Chapter Text
This moment in time stretches out into forever. Dripping slow past dazed perception, the sidewalk beneath was cool and comforting against Raph’s face. The concrete was as good a surface to catch the blood as any. He supposes so.
He supposes.
Just for the record, Raphael wasn’t exactly sure how any of this even started. He wasn’t sure how he even got into this situation in the first place. Maybe that’s courtesy of the blinding pain in his skull- an all-consuming haze, a thick curtain drawn over the world all around; muffling his senses. Dead to everyone and everything. What was probably a concussion. Sure felt like one, anyway. The snapping turtle was no stranger to those, especially lately. The twins-as-medic were probably gonna yell at him about this later. Great. Just great… A fight with his family, that’s exactly what he needed. Though, given how foggy his brain was normally, maybe extra sludge in the pipes wasn’t good on top of that. He didn’t need any more literal brain damage.
(His eye itches. Deep, deep in. Right along the thin string of his optic nerve- a piece of his body that was never meant to see the light of day. Never meant to be touched, fondled. And yet. And yet. A bouquet of pins-and-needles bloomed against the root. He tries not to think about it. Tries not to think about it. He tries not to think about it. Tries his very hardest not to think.)
Tonight. Today. Earlier. Before. Whatever the right word was. Whenever it’d been. He remembered being over at Casey’s place. Not Casey Junior, who was currently living with April up in Harlem, but the original- Cassandra. Casey Senior. Ex-proud warrior of the Foot Clan. Now…something else. Raph could relate to that. He could relate to that more than he wanted to admit. She barely had anything now, but her brownie money rented her a shitty apartment way in the depths of Queens, and she said that was enough- she had running water, heat, and wifi. Plus her old laptop. And a beat-up couch she and her brownie scouts had apparently found on the sidewalk. One that the snapper was more than happy to sit on with her, Lou Jitsu movies playing on the screen nearby. Talking about everything and nothing at all.
He remembered chilling with Casey. He remembered chilling there long enough for his brothers to show up to collect him, without even a text beforehand; merely a shout and a knock at the door. Leaving the red ones scrambling to get everything back in working order. (Mostly hiding all of Casey’s weed.) But still. He remembered opening that door eventually. He remembered heading out at his brothers’ side. He remembered flashes of rooftops- stars. After that, though, almost everything was a blur.
Key word being almost everything.
There were two big yokai. Raph remembered that. (Oh, he remembered- two different patterns of boot tread kicked into his face, yeah, he remembered that, alright.) Maybe they were mutants. Would that make a difference? Did that matter at all? Did anything? Either way, the two of them seemingly had a bone to pick, specifically with the Hamato family. Not exactly sure why. The twins were probably figuring that out at the moment. Wherever they happened to be.
Y’see, the Mad Dogz had split up. Divide-and-conquer-style. It’d felt like a good idea at the time. Even almost a year in as leader- even if it was happening less and less- Leo still sometimes looked back at him for guidance; Raph, the protector. Ex-leader. Ex-anything. The biggest brother, the one who could (usually) stay on his feet. The going had gotten tough, and Leo looked to him, so he’d made the decision. Right then, right there, he’d made the call.
These two yokai(?) were big, beefy tanks. Heavyweight heavy-hitters, but not much else. The type to use offense as defense. Raph understood that. He understood that maybe better than anyone. Ergo (ooo, look at him, using fancy words- maybe he should get hit in the head more often): they’d split the team. Raph could take the bigger guy. Three-on-one, his little brothers could get some answers, and then presumably get the other dude. Easy. Simple. Just some low-stakes action. A maneuver they’d pulled off successfully maybe a hundred times before.
But that had been Before. Before everything. Before with a capital-B. Maybe they’d pulled it off one too many times. Because apparently, these thugs had gotten smart.
The smaller one. Something like a warthog, still nearly as tall and wide as the snapping turtle himself- whoever that guy was, they’d proved slicker than anyone thought. Somehow, dude managed to give his ninja brothers the slip. They ditched ‘em. Shook from their (non-literal) tail. The other three gone, their quarry had doubled back around- coming in at a real unfortunate time, too. Just as Raph was beginning to tire from his own fight. A lethal game of touch-and-go, against an opponent who was definitely much bigger than him; a rhino, the biggest in the metaphorical room. Guy must’ve had at least fifty pounds on him. Plus, that horn packed a hell of a punch. That thing was heavy and it was sharp.
Case in point, though (haha, case, like Casey- wasn’t having a concussion fun): what Raphael was doing here in this alleyway. The answer to that being mostly getting his ass beat. He’d slipped up a little while ago, and the other mutants had gotten the upper hand- Raph now prone on the floor, shell up against a wall. They’d been beating him pretty badly ever since. He wasn’t exactly sure how long it’d been. But it looked like his brothers weren’t coming as backup… Probably still out there chasing an impossible target; still having not figured out the warthog guy’s trick. Either way, it looked like he was facing these bruisers alone. Because that’d been going so well already.
(Small and detached in the back of his mind, Raph wondered if they were ever gonna stop hitting him.)
Blows rained down like leaves in autumn. Red blooming across his skin, out over the concrete in puddles, heat drifted; spilling from his spikes to the floor. Following the path of least resistance. Both his body and the leaves crunched under the weight of a boot or a fist. But it was fine. Everything was fine. He could barely feel it. He could barely feel it, anyway.
Think of it like this. If both his assailants were here, that meant no one was after his brothers right now. Or, at least, no one that Raph was aware of. Good. That was good. Better him than anyone else, anyway. This was his purpose. To take the hits. This was what he was made for. That’s just how it be.
The snapper lay still and corpse-like on the ground. Warmish blood pouring out of his nostrils, it leaked in a dribble through his lips. He’d been lying still for a little while now. But the assault hadn’t stopped. It hadn’t even died down. He’d assumed this wasn’t personal, but maybe he was wrong- maybe it was personal, considering just how hard they were whaling on him. But Raph couldn’t remember doing anything wrong. He didn’t think his family had pissed anyone off recently. (Other than the Kraang. But that didn’t count. They didn’t count.) These guys were probably just gangsters, tryna make an example of a couple punks on their territory.
(An example. Something to be measured against. Singled out, apart from his brothers. Raphael thinks that may be all he’s ever been. It fits, then. It fits. It fits.)
Everything still muffled, Raph dimly felt his phone buzz in his pocket. Device somehow still functional at his belt. A lot more detached from the world and his own beating than he probably should’ve been. It’s fine, though… It’s fine. He’ll be fine. He’s had worse. He deserves worse. It doesn’t make much sense, but a small part of him relished in the pain. Every hit that lands sang in his bones like justice. Or maybe more like penance- satisfying a guilty complex. Whatever Mikey told him he had once. A martyr complex, or something.
Whatever. Doesn’t matter. Doesn’t matter right now. He doesn’t care. He doesn’t care. Maybe when this is over, they’ll put him on the big boy painkillers. The fun, loopy kind. Maybe it’ll give him an excuse to stay in his room and watch cartoons. Especially when he didn’t want to go outside. Maybe it’ll leave a badass scar. Maybe it’ll give him something else to look at in the mirror, other than his scarred, ugly eye, or the hole in his shell, or his fucked-up shoulder- the stigmata in his hands, the strain in his muscles, shed scale, his stupid, ugly, awful, monstrous, fucked-up face-
One of his attacker’s boots scraped the gash in his shoulder. The scar tissue, roped thick beneath the hole in his shell: the first of (many, many) wounds left by the Kraang. Both physical and psychological. That one half-second of connection, though, knocked all the other thoughts clean out of his brain. Adrenaline cutting through the haze of smog. Panic sparked in his chest like a fork left in a microwave. Purely on instinct, the snapper’s pulse ricocheting, he reached down to firmly grasp his phone, to press his panic button-
But then he stopped dead. Reconsidering. Thinking better of it, actually.
