You Are My Sunshine, My Only Moonshine - Chapter 10
RotTMNT x Reader
Donnie and juice, just the perfect sort of parallel for this week's chapter art by @birdsnout
Rated: Teen and Up Audiences
Relationships: Michelangelo (TMNT)/Reader, Michelangelo (TMNT)/You, Donatello (TMNT)/Reader, Donatello (TMNT)/You
Warnings: POV Second Person, Gender Neutral Reader, Anxious Reader, Introverted Reader, Stuttering, Aged-Up Mutant Ninja Turtles, Romance, Love, Love Confessions, Falling In Love, Unrequited Love, Rejection, Aromantic Asexual Michelangelo (TMNT), Bisexual Donatello (TMNT), Pansexual Leonardo (TMNT), Lesbian Cassandra Jones | Foot Recruit, Demisexual April O'Neil (TMNT), Implied Cassandra Jones | Foot Recruit/April O'Neil/Sunita, Endgame Donatello (TMNT)/Reader, Romantic Love, Platonic Love, Panic Attacks, Sexuality Crisis, Agoraphobia, Social Anxiety, Happy Ending, Fluff
Synopsis: You’ve lost most of your life to anxiety and fear. Now, in your late 20s, you are desperate to reclaim it and during one such outing you encounter the sun personified. With his and his similarly celestially inspired family, will you finally reach your goal or will you lose yourself along the way?
Also available on Ao3
First 💛 Previous
Donnie liked things in order.
Which was to say it didn’t have to be a specific one.
In his lab, his brother’s would often complain of the mess.
It made sense to him.
He knew exactly where his next blueprints were and that he had yet to put that lone 17/64 in. drill bit that had rolled under the cabinet beside his desk back in its pack.
That was the nature of the universe.
It was both a state of chaos, but also one of order.
It was a scientific debate.
Physics was orderly and seemed to be the same everywhere one looked.
Thermodynamics, alternatively, always snuck in a bit of entropy.
There was measure in that too.
The measure of uncertainty.
As Donnie stared at the chilled set of juice boxes he had removed from the fridge, he wished his life was as cleanly packaged.
What was he doing?
Well for one, he was hunched.
His back pinched and his hands were on the counter with his digits spread out wide.
He was currently staring at a set of unopened beverages and very much wanted to drink one.
It was his whole reason for finally reentering the house after a dreadful night of attempting to sleep outside before going to bunk in the tank.
He’d bought a cabin for the family.
If his father continued to insist on a nature reprieve then they could at least rough it in a consistent manner.
They never cared.
They hadn’t even thanked him.
They made jokes.
He was ridiculed for drinking delicious apple concentrate.
So what if he was almost 30?
These came in a convenient form factor, had an adequate amount, and were tasty.
Simple, they were so simple.
You were simple too once.
You made sense as a villain, and then you made sense as a scaredy cat.
The second part didn’t make as much sense to him personally, but it still stood as a sort of fact.
He chocked that up to entropy.
Whatever your reason was for putting up your fearful front was yours and not his.
What was his was Michelangelo.
His dearest baby brother.
Everyone’s favorite brother.
Minus, Mikey, of course.
They knew their rankings. It was obvious who the clear winner was. Despite his failings, Mikey was infectious. He was the heart of their group of Planeteers. As asinine as the show was and with how very little sense it made, in this case it fit. Reaching out, Donnie picked at the outer plastic that kept the many juice boxes together. A malformed plastic corner marked where the factory had mistakenly melted that outer layer a little too thickly. Their failure would be his gain as it was the perfect flap in which to tear the wrapping off.
He needed to do that.
He needed to shed this damn outer layer.
That’s what it was.
He had on a happenstance coating that kept him away from sweet nectar.
His developing crush on you.
No, he refused to call it that.
This was why he deemed it a development.
What grounds did he have?
First, he sent you to a veritable breakdown.
He had yet to mention that part to anyone else in the family and that alone was tearing him apart.
At the same time, he had no idea how to explain that he had been unusually attentive and had held a stranger close as they sobbed.
More than once.
A little shiver ran up his spine at the thought. That wasn’t him. He wasn’t so cool or aloof. He’d pretended to be when he was younger; when he thought those sorts of attitudes were appealing. It had all been so silly. Having only punctured the tightly packed rectangle, Donnie left the juice to make a fist on the counter.
He’d offered himself to you as the second best option.
Had that been his first failing?
Since when did he think so little of himself?
