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A New Lease on Life	By : Ghost-of-a-Chance Category: +S through Z > Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Views: 3157 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 0
Disclaimer: I don't own TMNT, any of its characters or devices, or any songs/books/movies referenced. No money is made from this story. I DO own any & all OCs included in the story...and a Woozle.

Chapter List
- 33
- 34
- 35
Here be lemons! One short one to start, then a longer, more graphic lime after that. Also, a heads-up there there's quite a bit of brogue/Scots-twang blend• in this chapter, as usual, defined at the end.
Suggested Listening: John Legend "Cross the Line," Lifehouse "Hourglass"

33: Lines
Soft spring breezes filter through the low-sweeping branches of a sprawling mimosa tree; each gentle zephyr sends shudders through the tree's powder-pink pincushion blooms. The air is heady with the blossoms' perfume and the fresh green fragrance of newly mown grass. Clouds race one another across the bluer-than-blue sky.
There is only one constant in the dream world, and that constant is transience. One dream may differ from any number of others in numberless ways, from setting and scene to emotion and action. In just such a way, this dream differs from every other Donatello recalls…and he has no complaints whatsoever. He doesn't recall ever seeing such a tree as this, but as this is a dream, he doesn't think too much of it. Shaded from view by the tree's sheltering boughs, he and Amber sprawl lazily across a faded patchwork quilt in the grass.
Hands explore. Lips meet and part. Voices raise and fall silent, their owners swept away by the emotions coursing through them. Fiery highlights gleam from Amber's unbound hair and clash with the hungry blush staining her cheeks. "Dunnie," she murmurs, her voice tinted with an unfamiliar brogue. "Yer su sof' wi'me…ye dinnae have'ta be. Ah'm no' goanna break, ye knuw." •
"I know," he admits his voice creaking without warning. The sudden occurrence—and the realization that his voice is higher in pitch than it's been since his teen years—startles him. A pair of ankles digging into his rear bring him into the warm cradle of her thighs and back into the moment; bit by bit, he finds himself drawn into the dream, losing himself in memories he couldn't have. "You deserve it, you know," he remarks instead, propping himself up on one elbow to study her dilated pupils and kiss-swollen lips. "You deserve to be treated like a princess—no, like a queen."
"Ef Ah'm a Queen," she asks teasingly pulling him down by the tails of his mask, "does tha' mean ye'll do anithin' Ah ask'a ye?" •
"Anything," he teases with a small sideways smile. "Anything you ask, I will do. Your wish, M'lady, is my—" The rest goes unsaid, his voice failing and falling into a low, growling moan; the hand that reached between them guides him unerringly, and the legs around his hips tighten. It hasn't been long since he and Amber first shared their bodies in this strange dream world they inhabit and the sensation still takes his breath away every time. Warm and wet, hot and tight…he can't suppress the rattling churr clawing past his lips and instead buries it in her neck, drowning in the sweet whisky scent of her.
"Ef ye'll do anithin', Dee," Amber whispers framing his face and urging his eyes to meet hers again, "then r'member…Ye've goat to remember, Dunnie!"• Instead of answering, he steals her lips again, focusing on the tender advancing and retreating rhythm their bodies have been drawn into. Though he promised to do anything she asked, he cannot grant that wish—he's afraid to remember.
Remembering would change everything, and he cannot allow that to happen.
4 am, Sunday, July 3rd
Amber's eyes reluctantly cracked open, seeking out the alarm clock's display. She wasn't sure what woke her, but whatever it was, it ticked her off. The dream, although odd, wasn't a night terror. Sure, Donnie kept calling her a dream and behaving like he thought she would suddenly turn into his brother, but at least he was there...and naked...very naked. 'Oh well,' she reasoned switching on the lamp overhead. 'There'll be other good dreams. She gave a languid stretch as the last lazy tremors of pleasure ran through her, starting in her lower belly and spreading outward like wildfire. As she went to hoist herself up, intent on changing before Donnie woke, something completely unexpected and frankly mortifying registered.
