Disclaimer: I do not own TMNT nor any of its related franchise.
I am still not used to writing the turtles, so hopefully I've done them justice.
A few warnings: moderate level of swearing (in context - mainly Raph). Moderate amounts of Japanese - all translations are at the end. Character death.
It hurt. A lot. Worse than Splinter's impromptu training sessions when he was furious at them all. Worse than the stomach ache he had gotten after eating one of Mikey's more creative culinary inventions. Worse than when they had their butts kicked by the Shredder and his robotic goons.
Gah… Raphael was unsure whether he had said, exhaled or simply thought the noise up in his own head.
He hurt. Badly.
Peeling his eyes open, the red masked turtled coughed on the dust still in the air. A sudden, crushing fire shot through his chest and legs.
"Gah!"
"Raph?"
Like an anchor, that voice secured him inside his own body stopping his consciousness from drifting off into nothingness a second time.
"Leo." It was a short, panted gasp but audible nonetheless.
"Raph!" the older turtle replied. "Are you hurt?"
Waiting a moment for the pain to subside into something more manageable once again, Raph let out a wry grin. "I feel like I've been run over by a truck. You?"
"I'm...fine."
At that, Raph growled. "Shell you aren't! I can hear the pain in your voice, Leo."
He opened his eyes again, trying to remember when he closed them for a fleeting moment before looking around. The red masked turtle grimaced almost immediately upon seeing a hulking pile of rock and broken wood in front of him. Something had apparently caved in or collapsed, most likely a building. Probably one they had been scouting.
The problem was that most of the rubble was on top of him, pinning down his chest and legs and left arm. His right lay beside his head. Both his sais were nowhere in sight. More rubble filled his vision as he turned his head as much as he could in all directions.
"What happened? A house fall on us or something?"
"More or less." Leo's voice was still frustratingly invisible, despite Raph's eyes determinedly roving the area for his brother. "Are you trapped?"
"Yeah."
"Can you get free?"
"Hang on."
Summoning up the reserves of his strength and ignoring the throbbing in his head, Raph tried to push up with all his body. His free hand unhelpfully pushed at the rocks atop him.
He had only continued this for a second before falling back with a sharp cry. Moving didn't just hurt. It was agony, albeit not as agonising as watching his oldest brother dwell in a coma for three long months. Come on wimp. Deal with it. And slowly the pain began to ebb back down to something manageable as his oldest brother's voice registered in his head once more.
"Raph! Gah... Raph! What happened?"
"Can't move, bro," the younger replied, ignoring the question. "I'm pretty damn stuck here. You?"
"Same." Somehow, there seemed to be less strength in those words than was normally warranted by life.
"Leo?"
"I'm-"
"If you say 'fine' I'm going to kick your shell when we get out of here," Raph growled.
"F...Okay!" No doubt even Leo grimaced at that poor save. "I'm just...stuck."
The red masked turtle frowned. "Something pinning you too?"
"No." His brother was a little too hasty with his reply. "Not really. I mean, a little, but I fell on something."
Raph's frown grew. That did not bode well. "What something?"
"..."
"Fearless, come on. I gotta know."
"I don't know!" Leo snapped.
His response was not reassuring. A Leo stressed more than usual meant something was usually wrong. A snappy Leo meant that the something wrong was nothing good for them. Raph inhaled sharply, regretting it almost instantly as his ribs kicked up a fuss. Definitely broken.
"Sorry."
The word came just a moment later and just like his brother, ever the mature one in never taking his temper out on his brothers or at least trying not to. Usually it was a point of confrontation between the two of them, but in the present Raph could not care less.
"What does it feel like? Where did it go through you?" he asked urgently.
But now it was Leo's turn to ignore him. "Where are you hurt?"
