Buried

OK, so on the heels of TMNT 2007 we've got like a a gazillion new Leo /Raph oneshots hatching throughout the fandom pond. This is my story. And I'm stickin' with it.

Rating: PG-13 for a couple of naughty words
Genre: drama, suspense
Fandom: 2007 movieverse
Summary: Leonardo and Raphael get caught in a tight spot and in an act of desperation actually talk to one another. More or less.

Thank yous to Dee, Dawnatello, and Brintello for awesome beta reading.

Buried

“Go ahead and say it, Leo.”

“Say what?” Somewhere in the darkness Leonardo coughed.

“What I know you're gonna...” Raphael stopped and raised himself up on his elbows, groping in the dark for the chunk of brick and mortar that held his leg trapped. “Never mind.” He coughed, choking on the fine powder that filled the air.

He heard rubble moving in the opposite corner of the collapsed basement and then Leonardo's voice was close to him.“Are you OK?”

“Yeah. Just gotta-” His eyes began adjusting to the gloom, and he could make out his brother's form as he knelt by him. “--get this crap off my leg.”

He could have managed alone, but together they hefted the 50 pounds of brick up and flung it away with a heavy crunch.

“Your leg OK?”

Raphael tentatively moved his toes and then rotated his ankle. It hurt like hell. “Yeah. I'm good.” The air was thick with dust and they both coughed again. “You?”

“I'm all right.” Leonardo stood, reaching up to find the low, broken ceiling of their concrete prison, barely a foot above their heads. “That's where we fell through, but it's sealed over with stuff now.” He glanced back down at Raphael, who had not yet made a move to stand and reached for his arm to pull him up. “We need to get out of here before-” The faint, high keening of numerous police sirens grew louder above them and then one by one sounded a final whoop as at least three patrol cars pulled up. Leonardo froze.

“You were saying?”

“Shh.”

“They're not gonna hear us Leo. The whole damn building is on top of us.”

“I hope Don and Mike got out,” Leo whispered.

“Did they even follow you in here?”

“No. I don't think so. I hope not.”

A small avalanche of debris tumbled from above, and both turtles covered their heads, ducking until the spill stopped and all they could hear were the muffled voices of police car radios.

“This is really unstable,” whispered Leonardo, brushing bits of plaster and brick dust off his body. “The whole thing could cave in the rest of the way.”

Raphael grunted and stood, using the wall behind him. A sharp pain shot up his shin as he put weight on it, and he fell against the wall. Leo apparently missed his stumble and Raphael was not about to bring it to his attention. Something else caught his eye, though. “Hey, look.” He stepped painfully to the adjacent wall. A tiny pinprick of light shone through the upper corner, looking brilliant as a white laser in the dust-laden darkness. He reached up and dug at the dirt and crumbling brick around the tiny opening, trying to enlarge it. His efforts set off another small landslide of debris.

“Wait! Raph! Look!”

Through the gloom Raphael followed Leonardo's gesture. He could see the material he had been digging into supported a large chunk of broken brickwork protruding from the wall, trapped between the outside wall above and what was left of the lower section. On top of that rested a wooden beam that cut diagonally across the top of the basement, angling precariously downward toward the floor in the far corner. On top of that teetered the entire remains of the floor above them.

“Oh, man,” breathed Raphael.

“That goes and it's going to take us with it.”

“Damn.”

Outside the broken wall they could hear crunching footsteps above them. Instinctively they shrank away from the two inch window, and from the people outside who might have been their salvation, if only they weren't mutant turtles.

“We're gonna need public works out here to make sure this area is secure,” they could hear one cop say, apparently to his companion. Then into his radio, “We've got a 10-66 here, cancel 10-31.” The radio crackled a response.

“Don made the call,” whispered Leonardo.

“Yeah, but they didn't catch those guys. They just canceled the burglary report.”

“I know,” Leo hissed.

“What's 10-66?”

“ 'Unusual incident'.”

“Oh, right. Guess that's why we hear that one all the time.”

“Well, this time they're probably referring to the collapsed vacant building.”

There were other voices outside now, and more sirens; one clearly a fire truck. Even at two am, the neighborhood couldn't have missed the thunderous crash of a four story brownstone caving in on itself and the curious bystanders were being ordered to move back by the NYPD.

Leonardo released a long sigh. “What a mess.”

