(A/N: *buckles seat belt and opens umbrella* There's a feels storm coming, I suggest you prepare for it. I shall tease you faithful readers no longer. Angst, because I have to hurt you to give you what you want. Although, depending on length, I may have to cut this in half...

AND WE HIT 300 REVIEWS! (even though that honour was stolen by my useless friend nirvana313 -_-) You guys are so loyal, holy crap. I love and appreciate you all so much, words cannot describe it at all.

Except you, Sydneah B. Stop complaining, there will be no lesbian smut, and I can use any words I damn well please, including 'hodgepodge'.)

The hours leading up to night time were the longest that Raphael had ever spent awake, unfortunately letting him reflect and simmer on what he needed to do to derail this fucked up train ride from hell.

One little word, three in English, had completely torn his world asunder and propelled it into one of equal parts misery and hope, which was even worse than the misery, all things considered, as pointless as it was.

The morning-slash-afternoon directly following his emotional panic attack, Raphael spent upwards of thirty minutes hiding from himself in the chilly bathroom, once again watching the icy stream run pink and red as he mechanically cleaned and wrapped his cuts, darkly enjoying the stabs of vein deep pain radiating from the torn flaps of skin. That, at least, was consistent, constant and comforting. The pain his razor brought him was always reliable.

Other things just couldn't be, apparently. Not even dirty hookups with an enemy that was supposed to go right back to hating him once they reached their orgasm limit. Somewhere along the line, things had gotten horribly confused. But that was fine, because he had a plan, if it could be called that, and the basic premise of that plan was pretty much fuck everything up.

Shouldn't be too hard.

Raph tied off the last bandage and glanced up into the dingy mirror in front of his face, watching as the warped glass twisted half of his reflection into a sneering grimace. Back in his mostly right mind after his anxiety attack, he thought he knew what was happening, and he tried, once more, to talk himself through what he was about to do.

He knew why he'd run. That was the easy part. He had begun to realize how much Leonardo had actually affected him, and he hated the bastard for it, for turning him into a trained dog without his fucking permission.

But was it though? You begged him for it. He told you what he was going to do, and you asked for it.

Raphael clenched his teeth against the thought and tightened the knot in his fingers, hoping the answering surge of pain would drive it from his brain. He hadn't wanted this, and Leonardo wasn't going to force it on him. He had to destroy it, before it went an inch further. Everything he knew, everything he'd learned, he was going to scrounge it all up and tear Leonardo to pieces with it. He would rip those wounds open so savagely it was doubtful he made it back home uninjured and alive, and afterwards, things would be just the way they were supposed to be, hope and his own temporary messed up happiness be damned.

Pretty shitty plan. But then again, he'd never believed he could have anything more until those stupid words got uttered, so why start?

You didn't know. But what if there was an alternative, though?

Raph growled low in his chest and started wadding up blood soaked tissues, lobbing them into the toilet with hands that shook only slightly.

There was no damn alternative, and screw Leonardo for playing like there could have been, even for just a second. It didn't take a Donatello level genius to see that two selfish, broken assholes didn't fit in any sense of the word. Disney didn't make kissy movies for murderous freaks, and he'd accepted that at ten, when that little girl-

He curled his fingernails into his palms to stop that thought before it could form fully. She didn't matter. That was what he knew, regardless of how. He'd let himself slip, but there was no way in fuck he was going to let himself fall. It was a fall he wouldn't survive, so it was better not to jump.

Something knotted up in his chest, sudden and painful, and he leaned on the sink for a long moment, taking slow breaths in and out. None of this had killed him yet, and it wasn't going to. He knew what he needed to do.

But...

He was torn, no matter what he yelled at himself, between going through with his half cocked plan, or crawling back to that motel on his knees and trying to explain, begging to be tied to the headboard and have those fucking words sliced into his flesh over and over until he had no choice but to believe them.

He'd do it too, and that's what you're hoping for.

Raphael shuddered, driving his elbows hard into the cold porcelain sink so hard the caulk groaned under the weight. He felt strange, hot and confused and desperate. So many violently conflicting emotions and thoughts...It was almost more than his sanity could stand.

