Ok I wrote a piece on Don and Leo and one on Mike and Leo. Mike and Leo I can understand, I'm technically the oldest and youngest in my family, since I don't have siblings. I've had a lot of younger friends though that have become my brothers and sisters and not to mention the pets I can't get enough of. Don, is the genius and computer geek, I can back that 100%. I say something simple about a computer, well something I think is simple, and people give me the strangest looks.
I mean is it that difficult to run the simple computer hard-drive defragmenter process?
Oops, I'm doing it again. Sigh. I have got to stop that.
Anyways, back to what I was saying, its easy to get in Mike's, Leo's and Don's heads because I can relate to them.
Raphael though, is a different story. I don't know if I can ever possibly think like him. Well, here goes well, the running of a convenient word processor that transforms the manipulation of digits into that of psychological remands.
Dang it, I did it again didn't I?
"Get your slime covered paws off of him," I bellowed as I drove my sais deep into the flesh of whatever the heck that 'thing' was that we were fighting.
I jumped back and saw the thing finally let go of my older brother. Only problem is he was about to throw Leo into the bay.
"CRAP! WHY AM I STANDING STILL!?" I had screamed, probably out loud.
I ran, not exactly sure or not if I'd have to jump into the bay or whatever, if that pathetic excuse for a dung pile had hurt Leo I was gonna find some way to kill the creature, bring it back to life and kill it again.
A FREAKING SLOW PAINFUL DEATH!
I saw my brother crash into the water and that snap did not sound good. I prayed to every god I ever heard of that the snap wasn't his neck or spine. Please no.
I dove into the water after him and wished so much that I could've SAW SOMETHING!
I cursed at that color, that darkness. It was stopping me from helping my brother, who if not already dead was DROWNING AT THAT POINT!
I searched, reaching desperately for that familiar reptilian skin we had. My eyes searched too, although they were useless. There was enough light to see about thirty feet down but he was obviously lower in the water.
By that point I was blowing up at everything I came in contact with.
Curse the rock…
Curse the fish…
Curse the moss…
Curse the second rock…
Curse whatever the heck that purple thing was…
Curse the plants that grew from the sand…
Curse the sand…
Curse the pipe…
Curse my head for hurting after hitting the pipe…
Curse the treasure chest full of gold…
Curse the dead shark…
Curse the broken rusty bicycle…
Curse the single sand dollar…
Curse the water!
Yeah, by then I was blowing up at anything I could recognize from the feeling of touch since it was FREAKING PITCH BLACK!
Then, my hands felt something familiar, the silk of a mask. LEO!
I knew then he was just below me. As fast as I could I pulled him close and shot to the surface. They say coming up after being below water for so long you notice how beautiful the sky and world seems to be.
WELL THEN AIN'T IT FREAKING DANDY TO BE YOU!?
I don't care about the sky, curse it! It wasn't helping me any at that point. My eyes never left my big brother but all I could see were his closed eyes and the water dripping out of his mouth.
"Leo," I murmured as I swam back to shore, "If you die I'm gonna kill you!"
Ok, so I know it's um uh, what's that word that Donny and Leo use for those kind of sayings? Something about con-tree uh it's something. I just call it a 'whether it makes sense or not promise'.
I pulled us out the water and then my face met the concrete, oh joy that was my ALREADY THROBBING SKULL!
That pipe's steel is probably forever embedded into my brain now but I didn't care.
I looked over to see my big bro still having water fall from his mouth, then I looked up to see my little brothers running towards us and I didn't see the 'thing' anymore so I thought then it was finally safe, to pass out.
Which I did…
Now though, I'm imagining Leo's face on my punching bag. It'd be a lot easier to admit and let go of a lot of thoughts if he didn't fight back so this is how I remedy that. I can't yell the thoughts out loud though, Splinter would look over and give me a weird I expression I'd never understand.
Punch…
You had to be a hero huh?
Punch…
You had to push me out the way!
Punch…
Just think I can't hold my own in battle?!
Punch…
JUST STOP!
