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Who: [Bad username or site: gaijin-ninja title=Raphael @ livejournal.com], [Bad username or site: thesevencodes title=Leonardo @ livejournal.com] and [Bad username or site: nexuschamp title=Michelangelo @ livejournal.com]
What: Raph and Mike (and Leo) at the barrier.
When: Right after this thread over yonder.
Where: The south woods and barrier and such.
Summary: Raphael is a rebel without a cause, so he makes one. Mike has a crappy persuasive argument because he is way too whiny. Leo ninjas right into Luceti unnoticed because that is how he rolls.
Rating: Uh probably up to PG-13 because of Raph's mouth.

Mike was just not cut out for this "leadership" stuff; that was painfully clear now, as he chased his probably-freezing-to-death older brother through the snow-dusted woods to God knows where that stupid barrier started. What did it even look like? A wall, a fence? They didn't know what they were looking for, didn't know what they'd do when they got there and didn't even know where it was but hell if that would stop the great wise Raphiki of Too-Much-Pride Rock, who knew everything.

Dammit, Raph. Michelangelo was cold and hungry and worried, because they were here and Raph wouldn't listen to him if he looked like Splinter. Don wasn't here to look after them if they got sick, Leo wasn't here to make a Grand Plan and Splinter wasn't here to keep Raphael in line; Mike was up the proverbial creek without a battle and with a hole in his canoe.

And there wasn't a damn thing he could do about it besides chase after his big brother and hope that he was right about that blood-pumping thing keeping them from falling asleep. Otherwise they were so screwed.

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A single word echos through his head. "Prison." No matter what kind of walls surrounded this place, a cage is a cage, and Raphael is nobody's pet. He's been locked up, strapped down, and chained more times than he'd like to remember, and all those memories come flooding with adrenaline-fueled fury.

A cage is a cage, but this one has no straps and no chains. No bars or concrete floors. And in Raph's mind, that's almost worse.

He needs something tangible. He needs something he could hit, rip, tear to pieces with hands and weapons. Because without those bars and walls to seal him in, he feels more helpless than anything.

Without something to rage against, he'd only feel like he'd given up without a fight. He'd only be a coward.

If there's one thing Raph's learned in his short, violent life, it's that the odds are never unbeatable. Never.

When he finds the barrier, it's the only thing he sees, barely a slip of glass separating he and his brother from freedom--from everything he's left behind.

He charges at it with weapons drawn, bellowing every ounce of frustration and pent-up fury as he strikes with all his strength.

But the wall doesn't give, deflecting every blow until Raph's arms ache with the recoil. Still, he keeps slashing, snarling a string of curses as the dulling sai blades strike again and again and again.

Michelangelo can hear Raphael raging before he even makes it within sight of him; can hear the clang clang of deflected blows, hear the harsh gasping and growling as Raphael grows out of breath and can almost hear the frustration pouring off of him like a tangible thing. His temperamental brother's fits were famous within the family; he would scream, shout, rage- curse, strike things, people, but eventually his anger would bleed itself dry and he'd shuffle off somewhere to reflect. Raph's temper never really truly scared anyone; not in the sense of fearing for one's own safety. Raphael had only seriously lost his temper with Michelangelo a couple times, but he could forgive him that.

He still hated it when things got like this. He just...didn't know what to do.

So instead he picked a tree nearby, Raphael within his sight, and sat down in the snow to lean against it with his legs drawn up to his chest and his arms around them, conserving warmth. Raphael would burn himself out eventually, right? And then they could go. And if Raphael collapsed on the way back, well...Mike would carry him and then rub his face in it later. Because that's how it should be.

Mike rested his chin on his knee. Man, I wish the others were here...

He's getting tired. Tired and cold, but the fury's lit a fire in his stomach, and it boils in his blood, urging him on. Yet the blows are becoming slower, and his bellows turn to grunts, his hot breath snaking out of him in the frigid air.

It's not working. It's not working, because the wall will never give or fight back, and honestly, Raph would've taken either. The fit of rage dulls his weapons and his stamina, but does nothing to soothe the twisting frustration in his bones.

The wall won't give, but Mikey will.

He turns and sees Mike sitting on the ground, watching him sullenly.

"Don't just fucking sit there!" He storms closer, chest heaving and breathless, snarling through gritted teeth. "Do something!"

