lucetilogs | (no subject)

(no subject)

Who:

thesevencodes
What: Missing Mikey
When: Shortly after Mike disappears
Where: In and around C6
Summary: Mike is gone. Time for the remaining Turtles to close ranks, angst communally, and hate all outsiders.
Rating: PG-13, at least

Don climbs the stairs to the roof slowly. As he expected, Raph is still there, looking over the village as twilight gathers. He's been there all day, watching the horizon like a lonely wife on a widow's-walk. Like Michelangelo will appear out there in the blue, and come back to them.

He won't. Don feels it. Last time Mike was only kidnapped, taken to another part of this damned prison-world, but this time he's gone. Solitary vigil won't do them any good now. They need to be together, to take stock, to figure out how they're going to get through this.

"Raph. Come inside."

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He doesn't know what to do anymore. He's been sitting here for hours turning this over in his mind.

Hopeless. Powerless. Gone.

Out of all of them, Mike loved this place the most. Out of all of them, Mike deserved to be here the most. The sunlight, the freedom, the opportunity to live and be treated like a person - it was something they always dreamed about.

Those bastards had no right taking it away from him.

And Raph feels so damn dirty that he's still here.

So he sits there 'til the darkness steals the sun, and it feels right to have his own blood caked on his hands.

But Don's voice snaps him out of his daze, and he unfolds just enough to blink owlishly at his figure. He must've been sitting there for hours the way his joints ache.

But manages to stand, hollow-eyed and empty-handed, silhouetted by the setting sun.

Raph turns, and there's just enough light left for Don to see his hands.

He's sure the red of the setting sun makes the blood look worse than it is, but Don can tell it really is worse than he thought. He'd known, from the browning streaks downstairs, that Raph had split his knuckles. But he hadn't realized the damage was that bad.

"Raph, your hands..."

He moves forward, taking Raph's hands in his own. This needs soap and water, iodine, bandages. It's needed it for hours, and Don berates himself for not coming up sooner.

"Let's go get you cleaned up."

Raph swallows and looks away, saying nothing. He doesn't care what his hands look like. Part of him doesn't even want them clean.

No. No, he wants them to stay that way, because this is his wordless testament. This how much it hurts.

He pulls his hand away, turning away from Don to gaze at the horizon again.

"I'll...take care of it later."

"It already is later, Raph. You'll take care of it now."

He can't bring back a missing brother, but, by God, he can clean a wound. It is all he can do now to keep his family whole, and he is going to do it. Whether Raph wants it or not.

He sighs irately before turning back to Don. But that was a mistake. He meets his brother's eyes and his throat tightens at the pain he sees there before he looks away again.

"Fine." He'll do that much for his brother, not himself. He really doesn't deserve this either, but he'll follow Don wherever he leads.

Don holds Raph's gaze for a moment, reading the honesty in his eyes. Then he turns, knowing that Raph is good for his word.

In the bathroom of the apartment, he orders Raph to scrub out the wounds. Then he makes Raph sit on the edge of the tub, as he rummages in the cabinet for cotton balls and the bottle of iodine.

Usually he hates this part of their lives, the part where he has to cause his brothers more pain in order to heal them. But tonight, he knows that Raph needs this. He soaks the cotton ball liberally, and answers Raph's unspoken plea by pressing it harder than necessary against his battered knuckles.

Raph doesn't so much as flinch at the sensation, only bites down hard on the inside of his cheek, clenching and unclenching the fist Don isn't working on.

It's still not enough to drown the rest out. It's far from enough to fill him. But every small burst of pain whites out the dark places of his mind for a breath, and it's enough. For now, it'll have to be enough.

I'm sorry. I'm sorry.

He wishes he could cure this too, take away the ache in Raph's soul. But all he can do is anesthetize it, substituting physical pain for emotional hurt.

He throws away the cotton ball, takes another, douses that one too. He takes Raph's other hand and cleans it with gentle roughness.

Busy. Just keep busy. The world passes in blurs of splintered wood and crumbling plaster cracking in his fingers. Leonardo blinks and suddenly there is nothing left to clean; blood is washed from the walls and the broken furniture is swept into the corner for disposal. He blinks, almost disoriented at how quickly he ran out of things to do. He feels like there should have been more.

Then it strikes him, like an oncoming train. There's less to clean - all of Michelangelo's things disappeared with him.

He jerks away from the wood pile and redirects his feet to the bathroom, where he can recall seeing Raph and Don disappear into. Seeing their now-youngest doing cleaning of another kind is no surprise, but Leo feels a stab of guilt. It always has to be him. He takes a few steps closer, waiting for either more busy work or for Don to finish on his own.

