The Halfway Point, chapter 8

[tori_angeli]

Here it is! Chapter nine should follow soon.

It makes a difference
That I'm feeling this way
With plenty to think about
And so little to say

Except for this confession
That is poised on my lips
I'm not letting go of God
I'm just losing my grip…

What is a love
If the love's not my own
This is not my home
This is lonely
But never alone.

Over the Rhine, “When I Go.”

 

“I told him the truth.  Lying to him wasn’t helping.”

“Seems like the truth made things worse.”

“I was out of options.”  Donatello stopped talking and gritted his teeth as he hurtled over an alley between two rooftops.

As soon as he landed, and Leonardo landed behind him, Splinter, several yards in front of them, froze.  “Stop,” he said suddenly, holding out a hand behind him.  Don obeyed, catching himself in mid-pace and straightening to catch his breath.

Leo walked up behind him.  “I’m sorry, Don, I’m—“

“You’re frustrated with Raph and need to argue with someone while he’s not here.  I know that.  Argue aw—“  Don was interrupted when his cell phone rang abruptly.  He glanced up at Splinter, who was looking at him expectantly.

He knew that was going to happen.

Don swiped the phone from his belt and answered it.  “Yeah?”

“Raph’s back.”  The voice was Mike’s.

Don’s eye ridges lowered in concern.  “Is he okay?”

There was a pause.  “I think you should come back.”

Don’s heart skipped a beat.  “Is he hurt?”

“I don’t think so, but he’s…please come back.”  The last three words were pleading.

Don nodded.  “We’ll be there in a second, Mikey, just hang on.”

 

“Raph?”  Leo cracked Raphael’s door open and peered inside.  The lights were off—there was nothing but a sliver of silver light coming in through the door Leo held open, illuminating a floor littered with small items and furniture.  He opened the door wider and dodged a book that sailed in his direction.  “Raph?”

At last the sliver of light, darting across the floor, fell on Raphael, sitting crosslegged on the floor, hunched over, head bowed, arms folded and pressed against his plastron.  He made a small sound as though trying to speak, then stopped.

Leo took two slow steps through the door.  “What happened?”

“G-g-g-“ said Raph.  He almost sounded like he was choking.

Leo paused, then continued forward.  “Are you hurt?”

Raph made a sharp, truncated exhale, but said nothing.

“Raph, you have to talk to me.”  Step.  Step.  “If we don’t—“

Suddenly, Raph lashed out at his legs, forcing Leo to take a few steps backwards.  After a tense moment, Raph resumed his previous position and was silent.

Leo had come so close—surely he could get close enough to touch Raph.  He wasn’t sure what he would do then.  Maybe wrap his brother in his arms while Raph cried his heart out—unlikely, he knew.  It was the image that sprang to mind, though, a picture-perfect movie moment.  Realistically, Raph probably wouldn’t let him get that close.

“Leo.”  Mike stood in the doorway, beckoning to him.  Leo followed, and the door was closed behind them.

In the kitchen, Mike poured a glass of soda.  “He’s been like this since he came back,” he said softly.  “He couldn’t even talk.  He kept trying to yell at me when I asked him questions, I could see it in his face, like he was gonna…”  He paused, then sighed.  “Pop, or something.  But he couldn’t talk.  Not like, mute.  More like, really bad stutter.  Really bad, Leo, something happened.”  He fell silent.

Leo started to make tea.  It was the only thing he could think of doing until he thought of what to say.  Fill kettle with water.  Place on stove.  Turn on stove.  Hands working, eyes watching, not quite seeing.  Something had happened to Raph, that was definite.  There was no doubt in Leo’s mind that House was a part of it.  He plucked a mug from a cabinet and a jar of loose leaf Tanganda tea he’d obtained while traveling through Zimbabwe.

“Raph left Casey and April.  House disappeared as well.  Either Raph took House with him, or House woke up and followed Raph.”  He glanced back at Mike to see if he was following.  Mike’s eyes were fastened to him.  Leo continued.  “Either way, House…probably overpowered and attacked Raph.  Whatever he did then, or almost did…I don’t want to think about.  Whatever it was…probably forced Raph to kill him.  What do you think?”

Mike was silent for several seconds, then, “I shouldn’ta let him go.”

Leo turned to face him fully, eyes narrowing.  “What?”

“Last night, when he went out.  You were right, I was so stupid—“

“Mikey,” Leo sighed softly, coming over to the table and sinking into a chair.  “You…I don’t know what to say.”  He rested his elbows against the table and covered his eyes with his hands.  “He didn’t get hurt last night, he got hurt tonight.  At least you didn’t learn this from your own mistakes.”

“I knew he heard my conversation with April, I shoulda known he’d—“

“You couldn’t have known.  I wouldn’t think Raph would be interested in trying to find Casey...”  He glanced up at Mike, then lowered his hands.  “What?”

