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“Maybe he’s afraid of the dark?”
“No, that’s your fear, Mikey.”
“Hey! I’m not afraid of the dark! I just know what kinds of things lurk in it, that’s all.”
“We’re ninjas, Michelangelo; the shadows are our domain.”
“Yeah, along with every monster that’s ever tried to eat us!”
The three voices carried easily through the echoing brick caverns of their lair. Casey had no problem following them to the tv area, where he found three of the four turtle brothers sat around the sofa, a monster flick forgotten on the wall of screens.
Casey leant across the back of the faded blue couch. “What’re you guys talking about?”
It was a mark of their training that none of the turtles jumped or showed any kind of surprise at his entry. These guys were notoriously hard to sneak up on. They probably clocked him from halfway across the lair. Darn ninjas!
“We’re trying to figure out what Raph’s afraid of,” Don answered, in that mild mannered way of his that sounded more like he was gathering scientific data than gossiping about his absent brother.
Casey raised a baffled brow. “Ain’t that obvious? Raphie’s scared of bugs.”
But the three turtles shook their heads.
“That’s what he wants you to think,” Mikey pointed out.
That… made no sense. “Wha’?”
“Entomophobia, or a fear of bugs and other creepy crawly insects, is a convenient excuse,” Donnie explained. “It’s a widely held fear, and therefore generally accepted by society at large without harming his tough-guy image too badly.”
It took Casey a moment to process the brainy turtle’s infodump, but he got there in the end. It was the kind of language April tended to spout, so hanging out with his girlfriend meant he was getting better at translating geek.
“But,” Casey disagreed, “Raph hates bugs.”
“No one’s arguing that point,” Leo said, simply. “But ‘hatred’ and ‘fear’, while often intertwined, are not the same thing.”
Their human friend rolled that statement over in his mind as well. The amount of times Raph had freaked out over a bug in his general vicinity was more times than his brothers had fingers to count on. Combined.
There was that time he’d broken a load of April’s expensive antiques because there was a fly in his face. Then there was that time he’d declared war on a whole nest of giant alien hornets. And no one could forget how much he’d despised fighting the mutant roaches and ticks after Bishop accidentally contaminated the city.
There was no doubt about it: Raphael hated bugs. But now that his brothers mentioned it, Casey couldn’t actually think of a time when he’d seen Raphael genuinely scared of bugs. Grossed out and annoyed by them, sure. But actually afraid of them? Not so much.
Casey wasn’t sure what the point was. “So, Raph ain’t as creeped out by bugs as he lets on. Big deal. Why’re you guys trying to figure out what he is scared of, anyway? Maybe he’s not afraid of nothing.”
“Everyone’s afraid of something, Casey.” Leo raised a hand to his chest. “I’m still not completely comfortable with heights. Mikey’s scared of the dark-”
“Excuse me!” the turtle in question interrupted, pretending to clutch at an imaginary pearl necklace around his throat, “I’m scared of the things that come out of the dark. There’s a big difference! And it’s a perfectly rational fear, too.”
“I’m scared of time travel paradoxes,” Donnie volunteered, meekly. “I never thought it was something I’d have to be concerned with, but with everything else we’ve been through…”
Leo put a reassuring hand on his sibling’s shoulder and deliberately steered the conversation back to less poignant subjects. “We’re not just talking about Raph behind his back-”
“I am,” Mikey jumped in, with a cheeky grin and a wink.
“-The point is we’ve all got fears. And it’s important to recognise those fears so that they don’t hinder us on the battlefield.”
Leo had a good point. But that just brought them back to the original question.
“So, then, what’s Raph afraid of?”
“Nothin’.”
The familiar broad accent from the exit to the garage brought everyone’s attention round guiltily. Casey had known Raph long enough now to spot the tense pinch of his brow when the turtle was genuinely hurt, but trying not to show it.
His brothers were just as perceptive.
“Raph,” Predictably, it was Donnie that jumped in to smooth things over, “We didn’t mean-”
His brother cut him off sharply. “I know what ya meant! I’m not deaf. I heard ya: all of ya.”
A shamefaced silence met his outburst. Don shrank inwards slightly, and Mikey scuffed the ground with his foot. Leo’s beak twisted into a guilty grimace, but he tried to reach out anyway.
“Everyone’s got fears, Raph. We were just-”
“Well, not me! I’m telling ya: I ain’t afraid of nothin’! So, get that through your thick skulls!”
