(3754 words)
Raphael wakes up with the biggest headache he could have ever imagined. He sits up slowly and groans, rubbing his head. "Owwwhy" He slurs, standing up from the bed. He turns around and stares down at the bed. It just didn't feel right. Raph decides in this moment that he hated beds. Just all beds in general
He stretches and looks over to Spike. "Hey buddy." He says, petting the turtle's head with a finger. "I'm gonna go see what I can scrounge up for you today." He swears he could almost see him nod. He gives a small smile and steps out of the room, still clad in his sleepwear. He lets loose a yawn and trudges down the stairs, feeling oddly safe for once.
He hears chattering coming from the living-room and he goes closer to investigate. "- and I think it would be best if we all picked a quarter of the work." Raph looks in the living-room and sees two familiar faces and one new one. "Oh, hey Raph." Leo says, sitting on one of the couches "Raph, my man! What's up dude?" It was Casey. He was sitting a cushion away from Leo, his face baring a fresh purple bruise.
"You know Raph?" Leo asks. "Yeah, he's in-" As soon as Casey starts the sentence Raph starts motioning for him to stop. "-my Special Ed class." Raph cringes and face-palms. "Special Ed?" Leo asks. "I'm sure it's none of your business." A new voice says. "He obviously didn't want you to know." It was the redheaded girl from the store the other day.
April. That was her name. She was the girl Donnie had been swooning over. Raph crosses his arms, feeling even more embarrassed now that he had been defended by a girl. "It's whatever." Casey leans forward, leaning his elbows on his knees. "Oh... Sorry man." Raph rolls his eyes and turns to the side, removing himself socially a bit more. "Like I said, whatever." He says, trying to play it cool. In reality he was feeling the exact opposite.
"Duuuuuuude" Someone drawls from behind Raph. "I'm like soooo tired." Raph jumps as Mikey flings an arm around his shoulder and leans heavily on him. "Oh, hey dudes and dudett." Mikey says, noticing their guests. "Mikey get off him." Donnie says as he stalks down the stairs. "He's probably tired too."
Donnie rubs his eyes as he reaches the main level of the house, walking up beside the two. "What are you doing anyways?" He looks into the living-room and his eyes instantly focus on April. "Eep-" Donnie screeches, only now becoming hyper aware of his sweat pants and lopsided T-shirt.
"Oh, Donnie. This is April and that's Casey." Leo says, gesturing to each of them respectively. "Geese, did you guys all just get up?" Casey says. Mikey chuckles while Donnie blushes slightly. Raph nods and leans up against the wall. "No." Leo says in disbelief. "Did you guys stay up all night again?" None of the guilty party says anything, feeling as if they were being scolded.
Which they were. "I can't believe you three. You're so irresponsible, I thought at least Donnie would try and be asleep at an acceptable time and-" Mikey groans. "Chill mama Leo. It wasn't that late, besides, there's no school today anyways." Leo throws his hands in the air. "Guys, just because there's no school or Father hasn't caught you yet doesn't mean you can keep doing it!"
Leo huffs and pinches the bridge of his nose. "You know what? Next time I hear you've done this I'm telling Father. It's not good for any of you to be staying up like that." Mikey droops physically. "Awe, come on Leo, no one likes a rat!" Donnie tightens up and crosses his arms. "And Leo, I literally can't help it."
As the group completely forgets about their guests The argument continues. "Fine. Donnie you get a free pass but You two shouldn't be up that late." Raph makes a face. "What makes you think you can tell me what to do?" Leo walks straight up to Raph. "Because I'm older and smarter than you."
Raph snorts though he knew Leo was right on both accounts. There was no way in Hell that he was going to admit it though. "Right~ And I bet you're stronger and prettier than me too Miss America." Leo jabs a finger into Raph's chest. "I'm not going to keep fighting with you in front of guests but just know you haven't won." Leo whispers.
Raph smirks. "What? Too scared to fight me in front of your girlfriend?" Needless to say Raph has some control issues. "What is with you?" Leo bites back. "Are you trying to get yourself kicked out?" Leo hisses, venom in his words. "Fuck you." Raph says suddenly. He walks away quickly, not caring what he was wearing, and out the front door.
"What was that?" Casey asks. April slaps his arm and shakes her head. "What?" Leo sits back down and sighs. "I don't know why Father ever let him in this house." Leo mumbles. "Sorry about that. Now, where were we?" Donnie and Mikey look at each other nervously as Leo continues on with his project, their guests putting the fight out of their minds.
