You Are My Sunshine, My Only Moonshine - Chapter 9
RotTMNT x Reader
I am constantly blown away by this chapter art by @yamin-yups
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?
This chapter contains reference to body dysmorphia. Remember that what you feel is completely valid, but we can sometimes see ourselves differently than we really are. Please keep yourselves safe.
Also available on Ao3
First 💛 Previous
“Maybe we take a break from going out into the packed public for once?” Mikey was upside-down, but compensated by holding his phone the opposite way.
It put him right side up in the video chat, but the view was extra blurry. “Is that… okay?”
“I’m the one suggesting it!” Mikey stuck out his tongue, but his reflection seemed to confuse him on which way the appendage should go. “It’s been awhile. I haven’t been able to see you.”
“Yeah… well…” Though for you it would have been predictable, Mikey hadn’t felt the firsthand effects of your setbacks yet.
Panic attacks always caused you to withdraw into yourself.
You weren’t supposed to.
There were times when it was easy to keep going.
Others, such as now, left you homebound for as long as society allowed.
The push to normalcy now included your thoughtful friend.
“Do you know after my tremors went away, I spent months avoiding art because I was afraid of how it would look?” Mikey told you casually.
You weren’t sure what he was talking about.
You tried to recall something about tremors, but came up short.
You wanted to ask more, but there was a more startling aspect than the content itself.
You couldn’t believe there was ever a period where Mikey avoided art as he had been nothing, but a loud proponent of all its merit.
“Why?”
“Because I knew my level and then… I didn’t. I knew I’d have to get back there. It was like riding a skateboard, but needing to take that time? For a second time. Chancing the bad result? It was like my healing was one thing and then by doing that it would show me just how much further I still needed to go. Like that dude with the cat and the box. I didn’t want to open it and find out. I couldn’t do it.”
“Isn’t the saying… something… about riding a bike?”
“We were skateboard tots!” Mikey rolled over and with it so did his camera, inverting the image.
You nodded lightly.
“I switched up crafts. Started new ones that weren’t so finger focused. Pour paints and candle work!” He made grabby hands at the lens as he fixed his phone angle.
“Something low key…” You hummed where you were sitting at the foot of your bed.
“Yeah, something quiet, calm, and… oh! Oh yeah!” There was another flip, but this one was out of excitement.
“D-don’t… bust through a wall…!”
Mikey appeared within a flurry of static. “Did you just make a Kool-Aid Man joke?”
“I make jokes!”
The wattage of his smile turned up to a blinding degree. “Well then I’ve got just the wall to bust through!”
-
“No.” Donnie glowered over his shoulder.
“Please!” Mikey bounced his plea with his head straight up to the ceiling of the garage you were currently in.
An oddity in the subway, but something you imagined had to exist based on logic, your eyes were openly roving around the tidy depot.
“Absolutely not.” Lifting out from under a hood and minding his head, Donnie craned an elbow to the engine block he was working on. “You know you’ve been banned.”
“One time!” Mikey groaned.
“No!” Donnie felt the need to rip off his leather work gloves to throw an unencumbered finger in Mikey’s face. “You were banned once after crashing eleven separate times!!”
“Eleven?!” You squeaked.
Mikey flipped back and forth between the two of you, obviously caught in who to address first. “My driving is fine!” He chose you and then flipped to Donnie. “I’ve changed!”
From the duffel that was slung around your body, you had already been clinging to the strap as it gave you something comforting to hold on to. With the new knowledge that you had almost been driven somewhere rural by someone with that kind of driving record, you now scooped up the entire sack to soothe yourself.
“Forget that.” Donnie flicked his gaze to you. “You’d need a full crash suit to survive him.” He then folded his gloves into a pair and went to check his tool box.
You wilted further.
“We’re already packed!” Mikey rounded a new argument. “This is going to be our big, no-stress, relaxing getaway and you’re making it exactly not that!”
“That’s unfortunate. The bus station isn’t far.” Donnie knelt down to get a wrench.
“And how’s that going to work!? We get dropped at some station and walk to the cabin!? You know it’s in the middle of nowhere!” Mikey stepped up to throw menace over his brother.
Donnie smelled it a mile away and lifted his head, pouring twice the malice. “Oh, you want to play?”
Mikey gulped and nodded his head once. “Let us borrow a car, the tank, a shell cycle, whatever! You’re being unfair!”
“Your planning is poor.” Donnie was slow to get on one knee. “You’re ill equipped.” To the other, he got a foot under him. “You’ve informed no one.” Rising to his towering height above his brother, he loomed. “You walk into my garage, where I am in the midst of my own personal and much needed zen in the form of refurbishing my newest baby and expect me to drop the keys of another into your hands knowing full well that you have destroyed more vehicles on more occasions than I can count on our joined mutant fingers and toes because you just so happened to suddenly decided that you needed to take a weekend trip with your friend of which whom you have a similar slapdash scheme going on with to go to our family’s cabin up north on a whim!?!”
Having watched Donnie not take a single breath, you backed up nearly the same distance that Mikey’s head had shrunk down into his shell.
“Y-yes?” Mikey peeped.
“No.” Donnie said the word firm and quiet, but punctuated it with a tap to Mikey’s plastron which caused the stiff turtle to fall over. “Now leave me to my work.”
Only a shell laying there, you leaned forward to look over Mikey without compromising your spot.
Donnie swung his wrench and moved over to a creeper with the intention to disappear under what looked like a turtle-themed moon buggy.
“You-” Your voice echoed in the garage and you tensed up.
Mikey’s head emerged from his shell to peek at you.
Donnie halted his motion, but didn’t turn.
“You… um… could… come with us?”
You watched Donnie’s lips wobble with disdain.
“N-Not a-as a d-driver! Y-you said…”
In a loud pop, all of Mikey’s limbs emerged. “That’s a great idea!!!”
