tushanshu_logs | I need you. You. You. You. In the Morning. When my soul's on fire!

The energy in the room shifts so quickly it could give a person whiplash. Here comes Fearless Leader, giving him the judging look he'd been waiting for. And Raph visibly prickles under his gaze, not failing to meet his eyes with a challenge. Go ahead, his voice growls in his head, say something. I dare you.

He knows he looks like crud warmed over, but that look. It feels like he's rubbing it in. And he's waiting for it. Oh, he's waiting for it. Go ahead, Fearless. Tell him he's lost it again. Lecture him about losing his temper. Remind him how all of this is his own fault. Because the second Leo opens his mouth, he'll deck him right in the face. He swears.

But the kitchen stays silent save for the scrape of the chair and the sound of Mikey's cooking. Raphael's grip grows tighter on his coffee mug, taking a long, defiant gulp of the bitter stuff.

Leo's acting like it's normal. Like nothing's changed. And maybe it hasn't, but Raph hasn't even taken the time to consider that maybe it's all in his head.

Yes.
Normal.
Everything is normal.

Actually, it really kind of is, from Mike's perspective. If he had a nickel for every tense breakfast he's had to mediate, he'd be Donald Trump levels of rich.

Mike keeps his back to the both of them as he waits for Leo and Raph to silently square off at the table.

Leo enters and says nothing.
Raph says nothing.
Leo sits and says nothing.
Raph says nothing.

So, Mike says everything.
"GoooooOOOOoooood morning, Leo. Sleep well? I hope you're hungry. We've got Ishmeal, and sausage, and I can make you an omelet if you want. There's coffee."

Mike only pauses to place a mug of piping hot coffee in front of cousin.

"Tea'll be a few minutes. Just have to get the water boiling again."

Hey, if they're not going to talk, then Mike has no problem filling that vacuum. None what so ever.

Leo finishes tightening the knot in his bandana, and with a final tug, his arms drop onto the table a little bit too forcefully. His brow creases, but he continues to say nothing. He can't indulge this charade much longer... but he isn't entirely sure how to broach the topic, either. Not without triggering the nuclear elephant in the room.

Whatever happened was clearly between Raph and Mike. Leo likes to pretend that his brothers' business is always his business too, but he knows that isn't the case. They're sitting here, eating breakfast like all is forgiven - and Leo might believe it is, if not for that suffocating tension. And the fact that it looks like someone woke Raph up this morning by putting him through a meat grinder.

When his brothers start getting hurt, that's when it becomes his business.

"Just tea is fine, thanks." It's a little stiff, but still his best attempt at civility. Eating is the last thing on his mind right now.

He sits up straighter, pulling his arms off of the table; still not directly looking at Raph. He wants to wait until Mike's settled down until he goes into the topic, and goading Raphael into bringing it up first won't go over well. Of course, goading Raph is sometimes as simple a matter as breathing.

And Raph continues to smolder, his heart thudding painfully in his chest. He feels trapped, cornered into this imminent shitfest he brought onto himself. But he'll only sit there, letting his own sick feelings build like tar inside him. Thick and poison.

This isn't normal. It's not the same. They shouldn't even want him here. It makes no freakin' sense.

But he's not an idiot. He can see the way their eyes avoid him. And there's still way too much tension in the air, building up inside him until it's threatening to explode. Though without any kind of signal, no threat or prodding, it won't. It just lies dormant and angry, waiting.

For now, all he can do is drink coffee and stew, still trying his best to ignore the amount of pain he's in, his head and his hand throbbing in time with his heart.

"Righteo," he says brightly as he picks up Leo's mug and uses its contents to refresh Raph's coffee. Back home this was something they'd do all the time. Waste not, need a little less than you did before.

Mike makes a show of shaking the last few drops from one mug into the other, before spinning the cup in one hand. He tries to keep the brothers in his periphery as he returns to the stove, and the water that's heating there.

"One tea. Coming right up. No problemo. Can do."

He pauses.

"What kind of tea, Leo? I've got lots. Oolong, Orange pekoe, Green, Splinter's special..."

He will keep going if someone doesn't stop him.

"Green." Quickly, without missing a beat. Leo sets one arm back on the table, staring intensely at his finger as though it's the most fascinating thing he's ever seen.

