lucetilogs | I'll be fine, I swear

Entry tags:

I'll be fine, I swear

Who: [Bad username or site: gaijin_ninja title=Raphael @ livejournal.com] and [Bad username or site: i_speak_softly title=Donatello @ livejournal.com]
What: Brotherly weekend camping trip
When: Backdated to early this morning
Where: Near the western lake
Summary: Raph and Don take a much-needed break from civilization to regroup and recover from recent losses.
Rating: T

For the first time in weeks, Raph's actually excited to start the day. They'd done all their packing the night before, told Casey all about their plans in case someone started asking after them, and headed out for the west lake at the break of dawn.

The morning was warm, but not unbearably so compared to the heatwave the rising sun was sure to bring. Luckily they'd be traveling by the shade of the forest through the worst of it, and reach a suitable campsite by the cool relief of sundown.

Now Raph would never call himself anything but city-bred. He loves the noise and clamber of the streets far more than what's good for him. But walking through the dappled shade to the sound of summer breeze and birdsong is something he's learned to appreciate.

Quiet. God, he just needed quiet. Give him some time to get away from prying people and just relax for once.

He closes his eyes, shifts his pack, and sighs, sending another watchful look to his brother following not far behind.

"Reminds you of Northampton, don't it?"

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"Mikey left after they took him. Leo did the same." There's a pause, and he shifts uncomfortably under its weight. "And they took you."

Don's fingers twitch, following Raph's logic. He's right. "Shell."

Raph's head bows, eyes closed tight, hands in fists. He's slowly losing control of his breathing, shuddering and catching in his throat, trembling with his shoulders. He walking on the edge between depression and hideous, unbridled rage. It will only take a striking breeze to make him stumble.

"What'm I supposed to do?

Don crawls out of his blankets and moves to sit next to Raph, putting his arms around his brother's shoulders, holding him still, holding him back from whatever chasm he's falling into. "Lots of people have been kidnapped and then not been sent home. It doesn't mean anything."

Every muscle is tense under Don's embrace, wound like a chord. He heaves for another breath, and it shakes his every molecule. "I hate this place," he seethes through his teeth. Fire erupts in his stomach. "I fucking hate this place."

There's nothing he can say. There's nothing he can do. Raph is at the breaking point, and Don is powerless to stop him from snapping.

"It's been six months for you, hasn't it."

An angry howl escapes him. His head is reeling. Tunnel vision. But Don's still there, anchoring him. He wants to hurt something, destroy something so bad. But out here there's no one to hurt but himself and his brother, and there's nothing within reach to destroy.

He brings his fist down hard on his own thigh. It releases so little of what's burning inside him it hurts.

"The hell am I supposed to do!?"

He leans forward, head in his hands again, and growls something feral.

"I can't keep doin' this. I can't."

Don shifts with Raph, not letting him go. It feels like Raph will explode if Don doesn't hold him together.

"You can, Raph. You can. Show them you don't break that easily."

"I ain't breakin'." He steels himself with a sharp inhale, a stubborn set of his jaw. He fights the urge to shove Don off of him. No, he's not breaking. He's fighting. Fighting the only way he can, by getting freakin' pissed.

"I'll break their fuckin' jaws," he spits, with hellfire in every word. "Cowards."

Don takes the hint and disentangles himself from his brother's shoulders. That's his Raph. That's his stubborn Raph, who would take on any hero or villain in Luceti, even without magic powers and invincibility.

He stands up. "Come on."

He's taken aback when Don stands, suddenly disoriented as he's pulled from his own little angry world. He gets ready to follow him, but stops for a moment, eying him critically. "Where you goin'?"

"Not back to sleep, that's for sure." He takes a step towards the hill. "I think there was something you wanted me to do."

Raph doesn't want to grin. He doesn't feel like grinning. But that does earn Don a crooked, broken sort of smile.

He gets up, thumping his brother soundly on the shell. "Let's do it."

Then he takes off running toward the cliff, running for the sake of running, into a more familiar dark. The leap is like jumping rooftops. The moonlight reflects like a million plate glass windows. A slice of home.

It's not perfect, still jagged around the edges, but home all the same.

He hits the water and it takes his breath away. Oh, sweet distractions.

Don hits the water half a second after Raph, plunging into the silver and black.

It feels good, and he can tell Raph is enjoying it too, finding a little light in a place that has been so dark for him.

He surfaces slowly, and eases towards the rocks. He needs to do that again.

Raph surfaces, backstroking away from the cliff's edge. In the dark, it's a towering mountain of shadow, looking far more formidable than it was in the daylight. But that just makes it more fun.

"I told ya," he crows as Don climbs up the rocks by the shoreline. "That's good stuff!"

Don sniffs derisively. "That wasn't good stuff. This is good stuff."

And, reaching the top of the rocks, he does a back somersault off the edge.

"Oh yeah, hotshot?" He calls once Don surfaces. He's already scrambling for the rocks as fast as he can, a devilish grin on his face that all brothers know spells the universal language of start running now.

Fancy moves may not be Raph's forte, but he sure as hell knows how to make a splash. He cannonballs dangerously close to where Don's swimming.

When Raph surfaces, Don only shakes his head. "Don't you know you get a deduction for splashing? Six-point-five."

"I'm playin' by my own rules," he snickers. Did you expect anything less?

And now he's swimming backwards again, out toward the middle of the lake where the moon's reflection's made the water bright with silver.

"Bet the Captian's octopus'd come out at night, Donnie. Surprised you even got in the water."

"Ah. In that case, nine-point-two."

He follows Raph into the deeper water, sending small ripples across the silver disk of the moon's reflection.

"I thought you didn't believe in the octopus." Just a little reciprocal teasing, to show he's not scared by Raph's ghost stories.

"Tough crowd."

He stops swimming, opting to tread water instead.

"No, but you did. Plus. I think I'm the scariest thing out here." He grins a bit cheekily at that. "But you, you look a lot like cephalope food to me."

He's messing the word up on purpose. He's just that much of a dork.

Don lets his momentum carry him up to Raph, and hides his smirk under the edge of the water. "Ah, the mighty cephalope. It roams the lakes and rivers of many worlds, lying in wait to gore and then devour any hardheaded maniac that crosses its path."

On the word maniac, he lunges forward, pouncing on Raph and trying to force him under.

"I'll show you maniac!" Raph snarls at him playfully, thrashing and wrestling him in and out of the water. He tries to hook his arm around Don's neck and catch him in one of his patented Terrifying Headlocks of Doom.

Don pushes backwards, evading Raph's grab, then turns over and dives. If you want to throttle him, you'll have to catch him first.

But Raph doesn't follow him. Instead, his attention's set in the direction of the campsite. He growls low, this time completely genuine and dangerous. When Don surfaces, he's already swimming silently back toward the rocks, motioning him for silence.

"I heard somethin'."

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