#raph x reader

LEO

Leo is lounging on the edge of the skate ramp, tossing one of his katanas in the air with practiced, bored ease. When he sees you enter, he flashes you that classic cocky grin. But the sword fumbles in his grip the second the wind shifts.

The silence that follows is deafening.

He drops from the ramp, landing silently, moving with the fluid grace of a red-eared slider. But the water is turbulent today. His eyes narrow, scanning you, zeroing in on the collar of your shirt. He smells his twin.

“Donnie?” he asks, though it’s not really a question. His voice is light, but there’s a razor blade hidden in the tone.

He circles you like a shark in open water. He stops behind you, and you feel his hand clamp on your shoulder, trapping you in place. Then, he slides both hands under your jacket, pulling you back against his chest. He noses at your hairline, inhaling the scent of his twin, and gives a mocking scoff.

“Boring,” he whispers, his lips grazing your earlobe.

He spins you around, pinning you with a look of intense, possessive heat. He drags his nose along your jawline, rubbing his cheek against yours, effectively wiping away the other scent. His hands wander lower, cupping you, pulling your hips against his to make you feel exactly how jealous he is.

“I’m going to ruin you for him,” Leo promises, his voice a sultry purr. “By the time I’m done with you, the only name you’ll be screaming is mine.”

He kisses you then, demanding and deep, intent on marking every inch of you until the scent of his brother is nothing but a distant memory.

RAPH

The moment you step into the lair, the air in the main atrium grows heavy.

Raph emerges from the projector room. He doesn’t greet you with his usual teddy bear warmth and snaggle-toothed grin. Instead, his nostrils flare, and a low rumble starts deep in his plastron. He stops inches from you, his shadow swallowing you whole.

“Leo,” he grunts. He doesn’t ask; he knows. The scent of his brother is a stain on your neck, a neon sign of a challenge.

Before you can explain, his large hand encases your shoulder. He crowds you against the nearest wall, his size effectively caging you in. Raph is an alligator snapping turtle—a creature of instinct and force. And right now, his pupils are blown wide, eclipsing his normally kind irises.

He leans down, burying his snout into the junction of your neck and shoulder, inhaling deeply before letting out a sharp, angry hiss. “He thinks he’s slick,” he growls against your skin. “Leaving his mark on you like he owns you.”

He nuzzles you, the texture of his skin scraping deliciously against your pulse point, replacing the lingering trace of Leo with his own scent. He bites down gently on your neck, just enough to make you gasp, his tongue swiping hot and wet over the spot immediately after.

“I’m gonna cover you in so much of me that you’ll forget he even exists.”

He pulls back just enough to look you in the eye, his gaze dark and hungry. Raph intends to stake his claim so deep inside you that no amount of scrubbing will ever wash him away.

DONNIE

The lab is loud with the sound of welding and music, but the moment the sensors at the door recognize your biometrics, the noise cuts out instantly.

Donnie spins in his chair, a rare, genuine smile forming—until he smells it. His smile flatlines. He stands up slowly, the mechanical spider limbs of his battle shell unfurling from his back, betraying the agitation he’s trying to suppress.

He smells the chaotic, vibrant scent of his younger brother all over you. It’s messy. It’s loud. It’s incorrect.

“Calculated probability of you visiting Michael before me was low,” Donnie states, his voice monotone, masking a brewing storm of possessive rage. He walks toward you, his movements stiff. “And yet, here you are. Contaminated.”

His hands clamp onto your waist and shoulder, pulling you closer. He examines you, leaning in and sniffing the air around your neck with clinical precision, his face twisting in distaste. Then he cups your face, his thumbs stroking your cheekbones.

“I don’t like sharing,” he murmurs, his eyes dark and dilated, “and I certainly don’t like sharing you.”

As he presses his forehead against yours, his battle shell disengages and retreats back to storage, revealing the soft shell underneath. He begins to kiss down your throat, methodical and wet, placing suction bites in a perfect geometric pattern over the areas where Mikey’s scent is strongest.

“I’m going to conduct a thorough recalibration,” Donnie breathes against your skin, his arm sliding down to tease the hem of your pants. “We aren’t leaving this lab until your biometric readings are exclusively synchronized with mine.”

MIKEY

You expect a flying tackle-hug and a loud “Omigosh!” Instead, when you walk into the kitchen where Mikey is cooking, he freezes mid-chop. The knife lowers slowly to the cutting board.

The playful box turtle vibe evaporates, replaced by an uncharacteristically terrifying stillness.

Mikey turns around. He’s not smiling. His face is blank, eerily calm, which is infinitely scarier than him yelling. He smells Raph on you, and it triggers a primal, bratty defiance in him. He walks over to you, wiping his hands on his apron.

“You smell like Raph,” he states. His voice is soft, but it lacks its usual bounce. It’s deep, flat, and laced with possessiveness. “Why do you smell like Raph, angel?”

He wraps his arms around your waist, burying his face in your neck, inhaling deeply. Then, he tightens his grip. He looks at you, his eyes wide and pitiful, but underneath that puppy-dog look is a feral gleam.

“Did he touch you?” he asks, his hands wandering, gripping your rear firmly, pulling you into his hips. “Did he think he could just take you? Because he’s the biggest?”

He lets out a low growl. He hates it. Hates that his brother’s scent is clinging to his person.

Suddenly, he spins you around and hoists you up onto the kitchen island. He steps between your legs instantly, prying your knees apart with his thighs to settle himself firmly against your center.

“I hate it,” he hisses, again burying his face into the crook of your neck, inhaling sharply before dragging his teeth over the sensitive skin there. He rubs his cheek aggressively against your chest, your neck, your jaw, acting like a cat that’s terrified of losing its territory.

Having mutant turtle best friends was not how you thought your twenties would go. Not that you weren't thankful.

You just thought you'd be hanging out with your girls, going to bars, meeting dudes and finding your calling while studying in college. You thought it would be full of mini skirts, glitter, vodka and dreams. You were wrong. Completely wrong. Instead, you were walking home drunk from a bar alone, fell down an open manhole cover, and were caught by strong, green arms.

You screamed for a second. Passed out. When you woke up, you were on an old tattered couch with a giant rat staring at you, then looking at the four hulking turtle-human men in disdain.

That was how you met your boys.

It didn't take you long to love them. You loved Leo's courage, his leadership, his perfect advice every time you asked for it. He was more mature than most people you knew, though he hadn't experienced a full life that was similar to yours. You loved Donnie's intelligence, his excitement about his hobbies, how gentle he was, and how eager he was to teach you about things you'd never heard about. You loved Mikey's carefree spirit, the way he could always lift you up when you were feeling down, and his spectacular sense of humor. And most of all, you loved Raph.

You always attracted a bad boy. Always, always. Though it wasn't romantic, it was natural for you to spend the most time with the most rough-around-the-edges motherfucker there was. It was just how your life went. When you met Raph, he was tough to crack at first. He was a little grumpy about a new human joining their lives, adding to the chaos that April O'Neil originally brought -- but he warmed up to you until he was ultimately the closest to you out of the four.

At first, he didn’t speak to you much. Just kind of grunted when you came by. Didn’t laugh at your jokes. Barely made eye contact.

But you noticed the small things. Like how he always checked the tunnels before you left. How he stood between you and the sketchier parts of the lair. How he walked you out even when you said you didn’t need an escort.

You started staying longer when he was around. He started lingering in the doorway when you visited.

Eventually, that turned into regular late-night talks, usually on the couch, or while he bench pressed literal cars in the corner of the dojo. You’d sit with your legs crisscrossed, talking about dumb things: your classes, your horrible job, your wild roommates. He’d grunt or smirk, occasionally tossing in a sarcastic comment that made you snort into your soda. Sometimes he’d say something unexpectedly thoughtful, and it’d stick with you for days.

