Raphael wakes up to the sound of gnashing teeth.
He bolts upright, kicking away the covers and shoving himself back against the wall, arms spread across the concrete. His chest heaving with the effort of concealed terror, he strains to hear anything above the deafening silence.
"It's happenin' again," he whispers breathlessly, shattering the stillness of night.
A weight on his bed shifts. He blinks and sees the silhouette of his brother parked on the edge, leaning back and facing him with his head tilted. He's grimacing in the darkness.
"You'll be okay," his brother says, reaching forward to switch on the oily lamp on the nightstand. The room floods with a warm, sleepy glow that washes Leo's bandana in pale light. Raph looks at the faded color, at the katana strapped across Leo's shell, and gives a bitter scoff. He runs a hand over his own maskless face.
"I'm sick of this. It's all messed up."
"Shh," Leo soothes as he leans forward to circle his arms around Raph. Raphael inhales shakily, the scent of candle wax and incense burning his throat. His older brother's warm cheek presses into the side of his head. "Everything will be okay. I'm here with you, otouto."
Raphael growls out a laugh and shoves him away. "You're so full of shit."
Leonardo smiles, his spotless, pearly teeth glinting in the low light of the room.
–
Raphael wakes up to find himself standing in the lab.
The lights are dimmed, save for a desk lamp on the far side of the room that spits and sputters in the last vestiges of utility. The flickering bulb is angled towards the project atop the desk, and the broad shell of his genius brother is haloed by the warm shafts of light. He's spinning a screwdriver with rhythmic flicks of the wrist.
"Hey, Raph," Don says into the empty air. He pauses to adjust the lamp; shadows dance like skittish night-creatures over the scutes of his shell. "Need something?"
Raphael almost laughs, because he needs a lot of things right now. For one, he needs to fast-forward through this hellish caricature of reality.
"Don't show me your mouth," he says simply, breaking his chain in the carefully-structured loop.
Something low and angry thins the air in the room.
Donatello stops twisting the screwdriver to give Raph an odd look. His bafflement seems candid. "I'll...try to restrain myself?"
"Don't screw around with me," Raph snarls, crossing his arms and leaning back against the table. He keeps shooting glances around the lab, watching the shadows like something might jump out at him. "We been through this a million times. Keep your trap shut."
Rolling his eyes, Don turns back to his project. His head shakes in exasperation. "I swear you come in here just to baffle me sometimes. You have a betting pool with the guys, don't you? Pull one over on the smart turtle and win a prize."
"Shut up," Raph snaps. Something small and glowing blinks in the far corner of the room. He stiffens, hearing the sound of sharp, gnashing teeth.
Donatello slowly puts his screwdriver down on the computer.
"You know, if you want me to fix something for you, you can just ask," he sighs without turning around.
The grinding sound is like nails on a chalkboard, louder than the trains that shake the lair when they run through the nearby tunnels, but Donatello doesn't seem to hear. Of course he doesn't. Raph's fingers dig into his skin with white-knuckled ferocity. Don't rise to the bait. Don't do nothing.
"Okay, I'll bite." Don turns, his lips pursed. "What did you break?"
"Don't," Raph grits out.
"Don't what? Was it something of Master Splinter's?" Donatello chuckles. "I won't tell, promise. I'm just trying to help."
Raph jerks forward, his fist slamming into the table, and the screwdriver clatters from the computer onto the cold floor. "I don't want your help, got it?!"
Don smiles, showing a set of wet, crimson-slicked teeth.
"You sure need it," he observes mildly, reddish spittle flecking his lips.
–
Raphael wakes up with blankets twisted around his limbs.
Leo is leaning forward in Raph's recliner, hands steepled in front of his face. His head cocks to the side as he watches Raphael, stretched across the bed, his bonds wrenching his limbs against the mattress with nearly bone-crushing force. The outline of Leo's bandana glows orange against the warm light.
"You don't have to keep doing this to yourself," he laments, his sad voice at odds with the utter blankness of his face.
Raph roars and tries to jerk forward, but the blankets clench so hard around his arms that it feels like they're going to snap clean off.
"Screw you!" he chokes out, turning glazed, wild eyes onto Leonardo. He arches back against the mattress until his spine creaks in his shell, banging his head against the concrete wall. "Leave me outta your freakin' nightmare!"
Leonardo straightens, disapproval written all over his face. His head shakes as he stands up and walks towards Raph.
"You invited me, didn't you? Isn't this what you wanted?" He stops at the bedside, lingers for a moment, and then kneels, grinning far too widely with shadows glossing his teeth. "Or did you just lose control again?
Raph slams his forehead into Leo's jaw with a satisfying crunch.
With a cry of pain and surprise, Leonardo stumbles backward onto his feet, hand flying up to cover his mouth. He turns murderous, glinting eyes onto Raphael. Flecks of red dapple the edges of his palm.