Raph grit his teeth but knew better than to push his point. The quicker he answered, the quicker he could make his brother tell him what was wrong. "Broke my ribs. Probably cracked my shell - I've got a ton of rock on top of me." He paused, trying to move his legs and swearing when his left one instead led him back to a world of hurt. "Broke my left leg. Might've broken my left arm. Nothing I can do about anything until I get this crap offa me. Now quit stalling and tell me what's wrong."
If he didn't mention that sticky stuff he was sure was blood then what did it matter?
There was a pause before his stubborn brother answered. "I don't know. It might be a beam or something. It's metal."
"Where?"
Another pause as Leo tried and failed to find a way around answering. "Through my side. It went right through and I think it's stuck in the ground."
Raph swore. Then there would be no easy way to pull it out, even if he wasn't already trapped himself. If he was worried about himself bleeding out before help arrived, than his worry for Leo was three times as much. At least he had something compressing his wound, probably staunching the flow of blood. He doubted Leo had the same luck.
"You got something to stop the blood, Fearless?"
"My mask." What the leader in blue didn't say was that his mask would do little to no good.
Raph found himself growling once more. At another time he might have wondered if, when they had mutated, he had been left with the most animalistic instincts out of the four. As it was, the turtle was trying to swivel his head to get a better view of the ruined area in an attempt to spy his brother. It flared his frustration that he had no such luck.
"Where are you?" he finally asked.
"To your left I think. Can you see me?"
"No," Raph grunted. "You?"
Silence descended for a moment. Then a pained cry cracked the air.
"Leo!" And damn if there were any enemies about, Raph let out a sharp cry of his own as he tried once more to remove the rubble atop him.
Pain was a fact of life. You stuffed up, you fell and it hurt. Even a papercut could cripple a lesser man. Raph was used to pain growing up and doing as and what he did. He embraced it, used it to feel alive. Agony, however, fiery licks of pain violent in their assault of him was a complete different story.
He was, at the end of the day, a teenager masquerading quite literally as a ninja. Pain he could deal with. Agony he could barely stop himself from screaming from.
"Raph?"
Raph hurt, yes. It didn't hurt as much as when Leo had been beaten in a coma, yes. Yet, as he listened to Leo speak through his pain, Raph had an inkling that very soon it would hurt a lot, lot worse.
"Raph?" Leo wasn't panting. He should have been with the amount of pain that had been in his cry, but he wasn't. It was almost as though he were too-
"I'm fine," Raph gasped, breaking his own rule in a bid not to think the unthinkable. "Can you see me?"
"No."
Silence rose again, an ugly thing in the mind of the younger turtle. Noise was more his foretee, even if noise hurt his head now. He loved the thump a punching bag made when he punched it. The crash a dummy made when he kicked it clear across the dojo. The wail of an enemy who was suddenly regretting their life decisions. Simple sounds, clean and clear and full of life. Silence, on the other hand, was as good as dead.
"Hey, Raph?"
"Yeah?" The hot head thought about futilely straining once more against the rubble pinning him down. His free hand tapped the ground by his head, a noise in and of itself.
"Sorry for being a- For just-" His brother was struggling for words in a way that seemed so unlike him. "Sorry for everything, I guess. I know I should have-"
"Don't."
"Don't what?" Leo's frown was clearly audible.
Raph paused in his shifting. "Don't apologise. I know ya don't mean it." I know what that means.
"Okay."
And sometimes the red masked turtle was glad that his eldest brother could read him like a book with less words. That Leo could read between the lines without needing to be told what those lines were. It made it a lot easier for Raph to keep his gruff exterior intact.
As if that was what he cared about right now.
Something was hanging over the air, greedy and impatient. The turtle could feel it draining him. Draining his brother. The damn thing was out of his reach and trying to beat it down would do neither of them any good.
A memory flashed before the hothead's eyes of fighting with his elder brother. He was sure in his fuzzy, fractured memories that they had been fighting only this morning. That unkind words and words that were more than unkind had been exchanged alongside a few fists. Possibly before the world had gone three ways to shit.
