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Leo feels Raph’s presence before he sees him, a formless shadow flitting across the contours of his consciousness. There's an unspoken question being projected at him from his brother. It’s not so much a distinct thought but more like a sense impression pressing on his mind.
Leo sheaths the sword he'd been cleaning and reaches back with an answering thrum. A moment later, his brother’s silhouette darkens the doorway of Leo’s bedroom, arms crossed and a rakish grin on his lips. “Thought you’d still be up,” he says.
Leo hums agreement. Not that it’d be any different. He gets little sleep as it is most nights, try as he might. It’s a trait they both share, though for different reasons. While Leo’s hypervigilant brain rarely gives him the courtesy of turning off, Raph’s a born night owl. Left to his own devices, he’d roll out of bed at the crack of noon. Not that Leo lets him, much to his sibling’s very vocal objections.
Leo unfurls his legs from where he’s been sitting against the back wall and gets to his feet. He places the sword on its mounted rack, tosses the cleaning rag on the rickety table next to it, and turns to face Raph. His brother’s mask is such a dark red in the dim light of the room that it’s almost black, but his eyes are bright and expectant.
Raph reaches behind him with a casual arm and shuts the door. He lounges against it with an insouciant slouch and gives Leo a slow, assessing look. The unspoken question is back again, this time pulling more insistently on the tether that binds them. As before, no words are said, but Leo implicitly understands its meaning.
They’ve always had this connection, the four of them, a kind of psychic shorthand that comes as naturally to them as breathing. Mike has it the strongest. His little brother has an uncanny ability to pull on the threads of their deepest thoughts, sneakily worming his way into their neuropathways like a, well, ninja.
The rest of them learned early on to guard against his tresspasses by throwing up mental barriers to block him out.
It…doesn’t always work.
Still, it has its pluses, like how they know where each other is with a moment’s thought. A sort of echolocation, as Don once described it. Useful for reconnaissance and in the heat of battle, but a pain in the ass if you’re Raph trying to sneak out in the middle of the night.
Leo suppresses a grin, knowing it'd just piss his brother off.
He lets his eyes unfocus as he casts his mind out into the lair. It’s quiet, Mike and Don are asleep, their thoughts diffuse and dreamy. He can’t sense Master Splinter. Never could. Their father doesn’t have their extrasensory ability, but Leo knows that at this late in the night he’s sequestered in his own room, trusting the eldest to referee his brothers.
Satisfied, he turns his attention back to Raph and gives him a small smile. These moments alone are rare and he’s been looking forward to this. More than he dares admit. It’s a dangerous thought to have and Leo retreats from it, hastily drawing a veil of white static over his mind.
Raph’s eyes narrow and he cants his head.
The look instantly puts Leo on guard. “What?”
His brother smirks. “What’re you hiding?” He saunters over until they’re within arm’s reach of each other.
Leo resists the urge to step back. “Nothing,” he says, keeping the expression on his face carefully neutral. He folds his arms across his chest and holds his ground as his brother looms over him, a head taller than Leo and built like a linebacker, all corded muscle and taut lines.
The tension in the room rises and Leo knows with resigned certainty how this’ll play out. Where Mikey has finesse, Raph simply bulldozes his way into your brain.
Leo clamps down harder on his own thoughts. How much his brother knows about these inconvenient feelings, Leo shudders to think. They never talk about it, whatever this thing is between them. It’s an unspoken rule, one of many, and he fears what might happen if he breaks the stalemate and speaks it into being. So he packs the incriminating thoughts up and stows them deep down in his subconscious where he can’t dwell on it. Afterall, it's easier to block others out when you don’t even allow yourself to think about it. And Leo tries very hard not to think about all the things he’s buried in the graveyard of his mind.
Predictably, Raph reciprocates with a forceful tug at the edges of his thoughts, no doubt searching for a weak spot. It’s a familiar test of wills and one Leo can’t afford to lose. Head aching from the effort, he pushes the thoughts further down and locks the vault.