She fell asleep facing Donatello…and woke up facing away from him. An arm heavy with lean muscle lay draped over her left hip, anchoring her against his chest. Soft puffs of breath disturbed the fine hair at the nape of her neck, the cause nuzzling her unbound hair in his sleep. If it were as simple as all that, now that would be just fine—she loved cuddling, after all—but things were never that simple. She clearly wasn't the only one who had pleasant dreams and the sizable bulge currently wedged against her plump backside was proof.
Now fully awake, Amber stared at the alarm clock in dismay, trying to think up a way out of the situation. It seemed she was about to get run down by the Karma bus—she insisted on waiting to start a physical relationship, stubbornly refused to entertain the idea of giving in to the sexual tension between herself and Donnie, and ignored the outrage of her neglected lady-parts—and now she was paying for it. As the brunette's thoughts developed into an out of control whirlwind, Donnie's hand slipped lower, fingertips brushing over the fleshy mound between her thighs.
"An-thin," he mumbled into her neck, still sound asleep despite his clumsy caresses and presses. "Yeh-wzha c'mnd…muh-l-DY."
'MOLDY?!' Amber thought caught between outrage, arousal, and amusement; it wasn't a new place for her, either. 'That sleekit Speccy's gropin' me over a dream about mold?! Aw, HELL naw!' She wanted to overlook the inconvenience of the incident—just lie back, enjoy his sleep-clumsy touches and maybe give his hand a little nudge in the right direction—but she knew he'd be humiliated if he woke up holding her crotch. Without further ado, she latched onto the talented hand fumbling with the waistband of her night-slacks and tried to haul it north of the border. Her attempts were in vain, though, as the appendage simply latched onto her hip and pulled her tight against the still growing bulge in Donnie's shorts, then wandered downward again. Clearly, he wasn't ready to let go of her yet…and how bloody massive was he if he was still only half-mast?!
"Oh, for the love of—Hey!" She elbowed him in the side, making a half-assed attempt to keep their hips separate. After all, he was sure to be embarrassed…right? "Donnie, if you don't wake up right now, so help me—"
"Wha's all the racket?" he grumbled, nuzzling into the nape of her neck. " 'm comfy." Amber rolled her eyes, waiting for the situation to register. Sure enough, a moment later his eyes flew wide open, and he froze, blindly feeling around to get an idea of where his hand wound up in his sleep. A moment later he physically recoiled, whipping his hand away from her crotch and wedging it between them to cover his own. "S…Sorry," he mumbled wanting nothing more than to sink through the floor. "I didn't—I couldn't—uh…" Amber lay there silently, all-too aware that his northern head was lacking in blood flow too badly to allow clear thought formation.
Perhaps, she considered as the mortified genius stammered out an ever-worsening jumble of apologies and insistences, this disaster was a blessing in disguise. Donatello rolled onto his carapace and stared up at the ceiling, finally giving up on trying to protest his innocence. A sudden weight draped across his front pulled him out of his self-deprecating internal rambling, though, and a soft hand cupped his cheek.
"Pleasant dreams?" Amber teased then bent down for a brief kiss; she was sure she was honkin'a mornin' breath but he'd never cared before. That one kiss turned into another, then that into several more, and with every one, a little more tension left him. Soon the deviant hand clutched the back of her head, fingers lacing through her hair as their lips met and parted in kiss after brushing, teasing kiss. "Was she good?" she asked when they finally parted, wiggling her eyebrows at him.
He chuckled in response, trailing his knuckles along her jaw and latching onto her soft hip. "You always are," he admitted, pleased with the shy blush that exploded across her cheeks at the insinuation - a blush accompanied by another wave of pheromones. "C'mere, you."
For a moment, she balked, worried that they were moving too fast, that they'd wind up crashing at this rate, but an unexpected pop to the end of her nose shut down her overthinking. Right, she realized with a slow smile, starting too big again. Take it day by day—live in the moment—don't push him away again…
Donatello felt sure he wouldn't have entertained such an idea if the air wasn't so heavy with her pheromones; if he wasn't so overwhelmed by her scent, he would surely have brushed the incident off with an awkward joke and spent the rest of the day berating himself for mishap. Despite the tempting nonscent—or perhaps because of it?—he felt bolder than usual, felt like taking a risk. True to her nature, Amber didn't leave him hanging. Crawling over him somewhat clumsily, she quickly sought his lips again, whimpering when his hands reappeared at her hips and anchored her against his swollen groin.