Raphael looked over at him sharply. He couldn't make out his expression in the dark but he didn't need to. He knew that tone of voice too well, especially the peevish snap in the last word. Raphael readied himself for what was bound to come next, already feeling his jaw clench. He stared at his brother's profile for a moment as Leonardo ran his eyes over the crumbling walls and ceiling of their small prison. Raphael could almost hear his thoughts, and braced for the holier than thou lecture about not listening or acting impulsively or some damn thing. When it didn't come quickly his agitation only increased. “Yeah, well,” he finally said. “The guy was gonna get away and we were gonna let him unless we followed him in here.”

“Raph...”

“Hey, you know if we didn't get him tonight that lowlife would be hurtin' someone else tomorrow.”

“I know that. It's just not the way I'd have handled the situation.”

“Yeah, because you always know the right way--”

“I'm not saying that. I mean that under the circumstances running in here after that guy wasn't the best--” Leonardo paused. “I don't want to get into this, Raph. We've got more important things to think about right now.”

“Whatever, Leo.” Raphael looked around in the gloom, taking stock of the small space they were trapped in, but in the back of his awareness an alarm bell rang. Leo had backed down again. This had been happening for several weeks. Again Raphael felt relief mixed with a vague uneasiness about why Leo was doing this.

More footsteps crunched above them, outside the wall, and they fell silent again, listening. The footsteps retreated, lost in the distant din of voices, police radios, and more sirens

“Mike and Don have to know we're stuck somewhere by now,” said Leonardo. “As soon as we don't show up at home they'll retrace their steps to find us. The problem is, they won't be able to get close enough to do anything as long as the whole block is crawling with cops and city works people.”

Directly above they heard crunching sounds.

Raphael looked up.“They're walkin' right on top of us!” A sudden hail of dust and debris showered down on them as the overhead floorboards creaked and groaned.

Leonardo ducked and stifled a choking cough. “Great. That's just great,” he rasped. “We need to get out of here.”

“Right.” Something made Raphael skip the caustic remark that would have ended with the words, “Captain Obvious”. He turned to the two inch crevice gleaming overhead in the outside wall, drew a sai, and began chipping away at in earnest.

Leonardo positioned himself a few feet away, under the lowest point of the broken beam that held the rest of the ceiling balanced in place. He braced the edge of his carapace and hands against it as Raphael dug.

“If that goes you're not going to be able to hold it,” Raphael said without looking at him.

“I'm only trying to keep it stable. There isn't anything else in here to use for support. Just see if you can make a large enough opening we can squeeze through.”

Raphael snorted. He turned and thrust the handle of the sai in his brother's direction. “Here. You dig. I'll hold that.”

“Why?”

“Because you're not gettin' killed for me.”

“Raph, if this gives way we're probably both going to die.”

Raphael hesitated, glaring at his brother for a moment. He saw Leonardo wasn't about to budge. He had no choice but to turn back and gouge at the wall above the hole. He tore at it with both hand and sai. The overhead beam groaned ominously, and he turned to see Leonardo grunt as he pushed against it, fighting to keep it elevated. Everything else shifted further toward the far corner as rocks, broken plaster and brick dust poured down over them.

“Damn,” said Leonardo, choking.

Raphael turned back, attacking the wall with renewed fury. In the back of his mind he had the unsettling thought that maybe his control freak brother had correctly assessed this particular situation. His anger mounted with each fruitless stab of his weapon into the brick. “Ya know, Leo,” he grumbled. “If you were alone, you'd 'a' probably done the same thing.”

“What?”

“Chased that dirt bag down.”

“I don't think so.”

“No. You woulda. If you were alone, and weren't playin' nursemaid.”

“No, I would not have.” Leo coughed and spat dirt. “The building was obviously on the verge of collapse. It had caution tape all the way around - ”

“So why the hell did you follow me in here?” Raphael snapped, although he knew the answer.

“Because he had a gun.”

“And you thought I'd need your help!”

“Raph--” Leonardo coughed. “I thought we were past this. I thought you were-”

“Gonna let you make every single goddamn call, Leo? Let you, what? Micro-manage every step I take?”

“No,” said Leonardo, his voice bitter. “I thought you were finally starting to grow up.”

“Oh, grow up so I can be just like you?” Raphael snarled over his shoulder. “You wouldn't even know if I had 'cause you still think you know everything. You got all the answers, doncha?”

“You know what Raph?” Leonardo hissed under the strain of the weight he was holding. “ I don't have all the answers. I don't have half the answers I'd like to have. What I do know is that we wouldn't be standing here about to be crushed by this goddamn building if you had listened to me and not chased after some two-bit, small time burglar!”

“Yeah, there you go. Fearless Leader is right again.” Raphael's voice dripped sarcasm.

