Never-NeverLand – Chapter 12
Casey called out over the laughter in the back seat, "Domeys! Duck and cover! We're coming up on the toll bridge, and I don't wanna have to explain you guys to the attendant."
Splinter was already a mass of blankets and pillows. He looked for all the world like a sleeping child. The guys took his cue and raised the blankets off the floor of the van. "Quickly now, crawl under! Tuck into your shells and don't move." Leonardo and Michelangelo draped a comforter over Shima, Pipes, and Cabbage. They moved to share a bed spread with Donatello. Sterling glanced at Raphael. He was waiting impatiently for her to get under the remaining afghan.
'Pull into our shells they say. I'm not Pipes-tiny. My legs don't fit. And my jaw is still too swollen to fit past my collarbone. I hope there's enough blanket.'
Raphael was also concerned. 'This yarn thing is just a jumble of holes. I hate to rely on the human not looking just to stay hidden-- ESPECIALLY when I'm hiding with an amateur.' He cast around for some of the trench coats, and sprawled them over top of her bulky form. 'There, can't tell her from luggage.'
Casey pulled into line at the toll plaza. "Yo, Raphy Foo Foo. You're not queen of the Rose Parade, you know. Hide!"
'Shit.' Raph looked around. There were no more covers. There should be some space left under the afghan with Sterling, but it was gonna be tight. 'I don't wanna get that close to her.' He didn't let himself dwell on why.
Casey pulled up one car closer and checked his rear view mirror. The afghan in the back looked like the luggage underneath it had been stacked. Casey smirked to himself, 'Alright Raph! Duck and cover, baby.'
Raphael lay on his side, perfectly still. His plastron was pressed up alongside her back. He fit into his shell about as poorly as she did. Where she was just too lanky; his own muscular limbs hindered him. She lay on her stomach, face towards him, the tender side of her head turned away from the floor. He could not see the fear in her eyes, but her felt her breath on his cheek and her rapid heartbeat beneath him. She was breathing to quickly and too shallowly. The weight of the coats and the afghan, plus her panic, and her inability to open her mouth would probably force her to hyperventilate soon. Raphael remembered having to deal with some of Mike's fits; his mind raced. 'I don't got a paper bag. I can't lift the covers. I'm already at the edge of the blanket, I can't give her any more space.'
Praying he was still completely covered, Raphael inched his shoulders back a little further away from her, lifting some of his upper-body weight off her shell. He snaked out an arm slowly and pulled out her wrist closest to him. She had been laying with it faced down, her shoulder resting on the back of her hand, but he turned it over and ever so gently curled and uncurled his fingers along its sensitive underside. He couldn't see her face in the dark, but his other senses told him her immediate reaction had been surprise. He felt her start, heard her breathing catch. She had tensed for half a second, before he felt the change in her heart rate. Her breathing evened out and slowed down. He'd seen her sisters use this petting technique on one another. 'God, don't think of it as petting.' She was calm, peaceful, and now that he wasn't worried about her, he felt a whole new list of words rise up in his mind.
'Quit it Raph. Just quit it.' She smelled good: clean and soapy, but there was something a little musky hiding beneath that. It smelled almost spicy, but it reminded him of honey: honey and cinnamon.
The soft skin on her wrist fascinated him. He kept curling and uncurling his fingers, just so that he could feel it. He was scared to use too much pressure for fear that he might hurt her. In the dark, the only sounds beyond their breath were the gauzy whispers of his roughened fingers on her silky skin. 'I wonder if she's this soft everywhere.'
Cursing his train of thought, Raphael became acutely aware of the vibrations along his stomach where his plastron and her shell shook against each other with the humming of the van's engine. 'I'm gonna go crazy if I don't get out from under this thing soon.'
Sterling had never felt so confused in her life. She was scared. There were humans on the other side of this blanket. They would take her back to that horrible place, and they would kill her new family. However, the guys had lived out among the humans for years and they were strong and skilled and she trusted them. It was almost an adventure. Though she felt ashamed for it, she was excited by the chance of getting caught, even if it was only because she knew the guys would never let it happen.
With the afghan and the coats and the hard van floor and its scratchy carpet, she was thoroughly uncomfortable. Her jaw was throbbing, her legs were cramping, and Raphael was breathing on her face. Then again, 'Raphael is breathing on my face.' Maybe that bit wasn't so bad. His breath didn't smell like anything in particular, but the scent of the rest of him was so potent. 'Salty. Musky. Occasional whiffs of soap. He smells of clean sweat and leather.' She fought the temptation to snuggle closer. 'He's already laying on top of you, girl! Jeez, you're supposed to be hiding!' Sterling would have smiled if her jaw had allowed it. She never wanted to move again.
She had nearly jumped out of her shell when he touched her wrist like that. She was mad; only her sisters were allowed to touch her like that. It was intimate. It was private. It was a signal for use by family only. 'He is family. He's trying to put your mind at ease, just like your sisters do. Calm down. He's being NICE to you.' The gentle rhythm of his thick fingers soothed her. He never varied from the original pattern. He wasn't going to try anything. She felt safe and so happy that her brother cared.
'Brother, huh?' A traitorous little voice inside her whispered, 'You don't what him to care for you as a brother. You want him to like you. You want him to want you.' Pride drew her to a screeching halt. 'I've lived 18 years without even once thinking that I needed anyone but my sisters. I don't know him. He doesn't know me. He's a proud, arrogant, angry, violent, spiteful, juvenile sweetheart with a sense of honor that you could bend steel bars around. I think.' Pride bowed to irrational logic, and Sterling was left trying to figure out what she thought. 'This is SO COMPLICATED! I wish I didn't care whether or not he likes me.'
Casey bellowed, "Alright Ladies! Com'mon out and see the bright lights of the Big Apple!" The girders on the bridge flashed by as the turtles popped up from under the blankets like daisies after a rainstorm.
"All those lights! That'a A LOT of lights!" Cabbage gawked openly.
Pipes grinned, +"Yes. A lot of lights: the obvious is truly your forte."+
"You'd think with all those voices you'd have something useful to say."
Pipes chuckled wryly. +"Oh, I don't know. You've only got one voice and I've not heard anything useful from you yet."+
Shima sighed, "Knock it off you two." She turned to Donnie, "It's like pissing on a forest fire; sometimes I wonder why I bother."
Donnie nodded, "I know what you mean." Leo and Raph shot him dirty looks.
---kyabetsu here:
Ok, just 'cause I thought y'all'd get a kick out of it, I did a little illustration from Chapter 5 (IT"S SO CUTE!) and posted it on my ff.net author profile page thing.
Yes I spelled my name wrong – if you can read hirangana, I'm sure you'd point that out to me. BUT I realized my stupid gaijin mistake and fixed it on the original. I didn't bother to rescan for one lousy character though, so for all intense purposes, kyabesu = kyabetsu.
For those of you good little girls and boys who wouldn't dare contradict an author with an incomplete story in the works: you have my permission to eat cookies, skip your next day of classes, and prank call Pat Sajack. :)
Toodles! (and Review me or um, I won't have Reviews.)