Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Mikey awoke in his bed exhausted, and wanting nothing more than to return to the sweet pull of sleep as it tried to take him back under, but he couldn’t let himself. If he ever wanted things to return to normal, he would have to act like everything was normal.

He was surprised to hear his brothers awake before him, harsh whisper’s bouncing off the lair walls. He was less surprised to hear them arguing. Leo bit back a particularly harsh sounding reply, which Mikey could only tell from the way that Raph fumbled to respond back to it. He remembered hoping that the fighting would stop one day, one of the brothers stopping before something between them broke that they couldn’t fix, he still hoped it would happen, even as the voices around the lair got louder and the pain in his chest hurt worse.

He dragged himself to the washroom, limbs heavy and brain foggy, and began to rub one eye slowly to get the sleep out of it. He felt a sharp nick against the side of his beak and hissed in pain.

He got to the bathroom quicker after that, looking into the mirror they had managed to snag for Leo some time ago. He was surprised to see the bright red cut on the bridge of his beak, but was pushed into action when it began to bleed. He’d fix the wound up first, then question what cut him.

He found the fun bandaids below the sink, some time ago he had painted some bandaids for himself so he could cover any papercuts he got from his art, only to discover that they worked just as well when he accidentally hurt himself chewing at his nails. The first time he had worn one he had shown Donnie, who had managed to show some excitement despite his obvious concern of having paint so close to a wound. Mikey said it was fine, the paint only flaked off a little, but it was worth it cause it helped them heal faster, and Donnie managed to somewhat drop it.

He put a bright purple one on it, the Donnie one, because he could still hear his other two brothers arguing a room over and he didn’t want to think about their harsh words.

Next thing on his to do list was to figure out what had cut him. His mask still hung limply on his neck so it wasn’t something sticking to it, and he hadn’t done much with his face yet, he’d wash it later. So that left… his hands. He sucked in air through his teeth as he looked down at his hands.

There were… claws. His nails looked more like claws.

Raph had a somewhat similar problem in the past, after letting his nails grow out for longer than usual, they were sharper than the snapping turtle liked. He had been quite distraught after realizing that he couldn’t really let his nails grow out much without them becoming spiky like the rest of him. If a pair of nail scissors ended up in his room the next day so he could cut them, well, none of them were wiser to it.

Mikey didn’t really need to do that, half the time his nails didn’t grow out that fast, and the other half he was biting them until they were close to the base of his fingers. They shouldn’t have been able to grow so quickly, and something about it dug a pit in Mikey’s stomach.

Swallowing his anxiety, he tried using his teeth like normal to shorten his nails. Despite biting and pulling as he normally did, the nail almost hurt his teeth to bite at, like biting into a bone while eating chicken.

He stealthily made his way to Raph’s room, finding the pair of nail scissors in a cup on his nightstand. He sat on the ground as he lined them up to the nail, ready to be over with this nightmare.

As the scissors closed in, they clamped shut on the nail, seemingly unable to break through. Mikey forced himself to breathe as he got a better grasp on the scissors and tried again, desperately trying to cut at his nail, only for the scissors to dully scrape against them. He realized distantly after the third or fifth try that he could actually feel the scissors on the nail, could feel the sharp blade on the bed as if it was any other part of him, he swallowed down the whimper in his throat.

Placing the scissors back, he reasoned that they probably just hadn’t been sharpened in a while, unable to cut after being used for Raph’s nails for so long. That was it.

So he went to his own room, grabbing his crafting scissors maybe a little too quickly, and quickly setting them against the tip of his finger.

It took a little more effort that he reasoned it should, his crafting scissors meant to cut dense fabric were sharp, and even they struggled to cut his nails too. Eventually though he got it, doing his best to block out the feeling of the scissors clamping down.

It hadn’t really hurt, or at least he didn’t think so, but he could still feel the scissors on his nail like a phantom pain. Shaking out his hands, he put his own scissors back and focused on the task at hand, he still had to make breakfast after all.

His mind was distracted while he cooked, the usually calming activity didn’t seem to be enough to block out the alarm bells blaring in his mind. He shook his head, placing the breakfast at the table, and became aware that the arguing had died down.

Leo entered the kitchen a moment later, smiling his goofy smile, and Mikey felt his own anxiety wean just a little. His brother entered the room with his usual flare, walking right up to Mikey with no hesitation and wrapping an arm around his brother.

“Good morning Miguel, I thought I smelled something wonderful cooking, I see we’re having waffles?” He hadn’t intended waffles that morning, but the autopilot of his brain had decided they were easy enough to make, so waffles it is.

“Uh- yeah. Waffles today! Do you want blueberries on yours like normal? Or do you want to try something like strawberries?” This was fine, he’d focus on his brother’s who were probably making their way to the kitchen, afterall, the nails were probably a freak accident. Yep everything would be fine.

“I think we both know I want blueberries, I don’t know what it is but blue is just superior!” Leo looked knowingly in the direction of the train car with purple curtains, and Mikey could have sworn he heard a distant groan. Mikey wanted to reply, wanted to respond with his own humor and jokes, but his playful mood died in his throat as he thought back to the scissors once more. He offered his brother a soft smile instead and went over to the fridge to add blueberries to his waffle.

“Are you doing ok hermano? You seem a little…” Mikey couldn’t see the hand movement he did, but he knew what Leo meant anyway.

“Yeah I’m just a little off today. Really anxious.” He focused on placing blueberries in the cross sections of the waffle just like Leo liked. “But I’ll be fine, food is always a good anxiety reducer.”

He caught Leo giving him a look for that, but he didn’t comment so Mikey was probably off the hook.

A moment later Donnie walked in, the sound of his feet shuffling against the floor as he dragged himself out of bed (or the lab if he hadn’t slept) and into the kitchen.

Mikey thanked his autopilot for remembering to put coffee on for his purple sleep deprived brother, he passed the cup to Donnie who added anything he wanted before chugging the beverage. A comfortable quiet swept over the lair and Mikey basked in it until the feeling came creeping back again.

Maybe he should tell his brothers about what happened that morning, they would comfort him, Leo taking his mind off of it as Donnie did extensive research, and Raph would hug him and make it feel like all of his problems went away. He’d end up feeling silly because why didn’t he go to them sooner?

But Mikey wasn’t dumb, he could see the tension in the new lair, heard the constant fights from his brothers and sadness that still followed them all. They had lost their home, the place they had known all their life, they had lost Gram Gram. The shredder attacked and it felt like this new home was more of a scar, uncomfortable and ugly against their happy family as they still struggled to settle in. He wouldn’t tell them, because he could handle this on his own and they didn’t need to know unless it got bad.
Donnie raised an eyebrow at him as he went to set the table, his eyes flicking to the bandage and back up to Mikey’s eyes.

“I scratched myself this morning.” Not a lie. “I thought it might have been from my mask” Also not a lie.

Donnie leaned forward in his seat, sipping at the already empty cup as though he magically had more coffee. “Is that why you aren’t wearing your mask?”

Mikey blanched, reaching a hand up as he felt no material there, in all the chaos he had forgotten to put on his mask, good going Mikey. He laughed nervously, glancing at Donnie, “yeah I took it off after I got scratched, must have forgotten to put it back on.” Now that was a lie, but if either of his brothers caught it, they didn’t comment.

Leo seemed to be watching Mikey closely, which made him feel out of place in the room. He was glad when Raph came in a moment later, Leo’s worried glances changing to annoyed ones directed at Raph. A different kind of oppressive energy filled the room, but at least it wasn’t directed at him.

They finished breakfast in an uneasy silence, watching each of his brothers disappear into their prospective rooms after finishing the meal. Mikey tried to ignore the uneasy feeling rising in his stomach as he watched the colored curtains close.

Most days they spent fighting enemies, but in their down time they each went into their own worlds to do whatever they wanted.

Mikey used to bug his brothers, he would insert himself into whatever Leo was doing, help Donnie think more outside of the box, and climb all over Raph, but that was before the Shredder had stuffed the space between them.

Now his brothers were more defensive, Leo’s walls becoming ever higher, denying Mikey entry into his activities; Donnie invented more and more for every possibility leaving Mikey with no chance to catch up; and Raph desperately needed to shield him from any new possible pain that the snapper thought might come his way and Mikey found himself trapped with nowhere to climb. It became increasingly difficult to hang out with his brothers in the same ways he always had.

Which was totally fine! He was cool, and had his own things he could do. Practicing art had always managed to fill a good chunk of his days, and their gaming system and tv were left awfully alone since the whole incident too, but Mikey didn’t mind giving them a little attention. He could fill his days with things to do, because his brothers all seemed to be able to, and what would that say about him if he couldn’t?

So he spent the day drawing, practicing things he had never been good at and expanding upon the worlds in his brain. He only stopped to get himself lunch, and later again dinner. No point in making full meals if they weren’t gonna talk during them.

Which was a thing that kept happening. Leo and Raph seemed to take whatever agitation had been between them during a fight into every meal, Mikey already did his best to tune them out, they didn’t need to make it harder on him by carrying it around with them like luggage.

It didn’t matter that it was hard on him though, if anything it spoke volumes about something else just below the surface that all of the brother’s were too nervous to speak about.

That night when he went to sleep, his mind ran with the thoughts of sharp claws growing out of his fingers, and he really hoped it was just a freak accident.

Chapter Text

Mikey was disappointed when he woke up the next day and found the claws had grown back. Maybe disappointed wasn’t quite the right word though, he could feel fear crawling around in his gut despite his attempts to keep pushing it down. He could feel it try to overtake him, but he had just woken up, was too tired to deal with it right away, so he just let it simmer in the background as he got up. He made sure to grab his fabric scissors on the way.

Trudging out of his room, he barely noticed the purple turtle in front of him, only just stopping before he knocked into him. Donnie stood outside of Mikey’s room, and he had just enough presence of mind to hide the scissor’s behind his back after realizing it was his older brother in front of him. He thanked pizza supreme in the sky that his brother hadn’t had his coffee yet, it was obvious from the way that Donnie’s arms hung limply at his sides, and his eyes were open only just enough that he could move around the lair without bumping into things.

It took Mikey’s own brain a moment to realize that it wasn’t normal for Donnie to not immediately go for the coffee machine when he woke up, maybe once he figured out why he’d make himself a cup too.

Donnie rubbed his face with one of his arms, the movements slow and sloppy, he groaned before opening his eyes just a smidge more so Mikey knew he was being addressed. “Stay out of Leo’s way.” Donnie said half under his breath only for Mikey to hear, it made him feel like they were closer together than they were a second ago. “Leo is on a warpath today and I don’t want you getting caught in it.”

Before Mikey could hope to ask any questions, Donnie turned around and stalked toward his lab. Mikey was left in the silence of his wake.

Some days it seemed like Leo wanted nothing more than to argue, he would find any reason to get mad at them and snap, any reason to get Raph to yell at him; to get Donnie to hiss insults his direction; and to get Mikey to storm off. They called those days warpath days, because you couldn’t possibly hope to be on his good side. Mikey had tried talking to him about it on a better day, but Leo had just given him a goofy smile and a noogie, and Mikey was left to go back through his psychology books in case he had missed something.

Instantly, it made the weight of the day set on his shoulders before it had even begun, and he wanted nothing more than to return to his bed. He forced himself toward the bathroom instead, walking toward the sink across the doorway.

His sigh was shaky as he let it fill the room for a second, he took only a moment to look at himself in the mirror again, at the light bags forming under his eyes, before he got to work on his nails. He cut them into the sink, using the water to wash away any evidence despite Donnie’s warnings of clogged pipes.

He decided to play it safe that day, making meals only for himself and generally avoiding his brothers. Maybe if he stayed out of their way he would find them waiting for him one day, and he would know it was ok because they had come back for him.

However, he wasn’t so lucky, as after he had made himself dinner that night, he happened to run into Leo as he stormed into the room. He sucked in a quick breath as the turtle yelled something back at whoever he had argued with last.

Anger rolled off of him as he shot sharp glances at the door behind him, then his vision turned to Mikey, then down to the sandwich he had made for dinner. “Did you use the last bit of the bread for that?” he spat, and really it didn’t matter how Mikey answered, he nodded, the movement almost not visible. “Gah! Of course you did, because no one respects what I have to do! Just. It’s fine now. Just eat it. Next time you haven’t eaten for hours I’ll make sure to eat the last of the easy ingredients to work with.”

He was mostly ranting to himself, but Mikey felt the pointedness of the remarks like it was a sword aimed at his chest. Without saying a word Mikey bolted from the room sandwich in hand as he made it back to his familiar train car. He knew Leo didn’t mean it, but he was no longer hungry, and the sandwich was left half eaten on his nightstand next to the scissors.

It wasn’t even that late, it was only around 10pm, but the weight felt heavier on Mikey than ever before, and he only wanted to rest. He curled up in bed, as he laid there his mind ran and forgot to take him with it, he felt tired but his mind refused to quiet down, because of course it did.

He had spent all day doing his best not to provoke his brothers, he knew Leo just needed more patience right now. They had lost a family member, a family member they didn’t even know about, and Leo blamed himself for not being faster. Mikey sometimes imagined him as a vase, the loss of their gram gram, their lair, and just everything the shredder did had broken him into little pieces and they were still trying to find the last one. That last piece kept cutting them though, but if they were patient they would find it one day, and then they could really help Leo in the way he needed.

Sometimes Mikey imagined himself as a broken vase too, he wondered if they found all of his pieces; he wondered if they had only found one.

Finally his mind began to drift off to sleep, and Mikey found himself wishing for a better day tomorrow.

~

The next day the claws were still there, but something felt different in the air around him. He got up, stretching, and even though they were deep in the sewers he could have sworn he had heard birds chirping.

He checked his clock, and was pleasantly surprised to see that he had woken up earlier that day than the last two. Maybe things were finally starting to look up. Sure he had these weird claws, but they were easy enough to deal with; in the scheme of things they were really inconsequential.

He felt better that morning. He couldn’t really pin down the emotion, which was odd for him, but he was much lighter in a way that he hadn’t been for a really long time.

He found himself staring up at the graffiti on his walls and ceiling, cats, dogs, and various animals sleeping surrounded his bed, because he had always found the company of others comforting when you wanted to go to sleep. Somehow they too seemed better today, rounder and softer, less splatters than usual or maybe they were just wearing down. Mikey would have to remember to repaint them soon if that was the case.

When he passed by the curtains in front of his doorway, he smelled the sweet aroma of pancakes fill the large space. It was odd, only on very rare occasions did anyone beside Mikey ever cook, they had even deemed it Mikey’s kitchen at one point before that became too much of a mouthful. Yet, Mikey found his mouth watering, food being cooked by another and it being actually good was even rarer.

