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Dad does not sympathize with Leo. In fact, he’d distinctly texted the word “LMAO” when he’d finally woken up and seen Leo’s many, many complaining texts. Affronted, he immediately sends back several new texts expressing how utterly betrayed he is. Jail for father! And to his favorite child, no less!
Draxum has the audacity to chuckle. Leo glares at him.
“What’s so funny, goat man?”
Said goat man then has the absolute gall to grin at him over his shoulder. “You are pouting. I take it Lou did not respond the way you hoped.”
Leo makes an absolutely scandalized noise and puts his hand dramatically to his heart. “I am not POUTING. Also, ‘Lou?’ Gross.”
Draxum gives him a look that’s some cross of puzzled and exasperated. Leo tries not to think of it as ‘fond.’ “What’s gross about it? It’s the name I know him by.”
“Yeah okay, but it’s not his current CHOSEN name, which makes it practically a pet name. Gross.”
Draxum snorts, then shakes his head. “He hasn’t objected.”
“That’s wooooooooooorse!” Leo whines dramatically, throwing both his arms up in distress. Draxum once again dares to give him a chuckle. Asshole.
Leo crosses his arms across his plastron with a hmph, pouting again. To be honest, he’s not really sure how much longer he can keep up the show of mistrust and dislike he’s been giving to the old goat. It’s been over a year since Mikey found him, and Leo’s extensive skills with judging other people’s character is all telling him exactly what he didn’t want to accept: that the guy is genuinely an ok person.
It doesn’t help that Draxum is quite literally the only reason his shell still has any kind of structural integrity.
He doesn’t personally remember much from directly after the invasion ended, but Draxum’s contributions can’t be denied. He got them back home from Staten Island, for starters. That bit he remembers. There was a boat made of purple leaves. He kept Leo’s shell together single-handedly, with some vines or something? Apparently at one point he stopped Donnie’s panic attack and got him to accept the topical antibiotic on his technodrome wounds, even on the shell. It was his efforts that let dad take the time to bring Raph back into the present from wherever he’d disassociated to.
Most importantly, he knew exactly how to treat Mikey’s arms. Leo had never wanted to ask what might have happened without that salve he made.
So yeah, Leo was really only still giving token resistance to accepting him into the family. He just didn’t want to admit that he was starting to understand the man’s villainous motives.
Not wanting to dwell on THAT thought for any longer than he has to, Leo speaks up again. “Do you actually know where you’re going, or are we wandering?”
“Technically, both things are true,” Draxum replies infuriatingly.
“What does THAT mean, Yoda?” He would have called him Obi-Wan, but that was a little too complimentary.
Draxum gives him that look he gives every time one of them makes some reference he doesn’t understand. Ooh, does Draxum not know the Big Twist in Star Wars? Leo knows what HE’S picking for next movie night.
“It means that ‘wandering’ is the only way to find what we’re looking for,” Draxum responds. “In fact, the smaller and more obscure the shop, the better.”
“Great, well, it’s been hours and we’ve visited basically every hole in the wall in the Hidden City, are you sure we’re on the right track?”
“Patience,” Draxum replies, apparently unaware that that word has never inspired patience in anyone, ever. “Do you see now why trying to wrangle Senor Hueso onto this expedition would have been inexpedient?”
“Ugh, you’re the worst. ‘Inexpedient’ is that even a word?!”
Draxum doesn’t bother answering as he makes his way to another tiny storefront. Like the last 50 places, it’s quiet and nearly deserted inside, the only person present being the cashier—a black-furred canid yokai of some sort, sitting on a chair and reading a book. She looks up as they enter, fixing Draxum with a yellow-eyed stare. She says nothing but at least she’s not glaring like that mouse lady from earlier, SHE seemed to take it as a personal affront that they had dared enter her place of business looking for something to buy.
“I’m looking for incense,” Draxum informs her.
“Far wall,” she responds, pointing the way.
He nods and they head that way. “If this is another dead end, I’ll…” Leo starts, then realizes he doesn’t have a follow-up, “well I won’t quit but I’ll be really disappointed.”