It wasn't a happy thought. Raph never did like fighting with his brother, took no real pleasure from it despite what the others might think. What Leo might think. At the end of the day his family was all he had and even if they drove him mad, even if some of them drove him into a spitting fury with the disregard they had for their own lives when all he wanted to do was protect them, the mutant never wanted to hurt any of them. Yet, someone always ended up hurt in Leo and his arguments. And now that it seemed an argument had been their next to last interaction-
It stirred a dull pain inside him that he wasn't entirely sure was due to his current predicament.
Raph frowned to himself at the ache. "I'm sorry for all those damned fights."
"If I can't apologise, then you can't apologise."
Neither wanted their last words to each other to be an argument. Neither wanted the other's last words to them to be of the mistakes they had made.
"Gotcha, Fearless."
And damn if his eyes weren't leaking.
But this was Raphael and his eyes didn't leak so much as glare at the debris pinning him in place, slowly crushing the life out of him, making that red stuff Donnie kept saying he should learn to keep inside of him run out in an endless stream.
...Donnie! Mikey! Shit.
Where were his brothers? Surely not caught up in the debris with him and Leo. Raph cursed his aching head, his scrambled memory and sluggish thoughts. Why had it taken him so long to think of them?
"They weren't with us when the building collapsed, remember?"
Raph closed his eyes. There was Leonardo and his freaky 'big brother' psychic talents once more. He hadn't even had to say a single word. The burly mutant grinned to himself briefly. No doubt their younger siblings had been the first thing on Fearless' mind when he woke. Then he grimaced. They should have been the first things on his own.
With nothing that could be accomplished by beating himself up over the matter, Raphael went back over the fuzzy details of the night that were still intact in his memory. They had gone to a place on the outskirts of New York, abandoned and out of the way of almost every interfering police officer and amateur reporter who could spy them and kick up a fuss. A simple reconnaissance mission: tracking another capsule of mutagen it was rumoured the Foot had acquired.
They had split into two teams to check out the vast place - the youngest and the oldest grouping together. At the time Raph had been pissed. After an argument with Leo earlier in the day he had not been looking forward to spending quality time with his most frustrating brother.
Now, in hindsight, the turtle was relieved it was Leo and not Donatello or, Fate forbid, Mikey who was trapped with him. After all, their Fearless Leader always had a plan.
It was a bitter lie to swallow.
"Are you sure that you can't get out?"
"Even if I could, I think my shell…" Leo's tone was more than desolate. "I'm sorry."
Raph frowned but simply bit his lip. His Fearless Leader was broken in more ways than one. Even he knew when to draw the absolute line and bend.
"What about your shellcell? We could call for help." Bend he might have, but Raphael wasn't going to give up. Not yet.
"Lost it."
Raph cursed. Even if he had somehow kept ahold of his, there was no way he could reach it. Fuck. What the shell are we going to do?
"Leo?" A little brother seemed to rear its head inside him against his will, asking the same question in less words.
The continued pressure on his body was unpleasant. The silence that met his question and continued on afterwards was concerning.
"Leo?" This time it was not a child who asked.
And suddenly the younger turtle was left thinking of a maybe he really didn't want to entertain. Maybe there was no answer because no one could answer. Because maybe there was no one there to answer.
Maybe his oldest brother had already passed.
The thought made Raph's entire being stall. That would mean he was the oldest, the leader, the one supposed to look after the others, to make sure Don ate every once in awhile, that Mikey wasn't going to kill himself with whatever hairbrained scheme he had come up with. The one to make sure that their father's orders were followed, that they all got back to their father. That none of them-
The red masked turtle never wanted this responsibility. Not like this. Not at all if it meant this.
But maybe Leo wasn't dead. Maybe he was focusing on reciting that healing chant that had saved them many times before. Maybe he was trying to contact Sensei through meditation. Maybe he had simply passed out from pain. Maybe he was still there, just not answering for a hundred other reasons than the one that was the most permanent.
But maybe not.
