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The glow of Donnie's computer was starting to hurt his eyes.
Yes, it was true that he was able to work for hours on end, with little to no breaks and without breaking a sweat. He was good at that. Overworking himself to the point where he peaked in insanity and exhaustion was one of the many things he was known for.
But sometimes, only sometimes, the headaches that clawed at his brain were too overbearing for him to withstand. Sometimes he drove himself to the point where his eyes unfocused, his head pounded, and his throat felt too sore.
He lost track of how long he'd been sitting at his desk for. An hour? Two? Six? Eight? He couldn't be sure; time flew by when he worked, and when he got so invested in his world of infinite knowledge of wonder and curiosity, his world warped and twisted together like a smothered painting. It got to the point where things would blend together, much like an abstract drawing made from using the liquify tool on a drawing program.
Whenever he dug himself in that hole of knowledge and whimsy, it was hard to climb out of it.
Whenever he sat down to fix some simple coding, he'd get sidetracked with another bug he found in the lines of text. That meant he'd re-do the whole thing, and that meant his focus would jump onto something else because he had a random idea, and then he'd start something new, maybe he'd get a notification and scroll on Wikipedia for an hour, then he’d move onto tweaking the wiring in S.H.E.L.L.D.O.N for the fifth time in the span of two days because he couldn’t scratch that invisible itch that he was forgetting something, and the list went on. Side quest after side quest, all the while never leaving his lab.
He lost himself in his head more times than he could count, which was probably the cause for this headache that was beggining to sprout. It wasn’t at its worst yet, maybe stage
two out of six, but it was only a matter of time before it got there.
Pulling himself out of his slouching position, Donnie raised his arms and stretched them over his head, popping the tense muscles in his shoulders. Looking down at his desk full of abanonded coffee cups, empty cans of redbull, and a few ultra violet and fiesta mango monster energy cans, he decided that he was going to give a shot at drinking water.
Maybe that would clear his head. Maybe that would loosen the tightness in his throat and settle the wavering of his nerves. A cold glass of simple H2O would probably refreshen his overworked body until he could think clearly again.
So he stretched, rubbed his eyes, wiped the lenses of his fogged glasses with the sleeves of his hoodie, and he sat up from his rolling chair.
Apparently, that "standing up too fast" phrase applied to him no matter his denial, because a wave of nausea draped over him like he'd been dunked under water and continuously spun in circles. So he immediately sat back down and blinked the haze of whatever that was away.
And now, not only did he feel exhausted and overworked, he felt sick.
His head hurt, his eyes hurt, and his brain hurt. Everything hurt physically, but his head spun mentally all the same. And that was probably more of a sign that he needed to get up and reset himself.
Looking over at his table ridiculed with energy drinks and bullshit, he concluded that feeling sick probably wasn't out of the ordinary. Maybe this was karma for drinking so much diabetes achieving bullshit.
His face scrunched up as he thought. Thinking on it more, the "sick' feeling was definitely nausea, but that... wasn't it. That wasn't it alone, at least.
There was more to the feeling, he just couldn't pinpoint exactly what it was.
Paranoia? No, he wasn’t paranoid. He wasn’t acitvely aware of his surroundings in fear of something jumping out at him, that wasnt it. But his nerves were still spiking and his stomach still swirled with anxiety.
It was more of... what was it...
It was more like a gut-wrenching dread was slithering around his chest tightly, enclosing him in an invisible claustrophobic wall. It felt like his conscious was aware that something bad was going to happen. Or maybe something did happen, and he could feel the energy in the air shift to something dangerous. Something uneasy and unsettling.
Donnie blinked to himself, because logically, nothing bad was actively happening. Sure, the energy in the air shifted and he could definitely tell, he could feel it, but when was the air not tense these days?
Ever since the Shredder, the air was constantly bitter and docile. With everyone on edge, Leo being leader, and Raph being more cautious, everything was bound to take a turn. For better or for worse? That was up for the future to decide.
But right now, it wasnt looking great.
Leo and Raph fought nearly every other day, for reasons valid and reasons completely and utterly ridiculous. And by now, their arguments were so frequent that they were expected.
What Donnie despised about these arguments was that they ringed in his ears, hammered in his heart, and they made his head spin. Every argument from them sent him into an overstimulated mess of emotions, because rarely did his brothers ever yell yell. Rarely were any of them so angry to the point where the atompshere was dark and hateful, which abruptly contrasted with the usual laid back lovable aura that swam through their home.