Mike had frowned.  His eyes met Leo’s.  “April didn’t think you’d be interested, either.  Or Don.  ‘S why she called me.”

Leo sighed and slid his eyes closed.  “Mikey…”

“All I’m sayin’ is you shouldn’t treat Casey like he’s the one that did it.”

A sharp, bitter laugh escaped Leo.  “Trust me, Mikey.  If Casey was the one who did it, I would have killed him by now.”

 

It was the endless scene of watching a movie with Mike, the scene he couldn’t seem to escape.  He excused himself to go to the bathroom, unusual calm and resolution in his gut.  He was going to do this.

He locked the bathroom door behind him.

Immediately his eyes searched for his resources.  Soap.  Toxic.  A glass.  He filled the glass and inserted the bar of soap.  Toothpaste.  A squirt went into the glass.  He sifted through the medicine cabinet, where there was a variety of pills, from the mundane to the potent.  He took down a bottle of the most powerful painkillers they had and popped it open.  One pill went down, then another, and eventually the bottle was empty.  Nothing yet.  He seized another bottle.

The water in the glass was turning cloudy, and he removed the bar of soap, stirred the mixture with a finger and drank it down.  It tasted bitter and dry.  Mouthwash, cough syrup, he started to swallow both.  When they were gone, he reached for a box of decongestants and took the five that were left.  Still nothing.

Frustrated, he filled the glass of water again and drank its contents, hoping to speed the medicine along.  When that wasn’t immediately effective, he growled and punched the mirror.  It shattered, shifting from one to thousands of images of himself, pathetic, insane, helpless and unable even to do this.

He grabbed a nail clipper from the cabinet and used the sharp nail file to dig into his left wrist, picking away bits of flesh, savagely delving for the living artery, pulling it out of his arm, but unable to sever it.  The pills still weren’t working, he wasn’t dying fast enough, nothing was happening.

The shower rod.  He broke down the rod holding the shower curtain and snapped it into a manageable length, then started ramming the sharp edge against his face.  No, easier access to the brain through the mouth.  He stabbed with it at his soft palate, in the back of his throat.  It would not penetrate.

With a cry of rage, he flung the bar across the room and threw himself at the mirror, plucking the shards of glass up and crushing them in his hands until they lay in dime-sized pieces.  One by one, he swallowed them, just like the pills, their sharp edges torturing his throat as they went down, cold bolts of fire in his esophagus, and he still did not bleed enough.

Blood.

He scraped his hands against the rough brick of the wall, attacking the knuckles, the webs between his fingers, any place where the skin was relatively delicate.  It peeled the outer layer of his skin, but did not access blood.

Blood.  Punishment.

Hands curled into fists, and Raphael was punching the walls, hard, harder, and blood began to fleck the walls before it sprayed his face, wearing his hands down to the bones.  Blindly he struck, and continued to strike, the sounds of his blows lessening until there was no noise, no sight, nothing but the slick warmth of blood, his blood, everywhere, running down his wrists and dripping off his elbows.

Suddenly his hands froze on the wall, bracing him, and he rammed his head against the brick.  There was a whirl of dizziness, but no sparks, no brain damage.  His head hit the wall again, again, again, until the blood ran.  The wall was a sheet of crimson, dark, uniform, perfect.

Blood.  Punishment.  Death.

Not enough punishment.

No death at all.

He screamed, emptying his lungs of frustration and futility, and there was still more, so much more.

When he woke up in bed, he was choking on nothing.

He sat up suddenly, eyes wide and wild, gasping for breath, trying desperately to grasp what was real and what had been dreamt.  Wrist intact.  Throat hurt a little, probably from trying to scream.  Not like he had been swallowing glass.  He felt the ghosts of bruises, but they were only fading memories from the dream.  Nothing had been real.

It had been so real.

Something small and distant in his mind said, I am so fucked up.

Raph tore away his covers and rolled out of bed, shivering as his feet touched the floor.  He padded down the stairs and into the dojo as though led there.  It was dark.  There were night lights here and there throughout the lair—a necessity for a home in total darkness—but their dim light only made the darkness more oppressive.

This wasn’t his home.

The weapons rack glinted.

If I was going to, how would I do it?

Raph was drawn to the weapons rack, shivering harder as it came closer.  He halted before it, staring at its contents.  Staves of various sizes, bladed weapons curved and straight, swords and spears, nunchaku and ninjaken, and all of them deadly in their own way.  Some crushed, some stabbed, some sliced, some cut.  Crushing wasn’t practical.  One of the other three would work.  He examined the bladed weapons.  Leo’s swords were too long and clumsy.  The shorter daggers would be suitably painful and easier to use.

