Non-Mutation (Book Four)

Chapter 10: Poppy

The poppy is a symbol of sleep, peace, and death; sleep because the opium extracted from them is a sedative and death because of the common blood-red colour.

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Donatello groans as Sarina dabs lightly at the cut along his eye-ridge, his eyes staying closed while she works. The cyborg glances down at his face every now and then, eyes flashing as she stills her hands. Master Splinter stands at her side, his ears pulled back and his whiskers twitching with worry.

"Tell me again how this happened," Raphael demands. "Was it that girl again? I swear I'll—"

"It wasn't her," Leonardo answers, placing a hand on his brother's shoulder. "It was Hun."

"Strangely, your little girlfriend wasn't there," Destiny says. It would feel more like teasing if it wasn't for her glaring at nothing. He imagines that she's fantasizing about pounding Hun into pulp. "She must've been kept back."

"Or she only comes out when you're around so she can fight you," Michelangelo pipes up, nudging Raphael and winking. Raphael blinks a few times and frowns.

Sarina looks up from Donatello, still bandaging his head. "Where were you anyway?" she inquires. "Casey showed up, but you did not. I didn't think you would be the one to miss out on a fight."

Raphael swallows, his neck starting to tingle again, and he reaches up to clap a hand over it as if scratching an itch. He grumbles a response and shrugs.

"Would you mind repeating that, Raphael?" Splinter asks.

He sighs. "I was...talking to a girl. A human..."

Leonardo's face snaps with a mixture of concern, anger, and plain shock, while Destiny and Sarina let out high-pitched gasps as Destiny's hands fly to her mouth. Sarina's eyes flash. Michelangelo giggles and wiggles his eye-ridges.

"You revealed yourself to a human?!" Leonardo exclaims. "What were you thinking?!"

Raphael holds his hands up in defence. "First, we've talked before. Second, she found me."

Michelangelo gasps, hands covering his mouth as a series of trickling squeals leave him. As if forgetting about everything else, Destiny's tail starts to wag and her eyes grow big.

"Oh my gosh, what's her name?" she asks. "Is she cute?"

Leonardo gives her an incredulous look. "Des, that's really not important right now." He turns to his brother, his sapphire eyes gaining a stern look that Raphael has seen all too often. "What's important is you've been chatting with a human while we're trying to stop the Purple Dragons!"

"Leonardo, remain calm," Splinter scolds gently. He folds his hands behind his back and looks at Raphael. "Raphael, this human...what have you told her about us?"

He shakes his head. "Nothing, Sensei. She knows my name, but nothing about anyone else." He looks almost pleading for a moment. "She isn't bad. She's just...a free spirit. Plus, she said she knows something about the Dragons! That could help us, right?"

"She knows something about the Dragons?" Sarina echoes, her lithe hand maintaining its soothing rhythm across Donatello's head and neck.

"She spends time outside at night, so she's seen them." Raphael looks at his feet and shuffles a little. "She isn't another clueless New Yorker. She said she's noticed the mutants wandering around, so I'm no different to her."

Leonardo doesn't look the slightest bit convinced, but he says nothing else. Destiny watches him as he brushes past her on his way to the dojo, his walk stiff and his expression sick with concern and stress. Splinter and Destiny make eye contact, then wordlessly follow after him. Donatello tries to sit up, but he wobbles and slumps against Sarina with another groan. Her eyes flash and she swallows hard, mouth quivering, and Michelangelo moves to her side and rests his hand on her arm.

"It isn't that bad," he says. "He'll be up in two shakes of a turtle's tail, totally fine."

She nods. "I hope that you're right."

Raphael sighs and crosses his arms over his plastron as he watches the three of them. Guilt gnaws at his gut like a starving Dream Beaver, making him feel borderline nauseous. If he hadn't stayed and talked to Taylor, maybe he could have done something to stop it. He lifts his hand to his neck again, his heart starting to pound, and he clears his throat as his expression crumples.

"I'm gonna head to bed," he says.

"Okay," Sarina responds as she offers him a sweet smile. "Sleep well, Raphie."

He rolls his eyes as he moves past them. "Yeah, you too, giggles," he mutters. Her eyes flash at the nickname and her smile gets a little bigger.

He noogies Michelangelo, evading the resulting hand swats, and leaves the kitchen. Exhaustion smacks him in the face and he yawns. Despite the sleep begging to take hold, a small part of him is very much awake. Taylor said that she likes seeing him and what's more, she seems to be just as attracted to him as he is to her. What else could her little parting gift stem from?

He enters his room and flops on the bed, fingers automatically moving to stroke his neck. There is so much that he isn't sure of yet. He hardly knows the girl aside from the surface, the easy-to-see details that she exudes; she's a musician, and a kick-ass one at that, she's got a thing for the colour red, she's Hispanic, and she is hot and she knows it.

Raphael idly wonders whether this is some sick joke and that soon, he'll wake up from his dream and end up disappointed when he's still him and everything about her was just fantasy. What other reason could there be for a beautiful human girl to give him a second glance?

He hears Destiny's soft footsteps pass his room, the swishing of her wings giving her away, and he frowns as her statement from earlier in the evening comes back to him, yanking him away from his daydreaming.

"Strangely, your little girlfriend wasn't there."

He frowns, baring his teeth as the image of the hazel-eyed Dragon girl returns to him. Why wouldn't she show up? he wonders. Did she have another mission? Did Hun make her stay back for some reason?

He shakes his head and rolls over, untying his mask and tossing it onto his headboard. It dangles in his peripherals, a strip of red in the dark, and he smirks. Why waste his time thinking of her when he could be thinking of Taylor instead?