A Shell of Himself

Chapter 2 - Caught Green-handed

*Disclaimer: I do not own the rights to the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles franchise.

*Author's note: Here is chapter 2 of 'A Shell of Himself.' Thank you so much to everyone who has taken the time to read my story so far. Please let me know if you like it.   CJ   :)

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The clock beside him read 4:15 A.M.

If he fell back to sleep now, he'd still get a few more hours of rest in before morning practice. However, that task was not as easy as it had sounded in his head. Especially not when one felt as though they were now wide awake.

Leonardo rolled onto his right side for about the fifth time in the last half hour, trying to find a more comfortable position, but that was no simple feat when you had a bulky shell on your back. Leo had been tossing and turning for the better part of an hour now, but he just couldn't achieve a tranquil enough state for sleep.

At this point, Leo had already kicked most of his covers off, thinking that perhaps the room's temperature may have been contributing to his current case of insomnia, but then, he remembered that he was cold-blooded. Warmth didn't keep him awake. It helped him to sleep.

Rolling onto his carapace and draping one leg over the side of his bed so that his foot just grazed the floor, Leo tucked an arm behind his head and stared at the ceiling. He let out a long sigh, like he was deflating all of the air out of his lungs.

His mind kept telling him that he needed more sleep, but his gut was telling him that something was off.

As much as Leo wanted to stay in bed, he couldn't just ignore his gut. After all, his gut instincts had always been uncannily accurate. Oftentimes, Leo's youngest brother, Michelangelo, had claimed that Leo's stomach was to hunches as Donnie's brain was to big words and Raph's fists were to punching things. That was why whenever Leo said that he didn't have a good feeling about something, Mikey would start wigging out.

Leo pushed himself up so that he was seated on the edge of his bed. He rolled his shoulders and shifted so that his joints popped back into proper alignment before getting to his feet. He then padded to his door and silently slipped out into the hall of the dormitory area.

The first room Leo approached was his immediate younger brother's, Raphael. Leo figured that Raph was the most likely to get himself into trouble, so it seemed only logical to check up on him first. As quietly as possible, Leo pushed the door to Raph's room open just wide enough to poke his head inside and verify that Raph was in his bed. Once he saw that Raph was sleeping soundly, Leo made a swift exit, not wanting to chance having Raph wake up and see him standing there watching him sleep. That would have been extremely awkward and there's no way Raph would react favorably.

The next room Leonardo headed towards was his youngest brother, Michelangelo's bedroom, but Leo didn't need to bother going into the room to see if Mikey was inside. From outside of the door, Leo could hear his baby brother mumbling and chattering merrily in his sleep. Even while slumbering, Mikey couldn't keep quiet or still for more than a few seconds at a time. A small smile passed Leo's lips as he thought about his happy-go-lucky brother's zany antics. No one could ever accuse Mikey of being boring, that much was for sure.

Walking away from Mikey's doorway, Leo tiptoed towards his second youngest brother's room as quietly as he could, knowing that Donatello was the lightest sleeper of his siblings. The last time Leo had seen Donnie, the genius was shutting down all of the equipment in his lab per Leo's orders. Leo had noticed how worn out his younger brother looked and the oldest turtle had decided to mandate an earlier bedtime for the brainy turtle.