Wow...this is really late, I'm really sorry I've been going through my own trials as well, hope you enjoy none the less.
Tap. Tap. Tap. Catch.
Raphael sighed as he threw a stress ball at the nearest wall to him, he looked over at the sleeping figure of Mikey for what felt like the millionth time then continued his routine.
Tap. Tap. Tap-
"R-raph?"
"Mikey! Hey buddy, damn you scared the shell outta me- outta all of us! How ya feel?"
Mikey coughed, "like I got pile drived by fifteen trucks."
Raph chuckled, "couldn't expect any less."
Mikey lowered his head then proceeded to bring his legs up to him, he wrapped his arms around them and began to shake.
Raph paniced a bit not really knowing what was happening. "Mikey...buddy.." His eyes teared up instantly as he heard a sob. He couldn't hold himself back any longer, in less then a second he had his arms around Mikey in a strong embrace. "Its ganna be ok Mike. I promise."
Mikey sobbed louder at this, "Raphael...listen to me, I can't control myself, even now I'm thinking of any way I can...I can..." Mikey broke down at that, the sobs started forming into more and more of a wheeze of rushed and paniced air.
Soon Raph knew that this was now out of his hands and quickly called the others in, Don came running in instantly knowing what to do as if on cue.
Soon enough Mikey was back to only sobbing, Don continued to rub small circles on Mikeys shell, "Mikey, we are going to help you, and we think no less of you."
Mikey nodded looking scared as ever, he then looked mortified, "what about father? He's ganna hate me."
The three brothers froze in their spots at a complete loss for words. "Mikey, father is...no longer here."
Mikey sighed and brought a hand to his face, "he just up and left?! He's that upset?"
L.H. cringed, he could have sworn he heard the three eldest brothers hearts break, "my friend, I believe you should read this, it will explain everything you need to know."
As Mikey squinted his eyes and read the crumpled sheet of paper his breathing became more and more labored, his hands balled into fists crippling the letter all together. "No...no! This can't be real...this can't be real!" Mikey then threw the paper and started bringing his fists down on his thighs in blinding rage and fury, "I killed father! My own father and I have killed him damnit!"
Each brother wrapped Mikey in a hug, holding his arms down as they did so, Leo spoke unable to sound as confident as he would have liked.
"Mikey, father loves us all and would do anything for us. He will always be with us and we can meditate and meet with him as well. None of us blame you for this, it was his decision, not yours."
Mikey sobbed even more, "I am so sorry...I'm sorry guys..."
L.H.s heart broke at the scene of all four brothers crying but he knew this was one of the most important steps of the process. He would not dare intervene for questions now.
The next two days L.H. did not commence his needed plans in hopes that all the brothers would have plenty of time to cope together. It wasn't until the third days incident did he commence these said plans.
"Mikey! What in the hell do you think you are doing!?" Raph shouted as he grabbed the knife from Mikeys hand.
"I...I dunno...I panicked."
"With...what?"
"My thoughts, they become too much, this is the only way to calm them down."
Raph sighed and brought Mikey in for a hug, "what if I told you there was another way?"
Mikey looked up at Raph confused, "like?"
"Have ya ever heard of an anti depressant?"
Mikey tilted his head a bit, "a little...why?"
"L.H. has created some just for you, he thinks it can calm these thoughts down so you can focus on recovering."
Mikeys eyes teared up at that, "seriously?!"
Raph nodded, "let's go talk to him now, I think it's high time we started helping you now."
Mikey smiled at that, "you guys are the best, ya know that?"
Raph shook his head, "wouldn't compliment us yet, we haven't done anything."
Raph let out a surprised yell as he felt Mikey tug against him,"Mike?"
Mikey stood there as Raph stared at him confused, "you all have helped me, you know that right? I wouldn't be alive if it wasn't for you-"
"Yes but that was the easy part Mike, if we're really ganna achieve something we gatta help you get rid of these awful thoughts all together."
"I see..."
Raph nodded and continued to drag the wondering Mikey right along again, "hey L.H...he's ready."
L.H. looked up from the old kitchen table and gestured to the seat in front of him, "Raphael if you wouldn't mind, could you gather your brothers and go gather food from the local grocery?"