He made himself go to the washroom before venturing into the kitchen, he didn’t need any questions, this was something he could deal with on his own. After discarding the clippings, he made a beeline for the kitchen, almost running to get there as fast as he could.

He was shocked as he came into the kitchen to see Leo, good old can’t cook a hotdog in the microwave to save his life Leo, serving up pancakes that actually looked good, and not just barely edible. It wasn’t only Leo in the kitchen, Raph and Donnie sat at a counter with their respective cups, a conversation flowing between them. For a moment, Donnie’s tone changed and became slightly harsher, he was almost scared that it would ruin the moment, but instead Raph chuckled and bumped the genius in good fun, a smirk landing on Dee’s own face in response. Mikey couldn’t help the smile that grew on his face as he watched the familiar scene with an ache of nostalgia.

Leo must have noticed him lingering in the doorway, as he beckoned Mikey over with a wave of the pan, and Mikey thought it was a miracle that the pancake didn’t fall off. He was served three chocolate chip pancakes in the shape of cats with smiley faces by Leo, who smiled and threw his mask tails back with a flourish.

“Please enjoy this wonderful breakfast served by yours truly.” The image sat in such contrast with the one from yesterday.

His confusion must have been clear because Donnie, who was mid-bite on his own pancakes, explained to him “Leo’s making up for being a jerk yesterday.”

Leo glared at him, flicking flour in his twin's face as Donnie did his best to swipe it away. Raph gave him a look and he chuckled before looking at Mikey again. He still hadn’t touched his pancakes, too stunned to do anything but watch with a deep ache in his chest, because this is how he wanted things to be. It was just like it was in their old lair and the familiarity hurt in a way he didn’t know it would, it was just good.

“Ok so maybe he’s right, just a little though.” Leo admitted, and despite his joking tone Mikey knew he meant it. Either way Raph still cleared his throat and he conceded, “finnneee… I’m really sorry for being a jerk Mike. I get all dumb brain and you guys don’t deserve that. I appreciate your patience while I’m working things out, but I need to work on the whole ‘being a jerk thing’ heh.”

He rubbed the back of his head, and Mikey didn’t have to try for a smile when he nodded at his brother. “Don’t worry Leo, we love you even when you're a jerk. You can always come to us if you need help though.” To solidify his point, he took a bite out of the pancake, and was amazed at how good (though not as good as his own) it was.

Apparently, Leo’s apology wasn’t finished there. He spent the whole day making it up to his brothers, he was kind and patient with each of them and hung out with them like nothing had changed. He avoided any fights with Raph, promising and actually fulfilling his promise, to listen and hear what Raph was saying. Mikey knew that there was too much for Raph to say, so much that Leo might not get to hear it all, or worse that he might not understand it. But he was listening, and that was good enough for Mikey.

Leo also made them lunch, and dinner when the time came, and just like breakfast they were surprisingly good for Leo. They all ate together, and Mikey felt like he was being sown together in places he had no idea were ever ripped apart. There may have been a few times where he had gotten a little misty, but if any of his brothers had noticed they didn’t say a word.

Eventually the day had to come to an end, and they each dropped off one by one and went back to their rooms. Eventually it was just him and Leo left, they were quietly enjoying each other's company in their new tv area. The silence hung comfily like a blanket around them, Mikey’s soft humming as he tapped at his legs being the only real sound.

That was until Leo broke it, his eyebrows knitting into concern as they looked at Mikey. “Hey Mike?”

He hummed in response.

“Is everything ok with you?”

The question caught him a little off guard. Today was probably the day he had been the most ok in a while, sure it ached to see how things used to be, but it was good because they had returned to that. Even if it ended up only being for that day, it felt good to go back to their norm. “Yeah I am Leo, why do you ask?”

Leo paused for a second, before a smile slipped onto his face, and Mikey felt a little sick that he couldn’t tell if it was real or not. “No reason Miguel, you just seemed a little off. That’s all.”

Mikey searched for his own response in the silence that elapsed afterward, it felt more disjointed than before. However, before he could find his wording Leo stood up slowly from his seat, he shot Mikey another smile (was this one fake or real?) and stretched his arms side to side. “Well, I think it’s time that this turtle heads to bed, I spent WAY too much brain power remembering those recipes and I’m exhausted.”

His older brother started sauntering out of the room.

“Wait- Leo?” He couldn’t help but call out for his older brother as he felt fear crawl around in his gut. For some reason, he felt like something was running out, like he could feel something draining from the room and he was terrified at what would happen when it was completely gone. Leo turned to him at his call, curiously looking toward where Mikey still sat in the same spot. Once again he felt fear eat at him, but he reminded himself he was just being foolish. “I just wanted t’ say goodnight. I- I’ll see you in the morning. This time, pancakes are on me.”

Leo shifted, and he panicked for a moment that he had been found out, but Leo just gave him a nod and a widening smirk. “Can’t wait to eat them bro.” He shot him finger guns before retreating out of the room, leaving Mikey alone in the large space. The walls surrounded him, and it felt almost as if the very room itself had eaten him.

Mikey sat still, becoming another piece of furniture in the room as he waited for something. He really didn’t know what he was expecting, but he felt time rage on as he sat and waited for the draining to end and for the thing to happen, whatever it was. But it didn’t, and eventually he found enough courage to make it back to his room.

His train car felt emptier as he entered it, he pushed aside the curtains and plopped himself onto his bed. He sat there for a full moment, again feeling like he was missing something, like if he moved he would never see it, but staying still didn’t seem to help either. He got up again and turned off the lights before stumbling back to his hammock, he found purchase in it, and let it rock him as he pushed the wall beside it.

Once his eyes adjusted to the darkness of the room, he took a glance again at his hands, tracing the short nails that he had cut that morning. As he lifted his hands above his head, he swore he could almost see gold, gold swirling around in and out of his fingers and around his arms. It hadn’t been there a moment ago and there was no way it was real, but he watched the intricate patterns with nothing but wonder and awe, then terror. He held his arms close to his chest again after it became too dizzying to watch, it had to be an illusion, or maybe a hallucination, it was probably from all of the stress of the nails and the entirety of the mess that shredder had left them with. Today had just been the first day that the stress had been taken away and it allowed him to relax, and his mind was just making him think he was seeing things because he wasn't used to no stress. Yeah, that was it.

He really hoped that was it.

Either way, sleep could only help the situation, and Mikey forced himself to at least try.

~

The next morning it was hard to get out of bed again, but Mikey had been expecting it this time. He had also expected the claws he found once again on his hands. He rolled out of bed, grabbing the scissors and reminding himself to sharpen them again soon, he could feel them getting duller as they cut his nails. He left his room quicker than the previous days, which he felt a little proud of. He was dealing with this relatively well all things considered. Like what had become the normal he heard no voices and smelled nothing unusual in the air, but he could still hope for another good day like yesterday.

He managed to get to the bathroom with a hope in his heart, walking up to the mirror, to see his familiar face. He smiled at himself because that helped you feel more hopeful-

And he felt terror snap at him so quickly he almost screamed in surprise. He turned the tap on, changing the water to cold and washing his face with it as dread set into his gut. He couldn’t have seen that right, there was no possible way that he had seen that right. The water felt refreshing against the hot flash of panic that had overtaken him.

But he had, because looking back at him in the mirror were a set of fangs in his mouth.

Oh shit.

Chapter Text

The world reeled around him, leaving Mikey with nothing to do but grip the corners of the sink like his life depended on it. What was happening to him? Now that he had seen them, he felt the sharper longer teeth as they sat uncomfortably in his mouth, just barely poking out so that he could see them even when he closed his mouth. It made Mikey sick to his stomach.

Maybe he should tell his brothers, this felt way too out of his depth like the whole thing had spun out of control before he even knew it was spinning. He didn’t even try to stop the sob as it tumbled out from him, it would have felt cathartic if it wasn’t for the daggers in his mouth that became even more painfully obvious when he did.

He heard a knock at the bathroom door, and by all accounts he should have been relieved. One of his brothers, who he knew would kill for him, was making this a lot easier on him. All he needed to do was keep quiet; no matter which one of them it was they would burst in after hearing no reply from their youngest brother, and they would see him and they could help him because they’d figure this out.

God he was so useless.

He didn’t feel relieved though, and a rush of energy filled his body as he covered his mouth with a clawed hand as though they would walk in any minute. His heart beat wild in his chest as he turned just enough to see the door. A hesitant voice seeped into the room, muffled by walls and distance.

“Everything ok in there buddy?” Raph. He closed his eyes and tried to do his breathing tactic, but he couldn’t remember how long each breath was supposed to take.

“Ye-yeah Raph! Everything’s fine- just uh, need a moment please!” It sounded weak and he heard the wavering in his voice, but hopefully it would buy him time to think of an excuse. Every moment felt like an eternity as he awaited his verdict, he chewed his lip to make sure time kept moving forward at a steady pace.

Finally, after far too long, he heard a hesitant, “oh, ok. Just uh, don’t take too long ok?” And he didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. He heard footsteps retreat and he ignored the way his hand shook as he lowered it.

He turned to face the mirror, the image across from him blurry as he was unable to bring himself back to the moment. He felt disconnected, not able to move his body or focus on any thought in particular as everything and nothing ran through his head at once. His lip began to hurt, and he managed to jolt himself back to reality when he felt something wet running down it.

Finally his face came into focus, and if the fangs weren’t bad enough before, they were so much worse with blood coating the tips of them. It was easy to see where it had come from when he looked at his bottom lip. He thought of Leo who had always told him it was a bad habit that he should shake because now it was a lot worse if he wasn’t able to. His throat felt dry as he forced himself to swallow his fear.

The panic in his mind slotted itself further away for the moment, and he came to a decision. If he could handle the claws maybe he could handle these teeth too, he just would have to find some way to get rid of them. He could do that surely, he could put this thing aside for another good day. He pushed down the rest of his anxiety as best he could and began to think of solutions.

He rooted through the cabinets under the sink, pulling out the first aid kit. He couldn’t remember exactly what was in it, they had likely torn it apart and it just housed whatever fit, but he could hope that there might be some solution to his problem nestled inside. He tore open the box, his still sharp nails tearing at the outside, he prayed that his brothers wouldn’t be looking for this anytime soon. Finally after struggling for a while he got in through a particularly large gash, but only felt his heart beat faster in his chest when there wasn’t anything but cooling patches.

Fuck.

Raph would be back soon he was sure of it, every moment he was sure he heard the thundering footsteps charging up and Raph would see him. Raph wouldn’t be mad, he was sure that his brother would be nothing but worried in fact, but a part of him believed otherwise.

He thought about Raph barging in and seeing what he had become, and as dumb as he knew it was, a part of him thought that Raph might just kick him out then and there; or worse, Raph could try to kill him. It was ridiculous, his brothers would never dream of it, and if anything the changes made him look more like Raph, so his eldest brother really wouldn’t have any reason to do such a thing. Still, he felt panic flurry through his chest at the thought so he had to keep searching.

He pushed the first aid box so that it skidded away from him on the bathroom floor, and dug for something that would work. It became hard to search as his hands shook, his claws bumping into the various things under their bathroom sink. Eventually after moving and shifting everything around, something metallic caught his eyes. He grabbed at the plastic container and pulled it to himself so quickly it almost hurt, and hurled off the lid.

Inside was Leo’s old nail kit, they had gotten for him after the entire thing with the shredder, it was mainly old in that it hadn’t been touched since the incident, the various polishes and nail tools covered in a fine coat of dust. What caught his eye was a particular metal nail file. Normal nail files didn’t seem to work on them all that well, Donnie had explained it to them once.

“It’s because we’re mutants Leo, our nails are still turtle nails. I.e. tougher than human nails.”

“Yeah…” Leo had sighed low and hard, and Mikey couldn’t help himself but giggle from where he sat off to the side. “But that doesn’t solve my issue! How am I supposed to have fabulous nails when I can’t file them!”

He remembered when Leo had gotten it, Mikey had used the money he found (that wasn’t destroyed) in what was left of his room because he thought maybe they would have a nail night again.

“Thanks Mikey, but let's wait for things to cool down a bit first, ok?”

They still hadn’t had one.

He let the weight of it comfort him for a moment, the cold of the metal biting into his skin, before he popped up to the mirror. He really had no idea if this would work or not, but he had to try something.

He placed it against his tooth, and began to slowly saw back and forth.

He hadn’t been expecting the pain.

It shot up from the tooth, causing Mikey to lose vision momentarily, he didn’t even notice the tears until they were stinging at his eyes. Time stopped as he heard thudding, and with renewed determination, brought the file back up.

He didn’t really know if he was lucky that the file worked to grind down his fangs, but at least he looked mostly normal when he turned his attention back to the mirror.

A knock echoed through the room and Mikey nearly jumped out of his skin, whirling around to face the noise. His body shrunk in on itself as he backed into the corner.

He realized a beat later he needed only to reply.

“Hello?” He could taste the shavings in his mouth, and he made a mental note to wash those out when he could.

A tired grumble that could only have been Donnie barely made it past the door, but he heard it. “I’ll be out soon Don, promise.” He waited a few extra minutes to be sure before he moved.

He made his way back to the sink, grabbing his glass and washing the pieces of teeth out of his mouth. When he placed the glass back onto the metal of the sink, he let himself pause for a moment. Everything felt three miles away and he could still feel his heart pounding steady in his chest, but something else was eating at him. It took him another minute to realize what it was; when Donnie knocked on the door, when Donnie knocked on the door…

He thought of himself, pressed into a corner and baring his teeth and gripping the walls on either side of him.

Like a wild animal…

But maybe he was wrong, it had only been a moment, and he wasn’t even sure if he had actually done that so it was fine. Just his brain messing up from all of the stress coursing through his body, and there sure was enough for it to work with.

But it was fine now, he had dealt with the teeth and now he just needed to deal with the nails. He could handle this. He was fine.

Guilt began to worm its way into his stomach as he found the scissors from where he dropped them on the floor. Even though the guilt gnawed at him, he didn’t have time to focus on it; he desperately shook it off as he began to cut his nails in the sink.

Guilt and anxiety warred in his body, until finally he was able to get the last nail off, he tried to ignore the feeling of the sharp metal as it sliced at it.

Why did he need to get rid of these changes so quickly? He had told Raph many times that he shouldn’t be ashamed of his sharp teeth or nails; he felt absolutely terrible with how desperate he was to get rid of them before anyone else saw. No matter how different it felt to him.