Raphael whirled angrily and stormed towards the exit of the lair. Casey was the only one who tried to follow him.
“Woah, Raph! Slow down, bud.”
If Raphael had indeed heard their whole conversation, then hopefully he also heard that Casey had defended him, somewhat. Or, at the very least, he’d be more receptive to his best friend than his brothers.
Evidently not.
“Save it!” the hothead snapped, roughly shrugging off the hand that was placed on his shoulder. “You’ve all said enough!”
No one tried to stop him as he left.
Raphael was fuming.
It was no secret that he was a hothead, and that just about everything ticked him off, from gang wars to social injustice to Mikey taking the last pudding cup. When he was a young child, his father had tried to quell Raphael’s anger. That had only made things worse. Much worse.
Splinter had quickly learnt to redirect his son’s anger in less destructive ways - from collecting broken plates for him to smash out in the tunnels when he needed to let off steam, to channelling that fire into good things like his ninjutsu training. The old rat had been struck with inspiration when he happened to glance in the window of a boxing gym one day on the surface. It had taken time to scrounge together enough scraps of leather to construct their very first homemade punching bag, but it was definitely worth it for the amount of use little Raphael had gotten out of it.
As he grew and matured, Raph had found other outlets that helped him, like fixing up his bike and learning how to knit. And normally, they were enough.
But sometimes, his fuse just burned down too far. And then no amount of redirection or relaxation would prevent the inevitable ignition.
He could hardly be blamed for his anger this time. His bros and Casey knew better than to gossip about him! Or, at least, he thought they did. The betrayal stung deep. How dare they talk about him behind his shell like that?!
Sure, they’d lived the first 15 years of their lives stuck in a boarded off chamber of the sewers that was barely bigger than a standard NYC apartment, so privacy hadn’t really been a thing growing up. And sure, they all – Raph included – talked about one another when the others weren’t there. Call it sibling gossip, call it social development delay thanks to only having each other and their dad for company for so long, or whatever.
But this? Gossiping about what he was ‘scared’ of, like he was some kind of wimp?
It hurt, ok??
Raphael had spent years building up his ‘tough guy’ image. He was the Strong One. The Brave One. He was the one that didn’t back down from a fight, didn’t flinch in the face of danger, didn’t cower away from evil.
He wasn’t afraid of anything.
…
…
…At least, not anything he was willing to admit.
Raphael growled as he leapt over another ledge, landing heavily on the next rooftop. Going for a run topside wasn’t necessarily his first choice to burn off some steam. He normally preferred to take his anger out on his punching bag, or some street thugs, if he happened to find any. Purple Dragons, Foot ninjas, mafia goons, even regular muggers and lowlifes – they were all the same to him: no good trash that deserved to meet the broad side of his fists for the things they did to innocent people.
But Raph had yet to find any scumbags since he’d stormed out of the lair. New York City was unusually quiet tonight, and standing around waiting for trouble to find him was not Raphael’s modus operandi. So, in lieu of creeps to beat up, he’d opted to take his temper out in a run, instead.
Raph wasn’t a stranger to going out alone. None of the brothers were. But Raph was probably the most frequent visitor to the surface. He couldn’t help it – the lair just felt so suffocating sometimes. He needed to breathe!
A small part of him regretted shirking Casey off. That bonehead was normally good for taking Raph’s mind off his woes, even if it was generally by exchanging casual insults. At least Casey tended to understand Raph’s need to bust some heads when he was in a mood.
But Casey had also been engaging in the gossip about what Raph was scared of, and that hurt Raphael more than he was willing to admit. Out of everyone, he thought his best friend understood him! Evidently not…
Raphael was so caught up in the stew of his own thoughts that he almost missed the flash of steel in the alleyway below. It was his instincts more than anything else that pulled him up short, arms windmilling out to counterbalance his hasty brake. He stopped just shy of the lip of the roof, his mind plummeting sickeningly into his stomach as the jump it had been expecting was aborted at the last second, and he threw himself back onto solid concrete.
A second ticked by. Another. And another. His heart beat twice as fast. Was it his instincts screaming ‘danger!’, or just the lingering adrenaline pulsing through his veins? No shouts rose from below; no weapons clipped the air above his head. Raph risked a peek over the edge of the building.