Truthfully, he's growing anxious. The more glances he steals towards Raph, the more concerned he gets. Some of those wounds look like they need more attention than they've been given. Typical. But he can feel the tension rolling off of his brother in waves, and he asks himself if he's willing to compromise the clean start he's so desperately tried to set up.

... dammit.

His fist curling on the table, he bares his teeth softly, hissing in defeat. Then he hoists himself up from the chair and navigates towards one of the cupboards, pulls it open, hauls out a small wooden box that he rifles through before turning back to the table. Leo uses a foot to drag a chair closer to his brother and sits, placing the box down. He sorts through the bottles and vials until he finds a thread and needle, then sets them on the table and pushes them forward.

"Actually, forget the tea. Mind boiling these instead?"

Now it's Raph's turn to turn his eyes down, sighing deeply as the weight of his guilt crushes the air out of his lungs. If his hand wasn't so fucking busted he could've done it himself. And now he's gotta be taken care of when the last thing he wants is for someone to touch him.

He doesn't want to be in this room anymore. If he didn't have to eat and scrape himself back together again, he wouldn't even be here. He'd be out, alone, where he can breathe.

Where he can't hurt anyone. Where they can't hurt him.

As shitty as he feels about going off on Mike like that, about losing himself again and hurting someone he cares about, he still doesn't forgive Mike. There was trust that was broken. And Leo... he doesn't even want to be anywhere near Leo.

He doesn't turn when Leo sits next to him, only glares at his muddy reflection in the coffee cup, watching his brother cagily in his periphery. It's hard not to hunch away from having someone that close to him when all he wants to do is repel everyone and everything from his space.

Though it's not like he's got much of a choice.

These?
Oh.

OH!
Mike freezes for a moment, his eyes widening in shock, as if he's slightly worried for his oldest cousin's life, mostly because he is. This isn't the way this goes down, not where he's from. Not...no so fast so soon so suddenly. He's expecting Raph to recoil like a spring that hasn't fully relaxed.

Mike looks from the thread to the needle and then to Raph. Then he does that again. He's waiting for a sign from Raph that this is okay. He's looking for permission before he moves. Mike is forever loyal to Leonardo, and in this instance that loyalty requires him to venture out into the minefield ahead of his leader.

"...I can do it. If that's okay," he adds quickly. "I mean, no offense, but it was Leo that stitched me up the first time, and we all know how that worked out." Mike pushes at the sleeve that covers the scar left over from his fall at the TCRI building. When he sacrificed himself so his brothers could escape.

It doesn't matter to Mike if the joke falls flat. Anything that focuses the attention away from Raph and back onto him will be a win in Mike's eyes.

Leonardo stiffens, his eyes pinning Mike as though sizing up an obstacle on the battlefield. All these eggshells, whatever the hell happened to create this tension, and Mike wants to be the one sewing Raph shut. Obligation, or guilt? Or because that's how it's always been in his universe? Hell, maybe something else entirely. Leo doesn't know enough to have any sort of clue.

A thread of annoyance pulses through his veins. It seems like everyone is doing their best to keep him as completely out of the know as physically possible. He is not going to fight over who gets to treat Raph. This parading around, trying to ignore that elephant in the room - it's ridiculous. Whether they like it or not, he's getting involved.

"Michaelangelo."

His tone couldn't be clearer.

There's a feeling like hot oil building up inside of him, and the amount of unbridled hate he's silently channeling at Leo is reaching dangerous levels. His good hand balls into a fist on the tabletop, his jaw clenched tight around the urge to just start screaming and swinging until he's fought his way out of this shitty situation.

Mike was giving him space. Giving him time to think. Maybe "nice" wasn't the word for it, but it didn't make him feel like this. Now Leo's just inserting himself into everything and it pisses him off even more. But what did he expect? This's how it always goes.

Look at Raphael, screwing up again. Can't even take care of himself. Bet Leo feels real smug about controlling his life when he's lost control of everything.

As his mind reels, the pressure inside him builds. Builds until he feels like he's about ready to explode, his breath hot in his lungs as he fights to breathe deeply. Keep his head cool and his vision clear.

He hates this. He hates this so freakin' much. If he could just get up and run, you bet your ass he'd be out of there in a heartbeat.

"Fiiiine," he says putting his hands up in surrender, and with more than a little whine to his voice. There's a fraction of a second there where his focus flickers over to Raph.

