The Butcher and Baker and Candlestick Maker, a ninja turtles fanfic

The Butcher and Baker and Candlestick Maker

By Kay

Disclaimer: Don't own TMNT. It's sort of a pity.

Author's Notes: Raph stars in this, but it features every turtle pretty heavily. Mikey has a huge part to play later, though he gets skimped in the beginning scenes. Anyway. This is a fic I started writing ages ago when I first got into TMNT, so this first chapter is a little rough and not as well-written as the next one I've been working on... sorry about that. It's meant to be confusing. If you are half as confused as Raph is, I've done something right. Answers will be given in chapter two.

As usual, you have my utter gratitude for reading. bows Thank you so much, guys. :)

Chapter One: In Which Shit Don't Make Sense

The butcher took the red meat and cut it up good
Then sent the package to the poor weeping baker
"You asked for the best of me and it was my brother,"
He said, paying debt to the candlestick maker.

Raphael dreams.

Most of the time, his dreams are violent things. Stuff he won't remember after waking. Stuff he doesn't want to. Sometimes after he's jerked up in bed, sweat beading his temple and sai lodged in the brick wall of his room, he's afraid he's just waking up to another dream. That everything's just one big damn line, like a hallway of mirrors, a game for Raph that he doesn't particularly want to play. Endless. Infuriating. It doesn't help that even on the best of days, Raph feels like he's muddling through a swamp morning to night, just trying to get by. Life, the great pain in the shell. The uphill struggle that never evens out.

But he only thinks that on the bad nights. Most of the time, it doesn't matter. Most nights, he can shrug the worst of it off. Life is always ten thousand times more annoying than a nightmare, anyway. Guaranteed. Except no one gets their money back. No one gets to wake up.

So life is going on, irritating as it is, and the Foot are being less involved with the city crime waves and everything seems like slim pickings. Raph ignores Leo; this is accepted to be the general rule. Don is making machines that would stun the scientific world if they ever saw topside, but that's nothing new, either. Mikey's started making new brands of pizza that shouldn't exist.

Raph dreams under the streets of New York. Sleeps until late in the morning, nothing else to do.

He wakes up feeling like someone's walked over his grave. Every corner he turns, it becomes an invisible pressure on his back, the strange sensation of something coming. Something bad. But it's just a dream. He goes on with things, pretending it's all normal, feeling more and more like he's trapped in a giant hall of reflecting glass, each new view more distorted, each new morning worse than the one before. Impressions, vivid and strange, leak into his daily routines—the smell of rot, smoke trailing over fingertips, a name in the nothingness—and leave him irritable. Brittle.

It feels like something's coming and he doesn't like that, doesn't like the hard edge of waiting. Makes him snap faster, more violently. Mikey takes to hiding and leaving him be, Leo riding his shell even harder about concentration.

Sometimes he thinks he's dreaming but then he's on his feet, not dreaming at all. Raph hates those moments the most. All the days seem bleaker somehow. A trap. He doesn't like traps, either.

The first time he remembers one, that's when it all goes to hell. Just when things were going so nicely. It just figures.

Story of his fucking life.

Raph comes to with blood in his mouth and a hot flash of pain in his shoulder.

He tries to say, 'What the hell?' but the words come out garbled, slurred to the point of incoherence. His teeth hurt. He spits a long trail of syrupy black that trails to the pavement and is captured, for a moment, by the strange quiet of it all. Normally waking up like this means trouble, but the only noise he can hear is the rasping of his own breath as it winds through his throat with difficulty.

That, and his heartbeat.

The cement is cold and damp. He groans and reaches over to the shoulder that feels like it's been stabbed with a hot iron poker. Not good. His fingers encounter coagulated blood and dirt pebbles sunken into the wound, and he curses low under his breath. Just fucking great. Of course.

Whatever whackbag did this had better be whimpering somewhere else around here or there'd be hell to pay.

His first instinct is to say he's in the sewers, it's that pitch black. But the wind is on his shell. A scent of rotten garbage pervades underneath everything. Cement. 'The city,' Raph's brain supplies, low and suspicious. 'I'm on the street.'

He struggles to sit up, holding his shoulder.

"Hold still." Leonardo's voice is soft in the darkness. "If you move too much, they might spot us."

To his right. Raphael jerks sharply, glaring over his shoulder. The one that doesn't feel like it's coming apart at the seams. "What happened?" he asks shortly. He doesn't like the feel of this. The fact he can't remember what he's doing or where he is, or why he can't see Leo in the strange, utterly blinding night surrounding them. He can't even see the street beneath him.

"You don't remember," Leo murmurs absentmindedly. It's not a question.

"No." Temper boiling white behind his eyes. He hisses, cupping the wound carefully, trying not to squeeze the skin until it breaks again. Something about this seems almost familiar. Painfully so. It's not a sensation he likes.

"You have to remember," his brother tells him, still very distant. "If you don't, everything's going to go wrong again. I don't think I can take it if that happens, Raph. I don't think I'm strong enough."

