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There is nothing there. He knows there is nothing there, he can clearly see there is nothing there. But his brain won’t accept it no matter how long he stands in front of the bathroom sink with his swollen, ugly eye pried open.
It had been a week since the Kraang invasion ended. All things considered he was healing up well. Draxum and Donnie agreed he’d still have his vision once the swelling cleared up and the infection went away which was a blessing in itself. He sort of assumed right away he would just be blind in one eye forever. Raphael wasn’t about precision like Donnie, so depth perception and whatever else didn’t necessarily matter, but that didn’t mean he was thrilled about the possibility of losing his sight. It didn’t really matter what either of them said or did, though. He could still feel that awful, cold crawling under his skin. Any time he dared to close his eyes he could feel it. It was like hundreds of worms stuffing themselves into the orbit of his eye, wriggling among the carefully bundled nerves and tight skin until they found what they wanted. The feeling was utterly revolting, but he was thankful it stopped at his eye. When he had full-body transformed it…was worse. He had never really been aware of the fact his insides were slippery, nor did it ever occur to him there was almost no space between his skin and his muscles. When the Kraang stuffed itself in his body it was like nothing fit. Considering how mind-numbingly painful it was, he found himself shocked there wasn’t more damage to his body. Beyond the gaping wound around his eye all he had were some burst blood vessels and a sprained wrist and elbow. Well - there was also the crack in his shell, that jagged little bit where the hole had been punched. But that didn’t hurt. He hardly noticed it until Mikey tried to get on his back and cut his arm on it.
That was another thing. Raphael was powerful and he knew that. He had felt powerful many times. But he had never felt dangerous before.
It wasn’t all it was cracked up to be.
A heavy sigh leaves him as he finally takes his fingers away from his eye. As usual there was nothing to see beyond the stitches and bandages. With as much care as he can force himself to take he smears the anti-whatever cream Donnie cooked up over the hem of his stitches and into the dips of his wound.
It stings. The stinging gets worse when he starts replacing the bandages, wrapping them nice and tight around the right side of his head. In some ways the sting is good - it gives him some kind of reassurance that if there was anything left in there that it was burning to death.
He almost jumps out of his shell when he hears the bathroom door creak open. Out of habit, he yanks his mask back down.
“Hey, big brother.”
The sullen tone of Leo is oddly welcome. He turns, leaning back against the sink. He tries to keep up a meager smile for him.
“You busy?”
Leo looks so small. Most of him is bandaged - thick white ribbons cover most of his chest and shell. The Kraang had cracked it right down the middle. The spots of light green skin not hidden by bandages were bruised deeply. He was lucky to get away with only a broken arm and a cracked carapace. It didn’t make him look any better, mind you, but it did mean he could be more or less independent after only three days of bed rest. It wasn’t just the extensive injuries that made him look small, though. There was this…tiredness that hung around him like storm clouds. They had all changed during the invasion, for the better in some ways and for the worse in many others. But this new Leo was so starkly different it was like he was a totally different person. It was…unsettling.
“No, I’m not busy,” he says. He puts his hands on the cold porcelain of the sink to give the illusion of casualness. “What’s up?”
Leo’s eyes narrow. With a dramatically drawn out flick of his wrist he points at him. “You…wanna talk about that?”
Raph’s blood runs cold. Man - he hates confrontation. “About what?”
“About that thing you just did.”
“I have no idea…what you’re talking about.” He flashes a pointed, toothy smile.
Leo closes the distance. He makes a show of looking Raph over and sniffing, putting his hands on his shell, his arm - until he raises one of his arms and…sniffs his armpit.
“Leo! Ew! Cut it out, man!”
“Mhm, mhm…yeah, checks out. You’ve got your ‘I’m lying to my brother’ stink.”
Raph pushes Leo away by the face. “You’re being weird, man, why are you even in here?”
The smaller turtle gets sheepish almost immediately. Raph hadn’t noticed the color returning to him while he was doing his whole…sniffing his brother routine, but he notices when it disappears again, and suddenly wishes he had just gone along with the joke. Leo shakes out his hands without thinking, wincing when he is reminded that one of them is in a cast for a reason. Raph watches his brother’s eyes flick to the floor as he draws his cast to his chest and rubs it.