From somewhere behind him, one of the ambiguous mutant guys- laid out flat on his plastron, now, Raph couldn’t even see who was hitting him- whoever it was, they crushed his arm back down against the concrete. Maybe thinking he was going for his sais. Which he wasn’t, by the way. He was too exhausted to access his ninpo. His weapons were scattered across the alley floor impossibly far out of reach. He’d genuinely given up, at this point: he thought that would’ve been obvious by now.
Apparently not, though. Apparently not.
Really, it was kinda Raph’s own fault he was even in this situation in the first place. After all, he’d been the one to order they split up the team. With his luck and his plans, something was ‘bound to come back around to bite him in the ass. Who was he to call for backup? Especially now? Who was he to hassle his brothers, dragging them back into the danger zone all because their big brother couldn’t handle a couple of mooks? What a joke. Pathetic. That would be fuckin’ pathetic.
Raph couldn’t tell whose voice that was. The one in his head. There were a couple of them that floated around from time to time- he liked to call them the Peanut Gallery. Sometimes, they were useful. More often, they weren’t. Usually, they’d just find ways to give commentary from the dark. This one, though… Raph couldn’t understand it. He couldn’t tell who it belonged to: if it was Mind Raph or Savage or his own inner monologue or someone (something?) he wasn’t aware of quite yet. Whoever or whatever it was, it never seemed to be very happy with him. It never seemed to have a nice thing to say. Some ninja, it scoffed at him, as he lay bleeding on the ground. Some brother, it told him. Some protector. Some hero. Some son.
Raphael wished someone else were here. He desperately wished he weren’t alone in this moment. But he was. He always was. Couldn’t Savage handle this? But Savage would most likely peel his body off the ground, turn on his attackers, and go ham on those jabronis; getting stupid hurt in the process. Even Raph knew not to move around too much when you’ve got a head injury. But really? Was there no one who would help him? Was there literally no one else here? Anyone? Mind?
Not now. Not here. But look.
A wave of tiredness rolled over him. His senses flickered in and out like spotty connection. Conjured behind the vague tawnish-brown of his eyelids, there gathered the image of a door; in the hole in his skull where his brain lived. Running on dying fumes, Raph’s body teetered on the edge of a shutdown. The doorknob glistened in the blackened void. Tentatively, he reached a hand out towards it. Grabbing the handle. Hesitating.
Rest now, Mind told him. There’s nothing you can do. Be free.
Head laid sideways against the sidewalk, the snapper’s eyes fluttered open and then shut. Open and then shut again. One cheek rested up against the concrete floor. Out of the corner of his vision, he watched with a sick sort of fascination as a boot swung in slow motion towards his face- ‘bound to make a hard connection. His eye itched. Spasming. Twitching. Irritated in an unignorable way; way deep in the back of the socket. He wheezed in and out a breath through shaky lungs.
Go.
Raph opened the door to a blackout. Rushing in like the tide, it pulled him under without question.
Everything went dark.
The tide returned eventually, as it always must. Consciousness trickling back to him like a leaky faucet, the waves came rolling in: Raphael slowly, strainingly blinking open his eyes.
So. He was awake. That was good. Waking up was good. He wasn’t sure how long he’d been out for, but he was alive: so far, so great. He was alive, and the nerves in his face were still functional enough to blink. The world swam around him in blobs of vague shape and blurry color. Maybe his vision was more than a little fucked up, but at least he still had use of his sight- that was a reassuring sign. Something almost everyone else took for granted. He’d come to appreciate that lately. He’d come to notice, if nothing else.
Cradled on the sidewalk of the city that never sleeps, the human world howled a constant, discordant tune; roaring and roiling in its masses. His ears rang loud as the passing subway. His senses plugged themselves back into place one by one. Squeezing his eyes shut again, he did a quick inventory of the rest of his body: shell, bones, eyes, teeth. Everything seemed to be generally in its right places. As far as he knew, none of his bits were missing. Everything seemed to be more or less in working order. That was even better.
Tightly gripping on to his own coherence, Raph took a moment to appreciate the fact that he was still alive. Like Doctor Feelings told them to, when things got rough: before he felt around the rest of the damage, he took a moment to appreciate his circumstances. All optimist-like.
(Oh, who was he kidding.)
Fuck, everything hurt. All at once. Forever.
Turns out, whoever said pain in multiple parts of the body covered itself up was an absolute stinkin’ liar. Agony crashed over him from no immediate source. Like waiting for him to zone back in to finally bare its teeth. Jumpin’ jack flash. The snapper’s jaw clenched tightly shut, he tried and failed to re-center himself: teeth grit. Om, or something. How do you meditate, again? He’d lost that tiny little scrap of inner peace.
Sucking in and then out a breath, he exhaled thin and shaky. The shift in his lungs ground up against a piece of his broken ribs. Not sure exactly which one. He knew he had multiple. Sharp, insistent pain radiating through his chest, it sent out sparks beneath his plastron- lancing through the rest of him.
This sucked. This genuinely, actually sucked. Even laying as still as he could, his entire body ached like one giant bruise.
Still laid idle and corpse-like on the ground, rigid yet limp, unchanging, just in case the fight was still on, Raph braced for impact, as soon as he was lucid enough to consider it- but nothing happened. No blow ever came. He appeared to be alone now. The warthog and the rhino guys had gotten their fill of hitting him and left. Good for them, he supposed? See ya later. They all had better, more important things to be doing.
The night settled in cool and dark all around. The grime of the sidewalk pressed up against his cheek, the whole world was made up of hard, damp surfaces. It was probably late. Frigid, the immediate surrounding sidewalk was painted dark and red and sticky with his blood. That was bad. There was a lot of it spread on his skin; across the concrete. All that blood probably shouldn’t be in puddles. It should probably be inside him. Right? It was probably a bad thing that he’d leaked so much. Or that it’d spilled out of him. Whichever.
The snapper groaned. Like a hammer to a nail, violent starbursts of pain shot through Raph’s head. The ache wasn’t only in his skull- it genuinely felt like his brain was gettin’ bashed. It didn’t hurt as bad as it did before, but the fogginess was almost unbearable. He felt as though he was watching everything play out through a screen. He kinda wished he was so out of it, he didn’t realize he was out of it, y’know? But that would mean he’d gotten himself a hell of a lot more hurt. That would mean he was in dire straits.
Either way, if he just kept laying here on the floor like garbage, he’d probably get his wish.
Gravity revolving around him in dizzy circles, the world spun on its axis like a top. Head throbbing, he couldn’t tell which direction was which. Attempting to sit up, he just writhed pathetically on the ground- desperately trying to get a grip on reality and reorient. What was he… What should he do now?
His family. He should probably text his family. Tell ‘em he’s fine. Well, he’s not fine, he’s pretty fucked up, actually, but he’s still alive, at least- he just got the shit kicked out of him by some random gangsters. And he might need some help getting home. But only if they had the time and energy to help him. He didn’t want to get in the way of anything: he didn’t want to bother anyone, of course.
(He didn’t deserve to. Coward. Coward.)
Oh- how lovely. There it was. The voice was back. Thank you for your lovely contributions, Peanut Gallery. (At the very back of his perception, he thought he heard a muffled “welcome”.) Lips pressed shut into a thin, straight line, the snapper ground his jaw. Did anyone have anything actually useful to say?
Way, way deep in the basement of his mind, Savage shrugged; rolling over in the depths. Camouflaged back into the dark once more. With no other answers, Mind Raph responded, push yourself up. Sit with your shell against the wall. It’ll help you keep yourself upright.
Buzzing with pins-and-needles throughout most of his limbs, Raph struggled to get his arms and legs steady underneath him. Managing to shift himself slightly, groaning again- equal parts frustration and pain- he slowly, slowly pushed himself up; following Mind Raph’s advice. Sat with his shell pressed up against the wall behind him. The texture at his back feeling something like brick.
Reaching down towards his pockets, the snapper fished around for his phone. He vaguely remembered feeling it buzz earlier. Had his brothers texted him? Anything important? He ought to check. The device had a few extra cracks in the screen, but it still worked. It had survived the worst of the onslaught.