Finally pushing out of the bathroom he managed to get a deep enough breath to force a smile on his face. He pushed down all of his unpleasant feelings ready and willing to face the day, he wouldn’t be the one who ruined it for his brothers.

He started toward the kitchen, remembering the pancakes he had promised to make for them all, and tried to seem chipper and awake so they would let him cook for them all. When he finally entered the space he was met with most of his brothers, they sat quietly at a table and any hope sunk at their distant expressions. Without a word he sat down with them, he tried to discern the expression on their faces.

Donnie rubbed at his eyes, his phone out in front of him, the screen was dark, likely having turned off after not being used for a while. His shoulders were raised high and Mikey could feel tension rolling off of him in waves. Best not to ask him what was happening, the soft shell likely would snap at him in this kind of state.

Raph similarly looked at his phone angrily, he grumbled as he typed and read whatever sat in front of him. Finally after forever Raph’s eyes flitted up to him, his expression softened as he sat straighter in the chair. “Hey Mike” he greeted softly, eyes still trained on the phone and his brow furrowing in the way it did when Raph tried to seem less angry in Mikey’s presence. Donnie jumped at the sound, uncovering his eyes with a sigh.

“What’s wrong?” He ignored the way his anxiety and guilt pounded from deep inside of him, and opted to look around for Leo instead. “Where’s Leo?”

Donnie crossed his arms in front of him and shifted his chair back ever so slightly. Finally Raph put down his phone, turning it off and slamming it face down on the table to the side. Mikey didn’t miss how Donnie winced at the sound it made.

“Leo’s throwing a tantrum” Donnie said, his voice low and angry, it was quiet in a way that made Mikey want to run and hide under his blankets.

“Why? What happened?” He could tell neither of them wanted to say it, like sparing him from whatever happened would also spare him from the fallout. Look how swell that was working though, most days he had trouble getting out of bed because of the atmosphere of the lair.

He grabbed his arm under the desk and lightly dug his nails into the skin there to bring focus back to the task at hand.

Finally Raph decided to tell him, he grimaced and looked away from the smaller turtle. “Dad’s… taking longer to come home than he promised. Said he’d probably be another week.”

Mikey stopped breathing. First the first two days after the whole Shredder fiasco their dad had been closer to them than ever, he had spouted endless praise and love for the boys and helped them as some of the fallout of the event came to light. It was a wonderful two days, watching Splinter bandage Leo up, tell Donnie he was proud, and give Raph the biggest hug. Splinter had even stepped aside and told Mikey that it was ok if he was scared; he had assured his dad that he wasn’t and that he was fine, but it was still nice to have his father check in with him.

And then, more issues started popping up, Leo and Raph fighting, Donnie’s self imposed isolation, Mikey messing everything up again. In the end he decided to take some time to himself away from the turtles, and he had promised to return in a few days.

Apparently, that had been a lie.

“Oh.” Was all he could say, “maybe something came up?” The glare Donnie shot at him told him they didn’t believe that for a moment. It was deafening in the room, as his brothers stared at their phones hurt and upset.

He did end up making breakfast for them all. Not pancakes, but eggs and bacon, a comfort meal for them all. The mood was officially ruined when he found Leo nowhere in the lair, and he had to wrap his food up and put it in the fridge. Mikey opted not to make any food for himself, instead he tucked himself into his room and under his hammock.

Everything had been going so well, he had been so close to another good day, he didn’t understand how his luck was so bad.

There was another thing bothering him, his brother’s seemed off. They had all been disappointed by Splinter before, but Raph usually was the one who tried to convince them it didn’t matter, Donnie tried to act unphased (and was quite good at doing so if you didn’t know him), and Leo… Leo didn’t leave them.

Leo would usually refuse to disappoint them in the same way, so why…. Why were they acting like this?

He grabbed his phone from his bed, and scrolled through their messages, finding the one that had set everyone off.

Hello my children.
I am sorry to say but I need another week. Red is still in charge while I am gone. I love you all.

It was nauseatingly simple, so simple that Mikey doubted it was the soul purpose behind his brother’s attitudes.

He emerged back out of his room at lunch with a plan to figure out what exactly was going on with them. They had been good just the other day, he still thought about the lazy smile Leo had on his face that Mikey hadn’t seen for too long.

He shook his head as he made his way to Donnie’s lab, the big purple curtain was pulled tightly, he had been about to call out when he heard Raph’s voice from within. Mikey crept closer to the curtain, listening to the conversation.

“I get what ya mean Donnie, I’ve been feeling the same today.” He sounded scared, his voice wavered as it spoke and the difference between how it had sounded earlier that day floored Mikey. “But it doesn’t mean anythin-”

“It does Raph” Donnie sounded about the same, maybe a little more on edge, his voice was more hushed than Raph’s. “An energy spike the day before both of us magically feel- feel-” Mikey could almost see Donnie’s arms flailing as he searched for the word.

“Ya, but you said there are always energy spikes like that.” Raph’s voice became defensive, Donnie had never told him about energy spikes of any kind, what were they talking about? “Maybe it just happened, you know by chance.” Even he didn’t sound hopeful about that.

“There is always a chance these things are coincidence Raph.” It sounded harsh, Mikey whined even though the words weren’t directed at him. “But I’m not taking that chance.”

Mikey pushed himself away from the train car, and made his way back to his own. He stopped in the hallway, looking over at the entrance to their new home.

It felt empty, like a place they were trying to make into another and failing to. He just wanted to go back to their home in the sewer, even if he knew it was impossible to.

Leo entered through the doorway as Mikey stood there, his brother in blue took one glance in his direction, his face straight and his eyes not quite seeing Mikey. When his brother slunk away, Mikey did too.

Mikey just wanted to curl up in his room and cry. He wanted so badly to have another good day with his brothers but it seemed fate itself was working against him. Once he got to his room, he couldn’t stop the anger that gripped at him.

A growl worked its way through his throat as he grabbed one of his blankets and began pulling at it. Once it began to tear he threw it to the ground, panting as his anger slowly disappeared. He screamed in frustration and kicked at it, watching the blanket fold in on itself from its place on the floor.

He only had a few moments to himself before he heard a knock at his car and just wanted to be left alone. He wanted to block out the world until it decided to be kind to him again.

Leo’s head peaked into his room, a small expression on his face that told Mikey the other’s had likely talked to him. “Hey I heard a scream, is everything ok?”

The question went unanswered, Mikey stood still where he was. Leo continued, “Sorry I wasn’t here this morning, I heard you made breakfast like you promised.”

Mikey still didn’t respond, just stood with the torn blanket laying at his feet and his deep breaths swaying his body, he hoped Leo would get the message to leave him alone, but instead he just edged ever so slightly further into the room. “If you want to make it up to you I can help you with those sores on your lip?”

Leo tapped the doorframe quietly waiting for his response, and in the heat of the moment all Mikey could do was hiss at him in anger to leave him alone. Leo’s eyes widened, his mouth opening in shock as something deep and dark settled into Mikey’s gut, without a word the slider left closing the curtain behind him.

Everything was wrong and Mikey felt something twist in his stomach. He pulled himself to the floor, fumbling for the blanket before him. Once he had it he bunched it up into his arms, holding the bundle close to his chest as he just sat and thought. His fingers dug into the soft fabric and he felt a few tears streak down his face.

Dark began to settle on the room, and with it he began to calm. A tensity in his chest he hadn’t even been aware of released, and thoughts of his own actions plagued his mind. What was wrong with him?

Mikey began to stand as sleep started to weigh on his body, exhaustion taking over him before he could think about dragging himself to bed. In the end he didn’t get to decide, as he was pulled under quickly, at least he had been able to use what was left of his blanket as a pillow.

As his eyes began to close he swore he saw gold swirl in and out of view, and that was the last thing he was able to witness before sleep overtook him.

Chapter Text

Mikey awoke acutely aware of the pain in his mouth, and soreness in his limbs. Slowly he peeled himself off of the cold floor, exhaustion still weighing him down. His claws scraped against the ground as he pushed himself up, the blanket still pressed against his chest sliding off of him. It pooled beneath him as he stood up and made his way to the bathroom.

The fangs were still there when he checked that morning, anxiety once again eating at him to tell his brothers, but after the news he received yesterday about their father, he thought it less painful to just grind them down. It wasn’t. It took him less time to recover from the pain than the first time. It helped him to remind himself that it was well deserved.

He went to the kitchen to find none of his brother’s there, maybe that day really had been a fluke. Still it stung to see no sign of life in their lair.

Mikey began to cook himself breakfast, a delicious meal to fill his empty stomach and heart, when he was struck by an idea.

While he had been pissed off at Leo, his older brother had offered to make it up to him, and while he was sure it was a long shot he had to try and have another good moment with his brothers.

Perhaps similar to his own breakfast Mikey could ward off negativity with his food! It had worked in the past when one of them was sad so why not now? He could offer to make them all dinner, their favorite meal of pizza of course, and have a big dinner for the whole family. Even April could come! Who needs Splinter! This dinner could remind them all that they had each other, would help distract Mikey from what he was becoming, and at the same time could help rebuild the bonds they desperately needed. As long as they all showed up and Mikey properly did his job of keeping the peace, maybe, just maybe, things could be good again like they used to.

Maybe this would even help Mikey actually be a good therapist to the group instead of stewing in his own issues.

Mikey quickly snapped back to the eggs he was making as he smelled them begin to burn, and quickly plated them. He turned off the stove after finishing his breakfast and sat at the big table meant for all of them.

So he had a plan; he needed only to bring his brother’s together for a good meal and another good moment, selfish, and then he would force himself to be a better therapist to them all and actually help his brother’s instead of wallowing in self pity. Simple!

After eating his breakfast at breakneck speed, Mikey worked up the courage to talk to Donnie first. Donnie would be in his lab at this time, and it was a good bet that he was knee-deep into one of his many projects. In the past Mikey would have waltz in there with little to no fear of Donnies’ response to his presence; but just like his other brothers’ the shredder had frayed their relationships, and Donnie became a little more careful about people in his lab.

Mikey wasn’t entirely sure if it was because he had already lost so much of it after the attack, or that Donnie simply wanted the space to himself so he could focus on making better tech to protect them, but it didn’t really matter. In the end, Donnie became more tense around them, around Mikey, coming into his lab with no warning.

So Mikey decided to only go as deep as needed to find his genius brother.

He carefully made his way around the purple inventions and pieces scattered across the floor, barely recognizing any of the machines being built. He called out for the genius barely above his normal volume, though unlikely he didn’t want Donnie to snap at him. Luckily the modified train car wasn’t too big, and he found Donnie without having to go all the way in.

Donnie was…
Donnie was slumped against a computer, hand covering his eyes and the other clicking away at his mouse. He seemed to be scrolling through some sort of data that Mikey didn’t understand, but Mikey could tell that whatever it was, it wasn’t good. Donnie seemed stressed, and data usually made him happy, a combination that carved deep lines into Mikey’s heart. He wasn’t able to stop himself from whimpering at the sight.

It must have been loud enough that it got Donnies’ attention, as he sat up and swung his head into Mikey’s direction. That was Mikey’s cue to explain why he had gone into his brother’s lab.

“Hey Dee! I uh, I just wanted to ask if you would be cool if we had a big dinner like we usually do tonight!” Mikey brought his hands behind his back to fidget with them. “OR- uh- doesn’t have to be tonight I guess, just like soon- you know it’s been so long and I just- we-... yeah.”

He gave Donnie one of his signature smiles and hoped his purple brother wouldn’t be annoyed at his rambling. Donnie shifted ever so slightly to obscure the information on the screen, causing Mikey’s chest to tighten ever more, and stared silently at his brother while processing the information.

After two beats of silence Donnie nodded, turning away and grabbing his phone, probably to text Raph and Leo if Mikey had to guess. It took Mikey a little too long to notice his immediately older brother returning to his important work, and he quickly vacated the lab once more.

Mikey pulled out his own phone to text April next, who he was sure would want an invite even if she couldn’t come.

Security had almost doubled overnight in the above world, especially after the whole Battle Nexus incident, and the Destruction of Downtown, which made things harder for their sister. Not only had security in her college begun to keep a closer eye on the students, but with the government keeping close tabs on any relation to the event, it meant that April would be putting a lot at risk just to visit the turtles in their new lair.

Of course, if Mikey didn’t give her the option, she would surely kill him; so he would invite her nonetheless. Quickly she sent him a text telling him that she would try, but not to wait for her.

Even if it was dangerous, he really hoped she could come, she was amazing at reading the room, and seemed unshakable in a way Mikey needed right now.

Next he moved on to Raph, the brother he was sure would be the least resistant to the idea, or at least the easiest to change the mind of.

Raph was easy to find, curled up on the couch and holding tight onto Leo, Mikey wanted to turn back as soon as he saw them. However as soon as he entered the room, Raph ushered him forward with a wave of his arm, and graced him with a calm and patient smile. “Hey bud we got your message. Family dinner tonight eh?” He rubbed small circles on Leo’s back, and when Mikey got close enough he could hear quiet sobs from the slider. “Ya invited April right? She’ll kill all of us if we don't even think of her.”

His voice was soft, but Mikey didn’t miss the bruised cheek he sported.

“Y-yeah, already invited her. She said she’ll try to make it. It’s ok if it isn’t a good night for it though, we can always plan for another.” Mikey knew that if they didn’t have it tonight, it was unlikely they would actually follow any other plans for one though, unless Mikey really pushed for it.

Something tight and guilty crossed Raph’s face long enough for Mikey to catch it, but his oldest brother quickly smiled at him again and assured him that they would all make it. For emphasis he patted Leo’s back, who nodded his head from its place on Raph’s shoulder.

With that Mikey left, and began to prepare the meal for them all. Pizza didn’t take long, but Mikey needed to keep his mind busy for a little bit.

~

April ended up being too busy to attend dinner, so Mikey put a bit of it aside for her so she could still have some later. He always did this, he had the last few dinners they had stacked in containers in the fridge for April when she could join them again; he didn’t let himself linger on the thought of all the ones before that he had thrown out after having been there for so long.

By the time he had fully finished setting up for dinner alone, he heard his brothers begin to each make their way. His heart fluttered, he had wanted this to work so bad and he was terrified it would go wrong, but there was still hope that it would all turn out ok.

They each arrived in their own fashion, eventually sitting down at the table as a family like they used to, even if it was more solemn than it had been before. Mikey quickly got to work cutting the pizza, making sure the pieces were perfect as though a slightly bigger one might topple what he had built on top of him. It just might have, Mikey was well aware of all the small details that if he messed up even a little would crumble the foundation on top of which he stood. After distributing the pieces he looked happily up at each of his brother’s who had finally joined him for a meal as a family.