Maybe that was because the aftermath with the Shredder was nerve-wracking. But that didnt make it any better.
Their yells echoed through the rooms of the lair, slipping through the cracks of closed doors and pounding against the sound proof walls of Donnie's lab. Thankfully, they didn’t find their way into his space.
That was why the soft shell always lurked in his lab in the first place—their yells couldn’t reach him in here. He didn't have to listen to them scream and shout and call eachother ugly things.
The softshell frowned at the door of his lab, his fingers twitching uneasily.
Leaving his safe-haven, where his tech recided and nothing dangerous could sneak up on him—that was a thought that unsettled him. Though he didn't keep water around, he probably needed it, but he'd be adventuring into enemy territory, where he could get caught in the tidal wave and swept away into a thunderstorm.
Before he could linger on that thought—and spiral around it—Donnie flinched at the abrupt ringing coming from his desk.
Turning to his monitors and glancing down, his phone lay on the far side of his desk. And his phone was ringing.
The softshell raised an eyebrow and curiously peered over at the device, his eyes glazing over the conact displayed on his phone.
His gaze darkened the slightest bit when he read "Nardo" in big, bold letters.
Oh. Leo.
His name alone sent an uneasy feeling through Donnie's veins. He could feel it in his bones—he just didn’t know why he was feeling such a thing. But he didn’t give it much thought.
For one, if Leo was calling him, then it was probably not a big deal—a waste of Donnie's time, usually. And for two, Donnie didn't feel like talking. He wasn't exactly welcoming of the idea of talking to anyone for the matter. He'd rather brood in his safe-haven and work on his tech rather than to converse with his moody brothers.
And yet, he didn’t want to just... not answer. As much as he wasn’t in the mood for conversation, and as much as he wanted to be left alone, there was still the twisted knot that sat in his stomach, stubborn and stiff.
His gut was telling him to answer, simply put. So he decided that the call was worth the time.
Picking up his cellphone, Donnie answered the call with a gruff voice, "You know, some of us have things to do. What do you want?"
From the other end, a voice laughed dryly. Donnie immediately noticed how the voice wavered, raw and tired. "And some of us leave our rooms every one in awhi—“
The line cut off before Leo hummed, "Jesus Christ, Dee, you sound like you have a disease. Go drink some water or something. You need it."
Hah, easy for him to say.
Leo, from the other end, sounded terrible. Not exactly "sick" terrible, probably like how Donnie felt, (though Leo still very much sounded sick) but as in his throat was scratchy and used up. He spoke in a low tone, almost a whisper, like he wasn't physically able to speak up.
Simply put, Leo sounded exhausted, and it wasn't just his microphone quality that was to blame. That in itself was strange, but Donnie decided not to linger on it.
If Leo was calling him, then it was likely for something stupid. Either he was asking for him to run an errand, or he was asking him to fetch him a snack because he didn't want to face Raph in the open, or because he got himself wrapped in nonsense and he needed Donnie to drag him back out of it.
The softshell let out an exaggerated sigh. This better be good.
"Speak for yourself before you speak for others," Donnie scolded with rasp to his voice, "And before you start talking shit, I'll have you know that I was on my way to grab a glass of water—mind you, with lemon—this very second. So I don't want to hear it."
From the other line, Leo laughed, sarcasm spilling over his words despite the way his voice quivered, yet stayed flat. "Woah, do my ears deceive me, or is Donnie actually drinking a speck of water in this day and age? This just can't be. Quick, let's write it down so we don’t forget."
Scoffing, Donnie spun in his chair and rolled his eyes, "Yeah? Do it, I'm already walking towards the kitchen. We'll see who's laughing when one of us sounds like shit and the other is clearly hydrated."
He wasn't actively walking towards the kitchen, but Leo didn’t know that. So that was a point for him.
After that, he found himself on his original train of thought and huffed, "What do you want, Nardo?"
And he didn't get a response.
Donnie blinked at the silence. It was almost as if Leo just hung up on him, which needless to say, was odd. The soft shell lowered his phone before starting warily, "... Hello? You there, Leo?"
As if snapping out of his thoughts, Leo's voice on the other end scrambled and stuttered, like he zoned out and someone pulled him out of his head. And that stammering alone threw Donnie off guard.
It sounded so... unlike him.