He held his own high praises in reality. He’d accepted things that others thought he shouldn’t and acknowledged others that were mutually agreed upon that he should. That was the sway of consciousness. Being aware meant having choice. Having choice meant choosing. Not choosing was a choice and he preferred to make them. There was science in that.
Reactions, equal or opposite, were those to be studied.
Was that why he watched you?
He’d long labeled the activity as his usual wariness of strangers in the lair, but he also had a propensity for deciding things without giving them enough thought.
That was his third law’s failing.
He rushed and would be forced to change his mind.
He disliked that much more than disorder.
It ranked somewhere just below pineapple on pizza.
Not that his list was exact.
Those rankings changed by nearly the second.
A jockeying scoreboard based solely on his preference.
You ranked too highly on that one.
No.
He gave his fist a soundless bang.
You weren’t allowed on the scoreboard of things he liked.
It no longer made sense for you to be on the one he disliked.
You had to go into the neutral category.
That one was a no man’s land where he didn’t bother ranking and shoved everything he felt ambivalently about.
He didn’t care about your doe eyes.
He didn’t care about the sharp tongue that you tried to hide.
He didn’t care that he had the privilege more often than not of being the one that you didn’t stutter in front of.
He wasn’t counting.
What was there to tally?
How he’d saved you twice since?
What was that for interactions?
If anything you were some damsel in a story and happily ever after was something cowardly writers never bothered to write.
Because they couldn’t.
Because it was obvious that one only liked the other for surface level reasons.
There was no basis.
They had no real relationships.
There was trauma bonding at best.
Love stories were made by quick decisions, to see quick outcomes.
Thoughtless.
That was what he was in this regard.
That was what he’d grown to understand about emotions.
He couldn’t avoid them.
Frustratingly, he felt them too strongly for that.
They took too much time.
His low empathy regarded his tolerance for other’s feelings.
Sudden emotions were baseless.
Snap decisions were made without reason.
People needed time and awareness to make good judgment.
The heart was to emotion as the brain was to logic.
Reason was required.
If society ran on impulse desire alone then it would have been left in ruin.
The fact that many civilizations’ collapses could be traced back to inane emotional drivel proved his point.
You were some quick hit of dopamine.
You were something new and interesting for his brain to work out as you’d inadvertently tricked him.
You’d snuck your way onto his radar.
He rarely even noticed his other brothers’ fancies before you.
This time he banged both his fists.
Each turtle was different.
Not just in species, but in the sense that they were different people.
All four of them had grown up the same, but perfectly different.
Not once in their entire lives had any of their romantic interests overlapped.
They fought over more coveted items.
They squabbled for seats to their favorite movies or who actually had the rights to the video game consoles.
Those were solved with contracts.
Bargains.
They were inanimate objects to be traded.
Not people.
There had never been secret heartbreak.
No one had a crush on their brother’s crush.
It wasn’t a crush.
It was a spike in Donnie’s heart rate based on stupid chemicals that didn’t know the reality.
He refused to be the one to break a good streak.
Especially when you were Mikey’s first.
In a swipe, Donnie tore the plastic straight down the middle of the packaging. Cleanly separating eight juice boxes into two rows of four, he quieted his mind by plucking cartons out one by one. Setting them back into their tight formation, he tossed the excess trash. He then took the rapidly warming containers and placed them back in their tidy line in the fridge minus a single soldier. That one he stabbed mercilessly but cleanly with its accompanying straw.
He needed to pick back up that eco-friendly packaging design he’d been toying with for these.
Less nonsensical plastic.
Lifting the box up, he got the straw between his lips and sucked.
There it was.
That familiar feeling.
That rush of good chemicals.
It was the same as drinking juice.
Yes, that was what it was.
Nothing but a little treat that some would say was a crutch.
He could quit it if he wanted.
He could pick and choose his vices.
That was his.
His mind a sort of clear in a cluttered way, he released the box and held it up with the straw between his lips. It freed his hands up to check the closest drawers for paper. He wanted to get that package design down before the next genius idea flittered through his head.
You chose just then to appear on the other side of the counter.
Maybe he could go back to classifying you as evil.
You made eye contact and your shoulders came up for a tentative greeting.
Donnie didn’t appear to be a morning person.
You had heard the crinkling of plastic from the top of the stairs and thought it would be alright to come down even if the option terrified you. Though last night you had a clear preference, right now you weren’t sure which brother you wanted to run into. It felt like years had gone by since you chased a man made of sunshine. In your quest to live your life, defeat your fear, and finally be a person, you had somehow regressed on all fronts in a single night.