“Raph, I don't want to argue. The reality is we're here and we need to stop- “

“The reality , Leo, is you still think you're better than me, but as long as you think I might kick your shell again you back off!”

And with that Raphael shattered their unspoken agreement to not talk about what had happened that rainy night two months before on the rooftop. Raphael could almost hear an audible snap as the taboo was broken.

Leonardo's silence told him he had landed a direct hit where he wanted it to go. Raphael exhaled sharply, blowing dust out of his nose, and for a moment enjoyed Leo's stony quiet. He gouged at the wall with a vengeance, until his brother's silence began to feel annoyingly uncomfortable. The tumbling of debris grew louder as dirt poured over them, until a sudden cracking sound broke overhead and he heard Leonardo snarl. Raphael spun around to see the overhead beam split and fall- -

“Look out!” Leonardo slammed his brother back against the wall as the upper floors fell in behind him with a deafening crash. An avalanche of wood and flooring and brick thundered down. Raphael ducked and covered his head as something struck his shoulder, ripping a gash as it went. He felt Leonardo jolt as he was hit hard from behind. The air filled with dirt as the building came down around them.

The chaos filled the air with noise and dust until the last remnants of the collapse slowly dribbled to a stop.

Raphael fought to breathe but only inhaled more of the finely powdered dirt. He gagged reflexively, struggling to free himself. Panic threatened as he realized how helpless he was. He couldn't move or breathe or see. Crushed up against his side, Leonardo gasped and choked, fighting to pull away in a convulsive effort to reach air.

As soon as he was able to gasp down a gulp of air Raphael tried to speak but his voice grated like sandpaper. He tried to free an arm but his left was trapped between his brother and the wall, and his right pinned by a block of brick and mortar. Raphael flexed his right arm, leaning into the block with his shoulder and found he could shift it a bit. He twisted his hand into a position that gave him some leverage and with an effort that took all his strength, shoved against the block that pinned his right side against the wall. It only moved a little but he was able to find some relief from the weight crushing against his chest.

Leonardo wheezed breathlessly next to him but Raphael could feel when his brother braced against the wall to shove back and he pushed with him.. Together they were able to create a fractionally larger space so that Leonardo could pivot to the left and get his weight off his brother's shoulder. Gasping, he fell back against the brick wall behind them. The shift caused another shower of smaller stuff to fall down on them. The heavier material pinning them down against the wall settled as Leonardo pressed his back to the wall, giving their upper bodies a tiny pocket of air space.

Leonardo coughed and gagged for a minute straight, clearing out his lungs until he could find his voice. “Damn.... Raph, you OK?”

“I'm alive. You?”

“Yeah.”

They were both quiet, each automatically taking a mental inventory of their bodies' condition. Raphael's leg throbbed and the gash in his shoulder stung, but nothing felt life-threatening, other than being trapped and immobilized under a collapsed building. He coughed again, hacked up something unpleasant, and spat.

“So. What's our next move, Fearless?”

There was a long pause. Obviously his brother was taking Raphael's sarcastic question seriously.

Leonardo cleared his throat. “Pray that Don and Mike get back here before the demolition crew does.”

Sitting around pinned to a wall waiting to be either rescued or killed did not appeal to Raphael in the slightest. With a low snarl he shoved against the unmovable beam that crossed laterally in front of them. He was rewarded with another downpour of dirt and debris falling on their heads.

Leonardo coughed. “You know Raph, it's still entirely possible to make this situation even worse.”

“Shut up, Leo.”

Leonardo didn't say anything more, but it was obvious that he didn't need to.

Raphael settled restlessly against the wall. “Maybe he got killed up there.”

“Who?”

“The guy. The dirt bag we were chasing.”

“Maybe.” Leonardo certainly didn't sound like he cared. He was studying what was now the ceiling above them, eyes narrowed.

“You got a plan yet?”

“No.”

“*insert swear here*.”

There was a long silence. Raphael found the stillness uncomfortable after all the crashing and chaos and sounds of cop cars and human voices outside. All that was gone. Whatever songs the city still sang were muffled by the thick barrier of broken material they were buried under. His ears rang with the quiet.

“I wasn't backing off because I was afraid you'd kick my shell again,” said Leonardo quietly, breaking the stillness.

“What?”

“You're wrong. That wasn't what I was doing.”

“Oh. That.” Raphael smiled to himself in the dark. Took Leo long enough to come back with a response.

“I've been trying not to get into it with you because....” Leonardo paused, choosing his words. “Because I've liked the peace.”

Raphael sucked in a breath and let it out slowly, settling back against the wall. He said nothing.

