Long Here In
"I have lain long here in your mind, longer than any nightmare has before me. I have sunk my roots into your worst imaginings and feasted on your memories. I know you, child." – J. Aleksandr Wootton, The Eighth Square
Kill him. It would be so easy, the voice taunts in a whisper. Your blade is in your hand. Stab him. Quickly, before he turns around. Kill him.
"Shut up," Raphael mutters lowly. He drops the dumbbell he was lifting and it rolls a short distance away from him, forgotten.
He is alone in the dojo, save for Leonardo. A rare quiet evening, made even quieter with the fact that Michelangelo and Master Splinter had both gone to visit April and Casey. But quiet nights never do seem to last.
"Raph?" Leonardo questions, turning from his position on the floor to look at his brother, confusion clear on his face.
Kill him. You know you want to. He won't see it coming. Kill him.
"I said shut up."
"Raph, what's wrong?" Leonardo's expression morphs into one of concern as he approaches.
You don't need him. Kill him. He deserves it.
Leonardo stands before his shaking brother. "Raph?"
Do it! Kill him! Kill him! KILL HIM!
The young leader places a firm hand on the red-banded turtle's shoulder in a gesture of comfort, but that instead proves to be Raphael's undoing.
Without warning, Raphael sends a fist at his brother's head and slashes his sai at Leonardo's chest. Unprepared for the sudden attack, the punch lands, but Leonardo is able to block the blades with his arms, earning himself deep gouges in the skin of his forearms that instantly well up with blood. Leonardo stumbles back, surprised at the unprovoked brutality his brother is exhibiting, as Raphael throws another punch aimed at his head. He dodges the blow, and reaches up to unsheathe a katana to better defend with, only to grasp at empty air. Belatedly, he recalls that his swords are on the other side of the room where he had been polishing them just moments before.
"Raph! What are you doing?!" Leonardo demands.
But all Raphael can hear is that voice whispering in his head. Yes, that's it. Kill. Watch the blood drip from his body. More! Make him bleed more. Hurt him. Kill him!
It spurs him on to fight even harder.
Trying to get more distance between them, Leonardo continues to step backward, dodging hits and slices, until his foot connects with the twenty-five pound weight Raphael had discarded earlier and he trips. He tries to recover his footing, but is overbalanced by Raphael slamming the hilt of his sai into the center of Leonardo's plastron. Leonardo falls flat on his shell.
Slit his throat.
Raphael is on him in seconds.
The moment Leonardo is down, Raphael lunges at him, catching his right wrist between the prongs of his sai, the middle prong imbedding through the tatami and padding, deep into the cement floor underneath. A crack resounds the evidence of a broken bone caused by the force of the metal trapping wrist against floor.
Before Leonardo can even acknowledge that fact, the point of the other sai makes a beeline straight for his neck. It is all Leonardo can do to stop the attack with his free arm mere inches from his skin, but with Raphael's superior strength and advantage of both hands, it quickly becomes a losing battle. Raphael increases the downward pressure, inching the blade closer and closer to the leader's exposed neck, despite Leonardo's best efforts to push against the weapon. Muscles begin to strain and blood continues to drip from the wounds on Leonardo's half-raised left arm.
As the very tip of the sai begins to slice flesh, Leonardo shoves the blade aside as a last ditch effort, earning himself a shallow scratch on the side of his neck and a second to catch his breath.
But only a second, for in the next, Raphael is using the remaining sai to pin Leonardo's left arm down as well.
"R-Raph, please, stop. Please," Leonardo pleads, hoping his brother will snap out of it before this continues.
Two three-fingered forest green hands wrap themselves around a well-muscled, yet painfully fragile, leaf green neck splattered in droplets of red.
Strangle him.
And squeeze.
Long minutes pass in near silence, save for whispered pleas and strained whimpers. Leonardo bucks and struggles and writhes beneath the weight of his brother's body. He kicks out, reaches his legs up to try and push the red-banded turtle away, but Raphael easily avoids the clumsy movements by leaning forward out of reach and applies more pressure to the leader's throat, making Leonardo's body spasm involuntarily in pursuit of much-needed oxygen.
Watch as he gasps for breath. Desperate and helpless. Pathetic.
"R-Raph – st-sto-op."
Leonardo's wide-eyed gaze locks with Raphael's narrowed glare, eyes flitting back and forth between the golden amber orbs. And what he sees there hurts more than any wound and steals his breath far faster than the compression on his trachea. Raphael's golden amber eyes burn with a cold fire, fueled by hatred and rage, slow and calculating, and nothing Leonardo has ever seen in Raphael and, closing his eyes against it, he hopes to never see it again.
