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Raph didn’t really think of himself as a screamer.
But here Raph was, shrieking at his bathroom mirror, as the snapping turtle turned Dragon stared in horror at his bottom jaw…
…ok, maybe he should back up just a little bit.
After the whole arena fight, He was forced to rest until his shoulder fully healed (As both “Doctor” Leo, and Doctor delicate touch reminded him).
But that was a week or so ago now; he felt completely fine, and could move around no problem, Raph was back in business!
Well, if not for his super painful toothache at least.
Just last night his jaw had started to throb. It was so bad that he couldn’t even eat dinner, luckily Mikey hadn’t noticed, since he was too busy separating the twins from another argument to worry about Raph not touching his food.
(Something about Leo deleting one of Donnie’s game save files, but Raph wasn’t sure. It was, admittedly, a bit difficult to focus with the pain)
Deciding it was too much, he excused himself, taking off his cloaking brooch once he got to his room, and flopping onto his new mattress, immediately passing out (Donnie had thankfully bought them bigger beds and sheets to accommodate their…unique needs).
Unfortunately, from exhaustion and an aching jaw, he happened to miss the new feeling of hard nubs poking out from behind his lips…
.
.
.
Waking up, his face felt weird, still very sore, but now kinda “droopy” as well. It almost felt a bit heavier too, but Raph shrugged, and chalked it up to just being tired and hurt.
He stumbled into the hallway bathroom (yet again, glad that Donnie went straight to work making their doorways wider, so now all he had to do was duck and hope his horns didn’t clip the frame), and, without even glancing at the mirror, fumbled for his toothbrush.
Putting the paste on, and rinsing it for a second, he titled his head to start brushing before-
“AGGHH”, he yelped, dropping his brush, and recoiling backwards.
Staring at him through the mirror were two tusks, right out of his own mouth.
“Woah…”, he whispered in shock, as the spiked dragon pushed himself back to the sink.
Raph pressed his face close to his reflection, really examining the foreign objects as he pulled his lip down, and tilted his head around.
“I guess Goliath WAS a good example of what a dragon looks like”, he laughed humorlessly, testing the new teeth with his tongue before hissing at how sensitive they were.
“Raph! You ok bro?”, his orange brother called, banging on the bathroom door.
“I’m glad he’s worried for me, but now is NOT the time”, Raph inwardly panicked, thinking quickly for an excuse as he scrambled to compose himself.
“Yep! Sorry just tripped a bit, Raph’s all good!”, he said, hopefully, convincingly.
“…ok then, breakfast is almost done, but if you’re hurt make sure to check up with Leo ok?”, Mikey finally said, footsteps receding from behind the door.
Raph let out a relieved sigh, focusing back onto the mirror where the tusks hadn’t disappeared.
“Why do they have to look so similar…”
Raph, of course, knew why: they were the same species now. It made sense that he would have tusks like the dragon he fought, but it didn’t make him any less uncomfortable.
Barbaric tusks splattered with blood, HIS blood, as he fought against that feral monster…the comparisons weren’t pleasant to say the least.
“If that’s what I think of when I see them, what’s my family gonna think?”, he whimpered as the thought came to mind.
“That’s fine, Raph can work with this! I can deal with it long enough to find a solution or something!”, he hyped himself, trying to think of what those “solutions” could be.
Pulling them out? Painful.
Trimming them? Probably painful too.
Hiding them?
They weren’t that big, not nearly as large as Goliath’s, only about a foot long. But that was still way too big to hide in any reasonable way without suspicion.
“The best I can do is put on the cloaking brooch, and not let them see me like this until I can fix it”, he decided, tapping his red brooch and shrinking down into his turtle form.
He headed towards the kitchen, adjusting his uncomfortable jaw a few times, before seeing Leo and Donnie sitting down at the table.
“Good morning, everyone slept alright?”, he asked over-cheerfully to mask the pain.
“Not really, someone made me replay through his game last night”, Leo responded, shooting a glare at his soft shell brother.
“Maybe I wouldn’t have to if someone didn’t delete my progress!”, Donnie quipped back, putting his phone down for round two of their argument.
“Guys calm down, we talked about this yesterday, it was an accident D, and Leo already agreed to get back to the spot you were at”, Mikey cut in, placing breakfast on the table trying to pacify them.
Both of the twins huffed, before starting on their food.
“Hey Raph, you feeling better?”, Mikey whispered, taking his seat next to him.
“Like I said, Raph’s good, just spooked me out a bit for a sec”, he whispered back, hoping his other brothers didn’t hear-
“What’re you guys being so secretive about”, Donnie interrupted, tilting his head in curiosity.
-of course.
“I heard Raph scream this morning, said he fell or something”, Mikey shrugged, unaware of Raph staring at him in betrayal.
“Traitor”, he thought bitterly as Donnie and Leo turned to him.
“Was it your shoulder? I thought it healed, but you gotta let me know if it’s acting up again”, Leo said, concern laced in his voice.
“Believe me Leo I would if it was, but it’s not. Raph just slipped in the bathroom and it surprised me for a second, that’s it”, he said holding his hands up placatingly, begging that they would take the explanation and wouldn’t smell out his lie, literally.
But just in case-
“Oh by the way, what game was it that you guys were arguing about? Maybe I can help out?”
-classic misdirection.
“Oh, you’ve never actually played this one”, Donnie started, perking up at the subject change, “it’s the new monster hunter game on the switch-“
There it was, the famous “speech mode”: a perfect distraction off of Raph’s back.
Somewhat paying attention to his ranting brother he looked down at his plate.
