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Something isn’t right.
He couldn’t—
Everything is—
He hurts.
That’s something that definitely registers. The pain. It’s lodged into his skull and drilling deeper, scratching down his spine to spread into the rest of his body.
Then it’s the cold.
It’s a chill that’s sunk beneath his skin and seeped into the gaps of his shell and plastron. It’s icy and stinging and it numbs his arms and legs. He thinks he twitches his fingers but it’s hard to tell. They’re numb and stiff and it hurts. He hurts. He hurts a lot.
Where is he?
It takes a tremendous amount of effort for him to pry his eyes open, squinting against the light that immediately stabs into the pain in his head. He huffs, breath hitching at the pain curling around his lungs, tries to breathe through the pounding agony.
Raph’s mouth tastes like metal.
The world refuses to come into focus, blurry and dark at the edges. The pain is settling into his stomach and fills him with nausea. Bile stings the back of his throat and Raph makes a tremendous effort to swallow it down. The pain roars back at him for it, squeezing the air from his chest and erupting starbursts in his eyes. The pounding in his head is crushing. Raph feels like he’s underneath the Turtle Tank, like the whole weight of it is pressing down on his skull and his head’s going to pop like a grape.
Imagining it makes the gorge rise in his stomach again. A whine, weak and strangled, slides out of him in a pitiful gasp.
It hurts so bad.
Raph just tries to breathe through the pain.
It’s hard. Every movement drives agony in deeper, splitting his head further, cracking his shell open, peeling layers of him apart. He’s cold and he’s hurt and he can’t—
Where is he?
What’s happening?
Why does it hurt so much?
How did he get here?
Where are his brothers?
Something turns the dial on the audio of the world and it filters into Raph’s muddy thoughts, watery and muffled. Everything is so indistinct and confusing.
His breathing is shallow, short, careful. Too deep a breath and it causes a lightning bolt to tear through him. But he has to breathe, he has to keep breathing. That’s important.
Raph blinks, tries to understand what he’s looking at.
Dark…and lights...shifting shapes...something shiny…
His gaze drifts to the shimmering pool in front of his snout. Was it there before? It’s not very big, but it’s darker than the ground and reflects the light. Is it moving? It looks like it’s moving.
Oh, maybe it’s getting bigger.
Where are his arms? What are they doing? Can he move them?
He feels like he should get up. He needs to get up. It’s...it’s important. Like breathing, it’s important. It’s urgent. He needs to...he needs to get up because...because…
Raph tries to drag his left arm around so he can get it underneath him and get up. The action feels like it takes far longer and far more effort than it should. His arm feels heavy and—and really long, jumbled and uncoordinated. It makes his head hurt so badly that he barely feels his knuckles scrape across the concrete.
Is that his hand? He doesn’t...it doesn’t really look like his hand? But…
Raph tells his fingers to twitch and the three on the hand in front of him spasm slightly.
Yeah, okay. That’s—that’s probably his hand. Yeah.
Okay, so, he has a hand and…
And…
Raph tires to think harder, to focus, and it sends his head spinning. The world lurches and his stomach twists, saliva pooling in his mouth as his bile threatens to rise again. Raph doesn’t try to swallow it this time, just lets it drool down his chin as he gasps for air.
It takes an eternity for his stomach to settle again.
The shiny pool beside him is bigger.
It’s so hard to focus. So hard to think.
He needs to get up. He has to because…
Where are his brothers?
How did he get here?
What were they doing?
There’s loud noises happening nearby. Raph can’t pinpoint from where because the world is a muddy swirl and his head hurts so, so bad.
His eyelids flutter closed. The darkness there is easier, nicer. The lights don’t stab him if his eyes are closed.
A rattling thud makes Raph peel his eyes open again.
Something’s there, just a few...just...a bit farther away from him. It’s moving around and maybe it’s a person? There’s arms and legs and—and they’re big. Very big. Maybe big as Raph. Maybe bigger. Hard to tell. The world is skewed, perspective isn’t right. It’s so hard to think.
