Warning: Pity party ahead. If you don't like angst-heavy stories, you might wanna pass this one by. There's also a hint of OC-ness in a few of the characters, but I'll try to keep it to a minimum.
Also note: For now this one's going to stay as an open-ended one-shot. I have a few ideas on where I want go from here, but I don't have a lot of time to invest in a lengthy multi-chapter story, so this story arc will likely end up being a series of closely-related one-shots that will be written when I have the spare time (which, between my full-time job, two college courses and my kids' extra-curricular activities, isn't all that much).
Standard fanfic disclaimers apply.
Hope some of you like it…
After a long day of scouting the area and gathering what little supplies they could find, he'd been ready to drift off to sleep the moment his head hit the pillow. In the midst of his self-induced exhaustion, his only hope for the coming night was that he could finally get a full-night's rest without her becoming a feature in his dreams. Unfortunately, those kinds of wishes had yet to come true ever since that final evening in the Elephant Village, but if there was ever a night he desperately needed at least some semblance peace, tonight was that night.
"Wait...no, that's not why I asked you to stay up," a woman whispered from somewhere outside the bunk room.
For a moment, he felt the need to pinch himself to find out whether the voice originated from reality or from somewhere within his own mind.
"Well, then why did you?"
Another voice whispered. He shook his head in resignation, realizing that his hopes for a restful sleep were going up in smoke far too soon.
"I...I think we should slow things down a bit…at least...for a little while."
The nervous tone in the woman's voice jolted his mind into awareness, making him think more about where their conversation was headed than about his own need for rest. Though he was pretty sure he would have become just as alert no matter what her tone was. Sadly, her voice would forever be ingrained in his mind as one that required his undivided attention, even if it was that very same voice that had brought him more pain and heartache in the last few days than he'd ever thought possible before.
He looked around the room and saw that two of the bunks on the opposite wall were still unattended. He immediately knew who it was that was in the next room; likely sitting in the cockpit, and it also gave him a rough idea of what their conversation might be about. After the comments he'd left her with the other day, there was little opportunity for them to talk to each other in private. It seems she'd finally found the chance.
"But...why?"
The sound of his voice, in return, once again being completely oblivious to the situation, put an involuntary scowl on his face.
"I don't think your brother is as okay with us as he says he is. In fact, he told me so a couple of days ago, after we let that battalion go."
There was a long pause. He could imagine the look on his brother's face as he pondered her words for a moment, trying to put the pieces together in his mind.
"I don't see why that matters. He may be our King, but that doesn't mean he gets to dictate our personal lives. He'll just have to grow up and get over it. The sooner he realizes that he doesn't always get what he wants, the better."
"But it's a little more complicated than that. I...well, I think I might have...I mean it wasn't my intention, but now that I look back on it...he thinks..."
"That you've been leading him on?"
There was no response. He assumed she'd just nodded her head.
"Well...I hate to say it, but there were a couple of times where I'd thought the exact same thing."
"But I wasn't! I was just trying to encourage him, to keep his confidence up! Jaga always said it was our duty as clerics to protect and support the King at every opportunity."
"Keep it down! You want to wake the others?"
"Sorry. I just don't understand how I could have messed up so badly. I mean...he's a sweet kid, but I've been trying to treat him as more of a little brother than anything else, to help guide him into his new role. I didn't think the occasional tease every now and then would be misinterpreted so badly. I used to do it all the time with some of the male trainees back home."
"Well... maybe that's because you've only ever known him as the Heir to the Throne, rather than the naive daydreamer he's always been when outside of the public eye; one who sneaks out of the palace in the middle of the night to buy worthless trinkets. Granted, those trinkets turned out to be a little less worthless than we all thought, but still...it's not your fault he misread things so badly. He was never good at interacting with the females back home, and there's no way you could have known that beforehand. It's just another one of those fleeting teenage crushes he always gets. He'll get over it soon enough."
It took all of his willpower not to let out a groan at how insignificant it made him feel to be described as a child by the first person he'd ever had any real feelings for, not to mention hearing an unfiltered version of what his brother really thought of him. He closed his eyes and tightened his jaw in hopes of keeping his emotions under control.
So that's what they think of me, is it? Just some dumb little kid with a meaningless crush, clueless about the world around him?
