#tmntflashfics

He feels completely shaken and nearly completely numb. Some leader he is.

“…sleep sounds great,” Donnie says, speaking for them all. He starts quiet, but seems to slip into doctor/caretaker mode partway. “Do you have medical supplies? Showers? I’ll take anything of those at this point. And. Um, food would be good, too…”

“Everything,” Honeycutt confirms. “There’s everything you’ll need and more. Please, right this way.” He starts to patter off, his metallic body whirring softly as he does. Leo feels his team look to him for the next course of action- they’re in literal alien territory, battle shaken and without backup, they don’t even know if Honeycutt is for real with his helpfulness- and Leo has to take an inhale that only hurts a little.

They don’t have many choices, here. He’s on his last legs- near literally, his old injury is flaring hot and bright and everything hurting to the bone- and he knows his brothers and friends aren’t any better off. They need help, and while suspicion and caution scream dully in his ears, Leo knows they can’t afford to refuse Honeycutt’s assistance.

Leo moves to follow Honeycutt deeper into the spaceship, and his family follows. He prays it’s the right call.

—-

There’s a real shower block, with hot running water and stalls and actual soap, and Donnie kind of wants to cry a little.

But, he can’t. He’s official and unofficial team medic/caretaker/etc. etc. etc. and he can’t fall down on the job just because he’s reeling from time travel and earth’s destruction and oh, his father dying for the second time right in front of him.

Donnie sweeps all those painful thoughts right into compartmentalization, and sets the maelstrom of fear/grief/anxiety/confusion aside for later. He has a job to do, and that’s making sure that everyone is still in one piece and not suffering from any hidden injuries that could kill them without him noticing.

Internal bleeding is something he thinks of constantly, out in the field. Donnie knows he could try to stop it, but here and now he has none of the tools and not enough trust in Honeycutt. He prays to god that no one has anything on that level of injury or near it; he has only his field kit and cautiously trusted supplies from the alien robot that saved them.

After Honeycutt leaves them, standing filthy and still shaking in the pristinely white showers, Donnie is the first to discard his weapons. His hands need to be free for the act of healing, not dealing out further damage.

Its standard procedure at this point; the post-battle checkup and thrice over injury search. They have so little margin for error, Donnie checks everything in threes. His family are all so far into shock still; none of them make a peep of complaint about his thoroughness. Even Casey, who usually has a quip or two about being indestructible, lets Donnie do his checkup in peace. Casey’s eyes are unfocused, now that his adrenaline and endorphins are crashing. There’s just the slow sink of reality dawning on him, and it’s somehow hard to watch.

Donnie lightly pats the side of Casey’s head, calls him a foolhardy idiot who needs to watch his right flank better, and shoves him towards the nearest stall. That gives Casey enough of a jolt he turns in a quick movement to shove Donnie right back, before ducking into the stall and abandoning his filthy clothes on the floor. The interaction gets some of the bleariness out of Casey’s gaze, and he moves with a little less sluggishness.

Donnie is finished with his brothers and Casey’s checkups, and April is waiting her turn for the showers just outside the shut door. She still needs another onceover; a more specific type, since her Kraang mutation always leaves room for questions. He starts to move towards it, on automatic and just following the patterns he laid for himself years ago, but the door opens before he can reach it.

Raph enters- when did he leave? Donnie was so focused on keeping his patients still, he didn’t notice- and he puts a hand on Donnie’s chest.

“Hey,” Raph says, firm and low. “Breathe.”

Donnie’s thoughts, running mostly on learned patterns and set guidelines, stutter for a moment, and he realizes his chest feels tight. He didn’t notice how shallow it’d gotten, his breathing.

On command, Donnie takes a deep inhale, and feels the dizziness in his head clear a bit.

“Good, keep doing that,” Raph says, still firm. He’s holding himself together well, all things considering- though still obviously wound up and repressing the inevitable rage storm that will come later- and Donnie is distantly grateful for that. He can’t handle having to calm that sort of rage right now; he doesn’t think any of them could, the states they’re in. Leo silent and scratching his throat roughly, Mikey buzzing with nerves and aimless energy, Casey swinging between  focused and aware and seeming lost in a painful way, and April-

Raph reaches up, and tugs off Donnie’s mask. It comes away with a slight stickiness, and Donnie notices then that he’d sustained a minor cut on the side of his temple. No wonder he feels dizzy.

“I checked April,” Raph says, and he’s steering Donnie back towards the showers without letting him fight it. “She doesn’t have anything life-threatening, and you can do a triple check after you take care of yourself, Donnie.”

“But-”

“After,” Raph says again. “You can’t play doctor if you’re the patient, Don. Get in the shower before I make you.” He herds Donnie towards the stalls, and Raph gives the leather straps across his shell a tug. “Unbuckle these and get in there. I’ll dump ‘em with the rest.”

“What about you?” Donnie asks, hands moving to unbuckle his gear before he realizes they are. He’s still dizzy, but not concussion dizzy. Just… not breathing quite steadily and experiencing a severe headache in the making.

“Someone has to keep watch,” Raph replies, taking Donnie’s belt and gear from him. “Me and April will watch our backs until you four finish primping, got it?” Then, in a less gruff and nearly soft tone, “Breathe, Donnie. You can chill out for ten minutes, we’ve got you covered.”

The hand on Donnie’s shell is immensely helpful in forcing his lungs to expand fully. He takes a couple breaths, trying to shake the panicky shallow breathing, and manages to find his center again. A trillion terrified and overwrought anxieties beckon for attention in the back of his mind, but he sweeps them away once again. For later. Not now, later.

“There you go,” Raph says quietly, giving Donnie’s shell a pat. “Now clean up. April will want in pretty quick here. Never works out well if we keep her waiting.”

Donnie shakes his head wryly, and manages to stay steady long enough to shower off the dust from their world-ending battle.

—-

Mikey has to physically pry Leo’s swords from his hands, and then tug those hands away from the scars on his brother’s neck right afterwards. Mikey’s own hands and arms are sore as hell, still feeling the bone creaking blows from the massive Triceratons, but he hustles Leo into the shower before they give out.

Leo needs some time to find his leader self again, which Mikey can understand, because he himself needs some time to find his happier self again. The flashes of the battle they’ve just come from blink fast and painful across Mikey’s vision- his dad, his friends, his home, the black hole swallowing them all- and he drowns them quick as he can with hot water, the second Donnie releases him from checkups.

Everything feels raw and achy, and Mikey can’t keep track of his own thoughts or emotions; they’re all jumbled up with one another, relief and grief and anger and fear and hope and rage and love and loss, and he gives up trying to control anything and just burns it all away with the horrible images.

He’s shaky all over, adrenaline leaving him without much else than empty feeling lungs and frayed nerves. His head is all clouded up with too many things and he feels like bouncing against the walls until that’s gone, but also feels like lying down and never moving again he’s just so tired all of a sudden-

And he turns the water up hotter scalds his scales, so it drowns those things too.

He narrows down what emotions he’s going to let in right now- really, just what emotions he can use and not have get out of control- and drinks some too-hot water to finish the temporary cleanse. He’ll freak out a lot more later on, a lot more, but he’s not panicking right now. Panicking is tiring, and he’s seeing in his brothers and friends that none of them can handle panic any more than he can. Not at the moment.

He’s still jittery, though. Jittery and needing somewhere to channel his energy. Leo, still in the process of finding his own center, presents a good enough target.

Leo’s got smudges on his shell, from being thrown against the pavements and dirt. Some scratches, too. Mikey taps his brother’s shell as he enters the space, and waits for Leo to turn and look. Mikey waves the bar of sweet smelling soap, which reminds him of flowers and fermenting fruits, in a silent offer.

It takes a beat, where Leo unwinds whatever reflex Mikey almost triggered, and his brother accepts the offer with a wane smile.

Shells are great for a lot of things, but they can be a real pain to keep clean. Technically, they all can reach the spots that are hard to get, but that takes effort and none of them have any of that left right now. Staying standing is hard as it is, and coordination like that is asking a little much.

So Mikey lathers the worst spots directly, and scrubs with his bare hands. Space-robo-guy didn’t give them any loofahs, odd since he seems to have everything else, so elbow grease will have to do. The hot water Leo is tilting his face into sprays onto Mikey as he washes, and for a brief second, Leo relaxes just a fraction with both sensations at work.

Mikey smiles and finishes scrubbing Leo’s shell clean. He barely has to ask for Leo to do the same for him; just handing off the soap is enough, and Mikey gets a gentle push under the hot water again. He always manages to get chilled after a fight, no matter if it’s the height of summer or he goes for the hot drinks right after, so once more being in the spray further chases the cold out of Mikey’s body.

Leo doesn’t speak- he’s going through the whole ‘re-finding his voice’ thing right now, and Mikey won’t push him- and works with steady pace. The atmosphere is a sharp turn from all the hyper stress Mikey has been riding all night, all freaking night, and the comfort of having someone literally watching/washing his back calms some of the burnt out nerves in his limbs.

Then the sight of his father’s impaled body hits his vision with utter clarity, and it nearly ruins all his work to keep everything under control.

Leo catches the hitch in Mikey’s breathing, or maybe the full body recoil he can’t suppress, and moves a soapy hand onto the back of his neck. Leo’s grip is soothing, because he immediately starts massaging stress points there.

“Shh,” is all Leo says, quiet and hoarse. “…’s okay.”

It’s not much, and Mikey can hear the strain for Leo to manage just that, but it’s enough. And Mikey sucks in a breath, and shoves everything back into order.

He’s fine. He’ll be fine until they can sit down properly and know they’re secure enough to talk and grieve. Leo’s thumb works out a knot in Mikey’s strained feeling neck muscles- a bit of whiplash, maybe, those Triceratons can hit hard- and only removes it once Mikey is breathing steadily again.

“Thanks,” Mikey manages, “…I think I needed that.”

Leo runs a hand down his shell, a gesture that further soothes the anxious energy Mikey has, and goes back to scrubbing.

When he’s done, they go nab Donnie before he can escape and skimp on self-care he definitely needs. Between the two of them, and some help from a boxers-clad Casey, they drag Donnie back towards the showers for a good shell scrub. He fights them weakly, because while he can hide it well, he’s obviously starting to really lag, and there’s only so much he can do to fend them off. Which is nothing.

There’s soap everywhere and Donnie gripes quietly, and it’s another notch up for the comforting atmosphere Mikey managed to establish with Leo. Even with Casey butting in to be a nuisance, fake-complaining about the exclusionary action of no one scrubbing his shell, and Donnie kicking his shin without real force, and snippily saying, “Shut up, Jones, and keep your jealousy of our superior physique to yourself.”

There’s a brief tussles and soap fight, and it results in Leo finding the energy to lock both Casey and Donnie in holds, while Mikey spreads drippy shampoo all over their noggins, because they’re idiots who so deserve it for their squabbling.

Their gear and belts were apparently kidnapped at some point, including Casey’s clothes, so they have to go out in just the towels left in their place. Mikey doesn’t even wear clothes anyway, so the towel is in fact a step up from that. And also cozy. Space towels are cozier than earth towels, in his opinion.

April and Raph laugh at Casey, who is shameless about being in nothing but a towel and soggy boxers. It’s the first laughter from any of them all night, and it gives Mikey a boost he didn’t notice he needed.

—-

April is hard pressed not to just… sit down, and curl up. Her powers are still spread outwards, opened up wide in a large net, just in case something tries to sneak up on them all. It kind of hurts, since she’s already overwhelmed by everything earlier. She feels raw and off-balance, and can’t find her center no matter how she tries to stabilize her mind.

Her boys are showering, while she guards the door. She’s got aches appearing all over her as she stands there and a throbbing migraine on the way. Her last explosion of power burst some blood vessels in her eyes; she can feel the itchiness already starting. In her desperation, and fury, and grief, she’d opened the floodgates and-

-burned.

A useless act. Earth has been reset- her father, her Sensei, her friends, her home, they’re all back and she can try to save them more time- and now she’s got a power that still wants to grow larger, and has to calm that instinctive reaction. There’s no need for it right now, she needs to reel it in before her headache gets any worse.

She knows who exiting the shower block before the door even opens; her tendrils of invisible power reaching out and brushing against the swirl of angerangergriefconfusionfearconcernconcernrageconcern coming towards her. It’s Raph, and while she can’t hear his thoughts per say, she can feel them. She can feel all of them, her boys, and it’s likely all that’s keeping her steady. The assurance that they’re here, they’re alive, and not going anywhere until they all do. Together.

Her heads throbs, though. Too much input. And she’s so tired right now; exhausted from emotional whiplash and from pretty much everything else she’s had to deal with today. (Yesterday? Six months from now? Time travel is confusing.)

She pulls her powers away from the boys in the shower, and center most of her focus on Raph’s mind alone. His own emotions are jagged, rubbing both him and April rawer than they already are, but it lessens the throbbing migraine in April’s head.

He doesn’t speak as he comes to stand beside her; weapons in his hands and a posture that’s forced into attention. She can feel his exhaustion as well as her own, and knows how badly he’d just like to lie down. Don’t they both. Don’t they all.

For a bit, they just stand there, waiting for their turn to get clean. April had opted to go last, since she knew that once she stepped into the hot spray, she wasn’t going to want to leave it any time soon. Better to get everyone else through before she went inside and pressed pause on herself.

She, thankfully, only has a few scrapes here and there. Nothing requiring more than a wash and maybe a small band-aid.  She has bruises- oh does she ever have bruises- but nothing open or bleeding. Small mercies.

She feels like she’s bleeding, though. Somewhere in her chest, a wound that’s been torn open and then scarred over again too many times now. This is the umpteenth tragedy in her life, and it hurts deeply. Pierces straight to her core, and threatens to let misery and hopelessness swallow her whole. So many times, so many times she’s dealt with losing battles they couldn’t afford to lose, and this time they lost their whole world. An entire planet’s population, just gone, because they’d failed.

If she reaches out again, she knows she’ll feel Leo’s own miring emotions. Failure and the fear that haunts him when they lose battles; it sticks to him in ways that are not easily removed. April wants to reach out and nudge those thoughts away from him, but her own precarious control might not be strong enough to keep a bleed-over from happening. Like Mikey’s tightly wound scattered emotions are too bright and sharp to get near, and Donnie’s winding, pacing, spiralling anxieties are too likely to pull her own into their circles, and Casey’s staccato thought process jumps between confidence and confusion, likely to unsettle what little balance April has achieved-

And that leaves Raph’s ever burning anger, solid and steady and furious, to concentrate on. So long as he doesn’t let that anger swallow him, April can stand to hold onto it and not risk harm.

But, as they stand there, watchful and quiet, she feels him doing just that. She feels the rise in the strength of his emotions- they’ve always been so powerful, she couldn’t ever imagine feeling so much all the time- and he starts to slide downwards. He’s trying to not, trying hard as he can because he knows none of them can handle anyone truly melting down just yet, but it’s happening and it’s out of his control.

He’s scared and furious and grieving and sorrow filled and just plain terrified all at once; it’s overwhelming, even to April, as she hastily withdraws most of her power from him. Neither of them has moved since he came out, but April feels tenseness all through his body, and he audibly clenches his jaw. Teeth clacking loudly against each other.

He’s just barely holding on, for the sake of all of them, and it makes April’s frayed emotions rise into her throat.

So she reaches out, with the hand that doesn’t hold a weapon, and grasps his large trembling wrist.

Words are hard, and sometimes they’re not enough. They lost everything and then got it all back within mere minutes of each event, and the shame of failure is dragging each of them down. No gentle words of comfort can make that better; not all at once, and maybe not at all.

Actions are easy. Actions make sense to them both. So April holds onto Raph’s wrist until it stops shaking, and he eases his death grip around his sais’ handle. His shoulders slump ever so slightly, showing for a moment a vulnerability that he never likes to make known.

He’s big, and strong, and sometimes mean, and he’s a kid who just lost his father. April understands those feelings too well, and feels old and young at the same time.

He lifts his hand to slide hers close to it, and turns it so that his thumb can catch her fingers. For a second, they let go of bravado; linking digits together and just holding on. Breathing, and not letting emotions or painfully fresh memories drag them down.

Words are hard, and sometimes not needed at all.

Breathe in, breathe out.

Raph’s emotions stabilize, and recede to a level he can handle. April’s skull aches still, but she reaches out a psychic touch regardless. Sending comfort and I’m here we’re here we’re all here along the tendril she brushes him with.

He doesn’t relax, but some of the tenseness leaves him. Now, if anything were to happen to them in this moment, Raph wouldn’t lose his head in the fight. True relaxation can come later, when they’re regrouping and can actually see one another is fine.

April already knows that the professor is sincere with his actions; that he really does want to help them. No one can lie to her anymore; not if she’s opened up her mind’s eye and is staring straight through any barriers they try to hide behind. For the moment, they have an ally and a safe place to rest.

Of course, telling that to her still battle-fresh reflexes and her ingrained triggers of fight or flight is a bit of a challenge.

Holding onto Raph, physically and mentally, helps to calm those reactions, as bizarre as the idea might seem. Two hot-heads, keeping each other calm. Wonders never cease.

They remain like that, linked together by their fingers, until Casey comes sauntering out in nothing but a towel and his pride. Then, laughter takes the place of sorrow for a moment, and April feels lighter in the same way Raph does.

—-

So they were in space. Holy shit they were in space. In a space ship, with a space robot, and they’d used space showers and gotten space towels to use while a space washer/dryer thing space cleaned their stuff, and now they were sitting in a space living room with a space TV and a space couch, and-

Casey watched his own planet get pulled apart into tiny little pieces and sucked into a black hole maybe a half hour ago.

He’s… still not sure how that’s supposed to make him feel.

On the one hand, planet scale destruction is kind of cool, but… only in fiction, as it turns out. Mostly, seeing everything fall apart like that had been sort of really… scary.

Casey’s always considered himself up to the challenge of anything; including space invasions and massive alien brawls. Those things had been really fucking metal, since all there was to it was to hit the enemy with his weapons until they stopped trying to wreck everything. Facing foes five times his size? No sweat. That’d actually been really exhilarating.

Except.

They’d failed, and his little sister, and dad, and all his normal friends… the brothers’ dad, and April’s too, all their families had gotten sucked into the black hole, and…

Yeah. That hadn’t been cool at all.

Casey rubs his right cheek, feeling a bruise starting to really form there. His mask took most of the damage, but the power behind the swings that’d been aimed at him hadn’t been stopped by it. Usually he embraces the aches that follow a good fight; they’re just a part of the packaged experience, kicking ass on a nightly basis and coming out the winner of things.

But they didn’t win this time. They lost, and they lost badly.

The aches don’t feel so pleasant, knowing that.

But hey, they get to try again! Time travel is a thing and it gave them back their world, so they can do things over a second time. Somewhere on earth, his dad and sister are fine and everyone else is as well. They’ve got six months to stop the Triceratons from finding the black hole generator, and that’s plenty of time in Casey’s opinion. They’ve got this on lockdown.

But… that doesn’t quite erase the fact that he watched his whole world die just a short while ago.

Casey will save the world… later. He admits to himself, while he spaces out a bit during whatever the professor robot is saying, that he’d actually rather just. Sleep. Not think about anything in particular for a couple hours, get up, and go from there.

He misses pretty much everything that’s going on- but suddenly the brothers are carrying bedrolls into the room and April is tugging him out of the way. Wow, he totally blanked out there. Raph shoves a bundle of soft fabric wrapped around itself into Casey’s hands, and he winces a bit as the push hits his sternum. He got nailed there pretty hard, couldn’t breathe right for a solid minute.

Everything hurts and he can actually feel his energy crashing. Time to sit down.

The bedroll pops its clasps without much fuss, and unfurls and expands. It turns into something that resembles a sleeping bag, but with more padding and softer fabric than Casey’s ever found on earth. No pillow to be seen, but hey, Casey is definitely not complaining right now. He’ll probably pass out on the first horizontal surface he can find that isn’t made of bees.

He’s not really sure where to put his bedbag- in the middle of the floor, across the room, where?- and ends up just dropping it in front of the couch. He doesn’t have energy for actual brain power right now; he’ll just put it wherever.

