Chapter Text
“Okay you definitely can’t deny it now, you’re totally cheating!”
“How would you know? You don’t even know how to play Monopoly!”
“Neither do you! Those instructions you found are missing half the pages. Not to MENTION that the other half got completely soaked!” The instruction booklet made a brittle cracking sound as it was tossed into the air, landing right on top of the game board.
“I thought we agreed to have a peaceful game night, for once?” The scattered Monopoly pieces were swept into one pile. “Purple, you are cheating, we can tell, and Blue you need to stop throwing the pieces around before we lose them!”
“Huff! I am not cheating, I am being a businessman, thank you. Hey, not throwing the game pieces doesn’t mean to start throwing ME!” Purple swatted Blue away as he attempted to shove him over. “Stop touching me! Red, make him STOP!”
“I’m not even touching you anymore! Bleh!” Blue flipped the entire Monopoly board over.
Red sighed, “That’s it, game night over.” She folded the board back up and put it into the beat-up box again, shoving the pieces in wherever they would fit. “We’re going to lose these pieces, and then none of us will be able to play Monopoly. So maybe we should just take a break for now, yeah?”
Blue glared at Purple. “See? Now you ruined game night!” He said, which was met with an argumentative screeching noise from his twin brother.
“Alright, alright.” Red separated the two. “It’s time for bed. Right? Purple check the time.”
Purple pulled out his cracked phone from his hoodie pocket before clicking the power button so it’d turn on. “Yup. 8:00. Technically we were supposed to head to bed at least ten minutes ago.”
Red nodded and Purple put his phone away. Blue picked up the Monopoly box and set it off to the side before the three headed off in one direction together.
The makeshift sewer lair wasn’t the best place to stay, but it was hidden. It was hidden and it was where they could wait for Orange to come back.
Orange, who’d been swept away by the same sewer almost two years before.
Orange, who Red refused to believe wasn’t coming back.
Blue and Purple both had their doubts, Purple much more than Blue, though they both were still clinging onto the hope that they’d be able to find him one day. Orange still had his own “room”, which was more of a tent just as all the other rooms were, even though he’d never lived in the lair. Blue kept a teddy bear in Orange’s room, just so that it wasn’t empty.
Sometimes they wondered if the teddy bear ever got lonely in there.
Red slept in there sometimes, just to be sure.
But she didn’t that night. She went to her own room and zipped it closed. Something she rarely ever did, only when the twins were in arguments that she knew only they could solve on their own.
Purple slid over to his room, threw off his makeshift backpack- which was just a pillowcase tied around his shell- along with his arm prosthetic and glasses, and fell right onto his mattress. Pulling his hood over his head, he rolled over until his back was towards the tent opening. A risky move for a softshell turtle. As the faint sound of thundering began overhead and the sounds of running water in the sewers became slightly louder, he knew it was only a matter of time. He began counting down the seconds.
“Heyy Purpleee?” And there it was.
“Yes, Blue?” Purple turned over to look at his twin brother, slightly elevating himself with his full arm. Blue was standing at the archway to his tent, his blue bandana off of his head already like it always was when he slept.
“I’m really, really, really sorry for calling you out for cheating even though you definitely were but Red has already zipped her room shut and I’m afraid of the water so can I please sleep in here?” There was a faint shake to his voice that Purple was used to on nights like these. Usually these nights all three would huddle in Red’s room, but tonight her room was a “no twins allowed” zone.
Storms and rain were the reason they began hiding in the sewers. It became annoying to have everything they owned become soaking wet whenever it rained, so they started going underground when they could tell it was beginning to happen. Unfortunately, the traveling rate of sewer water, as well as the levels, was much higher when it was raining. They learned that bit the hard way, so it was reasonable for the three to become slightly nervous when they heard the water pick up.
“Mhm, come here.” Purplesat up a bit, grabbing the blanket that he didn’t need due to his hoodie and laying it out on the other end of the mattress. Blue quickly walked into the room and laid down on top of the blanket, pulling the rest over him. He had to slightly nudge Purple’s backpack-pillowcase over before settling.
Purple laid back down and curled up, putting his legs into his jacket.“Alsoo, I’m sorry that I said you didn’t know how to play Monopoly even though you really don’t.” He added, “And for trying to bite you when you shoved me.”
His brother yawned before smiling, seemingly calming down. “And I’m sorry for flipping over the monopoly board and ticking Red off.”