You had run away.
You had kicked your best friend in the face.
You had been reduced to nothing.
All because you couldn’t handle the change in a status quo that only you decided existed.
Because you were so obsessively focused on getting through any single day.
Because you couldn’t look outside of yourself for one minute to see how you were impacting others.
Because everything you did was through the most frustrating self-absorbed lens imaginable.
You needed to talk to Mikey.
You needed to figure out what happened and not what you assume occurred.
After your little dream which you now deemed a nightmare, you had avoided sleep.
You had spent hours pouring over the events at the lake.
You’d come to realize a few things.
The first being that Mikey had no way of knowing how insecure you had felt.
You had given over to one split second reaction after another.
You had fumbled everything, but even knowing that and having all the time in the world to prepare, you still dreaded the conversation.
You knew the steps all too well. You would start with the awkward titter and dance where neither of you knew who should lead. You would talk over each other by mistake and then flounce with apologies until you were stuck in misery. It’d be followed by one of you, Mikey obviously, going first. He would try and take all blame to make everything better when in reality you were the one at fault. He had said he wanted to test the waters. He had said this was new to him. He told you to tell him if he made you uncomfortable.
That he’d stop.
Immediately.
Instead you kicked him in the face and threw a tantrum the likes of which caused you to desecrate someone else’s home while making its tenants sleep outside. That was three scoops of your shit sundae which you topped off with whipped cream in the form of you sobbing pathetically into your friend’s older brother. A toss of sprinkles came as you’d then forced that same man to clean up after you. You then dotted your creation with the most infuriating cherry of all: you were clearly developing a crush on Donatello.
Why Donnie?
Why the one who didn’t like you?
Why the one who had been so cruel to you from the get go?
The most perfect man in the world already liked you and you turned to his closest, least interested companion and said ‘this one.’
You damned masochist.
You tainted everything you touched.
You hated it.
You despised yourself.
You also felt immense joy at the sight of Donnie’s face.
Even while he looked at you like you had walked in and disturbed his meticulous work.
You were the worst.
You had to beat these feelings back.
It couldn’t be more.
Even if you were to somehow set aside Mikey’s feelings, it seemed patently absurd to have a crush on a friend’s sibling. So many movies touched on it and every time the person in question had been some creeper.
You were the creeper.
It was only a dream.
Dreams didn’t depict what you really wanted.
Dreams were random.
Donnie was a source of comfort because he’d saved you.
You were vulnerable and your mind had filled a void.
Donnie looked adorable with that juice box dangling from his lips.
Adorable?
You wanted to sob.
By all accounts, he was a groggy mess.
The dark circles under his eyes punctured straight through his mask and his posture read a certain menace. Head tipped down, his eyes turned up against stooped lids where he was just a shy step beyond glaring. One tweak of his eyebrows and he’d hold fury, but it was all contrasted by a pop of purple color with bright red apples on it. Smearing any semblance of intimidation coming off him, the casual nature of the juice box made him seem like a guy who just wanted a little treat after a hard toil.
He straightened and looked down his beak at you. “Tell me it was worth it.”
Your expression withered.
He was understandably upset with you.
“What… happened?”
“What didn’t?” He sneered openly and plucked the juice from his mouth. “Let’s begin: There were only porch chairs to sleep on! Mikey tossed and turned in an emergency blanket because, for some reason, he thought he might freeze even though the temperature is nowhere near uncomfortable! There were bugs! I was then banished to the tank only to find my secret cot there in ruins! I suspect Leo, but the reinforced interior meant I couldn’t access the cabin’s Wi-Fi to review my security footage!”
You imagined the only good left in these woods was you could bury your own body and no one would presumably find you. “Donnie… I’m s-so sorry… this is all-!”
“Tell me.”
You blinked out of your misery for shock.
“It was worth it!” He outright bellowed with a twitching eye.
“It…”
Lie.
You needed to lie.
Lie and not tell him you were up all night because you were afraid to dream about him a second time.
“It was…”
He gave an impatient hum.
You brought your head down. “I f-felt secure, but I couldn’t sleep. Too much happened…”
The tense moment of silence seemed to build until your gaze bottomed out on the floor.
Donnie then gave a heady sigh.
“Well…”
“Thank… I mean, thank you…”
“For what?”