In a smooth rotation, Donnie both turned and lifted his wrench with a threat.
Mikey crab walked several paces away.
“I’m disappointed.” Donnie sent a glare in your direction. “If your thought is even-” He caught a glimpse of his wrench. “-5/16ths as moronic as his then you are banned from the garage itself. Know that, would you still like to continue speaking?”
Gaze plummeting, your heart tried to escape and you screwed the whole of you shut to keep it inside.
Your entire body shook with the force of your nerves and you had to wait until your BPMs dropped to a manageable limit before you could manage speech. “You… said… m-much needed… so maybe… the trip would… well… be calming… for you too?”
There was a clink of metal hitting the ground.
Banned.
You were banned from the garage.
That was fine.
In theory, it wasn’t.
In theory, you were mortified.
Despite your best efforts, you had never been banned from anything.
Now you were.
A glaring dark spot on your permanent record.
Was Mikey a bad influence?
“You do say driving gets your mind off things…” Mikey said with a sudden supportive starkness.
You kept your gaze firmly rooted to the floor in shame.
“Also hold up!” In a slap of feet against concrete, Mikey righted himself. “You take a few of those things back, Don! I may have pushed the idea through, but it was not poorly planned or ill equipment or whatever you said! Y/N worked crazy hard on putting together everything in the short time frame I laid out!!”
You twitched.
“There’s maps, multiple trails marked, a calculated amount of water, with extra rations, flares… Like do you think this other bag is mine? Heck no! I’m not bringing anything! Both these bags are Y/N’s! They’re both stuffed with… stuff! Like-like!” You felt Mikey come over to you. “How you contacted the ranger’s station to tell them we’d be in the area? I’ve never even thought of that! We’ve never done that have we, Dee?”
Donnie continued his bout of silence that you didn’t dare look upon.
“What else…?” Mikey slapped his forehead. “I mean, come on! I can’t even remember it all!”
“I… got that satellite phone… you were pretty excited… about it.” You mumbled to the ground.
“With the backup batteries, Donald!” Mikey hummed a self-important sound. “The backup batteries!!”
The garage made it very clear that Donnie was walking over to you.
You bounced ever so slightly to garner the courage to meet his eye.
“Who did itinerary?” Donnie asked.
“Me.” Mikey remarked casually.
“I assume food too?” Donnie’s voice was heavy with judgment.
“Nope.” You could see a swoop as Mikey folded smug arms.
“That’s not quite…” You cleared your throat. “Mikey… shared his… favorite dishes that you… all make…when you… go.”
Donnie dipped into your eye line and you startled.
He’d bent at his waist and come down at a perfect angle.
You stared with warped lips.
“How long?” He narrowed his gaze.
“T-the trip?” Your gaze wobbled.
Mikey opened his mouth and Donnie threw out an arm that, by the sound, must have slapped the younger in the face.
“Yes.” Donnie kept his hand in place.
“Tonight… tomorrow… back Sunday?”
“Is that a question?” Donnie’s head tilted.
Mikey grunted, annoyed.
“No…” You got out, quiet.
“You agreed knowing full well you’d be alone with him?”
Slapped with a similar heat from the first time you’d realized that fact, you gave a tight nod.
‘We have separate rooms!’ Mikey mumbled through closed lips with surprising clarity.
“And that’s okay?” Donnie disappeared.
You chased him up to find he’d released Mikey and was waiting on him for an answer.
“It’s a no brainer.” Mikey nearly rolled his eyes.
Donnie’s brow lowered, unsatisfied.
“Yes, it’s okay because it isn’t a thing.” Mikey huffed around his clarification.
“I suppose… I’ve been persuaded.” Donnie looked down thoughtfully and you watched him trace back to where he’d dropped his wrench.
Mikey jumped into the air with a sudden bout of energy and caught your hands to spin you.
“Y-y-yay!” You stutter, stalling on the rotation.
“Cabin, here we come, baby!” Mikey cheered.
“I need my things!” Donnie barked. “And you.”
You jolted. “Y-yes?”
“You will send me triplicate copies of your plans.”
“S-sure…” You spastically patted yourself down for your phone.
“I refuse to engage with either of your antics.” Donnie’s own appeared in his hand. “I am no third wheel. I am coming because I will apparently have to deal with your whining otherwise and because I am not in the mood for the lecture from Nardo and Raphael when they return.”
“Have they texted yet?” Mikey peered over Donnie’s shoulder.
“No. Security detail means one must pay-” Donnie suddenly dropped and ducked through Mikey’s legs in one fluid movement. “-attention. This is why you weren’t requested.”
“And why didn’t they request you, hm?” Mikey pushed his lips into one corner of his mouth.
“Because…!” Donnie trailed off with widened eyes. “My talents lie elsewhere! Enough interruptions. I will drive and then you will leave me be! I am to have my zen! Is that understood?”
“Yeah, yeah, crystal.” Mikey finally did roll his eyes.
Donnie took a few steps away as you found your phone and held it unsure of how to send him the details.
“He’s totally going because he heard ‘yakiniku’ when you mentioned we were making my favorite foods.” Mikey walked over to you with a smirk.
You watched Donnie take an irritated pause before continuing on to get his things.
-
The ride in the tank had passed with booming music and a tour from Mikey that you only visually participated in because you were terrified to move about the cabin. The younger seemed not to notice as he explained parts with stories more than function. Donnie alternatively, had shades on that further marred his calculated expression and he said nothing as the studious driver.
Leaving the city and entering scenic woodlands, you were soon left to admire the views until you eventually deviated off the road toward the cabin. Tracking it with the little local map you had found, you busied yourself in the comfortable way that most people disliked on road trips: silence in a cozy bubble all your making.
There didn’t have to be talk, that’s what road trip mixes were for.