"Please. Just do it for me. At the very least...let's not be so close when he's around. At least until he's had enough time to process things?"
His brother gave a quiet sigh. "I've finally achieved one of the few goals I've set for myself in life, and yet once again, I have to set aside my desires to accommodate another of my little brother's juvenile inadequacies. Ugh! I wish he would just grow up already. Maybe then I could actually start living a life of my own."
That was it. He couldn't listen to it anymore. It was just too unbearable. It had come to the point where he half-expected Panthro and the kittens to come out and start tossing their own insults into the pot to see who could make him feel worse.
He shook his head in pained confusion, trying to figure out exactly when it was that everything had gone so wrong.
After all they'd been through since their home had been reduced to rubble. After all the success they'd had, even if it sometimes came by luck. True, he'd made a few bad decisions through the course of their journey so far, but that was all a part of the learning process wasn't it? And even with all the mistakes he'd made; he'd kept them all alive up to this point, hadn't he? They'd even gained one of the Stones, and were well on their way to finding a second!
And was it so wrong of him to hope that all those kind words, light touches and toe-curling cheek-kisses actually meant something more than just kind gestures and confidence-building platitudes? It was true that he was nowhere near being the ladies-cat that his brother always was when it came to interacting with the girls back home, but he was far from being as stupid they were implying! You just don't do things like that to a cat and not expect him to see it as at least a moderate expression of interest!
Then again, he'd put her on such a high pedestal these past few weeks, that it was clearly beyond his capacity to think that she could ever make such a glaring mistake. But it was fairly obvious now that she wasn't quite as skilled at interacting with the opposite sex as he'd assumed such a beautiful woman might be.
That still didn't make it any easier to swallow, though, especially after overhearing this most recent conversation.
Throwing his blanket to the floor, he quietly shoved his boots on, grabbed the Gauntlet and wrapped himself in a travelling cloak.
"Tygra, please, he might hear you."
Walking out into the hallway, he turned toward the couple that sat at the front of the cockpit area. Another jolt of pain ran through his chest as he saw them sitting so close together, holding each other's hands.
"By all means, don't keep quiet on my account."
Cheetara gasped and turned to him with wide eyes, "Lion-O!"
Tygra swore under his breath and turned his head away, no doubt rolling his eyes at the burden of having to come up with an explanation for whatever he might have overheard.
"You'll have to keep moving in random patterns if you want to keep the Lizards off your tail. So don't waste your time looking for me." The young lion stated with a dull tone as he threw the switch that would open the top hatch.
"What?" the shocked and confused cheetah asked as she stood up from her chair.
A bleary eyed WilyKit walked into the room, "Why are you all being so loud? Lion-O, where are you going?"
"I suppose I'm going to be looking for a place that will allow me to 'grow up and get over it'."
"You're leaving? But…why?" The look of pure sadness on the young cub's face nearly shook his resolve, but his brother's next words put a quick end to those thoughts.
Tygra stood angrily from his chair, "don't be ridiculous. You can't just take off at a time like this! You've got responsibilities! We've got a mission to complete!"
Lion-O paused near the top of the ladder before looking down at his brother with a mix of anger and pain. "You've always been the better brother anyway, Tygra. Maybe these should have gone to you in the first place." He pulled the Gauntlet from his arm; the Sword of Omens secured in its built-in sheath, and threw it at his older brother's feet. "And don't worry, brother, I won't stand in the way of you living your life anymore."
Everyone in the room was shocked into silence as he climbed the rest of the way out of the hatch.
In the next instant, he was running at a furious pace, away from the Thundertank, making his way into the dense forest that ran alongside the road. He didn't bother looking back, as he disappeared into the thicker layers brush, but he was sure he could hear WilyKit's high-pitched yelling before the sights and sounds of the forest finally overtook his senses.
"What is going on? Why did he leave?" WilyKit screamed.
"I'd like to hear this myself." Panthro grumbled as he came out of the bunk room.
"It was just a little misunderstanding; we were just trying to-"
Tygra cut her off in frustration. "He's just throwing another one of his tantrums. He'll be back by morning, you'll see."
"That didn't sound like just another tantrum to me." Panthro motioned to the Gauntlet that still lay on the ground at Tygra's feet.