“It's been....nice. Not fighting. That's all.”

Raphael grunted, non-committed.

“And I think you've been doing the same thing.”

“I dunno.Yeah. Maybe.”

They were quiet for moment. Raphael cleared his throat. “So what, now? We gonna hold hands and sing Kumbaya?”

Leonardo managed a small chuckle.

Raphael adjusted his weight and worked on pulling a trapped leg free. Stabbing pain shot through his shin. He grunted and winced.

“You OK?”

“Yeah.” Raphael twisted restlessly within the narrow confines of where he could move. There wasn't anywhere to go. Claustrophobia threatened and he knew he needed a distraction. He had to move or do something, anything, soon. He surprised himself when he realized what he chose to do was talk. “Hey Leo, I gotta ask you something.”

“What?”

“I've seen you break out of a sword trap half a dozen times. How come you didn't that night?”

Leonardo didn't answer for a moment. “I didn't think about it, I guess.”

Leonardo didn't lie. Or if he did, no one ever caught it, because no one ever expected it of him. Raphael found himself wondering if he would even know if Leo was lying.

“You knew they would break. You knew what I was doing.”

Leonardo shifted a little next to him but said nothing.

Raphael thought he might not like the answers to the questions that had niggled away at the back of his mind for two months. But he needed to ask. “Leo, you wouldn't have let me do that, would you?”

“Break my katana?” Leonardo snorted dismissively.

“Is that a no?”

“Why the hell would I do that?”

“I dunno. Doesn't make any sense.”

It had bugged him in the days following the battle at Winter's mansion, and during the last couple of months when the family had finally thrown themselves into real training again. It had seemed in those weeks that the structured hierarchy that Splinter had always tried to maintain, for once, was actually working. But no one, not even Mikey, had broached the subject of what had actually transpired between Leonardo and Raphael the night that Leo had been captured.

Splinter had not plied any more out of Raphael either, other than what he had told him that night, which had been only the barest of details. Raphael hadn't even ratted Leo out for his attack on the Nightwatcher. All that Splinter knew was that Raphael had voluntarily surrendered his vigilante identity a week into their training.

Raphael had gotten over his anger at Leo for that one pretty fast, mostly because of what happened afterwards, but also because in retrospect, he found it amusing. Leonardo's uncalled for confrontation with the Nightwatcher reminded Raphael of himself, venting his frustration on something tangible, something he could hit.

“No. It doesn't. Make sense any sense, I mean.” Leonardo's long-delayed response brought Raphael out of his reverie. “What time do you suppose it is?”

“I dunno. Three? Four am?”

“I'm just wondering when we can expect a wrecking crew to show up and finish taking this building down.”

“You think they'll come this morning?”

“I don't think they'll let it stand like this in a neighborhood full of families and kids.”

That Leonardo had changed the subject was not lost on Raphael. His brother appeared once again to be following their unspoken agreement not to talk about that night.

But was it really an agreement so much as everyone simply following Leo's lead? It had made sense to Raphael that his brother would not want his humiliating defeat bandied about the breakfast table. And maybe Raphael's guilt over having left him vulnerable and alone on that rooftop left him not really wanting to discuss it either. In those moments when guilt had grabbed Raphael by the throat he had found outlets for getting away from the feelings.

In recent weeks he had gone back to spontaneously sparring with Mikey like they had when they were much younger. His little brother was delighted by the attention and had proven himself no slacker, despite his preference for video games over training. Mikey was fast, and more than once had laid his bigger brother out flat with some lightening move that came out of nowhere.

Yeah, Mike was fast, fast like Leo. Where Raphael could usually win a fight if he could get in close and use his strength to his advantage, Leo's advantage lay in his speed and surgical accuracy. Raphael frowned. That was something else that had bothered him, when he allowed himself to think about it.

When he broke his brother's katana in their rooftop battle, the instant they snapped, Leonardo had stopped and stared at his broken blades. He just stood there. Instead of falling back immediately into a defensive stance, or delivering his signature snap kick to buy some distance, or dropping into a low sweep that might have toppled Raphael, or plunging the broken remains of a blade into Raphael's throat, as he would have done any real enemy without a thought, Leonardo did nothing.

When the katana broke, it had almost seemed as if in Leo's mind, the fight was over. Had he been hoping that it would end with that? Of course, that delayed response had been exactly what Raphael had needed to land the double blow that had sent Leo crashing to the ground.

Raphael rested his head against the brick wall behind him. This was further than he had carried this line of thinking in his mind before. He hadn't gone back to analyze it, but then that wasn't his style anyway. Get the job done and be done with it. Leave the strategy and analyzing to Leo.

