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Slow Suicide

It’s the love of guilt that forms the habit

Created on 2007-06-21 03:07:58 (#13209925), last updated 2007-10-06

241 comments received, 346 comments posted

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4 Journal Entries, 6 Tags, 0 Memories, 0 Virtual Gifts, 15 Userpics

Basic Info

Name:	Raphael Hamato

Bio

One day, thirty-four years ago, four common pet turtles took part in an unlikely series of events that led them to wind up in the sewers of New York, covered in a mysterious green ooze, and found by a rat. The substance turned out to be a mutagen developed by the TGRI company and it caused all of them to mutate into humanoid beings.

The rat, whom they called Splinter because of the walking stick he used, took them all in and raised them as his own children, teaching them the art of ninjitsu and the bushido code so that they'd be able to look after themselves in the future.

Like in any normal family, disagreements weren't uncommon. Raphael in particular tended to disagree the most, often disobeying the rules Splinter had set for them, such as not going out into the surface without permission. He never expected breaking such rules would bring more than a boring lecture and some sort of annoying punishment though, until the day when it all went wrong..

To calm his thirst for action Raphael had gone to the surface in search for some crooks to beat up, with his violent temper it didn't take long before he started getting carried away to the point of seriously injuring the men with his sai. New York was full of criminals anyway, surely no one would miss a couple of them. Unluckily for him, intervention decided to show up in the form of one of his brothers, the one he resented the most for many things, the oldest one, the "fearless leader": Leonardo.

On their way back to the lair Raphael learned from him that a strange package had arrived, it had been destined to Hamato Yoshi, Splinter's owner from back when he was still a regular rat, but it made little sense for it to arrive now that the man had been long dead and specially for it to be dropped of by the lair. However, Raph had more important things to worry about that some package. As soon as they arrived to the lair Splinter was there to greet them, asking them in an apparently casual way what they had been doing; Raph wasn't about to admit what he had done, if he could save himself the lecture then he'd give it a try, and so he lied, saying he had merely been out for a walk- But Leo couldn't lie to their father and master the way Raph did and, when confronted about it, he didn't think twice before telling the truth about what Raph had been doing on the surface. This, of course, earned the younger brother a lecture. He was just starting to get angry at Leo for ratting on him when Mikey, the youngest of the four, interceded. Punching Raph on the face to get him to chase after him.

By the time the chase was over, Leonardo and Splinter had left, and it was then that Mikey revealed his real plan to his brother: To sneak in and check the contents of the mysterious package without permission. They were at it in a flash.

To their disappointment, the package only contained old japanese scrolls and a rusty broken katana. Not all hope for some fun was lost yet though, Raph decided he could use this precious opportunity to take revenge on Leo and frame him for a crime he hadn't committed by leaving the katana in his brother's room. Leo had just returned to the lair at that moment and Mikey tried to warn Raph about it, but it was too late. The ancient katana carried a curse which possessed Raph, bringing out all of his aggression in a completely unrestrained fashion. The first target in sight was Michaelangelo; in Raph's mind, he deserved being killed in revenge for all of the jokes the younger one had ever pulled on him. Before he could deliver the finishing blow though, Leonardo, alarmed by Mikey's screams, arrived right on time to stop him.

That wasn't the end of it. Still possessed by the curse, Raphael now turned his aggression toward his older brother, the one he had always resented the most. It wasn't they first time they had fought and usually when they did Leonardo's well-studied skills and agility were an even match to Raphael's brute strength, but unrestrained as it was it didn't take long for the younger one to knock back his brother. Bored with how Leonardo had apparently been so easy to defeat Raph decided to go after Mikey again, but when he turned his back on Leo the older turtle threw one of his ninjaken at him, successfully distracting Raph long enough to jump at him and wound his leg with the other ninjaken, bringing him down temporarily.

It was then that Raph's emotional turmoil broke loose completely, confessing to his brother how he had wanted to frame him, blaming it all on Leo, and making sure to let him know just how much he hated him for being the better son.

