Usagi is soft. He hadn't realised how soft until just now. He hadn't really thought about it at all before this moment and now he's fixated on this fact. But he is. Very soft.
Under the short white fur he can feel the warm firm muscles shifting, sliding with his movement, bulging and stretching with effort. Leonardo's arms sway with Usagi and his hands release the soft fur. Usagi's gentle rhythm is rocking his whole body back and forth and there isn't really much he can do about it. He's suddenly overcome with a wave of dizziness and nothing to hold on to, his outstretched fingers only brush the cloth of Usagi's haori bunched up at his waist.
"-sssagi." Leonardo manages to slur with his cheek against Usagi's back when he decides he should tell him.
"Don't speak. Save your strength, Leonardo san. We're almost there."
Usagi's voice is strained and he speaks between panting breaths. The movement starts again and Leonardo watches his arms swing back and forth. He isn't strong enough to reach for the fur, he wants to bury his fingers in it again but he can't. He can't lift his head either and he can't avoid the red that starts to drip down the samurai's back, tainting the pristine white. He watches in fascination as it mats the beautiful fuzzy hair, turning it dark and sticky. It reminds him of walking on fresh snow at the farmhouse, pure and untouched calling for you to step and touch it but turning it into grey mush in the process.
Winter at the farmhouse. It kind of feels like that now. He's trembling, his skin is clammy and cold and he should feel embarrassed about being carried by his friend like this, like a sack of potatoes slung over a shoulder with his tail in the air, but he can't find the strength to care much about that. The image of the snow covered porch at the farmhouse is all he can think of. Why was that important again? Mikey and April are probably making hot cocoa with marshmallows, they should go inside. He needs to tell Usagi to go inside where it's warm and then maybe he'll let him touch his fur again... he's so soft.
Loud thumps shake him from his thoughts, his arms aren't swaying anymore. When did Usagi stop?
"Is there anyone there?" Usagi calls out and there's a hint of desperation in his voice. "Please! I need help!"
What's wrong? Leonardo wants to ask but he only manages a quiet groan. The dirt floor suddenly comes up to him and his arms bend into it as if they were a mannequin's.
"Please!" Usagi cries out again. "My name is Miyamoto Usagi. I am a samurai for Lord Noriyuki. We were attacked, my friend is badly hurt and in need of help!"
Oh. Leonardo thought. I remember.
He was travelling with Usagi, he came to his world to spend a couple weeks with the rabbit seeing the sights and walking the roads of his land. Several days ago they saved another traveller under attack by bandits who was sharing their same path and they decided to continue together for safety.
Toko, the tanuki was called. She was pleasant and amicable, easing the miles they trudged along with light chatter. They camped together and kept three watches instead of two, which was a nice change, and she shared the food she brought along with them and asked about the strange, brightly coloured, wrapped bars he was carrying.
Last night she had announced it was her turn to feed them and they hadn't noticed the tanuki putting something in the pot. He should have said something about the strange smell but everything smelt and tasted different to what he was accustomed to so he hadn't mentioned it until they began to feel ill. It was then that the tanuki struck and under the influence of whatever poison they were given it had taken them a lot to defeat her.
Leonardo hadn't been much help at all. He had been so hungry and tired of dried meat and granola bars and the tanuki made so much food... He had taken his fill of the rich, meaty broth (it would be a shame to waste it) and by the time he had to defend himself he could barely stand, never mind block the dagger that sunk into his side. The fight was a little blurry after that. He remembered Usagi's enraged yell and the rabbit might have beheaded the creature but he wasn't sure if that had really happened or not. He remembered Usagi sticking blood coated fingers into his mouth and making him retch the contents of his stomach over and over until he was empty. Did I really do that? How embarrassing...
"Ccc-old." He mumbled into the matted fur. His mouth and nostrils were filled with the coppery scent of blood and the acrid taste of vomit. There were voices and he was lifted by several pairs of hands and turned over. His stomach twisted and for a moment he thought he was going to be sick again but then someone touched the hilt of the dagger protruding from his side and he blacked out.
