TMNT Angst fic ~ Michelangelo
It's been a week. Such a long time and just like a second at the same time. Long time to be without someone you love, short like.. like it happened just a while ago. Just yesterday. Just an hour ago. A minute. A Second. Like it happened now. Raph couldn't forget Mike's face, his laughter dying on his features as Shredder's three blades sank into is chest, all way through until they scratched the inside of his shell. The sick sound it did. All the blood running down his chest, stomach, legs. His eyes emptying as Shredder pulled his blades out of Mikey's chest, laughing.
While Shredder had been busy laughing triumphantly, something had snapped in Raphael's head. He walked forward seeing nothing, holding out his sai and stabbing it into Shredder's neck. What the hell? How could that be possible? Raph had thought killing Shredder would have been a lot harder. After all the fights against him and his clan, and now he just stabbed him from behind? Whatever, it didn't matter anymore. Raph saw Shredder shriek in pain and fall dead to the ground, but actually Raph's focus was on the bleeding, red-green, pizzalover Mikey, who was watching Raphael in the eyes not really seeing him. Raph stepped forward, dropped to his knees and took Michelangelo in his arms. He was wet of blood, still warm, chest rising and falling only little.
"I love you, Mikey," Raph choked on a sob. His tears dropped on Mikey's chest, clearing the blood from where they landed. Mikey just looked at him sadly, tryin to hold on. Trying to tell Raphael that he loved him too. With a great amount of strugglig and pain he succeeded to whisper: "I love you, too, Raph." Raph sobbed again, pressing his forehead against Mikey's.
Raph had been in this position for a long, long time. Somehow nobody had come to disturb his and Mikey's intense last minutes. Not Leo, not Don, not even master Splinter.
Mike wasn't with him anymore. He had passed, in Raphael's lap, staring up to his bigbrother's eyes. Now Raph was the youngest of the four of them. Three of them. Just the three of them. Not four anymore. This thought brought more blistering tears in his eyes and they ran down his cheeks and eventually dropped on Mikey's face and chest. He would have to get up and take Michelangelo with him. Take him home.
The sai was so sharp. Raph looked at it, still covered in Shredder's blood. It made him feel sick and he decided to clean it. Mikey was clean now, too. Splinter had taken care of him after Raphael had brought him home, sobbing uncontrollably. Splinter had looked very serious, sad, but not as much as he looked angry. Angry for Shredder, for taking his family away again. This time not only his family, but Leonardo's, Donatello's and Raphael's too.
Raph hadn't seen Leo or Don for six days, but he knew what they were doing. Pretty much the same he did, sit on their beds staring to the wall feeling nothing. Nothing but deep sorrow and bitter viciousness.
In the morning of the seventh day after…. After that, he saw Leo meditating on a bamboostick. His face was tired and serene, it was clear that he had been crying. His cheeks were still gleaming a little in the dim light. Don was sitting by his table examining something he had been working on before… Mike's death. Damn, he had to be able to accept it. He would have to go on with his life. Don distracted himself by doing what he could do best, Leo was clearing his mind and dissipating his anger in practice and training a bit too hard, silently torturing himself with the overtraining without really harming himself.
Raphael had been doing that, too, punching everything that appeared to be near enough. But it didn't seem to satisfy his gnawing sorrow. He always punched things when he was even a little irritated about Mike eating his pizzapiece. It didn't feel special or sufficient to make him feel any better. Raph was frustrated, irritated and so sad he didn't know what to do with himself. He didn't want to join the others, so he just turned around and went back to his own room, locked the door and let his gaze wander around the room. An orange mask lay on his bed, as did photo's of Mike and April, Mike and Casey, Mike and him, Mike and Leo or Don. Mike with… Michael. It didn't considerably help to get over things when April's and Casey's child was named after Michelangelo. Or wasn't officially after Mikey, but Michael was just too close.
Raph watched the picture of Michelangelo, his own littlebro eating pizza with a little 4-year-old boy. Mikey looked at the little boy like he was his littlebro. Tears came in a rush in Raph's eyes and he slumped down to the floor, shell against his bed. He untied his own red mask to tie it up with Michelangelo's orange one. He cried almost audible, but didn't let the sobs escape too loud for others to hear or notice. Raph slid one of his sais from under his bed, watched it like an old friend. It was an old friend. He had had it as long as he could remember. Raph held up his left arm, propped it against his knee palm upwards. He tried carefully his skin on the tip of the sai. It made just a ittle scratch that didn't actually feel anything.