"Where's our other partner?" Casey asks. "Oh, she texted me, she said she'd be late." Casey frowns and looks at Leo. "You have her number?" Leo nods. "Yeah, she's my girlfriend."
Raph trudges down the dirty streets of New York, hands in pockets and scowl sewn onto his face. "Fuckin' Leo with his fuckin' stupid group and his shitty family and his punk ass face." He mumbles, cursing every chance he got. "Why the fuck did I even stay there? Because a guy I barely know told me to? Na, I should'a just left the first chance I got. They're too good for me."
Raph walks slowly, anything he could kick he did. When he comes across a rat he stops and stares at it, imagining Leo's smug face on it before kicking the rat a few feet. "Why the fuck does he need to be so high and mighty? He ain't even that much older than me!" Raph feels a feeling he hadn't felt in a long while.
Pure rage.
His breathing quickens and his chest hurts. He turns to the building beside him and lets his fist fly into it, cracking the bricks and probably some of his hand too. He feels like yelling but he subconsciously doesn't want anyone looking at him so he settles instead for another punch to the brick wall.
Forget what his therapist used to say about bonding with his families, He was fed up with trying. There had been many times where he thought he was done trying but then again, there were lots of times he thought he had bonded with a family too.
He had thought that maybe, just maybe this family would have worked. He got along with Donnie, Mikey was so annoying it was like he was already a little brother. He liked Yoshi, he was nice and not too overbearing. But Leo. Leo had to take control of everything. He had to be a little parent and he was the overbearing type.
Raph stomps down a random ally, his fist dripping blood. It almost scared him because it almost felt good. Thankfully a scream takes his mind away from his fist. It was a young girl's scream, and it wasn't a good one. "Get away from me!" The girl's screams. Raph jogs around the corner to see a young mixed girl with a purple streak in her hair being yanked at by an older dirt-bag type guy.
Raph runs up to the man, not thinking about anything and letting his pent up rage fuel his fist into the man's face. He immediately lets go of the girl and she runs behind Raph, clutching to his shirt like a life line. The man looks back at them like he was a raging bull and charges at Raph, swinging and missing multiple times before he lands a solid hit to Raph's left shoulder.
He grunts, pain shooting all the way down his arm. "Don't you get involved boy. I paid good money for that little hore!" Raph makes a stink face and backs up, pushing the girl with him. "You won't fucking touch her asshole!" He shouts confidently. "No, we have to run, we have to run right now!" The girl says to Raph as he readies himself for a fight.
"I can take him." Raph says. "Can you take a bullet?"The girl whispers urgently. Raph raises an eyebrow and backs up even more. He whispers to the girl so that the man can't hear. "On my signal you run." He commands. He starts almost circling the man so that the girl was closer to the wall of the nearby building. "Go!" Raph yells and the girl breaks off into a sprint.
The man pulls out a gun and Raph starts running as well. He hears the man fire off a couple shots but he was a horrible aim. Once Raph was out of the ally he sees the girl waiting not too far away, her purple dress blowing slightly with the wind. "What are you doing!?" Raph hisses, grabbing her by the back of her dress and yanking her with him as he ran.
He runs, the girl's feet barely touching the ground. He can hear the man behind them and he tries to speed up, his leg burning. After a couple minutes of chasing Raph pulls the girl up and under his arm with a grunt. The man had to be getting tired at this point but so was Raph. He decides what would be best is to get to someplace with a lot of people.
Raph looks around and thanks God that there was a mall nearby. He picks up his speed, hearing the cocking of a gun just behind him. The girl lets out a scream and curls into a ball in Raph's arms. "Fuck, fuck, fuck." Raph mutters as he skids around the last corner to the mall. "Get back here!" The man yells from behind them.
Raph sprints the last stretch and flings open the doors to the mall, running inside and away from the entrance. He spins around once he had run through a group of people and looks behind him. The man was standing at the doors, looking around. He had obviously lost them. "Okay, I lost him but not for long. Go hide somewhere kid, I'm going to deal with this."
"What? How are you going to deal with a fucking gun!?" The girl says, showing off her dirty mouth. "Hey, watch your mother fucking language." Raph hisses. He gives her a little push towards the bathrooms. "Go hide. I'll find a way." The girl glares at Raph and walks to the bathrooms.
Raph watches the girl go before looking back where the man had been standing. "What the-" Raph feels the barrel of a gun to his back. "Don't fucking say a word or I'll blow your guts out." Raph's eyes widen and he stands stick straight. "Walk." The man demands, covering the gun by shoving it up Raph's shirt.
