Seven Years Ch 20: Grave News for a Busy Skeleton
The next chapter is more light-hearted but if anyone's finding it hard to read these chapters with Leo dying, ch 23 is the last chapter for this before we get into a new arch (though I recommend skipping ahead to ch 25) 🐢💚
Leo was cuddled up under a pile of thick, warm blankets, sound asleep on the living room couch that he asked Draxum to drag into the lab because he wanted to be near all his family; and practically every waking moment Donnie and Draxum were busy in the lab, working on new tech and new medications for the rapidly deteriorating slider (with his twin secretly researching ways to keep his brother alive every spare moment he got, and not having informed the rest of their family about the key - but mostly because he adamantly refused to admit it existed as opposed to intentionally trying to hide it from his fam).
The only thing giving away that there was anyone under the mess of blankets was the IV line that stretched out from there.
It was early in the morning, but Leo was still sick to his stomach, so much so Draxum insisted he keep the IV in because he couldn’t seem to keep any food down - even with the nausea medication dosage increased three times, in combination with a new acid reflux medicine. And now Draxum and Donnie were working together on an entirely new nausea medication, with April fetching whatever they needed and Casey out running errands in the Hidden City Market, picking up mystically imbued food items that were supposed to be soothing on an upset stomach, while Mikey was in the kitchen, prepping ingredients and doing what he could to prepare Leo’s next meal while waiting for Casey to return with the required supplies.
The chef of the family was working off a ‘Mystic Remedies’ cookbook Draxum owned, with Splinter assisting in the kitchen because he wanted to make himself useful while Leo was asleep - not only for Leo’s benefit but also to distract his troubled mind (and also not having informed the rest of their family about the mystic Hamato key, for his own reasons). While all of that was going on Raph was sitting on the couch beside his hid-away sleeping brother.
In the lab, Draxum, Donnie, and April worked quietly so they didn’t wake Leo, with the occasional low mumble ‘pass that’ or ‘I need more of this’ and the clinking of glass on glass.
Raph was leaning against where his ill brother was, staying close enough to ensure he would feel the slightest stir but being careful not to put any weight on Leo’s rapidly deteriorating body. That was why, while he was mindlessly scrolling through online videos on his phone, half asleep with droopy eyelids, he felt the instant Leo tensed from under the pile of blankets.
April stopped what she was doing and watched when Raph got up to kneel on the floor in front of where he knew Leo’s head was; but the exceptionally busy Draxum and Donnie didn’t do more than offer a passing glance, before getting back to work - which broke Donnie’s heart because he wanted to be right by Raph’s side when he heard his big brother say in a soft, tender voice: “You ok there, buddy?”
April continued watching as Raph pulled away enough blankets so he could see Leo’s face buried beneath, but before he dug all the way through, Draxum looked at April, requested: “Waxworm algae?” and she replied with: “Oh, right,” and brought the sealed container labelled ‘waxwork algae’ over to Draxum.
Raph finally pushed all the blankets away and his worried expression softened when he saw his ill little brother gazing up at him from inside his little dark fort, with blood coming out of his nose. So his big bro picked up a box of tissues on the floor beside him and pulled some out to hand them over.
A pale green hand came out of the darkness to reach for the tissues, and when Leo held them up to his nose, his big brother tenderly asked: “Did you have another brain bleed? Is that why you tensed?”
“Yeah,” Leo quietly replied in a hoarse, tired voice. Then he motioned with his free hand for Raph to come closer, and when he did so his ill little brother whispered something in his ear.
Raph nodded his head, understanding what Leo meant and what he needed when he told him that the bleed in his brain relaxed his bladder, so he pushed himself up on his feet and told his family: “Leo wants a bath.”
Donnie stopped his work to ask: “Is he ok?” and after Raph informed them Leo had another brain bleed but he was ok, Draxum turned his head long enough to firmly instruct: “Don’t leave him alone in there for a second.”
Raph quietly agreed with the busy alchemist and bent down to pick up his younger brother, blankets and all, with no one questioning it because everyone knew he didn’t have the strength to walk very far at the moment.
After fumbling a little to get Leo’s IV pole in his grip, he quietly carried his brother to his bathroom, the one straight across from his bedroom, where he could wash up from his little accident.
When they got to the bathroom, Raph laid Leo down on the floor in a heap of blankets, and the slider pushed them aside and returned Raph’s sad smile with a weak one of his own.