Raph quirks an eyeridge at him.
Leo shakes his head. “Just making sure we’re alone.” It’s not, strictly speaking, a lie and will ring true at Raph’s psychic probing. The threat of discovery holds them both in check.
Leo can hear the shrug in his brother’s voice.“They’re not gonna know,” he says with a dismissive wave of his hand. He gives Leo a withering look. “And you can’t lie for shit.”
Leo curses inwardly.
His brother’s sharp focus shifts into a feral glint. The look of it makes Leo feel like a harried prey about to be devoured. Raph seems to have picked up on this strand of thought too because his lips curve in a half-smirk, what Leo thinks of as his inciting smile.
He squares his shoulders and debates taking the bait. It could go either way at this point. Their foreplay was just as likely to turn into a full-scale brawl as anything else.
On silent feet, Raph slowly starts to circle him, closing the distance between them with each pass. Leo watches him warily until his brother steps behind him and out of sight. Giving Raph your back is a dangerous move to make in even the best of circumstances, but Leo resists the urge to turn and face him. Instead, he takes a bracing breath and waits for his brother’s next move.
After the third revolution, Raph comes to stand in front of him again, only this time he steps forward into Leo’s space and crowds him against the cement wall.
“You’ve been avoiding me,” he says, boxing Leo in with his arms. His voice is low. Ominous. The accusation echoes in Leo’s head, a mental knife at his throat, daring him to deny it.
Leo stiffens. He hadn’t thought his brother would notice. Or care, for that matter.
His mouth opens in rebuttal but just as quickly closes. What could he possibly say? That it’s necessary for both their sakes? That he wants something Raph can’t – or won’t – give?
Damning his cowardice and more than ready to put an end to this discussion, he turns to duck under his brother’s arm, but Raph grabs his bicep, trap-tight, and presses him bodily up against the wall.
Leo glares at him and moves to shake himself loose.
“What are you —” Before he can finish, Raph pulls off the elbow and knee pads that Leo hadn’t gotten around to removing after their earlier training session and tosses them in a jumbled mess on the floor. With deft hands, he unfastens Leo’s utility belt next and lets it fall. He then reaches up to wrap the ends of his mask in a fist and all but yanks Leo’s head back, exposing his throat.
Raph leans down, lips hovering just above the pulse point, his hot breath ghosting across Leo’s skin. Eager to distract him, Leo arches his neck further back to give him more access.
Teeth graze the slope of his shoulder then trail up his throat, lightly nipping at the sensitive skin there and sending shivers down his body. His brother’s careful not to leave a mark, though. Even Raph knows what’s at stake if the others find out. The thing is, sometimes, just sometimes, Leo wishes he would so they could finally be done with all this hiding. He’s quick to discard this thought, though, anxious to be rid of it before it draws his brother’s attention.
Raph captures Leo’s smaller wrist with a callosed hand and brings it to his lips.There’s a moment where they linger on the back of his knuckles like a kiss, and then he’s guiding Leo’s hand down his plastron to the spot between his legs. Leo needs little encouragement and he quickly teases his brother’s cock out, feels the heavy weight of it against his palm. He runs his fingers down the length, stroking it.
Raph’s breath hitches, but he swiftly schools his face into a look of feigned resignation. “Fine,” he gives a theatrical sigh, "if you won’t talk, I’ll just have to give your mouth something else to do.”
With a firm hand, he presses on Leo’s shoulder, his intention abundantly clear. Leo sinks down to his knees, mouth watering in anticipation.
Raph languidly strokes his own cock with one hand, while the other reaches out to trace a thumb against the seam of Leo’s mouth. Leo obligingly opens his lips and takes it in, lightly sucking on the knuckle before gently biting down.
“Greedy thing,” his brother murmurs. He’s got a faraway look in his eyes, like he’s imagining all the things he’ll do with Leo’s mouth. A willing supplicant, Leo tightens his lips and flattens his tongue against the probing finger, sucking it deeper into his wet mouth.
