16A/N: Something I whipped up for tmntflashfic over on tumblr. The theme this month is 'regrets.' As usual, my idea snowballed into a thing five times what it should have been, and I ended up with something completely different than what I had intended. It's mostly Casey's fault (he wasn't even supposed to be in this fic wth) so let's all point fingers at him.
WARNINGS: Gratuitous anxiety mention, and past suicide attempt by a minor character. This is NOT a death fic.
G00NG4L4: dude you ok?
G00NG4L4: if this is something heavy you dont gotta talk about it
rebel-in-red: kinda
rebel-in-red: thanks jones
Mikey didn't know everything, but he knew more than anyone else. He's the one who found Raph, that evening late in the summer—the sky had been burnt orange with sunset, and Raph had been shaking too hard to stand, and he hadn't even felt it when Mikey took his hand.
Spike had always been unbalanced, Spike had always needed special attention—but they were young and stupid and indestructible, and back then Raph thought all he needed was a friend.
'Let's run away,' Spike had said one night, and his voice was different, the way he was sometimes different. 'I know just where to go.'
A chemical imbalance, Raph's father had tried to explain to him a few different times, something called 'schizophrenia.' Not Spike's fault, nothing to be ashamed or afraid of, but you must be careful, Raphael, and Raph hadn't listened, because he never listened. Spike was Raph's friend, and Raph was sick of his big brothers getting all the attention. So he packed a bookbag with snacks and three weeks' of allowance rolled up in a matchbox and ran to the edge of the field, climbing the fence his grandfather built and meeting Spike on the other side.
He'd been acting funny lately—smiling more, and giving his favorite things away, and being nice to his mom—but Raph had thought that meant he was better. Had no idea that while they marched hand-in-hand through the woods, on the brink of a great adventure, their parents were tearing the town apart looking for them, because Spike's mom found a handful of pills Spike hadn't been taking, along with crayon pictures of the two of them jumping off a tall bridge, with big smiles on their faces and no water underneath to cradle their fall.
'I don't like this anymore,' Raph had said, uneasy at how close to the edge they were standing, the toes of their sneakers peeking over the drop. It was a rickety old bridge, one trains used to run on, and it was a place father said they were never allowed to play. He had dropped Spike's hand and backed up a few steps, until his back was pressed to the intact railing on the other side. 'Spike, let's stop. I want to go home.'
'It's okay, brother. I'll go first, so you won't be scared.'
Mikey was the one who found him there, because Mikey was always the one who found him. And even though dusk was throwing long, stretching shadows over the woods and Mikey was afraid of the dark, he had crossed that old bridge to Raph without hesitating a single step, even while the aged wood creaked and moaned.
And Mikey took his hand and led him all the way back home, helping him climb the old fence because his fingers were numb and his whole body was shaky. Their house stood like a stark beacon in the dark, with all its lights on and the sheriff's truck parked in the yard and all the neighbors on the porch with lanterns and flashlights and father sprinting across the field to meet them halfway before anyone else realized they had come home.
Spike hadn't died. Through sheer dumb luck, his jacket had snagged on a broken, protruding beam three fourths of the way down. It dislocated his shoulder, and he got a nasty bump on the head, but his parents collected him safe and sound and all in one piece. His family moved away from Kalamazoo after that, to some city on the other side of Michigan closer to a fancy doctor, and the house at the end of the street has been dark and silent ever since, for years.
Then a moving truck pulled down the country road, one of those rented, do-it-yourself numbers, and Raph froze in the yard with a handful of chicken feed, his heart the loudest thing in the world as it banged a drum between his ears.
And Spike's dad got out of the front, and Raph might have blacked out for a minute or two.
G00NG4L4: no prob. weve been buds for like what 4 years now
rebel-in-red: internet buds
G00NG4L4: bonds forged in the fires of dank memes never die raph. point is ive got your back
"His parents tell me he's doing much better," Yoshi said, sitting on the edge of the coffee table in front of the couch, even though it was against house rules. Raph was staring at a point on the wall behind him, just over his shoulder, and nodded without speaking.
That was great for Spike. Raph, on the other hand, was still stuck on that bridge, staring at the empty space where his best friend had been. Mikey had come for him, and Mikey had led him home, but part of him was still there.
If he could have any wish, if he could have one impossible do-over, Raph would never have set foot on that bridge. He would have stayed inside when Spike came around, tucked in the warm space between Leo and Miwa, and he would have said, 'sorry, Spike, I can't play today.'