And maybe everyone else has the same sort of feeling, because after Casey drops himself onto his bedbag, everyone else follows one by one. There’s plenty of space in the room for them to spread out, but… kind of feels less exposed, clumping together in one spot. It feels warmer.

Casey sinks slowly backwards, leaning on the couch behind him. He’s got his clothes back, even his bandanna, and they’re actually even cleaner than they would’ve been if he’d washed them at home. They’ve got the option to go get food, as much as they want and whatever they want, whenever they want it.

But Casey kind of just wants to sit for a while. Maybe figure out how to get rid of the uncomfortable feelings he’s got swirling around his head.

He doesn’t like failing, and he certainly doesn’t like losing. He failed to protect his city, and he lost his family. It’s weighing heavy on him, and he’s not sure what to do with those feelings, even though he knows they’ve undone all that stuff already.

Doesn’t change that at some point it did happen. Doesn’t change that they fucked up so badly they cost themselves everything. Doesn’t change that his dad and sister were dead, and so was Splinter, and Mr. O’Neil, for at least a couple minutes.

That horror drenched thought suddenly slips from his grasp, and he blinks at the seeping comfort that isn’t his. Casey turns his head, and finally figures out just who sat down next to him.

April’s curled around herself, but Casey can feel her invisible threads of power brushing over everything. Her head is down and her eyes are shut, but she’s still aware enough to send some comfort towards him.

Casey doesn’t have to be a psychic to know she’s not doing so hot herself. They’d talked about it sometimes, during the months on the farm, how April sometimes feels like she never gets a break anymore. That she can’t hold onto anything good in her life without something trying to take it away.

Casey came into the game late, and has only heard about some of the stuff the brothers and April have dealt with the past few years. He thinks they’re all pretty amazing for that, and now he’s starting to understand why some nights they’re just… tired.

Casey feels tired. He put out a lot of energy tonight, and had the rest yanked right out of him without his permission. He gets why April is curled up and small, and why Donnie looks like he’s staring hard at nothing; why Leo hasn’t said a word since they boarded the ship, and why Mikey’s usual volume has all but evaporated; why Raph is on his other side and slumping boneless against the couch. He gets it.

Casey slumps a little more, and rubs his face; covering his eyes from the dim lights of the room.

“…so,” Donnie finally says, a long pause later. “Who wants to go first?”

Casey takes a deep breath. It might as well be him. Talking helps, right? “So my dad and sister were dead for about two minutes there, and I now understand how that can really fuck a guy up, since I know you guys have lost your dads a couple times already. Let’s not do this ever again, since this is honestly the shittiest I’ve felt in a long time, and also am I in the dead dad club yet?”

There’s a brief silence, and then Mikey bursts into tears. Leo and Donnie are the ones beside him, and they immediately go and start making shushing sounds, holding Mikey between them as he hiccups and cries.

“Too soon?” Casey asks, wincing. Raph smacks him over the head, and then drags him into a rough hug. Casey’s arms are shaking- hey, when’d they start doing that?- as he hugs Raph back. “Jeez, Raph, ease up there I’m kind of- kind of choking, what’re you- hey, I’m fine, don’t- don’t-”

Casey didn’t really notice he started crying.

Funny, not noticing something like that.

“-fuck,” He whispers hoarsely, and hides his face in Raph’s shoulder.

April’s arms wrap around his torso, and he feels her press her face against his back. Her hold is as tight as Raph’s, and Casey can feel an invisible one brush over his body. He’d hug her back, but Raph’s got a vice grip around him and Casey kinda has the same on his friend.

It feels a little like they’re trying to hold each other together. Casey’s not sure how well that’s working.

“…s’rry ‘bout Mike,” Casey mumbles, hearing Mikey’s hiccupping sobs still. He isn’t sure why he said that stupid shit. He’s not ever sure why he does.

“ ’s okay,” Raph mumbles back, “was gonna happen anyways.”

April makes a ragged little “—!” sound into Casey’s back, and it’s just- so sad. Everything feels sad. Everything kind of is sad.

The dull static that’d been holding down most of Casey’s emotions lifts, and he feels the full impact of everything all at once. It hurts, a lot. Everything hurts. His face, his chest, his head, and his heart.

Casey misses his dad and sister with striking pain; misses master Splinter, misses their home. It’s cold in space, and the only warm things he’s got around him are his friends.

It’s awkward to do so, drop one hand from his hug with Raph and angle it to find April’s, but he manages it and she holds the grip tight as he does. Trembling until they squeeze so tightly it doesn’t.

One, two, three- breathe.

They’ll figure this out. They’ll save the earth and then everything can go back to normal.

But-

That can come later.

Casey’s a bit too tired for heroics right now. He’s always up for a challenge, usually, but right now… he doesn’t think he could manage it at all.

However, holding onto his best friends for a bit- that sounds way more manageable.

—-

They take turns.

First it’s Mikey, then Casey, the most vocal members of their team with their emotions and reactions. Theirs are incoherent for the most part; buildup of events and thoughts that just couldn’t handle anymore, hard as they’d tried. Then it’s Raph and April, their teammates with emotions so big they sometimes can’t contain them. Theirs are louder, angrier- an expression of how helplessness to stop what happened makes them so mad and scared they can’t keep it to themselves. Then finally, with the other four moving through the worst of their breakdowns, its Donnie and Leo’s turn.

Donnie’s is controlled. Silent. It’s hard to watch, though; seeing Donnie slowly deflate and just… lie there. He’s the tallest of Leo’s brothers, and yet, manages to look so much smaller; curled into a hug between April and Mikey on either side of him. There are so many things in Donnie’s head none of them will ever really know, let alone understand, and doubtlessly Leo’s brother is running scenario after scenario of what they could have done differently. How they could have won. How they could have saved their father.

Donnie doesn’t make a sound, and barely shows his distress as he works through it, clinging to April and Mikey both. They all know anyway, how deeply he’s hurting.

Their lineup shifted into a cluster at some point, and their beds are overlapping as much as they are. Leo somehow found his way near the center of it, where Donnie is at the moment, and finds himself corralled there by Raph and Casey.

His throat itches and his leg aches, and Leo doesn’t fight the gentle persuasion for his turn at things. Raph is strong again, back in control of himself and ready to catch Leo the moment he falters. Casey’s brief expulsion of his terror and grief is gone, and replaced again by his steadfast determination. They’re here for Leo. And, Leo admits he needs them.

He failed. He failed his father, he failed his brothers, he failed his friends and he failed his world. Leo’s head swirls with that knowledge, and it pulls him down the moment he lets it. He should’ve been a better leader, should’ve been able to plan to prevent this, and should’ve found a way to stop the blades and the man who wielded them long before they went through Splinter’s back.

The death of an entire world is on their hands, on Leo’s hands, and it’s too much for him to handle.

And as he collapses under that impossible weight, air leaving his lungs and his voice gone completely, his brother and friend catch him, and don’t let it crush him.

Leo leaves most of himself behind, trying to gasp around the pressure that’s on his lungs. He’s there but he’s not, and a part of him goes back to the moment he gained the scars that wrecked his voice and maimed his leg. He thinks a part of him will always go back to that moment, no matter how many years pass.

He’s back in the moment he watched twin blades go through his father’s chest, helpless to stop it, and the moments that followed where he watched an entire world die. He’s there, and it hurts, and he can’t breathe-

-and then he’s back, and pushing past the horrors. Numbness recedes and his lungs inflate again. Guilt and shame still cling to Leo like life sucking leeches, but they’re not so bad he feels like he’s being pulled apart at the seams.

He can’t tell if he’s crying- god knows it wouldn’t be the first time, pushing through this state of mind- but it doesn’t really matter. He doesn’t care if he is. Between the six of them right now, there’s no barriers, no bravado. They’re all they have at the moment, and trying to hide anything about themselves will only hurt them worse.

Leo, somewhere in the haze of flashbacks, had ended up leaning almost entirely onto Raph’s shoulder. Leo’s head still feels fuzzy beyond use, but he’s got back his senses enough that he can take stock of his surroundings. His head is lolled sideways, cheek against the bone of his brother’s shoulder. His hand is clutched by Casey’s humanly warm one. Both grounding sensations are welcome.

He breaths steadily, and finds Donnie’s eyes through the cluster of bodies. Donnie looks about as well off as Leo feels, with shadowed eyes and an obvious exhaustion.

They pass an understanding between the two of them, in that moment of eye contact. They’re both blaming themselves right now, for not stopping these events before they played out. Their siblings and friends are reactors to a situation; Leo and Donnie are planners. It’s their job to plot the course of things, and find the path that presents the best outcome.

They failed miserably at their job this time, and that weighs like lead on them both. They don’t have to say so, they just know.

Donnie’s grim and grieving expression says all that, and Leo conveys the same with his own. Whether or not their family will agree, this is something they’ll place on their shoulders together. The responsibility for everything, even if it’s not entirely their fault.

But it feels like it is, and that’s enough to push them to take that responsibility.

The moment of understanding passes and Leo breaks eye contact with his brother. They can discuss plans later, as well as strategy and how to avoid something this catastrophic from happening ever again. Analyze where they went wrong, and how to become better for their mistakes.

But that’s for later, much later.

Right now, Leo is still edging a part of his mind that’s been dragging him down this whole while, and he needs to pull himself together lest he fall into that black pit. Donnie is probably doing the same with his own mind, tucking his endless questions and anxieties away so they don’t interfere with his work.

Leo closes his eyes, breathes, and works on pulling everything back together for his family.

Eventually, he does, and they all go quiet. The stages of shock and grief have run their course, and now they huddle together as they accept their situation.

The attempt at creating a neat lineup of sleep spots had been mostly pointless. Inevitably, with their post-breakdown moods slowly dissipating, Leo finds himself tucked into a pile of beds and bodies. It’s crowded, and squished, and it makes the ache of loss so much more bearable.

Leo can’t remember when they started doing this; piling together whenever they ended up sleeping in the same room. Whenever they did, it was probably out of self-preservation. If Leo were in his room- or alone at all, really- he likely wouldn’t have been able to find his center again. He doesn’t doubt the same goes for everyone around him.

Leo has Donnie on one side of him, and Mikey on the other. Either Casey or April is by his head, since he can feel hair tickling his skull. Beyond that, it’s too much effort to figure out who ended up where. It’s better to just sink into the feeling of being safe and warm, than to do anything else.

Leo still can’t sleep. Can’t even imagine sleeping with what waits in his subconscious. But, he can lie here, and listen to the breathing of each family member he has. It sets the worst of his fears at ease, and he manages to actually relax for the first time in hours.

He’s clean, freshly bandaged, and he’s surrounded on all sides by the people he trusts most. Everything still hurts soul deep and bone deep both, but that’s alright. He has his family, and they have him. Even the scars around his neck and leg hurt less, so long as he has his brothers and friends to support him.

So long as they’re together, they’ll make it through.

Leo can’t sleep, but he can lay awake and listen to the steady breathing and near silent shuffles of his family. Maybe they do the same, lying awake and reassuring themselves that they’ve still got each other, even after all that’s happened. Maybe they don’t, and some of them manage to find sleep, despite the mind bending horror they’ve seen tonight.

Whichever it is, Leo can at least close his eyes, and know that he isn’t alone. He’s comfortable, pressed into the pile like he is, and he doesn’t think he’ll move for hours. Not with the quiet murmurs between Raph and Mikey happening close enough for him to hear, or the soft huffs of breath coming from Donnie, April, and Casey. Those insignificant sounds make all the difference in the world, for Leo.

So he leaves his eyes shut, and drifts.

Raph whacks Mikey’s shoulder as he and Donnie join the pile of disappointed teenagers, and Mikey whines wordlessly about the punishment.

April just sighs, and tries to remember when she agreed to having a second parent in her life.

 Why did you shift the tone?

April just wanted to have a nice dinner out with an admittedly cute girl who’d helped her out with a vending machine. Not this. Because this is definitely not what she intended to happen, but someone is insisting on being what April can only describe as a flirt.

She feels her heart stutter every time Harmony looks over, or smiles, or tilts her head just right and her bangs fall out of place. And the way Harmony wears a too big jacket and makes it look as flattering as an evening gown, and the perfectly sharp eyeliner that should clash but doesn’t, is just driving April crazy.

April focuses very hard on keeping her words steady and her eyes from staring at Harmony’s lips. It’s a hard thing to do, especially once they leave the restaurant and Murakami’s slight barrier between them.

April O’Neil has a quiet sexuality crisis for about two hours, and doesn’t know what to do with it even afterwards. She never really thought about girls like that, but oh does she now. She definitely does now.

Even after Harmony turns out to be Karai, and tries to kill her, April very guiltily admits that yeah, she’s still cute. Foot clan ties and all.

 I ache all over.

“Ninjutsu sucks,” April proclaims, lying on the floor of the dojo and not even caring about appearances anymore. Everything hurts and she is never moving again.

“Welcome to the club,” Mikey says in an only half mocking tone, slumped against the random tree the family has growing in here. Seriously, April doesn’t understand why or how the tree is here. But it is.

“Diligence is rewarded with… something,” Leo says, clearly trying to start a leaderly speech, but also clearly too tired to do so. “Wait I know this one, hold on.”

“Everyone stop talking, I’m trying to die in peace,” Donnie mutters belligerently from his position splayed on the floor. Raph grunts an agreement, and makes no move otherwise from his spot beside Donnie.

“Sucks,” April says with more emphasis, because when she signed up for ninja training, she did not think it would include six hour plus sessions of pure and utter agony.

 Let’s wait for them.

“Can we just give up and leave them?” Mikey asks April, once the second hour rolls by.

April scans the alien market they were- not lost in, just momentarily confused by- checking again for any sight of Leo and Raph. “No, I’m pretty sure we still need them.”

Mikey makes a drawn out sound of annoyance, and flops his head backwards against the bench they’re on. “Oh my god, how hard is it to get one measly electro-converter-whatever?”

“Apparently hard enough it takes two plus hours,” April says dryly, shielding her eyes to the blinding three sun sky. Why was it always desert planets lately; she had sand in places she never wanted to.

Something catches her eye, and April turns her search towards it. Then she grimaces.

“Uh oh,” She says.

“Why the ‘uh oh’?” Mikey asks in a wary voice.

“Uh oh because it looks like the deal went bad,” April says, grimacing further as she watches the two brothers try to run through the thick crowd. Their pursuing enemies look really angry, and April isn’t eager to find out why.

Mikey doesn’t move from his slump, apparently unbothered by the turn of events. “Welp, can’t say I didn’t expect that one. Should we wait for them to escape, or help ‘em out?”

April watches the way Leo and Raph scurry through the throngs of people, Leo carrying the engine part they need for the ship. None of them aliens pursuing them have drawn weapons yet, but April doesn’t like the look of the swords on their backs.

“Let’s wait for them to escape,” April says, leaning back and pulling up her hood. They’re both tucked into their sand-resistance cloaks, and seem innocuous to the aliens passing by. Hopefully. “If they can’t shake them in five minutes, we’ll intervene.”

“Sounds like a plan,” Mikey agrees, still not bothering to even lift his head.

 It wasn’t very convincing.

April grins for her aunt, and swears it’s just a self-defense club. That’s why she’s asking for money to buy new workout clothes, and why she’s been keeping such weird hours.

She conceals the guilt of having to lie about her friends, about her father, and about why she comes home with bruises and cuts not caused by training. She tells her aunt that the self-defense club is because she’s still shaken up about losing her dad, and can’t handle being unable to defend herself anymore.

It’s partially a lie, that explanation. April is past being shaken, and moved onto being angry. So very angry.

She conceals that anger too, and smiles for her aunt every time she asks about her martial arts.

April keeps things vague, and knows that it’s not as half convincing as she needs it to be.

 It went to dark places.

She listens to his half mumblings and shrieking shouts and shuddering, slow breaths as he calms down, and sometimes wonders if she really saved her dad at all.

Kirby O’Neil is not the man he was, and April O’Neil isn’t the girl she was either. Neither of them are the same anymore; and hearing the pained, distressed sounds her dad makes in the dead of night, trying so hard to cope with the things he endured for her, breaks April’s heart in ways she hadn’t thought it could still break.

The sound of her father breaking down takes April along with him, because she can’t stop the vague connection of empathy she has. Her powers are still something new, and she doesn’t have enough control yet to completely shut everything out. Including the strangling, terrifying fear and despair that sometimes grips her father.

Even if she knows that he’ll recover, stand back up and smile like none of this happened at all, and go to work the next day like any other normal dad- the anxiety attacks and night terrors still drag April down. Down into visions of metallic cells and cold restraints and dark things that make her fear spike without fail, and she struggles to pull herself free each time.

 We like the darkness.

April doesn’t know if she was ever afraid of the dark. Maybe as a small child she’d been, but now, she dances through it without fear.

After all, her closest friends dwell there, and she’s learned the shadows better than the light.

And as she does, she learns how to melt into it, to make it a part of her very being. Learns what shadows can hide her wholly, and how to make them cling to her like a second skin.

Her four friends, strange and otherworldly as they are, are much better at this than her. A lifetime of experience makes them masters at something April has just begun to take into herself.

It doesn’t bother her often, because she’s far too busy racing with the night wind and playing training games in the slanted dark of each street.

 I was ready to go.

April glances back at the farm house, thinking about the temporary peace it’s given them all the last few months. But also, about how the basement had held secrets she wasn’t ready to learn, and how those secrets weigh on her still.

It’d been a place to hide and heal their wounds, a beat of quiet in a time of raging wars and hard losses, but it had also slowly become a place where the walls felt too tight. So tight and cramped that April had wondered if they were getting smaller by the day. The six of them all but snarling at one another some days, when cabin fever became too much and there wasn’t enough room in the world for them to feel comfortable with their lives. A sanctuary that had slowly turned prison.

“Are you ready to go?” Donnie asks, calling over from the Party Wagon. They’re all piling in, food and weapon supplies already inside and locked down for the drive. Casey honks the horn once, and the other boys shout at her as well.

April smiles, shakes her head, and starts towards them. Turning her back on all the things she doesn’t want to linger on any more than she has. “Ready when you guys are.”

 We all talk about it.

Sometimes, when one or more of them hit a wall and just can’t anymore-

April, and her five closest, (only), friends will sit down in a great big pile, and just talk.

Especially after they lose the earth, and they drift through space and galaxies, someone will have a nightmare or an anxiety attack or just a bad day in general; and so they all react accordingly.

Sometimes it’s April’s turn for those. Bad moments where everything is just too much and too heavy, and she’ll just want to curl up and not be. Those moments are made so much easier, because she has five willing ears to listen to her, and she pays them the same affection.

Sometimes she talks about her dad, about the Kraang, about being something that’s neither human nor alien. And they listen, and she listens to them.

They talk about the Shredder, and what he’s done and taken. They talk about how they miss home, and how they miss things from before. Maybe they weren’t as close back then, because trauma and war ties people together tighter than anything, but they’d had less to worry about. To fear.

They talk about master Splinter, they talk about April’s father and aunt, they talk about Casey’s own father and sister, and they talk about the mutant allies they’ve made. They talk about who they count as their family.

They talk, and it makes things easier. And then they keep going, until the next time one of them needs this.

 Can we kiss you?

“Can… can we kiss you?” April asks tentatively, because this is really, really weird if she’s honest with herself. Even by their standards.

Donnie blinks, eyes darting between April and Casey on his other side, and the way they’re all a little too close to be platonic. No one else is in the room, Donnie’s brothers taking their turns for a sleep cycle while the three of them keep watch of the ship.

Or. They’re supposed to be. They’re doing this instead.

“Uh…” Donnie glances between them both again, looking confused and lost. “Both of you?”

“That is the plan,” Casey confirms, and April can sense the nervousness squirming in his aura. They’ve all been dancing around this for a long time, and now, with space from the earth, lost in literal space as they try to catch up with the timeline, they can’t dance any longer.

Donnie’s eyes widen, and his lips purse in the anxious way they always do. “I. I’m not really sure how to respond to that?” His words turn into a question, as he shifts uncomfortably on the sofa between them. “I mean, um, I wouldn’t be- be upset if you did, but are you sure-?”

