The Call Of A Parasite (hunting the hivemind)

by Idk_im_just_here_now

Summary:

It's been one week since the invasion, and everything is still in a near critical state. Overwhelmed by it all, and the fear of becoming a monster once more, Raph takes to the ruined streets of New York.

But barely a week has passed, meaning open ground is still crawling with the remnants of the Kraang. And Raph begins to learn.

Notes:

TW FOR SELF-HATRED, UNTINTENTIONAL SELF-HARM, AND GRIEF

Chapter 1: Cold Comfort Among The Near-Dead

His eye still hurt. It hurt every time he moved his head, looked in a new direction, blinked under the bandage.

Raph didn’t particularly enjoy how his eye hurt. He definitely didn’t like how it felt deflated and like it wasn’t touching the inside of his eye socket anymore, or it wasn’t actually connected to anything and might just have been limply sitting in his face behind the patch.

It was an unsettling feeling. 

According to his father and Donnie, his eye should be fine at some point, and hopefully it will heal on its own time. Draxum had engineered them to be able to recover from most wounds that were not fatal, but that did not ease the quiet, lurking fear that always seemed to hover at the edge of his thoughts.

The only thing that hurt him more than his eye was the absolutely terrible state his family was in.

Mikey’s arms had been burned badly by the portal, making doing anything with his hands a nightmare, not to mention all the scrapes and cuts. Raph wasn’t entirely sure what had happened to Donnie, but his shell had looked like bloody Swiss cheese when the new battle shell had come off. Splinter still had all the injuries from the first fight, and Raph was frankly surprised April and Casey weren’t dead with how fragile their bodies were - and how hurt they’d been initially. 

And somehow, none of their injuries combined could compare to whatever had happened to Leo after the sky had closed behind him. The fact his brother was even still breathing was a miracle. 

If anything, it was better than him not breathing. Breathing was better than Raph could have hoped for. Especially after what he’d heard over the communicator before the line went… cold.

He wasn’t going to say dead. That felt too real.

A tap on his shoulder snapped him out of his thoughts, and Raph’s head bolted upright in the chair where he’d been sitting.

Splinter took a step back in surprise, before the rat resettled himself. “Red? Are you with me now, my son?”

“Uh… yeah, sorry Pops. Did ya need something?”

“I do not need anything except for you to rest,” Splinter said calmly. “You have been watching over your brothers for far too long - you must sleep as well if you wish to heal.”

Raph’s entire brain stopped. “But someone needs to watch them,” he protested, gesturing to the medbay beds that were currently holding his brothers. “What if something goes wrong while I’m away?”

“You do not need to worry, Red,” Splinter assured him. “I will watch over them while you rest. You looked ready to fall asleep in your chair - I presume you would be much more comfortable in your bed.”

Something ticked in Raph’s chest. It was small, almost quiet, but it scared him. Raph’s brain was too fuzzy to properly place it, the dull pain in his face and arms somehow too sharp, but it hissed vehemently against the idea of leaving the medbay at all . He wasn’t leaving them alone.

“Pops, I’ll be fine,” Raph muttered. “I can keep watching them for a bit - you don’t have to worry about it.”

He tried for a smile, but his jaw still ached from where the… the slime had burrowed into his face, had controlled his jaw and opened it too wide in roars of fury that still rang terrifyingly loud in his ears. 

Raph dug his claws into his forearms, the slight pinpricks snapping his mind back into alertness and forcing the blurred memory away. It was thankfully enough, but he admittedly couldn’t hide the slight flinch as his claws dug into more injuries.

Splinter raised an eyebrow at him, and Raph couldn’t help but look away. 

The crack of a whip as he threw the Enemy away from the key. As he picked it up with an unwieldy tentacle and presented it to his Prime.

How it had somehow felt so… wrong to help him. 

How his mind had burned with a seething rage as the key was handed over, and how it had been swiftly soothed quiet in knowing that soon it would be okay, even as his limbs moved against his will and the familiarity of the Enemy had been shrieking in his face the entire time. 

They were supposed to be with him, right?

A few quick, light taps on his hands snapped him back out of the memory.

“Red, my son, come back. You are clawing through your bandages.”

Shit.

He looked back down at his arms to see the off-white bandages soaking through in red, the familiar pain barely there anymore in comparison to the one in his head and his eye and his heart. 

Splinter said nothing - he just slowly pried Raph’s claws out of his injuries and set off to get medical supplies for him. The simple idea of that now completely threw him off, it didn’t work with how his mind was running now, through sharp edges and dark shadows.

Why was his father still helping him? He knew just as well as Raph that some of the injuries on his brothers were his fault. He knew that.