They sat there quietly for a good solid minute, their food sat untouched in front of each of the brothers and slowly began to cool off. Mikey kept trying to sike himself up to say something, to start a conversation and bring things back to normal, but a sense of dread sitting in his gut kept his mouth shut. He glanced at each of his brothers quickly, Raph sat unnaturally straight in his chair, every now and then his posture would slip and something dark would cross his face, once he noticed he would sit up straight again and his shell would make a dull thud against the wood; Leo seemed much more relaxed, almost to a suspicious extent, he almost laid out across his chair, his arms hung over the armrests and his lower abdomen rested somewhere under the table; and Donnie crouched over his plate (which was not unusual for his genius brother) his shoulders hunched up, what was unusual was his tapping on his arm tablet which occurred every few seconds ago as he too scanned the room. When his eyes met Donnies, he quickly looked back down at his plate.

He didn’t miss the small looks they shot each other that carried a conversation Mikey wasn’t privy to. He could almost read the look in Donnie’s eyes that tried to convince one of the other two to do something, and Mikey felt a familiar pull in his gut; a quiet growl escaped him.

He muffled it with the pizza, chewing on it instead of asking what was going on between his brothers, because he found it difficult at that moment to even form words in his head. Which was a whole nother level of not good.

Leo cleared his throat as Mikey nearly choked on a piece, he turned to address the entire table, and it was at that point when Mikey realized his three brothers were all more angled toward each other and away from him. Suddenly he felt miles away from them, and he found himself biting just a bit harder into the pizza.

“So, Mikey” he put on the smile Mikey knew now to be fake, and Mikey began to tear off the section in his mouth. “We wanted to ask if you felt anything weird, a couple a’ days ago. Y’know, nothing to be worried about but maybe, some emotions that didn’t feel right? Anything like that?” Leo was nudged roughly by Raph as Mikey felt something finally pierce through the crust.

Oh, oh no.

Mikey grabbed another piece in panic, quickly bringing it to his mouth as he angled his head as some form of response to Leo, while there he lightly tapped the tip of his canine teeth. They were longer than they were supposed to be. Fuck.

“You know!... we just want to…” Leo struggled to sugar coat whatever he was saying, as Mikey scrambled to act normal despite the fangs that were growing in his mouth, and why were they growing now? They had never appeared when he was awake! “To check on you! As your brothers’ we want to make sure you are doing ok, and THINGS HAVE BEEN WEIRD! All of us have been off and well, I just want to make sure you know you’re supported.”

There was something they were keeping from him, he could tell not only from the way Leo was speaking, but from the death glares Donnie sent him that meant he had either gone off script or had shielded Mikey from way too much of the truth. Normally that would anger him, but Mikey could care less, he just wanted to get himself in control.

As one hand fruitlessly used pizza to hide his fangs from his brothers, the other began to desperately grab at the bottom of the table so he had something stable to hold onto. However that too quickly failed him as he felt the wood begin to carve underneath what could only be his claws. His vision swam as he did everything to stamp down the terror rising steadily in his chest. Oddly he felt almost thankful that his brother’s hadn't noticed, too caught up in their staring conversation-turned-argument that they hadn’t noticed his barely restrained fear.

“Leo we talked about this” Donnie hissed, he didn’t even try to hide the anger directed at the second oldest, Raph too seemed annoyed, and that guilt Mikey saw earlier returned in the creases of his face. “But of course you just had to charge ahead without us again! What’s even the point of agreeing to this if you aren’t going to listen.” Mikey could tell it was the start of a fight, but he could do nothing but whine as he stuffed the last piece on his plate into his mouth.

And the changes hurt, his mouth ached as the fangs grew, and his fingers spiked in pain as he scratched deep lines into the underside of the table.

Leo chuckled sharply in response, his expression darkening only enough for Mikey to notice. “I listened, Donnie. I just don’t think skirting around the issue is how we should handle it, if it’s even an issue to begin with.” Leo poked a finger into Donnie’s chest, who’s expression soured in response. "Besides, you're not the best with emotions Don, let the face-man do what he does best."

Meanwhile Mikey lowered his other hand beneath the table and swallowed the piece in his mouth. He still tried to hide his fangs, angling the top of his beak down even though his brother’s were definitely not looking at him.

“What is your problem Leo? Why do you keep acting out and doing the exact opposite of what we ask of you?!” Raph slammed a hand on the table causing them all to jump, his stare was directed at Leo and Donnie as he put on his older-brother face. “We promised Donnie we would do this, and we promised Mikey we’d go to his dinner. At this rate Leo you're gonna break up the entire family just ‘cause you can’t listen.” Raph seethed with anger as he spat out the words.

Ouch.

Leo deflated a little at that, and Raph had enough decency to look guilty after realizing how harsh his own words were. They were right, but they were a lot. Too much, so much that Mikey could barely breathe.

If Leo was breaking apart the family because he was distancing himself from everyone, in an attempt to prove to them all that Raph was their true leader. Then what would come of Mikey hiding the fact that he was becoming a monster?

Suddenly Mikey felt very sick, and he rushed away from the table without another word.

When Mikey made it back to his room he pulled the curtains tight on the windows, and made sure to block the door behind him. He didn’t notice he was crying until he felt the sobs rack his body.

Why weren’t they able to go back to how they used to be?

It took him a moment to think of one terrible answer.

Because he had been letting them all down. Because it was his fault that he hadn’t done anything about their suffering earlier, hadn’t helped Leo accept his new role, hadn’t encouraged Donnie to voice the grief he still felt, and hadn’t noticed Raph’s anger before it got out of control.

Really it was all his fault.

Mikey backed up until he sat on his bed, hands covering his mouth as he desperately fought against the thought because he knew it wasn’t right, there was no way that he was the only reason they were so distant now. Yet, he didn’t have anything else to blame it on, so the thought began to fester.

A sharp knock rang out from the door, of course his brother’s would notice his sudden departure. One of them asked if he was ok and he honestly couldn’t tell which one.

“The- the cheese!” his voice squeaked out, muffled by his own hands, he winced as the sharp claws at the end of them every now and then poked into his skin. “I-I think the cheese didn’t agree with me.” He closed his eyes, as if not being able to see would make his brother’s by his lies.

Things went a little too quiet, and then he heard them shuffle away, and let out a gasp of a sob still muffled by his fingers.

His hand’s barely functioning he reached over for his phone, and typed a quick message to April.

How’s the work going? :)

He needed something, anything to fill the empty space in the room, inside of him. She responded after much too long for Mikey, and he nearly broke his phone in the scramble to grab it again.

April: Not bad Mikey, boring tho. Wish I was there with you guys, we could’ve had a pizza eating contest! Pretty sure I’d win >:P

Usually he would chuckle at that, instead all that came out of him were pitiful sobs. He paused typing as he became aware of some sort of noise in the lair.

He wasn’t sure how he knew of it, something deep within him hummed in a way that told him people were talking in the lair. He knew exactly who it was too. Though as hard as he tried to hone in on it, it never became clearer; instead he only felt the constant anxiety residing within his bones.

Tears were still running down his face, and it probably would have been a good idea to get a hold of himself, but he just couldn’t bear to look at himself in the mirror. Not when he looked like this. So, he would just stay in his room tonight. He shot a quick text back to April.

Lol. You probably could, though I would totally give you a run for your money :D

Afterward he placed his phone opposite to him in the room, as far as it could possibly be so that no one could reach him. He didn’t want anyone to reach him right now.

As he had done far too often lately, Mikey dragged himself to bed and curled into himself, nearly pulling himself into his shell.

And if he cried? Well, no one was there to see that either, he wouldn’t let them.

Chapter Text

He found himself in a city, but he couldn’t remember which one. The world around him thrummed with energy, and he could feel life bustling around in the streets. He watched from overhead, the streets down below him winding like a maze, he giggled at the way it made him dizzy. His mind rang with colors that shone from the place below him, bright warm colors as were his favorite shining down below and filling him with warmth.

It was quite spectacular and he made a note to paint it later.

But the longer he spent staring down at the living city, the more he felt something begin to sneak in through the cracks, making its way and slowly seeping into the city. Along the edges he felt something ghost about, the life and color draining away from it entirely. Mikey screamed, and did his best to warn the people-he-couldn’t-see about this leech. They didn’t hear him, and he found himself stuck in place.

He saw darkness slowly start to break its way out from under the buildings, asphalt cracking and falling apart as it burst up through the ground. Dark tendrils grasped and pulled it’s way out from under, and started to coat the entire area, and Mikey, helpless against the force, could only gasp.

He reached toward them, trying to save any bit of the life he had felt in the city, he tried to call upon his weapon and found himself powerless in the dead air.

Something moved behind him, but he didn’t react quickly enough. He felt it stab through him, watched the dark tendril as it skewered through his chest and he let out a cough at the pain. His eyes stung with tears and he whimpered as he desperately searched around for something now to save him.

But there was nothing there; no one there to love, protect and care for him. He was utterly alone.

It began to slowly pull him back into itself, and Mikey could do nothing but scramble against the sharp limb stabbing him to try and get away. He saw the city one last time before the darkness took away his vision entirely, and it was vacant of all life.

~~

Mikey awoke in a panic, his breathing coming out in ragged breaths, and his eyes unable to focus in the darkness of the room around him. Slowly, he reminded himself to take a deep breath, slowing his racing heart down from the nightmare he had just had.

However all of his effort to calm down quickly became undone as he became aware of a spiking pain along the middle of his shell. He quickly flipped onto his stomach, gripping onto his pillow as the pain became almost unbearable.

It felt as though his scutes themselves were being pulled off of his very bone marrow, and all he could do was sob quietly.

From behind blurring eyes he just barely registered the floating glowing gold around the room. It felt a lot more real this time around, he could feel the pressure the energy gave off in the space around him, and if it hadn’t been for the back splitting pain he would have been amazed.

But as it was, it felt like what he always imagined a cracked shell would, his stomach flipped as it only increased more. Mikey’s head began to feel incredibly light as it slowly spread to the rest of his shell, and he really wished that if he was going to pass out that he would do it already.
His wish must have come true, because as it began to burn, he found himself losing consciousness.

~~

When Mikey woke up next, he was happy it was only to a dull pain in his back, as opposed to the back-splitting pain he had awoken to that night.

He did the usual check for people in the hallway, and found his way to the bathroom with his trusty pair of scissors.

He shouldn’t have been surprised really, but he found himself shocked nonetheless to see the wicked spikes growing up and out of the shell on his back. Putting two and two together, it didn’t feel like too much of a stretch to reason that they had been what awoke him in the night.

He reached a shaking hand behind him to feel the spikes jutting out of his shell, which were still sore to the touch.

A gasp slipped past his lips as he came to terms with what he saw in the mirror, how was he ever going to hide this? Of course, he could always go back, always tell his brothers the truth because surely this was worse than how they would react…

But… Mikey couldn’t do that to them, a dark pit formed in his stomach as he thought about finally coming clean, about finally admitting that he was…

He fought against the tears as he came to the decision to spare his brothers from worrying about him. These were just turtle spikes, totally normal and justifiable; like Raph’s his had grown out of his shell.

So there was no need to worry, even if they grew in overnight, and he had been woken up due to the pain; they were just like Raph’s spikes, and he was just a late bloomer.

So he began his process as usual, hands shaking and body weak as he became nauseous with pain. He got rid of the fangs, his vision going black for much too long; he had to be quicker with his nails if he didn’t want his brother’s becoming suspicious.

He started to rush on his nails, getting to the nail of his pointer finger on his dominant hand and slicing it off…. Until he saw red.

Blood started to ooze out from a small cut on his finger, and it took Mikey a little too long to properly react; he reached for the cupboard below the sink, slowly sinking to the ground after losing his propped up stance against the sink.

He felt himself hit the cool tiled ground a little too hard, but swiftly went back to tearing through the cabinet for what he needed. Finally, after what felt like forever, he found the gauze not so tightly wrapped in the still torn first aid kit. He half-hazardly wrapped it around his finger, fumbling with it as it unwinded in his hands.

Sucking back sobs and hiccups, he pulled himself back up the counter, and came face to face with himself in the mirror.

He looked like shit.

He still had to deal with those spikes.

So Mikey tried both the scissors and the nail file, finding them ineffective and painful against his scutes, he would have to think of a better way.

Mikey thought of the items they had in their house that would be tough enough to deal with his problem. He ran through his day in his mind, thinking about what he could easily access that wouldn’t immediately sell him out.

Unfortunately, there was one item he knew would do the job, but it wouldn’t be fun to use.

Mikey peeked his head out of the bathroom, seeing no one in sight and hearing no evidence of anyone being around, and made his way carefully to the kitchen; all sneaky ninja like. He thought for a moment about using something sharper, it would be better, easier to use, less painful… but noticeable. Someone would know it was missing and he couldn’t afford that.

So he opted for the other option.

A butter knife. It felt so heavy in his hand.

He half crawled his way back to the bathroom, slinking into the shadows and hoping not to be seen. When he made it back he shut the door behind him and locked it, and quickly got to work.

He felt the blade of the knife as it went back and forth against his shell, spots dancing in his vision as he bit down on his non-cut hand to muffle his whines. The pain was unrelenting as he continued to saw into himself, his heart thudding against his chest and his legs desperately balancing him against the sink to keep himself standing.

Finally one of the spikes came off, falling to the ground with a tink. Mikey struggled to control his breathing, tight pants burning his throat as he swallowed back the adrenaline coursing through his veins.

His stomach flipped and he found himself speeding to the toilet.

After everything had come out and he was left dry heaving, he collected himself to continue onto the next spike. Still leaning against the toilet, Mikey used his shaky grip to dig into his shell once again.

~~

Coming out of the bathroom, he found himself oddly off kilter, swaying to and fro and having to catch himself on the walls of the station, but it was alright he’d just sit down sooner than he planned.

He wasn’t sure exactly how long he had been in there, probably longer than he had meant to be, stupid Mikey, but it had been long enough for Draxum to arrive at their place.

Which was… cool. It was awesome actually, his brothers rarely interacted with their second father and Mikey was proud of them for reaching out. Or he would be if it weren’t for the fact that Draxum might catch on to his little secret.

Being on the inside of the house was one thing, you tended to believe you knew exactly how everyone was doing and what was going on with them even if you didn’t, but an outsider? An outsider might be able to notice the deep gouges on his shell (which he was already worried about with his brothers), would notice his shaking hands and his avoidant nature. An outsider would be able to see right through him.