“We wouldn’t be apologizing to each other right now if you hadn’t.” Purple pointed out.
Blue made an “ah” sound, his voice becoming increasingly quieter and more drawn out as he said “Well nevermind then.” And then he was asleep. Not long after that, so was Purple.
The two of them awoke to Purple’s phone alarm, which Purple forgot he’d set and was honestly really really mad at right about now. Blue was laying on the floor halfway across the tent, wrapped up like a caterpillar in the blanket he’d fallen asleep on. It took him a good moment, but he did manage to un-caterpillar himself and stand up just as Purple turned his phone alarm off.
After putting his glasses back on his face and re-attaching his arm prosthetic, Purple joined his brother outside of the tent. Blue went over to his own room to get his stuff. Red was already out, and was sitting on one of their bean bag chairs reading a comic.
“I'm guessing I'm stuck getting breakfast again today?” Purple asked, mostly directed at Red but said in a general way.
Blue came back from his room, tying his bandana around his head. “Yup, you probably are. Like usual.” He hopped onto another bean bag chair and grabbed a comic from their pile.
“You two need to get off your butts and go get food one of these days. I can't be the ONLY one that ever goes out! It's not fair.” Purple crossed his arms.
Red looked up from the comic she was reading and looked directly at at her brother. “Hate to break it to ya, P., but you’re the only one of us that can actually look anything like a normal person. It’s kinda hard to get breakfast when you’re hiding every other second.”
And she wasn’t completely wrong. Purple was the only one of the three with a jacket, which covered almost his entire upper body and could shadow his head out enough that the lack of hair and green skin wouldn’t be noticeable. He wore a glove on his real hand and the amount of fingers on a prosthetic didn’t shock anyone, plus the sleeves on the jacket were so long that his hands were covered most of the time anyway. He had shoes that he always wore outside so nobody could ever really see his feet..
Plus, with his soft shell, he had the most human-like physical shape.
“SIGH.. alright. What do we want today? Personally I’d go for pancakes but that’s just mee..” Purple said, trying to be subtle about pushing his preferences even though he was making it very obvious. Blue looked at him with a face that said he definitely could tell, but Purple ignored the face.
“Pancakes are.. Fine I guess. We just had those a few days ago, though.” Blue said after a long moment. “But if you want them then okay.”
Red never minded no matter what they got, so pancakes it was! Now it was just up to Purple to actually get the pancakes. Which was the hardest part. Purple grabbed his pillowcase-backpack and tied it around his waist again in preparation.
They didn’t have jobs, so they didn’t have money. The only reason they had most of the stuff Purple used to build machines and tech was from dismantling already built things. This list included random things that had been thrown out, a computer that some poor college student had dropped along with his whole backpack while running away after seeing Purple (Purple got his phone and jacket from that person, too. A lucky day indeed,) old school equipment, and a toaster that one time. Everything else was usually taken from alleyways or outside of trash cans.
Their food was stolen straight from the source, though. The amount of times they’d stolen from different food establishments made Purple question how nobody was suspicious every time he entered one. Oh well, whatever, it’s New York, most eating places were so incredibly busy that Purple could get around without anyone even noticing him anyway.
But he never liked going to the same place twice within a week. He’d already made a mess of the pancake place he’d gone to a few mornings prior. He just wanted to try something different, so instead of stealing the pancakes themselves he stole a small pancake fryer and pancake batter. They definitely noticed the fryer was missing, and Purple had to leave as fast as possible.
But thanks to that really overly-risky stunt, they had a pancake fryer! Purple had even figured out how to make a heating device from the toaster so they could actually use it. So now they could not only make their own pancakes, but cook a few other things as well.
And it would be much less risky to just go to a supermarket or something and grab the stuff you need to make pancakes. Everyone else was minding their own business there, and who actually buys the pancake mix the morning that they’re making pancakes? Who other than the turtles, anyway.
Once he was out of the sewers, it was time to find his target. After a few minutes walking around he finally reached the nearest supermarket. Unlike fast food places, where he’d usually have to sneak in through the employee door, Purple could just walk right into a supermarket. Nobody there really questioned a kid walking around alone.
Of course that would mean he wouldn’t get to use his abilities to hack into the security cameras and turn them off, but sneaking in through the back door would probably raise more suspicion than the front. First he made sure that his pillowcase-backpack was securely tied around him, and then he went inside.