Even the thought made Raph feel sick, cold and clammy and like he wanted to curl up in the dark with his brothers, but another hiss of the sharp, painful blades in his head shooed the last part away.

A monster who’d done such things didn’t deserve the comfort of family. He didn’t deserve his father’s hands fixing his arms again. Not after hurting them the way he had. He had to fix his mistake, he had to atone for it, he couldn’t leave their sides until they were all safe and okay and maybe then , just maybe, Raph might have deserved it.

But not now. 

Right now, Raph didn’t deserve any of this.

The beeping of heart monitors pierced harshly between his thoughts, the cutting blades that tore him up and hurt. They were reminders, reminders that they were lucky to even be alive right now. Lucky to even have made it far enough to be in their medbay, in their own home.

“Red.”

Right. Splinter was still here, gently shaking his arm.

Still helping the monster who’d hurt his children.

“Red. You are slipping too far,” his father said carefully. “If you do not want to leave them, I understand. But it would be beneficial for everyone if you also rested. This is not your burden alone to carry.”

But it is, I hurt them, I have to fix my mistake! Raph wanted to cry back. The tiny part of him that hummed in fear sang even louder at the simple idea of leaving them. He’d left them, and they’d gotten hurt as a result!

The only response that he could give was an exhausted chuff of agreement, and stood up. Raph’s entire body ached , it cried out and begged him not to move, but he ignored the mix of sharp and dull pains ripping through his entire being and walked back to his subway car. 

The quiet crying of the piece that didn’t want to leave grew in volume with every step, but his mind had fallen into a maze of smoke and mirrors. The snapper almost paused in the middle of the subway to breathe, but Raph kept going. 

He could do this. 

The terrible sound of silence settled into the snapper’s tympanum, buzzing in his thoughts as he wandered into his train car. Raph didn’t bother closing the door, nor did he bother trying to get comfortable on his bed. Raph just eased himself onto the floor and let the chill seep into his bones.

Monster.

You hurt them.

Raph resisted the urge to dig in his claws again, instead opting to put up barriers in his head against the thoughts that slithered between the cracks like snakes and broken shards of glass.

Even through it all, the quiet barrage of hell and blurry memory, Raph managed to get himself to sleep, even as the monsters taunted him from a distance.

Even as his own actions replayed behind closed eyes.

Chapter 2: Rat Hunting

Summary:

Raph's begun wandering the Lair, with no clear purpose or intent to rest. At some point, he also starts finding himself patrolling outside of the Lair... alone.

Or so he thinks.

Notes:

TW FOR DISSOCIATION, DEREALIZATION, UNINTENTIONAL SELF-HARM, AND ANIMAL DEATH

At some point, Raph started patrolling the Lair. 

He started walking around without really paying attention to where he was going. He would run into things on his blind side, move without much of a purpose. Raph couldn’t even really keep track of how long he’d wander - one moment he’d be in the Lair’s living room, the next Raph would find himself almost a full floor above where he last remembered really taking in the rooms around him.

It was the only thing he really did, between making sure his brothers were okay, eating, and sleeping. He didn’t even really like sleeping anymore because it only let the what if’s and memories sprawl out like a map through his head.

By now, Raph could have walked the lair with his eye closed and still managed to somewhat make it around without too many issues. Not that he really remembered where his feet were going.

Not that he really remembered walking through one area a hundred times, the background noise of worry in Raph’s head drowning out the world around him.

His eye hurt, ever so faintly reminding him that there was still something wrong.

Raph didn’t stop walking.

He didn’t turn toward the medbay, the beeping piercing through his tympanum rhythmically. Like a warning.

Something tapped his arm, and within seconds, Raph was suddenly aware of everything. The chill in the Lair, the beeping, the clawed hand tapping his arm, his breathing, his scales, how the eye panged in irritation as he blinked.

Raph panicked and drew back, every single one of his senses spiking with stress, before he realized it was just Donnie.

The softshell’s eyes were narrowed in concern, mixed with a small grimace of pain as he jumped back as well. There was something else - a small, almost unnoticeable fear.

But Raph did notice.

They’re scared of you now. As they should be.

Scared of the monster who hurt them. Who lives in the same Lair as them.

Raph clenched his jaw, forcing the thoughts back. Donnie wanted to talk to him - he could think later.

“Raph? Are you in there?” Donnie asked hesitantly.

“Yep,” Raph answered, with almost none of his usual enthusiasm. “Whaddya need?”

“Nothing right now,” Donnie said. “I notice you’ve been wandering the Lair on a loop. Did something happen?”

“It’s nothing, Dee.”

An unusual tension settled between the two, and before Donnie could ask any more questions, Raph turned and walked away. 

