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Donnie has a plan for rescuing Raph! We're going to see Raph again! ","writing":"Chapter 24-\n\n\tLeo watched as Don plopped himself in the chair beside him, sighing in annoyance. Leo smiled. He tried for sympathetically. But he ended up giving him one of those cheerful smiles instead. He didn’t regret being rude to Don. Don should have expected it in him. He didn’t trust this vampire in the slightest. Okay, maybe that was a lie. Obviously he did trust him some or he wouldn’t be allowing him to help him. God, if he wasn’t so useful, he’d tried to kill him again. Plus, Raph would probably kill him next for slaughtering his brother that just came back from the dead. \n\n\tIt didn’t help that Don’s value went up a notch now that he found out him and Raph were the sons of the Master. And despised him so much. He could possibly find out any weak points. What his natural world is like. If he’s normal when off duty or anything would help. Though it’d be harder because he never actually came face to face with the guy. But having an enemy without even meeting them first wasn’t uncommon. Hell, he made the whole vampire race hate him in about two weeks of starting this gig. It was hardly alien to him at all.\n\n\tLeo raised his hand to the bartender and the scruffy man immediately walked over. He asked for two glasses of scotch and the man nodded before shuffling away to get the order. It was only a few minutes of silence and the soft sounds of some horrible rock music before two glasses were placed in front of him and Don, an ice cube dropped into each before he took out a bottle filled with amber liquid and poured it into each glass. Then scurrying away to take another order.\n\n\tDon stared at the glass and jumped back as if it had been snake before turning to Leo confusingly. \n\n\tLeo merely smiled a crooked smile and took his own glass. Tipping it in Don’s direction as a “cheers” gesture. “This is the only sign of affection I will show to you. Don’t waist it.” He said in a warning tone. Obviously his tone not matching to the words he was saying.\n\n\tDon gaped at him then at the glass in front of him before sighing and grabbing it in his hand. Hesitating for a moment as he studied the ice cube floating over the surface. “What’s the matter? If you’re afraid I poisoned it, it don’t have to worry. The bartender is a witness.” Don scowled in Leo’s direction before shaking his head.\n\n\t“You didn’t poison it. I can smell it. It’s clean.” Leo nodded.\n\n\t“Don’t tell me you’re a non-alcoholic.”\n\n\t“I don’t remember the last time I drank. Though I’m sure this isn’t the first time. It seems I’m not the only one either.” Leo stopped the glass half way up to his lips before setting it down and looking quizzically over at Don. \n\n\t“What? You can smell I’m not an alcoholic?” Don nodded simply with a wry smile.\n\n\t“Your blood smells fresh. Not poisoned at all.” \n\n\tLeo smirked. He supposed that was a good thing. The most often he drank was one or two glasses a month. And that was mostly for the purpose of blending in to surroundings as these. Sometimes Mikey would try to drag him to a club or party. Trying to lift up his mood and Leo would settle for grabbing a glass of something unknown but strong to him and ending up forgetting the rest of the night. He was sure Mikey has some embarrassing photos of past events like that stashed around their home.\n\n\t“I like my blood like that~” Came a husky growl and Leo’s head snapped back around to Don in surprise and shock.\n\n\t“Tell me the honest truth. You were drunk before you came to me.”\n\n\tDon barked out a laugh and shook his head. “Naw, I just wanted to see your reaction. That was damn hilarious!” With that, Don’s whole mood seemed to lighten up and he grabbed the drink again, and this time without hesitation, he swallowed the drink down in one gulp easily as if there was nothing in it.\n\n\tLeo growled. “I hate you.” \n\n\tDon smirked. “Hey, I wasn’t lying though. Fresh blood without any alcohol in it I prefer.”\n\n\t“Don’t get any ideas.” Leo snarled past the glass as he raised it back up to his lips and threw his head back. Planning on downing the liquor just as easily but he came back up, coughing and hacking. Feeling the liquid run down like fire and crash into his stomach. \n\n\t“Oh God that was awful.” He hacked out. Hearing another round of Don’s belly laughs. He growled.\n\n\t“I got a knife.” He warned. The only reaction he got was a mere smirk and a shake of his head and soon the laughs died down.\n\n\t“You are definitely not an alcoholic.”\n\n\t“What about you? You just took the drink like it was nothing!” Leo protested.\n\n\t“It tasted bitter and disgusting but my diet tends to run on bitter and disgusting blood as it is. So I was used to the flavor. As for the burn, I’ve had worse.” Don shrugged. \n\n\t“I thought vampires don’t drink anything else but blood.”\n\n\t“I never said that vampires can’t eat or drink anything other than blood and meat. But it doesn’t have the same flavor as mortals do to our taste buds. Your deserts taste too sweet to us. Alcohol is probably the closest thing to the taste of blood. It’s nasty.” Don explained the best he could. Leo frowned in confusion. That made no sense. When Raph had bitten into him and drank his blood he was bragging about how sweet it was. That he couldn’t seem to stop himself from taking more. Maybe compared to alcohol to a normal human. Leo’s could have tasted more like apple juice? It was only a guess. \n\n\t“Do different mortals have different tasting blood?”\n\n\t“You mean species?” Leo nodded. “Well not really based on species relations. A human can sometimes be no more different then a mutant. It all depends on health really. If you’re sick, or an alcoholic, or have some sort of condition. We tend to be able to taste it. Sometimes it tastes sour, rotten, or lacking of flavor. Depends on the illness. But all mortals tend to have some sort of condition. Going from sun damage to smokers, to cancer. Sometimes we can even taste it before the condition starts showing its symptoms. But when healthy, though I haven’t tasted that many healthy mortals before. I heard they are sweet, like candy. Packed with all sorts of flavors. Fresh and clean.” \n\n\tLeo licked his lips as the information sunk in. How could that possibly be right? The only way he would actually taste sweet was if he was healthy. According to Raph though, that was exactly what he was. The way he drank greedily from him. Wanting more. Leo shivered at the memories. Tingles of pleasure running along his spine and he took a breath to calm himself. He had a condition he knew. That’s why he had to keep taking those damned pills all the time, and Mikey would so get on him if he skipped a time. As if skipping one time without them would kill him. He remembered he asked their parents about it and they just responded to some type of cancer. They didn’t even know what type of cancer. Just that he had it and if he wanted to live a life, he had to take the medications daily. But that still left him with unanswered questions. Now their parents were gone and unable to answer those questions. Perhaps Raph’s taste buds were out of whack. Perhaps the medications were working their magic and the symptoms were too buried to notice.