Title: "His Good Intentions"
Author: Pirate Turner
Rating: R due to mature content
Summary: His beaten, blue bandana was the first to go. He would never wear that mask again.
Warnings: Drabblish, Death fic
Word Count: 525
Date Written: 10 January, 2012
Challenge: For a TMNT-Tuesdays LJ comm's weekly challenge
Disclaimer: Leonardo, all other characters mentioned within, and The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles are ﾩ & TM their rightful owners, none of whom are the author. Everything else is ﾩ & TM the author. The author makes absolutely no profit off of this work of fan fiction, and no copyright infringement is intended.
The sky was gray and weeping on that fateful day as three who had once been four stood alone above an unmarked grave. The one in charge barely lifted his head as Raphael drove a headstone he'd shaped with his sais into the ground at their baby brother's sleeping head. He remembered waking him up when they'd been younger. He'd always worn the sweetest expressions then, but he'd never get to see that sweetness again.
Their father came. Words were said. Through it all, he barely moved, barely breathed. The world continued spinning around him, and yet all he could think was of the past, the moments he had shared with his beloved brother, the moments of which there would never be another because of his own foolishery.
One by one, his family left him alone as he should be. They clasped his taut shoulder, but he barely felt the pressures of their comforting squeezes or steely gazes. When all were gone and the world still moved on, he continued to stand alone at his baby brother's grave.
His beaten, blue bandana was the first to go. It drifted down onto the fresh grave from loosened fingers that had forgotten they were holding it. He wouldn't pick it up, he told himself. He'd never wear that mask again. He'd never wear the burden of being a leader again.
And then he followed it, dropping to his knees and wailing like a banshee, wailing with all the heartache and misery that spun through his soul and left his heart buried far deeper than his baby brother's broken bones. He'd never see his bright smile again, never hear his laugh again. He'd never get to hold him in his arms again or tell him it would be okay and soothe his fears. He'd never get to do any of those things ever again, and it was all his fault.
Leonardo cursed the monsters who had killed his brother. He cursed his father for making him the leader and his still living brothers for following his idiotic decisions. Most of all, he cursed himself, his stupid brain and failure, his rotten soul, and his good intentions for getting his brother killed, and even after he finally allowed himself to be pulled away from his little brother's grave, Leonardo kept cursing.
He kept screaming inside, wailing over his loss and failure, wailing over the one person he'd never get to hold again and whose love would always mean the most to him, and another little piece of the brave warrior he'd once been died away each day until, at long last, the emptied shell of his body was laid in the ground next to his brother's where he belonged, next to his brother whom his soul had never left.
The Heavens wept again that day. The remaining two Turtles and their Father howled again as once they had done not too long ago but yet also too far past, but in the land beyond mortal sight, two Turtles reunited with high fives and huge hugs and turned to wait together for their broken family to become whole once more.
The End