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"If this is it—"
Blood roars in his ears. His arm feels longer than it should be—heavier, squishier. There are muscles over his scales that shouldn't be there.
"—I just want you to know—"
Something drills further into his brain and Raph feels his throat tear apart from screaming into an endless void, desperate. Panicked cries are lost in inky darkness. He sees his face reflected on familiar eyes and it's a feral, rabid version of himself, violent and growling and wrong —
"— I'm sorry ."
The crack of bone reverberates at the end of his fingers and something— some one — goes limp in his hand.
(Dead dead dead dead, gone–)
LEO—
***
Raph snaps awake, a cry pulling from the base of his throat.
Nightmare.
He forces the air in and out. His cheeks are wet with tears, and his mouth tastes salty as he tries to settle his racing heartbeat. The air hiccups in his chest and he tries to make it even, less jumpy.
Dead, dead—
A shuddered sob rattles through him as his brain catches up with the memories, and he clamps his mouth shut to keep it from being too loud. His phone's screen reads 5:23 AM from over his nightstand, and the whole lair is flooded with a quiet rarely seen during the day. The plushie he had been sleeping with is lying alone on the floor, probably thrown off the bed by some tossing and turning he doesn't remember.
With a shaking hand, he picks up the toy and tucks it close to his chest, pressing it hard against his plastron in desperate need of comfort.
(Deep breaths, Raph. Deep breaths.)
One, two, three… He focuses on the wobbly way the air enters and exits his nostrils for a few minutes, willing his mind to stop reeling and settle down; to understand that there isn't any danger and that his body is just freaking out over nothing.
(One, two, three…)
The trembling doesn’t stop.
Raph sighs, his chest tightening in defeat—he needs a reset.
He gets up and walks to the bathroom as quietly as possible in the dark, not daring to turn on any lights that might disturb the members of his family still sleeping soundly in their rooms. Despite his large, heavy frame, he manages to slip throw the corridor almost soundlessly.
The light bulb turns on with a sudden flash and blurry memories rush into his head.
Something worms it's way out from inside his brain, ripping and tearing the soft tissue of his eyeball as his blood is flooded with buzzing, violent static—
The air flows through his nose and chest shakily as he grips the edges of the sink, trying to ground himself.
In and out, in and out—
You're fine.
He splashes cold water on his face and rubs his cheeks and snout roughly to clear his head.
It's been almost two months. You're all okay, they're gone, he’s not gonna hurt any of us ever again, they're gone—
He looks up as he turns off the faucet and finds himself staring straight into bright yellow eyes.
Kraang.
Raph jerks back violently, the tiles cracking underneath the force of his body hitting the wall. His entire senses are alert and blaring as he stares in frozen horror at the distorted reflection on the mirror.
It looks like him but wrong— half his face is fleshy and there's pink, squishy meat protruding all the way down his neck and arms. The Raph on the mirror is all sharp angles and razor teeth and cold bloodlust. A weapon for cruelty, for carnage — a tool for the Kraang.
His breath hitches and fastens, the room suddenly too small, the air too thin, the nightmares crawling at the corners of his mind—
There's a knock on the door.
“Raph? Everything okay in there?”
Leo.
The knob rattles slightly and Raph lunges towards it, putting all of his weight against the door to keep it shut.
“Yeah, all good!” He knows Leo is frowning on the other side, picking up on the nervous shakiness in his voice.
Easy, Raph. He takes a deep, wobbly breath. It's all in your head.
The reflection on the mirror grins at the thought, its yellow eye popping harshly against the darkness of his silhouette. The scar tissue around it makes it seem like a spider at the center of its webbed death trap.
That's right, turtle — the Raph in the mirror seems to shift something in its face to give him a predatory grin, sick delight in its voice— I'm in your head .
Raph feels bile rising at the back of his throat.
"Raph–"
“I’m fine, just—don't come in!”
(They put me here to make you better—stronger. I am a part of them that you'll never get rid off.)
