just the way you are

rawest form of fear

---Notes----

Imagine me, a sad little human writing this at my desk at 12:21am AEST.  Some of you lucky northern hemisphere-ers get this at a nice, lovely morning hour... WHILE EVERYONE DOWN SOUTH WITH ME IS SUFFERING BECAUSE OF MY INSOMNIA 

Enough about me.

This chapter is a damn rollercoaster. Also, I've decided to not ruin both Aprils because I don't like wasting characters like that. I just believe she was never meant for Donnie, and that I can make her better, but NOT SO SHE CAN LIKE DONNIE. NO APRILTELLO HERE. NUH UH.

KAYLATELLO FTW

Sorry if this is a bit much. Also, sorry if the main ship isn't too great right now, it's going to change soon, but believe me, writing is actually hard (despite me making it look easy fr*). I have so many beautiful scenes in my head that I can't wait to write into the plot.

Anyways, have fun reading!

*take this with a grain of salt my self-confidence is not actually that high ahahaha

_________________________________________________________________________

He couldn't believe that Donnie was actually back.

As Leo sat with his reunited brothers, it was all he could do not to embrace his brother again. The pancakes seemed to taste extra good this time.

"So dude, what was it like? When you were gone?" Mikey asked curiously.

Donnie's smile faded a bit. "Oh, I don't know. I didn't really see anything at all."

"Well, all that matters is that you're home now, right?" Leo said happily, munching enthusiastically on a pancake. Everything felt so great, knowing that he didn't have to face the fear of losing his brother, because he was here.

"Yeah, it's great isn't it?" Raph said, grinning. "So glad to have you back. Casey will be back soon, by the way. At least he told me he would."

The purple-masked turtle swallowed his mouthful, looking slightly... paranoid? "April won't be coming down here, will she?"

It made sense that Donnie felt slightly afraid of her now, but I was still weird to hear his brother not wanting to be around April. He felt slightly sad thinking about it.

"Er, I don't know. Maybe. That's if Casey-" Raph broke off as his T-phone began to ring. "It's Casey. Lemme take this real quick."

He walked off a few paces.

Leo looked back at Donnie, who was looking down at his plate. "You good?"

"Oh, I'm fine. I know it was Za-Naron, but... it's going to be hard to deal with. Especially after what you said she did after."

Mikey shook his head. "Yeah, that was pretty nasty. I think she was just so mad with herself that... yeah. I don't know dudes."

Leo knew that everything would be okay, because Donnie was back. They'd work everything else out much later.

"Yeah, it will be. But we'll get through," he said, believing every word.

***

Raph picked up his phone.

"Casey?" You there?"

There was nothing but dead silence on the other end of the phone. Raph sighed. "Jones, this is not the time to be prank calling me. Donnie's back."

There was still silence. But then he could hear some shaky breathing.

"Casey? You goofy ass, answer me!"