My sister is watching Brooklyn 99 and out of all of the episodes I walked into...Mister Raphael/Alan Ritchson himself shows up!!!!
AH MY HEART !!!
Sorry, it just startled me to see this perfect and handsome face pop up in my ask box. And that's a funny coincidence, I was just thinking about him and his movie Dark Cicada Web 3301 !
Thank you for this ! I didn't know about Brooklyn 99
Glad for the distraction of inventory for once, Stacey hummed along to the music in the shop, piped in from her phone. It was louder than she usually kept it, but it was nearing midday on a Wednesday, which was one of their slowest times. That, and loud music rarely offended those who frequented bike shops, so she wasn’t concerned about it in the least. Having familiar music and the tedious task of doing the inventory required to shelve new product was enough to keep her mind busy. At least busy enough to keep her overwhelming fears and anxiety at bay. When she was done, she might even prop the door to the shop open and see if they needed an extra hand with any of the bikes they were currently working on. That required even more focus and attention.
Deep back in the shelves, she barely heard the jingle of the bells on the door over the electric guitar riff of the current song. Pausing for a moment as she lifted a set of mufflers to the shelf, she raised an eyebrow, wondering if she heard them at all. “I’ll be up in a minute,” she called out, sliding the box onto the shelf and marking the inventory list on her tablet. Face down, scrolling through the list to see how much more she had to go through, she wandered the familiar shelving aisles out of memory, not looking up until the last one dumped her out at the front desk.
“You keep your hands where I can see ‘em, and your bitch mouth shut.”
Gripping the tablet tightly, the breath went straight out of her chest. She knew she needed her fighting face on that day, but needing it to deal with her father was not what she had intended. The whole day had to be some kind of joke, but it really wasn’t funny. Maybe a nightmare. Maybe it was another nightmare and she’d wake up sweaty with her heart pounding, next to Raph, who would help calm her down and make her feel safe enough to fall back asleep into dreamless dreams. Only she stayed right there, eyes fixed on the balding, snarling man in front of her. “You aren’t supposed to be here,” she rasped, hating how her throat dried out and betrayed her emotions. She was a grown-ass woman, she shouldn’t be afraid of her father.
“Middle of the damn day,” Eli answered, hands stuffed into the pockets of his jacket. “I can do as I fucking please. Last I checked that fucker that was there last time was the ‘nightwatcher,’ not the ‘daywatcher.’ Maybe I’m just looking for parts.”
Squaring her shoulders, Stacey did everything she could to keep her breathing even. She learned at a very young age that showing any weakness only encouraged him… although any response did, to be true. If she acted like she didn’t care, if she acted apologetic for whatever imagined fault, if she was defensive, if she yelled back… it didn’t matter. The end game had always been the same, just varying degrees. She was left battered, bruised, bloody and broken. A small terror clawed its way up her throat, one that hadn’t been a factor before. It wasn’t just her that could get hurt that time. “You need to leave,” she tried to say, but it came out as a meek whisper. Slowly she reached for the phone on the counter, but stopped the instant one of his hands pulled out of his pocket just enough to show the dark black metal of a gun in his grip.
“I wouldn’t do that, Rue, come on. I know you’re stupid, but how many times we gotta go through the fact that you don’t call the cops?” He moved menacingly towards the counter, shaking his head. His inflection on the words brought at least a dozen memories bubbling out of the depths of her mind, where she had stashed them, trying to forget them. She hadn’t heard her middle name since the last time he had addressed her by it, forever amused with how clever he felt for having given her the moniker, for ruing the day she had been born.
Finding herself subconsciously covering her stomach with the tablet, like it was some kind of shield, gave her a moment of pause. Surely, a baby scared her, but not more than the situation in front of her. She had no idea what she was going to do, keep it or not, but she knew damn well that she wouldn’t let Eli take that choice away from her. He had taken enough from her. “Why are you here?” she asked, trying to do anything to stall the inevitable, draw out conversation for the hopes maybe one of the guys would come in from the garage. How would that go, though, really? One of them might get themselves shot, and she didn’t know if she’d ever be able to forgive herself if it was Jax.