Raph starts walking, glancing at the bathrooms where he could see the girl peaking out of the woman's room. He does the slightest of head shakes and keeps walking with the gun to his back. When the man gets him outside he takes him around the side of the building, pulling the gun around to the front. "If you took my thing away you're gonna have to be my new hore."
Raph grimaces and bites back a growl. "Fuck this." Raph says, quickly snatching the man's hand with the gun and tilting it upwards. The man, his reflexes not the sharpest pulls the trigger, a bullet grinding through the bottom of his skull and shooting out the top. Raph screams and pushes the man away, wiping splattered blood off his face.
"Holy fuck!" Raph backs away, backing all the way to the front of the building. He knew if he ran he'd be accused of murder but if he called the police he could tell them what happened, if they even believed him. He looks around and grabs some random woman walking out of the mall. "Uh, e-excuse me, c-can I use your phone? It's an emergency."
The woman's eyes widen slightly. "Um, sure. I guess." The woman starts taking her phone out of her purse. "What's going on?" Raph shakily takes the phone from the woman and starts dialing nine one one. "I need to call the police." The woman puts a hand on his shoulder. "Are you alright?"
Raph shrugs. "I-I think I'm fine. S-Some man j-just shot him-himself." The woman covers her mouth. "Oh my gosh!" Raph pays her no attention, waiting for the other side of the call to pick up. His face was calm but everything else in his body was shot up with adrenaline. Finally a woman's voice on the other end of the phone comes through.
"Hello, nine-one-one what's your emergency?' Raph shudders and holds his stomach with his arm. "H-Hi, uh I'm at the Manhattan mall. A-A man had a gun and he Sh-Shot himself." There was a slight pause before the woman's voice calls again. "Okay, stay calm. Is he still breathing?" Raph moves his weight from foot to foot, nervous that the woman would think he shot him.
"I-I don't know, I ran when he fired." The woman 'humphs' and writes something down, the sound of pencil scratching on paper coming though the phone. "Okay, stay there. We'll have someone on the way as fast as we can." Raph sighs as the woman emphasis the 'stay there' like she thinks Raph would run away from the 'crime scene'.
The woman stays on the phone with him until the professionals got there. When he ends the call he hands the woman her phone and jogs over to the newly arrived ambulance and cop car. Three police officers get out of the car along with three paramedics from the ambulance. "Hello son, were you the one who called in the emergency.
"Y-Yeah, he's over there." Raph says, pointing to the ally beside the mall. Two of the cops go to the ally with the paramedics while the last one stays with Raph. "So what happened here." He asks. Raph scratches at his arm around the bandages. "Th-There was this girl, littler than me for sure, The guy was trying to take her with him and she obviously wasn't related to him."
The cop nod and motions for him to continue. "So I um, I helped her get away from him but he was shooting at us. We-We ran to the mall and I had her hide inside b-but he made me come outside with the gun and then he shot himself." Raph says. He hated it but he knew the only way he was going to get it all out was to ramble.
"What provoked him to shoot?" The officer asks. "W-Well, He was... He was about to shoot me and- and I tried to get him to drop the gun but it ended up facing himself and he shot." The officer nods and stops writing. "Now son, I want to ask you something and I want you to be completely honest with me. Did you pull the trigger?"
Raph takes a step back. "N-No! I wouldn't- I'd never- I couldn't kill anyone!" Raph, unlike most kids like himself, trusted almost all cops. He'd almost never lied to them and he wanted them to trust him one-hundred percent. "Okay, okay. Just calm down now. Do you have someone I can call? Parent or guardian?"
Raph nods. "Y-Yeah but I don't remember his number. I had it in my phone but I don't have that with me. I called from someone else's phone." He adds the last part, making sure nothing about his story could be considered sketchy. "D'ya have a name?" Raph fiddles with the hem of his shirt. "Uh, Raphael."
"Last name?" Raph looks down. "I uh... I don't really have one at the moment?" The officer grunts, understanding what he meant. What about your care giver. "Oh, yeah. Yoshi Hamato. But since he's kinda traditional he goes by Hamato Yoshi."
"Alright son, Stay calm. I'm calling this Mr. Hamato." The officer says as Raph starts shaking slightly, the events starting to sink in. The officer turns his back to Raph once the phone call started and the rest of the events until his foster family got there became a blur. He had been sat down on a bench after a while, completely detached from his experiences.
Someone offered him water and another person tried sitting next to him but left after a couple minutes of silence. He heard more police cars roll up and a crowd started to form. It was hectic and Raph could feel that but he didn't want to show it. He just wanted to go and sleep in his bed, forget all of this happened.