Apparently ready to put his lust-filled thoughts into action, Raph withdrawals his thumb and cups the back of Leo’s neck. He grasps his cock with his other hand and guides it past Leo’s lips, watching with rapt attention as his mouth stretches around the thickly-flared head.
It’s velvety smooth against his tongue and Leo suckles at the tip, drawing out a low moan from his brother. Emboldened, he drags his tongue around the base in a slow swirl. Raph reflexively tightens his grip on his neck and lets out a shuddering breath.
Leo loves sucking his brother off and wants more of it. He reaches up to wrap his hand around the shaft, but Raph pulls his fingers away. “Nuh-uh, you take what I give you.”
Leo can’t help the irritated huff, which elicits a breathless laugh from above. But, oh, how he gets a secret thrill when Raph uses him like this for his own pleasure. He scrunches his eyes shut against the damning thought and stuffs it down with all the others.
Oblivious to his brother’s inner turmoil, Raph feeds a couple more inches into his mouth. Leo hums approvingly and hollows his cheeks. His own erection hangs heavy between his legs, throbbing with need, but he ignores it in favor of circling his tongue in tight strokes around Raph’s shaft.
“A little more,” his brother whispers. His fingers gently squeeze the back of Leo’s neck, coaxing him forward until Raph’s cock touches his soft palate, then further still. Leo swallows around him, jaw slack. The movement causes his brother’s cock to twitch in earnest and precum coats his tongue.
Raph’s eyes flutter shut. “Fuck, you’re good at this.” Leo basks in the praise. He’s an eager student, having quickly learned the ways to draw out his brother’s soft looks and breathy sighs.
He knows he’s not Raph’s first. His brother’s been with a multitude of humans: male, female, doesn’t really matter. He’s never been exactly reticent about his sexual exploits, either.
Halloween is it’s own special brand of torture for Leo. While his brother walks the streets with reckless abandon in the guise of a “costume,” Leo paces the lair in protective ire, ready to rip into his sibling the moment he slinks back in for daring to put his safety and that of their family’s at risk.
For Leo, though, there hasn’t been anyone else. Their first time happened after a particularly explosive fight, the kind that would’ve sent his other brothers running to Splinter, had they known about it. He’d caught Raph in the tunnels again, sneaking back home, smelling of alcohol and sex. He doesn’t remember who threw the first punch, but by the end of it they were both breathless and bloody.
And then something strange happened, something he still can’t wrap his head around. He had Raph pinned up against the sewer wall, one forearm pressed against his brother’s larynx, while his other hand had his brother’s arm wrenched behind him at a painful angle. Raph glared back at him, defiant as always, and Leo wanted nothing more in that moment than to shake him until his teeth rattled in his skull.
Instead, high on adrenaline and a great, unnamable need, he kissed him.
Raph let out a shocked Mmph!
Leo instantly pulled back, ashamed and apologetic. They stood frozen in action, the look on his brother’s face one of almost comical surprise. Leo took a hasty step backwards, a half-formed apology already on his lips, but Raph abruptly surged forward and smashed their mouths together. One thing led to another and. Well.
All that’s to say, from the moment Raph entered him for the first time, Leo knew there would never be anyone else for him. He thought their coupling would mark the end of his brother’s exploits, that he alone could temper his desire. Turns out he couldn’t have been more wrong, and each time Raph left to prowl the streets, he took a little bit of Leo’s heart with him.
He’s not sure when that part of it happened; when it became something more than sex to him. Maybe it’s always been there. There’s an uncomfortable truth to that thought, one he doesn’t want to examine too closely. In moments like these, he tells himself that as long as he doesn’t give it a name, then it can’t take shape in his mind. And if it can’t take shape, if it remains amorphous and without label, then it can’t exist. He wears this self-preservation like a talisman. It’s the only way he can keep doing this.