Sanity? Ha. Might as well go along with it, now that he knows how crazy you are. His molars ached dangerously in the back of his jaw, and it was only the dull heaviness in his flayed arms that saved the mirror from shattering under his anger.

I ain't the only one.

Leonardo and him were one in the same, and that was exactly why this was headed for disaster. All they could ever have was lust, and when that faded, there'd be nothing, just like when the anger went away and left the grey in its place.

You're afraid.

He had to decide. Things had gotten too far to pretend it didn't matter. He wasn't even sure who was using who anymore, but he was certain he wanted no part of what came next, and that he was done debating it with himself.

Raphael made an effort to stop his fingers from trembling and scrubbed a fist over his face, taking one last look at the mirror before turning to leave and forcing himself to stare into the beastly side of the image.

He tilted his head slowly, until the normal reflection was gone, and the monster was all that remained, scowling at him. In a few hours, that was all Leonardo was going to see, right before it ripped his proverbial throat out and burned everything to the ground.

He didn't text before he left, halfway out of fearful shame and halfway because he knew he didn't need to. It was probably the hottest night since, and the city was eerily quiet as he made his way to the Riviera, as if New York was holding its breath with him, waiting for the fireworks.

Raph didn't hurry there. He wanted to prolong this as long as possible, but the part of him born from common sense that he'd been smothering and ignoring for so long kept telling him viciously that it had to be done. Subconsciously, he wished that something would happen and he wouldn't have to keep going- a Foot attack, Dragon mobbing, alien invasion- but his luck was apparently in the shits.

Nothing stirred on the exterior of the building, but he wasn't dumb enough to think that no one was there. He felt the pull like a needle to a magnet, dragging him through the window with invisible chains.

He couldn't bring himself to look straight on, staring at his own bare feet as if his very life depended on where he stepped. He couldn't see much more than the edge of a tightly crossed green arm and a tense knee out of the corner of his eye, but the not-so-faint aroma of fresh blood was unmistakable as it danced in and around his nostrils, thick and irony and accusing.

For a wild second, he thought that maybe he'd hallucinated the entire situation. Maybe this was a regular night. Leonardo was going to say something smart about him being late before shoving him backwards on the bed, and everything could be avoided.

Raphael waited with his heart in his throat and his stomach somewhere near his ankles, bracing for the anger, the condescension, for anything, but the silence stretched thin and heavy for minutes on end. Ten passed before he literally forced his eyes up to see what he was faced with.

Leonardo's eyes were fixed on his, but the gleam that had come to linger there when they were together was missing. They were burning and icy all at once, like hardened nitrogen, and his expression was more closed off than the great wall of China. It was like staring into a glacier- a tense, stiff, unmoveable, turtle shaped glacier. He wasn't frowning, or glaring. It was like he wasn't there at all. The ribbons were back, wrapped tight enough to raise small welts on his oak green skin, and though they were hidden by the black mask, Raph was sure there were deep circles under his lids. Random bruises were scattered over his legs and shoulders, small and circular and too perfect to not to have been made on purpose.

The words were right at the tip of Raphael's tongue, waiting to fall, but everything screamed at him not to. Something was happening with Leo- Leonardo, and the wrecked part of his heart said that he needed to know what. He wanted to… Raph blinked incredulously at himself. But he did. He wanted to make Leonardo feel better.

There's something wrong with him.

I don't fucking care.

As they stared at one another, Leonardo didn't speak a word or utter a sound. He just held Raph's gaze and waited, watched as an edge of confusion crept into his defiant anger, let the cogs of his mind turn, let him grow impatient, let him wonder. Leonardo let the anticipation build, and time and silence do his talking for him.

Even then, wrapped in a thick hoodie and baggy jeans, Raph felt cold and naked, uncomfortably bare in the face of that deadened brown spotlight of a gaze. That old poison that hadn't been there for the last couple of months was suddenly back and boiling in his veins with a vengeance. It made him sick.

Fuck him for breaking me down and building me up every time he looks at me.

"Ya just gonna stand there?" he snapped finally. That earned him a sharp quirk of an eyeridge, so he rolled with it, adopting his best sarcastic tone. "Alright, fine. I'll say it if you won't. We ain't doin' this anymore."