Where Leo usually cackled with pride, his chest puffed out and his head held high, the voice on the other end stuttered and choked on his barely audible words, quivering and shaky.
And that was how Donnie could tell—in his gut, without actively thinking it—that something was wrong.
The other end of the line started hesitantly, his voice flat with an emotion Donnie couldn't identify, playing it off completely casual, "... Before you go and, um... go to the kitchen, I..."
He trailed off, and Donnie's heart sparked with anxiety.
"Go on." he said flatly, so Leo continued, "I need your help."
Donnie blinked.
"Uh-huh. And why, pray tell, would I help you?" he asked, his voice tinged with his usual sarcasm. "What prank do you want to involve me in this time?"
From the other line, the slider's voice was dim and too casual for it to be convincing, "Because it's urgent, Dee."
The lack of playfulness in his voice caught Donnie's attention.
He knew his twin brother better than anyone. And that? That was Leo playing it cool. Which in istelf, that wasn't an immediate red flag, because Leo held a record for treating serious matters as daily inconviniences or jokes. But the way there was no sign of life in his voice made Donnie sit up in his chair.
Leo was clearly trying to keep his voice from breaking as he hesitantly mumbled, "I... may have done something stupid."
Donnie choked on the breath he didn't realize he was holding in, and he himself was trying to keep his voice from wobbling, "Care to elaborate?"
"Well, let's see..." Leo hummed, though his voice was painfully dull, "I'm covered in my own blood if that paints the picture."
And for a second, Donnie didn't move.
"All jokes aside, please help. I'm, um... in my room. Please bring a med kit." the slider finished, and Donnie didn't need to be told twice before he was up and scrambling around his lab, shouting back into the phone, "Leo, what did you do—?!"
Before he could question him, Leo hung up. That left the softshell to dig through his drawers frantically in hopes of finding any medkit anywhere in his lab. The moment he found one tucked away in the safety cabinet, he made a run for the hall. He never ran so fast in his life.
His heart hammered in his chest as his mind switched from panic to panic but worse.™ As he fled down the hallway, his brain thought up of nearly every worst case scenario regarding the call. Was Leo dead? Was there an enemy attack? Did he accidentally stab himself while sparring? Was there an accident?
What he couldn’t get his mind off of was the fact that Leo, from an outsiders perspective, sounded fine. Unbothered, even.
But Donnie knew him. And he knew that that meant danger. That scared him more than anything.
The moment he came up to Leo's train car, he slammed the door open and scanned the room in a matter of milliseconds, searching for any trace of death and all things related.
And he stopped.
What he found? Well, clearly it wasn't death, but it certainly was all things related.
Leo was sitting hunched over the floor, his back against his bed, his legs crossed awkwardly, and his hands hovering infront of him as if he was completely and utterly lost. He was, as stated, covered in blood.
It wasn't uncontrollably gushing, it wasn't fatal, but there was still crimson smeared across his blood-stained skin in long streaks, jagged and uneven. His lower legs were a mess of deep, angry scratches, many still pooling with fresh blood and others having stopped nearly seconds ago.
Claw marks was the conclusion Donnie came to. Blade slashes were his second guess, maybe those two were even combined.
The smell of metal itself was enough to make him nauseous.
Leo's eyes were red and puffy, his cheeks were stained with dried tears, the bags under his eyes were concerningly dark and red—he looked like he crawled straight out of his own grave. His hands were covered in red, the color stuck to his skin and clung under his nails, collecting near where his pointed claws ended.
Donnie suddenly felt sick.
Leo lazily grinned his way, his eyes drooping with exhaustion. "Hi, Dee. I-I may or may not have been... upset. And I may or may not have taken it out it in the... least best way."
There was no real way to process that sentence clearly.
The conclusion Donnie came to? It wasn’t a good conclusion.
Leo tore his own skin open. With his nails or with a sharp tool? That fact was unknown. But it didn't settle the gaping hole of fear and anxiety and dread in the soft shell's stomach.
He stood there in the doorway for a few moments, his feet frozen to the ground and his throat tight.
How did it escalate to this?
Really, there were small signs. The arguing becoming more and more frequent, the way Leo started shutting himself up in his room, the way whenever he left, he didn't have much to say. The way he deflected anything with either a joke or a sarcastic comment. The way he ignored the bags under his eyes. The way he denied questions.
Something was wrong.