“Yes,” April says, and cuts Donnie off by catching him in a messy kiss. She used to take her time deciding her actions, but these days you just did or didn’t, and chances passed by in blurs. They have this moment alone, finally, and she’s going to seize it before it’s gone.

It’s probably wrong, what she and Casey are trying to make happen. But monogamy is for ordinary people, and the three of them are anything but that.

April watched an entire world die, and then went back in time to save it. She can handle a little thing like having two boyfriends, who happen to be boyfriends with each other.

When April leans away from their kiss, Donnie’s staring at her with a sort of awe that makes her insides warm pleasantly. He’s been giving her that look for so long, and now she feels she’s returning it.

Of course, Casey breaks the moment they’re having, and April can only smile in amusement as he and Donnie start something that’s both a kiss and an argument at the same time.

She winds her hand into Donnie’s, as he and Casey break apart to stare at one another like the quarreling yet affectionate idiots they are. April gives Donnie a grin as she leans across his lap, and meets Casey at the halfway point for a kiss just between them.

The look on Donnie’s face is shy but attentive, and he watches them the whole time. It makes the exchange all the more exciting.

Things get a bit blurry from there, but April finds she doesn’t mind that at all.

 Can we shoot them?

“I’m just saying-”

“No, April.”

“-if we shot them, this would be over,” April says, pointing her laser gun at the captured aliens they have. “Seriously, we could just go ho- back to the ship if we shot them. Like, one blast for each of them, and I wouldn’t miss from a point blank range so it’d be a quick death-”

“April!” Leo scolds, giving her a wide eyed look. “We’re not shooting them! Jesus!”

“It’d destroy their connection with the machine!” April says, waving her gun and free hand at the giant whirling death machine they accidentally got tangled up with. How many plots for world destruction could one universe hold anyways? This was ridiculous.

“We’re waiting for Donnie and the professor, and we are not shooting people.”

April threw her hands up. “Oh my god, literally just one shot each, and then this’d all be over-”

“April!!”

“Fine! God!”

 These people are ridiculous.

April can’t help the laughter that comes out of her nose, and struggles to not swallow her now burning drink down the wrong hole. Her laughter is half snorted, and she coughs as she keeps going anyways.

Leo’s embarrassed shouting is barely heard over the howling laughter of everyone else; Mikey’s cheeky, completely unrepentant smile only egging both reactions on. April’s lost the thread of conversation between them now, but the growing noise serves to bolster her laughter anyways.

She’s returned to this, after weeks of fiercely refusing to see any of them, and it feels as though she never left. They’re all here, even with the new addition of Casey to their group, sitting around a kitchen table and eating a combination of pizza and Japanese takeout. Like nothing ever drove them apart; like there wasn’t a period of heavy, furious tension at all.

April has walked out of the lair so many times, away from it and the bizarre family living here, and once swore it would be the last time.

And yet.

Here she is, warm and welcome and laughing so hard her sides are aching. Accepted back even after the things she’d screamed at them, and finding herself having well and truly forgiven her friends.

The four brothers and their father, they always seem to accept her back, bring her home, no matter what happens. That sort of unfaltering loyalty astounds and warms April, and she can’t help but think how ridiculous it is that they would give so much of it to her.

April’s laughter, shared with four and now five people who seem to stand by her no matter what, makes her feel lighter than it has in weeks, and she hopes to never fall so low again.

 It’s not fair at all, is it?

April tries not to think about it too much. Dwelling on anything that makes her upset is dangerous these days, trapped in the farm house while Leo sleeps and New York burns. She knows her powers are growing, and the plate she accidentally threw across the room just yesterday - without even looking at it, let alone touching it- says all that needs to be said. If she lets her thoughts get too loud, too angry, she’s not sure what will happen.

But it’s not fair.

She’d just gotten her dad back, her life on track again, and now he’s gone and so is master Splinter. So are her aunt and every friend she has in school. All of them. Gone. Warped into mindless creatures or- or-

Or presumed dead.

April hunches her shoulders, and tries not to drown in anger and sorrow as she makes lunch. Because cracking the salad bowl in two won’t help anything, or alleviate the ever louder chant in her mind that it’s not fair, why me, why always me, it’s not fair.

But things haven’t been fair for her in a long, long time, and that knowledge gives her no comfort. Just a grim reminder of how things are, and will be for the foreseeable future.

 Are you crying?

April wakes up a day later, after That Night, and doesn’t want to.

She doesn’t go back to sleep though, because what’s waiting there could be even worse.

She doesn’t bother dressing, because she isn’t going out. She’s taking sick leave from school and training, and trying so hard not to feel the absent weight around her neck.

She makes herself breakfast, listless and not actually hungry, and finds herself reaching for a necklace she doesn’t have. To toy with it, like it really was a harmless pendant.

There’s nothing there, and she drops her hand. Ashamed.

She eats tasteless instant oatmeal, and barely finishes the meal. She doesn’t have any real appetite, not with the images and sensations still rising up her mind in unwanted, stinging flashes of memory.

It’s still raining. The windows of her apartment are streaked with it. The rain has just kept falling and falling, ever since…

Ever since the night she killed Donnie, and attempted to do the same to the rest of their family.

That thought remains lead like and suffocating on April’s consciousness, and it’s why she’s here at home. Because she doesn’t trust herself yet to look her friends in the eye, and not break.

But also because… she still wants the crystal back.

The sensation of Power, roiling and endless, still tingles at the tips of her fingers. The voice of Za’naron remains in her head, an echo of the alien’s soothing, sinking, strangling influence on her mind. The scene of her powers, her powers, tearing her best friend apart plays on repeat in her memories, and April feels heavy with exhaustion and guilt.

But outside of that guilt, that exhaustion, the feeling wanting remains. And April feels like the worst person in the world for that.

“April?”

April doesn’t have to turn around from the window to know it’s her dad. She’d felt him moving through her ambient senses long before he’d approached the living room.

“April, honey… are you crying?” Her dad asks, stepping further into the room.

April blinks, and hastily wipes away a few tears that escaped without her permission. “No,” She says, forcing her voice to remain steady. She can’t burden her dad with yet another one of her problems. “No, it’s just the rain. I’m fine, dad.”

Her dad seems pale, paler than he usually is these days, and a stricken emotion crosses his face. April can feel his concern, his worry, and she can’t bring herself to look at it too closely.

Her dad crosses the room, and with gentle care, pulls her into a hug. Its warmer than how April feels- which is cold, cold and hollow without the burning power she’d held just hours ago- and she lays her head against her dad’s shoulder.

She’s so tired of this. So tired of tragedies and fights and seeing her friends get hurt.

She’s so tired.

Her dad strokes a hand down her back, and April closes her eyes as he murmurs to her. “I know you don’t want to tell me what’s happening, but please know I’m here for you. Whenever you want to talk, I’ll listen, April.”

April tries to suppress the emotion welling up in her, and only barely does.

She wants to talk about it… but she also just wants it to disappear. She wants the nightmarish experience of killing her own friend to fade into nothingness, and for everyone to forget the time April lost herself in her own powers. She wants the memories, Za’naron, and the crystal gone forever.

April carefully bundles up her grief and tears, and pushes them far, far into the back of her mind.

“Thanks, dad,” April says quietly. “But I don’t have anything to talk about.”

Nothing at all.

Her father doesn’t have anything to say to that, and just holds her tighter.

It takes another few days, meditating on and off to fold the frayed edges of her powers and mind up and away…

…tucking the worst parts into themselves, hiding them so far inside her mind not even she can find them anymore…

…and then April can wake up again, and smile, and go on about her day like nothing ever happened.

She picks up her sword, her fan, and sweeps her hair back into a ponytail. She heads out into the night, and steps placidly over the still ongoing repairs to the lair.

She ignores the sideways glances she gets from her friends, and keeps complete and total iron control of her abilities.

She smiles.

And there’s not a tear in sight.

 It made no sense.

It made exactly zero sense to April, sometimes. How Leo will constantly say “Sorry April, ninjas only.”

Like she’s any less of a ninja. Like all her hours and hours of training mean nothing. Like she hasn’t spent the last year plus working her literal ass off to keep up with them, and damn near succeeding sometimes, despite their very large gap in years to learn ninjutsu. She’s done everything they’ve done, faced the same dangers and enemies as they have, with half the weapons and less than half the experience.

And yet.

“Sorry April, ninjas only,” Leo says, limping along like he didn’t still have a bum leg or needs help walking when he strains himself, like she hasn’t put her all into keeping their family afloat and together while he slept, like she doesn’t deserve to have a mystical ninjutsu camping trip too. And then they all just leave, and April has to stand by and watch their shells disappear and ends up going and breaking the skin on her knuckles pounding those stupid planks right after.

And she still fumes through the night, the next, and the next, until the day they walk back out of the woods.

April may have been imagining Leo’s face, the moment she finally broke the board right down the middle.

 I was in love with them all.

Originally, April had imagined herself to not fall for anyone easily, if at all. People and relationships were just such a hassle, and she had her schoolwork. She’d thought she didn’t need anyone.

But then there’d been Donnie, and then there’d been a certain kunoichi masquerading as a normal teen, and then there’d been Casey, and before she’d turned out to be a spying robot, there’d been Irma…

At some point or another, or even currently, April had felt something dangerously close to love for each of them. Or at least slightly off-kilter attraction, mostly inspired by the desire to simply beat a certain someone at their shared profession. (She hasn’t gotten her yet, but April would give Karai her just desserts one day. Some day. Maybe a kiss too-)

April’s brain fizzles, and she hunches a little more over the lair’s kitchen table.

Ooh boy.

She needs to slow down on the crush accumulation. Seriously. Two boys are enough; adding a highly trained and girl of dubious morales to the roster isn’t necessary. Even if said girl pulls off armor like high fashion and somehow never has her makeup out of place and god dammnit did Karai sometimes make April want to wipe that smirk off her face forcibly through a furious sort of kiss-

April makes something close to a whine, and covers her head with her arms; feeling quite sorry for herself and her late blooming bisexuality, with the addition of the inability to just choose someone.

“What’s botherin’ you tonight, April?” Mikey asks, flipping a few midnight pancakes on the stove. “You feelin’ sick?”

“I’m dying,” April mutters miserably.

“…huh. That’s a shame.”

April groans again at her friend’s lack of serious sympathy, and thunks her head against the table top.

God. Dammnit.

 Does anyone really want the ordinary?

April O'Neil isn't an ordinary girl in any sense. Hasn’t been for a long time.

Not since the night she fell into an alien conspiracy, and gained the strangest friends she could ever imagine. Not since she picked up a weapon, and decided she liked the sense of power and thrill that came with ninjutsu. Not since she spent the formative years of her teenagehood fighting one war after another, and somehow managing to still have teenage drama throughout it.

She isn't an ordinary girl at all, and she thinks that's fine by her.

 None of it mattered.

More often than not these days, April looks at her assigned schoolwork and just… can’t see the point of it.

College preparation used to be so important to her. Getting good grades and impressing her teachers used to rank close to the top of her priorities. She used to spend hours and hours studying, and love every second.

But now she’s seen and done so much more than those things. She’s fought crime lords and ninjas, aliens and mutants; defeated each one and come out of the fights even stronger. She’s learned how to manage finances and budgets and a household, lest she and her friends have starved while they were without parents those three months so long ago. She’s been to the edge of the universe and back again, and won’t ever be able to forget the other worlds out there, the other possibilities.

Looking at her math and history assignments, April can’t shake the feeling that it doesn’t really matter. Not in the grand scheme of things, and not to her.

Not for the first time, April wonders just how she’ll ever be able to live a normal life, now that she’s experienced the extraordinary.

 They know how to do this.

After master Splinter passes, after they made sure the Shredder would never hurt anyone ever again, and after they returned home to a home that felt empty…

April realizes with a heavy heart, that they know how to do this.

They know how to grieve, and they know how to move on. It’s happened to them before, the loss of the brothers’ father and April’s second parental figure. They’ve seen him die too many times, and now…

April hurts, bone deep and then to her very soul, and yet… feels almost numb.

There’s a gravestone this time, and that may be the only difference from all the others.

Splinter’s death flashes before her eyes often, the powerless moment she’d had watching the blades emerge from his torso. The world shattering second between feeling as though they might have finally won, and the moment she’d known they’d instead lost.

She feels grief, and sorrow, and regret for not being strong enough to save her second father figure. She wades through those emotions, and mires in nightmares and flashbacks that come to her in bad moments.

But more so than that, the feeling of vicious triumph of the Shredder’s death come to her, and April is far past being unsure if she likes it or not. She’s seen and done this more times than she ever should have, and she knows how to deal with it. Knows how to handle the balance of welling grief and whirling fury at losing someone so dear.

They all do, these days. The brothers and Casey and her. They’ve done the song and dance of losing someone so vital to their family twice before, and perhaps the greatest relief is that this will be the final time.

April hopes so. She’s not sure if she could do it a fourth time over.

 I have the sun.

A sun burns inside April. It grows brighter all the time, and sometimes she wondered if it would swallow her.

And then it did, for a single night, and she tore apart herself and someone she loved. It’d raged and roiled and burned her from the inside out. With the voice of a fallen angel ringing in her ears, screeching and singing and urging her on, April had lost herself in the torrent of white hot power.

And then she’d come back, the sun inside her not extinguished, but doused enough that she was herself again.

And just as that burning, ever growing sun had dimmed, she’d fanned its flames and torn apart reality one more time. To bring him back.

The power to change reality as she saw fit, it’s a dangerous, terrible power. Forged in her from the moment she’d been born, and designed to be used as a weapon by creatures that’ve done nothing but hurt her family since before she’d even existed. Yes she could use it to protect her family, her new one made of odd and wonderful people, but the things she’s been used to do already, the things she’s been forced to commit…

They weigh heavy on her, as heavy as the pool of energy inside her body. The one that feels like an ocean sometimes, and one she has yet to see the bottom of. An ocean of fire and white energy, bigger and brighter than April herself ever will be.

She’s scared of it. She worries about it. She loves the feeling of it. She can never let it tempt her again.

April has a sun inside her, one meant to break everything she sees and remake it in a twisted image, and she will never again let it burn her away.

 Celebrate them.

In between patrols and fights and tragedies-

-April learns to love the small things.

To celebrate them as they come and go, because everything is tenuous these days.

The days when her dad can walk out for work and come home with a smile, and then last the whole night without a panic attack; April celebrates them with extra-long hugs and truly bright smiles as they share dinner together.

The nights when she lands a jump just right, or executes a move perfectly, or earns an extra moment of praise from master Splinter; April beams and pushes herself harder, because she knows that now that she’s done this she can do better.

The moments that she gets to share with her friends, any and all of them, during patrols and training; when Donnie and Casey make the tips of her ears a little red, or Mikey and Leo make her laugh a bit too loud for ninja-ing, or Raph challenges her to a foolhardy bet neither she or anyone else in their group is going to really be able to win- April’s heart swells, and she lets herself experience the split seconds they’ve got with no other thoughts in her mind.

There are too many things that could interrupt those things, lately. Too many dangerous events and people that could take them away.

April’s learned, though. Learned that she has to celebrate them while they’re here and hope to god that there’ll be more in the future.

Casey shook his head, again wincing, this time from the budding headache there. “Not a thing. It’s all blurry and blacked out. Dude, I’m so sorry, you weren’t waiting too long for me right? You should’ve just woken me up.”

The man stared at Casey, mouth gaping, and hey those were some real sharp incisors right there-

“Oh fuck,” The man said, putting his face in his hands. “You’ve got to be kidding me. Hhhhh…. I should have listened to Leo about accepting summons like that…”

“Summons? Heh, you’re not some kind of ‘call guy’ or something, right? I mean… no way I was that drunk…” Casey trailed off, staring at something lashing across the floor.

Was that…? No not a snake, it had a bunch of fluff on the end, and was attached… to…

Oh.

“TAIL!” Casey shouted, pointing at the thing on the floor. He took a closer look at the man’s head, Casey’s own head finally cleared of all cobwebs, and- “HORNS!”

The man took his hands away from his face, and gave Casey a deeply annoyed look. “What did you expect, idiot? I’m a demon for crying out loud! You  knew that.”

To further prove his point- the man’s skin darkened with scales, and his green irises filled his whole sclera. A long forked tongue slithered out of his mouth and the man- the demon, hissed at Casey.

Casey let out a strangled laugh, and then screamed.

Somewhere between flying out of bed, knocking over his sketchbook stack by the door, his baseball bat collection also beside the door, and slipping on a salt pentagram-thingy on his living room floor- where the fuck did his carpet go- Casey managed to calm down a bit.

He tried to assess the situation.

There was a huge ass, old ass book bigger than his chest on the coffee table. That probably explained the salt on the floor, if the candles surrounding the book and the diagrams inside were anything to go by.

The demon-man-person had not disappeared yet. This was still not a dream. He was still looking at Casey like he was an idiot and/or was regretting ever setting foot in Casey’s tiny shithole apartment.

Casey still couldn’t find his carpet. Where the ever living fuck did he put his carpet.

Casey scratched his head a bunch, did ten loops around the whole of his living room/kitchen area, checked ten times if the demon-person-dude was still there, and managed to calm down.

Just enough to sit the guy-demon-whatever down on the couch, and try to sort things out.

“So let me get this straight,” Casey said, standing in front of his couch and guest. “I summoned you, and you’re a demon, aaaaaaand I accidentally made a contract with you?”

“You can’t make contracts on accident, but somehow, I think you managed,” The demon guy drawled, slouching on Casey’s couch. His tail- holy fuck- was still lashing back and forth in annoyance, the fluffy tip of it disturbing the scattered salt on the floor. He glared at Casey, showing a bit of fang as he sneered. “Congrats, you managed to fuck up like no one else ever has.”

Had it been anyone else saying that to him, Casey would have snapped back at them, but the inhuman nature of his house guest gave him pause.

A lot of the guy was very human like, but his less than human bits gave him away. Badly so.

The tail for starters. Longer than the guy’s legs, and fairly thick. It was dark enough that Casey couldn’t see were the fluffy bits started, and the scales ended. And the horns. God damn the horns.

Set on either side of his head, with a spiky dark hair sticking up in between, the two black horns stood out prominently. Tips aimed at the ceiling, and a slight curve against the skull. They sort of looked like goat’s horns, but with smoother ridges. A few inches tall each.

The scales were gone again, receded… wherever they’d gone/come from, but Casey thought he could see a hint of them around the corners of the demon’s eyes.

Wow those were some green eyes.

“You’re staring,” The demon guy growled.

“Can you blame me?” Casey quipped automatically.

The demon sneered again.

Nice teeth too. Sharp.

How far into shock was he, by this point?

Pretty far.

“So like,” Casey coughed awkwardly. “Do you know what happened to my carpet, man? I kind of liked it.”

“You threw it off the balcony,” The demon replied, jerking his thumb at Casey tiny excuse for a balcony. “Right after you summoned me. You had to make some room, so you tossed out ‘the least breakable thing’. Your words not mine.”

Casey opened his mouth, closed it, and ran to open his sliding doors.

He looked over the wrought metal railing of the balcony, and- “-aw FUCK!”

He’d thrown his carpet outside alright. Right onto the communal trash bins area below. It also looked like it’d rained last night, since there were huge puddles all over the place.

Fuck.

Casey put his hands to the sides of his face. “Fuuuuuuuuuuck, man. I’m never gonna get the smell out of it now!”

“If that’d been your desire when you summoned me, I could fix it easy.”

“What?” Casey turned around, looking at his guest. “‘Desire’? What??”

“You summoned me with a desire,” The demon guy said, leaning onto the arm of the couch. “I can’t leave until I fulfill it.”

“Um- what?”

“Desire. It means to want something or someone or whatever. Donnie’s better at the details,” The demon waved his hand dismissively. “Whatever, anyways it means that you had an intention that needed fulfillment when you summoned me, and you wanted me to grant it. You were supposed to tell me what it was when I appeared, but instead, you went off on a rant about how much space I was taking up, tossed your carpet out the window, and then passed out. Not exactly informative.”