Oh boy; Raphael's fury has just been displaced. Michelangelo tenses when Raphael stomps his way but he doesn't make a move to stand and go Do Something, instead choosing to glare up at Raphael. "Sorry, you used up all your brother loyalty points when you made me chase after you. Besides, what'm I supposed to do? Throw rocks at it?"

He knows -he knows- he's asking for an ass-kicking, giving Raphael sass when he's in this sort of mood, but he doesn't really care at the moment. He's cold and tired and hungry as all hell, and Raphael just wasted their time being a stubborn jerk. Sure, he probably had some crazy reason for it in that brain of his, but not only does Mikey not see it, he doesn't want to see it. He's cranky now, too.

Edited 2010-01-09 02:46 (UTC)

Raph feels thoroughly betrayed at Mike's reaction. Though it's not like he wasn't expecting it. Right now, more than anything, he's fucking pissed that Mike, his own brother, would throw in the towel that easily.

What about Don? What about Leo? Hell, they could be dead for all they knows and Mike want's nothing to do with this?! He doesn't even want to try?!

He stomps closer, looming over his brother's form with fury written in his eyes. "Get off your fat butt right now before I do it for you."

All right, so maybe sometimes one did fear for their personal safety when faced with a furious Raphael. At the moment, Michelangelo has two options; be stubborn and not move, possibly inviting severe harm on his person, or get to his feet.

Mike chose the latter.

He still folds his arms though, frowning a little more at the show of intimidation and giving Raph his best "leave me alone or I'm gonna scream" kind of glare. ...admittedly that kind of look doesn't really do much by way of intimidation, especially with no Leo or Splinter present to tell Raphael to back off, but the principle of the matter still stood. And that was basically that Mike was upset. "Raph, we're not gonna break that thing. We should go back to the town and see if anybody's seen 'em."

Raph just glares into his brother's eyes, growing increasingly astonished. "What the hell happened to you?You don't even give a damn?! You don't give a flying fuck about getting out of here, finding the others? That's bullshit!"

And then, he's immediately horrified. What if they've done something to him? What if...

"Bullshit!" He growls again, turning his back and stalking off a few paces before screaming at his brother again. "You didn't. Even. Try!"

This has to be some kind of nightmare. Some form of hell made just for him. He stalks back to the wall again, sick dread quieting the adrenaline. He's still angry, but it's turning inward, forming a maddening little ball in his stomach.

Instead of attacking, he half-heartedly pounds the wall with both fists, pressing his forehead against it. "Shit."

Leonardo has no idea what's happened.

The last thing he can recall is the sickening crack of wood against his skull, a searing bolt of white, fiery pain, and the cement as it rushed up to meet him. Awareness drips into his mind like dew from heavy leaves.

Fog spreads in the air as he breathes, and his arms and legs sting with a familiar, biting numbness. Crunching sounds in his ears as he sits up, pressing a palm to his aching head. His eyes finally crack open, confirming the suspicion that had been gathering in his mind. Snow.

He reaches for the swords on his back, surprised when he grasps thin air. They're gone. As he rises to his feet, Leo begins to realize that his mask, kneepads, and elbowpads are gone as well; instead he's wearing a pair of cotton shorts, a book wedged between the waistband and his skin. With a disapproving hiss he pulls the clothing off and drops it into the snow.

He's about to examine the book when voices begin ringing in the distance. Leonardo listens a moment, tensed to hide at a breath's sound. But he recognizes them; his brothers. Willing sensation into his limbs, he begins heading toward them.

The trees eventually part to reveal two of his brothers and a thin, glass-looking wall, stretching far in all directions. He swallows a relieved sigh. "Are you guys all right?"

Edited 2010-01-09 03:49 (UTC)

Raphael's response -his accusatory tone, the righteous fury and betrayal on his face, even the fact that he didn't hit him- shocks Michelangelo a bit. The way Raph was talking, he thought Mike had given up on their brothers, on getting out of this place. But he hadn't! He was just thinking about what they needed right now; he wasn't abandoning their family! He-

...had he?

Watching Raph pace over to the barrier and halfheartedly drop his forehead against it -thunk- Mike wrung his hands nervously. He always sucked at this; figuring out the right thing to say to Raph to make him feel better. He was excellent at making him angry, or cracking a joke to make him annoyed enough to forget their worries, but at the moment he would give anything for-

"Are you guys all right?"

