I'm NOT shaking in my boots! You are!
The blob… thing… (Actually, it's a:) lump, seems to be calm, maybe even sleeping. Raphael decides that this is an opportunity he needs to take in order to get out of his room and… gather some supplies, perhaps, without seeming suspicious about it. He carefully gets up from his bed after making sure that it's going to remain silent for a while and then heads towards the door and opens it slowly. Geez, man! Has it always squeaked so loudly? He kills a sigh and steps out of his room, hoping that nobody heard him so that he can move around freely. Actually, skip that – he hopes that everyone in the lair would for some reason decide to just get out of here and leave him alone so that he can really move around freely without worrying about someone detecting him or not. Speaking of that…
"Hey!" Mikey says as he looks up from the TV. "When did you come back?"
"Oh! Erm… just now?" Raph tries to smile to make it seem more believable, but then again it's true, more or less.
"Must've missed ya." Mikey says. "Where'd you go anyway?"
"Oh, you know, just out… to bust some Kraang."
For a moment Mikey is silent and looks a little concerned. "I was afraid of that." He then says and looks back at the TV. "Leo wants to talk to you. He's in the dojo with sensei."
"Great…"
Changing the direction of his steps, Raphael prepares himself to get talked to in that one way that really ticks him off. This time however, he knows that he won't allow himself to get that angry – not after what just happened, and that it's currently sleeping in his bedroom. He walks in casually, like he always does and sees how Leo and Splinter are sitting on the floor talking. Once they notice him, they look up at him with their own specific looks on their face. Leo seems quite troubled and worried – possibly because he knows that his hotheaded brother went out to let out some steam, and that he most likely ended up in trouble because of it, whilst Splinter looks at him like he always does whenever he need some more meditation… or sleep.
"Raphael." Splinter says and invites him to sit.
"Sensei, Leo." Raph says and walks up to them to sit down.
Leo moves a few inches to leave some room for his brother to sit with them. Once seated, Raphael bows to Splinter and looks up at him, waiting for him to start talking about you-know-what in the way he finds appropriate for the moment. And so, Splinter starts talking about how the anger can be an ally, but also an enemy, a useful tool for battle, or a dangerous weapon to harm you with. And for once, Raphael listens. He listens to every single word that Splinter says and thinks about them. Never before has it been so obvious to him just how much more control he could've had over his life if he only had bothered to listen to those words before. There are many different events in his life that could've been easily avoided, but the one that really stands out right now is the thing that happened just earlier this day.
After a long lecture – a very long but also very important lecture – Splinter finishes and looks at his son, hoping that he, just this one time, understood what he was really saying to him. A few seconds pass and Raphael doesn't say anything – and soon the seconds has become a minute and counting. Splinter looks at his son and Leonardo at his brother. They both know that he went out to let out some steam after the training incident, like he always does when the training goes wrong like that, but never before has he been this quiet after getting lectured for his behavior. Never before has he actually listened, and the way his head is slightly lowered. Could it be…?
"Raphael?" Splinter asks. "Do you not have anything to say?"
"Hm?" Raphael asks back and looks up at his father. "Like what?"
Splinter looks at him for another small moment before he clears his throat and tries to think of the best way to ask this question to not poke the bear that they've somehow managed to avoid so far. Usually, they don't manage to avoid it no matter what they do, so this is truly worrying.
"Are you alright my son?"
"Yes, of course I am. Why wouldn't I be?"
"Forgive me, my son, but…" Splinter hesitates for a moment. "…but, you do not often decide to listen to everything I say to you after you leave the lair filled with rage."
"Well…" Oh, shoot! They're onto him! "…I guess I just… got tired of that?" Feeling the stares of them both is burning in his mind as he knows what they're thinking right now, so he decides to try his best to save the situation as much as he can. "I'm not saying it's going to last forever. I just didn't really feel up to it right now."
"Erm…" Leonardo joins the conversation. "…it's not like it has something to do with whatever you did when you were out raging, does it?"
That's when Raphael grows suspiciously silent for another moment. He raises his left hand and begins to scratch himself behind the head, like he always, always, do whenever he knows something really important but has absolutely no idea how to put it in words to make it sound better than it is.
"Raph?" Leo asks.
"Well… it might have something to do with-"
"Hey guys!" Donatello yells out from his lab. "You better take a look at this!"