With both hands now cupping Leo’s head, Raph thrusts his cock in and out with increasing urgency. The expression on his face is rapturous and Leo takes a moment to appreciate his brother’s form: the flex of his well-defined muscles, the sharp cut of his jaw. Leo quickly squirrels the image away, tucking it behind where he keeps a running list of his favorite history documentaries, a safe place in his gray matter where Raph wouldn’t bother to look.
Just then his brother catches him watching and Leo’s gaze self-consciously darts away. Raph tsks and shakes his head. “Look at me,” he says, pulling taut on the ends of Leo’s mask. Fearing the heat of Raph’s stare might burn the truth right out of him, Leo reluctantly looks up at him again.
Penetrating eyes holding Leo in place, Raph starts speeding up, his cock sliding deeper into Leo’s mouth. Sensing his brother’s getting close, Leo relaxes his throat further and takes him down to the root. A moment later Raph’s fingers abruptly tighten around his head and he thrusts his cock all the way in and spills down Leo’s throat with a deep groan. Leo swallows reflexively and drinks him down.
“That’s it, just like that.” Raph holds Leo’s forehead pressed against his plastron and absently strokes a knuckle up and down the column of his throat until he’s obediently swallowed every last drop.
With a pleased sound, Raph pulls out and releases him. Leo sways on his knees, grateful for the steadying hand that’s placed on his shoulder. He sends up a subvocal thanks, licks the saltiness from his swollen lips and looks up expectantly.
His brother gives him an amused look. “Don’t worry, I ain’t done with you yet.” Leave it to Raph to make a promise sound like a threat.
“Up you get.” He’s hauled to his feet and half-dragged over to the bed where he’s unceremoniously dumped face down onto the narrow mattress. Raph climbs up behind him and straddles his thighs. Leo has to resist the compulsion to counter and throw him off. Not that he could if he tried. His sibling easily outweighs him.
A knee is wedged between his legs. The urge to fight back briefly flares again and he tenses, but a strong hand on his shell presses him firmly down on the bed. Another circles his wrists and pulls them over his head. Leo squirms in his brother’s iron grip, but Raph merely tightens his hold. “Don’t move,” he all but growls. His tone brokes no refusal and Leo grudgingly does as he says.
Under the heavy press of his brother’s palms, Leo wages a silent war with himself. He distantly registers a similar weight pressing against his mind, encircling him in a constricting embrace. It’s at once comforting and unbearably suffocating. He breathes in deeply and wills the rapid beat of his heart to slow. Raph holds him steady in quiet understanding until Leo finally settles, pliant and unresisting under the shelter of his brother’s body.
He can practically feel Raph’s smug smile, pleased that he gave in so easily this time. “Shut up,” he says without any heat to his brother’s snickers.
Satisfied that he isn’t going to bolt, Raph lets go of his wrists and scoots down his thighs. His hands roam over Leo’s skin, kneading the muscles underneath. The lingering tension within Leo slowly unwinds and he melts into his brother’s touch with a happy sigh.
Raph’s hands trail downward to cup the slight curve of his ass, roughly squeezing the spare flesh. Leo remains unmoving, content to let his brother do as he pleases. A finger traces the dip between his cheeks, tantalizingly slow, before pressing in and circling the tight furl. The touch is electric; it races across his nerve endings and makes his own cock start to swell again.
There’s the sound of Raph rummaging with his free hand in the packing crate next to the bed, then the distinct snap of the cap being opened. A moment later, he feels a slick finger press against him once more. Another hand reaches down to hold him open and Leo knows without looking that Raph’s watching intently as the tip of his finger plays with his hole. He feels his face flush at the thought of what his brother must be seeing but bites his tongue.
Seemingly in no hurry, Raph continues to play with him, lightly running his finger in slow sweeps across his opening. Leo tries to push back onto the finger but it immediately retreats. He wants to groan in frustration but knows it’s futile to hurry his brother along. He can be remarkably patient when he wants to be.
Finally, after a slow eternity, Raph’s finger presses inside, just past his rim. Leo’s so ready that his body greedily swallows it up.
