Bold is thought
Italics is speech
Warnings: Hint of Raph/Leo, Violence
Disclaimer: I do not own the turtles…if I did they would probably be dead from "tough love".
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They were all going to die, and Leonardo knew it. From Raphael's screams, to Donnie's panicked talking, and Mikey's dying breaths…he knew it. Leonardo, the leader of his brothers and the one who was the least injured, had no idea where they were. Everything before this moment was a blur to him; nothing seemed to be real other then the streams of blood, light, and screams. Leonardo wanted to just sit on the ground and cry, his emotions becoming too much for him to interalize. He fought on though, killing foot ninja after foot ninja, not even hearing their own sounds.
The gushing blood that sprayed the ground like water was the only thing that he focused on. Leonardo wished that he could have focused on something else, but there was nothing good. It wasn't like Donnie had said when he had returned from his dimension…there is no hope. He fought on, gasping like a fish out of water when he got stabbed or bruised by the enemy's weapons. Leonardo felt his limbs weakening with blood loss and with grief. There were no more screams that gave him confidence that his other two brothers were alive.
He could hear laughing though, a laughing that was similar to the Shredder's. Leonardo shook with terror as he turned around to see Donnie and Mikey, both of them alive and barely injured. He did not see Raphael, but was glad to see that two of his brothers were safe and smiling. Leonardo's happiness only lasted for a minute, though; as he saw that they both had tattoos of the foot symbol on their right forearm. The two youngest turtles started to speak as Leonardo moved back, right into the direction of the foot ninjas.
"What's wrong, Leo? Are you afraid?" Donatello inquired in his usual calm, kind tone as he took a step towards Leonardo.
"Yes, you know we were wrong. We are not afraid, we have the merciful Shredder with us," Mikey stated with a happy chuckle as he took a couple of steps towards Leonardo.
"We found out how wrong Splinter was. He was never our father, Master Shredder was…" Donatello laughed a dark, maniacle laugh that seemed like a poor dub over Donatello's voice.
They both laughed, Donatello walking up to join his brother as they both reached out their inside hand to Leonardo. Their hands were bloody, the blue-clad turtle noted as he took several more steps back. He was sweating in fear now, he realized with a silent scream as he put his green hands to his head. The warehouse seemed to grow smaller and smaller as he shook his head, going back even more until his back touched the gray lead-painted walls. Leonardo looked at his brothers again, removing his hands from his head. He thought that his hands were stick from the terror of his brother's betrayal, but as he removed his hands from his head he saw that they were not sweaty at all…they were covered in blood.
"See, you are one of us. You killed sooo many big brother…" Mikey cheered with a blood-curdling voice that sent Leonardo to his knees.
"Wow, did you not realize that, Leo? We are all the same. We are the only ones of our kind. If we belong to Master Shredder, then so do you," Donatello acknowledged while taking out his Bo staff from his belt. Mikey did the same with his nunchakus.
Leonardo stepped forward quickly to grab his two swords before stepping back again, frantic eyes looking for Raphael. He hoped that the hot headed mutant had not betrayed him like the youngest brothers had. Mikey and Donnie seemed to not notice Leonardo's movements or emotions, walking towards their brother as if they were facing an enemy. The leader knew this was a dream because it could be nothing else. However, despite years of mental training, though, he could not control anything other then himself. Leonardo actually wondered if he was in Hell.
"Raph! Raphael!" he called out, his voice between a command and a plea as the two youngest brother inched closer to him.
Leonardo cried out as a wooden staff hit his shoulder, turning around only to get smacked by a high-speed nunchaku. It had made a deep laceration on his right eye, and he wondered if he was now blind in that eye as he closed it. The foot ninjas were now as still as statues, but Leonardo did not go near them as he dodged both betrayers' weapons. Leonardo tried to cut his brothers up with his sword, but the swords passed through them as if the swords didn't exist. He felt his moves becoming sluggish as he gasped in air greedily. His two youngest brothers were not tired though, they did not seem to be even slightly fatigued by battling their former leader.
"Raphael! Raphael help me!" Leonardo cried out desperately, screaming as he felt his right arm shatter due to a nunchaku.
His right hand dropped the katana as Leonardo slumped to the ground, the loss of blood and the pain becoming too much for the turtle. Tears mixed with the blood as he looked as his grinning brothers, his grinning, laughing brothers. Leonardo's eyes widened as their weapons were raised to the air, snapping shut as the weapons came down. He could hear the sound of air slicing, but he felt no impact pain. With great dread, he opened his reddish eyes to the single figure infront of him. He started to cry, not from pain or terror, but from happiness as his eyes met the red clad turtle's eyes.
Raphael went on his knees infront of his brother, putting a comforting hand on his older brother's shoulder. He would never do this in real life, Leonardo thought to himself, collapsing infront of his brother, but that does not mean I do not like it. Raphael made no attempt at moving as Leonardo sobbed on his shoulder, crying out. Leonardo kept on crying for several minutes, his now swollen eyes closed as the wet tears streamed down his brother's muscles and made a pool of water around them. He felt safe now, safe on his older brother's shoulder. The feeling of safety did not last long, though, as Raphael shoved him onto the floor. Leonardo did not cry out, even as his landed on his shattered right arm. He, instead, turned to face his younger brother with a puzzled expression. It was not the Raphael that he knew, though, it was what he feared the most…a Raphael had had taken on the mantle of the Shredder. Raphael's steel Shredder armor glowed in the little light that was available in the warehouse.
"No..No…NO!" Leonardo cried out, crawling backwards as the evil Raphael walked briskly over him.