"What the hell, Leo?" The dread that had originally pooled in Raph's belly spreads, coldfire quick, and clutches at his heart. "Where's Donny?" He twists around, but there's only the bleak shadows, all encompassing, swallowing his sight. "Mikey?"

Silence.

"What's goin' on here, Leo?" Raph asks, voice very low.

A flicker of color, of light. From across him, leaning against a brick wall splattered with crusted maroon fans of something Raph doesn't want to name, Leo looks through him instead of at him. The ragged mess of his plastron is more red than yellow. The gleam of metal is what allows the split-second of sight and after it dies, Raph finds the scream trapped in his throat controllable only through the black that follows immediately after.

'No. You're seein' things, you're mad. It can't be. It's not—' He gets to his feet, stumbling forward. Has to get to Leo. Has to save him before the blood, before he just…

Leo's fingers touch his face out of nowhere and Raph jerks back. Too quick, not a sound, the smell of death sour on the air—

"I love you," Leo whispers, frightened. "Now go. And don't let them kill Don, Raph, that's where it starts and ends. Don't let Mikey laugh and don't let the candle go out, but most of all, don't let them kill Donny."

His shoulder burning and they're breathing and the light that's coming is even worse than the black, because he doesn't want to see this, but if he doesn't there might not be another chance and so Raph reaches out—

The snap of a match.

Raph watches Leo light the candle, wearily propped up against the wall of the dojo. The flame does little to chase away the shadows lingering in the corners, but it sculpts the exhaustion on Leo's face that echoes his own. The mats are littered with weapons, their skin glistening with sweat. Beyond the room, the rest of the lair is quiet and still; he doesn't have to listen to know that everyone else, even their Master, is sleeping.

"Again?" Leo asks again, disbelievingly. He keeps his voice down.

Raph doesn't think he has the energy to raise his arms, much less get to his feet, but he nods. In a normal sparring match, he wouldn't have this problem. But he hasn't been sleeping well and even now the room blurs at the edges, purple dots invading his vision.

"Again," he answers.

For a second, he thinks Leo's going to recover his stance once more, as he has for the past few hours repeatedly at Raph's request. But instead, his brother's mouth purses and his eyes narrow. "When was the last time you slept, Raph?"

Raph shrugs irritably. "Does it matter?"

"Of course it matters." Leo glances towards the living areas, then moves forward. He sits before Raphael, hesitating, knowing the intrusion is unwelcome. Raph allows it only because he's too tired to do anything about it. Let Leo talk. It's all he ever does. Doesn't mean Raph has to listen. Besides, he finds the sound of his brother's voice disturbingly comforting. It doesn't sound afraid. It doesn't sound empty. He's getting sick of hearing his brother sound like that every night, otherwise. It's like a broken record that no matter how many times is thrown out always reappears back in the slot it came from, taunting him. 'I don't think I'm strong enough. You have to remember. You have to remember.'

"Raph," this Leo says, watching his face. "You've been acting kind of funny lately. Is anything wrong?"

Raph snorts, then closes his eyes. "Yeah. I'm gettin' real sick of you."

If he hadn't already anticipated the hurt in Leo's face, the silence that follows this would have told Raph everything. They are supposed to be getting better. Back to the way they used to be, before everything fell apart.

'I love you. Now go. Go, Raph, before they spot us.'

Raph sighs. "Look," he says. "It ain't personal. But you ask touchy questions, you're gonna get some ugly answers, okay?"

He can tell Leo is frowning without even having to open his eyes. He wonders when he got so good at reading his brother. Maybe all the time spent together after hours, Raph thinks grimly, all those hours in the dark with the iron taste in his gums and the softness of Leo's voice. The warnings. The blinding, burning light. The candle.

No. None of it is real.

Crazy thoughts.

"If it's affecting the team, I have to ask touchy questions sometimes," his Leo says. "If it's affecting our family, that makes it even more important. If your concentration is lapsing, if you're so exhausted you can barely move but still refuse to rest your body… We're responsible for each other, Raphael, for keeping the balance and watching each others' backs. I need to know we can depend on you, but you keep pushing me away. This thing that's bothering you—"

"If I wanted a pissy lecture, I would've asked."

The ire is blessedly sharp in his brother's voice. "And if I wanted to play twenty questions, I would've gotten Mikey out here. Damn it, Raph. Something's wrong with you. Something's different. At first, I thought your focus was a good thing, but this is ridiculous. You don't sleep or eat, you practice unrelentingly until early morning hours, you ask me to spar and snap at me about my defenses like a—"

"They ain't good enough," Raph snarls, opening his eyes abruptly. He leans forward, pointing his sai at his brother's startled face. "You ain't invincible and you ain't good enough yet!"

In the candlelight, Leo stares at him.

The rage bubbles out as swiftly as it came, leaving a barren feeling of desolation inside Raph, bleaker than the fury but twice as strong. He rubs his eyes roughly. Waits for the spots to vanish. Leaves his hands there for a second. He's tired. He's so goddamn tired. It's too difficult to stay angry when he's worn through to the bones, too easy to just throw in the towel. He doesn't like that, either.