“We got shit to settle, little girl,” he said, his eyes narrowing. “Your friend put me in the hospital for a while. My head ain’t been right since.”
“I don’t even know the Nightwatcher, but I doubt he did that much damage,” she answered, her own eyes narrowing in response. Protective hackles up, she couldn’t help herself from continuing. “Your head has never been right, can’t blame that on a vigilante.”
Slapping his free hand on the counter, the glass shuddered and she couldn’t help but avert her eyes momentarily. The old “give a penny - take a penny” cup rattled, the loose coins jostling from the impact. She forced her eyes back up, up to the reddening face that was a tell-tale sign that conversation was almost over and time to move to stage two, his favorite. His nose, bloated and pock-marked from years of alcohol abuse crinkled and purpled as he replied. “You never could learn to watch your mouth, could you? Always lippin’ off, gettin’ yourself in trouble. Well, there ain’t no big burly fucker lurking in the shadows this time, is there? You’re gonna pay for humiliating me, making me look like a pussy at that hospital. All the fucking bills that came for that shit.”
“If it’s money you want, fucking take it,” she snapped, her rage and fear hitting a boiling point. Rage at the situation, and fear because he was right. Raph wasn’t there, couldn’t always be there. Eli would always be the one lurking in her shadows, the one skeleton that refused to stay in its closet. “Take the entire till, I don’t care.”
“I don’t want your fucking money,” he snarled, the point of the pistol forcing an outline against the fabric of his jacket as he pushed it forward. He began moving around the counter, and Stacey instinctively pivoted to keep facing him, but tried to move backwards as well. “Money can’t fix what you did. You did this to me. You made people laugh at me. You disrespected me.”
“I didn’t do anything,” Stacey argued, hoping, willing someone to walk into the shop. Wondering how long he had been watching her to figure out the best time to hit the shop, or if it had just been blind luck that seemed to ever-favor him? “You ruin your own life, Eli. I’ve been out of it for over ten years.”
“You!” he snapped, finally pulling the gun entirely out of his pocket and jabbing it in her direction. Nausea gripped her, scared and hating herself for being scared both at the same time. It was an escalation for him to come at her with a weapon other than his hands or whatever he could get his hands on. He had thought this out, and why, why did it have to be that day of all days? Why the day she knew she had another life inside of her, that she was responsible for? A life that was just barely in existence and already subject to the abuse and fear she had known since she herself was a baby? “It’s always been you, my life was great before you came along and ruined it! And then you dragged in that… that… piece of shit to hurt me!”
“I don’t know who that was!” she lied, but her anger was true. It reached a boiling point, forgetting any plan of trying to calm him down. “It was the Nightwatcher and he was your karma! Karma for all the years of you beating the shit out of me! You deserved it!”
“You little bitch,” he snarled, backing her against the wall and lifting the gun in a backhand gesture. “You earned all those. I shoulda fucked you up worse, look how you turned out.”
“I wish he’d killed you!” she snapped, feeling like she was fifteen again, full of rage, fear and cornered like an animal. She had stood up to him then, and it had almost cost her life. There was so much more for her to live for now, even more fight balling her hands into tight fists.
“You never learn, Rue,” he said in a shaky whisper, tinged with something that sounded like macabre disappointment. His face reddening, she anticipated what was next, and readied herself. Over the years she had taken a few self defense classes, but it just never seemed to be the information she was looking for. She had needed to know how to fight, and that had come along with Raphael. He had helped her some, but struggled to some degree when it came to application. Forever concerned with hurting her, he had deferred to his father once she was ready to test her skills. Raph and Splinter had been excellent teachers, even if she paled in comparison to the boys. She simply couldn’t fail them in that moment.
As he swung the gun down towards her, she stepped forward, startling him in that she didn’t flinch away. Blocking his forearm with her own forearm, she struck out straight, aiming for his throat. She hit true, even if it wasn’t as solid as she would’ve liked due to him stumbling backwards a little. Moving in close again, she kept the space tight, knowing it made aiming the gun more difficult, and that was her best defense. She had very little chance of wrestling it from him grip successfully.