You heard a sound and snuck a glance to find he’d folded his arms on the counter. “For… protecting me… for… ugh… I cried on you again…I….” You whipped your head back and forth, frustrated with yourself. “No! I’m… I’m… tired of this! This is the third time. I keep… I hate it. I hate that I keep doing this to you. You said not to make you a third wheel and a-all I wanted was to make sure that was true. Then I went and made you something worse! You had to deal with both me and Mikey and… it’s me. I hate that I can’t keep it in. Even now…” You rubbed at your cheek hoping to shut down your scorched sinuses. “It’s… I don’t know… It feels easy to dump my bad emotions on you because I feel like you understand?”
You could feel him staring.
“Why would you…?” You gestured down yourself with a bitter hand. “… understand this? Why? We’re nothing alike and it’s unfair of me to think we are. I can’t seem to stop taking advantage of your kindness...”
“Your thought processes are boring.”
Your gaze snapped to his.
His lids were lulled.
You could only pop an incensed plosive.
The corner of his lip quirked. “How do you feel now?”
“A-annoyed?!”
He blossomed into a smirk. “This is why I don’t believe you.”
“Believe what?”
“That you’re actually scared.” He rounded the counter.
“I am! You have no idea-!”
“I don’t.” He approached and used his juice box to point at you. “You just said that. You don’t know me and I don’t know you well enough at all, but I know when to throw out a grounding technique so it will be successful.”
“Grounding…?” You trailed off.
“It’s as if your mind gets stuck.” He pointed one digit and curled the others like a gun to his temple. “Spiraling. Catastrophizing. Doomsaying. What have you. However, if something unexpected is said, it interrupts the feedback loop.”
You shirked the information and looked off to the side.
“Maybe your baseline is shy. Maybe you’ve been rightfully wounded. Maybe you have a minute social battery. Maybe you have anxiety disorder. On and on, but from what I’ve seen…” He slid an arm along the counter to tip his body and try to catch a glimpse of your face.
You shared a small portion.
“I’ve seen you fight back. I’ve seen you furious when you’ve been wronged. I’ve heard you blurt out raw thought. It’s hard not to imagine that’s you.” His face then contorted with disgust and he rose up with you chasing after. “This is where Leo would say something overt like ‘you’re a fighter, champ.’”
“I doubt he’d call me ‘champ.’”
“True, it will be something equally old man worthy. Count your days.” Donnie rolled his eyes.
“Why… do you keep helping me? Aren’t I… a-annoying?”
“Incredibly. You’re disruptive and you’ve upturned my peaceful life!” Donnie threw a hand up in Shakespearean dismay.
You watched on with wide eyes.
He held the pose for several seconds before a smarmy smile turned on you.
“Was that another grounding!?”
“No.” He chuckled.
“Wha-?! Hey!”
“Sometimes a sentence needs a little pizazz. I appreciate theatrics.” With a slow blink, he tipped his head as if it couldn’t be helped. “If I must be serious then I will clarify that I don’t mind. So is the life of a hero!”
You made a noise that was sadder than you hoped. “Because heroes help anyone…”
He cracked one eye open in your periphery before shifting to fully gawk. “That’s not-”
You turned to look, hoping you masked the hurt.
That was the truth.
You weren’t special.
You were nothing to Donnie but another soul to be saved.
He did what he did because he had to.
It was good to hear.
It was grounding.
“That’s not exactly…” Donnie looked at his juice, but said nothing more.
You filled the space so he wouldn’t have to feel bad. “Where’s Mikey?”
Donnie gave a full body twitch.
You held firm in your question.
His gaze shifted through a few things before he neutralized them all and gestured to the right of the door. “Around the side.”
“Think he’s ready for me?”
“Are you ready?”
“Yeah… I’m… I’m ready to apologize.”
“You!?” His head shot high.
You nodded.
“Don’t.” His teeth flashed with severity.
“Why?” You felt confident in this. “I overreacted.”
“He should pay better attention to his friends!”
You thought with a purse of your lips. “Does he do this to you? Miss things? With his family… I mean.”
Donnie made a disgruntled sound at having to switch thoughts so rapidly. “It… depends. He is oft for distraction, but when he is focused; it’s impenetrable. Not even pest control can save you. He’s in the walls!”
You gave a puff of amusement. “That sounds about right.”
There was another moment of silence, but this time it had a standoff quality.
You needed to do this.
Donnie hadn’t tried to dissuade that.
He was focused on who was to blame.
