Make It Stop

    Leo sat at his desk in his room, the only light being the small lamp on the left corner. Snip-snip-snip went his scissors as he cut more strips of white paper.

    Snip-snip.

    Snip-snip-snip.

    Today had been a bad day. He needed a lot more strips than usual.

    Snip-snip. Snip.

    Done. Now for the markers. It had taken him only a week to learn that permanent was best since things like sweat, blood and even the humidity in the sewers rubbed out the words on the papers.

    He took the red one first and wrote.

    Stupid. Retarded. Waste of space.

    He kept writing until all the red words were done, and then he grabbed the purple marker.

    Incompetent. It was the only word today in purple which was a blessing.

    Setting the markers back in their place, he unwound the bandaging on his right hand. Several tiny papers fell out and fluttered toward the floor. He snatched them before they fell too far and his wayward gaze found Idiot in his hand before he could look away. He knew he should be putting the words under his left hand’s bandages but he was too tired to redress with his non-dominant hand. With the ease of long practice, he wound up the linen again, the papers tucked safely and securely against his skin.

    Leo made sure to clean up his desk: the unused paper went into a drawer, the scissors into the chipped mug with the markers. A tap of a finger turned off the lamp, plunging his room into near-complete darkness, but he knew the way to his bed. He crawled in, dragging the blanket up to his chin, and lay on his plastron.

    Today had been a bad day but at least it was over.

-:--:--:-

    Patrol the next night. Leo led his brothers over the roofs, their breaths steaming in the freezing air. It was too cold to snow and too cold to be outside but Sensei had kicked them out.

    “Fix this,” he had told Leo, his reddish-brown eyes piercing, but Leo didn’t know how. He didn’t know how to do anything anymore. He was supposed to be the leader but he was stupid, incompetent… What right did he have to lead?

    “Yoo-hoo! Earth to Leo? Come in, Leo!”

    Mikey smiled at him when Leo looked over at him. Mikey always smiled – even when half his face was held together by stitches and covered in bandages. Claw marks courtesy of Rahzar.

    “Yes, Mikey?” Leo asked. He didn’t dare look back at his two other brothers who were doubtlessly glaring at him for speaking to Mikey.

    “Not that I’m not having fun or anything but I’m freezing my shell off. Can we go home?”

    Leo slowed to a stop and looked away from his baby brother. The horizon was safe, the skyline with its rearing buildings, and the stars twinkling in the clear sky. “Yeah. Let’s go home.”

    He couldn’t fix this. Not out here. Not anywhere.

    Raph and Don were already turning away, not even bothering to let Leo take the lead – because he didn’t deserve it – but Mikey waited for him.

    “You know it’s not your fault, right, Leo? What happened last night, it wasn’t your fault.”

    The words buried beneath his hands’ wrappings burned – Idiot, Stupid, Useless, Screw-up. Leo still stared into the distance as he said, “Yes, it was.” He blinked, tearing his eyes from elsewhere. “Come on. We’re falling behind.”

    Leo made sure Mikey stayed ahead of him as they caught up to their brothers.

    They still had another mile to go before they descended into the sewers when Leo caught movement in his peripheral. Black on black was hard to spot but the silver, iron-tipped arrow was less so. He spied four more arrows just as they were released. There was no twang of a bowstring – a good archer made no noise – and there was only one thought in his brain as he pivoted and launched himself at his brothers: Not them!

    In the split second he had before impact, the second he took to reach back for a katana, he saw his brothers’ eyes widen as he bore down on them. They were…afraid of him? His hand froze, his fingertips brushing the hilt of the thing that would save them. Did…did his brothers…fear him?

    The second ended. He crashed into Raph, taking them both down, and felt one, two, three arrows puncture his flesh. The fourth and fifth stuck his shell, useless and ineffective. Like him.

    “LEO!” someone screamed.

    Arms curled around him and dragged him away while metal sang and rattled. Wooden thwacks were arrows as they were deflected by more able ninja.

    “Don, get over here! Leo, Leo, hang on, okay? Ya gotta hang on. DONATELLO!!”

    Leo forced his mouth to move, forced his tongue to form words. “S’okay, Raph. Y’don’t have t’be ‘fraid of me anymore.”

    “I’m- I’m not.”

    “Liar.” Leo smiled. His brother never could lie. “This…for the best.”

    “Doncha dare give up, Fearless! Doncha dare! I know we’ve had our rough spots but that doesn’t mean that I – that you…you… Come on, big brother! Keep yer eyes open!”

    But Leo didn’t obey. He was done being obedient, being the leader, being everything and nothing. He was too tired. He didn’t deserve much but he figured he deserved a rest.

    “I love you, Raph. My little brother. I love my little brothers…”

-:--:--:-

    Don had never seen Mikey in such a rage. He watched his little brother bat three consecutive arrows out of the air before charging. Crack, crack, thunk! Those three Foot archers were down in seconds, and he moved onto the last two. A whistling rattle of chains was the only sound before wood met bone and then there was nothing but silence in the frozen world.

    “DONATELLO!!”

    Donnie spun around, throwing his staff across his shell and following the blood smears to where Raph had dragged Leo.

