A/N: So wow, I've been gone from FFN for...a long time. I'm considering deleting all my old fics on this account. I took a long winter hiatus from almost everything fandom-related, and here I find myself back in my original fandom, TMNT.
Note that I'm on a brand new laptop and I'm still getting used to the keyboard so I apologise for any errors. Also it seems the S key is a little finicky so there's that. With this I'll just jump right in, more A/N-y stuff at the bottom if you like it enough to read that far, and introductions etc. in my profile.
This is a gift and it comes with a price,
Who is the lamb and who is the knife?
-Rabbit Heart (Florence + the Machine)
The world, David had found, generally could be separated into two categories at any given point. Good and bad, dark and light, legal and illegal. Boys and girls. Boys and girls was the rule. Most group homes had the boys' side and the girls' side. It was a line that David was not allowed to cross. Naturally, David disregarded this. By way of a well-oiled fire escape and a squeaky window, David slipped through. He would not be found out; nobody would dare rat on him - except maybe Sealy. At this point they were jumping at any excuse to give one another demerits, so he should take caution.
He found Molly sitting on her bed, just as he had expected. On her first night here Sealy had sneaked into Molly's room and lopped off her long hair with a pair of kitchen shears. If Molly had been quiet before, she was ghostly now. She knew the weight of words, and she regarded David with her normal silent stare as he pulled his lean hips across the windowsill and landed clumsily on the worn carpet. David pulled the Glock from the inside of his coat.
"I got it from Jason's room", he said, "in and out. Easy." He turned it over in his hands. Its polished facets glinted in the evening light, silencer turning against his palm. Molly was already shaking her head at him. "You're coming with me, Mol. Those guys ain't getting away with what they did to Sid."
Molly was not the type to have a vengeful streak. She didn't get that internal bleeding and a concussion for Sid meant a bullet to the shoulder, or leg, or head, for the guy who had done the beating-down, at least in David's world. Didn't get that David would not leave her here across the hall from the girl who still had kitchen shears hidden beneath her pillow. Didn't get that even if David took the gun, Sealy knew a thousand other ways to hurt a small thing, knew a thousand ways to cut her under the table with no Jason nearby to step in.
"You don't have to watch. Just come with me. I ain't leaving you, Mol. It's in and out. In and out. Easy." He stepped around the bed, forcing himself into her line of vision. "You trust me. How many times I stick my neck out for you since you landed in this sorry place, huh? You think I'm kidding? I - " Cold hands on his shoulders stilled him. Molly pushed him away, out of her space, and stood. Lead the way, then.
David shoved the window pane up another couple inches and slipped out, his boots ringing on the fire escape, and him too hyped up to care how much noise he was making. Molly slipped out after him and he swung down into the darkening day.
Ice-blue eyes watched from the lower floor, kitchen shears cold against her back in the waist of her jeans, but David did not see Sealy watching. He hurried past, Molly stumbling to keep up.
David had cased the house twice now. It was a run-down place in a small neighborhood, worn paint once robin's-egg blue, door stilted on its hinges. There was one dog, an old lab not worth its keep anymore, with only gums and big sad eyes for any strangers that came its way. The perp would be out in the back smoking at this time of day. He had a pair of crude knuckledusters snagged from another guy in the ghetto and mean little eyes and greasy hair, and a bullet with his name on it, come about ten minutes. A gunshot wasn't too rare in this part of town. Nobody would come looking for awhile.
At the back fence of the yard lay an empty lot, and there were trees, a couple sorry little wimps of trees, enough in the twilight to hide two ragtag foster kids from view. David raised the gun, peering around a branch at his target. He should think of something cocky to say. Something so the guy knew he was getting his due, and not that David was just some trigger-happy prowler going about looking for trouble. The guy had no weapons other than the knuckledusters that David could see, and the metal brackets only worked at a close distance. David pulled his hood about his face and pulled the gun back behind his leg, turning out from behind the tree and leaning against the rusted gate.
The guy looked up. Near David, Molly hopped a little on one foot, trying to get out the burrs lodged in her socks. "Hey", said David, "friend of mine ran into you the other day."
