I blame the lateness of this chapter on the holidays. Hope you're all enjoying yours!
No matter how many times he punched it, kicked it, willed a hole to burn through its head with the flames of his glower, it never seemed to be enough.
The stupid dummy. Sometimes he wished it had a heartbeat, muscles, real skin and nerves that carried real blood rather than fabric and stitches weighed down like a beer-bellied man with a mixture of dry sand and cotton.
A little bloodthirsty? So maybe he was, but clobbering something real, something that had the power to fight back and bare its own teeth, always gave him a sense of dominance that seemed essential to his sanity. He'd lose his head otherwise. He had to be in control of something or else he'd be forever subjected to following everyone else's rules, everyone else's orders. He didn't work like that. And yet this left him with a problem—a major problem - not only because Leo had been named his leader, but because he could feel himself bending down on one knee in submission every time Leo's blue-eyed gaze met his now. And why? Because he had an unfortunate attraction to the guy? (And he meant unfortunate—like being born with a third arm sprouting out of his shell or having an addiction to cake.)
The muscles around his mouth tensed as he pressed his lips together and paused, breathing heavily through his nose while the dummy swung on its chain in that mocking way it always did.
It didn't have a smile—or any inkling of a mouth to speak of—but sometimes he could easily imagine that he heard it laughing at him, giggles all resonating and demonic, the kind that find hilarity in the worst of pains. But then, that also could've been Mikey whooping at the arcade game across the room.
Back to the root of all misfortunes, however, Mikey wasn't the only other mutant turtle occupying the common area.
Raph narrowed his eyes and brushed them slowly to the side, glancing over his shoulder toward the pit where his older brother was practicing katas in front of the television.
Leo's movements, as always, were well-articulated and smooth, seamless … Dare he think captivating? There was certainly an air of grace and flawless intention to the way the turtle in blue always moved. Even when he lowered his katana to his side and paused to breathe, there lived an essence of sophisticated presentation to his straightened spine and rolling shoulders. It was like every stride, bend, sweep, and flex of his muscles was a crucial step in the lethal ballet he was always performing, even in the moments he thought no one was watching.
But Raph was watching, most times now a lot more closely than he meant to. And it pulled at his stomach with lurches of either dread, excitement, anger, humiliation, or longing. He could never decide which. He only knew that it always locked his teeth and made his skin crawl with a heat he found both pleasant and suffocating.
He growled under his breath and looked away from his new-found distraction to punt the stupid dummy in the crotch.
"Just fall over already," he grunted through his teeth as he slammed a fist into its chest and then swung a heel at its head. It shuddered and swayed and rocked, but, in the aftermath, remained upright.
He wrinkled his beak, snatched a sai from his belt and drove it clean through the dummy's face with a ruthless growl. It didn't so much as leak out a drop of its insides. He exhaled hotly through his nose.
"Congratulations, Raph. You killed it."
The red-banded turtle snapped his gaze on his older brother, who walked up with a guise of indifference and yanked the sai out of the dummy's head, releasing a thin stream of sand that peppered the floor by their feet.
"Now what?" Leo said, holding out Raph's weapon with an open palm.
Raphael stared up at his older brother through a slightly narrowed gaze. God did he hate the way Leo was looking at him, those blue eyes solid and unblinking, reproving and deductive … handsome. It was stupid. Infuriating, to say the least.
He snatched his sai back and looked away. "Now I start over again," he said.
The shift in Leo's strategically-paced breathing did not go unnoticed, but Raph chose to overlook it as the older turtle turned the hitch into a sigh and reached up to free the dummy from its hook. He cradled the back of its head in his palm to keep the innards from leaking out as he hauled it to the lab the way one would carry a lifeless body to a medical center.
Raph followed. Not on purpose—more because he wanted to snatch his opponent back as soon as it was resurrected so that he could whip its butt again.
"What exactly are you hoping to accomplish, Raph?" Leo muttered as he laid the dummy on the table like it was a patient in need of an operation. He dug around in Donnie's drawers for a needle and thread and began sewing up the hole Raph had created.
The red-banded turtle stuffed his arms across his plastron. "What d'you mean?"
"I mean, why are you always so aggressive?"
Raph scoffed. "Why are you always such a square?"
Leo glanced at him once, his eyes shifting so faintly that Raph couldn't rightly call it a searching gaze because it wasn't half a second later that he returned to sewing.
Even the way he impaled the dummy's face with a needle and pulled the thread through its forehead held its own sense of poise … Damn.
"Are you mad?" he asked quietly, directing his voice more toward his patient.