Eli tried bringing the gun up again, and she threw her weight into slamming that arm against the wall. It worked, but at a cost. While she directed her attention at the gun, he was more focused on disabling her, and brought a knee up hard into her stomach. She tried to ignore the fear that bubbled inside of her, quelling the anxiety that came with it. That wasn’t something she could spend focus on, and just as she started to try and get herself upright again, Eli brought an elbow down on her upper back. A fierce cry of frustration wrenched out of her, and she used all the energy she could find into shoving him.
The training had been useless. He was still going to win. He always won, always got his way. Only this time he wouldn’t settle for almost killing her.
Just as panic started to grip her, there was a loud impact from the front of the store, followed by a violent jingling of the bells tied to the door. Wide-eyed, she failed her training again, allowing her attention to be drawn to the source of the commotion just as the glass door swung completely wide and past its hinge stops, shattering in a burst of glistening light. To the side of it was a raging man, his boot coming down from kicking the door in. While it was physically the man she loved, his face was twisted into a blind fury, eyes far gone from those with which he looked at her. Shirtless, in only sweatpants and boots, each muscle in his body flexed, coiled and taut as he stomped through the threshold.
However, her attention had been distracted too long. Her arm was grabbed, and she was swung violently into hold. Eli twisted her arm up behind her back, yanking upward with enough force that there was a sickening pop, and Stacey couldn’t help but cry out. The pain was excruciating, and would’ve dropped her if Eli hadn’t maintained such a forceful grip. He had dislocated her shoulder, but she tried to retain focus on the situation, especially as she felt the cold barrel tip of the pistol press underneath her jaw.
“Not another step!” he yelled at Raph, who acquiesced, but not without visible restraint. His chest heaved, his shoulders were bound up and fists balled tightly and shaking. Eyes unblinking, fixed solely on Eli, his nose and lip were curled in fury and disgust.
“Let her fuckin’ go,” he snarled, his voice expressing no mercy, no hesitation. It was cold, devoid of any of the kindness she heard in it. A wise man would’ve obeyed instantly, seeing his fate as clearly as if it had been spelled out in front of him. Eli was not a wise man though, and made no motion in response. “NOW!”
The door from the garage banged open, a bewildered and furious Jackson attached to the doorknob, followed by one of the mechanics. For a brief second, his face went white as a sheet as he saw Stacey’s position within Eli’s grip, but his color came back when he saw Raphael just beyond the doorway. He stepped more in front of the young mechanic, blocking him. “Yer outnumbered, Eli. Let ‘er go and ya might live.”
“Not before I fuckin’ kill her, you useless piece of shit old man!” Eli yelled, but Stacey was watching Raph. Eli had evidently let his own attention be diverted by Jax, and Raph moved almost too quickly to see in response. Snatching a large piece of glass from the doorframe, he flicked it exactly like she had seen him use shuriken in training. Even knowing his aim was precise, she couldn’t help but flinch her eyes closed as it flashed towards her. The gun dropped away from her jaw at the same time Eli let out a yell, bouncing off her hip before clattering to the floor. Opening her eyes, she briefly saw the jagged glass sticking out of his wrist before doing her best to move away from him, turning in a motion that untwisted her arm and shot bolts of pain back through it. Yelling at the wall, she had no fear of the man now behind her, only trying to give him room to do what he needed to do.
There was only a roar of rage in response before two loud boot strides. Eli still held her arm and tried to pull her back, unwilling to give up his hostage. His grip went slack as the two boots came flying over the counter, connecting with his chest, the entire weight and kinetic motion of the man behind them plowing him against the wall. Staggering out the rest of the way from behind the counter, she made her way to a nearby stock shelf and sagged against it, but turned herself to watch.
“Girl!” Jax addressed her in a harsh whisper, coming up beside her. “Are you-”
Knowing the questioning that would start, Stacey waved him silent, she didn’t have the focus or energy to talk about it or move away. She was transfixed on Raph, who had somehow fluidly landed in a way that kept him from hitting his back on the counter. He stooped and picked up Eli roughly by the front of his jacket, slamming him against the wall hard enough to create an inward dent in the wall, breaking the drywall. “Never touch her!” he seethed, his fist connecting with Eli’s face, his jaw moving at an unnatural angle to his face. “Never!”
