IT'S ALIIIIIVE! Haha.
Chapter 8:
A hot shower felt good, and it served its purpose of buying more time for Leo to think about his situation with the youngest.
Instead, he found his internal train of thought glued to the topic of Raph and Mike. Normally, feeling the tense atmosphere between the two would have Leo on the alert. Considering Raphael's wishy-washy affect, he might still have reason to worry, especially after the morning's scuffle. There was no denying the importance of a good conversation between the two, considering the relationship they had the past few weeks.
It was especially important for Mikey.
Now, the question up for internal debate was whether to approach the youngest today for a talk. Leo wanted to get the it off of his chest; it was beginning to nag him, for he could only recall heatedly arguing with Mike a few times. And really, he never had the ability to hold a grudge with anyone but Raph… the guilt always set in hours after a spat. But it was possible that depending on the course of Raph's talk the youngest was had that he would be unwilling to chat again. Especially so soon. They hadn't had a full twenty four hours to cool off, and he'd gotten Mike pretty riled up.
The water came off with a bang of pipes. Steam floated heavily in the air, rolling lazily around the ceiling vent. Emerging, it was apparent that Raph had fallen asleep. The door was cracked open to the hothead's room, and snores could be heard.
Deciding to take a chance, Leo headed to the kitchen to find his brother shifting through the pots and pans in the cupboard. Leisurely heading for a top cabinet, Leo removed a glass for water.
He drank and put the glass down with a dull clank. "Hey."
The greeting was rewarded with a backward glance. "You were out long."
"Was just clearing my head."
A snort.
"Listen, are you willing to talk?"
"About what?" Flatly, an obvious no. But not one that was explicitly stated, so Leo chose to keep going.
"I wanted to tell you that I'm sorry for the argument we had earlier."
Slightly slumping his shoulders, Mike heaved a sigh. "Yeah, sorry. I don't like getting like that."
Well, that was easy. "I know. It's hard. I shouldn't be trying to push this stuff on you like I have."
He didn't have to prompt further. Mike was heading right to the good stuff. "It's going to kill us, Leo. That lifestyle."
"Ninjitsu? It is what we live for."
He emerged from the cabinet, sitting on his haunches and looking up. "It already took our father. We've had enough close calls. It might not happen for years, but eventually, we're going to lose someone else."
"If we discontinue training, let ourselves go, then yes it will. Someday, somebody is going to find us."
"Not if we hide!"
"We've made enemies, Mike! Hiding can only work for so long! They've found us, they've found us before. They can do it again no matter where we go. That's why we need to keep training." Pause, and Leo couldn't help the desperation that slipped in to his voice, thoughts whirling around defenseless and danger and what if I can't be there to protect them? "We need to be able to defend ourselves."
Silence stretched the slow seconds to follow. Mike glared, and a determined Leonardo refused to look away. The elder of the two wasn't stupid; that had been his best argument, his most reasonable, and yet he could see Mike attempting to brew another retort.
Mike clicked his tongue and stood up, knees popping. "You know... I really hope that I'm the next one to die. That way I don't have to live through any of this bullshit again."
Leo's breath came out in a huff. He hadn't expected that one. "Don't start with that."
"One of us is going to go. Eventually." They stared each other down across the kitchen, Leo's mouth open in half-formed rebuttal. "I'd rather be the one. That way, I won't have to look at the rest of you when it happens, and I won't have to deal with all this bull again."
"Mike, listen-"
"No. You're gonna listen to me. Raph won't, so you…" He cut himself off with a slicing motion of his hand, "If I have to live through it... if I have to do it again, I don't know what I'll do. What's the next stage for me, Leo?" He jerked his head upward, toward the second floor. "Raph? Do I end up like him?"
Leo could only watch as Mike swallowed hard, clutching the old chair mismatched with other ones around the table, knuckles white as the wood groaned in protest. "And- what, that's not gonna help Raph at all either. I don't want to- I don't want to see him get worse." A short peal of laughter, a bit hysterical, "I-I can't even look at him now. I know he thinks I hate him or something, but… I just can't deal with it. With how he is."
