TMNT: Ricochet ▶ON HOLD (till gets more reads, votes and comments)◀

Chapter 9

The lump on the bed doesn't move, doesn't speak, just breathes that horrible grating rhythm straight from a scene in a horror movie. In. Out. In. Out.

Under the bright lights and bandages, the familiar shade of his brother's skin is made the sickly color of old bruises. But it's enough to shake Mike free of his terror-induced rigor mortis, leaning on anything he can grab in his one-legged stumble toward the mound, his brother, the Frankenstein's monster.

His heart leaps into his throat and stays there, threatening to choke him. And he thought Leo was bad. Under the bright, warm lights, Raph lies there with his entire shell wrapped in bandages, along with his ankle and parts of his arms. The rest of him is assorted shades of sick green-yellow. His face is made almost unrecognizable by what could only be an oxygen mask. And then there's the tubes; coming out of his arms, his poor tail, and most disturbingly of all, straight from a small hole in his stomach. He tries to keep his eyes off the urine line, embarrassed for his brother's pride. But staring at the thick, red fluid being pumped from his stomach is so much worse. Monitors flash and chirp all around him, their probes and electrodes covering what little skin is left exposed.

Mikey balances his weight on his one good foot, laying a hand on his brother's clammy forehead. He gently takes his limp hand with the other and hopes it doesn't hurt him, running his thumb over years of scars over scars. Anger. Dents in the plaster and blood smeared on the brickwork. Hours and hours of the meaty sound of flesh working over a punching bag. The rest of him is numb. Cold. It takes him a long time just to remember how to breathe. But this is Raph. He has to keep reminding himself. It's too easy to think that this's someone else. That the ireal/i Raph will come walking through that door, a smug smile on his face and healthy as ever, and this all would be one big joke.

"Raph...," he croaks. The hard knot of emotion constricting his throat catches, filling his eyes with tears. He can't stand this. Most of the time, Raph is like a mountain. Ridiculously strong, lots of presence that fills up a room without even trying. That's his brother. Not this. Not this sick, wounded thing that looks like a gentle breeze could rattle him. And the cloying smell, something unbearably heavy, acrid and horrible, hangs in the air. It smells way too much like death.

"Raphie," he chokes again, his voice thick and keening. It takes him a minute to force out the rest, swallowing hard against his painfully tightening throat. It's not even real. This's not even happening. And he doesn't even want to say it, but it roars at the back of his mind like static until he can't take it anymore. It bursts out of him with a sob. "You can't die. Okay?"

He won't die. He's Raph. Raph doesn't die. It's not possible. Raph is the one who takes the cuts from knives and bullets for them and walks away bleeding at the end of the fight, saying it's just a scratch. He can only think back to that night at the farmhouse with Leo. Leo made it through with none of these things, none of these machines or tubes or anything. All he had were stories to get him through. Prayers. Raph has the utroms. He has a hospital waiting for him when they land. Real medicine and doctors. He'll make it. He has to.

And if he does, all he can think is, will his brother ever be the same again? Will he be able to walk, to smile, to fight and train like he always did? Or will this change everything? Will he ever be the same brother he used to fight with over cookies? The one he used to bite when they play wrestled as kids, or kick at night when they used to share a bed? Memories of Raph as a kid, flickers of more recent things, stupid, monotonous things, all the things about his brother he took for granted flash through his head like old photos on projector film. Raph lending him his teddy bear when he was sick. How his brother still has that friggin' bear hidden under his bed and thinks no one knows. How he'd almost always burn the popcorn on movie night, and eat all the burned ones without even making a face. It's so stupid, but he thinks, what's gonna happen to Brown Bear, left to rot under the bed? Will anyone have the heart to move him? Who's gonna eat the burned popcorn?

And then there's the times Raph saved his shell in fights, over and over again, more times than he can remember. Once he took a knife for him that cost him eighteen stitches. Mike remembers when he got all mad as Don was stitching him up, saying: "You better be grateful, you little twerp." And he was. He alwayswas.

Though he hopes, he promises, that even if Raph gets better, no one will ever get hurt protecting him ever again. Not after Master Splinter. Not after...

His mind goes blank as his chest seizes, choking him with a jag of sobs he tries to smother, hoping to whatever god that gives a crap that no one can hear him through the door. All he can do is slide to his knees and bury his face against Raph's blankets, still refusing to let go of his hand.

"Raph," he sobs, sucking in a wet breath when he can finally control it. "Master Splinter is really bad. You saw what happened."

In a flash of panic, it all comes rushing back: Master Splinter shoving him out of the way, the sizzle of electricity. The disgusting smell of burned flesh. His father screaming as the Shredder slowly fried him to death. Stopped his heart. Killed him.

And now somewhere on this ship, Master Splinter's dying in a stasis chamber. There's no way he can lose a brother too.

"You have to be okay," he says wetly. "You have to."

What were they going to do without him? And even if he pulled through, what if... what if this wasn't even Raph anymore?

His sobs only partially drown out the sound of his brother's ragged breathing, and he hates that sound. He hates the Shredder for hurting his family like this, for taking him away. He'd never been so glad he was dead. They killed him. He blew up with the ship and they saved millions, maybe billions of lives. But right now it's too easy to be selfish, too easy to kindle a little angry fire in his chest and to ask: was it really worth it?

His throat is clogged and his face is swollen and wet, but eventually the crying subsides. When he opens his eyes again, his brother's eyes are on him, silently watching with lines of pain etched deep in his face. A tear trails from the corner of his eye and drops, adding to the damp spot on the bedsheets.

Mike almost collapses with relief. It takes everything he has not to throw himself on top of his brother and weep like a little girl. He's awake. Seeing him like this, it was almost too easy to convince himself he'd never wake up again. "You're going to be okay, right?" Mike sniffles, smiling shakily through the tears. "You have to. Okay? You promise?"

Raph nods, just the slightest tilt of the head, and squeezes his brother's hand with all the strength he has.