Don’t be near him.

You will hurt him. 

The snapper did look over his shoulder, just in time to see the softshell slinking away back toward the medbay. Not even a second glance from his younger brother before he vanished.

Raph couldn’t help wincing. 

You didn’t even have to use your claws and you still hurt him. 

What a monster you must be.

Raph shook his head out and started walking again. Once again, Raph had no aim in where he was wandering, where his patrol took him. The quiet of the Lair crept into his head again, leaving Raph lost in his thoughts once more.

 

-=-

 

Raph’s awareness of where he was walking returned to him much later, and Raph found himself walking through the tunnels just outside of their Lair. The subway tunnels were not active this close to their home, but the damages left behind made it look long abandoned. Long dead.

It was quiet. He wasn’t sure if that made him feel better or worse. He was just kind of there.

If Raph listened hard enough, he could almost imagine the sounds of a busy street echoing through the tunnels. The faint echoes of the city he was familiar with seeped into the walls and into his ears, yet the undeniable quiet couldn’t quite leave him.

It was unsettling. 

Something else ticked to life, and old fear began to bubble up in his mind. 

Raph was alone. He was by himself in old subway tunnels, with nobody nearby and seemingly nothing there. That ‘seemingly’ was not enough to keep Raph grounded.

There was something that did that, though. The idea that his brothers, his family, in the state they were in, needing to deal with Savage, all because Raph had walked too far outside the Lair.

It would be fine. He just had to keep himself calm, turn around, and go home.

Raph could do that.

He carefully started counting, breathing in time with the numbers. In for four, hold for five, out for five, hold for four. 

Something softly echoed in the tunnels. It was barely a whisper, hardly rising above his own footsteps, but a sudden awareness of everything let him catch it. A distant skittering sound, like a thousand wet hands erratically hitting a wall.

Don’t panic. I can’t afford to panic out here.

Raph’s claws dug into his arms, the dull drag of the sharp edges in his scales keeping him in the moment, kept him listening.

The sound didn’t come again. The tunnels had returned to their disturbing silence.

Raph took a breath, letting his shoulders drop a bit. They barely moved, but it wasn’t enough to let him stay relaxed.

A clattering of rocks, much closer than before, before a familiar harsh hiss of pain reached his ears.

Raph turned quickly, half waiting for the quiet to settle. To prove that Raph was hearing things and that maybe he needed to go home and rest. Like how he was probably supposed to be doing right now. 

“Damn tunnel debris,” a voice muttered, clearly familiar but still new.

“Casey?” Raph called. The movement stilled, before the sounds of scattering rocks echoed from behind him.

The snapper whipped around, only to be met with a nervous looking Casey Jr. The boy didn’t look too frightened, but he did seem quite uneasy. 

This company was better than whatever may have been in the dark. 

“Master Raphael? Aren’t you meant to be on bedrest?” Casey Jr asked curiously. Raph winced, and the simple movement of his face made his eye sting painfully.

The snapper gritted his teeth. He wasn’t going to show Casey that things hurt right now. He was more worried about what the hell he was doing out in the tunnels alone. Sure, the kid had grown up in the apocalypse, but it still felt too fresh. His claws dug in deeper.

“It’s nothing, really,” Raph said, dismissing the question quickly. “What are you doing out here?”

“Looking for food,” Casey Jr answered, so calmly it took a moment for Raph to understand what he’d said properly.

Food? In the tunnels? There wouldn’t be anything to eat down here.

“What’re you looking for, then?” Raph asked. “Maybe Raph could help you with it?”

Anything to not be alone out here.

Anything to not go back home. I might hurt them. 

“Okay,” Casey Jr said. “We’re looking for rats. Or small animals, or anything that could be considered efficient protein. It’s how we used to eat where I came from.”

Raph grimaced slightly, wincing again as another pang shot through his eye. Maybe he could make this fast - it was genuinely starting to hurt.

“Oookay?” Raph muttered. “Yeah, Raph’ll help.”

A hazy memory, from the day the invasion had started. Casey Jr had mentioned something about eating rats? And leaves? Raph wasn’t sure about the leaves, but the rats were starting to seem more plausible the longer he watched the human crawling through the rubble.

He moved so carefully. Like a predator hunting down prey.

Raph carefully started to copy Casey Jr’s movement, fairly clumsily at first. He still couldn’t really see out of one eye, which proved to quickly become a problem when he almost jabbed his hands on sharp rebar. 

Raph did his best to keep an eye on Casey Jr, observing how the boy was moving. Raph wasn’t usually one to observe and watch someone else do the thing they were doing first.

Watch. 

Repeat. 

Hunt.