“Call the cops,” Stacey whispered, immobilized. It was like watching a train wreck long-coming, like her entire life had been hurtling towards that very moment, it had always been escapable. There were flashes in her mind, remembering the dark night Raph had also come to her aid, though he had been the Nightwatcher, then. Something about him standing in her shop, literally stripped down of his gear made it all that much more realistic. There was no dim light, concussion or dark visors to add surreal effect. Raph stood before her, Eli held in his death grip, fist pulled back for another hit. “He’s gonna kill him.”
“Already had Thomas call,” Jax whispered, just as stunned at the scene in front of him. “Come on, let’s get you in the garage, look you over…”
“No,” she resisted bluntly, hardly blinking and supporting her right arm, trying to keep the weight of it from pulling on the tendons and ligaments. She was at war within herself, part of her wanting nothing more but to watch Raph pummel him into non-existence, bringing his plague on her life to a final end. There would be no self-defense plea with that, however, and there was no jury in New York that would show forgiveness to a hulking black man that beat another man to death with his bare hands. He’d be put away forever, emotional duress wouldn’t even be a blip on their radar. That was only saved for rich, young, “troubled” white men. “I have to stay.”
In between hits, Eli made a feeble attempt at a swing towards Raph with the arm that still had glass sticking out of it. Grabbing the hand and stretching it above Eli, he used his other hand to pinch the glass and shove it the rest of the way through his wrist, yanking roughly out the other side. A cry that was equal parts pain and guttural retching ripped out of Eli. Blood streamed out of his arm, dark and glistening as it dropped to the ground.
How many times had that been her own blood? How many times had she been retching, crying, broken and bleeding at his hands? Watching with fury that raised her to a level of emotional detachment, she didn’t flinch as Raph twisted and rammed him headfirst into the counter, letting him drop to the ground. There was no doubt inside her that he deserved the punishment, earned all the pain numerous times over. Something about Raph cracking his neck as he looked down at the pathetic man sent her crashing back down into emotions, the familiarity reminding her of the risks, exactly what was at stake. Yet her voice strangled and stopped in her throat, unable to call out to him, unable to make him stop. Was Eli being out of her life more important than what made her life worth living?
“Raph!” a familiar voice came from the doorway, calling his attention like she couldn’t. Donatello skidded through the door and over the glass, his eyes rapidly taking in the entire scene around him. He didn’t have the dedication Raph had coming through the door, and his eyes rested on her, wincing painfully before settling back on his brother. “Raph, you have to disengage, police are en route.”
“Better be bringin’ a body bag,” Raph grunted, grabbing up Eli off the floor again by the scruff, giving him solid kicks to the ribs and gut before dragging him over to the glass.
Panic etched lines clearly over Donnie’s face, and he took one step towards Raph before the pure hatred on the face looking back at him made him stop in his tracks. “You can’t,” Donnie implored, his voice quiet.
“I can,” Raph snapped, heaving Eli up higher before throwing him down onto the glass, hard. “And I will.”
Looking up, Donnie locked eyes with Stacey, pleading and apologetic. It was no secret amongst the family that she was generally the most effective at calming him down, and no doubt the same chain of events she feared if Raph did kill Eli was running through his head, just with millions of other possibilities that hadn’t even occurred to her yet. She looked back hopelessly, unsure of how to stop the freight train he had become, not entirely sure if he'd even see her through the red haze of righteous punishment. Giving him a little shake of her head, unable to shrug, she turned and looked at Jax.
“Aww hell, girl,” he sighed, shaking his own head down at his boots. “This is gonna hurt tomorrow.” Walking slowly over to Donnie, he scratched at his silver beard as Raph stomped and rolled Eli into the shattered glass. He gave Donnie a nod, his posture giving certainty of support.
