Leonardo was dreaming. The pain and agony faded away as a warm body was felt against his. She was... She... She?! His eyes went immediately wide at the realization of who was against him, darting over what he could see of her vulpine face. Her golden eyes were hidden behind soft lids, almost as if she were peacefully sleeping. A moment later, those previously hidden golden eyes were those of a startled animal. They mirrored his shocked expression. Both were too paralyzed to move by the perceived boldness of the other. What had seemed to last an eternity, had only been a little longer than a full heartbeat as the fox jerked away from him. Alopex, for all of her training to be cold and calculating, had the grace to blush from the spontaneous intimate gesture, but she was thankful that her fur hid such an embarrassing quality from being put on display. Her hand rested over her mouth delicately, paw pads resting over the strangely sensitive areas of her lips where she had made contact with his. The shocked expression on her face remained, unsure of how to cross the awkward chasm that suddenly separated them.
Leonardo was not so fortunate. His green skin took on a darker shade that resembled that of his headstrong brother. That was all he could do, though, as he remained unable to move. He was a turtle of dark hunter green stone as he remained in the same position as when he had kissed the arctic fox. However, that was not what his mind had believed to have happened. She… she kissed me?! His mind was in shambles, internally yelling incoherently and trying to make sense of it all. All the while, he had a distant and lost look in his eyes as his mouth remained partly open.
Taking a deep breath, Alopex slowly craned her head towards Leonardo. She did not expect him to still be there. Worst still, she did not expect him to be in exactly the same spot as where she had left him, in the exact same position. Flustered feelings gave way instantly to stark annoyance. He dared to kiss me! He...! He… is just sitting there...? Her muzzle scrunched, her facial expression matching the confused look in her golden eyes. She stared him hard, wondering just how long he would remained in that stupefied state. Sucking in a breath, she decided to end the stalemate.
"You kissed me," they both blurted out in unison. Leonardo snapped out of his haze, matching Alopex's incredulous stare with his.
"Me?!" they both exclaimed, leading them again to that fierce staring contest.
Neither wanted to speak again, lest the other says the exact same thing and makes the situation even more awkward than it had already become. Brown eyes focused on gold, and vice-versa. In an unspoken truce between the turtle and the fox, their gazes gradually moved elsewhere. She looked towards the tree line, in the direction she had already come from, while he looked towards the opposite bank of the stream. Both Leonardo and Alopex mulled over the accusations of the other, that they had been the one to initiate the kiss. The arctic fox clenched her teeth. It had not gone as she had thought it would have. It was another failure on her part, slight as it might have been. She had only sought to give the downtrodden turtle a simple peck to his cheek, a cumulative gesture of gratitude. And then… The fool turned around at the worst possible moment! The sensation remained horrifyingly vivid to her, to her disgust and dismay. She could still feel all of it: his lips on hers, the way she had somehow been coerced into holding his cheek, and the feeling of him leaning in to accept the kiss, and her. Despite everything, he had accepted her and her gift. Her ears drooped of their own accord. She shut her eyes tightly with every fiber of her being desperately trying to banish the thought to every conceivable hell she could conjure. She did not need his acceptance. She did not need him.
His heart was still pounding, hearing those incessant beats echoing within the chamber of his chest. Outwardly, Leonardo appeared as cool and collected as he always did. Inside, however, he was a wreck. Everything about it was wrong. Little thought had ever been given towards the fairer sex, of any species, save for some cursory appreciation as a teenage male. The mission always came first. Training always came first. He was not Raph, able to simply let his emotions guide his actions, for better or for worse. He was not Mikey, too carefree to worry about consequences. He was not… Donnie? Well, Donatello had hobbies. Leonardo internally nodded at that assessment. His taller brother had hobbies, things to distract him with to the point of forsaking his training, like his online gaming and gadgets. Of course, Leonardo also thought that perhaps he was reading far too much into it. He had to be. Alopex had said right before, for him to not to put too much thought into it. Surely she meant it. If she did, then why was she so apprehensive to look at him, much as he was towards her?
"Alopex," he said, without even realizing at first that he had said her name aloud.
She felt every strand of fur become rigid on her body, ears perked up like flagpoles at his voice. Gritting her fangs to the point of fearing them to break against each other, she forced herself to reply.
"Yes?"
Leonardo struggled to find the words to overcome the situation, though he was not certain as to what he was looking to accomplish.
"You… said not to put too much thought into it, right?"
"Right."
She felt a feeling of elation that the turtle was choosing not to make a big deal of that moment, but she still felt something else accompanying it. Disappointment? Had she expected him to say something different? Like any task she undertook, she strived for success, be it an assassination, or something as simple as a kiss. It was this that once more had Alopex confused as to her own conflicting emotions. Dammit, I am a good kisser! She had no prior experience in the matter, but she was confident in all of her skills, no matter how trivial. The fox was lost momentarily in her own word, envisioning how the leader of the brothers should be at her feet, lost in her beauty. Her golden eyes narrowed and a smug expression grew upon her face, her thin lips curving up into a wide and satisfied smile. Yes, she was a good kisser, and he was simply too stupid to realize it. Perhaps the Shredder had done far more damage to his brain than she realized. She grinned to herself at her own internal thoughts.
"What's so funny?"