Despite all this, Leonardo still offered his help, taking the blame and telling Raphael he'd find a way to help him as long as he let go of the cursed katana first. His brother's words were enough to make Raph successfully loosen his grip on it, dropping it on the floor.

Now that his common sense had returned Raphael almost panicked as he realized the gravity of the situation, for all he knew, Splinter could kick him out when he found out about what he had done; he wasn't the favorite, surely the punishment would be heavy on him. Leonardo remained calm and offered reasonable solutions, he would pick up the cursed sword with his own sword's sheath to avoid coming into contact with the curse and return it to its package to begin with. Meanwhile Raph calmed himself down and reasoned that he'd take responsibility for it, it was his fault after all; but as he was telling all of this to Leo his brother didn't seem to react. Raph insisted and the response he got was a hit on his leg's wound with the sword's sheath and harsh words from Leonardo. His older brother had been possessed by the curse.

While bearing his own brother's words of disappointment in him Raphael readied himself to attempt to take the sword away from Leo, realizing then that though he had not used his sai to attack while he had been possessed they were covered in blood, but where from? Suddenly it made sense. It was from the thugs he had been beating up earlier, even if he had lied to Splinter about not having done it he would've realized by the condition of his weapons and would've applied a harsher punishment for having disobeyed and lied had it not been for Leonardo telling the truth. His brother had actually done it for him, not against him as he had thought.

The fight took them to the lair's central room, there Raphael spotted Donatello and ran at him asking for help, but after having heard Mikey's story Don wasn't so sure about trusting his brother, specially not as he told him it was Leo the one who had gone mad now- that was, of course, until Leo showed up behind Raphael and slashed him with the cursed sword one more time. Donatello defended his injured brother, thus joining Leo's list of those that should be killed; Don managed to knock the older one down to the lower level of the central room, leaving him apparently unconscious. Raph tried to warn the worrisome brother against going to check on Leo, but his words fell on deaf ears.

Raphael went on the look for one of their cellshells, wanting to contact Splinter and tell him about what was going on; he came across Mikey in the way and the younger one wasn't being very cooperative. Before he realized it Raph was losing control again and came close to attacking Michelangelo again, Mikey dodged and ran out to the central room, finding Don knocked out on the lower level. Again, Raphael tried to warn him against going down, but Mikey still believed Raph to be the real menace and paid no attention to this, going down to check on Don.

Leonardo was down there. He tried to convince Mikey that Raph was indeed still the one he should look out for and not him as Raph insisted. Raph followed down to the lower level as well, wanting to protect his still sane brothers from Leo, fearing he might snap at them suddenly. Sure enough, Leo charged to attack Mikey fiercely, but Raphael had jumped in the way, taking the attack's full force. Severely wounded with eleven sword wounds plus the other three he had received earlier, Raphael almost collapsed in the spot, telling Mikey to run away and save himself.

Donatello had came back to consciousness by then and it was him who took on Leo next, managing to knock him out for a brief moment, but as soon as he was back on his feet Leonardo gave their brothers a lecture that made them all realize that his brother was being consumed by envy, things weren't as easy for him as they all thought they were either.

Again, Leonardo charged at them and Don, being the one in the best condition, went against him unarmed. Soon he was knocked down and Leo had raised his sword to deliver the finishing blow. Even with his injuries Raph tried to go help his brother, but Mikey didn't let go of him.

Then a clatter of metallic pieces was heard. Splinter had walked in on the horrible scene of his sons turned against one another.

Leonardo immediately turned to pay his respects and Splinter tried to talk some sense into him but it didn't quite work, he turned to attack his brothers again but Splinter stopped him, trying to help his son rid himself of the curse. However this wasn't working either, so Splinter decided to use the last option they had: He'd take the curse into his own body and then Leonardo would have to kill him with the cursed sword. No one wanted this to happen but there was no other way.

Now, with their father and master turned to ashes, the family began to crumble apart.

