Wow Truth Seeker, I can always count on a well thought out review from you, huh? The way you talk kind of reminds me of my old English teacher, best teacher I ever had.
More begging about Mikey's upcoming death? Aw man, and I thought I had kept it sooooooo, discretely hidden. (Heh….heh.) JK. Or am I?
Darker chapters? Ok, I'll work on making it darker at points, that's fine by me, as long as you're enjoying the story. ^_^
So, read and review your stories? Sure, but I searched under the username and it said that nothing was found. If you could get me a link I'll be happy to read them.
Well, here's chapter 3. Enjoy! And please review!
Chapter 3-Never Need Me
Raph was surprised when he looked up to find his baby brother asleep, leaning against him in a cute manner that would put all worldly teddy bears to shame. He allowed a small smile to spread across his face slowly as he shifted slightly, lowering the youngest turtle onto the couch and then getting up to turn off the game. He disappeared upstairs for only a second, coming back with a blanket, which he used to cover Mikey from the chill that was creeping into the lair from the above city streets, given that frost had begun it's conquest of the warmest parts of the city with promises of a harsh December stream of winter. He reminded himself to turn off the TV, the blue screen was kind of getting to his eyes, but it made the dark circles under Mikey's eyes clearly visible.
Needless to say, it shocked the red banded turtle into submission as he removed Mikey's mask. He set the orange cloth aside and tucked the little one in. Thank goodness Don was asleep and no one else was around. The big brother couldn't help but worry about the youngest of their group. With internal promises to let the orange banded turtle sleep in the next few days, Raph disappeared back upstairs, stopping when he walked passed his older brother's room.
He should go in, maybe Leo had left a clue to where he had gone.
No.
Leo would be back on his own. In the letter he had said that if he hadn't found anything he would return in two months. He had to believe that statement, no matter how much he wanted to track down his big brother and pummel him until he understood that he just couldn't up and leave them again!
"No. Go to bed Raph," he ordered himself, already pulling off his red mask.
He rubbed the cloth between his fingers, feeling the difference of his mask compared to the material he remembered, of Mikey's new mask as he made his way to his room. Since Mikey had lost his in Central America, the orange banded turtle had made a new one, one of a strong cloth that Don had recently developed. Something to do with withstanding radiation.
…
…
…
"Whatever," Raph mumbled at his own thoughts before he suddenly stopped in his tracks.
The TV. He'd forgotten to turn it off! Annoying blue light! So with a long drawn out sigh, he slumped back into the living room, padding quietly to the glowing box and quickly turning the knob that worked as the ancient thing's power button. Why Don insisted that they keep the old thing he would never know.
Raph turned to go back to his room and then stopped yet again when he realized that he was NOT tired. With another sigh he slipped outside the main door, convinced by the heavy mumbling, that his younger brother was completely out of it. When the air around him was absent of sound, even the sound the rats made when they were scavenging for food had vanished, his foot let out a splash while he made his way through the murky waters of NYC's sewer system.
When he was a few meters from the nearest manhole he began hearing tunes of "Jingle Bells" and "Silent Night".
Yeah, Christmas was in three weeks. Some freaking Christmas present he'd been given!
He pushed the cover of the manhole aside, quickly replacing it before jumping onto a fire escape of a nearby building. He ran, missing the feel of three others running with him, or the minimal protection the Nightwatcher suit had given him so long ago. He stopped at a building that had a roof cleverly hidden by the shadows of the surrounding buildings. He wondered why a such a small home was sitting in the middle of the city, sandwiched in between two skyscrapers on each of its sides. He sighed yet again and took it off of his mind in favor of turning his head to stare across the street at a quaint store, where some worker had placed a boom box outside the door, which of course was wide open with a warm light dancing out onto the sidewalk. It was some worker's attempt to attract more customers and maybe get a raise or a bigger Christmas bonus. As frightening as it was to be discovered by humans in mass numbers, Raphael was tempted to disappear with the people on the sidewalk right into the light of that tiny town themed store.
It looked warm and welcoming. The snow was cold, wet, and unforgiving.
Self reprimands that began spouting off randomly inside his mind disregarded the idea though, and begged him to turn back home where he was needed.
Raph's eyes narrowed at the thought. Where he was needed? What about what he needed? Growling and pacing the rooftop of the quaint house, his thoughts doubled over on themselves.
What he needed was his family. He grew sullen again. He could get angry all he wanted right now, but he was trying to use what he had learned.
"Ha, ha," he muttered before thinking, "Bet the others would collapse in laughter if I told them that."
The single thought made an old and welcoming smirk cross his face before he glanced at the shine of a distant shooting star. He was supposed to make a wish, right?
"Fine," he breathed as if a dozen little children had been annoying the heck out of him by poking him with sticks until he agreed to actually make a wish.
