Brotherly Bonds

Forever and Always

Sequel to Home! Enjoy!

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"Stop it." Raph growled as his brothers chomped away on their food at the breakfast table. That was the longest sentence he'd said since they woke up that morning and they all looked at him, their expressions ones of innocence, fear, and confusion.

"Stop what?" Leo asked, slowly, trying to tread as carefully as he could. He didn't want to frustrate the red masked turtle or drive Raphael away. Every time Raph so much as stepped towards the door, alarms screamed in his head and he feared that his brother would leave them again.

"I can feel it, you know."

The three turtle brothers exchanged confused glances while Master Splinter averted his eyes to the floor. "Raphael they are not intentionally—"

"You stare at me all the time when I'm not looking and when I look you turn away. Look at me!" He said, his fist thumping down on the table, yet there was no rage or fire in his eyes. It was just cold, chilling stoicism that made them all flinch and look away. Raphael's voice dropped into a very quiet decibel, "Look at me, Goddammit!"

All three sets of eyes snapped up to Raph's face at the sound of the hothead's voice. It wasn't just their imagination. It was real. Just the tiniest little spark of the fire that they had once known.

"All of ya take a good, long look and just get it out of your system, alright? I'm tired of being a spectacle in my own home, so just do it!" He snapped, angrily.

Leonardo was the first to take the hothead up on the offer. He stood, approaching Raphael with footsteps that the hothead knew were intentionally heavier than his usual tread so that Raph could sense him coming. Raphael knew that staring Leo in the eyes would make him uncomfortable, so the hothead's green eyelids closed softly. Leo's eyes pored over every inch of his immediate younger brother, who had grown so much, and whose frame was so decidedly unfamiliar. Raphael had grown much, and as he had previously noted, the red-masked turtle was now taller than him. The sai-wielder's muscles were as chiseled as ever, though Leo had a distinct feeling that Raph was not in particularly good health and had not been for a while.

Chairs scraped across the floor as their two younger brothers joined in. Mikey's smile twisted into a frown at the number of new marks and scars that Raph's arms sported, along with plenty of nicks and dents in the hothead's plastron that he was certain weren't there before. He knew his brothers like the back of his hand, or at least he had. He knew each and every scar that they bore and how they got it. But now...there were so many. So many scars on his older brother that he might never know the origin of. He sidled closer to Leo and grabbed his eldest brother's arm with a slightly muted whimper. Muted though it might have been however, Raph heard it, and it made the red-masked turtle cringe.

Donnie patted Mikey's shoulder reassuringly and re-examined Raphael. The brief glance-over he had done at Raph's return had been fleeting. It was really only to make certain that Raphael was in no danger of dying before they could convince him to return and to stay for good. Now, Raph had opened a door that Don knew would lead to both questions and confessions. He, like Michelangelo noted every new scratch and dent, cataloguing them in his mind, hypothesizing how and when they were inflicted. A few of the images that his brilliant mind presented to him made his breath stall in his chest. Of all his brothers, however, Donnie was the only one who could really see how poor Raph's condition was. Much as he wanted to ask, he'd wait until they were seated again and Raph had calmed down. The brainiac glanced at his brothers.

Leo looked at his younger brothers, silently asking whether they were finished. They both nodded. He returned the gesture. "We're done, Raph."

The neon green eyes of their red-masked brother opened slowly, that small spark of fire still present, faint though it may be. "Good. Now try not to watch me so much, okay? It drives me nuts."