Punch…
Stop being such a big brother.
Punch…
Stop feeling guilty when we're hurt!
Punch…
It ain't never your fault!
Punch…
It's ours.
Punch…
It's mine.
Finally, I can't bring myself to raise my hand to his imagined face again, because I wouldn't do that. I could never hurt him like that. CURSES!
Yeah, anyone out there that ever hears this, Leo isn't the only one that beats himself up after our battles!
I groan from the soreness that begins washing over my strained muscles then I just let out something between a sigh and a growl. I turn away from the punching bag and walk out of the dojo to go the place that I'm sure anyone would be expecting, Leo's room.
Yeah, I'm sure someone out there is wondering why I'm not out there reviving and strangling that monster till his green slimed body's black and blue. Well, I tried to leave once I wasn't being watched but Donny's put this security system at the door, 32 sensors! Where he finds the time for all of this I don't know!
For now, I'm tired of fighting. Hey I get tired of fighting, I do! It's the truth!
Or maybe I'm just too worried right now to even bother caring.
I glance around, Mikey's asleep in his room, Splinter's still in the dojo and Donny's gone to get something, anti-um uh, well whatever it is. I DON'T CARE!!!
I just want Leo to wake up. I want him to wake up and make Mikey smile again. I mean, COME ON IT'S BEEN A WORLD FORSAKEN WEEK!
Yeah, it was a week ago we fought that creature. A week since the impact of flying at water at break-neck speeds had literally done just that to Leo. Well, almost. It hasn't broken all the way through.
Now he's just laying there in his bed, an IV, we had managed to fish out of a hospital's dumpster, hanging from an old hat stand by his side and empty bag, stained red lying on his bedside table where three more had fallen to the floor after being stacked carelessly. Well, I suppose Don did have other, more important things on his mind.
I walk over to the bed and my knees hit the floor as my face nearly crashes into the near bed frame. Well that would've been great! Whack my head against something else and get an even bigger headache!
I raise my hand to my forehead and curse the bandage across the open wound. I hope it heals before Leo wakes up he'll be angry enough that I had to save him. Truthfully, I'm just trying to make amends. We've both said a lot of things in the past but we're still brothers in the end. We're trying to make amends.
You know I'm thinking we should just punch each other once, say we're sorry for everything and then I don't know go rob a bank or something. You know, for the fun of it. Course we wouldn't steal anything well maybe I'd grab a few pieces of that candy they often give out to kids. Mikey does love those bubble gum flavored lollipops.
Heh, what a kid. I hope he never grows up.
I sigh and detach my hand from my forehead, may stick there for all I know. I let my gaze wonder over him, I'm glad it's mostly dark, it makes it harder to see that brace around his neck. I'm thankful the blanket's over him.
Just gives me another reason to curse that pipe.
Yes, somehow A FREAKING INANIMATE OBJECT managed to hurt us both.
I was lucky though, I only hit my head on the thing, a piece of the pipe had somehow broken off and had gotten inserted into Leo's side.
I look back at the bags on the floor and pick them. It's kind of creepy staring at them, knowing they had been filled with my blood. It's isn't exactly creepy but there is a strange feeling of my blood running through Leo's veins. It's not creepy but it's unusual, knowing somehow I'm able to keep my big brother alive as long as I got blood in me.
It's a feeling I can't describe. I should probably throw the bags away but I just want to stay with Leo. So I just stack them with the other one and just watch him.
Breath in…
Breath out…
Heh, we're breathing in rhythm now, fascinating. That does let me know he's breathing right though.
Truthfully, I don't know what to do. I don't know exactly how bad Leo is but it must be worse than ever before. We've lived without Leo, that's true. Mikey stopped smiling and joking, Don locked himself in his lab and I went out to beat thugs heads in.
We're lost without our leader, it's something I've found out.
I could never get Donny to go to bed and I couldn't get Mike to smile. Eventually, it just became pointless attempts at normality. This time though, Donny and Mikey are holding something back from me. There's something they're not telling me that concerns Leo.
