4Disclaimer: I do not own the turtles.
A/N: This is a sister oneshot to "The Lost." You can find the other side of this tale in the stories list in my profile; these pieces are definitely my most poetic works. Enjoy! :)
Word count: 1000
The Found
He ran alongside him. They raced with midnight at their heads and enemies at their heels. Outran neither as a dead end neared. Halting on twisting heels, weapons hewed the air between brothers and foes. Slowly, they circled. Shadows swelling in the darkness, blots of ink bleeding from the sweltering night's pores; they smudged the world like a thumb over still wet words.
Red and blue stood, steel at their sides, stares shared across the masses, and stances matched against an army. No words were uttered as the enemies surged towards them like a gaping mouth, and darkness swallowed them up. Above the hum of city life, defenses crumbled and death hovered. Together, the brothers struggled, but stayed one step ahead of the greedy hand that sought out their souls.
Death's fingers fondled the foes that fell, prying free the life of some, and passing by others whose suffering blinded him. They were not who he came for. That one, The Found, remained oblivious. He fought on, a blur of motion and bright metal. His ally sensed him though. In his shoulders, the knowledge stabbed and twisted him tighter. On his tongue, he confused Death's name with the one he battled alongside.
Those watchful eyes, banded with a color too calm for the fear that tumbled through them, flickered beyond those he battled. For just a moment, they paused on Death. They saw him descend. Again, the ally called out, a harbinger to Death's caress and the blade that delivered him. Then a scream cut through the warning cry, sharper than the katana that sliced into The Found's unprotected side and slide up.
The Found jerked, retaliated with a lethal strike of his own, then turned to jelly. Fingers numbed, unfolded from suddenly heavy weapons and fell with them. Clanking, gasping, shuddering, everything hit the floor.
Horror ran its icy hands over the ally, chilling muscles and freezing sinew. Then came rage with an abrupt heat. A heat that melted the world and all its crass ways in a sea in which the ally swam. He moved swiftly. Swifter than he ever had. Blades danced around those asking their hand, drove through chests, and sliced heads from bodies with sick slurping sounds. The fierceness, the brutality, the utter disregard for human life in the light of one lost backed the remaining foes away. Some fled. Others watched as anger tore through their comrades until it was them in its path.
This is enough, cautious eyes communed around the blood shed.
As Death scooped up more souls, the living ran from his touch. The ally stayed. He dropped to his knees in the puddle that grew around The Found. With shaking fingers, he felt for a pulse, for a breath, for a brother not taken from him this night. Loss leaned into him when nothing met his desperate touch. It tipped his chin towards the clouds, stuck a sob in his throat, and demanded he choke on it.
"No," he whispered, a wisp of a word whisked away in the cries of an apathetic city. The plea came again, thicker, louder. "No."
This was not happening. It couldn't happen. Not like this. Not now. Not to him.
The thoughts didn't expel the reality bleeding in his arms. Hot liquid ran around his fingers, staining his skin and teasing the fate he couldn't prevent. Something primal pinched him in his fingers, forcing them to fold around the gaping wound that showed the world how weak its inhabitants were. How easily they were removed from her surface and into a more elusive place.
But you don't belong, mother nature reminded. You and he, two oddities, are not meant for what I am.
He pressed harder. He vowed a fight with that which wished him gone, vanished, turned to a ghost without a past to remember. With gritted teeth and growing terror, he knotted masks and belts together, ripped off clothes from the surrounding fallen and wound them around the weeping wound. Anything to stop the blood flow. Anything to stem the loss of life.
"Don't leave me. Don't you dare leave me."
What had stopped his heart? What had stilled his lungs so quickly? In a craze, the brother dug for an answer which had no home in his head. This was not his field. This was a battle he was ill prepared to fight. Still, he charged on. With counted movements, he pumped the motionless chest, breathed forceful breaths down a silent throat. In this moment, he existed only to beg. Nothing else mattered. Not honor. Not the skills he ventured out this night to sharpen on the streets. Not even his own life.
Through his fingers, he felt his brother slipping away. The tug of his spirit as it worked its way free, ready to leave, ghosted upon the ally's dewy skin. He tasted it on his tongue as he shared another breath with the corpse. It shoved him out of the way; and the force was enough to make him tremble.
Despair shackled him to the cold concrete. This was an earthly hell. Watching The Found pale as the fire within him died would haunt the brother until his last day. The kiss of moonlight dipping into the threads of relaxed muscles, caressing the lids of closed eyes, catching and reflecting on the sweat of skin like rain on a spiderweb—this couldn't be how his brother looked in death. The stillness opposed and denounced the truth of how this warrior lived.
A keening sound came into the night; a release of grief and guilt and air from lungs so complete and so crippling that it left him gasping in its aftermath.
"Come back," he demanded. Tears blurred dark eyes. Again, he ached forwards, agony tearing out of his throat, hollowing him out. "Come back!" His fist came down, hard—hard enough to send fissures into another world. Desperation brought his fist down again and again and again, only stopping when denial, icy and slick, numbed his body. The ally pawed his brother, propped him up, relinquished more breath into his lungs. And he did not stop until The Found returned those breaths to him—weak, weary, but weighed with life.
"You're going to be okay," the ally said.
Death observed the pair with disappointment by his side. Life, it seemed, had changed her mind.
A/N: Thanks for reading! ^_^
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