Raph bit his lips and tried to stain his muscles once more. Maybe, maybe, maybe - a word that was both a curse and a blessing.
"Look after them."
The last shred of hope Raphael had shattered like glass even as relief flooded through him at hearing his brother's voice, a disorientating sensation that left him floundering for a response. "What?"
"Look after them, please."
The red masked turtle almost laughed. He almost sobbed. Of course his big brother wouldn't let go. Not yet. Not while he still needed to ensure the safety of his little brothers as best he could. It just wrenched Raph's heart that Leo's best was his hothead younger brother who was dying as surely as him. It failed, however, to wrench his heart as much as what the hothead was forced to say.
The red masked turtle closed his eyes and bit his lip. "No."
"What?" Leo asked, shocked.
"I said no." Something wet stained one shut eyelid, but Raph refused to dwell on it.
"Raph, please. Don't be stubborn."
The exhaustion in his sibling's voice was evident enough that it too increased the wretchedness surrounding Raph. The blue masked turtle was on his last leg and it would take a miracle to turn back now. Raph never prayed so hard for a miracle as he did now.
"I'm not being stubborn." Why? Why couldn't he be better? Smarter? Have realised it was a trap before they ever stepped foot in it? Why couldn't they get a break once, just once for all the good they did?
"Then why?" And now it was hurt and confusion mixing together in the broken shards of Leo's voice. Hurt and confusion mixing together as though the turtle couldn't understand why someone would fail to promise the very essence of themselves to ensure another's survival, why his own brother would fail to promise even more to care for their entire world. "You looked out for them before. Look out for them now! Mikey and Donnie and Sensei need you!"
And, fuck, Raph hoped that Leonardo wasn't doing what the hothead thought he was doing. That the blue masked turtle wasn't quietly panicking about what his ceasing might mean, desperate to fulfill his most important duties before he went. Or even worse, that his oldest brother wasn't trying to still play the Fearless Leader and order him about in the hope he would listen. In the hope that he would survive. As though he knew. Despite knowing.
But he couldn't. Raph closed his eyes. He couldn't know. How could he? And if he didn't know, then Raph didn't have the heart to tell him.
"I can't, Leo," the hothead finally said, trying to reason where it should have never been necessary.
"Why?"
Too much. It was too much and Raph's temperament had always been volcanic at best. "I just can't!"
The words echoed wildly around the ruined place, throwing Raphael's failure back in his face over and over again. He was failing them. He was failing them all. Mikey. Donnie. His father.
Leonardo.
It hurt more than the hothead cared to admit.
"It's alright, Raph." Leo's voice was gentle, calming, a soothing drug made to ease his passing.
The red masked turtle threw his head back and laughed. Of course Leonardo knew. He always knew when it came to them, to something this serious. He could be slow on the uptake, shell he could be slow sometimes, but he always got there in the end. Always before it was the end. That had been their big brother more than it had ever been Fearless. Only this time Raph's big brother hadn't made it and neither had he.
"ARGH!"
The scream rebounded violently off the city's walls, desperate, helpless, angry, raw. More than several children woke in tears with their parents' names upon their lips in a bid to banish the furious monster that had scared them. Raph himself had nothing left but tears, everything else used up in that one last futile cry.
It still hurt his head. His soul.
"Where's the karma Splinter always went on about?" the teenager sobbed, not caring at all that he was because he was dying and so was Leo and it was just so wrong. "Where's the fairness? We saved this world a dozen times over. We saved these ignorant, ungrateful idiots over and over and never a thanks from 'em in return. Where's the fairness, Leo? Where's the fairness? It ain't supposed to be like this!"
Then red washed over his vision, bold and familiar and comforting. The turtle let it take over, let it scare away the encroaching presence he had only just begun to feel. That same presence he hated feeling almost as much as he hated seeing his brothers hurt.
"Fuck 'em!" Raph yelled. "Damn them all! They can have their monsters and see how well they fare without us! What did we ever do to be condemned to a life in the sewers? Nothing! Nada! Not a fucking thing! Shoulda let 'em all die!"
