Raphael Hamato (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
othersdestructive) wrote in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
ya_assemble2015-01-19 01:43 am
othersdestructive) wrote in ya_assemble2015-01-19 01:43 am
Entry tags:
[LN] Candy Mountain [locked to Molly]
"So let me get this straight, you're gonna spread around on the internet that we're real to get kids to believe in us?"
Right now, Raph and Molly were seated on the floor of Jamie Bennett's room. In a rare show of trust, Nico had actually let Raph take Molly by himself, as her magic was needed on a mission. The caveat had been, of course, that they had to go to Jamie's house - which was warded all to hell and back - and come right back to the Pole after, but Raph still understood the signifance of it - and the unspoken threat of retribution that would happen if he didn't bring Molly back safe and sound.
Jack had arranged for them to talk to Jamie - insisted on it, in fact - since Jamie was the primary believer of all the new otherdimensional myths being pulled in. More than that, Jamie was the one trying to spread belief of them around so that they had more believers than him.
At the moment, he was trying to explain the nature of belief and what he could do for them - and what he couldn't do.
"How many kids that believe in stuff even use the internet?"
Right now, Raph and Molly were seated on the floor of Jamie Bennett's room. In a rare show of trust, Nico had actually let Raph take Molly by himself, as her magic was needed on a mission. The caveat had been, of course, that they had to go to Jamie's house - which was warded all to hell and back - and come right back to the Pole after, but Raph still understood the signifance of it - and the unspoken threat of retribution that would happen if he didn't bring Molly back safe and sound.
Jack had arranged for them to talk to Jamie - insisted on it, in fact - since Jamie was the primary believer of all the new otherdimensional myths being pulled in. More than that, Jamie was the one trying to spread belief of them around so that they had more believers than him.
At the moment, he was trying to explain the nature of belief and what he could do for them - and what he couldn't do.
"How many kids that believe in stuff even use the internet?"
no subject
And then they were through the door and gone, into whatever world awaited them.
no subject
It was still there, though, so they had a way out to return to.
no subject
Because the world they'd just walked into was made of candy. It was a multi-colored riot of confectionary delights, from the lollipop trees to the hard candy blades of grass to the peppermint cobblestones.
The marzipan birds on the lollipop trees were singing. Not bird song, actual singing.
"Tra la la lally! We love our sweet valley!"
Raph stood there, an eye twitching.
"I'm going back to the empty nothingness between universes," he said, pointing at the door. "You've got superstrength, you got this."
He made no move to actually do it, though. All jokes aside, he wasn't leaving Molly alone.
no subject
It was sugar. Rush. HEAVEN.
"This is so super cool!" She squealed and bounced a little, then tugged on Raph's hand, more gently without her powers active. "Come on, doofus, we've gotta find the universe piece!"
no subject
"Fine. But I refuse to be delighted by anything."
He still held her hand though, not really wanting to let her get too far. For all they knew, they were going to get attacked by giant licorice wasps any second now.
His experience with alternate worlds that had cute things in them had told him that cute sometimes could be deceptive. Very deceptive.
no subject
"It's okay, you don't have to like it. Chase wouldn't, either. Do you think they're really alive, or if it's just magic?"
She peered into flowerbeds and down at a stream full of cola (that they crossed via a bridge of shortbread) and at basically everything surrounding them as they followed the draw of their new brands down the path, fascinated by the fact that literally everything seemed to be actually made of candy and sweets of some sort.
And she didn't even try to let go of Raph's hand.
Of course, it didn't take long before she got a little bored and started thinking something other than the candy she was entirely sure Raph wouldn't let her eat.
"Are you in love with Nico?"
no subject
"What? No!" he declared, waaaay too defensive about it. Technically, the 'no' was true. 'In love,' was such strong, strong wording. "We're just, you know, friends. Really good friends."
Friends that hung out every day, lounged around half-cuddling, and stole away different places to talk about their feelings well into the night.
He was just her friend...who sometimes stared at her when she wasn't looking like his heart was full to bursting.
"Come on, you're her friend, right? You and her and your friends are like a little family. She's easy to be friends with."
no subject
"Older kids are weird," she declared. "I don't get it. Also she's kind of mean sometimes if she doesn't know you." So no, Raph, she wasn't just easy to be friends with.
"Anyway, she likes you and you like her, and I guess that's cool. Just, the last time she got smoochy with somebody, she ended up crying a lot."
She slipped her hand out of Raph's, but didn't go running off or anything, just laced her fingers behind her back. She was very very innocent, she just didn't like Nico crying, right? She was just saying she was worried Nico might cry again, right?
"Ooo! Did you know?" she started, turning to walk backwards, facing Raph. "That one time we were fighting some bad guys, and one of them hurt Nico? And I punched him so hard he landed a block away!"
She beamed at him a bit.
