Summary: Human AU: After Raphael is kidnapped at the age of five, his family was devastated. They never stopped searching for him, but after eleven years, they fall to the conclusion that he must truly be gone. But when the Hamato family receives a phone call early in the morning, they are overwhelmed to hear that Raphael is alive and well. But after such a large time gap, and a crude upbringing, is the Raphael they knew still inside this hardened shell of a teenager.
Disclaimer: I do not own TMNT or its characters. All rights go to producers. I just put their characters into my story.
A/N: I'm really sorry for such a slow update. I am finished for the semester, so I will have more time to update, but I had problems writing this chapter. I wanted to cut it out, but I also wanted to add it in, so I thought I would just keep it and see how it flows.
I will let you all know now that Yoshi will be in it more towards the end, and that Karai is coming in either the tenth or eleventh chapter. And I am planning on having an upcoming Mikey and Raph moment as well.
But I was also thinking of adding a Casey and Raph moment; I'd like to know what you think. Don't be afraid to review or comment; all comments are welcomed (as long as they are appropriate) and constructive criticism is appreciated; I love to hear from all of you.
Hope you enjoy!
"A lot of you cared, just not enough" ~Jay Asher, Thirteen Reasons Why
Chapter Nine: Breach of Privacy
Leo knew that this was an invasion of his brother's privacy, but like an itch that needed to be scratched, it needed to be done; it was eating him alive not knowing what had happened to Raph. And if Raphael wasn't going to tell him, he'd have to find out for himself. From what had happened yesterday at the dojo and Donnie mentioning the possibility of PTSD, Leo just had to know what had happened to his little brother in that seven year. Leo would bet his life that that seven year gap was where the root of Raphael's problems started.
Raphael, feeling guilty from what had happened on Sunday he supposed, had informed Leo and the others that he would be staying late at school to study. Although he never thought of Raph as the type of person to willingly stay after school had been let out, he trusted that his brother was doing as he had said and would return home before dark, as he had promised. If not, then Leo would hunt his ass down and drag him back home; that was his job as older brother.
With his brother absent, an idea had entered Leo's head and had refused to leave him alone, and now, he found himself lurking around in Raphael's room, after picking the lock, hoping to discover something that would tell him more about his brother.
Raph's room was relatively neat, which was not what Leo had expected; he hadn't had a chance to be in Raph's room since he asked to take the photo of his brother. At the time, he hadn't really taken in the room, but now he could see that it had a rather homey feel to it. The bed was made, but the wrinkles in the blankets showed that it had been made in a hasty manner. There were no clothes lying on the floor in small piles like in Mikey's room, but there was a small collection of well worn books spread throughout the room, piled on the floor, on the desk, anywhere there was room. He glanced at several of the titles and recognized most of them were classics; Leo smiled, now Donnie had another bookworm in the family to obsess over books with.
He was drawn towards the shelves of CDs, which all seemed to be a collection of mixes that Raph had made himself. He grabbed one at random and flipped one of the CDs over and glanced at the playlist; he was familiar with the majority of the songs. What worried him though was the fact that most of the songs related to suicide, and Leo couldn't help but wonder if Raph had ever considered the thought. He did find two CDs that contained the titles to a variety of song genres and on the front read both read the same title: REVISITING. Leo wasn't sure what was meant by that, but it made his mind spin with questions. He spotted a CD player discarded onto the bedside table. He grabbed it and then popped one of the CDs from its case.
"Leonardo, what are you doing in your brother's room?"
Leo nearly jumped out of his skin at the sound of his father's voice; nearly dropping the CD he had in his hand. He turned on his heel, attempting to not look guilty. His father stared at Leo with wise, dark eyes, which instantly struck guilt into Leo's heart.
"You understand that this is a violation of Raphael's privacy," his father stated, plain and simple. Leo nodded, his eyes diverted to the floor, feeling suddenly ashamed.
"I know that this is wrong, but I needed to know…" Leo began. He glanced up at his father and saw the questioning look on his father's face.
"Needed to know what, my son," he asked, his voice calm, yet still forceful.
"More about him," Leo replied, "I feel like I barely know him; he's so closed off." Leo heard his father sigh as he averted his gaze down to the floor before glancing back up to Leonardo.
"What Raphael chooses to tell you is his own decision. And do not pester me for answers, Leonardo; I am at just as clueless as you are, as was Raph's case worker. He didn't know anything about that seven year gap, but whatever happened in that time period must be something that your brother wishes to keep hidden."