Leo’s voice sounded hoarse and dry when he talked because of a persistent sore throat he had that Draxum didn’t have time to medicate, because he was so busy on the more important task of making an effective nausea medicine so he could eat without it coming back up again - along with making new batches of many other necessary medications. And in a rough, tired voice, with his heavy eyelids half closed, Leo told Raph: “I can get my shorts off, but can you put me in the tub?”
“Sure thing, bud,” his big brother agreed in a way that didn’t do a good job of hiding the heartbreak he felt inside for his terminally ill little brother.
Raph patted Leo’s knee and got up to run the warm water while Leo began the slow task of pulling off his soaked black shorts.
After the tub was filled and Raph gently put Leo in the warm water, he pulled the curtain partway to give him privacy before sitting on the floor by Leo’s head with his back against the tub, but angled in a way he could see his bro’s face.
Leo slowly reached up for his body wash and his blue shower puff. As he added the soap to the puff and squished it around with his fingers to get it bubbly, he said in his hoarse voice: “Hey Raph?”
“Yeah, buddy?” Raph softly replied.
“Can you wash my stuff so no one knows what happened?”
Leo's loving big bro considered assuring him it wasn’t his fault and there was nothing to be embarrassed about, but he decided against it, instead replying with a simple: “Sure.”
While he bathed, Raph and Leo chatted about a little bit of nothing and a little bit of everything, and in the middle of the conversation the guilt-stricken slider unexpectedly commented:
“I’m sorry for putting you through this.”
“Oh, that’s nothing,” Raph replied in a fake upbeat tone he put on for Leo’s benefit, but unintentionally giving away how stressed he really was about this whole situation by referring to himself in the third person (something he mostly only did when very stressed and he was doing a whole lot more than usual since finding out about Leo’s terminal illness):
“Raph wet the bed until Raph was twelve.”
“No, not that,” Leo immediately replied. He rinsed off his shower puff by swishing it around in the water, and then hung it back up where it belonged.
“What are you sorry 'bout, bro?” Raph asked, when the silence stretched on.
Leo sadly gazed down at the bubbles in his bath water, not wanting to make eye contact with his big brother right now when he quietly replied in a hushed, almost whisper of a voice:
Leo looked up when his protective big brother looked right at him and firmly but lovingly replied:
“Now you get that thought right out of your head! That’s not your fault, it’s those alien scum's fault. Raph's just sorry he spent a whole month putting the blame on the wrong person. And if I could, Raph would punch that bully right in his nose, mystic ninja style.”
Raphael raised his oversized fist, and Leo laughed asking: “Do krang even have a nose?”
Raph next got Leo laughing more when he emphatically replied: “If they don’t I’ll stick one to his ugly pink brain face so I can smash it right through his gross, slimy head!”
The brothers shared a smile, and then Leo put his arms up, saying: “I’m ready to get out now.”
Raph got up, grabbed a big, oversized, soft, dark blue plushy towel and picked up his brother to wrap him up snug and warm in his arms, making him smile up at him and happily comment:
“Hey this is like when I was little and you wrapped me up in my blanket like a burrito when I couldn’t sleep!"
“Yeah,” Raph fondly agreed. He grabbed the IV pole, and on their way out of the bathroom, Leo told him his other shorts were in his room, and suggested they hang out in there a bit, one-on-one, before going back to the lab.
But before they even got halfway across the hallway to Leo’s bedroom, the slider was already falling asleep in his arms.
The last thing he did before he drifted off into a deep sleep, was open his mouth to say:
Raph had to choke back the tears before he could open his mouth to say in reply: “I love you too, lil bro.”
When he was done getting all the supplies Mikey needed for Leo’s meals, Casey came home to quite the surprise.
There, standing outside Draxum’s humongous house, was a crowd of yokai, including news casters, journalists, camera-yokai, and more. Some were reporting live on their respective news channels, with one of them interviewing the smug-looking, gruff bat yokai who had been Leo’s boss during his short stint making mystic deliveries.
Everyone there was facing the house, wanting to catch a glimpse of the turtle heroes who saved the world - especially their greatest hero of all, the ‘banisher of krang’ ‘destroyer of alien life’, the ‘mystic portal powerhouse hero of all heroes’, Leonardo Hamato.
Casey paused to stare at the crowd, carrying a heavy bag in each hand, with his jaw dropped open in shock and trying to figure out how to stealthily ninja past unnoticed, when a yokai in the crowd took note of and recognized him in one of the photos of Leo shown on the news, taken inside the bar they went to. Then, as soon as he was pointed out, he was completely swarmed.
The honorary human member of the Hamato clan was quick to put his head down and make his way through the crowd to Draxum’s front door, ignoring the microphones shoved in his face and the flashes of cameras and large, professional news media video cameras pointed at him. But when he got to the front door, it was understandably locked.