What no one told you about Raph was that he listened. He remembered everything -- the names of your old pets, the fact that your mom was sick, your weird favorite candy that no one else liked. He noticed when you wore makeup to hide stress, or when your laugh didn’t sound quite right.

When you got sick, he brought you soup and didn’t make eye contact the entire time. When you got dumped, he punched the punching bag until his knuckles bled and didn’t say why. When you succeeded, a passing grade, a new job, a clean day, he acted like it was your world championship.

And you?

You kept him soft.

You gave him space to breathe. Let him be quiet when he needed to be. Made him laugh when he didn’t want to. You saw past the temper and the walls and the scowl and found the stubbornly loyal, deeply sensitive, fiercely protective man underneath.

You made him feel safe.

It was always you and Raph -- shoulder to shoulder, sarcasm for armor, both pretending it wasn’t more.

Even if everyone else already knew it was.

The day you came into the lair talking about some date, Raph surprisingly held his tornado of anger, disgust, and jealousy inward. You never even noticed it. He wasn't sure how he'd managed to hide everything he was feeling -- maybe through the "keep calm" tactics that you'd taught him one day -- but he did it successfully. It wasn't like you'd never gone on a date before. You'd even gone on multiple dates with one chump, calling him your boyfriend before you eventually got tired of him questioning where you went every Friday night (movie night with the boys.)

“He's actually really nice,” you said, sucking the last few drops of a smoothie Mikey had made through a straw noisily. “He does concrete construction or whatever. He helped with the new sidewalk outside my university.”

The boys listened. Donnie sat on a stool, staring down at some little gadget he was working on, making noises of acknowledgement to show he was listening. Mikey did dishes, occasionally stopping to look at you. Leo sat politely, eyes on you.

And Raph? Raph stood next to you, arms crossed solidly, wishing he could run away and beat the shit out of something.

“Well, angelcakes, he sounds like a nice one.” Mikey commented, grinning. “But remember Mikey's rules for date safety! Never--”

You rolled your eyes.

“Never leave your drink uncovered, never--” You attempted to finish.

“--go anywhere alone, and if he orders milk on a first date, run,” Mikey finished, snapping a soapy finger toward you like a coach on game day.

You snorted. “He ordered beer last time, so I think we’re in the clear.”

“Still kinda weird,” Donnie mumbled, not looking up from his work.

“Beer’s weird?” you asked, lifting a brow.

“No,” Donnie said, adjusting a dial, “him.”

That earned a laugh from Mikey and even the smallest twitch of a smile from Leo.

But Raph? Raph didn’t smile. He didn’t speak.

He just stood there beside you, hulking and silent, jaw tight, arms crossed so hard his biceps flexed like steel cables under his skin.

You never noticed the tension, not really. You never noticed how his eyes flicked to your exposed collarbone, still dotted with the leftover shimmer of whatever perfume you wore. You never noticed how he inhaled, just once, like he could smell him on you. How he fought the urge to throw that smoothie cup across the room.

You never noticed because Raph didn’t let it show.

It wasn’t the first time you’d mentioned some dude. You’d brought up a few before. Guys who left you unsatisfied, frustrated, confused. He’d always been there after. Quietly listening. Driving you home. Standing behind you in line at the bodega, just in case the ex showed up and needed reminding. He made a public appearance a lot now, since Donnie had invented the projection watches -- they gave the boys human bodies, human personas for when they had to go up top and not raise hell. For when they needed to be up there for regular, human business.

This time was different.

This guy was new. He was “nice.” He had a job that involved strength. You smiled when you talked about him.

You stopped by again before you went on tonight's date. Your outfit would've made Raph blush if he wasn't so fucking pissed. You had a short, black dress on, just long enough to keep it classy but with enough leg showing to make you look sexy. Your hair was curled and tucked into a bun, ringlets falling in front of your face. Your makeup wasn't dramatic, it accentuated your naturally beautiful face. You wore heels, but they still didn't touch Raphael's height at all. After all, the man was like six foot seven.

You twirled in front of the boys, smiling brightly.

“How do I look? Is there something I'm missing?”

You were standing in front of him, spinning like some perfect little fever dream, the soft lighting of the lair catching the shimmer on your legs and the curve of your smile, asking him -- the guy currently gripping the edge of the counter so hard it might crack -- if you were missing something.

Yeah. You were missing something. Him.

He didn't say it. He couldn’t say it. Not with Leo watching you like a protective big brother. Not with Donnie adjusting his glasses and muttering something about “statistical likelihood of safety.” Not with Mikey wolf-whistling in the background like he was front row at a runway show.

“Daaaamn, baddie,” Mikey grinned, dramatically fanning himself with a pizza box. “You look like heartbreak in heels. Don’t kill the guy. Unless he deserves it.”

“I won’t,” you giggled, smoothing the sides of your dress. “He’s just taking me to dinner. Somewhere nice.”

“Nice how?” Leo asked cautiously.

You shrugged. “Little Italian place near the East River. It’s casual. Wine, candles… pasta, hopefully.”

Donnie didn’t look up. “Call me if anything seems off.”

“You’ll know before I do,” you said, tapping your phone. “I’m sharing my location with you already.”

“Smart girl,” Leo said with a nod.

Then your eyes flicked to Raph, still standing frozen by the fridge, knuckles white where they wrapped around the counter. You smiled at him -- warm and sweet, like you always did -- and tilted your head.

“Well? You didn’t say anything. I look okay?”

His throat was dry. His jaw clenched. He couldn’t look at your legs again, not when you were dressed like that for someone who wasn’t him.

You looked like temptation itself. You looked like his worst mistake waiting to happen. You looked like everything he couldn’t have.

So he gave a grunt. “Yeah. S’fine.”

“Just fine?” you teased.

He forced himself to look at your face. Just your face.

“You look great,” he muttered.

You beamed, completely unaware of the furnace behind his eyes. “Thank you, Raphie.”

Then you stepped close, too close, and reached up to fix the collar of his tank top with that same tenderness you always had. Your perfume hit him like a punch to the gut.

“You’re always honest with me,” you said softly. “That’s what I like about you.”

His jaw ticked. “Don’t like lyin’.”

You smiled. “I’ll be back late. Don’t wait up.”

Then you turned, heels tapping across the cement floor, and disappeared into the tunnels with a quick wave goodbye.

And Raphael?

Raphael stood there silently, watching the spot where you’d been, breathing slow through his nose like if he didn’t, something in him might snap.

Because it should’ve been him.

Taking you to dinner. Making you laugh over wine and pasta. Driving you home with your heels dangling from your hand, your lips gloss-smeared and smiling just for him.

Instead, he was stuck underground. Fuming. Wishing he'd just said it.

Wishing he’d told you the truth the moment you walked in, all sparkling eyes and lip gloss:

You didn’t look perfect.

You looked like his.

He groaned, wiping his huge hand across his forehead in frustration. Leo watched him carefully, pursing his lips. Donnie said nothing, as usual, and Mikey sensed the tension, tucking himself back into his corner where he was eating his pizza and playing his video games.

“She's your best friend. You should have just been honest,” Leo hummed carefully, as if not to set off the beast. “The truth'll come out one way or another.”

Raphael didn’t answer right away. He just stood there, still leaning against the counter, still seething under the surface like a volcano that had been too quiet for too long.

His hand dropped from his forehead, falling heavy against the edge of the counter with a dull thud. His jaw flexed. Once. Twice.

“Yeah,” he muttered finally, voice low and full of gravel. “Well. Too late now, ain’t it?”

Leo tilted his head, arms crossed, giving him that look. The big brother one. The patient, steady stare that somehow made Raph feel like he was still twelve and throwing punches in the dojo.

“It’s not too late unless you decide it is,” Leo said, voice calm, but firm.

Donnie didn't glance up from the device in his hand, but his voice carried from behind his glasses.

“She trusts you more than anyone. Statistically, emotional vulnerability paired with long-standing companionship has a higher chance of success than new--”

“Donnie, if you don't--” Raph snarled.