“You like that?” Raph teases.
Leo can only give a breathy moan as a second finger soon joins the first, stretching him further. He closes his eyes to better focus on the sensation as Raph continues to move his fingers at a sedate pace, sinking them deeper as they work their way inside him.
Leo makes a soft sound of pleasure that reverberates through their bond. His brother adds a third finger then and it’s suddenly too much. He inhales sharply, biting back the whine in his throat. Raph pauses, makes a sympathetic noise and smooths his other hand over Leo’s shell.
By slow degrees, his breath evens out and his insides unclench. Raph rewards him by curling his fingers and hitting that little bundle of nerves, which soon has Leo pressing his hips back, silently begging for more. His brother obliges with merciless precision and before long Leo’s hanging on a precipice. “Raph,” he warns. His brother gives an answering hum but doesn't stop. Before Leo can say anything more, he reaches a precipitous climax and tumbles over in a wave of ecstasy, his hole clenching around Raph’s fingers. His brother works him through it until Leo slumps, breathless, on his forearms.
Raph slowly withdraws and after coaxing Leo up onto his knees moves to settle between them. He takes a moment to add lube to his cock then lines himself up at Leo’s entrance.
They don’t have much of a refractory period, but Leo’s not sure if he can handle his brother just yet. Raph seems to have picked up on his hesitancy because he drapes himself over Leo’s smaller frame to nuzzle at his neck.“You were made for this,” he says. “Made to take me.” Leo breathes out with a nod and reaches a hand back to squeeze the hard coil of Raph’s thigh in permission before resuming its position above his head.
With a final caress to Leo’s shell, Raph lines himself up again and presses in until the tight ring reluctantly opens around his cock. Leo hisses at the intrusion. They haven’t done this in a while and the stretch borders on painful. He can simultaneously feel the pleasure center of his brother’s brain light up as his cockhead finally breaches his rim.
It feels impossibly huge, more than he can handle. He instinctively pulls away, but Raph easily follows him up the bed, cock still wedged inside him. Scrunched up against the pillows, Leo drops to his plastron with a stifled whimper.
His brother leans over and bites lightly at his throat, a gentle threat that’s both infuriating and arousing. “Fuck,” Raph groans against him, “you’re so tight.” Leo responds with a low moan. The overstimulation makes him want to buck his brother off, but he settles for gripping a lumpy pillow instead.
Raph sits back on his knees and traces a thumb over the tight ring where they’re joined. He makes an admiring sound. “You look so good on my cock.” Leo gives a flustered noise that’s all consonants and shifts uncomfortably under the raw physicality of his brother’s continued stare. The movement causes his slick insides to grip even tighter around Raph, and he knows from the growing tumult in his brother’s thoughts that he’s fighting the urge to jam himself all the way in.
While he appreciates the restraint, Leo’s been left empty for too long and needs to feel the fullness of his brother inside him. “All of it,” he says, putting a commanding tone into his voice.
Raph hesitates. “You sure?”
Leo nods mutely. He can sense Raph’s internal debate as he weighs the idea in his mind, but his brother ultimately relents and presses forward in one long, slow, unrelenting stretch. Leo groans in pleasure-pain.The pressure is overwhelming, but Raph doesn’t stop until he’s fully seated.
He pauses then to give Leo time to adjust, his restless hands gliding up and down his shell, waiting for that tacit surrender they both know will come. Leo can feel through their bond that his brother's very much enjoying the sensation of Leo’s slick channel contracting around him.
When the pain subsides enough that he can finally breathe again, he raises his hips in invitation and Raph responds with a shallow thrust, then another. And then he angles his hips to hit that toe-curling spot again. It sends a rush of blood to Leo’s own member and he breathes out a silent yes before trailing off into a moan.
His brother starts rocking into him at a leisurely tempo, but Leo’s hungry for more and pushes back with his hips, encouraging him to go faster. Raph’s in an indulgent mood now, it seems, because he quickly ups his speed and before long is plowing into Leo’s body in deep, long strokes.
