"The game plan was for me to kill you."
Leo breathed out the words, let them sharpen, and stab as he shut his eyes to keep the tears from dribbling down on the pillow. He should at least have grace enough to look Raph in the eyes as he toppled whatever regard Raph might have had left.
He should open his eyes, watch the shattering, watch Raph explode and hopefully shove the sai through his gut.
Leo trembled, and twisted in the overwhelming silence, waiting for Raph's reaction.
Leo heard Raph's long, slow sigh, and grunt, the shift in the chair, the quick wince of pain.
Guilt seared, the scream welled up, and was strangled by Leo's twist in the sheets, the swallowing back of an oceans's worth of sobbing. Terror for Raph's safety kept Leo's jaw clamped shut, and the truth firmly rammed behind his teeth.
Raph, please…please leave, now. Please don't force me to drag this out. Please don't force me to hurt you anymore. I can't take much more of this, I can't! It's killing me, can't you see that I hate this?
Cracking his eyes open, Leo saw Raph's lips twist, and his eyes wide and wounded a moment. Leo's heart sank when Raph shook his head with a brittle snort, and only stared down at him with dangerously narrowed eyes.
"You're a piss-poor liar, Leo. Always have been." Raph chuckled, bitterly.
Raph….no. No! Shut up! Shut up and leave before she hears you! Why in the hell can't you just keep your big mouth shut for once?
Leo shuddered, as he hoisted himself up the few inches he could. He had to stop this conversation, now. Hopelessly attempting to work his quaking jaw into an indifferent smirk, Leo gave Raph's wrist a scathing glance.
"You have no idea how close you truly were to not having this conversation at all. Now get out."
Raph flinched at the brutal indifference, emphasized by Leo's disgusted sigh and his turning away the few inches he could.
"You ain't getting off that easy, Fearless. And I'm not leaving until you answer me."
And before Leo could yelp, he heard the chair scrape across the floor, and felt Raph's heavy, trembling fingers wrench under his chin and force him to roll his head towards him. Leo growled, and tried to twist his neck back, but it was either face Raph or have his bones snapped.
Raphael heard Leo's small whimper, the odd surrender when he shut his eyes, before relunctantly rolling his face back towards him.
Leo narrowed his eyes and jerked his face towards the wound.
"I stabbed you."
He felt Raph's fingers unclench under his wind pipe as Raph heavily sat back in the chair, eyes huge with shock and pain.
"Why?" Raph's good hand curled over the bandages, as he slowly raised his injury, blinking as if he'd never seen it before.
Holding his wrist closer to Leo's face, Raph watched as Leo's eyes flickered with some emotion that he couldn't name.
"Why did you do this to me, Leo? How in the hell could you do this?"
Leo's eyes flooded, as he blinked frantically, nearly sobbing the snarl.
"It was easy. I just overpowered you and ran you through with your own weapon. You were there, weren't you? "
Forgive me, Raph. Please, please, forgive me and get the hell away! Please get mad enough to throw a fit and leave like you always have before. Please don't force me to drive you away. I can't stand much more of this….
Raph exhaled, as that bewildered, wounded look left his face, and hardened into a strange resolve. Something awful had been confirmed.
Leo waited for Raph to leave, but Leo's frantic prayer was unanswered. Raph didn't explode. Hell, he was calm and quiet as he sat back in the chair.
The warning flickered in Leo's gut as Raph shook his head.
Raphael tilted his head, ignoring Leo's crumbling hysterics, eyes narrowed and oddly thoughtful.
He grit his teeth as he quietly snarled out the heavy words. "Cut the crap, Leo. I ain't buying the act."
"It's not an act!" Leo nearly shrieked out the desperate attempt, as Raph snorted and shook his head.
"Ya want some roses with that Oscar, Leo? I told you. Ya ain't fooling me. And I ain't leaving until I get some answers."
Leo watched in despair as Raph resolutely draped one leg over the other and lounged back, wincing when he moved his wounded wrist the wrong way.
"I gave you your answer. Now get out." Leo growled in warning as he tensed and gave the ceiling a tortured glance.