Donnie blinked. “Right. Not helping.”

Raph turned away from all of them. Walked a few paces across the lair like he might burn the energy off if he just moved enough. His fists clenched and unclenched at his sides, and his shell shifted with the tightness of his shoulders.

“She looked happy,” he said finally, bitter. “Talkin’ about him. Smilin’. Gettin’ all dressed up. Like he’s doin’ somethin’ for her that I can’t.”

Leo raised a brow. “Or maybe she was just excited someone finally asked. Doesn’t mean she picked him over you, Raph.”

“She did.”

“No,” Mikey chimed in from his corner without looking up. “She just doesn’t know you’re an option.”

That stopped Raph cold.

He stared across the lair, frozen in place, the words echoing in his skull.

She just doesn’t know you’re an option.

Because he’d never said it. Never given her the chance to choose him. Just stood beside her like a shadow while she cried over losers, complained about red flags, rolled her eyes at controlling texts and kissed cheeks that weren’t his.

He groaned again, dragging a hand down his face.

“What am I s’posed to do, huh? Run outta the shadows and confess like some kinda Hallmark hero? ‘Hey, surprise, I’ve been in love with you for years. Wanna ditch the dude who has fuckin' concrete all over his clothes and smells like Axe body spray?’”

Leo snorted. “Better than sulking in the sewers and letting someone else make her miserable.”

Mikey finally paused his game and looked over, eyes more serious than usual. “She’s not the kind of girl you can replace, bro. You know that.”

And Raphael did know that.

He knew it every time she laughed so hard she wheezed. Every time she fell asleep on the couch beside him, legs draped over his lap. Every time she saw him, really saw him, through the walls and the anger and the scars. She was his best friend. His anchor. The only soft place in a world that never gave him one. And he was gonna lose her to some prick in a hard hat who didn’t even deserve to breathe the same air as her.

Hours passed. No calls, no texts. But Raph had decided. No matter what happened, he had to tell the truth. He had to come out and say it before he fuckin' exploded.

You finally sent a text, telling them you were going home, the date had gone "fine."

He was going to tell you. Tonight. When you got home from your date. Then, you could tell him whether you wanted the concrete brained little shit -- or whether you wanted someone who'd actually love you. Who loved you. Now. Always. Since he'd let you break into his walls, touch the parts of him that had never had a hand on them.

He threw a hoodie on, grabbing his phone, and moved to leave. Twisting his watch, he became a vision of himself, not quite Raph, but Raph enough.

Still tall. Still hulking with muscle. A buzz cut with a red bandana covering it, tattoos all over his skin, the same intimidating green eyes. He was hot actually, which you'd admitted when you first saw the projection. All of them were. Raph, though.. It truly did him justice.

Although secretly, you'd always thought Raph was hot. Projection or not. It was what originally drew you into him.

Raph heard Leo's voice from the corner of the lair, the dojo.

“Good luck.”

The rain was the first thing he noticed. He welcomed it, letting it pour down onto him in calming waves. He walked to your house, opting not to take the shell-raiser. After all, if things went badly, he'd probably find some dirty criminal to pummel.

He reached your apartment, sitting on your front steps under the overhanging roof. He pulled a cigarette from his pocket, lighting it, puffing on it slowly as he waited for you to approach.

What would he even say? What would he do if you told him to fuck off? He didn't let the nerves dissuade him. It needed to be said, bad results or not.

It was about five more minutes before he saw your silhouette in the rain. You were small, far smaller than him, of course. He knew it was you by the way you walked. You were walking, walking, walking, he was waiting to see your face through the waves of water. When he finally did, his eyebrows furrowed.

Mascara stained your cheeks. Crying. You were crying.

You walked awkwardly, the closer you got. Your hand clutched your arm.

Then, your e/c eyes lifted. You saw him.

Quickly, you wiped your face with one arm, acting like nothing had ever happened. Then, the hand quickly came back down to cover your arm -- Raph wasn't close enough to see what you were covering. You reached Raph, looking at him in confusion.

“Raph? What are you doing here in the rain--”

He didn’t answer at first.

His eyes were locked on you, all of you. The ruined makeup. The limp in your walk. The tight grip you had on your arm, like you were trying to hold yourself together.

You were hurting. That much was obvious. And trying to hide it from him.

From him.

He stepped forward without thinking, eyes narrowing. His jaw clenched, and his voice dropped low, rough.

“What happened.”

You blinked, caught off guard by the edge in his tone.

“Nothing,” you said quickly. Too quickly. “I’m fine. Really.”

“You’re not fine,” he said, stepping in closer. His eyes dropped to your arm, the one you were still guarding like a shield. “What’s under your hand?”

“Raph, it’s nothing, I swear--”

He was in front of you now, towering over you, not in a way that scared you, never in a way that scared you, but in a way that said he knew. That he wouldn’t let it slide.

“Move your hand.”

You hesitated. Looked up at him.

He wasn’t yelling. He wasn’t huffing and puffing, or pacing, or growling with his fists balled up like he usually did when something pissed him off.

No. He was quiet.

And that was worse.

“No. Raph, please, I am perfectly--”

“Move your fuckin' hand, shorty, now.”

“Raph.”

His voice cracked through the rain like thunder.

“You want me to move it?”

It wasn’t a threat. It wasn’t violence. It was a promise, for your own good. A promise that you'd heard before. He'd make shit happen.

You flinched, not because you were scared, but because you knew what was coming. You knew once he saw it, really saw it, there’d be no stuffing the rage back into the bottle. You hesitated just a second longer.

And then you moved your hand.

Raph’s eyes dropped immediately.

Silence.

The bruise was ugly. Purple and red, already deepening, shaped like thick fingers curled into the soft skin of your arm. It told a story you hadn’t even finished living yet.

He didn’t speak.

Didn’t breathe.

Didn’t blink.

Just stared.

Then his chest rose -- slow, steady, dangerous.

His jaw flexed, his nostrils flared, and his eyes, those sharp green eyes, burned.

“Motherfucker,” he muttered, voice low and venomous.

You reached for him. “Raphael--”

You couldn't quite get him in your grip, just the fabric of his sweatshirt in a small hand. It was wet, soaked with rain, but you managed to keep your grip. He turned towards you, lip almost curled into a snarl. Anger heated the air up -- could've boiled the rain.

“You said the date was fine. Fuckin' fine. Look at your--” he cut himself off, taking a breath and looking up at the sky. “You lied to me. Why would you lie to save that waste of space?” He hissed, turning completely towards you.

You flinched, not from fear, never from him, but from the sheer weight of his rage.

The rain kept falling, soaking through your clothes, matting your hair to your face, but none of it mattered. Not with Raphael standing in front of you like a storm barely restrained, fists clenched, shoulders squared, breathing like he’d just fought ten men and still wasn’t done.

“I wasn’t protecting him,” you said quickly, gripping tighter to his hoodie. “I was protecting you.”

That stopped him.

His jaw twitched. His eyes snapped to yours, sharp as glass and just as fragile beneath the surface.

“I knew what you’d do, Raph,” you whispered, voice trembling. “And I didn’t want to lose you to a cell or a manhunt or -- or something worse. I didn’t want to see you destroy yourself for me.”

He looked at you for a moment.. Then laughed. Bitterly.

“Don't worry about it. Ain't no motherfucker on this earth that's gonna touch you and walk away fine. Whether you feel bad or not,” he said. He towered over you, trying to force his green eyes away from the nasty injury on your arm. “I'd burn this city down for you if ya asked me to. I'm gonna kill this fuckin' guy.”

Your breath caught in your throat. Not because you didn’t believe him, no, you absolutely believed him, but because you could feel it. You could feel the truth in his voice, in every clenched muscle, in the way his words shook with restraint.

“Raph--”

“I mean it,” he snapped, stepping closer, close enough that you could feel the heat rolling off his chest. His projection shimmered faintly in the rain, struggling to keep up with the fury boiling just beneath his skin. “I don’t care if I gotta rip the fuckin’ streets up brick by brick, he’s gonna learn.”

