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The first time Raphael tried to siphon gas from a car, he threw up. His father made him eat charcoal for two days in case any of it had managed to stick to his insides, and Donny apologized over and over for asking him to do it.
He then decided that maybe he should practice it, actually, and used a straw and a glass of water to get a feel for not swallowing the liquid as soon as it hit his mouth. About a month later, when he had mastered this element of self control and the bitter memory-taste had faded, he tried it again. The outcome was much more successful, even though the smell alone nauseated him. But he could power through it; he was the hardiest of his brothers, that’s why Donny had asked him to do it in the first place.
They weren’t going to rob people blind, so his brother made sure to stop the line when they’d gotten a gallon out of a tank before moving to the next car (or sometimes a little less than a gallon, depending on the size of the vehicle). They’d filled two five-gallon buckets to 75% of their capacity (something about safety precautions; he didn’t feel like retaining every word his brother used) before heading back home. Over the next few weeks, Donny managed to figure out how to repair an unwanted gasoline engine and figured up some designs for vehicles of his own.
(“It’s not as flammable as people make it out to be!” Donny assured when Raph asked if they were going to get blown to pieces. “Or… I don’t think it is? No, wait, I might be thinking of propane gas…”)
Their father showed more disapproval that they were taking trips to the surface than he did at their “permanent borrowing” from people’s cars, so Raph didn’t feel any guilt helping his brother collect more when he’d finally burned through it all. And when Raph eventually got his own motorcycle, he still didn’t find an issue in using the siphon method to fuel his own ride. It’s not like he did it that frequently, and since he couldn’t exactly go around buying the stuff, he figured it could be excused by anyone who’d try to hold him accountable.
Late one night, Raph went out with Mikey.
It was just the two of them, goofing off and roughhousing from rooftop to rooftop so they could shake off some extra energy without getting yelled at in their home. Raph heard the telltale “ooh, shiny!” of Mikey getting distracted, and turned around to see his brother missing. He groaned, turned again, and his brother was practically in his face.
“Check out this sweet jacket!” he said, oblivious to the heart attack his brother was fending off.
When his eyes re-focused, Raph had to admit that it was a pretty sweet jacket. But, “Uh, where’d you get that?”
“It was laying around. Tough loss, huh?” Mikey said proudly, showing off the clothing in various angles and poses.
“Heh, yeah. Sucks to be them.” That’s what they get for just leaving it out. In New York City, no less.
He wouldn’t have thought anything more of it if his brother wasn’t suddenly playing with duct tape. He didn’t even notice Mikey disappear this time, he was only alerted by the loud RRRRRRRRRUP of the adhesive separating.
“Whaddya doing?!” he asked, voice strained in his effort not to yell.
“I ‘unno,” Mikey replied, most of his attention going to tearing the tape and patching it over the jacket sleeves.
“Where did you even get that?”
“I found it,” he said, ripping another strip off the roll. “Want some?”
“No. Honestly, what is up with you tonight?” The question was meant to be rhetorical, accompanied with an eye roll and a bewildered shake of his head.
“What’s the problem? You take stuff from cars all the time,” his brother said.
Oops. Maybe the hypothetical accountability agent wouldn’t be so understanding, after all.
“I take stuff that we need, genius,” Raph said, snatching the tape roll from his brother’s hands.
“Well, I need this super sick jacket and that tape,” Mikey argued, parroting his brother’s tone.
Mikey reached to steal the tape back from Raph’s hands, and Raph held it out of reach, pushing down Mikey’s face to keep him from climbing. “Nah-uh. That ain’t how it works and you know it.”
Mikey pouted for a moment, then grabbed the hand over his face and kicked Raph’s feet out from under him. Grabbing the tape from his fallen brother, Mikey laughed and said, “Pretty sure it is, dude.”
“You little-!”
Moral quandary and the need for silence forgotten, Raph scrambled to his feet and chased after his brother, who sprinted off screaming and cackling.
The game of “Run For Your Life” turned into “Who Can Get Home First,” and then became “Petty Elevator Boxing/Wrestling” until they were actually in their lair.
“Sweet jacket,” Donny said, looking up from a book as his brothers came in.
“Thanks!” Mikey beamed.
Oh, yeah, he was supposed to be Mr. Morals or something about that, Raph thought. So, tactfully, he said, “He stole it.”
“Did not!” Mikey defended.
“Yeah, you did, too,” Raph said, flicking the side of Mikey’s head.
