(2955 words)
None of the Hamatos knew that Raph knew the boy on the local news. The boy who they criticized and shamed. The boy who Donnie swore to 'take down' if they ever met for breaking into April's place. At that Raph freezes up. He doesn't want to move for fear of them somehow knowing he was a part of it too.
"Really, who does that kind of thing?" Leo says, more to himself than the rest of the family. "People who need money or people who are just kleptomaniacs." Donnie replies, getting up and pacing just in front of Raph who stood behind their couch. "I hope April's okay. If that big of a guy broke in, he could've really hurt her."
"I am sure that we would've heard if April was injured." Yoshi says in an attempt to calm his son's nerves. "Maybe, but what if she is scared and completely alone? Her dad is out of town or something." Raph sighs. "Dude, I'm sure she's fine." Raph mumbles. Donnie glances at him and shakes his head. "How would you even know."
"Uh... Well, she just seems like the kind of person to be okay in this kinda situation?" Raph replies quietly. "Well, you can ask her if she's okay at school tomorrow." Leo interjects, getting up from his spot on the couch and walking down to his and Mikey's room. Raph sighs, forgetting that school was starting up again. There was a few moments of silence before a loud groan was heard from the room.
Mikey jumps up, his curls messy from sleeping, and dashes for the door that would take him down to the dojo. "MIKEY!" Leo shouts just as the boy swings the door shut. Leo sprints out of the room holding an older looking comic book with globs of paint all over the back side of it. The oldest boy doesn't take any time to look in the livingroom before going out the same door Mikey did.
"Oooo... Mikey's dead..." Donnie says, holding back a laugh. "That was Leo's original issue one Space Hero's comic." Raph cringes. He knows how some of those comic geeks get when their comics even get touched. "Remember boys, fifteen minutes until training." Yoshi says, still watching the tv as the news plays out.
Donnie replies respectfully before Raph clasps a hand down on his shoulder, making him shiver. "Don, can I talk to you for a sec?" He asks quietly. "Uh, sure?" Donnie says, taking Raph's hand off of his shoulder. "Don't touch me."
The two move to their room, sitting on their respective beds in silence. Raph felt bad. Worse than bad. He needed to do something to make it up to April, even if it was something small. For his own sake more than hers. The problem came when Raph doesn't know anything about her. He knows small things, but nothing personal. Luckily he knew someone who did.
"So... Uh, really fucking weird question, but what do- what is it that you like about April?" Raph asks awkwardly. He hopped that Donnie would look over how odd the question was in favor of ranting about her like he would about computers and such. "Well, she's really nice and smart and pretty. She likes school and not a lot of people like school-"
As Donnie spouts off all the things he liked about the redheaded girl, facts and opinions. Raph was sure that Donnie could've talked for hours about April but he was cut off when he notices the time. "She loves animals and she talks about being a vet for all types of creatures too and she could totally do it- Oh crap..."
Raph glances at the clock and cringes. They were already five minutes late. Donnie tears out of the room, leaving Raph behind to slowly trudge towards the door. He wasn't a big fan of training. He was very much behind the brothers and it made him feel inferior. There was also the fact that whenever things got too heated things turned bad.
He makes his way down to the dojo and takes a seat next to where Yoshi stood, already giving directions and orders to the brothers. They were about to start a warm up round of last man standing sparring and Raph opted to sit this one out. As the round started Mikey was immediately moving everywhere, making himself a moving target, nearly impossible to hit.
Donnie was standing, guarded and clearly looking for the best way to attack. Leo used a combination of the two strategies, moving much sooner than Donnie but still strategizing in his head. It was a short match. Leo attacks Donnie and just barely takes him down before Mikey jumps on his back, pulling him back wards.
Leo leans into this motion, ready to use Mikey as a cushion to fall back on. Mikey lets go, falling only a few inches to his back and rolling away fast enough to let Leo fall to his own back, allowing the curly haired boy to stand above triumphantly, foot on his older brother's chest. Just before Mikey starts to gloat, Leo tugs on his leg and rolls, pulling the boy into a sort of split until he collapses.
After that there's a few seconds of a wrestling type battle on the floor until Mikey weasels himself free from Leo's weakening grip. With Leo just barely standing up, Mikey sends a quick kick to his chest, sending him straight back down, unable to get back up and accepting defeat. Mikey starts celebrating, jumping and pumping his fist before remembering what he was supposed to do.
