Chapter Text
When April stirs, it’s to the feeling of something jabbing the side of her thigh. She grimaces at the sensation and tries to lean away, but the pain follows her and it only makes the mattress she’s lying on creak a little at the movement. Whatever’s poking her is trapped underneath her weight, she realizes, so she shoves one hand into the space between her hip and the bed so she can take it out.
She tries to, anyway.
Her eyes shoot open when she’s suddenly pulled backwards, the pain in her thigh forgotten as she’s moved around like a sack of flour. Air's squeezed out of her lungs when something wraps itself tight around her waist and arms, rendering her immobile as her back hits a flat, sturdy surface. Naturally, April immediately begins to struggle against the heavy grip surrounding her body, twisting her shoulders and grunting as she’s unable to break off her restraints.
"Let me go, you-" When she looks up at her surroundings to see what she can use to set herself free, however, she cuts herself off and the adrenaline seeps away as she realizes where she is.
It’s dimly lit, the only light source being the glow from a street lamp shining in through the window, but April’s not the kind of gal to forget what her childhood bedroom looks like. Letting her eyes adjust to the darkness of the room, she realizes that she's in her bed, lying on her left side and now somewhat tangled in the sheets after her brief panic. Across from her, she sees where the edges of her desk are outlined by the light outside, and she squints to try and make out the objects she can faintly see on top of it. Table lamp, pencil holders, her laptop, a few sticky notes pinned to the bulletin board hanging over her desk - nothing of note there. What is are the ends of what look like a couple of dark ribbons spilling over the front of her desk, leading up to where there seems to be a small pile of it near the edge. Beside the pile, she's able to make out a flat shape that reminds her of an envelope - she frowns a little when she notices and quickly moves her gaze away, down to the bottom of her desk. As soon as she does, her whole body relaxes with relief and she sinks back into the bed, because lying upright against the leg of her desk is, undeniably, a dark-coloured battleshell.
Now that her heart isn't beating nearly as loud in her ears, she's able to register the sound of soft, quiet breathing on her neck. The little wisps of air passing over her skin every few seconds. The telltale shift of someone's face burying itself between her shoulder blades. The heat coming from the arms she now knows are still hugging her so very tight and still very much partially restricting her airflow.
Oh, and of course - whatever the heck she's lying on that's currently rubbing up against her thigh.
"Crap," She winces when she adjusts her leg and the thing ends up digging a little harder into her. Darn it - all she needs to do is lift herself up enough so she can just grab it, but with the way she's lying flushed against his body like she's strapped onto a surgical table isn't helping.
"C'mon, O'Neil, think - just think." Her face scrunches up in thought as she mutters under her breath - obviously, simply trying to squirm and wriggle her way out didn't work. If she wasn't able to get out when she was essentially in survival mode, then there's no way she's getting out when she knows who's occasionally humming into the base of her neck.
Or, well. That's…not exactly true. She can probably brute force her way out if she tries hard enough. But it's not an idea she's willing to try - normally she would be, but. Um.
Just - look, a few things happened yesterday, alright? She doesn't feel like kicking him out right now. Maybe later.
She does, however, want to be able to take in a full breath again, so she racks her brain for something useful. She can't do anything to try and pry the arms off since she's pinned in a way that prevents her from even bending her elbows, keeping her hands to her sides. That idea's out. She also crosses off anything to do with using her feet - every plan involving them will end up in bruises, she's sure of it, and she doesn't want to hurt him (or herself) in the process.
Hm. …Hold on, wait.
"Waiiit, wait wait gimme a sec-" Oh, she's got this.
Tilting her head down until her chin meets her chest, she looks at where the arms are resting on her. She inhales as much air as she's able to while her lungs are being crushed, then blows it out in a light, steady stream of cool, ticklish breath.
It doesn't work right away and it takes a few tries, but soon she hears a low, irritated groan and she breathes in a full lungful as the arms fall away to rub off the weird sensation that was crawling over their skin. Sensing that she's distracted them for only a moment, April quickly slides her arms up before they wrap themselves back around her waist. Success!
To no one but herself, April quietly pumps her fist in the air using her now-freed hand.
Finally - she tilts her left hip up and she's able to get her hand under her side, only needing to feel around for a moment before she's taking the pointy thing out. When she does, she sighs. It's her phone, still in its signature cat-themed case - she must've lied down on its ears. Well, there's that mystery solved, but she's not looking forward to seeing those indents in her skin later.
Pushing that thought aside, April goes to turn the device on. Nothing happens. She presses the power button a few more times until something flashes on the screen. It's an outline of a battery, with a red line on the bottom of it.
Dead. Of course it is.
She bites back a groan and places her phone down next to her chest, and starts to inch herself towards the left side of her bed. While she's glad she's got both arms free, it doesn't get easier moving when you're stuck lying on your side and also dragging behind something akin to an octopus strapped to your back. She ends up doing this weird paddling motion with her limbs until she's reaching over and grabbing the edge of the mattress, arms straining with the effort of pulling both herself and her nuisance up to where she wants.