No. Something is wrong.
Leo grinned sheepishly at him, despite his entire body shaking with an emotion Donnie couldn't detect. There was a crumbled t-shirt next to him, covered in blood but abandoned and disregarded. It was thrown away like he had carelessly tried to stop the bleeding but threw the plan out along with the shirt.
Donnie could see his smile quiver, and his breath hitched as Leo avoided eye contact with him.
"Dee," he started, his voice right above a whisper, "I-I think I made a mistake."
Yeah, no kidding.
Donnie's first initial reaction was to panic. In his mind, he was scrambling for every possible way to fix what was in front of him. In his head, he was up there with a marker and a whiteboard, listing every possible way this could've been prevented and how it couldn't and wouldn't happen again.
Next to those lists were questions regarding "How did this happen?" and "What was the cause of this?" and "What was going on inside Leo's head this very moment?" and "Why wasn't Leo actively trying his very hardest to prevent himself from bleeding out, and why wasn’t he trying to clean up the mess around him when they both knew full well that he had all the medical knowledge to do so?"
Why wasn't he trying?
Why wasn't Leo doing everything in his power to help himself? Why wasn't he helping himself?
Did he just not want to?
Donnie's body suddenly felt heavy and weighed down.
All he could manage to breathe was, "What the hell were you thinking?"
His voice was sharper than he intended to come off as.
And of course, Leo laughed. Like the situation was funny.
"Wasn't, I guess." he mumbled back, casually wiping his tear-stained face with a bloody wrist. He was oblivious to the blood that smeared over his cheek.
"Clearly." Donnie bit back, his heart swelling with an unbearable emotion he nearly couldn't handle.
Though Leo was trying with all of his willpower to come off as nonchalant, Donnie could tell full-well that he was panicking. It was obvious, given that his hands were trembling and his breaths were coming out heavy. His chest was heaving, his eyes were wide, and his pupils were dilated.
He looked on the verge of a breakdown or fresh out of a full-on anxiety attack. Which, well, neither was good. But Leo was just good at hiding that.
What was worse about that conclusion was that Donnie rarely ever saw him like this. He rarely saw Leo when he left himself unshielded and open, unguarded and vulnerable. Sure, right about now he still had his walls up, but at least Donnie could see through them. He could see that Leo was completely full of shit.
It was jarring—no, it was scary.
After the panic, Donnie tried mentally taking a breath, an attempt to battle his doomed spiraling with logic. That was usually his second resort when he managed to push himself past the wall of that gnawing fear in his chest.
Leo didn't call him for no particular reason, no. He needed help. And Donnie would help him a thousand times over, no matter the time or inconvenience. As long as he could keep it from escalating any further.
Scanning what he could of the scene in front of him, he came to the conclusion that there were too many cuts. Not life threatening, but still bad.
He needed to fix this.
Without another word, he found himself free from the place he was stuck to. Rushing forward and tossing the med kit on the ground next to him, Donnie placed himself right in front of Leo and immediately took ahold of his wrist, checking his pulse completely out of habit. Fast, but steady.
After that, completely out of habit, Leo huffed in amusement "Dee, I'm fine. I’m not dead.”
And all Donnie could do was give him a look.
"Yet.” He shot back, “As bizarre is it may sound, the fact that you are covered in your own blood is the very opposite of fine."
And Leo immediately shut up at that. Instead of saying anything, he turned away and bit his lip, his expression twisting with shame and dread.
That was a sight that made Donnie's own eyes burn. He forced back every speck of tears and hovered in front of his brother, glancing from the wounds to his face.
How could he fix this?
"How can I fix this?" He asked, more of a plea than a question. "What can I do? What do you need me to do, Leo?"
Slowly, Leo turned back to him. And just for that single moment, for the first time since Donnie entered the room, his casual stare scrunched into something much more raw and real. Something more hysteric, anxious, scared. It was that feeling that Donnie could sense before Leo even called him.
It was a plea for help.
"Can you..." Leo started, his voice so unnaturally small and vulnerable that Donnie could've sworn his brother was just a kid again, "Can you just... hold me?"
Anything.
With no words to say, Donnie held his arms out, and that was the moment where his eyes stung with tears. The moment he felt his eyes burn and blur was when Leo visibly relaxed at the mere sight of his open arms. He was relieved to find no judgement in the offer.
