"Please don't go."
With Mikey
From this list! I hope you like~
.
Mikey hadn't even been paying attention. He had no idea how it had started. These days, the only way Raph and Leo actually talked to each other was to yell, fight, snipe, and blame. It was nothing new. No reason Mikey thought he needed to pay attention to this particular fight. They'd insult each other, storm off to cool down, and then go back to their hostile silence, only talking to him to act like he was their passive-aggressive messenger turtle.
They'd existed this way for years. It'd started slowly when they began giving up hope of finding their missing genius, then escalated suddenly when Master Splinter was killed. It wasn't a good life, but it was their life. Mikey had grown accustomed to it. It was their way of life. It was the way things were, and he just had to live with that. It was better than the alternative, he supposed.
So what had he missed? What made this fight different? If he'd realized this was going to be the last fight, could he have changed anything if he'd intervened?
"It should have been you!" thrown in Leo's face was when Mikey tuned in, past the time the rumblings had started, just in time to witness the avalanche. No chance of holding it back now that its awesome might was rumbling down the mountain.
It wasn't a particularly new sentiment. They'd both said horrible, awful, untrue things about each other regarding Splinter's sacrifice and the aftermath. They each blamed themselves and took it out on each other. But this wasn't about Master Splinter.
"No one woulda cared if you'd disappeared! Gone and done us all a favor," Raph spat.
Holy shit. It was about Don. They never talked about Don. None of them. Not since all hope for him died with Sensei. They'd raked every detail of Sensei's death over the coals, blaming each other for the shifting of the wind, but they never brought up Donatello. Mikey froze.
Leo hadn't even told them he was losing his sight. He just struggled in silence until it was gone, and there was nothing else to do but for Mikey and Raph to realize that they should have taken his squinting and practicing in the dark more seriously. At this moment, Leo's face twisted and warped in a hideous grimace, eyes so alive and so focused on Raphael that, with his mask off, Mike forgot for a moment that he couldn't see.
For once, Leo didn't place blame back. He simply snarled, "I wish," turned tail, and stalked out. Mike and Raph watched him go in silence. Mike had never wanted to lose any of his brothers, and he certainly couldn't have chosen between them. Why didn't he say anything before Leo was gone?
He turned to say something to Raph instead (the only one there to say anything to) but Raph was staring hard after Leo. Mike sucked in a harsh breath, and Raph stalked away, radiating too many emotions to process.
"Please don't go," Mike called. Too soft. Too late. Far, far too late.
Mike never had managed to matter more than their rivalry.
Mike stood there unmoving, waiting, until April found him three days later. She hugged him like she always did and asked him a question he couldn't make out. He couldn't do this. He couldn't be here when no one else was, for it was clear that no one was coming back. Not Leo, not Raph, and certainly not Don. He gave April a pitying look - more than his brothers had spared for him - kissed the top of her head, and he, too, walked away.










