A mugger. Lily thought in stunned disbelief as she slipped through the gate leading to her yard.
Of all the things to happen to her, she was frigging mugged! And by a weird fellow too. He hadn't taken anything. Or raped her. Thank god. No. All he did was give her tips on how to draw attention to herself in a bad situation and breathe on her neck and then tell her to run away.
Still... That had been an odd encounter for her. And had drained what little energy she had left.
She kicked the small iron gate closed behind her, the bags from her trip out slipping form her numb fingers as she then took several steps before her legs gave out on her and she fell- Right into the arms of- the turtle man that she had thought wasn't real. Only tonight he was wearing red.
"Wh-What the hell?" She sputtered as he wrapped his arms around her and then ran them along her back in a rubbing motion before speaking.
This time his tone was heavy with a brooklyn accent. His voice, deep and commanding and altogether irritated sounding to her ears, "W'ere you been?"
She opened her mouth to tell him that where she had been was none of his damn business when she felt the air stir behind her and saw 'red' look up before saying, "Yo Leo."
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Leonardo had been following Lily at a discreet distance for a while.
Concerned that he may have done something horribly wrong to her when he'd scared her. But in his defense, he wanted her to be more aware of the dangers around her and not disappear into thin air when she was obviously ill.
He had just reached the other side of the wall fencing off her yard when he saw her start to collapse and silently swore as he jumped it and ran to reach her.
He hadn't expected Raph to show up out of the blue and catch her. Nor had he expected the sudden sliver of jealousy that curled itself around his heart. "Yo Leo." Raph greeted him as soon as he slipped from the shadows, appearing behind Lily. Facing his brother.
"What are you doing here Raph?" Leonardo asked, unable to keep the bite from his tone as he stared at his brother and tried to control the sudden urge to reach out and strangle Raph for laying his hands on his- No! He couldn't think like that.
He quickly dismissed the thoughts swirling in his head while trying to keep from giving himself a headache as he reached out and snatched Lily from Raph. Ignoring the wide eyed, confused looks she was giving them as she continued to sputter and look back and forth between them. "I came to check on you both. But you weren't here."
"Lily decided to go out."
"Ah. Figured from the bags in her hands."
Leo made a noncommittal sound and scooped Lily up and was a little startled when she wrapped her arms around his neck and more or less buried her face against his shoulder muttering to herself as Leo said, "Look Raph can we talk inside? She still has a fever-" He could tell by the feel of her skin against his own. He felt as if he'd been scalded.
Raph gave him a wide eyed look and picked up the bags that Lily had dropped when she'd started to collapse and looked back at Leo who had Lily cradled in his arms bridal style. Already heading for the house.
Raph followed close behind, quietly observing his eldest brother's reaction to his precence, thinking that Leo was acting like his territorial instincts had been triggered in some way. But he couldn't imagine what would have set those off since Leo didn't have the same sort of territorial instincts he and the others did.
His instincts more or less declaired that his room was his territory, and anyone stupid enough to set foot in there should die screaming. Don's instincts were triggered when someone he didn't approve of was close to his lab and his toys.
Mikey got mean and pissy whenever someone entered the kitchen without permission from him. He'd thrown a knife at Splinter once because he'd walked in to make some tea without permission. Something that Splinter had nipped in the bud with a nice beatdown in the form of training.
Leo however, had never displayed any territorial urges or insticts at all. But he was displaying them now. His actions speaking as loudly as a neon sign hanging over his head. For some odd reason Leo was acting as if the little human girl were his.
Raph could lie to himself all he wanted but he'd seen the spark of jealousy in his older brother's dark eyes when he'd seen him holding the girl up. He rounded the corner to the house and saw that Leo had left the door open a crack and walked over and paused as he peeked through the small window there.
He could see Lily sitting on the couch with Leo sitting on the coffee table in front of her, her ankle grasped in his hand as he slipped her shoe off and talked to her in a low tone. Curious to know what Leo was saying to her, Raph pushed open the door a little bit and strained some to hear his brother.
"You have got to be the most stubborn, vexing girl I've ever met before in my life-" Leo said in a low rumbling tone. "Just because you can't feel pain doesn't mean that you can be careless with your life. Thanks to that outing of yours, your fever has spiked again."
"So you expect me to just sit here at home, take the pills that you hand to me, and do as I'm told with a smile on my face?" Raph almost snorted. Oh he knew the answer to her question. He'd disobeyed Leo enough times as a kid to know that Ol' Fearless hated being ignored.
Leo narrowed his eyes at her, unexpectantly feeling pissed about the way that she had just phrased her question but still managed a strained sounding, "Yes. If it means you'll get better faster."
"Ever hear of free will?" Lily asked in a peeved tone as he started to take her other shoe off of her foot and paused just long enough to give her a dirty look before he rubbed the soles of her foot through her sock and replied.
"Ever hear of common sense?" Lily gave him an offended look as he continued. "Besides, free will is vastly overrated. It does nothing but get you into trouble. Like your's for instance. Instead of staying home and resting like you were suppossed too- You went out and walked around in the cold for hours. Your fever is up, your hungry, tired-" He released her foot and reached out and grabbed her hands and hissed at how cold they felt to the touch.
God even his skin never felt this cold. Her hands were like ice! "Can you feel your fingers?" He asked in a suspicious tone as he rubbed her hands between his in an effort to warm them up.
Raph pushed the door open a little bit and slipped inside and closed the door by this time. He was utterly fascinated by what seemed to be going on between Lily and Leo. In fact the more he watched the more entranced he became until he was sure that Leo must have a crush or something on the girl.