"You don't mean that."
"The fuck I don't!" Raph shouted back. "They hate us, Leo. We save 'em and they hate us! We die for 'em and they hate us! Why? Why should I not beg Fate to let them die? They deserve it!"
"And we swore to protect them all the same," Leonardo replied, soft but stern.
Raph panted in disbelief. How could his brother be so calm about it? How could he so nonchalantly roll over and let life have its way with them as it had tried so often before? Where was his big brother, his Fearless Leader who had fought for justice with such a drive that even their worst enemies had learned to fear him? Where was the sign that he cared?
Then the hothead stumbled upon a numbing thought. Perhaps Leo was already too far gone to care. It made sense in a twisted way. If his brother was any less gone then they would both be out of this mess already and on their way home to help. Leonardo never gave up.
Unless he had no other choice.
"I don't want you to die," Raphael whimpered, a little brother once more.
A soft sigh, more like the fading breeze than a breath. "I know, Raphie. I'm sorry."
"I don't...want...you…" Words were becoming harder, the energy from before lost to the swirls of his equally fading anger. He was cold and in pain. He just wanted his father to come and hold him and tell him it would be alright. "I don't...want…"
"Save your breath, Raphie," Leo cut in. His own voice seemed weakened, although his words flowed as smooth as ever. "It'll be okay."
"Leo…"
"It'll be okay."
And Raphael realised that it was the first time his brother, his devout, responsible, honest brother, had ever outright lied to him.
A tear rolled down his face even as his lips twitched into a grin. Anything for them. Leo would do anything for them. They were not so different in that respect.
"Yeah," he managed to squeeze out of his uncooperative throat. "I believe...ya."
The relieved exhale somewhere to hs right suggested that Raph was not the only one the lie had been for.
The hothead inhaled as best he could and closed his eyes. He willed his presence to be beside his brother in spirit if not in body. If only he weren't so broken. "Hold on...Leo. Someone'll...come…."
It wouldn't be anyone who could save them. But help them…
"Someone'll...come." He let certainty bled into his words even as his life bled out.
"Someone…"
A little hope in a hopeless situation - that was all either turtle could ask.
The red masked turtle tried not to think about how breathless his brother's voice had sounded. He also tried not to think about how much he hurt.
For a moment nothing passed between the two save the silent agony of dying. Above them the stars blocked out by uncaring city lights could offer no comfort. It was as peaceful as war.
"Anata wa kowai ka?" Leo's voice came softly, but his words were as piercing as a gun .
Raphael swore to himself. His brother reverting back to Japanese was not a good sign. But what could he do? The red masked turtle was just as trapped and dead as the other.
"...wanna...play a...game?" the hothead asked somewhat desperately.
"Hai."
"'Kay..." Raph wracked his brains. "Ya gotta...say what...I say...in...English…'kay?"
"Hai."
Raph swallowed. "Father."
"Otōsan."
"No...English…." Raph struggled to draw in a breath. "Father…"
"Otōsan."
"...Father…"
"Otōsan."
"...in...English...Leo…"
"Watashi. Otōsan. Miru? Eigo."
"'Kay…" It was time to try something different, but it was getting so hard to think. "...Raph…say...Raph..."
"Raph."
"...Don…"
"Don."
"...Mike…"
"Mike."
"...Leo…"
"Leo."
"...Father..."
"Otōsan."
The red masked turtle couldn't seem to draw in another breath.
"Daijōbudesuka?"
"Hai…" Why was it so hard to breathe? Something so simple, so necessary to living should not be so hard.
Raph's mouth flopped open as he stubbornly dragged in another lungful of air. It froze in his chest as something sent a rock flying somewhere nearby.
You've got to be fucking kidding. The thought did nothing to appease the spike of anger that flared once more within the red masked turtle. What had his family ever done to receive such rotten luck aside from exist?
