Under Pressure

Argumentative

"We all screwed up, but you take the cake on that one, Leo! I mean, come on! He kept talking about how hard he's been working, I even tried to get him to stop doing so much at one point! Sure I did it wrong, sure I just made him more upset, but that wasn't the point! You're the only one that kept telling him to work and work and work until he just lost it! You and Splinter!" Raph had been listening that entire time? He actually cared? Things were going to be even more difficult now...

"Don't you dare blame Sensei." Leo got defensive at the mention of our father.

"You're such a daddy's boy!" Raph laughed angrily. "Haven't you seen how things go between Splinter and Donnie?! Don's always either getting told he does too much or he's not doing enough, thinking too much or not thinking things through! There's no pleasing Splinter, there's no way to make him happy! I mean, with us, it's at least possible, but it looks like no matter what Donnie does, Splinter just tells him everything he's doing wrong!"

"He's our sensei, he's supposed to tell us when we do something wrong." Leo sat down again. "It's to help us learn and grow."

"Yeah, well he was supposed to be our dad!" Raph's voice filled with more emotion than usual. "He was supposed to be the guy that tells us when we do something good, he was supposed to be the one guy we could lean on when things got tough! Instead, he just always focuses on you, his perfect little leader, while the rest of us get straight up ignored most of the time!"

"He doesn't ignore you, he always takes time to talk to you." Leo rolled his eyes.

"Well yeah, he takes some time to spend with me and talk to me about stuff, he does it for Mikey too, but when's the last time he did that for Donnie?!" Raph shook with anger. "He's always getting told to be more like you or be more like Mikey or be more like me, he's never told about how to actually be himself! Everyone acts like I don't see this stuff, but when Donnie told me about how he felt about things, I realized everything! I saw everything, I just didn't put pieces together, and now that I know, it's too late! I didn't figure it out soon enough and now he's gone who knows where and I don't know if he's safe or okay or anything!" Leo sat silently, listening to Raph. "What happened to being a family?! What happened to sticking together?! Why are you giving up so easily on Donnie when he never did that to us?! When he makes stuff just to have fun, he makes sure to always include us in it somehow! He finds something to do with each of us, he takes interest in our interests! When have we ever done the same for him, huh?! We're horrible brothers to him!"

"Raph, I think you're going a little too far, dude." Mikey looked at him. "I mean, aren't we supposed to be taking a break?"

"I can't take a break when Donnie could be hurt or dead!" Raph somehow got even angrier. "Haven't you been listening to anything I'm saying?! I'm not taking it too far, we took it too far with him! He used to be so much different, he used to be happy and enthusiastic about the stuff he made! He used to be so proud to show us what he'd been working on, he used to be happy about when things worked the way he planned them to! Don't you remember how excited he was to show us when he made plans, don't your remember that look in his eyes when he got to pick things we did?! It's like you forgot who he actually is when he got so exhausted that he quit acting like himself! I know I forgot too, I know I did, but now's the time to remember who he really is, find him, and then make it up to him so he can be himself again!"

"People grow and change, it looked like he was just growing up more." Mikey pointed out.

"Yeah well things aren't always exactly what they look like!" Raph shoved Mikey. "It didn't look like he was getting exhausted by everything we were doing, but that's what was happening! We're fixing this one way or another, Mikey, we're not gonna ignore him! If you're not gonna help bring Donnie back and make things right, I will! I know I suck as a brother, but when I see things going too wrong with any one of you guys, I always make sure to cheer you up! I try not to let you guys get too upset, I do little things where I can! I might be a terrible brother most of the time, but at least I'm there when it counts! Mikey, you always just goof off wherever you can and make jokes about everything! And Leo, you tell everyone what to do so often that you never even realize when it's hurting someone, no matter how evident it is most of the time!"