Leo tentatively touches his head.

"Don't," Raph grounds out bitterly. "Just don't, Leo. Go the fuck to bed."

The barest of connection retreats, but he doesn't leave. Raph doesn't push it. Maybe if he's being honest, he doesn't really want to. For now.

They sit there, silent, a foot of air separating them and a heaviness surrounding them that has nothing and everything to do with the coming morning. Leo doesn't shift once, and the only way Raph can tell he's not meditating is because of the weight of his gaze settling on Raph's bowed head like a stone.

After a while, the candle goes out.

In the darkness, he can hear Leo breathing.

"Damn," Raph says. He spits twice, once to get rid of the stickiness clogging his mouth and another out of spite. He wishes his shoulder weren't attached to his body anymore; things might be better without it. The pain delves to his muscles and down to bone, rocketing throughout his entire arm whenever he tries to move. He ignores the bite of it and pushes himself up.

"Hold still," Leo murmurs. "If you move too much, they might spot us."

"Y'know," Raph growls, "in most dreams, you don't actually feel pain. It's supposed to be a sign that this crazy crap might be real."

"You don't remember."

"Oh, I remember alright. I remember you saying some freaky stuff about Donny and candles, and I remember—" He stops, not wanting to say it aloud. The devastation of his brother's body clings like an unwanted guest to his mind. No amount of locks or late night spars have silenced it.

"You have to remember. If you don't, everything's going to go wrong again. I don't think I can take it if that happens, Raph. I don't think I'm strong enough." Now that he knows what to listen for, Raph can hear the squelch of his brother's insides when he leans forward. "You're the only one that can stop it."

"It'd be a lot easier if ya told me what to look for, O Fearless One," Raph says quietly.

A swallow. Not his. "Keep the ground or they'll see you," whispers Leo. "Keep close, keep around, keep watch. Break the bread. Be bold, be bright. Don't let them kill Donny, Raph."

"Where's Donny, Leo?" Because the only corpse he's seen around here belongs to the voice he's hearing.

"Don't let Mikey laugh and don't let the candle go out, but most of all, don't let them kill Donny. That's where it starts and ends." A pause and then he's there, in front of Raph, who doesn't need to see him to know he's there, just the weight of his gaze settling on Raph's bowed head like a stone and a breath still warm skittering across their faces—

"I love you." He thinks Leo might be crying. "Now go."

Raph's shoulder, searing in pain, protests when he lifts his arm up to check, but Leo doesn't cry and he has to know. It's important. It's important.

A flare of brightness.

Don glances at him skeptically, hand still on the light switch. "You know," he says, off-handedly, "they say watching television without any light on can damage your eyesight. Something tells me the last thing you want is glasses, Raph."

The screen seems harsh now, discolored. Raph rubs his eyes with his fist and grumbles intelligibly. "Comin' from a turtle who messes with technocrud until three in the mornin' without anything but his nightlight," he points out, "I ain't the first in line for specs, Donny."

"The bigger pain would be finding a way to get them," his brother muses, sitting on the sofa. He has a radio in his lap, along with a screwdriver. Mikey's, Raph notes with some irritation. Again.

The program doesn't seem nearly as riveting as it had. Raph shuts off the television, scowling. Then he changes his mind and flips it back on, scrolling through the channels. He doesn't want to ask the question, but it forces its way out, anyway. "Leo still pissed off?"

"Nah." Don shrugs. "You know Leo. He went on a run and came back all at one with the universe. Thinks he's got you figured all out now."

Raph smiles despite himself. "Freak."

"Play the grudgingly repentant card and you might get out of extra practice tonight," Don adds. "He thinks you're lashing out because you haven't been sleeping."

The smile disappears as quickly as it'd come. "He told you that?" Raph growls, hackles raising. His sai presses tight against his grip and he fingers the sharp edges. Don glances at him appraisingly, then looks back down at his radio.

"No," he says shortly. "I told him that."

Raph doesn't know what to say to that. "Don?"

"You'd think as smart as I am, you'd stop treating me like I'm stupid," Don bites out impatiently. He keeps his eye on the radio. Oddly enough, Raph follows his gaze; the repetitive motions of the screwdriver take him out of the words. He wonders if this is how Don feels all the time.

"Don't think you're stupid," he mutters. Watches Don work.

"It's pretty obvious. You're always sparring with Leo until strange hours of the morning. Up earlier than the rest of us. To bed later than the rest of us. Moody, sluggish, unpredictably melancholy—"

"Say what?"

"You're making us worry," Don says softly. "Something's really wrong and you won't tell us what."

Raph's first instinct is to violently protest, but the fact that it's the truth—and that it's Donny saying it—stoppers the urge before it realizes itself aloud. He bites down on his tongue, hard. The pain feels the same as the dream. He looks away from the radio and sighs noisily.

Don doesn't say anything else.

"I'm workin' on it," Raph says.

"Uh-huh."

"I am," Raph snaps at him. "And you don't need to be shovin' your beak into my business, okay? I'm handlin' things fine alone. I just need…" What? He pauses, grits his teeth. "I just need more time," he finishes. "It's nothing—trust me."