Leo’s own neglected cock presses against the bed and he shoves a desperate hand down to grasp himself, but Raph bats it away. Before he can object, his brother vines an arm around his middle and lifts him up, holding him firmly against his plastron.
Caught in his brother’s vice grip, his thighs held open by Raph’s knees, Leo’s hopelessly stuck and without leverage. Gravity forces him down onto Raph’s unyielding cock, penetrating him deeper than he’s ever felt him go. The pain of it steals his breath away and Leo strains against his brother's arm, but Raph holds him imobile until he finally stops fighting and goes lax in his arms, sinking the last couple of inches with a groan.
“That’s right,” Raph’s voice is low and raspy against his ear. “All of it.” He sounds almost as done in as Leo feels.
The arm wrapped around his chest cinches tighter while the other slides down to his cock. A finger twirls around the sensitive head. Leo jolts at the sensation, which only drives Raph’s cock further into his tender body.
But then Raph gives his cock a slow pump and all else is eclipsed by a heat that radiates up through his pelvis and expands to fill his whole body. A bead of precum leaks out and Raph smears it down his shaft. On the next upward pull, he rolls his hips and Leo loses himself in transcendent pleasure. His head falls back against Raph’s shoulder as his brother continues to pump his cock in a maddening slow rhythm with his thrusts.
It is, in a word, sublime. Which is why Leo’s slow to realize Raph’s scratching at the periphery of his thoughts again. Figures. He never could leave well enough alone.
Hoping to divert his attention, Leo reaches up to grip the back of his brother’s head and pulls him down into a rough kiss. Raph snorts at the obvious ploy but gives in readily enough and kisses back. It’s wet and messy and Leo can’t get enough of it.
Raph nudges Leo’s thighs further open with his knees, driving the thick curl of his cock impossibly deeper. Leo’s helpless to resist and Raph swallows up his increasingly loud moans with his mouth. It’s slow and sensual and for a moment it makes him think this is more than just sex.
“You feel so good,” his brother breathes into his neck. The words trigger an answering response in Leo’s cock and more precum leaks out. He reaches down to cover the hand that’s around his shaft with his own and their joined fingers move in sync around the hard length. He marvels at how well they fit together. Maybe Raph is right and Leo’s made for this, to be filled by him, utterly and completely.
But he also wants to feel the burn of his body being pushed to its limits and so he projects this thought to his brother. He feels the responding ripple of intention moments before Raph, with their bodies still connected, lays him back down on his stomach. His brother wraps a hand around the back of Leo’s neck and presses him into the mattress while delivering a powerful thrust that sends light flashing across his retinas. Another one quickly follows the first and soon his brother’s setting a brutal pace.
The snap of his hips against Leo’s ass fills the room. The pain is exquisite but his brother doesn’t stop. Then Raph’s hand moves to grip the ridge of Leo’s shell and he fucks into him even harder, each thrust jolting the bed. Leo balls the beadsheet up in his fists. His own member is rutting into the mattress and he’s craving release, but he knows from his brother’s mind-voice that Raph wants him to only come on his cock.
And then Leo’s world abruptly shifts as his brother pulls out and flips him over onto his shell before surging back into him again. Leo’s breath punches out and he arches upward in a wordless keen as Raph continues to pound into him. The force of it has him biting the inside of his cheek to keep from crying out.
Raph watches him through half-lidded eyes as Leo writhes under the insistent push of his cock. Facing each other like this isn’t something they often do and Leo feels too exposed. He reaches up to pull Raph down against him and tucks his face in the crook of his brother’s neck.
Raph briefly allows this, but all too soon pulls back from Leo’s embrace. “Let me see you,” he says. Without breaking stride, he pushes Leo’s knees up to his shoulders, spreading his thighs out, the better to watch how his hole stretches around his girth. “Fuck, look at you. You take me so well.”
