The candles are often small, stubby things, half-melted, fish out of trash bins or sewer grates. Oftentimes they've got novelty smells or embarrassing colors, they flicker and sputter weakly, they sway in the little cracked jar he's managed to find for them in dull lumps.
Leo treasures them anyway. He keeps them tucked away nice and safe in his room, dusts them regularly, carefully organizes them by size and shade. He likes to rub the smooth coolness of the wax against his fingers before he lights them. The sensation helps ground him...and reminds him of tempting things to come.
Right now he's sitting cross legged on the bedroom floor, back straight, hands on his palms. His eyes flicker as he comes up from the gentle swirl of meditation, the world flickering back into a more concrete shape around him.
The door is locked, the way it usually is when he does this, even though his privacy wouldn’t be barged in on except during emergencies. His brothers make jokes, but they really do understand his need to lock himself away like this every once in a while, to lose himself to a higher plane.
And that is important to him, it really is. It's just...not the only thing.
The candle he picks up tonight is blue, one he's been saving for a special occasion. Precious drops of wax are already running down its side, and Leo doesn't waste any time before flicking the first few onto his left palm.
"Nnnh..." He sucks in a sharp breath, less out of pain and more at the way its bright bite makes his veins buzz. The drops glisten on his fingers as he drips more along his wrists and palms, twirling up his arms like bangles.
The little spikes of pain clear his head, sharpens him. The warmth blazes under his flesh and nibbles away at the dark things lurking there, reducing his ugly thoughts to ash. Leo lifts his arm slightly and watches several drops run down to settle in the crook of his elbow.
The candle is already running onto the fingers of his other hand, bathing the tips of his fingers in searing blue. Leo sighs softly as the sensation, wriggling his hips ever so slightly. His tail is starting to pulse in a very familiar way.
He's not sure when his childhood fixation with Master Splinter's candles turned into....this. He never felt this sort of attraction to bladed weapons, maybe because he was so aware of their deadly use. But there's something cleansing in the steady trip of wax on bare flesh, the gentle tug as it solidifies on his scan.
Leo presses the candle to his bicep next, a low groan slipping out through gritted teeth. His tongue is sore with adrenaline, his heart tapping in time with the soft flicks of his tail. He drags it higher, up along his shoulder. Fresh drops spill down his chest, cutting him open, marking him.
There's not much of the candle now, so Leo sets it down and picks up a new one, switching hands so he can work on his other arm. This time he starts at the shoulder and works his way down, creating a little pool in the center of his palm.
The candle is white this time and he likes it, likes the mental image of being coated in filth like in a dirty magazine. It's wrong, so wrong, especially for someone like him, a leader with responsibilities and an example to set. Maybe that's why it's so intoxicating.
Across his legs now, dangerously close to his lap. The heat in his guys builds as the pleasure-pain creeps up his thighs, twisting over his scales. The first few drops are starting to dry, caressing his skin until it buzzes. He moans softly, the candle flames fluttering at the sound.
He takes a dish of molten wax and lifts one arm, then the other, pouring it down his sensitive bridges. Somehow, it feels both like molten iron claws dragging down his sides and gentle sun-kisses whispering across his flesh. Leo lets out another moan, digging encrusted, shaking fingers into his palm.
Leo's plastron isn't devoid of feeling, but it's still less sensitive than a human's chest, so when he presses the third candle there he does it with all its might. It's the best punch he's ever experienced, a shock of energy and feeling that shoots straight up into the brain. He hunches over a hiss, rubbing wax up and down until it covers him like a waterfall.
His tail unfurls, cock spilling free to glimmer in the light of the few remaining candles. Leo whimpers at the sight, reaching down to rub himself with fingers like that, leaving little flakes of wax behind.