It was totally unrelated, honest!
no subject
As for her liking him? Eh. As a friend, sure, but there was no way she dug him in any other way than that. No way. But before he could ask Molly anything about it, she mentioned Nico crying and dropped that little line about hurting Nico.
Raph narrowed his eyes.
"You just threatened me."
Had Molly just gone along acting all cutesy forever he might not have gotten suspicious at all of her general cheer and adorableness. But he was a naturally suspicious person, raised to be cunning and tactical, and while Leo was better at it on the whole, Raph was the one that was the least naive and the best at figuring out deception.
He'd been suspicious of Karai all that time, hadn't he? And even when she had Leo convinced, he knew she was planning on betraying them - and he'd been right.
Now, he'd been hesitant to let that suspicion go when it was finally time to, but he'd given it up in the end, and been willing to help save her from Shredder and willing to search for her after he'd been mutated. But his intial instincts at the time she was most deceptive had been right on the money.
So, it was with the kind of suspicion that one needed when fighting the masters of deception that ninjas were that suddenly fixed itself on Molly.
"How old are you again?"
He hadn't really ever been around little kids but he'd been one himself and his brain was feverishly working its way backward, trying to remember what he and his brothers had been like at various ages.
no subject
"And, um.... well, I was twelve when I first came here, but it was almost my birthday, so... I'm probably 13 by now!" She's very proud of that age. A teenager! Though she intends to avoid all smooching ever.
no subject
He was at that age where he wasn't so far off from childhood to forget what it was like but old enough to have a sense of people and himself.
"If you're going to outright threaten somebody who fights ninjas on a day to day basis; you pretty much might as well drop the cutesy act while doing it. Me and my brothers have had people deceive and manipulate us tons of times to try to get in close to kill us."
A lot of Molly's shenanigans seemed sincere but this made it clear not all of the cuteness was and when he looked at all the little pieces, when he really thought about her age, when he thought about how that adorableness could be used to manipulate...
"Because we're ninjas that fight ninjas and deception's pretty much the standard ninja MO." Which was why he was now critiquing her. "If you want to threaten someone but not break character with the cutesy thing you should just drop something like 'you better not be mean to her, I have superstrength, Mister Turtle' and leave it there. But you went a little too dark on the imagery and drew attention to it. Cutesy kids don't threaten to drop kick people a whole block, they keep it simple because they don't understand intimidation needs something solid and scary behind it."
no subject
"Anyway, I usually don't gotta threaten anybody, usually they're already threatening us so I just punch 'em."
She paused for a moment, considering what he said. It was true, she kind of went overboard, but to be honest, she was kind of banking on the idea that her being more outright threatening while sounding like a bubbly little kid would be kind of creepier than a cute little threat. Still, it was worth keeping in mind.
In case she needed to pull it out in the future, or in front of Nico.
"I'll remember that next time, though," she finished serenely.
no subject
Tenfold.
But now he was curious.
"I'm guessing a lot of that's how you really are - just like Mabel - but why the act when you're being serious?" Raph asked her candidly.
no subject
"Well, mostly 'cause I think Nico and the others back home would all completely freak out," she said, nodding to herself as if agreeing with her own point. "If I was just suddenly not acting like me, they might think something was wrong."
no subject
Like, super obviously, given the sudden change right in that moment. There she was looking just as serious as him and his brothers sometimes were.
Minus her eyes going white and narrow."Or at least the cheerful little kid thing isn't always you. Nico's pretty open about when she's angry or threatening someone so I don't know why you can't b - oh." He just got it. "Oooooh, I get it."
Oh, wow, the implications of that were pretty terrible.
"You're not showing off that side of yourself so they can feel like they were able to protect you from it all, aren't you. That's probably all they wanna see, so they're ignoring how you can't go through all that life or death stuff and still just be a goofy little kid all the time."
A pause.
"Unless you're Mikey, but my brother is a weirdo." A pause. "And we were trained pretty much from when we mutated to be able to handle life or death stuff. Totally different thing when you're trained to handle it."
no subject
She didn't say anything more for a minute as they walked, kicking a rock candy pebble down the path in front of her. She didn't have to talk to Raph about it. She didn't have to talk to anybody about it. Or, conversely, she could talk to Bunny, or Jack, or maybe Tooth. It didn't have to be now.
Except... honestly it was kind of a relief that he'd called her on it. And the idea of talking about it was enough that the words just started tumbling out almost on their own.
"They all tried so hard, you know? And it was just a little bit at first, so it wasn't a big deal, but..." But life went on. Life got harder. She grew up, fast, but couldn't let anyone know. "I mean, I know I can't do it forever, and it's not all pretend, but it's just... They tried so hard. Even Chase. The only one who really tried to help me deal with stuff was Gert, but I didn't..."