But Draxum wasn’t good with emotions, so Mikey could only hope that he wouldn’t be read like a book.

Upon his arrival Donnie seemed to snap up, his face still grim but posture defensive, likely he felt uncomfortable with Mikey being in the room-

Now was not the time to go all Dr. Feelings on the situation.

“Hey guys, what’s going on?” Mikey asked, because Donnie had to be well aware that having Draxum in the lair was not the norm. Apparently Donnie was not the only brother talking to the goat man, in fact two other turtles with colored bandannas poked their heads over the couch, shock and shame filling their faces at the sight of Mikey. All of a sudden he felt like the elephant in the room.

“Michelangelo, excellent. Please take a seat.” Draxum motioned to the seat beside Donnie on the couch.

His brother’s seemed more hesitant about him joining, as they passed uncertain glances between one another, Mikey ventured closer but as soon as he saw panic flash through Donnie’s eyes, any want to join them vanished.

“Eh, it’s ok Draxy, I um…” he looked around for an excuse, eyes still unfocused from unshed tears, “I actually wanted to do some spray painting in the tunnels so I can’t right now, sorry.” He flashed an apologetic smile, and prayed it didn’t look as fake as it felt.

Draxum’s ears fluttered in shock, his fist clenching as he looked to the others around him. “This is an important conversation” he said, like Mikey was important enough to hear it. Draxum’s eyes found their way back to Mikey, “I feel you should be part of it.”

And that was that, Mikey didn’t have the energy to fight after his time in the powder room, so he took a seat beside Donnie, and hoped that he hadn’t heard a gasp from the soft shell.

“Donnie has invited me over to look at some worrisome data, as such I likely will be staying for a few days; or at least visiting more often than usual. As such, I would like you all to tell me of anything odd or unnatural that you encounter in that time.” He placed both clawed hands in his lap and closed his eyes like it was a difficult thing to ask, Mikey was just glad that Draxum wouldn’t see the way in which he shifted to sit on his hands instead.

“It doesn’t have to be anything extraordinary, as long as you feel that it is somewhat notable. As well, Donnie has asked me to also check in on what he’s called your ninpō, though I will be honest I do not know much about these forms of mystic energy. Please be patient with me and…” his eyes drifted to Leo, who gave him a smug look from the couch. “Please work with me.”

And just like that he went quiet, along with everyone else in the room, and Mikey shifted where he sat. After an eerie silence, Raph clapped his hands and stood. “Ok, glad we had this discussion and uh, Donnie” he chuckled, though it was obviously more awkwardly than in good humor “keep us filled in on whatever ya find, alright?”

Mikey read between the lines fine enough, and found himself standing too, only to lose balance. He quickly righted himself on the couch, attempting to make it appear like he was just leaning. Donnie noticed though.

Donnie noticed.

He gave Mikey a suspicious glance, one that dared Mikey to walk away from him and prove that something was up, so with a sigh, Mikey sat back down.

After their brothers left the room Donnie almost turned to him instantly “Mikey, what’s with those scratches on your shell?” he was an idiot for ever thinking he’d get away with hiding them.

“O-oh those?” Mikey patted his shell, feeling the deep indents and scratches that stung to the touch, “I fell off my hammock this morning, roughed myself up pretty bad…”

It was such a bad lie, but Donnie wasn’t even looking at him, so caught up by whatever was on his wrist tech that he didn’t even see any of Mikey’s tells.

“And the fall you almost had there?”

That one was harder to explain, but Mikey was nothing if not stubborn, “I’m still in a little pain from it, is all, standing up made the scratches hurt again.” He was impressed with how quickly he came up with that one, but he always was the most creative of the group.

Donnie finally stopped typing on his little device with a hum, and gave him a good hard look. “Might be good to go see Leo about them, don’t want them to become something worse.” and with that his brother in purple stood up from the couch and made his way to his lab probably, because Donnie was just a data centered turtle. Mikey chided himself for how mean that sounded in his own head.

~~

The day passed with Donnie and Draxum in the lab. Mikey felt himself constantly drifting back to the window of the car to listen in on what they said, but everytime he got too close Raph or Leo would barge in and interrupt him. It was extremely annoying.

It wasn’t like either of his brothers even had a reason to be in that room specifically, though he was happy to hear Leo apologize to Raph… multiple times.

Eventually he did get close enough to hear part of a conversation.

“-These signatures are not natural, the energy doesn’t just spike for no reason.” The aged voice of Draxum reasoned, cause and effect, Mikey reasoned, and was thankful that Donnie had somehow ground that into him.

“They don’t? That’s not what the data says, besides I know you are the professional on this sort of thing, but then why didn’t that apply to us? Ours just appeared.” Mikey wracked his brain for something just appearing to them, but wasn’t granted much time to think about it.

“No. It works just like electricity tur- Donatello. Electricity responds to electricity.” That made Mikey think, if that was the case, what was the cause and- ok well he knew the effect, but what was the cause of what was happening to him?

A deep hum was the last thing he heard from Donnie in the room before he heard Leo’s gate and Raphs thunderous footsteps again.

~~

Mikey found himself resting in bed for the rest of the day, not wanting to move his sore back more than he had to, why was it still so sore?

That’s where Draxum found him when he came to say goodbye, laying back on an orange hammock and deep in thought. Mikey sat up with a twinge as Draxum entered the room, the goat man found a place beside him on the bed.

“I wanted to…” his words drifted off, and Mikey pictured them flying away like birds, he wished he could fly away too. “Ask you. If you were alright I mean.”

Mikey looked at him with confusion, sure they had gotten closer but he must have been bad if Draxum noticed. Or maybe it was the outsider thing, his brain reminded him, and he felt his heart begin to beat faster in his chest.

“I’m fine Draxum! The family therapist is hard at work and making sure everything is alright” he made sure his smile was extra wide in hopes to convince him. “Besides, if the fam is inviting you over, something must be going right!”

Draxum didn’t react, and Mikey cursed the man’s ability to hold his poker face. “Yes, well, the circumstances were far more tense than a pleasant visit. But that is not what I have come to discuss with you Michelangelo, your brothers seem quite worried about you, and I too noticed your off behavior.”

But that couldn’t be right because Mikey had been oh so careful.

“Draxy…” he drew out the word, swishing his arms around nonchalantly like it didn’t make the scratches on his shell bite into him more. “If I’m off it’s just because my brothers' are trying to be overprotective again, and aren’t filling me in on whatever’s going on. If they are as concerned as they say they are, just… tell them to fill me in.”

A slight edge found its way into his voice.

“I mean, I know I don’t deserve to be part of the conversation, gram gram knows I didn’t do anything during the fight with Shredder, but they could at least pretend I do; just enough that I buy it.” His hands flexed into fists in his lap, and he could feel his nails begin to grow. “And, hey! Maybe if they pretended for long enough I could pretend to be useful too.”

He slapped his hands over his face, Draxum’s eyes zeroing in him.

Too much, he had said way too much.

“That’s… that’s all a joke of course, though. I know my brother’s need me really I-”

Draxum cut him off with a hand movement in the air, eyes no longer looking at the smaller turtle, and Mikey couldn’t really blame him.

It took a second before Mikey realized his hands were softly being taken by Draxum, who cradled them gently on his own. It dawned on him just how long it had been since he had gotten comfort from any of his bros, and now it was Draxum who offered him such a simple gesture.

It made him giggle, but it came out as more of a sob.

“We cannot help you if you do not let us.” He said, thumb running over the slightly sharper nails in his grasp; Draxum’s sigh filling the space like pillows around him. “We are here for you, Michelangelo, but you have to let us be if you want that help.”

And he clasped Mikey’s hands only slightly harder, and Mikey felt tears form in his eyes. “It took me far too long to realize how wonderful my creations really were. Let me help you now.”

Draxum’s hands were so warm against Mikey’s own, the fur soft against his scales.

“T-thank you Draxum…” he managed to whisper out, forcing the tears back as he looked up to the man with a weak smile, “but really, I’m alright.”

Draxum studied him for another moment, before letting it slide, and giving Mikey’s hands back to him; they never felt so cold. “In that case… I will be gone for a few days.” He gave Mikey a side glance, who only smiled and nodded his head for the goat man to keep going, “as it turns out Leo is still not over the roof incident. As such I will be returning in about a week. Donnie has added my ‘contact info’ into all of your phones if you need anything, and when I return…”

Draxum put his hand on Mikey’s shoulder and gave him a serious look, with just a tinge of anger, “if they have not filled you in, I will do so myself.”

And it was said with such conviction, Mikey had to believe him.

He saw Draxum off with the rest of his brothers, giving the goat man a farewell and opting to ignore Leo’s “catch ya on the ground sometime!”

And he found by the time he got back to the room, exhaustion weighed on him so heavily he could do nothing but lay down and sleep.

Which was fine with him, it was easier to avoid everything in his dreams.

Chapter Text

Or it would have been, if he had actually been able to sleep. Curse insomnia, of course he had to get it when he was already at his wits end. The night seemed to drag itself at an agonizingly slow pace as Mikey lay in bed and stared at the ceiling above him. He traced the paneling in the car roof with his eyes, and when he was done that, he began to imagine what he could paint up there in the future.

If he was able to paint in the future, that is. Mikey had kind of abandoned any of his hobbies since they moved into the new place. He just didn’t have the energy to do them that much any more, he was constantly exhausted and fighting with himself most days to even get out of bed.

Huh.

Another reason Mikey hated insomnia, the fucking thoughts that invaded his brain when he couldn’t sleep.

Despite all of his attempts his brain stayed active, thinking about all the what ifs that could happen. Thinking about what might happen if his brothers were to find out…

He hated keeping secrets from his brothers. He had only really kept secrets from them when he absolutely had to; this had probably quickly become the longest Mikey had successfully kept a secret. He wondered when they would find out.

They had to find out right? It wasn’t like he could keep hiding it, it wasn’t like he wanted to. The pain alone was enough to make him question why he was hiding this away from his brothers, the guilt all but brought him to confession.

He idly wondered if he were to wake one of them up now (assuming any of them were asleep that is) how fast they would react. Maybe they wouldn’t react at all, maybe they would look at Mikey and decide the problem wasn’t as big as he had made it in his mind, and they’d send him away with a pat and tell him to stop hiding the changes come morning.

Maybe they would decide he wasn’t important enough to get up for.

Mikey couldn’t face that, couldn’t face that he was likely more of a burden than a help around the lair, that he likely had been for a while. He couldn’t face the possibility that his brothers might turn on him, even if he knew they likely wouldn’t. Even the chance it would happen nearly scared him to death.

He wondered if the pain and guilt would ever override the fear. He wondered if it could.

It was almost funny how hard it was to fall asleep despite the exhaustion in his bones, he quickly checked the time to see how long he had been trying to sleep for.

It had been 2 hours. Great.

So he turned to thinking about his brothers, imagining everything turning out ok, doing his best to block out any doubt. Nothing was working though and he became more and more anxious the longer he laid there awake, his mind always seemed to find its way back to the fact that he would have to face another day of hiding come morning. Another day of shaving his teeth, and shell, and nails, he’d probably vomit again. Did he even eat anything that day? He couldn’t remember, his heart pounded behind his plastron.

He just wished his brothers would find out on their own, and not force him to come forward first. It would really just make the whole situation easier. Maybe then they might also tell him what was going on that they were so careful to hide from him, but that was probably too much to ask.

He also wished he would fall asleep already.

Mikey took a steadying breath, finding his body becoming heavier and his brain began to pull him into sleep, finally. Something flickered in front of his eyelids, something bright that weaved in and out like a flame, but Mikey was already too close to sleep, unable to open his eyes to understand what was playing with his vision. Before long, he fell over the edge and was plunged into a deep rest.

~~

Leo didn’t necessarily consider himself a great leader. He thought he was decent at it, sure, thought that his ability to strategize would come in handy, but he never claimed to be even a good leader.

Leo also didn’t like being compared to Raph in his role as leader. It was only natural and he didn’t blame his brothers (though he did often yell at them these days, a few too many sleepless nights trying to come to terms with his new role and managing all the feelings Mikey had told him about had made him pretty grumpy). He did however, try to improve where he thought Raph had failed. Failed was a harsh word, Raph had honestly always done his best for them, but that didn’t mean he was exempt from mistakes.

For instance, he didn’t utilize about half of the team in battle. Mikey and Donnie were sorely underused, Raph only wanted to keep them safe, which led to him unintentionally sidelining strong members of the team. Leo knew for a fact that those two didn’t need any protection.

So when Mikey seemingly pulled away from them after the Shredder, Leo let him. Leo knew that despite how the youngest acted, he had been affected by the whole event and probably needed some time to manage it. He let Mikey play out his whole brooding act, Leo thought he deserved that much.

Despite Raph’s concerns, Mikey deserved to have his own room to grieve. Leo still took his advice, carefully watching over the youngest, but refused to do much more than that.

Even he had limits though.

At first it had been fine, Mikey was obviously off, but Leo wanted to respect his own process. When exhaustion clearly began to show he had become more concerned. When anger seeped through he had all but finally brought it up to his brother. Ok, so he might have asked him what was wrong a few times, lightly budging into his brother’s space (even if he did get hissed at, whatever that was about), but he had never outright intruded on his privacy.

Until now.

Donnie had messaged him telling Leo, as the medic, about scratches on Mikey’s shell. Deep indents that were noticeable against the surface. If that hadn’t been bad enough, bandaids and stickers attempted to cover the carnage, like Mikey thought his brother’s might not notice if he put enough of his usual charm overtop. What the fuck.

Leo would let Mikey work through his emotions in his own healthy way in his own time, but this sat uncomfortably too close to self harm.

So he swiftly shooed Draxum away from the lair to begin damage control. He would let Mikey sleep for the night, though he hid anything sharp he found around the lair…

Raph had removed his nail scissors from the bathroom just earlier that day (long after Mikey had likely returned to his room), he could barely form words as they looked at the much duller blades, which happened to be ever so slightly bent out of their correct shape.

It made Leo nauseous to even consider Mikey using them on his own shell.

He had stored them in Donnie’s lab with everything else, like Donnie had suggested in the text.

If they weren’t all in panic mode Leo is sure things wouldn’t be going as smoothly.

Next, he prepared a bed in the Medbay car for his youngest brother; he brought out several blankets, drawing materials, and anything Mikey could want when forced to stay in a supervised environment.

Which was the next step Leo had planned, because clearly something wasn’t right and as much as Leo believed Mikey could work it out on his own, he would finally face these worrying signs. He shouldn’t have ignored them as long as he did in the first place.