He would have listened when his father said 'be wary.'
"Raphael," Yoshi said softly, "I know this is going to be difficult for you, and I cannot afford for our family to move. But if you'd like, you can go to live with Miwa. She has room in her apartment, and she offered it to you the moment I called, before I could even make the suggestion."
His sister moved to Ann Arbor last year for college, she lived a little more than two hours away from home. Two hours away from—
"Can Mikey come?" he asked, and hated how childish it sounded. Hated even more the sad frown that crossed his father's face, and knew already what the answer would be. It was a stupid question. Mikey wasn't home-schooled like Raph was, and he still had a couple years of high school left. He couldn't just pack up and move in the middle of his sophomore year because his big brother was broken and barely-functioning on his own, a breathing lump of anxiety and OCD and god knew what else. "Sorry, I know. Nevermind. Uh, that's okay, tell Mi-mi I'll—tell her it'll be fine."
G00NG4L4: btw ive got some pretty big news
G00NG4L4: yknow how my dads been itchin to get out of nyc since mom died?
rebel-in-red: yea?
G00NG4L4: he finally got the transfer hes been pushin for
Their bedroom was in the attic, because it was huge and air-conditioned and remote. They made the move one day a few years ago, when Mikey suggested moving his bed into Raph's room over breakfast, and their father realized why, exactly, the nightmares had finally stopped.
And Mikey was waiting for him on the first floor landing, and took his hand before Raph even realized he was reaching for him. "C'mon, Klunk misses you."
Klunk was a therapy cat, and she was all Donnie's idea. There were plenty of scruffy mousers outside happily roaming the barn and the field, but Klunk gleamed with pampered care, with soft white paws and an autumn-orange, long-haired coat. Donnie argued that a therapy animal was as good as—if not better than—most conventional pharmaceutical medicines in lowering blood pressure and stress levels and decreasing anxiety. It wasn't much of a fight to be had, honestly; Leo was just as much team "do whatever he needs" as Donatello was, and Miwa threatened to skip class and drive down there to buy a cat for him her damn self if Yoshi deliberated on the idea even another minute.
So, Raph got a cat. And the only person she loved more than Raph was Michelangelo, but he figured that was par for course.
"Hi, sweetie," he said as they pushed open the attic door, and she came bounding through the cool, wide room with a delighted mrow and leaped onto a shelf, and then his shoulder. Mikey closed the door behind him, and immediately Raph felt a weight ease off his shoulders.
Here. He was safe here.
G00NG4L4: looks like i'm moving
G00NG4L4: to some city in michigan ive never even heard of
G00NG4L4: jfc it doesnt even sound like a real place
"What did dad say?" Mikey asked, climbing into the overstuffed armchair it had taken all four of them to haul up the stairs. Worth it though, Mikey would declare, every time someone brought it up. He sat in it sideways, legs flopped over one of the arms, and Raph moved past him toward the futon. "Is he gonna do something?"
"There's nothing he can do," Raph said with a shrug. And he thought about mentioning father's offer to move him out with Miwa, but—he wasn't sure Mikey wouldn't be on board with that idea. Mikey, for all that he was the spoiled baby brat of the family, was the least selfish person Raphael had ever met, and if Mikey thought it was in Raph's best interest, Mikey would not stop until he'd convinced everyone in their family, including Raph himself, that Raph needed to go.
And maybe, a little bit, Raph was worried that Mikey would want him to go. It couldn't be fun, could it? Holding your big brother's hand through everything, because something stupid that happened a bunch of years ago messed him up so much that just leaving the house was a feat worthy of reward.
He was pathetic. He ruined his life when he was ten years old, because of a shitty choice and the shitty way he never listened to the people who loved him, and now they had to deal with the neurosis and the anxiety and the shell of the person he should have been.
If he could have one wish—
"Well, don't worry," Mikey was saying, and oof'ed a bit when Klunk sailed without warning from Raph's shoulder onto Mikey's stomach. "Summer break is in a few weeks, and then I'll be around twenty-four seven to keep an eye on things." He said it loftily, with a sideways smile, but there was real steel somewhere behind the bright amber of his eyes, and it made something tight in Raph's chest come loose.
"Thanks, kid."
"Mm-hmm." Mikey's smile widened into a big grin, and he leaned back over the arm of the chair to aim it at Raph upside down. "But I've got a really good feeling about this summer. I think it's gonna be one to remember."
G00NG4L4: hey you live in michigan right? you ever been to kalamazoo?