    Leo was talking. “…for the best.”

    Don stilled. What was Leo talking about? What was for the best? Him dying? Why? Why would he think –?

    “Doncha dare give up, Fearless!” Raph snarled, interrupting his train of thought. “Doncha dare! I know we’ve had our rough spots but that don’t mean that I – that you…you… Come on, big brother! Keep yer eyes open!”

    But either Leo couldn’t hear him or he ignored him. Nevertheless, he said, in a voice broken with pain, “I love you, Raph. My little brother. I love my little brothers…”

    There was no time left. At least Leo wouldn’t be hurting anymore. Snatching his own mask from his face and tearing the bandaging off his hands, Don staunched the bleeding. The arrows had been well-aimed but he didn’t think they’d hit anything vital – maybe, hopefully. The bridge connecting carapace to plastron was softer than the hard keratin but it was not as soft as skin was. Not as fragile, still protective.

    Still a chance.

    They huddled there, around their big brother, shivering in winter’s grip. They didn’t dare move him until the bleeding stopped. Mikey kept an eye out for anyone else stupid enough to try to hurt them, and Don was grateful. Despite having only half a face right now, Michelangelo was chillingly focussed.

    Raph, on the other hand, was a mess. He was still crying, hot tears freezing almost instantly on his face. A thumb rubbed Leo’s cheek. At least he was silent; Donnie didn’t think he’d be able to work with a sobbing Raphael.

    At long last, the bleeding stopped. Don used the soaked bandaging to secure the arrows and then hauled him up onto Raph’s back. “He’ll be okay as long as we don’t jostle him,” he said, looking into his elder brother’s green eyes.

    Raph just nodded, and Don led the way home with Mikey bringing up the rear.

    They got him home and into the lab, onto a cot and into the light. Master Splinter was solemn, taking up position in the far corner with Mikey under an arm. Don needed Raph’s hands.

    They worked in silence, save for Don’s occasional instruction. He had to split the bridge open wider to get at the arrowheads. He had to staple his big brother together (the bridge was too hard for stitches but it didn’t warrant cauterising). He had to wipe his face once or twice. Sweat, not tears.

    And then it was done. And he would be okay. They would all be okay.

    It was Mikey who decided to fetch the white linen to rewrap their brother’s hands and feet. The bandaging was stained and dyed a gruesome red, and Master Splinter agreed that it would be good for Leo to feel clean when he woke up.

    Don hovered behind Raph’s shoulder while Raph and Mikey untied the fabric. To his shock, tiny slips of paper fluttered from Leo’s unbound hands.

    “There’s more here,” Mikey rasped, bending down to pick them up.

    Donnie didn’t move because there were words on those papers, beneath bloodstains. Words written neatly in red, purple, orange, and brown permanent marker.

    Idiot in purple.

    Useless in red

    Failure in red

    Killjoy in orange.

    Guilty in brown.

    Nothing in red.

    Neanderthal in purple.

    Unwanted in red.

    Retarded in red.

    Waste of space in red.

    Show-off in purple.

    Sullen in brown.

    Loser in red.

    Mr. Perfect in orange.

    Screw-up in purple.

    Lame-onardo in red.

    Self-destructive in brown.

    Stupid in red.

    Incompetent in purple.

    Party-pooper in orange.

    Mean in orange.

    Bossy in red.

    Stick in the mud in red.

    Overbearing in purple.

    Worrywart in purple.

    Suck-up in red.

    Teacher’s pet in red.

    Mr. Doom and Gloom in orange.

    I hate you in red.

    There were more, so, so many more, but Donnie didn’t want to look at them.

    “What…what is all this?” Raph whispered.

    Don covered his mouth with a hand, fighting to keep his stomach contents in his body. When he was sure he wouldn’t throw up, he answered solemnly, “It’s us. It’s every name, everything we called him or accused him of.”

    “Why would he write them down? Why would he keep them?” Mikey’s eyes were filled with tears, his hands full of the awful papers.

    “Why wouldn’t he? Why wouldn’t he want a reminder of how much he thought we hated him?”

    For the best…

    “He was already looking for an out,” Don continued, thinking out loud. “He…he wanted this. He wanted protecting us to be his final act – to save us with his life – and maybe then we wouldn’t hate him. His death would have been penance for…all of…this.” He gestured weakly to the papers, to the brutal evidence of Leo’s entire family hating him for all of these…reasons.

    Master Splinter collapsed into a chair, his head dropping into his hands. “Oh, my son,” he moaned. “I’ve failed you.”

    “We all did,” said Raph, his voice dead. “We all did, Sensei.”

    Donnie was silent, unsure of what to do. Could he even do anything? What could any of them do? Was this even fixable? Where would they even start?

    “Where do we start?” he asked aloud.

    He meant it rhetorically, knowing no one would answer, but someone did.

    “I know where we start!” Mikey declared. “Get every piece of paper! Every one! And count how many words are in your colour. Donnie, get a box or something.”

    They did as ordered, getting down on their hands and knees to locate every slip – it felt like hundreds of them had been hiding against their brother’s skin. Don brought back a box that he had saved for something that no longer mattered, and all the papers went in after they’d counted. Never in his entire life had he hated four piles of paper. He hated that Raph’s pile was the biggest and that even Master Splinter had more than a couple handfuls.