Saved by the bell… or something like that? But then again, he's not really safe at all, and they're all about to find out why… this is going to be a very interesting day. Though, he's pretty sure what it is Donatello has discovered and wants to show them. Well, he's never been good with words anyway, so he might just as well let the one who knows just what to say and how to say it, say it. As they all get up from whatever they were doing and walks up to the smarty-pants hideout, Raphael prepares himself for the worst; that they're all going to find out what he's done? Well, that was the thing he feared the most the moment before he remembered why he decided to leave his bedroom… A cold lightning strikes through his shell and spreads to all the parts of his body as he remembers that he has left the lump in his bed during all of this and assuming that it would stay asleep during it all.
"Hey, Raph? Are you okay?" Mikey asks when he sees the very bizarre and chocked expression on his brother's face.
"Erm… yeah!" Raph says, trying his best to play it cool, but only ends up discovering just how hard it actually is to keep a poker face on when you're lying about something at this scale. "I just… have to check something in my room."
He's gone before anyone has the time to ask anything, and he leaves Mikey at the door to Donnie's lab with a big question mark on his face. Taking a bunch of mental notes about all of this, Mikey glances over his shoulder before he heads into Donnie's lab to see what's up. In the meantime, Raphael has reached his bedroom and entered it most violently – and loudly. The lump on his bed managed to wake up from it and is now sniffling in his bed, ready to start a firework of tears if he doesn't do something really fast about it.
"No! No, no, no, no, no, no!" He hurries up to his bed and looks at it whilst trying his best to understand how to make it stop before it starts. "Please! Please! Please! Please don't do it! Don't start crying!"
The sounds it makes are still not loud enough for the others to hear, but it is getting louder and louder, so it will be over quite soon! Oh, whatever shall he do to stop this madness? Oh, I don't know… maybe remember what it seemed to enjoy doing right before he entered the lair in the first chapter of this story? Glancing over his shoulder to see if anyone is by the door, Raph's eyes see something that should've been obvious to him, but since he's new at being a "father", I'll forgive him. Mentally face palming, he unties his bandanna and holds it towards the lump that seems to be a little more interested in it than the idea of crying. As it begins to grab after it Raph lets out a big sigh of relief. Now it has to be safe to leave it be for a little longer while, right?
"Well, only one way to find out." He says as he slowly back away from the bed and leaves his bedroom.
When he notice how he still can't hear it make any sound he lets out yet another sigh of relief and hurries to get to Donnie's lab before anyone gets suspicious about his lack of presence. He manages to sneak in without anyone noticing – well, anyone but Mikey – right as Donnie is about to finish his grand speech about how he managed to get his hands over the stuff that he's about to show them, right after he's done talking some more about the methods he had to use in order to get this information for them.
"Are you done talking soon?" Raph asks with the same impatient tone everyone knows.
Suddenly remembering that she forgot to add this part of the story into the story, the author definitely didn't have to rewrite this small section to cover up her mistake. I mean… He shouldn't have done that though, cuz' now they're all looking at him and can see that he's not really, complete. When they all stare at him he decides to stare back at them while asking "What?"
"What happened to your bandanna?" Mikey asks.
Suddenly remembering that he got rid of his bandanna to make sure the lump wouldn't start crying and all that stuff, Raphael now finds himself in front of his family, without his mask on. And to be honest, he kind of feels naked without it – but he can't get it back unless he wants them all to find out what he's keeping secret from them.
"Oh…" He says. "I got a… stain on it…? I don't want to wear it unless it's clean."
"You do realize that it's been chewed on? By Spike?" Donnie asks.
"Yeah, but it was still clean after! That's different!"
"Fine." Donnie decides to drop it and to just let them know what he's found. "Here it is."
They all go a little closer to see just what it is that he has found – and since Raphael is the only one who already knows about that secret Kraanglab, he's also the only one who is shaking in his boots right now. No one else knows anything about that location or about anything that happened there. But they might find out if he doesn't learn how to use a poker face soon.
"What is it Donnie?" Leo asks, still a little confused as to what they're looking at.
"It's a Kraanglab." He answers. "It went up on the radar not long ago which makes me think it will be worth checking out."
"How so?"
"Well, last time I checked, it's impossible to just straight up built a laboratory in one day so that cannot be what happened. What I think happened is this: this building has been "hidden" for a long time thanks to some sort of cloaking device, which allowed them to do whatever it was they were doing without anyone knowing about it – until something today went very wrong and ended up letting us know about the location."
