Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Fan Fiction ❯ Bad Places ❯ 2 ( Chapter 2 )

Part 2

Mike shut the door to his brother's room and went to the main room, plopping down on the sofa with a sigh. He tipped his head back and stared at the ceiling, arms outstretched. For a moment he held his breath, then exhaled and let his body relax. Three months of worrying, pointless arguments and ignoring Casey's subtle hints that they may never find him, all slipped off his shoulders.

"How is he?" Don asked, sitting turned sideways to face him.

"Asleep again, I think." He stretched and yawned.

"But how is he? Did he say where he's been?"

"He's fine, he just looked sore," Mike shook his head. "Just that it was a bad place. I asked him if he'd been hurt, and he said 'not for their lack of trying'."

"He didn't say anything else?"

"No." Mike glanced at him, then at the table. Leonardo's gear lay on top, the rainsoaked sheaths still dripping reddish water on the floor. "Where could he get into a fight like that and none of us ever hear about it?"

Donatello shrugged. He started to answer, then looked back at Mike as he stifled a yawn. "Maybe you should get some sleep, too. You've been pushing yourself hard these last few weeks."

"I don't wanna," Mike said. He picked up the remote control, not to turn on the televisions but merely to turn it over in his hands. "I'm afraid I'm already asleep."

"Maybe I should ask if you're okay," Donatello said. "You've been kind of...flat, almost. I know we've all been worn pretty thin, especially with Casey--"

"It's not that. I'm just tired." Mike forced a smile but couldn't stifle a yawn anymore. "Okay, really tired. I think I went through every wharf and dock in the city."

"Go get some sleep," Don said. "It'll take Raph an hour to get back to April's, and then another hour to get everyone here. You can at least take a nap."

After a moment, Mike nodded and tossed the remote aside, groaning as he stood up. "Yeah, okay. I'll let you deal with everyone. But listen, I want first dibs on rubbing this in Casey's face."

"I think Raph's already beat you to it," Don said, but he couldn't help laughing. "Besides, I'm sure Casey doesn't mind being wrong at all."

*

When Leo woke up again, there was someone else in the room. Adrenalin surged through him and he sat straight, reaching for a sword and surprised when it wasn't there. He glanced wildly around the darkness, searching for an odd shape, a shadow in the midst of shadows, and breathed deep when he didn't find it. The only breathing was his. He leaned over and turned on the lamp, scanning the room one more time to make sure.

Cold chills went through his body and he forced himself to breathe. Alone, alone, he was alone. He swung his legs over the side of the bed and stood up, steadying himself as he swayed. In his rush to come home, he hadn't noticed, but the air seemed thinner than before, and he felt lighter. After stretching in a useless attempt to quiet his sore muscles, he stepped out of his bedroom.

The lair was dark. Every light was off, save that coming from Donatello's lab, but then that could have been one of his experiments glowing and Leo didn't want a repeat of the last time he'd looked in on that lab. He stepped in front of Raphael's door and listened. His brother's familiar snores and frequent mumbling came back. At each door, he stopped and listened to make sure they were all inside. No doubt they'd come into his room just to make sure he was there, alive and well, and then fallen asleep. He smiled. They were all fine. In his few quiet moments in the last three months, he'd worried.

He jumped down from the second level to the bottom floor, landing silently on all fours. As he stood, he looked around for his swords. He'd dropped them somewhere. One of his siblings must have picked them up. Or else Splinter had them. He stared at the door leading to his master's room for several moments, a dark door that hadn't gotten any smaller after he'd grown up. He looked away. That could wait.

He thought about checking the refrigerator again

--following Felix out the door and running over the chopped body parts, both of them nearly slipping on stairs slick with blood, the heat of the munitions at his back and bullets whistling past his face--

then went into the lair's practice room.

There were his swords, still bloody and gleaming, left in the corner waiting for someone to sharpen and polish them. That could wait, too. Holding them now would be too soon. He'd held them constantly through the last three months. They'd carried him through waves of glowing eyes and sharp teeth and claws that could take his head off in one swipe. He was grateful for those swords, hell he even loved them a little. But they could sit alone and untended for awhile yet. All three of them, two sharp edges and himself, had earned something like a rest.

"You're awake."

Leo whirled, muscles tense even after he recognized his brother in the doorway. Raphael held his hands up as he came in.

"Whoa, didn't mean to startle you. Figures, I leave to get a bite and that's when you walk off."

The only light came from the television sets on the other side of the lair and whatever was glowing in Donatello's lab, so that they both looked like animated shadows. Leonardo tilted his head and looked at him. "You were watching me?"