You only made exceptions for car games.
You liked that they had simple rules and there were little stakes to be had.
You only wished cars were safer modes of transport.
There was also something to be said about environmental impact and the culture of automobiles in America, but other than that, you found them nice.
Pulling up to what you imagined was a quiescent place, Mikey could not be restrained a second longer.
Out of the tank in a flurry, you watched through the windshield as his form screamed straight up the cabin’s steps. “He doesn’t do great on car rides, huh?”
“Sitting still for too long? Michael?” Donnie rose from the captain’s chair.
You gave a small smile and gathered up the few things you’d taken inside with you. Your actual bags were stored in an outer compartment and Donnie waited for you as a safety net as you made the harrowing steps down the tank ladder and to the ground. Landing with little fault, you joined him in getting the luggage until Mikey tore back over to grab some of the load. He talked loudly of dust that had accumulated and Donnie griped at him that it was obvious they’d need to clean.
You fondly watched the two bicker and set-up became the next directive. Throwing back plastic sheets that coated furniture, Donnie had a multitude of inventions to clear the space quickly. You had to run to the windows to release the dust tornadoes formed. Making it out mostly unscathed, you then helped Mikey hang bug nets. With the late Spring weather warming the air, soon everything was prepped and Mikey did a little closing dance number, capping off the preparatory part of the trip.
“Swimming hole time!” Mikey cheered and then turned knowingly on Donnie. “Then BBQ and prompt lights out so I can make a lumberjack breakfast first thing!”
“We’re grinding beans… we roasted…” You offered softly. “Uh… Coffee… beans… that is…”
“Oh yeah, I forgot we took that class.” Mikey chuckled. “You almost fell into that sack!”
You squashed a noise of distress at the memory.
Understanding the schedule, Donnie dismissed himself with a turned foot and headed to one of the cabin’s many rooms. You were left to look about the quintessential log cabin where the huge living space and connected kitchen then butted up against a row of doors. They spoke of many rooms that traced the back of the cabin and then up a staircase to a second floor. From what you could see, there were about eight rooms in all. The entire cabin then had a wraparound porch that extended into the wilderness. It was land that both belonged to nature and not, but Mikey had been cagey about revealing property lines.
“Welp!” Mikey folded his hands on his hips. “Your boy needs to get wet before he explodes.”
You gawked at him.
“Seriously!” He was looking out over the cabin with a vacant stare that held a sort of unhinged quality. “First the car, then stuck inside? This is not an inside trip. if I am not unleashed in the next, oh I don’t know… 2 minutes, I’m going to lose it!”
“Uh…!”
“You got those trail maps?” He turned, both looking through you and not at.
“Y-yes!”
“I color coded the one to the watering hole. Orange, obviously.” Mikey approached with a waggling brow ridge. “I saw you in the car, keeping perfect pace. It was awesome.”
“Just to s-stay b-busy!”
“Uh huh! Your smile said otherwise! You’ll meet me there then! Same way!” He patted your shoulder once with a whack before bolting out the door.
You stared after him now knowing why he’d chosen to travel in his swimsuit.
Looking down at your road trip ensemble, you still felt sure of your decision to take the few hour drive comfortably.
There was a noise of a door opening and Donatello emerged, changed into a casual outfit punctuated by purple swim trunks.
You stared at him and felt a little like a caught fawn.
Donnie took you in before his gaze dulled with understanding. “He ditched you.”
“I’m… going to meet him.”
“He always does this.” Donnie responded dismissively. “You should have seen him in time out as a tot.”
“Oh?”
“One minute in time out for him was comparative to thirty for the rest of us.” Walking around a large kitchen bar, Donnie studied the rations.
You took a few steps toward him for the sake of it.
“He’s so impatient.” Donnie murmured, poking several waters aside to find a carton of juice boxes that Mikey had insisted on. He quickly tossed the set into the fridge. “He’s not even an aquatic turtle.”
You sort of wished you had done more research past looking up pictures of their species.
“You’re losing daylight.” He emerged from the fridge. “Or are you not swimming?”
“I-I am…!” You squeezed a fist to your chest. “Are… you coming too?”
Donnie blinked slowly at you. “No, why?”
“Oh…” You shouldn’t have assumed. He’d already told you otherwise. “Sorry… your bottoms… I thought…”
“Board shorts.” He punctuated the words with an odd accent.
You gave an unsure nod.
“I’m glad their sign was translated.” He glanced down at himself.
“Sorry…” You murmured when he made no further movement and quickly left to avoid any awkwardness.
You weren’t sure what you expected.
It’s not like you wanted to exclude Donnie.
You knew that pain too well.
You also didn’t want to make him feel unwelcomed.
You were painfully aware of that too.
He hadn’t wanted to be a third wheel and you had made it a silent mission to keep that from happening.
Something else you’d experienced in the past, you’d been the unwilling chaperone on more than one occasion just to satisfy parent’s minds. The good one, in their minds, you had always been ditched and the feeling wasn’t one you cared for. Shoving past the bygone era, you were seen now and you tried to relish that.
The sun’s attention was a fickle thing, but you were getting more use to losing Mikey’s. Something you thought should scare you, instead you felt your friendship with Mikey was stronger than ever. You no longer feared losing him in the same intangible way and you weren’t sure if you should crop that up to Mikey’s feelings about you. Instead it felt as though you’d reached a better status quo where Mikey’s running off felt more like the sun moving on its predetermined rotation. It would eventually round back to you and in that way you expected Mikey’s claustrophobia even if you hadn’t known about it.
You picked a room at random and rummaged through the duffel that you placed on your bed. There was a woodsy smell that teetered on musty in a way that spoke of it being well lived in even if its occupants only came every so often. You had your own little stand up mirror, nightstand, dresser, and a closet though you doubted you’d use anything past the first. Pulling out a single slick piece of black fabric, you double checked the door was closed before changing.