The shadows moved in the alleyway below. Donnie had once explained that, thanks to their turtle biology, the brothers actually had much better low-light vision than humans. It was something to do with the need to catch prey and spot predators in murky water, or something like that. Raph kinda tuned out halfway through, to be honest. Though, it had been fun getting to test out Don’s theory against Casey’s own night vision.
Raph still smirked at the memory of his best friend faceplanting over Mikey’s skateboard in the dark.
But there was no time for jokes now. Raph’s excellent sight easily picked out the three figures crouched in the alley’s shadows, despite their almost completely black attire:
Foot ninjas.
If he had hackles, they would have stood on end. Raph hated these punks! Oh sure, he hated Purple Dragons and mobsters and all other kinds of lowlifes, too. But the Foot really made his blood boil.
The Foot had trashed April’s shop and apartment. The Foot had brainwashed Casey. The Foot had killed Splinter’s Master Yoshi. The Foot had beaten Raph and his brothers black and blue. The Foot had destroyed their last lair. And the Foot had almost murdered Leo, chasing him all across the city before hurling his broken body through the window as a sick message to his family.
The Shredder was gone – exiled to the cold vacuum of space. And good riddance, too! But his organisation still remained. And as long as there were still Foot on the streets, New York City would never be safe for the little mutant family.
The fire in Raph’s gut flared in anticipation. Finally, an outlet for his rage! He was only sorry there weren’t more goons down there. Just three was hardly enough to break a sweat. Oh, well. Foot ninjas tended to behave like ants; where you found a few, there were bound to be more nearby. And if there weren’t, well, maybe he could scrounge up some other heads to bust afterwards.
Raph would worry about that later. Right now, he cast another trained eye over the alleyway below.
Three dirtbags. The devices on their chests told him they were Foot Tech Ninja: cloaking cowards! But their disguises weren’t activated, so they must not know he was watching them. Raph was torn.
“Don’t be an idiot, Raphael,” he could practically hear Leo’s lecturing tone on his shoulder. “Dispatch them quickly, before they have a chance to strike or hide.”
“Bor-ing!” Mikey’s sing-song voice countered from his other shoulder. “Where’s the fun in that? You came out here to let off some steam, didn’t ‘cha? Well, there’s your kettle, bro!”
“That metaphor doesn’t even make sense,” Don’s burning curiosity hovered overhead, somewhere in between. “You need more data before you can make the call. What are the Foot even doing here, anyway?”
“Sheesh, can’t even go out on my own without you guys sticking your beaks into my business!” Raph grumbled to himself.
He sized up the enemy ninjas once more. Still just the three of them. Raph was itching for a fight. And planning had never been his strong suit. He much preferred to make decisions on the fly.
That settled it. Get in the back seat, Stealth and Observation: Action was taking the wheel!
Raph leapt from the rooftop like a diving hawk, his sai like outstretched talons ready to strike. His target looked up just in time to take the full brunt of 170 lbs of muscle and shell. The guy crumpled like an empty paper bag.
One down, two left.
The element of surprise was gone. That was ok; Raph was looking forward to a real fight at last!
With blades drawn, the other two came at him. Raph was already in motion, juking and dodging to get an opening for his own weapons. He caught one sword in the prongs of his sai, but before he could twist it out of his opponent’s grip, the other one was on him. Metal clashed against metal as he deflected the steel coming at him.
“Do not-”
The near miss only stoked Raph’s fire hotter. He twirled his sai in his hands, regripping them tight, before he flew at the swordsmen. Katanas met his jabs and slashes in a familiar dance that got right under his skin. He could have sworn he saw a flash of blue in the corner of his eyes. With a snarl, Raph pushed back harder.
“My son-”
Something caught his ankle, nearly sending him sprawling. It was only muscle memory that saved him, turning his lurch into a forward roll that had him springing back onto his feet in the next motion. But when he whirled to see what had tripped him, there was nothing there…?
No time to dwell on it. The swordsmen were back. Raph leapt at them with a feral growl, sai flipped to strike with the handles. Cold metal links snapped around his arm and yanked him back. Pain exploded through his skull as something blunt and solid cracked him round the head. A cackle echoed through his ears…
“Raphael-”
He staggered back, somehow keeping his footing, only to feel a pole driven into the backs of his knees. He went down with a shout. He smelt solder and fried electronics. The pavement rushed up to meet him, far too quickly for Raph to react. His chin smacked jarringly against the ground. Light burst behind his eyes.