\n\n\t“What about people who take medications? Can you taste that?” He asked curiously. Damn, Don was more useful then he thought.\n\n\t“Depends on the type of medication. Shots of medication can be like tequila since its pumped straight into the vein and you can get a good mouthful of that stuff. Then there are pills that are more subtle. It takes longer and not as much to get into the blood. Making it harder to identify. Drug addicts though, we can definitely taste easily. ” \n\n\t“But can they still taste the condition even under the effect of medication?”\n\n\t“How strong the medication is and the violence of the illness. If it’s just a common cold and you take tons of medicine to soothe the symptoms it may be harder to find. But if it’s something like the flu or worse. The plague. Oh yeah, definitely. There’s not much you can do to cover those up.” Leo folded his lips in and nodded. Okay, so cancer would immediately be written on those obvious lists. Cancer was serious and Don said they could sometimes taste it even before the symptoms start to show. But Raph hadn’t tasted anything. At least that’s what he thought. Maybe Raph kept it a secret. Maybe he didn’t think Leo knew about his condition and didn’t want to scare him off. Or hell, maybe he just didn’t want to mention it because he was distracted or felt pity for him and just decided to keep it secret as if he wouldn’t have figured it out sooner or later. \n\n\tDamn, this would have been a good time to have Raph around. \n\n\t“Can vampires get the illness and disease the person has after they drink?” \n\n\tDon shook his head. “No. We aren’t like you mortals. Our immune system runs different. We heal faster than the normal mortal. We’re healthier. Stronger. The more we eat the stronger we get. The faster healing we are. So generally, we don’t even get sick at all. We’re perfectly healthy.” Leo just sighed and nodded. What a wonderful thing. Not having to be sick for the rest of your life. Living a life without the worries of dying early from some dreaded disease. Like Leo was, apparently. “But we’re technically immortal compared to mortal’s life spans.”\n\n\tLeo raised an eye ridge. “What do you mean by that?”\n\n\t“I mean that vampires don’t age for the longest of time. One vampire’s life span could last a few more centuries more than a mortal.” \n\n\tThat caused the mint green turtle to frown. So even if he got Raph back, he wouldn’t be able to actually live a life with him anyways. If it wasn’t for the fact that they already lived in two separate very different worlds. Now Leo would wither and grow old and decrepit while Raph stays his beautiful young self for another few century’s or so. What made it worse was that Leo might not even get at least a normal mortals life. Cancer would probably grow out of his control and medications wouldn’t be able to do a damn thing. Then at the age of sixty it would be bye-bye Leonardo the once famous Vampire Hunter.\n\n\tThe thought caused him to scowl. His once content mood devoured by sourness. He waved over the bartender and he immediately took the same Scotch whisky bottle and poured in another. Leo drank it and went through another coughing fit before clearing his throat and laying back in his seat. Don blinked at him for a second before shaking his head.\n\n\t“So . . . I answered all your questions for you. Now you answer mine.” \n\n\tLeo raised an eye ridge. “Since when did we agree on that?”\n\n\t“We didn’t. But it’s only fair.”\n\n\tThe sapphire eyed terrapin grumbled and shook his head. “I didn’t agree to it.” Don as well grumbled at his retort. Having the sudden urge to smash the glass he still had in his hand on Leo’s forehead. Though that wouldn’t do him any good of getting his answers when Leo's unconscious, and if he hit just right, dead. He clutched the glass tightly and fought his hardest to not do just as his mind told him to.\n\n\t“Well then, if you won’t answer my questions. I won’t give you any of the important information I know that you might need to rescue Raph.”\n\n\tLeo snorted. He hated when people tried to bribe and bargain with him. Especially if it would just end with him getting the short of the deal. He didn’t trust Donatello [i]that[/i] much. \n\n\t“Oh you’ll give it to me no matter what. Raph is your brother and if you want him back you will need my help and I can’t do crap if I don’t get the needed information.” \n\n\tDon growled. “I don’t need your help.” \n\n\t“Oh please, you wouldn’t even have known where Raph was if it weren’t for me.” \n\n\t“You wouldn’t even have known Raph was gone in the first place if it weren’t for me.” Don retorted back snappy. Which caused Leo to frown even further when he realized Don was right. Fuck, he hated loosing fights. There goes his well worked pride down the drain. He sighed irritably and sat up. His elbows resting against the bar.\n\n\t“Alright, alright. Shoot.” He instructed. His finger tracing over the brim of his glass. There was a second of silence before a huff.\n\n\t“When I woke up this morning with Mikey[s] [/s] ”\n\n\t“What about Mikey?” Leo interrupted. His eye ridge raising. Did Don look a bit flushed?\n\n\t“Nothing bad . . . ish. That’s why I’m asking. Mikey and I had a talk yesterday and I brought up the subject again today and Mikey had no clue what I was talking about. It wasn’t anything special but I was kind of concerned as to why he acted as if I had just walked through the door again.” \n\n\tLeo frowned. His gaze travelled back to his glass between his hands and he sighed. “Oh that.”\n\n\t“What?” Don asked curiously. \n\n\t“It’s a long story.”\n\n\t“I think we have time.” Leo didn’t like to talk about that story. To anyone. Not even Mikey. Let alone Don. But he supposed he owed it to him and it wasn’t too personal. Just painful.\n\n\t“If you’re concerned about me taking advantage of your brother. Don’t worry.”\n\n\tLeo raised an eye ridge. “I never asked that.”\n\n\t“You didn’t need to. You were hesitating. Besides, Mikey was asking the same thing about you when I asked about your pills.” Oh fantastic! Does Don know about his cancer to!? He was going to so confront Mikey for this.\n \n\t“It’s nothing you can really take advantage of.” He tried speaking calmly. His hands clenching the glass tighter and he wondered if he would be able to crack the glass. \n\n\t“Then you don’t have anything to worry about.”\n\n\t“Do you not think I won’t like talking about this stuff?”