Work Text:
Raphael was late. Three and a half whole minutes late. If it went on much longer, Leo was liable to explode.
When his brother’s distinctive, leather-clad Nightwatcher silhouette appeared in shadowy lee of the neighboring rooftop, Leo waited with his heart in his throat for a second shape, smaller but no less familiar, to materialize beside him. When it was clear that Raph was returning alone, the chunin could not stay his impatience and leapt into the open sky to join him there.
"What's the situation?" Leo had demanded before the distance between them had even been met. "I would have thought you had enough time to break in, and probably search every floor of the building by now… Wait. Was he not actually there?"
Raph's approach remained casual, plodding towards him with a mildly infuriating lack of urgency. He was giving the other turtle a look somewhere under the helmet's thick and impenetrable visor. "Of course he's there. But I've got nothin’ on him.”
“Nothing?” Leo’s face went incredulous. “He’s there, isn’t he? That’s not nothing! He left us, Raph! He left our home to go live with these…these…” He drifted off, moving to stare over the edge of the rooftop with one fist clenched in front of him. Suddenly he whirled back on Raph to demand, “You had to have seen something. What is this hold they HAVE on him? Is he on drugs, or what?!”
“Sheah, I almost wish! There’d be no need for this conversation. We’d just be draggin’ him outta there. But I never saw him touch nothin’ but fucking orange soda. They were just in there... I dunno! First, they’re doin’ skateboard tricks on these ramps they got set up in there. And now they’re playin’ a card game.”
Leo seized on that, desperate for vice at this point. “Maybe that’s it! What if it’s a high stakes poker game, or… he could have some kind of gambling addiction!”
He looked back to see that Raphael had taken the helmet off, perhaps to better convey his wincing denial. “No. God, no. It was that one stupid game, okay? With the black cards and the white ones. Cards Against Humanity.”
Leo’s brows furrowed. “I hate that game. So vulgar.”
“Yeah, I know ya do.” Raphael’s laugh was short and weary. “But it’s still no reason to drag him outta there and turn this into a goddamn war.”
“It still blows my mind. Why would he leave us, Raph? No ultimatum. He just packed his things and left…”
“After the fight we just had? Not payin’ him any attention as long as we did. Then all of a sudden, he’s got all three of us gangin’ up on him?” Raph argued, still patient by comparison. “Yeah, I get it. In his place, I mighta left too.”
He thought about Mikey, cornered and defensive, insisting that he could trust them. Spitting ugly words like ‘hypocrite’.
“We pushed him away,” Leo allowed. “It went too far.”
“Yeah,” Raph agreed with the first note of real regret. “So, tonight we found him. We found him, and we may not like it, but… he’s not in any danger. That’s the mission, isn’t it? We know where he’s at, and we can see that he’s safe. What’s left, but to go home?”
Leonardo went very silent. They’d assumed he would cool off and come back to them. But then his stuff was gone and there had been no word. For several beats he stood gazing at the building where Mike had been discovered, holed up with his questionable new friends.
”Leo…?” Raph prompted gently.
Suddenly Leonardo was before him, running hungry hands over the other turtle’s leather-clad chest. “It seems a shame, doesn’t it…?” he said in such a soft, strange voice that Raph swallowed hard. “All this time we’ve had, alone and topside. All this running around, and we’re just going to… how long’s it been, hmm? Since we even had a chance?”
“Weeks,” Raph growled softly, dropping his helmet and bringing his arms up around Leonardo. He dipped his head down into the crook of Leo’s neck and breathed deep. “Hell yeah, I thought it. But…” His smile cracked as he confessed, “I sorta thought you might knock me out if I tried anything. What with all this heavy shit going down…”
“I probably would have,” Leo conceded. “But, now… you’re right. There’s nothing left to do out here. No reason to stay any longer, except for this. And you’re right. Everywhere I look, there’s so much… heavy shit right now. I feel like it’s crushing me.”
It was still a small thrill for Raph, to hear Leo swear at all. It was a private thing, reserved only for the two of them. He pulled away to look at Leo and let himself be pulled down towards the concrete. Knees in the gravel, they clung to one another. “I got ya,” Raph breathed. “I hear ya. We’ll stay a little longer.”
“Everything is awful, lately. Except for this. This thing I have with you.”
“Hsshh…”
They sought comfort together in the shadow of a water tower. And when they were done, by some miracle, Leo had begun to drift asleep in his arms. He must have been exhausted, Raph thought with dismay.
