Chapter Text
The brittle pasta shells are tucked under Mikey’s molars as he flips over the back of the couch and settles next to his brother. “Raph? Can you crack my neck for me?”
Raph flips the page of his comic, lounged on his shell against the arm of the couch, legs crossed. The lair is quiet. “No.”
“Please? I saw it in a video with the humans, and it looked really stress-relieving.”
Raph looks up over the top of his comic book, brow raised. “What’re you stressed about, dork?”
Mikey slouches into the couch with a burdened sigh. “I’m a poor turtle, all alone and raised in the sewers with algae and worms.” He throws his arm over his eyes and sighs louder, “With no friends, no mother, not a single brother willing to crack my neck for me—”
“Fine.” Raph closes his comic and stands. “If only to shut you up.”
Mikey scrambles to his feet. Raph grabs his shoulders, keeping him from bouncing excitedly on his toes, and sets him firmly in position in front of him.
Mikey says, for good measure, “You need me to pull up the video? It shows you how.”
Raph scoffs. “I do this for Leo all the time. Don’t move.” He smirks. “Or I’ll break your neck.”
Mikey huffs. “Raph.”
“I’m kidding, I’m kidding.” Raph rubs his head reassuringly. “Mostly.” Then he grips the side of his face and neck and his face shifts to something focused, green eyes narrowed on Mikey’s neck. “I’ll do the right side first, okay?”
“O-Okay.” But with Raph positioned, Mikey can’t deny the bolt of nerves that shoot through him. What if Raph really does break his neck?
“Hey.” Raph waits until Mikey’s looking at him. The hand resting on his neck squeezes reassuringly. “Trust me.”
Mikey slowly nods, holding his firm gaze.
“Breathe in.”
Mikey breathes in through his nose and subtly repositions the hard pasta in his mouth.
As he breathes out, Raph flawlessly cracks his neck.
Mikey bites down hard on the pasta.
CRACK.
Mikey cries out and grabs his neck, forcing tears into his eyes.
Raph frantically grabs his shoulders, then both sides of his face as if trying to keep the weight off his neck. “Mikey! Shit, MIKEY!”
Mikey lets out a loud, sniveling, pitiful whimper, one he knows he makes when he’s in the type of bitter pain he can’t laugh away. His third eyelid closes; a defense mechanism.
Raph’s breath catches. His eyes are wide. “Shit, shit, fuck. Okay. Okay, you’re gonna be okay! I promise you’ll be okay!”
Mikey wills himself to start trembling all over, feigning shock. Keeping his eyes wide and sightless. “R-Raph, hurts, Raphie,” he sobs. Hot tears slide down his cheeks and he grabs Raph’s wrists. “Raphie—”
“LEO!” Raph yells at the top of his lungs in Mikey’s ear slit. Mikey’s flinch is real this time. Raph’s cry rattles through the sewers. “LEO! LEO IT’S AN EMERGENCY! DONNIE! DONNIE!”
Fast, ninja-light steps patter through the hallway, and Mikey barely has time to consider that maybe this isn’t a good prank anymore, before Leo bolts into the living room with his katanas poised. As soon as he sees Mikey, he drops them with a clatter and sprints across the room. Within two seconds, he’s behind Mikey and holding his arms. “What’s broken?”
With Leo here, Raph’s voice is starting to wobble and falter. “H-His neck. I-I think I broke his neck by accident, it was an accident I swear—”
“Focus, Raphael.”
“I told him to trust me!” Raph’s voice cracks.
Donnie sprints in from his lab. He hasn’t left it in two days, and his goggles are charred twice over but when he lifts them, his eyes are focused. “I’m here. What happened?”
“Mikey’s hurt!” Raph yells at Donnie grabs one of the many kits stashed around the lair and hurries over. “He asked me to crack his neck and I-I-I did.”
Donnie sets the kit on the couch, then leans in to peer at Mikey’s neck. His eyes narrow. “It doesn’t look broken.”
Raph looks at Donnie with barely contained fury, eyes burning. “Oh really, genius? It doesn’t look broken?! He’s crying his fucking eyes out, I heard it fucking snap!”
“Let’s get him on the couch.”
“No!” Donnie yells. “Do not move him. If it really is broken, you could cause permanent damage!”
Raph yells, hands shaking on Mikey’s neck. “Well what’re we supposed to do?!”
“Stay calm,” Leo says behind Mikey, voice measured. “We can carry him. Donnie, find a way to splint his neck so we can safely move him.”
Donnie hurries off.
Raph stares at his own hands in growing horror, still cupping Mikey’s face. His breath is coming faster. Mikey briefly wonders, when was the last time Raph had a panic attack?