Casey kept his head down and raised his arm to say into his wrist com: “Can someone let me in?”
A few seconds later a magenta portal opened up beside him and snapped shut the second he went through.
The exit portal brought Casey to the lab where Draxum was, as soon as he came out he exclaimed: “What’s going on out there!?” and April told him: “Apparently word got out,” as she took his bags to bring the food supplies to Mikey in the kitchen, just before Draxum pointed up to a tv screen built into the wall, without turning around from his work.
Casey picked up the tv remote to unmute the video that was playing, and he watched a news announcer in the middle of interviewing a yokai he recognized as the koala bartender at the bar Leo took him to on their day out together in the Hidden City.
“Yeah, he was in my bar, I got a photo of me ‘n him hung up on the wall, behind the counter. If anybody wants to see it come on down to Koala Joe’s Crazy Drink Shack, all wine and whisky two for one every Thursday night. And Baron Draxum, if you’re listening don’t pay no mind to any of those buffoons out there who says they were the first ones to give your kid his first real drink. He only came in to the bar in the first place cuz he wanted to try some of dem dere bar nuts. Best ones in the Hidden City. And when he was offered a beer - not by me of course cuz I knowed he was a minor, and hero or not we never serve minors at Koala Joe’s Crazy Drink Shack, but when one of dem odder guys in my bar offered to buy Leonardo his first drink, he looked him in the eye and I swear this is what he told him. He says ‘Thanks but no, my dad is Baron Draxum and if you know dat name you know why I can’t have even one drink.’
The news video played on in the background as Donnie and Draxum worked side-by-side, but Casey shut off the tv when Draxum bluntly said: “No one comes or goes except through my portals.”
“Uh, yeah,” Casey agreed, not taking his eyes off the black screen. Not until he heard wet, ragged coughing from the hallway, accompanied by rapidly approaching footsteps.
Donnie and Draxum stopped what they were doing and joined Casey in watching when Raph ran into the room, the IV pole in one hand and carrying the haggardly coughing Leo in his arms.
“We left his inhaler in here!" Raph explained, trying to hide his panic but not doing a very good job.
Casey quickly grabbed Leo’s inhaler off a table beside the couch where a bunch of his medication was as Raph laid him down on the couch.
Leo accepted his inhaler from Casey’s hand, and with the first breath he could suck in between his coughs he stuck it in his mouth to inhale the much-needed medication.
Draxum knelt down on one knee in front of his son and put a hand on his shoulder. Leo looked up at him with his teary eyes but kept his head down, coughing blood into his hand, until Casey put a cloth in it for him, and then he started coughing into that, instead.
“You’re going to need at least three more pumps but you’ll be fine, you’re not dying right now, you’re doing good, keep coughing and using your medication when you can catch your breath, this will subside,” Draxum promised him, noticing he looked a little panicky and knowing from his private conversations with Leo that dying in pain while bleeding out was his greatest fear (just below dying alone).
Leo took another inhale of his medicine as soon as he could, and continued coughing, but not as forcefully as before. Everyone stayed by his side, with Raph sitting alongside him on his right, Donnie on his left, and Draxum kneeling in front of him with Casey beside him.
Their presence helped to calm Leo's panic, along with their soft words of reassurance, and the comforting, warm hug Raph and Donnie held him in.
After his forth and fifth pumps, the coughing settled down and the blood dissipated; but he was left totally drained and shivering from cold even though the room was comfortably warm.
“How are you now?” Draxum asked in a firm yet caring voice that carried a hint of worry.
“Better,” Leo replied in his tired, hoarse voice.
“Your new nausea medication is ready, do you think you can take it?” Barry next informed him.
“Yeah, I want it now,” Leo replied, hoping it would help get rid of his constant bad stomach.
His yokai dad got up to get his medicine while Raph told Casey where to go to get a warm blanket for his cold, shivering brother, with Leo speaking up to say: “I want one of your hoodies too, big bro. The soft one.”
Then Raph told Casey where to find his hoodie in his room (because of course Leo's family temporarily moved in with Draxum so they could better help - and be close to - their ailing brother); and after taking the liquid medicine Draxum gave to him Leo curled up on his big brother's warm lap and closed his eyes when Raph wrapped his arms around him in a hug.
After putting on Raph’s plush oversized hoodie and snuggling up warm and cozy under a big blanket on his big brother’s lap, Leo napped for a short while.
Now he was awake, laying back with his back against the arm of the couch and his legs on the big snapper’s lap, under the blanket that was making Raph too hot (but he didn’t complain, of course).
