Author's comments: Oh boy, you would not believe how hectic I have been lately. I managed to get myself a job, a blessing in some ways but I find busy days of 9-5 leave me feeling less and less like sitting down and thinking up chapters. Sad though, because that means the updates didn't come as thick or as fast. I received so much positive encouragements and pleas to update ASAP, and I'm sorry to the new reviewers I've picked up if it seemed that the story just died when you found it. I realize I haven't updated in maybe over six or nine months and that's just WRONG. Thank you for the support and I will try to set aside a few hours a night to work on this story now to get it finished.
Disclaimer: I don't own Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles or any names, characters, places or events therein covered by the copyright. My only claim to this is my OC 'Madeline'. (See comment above Disclaimer in chapter 1 for why not to sue me)
CHAPTER 8 --
Since the almost-massage yesterday morning, Leonardo had kept his distance from her, and Madeline was fretting as to why. Up until that point, he had seemed to take it as his duty to be her exclusive guide, pulling the chair out for her when she had sat down, hovering close by. Come dinner time, it had been Michaelangelo whom had helped her into her seat, his older brother strangely quiet.
Perhaps she had overstepped a barrier of personal space with him? They were barely strangers, and when she thought about it, the gesture had been….. border-line intimate.
Guilted and worrying for offending the brother whom had been becoming a fast friend, Madeline decided directly after breakfast she would find Leo and apologize.
The question was, where had he gone?
Seeking out the noise of the television in the central hub of the platform-- it sounded like someone was watching Scooby Doo cartoons-- the blind woman came up behind the couch. Placing her hand on the back of the sofa, she asked quietly to the viewer: "Excuse me?"
The voice of the youngest turtle sounded happy to see her. "Hey, babe!" he greeted with soft whumps as he patted the cushions undercutting his words. "Wanna watch an all weekend Scooby marathon? The gang is just about to bust the bogus Devil Bear!"
Madeline could not help but smile. She affectionately shifted her grip on the makeshift cane Mikey had fashioned as she thought to herself he could be the perfect little brother she never had. The cane was just a broom handle cut to the right length, with some cloth wrapped around one end for a grip and a ping pong ball shoved on the other. It was heavier then she was used to, but worked almost as well.
"No, thank you, Michael," she girl declined, imagining the disappointed expression on his face as she said it. "Maybe later? I was just looking for Leo…"
"Oh, he's in the dojo, workin' out. Like five hours a day isn't enough, you know?"
Madeline remembered the location of the training facility from the 'grand tour' Donatello and Raphael had treated her to before bed the night before. It was vaguely to her left, up one small raise and down a concrete ledge and then right into a narrow brick passageway. A few meters along and the corridor opened up onto a different platform, this one closed off as Donnie had informed her, to form a hall-like area.
"Want me to take you to him?" Michaelangelo was asking, interrupting her mental review of the path.
"Oh, no no, Mikey." She smiled, reaching over the back of the couch to rub the top of his smooth, warm and bald skull as if ruffling up hair he didn't have. The gesture produced a little squeal from the ninja and he playfully batted her hand off. "I wouldn't want you to miss the climax after all! I'll be fine, I know the way…"
"Well, aight, but just holler if you get lost or something!" he called as she began to head off on her search.
Madeline nodded wordlessly a confirmation to his offer and quickly found the step. She passed beyond it, broom-cane sweeping the floor infront of her cautiously (after all she was staying with four young men who were probably apt to leaving weapons just laying around for people to trip on). Finding the place where the platform narrowed into the small service entrance, she ran her other hand over the wall as she walked until it fell away under her fingers. Entering the corridor tentatively, the only sound to keep her company in this chilly part of the deserted subway was the sound of her feet shuffling over the bare concrete.
As she went further along however, the distinct sounds of masculine grunts and the hollow –THWACK CLONK THWACK- of wood impacting wood came to her ears. Yes, Leo was definitely working out. Who else could it be? He was the only one unaccounted for this morning: Master Splinter was brewing a pot of green tea in the kitchen carriage, Mikey was watching cartoons and Donnie and Raph had gone up into the streets to get pizza.
When the side to side movements of the cane no longer touched the walls she knew she had emerged from the corridor and there was a profound agoraphobic sense of a wide open space. The air just seemed thinner and cooler, less cozy. A curious smell was in the air-- salty and yet slightly musky. So that was what a turtle working out hard smelt like?
"Leonardo?" she called his name softly and heard it echo.
Immediately the sounds of wood slapping together stopped and a silence stretched out. Madeline stood there and felt her hand tighten white-knuckled around the grip of the broom handle. She expected him to send her away. Had she infringed upon some personal ritual of his?
He had turned around to be greeted by a sight of beauty.