A long pause, the guy frozen and surprised with his cigarette midway in the air, before he replied, "I run into a lotta guys."
David gestured with his non-gun hand. "Long hair, 'bout yea tall. Darkest brown eyes you ever seen. Heard you knocked him about a good deal."
The guy settled back against the back porch post, smirking now, ready for a fight. Oh, a fight he would get. Not a fair one. Rather one-sided, actually. "I knock about a lot of guys. Can't say I remember too well."
David raised the gun. "I'll jog your memory. I'll jog something else, too. Some bones maybe."
"You don't got it in you." But the guy seemed a little tense.
Before he could chicken out or get talked down, David raised the gun and fired. He didn't aim much. The kick startled him, the soft fwhump of the silenced Glock batting about his ears, and a moment later there was howling and blood, a lot of it, coming from just below the man's ribs. Another sound came, a meep from the tree nearby. He had forgot to tell Mol to cover her eyes.
David turned and hightailed it, grabbing Molly maybe a little roughly and pulling her over the uneven ground. She turned her ankle and nearly went down. But David ran and ran, hurtling through rainbow-oil streets and chipped sidewalks, until he dead-ended in an alleyway and lost every bite of his dinner to a nearby dumpster. The girl whimpered beside him, rubbing her eyes and then her ankle. She tapped him on the shoulder once, twice, and he turned at last to greet a third presence in the alley.
"One bullet, just one?" Sealy said "All it took for you to hurl was one little bullet? Must be your first time drawing blood. That was either really brave or really stupid."
"You minx", breathed David, acid still raging from his throat to his belly and back up. "You followed us?"
"You're not all that good at sneaking out. Surprised you haven't been caught yet."
"Don't you dare tell."
"It' not me you have to worry about." Sealy stalked in a wide arc from one wall to the other, as if gauging her territory. "The guy called his buddies. His mom called the cops. Mothers can be so weak. In short you have both cops and robbers after you now." She smiled deadly towards the mouth of the alley. "They're on their way."
David scrambled towards the back wall. No way out. How close were they? Could they slip back out of the mouth of the alley and head in a different direction without being caught? He was confident he could overpower Sealy if need be. At worst he could hide Molly in some of this alleyway debris. With luck she would have the sense to look away while he was gutted.
He eyed Sealy again. "I'll help you get out", she said, "if you give me the gun. I've been trying to get it for weeks. You just got it before me, you little rat." She couldn't even find it in herself to show contempt; the only thing in her voice was a kind of tired coldness. Sealy with a gun - the thought scared him, but he would be out of here soon. Yes, out. There was no way he would be going back to the group home. The cops would know to look for him there. And Molly, Molly might be counted as an accomplice.
He didn't want to put Mol out on the streets again. But there might be no other choice. At least this time she wouldn't be alone.
David swallowed his rising frenzy. "Get us out first. Then the gun." Sealy looked annoyed, but sirens far off made up her mind. With a resigned shrug she turned and left the alley.
The three pounded through the city streets as darkness closed in and a round halo moon cast its light across the sky. Sirens swooped closer and farther as Sealy led them on, scrambling.
Another hill, another turn, and a piece of metal flew past David's face. He stumbled back, grabbing at his nose to ensure its safety. Sealy shoved in front of them, peering around the corner, and then, "Ha", she said, "looks like someone got to your little friends first. They're in Dragon territory now. Over their heads."
"If they're in Dragon territory then we're in Dragon territory too", David hissed.
"What they don't know won't kill us. Loop around and we'll take the back street - "
Sealy was cut off by sirens, closer than they had been for the duration of the chase, only a street over and turning towards them fast. Cops at their backs, gang war at their faces. Frying pan, fire. The frying pan came to them. An overweight lowlife with a pipe in his hand staggered around the corner with blood streaming from his nose.
"You", he said, pointing at David. "You're the kid with the shirt!"
"What's wrong with my shirt?!" David was wearing an old hoodie with a black widow embroidered on the front. Foster kids knew how to shop thrift stores.