For just one moment, time seemed to stand still, both aware of the line about to be crossed. Once they swept away that line in the sand, they could never go back—they could never be 'just friends' again—but was that such a bad thing? Amber saw in his eyes—unblocked by mask or glass—the moment he made his decision, and that he made the same choice she did. Overwhelmed by emotion, she descended on his lips in a flurry of brushes and nips.
His hands full of her soft hips, he urged her to rock against him, arching into her in time. In no time, she took over the grinding, bucking movements for him. His hands free to wander, one slid up her back to hold her close and the other to her over-plump rear for a squeeze, both hands gentle and appreciative in their caresses. Neither spoke beyond a gasp or sigh. Words would have broken the sleepy spell over the room; words would have reminded them that the door wasn't locked and their absence wouldn't go unnoticed for long.
In the time between a gasp and a sigh, the atmosphere changed, charged with all the electricity of an oncoming storm. Amber froze, her limbs tense, desperation in her eyes. She hesitated—afraid—uncertain—torn between giving in to the pleasure wracking her body and the same fear that made her push Donnie away to start with. "It's okay," he promised guiding her hips again, this time with urgency. "Let go, Sweetheart—I'll catch you." After months of tension and desire and years of fighting off anything resembling surrender, Amber gave in. The mattress creaked from her increasingly erratic bucking. Donnie's breathing grew harsher and shallower, an endless torrent of whispered affections and affirmations spilling from his lips.
Amber froze in his arms, burying her face in his neck to smother her cries into whimpers, tremors running rampant through her body. She whined in his ear, her sensitized body seizing and slacking; after what seemed a lifetime, she collapsed. In the dim, secluded bedroom, the only sound to be heard was of overworked lungs panting to accomodate their owners.
As suddenly as she fell apart, Amber realized something that should have been obvious: Donatello wasn't softening, nor was he urging her on. He intended to leave it at that and let his arousal die without assistance. Hell no. She rolled off of him, hauling him with her to take her place. "C'mon," she whispered wrapping her legs around his and squeezing insistently. "Let go, Dee, let it all go." He had every intention to take the high road, but an encouraging nip to his bare shoulder blew those intentions to smithereens.
All hesitation left him; his lungs full of her scent and non-scents, he lost himself in instinctive movements as old as time itself. When the first tremors began wracking his body, Amber latched onto his cheek and drew his eyes to hers; when the world exploded around them, she stole the guttural moan from his lips, rocking her hips into his while he rode the crest then settled on the other side. A little late, he separated their hips, half embarrassed by the wet mess seeping through his shorts and half concerned that their genes might be compatible enough for reproduction. Suddenly nervous, he met her eyes with a weak smile.
"I don't regret it." Amber knew her words would bring back memories of the first time they shut up and let their bodies do the talking. Sure enough, his hazel eyes softened, his lips curved into that wide, gentle smile she loved so much, and he leaned in for a kiss then rubbed noses with her.
"Me either, my crazy Celt," he admitted with a breathy chuckle. This time, she popped him on the nose, her lips split in a grin that seemed all crooked upper teeth.
"Ya better not, my sweet speccy."
Noon
"Ya think he got laid?" Mercy's sudden question, posed in a tone halfway between sarcasm and disbelief, almost brought a blush to Leonardo's cheeks. Fortunately, he was made of tougher stuff than that…hopefully. "I think he got laid—no way can anyone be that happy without havin' their brains fucked out first."
"Speakin' from experience, Blondie?" Raphael teased knowing she was still a virgin. "Da teacher's pet wouldn't go messin' around like dat—it'll be a white weddin' fer sure." In the dojo, Leo's smile finally faltered slightly.