Regardless. Raph holding his phone in trembling palms, he swiped through his notifications, but there was nothing but a reminder from his Duolingo: trying to get him to continue his 427-day streak. He’d been learning Japanese for a while. Ever since…things happened. The Hamato Clan. The return of the Shredder beast. All the Stuff with Dad. Everything had gotten a whole lot more complicated as of late. He was just tryna connect to his roots.
Raphael scrolled through his alerts, but there was nothing of note. None of his family had texted him since before he went down in the fight.
thing 2💜: 9:47 pm
Meet up back at the lair when we’re done. Will keep an eye on your tracker/vitals.
thing 1💙: 9:52 pm
or meet up @ huesos 4 dinner
baby angel🧡: 9:53 pm
No!! I wan 2 make dinner!! Pls pls pls I wan 2 eksersise my hands again
thing 2💜: 9:55 pm
*Exercise. But we’ll see how you feel when everything’s said and done.
teddy boy♥️: 10:06 pm
might b late coming home . fight hard
thing 1💙: 10:09 pm
kk. if ur not home in time we’ll save some leftovers 4 u
baby angel🧡: 10:52 pm
We r back home now. Dude VANISHED >0< Dinner will happen soon just in case u wanted 2 know
thing 2💜: 10:54 pm
We ended up ordering pizza anyway. Mikey was too tired to make dinner, just like I told everyone he would be.
thing 1💙: 10:56 pm
ur right b u don’t have 2 be a dick abt it . slices r 4 everyone
No further messages came.
Swiping out of his texts, the group chat with his brothers- their special one, bros only, just them, no April, no Dad- the snapper exited out of all of his apps; trying to conserve his battery. This device was his only lifeline, after all. His survival held in his own clumsy hands. No wifi and middling service. There was a metaphor in there, somewhere… Checking before he shut it off, the time was currently 11:24 pm.
Raphael sighed.
Shaking so bad he threatened to drop his phone entirely, Raph let his wrists drop down into his lap; suddenly too tired to support his own weight. Slumping backwards against the wall behind him, his heart beat wild beneath his plastron. Eyelids threatening to shut themselves and go on strike. The pain in his head was almost on par with the confusion, now: too much to bear all by himself. Blood still spilled its sluggish way out of him. Pooling in the curve of his plastron; in his lap. Collecting in vast puddle-lakes on the floor.
He should probably… Do something about that. He should actually try and save himself. Prevent things from getting worse. He’d been laying here bleeding out on the floor for a little while now- and he had, like, bled bled. Head wounds, y’know?
Maybe he didn’t know, actually. Leo had given them all a crash course on head wounds, once, after Raph had gotten himself dinged up on time too many- by their enemies, yeah, but also by his brothers. (Let’s just say the first test of Donnie’s upgraded Tech-Bo had been a wild, wild day.) They’d spent a couple hours in the Medbay talking it out, he remembered that, but what had Leo actually said? About head wounds? Raph couldn’t quite recall. Something something, notorious bleeders, something something, I’m not kidding, cuts to the head bleed like crazy… Something about blood vessels being close together and close to the skin. Right? Maybe that wasn’t right. Raph couldn’t remember. He couldn’t remember a lot of things these days.
Even separate from head injuries (past or present), Raph was pretty sure his brain was broken. Bad. Built wrong, ever since he’d first mutated. Tangled beneath the muscles and the skin. When he was younger, he used to joke that if not for his family, natural selection probably woulda gotten him by now- but nobody else seemed to find it funny. Nobody else would laugh. Even when they were little and death was a foreign concept to them (not like now, pressure breathing down their necks like an old friend), sometimes the joke would make Mikey cry. So he learned to stop telling it. He learned to keep all his comments to himself.
(Drifting out of the depths, something like a flicker of a memory. The smell of incense and junk food. Light and sound echoing from the TV. Come to rest on his shoulder, their father’s hand: dispensing a crumb of wisdom. If you keep saying bad things about yourself, your brothers will pick it up, and they’ll start saying bad things about themselves, too. Just another reminder of the responsibility he held. The burden of the eldest son. From that point on, even if he didn’t feel like it, Raph made a point to bleed with confidence: pushing, pushing, pushing. What else could he do? It was his birthright.
Either way… In retrospect, that conversation had been more than a little strange. Dad hadn’t exactly told him to stop- just not to say that kind of thing around his brothers. Be mindful of delicate ears. He could say whatever he wanted out of earshot; out of sight, out of mind. He could disparage himself to hell and back as long as his little brothers weren't there to hear. Maybe it was because Dad secretly agreed. Everyone knew that Red was the broken one. They just didn’t have to acknowledge it out loud.)
Still, though. Still. Still.
A flood of emotion- indescribable, his skull pounded under the weight of all of it all at once. Suddenly flush with intensity, it was far too much to hold; even with all of Raph’s strength. His vision shimmered like air over a hot engine. Jackhammering inside him, his motor ran idle, clicking, dry. Feeling his walls crumble into dust all around. Here it was, then- here it came, he supposed. All the things he’d tried his hardest not to think about. What he’d tried and failed to ignore. Everything he’d pushed away, pushing back in. It came back in a rush. In a downpour.
For a brief moment, the state of the rest of his body was completely forgotten: obliterated by the blinding pain in his head. (Y’know, maybe that was what the saying meant- the one from earlier. The one he’d said was a lie.) The ache synced in time with his heartbeat. Dizzy, the snapper lay there on the ground, entirely overwhelmed. Oh well. Oh well. Who cared. Who even cared anymore?
The entire world tumbled out of his perception into nothing. The sound of the traffic and the subway above rumbling out into empty air, everything happened everywhere all at once forever- but Raph perceived none of it at all. Something something, total sensory overload. The call of the void pulled at the edge of his senses. He was already beginning to lose the fight. Trying to hold onto the world around him- the sights, the smells, the noise- it all just slipped through his grasp like sand. It was getting harder and harder to stay awake. His blinks were getting slower and longer between. That was probably a bad thing.
Blood still, still fleeing out of him- off to greener or grayer pastures (hah)- he knew all too well he’d done jack to stop it. He’d done absolutely nothing to help. Dark red pooling smooth around his ankles, up against the floor, his legs, liquid warmed along the length of his body; what’d gone completely slack against the wall behind. At this point, there wasn’t very much blood left in him to lose.
In the very, very depths of the sludge coating his brain, Savage asked again, barely even a whisper: my turn? Need to get Raph home? The beast speaking quiet and almost timid. Like their most offensive player was suddenly afraid to offend. Pressing his eyes shut on purpose this time, the snapper shook his head- vigorous through the pain. Roughly sweeping everyone and everything out the (metaphorical) door. It was fine. He was fine. He could handle this. He could handle this. He could handle this. He could-
In the span of a second, the call of the void grew infinitely louder. Like an air raid siren, it sang almost deafening, now. Tugging at the sleeve of his consciousness, Raph felt himself begin to fade- pulse slowing down alongside the pain.
It was okay, though. This was okay. He was fine. Everything was fine. Breathe (mindful of the broken ribs). He was just so tired all of a sudden… He could sleep for a little while, couldn’t he? He could take a tiny little nap… Right? It wouldn’t be too long. Only a few minutes. Just a teensy-tiny little nap… He’d be up in no time. He would be. He swore he would. It was just suddenly…so hard to…
Exhaling thick and heavy, the snapper’s head dipped down; lolling limp against his shoulder, the wall, his shell. Hands forced to let go of their grip, the world slipping through his fingers, nothing taken from him ever came easy. Raph always left everything with claw marks. Breath hitching, the air tasting like smoke, he sank down into the dark again entirely.
Like the flick of a switch, he was out like a light. Gone.
The second time Raphael awakened, his headache was somehow even worse than it’d been. Managing an entirely new level of awful. What was kinda impressive, actually- that his body was able to do that.
