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The beginning of February saw more snow for Northampton. With snow storms forecast for the remainder of the week, all outside activity was pretty much out of the question for the residents of the O’Neil farmhouse.
Donatello was easily the most sullen of the group, having been forbidden from his lab by Raphael on the first day of their snow bound house arrest, with the added threat of being promptly knocked out and hauled back to farmhouse. It was simply too cold outside, even in the barn, and Raphael was not having another brother out of commission over a stupidly preventable illness such as a cold.
And so as a result, Donatello seemed to make a particular effort to show the displeasure of his current boredom by sulking around the house and complaining about pretty much everything. After two days of this, Raphael was already showing signs that if his purple-banded brother made one more complaint he was going to snap, and in an effort to keep the peace, decided to shut himself up in Leo’s bedroom on official ‘Watch Leo’ duty.
The rest of the household were not so fortunate.
Casey and Donnie had been at each other’s throats multiple times over the course of the first few days of being snow bound, their already volatile relationship causing them to get annoyed with minor things that one another did, breathing included. April, as calm as she appeared to be on the surface, was definitely starting to show signs of cabin fever, and the combination of Donnie’s attitude as well as he and Casey picking arguments with one another every five minutes was not helping. After dinner on the third night, she excused herself from the group and turned in early. She had yet to emerge from her bedroom, likely basking in the peace and quiet of her solitude.
And so, on the fourth day, with tensions among the group running high, Michelangelo decided that he had enough of it. It was time to fix this. He just had to figure out how.
A thorough search through the farmhouse on their arrival a month and a half ago had provided with some interesting finds. There were the staples such as bed linen and clothing (including some large heavy coats which lucky enough fit over bulky turtle shells) as well as some canned food that they would be able to live on for long enough until they were able to make it to the nearest store for supplies. In Mikey’s opinion, the greatest find was an old gaming console (with games included) that was found in the attic sitting in an old milk crate under several boxes of blankets. Mikey (with some help from Donatello) had quickly hooked it up to the TV in the living room and over the past month and a half, it provided a much needed source of enjoyment and distraction.
Placing one of the racing games into the console, Mikey settled himself cross-legged on the couch and booted up the game. He selected one of the more difficult time challenge races and started playing. The track was challenging but not overly difficult which worked well as he just needed it as a distraction so that he could think. He always found could focus better when playing something. It gave his hands something to do other than fidget with themselves and the simplicity of the racing game let it become almost background noise to let him focus better on other things. It also worked to drown out his current worries.
If Michelangelo were perfectly honest with himself, he had no idea how and if it were even possible to mend the tensions formed over the past couple of days. As someone who craved social interaction, Mikey had found himself feeling lonely as everyone decided to eventually lock themselves away; and he was grateful that he had managed to bring Ice-Cream Kitty with them when they escaped New York, as it at least gave him someone to talk to. However, he was starting to miss actual conversation. Regardless of his feelings though, it seemed that the best thing to do would be to let it resolve itself, once the snow had let up a bit and everyone wouldn’t be couped up together, then maybe everything would go back to normal.
Or what had become the new normal, Mikey reminded himself, thinking of Leo still unconscious upstairs.
Congratulatory music came from the TV as the screen lit up with the finish screen, breaking Mikey from his musings. His track time was 3 minutes and 47 seconds, which considering the difficulty of the course, Mikey was pretty pleased with as a first attempt.
The score board lit up a second later, “Dang” Mikey mumbled as he realised that even though he thought his time was good, it still was not enough to rank in the top five. He looked at the other times, noticing that each of the scores placed where achieved by a player named ‘KIR’, which Mikey supposed was none other than Kirby O’Neil. Mikey had honestly not even considered that the gaming console belonged to April’s dad, which really should have been obvious now that he thought about it.
Michelangelo definitely regarded Mr O’Neil with high respect as a fellow gamer after noticing the top time of 1 minute and 57 seconds.
Mikey sat staring at the screen in shock. How was that even possible! Even the fifth best time of 2 minutes 22 seconds seemed impossible given how Mikey had to slow down to a crawl at the multiple hairpin turns and kept sliding out on the dirt portions of the track.
Determined to prove himself and convincing himself that his dismal score was a result of not fully focusing on the game, Mikey selected to replay the course.
Five attempts - and a personal top score of only 3 minutes and 2 seconds – later, Michelangelo was certain that Mr O’Neil could work miracles.
“Ugh, this is impossible!” Mikey ground out, frustrated, sinking down into the couch in defeat.
“What’s impossible?” Mikey turned at Donatello’s question as his brother sat himself next to him on the couch. Mikey noticed that the purple-banded turtle still wore that bored scowl that was the sole reason for the household’s miserable mood over the past couple of days.
“This game!” Mikey gesticulated at the TV “Mr O’Neil set a top score that doesn’t even seem to be even possible to get!”
Donatello huffed at his younger brother, “Give me the controller, I’m sure it’s not that hard. You’re probably overthinking it.”