Raph shook off the weird thought while Casey stilled, crouching in front of a hole in the rubble. That didn’t sound like his thoughts. That didn’t sound like Raph’s brain at all.

Casey turned to him, noticing that Raph had stopped moving. “Did you find one?”

“I- no, uh, sorry,” Raph said. “I was just zoning out.”

Casey cast a quick glance at how Raph was standing, or at least it seemed that way. “Is it your eye? I forgot you’re not used to that yet. Or rat hunting either, I guess.”

Raph blinked in surprise, which stung his bad eye. He decided not to focus on the eye thing in favor of the completely serious tone Casey Jr was using.

“Were you being serious about the rat thing-”

“Shh! I hear one!”

Raph stopped talking, instead returning his attention to listening. He still couldn’t hear anything, except his own quiet breathing and the even quieter breathing of the human. There was a tiny pattering of feet, and Raph picked up on the squeaks of the rat.

Something else distantly rang in his ears as well - the weird skittering noise, the same one he’d heard before Casey had joined them. Raph’s claws dug into his arms again. 

The human went still for a moment, before lunging at the debris so fast Raph almost didn’t catch it. Many panicked squeaks filled the tunnel air, before a tiny, dull snap cut them short.

“Wha- did you actually-”

“Yeah?” Casey Jr turned to face Raph, confusion clearly written across his face. He held the dead rat in one hand, and Raph decided that he wasn’t going to look at it. “Do you not do this?”

“No?” Raph replied, gaping in surprise. “We have food in the kitchen? And we can get it from grocery stores up top?”

Casey Jr blinked at him. “Master Raphael… uh, what is a grocery store?”

A moment of quiet stretched between them, concern growing in Raph’s mind. Casey Jr really didn’t know these things - he should have known, considering the whole apocalypse thing.

“Have you been eating rats this whole time?” Raph asked, his eye ridges furrowing. “You know we got other stuff in the pantry, right?”

Casey Jr shrugged. “I thought that food was for special occasions. The canned stuff is always specially saved.”

Raph’s jaw dropped, be it in shock or in surprise - he wasn’t sure which, and it might be a mix of the two. “So you’ve been eating rats the entire time you’ve been here?”

“I don’t see anything wrong with it?” Casey Jr said. “Come on, I thought I heard something else down here. We should move.”

Raph shook himself - making his head sting painfully in the process - and followed Casey Jr, in the direction that led back out to the Lair. The faint skittering from earlier rang out again, sounding a bit closer this time. 

As they walked, Casey managed to catch another rat, which he offered to Raph. The snapper kindly declined, and Casey Jr shrugged and kept it. The boy ended up cleanly biting off both rats’ heads and eating them fairly fast, and kept moving as though nothing out of the ordinary had happened.

Raph made a mental note to show Casey Jr where the easy food in the pantry was. Raw rats could not be healthy for someone’s diet.

There was something else Raph noticed while they were walking back - the way Casey Jr was moving through the rubble and debris. It was careful, deliberate, like if he mis-stepped something might go terribly wrong. The boy’s footsteps were near silent, and he seemed to constantly be surveying the tunnels ahead and behind them.

Watch.

Repeat. 

Raph slowly started trying to fall into the pattern Casey was - stepping carefully, almost prowling through the dark. He didn’t touch anything that Casey hadn’t stepped on first, keeping a lookout behind them for whatever that skittering thing might be… or if it was even there. 

Every shift in the rubble caught their attention. Every skitter, every squawk of rats, every distant shriek of something far above and beyond the subway. Each movement of his head made him dizzy, but Raph was starting to pay less attention to it.

How had he managed to get this far away from home without noticing all these little things? Without hearing the sounds and feeling the chill on his scales?

Somewhere in Raph’s mind, he knew the answer. 

He didn’t dwell on it too long - his arms were starting to hurt from where he’d dug in his claws, and Casey Jr was moving ahead much quicker than him.

He carefully started forward into the dark curve of another tunnel, the sounds running through every part of his mind.

Observe.

Repeat.

Execute.

Notes:

I SWEAR IM UPDATING THIS I PROMISE I HAVE JUST BEEN DOING MANY PROJECTS AND SCHOOL. I PROCRASTINATED SOMETHING DUE LIKE A MONTH AGO FOR THIS CHAPTER LOL (aka Raph is very concerned about Casey Jr's eating habits)

Anyways, I do hope you enjoyed this chapter! There will be more content i just gotta do that lol

Have a good day/night!

Notes:

And so we have the complete set of fics, and now i have to weave together a story with all of them.

Hope you have a good day/night!

Series this work belongs to:

• Part 4 of Revelations Timeline AU
• Part 4 of IDK's TMNT fics