No one is saying anything; they're all just slowly turning towards Raphael. It's far too much of a coincident that this would happen on the same day without being connected to one another. Knowing what they're all thinking, Raph doesn't snap back at them for accusing him for being the thing that happened at that location. He merely just sighs and raises his hands to let them all know that he surrenders.
"Yes." He says. "It was me."
More silence and more staring, and this time it's actually starting to tick him off a little.
"What?!" He snaps.
"Nothing." Leo sighs and turns towards Donnie. "Any idea what they were up to in there?"
"I can't determine that from here. We have to go over there to see for ourselves."
"Well then." Leo says and turns back towards Raph. "Lead the way."
"Please."
Well, now that the cat is out of the bag – is that what they say? – the four brothers head out to see what sort of thing the Kraang were up to before Raph got his hands over them and did what he usually does whenever he gets his hands over some Kraangdroids.
The road is longer than it looked like on the map. Hopefully they won't be expecting any company once they arrive, but then again, it's the Kraang. It should be easy enough to deal with. They finally arrive after a 30 minute drive which raises the question of: how the shell did their brother even manage to get here? Leo sighs as the question sticks itself onto his brain and refuses to leave him alone. He can't bother to deal with small details like that right now – they need to focus on the main task of their mission – discover what it was the Kraang were up to and then make sure that they will never manage to pull it off ever again.
Parking the Shellraises, Leo is the first one to get out of the vehicle to make sure that the coast is clear. After he gives the signal, the rest of them gets out and heads towards the building in sneaking ninja mode. Well, all but Raph. He's been here before, he knows that there's nothing to hide from. It's when you enter the building that you need to be a little more on the lookout. But since he doesn't want to make anyone irritated, he decides to enter the sneaky mode after he opens the door. So, he just casually walks up towards the big door like he did the first time, ignoring his brother's hushing and warnings, and voila, the door is open in a second. Crouching as the doors opens up for them, Raphael enters the building despite all the things he imagines Leo is saying but he can't hear. From what he can hear they're all behind him right now, so they're all in this mess from now on. They keep walking up to the great door in front of them that is still messed up after Raphael busted it open like a beast. For a moment he can't help but smile when he thinks about it, but he forces himself to stop when he sees Leo's stare. They carefully enter the room where the machine is – the one that made that thing that's sleeping in his bed and snuggling with his bandanna right now.
"Wow." Mikey says as they enter the room and sees the mess. "That had to be quite the stain you manage to get on your bandanna dude. Just look at this!" He walks around and checks every messed up part that he can find. "It's even messier than my room!"
"Now that you mention it…" Raph says as he also decides to take a walk around the place to see if there's something he missed last time he was here.
"Alright." Leo says. "Donnie, you go over to those panels over there and see what you can find. Mikey, you check this place out and see if you can find anything that isn't broken and that seems to be important."
"On it!"
"And Raph." Leo pauses to have a look at his brother. "Maybe you would like to tell us just what it is that we are looking for? Maybe even what the Kraang were up to when you decided to do… this?"
"I don't know what they were up to." He says. "I only know what I saw and heard."
"And that is?"
"Well, for starters, they were checking this huge machine for something… maybe parts were missing or not working as they should've? And when I started to mess it all up, they started yelling to each other like they always do, you know like: "the one of the ones known as the turtles are in this building where we are", and after that they started talking about how to fix their experiment that they were doing for Shredder."
"They're working for the Shredder?!" Leo bursts.
"The Shredder is here?!" Mikey screams.
"What?!" Donnie says and looks up from where he's hiding.
Raph sighs loudly. Like, really loudly. He then takes a deep breath and yells at his two idiotic brothers that the Shredder is not in the building with them – for now, that is. It's hard to say that he's not on his way when he really might be, given the fact that the place where his experiments where being… experimented (?) just got busted, and the fact that he might want to know about it all. But no, he's not here right now at least.
"Mikey and Donnie, no, the Shredder is not here." Raph says while facing his brothers, and then he turns towards Leo. "Leo, yes, the Kraang were working for the Shredder in this building. Why else do you think I messed this place up so badly? Now, I may not know what they were working on for the Shredder, but as soon as I understood that they were working for him at all, I decided to make sure that he wouldn't get what he wanted out of this. Now, are you happy?"
Leo looks at his brother. It's kind of hard to focus on anything he says now that he's not wearing the bandanna. He kind of looks funny – but don't you dare tell him that. He will not let you get away with it. So, Leo is trying his best to play it cool, trying his best to keep the poker face on after seeing his brother being himself when it comes to his temper and him explaining something – without his bandanna on.