The wax is spilling further down his chest now, over his belly, towards... Leo hurriedly puts the candle away, he doesn't want to get caught off guard when--
"Gah!" His cock flares to attention as the first few drops of wax brush against its base. It hurts so fucking bad and it feels so fucking good, and maybe he should be worried about that, should be ashamed, but the candle has burned all of that of him and Leo doesn't give a fuck about anything, but this pleasure.
It drips down onto his cock, some of it spilling onto his eagerly wagging tail below. Leo churrs, hips thrusting the air as he drags trembling fingers down his own arms. He wants to pick himself clean, wants to feel the wax undone him all over again.
"Wait."
Leo stiffens, almost toppling over. For a moment his heart stops beating, but then he remembers who he invited to see this tonight, the one person who finally has access to his strangest secret. He'd told his partner to come during the tail end of his "real" meditation, and then he'd somehow forgotten he was being watched, a remarkable feat considering his legendary self-consciousness.
"Can I..." He can't see anyone in the dark, but the voice is hesitant, half-strangled. "Can I do it?"
Leo blinks. Maybe in the light of the day he'd be hesitant, but right now he's raw and burnt-out in the best way possible, his walls crumbling like the flakes in his hands. The want swells up in him, and he can't think of a single reason to keep it back.
"Sure," he says quietly, voice catching just a little.
Battle-calloused hands reach out of the dark and brush across Leo's shoulders, down his arms. He whimpers as they scratch away at the wax, peeling it away at a torturous pace. Little fragments fall to the ground with each movement, shed like cherry blossoms.
His skin is tugged and pulled oh so sweetly, so that his nerves tremble and hiss. It's the best kind of pain, the kind that feels more like a baptism than a battle.
"Don't hold back," and he doesn't, soft churrs and purrs spilling from his lips. There's a soft sigh at the sound, a pair of lips planted gently to Leo's heaving chest.
"So beautiful." He's kissed again and again as those wonderful hands dart all over his body, picking and scratching. Leo trembles, not sure if it's the praise or the sensations that are making his head feel curiously light. "I could watch you like this all night."
It feels like his skin is coming off with the wax, and he loves it. His heart is being exposed to a gentle, almost reverent touch, to eyes that witness Leo debasing himself this way with love instead of contempt. He's kissed on the mouth and he kisses back, wild and hungry.
"Can I give you more?" and he's nodding before he has time to think. Fresh wax drips along his cock and he trembles, spurting drops of precome.
"That's it," and there's a soft moan, the pace of hands running over him picking up as wax crumbles onto the floor. "That's it, Leo. Let me see you shine."
His hips are jerking at nothing, his breath coming in short, sharp pants. It’s so impossibly, terribly good he's worried he might choke on it.
"Is there something you need?" The voice is teasing.
"Please...."
"Please what, angel?"
"Please," Somehow this feels like the dirtiest and most submissive thing he's done all night, and thus one of the best. "Please touch my cock?"
One of the hands reaches down, scraping gently nails along his trembling length. The wax pulls as it's tugged away and that's the final push that sends him over the edge, gasping and heaving. Come sprays through the air, mixing with the wax and hissing in the flames.
"Fuck," he groans, slumping forward into a steady embrace. One hand keeps running over his body, scraping as the last of the wax, while the other pats him on the hand. A soft voice coos gently in his ear, soothing him.
"I want to do it for you next time," and the words are steady, firm. "You don't do this alone anymore, and you don't do it to yourself. I do it for you, 'kay?"
"Okay." It feels like the natural order of things, really. Leo plants another kiss on a sweet-smelling neck, letting himself just breathe and savor the sense of being held.
But then, as he starts to come out of the post-orgasm haze, something reminds him that he still has one more task to do. He sits up a smile, licking his lips. "Do you want me to finish you off?"
A huff. "I was waiting for you to get around to that."
Some shuffling about, and then kneeling between carefully spread legs, watching the candlelight flicker over flexing muscles. His head dips down and he sets to work engulfing his beloved in his heat, his energy, his endless dancing love.