Without much of a word, the slider smiled warmly as water collected in his own eyes, and he slowly tucked in knees into his chest as he slouched forward and slumped into the embrace. His body was heavy, drained and exhausted.
For a moment, Donnie froze into the hug as every emotion he’d sworn to dig into the darkest parts of himself broke free from the walls they were behind. Every raw emotion of fear, care, and everything related wrapped around his heart and tugged it forcefully.
He didn't know how to fix this.
He was good at fixing things, he knew that, but this was something he couldn't repair like his projects.
After a moment, he slowly wrapped his arms tightly around his twin brother, and Leo visibly untensed into the hug as he let out the smallest sniffle, barely audible and full of emotion.
After a few seconds, Donnie raised a hand and awkwardly rubbed slow circles across his twin's carapace, which to his surprise, worked wonders in easing the tension in the room.
Leo's heavy breathing became just a bit slower, which wasn't much progress, but it was progress nonetheless.
After a moment, Donnie pulled away to focus on the injuries at hand. His chest tightened when he and Leo held simple eye contact, and in his brother's eyes was something of hurt. A hint of betrayal, even.
Quickly, Donnie affirmed him, "I'm just going to clean your injuries, I'm not going anywhere."
That visibly relaxed the tension in Leo's shoulders with relief. Slowly, he untucked his legs and extended them out in front of him, all while his head turned down and his eyes focused on the ground. That was the sit of shame, if Donnie could see it clearly.
After a moment, the soft shell turned to the med kit next to him and flipped the hatch open. He picked out a bottle of wound cleaner, a few rolls of bandages, and a bag of wipes. He set those to the side and grabbed the abandoned t-shirt lying next to them, already stained with messy splotches of blood.
At that point, the metallic smell was so strong it made his eyes sting and his nose hurt.
"Well, say your goodbyes to this shirt forever." Donnie said flatly, scanning the piece of clothing over with a frown. Leo didn't spare him a glance, though he did let out a huff of amusement. (It was not funny.)
"I panicked." He mumbled under his breath, "Besides, those are one of dad's old weirdo millennial shirts. I'm not gonna miss it much.”
Donnie looked from the shirt to the mess of blood in front of him. He swallowed roughly.
They looked... bad. From what he could see, not life threatening, but bad.
"...Do I have to keep the wounds dry?" he asked, just so he could get a starter to the conversation he was planning to build later. He already knew the answer, but he wanted Leo to at least talk, if only for a bit.
Leo nodded slowly, his head resting on his bed frame behind him as his eyes traced the wall with a strange dullness to them.
"Mhm." He mumbled, "Water's just gonna give the cuts moisture, and that's not good if you're trying to actively stop the bleeding."
So without any other words to say, Donnie took the shirt and gently held it against the jagged wounds covering his brother's legs. As he did so, he winced when Leo squeezed his eyes shut and visibly cringed at the pain that the touch brought him.
What made matters worse was that the smile he wore—like he was reassuring himself that everything was fine—quickly faltered like he had not an ounce of energy left to keep it standing.
Just watching his reaction was enough for Donnie to conclude that Leo looked completely exhausted and utterly drained. He had no more power to smile anymore.
As he worked to stop the bleeding for a good while, he eventually moved onto using the wipes from the med kit to clear off most of the excess blood. After that, he moved onto the wound cleaner, and the two sat in tense silence as he worked.
Donnie didn't really know exactly what to say. Who would in this situation? What was the correct way to tackle a predicament like cleaning up a loved one’s wounds that they gave themselves? He didn't know how to approach it.
Scolding him was out of the question, affirming him was something Donnie was not very good at doing and he didn't want to mess this up, and interrogating him would be overwhelming, so silence it was.
After a few minutes, when Donnie moved onto taking the roll of bandages and wrapping them around every speck of the slider's legs, Leo flinched sharply at the touch of one of the seemingly deeper cuts. To mask his startle, he flashed his stupid grin to nobody in particular.
Donnie glanced up at him and shot him an unimpressed look.
"Don't worry, Dee." he said quickly, that same joking tone to his voice, "You should see the other guy."
The soft shell gave him a glare. "Leo. The other guy is you. If you think this is a joke, you are sorely mistaken.
Ignoring the last bit, Leo snickered to himself, "Exactly. Really gave that guy a beating, huh? And there weren't even any winners."
