#a couple scenes here or there | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

kifu · 2 months

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Hey, look. Story. Rewritten in what may be an acceptable way, but I still mourn my missing words.

I might post big blocks I've worked on here. Might get bored of that. But I don't think I'll be posting on AO3 until this story is completely redone and I'm satisfied with it.

Have everything I wrote today and yesterday.

The demon jerked with a sharp inhale, breaking the steady, deep rhythm of his sleep. Michelangelo looked up from the comic in his hands, set it on the table, and stood to his feet to watch him. The demon’s chest rose and fell quickly before evening out, all the while his eyelids fluttered.

“The demon’s waking up,” Mike announced.

Leonardo appeared from out of the candlelight’s threshold to stand beside the chair in their living area. Mike hadn’t seen where he came from, but he already had his arms crossed over his plastron in an over dramatic no-nonsense stance.

The demon groaned, his eyes fully opening. He rolled his head on his shoulders, eventually locking eyes with Leonardo. He stared for a moment. “Morlocks?” he croaked.

Leonardo broke the eye contact to exchange a look with Mike. Mike frowned and offered Leo the barest of shrugs. Leo looked back at the demon with a carefully blank expression.

The demon pushed himself upright with difficulty, leaning heavily on the back of the couch. His eyes flicked toward Michelangelo. They were completely yellow. No differentiation between iris and cornea, and certainly no pupil. Mike wasn’t entirely sure how he knew the demon was looking at something, but he could feel his gaze nonetheless. Michelangelo was quite proud of himself for keeping relatively calm this entire time, but seeing the demon’s eyes opened a kind of flood gate for his anxiety. He shifted from foot to foot to give the energy a healthy way out. “I appreciate the help, I really do,” the demon said, “but I need to talk to Storm.” His words slurred, running into each other and trailing off in weird places, but he did manage to get the point across well enough to understand.

“Great, he’s a whack bag,” Raphael said. He silently slunk into the light beside Mike. He was tense, but he refrained from mirroring his brother’s intimidating posturing.

“He’s not a whack bag, Raph,” Leo said with a hint of exasperation. “He’s concussed.”

“Definitely concussed,” the demon agreed. He faintly hissed air in through his teeth with a sharp breath of pain.

Leonardo’s mouth fell into a frown as he studied the demon. “Why are you covered in blood?”

The demon didn’t respond at first, but eventually his eyes widened and he gasped. “Oh God,” he said in such a low voice Mike could have mistaken it for a groan. “The children. Are the children okay?” Underneath the slur, he had an accent that Mike couldn’t quite place, even though it sounded vaguely familiar.

Leo checked in with his brothers again, but Raph shook his head to one side in a subtle no. “There are no children,” Leo said. “Just us.”

The demon stared almost vacantly at Leo.

“The blood?” Leo prompted.

“It’s not mine,” the demon responded, more quickly than before. He reached up into his hair, lightly touching the side where he’d hit his head. “Except this. This is mine.”

“Whose blood?” Raphael growled.

The demon stared off, focusing off of Leonardo as his thoughts wandered. “I was supposed to save the children. It’s their blood. I don’t know if I succeeded.”

“What children?” Leonardo asked.

The demon licked his lip. His words came after a couple shaky breaths. “The cult – Friends of Humanity – held a rally. They were going to execute mutant children on live TV. It was my job to get the children to safety.”

“Are you sure you don’t meant H.A.T.E.? Humans Against Extra Terrestrials?” Mike suggested helpfully.

The demon’s brows knit together briefly before he relaxed his expression again, though with a small wince. “Friends of Humanity. They’re gaining a lot of political traction somehow.”

“They were gonna execute mutant children?” Raphael clarified. “Only mutants around here are us an’ ol’ Leatherhead.”

“We’re in New York City?” the demon asked.

“Manhattan Island,” Leo clarified.

“Sewers,” Michelangelo added.

The demon stared off again, his head waving back and forth with a distinct lack of balance.

