When I finally hear Raph approaching I know immediately something is off. His footsteps are too slow, not hasty enough, they're dragging as if for some reason he doesn't want to come home.
I'm confused and unsure of what to do. I want to run to him, but at the same time my brain won't come up with a valid excuse as to what is happening. And so I keep walking in crooked circles somewhere close to our home until finally, I see him appear from behind a tree.
'Raph!' I immediately call out. 'What happened?'
He doesn't look good. His face is too pale to be healthy and he is slightly swaying as if struggling with his balance. When I reach him, he only lets himself fall towards me, resting his forehead on my shoulder and breathing heavily. I'm not quite sure what to do with this. I always see Raph as the strong one in our relationship and without him saying anything and no clues to go off of, I feel helpless. The only thing that comes to mind is to check him over for injuries, but he seems fine. I can't see or smell any blood, no bruises either and the only thing that is really off is how he's acting.
'Talk to me, what's wrong?' Still, no reaction.
'Raph, I'm freaking out, what's happening?' When he still does nothing else other than to breath into my neck, my heart starts racing. I don't know what to do with this and it's scaring me.
Suddenly, Raph rips himself away from me as if I burnt him. I go to take a step towards him but he backs off at the same time.
'Don't!' is the first thing he says to me. 'Stay away, Donnie!'
I stop as if slapped. His words freeze me like nothing else could and it's all I can manage to not simply collapse like I want to. This is the first time I've experienced anything close to a rejection. I know in my heart that he doesn't mean it in the way my body understands it, but I can't help the numbing pain that is slowly spreading through me.
It's hard to believe that in the last two hours something so drastic happened that he doesn't even want to touch me anymore.
He seems to realise what he's doing when his eyes meet mine and the pain clearly spreads to him. He turns his head away but takes a small step towards me, silently telling me to calm down. It works marginally.
'Did... did Sam get back properly?' His voice is quiet and unsure and my heart aches to just hug him to me. I close my eyes and breath deeply before answering with a simple 'yes'. Sam is safe, but something is definitely wrong with Raph.
'Raph? I love you, you know that right?' I'm not sure why I say it, nor am I sure what I thought would come out of it, but telling him I loved him is never wrong.
Once he registers my words, his body goes rigid and the next thing I know his hands are painfully gripping my hair and his lips are bruising mine from the force he's kissing me with. I don't have time to even fully realise what's happening before he lets me go again and walks past me to our home.
It takes me a while to register that I am somewhat dumbly standing in the middle of the forest, still naked for that matter, but once I do I hurry to follow my mate.
I find him sitting somewhere in the corner, having thrown on a pair of sweats beforehand. I do the same before sitting down in front of him, silently looking at him. Part of me is trying to figure out what is wrong, while the other part is simply waiting for him to tell me. When neither of the two is happening and I come to the realisation that they won't be any time soon, I scoot over to sit next to my mate and just pull him into me without saying a word. Immediately his arms go around my torso and his head is resting next to mine; his whole body so close to me that I would have forgotten anything is wrong were it not for his nervous heart beat.
I wake up in the middle of the afternoon, having fallen asleep at some point. My neck is sore and I can't feel either of my legs but what is most prominent is my missing mate. I can't feel his warmth against me, but instead my nose picks up on the amazing smell of simple pasta.
My legs give out as I try jumping to my feet and I hit the floor with a loud thump. After a groan or two, I actually manage to make it to my feet without making more of a fool out of myself and I stumble towards my mate on wobbly legs.
When he hears me he turns around with a smile so big and fake, it immediately makes my own disappear. The smile wavers as he sees my reaction and I notice a scared flicker in his eyes that makes me all the more determined.
I stomp forward as best as I can, turn off the stove, grab his hand and drag him over to the single seater sofa chair we own. Once he's sitting down I press his hands to his thighs and make sure to put enough pressure on them so he can't move them too much. Then I sit on my knees in front of him and stare into his eyes, knowing exactly that he is aware of what I want. I don't have to ask, he know's what this is about.