You reached for him again, laying your hand gently against the front of his soaked hoodie. His heart was hammering underneath, furious, panicked, wild.

“I’m okay now,” you whispered. “I’m with you.”

He shook his head.

“Not good enough,” he growled. “You should never have to feel scared. Not when you got me. Not when you been right here in front of me this whole time and I’ve been too chickenshit to say what I really feel.”

You swallowed hard. “And what’s that?”

His jaw flexed again, rain trailing down his face like it was trying to cool him off. He took a breath, deep and shaky, and looked down at you like you were the only thing tethering him to the earth.

“Shoulda been me.”

“W-What?”

He looked down at you still, his hand traveling down to pull your wet strap back up over your shoulder.

“Shoulda been me. Takin' you out, now that we can go up top,” he said, his voice gravelly. “Shoulda been me walkin' you home. Kissin' you at your front door step. Shoulda been me you were gettin' all pretty for.”

You stared, eyes wide and glassy.

“You were walkin’ around in that dress, hair done up all nice…smilin’ about some guy who didn’t even deserve a hello from you,” he muttered, eyes locked on yours, voice just shy of breaking. “And I stood there like a fuckin’ idiot, pretendin’ it didn’t kill me.”

His hand slid up, gently brushing your cheek with his thumb, rainwater tracing the movement.

“I ain’t ever felt more useless than watchin’ you leave tonight, knowin’ I wasn’t the one takin’ you out. Knowin’ I let someone else touch you ‘cause I was too much of a coward to say somethin’. And now,” he hissed, “I gotta kill the stupid fucker. Cuz he laid his hands on the girl I love.”

You didn’t even flinch at the words, the girl I love, but your breath caught like a rope had cinched around your chest and pulled tight.

The rain still fell in steady sheets, soaking you both to the bone, but neither of you noticed. Not really. Not with the confession hanging in the air between you, burning hotter than the storm around you.

“Raph…” your voice was soft. Barely a whisper. “Please.”

His gaze flickered, wild for a second, like he’d just realized he’d said it out loud. Like the truth had broken out of him without permission. But once it was out, he didn’t backpedal. He didn’t retreat.

He stepped in even closer, your bodies almost touching, his massive frame shielding you from the worst of the wind.

“I love you,” he said, voice low and rough, thick with emotion. “I love you. You think I’ve been watchin’ you all this time just to be your backup plan? Some guy you crash on when the rest of the world sucks?”

“No,” you breathed, shaking your head quickly. “No, I never thought that.”

“I been in love with you since the second you looked at me like I wasn’t just a monster. Since you laughed at my dumb jokes, shared your food, yelled at me when I got too hot-headed. You see me, and it scared the shit outta me.”

A warm tear ran down your face. His thumb caught that too.

“You're too good for this world. Too good for me. Too good for him. And even though you ain't mine, I'll happily shit-stomp any man that crosses you.”

You let out a soft, broken sound, somewhere between a laugh and a sob, as your hand reached up to cup his face, rough jaw and all.

“But I am yours,” you whispered. “I’ve been yours, Raph. This whole time. Was just too stupid to see it.”

His breath hitched, just for a second, and his hands flexed on your waist, like he couldn’t believe he was actually hearing the words. Like maybe the rain had messed with his head, or the universe was playing some cruel joke.

But your eyes were honest. Open. No walls, no filters, no fear. Just you, standing there in the storm, bruised and soaked and choosing him.

“You’re-- you wanna be?” he asked, voice cracking, like a kid afraid to hope.

You nodded, fingers curling at the back of his neck, drawing him closer. “Yes. I was just too scared to ruin us by saying it. I didn't want to lose you, Raphael. You're all I have. The only thing worth it.”

A beat of silence passed, thick, electric, before he pressed his forehead to yours with a low, aching groan.

“You’re gonna kill me,” he breathed, voice hoarse, reverent. “You’re gonna fuckin’ kill me.”

And then he kissed you.

Hard. Fierce. Real.

He kissed you like he’d been holding back for years, because he had. His hands tangled in your hair, one arm wrapping around your lower back, lifting you off the pavement like your feet didn’t deserve to be on the same ground as the man who hurt you. His lips were warm despite the cold, pressed firm and sure to yours like he had no plans of letting you forget how long he’d loved you from the sidelines.

When he pulled back, you were both breathless. His voice was low and shaky when he said:

“If you’re mine… then you don’t ever gotta deal with this shit again. No more cheap dates, no more fake shit, no more bruises you try to hide.”

You swallowed, tears welling fresh again.

“Okay.”

“I mean it,” he said. “I’ll keep you safe. I’ll keep you loved. Proper. The way you always shoulda been.”

You rested your head on his chest, listening to the steady, thundering beat of his heart under soaked fabric.

“I know,” you whispered.

And he just held you tighter.

Because you were his.

And now, finally, he was yours too.

BONUS:

However, your date, though you thought Raph forgot about him.. did not escape retribution.

A couple nights after the incident, your date, Todd, stood alone. He was sweeping the new concrete, cleaning up after a week of work, headphones dangling from his ears. He hummed a tune, staring down at the pavement, admiring his work.

Didn't even notice the two hulking shadows approaching from behind him -- 'til his headphones were ripped right out.

“What the--”

He turned, startled, just in time to see something big and orange spin toward him. Todd took a full-on roundhouse kick to the chest from Michelangelo and went flying into a pile of sandbags like a cartoon.

“Yikes, bro,” Mikey said, cracking his knuckles. “You can put your hands on women but you can't take a hit yourself? Bummer.”

Raph stepped forward, massive arms crossed, that black hoodie of his soaked from rain and rage. “So you’re Todd, huh?”

Todd wheezed, struggling to sit up. “W-What the hell?! Who the hell are you?!”

Mikey grinned wide. “Let’s just say we’re the after-party to that date you fumbled so bad.”

Todd blinked, confused, then scowled. “This is about that chick? She said it was fine. What, you two her brothers or somethin’?”

Raph’s jaw ticked. “Somethin’.”

Then he grabbed Todd by the collar and lifted him off the ground like a rag doll. “She said it was fine,” he repeated mockingly, eyes narrowing. “Right after she came home cryin’ with a bruise in the exact shape of your grubby little hand. Sound fuckin’ familiar?”

Todd squirmed. “I-I didn’t mean--she was getting mouthy, I just--”

That was all he got out before Raph slammed him into a cement pillar, holding him there like a schoolyard bully from hell.

“I should break every bone in your slimy little body,” Raph growled. “But I promised her I wouldn’t kill you.”

Todd whimpered. “Then what--what are you gonna do?!”

Mikey stepped up beside Raph with a sweet, sunny grin… and a bright pink backpack.

“Oh, we’re gonna teach you, bro.”

Cut to:

Todd, thirty minutes later, is tied up Spider-Man style with neon pink jump rope, suspended upside down from the scaffolding. Mikey had drawn flowers and hearts all over his face in washable marker. His pants were missing (they were now duct-taped to the top of a flagpole nearby), and his shirt had been swapped with a hot-pink crop top that read: “I Cry When Girls Yell.”

A chalk sign was propped up beneath him. It read:

“Hi, I’m Todd. I’m a big, dumb, concrete-throwing jerk who hits girls. My biceps are fake. Don’t be like me. This could happen to you.”

“Next time,” Raph said, crouching down beside him, voice calm but terrifying, “you keep your hands to yourself. Or I’ll let Mikey use the glitter glue.”

Todd whimpered, nodding frantically, tears dripping down his inverted face.

“Glitter. Never comes out,” Mikey added with a wink.

With that, the brothers disappeared into the night, high-fiving as they vanished into the shadows.

Lesson taught. Message delivered.

And Todd? He never went near another woman without a very polite tone -- and two feet of personal space.

