A/N: This is kind of slow and nothing special, pretty dull, but I really wanted/needed to write it. I make myself sad.
"Speak low, if you speak love."
Their passions are made of nothing but the finest part of pure love. Love. Madness that is the greatest of heaven's blessings. Love. Hearts that are always young. ( A collection of one-shots with prompts, written for Leorai Week 2018 )
My love, how is it possible to escape from each other?
How do you expect us to change a sky?
Now that we are similar to twin round moons
that stay up late with the same soft sigh
Secrets
Karai likes to think she knows him. Well.
It shouldn't be hard after all; Leonardo is like an open book, full of apparent emotions, which are drawn clear and nice on his boyish features. She knows him, but – it's almost as if Karai can understand him all too easily.
And it's somewhere there when it hits her; he wants her to understand him. She realizes that all the little things she has picked up, the sudden expressions flashing on his face, his actions, fleeting clues – these things are traits he has allowed himself to showcase – and her to observe.
She should have figured out earlier, he is a ninja after all, and a damn good one, apparently.
The real Leonardo – no, she hasn't had the chance to meet him, yet. She'd like to – but, maybe, the feeling's mutual for him, too.
It's barely as if she can see a gleam of it – of the real Leo – when he leans in her ear, while she's wrapped around a blanket and carefully placed on the cold floor, which isn't so cold anymore, and whispers, "Can I tell you a secret?" There is an odd, little smile playing on his lips, and Karai can't help but snort.
"Huh?"
"A secret," his smile widens playfully, perhaps stretches in a strange way that Karai cannot exactly comprehend, and she narrows his eyes at him, her mouth crooked. "Is this going to be one of those cheesy scenes in movies? 'Cause I'm not really up for that now," she offers dryly.
Leo first deadpans, then shakes his head in amusement. "Look," he presses unconcerned by her lack of enthusiasm, motioning his head to the center of the… living room, if Karai can call it that.
She follows his movements and as her eyes set on the spectacle in front of her, she isn't sure how she's supposed to react.
It's a huge chaos; Michelangelo has created something like a castle – a fort – made of piles of the blankets Raphael had gracefully stolen from April's place. For her. And that shouldn't sound so weird for the turtle in orange, but there's an almost identical fort, one occupied by Donatello, who wears a much lighter blanket as a cape around him with haughty importance.
Raphael is lying on the floor, looking like an overdramatic Romeo as he screams towards Michelangelo's side, "Avenge me!"
Karai can literally feel Leo's arm brushing up against her in that oddly infuriating yet comforting manner, which drives her mad and twists her stomach. He's practically shaking with laughter and Karai is close to joining him with soft chuckles till a stern voice reaches her and her eyes go wide.
"We will not fall!" Splinter is standing, proud and tall as always, besides Donatello and with the way even his whiskers giggle, she steadily wraps her mind around the fact that he – her father- he is taking part in the part in the game, as well.
And that's enough to make her burst into laughter, truly and genuinely amused, Michelangelo's battle cries, or more accurately incoherent rambling, still ringing in her ears.
"I'M A MACHINE OF DESTRUCTION, I FEAR NO THREAT – except if Sensei bans my permission in the kitchen, then I'm giving you my flag!"
"Dude!"
"Sawrry Raphie, I have priorities, okay?"
Once Karai's finally done laughing, her eyes settling on Leo, a bit wet, he reaches closer to her, swiping the tears – happy tears! – away with fingers so gruff yet so gentle that they make Karai's insides squirm pleasantly.
His effect on her isn't that perceptible as a smirk makes its way on her lips, tugging her mouth, but Leo's faint pink flush against his forest green cheeks doesn't go unnoticed – it never did.
He clears his throat uncomfortable when she doesn't talk, before pressing his lips into a thin line, eyes looking around the mess in the living room and then, shifting on her face.
His eyes are serious, words picked carefully. "If I lost one of them, I wouldn't know what to do," he says, as a way of revealing his secret. Karai shivers at his tone, moving warily in her blanket.
The hand that was before on her face is now resting on her palm, these same fingers caressing the back of her hand.
She forces her eyes to leave their hands and stare into his. They light up in ways Karai has never seen them before as something shines on his face, something truthful and instinctively Leo-like. It's sort of as if she finally gets to meet him and know him, because he trusts her.
"I think… I think I'd die," he says decisively and swallows hard, barely audible that she almost misses it, but she doesn't – and her eyes catch his in a rush, a silent, confusing yet soothing compromise passing between them, making Karai feel warm in her blanket.
