Sing To Me Your Darkest Secrets
Preface:
There Will Be No Blood This Time

"Start...from the beginning."

Casey was seconds from throwing the chair he was sitting in, or anything he could get his hands on. He had already pitched a full cup of water at the man across from him. Casey was more enraged that the water seemed to have no effect, and only made him remove his glasses and expertly clean them off on a small square of fabric he kept in his pocket. He had the same patient voice asking the same question, again. Always the beginning; Casey was sick of telling this story to the same man who asked it every day, sometimes more than once a day. The man - the doctor. "I want my phone call."

"This isn't a jail, Mr. Jones. Or do you prefer that I call you Arnold? I understand that your friends call you Casey. Would Casey make you more comfortable? This is for your own good, not because you're a criminal. Though please do keep in mind, the latter could be true if you don't explain to me why you did what you did. You do remember, don't you?" His patient voice grated on Casey's nerves in a way that would be dangerous if they were on the street rather than in this man's arena.

"YES!" Casey bellowed. "And I'd do it again. 'Sides, you could'a fooled me. Place sure feels like jail. Ya couldn'ta bought a plant or a decorative pillow to make it at least seem a lil' cozy?"

"Have you been to jail, Mr. Jones?" Casey's eyes snapped up, at first in shock and then he felt his brow furrow in irritation. He didn't like the tone, that same placid and dry, unsympathetic, mechanical manner. Casey felt a growl echo in the back of his throat for his annoyance, one he had to push down and demand remain in the swell of his gullet, rather than directed at the man across from him.

"No. No I haven't been in jail. Don't your fancy notebook tell you that?"

"These are just words on paper - I'd rather hear it from you."

"So's you can get a different answer out of me?" Casey roared. "You know what happened. I told you already." Casey didn't like being in that chair, in that room - it was staunch, white, lacking character. "I'm not crazy." Casey simmered, only enough to let guilt wash over him. The fact remained that he had changed his story a few times. He wasn't sure if the doctor was recording his words or if he was simply noting Casey's story in the file that he always seemed to have. As a result, the story had started with only him, it had evolved to include several allies and then even to the extreme version of those accomplices being turtle men. Casey figured, he was in a place which allowed for his story to be seen as complete audacity. The closer he got to the truth, to what had truly led to his being locked behind the gate of a nut house, the more he figured he fit in the padded rooms and white clad nurses who seemed to look at all the patience with skepticism.

Today, only today, Casey figured he'd do his best to give the whole story in the hopes it might earn him the freedom he so painfully craved. As, at this point, all other avenues failed him.

"Alright, you want the beginning - the whole story, you got it. But don't say I didn't warn ya. It was a normal day, mostly normal...okay it wasn't normal at all for anyone's standards but me and April. It's not everyday you find a dead body in the city. People die everyday, but they don't just leave them lying around...so I guess that's where it started, with the dead body."

The doctor held up a finger as if to interrupt Casey and as a result the burly man paused. "I think perhaps, today, it would be best if you tell me this story without my input. If it's told, in detail, here." Casey was baffled as a notebook and pen were slid across the table in his direction. He gaped, openly, at the two items.

"You gotta be joking..."

Ten minutes, and an empty room later, Casey was surrounded by little balls of paper, crumpled to their smallest measurement. He wrinkled his nose in frustration but started to write...

I'm not crazy...I'm really not. I'm NOT crazy. I'm NOT crazy. I. AM. NOT. CRAZY.

As I was telling the doctor, who the hell would give that man a title is beyond me, it started with the body. Well it actually started like any normal night. Normal for me and Raph. Yeah, Raph's a turtle - and I'm not talking the pond kind. Though I bet he'd like a pool...


Casey's feet beat the pavement, the sound rolled like thunder around the vigilante. He knew overhead, a much less loud and far more graceful keeper of peace and social order followed along the edge of the rooftops, stalking Casey's direction just in case the hoodlum they chased actually escaped the man in the hockey mask. The cheap criminal had a gun in one hand and a small brown bag of loot in the other, tucked under his arm. Casey, as he huffed and puffed, adrenaline kicking into his veins and excitement rushing him into overdrive like a junkie on speed, picked up his pace. He figured it wasn't just dumb luck that had he and his closest friend running into those less honest members of society. Casey sometimes believed that fate brought him to where he was and gave him the opportunity to right these wrongs.