“Raphael, you must-”
The floor of the lair was beneath his fingertips. Not their current lair, or even the one before that. This was their childhood home, the place he and his bros had spent the first 15 years of their lives.
He was… home?
“Raphael.” His Sensei’s voice competed with the ringing in his ears. “Your sai are better suited for defence than for outright attack.”
The brick was rough beneath his fingertips. Damp filled his nostrils. The snickers of his 12-year-old brothers only brought more heat to Raph’s face. He heard them cut off quickly – likely a warning look from Splinter – but the damage was done.
Shame evolved into anger almost seamlessly. His eyes stung with fiercely supressed emotion that he quickly turned into a growl. But his voice cracked, prompting a few more snickers from the peanut gallery. Embarrassment and rage caught in Raph’s throat.
“Enough!” Master Splinter snapped at the other three, before his voice softened as it turned back to him. “Try again, Raphael.”
His pride hurt more than the bruise on his leg that had sent him to the floor in the first place. As much as Raph wanted to defiantly scowl at his brothers, he couldn’t tear his eyes off the ground as he hauled himself to his feet. He heard the others shift into position once more and gripped his sai so hard his knuckles paled.
Mikey came at him first with his training ‘chucks. Even though he had the most self-inflicted bruises of any of them, Mikey’s confidence had been bolstered by the rapid progress he’d made since getting his weapons. He’d even outstripped star pupil Leonardo in that regard (much to Leo’s poorly concealed envy). Something about the complex, whirling implements just seemed to click with Mikey’s hyperactive brain.
Raph snarled and jabbed his blunt sai at his brother’s spinning nunchucks. The prongs caught around the chain of one, tangling them up and ripping them out of Mikey’s hold, making the handles slap painfully against Raph’s arm. Michelangelo didn’t hesitate as he used the distraction to bring his other nunchaku round to clock his brother upside the head.
“Ow!” Raph couldn’t stop the yelp.
“Too slow, Raphie Boy!” Mikey jeered.
Before he could snap back, there was a sharp crack across the back of his shell that threw Raph off balance. He staggered, catching himself just in time. Donnie’s light bō swung back into his field of vision, and Raph instinctively raised his elbow to meet it.
“Block with your weapons, not your body,” Sensei instructed.
Raph was trying; he really was! But his brothers weren’t giving him time to react! How was that fair? They hadn’t even waited for Master Splinter to say ‘go’ before ganging up on him!
A wooden sword caught in the links of his brother’s nunchucks still interlocked with Raph’s sai, and with a sharp twist both weapons were wrenched from his grasp. Before Raph could react, a hilt slammed into his chest, and he was flat on his shell with a dull point at his throat.
“Well done, Leonardo,” Splinter commended, as Raph’s brother relaxed his stance and withdrew his training weapon. “Raphael, by going straight for the offense, you left yourself wide open to your brothers’ attacks. You must learn patience, my son.”
Leo’s cocky smirk was the final straw. Raph’s blood boiled.
In a blink, he had kicked off the floor and hurled himself into Leo, throwing them both to the hard ground. Shell knocked against brick with a hollow crack. The dull thuds of fists against flesh followed in quick succession. Everything blurred.
All at once there were strong claws hauling him away from his brother. The shouts of the others filtered back in. Leo’s glare was sharper than his training sword as he wiped blood off his split lip.
“Raphael!” Splinter’s rebuke pressed into the fresh bruises darkening Raph’s scales. His brothers’ eyes only rubbed salt into the wounds as they helped Leo to his feet.
Not Raph. Never Raph.
He was the black sheep. The bad egg. The thorn in his family’s side.
He tuned out as his father scolded him, going on and on about honour and discipline and why he couldn’t do things like that and blah blah blah.
It wasn’t fair! They were always picking on him. Always! How come his brothers all had offensive weapons, while he was stuck playing defence? They didn’t understand. They didn’t care! They started it!
They mocked him then, and they were mocking him now!
A steel blade chopped the air as it flew towards his head. Raphael rolled aside just in time to avoid having his skull cleaved in two. The movement chained naturally as he got his legs under him and sprang back to his feet, back to the fray.
The old lair was gone again, replaced with the backdrop of dark streets and sharp reality once more. But the bonfire inside Raphael blazed.