Don stills in his work, a tired expression crossing his features that Raph hates to know he put there. "Okay," he sighs. "Okay, Raphie. But you know… if there's anything…"

"Stop worrying, brainiac." Raph swallows his frustration, now streaked with guilt, and smacks Don on the shell affectionately. The cuff is enough to bring back the smile on his brother's face. Spurred by relief, Raph adds, "You'll get as many wrinkles as Leo if you keep doing that."

"Some things in the realm of reality," Don says solemnly, "are still impossible."

Raph grins fiercely at him.

They watch television in peace for a while longer, listening to Mikey practicing and an action film with far too many explosions. Don tinkers with the radio. Raph pretends he's watching the movie instead of his brother. Pretends he's not thinking about Leo, probably pacing in his room, frantically worrying about what's going to happen in the future. 'Don't let them kill Donny, Raph. I don't think I'm strong enough for that.' No. Not that Leo. It's just a dream and he's letting it get to him, letting it seep into his life. Maybe it feels real, but that doesn't mean he has to let it control him. There aren't any answers lurking there, anyway, only frustration and foreboding.

Still, his gut is squirming and all alarms are off. Raph's entire body is wired up from the screaming in his instincts he's lived his entire life listening to, and that's never good. Still, he can't write it off just yet. Better to be careful. Better to keep his cards close.

"Hey Donny," he says after a while.

"Hmm?"

"Don't go anywhere alone for a while, okay?" Raph turns away, back towards the television. "Not without one of us."

"What? Why?"

"Just do it, okay?"

Don has always been the smart one. He says nothing and just continues prying at the insides of the radio. Raph takes that as good as his word.

His eyes are tired, so he shuts them.

"Don't sleep again," says Leo, and it sounds so much like begging that Raph feels himself cringe. There's no pride left in that shell of a voice. "You've slept for so long. It feels like ages. I don't want to be alone again."

This is different. Raphael opens his eyes, even knowing he'll see nothing. His chest hurts now, too, along with the gash bleeding freely in his shoulder. "Leo," he mutters, pushing himself up. "We gotta stop meetin' like this. I prefer my dreams with beautiful dames whisperin' sweet nothings in my ear, got it?"

The laughter is as weak as it is genuine. "Hold still. If you move too much, they might spot us."

"Donny. What's going to happen to Donny?"

"You don't remember."

"No," Raph says simply.

"You have to remember. If you don't, everything's going to go wrong again. I don't think I can take it if that happens, Raph. I don't think I'm strong enough." Leo pauses, frustrated. The noise he makes is more anger than fear, familiar to Raphael's hearing, well-missed. "I hate not being strong enough. Raph, we were supposed to be strong enough for this. It's our job to take care of them. It's my job to take care of all of them."

It's the first time Raphael gets the feeling Leo's not speaking entirely to him alone. "Leo?"

"It grows dark and then cold and then the walkers get you, break you down, bury you in the earth." A shuddering noise; stuttered breath. "Keep to the ground or they'll see you. It's not too late. No matter what, we can't forget that it's not too late."

Fuck this. Raphael curses wildly, fumbling to his feet, and reaches out with both arms in the darkness. They touch nothing but cool air that smells like the city, but he takes one step and then another. Determined. Towards his brother. This ends now. He's not afraid. He is not afraid. It's just Leo.

A gleam of metal to his left, a shattered reflection of green and black and red. Leo eyes him, dark eyes dull and clouded. Raphael jerks, adjusting his direction, and steps forward again even as the night falls around them unfailingly once more.

"You're worried about me." Leo sounds surprised.

"You're a real goddamn Matlock."

"Oh," Leo says, stricken. The single exclamation is enough to lend Raphael his last few feet and his toes meet a sticky, cold wetness that spreads out across the street. He gets to his knees carefully.

"It's gonna be okay," he mutters, feeling helpless.

"Don't let them kill Donny, Raph, that's where it starts and ends. With Donny. Mikey's laughter and the candle, you can't stop them, but maybe with Donny—"

"Shut up." His fingers meet resistance; a rubbery block, lifeless and too far gone. Then upwards, towards the face. Raphael can still hear him breathing, still hear his heartbeat inside of the chest that doesn't move. His shoulder twitches under Raph's administrations, the line of his jaw familiar and hard. Raph brushes it and Leo sighs. That's when Raph discovers the blade's hilt, swaying with the motion and lightly hitting Raph's wrist.

It's slippery. It's well cared for, worn from use. The imprints of fingertips clutching at it are still warm. He pulls it out and the glitter of light off of it brings recognition, brings the mess spilling out of his brother and between his knees and all around them into sharp profile.

He knows this sword.

"I love you," Leo admits. "Even if you're an idiot. Now go, Raph. Just… go."

He doesn't have room to draw the scream back into himself and the ninjaken clatters to his feet.

Except it's not at his feet, it's at Leo's—clean and gleaming underneath the dojo lights, dropped at the start of Raphael's anguished scream. The sound of it clanging echoes throughout the lair like it's going to go on forever down into the pipes. It keeps going long after Raphael stumbles back into the wall, recovers, shakes his head, and looks around frantically.

