Warning! This story contains some cursing and adult situations which may be inappropriate for some readers. This story is voluntarily rated PG for parental guidance. This story also contains religious discussion which may be offensive to some readers.
It was early in the morning when Raph first rose. He’d returned to the farmhouse when everyone was in bed, including Christ-boy, and he’d planned to be up and gone by the time everyone else was ready to get moving. But he found Splinter in the kitchen with a cup of tea in front of him, busy pouring a second. Splinter wordlessly pointed to the chair across from him. Raph opened his mouth to protest, but then sighed as he saw the hard look in Splinter’s eyes. He knew better than to question Master Splinter when he was this determined. He sat obediently.
“You are very troubled, my son. I had not seen you so angry in a long time,” the rat said quietly. Raph didn’t need to ask what incident Splinter was referring to. He shrugged.
“Yeah, I guess.”
Splinter looked very hard at his son as he passed him the second cup of tea. Raph took a sip, and though his outward demeanor was calm, Splinter knew the signs he saw in Raphael’s eyes, and they meant trouble. “Why do you let Donatello upset you so?”
Raph had to think about it a moment. “He just won’t get off my back!” he burst out. “I tell him to lay off, even you do, but he won’t listen!” He was right. Splinter remembered when Donatello first brought his religion home with him. While his constant attempts to convert them grated on one’s nerves, Splinter had been willing to let it pass, until he realized how deeply Raphael was disturbed about it. Then he ordered Donatello to stop, and for a while it seemed that he had. But he hadn’t; he’d just gotten sneaky. First it was the unending supply of pamphlets being left everywhere in the den, then when Splinter made him stop that, Don managed to slip Bible quotes into almost every statement he made. That too was annoying, but Splinter left it, since Raphael seemed able to deal with the quotes. But then came more pamphlets...with Raph and Don’s bitter vendetta being the terrible result.
Splinter sighed and wondered if Donatello realized how much his actions were troubling Raphael. “Does that mean you have to lose your temper? As you have seen, that helps no one.”
“I thought, if he just had some time to chill out, see how stupid he was being, maybe he’d knock it off! And I’ve talked to him on the phone, I thought he’d loosened up! But he’s just the same!” Raph cried.
“I thought you were looking forward to seeing Donatello,” Splinter said.
“I wanted to see the OLD Donatello. But apparently the only thing I’m gonna get to see is the preaching, singing, Bible-banging JESUS FREAK Donatello.” Raphael’s words were bitter and lanced through Splinter. It sounded as if--but no, how could he hate Donatello? As if reading Splinter’s thoughts, Raph spoke up, a little more calmly, “I don’t hate Donny, master, I just hate what he’s becoming, what that CHURCH is doing to him.” So, thought Splinter. It is not Donatello he hates--it is Christianity itself. “If he would just keep it to himself, it would be fine. I don’t agree with Leo’s Buddhist stuff, but I let it go because he knows how to keep his beak outta my business! But no, the church can’t do that. They have to EVANGELIZE, and SPREAD THE WORD, and stick their noses in where they don’t belong! And their attitude--they’ve even got Don acting that way.”
“What way?” asked Splinter, remaining calm in the face of Raph’s building fury.
“YOU know, like they’re so much better than everyone else! He laid off you right away, cuz you just told him no and he buggered off! But he can’t leave me alone; it’s like I’m his special project, so he always has to be on my back.” Raph clenched his fists and slammed one onto the table, slopping the tea over his cup’s brim. “It’s always Saint Donatello versus the Big Bad Sinner Raphael! And I am TIRED of it! I’m tired of Don getting all over my back with his fire and brimstone bullshit because I don’t believe in their STUPID doctrine and follow all their STUPID rules!”
Splinter sat in stunned silence. “Donatello has not damned anyone to hell,” he said sternly.
“Master! I can’t believe you don’t remember that! It was that one time we were talking, and he was preaching away as usual, and he started saying that everyone who didn’t believe in Jesus went to hell!” Splinter winced. He did remember; in fact, that was the occasion when they’d all been so upset, and Raph had been so angry, that he had forbidden Donatello to speak of it again. He could understand Raphael’s anger at the comment; it was not an easy to accept a declaration of damnation. But it wasn’t easy to preach it, either. Splinter suddenly connected Don’s statement with his incredible desire to convert them all to Christianity. The two ideas were obviously linked. But how could he make Raphael see that Donatello only dogged him because he loved him?
