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I've decided to try my hand at @traumas-tmntober-2024

Day One: An Old Favourite

La Primera Telenovela

Word Count: 1064

If you had asked Leonardo what came to mind when thinking of an apocalypse before the night The Krang ripped open the sky then he would have spoken of battles and death mid combat. The agonising pain of loss wouldn’t have been something his teen self would have dwelled on. Now after years of war, Leo had a different sense of loss. He wouldn't think a simple show would have him shedding long held tears. OR Leonardo finds the finale he and Splinter bonded over so many years ago before The Kraang invaded. Leo gets to share that painful favourite hobby with his pseudo-son. (Warning: Author is British and refuses to use American spellings for sanity's sake.)

If you had asked Leo what came to mind when thinking of an apocalypse before the night the Krang ripped open the sky then he would have spoken of battles and death mid combat. The agonising pain of loss wouldn’t have been something his teen self would have dwelled on. Now after years of war, Leo had a different sense of loss.

Archiving things was difficult in the apocalypse. Donnie had tried originally to save things to a personal cloud but that got too difficult to maintain and was needed for more important things and he eventually got too busy upgrading equipment for them and their sister bases to be able to focus on remembering the past. That left external devices and drives.

One of these drives was on Splinter’s small shrine. They had already had to move shelters many times but they were usually able to stay for a couple of months meaning they had the liberty to allow their father’s belongings to be displayed. Leo always kept a sack nearby to dump the shrine into if they have to get up and go… again.

Leo wasn’t sure what possessed him that night. He should have been sleeping. They had an important mission in the morning. They didn’t have unlimited electricity so wasting this tablet’s charge on this was truly wasteful and self indulgent but he couldn’t help it. He loaded up the saved episode of the finale of the first telenovela he and Splinter had watched together. Adverts and all.

This was their favourite telenovela even as he’d grown and had widened the list of spanish dramas they had watched together, they always returned to the first and binged it annually before the apocalypse. A truly golden piece of media and easily his favourite despite the awful writing and the admittedly bad cinematography, even for the time. There were some scenes where you could even see the full crew during tracking shots.

He let himself indulge in Maria’s story as she murdered her ex-fiance Alejandro and ran into her mother as she tried to hide the body. More beloved characters appeared reminding him of the old arcs from that season and the ones to follow in the following. Suddenly the screen had distorted with drops of water and he instinctively looked at the pipes on the ceiling praying that they weren’t yet again leaking and wasting the incredibly limited water they had.

That’s when he felt it. There were tears on his face, they were so silent he hadn’t even noticed the salty waste had escaped. He turned the screen off and used his cape to wipe the screen dry whilst forcing the tears to stay in when he heard the familiar pitter patter of his charge’s footsteps approaching: Casey Jones Junior.

“Master Leonardo?”

Leo cringed. He didn’t feel like the Master he was meant to be but he hid that behind a smile and lifted an arm up for the pre-teen boy to crawl into. He hugged the boy tight and didn’t ask why he was up, like he had many times in the past. He did so especially after Cassandra’s passing but it often just led to unbridled fury that didn’t belong on the child’s face. He had already suffered so much loss but he always offered to listen if he needed it.

Honestly, his need for comfort after such nightmare’s could be due to anything from the war although they did tend to find it took more to shake the ‘apocalypse babies’ but also found it harder for them to cope with what did. Casey often just needed a firm hug and someone who he was sure would watch over him to keep the nightmares away but he never did go to sleep straight away.

“Hey Case, wanna see what this is?”

Leonardo waited for the tired nod before he turned the screen back on and rewound the episode. He spent the next 10 minutes explaining what a telenovela is and the plot of the season previewing this episode before playing it.

This time he got his entertainment watching Casey’s expression light up. He didn’t get to watch many video feeds and the most common one was that of the security cameras that Donatello monitored. He paused the video every time Casey wanted clarification. Leo hadn’t taught Casey much Spanish. There wasn’t a huge need to be rich in multiple languages beyond how to have basic conversations and communicate directions and supplies. Explaining why Jose and Rosemary were robbing Maria’s childhood house excited much joy, however.

It didn’t take long though to see Casey’s eyes drooping and struggling to focus on the finale, no longer asking if the grocery store he had seen was real or why there were full homes for just a couple of people. He was quiet and Leo waited until he was snoring softly before he turned the tablet off and took Casey back to bed.

He would never watch a telenovela with his father again. He would never get to hear his father’s rambles about why Penelope was the worst character in the series. He would never get to hold his dad’s hand as the climactic monologue started and they revealed the plot twist they had already rewatched countless times over. He would never have his pops there to give him advice. He’d never have his dad’s hug again and they were already rare.

Leonardo hated that he missed his dad’s death. He never got his moment to say goodbye. His father had to pass without knowing if he was going to be okay. All because of that stupid portal. He hoped from the grave that his dad’s spirit got to see him become a resistance leader that would make him proud. Be proud of the kid they had all practically adopted after Cassandra went out fighting, like the warrior she was.

He hoped Splinter knew how much he missed hanging out with him and loved him. He hoped he hadn’t lost his love with that stupid stunt.

He placed the drive back on the shrine and put the tablet back into the room they used to plan missions and hold important decision meetings: needing the distinction so they didn’t have arguments everywhere around the shelter.

He would try to get some sleep but the ghosts of the past may haunt him all night.

I really wanted to try doing a fic a day for a month and I've decided today is the day. I originally based this off of an idea @agalactichalo gave me. "A used to be shared hobby between you and someone who died." Which immedietly got the cogs in my little lizard brain turning and I just had to!

Hope everyone who reads this enjoys it!!

Donnie Data Collection!!