To most people Raphael seemed cold and uncaring. Too hot-headed to stop and consider the feelings of others. Those who knew him well, on the other hand, knew that the opposite was true. Underneath that cold, hard exterior was a deeply caring person who was aware of how his family felt about 80% of the time. He was the one his brothers went to when all their normal coping methods failed to help them deal with whatever they were dealing with. Their last line of defence. And if they didn't come to him, he would go to them when he saw that they really needed it. So he was well aware of Mikey's current emotional state. Heck, they all were.
It had started about a week ago after he and his brothers had busted that freak. They had been on a long training run around the outskirts of the city when they had heard terrified screams emanating from an old abandoned warehouse. They had busted into the warehouse just in time to see the creep make the first incision on a young girl with a gleaming scalpel. Raphael saw red and went straight for the creep while his brothers took care of the girl.
Only once the creep was out cold and tied up and the girl was safe did he stop to properly examine his surroundings. What he saw made his stomach churn. Hung up like portraits on the walls of the warehouse, were the skins of at least a dozen people, young and old, as well as a few animals. Turns out he and his brothers had busted the notorious serial killer that the police had been scrambling to find ever since the third skinned body showed up. According to the police report, each victim had been skinned alive. The very thought was enough to make Raph shudder.
They dropped the girl off at the hospital and the creep at the police station before deciding to call it a night. Master Splinter had already picked up on their subdued mood and asked to know what happened. Leo explained while the rest of them split up to deal with the horrors they had seen that night in their own way. Raph took it out on his punching bad, Leo practiced with his katanas, Donnie tinkered in his lab, and Mikey tore up their "in-door skate park". Master spoke to each of them individually and then as a group and after a couple of days they came out of their funk and things started to return to normal. All except for Mikey.
It was like he just couldn't escape the funk that they had all been trapped in. At first Raph hadn't been too worried. Mikey was the most sensitive of all of them and always took a little longer to come out of something like this than the others did, but he usually bounced back almost as soon as the rest of his brothers' spirits lifted again without much help.
Raph knew this time would be much different when he only pecked at his pizza the previous night, and didn't show up for training the next afternoon. They were all worried about Mikey. Leo worked them harder than usual and Donnie was distracted throughout the whole exercise. Raph barely paid attention either. Soon Leo gave up on the training and determined to talk to Mikey. A supply run to the dump needed to be done first though.
A small smile graced Raph's lips; Mikey normally enjoyed these kinds of supply runs. Maybe it was just what he needed. The smile had completely disappeared five minutes later, though, when he informed his brothers that Mikey didn't feel like going with and that he was staying behind to keep an eye on him.
Leo hadn't looked happy, but the supply run was necessary so he nodded and once again promised to talk to Mikey as soon as he got back. Raph nodded and watched Leo and Donnie leave with Master Splinter. Then he turned and got right into working on his plan.
The idea had popped up in his brain during their failed training session. When he and his brothers were still only tots, whenever Master Splinter did something with only Leo and Donnie, Raph and Mikey would build up a blanket fort around the small TV Master Splinter had had back then and would watch whatever movie was on that night together snacking on whatever food they found lying around the lair. Thanks to Donnie, their TV was just a little too big to make a usual sized blanket fort now, but that was okay. Raph knew where to find the materials to make a huge one.
First he raided Master Splinter's training tools, gathering up all the long bamboo poles he used during balance training. Raph set the poles up in strategic positions around the TV and anchored them using some of the loose bricks that could be found all over their lair. Next he went and fetched a couple of the huge tarps that Donnie used to cover their vehicles and went to work using them as the cover for his fort. It was tedious doing it on his own but he finally finished and stood back to scrutinise his work. It wasn't perfect and it looked more like a home-made tent than a blanket fort. Raph shrugged, indoor camping was something Mikey would totally be in to.
Next Raph raided all the rooms, except Mikey's, for all the blankets and pillows he could find, which he laid out on the floor of the living room tent and arranged until he had a mostly comfortable Christmas bed for them to lie on. Then he quickly popped up to the surface to grab the fresh pizza and soda he had ordered and deposited that in the tent next to the pile of Mikey's favourite movies that he had already put out. Now all he needed was Mikey.
Convincing Mikey to willingly come out of his room proved to be more difficult than expected, so Raph resorted to picking his brother up and throwing him over his shoulders, fireman style, to carry him to the indoor tent he had spent so much time working on.
"Woah." Mikey said when he laid his eyes on the tent, "What is that?"
"What's it look like, knucklehead? It's an indoor tent. And inside," he said as he stepped inside and dumped Mikey onto the mattress of blankets and pillows, "We have fresh pepperoni pizza, coke, and all yer favourite movies."
Mikey looked around the tent in wonder and Raph grinned as he saw the funk slowly melting away.
"Dude, this is just like when we were little!" Mikey said, still in awe.
"Yeah, I figured that since the others were all gone, we could try the blanket fort thing again. Like old times."
Mikey finally grinned, "Thanks Raph." He said, understanding exactly what Raph had done and why.
Raph smiled back and rubbed his brother's head, "Don't mention it. Now, which movie do you wanna start with?"
Mikey studied the titles Raph had picked out for him and finally chose one that they both enjoyed.
When Raph turned back to Mikey after putting the movie into the player it was to find his brother stuffing his face with a big, cheesy slice of pizza.
Raph shook his head fondly as he settled in next to his brother and hit play, glad that at he had finally broken through Mikey's funk. And maybe a little smug that he had done it before Leo could try. But only a little.