The perfect swimsuit was one you hadn’t imagined you’d find. Not one for flashy things, you only wanted a muted cover that also happened to cover you. Water did unimaginable things to fabrics and you hated the way it clinged. You wanted something you could disappear in, that brought no unnecessary attention, and could be forgotten on your end. Finding it in a matter of minutes into shopping as opposed to the years it took when you were younger, the item had even been on sale.
Stepping into it and pulling it up, you shimmied into the fabric and turned for that same show stopping image you’d seen in the changing room.
What stared back was an image of allure.
No.
That was wrong.
That’s not what it had looked like.
It had covered you.
It hadn’t accentuated anything.
It was simple.
You squirmed, changing angles in hopes that it would get better, but each only revealed more.
What had changed?
You’d purchased it this week.
Were you hallucinating?
Was there something in the wooden walls?
Had the tank crashed and this was you playing out some morbid purgatory?
You pinched yourself.
A sting bit your forearm and you threw your gaze back at the mirror for the unwilling shapes it concocted.
This wasn’t right.
You wanted to swim.
There was no way you could.
Miserably turning away from your image, you rooted through your bag for a cover up. Finding one in some oversized t-shirt you’d brought for comfort, you held it and hated that this wasn’t the way you imagined it would be employed. You figured it’d be a back-up pajama top and not something to hide your shame away in. Clinging to the fabric, you hastily pulled it over your head with an imaginary clock ticking away because Mikey was waiting.
You were ruining everything.
Stumbling out into the living room, you found yourself alone.
Momentarily thrown, but shaking off how Donnie wasn’t a priority right now and the guilt that came with that, you went for your pile of maps. Finding the trail one with the orange lines, you gathered some shoes and careened down the porch.
Buzzing insects mocked your sloppy descent as you rotated the map to be on your course. Following it more than your way, you took the necessary inlet and folded its winds to a drawn T. Bushes and trees concealed you, but the splashing of what was beyond reached your ears faster than you’d hoped. A journey not long to its destination, you slowed as you came to the final bend. You could hear Mikey blabbing presumably to himself as he hooted before resounding sloushes followed. In your mind he jumped off some kind of ledge, you took a deep breath before making the final steps leading to the watering hole.
Somewhere quaint if you had the perspective for such a thing, a tree towered comfortably overtop a sizable pool. One mucked up from algae as the little stream feeding into it didn’t stir the water near enough, you watched roiling green as Mikey emerged with a flip of his wet hair.
“Y/N!” Mikey shouted happiness. “You made it! Come on in! The water’s fine!!” He swam backwards as if giving you room.
The guilt was staggering.
No, Mikey.
I won’t be swimming today.
My body looks like shit and I can’t stand it.
I’ll watch you though.
Have all the fun.
You deserve it.
Signing off your name, you slunk forward only to clip a sight of mixed purples.
Donnie craned his neck back to view you from beneath a large sun hat he’d put on. Sitting on a few rocks that made up the closest edge to you, his lids lowered in a way that said he was reading you like a book.
Hating how he did that, you squeezed the bulky hem of your shirt and walked up. “Uh… M-Mikey…?”
“A-yup!” He stopped splashing to hear you better.
“The… um… car ride… sort of took… more out of me than… I thought? Would it be alright if-!”
“You don’t have to swim.”
You blinked wide and over to him.
“If you don’t want to, don’t!” Mikey continued on. “Let’s compare: are you upset I’m swimming when you don’t want to?”
“O-of c-course not!”
“Then why should I care in the reverse?” He fell back and floated, eyes closed, on his shell.
That was right in a way.
Sweet in another.
You wished you’d put together the same reaction.
Inching closer, it felt like pouring water into an overtaxed bucket.
Another guilty drop in your damnation.
You’d seen your friend in a bad light.
Shirking all the more, you toed off your shoes and let your feet lay flat on one of the worn rocks. It put you near Donnie who’d become the moon on a sunny day’s backdrop. He shined upon the same stone and illuminated its age. The rocks were older and wiser than you’d ever be. They never worried about getting wet. They only knew how to exist, something you wished came as easily to you. Sitting down because you needed more of you to drink from the stone’s wisdom, you kept a lowered head to the water’s edge. It sloshed in a beckoning way and you imagined it too would feel good in a different way.
You really had wanted to swim.
Imaging your tears would do little to fill up the pool while also overflowing it, you heard a tepid sigh beside you.
Eyes wide and shooting up across the pond, you then turned to where you’d sat down next to Donnie.
Someone who you mistakenly forgot about during your pity party.
How was that for a third wheel?
“It’s always something with you.” He spoke softly.
“Sure is.” You gave an awkward laugh.
“That’s…” He made a little concerned noise. “… I didn’t mean it in a cruel way.”
“You didn’t have to. It is.” You threw your legs off the rock and threatened to drown your toes in the water. “It’s a cruel fate. I’m…” You remembered yourself. “Sorry. Nothing. What are you doing here?”
“My species is aquatic.”
You snuck a glance. “You’re pretty dry then.”
“You are too.”
You frowned deeply and watched Mikey pick up a sun drunk grin as he spread his limbs out to float on. “I don’t know why I feel like this. Everything was fine before…”
“With what?”
“This…” You threw a hand over yourself. “Stupid ugly swimsuit.”
You could feel Donnie’s gaze linger.
“Just trust me.” You folded your legs against yourself.
“I’m not sure I do.”
You squinted at the glistening water before looking at him.
“I barely know you.” He responded simply, waiting there.
“Oh.”
“Disappointed?”