It was harder for him to lounge in the peaceful afterglow. Like it was a betrayal, somehow, to the gaping hole left by Mike’s departure. Now the moon was making a creeping path across the sky. The shadows were shifting and soon they would be fully exposed on the rooftop. It was for safety, as well as his guilt, that Raphael nudged his lover awake and got them moving towards home.
They knew something was wrong the moment they stepped into the lair to find it dark and silent as a graveyard. Raph slapped at the switch by the door, and his stomach twisted as he toggled it back and forth and no light spilled into the room ahead of them. The flashlights they’d stowed at the entrance to the lair came back out, and the glowing circles of light swept over the lair erratically, making the shadows jump and tilt.
“Spread out?” Raph wondered, keeping his voice low and his words minimal. “Look for sensei and Don?”
He saw Leo’s hand cut a negative gesture in the gloom. Together, then. They moved forward as one and cast out with all senses, on high alert for any sign of intrusion.
Everything seemed normal. On some instinct, Raph turned and cast his flashlight back towards the door. He’d been thinking to check for any signs of damage there, but the beam of light caught on something piled near it on the floor. It hadn’t been there when they’d left, Raph was sure of it. “Leo, look!” he hissed, and moved back towards it.
“Oh my God,” Leo breathed beside him, kneeling to inspect the items Don had found. “Oh my god,” he said again, “it’s his gear.”
Leo was right. It was a heart stopping sight, seeing their brother’s leathers dumped in a sad pile by the door. The beam of Raph’s flashlight traveled to reveal the bo staff, discarded beyond it.
“What the fuck…” Raph muttered in low dismay. “Why would he… why would someone strip him naked? It doesn’t--”
“DONNIE!” Leo finally lifted his voice to shatter the eerie silence. There was a raw note of panic in his tone that was uncommon, and he was quick to correct it when he shouted again. “DON! Where are you?”
Raph wasn’t expecting anyone to respond, and physically startled when a tiny voice called back to them. “Leo? Leo! I’m here!”
Raph took a step back. The patter of feet coming towards them was all wrong.
Leonardo paled as a small figure attached itself to his leg and clung. “Oh, man… and Raph’s here, too! And you’re big! I’m so glad! I’ve been hoping so hard that you’d come back. I’ve been so scared!”
Raph shone the flashlight onto the figure and stared. “He’s… he’s....”
“He’s Donnie ,” Leo confirmed, looking stricken. It was true. The figure was unmistakably their brother, but not the one they had left behind at the lair. It was as though he had stepped out of their memories of distant childhood. Leonardo fell to his knees and cupped the child’s face in his hands. “Donnie, Donnie, we’re here. What’s happened to you?”
“I got small!” Donatello wailed. “And stupid! I HATE IT!”
Leo’s head canted slightly, almost looking over his shoulder but deciding against it and keeping his gaze firmly fixed on the child. But behind him, he could hear Raphael’s breathing starting to go ragged.
“Nonsense,” he told the child, forcing his voice very even and calm. “You were always the smart one. Even when we were small.”
“No! I’m stupid, Leo! It’s so frustrating! It all started when the lights went out. Something broke the power. But I was really smart back then! I thought I knew what was wrong, and how to fix it! I took my tools and a flashlight, and I went out to… to the power box. I figured I would have to… fix the wires? I thought maybe some rats had chewed on them! Or if not that, maybe I’d have to replace the, the…” Brown eyes squeezed shut as his young voice went shrill with terror. “I-I don’t know what they’re called anymore! How could I forget something like that? I’m supposed to know what they’re called!”
“Shhh. Shh, it’s okay,” Leo soothed the child Donatello, who looked ready to burst into tears. “It must not have been either of those things, because the lights are still off. Is that right?”
“No!” Don shook his head quickly, eyes going huge. “Or… or maybe! I couldn’t tell. I never got the chance! I’d only just opened the box when the monster came up out of the water! It was waste water. You’re not supposed to swim in that! It would make you very sick! Of course I didn’t expect anything to come from that direction and attack me, but it DID. It rose right up out of the water and I could see big black circles on his face! It grabbed me with his gross, slimy arms! By the time I’d managed to break free, I’d already been stung--”
“I can’t,” Raph gasped, pacing somewhere behind them. “I can’t, Leo. I can’t listen to this!”
Leonardo shot him a commanding look over one shoulder. “Raph, we have to. We have to understand what happened!”
