[LN] [Locked to Mikey and Bunny]

[othersdestructive]

"It wasn't a big deal. Everything worked out fine and I had an out so I don't see what the problem is. All of you are making into a bigger thing than it needs to be."

After storming off from the argument with Bunny over Raph running off to get Winchester's brother himself, he'd dragged Mikey into playing a video game. In reality, he'd have preferred to be alone but he could tell Mikey had been bothered by the fact he'd run off alone and gotten injured so he mostly just wanted to show him his arm was okay enough to play video games with it.

The problem was Mikey was still harping on what had happened out of concern.

Rather than being annoyed at Mikey, Raph was trying his best to put Mikey's concern to rest while channeling his annoyance into kicking his butt at Mario Kart.

Comments

[mywarrenmyrules]

Bunny waited patiently through the whole rant, leaning against the wall for the duration. As Raph's story spilled out, his frustration softened. By the time Raph was done, his expression had reached sympathy and held there.

"You've been through a lot," he said, and when he spoke, his voice was much more thoughtful than before. A little distant. "Makes a lotta sense you'd need to get a challenge in for yourself, get your bearings back that way. Even if it was dangerous. But you're right. What's done is done. No sense me harping on it anymore."

He pushed himself off from the wall, almost as if he was leaving, but pausing -

"It IS really ironic, y'know. Me, telling a kid not to go out on his own, not to go looking for trouble. I mean, of all people. My sensei used to tell me the same thing. Said I was going to get myself killed too young. Said I was going to get someone else killed, if I kept dragging the younger pookas out to do the stupid things I did. Baiting lions, stealing from the Aztecs . . ."

He shrugged.

"It was never anything smart. Really, nothing smart at all. I'd always drag my brothers and sisters out of trouble, but y'know, that was the least I had to, draggin' 'em in in the first place . . . I never did get any of them hurt, but you know what, if things had kept on, one day I might've. But what's done is done," he repeated. "Can't change the past. No sense harping on myself for it now."

"Anyway, he wanted me to stay home, where it was safe. Wanted us all to. Forever. Every last one of us - there were hundreds all in the warren together, and I was the only one who just wouldn't do it."

He shrugged.

"If I'd obeyed him, I wouldn't be alive today. But if I'd taken any of my brothers out with me that night, maybe they still would."

He manages to finish in the same calm, even, if distant, tone, but without meeting Raph's eyes.

"You never got to meet Anansi. He's the Guardian of Stories. He'd tell you you're wrong, too - all this world is made up of stories. That doesn't mean they're all happy ones. But I'll tell you - and he'd back me up on this if he was here - the sad part of a story isn't always its end."

He looked back at Raph again, all the anger and frustration drained away. He got it. He got it all too well.

"I'm very sorry about your father."

He never, ever wanted anyone to be able to give him the same sort of genuine, sympathetic understanding.

"If you need to get out and react to it again without your brother - just let me know where you're going first. I won't get in your way."

Because he'd be behind Raph. Far enough behind that even a trained ninja might not notice him, but close enough that he'd know if the kid needed the backup he didn't want.

He turned to go.

[othersdestructive]

Understanding wasn't what he'd been expecting. Not in the least. He wasn't used to it back home because he had a lot of complicated feelings and trouble admitting he had them, and his brothers had come to tease a bit when he let them out.

Only Master Splinter had been good at being understanding and teasing things out of him.

So his voice was less angry as he said, "I didn't drag anyone else into trouble is the thing. That's the point. So you don't have to worry about that, and I don't think I need a next time, but if I do, I'll at least - I'll tell somebody where I'm going in case I need backup."

Without looking at Bunny he settled down in front of the TV again, looking ruefully at the broken controller, and then reaching for another to hook it up so there'd be two working ones when Mikey came back.

"I know better than to let what's going on in my head get other people in trouble. Sensei helped me with that with my anger." His voice tightened slightly, as he said quietly. "'A river over stone' that's what - what he..."

He didn't believe what he said about stories. About the saddest part not being the end. Even if a story didn't end, it was still the saddest part.

"And I'm sorry, too."

His brain couldn't even go there, to the thought of what it might feel like to lose it all. Mostly because if he lost everyone, his brothers, April and Casey, that'd be it for him. He was pretty sure he'd just...not be able to live. It was too dark to think about.

And that was why he was sorry. Surviving something like that was beyond him.

[bringinghopewithme]

Bunny paused in the doorframe. "You can't drag anyone else into trouble here, because there's already trouble everywhere. Going out alone is the only way left to get yourself in more. And I didn't tell you so you'd be sorry."

He didn't like talking about his mortal life. "Sorry" didn't match what had been done to him, to his loved ones, to the world in the process. People so often said it when they heard, when he'd rather they realize he was trying to prove a point, not receive condolences. Sorry. There would never be enough "sorry" in the world.

