#vdts

How was he going to do this? How was he supposed to tell their father what happened? He had run multiple scenarios through his mind, but they all ended the same way.

With Splinter blaming Raph for everything.

"It's not your fault, Raph. You know that." Mikey assured, placing a comforting hand on Raph's arm. The Snapper gave a weak smile, placing his hand over Mikey's in an attempt of agreeance. But, five seconds passed, and, "Raphie… your claws are digging into my arm…"

A low whimper drove Mikey to frown, watching as Raph picked up his pace. It was clear that Raph didn't want his remaining brothers involved in this, that he feared they would be taken as well. It was his job to protect the family, and he failed.

"I failed…" Raph whispered, his tail dragging along the rooftop solemnly.

Donnie said nothing, but knew how big of a sign this was. To the brothers, body language was everything, a crucial thing due to their animalistic tendencies. To keep everyone in the know, each brother had developed his own instinctual tell of happiness:

Mikey's tell was his excessive clicking, whenever he had something to tell that was exciting, he would click and chirp for hours. The twins' tell was- funnily enough -their purring. Whenever they were happy, content, or even in pain they would purr. But Raph? Raph's tell was intimate, something that was moving to all of the brothers, considering their anatomy.

Raph's tell… was his tail.

Every happy moment with Raph was accentuated with a wag of his oversized tail. Whenever Raph was angry, his tail would thump against the ground rapidly, alerting the family to his sour mood. Whenever Raph was sad, his tail would drag, a painful thing to watch, and an even more painful thing to experience.

And if he were being completely honest with himself, Donnie would confidently refer to the tail dragging as a form of self-harm.

"You shouldn't do that, Raphael. You're going to damage your scales." Donnie warned calmly. "Not to mention the excessive amount of bacteria on these roofs."

"I deserve it." Raph muttered, looking anywhere but at his brother.

"No, you don't. You had no control over the situation. None of us did. Even if you had sensed it earlier-"

"Are you saying that I wouldn't have been able to stop it even if I was on alert?"

"At the risk of sounding like an asshole; yes. That is exactly what I'm saying. The probability was incredibly high. Our attackers were clearly well trained, and had an advantage with numbers."

Raph's tail started to twitch.

"Okay, hold on, are you even listening to yourself right now? We just lost our brother, and you're sitting here patronizing me because of probability?!"

"Yup."

The thumping started.

"Whose side are you even on?!"

"Last I checked, I was on your side."

They stopped.

"Donnie, I don't know what kind of game you're trying to play right now, but I-"

"Why would I play a game after such a traumatic experience?"

Raph curled his beak into a snarl.

Donnie reciprocated.

"Uh, guys? I don't think now is the time to-"

"Not now, Michael. I am in the middle of teaching our big brother a lesson."

"Oh, that is IT!"

Raph charged at Donnie swiftly, growling and hissing each time his attacks were dodged. Swipes and bites were landed on each brother, neither giving in to their pain, and neither listening to Mikey's terrified pleas and squeaks for them to stop. For four minutes the two fought, until Raph ended up pinning Donnie down, snarling and panting aggressively.

"Do you… see what I… was saying?" Donnie asked breathlessly, showing no surprise as Raph backed away.

"I… what did you-"

"Raph, even if you had seen straight through my ploy, you would never have been able to stop this fight from happening. You would have gotten annoyed either way, provoked either way, and confused either way."

No words were said as Raphael processed his brother's lesson. By this point it made sense; Raph shouldn't be blaming himself for an unpredictable occurrence.

"But I can't stop myself from doing it…"

"And that's okay. We don't expect you to, but the fact of the matter is that we need you to. We love you, and we know you love us, but we have to put aside our feelings and focus on getting our brother back… okay?"

Raph didn't answer - he honestly couldn't. It wasn't that he didn't completely agree with Donnie's view, but it was the only logical choice at the moment. They needed to focus, and to do that, they needed to stop letting their emotions prevail.

With a look at Mikey, who had slowly and fearfully crawled up to the two, Raph sighed and nodded. "Okay," he sadly muttered, "we set our feelings aside and put our focus full force. Agreed?"

"Agreed." Donnie said easily. Almost too easily.

Mikey hesitated, frowning as he rubbed the back of his neck. He knew this wasn't right, but these were his big brothers. They knew when too much was too much.

Right?

"Of course…" Mikey huffed aloud, refusing to let a tear slip. "It's agreed."

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*Do you guys feel like the brothers' decision was a good one? Do you think Donnie has hidden motives? Do you think comfort will happen soon? Do you hope comfort will come soon?

We'll have to wait and see!

**Little Heads Up: The "Individual Tell" fact will be incredibly important throughout the fic, so try to memorize that information.