A/N: So it's been a while since I've been here, but with a lot of stuff going on, I wanted to start writing again for an escape. This is actually an older story I never published here, but wanted to see if anybody liked. This is set after the CGI movie. Angst ensues. Please R&R. It's much appreciated. Currently a one-shot, but open to expanding.
"So, Leo…" Michelangelo began mischievously as he watched his elder brother enter the kitchen, "April told me something pretty interesting earlier today."
"Yeah?" Leonardo said, only half interested as he grabbed a drink from the fridge, thirsty after his rigorous workout in the dojo.
"Yeah… I was asking her how she managed to find you in the middle of the jungle." Leo's back was to him, but Mikey could see the muscles in his shoulders and neck tense immediately. "Know what she said?"
"What?" Came Raphael's voice.
Leo whirled around to see that Raph and Donatello had also entered the kitchen and were now waiting patiently to hear what Mikey had to say. Mikey almost grinned as he saw his oldest brother go completely rigid. "You want to tell, Leo?"
"Mikey…" Leo warned.
The orange-banded turtle spun excitedly to face his two other brothers. "Well, April was in this village looking for those killer statues, right? So she kept hearing the locals talking about this legend. They called it the 'Ghost of the Jungle'."
"Mike." The blue-banded turtle snapped, but he went ignored.
"So this 'ghost' would go around saving the villagers from their corrupt military or whatever, only very few people ever caught a glimpse of him. Funny thing was, the guys he was saving the villagers from would go crazy, saying that they'd been attacked by a giant… turtle… with swords." Mikey ended slowly, his grin growing ever wider.
Raph's reaction was quite opposite. He turned on his older brother who was shutting his eyes in horror, his head bowed in shame, praying that the last minute hadn't just happened. "Vigil-ante showboat, huh?" Raph growled.
Leo let out a short breath before answering, keeping his eyes on the floor. "Raph, it's not the same-."
"Not the same?" Raph barked out a laugh. "Fearless Leader, who's always lecturin' me on going after criminals alone was down in the jungles doin' exactly what he tells me not to. Tell me where I'm wrong."
Leo tried to meet his fuming brother's eyes and had trouble holding his glare. "They didn't have anyone else, Raph. The police were the ones committing the crimes."
"What, so the innocent people up here aren't worth our help because the police will eventually get involved? How are they any different from your buddies down South?" Raph cried, advancing on the taller turtle.
"The risk of being exposed is a whole lot higher up here, Raph. When it comes to stringing up thugs for stealing something and consequently leading someone back to your family, there's a huge difference. I didn't have that issue."
"April found you, didn't she?" Raph snapped
"Because she knew what to look for! I'm not the one who ended up in the newspaper of a major city. Those people were being killed, Raph. They lost everything. If I didn't help, no one would."
"You don't think people up here have the same problems?" Raph shouted, now inches from his brother's face.
Leo took a few deep breaths and lowered his volume. "I didn't say that. The majority? No. They don't. But you had a family to protect. You risked them for the sake of your ego."
"YOU had a family to protect! Only you weren't here!"
Mikey looked on in horror at what he had started while Donnie sat at the table, hiding his face in his hands. The arguments had been non-stop for a week now. Most were just passing comments- jabs thrown into normal conversation that left the air thick with tension well afterwards. There had been a few confrontations, between the red and blue-banded turtles, but none had been this bad.
"Enough!" Splinter's harsh reprimand caused all four turtles to freeze on the spot and avert their eyes to the ground.
"So, is this what you had in mind?" The words from the eldest turtle were quiet, but the tone in which they were spoken sent ice through the veins of all who heard it.
Mikey's chest tightened in apprehension of what would come next. It wasn't often that the brothers talked back to their Sensei, but he was quite certain that Leo never had…until now. The youngest turtle was afraid to look up. He didn't like arguing- didn't like to participate in it and didn't like to hear it, almost to the point that he felt physically sick if he ever witnessed it. The way his stomach was churning in anticipation, he knew that this would be no different, even though Splinter was on the other half of the argument instead of another brother.
Leo, in his perfectly controlled way, had been holding himself back for weeks now, ever since the fragile truce created when he'd been saved from Winter's stone generals. He had responded calmly to every attempt by the other three to take a stab at him, which after Raph's actual stabs, were usually in the form of insults, either about being gone, or living in the wild, or that his training hadn't done squat to make him a better leader… Yes, most had been from Raph, but Donnie and even Mike were guilty of their own backhanded insults from time to time. Mikey was quite certain that the impervious dam that was Leonardo was about to burst.
"What do you mean by that, Leonardo?" The old rat asked, outwardly calm, but the edge to his voice revealed what was just under the surface.
The oldest turtle lifted his head, forcing his dark, intense eyes to meet his Sensei's. "Sending me away. Think it's helped yet?"
Mikey winced and wished he could just bury himself under the rock that made up their home. Leo's humor was often sarcastic, but Mikey had never heard him use it in direct conversation with Splinter, especially not in a derogatory way.
"I think we should speak in private." Spinter said in a clipped tone that hid his fury much better than his narrowed and blazing eyes could.
"No. I'm done with dealing with everything away from them. Just tell me what the hell I missed, because obviously there's something I was supposed to get and didn't, and that's screwing everything up here. You didn't send me away and expect everything to fall apart, so something went wrong."
"There is no need to lay blame."
Leo scoffed. "The blame is already here. I'm shouldering all of it. I didn't come home. I screwed up, I know that. That's my fault. I'm just missing the part where being gone helped at all. What was I supposed to do? How was I supposed to be a leader without anyone to lead?"
"You had to first strengthen yourself, and learn who you were without them." Splinter explained in a strained voice, as opposed to the calm and knowing tone he usually taught in.
"Well, I realized what I am without them-Nothing. Now I'm nothing with them too. If I hadn't spent all my time out there wondering what the hell you wanted from me, maybe I would have learned something, but all I realized is that I would be coming home empty handed. I looked up to you. I wanted to be better for my brothers. How could I come home a failure?"
"You are free to make your own choices, Leonardo. I cannot be expected to anticipate everything. I only know what should be the outcome if my orders are followed."
Mikey watched in terrified fascination as his oldest brother's body went rigid, seeming to swell with the anger growing inside of him. Despite the fire in his eyes, his tone came out soft and threatening, but it also betrayed the deep pain that fueled his words. "All I did… All I have ever done, is what you have asked of me." A deafening silence followed and for more than a minute, no one moved. Then Leo spoke again. "You know, Raph, you're right." The red banded turtle flinched. "I am a hypocrite. I'm done taking orders." With a final look at the old rat, the eldest turtle was gone.