It just didn’t seem fair, though. It just didn’t seem fair. Donnie always said the easiest way to fix a machine was to turn it off and back on again. Shouldn’t that work for people, too? Shouldn’t they be gone by now? All these aches and pains? Ugh. Unfortunately for him, bodies (or, at least his) didn’t seem to work that way. Reality never seemed to care too much what the snapper wanted. Good ‘ol Hamato Family Luck.
(Ever since Karai and her father, way back when, they’d always seemed to have a distinct lack of it.)
From what little of the world he could accurately perceive, he knew that time had passed. The evening was colder and darker than it’d been. The thrum of traffic had actually somewhat quieted, which meant it was likely real, real late at night- this may be Queens, but New York City didn’t slow down for nothin’. Again with the rumbling, laid low against the earth, a late-night N-train passed by overhead; or maybe underground. Raph just breathed and tried to keep breathing. The air shaky and dense in his lungs. Violently unstable. Heart going so fast he could only breathe through his mouth, the entire world came apart neatly at the seams all around. Confusion thick in his system, every thought dripped slow past his waking mind like molasses.
Something was wrong with him. Something was very, very wrong.
More than just the crushing loneliness (Raph alone, alone alone alone) (shut up, you idiot, we’re fine), something felt off. He was bleeding. He knew that. He’d been bleeding for a little while now- he just couldn’t seem to remember why. He couldn’t seem to remember what’d happened. Everything and all of him hurt everywhere all at once. Pulse insanely loud in his ears, gone wild with more than just anxiety, the snapper could feel each beat struggling beneath his plastron.
Slick like oil, Raph washed over with a sense of impending doom. Burning like stomach acid at the back of his throat. Something bad was gonna happen. Something really, really bad was gonna happen- maybe not now, maybe not soon, but eventually. After all, he’d lost a lotta, lotta blood. That was generally a bad sign.
Where were his brothers, again? When were they coming? Why weren’t they here? What did he do wrong? Did they abandon him? They probably abandoned him. He probably deserved it- they probably had a good reason to leave him behind. He didn’t remember what that reason was, exactly, but he was probably alone in this random alleyway on purpose. There was probably a good reason for why he was laying in a sea of his own blood; shell propped up against the wall behind.
What the hell was even going on, anyway? Where was he? What time was it? Where was Casey? He missed Casey… He wished Casey (or his brothers, or April, or anyone) was here. He was already incredibly lonely. He’d only been conscious for, like, fifteen seconds, and he was already hoping he’d pass out again.
Alone. Alone. The word echoed like a blow through Raph’s already-battered skull. Shuddering, the snapper really, really wished he weren’t alone right now… He didn’t like it. He didn’t like being alone. He had Issues about being trapped places all by himself. Whenever he was by his lonesome, the Horrors would descend upon him: picking at his insides like Prometheus’s eagle. Something like punishment. Something like childhood trauma. When he was little- maybe, like, seven or something- he’d gotten lost in the sewers for far, far too long for his tot mind to handle. Days or weeks: either way, he’d broke. They’d found him and brought him home eventually, but he didn’t come back the same. Ever since then, he’d been kinda fucked up forever.
(Really? Only kinda fucked up? Please. Who’re we kidding? We both know you better than that.)
Cool wind blew across the still and dark. Smog lifted up like a veil over the sky, Mars hung somewhere distant, bright and unblinking above. The winter air stabbed cherry-red knives into his throat; his lungs. Mouth tasting faintly of iron. Vaguely, Raph wondered if he should tell anyone about the new-ish voice in his head. The only one that’d ever really bothered him- what was meaner than all the others. What sometimes but not always sounded like himself. He thinks it may be trying to kill him.
Regardless. Gone rigid like rigor mortis, a lone thought stopped him dead in his tracks: terrifyingly realistic. (Not that he’d been moving in the first place. Laid still as death against the concrete.) Maybe he deserved this. Maybe he deserved to be left behind- bleeding out in some random alleyway. He’d been a pretty shit protector as of late. Even before the Incident with the Kraang, he’d been failing to keep up recently.
Raph didn’t fit into this family anymore. It was no use pretending anything else, it was an unfortunate fact of the matter- and oh, believe him, he’d tried. What used to come easy didn’t come at all anymore. He was worse than fuckin’ useless. At least his ninpo was still good- he was still considered a Hamato, even if he was failing himself and everyone.
To be honest, when Dad made Leo their new leader, the snapper had been secretly relieved. He’d never liked being the one in charge- he’d just gotten used to being responsible. For everything and everyone. Including and especially whatever went wrong. To be honest, it stressed Raph the hell out: so much that Donnie raided a pharmacy to get him cancel-out-a-panic-attack pills when they were eleven. (The pills had a fancy scientific name, but he couldn’t remember it. Either way, he was eternally grateful.) It stressed him out even more, though, that Leo just didn’t seem to get it. He didn’t understand the weight of the duty they held.
Leader was more than just a title. More than just an excuse to be in charge: more than just a one-up over his brothers. It was the heaviest thing he’d ever known. Leader was one of the biggest burdens Raphael had ever carried in his life. Every scrape, every bruise, every injury accumulated over the course of a mission: whatever happened, it was his fault. The leader of the Mad Dogz held the weight of the world in his hands. But Leo just didn’t seem to get it. More than that, he’d screw it up on purpose. Raph could tell their new leader was terrified, he knew, and he understood completely, but it infuriated him- the way his little brother casually put them all in danger. Raphael never had that option. Plus, Leo was a genuinely great tactician when he took things serious! The snapper had seen him at work: he was so much better than Raph at the whole Leader Thing™. So why was he doing this? Why was he holding himself back? It made no sense.
But then the world had almost ended. Reality come crashing down in pieces all around. Everything that could go wrong had gone wrong, in barely the blink of an eye- and Leo had Gotten It then, but in the worst possible way. Absorbing all the violence of the Hamato Legacy, but none of the protector-side strength. His stupid, amazing, courageous little brother had almost died. Self-sacrifice wasn’t supposed to be one of the Leader Duties that transferred over. Leo had stolen his job, stolen his place, and now his martyrdom: Raphael lived on one side of the line, and his brothers lived on the other. Call him selfish, but he wasn’t sharing his side of the line with anybody.
(He knew exactly what Leo had been feeling at that moment, though. When he’d told Casey Junior to pull the Key. It was exactly what Raph had felt when he’d jumped to shield him; giving his brother his escape pod, leaving himself alone and injured with the Kraang. There had been no forethought. No plan of action. No guarantee that he’d be okay- in fact, he probably wouldn’t be. Just the flat understanding that it needed to be done. He hated that Leo understood that feeling.)
The eldest was the only one allowed to get hurt for the family’s sake. That had to be, like, written in the Official Rules of Brotherhood, or something. If he couldn’t be leader, he’d be their protector. That was his job. That was his role. It was his; as always, as always. Raphael was the one who took the hits. It used to be more than that, back when his brothers still relied on him, but they didn’t anymore- they were fine, now, all on their own. All Raph served as now was a glorified tank. And even then, his brothers had each other covered.
Mikey with his magic. Leo with his skill. Donnie with his mad genius and his tech. Hell, even April with her baseball bat, Casey Jones with her spite, her nails, her teeth- they didn’t need him. His family didn’t need him anymore. Not one single person did. So why the hell was he still here? Why the hell did he insist on sticking around? Fists clenched tight around the world as he knew it, he held on fast to anything he could hold- claws dug deep into any scrap of purpose he had left. Whatever he could find; slipping through, all of it. He had nothing. He was nothing.
But then again, he had been confronted with a new purpose entirely.
That day. Beyond the violence and the tragedy and the hurt- beyond yelling and took ninpo and sick laughter behind closed doors. Beyond memories he’d crumpled up and thrown away, determined to never ever think about again. For what’d apparently only been a couple hours but had felt like centuries, he’d fought and he’d breathed and he’d salivated and he’d bled with the pure certainty of who and what he was for. A vehicle of destruction. A means to an end. A mere footsoldier in the sheer, vast majesty of Kraang. Prime Earth Invasion Force’s new favorite Pet- Raph wasn’t himself anymore. He wasn’t a person. He wasn’t anyone. Stripped away barer than the flesh could hide, this body had been theirs… Literally theirs. The Kraang.