She drops her right arm over the edge and leans off the bed until she feels the carpet, dragging her fingers over it until they catch on what she hopes is a cord. It is! And she celebrates under her breath then plugs it into her phone.
As would be typical in her life, however, disaster strikes as she's holding the button to wake it up.
"Mmm, no, April-"
After those words are mumbled far too loudly and lucid-sounding into her ear, several things happen at once. Caught off guard by the sound of her bedfellow's voice, April jumps and the phone tumbles off her fingers and tragically slides off the bed with a light thud. Without even a second to mourn, suddenly the arms around her manage to grip even tighter and she feels herself being lifted off her side. April's eyes widen in horror as - in one impressively smooth motion - she goes from lying on her left side to lying on her right as her beloved guest picks her up like she weighs nothing and turns over to the other half of the bed, decidedly bringing her along for the ride.
For someone so terrified of emotional intimacy, he sure is clingy.
April's hands slam down to grasp at the sheets, now worringly close to the edge. She waits a few moments to see if anything else happens, then tries to scoot back up the bed. But there just isn't enough room, so she begrudgingly settles for linking her ankles over her bedmate's, crossing her fingers that he won't drop her.
Minutes pass and April stays snug to his front, his grip unrelenting and secure. He's not letting go anytime soon, it seems, so April tentatively sinks back into his hard chest. Well. There's…really not much else she can do in this situation. Trapped between a wall and a cliff's edge, her only option is to wait for either part to recede or catch her.
…Then she realizes that metaphor doesn't really make any sense, and it's at that point she remembers how tired she is.
She stares into the dark - there's no window on this side of her room, so all she sees is pitch-black nothingness that'll disappear when morning comes. As she's struggling to keep her mind from fizzling out into unconsciousness, there's a niggling feeling inside her gut that's telling her she's forgetting about something very important. Something that she should get to as soon as she wakes up in the morning. But instead of listening to that, she focuses on the steady tick of her wall clock, the faint blare of the city streets down below, and the even, calm breathing of her best friend.
Soon, she's waking up again. This time she's grimacing at the sunlight hitting her face.
"Ugh," April turns her body away from the blinding rays - and immediately regrets it as her limbs flail to keep herself from falling off the bed. Oh right, she got turned over like a rotisserie earlier. Hooking her elbows and knees into the mattress for dear life, she returns to her original position where she'd woken up lying on her back.
Huh. It's soft.
Turning her head to her left this time, she sees the face of the boy responsible for all her hardships these past few hours-felt-like-days.
"You're not even awake and you still managed to cause trouble, didn'tcha D?" She says, muttering under her breath. Donnie doesn't respond, obviously, still fast asleep and blissfully unaware of everything he did while he was unconscious. At some point during her nap, Donnie finally let go and somehow managed to keep April from hitting the floor in the dead of night, instead depositing her on her back when he pulled away. He's snoring a little, his bandana-less face now buried into a pillow rather than her shoulders. Similarly, his arms are tucked close to his chest and under his chin instead of around her like he's doing the Heimlich.
April doesn't know how or why he held onto her for so long - doesn't remember him being so, uh, attached back when they were kids. In fact, she distinctly remembers one sleepover where an almost-11-year-old Donnie showed off his pillow armour - how it'd inflate like an airbag if someone got too close to him while he was sleeping. It wasn't fun trying to explain to their dad how Mikey woke up with a nasty black eye the next morning.
Knowing that, she's pretty sure he'll get a heart attack if she told him later that he ended up spending a good chunk of time spooning her and nuzzling her neck.
After what she's been through, she thinks she just might. If she's learned one thing from being friends with the Hamatos after all these years, it's that you keep a handy stack of blackmail in your arsenal at all times. And while she still has plenty of bribes she can use on Donnie whenever she needs a favour, it's always nice to have extra.
Suddenly Donnie's face begins to twitch and April watches as his brows and mouth turn inward before he mumbles out a few unintelligible words. She smiles when his frown deepens - he's deep in a dream right now, probably watching something dumb happen before his eyes. Maybe his brothers.
She ends up staring at him for a long while, actually, mesmerized by how emotive he is. His brows jump erratically on his forehead and he keeps pursing his lips in disapproval, forming silent words with his mouth that she knows are dripping with flagrant sarcasm. It's so telling that his mind never rests, even when he's supposed to be. Never stops thinking, either.
Her smile drops.
Eventually, whatever he's dreaming about passes and his face returns to its neutral state, including the familiar wrinkle in his brow. Without thinking, April reaches out a careful hand to rub it away with her thumb. He hums at the contact, but is otherwise unbothered. Yesterday's conversation must've taken a toll on him if even that doesn't make him stir.