“Raph, enough, you need to take a step-”
“Enough?!” Raph snapped, glass crumbling under his boot hell as he pivoted to look at his brother. “No! Enough was a long fuckin’ time ago. He had his fuckin’ chance before he… before he…” Unable to even finish his sentence, Raph kicked the man on the floor again.
“Enough for you,” Donnie pleaded, hands together. “Don't do this to yourself. Stacey’s hurt and needs-”
“Then check her!” Raph was beyond reason, a man drop kicked past his breaking point and unable to see his way back. She didn't take it personally, his faltering at not being able to even mention what happened showed his true emotion, blanketed by rage. “I ain't doin’ shit to myself but makin’ sure this piece of fuckin’ shit never breathes the same air as her again!”
As he stooped to grab up Eli again, Donnie nodded at Jax and they both rushed forward, each grabbing an arm and hauling Raphael backwards as abruptly as they could. He immediately struggled back up to his feet, but before he could lash out at them for their perceived betrayal, Stacey stepped in front of him, blocking most of his view of Eli. He still fought to release their grips, however the majority of his attention was focused on her. “Get away from him. Move, Stacey.”
“No,” she said simply, unblinking. Her calm voice belied the maelstrom of emotions within her. “You've done enough.”
“How could you… but he… he was…” Raph stammered angrily, words getting jumbled and difficult for him as they tended to when he was emotional. He yanked his arm free from Jax and shot a glare at Donnie before looking back at her. His teeth were clenched tightly, jaw muscle flexing. “You hafta understand.”
Taking a deep breath, she turned and looked at the bloody mess on the floor behind her. Eli was still breathing, but long past consciousness. A large portion of her wanted to agree and step aside, the vindictive part of her that knew no matter how much pain he felt, he'd never understand how much he inflicted. He wasn't fixable, long past any hope of saving as a person, if he ever had been. That death right then and there would be better than he deserved… but maybe that was it. That was the thought that formed into how to reason with Raph, to make him see.
“I do understand, and I want to just let you fucking wreck him,” she started, her own nose curling into something of a snarl, letting the depth of her anger show to him. “I want him to die. I want him to suffer. I want him to die and be brought back just to fucking die again.” Keeping her eyes on him, she saw the conflict of emotions in his face. He was averting his eyes, and to most people he would’ve just looked like an angry, caged animal. But she had never spoken like that to him, generally his voice of calm and reason; yet this time, she was mirroring his own thoughts, his own anger. That alone gave him pause, and was likely one of the few things from keeping him from pushing past her to finish what he started. “But he doesn’t deserve death. He deserves to live through the pain and fucking agony that healing up from this is going to cause.”
Turning away from him, she faced her father, lying facedown on the ground in front of her. A role reversal that got her ire back up, her nails digging into her palms as her hands flexed into tight fists, letting the pain in her right arm fuel her fire. Knowing what Raph didn’t know, that he had risked the life of his unborn, and for all she knew, the impact to her abdomen had ruined. The thought made her anger flare, and she grit her teeth. His arm had come to rest at an odd angle, his wrist bent so his hand was folded under it. Stepping forward in the glass, she stared at him, her pulse racing. “He deserves to suffer!” Raising a foot, she stomped down on his forearm, bones in his own arm making the unmistakable crack of breaking. “He doesn’t deserve to make you go to jail! He doesn’t get to take everything I’ve worked for!”
Once she released her anger, there was no reining it back in. Everything came out in a flood, each point physically made with a stomp to his body, grinding the glass deeper into his flesh. “He has no right! He doesn’t get to take you from me! He doesn’t get to ruin my life, over over and fucking over! He has to live with what he’s fucking done! He has to see! He doesn’t get the easy way out! HE HAS TO FUCKING PAY!” Her dialogue turned into raging growls, her temper past forming words as she kicked and stomped.
The world around her blurred, and she was vaguely aware of a restraining hand on her good arm, which she tried to yank away from. “No! No! He deserves to dig every piece of this glass out of his body!” It was getting harder to stomp on Eli, and she noticed he somehow seemed to be getting farther away. Scowling she tried to concentrate, only to realize it was herself being slowly, gently moved backward. Lunging forward against the grip, she tried kicking again, only to find herself lifted off the ground, a firm arm wrapped around her hips. Letting out a strangled cry of anguish, she struggled futilely as she was carried away into the stock area, the shelves blocking her view from the target of her rage.