"You said that you were better, are you REALLY better? Look at ya, you stupid, whining, weak crybaby! I am the better son, and I am going to prove it!" Raphael yelled at Leonardo, stepping towards the crippled brother with pure hatred behind his amber eyes.
Leonardo gave up as his shoulder hit the wall for the second time that day, letting out a hiss as his brother kneeled between his brother's legs. The clawed gauntlet that the previous Shredder had owned gleamed on Raphael's right hand. The red-banded turtle grinned, his left hand forcing Leonardo's head to where he would have to look his murderer in the face. Pleas still continued, the broken spirit crying out for someone to save him from this horrible death. They were heard by no one, though, not even by anyone up in the heavens even as Raphael's gauntlet pounded into Leonardo's plasteron. Screaming, pain, the blackness approaching quickly…Leonardo heard and saw all of these things. The one thing that became imbedded in his head, though, as the darkness took him over was his brother's face. A face that grinned as blood splattered it.
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Leonardo gasped as he awoke from his horrible nightmare, and moaned as the bright light of his room hit him straight on. He hadn't expected his room to be so bright; it was usually lit only by candlelight. Leonardo assumed it was his room at least, because of the blue bed, and gray walls, plus the wooden katana stand, chair and desk. His throat felt raw, and hurt as he gasped for air. Leonardo heard people speaking, voices that he identified as Donnie, Mikey, and Raph. They were serious voices, concerned for something that Leonardo did not know of. He closed his eyes, squinting as an even brighter light hit him, along with sound. He wished that they would just turn off the lights, the lights that were hurting him so greatly.
"Leo? Are you okay?" a voice called out, a voice that belonged to his second youngest brother, Donatello.
Leonardo smiled, giving a nod as his youngest brother hugged him with the intensity that he would have expected out of Michelangelo. As his eyes adjusted to the light, he could see many sleepless nights in his brother's eyes. He wished that his brother would actually sleep more rather than drink coffee. It was bad for him. A small chuckle escaped his mouth as Michelangelo came in and hugged him as well. They all had been worried, obviously, about their leader. That notion was soothing to Leonardo, although water would be even more soothing, he pointed out to Donatello. The scientific turtle unwrapped himself from his brother and ran to the kitchen to fix him a glass of water.
Michelangelo told Leonardo the whole story of what had happened. They had been fighting the Foot in an old warehouse after a tip from April had led them to a weapons deal between a gang and the Foot. It had been a big fight, a fight that had gotten more then one canister of a hallucinogen gas had been broken. The turtles had won, but Leonardo had passed out from overexposure to the gas and was teetering near a coma when he had been brought in. Donatello entered the room with a glass of water with a blue straw sticking out of the glass. A smile was on his face, but not the evil smile that made Leonardo shudder, but a happy smile of victory. Leonardo took the glass from Donatello and sipped on it as the three of them began to talk. They spent some more time with Leonardo, explaining how the oldest turtle had screamed, slept walked, and even slept attacked Donatello. No matter how much he wanted too, though, the oldest turtle could not tell his brother about his nightmare. It would be unfair for them, he told himself, when in truth he was too scared to tell. Leonardo was afraid that if he let out the nightmare, then his brothers would no longer trust him and what happened in the dream would really happen.
As such, the nightmare was bottled up inside of him, all ready to remain undiscussed forever when Raphael stepped into the room. Leonardo felt his breath hitch, and immediately felt guilty as he turned his face away from his brother. Raphael did not notice the hitch in breath as he sat on the chair next to his brother's blue bed. He did not want to be here, he wanted to be on the surface doing his vigilante buisness with Casey, Leonardo noticed with an internal sigh.
"You killed me, Raph," Leonardo stated coldly towards Raphael, feeling his emotions in the dream come out like a wave he couldn't control.
"What? You're still alive idiot!" Raphael shot back, his eyes narrowed in a glare that was meant to hide his emotions.
The glare was meant for that, but it only gave Leonardo a better sense into what his brother was feeling. Putting a hand on his red-clad brother's shoulder for a minute, Leonardo knew he had been more worried then even Don had. It would have been just a hunch, if his brother had not looked so awful. This close in this light, Leonardo saw puffy eyes and tear stained fabric. The touch only lasted for a second, the younger brother shrugging off his brother's touch. Leonardo felt like pouring out what had happened in the dream to Raphael, but he couldn't bear doing it. The red turtle looked like he had too much on his shoulders already. It was obvious, to Leo, anyway, that for the time that he was out Raph had taken over as leader. He had lead even while feeling awful about his brother's coma. As Raph got up from the chair and turned to exit, Leo grabbed his brother's right hand with the grip typical of a dead man.
"Wait…" Leonardo pleaded quietly, looking his brother in the eyes.
He was not thinking, not even logically reasoning about what he was going to do in the next few seconds. Leonard did what only Raph or Mikey did…he just went with his gut feeling. Meanwhile, Raphael did not say anything back, but nodded and sat down in the chair, looking at Leonardo as concern shown through the glare. In that atmosphere, with the nightmare lightyears away and his brothers so close to him, Leonardo began to tell what had happened in the nightmare. The story was like a current, uncontrollable and powerful. He told Raphael about the screaming, the begging, and the way that the evil Shredder Raphael had plunged the gauntlet's claws into Leonardo's chest. It was not long until Raphael moved closer to his brother as the leader, the apparently fearless leader, started to sob on his shoulder. Leonardo's feeling of safety was not weak this time, like it had been in the dream. It was strong and steady with trust in his brother…the trust that nothing would happen ever like it did in the dream…