No way.

Michelangelo spun, not willing to just believe his ears and- it was. Like he'd summoned him with his mind. "L...Leo! Leo!" Mike would usually refrain from doing something as childishly embarrassing as throwing himself at his big brother in relief, but- well, apparently this was not one of those times. Hopefully Leonardo isn't so numb from the cold that he'd fall over, since Mike's going to half-stumble, half-run over to him and fling his arms around his big brother.

Everything was going to be okay now. Everything would be just fine. Leo would get them out.

As soon as he's calmed down enough, Raph notices how much the cold's affecting him. Part of him thinks that the wall is the only thing holding him up right now.

"Are you guys all right?" Is an expected question, and he answers it reflexively with a grumbled "Peachy."

And then Mike heads off squealing and stumbling, startling Raph lucid enough to realize whoes voice was coming from the forest. Leo.

Mike does enough flailing and slobbering for the both of them, so Raph settles for a relieved expression and a muttered "Hey, what took you so long?"

Edited 2010-01-09 04:22 (UTC)

Mikey's reaction is very unexpected, and Leo teeters a bit as his little brother clings to him like a leech. It takes a moment for him to realign his center of balance, and he blinks down at the youngest turtle. "Uh, hi, Mikey."

He tightens his mouth as Raph speaks, however, and shakes his head. "I just came to a minute ago. Where...are we?"

The iciness of Mikey's skin is concerning, and Leo can feel his own body cooling by the moment. They have to find some shelter before their minds start slowing down, too.

Suddenly, something very important dawns on the eldest. He takes a step back, gently disengaging Mikey's embrace as his eyes sweep their surroundings. And then, very seriously: "Where's Don?"

Leonardo is a lot colder than Mike would have liked; he debates for a second trying to force his coat on him as he did Raphael, but gave up that line of thought. He'd just refuse it -albeit he'd be a lot more polite about it- and make Mikey wear it anyway. Brothers.

His question gives Michelangelo pause though; he glances sideways at Raphael, expression uneasy but takes the initiative and jumps to answer before Raphael can fly off the handle again. "We don't know. We haven't heard anything yet." Of course, when he says it like that, it makes him a lot more worried. He'd barely skimmed the guide Smoker had provided; it said something about people being 'drawn in...' He wasn't sure what that was supposed to mean, but had equated it to some kind of wonky dimensional portal and left it at that. The only other things he'd seen were about others from the same world -since he had been worried horribly about his brothers- and how they usually wouldn't arrive with you, if at all.

But...'we haven't heard anything,' in the ninja line of work, generally meant something very, very bad. He had to get them both back to the room so they could see this guide for themselves.

Raph leans against the wall heavily and tries not to shiver. He'll do his best to stay standing, but his legs have gone numb again. And without adrenaline to fuel him, it's getting harder to control the urge to give into sleep.

Leo's arrival had taken a tremendous weight off his shoulders, but as soon as he brings up Don, it all piles back again. They'd already lost him once. He'd be damned if they did it again.

"Some chick I ran into in the woods told me this place's a prison," he adds to Mike's answer, crossing his arms and sniffing irritably at his suddenly runny nose. (Damn cold'll be the death of him.) "This wall," he gestures to the wall behind him. "That's what's holdin' us in. Ya can't break it. I tried."

He hates to be the bearer of bad news, but it does seem to suit him well. He responds to the second question glumly. "And Don's missing."

Dammit. Leonardo crosses his arms for a moment, facing away from his brothers and ducking his head in thought. He has no clue why they're stuck here, or where Don is, or what happened to those wooden soldiers that creamed them like amateurs.

The cold is creeping into his brain; he can feel it frosting over his cognitive skills, pulling a thin layer of ice across his mind. He pushes it back and tries to assess the situation.

In order of most important to least: Missing brother. Freezing weather. Unknown place. Then he's drawing blanks, and can only feel the air as it drags along his skin like stinging claws. They have to get somewhere warmer before he can even think about what they should do.

But then the weight of Raphael's words suddenly catch up with him, and the frigidness of his thoughts burn away as though he had doused them in gasoline and struck them with a match.