The sound of more rocks being kicked uncaringly aside echoed in Raph's head, heavy and frantic footsteps now accompanying the sound. Every so often the noise would pause as though it were looking for something. It was not a reassuring idea. Especially not when it could lead to the one doing the looking finding an injured turtle or two.
Raphael silently cursed his ability to see, let alone reach and protect his brother. He hated being helpless. He loathed his brothers' being hurt because of it.
The footsteps were hurrying across the ground again, drawing closer as they tripped through the debris clumsily. Definitely not a trained ninja then. Raph tensed all the same.
"Donata?" Leo's voice came like a fairy's kiss might - almost non-existent, if it had ever existed at all.
Raph didn't reply, too busy focusing his blurring vision on what might be an enemy come to finish them off. As if they'd be so merciful...
"Donata?" Leo asked again, struggling to be more alert when he was already so far away.
About to shush his brother and maybe start making noise of his own to draw the thing's attention towards himself, Raph paused as a voice pierced the dusty night.
"Dammit! Where are you? Raph! Leo!" Then the speaker came into view.
"Casey!" A brief burst of energy rushed through the turtle at the sight of his best friend's worried mug.
The teenager halted abruptly, staring down at where the red masked mutant was still pinned. "Raph? Shit! It looks like the entire building fell on you! What happened? Where's Leo?"
Where's Leo?
The words were better than a cold shower at bringing Raph back to cruel reality.
"...Leo?"
"Yeah, you know, your brother? Fearless? The one you're always complaining about riding your shell?"
Casey sounded increasingly worried, but Raph didn't care. His question had not been for the human. His brother could not have slipped away so silently, not his Fearless big brother, not before they could find someone to promise-
"Hai?"
And there it was, faint Japanese. Raph would have felt relieved if he didn't know what inevitable thing lay ahead.
"Leo?" Casey suddenly made to move even as more faint Japanese spilled into the air like rambling thoughts with a mind no longer there to keep them at bay. "Speak English, man. I can't understand you."
But unlike when Raph had spoken to him in English before, Leo didn't seem to comprehend.
"What's wrong with Leo?" Casey hissed in the hothead's ear.
Raph ignored him, already trying to listen to his eldest brother's breathy words through his own numbing pain and growing shock.
"Kare ni tazuneru. Kare ga sorera o mamoru koto ga dekiru ka dō ka tazuneru," were the words the air lazily carried from Leo to him. "Watashi wa dekimasen. Dekimasen. Karera ni yakusoku suru yō ni tanonde kudasai."
"Hai...Ani… Hai...watashi wa...tazunemasu…" Raph replied.
"What? What is it? What's wrong?" Casey was growing as impatient as he was worried and panicked.
He began to stand, desperate to see for himself the condition of the other clearly injured brother. Raph's exposed fingers managed to brush purposefully against his friend's ankle before falling to the ground once again. It was enough to halt the human, however, so Raph did not dwell on the blatant display of weakness.
"Where're Mike...an' Don…?" Raphael asked.
"What's wrong with Leo?" Casey cried in return, making to stand once more to where the Japanese had bled from.
Raph concentrated his energy, focusing it on moving his fingers against the other teen's ankle once more. "Mike...an' Don…"
Casey stopped and looked at him. Really looked. In his panicked eyes Raph could see that understanding was beginning to dawn about the seriousness of the situation. Raph smiled. Good.
"They're...they're coming," Casey replied. "I called them before. Said I thought I'd found you. Shit! I need to call them, tell them I did find you! And Leo too! Need to tell them to bring the Shellraiser, something to dig you out, bandages, morphine, Don's medical kit… Damn! We're going to need everything-"
"Casey." Speaking was hard, but he had said he would ask. Leo could not do it himself and he needed this. They both needed this.
The boy stopped talking, his thumb freezing over where it was about to dial the last number to ring Donnie's shellcell. He seemed to be struggling to stay afloat atop his panic, his fear, the potent emotion almost coming off him in great waves of odour.
