tushanshu_logs | I need you. You. You. You. In the Morning. When my soul's on fire!

He bites the inside of his lips and looks away as Raph confesses. The ugliness he's been trying to keep down ever since Leo stormed out of the room is starting to rise.

Look what you did, Mikey! LOOK! You did this. This is all your fault. If it wasn't for you Raph wouldn't be hurt. He wouldn't be blaming himself. And Leo? He'd still be here.

All. Your. Selfish. Fault.

"...you've got nothing to be sorry for. i'm the one at fault," he says finally. His voice starts as a whisper, but builds as he goes on.

"I know no one really knows what to do with me. Heck, I don't even know what to do with me most of the time. But...when you were all here I had family. And then...one by one you all started to disappear. Leo leaving was just...it was just the last straw. Leonardo just broke and I couldn't fix him and I...I just hated..."

The everything is left unsaid, but it's existence is still palpable.

"This was my fault. And I'm going to fix it."

This is weird; Mike blaming himself. Again, he's blaming himself. It's so freakin' strange but Raph understands. He does. When he left, disappeared for those six months, he can't even think of what happened to the rest of them. To Leo.

He broke, Mike said, and the old guilt floods into him with a tidal wave's force. Leo broke. But Mike... Mike kept him together. And Raph knows how hard that is.

Raph's still pissed about what happened, about Mike taking his name and his only form of catharsis from him. He can't forget about that. Though after all they've been through, he can at least get why he wound up there. And after everything Mike's done from the time he came crawling home until now, that little flicker of anger really doesn't mean much in the general scheme of things.

Mike is still on his side, and he's going to make things better. He can fix things where Raph can only ruin them.

For the first time in a long while, Raph pulls his hand away and looks his cousin in the face.

"Okay," he says quietly. It's all he can say.

Mike offers him tight smile and a single nod of understanding.

"He doesn't know, you know. Leo, I mean. I didn't tell him anything, and...it's not like he was asking. Well, not before."

They were like two ships in the night after Wee Leo disappeared. If Leo noticed that Mike started wearing clothing to hide his cuts and bruises, he never said anything about it. And Mike? Well, he was half breaking a promise going in the first place, so it's not as if he was just going to offer up that information.

His outsides were hurting as much as his insides, and so long as there were no uncomfortable questions he would probably have kept on it until something broke.
...
Or Raph came back.
Though, admittedly he really wasn't expecting that second one.

Leo doesn't... "You mean you never told him?" He says, his brows shooting up so fast it pulls on the cut above his eye, astonishment naked on his face.

This never is gonna stop being weird, is it?

"Guess that makes my life easier. Though you know he's gonna ask after all of this."

And what the hell kind of genius plan does Mike have to fix that, huh?

"Oooooh yeah. And if he's anything like my Leo -- which you know...he kind of is, if you squint -- he's not going to stop asking until he gets an answer he likes. So...that'll be fun."

He attempts a mega-watt smile.

"Yeah, so what you gonna do to fix that?"

Because his Leo wrangling skills have always been sub-par. Always. His methods are usually more along the line of "tell him what you feel like telling then fight about the rest". And doesn't that work like a charm.

Raph's tired of fighting. He's done enough of it for his weekly quota. He's sore and tired and cranky, and dealing with Leo is so low on his list of priorities it isn't funny.

He just wants him off his case. He and Mike are good now. That's all that matters.

"For now? A fat lot of nothing," he says, turning to look at the door leading out of the kitchen. "He's way too cheesed off at the both of us to care why we were fighting in the first place. When that wears off though, I guess...I'll tell him the truth."

He takes a dramatic sigh, then turns back towards Raph.

"I stole Brown Bear and wouldn't give him back."

There's a full second where Raph mulls it over. He could totally deny the existence of the infamous bear in his world. He so could. Everyone else did. Mostly. Far as he knows nobody knew he still had the damn thing. Never mind that he still slept with it more often than not. Damn it, Mike! You're not supposed to know about that. Stupid freakin' other Raph and his stupid freakin' inability to hide his crud.

"That's not funny," he grumbles, looking a little more peeved about it than what's good for him.

It's not even remotely funny. Though he's not admitting to anything else.

If he'd even thought for one second that this Raph had also had a beaten up water-damaged fifth hand teddy bear, Mike never would have mentioned it at all, let alone use it as some sort of place-holder for some yet-to-be-determined argument that preceded the breaking of his cousin's hand.

But...the look of horror mixed with recognition on Raph's face, along with the near pout that follows...it's all too much for Mike.

The only reaction he has is to laugh, and he knows the second he feels a peal threatening to escape him that it's the worst possible thing he could do.

So he quickly claps a hand over his mouth, trying to hold his reaction at bay.