It was harder, now, to shed that skin, the one they’d touched, the one that’d touched them- especially considering he had to keep on living in it. But he’d fought like hell. He’d tried so hard to tame the monster in the mirror. He’d boiled it down to repetition: it was his family’s body, not the Kraang’s. If nothing else, this meat-suit was for keeping his family safe. But that probably wasn’t any better in the long run.
Almost overcompensating, Raphael threw himself back into the role entirely. As often and as soon as he actually, tangibly could. If he wasn’t the leader, was a bad protector, couldn’t be the tank, then he’d be a shield: a literal, physical wall between the danger and his brothers. He’d throw himself in front of anything and everything. He was good at being a damage sponge, at the very least.
Disregarding his own injuries- something he’d gotten pretty good at over the years, so long as he could outrun Doctor(s) Delicate Touch- Raph had almost made it into a game. Wasn’t a REAL fight unless he came home with at least one black eye. Points for every bruise, cut, strain, and/or broken bone. Bonus for every roll of bandage he needed to pull himself back together. Bonus bonus points if he could make Leo-as-Medic go “aye-yaiy-yay”, in that world-weary tone that always made him laugh (whether or not it hurt to do so). The snapper knew if heard that, it meant he’d won.
His brothers always seemed to get mad at him for it, though. After the dust had settled. They didn’t like his shielding act: they’d always get upset, when everything was said and done. Which seemed monumentally unfair. They didn’t get it. They didn’t get it- he was literally built stronger, built sturdier than everyone else. Draxum literally made him to be their bodyguard; their minder since the egg. He was the biggest brother. The brother who was the biggest. The eldest sibling was practically like a bumper, right?
Fuck it! He was Raphael Hamato. Oldest son. Ex-person. Weapon of mass destruction. Raph was fuckin’ invincible. He was way more resilient than all the rest. He could take a beating like a boss. If he died, he probably deserved it, ‘cuz whoever killed him probably caught him lacking. What was the phrase? Fool him once, shame on them, fool him twice…
Wow, Raph was nauseous all of a sudden. What was probably the concussion’s fault. And he was still bleeding, too… Jaw worked tight, the snapper’s stomach flipped like a pancake. Mind fuzzy, his thoughts ground together; the texture and consistency of cotton balls. Until. Until.
Calm, cold clarity trickling in through his skull, like a leak, like a single ray of sunlight, Raph realized, running empty: he was gonna die here. Right here in this alley, just a few blocks away from Casey’s house. If he didn’t get himself help, he’d bleed out overnight on the floor. The concept didn’t scare him nearly as much as it should. Call it shock- call it the head trauma. Call it the poison building inside him, getting harder and harder to keep down with each push. Raphael wasn’t a good person. He knew that, way deep inside. He just kept the mask on and never let it slip. Smiling wide and fake.
(Another thing he had in common with Leo, he supposed. He hated that. He hated it.)
Y’know, if he was being fully honest with himself? Poor Casey Junior. Apart from being born and raised in the literal apocalypse, Future Boy had unfortunately been faced with the sharper ends of Raph’s sick. (‘Cuz of course he had. Ever since his body was taken over, the snapper was only good at hurting people. Either the enemy or his family. It was his curse.) He’d basically begged the guy to tell him about his Future Self, cajoled the kid until he broke, and then feigned surprise when he stuttered out that he’d died a long time ago- that wasn’t really what Present Raph cared about. He’d kinda inferred as much already. No, he wanted to know what happened after he was gone. He wanted to know everything Future Raph missed. But apparently, everyone was fine with his absence. Because of course they were…what was he expecting? People to actually mourn?
(That’s not fair of him. He knows that’s not fair. He knows they probably did. Raphael wasn’t that sick, enough to not recognize that fact- he knows his family loved him. He knows they’d mourn if he was gone. Casey Junior was probably just skipping the sadder parts of the story. The world keeps turning, no matter what. It was literally the fuckin’ apocalypse. What was he expecting them to do, just collapse in grief and never get back up? That was stupid. That would be stupid. That would get everyone killed. He didn’t want that.
But isn’t that what you’d do, a traitorous part of his brain supplied; if any of your siblings went away forever? If any of them were lost? To which Raph oh-so eloquently responded, shut up. He didn’t want to even think about it. He wasn’t gonna go around inviting bad luck. This was different. He was different. They weren’t like him. He’d use it as a metaphor, but he and his brothers were quite literally different beasts. Opposite sides of the line, remember? He was the oldest. That meant something. That meant something. Didn’t it? Mean something? Right?)
Unfortunately, all of Junior’s hand-me-down stories about the future and his Uncle Raph sent pinballs of dopamine to exactly the most mentally ill parts of Present Raph’s brain. Flipping and shooting along well-worn pathways, it flashed in him like neon light. He knew it was bad. He knew it was weird. He knew he was more than a little fucked up in the head. But it was perfect- his death was perfect. Exactly the sort of end he would want for himself. Carrying the helm of the Hamato legacy: a noble, heroic sacrifice. According to Casey Junior, his shell hung like a portrait on the wall; doused in incense, a revered artifact in the family shrine. According to Casey Junior, one of his last acts on this Earth had been to get one over on the Kraang. Raph desperately wanted that to be true. He wanted to believe. He desperately wanted that to be him.
It kept him wondering, in that deep, childish part of him that still believed in miracles- not like the one Mikey pulled on Staten Island, but a true Deus Ex Machina, a complete and utter fantasy- could someone as awful, as sinful as him live on in memory as perfection? Fallen red angel. A noble bow-out. What erases all flaws in retrospect. A dead person is a platonic ideal. They only exist in people’s best and worst memories.
The cold seeping in from the world all around- or, more accurately, all the warmth inside him seeping out and out onto the concrete- Raph’s entire body ached like one giant bruise. Laid supine against the sidewalk. Red iron stained halfway-dry against the floor; brushstrokes wide and messy. What almost looked like a piece of abstract art, painted against the gray. What almost looked pretty.
To be honest, this death, the one he was flirting with right now, was more than a bit lame. Nothing like that beautiful, perfect one from the Bad Future. He’d weigh everything against that, from now on. Bleeding out in some random alley? Jumped by a pair of random mutant guys? Nah. That was dumb. That was straight-up too anticlimatic to be the end of him. Like it or not, he was Raphael Hamato: him and his folks were part of a larger destiny. He should probably get a move on trying to save himself. He’d wasted enough time (as well as enough ever-spilling blood) already.
Fishing around in his pockets, in the pool of red surrounding, Raphael reached for his phone. Eventually finding it, the device still luckily remained unscathed. A surprise, to be sure, but a welcome one. Donnie really made these things indestructible, huh? Hands shaking so bad it was a wonder he could even hold them upright, his limbs feeling about ten pounds heavier than they’d already been, Raph checked his notifications again: still nothing. Only the Duolingo alerts he’d ignored earlier, getting more and more insistent. (Sorry, little owl guy. He’d apologize in Japanese, but he couldn’t remember how. Just another responsibility he was failing at.)
Navigating to his contacts, transferring his phone between his shoulder and the flap of skin over his ear, the snapper called Leo; dial tone ringing out into empty air. He hadn’t checked the time before he hit the call button. He didn’t know if anyone was even awake enough to respond. But he knew the red-eared slider barely slept nowadays, regardless.
After what felt like a year of waiting, the call finally picked up.
“Hey! Wassup? This is Leo.” Raph opened his mouth, but he was cut off before he could speak. “Nahhh, just kiddin’. This is a voicemail! Message. Thingy. Whatever. You know what I mean. I can’t come to the phone right now, ‘cuz I’m, like, mad busy or something. Or maybe I’m ignoring you on purpose. Either way, leave a message at the tone. Smell ya later!”
Beep.