\n\n\t“I don’t even know what stuff you’re talking about. I was just curious.”[i] A little too curious for my taste.[/I] Leo grumbled mentally. Trying so hard to restrain his hands from grabbing the knife in his boot and stabbing it in Don’s thigh.\n\n\tTaking a slow breath and holding it for a few seconds. He released it. He had to remain calm. Flying off the hook would not do either of them any good. “It was some years ago when we were teenagers. Around the age of fifteen.” He started. Don stayed silent. Obviously trying to keep track of each of his words.\n\n\t“We never snuck out before, but we constantly thought about it. Mikey was encouraging me to. That while our parents were asleep we would go and do what any other teenager would do and party. We had dreams of living a crazy life together. Deserting all responsibility and just running and seeing the world.”\n\n\t“Anyway, in the middle of the night. Mikey persuaded me that we should go out and maybe visit one of those clubs. And I, of course, thought it would be a fun idea. We never thought that maybe we would run into anybody bad. Never occurred of the danger, despite the fact that hearing screams were a natural nightly thing for us.”\n\n\t“You’re talking about the vampires?” Don asked, interrupting Leo. The mint green turtle nodded and continued.\n\n\t“So we snuck out. We had a great time really. We couldn’t go into the club with bars so naturally. Trouble makers we were. We snuck in. Stole a man’s shot glass and had my first taste with tequila. Awful.” Leo shook his head and sneered. “Well we started back home after a few hours and everything was going fine. But neither noticed we were being followed till we were almost home. There was a man. A lot larger than either of us. All I can really remember was that he cornered us into an alleyway. We had fought, but his strength and speed was incredible. I knew we had no chance. But he was going after Mikey, obviously since he was smaller than me he would go after him as an easy target. I tried to strike at him. Barely did anything but made him even madder and he turned his attention on me. He had bitten me. He was drinking out of me. He might have been successful at fully draining me if it weren’t for Mikey though. He managed to do [i]some[/i] damage and the man let me go. At that point, I just had no fight left in me. I was blacking out, but I remember seeing that the man cornered Mikey as he fought him. Managing to smash his head against the brick and he was unconscious. I blacked out then.”\n\n\t“When I awoke, I was in a hospital. They were giving me a blood transfusion. Told me it was my mother’s blood. That if they hadn’t found us when they did. I would have died several minutes later. I found Mikey was in the bed next to me. His head was wrapped and he was unconscious. The doctor told me that he had took a serious damage to the head. They had managed to patch his broken skull up with surgery and he was in a coma for a few days. He had a temporary case of amnesia that lasted about a week before he remembered everything. But the doctor’s said that he would have phases where he would forget certain events that took place completely. Acting as if it had never happened. Short term memory loss he said.” \n\nDon frowned and he seemed to have an immediate understanding of Leo a lot more than he thought he ever would have. It made sense of the hatred that Leo carried for vampires. They had hurt his family more than once as well as himself. It was because of vampires they heard screams at night. Sure, humans destroy themselves as much as vampires do and if it weren’t vampires killing. Mortals would do it themselves. It was just nature. Cruel, harsh, cold hearted nature. But it was also natural to hate those that go by that. To hate the one responsible for pain, whether physically or emotionally. It was just a natural action that all beings do. Either the mortal or immortal. Human or mutant. It was a natural emotion to hate the things that had hurt you. \n\nThat would also explain him and Mikey back at Leonardo’s home. Where Mikey totally had no idea the things that happened last night between them. He had forgotten do to his condition. He hadn’t tasted it in his blood because it wasn’t an illness of any sort. Mikey’s head had healed already. But the short term memory loss thing was merely the effect of brain damage. \n\nDon’s frown deepened farther. “So is the memory loss permanent? I mean, if he forgot something would he forever forget it?”\n\nLeo shook his head. Causing some relief to flood through Don. “He can sometimes remember things after a certain period of time. It takes a little longer. But on some other things. Little things, he might forget completely and not even realized it happened.” That caused Don’s insides to clench uncomfortably again. He wouldn’t say the kiss was a little thing. Not to him anyway. It held more meaning than he cared to think about. But to Mikey, it could have been just a plain old simple kiss that he’s had plenty of times before. Good God, he probably will never remember. \n\nWhy he was so concerned was still boggling his mind. But he hated the thought of Mikey never knowing what had occurred with them that night. His own feelings. Sure, they won’t be able to live a life together but at least he would have made his place in Mikey’s mind other than being the nuisance.\n\n[i]So much caring and concern for one lowly mortal.[/i]\n\nDon scowled to himself. Waving over the bartender for a refill. Chugging the drink down in one gulp. \n\n“So . . . you satisfied?” \n\nSatisfied was an overstatement. He was down hearted and depressed. And angered that he was. \n\n“Yeah.” He merely answered. \n\n“Whatever you two talked about that is oh so important. I’m sure Mikey will remember maybe in a few hours.” Leo reassured him. Don likely doubted it but nonetheless he just nodded for an answer.\n\n“I’m surprised you’re not nagging me on what we talked about.”\n\n“I’m not going to worry. Mikey will probably tell me when we get back home.” Oh that was perfect. Mikey was going to spill everything about that little kiss he laid on him that morning and all the “gibberish” he spoke about the “lovely” night they had. Leo was going to kill him and Mikey was going to dance on his grave. He just knew it.\n\n“So back on main important topic. We’re going to need to sneak passed security in the Empire State building. Get to the appropriate level and have to find where exactly this little vamp hide out is and how to get through without being spotted. The only person who would really know how to get in is a guard. Someone who goes in and out between the surface world and the Master.” Don shook his head. His mind coming back on track. He smiled cheerfully to Leo and took another swig of his newly refilled drink the bartender had obliged him with again.\n\n“I got it all figured out. Trust me.” \n","writing_bbcode_parsed":"Chapter 24-