Raph felt his face tic and he turned his shell on his brother, leaning back against the table. "Psh, I'm always mad."
"At me?"
The red-banded turtle pursed his lips, glad now that he had removed the option of looking back at Leo's face. "No," he said shortly, his voice ringing through the spacious lab with a note of falsity that was hard to ignore.
Leo didn't respond, and it made the younger turtle's muscles tighten. He could attempt resist the urge to look back all he wanted, but his eyes were going to do whatever they pleased … How ironic.
He ended up glancing back over his shoulder and found Leo grimacing at the dummy, cheekbones nudging his eyes into a soft squint and forming a crease on his brow.
For a moment, Raph said nothing. He watched his brother struggle to recompose a flat countenance, and unwillingly let his eyes follow the scars along Leo's cheek. The curve of each streak moved with the stretch of skin along his throat as he swallowed, and a knot settled itself in the pit of Raph's stomach. The way the scars conformed to Leo's minutest motion only made them more real, more definitive and sickening.
He shouldn't have been mad at Leo. It was a wonder Leo wasn't still mad at him for everything that had happened.
He didn't even know why he was mad at Leo. Maybe it was just instinctive. Maybe he was so used to embracing rage while his older brother stared him down that now it happened on its own for no reason. Or, maybe it wasn't Leo he was mad at. Maybe he was angry with himself for having allowed his older brother in so deep and now being stuck in a state of limbo. He couldn't fight his way out. He couldn't force his way out. He couldn't even talk his way out. He just had to sit there and wait while his esteemed leader attempted to make up his mind about something that would most likely leave Raphael hanging and shuddering on a chain just like the dummy. It was just a matter of time, that was all. They'd find Karai eventually. Leo would take one look back at Raph, stab him in the chest and then walk away.
Stupid Raph … Stupid, stupid Raph. Why did you have to go and get all soft?
"I'm not mad at you, Leo," Raph said, firmly this time, tightening his arms over his chest. "I just want my dummy back."
Leo glanced at him again, a bit longer this time, exhibiting eyes now painted with a thin film of rejection that made Raph's jaw tighten. But the turtle in blue said nothing. He flipped the dummy over to close up the hole on the other side and then broke the thread with a callous tug and took a step back.
Raph lifted the dummy up by its arm and heaved it over his shoulder. He made sure not to glance back at his brother as he walked out of the lab and put his inanimate opponent back in place. He immediately returned to pelting the thing with furious punches and didn't pause to watch as Leo passed him and jumped back down into the pit, though, he was sensitive to the moment that Leo withdrew his katana and resumed practicing katas with his shell to his brother.
Raph pulled in a long breath through his nose and closed his eyes.
"Casey Jones is entering the premises. Everybody brace for awesomeness so awesome that your face will probably melt."
Raph, Leo and Mikey all glanced toward the turnstiles where Casey slid his way through with a bump of his hip and a confident smirk stuck to his face.
Raph shook his head with a scoff. "If my face melts, it's because of your B.O."
"Psh, you're one to talk," Casey said, gliding over on his skated shoes and leaning his elbow against the dummy's shoulder. "You live in the sewers, dude. This place is so rank."
Raph allowed himself a small smirk. "And yet, you fit right in."
Casey shrugged his shoulders coolly, stuffing his hands in his pockets. "Casey Jones fits in anywhere he wants to."
"Casey Jones is going to get sent back home if he doesn't stop speaking in third person," Leo said without breaking his form.
"Is that what we're doin'?" Mikey said. "In that case, Michelangelo is totally about to beat Casey's highest level, bro."
"No way!" Casey said, skating across the room to peer at the screen. "Aw, you little leaf muncher! That's no fair. You're not supposed to start without me."
"Too late," Mikey sang, bouncing on his toes as he jabbed furiously at one of the buttons.
In the next second, the small turtle was bathed in flashes of orange and red light, and a vintage, video game jingle jumped in blips and trills around the lair.
"Booyakasha! Take that, son!" he said, poking Casey in the chest.
Casey pursed his lips with a great lack of amusement and planted a palm on Mikey's cheek to shove him to the side.
Raph cocked a grin and automatically glanced toward Leo who, for the briefest of moments, met his gaze with a smirk. It was such a normal gesture, an exchange of silent agreement through smiles so practiced that it might've gone unnoticed if they'd simply let it pass. But within the very next second Leo seemed to realize what he was doing and immediately dropped his grin and turned away again.
Raphael felt the muscle behind his plastron shudder under a breeze of dismissal and he turned away too, resuming his bloodthirsty attack on the dummy with a frown.