Hey guys… Heh heh…. I guess I should start out with an apology. I'm so so so so sorry this update came so late! I'm going on a month long trip to Greece, so everything's been pretty hectic with preparing to leave and everything. Hopefully, this next chapter will make up for the wait! Not so sure they'll be another chapter after this one, counting the fact I won't be able to update for a month. If there is, then I'll try and put it up as soon as I get back. Thank you all so much for the favorites and reviews and follows and everything! Each positive message sends my heart flying! You all give me such great tips, and help me so much! Thank you. And now, we finally have the 3rd, and possibly final, chapter for State of Anger….
It's when Raph hugged me, that I truly realized the reality of previous events. It's when he wiped away the sad that trailed my cheeks, that my eyes finally cleared from the red. It's when he held me in his brotherly embrace, and comforted me, that I actually came to the current, and registered that if Raphael Hamato was hugging me, it must have been bad.
I didn't want to look over at my bleeding brother, but my eyes had other ideas.
When I saw the mix of red and green, my sobs only became worse. At this time, I could care less if crying was a sign of weakness, my dam was broken, and there was nothing I could do to fix it right now. If that meant I was weak, then so be it.
I subconsciously felt Raph pick me up off the ground. My mind wasn't really all there. The sight of the broken and battered Leo, my brother, kept flashing across my eyes. Reminding me each time that I was the one that caused the image. I look back to see my nunchucks, still laying where I left them, stained red. Raph's got his shoulder around me, and I'm leaning most of my weight onto him.
We start walking away, but then my mind started going into hyperdrive, when I heard Leo's voice break the silence.
Next to him is Don, trying to assess the damage. He slowly picks him up off the ground, I'm assuming to bring to his lab.
I can't just leave the destruction I caused. I try to turn back, I need to see Leo's alright. To relinquish the fear and anxiety of not knowing the true length of hurt I had done. I scramble out of Raph's heavy hold, and try to run back to Don's lab, when I feel a calloused hand grasp my wrist. I look behind me to see Raph, but he's not staring at me with his hard, amber eyes. He's looking down, like he feels guilty for something. Pity.
"You know you can't go in there Mike, not yet." Yeah. Definitely guilt. Definitely pity. Gotta love it all.
I struggle against the contact feebly, too drained to fight against yet another brother. "Please, Raph." I plead. I just need to know.
He finally looks up, and it's when he does, that my mouth clamps shut, and it's my turn to look down, and give up the battle of strength. I then figure out, why Raph kept his head down. Raphael's eyes were brimmed with sadness, blocking tears from cascading down his cheeks, daring to break loose.
If there's one thing everyone knows about my brother, it's that he doesn't cry. Never, ever. The only ones that have seen his tears, at least that I know of, are me and Master Splinter. I don't know about the other dudes, I'm sure they have as well, but I'm not going to lie, I'm probably closest Raphie-Boy. Don't get me wrong, I love all my brothers to lengths no one has ever seen, but, I dunno, Raph's the only one I've actually talked with. I know him best, he's kinda my best friend. Sometimes, late at night, we just won't go to sleep, maybe racked with nightmares, or just can't seem to drift to wonderland, whatever the case, we just stay up all night, and simply, talk. Talk about our darkest fears, biggest wonders, secrets we vowed to ourselves to never tell anyone. Everything.
We can always feel that day when it's gonna be one of those nights, a spidey sense, if you must. We just know.
It's on those rare occasions, that I see Raphael Hamato cry. Maybe once or twice, and just a little tear.
So, to see him about to cry right now, really, truly, terrifies me.
I oblige to his pulls, and slowly climb up the stairs he has led me to. You'd think, that we would be headed to my room, but no, you would be wrong. Consequently, it would be logical, to think we were then headed to Raphael's room. Incorrect again, we passed his, just after Donnie's.
I couldn't fathom the reason, that after brutally beating the shit out of my older brother, that Raph would think it would be good idea for me, to then go visit his dorm. Very good, Raphael, why don't you just suffocate me in guilt, it'll probably lighten my spirits.
When we finally get there, after what feels like an eternity, I stop at his doorway. Just looking inside, to see his perfectly neat room, OCD written all over it in bright, red marker, I couldn't bring myself to go in. The guilt rides on to me in massive waves, relentless.
"Raph, please, I can't go in there."
"I know Mike, just trust me." I know Raph knows what he's doing, and exactly what I'm feeling, but there's no way in hell I'm going in there. To go in there, means remembering over and over and over again what a terrible, awful brother, and friend, that I am.