    “Now what?” Raph wondered, his eyes glassy as he looked up from his pile

    “We burn it. Chuck it into a whirlpool. Launch it into deep space, for all I care, it doesn’t matter. We get rid of it so that no one will ever find it. Remember your number, though. You’re gonna need it later.”

    Sensei fetched the matches and Don pulled out the metal bin he used specifically for burning materials. When the box was no more than ashes at the bottom, they dumped them down the toilet.

    “Ya know them being gone won’t fix it,” Raph murmured. “This is serious. We’ve been doin’ this ta him for years. What can we do ta reverse it?”

    Mikey’s gaze was steely. “We do the exact opposite. He has to have the paper and markers somewhere. Write. Write kind words for him. We hide them the way he hid them, bind up his hands so he won’t notice.”

    “He’ll notice,” said Don. “He notices everything.”

    “Good. Let him. Let him see what we should be thinking about him. Remember that number? That’s the number of good things you have to write about him. That’s the minimum. Write more if you want but that is your minimum.” Mikey aimed the last sentence at Raph who looked down at his feet.

    Donnie found the paper, scissors and markers in Leo’s room, within easy reach in his desk. He would have thought them arts supplies instead of the labels of perceived hatred they really were, and he wanted to throw up all over again. He managed to hold it back, though, and returned to the lab where they all got to work.

-:--:--:-

    Death was strange, Leo decided. It felt and sounded too much like home, and he wondered if he had become a ghost. Voices he recognised drifted through the black that veiled him, luring him into a more stable consciousness, but he fought back. He didn’t want to haunt the family that hated him; he wanted to move on. Reincarnate into his next life, wait for whomever, it didn’t matter. He just wanted out. He had said his goodbyes, told Raph that he loved his brothers, no matter that they despised him. He was done, and he was glad of it.

    So it was a shock when he opened his eyes and found Don’s lab slowly coming into focus. The pain in his right side quadrupled when he tried to sit up.

    Was this…not death? He had…survived? That hardly seemed likely because his brothers would had to have done something to save him. Why would they?

    It occurred to him in the next second that they were here. Everyone was in the lab: Sensei slept in a chair on his right with his head tilted back against the wall; Mikey lay curled at the foot of his bed; Don had moved his workbench closer and slept in a sprawl on top of it; and Raph sat in his chair on Leo’s left, his arms and head resting on Leo’s coverlet.

    His brothers, his family, they were here. Leo reached out with trembling fingers to stroke Raph’s sleeping head but froze halfway at the sight of clean wrappings around his hands and wrists. His heart kicked into double time.

    Did they know? Had they seen the papers?

    Only one way to find out.

    Leo wiggled – ouch, ow, ow! – into an upright position and undid the linen around his right hand. Papers in red, purple, orange, and brown fell out and he exhaled a sigh.

    The sigh got caught in his throat when he saw the words:

    Observant in purple.

    Helpful in orange.

    Good ninja in red.

    Kind in brown.

    What –?

    Leo’s fingers shook as he went through every single slip of paper. Brave, Confident, Strong, Patient, Prank-buddy, Master Swordsman, Dependable, Protective, Encouraging, Devoted, Admirable, Valiant, Trustful, Courageous, Fearless, Good Leader, Quick-thinking, Cool, Calm, Decisive, Smart, Daring, Hero, Humble, Nightmare-fighter, Compassionate, Courteous, Friendly, Altruistic, the words kept going, far more than he’d ever had tucked into the bandaging.

    His sight was blurring as he untied his left hand. Only four papers fluttered onto the blanket.

    I love you, my precious son in brown.

    I love you, my fearless big brother in red.

    I love you, my gentle big brother in purple.

    I love you, my awesome big brother in orange.

    Something caught Leo’s eye and he looked past the papers into bright green eyes. His voice got stuck in his throat, he couldn’t speak for tears, but Raph understood. His little brother reached toward him and took his hand, squeezing.

    “Ya said ya loved us,” Raph said weakly. “Ya passed out before we could say we loved ya, too.”

    Leo regarded him carefully. Raphael was a terrible liar but there was no false note in his voice so that meant either he’d become a master liar over the course of however long Leo had been unconscious or…or it was the truth.

    “Leo!” Mikey sat up and immediately crawled over. Having a care for Leo’s right side and his own still-bandaged face, he curled up, his head on Leo’s chest. “Hi.”

    Leo swallowed thickly and said, “Hi, Mikey,” wrapping an arm around the light-green shoulders.

    Don and Sensei both awoke at his whisper. Their eyes fell to the papers on the bed, smiles smoothed the lines on their faces, and they looked up at him with tearful gazes.

    “How are you feeling, my son?” Master Splinter asked, rising from his chair to stand at his side. A soft hand curled around Leo’s head, and Leo leaned into the touch.

    With Raph still holding his hand, Mikey cradled under an arm, and Donnie smiling at him, Leo searched his soul and found the answer he had thought he would never find.

    “Better,” he said. “Much better.”

    End