He walks a few feet closer to Yoshi and bows, giving respect to his sensei. "Well done Michelangelo." Yoshi says with a slight bow to his pupil. "That's a first." Leo mumbles under his breath, annoyed. "Raphael, would you like the winners battle?" Yoshi asks. Raph shrugs. He's sure he could take Mikey, even if he loses, it wouldn't be as bad.
"I guess." He stands up and stretches a bit before stepping onto the padded floor. "You think you can take the Battle nexus champion?" Mikey says slyly, bouncing on the balls of his feet. Raph rolls his eyes, having heard that line from the kid more times than he could count in the time he had been with them.
Raph takes one of the few stances he'd learned and readies himself for the fight. They take off as soon as Yoshi gives them the go ahead. Mikey zips around Raph, attacking from the back. He only lands a few hits before Raph twists, grabbing Mikey's leg and pulling it back around to the front, swinging him all the way around through brute force.
He lets go and Mikey turns the sprawling fall into a decent roll, spinning and going straight back for more. It was an odd match. Raph, who attacked in brute force, becoming like a stone when attacked, against Mikey, who floated and sped around, landing jabbing punches and quick kicks, dodging things easily and fast. Neither one would win unless the other faltered in their techniques.
It went on much longer than the last man standing match, taking at least ten minutes until they were both huffing, out of breath. Finally the match changed. Raph started moving more, his tactic changing slightly and ultimately bringing him to his downfall. He yelps as he's flipped to the floor, Mikey standing over him, one foot on either side of his body. "HA!" Mikey says, crouching down until he was sitting on Raph's chest.
Oh boy was Mikey lucky he was light. Raph's chest tightens only slightly and he pushes the chipper boy off of himself with a growl. "Well done, both of you." Yoshi says as they both stand up and bow. "Leonardo, Donatello." He calls, motioning for them to spar next. Again, this match lasted only a couple minutes.
They started sparring but a minute in Leo starts wobbling on his feet, leaving himself open for a low attack. Donnie knocks him off his feet easily. After they leave the floor Leo sighs. "I'm sorry Sensei, I just got dizzy, I'll do better next time." He rarely lost and never twice in a day. He felt that he needed to explain himself. Yoshi frowns and nods.
After training Raph heads straight to his room while the others go to get something to eat. He pulls out a school notebook and a pen, staring at the paper for a few minutes before he starts scribbling words, sentences down, leaving a big space at the bottom.
Eventually Donnie walks in, sandwich in hand. By then Raph is folding his paper in half over and over again until it's folded as small as possible. "What'cha doin'?" Donnie asks before taking another bite. Raph not so discretely shoves the paper into a side pocket of his backpack. "Nothin'"
Neither say anything for a while, just staring at each other in silence. "Okay. Dad wants to know if you want anything to eat." Donnie says blandly. Raph shrugs and gets up. "Yeah, I guess." Once in the main area of the apartment Raph stands and watches the scene go down. Mikey was hanging off of Leo who was arguing with the monkey like boy on his back.
"Mikey, I told you. I'm just tired." Leo says exasperated. He must've been saying that same thing since Raph parted with them. "Yeah, but it's not gonna hurt to eat some more because, you know, like sometimes people are dizzy because they haven't eaten enough." Mikey squeezes his arms tighter around his brother's neck as he tries to shake him off.
"I know you know that because you're the one who told me that." He plops his head onto his shoulder, looking even more like a curious animal than he normally would. "Well I'm not hungry so it doesn't matter." Leo says, finally getting Mikey to let go. He goes off to his room and Raph decides it's now or never to grab some food.
He shuffles over and grabs a couple pieces of bread from the island counter and lathering a good amount of peanut-butter on it, trying to leave quickly. "Hey Raph." Mikey says in a sing song voice, waltzing up behind him, hands clasped behind his back. "I'm bored. Wanna go skate?" Raph gives him an annoyed look. "Last time I went out with you-" He stops for a second. It felt exactly like last night.
"Yeah, yeah, but that was last time! Besides, it's getting way colder and it'll snow in like a month so there's not a whole lot more time to skate bro!" Mikey says, rolling his eyes. "Come on, let's go!" Before he could react Mikey grabs his free arm and yanks him out the door. They cross through the dojo and by the door sat a big locker that was swung open to show four skateboards, all different in design, style, and size.
Mikey grabs his which was covered in stickers and passes Raph's old, banged up one to him. "Lets roll dude!"
"So I heard that there's this skate park not too far away. I think it's supposed to be closed kinda but nobody cares about that. People skate there all the time." Mikey says as he and Raph walk down the sidewalk. Raph had insisted that they walk there instead of skating so they didn't crash before they got there.