Donatello simply couldn't believe what had happened and blamed Leo for everything since he hadn't witnessed what went on before Splinter was stabbed; Michelangelo ran off to talk with April; Leonardo decided to travel to Japan and find the one who had sent the package in order to restore Splinter's honor; Raphael wanted to go with Leo. He followed him through the sewers, taking Leo's swords to him and offering to go along with him, he didn't want to just mope around and do nothing about the situation, he wanted to help, but Leo knocked him out with a single hit and vanished.

Once Raph woke up he still tried to catch up with his older brother, but by then it was impossible.

Donatello found him eventually and took him back to the lair to heal his physical injuries, there Raphael tried to live with Donny but it didn't take long before he couldn't stand his younger brother anymore and he left to make his own lair in another section of the sewers. From then on Raph focused himself even more on things such as working out and smoking to distract himself of the thoughts of the past, but from time to time these feelings of guilt and anger would pile up and become too much to handle; when this happened alcohol became his escape, and if that wasn't enough he'd painfully reopen the wounds that had been inflicted on him that time, thus never allowing the scars to heal completely.

Seventeen years had passed since that day when he suddenly received a call from Donatello. A wild mutant turtle had showed up in town and they decided to go check it out. It wasn't often that the brothers saw one another anymore, but they each had their reasons to be interested in this new turtle and so they worked as a team to try and steal him and take him back to Raph's lair. On their way they ran into Shadow Jones, Casey's adoptive daughter, who told them the guy that wild turtle had killed had been a friend of hers. They made up a lame excuse to cover up for their suspicious behavior and carried on with their plan.

Raphael's idea at first was to take this mutant turtle in and have someone to order around, but he wasn't quite prepared for the personality that came with the package. First the turtle began babbling on about nonsensical stuff such as that he was actually human being and so he tried to unsuccessfully take off the "mask" with one of Raph's sai, only managing to hurt himself. Then, after getting patched up and some explaining from Don combined with the news on T.V. about the kid he had killed which according to the turtle was actually him, all the babbling turned into angsting. Don left Raph on his own, haunted by memories of that day.

The younger turtle still wouldn't shut up, constantly repeating to himself the human name he claimed belonged to him; so Raphael gave him a new name: Renoir. He then told Renoir how he'd make him into a ninja and that he'd have to obey every one of Raph's orders since he had saved his life.

And that's how their sadomasochistic Master & Student relationship began~

Raph wanted to start training Renoir as soon as possible but the younger turtle turtle didn't show much predisposition for this, he kept moping around about his human life until Raphael decided to take him to the boy's funeral for him to see the body himself. They disguised themselves and went to the funeral, confirming that it was indeed the body of Augustus Amherst, the one Renoir claimed to be. Once again, they ran into Shadow, she was accompanied by a little girl this time. Raph promptly made up excuses for being there but then Renoir went and hugged the little girl, it turned out she was his little sister. Shadow was alarmed at the sight of the wild mutant turtle that had killed her friend hugging the little girl, and soon Michelangelo (who had been living with April and Casey ever since) came to the rescue.

It wasn't a happy reunion for the two brothers, and it was even worse as soon as Mikey realized Raph had taken the wild turtle into his care; while they got into a bit of a brawl Renoir ran off after Shadow and Carole, Raphael would catch up with him later and watch as he talked with Shadow about his life as Augustus.

Still not really believing the story about Renoir originally having been a human Raph continued harshly training the younger turtle. During one of the training sessions he made Renoir stand on one feet on a small log surrounded by broken glass while balancing himself and several buckets of water; of course the clumsy student ended up falling but surprisingly the broken glass hadn't been real, it was actually a hologram created by one of Donatello's ingenious inventions hidden inside the log, but now that Renoir had spilled the water all over it the machine had busted. Annoyed, Raphael made his way back to the old lair to try and get Don to fix it in exchange for some of Renoir's blood in which Donatello seemed extremely interested.