Your gaze didn’t falter this time so he was the one to relent. “Go then, if you’re so sure. Patch things up, but at least let him have it a little? For me? Consider it your pittance and because I’m tired of being the only one that seems to think he can do wrong!”
You pouted your displeasure, but considered the thought aloud. “A little…”
One of his brows rose, proud.
You turned away from it with warmed cheeks. “Maybe! No promises…!”
You heard him chuff.
“Thanks, Donnie.”
He shooed you from the kitchen and as you were headed for the door you ruminated on one last thing:
You had ruined a lumberjack’s breakfast.
If that was on Mikey’s mind he may have cared.
Instead, he’d been stewing for hours and only stopped when heard the door open and shut.
He could tell it was you.
It was in the little pause between hinge swings where you tried to catch the door before it slammed shut. You tried to minimize that presence of yours. He never understood why. That and Donnie always let the thing bang loudly since he vowed not to fix it after Raph broke the stopping mechanism three times in a row. The oldest brother had called it a penchant for closing doors with purpose. It had cracked Mikey up, but that wasn’t what he was supposed to focus on now.
Now was time for apologies.
Not that you should let him.
How did he even begin to explain the weird rush he’d felt?
He had to.
He knew that much.
He had seen you take it the wrong way.
That didn’t matter though because he deserved the night outside for what he’d done.
If the roles had somehow been reversed, he would have totally freaked out the same way as you had.
Spasming and kicking were classic escape techniques.
A bad guy can’t hold you down if you’re all over the place.
That was also the reason for zigzagging.
Wait, was that right?
Focus.
He turned his head in time to find you had arrived.
He’d been thinking about this for hours and he knew exactly how he was going to start.
“You ever try to zag on ‘em?!” While the words exited his mouth, his brain screamed at the folly.
Thankfully, you’d frozen on contact with the strange question.
“That was not what I meant to say!” Mikey stared with painfully wide eyes that begged you to understand.
You folded slightly and a hand came up.
He messed up.
He messed up so bad.
Crushes were dumb.
They made you infinitely more stupid.
That raised hand of yours became a fist.
It met your lips.
You used it as cover to giggle behind.
Literal song birds could have flown out of the nest of Mikey’s hair.
That was what it felt like.
“W-what does that e-even mean?” You tittered and moved to his side.
Mikey could feel his face go ooey gooey and he tried to cover it by making a chopping motion with his arms. “Zag like zigzag. They think you go one way-!”.
You gave a weak mime the other direction. “And you go a-another?”
Mikey’s smile split his face. “Good morning, Y/N.”
“Morning… Is this…?” You gestured to the chair next to his where Donnie had tried to sleep the night prior.
Where had Donnie gone?
Mikey had woken up alone.
“Please.” Mikey reclined, cross legged.
You took your seat politely on the edge. “I heard sleeping out here was tough… I’m… I’m sorry…”
“No!” Mikey yelled a little too loud and pushed down on his knees to keep himself in place. “I slept like a baby! I was worried I’d be cold, but I conked out. I’ve always been like that. Just hit the pillow and poof! Light’s out!”
You nodded, sort of intrigued.
Sighing with the knowledge that he couldn’t pursue this light hearted conversation, he collapsed into his seat. “Yesterday.”
You bobbed to attention, ready to speak.
“Can I go first?” He tilted his head at your adorable eagerness.
Something passed over your features that looked like surprise, but also relief.
He liked the way you mixed seemingly unrelated emotions. “Yesterday.” He repeated and added a haunt to his expression. “So that must have been… confusing.”
You shuffled as if ready to flee.
A little rabbit.
He shook his head clear of that prey drive of his. “I told myself I’d start by saying you did nothing wrong.”
“That’s n-not-!”
“It’s true.” He turned openly and knew he would have to interrupt. “You didn’t. Your instinct was good and that’s good! Protect yourself! I want you to! That’s what we agreed on! I totally deserve a swift kick now and again.” He unfolded his legs just to demonstrate.
“But after… That… wasn’t…?”
“Wasn’t… how you should react? How should you?”
Taken aback, you thought it over by tracing the wooden armrest of your chair.
He wondered if you could tell he carved them.
“This is uncharted territory for both of us, I think.” He continued on, hoping to embellish your thoughts. “Like what are we even doing? We’re probably doing something no one has ever done before!”
“I don’t know about that…” You returned with a soft expression.
That fit you best.
That kind warmth to your eyes.