I know, because they're acting different, I expected Donny to head right to his lab to work on something or the living room to read a book and I expected Mikey to head to his room, looked ready to cry, or I expected him to go to the living room to play a video game.
I bet everyone was expecting that.
No, didn't happen like that. Mikey planted himself at the foot of Leo's bed and only leaves when necessary, he ain't said a word to anyone either. Our father sleeps most of the day or stays in his room meditating or reading, whatever he does.
Donny was the one that surprised me though, he didn't go to his lab, to his room or even to the living room. He went to the dojo. He goes there all the time now and he trains, trains like Leo did when he was angry after Shredder's fall.
Both barely eat and Don's gone to doing a lot I'd never thought he'd do. He hasn't touched his computer for this last week, he hasn't even been in his lab. If he ever walks into the living room he looks away if the TV is on. Cringing as if it swatted out at him every time he went near it. He calls us by our full names now too.
Mikey's only in his room now because I carried him there. Don had said Mike's presence was sapping his concentration of caring for Leo.
Mike whimpers a lot, he misses his big brother, we all do.
I hear a cough from the other room and cringe. Master Splinter's sick again, he must have left his meditation session in the dojo a few minutes after I walked out.
I gulp and look up at Leo's face, it's unreadable, a usual Leo thing. I turn around and flip on the lamp sitting on his bedside table, behind the blood stained bags.
Still, his face is unreadable as ever. I'm curious now though, so I lean over and grab the edge of the neck brace. Donny would so kill me for this but I have to know. His neck would heal as long as it stayed in the brace but that didn't seem like enough to make Don and Mike so uneasy and unwilling to say anything to me.
I undo the straps and carefully part the neck brace. Usually when something's broken the area swells but that's not the case with his neck or throat. His neck appears normal so I reach out and search for a vein in his neck. I sigh with relief when I find a strong pulse underneath my fingertips. Ok, so it's not his heart, the neck's bad but there has to be something else. It just doesn't seem that my little brothers would be this uneasy about such a thing.
Now that I think about it. How many brushes with death has Leo had? I think I've had one or two maybe but Leo? Let's see, our first face off with the Shredder, the ambush that knocked him into a coma, falling from the bridge when facing the Ultimate Ninja, poisoned at the BattleNexus, being stabbed all the way through by Karai, our final showdown with the Shredder when the ship's core exploded, nearly being torn up by the Shredder again when we returned from the future and the fight we had on the rooftops.
Now this…
I suddenly find it hard to breathe. I'm choking and my mind is boiling. THIS IS SO UNFAIR!
WHY!? WHY LEO!? WHAT HAS HE EVER DONE!?
Great now I'm just angry again! Even when he's unconscious Leo somehow manages to make me mad!
I've always known I was maybe a little over protective with my little brothers and big brother but now, I realize I'm not just over protective I'm over possessive.
No one's going to take my family away, they're all I've got. I take a deep calming breath and then hook the ends of the neck brace back together.
What are they hiding?
The door opening all the way would usually make me turn around but from the heavy breathing I can tell it's Mikey. I can see him without looking, a gray blanket wrapped around him, eyes glazed over, reflecting the world more than they should and his posture slouched.
I watch out of the corner of my eye as he makes his way to the foot of Leo's bed and curls up on the floor, wrapping the blanket around him very tightly. I couldn't take away Mikey's nightmares, only Leo or Master Splinter could do that.
I growl, oh I just want to punch something.
"I don't know what's wrong with you bro," I whisper to Leo's unconscious form, "Just get better, for all of us."
Then, I pick myself off the floor and walk out of the room.
I take a deep breath and lean against the door. Then, I'm crying.
I'm crying because I feel that,
This is a coma, that he isn't going to wake up from.
When people tell you the truth hurts don't believe them, it doesn't hurt.
It kills you instead.
Some things are never said you know?
Some skeletons just have to stay in the closet.
Truthfully, I find this one kind of lame. It doesn't feel finished but it is.
Oh well nothing I can do about it.
~Moonsetta