And even if there could be, he did not live to make people sorry.

He leaned back in the doorway, staring at the frame opposite him.

"I told you because you need to know this isn't magical-happy-ending-land. Horror isn't a fresh import around these parts. It was here before you were. It was here before I was the only one of what I am."

He gestured around the Pole. "If everything you've seen here looks child-friendly, it's because we've been fighting for centuries to make it as close to that as possible. And we don't always succeed."

He hated saying so out loud, but it was true. There was always the hope of a far-flung future where they weren't needed, where the children had plenty of hope and wonder without them, but until then, they had work to do that didn't include believing their might infallible. And Raph's near-vivisection was proof of it, anyway.

"And now, not only do we have all the threats that kept us busy before, we have all the threats from all the possible worlds to consider. Including all of yours."

And four less Guardians to fight them. He wasn't going to go into the new guardians, and how they stacked up in comparison to the old ones. There just wasn't a comparison. A skilled 16 year old kid might stand in as a hero, but he wasn't a Guardian. Not really. There was no substitute for that much experience. Or that much dedication to the cause.

"And I told you because I want you to remember that you have a family to stay alive for. You have a family to compromise for. They make telling someone you're not sure of yourself braver than risking your skin to find out if you're all right. That's such a precious thing."

He was not happy to give an angry, impulsive kid he barely knew insight into his personal sorrows, but sometimes being a Guardian meant hurting, and sometimes that meant taking off your armor and baring scars that still hurt. A kid could be the sort of person to reach out and dig their claws into a vulnerability when they saw it, but being a Guardian meant letting them if that was what they had to do.

"I told you, not because I think you don't think about that already. But because I want you to think about it more. Ideally, every time you're thinking about going out into all that without someone to watch your back. I don't want you to be scared, or blindly obedient. I want to know that you understand the risk."

From Kuk, and to his family.

[othersdestructive]

"I get it already! Geez! I already got it when I went out."

Which was...alarming, considering he went out anyway.

He went back to the game, pointedly ignoring Bunny now.

[mywarrenmyrules]

There was no response Bunny could think of in the moment that wasn't some variation on "that's stupid."

And he couldn't say that, because it was obvious this wasn't about stupidity. It was about feelings, and by that point, Bunny had let his get too raw.

He spared a second to consider if he was leaving because he was giving up or because he had miscalculated, let the conversation get too personal too soon, and decided on leaving. With a tap of his foot, the floor gave out beneath him, and closed up once he was gone.

[othersdestructive]

Raph glanced over where the Easter Bunny had been then back to the screen. After his little car went over a cliff (twice) he slammed the controller down and briefly sat there, knees drawn up to his chest.

[bestnamer]

He hadn't sat there long at all before Mikey jumped over the back of the couch, loaded down with cartons and bottles that were probably now going to fizz over when he opened them.

"So, I know I said I was gonna get soda, buuuuuuuuuut I got ice cream AND soda instead."

Not as good as Ice Cream Kitty, the forever love of Mikey's life, but still.

"Which do you want? Peppermint stick? Or chocolate? Peppermint stick? Chooooocolate? C'mon, let's celebrate the lack of yelling that just happened."

[othersdestructive]

Raph waved a dismissive hand at him.

"Not hungry."

[bestnamer]

"Come oooon. You're always hungry. You know you want it."

In the process of trying to shove ice cream in Raph's face, Mikey noticed the fragments of the broken controller.

"What, did yelling happen after all? Is ice-cream no longer a post-yelling treat?"

[othersdestructive]

"There wasn't yelling." A pause. "Well, there was some yelling but I was doing most of it."

Now he felt kinda bad about it, but kinda didn't. He didn't like being misunderstood and hadn't liked that the conversation had goaded him to talking about the invasion and sensei.

To keep his brother from getting upset, he held out a hand for a bowl.

"Chocolate's fine, I guess."

[bestnamer]

Mikey just handed him the carton. "Plenty more where that came from! I think the yetis make it themselves, so keep an eye out for hairs. I don't think they wear hairnets."

Mikey picked up a controller, attempting to start a new game one-handed while still shoving peppermint stick ice cream into his face with the other, but an unfortunate slip of dexterity made him gasp in horror.

"Oh snapricots, it's stuck on Rainbow Road!"

[othersdestructive]

Raph stuck in the spoon and snarfed down a big mouthful.

"That's perfectly fine with me," he said around the ice cream. "I always kick your butt on the tracks where you can fall off the sides."

[bestnamer]

"No fair! Rainbow Road is for monsters!"

Mikey flailed in his seat, dropping his ice cream and trying to SOMEHOW stay on track.

[othersdestructive]

"No, Rainbow Road is for winners. You just need to pretend winners are monsters because they're your natural opposite."

Raph started mashing his controller.

"Boomerang boomerang boomerang!"