You, however, saw it in the news the next day.

The headline read:

“Masked Vigilantes Hijack Construction Site to Publicly Shame Harasser -- Chalk Sign Warns: ‘Don’t Be Like Me. This Could Happen to You.’”

You groaned, rolling your eyes.

“Raphael Hamato! Come here! Now!”

You heard the unmistakable sound of his boots thudding down the stairs before Raph appeared at the entrance to your room, arms crossed and an eyebrow raised, a smirk twitching at the corner of his mouth.

“Yeah, baby?” Raph said, leaning against the doorframe, all casual confidence. His smirk widened as he took in your unimpressed expression. “You, uh… saw the news, huh?”

You held up the newspaper, shaking it at him. “This was your idea of ‘handling it quietly’?!”

Raph shrugged, pushing off the doorframe and sauntering into the room. “Eh, we didn’t kill him. That counts as quiet for me.”

You groaned again, tossing the paper onto the bed. “Raph, you literally left a chalk sign. And Mikey drew on his face.”

“Yeah, and?” Raph flopped onto the bed beside you, stretching out like a smug cat. “Dude’s lucky that’s all we did. You shoulda seen the other ideas Mikey had-- we didn't even use the glitter.”

You shot him a glare, but the corner of your mouth twitched. “You’re impossible.”

Raph grinned, reaching out to tug you closer. “Nah, just thorough.” He pressed a kiss to your temple, voice dropping into that low, dangerous tone that still sent shivers down your spine. “And now everyone knows what happens when some punk puts his hands on you. He ever comes near you again, they ain't gonna find his body.”

You huffed, but you couldn’t fight the warmth spreading in your chest. “...You’re ridiculous.”

“Yeah,” Raph agreed, unrepentant. “But I gotta make sure my girl's taken care of.”

You sighed, finally letting yourself smile as you leaned into him. “...Thanks, Raph.”

He squeezed you tighter, pressing another kiss to your bare shoulder, just above the strap of your tanktop. “Anytime, shorty.”

You’re a damned distraction, and Raphael doesn’t know what to do about it. He isn’t without his distractions. In fact, he’s classically known to get torn up in his head over things, especially when there’s an injustice thickly rooted in whatever nameless problem ails him. You, on the other hand, agitate him in ways he wishes not to be true. You’re everywhere he goes, just not physically, like a phantom limb - a subjugator who has conquered his very being. 

Many times, over and over, he has tried to categorise you, label you, so he can file you away and forget; anything in an attempt to get you out of his mind, as abnormally pragmatic as it is for him to go such a route. Are you a friend? Best friend? Something more? He bristles at the thought. ‘More’ is dangerous. ‘More’ is a bridge he’s not sure he wants to cross because of how deep this goes, how dark it is.

He catches himself thinking about you at the most inopportune moments. When he’s supposed to be strategising with his brothers, he’s replaying a conversation with you in his head, dissecting your words, searching for hidden meanings. He sees you in the flickering neon lights of the city, a fleeting silhouette blending into the urban tapestry of this concrete jungle. When he’s meant to be watching a game, he’s picturing your hands intertwined with his, your voice fluttering out his name, your body…

You’re not just a distraction, you’re a disruption, and the universe is hellbent on finding ways to toy with his teetering lucidity.

Grumbled curses and wet footsteps can be heard long before you’re seen, but silent curiosities would have been better left when you eventually appear in the lair. Three of the four brothers find themselves around you, each snickering at the pressed spring that is your body. Your crossed arms only tighten further into themselves, lips pulling in between your teeth at their lack of sympathy, but then you remember, they are boys.

Leo is the first to compose himself, matching your exaggerated stance with a raised grin. “You’re not looking very weather-appropriate.”

“I was up until about five minutes ago.” Your hands wipe away at your scrunched-up face. “One moment, sun.” You fling them down, the water hitting the ground with an offensive slap. “The next, a bunch of angry clouds piss on me.”

Laughing semi-heartedly, you loosely gesture at yourself, but dilated pupils behind red cloth have been trained on you the moment you walked in. Head-to-toe, you’re soaked: your clothes stick to you in a way that feels intrusive, accentuating every curve and contour he's learned to admire from a distance, only daring to steal glimpses when you’re not looking. The damp fabric clings to you like a lifeline, his of which is fleeting, and it just highlights your shape, each detail so clear, too clear. It shatters the fragile walls he’s fought to keep intact, a crude violation of the mental boundaries he's desperately trying to maintain. Raphael can’t stand it, and he loathes how the rain has matted your baby hairs to your forehead, a small, insignificant feature compared to the rest, and yet it leaves you looking the most exposed.

In the hazy realm of conversation woven between you and his brothers, he drifts, utterly unaware now. He thinks he catches a flash of Donnie hurrying away, yet the essence of it all slips through his fingers like mist. His form is anchored to this corner, while his thoughts wander far beyond the grasp of the present moment. He wants to lick the rain off your cheek and whisper unspoken secrets he never knew he could keep, what he’s been aching to do to you for so long. He can almost picture how you would taste against his tongue, how soft your skin would be compared to his calloused touch.

As his gaze drops out of focus, you inch closer, lowering to a crawl. Staring up through your lashes, you stop on your knees in front of him, eyes glazed with his deliverance and his destruction all at the same time. He can practically see everything from this angle, each wet crease of material grasping closely onto your body, impersonating one of those marble statues that seem impossible to make by hand. Your damp palms press into his thighs to hoist yourself up, the cold doing little to cool him, doing the opposite, in fact - warm puffs of air feathering against his starved face. His breath shortens, but he does nothing. This should stop; he can’t find it in himself to press that big red button, but this needs to stop. As you close in on him, lips ghost over his own with expectant sighs mixing between each other, and then-

The towel draped over your shoulders is the fire blanket to his perverse absorption; he’s pulled back into reality, where he is, but it doesn’t completely snuff out the embers. His eyes have had a taste of you now, a sample of the meal that he hungers so hopelessly for. You glance around, your gaze lingering on Raph for a fraction of a second before panning away, and he jolts, like a live wire has been threaded through his veins. In that second, he thinks you know, he thinks you’ve caught a glimpse into his vulgar mind, and he expects you to run off, but you don’t. Instead, you pull the towel closer and laugh at something Mikey says, the short spit of eye contact already falling from your awareness whilst it nails into his with a hammer.

Raphael’s fists clench under the table, knuckles paling beneath the wraps. You have no idea. He's thankful for that but it almost pisses him off that you have no clue just how much you invade his everything. He doesn’t quite know when this all started, but he hopes to God it has an end because he’s not sure how much longer he can handle it.

There's a deep shame that comes with these daydreams, an itch that burns within the lowest parts of his belly every time his mind so much as wanders. Unfortunately, the image of you, any image of you, scorches him worse than that guilt, which is why he can't resist those long nights of rutting against his pillow, endless scenarios flicking behind his eyes like a roll of film that goes on forever. There were many reasons that he was thankful for finally getting his own room, more so now than ever. It doesn’t matter what you do, he finds himself in the same place by the end of each day. There’d be the occasional brush of arms, a weightless touch that would burden his skin with gooseflesh, or moments when he’d manage to make you laugh, and the sound itself would drive a tremble through his shell. He thought this was an innocuous crush to begin with, all signs pointed that way, and then it happened.

Shit.

He remembers how this all started now.

It was one of those instances when you didn’t want to go home, too tired after a particularly harrowing shift at work. You had gotten a decent amount of TLC at the lair, but arguably too good, as you found yourself drooping on the couch. The boys would have happily escorted you back home, even volunteering to carry your sluggish form if that’s what it meant, to which you threw out some languidly-humoured remark about them trying to kick you out. Not even. Not ever.

“Take my bed,” Raph had offered without a second thought.