The deep timbre of his brother’s voice speaks to something primal in Leo’s hindbrain and his insides give an involuntary squeeze around Raph’s cock, causing the flared head to catch on his rim with the next reentry. They both moan in unison.
Leo’s cock is dripping again, smearing precum across his plastron. He can feel the bright bloom of another orgasim building. “Raph,” he chokes out. Each push and pull of his brother’s cock brings him that much closer to the edge.
“Not yet,” Raph snarls.
Leo’s makes a plaintive noise.“Raph, please.”
“Not until you show me what you’re hiding,” Raph hisses down at him. His hips pump like a jackhammer, driving Leo deeper into the mattress.
He shakes his head in refusal. No, never. He’s torn between wanting to bring his brother over the edge with him and wanting to throw him off. Raph must have plucked this last thought from his mind because he snatches Leo’s hands and pulls them up over his head again. Leo twists his wrists, straining against the hold, but Raph leans on them with his full weight and punishes him with a hash thrust that has Leo’s eyes rolling up into his head.
He knows from his brother’s floundering thoughts that his control is starting to slip, though. He wants Raph to finish inside him, so he hooks his heels around the back of his brother’s thighs and pulls him in until their lips are almost touching in their shared breaths.
Chest heaving, Raph grinds against Leo’s ass. His pupils are blown wide in the low light and they track every microexpression that crosses Leo’s face, as if searching intently for something. And then, slowly, slowly, as if wary of scaring the other off, he closes the remaining distance between them and bows his forehead to Leo’s.
The intimacy of it is too much and Leo cries out in a broken voice as his mind whites out and his cock pulses, spilling cum between them.
In the same instant, the inner vault of his subconscious, the thing he kept so carefully locked and guarded, bursts open, and out pours Leo’s traitorous thoughts.
His heart seizes.
Raph suddenly makes a dark sound. He gasps out a word that might be Leo’s name, thrusts himself as far as he can go and releases deep into his channel.
Warm spend fills him up and Leo winces at the sting of it. He’ll be pleasantly sore for days, he’s sure of it. He chases the feeling by clenching around Raph, the tight grip of his body milking him of the last few drops.
With a satisfied grunt, Raph lets go of Leo’s arms and collapses on top of him, pinning him to the bed. They’re both breathing heavily in the aftermath, Leo all the more so from the dense weight on top of him.
Raph finally pushes himself up on his elbows and Leo gratefully breathes in a lungful of air, only to watch in horror at the dawning light in Raph’s eyes. Something like panic starts to set in and Leo moves to shove his brother off, but he’s still impaled on his cock and Raph easily holds him down.
His brother tilts his head in an unspoken question. Leo swallows and looks away. He can’t bear to look at him. With nowhere to hide, he shrinks into his shell and tries to curl up on his side, but Raph refuses to let him go, so he resolutely stares past him at the opposite wall and waits for the inevitable rage or, worse, indifference.
“Hey,” Raph says softly. Leo’s eyes tick to him. There’s worry in his expression and something else he can’t read. His brother raises his hand to Leo’s chin, trying to catch his eyes, but Leo turns his head away and grits his teeth.
“Don’t,” he grinds out. “I didn’t…” mean it ? That’s an obvious lie, Raph can see it plain as day in his thoughts. There’s nothing he could say that wouldn’t make it worse. Mortified, he blows out a shaky exhale and tries to discipline his thoughts.“It’s fine. It’s…nothing, just leave it.”
“Leo – ”
“Raphael.”
Raph opens his mouth as if to argue, and Leo steels himself, praying that just for once his hard-headed brother listens to him.
Raph does nothing for a long moment; then, with a heavy sigh, he sits up and arms sweat from his face. He starts to pull out but stops when Leo places a tentative hand on his thigh.
He needs to apologize for ruining this. Promise never to utter another word about it. Maybe when the dust settles, when Raph doesn’t hate him, or hates him less, anyway, they can try to piece together some semblance of normalcy between them.