“Um.” Casey floundered at the description of ‘desire’. “Yeah. Uh. I don’t remember even summoning you, dude, so I sure as fuck don’t remember why I summoned you.”

“I was starting to get that idea,” The demon said in a deeply annoyed tone.

“Uh- also, why would I toss my carpet outside?” Casey asked, stepping back into the room and shutting the doors behind him. He’d deal with his forsaken floor cover later. “Why would I need extra room? I mean, like, no offense man- but you’re kinda short.”

It was true. When they’d been standing, the demon guy hadn’t even made it to Casey’s nose.

The demon guy bristled- literally, his tail’s end poofed up and everything- and he spat, “Ex-fucking-s’cuse me for being below average demon height! And besides! This isn’t even my real size, asshole. I shrank down for the sake of your stupid mortal ceiling. You’re fucking welcome.”

Casey blinked, vaguely noting he was so far into shock he wasn’t even bothered by the tone of the demon. “Well, how big are you really, then?”

The demon guy smiled for the first time since Casey had woken up. It wasn’t a nice smile.

“Let me to s͠how͡ ̨y͡oư.”͝

Maybe asking had been a bad idea.

The demon on Casey’s couch turned pitched black all over- then into smoke, and the smoke cloud increased in size and swirled through the air like ink, until-

-bad idea bad idea bad idea-

-the smoke solidified into an enormous shape, big enough its back and head brush against Casey’s ceiling, and its tail snaked through his kitchen space.

The demon sort of looks like a dragon, Casey’s hysterical mind supplied, but not quite.

The demon’s horns knocked against the ceiling plaster, and two luminous green eyes stood out against the sheer darkness of his skin.

He smiled, wide and sharp, showing off the rows of long fangs in his mouth.

“̀My͘ r͘eal ̀ńame͘ is̛ ùn̕pron͜o̧u҉nc̡eab̢le in y͝o̷ur̨ l̛an̷guage, ́a͏n͢d͢ ẁoúld͏ ̢pr͡ob̸a͘b͝ly ̴ḿelt yo͜ur mind ̸an̶ywa͝ys,͜ ͠s҉ò-” ̵He grinned wider, vicious and terrifying. “̀-ćall m̷e Ra̵ph͠ąȩl. ̵I̶’̵m the͘ d̨em͏on ̢you̴ ̵sòme͞how͠ mąn̵age̡d͏ to ̵summ̕on̴,͠ ͠a͢nd ̵Ì’m̀ n̶òt ̸góing͡ ̢a̴n͠yw͝h҉er̢e͠ ̛until͢ yo̴u reme͢m̨b҉e̕r wh҉y,̢ ơr-̕” ̨His long tongue snaked out, and he took a step towards Casey. “-̷uńt̴i͘l ýou ̢die.͏ Undeŕs̡t́o͟o͠d?͘”

Casey looked up at the demon’s teeth, then at the huge claws on his hands, and then at the gouges Raphael was leaving in his ceiling.

Hm.

Yup. Such a bad idea.

Casey whirled around, yanked his sliding door back open, and scrambled out of his apartment.

He heard growling behind him, and swore there was hot breath blown on his back as he escaped.

He grabbed the railing of his balcony, got his feet up on it, and jumped over the gap between his and his neighbor’s balcony. Narrowly, he avoided landing on any of the plants there- he did not want to hurt those plants again, not after the scolding he’d gotten last time.

And- oh thank god- she’d left her doors unlocked again.

Casey pulled open the sliding door of his neighbor’s apartment, bursting in and almost tripping over the pile of clothes in the living room. “APRIL! APRIL HELP I HAVE A PROBLEM!”

No answer, so he scrambled through the rest of the apartment- identical to his own excluding the contents- and headed for April’s bedroom.

“APRIL!” He shouted, nearly kicking in her door.

“-jESUS CHRIST- Casey!” April exclaimed, fumbling with the book in her hands and almost dropping it on her face. “What did I say about coming into my apartment without permission?!”

“Yeah hi sorry about that but you have to come with me right now,” Casey said, grabbing April’s arms and trying to pull her out of bed. “I have a problem and it’s kinda huge and wrecking my apartment and I know you hate going anywhere on Sundays but please-”

“Oh for- fine. Just stop yanking on me!” She kicked him lightly in the gut, and untangled the rest of herself from her covers. “I swear- you better not have come in through the balcony again.”

“Uh.”

“Casey.”

A few seconds later, after Casey physically pushed April out of her apartment - “No we don’t have time to get dressed, this is an emergency!”- they ended up in front of his apartment’s shut door.

April, arms crossed in front of her faded sleep shirt, glared up at Casey in all her bushy Sunday morning glory. “If this is some animal you brought home while you were drunk last night-”

“It’s not a dog! I learned my lesson with that one,” Casey defended. “This is- uh, well, I’m not really sure what to call it. It’s a problem, that I know for sure.”

April glared at him, and blew her mussed bangs away from her eyes. “Alright, show me this ‘problem’ of yours. I want to get back to my novel sometime today.”

Casey jerked a nod, and reached out to turn his doorknob.

It was locked.

“It’s, uh, It’s locked,” He said.

“You forgot your keys-”

“I forgot my keys.”

“Casey.”

“I- just give me a moment,” He put his ear to the door, listening for the demon guy. There was a sound that suspiciously sounded like his CD collection being knocked over. Casey rapped on the door. “Hey- hey Raphael? I’m sort of locked out. Could you open the door?”

Did demons even know how to do that?

Wait was he even going to let Casey back inside? He had sort of literally run out on him-

The door’s deadbolt and handle clicked, and the door opened slightly.

“You brought a guy home last night? That’s your big problem?” April asked, giving him a look. “Casey, usually that’s the opposite of a problem.”

“Uh, you’ll understand it if you see it,” Casey gestured at the door. “I can’t really explain it properly in words.”

April rolled her eyes. “And yet, half of your major is in literature, which is literally describing things with words.”

“Just take a look already.”

Casey’s brain caught up with him right then, as April reached out to fully open the door, and he realized there was a chance this was just going to get them both killed.

Uh, whoops-

April opened the door, and the same time as she saw it, Casey also saw-

The whole of Raphael's mass, still crammed into the tight space of Casey’s living room. Raphael’s teeth were still bared, and he was facing the doorway.

The demon let out a rolling snarl at them both, and April slammed the door shut.

“What- what the fuck is that, Casey?!” April hissed, putting her back to the door as though it would keep the huge demon inside it contained. “What the actual. fuck.”

“I might’ve summoned a demon,” Casey said. “Mostly on accident.”

“How- how do you even manage that?!”

“I have no idea. I sort of was too drunk to remember.”

“CASEY.”

Raphael didn’t end up eating them. Or killing them either. He just huffed in their faces when they’d been brave enough to open the door again, blowing hot smelly demon breath and everywhere, and changed back into his mostly human form.

“You’re both terrible hosts,” He’d said tetchily. “The humans a few centuries ago would have been groveling on the ground for my favor. You haven’t even offered me food and drink yet.”

April had turned very pale by that point, and said very quietly, “He has a tail. And horns.”

Raphael had rolled his eyes at them both, and demanded Casey remember what he’d summoned the demon for, so he could “Get the hell back to hell and be done with this shit-show.”

Casey, naturally, had questioned what hell was like.

Raphael had responded, “It’s a figure of speech where I come from. ‘Hell’ isn’t that singular. There’s a lot of them out there. You humans are just too stupid to perceive them.”

April, at that point, had gone inside and helped herself to Casey’s stash of energy drinks. Chugging a full can before she did, she then proceeded to rant at Casey for irresponsible (drunk) decisions, his choice in parties, getting her up on a Sunday of all days, always dragging her into nonsensical misadventures and making it her problems too, and the state of his house.

Also that he’d brought an actual flipping demon onto their plain of existence, but it’d seemed like she was trying to focus on normal things for the sake of her composure.

Raphael had watched, and smirked, the whole time April ranted at Casey. Prick.

After she’d calmed down, April had pushed her hair out of her face, and asked Raphael if he was planning on razing their apartment complex to the ground at all that day.

“I don’t have much interest in that sort of thing,” Raphael had said, studying his longer than safe nails. “That’s more my brother’s area.”

“Good enough for me. Don’t eat him, he still owes me fifty bucks,” April had said, handing the empty drink can to Casey and patting him on the shoulder. “Good luck with this one, Casey. I have no advice to offer, and I promise I’ll check in later to see if you’re still alive. Excuse me though, I have to go rearrange my understanding of mythos and legend and possibly question my whole reality for a bit. Bye.”

And then she’d left, slamming the door behind her, and leaving Casey with an amused demon in his kitchen, eating the last of his already wimpy fruit bowl.

That’d been a few hours ago, and now Casey was sitting on his carpet-less floor with his eyes closed and a throbbing headache.

Hangovers were a real hassle unless you gave them time to ease off. Raphael hadn’t given Casey that time.

Slave driver.

“You’re not thinking about the right things, again,” Raphael chastised.

“Fuck off,” Casey snapped, opening his eyes and glaring at the lounging demon on his couch. “I’ve been at this for hours, man. It ain’t comin’ no matter how many times I try.”

Raphael’s tail lashed out, knocking an empty energy drink can at Casey.

Casey caught it, and chucked it to the side. “Look. Dude. I know you’re some kind of interdimensional terror-thingy-whatever, but I’m hungry as fuck and have grocery shopping to do. Can we give it a rest for at least a few hours?”

Raphael turned another page of the thick book that had summoned him. “I want to go home. Keep at it.”

“Dude.”

Raphael ignored him.

“Bro.”

Raphael turned another page of the huge book.

“Pal. Compadre. Brosif. Duderino. Bruv. Dude-”

“What?” Raphael finally snapped.

“You already ate, like, everything in my kitchen, and I haven’t eaten anything today,” Casey said, gesturing sharply at his dilapidated kitchen, and then at his wounded ceiling and tossed about furniture. “You also made a huge fucking mess of my house, and been a real asshole in general. We’re going shopping for dinner shit, and I’m not gonna do anymore meditating until we do.”

“Big words for a little man,” Raphael growled, curling his lip.

“Look who’s talkin’,” Casey shot back.

He honestly was past caring that Raphael could triple- quadruple?- in size and squash him flat. Casey was hungry and his head hurt like a bitch. He wanted food, rest, and some time to chill.

If he had to risk getting his neck snapped for that, he was willing to. Besides, it’d been pretty fricking awesome to see a real live demon in his living room; even if said demon was an asshole who tromped on peoples’ CD’s without apology. Not a bad way to go out, honestly.

Raphael stared Casey down, and the narrow green eyed glare only made Casey sweat a little bit.

Another drawn out moment, and Raphael shut his book and stood up to stretch. “I could eat, I guess. I’ll let you get away with that insolence for now, but don’t try your luck again. Also, we’re getting meat. I need a steak to sink my teeth into.”

Casey watched Raphael yawn, flashing sharp canines, and figured that was fair.

He was getting the cheap stuff though.

Casey only realized, about halfway to the store, that the person he was walking with didn’t look exactly human.

Oddly enough, no one said anything about the tail, or the horns, or the teeth, or the general aura of vague terror and anger…

“Can’t they see you?” Casey asked as they entered Safeway.

“Hm? Oh. Nah, I’m mostly invisible to them unless someone in the know points me out,” Raphael shrugged. “That human, April? She could only see me because I wanted her to. Plus you sort of told her to look for something, namely me. Otherwise, I wouldn’t have been seen.”

“Huh, nifty trick,” Casey said, grabbing a basket from the stack.

“I know a lot more impressive ones, but I guess so.”

A woman and her five kids, varying between toddler and teen, passed in front of them, forcing Casey and Raphael to pause.

Casey noticed one of the youngest kids looked at Raphael, and smiled as he pointed at the demon’s tail.

“Mom! Look!”

“Don’t point at strangers!” The child’s mother snapped, tugging her child along with the rest.

Casey chuckled softly. Looked like Raphael’s ability to be invisible wasn’t full proof.

Then, the hair on the back of his neck stood up, as a wave of something flowed over him.

The child’s smile crumpled as he was led away, and he started crying loudly.

Casey turned to look at his companion, and found Raphael sneering at the child while emanating some sort of invisible field. It was making the air around them feel unsettling, and caused goosebumps to spread up Casey’s arms.

“Dude,” Casey said shortly, watching the sobbing kid get dragged off. “Not cool.”

Raphael gave him a look, then rolled his eyes and stopped doing whatever he was doing to cause the field. “What? It’s just some human kid. I have to get my kicks somehow. You’re all lucky I don’t just burn this place down…” He trailed off, wandering away as he did. “Come on. I smell meat this way.”

Casey looked after the sobbing kid, and then after Raphael, and wondered for a moment what he’d gotten himself into.

It took a bit of doing, and fighting about what to buy, and fighting to keep Raphael from messing with any other innocent customers, but eventually they made it the checkout area and Casey only had to buy an extra four packages of raw meat for his guest.

Where the hell the guy was putting it all, actual size being huge or not, was a mystery to Casey.

“I’m not fulfilling your whatever-desire, so I’m not getting any energy,” Raphael explained grudgingly, and only after Casey had pushed him to. “I could eat someone, but… eh, it’s not really my thing. And our contract still stands right now, so whenever we finish it, I’ll have plenty.”

“You, uh, you eat people?” Casey asked.

“Not usually. Gets stuck in my teeth.”

“Mmmmkay… then…” Casey replied, inching a smidge more space from Raphael.

He’d probably need to keep his fridge well stocked, however long this lasted. For the sake of his neighbors.

April sent him a text on the way home, asking if he was still alive, and if she needed to call an exorcist yet.

Casey replied that she was a total flake out, and that he was never coming to her for help ever again.

She’d replied with “thems the breaks”, and a shrugging emoji.

“This is so cool,” Casey whispered to himself, watching Raphael devour a whole package of uncooked meat in one go. He was mostly past the fact that Raphael was a demon, and now more stuck on the fact that Raphael was a demon and holy shit was that ever cool.

Even if he was an asshole.

He wondered if he’d get a chance to sketch the guy before he left. Raphael’s full demon form would make a sickass mid-term painting presentation, if Casey could get the colors and anatomy just right…

Wait, maybe that was why he’d summoned Raphael in the first place. For inspiration.

“Hey Raphael,” Casey said, making the demon at his tiny kitchen table pause in his eating. “Maybe I called you up or down or from whatever for inspiration? I’m a little stuck on some projects right now.”

Raphael’s long forked tongue slithered out, and he licked away a drop of meat juice from his lips. “Maybe. Humans do that a lot with my summonings. Get desperate with their work, turn to higher powers for help, and usually lose their soul in the process. Let’s give it a shot.”

Raphael raised his hand, a glowing circle of runes appearing in front of it as he did.

“Hey wait, what was that about losing my soul-?”

Another magic circle appeared in front of Casey, and-

-it made a bunch of sparks, and disappeared.

Raphael sighed, and slouched in his chair. “Nope. Not what you summoned me for. Try again.”

Casey put his hands on his chest, feeling where the circle had been.

“Okay. That was really fucking cool,” Casey said, glancing up at Raphael. “But seriously. The soul thing. What’s that about?”

“What did you think I got out of this?” Raphael said in a bored tone.

Casey opened his mouth, shut it, and said, “-mmmmmmnot that?”

Raphael gave him a look. “I think humans somehow got even more stupid while I was gone.”

“Man, fuck you,” Casey said. He chose to throw one of the eggs he was holding at Raphael, because fuck him. Raphael caught the thing easily, popped it in his mouth, and ate it with a single crunch.

Casey blinked, and then grinned. “So cool.”

“Just hurry up and remember why you summoned me. I want to go home.”

“Yeah, yeah, I’ll get right on that…”

Casey didn’t get right on it. He ate dinner, and went to bed. How he got away with that, he wasn’t sure. It probably had to do with Raphael discovering his television set and DVD collection.

Casey woke up again the next day, rolled over to slap his snooze alarm, and came face to face with Raphael again.

Casey stared at his demon guest for a moment, and then groaned. “Oh god. You’re still here.”

“Yep,” Raphael said, equally grumpy about things.

“Fuuuuuuuuck…”

“Get up and start thinking again. I want to go home.”

“I have school, asshat. That’s the only thinking I’ll be doing today.”

“No, you won’t. You’re going to complete the contract, and send me home.”

“Uuuuh… no?”

They glared at each other.

“I could just eat you and be done with this,” Raphael said, flashing his long canines.

“You said you didn’t like eating people,” Casey replied evenly.

“I’d make an exception for you.”

“I’m not doing the contract thingy today. I’ve got real work to do.”

“You’re going to do it, or you’re going to lose some limbs.”

Casey never claimed to have the best self-preservation instincts, so he picked a fight with the interdimensional demonic being invading his home.

There were words exchanged. Strong words.

Then there were fists exchanged.

Someone punched someone first, and pretty soon, they were tussling around Casey’s apartment spitting curses.

Literally on Raphael’s part, since something red glowing and hot flew by Casey’s ear, and set his countertop on fire.

“MY COUNTER!”

“SEND ME HOME DAMMNIT!”

“MY COUNTER!!”

Raphael waved his hand, and the fire vanished. The counter remained blackened though.

“Okay, so, neat trick,” Casey admitted, lowering his voice from yelling. Then he punched Raphael in the nose. “You’re still a prick.”

April strolled into Casey’s apartment right around then, holding her school bag in one hand and a spritzer bottle in the other. She watched Casey and Raphael grapple at each other with a bored expression. “Casey, we’re going to miss the bus.”

“I’m-” Raphael’s fist socked him in the chest, and Casey let out a stunned “oof”. “-kind of busy at the moment!”

She sighed, raised her spritzer bottle, and shot a few squirts of water at them.

Casey reeled from the cold water, while Raphael straight up yowled.

The liquid had hit Raphael’s bare skin, and started smoking.

One second Casey was being held in a lock by two thick arms, the next he was stumbling to find his balance again, and there was the sound of something thudding against his wall.

Casey pushed his shaggy hair out of his face, and realized Raphael had sunk his clawed hands and feet into the wall and ceiling.

Raphael snarled wordlessly, tail lashing and eye flashing dangerously.

In the back of his head, the image of an irate cat came to Casey’s mind. Also the Exorcist movie.

April spritzed the demon again, and Raphael leapt across the room to get away. He left huge holes in the plaster as he did.

“Go get ready, I’ve got this,” April said calmly, eyeing down the furious demon with her spray bottle at the ready.

“Is that holy water?” Casey guessed.

“Yup. Visited the local church this morning. They’re actually very accommodating for this sort of thing. I stocked up.”

“Huh.”

Raphael curled back his lips, crouching on all fours and partially changed into his full demonic form. The patches of skin where the water had hit were red and angry looking, sort of like the demon himself. He snarled again. “I ̨c̀u̢r͡s҉e̡ ̀your̸ ͝chil҉d͡re͞n͜ ͟t͘o ͡ha̶ve̴ ̀p͢ítíf̕ul an̸d p̡àinf͡ul͢ ͘l̴iv̷es,̢ ͢mo̕rt̷a̡l ̀wòm͏an̶.”̢

“Good thing I’m not having any,” April replied plainly.

Raphael hissed, and April sprayed the floor in front of him threateningly.

“Pants. Now.” She instructed Casey.

Casey listened.

“Thanks again,” He said gratefully as they headed for the bus stop. “I was actually sorta wonderin’ if I’d make it to class today.”

“You’re welcome,” April said loftily.

“And you said you weren’t going to help me out with this.”

“You still owe me fifty bucks, and I expect it before this fiasco is over.”

Casey nodded. Yeah, he could do that at least. “You’re taking this whole ‘demon’ thing really well, you know.”

“Don’t under estimate my ability to give no shit, Casey. It won’t do you any good.”

“Fair point.”

“I still want my money.”

“Yeah, yeah…”

The passed the alley behind their apartment complex, and April pointed into it. “Weren’t you going to do something about your carpet?”

“I gave up and admitted defeat,” Casey sighed. “The smell wouldn’t have come out anyways.”