It all started quite innocently. He got a call from Briallen after lunch, stepped out to answer it, and spent a good twenty minutes listening to her updates regarding Beverly's relapse and subsequent treatment changes. Before they hung up, Beverly came on the line to catch up with him, her voice unable to hide her exhaustion or her relief at hearing his voice. After the call, Leo spent some time running the tunnels to clear his head.
Upon his return, he took to the dojo for meditation but found himself still unable to focus. Meditation wasn't a new habit for him—he was the first in the family to practice, after their sensei of course, and the only one of his brothers to still meditate regularly. Even so, his mind was a chaotic jumble of thoughts, hopes, daydreams, and wishes, and Beverly was the source of each one. That chaotic jumble left him unable to focus, and worse yet, grinning like an idiot…and that grin, coupled with his closed eyes and meditative posture, led the two bored smart-asses on the sofa to debate what caused his good mood.
"Maybe he's off his period?" Another sarcastic remark, Mercy again, brought a tic to one closed eye. "He's certainly been bitchy enough lately…maybe he's actually yer sister!"
"Nah," Raph jeered, "he's got da boobs fer it though!" Leo's eye twitched again. Obviously, they knew he wasn't really meditating and were trying to get a rise out of him. In this moment, he had to agree with Amber…Raph and Mercy made a helluva tag-team.
"Lay off, Dude," Mikey admonished out of the blue, quickly adding a teasing grin in Mercy's direction. "Bev's been released from the hospital—Bree's bringin' her home today an' we're droppin' by later to see'em." Mercy looked at Raph, Raph gave a nonplussed shrug, and the blonde turned back to Leo in the dojo again.
"Ah," she remarked loudly, "so it ain't a got laid smile, it's a gonna get laid smile! That makes sense, huh?" Leo gritted his teeth behind the now entirely fake smile. The evening couldn't come soon enough, with a family like his.
Not long after sundown
Last year, Beverly would have been startled by hearing an unexpected, unexplained thump in the kitchen of the loft she shared with her cousin. After so many months of similar unexpected thumps, though, it made her smile. Electing to not address the pair of mutants sneaking through the kitchen—one silent and unseen, the other as stealthy as an obese moose clambering down Main Street at rush hour—she put all her focus on the ebony and ivory keys beneath her fingertips.
I can't help it if I'm wondering
Is it all just make-belief?
Everything that we've been through,
Always you and me.
Is it so?
Is it so, when I ask myself
"Could this be a dream?"
We'll know...
We'll know, together hand-in-hand
Slipping through the hourglass home.
After so long of being cooped up in the hospital ward upstate, resigned to bad TV and binge-reading, being able to finally coax a tune from the black lacquered piano made her heart feel ready to burst. The tune wasn't new, and it wasn't hers, but it felt right. If her life was a movie, she considered wistfully, it might even be her and Leonardo's theme. The very idea was corny, but it drew an elusive smile from her unpainted lips.
She felt more than heard Leo's approach. As always, he paused to give Bosco his regards, but this time he didn't wait a respectful distance away. With every step closer, the notes she played fell further from Adagio toward Adagissimo, then finally, ceased altogether. Just as she decided to turn and startle him—because surely he believed he'd snuck up on her—she felt the weight of her hair shift slightly and froze. She forgot to cover her scalp. Silently noting her reaction, Leo lifted a sleek lock of her long, wavy black hair in his palm bringing the length to his nose. Underneath the traces of antiseptic still clinging to her clothes, he could smell traces of her favorite shampoo—a light yet sultry bouquet of ylang-ylang, eucalyptus, and patchouli. His breath escaped in a low, content sigh.
"You seem well," he remarked softly as she turned to face him, her molasses brown eyes unusually watery. Ever since her first biopsy, a portion of the back of her head was kept shaved almost bald, and after so many procedures, tests, and surgery after surgery, that thin patch was crisscrossed with twisted scar tissue. From his position, at her left and slightly to her rear, he would have gotten a good close look at the masses of scar tissue—and the new stitches from the most recent operation—but he wasn't at all repulsed.