No reply or reaction was forthcoming, excluding the other eye ridge being raised. Raphael barreled ahead, gaining speed and vindictiveness by the second.

"It was fun while it lasted. I guess, I mean, kinda. Probly went on too long, anyway." he said, as casually as he could manage, while a pit of…something…opened up in the space where his stomach used to be, churning with bile and something that might have been hope if he wanted to call it anything at all, hope that maybe Leonardo would argue or tell him to stop talking shit because they both knew he wasn't going anywhere.

At that, Leonardo smirked, one canine gleaming in the corner of his mouth. It was an old smirk, full of sarcasm and mockery. "Oh, is that what this is? You're breaking up with me?" He pressed a hand to his plastron and rolled his eyes, voice dripping with apathy. "Excuse me if I don't swoon from devastation."

Despite the immediate surge of irritation that prickled him in response, Raph heaved a sigh of relief deep in his chest that Leonardo was replying. His own anger fed off of and into Leonardo's, allowing him to lie the way he needed. If he'd been left with his own voice and conflicted feelings, his body would have undermined him faster than he could blink.

Raph twisted his lips into a cruel sneer. "See, there ya go, actin' like a bitch. Wonder if Shreddah knows he's got two daughters instead of one."

Leonardo barely blinked at the insult. "Aw. Trying to hurt my feelings? Maybe hoping I'll try to hurt you back? It's so obvious it's pathetic, particularly when you were a sniveling, needy mess the night before."

A torrent of hurt raced through him, but Raph struggled to quell it. Fuck him. Fuck him and everything about him. "Yeah well. Maybe I was hoping if I acted sad enough you'd let me hit."

Something like a small laugh bubbled out of Leonardo's chest, airy and full of jeering."You're disgusting." The words were spoken so lightly, but they burrowed deep beneath Raph's skin, burrs pressed against nerve-endings to set them sparking with anger over and over again.

"Yeah, guess I am. And yer an enemy, always was and always will be. I ain't forcing myself to pretend ta care about ya anymore, even if ya do got a nice ass and a warm mouth, so just beat it back ta wherever they found you." It was probably some of his best spur of the moment work. Perfectly uncaring, despite the fact that it felt like butcher knives coming out.

Leonardo snorted and crossed his ankles. "Now you want me to leave? Interesting, considering your heartfelt pleas for me to stay." Sly and venomous, with just enough patronizing concern to make it hurt.

"This ain't my fault," Raph growled, eyes flashing. Some of his internal anger leaked through his flippant front. "All of this bullshit was on you, right from tha fucking beginning. You wanna stroll around here waving yer tail in my face, then ya can't even keep yer prissy feelings out of shit-"

"Me?!" Leonardo barked indignantly, standing upright swiftly.

Seeing him rattled finally boosted Raph's confidence. "I speak Japanese, I know what the fuck you said!" Raph snarled. "I don't know if you were trying ta be funny or if you really got caught up, but I don't really give a shit, I'm done-"

"You said it first."

He blinked, staggered. "What?" he gurgled, with a sense of mounting dread and panic.

Leonardo stared at him blankly, with a nasty little smile on his face at seeing the wind taken out of Raphael's sails. "You may be stupid but you're not deaf. I wasn't the one that-"

He had no damn idea of what to say to that except to somehow stop Leonardo from talking and making noise. "Yer a sad fuckin liar."

"Clearly you don't recall. But when you were cowering from the police in my arms, doing your best to convince me that you were absolutely psychotic-"

"Shut up."

"-after you murdered that kid in the alley? Oh yeah, by the way, he is dead. I thought you should know." Leonardo's smile grew, terrible and grimace like. "The other thug was a dragon showing him the ropes. He went back to check and found a tape outline in his place. So congratulations, you're a killer, just like me-"

"SHUT UP!" Raph yelled, vehement. The scream was tinged with notes of his growing hysteria. An icy trickle rolled down his scutes, directly in contrast to the heat strangling his windpipewindpipe.

"-you kept telling me you were sorry, over and over. You said the phone was dead, and everything was dead, but you said y-you loved-"

No. NO. He couldn't allow that word to exist then, between them, sickeningly sweet and false and WRONG. That word led to other words, and other words led to...