Donatello had detached from Leo and looked at Raph soulfully. “He’s right,” the little one pointed out. “I have to tell you. If I forget, there’ll be no one left to stop it.”
“Yeah, okay.” Raphael seemed to shudder with his whole body, but he got the words out. “Tell us how it happened.”
“It got me,” Don went on dutifully. “It got the arm that was holding the flashlight. It was a really bad sting, and so I dropped it. My flashlight rolled into the waste water and everything got real dark.
“I tried to fight, but I could tell something was wrong with me. Everything got so scary and confusing. I felt like I was going to pass out, and it didn’t help that I couldn’t see what I was fighting! But it was kicking my butt really good, so eventually I figured out that it could definitely see me! Still, I tried to be brave and kept trying to fight the slimy monster in the dark. But it was getting harder. And this part’s hard to explain. But it felt like the monster was growing bigger, even though I couldn’t really confirm anything because it was so pitch dark! It was looming over me, and it didn’t used to be!
“I got more and more scared. And finally, I… I was a coward, I guess! Cause I didn’t ever get the power fixed! Dropped all my tools and parts during the fight. Worst of all, I didn’t defeat the monster! I only stunned it with my bo, shoved it into the water. And when I heard the splash, I… I turned and I ran! It didn’t stop until I was sure I must have lost it. I ran until I was sure I was home. You’ve got to help me stop it, guys!” His small voice lifted, imploring them. “It’s still out there somewhere, grabbing and stinging people! It’s a really bad sting, and it needs a Band-Aid probably, but the cupboard’s really high now!”
Leonardo’s face ticked with sympathy. “Come, I’ll get you a Band-Aid right now. You’ve been very brave.”
“It would have been braver to defeat it,” Don countered woefully, allowing Leo to take him by the hand.
“You did just fine. But tell me, where’s Splinter been throughout this?”
At this, Donatello lifted his free hand to his face and did start to cry. “I-I-I’m sorry, Leo! He’s small too! I don’t know when it happened. But when I got back, he was even smaller than me! And I can’t get him to come out from under the couch!”
Raph and Leo looked at one another in horror.
After sharing the glance, Leo took charge and decided, “You see to securing Master Splinter. I’ll get Donnie bandaged up and see if we can get more useful information out of him.”
“What more info do you need, Leo?!” Raphael exploded. “Haven’t you heard enough? It’s the Bloodsucker! The fucking Bloodsucker is BACK!”
“That’s… that’s ridiculous, Raph.”
“Don’t tell me I’m being ridiculous! You heard him! A monster with eyes on his face! Slimy skin! What more do you need to hear?!”
“The facts, Raph. I get why you’d leap to that, I do. But that was so long ago. And so many miles away. That leech has got to be dead by now. Something else is going on here. Do as I say for now. Okay? You can lift the couch, can’t you?”
“God, I…” Raphael staggered back a step and gasped. “Yeah, I don’t know. I feel like I can’t breathe.”
“Take a moment to collect yourself. Then lift the couch and collect Master Splinter. We’re going back to the transformers to investigate where this began.”
“But that won’t help,” Don piped up, his small face screwed up in confusion. “All the Transformers are in Mikey’s room…”
“We’re going to be fine, Donnie,” Leo soothed him. “Let Raph and I take care of this.”
In the end, Raph was able to lift the couch and collect the cowering rat into a cardboard box. “Sorry, master,” Raph mumbled as he used his sai to poke holes into the top of it. It carried it back out to the foyer to find that Leo was struggling.
It was impossible to get any more out of Donnie. Raph was startled to find that Donatello looked even smaller than when the interrogation had begun. He demanded soda before he would say any more, and by the time he’d drunk it, he declared that he was bored of telling ghost stories and began rubbing his eyes. “We’re wasting time,” Leo decided.
They headed off to see about restoring the power, bringing the cardboard box and little Donnie. When they couldn’t get Donnie to follow on two legs anymore, Raph was obliged to carry him while Leo held the box under one arm and manned the flashlight in the other.
There was no sign of the monster, not until they came upon the transformer and saw the dark splashes of muck where it must have come out of the water. Raphael’s insides recoiled at the sight.
They got the transformer open but the damage within was extensive. After half an hour of fiddling with it, they had no idea how to fix the power.