April patted his shoulder sympathetically, while saying unsympathetically, “You do these things to yourself, Jones.”

“Shut uuuuuup…”

“Yo… Casey?”

“‘Yo’ what?” Casey asked, still intent on the piece he was sketching.

“There’s like, a dude in the tree. He’s glaring at you.”

Casey fumbled his pencil, and spun around to face the window.

There was indeed a dude in the tree, glaring daggers at Casey.

Raphael, like some oversized cat, was perched in the branches of the tree outside the studio. Looked like the burns had cleared up, since he was back to normal.

If you could call a demon that.

“He someone you know?” Casey’s classmate asked, leaning around his easel to stare at Raphael.

Raphael’s tail lashed around, exactly like a cats would, and he bared his teeth at Casey. Apparently Casey’s ordinary classmate couldn’t see the actions, since he didn’t start screaming “monster!” or anything.

Small blessings.

“Nope. Ignore him.” Casey said, getting up and going over to the window. He shut the curtains on Raphael’s pissy expression, and felt exactly zero guilt.

“Yeah okay Case’. He an ex or something?”

“He’s an asshole, that’s what he is.”

“Want me to call campus security?”

Casey thought wistfully about calling the renta-cops on the demon, but shook his head. “Nah. Would go badly for everyone. I’ll deal with him later.”

Namely, it would go badly because there’d probably be blood everywhere, and people very much dead on the ground. Cool as that imagery was in a heavy metal music video or an art piece; it was less cool when it involved real actual people.

Casey would have to settle for stealing April’s spritzer bottle- if she’d let him- and telling Raphael off for bothering him at school.

Raphael dropped out of thin air soon as Casey was alone- somewhere between the arts wing and the science wing, headed to meet April for lunch- and scared the bejeezus out of Casey.

Same message as that morning from the guy, “Send me home, I could devour you, I’m such a big bad demon, blah blah blah…”

Casey responded something along the lines of “Fuck you” and that there were strawberry muffins available in the cafeteria that day, and like ‘hell’ was he missing that. The fact that he used that expression during a conversation with a literal demon wasn’t missed on him, and from Raphael’s expression of quiet fury, it wasn’t missed on him either.

He bought the guy off with a few of those muffins- they were probably the best thing around that was affordable to college students- and managed to get Raphael to leave off until he finished his classes.

When Casey got home, dumping his bag and jacket at the door, he was surprised to find his whole apartment restored to how it’d been, prior to Raphael’s appearance.

“Yooooo… what the heck, dude. How’d you do all this?” Casey asked, observing that all the holes and scorch marks were gone. Even his carpet was back.

“You gave me food,” Raphael said in a grumpy tone. He was finishing off a muffin as he perched on the couch arm. “The food yesterday, and the food today. Equal exchange. I had to do something in return, or it would be Wrong.”

“Wrong how?” Casey asked, vaguely wondering if this demon magic thing would work on some of his old sports equipment.

“Wrong with a capital double-u’, and would’ve given me indigestion,” Raphael licked his lips of crumbs, and Casey watched the action with vague awareness. “Can’t have things being unequal, or it gets unpleasant for me. So yeah, if you’re still worried about the whole ‘in exchange for you immortal soul’ thing, whatever you’re getting out of the contract will be equal in worth. Food was enough to get your apartment back to normal, and souls are worth a heck of a lot more. So hurry up with remembering, and you can have your riches and fame or whatever.”

Casey looked around again at the restored, original shittiness of his apartment, and figured he’d have to ask more about the equal exchange stuff later. “Sure. You want to eat and watch the game first though?”

Raphael seemed to consider the offer, narrowed green eyes, and eventually nodded. “Fine. I get first pick of food though.”

“No you don’t.”

“Yes I do.”

“No you don’t.”

“Yes I do.”

They glared at each other.

“No you don’t.” Casey said again.

“Yes I do.” Raphael said again.

They glared harder.

Casey ended up having to give Raphael first pick anyways, but only so the demon would patch the hole he put in the wall with a fire ball. The hole that went clear into April’s apartment, and brought her exhausted wrath down on both of them.

Casey might not have gotten first degree burns from the water gun like Raphael, when April had upgraded he didn’t know, but it sucked anyways because- “Jesus woman, did you fill it with ice water or something?!”

“Yes.”

“Cold, April, real cold. Literally.”

“Fix my damn wall, Jones. I don’t have time for this.”

“You sure you’re not a demon?”

She sprayed him right in the face for that comment.

The third day went basically the same way.

Casey rolled over, tried to hit the snooze of his alarm clock, and almost lost a finger in the process.

April marched in, same as the morning before, and rescued him from the demon holding him in a chokehold. She threatened death to them both if they made her late for her seminar.

They only just caught the bus, and the look April had given him for that told him exactly how lucky Casey was. Though, he felt someone watching him the whole way to school, and all through his morning seminars.

When he glanced out the second story studio’s windows, he got his answer.

“Who’s the dude in the red tank top?” One of his classmates asked, also staring out the window.

“Oh hey, it’s the guy that was bothering Casey yesterday,” The one who already knew Raphael answered. “Man, I didn’t know you could get fire to work like that.”

Raphael, probably with demonic magic of something equally annoying, had burned “Asshole” in perfect calligraphy onto the campus lawn. It was in big enough font that it could have been seen even from the top levels of the school, and maybe even higher.

Casey opened the window, and leaned out to shout, “WHY DO YOU HAVE NO CHILL?!”

Raphael, standing on the edge of his handiwork, flipped Casey off with both hands.

Casey had yelled wordlessly, and flipped him off back.

“Ha ha… I do not envy you, Casey.”

“Hhhhh… fuck off.”

Raphael cornered Casey again, halfway between buildings, and told him if Casey didn’t remember soon, he was going to start getting angry.

“As opposed to what?” Casey asked, zero shits to give about the demon losing his temper.

“I could burn this whole school down, with everyone inside it,” The demon growled, magic runes appearing in his hands.

“If you do that, I’ll never tell you why I summoned you,” Casey said, because that was the one thing he still had over the demon.

Granted, Raphael could just kill him, but oddly enough the demon hadn’t followed through with the threat quite yet. Maybe souls were just worth that much.

Raphael bristled at Casey’s threat- the short hair between his horns standing up straight and spiky- and the demon spat licks of fire at Casey.

Casey’s eyebrows felt a bit toasty afterwards, but Raphael backed off again.

However, he came home to a ruined apartment that looked like a huge cat had shredded it, a smug partially transformed demon in the middle of the chaos, and spent the next few hours fighting with Raphael to fix it again.

He ended up having to text April to bring her water gun.

Casey took pity of the demon though, after Raphael spent a good hour sulking in the corner while his burns healed, and tried to remember why he’d summoned the demon in the first place.

He consulted google, the huge and stupidly useless book, and his good old method of slapping street hockey balls around in the alley.

Nada. He didn’t remember anything. Even with all the new-age mind tricks he looked up, he couldn’t remember a thing. Drinking blackouts were just too strong for them.

Casey called it a night, and resigned himself to having a demon squatting in his apartment for a bit longer.

The semi-murderous look Raphael gave him, as Casey slunk off the bed, told him that time was running down.

Day four came, time ran down, and Raphael snapped.

At least Casey had made it to his one class that day, even if he’d come home to a furious demon. And even after Casey had started trying to remember again, the guy still snapped.

“It. has been. four DAYS. YOU MISERABLE. FLESHBAG.” Raphael yelled, kicking Casey already severely abused coffee table. “Why can’t you just remember already?!”

“I’m trying!” Casey snapped back. He shut the huge book, which had been zero help so far, and stood up from the couch. “And do you think this is any easier for me? You’re a fucking terrible houseguest, and an enormous wad about literally everything!”

“I wouldn’t be, if you just SEND ME HOME ALREADY,” Raphael shouted. “I don’t care if it’s hard for you, use your stupidly tiny brain to remember why you summoned me, and we can be DONE.”

“Why can’t you just leave if you want to so badly?!” Casey yelled, gesturing sharply. “I don’t want you here either, so feel free to fucking go already!”

“BECAUSE IT’S AGAINST THE RULES!” Raphael yelled back.

“WHAT RULES?!”

“THE RULES THAT GOVERN MY VERY FUCKING EXISTENCE!”

“IGNORE THEM!”

“I CAN’T!”

Casey punched Raphael, right in the nose.

The demon reeled, blinking at the sudden attack. Then he snapped back to awareness, and sent a look of pure murder at Casey.

Casey ignored the look and jabbed again, only for his fist to be caught in Raphael’s grip.

“̨T̷ḩat’͡s it,͟”͏ Raphael growled. He shoved Casey back hard enough he stumbled, and then started to grow.

Raphael doubled in size, black creeping over his brown skin and changing it to mostly scales. His shoes disappeared, and long claws extended from his toes. His tail whipped out, and again knocked over Casey’s CD collection. He looked like he was between being bipedal and quadrupedal; caught between his demon form and human form.

Lastly, as he grabbed Casey by the collar and opened his scarily toothy mouth, a pair of wings popped into existence on his back.

Casey was distracted from his anger for a moment. “Dude, you have wings?”

Raphael visibly stuttered, which looked sort of hilarious on such a scary face. “I-  ͡of̵ ̴cour̡s̡è I̡ ̸d̨o! I show͞ed ̡y͟ǫu ̀th͝e̷m ͠t͝he ͟f́i̶r̢s͏t̸ d͝a̷y here͝!҉”̴

“Uh, was it when you got big and ruined my apartment? Because like, I couldn’t see jack except for your fat head.”

Raphael growled, low and rolling, and opened his mouth again.

“͏I͠ ̷CO͜U̸LD ̀D̵E͢V̸O͜U̢R ̵Y͝OU̡,̀ MǪRTÀL͜.”͘ ͏He roared, right in Casey’s face.

Naturally, Casey socked him in the nose.

“Fucking try!” Casey spat.

Raphael reeled from the shot, and he gave Casey a confused and offended look.

“͘Wh̀y͡ a̕r͠en’t̡ ̸ýo̷u̷ şcár͞e͜d̵?̀” Raphael asked, sounding actually confused.

Casey didn’t respond, other than attempting to knee the guy in his gut.

Raphael growled again, and he punched Casey. Hurt like a motherfucker, but he’d had worse.

Someone tripped someone, and they ended up wrestling on the floor. Casey managed to sock Raphael in the face again, feeling his knuckle split on a tooth.

Somewhere along the way, Raphael had reverted to his mostly human form, and Casey got a clear look at the rage in his expression.

The demon’s fist met Casey’s chest, and a whoosh of air left his lungs.

Casey was stunned, but he managed to kick the guy off, and send Raphael skidding across the floor.

Raphael rolled right back onto his feet, and maybe just for spite, knocked Casey’s coffee table into the wall with his tail.

Casey met the guy head on as he charged, and narrowly avoided goring himself on Raphael’s horns.

They tussled back and forth for a long while, knocking over everything they came into contact with. Casey thought he heard some of his dishes hit the floor when Raphael threw him into the cabinets. The kitchen table got thrown to the side as he dodged one of Raphael’s kicks. Someone put long claw gashes in the couch cushions and it definitely wasn’t Casey.

His plants from April, his DVD stacks, his sports equipment, some of his art projects- it all got knocked over and mildly trampled. Casey was too busy punching a demon to care though.

End result of the fight, Casey and Raphael sitting against the couch on the floor. Panting and a bit blood splattered.

Casey’s blood, not Raphael’s. He hadn’t managed to even make a dent in the guy.

Casey swiped his hand under his nose, feeling the hot red fluid smear on his skin. His right hand was a mess of already darkening bruises, and his face stung like hell. Probably would have a black eye soon.

Raphael sighed, and leaned his head back against the couch. His horns stabbed the fabric again, and Casey didn’t even care that a ripping sound followed the motion.

“…well that was pointless,” Casey muttered.

“Fuck you,” Raphael muttered back.

Casey wiped his smarting nose again. The blood was already starting to congeal. “You wanna watch the game?”

“…whatever. Sure.”

Casey reached across the floor, and grabbed the remote from where it’d been tossed. He turned on his boxy old TV, and sat against the couch again.

“You put a hole in my wall again,” Casey commented, thinking about the foot sized hole in his kitchen wall. “And broke my table too.”

“I’ll fix it later,” Raphael grumbled. “I’m tired right now though, so shut up and let me watch your pathetic human sports.”

“Fuck you.”

“Fuck you.”

They watched the rest of the game in silence, excluding Casey blowing blood snot into tissues.

Before he went to bed, Casey traded the rest of his meat products in the fridge for some insta-healing, because as much as he wanted to avoid Raph at that moment, he still needed his hands for schoolwork the next day.

The ache was still there, because not even magic could undo everything, but it was bearable with painkillers. Casey had the good type too, prescription even.

He and Raph exchanged no words as they separated for the night.

The next morning, when Casey rolled over to slap his alarm, he actually did without any issue.

He blinked, trying to remember why that was weird.

Oh yeah, demon in his apartment. Where’d Raphael get to?

He found his not-so-friendly neighborhood demon sitting in the early morning sunshine, legs crossed in a lotus position. With the light shining on him, the spiky ends of Raphael’s hair flashed red, and made his thin horn tips nearly glow.

Casey stopped for a moment, staring at the stark difference between the belligerent, snarling demon he’d been dealing with lately, and the peaceful, collected individual in front of his windows.

Casey leaned on the wall beside his bedroom door, examining his houseguest.

Besides the horns and tail and weird blood-red hair tips, Raphael seemed like a normal-ish guy in that moment.

Huh.

Casey’s fingers itched for his sketchbook and pencils. He kind of wanted to capture the scene.

Raphael turned his head right then, glancing over his broad shoulder. He stared at Casey for a moment, and then said, “Hey. Good morning.”

“Uh, yeah. Good morning,” Casey replied, a little surprised by the sudden lack of hostility.

Raphael turned back to the window, and seemed to be done with the conversation already. Casey raised an eyebrow at the sudden one-eighty.

“What, no ‘send me home already’? No, ‘fear me mortal’? No nothing?” Casey questioned.

“Nope,” Raphael said, not turning around.

“What’s with the sudden attitude change?”

“I did some thinking, and figured what we’ve been doing wasn’t working. So. I’m trying something else.”

“Oh yeah? And what’s that?” Casey asked, genuinely curious.

“Patience,” Raphael said, sounding annoyed by the very idea.

Casey’s laughter burst out of him before he could stop it.

“Oh bugger off,” Raphael grumbled, shooting a look over his shoulder. “It’s only because I’m tired of fixing your stupid apartment.”

“Sure, sure,” Casey chuckled, failing to smother his laughter. “Does this mean I can go to school without you hounding me all day?”

“Today? Yes. But don’t think I’m letting you off the hook for our contract. I’m not leaving until we complete it.”

“Like I didn’t hear you the first eighty times you told me…”

Raphael growled, flashing some teeth. “Just go to your pointlessly expensive mortal education already, and fuck off.”

Casey rolled his eyes. There was the Raphael he knew and hated. “Yeah, whatever. I’m going, I’m going…”

Raphael didn’t bother Casey once the whole time he was getting ready. He even had a chance to make breakfast for the first time in days. By the time April strolled in, using the key he’d given her months back, Casey was actually ready to go.

“Oh. No need for this today, huh?” April asked, lowering the huge water gun she’d been carrying.

Raphael turned around to acknowledge her, and raised an eyebrow at the gun. “Overkill much?”

“What can I say,” April shrugged. “I’m having a little fun with this.”

Casey laughed, and grabbed his current favorite sketchbook off the pile. “I’ll be out in a minute, okay?”

“Right on.”

As April started to leave, Casey caught movement in the corner of his eye, and glanced back just in time to see Raphael bring up a spell circle in his hand.

A circle appeared in front of Casey again, and a flash of light around April told him she had one too. Then, before he could react, it shorted out and disappeared, the same time that April left the apartment.

Casey spun around and looked at Raphael in horror. “Dude! Did you just try to magic April?”

“I was just checking if that was what you desired,” Raphael said, no signs of guilt in his expression.

“I- what??”

“You know. Sexually.” Raphael said, gesturing vaguely. “Isn’t that a thing for most humans? Like, especially between men and women?”

“Not with April!” Casey exclaimed. “I mean. She’s not even in to that sort of thing. And I’m- I don’t like her like that. She’s my friend. Best friend. Nothin’ more.”

“You’re oddly offended by this,” Raphael commented.

“Yeah, well, it’s not cool to try forcing people into shit they don’t want,” Casey said, crossing his arms. “I don’t like it, and I know for sure April doesn’t either. Don’t try that again.”

Raphael looked at Casey a moment longer, and then shrugged. “Alright, nothing involving that type of desire. Got it. Now get going, I’m tired of listening to your voice.”

“It’s my apartment…” Casey reminded under his breath, but he let the subject go. He shut the door behind him, leaving the demon in his apartment alone for the day. His undamaged apartment for the first time in a long while.

It wasn’t a bad feeling, but he sort of missed Raphael’s presence stalking him all through the day. It was weird, but he’d already gotten used to the guy hanging around him.

Casey took the peace and quiet, and put it towards his projects.

By the end of the day, he’d somehow finished a bunch of gesture sketches that looked a lot like a certain individual.

His professor questioned the sudden change of model; since until then, Casey had been sketching female figures. Casey didn’t have much of an explanation for the horns or tail in his drawing, other than he’d been having a weird few days.

His professor seemed to accept that, and complimented the way he’d captured the fluid movements on the paper. Especially the tail.

“I’ve been seeing a lot of them lately,” Casey explained, taking his papers back. “I’ve had a cat hanging out in my apartment the last while.”

“Oh? Is your kitty friendly?”

“Nope. He’s kind of awful.”

“O-oh…”

Donnie didn’t look up again as Mikey approached, but he did when Mikey gently grabbed his wrist.

Donnie looked at him questioningly, and mouthed, Is something wrong?

Mikey shook his head, and mouthed back, Just need to check.

Donnie seemed confused, but he let Mikey take his hand anyways.

Mikey carefully unwrapped Donnie’s wrist and hand, dropping the strips onto the table beside them. Mikey slid his thumbs over his brother’s inner wrist, and put two fingers over the space.

A second passed, and he felt Donnie’s pulse.

It was there, same as it’d always been… even if for a few minutes, it hadn’t.

That’d been a bad night. Mikey hadn’t been able to piece things together fast enough- missing words and shouts and April not bothering to look at him head on when she talked. Mikey hadn’t even been sure what’d been happening, until Leo had rapidly signed that April was calling herself Z-A-N-A-R-O-N, finger spelling the weird name, and that she was planning to cleanse the earth.

And suddenly, before any of them had time to react, their brother had been gone.

They’d seen Donnie climb the building, and Mikey had wanted to yell after him, he really had, but he didn’t have the concentration to form any words correctly. Too much happening all at once to spare the time.

Mikey had watched as his brother was pulled into the air, mute because hand signs were useless, and saw him be vaporized.

Mikey didn’t want to sleep, because even days later, he was still seeing that. He didn’t know how Donnie had been sleeping, since he’d been the one to actually experience it.

Maybe Donnie hadn’t been sleeping at all. That seemed more likely than anything.

Mikey pushed those thoughts to the side, and focused on the present moment.

Feeling Donnie’s pulse under his fingers, steady and familiar and there, made the fear easier to deal with.

Mikey might not have ever heard Donnie’s heart, but feeling the lub-lub-lub of it was probably close to that experience. It was as close as Mikey would ever get to having that experience.

Donnie pulled his wrist out of Mikey’s grip, and Mikey stopped being able to count the beats his brother’s heart made.

For real, are you alright? Donnie signed swiftly, starting to look actually concerned.

Mikey traced the tired lines in his brother’s face, and tried for a comforting smile. I’m fine. I just got some thoughts in my head. No big deal.

You’re acting weird, Mikey, Donnie signed, using Mikey’s signed name of an M and the word for brother mixed together.

Just tired. I should go to bed soon, Mikey signed back. Then as an afterthought, You should too. It’s late and you’re still getting better.