He turns with a deliberate, horrified slowness. "You were seen."

"We both got seen!" The confession bursts free before he can even control it; the hand that slaps up to cover his mouth is too late, and only catches his horrified squeak at what a dumb thing he just did.

Well, the only thing to do now is to backpedal furiously.

"But- but it wasn't our fault! I mean me, this girl just- and with Raph, she- well, I don't know what happened there but it's not that bad! Really! This isn't Earth!"

"This place's batshit crazy," Raph says pointedly, completely unfazed by Leo's reaction. He's heard this lecture so many times he could probably recite it by heart, but that'd just take the fun out of everything.

Ha. Right. Fun.

He almost laughs at his own silent joke. "I'm tellin' ya. This chick didn't even flinch. She was human, too."

He doesn't mention the talking penguin part. He's still trying to sort that one out himself.

Leo can't take this right now; they've only been in this new place for a short while, and already they're getting seen by people? This isn't Earth? They were all too familiar with alternate dimensions and different planets, but...

He forces himself to slow down, and takes a quieting breath. Civilization is good. And while he doesn't understand how, if his brothers are telling the truth and people really don't mind their presence...maybe they can help.

"We'll deal with that later," he says, and tries hard not to sound like he's ready to lose his temper - that's Raph's job. "First we've got to get someplace warmer."

Edited 2010-01-09 06:07 (UTC)

"I found a place." Mike has half a mind to point out that it's perfectly good shelter and that Raphael had refused it, but figures he's in enough hot water as it is.

...and then better judgment is overruled, as it usually is with Michelangelo. "It's a perfectly good place with warm blankets and a kitchen, but somebody didn't feel like going to it. I'm not gonna name names 'cause that's rude, but it was Raph."

Edited 2010-01-09 06:29 (UTC)

He's too cold to put on much of a show, but as long as he stays lucid, he can yell and bitch all he wants. Mike's plan is stupid. Stupid as hell. He knows they all need to get warm fast, but there's better ways of doing it then walking right into a town full of crazies.

"It's in the goddamn town! You say you don't want to be seen? Well nimrod over here thinks it's just a great idea to go socialize for a while instead of oh, you know, TRYING TO GET THE HELL OUT OF HERE?!"

They've camped out in the open plenty of times. Yeah, they've never been insane or suicidal enough to try it in the winter. But all those bad vibes he's getting from this place are telling him to do whatever it takes to stay the fuck away.

"Just build a fire or somethin'."

"That's enough, Raph!" Leo's patience has worn too thin, and Raphael's insistence on acting like a child isn't helping any. "People have already seen you guys; you think they're not going to tell all their friends? I'll bet half the town knows about us by now anyway, thanks to your carelessness!"

He stops right there, clenching his eyes and trying to calm down. This type of anger is far too familiar, and he crushes it before it can take root in his consciousness. Never again.

He breathes, then opens his eyes. More calmly: "Mikey. Where is it? Can we there without being seen?"

Edited 2010-01-09 07:04 (UTC)

Mike is only slightly subdued by the outburst, but it does help to sober him up a bit. This really isn't a game; they'll die if they don't get to shelter soon. Even with his coat he can feel the pull of the cold, trying to push him beneath consciousness and snow. It could only be worse for his brothers.

"Yeah. I mean, it is in the town, but the building's empty and it's pretty far into the woods. There's windows in the back, so if we're careful we can get in without anybody seeing us." He doesn't bother arguing that apparently it's perfectly okay to be walking about in broad daylight, because a) he's not sure if that's true or not and b) his brothers will just ignore him, probably.

Raph is more than a bit perturbed. What the hell is all of this about, takin' Mike's side when everybody knows it's wrong?

Then again, as he explains the place in greater detail, it doesn't sound all that bad. There's actually a chance they might be able to make it in without being spotted. Though something about this whole situation doesn't sit right at all.

They need to find Don. If they're freezing their asses off, then what makes Donny any different? He just got over a life-threatening illness, for cripes sake! Somehow, it seems like Mike and Leo have forgotten that small detail.

"Then what abou--ah-a--" He cuts himself short with the sudden urge to sneeze. "A-choo!"

He stands staring at the hand he'd used to stifle it like it too had just betrayed him, sniffling. Dammit!