"Yer a FUCKIN LIAR AND I'M DONE. I'M DONE." Raph managed, losing his grip on both his act and his higher thinking the longer Leonardo fixed that darkly calm look on him. The plan was out the fucking window by then, and he realized that by getting pissed and defensive he was essentially letting Leonardo win, but the other male had to be lying. He HAD to be, because there was no way that Raphael would ever-

"Yeah. I'm lying. Makes it easier, right?" Leonardo coughed and cleared his throat, voice rough and sarcastic and eyes strangely bright. "But then again, who better for a murderer?" he retorted glibly.

"I AIN'T NO MURDERER!" Raph howled, vision swimming red.

Fuck him and his fucking mind games!

"You are." Leonardo argued. "You think that you're a crazy murdering monster and that's why you're running away, so go ahead. I won't try to convince you otherwise and I certainly won't chase you. No one ever will, in any case."

His knuckles were popping under the strain of him keeping his hands from flying around Leonardo's neck. Raph's syllables came out stuttered and mangled from the rage gluing his tongue to the roof of his mouth. "Y-You fucking-"

He couldn't finish before Leonardo cut him off again. "That's what you wanted to hear, wasn't it? Justification for your own bullshit self esteem issues." Leonardo asked acidly, waving a dismissive hand in his direction.

"Ya don't know SHIT. YOU did this. YOU. You fucked this up, not me. I hate ya. I always fuckin' hated you." Raph hissed harshly, for the moment completely believing it. He felt his insides squirm at his disapproval. "I don't need yer pity. I don't need you."

"You. Said it. FIRST." Leonardo eununciated, pushing the dagger sharp words agonizingly slowly through his teeth. "What did you think I was going to do, beg you to stay? Like you begged me? I'm not quite that pathetic yet, sorry."

Raphael wrestled to tamp down his fury enough so that he could speak without screaming, or getting the words stuck in his own throat. It was hard going. He barely managed it. "I think you need ta get tha fuck out of here."

"Gladly. Have fun being a miserable asshole." Leonardo shrugged, kicked away from the wall, and went to leave, like they'd had just a boring little argument.

Like Leo- Leonardo hadn't waltzed into his life, torn a huge hole in him, and then apparently lost interest, just like Raph himself was pretending to. Mother fucker.

Every cell in Raph's body rebelled violently against the assumption that he couldn't survive without Leonardo and that world, the dark and shattered world that had dragged him in to.

It wound him up. It made him livid, shutting all his rationality down until he could only think one thing- win.

Hurt tear destroy demolish WIN THIS because he was so fucking tired of losing and this asshole wasn't about to make him admit to shit-

Raphael snapped.

"Try not ta get raped on the way home."

Leonardo gave a huge, whole bodied flinch, but Raphael wasn't done, spewing venom at him like a cobra.

"I don't even think that really happened. Tell tha truth, wasn't it just a big sob story ta get me ta cry over you? Yer Shredder's baby boy, and you love me?" He spat the words like they were sludge. "Nah. Something like you can't even feel that. I don't give a shit if it's true or not. Just cause somebody grabbed ya and made ya a little bitch don't mean ya can do tha same ta me-"

He stopped abruptly as his brain caught up with his mouth. He felt the pain in his chest as acutely as a bullet hole. The atmosphere was tomb silent in the wake of his outburst, but the words echoed and drifted like wasps long after they were spoken, stabbing and horrific.

Oh my god.

Raph shuddered in panic as the words he had snarled so rashly finally made it to his ears. He looked back at Leonardo, frozen halfway to the window, fighting back the fear and shame. There was no falseness in the shock and betrayed agony written plain on the other male's face, or the glassy sparkle in his eyes that looked dangerously close to engaged tears.

I can't believe I said that.

Leonardo sucked in a heaving breath that sounded like he was breathing through a pillow, wet and stiffled in his lungs. Bubbling nausea rose in Raphael's stomach when he started to laugh- an awful, wrecked sound. "You fucking idiot. All you know how to do is destroy, don't you? Your family, yourself. Why did I ever think I could fix you?" He shivered and shook his head, still laughing that horribly twisted laugh. "Go to hell. Go to hell!"