"What is wrong with you?" WilyKit screamed again, pointing her tiny finger at the stunned tiger. "How in the world can you just stand there and talk about your own brother like that without even a hint of feeling bad about yourself? These past weeks I've stayed quiet about it, hoping that you were just being emotional or something about losing our home or about the crap we've been through, but it just won't ever end, will it? You're constantly putting him down, questioning every decision he makes and complaining about nearly everything we do! My brother annoys me all the time, but by Thundera, I would never do anything to make him feel as horrible as they way you have Lion-O!"
After getting over the shock of being scolded by someone not even half his age, Tygra found it incredulous that they couldn't understand what he'd been trying to do. That he was just helping his brother to grow up a bit faster; to learn the harsh realities of life before being swallowed up by his own ignorance. "I've just been trying to toughen him up a bit! To make sure he realizes that life's not all roses and rainbows anymore! He's the Lord of the Thundercats now, and he has yet to start acting like it! And I don't complain about everything we do!" Tygra looked around the room for any sign of validation as WilyKat walked in from the bunk-room rubbing his eyes, but in seeing the sour looks plastered on the rest of their faces, he instead looked down toward his new girlfriend for support.
She tried to avoid his eyes for a moment, but he knew she wasn't one to avoid speaking the truth. "Actually, you have been complaining quite a bit. I tried to get you to tone it down..."
"And you have no room to talk, Cheetara!" Kit interrupted. "I may be just a kid, but I've seen enough to know exactly what Lion-O thinks he has to 'get over'. I saw you and Tygra back at the Elephant Village, but you can bet I was nowhere near as shocked as Lion-O was!"
Both Cheetara and Tygra gasped. They hadn't realized anyone had been watching.
"I was actually rooting for you and Lion-O to get together after all the lovey-dovey stuff you've been pulling these past few weeks. But then you go and rip the rug out from underneath everyone and decide to suck his face instead!" She pointed at the slack-jawed tiger.
"But there's more to it than that, WilyKit." Cheetara pleaded. "When I was younger, Tygra-"
"Save it! We have more important things to worry about now than listening to your life-story. Whatever you two said, it drove him to running off. Now we have to concentrate on getting him back." She looked up at the larger cat next to her with a question on her lips, but he seemed to already know what she was about to ask.
"It would be pointless to look for him while it's still dark." He held up his hands to stave off her inevitable argument. "I would like nothing more than to set out this very moment, Kit, but leaving before dawn would just be a waste of our fuel and resources, which we'll definitely need if he truly means to disappear."
WilyKit bowed her head in defeat. "Fine, but as soon as it gets light outside, we're going!"
Panthro agreed before ushering the two young cubs back into the bunk-room to try and get some rest before morning.
When the door was securely shut, he turned back to the two remaining occupants and glared. "I'm very disappointed in both of you." He then pointed his finger at Cheetara. "I'll give you somewhat of a pass since I know that relationships aren't technically allowed for clerics until much later in their careers, which lends to your lack of experience, but I know you're not as stupid as you're trying to make yourself seem. Even I thought you were starting to have feelings toward him."
The cheetah bowed her head in shame and sat quietly down into one of the cockpit chairs.
With a deeper growl in his voice he turned to the other occupant of the room. "And you! I know the kid needs to toughen up. I know he needs a little dose of reality every once in a while, but what you've been doing is not the way to go about it! I was in the same boat as WilyKit, thinking that you were just working through your own issues, taking out your personal frustrations on him, but now that I know the truth, I have half a mind to wrap that whip around your neck and give you a physical beating to match the verbal one you've been giving your King! And yes! He is your King! He may be younger and less experienced, but he still deserves a certain amount of respect, if not as much as anyone else; which is a lot more than you've been giving him!"
Silence reigned for a few moments until Panthro couldn't bear to be in the same room anymore. "You two better hope we can find him before he gets into any trouble, or you're both going to have to live with the fact that you've pushed him into whatever horrible fate he might stumble upon out there."
As the General turned to leave, the two chastised cats glanced at each other for a moment before bowing their heads in guilt. Neither of them meant for things to turn out this way, especially after experiencing the euphoria of finally revealing their true feelings to each other, but they could clearly see now where they had gone wrong in how they treated their brother and King.
They only hoped that Panthro's worst-case scenario turned out to be nothing more than gross speculation.
End