Don't Make Me Fall For You | Raphael x Reader

26 - how to cure a breakup (pt.1)

It was hard to go through a breakup, you figured, but you hadn't anticipated that it would also be hard to watch someone go through it.

For a few weeks after Mona left, it was like a part of Raph had left with her. He'd retreat to his room much of the time, and when he wasn't in his room, he didn't seem quite with the rest of you either. He would still talk and crack jokes, but there was always a defeated undercurrent in his words. Raph still would play games with the rest of you and train, but sometimes, when he thought nobody was paying any attention to him, he always looked a little...lost. His sadness cast a gloom over everyone; you and his brothers were subdued, wanting to help, but unsure how to. Donnie had pulled you aside to show you the emotion map he'd collected from Raph's phone, and it wasn't looking good; a whole lot of sadness, maybe some regret, some guilt.

"I just don't know what to do," Donnie had said to you sadly. He'd opened up a line of code on his laptop you didn't understand, but his heart wasn't in it. He was just tapping the space key over and over, watching the blinking cursor move across the screen, leaving behind a trail of nothing.

"I don't think any of us do," you'd replied to Donnie.

Donnie let out a long sigh. "Whenever I ask Raph how he's doing, he says 'fine' and shuts me down. He does the same to everyone else, from what I've seen. He's never been good at expressing emotions, and I've never been very good at dealing with other people's."

"Yeah. Me too."

"To what?" Donnie asked. "Expressing emotions or dealing with others' emotions?"

You considered. "Both."

Donnie sighed again. "I wish there was some way I could fix this, some solution, some code I could type, or something I could invent, or—or—" His fingers paused.

"I know you want him to be better," you murmured. "I think we all do. But I'm not sure if there's anything we can do for him, besides just trying to be there and giving him time."

Donnie's shoulders slumped in defeat. "You're probably right," he admitted sadly. He highlighted all of the blank space he had inserted into his code and deleted it.

* * * * *

A few weeks later, you were granted an unexpected opportunity: a day off from work. Distracted with concern for Raph, who was still in his funk, you came to work by mistake anyway.

"Uh..[F/N]?" Your coworker, Dakota, looked at you oddly when you entered the building. "You're not supposed to come in today. You have tonight off, remember?"

You stumbled around your words for a moment, fumbling for an appropriate response. "Oh! Right. My bad." You leaned against the counter. "My bad."

"You seem...off," they said slowly. "Everything okay?"

"Yeah! Yeah, I'm fine. Just—" You hesitated, not wanting to say too much. You doubted Raph would appreciate you telling all his personal business to someone he'd never met. "I'm worried about one of my friends. That's all."

"Well..." Dakota tapped their fingernails absently on the counter top. "You have tonight off, right? Why not try to cheer them up? Take them out for food, or a cat café, or maybe see a movie or something."

You'd started shaking your head when they began speaking, saying, "Sorry, no can do, that's not really—" when something occurred to you.

Dakota blinked at you. You'd stopped talking mid-sentence and were staring off into space. "Uh...[F/N]?"

You blinked too, bringing yourself back to reality. "Sorry, what?"