He sat on the edge of his bed, staring at the shadows splayed across his wall. Normal teenagers had posters of famous bands, movies, and television characters on their walls, as a statement declaring who he or she was as a person. He had the warped shadows of demons decorating his wall. It wasn't intentional, but as he sat there biting the inside of his lip and bouncing his knee with his chin on his fists, he had to wonder if it wasn't just coincidence that his room was always so dark and held the touches of something … evil.

He stopped biting his lip to grit his teeth as a hot spout of anger bubbled up in his gut. He snatched a sai from his belt and flung it with expertise, creating yet another hole in the wall to add to the speckled collection.

"I don't have a problem," he muttered to himself. He stood and yanked his weapon from the wall, then began to pace aimlessly along an invisible line, poking the tip of his sai at his finger. "It's not my fault. Leo was the one that screwed everything up, and Donnie ... was asking for it." His voice faltered with the last few words, but he scrunched up his face defiantly and kept the anger going. It was the only thing that kept him from being a blame to himself.

He turned sharply on his heel and walked back toward the other side of his room, clenching and unclenching the hand that wasn't clutching his sai. It was the very same hand that had struck his purple-banded, dork of a brother across the face.

"It's not my fault," he repeated. "He was asking for it."

It was his signature mantra—rolling around his head, tumbling off of his tongue, and echoing around the room over and over again. And he suddenly remembered that this was a regular thing. He'd been constantly reciting these words over and over again, not just to himself, but to his sensei as an excuse for anything that he had ever done to make his brothers cry or whine or point a finger in his direction.

He saw himself when he was about six or seven years old, sauntering up to his immediate younger brother, who then had actually been smaller than both Leo and Raph. Donatello was smiling a wide, gappy grin and following the progress of a remote control car with proud, shining eyes. The car, for the most part, was red, had two different sized pairs of wheels at the front and back, and looked like the Frankenstein of toy cars—not unlike the modern-day Shellraiser—but it followed the mute command of Donnie's hands as he pushed on switches with his thumbs, caressing an old controller between his palms. Raph knew for a fact that Donnie had spent nearly three weeks putting this toy together, and at that point, had spent nearly a whole hour playing with it, occasionally picking it up to adjust a part on it.

"I wanna turn," Raph stated, stepping up directly next to his brother.

"Okay, give me a minute," Donnie responded without looking at him.

Raph wrinkled his beak. "You've been playin' with it for like an hour."

"I know, but I'm checking the velocity. I wanna see if I can make it go faster."

"Can't you do that after my turn?"

"No."

Child Raphael bared his teeth impatiently then unthinkingly snatched at the controller in Donnie's hands. But the little turtle did not let go as Raph had anticipated. Donatello tugged back on it instead.

Raph growled. "Gimme it! You had your turn."

"Let go, it's mine. I built it!" Donnie shouted back. "Go make your own."

"I can't!"

They yanked at the little black box between them, turning in struggling circles and shoving each other back and forth until Raphael let go and the controller smacked little Donnie in the face and he stumbled backward. He didn't start crying until he rubbed his beak with a miniature fist and it came away with blood on it. Raphael's stomach dropped and he immediately rushed over to his brother and tried to calm him down, yanking off his own mask to try to wipe the blood from his brother's face.

"Shh! I'm sorry. I'm sorry!"

Splinter rushed in then, followed by the two other little turtles, one of which was clinging to his robe with a tight fist. Raphael felt himself shaking with fear and couldn't help but gaze up at his sensei with wide, terrified eyes, knowing full and well that he would get into trouble for hurting his younger brother. But Splinter said nothing as he stooped down to scoop up the sobbing six-year-old in his arms, except maybe to whisper a few consoling words in Japanese, gingerly urging Donnie's head to rest against his shoulder.

Then he shot his amber eyes down at Raph. The rat didn't even have to open his mouth.

"It's not my fault!" Raphael immediately shouted. "I mean, I just wanted a turn. He—he was asking for it!" Though he shouted this in full desperation, it made his stomach twist into knots, because when Splinter turned away without speaking, all Raph could see was his younger brother burying his wet and blood-smeared face into his father's shoulder. He knew very well that it was his fault.

That night, he'd crept into his younger brother's room and quietly set the Frankenstein car and its controller on the floor next to Donnie's bed, and stuck a crumpled scrap of paper beside it on which he had scrawled, in his best, sloppy, childish handwriting: I'm sorry. Then he turned away and quickly headed for the door, but for all his stealthiest efforts, he still heard a shift of movement before he was able to make it out of the room. He froze, hoping that his brother was just rolling over in his sleep, but the whisper of Donatello's voice denied his wish.