\tLeo watched as Don plopped himself in the chair beside him, sighing in annoyance. Leo smiled. He tried for sympathetically. But he ended up giving him one of those cheerful smiles instead. He didn’t regret being rude to Don. Don should have expected it in him. He didn’t trust this vampire in the slightest. Okay, maybe that was a lie. Obviously he did trust him some or he wouldn’t be allowing him to help him. God, if he wasn’t so useful, he’d tried to kill him again. Plus, Raph would probably kill him next for slaughtering his brother that just came back from the dead.

\tIt didn’t help that Don’s value went up a notch now that he found out him and Raph were the sons of the Master. And despised him so much. He could possibly find out any weak points. What his natural world is like. If he’s normal when off duty or anything would help. Though it’d be harder because he never actually came face to face with the guy. But having an enemy without even meeting them first wasn’t uncommon. Hell, he made the whole vampire race hate him in about two weeks of starting this gig. It was hardly alien to him at all.

\tLeo raised his hand to the bartender and the scruffy man immediately walked over. He asked for two glasses of scotch and the man nodded before shuffling away to get the order. It was only a few minutes of silence and the soft sounds of some horrible rock music before two glasses were placed in front of him and Don, an ice cube dropped into each before he took out a bottle filled with amber liquid and poured it into each glass. Then scurrying away to take another order.