"I..."

I'm sorry. And he was, in that instant, the most sorry he'd ever been in his life. This had been the plan, but Raph didn't feel any stronger or more free. He felt dirt low and hollow.

"Nothing can fix you. I see that now."

Maybe it was the tone Leonardo used. It wasn't threatening, it wasn't promising punishment. It was just a serious, sad acceptance, and it tripled the guilt Raphael was feeling, figuratively mulching him to a pulp.

If only Leonardo had just beaten him to a bloody heap. That would have been so much easier to cope with than being given up on, wholly and completely.

When he realized that was what had happened, the world fell out from under his feet, falling into the darkness with nothing to hold on to. His stomach lurched, and the anger returned with a vengeance.

"I DIDN'T ASK YOU TO TRY AND FUCKING FIX ME!"

"AND I DIDN'T ASK TO BE MADE TO CARE ABOUT SOMEONE THAT WANTS TO BE A DEAD END!" Leonardo yelled, eyes dark and angry.

"YOU WENT LOOKING FOR ME! YOU FUCKED MY LIFE UP!"

"I went looking for a distraction" Leonardo hissed. "You're just so damned pitiful, and of course the one fucking person that maybe has a clue about how horrible it is to be me had to be the one thing that could get under my skin-"

"Horrible?!" Raphael yelped, bewildered. "Yer a fuckin' little prince."

"I'm always one mistake away from being disemboweled in front of my entire clan. My sister's only job in life is to kill me and take command over my very literally dead body, and my father turned me into an emotionless killer. All those people I had before you? Most of them were too drunk or perverted to care about where and how they were fucking me or how old I was when they were doing it. I'd take the sewers. I'd take it all. I can't care about anything anymore, but you...you made me CARE. Do you know how wrong that is? How much that isn't supposed to happen?" Leonardo's shoulders trembled after his speech, and he blinked furiously, fingers coiled around his scarred arm as if they were burning him beneath the ribbons.

Of everything he felt about Leonardo, understanding hadn't so far been an emotion he had felt. He was feeling it now though, as accurately as a heart attack. Despite the fact that his pulse had ground to a painful stop in his veins, Raphael continued to try and choke out rebuttal.

"You picked me apart. You...you tried to unmake me. You told me you wanted ta break me. I never..."

"I was going to kill you, that first night when you attacked me. I was under orders, and I still am. There's a spot for your head right above the throne. I meant to end you. But you kept coming BACK." he yelled. He took a step back, a bitter little laugh escaping his lips. "Don't you get that? You were supposed to run, to snap, to get sick of me."

The glare he fixed on Raphael then was hot enough to boil water with the resentment alone. "But you just couldn't, could you? Because you care too, and now I couldn't kill you if I wanted to. You're an addiction, because you make me hate you, fight you and chase you, and every time I think I'm over it and I can kill you and be done, you just..." He grabbed for the sides of his mask and made a violent noise, like he'd just been punched hard in the skull, squeezing his eyes shut. "I should have just stayed in fucking Kyoto. You've ruined everything."

All of it, lies! Don't let him fuck with your head again!

"No."

"Don't lie. I've had enough of liars. Just say it." Leonardo demanded.

"I don't. I don't give a shit about you."

"I don't believe you."

"I don't!"

"I was bleeding out, I could have been free of it all, but you just couldn't let me go, just like I couldn't take your head off."

"I wasn't gonna let you die!"

"Why?!"

"I don't...-I don't- I can't-"

"You said it!"

"SO WHAT?!"

Finally, FINALLY, Leonardo fell silent. Mercifully, he didn't keep talking, but it was too late.

Fuck. Raphael's eyes sank closed slowly. Regret. Resignation. Something scarily close to despair.

This was the plan, wasn't it?

Fuck no.

His eyes snapped open and he zeroed a poisonous, surly glare at the slimmer turtle. Too late to take it back now, but he could still argue his point. "Huh?! What the fuck do you want from me? What the fuck does it matter?!"

"It matters." Leonardo said quietly.

Raphael bristled and loosed a murderous growl at him. "Why?! You're right, alright? I'm a monster. I always been one. I'm fucked up. I can't...you shouldn't...no one should. It shouldn't be me. You can't want that. Nobody can. I'm a freak and I'm fucked up and I can't have that. It don't matter."