Trying to smother a pang of disappointment as it rose in him, the snapper took in a deep, shuddering breath. It was okay. Everything was okay. Calm down, overactive anxiety-imagination: this didn’t mean complete abandonment. Breathe. Look on the bright side. Maybe it was a good thing Leo didn’t answer the call- Raph hated talking on the phone, anyway. Going to speak for real this time, he cleared his throat. His voice rough and scratchy with disuse.
“Uh… Hey, Lee. How’re you? ‘M still at the spot near Cassandra’s house. The alley where we first split up. I think- I think I mighta swung above my weight class this time. Literally. The fight sucked. And the guy got away. Also, I think I might be dying. So that’s- cool. Yeah. I guess.”
There came a visceral, awkward silence. Raph didn’t know why he stopped talking. It wasn’t like the voicemail was gonna respond. He just couldn’t seem to put two and two together- the sentence-making machine was malfunctioning in his head. His train of thought had hopped the track. Pain lancing through him, it radiated in his skull; grating against his skin like sandpaper. Once he was okay enough to speak coherently, the words poured from him uncontrollable. Like water from a broken dam: out and out and out they came.
“Um- I’m sorry, Leo. For doubtin’ you. For gettin’ in your way. With your leadership. And… And with more than that. I know I’ve been a pretty bad brother as ‘a late. I… I’ve always been proud of you. I just wanted to make you guys proud of me. I think that’s how you feel. Isn’t it? The same, but in reverse. Or maybe you don’t. I’m not assuming anything. I just… Uh.”
The snapper swallowed thick like syrup. His spit tasted like stomach acid and iron. Burning like failure.
“Can you… Can you come get me? Please? Portal me back? I don’t think I can make it home by myself tonight. I’m bleedin’ pretty bad. Plus, I got a concussion. That’s, uh… That's, y’know- that’s why I’m askin’. I wouldn’t be bothering you otherwise. I’m sorry. I woulda tried to walk it off, but I literally can’t. That’s just how it be… Fight hard, get it hard. Y’know? But I think I did good.”
Heart beating wild, panging in his chest, his organs felt like a jackrabbit; scrambling wild against the prison of his ribs. Raph’s pulse went uncomfortably fast. Unhealthily so. Hurting. Going haywire. What was probably bad. For no reason other than biological instinct, the snapper’s breath wrenched hard in him. Like he was taking in a gasp of air before the plunge.
It would be so, so easy, now, to just close his eyes again- in fact, he wanted to, he wanted to so bad, to sink back down into oblivion- but he wanted to finish the message first. Just in case it’d be the last one he’d ever send. He owed that to Leo, at the very least.
“But, uh…yeah. Please- Please come get me. Please. Or come get my body, if I’m dead by the time you mosey on over. No promises. Haha…hah.” The world dissolved back into relative silence. The snapper released a puff of breath. Visible on the wind. Even though he knew it was false, Raph was suddenly struck with the notion that it would be his last. He took in another. Sharper, this time. His exhale making a little dragon-cloud in front of him. “I… I’m sorry. I’m sorry, Leo. Please come. Whenever you got the time and energy. ‘M sorry. ‘M so sorry. I love you. I miss you. Buh-bye.”
Shifting, the snapper moved to cradle the phone in his hands. Almost reverent. Like a lifeline. (Which it actually, literally was.) After a moment’s hesitation, he ended the voicemail. Hanging up the call. Sighing heavy. Arms collapsing back down into his lap, he was suddenly too weak to support his body’s weight. It was over. It was over, now. He did what needed to be done. Adrenaline cooling all throughout his system, like lava into volcanic rock, the fight in him died- well, it died like him. Funny how things worked out in the end, wasn’t it? White-knuckle grip on the world forcibly relaxed, more and more of it escaped him. Slipping right through his fingers. Perpetually just out of his grasp.
Vision gone white, he closed his eyes. There wasn’t a point in keeping them open anymore.
Even through shut eyelids, the lights of the city still loomed above: inescapable and neon-bright. Doors locked and curtains drawn. The pollution all too intense to catch a glimpse of the stars. A car alarm wailed somewhere off in the distance. The wind brushed across his shell like a gentle hand; suddenly far warmer than it had been. Blindly, he reached for it, and it carried him out: out and out into infinity. His eyes rolled up into the back of his head. The entire world faded like a dying battery. Sunk down like a stone into the abyss.
Plunging headfirst into nothingness, dripping empty, the void stretched on and on into forever all around. He fell and fell silent. Like dust on the wind. Utterly insignificant: snuffed out like a candle flame.
The snapper took in a breath.
And just like that, he was gone.
What felt like an eternity and a half later, Raphael woke up to the phone ringing. He was pretty sure it wasn’t supposed to be doing that.
Thoughts pooling sluggish past his skull, his brain, the Red Angel of Preventing Harm stumbled its way back to life. Senses returning like the floor dropping out. Very suddenly awake. Coming into consciousness again- again- the peace ebbed from him in waves. He was still in the exact same spot. In the exact same alleyway. Having lost maybe half a gallon of blood. Nothing changed. And why would it? He was just another stranger, sleeping rough. Just another part of New York’s beautiful, fucked-up mess. All his systems coming online at once, the rush of information was overwhelming: crashing over him in tsunami waves.
Sight. Smell. Touch. Taste. Hearing. Every sense at max volume, mind tuned in like a radio wave, all of it came almost too clear. Wasn’t he, like, in danger? Wasn’t he missing something? For some reason, the only thing Raph could think of at the moment seemed to be “ow”. He hurt all over. It still hadn’t helped, turning things off and back on again. (What still seemed monumentally unfair.) Head swimming, vitals screaming, pretty much every alarm in his body was winding itself back up to full red alert- but he wasn’t too on edge about it. He wasn’t all that concerned. He didn’t think he physically could be. His mind was far too fuzzy for that.
Regardless. Brain fuzz or no, the phone kept ringing. Balanced haphazardly in his lap. Clumsily reaching down for it, with hands dull and unresponsive, feeling like pieces of concrete, he accidentally knocked the device off of him: down into the ever-spreading pool of blood. Picking it up as quick as possible, he wiped it off on his already-stained wraps. Holding the device like a boomer in front of his face. Blinking heavy, for some reason, his eyes were refusing to focus. All of reality felt blurry and faraway. His head pounded. Looking down, he saw two phones and four hands holding them. Raphael didn’t think he was entirely awake.
Precious seconds slipping by anyhow, his phone kept on buzzing in his hands. Ringtone muted. Silent like a G. Tinnitus screaming through his skull, his eardrums, a tiny angel sat singing in his ears- a single, high, piercing note. EEEEEEEEEEEE. Like a boomer, like Dad, Raph stared at the device uncomprehendingly. Blinking hard. Trying to unstick the grit from between his eyelashes. Trying to chase the static in his vision away. He couldn’t get a good glimpse of the Caller ID- damn his stupid, messed-up eye, if any of this was even real, anyway- but it had blue hearts in the name, which meant it was Leo. Leo was calling him. Why was Leo calling him? The snapper couldn’t seem to remember how he’d gotten into this situation in the first place.
Hesitating just a bit too long, the call went to voicemail. Disappearing to his lockscreen. Apparently, Raph had four other missed calls. All from Leo’s cell. Before he could even register the disappointment, though, his phone started ringing again; almost as soon as it’d stopped. Leo again. Reaching out. Ready for attempt number five. Number six? Eh, whatever. After a beat, Raph struggled to hit accept. Leaning firm against the wall behind. Holding up the device to his ear, in lieu of a greeting, he grunted, oh-so very intelligently,
“Whuh- huh? Yeah?”
“Hey! He picked up! Hey, Raphie. Hey…” Tinny, practically hopping through the phone speaker, Leo’s voice came immediate; like a dam burst with relief at the other end. Gentleness dripping between, his tone had a high, gentle edge to it that sent Raph’s Big Brother Senses tingling. Briefly, through the haze of it all, he wondered what could’ve possibly gotten the slider so upset. “Hey, you there? Talk to me. How you doing?”