“Raphael,” he said slowly. “Donatello is not trying to annoy you. He seems to truly believe all the things he says.”
“So?” growled Raph. “That doesn’t mean everyone else has to hear about them constantly.”
Splinter said, “If Donatello believes that those not of his religion will be punished...” Splinter was finding this unusually difficult to explain to Raphael. “He would not want you to be punished,” he finished lamely.
“You mean he’s just trying to convert me because he loves me?” Raphael grasped with a suddenness that shocked Splinter. “Yeah, right, master.” Splinter glared. “I mean, um, I find that rather hard to believe.”
“Why? You don’t think Donatello hates you?” Splinter was startled.
“Nooooo....I just--I dunno, it doesn’t seem like the way you show your love for somebody is to shove your religion down their throat. I already said I don’t believe all that cr--junk, so why can’t he just leave me alone?”
“Because he loves you.”
Raph rolled his eyes. “Master Splinter, if he really loved me, he would respect MY beliefs like I was trying to respect his before all this got started.” Splinter had no answer for that; Raph was right. How could Donatello expect his brother to respect, even accept, his beliefs if he did not return that courtesy?
“Tell him that, Raphael. You need to talk with Donatello, to work your problem out.”
“No way,” Raphael said, standing up. “Not until he apologizes for being such a jerk.” Raphael headed for the back door, and Splinter let him go.
He sighed as the door banged shut behind Raph. Leonardo had agreed to talk to Donatello--Splinter fervently hoped that he would have better luck in reconciling the two brothers.
* * *
Leo knocked quietly on the door before he slipped into Don’s makeshift workshop. He had built a small room in the corner of the barn to store his stuff in: wood, carvings, paints, and all his tools for both carving and fixing things. Don had been trying to insulate and heat another portion of the barn; if he did that, he could move his laboratory and computers out here too. But as it was, the barn was too cold for expensive equipment to be stored in. Leo heard Don softly singing something. Christmas songs, it sounded like. Then he started something new: “He was born a pauper to a pawn, on a Christmas day, when the New York Times said God is dead, and the war’s begun. Alvin Tostig has a son today....”
Don jumped when Leo spoke. “That’s not a Christmas song.”
“It counts,” defended Don. “It happens on Christmas.”
“Does not.”
“Does too!” Don stuck his tongue out at Leo and they both laughed. Leo perched on the edge of the worktable to watch Don carefully carving details onto a life-sized deer.
“We need to talk.” Don looked at him.
“About Raph?”
“About you and Raph,” Leo corrected. “It’s not a case of Raph having the sole blame.” Leo instantly regretted saying this, but still--they would get nowhere anyway if Don didn’t at least accept that he was to blame too.
“Maybe, maybe not. He’s the one who’s being a jerk, if you ask me.” Apparently they weren’t going to get anywhere. Leo sighed, but before he could speak, Don angrily broke out, “I didn’t even do anything, and he just blew up! I’m so tired of his attitude!”
Leo stared. RAPH’S attitude? How could Don not realize that his own attitude was partially to blame for Raph’s anger? “Not this time, but after what happened back in New York, I think Raph just closed his mind to the idea that you could quit badgering him.” Don growled softly. “It may be hard for you to accept, Don, but you’re wrong. You have to stop trying to--”
“I’m NOT wrong!” exclaimed Don. “I’m RIGHT, okay, and I thought that I should at least try to make you see that--”
Leo cut him off. “You THINK entirely too much! Look, Don, you want to share what you believe with us, and that’s great. At first we just discussed this stuff, and that was okay, we all got to say what we thought, and no one was upset. But you’ve taken this too far! It’s not open discussion anymore, it’s YOU constantly forcing your ideas on us! The problem is in the word “make”; you can’t MAKE us do or believe anything.”
Don was tuning him out. “I was just trying to show you that you were wrong, okay?”
“It’s not okay. I’ll admit you’ve toned it down since we’ve been here, but you can’t fight with Raph like that.”
