#Ruby was really shocked when Mikey put him on his ass

[dottie-writes-tmnt]

Spring Cleaning!

This is part 4 of my fic A New Kind of Familiar. Tags and more chapters can be found here!

He’d given Ruby the duster and the turtle had gone off with a look on his face. The high, squeaky sneeze from a few rooms over sounded a lot like Donnie.

In the middle of it all was Ruby, browline furrowed. “Oh, are you allergic?” Mikey questioned. He wasn’t expecting the gaze to turn fiery and defensive, and definitely wasn’t expecting that gaze to be trained on him.

Mikey stood in the doorway of the living room, gazing at him in silence. Ruby simply continued listening to Casey Jr. explain the Pythagorean theorem to him, nodding along and appreciating the human putting everything into simple terms.

The staring sent uncomfortable pinpricks up his spine and dug its claws into his brain, pleading with him to turn around, screaming at him to snap and retaliate and protect, and whispering that maybe Mikey was seeing weaknesses Ruby couldn’t. Maybe Mikey was laughing at him, judging every single fiber of his being at this very moment. The red-coded turtle ignored it, focusing solely on the ravenette in front of him.

The teen finished off his explanation, cueing Ruby to thank him, and call him a genius for knowing how all this stuff worked. Of course, the boy waved him off— he wasn’t nearly the smartest in the house, what with Donnie and Leo around —and Ruby huffed good-naturedly and gave a non-committal response. Casey Jr. was making Ruby smarter every day.

 

“We’re going out,” Mikey blurted suddenly, shaking his hands at his sides. He was in an orange hoodie, eyes holding some emotion Ruby couldn’t name, though he knew his Mikey would be able to. “D— Raph wants everyone to come.”

“Still weird hearing that name not mean me,” he muttered, Junior already standing up.

He stood as well, sighing as Leo entered the room with a smirk. His blue hoodie was long enough to stop just above his knees.

“Vamos, mis hermanos! Tenemos lugares para estar!”

Ruby didn’t know what kind of face he was making.

“What.”

“Leo speaks Spanish sometimes. He watches too many telenovelas and hangs out with Hueso too much,” Mikey explained.

“Who?”

“You’ll see. Hey, you should probably borrow one of my hoodies.”

“Why?”

“So the humans don’t see you??”

“What do you mean? They’ll see me regardless.”

“The humans are really dumb, they’ll never know.”

Ruby blinked a few times before deciding that he wasn’t going to question too many things right now. Leo suddenly spoke up again, running from the room.

“I’M ON RAPH’S SHOULDERS TODAY!!”

“You dick! ” Mikey cried, throwing a black hoodie at Ruby and running after the slider. “Raph! Raph!”

Donnie followed behind at a leisurely pace, purple hoodie draped carelessly over his shoulders. Ruby had been here for around a week now, and he still wasn’t used to…all this. Not yet.

He hadn’t seen Splinter at all, which was more of a relief than he would ever admit. After contemplating a few moments, he pulled the hoodie on. Shrugging, he followed the group up to the surface.

Well, Mikey wasn’t wrong. Nobody looked at them sideways. The first place they went was the scrap yard, Leo and Mikey perched on Raph’s shoulders. Donnie was floating with some sort of thing that had been on his shell every time Ruby saw him.

Both Caseys were lagging behind, muttering about breaking the neck of some guy named Repo Mantis. Raph cast a concerned glance toward them. When they arrived, a purple mantis mutant— ohhhh, that’s who Repo Mantis was —glowered in their direction.

“I’m still pissed off at all ‘o ya for lettin’ my cat out.” (What?)

“Sure, sure, we are so sorry and we should never have done that, blah blah blah, insert fake crying here, the two humans have been planning your death the whole way here for if you don’t let us in,” Leo finished, smiling with his chin in his palm as he gazed at the mutant.

Casey Jr. was wielding a hockey stick chainsaw thingy that wasn’t there before. (It looked so fucking cool, Ruby kinda wanted one) while Casey Sr. brandished her own hockey stick shaped weapon.