It took everything not to suddenly shriek out and viciously at whatever or whoever had just startled the fox. Her paws tightened into fists, feeling the tips of her claws sink into the paw padding of her palm. The bit of pain helped refocus her as she glared back at Leonardo for disrupting her train of thought.
"Nothing," she replied calmly and carefully, scrutinizing him for even asking.
It was now Leonardo who stared at her in disbelief. He had seen that earlier look on her face before, when they were both part of the Foot Clan. Scheming, plotting. Those were the impressions he got whenever he saw her like that. Perhaps it was in those moments that she was crafting her plan to take vengeance on Shredder. What was the point of it now, then? Rather than pry, however, he simply shrugged and sighed.
"Uh huh…," he murmured, though a ghost of a smile flitted over his round reptilian face. He wondered if it would be so easy to speak with his brothers again as it was with her. Both had endured under the Shredder's rule. Both had been victims of his manipulation. His brothers could sympathize with him, surely, but only she would be able to empathize. He leaned back some, resting the lower edge of his shell against the ground while his arms reached back to brace himself with his palms. The moon was slowly becoming shrouded in the passing clouds, subtly darkening everything in sight.
"So, what now?" Leonardo asked as he watched the movements of the clouds.
"What do you mean?"
"Are you staying, or going?"
Alopex expelled a slow breath she had not realized she was holding in. Disregarding the earlier kiss, Leonardo had expressed earlier to her that she would be allowed to stay, even if he could not guarantee she would be entirely welcomed by the others. Splinter had said as much as well. Though the rat did not trust her, he would honor her request for a truce. That sparked a bitter memory in her. She need not need help or honor. She did not need them. She certainly did not need him, glaring at the source of her newfound irritation.
"Going," she almost spat out, almost instantly coming up to her feet only to feel as if she would tip over to the side from the unexpected hold placed at her wrist. The claws of her opposite hand extended reflexively to defend herself, but she did not raise her hand to the turtle that held her in place. She did her best not to snarl at Leonardo. Part of her acknowledged that he had done nothing wrong; he was undeserving of her misplaced ire.
"I meant what I said," Leonardo firmly stated, continuing to hold her wrist. The hold did not tighten, but nor would it loosen when he felt her trying to pull her wrist free. "You don't have to go."
"Let… go…," Alopex hushed out menacingly, again trying to force her wrist out of his grip.
"No."
"Why?!"
She snapped at him, both verbally and physically. The wild look in her eyes returned, the look of a cornered animal, looking for an excuse to kill anything that go too close.
"You're a loner. I get it. I was too." He squeezed at her wrist for effect. "You think you're tough enough to go it alone, skilled enough, that you don't need anyone," the eldest brother of the four said as he slowly began to stand up beside her. "Maybe you are, and you've been alone enough to know better than to trust anyone, because they'll always let you down in the end." His head inclined to her pointedly. "But you're wrong."
Her whiskers flared irritably, wanting nothing more than to silence him, preferably with violence. She did not want to listen to him, flaunting his naïve ideals upon her. Yet, she could not help but listen dutifully to what he had to say.
"Shredder made me believe that everyone had abandoned me, that everyone I trusted had let me down. But that wasn't true, was it?" He cautiously let her wrist go, at the risk of her immediately bolting away from him. "They never stopped looking for me, and in the end they found me and brought me back."
"You don't know me," she argued back tensely, absently rubbing her wrist even if he had not held it hard enough to feel any pain afterward. A growl was suppressed, as she could still feel Leonardo's hold on her, not unlike the way she had always felt Shredder's. It was different, however, but she was not one to accept being chained.
"No," Leonardo conceded, "I don't."
She nodded, expecting as much. No one knew her. No one would ever understa-
"But can you give me a good reason not to know you, Alopex?"
Her right fist clenched harshly. She could feel her claws threatening to pierce her flesh from the sheer frustration of having nothing to counter with. Her hand was trembling as she forced herself to admit defeat.
"No…," she sighed out, lowering her tail submissively as well as her muzzle.
Leonardo watched her with pity as he took in the inner turmoil raging with in the arctic fox, staring at a mirror that could have been. That could have been me. If they never came for me… If I managed to escape on my own like she had… Alone… His bandaged hand tentatively reached out for her trembling paw. She made no effort to retract her hand from his, offering no resistance as his three fingers wrapped around her five. She stopped shaking.
She slowly craned her head up to meet his gaze. Alopex had always been so confident when she was Foot, so certain in her actions. When she did as the Shredder wished, she knew it was the right choice. Even when she began to harbor thoughts of killing him, she knew it was the right choice. With her fellow escapee from the Foot Clan, she was uncertain. She gritted her fangs together again, but it was not to prevent shouting at him, or lashing out at him, as much as those thoughts were still prevalent in her head. Overcoming that sense of paralysis that was crawling up her body, her hand stirred. With the fear that the slightest wrong move would be catastrophic, she began to ease her hand out of his. It was not to free herself from him, but to delicately twist her five lithe fingers to lace them as best she could with his three thick digits. It was an odd placement of fingers to accommodate his equally odd hand, but she did not care. And it seemed as if neither did he as she felt his hand squeeze at hers reassuringly. The fear in her eyes faded away, displaced with a softer feeling that was just as terrifying to her. It was not right, but nor was it wrong.
"LEEEOOOOO!" a voice hollered from the distance, shattering the moonlit moment.