Pressing his eyes shut for a moment, the snapper simply answered, “Bad.”
His younger brother laughed, but there was barely any humor in it. “Yeah, man- I’ll bet. You said you had, what, a concussion? Plus a bunch of other injuries? Talk me through it, bud. What’s the damage?”
He couldn’t exactly say. The words slippery and formless, sentences were fragile like soap bubbles on his tongue. The answers sizzled and died in his mouth. Thoughts falling apart like a house of cards. Everything he had to say was in pieces, and none of them fit together. Coherence perpetually just out of reach. Completely ignoring his brother’s question, he asked Leo, and also up; up to the smog-choked sky above: “Are you… You coming? You coming to get me?”
The calculated mask of cheer dropped in an instant. An audible change of tactic, something harder settled into the slider’s voice to replace. “Of course we are. Of course we’re coming. We’re gonna get you home. You got that? We’re on our way.” With steady, practiced calm, Leo continued, “Okay, now, answer me. I want you awake and talking- especially when we find you. It’ll be easier for all of us that way.”
Fair enough. Raphael wouldn’t want to be a burden on his family.
Cool wind blew low across the earth. Dancing across a sea of black, airplanes passed in the sky above like shooting stars. Raph wondered if he’d ever actually seen the stars in his life. Maybe once or twice… That time they’d briefly been Todd Scouts. And when Shredder had forced them to flee the city. But they’d had bigger things to worry about. Nobody had been thinking of stars, then.
His brother kept talking on the other end of the line. Voice distorted and faraway, head swimming, the snapper could barely even hear what he was saying. It was kinda funny, actually, how professional Leo was, when he was in full medic mode: all detached sympathy and easy humor. Stretched thin and tight over a well of terrified concern. Raph could never do that job. To be honest, he was more than a bit jealous. (But what wasn’t he jealous of, these days?) When worse came to worst, he always panicked. He screwed everything up. He just kept letting everyone down. Fight, flight, freeze, fawn. His nervous system cycled through them all like a game of Russian Roulette. Something really bad must’ve happened, though, to elicit this kind of response.
The snapper swallowed thick. “O…Okay. And the others?”
“They’re fine,” Leo responded. “Mostly scared for you, if anything.” What? His family, scared for him? That didn’t make any sense. (But, came that same, sly, nagging voice, what never left him alone, it was better than them being scared OF him- to which Raph supposed he agreed.) He was the biggest. He was the strongest. He was the oldest brother. He could handle anything anyone threw at him. Otherwise, what the hell was he for? His family still believed in him, right? Were they finally giving up? As if he could sense what his brother was thinking, the slider picked up the conversation almost immediately. “You said you had a concussion?”
The question snapped (hah) Raph back to attention. He was running on fumes, here. He didn’t have the mental energy to truly spiral, anyway. “Yeah. Or, uh, I think so, at least… Head hurts. Ears loud. Lights ‘re too bright. Also, ‘m real, real dizzy.”
Leo sucked in a sharp breath through his teeth. Either mad or upset or worried (or all of the above, something like a mix of all three.) The silence stretched on far longer than it should. “Yeah,” his little brother said, eventually, “Yeah… You have a concussion, alright. Okay. Okay, don’t- Don’t go to sleep. Stay awake. D’you hear me? Keep talking. I want you up and with it until we get there. Understood?”
An echo of other voices trickled in from the other end. Presumably their other two brothers, chatting away in the background. Raph wondered how much Leo was telling them. How much there even was to tell.
“Don’t worry,” Leo continued. “We know pretty much exactly where you are. Donnie’s got the tracker open on you right now. Hang tight. We’re on our way.”
The trackers. What the softshell had sewed into all of them in secret; somewhere between the layers of their skin. Something like a microchip. Something like a GPS. Maybe it was a violation of some sort, to be chipped by his own brother like a dog, but it was actually pretty sweet, translated through the filter of Donnie’s mad science- its mere presence had honestly been doing numbers for Raph’s mental health. The mere promise that if he was lost, somebody cared enough to come looking. His family cared enough to have him found. Maybe it was a bit creepy, but the trackers were actually pretty useful, in times like this: in times like the Invasion, where it’d led directly to him, but all too late.
(He’d been out of his mind, then. Barely alive. Devolved into a scared, angry animal. Barely even an animal: a Pet. Property of the Kraang. Raph didn’t know if he should be proud that he officially knew what torture felt like. It wasn’t like in the movies. There was a him that existed before the Kraang, and there was the him that existed after- he didn’t think he’d ever be the same. Now-Raph and Before-Raph were entirely different people. He didn’t think he’d ever truly be Okay.
But then again, maybe he didn’t deserve to be.)
“D’you…?” The snapper cut himself off. He probably shouldn’t be asking that. But as soon as he tried to stop himself, the words came tumbling out regardless; like an avalanche from his mouth, just as heavy and just as deadly. Curse this concussion. Curse the Hamato line. Curse his stupid, heroic fate. “D’you hate me? For hurting you? For almost killing you? In more than one way- I got you stuck in the Prison Dimension.”
A long, long silence unfolded between them. Stretching out and out into eternity. When Leo went to speak again, his voice was unsteady; caught off-guard. Wet with confusion and heartbreak. Asking,
“Raph… Where is this coming from? What the hell are you talking about?”
The snapper just continued on with his point, as if his brother hadn’t said anything at all. “I was always pushin’ you. To be a better leader. To take things more seriously. I just kept puttin’ pressure on you, didn’t I? I just- I just didn’t want anyone to get hurt. But I ended up hurtin’ you more than anyone. You weren’t- You weren’t supposed t’ be the one sacrificing himself. That’s my job. Only I can be doing that.”
“Raph,” Leo repeated again; more forcefully this time. Frown clearly audible in his younger brother’s voice. “You already did. Don’t you remember? With the escape pod? You’re literally always doing that. And last time…” Lowering his volume, the slider beat around the bush; trying to keep their conversation private. Away from listening ears and prying eyes. “…It was my choice. Okay? No one else’s. You didn’t make me do anything. I was just returning the favor.”
The snapper pressed his eyes shut. Attempting to shake his head, what sent a wave of pain, gritting his teeth: he let out a prolonged, shaky breath. He didn’t get it. Leo still didn’t get it. They lived on opposite sides of the line. “You’re not allowed to do that. No favor-returning. It’s not a favor. It’s not refundable like that. It shoulda been me. I’m a terrible brother.”
“You’re not. You’re really not. Far from it, really- I genuinely don’t understand why you think that.”
“Because I have things wrong with me,” Raph replied, funny in all the wrong ways. Half-serious. He’d always been a little messed up, ever since childhood, but it’d all gotten worse since the Kraang: since Leo had been made leader, even. Since the neverending battle with Shredder. Since way further back than that. T’be clear, Raphael knew he had Issues- spare him the wrath of Doctor Feelings- but lately was one of the first times in his life he felt genuinely mentally ill. He was goin’ nuts. Off his fuckin’ rocker. He just pitied the people around him who had to actually deal with it. “I’m sorry, Leo. I really am. All I seem to be doin’ lately is fucking things up… I wanna go home. I wanna watch a Lou Jitsu marathon with you. I want everything to go back to the way things were before.”
The slider paused. Eventually mimicking what he did, maybe not on purpose- letting out a long, uncertain breath. “Yeah. Me too, bud… Me too. I’d like that. I’d really like that. Just remember that you’ve got a concussion. You probably aren’t thinking too clear.”
A genuinely valid point. Clarity escaping him, the snapper’s heart beat faint and fast. His head felt like a bowling ball attached to his neck by a shoestring. Cold and nauseous and dizziness rising, each blink felt like it lasted a hundred years. He was way too out of it to feel upset- too detached to feel anything at all. With or without the concussion, he trusted that he meant it when he said,
“I miss you.”
“I’m right here. We’re all right here,” his brother returned. Voice pressed close to the other end of the line. “We’re comin. We’re comin’ to get you home. And then we’re not going anywhere.”