“What were you doing in Donnie’s explosion?” Raphael asked. His tone came out with accusation, but Mike could tell that he tried holding back.

“Explosion?” the demon echoed. He focused his eyes on Raph, his balance temporarily returning. “What explosion?”

“What’s the last thing you remember?” Leonardo asked.

The demon’s focus slowly faded out again, the waving picking up again. “I saw the children. I leapt toward them. It was stupid, but I was going to teleport them away. It was their best chance at survival.” He closed his eyes and inhaled. “I don’t know if I got them away.”

“Teleport?” Mike asked.

“I’m a mutant,” the demon replied casually. “I can teleport.”

“Sure,” Raph grunted. “Let’s see it.”

“It requires concentration,” the demon explained. “Which is not something I have right now.”

“Likely,” Raph mumbled with a roll of his eyes.

The demon watched Raphael for a moment and then looked back in Leonardo’s direction. “I’m Nightcrawler. Or Kurt. Kurt Wagner. I don’t know how I got here, but I do thank you for taking care of me.”

Leo set his jaw and Mike didn’t think he was going to answer. As soon as Mike opened his mouth to introduce them all, Leonardo finally pipped up. “I’m Leonardo. These are my brothers Michelangelo and Raphael. Our sensei, Master Splinter, is with our last brother, Donatello, who was caught in the same explosion as you.”

“I really need to get back. I need to know what happened.”

“You’re going to need to wait on that for a little bit,” Leonardo said, almost as a suggestion rather than an order. “You’re in no state to be moving. Raph? Could you bring our guest a glass of water?”

Raphael dipped his chin in acknowledgment and turned to head to the kitchen.

“Wait!” Leo called. Raph stopped mid-motion, balancing himself expertly to turn his head to regard Leo. “Can concussed patients have water?”

Kurt snickered and then groaned. “Ja, I can drink water. Thank-you.”

Slowly dipping his foot back to the ground, Raph nodded again and disappeared back into the darkness that filled their home.

Kurt leaned heavily against the back of the couch, his eyes staring off between Leonardo and Michelangelo. “Something is not adding up,” he murmured, barely loud enough for Mike to catch. He stepped forward and tilted his head for the words to better catch his ear. Louder, conversationally: “Humans Against Terrestrial Extras. You are not aliens?” Kurt’s eyes caught Mike. He asked the question in a way that Mike knew he already knew the answer, but he was double checking his facts.

“We’re not,” Mike confirmed. “But we did kinda have an alien problem a little while back. Our planet was invaded for a couple days. We took care of it and Donnie sent them all away, but you know how humans are sometimes.”

Kurt’s lips drew a fine line.

“What’s wrong?” Leo asked.

“What you tell me is only adjacent to my memories. Like they run in parallel, but not …” Kurt trailed off, squinting as he struggled through the sluggishness of his concussion. That, or he didn’t know the words at all and he was throwing word salad at the two brothers.

“It’s nothing,” Kurt eventually summed up. “I just – I need to get back home. I need to know how the mission turned out. I need to know if I got the children to safety.”

“Do you think that will make the news?” Leo suggested.

“Ja, probably. They were preparing to film live, though we struck before their equipment was up. FoH is not exactly a little movement anymore.”

“Too bad our power’s out,” Leo said, this pointed at Mike.

“We could always call April,” Mike suggested.

“No, don’t worry about it,” Kurt said. “I don’t need to bother anyone else. I just need to … I need to sleep,” he said with a defeated and extremely tired tone. Mike heard it before, when Donatello had something bothering him that he couldn’t drop.

Raphael returned, sticking his arm out sharply with the glass to give to Kurt. With a little effort, Kurt pulled himself back into a self-maintained sitting position to accept the glass. As soon as it left his fingers, Raphael looked about himself and then settled on the couch arm farther from where Kurt sat and then crossed his arms.

Kurt took a long, but slow drink, using one hand to hold the glass and another hand to hold himself upright. He settled the drink onto his knees with both hands around it, staring down at the ground. “How long have I been out?” he asked the floor.