To where Raph has made a fist with his remaining good hand.
crap.
Time to change tactics.

"Can I at least put something down on the table first? You know, before you go playing operation in a place where eating is supposed to happen?"

The longer this goes on, the more antsy Leo gets. He realizes that Mike is just being exceedingly mindful of the Raph-shaped time bomb ticking away at Leo's side, but that's the thing about time bombs: prolonging the situation is the fastest ticket to disaster. The sooner they get Raph cleaned up, the sooner they can leave him alone, let him explode somewhere else if he needs to get it out of his system.

He's sure Mike has plenty of experience dealing with Raphaels... but Leo does, too. By existing in the same room, he's turned into a living vacuum, sucking up Raph's attention and ire. Every single thing he does or says will be noticed and reacted to. Sitting around and pretending like he's not going to act... that would be the worst thing he could do. It would just wind Raph tighter and tighter and tighter.

Instead of answering, he takes a small container filled with salve out from the box and then pushes it to the side, clearing an area for Mike to do whatever he wants.

For a moment, Raph's kind of impressed at how Mike stands up to Leo. And how Leo actually listens, if only partially. He's fighting for him. He's freakin' fighting for him after he pounded his face into the ground in front of a bunch of strangers. Probably almost killed him. And now he's trying to pry Leo off his case.

It almost sucks the anger right out of him, because holy crud.

But it's too easy to fall back into anger. Too easy to keep pouring his hate in Leo's general direction. Though at least his urge to punch him square in the face is ebbing.

Instead, that hand goes for his mug again, taking a defiant slug of his coffee, glaring moodily straight ahead. He wants to eat now. He'll deal with Leo and his bullshit later. He's siding with Mike on this one, and Leo can freakin' deal.

Everyone just needs to leave him the hell alone.

Edited 2014-03-16 06:34 (UTC)

That...actually kind of worked.
Mike honestly wasn't expecting that, and as such it's a little hard for him to keep the pride from his expression. When he turns to fetch the items, he does so with his shoulders squared just that little bit more than usual.

Mike returns with a dishtowel, a container of white vinegar, and a plate of previously cooked but not fully reheated sausage. The plate is gingerly placed in front of Raph. The dishtowel gets a liberal shake of vinegar, before it's wiped across the exposed surface of the table.

He just so happens to hum, "Girl from Ipanema" while he does this.

Leo's a bit ticked off, but he's not unreasonable. He's the intruder here. He'd been scrambling for a foothold in the situation, and he's finally got it; there's no reason to push it more than he already has.

In fact, he's extremely compliant as Mike cleans the table and sets a plate of food in front of Raph, busying himself with organizing the vials in the box in the meantime. May as well let Raph eat in peace while the needle and thread boil. There's no rushing the laws of physics. Besides, now that Leo has established what his actual intentions are, he hopes it'll leave Raph just a little less viable to explode in his direction.

Keyword: hopes.

It works well enough. The second the plate's put in front of him, Raph's tearing into the sausage. He didn't even realize how hungry he was until this minute, and it's almost good enough to diffuse him completely. Eat now, fight later. He can tell Leo's less than happy with this little arrangement, and that only makes things better. Mike took his side. Even after everything, he took his side against Leo and won.

The sausages are lukewarm and it hurts his face to chew, but they taste like victory. It's hard not to forgive Mike after that.

He's starting to feel better already.

Leo's ticked.
Raph's eating.
Mike is getting his way.

He couldn't be more chuffed if he actually was the proverbial cat eating the equally proverbial canary. This, of course, only encourages Mike, who pushes the envelope and takes as much of his sweet time as possible. Something that is sadly cut much too short for his liking by the sound of the water returning to a boil post addition of the needle and thread.

And just when he'd gotten in the swing of savoring his victory over life too.

Mike returns to fetch the needle and thread from the water, leaving the water on to boil for Leo's tea.
...
What? It's sterile.

Some of that stormy aura from Raph seems to diffuse right into Leo as time drags on. It's glaringly obvious that Mike is taking as much time as mutantly possible just to be difficult, and what's worse, he can feel the satisfaction rolling off of Raph in waves.

Yeah, Leonardo is public enemy number one. What else is new?