“That’s your thing.” Mikey pouted at his older brother as Donnie started up the course.
3 minutes and 20 seconds later, Donnie was just as baffled as his brother.
“I told you!” Mikey smugly sang, pleased by the shock on Donnie’s face; also by the fact that his track time was better.
“Tha- That’s impossible!”
“Yep, I already said that.”
“It really can’t be done though, given the dirt sections and those turns you would have to be averaging sixty miles per hour to at least get those times! That simply isn’t possible, it breaks physics!”
“What are you two yelling about now?”
Both turtles turned their attention the living room entrance where April – looking tired and a bit fed up - now stood with a glass of water in hand.
“April!” Mikey jumped up facing her “Your Dad is a gaming god!”
April smiled sadly “Yeah, him and my Mom was really into it back when they were younger.” She sat down on the armchair adjacent from them, fingers circling the rim of the glass in her hand, “I remember all of us playing some of these games when I was really little. After Mom died though, Dad just stopped playing. Th- there were probably too many memories associated with them that it must have hurt too much to play them anymore.”
Mikey and Donnie made space between them on the lounge and waved April over to join them. April sat between the two youngest turtles and found herself being hugged on both sides. She smiled softly at the loving interaction.
“Here give me a go.” She said after a minute, reaching for the controller in Donnie’s hand with a confident smirk, “Let’s see if any of my Dad’s gaming skills were genetic!”
Unfortunately, whilst April had inherited her fathers red hair and fondness for science, with her track time of 3 minutes 31 seconds, it seemed that gaming skills skipped a generation.
The next few hours were spent with the three of them taking turns trying to at the very least rank in the top five. However, with Donnie’s personal best of 2 minutes and 40 seconds, it really did seem impossible. Their shouts of encouragement and frustration soon made its way to all corners of the farmhouse, luring Casey and eventually Raphael to come investigate and inevitably join in on the challenge. And so over the next couple of days, the five of them engaged in a friendly competition to try and get the best score.
When the snow storms started to let up 3 days later – a full week after they had started – the five of them had still not managed to place in the top five rankings, let alone beat Kirby O’Neil’s top score, with Raphael coming the closest with a personal best of 2 minutes and 29 seconds. However, Mikey realised that although they had all failed, the tensions between each other had lessened with each day and the once bitter arguments had morphed into friendly banter.
He had unknowingly managed to fix things after all.
Leonardo walked into the living room to the sight of Michelangelo on his hands and knees, staring slack-jawed at the TV screen two inches from his face.
“Umm Mikey?” Leo asked, concerned, “You ok there?”
Mikey’s head whipped around so fast that it audibly cracked - Leo briefly worried that he had snapped his neck – and sent his oldest brother an accusing glare. “You beat the high score?” Mikey demanded, pointing his finger at the image on the TV screen. Leo recognised it as a racing game he had mindlessly picked up two days ago, however at the time he grew bored of it quickly as he was looking for something more challenging to distract him from the twinges of pain in his knee.
“Uh, yeah I did.” Leo walked over and sat on the lounge that Mikey was kneeling in front of, “I was bored and couldn’t go outside cause of this,” he gestured down to his bandaged knee, “so I played it for a bit. It was too easy though so I stopped after one race.”
Mikey’s eyes grew larger than Leo thought was even possible. “Holy shell.” he whispered under his breath and then stood, rushing out of the room to the foot of the farmhouse stairs, “GUYS! LEO IS A GAMING GOD!!”
Leo was surprised to hear the cacophony of four sets of footsteps rushing downstairs, and stared in confusion at the mixed looks – ranging from disbelief to awe to annoyance – everyone shot at the TV as they entered and stood around him.
“He did it in ONE GO!” Mikey excitedly bounced on his toes, his attention divided between the TV, Leo and the rest of their dumbfounded family.
Leo startled as at once everyone turned their attention on him, staring silently for long enough that he began to visibly squirm under their gaze.
Raphael was the first to break the silence as he turned on his heel and marched towards the front door, grumbling under his breath before slamming the door behind him as he stalked out into the yard.
Donatello regarded his oldest brother with awe, though Leo was certain that there was some fear mixed in there as well, “How did you even do it? I did the calculations and that time should not even be possible!”
“I don’t know?” Leo shrugged, “I really don’t have an answer if I’m honest. I just played it.”
“He said that it was too easy.” Mikey piped up, shooting a proud look at the eldest turtle.
At that, April, Casey and Donatello visibly slumped in defeat and retreated to what they were previously doing, leaving a very confused Leonardo and an ecstatic Michelangelo in their absence.
“I can’t believe that I’m related to greatness.” Mikey said quietly to himself, sending an another awed glance at the blue-banded turtle before leaving, the sound of the front door closing behind him as he likely went to find Raphael.
Confused and feeling that he was missing out on some much needed context for what just happened, Leo turned and stared at his top score entry currently displayed on the TV screen:
Name - LEO Time – 01’50”