"It's okay, Raphie." Donnie yawned.

Raphael turned only his head to peek over his shoulder through the shadows at his younger brother who was rubbing his eyes with one fist and clutching the note in the other.

Not knowing what else to do, he nodded and whispered, "I love you, Donnie."

"I love you too, Raph."

Sixteen-year-old Raphael narrowed his eyes at the floor, just having realized that he'd stopped pacing a while ago and was simply standing in the middle of his room. His jaw had loosened and his sai had found its way on the floor. He stooped to pick it up as a knock touched his door and intruded on his solitude.

His teeth came together again. He didn't want any company.

He threw himself on his bed, stuffing his face into his pillow and didn't answer. So of course the knocker entered anyway. Raph knew immediately by the smallish presence that it was Mikey, though also more because Michelangelo never closed the door behind him when he fully entered any room.

Raphael didn't take his head out of his pillow to look, but he knew his younger brother had walked straight up to his bedside and was staring down at him. Though, for the longest time, the resilient turtle chose to be a silent presence.

"What do you want, Mikey?" Raph mumbled.

"I wanted to ask you why you did it," Mikey said immediately in a tone that was very stiff for him.

Raph groaned and turned on his side, shell facing his younger brother, face half-glaring at the wall just inches from his nose. "I already heard it from Leo and Splinter. I don't need it from you too, okay?"

"Dude, why do you have to be so mean?"

He growled through his teeth, not so much angry as exasperated. "Mikey, I'm not mean. I'm just … Ugh! Go away."

"Not until you verify yourself."

He rolled his eyes at the shadows painting his walls. "You mean justify?"

"Whatever."

He scoffed, crossing his arms. "I don't need to explain myself to you."

"So you know you were totally uncool for that right?"

"I'm not sorry, if that's what you're saying," he snapped.

"Says the turtle who can't even look at anyone right now."

He didn't respond.

"Raph, you really crossed the line."

"Yeah, whatever."

"Donnie won't come out of his lab."

"So what?"

"Dude, he's been crying in there for like an hour."

Raph's stomach twisted and he found the corners of his mouth pulling down at a slant. He pursed his lips at an attempt to make it stop, but really could only be grateful that his room was so dark. He tried to cough up a hard-boiled remark but nothing came to mind. He could only swallow.

He sensed his younger brother crouching closer to his shell. "Raph, is this about Leo and Donnie being such good bros?"

Raphael's stomach boiled. "Mikey I don't know what you're talking about," he said with quick denial. "Donnie got slapped because he's a smartass and he was due."

Mikey scoffed at his back. "So all that stuff about him being so perfect wasn't you being totally jealous?"

He squeezed his eyes shut and refrained from whirling around and punching his brother in the face. "I'm not jealous, Mike!"

"Well it sure sounded like it."

He clenched his fists over his eyes. "Ugh! What do you want?"

"For my brothers to get along for once, that's what," Mikey snapped, his tone a kind of frustrated Raphael wasn't used to hearing from him. "Why is that so hard Raph?"

The older turtle could feel his pulse pounding in his temples. He didn't want to do to Mikey what he'd done to Donnie—not like that. But he couldn't suppress the demon in his chest just itching to rip open his plastron and demolish everything in its path. So he pried his teeth apart instead.

"Get out, Mikey."

There was a heavy moment of silence as Michelangelo's presence did not lessen, and Raph could swear he felt his brother's blue eyes gazing down at him in shame. Then Mikey huffed.

"Fine … Here. I made this for you." There was a sound like a ceramic plate being dropped on his bedside table. Then his normally jubilant younger brother growled a stiff, "Happy Mutation Day," and left the room, letting the door close loudly behind him.

Raph waited until the fire had boiled down to a low simmer in his gut, then he slowly took his fists away from his face and opened his eyes, letting his pupils adjust in a soft gaze at the wall before he sat up and turned over to see what Mikey had left him.

He wished he hadn't.

Sitting in the middle of, what was indeed, a plate, was a large cupcake carefully frosted with green icing and decorated with the strip of a red Airhead and two white almond shapes with green dots in the middle. Raph's signature smirk had been perfectly painted onto the bottom half of the cupcake with black icing, but the real Raphael was far from splitting a cocky grin.

He slowly closed his eyes and grimaced.