The rigid look in his eyes and his steady voice, laced with selfless truth, so opposite from the optimistic light that usually adorns Leo so often – they make Karai's heart pound like she's been sparring for hours.
It's barely a flicker – Leonardo is still what she'd call expressionless; when he wants to, he can pull up the same best incomprehensible façade she can and it annoys her so much, as if the all mighty Fearless Leader shouldn't display his feelings, but then again, she has the same view (Were they really that broken?) – but she sees it.
The positive Leo she's used to – he's cute. But this Leo – he looks real.
Yes. She is meeting him and she wants to know him. She wants him to know her, too, she thinks.
But, Leo is suddenly all enthusiasm and bright eyes as he gets up and offers a hand that she'd usually reluctantly deny, but now accepts gradually surely. Once she's out of her blanket cocoon, he grins easily at her and cracks softly his knuckles, "Let's help these poor guys," he says, nodding his head to the living room again and Karai rolls her eyes at the ridiculously dorky sight of him.
"Wow," she comments, in a way to participate in his nerdiness, "your knuckles are quiet," she adds, too, voice dripping with sarcasm as Leo grabs her wrist.
"They're polite," he shrugs amusingly, then tosses her another wide grin, "but not for long…"
The silliness in his tone as his voice trails off and he jumps in the common room makes it so easy for her to follow him and fall in the declared blanket war. And they don't even bat an eye.
They accept her all too gladly and easily, laughing hard when she throws a pillow, very on point, on Donatello's face, laughing even harder when Donatello returns the favor with an equally well-thrown folded blanket, that sends her accidentally on the floor and maybe a bit deliberately in Leo's arms.
She could get used to this, she muses.
The crave for vengeance is still thrumming in her stomach, but it's slightly less insistent, doesn't echo in her ears anymore.
She decides she could probably live here for a little longer – spend time with her true father, make amends with her younger brothers, get to know the real Leonardo, possibly have him share some of his other secrets, and perhaps she could share some, too. Maybe.
And that's how she stays.
And she stays, and stays, and stays, stays right by their side when everything goes down, then up again, then back down in high speed, till they're all swirling, heads spinning as they still stay together – at space this time.
And it's scary sometimes, how secrets come out and float in the air before taking the shape of a real form.
It's scary, because when she said she wanted to get to know him, she didn't mean that.
"So, it isn't, like, permanent?" Mikey's question makes Karai jump from where she is and looks into his wide eyes.
The spaceship is too quiet, almost silent, except the regular beeping noises on the control board as Fugitoid toils around, the soft snoring sounds of April and Casey, pressed together on the couch, the inaudibly heated conversation going back and forth between Donatello and Raphael next to them.
Karai adjusts a bit her position on the hard couch and forces a smile to Michelangelo's direction, once again grabbing her tools and working on his arm. "Nope," she says and Mikey nods his head, without the enthusiasm she's used to from him.
"That's really cool," he agrees, swallowing and it sends unforgiving pangs in her stomach.
It's too unfair, too fresh and prickling; they did not deserve this. Hardships, they've faced, sure – but this; It's like the universe is against them, fighting them with every little bit of it.
And she fights to hide it, too, with every part of her. Wrecked, but she won't break – not here, not now. She's strong.
For some – it's not the same.
"Well," Donatello's voice is louder next to them, the trickling desperation and worry not able to be erased from his tone, "I didn't think it was healthy, but it was at least logical."
Raph's sigh is just as concerned, and it makes Karai want to keep her eyes on her youngest brother's arm for – forever. "I thought you didn't want him to talk to the hologram thing."
Her breath hitches easily, but doesn't draw attention. She doubts what Raphael explains is completely correct but Donatello doesn't say something. "I didn't," he says instead, appearing defending, "but can't you see him now?"
And Karai winces, because yes – she can see him and sense him and feel the realness of his empty pain – it crashes her. It's what presses her want to stay strong. For the both of them – for all of them.
She doesn't mind, she embraces the tightening pain – pain of absence – pain of hide and seek. She's used to being strong – to pretending to be strong.
"Can I?" Raph exclaims fervently and Karai feels Mikey's arm trembling in her grasp. She squeezes it. "No, if he doesn't go out of his freaking room!" he continues and Donnie's choking noise of agreement makes Karai's eyes go wide, convinces her to turn her head and look at them.
"That's what I am saying!" It's amazing how Donnie's pleading stare matches to easily with Raph's, as if they're twins, distressed and unsure in unison, "He doesn't sleep, he doesn't shower, he doesn't eat – it's like he's – he's-"
"Dead," she finishes for them and feels the realization along with a sudden tremor creeping up across her body.