\tDon stared at the glass and jumped back as if it had been snake before turning to Leo confusingly.

\tLeo merely smiled a crooked smile and took his own glass. Tipping it in Don’s direction as a “cheers” gesture. “This is the only sign of affection I will show to you. Don’t waist it.” He said in a warning tone. Obviously his tone not matching to the words he was saying.

\tDon gaped at him then at the glass in front of him before sighing and grabbing it in his hand. Hesitating for a moment as he studied the ice cube floating over the surface. “What’s the matter? If you’re afraid I poisoned it, it don’t have to worry. The bartender is a witness.” Don scowled in Leo’s direction before shaking his head.

\t“You didn’t poison it. I can smell it. It’s clean.” Leo nodded.

\t“Don’t tell me you’re a non-alcoholic.”

\t“I don’t remember the last time I drank. Though I’m sure this isn’t the first time. It seems I’m not the only one either.” Leo stopped the glass half way up to his lips before setting it down and looking quizzically over at Don.

\t“What? You can smell I’m not an alcoholic?” Don nodded simply with a wry smile.

\t“Your blood smells fresh. Not poisoned at all.”

\tLeo smirked. He supposed that was a good thing. The most often he drank was one or two glasses a month. And that was mostly for the purpose of blending in to surroundings as these. Sometimes Mikey would try to drag him to a club or party. Trying to lift up his mood and Leo would settle for grabbing a glass of something unknown but strong to him and ending up forgetting the rest of the night. He was sure Mikey has some embarrassing photos of past events like that stashed around their home.

\t“I like my blood like that~” Came a husky growl and Leo’s head snapped back around to Don in surprise and shock.

\t“Tell me the honest truth. You were drunk before you came to me.”

\tDon barked out a laugh and shook his head. “Naw, I just wanted to see your reaction. That was damn hilarious!” With that, Don’s whole mood seemed to lighten up and he grabbed the drink again, and this time without hesitation, he swallowed the drink down in one gulp easily as if there was nothing in it.

\tLeo growled. “I hate you.”

\tDon smirked. “Hey, I wasn’t lying though. Fresh blood without any alcohol in it I prefer.”

\t“Don’t get any ideas.” Leo snarled past the glass as he raised it back up to his lips and threw his head back. Planning on downing the liquor just as easily but he came back up, coughing and hacking. Feeling the liquid run down like fire and crash into his stomach.

\t“Oh God that was awful.” He hacked out. Hearing another round of Don’s belly laughs. He growled.

\t“I got a knife.” He warned. The only reaction he got was a mere smirk and a shake of his head and soon the laughs died down.

\t“You are definitely not an alcoholic.”

\t“What about you? You just took the drink like it was nothing!” Leo protested.