Images of frightened faces blurred between moments of white hot pain and terrible broken screams. He was burning up and freezing at the same time. Hands held him down and he couldn't breathe, he needed to get away. He tried to gulp down air and the screaming stopped but he felt something cut into his side and he howled. The terrible noise started and he realised it was his own, but he couldn't stop it.
A voice echoed in the dark. When did I fall asleep? "I'll get you home, Leonardo san. I've already sent word to reach the Daimyo to allow a portal directly to your world from here. I'll take you to your brothers, I promise."
He opened his eyes to find a devastated Usagi bowed over him. "-ssagi?" He reached for him but his movement was way off and his hand flopped beside him. Usagi's eyes shot open.
"Leonardo san! Don't speak. Save your strength. I'll take you to your family. I have the ritual set up and ready, trying it every half hour in case word has reached the Daimyo already..."
"P-pois-n."
"Yes." Usagi's face twisted into anger and then sadness as he picked up Leonardo's hand and returned it to his lap. "The dagger... I thought it was only the broth but the dagger was poisoned too. I didn't think... I left it in you worried you would bleed out before I found help if I removed it and now... There is no cu-" He took in a broken breath.
"D-sn't hurt... any more." He was out of breath already from the few words he managed to speak. His body felt oddly numb, heavy and floating at the same time.
The dagger. Of course the dagger was poisoned too. Turtle luck at its finest. His muscles and skin felt like rubber but he tried his best to command his hand to reach for the rabbit's face to wipe off that terrible frown. This wasn't his fault, Usagi was just trying to do the best he could, he was the one who had been useless during the whole thing. Usagi could have been killed and then no one would have been able to help them or even know what happened. So soft...
"Leonardo..." Usagi dropped the honorific and held the weight of his arm by his wrist as his fingers brushed and sunk into the warm fur of his fluffy cheek. He had never thought of Usagi as fluffy before, or soft, for that matter, but he was. He had never touched anything like it, or maybe he had, he couldn't remember, but it was Usagi he was touching and that somehow made it even better.
He flattened the palm of his hand against his cheek and smoothed out the fur he had ruffled, watching the contrast of their colour with glazed, feverish eyes. Usagi's expression had changed. Good. He was looking back at Leonardo as if he were searching for something or making a decision. He pulled the hand away from his cheek and looked around briefly before leaning forward and pressing his lips to Leonardo's.
His kiss was soft too. The fur and his whiskers tickled his face and even though he tried, he didn't have the strength to return it. He was so tired... He couldn't even open his eyes again after Usagi had pulled away, his lids felt heavy and he was slowly sinking back into sleep.
"-r it... I swear it, Leonardo. If you go, I'll go with you." He heard in the distance.
Where are we going, Usagi? Wherever it is I want to go with you. I just need to rest a bit first.
"- and you can forget about taking him back to that god-awful place ever again!"
Someone with a gruff voice was yelling. Raphael? Am I back at the lair?
"And if he doesn't..." He swallowed thickly. "If he doesn't make it you better run, rabbit. You better run where I can't find you."
"If he doesn't make it, Raphael san, I will follow him gladly."
What are you saying, Usagi? Why are you fighting?
"Stop! No one is going to kill anyone! This wasn't Usagi's fault, Raph!" Michelangelo's voice sounded closer and he could feel his head become clearer.
"Leo?" Donnie's gentle voice cut through the arguing or maybe they went silent after hearing him. He tried to focus on his brother's voice. "Leo, can you hear me?"
He felt as if he were trying to drag his body through sludge, clawing his way back to his family. When he finally managed to open his eyes he saw he was in the infirmary of the Daimyo's palace in the battle nexus. It wasn't the first time he had recovered from an assassin's poison in this hall.
His body ached all over and when he opened his mouth to speak and breathed in, expanding his thorax, he only managed to wince.
"He's going to be fine." Donatello said and he could hear the relieved smile in the words.
He felt more than saw his family around him, patting his arms and rubbing his head affectionately as they told him and themselves that everything was going to be fine. They usually weren't very demonstrative, specially not in public. It had probably been a very close call though he couldn't remember most of it, only darkness, pain and... softness?