It was something he wanted to dip a paintbrush in and that gave him the perfect metaphor. “I had to think long and hard about what actually happened…”
“Don… Um, Donnie told me you weren’t ready to talk… last night…”
“Oh, you got my message. Yeah…” Mikey tipped and his chair creaked. “I was a mess, but not like you. Don complained and complained about the water you trailed inside and how it was going to seep and puff up the hardwood or something, but it’s sealed so like, what’s his problem!?”
Predictably, you went rigid with fear.
You very much disliked damaging places that weren’t your own.
He liked the way you floundered when you did.
Stupid predator thoughts.
If only he had time to tease you.
“I came at it from all the angles like you’re supposed to with a sculpture.” Mikey mimed a looking glass. “See what’s in the stone or clay or whatever.”
“Inside…?”
“Yeah!” Mikey spun in his seat. “You can try to force the art, but it won’t art. Let it reveal itself and that’s when it gets good.”
“Oh…”
“That’s you.”
Your lips parted with a question, but you closed them as you tried to parse out which part.
He waited to see what you’d come up with.
“A… a… lump of… something t-to be molded?” You earnestly looked to him.
You were the cutest. “You’re the art.”
“I’m…?” Your head reared back in confusion.
“That’s not exactly what I thought in the moment because my thoughts are… you know… but it’s what I meant to think.” Mikey turned and searched the woods for that intangible feeling. “Looking at you, where the water dripped down your skin, the way your spine curved, and the weight of your limbs. Your skin stretched. The fabric bunched.” He rounded his hands around some invincible piece. “You were stunning… A work of art. The golden rule personified. The most beautiful landscape a painter can never in a million strokes ever dream to capture!”
Your arms blocked off your torso in a layer of protection.
That made a sad sense.
“Y-you… you… you… well… you b-blushed…?” You looked at him, nervous flush darkening your cheeks.
“I’m gonna own how corny this is because it’s super accurate: it was cupid’s arrow.”
You exploded with new shades that he wished he could wick off your skin with a swipe of bristles.
“Seriously.” He swept a hand against his knotted locks. “I think I’ve only felt something close to that like one time! It was the first time I got into Frick! Or… was it the Guggenheim…? Whatever, the first time I got to see a real painting up close. To see the brush strokes. The artistry. The masters! It felt like my face was on fire! It was pure unadulterated excitement!” His eyes raised with towering canvases. “It wasn’t life changing; it was life affirming.”
“B-but… m-me…?”
“Just like you.” He tipped his head to watch you comfortably.
You stewed with the weight of his statement.
“I’m sorry if it seemed like something else. I totally get how. I mean even I kind of thought that was the case, but when I examined what happened, it was all kneejerk. Also I’m… I’m kind of sad it wasn’t? Well not sad…” He blew a bit of a raspberry. “I don’t want to feel that way and I don’t, which is good, but it’s also…?”
“It’s o-one of those… t-things you wished… you could?”
“Yeah, but it’s a dumb one like when they give you a piece of furniture to build and add those extra pieces that aren’t listed in the instructions.”
You gave an unsure smile at his comparison.
“Your body wasn’t provocative to me in the way most people think. For me, you were provocative to the mind! Stimulating my artistic senses and making all my brain juice’s explode!” Mikey pointed at his head from different angles and crossed his eyes.
You giggled.
“There, how’s that? I think that’s all me. If it makes sense! Wanna go?” Mikey offered a hand to pass the conversation.
You folded your legs together and tapped your knees. “You took my blame away…”
“Huh?”
“I was going to take full blame. I r-ruined everything like I… always…” You slowed, a heavy sorrow on your eyes.
His chest sank with it.
“I couldn’t face you. I hid. I made Donnie do all that work…”
“Dee woulda done that anyway. I was definitely gonna track water all over the place.”
You gave him a smile despite everything else swirling on your face.
“A shower sounds real good though…” Mikey felt his eyes drift.
You bobbed. “I-I’ll l-let y-you go-!”
He waved his hands. “I’m just saying to remind myself! Shower then breakfast because I also want to hit that griddle so hard. Now that’s provocative! Pancakes!!”
“A-art!” You tried to join his enthusiasm.
“Hey-o!” He raised the roof. “Sorry, you were feeling bad. Wanna talk about that?”
“Uh… s-sure… I was… I wasn’t until I was… That swimsuit…” You squirmed with what was almost a shiver. “I was really uncomfortable in it. H-hearing you like it… I… It doesn’t c-change my mind, but… I’m glad… in a way that i-it wasn’t what I thought… It should be nice that you think of me that w-way, but also it’s… I… It d-doesn’t make me feel better a-about it…”
“Did it not fit?”