Raph's confused scowl deepened. Why the hell did Leo keep looking at the ceiling like it was threatening to fall on them all? Uneasily, he raised his eyes to the familiar bricks, and almost raised his head.
Leo felt the frenzied ball of terror lodged in his gut grow claws.
Raph, please don't look up! Please-
The panicked instinct took over, as Leo suddenly lurched upward, with a strangled cry. Wrenching forward the few inches he could, Leo twisted against the bindings, as he hissed, "I wish I had finished it, Raph! I wish that I had taken your weapon and rammed it straight through your heart! Now get out!"
Raph recoiled with the speed of a striking cobra as he hefted the sai in his good hand and clubbed Leo across the temple with the pommel.
The dull crack sounded like a gunshot in the horrible quiet as Leo flopped back into the sheets.
Raph numbly stared at the weapon in his hand, and then at Leo's twisted, heaving sprawl. The sai clattered to the floor, ignored, as Raph stood, rooted to the floor, towering over his brother, wondering why in the hell he didn't pick up the sai and finish it all.
The wound throbbed in horrible reminder. Raph grimaced as the cleansing wave of pain washed over the world, and retreated into the dark. It felt like drowning, it was so hard to fricking think or breathe or know….
Why didn't he stab Leo?
Why in the hell did he just club Leo in the head? It was a blow that merely glanced off his skull, out of instinct, out of anger. From the way that Leo was twisting against the sheets, it wasn't even hard enough to send him into oblivion.
Raphael was tense, trembling, his good hand open, fingers blindly clutching air as he stared down at the sai . His eyes slid to his wound.
Leo writhed against the thundering ache in his skull, blinked and wrenched his eyes open.
Woozy from the blow and slurring, he whispered, "What are you waiting for? Finish it."
Leo shut his eyes, numb and waiting for the killing blow that he vaguely wondered would hurt or be so fast that he felt nothing. Raph would be quick. He wouldn't just stop with one stab wound and leave him alive to be tortured.
Leo heard Raph's grunt as he stooped to pick up his weapon. His eyes cracked open to see Raphael scowling as he shook his head.
Twirling the sai with his good hand, Raph's eyes slid towards over the shimmering metal. Leo's eyes buldged as Raphael only tucked his weapon back into its holder, and sat back, laying both hands in his lap.
"Why?" Leo breathed out thickly as he rolled his head against the pillow. "Why are you leaving me alive?"
Raph narrowed his eyes in sudden, sick understanding. "That's what you get me so worked up and pissed off that I'd just run ya through. You really thought I'd kill you, Leo?"
Raph fell silent in disbelief, as Leo's mouth quirked. "I was sort of counting on it, Raph. Now is a very, very odd time to finally learn how to manage your anger."
"Oh, I get it." Raphael's voice was burning as acid, when his bitter, broken chuckle filled the room.
"You don't have the guts to do yourself in, but you have it in you to stab me and hope that I do the job for you. Fearless, my ass."
Raphael waved a hand with a snarl. "Come on, Fearless. It ain't that complicated, is it? You could have wondered off into the sewer somewhere and fall on your sword. You could have gotten yourself shot. Hell, you could have taken a weekend off at the farmhouse and just did yourself in there, where nobody would find you. And out of all the ways to die, you pick this?"
Raph raised his sai, and blinked back tears. "You sick son of a bitch!"
He shoved his brutalized limb inches from Leo's eyes and watched as Leo flinched and tried to look away.
"Oh, no, big brother. You ain't getting off that easy." Raphael's sai ghosted over his quaking throat, knicked him above his jawline, and Leo could either roll his head or get another scar. When he didn't move fast enough, he heard Raph's growl, and the familiar thundering ache as Raph clubbed his temple with the sai's pummel.
Stunned into surrendering, Leo allowed Raph to roughly shove his face towards the wall, and his eyes dully swept over Raph's bandages.
"You wanna know why I'm not running you through? You really want to know why I don't just stab you in the guts? Because I know that this feels like." Raph snarled.