"Wouldn't it be better to just let us know, though," Leo asked. His father stared at him, and Leo felt as though his father was looking into him as he so often did; he was just very good at reading people.
"I suppose it would be better, both for Raphael and for the rest of us. But I believe that it is better not to force anything out of him, that would make him all the more reluctant to share. Give him time Leonardo, that is all we can do at the moment."
His father turned to leave, leaving Leo to second guess his actions. He glanced at the CD that he still held in his hand, and then to the CD player. He sighed and placed the CD into the player. His father's words were wise and rational, but Leo just had to know more about his brother. And if forcing information wasn't possible, then he'd have to find it by being a snoop, even if it was disrespectful.
Yoshi sat at the kitchen table, a book in hand and a cup of tea in front of him. He had been reading the same page for nearly twenty minutes now, his mind clearly knew that he should take some discipline measure to the situation, but he could see in his son's eyes that Raphael felt horrible about what had happened and he thought that seemed like punishment enough. It seemed somewhat sad to admit that Yoshi had expected something like this to happen at some time sooner or later; he had been keeping in touch with Raph's social worker, Vern Fenwick; asking questions about his son.
Vern had told Yoshi what he knew about Raph from the time he had first entered the foster home; all he knew was that for a long while, Raph presented a fear to adult men, but seemed rather comfortable around women. From this information, Yoshi's mind wandered to a very dark place where uncomfortably venomous thoughts waited to harass his mind. The cup of tea he had was not helping his nerves any; neither was the book. He sighed heavily and placed the book down and glanced at the cup of tea, which had long ago become cold.
"What to do," he muttered to himself, pinching the bridge of his nose between thumb and forefinger. He wanted to help his son in any matter he could, but Raphael was just so closed off; he wouldn't take too kindly to Yoshi trying to pry answers out of him. Although he would have preferred it that way, Yoshi thought the best idea was just to wait for Raphael to feel comfortable enough to tell him, as he had mentioned to Leonardo, but who knew when exactly that would be.
Leo positioned himself at his brother's desk and picked up the CD player. For a moment, he fumbled with the buttons, pressing randomly until he began to hear music; it had been ages since he used one of these. He slid the earphones over his ears so that they were comfortable and pressed play on the CD player. The intro to the first song on the first of the two CDs labeled REVISTING began to play. Surprisingly, he heard the lyrics to Britney Spear's Toxic of all things. He had barely gotten three lines into the song before he felt the headphones being pulled off and his chair being pulled out from under him.
"Why the hell are you going through my shit," Raph yelled, his face red with anger. He grabbed the player and headphones fromLeo and held them close. "What were you doing with these?" His voice dropped so that it was dark and deep, very demanding. Not wanting to anger his brother any further, Leo forces himself to be calm and not raise his voice.
"I want to know more about you," Leo replied, cool as a cucumber. "I barely know anything about you, Raph. I'm sure Donnie and Mikey want to know more about you too. You're just so closed off-"
"For good reason," Raph cried out. "I'll open up to you when I fucking feel like it. Now get out and stay the fuck out of my room, Leo." He shoved Leo out into the hall and slammed the door in his face. For a moment, Leo stood in front of the closed door, wondering if he should even attempt to apologize, but he knew that Raph wouldn't hear him. Leo sighed heavily and retreated back to his room. He knew that snooping around wasn't going to do him any good, so he would have to go back to the drawing board and think about the best way to collect information from his brother.
Mikey sighed and put his headphones back on and returned to reading his comic. Although he should have been doing homework, Mikey needed a break from school to give his brain time to recover before he took a crack at tenth grade math problems. And hearing Raph and Leo scream at each other was cutting into his relaxation time. From what he had heard through the walls, Leo was being a nosy body and going through Raph's stuff; he deserved it if Raph chewed him out; their father had always made sure that they respected each other's privacy.
And yet, although he hadn't gone snooping through Raph's stuff in fear of getting his face punched in, Mikey wondered about Raphael as well; what had happened to him to make him so cold and distant. Mikey kept revisiting the situation that had happened yesterday in the dojo; he was surprised that their father had reacted as calmly to their explanation as he had. But their father had always been a relatively calm person, despite the one time where he freaked out when Raph disappeared; under circumstances like that, it was normal to freak out.
He just wished that Raph could be happy; all Mikey wanted was for his family to be happy. And whatever Raph was refusing to tell him and the others was keeping them from that happiness; it was selfish, but from the little Mikey remembered about Raph when they were young was that Raph was always somewhat a selfish person. And he deserved happiness, but was refusing to give it to himself. Mikey hoped that sooner, rather than later, Raph realized that.