Leo stares at him, mouth open slightly.

They'd been fighting. He can remember that now.

The fury breaks over the edge, brimming until it can't find any release except out. Raphael grits his teeth. Pushes his skull in on itself until he can't feel the ringing agony in it. Too much, too close, too—not right, not any of it, not real, nothing can be, not this—

"Raphael," and Leo's beside him, trying to pry his hands away firmly. "Raph, stop it—"

All he can see is red. On the sword, on his brother, on the ground, on his hands. Raphael lets go of himself and lets it carry him away. "What right do you have?" he snarls, shoving Leo into the wall, letting momentum carry him there. His brother's form is solid, reassuring, and his arm presses against Leo's throat where there isn't blood and the other against the wall that isn't soaked with entrails. Different. Possible. Too possible. "What would make you do something that stupid, Leo?! What makes you think that's okay? What makes you do that?"

"I don't understand," Leo gasps.

"You don't have the right. You don't have the fucking right. You don't ever get to do that, do you hear me?" He's shaking violently. He can see the point when Leo realizes it, when his eyes widen further and his confusion is swept underneath the concern that Raphael can't bear to see. "Stop lookin' at me like that! I'm ain't crazy—you're the turtle who's lost his mind!"

Leo's not struggling anymore. Raphael wonders if he ever was and feels sick to his stomach.

"What is your problem?" Leo demands. Still under Raphael's grip, but unbeaten, unwilling to bend to this absurdity. This is his brother again. This isn't the creature in the alley, the used and soaked rag tossed out. The corpse. "I haven't done anything to you!"

'No. No, you haven't.' Raphael closes his eyes against the memory of blood coating his every inhale, the cloying thickness of it. Not the future. Not yet.

When he lets go of Leo, it's because he has to throw up.

The bile burns the back of his throat and he thinks, numbly, that now would be a good time to fall to his—

"Take deep breaths," Don is saying. A hand over his shell, pavement hard on Raphael's knees and fingertips. Damp like there's been rain, but not. The smell. He hates this smell. "Open your mouth and inhale. Hold it. Steady, now. Then let it out. Again. Again, Raph."

There's something very distorted about Don's voice, Raphael thinks, distant-minded. Like he's speaking through several layers of cloth, slow and slurred. His brother's knees scrape loudly against the pavement whenever he shifts his body weight. To their right, Raphael can hear Leo murmuring something. He wonders if how Leo can talk with a blade imbedded in his abdomen or if maybe it doesn't matter, considering the higher concern is the fact he's dead, but then remembers that doesn't matter, either, because Leo is alive and in one piece and being a pain in the shell like always—

How does a turtle hack his way through plastron as hard as bone while he bleeds to death? How does that happen? Impossible. It only looks like what it can't be. Maybe for a human, maybe then it's possible, but their kind doesn't allow for the same, and how many nights had Raph's stomach churned with the secret fear and—somehow—anticipation, that they'd find a way, anyway, that maybe—but only ever him and Leo, they knew where life could drive them, only they knew. The line through Leo a mockery of everything they'd read in books; the Japanese word escapes him. Too graceful. Leo knows it. No. Impossible. False imitation with real blood. Raphael heaves and everything comes up that shouldn't be in his belly when there's no room for anything but a lead ball. Even in the dream, he gags on the taste.

Don smells like earth and age and rot.

"He won't ask you," murmurs Leo. "He's a better brother than I am."

"When…" Raph gasps. "When… Don…"

"He's always been here. Donny doesn't talk much anymore," Leo admits sadly. It's not the right question, Raphael wants to scream, but he can't speak, can't even move it hurts so badly now—

"Are you feeling any better?" asks Don.

The sway of his hammock is making Raphael feel vaguely ill, but he just nods. "Wha' happened?" he slurs, turning his head so he can see his brother. Don smiles sadly at him.

"You collapsed." The words are lighter than the look in his eyes. "Sleep deprivation won the match this time around. Leo says you threw a fit out of nowhere in the dojo, threw up, and then blacked out. You've been asleep for almost seventeen hours."

Seventeen hours. He hasn't slept that long since he was young. Raphael sputters a curse and makes as if to sit up.

"Whoa, down boy," Don says firmly.

"Think I've been down long enough, Donny."

"Not nearly." The book balanced on his brother's lap is carefully rested back on the floor. Raphael doesn't recognize it. No surprise there. "If your body crashed that long, it obviously needed it. Plus, I can tell from the fact you pretty much heaved nothing but stomach acid all over the mats that you haven't been eating much." Don hesitates, weariness hard in the set of his mouth. "Raph, you really scared us."

And if it'd been Leo saying it, that would've been okay, but this is Donny and Raphael feels shame curl angrily in his gut. "Didn't mean to," he mumbles.

"I know." Don sighs. "But it's not just me. Leo's having kittens. He thinks you're finally going off the deep end."