Leo's image becomes more frequent, not letting me go two seconds without the memory of his blood spread across the floor.
"Hello? Focus, Mikey." I realize I was spacing out.
"Sorry." I apologize.
"It's fine Mike, just come in here." his voice cold and hard, stubborn, like a freaking mule. I know Raph's not going to budge with this, but as I try to move my legs, they just won't oblige. I can't go in there.
"I.. I can't, Raph. There's… I'm.. No." I finally settle on just simply refusing to step foot in there, great battle tactic Mikey, that'll throw 'em for a loop.
"Michelangelo, if you don't have enough honor or courage to enter Leonardo's room, I don't know what kind of ninja you are." he said dead, monotone.
I was blown back. Here I was, thinking that maybe a little brotherly love was in order, but no, maybe some brute insults will be better.
"What?" I spat, surprised.
"You can't even go into your own freakin' brother's room, how would you think you were goin' to face him, in the flesh, back there? You were trained to be better than this."
I almost think this is a nightmare, like an actual dream. No way real-life Raph would say that, why don't they just disown me already. That's two for four family members in one day.
"You know, Raph, for a split second, I actually thought that you were maybe going to give me some wise words of wisdom, but no, that's absurd. Instead, why don't you call me an awful ninja, say I have no bravery, and that I'm an awful brother, yup, great idea, Raph. You know, I'm starting to wonder why you guys haven't kicked me out yet, considering about half the family already thinks I'm useless!" I raged, my voice gradually getting louder as the words continuously swam out of my mouth.
"Hey, at least my 'great idea' got you inside." he calmly replied. I didn't quite understand what he meant, until I looked around. As I was yelling out in my frenzy, I had subconsciously stepped into Leo's room, getting face to face with Raph.
I started looking around. There was a mural of a Japanese Pink Blossom Tree on his wall to my left, his "meditation station", as I like to call it, below it. His desk to my right, littered with pictures of all of us, Casey, April, LH, and all of our wacko friends. I see his futon, the weird substitution for a bed, with a light, blue, soft blanket, folded up on top of it. I look down, and see my feet standing on top of an intricately designed, Indian carpet, probably from South America, now that I think about it.
All these things, all these little extensions of Leo, surrounded me. The Bloody Leo was no longer just a flashing image, but all I saw as I dropped to my knees, and just let my self go.
My fists were balled up and on the ground as well. My cry wasn't a loud one. Tears just streamed down my cheeks, I didn't have any sound left in myself. A voice inside my head just kept repeating: "What a terrible brother. Can't even control your own anger? Pathetic."
And it was right, I was pathetic. What kind of ninja, or brother for that matter, couldn't hold his own temper enough to stop himself from beating his brother's lights out?
"Stop it." I look up to the stern voice of Raphael. "You ain't pathetic."
"What kind of brother…" Looking back down, I didn't even need to finish the sentence, Raph got what I was trying to say. But he didn't respond. I look up to see him holding a big metal box, big enough to hold 30 liters of water.
"The hell is that.." I ask, drained. I was so done with the antics. "Why are we even in here?"
When this happens, ever so rarely, Raph is always the one to calm me down, help me. He usually just takes me out on a walk topside, go to the highest building we can find, and just sit at the top. He doesn't say anything, and I? I just cry my freakin' heart out, and that's that. He hugs me, comforts me, he loves me.
Apparently, not this time.
He drops the box in front of me, with a loud clash. Inside, it sounds like a bunch of broken glass and metal.
"This? This, is humility. This, is humanity. This, Michelangelo, is balance."
I stared at him, 642% he had finally lost his marbles, "Raph, what in God's name are you-"
"Just look inside, Mikey." he said, annoyed, as if he was aggravated I wasn't understanding the meaning behind this box full of what seemed like broken junk.
Fed up, I open the top and peer down, to see not exactly what I expected. Inside, it was filled with, like I thought, broken glass, metal, anything delicate. But that's not all.
There were picture frames, torn up pictures as well, trophies (no idea where he got those), some of Don's inventions he never finished, dolls, clothes, flashlights, paper, journals, jars, candles, windchimes, toys, GameBoys, cell phones, everything! Anything that was in here, could be described in one word: broken. Hah, they kind of reminded me of my self, broken.
"What is all this..?"