“In what?” Your ugly side was leaking far beyond the reach of what your shirt could cover. “I didn’t think you trusted me. You may have been wrong about me being bad, but that wouldn’t make you less suspicious. So it’s not that. What’s left? The swimsuit sucks. It’s not like you wanna drool over it. I don’t want anyone too. I wanted to swim.”
Hearing your wish aloud, you pressed hard on your chest with your legs.
You could flatten out your entire form if only you were malleable.
“The water is opaque. I can alert Mikey and we’ll turn away so you can get in.”
You felt too far gone for solutions.
You weren’t worth the trouble.
Burying your chin into your knees, you stewed.
“You know how many times the others have made fun of my board shorts?”
You told yourself you didn’t care.
If that was the case then Donnie didn’t either. “Hundreds, though it might be my attitude when wearing them. I like the excuse. To have my day off and not worry about pleasantries. To not have to tailor myself to others. I can tell them to shove it. It’s my day off and how I look isn’t anyone’s damn business.”
Sounded like an odd hill to die on.
“Everyone should have those days.” Donnie craned his arms behind him and leaned back to soak up the rays he was in.
The tree overhead was clipping your light.
Donnie was free.
Mikey was free.
Head lifting a little, you pondered your friend.
He’d needed to get out and he did.
Now he was a vision, glowing amongst the pool.
In contrast there was you, wadded up and tossed away without even giving yourself the chance.
Another terrible reminder that this was the point.
This was what you were trying to avoid.
This was what you were trying to learn from.
Mikey didn’t even have to do anything to be himself.
He just was.
Instead of his usual bustle of light, he shined by matter of existence.
That was why you chased him.
You wanted that.
Staring at him until sun spots mucked up your vision, you turned the mass to Donnie.
Beside you in the same pose, he was more calculated.
He had to put on his wares.
His was an unseen struggle you hadn’t considered.
No one gleamed quite like Mikey.
That didn’t mean they didn’t shine in their own right.
Donnie’s darkened scales only threw prisms in a different way.
The cool moon’s glow.
Letting your legs fall, this time your feet drew to the allure of the water.
Just out of reach, you stared hard, making sure the pair would keep their eyes closed.
The both of them were still as if asleep, but you waited past whatever insect was chirping before you slowly tugged your hem out from under you. Emerging without more than the sound of rustling fabric, you rolled your shirt up around your waist. The next move was one harder to conceal, you threw a desperate glance at your friend.
Water rocked the resting Mikey like a babe and you wanted to feel that too.
You wanted to be nestled by the sun’s glow.
You wanted to feel weightless and have those burdens removed.
You yanked the shirt over your head and dropped it to your side.
Donnie stirred at the sound, but didn’t open his eyes.
“It’s… It’s okay… I’m not… okay… but I think I… I don’t want to care…”
He cracked a lid and stared skyward.
“It looked so different in the store.”
“How so?” He asked a whispy cloud.
“It looked… I don’t know… covering? Like it didn’t… show any bits. Like it… hid them away.”
He blinked slow and comfortable. “I’m a designer, you know.”
“What?”
“Genius Built Apparel. Where fashion meets function.”
You stared on.
Of course he was.
He also built a tank and a legion of dusting robots.
If this were any other family you’d think he was pulling your leg.
You’d seen more than enough to believe.
Most of your stare came from the cocky name.
Though even that made sense.
Donnie was a carefully constructed sphere.
Who were you to take away his gloating?
He tilted his head just enough to glimpse your face. “I’m serious. I’ve dissuaded Mikey from many a faux pas.”
You shook your head.
“May I?”
“What?” You switched to eyeing him.
“I can take a clinical eye. Examine stitching. Find your err.”
You bounced one of your legs.
You did want to know where it had all gone wrong.
You could theoretically fix it then.
Wash this all away in the water you so desperately wanted to get in.
“You won’t make it weird?”
“I don’t drool on the metaphorical clock; you were right about that, but I understand your concern. I have accosted you before.”
“Different kind of weird. That was mean weird. You were a jerk weird.”
Donnie chuffed and it rolled down his plastron.
You watched it fall into his lap before forcing your gaze back to his face in a rush. “Promise… Promise I can pull your hat down if you… do anything.”
“I won’t so a simple enough agreement. Sure.”
“Go… ahead…” You folded your arms to your sides, obviously nervous as you listened to his clothes move.
In a twist, he was examining you and he gave a faint hum.
Not wanting to see exactly how he saw you and growing miserable, you stared into the water.
You could throw yourself in and be done with it.
“Here.” He spoke.
You moved to the sound on instinct and found him pointing to your hip.
His eye was indeed one you imagined a tired scientist gave the samples he was cursed to study.
You immediately relaxed. “What?”
“This ruching here is meant to cover cellulite when the fabric gets wet. When dry it acts a similar concealment, but the way the strips are sewn are for the first purpose.”
“Oh…” You tilted your head to look.
“Thing is, it’s also leading lines.” He didn’t get any closer, but he mimed tracing the seams of the fabric that curled around your hip and beneath where you were sitting. “It’s meant to direct the gaze to certain assets.”
You blew out an annoyed breath.
“Dressing room mirrors, where I imagine you first saw this, aren’t slapped on walls without thought. They're engineered with angles and lightning to make clothes look as flattering as possible.” He brought his eye to yours. “Where did you see yourself today?”
“There’s a… mirror in my room.”
Donnie’s lip twitched with distaste. “That floor length one?”
You nodded.
“Dad uses that one to feel tall.” He sneered openly. “It tilts up from below, the worst possible perspective.”
You blinked a few rapid times.
“It took the ruching and blew it up.”
“So it’s not… that bad?”
“It’s anything, it's tasteful!” He spoke with an irritation that said that should have been obvious. “It fits your body well. Does it have a certain allure? Yes, I’ve already spoken of assets, but it is not a piece that invites unnecessary solicitation.”
“Assets, assets. What are you, an ass man?” You retorted automatically.