He had felt nothing but sorrow for almost a week. He wanted to feel something, something to cover up the sadness. He pressed just a little harder making a horisontal cut on his wrist. It started to bleed immediately, red fluid running down the green smooth skin. Horisontal, an other horisontal, third horisontal. Tears ran out of his eyes in pain, both physical and mental. He watched the red mix with the green, covering it and making almost a black color. He started to write in his inner forearm. M. I. K. E. Y. the letters begun to cry blood as Raph's sob escaped his lips a little too loud. He heard a bamboostick hit the floor.
He wanted to feel, feel something. Actually, he didn't want to feel anything anymore. No more sorrow and grieving. Vertical. Deeply and slowly he sliced his own skin vertically. More blood wetted him. An other vertical, very deep, following his artery. Raph dropped the sai to the floor, hearing light footsteps getting closer.
Raph sobbed again, burying his face in his bloody hands. "No. No! No, no, Mikey!"
The door opened as Leonardo stepped inside the room filled with the iron smell of blood. Leo gasped and rushed towards Raphael.
"Sod off," Raph managed to say before he choked on a sob. He started to feel dizzy, the world getting misty. And very wet with the hot blood spilling out from his left arm. Leo stepped closer and Raph stood abruptly to turn away from him. He stared at the floor, blood dripping from his three fingers. Leo stepped closer again, this time placing a hand on Raph's shoulder. He did nothing for a while, Raph didn't even try to get away from the warm and familiar touch.
"I'm here. By your side, always, lil' bro. I'm here to help you get throught this. I'm also needing help. It's not only you having dark times. Behind that door is also Don and sensei Splinter. April, Casey and Mike don't even know yet. But you're not alone," Leo said with a low, sincere harsh voice that got chills go down Raph's spine.
"Go away. I'm lost. I have no intentions to find myself again. I have no intentions to do anything," Raph answered, feeling the dizziness take over. He stumbled backwards right against Leonardo's warm chest. He felt Leo's tears drop on his neck and shoulder. He felt Leo's firm grip on his left arm. He didn't resist.
"What have you done to yourself? Hell, Raphael, you think I want to lose another littlebrother?" Leo sounded broken and angry, but worried nevertheless. He took a firm grip around Raph and took him on his arms. Raphael's world was spinning, flashbacks of Mikey taking over his vulnerable mind.
"Master! Sensei Splinter! Raph is going to die!" Raph heard Leo shout as he tried not to drop Raph while climbing down the ladders with just one hand. Splinter rushed out of his room where also Mikey's body was still lying on a table, serene as sun's first rays in a spring morning.
"I'm not going to die, Leo, you stupid bigbro," Raph muttered through gritted teeth as Leo slapped him in the face.
"Don't you never, ever be this stupid again. Just a fortunate coincidence I heard you sob. If I didn't, you would have died," Leo said firmly as he settled Raphael on Splinter's bed for Splinter to examine and handle.
"My little boy. Raphael, I do agree with Leonardo at you being improvident. Now, hold still, I'm going to clean your wounds and bind them tight to stop the bleeding. Leonardo, give him that green little bottle, force it down his throat," Splinter said as he begun to wash most of the blood away. It didn't help much as the dried blood was replaced with new and fresh from the deep cut that followed the artery on Raph's forearm.
Raph tasted something not-so-delicious in his mouth, but swallowed it anyway. Leo touched his forehead fondly, caressing his features gently. Raph was relaxing, dizzyness backing away from the thing he had downed that cleared his head and lessened the pain. He felt Splinter working on his left arm before he fell to unconsciousness.
AN: Well. That was a lot of angst. No, I'm NOT going to submit a seq. Sorry for giving you feels. I just personally felt so bad I had to do something and this somehow just appeared in my head, after I had drawn a picture containing this theme. Please review and tell me what you think, I'm sorry for any kind of typing errors, English is not my mother tongue! :)