The scrawny, nondescript thief ducked sharply around a corner, dipping into an alley that shot out from the side of the seedy and dank street. Casey knew why too; three more blocks and they would be in the heart of bustling New York City. Though the criminal would have better luck shaking Casey and his unknown pursuant above, it also meant he'd be more likely to run into authentic law enforcement as well, therefore he would have better luck trying to shake them in the gruesome bowels of the city. It was gritty here and unsafe, Casey figured, for the target he chased, particularly because of his invisible back-up. No petty thief could escape Raphael, if the ninja above didn't want them to.

Casey skirted the corner like he was on wheels, his shoulder brushed the brick corner of the building. Later it would sting, now he barely noticed it. It was when he actually crested the threshold that he banked a little too sharply and ran head first into the cheap criminal who, to Casey's shock, was unmoving. Casey's force knocked them both end over end and they went sprawling and skidding to the harsh city pavement. Casey felt it's rough nature catch bits of his flesh and tear at the exposed skin like sandpaper made of gravel. He heard the metal of the gun as it clanked to the city street and the jewels spill out of his burlap sack, showering the ground.

"Case!" He heard Raph hiss. The way his friend spat his name was not in a concerned tone for the tumble he and the assailant had taken. It was warning. Casey, however, had not had time to consider what Raph's inflection might mean as the grounding of them both had jostled the criminal to action again. He was on his feet and running, leaving the pilfered items and his weapon. "RAPH! He's getting away!" Casey shouted while scrambling to his feet. He saw, from the corner of his eye, a glint of metal and hiss of the object cut the air next to Casey's face. He watched the weapon, now aware it was one of Raph's sais, expertly catch the shirt of the criminal. It sliced through the fabric and startled him enough to cause him to slow. With that Casey caught him, leaping onto his back and bringing them both back to the pavement. It wasn't intentional that Casey twisted his arm to the point of fracture, but by the time he had the man tied, the criminal was on his last nerve.

"What'd he stop for?" Casey asked as he climbed off from the man and wiped his hairline, just over his mask, with the back of his hand and puffed out a sigh of relief. "That." Raph grumbled, picking up his fallen weapon and pointed one of his thick digits at a lump at the back of the alley. "Someone got it, when this winner here," Raph toed the tied man in the ribs, "came around the corner, whoever was attacking them ran off." Raph jerked his thumb off toward the fire escape. "By the time I got to the roof, he was gone, but left us that." Raph nodded his chin over toward the back of the alley again.


Now I saw my granny when she was all dressed up in her burial gown, but I've never seen a dead body like that. Mangled and broken. Bruised too. Spooked Raph, and Raph don't spook easily...


::Author's Notes::

We had posted this story before. We have revamped parts and changed the delivery a little. We weren't going to post it and keep it for ourselves but changed our minds. Here it is again. We hope it makes sense and we hope that you enjoy it. If you want the full effect and intended maximum viewing enjoyment, you can find this it on Stealthy Stories (under the same name). For now we will make do with this formatting. Thank you for reading. It is appreciated.

Stoic: I don't want to get all of what I want to say out in the first note since I expect loads more to come with each chapter. This story is our baby right now; we've paired up and decided to have a cute bundle of joy made of tears and sadness and angst and drama and all the good stuff that makes a story. I hope you guys like we've got in store for you and get ready because this is definitely only the beginning. Hopefully you'll stick around with us to see this baby grow and all that junk. Oh man. I'm excited. Stupidly excited for this to unfold. We both are in fact-we squealed like school girls over it for a while before it occurred to us that we had to actually write it for it to count at all. :) I hope you like it too and I hope its caught your interest enough that you're ready and waiting for more. Thank you so much for reading!

Harley: I'm exhausted. So forgive me in advance if this note makes no sense whatsoever. XD I'm usually pretty wordy about the thought processes and actual execution that goes into our stories. Trust me when I say there was a lot for this one. It's going to be a monster that likely consumes my soul and then regurgitates it just to eat it again. But it's okay because I really, really think it's going to be worth it.

I think it would be better to give you an overview on the story here rather than the chapter simply because that's as far as we are at this point. Stoic and I are excited about this story and the path it will take. I hope, with all my heart, that you guys reading it enjoy it too. It is important to not just look at the pretties but to read them as they are integral to the story overall. But you probably knew that if you made it this far down the page. ^_^ Let me just say…thank you for reading this, I do hope you enjoyed the first chapter and would really appreciate any words you have to offered about the nature of this story.