“There is nothing quite like sinking your teeth into that soft, inviting flesh.” He took your response and held it between his teeth.
In a blink, you saw an imaginary Donatello around your hips pointing to the fabric and on contact with the thought your face exploded.
“I say generally speaking, of course.” He clicked his tongue as if scolding you and turned away toward the water.
Hot.
You were too hot.
Run.
Throwing yourself forward, you submerged as indelicately as possible into the water.
Sinking like a stone into the silence, your burning flesh was quickly soothed by a cold lap.
A sweet embrace, you kicked to the surface and emerged with a pathetic gasp.
Never graceful, you shook yourself free of clingy drops and spun back around to view the rocks.
Donnie was staring up at the sky again and you sort of hated him for it.
Swim.
You’d swim with Mikey.
Spinning around, the other turtle was not only longer floating, but you couldn’t locate him at all. Quickly worrying that you had toppled him in your dive, you swam forward. “Mikey?”
Quieting to listen, you didn’t hear anything past the faint roiling of the water against its container.
Thinking he must have dove, you looked down to find Donnie’s earlier comment to be a correct one. With the water murky to a fault and a new fear cropped up. You had no idea what was in the water and you immediately darted for the closest shore. Something several long feet from Donnie, it was a sort of marshy landing that rocks from below steeping up to meet. They were covered in a slime that clung to your feet and had you pausing until you heard an off-toned lap behind you.
You whirled around with wide eyes and found a sea monster waiting for you.
Something matted with algae, it groaned pathetically and you sucked in enough air until the balloon was full enough to scream.
“What!? Who?! Where?!” The creature splashed with Mikey’s voice.
He’d been captured by another mutant.
You turned to get out of the water with some intention of getting to the tank.
It had to have missiles or something.
Anything to help.
You’d take a bowling ball launcher at this point.
Catching grip with one foot, you hoisted up the other. The many rocks acted like a disjointed ladder and your entire torso emerged from the water before one of your feet slid. The moment it happened felt like you were falling out of time. In slow motion, you knew your face was one of surprise. You painted an open expression where the imminent terror that you were falling couldn’t catch up as neurons to save yourself from the action.
Your mind knew, but your face didn’t know that you were going to crack your head open on the rocks you just slipped on.
“Y/N!”
“Y/N!”
Two voices.
Too far.
Something skewered your side as the first injury of many.
Hoping only to black out on that first step, you willed your possessions to your friends.
You didn’t bother hoping they would remember you.
You only hoped that they could make some use out of your worldly imprint.
No matter how small it was.
Water rushed to greet you and shoved you away.
That wasn’t right.
That was the wrong direction.
Water swayed like waves.
The equal and opposite reaction wouldn’t come until you fell in.
Why had it preemptively come for you?
Your arms dangled heavily from gravity and you forced your eyes from wherever they had gone.
The monster was right in front of you.
Its face was one of Michelangelo.
Green sludge caught in his blackened locks and his worried expression peered out from between a small part.
He had you by the waist and was holding you up in the air. “Are you okay!?”
You were a loose toy strung up.
Flopping down, lifeless, you were a doll that couldn’t close its eyes until it was laid down.
A second deafening splash came as you hung there.
Mikey’s lips were moving awfully fast.
“Did they hit their head?!” Donnie’s voice broke through.
“No! Above water the whole time! Donnie! They aren’t saying anything, I don’t-”
“Shock?” Donnie wondered, but he never came into frame.
Where was he?
Mikey jostled you as one might bounce a colicky baby.
It was pulling a string on your back and you hacked on contact.
You wheezed, forcing air in where terror had torn it from you.
You fought.
Not Mikey exactly, but the situation.
It strung your arms back.
It shoved your torso forward.
It threw your head skyward.
You gasped, alive.
You saw blue.
It was the sky.
You hadn’t died.
Mikey had saved you.
Finally.
You came down from your arching to translate your joy.
Mikey’s face slid into your vision and he was the picture of a boiled red tomato dotted with summertime spots.
He was looking at you.
He had ogled you.
He was embarrassed.
Your blood pressure plummeted twice as fast as it had when you thought you were about to die.
This was worse.
This time you heard yourself scream as you lashed out.
Water flew up as if to welcome you, to bring you where you were meant to be.
Drowned.
Returned you to that place where you weren’t an object to be viewed.
You were a person floating free.
Liquid carried life.
It supported it.
It didn’t have it.
Vertigo struck you as you moved within a blink.
In a disorientated spiral, your lids fell heavy as your inner ear tried to correct the imbalance.
There were no longer hands around your waist.
Something clicked like an engine uselessly turning over.
Weary, you realized you were standing in a safe spot in the water.
You drew up the dreary blinds of your curtain and found a muscled arm thrown out protectively in front of you.
“I’m sorry! I’m sorry!!!” Mikey cried, loud and desperate.
“What the hell was that then!?” Donnie’s voice rang close.
That firm limb tucked you further behind someone.
You were being shielded.
A squabble happened in front of you, but you only looked down at the jade appendage acting as your guard rail.
You touched the arm and it felt familiar.
“Don-nie?” Your voice came out synthetic.
His was the body you were behind and his face appeared in a whip of his head. “Are you alright? Can you swim? I’ll move.”
“I’m not…?” You weren’t swimming.
You weren’t doing anything.
You were standing in the water.
“What…?”
You looked past Donnie and glimpsed Mikey with a faint blush still stuck to his cheeks.
“Y-you…!” It felt accusatory on your lips.
“I’m sorry!!!” Mikey screeched.
“Turn around, dummy!” Donnie growled hot and was in motion.
You were soon ushered into a spin with an indelicate hand to your back and all but rushed over to the rock you had jumped off of.
You heard a splash of what you assumed was Mikey growing distant behind you.