Raph looked at Leo with one brow pulled low. “Like an hour, right?”

“If that,” Leo confirmed.

Kurt took another drink, and then moved to stand. Mike watched Kurt critically, but Raph immediately jumped to his feet and grabbed Kurt by the arm before he had a chance to straighten out. Mike saw the wobble and the expression of impending doom cross Kurt’s face. If Raph hadn’t caught him, he’d have ended up face down on the ground. Mike wouldn’t have been able to react in time. Raph pushed Kurt down to the couch again, letting go in the same movement.

“Ya ain’t ready for that,” he scolded Kurt. He motioned sharply. “Drink some more.”

“I need to go home,” Kurt protested in a rather pathetically weak voice.

“We’re not taking you anywhere until you’re safe to move,” Leonardo repeated. “Judging by how hard you hit your head, it might be a couple days.”

Raph shook his head with some vigor. “Nuh-uh. A concussion this bad, he ain’t moving for at least a week. Even if you can heal like us. Heal up more like a human, I dunno. A month?”

Kurt wrinkled his nose in a feeble attempt at disgust. “I can’t wait that long.”

“Too damn bad,” Raph grunted.

Kurt dropped his head into the palm of his hand, his elbow resting on his knee. He groaned. “It shouldn’t take that long. I can’t … remember … anything right now, but that – it’s wrong.”

Raph snorted a small laugh through his nose. “Can’t remember, but the concussion ain’t bad, huh?” He took a step back toward the couch arm, his eyes locked on to Kurt in case he decided to make another attempt at standing.

“No, I’m not saying it’s not bad. A month is excessive.”

“How come you can remember what you were doing if you can’t remember anything?” Mike asked.

Leonardo threw him a look that told Mike something along the lines of ‘shut up’ and ‘not helping’.

“Different parts of the brain,” Raphael said casually, though he didn’t look away from Kurt as he spoke to Mike. “Probably gonna be a lot of things he can’t remember that he don’t normally have a problem recalling any other day.” He settled back onto the arm. “Should all come back. But for the next two days, I don’t wanna see you off this couch, you hear?” Raphael stared Kurt down, completely no-nonsense.

“I can’t – ”

“Shut up,” Raph snapped. “You’re being stupid, and if you didn’t just try and knock your block off, you’d know it, too.”

“Raph,” Leo said with a warning tone.

Raph threw up a hand to wave him off. “I’m calm.” He tapped the couch, his eyes never having left Kurt. “I’m gonna make sure you stay on this couch no matter how many times you repeat yourself that you’re missing from home. They’re gonna have to stay worried for a little bit, because you ain’t moving and I ain’t carrying you. That much jostling will have you throwing up all over the place.”

Leonardo sighed and dropped any pretense at an intimidating pose. “We’ll watch you and make sure you’re getting better and not worse. Head injuries are, unfortunately, common enough around here.”

“And that means, we’ll let ya sleep. Ya need it. But we’re gonna be watching ya to make sure you ain’t suffocating in your sleep or seizing. You need to pee, we need to know. You need water, we’ll get it for ya. You need food” – Raphael jerked his finger in Mike’s direction – “you let him know. Definitely not him.” Raph’s finger moved from Mike to Leo. Leonardo scoffed.

“This is ridiculous,” Kurt mumbled.

“Don’t care,” Raphael grunted. “You’re not in great shape. You’re holding a conversation, but you’re slurring, you’re dizzy, and your memory ain’t good. You’re also about to pass out at a moment’s notice.” He leaned forward and grabbed the glass from Kurt’s hand. “Gimme that before you drop it. Bet your coordination is shit, too.” Raph set the glass on table, easily within Kurt’s reach.

“Raph, I think he gets it,” Leo said testily.

Raphael shrugged. “Don’t think he does, but I sure wanna drive the point home.”

“So now that we’ve figured this all out and Donnie’s safe and everything, can I go to bed now?” Mike asked.