From behind him, Leo says, “Raph.”
Raph’s shaking is getting worse.
“Raphael. Look at me.”
It takes several long seconds for Raph to look up, instead sending his panicked look at Leo above Mikey’s head. “Oniisan, I could’ve killed him.”
“Breathe with me. I need you to stay calm for Mikey.” Leo pauses. “And Donnie.”
From across the room, Donnie snaps, harsher than usual, “Donnie is fine, thank you very much.”
Leo takes a loud breath in, then out. Then he does it again. And again. Raph blinks hard, and Mikey thinks he sees a wet sheen over his eyes before he closes them and tries to breathe.
Man.
When Raph learns it’s a prank, Mikey’s gonna feel it for days.
As the silence drags on, Mikey finds himself copying Leo’s breathing too. It’s the same pattern as the meditation techniques they use together every morning. Clockwork.
Raph’s death grip on him loosens to something less painful and desperate. Donnie moves quieter too, less like he’s dropping everything he’s using.
Leo whispers, “You’re gonna be okay, little brother.”
Mikey’s not sure which one of them he’s talking to. But Raph nods, Donnie’s shoulders relax, and Mikey finds himself nodding too, the way he always does.
Shit.
Leo, Raph, and Donnie all freeze. Their narrowed gazes feel heavier than a pile of weighted blankets. It’s Raph who rasps like he’s been wrung through a workout on a bad day, “Mikey?”
“Uh.” He nervously laughs. “Dudes.”
Leo’s voice has gone colder than Donnie’s. Colder than it's been in a long time. “Michelangelo. Tell me this wasn’t a fucking prank.”
Leo cursing is bad. Code Red. Code-worse-than-red. But they still haven’t let go of him. Mikey swallows the pasta around the growing lump in his throat and whispers, bracing himself, “I-I um. Didn’t know it’d go so far.”
The room seems to hold its breath as Leo tentatively lets go of his neck. Raph doesn’t move until Leo pries his hands off.
Mikey stays frozen, standing between them but feeling lonelier than an island in the ocean.
“Turn your head from side to side.”
It’s a demand from their leader. Mikey obeys.
“I told you!” Donnie snaps, throwing whatever makeshift splint he was building to the ground. “I told you it didn’t look broken! Ha! I was right!”
“Mikey,” Raph says again, still looking like he’s about to have a breakdown. Exhausted; worn down by frayed nerves.
“I-I’m sorry, Raph.” Mikey blinks back real tears this time. “I’m so sorry, that was so stupid of me.”
Leo slaps the back of his head. Mikey barely feels it. “You’re damn right that was stupid!”
Raph drags Mikey forward into a tight hug, so hard their plastrons collide. Raph’s heart is beating violently enough that Mikey can feel the vibrations. Raph’s arm wraps tightly around Mikey’s shell, keeping him so close that Mikey can barely breathe. His other hand cradles the back of Mikey’s head over his short mask tails, face digging into his shoulder as he whispers, “I thought I— I almost—”
“I’m sorry!” It’s muffled by Raph’s shoulder. “I’m so so so sorry.”
“You’re okay? Honest?”
He nods, hugging him back. Savoring it before the anger kicks in.
Leo is still yelling, “You are in for the training of your life tomorrow, do you hear me? Don’t you ever—”
Over him, Donnie is yelling, “I told you he was fine! He always does this! What the hell, Mikey?”
“—I swear I am going to kick your shell into the next sewer system—”
“You guys never listen to me!”
“I don't care how bored you get, you’ll be doing kata all day, do you hear me?”
“He’s a child! He never grows up!”
Mikey’s tears hit Raph’s shoulder.
It brings Raph back enough to whisper, “I heard it. I swear I heard it, it was so loud. Am I crazy?”
“No, no dude, you’re not crazy.” Mikey pulls himself out of Raph’s arms and admits, “It was uncooked pasta. I bit down on it when you cracked my neck.”
Raph looks baffled. “Pasta?”
Michael rubs the back of his neck.
“Let me see.”
“I swallowed it, dude.”
Raph’s green eyes narrow. Then he grabs Mikey’s jaw and squeezes until his mouth opens wide, and peers inside. Leo looks too, leaning in. Whatever they find confirms Mikey’s words, because both their expressions turn furious at the same time, matching Donnie’s.
“Pasta,” Leo says incredulously and pinches the bridge of his nose. “Pasta.”
Raph’s fists clench and the rage in his eyes sparks to life. “I’m going to FUCKING KILL YOU!”
Mikey turns with a cry of fear, ready to sprint away. But Leo trips him on his way and he stumbles just enough for Raph to tackle him to the hard floor.