\t“It tasted bitter and disgusting but my diet tends to run on bitter and disgusting blood as it is. So I was used to the flavor. As for the burn, I’ve had worse.” Don shrugged.

\t“I thought vampires don’t drink anything else but blood.”

\t“I never said that vampires can’t eat or drink anything other than blood and meat. But it doesn’t have the same flavor as mortals do to our taste buds. Your deserts taste too sweet to us. Alcohol is probably the closest thing to the taste of blood. It’s nasty.” Don explained the best he could. Leo frowned in confusion. That made no sense. When Raph had bitten into him and drank his blood he was bragging about how sweet it was. That he couldn’t seem to stop himself from taking more. Maybe compared to alcohol to a normal human. Leo’s could have tasted more like apple juice? It was only a guess.

\t“Do different mortals have different tasting blood?”

\t“You mean species?” Leo nodded. “Well not really based on species relations. A human can sometimes be no more different then a mutant. It all depends on health really. If you’re sick, or an alcoholic, or have some sort of condition. We tend to be able to taste it. Sometimes it tastes sour, rotten, or lacking of flavor. Depends on the illness. But all mortals tend to have some sort of condition. Going from sun damage to smokers, to cancer. Sometimes we can even taste it before the condition starts showing its symptoms. But when healthy, though I haven’t tasted that many healthy mortals before. I heard they are sweet, like candy. Packed with all sorts of flavors. Fresh and clean.”

\tLeo licked his lips as the information sunk in. How could that possibly be right? The only way he would actually taste sweet was if he was healthy. According to Raph though, that was exactly what he was. The way he drank greedily from him. Wanting more. Leo shivered at the memories. Tingles of pleasure running along his spine and he took a breath to calm himself. He had a condition he knew. That’s why he had to keep taking those damned pills all the time, and Mikey would so get on him if he skipped a time. As if skipping one time without them would kill him. He remembered he asked their parents about it and they just responded to some type of cancer. They didn’t even know what type of cancer. Just that he had it and if he wanted to live a life, he had to take the medications daily. But that still left him with unanswered questions. Now their parents were gone and unable to answer those questions. Perhaps Raph’s taste buds were out of whack. Perhaps the medications were working their magic and the symptoms were too buried to notice.

\t“What about people who take medications? Can you taste that?” He asked curiously. Damn, Don was more useful then he thought.

\t“Depends on the type of medication. Shots of medication can be like tequila since its pumped straight into the vein and you can get a good mouthful of that stuff. Then there are pills that are more subtle. It takes longer and not as much to get into the blood. Making it harder to identify. Drug addicts though, we can definitely taste easily. ”

\t“But can they still taste the condition even under the effect of medication?”

\t“How strong the medication is and the violence of the illness. If it’s just a common cold and you take tons of medicine to soothe the symptoms it may be harder to find. But if it’s something like the flu or worse. The plague. Oh yeah, definitely. There’s not much you can do to cover those up.” Leo folded his lips in and nodded. Okay, so cancer would immediately be written on those obvious lists. Cancer was serious and Don said they could sometimes taste it even before the symptoms start to show. But Raph hadn’t tasted anything. At least that’s what he thought. Maybe Raph kept it a secret. Maybe he didn’t think Leo knew about his condition and didn’t want to scare him off. Or hell, maybe he just didn’t want to mention it because he was distracted or felt pity for him and just decided to keep it secret as if he wouldn’t have figured it out sooner or later.

\tDamn, this would have been a good time to have Raph around.

\t“Can vampires get the illness and disease the person has after they drink?”

\tDon shook his head. “No. We aren’t like you mortals. Our immune system runs different. We heal faster than the normal mortal. We’re healthier. Stronger. The more we eat the stronger we get. The faster healing we are. So generally, we don’t even get sick at all. We’re perfectly healthy.” Leo just sighed and nodded. What a wonderful thing. Not having to be sick for the rest of your life. Living a life without the worries of dying early from some dreaded disease. Like Leo was, apparently. “But we’re technically immortal compared to mortal’s life spans.”

\tLeo raised an eye ridge. “What do you mean by that?”

\t“I mean that vampires don’t age for the longest of time. One vampire’s life span could last a few more centuries more than a mortal.”

\tThat caused the mint green turtle to frown. So even if he got Raph back, he wouldn’t be able to actually live a life with him anyways. If it wasn’t for the fact that they already lived in two separate very different worlds. Now Leo would wither and grow old and decrepit while Raph stays his beautiful young self for another few century’s or so. What made it worse was that Leo might not even get at least a normal mortals life. Cancer would probably grow out of his control and medications wouldn’t be able to do a damn thing. Then at the age of sixty it would be bye-bye Leonardo the once famous Vampire Hunter.