Raph tries to move his other arm, tries to get himself up. He needs to get up. But trying to shift his shoulder is like trying to move a mountain and all he gets is a whimper of pain. The attempt spins things around, around, around, until Raph thinks he’s actually going to throw up this time.
“Still here, ey, lad?” The voice wobbles into the slurry of his mind, words barely holding meaning through the pounding in his skull, the pain radiating from his body, “Thought you lot were made of tougher stuff!”
There’s a mean cackle and every instinct is screaming at Raph to move, to get up. He has to move. Something dangerous is happening. Something dangerous already happened. There’s trouble and he can’t...he can’t…
“Then again, you did go all weak and wobbly once I sapped yer strength,” A large figure is blocking the lights. Raph tries to raise his head to look but it just drills the pain in deeper and he whimpers, “One blow to the head was enough tah drop ya’ after that.” That mean laugh again, the stench of cooking oil and sweat, and Raph hiccups, wincing at the pain as his struggles not to vomit, “Never had snapping turtle before...might be tasty…”
The shimmering puddle is bigger. It’s spreading around the person’s foot (hoof?).
It’s red.
Then a hand closes tightly on the back of his neck and Raph whites out for a second at the sheer agony that rips through him. The grip on his neck is crushing and Raph is hurting so, so much. He wants to scream but he can’t move, can’t make a sound. He’s trapped in the cage of his body and the bars are made of pain.
“DON’T YOU DARE TOUCH HIM!”
Something jostles the world and the hand on Raph’s neck relinquishes. He chokes on the release, huffing shallow breaths through the dizziness and nausea. His vision is unfocused again, blurry shapes flashing through shadows and lights, and watching them makes his head hurt more. So he squeezes his eyes shut and just tries to remember how his lungs work.
“Ha! Not much without yer bruiser, are ya’?” A taunting, mean laugh and the ringing crash of metal on metal shiver through Raph’s head, vibrating in his skull and rattling his teeth no matter how tightly he clenches his jaw, “You brats never learn!” Another tremendous crash and Raph struggles to focus because...because...it’s so important, he needs to focus because…
“I’m gonna enjoy cooking you up, boy,” Growls that ugly, slimy voice and then—
Tendrils sliding over his scales, squirming, crawling flesh—
—caress his cheek, cradle his skull, curl into his eye sockets—
—digging and clutching, burrowing, pulling—
Raph doesn’t know if he makes a noise. If he does, it would be a wretched thing of despair and disgust and horror. It’s a scream for help he cannot make because his lungs are spasming in panic and the pain is nothing compared to the sheer, raw, electric terror that’s ripping through him.
Not again, not again, never again, he needs to run, he needs his brothers, have to get away! Move, he orders his body, screaming at the useless meat of his quivering muscles, the heaving of his aching chest. Move! Move now! Fight back! Don’t let them take you! Please, not again, not again, he needs to be stronger! He’s supposed to be stronger! He’s supposed to protect them! He—
A sharp squeal drills into aching head and Raph stutters for a second. A muddied confusion of pain and fear smudges senses into formless blurs.
The touch is gone. The pain is still there.
The cold is being shadowed by warmth. Broken up in discordant patterns that Raph can’t put together until he manages to peel his eyes open.
The light still hurts a lot. He squints through it, blinking slowly until he registers the blockade of limbs around him. In front of him.
Legs?
One of them has a heel in the shiny red that’s definitely been smeared and splattered further across the ground.
“Touch one of my brothers ever again,” Snarls a familiar voice, unwavering and angry and promising vengeance, “And you’ll lose more than a limb, Meat Sweats.”
Someone hisses, territorial and thick with threats. It’s a feral and vicious sound, a curse and an oath. It shivers like a rattler’s tail in the chilled air, all bared fangs and bloodlust. Raph finds it comforting.