She sighed. "I didn't realize I needed her to, and then she was gone. And Nico and everybody just tried so hard to keep me from knowing about the worst stuff, but I'm not stupid or anything, and I'd listen in on them sometimes, and... and I do like ponies and my cute animal hats and stuff, so it's not totally a lie, and they'd all be so upset if they realized it didn't work." She looked at Raph sidelong, not quite meeting his eye, and then back down. "So much stuff got screwed up and didn't work, and I figured I could be the thing that did"
no subject
"You can't be responsible for their happiness, though, kiddo. It's not fair to you that you can't just be yourself. There's a lot that comes with dealing with bad stuff, that comes of being the kind of person that would drop kick someone a couple blocks that you have to learn to deal with and work through, you know? Trust me - out of my brothers, I'm the one that's most okay with caving people's faces in and there's stuff I have to deal with that they don't, that my dad always helped me work through. You know, when he was alive."
A pause.
"Nico and I talk about it now. And I wouldn't be able to work through that stuff or talk to a friend about it if it was always a secret. With it not being a secret, with being myself, I can deal with it by talking about it to someone. Or my brothers can help me with it even if I have trouble talking about it with them. Like Mikey knows how to help me work through it even if we don't really talk about what's going on."
He knew the right times to hug, the right times to play video games, the right times to try to make him laugh. Because he knew Raph. Because Raph was himself and that meant the people he loved knew when and how to help him deal with some of the struggles that came of being himself.
"It'll hurt 'em more if it goes on and someday you have a moment where you just have to be yourself. Where you do have to dropkick someone a couple blocks. How do you think they'll feel if you wind up in that place and have to be true to yourself in that moment and all of a sudden they realize they already lost that fight a long, long time ago?"
no subject
"I could just wait a year or two and then get really angsty! Teenagers do that a lot because of hormones. And then they wouldn't have to know, either!" It was a very bad plan.
She knew it was a bad plan.
"I'll figure something out," she amended, only slightly more realistically. "I always have so far."
no subject
He went on, "As much as they might freak over finding out what you're hiding, they'd also feel really bad if you hiding it wound up hurting you. Think about it - if what they want is for you to be a happy, healthy kid, how bad would they feel if you pretending to be that for them makes it harder for you to grow up into a healthy, happy grown up? It'd kinda defeat the purpose, wouldn't it?"
no subject
She... was the optimistic one, who thought they'd totally beat the bad guys (and they did!), but being a grown-up herself hadn't really crossed her mind, happy or no.
"Hey, do you know what people learn in school when they're thirteen?" she asked abruptly.
no subject
He had no idea what really went on in school other than pep rallies, and, judging from the rare after school special he'd caught on TV, bullying.
"Most of what I know about normal people school is from watching TV and listening to April rant about it. It wasn't like we could go to school when most people scream when they see us."
'Normal people.' The implication being that he wasn't normal. It wasn't that he and his brothers felt bad about themselves, but their...otherness was just something Raph accepted without questioning.
no subject
"I'd be going into 8th grade soon, I think."
Molly wasn't normal anymore (technically she never had been, but she thought she was) and she was mostly okay with that, but even though she hadn't really liked school when she had it, she kind of missed it now. Moreso, thinking about how old she was now and how she was growing up.
"Anyway, Nico thinks you're really cute and probably wants to smooch you or something, but if you're a jerk to her, I'll punch you so hard you'll never ever land." And that was that. With that declaration, she turned to give him one of her bubbly grins, and then skipped ahead a couple of yards before getting distracted by what looked like a marshmallow bumblebee.
Conversation over, she was done talking about serious stuff, also don't hurt Nico or you will regret it.
no subject
He also wasn't planning on interfering by telling Nico. All of that needed to be worked out by Molly and Nico and Molly and the rest of their friends and meddling in it would probably just make things go down worse than they would have normally.
He trotted after her, holding up his hand and checking the brand. It was actually turning, like a compass, pointing the right direction to go in. So far, they seemed to be on the right track.
He wanted to ask how Molly knew. He really wanted to. But asking would give it away, that he liked Nico, and the last thing he needed was that getting aired out somewhere.
The last thing he needed was thinking about it.
"She doesn't think I'm cute and that's fine because we're just friends." He added, stubbornly, "Which is a good thing. Last thing she needs is another weirdo crushing on her like being friends isn't enough, like that lousy, good-for-nothing liar that pretended to be friends with you guys and hurt her."
no subject
"Puh-LEEZE. She gets all grinny and dopey when she's got a crush on somebody, and it's not like she's spending time with anybody else the way she does with you."
Molly suddenly pointed off just down the path, at some plumes of what looked like cotton candy rose above the treetops. "Look! I think it's fireplaces, come on, maybe people know where the thingy is!"
no subject
Unfortunately, asking more about it would give himself away. He had no idea how to respond to that, because he wanted so badly to know more, but at the same time, he wanted so badly to avoid the subject.
Fortunately, he didn't have to worry about his answer.
"Oh hey look, a distraction," he said sassily, not even pretending it was anything else. "Let's go check it out."
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)