He felt as though he were holding a gun against his head. It was without a doubt the scariest thing he had ever done. He waited, feeling like he was teetering over the edge of a cliff, bared and exposed by his own words.

Fuck him for making me so weak.

"It matters. It matters-"

"Shut up, just shut up."

"It matters," Leonardo continued, more loudly to cover Raphael's protests, "because you made me care, but you don't get to tell me what the hell I should and shouldn't want. You think I'm supposed to be scared of you? I'm as broken as you are."

"Everybody's scared of me!"

His family, his brothers, his friends. Why the fuck was Leonardo supposed to be different?

"Sorry to disappoint you, but I'm not."

"Why?!"

"You know why!"

Enough. Enough.

He's just going to leave me in the end. Betray me and leave.

"Say it!" he snarled, challenged, suddenly needing to hear it while at the same time it was the last thing on the planet he needed to hear." Go 'head, lie! Lie like a fucking-"

And then there was a crushing pressure against his face, a green and black mass that he later recognized was Leonardo -when did he get so close? When did he move?- and his next word was cut off and swallowed and kissed away. He started to gasp, to scream, but the curse turned into a soft, needy noise in the back of his throat, nearly nonexistent as their mouths clashed, teeth and tongue, hard and punishing. There was desperation in it, and there was fear, and anger, and pleading. It was a kiss that tasted like truth, like venom coated in sugar, burning him, destroying him, making him want more.

I love you.

He felt it. That kiss seemed to reach into him and deposit those three words in every fiber of his being. When it was over, the world felt colder. They were both shivering wrecks as Leonardo pulled back slowly and reluctantly, unable to look anywhere but at each other.

"Goddammit. I'm not-" he stopped. "You can't-" He swayed, rocking on his feet. He didn't want to stay but he couldn't leave. "Fuck you. I hate you. I don't know why I ever let myself get sucked inta this shit."

"Call me a liar." Leonardo dared shakily. "I-"

"Just...goddammit! You can't. You can't."

The smile he received was resigned and sad. "I do. I hate it, I hate that it's you. I really do. But I... care. About you. You're the only one..." He dragged in a painful sounding inhale. "When you're alone... and you find... someone. Anyone. But someone who's there and who understands. You can't tell me you don't understand. Like you've been living on a desert island your whole life, never seeing anyone and then you meet someone. It doesn't matter who or what they are. They're that person."

He hadn't actually said that he half-expected it all to disappear any moment, but they'd both heard it anyway.

"Fuck you. Why did you have to...make me...I can't..."

His tongue was acting strange, plastic. He'd never understood why people said 'tongue tied up in knots,' but, damn. He got it.

I hate him so much I love him and I love him so much I hate him.

"Say..."

"I h-hate...why did you..."

Unlike their first kiss, which had been all passion, and anger, and fervent desperation, the next one, when it came, was nothing but a soft, tentative press of lips on lips. Testing. Easy. There were no bells and whistles, no fireworks and trumpets heralding True Love's First Kiss – just a gentle pressure, soft and fleeting, and battle-calloused fingers tracing a path down one cheek and across the tender flesh of Raphael's neck with astonishing care. It created a warm pool inside him, making him melt. Leonardo's- Leo's- lips pressed up against Raph's again and again, turning his mind into mush.

Why are you doing this?

Because it feels so wrong it's right.

Because I want it as much as I need it.

...Fuck. I think I love him.

(A/N: ALMOST 6000 WORDS! Yes, I have to cliffhanger you. However, whatever you expect to happen next WILL happen, so it's not really a cliffy. Take a breather, and continue to the most emotionally draining smut I have ever written. Seriously, I need aftercare. In the form of comments XD.

Honestly, if you guys never ever comment or, for the loyally awesome repeaters, never comment on another chapter, (not that I'm advocating that, I need you guys' feedback like air), I would treasure your thoughts on this chapter and the next in particular. Was it rushed? Are there typos? Did you love it? Hate it? *Loki voice* TELL MEEEE!

Oh, and the next one should be up either later today or EARLY tomorrow, so keep your emails watched.)