meanandgreen: (Brooding)
meanandgreen ([personal profile] meanandgreen) wrote in [community profile] tushanshu_logs2014-04-11 09:06 pm

[Open]

Characters: Raphael and others
Date: Threads backdated from 3/14 through the month of April
Location: Wood Sector (primarily the dojo), and lots of sulking around the Water Sector
Situation: Raph's trying to take his mind off things after this little fiasco.
Warnings/Rating: Probably

((This post serves as two months' worth of catch-all. Feel free to use the post as a lead-in or come up with your own scenario. Or you can hit me up at [plurk.com profile] willowslament for plotting. I'm open to pretty much anything.))


It's been a bad week. A bad couple months if Raph really thought about it. And he did. Way too much. Replaying the fight with Leo, the thing with Monet over and over in his mind, his memories soaked with red-spattered fury.

It can drive a guy crazy; thinking like that. Letting it play over in your mind until it twists itself into something that makes you ache inside. Makes you feel sick. Makes your thoughts race at night and dark things flash through your dreams.

Raphael hates this. He hates fighting with Leo, with any of his brothers, but he definitely hates fighting over this same old crap more than anything.

But now Leo's taken a page out of his book and disappears completely. Leaves only traces of himself behind--food missing from the pantry, a window left ajar. His brother's turned into a ghost. Made it really freakin clear he has no interest in changing his mind.

He doesn't listen. He never listens. No one ever understands...

So Raph stays home; too afraid to venture out to his usual rooftop haunts, even to the Fire Sector, where you'd think the lure of the fight ring would be irresistible. But the possibility of running into Leo makes him too sick with bitter anger to swing it.

Without a tangible one, Mike becomes his verbal punching bag. He lashes out for no reason over the stupidest things. He breaks things... plates, the bathroom sink, the front door...

His anger at Leo has become generalized. More mad at the world than anything specific. Because it's easier than having to deal with any kind of real feelings. It just is.

Mike gets tired of it after a while, grapples to find something to distract him. He drags him to the dojo one day. He teaches kids there, and he's good with them. Of course he's good with them.

The dojo brings Raph a type of peace he wasn't expecting. A shadow of home and belonging that soothes some of the rawness inside. So he comes back. Sometimes with Mike, sometimes on his own to use the space to practice sai kata or to spar with whoever's willing.

And when he finds Korra there, he almost never wants to leave.
duelkatana: (i'm in a mood)

[personal profile] duelkatana 2014-04-18 07:37 am (UTC)(link)
This is the lowest they've been. Leonardo and his brother have lived as shadows their whole lives; here in this world, they darken the same corridors without ever touching, barely visible even to each other as they stretch towards the moonlight. But in these last few weeks, complete darkness has swept through and made them no longer shadows, but phantoms. Leaving nothing more than cold, intangible traces of themselves for one another - the message that they're alive, but nothing else. And even then, from obligation alone.

Leonardo is sick of it. He misses his brother, and this festering body of guilt standing shoulder-to-shoulder with him wherever he rests... it's not the same. Not like it would have him believe.

He hates it, but he has no other choice than to pass his brother in the darkness, because... it's not that simple. It never is. Leonardo and Raphael have a manual of their own that they both seemed to have burned to ashes a long time ago.

But when Monet contacts him a second time and gives him another mission - this one far bigger than the last - he can't turn it down. He just can't. Not after all they've been through together, and not when he manages to wrap his head around how monumental a task Monet is entrusting to him. Yet a cold feeling pits in his stomach when he realizes that he has to tell Raph. The first time he tried to slip away from his brother, a severe storm tore them apart. As foolish as he may be, he will not make that same mistake again.

Leo doesn't know how to break it to him; has no idea how to catch a ghost after salting the hallways, drawing hundreds of circles from him to his brother. So he just goes looking. He knows Raphael still, even now. They've lived together alone for a year now, give or take, and he knows where his brother goes when he needs to think. (And he's sure that they've both done a lot of thinking, lately.)

Today, Leonardo spends his time meditating in the cool sand on the bank of a canal. When sunset arrives, he pulls himself up, treks back through the Water Sector, and climbs the side of their shared suite until he reaches the rooftop. His brother's silhouette is outlined against the stirring reds and oranges of the sky; without a moment's pause, he moves forward, not bothering to soften his footsteps.

Here goes nothing.
duelkatana: (you're better off)

[personal profile] duelkatana 2014-04-19 02:49 am (UTC)(link)
His brother doesn't turn to face him, and he's not sure how to take that. Is the quiet tolerance of his presence Raphael's first step towards forgiveness? Is he at least willing to wait for Leo's grovelling apology before he turns him away?

Or is this the highest rejection between brothers: a refusal to acknowledge his existence any further?

Leonardo doesn't know, but his feet carry him forward anyway, step by step until he comes to a halt just to Raph's right. His eyes flicker towards his brother, catching a glimpse of emerald green and sun-washed red, before darting out towards the horizon.