Edited 2014-04-13 07:42 (UTC)

The glare Raph shoots his way could peel paint off walls. "I will break your face again. Don't think I won't."

Don't you dare laugh at him. Don't you freaking dare.

One hand stays on his mouth, the other goes up in surrender.
They're not just clear, they're crystal clear.

And then, as luck would have it, Mike's brain is flooded with questions regarding the bear. What was it made from? What color were the button eyes? Was it still threadbare by the ears? Do you have one here?

This bear was one of the things that he and his Raph fought over the most as children, and why it popped to mind so effortlessly.

After a few tense moments Mike lowers both hands.

"I'll jump off that bridge when I come to it. With Leo, I mean. In the meantime? I really think you should let a healer look at your hand."

He sighs, chewing at the inside of his cheek. They've had to deal with worse with homemade medicine. There's no question about it. But dealing with a healer is the last thing he wants to do right now. He's so exhausted his head is pounding and he's having a hard time keeping his vision clear. Not to mention the emotional drain. And being beat up sure doesn't help. All he wants right now is a quick fix so he can go to sleep.

The hand hurts, sure. It's part of why he got such crap sleep last night. The other part... well, Mike's got that covered, and he feels like he just might be able to try it again.

"I dunno..." He sighs, grimacing as he tries to twitch his fingers. Bad idea. "You don't think you could just wrap it up so I could get some shut eye? 'Cause I am way too tired to be dealin' with people's crud right now."

He feels better around Mike, but that doesn't mean everyone gets that luxury. Mike's just getting a free pass. And maybe if he can convince him to try to fix it himself, he can avoid letting anyone else near him at all.

He nods once and reaches out to give Raph's shoulder a squeeze, before getting to his feet and gathering some supplies.

"I'll splint it and make you a sling. When you crash out, try to stay on your back. You want anything for the ... swelling?"

He almost said for the pain, but he's pretty sure he can guess the answer to that question.

Oh, thank whatever god gives a crap. The amount of relief washing over him is palpable. Mike will do a decent job, he's sure of it. He can just tell in that eerily Don way he's handling things. And if it isn't better after a couple days, maybe then he'll consider a healer. But not now.

Now he's just hoping they can patch him up and he can go crash before Leo comes back.

"It's fine," he insists. He hates taking meds for any reason. He'd have to be practically dying to agree.

"You know what my favorite part of the word fine is?" His question is punctuated by the snapping of a piece of heavy board into roughly arm length pieces.

"We never believe it means good when anyone else uses it at us, but always expect other people to believe it does when we use it. Isn't that weird?"

Yup, just talking to fill up the void, that's our Mike.

Raph doesn't answer, only presses his mouth into a hard, stubborn line.

If only he'd thought about everything he hates about getting hurt before he actually did some of the stupid stuff he does. But that just comes with the territory of being impulsive and being Raph.

Mike pauses his fussing to slide a fresh cold pack across the table top to Raph.

"Here," is all he says before he exits the kitchen in search of a sheet willing to give it's life for the greater good of sling and splint.

He's gone for a moment or two, with the sound of tearing fabric being the harbinger of his return.

"Ready?"
Has the cold pack numbed the hand enough so that Mike can set and splint it?

Is it numb enough to curb the excruciating pain he's about to experience? Hell no. But the new ice pack does help a little, soothing the grating, raw pain to a dull, deep ache that's a little easier to tolerate.

Either way, he's gonna be in a world of hurt in a second, and he has to mentally prepare himself. At least he's been through worse.

"Yeah," he grunts, "let's get it over with."

He's about as ready as he'll ever be.

He gives his own hand another once over, making sure he knows what he should be feeling for, then he shoots Raph a smirk.

"Good thing we've only got the three, right?"

With no other warning than that, he gets to work. First the wrist, then the bones of the palm, and finally the fingers. All pulled and articulated until he thinks he's got it right. Or at least right enough to hold over until Raph allows someone with actual medical training can see him.

The fact that he doesn't writhe or flinch or even complain under Mike's administrations should be worrisome. Raphael only sets his teeth and breathes through his nose, doing everything he can to keep his mind blank. But it hurts. Holy shit does it hurt. With every little movement, every touch, every pull his heart hammers harder in his chest, leaving a sick feeling throbbing in his stomach. His head swims, and static crackles over his vision. His face grows numb and the rest of him feels cold as ice.

It's shock. He's dealt with it a million times. Sometimes it happens to him and sometimes it doesn't. But when it does, he can't help getting pissed at himself for the response. He should be used to this by now. He is used to this, but his body freaks out against his will anyways.

By the end he's broken into a cold sweat, and looks a little too far on the pale side. But he's okay. He just has to close his eyes, hunch forward a little bit and suck in a few deep breaths while he bandages it. He doesn't need for Mike to stop.