“Stacey, you gotta calm down,” came Raph’s low voice, still holding her off the ground. “Come on.”
“Put me down!” she insisted, pressing down on his arm with her left hand, though it held tight with no give. “Let me go!”
“I can’t do that,” he answered, his voice close behind her and obviously forced calm. “Not until you calm down. You’re gonna hurt yourself more.”
The shelves around her blurred, and she tried leaning forward, away from Raph and felt heavy drops of tears fall from her face. She had no idea how long she had been crying, and she grabbed her right arm as the shifting gravity pulled on the joint, causing more pain. “I don’t care! I don’t care!...” she repeated over and over, the words turning into sobs that racked her body.
Slowly she was lowered to the floor, and her knees buckled under her, yet she was held steady. “But I do, I do… come on, it’s gonna be okay…” Raph assured her quietly, repeating himself as she sobbed. When words failed her again and all the strength left her body, the flood receding as quickly as it had taken over her, he turned her carefully, pulling her into his chest and holding her protectively. Crying against his skin, she let herself sink into the feeling, his hand stroking her hair and rubbing her back. “You’re gonna be okay, it’s okay, I’m here…”
As her anger ebbed, the pain swept back in, only adding to her tears. She was grateful for his strength, otherwise she was positive she’d just let herself fall to the floor, wishing everything away. It didn’t escape her the mental strength it must’ve taken him to quell his own anger and see to her. Guilt crept in all over, guilt for not calming him like she had meant to, guilt for bringing him into the mess, guilt for him not knowing the stakes and not having the strength to tell him, guilt for everything. “I’m sorry, I’m so sorry…”
“Don’t you be,” he asserted, shushing her quietly, continuing to hold her, he cheek against the top of her head.
“The police are here,” Donnie said from the front of the store where he’d been quietly discussing things with Jax.
She felt Raph’s posture change, his face lifting to look down the stock shelves. “We’re staying here.”
“Already accounted for, we’ve got this,” Donnie answered, before clearing his throat as the officers walked up to the doorway, their radios announcing their presence. “Hello officers, you’re going to have to call in for two ambulances, one for the perp here and the other for the victim.”
“What in the hell happened here?” one officer asked as the other radioed in the requested EMT support.
“He fell through the door,” Jax answered confidently.
There was a long pause, followed by footsteps crinkling in the glass before the officer answered. “How many times?”
“A few,” Jax said with a sniff, and Stacey knew he was shrugging differentially as he was wont to do when he figured someone had gotten what they deserved. “Clumsy guy, that one. His gun is behind the counter over there, he came after Stacey with it. She’s over in back, calmin’ down.”
“We’re going to need to talk to her,” the officer insisted, getting a wry chuckle out of the old man.
“Good luck with that.”
***
Donnie walked over to the ambulance, sitting with a stubborn Stacey perched at the end of a gurney, wrapped in a blanket. One hand held it, the other tucked into a temporary sling, the paramedics had seen to resetting her shoulder at her insistence. Raph was busy giving his statement to the police, still inside the buildings office where it could be completed in privacy. Leaning his shoulder against the back edge of the rig, he nodded at the EMTs, who moved off to work on entering information into the computer and talking to each other to give them some amount of privacy.
“You still trying to insist you don’t need to go in?” he asked, well aware of the difficulty she’d been giving the paramedics. She sure could be an awful lot like his brother at times, he thought idly, but was still shocked at her reaction to Eli. He’d never seen her lose it like that before, and certainly never to a point that she fought Raph when he tried to calm her down. It was a role reversal, for sure.
“I don’t,” Stacey sniffed, rubbing at a puffy eye with the edge of the blanket. Her voice was raspy and quiet, and she wouldn’t make eye contact with him. “I’ve had worse. My arm is back in. The rest is just bruising. Some ibuprofen and rest for a few days and I’ll be fine.”
