A/N: Yes. Here I am again, apologizing for my ridicilously late update. Next chapter will probably be the last one. Um... what else? Oh, right! Of course, thanks for all the lovely reviews! Withtout them I'd porbably update like once a year or so. Review responses will as usual be posted at my author forum at Stealthy Stories as soon as I have the time/energy. If you haven't been there before, just click my profile and it'll tell you what Stealthy is, and how to get there. Anyway, I hope you enjoy this chapter. It's not exactly one of my personal favorites, but whaveter. Hope ya like it! Later!
Chapter 11 – "Always check the inside pocket."
It had been the lesser of two evils. Raphael wanted to sleep alone because of his cold, and he had dared anyone to share a tent with him, warning them about the nonstop, violent sneezing. They'd all known he'd said so just so he could have a tent all to himself, but none of them wanted to wake up the next day, covered in snot just to - prove him wrong. It simply wasn't worth it. So Leonardo had finally agreed to share a tent with Donatello and – oh, how he wished he wouldn't regret it – Michelangelo. So far, he and Don were the only two turtles in the tent, where Mikey were down by the lake, brushing his teeth and singing so loud they could hear him perfectly well from the camp. He'd even talked Raph into coming with him, afraid of venturing out into the night alone.
Raphael, who secretly felt a big guilty over almost offing Mr. Gaffy, couldn't do much but accompany his little brother.
Suddenly realizing Donatello was busy rummaging through something by the foot of the tent, Leo sat up with a puzzled expression and armed himself with his flashlight. He caught his brother in the act of going through the orange-banded turtle's backpack, a frozen expression on his face as though he wouldn't see him if he stayed perfectly still.
"Um... what are you doing?" Leonardo finally asked, pointing the light at Donatello's face, who quickly squinted his eyes in discomfort.
"Well, if you must know," he said, retuning to going through the backpack, "I'm doing us both a favor."
"How, exactly?"
"Earlier today," Donnie explained, "Raph complained about Mike listening to his mp3 when they were sleeping."
"So?" Leo shrugged. "The thing's got earphones. I seriously don't think it could bother us that much."
Don turned around to look at this brother with a grave expression. "He was singing along, Leo."
Gasping in fright, Leonardo quickly threw his sleeping bag aside and scrambled down to the foot of the tent to help his brother in the urgent search of the doom's day device.
"Oh no!" Michelangelo whined in fright. "Please don't let it be true. Pretty, pretty, pretty please?"
Leo nearly had to bite his lip to keep himself from bursting out laughing, yet he managed to ask in the most innocent of voices, "What's the matter, Mikey?" He sat up, watching his brother where he sat hunched forward in the darkness, tinkering with the tiny mp3 player in his hands.
"It's the stupid batteries," he explained, hitting the device with his open palm. "They're dead!"
"Oh, I'm so sorry," Leo said, noticing Donnie doing his best to smother his giggles underneath his sleeping bag. It was truly a victorious moment for both turtles, because they had successfully switched Mikey's batteries for the empty ones in Don's flashlight. "I guess that's what happens when you use it as much as you have," Leonardo then added, lying back down and making himself comfortable.
Mike sighed heavily. "I guess."
"G'night," Leo said, turning over with a content smile decorating his face.
"Night," came Mike's so obviously bummed out reply. And so it was that Leonardo and Donatello both happily lay their heads on their pillows, basking in the peaceful night to come.
It was as if his pleasant dreams about rocking the stage at a random karaoke bar had been interrupted with a violent slap in the face. The cheering of the crowd was replaced with an off key noise, singing the chorus to 'My Humps'. Leo had no idea how he even knew of that song, but even before he opened his eyes he had a pretty good idea to whom the voice beyond musical repair belonged.
Peering his eyes open, Leo had to wait a moment or two for them to get used to the darkness before he could make out the shape of his youngest brother, headphones on and head nodding along to the beat only he could hear. As for the singing… oh, god, the singing. He was fairly certain that somewhere in the forest a flock of birds that had to get up at dawn were conspiring to attack their new, uninvited neighbors with loads and loads of 'you'll rue the day you infiltrated our forest' droppings.
Turning to the other side for strength, he found Donatello staring straight back at him, his eyes frozen open in what Leo could only assume was sleep-deprived horror.
"What's going on?" Leonardo asked. "I thought you switched his batteries with empty ones?"
"Yeah well, apparently he carried an extra pair in the inside pocket of his backpack. Just in case," came the bitter reply.