Metal clanged against metal as he locked his enemies’ katana between the prongs of his sai, twisting them with a jerk sharp enough to snap their wrists. The air around him moved, and Raph had dropped into a crouch without thinking. He heard something whip overhead, but he didn’t see anything.
Cloaking technology. He’d fought these guys before; he should have expected it. Of course there were more Foot waiting in hiding for him to spring the trap! Too bad for them that they’d caught Raphael Splinterson on a bad day.
He’d come a long way since Splinter had first started to teach his sons ninjutsu. Fighting an opponent you couldn’t see was just another of their lessons. Some small part of Raph recognised that fighting his brothers 3 on 1 in a safe, controlled setting had prepared him for the realities of a real, life or death battle where his opponents didn’t fight fair. But that rational voice couldn’t compete with the volume of his own anger.
They-
-Were
Coming-
-At
Him-
-Faster
Than-
-He
Could-
-Think!
“Everyone’s afraid of something…”
He was back in their childhood home, training against his brothers. He was out on the streets, fighting enemies that wouldn’t hesitate to strike a fatal blow. The lines between past and present blurred into a red haze, the edges merging and pooling in a nauseating dance. He was there; he was here. He was fighting his brothers; he was fighting the Foot. He was safe; he was in danger.
“… figure out what Raph’s afraid of…”
He hacked and slashed, jammed and slammed into the enemy with all his might. Cloaking tech didn’t stand a chance against his onslaught. A bō wielder and another Foot Tech Ninja equipped with nunchucks were forced out into the open. Raph could have sworn that purple and orange replaced black for a split second. He tried to shake the fog away, but red still lingered around the edges, bleeding inwards, bleeding out.
“Ain’t that obvious? Raphie’s scared of…”
He threw himself at his foes, at the fight, at the voices echoing through the alleyways of his mind. Shut up! Shut up shut up shut up! They didn’t know what they were talking about! A window smashed, glass laughing at him as it clattered onto the pavement, the tinkling morphing effortlessly into his brothers’ snickers.
“Raph’s scared of…”
Shut. UP!!!
With a guttural roar, Raph slammed his opponent into the brick wall. The guy’s head crunched as it bounced off the solid building, but Raph was on him before he got a chance to crumple to the floor. One hand pinned the ninja like a dead moth; the other white-knuckled his sai. Talons swept in to skewer flesh.
A flash.
Once again, it was instinct more than anything else that stopped Raphael’s hand. He was so highly trained that the smallest thing caught his eye. Even a tiny flash of light was enough to push past the haze of red that he’d been so willingly swallowed up in.
His gaze flicked up, muscles tense to repel another assailant...
And he froze.
It wasn’t steel that caught his eye. Not a blade, or a shuriken, or a pipe. Nothing but the broken window, the shards of glass perfectly positioned to reflect the light from the streetlamp on the corner.
But it was what Raph saw in the glass that doused his fire in ice water.
The glass was angled to frame him, and only him. His face was darkened by more than shadows. He saw his wild eyes, the flecks of blood spattered on his scales, the tightness of his coiled muscles beneath emerald scales.
And the wicked middle spike of his sai.
…Except, it wasn’t just one spike anymore. The way he was standing, framed by the window with the sharp, straight cracks running through it, made it look like Raph had three long, straight middle spikes emerging from his hand.
Three long, straight, vicious spikes protruding from his hand, almost as if they originated at his wrist instead of in his palm.
Three long, straight, evil spikes…
… just like the Shredder’s gauntlet.
Memories flooded back to him in an icy torrent. Throwing Leo to the floor, exchanging punches as his brain roared blindly. Pinning Mikey down, a lead pipe raised above his head to cave his brother’s skull in. That night, at the Volpehart building. Himself, in the Shredder’s armour. The evil laugh coming out his own lips.
The sickening feeling of dread as he lost control…
No! No, he didn’t want that! That wasn’t him! It wasn’t! It wasn’t!!!
Raph staggered back with a strangled gasp. His sai clattered to the ground like a gunshot. His hands shook uncontrollably. Air punched from his lungs in rapid, shallow breaths. His stomach lurched.
He shook. He trembled. What had he become? What was he about to do?
Was…was he really just about to…? He could’ve… He would’ve…
The Foot… His brothers… The visions that swam and collided like debris in the murky floodwaters of his memory.
Who was he even fighting, anymore?
