"Jesus Christ, Raph," you say for probably the tenth time, no less vehemently than the first. "I'm so fuckin' sorry."

You press a cold compress to the bruises on his jaw, and he drips blood onto your sheets. His eyes are bright when they find yours in the dark, and you're about to do something really, really stupid if he doesn't stop bleeding all over your stuff, and looking at you like that.

"Don't be a bigger idiot than usual, Jones," he says, rough and low, because it's three a.m. and your dad is asleep right next door. "You got nothin' to be sorry for."

"Have you looked in a mirror? They really fucked you up. Fuck them. All you were doin' was tryin' to help, who gives a shit if you're green?"

When you shake your flannel sleeve down over your free hand, and press your covered palm against the persistent trickle of blood from the side of his mouth, you're reminded suddenly of a feral cat you used to feed behind your old apartment, the one that used to hide from everyone else but run to meet you, in kind of the same way Raph is leaning into your hands.

Shit, shit, shit.

You scowl to make up for how you're holding him, your hands almost framing the sides of his face. But he's staining the sleeve of your shirt with blood from the corner of his wide, crooked grin, and he covers both of your hands with both of his– and if he doesn't mind, you sure as hell don't.

"People suck," you tell him firmly, and he chuckles.

"Not all of 'em," he says, shrugging a little, smiling in a way that's going to stay with you for days, in a way you want to bottle and keep on your shelf. "Not you."