He laughed again—a bitter thing. With that chuckle alone, Donnie could immediately hear it in his voice. Leo wasn't even deflecting at that point; he was tearing at the seams. And he was trying to fix that with thread he didn't have.
After a few more long minutes of silence, Donnie managed to wrap the last bandage around a jagged cut that looked right in between mild and deep. As he tied the cloth off and leaned back to examine the job, he studied Leo's face for any kind of explanation, assurance, anything.
But Leo just looked tired.
"Well?" Donnie started, and Leo perked up. "Hm?"
"Are you going to—to tell me what—I—what happened, Leo? Are you going to give me anything?” The soft shell stuttered over his words as he gestured towards the slider's legs, bandaged and stained with blood.
Leo didn't give him a response. He just looked away.
"Leo—" Donnie sighed, a heavy breath escaping him, "Just—just talk to me. What happened? Was this—was this a relapse, or—? Or did you freak out, or—I—what happened?!”
The slider bit down on his lip and avoided any possible eye contact, his expression twisting into something Donnie couldn't identify, "I-I don't know, okay?
He sucked in a heavy breath, “I just... got into another fight with Raph, and I was angry."
What a horrible summary.
Quickly, he backtracked, "B-But hey, wait a second. This wasn't because of Raph, okay? Raph wasn’t the reason.”
And that was all he said to defend himself. Donnie raised an eyebrow, "So what was the reason, Leo? Did he say something? Did the fighting in general trigger you, or—?”
It took Leo a few seconds to think over his words before shrugging shamefully, "I don't know, okay? It's.... It's not Raph, it's... It's me. This happened because of me, so can we leave it at that?"
Oh.
Donnie... understood that.
But he didn't like that.
"This—this isn't normal, Leo. People don't just—people don't do this when they're upset." He explained with his hands held out, like he was gesturing to his twin as a whole.
Help me understand. Explain to me. Talk to me. You can talk to me about anything.
"You know that, right?" He added after being met with silence. But Leo didn't say anything.
After coming to the conclusion that Donnie wasn't going to get a reply, he pinched the bride of his nose and repositioned his crooked glasses.
He wasn't good at this. He wasn't good at finding the right words to say, he wasn't good at comforting without it being awkward, he wasn't good at interrogating and breaking down the situation without coming off as annoyed and angry.
He wasn't angry, he just wanted to understand.
"Listen." He said after a few moments, "I don't care if you don't want to talk about it, okay? You don't have to give me a Highschool essay with correct grammar and a thesis or any of that horse-shit."
He stammered, quickly backtracking, "Wait, no. No, I didn't mean it like I don't care that this happened, because I do. This is clearly more than just a bad day—but if you're going to act like you should do this on bad days and that it's normal, then I'm gonna need you to do one thing for me."
Leo's eyes flicked towards him, his irises full of genuine confusion.
"Next time," Donnie explained with his hands gesturing towards his brother's legs, "Next time, call me before you get to this point. Call me or text me before it escalates to this. Okay?"
Leo blinked a few times. He didn't say anything.
Sucking in a breath, Donnie gestured to him again, "I'm serious, Leo. If you ever feel the need to do this again, let me know immediately before you turn yourself into a horror movie prop."
After a few beats of silence, Leo gave him a small, tired nod. "I'll try."
It wasn't an immediate fix, but Donnie concluded that that was the best he could do for now. He didn't repair what was crumbling, but he did enough to prevent it from crashing for a little longer. It wasn't the best, but it was something.
The soft shell took a deep breath and hoisted himself onto his knees, picking himself up and sitting himself right next to his twin. The two of them lay against the foot of Leo's bed in silence.
The air was thick and heavy, but not suffocating. And Donnie decided that silence wasn't going to cut it between them. Leo needed to feel better, not sit and simmer in his thoughts. That would make it worse.
"You.. want to watch spooky buddies?" The soft shell asked after a moment, "We can build a fort in my room. I can grab your favorite capri-suns and some sour creme and onion chips.”
Leo turned to him, his eyes sparkling with some sort of raw emotion. His face lit up just the slightest, a wavering smile tugging at the corners of his lips.
"That'd be nice." He said quietly, picking at the bandages covering his legs, "Rock paper scissors for the silk pillow?"
Donnie shrugged nonchalantly, though a small smile replaced his anxious frown. "You can have it this time, I don't care."
He'd let Leo have their favorite pillow if that meant that he could fix what was crumbling. Even just a bit.