He made a mental list of the things you need to make box pancakes. The actual box, of course, they already had a bowl, spoons, and gallon jugs of water so that wasn’t too big of an issue. Luckily, too, those were the hardest to sneak out with. Then they might need eggs and some oil depending on what boxes Purple could find.
Alright. Not too hard. Just gotta be inconspicuous.. Which, luckily, I am a professional at. Purple lied to himself.
He got to the baking aisle in no time at all. Mostly the aisle was filled with box cakes, cookies, brownies, and most importantly, pancakes! There was a wide selection of box pancakes in the aisle, but Purple knew he didn’t have all day to look at the ingredients to figure out which ones were the best so he had to settle for skimming over them.
What exactly was the best for pancakes depended on a lot of things. Easy construction, ingredients, which were less likely to shorten their life spans, the simple things someone may consider when looking for pancakes. Unfortunately Purple didn’t really know how to judge this, since it was the first time he was getting box pancakes.
They did make box pancakes one other time, but Blue had gone to the store on the day they got those. He’d forgotten that you need to actually cook the pancakes with something, so pretty much they made the pancake batter and then threw it out after trying to cook it with a light bulb and failing miserably. Red claimed she’d still eat it but neither of the other two let her because it would probably make her sick.
He did know, however, that the pancake box Blue had gotten had been overly complicated. So they definitely weren’t getting that again. After determining that all the boxes were equally as bad in terms of “you’re probably not supposed to live off of these”, Purple decided to settle on just getting the one with simplest ingredients.
He found one that just required the mix and 1 ½ cups of water per two cups of the mix, which was the easiest one that he could find. He’d have to figure out how to measure with tablespoons, but he figured that couldn’t possibly be that hard.
And just because he liked plain pancakes didn’t mean that Red and Blue did, so finee he’d get extra ingredients, too. Purple grabbed a box of chocolate chips from the same aisle as the pancake mix and shoved both of his items into the pillowcase-backpack.
Now the hard part: leaving. He was certain that he didn’t see anybody when he put the items into the pillowcase, but that didn’t exactly mean that nobody else saw him. Not to mention the fact that someone with a backpack (even a weird pillowcase one) leaving a store usually draws suspicion.
Purple peeked around the side of the aisle at the front doors. The cash registers were right by the doors, so it would be incredibly hard to go past them without at least someone noticing unless he set off a distraction. Set off a distraction, quickly leave the store, sounds simple. He’d done it at least once before, though it may have been twice he wasn’t completely sure.
He only really remembered the time he’d gone to the soda aisle, which was also right beside the cash registers, shook up like 5 sodas, and then opened all of them. That had served as a pretty good distraction.
Purple wasn't sure if he’d be able to pull it off again, though. No doubt they’d fixed the broken security camera in that aisle. But he did have one more idea, an idea that could make up for not having to hack anything to get in.
He was constantly thinking of new things to do with his tech. Things that included possibly maybe/maybe-not making tiny bombs that he could plant in one of the aisles to cause a distraction.
It made sense and he knew what aisle to do it in. Soon he was in that aisle, the snack aisle. It was where all the chips were. There wasn’t a security camera pointed at that exact aisle, although there probably should have been. His plan was to open a few bags and boxes, put the mini-bombs in there, and then just kinda leave as the employees tried to figure out why chip bags were exploding.
The bombs weren’t strong enough to hurt anyone, and Purple wasn’t even 100% sure that they’d even break through cardboard, but it was worth a shot. Blue would tell me this was way too complicated and that I should just try leaving like a normal person and see if they reacted, but I’m not risking that. I’m doing this my own way, he and Red don’t have to know.
He put his plan into action immediately. As soon as there was nobody else in the aisle, he opened about 4 bags as silently as he could, and then 4 boxes. That was as many as he could possibly do, since he was only carrying 8 of his devices. Then he grabbed one of the bags of chips, not one of the ones he’d messed with, and left the aisle.
After looking around, he got as close to the doors as he could without looking like he was just hanging out around them, and then set off the mini-bombs. They didn’t make much noise, but the sounds of popping chip bags could definitely be heard, and it luckily drew the attention of the employees.
There were chips scattered around the entire aisle, and everyone’s eyes were drawn to it, giving Purple the perfect chance to leave. He held the chips under his right arm and quickly ran outside, not stopping until he made it home.