#i don't write nearly enough raph-centric things tbh

[teetlestansecond]

30 days of angst and fluff - 04. hobby

raph realizes, one night as he stares up at the ceiling from his bed, that he's never really had a hobby.

At least, not his own hobby. He plays video games with his brothers, skates with his brothers, reads comics with his brothers. But when he's on his own, Raph doesn’t enjoy doing those things as much. They’re not as much fun, and he usually ends up giving up and moving on to something else.

But now, in the middle of the night, Raph can’t help but want to find his own thing. His own hobby.

But... what?

He brings it up to April in the morning, when she swings by to pick up a jacket she’d left the night before. April takes a moment to think about it, tapping her chin.

“I mean,” she hums, “I can’t tell you what to pick, Raph, you’ve gotta figure that part out for yourself. Try some things, see what you like! I’m sure you’ll figure it out.” Smiling brightly, she bumps her fist against his shoulder. “you got this!” Raph, watching her leave, does not feel like he’s got this.

“Okay, Raph,” he sighs to himself as he gets up and begins walking. “We can do this. We just have to find something we like. That can’t be too hard, right?” He stops in the middle of the room, hands settled on his waist. “Right?”

The silence that answers isn’t exactly comforting.

His first stop is Vibe City - or, Leo’s room, but he’s been calling it by the ridiculous title for years now. Really, Raph likes the room. It’s a cozy space that just fits his brother, filled with unique trinkets, stolen neon signs, and plants that had been wrongfully thrown out by their first owners, only to be scooped up and adopted by the slider. They were healthy now, bright with vibrant colors in their various locations around the room. Leo looks pretty proud of them where he sits at his desk. Raph frowns as he leans against a nearby wall.

“How did you know you liked taking care of plants?” he asks. Leo shrugs, leaning back in his seat.

“Huh. I dunno, really. I just saw one while I was dumpster diving with Donnie,” he answered. “She looked pretty dead, but there was still some green on her so I brought her home and asked April for a few flower books. And now, Amy lives happily ever after over there.” Leo gestures to the aloe pot on the shelf over his bed. “People throw away plants all the time, and more often than not they’re not actually dead. Which works out for me, I don’t have to find a plant shop to borrow from.” Raph’s brow furrowed.

“Wouldn’t it just be stealing if you took them from a plant shop?” Leo shrugs.

“Steal, borrow, potato, potato. It’s the same!” It’s not, but Raph lets it go.

“Whatever. That doesn’t answer my question,” he points out. Leo considers it for a moment before speaking up again.

“It just felt good,” he finally goes with. “When I realized I could save Amy, it felt like a challenge, but when it actually worked? It just felt good. And so I keep doing it.”

A challenge, Raph thinks. He can find one of those.

He starts by borrowing an old computer from Donnie’s lab to fiddle with, but the inner workings confuse him and he ends up punching the whole thing and having to apologize to the softshell.

Then he borrows a canvas from Mikey and tries painting. It doesn’t look right, he doesn’t like the look of it, and quickly gives up on it.

Baking comes next, and Leo ends up running in with the fire extinguisher after the smoke starts spilling out into the rest of the lair. Raph later realizes that he’d accidentally added two cups of salt to the burnt cake, so it’s for the best that it’s been rendered inedible.

It’s a frustrating string of weeks for Raph, a seemingly never-ending cycle of trying something new only for it to backfire spectacularly. And if Raph’s being honest, it’s weighing on him. It’s starting to feel like he’ll never find his thing. But then it strikes him, while he’s watching a Lou Jitsu movie with Splinter. The rat’s busy mending one of his robes and it just strikes Raph.

Knitting.

He leaps up, promising Splinter he’ll be back later before hightailing it to April’s house. She had a knitting phase a few years back, and he’s thrilled to find when he gets there that she’s still got the needles, and is happy to give them away after showing him the basics. And Raph takes to it like a fish in water.

By the end of two weeks, he has scarves for everyone. He make his first hat a week after that. But things really get going when he figures out how to make sweaters for stuffed animals.

His brothers all like to complain about the itchy sweaters they keep getting gifted every month, but when winter rolls around and they start walking around the lair in their sweaters, Raph can’t help the smug smile that comes to his face.