“No… It did…”
“Was the cut weird?”
“No, that’s not…”
“I had a pair of trunks once that would ride up which is like, hello! There’s a shell there! How’s it getting past that?!”
“Mikey…”
“Yeah, huh?”
“W-wearing it made me feel uncomfortable.”
He stared back.
That felt important.
He should put a pin in that.
A stressor on top of repetition was an obvious cry for his attention. “You… It made you feel bad?”
You gave a single tight nod.
He had to hold himself back from a protesting rant.
That was absurd and he’d heard and seen pretty much every crazy thing there was to see.
Nothing surprised him anymore.
Then say, surprise parties, but that was because his brother’s always topped themselves.
“I…”
His mind cleared as he snapped to you and your quiet voice.
“I… felt… provocative… the bad one… The one... t-that you think is… unnecessary…”
“Oh.”
“Yeah…”
“Then you saw me see you and you thought…” Mikey crossed his fingers while drawing lines. “Eugh… That’s bad.”
“I’m sorry…”
“You shouldn’t have to say that. I’m the one that’s sorry…”
You shook your head, eyes down. “L-like I said… It should be nice… I just can’t…”
“Accept.” He spoke. “Not how I feel about the swimsuit.”
You gave another sharp nod as if it hurt you.
He wished he could take that away.
“Well…” Mikey sighed, the air feeling a little too heavy. “I mean that’s not… new. You already don’t accept me.”
“Mikey!”
“Right, right. You don’t accept my feelings! I gotta specify!” He chirped.
You wound with dismay.
“It’s true!” He rolled in his seat and it rocked with his weight. “Which is still fine, by the way! I feel the same and I think I unlocked a new piece even if I’m still not totally sure how it goes into the puzzle.”
You made an unsure sound.
“I’m just spitballing. You can have those without understanding ‘em. They’ll make sense eventually.” He eyed you hoping it didn’t apply much pressure. “Are we… still good?”
“You… you still want to…?” You looked around for an out, but there was none among the wilds. You returned with what he liked to imagine was a wiggle of your nose. “... b-be friends with m-me… d-do this…?”
“Of course, silly.” He smiled easily. “There was never a doubt.”
He watched one layer of anxiety fall off of you only to reveal the next.
That was about your limit for these things. “You hungry?”
“W-we missed breakfast because of me…” You stuttered out.
Mikey chuffed so hard he almost wished he had a noisemaker to go with it. “Doubt it. Don mighta made something in the meantime. Oh! Maybe he baked something! He’s really good at baking, but he whines too much. I can hear him now! ‘Mikey, the humidity of the trees is affecting my rise time!’ But don’t let that fool you! He’s got nothing on this chef! If we’re eating good; it’s gonna be cause of me!” He threw a triumphant thumb into his figure.
“O-oh…” You looked confused.
You needed time. “I’ll go… shower! Yeah!!” He grinned proud for his memory. “And you chill out here or in there or wherever. I’ll cook, you clean. You do the dishes! How’s that for mutual punishment? Win-win!”
“N-no breakfast pizza…” You looked relieved enough that he could tell you were making a joke.
Mikey threw himself to his feet and tilted a smarmy smile your way. “I don’t know! I think those old axe wielders would totally crush a forest with Mike’s supreme lumberjack breakfast bake ‘za! Think of the complex carbs that’ll fuel a working man’s hard day!!”
You giggled that bird song.
“Nah, I’m making pancakes and no axe murderer will stop me!” He lifted his foot as high as it would go before taking a step.
“W-when did t-they become-!?” You pivoted to track his movement.
“Who’s to say!?” He cheered and ran in time with the rapid pace of his heart.
Listening long after the door had clattered closed, you eventually sank back into your chair. The woods were a lovely backdrop no matter how you felt. At an odd peace even though it didn’t quite feel like everything had been dealt with, you watched a bird preen itself on a nearby tree. Twitching to check its surroundings between each flick of its head, it then ruffled its feathers for a job well done and flew off to some unseen task.
You figure it was probably food which is what finally got you up and headed back inside. You quickly found a sort of pandemonium where Donnie was stone-faced catching enormous flapjacks being tossed through the air. Some sort of ancient game, Mikey threw more and more as Donnie moved on near muscle memory to catch them. Creating a stack that was unnecessarily tall and probably crushing at least the bottom twelve discs to pulp, you waited by the door until Mikey spun with his still damp hair dancing tendrils around him.