Tension presses its weight down, movement of the universe paused to make room for what will happen next. Raph tries to take a breath but his throat doesn’t want to and his sinuses burn when he sniffs through his nose. The smell blood is so thick it nearly blots out the comforting scents of his brothers.
“You ain’t worth the struggle,” Meat Sweats grumbles and then he must leave because the stress bleeds out of the air and the muscles in his brothers’ legs relax.
“Raphie!” Leo’s a blue-green-red smear that Raph is struggling to bring into focus. Wasn’t he just standing? Now he’s leaning over Raph, “Hey! Hey, big guy, I need you to keep your eyes on me! Look at me, Raphie, come on!”
It’s so hard to keep his vision focused though. It hurts and Raph’s tired.
He tries to say this, but nothing is working right and his tongue is thick and his mouth tastes like metal.
“Leo, that’s a lot of blood…” Mikey sounds scared. Raph wants to hug him. He tries to move, to reach out for a hug, but his arm just twitches. It shoots a lance of pain through him and he whines.
“I know, Mike, I know, it’s okay, head wounds bleed a lot,” Leo sounds so mature. Raph tries to compliment him on it, on how sturdy and calm he sounds even though there’s fear in the air around him. It loses meaning somewhere between his brain and his moth and he’s not sure what comes out.
“We need to get him back to the lair, pronto,” Donnie, clipped and nervous, uncomfortable, frightened but holding it together, “Not detecting any spinal injuries; should be safe to move.”
“Stop trying to move and talk, will you, Raph?” The hands on him are almost burning hot, cupping his face, thumbing around his eyes. Raph wrinkles his snout and tries to pull away because he hurts and he’s tired and he’s cold and he just wants to rest, “Yeah, definitely a concussion. No long walk home, we’re portaling straight to the med bay. Can you guys get Raph up?”
Raph lolls between awareness and the siren song of sleepy darkness. The threat is gone and he hurts so much. He just wants it to stop.
A whine drags out of him when he’s jostled.
Is he moving? Raph doesn’t remember telling himself to move. But he’s definitely moving...up? He’s up? Is he standing?
There’s warmth pressed against him, under his arms and against his sides. Rising sends his head spinning and he gasps at the agony writhing through his bones.
“Sorry, sorry!” Mikey’s voice is really close, worried, “It’s okay, Raphie, we’ll be home in a sec! Leo said you’re going to be fine!”
Meat Sweats! They’d been fighting him! And he…
He was…
They were…
He’s moving against and it ratchets the pain up to a new degree, erupting acidic fire from his skull that eats his bones away until there’s nothing left but the agony. The nausea spins in his stomach and this time it refuses to be contained.
Raph thinks he lurches in a direction that might be forward. The bile is hot and burning and it stings fiercely as he throws up. The retching coughs and heaves pound into his head, stirring the pot all over again. He can’t tell what’s happening anymore, can’t tell up from down, only feel the pain and the stinging and the desperate gasps for air.
He just wants it all to stop, please, please stop.
The air is cold.
He hurts so much.
Somewhere between the pain and the bright flash of blue, Raph gives up.
The quiet darkness welcomes him with open arms.
Nothing hurts after that.
It’s the smell that wakes him.
That particularly cold, clinic, medicine bite that punches straight to the back of his nose.
Raph doesn’t like the med bay.
So he opens his eyes because he doesn’t remember why he’s in the one place in the lair that makes him so uncomfortable.
He has to blink a couple of times to get the ceiling to come into focus. The room is dim, the only light coming from somewhere off to the side. Raph’s vaguely aware of pressure somewhere, of a very distant ache that refuses to be pinned down, of the softness of the bed and blankets. He feels like he’s floating a little to the left of his body.
Dragging a breath into his lungs, he wonders why he expected it to hurt.
Did he get hurt?
Did someone else get hurt?
Is that why he’s in the med bay?
Where is everyone?
Are they safe?
Raph tries to lift his head but the effort required to do so is more than he can muster. It drags a low frequency rumble of frustration and worry out of him. Why is he here? What happened? Where are his brothers?