"You shot my buddy, spider-boy!" The guy flung himself clumsily forward, pipe poised to do David in. But Sealy was there in a flash of black clothes and kitchen shears. The guy staggered back, screaming. There was blood everywhere, a lot of it, for the second time today, and a jagged hole where the man' pupil had been. Sealy calmly wiped the shears on her jeans in two swift motions.
"Give me the gun and we'll fight our way through", she said. "Those guys are meleeing. We have a good chance - "
"No way", David interrupted. "What's to stop you turning the bullets on us?"
"I punctured an eyeball for you!"
"Escape first, gun later", David insisted. Sealy huffed and grabbed his wrist and took off into the sound of clashing metal and falling bodies as the cop rounded the corner.
Frying pan.
"With us it makes a three way fight", Sealy said as they burst into the fray, "so I figure we have a third of a chance."
"Four", said Molly, pointing. As Sealy tugged them behind some large boxes, David turned and saw three guys who somehow looked cleaner than the rest of the parties involved. Their outfits were sleek lines of black with a flower or star emblazoned on the left breast, and masks tied around their heads, restricting well-kempt hair, tails draping down over hard muscle. Blue and purple and red. They would cut a man down but not finish him, effectively removing a threat with a distant kind of mercy. What were guys like these doing in the middle of a gang war?
Sealy was shoving at him again, and David moved back out into the open. There were yells of '...that kid with the shirt' from the one side and 'stupid kids, use a different street' on the other. The masked strangers made no sounds besides the grunts and yells of their well-coordinated fighting style, like a martial art of some sort. The one in purple was tall and twirled a bladed staff right and left, leaving shallow cuts and bruising blows. A couple of arms broke at his hand. Somebody leapt into their path and Sealy got between his ribs with the point of the shears, deep to the hilt, throwing him out of the way with some effort.
"All of this would be much easier with a gun", she said as several policemen rolled down their windows and shouted. One brave man went to try and break up a nearby pair of fighters and got a club to the head for his trouble.
Fire.
A cop yelled, something muffled and then "...kid in the spider jacket", and David stumbled, pushing Sealy faster, faster, and they were in the center of the street-turned-battlefield now, and Sealy was shaking pieces of blood and lung off her scissors, ready to strike again if need be. Around them, attentions diverted to the police, and David crossed his arms over the spider on his jacket as if he could hide what had already been seen. Everyone around them shrank back as two more cop cars pulled up, and the three kids sprinted to the end of the block and turned into another alley, listening.
"Maybe we can hide here til they pass", muttered Sealy, her breath coming in short gasps. She eyed the gun tucked into David's waistband.
"Don't even ask, we ain't nearly out of here yet", David panted back. There was general commotion as the fight broke up and the two gangs retreated to their respective home bases. Wounds would be licked, and much seething would be done, and this would all break out again in full flame later on, hopefully with David and Molly out of the picture this time.
But as things quieted, conversation broke out an alley over. "...think we're safe now...cops still out looking for that kid in the spider shirt..." A heavy thud, like a body hitting the wall, with an accompanying oof. In the confidence of victory, the strangers' voices grew louder.
"Okay, it's time for you to talk. What were you doing stealing those boxes?"
"You think I'm gonna tell you scarf-wearing creepers?"
"Oh, I think you're gonna tell us all right, before I dissect ya. Lemme tell you what I'm gonna to do. I'm gonna cut off all your fingers, 'kay, and then I'm gonna - "
"Raph, that's enough. I think he gets the picture."
"It was just a job. I didn't get the details. The boss don't trust us enough."
"And who would 'the boss' be?" This question presumably met with a gritted-teeth silence, as several more heavy thuds followed, but the Dragon took his medicine and didn't let a word drop. Must be something important. David was ready to get out of there, but Sealy had her head cocked, listening, and Mol was in no shape to run for a little while.
"Would it be someone by the name of Arden Kreiger?" came a fourth voice. David hadn't heard the name before.
But Sealy apparently had.
"Arden Kreiger is my father, David", she whispered to him. "My real dad. What would they want with him?"