"Shut up," he grunts to the air, his fist meeting his forehead with a hard thump. " Shut up ."
He hears it chuckle and hits his head again, claws digging slightly into the flesh around his blinded eye.
Shut up shut up shut up —
(Thump, thump, thump —)
Leo's voice sounds muffled from behind the door. “You're kind of freaking me out, man, are you sure you're—?”
“ I said I’m fine !"
Raph's growl is sharp, tense—anyone within a hundred mile radius can spot the anxiety clinging from every word.
It's a mistake. He's trying not to not worry him, but there's no way his younger brother hasn't noticed from that tone that something's not right with him —
The reflection on the mirror mocks him, enjoying the way his heart races and flips. He's losing his mind. Blood rushes in his tympana. The voice inside his head is stuck in a cruel, harsh loop.
(I had all of them at my mercy because they came for you. You made him throw his life away to save you— )
Raph growls at the memories piling up unbidden in his brain, the reminders of his failures, pained and angry and—
He snaps.
His fist slams against the mirror with a reverberating snarl, breaking into the concrete behind. The impact buzzes all the way from his knuckles to the bones in his shoulder, and glass shatters, sharp pieces raining on the floor like crashing rain that splits open the scales on his hand.
Raph's breathing is hard and heavy as he watches blood drip onto the white tiles.
...shit.
“Okay, that's it, I’m coming in.”
Leo's announcement snaps him out of his trance, and Raph hurriedly throws his weight on the door to block it. He mutters another curse as his bloodied hand slips on the wood, and reaches out for a spare towel to stop the bleeding, making sure his brother can’t get in through the door—
A blue portal pops up on the other side of the bathroom and Leo walks through before Raph can do anything else.
The slider eyes immediately land on the broken mirror and the blood on the floor. He traces the red spots all the way to his brother, who's uselessly trying to cover the wound, and his concerned frown immediately shifts to one of worry.
He's examining the injury before Raph can stop him. "What the hell?"
The older turtle clears his throat and tries to play it cool, but his voice shakes with nervousness. "It's nothing."
Leo scowls. "It doesn't look like nothing."
"I—" He tries not to flinch as cruel words echo inside his head. "It's— it was just a bad dream."
Leo gives him a look as he starts wrapping a bandage over his forearm, and Raph can tell that he doesn't believe a word he just said.
(Given the poor excuses he uses every time Raph asks about his sleepless nights or torn stitches, he assumes that like recognizes like.)
"Listen,” Leo breaks the silence after a moment, rubbing the back of his neck and avoiding Raph's gaze. He pauses for a moment, as if trying to find the right words for what he wants to say. "Whatever it is you're dealing with right now—and I know I’m not the most qualified person to talk about feelings and all that—, but if you…if you ever need someone to talk to, we’re here—“
Raph's eyes involuntarily fall to his younger brother's neck, and the knot in his throat tightens. Pieces of broken memories flare up in his head, the image of the ugly purple and black bruise that Leo had sported for weeks popping up in his mind.
Leo notices, and his expression softens. He clicks his tongue and presses a hand againts Raph's plastron,
"That wasn't you, Raph." His tone is steady, insistent. So sure of it. So sure of him.
Raph doesn't meet his eyes, and Leo repeats the words more emphatically, with crystal clear determination.
"It wasn't you. It was all them."
They still haven't told him.
He had tried to figure out what had happened in the terrible hours between having his mind scrambled by Kraang and snapping out of their control while choking Leo to death with his hand. He wants to know, because guilt and blame gnaw at his conscience like an unshakable parasite, echoes of " It's my job to keep them safe and I failed " and " they got injured, they almost died and I couldn't help it " haunting his moments of quiet.
He wants to know, because while Leo gives him a hug and a reminder that he is loved, that they're safe, he notices the way the slider's gaze lingers slightly to the scars over his eye.
(Raph hates admitting that, even two months later, part of him is terrified of knowing just how much damage he's done.)