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The city was bustling, as it always was. The city was bright, as it always has been. The city was living, as it always is. The city is the same city it was yesterday, and it will probably stay that way even after their deaths, even once people realize they saved them countless of times. The city is blind to them and blind to all of their efforts, but its okay. Its for their safety. For the safety of everybody.
Sometimes he wishes it wasn’t that way. Sometimes he wishes he and his brothers were all human. Sometimes he wishes his father had been human, because that way he would’ve at least had a possibility of surviving, of still being here. But he knows. He knows its not possible. Its not possible for him to be human, or for his family to be human, or for him to go back in time and save his father from his demise. He had been right there, and he didn’t do anything to stop it.
Other times he liked it that way. He enjoyed being able to do whatever he wanted for as long as no one saw him. He enjoyed being so free and not have any sort of “legal authority” chasing him down for going a bit too aggressively on some criminal doing far worse than him. He enjoyed being himself and not having anything to care or worry about. And he had to admit something, because it would eat him alive if he didn’t admit it, but he’s sometimes hated his father before. He knows he shouldn’t. He knows it was him who raised him and molded him into what he is but that’s exactly why he’s hated his father before. It wasn’t him who made him this, it had been his father who made him feel so inferior to his brothers, who made his anger issues be so much worse before, who isolated him from the world until he was well into his adolescence.
But it was still his father. It was still the father he saw die and it was still the father he could’ve saved.
He sometimes hates all of this.
Why did he even save them all? He could’ve just left them to rot, or be used as science experiments, but instead opted to adopt and raise a bunch of turtles and name them after renaissance painters. Funny, how Raffaello Sanzio was apparently a prodigy since the beginning, yet Raph has been a mess since before he was conscious of anything. If there was someone who was a prodigy in his father’s eyes, it would be Perfect Student Leonardo who would get that place.
Would Leo be mad at him? Would he be angry that neither he or April saved his father when they had the chance? Raph knows he himself would be, at least after a while. Should he be scared of what will happen when Leo gets out of his denial and goes through the stage of anger? Leo isn’t really one to be angry often, mostly he’s just frustrated for one or another reason, but angry he isn’t. There’s no previous event Raph can recall where his brother was genuinely mad at him or anyone else other than the Shredder, so there’s no true reference point to what will happen is there?
He just hopes at least one of his brothers will have their side on the situation. Just one of them would be enough. It would be enough for the overwhelming and new fear of losing the family he has to go away and leave him for once, even if they’re just siding with him and understanding the situation after hating his guts for a while. He knows that at least at some point they’ll hate him. Its not so likely they’d hate April, but him? The guy who has made fun of them before? It’d be the perfect chance to show their dislike towards him and have a good reason on why they don’t like him wouldn’t it.
Why are feelings so difficult? Why are they like a puzzle you have to resolved just to go ahead with the next that’s even worse? He wants his life to go back to the way it once was, but he loves the life he has now. He wants to go back to when it was only him, his brothers, and their father and no one else. Back to when they were young and naïve and would beg for their father to let them to the surface and when he would always say no to that request.
But he also likes, or at least liked, the life he has now. He’s free and can go around the surface and have time alone and of his own. They’ve made friendships with humans that he really doesn’t want to lose and they’ve saved the world countless of times. It is no longer him and his brothers who are now in their world, and there’s a particular comfort that fact brings to him that he doesn’t ever want to lose. It’s the fact that they’re no longer on their own that makes it so comforting. That he’s no longer the only hothead in the team that brings a feeling of niceness. That there are naturally warm people and creatures with them that will spend their winter days down there that just shows they care about them.
Why couldn’t it have been he himself who died? Why did it have to be his father? So much could’ve been avoided if it had just been him who died to satisfy the Shredder’s stupid need for vengeance. This feeling of guilt and this fear of losing everything that has made him a better person would vanish if it was just given to someone else and he knows it. He knows how selfish that sounds but what else is there that will help him heal? There is nothing. He can pretend that it doesn’t hurt him and move on to the next adventure with his feelings bottled up, but he knows it’s a wound that can’t be healed.
The streets of the city were just as they were before when Raph was leaving the edge of the ceiling. Maybe he could pay Casey a little visit. He's always liked his company.