\tThe thought caused him to scowl. His once content mood devoured by sourness. He waved over the bartender and he immediately took the same Scotch whisky bottle and poured in another. Leo drank it and went through another coughing fit before clearing his throat and laying back in his seat. Don blinked at him for a second before shaking his head.

\t“So . . . I answered all your questions for you. Now you answer mine.”

\tLeo raised an eye ridge. “Since when did we agree on that?”

\t“We didn’t. But it’s only fair.”

\tThe sapphire eyed terrapin grumbled and shook his head. “I didn’t agree to it.” Don as well grumbled at his retort. Having the sudden urge to smash the glass he still had in his hand on Leo’s forehead. Though that wouldn’t do him any good of getting his answers when Leo's unconscious, and if he hit just right, dead. He clutched the glass tightly and fought his hardest to not do just as his mind told him to.

\t“Well then, if you won’t answer my questions. I won’t give you any of the important information I know that you might need to rescue Raph.”

\tLeo snorted. He hated when people tried to bribe and bargain with him. Especially if it would just end with him getting the short of the deal. He didn’t trust Donatello that much.

\t“Oh you’ll give it to me no matter what. Raph is your brother and if you want him back you will need my help and I can’t do crap if I don’t get the needed information.”

\tDon growled. “I don’t need your help.”

\t“Oh please, you wouldn’t even have known where Raph was if it weren’t for me.”

\t“You wouldn’t even have known Raph was gone in the first place if it weren’t for me.” Don retorted back snappy. Which caused Leo to frown even further when he realized Don was right. Fuck, he hated loosing fights. There goes his well worked pride down the drain. He sighed irritably and sat up. His elbows resting against the bar.

\t“Alright, alright. Shoot.” He instructed. His finger tracing over the brim of his glass. There was a second of silence before a huff.

\t“When I woke up this morning with Mikey   ”

\t“What about Mikey?” Leo interrupted. His eye ridge raising. Did Don look a bit flushed?

\t“Nothing bad . . . ish. That’s why I’m asking. Mikey and I had a talk yesterday and I brought up the subject again today and Mikey had no clue what I was talking about. It wasn’t anything special but I was kind of concerned as to why he acted as if I had just walked through the door again.”

\tLeo frowned. His gaze travelled back to his glass between his hands and he sighed. “Oh that.”

\t“What?” Don asked curiously.

\t“It’s a long story.”

\t“I think we have time.” Leo didn’t like to talk about that story. To anyone. Not even Mikey. Let alone Don. But he supposed he owed it to him and it wasn’t too personal. Just painful.

\t“If you’re concerned about me taking advantage of your brother. Don’t worry.”

\tLeo raised an eye ridge. “I never asked that.”

\t“You didn’t need to. You were hesitating. Besides, Mikey was asking the same thing about you when I asked about your pills.” Oh fantastic! Does Don know about his cancer to!? He was going to so confront Mikey for this.
 
\t“It’s nothing you can really take advantage of.” He tried speaking calmly. His hands clenching the glass tighter and he wondered if he would be able to crack the glass.

\t“Then you don’t have anything to worry about.”

\t“Do you not think I won’t like talking about this stuff?”

\t“I don’t even know what stuff you’re talking about. I was just curious.” A little too curious for my taste. Leo grumbled mentally. Trying so hard to restrain his hands from grabbing the knife in his boot and stabbing it in Don’s thigh.

\tTaking a slow breath and holding it for a few seconds. He released it. He had to remain calm. Flying off the hook would not do either of them any good. “It was some years ago when we were teenagers. Around the age of fifteen.” He started. Don stayed silent. Obviously trying to keep track of each of his words.

\t“We never snuck out before, but we constantly thought about it. Mikey was encouraging me to. That while our parents were asleep we would go and do what any other teenager would do and party. We had dreams of living a crazy life together. Deserting all responsibility and just running and seeing the world.”

\t“Anyway, in the middle of the night. Mikey persuaded me that we should go out and maybe visit one of those clubs. And I, of course, thought it would be a fun idea. We never thought that maybe we would run into anybody bad. Never occurred of the danger, despite the fact that hearing screams were a natural nightly thing for us.”

\t“You’re talking about the vampires?” Don asked, interrupting Leo. The mint green turtle nodded and continued.