…It didn’t matter. He’d come this close to putting his sai through someone’s skull.
It could have been one of his bros.
Raph turned and ran. He didn’t stop running until he reached a dead end. Able to go no further, he sank to his knees on the rooftop and retched.
It was a cold, broken Raphael that Casey found on that windswept rooftop.
For a moment he feared the worst. Raph was just sat there, unmoving and nonresponsive. His scales were like ice when Casey touched him, and he didn’t react to his best friend’s frantic voice. But he was breathing, his heart was beating, his eyes were blinking. His mind had fled to parts unknown, but his body was still with them, at least.
Casey released a breath he didn’t know he’d been holding as he fished out his cell phone. It connected on the first ring. “Hey, fellas? I found him.” The relief was palpable down the line. Casey kept his eyes on Raph as he spoke, but the turtle didn’t return his gaze. “Yeah, no, he’s ok. Little banged up but doesn’t look like anything serious.”
There was something about Raphael’s stiff, empty posture that set off a hollow twinge deep inside Casey’s gut. It wasn’t a feeling he was used to having around his best friend, but it wasn’t new, either. A heaviness curled around his chest.
“Nah, don’t come. I’ll get him home. Yeah, see ya soon.”
Casey hung up and tucked his phone back into his pocket. Raph didn’t make any move to indicate that he’d heard or even registered the vigilante next to him. Casey sighed. Slowly, he drew his arms out of his jacket and draped the warm coat over Raphael’s frozen shoulders. The turtle didn’t even reach up to clutch at the fabric.
Carefully, Casey eased himself down onto the cold rooftop (choosing to sit on the other side to the puddle of bile at Raph’s feet. Another clue). Every movement was slow and choregraphed, like he was trying not to startle a panicked animal.
The city carried on below them. Roaring traffic blended with the rustling breeze, bringing the odours of vehicle exhausts and filthy streets up to their rooftop. It was so everyday that they only noticed it when they purposefully tuned in. Or when they stopped long enough to tune everything else out.
Casey laid Raph’s sai down at the turtle’s feet. “Found this,” he said, for want of anything better to say. It was a lame way to start a conversation, but nothing else felt right.
The silence stretched on for another long, loaded moment.
Casey exhaled, heavily. He knew what he had to do. “Listen, man… I’m sorry. Me and the guys – we didn’t mean anything by all that, y’ know? But we shouldn’t ‘a talked about you behind your back like that, either. It was wrong. We’ve all been out looking for ya, to apologise and-”
“…I hurt them…”
The gravelly murmur was like a gunshot on the noiseless rooftop. Casey’s eyes snapped to Raphael’s face. The turtle still didn’t meet his gaze or even acknowledge that he’d cut Casey off midsentence.
He’d last heard Raph’s voice when his best friend stormed out of the lair hours ago. Casey certainly wasn’t expecting the hushed exhale - almost more whisper than words - that broke the still air. Had he imagined it? The turtle’s eyes still looked glassy and distant, and he hadn’t moved from the position Casey had found him in.
“Raph?” he asked, hesitantly.
“…I hurt them.” Raph repeated quietly. His voice sounded hoarse, like he’d been screaming, and his eyes didn’t lift to meet Casey’s. But his muscles sagged ever so slightly, as if his spirit had climbed back into his body, and Casey knew the turtle was with him again.
Hearing him talk should have been a relief. It should have been confirmation that he was ok, at least physically if nothing else. But Casey’s gut only tightened sharply. Raph’s words were so hollow that they rang through his head like a dire bell.
“What’re you talkin’ about, Raph? Those no-good Foot punks?” Casey had seen the aftermath of the battle when he’d found Raph’s sai. His friend had never been bothered about beating up bad guys, before. But who else could he mean? “They had it coming. Should ‘a known what they were signing up for when they joined the Foot.”
But Raph just shook his head, numbly. “My brothers,” he clarified. He sounded so… detached. Flat and empty, like a robot rather than the hotblooded mutant ninja his family knew and loved. “I hurt them. I always hurt them. Even when I don’t mean to… I still hurt them.”
Casey’s stomach dropped. In all the years he’d known Raphael, he’d seen the hothead’s walls crumble only once before – when Leo had been drop-kicked through April’s window and into a coma. The small, meek, scared boy left exposed then had looked nothing like his best friend, and yet all too much like him at the same time. It was like getting a glimpse of someone you knew without their glasses on, for a change. It was… wrong.