She wasn't expecting anybody last night, since as far as she knew her closest friends were busy grabbing a bulk order of Bro's Pizza and were heading over to Manhattan Bridge later with it. She can't remember why - wasn't really listening when Leo explained over the phone before four angry voices started yelling in the background and he abruptly hung up. She'd been busy doing something else at the time, like digesting the contents of a certain letter she received earlier in the mail that morning.
The same one that sits unanswered on her desk.
…Anyway. That meant she was caught unaware when a large silhouetted figure suddenly appeared on the fire escape outside, lifting the window up and taking an uninvited step into her home. It's only after she grabbed her trusty bat and turned on the kitchen light that she realized that it was Donnie, who now laid on the floor fairly bruised and beaten.
"What is wrong with you - why the heck didn't ya just, oh I don't know, used the front door and knocked?! I could've let you in!" She said to him then, having brought over the first aid kit.
"Two reasons," He held up a bandaged finger. "One. I'm a ninja, O'Neil, if you've sorely forgotten - the point of which means that I am obligated to never use the standard method of entry for the purposes of performing stealth and/or radical stunts."
He raised up a second bandaged finger. "And two - I was going to, but then I saw two old ladies go up the elevator to your floor and you are playing me as a fool if you think I was going to feed myself to the wolves so willingly."
It took her a second to translate that. "...You weren't risking the chance that you would've had to make small talk in the elevator for thirty seconds."
"Of course I wasn't!"
It boggles her mind thinking about how that eventually led to the talk they had later that evening. But maybe that was just par for the course - how after over seven years of friendship, he still manages to surprise her.
It…was a really nice surprise. She won't forget it.
Said friend starts to shift over in his sleep, unintentionally closing the distance between their bodies again. Donnie moves over until he's sharing the same pillow April's resting on, leaving mere inches between them.
All this time, her eyes have yet to leave his face.
She should move. She doesn't want either of them to get hurt when his body inevitably jerks forward and decides to headbutt her in his sleep.
She should move. She can feel each and every one of his little exhales on her face with how close he is.
She should move. Her gaze keeps tracing over the deep wrinkles around his mouth and brows, the growing bags underneath his eyes, the dryness of his lips.
His lips.
She has to move. Because she's too far past his comfort zone, because she failed to react when he moved his body closer to hers again, because she realizes that if she just tilts her head the slightest bit more and leans the smallest distance forward she might be able to-
Donnie snorts loud and ugly before turning his head to bury his whole face into the pillow, his snores blaringly clear even as he attempts to breathe through silk fabric. The sound jolts April out of her thoughts. Then she stiffens, body frozen in place.
…What just happened?
That, um. That…she didn't just think that. Nope, nuh-uh, no way, no siree.
But her denial doesn't stop the blush from rolling underneath her skin, like an oncoming thunderstorm.
When her eyes dart back to Donnie's sleeping form, no longer does she feel that sense of comfort and fondness sitting warm in her chest ever since she turned over to look at him. Instead, all she feels is fear.
And for the first time, April's choosing to run from it.
She turns her body away and hits the floor back-first as she rolls off the bed but she doesn't care, only bites her tongue to keep from groaning in pain and looks to check if Donnie woke up from the loud thud sound that came from it, breathing out a sigh of relief when he doesn't. Her heart pounds in her chest as she scrambles over to the other side of the bed on her hands and knees, and looks for where her phone fell earlier this morning. She hisses out a swear when she turns it on and sees the time.
"Damn it-" She completely forgot that she had a shift today. Now she's two hours late.
With no time to spare, she stumbles up to her feet and runs over to her closet, wincing as the door rattles loudly when she slides it open. Her eyes stay on Donnie as she tugs her stuff down from her hangers, noting that he's curled himself up into a tight ball in the middle of her bed, her sheets clenched in his fists.
(She silently berates herself when her mind dares to suggest that he looks adorable like that - no, April. Not right now. Actually, not ever.)
She takes her bag and phone with her when she goes to the bathroom to change, planning to go straight out the door as soon as she's ready. With one last glance back to the boy in her bed, she crosses her fingers that he simply assumes that she had to be somewhere and that's why she didn't bother waking him up.
And instead just left him alone. In her apartment. In her bed. In which he shouldn't have been sleeping in to start with.
"Stupid," She groans to herself after she locks the front door behind her and runs to the fire exit, unwilling to wait for the elevator. "Should've just kicked you out, should've just woke you up and told you thanks and made you leave- should've made you go back to them before I started crying on you- stupid, stupid, stupid oh my god you're so stupid-"
As she descends the stairs, she doesn't think about how he'll react when he finds himself completely and suddenly alone in what is absolutely not his bed. Doesn't think about how it's inevitable he'll bring it up the next time they see each other, how it's impossible that she won't get a text asking what happened by the time she gets off work.
Doesn't think about how on earth she'll be able to look him in the eyes again without thinking about…that.
(She tries to, anyway.)