Raph seemed a little surprised at that but he recovered with a simple nod and turn.
Mikey cautiously took a seat across from L.H. instantly fiddiling with hands and looking straight down in shame .
"Michelangelo, I need you to be completely honest with me when I ask you these questions, your brothers will never know what you are about to tell me, only the goals you will be setting for yourself. Ok?"
Mikey nodded.
"Are you sure you are ready to pursue getting help?"
Mikey nodded once more.
"Alright, first question, have you had anymore thoughts of wanting to harm or kill yourself?"
"Yes."
A quick scribble of a pen and L.H. was on to the next question.
"With these thoughts do you want to do what you attempted before?"
"Yes. Except this time, I don't want to survive."
Another scribble, "why has this thought changed?"
"Like it or not no one can change my mind about Master Splinter, it just makes my need to die even stronger."
L.H. nodded as he wrote this down, "would you be open to taking anti depressants?"
"I don't deserve them."
"Michelangelo, I would like to offer a quote if you would allow."
Mikey looked up at that, "ok."
"You don't die for the people you love, you live for them."
Mikeys eyes widened at that, his jumbled thoughts ran a million miles a minute, "I will...try them. Can't promise they will work on me though, I'm...crazy L.H."
L.H. smiled and shook his head, "you just need a little guidance my friend, please go rest, you are still recovering Michelangelo and tomorrow will be your first day of therapy.
Sure enough bright and early the next day Mikey woke to find no sharp objects, no medications, and no weapons around the house what so ever.
His first talk was with L.H. it consisted of what all was going to happen in the next few weeks, the strict scheduling paper was handed to Mikey then he was sent on to Don.
Once Mikey was seated with Donnie he was immediately given a paper with a line in the middle of it, on side was listed wants and the other needs.
"Don...I'm not a little turtle tot anymore..."
Don handed Mikey a list of about twenty words, "the results may surprise you. Just be honest with yourself Mikey. I'm going to be making breakfast while you complete this then we can eat and I'll send you to Leo. Sound good?"
Mikey sighed, "I'll play along."
Don smiled, "thank you."
About twenty minutes later Mikey handed Donnie the paper with surprising results as to what he put.
"What?" Mikey said biting into his eggs as Don looked at the paper and scrunched his nose.
"This isn't surprising to you?"
Mikey tilted his head, "what do you mean?"
"For needs you have food, water, me, Raph, Leo, L.H., Casey, April, your weapons, alcohol, and blades...and pizza which wasn't even on the list! But that's not the point, why did you put alcohol and blades on the needs side of your list?"
Mikey shrugged, "they keep me from killing myself."
Don hummed and wrote this down in a little purple notebook, "thank you for your honesty Mikey. If you don't mind to go outside Leo is waiting for you in the barn."
Upon entering the barn Mikeys eyes widened at what he saw, it was the biggest mirror he had ever seen in his life. "What the shell is this and how did you get it?"
Leo laughed, we found abandoned dance studio supplies back in the shed and I stumbled across this. Now, catch.
Mikey quickly caught the sharpie marker thrown at him, "um..."
"I want you to write anything and everything you think about yourself that you don't like."
Without another word Mikey sat in front of the massive mirror and began to write and doodle every little negative thing his mind had to offer, unaware of Leo who was writing every little thing he wrote down into his notebook.
An hour later the whole mirror was covered with words like; useless, stupid, ugly, depressed, desperate, suicidal, broken, sad, idiot, alcoholic, lost and so much more. The sketches included any and every way Mikey could kill himself. It was hard to see everything that was truly going on in the younger brothers mind for Leo but he was confident he could help.
Mikey wiped a few stray tears that had formed as he was pouring his heart out onto the mirror.
"Now this." Leo handed Mikey several large rocks and made him step back a safe distance, "break this habit of thinking Mikey, break those thoughts and what you think about yourself. All those things you wrote are not who you really are, so break them."
Mikey didn't need to be told twice as he threw the first rock, the satisfying sound of broken glass filled the air as he threw the next stone. He loved watching all the negativity just break into a million little pieces.
By the time he was finished he was panting but he unbelievably felt a little better. Leo handed him a bottle of water kindly and laughed as he gulped it down. "Lets get you to Raph."