Raph sighed. "Mike, you ain't stupid. You're not pathetic, you're not useless, you're not weak, an' you're definitely not a liability. You are human, or erm… turtle. You are a person, who is not perfect. You are someone who, like every, single damn person, has a limit. Everyone on this Earth, has anger, somewhere inside of them. It's when their limit has been reached, when the anger has been boiled to the brim, does it eventually show. And guess what? Sometimes, things aren't in our own control, believe it or not. I can't control the outcome of football games, or whether you'll beat me in poker, or if Masta' Splinta' will give us an hour extra of katas, or whatever."
He took a breath, and started again.
"As much as fate seems to prove this wrong, I have one belief in this God forsaken world. An' that is, that everythin' has balance. Whether it be bettin' on football games, or fightin' The Foot, in the end, everythin' gotta have balance, it just has to. It's the state in which the equalizers come, that make them different. Mikey, you are the stupidest, craziest, most giddy, moronic, scatter-brained turtle I know, but you're also the happiest. You got this flame inside of you, always there to remind people what they got to live for. In the darkest situations, that flame is our guide in light. Never-ending and bright. But, like I said, this world is of balance, yanno? So if you have all of this joy runnin' you up North, you can only go so high before you reach the stars. You need somethin' to ground you, Mikey. That temper? That's it. It may be tragic, it may be unstable, and heck, it's downright terrifyin', but that's what it is. That's your State of Anger. We all have one. And to see you so confused and wonderin' why this happens to you, beatin' yourself up and drownin' in guilt, really terrifies me, to see those emotions in ya. I can't protect you from them, no matter how hard I try. We all have them, even Leo, even Don, even me. Mine? Hah, mine's reversed I guess. You know those moments we have late at night? Those are mine, yanno, 'cause I got a 24/7 temper. Keeps me grounded, my equilibrium. Fact of the matter is, we don't have control over almost anythin', because in the end, it won't matter. That's the big equalizer. When we're all dead and gone, no one's goin' to remember that sometimes, we just lose ourselves. In the end, we only have each other. In the end, we're all. Just. Equals."
I stared at my brother, dumbfounded, after hearing his words of wisdom.. I didn't even know Raph had wisdom. It's like he had been thinking of this forever, and now just took the moment to speak his mind, his true mind. As each and every word spilled out of his mouth, everything, as crazy and mad as it just sounded, started making more and more sense. I started running them over my head, the equalizers, the balance, my "flame" or whatever, the State of Angers. It just kept sounding crazier and crazier, but truer than it could take to form at the same time.
"Oh." Was all I could really manage. Yes, after Raphael monologues to me the secret of the Universe, I reply with 'oh'. Intelligent Mikey strikes again.
I look down again, at the big metal box, and realize I still didn't know why it was important. Raph must've caught on to my confusion, and spoke up.
"Ah, yes. This, Mikey, is Leonardo's equilibrium." he said, as he picked up a broken toy robot.
While simultaneously comprehending my brother's newfound IQ points, and trying to figure out how broken robot toys and glass represented Leo's "State of Anger", I dove deeper into the land of confusion.
"So this is Leo's State of Anger because…?"
Raphael sighed again, apparently agitated because it sounded like he was going to go into another soliloquy.
"Ever since Leo got back, I always kept hearin' him get up in the middle of the night, every few days or so. For the first few months, I just assumed he was gettin' up to piss, or was stuck on the South American track of time, and dismissed it. But after about three months, I realized that you don't just get up at 1:10 AM every, week, on the dot, to go pee. Leo's funky, but not that funky. So about one or two weeks ago, I decided to follow him, figure out what the shell he's been doin'. At first, he was just joggin' through the sewers, God knows why, since it gets to be around 40˚ at night in there. Anyway, after about a half and hour, he went topside. I thought he actually might go off to fight some goons on the street…. Damn was I wrong. I hadn't noticed he brought a little sack wit' him until he got onto the top of a roof, and took it off, puttin' it to the side. I just laid back on a fire escape, 'cause Leo didn't look like he was gonna move off of that roof, an' I knew somethin' was about to happen, but I wasn't prepared for what did…" he trailed off.
He dug into the box, shuffled around in it, and picked up one of the broken frames, I was getting antsy.
"Well, what happened?" I was interested now.