The thought sends a trill of fear up Raphael's spine. Is he going mad? He closes his eyes tightly against the images burned into his retinas. He's not crazy. He can't be.

But what can he say? 'Sorry, these trippy dreams—visions—whatever, they keep harassin' me all night and now I think you're gonna die and Leo's gonna kill himself and I don't even want to think about what's happened to—'

He can hear Mikey laughing at the television from the living room. It sends an unexpected shudder up Raphael's bones.

There has to be something more to this. Something substantial. Something, Raphael thinks angrily, besides shit like crazy dreams and darkness and the vague, skittish sense of paranoia that hovers around his shell like a coat three sizes too big. This can't just be for nothing. And if it is, then he's going to find a way to figure out who's behind it and then bash their heads open over the concrete. Someone has to be responsible and take the consequences.

'Unless it's you, numbskull,' a voice in his head says. Raphael ignores it.

"I'm fine. Just need more sleep, less people complainin' about it," he says finally, easing back into the hammock. More to keep that pinched look out of Don's face than actually wanting to be there. It works.

"Master Splinter's going to want to talk to you, too," continues Don. "And Leo's on the warpath."

"Whatever."

"Raph… You know if something's wrong, you need to tell us, right? Or even just me."

Like Donny needs this sort of thing on his shoulders. Raphael flashes a grin that's more teeth than truth. "You wanna help?"

"Ask a stupid question, Raph…" Don starts dryly.

"No, but really." He puts on his serious face. It's enough to make Don sit up straighter. "I gotta favor to ask. You do that, you can make things a lot better, okay?"

"I—of course. You know, anything."

That's mostly what he's afraid of. "Don't go out alone, 'kay?"

His brother frowns, inching forward. "That's the second time you've asked that… what's wrong? What's out there that you're so scared of?"

"M'not scared," Raphael bites out. 'And I don't know.'

But whatever is coming, Raphael knows one thing for certain—it's bad. It's bad and it's rotten and no good, and hell if he's gonna let his gentle brother get caught in the crossfire of whatever this is. He's better than that. That's why Leo of the Dreams does it. That's why Raph listens. If it had been anyone else, maybe—

There are some things you can't take chances on.

Don's brain is working. Raph can almost see the gears twisting into place, clanking against each other, working overtime. He hopes this puzzle won't keep the kid up late tonight, but he meant it when he'd said it would help. He trusts Donny to keep his word, to obey even when he doesn't understand. Especially if he doesn't understand. Especially if Raphael cares enough to request it.

At least, that's what he's counting on, anyway.

"Whatever it is, we can handle it," Don tells him, but he doesn't say no. "If you'd just tell me, tell anyone, we could—"

"There's nothin' to tell," Raph says firmly. "But once I figure it out, you'll be the first turtle I go to, okay?"

Don's not happy with that, but after a long moment he nods, mouth pursed. The irritation brewing with frustration should make Raphael guilty, but it doesn't—it's a sign that Donny's going to do exactly what he says.

He makes up his mind. It's not hard to do.

"Try to keep Leo off my shell, huh?" He closes his eyes. He must've slept for forever, but it feels like only a minute. "It's worse than havin' a mother. Nag, nag, nag. Soon, he'll be harassing me to eat my veggies or somethin' weird."

"I'll relay the message," says Don in amusement.

"Good. M'sleepin' again."

"Good." Relief in his brother's voice. "Night, Raph."

"Night, Donny."

He's not sleeping, is the thing. He's going to figure this all out before disaster hits. It's time to get some answers. Time to sort this crap out before his family is touched by it anymore than they have. And there's only one way to get those answers.

This time, he's ready for the darkness.

"Hold still," Leo hisses. "If you move too much—"

"Why don't Donny talk anymore?" Raph demands, scraping himself off the pavement. The pain in his shoulder and chest has grown, a gnawing stab deep into the marrow of his body. He ignores it. "Why is he dead? Who did it, Leo? Who brought this on our heads?"

Silence. Then, "You don't remember."

"Fuck, Leo, that's why I'm asking!"

"I don't—" Another pause, shorter. Leo groans as if disoriented. "I—I'm sorry. You don't understand. For us, the world… the mirrors are all—"

"For the dead, the past and present are made of the same clay," Don's voice echoes quietly from the blackness. "And we are beholden to no future."

"What happens? How can I stop it?" Raphael demands.

Don is silent, though. It's Leo who makes a distressed noise and says, "Keep to the ground or they'll see you. It's not too late. No matter what, we can't forget that it's not too late."

"Donny," Raphael begs. "Donny, you gotta help me out here. You guys… I can't change anything if you don't start talkin' soon."

"He doesn't want you to do it," Leo says sharply, devastated in his frustration. "He thinks this is better than what could happen. He doesn't understand because he can't see what happens after. He won't. I'm the one, Raph. I made the mistake. I'm the one that calls you out now. I want to have hope. You have to remember, Raph, if you don't it's all going to go wrong again. I don't think I can take it if that happens, Raph. I don't think I'm strong enough. So many times. So many times I've failed. Master Splinter can't help us anymore. You have to be different now. You have to be different."

