This is a "reincarnation" of a story I wrote and published a little over five years ago. While there remain similarities, I like to think of this as a new story entirely. Please enjoy.
TMNT, Leonardo, Raphael, Michelangelo, Donatello, Splinter, Agent Bishop, and the Foot © Viacom
Original Characters, story © RenaRoo (formerly Turtlefreak121)
A Baby Brother
Chapter One: And Here I Die
He was no more than eight and never before had a creature been more sure that it would die. His only regret was that he had drug his brother, his baby brother, along with him. His brother would surely die as well. It would be a tragedy never spoken of outside these facilities' walls.
Behind them as they ran was the clatter of their masters, angered at the escape attempt. Their eyes, bloodshot and furious, were so close to the two children that their whites of their eyes (rather, what once could have been called the color white) could be seen.
It was then that the eight year old child; pursued by men much taller, older, and angrier than himself; made the single most desperate decision of his young life.
At the release of the snarling hounds, this brave child, only eight years of age, looked to the only other creature that he had ever loved in his life. He looked into the two year old's frightful eyes and teared as he shoved him.
The child, so easily thrown off balance, let out a single cry as he went tumbling through the hall window and into a world he had never seen before. He was hurdling through a reddened sky and plunging into a dark, foreboding city, the likes of which he had never seen.
He screamed in terror at the horrendous feeling of falling down four agonizing stories, and at his last conscious vision of his brother being eaten alive by the released dogs.
The child felt himself collide with the pavement just as his mind, at the best it could manage, tried to explain to him that he was the last of his unit to still be living.
At least ... for now.
"Shut up. Just shut up! SHUT UP!"
He never asked for a babysitter.
It was strange how easily the rumbling voices could carry when the sewers were quiet and everyone was still dumbstruck by the fact that violence between brothers was eminent. Surely, even though they were in a nearby tunnel, the others and their father could hear them as they viciously carried on.
"I'm going to be quiet now, Raphael," the other present brother responded with a singe of distaste in his mouth. "There's nothing left to say to you. For any of us to say to you."
"Then stop tryin'," was the cold reply Raphael gave. It was flat and brutal. It stemmed from a combination of hatred and regret.
The eldest of the two was silenced, at last. Leonardo could not help his brother anymore. Something, anything else had to. The tricky part was that it would have to be someone that was on no one's side. It had to be someone outside the mutants' usual extended family.
Again, the hotheaded brother turned his back to Leonardo, their home, his family. He was leaving for God knows how long. It was going to happen again, the ripping apart of this delicately strewn together family. There was nothing Leonardo could do to stop it.
"Where are you going to stay this time? Casey and April's?" Leo attempted to prod. "They have a daughter now, Raph. They can't be imposed on like that anymore. Leatherhead's? He might not like the feeling of people sticking their noses into his business."
Stopping, Raphael could not leave the opened opportunity lying there, basking in the moonlight, he turned his head and stared at his brother with the sarcastic quip already leaking from his lips.
"Where would ya prefer my nose to be, Oh, Fearless?" he lowly hissed. "Up your ass?"
It was enough to make Leonardo stop. He did not want to put up with Raphael anymore. It was the final disrespect he could take and he did not so willingly take it in stride. He shook his head and pointed a fat finger at his brother.
"I'm the head of this family now, Raphael. You want to leave it because of that? Fine. Do it. You're an adult. But dammit, don't disrespect me because of it. That's disrespecting our father's decision when you do that. You realize that, don't you?"
"I realize that I've waited too long to be my own turtle, Bro," Raphael remarked sorrowfully. "I think maybe you should consider tryin' it out for yarself."
This time Raphael turned his back to his brother for good and did not turn back around. This round was over.
No one had won.
Leatherhead did not mind for company. He relished the days he would have it and would insist on long conversations, hours after his guest's initial attempt to leave. He loved his extended mutant family: the turtles, their father, and their friends, though these friends were more seldom to see.
As good natured as any crocodile could be, however, he was territorial. He fiercely defended his sewer home from rats and unwelcomed intruders at all hours. While these varied in the forms of cockroaches to the occasional lost cat, they were all dealt with formally.
And while the good natured Leatherhead loved and adored his reptilian brothers, even their welcomeness had an expiration date.
Raphael knew he could not stay there for much longer than a night or two without risking the very unsightly side of his great, crocodilian ally.
What the turtle opted for was not a friend's home at all. It was exactly as Leonardo commented before (though Raphael be damned if he admitted any of his brother's words as truth), their friends had many other priorities that an extended guest would, quite simply, complicate beyond reason.
He stayed on the surface, in a water tower which overlooked a particularly gloomy part of town. It was a former industrial district, left gutted and rusting. Crime thrived and people sat in wide-eyed wonder as their jobs disappeared before their eyes. The only business which seemed to be running in this neglected part of the city was not hiring. It simply submitted an illegal dump of toxins into the nearby river at every chance it got. No one cared, especially the health inspectors who were sent on an all-expense paid trip to the Bahamas.
It was a perfect hunting ground for Raphael.
An even better one for the black-clad man who watched him move into the useless water tower.
...
.
End Chapter One