“You should really let them scan the shoulder, make sure there isn’t any ligament tearing,” Donnie encouraged, knowing she’d just refuse his advice as much as the EMTs. If anyone had a chance of convincing her, it was Raph, and he wasn’t on hand. “And ibuprofen… Stacey, you’re going to need anti-inflammatories, but did you… did you get that test? I hate asking, but you can’t take ibuprofen if you’re…”
Stacey groaned, burying her face in her free hand, cloaking her face with the blanket. “I can’t… Donnie… he kicked me in the stomach. What if… what the hell do I do?” Her voice was breaking and muffled by the blanket, but he heard enough to understand. Definitely to understand the excess of her emotional reaction beyond her norm. He really wasn’t sure how to answer, rolling over the basic facts he knew off the top of his head, which wasn’t close to as much as he wished he did. Early on, risk of miscarriage depended on the woman, it could be higher or lower. If the impact did cause a miscarriage, there wasn’t much they could do to let her know one way or another, it was too early to check with a scan. On the other hand, he really did feel it was best that she get her arm checked and some appropriate medication for inflammation.
“They’d be able to give you medication for the inflammation and check your arm,” he said, mirroring his thoughts. “But there wouldn’t be much else they can do.”
“Then I’m not going,” she answered stubbornly, without hesitation. “I’ll just ice it. It’ll be fine.”
“Stacey,” he implored, taking off his glasses to rub his eyes. “You’re going to have to tell him.”
“If I’m losing it, I’m not saying anything,” she answered in a harsh whisper. “Not a damn word. He’d kill Eli, and he just barely stopped me from doing it just now. Let me deal with it.”
“What are you two on about now?” Raph asked, walking up behind Donnie with purposeful strides. Looking up at Stacey with concern, he shot daggers briefly at Donnie before looking back to her.
“I’m trying to talk her into going to the hospital,” Donnie answered with a heavy sigh, ruffling his hair in frustration. He hated secrets in any scenario, but keeping something that big from Raph was like carrying a bomb. If he got any inclination that he had known and not told him, he’d kill him, or at the very least, make him wish that he were dead. “Unsuccessfully.”
With a frown, Raph stepped up onto the back of the ambulance, crouching and hunching to fit in the small space. Resting a hand on her thigh, he tried to catch her eyes with his, and frowned harder when she avoided him. “Angel, if Donnie thinks you should go, maybe it’d be good,” he said, as gently as he could, with a small tinge in his voice making it evident that he was aware he sounded hypocritical.
Rubbing her face against the blanket edge again, she peeked in his general direction, but still not meeting his eyes. She let the fabric go to play with a strand of his hair, focusing on it rather than his face. “I really don’t think I need to. My shoulder is as good as it can be, we can just go home and ice it, okay? If it isn’t healing right, then I’ll go to the doctor.”
Donnie shifted away uncomfortably, the moment between the two of them becoming personal enough that he felt more like a third wheel than usual. Wishing he had his holo to look at, checking her stats for himself, and able to look up information he didn’t have, he settled on kicking some gravel around. He’d gotten himself into the middle of a mess, that was for sure, and with two of the most stubborn people in the family, to boot. Not that Stacey was, technically or legally, but for all intents and purposes she was. Either way, being stuck between her and his brother was a nightmare.
“You sure you don’t need to just go get checked out? For everything? I mean, that was…”
“I’m sure. It’s just fucking Eli, Raph. Not my first rodeo. I just want to go home.” He heard Raph sigh heavily, knowing his brother was likely struggling with making her happy and doing what he felt was right. “Please?”
“Alright… alright. But if Donnie says you gotta go in to get checked, you gotta go, okay?” Raph relented after a long pause. “Right, Donnie?”
“Yeah, absolutely,” Donnie responded, rubbing the back of his neck and glad his face was turned away.
“Okay. I promise.” Stacey’s voice was small and vulnerable, and it caused him true pain that she wouldn’t just tell Raph why. But it wasn’t his problem, not his choice. That was hers and hers alone to make.
