Oh Look An Original Title - Tumblr Posts

Whumptober: It’s A Trap! (No Duh, Genius)

Raphael turned on his heel and stormed out of the room, slamming the shoji behind him. He needed out, out of the room, out of the lair, out of the sewers. It was too small and it suffocated him with his own wrath. The surface was open. There, he would be able to breathe freely, and then come back and apologize when he was ready.

No. He wasn't going to apologize. If anything, he deserved an apology. Leonardo couldn't stop breathing down his neck for two minutes, so really, Raphael had every right in the world to turn on his control freak older brother.

He'd come back when he was ready, and Leonardo would apologize eventually.

Ick, how in the world did they ignore the smell of the sewers? At the moment, it drove Raphael crazy, making him kick the ladder in front of him in frustration before he climbed up. Maybe he was just sensitive at the moment, since he could ignore it at any other time of the day. As he slid out of the sewers and closed the manhole behind him, he took a deep breath to try and soothe his nerves like he had seen the others do so many times before. No such luck, of course. He wasn't called "The Hothead" for nothing.

A familiar sound called to him, something that sounded painfully close to a Star Wars blaster. He knew that sound, knew it made trouble, and went to it with a grin. Mindless violence was good for calming down.

As Raphael approached the small building it was coming from, the sound stopped and magenta lights faded, which only fed his curiosity. Why had they stopped? Had one of the sides won already? He stepped in cautiously, and promptly nearly tripped over the corpse of a metal Kraang body. Looking around, he noted that it almost looked like a normal store you would find around that you had to already know about to find, if you ignored the hollow robot shells strewn across the floor and the gaping hole in the wall. The bodies earned a small frown from Raphael as he picked his way over to the hole. Dang, had he missed all the fun in the few seconds it took to get over here?

Shaking his head, he peered into the crater in the wall first, then noted the staircase and went down slowly. At first, it was dark, but it got brighter the further he went. When he hit the bottom, it actually looked more like something that the Kraang would have built, all chrome and bright purple lining the walls. For a brief moment, he wondered if they had any other designs to use for their bases before he realized that perhaps now wasn't the best time to wonder about that.

Man, this place was weird. No matter where he went, it was completely empty, but clearly built to house people while planning and experiments went on. Raphael, confused, continued to wander around the abandoned base until he stumbled upon more bodies.

Lots and lots of bodies.

Raphael shivered and shifted his weight from side to side. It was probably a good time to leave, since it didn't look like anyone was home, and it felt almost like the apocalypse had happened down there.

But, stronger than his fear was a deep want to find out what was going on. If they were all gone, they were gone for a reason and so help him, he was going to find it.

The fear grew as he kept going. Kraang equipment faded away, scorched and torn up, into an almost normal basement. Or at least, it looked normal, the lighting was extremely dim over there.

Maybe he should call the others, or just completely leave and never speak of it again. It would be nice to just back out while he still had the chance or have company to die with (if he was going to die at all), but something kept pulling him forward. Well, curiosity killed the cat, they always said.

Under one footstep, part of the floor slid down and clicked.

Nothing… Happened?

Well, that was-

Nevermind, wind rushed past Raphael's ears as the floor dropped out from underneath him, and he had to turn his shell to the floor at the last second as an attempt to protect himself.

Freaking ow.

He was certain that if he didn't have a shell, his spine would be dust at that point.

Raphael rolled to his feet with a groan and squinted into the darkness, trying to make out his situation. From the looks of it, he was stuck. The towering walls were smooth, too smooth to climb or get any kind of good grip on, and he hadn't been expecting a mission, so he didn't have any kind of equipment on him that might be helpful.

Dim lighting turned to pitch black darkness as the trap door closed above him, rendering him sightless. Great, could the situation get any worse?

...Apparently so.

There were a few rumbles around him, followed by a loud whoosh that seemed to go on into eternity and the sound of something splattering.

He hoped it wasn't blood, spinning around and focusing on using his tremorsense to find one of the sources. Taking hesitant steps forward, Raphael reached out to where he assumed the sound was coming from, and felt something cold and wet. Almost immediately, he ripped his hand away, startled by the feel of it on his hand. He paused, then raised his hand and gave it a sniff to find out what it was. He couldn't really smell anything and, although tempted to lick it to find out, wiped it off on his belt.