It's almost painful to watch him freak out the longer we stay in the same position, but I know that I'll have to keep this up if I want him to talk. Realistically, he's strong enough to just break my hold and go, but it seems that he's more wrestling with himself than he is with me.
'They knew me. They were after me, not Sam.' he eventually says. His voice is panicked and breathless and again the desire to just hug him hits me hard, but I stay where I am. I don't even answer him because I know I'll try to calm him down when I should be making him talk. I can make sure he's fine afterwards.
'They've been watching me, Donnie, and were waiting for their chance to talk to me. And then they just let me go!' His breathing is getting laboured and his hands are shaking, so instead of holding them down, I entwine out fingers together, hoping it would at least help a little. He does settle down a bit after that, but I can easily tell how riled up he still is. His skin is pale and blotchy, which I've never seen on him before.
'She said she's my mum, Donnie. She said she left me cuz I was too much work.' He's not crying, but he might as well be. His pain is evident, only I can't quite pinpoint what the reason is. He's not yet told me, that much is clear. So I decide to hug him. I lift myself off the floor and straddle him, giving him as much bodily contact as I can.
'Keep going, love, I'm right here.'
He's gripping onto me for dear life when he keeps talking.
'She was talking about you. She said it was funny.' Another few deep breaths.
'She said it was funny that the son of the man she killed would turned out to be her son's mate.'
My body goes rigid as I register his words. My hand on his back goes still and my breathing automatically becomes irregular.
'She killed your father.'
I don't feel it when his hands pull him closer to me for a slip second before lifting me off him and onto the floor. Nor do I feel my body curl in on itself in a foetus position. I stare at the wall, my breathing laboured and my mind a mess. I can't comprehend what he told me, nor how it affects me, but my body seems overwhelmed in my mind's stead. I start shaking, violent sweats breaking out on my skin and my head begins to pound. My head is limply lying on the floor and even if I wanted to, I suddenly lack the strength to pull it up.
Eventually I feel my shaking hands at my chest, pushing against it so hard that the pain somehow brings me back.
And I notice that my mate is gone.
I look around frantically, not finding a trace of him, but when I hear his fading footsteps, my mind grasps onto that one singular thing and focusses on Raph. My little panic attack can't have taken longer than a few seconds, but it was long enough to completely throw me off and give Raph too long a head start. I stumble after him, trying to concentrate on where he's going, but I'm still too groggy to be efficient. My head is slowly clearing, but his footsteps are fading too fast for me to keep up. Luckily, I'm fast and that somehow is my saving grace as I give up on trying to precisely locate him and simply follow the direction he'd run to.
The further I go the more I realise that he's running directly towards the border. Whether he realises what he's doing or not I don't know. But I don't have time to contemplate it nor do I have any other choice but to speed up. If what he said is true, then there is a mentally unstable pack of rogues on the other side of that border and whatever happened or didn't happen, I cannot let my mate take even one step over that border.
Without thinking twice I howl loud enough for the patrol to hear, giving them a signal to come to where I'm going. I don't have to wait long to hear several howls back, confirming their moving to my position. Reassured only slightly, I shift mid step, going even faster to catch up with Raph. Eventually I hear his footsteps again. There's only two; he hasn't even shifted. It briefly makes me wonder what he's thinking. I can easily hunt him down if he's in human form. I just pray to whatever is out there that I'm not too late.
By the time I see him, I also see shapes on the other side of the border moving, hungrily getting closer but staying just far enough away to not make it obvious they're there. I can see them, but Raph seems oblivious. As I try to go even faster I feel my muscles burning and I'm painfully aware of the few steps that are still left until Raph would cross the border. I'm not far from him now, but I can also already hear the rogues' snarls.
Not even thinking of stopping I push myself even more, eventually just pushing off my hind legs and past Raph. I manage to push him back with the side of my body before falling face first into a horde of snarling, salivating and angry looking rogues.