The proposition felt harmless at the time, and his intentions were so. There was no way he was going to let you sleep on the worn mound of springs and pillows that had endured the weight of four mutant behemoths for so many years. He could take it for the night, no big deal. It wouldn’t have been the first time, and truthfully, he was more than willing to sacrifice his comfort for yours. He hadn't even considered the implications of you sleeping in his bed, nor did he think of the consequences: this seed of yearning that would be planted that night to bloom and blossom into the twisted, prickly vine that now chokes his thoughts.

You, bless your oblivious heart, had accepted readily, a tired smile gracing your lips. "As long as you’re sure, Raph. I don't want to put you out."

"Positive," he'd confirmed, a little too quickly perhaps, and then retreated to grab a blanket and pillow.

That night, he barely slept. The couch was uncomfortable, sure, but there was something else: something that nagged at him. He couldn’t quite place his finger on it. His first thought was the lack of activity from the day, barely any thugs had tried their hand at disturbing the peace, or whatever peaceful looks like for the streets of New York. Chances are, he was just restless from how many skulls he didn’t crack. Maybe not. At the time, he was stumped for an explanation, and that only secured his inability to suspend consciousness.

Before long, the early morning had arisen, and you along with it. Raphael’s failure to nod off meant he caught your freshly woken self tiptoeing out of his room. He made no effort to greet you, playing into the idea that he was genuinely asleep as you thought him to be, some parts convinced that he might have been. You slid through the lair with a swan-like equanimity he didn’t want to disturb; each clip of your shoes against the floor calculated and measured to soften the blow of your steps. He probably would have woken up were he soundly snoozing, but the attempt was still appreciated. Raphael never regarded himself as the type to silently observe, to pick up on the little details with such ease, but he had found that he was a little more introspective about these things since you’d been around.

Once you had disappeared completely, he rose from his “slumber” and slipped into his room. He figured he’d be able to get at least a couple of hours' sleep under his belt. He was very wrong about this, however. Upon entering his room, he quickly realised that sleep would be much harder to come by now. The lacklustre day had left him restless, that’s what he kept telling himself at the time, but that wasn’t the real reason. The real reason was the apparitional warmth of your presence on his bed, and if he tried really hard, he’d almost be able to perfectly emulate your body lying in his company. Moreover, it was the lingering scent, faint as it was, that had truly undone him - sweet, undeniably yours, intoxicating. Slowly, he had descended atop the mattress on his side, his cheek brushing against the pillow that you had previously lain on. He could picture you in his place, as you had just been minutes before, curled up in his blankets, comfortable in his space.

He inhaled deeply, committing the fragrance to memory. Succumbing to this was crossing a precarious line. He thinks he knew that, but he couldn’t help himself. A thick rope had taken hold of him without his knowledge, narrowing its taught breach the more he let himself surrender. As he took another heavy breath in, his hand crept down to the beating, almost painful throb that had somehow alluded him until that moment.

This was wrong. Perverted. He was taking advantage, in a way, of your trust, of the virtuous act of offering you comfort when you needed it. You wouldn’t want this. You wouldn’t want him thinking of you this way. And yet, he just could not stop. The essence of you clung to his sheets, whispering promises he had no right to entertain.

A groan escaped his throat, muffled by the pillow he was now pushing into his face, practically suffocating himself in the hints of you that were lingering deep within it. He imagined you hearing him, recoiling in disgust, the trust in your eyes replaced with disappointment, with something akin to fear. The thought was a sharp, painful stab, but still, it wasn't enough to halt his sudden fit of impure mania. He was too far gone, caught in the undertow of his appetite.

He came quickly, shame immediately washing over him in a freezing wave. The pleasure was fleeting, unsatisfying, tainted by the knowledge of his transgression. He lay there, panting, the scent of you now heavy and cloying, no longer intoxicating but strangling. He wanted to scrub himself clean, to erase the moment, to rewind and never offer his bed in the first place.

In his post-nut clarity, it hits him, the disgrace of it all: how badly he wants you, how desperate he is to feel the weight of your body on his, how much he needs every plush piece of skin to become tainted under his hands.

The days that followed were torture; worse than torture if there’s a word for it. He knew he had to avoid you, at least for a while. There was no way he could bear to face you, to see the innocent trust in your eyes. He needed time to process, figure out how to reconcile the image he had of himself with the reality of his actions, but any moment of closure would be met with opposition. Annoyingly, small things: a hair clip in the dojo, a book on the kitchen counter, a faint smudge of lip gloss on a discarded coffee cup. In your absence, these tiny objects served as landmines to his crime, a reminder of what he had done and what he couldn’t have.

Instances in which you were present to share the same air as him, however, were worse, and they still are. If you’re reading, he’s watching the curve of your neck. When he hears you laugh, he hears a calling that simply doesn’t exist. He may catch you licking your lips when they dry, an inattentive habit that makes him envious of your tongue. Each one of these details slots into a catalogue, stored away in the private chambers of his mind to be revised during those lonely nights.

Even his epiphany about stepping back and admiring from afar has been contaminated. Productive revelations have been spoiled and replaced with this thing he doesn’t know how to name. That act of defiling a space you occupied had undeniably tarnished any interaction with you, and in doing so, he had tarnished himself.

He’s a terrible person. People don’t have thoughts like this about their friends. Or, if they do, they’d at least stand a better chance of enacting these thoughts. He should just exonerate himself from you entirely, retreat to the shadows as he has always been taught to. The temptation itself almost makes him laugh. That would imply he has the will strong enough to remove himself from your life, a will he no longer possesses now that you’re in his.

Why can’t it be so easy?

That morning that started this all, something inside him had irrevocably broken. A dam had burst, unleashing a torrential wave of depravity he never knew existed within him. Before that, he’d just thought of you as someone who occasionally wracked his nerves in confusing ways if the circumstances were right. Now? You are everything: his obsession, his undoing, his most profound and concealed secret.

If only this were a simple crush, he could settle for that. It would come with its own problems, he knows, but he could at least sustain it with more prudence; deal with it.

He remembers a time, before you, when his nights were his own, when he could lay his head down after a job well done and bid the day farewell. His skin twitches if he tries to keep any urge at bay, fever lurches behind his eyes any time they close, and if by some miracle he can find his way to sleep without giving in, you all but manage to torment his dreams, too. Vivid, explicit, and utterly mortifying. He’ll wake up drenched in sweat, heart pounding, and worst of all, with morning wood just to add more to this mess for atrocities' sake. He really shouldn’t be thinking about you in this way. You’re a friend, that’s the operative word he strains to keep in mind, but his body, his innate calling, doesn’t care about propriety.

It’s especially bad when he wishes he could practise his older brother’s restraint and condition himself to keep you out of his head. Leonardo’s calm, almost serene detachment is a lifestyle away from his turbulent fixations. Leo, the picture of divine patience, can seemingly shut off any unwanted thought with the flick of a wrist, whilst Raphael is a wildfire, and you the kindling. It’s not as though the routine tactics of his brother would serve him aid in this situation, anyway. Meditation has never done him any good, and it’d only give you the space to tangle yourself up in his imagination again. Instead, he buries himself in his workouts. He tries to sweat it out, tire himself to the point of mindless exhaustion, but the sweat itself stings, and the ache in his muscles is a feeble attempt to dull the sharper ache in his shell.

When he isn’t riddled with pliable what-ifs and maybes, when there is a moment that these lascivious infections decide to leave him be, he has the camera peering down at himself. How long can he actually keep this up? How long will it be before he cracks, before he says or does something he’ll live to regret, regret more than what he’s already done in the dark corners no one dares tread? He’s a ticking time bomb, and you, naively unaware, are holding the detonator.

One way or another, you’re in everything he does, absentminded things like fiddling with his sai; the touch of cool steel against his palms imitates the delicate curve of what he imagines your jawline to feel like. Even the harsh rasp of his father’s voice during sparring matches can't silence the whisper of your name, a prohibited prayer that lingers in his ears. He can't keep you out of his head. He hates it, this constant, burning awareness of you – a forbidden fruit he longs to taste but knows he can't. The self-disgust, the guilt, the painful longing; all of it is a cruel torment, a self-inflicted wound he can't seem to staunch.

