(no subject)

[seriouslytwisted]

I knew that wall was gonna come down.

That's all Raphael remembers as he slowly, slowly wakes up. Splinter had sent them into teams of two on a scouting trip through the sewers; with all the monsters they've been (accidentally) making lately, they have to make sure that their home is secure. There should be only two entrances to the lair, and only those two ways to get to them. Everything must be guarded, any alternative routes must be sealed off. Mikey and Donnie checked under the water -since Mikey really can hold his breath the longest- and Leo and Raph went to secure the turnstiles and railway.

There had been a wall beginning to crumble further down, past where they park the Shellraiser. Leo was in one of his particularly bossy moods, those 'You should do what I say because I'm the leader and if you would follow my orders everything would turn out right' moods and that just makes Raphael feel like being contrary. So of course, when Leonardo tells Raphael not to mess with the wall, to just leave it alone and they'll come back with Donnie later and reinforce it, Raph just has to push his luck. He throws a rock, then another, and when Leo finally snaps at him and turns to leave, Raph punches it before turning away.

He doesn't remember what happened after that. Judging by how much his head hurts, Raphael thinks the wall probably collapsed, right on his big stupid skull. He's really not looking forward to the "I told you so" he's earned, so he fights waking for as long as he can until he can't ignore the throbbing any longer.

But then he sees the chain around his ankle. And he notices that the throbbing coming from his head isn't just because of what's probably a concussion; he's in a tiny cage, chained to the bottom of it, and he's being moved. It takes him too long a moment to realize he's probably in the back of a truck; he can just see past the bars of a small window, a thin strip of light that's probably from the back doors. It smells like that nasty petting zoo four blocks from the school.

A zoo transport.

Adrenaline shoots through Raph's blood, kickstarts his heart into thump-thumping against his plastron and he jerks up; the chain around his ankle rattles and he grabs at the bars.

A fucking zoo.

Comments

[anything_it_takes]

Leonardo fights the drug as hard as he can, but his fingertips are already going numb by the time he manages to brush the dart aside. Although he tries struggling on the way to the cage, the slow, listless gestures fail to warrant retaliation. In chains once again, he blinks resentfully at the guard; a valiant effort to push himself off the ground results in nothing more than the weak re-positioning of one arm.

But at the sounds of a struggle - unmistakably his brother in action - and the cries of shoot him, adrenalin joins the cause and Leo raises his head a couple unsteady inches, eyes bleary yet wide from alarm. As the situation evolves, out of sight and out of Leonardo's control, time moves as sluggishly as his leaden heartbeat; he waits in dread for the sound of gunshot, but it doesn't come. When the image of Raphael's cage finally reappears, it wavers in and out of focus; Leo's chin threatens to hit the floor but he clings doggedly to awareness as his brother comes into view, battered but intact. The humans hadn't shot him, although it had been a close thing, and they weren't gentle about the rest of it.

Leo would demand to know just what the heck happened out there, but even if such questions could be answered, he's long past forming words. He manages to keep his head tilted up, semi-conscious for long interminable minutes as the door closes and the truck moves once more, but the badly-ventilated darkness and the low noise of the road and the steady, inevitable pull of the tranquilizer drag him farther and farther down. His eyes roll closed and his jaw hits the ground, breath slowing as if the air has become too heavy to shift. Still Leo strives to remain awake and thinking, even if he can't move.

He wonders how far out they're being taken, and it worries him. At this pace, they might be out-of-state soon, if they weren't already. The further afield they go, the harder it will be for anyone to track them. And now, their advantages of hidden weaponry and surprise are nullified...

It's increasingly more difficult to think at all - and to breathe, Leo realizes, feeling the air slowly leak from his throat and the long, long pause before he pulls another shallow breath. His heartbeat thuds loud and slow, and he tries to open his mouth to gasp for more air, but he can't move that far. All he can do is listen to his heart slow as reality dissolves in a slow burn, blood growing stagnant and metabolism shifting into low gear.

He's very dimly aware of the light when the truck doors re-open, but barely feels it when he's prodded. Words filter through, but their meaning is elusive.

"Damn. Hope we didn't over-do it... I dunno if she - uh, he's gonna make it."
"As long as it's alive when we hand 'em over, we get paid and the rest is their problem. Now come ON, I wanna unload these things before one of these creepy things starts talking again."

[seriouslytwisted]

Raphael is out cold for the entire drive and the unloading. The men wheel the cages out of the back of the trailer and through a set of double doors, arguing in whispers over cuts and what to report, what to ask for. Whether or not to ask for some kind of compensation for Norm's death. They shut up as they pass through a fourth set of doors and the cages come to a gentle halt.

"Just two? I heard reports there were four."

A woman with large, square shoulders draped in a lab coat crouches right next to Leonardo's cage and peers inside. Her eyes linger over the shape of his shell, the length of his limbs.