He tries not to let it get to him. An effort he attempts to sustain by channeling every ounce of his focus into his menial task of sorting the medicine. He takes out the vials, crushed herbs wrapped in paper, and bandages improvised from bits of cloth and blankets, and spreads them out in front of him, arranging them by type, application, color.

He knows a seaweed-haired kedan who works at a clinic, and she has been gracious in supplying them with medical items for a while now. Though the need for such things has decreased ever since they met Korra, it's something he's been grateful for... though one couldn't tell, the way he's glaring down at the supplies as he shuffles them around.

Okay. His mood might be darkening rapidly after all.

Just as Leo's mood begins to darken, Raph's has gotten better exponentially.

So far Leo's the only one mad at him (But what else is new?), he's getting fed, and it feels like he's regained some control of the situation without even trying. Because Mike stood up for him. That's still a hard concept to grasp.

But for now, he's decided to take it as a win. Maybe he'll talk to Mike about it in private later, but probably he won't. At least it doesn't feel like the world's coming to an end anymore.

So he eats his sausage, glaring moodily out of the corner of his eye at Leo doing his OCD thing. And with each passing moment, he feels the heaviness inside him lighten, the panic dull a little more. It's still there, but now at least he can breathe. His whole body hurts, but this is a pain he can bear.

By the time the suture is ready, he's licking the sausage grease from his fingers. (He never did see the point of forks for things like this.) He's still sulking, still not willing to look at anyone for more than a half a second, still hating with his every nerve that Leo's gonna get in his space real soon. But for now, it's okay. Not great, but okay.

Mike trusts Leo to not physically lash out in anger. Lashing out with lectures has always been his oldest brother's retaliation of choice, and he's betting on that being this Leo's particular favorite as well. Either way, he's won this battle, and that's all he really had his sights set on in the first place.

Victory firmly in hand, Mike is all to happy to reclaim his beta male status, and melt into the background, offering help as needed.

"Looks like you two have made up," Leo says suddenly, his voice sickeningly tight. He taps a jar on the table a few times, the sound of glass clacking against wood echoing loudly through the kitchen.

There's no hiding the edge of petulant bitterness in his voice. It's taken him mere minutes to realize one thing: he's on his own now. He's the odd one out now. And as long as the three of them live under one roof, that's how it's going to be.

It's easy for Raph to read into that far deeper than it's intended. So Mike told him. He had to have told him, because there's no way they could be this freakin' obvious. Of course not.

So Leo was letting them sort out their own stuff for once. And for some reason, that pisses him off even more. They were all just playing his little game, weren't they? Let Mike bribe him into not wanting to strangle anyone anymore, and then pounce on him with a lecture.

"Stay out of it, Leo," he rumbles darkly, every inch of him coiling tight as a wire, glaring dangerously at the table. "Just shut up and stay out of it."

Mike's at the stove, his back turned to his cousins. Which is good, because then it means they both can see his reaction to Leonardo's full frontal passive aggression.

No, Leo. Don't do this. Don't break this peace I've only just won. Don't. Please.

And Raph! Don't fall for it. Don't fall into his trap. Don't...no. Please. PLEASE!

His grip on the wooden spoon in his hand tightens.

"Oh? Were Raph and I fighting? I hadn't noticed."

His eyes dart between Mike and Raph, fingers turning white around the glass jar in his hand. This whole ordeal is unbelievable. He's angry at them for stonewalling him, angry at himself for acting like such a child about it, angry at the whole situation. When did it start feeling like he'd lost his place in this household completely?

You know what? Fine. If they were so determined to wrest away the little control he'd fought tooth and nail for, they could have it. He's still acting like a petty brat, but the sting of being shut out curls his tongue and sends stabs of shame through his chest. He expected this from Raph. He just didn't expect Mike to shut him out too.

"My mistake," he grits out like he's spitting gravel. He skids the chair back as though to stand up and leave. "Well then, if everything's under control here, I'm going for a morning run."

Yeah, well Raph's not gonna stop him. It sounds like a great great idea to him. He's not in the mood for Leo and his little mind games right now.

"Great," he rumbles, tightening his grip around his coffee mug before he finishes the rest off in one swallow. He's so tempted to throw a snide mark his way as a little parting gift. But he's dug a deep enough grave for himself already, so for once, he keeps his stinkin' mouth shut. "See ya later."

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