Raph isn't happy, but it's evidence enough. He needs to get out of the cold. "Fine," he mutters grumpily. "Let's go."

Leo isn't happy about this situation at all; he wants to find Don just as badly as Raph does. But they never will if they die or go into hibernation or whatever, which Leo can see happening far too soon for comfort.

As soon as they've warmed up enough, Leo will decide on a plan of action. He needs to know more about this world. And he needs to gauge how much of an effect their appearance might have on its residents. It sounds difficult and exhausting, so he tries not to even think about that right now.

And then Raph sneezes. Immediately Leo is turning to Mikey. "Lead the way."

Now they have a definite Plan -and especially since it's based off of his findings!- Michelangelo perks right up. Punching the air briefly, he lets a wide grin spread across his face before turning on his heel and motioning for his brothers to follow. "Right this way! Not-stop nature hike through a winter wonderland straight to Comfort Inn! Where we can sleep, take part in a complimentary breakfast and cure Raphie's sniffles all in a one-night stay!"

Look at him, taking the lead! Yeah, he's superhero material for sure. Silver Sentry would be proud.

Raph only glares and hopes this's gonna be a fast and merciful trip. He's cold, exhausted, and still aches all over. He doesn't think he can handle Mike on a power trip for very long. (Thanks, Leo.)

For now, he's bent on remaining an insufferable grump, at least until he sees for himself how great this place supposedly is.

Left with no other options but to follow his brother's lead to their Certain Doom, he does just that, brooding at the nickname and muttering a grouchy "Don't call me that."

Leo, ever paranoid, scans the trees for the entire trip. He's still extremely wary of this place; stranger things have happened to them, but life has made him take a cautious stance towards anything that isn't familiar. And somehow, he feels like this isn't anywhere near New York City.

The cold begins to settle in his bones, a gnawing ache that soon disrupts his footsteps enough to demand the majority of his attention. Right foot. Left foot. Right. Left. Leo hopes that Mikey knows what he's doing, because at this point their options are "Certain Doom", and "Maybe Certain Doom".

"Mikey," he grumbles, trying to rub some warmth back in his arms, "how much farther is it?"

...that's a new twist. For once he's not the one asking 'are we there yet?' "Just over here." Several hours of running couldn't be pleasant, and they'd slowed down to a steady plod. Raphael and Leonardo were lagging something terrible, and Michelangelo had taken to slapping his cheeks to keep himself from falling asleep on his feet.

When finally he glimpses the apartment complex through a break in the trees he gives a weary cheer. More of a mumbled 'hooray!' than anything substantial; he just can't seem to work up the energy for anything better. "Right here," he tosses over his shoulder, but the words come out thick and slow. He pauses; which window...?

It takes a moment to remember -much longer than it should have- but he recalls that he'd set a rock on the sill to mark the window to the room he'd chosen. He heads over to it, trudging through the snow, and knocks the stone aside to slide the window open for his brothers.

Raph's been dead on his feet for the last... well, he can't remember. He's barely aware as he clambers drunkenly through the open window and into the strange apartment. It's cozy and warm, which only makes him realize how cold his body's gotten compared to the room-temperature air.

All his previous worries about getting spotted venturing into "enemy territory" had been left behind with his brain function and awareness. When he stumbles into the living room, it's dark and there's a couch, so he wastes no time collapsing on it in a miserable, shivering heap without a word of protest.

Before he even realizes it, he's dead to the world, finally giving into sleep.

Cold. Freezing. His skin is slicked with a stinging wetness that only grows more numb by the minute. By the time they reach the window and Raph climbs inside, Leo is having a hard time finding enough coordination to follow him.

Dimly, he realizes that his fingers have been frozen around the book this entire time. It doesn't mean anything to him, but he doesn't even think to drop it; he only grasps it tighter and moves with stiff limbs.

As soon as they get inside, a slight warmth begins to charge the air. Leonardo sees Raph stumble into a couch face-first and lie still, and moves to check on him to make sure he's all right.

That's when he notices the wings.

Stretching right out of Raph's shell, a deep scarlet in the relative darkness. Wings. He blinks and wonders if this is some hallucination, and touches them. Feather-soft. Real.

"Mike," He breathes. "Raph has wings."

