Never-NeverLand – Chapter 15
Cabbage tried not to wiggle around too much. 'This can't be comfortable for him. I'm not exactly well padded.' She glanced down at the top of her brother's head. "Spots." Pipes chuckled quietly. 'I hate it when she's like that. She sounds like a complete yogurt-head.'
Raphael's sudden shout unbalanced Cabbage, so her attention was elsewhere when his fussing rolled past her in the tunnel. Cabbage looked to Pipes who shrugged, but they both heard Shima's husky laughter. Pipes' eyes grew to the size of saucers; Cabbage could feel herself start to blush. She looked back, 'Yup, there's Donnie looking like a goosed school girl.' Cabbage smiled hugely. Donatello must have seen the white of her teeth, because he was suddenly avoiding eye contact-- with limited results. Pipes winked, and flashed a thumbs up. Donatello looked like he wanted the earth to swallow him. She nearly fell off Mike's other shoulder laughing.
"Pipe-let, what is it with you?" Mike paused to readjust her seating. "Remind me to make waffles in the morning. You're gonna eat yours with about a quart of ice cream. We'll get rid of that pointy butt!"
Pipes was suddenly silent. 'I hate my body.'
Cabbage reached over and put her hand over her sister's on the back ridge of Mike's shell. She shook her head as if to say, "Pay no attention to him. He didn't mean it." Pipes refused to acknowledge Cabbage's efforts.
"Wake up, Sterling! We're here." Leo stood her upright and shook her shoulders until she opened her eyes. He made sure she was balanced and then disappeared through the floor.
"Whaa?" Sterling shook her head, trying to clear her mind. 'Leo went slowly into the floor. That can't be right.'
A light came on down below, illuminating a circular hole with a ladder leading down into it. 'Or up from it, if that's the way fancy takes you.' Sterling blinked as the ladder blurred into two. 'Twice as handy. How convenient.'
Cabbage was suddenly at her side. "Down there, huh?" She looked Sterling up and down. 'Damn she's a mess. She's so groggy, that sedative must still be lingering in her system.' Cabbage reached over to Sterling's upper arm and gave the triceps muscle a strong pinch and twist. "Wake up!"
Sterling's eyes shone with pain, rage, and thankfully, lucidity. "NNNNNGGGG!"
Cabbage was on the ladder. "You can't sleepwalk down one of these without breaking your neck. You can sleep when you get to the bottom." She disappeared from view, but not before Sterling mimed stepping on her head.
Sterling followed Cabbage, and was followed by a subdued Pipes. Mike jumped down, startling the three girls at the bottom.
Pipes forgot about Mike's unintentional insult the instant her head cleared the ceiling of the room beneath. 'LOOK at this place! There's STUFF everywhere! It must be bigger than the farmhouse! The ceilings are so strange; and the lights, why are there so many sockets? Where did they get all these things?' She resisted the urge to run her hands over the fabrics hanging off the dummies. Pipes stared intently at a paint-by-number picture of the 'Last Supper'. +"Crazy."+ Her attention flitted to the collection of street signs hanging on the walls. +"Yield, Stop, Right Turn Only, Speed Limit 35, No Parking, No Dumping…"+ She poked the skirt on a hula girl lamp. 'A lamp?'
Sterling pinched herself. 'This is too weird. What is this place? The structure seems completed; there's no exposed piping or wiring or ventilation. So this place was functional once. But as what? With all those lighting sockets it must have glowed like summer solstice on Mercury. The brick mason had some impressive talent to form those arches with a herringbone pattern like that. That layout is no mean feat. '
Mike grinned like a proud parent. Pipes and Sterling were clearly awed by the place. He turned to catch Cabbage's reaction. She looked strained and overwhelmed; not quite what he'd hoped for. "So what'd you think?" He moved her towards the stairs to make room for Shima and Donatello in the entryway.
Cabbage tried to phrase her questions politely, failed, and gave up on trying. "Where do you guys sleep? How do you cook? Where do you bathe?" She sounded near tears with confusion. 'We came so far, and there are all those humans in the city above keeping us down here, and the tunnels are a maze anyways, and it's so dirty, and the farm was perfect, and…'
Leonardo took her hand. "There is a bathroom, a kitchen, and a handful of bedrooms all off this main room." His voice was soothing. "Why don't you and your sisters wash up and get ready for bed, huh?" He pointed out a door with a little stick turtle drawn on it. "There's clean towels in the cupboard." She nodded and collected her sisters.
Mike shot Leo a look that he completely failed to acknowledge. 'There he goes again. What's with him? Cabbage is… aargh! I really gotta talk to him. I'm just too tired to mess him up properly right now.' "Master Splinter gone to bed?"
"Yeah."
"Good, then I got dibs on his recliner."
"Yeah, so thanks for helping me get the cooler down the ladder. Especially cause I had this huge-ass duffle bag." Raphael felt cheated. He'd missed his sisters' first reactions to the Lair because of that fuckin' cooler. He dropped himself on the couch, stretching out, feet on the arm and throw pillows behind his knees, to make sure he'd staked first claim on it. 'I'm not sleepin' on the fuckin' ground.' "So Donnie, what was so funny that you forgot how to walk?"
Mike and Leo turned. Mikey piped up, rolling his shoulders to work the aches out, "Yeah, I couldn't turn around, but she sure sounded tickled."
Raphael smirked drowsily at the ceiling. "She sounded like she was doing the tickling."
Leonardo cracked Raphael across the souls of his feet with the scabbard of his katana. "Watch what you say about our sister! And Shima especially. Maybe the others flirt, but she's been through an awful lot just to deal with your tasteless comments."
Raphael sat up. "Maybe she's traumatized, Leo, but she ain't dead. What's tasteless about—"
"JUST SHUT UP!" Donatello shook with embarrassment and rage. "Nothing. Happened. Just. Let. It. Alone." He made to go to his lab. He had a cot in there.
Mike blinked; he'd never seen his quiet brother explode like that. "Don-kun, you gonna be ok…?"
"Yeah. One of the girls can have my room. I'll sleep in the lab." He turned and vanished into his sanctuary.
kyabetsu here—
ok. out of 30 odd people and 3 chapters Tears erupt from head like twin waterfalls nobody loves me!!! sniffle I try not to be hypocritical, I review more often than not when I read. and I feel cheap asking for reviews. like straight out. but I update often because I thought you CARED… room beginning to flood. cat hides in drop ceiling even if you just say "boo." really. that's enough. It makes me feel like there's actually some one with a pulse reading these things. (no insult intended to the undead or the out-right dead.)
so I'm done. sniffle
thank you for reading. regardless of whether or not you review. :)