"All I want for Christmas is my family," he thought and then paused in his thoughts before he continued, "…happy."
Angry again, Raph turned and punched one of the skyscraper walls. He had so many emotions rolling around in his head, he didn't know what the shell to do with them all! He calmed himself for a moment before the boom box on the other side of the street below changed to another song.
When you wish upon a star
Makes no difference who you are
Anything your heart desires
Will come to you
Alright he was going to smash that thing if someone didn't-
His rage was cut short when the song was switched by a passing man dressed up in a Santa suit. Thank you Jolly One.
Tired because of the cold, Raph sat down on the darkest corner of the rooftop, the only corner that was devoid of snow, and closed his eyes, letting the wordless harmony of the boom box's song drift around him, as if the intangible floating notes were scared to actually touch him. Lyrics came, but he let them flow around him in the same way as the sounds behind the words.
The cold wind is blowin' and the streets are getting dark
I'm writing you a letter and I don't know where to start
The bells will be ringing Saint John the Divine
I get a little lonely every year around this time
Stupid people. They didn't know anything about being lonely. When they were half dead and dragging themselves ten miles home through murky sewer water night after night after saving every freaking coward on the street, with a family they had always depended on that wouldn't lift a finger to help them, THEN they could complain to him.
The unmasked turtle clenched his hand around his red mask, which he hadn't bothered to even put back on when he went out. He momentarily missed the familiar and comfortable weight of the Nightwatcher helmet but he wouldn't put it back on, even if he DID still have it. But no. He had burned the leather and melted the metal, which had been given to Don for his projects.
The music plays all night in Little Italy
The lights will be going up on old Rockefella's tree
People window shopping on Fifth Avenue
All I want for Christmas is you
Well, people probably were shopping on Fifth Avenue, everyone, everywhere, was shopping. Below, a young boy was begging his mother for a power ranger action figure. A Ninja Storm Power Ranger action figure. (A/N: Because you know that is crucial information) Wow. What were they going to come up next for that colorful group and now that Raph thought about it, why had there never been a green or black girl Power Ranger? They had watched that show all the time as kids. He remembered a red girl ranger once, or did he? It had been quite some years.
(Tell me) I've got to know
Where do lonely hearts go
Because nobody ought to be all alone on Christmas
The mother below gave in and nodded as the boy reached for the stack of boxed up action figurines, grabbing both the red and blue, much the displeasure of his mother as her purse grew very light at the checkout of the small store.
Stupid blue ranger reminded him of Leo.
Things are different since you've been here last
Childhood dreaming is a thing of the past
Maybe you can bring us some hope this year
Visions of sugar plums have disappeared
What were sugar plums anyways? Did they actually exist? Raph was sure he had never seen one, much less eaten one to know they were sweet to begin with.
When the chorus began to repeat itself again Raph huffed and jumped back down into the alley where he quickly ducked back into the sewers.
Christmas. His brothers hadn't mentioned it. They had bigger problems on their minds.
Raph desperately needed a distraction. What pissed him off the most was feeling one emotion for a moment and then another the next moment with no outlet for the dramatics. Fighting crime was out of the question for now. Police numbers were high since it was nearing the holidays and the Nightwatcher wasn't exactly welcome any longer on the NYC streets.
No outlet in sight. Then emotion leveled out and Raph could breathe again. He heard a scream in the distance, sounded like two kids fighting about a toy that they both wanted before they shouted for their parents.
Family.
"Home is where we're all together as a family."
Leo had said that to him once. Raph let his mind empty out as he walked down the sewer tunnel, humming that last annoying Christmas song he had heard, under his breath, very discretely.
A chilling wind passed through the upper tunnels and Raph shivered. For the rest of the walk home, he wondered where Leo was and worried about if his big brother was lost out there and if he was cold.
Was he missing them?
He had gone to bed. He had. He just couldn't sleep, which was unusual, since he found most his once sleepless nights were actually comforted by meaningful dreams of reality that was far gone and in the past.
"Shouldn't you be in bed?" a rough voice asked from the doorway.
Don glanced up from where he had been staring into a frozen cup of coffee for a good twenty minutes watching the ice slowly melt into water and raise the thinning caffeinated liquid closer to the top, and spotted his red banded brother leaning against the kitchen doorway.
He spotted Mikey, still asleep on the living room couch in the background, before he motioned for Raphael to join him at the wooden thing they called their kitchen table. Reluctantly, Raph did as he was asked. He folded his arms and glared at his purple banded brother as the said turtle looked up at the slightly taller turtle with a certain spark to his eyes.
"What is it?" Raph asked, his voice deeper than usual.
Don turned around, reached for something on the counter and then turned to his brother with a sullen smile.
"I went to go to the dump and I found this when I stopped by Ap-" he struggled with the word, "Ap, uh, HER, apartment."