They stare at her – gazes of filching acceptance, and Mikey breathes harder behind her.
To save them, Leonardo would die – and if he couldn't save them, he'd still die.
It was a vicious circle, a drilling promise beating a tattoo in Leonardo's heart and tearing him apart from inside – it was a secret. A low secret he knew, a secret she knew. A secret that she thought could push her closer to the real Leonardo – but, no so close, so close to his pained reality in the blank stare that burned Karai's eyes.
They burn now and Karai blinks, taking in Donatello's edge in his voice as he admits, the raw sigh twisting into a hurting cry, "I want us to be okay."
"We will be."
Mikey's statement is steady and fixe, completely immediate and certain – the sureness passing through his eyes as they set on her. A feeling clenches in her.
"Mikey-"
"But," Mikey shakes her arm from her to point a finger to Raphael's side before he interrupts, "maybe you should stop thinking and talking about him in secret and I dunno, actually talk to him."
The feeling clenches again and she perceives it as guilt. She closes her eyes shut for a minute. What has she done to help?
"'Cause he talks?"
"So?" Michelangelo's stare is intense; it's almost scary how much it reminds Karai of her fa – of the Shredder, before it turns fond and open altogether, "just show him you're there. Dudes, I think he needs us more than ever," he nods his head to her and keeps looking at her for a while.
Do they even like her? Does it matter if they do or not?
He turns his fist towards Raph and Donnie and nods again, "No turtle left behind."
They move their own fists to meet his. "No turtle left behind," they confirm. And then, their eyes turn expectant and promising as they catch hers, lights of hope and maybe, affinity, blending between them.
It makes Karai remember of the warmth she's used to feeling around Leo – not the predictable and flimsy Leonardo or the real and broken Leonardo – her Leonardo.
She holds her fist in front, too, "No turtle left behind," she affirms.
That's no secret.
Leo is pale as a sheet when Karai slips into his room, "Hey, Leo? You there?"
His face has no expression what so ever and she's almost ready to go – he doesn't seem like he wants her there – and then she sees the look in his eyes.
Eyes so blue and cold and watering, just as the waves he's been through, accompanied with black bags and dry tears – eyes that now don't hide behind his blurry bandana, behind the mask he had managed to wear-
Eyes that harmonize hers so easily and thoughtlessly, as if their whole souls were always in sync.
Karai rubs hard her eyes and the concealer stays on her knuckles insistently. She sits lightly on his bed and glides her hand beneath the blanket he's tucked in, brushing it against his large hand and placing it on his thigh.
Leo doesn't flush at the gesture, as he would months ago, doesn't even stir – his head just falls in front and Karai sighs.
"How are you?" she presses, squeezing his thigh, but all he does is lift his head and look at her, a stare spotless and full of visible and invisible scars.
It's like she's looking at a mirror. But, she doesn't allow her mind to linger on that – doesn't allow showing it. Instead, she smiles encouragingly, a kind gaze. "Did Mikey come to show you the awesome tattoo I made him?" she brings up a topic and he barely blinks, "Don't worry, it's henna, temporary," she adds, sort of jokingly.
"April baked some weird cookies," she continues, and tips her head, sticking the tongue on the roof of her mouth, "but they're actually pretty good. You should try them," the silence in the small gripping walls of the chamber kills her.
"Later, maybe," she offers tentatively and it takes her by surprise when Leo actually nods, the faintest of smiles lingering on the edges of his lips.
"Okay." She bits her lip to keep it from grinning. A small yet victorious step. His brothers – her brothers, they'd be proud. And happy, she's sure – just like he might be in some time.
She shifts on the bed, moves nearer and under the thick blanket until she's pressed next to him, closer than she could ever be.
Leo leans on her shoulder, breathing against her skin and Karai lets herself start to drift, not admitting to herself how much she needs this, too.
She has to keep being strong – even if she's not fooling anyone. "I…," she hedges.
I understand.
I know.
I'm in the same position.
I feel you.
I need you.
I love you.
"I'm here," she finally says, cheeks heated, feeling as if it sums up all the battling emotions in her and feels a pleasant sense overcome her.
Yes. She does know him.
Leonardo, son of the wind, waves and ripples, the great leader, born from the shadows and remained there, an unguided hero of burdens and insecurities and a thousand ways; his head resting on her chest, now, vulnerable – he showed her his scars, and in return, he let her pretend that she had none.