For all her bravado and teasing, that ever-present flaw was Beverly's Achilles heel. She routinely kept her head and hair bound up in headscarves or covered with her favorite beret, and if anyone was to arrive at the loft while her hair was unbound, she did everything she could to block their view of her scalp until she could get it sufficiently covered. For Leonardo to see it…and show no sign of distaste at the sprawling zigzag of scar tissue…
She choked back tears, nodding breathlessly. It didn't escape him how much what he just did meant to her—it was, after all, his intent to show her that she had nothing to hide, if only from him. As he did that night on the rooftop, Leo reached out to cup her cheek in one callused palm, brushing the pad of his thumb along the faint blush spreading along her high cheekbone. "So... they added another month?"
"Yeah," she admitted getting back onto more comfortable ground. Her treatment was nothing new, and though it may seem like a sore spot, it wasn't hard to discuss anymore. After all, she'd been dying for months now—maybe dying was an exaggeration, perhaps, but the point remained, she was used to the topic and the gritty details. …and anything was more comfortable than admitting how floored she was by Leo's deceptively simple gesture. "Another month of IV antibiotics plus my original three…and I have a checkup in two weeks. Basic procedure and all."
"I'm glad you're okay." To her disbelief, his cheeks seemed to gain a slightly darker tint for a moment. He cleared his throat and strode purposefully over to the kitchen counter, returning with something resembling a paper towel roller wrapped in sweat-dampened tissue paper. "I…uh…" For once, he found words escaped him, and he shoved the bundle at her, avoiding her eyes.
Curious at his bizarre behavior, she gingerly peeled away each layer of paper, noting with amusement that her slow unwrapping triggered a recurring muscle tic near one of his eyes. The tissue gone, she realized it was, indeed, a paper towel roller—and turned it curiously in her hands. His reflexes sharp as ever, Leo's hands shot out to the lowered end of the tube and glanced pointedly at the object sliding out into his palm. His smile spread into a full-on grin as Beverly unrolled the white silk scroll; eyes wide in wonder, she visually traced the delicate ink dancing across the bamboo-framed panel. Amongst a whirlwind of dainty gingko leaves, characters she could not read manifested in delicate strokes of black and red.
"It's Dad's work," Leo explained, soaking in her teary beaming smile. "He's not done any calligraphy for a long time, so he says it's a little rusty." She shook her head in denial.
"Rusty?" she echoed in disbelief. "It's immaculate! I've never seen such—such elegant brushstrokes before—your father is too modest!" Chuckling lowly, Leo collected the top roller from her and held it aloft; hesitantly taking her hand in his, he guided her fingertips along in the same patterns, reading each for her then translating them. Health, wisdom, faith, family…the last he translated, sure he was blushing, was love. All, Beverly knew, were well-wishes for the future she once thought she'd never have.
Silence hung between them for a time, neither ready to fill it with words that weren't really necessary. Only Bree's sudden appearance—complete with her usual startled shriek at seeing Leo when she'd only expected her cousin—broke that comfortable silence. "That's from Master Splinter, isn't it?" the younger woman grinned glancing from Leo to Mikey and back again as the former released Bev's hand with a guilty wince.
"Technically, no," Leo corrected rolling the scroll back up again until a suitable place was found for hanging it. "It's from all of us. The others know now…" He turned back to Beverly, feeling sheepish. "…and they all want to meet you." Reading the suddenly tense atmosphere in the parlor, Mikey guided his protesting girlfriend back to her bedroom.
"Meet…me…?" Beverly asked softly. "Bree's already met them." The leader nodded.
"…and now they want to meet you, if you're ready." Despite their promises to keep things platonic for now, he was again drawn to touch her, this time giving her shoulder a comforting squeeze. "They know things could still…change…" Belatedly, he decided the statement was a poor euphemism for she could still die, but he soldiered onward. "They know the risks, and they want to meet you anyway…I shouldn't have…" His pale blue eyes avoided hers.
"You didn't tell them about me," she summed up when it became clear he couldn't, "because you were worried about me. You regret it now."
"Not the worrying," he admitted with a headshake. "That's inevitable. I regret acting like you were a dirty secret." One black eyebrow arched at him, and he suddenly felt like a chastised schoolboy.
