Chapter Text
“Stupid fucking Leo” Raph snarls under his breath, slamming the knife down on the carrot before him so hard he had to yank it out of the plastic cutting board with each slice, “Stupid fucking self-sacrificial stupid fucking Leo.”
“Idiotic” Comes Donnie’s soft voice mumbling behind him, sounding utterly exhausted, “Moronic. Half-witted. Imbecilic. Dumb.”
“Glad we agree” Raph rumbles through gritted teeth as he shoves the carrots into the boiling pot with a vengeance and allows himself a moment or two to revel in the daydream that it’s the Purple Dragons being cooked painfully into mush before moving on to the lentils.
“Dull. Foolish. Obtuse. Dim. Dense.”
“Hey! Are you two talking about me- woah, Raph! My poor cutting board!”
Raph grinds his teeth together so hard that lightning strikes of pain jolt up into his nose, turns to fixate Mikey with what he puts all his energy into being an absolutely lethal glare, and starts cutting carefully, filling his head with happy thoughts about slitting the throats of every Purple Dragon to ever breathe.
“Thank you” Mikey smiles, but it doesn’t meet his eyes. Seeing as none of theirs do these days, and Raph is absolutely unable to play therapist right now, he settles to heave a great sigh and look back to the lentils.
“We’re talking about Leo” Donnie mumbles.
For a moment, the only noise is the bubbling of the pot and the sound of the knife dismembering the lentils, hitting the cutting board with a light thump to complete every finishing blow, like the crack of a successfully snapped neck.
Then, extremely seriously, somewhat angered, almost betrayed, “I thought we all agreed we weren’t going to call him that.”
Raph goes utterly still at the same time as the atmosphere, hands freezing over the vegetable and mind freezing over the image of a Purple Dragon gazing up at him with wide, terrified eyes as he lifted the blade over him. Shame douses his anger like water to a forest fire, leaving nothing but the desecrated woodland behind it to revel in.
From a moral standpoint, calling a man with an intellectual disability from a recent head injury is just cruel. From a brotherhood standpoint, watching that man fall into a vicious sobbing breakdown every time somebody called him stupid no matter the context means that nobody, especially not you, can call him it.
But Raph had been angry, and forgotten, just like all the other times he’d called him stupid since his injury. Story of his life.
“Sorry” Donnie murmurs, sounding something other than exhausted for the first time in a month.
Kicked back into gear by an angry horse, Raph rasps out the same, the knife still motionless in his hand.
When there’s no immediate response, he slides his eyes almost shyly towards Mikey and takes in the tight-lipped, stormy expression on his face for just a moment before the guilt inside him grows so intense he fantasizes about killing himself in battle, but what is there left to say?
Raph isn’t Leo. There aren’t words in his brain to take back what’s been done, to settle Mikey’s face into something more recognizable, just like there aren’t words in his brain to soothe all of Donnie’s worries so he can sleep easy, and just like there aren’t words to make himself feel any less furious. There aren’t even words to make Leo feel better anymore, because Leo isn’t a guy that needs a loud talking to and then some gruff affection anymore, because Leo no longer had whirling thoughts he needed to hurl at something real until they fell apart anymore. Leo no longer understood why he was being yelled at all, he just understood that he hated it and somebody he loved was doing it when all he was trying to do was explain himself.
(Sometimes, laying down on the floor of the dojo as dawn rose, Raph waited with closed eyes and baited breath for Leo to come in and save him from himself, to hear out all of his tangled emotions and say something wise and needed in reply with his muscular arm lain heavy over his shoulders, reminding Raph of the unkillable strength of his big brother. Every time, he knew he wouldn’t come, but the only other option was to lie there and come to terms with that, and every time dawn rose and he finally remembered that Leo would never come for him again, he’d weep so hard he’d feel he was going to vomit and he’d have to bite down on his own hand to keep the noise of his sobs stifled.
Two days ago, Leo had arrived in the middle of said sobbing fit, and for a blissful moment Raph’s prayers had been answered, and this entire mess was over, but he took one look at that wide-eyed gaze, filled with confusion and worry in a way the Leo of before never would’ve had, because he already would’ve been across the room, eyes narrowed and thunderous with thought, and he just sobbed harder.
He couldn’t see a thing through his tears, and he couldn’t hear a thing over the noise of his own ragged breaths and desperately muffled wails, so when something soft touched his arm, he jerked and whipped around in terror, expecting to see his father staring at him pitifully.
But it was Leo, again, staring at him with those same wide, worried eyes, though he didn’t seem so confused, gently pressing one the stuffed animals Mikey had gifted him – his favourite one, a soft-furred dove he’d named Dove – into Raph’s arm.
Despite himself, Raph only sobbed harder, and then sobbed even harder as Leo pulled the stuffed animal back and titled his head this way and that before setting it down and wrapping both arms around Raph’s shoulders.