"You're trying not to laugh, aren't you?"
And just as he asked that, Leo snorted. I guess he couldn't take it the way Raph ever so irritated asked that question. Growling at his brother's childish behavior, he watches as Leo turns around and runs away as he immediately starts chasing him.
"Well let's just see how good you look without your bandanna on!"
They spend the next hour searching the place, finding stuff they didn't think of would be connected to this place. Mikey found some strange samples from different kinds of creatures from around the world. Donnie found out what the experiment was about and what was supposed to be in the container machine if Raph hadn't obliterated it. And Raph found out just what Leo looks like without his bandanna. Now everyone is happy about this – except Leo, perhaps. Well, he's happy enough that they found out anything at all from the mess Raph caused to this place. He had higher hopes when they left the lair, but when they arrived and saw the damage their brother had caused, his hopes pretty much surrendered.
"Alright, I don't think we're gonna find anything more by searching this place." Leo says. "Why don't we go back to the lair and analyze what we've found so far? Besides, the longer we stay the greater the risk that we'll end up meeting the Shredder's minions."
Agreed, they all get what they've found and heads back to the Shellraiser and then drive back to the lair. The angst starts to build up in Raph the closer they get to home. It's still there, isn't it? It's still a thing. It's still real. Killing a sigh, Raph does his best to act like normal when they arrive at home. Mikey watch as he heads directly towards his room, how he extremely carefully opens the door and how he extremely carefully closes it after him. How he actually locks it to make sure no one else is able to get in. With a frown on his face he decides to play it cool as well. He follow Leo and Donnie into Donnie's lab to place the stuff and samples that he found at the Kraanglab, then he heads straight out from the lab and up to his own room. He eyes Raph's door as he walks passed it and tries to listen without letting anyone know that he is. He doesn't hear anything out of the ordinary, but that doesn't confirm anything. The frown grows deeper and he walks into his own room to do some meditating over all this.
Back in his room, Raph feels how a heavy weight is lifting from his shoulders as the little lump is asleep again, still holding onto his bandanna. A smile manages to escape his awareness and is slowly beginning to grow on his face, but after a few minutes he becomes aware of it and forces himself to stop. He still doesn't know what to do with this thing, and he doesn't want to get attached to it if it would turn out that he needs to get rid of it. That's why he should just focus in the things that matter, right here and now, before he can allow himself to actually care about its wellbeing or anything like that. Now, what is he supposed to do?
He checks the time on the little clock that he found a few years ago and decided to keep, and soon he understands why he's feeling so tired. With a big yawn on its way, he knows what he should've been thinking about this whole time: where to keep it so that he can sleep in his own bed like normal, without having to worry about it waking up crying in the middle of the night like an actual baby does. What if it wakes up in the middle of the night and cries like an actual baby does? What if it wakes up in the middle of the night and cries like an actual baby does? What if it wakes up everyone?
Breathe Raphael, breathe! There has to be something he can do to prevent that from happening, right? But what? And why did he have to wait till this very moment to realize how much he needed to know this? Why now when he's so tired? Well, not that tired maybe, but tired enough to make everything go wrong no matter how hard you try to make it work out for you. He sighs. But then it hits him. Didn't he use to have an old blanket that he always kept no matter what? Where on earth did he put it? Trying his best not to make any sound whilst he searches the place, he ends up finding nothing. Sighing some more, he stands up and looks at the lump once more. It's sleeping like it didn't have any worries in the world. Man, I wish I could sleep right now, but no, I have to go to work soon. Oh well. One last sigh and Raphael is down for the counting. He carefully crawls into his bed and places his head on his pillow, making sure it doesn't wake up from the movement, then he closes his eyes and tries to fall asleep.
So much conversation to make up and write down, my brain hurts. But hey! I managed to write a chapter much faster than I thought! I can't tell when the next one will be, cuz' I'm also working on a book, and I need to finish a chapter there first before I can allow myself to start the next one here. I'm so excited though! I managed to keep Raelle a secret from the Hamato family for much longer that I thought I could!
- I'm moving in three months. I'm happy right now. I'm gonna write some more.
TMNT 2012: I'm perfectly capable of making sane decisions! Now if you excuse me, I'm gonna raise this lump of turtle-goo as my own child in the sewers without telling my family about it.
Next chapter: When I have the time.
