Totally random and short as all heck compared to the stuff I've been putting up recently. I was bored and had writer's block for the other things I wanted to be working on. So yep… I figured as long as it's done, I might as well post.
Leo's taken off to Japan. Don mulls stuff over a bit. Aaaand…. That's pretty much all I have to say about it!
If you're looking for the owner of the TMNT, you're looking in the wrong place, because I only harbor an addiction. *rocks back and forth* I don't own the TMNT or any related characters.
Jump
It had been many long months, the time contained within seeming to stretch for years. Anxiety shoved its cold roots in to the lair, forging deep cracks in the thick cement.
Silence became a common sound here. Not the kind where there is no noise at all, but the kind that comes when nobody really speaks to one another, or wants to speak. There's the sound of the TVs, of fists in the dojo. But nobody talks, they're reluctant to. It's as though we're betraying him if we allow ourselves to feel even half the companionship that once existed.
So we wait, and anxiety feeds off of us. Secretly we wonder if he'll ever come back, but Jesus, he promised. He said he'd come back, said he'd be improved, somehow. But nobody asked for the improvement, not even Raph. Nobody saw the need but him… and yet nobody can convince him, but him.
Nobody completely understands why looking at us makes him so angry, why he couldn't stand it anymore. He speaks of failure. But we're all here, we made it out alive.
Frustration ebbs our hearts, licking the wounds there, making the muscle cramp painfully. We're angry, too… every one of us. For some reason or another, shown in different ways, but it all points to his absence, to the seat at the table he once occupied. The emptiness is like a slap to the face, and though he believes it necessary, we all regret the decision.
He is the leader, and consequently we are led. Shouldn't we get a say? Isn't it to our discretion, isn't it our place, to call him ineffective if his actions warrant? What happened to the vote, to all for one, one for all?
We have a security system. It has sensors which stretch along the perimeter of our territory, and the technology gives off a bell sound when someone trips the line.
I set it off. Raph set it off. Casey, April, Splinter and Mike. Sewer rats, a stray cat. The lair doesn't get much traffic, and normally, the sound wouldn't produce the reaction it did. Or the reaction it does.
Leo.
Jump. I twitch in my seat, feeling for one blessed moment like I'm falling… no, flying. I can see it in their eyes, we're all flying, exhilarated. Then common sense catches up with me, and the name catches on in my throat, crawls bittersweet to my tongue.
Two weeks pass, we get worse. We're lost. We miss him like brothers do, inseparable as we were. It gets to the point where the sound causes a universal souring of moods: "Don, shut that thing off!" Nobody wants to hear the false promises, no one wants yet another reminder.
I deactivate it, get nervous at the idea of an ambush, and turn it on at night, like humans do when they lock the doors. I make devices for us, items which when installed to our cells will deactivate the alarm. I can't make said items for all the rats in the sewer, though.
Months pass, and we're numb. The calluses form, and we're harder to cut. The bell means nothing. The tattered armchair was worn by the shell of someone far away. The room next to mine remains eerily silent, and eventually I stop making noise for the purpose of overriding it.
Fear lies dormant. What ifs float between the three of us, unspoken yet understood. We deal with it the only way possible: we withdraw. We go out late at night, we get a job in entertainment or troubleshooting.
After a while, we learn not to jump… Soon after, we forget what it's like to fly.