You hoped that would cool him off.
“You ready?” Donnie’s voice appeared like it was newly there.
“For what?” You were already used.
What was left?
Was it time to take out the recycling?
“I’m going to lift you up. Your shirt is right there.” Donnie instructed.
“My shirt…” You were forlorn.
It was your back-up comfort item.
“Ready?” Donnie asked again.
The water rocked you and you barely bumped his firm plastron.
You nodded dumbly.
Your hips were taken in what you read as a clinical way.
You were barely bounced once, then twice, in a way that ballet dancers got momentum to lift their partners.
Sure enough, you were lifted cleanly out of the water.
Only this time you felt well handled.
You weren’t swung around like a toddler holding up their favorite doll.
A child who cared for his toys put you on a shelf.
When your knees touched down, you drank in the life of the rock and scrambled for your shirt.
All the things that had just occurred crashed into you.
Shoving your head through the hole, you yanked the shirt down your body as you were already in motion. Forest floor digging into your bare feet, you didn’t need the map to retrace your steps. You followed the single, winding, prickly path and emerged out by the cabin only to fly inside it. A sanctuary amongst the unrelenting woods, you left a rotting drip trail as you entered your room. Your door clattered from where you had thrown it open and you ripped your duffel bag to shreds to get to its confines.
Pulling on layer after layer, you could see Mikey’s blush with each piece of clothing.
He’d looked at you.
You shoved your feet into a third pair of socks.
His gaze was amorous.
Into a thermal that was very much against the season, you ran out of clothes and stormed the dresser.
Sexual.
There were oversized men’s clothes that struck you as maybe being Raph’s and you thanked their huge size.
You put shirt after shirt on.
Mikey had said, point blank, that he wanted to see how far his feelings went.
Why were you so stupid?
You screamed.
Raw and uncut.
Tearing at your larynx, you ripped a few too many layers off as they impeded your melt down.
You needed space to breathe.
You needed to be swallowed whole.
Stumbling out to that accursed mirror, the shape you found there was a frumpy one.
Smiling a teary look at it, you watched it warp your face into one of dismay and you cried.
Where had you last felt okay?
It wasn’t here.
Moving around the room you searched for it.
That intangible something that would help.
Knocking everything over, you finally got a hold of a much too large pillow and hugged it to your body.
It was large and not at all as firm as you wanted.
You needed a hard wall.
You needed that unrelenting nature.
You weren’t something to be judged with heat.
You needed a cold light the sun couldn’t supply.
The wall knocked.
You spun around with your pillow defense to find the back of a head waiting there.
“I come as an emissary.” Donnie spoke slow and methodical.
“You can-!” It wasn’t Mikey.
Your pillow fell slack into one hand.
It wasn’t Mikey.
You let it drop with a thump to the floor.
It wasn’t Mikey.
“…come in.”
You took a wobbly step to spread out your clothed legs in hopes of keeping yourself upright.
Donnie didn’t move.
“You can… come in…” You repeated, not sure if you had gotten the first phrase out.
“No.”
“No…?” You took another step and saw how Donnie was clearly beyond the boundary of your open door.
With his back to you.
Not impeding on you in any way.
“This is your space.” He spoke it like a finality.
You stared at the knot of his mask tails and tried to place what you felt.
“Being out here with us…” Donnie let the sentence hang before he lowered his gaze to the floor. “I want to… respect that much.”
“Why’d you say it like that?”
“I prefer the term ‘sanctum,’ but I couldn’t fit it in.”
“A sacred place…?”
The back of his head nodded. “My lab is supposed to be one.”
Sanctums weren’t places to be invaded.
If they were then they were violated.
He understood.
Is that what you felt?
Camaraderie?
Even his mania in the beginning had been one you made sense of.
Was that why you hadn’t complained?
No, you were rewriting history from your current perspective.
It was also the only one you knew.
It was one where you envied one man.
It was where you once feared another.
Now their roles were reversed.
You never had to explain your misery to Donnie.
You didn’t have to make him understand.
He was the moon.
You rushed towards him.
Donnie heard the footsteps and made it about half a turn before you reached him. “As… I was saying, I talked to Michael and come in his stead to-”
You collided with that unrelenting wall of plastron. Finding an odd hinge between the front of his shell and the back, you did your best to tuck into that space and weaseled under his arm. You felt it rise above you, out of your way and a rotation brought you more towards his front. There you felt him stop to take your over-clothed form in.
“I’m sorry!” You choked on tears, rooting the sound as deep against Donnie’s wet clothes as possible.
He let your misery hang for exactly one second.
Then he surrounded you in a soft moon glow.
He pulled you toward his chest and you burrowed closer to him.
“I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. I completely overreacted. It was just too much… Too much attention… the way he looked. He said… I thought he wouldn’t… I didn’t want…!”
A hand pet through the layers of your back.
Even and careful.
No further connotation other than to soothe.
Squirming to get your arms out from where you were crushing them, you wiggled them free to embrace him.
You squeezed a sigh right out of him.
“I know.” He spoke into your damp head. “I know…”
You nodded and basked in the tide. Pulled by the moon’s orbit, the waves rolled in and out with a sway. A gentle rocking, you were cast a comfortable drift by it. This was the one you had longed for from the swimming hole. Here, you floated amongst sturdy shores. Held safe, the guiding white light poured around you. One that pushed back against the darkness, it shone on you. Lucky to be in its reach, it wasn’t the type you soaked up. It instead washed over you in a cleanse. Feeling lighter and a little stifled, you extracted yourself from moisture to moisture.
Everything around you from your leaking face to the clingy pond water was soaked and you frowned down Donnie’s body. Standing in a little pool mostly created by him, you wanted to stick your tongue out at it, but you feared the bacteria clearly clinging to your skin.
“The cabin is yours tonight.”