The mantis gazed at them for a few moments before opening the gate.

“Gracias! Onward, brothers!”

The next glance Ruby cast the humans’ way, the weapons were gone.

“Where the fuck did you put them? Up your ass?”

“Language,” Red’s voice snapped, overlapping with his Leo’s in his head. He rolled his eyes.

“Yeah yeah,” he muttered, following behind the group until he was given something to do. He was assigned to help Mikey, the orange-covered turtle going off to look for furniture. He followed as Mikey hopped down a mountain of trash.

When he reached the other, the box turtle was staring at a faded green stool. It looked like it was jade green before it faded.

“What do you think?” Mikey questioned, turning to him.

“It probably looked good before it got all fucked up. Think it was jade green, ‘n honestly, with a bit of customizing it’d look amazing. Why, you want it?”

“Yeah, but I have no clue what color I’d paint it, what I’d put on it, you know…”

His eyes flitted everywhere but the turtle in front of him.

“You could help, couldn’t you?”

“I don’t know anything about art ‘n shit. That’s always been…” he stopped.

It had been his thing, at one point. Then his brothers made fun of him for it, and a few years later, Mikey picked it up. Nobody ever messed with him about it.

“That’s more of a Mikey thing.”

“You can still help! It’ll be fun!”

He sighed.

“Fine, but if you hate it, I don’t wanna hear any complaining.”

“Promise I won’t!”

“Good.”

The furniture hunting lasted a few more hours before they all went back to the lair. April was seated on the couch, flicking through channels lazily when they arrived. When they got her attention, she declared spring cleaning.

Mikey sighed heavily, pulling out his phone.

“I forgot what my priority list was,” the box turtle muttered, before finding whatever he was looking for.

“Okay. Leo, you’re in the arcade room with April. Raph, you’re helping me clean the kitchen, Donnie, you’re actually welcome to clean your lab this time. Casey Sr. and Jr., you two are in charge of the projector room. Ruby…you can dust. That’ll be good for at least the next hour. We meet back here after we’re done with those tasks, right?”

Raph nodded, Leo pouting from where April was wrangling him toward the arcade.

“Off, family! To clean!”

—

 

Mikey hummed to himself, wiping down the counters while Raph dodged around him to sweep.

“Does Ruby seem like he’s settlin in, to you?”

“Sort of. I think having his own room would help.”

“‘N we’re workin’ on that.”

“You two have the exact same accent. Yours is just more pronounced.”

“‘S better’n Casey’s Brooklyn accent he picked up.”

“He doesn’t use it often! And it’s funny.”

“‘Nobody talks about the toitles!’”

Mikey snorted, swatting at his older brother with the rag he’d been using.

“You realize Ruby’s a Chrome Dome fan, right?”

“I’ve been tryin to forget that.”

“I think it’s a good thing he’s finding things he likes here. He’s gonna be here awhile. Even if he is a filthy traitor.”

“We’ll make a Ghostbear fan outta him one of these days.”

Mikey thought Ruby was settling in fine. Casey Jr. was helping the mutant feel at home, Splinter was doing his best to steer clear of the other for now, and everyone was trying their best to get him a car he would like. Even Donnie was pitching in.

Around 30 minutes ago, Mikey had sent everyone off to do their own jobs. He’d given Ruby the duster and the turtle had gone off with a look on his face. The high, squeaky sneeze from a few rooms over sounded a lot like Donnie.

The box turtle went to the room to tell his brother to take a break, the words already on his tongue when a chorus of “awwww” came from the threshold.

In the middle of it all was Ruby, browline furrowed.

“Oh, are you allergic?” Mikey questioned.

He wasn’t expecting the gaze to turn fiery and defensive, and definitely wasn’t expecting that gaze to be trained on him.

 

—

 

Ruby had completely forgotten about his dust allergy until he actually started dusting. His eyes burned and his nose itched, and just his luck, he sneezed just as Leo, Donnie, and April were passing by.

His stupid, squeaky sneeze. The awwws from the door sent his face burning in mild embarrassment. April snickered.