After ending up in yet another fight with his genius brother which only stopped as he was calmed down by the mere sight of a table that reminded him of Leo Raphael headed off to find Renoir, figuring the most likely place for him to be at would be with Shadow. As usual, he climbed into the apartment through the window, making sure to borrow a beer out of Mikey's fridge before doing anything else. Something on the kitchen's table caught his eye: It was a photo album. The first pages were filled with pictures from those happy days when they were still a family, when Splinter was alive, when Leo was there; but as he turned the pages further he came across pictures of Michelangelo's "new life", the fact that his brother seemed to be having such a good time on all of them while he had been suffering all those years angered him greatly. The pages kept turning and he kept drinking until he couldn't contain his anger anymore and crushed one of the bottles with his bare hands. The noise alarmed Mikey and Renoir who came running into the kitchen. Heavily intoxicated and enraged, the first thing Raphael did upon sighting his youngest brother was burst out yelling at him, irritated about Mikey's seemingly happier life, reminding him of how it had been their fault that their sensei had died, calling himself and his brother sinners and going on about how neither of them deserved to be happy.

Renoir tried to change the subject and brought up Donny. This hit a nerve for Raphael since he kept being coldly rejected by his brother and that hurt him deeply, the anger seemed to subside slightly and instead he broke into tears, but the drama didn't last long since soon enough all that alcohol showed its nastier side-effects, causing Raph to throw up and pass out.

While Raphael was passed out Mikey patched up his older brother's injured hand from crashing the bottle earlier. As soon as he woke up from his hangover Raph got up to leave, actually stopping to thank Mikey on his way out.

As he was heading back to his lair through the rooftops Raphael spotted one of Augustus friends', Davianna, walking into an alley apparently to help another girl who was forcefully being taken away by some guy but it actually turned out that it was all a trap to sell Davianna's body to the Purple Dragons. Never one to let crime get away Raph jumped right in to help her, beating the gang members easily. By the time he was almost done with them Renoir and Shadow arrived at the scene to help. Once they got rid of the criminals Shadow told Davianna that Augustus was still alive but that he had turned into a turtle, Davianna got ahead of her and assumed Raph was Augustus which he promptly agreed to and used to his advantage; Shadow played along, thinking that Raph probably had some good reason for this.. But actually? His only reason was to motivate Renoir- Well, more like blackmail him. If Renoir trained hard then perhaps he'd tell Davianna the truth.

Back in their lair Raph got a sudden call from Davianna one day, asking him to meet up with her at their "usual place". At hearing this Renoir immediately wanted to tag along, but Raphael handcuffed him down to some heavy weights and left on his own to the park. At first Raph's behavior arose suspicion from Davianna, he had no clue of what this "Augustus" was supposed to act like anyway, so he just went with the flow. It turned out the main purpose of the meeting was to give him a report Augustus and her had written together which had earned them a very low grade and now she wanted for him to correct it, Raphael took it to keep up the appearances and left.

Writing had never been Raph's strong point, so he called Shadow for some help. Coincidentally he found out that the report was about Mikey's first book, so he figured the best course of action would be to go have a talk with him about it. Before Raph headed off to Shadow's place Renoir showed up at the park, so he took him along.

Once they got to the apartment Shadow welcomed them with the news that Mikey was currently too busy writing his new book and wouldn't be able to help them, so she offered her help instead since she had already read the books while Raph himself hadn't even showed any interest in them before. Raphael insisted though and Shadow continued her attempts to dissuade him rather desperately. The reason became clear as soon as Raphael began to read the report.. "A story about four brothers who lost all trust in each other and caused the death of their sensei....". He didn't need to be a genius to figure out where little Mikey had got his inspiration from and he wasn't happy about it.