"We only found two down there, so we grabbed them and got out. We already got one guy dead, and that's just with two of them. The girl one's even got a busted up leg and the boy's got a knot on his head, but they're fine. Were conscious and talking and everything, which you didn't-"

The woman straightens up out of Leonardo's view. "Talking. Did you say talking?"

"Yeah, creepiest thing. Talking freakin' English, making demands, oh and killing Norm-"

"You're not to mention to anyone about their understanding of speech. Do I make myself clear? I'm going to write an addendum and you're going to have your supervisor sign it before I pay you a cent."

There's an awkward silence before the woman crouches down again. She catches Leonardo stirring lightly. "And this turtle is clearly male. Aren't you?"

[anything_it_takes]

The sedative sits heavy in Leonardo's system, turning his limbs into lead and making it impossible to accomplish much more than breathing. His brain, at least, manages to wake up enough to follow current events. It seems his eyes never fully closed, half-lidded and blurry from the drug, so he watches the blurry images filtering through with as much attention as he can wrangle, notes all the details he can muster and prays he can retain this information around the fog clouding his senses. It's difficult to focus and his head is spinning and his mouth tastes remarkably like a stale dumpster, but their escape might very well rely on knowing how many doors guard the entrance; so he thinks of Master Splinter whacking him over the head with a bokken and concentrates.

A lot of the conversation that washes past his cage, he doesn't need to hear, but what he remembers from earlier is confirmed. Raph... he killed one of the men, back there. Actually killed someone. Leo's held his brother back from using too much force, he knows that temper has always had potential to get out of hand, but he never really thought it would come to -

It's too much. He's got to remain focused on the here and now. These humans... Moreover, this woman. She doesn't want anyone to know they can talk? That means they probably don't have to worry about getting plastered all over the news, so at least there's that. But - why?

While he thinks the woman isn't looking, Leo works his mouth briefly and swallows, trying to gauge how much of his strength is online, which isn't much. He's frustrated when she notices, but really, he's already pulled the possum gig on the hired goons; attempting it now is to no advantage. He might as well engage. Clenching his teeth, Leo blinks hard and opens his eyes properly, focusing with determination on their new foe.

This is the person hunting his family; the one he's going to have to outwit. He needs to learn all he can, and tell her as little as possible. Except for the part about him being a boy of course, because that ought to be obvious; besides, she's already certain of the truth, and Leo has no idea how to dissemble otherwise. (Tie his mask tails into a bow? Flutter his nonexistent eyelashes? Yeah, how about No.)

He draws a breath to answer; it stutters into a cough as his body informs him he hasn't been pulling in anywhere near enough oxygen for hours on end. He breathes deep, licks his parched lips and tries again.

"Thanks for noticing... What do you - want with us," Leo manages, enunciating slowly and carefully around a tongue thick with dehydration. He can't quite circumvent the twice-drugged dizziness and nausea enough to raise his head off the fragrant cage floor, but by the time he's finished with his question the young leader has mustered a glare leaden with with unadulterated stubbornness.

[seriouslytwisted]

The woman frowns at the way the words trip out of his mouth. "How many times did you dose them?" she snaps up, probably at the men. Whatever their response was must have angered her, because she pinches the bridge of her nose. "I told you to use that sedative sparingly. You could have killed them! Did you dose the one with the concussion?"

"Well yeah, he was killing a guy-"

"Idiots." The woman disappears from Leonardo's window and moves over to crouch in front of Raphael's cage. "And I'll note the bruising is inconsistent with a wall collapse. I suppose you took out your anger on him? Like animals?"

"What- hell no, that was us trying to get him off of Norm without killing him!"

The woman sighs. "It doesn't matter. If either of these two die, I'll expect a partial refund. I might withhold payment until tomorrow just to make sure." She returns to Leonardo's cage and addresses him directly. "I apologize for the conduct of my...colleagues." Her lip curls into a sneer around the word. "We thought you were wild animals. If I knew you could be reasoned with, this might have gone differently."

[anything_it_takes]

Raph... No, he can't die. Not from this, not from a bump on the head and a sedative overdose. He's far too tough, would never let himself get taken down by something so banal.

... Right?

But the fact is, Leo can't contemplate the alternative. Especially when it's already tough to breathe, never mind focus on getting a handle on their situation. The news that she would have reasoned with them if she'd known they could talk inspires cautious optimism, although he's still not letting his guard down. It might be a lie, to get him to relax.

Oh man, he's dizzy. Half of his body doesn't seem to be there; the other half is useless dead weight. It's a minor miracle he's managed speech. Leo breathes as deep as he can manage, struggling to force more oxygen to his brain and muscles and for a moment it seems to work; but as he strains to lift his head the world heaves and spins. Leo's eyes slide closed as frigid numbness grips the back of his skull, but he clings to consciousness with a grimace as his jaw scrapes flat against the floor.

"Didn't... answer my - question," he manages around shallow gasps, one eye cracking open to show a resentful slit of blue as Leo stubbornly watches for whatever clues her body language might tell him.