Leo was just smoothing out a second pillow for the box turtle, when he heard a scream rip through the lair. Ice filled his veins, he didn’t even have time to process he was running before he ended up in front of the youngest’s train car. His gut twisted, and he hesitated only a moment before ripping the door open and charging in blindly.

Golden light swirled around the room, and for a moment Leo was too shocked to move. He went into action when he heard the thudding of Raph and Donnie’s footsteps, and grabbed at the blankets covering his youngest brother.

Leo lost his ability to breathe.

There was so much wrong with the image in front of him; fangs, claws, and spikes being the first thing his eyes landed on. Mikey was sobbing in bed, his eyes were still closed but were scrunched up in pain. He had multiple scratches up and down his arm from where his nails gripped tightly to his scales.

His back….

Turtle spines weren’t really anything you paid avid attention to, especially as their shells are essentially an extended section of it, but…

It curved and went in all the wrong directions, and Leo could only cover his mouth to stop anything that might come out.

His brother’s moved from behind him, Donnie stopping in shock similar to Leo, Raph was the only one of them with presence of mind to lift up the probably hurt turtle, and carry him to their sick bay.

That was all it took for the other two to shake it off as well, and they quickly followed behind the oldest as he placed Mikey on the bed. Raph’s hands shook as he brought them back to his side.

Leo quickly went to work setting up all the equipment they needed, it served as a good distraction from the nausea rolling through him. Just as he was attaching an IV bag to Mikey’s arm, Leo heard a thick wet crack in his direction.

Slowly but surely, right before Leo’s eyes, Mikey’s spine distended, Leo actually watched the bones as they seemed to break and crack into place, all while Mikey whimpered in pain. His tail, which used to sit closer to the base of his shell as all of theirs did (besides Raph’s), now extended far beyond what it should have. Blood began to drip from somewhere behind Mikey onto the clean sheet below him, and Leo just barely made it to the bucket in the corner of the room in time.
~~

When they were younger than they were now, about the time Raph first went to the surface, Leo discovered skin care, and Donnie’s ability with machines were reaching new heights, they had collectively decided to test each of their DNA. It was primarily Donnie’s idea; once he had made machines capable he had been itching to test their unique makeup, and had tried to beg, plead, and trick his brother’s into doing so.

The rest of them, despite their hesitancy, saw the clear benefit, and trusted Donnie enough to know he wouldn’t mean any real harm. Hopefully.

So, they each got the DNA pulled and tested individually. It wouldn’t tell them everything of course, but enough so they could watch for any potential trouble that the data might present.

A few days passed, about three if Mikey remembered right; Donnie’s tech wasn’t as advanced at the time, now a similar machine could do the same test almost instantly.

The most interesting result from the test had been the amount of turtle versus human DNA in each of the brothers, apparently the distribution had not been equal. Donnie had stated that they should have considered as much due to their then understanding of the Oozes’ nature. That no longer sat well with Mikey, Draxum was a scientist, how had he not accounted for equal mutation distribution?

Either way, at the time they found that Leo had the largest amount of human DNA. He had been crushed, it utterly bothered him that he wasn’t as “turtle-y” as the rest of them. His tune changed when they found out they were related to Lou Jitzu; all of a sudden Leo was thrilled to share the most DNA with the action star.

Raph had the second most, and Donnie the third, though according to Don they were beak and beak in the amount of human DNA they contained.

Mikey’s DNA contained the least amount of human, he was the most turtle out of the four of them by quite a lot. According to Raph it made a lot of sense, but Mikey didn’t really see any of the ways it made him different from his brothers.

They all hissed on the rare occasion, and clicked their beaks and chirped and wagged their tails. They all walked on two legs and spoke fluent English and had opposable thumbs. They were all part human and turtle, how much DNA of each they had didn’t really affect how they acted in Mikey’s opinion.

Though he might have become a little self conscious of his turtle behaviors after the test. Just a little.

Maybe that’s why this hurt him so much.

~~

When Mikey awoke, his vision was mostly blurry; and no amount of blinking seemed to fix it. The realization quickly brought him to sit up in bed, glancing around his room nervously to try and have something come into focus. He tried to find his nightstand with the scissors with his eyes, but he wasn’t in his room.

He was in the med bay.

Strong hands lightly pushed him back down against the bed, but he found himself pushing against the attempted restraint. He needed to get out to move, they couldn’t- he wouldn’t let them- if they knew-

A voice muffled against his ears and he found himself swallowing around a lump in his throat.

They must have already found out.

The world came a little more into focus with the realization, only for tears to blur the edges again, without any real understanding of what he was saying, words began to tumble out of his mouth. Whatever he could say to get whoever it was off of him, they were suffocating him, please let go, let go, LET GO-

And they did as soon as new voices found their way into their room. One of them in front of him seemed to get snippy as his voice became harsh and loud, only to be silenced by Mikey’s hiccuping sob.

Something purple and green found its way over to him, it didn’t touch him but came close enough for him to focus on in the lit up room around him. Mikey forced his eyes over to it, and parts of his brother slowly came into focus.

Donnie was whispering to the other two in the room, though Mikey’s brain must have been too tired to actually understand anything he was saying. He did understand the tone, it was biting and harsh in a worried way; it must have been directed toward Leo, because the slider weaved his way in and out of Mikey’s “clear” areas before leaving the room entirely.

“Don, is he-? Is this… ?”

Mikey’s brain must have decided to let him understand words again, he was immensely thankful for that.

Donnie’s hand hovered right above his face, hesitant to wipe away the warm tears that still slid down his scales. “Maybe we should wait until morning Raph, we really don’t know enough and he’s probably still too amped on his own adrenaline to properly be present. For now we should call April to let her know what’s going on, we should also think about reaching out to Draxum and… dad. Those two can wait until after Mikey gets more rest though.” He settled on pulling the blanket on Mikey up to his chest, Mikey wasn’t sure if they had fallen or if the brother’s had been in so much of a rush they hadn’t covered him completely the first time.

Raph agreed, and Mikey really wished he could speak so he might convince them not to involve their sister. He supposed it was only fair she found out with the rest of them though.

One of his older brother’s turned the lights off, and instantly Mikey felt himself start to be pulled back into sleep.

Right before it fully washed over him, he idly wondered how he had been discovered.

~~

This time when he awoke, his hand was being held, and for once he felt comfort warm his chest. He opened his eyes to see who it was, only to find his vision still blurry.

He must have whined at the realization, because soon a giant hand cupped his face and he didn’t need to see which one of his brothers’ were there with him. He already knew the answer.

“R-Raphie…” His voice barely made it out of his own throat, and he did his best to turn to his older brother. What followed was a jolt of pain along his spine which made him quickly return to laying on his back.

Now that he was more awake, he was acutely aware of how uncomfortable the position was.

“It’s ok Angel, go back to sleep.” Raph kissed his forehead as Mikey shook his head against the idea. He didn’t want to go back to sleep, he had already been sleeping too much and it was killing him not knowing what was going on.

“Raph, what’s- what’s wrong with my eyes?” He tried to keep his voice steady, but it cracked as he swallowed hard around the panic building within him. “My vision it’s- it’s blurry, I can’t…” He hoped his hands conveyed the message he was trying to get across as he motioned in front of his eyes.

“I… I’m not sure Mike” Raph said, his own voice broken in a way that sounded like he was holding back a sob “Don said they shouldn’t look like they do. He’s looking into it.”

There was something wrong with his eyes. There was no fixing it if there was something wrong with his eyes.

There was no fixing him.

“Don is also looking into your back.” Raph stated as though he needed to “said that laying on your shell might be uncomfy, and if so I should turn ya over. Are you…?”

Mikey had never heard Raph so unsure, so he just nodded. Raph appeared in front of him then, only partially in focus, and lifted Mikey up to flip him around. For a moment pain ran up his spine, and he let out a quiet hiss at the feeling. Once he was on his plastron, instantly Mikey’s back felt relief, and he found himself nearly losing consciousness due to the change.

He kept himself awake and present though; he needed to talk with his brothers. Raph sat in front of him as best as he could, pushing his way into Mikey’s line of sight, and taking his hand again in an attempt to comfort him. Mikey didn’t need perfect vision in that moment to notice his brother's distress, his mask did nothing to cover dark rings under his eyes, and tear tracks that ran down his face.

Raph brought Mikey’s hand closer to his face, and seemed to almost cry into it from what he could tell. “We thought we lost you Mike. We don’t know what’s wrong with you, and Pizza Supreme in the sky knows we shoulda made sure you were ok.” Mikey tried his best to wipe the tears away from his brother’s cheeks, though it was hard since he was unable to really see where they fell. “We’ll figure this out. Just like we always do.”

He wanted to believe Raph, he really did.

The other two came into the room. Upon seeing him awake and talking, they too rushed over to his side. They barely said a word to him as they made it to him, both just took in the image like they may never see it again. Mikey didn’t blame them.

Donnie seemed to snap out of it first, his need to understand triumphing his preservation of the moment, and he quickly took Raph’s spot in front of Mikey.

“Michael, I have a few questions I need to ask you ok?” Even Donnie’s voice came out uneven in the space before them.

Mikey thought for a moment before shaking his head, surprising his three older brothers who’s eyes almost seemed to grow in size. It almost made him snort.

“Gotta sit up first Dee, my vision’s all funky and I think that might help.”

Donnie’s face scrunched in a way that told Mikey he wasn’t pleased with the idea, nevertheless Leo offered a hand to help Mikey up (with less pain this time!). He sat awkwardly on the bed, his arms came to rest in front of him and his legs rested on either side of him. He probably looked more dog than turtle at that moment, and his face began to burn with embarrassment. He shouldn’t have asked to sit up; but he’d rather look Donnie in the eye while they talked than lie in the bed like he was hurt from nothing and being dramatic. Like he was being lazy and useless again.

“Ok um-” he tried not to look down at the claws on his hands, and instead met Donnie’s gaze, “ask away”.

Donnie began typing away at his wrist screen, the room went eerily quiet between the four of them. Mikey shifted, tried to keep his focus on Donnie and away from Raph and Leo, even if they were staring at him. He couldn’t read any of their expressions, he had no idea what was going on through their heads as he sat in front of them. Everything he had been hiding was right in front of their faces, he couldn’t pretend anymore; it was time to face the music.

He felt a little relieved that they knew.

Donnie kept typing and scrolling on his device, Mikey surmised he was deciding what to ask, there was probably so much he could. Apparently he took too long, because with a frustrated growl, Leo approached him suddenly.

“What’s with the fucking claws Mikey?”

It was harsh, the tone biting on just the edge of a yell, he shrunk back as well as he could in his position. He didn’t miss the way Leo’s eyes were ringed in red, water lining the edge of them like he had been crying and still was going to, he didn’t miss the wobbly lip as his brother grabbed the blanket on the bed to get a hold of something.

“Leon-” Donnie began but Leo didn’t pay him any mind, his eyes glued to their youngest brother.

“How did this even happen? What’s wrong with you?”

He’d been asking himself the same thing.

“That’s enough Leo,” Raph said from his spot on the floor. He still didn’t move, he sat like a stone in the middle of a desert as if moving would physically hurt him. Leo’s eyes spun around to meet Raph’s, anger and frustration building in the slider as his glare began to burn into the turtle in red.

“It’s not Raph! I am the leader and there’s something going on here, and none of us know where to start.” He snapped, and Mikey had to agree with him. This was way over all of their heads, and maybe it wouldn’t have been if he hadn’t hid it for so long. He just wasn’t brave enough to face this. He still wasn’t really.

He swallowed down any words in his throat.

“How’s your vision Mikey?” Donnie finally asked him, his eyes peeking up from the device.

“Blurry.” he answered, his eyes still not bringing anything into focus despite how desperately he had wanted them to. Sitting up had not helped. “It’s like, I can only see clearly in some places.”

Luckily (or perhaps not) the room had been quiet enough that they had all heard what he said, he waved a loose hand in front of his face to better illustrate.
Donnie hummed beside him, his face falling as he stared into Mikey, before getting closer. “Your eyes are… have been changed to become slitted.” Donnie’s words fumbled out from him, his eyes going back to his device. “In other animals this dictates a more nocturnal lifestyle, thus the slit to protect from-” he paused, and sensed the confusion around the room. It almost made Mikey laugh. “Your eyes have changed, and the reason your vision is so blurry is because your pupils aren’t the same shape”.

The clarification resolved some of the anxiety worming its way through Mikey, but there were so many other issues that it was quickly replaced.

Again Leo became impatient, and asked the question they had probably been wondering since they had found him. “How long has this been going on? What even happened to cause this?” He motioned to Mikey’s whole being, and he found himself even more self conscious about how he looked.

“I… I don’t know” he settled on, answering one of the questions and hoping they’d assume it was for both. He didn’t even feel the tears as he began to sob, the gnawing of anxiety growing as it began to fill his whole being. “I just want it to stop, please it hurts so much, a-and I’m so scared”.

He curled into himself, in any other circumstance he would have pulled himself fully into his shell.

But, he found he couldn’t and it made another loud sob wrack through him as he desperately tried to get a hold of himself. He would face his brothers, this was his own fault and he deserved to face the music for it.

“Hey, it’s ok”, Raph comforted, his weight landing somewhere beside Mikey on the bed as he wrapped strong arms around the much smaller turtle. Mikey wanted to pull away, he didn’t deserve this kindness, but even he couldn’t resist Raph’s hugs. He sobbed into the embrace instead, and Raph began to lightly scratch his shell in a way he always liked.

He didn’t notice how the turtle angled the scratches around the spikes that jutted out of the carapace.

“We’ll ask him the questions later” Raph told them, and there was no room for debate despite, even from their recently made leader. “For now I think he’s scared, and it’s our job as big brother’s to show him it’s ok.”

He didn’t see how the other’s responded to the sudo-speech, but he did feel Raph wrap tighter around him, and heard as two other turtles left the room.

“They’re gettin’ things for a turtle pile” Raph whispered into his arms toward Mikey, Mikey could just see his snaggletooth from his position; he lifted a shaky hand to his own new fangs to feel them.

Raph paused upon seeing the action, something like concern building in his eyes before he shook his head and nuzzled Mikey with his snout. “Hey, we match now” Raph's smile made a fresh sob wrack through his frame, and he desperately grabbed onto the bigger turtle as if he depended on it.

~
Leo and Donnie returned with pillows, and sour expressions. It took them all too long to actually make the pile, and it was done in a tense and unfortunate silence.

The turtle pile was a thing of disgrace to be perfectly honest, if Mikey was acting like he was supposed to, he would tell them to let him handle it before making the perfect fort.