“Yeah, well-“ RRRRRRRUP
Mikey slapped a piece of tape onto his brother’s forehead, and used the moment his brother spent flailing in surprise to make a break for it while Donny laughed at them from the sidelines.
“Oh, that little cretin is so dead,” Raph growled, ripping off the tape. “Ow.”
“You should’ve known better than to let him have it,” Donny said, still smiling.
“I didn’t,” Raph said. “He stole that, too.”
Unbothered, Donny looked back to his book.
“You’re not gonna say nothing?”
“Did… you want me to?” Donny asked, hesitant.
“I dunno, Mikey starts picking up stuff that ain’t his and you don’t see an issue?” Raph asked.
Donny shrugged. “Not really? We do it all the time. Haven’t you seen all the signs around the junkyards and dumpsters? We’re not exactly law-abiding citizens. Or citizens at all.”
Raph huffed. “That’s not what I- Forget it. I’ll talk to him myself.”
When he got to the doorway of Mikey’s room, his brother was sitting on the floor with the jacket in his lap, pulling off the strips of tape and methodically wadding them into a ball.
“Hey-“
“AUGH!”
Raph flinched at his brother’s screech, and quickly said, “I ain’t gonna do nothing, I wanted to actually tell you something.”
Mikey cautiously settled back into his original position, eyeing his brother in case of a sudden betrayal move. “Uh huh… What do you want? And you can tell me from over there.”
Raph rolled his eyes. What a drama king. “I meant it when I said you can’t just go around taking whatever you want.”
Mikey put on an irritated pout, and returned to his task of peeling off tape. “It’s not any different than what you and Don do.”
“It is and you know it,” Raph said. “He gets stuff that no one wants anyway, and I take stuff because it ain’t like I can walk into any old store for what I need.”
Mikey hummed a grumpy “mm” in response. It’s the sound he makes to signal that he’s not outright ignoring someone, but that he’d rather not be a part of the conversation. (Usually when he’s in trouble and knows the other person is right.)
“You can keep the stupid jacket or whatever, just don’t take other people’s stuff if they’re using it and you don’t need it, a’ight?”
And that’s about the limit of civil lecturing he can tolerate in one night. Mikey still didn’t look like he wanted to say anything, nor did he look ready to listen to anything else, so Raph left.
He walked by Donny again, who, without looking up from his book, said, “Is he mad?”
“Yeah.” Raph rolled his eyes. “He’ll get over it. I’m not even making him give anything back.”
Raph dropped onto the couch, turning on the TV. Not to watch anything, but to flick through the channels until he gets bored and decides what he wants to do next (unless something catches his interest by surprise).
“You know, letting him off easy isn’t really going to teach him anything,” Donny said.
“Oh, and beating him up ever got anything through his thick shell?” Raph snipped. “Nah, it ain’t that, it’s- you guys are right, you know? We take stuff all the time. But there’s a right and wrong way to do it, and I don’t want him to start doing it the wrong way. But if I go too hard on him about it, I’m painting lines on a one-way street, you know?”
“That is an interesting metaphor, but I get it,” Donny said. “You don’t want to be a hypocrite.”
“Yeah, that’s the word,” Raph nodded.
A few hours passed. Raph did some maintenance on his bike, then found himself in front of the TV again watching some crime show. Donny hadn’t moved, but made occasional commentary on the episode despite still looking through his book. Raph wasn’t sure how he could be getting anything from both the book and the TV, but his brother had never had a problem multitasking with his mind.
About halfway through the second episode, Mikey appeared, announcing his presence by asking, “Whatcha watching?”
“Some cop show. They’re tracking down a guy who keeps killing people,” Raph answered with incredible detail.
“Cool.” Mikey fell over the back of the couch, watching the TV upside down. “Who’s that guy?”
“Some detective,” Raph answered.
Behind them, they could hear Leo walking through the room. He stopped, leaned over to get a better look at Mikey, and said, “Sweet jacket.”
“Uh, thanks,” Mikey said, less chipper than the last time he’d gotten the compliment.
Leo left the room, and the apprehension in Mikey’s body dissipated when he realized that he wasn’t going to get called out by Raph and lectured (again) by Leo. Gambling every ounce of luck, he nudged Raph and tilted his head in the silent question of, “You’re not going to say anything?”
Raph gave the barest shrug and shake of his head before looking back at the TV, giving the equally silent reply of, “Nah.” He didn’t need to keep playing Mr. Responsible all night over this one thing. Also, he didn’t want someone standing front of the TV and interrupting it right at the good part.