“Yeah,” Leo said. “Master Splinter’s with Donnie for when he wakes up, but I doubt that will be for, well, a long time. I don’t think a head injury is the worst of his problems and his lack of sleep will keep him down and out. Raph, do you want first or second watch with him?” He motioned his cheek in Kurt’s direction.

“I’ll stay up with him.”

“Can you play nice?”

“Guy’s gonna conk out in half a minute anyway.”

Mike didn’t doubt Raph. Kurt slowly began to slump to the side and back as the turtles debated amongst themselves, the topic gradually stepping away from his immediate concerns. His eyes fluttered again as he tried to force himself awake, but it was a losing battle.

Leonardo studied their guest for a moment and let out a long breath. “Okay. Raph, I know you know what you’re doing. Grab me if you or Master Splinter need a break. Mikey, you’re on standby.”

Mike saluted in acknowledgment.

“I think Don did wait for half the night before he tried exploding the place apart,” Raph remarked. “Don’t know what time it is, but I ain’t that tired.”

“Maybe your adrenaline hasn’t worn off yet,” Leonardo said. “I’m still tired.”

“Go on. I’ll get ya if I need ya, Fearless,” Raph said. He stood up and reached for Kurt’s foot, pulling his ankle to stretch him more comfortably across the couch. He grabbed the pillow and was working on getting it under Kurt’s head when Mike finally walked away, plunging himself into the darkness of the lair.

“I told you he’s not an alien,” Leonardo said from beside Mike.

“I dunno,” Mike said in a low voice. “He’s not an extra-terrestrial kind of alien, but I get the feeling he’s not from around here.”

“From New York?” Leo asked.

“No, maybe he’s from New York, but don’t you think we should have heard about him or the cult he was trying to stop? Murdering children on live TV? Or do you think he really is some kind of whack job like Raph said?” Mike stopped moving, sure he was close to the ladder leading up to their rooms, but not immediately able to spy it out in the inky dark.

Leo was quiet for a moment and Mike would have believed that he’d found the ladder and left him if he thought Leo could pull that off silently. They were ninja, but even Leo had his limits in the way of silence and invisibility against used and abused structures. “I still don’t think he’s crazy, but you do make a really good point.”

“And you really think he can teleport? That’s nuts, even for us.”

The metallic groans of the ladder from ahead notified Mike that Leo had found their way upstairs. “Why not?” Leo asked conversationally. “We’ve been pulled into other dimensions in different ways and had our matter moved from one side of the universe to another. We stole a sword from the Foot that is half mystical. We found a civilization that’s powered entirely by crystals. Mikey, your comic book characters turned out to be real people with real powers. Why is teleporting weird?”

The ladder continued to groan as Leonardo slowly climbed it. Mike used the noise to find his way up and followed Leo.

“I dunno. Maybe I’m jealous. He’s a mutant and he can teleport. Or he’s nuts. We’re mutants and we can do ninjutsu? Because we trained really really hard our whole lives. And! We’re mutant turtles. Sensei’s a mutant rat. LH is a mutant ‘gator. What is he a mutant of?”

Leonardo waited until Mike’s feet hit the solid ground on the upper level to respond. “Your argument is getting weaker. It doesn’t really matter. We’ll help him get back on his feet and go home. Then we won’t have to worry about it.”

“That’s the thing, Leo,” Mike said. “What if we can’t get him home?”

“That’s ridiculous.”

“Where did he come from?” Mike said with a little more conviction. “I know you’re playing this light so I’ll shut up and go to bed, but we’re missing a lot of this story, Leo, and you know it.”

Leonardo sighed and placed both hands on Mike’s shoulders. “I know. The thing is, he’s not a threat, for right now at least. Nothing he said really made any sense, but it can all wait until his brain isn’t pudding and we have Donnie back.” He removed his hands and began walking to his room. “Goodnight, Mikey.”

Mike stood still for another moment. “Yeah, ‘night Leo.”