"We...need ya...to prom'se...somethin'..." Raph began.
"I'm sure it can wait until-"
"No." Short. Blunt. He didn't have time. Leo didn't have time. "It can't."
For a moment Raph stared up into his best friend's eyes, the eyes of his only true human friend outside of April. How many fights had they fought together? How many victories had they won together? How many tussles had they had? Times had they covered for the other? Simply been there read to help let off some steam? Casey was as much a blood brother of his as anyone who was not a mutated turtle could be. They were wrought of the same stuff, hot and hard and fierce. And stubborn. Stubborn enough to drive friend and foe to madness. It would serve the teen well, Raph decided. Casey could do this. He had to.
And if he felt guilty for pushing his failure onto his friend, then so be it. What else could he do?
Too aware of the silence emitting from where Leo was trapped, maybe expectant, maybe something else, Raph set about dragging words from his throat once again. "Promise...you'll look...after 'em, Case."
"I-"
"Prom'se, Case," Raph said again. "You'll...look...after 'em."
"That's your job," Casey snapped back, fear making him angry like it always had Raph. "Your job and Leo's!"
"I can't…" Raph said, brutally and painfully honest. "Leo...can't… You gotta… prom'se…in...case..." Then another word, when it looked like his friend was going to argue further. "...Please…"
Casey broke. "Alright," he said wretchedly. "Alright, I promise to look after Mikey and Donnie. And April. And Master Splinter too, but you gotta hold on. You both gotta hold on! Here that Leo? You've got to hold on!"
"Thanks…" Raph twitched his lips, a half dead smile upon them. He drew in a breath, short and failing. "Leo?"
"Hai…"
"Leo?" Raph called again, praying for a stronger response than nearly silent air.
"Kare wa yakusoku shita?" Leo sounded barely there, only that damn stubbornness hanging on.
"Hai, kare...wa...shimashita, Ani..." His words trailed off into silence. Raph waited. The silence went on.
And on.
And on.
"Ani?" the breathing turtle asked. The silence went on. "Oniichan? Leo? LEONARDO! Leonardo, kotaete kudasai! Onegaishimasu. Nani ka ii nasai... Ani! Onegaishimasu!"
And still the silence went on despite the brokenness of the last two words.
Raphael didn't take notice of the movement beside him, Casey rising to his feet to check on the brother for whom he was futility calling. The hothead's throat hurt, seemed to have been scraped raw by every fractured syllable he managed to drag out. His chest burned not just with broken ribs but with the strain of trying to reach a sibling he no longer could.
He had been wrong before - that pain had not been agony. This was. Every silent moment of it.
"LEO!"
"He...he's gone, Raph." Casey's voice, unwanted but there.
"LEONARDO!"
"Raph! Please, he's gone."
"Ani, hitori ni...shinaide! Hai, watashi...wa kowaidesu..."
"Please, Raph!"
But the turtle could not heed that voice, not its desperation, not its brokenness, not its fear. He was just a kid, a little kid crying for his big brother to wait a moment, to wait for him, to not leave him behind as he raced on ahead. To not leave him to face this alone. And he was crying. Tears were streaming down his face as they never had before and never would again.
"...Leonardo…"
"Raphael."
His full name. No one used that save for his father and enemies not worth the dirt on his foot and-
He closed his eyes, his ragged breathing now truly shot from his roaring. Where were his other brothers? Mikey? Donnie? His father? Where was he? Were they coming? Would they know how hard they both had tried to hold on? How sorry both of them were? The ninja could feel his friend beside him, feel the worry and grief and fear washing off him in waves. But what comfort could he offer? His heart was dead and his body was quickly following.
Where were his brothers?
"...Mike...D...nie…"
"Hold on, Raph," Casey was saying somewhere in the realm of good and living things, somewhere too distant for Raph to care. "Please, just hold on. Donnie will be here in no time. Mikey too. You've just got to hold on."