And after this, he still needs stitches in his face and shoulder from the hits he took from his fight with Dai Jin's gang. This just keeps getting better and better.

Which is good, because Mike doesn't stop. It'd be insult on top of injury to do so. The symptoms of shock don't go unnoticed, however, and so Mike does what his father would have done.

He sings.
Or rather, he hums.

Not loud at first, and certainly nothing fancy. Just the simple melody of the lullaby Splinter used to sing when they were small. Or...at very least it's the one his Splinter used to sing.

The the cold compress is applied once more as Mike moves onto cleaning the areas that need stitching.

The lullaby twists something inside of him, that familiar pang of homesickness broad siding him out of nowhere until it's all he can think about. The scent of incense clinging to his father's fur, his gnarled hand running over his scalp, murmuring a song, a prayer that's meant to soothe away the pain and sickness in place of things they could never have from the world above. Medicine. Doctors. Bandages that weren't secondhand and stained from years of use. The look of concentration on Don's face as he puts in another stitch, one by one, until they're whole again.

And then that time, in the beginning when things were new and raw, when this Mike sang over the network to soothe away a different kind of demon, and everything had come tumbling down.

By the time Mike's sewing the last stitch into his shoulder, the ice in Raph's veins has melted. The sting and pop of the needle, then the pull of the thread through skin is a rhythm he can concentrate on; brings him back to his senses and away from memory.

When it's time to lift his chin to shut the gash on his face, his eyes are watery with unshed tears, and he won't go anywhere near looking Mike in the eye.

But above all, he's tired. He's so tired he can feel it in his bones, his head aching behind his eyes from even the small strain of holding in that little emotion. Everything just feels sore and raw and exhausting.

Cradling his throbbing hand and the ice pack protectively against his chest, he wonders if he'll even be able to sleep.

If Mike notices, and there's really no question that he does, he makes no show of it. Maybe there's one very quick glance towards his cousin's eyes, but that's it. He respects the other turtle's dignity enough not to stare. There'll be plenty of time for Bond Villain jokes later, but not now. For the time being he'll just keep humming along, cleaning what needs cleaning, and mending what's been torn.

If he allows himself, he can easily pretend that this kitchen is April's kitchen. That it's the wee hours of the morning, and Raph has just come back from one of his outings. That they're hiding out in April's kitchen because she's a deep sleeper, and Leo would know if they were in the basement. Back before all hell broke loose the day Mike pushed Raph...his Raph, too far. When things were better than they are now. Which, considering they were still short a father, is saying quite a lot about how dire Mike views his current situation.

And then...the last bit of dried blood is gone, and the final knot in the thread has been tied. Mike stops humming and leans back to admire his handy work. If any scars are left they'll only be because Raph didn't keep his wounds clean, or he pulled too hard at his stitches too early. Like he always does...

"You look mahvelous," he says affecting a Fernando'esque voice.

Raph only grunts in reply. There hasn't been a single day in his life that his ugly mug looked anything close to mahvelous. Not now, not ever. And those freshly-closed gashes will only add to the assortment of scars criss-crossing a pale gray across his dark skin. Those stitches will hold for a couple days, until the minute they start itching or start preventing him from doing something. Then he'll find the scissors and pry them out himself. Though the broken hand mind slow him down.

They're done, but he doesn't try to get up. Not yet. He's still far too lightheaded to attempt it, but that's not something he's gonna admit. So he has to fill the silence, give him a reason to stay.

"So is it too late for you to whip up some of that oatmeal before Leo gets back?" He asks. Since, you know, the pots are kind of all over the floor. But since he's still pretty hungry, and he knows how his own Mikey loves to make stuff for him, so in a way, asking for it is his own form of a peace offering.

Or at least he hopes so. He never was very good with that kind of thing.

And if he really was being honest with himself, he likes being taken care of like this. Mike doesn't judge him. Doesn't make him talk about anything. And most importantly, he doesn't even come close to annoying him like his Mikey does. He just does what he needs him to do in the best way possible. It makes him feel... warm. Nice. Something he really hasn't ever felt before.

After a fight like this, he's used to judging looks and short tempers. He's used to having to shut himself off from everyone to diffuse his anger and get the space he needs. He's used to Splinter forcing him to talk about his feelings, having everyone poking and prodding and prying things out of him until he explodes all over again. But not this time.

"Sure, of course. No problem," he says turning to take in the rest of the kitchen. He'd all but forgotten about his earlier outburst, and now the once ready to eat oatish meal is coating a portion of the kitchen floor.

"Oh. Uh...yeah, just um...just gimme a sec." He looks back at Raph to shoot him a quick sheepish grin before starting the breakfast procedure all over again. Though this time it has the added difficulty of cleaning the very pots you're only going to dirty up again.

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meanandgreen - 2014-04-18 00:24 (UTC) - Expand