As always, I own nothing. I adapted this from something I wrote for another fandom, hope you like it. Please review, it's good for my low self-esteem. (note to those who caught them: I fixed the errors here....lesson? Never upload fics when you've been hitting the vodka)
"Mars is not an aesthetic god."
John Brown Gordon, Confederate General, Civil War
Blood was everywhere. In Raphael's eyes, in his mouth, in his nose, tasting of iron and copper. The heat of it burned his skin and he was reminded, in a disconnected, far-off way, of how ugly war is. Blood, guts, brains, bones, teeth, claws, spit, puke. Ugliness.
They'd come out of nowhere, a half-dozen pissed-off hell spawn with bad attitudes and big fists. One of them, wide as he was tall, had felled Raph with one titanic blow, sending him sprawling to the ground, where a few of the others proceeded to dance the fandango on his skull. Out of the corner of his eye he saw Leonardo fall, saw the demons leap atop him, screaming with glee.
Luckily Raph had the presence of mind to fall on his sais, which allowed him some breathing room after he gutted a few of the bastards. But on the whole it hadn't made much of a dent, so he'd had to go hand to hand for a while, and he'd had to slashing with a shuriken to finish the last of them. Hell of a fight. Hell being the operative word. But, as always, he came out on top and now he knelt on the concrete floor, sucking wind and tasting blood, tasting bile. He spat out a thick mouthful of blood, nudging at a loose tooth with his tongue.
Leo.
Raphael scrambled forward on his hands and knees, groping blindly. Blood was stinging his eyes and he ducked his head to scrub his face across his shoulder. His vision cleared to a dim red blur, and he could see the still form of his brother sprawled on the ground in front of him.
Leo was prone, facedown in the dirt, his hands tied behind his back with a mean-looking twist of wire. The wire was cutting into the flesh, turning his hands an ugly purple and chafing the skin away to leave bracelets of blood on his wrists. Raph grasped him by the shoulder, rolling him over, and his stomach lurched into his throat with fear. Leo's eyes were rolled back, half-closed, the sclera of one eye stained red from a broken blood vessel. His breath came in hitching half-gasps, gurgling and wet. A pink froth dribbled from the corner of his mouth, striping his cheek with gore.
"Aw, Leo," moaned Raphael, struggling to pull his brother into his lap. Leonardo's head rolled limply against Raph's chest, and Raphael cradled it closer, pressing his cheek to the top of Leo's skull. Leo's skin was gummy with drying blood, and the tails of his mask were sticking in ropy clumps to his cheeks and forehead. "Come on…"
Leo's only reply was a low, rumbling moan, a rasping call with no words. His chest lurched with a silent gasp; then the moan began again. Fear compressed Raphael's heart and he smoothed a trickle of blood away from Leo's fluttering eyelids. "Come on, Leo, don't do it…don't even think about it…" Another moan. "Splinter'll never forgive me…come on…"
Leonardo's face was pallid, painted with a ghastly sheen of cold sweat. The bright blooms of blood on his shell were like lurid scarlet flowers against his pale skin. So much blood, life's color, darkening to black in the heat of the air. His eyes seemed far away, glazed over and sightless.
The sting in Raphael's eyes was not now from blood, but from a hot rush of tears. He blinked hard, swallowing them away along with a trickle of blood from his loose tooth. "Not like this, Leo. I was supposed to go first…" His voice broke in a sob and he dropped his forehead to bump against Leonardo's. "I can't watch you die, I can't…"
Leo's moan diminished to a shuddering intake of breath, and then there was only silence.
Somewhere outside, far off, a whippoorwill started to sing.