"No need! Already here, jeez Leo clean up this mess bro!"
Mikey laughed and waved at Leo as he and Raph walked out of the barn. "So what valuable life lesson at you going to teach me Raph?"
Raph chuckled, "they knew better then to give me that kind of job, I'm pretty much your babysitter while they discuss crap. But I think you won't mind that when I show ya what I found."
Mikey gasped as he looked out across the large pond just beyond the hill they had been walking up, "holy crap!"
"That's not all ethier, look at this little beauty I found behind the house."
Mikey laughed as he caught sight of the large yet old beat up fishing boat and oars. "No way dude! Can we fix it up?"
Raph chuckled, "as a matter of fact I was planning on it." He pointed to the supplies beside it which consisted of several bright paints, paint brushes and spray of some sort. Mikey picked up the spray and started laughing, "I remember this commercial, the dude sprayed this stuff on anything and it would seal it right up."
Raph heaved the boat up and leaned it against the steep hill so that the bottem was facing up, since it was only aluminium it did in fact have some cracks in it but otherwise it was in surprisingly good shape. It was wide and could easily fit all four brothers in the thing.
"Yea! Hope it wasn't a phoney product cuz that's all they had. We'll patch it up today and start painting tomorrow, the store didn't have a lot of paints so I just got red and orange since its our own boat!"
Mikey smiled as he and Raph sprayed over the small cracks of the boat, finally they were able to test it in the water- after about four tests they finally floated to the middle of the pond and back.
"This place is so cool! It feels-"
"Relaxing?"
Mikey smiled a true small smile. "Exactly"
As Mikey and Raph walked back up the hill and into the calm household dinner was already on the table with L.H. Donnie and Leo all waiting patiently by it.
The next few hours were spent laughing, singing and a lot of eating, Mikey didn't eat near as much as the brothers knew he could but they were just happy to see the youngest eat something.
Finally came the group session, L.H. started it, "Michelangelo how was your day?"
Mikey shrugged, "it was actually pretty nice, I had fun!"
"Good! And why was it fun?"
"Well I got to figure some priority stuff out with Donnie, got to break some glass with Leo, and got to fix up a boat with Raph!"
Mikey beamed as he spoke leaving the others speechless with joy, L.H. smiled but already sensed something off. He didn't dare call it out now but he knew this was way too soon to be getting such positive feedback.
He snapped his notebook closed and looked at the other three, "any additional feedback?" The others shook their heads and soon everyone was off to bed. The four brothers slept in the same room, mostly for Mikey but some for themselves as well. This didn't stop Mikey though, he had managed to use every stealth tactic imaginable to escape from the old farm house and into the barn where he found the smallest left over glass shard on the barn floor.
As Mikey slid the glass over his wrist a huge scaled hand quickly swiped the glass away from Mikey hand.
Mikey looked up to the disappointed gaze of Leatherhead. "Michelangelo, come with me."
Mikey got up slowly then proceeded to follow L.H. in the kitchen where he sat in the kitchen chair closest to L.H. who was going through a first aid kit.
"You realize I must inform your brothers."
Mikey nodded ashamed as L.H. cleaned the single deep cut then wrapped it. "I...I just couldn't help it..."
L.H. hugged Mikey, "I understand what you are going through Michelangelo, you must trust us though, do not just go through the motions in your therapy sessions try to learn something about yourself from them. Would you like a journal?"
Mikey nodded, "guess I should keep up with what I learn. Can I have my old journal?"
L.H. shook his head, "how about we start with a new one? A brand new book for a brand new beginning, is that ok?"
Mikey nodded, "that sounds...refreshing."
As Mikey trudged up the stairs L.H. quietly woke each one up and meet with them in his own room, he informed Mikey to sit on the bed where they could see him from the other room. He sighed as opened the lime green notebook L.H. have to him and began to write.
Day 1 of Recovery:
Well journal I have managed to mess my very first day up, it started off good, me and Don discussed wants and needs, me and Leo broke some bad thoughts- literally, and me and Raph fixed up a boat. We even had a nice family dinner!
But...I have managed to still self harm the very first day, I also had my first dose of anti depressant tonight, it's making me a little drowsy so I think for now I will sleep. Wish me luck tomorrow. -Mikey.