Raphael grimaced like he'd been found out. "All of us were, kinda. Making sure you're actually there and not just Mike's imagination." He folded his arms, frowning. "Making sure you didn't disappear again."

That stung more than he expected. "I didn't mean to disappear."

A skeptical grunt. Raphael would never believe that and stupid to think he would. "So, didn't notice any injuries on you. You out of practice?"

Leo couldn't help a burst of laughter but it left again before it turned wild. "Hardly. Wanna see?"

"Yeah." Raphael dropped into a defensive stance. "Let me know if you get tired too fast."

The darkness wouldn't hinder their fight. If anything, it enhanced it, turning them into silhouettes, the background light only highlighting their outlines as if they were whirling sharp edges. A low sweep kick to send one of them backflipping out of its reach and countering with a plain kick as he went, a backhand that turned into a block and a blocked punch that grabbed the offered hand and yanked him off balance. A roll that dodged another punch, a sloppy mule kick that left him open to a kick in the stomach, and then an elbow catching his side that sent him sprawling on the floor. As Raphael pushed himself back up, he growled and rubbed his jaw where he'd hit the mat.

"You're not hurt at all," Raph said. "Hell, you're faster."

A bitter laugh, and Leonardo squashed it before it got out of control. Intense training, he thought, but he didn't say it.

"Where were you?" Instead of his earlier, friendly tone, Raphael turned accusative, blocking his way out instead of just standing in front of him. "Three months, Leo, we thought you were dead. Mike was the only one who was sure we'd find you, hell, even Splinter had given up. Casey was even saying you had to be dead. Where were you that he couldn't find you?"

Eyes lowered again, Leonardo shrugged. "A bad place, that's all."

"Bad place?" Raph said. "That's it?"

"Raph, I..." He paused, then shook his head. "I can't."

For a moment Raphael only looked at him, but he didn't move out of the way, either. "Talking can make it feel better," he said, repeating a speech he'd heard hundreds of times. He glanced down at the floor as if saying it embarrassed him.

"Thanks, but no."

"Leo. What. Happened."

"Can't you just let it go for now?"

"No! I leave for a night and get the damn inquisition. You leave for three months and don't expect us to ask questions?" Suddenly angry, Raph clenched his hands into fists, ready for another round. "Well, I'm asking. Where the hell were you?"

"A bad place."

"I need more than that."

His brother stood between him and the doorway. That was the only reason he didn't leave. He walked over to the corner with his swords and knelt, gathering a rag and sitting down crosslegged. Raphael was about to demand again when he started speaking in a low voice.

"It was dark most of the time," he said, working the rag down one side of the first sword. "There were lights, but they were broken. Some of them flickered, but...you couldn't really see much."

Silent now, Raphael sat down in front of him, listening.

"Halls, mostly, long halls that twisted around until you couldn't tell where you were. There were a few doors, some rooms. Not many. And things inside."

"Things?"

"Like animals. I think." He finished that sword, leaving the metal clear, and picked up the other one. "I could hardly see them. Some were so big we couldn't get by them even after they died, so we had to cut them apart and climb over. Most were small, though, and fast. God, they were faster than snakes."

"You said 'we'," Raph said. "You weren't alone?"

"There were three of us. I don't know what they look like, it was always too dark to see. Felix was big, though, and he said he'd been an army ranger. He could shoot and he used a knife almost as good as me."

"And the other guy?"

"A girl, Chanta, I think." He paused for a few seconds before starting again. "She shouldn't have been there."

"How come?"

"She was overweight, out of shape. She could barely keep up with us. But she could put a bullet into someone's eye a mile away, even in that dark." He closed his eyes, able to handle his swords without worrying about losing a finger. "We searched for a way out, but most of the time we were killing things. If we found a room with supplies, we'd barricade the door and sleep for awhile. Rest. Clean our weapons."

Raphael swallowed reflexively. His brother must have spent every night taking care of those swords the way he was doing right now. Before, he'd treated them like extensions of himself, never leaving them too far. He remade them when broken, he used them like his soul made manifest. Now he cleaned them like a soldier did a gun, a useful tool, a shield your life depended on, but nothing more. Methodical and necessary.

"You got out," he said. "What happened to them?"

"Felix got out with me." Leonardo stood up, leaving everything in a pile beside him. Despite several hours passing, the blood was still wet and left the rag soaked, his hands covered. He dropped the rag on the blades, not caring that it dripped on them again. He walked towards the door.

"Wait," Raph said, turning around but still seated. "Chanta, what about her?"

Leonardo paused, looking back. "I think she's dead. 'Least, I hope so." And he left his brother in the dark, crossing the lair to the stream that ran through Splinter's little garden, and washed what blood he could away.

Tbc...