The more he looked, the more he was attracted to his own sais.  They had seemed a truer friend of late than any he’d had before.  He plucked one from the rack and stared at it.  On inspiration, he held the point to his eye, leveling the weapon with the ground.  Through the eye, into the brain.  Painful but efficient.  He could die on his own sai, the cold metal sealing his brain and bringing him silence at last.  They had been good to him.  Very good to him.

A flash of cold perspective, and suddenly it struck him that he was staring down the shaft of his sai, able to destroy his own life with the slightest motion.  The weapon clattered to the floor, and he stepped away from it, shivering harder than before.  His lungs filled with ice, and he couldn’t breathe, his brain exploding with fireworks flashing hot and cold.                  

I am so fucked up.

But a part of him was still beckoned by the sai—more of him than he wanted.

He wouldn’t allow that part to kill him.  Not yet.

He couldn’t go back to bed.  It would find him there, too, in that place where his nightmares took hold.

What could he do?

He could talk to someone.  That idea struck a joyous chord in him.  Not one of his brothers.  He couldn’t talk to them anyway.

Splinter opened his bedroom door to a knock moments later, finding before him his strong son, shivering with an unnamed fever and barely able to speak.

 

Raph sat on one of his father’s tatami mats and sipped hot tea.  “A lot of b-bad things’ve happened,” he said softly when he found his voice.  “I dunno.  It jus’…seems like I’ve b-been through worse.”

Splinter watched Raph over his own cup of tea.  “Have you, my son?”

Raphael’s mind traced over its collection of memories he would rather lose.

A home in shambles.

“Nice blades.  Tell me who gave them to you.”

Shattered glass, broken window, broken body.

“I don’t know what it is about you, little fella, but it tastes good to the last drop!”

No letters, no phone calls, he may as well be dead.

“Hey House, gimme your flashlight.”

Pain like he’d never known in a place he never thought he’d know it.

“He likes it!  Dirty little whore likes it!”

Tang of blood and filth.

“Swallow.”

I have to get out of this.  Where is Casey?

“I d-dunno.”

But probably not.

“I dunno, it just…seems like there should b-be something.”

Splinter set his tea down.  “That is not relevant, Raphael.  The way you are reacting—I am told it is common and natural.”

“I have these…c-crazy dreams, Father,” Raph said softly, his stuttering lessening as the tea calmed him.  “Not just about…that.  Like, dreams where I’m…d-doing things.  T-to myself.”  His mouth was on autopilot even as his mind set off warning flags.

Splinter paused.  “What things?”

“Like…I d-dunno, it’s c-c-c—“  He stopped, hands tightening around his mug of tea.

After a moment, the old rat nodded.  “You would be wise to tell me, my son.  Often, such dreams have meaning.”

Raph gave a sputtering laugh.  “I know what these dreams mean.”

“And what do they mean, Raphael?”

Raph pressed his lips together.  If he told, Splinter would think he was suicidal.  Which he…almost was.  He wasn’t planning to kill himself.  He just had dreams about it.  Even when he was awake.  Nevertheless, he didn’t want Splinter setting Leo on him to watch over his every move.  Leo would love another reason his little brother couldn’t do without him.  On the other hand, perhaps he could use someone around to make sure he didn’t…Raph’s breath quickened.

Splinter reached out and pressed a hand to Raph’s cheek.  “You need rest, my son,” he said softly.

Raph shook his head.  “I don’t think I can.”  He thought of his bed, where his nightmares assaulted him.  He couldn’t sleep there.

The old rat’s ears twitched.  He rose to his feet slowly and hobbled to one of his small wooden chests.  He opened it and took out a small pouch.  “This is an herb that will help you sleep unplagued by dreams.”  When he was kneeling in front of Raph again, he plucked a few leaves from the pouch and held them over Raph’s steaming teacup.  “Do you wish it, Raphael?”

There was a moment of hesitation.  Raph’s mind flashed back to Don’s betrayal.  But this was different.  This was Splinter, and a few hours without nightmares, a few hours of pure sleep would be…He nodded.

Splinter dropped the leaves into the cup.  “Wait for a few minutes, then drink the entire cup,” he said softly.  “Now, come with me to the television.  I wish to watch stories.”  The sensei pushed himself to his feet.  Raph did the same, careful not to spill any tea.

When they arrived in the living room, Splinter plucked the remote from the couch’s armrest and turned the television on.  He sank into the rocking chair by the couch and began to flip through the channels.  Raph set the tea on the coffee table and sat on the couch.  As Splinter settled onto the Animal Planet channel, Raph drained his teacup and set it back down, reaching for the blanket hanging over the back of the couch.  He wrapped himself in it and lay down, resting his head on the armrest nearest Splinter, eyes falling upon the television screen like slow-descending leaves.  After a few minutes his vision began to blur, and he closed his eyes.

He fell asleep to the sound of the television on low volume and the creaking of the rocking chair.  And for the first time in weeks, he did not dream.