However, Mikey found it extremely hard to act right then. Usually he’d name himself the champ of acting over any emotions that he didn’t want at a particular moment, but that right there was the problem.

Mikey currently found himself numb, no emotions to speak of or cover up. He was empty.

He didn’t say anything as Raph moved him to the pile, didn’t even react as they laid him down on his stomach because he wasn’t supposed to lay on his back anymore, according to Donnie. It still ached mildly, but the pain offered a good distraction to his lack of emotions.

That should probably worry him, but he couldn’t find it in himself to care.

They slept in the same space for the first time in forever, but none of them were really connected in any sense. Mikey could feel their ninpō tugging between them like it was tearing apart at the seams.

Raph cradled Mikey, he refused to let go of the smaller turtle and still had his arms wrapped around him. Mikey had stopped crying some time ago, so it was entirely unnecessary.

His other brothers found their own spots on the blanket. Somehow they had each spread out and were far from each other, which totally ruined the point of a turtle pile but whatever.

Mikey took notice that none of his bedding or blankets sat in the pile; he watched as Leo lay facing away from the group, as Donnie kept sparing him glances and typing away as though he might not notice, as Raph hugged him close to his plastron as if he was scared Mikey might try to escape.

He knew that he was broken, that was for sure.

But at that moment, he thought they all might be.

Mikey was just beginning to fall asleep, when he felt someone take his hand.

He opened his eyes, his vision clear in the darker room, and saw Donnie in front of him.

“I’m sorry I-” he paused, Mikey didn’t know if his immediately older brother even knew how to continue.

“It’s ok Don” he still couldn’t smile, but maybe Donnie wouldn’t notice in the dark room, “we’ll figure this out.”

“We will.” Donnie promised, and he didn’t move from that spot for the rest of the night.

Chapter Text

Mikey awoke to the smell of eggs and bacon, and he knew instantly that April had made it down to their lair. She was the only one beside himself in the family with any ability to cook (though, that was not saying much).

A part of Mikey wanted to avoid her, she couldn’t see him like this. He looked up to his older sister, he looked up to all of his older siblings, but if she saw…

They hadn’t reacted exactly as he had expected, they had all been horrified by what he had become. They had looked at him and saw a monster.

He didn’t want her to see the same. He couldn’t lose her too.

Though his brothers didn’t feel lost at the very moment. Raph’s arms wrapped tightly around him; though warm, it wasn’t necessarily as comfortable as normal. Donnie too had kept a hold of his hands for most of the night, which was sweet all things considered.

By some pure miracle, Mikey managed to worm his way out from between his two brothers without waking them. It probably helped having so much practice at the skill under his belt. What was a lot harder than usual was getting out of the pillow-nest itself.

His new back made moving extremely difficult. He still didn’t quite know why that was, but he managed to get past most of the blankets by crawling.

Just when he thought he was home free, he heard someone clear their throat to get his attention. He wasn’t surprised when he saw Leo staring back at him from the pile.

Leo stared at him, his face oddly blank and hard to read for the turtle in blue. Leo nodded his head back in the direction of the fort; Mikey was too tired to argue this morning after the rough sleep, he also didn’t want Leo to… react like he had yesterday, so without complaint, he landed back in the mix of pillows and blankets.

Mikey laid down on his plastron, guilt pulling at his insides and choking him of air. His eyes roamed over to Leo, who still watched him vigilantly. His usually fun and easy to read brother watched him neutrally from his isolated spot on the bed.

[Just didn’t want April to see me] Mikey explained, fumbling around the sign language from his position. They all knew the language, it made it easier to communicate on stakeouts and when they really needed to be sneaky.

Donnie was the one who introduced it to them, and Mikey was just glad that the language offered Donnie a way to be non-verbal with them when he needed to be. Him and Donnie used it the most in the house, and when they wanted to tease their brother’s without the other’s knowing? Well, it worked for those situations just as well.

It was weird watching his now clawed hands move around in the practiced motions; after he finished signing, he brought it close to his chest and began to pick at one of the claws.

Leo sat up, his posture relaxed and unbothered despite the still cold expression on his face. He still had his mask on. Leo was unpracticed and slow as he pieced together his own sentence, his hands shook ever so slightly from word to word. [Yes well sorry to tell you but, no leaving the turtle pile] then, a little more sure [leader’s orders].

Mikey pressed deeper into the nail he was picking out, and huffed out a growl at the other; that’s why he had been trying to sneak out, Leo. With Leo's horrible sleep schedule, who knows how little sleep Leo had gotten that last week, and Mikey was the one on blast? Seemed about right.

Still, Mikey felt uncomfortable with the amount of guilt gnawing away at him, Leo may not have meant to, but he had hurt Mikey when he blew up at the younger. However, it still felt like his fault. If he had told them sooner… If he had done a better job of keeping it secret… None of this would have been happening.

He couldn’t keep a secret, even to save his brother’s from it.

It didn’t matter anymore he supposed, it was too late for that. There was no going back now.

[Leo I’m sor-] Mikey had to blink tears out of his eyes when Leo lightly placed a hand on his own, stopping the signing in its tracks. His face still was cold, he showed no regret or guilt, but the way he held Mikey’s hands so gently-

[Explain later] Leo nodded his head over at Raph and Donnie [when they are awake too].

Mikey could only nod, could only push his sharp claws deep into the finger they were still playing with, as Leo let him go and returned to his spot.

Anger seated deep within Mikey, and he kept pressing his claws of one hand into the other until he felt something pop. Looking down he saw blood run down the side of the finger, it sat crimson against his green skin; he simply smushed it into a blanket close to him, as it was not worth the trouble of asking Leo for a band aid.

He didn’t really feel like talking to Leo anymore, not if he wasn’t going to be heard.

He watched the blood soak into the fabric.

~~

Finally after each minute seemed to crawl by, Donnie and Raph woke up too.

It had been awkward getting him to stand up; his back wasn’t right anymore, even propped up with two of them keeping him steady-ish on two legs it was obviously wrong.

Mikey tried to ignore the way Donnie and Raph supported his back, how they seemed to somehow avoid touching the spikes lining his shell.

He didn’t look up at Leo when he was finally standing, just kept his neck in a more comfortable position staring slightly ahead of him but not really seeing.

Zoning out was a lot easier when everything was blurry around you.

They led him like a death march toward the dining room, and he prepared himself for the way April would look at him. He wouldn’t even know how she reacted until she said something about it because of his stupid eyes. A snarl forced its way out of him as he blinked back tears. Raph whipped his head widdly toward Mikey (which he could only tell because of the way his support faltered slightly), but didn’t say anything about it.

They pushed forward as a group, struggling in the doorways that were really only meant for a singular human, much less three mutant turtles in a row. Mikey’s legs lagged behind, his steps were uncomfortable and his hips felt wrong. He briefly considered telling Donnie and Raph this, but shook the thought from his head.

If he told them, Raph would just start carrying him everywhere, and Mikey would rather die than let that happen. His throat went dry at that thought, and Mikey could only try and swallow it back.

It must have taken a while to get to the kitchen, not that Mikey could really tell, but when they stopped it had been a lot longer than the usual trip. The smell was stronger in this part of the lair, and Mikey realized just how hungry he really was.

They stopped in front of what Mikey realized to be the counter, and within seconds April whipped into view. She grabbed at his face gently, looking it up and down with a concern he could barely just see, she must have also looked at his hands from the way she grabbed them next.

“Mikey, are you hurt? As soon as I read the text your brothers sent me I came as quickly as I could. I’m so sorry I wasn’t here sooner.” She tsked, he felt something wet fall on his head and he realized she must be crying. “What’s going on Mikey? Does it hurt?”

It did hurt. His shell was still sore, and he was all around uncomfortable being held up like this. Mikey quickly found himself in tears too, as if having her here finally got him to cry.

“Let’s get you to the couch, give me a second I’ll get your breakfast.”

~~

April, the miracle worker that she was, convinced Mikey’s brother’s to let them have a moment, which Mikey was more than grateful for. As soon as she was on the couch with him she slid his breakfast over to him. It was a sandwich. Something he could use his hands to eat; he had never been more thankful for his sister.

“Mikester, what’s going on?” She asked, her voice soft and careful as Raph’s had been. He swallowed down the try bread, hoping it’d keep the guilt down with it.

“I- I woke up one morning and… I… it..” he choked out, tears forming again. Why couldn’t he keep himself from crying around her? “I really don’t know, I’m just scared and it hurts.” He was almost full out sobbing now “and I just don’t know how much more I’m gonna change. I’m already a monster.”

She grabbed him and pulled him into a tight hug, he loosely wrapped his arms around her and sobbed into her shoulder. She held him tightly, her hand gripping the back of his shell, resting over some of the spikes. “You are not a monster. I don’t know where you got that thought, but you are not, and never will be a monster.”

He sobbed harder into her, and she just continued to hold him until he began to stop.

“Thanks April…” he said, she wiped his tears away with her sleeve and reminded him to eat his sandwich. With a smile, he grabbed it and took a big bite.

“Now, I’ll be staying over for a few days” she started, Mikey couldn’t help but stare at her with big eyes, her schooling she couldn’t afford to stay here for that long! I can’t believe I’m just causing more issues for everyone around me- “and before you say anything.” She shot him a look that instantly pulled his attention back to her, “I’ve already let them know that there has been a family emergency, and they are letting me work online for a few days. I already brought my laptop down with me.”

She patted a bag beside her, and shot him a soft smile. That made Mikey feel a little better, at least she wasn’t completely throwing away everything to help him out. He still felt guilty though, he didn’t deserve this much concern, he’d try to make her stay as quick as possible so she could go back to focusing on her studies.

“Now, from Donnie’s message I’ve heard that Leo’s been… not helping the situation to say the least.” Mikey nodded, not really knowing what to say about that situation. He was sure it was all just worry from Leo, but his brother had been so… angry with him recently. His brother had been so angry in general recently!

Mikey couldn’t help but blame himself though, Leo was just reacting to a situation that Mikey had caused. If Mikey had been stronger, better, had told his brother’s when the changes started, had actually stopped caring about himself for one minute and talked to Leo about what was wrong…

He was cleaning up Mikey’s mess like he always had and now the others were too. Way to go Mikey.

“I swear I will talk to Leo about-”

“No wait, please April it’s fine…” Mikey stopped her, he didn’t want her to take on more of Mikey’s problems, it was time he actually tried to deal with them. “Leo’s just in a weird place right now, give me the chance to speak with him.”

April hummed, tapping a finger against his hand as she finally let him out of her tight hug. “Alright.” she said, and Mikey let out a relieved sigh, “but you have to let him know how you're feeling too. How you are actually feeling. If that doesn’t go over well, then I’ll have a talk with him.”

“... Ok” Mikey agreed, April likely wouldn’t give him much more lee-way on this, so he’d have to take it where he could.

They talked for a bit after that, April tried her best to take his mind off of everything going on by telling him about all that had happened to her recently. He did his best to follow along, and let her take his mind away from his problems, but dread gripped his heart

Mikey summoned all the courage he had until he felt ready to face his second oldest brother.

~~

By the time he made it to Leo’s room with April’s help, he no longer felt ready to face his second oldest brother.

Leo didn’t like talking about emotions, he’d much prefer to leave them buried under layers of jokes and fake smiles than address what was bothering him. Mikey was fine with it because he understood, and he knew he would never get his brother to open up if Leo really didn’t want to.

Then Leo became their leader and the family’s whole dynamic changed. Although Leo (and Mikey admittedly) didn’t understand why their father’s decision actually had to change anything (how did Splinter know what would work best for the team when they had decided to become one without his input?); Raph refused to pretend that it hadn’t meant anything. Raph had agreed that it didn’t need to change how they worked together, but it would be worth considering why Splinter had suggested Leo be their leader in the first place.

Leo had all but stopped talking to any of them after a particularly tense late night discussion.

“Raph, why does this matter so much to you? We would follow you to our deaths, so why are you letting Splinter, our dad who has no clue how our team works, destroy that?!” The discussion had been going on for hours, Mikey was getting frustrated at the fact that it was going in the same direction that all of their discussions on the topic went. By the looks of things, so was Leo.

“It matters to me Leo because he clearly saw something. Maybe it was when the two of you went to the Battle Nexus, or maybe it was when he actually trained us; it doesn’t matter. Leo, he doesn’t know us, but he wouldn’t have made you the leader if he didn’t have a good reason to.” Raph still spoke calmly, though Mikey watched him fist his hands just a bit tighter.

“Or he’s just a shitty dad who feels like poking into our business because he feels guilty that he hadn’t sooner.” Leo hissed, and Mikey flinched from the pure venom in his voice. The room went silent in the moments that followed. Then…

“You know what Leo? Yeah ok, sure maybe that is why he suggested it?” Raph growled back, voice equally angry now that the tone had changed in the conversation. “But at least he is actually trying to think about the team as a whole. Maybe if you became the leader you could see how tough the role actually is; maybe you would understand the weight of having to look out for every one you care about while still trying to win”. Hurt seeped into his voice, and Mikey wanted to stop the whole conversation; Donnie stopped him with a light hand on his shoulder. “Maybe if you were the leader, you wouldn’t be so selfish”.

Raph hadn’t meant it; had been hurt, tired, and frustrated too; but Leo looked like he had been smacked by the words nonetheless. Leo stomped away from the group without another word.

He stood in front of the train car, and drew in a long slow breath; then finally, he made his way in with a knock.

Leo sat turned away from the door, he looked to be writing something as Mikey entered, and discreetly hid it as soon as he was fully inside the car. “What do you want?”

Mikey swallowed down any fear and guilt he felt building inside himself, and April helped him take a seat beside Leo on his bed. As she helped him down she squeezed his shoulders one more time, and probably shot Mikey a smile of encouragement. Mikey took a quick look around the room, noting that the posters of Jupiter Jim that Leo used to have on his walls had been covered up with clutter.

As soon as April had left them alone, Mikey tried to sit up straight on the bed.

“I wanna talk to you Leo, we haven’t talked in so long” Mikey admitted meekly, and watched as his brother softened ever so slightly.

They hadn’t, Mikey still felt fear gnawing at him despite the fact that he knew he was just talking to his brother.

Leo sighed, sitting down on his bed defeated. “What do you want to talk about Mikey?”

“About why you’re so… upset.” Mikey said, he didn’t really know how to approach it, how do you tell your older sibling that they hurt you? How do you tell them that you were scared? “Back in the med bay you… you yelled at me and I was just wondering… why?”

Mikey was desperately trying to use any tact that he had to ensure that the conversation with Leo stayed pleasant.