He blushed and his eyes searched for Usagi's when he recalled the way he had acted with his friend. Even full of poison and delirious he didn't know how he could excuse his actions away only that he had wanted... what? A closeness. It was the best way to describe it and the feeling hadn't left him. Even now he wanted nothing more but to reach for him.
Usagi's eyes finally lifted from the ground and met his own. They were full of pain and regret.
"It wasn't your fault." He told him quietly after drinking from a cup with help of his father. Usagi's jaw tightened and he looked away. He wasn't going to give up the idea, he was much too like himself. Master Splinter glanced at his son and then motioned for the others to leave with him for a moment so they could talk. Once they were alone they sat in silence waiting for the other to speak.
"I should have thought the dagger could be poisoned as well." Usagi finally said, not raising his gaze from his lap as he knelt by Leonardo.
"I might have bled out before you could find help."
"Or I could have tried to control the bleeding somehow and prevented so much poison from entering your blood."
"You don't know what could have happened. I also ate a whole pot of poison before then. I'm sure that didn't help."
"I should have suspected. I trusted her too easily... She trusted us too easily to not be suspicious. The whole thing was staged and I fell into the trap like a novice."
"We both did." Leonardo replied. "I didn't doubt her for one second, even when I smelt something odd in the soup it didn't cross my mind. I should have said something right away."
"You were in my care. If something would have happened to you..."
Was that all it was? He needed to know. "I remember what you told me before you brought me here." He interrupted. Usagi paused and glanced up at him, searching his eyes. Leonardo moved his hand slightly, thinking about reaching out to touch Usagi like he wanted to since he woke.
"Leonardo san..." The honorific was back and Usagi might as well have put up a brick wall between them. Leonardo curled his fingers into a fist on his thigh.
"I remember everything. I wasn't so far gone, Usagi. Maybe what you said and did was out of some sort of feeling of..." He waved a hand in the air weakly as he looked for the right word. "...responsibility towards me when you thought I was dying. It's okay if it was, Usagi."
Usagi could use the easy out if he wanted to. It was only fair, he owed him his life. He wouldn't hold him to the actions done only to console a dying friend in what he thought were his final moments.
"I didn't do it out of honour, Leonardo san..." Leonardo's eyes snapped up to him. "I meant what I said and what I did." A surge of hope made his heart start pounding in his chest at the samurai's words. "But this adventure and waiting for your recovery has given me time to think and made me realise how different our worlds are. You could not leave your family and your responsibilities behind just as I could never leave my own."
Leonardo nodded, facing away and remained silent. Usagi was right, of course he was. What was he thinking? This... whatever this was, was doomed from the start. Usagi didn't fit in New York where he could not walk around freely in a land meant only for humans and yet he would never leave his family even if he had to live in a sewer hiding all his life even if he was offered to come to this world where he would be free.
They sat in silence again, not looking at each other and waiting for someone to speak. Leonardo was about to tell Usagi he should go when he felt a warm furry hand cover his fist. "Perhaps... it might be enough to see each other every once in a while, when duty allows, and see where fate will take us."
Leonardo watched their hands together, white against green and pinched his thumb to his knuckles, trapping the furry fingers with it and rubbing the fine white hair. He couldn't help the shy smile that came to his lips. "Perhaps." He answered Usagi, looking over to him and tugging his hand to bring him closer. "If you promise to stop blaming yourself for my misfortunes."
Usagi shook his head and leaned in to the turtle slightly. "Only if you promise, Leonardo, to not drink more pots of poisoned broth."
Leonardo chuckled weakly and winced as it disturbed his wound. Usagi made a worried clicking sound with his tongue and squeezed his hand. "I'll do my best." He said with a half smile and pulled the rabbit to him the rest of the way until their lips touched briefly. He turned his head to nuzzle into a furry cheek. "So soft." He sighed out loud before he could stop himself.
"So you keep saying, Leonardo. I am beginning to get the idea that you like my fur." At Leonardo's embarrassed blush Usagi merely chuckled and leaned further into him. "I never said you should stop." He whispered, and Leonardo didn't.