#03!raph

Raph rolls his sore shoulders and spins a sai up, catching it deftly in the air. He usually likes knocking some foot heads together, but getting ambushed on their way back from a supply run isn't exactly his idea of a good time. The squirmy feeling he gets from being snuck up on, eyes darting between one shadow and the next, waiting for the glint of a blade or the held breath of an intruder, isn't nice either.

Regardless, he managed to deal with the threat with mostly minimal injuries, sporting only a few bruises himself. He says "mostly" because, well...

"MIKEY!" Raph yells into the mouth of the tunnel. His voice echos back at him and he flinches (Man, is that really what he sounds like?) But at least Mike will probably be able to hear him, wherever the shell he's gone.

Raph isn't worried, (he isn't, really, don't laugh). No one even actually attacked him, in fact, no one was attacking. The shell-brained idiot got so surprised by the ambush, he tripped on his own two feet. Shrieked so loud Raph's ears are still ringing.

So yeah, he isn't worried. Raph had managed to keep the foot ninja away from Mike long enough for him to escape, and the whole thing was his fault for being such a scaredy cat anyway. He'd be whiny and clingy the rest of the trip home and that would be that.

So when he hears the distant "Polo!" ringing off the damp walls and breaks into a run, it's just so he can whack Mikey over the head for being such an idiot sooner. Nothing else, nope.

He rounds the corner to find Mikey curled up in a little nook in the wall, arms wound protectively around a rapidly swelling ankle. When Mikey's gaze lands on his, his face immediately floods with relief. Then it contorts into an expression Raph knows all too well. Mischief.

Grabbing dramatically at both of Raph's shoulders, he practically wails, "Raph! I can't feel my leg, it's all over for me! Oh turtle-god, I think I see a light, I'm too pretty to die!"

Raph rolls his eyes, leaning in closer with his arms crossed. Yep, just as he thought; mild sprain. He'll be back to bouncin' around the lair like nothing within the week. "You'll be fine ya big baby, it just needs an ice pack."

"You wouldn't be saying that if your leg nearly got chopped off!" Raph jumps back in disgust as Mikey almost hits him in the face with his toes. Then he gasps in mock horror, clutching the plastron over his heart "What if I can never move it again?"

Raph leans against the far wall and levels his idiot brother with a glare. "Maybe we'll have to amputate."

"Eep! You wouldn't let them do that to me right? Right?"

"Dunno, dude. If you piss Don off there's not much I can do."

"Betrayal! You don't understand, I need my leg! Without it I won't be able to skateboard, or pick things up with my toes, or play Princess Peach and Rosalina at the same time, and I'll need to wear a metal leg all the time and-- WAIT! Do you think Don could make me a cyborg? With like, guns in my knee or something?? He could give me a rocket foot and I'd be able to fly but like, super lop sided cause it would just be on the one side, and--"

Raph flicks him right between the eyes.

As Mikey's clutching his snout and sputtering nonsense (well, sputtering more nonsense), Raph kicks off the wall "You can ask Don to build you whatever cyborg leg you want when we get home. Now are ya comin' or what?" He pointedly offers an hand up.

Raph knows he's in trouble the moment Mikey's eyes go all big and watery. The little fucker takes his mask off, too, to really nail him with The Look. In the saddest, most innocent voice in his arsenal, Mikey pleads "Carry me?"

Raph scowls at him, looks away, looks back, and then heaves the loudest most world-weary sigh he can muster. He never could say no to The Look.

Instead of verbally admitting defeat, he just kneels down on the mucky ground in front of Mikey's hidey-hole. Behind him, Mikey claps his hands like a child and shouts "Yippee!", all hint of despair washed away. Idiot.

For someone who's leg "nearly got chopped off", they manage to get Mikey on his shoulders with relative ease, and for all his complaining, the added weight isn't too bad. It's only a few minutes back to the lair anyway.

Mikey, obviously, is still determined to make them the longest minutes of Raph's life.

"Youuuu missed meeeeee!" He sing-songs, right in Raph's ear. "I bet you were running around so worried, all for little ol' me. You're such a softie."

Raph rolls his eyes and lets as much grouchiness bleed into his next sentence as physically possible. "If you don't shut up, 'm dropping you in the next puddle of muck I see."

"Aaaaww, don't worry, I know you don't mean that. I'm fluent in Raphese." Raph can just imagine the eye-bleedingly bright smile on his face right about now. Shell, he really does love him.

Instead of saying that (Ew, gag), he grins like a shark and twirls a sai threateningly. "Wanna bet?"

Mikey gulps like a cartoon character.

In the end, they both make it back to the lair, sans mud, and Mikey spends the next week weaponizing his sprained ankle to great but diminishing effect. And though he would never admit it aloud,