The picture now was no better. The figure that was sat hunched on the cold concrete roof next to him looked like Raphael, sounded like Raphael, felt like Raphael. And yet, at the exact same time, it wasn’t Raphael. Not really. His best friend was supposed to be boisterous, loud, unapologetic. Not scared.
Raphael wasn’t supposed to be scared of anything.
“I think you got this backwards, dude.” Casey desperately clung to the illusion that this was about earlier. “The guys ain’t mad. You don’t gotta be sorry for going off to clear your head.”
But Raph wasn’t listening to him. Either the words weren’t registering in his head, or he was choosing not to hear. “I hurt them, Casey. I can’t control my temper. I just get so angry that I see red, and… I can’t control myself. One of these days I’m really gonna’ snap, and then - then I’ll do something I can’t undo.” His voice trailed off, somehow falling even quieter, even more empty. “It’s just a matter of time…”
Casey swallowed, thickly. He hated the way his insides twisted. “What? What’re you talking about, man?”
“Don’t you get it?” A little of Raph’s fire returned, but even Casey could see that the flames were licking back towards the turtle. “I hurt everyone that matters to me! I’m no better than the Shredder…”
Raph’s words were like a slap round the face. Casey balked, breath catching in his throat. Raph seemed to take his silence as agreement, curling inwards on himself with his fingers finally creeping up to tug the jacket closer around his shoulders. He was stood downwind of the flames, his edges curling and blackening in the heat while his core remained stubbornly frozen. Casey suddenly got a vision of a tinderbox, stacked full of dry kindling. It would only need one ember…
Casey threw himself between the fire and his best friend. “No, you’re not!” He grabbed Raph’s freezing arm before Casey was even aware that he’d reached out, and though he knew his grip was too tight, he couldn’t bring his fingers to loosen even slightly. “You ain’t nothing like Shredder!”
Raph’s hollow eyes finally met his, and for just a moment he thought the hate he saw within was aimed at Casey. But then he blinked, and all Casey could see reflected in his best friend’s eyes was Raphael himself.
“…‘hatred’ and ‘fear’, while often intertwined, are not the same thing…”
What happened when they were?
Leo was wrong. They were all wrong. Raph wasn’t scared of bugs, or the dark, or looking weak.
Raphael was scared of himself.
“You ain’t nothing like the Shredder, Raph!” Casey pushed with his whole heart. He had to make Raphael understand! “And the fact that turning into something like him worries you this much is proof you’re not. You’re loyal, and fair, and you go outta your way to help other people. All things the Shredder doesn’t do.”
“But… I hurt them, Case…”
“Yeah, and they hurt you.” The pain in Casey’s eyes shone through. He made no attempt to hide it. “That’s what families do. They say and do stuff that hurts each other. Sometimes they mean it, sometimes they don’t. What matters is what they do after.”
His hands moved to the turtle’s shoulders, fingers clutching honed muscles in a desperate attempt to make him understand. Casey refused to let him break eye contact. “Your bros love you, Raph. And you love them. No matter what happens, you guys always make it right in the end. That’s what separates you from the Shredder.”
For a long moment, no one moved or spoke. Casey looked down into his best friend’s – no, his brother’s – eyes, willing Raph to listen, to believe everything he was trying to tell him. Words had never been Casey’s strong point. But then, neither had they been Raphael’s.
“You’re a good guy, Raph. Don’t let anyone tell you different. Not even yourself.”
The cold wind raised goosebumps on Casey’s exposed arms, but he didn’t care. He’d sit up here all night long if Raph needed him to. No way was he letting that fear - that hatred - take his brother.
Not while Casey Jones had anything to say about it.
Something shifted in Raphael’s eyes. The ice began to thaw. A ghost of a smile pulled up one side of his beak, and the tension in his muscles finally melted away.
“…Thanks, Casey.” His voice was still croaky, and the lines of exhaustion on his face extended down through his whole body. But the fear trickled away like meltwater.
It wasn’t enough to dispel his fears for good. Casey knew that. Something as deeply ingrained as this, that had shaken the normally unshakable turtle so thoroughly, was not going to be solved in the space of one conversation. But it was a start.
They had time. And Casey wasn’t going to let Raph walk this road alone, anymore.
The vigilante bumped shoulders with his reptilian brother. “Anytime, man.”