Dimly, watching his brothers move the way they are, Mike is coming to the realization that he's going to be the one to look after them and start warming this place up so they don't all end up sleeping for days. The prospect isn't a pleasing one, and for a moment he wonders how much harm it would do to just find a soft surface to collapse on and let fate do whatever it wants to them, but he also doesn't really like the idea of being happened upon by some freak hunter or scientist and torn to pieces without even waking up. They could just kick the door down and none of them would even twitch...walk right over and drag them out, freeze them, slice them open like Bishop had tr-

Mike gives his head a firm shake. Even half-frozen, his brain could still do this to him. It sucks. So he reluctantly drags himself over to the door, locks it and deadbolts it before shoving a chair beneath the knob for good measure. The window they just used also gets locked, the curtains drawn, and he stumbles into the kitchen to turn on the oven. Hopefully some of the heat would waft into the living room after some time, if he leaves the door open...

What else? ...blankets. Yeah. There were some in the bedroom and hall closet the last time he checked. With arms and legs that feel like lead -cold lead- Michelangelo gathers armloads of blankets and shuffles back into the living room. He hands one to Leonardo before flapping the other out and attempting to tuck it around Raphael with numb fingers, only really succeeding halfway. With any luck, Raph will wake up and finish the job himself. He's just too tired, now.

Leo's observation brings him back out of that hazy half-awareness he'd slipped into though, and he gives his head another shake. "We all got 'em, Leo. You too; look." He circles around his brother to give his wings a gentle tug when something catches his eye.

It doesn't sink in right away; it has to fight through the cold and the dreams first, but thankfully the point is sharp enough to drive itself home. A huge, ugly scar, a piece of Leonardo's carapace ripped clear off as if someone had dug a claw into his shell and just pried. The shock of it takes even longer to settle in, but once it does Mike chokes a startled cry in his throat and puts both hands on his brother's shell, checking for further injury. "Wh-what happened- Leo, your shell...!"

Raph's content to be stewing in the far reaches of peaceful oblivion. The bone-deep ache of inescapable cold still gnaws at the back of his brain, but the exhaustion is overriding it for now.

Then he feels an odd sensation stemming from a limb that doesn't even register in his memory's code of self-awareness.

Raph grunts and tenses even after the touch is gone, but is still trying desperately to hold on to oblivion. Apparently it lives somewhere in the deeper recesses of the couch.

His mind goes fuzzy again, and he sighs under the blanket that's somehow materialized on top of him, but he's not complaining.

That only lasts about a second until he hears Mike shrieking about Leo's shell. It sends off all sorts of alarms in his head, and he sits up automatically, ignoring how crappy he feels.

He watches Leo for a second, just making sure he's still in one piece. But when he sees nothing out of the ordinary, he only gives a quiet cough and sniffles, gathering the blanket around him tighter.

"What's your problem now?" He asks irritably.

The blankets are shoved into Leo's hand, jumpstarting his mind enough to let go of the book. It clatters to the floor without ceremony, but at the moment he just doesn't care. His eyes are quietly tracking Michelangelo's movements; more specifically, the small, orange wings sprouting impossibly from the youngest's shell.

Leonardo's mouth draws into a tight line. Of all the dimensions and worlds they've been pulled into, he can't ever remember them gaining an extra appendage of any sort. He opens his mouth to ask another question when Mikey circles around him.

Suddenly his little brother raises some kind of alarm, and he feels a set of hands thrust onto his carapace. The sudden bump knocks the fog right out of his mind. He turns sharply towards Mike, a palm reaching up and over his shoulder to try and locate the source of all the panic. He finds nothing but the rough groove of his ugly scar - but that's certainly nothing out of the ordinary for Leo.

"What? What's wrong?"

Edited 2010-01-10 04:06 (UTC)

Mike stares at his brothers as if they'd grown second heads. Raphael has to be able to see the scar from the position he's in, but he's either too tired to notice or- no, nobody could be tired enough to miss that. It looked like someone had tried to cut Leo's arm off.

Panic is rising and the adrenaline rush it provides is chasing away the fog of sleep, and he runs his fingers along the scar. It looks horrible. He jerks his hands away quickly when Leo reaches back though, thinking he'd hurt him; but no, he was just searching for it himself. So it didn't hurt, that meant it was either all shell (unlikely, since it was so deep) or it had healed up enough already that it didn't bother him. Which was impossible.