"We should've known the check there," Leo scolded himself with a low voice. "Always check the inside pocket."
Donatello shrugged as he pulled his sleeping bag up to his chin. "You live, you learn."
Leo nodded sadly in agreement, still pissed that he hadn't thought of looking for spare batteries. "So, how long has he been… singing?" he asked, not quite sure 'singing' was the proper word to describe what his brother was doing.
"Oh, he's been wailing for a couple of hours now. In fact, this is the third time he's done this song. Unlike you, I couldn't fall asleep the second I put my head on the pillow, so I guess in a way I have my coffee to blame for having to endure this little sleepover torture."
"A couple of hours?" Leo repeated in disbelief. "I can't believe I slept through something so soul piercing like this for hours."
"Believe it," Don insisted, boring his red burst eyes into his brother, his intelligent gaze long since replaced with a mad, unwavering stare that truly unnerved Leo a little.
"Well..." Leo hesitantly began. "How much longer do you think he'll keep this up?"
Donnie looked away for a moment, rubbing his right temple while mumbling thoughtfully to himself, "Depends..." He then bore his delirious stare into Leo with another question serving as his answer. "How much sugar did he have today?"
Leonardo felt how the beating of his heart came to an abrupt halt.
Rolled up in his sleeping bag like a giant caterpillar with an anger management issue, Raphael could still feel his butt cheeks shaking in the cold. Only a night ago it had been so unendurably hot in the tent, he'd even contemplated to unzip the entrance – despite the mosquitoes lurking right outside, craving their blood like the buzzing creatures of the night they were. But now, now he felt as thought he was camping on the North Pole, his breath coming in rugged, harsh pants, all because of this damn cold of his.
Knowing what he did now, he truly regretted not bringing that stupid, rubber coat. Yellow or not, he'd put on a freaking Smurf costume if it would spare him this cold. Even that fruity Vanity Smurf. Of course, that was something he would never ever under any circumstances admit to his brothers. He did have some pride left, after all. But it really would have been nice to sleep on a pillow that wasn't completely drenched in snot.
"Psst!" came a sudden noise from outside.
At first, Raph merely shrugged it off as another evil, winged bloodsucker, but once the noise was followed by a hushed calling of his name, he furrowed his eye ridges in puzzlement.
"What the hell..." he mumbled to himself.
"Raph? Are you awake?" the voice returned, and this time speaking in a long enough sentence for the currently unmasked turtle to identify it.
"Leo?" Raph asked, sitting up in confusion, his snotty skin resisting slightly as it stuck to the fabric of the pillow for a short, agonizing second. "The hell are ya doin' 'ere?"
The zipper was carefully pulled down to reveal not only one, but two brothers; both armed with sleeping bags and pillows.
"Oh, hell no!" Raphael almost instinctively forbid. "You ain't sleeping 'ere. Go back ta whatever rock it was ye climbed out from."
"We can't go back there," Leonardo insisted, his eyes pleading for Raph to take him in, like a stray dog standing on his doorstep.
"You can and ya will. Sleepin' arrangements ain't up fer debate," Raph said, lying back down, pulling his sleeping bag over him and turning away from his siblings in an attempt to ignore their wide, pleading eyes. "And shut the zipper. Yer lettin' the bugs in."
"But Ra-aph..." Donatello murmured in the most pitiful voice he could muster.
"Get lost."
"...he's singing."
If there ever was such a thing as a cuddly, loving teddy bear trapped inside the cold fences of Raph's heart, living on the few rays of light that would occasionally slip by the bitter turtle's attention, it had never made its existence known until now. Because it was as if his pissy attitude was instantly blown away at the revelation of what his poor, poor brothers had been put through, replaced by this never before sighted stuffed animal that warmly welcomed them into the tent, all while moving over to make more room.
Don and Leo had seemed a bit surprised at his sudden change in behavior, and had even been left standing outside the tent for a lingering moment, feeling as though they'd just had an out of body experience, watching the surreal miracle from a third person's perspective. But everything soon returned to normal, for the Raphael they'd always known and loved soon came back to show his true colors,
"Yer juz gonna stand there like a couple a' speech impaired butt holes? Yer lettin' the bugs in!"
Their flabbergasted spirits were quickly sucked back into their bodies and they both quickly made their way inside the tent, whilst they were still welcome.
Standing bent over like the paranoid mess he was, Donatello obsessively tried to glance over his shoulder in an attempt to catch even the smallest glimpse of what was going on there.
"What... what are you doing?"