Leo took out his phone to check his yokai social media page on a site called 'Yappie Yokai' that he hadn’t been on for a while because of everything that recently happened to him - the one that blew up with followers after the video of his and his brothers hero move became known to the general yokai public.
But before going on there he clicked to read a confusing text message that came in from Master Nakamura, around the same time Mikey brought in some mystically enhanced yokai food for him to eat that was supposed to settle his stomach.
“Hey, Master Nakamura texted me: ‘I learned of the commotion outside your home and want to offer my assistance in any way I can be of use.’ What’s he talking about?” Leo asked the room in general.
Without a word, his alchemist dad picked up the remote for the lab tv to turn it on, and Leo sat up to eat what Mikey brought in without taking his eyes off the screen, which was a news channel reporting live from outside Draxum’s very crowded front door.
Without turning around, Draxum dryly said: “Somebody told a group of yokai Baron Draxum is their dad when they went into a bar for some peanuts.” “Eugh boi,” Leo replied, but he continued watching the screen with interest, only tearing his eyes away for a quick second to shove some food in his mouth when Mikey urged him to eat. Then a crooked smile came on his face when they showed a photo taken of all of them at Hueso’s, that their skeleton yokai friend promised to hang on the wall in his restaurant to replace the photo the slider didn’t like.
Leo slowly ate his food as he watched the news, captivated by the crowds who hailed them as heroes. But as they continued, he noticed nobody mentioned anything about his terminal illness, so he asked: “Does anyone know I’m sick?”
Leo took another bite of food and the room fell silent when Draxum muted the video, just before Donnie told him: “No, nobody else knows yet.”
“Hmm,” Leo hummed, deep in thought. Then he picked up his phone to look at the text his previous sensei sent him, and said: “I want them to know. But first, there’s somebody else I need to tell.”
A magenta portal opened up in Run of the Mill yokai pizza restaurant, at the back of the room beside the bar where the kitchen door was located, and a tall red and white panda yokai stepped through, with the portal shutting behind him.
A very busy skeleton yokai behind the counter rudely told the red panda: “Portalling inside my restaurant is not allowed. If you have a reservation sir, kindly inform the front reception desk and they will take care of you. If not, we are booked solid for the next six months, but if you are a journalist, good bye, I am not conducting interviews.”
Hueso turned his back to the panda to deal with a server who came out of the kitchen with a question for him, but he abruptly spun around again when the panda yokai told him in a clear, stern, professional-sounding voice that commanded attention:
“My name is Akimitsu Nakamura. I was sent here by Baron Draxum with an important message from his son, Leonardo Hamato.”
Those names spoken loudly got the attention of everyone nearby in the busy, crowded restaurant, so that everyone who heard him turned their heads in his direction and quieted down to hear what he had to say next.
The sudden quiet was apparently contagious, because it wasn't more than a few seconds later before the entire bustling restaurant was eerily silent.
Completely ignoring the dozens of eyes on them, the panda next professionally asked: “Are you Seňor Hueso?”
Hueso’s lip twitched as though he wanted to smile, but his face fell at the stern, solemn face of the yokai who addressed him.
“Yes, I am Seňor Hueso, but why didn’t pepino call me himself?”
Instead of answering his question, Master Nakamura inquired: “Do you have somewhere private where we can talk?”
“Uh, yes, my office, come with me,” Hueso replied, immediately leading the way to his office where he could hear the very important message from Draxum and Leonardo, that was sent to him through a representative for some reason he didn't yet know, but was soon to find out.
Leo was sitting back on the couch, wearing one of Raph’s oversized red hoodies, squished in between April and Mikey, watching the latest updates to his Yappie Yokai social media page, and reading some of the heartfelt messages random strangers left on his wall.
Draxum was still working with Donnie, this time Splinter was assisting them, and Raph was gone to take a shower after putting Leo’s soiled things in the washer.
When the goat alchemist got a text message via his wrist com he opened a portal behind him and everyone but him and Donnie looked up when Master Nakamura walked into the room.
Leo smiled at his previous sensei and asked: “How’d it go?” but his smile fell when Seňor Hueso unexpectedly walked through the portal behind him.
He immediately dropped his phone onto his lap to self-consciously rub at his now pale red - almost pinkish - markings beneath his eyes, muttering under his breath: “If I knew Hueso was coming I would’ve moisturized and used my refresher spray.”
Hueso looked at Leo, but he was so taken aback by how pale and sickly he looked in such a short time since he saw him last at his restaurant, it took him a couple of seconds to realize he wasn’t smiling.