"Uh... Never mind, let's go." Raph had said. He worried about getting in trouble, but he didn't want to have to be. Mikey shrugs and they continue on. It wasn't long before they were at the park, looking on it didn't seem like there was anybody there. "Lucky us, we've got the whole place to ourselves!" Mikey says, dropping his board and skating over.
He was right, the skate park was deserted. By the time Raph had gotten over to the cement playground Mikey was already warming up with some simple to do-impossibly hard looking tricks. Raph drops his board, letting it clatter to the pavement and steps on, scoping out the ramps and rails.
Once he gets going all his worries melt away as he focuses only on doing the tricks, not falling off, and trying to show off. After a while they stopped to take a break, Mikey sitting on a ramp that went nearly straight up while Raph stayed on the ground, sitting on his board. "If people skate here all the time, how come nobody's here right now?" Raph asks, picking at his wrists.
"It's supposed to rain." Mikey replies, holding a hand out like he was feeling for the aforementioned rain. "Nobody skates when it's supposed to rain." Raph shrugs. It makes sense. He'd never seen anyone skate when rain was in the forecast. That or it had just been raining. Raph, bored, looks around the area, taking note of all the buildings nearby.
There was a coffee shop, a shut down candy store, a small clothing shop, a soup kitchen-. As Raph's eyes wander over the soup kitchen that he just now realized felt much too close to the park, he watches a big man with a large scar over his head. He scrambles behind the ramp Mikey was sitting atop instinctively
"Pfftt- What was that?" Mikey asks with a chuckle. He really had no reason to hide, he just felt a pang of panic in his chest after seeing this man, the man who was the closest thing to a witness of what had happened. Next to April that is. "Wait, isn't that... Yeah! That guy came to our school like two years ago! That guy's like a hero! He talked about how he was in the army and saved like a whole village or something!"
Mikey hops down from his perch and quickly skates over to the man, leaving Raph mortified. "HEY! HEY YO LEATHERHEAD!" Mikey shouts, probably louder than he thinks he is. The man looks up from a newspaper he was reading and smiles. Raph watches as Mikey talks to him for a couple of minutes before pointing over at him.
"RAPH! COME OVER HERE!" Mikey shouts. Raph cringes and reluctantly trudges over, holding his board under his arm. "Hi." Raph says dully. Leather head reaches out a hand like this was the first time they had met. "Hey, I'm Leatherhead, nice to meet you. Michelangelo here has already done the honor of introducing you Raphael." The scarred man gives a low chuckle.
Raph shakes his hand awkwardly, tearing at his writs as soon as he gets his hand back. "I hope you're staying out of trouble young one." He smiles and glances at Raph. "Of course." Mikey says in a sing song voice. "I'd never do anything to ever get in trouble anywhere!" Raph smirks. "What about a week ago when you left expired mayonnaise out and then let Donnie use it anyways."
"That doesn't count because I didn't technically get in trouble, Don just got a little mad and a little sick..." Mikey mumbles the last part. Leatherhead wrinkles his nose but smiles anyways. "How's it been going? School good? Making friends?" He says, sounding like an old uncle that hadn't seen them since last Christmas.
"I've been great! Amazing grades, TONS of friends! We'd be hanging out right now too but I told them no, that I was gonna spend time with my bro" Mikey slings his arm around Raph's shoulders and leans into him. "That is good." Leather head says with a slow nod. "I have to be off now, I have some laundry I left in the washer."
"Okay, see ya later!" Mikey says, waving as the man walks away. "LH is super cool." Mikey breathes out as he watches him walk away. "So tons of friends huh?" Raph asks, arms folded now. "Yeeaah... Something like that... There's not a ton of people at our school that are really actually friends with me."
"You could, you know, just make friends online." Raph says, turning to walk back to the skate park as a light drizzle from the sky starts down. Mikey stays behind for a second, his hair starting to soak up the rain. "Huh... I guess I could..."
With a thousand lies
And a good disguise
Hit 'em right between the eyes
Hit 'em right between the eyes
When you walk away
Nothing more to say
See the lightning in your eyes
See 'em running for their lives
You're Gonna Go Far Kid
The Offspring
Euughhhh, sorry for the filler chapter, it had to happen to set things up ^^; I hope you liked it anyways! I promise you'll like the next one! 100% guarantee! OH! By the way, that rain-skatepark thing? Totally real. I've witnessed it so many times. Nobody is there if it's supposed to rain soon or if it has rained pretty recently. Perfect timing for beginners who don't want to be seen in front of those expert skaters.
Thanks for reading and be ready for a cannon episode inspired chapter next time! (I bet you can already guess what too."