Slash's Revenge

Chapter 6 - Tough Call

He bolted out of his room and headed straight towards the edifying voices of Leo and Mikey.

It didn't take long for Raph's brothers to notice his presence. As soon as he stepped foot into the main living space of the lair, he was greeted by his youngest brother's screechy voice.

"Raph! Dude! Donnie's not back yet and he won't answer his T-phone! We tried it like a hundred times! Well, okay, maybe it was more like ten or twelve. But either way, he's still not answering!"

Making his way down into the pit of the lair, the hotheaded turtle took a few moments to assess the situation, much the way that Donnie would have had he been there.

Raphael could see the panic in Mikey's big, blue eyes and he could tell his baby brother was struggling to keep his emotions in check. While it wasn't unusual for Michelangelo to openly display what he was feeling inside, it was still hard to see him so visibly upset.

Then, there was Leo...

When Raph turned towards his older brother, he could see the poorly repressed alarm in Leonardo's normally steely, blue eyes. Fearless wasn't looking all that fearless. This troubled Raphael even more than Mikey's reaction. Leo was supposed to be the one who kept it together during times of crisis. Not the one getting all rattled.

"Where's Master Splinter?" Through squinted eyelids, Raphael glanced around the room, knowing that he had heard his father's return earlier.

"He's in the Dojo. I don't think he wanted us to see that he's worried, too. This isn't like Donnie, Raph." The anger that had resided in Leo's voice earlier in the evening was stripped away, replaced by apprehension. Raphael couldn't help but wonder if his older brother had a bad feeling in his gut, similar to what he himself had been experiencing, but the temperamental turtle's stubborn pride prevented him from asking.

"He's probably just at April's." It was obvious from the indifference in Raphael's tone that he was doing a much better job of concealing his anxiety than his brothers, but that didn't mean he wasn't just as nervous as them.

"You think we didn't try that already? She hasn't talked to him all night!" If there was any doubt that Leonardo was stressed out before, there was no question about it now. His voice had just sounded about three octaves higher than normal.

Thinking Leo was being a bit melodramatic, Raph quickly tried to downplay the situation.

"I'm sure he's fine. You two are getting your bandanas in a twist over nothing."

"Maybe you should try calling him, Raph." No sooner had Leonardo finished making his suggestion, when he started gesturing towards Raphael's phone, like the hotheaded turtle was too stupid to figure out what his older brother had meant by 'calling him.'

Raph let out a gruff snort before snarling out his response.

"If he didn't pick up for you or Mikey, why the heck would he pick up if I called him?" The red-masked turtle couldn't follow his older brother's logic at all.

Had Leo magically forgotten why Donnie had left the lair in the first place?

Did the words 'You're always screwing everything up, Donnie' not ring a bell?

"Just humor me, Raph. Please."

"Fine!"

Sucking in a sharp intake of breath through his clenched teeth, the temperamental turtle snatched up his T-phone and jabbed his thick fingertips into to the buttons much more aggressively than seemed necessary. He was treating the device as though it had wronged him in a former life or something.