He opens his mouth to say something; nothing comes. So instead he stands, and exists, and hopes he is more than a ghost haunting the eye of the storm.
duelkatana: (i don't mind)

[personal profile] duelkatana 2014-04-19 03:18 am (UTC)(link)
I'm sorry. The apology churns in his lungs like glass, cutting him to shreds from the inside. Leonardo is prideful, but 'I'm sorry' is a phrase he's all too familiar with - and the issue with that, sometimes, is that it loses its impact when it's truly needed.

The last time he regretted so deeply something he'd done to Raphael is when the anger of being held back had been snuffed out of him, when he'd gripped a blade blooded with history in his hands and shoved his brother to his death. In that moment years ago, it seemed impossible that they could move past it so quickly. What of now? Once again, 'sorry' isn't enough. It doesn't convey a fraction of the regret he feels for what he said to his brother. Because things are never, ever that simple.

You apologize to Raph by moving forward. Forget your grudges - move past everything you've done to him, because it lets him move past what he's done to you.

"I've been asked to help with another mission." It's possibly the dumbest thing imaginable to say to his brother after weeks of complete silence, but it's moving forward, one way or another. "It's about the Foreigner clones that were discovered a while back."

He pauses for a breath that doesn't quite fill his lungs.

"I want you to come."
Edited 2014-04-19 03:21 (UTC)
duelkatana: (forgive me)

[personal profile] duelkatana 2014-04-19 03:47 am (UTC)(link)
A weight lifts from his shoulders and streaks into the darkening sky, taking with it his shards of anger, the splinters of regret lodged in his mouth, everything in-between. His whole self feels immeasurably lighter as he steps forward again, this time shoulder-to-shoulder with his brother, and sits cross-legged on the building's edge.

"Monet's already made a few inquiries, and all of them point to the Healer's Guild here in Keeliai. We'll be following up on those leads." He goes quiet for a moment. "There's no telling if we'll even find out anything worthwhile... but we're going in with a big group. She must think we'll find something."
duelkatana: (we are all)

[personal profile] duelkatana 2014-04-19 04:21 am (UTC)(link)
Leonardo's eyes drop to his hands, resting softly on his kneecaps. He knows you don't, little brother. And that's the bottom line.

If it were Don and Mike here with him instead of you, they would have followed without question. They may have voiced concerns, offered counsel, but in the end, their faith in Leonardo is absolute - sometimes it seems that they think he can do no wrong, that his word is absolute, that he's perfect and impenetrable and will always choose the right path for them to follow. He knows that isn't true, of course - they've seen him fall just as many times as they've seen him rise back up again - but he always must remember that while their faith may be undying, their bodies are not.

Raph is different. Raph fights and claws and struggles every step of the way, not because he doesn't trust Leo, but because... Leonardo himself isn't sure why. He just does. It's just how it's always been. He sees every flaw in the scars criss-crossing over their bodies. He's recorded his mistakes over countless years. He keeps Leo humble, whether he needs humbling or not.

As much as he hates to admit it, he needs Raph around to question his decisions. And he trusts his brother to make up for the weaknesses in his heart. But this time, Leonardo isn't sure that it's his judgment that's skewed.

"I do." His gaze slides to his brother's, holding it steadily, but there's an earnest note in his voice that reflects the one in Raphael's. "Trust me."

Have faith in me. Just this once.
duelkatana: (to be wet when you follow)

[personal profile] duelkatana 2014-04-19 04:48 am (UTC)(link)
His next breath is quick and sharp. "I don't hate you. I'd never -"

He could never. He could never, Raph. You can dig your fingers into his shoulder until it never functions right again - you can pound on him until he can't see straight and every breath tastes like metal going down. You can tell him every morning that he should have died on his own blade that day, and you can tell him every night that you don't need him. You can do all of that and anything else imaginable. But he'll never hate you.

Leo's gaze breaks away not too long after Raph's does, returning to the shoals of purple sky streaking through the horizon. His shoulders slump tiredly; he feels hundreds of years old, and still moving. Still going.

"I meant what I said. She isn't like Karai." Karai never came closer than a tanto blade against his throat. Karai didn't pull him close, hug him like he was just some broken kid who needed comfort. He grits his teeth, and there's a touch of venom in his next words. "No one is like Karai."

She was one of a kind. And if she ever touches his family again, he'll kill her. Make no mistake, Raphael - she no longer clouds his mind. If Monet were like Karai, he'd know.
duelkatana: (the river)

[personal profile] duelkatana 2014-04-19 05:20 am (UTC)(link)
Slowly, his eyes slide closed, and his mouth pulls into a thin smile.

He wouldn't expect anything less.

Raph doesn't have to trust Monet. Leo wishes he did, but his brother's heart is a small, guarded thing, surrounded by steel walls and barbed wire; prickly, closed off even to the ones lucky enough to make it inside. But those walls are their walls, that wire their home. There is no place safer in the world.

Leo slowly climbs to his feet, stretching in the warm afterglow of the sun. It's a clear night. He half-turns in the direction from which he came, but pauses, angling his head towards his brother.

"I'm going for a run in the Metal Sector. You in?"