It was easier for Raph, when they had a problem directly in front of them. But without that, the doubt and uncertainty loomed up before him like an invisible foe. It was impossible to keep his thoughts from wandering back down twisted forest paths. Back to Northampton, back to the river, where the mutant leech had tried to suck away his very personhood. He closed up the transformer and sat on it, trying not to cringe as Donatello -- half again as small as he had been -- pawed at his feet and made a pathetic sound.
“It’ll be okay, lil’ guy,” Raph assured him, taking pity on his brother and lifting him into his arms. He was frighteningly light now. “We’ll find whoever did this to ya.” He held the turtle close to his chest. “And we’ll make ‘em pay.”
They were nearly back to the lair, for lack of a better plan, when suddenly Leo halted them in their tracks with a gesture. He set Splinter’s box down and went deadly still, then started muttering to himself and flashing hand signs. They were incomprehensible to Raph, far advanced beyond his own meagre mystic training.
Raph lost his patience and had to demand several times to know what was going on. Leo managed a scowl without opening his eyes and curtly explained, “We’re under attack, can’t you tell? Just be silent!”
“But what should I--”
“SILENT! Hold on, just a moment, please!”
Raph didn’t want to hold on. They had eyes, they had -- well. They could listen, couldn’t they? Why should he wait for Leo to use his mumbo jumbo magic to track down the monster, when they had been trained for this? But Leo was back in his stupid trance, shutting all of them out. He gripped the flashlight in one hand, and kept hold of the sleeping turtle in the other. Don had tucked into his shell, something none of them had been capable of for most of their lives.
The beam of his flashlight flew wildly, surveying points of entry for the most likely source of attack. Always his thoughts spiraled back to his biggest fear. He crept closer to the edge of the canal and let his beam comb over the surface of that noxious river of sludge below, squinting at every suspicious ripple or floating clump of debris to make sure it wasn’t the Bloodsucker emerging from the water.
He was still looking at the water when Leo began to scream. Raph ran over to him, used the hand still gripping the flashlight and jostled him with his knuckles, but his touch had no effect. He only stopped when he had run out of breath, and then he gripped his head and curled forward, reeling and struggling to suck air into his lungs. “Couldn’t!” he gasped. “I couldn’t do it. He’s too powerful.”
“I’m AWARE of how powerful he is! I’m scared as fuck, Leo! That’s what I been tryin’ to say to you! If anyone knows how bad this thing is--”
“No, stop!” Leo cut him off, sharp and desperate. “Raph, you’ve got to listen to me! That thing you’ve been scared of. Don’t say it. Don’t even think about ANY specifics. Fix your mind here, in the present. Because when he comes for us...”
But Raph was struggling to pick up what Leo was laying down. He went quickly from bewildered to defensive. “Are you seriously given’ me a lecture right now? And why, cuz I finally admitted I was afraid? That shit was fucking traumatizing, man! This shit is my worst nightmare coming true, and we can’t all be Fearless! I got every right to be freaked out about this!”
Really, he was wounded. It wasn’t easy to admit ANY of that stuff. He’d kept it locked down and compartmentalized for so long, and having it all dragged back out when he needed more than ever to be strong was like some sick form of torture. He WOULDN’T have said anything, except that lately they had grown so much closer. It seemed safe to speak his true mind. But apparently not, because here was Leo giving him pre-battle pep talks about overcoming fear and maintaining his goddamned focus!
“What, you think I’m gonna puss out and run away just because I said I was afraid?! God, whatever. Some monsters you can’t beat with stupid mind magic. Sometimes, you gotta get your hands dirty. Well, come at me, bud! I’m gonna tear this slimy sunovabitch to pieces. So can the lecture, get yer head outta the clouds, and back me up already!”
Leo’s eyes had widened and his mouth fell open, giving Raph a horrified look.
But one look was all there was time for. Raph angled his flashlight towards Leo just in time to see the freeze-frame of his stricken face bathed in a circle of light, giving him that dismayed look. A moment later, the Bloodsucker dropped as if detaching from the pipes overhead, and grappled Leo to his knees.
Raph gnashed his teeth, set baby Donnie down, and drew out both sai in a flash. A strangled cry ripped from his throat as he lunged at the monster. He was determined to free his brother from its vile and oozing clutches. And he did eventually manage to drag Leo free-- but it was already too late. By the time Raph was even in arms reach of him, Leonardo had already been stung.