"Well, first he kinda just stood there, walkin' around, pacin', lookin' all anxious. He started mumbling, from what I could hear, kinda like a madman. Started rubbin' his face, clappin' his hands together, if he had hair he woulda' been pullin' at it. I was startin' to get freaked out, when he finally went over to his bag. He pulled out what looked like a glass vase, from what I could see. Before I knew it, he chucked the thing on the side of the freakin' wall! Screamin' while he was doin' it. He picked somethin' else out, a toy or somethin' and chucked it again! It didn't quite break, so he picked it up and broke it apart, throwin' it down, and stompin' all over it. Screamin' all these things. Never have I seen Leo so angry and pent up, 'least since we was kids.. When you guys fought. He did this for a couple o' hours, just ragin'. Finally, at about 3:30, he quit. Just breathin', relaxin, he did somethin' weird. He started pickin' up the broken things he had thrown and torn apart-"
"Wait, so that's what this is? Why would he-"
"Well, if you let me finish, you wouldn't have to ask!"
"Sorry, sorry, go on then."
"Okay, so he brushed up the broken glass, put bigger shards in his bag, along with the broken toys and frames and all the rest. He packed up his bag, and dropped down into the sewer again. I went in about ten minutes after, not wantin' him to find out I was stalkin' him. When I got back, he was already in bed, so that mornin' I decided to, um… 'investigate'. To see if he really kept all that broken junk. Sure enough, after lookin' for like two hours, I found it, in a little cabinet/hole thing under his floor. I start lookin' through it, when I saw this.."
He turned the box around so his side faced mine, when I saw in big, black letters, was the word "WEAKNESS" written in all caps. I gaped at it, slowly realizing Leo must've seen this as a sign of failure or something, like he was ashamed that he had to let his anger out. That's when I made the connection: "This is Leo's State of Anger."
"Ding ding ding! Ah, you're learning well, young grasshopper." he said, smiling. "You see, Mike, everyone's got one. Every, single, damn being in this world, whether they be regular people, or giant, mutant turtles who are expertly trained in ninjitsu. We all got different states, an' sometime's, they ain't even anger, but it's always there. You can't control the world puttin' you back on balance, no matter how hard you try, like Mr. Perfection over here. You can't be ashamed of it, it'll kill ya, I learned that the hard way. And some day, Leo's gotta learn too…"
He paused, trying to look for more words.
"Look, Mike, what I'm tryin' to say, is that be the happy and proud guy you are, and when the world thinks you gotta stop, let it. We don't hate you for it, can't hate you for anything, no matter how hard we try. Ugh.. We love you, okay? I love you, Mike. That's what I'm trying to say here. I love you, and this state ain't gonna change nothin' about that. Oka-" but he couldn't get that last word out.
I had heard enough. Raphael had practically just poured his heart and soul to me, and I didn't even know how I could equal that. I just hugged him, so tight, trying to make him know how much what he just said meant to me. All I could say was one thing.
"Thank you."
"Hey, I'm your brother, Mike, no need to thank me." but not without adding, "but if you tell anyone, anyone, about this, your ass is grass." he ended with a dark smile.
I laughed, finally feeling some of the weight lift off my shoulders, "Yeah, yeah, I know."
I looked around, reminding myself of Leo again, and remembering, once again, that I had just
savagely beaten my brother, and an apology should probably be my next course of action.
"I think… I think I'm gonna go check on Leo now, I really need to see him."
Raph nodded at this, clearly understanding. "Yeah, I know. Go ahead, and tell him I said he's an idiot for me, k?"
"Haha, yeah I will. Thanks again, Raph."
"Anytime, kid."
I started walking out the door, when I quickly remembered something.
"Oh, and Raph? One more thing." I said, leaning out the door. He looked up.
"Yeah?"
"How much did you pay Donnie for those extra IQ points, 'cause I might wanna look into that.."
"Get outta here, Mikey!" he yelled, and threw one of Leo's candles at me, as I ran down the hall.
"Just wondering! Jeez.." I said over my shoulder.
I was finally back on my joy ride up to the stars…
Did you like it? I know, really long paragraphs, and Raphael's "soliloquies". Raph was kind of, really out of character in this one, sorry about that. But I feel like he's got all this wisdom, and never tells anyone about it, and I wanted to indulge in his character. Anyways, this one was definitely my longest, tried to get as much as I could in it, wanting to build up Mikey and Raph's bromace. I think this is the end, I don't know what more to add. I really hope you guys loved it all, and again, thank you so much for any and all of the support you have given. As my fist fanfiction, I really didn't expect views or anything, and here I am now, with just below 500 views! Thank you everyone so much, this was such a great experience, and I can't wait to post more. See you all in a month! Love you!
-ThirteenColonies