The rumble creeps into a whine. Tumbles into a plaintive chirp, calling for his family.
Something stirs and there’s a sleepy, answering peep. Raph rumbles out his worry again. A yawn answers instead and then—
“Raph! You’re awake!” Mikey is suddenly there, a wide smile filled with relief and eyes bright with a tearful threat, “Are you okay? Are you feeling better? Leo! Hey, hey, Leo! Raph woke up!”
A snort and then a flutter of movement. Leo pushes Mikey out of the way and Raph huffs at him. Leo just laughs, “Yeah, yeah, hey, big, guy, you feeling better? Lemme see, hold still a sec…” He shines a light in Raph’s eyes and Raph flinches away from it because it’s bright and it stings a little, “Yeah, I know, sorry, I just had to check. Kinda scared us back there…”
“Raph’s s’rry…” His voice is rough and mumbled and his words don’t want to work right, but Leo looks releaved to hear him talk.
“’S all right, Raph, just...never seen you drop like that, heh...like a big ol’ sack of potatoes…” He’s trying to joke but it falls so atrociously flat of Leo’s usual banter and wit that it almost hurts. Raph frowns and snuffles at Leo, dragging his arms up with a considerable amount of effort to wrap them around his brother.
“Sorry,” He grunts, “Th’nks...fer lookin’ aft’r Raph…”
“Well somebody’s gotta stop you from stealing the hero spotlight all the time,” Leo says and Raph can hear the undercurrent of things left unsaid. But he knows what Leo means and he squeezes Leo just a little tighter when Leo hugs him back.
“Hey! I wanna hug too!” Mikey protests and squirms his way under Raph’s arm to join in the hug. Raph chuckles and nuzzles the top of Mikey’s head, making his littlest brother squirm and giggle. It still feels like it takes a lot of effort to move and Raph is quickly growing tired, but the warmth of his brothers against him is softer than any blanket could ever be. He just wonders where—
The med bay door is opened and Raph can tell by the cadence of the footsteps that Donnie has shown up.
Sure enough, there’s a pause and then an annoyed huff, “Oh, so, were we just not going to invite me to the turtle pile, hm?”
“Shoulda camped in the med bay, Dee,” Leo replies, waving a hand at Donnie who is still out of Raph’s line of sight, “Your loss.”
Raph grumbles at Leo and drags Leo off to one side, making Leo whine about being dislodged. Mikey immediately attempts to monopolize the space but Donnie moves faster and climbs onto the bed to flop himself pointedly onto Raph’s plastron and burrow under the blankets. Mikey kicks at Donnie and Donnie snaps his teeth, kicking him back.
This will go on for hours if Raph doesn’t put a stop to it now.
He yawns loudly, gathers them all in his arms, and makes a move like he’s about to roll over.
There are immediate shrieks of “No! Raph, wait!” “Raph, don’t!” “No, no, no!” “We’ll be good!”. Raph settles down again with a smug smile on his face.
He’s exhausted and the pressure in his head is starting to hurt. He wants to go back to sleep and he wants it to be quiet.
There’s a bit more whispering, some back and forth and quiet giggling, before things grow still. Leo has an arm thrown over Raph’s collar, just above his plastron, the edge of his hand against the pulse point of Raph’s neck. Donnie is, somewhat uncharacteristically, taking point on Raph’s chest, sprawled over Raph with his head against Raph’s heart and his arms spread out so he can touch both his other siblings. Mikey presses himself into Raph’s side, clutching Raph’s arm to him like a beloved plushie, nuzzled into the crook of Raph’s elbow.
Raph lays there with his eyes closed, listening to them breathe softly into the quiet. He feels them, warm and alive, protectively surrounding him, and it’s so safe. It’s safe and comforting and so very right.
He sleeps peacefully, because his brothers are here.
Even if he hurts, he knows, without a doubt, that his brothers are here and he is always safe with them.
To be anything else would make the world wrong.