It was true that if they received any mail, they used April's address so they could pick up the letter/package there.
Before the hotheaded turtle could even glance at the object in his brother's hands he sneered at said brother, "You said you wouldn't go there any more."
Don growled under his breath and threw the folded paper he had in his hand at Raph's face, who caught it with ease. As quickly as his genius brother had seemed to return, he was gone again, locking himself away in his lab, where he was free from normal prejudice to grumble under his breath.
The red banded turtle then looked at the paper in his hand. It was folded into three sections and he picked up the slight after stain smell of ink. He opened up the bottom third first, to view the name of the sender. The relevance hit him like a 2 X 4 across his face. A 2 X 4 that didn't care to break and leave slivers and splinters of wood behind.
=Leo=
Raph's jaw dropped and he threw back the other section, letting his eyes scan the short letter.
I'm sending this letter to let you know of my whereabouts. I assumed Don is still making constant stops at April's place, so I inferred that her…home, would be the best place to send this letter. I wish I knew how things were going, but I'm probably just worrying my head off for nothing. You're all more than capable of being on your own.
"If only you knew," Raph thought, before he realized that him clenching his fists had lead to creasing lines on the paper obscuring the words.
He quickly set the paper down on the table he was sitting at and smoothed out the faulty lines before he growled under his breath at the last statement he had read.
"Shell, bro? What is it about you that keeps this family together?"
True, they could survive individually, but it was difficult to stay a team and a family when no one everyone accepted was barking out orders to them so they could have some kind of plan to handle, not only battles, but reality. Don was reclusive, barely coming out of his lab and here Mikey was, completely unconscious on the living room couch while he sported dark circles under his eyes that spoke of simply too many sleepless night.
And Raph?
Well, it wasn't fair for Raphael to analyze himself.
With the paper smoothed out once again, Raph continued reading.
Well, for the important news. I found our father but-
The line ended there as Raph picked up the letter again, his desperate eyes searching for some kind of string of hope that he could grasp and find his way back to himself.
I won't lie. He'll be lucky to make it back to New York City. He hasn't spoken since I found him and will give me no explanation. All I can do is bring what remains of his spirit home. He's alive, but I worry.
Our boat's scheduled to dock in the Northside harbor at 8:00pm on Friday. Meet us at the Water tower on 2nd and 9th. I'll be waiting.
Oh, and as for myself, I'm fine, but there was trouble in Japan. I'll explain when we're all together once again.
=Leo=
Raph wasn't sure if he wanted to cross chop the table in half or run in, shake Mikey awake and tell him the good news. Reaching a compromise that was no where near the midpoint of either choice, he folded up the letter again before pressing the paper to his heart in a discrete attempt to show unregistered relief and trust that what the letter said was indeed true. He folded it up into smaller sections until he could close his fist around it and no longer see it. He let his arm drop to the side and glanced down when a splash of color caught his eye. He had dropped his mask on the ground. Knowing he couldn't just leave it there, Raph scooped it up and deemed that today had been enough. Leaving reality, he found himself curled up in his hammock, his eyes closing to memories.
Inside the laboratory that belonged to the resident genius turtle, the said turtle was pacing around his room until his steely gaze landed on a stack of books on one of his desks. Without thought, he pushed the stack off, watching with a delicious, predatory manner as the literary scriptures fell through the air with the greatest of ease and fell onto the stone floor. The eight books all landed different ways, some on their front cover, some on their spine with random pages opened to the ceiling and some on the back cover, letting the words of classics and textbooks stare up at him in a sad and pleading manner.
(A/N: *Cries* How dare you? Book murderer!)
He ignored them with an under-the-breath growl that would have impressed Raphael. He was angry, he was sorrowful, he was somewhat happy but what could he do?
The thought made Don slump in hopelessness. Nothing. He could do nothing as of now.
He had all these thoughts in his head. Why hadn't he gone back for April after Malkin had ambushed them in the Nightwatcher's suit? He should've realized that the man was too short to be Raphael under the silver, metal helmet. Of course he had been rather busy bringing another brother back from the dead after open heart surgery. Still, he wanted to shout to himself that it was no excuse, even though he knew that the one to blame was Dr. Malkin.
But if he hadn't gone after that life saving machine on his own then he wouldn't of been caught and taken to Central America and if Leo hadn't been captured during his training mission and the Black Wolves soldiers and-
Don stopped pacing when his stride went too far and he hit head against a hanging lamp on the far side of the room.
"Shell," he cursed under his breath and stumbled his way over to his computer chair that had been his bed for the past few weeks. A calendar reminder had filled the screen of the computer monitor. It was midnight so, since it was the next day, today was April's funeral. He didn't know what happened next, his eyes fell and his head dropped.
Donatello Hamato, was asleep.