He wants to scream, especially on these restless nights, to shatter the silence and break free from the invisible bonds that chain him to this impossible, unbearable infatuation. Yet, all he can do is lie there, a prisoner of his desires, and you visit him once again, not as the friend he knows, the one who laughs easily and quips back with no effort, but as a vision of his indecency. Your smile is a siren's call, eyes a bottomless reservoir of promise. You say things he can only ever dream of hearing from your lips.

This is a fantasy he’s played out innumerable times, but each rerun feels like the first.

You lie back, sprawled across his bed like a fallen angel. Is he your rescuer, or the bastard who shot you down just so he could have you? He can fool himself into thinking this is a mutual salvation, but his jealousy of the stars will have you dragged into the pit with him, where he can savour your divine spirit all to himself. You would never willingly step away from heaven’s light to meet him, of course you wouldn’t, but at least he can pretend, even for a short while, that he has somehow convinced you to fall into this madness with him. He can delude himself that he isn’t quite so alone, and so he follows the illusion of you and takes, moving like a man possessed, lacking dignity, lacking regard.

He stops fighting these premonitions now. He thinks that if he wholeheartedly appeases this greed, abandons all virtue to the fever dream that paints you as his willing partner, that he’ll be set free. He lets the imagined warmth of your skin banish the cold reality of his isolation. He allows the phantom scent of your hair to fill his airless room, drowning voluntarily so that he can fall to the ocean’s depths where he may finally find peace.

This dance with delirium, sometimes culminating for hours, eventually has to conclude, however. Your mirage blurs into nothing the closer he gets to the end, hoping with a crossed jaw that this will be the last time he sullies your good name inside his fist.

It never is.

No matter how many times he relieves himself to your notion, it never alleviates the want, the need, the dependency that’s been conceived on this idea of having you. It only makes it worse. His stomach empties more each time, and his head bloats with new possibilities just to mock him. Every instance in which he falls victim to his imagination, he staggers closer to Hell, and Earth’s core will burn him alive long before he ever admits to the degeneracy of his vestige’s mind. This false impression of reality is much sweeter, bitter in its aftertastes, but easier, a dark bubble without complication, without an outward looking in to tell him how wrong this is.

You’re a damned distraction, and at the cost of his sanity, Raphael can’t find it in himself to do anything about it.

raph eats pussy like a man possessed. he’s sloppy and loud about it, spit and slick all over his face as he spreads your legs as wide as possible and then even wider. your hips ache from the stretch, and you can already tell you’ll be sore tomorrow, but all you can do is whine and moan, hands covering your heated face in a futile effort to silence yourself.

you can’t even grind down against him like this because the bastard has one arm casually slung over your stomach, his huge palm pressing down just so, enough to make you whimper. you can feel him grinning meanly against your thigh with each failed arch of your spine, nipping your flesh in cruel, teasing bites that are sure to leave purple marks, before he continues to lap at your cunt like he hasn’t eaten in a week.

“raph,” you wheeze desperately, whimpers getting stuck in your throat as he practically growls against you. the sound is dark and agonised, and you can’t help but gasp as he pushes a thick digit inside you. “raph, raph, raph—”

he tongues your clit and crooks his finger, and you can no longer breathe, hands now clenched into bedsheets and thighs shaking with every sloppy touch. “that’s it,” he rumbles, the vibrations only making you tremble more. “that’s it, give it to me.”

your moans fill the room in perfect harmony with the filthy squelch of your pussy as raph fucks you with his calloused finger. it’s already too much, but you think you might pass out when he wraps his lips around your clit and sucks like he’s trying to reap your soul. “oh my god—”

you’re whining so loud, choked, and so, so needy, but you can’t find it within you to feel shame even as a distant part of your brain acknowledges that you won’t be able to look his brothers in the eye for a good week after this.

white eclipses your vision when you come, falling headfirst over that precipice that you’ve been teetering on for god knows how long. you fall silent when you do, mouth parted and back finally arching as raph lets your body take exactly what it needs; he lets you grind your hips down, mouth still fixed over your clit as your thighs clamp down around his skull.

he’s mumbling something dirty and full of sacrilege when you finish, his words a wicked churr that tips you into oversensitivity, and you whine weakly when he keeps moving his finger inside you, letting it drag against your slick walls with a slightly sadistic delight.

he chuckles when you slap his forearm weakly, but he acquiesces and slowly pulls back, groaning to himself when he sees just how soaked his hand is. “such a good girl,” he murmurs, looking right at you when he tastes you on his finger. he groans again at the flavour as if he hasn’t been buried in your pussy for the best part of the last hour.

“you’re terrible,” you tell him, voice wrecked, when he finally releases his finger from his mouth.

his smirk is shameless and greedy. “oh, i know.” his warm palms rest against your wet thighs, parting them again with ease. your hipbones twinge, and you gasp as he drags you closer to him, nestling between your legs like he belongs there (he does). “and we’re nowhere near done.”

his eyes are dark and leering, gluttonous and greedy, never full of you but always full of sin, and you swallow thickly as his lips twist into a ravenous snarl, nostrils flaring as you somehow grow even wetter, slick trickling down your already soaked thigh at the unadulterated lechery above you.

Raph 🍓

You came home one day, stomach aching like it never had before. You knew you dealt with intense cramps when this time of the month would roll around. But, this bad? These cramps were quite literally the equivalent of tiny little needles stabbing their way around your guts, aiming again and again and again as if they’d missed. 

Raph was supposed to come over that day. Instead of finding a typically happy, enthusiastic you, who was supposed to be cheerily waiting for him to arrive; he found an unusually depressed you, hunched over in half on your bed, your fetal position a clear indicator that something was very very very wrong. 

He has no idea what’s going on at first– he was in no way whatsoever attentive to the hot water bottle you had laying on your stomach, not to the chocolate, not to the old and tattered towel under you, not to the running shower water you had on in the background...

Raph immediately ran up to you as he noticed stains of… was that… blood on the towel? What in the world?!

“You're bleeding?! Who did this?! Does Raph need to hurt somebody?!” 

Well, that cheered you up a little bit. Oh, how he’s so willing to fight for you– but has such little idea about how the female body works. It made sense, a little bit. They were trained for war. Literally. If the biggest, most war-torn turtle saw blood on his partner– he was bound to give in to his protective instincts. 

You manage a weak, pained sound. Something of a laugh and groan, and you grab his wrist before he can move.

“Raph—no—no, it’s not—” you wince. “It’s just cramps.”

Well, now, why would you be folded in half for cramps this bad if you haven’t been, I don’t know, stabbed beforehand? The red-clad turtle was confused. Empathetic, but confused. 

It took a minute for you to register that your beloved mutant seriously, whole-heartedly, hadn’t the slightest clue what a period was. Oh, heavens. 

“…Raph,” you start, already tired. “Do you know what a period is?”

“Duh. Yeah, they go at the end of a sentence? Ain’t that obvious?” He puts his three fingered hand under his chin. 

It pained you to sit up, but you pat the spot next to you in hopes he comes to sit. Or, best case scenario, he gets behind you and puts those warm hands of his on your stomach. Yeah, that’s what you want. He initially sits next to you, but you flip over and push him down with a finger to get your way. 

You spend the next fifteen minutes explaining to him one of the most excruciating experiences of girlhood– how women spend around a week out of every month bleeding and aching whilst having no other option but to put up with the world around them. 

He did admit-- when you told him that bleeding every month was a normal thing, it made slight sense to him why there was a more metallic scent around the lair. He didn’t dare admit he could sense that to your face. 

Raph physically shakes his head to snap out of it. His giant feet swing around you, standing up– you nearly cry from disappointment that his oh-so-warm hands have left your abdomen. 