Leo sheepishly grinned and waved at the shocked skeleton yokai with a quiet: “Hi Hueso, I thought you were busy at your restaurant with all those new customers you keep getting from that whole ‘favorite restaurant of earth’s greatest heroes’ thing.” Then he smiled a little bigger and asked: “Did you put the good picture up?”
Hueso smiled back at Leo, walked over to him, and told him: “Yes, I put the new picture up and placed the old one in my office. And of course I came, I had to see my favorite customer after receiving such grave news. How are you, pepino?”
Leo ignored Hueso’s ‘how are you’ question and joked: “Favorite customer, are you buttering me up for a big tip next time?”
His smile widened and his tired eyes sparkled when Hueso joked back: “Of course not, you’ve always been a terrible tipper. But not as bad as that brother of yours over there.”
The bone man pointed back to Donnie with his thumb and said in a light-hearted tone: “He has never once left a tip, he simply pays for his food and leaves.”
“It’s not my problem if you do not pay your employees enough of an income to live off without tips,” Donnie quipped back without turning around.
“Hey, wait a minute,” Leo looked at his twinsie and exclaimed: “What about all those times it was your turn to pick up our pizzas? You didn’t pocket our tip money, did you?”
“I neither confirm nor deny those baseless allegations,” Donnie replied, still without turning around. That was, until Leo laughed and blurted out:
“Ha! Wait ‘till Raph hears about this!”
“You wouldn’t!” Donnie exclaimed, glaring at his twin brother. Hueso got in on the fun by leaning in closer to Leo to tell him: “Where I come from, we tied stingy egoisti like him to a wild simurgh and set it lose in a glowberry thornthistle cave.”
Donnie turned his back to them and poured an orange solution into a blue one while replying in an offended tone of voice: “Scoff, I am not stingy I am frugal.”
Then Leo leaned ahead to whisper to Hueso (making sure to be loud enough for Donnie to hear): “Leave your number, we’ll talk later.”
“I am on that Yappi Yokai social group if you wish to follow me.”
“You’re on Yappie Yokai!?” Mikey exclaimed in surprise, and Hueso dryly replied: “Si. My son set me up with an account after he finished university before he moved away, so we can keep in touch.”
Leo immediately took out his phone, enthusiastically saying: “I’ll do it now! What’s your username?”
In the end, Hueso stayed longer than Leo was expecting, agreeing to one game of poker at Splinter's suggestion; and even Donnie took a rare short break to get in on the action when a table was dragged into the med bay through one of Draxum’s portals, so Leo could stay where he was on the warm, comfy couch and enjoy the fun.
The front door to Draxum’s house opened up and cameras flashed when a red panda yokai wearing a deep red and black kimoto stepped out and stood straight and tall to professionally announce to the eager crowd:
“My name is Akimitsu Nakamura. I have been selected by Baron Draxum to act as a representative for the Hamato family, and I have been asked to read this important announcement, followed by a letter written especially for you by Master Leonardo Hamato."
Akimitsu cleared his throat and held up Draxum’s letter with both hands to read: “It is with a heavy heart that I, Baron Draxum, regret to inform you the honorable Leonardo Hamato is dying.”
There were quite a few gasps and the few low mumbles in the crowd quieted to a hush, so that now the only sounds that could be heard were the clicking of cameras taking flash photos.
And Master Nakamura continued.
“The self-sacrificing spirit that moved Leonardo to use his mystic portalling powers to trap himself in the prison dimension with the krang threat came with serious repercussions. Despite the fact his powerful, mystically gifted brothers were able to rescue him from the confines of that dimension, the harsh conditions therein are not compatible with life in our dimension, thus resulting in Leonardo's incurable terminal illness. We thank you for respecting our privacy during this dire time, and updates will be given at the appropriate times, at Leonardo’s request. Respectfully, Baron Draxum.”
Master Nakamura put that letter behind the other one in his hands, and said: “And now the letter from Master Leonardo Hamato.”
He cleared his throat again before continuing.
“I want you all to know I couldn’t be happier to spend my last days with my family, and if anyone wants to follow me, I’m on Yappie Yokai, username @Leo_thefaceman. I get so many posts I can’t reply to them all, but I read every one I can and post updates often.”
Master Nakamura rolled up the letters in his hand, gave a gracious bow of his head, and turned around to walk back in Draxum’s house without answering a single one of the dozens of questions thrown his way...
...and leaving the yokai congregated together outside the Baron's mansion in quite the tizzy.
Chapter 21: Disaster Twins at it Again
"What’s on your face? Are you wearing lipstick now?"
“Awww ratted out by the big bro!”