But, selfishly, Leo also wants to pretend for a little while longer, just for tonight, before Raph leaves his bed for good. Leo squirms guiltily inside his skull. How can he ask for something he can’t put words around?
He summons a reserve of strength and sends up a single word in his mind-voice:
Stay.
He holds his breath, waiting. A strained moment passes, then another, and Leo’s chest is aching with the growing hurt of it. But then Raph is meaneovering them over onto their sides, his softening cock still buried inside him. There’s another reshuffling of limbs before Leo settles flush against his brother’s plastron. An arm comes around to pull him in snug.
Leo clenches his jaw, struggling against the sudden tightness in his throat. “Sorry,” he says softly.
“For what?”
He hastily wipes at his eyes with the back of his hand. “I know it’s not what you – that you don’t.” He stutters into silence, words failing him. He hates this, this vulnerability. Knowing that Raph could crush his heart with a word, or none at all.
His brother is silent for a long while, but then his hand trails down Leo’s forearm to rest on the back of his wrist. Raph lets out a soft huff. “You’re an idiot, you know that?” It’s not really a question, but there’s no bite to it, either.
Leo’s brow furrows, mystified. “I don’t -” he begins.
Raph broke in impatiently. “You think too much. Don’t need to be a mind reader to know that about you.”
Leo blinks uncertainly. Slowly and with an abundance of caution, he lowers his mental defenses, just a bit, and what his mind’s eye sees is an affection, bright as the sun.
A dawning hope blooms in his chest. It’s a revelation and Leo cradles it with eager mental hands. “I didn’t know.”
“You never looked,” Raph grumbles, but his gruff tone is belied by him threading his fingers through Leo’s. “It was always there.”
Oh.
“Yeah, ‘oh.’”
“But, the…humans.” Leo can’t finish. The thought is too raw. He kept waiting for a sign; some word or hint that Raph wanted more, but none came, and Leo didn’t dare search his brother’s thoughts for fear that he might see an awful truth that mirrors the one in his own head, a voice all his own that says, You're not enough.
Raph sighs.“They didn’t mean anything. Just, you know, scratching an itch, is all. It’s like I’ve said before, we have to take what we can get.”
Leo doesn’t want to rehash an old argument, so he lets it lie. Then another thought occurs to him.
“Why didn’t you say anything?” But as soon as the words leave his mouth, he knows why. Thoughts so much like his own flit across his mind; his brother’s uncertainties echoing back at him.
Raph makes an exasperated noise. “You were your usual closed-off self. How was I supposed to know?” There’s something fragile in his voice, though, something Leo isn’t meant to hear. It’s an elusive thing, rarely seen, and one his brother would never confess to.
He squeezes Raph’s fingers. “Guess we’re both idiots.”
“Speak for yourself,” his brother grouses, even as he returns the squeeze.
Leo smiles. The lump in his throat is gone, replaced by something warm and featherlight. Loose-limbed and sated, he sinks into the comfortable silence. He can feel his brother’s thoughts floating across his own, soft and omnipresent, like he lives there now, deep in the valley of his consciousness. It feels good. Surprisingly good. Like he was meant to be there all along.
Raph yawns and disentangles their fingers long enough to tug the blanket over them before molding himself to Leo’s back once more like a second shell.
In the quiet shelter of their arms, he feels his brother's essence nestle into the core of his being, their bond curling peacefully around them. He knows they’re something undeniably more than brothers now. He can see the shape of it, too, in his mind’s eye, the thing whose existence he denied for so long. Leo opens himself to it, watches it spread and take root.
They still have to navigate the hurdle of telling their family. But if the knowing looks Mikey’s been giving him lately are any indication...Leo sighs. A problem for tomorrow.
He burrows deeper into his brother’s embrace, feels the reflexive tightening of the arm wrapped around him, followed by a faint not-quite-awake-not-quite-asleep mumbling against the back of his neck. Raph’s breathing soon settles into a deep, long rhythm. Leo closes his eyes and listens contently until a weariness comes over him like a soft weight and he too drifts off to sleep.