\t“So we snuck out. We had a great time really. We couldn’t go into the club with bars so naturally. Trouble makers we were. We snuck in. Stole a man’s shot glass and had my first taste with tequila. Awful.” Leo shook his head and sneered. “Well we started back home after a few hours and everything was going fine. But neither noticed we were being followed till we were almost home. There was a man. A lot larger than either of us. All I can really remember was that he cornered us into an alleyway. We had fought, but his strength and speed was incredible. I knew we had no chance. But he was going after Mikey, obviously since he was smaller than me he would go after him as an easy target. I tried to strike at him. Barely did anything but made him even madder and he turned his attention on me. He had bitten me. He was drinking out of me. He might have been successful at fully draining me if it weren’t for Mikey though. He managed to do some damage and the man let me go. At that point, I just had no fight left in me. I was blacking out, but I remember seeing that the man cornered Mikey as he fought him. Managing to smash his head against the brick and he was unconscious. I blacked out then.”

\t“When I awoke, I was in a hospital. They were giving me a blood transfusion. Told me it was my mother’s blood. That if they hadn’t found us when they did. I would have died several minutes later. I found Mikey was in the bed next to me. His head was wrapped and he was unconscious. The doctor told me that he had took a serious damage to the head. They had managed to patch his broken skull up with surgery and he was in a coma for a few days. He had a temporary case of amnesia that lasted about a week before he remembered everything. But the doctor’s said that he would have phases where he would forget certain events that took place completely. Acting as if it had never happened. Short term memory loss he said.”

Don frowned and he seemed to have an immediate understanding of Leo a lot more than he thought he ever would have. It made sense of the hatred that Leo carried for vampires. They had hurt his family more than once as well as himself. It was because of vampires they heard screams at night. Sure, humans destroy themselves as much as vampires do and if it weren’t vampires killing. Mortals would do it themselves. It was just nature. Cruel, harsh, cold hearted nature. But it was also natural to hate those that go by that. To hate the one responsible for pain, whether physically or emotionally. It was just a natural action that all beings do. Either the mortal or immortal. Human or mutant. It was a natural emotion to hate the things that had hurt you.

That would also explain him and Mikey back at Leonardo’s home. Where Mikey totally had no idea the things that happened last night between them. He had forgotten do to his condition. He hadn’t tasted it in his blood because it wasn’t an illness of any sort. Mikey’s head had healed already. But the short term memory loss thing was merely the effect of brain damage.

Don’s frown deepened farther. “So is the memory loss permanent? I mean, if he forgot something would he forever forget it?”

Leo shook his head. Causing some relief to flood through Don. “He can sometimes remember things after a certain period of time. It takes a little longer. But on some other things. Little things, he might forget completely and not even realized it happened.” That caused Don’s insides to clench uncomfortably again. He wouldn’t say the kiss was a little thing. Not to him anyway. It held more meaning than he cared to think about. But to Mikey, it could have been just a plain old simple kiss that he’s had plenty of times before. Good God, he probably will never remember.

Why he was so concerned was still boggling his mind. But he hated the thought of Mikey never knowing what had occurred with them that night. His own feelings. Sure, they won’t be able to live a life together but at least he would have made his place in Mikey’s mind other than being the nuisance.

So much caring and concern for one lowly mortal.

Don scowled to himself. Waving over the bartender for a refill. Chugging the drink down in one gulp.

“So . . . you satisfied?”

Satisfied was an overstatement. He was down hearted and depressed. And angered that he was.  

“Yeah.” He merely answered.

“Whatever you two talked about that is oh so important. I’m sure Mikey will remember maybe in a few hours.” Leo reassured him. Don likely doubted it but nonetheless he just nodded for an answer.

“I’m surprised you’re not nagging me on what we talked about.”

“I’m not going to worry. Mikey will probably tell me when we get back home.” Oh that was perfect. Mikey was going to spill everything about that little kiss he laid on him that morning and all the “gibberish” he spoke about the “lovely” night they had. Leo was going to kill him and Mikey was going to dance on his grave. He just knew it.

“So back on main important topic. We’re going to need to sneak passed security in the Empire State building. Get to the appropriate level and have to find where exactly this little vamp hide out is and how to get through without being spotted. The only person who would really know how to get in is a guard. Someone who goes in and out between the surface world and the Master.” Don shook his head. His mind coming back on track. He smiled cheerfully to Leo and took another swig of his newly refilled drink the bartender had obliged him with again.

“I got it all figured out. Trust me.”
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