"Hindsight's twenty-twenty," she pointed out airily, "but we're all blind in the moment. What matters is that you don't make the same mistake twice." Leo pulled at his neck, his feet itching to pace.
"Come have dinner with the family, Bev." His sudden request—or was it a plea?—startled her into silence. "The others want to meet you—the girls, especially. Mikey and Amber have already offered to handle dinner, and Bree's volunteered a dessert." The frail woman gave a snort of laughter.
"Can't fight City Hall, huh?" she teased standing on weak, wobbly legs. "Name the place and time…we'll make it work. In the meantime…" She plodded around the parlor searching for an empty space on the walls. Finding none, she instead came to a stop before a frankly disturbing lithograph depicting an emaciated old man watching a skeletal grim reaper from his deathbed. It hung ironically over the piano bench, flanked by reproductions of a Japanese woodblock print of a blossoming plum tree and an almond tree blooming white against a blue sky. The morbid print seemed out of place between the two beautiful floral prints; Leo wondered if it was the first to be hung, soon surrounded by more artwork, or the last to be bought and simply wedged into the only available space.
"Death and the Miser," Beverly explained solemnly, "another masterpiece by El Bosco. Bree gave it to me for graduation…" She shot Leo a cheeky smile as he approached her. "Basically, her way of saying knock'em dead. She's a card, huh?" Leo shook his head, but snorted in amusement; the younger brunette really was well-suited for his youngest brother. "As close as I've come to meeting my own death, though, I think it's time to move it. Would you mind, tall person?" Instead of reminding her that she wasn't much shorter than he was, he handed her the scroll and lifted the framed picture free of its hook; once it was passed off to the coffee table, he hung the scroll in its place from its ribbon hanger.
Beverly contemplated the arrangement a moment, glancing from one artwork to the next with a smile to put Mona Lisa to shame. Seemingly pulling herself from her musings, she led Leo over to the coffee table. "On the surface, this painting is horrific," she admitted softly, "but if you look beyond the grisly matter, the details and execution are a delight. Like every one of El Bosco's works, it tells a story, this time of a man tempted by a demon of greed."
As she shared the tale, Leonardo found himself captivated by the eager, alive gleam in her eyes and found his lungs hesitant to do their job. "Perhaps he tried to redeem himself, we cannot know. As he lay dying, an angel of the Lord came to him, beseeched him to repent his sins; even as the angel fought for his soul, an army of demons also fought, tempting him in death as they did in life." Sorrow dimmed her eyes at the thought. "We will never know what decision he made, or where that decision led him."
Visibly pulling herself from the melancholic reflections, she caught his hand as he caught hers earlier, and without ever once letting his fingertips touch the glass, traced the focal points of the painting. "In so many paintings of this age, the focal lines lead you through the story—Death's arrow aimed at the miser, the angel's arm uplifted in a plea, the faint ray of light from the window above—the lines in our lives aren't always there to be drawn." With a rather fetching blush, Beverly finally released his hand but instead found it drawn to her jaw. He knew exactly what she was trying to say, and voiced it in a fond murmur.
"Sometimes they're meant to be followed...it's our duty to learn the difference."

UP NEXT: complications arise and Raph fucks up...BAD...in Lust, Love, and Loss

NOTES
The tune Bev's playing is Lifehouse's Hourglass, a soft, sweet piano ballad.
Art mentioned: Death and the Miser – Hieronymus Bosch, Plum Estate, Kameido – Ando Hiroshige, Almond Blossoms – Vincent Van Gogh.
Translations
• Yer su sof' wi'me – You're so soft with me. (aka, being gentle)
•Ye dinnae have'ta be – You don't have to be.
• Ah'm no' goanna break, ye knuw – I'm not gonna break, ya know.
• Ef Ah'm a Queen, does tha' mean ye'll do anithin' Ah ask'a ye? – If I'm a queen, does that mean you'll do anything I ask of you?
• Ef ye'll do anithin', Dee, then r'member…Ye've goat to remember, Dunnie! - If you'll do anything, Dee, then remember...You've got to remember, Donnie!
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A New Lease on Life