A distant place, but he had to try. This was his friend, his best friend outside the brother who had just slipped so suddenly and silently away like a true ninja. He had to try. But it was hard. So damn hard to push through the grief, the shock, the pain. The fear…
Sobbing. The dam had been opened for both of them. "Hold on. You've got to hold on. We can't lose you too."
"Ain't…" The single word took a lot out of him. Too much. "Ain't...gonna...get...outta...this...one..."
"No!" Casey's denial was vehement. Furious. Just like him.
Hamato Raphael smiled. "...good...friend… Tell…'em..."
"No," Casey sobbed again. "No. You tell them! You can't give up. You can't! We need you, Raph, I need you…"
"...be...fine…" So much effort. So much strength. He had almost none left. "Watashi...wa...kowaidesu...Oniichan…"
A trembling hand descended atop his bald head, five fingers splaying themselves over his chilled skin and stroking it with gentle, soothing care. Another shaking hand fell atop his exposed one, gripping it tightly, giving comfort where it could.
"It's okay, Raph," the boy said somewhere Raph no longer was. "It's okay."
"Watashi...wa..."
"Just go to sleep. It's alright."
"...kowaidesu…."
"Go to sleep, Raph. Leo will be there when you wake up."
Leo...
Raph slept.
TRANSLATIONS FOR JAPANESE USED (in order of first appearance - I used Google Translate as that was the best I could find. Please tell me if anything needs correcting or if anything is missing):
Anata wa kowai ka? = Are you scared?
Hai = Yes.
Otōsan = Father
Watashi. Otōsan. Miru? Eigo. = I am. Father. See? English.
Daijōbudesuka? = Are you okay?
Donata? = Who is it?
Kare ni tazuneru. Kare ga sorera o mamoru koto ga dekiru ka dō ka tazuneru. Watashi wa dekimasen. Dekimasen. Karera ni yakusoku suru yō ni tanonde kudasai. = Ask him. Ask him to protect them. You can't. I can't. Ask him to promise, for them.
Hai, Ani. Hai, watashi wa tazunemasu. = Yes, big brother. Yes, I will ask.
Kare wa yakusoku shita? = Did he promise?
Hai, kare wa shimashita, Ani = Yes, he did, big brother.
Ani...Oniichan?...Leonardo, kotaete kudasai! Onegaishimasu. Nani ka ii nasai. Oniichan! Onegaishimasu! = Big brother...Big brother?...Leonardo, answer me! Please. Say something... Big brother! Please!
Ani, hitori ni...shinaide! Hai, watashi...wa kowaidesu… = Big brother, do not leave me alone! Yes, I am afraid...
Watashi...wa...kowaidesu…(Oniichan…) = I...am...afraid…(Big brother…)
Note: 'Ani' & 'Oniichan' both mean big brother. The first is more affectionate I think? In any case, that's how I've used them - when Raph uses 'Ani' I thought of it as a more affectionate nickname that simply shows Raph's love for his big brother. For Oniichan, I viewed it more as Raph referring specifically to Leo's big brother status and, although can still be used for affection, the more likely to be used when Raph is desperate/afraid/etc. In essence, Ani = simply showing love for Leo who happens to be big brother; Oniichan = acknowledging/calling on Leo's big brother status.
So this turned out far longer than I was expecting... I tried to avoid mentioning injuries specifically mainly because I'm not a doctor and so don't know how much I can injure them without killing them too fast so to speak. My argument is that Raph doesn't know exactly how much or how they are injured.
Sorry that there's so much Japanese to be translated - I figured that Splinter (going off the 2K12 version of him like I have for all the other characters) would have taught them Japanese as a kind of 'mother tongue' and that is what both would revert to when they were running off nothing more than fumes, particularly Leo.
Also sorry for any tears this might have invoked. I'd say it wasn't my intention, but I'd be lying…
Hopefully you enjoyed this, or at least the writing and characters (and hopefully I got the characters right). Please review, if you feel so kind. Would love to hear your thoughts.