Before you could register the words, you felt him strengthen his resolve with a puff of his chest.
“I don’t want to hear complaints otherwise.”
You wanted to pout.
“I checked the systems when we were doing our preliminary cleaning. The water will be hot. Shower, bathe, do whatever you’d like. We’ll be staying outside.”
You gave a faint nod to the wet floor.
“We’ll grill and I’ll make you a plate. Preference?”
You shook your head. “I don’t… feel like eating…”
“Bland it is.”
Now you were pouting.
“Y/N.”
“Yeah?” Your head felt heavy.
“I still have a message from Mikey to deliver.”
“I really don’t want to hear it.” Irritation brought you to look at him.
Donnie took you in with a sort of smile. “You’ll want to.”
You dropped your features in a way that said you didn’t believe him.
“He said he’s not ready to talk as he’s having his own crisis, but he’ll let you know when he’s ready to apologize.” Donnie tilted his head, almost amused.
You blinked straight out of your bitterness to stare openly.
Donnie gave a single knowing nod.
“Enjoy your shower.” With one last sweep over you as if to check you were all still there, Donnie turned and headed for the door.
Watching him go, you saw the faint amber hue of sunset.
“It’ll all work out.” Donnie tossed just as he grabbed the knob to exit.
You turned and stormed straight to the bathroom. Drowning in clothes and scum, you locked the door tight and turned the shower knobs to their highest setting. Leaving the water to warm, you started removing your outermost shirt. As soon as it hit the ground you felt possessed. You tore off your clothes with each subsequent layer removed at a faster and faster pace. You needed to be freed. You needed that ridiculous protection off of you as soon as possible. All of it soiled, you stripped down bare and left your feet for last.
The moment they were naked and pressed to tile, you leapt into the old style tub. Instantly boiled by the too hot water, you let it scorch you with clenched teeth at first until the burn seared and you adjusted the dial for something reasonable. Still a lobster in a pot, you scrubbed your skin until you thought it might flake and then doused it in suds until you couldn’t see its color. A sea of white foam, the second scrounge came through, washing the detritus away.
Pickled in the process, you emerged and greedily took up every towel in the room. It meant toeing around the disgusting mound of clothes you’d left, but Donnie had said the cabin was yours. Until tomorrow when you’d clean the place up, you instead mourned how you hadn’t even brought your toothbrush in with you. Scowling at a fog coated mirror, you cracked the door and watched the steam leak out.
Chasing it with your ear, you didn’t hear anything, but there was a distinct lemon scent.
You followed the smell into the hall where you quickly placed it was cleaner. The floor had a sheen to it that spoke of a recent mopping. The clean line ending abruptly at your door said exactly who the culprit was. Donatello had snuck back in to clean and you were thankful for it. He’d left your sanctuary untouched and instead set a stool just outside the door.
On it was a stack of comfortable looking clothes and a note.
‘Keep your room or upgrade. I recommend the one upstairs, second bedroom on the right.’
You folded the note along its lines and placed it back on the offered clothes. You then gathered the lot and took it with you along with a brave face as you entered your room. You barely looked up as you salvaged what you could from your duffel. Carrying the mostly limp sack, you then moved to follow your recommendation. It led you through the darkened cabin and up the winding wooden stairs where the door in question was closed. Knocking on it out of politeness, you found it empty and slipped inside. It was decorated similarly, but clearly different. Comfortable in its own sense, you went about your nightly routine as best you could and thanked the space for not having a mirror. Growing more weary by the second, you thought vaguely of meat as you instead pulled back the covers.
Sinking in and imagining charcoal lighting the men’s faces, you settled down into the welcoming embrace of bed.
You eventually got up and padded across a tiled floor.
Pulling out a single slick piece of black fabric, you double checked the door was closed before changing.
The perfect swimsuit was one you hadn’t imagined you’d find.
What luck, you thought, as you slipped it on.
Stepping into it, you shimmied into the fabric and turned for that show stopping image in the changing room.
It was perfect.
It covered you in all the right ways.
Finally, the piece you’d been looking for.
Smiling and striking pose after pose, you saw a hand wave above the curtain.
“Come in!” You called to it.
Sanctum’s were only to be entered with permission.
“Silly.” You looked over your pleasing image once more. “Is it still a violation if I request it?”
“I guess not.” Instead of drawing the curtain back, Donnie slipped through it.
Tucking himself a strong wall behind you, he looked into the mirror at you.
What looked back held no heat, only appreciation.
“Do you like it?” He checked with you without passing judgment himself.
“I do…” You smiled.
He gave one of his own, though subdued, and flicked his gaze down. “Look here.”
You lowered your gaze to find him kneeling behind you. With his head popped out around your hips, he was looking up at you in a way you liked quite a bit.
You felt powerful.
You were a light bright enough for him to want to project.
“This ruching here has leading lines.” He didn’t touch you, but his hands ghosted over you along the fabric’s pattern.
Your lips parted and your chest filled with heat.
A celestial body was meant to look on.
You were safe.
“May I?” He asked you once again.
You were glad and responded with a breathless, “Please.”
His mouth opened a dark orbital maw, a new moon, which then glinted into a teeth-filled waxing crescent headed in its trek to sink into your soft flesh.
You jolted the moment the teeth supposedly hit their mark.
You stared into the dark abyss and saw drifting images of sharpened grins.
You were dizzy.
A sheen of sweat to you, you tossed back a cover.
The black hovel above you took shape as logs in the cabin ceiling.
They lined up like thick thighs appearing from where board shorts had hiked up.
Begging for a taste.
Awareness struck with a sharp inhale.
Fully awake and doused with dread from your dream, you voiced your despair with a whisper.
“Oh no…”
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I swear I handed this to my betas over a year ago... @tmntxthings and @thepinkpanther83