“He started it! I didn’t do anything! He never respects anything I say; he just ignores me like what I believe doesn’t matter. He’s got this “big brother” attitude like he can just discount anything I say as worthless. And if he’s not ignoring me, he’s putting down everything I believe in!” Don slammed his knife to the workbench surface. “He hurt my feelings, Leo, and I’m not just going to forget that! I tried to, last time, because I thought it was the way to make all this go away. But as soon as you get here, he looks for the first opportunity to do it again!”
“Tell him that. He needs to know how you feel, or this will never be over. You can’t,” said Leo sharply. “Make a problem go away by ignoring it. As you’ve already seen.”
Don picked up the knife again. “No. I’m not going to talk about it until he apologizes for being such a jerk.”
Leo walked out of the barn shaking his head. What was he going to do with those two?
* * *
Raph returned around lunchtime, considerably calmer than he had been. Donatello was making hot chocolate when he came in. At least they both stayed. But the two did not speak to each other. Leo looked up from the book he was reading and sighed. Splinter just sipped at his tea.
The fight began when Raph said to Casey, “Hey, loser, what’s for lunch?”
“Nothin’ fer you, midget,” growled Casey.
Raph grinned and picked up the old game in the middle of the alphabet. “Well bite me, nosepicker.” Casey concluded the game by tackling Raph. Shadow leapt out of the way just as the two slammed into her chair.
“Dad!” she yelled.
“Casey!” April warned.
“Raph!” Splinter and Leo said simultaneously, as the fighters overturned the table, spilling its contents all over the kitchen. Don rolled his eyes as Mike jumped into the fray to help his brother. With his help, Raph seized a struggling Casey, opened the door, and tossed him into the snow outside.
“Ha ha! Cool off, you loser!” Raph sniggered. Then he and Mike were sent sprawling on top of Casey as Leo planted his hands against their shells. Leo roared with laughter. “Oh yeah?” said Raph, and flung a snowball that caught Leo in the side of the head.
“Hey!” yelped Leo.
Donatello appeared in the doorway to drop Leo’s coat on him. “Splinter says if you’re going to roll around in the snow, you should wear this.”
“But I’m not--whoa!” Don viciously shoved Leo off the porch into a snowdrift. They all collapsed into helpless laugher. Shadow bounded out the door, having somehow gotten into her coat, hat, and mittens. She went to give her father his coat, and Don tossed Mike and Raph their coats, without a word for either of them.
“Now--” said Casey. “I still owe ya, midget!” He tackled Raph again, and the two wrestled enthusiastically, with Shadow clinging to Casey’s back. Leo snuck back onto the porch, behind Don, and grabbed him around the shoulders. They fell off into the snow again. With great enthusiasm, they wrestled and pelted each other with snowballs until Raph was thoroughly coated with snowballs and Leo had succeeded in rubbing snow in Don’s face. Then they all trouped back into the kitchen, where April and Splinter were still calmly sipping tea, without a table. The turtles laughed as they tried to get all the snow off each other, and finally peeled off their soaked clothes. Casey and Raph returned to the kitchen side by side, smirking at each other. Splinter silently pointed a finger at the huge mess of mayonnaise and hot chocolate on the floor by the table. Raph sighed and went for a sponge. Casey cackled, but April came over to put the mop in his hand.
She grinned broadly. “You’re helping, laughing boy.” He grumbled, but bent to the task, and soon the floor was gleaming again. Splinter nodded approval and Raph made a beeline for the TV.
* * *
The wrestling in the snow had been more fun than fight. The real fight began that evening after dinner, when all of them were relaxing in their rooms. Don was sitting in front of his computer, humming softly and gently tapping keys, when he was startled by what sounded like an explosion across the hall. With no small amount of irritation, he recognized the “music” as the work of Korn; one of the violent and profane bands that Raphael seemed to love so much, while Don hated them with equal passion. Raph complained about the church not ending violence in the world, but Don wondered how violence could possibly end when musicians and their fans reveled in it.
