THE SOMA SAGA III: CELEBRATION
Twenty-one years flew by in the blink of an eye. Sure, my memory had been spotty as of late, but it still blew my mind that we'd been on the earth for more than two decades. Being our first Mutation Day celebrated without Splinter, my first thought for a present was to call off training for the day, so all of us could sleep well into the mid-morning. I slinked out of Donatello's room while everyone was still asleep to set my other presents on the kitchen table: brand-new silk masks and pads, and weapons from a classical Japanese forge, crafted from tamahagane jewel steel and burgundy-stained oak. They'd cost a pretty penny, but considering my brothers and I all split the bank account filled when Don and Mike had been getting paychecks, I figured they wouldn't mind a little impulse buy; heaven knows they all deserved the best I could find.
Shortly after laying my gifts out, Mike came sliding down the railing from his room.
"You're already up?" He pouted. "Way to ruin my surprise breakfast, spoil-sport."
"As if I didn't notice all the bacon and cinnamon bun dough in the fridge yesterday." I chuckled, as he rounded the corner to the living room. When he came back and noticed the new gear in his place at the table, he nearly dropped the box marked "PS4" in his arms.
"Leo…" He set it down. "These are totally fucking radical!" rolling the nunchaku in his fingers and seeing how the steel dragon inlay spiraled around the wooden shaft. Practically jumping onto me and wrapping his arms around my shoulders, I planted a chaste kiss on his forehead.
"Happy Mutation Day, little bro."
Helping Mike crack the eggs for the French toast and chop the potatoes for the home fries was one of the first chances I'd got to spend time one-on-one with him since we'd come back to the lair. I learned what it was like for him to join the Justice Force, how he'd started acting on his feelings for Raph, and how they'd been making progress on busting up a Purple Dragons drug ring up top. I told him I wanted to tag along soon. Eventually, Raph woke up, and dragged his presents out of the closet: a new skateboard for Mike, bike for Don, and for me, a bright new chrome scooter. When Don rolled out of bed and brought us our new cellphones and laptops, we all dug in to Mike's gourmet breakfast. When the topic of how we would spend the rest of the day came up, Raph sauntered over to the freezer and fished around in the back.
"I got a couple ideas." He smirked. "Maybe it ain't five PM yet, but I figure nothing says 'twenty-first birthday' like this." He slammed a tall glass bottle of shochu, another of milky white sake, and four frosted shot glasses down on the table. "Shipped straight from Japan, courtesy of Casey." Mike and I looked on with ravenous interest, and Don with uncertainty, as he lined up four shots of the bitter-smelling shochu and slid them across the table to each of us.
"To being a turtle?" Mikey offered, raising his glass, and all four of us echoed in unison as our glasses clinked and a splash of the clear fluid sloshed down to the table. Raph and Mike hooked through each other's arms to rocket down their glasses, and following suit I tipped mine back. Wincing as I stomached the burn, I watched in laughter as Don eyed it hesitantly, reluctantly sipping from his glass only to almost spit out his mouthful and choking it down with a grimace. Mikey stuck his tongue out, but returned his glass to the table as Raph started pouring more. Donnie leaned across the table to whisper to me.
"Leo…you didn't take any medicine today, did you?" Raph slid my glass back to me, and I raised a finger to Don for a moment as I poured it straight down my throat, exhaling the potent vapors with a huff.
"Just half of one, I think."
"You think? It isn't supposed to be mixed with alcohol…"
My memories of the rest of the day are a bit of a haze. I remember trying out the new scooter at one point, attempting to jump the coffee table and landing face-first in the couch as Raph screeched to a stop on his rollerblades, bursting at the seams with laughter until he lost balance too. At one point, Mike hooked the new laptop Don gave him to the living room's speaker setup, and the heavy reggae bass from "Jamming" shook his shot glass off the coffee table, shattering on the floor. He took the bottle of sake off the DVD player and took a few hearty swigs as he laughed it off before Don snatched it from him and did the same. After a few moments, he rushed to the trashcan in the kitchen and folded in half, audibly filling the bag with the contents of his stomach. I held his shoulders, keeping my nose away from the can until all that came out of his mouth was foul air and wretched heaving noises, as Raph materialized behind us to berate Donnie and call him names.
Sometime after that, maybe hours, I remember Raph shouting terribly off-pitch into the Rock Band microphone in the living room, Don furiously clicking away on the guitar controller to keep pace with the angry metal. Mike and I were play-sparring in the weight room with our new weapons, and smartly I kept the sheaths on my swords, because neither of us was able to fight properly, let alone stay on our feet for too long. After one too many cheap shots to the side and quick bruises inflicted on tops of our heads, I threw my swords to the ground mock-dramatically and charged to tackle him at the waist, sending both of us tumbling and skidding on the concrete in a giggling, hiccupping whirlwind. Both lying on the cool grey floor, I got lost in the pale blue of his irises and boundless energy exuding from his smile. Gravity threw us toward each other. Our lips met, and when they parted, it didn't feel like either of us had made a mistake.
That didn't stop me from panicking about how wrong it was, though. Stumbling back to my feet, I scurried out of the room like a chased animal. Loyalty had been one of the few things grounding my identity in reality, and I'd left it there in the weight room lying beside Mike. Led only by that same fearful instinct, I found myself in my bedroom, rummaging through the nightstand recklessly until the small amber bottle met my fingers. Don told me I needed to stop thinking everything so deeply into everything I did, and the only thing that'd helped me forget moral worry was the pills. I needed them. Sliding one onto my fingertip, I let the weight of my mind slowly blink my eyelids down as the tart flavor coated my tongue. Twice I blinked, and that momentary blackness is the last thing I remember for a long while.
Cliffhangers are my thing now, if you haven't already caught that :)
For any of you made uncomfortable for all the drugs and drinking, I promise this is the last chapter solely devoted to the bros behaving like fraternity animals. Actual plot coming next chapter, I swear!
Please review and recommend!