Donnie grimaced, probably because he was trying to disagree, but Mikey beat him to it by signing, If you go to bed, I’ll go to bed, and then we’ll both be in bed. Win win.

Since when do you care about my bed time?

'Since I saw you get killed, and realized how much more we need to take care of you', Mikey didn’t say.

Instead, he signed, Since I figured out that you’re a dumb insomniac who doesn’t sleep enough.

I sleep plenty.

Mikey reached up, and tugged Donnie’s mask down over his nose, exposing the dark circles there.

Your face says otherwise, Donnie, Mikey signed, signing Donnie’s name as a D and the word for brother. Also, you look like a dork.

Shut up, Donnie signed grumpily, then fixing his mask.

Mikey felt a laugh bubble out of him, his chest shaking and a vibration going up his throat. He didn’t know if his laughter sounded off compared to other people, but he had no frame of reference anyways, so… who cared?

Stop laughing at me, Donnie signed, hiding a grin and obviously less annoyed than he was pretending to be.

Only if you go to bed, Mikey signed cheekily.

Donnie gave him an exasperated look. If I go to bed, will you tell me what’s bothering you?

Mikey shrugged. Maybe, but you’re going to bed either way.

You’re not the boss of me.

No, but our big brothers are and I’ll go get them if you don’t listen.

Donnie rolled his eyes, and Mikey saw a fond smile find its way onto his face. Fine. Just let me clean up first.

Donnie’s clean up consisted of shoving all his notes into an empty drawer, and forcing the thing shut. It didn’t take too long, and when Mikey questioned his brother’s organizational skills, Donnie replied, Organization is for people with time and energy. I have neither.

Once Donnie had gathered up his wrappings from the table top, and brushed some crumbs from what had likely been his dinner onto the floor, they finally left.

As they were leaving the lab, and Donnie finished turning off all the lights, Mikey stopped to look at his brother. Really look at him.

Donnie was seeming a lot older than he’d used to be, same as the rest of them, sometimes it just… showed more with him.

They’d put a lot of stress on their third brother the last few years, and it was clear in the slight slump Donnie’s shoulders had and the dark rings that’d become normal under his eyes.

Mikey hadn’t noticed. He didn’t know how he hadn’t noticed, but he hadn’t.

And just a few days ago, Donnie could have been gone for good, and Mikey and their brothers might never have gotten a chance to fix that.

Donnie jumped a bit in surprise, as Mikey grabbed him in a sudden hug.

Mikey couldn’t hear Donnie’s heart, or feel it through the thick plate, but as he pressed his forehead to Donnie’s plastron, he imagined it there. Thumping on, even with the terrifying experiences it’d been through that week.

I was scared. Really, really scared. We all were, Mikey silently mouthed to himself, purposefully doing it while Donnie couldn’t see. Don’t do that again. Don’t do that to us again.

Donnie tapped on him on the head, signalling Mikey to look up at him. Donnie mouthed, You’re scaring me, Mikey. Are you sure there isn’t something wrong?

Mikey smiled, and shook his head. No. Just giving you a good night hug.

He reached up and tapped Donnie’s forehead, like he had Mikey’s. Go rest your big brain. Even you have to sleep sometimes.

Donnie gave him a look, but seemed to let it go. Mikey thought he felt his brother say something, as Donnie bent around him in another hug, but he couldn’t see Donnie’s lips to read whatever it’d been.

Donnie shut the door to the lab, and they made their way to their bedrooms. Leo and Raph had gone to bed a few hours ago, same for their father. It was just the two of them.

Mikey paused in his bedroom doorway, and as a last second decision, rapped his knuckles on the frame to get Donnie’s attention.

When Donnie glanced back, Mikey signed, I love you.

Donnie blinked, then smiled warmly, and signed back, I love you too.

Mikey grinned, and waved goodnight. Donnie waved back, and vanished into his bedroom for some definitely needed sleep.

Mikey figured that he could sleep now, since he’d chased his brother into bed, and probably also chased most of the scary thoughts out of his head.

He tried to focus on remembering Donnie’s heartbeat, the steady pulse of it, as he climbed into bed and shut his eyes.

Shini waited, leaning on her knees. Her eyes stung, and she very much did not appreciate the sudden awakening, cute as it had been.

Karai reappeared a short time later, though now in human form. Her back was to Shini, the white cotton of her night shirt catching in the slant of light from the window. Shini admired the way Karai’s body looked, knowing the power that lay in her lithe form.

However, Shini noted unhappily, Karai was still underweight. The thinness still clinging to her, a week after she’d arrived on Shini’s doorstep.

“Are you done yet?” Shini asked, only a tint of irritability in her voice.

“…yes,” Karai replied, finally turning to face Shini again. Her eyes were no longer green and slit, instead returned to gold-brown. All traces of her new changes erased, carefully concealed once more.

Shini quietly mourned that, since she’d only caught a few glimpses of Karai’s new form.

Karai slid back into bed without a word, turning away from Shini and facing the wall. Shini stayed sitting up a moment longer, then lay back down as well.

   When Shini had opened her door, expecting an enemy or a deliveryman, she’d nearly lost grip on her hidden knife, seeing Karai on her doorstep.

Dark circles under her eyes, and gauntness that spoke of painful hardships, Karai stood in the hallway of Shini’s apartment complex. Her hair was grown out from its careful grooming, and a wild look filled her eyes. She’d looked hunted, and very much haunted.

Shini had pulled Karai in immediately, shutting the door and locking it against whatever had driven her indomitable friend to her home.

   Karai told her of the upheaval in America, of the things she’d discovered and struggled with.

She wanted to have her revenge, and to dive right back into the fight to get it.

Shini had done a once over of her tired, bedraggled friend, and replied quite simply, “Nope.”

Karai was getting some down time, whether she wanted it or not.

Shini’s dear friend had never learned how to do that, it seemed. Relaxing and enjoying the frivolous things in life. The lives they led were too short to not, and they simply had too many wonderful luxurious things to experience before a knife found their backs.

Shini had taken Karai’s small weaponry arsenal, placing it out of sight with her own stored weapons. They wouldn’t need them for a while yet, not until Shini had chased the paleness from Karai’s complexion.

Karai had disagreed, saying that they needed to move fast. Her ‘father’ wouldn’t wait for her to gain strength again; they needed to strike while the iron was still hot.

Shini had taken Karai’s cheeks into her hands, and told her friend she was courting death with an attitude like that.

Shini was not like Karai, with her steel strong beliefs and ever true honor. Shini had loyalties yes, but they lay with those who paid her well, and the select few she cared for. The concept of running head first into war was alien to her, especially with her own life at stake.

Shini would fight for Karai, yes, but only after the young heir regained her strength.

It took prodding and teasing, and Shini being a general nuisance until Karai agreed to take some time off.

Shini dragged Karai out of her apartment, two days after she’d arrived, into the light of day.

While the sun was up, they would be ordinary young women. Night time was for ninjas and mercenaries; daylight was for two friends seeing the sights.

And what a sight Karai was, with her new and curious changes.

She hid them from Shini, whenever they raised their scaly heads. Literally, seeing as Karai’s hands would shift between fingers and mouths if she wanted them to.

Shini watched Karai through their day trips, covert and appreciative of her friend. Karai’s changes popped up in moments here and there, split seconds where she became more than human.

Her skin would shimmer, scales surfacing as her attention drifted too far from herself. Fangs dropping down as they readied for a dinner out, a split tongue darting out almost too quick to see as she tasted the scent of their food.

Shini’s favorite was the eyes, the deadly green that overtook Karai’s sclera whenever she became emotional.

Karai’s feelings of betrayal ran deep, showing starkly whenever they broached the subject. The tensing of her shoulders, the way the air around her became choking with fury. Her eyes becoming slit and reptilian the more she talked. Deadly, hateful, beautiful.

Karai would catch herself though, whenever she slipped up, and hide her mutations once again.

Shini was disappointed each time, her curiosity desiring she find out more, see deeper into the sudden newness Karai had.

She stayed herself though, seeing how uncomfortable the forced changes made Karai. After all, they had wrought havoc in her life, and very nearly cost Karai her mind and soul.

Shini kept her curiosities mum, and said nothing about Karai’s attempts to hide herself.

   They talked, they planned. Karai’s clan, the infamous Foot, was still active in Japan. Their home territory still thrived with clan activity, separated from their sister base in America. They discussed meeting with the clan leaders, ones that ranked just below the Shredder, to speak about the insanity that had clearly gripped the man.

From what Karai had told Shini, there was much to be done, much to get payback for.

Shini had never liked the Shredder. Respected, yes, feared, yes, but liked? Not even the slightest. For Karai, and for the sake of her own continued life, Shini had always been courteous and polite with the clan head.

Now though? She could not wait to slide a blade through his throat.

It wasn’t all doom and gloom and revenge talk though. They spent many hours simply being.

Television was a marvelous thing; it drained so many useless hours away so easily. Better yet were the games you could play on it, hours of easy fun all for the taking.

Karai wasn’t much interested in the latter, but movies were more than welcome.

Between trips wandering Shini’s chosen city- for the time being, she was always moving due to her jobs- she and Karai spent time in Shini’s apartment. Shini did it mostly because she could see Karai’s gauntness still, the dark circles remaining under her senpai’s eyes. Karai had gone through so much, and so alone at that, and Shini’s small heart ached for her.

Shini cared for so few, but Karai had always been an exception. She likely always would be.

Shini coaxed color back into Karai’s cheeks, and tempted her friend with delicacies ordered from restaurants around the city. It was slow going, but Karai began to regain her usual vigor.

Maybe a bit faster than she should have, but Shini supposed that was due to the mutations.

Karai was still Karai, but she was also… more.

When Karai thought Shini wasn’t looking, she practiced using that added ‘more’.

Shini knew she was doing it, and after forcing herself to curb her curiosity for days, she finally ‘accidentally’ walked in on Karai’s practice.

Her senpai’s hands were gone, and Karai was muttering under her breath at the twin snakes looping from her arms.

Shini let her footfalls create noise, and raised one immaculate eyebrow at Karai as she spun.

“O-oh, Shini, I didn’t- I didn’t see you there,” Karai said, her words faltering unusually. Shini resisted curling her lips into a coy smile.

Really, her friend was too cute when she got flustered. And over something so silly too.

“It’s my home,” Shini replied, allowing just the hint of a smirk in her words. “I’m likely to be in it.”

Karai’s cheeks flushed- how adorable- and she seemed to try and hide her long snake arms behind her back. “I thought you’d be out by now. You usually go grocery shopping.”

“I thought we’d order in tonight,” Shini replied, suppressing a giggle as Karai’s snakes refused to stay hidden.

Karai noticed where Shini’s eyes had drifted, and the flush crept to her ears. “I’m practicing with them, f-for combat.”

Her left snake arm opened its jaws, letting out a long goofy yawn without even a hint of fang. The other stuck out its tongue, going “phtphtphtpht" at Shini.

Shini couldn’t supress her giggling any longer.

"Oh yes. You'll strike fear into the hearts of our enemies," Shini laughed, putting a hand over her mouth to at least pretend some reluctance in her amusement.

Shini said "our enemies" and not "your enemies", because Karai’s enemies are her's as well. They decided that long ago.

Shini crossed the floor, not a hint of disgust or fear as she approached the twin appendages. She knew, without Karai having said so, that that is what her friend had been waiting for. For the rejection and scorn of her new self.

Shini had none, only curiosity and good natured amusement.

She reached out fearlessly and trusting, to pet the adorable little heads of Karai’s snakes. They slithered through the air, smooth scales brushing her palms as they bumped their heads against her hands.

One of them stuck out its tongue, quickly licking her skin. Shini giggled again.

Karai’s flush became even more pronounced, muttering under her breath, “No you stupid little- you're supposed to be deadly and terrifying, come on..."

“They’re adorable,” Shini said truthfully, darting a glance up at Karai. “Just like you.”

Karai’s expression screwed up, offense at being called anything other than fierce or terrifying. The redness of her ears however, gave away her embarrassment.

Shini only laughed, and scratched the chins of Karai’s snake hands.

   Shini wanted Karai to be comfortable. She wanted her to feel safe enough that she could show her changes. Shini’s own fascination with them might have played in a factor of that, but more than anything, she wanted Karai to feel okay again.

Life had never been kind to them, regardless of how well they’d thrived in their respective situations. Shini didn’t want to see Karai restrain and hide herself like that, not when it was just the two of them.

As subtly as she could, Shini attempted to persuade Karai into thinking similarly.

It worked, slowly but surely, and Shini got to see more of the person Karai had become.

   They didn’t always remain at home, or keep to the daylight hours for trips into town. Sometimes, when the night was simply too tempting to resist, they went out.

Dressed in the proper armor, and a true warrior’s paint, they would hit one club after another.

Filled with thrashing and dancing bodies, lights and smoke clouding the air, Shini and Karai would dance. Martial arts was one thing, but there was always a rigor to fighting that dancing didn’t have. Dancing was light, dancing was fun. There wasn’t need for seriousness in a club, and Shini lavished in that.

More accurately, she lavished in Karai’s presence, and the graceful way she moved across the floor.

During one of these trips, while Shini was retrieving a couple drinks for them, some men approached her.

Shini was accustomed to this. Really, a pretty woman couldn’t go anywhere without being harassed. The lecherous grins the two men gave her told everything, and how their eyes wandered down her shirt only reinforced her suspicions.

Honestly. No class.

Shini was holding two full glasses, but she figured she could take care of the men without spilling any. Though, it turned out she didn’t need to.

“Excuse me sirs, but she’s with me,” Karai said coldly, sliding between Shini and the men.

The one who had approached Shini first raised an eyebrow. “Is she? Then we’ve got not one, but two beautiful ladies to entertain tonight. What do you say, feel like getting a couple drinks with us?”

He reached out to grab Karai’s shoulder, but winced away as Karai’s unforgiving grip circled his wrist.

“I wouldn’t do that if I were you,” Karai said, her tone becoming low and dangerous.

Shini smirked, smoothly going to stand beside Karai as she released the man. “Really, you should never touch a woman without her permission. And,” Her own tone fell, becoming just as dangerous as Karai’s. “We did not give you permission.”

The two men flushed angrily- perhaps also from one too many drinks- and looked ready to start a fuss over their dismissal.

However, as Karai’s demeanor turned sharp and inhuman- her fangs popping out and eyes shifting to deadly green- the men paled, and left faster than they’d appeared.

Shini smiled, handing Karai her drink and fluttering her eyelashes dramatically. “My hero.”

“You could have killed them with just your heel,” Karai said, taking the drink. “You weren’t in any danger.”

“Doesn’t mean I don’t appreciate my brave senpai coming to my rescue,” Shini said silkily.

“You just like a good show,” Karai replied, no annoyance at that fact.

“Hm, true enough… and you gave quite a good one,” Shini grinned.

They finished their drinks, and Shini pulled Karai onto the dancefloor once again. No one else approached them that evening, and Shini quietly hoped it was because they seemed too exclusive to consider.

   “I’m taller than you.”

Shini finished dropping their bags onto the kitchen counter, careful of the groceries inside, and turned to look at Karai. They’d just finished shopping for the week’s dinner plan, and it seemed Karai’s wandering attention had turned to something besides food shopping.

Karai’s legs were missing, turned into a long and winding tail. While her upper body remained mostly human- though Shini could see scales shimmering there- Karai’s lower body had become like something of a naga.

And, she was indeed taller than Shini like this.

“You’re cheating,” Shini said, looking at the way Karai was balancing herself on the long limb. “It’s like standing on your tiptoes. It doesn’t count.”

“I think it does,” Karai grinned cheekily, smoothly sliding across the floor. She loomed over Shini, a hint of her fangs showing in her smile. “It only took six years, but I’m finally taller than you.”

“Cheating,” Shini huffed, crossing her arms and turning away. “I won’t recognize this.”

Then she shrieked, Karai’s arms covering her eyes and her friend latching onto Shini’s head.

“I taller than you, just admit it!”

“Karai- you’re messing up my hair, I just had this done!”

“Admit it!”

“Never!”

They ended up collapsing into giggles, though Shini stood by her refusal to recognize Karai’s added height.

   “Karai… please, it’s too late for this,” Shini mumbled, mostly into her pillow. “Karai.”

“Mmm,” Karai mumbled back.

Shini sighed, and sat up in bed. She couldn’t sleep while someone was still awake, too many self-preservation instincts to physically allow herself. Karai was not asleep, and there for, neither was Shini.

Shini pushed her sleep mussed hair out of the way, and looked at her friend.

Karai was hunched over her knees, tense and radiating frustration. Shini saw along her bare arms, a glimmer of scales appear and disappear. Then once again, as Karai’s expression twisted in concentration.

“Karai?” Shini questioned, watching her friend fight off her changes.

“I’m sorry, couldn’t sleep,” Karai said quietly. She seemed to shudder, another wave of scales appearing and disappearing on her skin.

Shini stared at her friend, observing the silent battle happening. It looked like Karai was restraining herself, and struggling to.

That wouldn’t do. Neither of them would get any sleep like this.

Shini rubbed her eyes blearily, feeling a flash of irritation for her stubborn friend. "Karai, please. For goodness sake, just turn into a snake already and go to sleep."

"I'm fine like this," Karai replied, again quietly.

"No, you're cranky like this. I’m cranky like this. Come on now, change already. My bed is plenty big enough."

No answer, Karai remaining silent in the dark.

"Karaaaaii-"

"Fine. I'll do it."

Finally.

"Thank you," Shini mumbled gratefully, flopping backwards onto her pillow again and closing her eyes.

Shini heard it, the soft pops and cracks, and something like rustling fabric- and then the bed dipped in a different manner, like something much bigger had entered it.

Shini breathed a sigh of relief, because now she could finally get a full night’s rest. She didn’t mind sharing a bed with Karai- and would never have sentenced her senpai to sleeping on the couch in her one bedroom apartment- but not getting a good rest severely hindered her graciousness.

Shini started to drift again, hazy sleep retaking her, but-

Something tickled Shini’s ear, and she laughed, swatting blindly at the sensation. She opened her eyes again, and turned onto her side.

She was met with the sight of an enormous white and purple serpent; luminous green eyes bright even in the dark.

Karai’s long tongue slithered out again, and tickled Shini’s nose.

Shini giggled, putting a hand on Karai’s snout. "Noooo- this is not what I meant, I meant sleeping, senpai. We are meant to be sleeping..."

Karai pushed against Shini’s hand, so it slid up and onto the crown of her head.

Shini left it there, marveling at the cool and supple feeling of her dear friend's scales. Shini could feel that if she slid her hand the wrong way, it could perhaps hurt her. But like this, the texture is smooth and welcoming; inhuman and strange, but slowly becoming familiar.

Incredible.

"You're very beautiful like this," Shini said softly, tracing the sheen of Karai’s scales in the slant of light from her window.

"Really?" Karai asked just as softly, in a different voice from her usual self. She’d never spoken to Shini in this form before; it was like listening to silk.

"Yes, really," Shini replied truthfully.

There’s a long pause, filled with a tension Shini is almost afraid to name. Tangible and new, yet also familiar. Just like Karai.

Then, on impulse, Shini leaned forwards, and pressed a gentle kiss to the tip of Karai’s nose.

Karai’s mouth dropped open, near comical shock showing on her scaly features and wide green eyes staring at Shini.

Shini patted Karai’s cheek. "There. All tucked in. Go to sleep now, Karai. We have much to do tomorrow."

And then she turned over, facing the wall, as though the kiss had never happened.

Shini’s face burned, feeling a sudden amount of embarrassment and self-incrimination for acting on her impulse. She just couldn’t hold back anymore, not with her friend looking at her like that, gentle and trusting…

Shini hoped that Karai wouldn’t take offense to the gesture.

A cool grip slid around her legs, and Shini’s fears abated. Something pushed against her back, Karai’s reptilian cool body slid close to Shini’s.

In the dark, Shini’s redness turned rosy, and she smiled happily to herself. Sometimes, a daring chance was worth the risk.

By the time morning rolled around, Karai had all but wrapped Shini head to toe in her long limbs, and Shini was in bliss.

