"Wow, I forgot trees even existed!" Mikey beamed out the car window with his face practically smashed against it. "We should've come upstate sooner!"
"Probably would've saved us all our sanity." Don said.
"Yah well the damage is done so let's not dwell in the past." Casey said while raising a finger in the air.
"He-ey, I see someone's actually been payin' attention when Splinter talks." Raph chuckled.
"Hey, I aint' as empty headed as you guys might think I am."
"No, don't worry, you are." Mikey added.
Casey was in the driver's seat of his old pick-up truck that he had stored away in our garage for God knows how many years. April was out cold in the passenger's seat with Michelangelo and Donatello in the back two seats behind her. Sadly, the truck only held four comfortably so Raph and I had to sit outside in the back of the truck with a tarp over our heads to conceal us from sight. The only way we all communicated was through a small window in the back.
"I still can't believe Splinter let us go." Don said in amazement as he tinkered with a weird contraption he brought along with him in his duffel bag.
"I can. He probably needed a break from all this awesomeness, anyway." Mikey gestured to himself.
"If this window was big enough…" Raph tried to grab Mikey but his arm was far too big to fit.
"The first thing I'm doing when I get down there, there being the cabin, is setting up shop in the old barn." Don smiled. "If that's ok with you since this is your farm, Casey."
"Well, you know I was thinkin' we all could just drop the technology and stuff for a while."
"WHAT?!" Don and Mikey grabbed each other in horror. The ruckus woke April up in a hurry as she looked around for danger.
"Think about it, what you guys need is a techno-free vacation to help your minds clear from this last week's horrors."
"Since when did you become Mr. Hippie?" Raph snorted.
"Look, you guys are ninjas right? Aren't ninjas supposed to be like "one with nature" and stuff like that?" Casey asked rhetorically. "So be ninjas! You guys aren't supposed to be at bars and drinkin' and doin' reckless stuff like I do. That's my job. I miss all those crazy days when you would disappear after I turn back around and jump across stuff like mutant pigeons."
"He has a point." April yawned. "Take this time to reconnect with yourselves."
I saw Casey look in the rearview mirror at Raph and I.
"You know what that means; lots of training and meditation." I said.
"Training and what?" Don looked at me funny.
"Meditation" Raph repeated with a roll of the eyes.
"Oh, I thought you said medication."
"Ha! Heaven knows we all need that." Mikey laughed out loud. "We all can just tap into Raphael's steroid stash."
"Casey, I swear I'm ganna break this window if it opens its mouth one more time." Raph growled.
"Whatever it takes to swat that little twit, man, you do it." He laughed along.
Raph reached back in through the window and managed to grab ahold of the back strings of Mikey's bandana. I've never heard him scream so loud in his entire life and it was so bad that I pulled Raph's arm out of the window at the wrong angle. He gave me an innocent/guilty look as a bright red mark appeared on his wrist. It looked like a little bit of skin got scrapped off as a small amount of blood surfaced the skin but none of it was drastically flowing out. It was the average wound a small child would receive after falling in wood chips at the park.
"You hurt me." He shut the window.
"You almost pulled Mikey's head off his shoulders!"
"Oops." He grinned.
I crossed my arms over my chest and looked the other way. There wasn't very much to look at, though.
"You blend in so well with this tarp. I almost can't see you." He came across to my side of the truck and sat down next to me. He wrapped his one hand around my throat and used the other to rip my bandana off. "That's better." He pressed his lips against the side of my head where it was sore from the friction of the bandana.
"Stop it. They'll see us."
"Everyone already…" He sighed deeply and faced forward. "Damnit, April, right? She's the only one holdin' us back then."
"Yup."
"I guess we'll have to kill her."
I back-handed Raphael as hard as I could but he looped his arm up around mine and threw me over onto my shell. With his arms pinning mine down, he swung himself over and straddled himself on top of me. When we were younger, say 2 or 3 years ago, I used to be able to throw him off with no problem but now he's not only wider than me, but I'm pretty sure he weighs twice as much as Donnie does.
"I'm pretty sure this is considered an abusive relationship." I said with the air running out of my chest from his weight.
"You can fight back anytime, big brother." He bent down closer to me with a smug look on his face.
"Oh, you'd like that wouldn't you?" I didn't know if taunting the guy who was crushing my lungs was a good idea or not. I guess he could tell from my shortness of breath that he had me in an uncomfortable state because he lifted himself up a little bit. I still couldn't break free though since he had the advantage, not that I wanted to anyway.