"And I can do that if you just tell me what's gonna happen!"

"No," Don whispers, regretful. "You don't belong here. You should just go home. Go home and leave Raphael back with us."

"What?" His shoulder is on fire. "Am I—me too?"

"No," Don says.

"He can't see it," Leo whispers under him simultaneously. He sounds as if he aches.

His head is pounding, too. Raphael grits his teeth and tries, tries so hard, to reign in his temper. It won't help now. Not with this. "Look. Just. Tell. Me. Who kills Donny?"

Silence.

"You gotta tell me," hisses Raph. "You gotta tell me so I can protect my family. This is for nothin' if you don't."

"Don't let them kill Donny, Raph," Leo fumbles. "Don't, don't—"

Bone on his thigh. Fingers. "Raph," Donny begs, "just go home and forget about this. Please. If you try and fix it, it could just end up more broken. You don't understand."

"We can't leave," Leo says. "We are consumed."

"You're consumed," Don tells him sharply.

"But you don't leave either, Donny," Leo whispers. "He can't stop the candle or Mikey laughing, but he can stop Donny from dying. Don. Donny. Don't stay here. You've always deserved better than this."

"I won't leave you alone," is all that Don says.

"Somebody," Raphael rasps, "tell me what to do."

Silence.

"Aren't any of you guys gonna tell me what to do?! You'll just sit there and babble and let yourselves die again?!"

His fist smashes into stone.

"Hey, Raph, are you feeling—"

"Get out!" he snarls at Mikey. The turtle makes a startled 'eep' noise and slams Raph's door behind him on the way out.

Left alone, Raphael buries his face in his hands and pants. No matter how long he waits, his heartbeat won't steady. His world remains off-balance.

His knuckles hurt. Raphael tucks them to his chest and laughs, low and wounded. Sometimes he wants to hate Leo, but never before has he actually followed through on that. But right now, he has the feeling if their leader walked through the door, alive and well but keeping just as many secrets, Raphael might just put a sai through his eye on principle.

He stays in his room and listens to the sounds of his family talking outside. About him, probably. When Don speaks, Raphael presses his ear to the door and closes his eyes for a long time.

He goes back to bed.

Raphael doesn't know the meaning of the word 'quit.' Definitions and stuff, that's more Leo and Donny's job. His knuckles bleed out on his shell but he doesn't move; it's inconsequential.

His knuckles bleed out on his shell but he doesn't move; it's inconsequential. What matters it that the light had seeped away again, that the city rumbles beneath him and Leo wheezes in the emptiness. This is where he needs to be for now. This is a foe with a name.

"Hold still—"

"Forget that," Raphael rumbles. "Skip to the chase. I don't remember, you're not strong enough, yadda yadda. So tell me something I don't know, Fearless Leader—what the hell happens to Donny?"

"Mikey's going to come soon," Don says softly. "It's too late, Leo. Just let go. Lay down. I'll help you. I'll go with you."

"No." Two voices, in unison.

Raphael recovers first. "T'hell with that," he growls. "I ain't letting either of you go without a fight."

"You don't belong here," Don begs. It hurts to hear. "You're… you could die if you continue down this road, Raph. I don't want you to get hurt. Not you or Mikey. Why can't anyone rest in peace? Is it always going to be an uphill climb, Leo? Do we always have to drag our dead behind us?"

"Over stones and soil and soot," hisses Leo.

"Leo's right. I'm not so big on lettin' things go. Ain't no one gettin' left behind, not on my watch," Raph says. If nothing else works, maybe speaking their language will. "Tell me. Tell me or we all end up dead again. And we can't let that happen, remember? We have to be strong enough."

Silence.

"Mikey laughs first," Leo says, finally.

"Leo. No." Don in the dark.

"Then the candle goes out," their brother continues, as if every word, slow and strong, is a war within itself. "And then Don is dead."

"Leo, shut up—"

"Raphael won't make it past the third morning," Leo says. "It grows dark and then cold and then the walkers get you, break you down, bury you in the earth. Master Splinter can't help us anymore. Mikey bleeds on the sofa, and I can't hear Mikey laughing and I'm too afraid to call for him again. You don't know what it's like to feel so alone."

Don is murmuring something too fast for Raph to hear.

"I took the high ground and took their blood back. But when it's just one… they laughed when they took my swords. Held me down… marked me with shame." A pause. A whisper. "I thought it would never stop. I should have stayed to bury you both. It was only a second that I was too weak. Too long. I left our father with nothing."

He doesn't want to hear this. This is the aftermath, this is—this won't help. It only plagues his mind, burns into his brain. Raphael hisses through his teeth and covers his eyes. Presses them back into his skull. Breathes. "Before, Leo," he says. "Go back before. Where's the damn candle?"

"You don't remember."

"Damn it, Leo, concentrate!"

"Go, Raphael." Leo sounds faint. Weak. He doesn't like the sound. "Just… go. I love you."

It's the utter despair that does it. For a second, Raphael opens his mouth automatically, feeling the words rise, torn from his belly, in response—

For a second, Raphael opens his mouth automatically, feeling the words rise, torn from his belly, in response—

"I ain't losin' any of you!"