When their living room digital clock struck 3:00am, Mikey awoke with a start. He looked to the left and then to the right. Then left again and right again.
He raised a hand to his head and let out a groan of pain, "Ok no more banana bread before bed."
He shifted and his eyes grew wide before they melted into something of long dead liveliness. A blanket, someone had covered him with a blanket. Believing that Don wouldn't be out of his lab for a few days more, he assumed it to be his red banded brother that had completed such a caring task.
He'd make cinnamon rolls this morning to celebrate. Thanks goodness that he had remembered to pick up some at the store the other day. Neither Raph nor Don had ever volunteered to go shopping since they returned to an empty home and fridge. The chef inspired turtle set out everything he could for a medium sized breakfast. They had to get ready for the funeral, so it wouldn't be wise to have a large breakfast. He doubted anyone would eat a large breakfast anyways.
As the tray of cinnamon rolls slid into the oven Mikey glanced up at the still slightly opened freezer. He must of left it open when he took out the French Toast. When he went close it he froze, and remembered that it was indeed now Winter in NYC. After closing the freezer he ducked under the sink and pulled out three thermoses. He would make some warm drinks for them to take with them.
He stretched, listening to his bones protest the movement. He would have to get back to stretching exercises, he couldn't be rusty when Leo got back. Chuckling to himself, he decided to check on the others, given it would take awhile for the oven to heat up to actually bake the cinnamon rolls, since the thing was older than their Master's Master. A quick stop by Raphael's room proved that the hotheaded turtle was having his once in a blue moon good dream. A smile darted across the youngest turtle's face as he quietly made his way away from his currently, unmasked, brother's room, debating about where to search for his purple masked brother.
Safe bet that he probably wasn't in his room, so, to the lab!
Mikey walked into the lab all bio-mechanics would be jealous of and found his genius brother asleep in his computer chair as always. He took a quiet and careful step forward.
And his shoulder hit a rack of metal objects, all crashed to the ground with loud booms and clanks and clatters.
He closed his eyes, sure a hidden sledgehammer would hit his skull in a matter of moments, but after a few seconds passed and no pain came upon his fragile body, Mikey reopened his eyes to see his brother still snoozing away the morning. Now he wasn't known as the strongest turtle, that title belonged to Raph, but that didn't stop him from hefting his brother onto his shell and carrying him to his rightful sleeping spot in his room.
If anyone's bed had the ability to develop withdrawal symptoms, it was this one.
Mikey set Don down and covered him with a gray colored blanket that was slightly dusty and then glanced around the room with a solemn look and frown. He personally ached for rooms that looked like they weren't lived in. Don's reflected that exact picture.
Unfortunately, or fortunately, however one would view it, Don began to awaken as soon as his head hit the soft surface that was his pillow. Maybe it was the dust that he inhaled or the fact that his head had gotten used to the hard surface of the wood of his work desk in his lab, or the keyboard of his computer. Either way, he was well on his way to consciousness.
"Mikey?"
He was shocked to see his little brother standing beside his bed.
"Wait a minute," he muttered, raising himself up on his elbows, "I didn't fall asleep here."
"I carried you here," Mikey said, kneeling down so the little light from the numerous electronics would highlight his smile that also formed duplicates in his blue eyes, clearly happier than they had ever been in the past few weeks.
"Today's the day," Don whispered with a sullen frown.
The younger turtle's shoulders slumped in defeat, but then rose again, "Well, if you're done sleeping, you can help me with breakfast."
Don forced his own slumped shoulders to rise, he would worry later, he couldn't deny the small request, "Ok Mikey."
Unfortunately, the moment that they walked into the kitchen and were surrounded by the flames, they only then realized that maybe making breakfast at 3:00am might not have been the BEST decision.
I can not make this chapter any longer without having to skip April's funeral, which I don't want to do.
And the songs heard from that boom box were:
When You Wish Upon A Star. Which has been redone by so many artists you can practically find it anywhere, but the oldest origin I can remember it from is the movie "Pinocchio."
All Alone on Christmas, by Darlene Love, featured in the movie, "Home Alone 2, Lost in New York."
I once again don't own TMNT. I'm glad I still have readers, despite my upcoming retirement. Don't worry I still have two major stories to write and my high school one to finish, though I wish people would give me more ocs for that story, I NEED MORE! I have a moderate amount of student ocs, but I need more teachers and staff. Although Karai is a great janitor, it's a difficult job to clean up after so many children.
Ocs unlimited people!
And then there's my Super Turtles story. I better update it tomorrow if I can.
Ok, now that that's out of my system I want to assure all of you of the last scene in this chapter, yes their kitchen is currently on fire.
Any questions? Fire away, I'll try to answer them.
Review please! I believe this story won't be too long. I'll estimate 6 chapters, but looking at my history of estimations, I'm probably way off.
~Moonsetta