“Okay—okay, what helps? Meds? Water? Talk to me.” The snapping turtle leaves, making an absolute mess out in your kitchen from rummaging through your cabinets, and returns with wayyy too many items! A reheated water bottle, chocolate, blankets, pain meds, your favorite snacks. Big guy thought of it all. 💕

“Alright, I got stuff. I don’t know if it’s the right stuff, but Raph's got stuff.”

He looks way too proud of himself for someone who just tore through your kitchen like a hurricane. That mood settles when he sees your face peeking out from your blankets, sleepily. Cozily. More exhausted than he likes to see you be. He can fix that. 

He sets everything down a little too fast, then immediately slows himself, remembering you’re not exactly in the condition to deal with his usual energy.

Raph sets everything down on the nightstand next to you, ready to handle you like a fragile little baby. He places the reheated water bottle down on your stomach gently. Of course, it was gentle. He immediately notices a tiny little shift in your face. You liked that. Heat seemed to be a source of comfort for you. He can work with that, right? 

The turtle stands there for a few seconds… unsure of what he was supposed to do. Offer you words of comfort? Physical comfort? All of it? He’s down to do anything, obviously! He’s a snuggly reptile. He’ll cuddle you any chance he gets. 

Raphael sits down beside you, the bed sinking as he does so. He winces, but continues his route downwards to you. You shift closer into him, seeking nothing but warmth. His arm hovers awkwardly above you; but he eventually settles his hand around your waist, allowing the heat from his body to encase your own. 

Oh. That helps, you thought. 

You let out a slow breath, your forehead pressing lightly, backwards, against his plastron. It was silent for a little bit. Comfortably. You two could stay silent for hours in each others presence. 

“…You deal with this every month?” He mumbled. You nod against him; Raph sighs into your neck. His thumb starts circling around your waist. 

“Tell me if I’m makin’ it worse,” he adds. You nod again. 

That was the first time you’ve been able to fall asleep with no pain, in the last week. 

Donnie 🍇

Unlike Raph, Donnie has taken the liberty of teaching himself quite literally everything about the human body ever since he met April.

Periods are nothing new to him. Nothing scary, either. They’ve faced way worse. Kraang invasions, The Shredder, the Foot Clan. Blood is not a new concept. He is not scared of a little monthly hormonal dysfunction.

What Donnie was scared of was your emotional influx. Not April's. Not Cassandra's. He highly cared about the two, obviously, but you came first. Whether it be an increase in your sadness, anger, irritability, fatigue– he hated seeing you anything other than a perfectly happy state! So when you came into his lab, tears breaking through the corners of your eyes, begging for some sort of medicine— ibuprofen, tylenol, god, did he have any of it? Donnie was up and out of his chair immediately. 

Verbally, what was he supposed to say? His hands kind of wave around for a minute, confused as to what he was supposed to do. He was struggling. What did you need it for? Maybe he could find something more effective to help you? Talk to him? Please?!

“I—yes—obviously, I have pain relievers, that’s—hold on, give me two seconds, I have a system for this? Oh, Sweet Galileo, this is a lot,  what are your current symp-”

You take matters into your own hands, god forbid. You huff a breath of air and snatch a bottle of medicine out of his desk drawer, counting out your dosage like you’d done a million times before. 

In the midst of shoving the drawer shut with your foot, Donnie turns back around from his little ramble session. Oh, how you loved him, but those got tiring sometimes. Especially when all you wanted from him right now was his comfort. You softly take a step forward and place a hand over his mouth. “Sweetheart, please be quiet. I love you. And your rambles. But just for a second.” 

His drawn-on eyebrows furrow, confused. What? You didn’t want to hear him yap about whatever your symptoms could possibly mean? Ah, well. There was always next time. Donnie’s hands came down to fold above his plastron. What was going on with you? 

After a minute of digesting the situation, observing you solely based on your physical appearance, he made a guess; simply just a shot in the dark. You had a comfy blanket tossed over your shoulder, dark circles under your eyes that weren’t usually this prominent, and a giant red indented marking above your abdomen from where your shirt lifted up? Likely from a heat source, the softshell had thought. Ah. She’s on her period. 

Donnie pulls his workbench chair over to you with his foot, the rolling piece of furniture settling right under your legs. “Okay. You have Ibuprofen. Here’s some water. Sit. Please sit.” His voice is softer. Still analytically commanding, as he usually is, when he’s in this setting. His lab. You barely make it onto the edge of his chair before he’s pushing it closer to his workbench so you don’t have to move again. It didn’t take long for Donnie to go doctor mode on you. 

“Okie-dokes. Scale of one to ten,” he says quickly, crouching in front of you now, goggles pushed up onto his head. “Can you tell me your pain level?”

You chuckle, the pain ultimately causing you to wince a bit. “Nine.” You say, voice firm. 

Donnie does not like that number. 

He quickly grabs a pre-made heat pack from a drawer—the softshell always keeps extras in his lab for April, and occasionally, some of his brothers, when they get sick, or inevitably hurt themselves doing something stupid. He gently lifts your shirt up an inch to place the warmth directly over your cramping abdomen. You sink back into the chair, letting out a small sigh of relief. The material was softer, you noticed! Softer than the harsh, scratchy material your personal heating pad was made of. This felt like it was made from old fabrics. Encased in it, at least. 

"Good. Warmth. Now, tell me about other symptoms. Nausea? Headache? Fatigue?" He rattles off the list, already grabbing a small notebook and pen from his largest desk to document everything. 

Old habits die hard, even when he’s tending to his beloved.

You answer him in short, tired bursts. Headache, yes. Fatigue, absolutely. The pain was easing by the second with the makeshift heating pad. Maybe it was just talking to him that helped. 

You give him the benefit of the doubt, allowing him to help you like this. It was a win-win situation. You felt better. He got to nerd out about… menstruation. And helping his partner, of course. 

"Based on my immediate observational data and your self-reported symptoms," he announces, turning back to you, "the ibuprofen should take effect in approximately 20 to 30 minutes. In the interim, maintaining hydration is paramount, as is continued thermal regulation." In simpler terms, he wanted you to continue drinking water and applying heat to your body where you needed it. On your stomach. 

He hands you a bottle of water he pulled from a mini-fridge he keeps hidden in a panel.

You were far too busy slumping down in the chair and dozing off in comfort before you realized that Donnie has done something… unexpected, considering his typical behavior regarding having to aid with human emotions. Donnie does not go back to work. Donnie does not hide away in a deeper corner of his lab. Donnie does not ignore you entirely. (He would never do that in general. Not to you, at least. Maybe to Leo.) 

He pulls up a smaller, more ergonomic stool next to his workbench chair. He takes off his goggles and gloves, setting them aside. He turns his full attention to you, placing a gentle three-fingered hand on your forehead to check your temperature.

"I’ll put all of my current projects on hold," he says, his voice losing its clinical edge and gaining a soft, comforting tone. "You need to rest. Can’t say I’m a fan of how out of it you look right now, love."

Donnie starts to explain the whole shebang behind menstruation and reproductive processes in women. He knew distractions worked for you. If annoying the hell out of you with his ramblings is what worked, so be it. He would have done it anyway. 

Once he's satisfied you're sufficiently distracted and informed, he shifts his position slightly, leaning his plastron against your covered legs as he crouches down from his chair. He reaches out a hand, finding yours, and laces your fingers together.

"Just rest, darling," he murmurs, gently stroking your hand with his thumb. "Let the medication work. I’ll be right here.” 

Your eyes drift off to sleep. It’s comforting, knowing that he treated you like this; with such care for something that happens so painfully every month. His fingers stroked your hair as your breathing steadied, one hand massaging your scalp and one hand typing away at his computer; coding something, who knows. You didn’t care. 

Hm. He was really good at this. 

╰♥︎ ╮

someone tell me if the tiny subscript font is unreadable or if it sucks. i will change it if so hahaha. only plan on using that for headcanons, not actual fics, if y'all prefer it!