“I, uh…I was just…checking up on you.”
Raph raises a brow.
“Okay! Okay, yeah, fine. I wanted to be near you. I’m not really doing so hot, and I can’t sleep, and I’m sweaty…! I just feel…I don’t know. Upset.”
Raph softens. His arms sink to his sides. “I know what you mean…Leo, I don’t think any of us are gonna be okay for a while. Maybe never. But, you know, we won. It was hard - but we won. Our family is safe, our city is safe - our home is safe.”
The bathroom is always quiet. It’s separated from the rest of the lair, more or less. The only sound is the idle echo of the dripping tap in the tub.
Leo always puts his fingers on his lips when he starts to panic. He always has - it was one of those little things he did. Raph can see him start to shake. No tears come, but he can see the strain in his battered body to keep the misery down. “We won, but I feel so…bad. We won a fight that started because of me.”
He doesn’t need to think. He puts his hand on Leo’s cheek to comfort him. “No - no. You don’t need to dwell on that, Leo. You learned your lesson. Nobody blames you.”
Leo closes his eyes and leans into his hand. “They really should.”
Quiet, again, aside from the melodic drip…drip…drip…
“I feel sick,” Leo mumbles. “Why are you in here, anyway?”
Raph glances over his shoulder at the mirror. “I guess…”
He touches his own face with his free hand.
“I gotta keep dressing this thing. The stuff Donnie cooked up fights off infection, but I still have a gaping wound in my face. Plus…I don’t know…what if Draxum didn’t get it all out?”
Leo blinks. The realization washes over him like a frigid tidal wave. Something heavy and nauseating settles into his stomach. He was over here crying about feeling bad about himself and…shit.
“Oh, Raph, you should’ve...asked one of us. We would’ve checked - siddown.”
Raph recoils. He withdraws his hand so he can tuck both under his arms. “No way. You don’t wanna look, Leo. It’s gross.”
Leo pushes on his chest. Raph doesn’t move an inch. “Sit.”
“Are you sure? It’s really gross, man.”
“It can’t be worse than Donnie having you hold both halves of my shell together while he literally tapes it. Come on - sit.”
Raph relents. He sits himself on the top of the toilet, putting him at eye level. Leo grabs their pen light (‘theirs’ of course meaning ‘Donnie’s’) out of the medicine cabinet. He flicks it on and sticks it in his mouth before carefully using his good hand to slip Raph’s bandana and bandages off. He is slow and methodical as he examines the wound. Yeah, it’s gross - but there isn’t anything in it that doesn’t belong. It’s reassuring to see Leo being so careful.
“Is it bad, doc? What’s the prognosis?”
“Well, I could be wrong…just kidding. I’m not wrong. Nothin’ in there but turtle, big guy.”
“And pus.”
“And pus.”
Leo shines the pen light into the eye. It’s hard to see because of the swelling, but he can see his pupil shrink. He smiles. “Donnie said you’d be able to see again once the swelling goes down and the stitches come out, right? Honestly - it looks amazing considering we’re only a week out.”
The niceness of the interaction falls flat for him. The cold panic under his shell never really subsided, and Leo poking around in his eye…didn’t help as much as he had hoped. He chews his lip.
Drip…drip…drip…
“Whenever I close my eyes, I can still feel it,” Raph says, voice quiet and low. His mouth is dry. “The infection moving around under my skin. Heh, glad I’m just making it up.”
Leo redresses his eye for him as best he can, and Raph adjusts where he can’t. The somewhat uncomfortable silence between them is…fair. Reality is impossibly hard to swallow these days.
“Hey. We can go to my room, if you want,” Raph offers as he tugs his bandana where it goes. “Everyone else is busy doing repairs, so we could just…relax.”
Leo smiles tiredly. “Yeah. That might be nice.”
As best he can with one arm in cast, he makes grabby hands at his big brother. Raph laughs and scoops him up in his arms. They rub their cheeks together as Raph carries him out.