A shaft of watery daylight filtered through from a grate high above, spotlighting the girl and lighting her dark hair, her pale skin, in shades of silver. It was a dramatic contrast to the golden dim glow of the thousand candles lining the walls of this place, making it seem as if she were more then the darkness down here. Somehow celestial, even holding that stupid cane.
He dropped his bokken with a hollow clatter and turned away from the wooden dummy, drawn towards her as if his feet had a mind of their own. Silently he closed the distance between them until he hovered by her right shoulder, close enough he could feel her breath cooling the damp sweat on his body.
Minutes dragged by and he finally found his voice in something just above a whisper. "Is something ….. the ….. matter?"
It seemed his voice so close to her startled the blind woman, as if he had unintentionally snuck up. Madeline shifted on reflex to her left and almost ran into a tall candle stand. The trained-turtle's hands snapped out and gripped her around the shoulders, pulling her up short of spilling hot wax and flame all over herself, pulling her back in close to his body. "Be careful, there's candles everywhere in here. You don't want to burn yourself…" he mumbled by way of explanation.
"Oh, I didn't realize…" she murmured, sheepishly. As his hands smoothed over her thick, dark mane, searching for any singes and down her arms, the young woman held still. She was wearing the t-shirt they had found her in that night in the park, the only piece of clothing which had come away without any rips or tears from her assailants greedy hands. The memory of the man crushing her against the tree in the rain, his hands forced on her skin stirred a powerful sense of possessiveness in the eldest turtle. His hold tightened just above her elbows and he exhaled a deep sighing breath as his arms pulled her into a tight, unexplained embrace.
Distantly, Leonardo heard her utter a short, faint gasp of surprise as she came up against his solid frame. Her body stiffened defensively for the barest of moments then trembled and relaxed before her arms found their way around him to cling to the back of his shell. As he brushed the tip of his blunt snout against her soft hair, taking a deep pull of its scent, the ninja breathed: "No, my fault… I should have warned you…"
His hands spread wide and pressed tightly against her back rubbed slowly up and down from the small of her waist to the nape of her neck with something so close to tenderness it didn't matter. The comforting gesture drew a sigh of relief from her and he swore he heard her say his name.
Just that simple fact caused something to slam open inside his chest and his entire body to tighten so hard it hurt. They were alone and he didn't have to worry about his guilt now, just enjoy her touch, her smell, her warmth and the delicate sounds she made in his arms. He felt light headed, but that too was a pleasure in itself.
As he found it somewhere in his willpower to let go of her, Madeline took the loosening of his arms to mean the passing of the moment and began to pull away. Their cheeks grazed-- gently pebbled, rubbery green skin against smooth, soft pale flesh-- and Leonardo was startled as he sucked in the sweet taste of her exhale where it mingled on the tip of his tongue. All of a sudden, without his volition, the thought exploded in his mind and body: what would she taste like right then if he kissed her?
Could he kiss her? For a moment of suspended reality, Leo forgot the fact he was too gentlemanly to try and pondered just how their mouths, so different, would actually mesh together. He'd seen couples kiss before; in cheesy soap operas on TV, on the street. Human couples. The way they sunk their mouths deep into one another, their tongues twining in a moist dance eluded him now. After all, he had never seen a mutant turtle kiss like that…
Wait, what in the shell was he even THINKING?
"Leonardo?…" her voice whispered, close to his cheek, and he felt his pulse skip when he heard a subtle breathlessness to it. Had she been thinking the same thing? He felt her small fingertips slip down his shoulders to rest around his biceps, squeezing there gently, almost affectionately. For the first time in his life, the ninja felt his throat run dry.
"Y….Yeah?" he managed to reply, startled by how dry and soft his voice was.
"Thank you…"
The startled turtle saw her face lean closer, saw her rise up onto her tip toes, felt her hold on his arms tighten. He wanted to yell out 'stop!': for a heart-stopping instant Leonardo thought she was going to try. He was torn between fear of the unknown and alien desire.
But to both his disappointment and relief, the soft peals of her lips only pressed against the rounded curve of his cheek. He held still, so very still, feeling her warm breath against his face, until it felt an eternity later she slid back down onto her heels and her lips left him.
In the moment after, the young mutant was acutely aware of the rigid tightness of his muscles and the sudden watering of his mouth. A brief impulse to return the gesture, fulfill his curiosity and know what Madeline Breckin tasted like twisted in his gut. But chivalrous Leonardo managed to simply return the fond squeeze around her shoulders and say:
"You're welcome."
And there you have it, folks. The chapter which took almost nine months to write! Don't worry, I won't keep you waiting that long for the next one. Let's see if curiosity really seduced the turtle!