"Hold still..." came the concentrated voice of Raphael.
"I am holding still," Don countered. "Now would somebody please tell me what's going on back there?"
"You wanna get rid a' this tick or not?" Raph retorted in obvious irritation.
Donnie quietly bit his lip and turned back to stare ahead of him, trying not to think about the fact that there was a tick stuck to one of his ass cheeks, and that Raphael of all people had volunteered to remove it. If there were anyone he wouldn't want doing that job, it would be Raph - because he would surely use questionable methods. Although giving it a second thought, Raph was probably a safer choice than Mikey, whom had been the first volunteer.
A little comforted by this thought, panic soon began to stir inside of him… again. He didn't know if it was because of his freaked out imagination, but he distinctly thought he felt a bit hotter around the sitting area.
That can't be good...
"What are you doing now?" Don asked, once again trying to look over his shoulder.
"Hold still, will ya?" Raph angrily exclaimed. "You'll get burnt."
B-b-b… burnt?
Even though he happened to be a genius, it certainly didn't take one to figure out just what kind of questionable methods his brother was practicing on his tush.
Before he even had a chance to properly freak out, he was forced down on his plastron by his other two brothers, holding him by his shoulders, while Raphael sat on top of his shell, his focus still aimed at his now clenching and unclenching butt cheeks. He tried fighting violence with violence, screaming and kicking, his jaw scraping against the soil covered ground as he tried to worm himself out of his brothers' evil grasps. But resisting was futile, and the sense of heat was only growing stronger on his ass, until he could distinctly feel the deadly flame licking his cold sweaty skin.
"Noooo!"
"Hold him!" Raph yelled, pinning his legs on either side of Don's body to keep him from moving.
The smell of burnt flesh soon infested Don's senses and tears started to make their way down his cheeks.
"Dammit!" Raph grumbled. "It ain't workin'. It's like the damn parasite is fire resistant or someth'n."
"Let me go!" Donnie cried. "Please, just let me goo-ho-hooo..." Yes, that was the sound of his own voice trailing off in embarrassing pathetic hulking noises.
"Hey, wait a sec," Raph then spoke up with a newfound sense of creativity. "I know juz the thing ta get rid a' this bloodsucker. Hand me the lighter fluid, Mike."
WHAT!
"Noooooooooooooooooo!" Donatello violently tossed and turned once his younger brother let go of him to go after the fluids of hell, but Leo was soon on top of him with those unnatural reflexes he must have sold his soul to gain, keeping him from escaping.
"Hurry, Mikey!" cried Raph, his legs locked around Don's shell like a professional wrestler.
The sound of footsteps running up to them soon stopped as Mikey bent down next to Donnie, handing over to their red masked brother what could only be one thing.
"Here!"
"A'right," Raph said, sounding as if he was talking with the bottle cork in his mouth. "Hold 'im down."
Something wet was squirted all over Donatello's now positively shaking butt, and the sound of the now empty plastic bottle being tossed aside then followed.
"Hand me my lighter," Raph ordered, locking his legs even tighter around Don's now quivering body. "'Kay. Everyone got a good grip?"
"Yeah."
"Uh-huh."
"Then let's blow this tick into oblivion."
The sense of heat soon returned, and although he knew it was futile to fight them, Don violently kicked and screamed in one last attempt to save himself from his brothers' mad claws. His vision was completely clouded by the boiling water of his tears, and his mouth was filled with the soil and gravel he'd been rubbing his face in. Yet none of it seemed of no matter as the warmth he feared grew unendurable, and his entire existence finally blew up in one big deafening explosion the world's most powerful nuclear bomb would envy.
KABOOOM!
Sitting upright in a jolted shock, Don could feel his cold sweat running down his neck and spine, needing a few out-of-breath seconds to realize that it had been nothing but a dream. A terrible, horrible nightmare he'd most likely have to seek counseling for, or at least if he'd been human, but a dream nonetheless.
Yes, they had in fact burned off his tick, but thankfully they hadn't used Raph's mysterious lighter fluid. Although the experience had obviously been traumatic enough with a regular lighter for him to have nightmares about it.
Realizing it was now considerably bright in the tent, or at least bright enough to see,
Donatello figured there was no point in trying to go back to sleep, because even if he did fall asleep, the risk of the nightmare returning with an even more terrifying sequel was just too big to take. He put on his mask and quietly made his way out the tent, only to get a puzzled expression when turning around to shut the zipper behind him.