Don also remembered their angry exchange about music the other night. Raph’s just blasting that music because he knows I hate it, Don couldn’t resist thinking. But he quickly cut that train of thought off. No....I shouldn’t even think things like that. Don’t be like him. Don’t assume that everything he does is a deliberate attack on you. Don took a deep breath, exhaled, and forced himself to remember that Raph ALWAYS blasted his music. Quelling his suspicions, he tried to concentrate on the words on the screen. But the thumping music and the all-too-audible stream of vulgar language coming from the stereo across the hall distracted him. Don massaged his temples and hoped April or Casey would come tell Raph to turn the music down. Surely they would worry that Shadow might hear it...she was only eleven. Or did they not care what kind of filth their daughter heard?
Dang! He couldn’t even think straight for all the thumping. They’re not your enemies! he scolded himself. Don’t think about them that way. He sighed and stood up, trying to nerve himself to face Raph alone, without anyone nearby to help him if Raph tried to start something. This is stupid. Don inwardly snarled at his fear of Raph’s anger and opened the door. The music boomed louder. Don rapped smartly on Raph’s door, with its big “do not disturb” sign, and waited a moment before knocking again, harder. He waited and sighed when no answer came from within the room. Again he knocked, this time almost hurting his fist on the wood. Maybe next time he would kick it instead....
The door was thrown open. “What?” Raph demanded, shouting down the music. He tensed. Probably came to complain about my music....
“What’re you doing?” Don asked with a weak smile, attempting to be friendly.
“Wouldn’t you like to know,” Raph said irritably. “What do ya want?”
Don winced at Raph’s tone. “Um, I was working on my computer, and your music-”
“What about my music?” Raph demanded, instantly on the defensive. “Too strong for you?” he drawled.
Don bristled, insulted. “I just wanted to ask you to turn it down. It’s too loud.”
“I like it loud.”
Don snapped, “Well not everyone in this house does! Most of us have this thing called common courtesy. You should try it sometime.”
“Yeah? Well you can shove it up your-”
“Why don’t you just lose the attitude, Raph? I didn’t come here to bug you, I asked for something really simple and you’re just being difficult.”
“Difficult,” mocked Raph. “What are you, my mother? My room, my music, my LIFE, Don. Stay OUT of ‘em.”
“Out of your life, huh? You’re the one who couldn’t stay out of my life, as I recall. I was just fine here until you had to come along,” Donatello snapped back..
“I’m a part of this family. If you want to be away from me, that’s fine. But I’m gonna spend Christmas here, with my family, and you can’t stop me.”
“And I’m not a part of the family?” Don asked.
“You’re a member of the CHURCH, remember?”
“That doesn’t mean I’m not one of you anymore!” Don exclaimed.
“But we’re not Christians,” Raph sneered. “You should stay away....We might corrupt you, and then you might not get into heaven.” His tone was angry and mocking.
“I don’t deserve this, Raph,” Don said, fighting to remain calm. “I didn’t do anything to you.”
“No, you only harassed me, only put me down because of the way I want to live, only told me that I was going to die and go to hell because I don’t believe in your stupid god.” Don began to see what Raph’s anger had been hiding: Raph’s feelings were hurt, too.
“Raph, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to hurt your feelings, I just-” Don stammered.
“Well you DID. But you never thought about that, did you? You care more about what some nonexistent god feels than what your own brother feels. You wouldn’t dare upset him, but it’s okay to say what you want to me, because I’m not important. I’m not even a damn CHRISTIAN.”
“I-”
“Well that’s FINE, Don, because I don’t need your sympathy, and I certainly don’t need your help to get saved or whatever the hell you want to call it.” Raph was practically screaming in Don’s face.
Don bowed his head. “I’m sorry, Raph, I didn’t mean to hurt you. But I do think you need-”
“Shut UP, you BASTARD!” Raph screamed, and with that he slammed his door in Don’s face. The music got even louder.
“Jerk!” snarled Don. He stormed back into his own room and slammed the door. He flopped face-down on the bed and pulled a pillow over his head. Won’t even let me apologize...that moron. And Leo wondered why Don couldn’t just go to Raph and say he was sorry! Like it was that easy. Don bitterly wondered how many times mister perfect Leo had really apologized for things he did to Raph. No way he was going to talk to that cretin Raph again any time soon. Don sighed and rolled over onto his back. Some holiday.