“You promise?” Raph asked; all too aware of how desperate he sounded at the moment. Hell, he’d practically whined. But he didn’t have the energy to care about looking pathetic. He didn’t even bother to try and modulate his speech. He just didn’t want to be alone. Please, G-d, don’t make him be alone. “Don’t leave me. Don’t leave me, guys- Please don’t leave.”
“We would never,” Leo reassured. So damn heroic- a better leader than Raph had ever been. “No turtle left behind.”
But you did, Raph’s mind screamed; all the quiet, resentful parts suddenly a VERY vocal minority. You DID leave me behind. On the Foot’s ritual island. Sprinting after the key. On that boat, rocking like a cradle in the harbor. Standing in a parking lot on Staten Island. His family didn’t come before the Kraang had broken him. They hadn’t gotten there in time to spare him the pain. There had been no dramatic, epic rescue, but hey- they’d caught up with him eventually. Tendrils of Kraang receding from his mind, Raphael had stood, reborn, in the middle of the Technodrome: dizzy and seasick and still mostly insane. Just awake enough to protect. Just aware enough to watch Leo leave him behind on Earth- trapping himself alone with their biggest horror in the sky. Trying to remove himself from Raph’s life entirely.
It wasn’t fair. It just wasn’t fair.
It wasn’t fully accurate, either. Raphael knew he was being disingenuous. He knew he was being cruel to them. He knew they’d been busy with their own stuff- they’d had no way to rescue him without directly risking their own lives. He didn’t want any of them to get hurt. Heavens forbid, he didn’t want any of them to get captured. But there’s only so many times you can scream and have no one answer. There’s only so many times you can beg for mercy; for someone, anyone to save you, and have no one come or hear.
And maybe they never had.
Spinning through his mind like gum in the gears, taking root in him like a really, really bad idea, it settled like a rock thrown into a perfectly calm, still lake. Suddenly, a lot of things made a lot more sense. Why he felt so bad. Why he felt so vivid. Why all of this felt like a fever dream. He’d never actually escaped.
“You’re not real,” the snapper managed to whisper.
Leo- or, at least, what sounded like Leo- seemed genuinely off-put on the other end. “What?”
“You’re not real,” Raph challenged; louder this time. “Who says Leo would keep callin’ me? Why wouldn’t he just give up after a couple tries? I don’t think so. I don’t think he cares all that much. I don’ believe you. I think you’re settin’ me up for something. This is a trick. This ain’t real. I’m not here.”
“Raph,” started what may or may not have been his younger brother. Either way, the snapper cut him off. Giddy like he’d won the Golden Ticket. Barreling on.
“You aren’t him. This is the Kraang, isn’t it? They’re still in my head. You never ended up comin’ for me. But I figured it out. Game over. I won. I wanna wake up now. I’m not fallin’ for this again.” Hesitating, he tried to catch his breath. Sitting there, thinking it over for just a little bit too long, all the energy, the adrenaline he’d kept faded; dissolving beneath his fingertips. Snuffed like sparks in the wind. “Or… Or maybe you are real. Maybe you are real, and the blood loss is just gettin’ to me.”
“How much did you lose?” his brother asked him, serious with newfound worry. Slipping back into medic mode, fully ignoring the rest of what he’d said. The snapper swallowed. His spit viscid and tasteless.
“Um…a lot.”
“How much is a lot?”
“…Like, a LOT, a lot.”
In response to that, Leo hissed, “shit.” Moving away from the other end of the line, he spoke to their other brothers. Telling them, “Guys- we need to speed it up a bit. Yeah. ‘S getting bad. Which way ‘re we going, again? Left, right- okay. Okay. Yeah.” Phone speaker pressed back up against his mouth, the slider told him- back to him, the eldest brother, Raphael- “Okay. Okay, uh- keep talking. Tell me more. Why d’you think we aren’t real? Just stay awake. Keep talking to me.”
The snapper genuinely didn’t know if he could. Do what Leo asked. It was getting harder and harder to keep himself together, now. It was getting harder and harder to stay awake. More than just his words, his thoughts were beginning to slur together in his head- like he was sitting in fresh snow, the concrete was unbelievably cold beneath. The world revolved all around him like a carousel. Static pushing through, he looked up, and the city was a portrait of light against the sky: every possible word but these slipping away.
“I’m sorry. I’m sorry, Leo… I know I’ve been pretty awful lately.”
“You haven’t. You really haven’t been.”
“I haven’t helped anyone. Haven’t been around. Haven’t protected you guys. Haven’t listened. Been failing at the only thing I’m good for. Been letting everyone down.” It didn’t hurt to say- nothing hurt anymore. He simply acknowledged it like a fact. Either he’d die right here, right now, on the floor, or he’d live forever. “I don’ deserve a brother like you. Don’ deserve three of ‘em. You were always too good to me.”
Leonardo kept talking, what felt like a million miles away, now. A delicate dance between medic and brother. Voice more than a bit fraught. It was too late, anyway. The snapper would not- could not- hear. Raph had already switched to talking about himself in past tense. Leo, with his silver tongue, all his streetwise genius, probably should’ve picked up on that by now.
Oh well. It didn’t really matter. It didn’t really matter, anymore. There wasn’t a long run. Raphael let out a sigh, watching the steam curl in the air in front of him. Was this peace? Was this clarity, right here at the end? It was beautiful. The sky above- the city at night- his own blood, pooled stark and red against the concrete- it was beautiful. It was a beautiful night to fade away. And he wasn’t going to die alone; he had Leo on the phone with him. Everything was fine. What had he been so scared of, before?
“Raph? Raph,” his brother insisted; lapsing into terror. “Get your ass up. Stay the fuck awake.”
“I love you, Leo. ‘S not your fault. ‘M sorry for everything I did.”
Curled up inside his own body, all the warmth gone from his extremities, his limbs- all the last embers huddled close in his chest- he felt empty, but in a good way. He’d given all he had to give. Poured everything that was inside him out. Sitting at the end of a long, dark hallway, he watched the world through his eyes like a TV screen: watching the light in him slowly fade. So far away, nothing and no one could hurt him now. He did good enough. Not perfect, but a solid B+ for effort. It was okay. He could go.
Leo was saying something on the other end, but Raph cut him off. He could tell he was running out of time. “I don’- I don’ want us to fight anymore. Promise me you guys won’t fight? I love you. Tell them- Tell everyone I love ‘em. Tell ‘em I’m sorry. Tell ‘em it’s nobody’s fault.”
“No. NO,” his younger brother begged, “Don’t do this to me. We’re so close. Stay awake.”
“I can’t,” Raph responded. All big-brother gentle. And even that was hard for him. “I gotta go.”
Leo sniffed hard. Maybe from the cold- or maybe he was crying on the other end. “You’re a dead man,” he warned. “You’re a dead man if you hang up this call.”
The snapper supposed he was dead, then. “I love you,” he said, one last time, but he wasn’t sure if his brother even heard- drowned out in a sea of other desperate sounds. Agonized pleas for the dying and the already-dead. He closed his eyes. It was too hard to keep them open. The world went silent- either the battery of his phone had died as well, or he’d hung up the call. He wasn’t aware enough to know which. Settling back down against the earth, the cold prowled in.
For a moment, Raph’s mind flashed to warm sand, warm dirt, warm water in the South- the banks of a river where his egg was probably laid. He wondered where Draxum got him. He wondered about his parents. He wondered about his real father, probably passed out at home on the couch. He wondered about his family. They would probably do fine without him… April. His brothers. The Caseys. They’d proved they were fine on their own. But it didn’t matter now.
Somewhere nearby, there was yelling- his brother’s voices, running footsteps. The whirr of an engine. What might’ve all just been in his head. One by one, his senses went dark. Going offline. Iron-clad grip on the world, on his consciousness finally loosening, everything slipped away.
Phone clattering to the floor, Raphael was a dead man.
And then he was nothing at all.