"Right answer," Leo decides, audibly sucking on his teeth. His lips close, tongue swishing something around in his mouth, and then he swallows. His teeth are glossy white when he bares them at Raph in annoyance.
"Not this time, ya lyin' asshole!" Raphael bellows, trembling in fury. He strains at his bonds like a fly caught in a web. "Go ahead! Let's see all that shit you've been holdin' back!"
Leonardo looks at him in surprise. After a moment, shakes his head with a humorless laugh.
"You are getting closer, aren't you?"
Then he leans forward and vomits blood all over the floor.
–
Raphael is starting to wonder if he isn't waking up at all.
–
Donatello clicks his tongue in disappointment. "You really should have told me, you know. I could have fixed them without all this hassle."
He wants to tell Don to fuck off, but he's too busy trying not to gag from the screwdriver plunged down his throat like an endoscope. So instead he chokes, feeling his throat muscles clench around the cold, filthy metal, shredding and pulsing and liquefying.
Don hums thoughfully and gives the screwdriver a twist. Tears spring to Raph's eyes as the soft flesh inside is pulverized like bloody meat, but Don seems untroubled. He reaches up to adjust the spitting lamp light hovering above Raph's vision.
"You never tell me anything," he adds, sounding almost offended.
The screwdriver pulls out from Raph's mouth with a meaty schlck. Raph gags loudly, flopping against the metal table like a fish.
Don pats his shoulder apologetically. "Sorry about that. I missed."
Raph tries to gurgle out an expletive at him, but his throat is on fire. He clenches his eyes against the pain and the light and the maddening sound of gnashing teeth.
"Oh, don't be like that." Donatello tips the bloodied screwdriver head against his temple, a vaguely annoyed scowl on his face. "You know you only have yourself to blame. If you'd just told me when it happened, maybe I could have gotten my hands on some acrylics or something. Now we're on a time crunch."
The lamp tilts into his mouth. Raphael's eyes fly open, landing on Don's red, wicked grin. "You know how things go, Raph. It's all about spare parts."
–
Leo is standing in the doorway, bloody froth streaming down his chin, dripping down his plastron, splashing into the bubbly puddle pooling at his feet. He's still laughing.
A spider with orange eyes and grinding teeth crawls out from under his bandana and skitters down to sit on the pommel of his katana. It blinks at Raphael slowly, each eye lazily fluttering across his bindings. Then it starts to laugh, too.
–
The chain is falling apart, and Raph thinks he's just found out what it was tethered to.
–
Sitting on the ground with his knees drawn up, Michelangelo stares away from him and into the void.
Raph is bound in place, but not by blankets or shackles. His feet are planted in the floor and his limbs weigh like lead blocks at his side.
His brain spinning, Raphael wonders what the hell is going on. He looks into the same direction as Mikey does, but there's nothing there. Nothing anywhere. The shadows have closed in from every corner of the lair, amassing into one configuration that envelops the room like a cloak of dark water.
The gnashing. The gnashing can reach them here.
Raphael tries to call out to his brother, but something's wrong with his throat, and all that comes out is a wet gurgle.
But it works. Mikey's chin lifts from his arms. Slowly, unnaturally, his head turns to pin Raphael with a vacant gaze.
"You shouldn't be here," he slurs quietly, his face obscured by the darkness.
"Mike," Raph burbles, reaching out desperately. "M'sorry. M'sorry, Mike. I din' mean..."
Michelangelo shakes his head. "Doesn't matter to 'em. They're here now." He laughs bitterly, shadows bouncing off of his teeth in wild angles. "They really liked mine, you know. Never had mutant teeth before, I guess."
"Din' know..." Raph is sobbing now, both arms outstretched as though he can lift his brother from the penumbra and carry them both out. "Mikey, I d'n know they were there!"
Mike tilts his head, and his eyes flood with a sadness that seems to lift the thick, black fog around them. "That's what you're sorry about?"
Raphael begins to plead, but Mikey cuts him off with a shrug.
"Doesn't matter. I don't have anything else to give 'em." He closes his eyes. "I'm not the one they're after anymore."
The gnashing becomes a roar in the darkness. A flickering spotlight abruptly bears down into the void, washing them both in pallid yellow hues. Raph snatches his suddenly-weightless arms back, crossing them over his face as his pupils constrict against the blinding light.
"Better go, Raph." He squints between his arms at Michelangelo.
A broken, bloody, decimated smile creaks in his brother's face.
–
"Enough," Raph says quietly.
Leonardo stops laughing. He's still in the doorway, one palm spread flat against the concrete wall. He tilts his head and regards Raphael in patient silence.
Raph listens to the drip drip of bubbly liquid splashing onto the floor. "I know, okay? This nightmare...it ain't yours."
The dripping and gnashing and lamp-light flashing all choke away, spinning the room into flatline silence. Raphael swallows, his throat aching and raw, and raises his eyes.
Leonardo smiles, his spotless, pearly teeth glinting in the low light of the room.