"Why don't you go and asked them", David tossed back venomously, but it seemed she was off to do just that. She disappeared around the corner. David raced after her desperately; the girl was their ticket thus far, and he had no idea where to go if they lost her.
He stumbled upon a mixed up scene: three men (boys really) in masks, staring dumbfounded at this ice-eyed girl who had burst in on their private business. One had a fistful of shirt and a Dragon up against the wall, his hard forearm barring the guy's throat in a painful-looking way. The boy in purple said, "Hey, you were with that kid, the one in the spider shirt!"
"What do you want with my father?" demanded Sealy.
"Your father? Is this guy - "
"Arden Kreiger."
"No, this guy isn't Arden Kreiger, he's - "
"I mean, what do you want with Arden Kreiger!"
The blue boy exchanged glances with the purple boy. The red boy only growled. Then the one in the blue stepped forward. He was a good height, with ocean eyes behind an ocean mask, this ninja boy who moved like the ocean.
"Your father is Arden Kreiger." He cocked his head. "You have his eyes."
"So I'm told. How do you know him?"
There was a quiet, and then, "Your father is caught up in some...unseemly things, miss. We'd like to...talk to him - "
"Maybe rough him up a bit", she interrupted, "throw him in jail where he belongs." The guy looked stunned. Sealy smiled deadly. "I was with him up until three years ago. I've seen it."
David had known Sealy's family life had been bad before foster care, but never knew the (apparently criminal) details.
"Well", said the blue boy slowly, "maybe in that light you could give us some information? Get us on our way to that roughing up and jailing you were talking about?"
"Take us somewhere safe first", she said bluntly, gesturing toward David with her bloodstained shears. "This boy shot a guy tonight. Keep the cops off us and you have a deal."
The boy in purple tapped the ocean boy on the shoulder. "Leo. Are we really gonna play this game? One criminal for another?"
"Think of it as the lesser of two evils", Sealy interjected.
"Donnie." Leo put a hand on the other boy's shoulder. "We have a chance to wrap all this up for good. I want that. Don't you?" A kind of tiredness suddenly showed in his eyes.
David had no idea what was going on, or what this Arden guy had done to get both cops and mysterious vigilantes after him, but he knew then that these people had been chasing him for a long time. They'd been in a brutal war as real as any fought with guns and tanks, and painful in its secrecy because there were no reports or prayers or care packages or rules, just a lot of hurt and tension everywhere. David did not want to be a part of this war. He was thinking they'd perhaps be better off braving the streets.
But then he swung the other way and saw Molly, tired and tear-streaked and very small and altogether too trusting, and he remembered the cops and the guy with the pipe and his friend with the knuckledusters. He remembered Sid. He was caught between two evils, two wars. Out there was the possibility of getting caught, of juvie, where the shivs and knuckledusters were all the more common, and here was protection, but from some people who were in the middle of it all themselves.
Frying pan, fire.
David had shot a man tonight. He had sent the bullet hurdling out with his own two hands, in the name of justice. That one bullet had torn him up afterwards. He was starting to doubt his ability to protect them on the streets, especially with people looking for them.
Sealy was turning to him now. "David. Are you coming?" Her words were punctuated by a sharp crack as the boy in red turned off the lights for the Dragon guy and he fell against the wall.
David took a breath. "Yeah. Yeah, we're coming."
A/N: Whew, dude, I've been working on this doc for literally hours. I lost it once. Anyway I hope you liked it. It's shaping up to be a kind of crime/mystery type dealio. For those curious, Arden won't be an OC, he's actually the human AU stand-in for Tigerclaw in my world.
Another note; when I write fics I never know where they're gonna take me. I have a drowsy sorta inkling of the plot. It'll go wherever it wants to go. But I'm not on a schedule or anything, so I can't promise how often I'll update. Hopefully once every week or two. I may get stuck and not know where the plot wants to go next, or my mental health will decide to bite me in the neck a few times, and in these cases there may be a bit of delay. But your reviews will be appreciated. Give me ideas, thoughts, anger even, I'll respond to each and every one. I'm happy to be back in this fandom and I look forward to reacquainting myself with all of you :)