Leo enters the bathroom as Don begins wrapping his hands. And for some reason, he can't take his eyes away. Maybe he's waiting for a plan, or one of those overblown speeches about how everything's gonna be fine. They just need to focus, get stronger, work together...something.

But all of Leo's speeches are meant for four, and all of it's meaningless. All the training and focus in the world couldn't give them strength enough to fight this. And now the team has a hole they can't fill.

This isn't like when Leo left. So far from it. There's no plane or train or boat that could ever bring him back. No, he's whole universes away, and the distance stretches on for eternity.

And it's Mikey.

How is he supposed to cope with that?

He has to turn his eyes away, squeeze them shut to keep them from burning. When he speaks, his voice is husky.

"We gotta get out of here."

Don ties the last knot, and lets his own hands fall into his lap. Two months, and he has no more idea of how to leave this place than he did when he arrived.

He leans against Raph's knee, as though his weight will hold his brother in place. If he bolts now, if they don't stay together, then everything is lost. If they don't have a direction to channel their combined energy into, then they're done.

"Leo... What - do you want us to do?"

Leonardo looks away at Raph's words, and doesn't return at Don's question. He knows they have to get out. This is what he was afraid of - getting too soft, too attached, letting their guard down. Maybe they could have found a way out by now. Maybe Mikey wouldn't have had to go home alone.

If he did go home.

"No more games." His voice is cracked and perhaps, he thinks, a little bit cold. "Luceti offered us a lifestyle, and we took the bait. Not anymore."

His head rolls back towards Donatello. "What can you do with this electricity?"

Raph retreats into himself again, lost in the same cycle of thoughts as before. He stares at the tiled floor, wringing his bandaged hands with a hollow expression, but pain apparent in his eyes.

It's still not enough. It'll never be enough.

Even Don can't pull them through this time.

"What can you do with this electricity?"

A list too long to speak unscrolls in his head. What can't he do with electricity? His hands itch to be of service. To create, rather than to merely fix what is broken. But while he waits for his marching orders, he dispatches one of them to still Raph's own nervous fingers.

"Name it."

"The barrier is an energy field." For now, Leonardo is in his element, and it takes away some of the pain. "We need to find a way to disrupt it or take it down. If there's electricity inside the village now..."

He stops suddenly, as though realizing something, then takes several measured paces along the bathroom wall. "The Malnosso have to be aware of your abilities, Don. At least to an extent. They wouldn't give us anything that they think could jeopardize their hold on us." He shakes his head, a bite of fury in his words. "Taking away Mikey might have been an insurance move. They wanted to break us enough that we wouldn't fight back."

He takes a minute of silence. "What do you need in order to take it down?"

They wanted to break us enough that we wouldn't fight back.

Like the trigger of a gun, his brother's words snap something inside of him, and for the second time that day, he's burning from the inside out.

He shoves Don away, bolting upright with a terrifying snarl. Red clouds his vision, every inch of him pulsing with raw, agonizing rage.

"I'm gonna kill 'em. I'M GONNA FUCKING KILL THEM ALL!"

Don stands reflexively, when Raph pushes him away.

"I'm gonna kill 'em. I'M GONNA FUCKING KILL THEM ALL!"

"Raph." Leo may have the Leader Voice, but Don has the Voice of Reason. "They're wrong. If they think splitting us up will break us, then they clearly don't know anything about us at all."

He turns to Leo. "And I seriously doubt my abilities are even on their radar. Compared to what other people here can do..." He shakes his head. "But as for disrupting the barrier - if we had access to the power source, then all I would need is my bare hands and five minutes. But since we don't, I'll need to create an energy surge powerful enough to knock out their field. Either a really big generator..." He pauses thoughtfully.

"... Or the equivalent of a lightning rod."

Oh yes. He would definitely enjoy using the Malnosso's own energy source against them.

Leo watches Raph tiredly, unable to render the same rage as his brother effortlessly finds. "Don's right. They're fighting dirty, Raph. Nothing would make them happier than to see us broken."

Then Donatello starts talking again, and Leo's focus redirects. He disagrees with the first statement; there are people in Luceti who can do amazing things, but only a few seem to be exceptionally gifted where intelligence is concerned. In that case, why take Mikey instead of Don? Too many loopholes. Too much conjecture. "A lightning rod?"

Raph can only stand there, blinded by the red haze; teeth grit, fists tight. Every part of him aches for action. No more sitting around. No more talking. He's tired of this bullshit - all these plans without an end or means. They mean nothing. Just air.

Every muscle in his body is stiff as a board. If there was room in the tiny bathroom, he'd be pacing. But instead, he just stands there with his jaw clenched and his heart pounding in his ears.