"So what does the fearless leader do these days? I wanna know." He let go of my arms and sat up.
"Well I try to maintain a healthy diet, unlike you."
"Is that some kind of fat joke?" He scowled. "Well to be honest you aint no stick either." He slapped my thigh so hard I knew I would see a mark there later. I refrained from making a sound from the stinging pain but as an alternative, I grabbed ahold of his wrists and pulled him down. I pulled hard on his left arm so he fell onto his side and rolled off of me. I saw my chance and took it. I jumped on top of him and pinned his arms down.
"Much better." I sighed.
"This won't be happening often." He pointed to me.
"I'm the leader. I'm on top. Get used to it."
"Bein' leader don't mean shit. It's a title."
"Yes, but I earned it." I was sitting on top of him proudly. I knew he could throw me off anytime he wanted to but the fact that he wasn't was adorable.
"Yah, 10 years ago when Splinter had us all fight each other for it."
"Yes, and I won."
"Because I let you." He grinned. "If we were to do it again I would put yah in your place."
"You're all talk and no do, Raphael."
He shook his head, grabbed ahold of my shoulders and rolled around once so he was on top again. He put his hand around the back of my neck with my bandana inside it and pulled us close together. Our cheeks touched and he whispered softly to me.
"Yah have no idea what it's like to love somebody and not be able to do anything. The only reason you're still innocent is because I'm keeping you that way. So don't tell me what I can and cannot do." He kissed the right side of my face where my bandana usually was before putting it back on me.
"Raph, I…"
Before I could say anything else, the deafening sound of the trucks appalling breaks filled my ears before they sent the both of us jerking forward and into the back of the truck.
"What the hell?!" Raph slowly got up and slammed his fist against the window before opening it.
I stayed down out of sight underneath Raphael. My head was still spinning and trying to comprehend everything he said not only a minute ago. However, I got up and snapped out of it once I heard Donatello's whines. He was holding his head where it must've slammed against the back of Casey's seat after the hard stop.
"Let me see." I reached my hand through the window and pulled his hand away from his head.
"Don't touch it!" He cried.
There was a nice half-dollar sized bump already forming next to his right eye under his mask.
April gasped and reached both her hands around to look at him. "Did you hit your head on the metal part? You poor thing! Here, I've got a first aid kit somewhere around here."
"I'll survive." He moaned. "That was only the part of my brain I use for rational thinking."
"Sorry about that, guys." Casey apologized and got out of the car. "I think I hit something, though."
"Yah don't say!" Mike yelled.
I unhooked the latch from the tarp and jumped out of the truck. It was starting to get light outside but it was still dark enough that I could hide in the woods and not be easily seen.
I knew we were close to the cabin by the absolute nothingness all around us and the empty forest that seemed to go on for miles. I also knew because it looked like Casey had hit a deer and they're hard to find around New York except up in the mountain region where the cabin was.
"Looks like it ran off. I hope I didn't hurt it too much." Casey pulled a bit of tan hair out of the front of his truck. "Damn that was a big deer."
"Well with your driving it'll probably be handicapped for the rest of its life." Raph snorted.
While Raph and Casey bickered back and forth, I slipped away into the woods to see if I could find the animal. I didn't have to go very far until I found it lying on the forest floor, still breathing. It was a horned deer, a male, and not too far from it was another, larger, one.
I pulled out one of my swords, afraid it would charge me by the way it was snorting and pounding its hooves into the ground. He did in fact charge so I quickly climbed up into a tree before it could reach me.
He sniffed the fallen deer for a few minutes before it lay down next to it and tucked its head under the others'. It was the strangest thing I've ever seen. I never heard of a deer staying with another one that was injured. They must've been…brothers, or at least related.
"Sad, isn't it?" Raph's voice came from behind me. He was in the tree with me just a few branches up but still close enough that he could reach me.
"What's sad about it?" I said, almost hypnotized by the scene.
"Two brothers caring about each other that much." He jumped down next to me, startling both deer. The healthy one grunted but stayed on the ground.
"How do you know they're brothers?"
"I don't. But it makes for a good example." He rubbed the top of my head like a child and I pushed him away. He came back again but more sympathetic with his touch. I had to grab ahold of him for stability in fear I would fall out of the tree.
A few minutes later the injured deer started to get up off the ground with the help from the other one. It looked like he was going to be ok, for the most part.
"Yah wanna walk the rest of the way?"
"To the cabin?"
"Sure, why not?" He jumped out of the tree. "I'll tell Casey."
"You didn't even let me answer." I smiled.
He grinned and started to walk back to the truck.