After a few minutes, though, it was pooling around his ankles and rising higher by the second. It was water, he realized. He was going to drown. Panic was the first thing that rose up, fighting to be first in his kaleidoscope of emotions, but he quickly shoved it back down with the thought that it would be alright. He was a turtle mutant, he could swim well and hold his breath for a long time, it would be alright.

...Right?

As the water rose higher, a heavy current took him off his feet. Raphael sank for a second, thrashing, then floated back to the top and found out very quickly that he already couldn’t touch the bottom. It was fine. Everything was fine. He just needed to figure something out real quick.

There was no time to think and plan. By the time he had half an idea together, his head was bumping the ceiling. Soon, he would be submerged.

Raphael saw no point in fighting it, lifting his head as high as he could and taking a deep breath right before he was submerged. Now, with no way to get back to air, he took the time to swim around and try to find an exit. He tried going through where the water was coming from, but the current was too strong, blasting him back and slamming him against the wall. There really was no way out of the trap he got himself into.

At that point, he couldn’t panic when his air finally started to run out and he started to fade. Instead, he welcomed it with open arms, because it was a heck of a lot better than trying to stay awake in a place he couldn’t even get out of.

Light came only after he closed his eyes and accepted the water.

%%%

Raphael frowned when he woke up to grey walls and an oxygen mask on his face. It wasn't that he wasn't relieved about being alive, it was more a nagging worry about how he got where he was. As he shifted around to get comfortable, he ended up realizing he was in a hospital bed. More importantly, somebody was holding his hand.

His gaze drifted to the right, where Leonardo- Gosh darn Leonardo- was sitting on a fold out chair. His hold on Raphael's hand was loose, as he was leaning forward and mostly asleep, but it was probably a death grip sometime before that.

The hothead swallowed down the bitterness that threatened to rear its ugly head, and greeted Leonardo softly, half hoping he wouldn't wake up, "Hey."

Of course, with their Turtle Luck, Leonardo's eyes snapped open as he shot up, blinking sleep out of blurry eyes before he looked at Raphael owlishly. "Oh, hey. How're you feeling?"

"Good," He was not good. His throat hurt and it felt like there was still water in his lungs. He was choking and suffocating and angry, but nothing else would come out of his mouth, the lie rolling off his tongue smoothly.

"I cannot believe," Leonardo mused, hopefully missing Raphael's discomfort, "that you woke up seconds after I wrestled Don to sleep."

As much as he wanted to stay upset, the younger's face relaxed as a short, rasping laugh escaped him, "It's just a habit of ours, I guess."

Leonardo smiled, but it soon faded, leaving him to toy with Raphael's hand as he spoke, words now very serious, "What happened out there? More accurately, what were you thinking?"

And there it was again. The whole reason he left in the first place. Raphael couldn't stop the new wave of anger that rushed in, but he could keep control of his big mouth for at least a minute, "I don't know. I just kept moving, I didn't want someone to die because of some hesitation."

"You could have called me!" Leonardo blurted out, then flinched, and Raphael couldn't help the satisfaction that followed, "Or Donnie, or even Mikey, or April or Casey or literally anyone for backup. You're so lucky that Donnie tracks us and that we found you when we did-"

"I'm sorry, backtrack just a second. He what?" Had he misheard his older brother? There was no way.

"Well," Leonardo began with a little smirk, "Neither of us are supposed to know, so don't say anything about it."

So he had heard the other right. "I- Okay?" He still had to agree, even if he didn't entirely know what he was agreeing to, nor what agreeing to it would start.

The oldest grinned for just a second before going serious again. That was a bad habit they would definitely need to break. "Okay but, seriously, if you find something like that, please call for a partner or backup, something in case anything like that happens again. If you had stayed under longer, you could've drowned."

Darn Leonardo and his magic ability to make anyone guilty, even without realizing it. Raphael sighed softly and resigned himself to his fate, "Sorry."

"It's fine, I'm just worrying," Leonardo quickly reassured.

The two settled into silence after that for a long moment, each doing their own thing, before Raphael spoke up, "So," he began with a mischievous grin, "About those trackers?"