“Donnie, you two have something in common! You both sneeze like girls,” the girl chuckled.

He knew it was a joke. He knew it wasn’t even a jab at him. Not really.

“Oh, are you allergic?” Mikey questioned.

He couldn’t help the glare that made its way onto his face, couldn’t help the target it went to. Mikey looked genuine, and that made it even worse.

Or maybe, that little voice whispered, maybe he was making fun of Ruby too. But Mikey wouldn’t do that.

Who was he kidding, of course he would.

So Ruby did what he did best.

Well, what he considered his best. His brothers wouldn’t know, since all they saw was him yelling and snapping at everyone. Never what he did after.

Without a word, he shoved his way out of the room, fleeing the lair and going up to the rooftops.

What he wasn’t expecting was to be followed. The light footsteps behind him had to belong to Mikey. Was his little joke not complete? He turned, eye twitching as he laid eyes on the face of what looked like genuine concern.

“What? You don't know how to leave a turtle alone or somethin’?”

“Normally, a turtle doesn’t run away for no reason.”

“Normally, a turtle should have the fucking sense to fuck off when it’s obvious he needs to. I’m not some fucking case for you to figure out,” he snapped. “I’m not even supposed to be here, for fuck’s sake, and you all just have to make this shit my problem even though it’s not my fucking fault, don’t you?

“And you, you’re out here pretending you’re following me out of, what, the kindness of your heart? I’m not buying that bullshit. Now I’m telling you, so only a dumbass can’t get the message this time. Fuck. Off.”

“You’re not making sense!”

“Of course I’m not, Mikey, because it’s you! Nothing ever makes sense to you, does it? Just—“

“Did somebody say something? You know, Donnie’s allergic to dust, Leo’s allergic to strawberries, Raph’s allergic to peanuts…April’s allergic to bananas. Nothing to be upset about.”

“It’s not about that,” he snapped.

Why the fuck would he come up here and pretend like he understood when he clearly didn’t? To make him look stupid?

Of course he didn’t get it, because Ruby was overreacting. He let himself stay upset and anxious about being here, then he dealt with this dimension’s Splinter, then let some stupid little comment get to him and it built up until he felt like a bomb ready to explode and he finally had. Like a baby throwing a fucking tantrum, and then he ran away like a coward.

“Then what is it about? You’re not making sense, Ruby,” Mikey said, surprisingly gentle.

“Don’t do that.”

“Do what?”

“Talk to me like I’m some fucking baby. I’ll push you off this damned roof.”

The box turtle gave him a crooked smile.

“How can I help?”

He froze. He knew his perplexment showed on his face, but he couldn’t bring himself to care.

“What do you mean?”

“It’s clear that talking about it won’t really help, otherwise you would’ve started talking by now. And you’re clearly upset. So, how can I help you? You wanna spar? Or run rooftops? Or scream at me? You can do that, I realize I interrupted you.”

It was like someone took a loaded gun from his hands and replaced it with a fucking nerf gun.

“I don’t wanna hear any complaints when you’re flat on your shell,” he warned, cracking his knuckles. Mikey smiled, chuckling.

“Oh, you won’t.”

 

If he lost a few times, nobody had to know. Only the stars bore witness to their sparring session, tucking away every win and loss to replay in Ruby’s memories when he thought about improvement.

Mikey laughed good-naturedly when he was downed, and graciously didn’t help Ruby up after a loss.

When they returned, Ruby’s mind blissfully clear and Mikey beside him, it was to Leo chasing Casey Jr. and desperately crying out for him to give up whatever he had in his hands while Red narrowly saved his tail from being ran over. Casey Sr. was crouched in the rafters, filming while Donnie cheered for the human teen.

Ruby simply slunk off to find a nice closet to take a nap in, preferably avoiding any social interaction for the next hour at least. Mikey joined the fray effortlessly, shouting for Casey to toss the object his way.

Red caught a glimpse of Ruby before he disappeared for the evening, offering a smile. Ruby gave one back, before shutting the door and sighing deeply. His eyes shut. Yeah, the stars would keep his secrets for now.

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