   After that, Karai’s ability to shift and change got faster, and she stopped hiding it.

While Shini appreciated that gift of trust, she less appreciated the fact that Karai would distract her, and use her long snake arms to steal bites of dinner. Or, stretch out over the whole couch in her full mutant form, and leave no space for Shini.

Usually, Shini fought back against those tactics by teasing Karai till she was red, and simply choosing to sit on top of Karai until she moved.

And when they finally went to meet the Foot’s leaders, glinting weapons and black armor in place, Karai was simply gorgeous.

Watching her senpai face her opponents- proving her strength and resilience as the next leader- Shini was reminded of when they’d first met.

Young and still training, but not without their already emerging craftiness, they’d met because their masters had. An agreement to share information, as well as a demonstration of their pupils’ strength.

When Shini had first seen Karai fight- utterly demolishing foes twice her size- she’d looked like a storm in progress. Temperamental and quick to change direction, filled with unseen dangers until it was too late.

Shini sometimes thought that was moment when she’d fallen in love.

Now, years later and on the cusp of becoming a clan head, Karai moved similarly as much- but also more.

With her new form, and her finesse in it getting better each day, Karai twisted and whirled through her fights. Her body weaving between blades and strikes like nothing, and shifting between her two forms almost as quick.

Shini watched, fascinated and more than a bit awed, as Karai danced between human and monster without hindrance.

Fanged and green eyed- then grinning with a human’s knife like smile, and golden eyed again. Silver armor and black clothes, then white and lavender scales - Karai was every bit the kunoichi Shini remembered from when they’d said goodbye, and had proved she’d only grown stronger since then.

As Karai defeated her last opponent, sheathing her lone sword and not bothering to conceal her beautiful, deadly green eyes- Shini’s heart swelled, and she fell in love all over again.

She bowed happily, same time as the highest ranked members of the Foot clan did, and pledged allegiance to the new clan head.

   When time came for them to leave, packing up what possession they would need from Shini’s apartment, Shini wasn’t at all sorry to go.

They would leave majority of her things, since she could always buy more. And Karai had promised ample room for Shini in the Foot clan’s headquarters, so Shini was more than happy to abandon her apartment.

As they packed away the last of their equipment, weapons concealed carefully in suitcases, Shini paused, standing at the same table as Karai, with both their hands touching.

Shini wasn’t sure who moved first, but they leaned forwards, and kissed.

It was slow and sweet, filled with the gentle care their chosen life paths never allowed. In that moment, they could be as soft and kind as they pleased.

It wasn’t the first time, and Shini knew that it wouldn’t be the last. They could trust in that, at least, even if what lay ahead of them was uncertain.

Drawing away reluctantly, Shini stared at Karai. Her dear friend, and now partner, restored to how she should be. Strong, conniving, beautiful in every way; Shini couldn’t have loved her more.

Then they left, closing the door behind them and locking it.

They left, travelling to America with weapons in hand, set on reclaiming an empire.

In secret, when no one was looking, their weapons would be placed aside, and instead they’d link hands.

Shini savored every second of it, and indulged in the newness they’d both become whenever she could.

She had always loved Karai, but now it was different, because Karai loved her back the way she wanted.

   When Karai had shown up on Shini’s doorstep, dark circles under her eyes and desperation in every word- saying that she had to kill her 'father', to avenge herself and her mother, that she needed help from the one person she could truly trust-

Shini had said "Of course." without a second thought.

He quietly pulled himself off the couch, and left the media pit. None of the remaining brothers noticed him leave; Mikey already conked out on the couch and Leo starting to fade. Raph, despite sitting close by to Casey, didn’t even twitch.

Casey grimaced to himself, and crept away.

Approaching the lab doorway, Casey widened the opening enough to peek in. Donnie was inside, shell to the door, and fussing with a collection of broken looking electronics.

Oh yeah. The brain helmet thingy. The one Donnie had made to examine April’s powers back on the farm.

Casey got an idea of what had triggered the events tonight, and of what Donnie was probably thinking at the moment.

Suddenly, Donnie viciously threw the piece of scrap he was holding; the twisted bit of metal clattering to the floor ten feet away.

Casey jumped as Donnie slammed his fists on the table, the remaining scrap scattering across it.

Donnie’s arms started shaking, and he ducked his head.

Maybe now was a good time to interrupt.

“Hey, Donnie?”

Donnie’s head whipped up, and he spun around to face Casey. A split second after, he rubbed a hand across his face; erasing suspicious wetness. “O-oh, Casey. Didn’t see you there.”

Casey snorted, slipping into the lab and closing the doors behind him. “Yeah, that’s kind of a thing tonight. You okay?”

“I’m fine.” Donnie said, turning away from Casey again. “I just… I just need some alone time.”

Casey looked around the lab; still a huge mess from what he was assuming had been April’s power explosion. He focused in on the remnants of the helmet, lying where Donnie had thrown it. “I don’t think that’s such a good idea. Being alone is probably not the best thing for you right now.”

Donnie scoffed, already starting to fuss again with the broken bits of technology on his table. “You don’t know what’s good for me or not. Just go away Casey; I don’t want company at the moment. I’m fine on my own.”

“Dee… you fuckin’ died tonight,” Casey said, noticing how Donnie flinched ever so slightly at that. “There’s no way you’re ‘fine’.”

“Go away, Casey,” Donnie said again. “I don’t want to talk about it.”

“I saw her do it too. I mean, one second you were there-” Casey balled his fists, recalling the moment April had disintegrated Donnie in midair. “-and the next you were gone. Dude, I thought you weren’t coming back.”

“Leave me alone.”

“Donnie, you can’t tell you’re okay after that happening-”

“I said I don’t want to talk about it!” Donnie shouted.

Casey paused, watching how Donnie’s shoulder curled inwards, and his overall posture became defensive. “I know you don’t, but… I think you have to talk about it.”

Casey waited for Donnie’s response, the long seconds ticking by until Donnie’s shoulders slumped, and he leaned heavily on the table. “It’s just… I… you guys didn’t hear it, but I asked her, right before she- she disintegrated my molecules… I asked her to stop. I asked her to give me the crystal, and to let me help her, and she- she just-”

Donnie sucked in a shuddering breath, and Casey watched him grip the table’s edge so hard it creaked.

“She said ‘sorry’ to me, ‘I’m sorry’, and then she…” Donnie shook his head, shoulders shaking. Casey didn’t say anything as Donnie turned to look at him, and the hollow, broken-hearted look in his eyes conveyed exactly how much pain Donnie was in.

“She… she was in control up to that moment,” Donnie said, voice wavering. “But she still… Casey, she killed me anyways. Do I…” His voice cracked. “Do I really matter that little to her?”

Casey swallowed thickly, his eyes stinging.

The last part hit close to home for him too.

“Donnie…” Casey stepped over the debree scattered around the room, and walked towards his friend. “I… I’m not sure what to say to that.”

Donnie pulled his mask off, hanging it on his neck, and scrubbed at his eye sockets. He chuckled humorlessly. “There’s not really much you could say.”

“Well…” Casey gestured vaguely, shrugging helplessly. “I could say… I’m here for you?”

Donnie croaked a chuckle again, before muttering “Oh god.”, and visibly collapsing on himself.

Casey wasn’t sure who initiated it, or who moved first, but he ended up wrapping his arms around Donnie.

Donnie’s own arms wrapped around Casey, and held tight.

They stayed like that for a long time.

At some point, later on, they ended up leaning against the wall and sitting on the lab floor.

“You know…” Donnie said quietly, leaning his back against the cold wall. “It hurt. A lot. Not just her… discarding me like that, but… can you imagine it? The sensation of being pulled apart on a molecular level? It only took a second, but… it felt like every nerve in my body was stabbed into an electrical socket. And then, I was just… gone.”

“Looked pretty fucking terrifying from the outside too,” Casey commented, picking at a stray thread on his jeans. His black eye was stinging again, the soothing numb from an ice pack earlier wearing off. Everything was starting to hurt again actually; bumps and bruises from his scuffle against the Foot, plus the ones from fighting April.

If you could count as that. He hadn’t even made a mark on her, but she’d tossed him around like a rag doll.

She hadn’t even been looking at him while she did that.

“I don’t… I don’t know if I trust April with those powers anymore,” Casey said, pulling free the loose thread and flicking it away.

Donnie sighed. “I don’t know either. She came back, but…”

“She chose power over us both, Donnie. Over all of us. I dunno how I feel about that.”

“I can relate,” Donnie said grimly.

A long pause of silence, the both of them stewing in their own thoughts.

“Hey Don…”

“What?”

“At least… at least she cared enough about you to get rid of you.”

“Excuse me?” Donnie sat up, giving Casey a confused and vaguely offended look. “How is her killing me a positive thing?”

“No, no that’s not what I meant,” Casey defended, trying to figure out how to express himself better. “It’s just…”

“Just what?”

"At least she actually acknowledged you," Casey said bitterly, remembering how April had glided past without even seeing him. "She didn't even look at me."

Donnie’s offense evaporated, turning into sympathy. “Oh. Oh Casey…”

Casey looked away, feeling uncomfortable suddenly. “I know I don’t matter as much as you guys, and I get that I really do, but… I care about her, and she just. ignored me. Didn’t even bother trying to kill me, even though I got in her way, like, twice at least.”

Donnie’s hand gently landed on Casey’s shoulder, and for once, he didn’t shrug the touch off.

“I’m sorry, Casey.”

“You and me both,” Casey mumbled, drawing his knees close and leaning on them.

After everything they’d been through, him and April; and she hadn’t even seen him. Like he didn’t exist to her, didn’t matter at all.

It hurt more than he would have thought.

Maybe he didn’t feel as strongly as Donnie, but… April was important to Casey. She was his friend, one of the few people he genuinely loved to spend time with. And she’d just-

-ignored him.

“This is fucked up,” Casey muttered. Wanting your crush to have tried murdering you, just so you felt validated. What the actual fuck.

Donnie’s arm slid the rest of the way across Casey’s shoulders, and his friend gave him a one armed hug.

“I think we crossed the line for ‘fucked up’ a few months back.”

Casey snorted a laugh at Donnie’s dry tone. He raised his head, and gave his friend a wry grin. “And when did we do that exactly?”

Donnie hummed, pretending to look thoughtful. “I think around the time the earth was invaded by calamari? Or maybe before that. Maybe when you got eaten by a giant worm and didn’t die…”

“What about the rat king guy?” Casey asked, grinning wider.

“Or the alien salamander mercenary?” Donnie chuckled.

“Or the time Raph switched brains with a Kraang?”

“The chimera incident?”

“Oh! The fucking frog dudes!”

“The car mutant that possessed me?”

“Fricking bigfoot?!”

“Oh god don’t bring that up.”

Casey couldn’t reply again, too busy laughing. Donnie’s laughter was a bit creaky, evidence of his earlier breakdown, but… it was there, and that’s what was important.

Casey’s laughter died off slowly, followed by Donnie’s. Eventually, it was quiet in the lab again; the only sound coming from their soft breathing.

Donnie hadn’t removed his arm. Casey hadn’t moved away.

Casey wasn’t sure who needed the physical touch more.

“Today…” Casey sighed, thinking of the long trek home whenever he decided to leave. Alone. “Today was one of the few times I felt like I was in over my head. That was… this whole thing was nine kinds of fucked up. Maybe even more than when the earth got destroyed.”

“I always feel like I’m in over my head,” Donnie said in a tired voice. “Today was just especially bad.”

“How the hell am I supposed to look her in the face tomorrow?” Casey asked, knowing he didn’t need to specify which ‘her’ he was talking about. “We can’t just. move on or whatever. Fuck me; I’ve got calculus with her in the morning. Fuck.”

“If it’s any consolation, I’ve got training with April tomorrow night. I have no idea how I’m going to do that.”

“What, no night off?”

“Sensei’s been pushing us harder lately. Shredder’s given him a bad scare, and I have to agree,” Donnie said grimly. “If it hadn’t been for April that last time…”

Donnie trailed off, but he didn’t need to finish.

Casey rubbed at his eyes, minding the heavy bruising on the one side. There was that feeling again; being in over his head. Used to be a lot rarer, that feeling. It’d been showing up more and more lately. “This used to be a lot more fun.”

“I can relate to that,” Donnie sighed. “Everything was a lot simpler last year. Hell, even just back on the farm things were simpler.”

Casey recalled the long days spent waiting for Leo to wake up. Thinking about his family, his city, all the while trying to pretend it wasn’t pulling him down…

He’d spent a lot of time in the barn with Donnie. But it wasn’t until after Leo woke up, that he’d even tried to talk to Donnie with something other than hostility.

Why hadn’t he tried to be friendlier? Donnie’s brother had been in a coma, and his dad likely dead. And all Casey had done was needle him and belittle his interest in April.

“Why the fuck didn’t we try being friends sooner,” Casey asked, voicing his internal thoughts. Especially after tonight, watching Donnie just vanish like that, he’d realized how much he’d miss the guy if he really had… died.

Nothing like temporary death to get your perspective checked.

Donnie shrugged, the motion making his arm shift on Casey’s shoulders. “We didn’t like each other I guess. And there was the whole…”

“…fighting over April thing,” Casey finished. “So if it hadn’t been for that…”

Well. Wasn’t that a thought.

Too much thought for tonight. Casey was too wrung out for that kind of introspection.

“I think I’m done chasin’ after April,” Casey said, changing the topic to another thing that’d been weighing on his mind. “I mean. She definitely isn’t interested, so… not much point.” Still kind of hurt though. “How about you? You were the one who actually got… vaporized an’ stuff.”

“I…”

Casey looked over at Donnie, hearing the crack in his voice again.

Donnie looked stricken, his earlier grief surfacing once more. “I don’t know. I really don’t. Casey…” He glanced at Casey, genuine emotional turmoil flickering across his expression. “I love her. I can’t just stop loving her, even after this. But… I’m not sure if I can trust her anymore.”

Casey wasn’t entirely sure what to say to that, or how to react to Donnie’s confession.

It wasn’t like it’d been a secret, but hearing it said out loud…

And Donnie looked teary again. Shit.

Why was comforting people so difficult?

“You could always copy my plan,” Casey said quietly, and hopefully, in a sympathetic tone. “Just avoid her until further notice? I’m probably gonna skip calc’ tomorrow to do that.”

Donnie cracked a smile, even if his eyes were still a bit wet. “I’ve skipped training before, might as well add one more black mark to my record for that.”

“That’s the spirit. You could, uh…” Casey wavered for a moment, questioning if he should really say this. Eh, whatever. “You could come hang out with me…? I was thinkin’ of taking some time off from vigilante-ing for a bit. Try some tagging again. Haven’t been able to in a while.”

“Isn’t that a crime?” Donnie asked.

“Crime is subjective to perspective,” Casey quipped automatically.

That got a laugh out of Donnie, and chased off the remains of his sadness. “You know what? Sure. I don’t really feel like experiencing the most awkward training session in history anyways. Tagging unsuspecting buildings sounds great.”

Casey grinned. The only other person, or rather turtle, he’d shown his tagging to was Raph. His best buddy got it, the weird co-existence that was being a guy who loved fighting, but also art.

Casey had seen some of the blue prints Donnie could whip up, freehand and everything. Maybe their resident genius would get it too.

A part of Casey kinda wished he’d tried being friends with Donnie sooner. A part of him wished it hadn’t taken Donnie almost dying to figure that out.

Mostly, Casey wished tonight hadn’t ever happened, and the crystal had never entered their lives.

He figured Donnie shared his sentiments on at least one of those things.

"Hey Casey?"

"Yeah Donnie?"

"Thanks. For all of this."

"No problem, buddy. No problem."

Somewhere headed towards ungodly in the morning; Casey figured it was finally time to go home.

Raph, plus the other two brothers, had disappeared. The whole lair was empty, except for Donnie and Casey.

Casey grabbed his duffle bag off the couch, filled with his gear from earlier in the evening. He shrugged it over his shoulder, and turned to face Donnie.

Donnie’s mask still hung limply off his neck, and his eyes were a bit red, but overall, he seemed like he was feeling better. Anything was better than the brittle way he’d held himself when they’d first gotten home, or the soft broken edges his voice had had.

All in all, even Casey felt better.

Maybe the whole talking about feelings thing was actually helpful.

“You gonna be alright?” Casey asked, searching for any residual signs of distress in his friend.

Donnie shrugged, a wry smile finding its way onto his face. “Eh, I’ll be fine. Nothing that a good day’s sleep and some old fashioned memory repression won’t fix.”

Casey laughed once, but gave Donnie a serious look. “Really though. You gonna be alright?”

Donnie’s humor slid away, and his wry smile turned sad. “I’ll recover. I think that’s the best I can give you right now.”

Casey nodded.

Yeah. That sounded about right for things.

“Feel better dude, and see you tomorrow night?”

“Will do. My place or…?”

“Meet me at that water tower; don’t want to get caught up in shit over here.”

Donnie chuckled. “Sounds good. G’night, Casey.”

“Night Don, see you ‘round.”

Casey wandered out of the lair’s entrance, his sports equipment knocking against the turnstiles. He paused at the top, glancing over his shoulder.

Donnie was still standing in the open, watching him go.

Casey waved one hand.

Donnie waved back.

Casey smiled, and disappeared into the tunnels.

Not the best night, but… not the worst either.

Tomorrow would probably be better.

Then the Shredder’s mask disappeared, and his head turned into a squirrelenoid’s. Mouth agape, and extended tongue reaching for Mikey as he, it?, screeched at him.

Claws and teeth latched onto Mikey’s body from all sides, and then the Shredder’s twin blades went through his stomach, the same place they had through his father’s.)

Mikey grumbled under his breath. It wasn’t even a nightmare that made much sense, but it’d made sleeping again undesirable anyways.

Better to get up and find something to eat instead; maybe a hot drink would calm him down enough he could at least snooze until everyone else woke up.

Mikey tossed the covers off him, and went to go think-create a snack for himself.

The halls of the ship were dim and quiet, and it was only Mikey’s footfalls that disturbed it. he held in his hand the cup of tea he’d made for himself; imagining as best he could what the tea his father used to- did make for him. The way his father did make it for him.

Master Splinter wasn’t dead yet. They were going to save him, and the earth too.

Mikey sipped the warm drink, and sighed briefly. It wasn’t quite the flavor his dad would make, but it would have to do for now.

He still didn’t feel like sleeping though. Hngh.

Mikey kept walking, past the corridor that led to the sleeping dorms, and towards the main control room. Even if their circumstances sucked, at least space was still really pretty to look at. Maybe if he sat and watched the star systems around them for a while, he’d feel better enough that he could sleep again.

He was half tempted to go find one of his older brothers to comfort him, reassure him it was just a stupid dream, but Mikey couldn’t do that. They needed their sleep, and it was just a nightmare. He’d handle it on his own.

When he opened the doors to the bridge though, he found that he wasn’t the only one awake.

Someone was sitting in front of the wide window already, wrapped in one of the blankets they all had on their beds. The blue mask tails gave away who it was.

Leo didn’t look back towards the noise of the sliding door, so Mikey took it as a sign that he was welcome. He padded across the room, and sat down next to his eldest brother.

Leo didn’t look at him, keeping his eyes on the slowly drifting stars around their ship. His eyes were far away, and even with the mask on, Mikey could tell his brother had sleepless bags under his sockets.

“Bad night too?” Mikey asked, phrasing the question like that, even though there was no actual night time in space.

Leo nodded mutely, still keeping his gaze on the endless void outside the window.

(He’d been sleeping, dreaming of being home with their father again, but the lair had melted away and left him standing in a dark void.

Spinning around, Leo looked for his family, and found nothing.

He called out, but the blackness swallowed his voice.

Then, suddenly, his father was in front of him. Then Raph, and Donnie, and Mikey, and April and Casey-

They all stared blankly at Leo, eyes milky and dead.

Slash marks appeared over their torsos, and started pouring blood.

Leo couldn’t move as each one of his family members died right in front of him. He’d failed them, he’d failed them all, they were dead and he hadn’t been able to do anything to stop it-

Their bodies dropped to the black ground, and then Shredder was looming over him.