He began to pace. "And Don, he's going to fall apart. The only thing that keeps him is taking care of us, but if he has to prepare another body, he'll split right down the middle."
Taking a step forward, the croaked beginning of a response just escaped Leo's lips before Mikey's palm slammed on the table, making the miscellaneous items scattered there jump with the force. Practiced calm kept Leo from flinching, even if he cringed inwardly at Mike's voice, raised for the umpteenth time in twenty-four hours. The wry, sarcastic little voice in his head, wryly named the Punisher for all the pain and suffering it caused him, compared the record to the weeks after Splinter's death.
"I'm still talking! I know you 'know.' But in reality, you haven't seen Don. You go off on your own little excursions, and you leave us here, you and Raph, and you don't know how fucking depressing it gets in here with just us. So don't—don't even… Which brings me to you."
Finger jabbing the space between them, the orange masked one leveled his eyes over his hand, taking aim like he was holding a gun. "You won't let yourself go. You're too caught up in all this crap of trying to sustain us, but really, you're guilty as hell. And you won't let us help you, because for whatever reason, that'd make you more guilty." He scoffed at the look on his older brother's face. "What, you really think that you're the only one keeping track of how we're doing, and that we don't notice you? Do you think you're the only one who cares about other people's wellbeing, or do you just think you being the only one to care is how it should be?"
"Mike-"
Again with the hand slicing the air, and suddenly Leo's little brother wouldn't look at him. " No, don't, I'm not finished. …What if another one of us has to die, because you insisted on keeping up with that lifestyle? I don't want to see that either, bro. I don't want to be here to see any of it, when it happens. So, I want to be the one to die."
Throat working, it was a full thirty seconds before the oldest could respond, quietly, but with utmost certainty, "I wouldn't let you die."
The laugh that escaped Mike's throat was bitter, raw, "I just told you, I want to be the one to go. I don't want anybody else to fucking save me by taking a bullet." Angry disposition dissolving with Leo's flinch, Mike's look turned imploring, eyes glazed over but not overflowing. Yet. "I can't be the only one left. I can't. I don't care how selfish that makes me. I just, I-"
Leo took a step forward, which Mike mirrored in the opposite direction, shaking his head. Heart splintering, Leo let his hand flop like a dead weight against his side, watching his brother breathe deeply and tremble in an attempt to contain himself.
This conversation would give Leo a lot to reflect upon, that was for sure… but he'd be damned if he thought he could do it without providing some sort of closure on this distress. His first, almost maternal, reaction was to touch, and yet he understood Mike's refusal. So, he gave his brother a moment.
"Mike… I'm just trying to do what's best for this family. I'm lost. I'm not Splinter. I don't know what to do, other than to keep going. I-I can't… either way, Mike, we're gonna live in fear. And if you guys can't defend yourselves..."
He trailed off, and Mike sat abruptly in the chair, head in his hands, maintaining his silence. Leo reminded himself to stay put, even as his own need for physical comfort (something he often ignored, but it did add to the distress) began to itch.
He didn't think Mike would speak again. "What do you figure his last wishes were?"
A few moment's thought, and Leo shook his head as though trying to clear some physical substance. His eyes burned. "Master Splinter wanted us to train, to protect ourselves."
His brother looked up, looked him in the face, and something there… crumbled. Though not in a bad way. He looked relieved, but saddened. Leo couldn't put his finger on it, feeling strangely numb; whatever was there, it had Mike standing, hesitating, like he now wanted to close the distance between the two of them.
As though the entire world had flopped on it's back in that moment, Mike's voice had changed. He wasn't angry any more… more tired. The words were soft, almost soothing. "No, Leo. He wanted us to live. That's why he took the hit."
Cutting the conversation short was a shrill siren emitting from both of their shell cells. Leo watched Mike's face pale immediately, his well-trained mind reacting within seconds, knowing what the sound meant.
Punctuating the tail end of the noise was the sound of Raphael's door sliding open with a slam. Leaping from the balcony as though burned by hellfire, he was off down the sewer tunnels just as his feet hit the ground with a flash of bluish light, following his phone's GPS signal to their brother.
"Donnie!"