"What's wrong?! This! This big- thing, what happened?!" Michelangelo knows he'd remember if someone did this to his brother, but wracking his recollections doesn't bring any new information to light. No, this didn't happen on his watch.

Well, Mike's finally cracked. Raph stares at him oddly from his spot on the couch, watching him run his hands over Leo's battle scar like it was still a bleeding mess.

The fact that he seems to have forgotten the biggest battle of their life is even more concerning.

It makes Raph suddenly realize he might not be the only one suffering here. Maybe the cold was finally getting to him, or the landing scrambled Mike's brains on the way down.

Either way it's worrying, 'cause Mike never had much brains to begin with. Still, he can hope it's all just some kind of sick joke.

"You're kidding, right?"

Leo isn't liking the implications here. They all know very well where his scar came from: the same battle that saw Shredder banished from Earth and Leo alienating himself from his family for months. The whole area was pretty tender for a while; kept Leo from doing anything with his left arm for a long time.

Mikey doesn't remember any of it? Leo furrows his eye ridges, wondering if his brother was affected by the cold enough for such an important memory to go flying out the window. He swallows dryly and removes his hand from his shell, placing it softly on the youngest's shoulder.

"Mikey, I've had this scar for almost a year," he begins slowly. God he hopes that this is some kind of sick joke, or that Michelangelo's memories will catch up to him once they warm up. "Remember the battle on Shredder's starship?"

There's...really no way he could have actually forgotten that. Mike's a forgetful turtle sometimes, yeah, but a fight where they almost died? Where Shredder was ejected from their lives like old garbage? Impossible.

The way both Raphael and Leonardo are looking at him is making Michelangelo feel very anxious and on the spot. His stomach tightens into a hard, heavy knot, and he swallows past the lump in his throat. In a nervous gesture he draws his bandanna tails over his shoulder, wringing them as his eyes dart between Raphael and Leonardo.

No, he doesn't. He doesn't remember a thing.

"N...no. The last thing I remember is rescuing Angel's brother from that nasty monster thing. And- and we all went home and-" He cuts himself off when panic yet again threaten to make him start babbling like an idiot. When he speaks again his voice is very small, "Did...did something happen?"

Edited 2010-01-10 05:57 (UTC)

"Mike..."

He doesn't even know where to begin. The heaviness in the air sits in the pit of his stomach like a weight and brings a remembered ache to his ribs. He hopes, prays Mikey's lying. But the expression on his face says he's telling nothing but the truth.

Raph swallows hard, shrugging the blanket off and stands, looking gravely into his brother's eyes. "You don't just forget somethin' like that."

Edited 2010-01-10 06:23 (UTC)

Angel's brother...? Leonardo clenches his teeth; this is all wrong. A huge chunk of their lives is just missing from his little brother's memories. He lets go of Mikey's shoulder to run a hand over the top of his head, trying to think.

If Mikey really doesn't remember anything since that mansion...he wouldn't know that the Shredder was gone. He wouldn't know about how sick Don had gotten, and why finding him is so important to Leo and Raph.

He takes a deep breath, the surges of adrenaline melting away. There's...a lot of filling in to do, present matters and past, but he doesn't think he has the energy today. "Okay. Let's get some sleep first, guys. Later we can go over everything we know, and...what we don't."

There has to be a reasonable explanation. Leonardo just can't think of one; not right now.

Edited 2010-01-10 06:48 (UTC)

Sleep. "Like I can sleep now," Mike mumbles, even though he can feel the cold pulling at the corners of his mind again. He's worried to hell and back; about Leonardo, about Don, and now about himself. He doesn't want to sleep, but...

Well. At the same time he does.

Reluctantly he reaches for a blanket. Moving over to the love seat he pushes it a bit closer to the couch Raphael had claimed; there were perfectly good beds in the next room, but in light of their recent conversation Michelangelo was suddenly unwilling to leave their immediate presence. So instead he wedged himself onto the love seat as best as he could, curling up, drawing his knees into his chest and wrapping the blanket around himself and feeling much, much more inclined to rest now that he was laying down.

He would just rest his eyes for a bit, and then they could straighten this out. Everything would be all right. It'd be fine.

Edited 2010-01-10 17:51 (UTC)

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