But now in the quiet of the collapsed basement, he had no escape from those things he hadn't really thought through. He glanced over at his brother, less than six inches away. Leonardo's eyes were closed, his breathing measured. He couldn't have fallen asleep. Had to be meditating. Typical.

“Hey, Leo.”

“Hm?”

“You didn't hold back that night, did you?”

His brother's eyes opened slowly and he drew in a breath, turning toward him. “What?”

“That night when-”

“I know what night you're talking about.”

“Well, did you?”

The pause before answering was too long once again, as if Leo was arranging something in his mind. “No,” he finally said. “No, I didn't hold back.”

“You wouldn't lie to me, would you?”

“Why would I have held back? You almost killed me.” There was no accusation or reproach in his tone. If anything, he sounded critical of himself.

Raphael closed his eyes and could see again the momentary flash of fear in Leo's eyes when he hit the ground and found Raphael's sai at his throat. He remembered Leo's stunned expression becoming an unspoken question. It was that question in Leonardo's eyes that had finally broken through Raphael's red haze of blind fury.

“Leo, y'know...”

“It's in the past, Raph. It's over.”

“You don't want to talk about it, do you?”

Leonardo shrugged in the dark. “No,” he said lightly, and with a word, neatly buried the topic back in the box labeled Things We Don't Talk About.

Outside the wall they could hear the approaching rumble of a large diesel engine. They simultaneously lifted their heads, straining to hear. The squeal of air brakes and rush of air as they set up was followed by distant shouted voices, a second engine firing up and the rumble of heavy equipment.

“Oh, damn.”

“Well, they're getting a nice early start, aren't they?” Raphael twisted around, pushing against the tons of wreckage that held them prisoner. Leonardo shoved with him, fighting to pull free with renewed determination. Nothing moved. The scream of steel on steel and crash of machinery grew louder and suddenly the entire building shuddered. A shower of dirt and debris fell from above.

“This would be a really stupid way to die,” Leo grunted, fending off the falling ceiling with his arms. The material overhead cracked and split, avalanching down on them.

Raphael snarled and ducked. He looked over at his brother, catching his eye through the shower of plaster and brick.

“We're not going to,” Leonardo growled through gritted teeth.

Something struck Raphael on the side of his head and his vision exploded in a flash of stars. He heard Leonardo shout his name and then the world went black.

* ** * ** *

The first thing he was aware of through the gray edges of returning consciousness was a throbbing pain in his head. He sucked in a spontaneous breath and blearily opened his eyes.

“Raph!” Michelangelo's face floated above his, wide- eyed . “Hey, you OK, bro?” Mike glanced away over his shoulder. “Hey! He's awake!” he shouted, causing Raphael's head to pound even worse.

He could hear the voices outside the room and the sound of bodies hurrying about. He rolled his head around painfully and found Donatello at his side peering into his face.

“Damn...” he groaned and tried to get his arms to work so he could sit up. A wave of nausea stopped him.

“Take it easy, Raph,” said Don, patting his arm. “Lie still. You're gonna be fine. Just rest.”

“How...how'd I get here?”

“Don and I got you out,” said Mike, looking like he was hopping up and down in place.

“How--?”

“Don found a way to stop the bulldozer.” said Mike.

Raphael grunted. “So where's Le--?”

“Disabled the engines with a low level EMP,” Don clarified, which meant nothing to Raphael but he was glad it worked. “The hard part was pulling it off in broad daylight.”

Raphael closed his eyes, letting Don fuss over him. “Where's Leo?” he asked.

“Ah...just hold still. I need to check that bump.” Don carefully lifted the bandage wrapped around his head.

“Where's Leo?” he repeated and opened his eyes. Mike had left the room. He tried to raise himself up onto his elbows.

“Raph, would you please hold on a sec-?”

“Where's Leo?” Raphael sat up, wild eyed, shoving Don aside.

“For god's sakes, Raph,” Don said, with an obvious effort to be patient. “Leo's-”

“Right here.”

Raphael looked up. Leonardo stood in the doorway, arms crossed, a quiet, enigmatic smile on his face. “How're you feeling?”

Raphael fell back on the bed with a groan of relief. “Damn you.”

Leonardo grinned. “I love you, too, bro.”

“Yeah. Whatever,” Raphael grumbled. But he couldn't suppress the little grin that tugged at the corner of his mouth.

Just a little one.

** ** * * * * *

	Author	Topic: Buried (Read 1035 times)
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