It occured to Raph that his reality had proven worse than any nightmare his brain could summon. For a week now he had been wrecked at the thought of having lost a brother. And now, just like that, he'd lost them all. Raph lost his mind at that point. Forgot all his training, all the danger, all the fear, and threw himself at his adversary in a kamikaze rage.
When the monster managed to sting him within the first few seconds of combat, Raph didn't even notice.
When Raph came to his senses, nothing made sense. His arms were sticky, drenched in blood up to his elbows. At least the monster had been defeated. It had been reduced to slopping heaps of viscera and flesh. He was slumped forward on his knees, staring at the carnage without comprehension, waiting for whatever he was supposed to be feeling. Victory? Grief?
He stared until it finally clicked. When it did, the whole world lurched in horror. His amber eyes widened, and his head turned to take in more of the gore pooling all around him. It was wrong. The flashlight had been dropped at some point, and now its yellow beam sliced the gloom with a beam of light.
He pulled a gruesome hunk of flesh off the lip of his plastron to study it. The edges were ragged and stretched. He must have been disarmed at some point, or maybe just gave up using them in favor of murdering with his bare hands.
But it wasn't shame of murder that left him reeling and shaking his head in slow denial. The color palette of this carnage was all wrong. He sought in vain for the colors he had seen in countless nightmares - the deep burgundies and indigos dancing across the oil slick reflections of gleaming sheen of slime. Instead he saw blood, so much blood -- none of the chunks were black at all, but ordinary flesh tones. Human.
He found the head and stared anew. A Foot mask, combined with some sort of sub-aquatic breathing apparatus. Black circles on his face...
Not only was he a murderer, but Leo had been right all along. The Bloodsucker was not the adversary.
The world went white at the edges and then swirled into a blizzard of non-comprehension.
Leonardo couldn’t wake Raph. He’d had these fainting spells last time, hadn’t he…?
Already, the memories of that scary episode were getting cloudy in his mind. Instincts were thrumming to the surface, to fight or to flee. It scared him.
“It wasn’t the Bloodsucker!” Leo asserted in the dripping silence. “It was a Foot Mystic all along, using tricks -- trying to deceive us!” He HAD to remember. He had to hold onto what was true.
Donnie was now small enough to fit into the box with Master Splinter. “You guys play nice, okay?” He tucked the box close to his fallen brother. “Watch over them, Raph. Be safe, all of you…” He straightened and looked up, towards some rungs that would take him closer to the surface. It was tempting to linger here and wait for Raph to waken. But there was so little time, and only one brother left who could possibly save them.
When he came to, he was being cradled in his brother’s arms. Raph’s eyelids fluttered and his face immediately twisted into a scowl at the sight of the red band tied around his brother’s brow. He reached out with a small fist and snatched it off Michelangelo’s head. “Hey, you can’t wear that color!” he thundered. “It’s mine!”
His anger snuffed quickly once it sunk in that his brother was crying. “You’re right, buddy. That recruit mask, it’s.. It’s not for me! Not anymore. I won’t wear it again. I promise.”
“He’s going to be okay, right?” Leo wanted to know, pawing at his shoulder.
“Yeah, he should be. I’ll have to give you a shot of this stuff. The others already had theirs. It’ll make you feel better…”
“No!” Raph began to struggle. He hated needles. “I feel fine!”
“I’ve got to, pal. We’ve got to get you back to your usual grouchy self.”
“Don’t be a baby, Raphie,” Leo chided him. “I already got mine, see?” He showed off the puncture wound in his arm proudly. “Donnie and Splinter got theirs too, and they didn’t cry about it.”
“M’not crying!” Raph insisted, though he was very nearly crying as Mike drew closer with what looked to him like an enormous and menacing spike. “But do it fast, okay?”
The prick of the needle was sharp, but Raph squeezed his eyes shut and managed not to make a sound.
“There, see?” Mike soothed as the needle slid back out of Raph’s tiny bicep. “It’s already over, you’ll be fine soon.”
Raphael turned big watery eyes on the turtle. He seemed so big, much too big to think of him in the usual way: his dorky little brother. He threw arms around the other ninja and demanded, “You’re not going to go away ever, right? I’m sorry, if you left because of me! But it sucked so much, when you went away.”
“Never again, man,” Mike assured him readily.
Raph nodded and buried his face in Mikey’s chest. “Y’promise?”
Mike’s strong arms closed around him. “Yeah, I promise. I learned my lesson. And now you’re stuck with me, got it? You and me... Hamato Clan for life.”