Leo heard Oroku Saki’s laugh, the deep sound resonating through his skull, the same moment the Shredder’s blades went through his stomach.

Leo gasped for breath, feeling his throat tear open in the same place it had months ago, and his plastron split apart.

He woke up.)

Leo put his hand over the raised scars of his throat.

They still hurt sometimes; itching and aching in a way that wasn’t really there. He hated it. Hated what it represented.

His voice had been wrecked by the Shredder, changed irreparably. The day he’d almost lost his life to the man still haunted him frequently; appearing in his dreams at night, or shuddering across his vision when he didn’t expect it to.

Master Splinter’s death was worse though. Every night since they’d gone to space, their father’s death played out in Leo’s mind; sometimes along with the rest of his family’s. He couldn’t stop seeing those twin blades go through them, and him, over and over and over-

Something warm touched Leo’s hands.

Leo pulled himself back to reality, and looked down. There was a steaming mug being held just above Leo’s slack hands.

Oh. Mikey was giving Leo the cup of tea.

Leo took it, nodding a thank you, and sipped at the hot drink.

It tasted like home.

Leo went back to staring out the window, drifting away from reality. Mikey didn’t seem to expect him to respond to anything, and wasn’t talking either, so they just sat there in silence.

It was better than sitting alone.

After a long pause, Mikey spoke again.

“I miss dad too,” Mikey said, voice soft and quiet for once.

Leo nodded, still not speaking, and sipped at his tea. Even without him having to say so, Mikey could probably tell why Leo was out on the bridge. For all his slip ups and missed social cues, Mikey always seemed to be able to tell when one of their brothers was upset; even Leo.

Leo appreciated that about his brother.

He was about to take another sip of the blessedly warm tea, when the door behind them ‘zwooped’ open again.

Leo turned his head this time, wondering who else could be up at this hour.

Raph stood in the open doorway, looking as surly as he always did when he woke up too early; obviously as sleep deprived as Leo felt.

(He’d been asleep, deep asleep; in that pleasant blackness that came with such a depth of sleeping.

Raph wasn’t one for highly detailed imaginations, but his subconscious apparently hadn’t gotten the message.

Chains, suddenly there’d been chains all over him. Dragging him down, making his bones creak. Something was in his head, he could feel it oozing and slithering there. Fleshy little needles, soft but sharp, burrowing into his brain and making itself at home.

He- he needed to get up. He needed to go to his family. They needed him. Why couldn’t he stand up?

Raph knew it; he knew they were in trouble. His brothers, his father, his friends- they needed him right that moment. So why. couldn’t. he. stand. UP?!

Raph pulled and yanked and tried with every ounce of his strength to break the chains holding him. He- he had to. They’d die if he didn’t. From what? What would they die from?

The Shredder, the Kraang, the Triceratons- everything, everything was trying to hurt them and he wasn’t there to stop it-

Why couldn’t he break the chains?

WHY WASN’T HE STONG ENOUGH TO BREAK THE CHAINS?!

The thing in his head burrowed deeper, gleefully shredding through his brain tissue, as Raph tried and tried and tried to break the chains.

The metal binds wrapped bone-breakingly tight around his limbs, and pulled him down into the blackness.

His strength failed him, the one time it really mattered.

Raph woke up.)

Raph blinked at his older, and younger, brothers sitting in front of the wide window and somehow, he wasn’t terribly surprised to have found them there.

Though he’d never tell anyone about it, Raph could always tell when one of them were missing, or moving around when they shouldn’t be. Older brother intuition; and that intuition applied to all his brothers, Leo included.

Whether Leo wanted to admit to it or not, Raph knew he and Leo were too closely matched, in everything really, to have a proper older-younger brother relationship.

Which was why, Raph had woken up from his unpleasant dreams, and went to find out why he was feeling something off.

Not waiting for an invite, Raph trudged over to Leo and Mikey, and sat down on Leo’s other side; pulling his brother’s blanket off his shoulder, and spreading it over both their laps. Leo didn’t resist, so Raph didn’t apologize or give the blanket back.

“Not sleeping?” Mikey asked, peeking around Leo to see Raph.

“Hardly.” Raph grumbled back.

Mikey leaned across the space between them, and patted Raph’s now blanket covered knee. Leo handed Raph the cup of tea he’d been holding.

Raph took a sip of the half empty drink. It tasted like home.

God he missed home.

Barely a moment later, the doors he’d just come in from opened again. Raph, Mikey, and Leo turned their heads towards the sound; looking for whoever had come to join them.

April stood there, wrapped in her sleeping quarter’s blanket, and her hair in a wild snarl. She had deep bags under her eyes, and looked harried as anything.

Raph grimaced, because it didn’t seem like anyone was having an easy time sleeping right now.

April blinked blearily at them all, and despite the spooked look she had, she somehow managed to seem half asleep as well.

(She’d been sleeping, dreaming of something nice that she couldn’t recall anymore, when the world had twisted around her, and-

Her dad. Her dad standing in front of her, smiling, and looking like the man he’d been before the Kraang had kidnapped him. Not the PTSD ridden survivor, but the quirky psychologist father he’d always been to her.

Then, his body bulged, and he’d unleashed an unearthly shriek at her.

Quick as he’d appeared, April’s father was replaced by the man-bat hybrid he’d been mutated into.

April was stuck frozen, looking into his huge eyes, and found no evidence of recognition.

He didn’t know who she was.

The mutant that had been her father opened his jaws, spreading his malformed wings, and flew at her with a ravenous sounding cry.

April dodged the attack, her footing clumsy, and fell onto hard metal floors. April looked up, and found herself in a Kraang ship, the one that had kidnapped her months ago to use as a dooms-day device.

Too-tall to be real figures stood over her, hundreds of identical faces blank and unforgiving, then-

The human guises melted away, turning into multicolored burning liquid that scalded April as she scrambled off the floor. Where were the boys? Where were her friends? They said they’d protect her, that they’d always be there to make sure she got home safe, where were they-?!

Kraang Prime loomed over April, maniacal cackling like nails on a chalk board. Metal restraints and wires snaked out from the surrounding drones, latching onto April’s arms and legs. April opened her mouth to scream, but nothing came out as the enormous alien overlord hovered above her; malevolent grin revealing all its hundreds of sharp teeth.

April struggled, and she couldn’t find any of her ninjutsu training within her mind. She was alone-  where was her adopted family-  she was trapped- why couldn’t she escape on her own she’d trained for this- and her father was too out of his mind to even consider coming to rescue his daughter-

The cold metal circling her arms and legs started to become warm, and the metal turned to flesh, and the Kraang surrounding April vanished, leaving instead-

April’s mother. Her fake mother.

The mutant monster that had pretended to be her mother, its body splitting into halves and ballooning into a hundred writhing limbs- it held April in a strangling grip, still using the mask of April’s mother as its head.

It smiled at April with too many teeth, and its chest split open, revealing April’s friends and family already trapped within; sutures made from pink flesh holding them there, binding their bodies forever to the genetic monstrosity.

The tentacles wrapped around April dragged her towards the gaping maw, and April finally managed a scream just as the folds closed over her head.

April woke up.)

April squinted at the three brothers already sitting in the control room, but decided she was too tired to question why they were there. In fact, she welcomed the company. Her nightmare had dredged up so many awful memories; she didn’t feel like she’d sleep again for days.

April walked across the room, dragging her blanket along with her, and sat down next to Raph. April silently offered Raph some of her covers, and Raph took the offer; releasing his share of Leo’s blanket in favor of her’s.

April gave a small smile as Leo reclaimed his comforter, and right afterwards started to share it with Mikey.

“Bad dream?” Mikey and Raph asked her at the same time, Leo also shooting her a look of concern.

“Mrgh,” April replied un-committedly. Bad dream didn’t even begin to describe it.

Raph’s reaction was to push a mostly empty cup of luke-warm tea into her hands. April took the last bit of it in one gulp, letting the semi-warm liquid slide down her dry feeling throat. She couldn’t place the brief taste, but it made her feel nostalgic for some reason.

“Thanks, I needed that,” April said to Raph, grateful for the quick drink. Raph nodded, and not-so-subtly let a little more of their shared blanket fall to April’s side of the arrangement. April smiled to herself, and chose to not call him out on the act of affection.

They’d barely situated themselves, just as the doors behind the four of them opened again. April turned her head, same time as the three brothers did, to see who it was.

Donnie shuffled into the room, head drooping as he focused intently on the holo-screen in his hands. His mask was hanging around his neck, rather than tied neatly around his face, and even from across the room April could see the deep, black bags under his eyes.

Donnie stopped, halfway to his chosen cock-pit in the control room, and seemed to finally realize he wasn’t the only one present.

April waved at Donnie. “Hey Donnie, still working?”

Donnie squinted at them all, not responding as he grimaced. He looked like he didn’t believe they were actually there.

“Have you slept at all?” Raph asked in a vaguely scolding tone. “You look like shit.”

“Sleep is for people without work to do. Also for the weak.” Donnie replied deadpan. He dropped his eyes from them again, about to go back to whatever he was doing before he got there, when Leo spoke for the first since April had come into the room.

“Come sit down, Donnie. Just for a little while, you need to rest at least a few minutes,” Leo said quietly, not raising his voice above a whisper. His voice sounded gravelly to April’s ears, and she guessed that his vocal cords were acting up again. “How about a power nap? Promise we’d wake you up on time.”

April already could tell Leo was lying about that part, the waking Donnie back up part; she didn’t need sixth-sense powers to tell that. She didn’t say anything against Leo’s claim though, nor does anyone else, because they’re all going to lie about waking Donnie up.

Honestly, sometimes April felt like she’d have to shackle her best friend to his bedside in order for him to get a good night’s sleep.

Donnie blinked at them all, half disbelieving, half from lack of sleep.

(He didn’t sleep. Period.

Too much to be done, too many things to sort through or learn or puzzle out. Clues to the where-abouts of the generator parts, sciences he’d only dreamed of ever existing, stars systems and maps and whole civilization he never knew to exist until he went to space.

Donnie was so woefully unprepared in comparison to the rest of the universe. He thought himself a genius for so long, and now, he’s not even sure about that.

Donnie was thousands of years behind; his formerly prized skills learned from trial and error, gaining those skills with only literal garbage to work with. Donnie was nothing compared to eons ahead races out in the endless galaxy.

Donnie slept only in fitful snatches; power naps, half dozing breathers between cramming sessions. Sleep was for when they were safe again, when they were home and their planet restored permanently. And besides, as long as he didn’t sleep longer than a half hour at a time, none of the images and visions he knew were lurking in the back of his mind could touch him.

You didn’t get nightmares if you didn’t sleep, and Donnie wasn’t going to sleep until they were all home and safe again.

He probably wouldn’t sleep when they got back to earth either, to be honest. Not knowing that they were still so vulnerable to the rest of the universe.

He had so much ground to make up for, so much to educate himself on. How could he even consider sleeping, when knowing the right bit of information could mean the difference between life and death for his family?

Donnie didn’t sleep. Period.)

Donnie opened his mouth to refuse Leo’s offer, but Leo was looking at him with his ‘I’m your older brother and leader’ stare, and that left little room for argument. Donnie would have argued anyways, but Raph was also looking at him, and Mikey, and April.

He could already tell they weren’t going to back down, and that he would lose badly if he fought.

Donnie shut his mouth, and turned off the holo-screen. A few minutes wouldn’t hurt him; he could doze for a while and then go right back to work.

Donnie tried to sit down slowly, but his legs weren’t working quite right, and he essentially slumped against Mikey’s side.

“Wake me up in twenty,” Donnie mumbled, eyes already trying to drag themselves shut. Through blurry vision, Donnie felt and heard Mikey and Leo’s blanket getting thrown over him, as Donnie let Mikey maneuver him into lying down.

With his head pillowed on Mikey’s leg, Donnie tried and failed to stay awake a little longer.

He slipped off into a black, dreamless sleep, with Mikey patting Donnie’s aching skull.

Mikey waited for no longer than a minute, and then his older brother was dead asleep. Thank goodness, Donnie needed to take better care of himself; Mikey didn’t know what they’d do without their resident everything-genius.

Mikey was absolutely, a hundred percent, not at all surprised to hear the sliding doors behind them open again.

Mikey carefully looked over his shoulder, making sure he didn’t jostle his brother in the process.

Casey stumbled into the room, dragging what looked like most of his bed with him, and squinted at the five other teens.

"What the fuck, is anyone sleeping tonight??" Casey asked, sounding kind of offended that he wasn’t alone.

Mikey’s “Nah.” was joined by April and Raph’s “Not even.” and Leo’s quiet, “No.”

Casey wrinkled his nose, examining their assembled semi-circle.

(He’d been dreaming… about his family. About losing them again for a third time.

He hadn’t been there, both the first and second times, even though the whole point of becoming a vigilante was to make it safer for them. His dad, his little sister… Casey wasn’t there for them both times the world almost ended.

He’d been running through the streets of the city he knew like the back of his hand, full vigilante gear, and searching fast as he could for his family. This time, this time he’d be there for them, if he could just find them, he could keep them safe and get them away from whatever threat was chasing him this time-

Casey had rounded another corner, skates leaving skid marks on the pavement, and pushed himself harder.

He needed to be there for them, his dad didn’t know a baseball bat from a hockey stick, he wouldn’t be able to protect Casey’s little sister, that’s why Casey had become a vigilante to protect them both and he wasn’t there. for. them.

Casey could hear the scrabbling claws of whatever was chasing him, getting closer and closer, no matter how much speed he pushed for.

Why couldn’t he find his apartment building? Where was it? he was lost, how could he be lost, this was his home, his turf, the one thing he knew for certain out of everything was his city, his community, why couldn’t he find his home-

Demonic shrieks erupted behind him, and Casey felt huge teeth bite into his legs and shoulders. Casey’s gloved hands scrabbled on the asphalt as the monsters dragged him back, flipping him over to get at his squishy organs.

Huge, mutant rats loomed over him, rotting stab holes through their stomachs, and wide gaping jaws with yellow teeth. Pink tentacles thrashed from places that just looked wrong to have extra limbs, and their skin bubbled disgustingly all over in patches.

They looked a little like master Splinter, if the guy had been a huge horrible, insane mutant Kraangified rat.

Casey screamed as they’d bit into him.

He woke up.)

Rats were a normal nightmare thing; he could deal with that, but huge mutant ones with Kraangy bits? Huge mutant rats that resembled the not-dead ninja master he’d known and respected? Plus, weird desolate cityscapes where he couldn’t find his way, or his family?

No thanks. Casey would rather give up sleeping than deal with that.

Whatever had happened in the rest of his friends’ dreams, they must’ve been bad, if not worse, since each one of them were already sitting in the control room.

Casey stared at them all a moment longer, Donnie sleeping on Mikey’s knee, Leo sitting in the middle, Raph and April sharing a blanket…

Then, Casey shrugged to himself, and decided to not ask what’d happened to them. He didn’t feel like sharing his weirdly scary nightmare with anyone, and the other teens probably wouldn’t want to share their sleeping issues either. Live let live, or something.

He walked across the room, threw his hauled along comforter and sheet at Leo, and started to push into the spot he wanted in the kitschy-sharing circle thing.

“Scoot over Raph,” Casey said, shoving his way between April and Raph both. “C’mon, you too April, I want in and its cold on the end.”

“You could’ve kept your damn blanket, idiot,” Raph growled at Casey, even as he shoved over as asked, and dropped his end of the blanket to let Casey sit down. April rolled her eyes, but moved over just enough that Casey could slide between them both.

Casey grinned at April and Raph both, stealing Raph’s half of the blanket, and snuggling into the already warm comforter. “Heck yeah. This is way better than sittin’ in my room alone.”

“Glad you think so,” Raph said sarcastically, still trying to sort out his and Leo’s new arrangement of blankets.

“I should’ve made more tea,” Mikey said offhandedly, making no sense to Casey with the statement, but that wasn’t unusual.

“I’d like more tea,” April said, her petite yet strong body pressing on Casey’s right side, just as Raph’s kinda rough feeling scales pressed on Casey’s left. Casey settled into the shared blanket cocoon, and felt a lot better than he had about five minutes ago.

“Perhaps I could assist in that arrangement,” Professor Honeycutt’s voice said somewhere above them. Casey looked up, same as everyone else excluding Donnie, and stared at the speakers on the ceiling. “If one of you wouldn’t mind coming to the back and helping me create some drinks, since I don’t actually know how earth drinks taste like, or what tea it is you are looking for… oh my, sometimes being a robot can be a bit troublesome can’t it? I don’t actually remember what earth tea tastes like… or how to make it really, though I do remember being taught once long ago. I believe you six know him from your history? He was an odd one, fighting governments by dumping whole shipments of tea into a harbor, goodness knows what that accomplished…”

“Does the professor sleep?” Casey whispered under his breath, listening to the robot alien ramble over the intercom about not remembering what the proper way to make tea was, and historical figures Casey couldn’t recall. “If he doesn’t, he probably should, ‘cause he’s sounding a lil loopy righ’ now.”

Raph sighed deeply, and got up from the comforter he and Leo had finally finished arranging. “I got it. Don’t move Leo, I just got that set up right, and we’ll be right back.”

“Wasn’t going to,” Leo replied quietly, though Casey could hear a hint of teasing in his gravelly voice.

April yawned beside Casey, and slumped a little onto his shoulder. Leo seemed to be drooping ever so slightly as well, probably warming up from the extra comforter Casey had given him. Casey craned his head a bit, and caught a glance of Mikey rubbing Donnie’s shoulder. The tallest brother was snoring almost in-audibly, and out cold as he sprawled out on the metal floor.

Casey turned away from the three mutants, and started looking out the window while they waited for Raph to come back.

Space was pretty cool all in all, even if everything it’d taken to get them out into it sucked majorly.

Casey kinda wished he hadn’t left his phone in the lair prior to the big show down; if he’d brought it to space, what a slide show of selfies that would have made.

Maybe he should ask Donnie to invent him a new phone? Nah, the nerd was already too busy with sciency stuff with the professor; Donnie would just bite off Casey’s question before he even got it out. Which was fair enough, since just hearing summaries of what Donnie was studying gave Casey a headache.

His little sister though, she would’ve loved to see pictures of the places Casey had been the last while.

…Casey missed earth, and his family.

But… at least he had the other half of it with him still.

The doors behind them all slid open, and Casey caught the metallic footfalls of their robotic friend coming into the room.

Raph reappeared in front of their group, carrying a platter with six steaming cups. Raph handed Casey a cup of hot chocolate, same as he did to everyone else.

Leo raised an eyebrow, peering at the thick liquid in his cup. “I thought you were going to make tea?”

“I got distracted,” Raph said gruffly, though the gentle way he handed Mikey his cup betrayed how little he was actually annoyed by Leo’s question.

Casey took a sip of the hot chocolate, and found it tasted like the kind he’d make with real powder sometimes; like his mom had made for him years ago, and like how he’d made a cup for Raph a couple weeks back.

Casey smiled to himself, felt a little less homesick, and didn’t call his friend out on being a sap.

April sipped at her cup of hot chocolate; her fears clearing from her mind, and let it chase away the rest of her cold slimy feelings inside.

Raph settled down next to his big brother and best friend, and ignored the knowing looks Casey gave him; instead enjoying the solid presence of himself amongst his family.

Donnie slept, carefully undisturbed by his family around him, and fell into a softly colored place that let him feel safe again.

Mikey smiled around the rim of his cup, already feeling the lift of his family’s spirits, and felt completely reassured of his reality.

Leo sat content, surrounded by the alive and well voices of his family, and breathed easy again.

The professor, sensing he wasn’t welcome at this particular moment, carefully slipped out of the room; the door sliding shut once again, as it would stay until the gathered teens felt like they could sleep again.

Keeping their voices low and soft, the five teens still awake talked about good things they remembered of their time together, and reminisced about earth. They didn’t move again until hours had passed, and their cups of warmth were long emptied.

In front of a wide window that showed the vastness of the universe, six teens sat together, and reminded themselves they weren’t alone.