It seemed his brothers had enjoyed the company of each other a little too much during the night, for Raphael was peacefully snuggled up with a spooning Leonardo embracing him. The first reflex was to toss the nearby leather belt on the sleeping couple, but Don then figured their reaction upon waking up in each other's arms was far better and therefore settled for gently shutting the zipper so he wouldn't wake them.
Eyes slowly fluttering open, Raph realized to his pleasant surprise that he wasn't shaking anymore. In fact, he felt comfortably warm. The cold he had to endure last night seemed like nothing but a bad memory, having been chased away by the warm rays of the morning sun. He decided to bask in the sensation of not freezing to death for a while longer and stretched out his arms above his head.
But then something unnerving happened.
When about to turn over on his back, he turned straight into something. Glancing over his right shoulder, he realized it wasn't just something – but someone. Leonardo, of all someones, lying right there with him, arms around him like an overprotective parent.
Raphael did the only thing he could think of to get out of this highly uncomfortable situation.
Trying to salvage what was left of his drenched flowers, Donnie quickly looked up from his book once the first of his two bedmates exited their tent in a familiar fit of rage.
"N' don't eva' lay a finger on me again!"
"Lay a finger on you?" a just a mad Leonardo crawled out behind Raph. "I ought to give you a black eye, that's what I should do!"
Donatello couldn't help but grin, even though he knew he would probably end up getting chased up some tree by Raph for it. "Ah. I see the two lovebirds have woken up to share a romantic breakfast together."
If looks could kill, Raph's eyes would have been the pair of a psychotic murderer so ruthless the media would make a macabre miniseries based on the horrible discovery of Donatello's barely recognizable body. Nevertheless, Leonardo was the one commenting on Don's remark.
"Seriously, Don. Not the time."
And knowing when to count his blessings, Don quickly returned to patching up his flowers, whilst secretly listening in on their argument, of course.
"What?" Raph then angrily turned around to continue his fight with Leonardo. "Molestin' me in my sleep wasn't enough? Now yer gonna hit me, too?"
"Would ya give it a rest, Raph! I didn't "molest" you. For the last time: I WAS ASLEEP!"
"Don't think pleadin' unconsciousness will get'cha outta this one!" Raph yelled.
"I might as well have been hugging that fat bastard from Austin Powers, it wouldn't have made a difference - that's how unconscious I was!"
"What fat bastard?" Raph wondered.
"Fat Bastard!" Leo cried.
"Who?"
"FAT BASTARD!" Leonardo repeated. "That's his name. Fat. Bastard."
"The hell are ya talkin' about?" Raph asked, still not being able to put a face to the name. "There's nobody named Fat Bastard in Austin Powers."
"Yes there is," Leo insisted. "That really fat Scottish guy who likes to eat babies."
"What Scottish guy? There's no Scottish guy in Austin Powers."
"Oh my god, yes there is!" Leo cried, feeling as though he could dig out his own eyes in pure frustration. "In the second movie he even sleeps with that blonde agent, and then Austin ends up drinking his crap!"
"Second movie?" Raph repeated in surprise. "You actually saw the second movie? I mean, Mike I can understand, but you? I really thought ye had more pride than that."
"Argh!" Leo cried for the lack of a more fitting word. "That's not even the point, Raph. The point is I would have held on to anyone, so would you quit hanging up on details? And second of all, after waking me up the way you did, I think it would only be fair for me to punch you."
"Hey, I only did what came natural," Raph retorted, angrily pointing at his brother in defense.
"Elbowing me in the abdomen came natural to you?" Leo critically asked. "Lying on your back is hardly in favor of showing your elbow into the person lying right next to you, you sadistic freak!"
"Who're ye calling a freak, you sick Austin Powers lovin' bastard!"
And that was about the time Don decided to tune out his brothers, because he knew the argument would pretty much be going in circles from there. Of course, if the words eventually turned into fists, he would step between them, but their pointless arguments rarely went beyond pointless arguments.
Many hours later of Raph and Leo not speaking to each other, everyone had their backpacks strapped on and quietly walked the invisible trail Leo seemed to have been following throughout the entire trip. Not much was said, and even Mikey's shy requests for peeing breaks were almost instantly voted down.
To say the least, there was some unresolved tension in the air, and the next person to disturb it most likely did not have a very bright future ahead of them. In this case, this next person was Michelangelo.
It started out with him frenetically checking his belt over and over, barely earning much attention from anyone, but that soon evolved into worried yet carefully muffled sounds, where it became quite clear that everything was not right in Michelangelo Land. Later on, those muffled sounds turned into not so muffled complaints, and then, when he finally couldn't take it anymore, he made a scene.