“Perfect timing!” He shined all too bright with the only crack as a gap in his teeth.
You were soon stuffing yourself to the brim which should have led to comatose except Donnie demanded a nature hike. The product of some agreement between him and Mikey, you were left staring vacantly as the brothers prepared to go. Mikey mentioned this was related to more mutual punishment so you were excused, but he also appeared to have suffered the same overeating fate that you were. Moving on camaraderie alone, you hobbled together with Mikey as Donnie, who had eaten nearly as many pancakes as his brother, seemed completely unperturbed.
On the trail, Donnie spouted fact after fact and staunchly only called things by their scientific names. The food coma lent a period where you excused the stubborn act because you were only half listening, but as more steps aided in your digestion, it became annoying since you had no idea what he was talking about. His facts sounded interesting and you began to feel like you were missing out. When you checked in with Mikey to see how he was fairing, you found a similar irritated look on his face. You both then shared a wry smile before Mikey stood taller and began loudly commenting about purposefully incorrect flora and fauna to spite his brother.
“Polemonium vanbruntiae is a perennial herb that grows erect from a horizontal rhizome.”
“Dang, Y/N. Can you believe earth worms can grow straight up from the ground like that?” Mikey gleamed at you.
“Oh, I’m hearing you want facts about Lumbricus terrestris! Very well!!” Donnie’s voice was getting bitterer by the second.
The two bickered an affectionate back and forth. All clear jest, you couldn’t help but also notice the natural flow there. Mikey said something about a B-team reunion as tours guides and from context it seemed like the pair were considered the backup team to Leo and Raph. With Mikey’s mighty mysticism alone that seemed like an impossibility. You couldn’t picture your friend waiting in the wings and Mikey caught wind of your surprise. He explained they weren’t always the mystical warriors you saw today and you had a difficult time trying to picture what they were like when they were young. Mikey moved to sharing training mishap memories and you were left wondering what kind of power Donnie had.
Donnie without mystic magic was horrifying enough.
If someone told you he was the strongest, you might believe them.
You still believed as much about Mikey.
You were sure there were all sorts of dynamics between the brothers, but these two in particular had a special relationship. Trailing behind to observe some vines that Donnie had pointed out, it only further cemented your decision: Your supposed crush was nothing more than a ridiculous dream.
You were meant to stand on your own. Mikey was your guiding light from the sun. You didn’t betray that sort of help by trying to sneak away to have a tryst with the moon. The two had a familiarity that you could never threaten. Not that you considered yourself capable of such a thing in the first place. The moon didn’t feel anything special for you.
He only sought to right.
To illuminate injustice.
You fancied him as he was.
You respected that he was an ominous source of good. You would pocket all other feelings. The only emotion you would tend to was the one that cared for Donnie’s kindness. You would let that one blossom in your heart.
The good one.
It was one based on support that you hoped to repay. You could aid him and that was a pure feeling. That one wouldn’t get in the way.
Assistance.
You could do the same for Mikey.
A decision you were sure to agonize over later, in this moment, staring at a green vine, you saw tenacity. Donnie had said this otherwise spindly plant had the strength to clutch onto tree limbs throughout the harshest winters. It formed a symbiotic relationship with the tree once it matured.
That could be you.
You could flourish one day and then in turn help the brothers that helped you. Putting a hand to the trunk, you looked up the tree. They didn’t need your help as they’d long survived on their own, but you could support them in this tiny way. You could provide the little boost of nutrients that made things just a little bit easier. They were the heroes of New York and they deserved as much for all that they had endured.
“Y/N.”
“Yeah?” You leaned in close to the bark, pressing your promise there.
The quiet of the forest took up space before Donnie’s voice softened. “Did you want to know more about Vitis aestivalis?”
“Sure. Which one was that?” You turned to him and kept a hand to the tree.
He seemed a bit bashful as he held up some greenery. “The leaves are thought to be hepatic.”
He’d been hoping to expand on his latest find.
You wondered where Mikey had run off to now.
“That’s some sort of cleanse, right?” You smiled attentively for Donnie in Mikey’s stead and for no other reason.
“They can draw away soreness.” He nodded.
You hummed in interest and moved in close.
Mikey soon appeared on the horizon, triumphant, with a walking stick held high.
💛 NEXT 💛
I LOVE MY BETAS @tmntxthings and @thepinkpanther83
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