「ABSENCE」 TMNT 2012

34; Hear What You Want To Hear

"Leo! Where ya going?" Mikey called out to the retreating turtle.

    Leonardo spun around, his jaw clenching as he debated whether or not, and how much, to tell his brother. A phone was on in his hand, staring up at him expectantly. As was Michaelangelo.

    "Just up for some air," he replied nonchalantly.

    Mikey lifted an eye ridge skeptically. "Dude," he said, "lame."

"I'm sort of going to visit Elly."

At this, the youngest turtle hopped up from his seat on the couch. "Well in that case, I'll go with you!" He volunteered.

Leo held out his hands in front of himself and started backing away steadily. "No, that's okay. I won't be long. An hour, tops."

    Rolling his eyes, Mikey sighed. "Fine. But I'm holding you to that," he said, pointing a finger at his brother. He turned to resume his television show.

    With only a nod in response, Leo hopped over the turnstiles and crashes through the sewer tunnels, making his way to the surface. He breathed in deeply when he reached it, glad to get away for a while. Raph had been getting on his nerves again, pestering the living day lights out of him. The guy never quit, in Leo's opinion.

    "Like, geez," he muttered as he scaled the building to his right. "Just let me use the dojo for a few hours. Alone."

To answer the obvious question, the mutant actually knew he was being a bit selfish. He'd known it for forever. But that wasn't stopping him, as you can see. He'd matured faster than his brothers and built up his Ninjutsu skills enough that taking them down in practice was a cinch. Therefore, the prideful attitude that he was clearly better than the others went to his head.

The guilt had grown on him, even though he'd attempted to ignore it. He thought it would leave him if he simply denied it, but guilt doesn't work that way. Guilt gently slips its hand into yours and walks beside you for a while, whispering softly into your ear as you stare at the ground. At first it's easy for you to shut him out, with the breeze brushing your ears and the sun shining above. But when you try to ignore him for too long, he begins to raise his voice, until he's shouting – screaming – for you to listen. And the longer you ignore him, the louder guilt gets, until your ears are bleeding and your head is pounding.

    Something Leo thought about a lot was the end. The end of time, the end of a day, the end of people. What if he came to his own end, the one where he would no longer be around? Had he withdrawn so much that his family wouldn't even care? That scared him.

    What if one of his brothers were to die on one of their missions? What would that mean for Leo? Eternal internal struggling. Guilt, to be more specific. He would never get the chance to apologize to that person.

    Wait. Apologize? Where did that idea come from?

    "I'm not doing anything wrong!" He shouted to the dark sky.

    But he wasn't fooling himself. He wasn't fooling anybody. This struggle to prove a point had gone far enough, and it was almost time for it to end.

    Almost.

With a low growl of frustration at himself, Leo took off across the rooftops. His head was hurting a little, probably because of his lack of sufficient sleep the night before. By the time he reached the hotel Elly had told him about, he was sweaty and breathing heavily. The short run had subsided his momentary distress, and he was now calm, yet a little annoyed by the headache.

Taking his grappling hook from his belt, he shot it across the street below and tugged to make sure it was secure on the other side. Then he flew across to an awaiting Elly. She watched as he picked up his grappling hook and stuffed it back into his belt.