"Raph!" Someone shouted. "Yo Raph!" Another voice calls, closer this time. "Raph are you okay?!" Someone says from beside him. "Raphael..." He finally looks up to see his whole fami- The foster family standing around him. They must've called off the study group. "H-Hey guys." Raph says, trying to keep his chill.
"Oh my gosh Raph, we can't leave you alone for ten minutes!" Mikey jokes, sitting next to Raph on the small brick wall surrounding plants. "Seriously though dude, you okay?" Raph nods and keeps his eyes down. He could still feel the adrenaline rushing through his vanes.
"Boys, why don't you keep Raphael company while I talk to the police over here." Yoshi says, walking away. "Raph what happened?" Leo asks. "All we heard was something happened at the mall and the police were involved." Raph shrugs. "Some guy... It's whatever. Doesn't matter." Donnie folds his arms. "I mean, it's got to be kinda important if the police were called."
"Fine. You wanna know what happened?" Raph says in a small surge of anger. "I saved a girl from being rapped by some old creep before he shot himself in the head less than a foot away from me." Raph crosses his arms as the rest of them look at him, shocked. "Happy?" He looks down, trying to keep himself from showing any emotion other than anger.
They can't use anger against you as much as the other emotions. "Oh my gosh! What- how- ugh-!" Donnie stutters "Yeah, what a day off of school this has been." Raph says, rolling his eyes. Leo steps forward to put his hand on Raph's shoulder but thinks better of it. "I'm- I'm sorry Raph." He says sincerely.
"Why? You didn't do anything." Raph grumbles. "I meant I'm sorry that happened to you." Leo clarifies. Mikey leans over on Raph, causing Leo and Donnie to cringe. To their surprise Raph just lets him stay, even putting his arm around the boy. "Hey Raph, what did that girl look like?" Mikey asks, glancing behind him. "Uh, she was black or mixed or something. purple dress and boots."
Mikey smiles a little. "Did she have a ripped hat?" Raph nods. "How-?" Mikey points behind them. "She's coming over here dude." Raph's eyes widen and he glances down at his clothes. They had blood splatters all over them. "Fuck." The girl dashes up to him and crosses her arms, taking on a sassy pose. "Hey, thanks... For saving me an' all."
Leo holds back a smile. He could tell this girl was practically a female version of their Raphael. "Uh... No problem." Raph replies. "I'm Angel by the way." She says, brushing away a couple curls from her face. "Raph." Raph says simply. She sits on Raph's left side and brings one leg up to her chest, leaving the other to dangle aimlessly.
"Oh, these are my... Foster brothers." Raph says. "Donatello, Leonardo, and Michelangelo." He says, pointing to them respectively. Angel nods to them and leans back slightly, scoping each of them out before whispering in Raph's ear. "D'you think you could help me out with one more thing?" Raph shrugs.
"I kinda need a place to stay that isn't under the watch of cops 'n stuff." Angel fidgets with the hem of her dress for a moment. while Raph 'ah's. "Yeah, I think I could help with that." He stands up and almost shakily takes Angel away from the others . "Okay, do you know that empty where house on fifth and twelfth?"
Angel nods and looks back at the brothers who were watching them curiously. "Raph glances at them and quickly decides to hurry. "Well if you go through that one there's a door with a green lock on it. Knock on that and tell them Raphael sent you. They'll let you in and help you from there. 'Kay?" Angel nods again. "I need to go before the cops notice I'm here." Raph smirks. "I know the feeling."
Angel jogs off to a crowd, smiling back at Raph. He gives a little wave before she's gone from his sight, disappearing with the crowd.
And if your heart stops beating
I'll be here wondering
Did you get what you deserve?
The ending of your life
And if you get to heaven
I'll be here waiting, babe
Did you get what you deserve?
The end, and if your life won't wait
Then your heart can't take this
My Chemical Romace
DEAD!
I haven't updated things in FOREVER! And I'm so sorry for that. Please accept this chapter as a peace offering... Or don't. It's chill either way.
So ANGEL! She's here, she's cute, she's BAD ASS! If you want to see my version of her I have a picture and a short comic strip posted on my deviantart: MissPunnyPuns. So go check that out yo!
And thank you to the guests: New Love and Guest. And to the plain old guest, yeah, probably they would get in trouble. Yoshi is the kind of parent who if you could get away decently convincingly he'd let it slide as long as he didn't actually catch you in the act. (For little things anyways) If they were caught he'd probably give some sort of punishment and then say: "Next time you'd better be faster." With a little chuckle.