Watch as the light leaves his eyes. Watch as he dies. So easy. So good. Kill.
Leonardo's struggles grow weaker, and the whispers morph into wheezes and whimpers into gasps. Raphael feels his brother's pulse slow more and more beneath his grasp. He is so close. . .
Suddenly, the dojo door swings open to admit a distracted looking Donatello. "Hey, Leo, I was wondering about the. . ." The young genius stops dead in his tracks, intelligent mind quickly taking in the scene before him but having difficulty actually processing what it is he sees. "What the shell?!"
After only a moment's pause to collect himself, Donatello is by his brothers in an instant. "Raph! What are you doing?! Get off of him!" He attempts to pull his larger brother off of Leonardo, but Raphael just shoves him away with one hand, keeping the other clamped firmly on the young leader's throat, thumb on his windpipe. Where Raphael's hand makes contact with Donatello's plastron leaves a smeared handprint of tacky red, and Donatello abruptly notices the blood pooling around Leonardo's pinned arms for the first time.
Donatello pushes against the forest green turtle, but tense muscle proving nearly as hard as stone, he remains unmoved. "Raph! You're killing him!" The horrible strangled sounds coming from Leonardo are quieting and his body's weak thrashings are decreasing to a miniscule twitching, both signs telling Donatello that his brother is running out of time.
Taking a step back, Donatello quickly pulls out his bo and hits a calculated blow to Raphael's side, enough to hurt, but not damage. And, most importantly, to break his hold on Leonardo.
The family medic drops to his knees beside his blue-banded brother, who had immediately begun gulping down deep breaths the moment his airway was opened again. He coughs as the air hits his oxygen starved lungs, and Donatello tries to help calm his breathing, keeping a close eye on his suddenly fratricidal brother still sprawled on the mats a few feet away.
He lays his staff down within easy reach and sets to work freeing Leonardo's wrists. He starts on the right one first, which is already bruising and swelling around the prongs of the sai as evidence of a fracture, and fingers a mottled green and purple due to lack of circulation.
After a moment, Raphael stirs, moving just enough to sit up and turn around, facing Donatello as he helps Leonardo. The purple banded brother watches the larger turtle warily, but Raphael makes no move to attack or get closer, so Donatello refocuses on prying the deeply imbedded sais.
Once he feels he has enough air, Leonardo looks up at Donatello and opens his mouth to speak. "D-Donn-ie," he rasps, which sends him into another coughing fit. When it subsides, he tries again. "Donnie." His voice is still rough, but doesn't make him cough this time.
"I'm here, Leo. I'm going to get you out of this."
"R-Raph?"
At his name, Raphael seems to break out of his blank-eyed trance and actually see what is before him. Leonardo is laying half in Donatello's lap, left arm still pinned with a sai, right arm cradled gently on his plastron. Both of Leonardo's arms are covered in blood, some tacky and drying, some fresh and still running. Donatello is watching Raphael warily, one arm wrapped around Leonardo, the other hovering cautiously over his bo staff.
"What's gotten into you, Raph?" Donatello demands in a low voice, and the accusation, justified accusation, in his tone is like a slap on the face to Raphael.
"Donnie. . . L-Leo, I – I" he stutters out, unsure of what to say. Of what he can say.
"Raph?" Leonardo's voice is gentle, despite its hoarseness, tired, and cautious in a way different from Donatello's.
But it is the look on Leonardo's face, in his eyes, that sends him running from the room, out the lair door and into the sewers outside. Worry, not for himself, but for Raphael, and love. Pure, honest, unconditional, brotherly love. And it tears at his heart to know what had just happened.
"What have I done?"
"Strange, I thought, how you can be living your dreams and your nightmares at the very same time." –Ransom Riggs, Hollow City
Disclaimer: I do not own Ninja Turtles, nor have I read The Eighth Square or Hollow City, but aren't these quotes pretty darn good? I like them.
Author's Notes: *Peeks around the corner* Raph isn't here, right? I'm afraid of what he might do to me once he sees what I've done to him and Leo. I wrote this in between doing my Spanish homework today (yes, Amy and Cara, I was actually doing my homework! I know, four days earlier than usual. It's a first xD) And Nino honey, you have no one to blame but yourself, telling me I can just post it and leave it all mysterious like. Naughty. Don't you know by now, that given the chance, I will do it! :D Though, to be fair, you didn't actually know everything I was going to do to poor Leo. xD
Anyway, hope this is enjoyed, to some extent. I don't think it will be continued; certainly not any time soon, but I am rather unpredictable, and my muse easily distracted, so who knows! Take care all! Love ya! God bless! And have a very good Easter Sunday. God loves you!
-TheOneThatGotAway99