He still felt the same. He had less muscle mass, but that happened whenever one of them got badly hurt. He was still warm as ever, and he still smelt of Leo, and the hands against his shell had the same grooves they’d always had.
That day, he did end up crying so hard he vomited, to which Leo had a minor freak out and then herded him back into his bed. By the time they got there, though, Raph was too exhausted and dehydrated to cry, so he just laid there, limp and aching, as Leo brought him a glass of water and explained over and over to the rest of their family using his tablet that Raph sick, Raph sick, Raph sick.
“Well, you’re not feverish” Donnie declared, blinking lazily down at him through sagging eyes.
“I’m fine” Raph had mumbled, though he was still too worn to even attempt getting out of bed. “I just have a headache.”
“Raph sick” Leo repeated, looking firm with his tight lips and furrowed brows. “Raph sick.”
Donnie sighed, and for a moment met his eyes, and Raph watched as he understood.
But Raph didn’t want Donnie to understand. He wanted Leo to understand.
But to do that, he’d have to explain it in a way that didn’t just end up hurting the Leo of now’s feelings, and he wasn’t able to figure out a way to do that on a good day.
Donnie maybe, but Donnie had eye bags the size of Texas and a penchant for sighing and rubbing his eyes every ten minutes, so all he said to Leo was “We’ll keep him in bed for another day, and then we’ll check up tomorrow if he’s still sick, but he’ll be fine. I’ll give him an ibuprofen for his headache.”
Raph, for once in his life, accepted the bedrest without hesitation, giving Donnie a small nod.
Donnie gave a weak smile back as he rose to his feet, blinking rapidly for a worrying second as soon as he managed to stand.
Leo, however, wasn’t soothed. “How help” He asked, worrying his bottom lip with his teeth.
Donnie’s eyes flitted to Raph.
“I’ll be fine, Leo” He assured. “I just need to get some sleep.”
Both Donnie and Leo nodded, though only Leo moved, letting his tablet hang from the strap around his chest as he set Dove down by Raph’s side and pulled his sheets further over his shoulders.
Within his chest, Raph’s heart cracked and splintered, not for the first time, but there wasn’t water nor energy left in his body to cry.
“Come on, Leo” Donnie called quietly, reaching out to touch a hand to the crook of Leo’s elbow. “Let’s leave Raph to his rest.”
The frown on Leo’s face only grew in intensity, but he followed where Donnie led him with only one last glance over his shoulder and a “Sleep well.”
I wish he was dead, Raph thought desperately, and then found it in himself to cry.)
“Why are you mad at Leo, anyways?” Mikey asks, anger receding to the corners of his voice. “He hasn’t done much.”
“I’m not mad at Leo” Donnie defends, and, continuing on like a traitor, “Raph wouldn’t stop using the word- uh. That word. So I was giving him synonyms.”
Raph’s own body boils with the atmosphere. “This is why you need to start sleeping better, Don” He all but snaps as the embers of anger light within him before sighing as they die as soon as they’ve come.
“I just miss my brother, Mikey” He mutters, moving the knife in his hand down upon the lentils again as anxiety lights up his fingertips. “And I’m fucking pissed with him for protecting those strangers like that, putting himself in danger like that.”
“It’s what we do, Raph” Mikey replies, voice uncharacteristically angry and serious once more. “You would’ve done the same exact thing.”
Fuck, did he wish he had been there instead of Leo last night. The thought of being like Leo is a terrifying one, but at least in that alternate universe where he’d never be the same again he’d still have his big brother to cling to. Raph is just the angry brute, the fighter, the protector. Anyone can be that. Nobody could be Leo.
He slides the lentils into the soup with the back of his knife and sets his hands on the counter, gazing down at their surface.
“Yeah” He replies softly.
Once more, the only noise in the room is the bubbling soup. He should turn that down to a simmer now that all of the ingredients are in, but his hands are stuck pressed against the counter, just like his eyes are stuck staring at his own reflection, and his mind is stuck on self-loathing and grief so terrible some days he’s sure it will kill him.
Mikey sighs loudly, sounding almost as exhausted as Donnie. “I miss him too, Raph.”
“I know.”
“But he… he’s still Leo. He still likes ninjitsu and he still cares for us.”
“I know” His grip tightens over the countertop, heart breaking apart in his chest. “But he- I- he- I-”
Tears blur his vision, arms shaking beneath him. He releases them of their duty to lay one against the countertop and press the other against his eyes. “Fuck me, Mikey” He sobs. “Fuck me.”
Mikey settles a hand on his shell, rubbing soothing circles into the bone. Despite himself, Mikey doesn’t say anything.
What could he say? The only person who would know what to say doesn’t exist anymore.