Draxum makes a noise that Leo chooses to interpret as amusement. There’s a fairly extensive array of incense in this store, and by now Leo is an expert at ruling out the majority of it—okay, so Draxum told him to ignore anything labelled by actual scent and look at the ones that have a ‘purpose’ instead, things like ‘relaxing’ or ‘invigorating’ or ‘sensual.’ (He’s a LITTLE curious if that last one actually works as advertised.)
He’s glancing over the display like he could possibly spot what they need before Draxum when the goat man surprises him with choosing to start a conversation. “What is your continued objection to me?”
Leo blinks. That sentence was so carefully constructed that it doesn’t immediately make sense. “What?”
Draxum huffs out a breath. “I don’t want to say ‘why don’t you like me’ because that is not the issue, but—”
“Well there was that time you threw me off a r—”
Draxum gives him a flat side-eye. “It’s not because I threw you off a roof.”
“Wow, you’re awfully sure about that.” Too bad he’s also right.
“I’m also right.” And a mind reader, apparently. “Would it help if I told you that I knew at the time that you would be fine?”
Leo pauses. “How could you possibly have known that?”
“Because your brothers would do anything for you,” he says this so matter-of-factly that it surprises Leo somehow, “and that none of you had reached your full potential. Either you could get out of it or Raphael could save you, and regardless he would drop the bugs to try.”
That’s actually a lot more faith in them than Leo thought the alchemist had had at the time. “Oookay. So how do you know I don’t hold it against you?”
“Because you just told me,” Draxum smirks and Leo sputters, “and because you are not afraid of heights as a result.”
“Okay… fine. So maybe I’ve fallen off of roofs before. Maybe not over a busy street, but whatever. Why do you care what I think of you, anyway?”
Draxum speaks slowly and almost too quietly, as though this isn’t something he wants to admit. “Because I have… begun… to see you as family.”
There’s silence in the quiet little store for a while. Dammit, that was exactly the last thing keeping Leo from accepting the dude—because he still seemed to be resisting Mikey’s Siren Call of Family. Turns out the old goat’s heart is softer than it looks.
But, of course, Leo isn’t going to pass up an opportunity to tease. “Awww, Barry~”
“Go ahead, laugh it up,” Draxum rolls his eyes from where he’s kneeling to reach the lower display of incense, “you know perfectly well Michelangelo’s pull was inevitable.”
“You’re a big man for saying so, Barry. Anyway isn’t this a bit heartfelt for a public place where at least one stranger can hear you?”
Draxum looks over his shoulder to raise an eyebrow at him. “She was wearing earplugs.”
“Oh.” Leo hadn’t noticed. Shouldn’t earplugs in wolf ears be pretty obvious? “She seemed to hear you just fine?”
“She was clearly reading my lips. Some yokai with enhanced senses choose to shut down those senses entirely for a time when in a crowded city environment.”
“Huh. Okay.”
“And you are avoiding an answer.”
Dammit. He was getting perceptive. “Okay fine. I don’t actually have a problem with you, okay? Hard to keep a grudge against a guy that saved your life. And your little brother’s hands. And that’s the short list.” Leo squirms, emotional honesty has never been his strong suit and he doesn’t like thinking about the aftermath of the invasion either but okay maybe Draxum has earned this.
“… I see.” Draxum has turned back to the incense, so Leo can’t see his face, but he thinks he’s smiling. “Good to know.”
Leo doesn’t want to admit it, but he feels himself relax a little.
So naturally he jumps when Draxum suddenly shoves a stick of incense under his nose, demanding “tell me what this smells like.”
Leo is about to complain but he involuntarily caught a whiff, and that whiff gives him pause. “Okay I can’t explain it but that smells EXACTLY like Halloween.”
“Perfect,” Draxum grabs what seems to be the entire stock of the incense in question, “we’ve found it.”
“Should we be taking all of it?” Leo asks curiously, handing him a bag.
“It’s better to overprepare than run out, and Big Mama is not known for her use of moderation,” Draxum responds. “Come, we have been away long enough.”
“I mean we could always just portal out—”
“I thought I was supposed to be the villain here.”
“Jeez, low blow! I was JOKING, old man.”
Draxum smiles and Leo hopes he doesn’t end up the first to accidentally call him ‘dad.’