to just sit there, breathing steady, waiting for Mikey to catch up.

He misses his big brother.

He misses the way they could wrestle each other without a care for the world, have eating competitions and gang up on their calmer set of brothers. He misses the way his brother would jump in front of danger just to protect him. He misses being able to laugh with him.

He misses his big brother.

He misses the way he could go on and on and the other would care. The way he would take his ideas to consideration and somehow incorporate it into his next project. He misses the looks they would give each other whenever their older brothers were at each other's throats, silently communicating what they’re going to eat for dinner.

And sometimes, when he’s sitting in Leo’s room Mikey wonders, muttering things as he stares at all the different cracks and seams on the walls. Did Leo ever sit here, staring at the same spots, wishing for someone else’s voice to ground him? Did Leo ever feel small, like Mikey does now, even though he never showed it?

The lair is too quiet without him.

Raph fills it with noise sometimes, slamming doors and stomping through the halls, yelling at Don until his voice frays. Don fills it in other ways, headphones on, muttering curses under his breath when his things don’t work like he wants them to, sighing when something won’t line up the way it’s supposed to. Splinter tries, he tells them stories, guides them through kata, offers tea that usually goes cold on the table, but none of it is Leo.

And Mikey, sitting in Leo’s room with dust tickling his nose, feels like maybe he’s the only one who notices the shape of his brother’s absence. Raph covers it with anger, Don with bitterness, Splinter with quiet endurance and with that wisdom and that almost juvenile belief that everything will be right once Leo comes back.

Then there’s Mikey, he feels it raw. Like a scraped knee that never heals, like pressing a bruise just to see if it still hurts.

He curls up on the futon sometimes, knees to his plastron, and whispers out loud,

“You’d know what to do.”

The room doesn’t answer and Mikey feels stupid into thinking it ever would.

⋆˚꩜｡⋆˚꩜｡⋆˚꩜｡⋅°❀⋆.ೃ࿔*:･⋅°❀⋆.ೃ࿔*:･⋅°❀⋆.꩜ ❀⋆.ೃ

ao3 link to the actual fic: https://archiveofourown.org/works/88802141/chapters/235653871