Raphael knocked down the door to Michelangelo's room, attacking him with an aggressive verbal attack to begin with, calling him a greedy bastard for making money out of their past. The sharp words were soon followed by an even sharper punch. Michelangelo counterattacked with what hurt Raphael the most: The truth of their current reality. He went on about how Raphael had grown to hate who he had become so much that nowadays he even avoided mirrors and how now his real reason for taking in Renoir was to use him as a reflection of his old self. Michelangelo knew it: His older brother was scared of the present and of what the future might bring. The younger turtle's words only managed to enrage Raph further though and he wound up breaking Mikey's hands; in this berserk state Raphael came close to killing Mikey, he would have had it not been for Shadow hitting him on the back of the head with a hockey stick, turning his anger toward her. Luckily Raph managed to regain some of his self-control before he could injure Shadow.

When it hit him what he had just done Raphael was immediately filled with guilt and regret, he tried to apologize and help his brother but Michelangelo pretty much jumped away from his touch and asked him to go away. In his current state Raphael took that pretty harshly, feeling despised and rejected all over again, much like it had happened with Don. He decided it was time to return to his lair and hole himself up there. Taking some beers along Raph made his way out of there, but not without having Renoir tell him how much he hated him.

Feeling completely unwanted, even by himself, Raphael drank and hurt himself by re-opening the old scars until he passed out. Later he'd slowly regain consciousness as he felt someone shake him by the shoulders, when he began to open his eyes though the face he saw was his own and he tried to strangle that vision; however, as his sight cleared up, he realized it was actually Renoir he was strangling and promptly let go of him. Once again he found himself hurting those dear to him, he didn't want to do that again, Raphael was terrified he'd end up killing one of them someday. In his desperation he even asked Renoir to kill him and put an end to the danger he represented.

Rather than complying to his master's orders though, Renoir began to lecture him. Self-injury as punishment for someone who hated himself was obviously not going to get him anywhere, so to prove his point Renoir hurt himself instead, one slash for hurting Shadow, another one for hurting Mikey, and then he turned the sai toward his neck, asking Raphael how would he deal with his loneliness if he were to die. This made Raph react enough to stop Renoir from hurting himself any further. He wouldn't admit he needed Renoir and even told him to leave if he wanted to because there was no reason for him to stay with an old man like himself. Renoir didn't leave though, instead (after gloating a little about having lectured his master) he said he'd stay to stop him from doing any more stupid things and then, in a very touching moment for Raph, he kneeled and bowed to Raphael, calling him master. Raph mimicked the action, acknowledging his student.

Things improved between them after that and they went back to the usual training until Casey and April, who had finally returned from their second honeymoon, paid them a visit. Now that Casey and Raph were together they made sure to give Renoir a nice initiation, making him drink around twenty bottles of beer and then laughing their asses off as he threw up. After a little rescuing by April, Renoir explained to them that he was Augustus and they believed him right away.

When the topic of conversation changed to the annual Christmas eve party things turned a bit sour. Raph didn't want to go and have to see Mikey, he was still angry at him for using their lives to make money out of them. April made him read the after-word of Mikey's new book though, in which he explained how he truly felt about using their past for base the books off of. Learning how Michelangelo actually felt about it convinced Raph of going to the party.

On the day of Christmas Eve, before heading to the party, Raphael took Renoir to visit his little sister Carole at the hospital, while they were there Davianna and Shadow arrived as well. Carole knew that Renoir was Augustus, but Davianna still believe Raph to be him; so in an attempt to keep her from finding out the truth Raphael quickly decided to take her out to the rooftops and distract her. Up there Davianna started talking about her memories with Augustus, things of which Raph had no clue about so he just played along as usual, but then Davianna leaned in to kiss him, not really knowing what else to do Raphael nervously approached her- only to be stopped midway by Davianna who was staring at him in shock while claiming that he wasn't Augustus. Apparently Augustus and her had made a promise for them not to kiss until she was eighteen. Now the secret was out. Raphael tried to tell her that Renoir was actually Augustus, but the poor girl had her heart crushed and didn't believe it at all. They returned to the hospital after this and Davianna stormed off, calling everyone a liar. Shadow goes after her, Raph tells Renoir he'll go on ahead to the party and leaves.

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