"Oh no!" he exclaimed, stopping in his tracks and stripping himself of his backpack in what was now a full-blown panic attack. "Please no!"
At first, his brothers decided not to pay him any attention and merely kept on walking, but when the youngest hiker began to empty all of his belongs on the ground, sobs threatening to break out, Don finally turned around to see what the problem was.
"What's going on, Mikey?" he called back to his brother, who was now seated in a giant pile of half eaten candy bars and crumpled bags of snacks.
"I can't find Mr. Gaffy," Michelangelo sniffled, madly rummaging through his stuff. "I thought I had him on me, but I didn't... and he's not in here, either!"
Donatello and Leonardo instinctively turned to glare at Raphael who quickly held up his hands to prove his innocence. He had nothing to do with the disappearance of Mr. Gaffy... or at least not this particular disappearance.
"Well," a concerned Donatello made his way back to his little brother. "Where did you last have him? Just backtrack your thoughts to when you last saw him and I'm sure you'll find him."
Bottom lip nearly shaking, Mikey swallowed once before answering. "I dunno. I think I had him at breakfast. I know I had him in the tent last night. After the two of you split, he was the only company I had left to turn to."
"Okay, so you had him last night," Donatello said. "That probably means he was still there when you woke up this morning."
"Well... yeah," Mike pitifully replied.
"That means you still had him today," Donnie concluded, leaning slightly against a nearby tree. "What about after breakfast? What about when we were packing? You remember seeing him then?"
And that was when the tears Michelangelo had been bordering on finally decided to show; big, loud crocodile tears.
What everyone had dreamed of for so long had finally come true, yet none of them could find any enjoyment in it. After ten minutes of trying to translate Mikey's gulping sounds into words, it was made official:
Michelangelo had forgotten Mr. Gaffy back at the camp.
Raph hadn't tossed his knitted body into the fire, Don hadn't thrown him into the lake, and Leo hadn't even had the opportunity to plan a mysterious disappearance for the all around hated kitchen supply – because in the end Mikey himself had been the one to lose him.
Naturally, he'd wanted to go back and look for him, but they had been walking for three hours when they realized the annoying giraffe weren't with them. They couldn't waste six hours just to get him back – especially not when they were so close to home, and Mikey understood that, but it was with heavy, reluctant steps that he walked behind his brothers, his thoughts still with his old friend.
But strangely enough, the six hours they couldn't waste came and went, and still Home was nowhere in sight. Every now and then, a cranky and still sick Raphael would complain about Leo's inability to properly read a map, and it hadn't exactly gone unnoticed by Leo, who finally stopped to have a proper look at the map, twisting and turning it, as if trying to see things from a new perspective.
The evident worry quickly spread to the rest of the group, and Mikey, in a weak attempt at some humorous relief, decided to speak his first words since Mr. Gaffy's tragic disappearance.
"You know, I once read that if you get lost, you're supposed to hug a tree to calm yourself down."
An irritated Leonardo glared at Mike over his shoulder, before his eyes quickly dove back down to stare at the map, still fidgeting and turning it in his hands. "I don't understand," he then mumbled to himself.
"What don't you understand?" Donnie asked, carefully walking up to his brother to have a peak at the map he'd so compulsively been hogging throughout the trip.
"It should be here," Leo said. "We should've been home by now, yet that 'just around the corner' always ends up being more trees!"
"Um... for how long exactly have we been waiting for 'just around the corner'?" Don fearfully asked.
"I'm not sure," Leonardo hesitantly replied. "Not that many minutes."
"Exactly how many minutes, Leo?" an even more worried Don insisted.
"A hundred and twenty minutes?" Leo sheepishly admitted. "Give or take."
"A hundred and twenty minutes?" Don repeated in freaked out disbelief. "You haven't known what you've been doing for two hours and you didn't tell us about it?"
"In my defense, it's really not my fault that this stupid map is out of date," Leo countered.
"Do you have any idea how lost we are, Leo?" Donatello asked. "My god, two hours?" he repeated, dramatically cupping his own forehead with his hand.
Raphael didn't know if it was because of the fever, or it was the joy of Mr. Gaffy's disappearance that finally decided to kick in, but he managed to find humor in their very non-humorous situation. Grinning, he turned to the only person he knew would appreciate it and said,
"Looks like ye betta' start huggin' that tree now, Mike."