The dull ache in his teeth reminded him that he really didn’t want to eat anything, but Mikey would definitely notice if he didn’t eat twice in a row.
So picking up his fork, he figured some of the hash browns would probably be pretty easy to chew, and started to eat…
…Only for a jolt of pain to spike through his gums at the first bite.
He immediately dropped his fork, shooting his hands up to his mouth.
His brothers whipped around at the crash of his silverware against his plate, and muffled yelp from their older brother.
“…Raph?”, Mikey tried to pry, but he just shook his head, keeping his hand firmly pressed against his snout.
“Raph…Let me see your mouth”, Leo demanded, getting in front of him.
Slowly, realizing he couldn’t win this, he dropped his arms and opened his jaw.
After a second of looking and seeing nothing Leo continued.
“Dragon form”
“…do I have to…”, Raph mumbled, pleading for them to drop it.
Leo rubbed his fingers against his forehead in exasperation, “Yes Raph, come on. I know I’m not a dentist, but I can try to figure out what’s going on if you let me”.
“Agreed, I can always start researching dental complications if Leo doesn’t have the knowledge readily available”, Donnie added, eagerly nodding his head, probably excited at the thought of something new to learn.
“…fine”, He gave in, crouching low to the ground (since the room DEFINITELY wasn’t tall enough for him to be standing), and deactivating his brooch.
He closed his eyes and opened his mouth, ignoring the quiet gasps of his brothers.
After a moment of silence, Raph dared to peek his eyes open. Donnie had taken off his battle shell, and was looking for something inside its storage while Leo waited. It didn’t take long before his purple brother had found something and handed it over.
Plastic medical gloves.
Leo slipped them on before walking over to him once they made eye contact.
“Do you mind?”, Leo asked for permission to touch, look and presumably poke around at his mouth.
“Uh, no. No you’re fine, just don’t poke it too much, it hurts”, Raph warned before opening his mouth again.
After a bit of an examination, and Donnie’s input of how similar tusks looked and grew, Leo confirmed that they were growing in fine, seemingly not pushing any of his teeth out of the way.
“Why did you try and hide it though?”, Mikey asked once he had his mouth free of any prying hands.
“I just…I don’t want you guys, or anyone really, to compare me to…you know”, he trailed off, tapping his claws together.
“Aww Raph, you know we’d never think of you like that!”, his littlest sibling reassured, rushing up to hug him.
“Yeah man, you think we’d be scared of you or something? Cause it’s pretty hard to be intimidating when we see you cry during every romance movie we watch”, Leo said with an eye roll.
“I concur, you’ve cried 5 times in this month alone during our movie marathons, Snow White wasn’t even sad”, Donnie revealed looking down his phone, where there was a graph table with Raph’s name at the top.
“Reminder to ask Donnie what else he had recorded down on his tech…”, Raph noted, vaguely disturbed.
Ignoring the jokes at his expense, he continued with a content set of chuckles.
“Thanks guys. You’re right I should’ve just told y’all, sorry for thinking Raph could keep it to himself”, he admitted pushing the pain away and focusing on Mikey’s hug instead, pulling him in closer like a stuffed animal.
“It’s fine, just please don’t do it again. We’re here for you bro, no matter what you look like”, Leo said with a smile, patting Raph’s arm to comfort him.
“I mean, for all we know, Mikey could grow tusks tomorrow too”, he finished with a laugh.
“Ohmigosh! Do you think so! That would look sooo cool!”, Mikey gasped in excitement, freeing his hands from Raph’s hold to feel around his mouth for any new developments.
“Well unfortunately to dampen the mood, I assume Raph is the only one to have them considering he is the oldest. If we were to grow them, it would make sense for us to have to wait until Raph’s age”, Donnie cut in from the side, one still eating his breakfast at the table, while the other typed away at his wrist pad.
Mikey looked dejected at the news.
“It’s alright big man, I’m sure they’ll come in if you’re that excited for them. Drink your milk…or whatever smart thing donnie usually says to grow stronger”, he said confidently, squeezing his brother a bit tighter to show his support.
Donnie sputtered indignantly at the joke before Leo interrupted him with a question.
“Do you think you could make Raph a retainer? They’re growing in fine but it would hurt ten times worse if they started to shift”
Donnie’s rambles about proper nutrition cut off as he thought for a moment.
“We would need to research how to fit it for tusks, and probably go to a few places in the hidden city to see how they do it, but I most certainly could come up with something”
“You guys don’t need to do all that, really. You were nice enough when you made me the first retainer”, He tries to persuade them, not wanting to be a bother.
“Nonsense, since you can’t use that night retainer anymore due to our new forms, it is only proper that I make you a new one”, Donnie announced, not backing down from the perceived challenge.
“Just let him do it, you know he won’t give up now”, Leo smugly stated, whispering to him and Mikey.
“Thank you Donnie, I’ll take you up on that”
“Oh!”, Mikey chimed in, pushing out of Raph’s hug, “You still need to eat, let me make you something you can drink!”, he said, rushing off to the refrigerator.
.
.
.
A few minutes later, they were all sitting down on the couch, Raph drinking a strawberry and banana smoothie-
(“it has potassium, which is essential for regulating blood acidity, which, at a high level, would decay the calcium from-“ Donnie info dumped, not really caring if any of them could actually understand what he meant)
-and as Donnie and Leo played their game on the switch, Raph could only cuddle closer to mikey, thinking of just how grateful he was to have them as brothers.
THE END- “A Dragon’s Dentist” One-Shot