It's the same old story. Trapped. A prison with no air, no walls, and nothing to fight.

He can feel it slowly crushing his bones.

"A lightning rod?"

"It's an energy field, Leo. It relies on being dispersed. But if I had an attractor, I could draw all the energy to a single point. It would overload the barrier and destroy it... or at least create a hole we could escape through."

The theory explained, he casts a worried glance at Raph. They need to give him an outlet, soon, before his own energy concentrates and explodes on the attractor of his emotions.

He moves to the door.

"Do we really need to discuss this in a bathroom? Let's go somewhere where we can do something."

It makes sense. Leonardo won't pretend that he understands every detail - hell if he does - but the basic mechanics aren't out of his grasp. More importantly, Don thinks he can do it. It's the most hope they've had so far.

He shares the concern towards Raphael; the bathroom is suddenly too choking, too small and smelling like faint traces of their blood. He gives a slight nod of approval as soon as Donatello makes the decision.

He moves to follow, but gives a soft brush of his hand against Raphael's arm on the way out. Restless electricity sparks against his skin. He passes, wordless, gentle, and using enough of the reassurance he's pooled that Leonardo isn't sure how much left there is for himself.

Raph's eyes connect with his brother's at the touch, then dart dangerously around the room again. Even in the wider living room, he moves with the air of a caged animal, pacing along the breadth of it the moment he reaches a larger enclosure.

For three months he's been a puppet, a lab rat, a toy. But his spirit is too big, to fierce, to volatile to be dampened. It only builds and expands, pressuring the foundation.

As his brothers talk, he'll continue to pace, his mind full of the sound of breaking bones.

They'll regret the day they messed with his family.

Don walks to the far end of the living room, and opens a window. The weather is getting warm, and it will be good to have some air in the apartment.

"What do you want to do?" he asks again. "I'm sure you have more of a plan than 'walk up the barrier and try to disrupt it'."

Leonardo closes his eyes and tries to think.

"There's no telling what's on the other side." They've been over this, if briefly. "We're talking about a society advanced enough to create a prison where they can monitor almost every aspect of our lives. Even if we were to break through...

"No." Leo shakes his head firmly. "We don't have enough information to even imagine getting home yet. We need to take things one step at a time."

He turns his head from one brother to the next. "Right now, our only priority is the barrier. If we can disrupt it, that's one victory. We note it and we use it to move on to the next."

Raph continues pacing, back and fourth, and tries not to think about suffocation. He has no ideas, no plans, no thoughts besides the faceless screams of the people who dared to challenge them.

Don and Leo can make the plans, and when it's time, he'll be there to draw the blood.

"That's not going to work, Leo." He moves away from the window, hoping Raph's pacing might carry him to the now-empty place there. "We don't get a practice run for this. It'll be hard enough to do it once - and like you said, the Malnosso are watching. There's no way they'll let us do this twice."

He moves to the front door, laces his fingers behind his head, turns back to the room. "We need our whole plan laid out from the beginning. It has to go perfectly, because we only get one chance." He looks at Leo. Looks at Raph, even if Raph won't look back at him. "It's home or bust, guys."

Leo turns his head away. Donatello makes excellent points: if they screw this up, they don't get a second chance. They don't get to pull back and regroup. A part of him knows that Don is right.

But Don is also overestimating him. Leonardo can't trust himself to pull them through with no idea of who the Malnosso are, what's on the other side, what to do once they've crossed over. There are far too many things that they don't even begin to comprehend.

"That's impossible." It's harder to admit out loud. "We can't make any sort of plan without knowing everything - we know nothing. This isn't information that we're capable of going out and gathering ourselves without taking risks."

Leo paces aimlessly, realizes that he's going in the direction of Mikey's room, and veers sharply to the unoccupied window. Two palms rest on either side as he stares through the glass. "But you're right. We need to find a way to keep this beneath their radar."

"Impossible." That's the only thing he hears, and he knows it's true. They're flying blinder than they ever have. This is nothing like the Shredder. This is nothing like the Tricereton prison.

Another wave of hopelessness washes over him, moving through his spine. But it instantly translates to anger, burning a fire in his gut.

He finds his fist buried in the wall again.

"There's nothin'! Nothin' we can do but call those cowards out and tear their fuckin' heads off!"

"It's circular." Don paces in Raph's wake. "We can't make plans without getting information, and we can't get information without jeopardizing our plans."

Then Raph explodes, and he's pulling back from the spray of plaster.

"There's nothin'! Nothin' we can do but call those cowards out and tear their fuckin' heads off!"

Don sighs. For now, what he can do is pull Raph's fist from the wall, inspect the bandages, make sure he didn't split his knuckles again.

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