There's a clock striking somewhere outside of his room. Silence inside. Raphael comes to himself slowly, in pieces and disoriented. He's on his hammock, sitting up. Leo's standing in the middle of the room, arms crossed like he's on lecture mode, the sergeant dressing down the troops. They'd been fighting. They'd been—but now, quiet, the rage faded from Leo's eyes and a soft slackening of his mouth lending to the overall surrealism. Weird.

Raph shakes his head. Rubs his eyes. He wonders if it's a good or a bad thing that he's never around anymore for the part where they're yelling at each other. He barely remembers fragments of it behind the push of blackness. Behind the other Leo. The same, in a way. Maybe they're all his Leos, just like they're both his Donny, or he's Raphael no matter who he is—

"I-I'm not going anywhere," Leo stammers. He looks like he doesn't know what else to say. Raphael knows how that goes.

He gets out of the hammock. His muscles are sore. "Is Master Splinter coming to scold me next?" he asks, stretching. Joints pop.

This is a game Leo knows how to play; ignoring that anything ever happened. The shock smoothes back into disapproval. "I'm not scolding you. I'm worried about you, Raph. Only you would mistake the two."

"Back off, Jungle boy. I ain't biting tonight. Go back to your room and do whatever it is perfect students do, and forget all about this."

Leo doesn't point out the contradiction to his earlier statement and for whatever reason, Raphael is grateful. "We have to talk about this."

"No, Leo. We really, really don't."

"You think I'm going to back down after what I saw?" Leo laughs; it's not a pretty sound. "I don't even know what you did. But I can't just leave things alone. I'm not like Donny. I don't have that kind of patience."

"What's he been tellin' you?"

"He doesn't have to say anything. It's all over his face. He's sleeping now. I had to nearly drag him out of your room." Leo glares at him. "Whatever's wrong with you, it involves him. Doesn't it? You've been watching him, keeping an eye out. Gritting your teeth around him like he's a ticking time bomb, but the only thing in the blast radius is himself. You don't have the right, Raph."

"Wanna run that by me again, Leo?" Raphael asks darkly.

"Yeah. Yeah, I'll run it by you again." Leo raises his chin. "You don't have the right, Raph. He's our brother. That means if it involves Don? It involves me, too."

"Too bad for you."

"I won't be kept in the dark," Leo snaps furiously. "If you'd just tell me, I could help some—"

"I don't think you knowin' is gonna make any difference!"

As soon as the words leave his mouth, Raphael wishes he hadn't said them.

"What's that supposed to mean?" Fighting words, but all the fire's gone out of them. Leo sinks back a step, stiffening. The step feels like a thousand miles. "So what? I'm inconsequential? I'm that terrible of a leader? Of a brother?"

"Leo…"

"You scare me."

It stings more than he would've thought. "Screw you. It's your own fault if I—"

"You scare me because I don't know what's wrong with you," Leo blurts out, all in one breath. "You're acting weird, Raph. Not like yourself. And then yesterday, you getting sick, the fit, all that stuff you were screaming at me—it's like something's possessed you. You walk around like a zombie. You say strange things in the middle of conversations, things that make no sense. You… you watch Donny like he's going to slip away in the night, and you watch Mikey like the enemy, and you don't watch me because you can't even bear to look at me in the eye—"

"Shut up," snaps Raph. 'Shut up, shut up, shut up—'

"Why do you always push us away? Why won't you let me help you?"

"Get the hell out! I don't need to listen to this!"

"Damn it, Raph! Do you know how it felt yesterday, after you passed out?! If you think I'm—"

"What I think isn't any of your business."

"You're my brother," Leo hisses, "that makes it my business."

"You ain't jack," Raphael snarls.

He doesn't want to identify the gleam in Leo's eyes, nor the abrupt intake of breath, too sharp to be planned. He doesn't even want to look his brother in the face. Instead, Raphael turns and watches the wall. Heaves deep breaths. Clenches his fists. Tries not to think about… anything.

The taste of regret's a bitch to get rid of.

Finally, Leo says, very quiet, "I thought we were getting better than this. How can you say something one minute, then completely another the first?"

Raphael doesn't answer.

"Whatever," Leo whispers. The door closes. Gentle-like, not the furious slam Raphael would have done. Like everything his brother does, with subtle grace and dignity and weight.

Left alone, Raphael slams his palms against the brick wall and curses intelligibly.

He hates that he can wound Leo so easily, even now. It's funny. He hadn't even noticed that until after their fight on the rooftop. Now that Raph's drawn blood once, it's all he ever seems to see. It's all he ever seems to taste, too.

Leo takes his fair share of shots, Raph reminds himself. It doesn't mean the sick feeling goes away any quicker.

He goes to sleep because he doesn't know what else to do.

But this time, Raph doesn't dream.

The End

Next Chapter: Raph goes to Master Splinter, the clues start making sense, and Leo is determined to get to the bottom of this. Decisions made from their birth affect their future, and all melds together into one.