“I didn’t yell at you. I was concerned.” and then, quieter “am I not even allowed to feel emotions anymore?” Leo shot Mikey a glare, before softening again. “Look Mikey, I think it’s just best for you to… leave me to myself for a bit. I’m not who you need me to be.”

Mikey didn’t really know how to respond to that, but he understood. “I don’t need you to be anyone Leo, I just… want you to be here for me”. He tried to scoot closer, Leo tensed in his spot. “I just want your support as I’m going through this too.”

Leo’s face scrunched up in an unpleasant way, “cut the shit, if you're talk to me you are going to be real with your emotions Mike.”

Mikey reeled at the statement, before letting it slide down him like water off a duck's back. “I just mean…” He sighed trying and failing to find the words he wanted to say, “I just want to know that you don’t see me like a monster." That the reason Leo was pushing away wasn’t because Mikey was becoming unrecognizable”.

Mikey’s eyes no longer watched his brother, instead they focused on the claws resting against the blankets on the bed. One claw in particular, bled from a scab that he had created that morning.

Leo paused, Mikey could hear his breath still in the close space between them, and then, as if a switch had turned on…

Leo grabbed his arm quickly, staring down at the scabbed over digit, his eyes looked panicked as he tugged painfully on Mikey’s arm. “What the fuck…” he quietly muttered, as if dots had connected in his mind “Mikey, did you do this to yourself?”

It felt hostile, and Mikey wanted out of this conversation.

“Not… Not on purpose…”

“Mikey what the fuck.” he snapped, pulling the arm with him as he grabbed the med kit close to his bed. Mikey topped over, his plastron landing on the side of Leo’s bed until he came toppling off of it. “You do not hurt yourself, do you hear me.” He said, as Mikey managed to right himself with one arm from where he fell. “You do not hurt yourself.”

Leo pulled ever so slightly harder on Mikey’s arm, but it was enough that a whine managed to escape him.

Upon hearing the sound Leo reeled back so quickly that Mikey nearly went toppling over again. He let go of Mikey’s hand as though it burned him to touch it.

“Shit.” Was all Leo said, as he stared at Mikey.

Leo looked scared, scared of Mikey. Scared of what Mikey was; a monster, a burden, everything he had always known about himself.

Scared of the truth that Mikey was just realizing himself.

Mikey wasn’t just changing physically.

~~

Mikey raced out of the room, not even stopping for help to walk on the way and instead opting to use a mix of crawling, hobbling (though painful), and using nearby walls and furniture for support.

He found himself racing down the halls, he didn’t even know where he was going but he just had to get away. Despite how slowly he had been moving before, he seemed to be fast enough now. Mikey passed rooms and heard distant conversations, he did not stop to listen in.

Leo was scared of him.

Fuck.

Mikey nearly broke down as he stopped on his spot, his hands gripping the train station walls as he bore his nails into the stone surrounding him. His eyes burned with tears that dripped down his face as he stopped to heave. His vision was nearly blind. Still, once he had a hold of himself, he stumbled further down the way.

Mikey couldn’t handle the look Leo had given him, couldn’t handle the snarling, growling, hissing, the whining. He was becoming a creature, the definition of monster that humans had thought of them for all these years.

Mikey kept running further and further.

He didn’t want his brothers’ to think that of him. He was the most turtle out of all of them, but he was just as human. Mikey wasn’t a creature, Mikey was Mikey.

Mikey stopped to catch his breath, a high whine working its way out of his throat as he tried to stop it.

He just wanted this to stop, he just wished Donnie would find him already and put an end to his suffering-

Gold filtered in through his foggy vision, sparkling against the cold dark walls of the tunnels around him. It glimmered in the soft space and Mikey felt his breath catch. For a moment, every emotion drifted away as the light flew up and dissipated in the space above him.

Then, as if by magic Donnie appeared behind him, his managed footsteps dragging him over to the area just as the last of the gold drifted away. Mikey watched the purple bandanna get closer and closer, and watched his immediately older brother look over in confusion.

Mikey couldn’t manage any cohesive thought.

There was no way that he-

It had to be coincidental that just as he wished-

It didn’t make any sense, it wasn’t possible-

Mikey’s legs felt weak, he slid off the wall off of them, and onto his knees, watching Donnie approach him with concern and care.

Then Mikey felt the pain.

A slow burn building up in his legs as he only just barely looked down at them, Donnie seemed to be confused, and he noted distantly that his brother was talking to him.

Then, just as Donnie was helping him stand, Mikey watched with sick fascination as one of them simply bent out of shape, the bone snapping into the wrong place.

White hot pain spread through his leg a moment later, causing Mikey to nearly black out. Suddenly all of his weight was on Donnie who did his best to catch him. Mikey’s legs continued to reform as Donnie desperately hit the panic button on their sashes; Mikey only realized he was screaming once Raph and Leo had gotten close enough to shush him.

They took him to the med bay as fast as possible, giving him pain medicine strong enough to dull the shooting pain of bones shifting under the skin. As soon as a hand found its way near him, Mikey began to squeeze it, as though trying to transfer his own pain. Whoever it was squeezed back lightly, staying there by his side as he felt another bone change.

Thankfully, Leo elected to knock him out for the rest of the process, and he couldn’t help but smile as he was pulled from consciousness.

Chapter Text

Mikey was getting tired of waking up to his various body parts aching, honestly he was quite fed up with this whole situation. If it had been Mikey’s choice, he would have simply gone back to sleep, he would much rather take a rain check on the fallout this time around and just stay asleep instead. However, it wasn’t really up to Mikey, not with his brothers yelling at each other only a few feet away from him. Nice.

“So what are you trying to say Donnie? That we aren’t good enough to fix this on our own?” Leo sounded tense, but Mikey could hear the panic structuring his words like a backbone. “We will fix this as a family because that’s what we’ve always done. Us four have always dealt with anything that came our way and this won’t be any different.”

He heard Donnie scoff from beside him, which meant that Donnie likely hadn’t left his side after he had fallen earlier. He didn’t blame Donnie, he would have done the same, but something about his sudden appearance still bothered Mikey. How had Donnie found him right as Mikey wanted him to? It seemed way too coincidental for Mikey’s liking.

“I am saying that Leo! This clearly relates to something mystic and none of us know enough about that to help Mikey more than we already have.” Donnie hissed back.

So they were arguing about him this time, Mikey bit at his beak as he stayed as still as he could, darkness slowly beginning to swirl in his gut.

“Oh yeah? And what if Draxum did this to him?” Leo spat, Mikey could hear his footsteps as he essentially stomped closer to where Donnie was. Mikey felt something weigh down the bottom corner of the blanket that covered him, and he could only guess it was an attempt from Donnie to find some comfort in Mikey’s presence. “Mikey didn’t start changing until that fucker entered our home. Now Mikey’s turning into some creature and the only reason he’s still not around is because I sent him away.”

“Oh that’s bullshit and you know it.” Donnie nearly whispered, his voice slightly further away now. “Draxum would never try to hurt us again, especially not Mikey.”

Donnie was right, Draxum had a special spot in his heart for the box turtle despite Mikey’s own efforts to get him to care about them all equally. It really wouldn’t make sense for him to hurt Mikey in such a way. Besides, the changes had begun long before his second father had checked in on them, not that the others knew that.

Fuck Mikey couldn’t let them know how long he had been dealing with this for. Even if it only turned out to be slightly longer than they already knew…

Cutting his nails despite being able to feel every moment of the action, filing down his teeth, his shell…

If his brother’s knew what he had done to hide it, they would surely only see it as wrong; he knew he could handle it, he could handle the pain and the problem alone as long as they didn’t have to worry over him. But they had found out, and even when dealing with the problem alone, he still found a way to inconvenience his brothers more. Leo had already freaked out at him for just picking at his finger, if they knew what he had done to cover up…

He wouldn’t do that to them, he couldn’t. Mikey knew the truth, knew that he had done what was necessary to keep it a secret, but they might not see it that way.

He found the two still arguing when he tuned back in, tension about at bursting as the two slung accusations and insults at one another. Done stewing in his own mind, he decided to let them know he was awake; so he finally sat up with a grunt.

Donnie, still close enough to him, noticed immediately, his conversation with Leo dropping the instant Mikey was up. “Alright be careful sitting up, it’s still not good for you to be on your back for extended periods.”

Donnie’s hands found his arm, helping Mikey get into a semi-comfortable, semi-necessary-because-his-back-had-reformed position. It was awkward, and Mikey’s legs, and back, and tail and… everything ached as he moved them into place.

It wasn’t as bad as the pain of them changing though, so he was grateful for that.

Mikey nodded at Donnie, shooting him a classic smile and went to thank him.

Until he found he couldn’t.

Mikey opened his mouth to speak, he really did, he went through all the same motions as he normally would and only found a squeak.

Quickly he tried again, only to find the same thing, though it came out as a slow more chirp like sound.

Mikey cleared his throat as calmly as he could, before trying once more; only to find, he could not speak.

Suddenly Mikey began rolling trills and chirps off, trying desperately to say anything, to get anything that sounded like his voice, much less words, out of his beak. His eyes began to water, and all he could think to do was to raise his hands towards his throat so Donnie could get the message. He nearly began to choke on the air that refused to let him speak.

He couldn’t see, he couldn’t talk, Mikey was slowly being cut off from the world, and was helpless to stop it.

Donnie’s hands found his own, still at his throat, and gently took them. Through the panic, Mikey heard his brother's wobbly voice telling him to breathe, Donnie quickly directed him to start counting up and not stop until he felt calmer, joining him so Mikey could follow along.

Alright, he could do this.

1

Mikey closed his eyes, feeling a tear work its way down his face.

2

Donnie pressed his fingers into Mikey’s own, his fingers were worn from working with machines.

3

A machine beeped beside them, solid against the back of Mikey’s mind.

4

Leo, or at least he assumed, shuffled from in front of him somewhere, maybe he was getting closer?

5

Mikey reopened his eyes to see Donnie close to him, still gripping his hands delicately. Donnie watched him carefully, not quite sure yet what was to follow. The turtle in purple was just barely in his field of vision. Then…

“Donnie” he managed to gasp out, his vocal cords finally finding themselves again. With the word Donnie engulfed him in a hug, nearly strangling Mikey in the embrace. Mikey couldn’t care less at that moment, he needed to hold onto Donnie, to know he was still there and connected to them, so he held onto Donnie just as tightly.

“What was that?” Leo asked, he still had yet to get closer to Mikey.

“I don’t really know I just,” Mikey struggled to find the words, he could still feel his heart beating behind his plastron, “I just couldn’t speak for a moment.”

He opted to ignore the way he spoke was punctuated with a click.

From what Mikey could tell Leo looked absolutely horrified, even taking a step away from Mikey after a moment. Mikey swallowed back the hurt on the back of his tongue.

Mikey felt as Donnie’s shoulders relaxed around him, and finally he let go of the smaller turtle he had been nearly crushing.

Just as Donnie was letting go Raph came rushing back, his arms filled with a mix of medical supplies and food, both recently cooked (or more burned), and a few bags of chips. Wide eyed and panicked he stepped into the room, his eyes coming upon Mikey before swooping in on him. Donnie made a grunt as all of the stuff the bigger turtle had brought was unceremoniously dropped on the other end of the bed.

“I thought you couldn’t do anything without this medical junk,” Raph stated, his confusion stink making Mikey’s nose tickle, “were you just trying to get me out of the room Don?”

There was no real tension to Raph's voice, which seemed to help ease the rest of the room too, Mikey felt his own panic at not being able to talk subside in the embrace. Mikey hummed just to feel his voice in his throat again.

“More like trying to get you away from my patient” he teased back, most of the wobble now gone from his voice. “But I did actually need the X-ray accouterments to properly assess what actually occurred with Mikey’s legs to see if it matches my current hypothesis.” Mikey quietly giggled at his brother’s sudden change of tone, Donnie always became so serious when it involved his machines or their general health, unlike Leo who used humor to often hide his stress at seeing his brothers hurt.

It felt nice to laugh, and Mikey relished it for the moment.

Although Leo was usually the medic of the team, sometimes an injury required a machine or two to properly assess. It was easier having Donnie run his own machines in these cases, than to attempt to teach Leo to instead. Besides, Mikey wasn’t sure Leo even wanted to touch him right now, so it was probably better that Donnie ran the machines.

Mikey shook his head of those thoughts, and brought his attention back to Donnie so he could do anything the softshell told him to.

From beside him Donnie quickly moved to set up the machine, it took only a few minutes before it was ready for his legs. Mikey wasn’t really sure how they were going to get it to scan him however. The machine was clearly built for the turtles as they normally were, human-like builds and all, so it would be no easy task getting his current form into the machine properly, much less comfortably.

Eventually the solution they had come to was simply sticking one of his legs in by having him essentially back it into the machine. It was clumsy sure, and all of them stared at his leg, and the new ways in which it bent and curved intently, but eventually he managed to get it into position.

The machine hummed to life, its lights flashing with activation as it began to scan Mikey’s legs.

Leo finally moved closer from the spot he had been since Donnie and he had fought; joining both Donnie and Raph on the left side of the bed to watch the machine as it scanned for his bones. The room was utterly silent as they waited for the results. Mikey did his best to stay still despite the way his body nearly shook with nerves.

Finally, the machine finished its scan, and the image it created was transferred onto the screen in the med-bay that Mikey always forgot existed. Or at least, he was surprised to see it flicker to life this time, did he usually forget that it was there?

Mikey tried to ignore the creeping dread slowly overtaking him.

The screen lit up, showing what the machine had created based on the scan of his leg.

Even without medical knowledge Mikey could tell (despite his limited vision) that it was just wrong. If he hadn’t seen it bend in front of him, he would almost be convinced that the scanner was having technical issues. The limited ease in the room flickered out, leaving it cold and making Mikey struggle to keep himself calm.

The monitor showed his leg bend in several places, most notably his heel seemed much more prominent than before. He heard Leo’s breath catch as he stared at the image, the reaction made shame flood through Mikey as he focused on removing his leg instead.

“What are we looking at here Don?” Leo asked, his voice slightly breaking as he spoke. Donnie kept staring at the image, his hand coming to rest over his mouth and his gaze becoming more intent the longer he looked.

“It’s…. Completely different. I don’t even- Where do I…?” Donnie couldn’t even finish his thought. Mikey had never seen Donnie so confused and lost, his brother’s eyes traced the bones over and over like the answer would become clear. Mikey sunk back into himself, making himself as small as possible as they looked at a piece of what he was becoming. “My hypothesis seems to be correct at least. Mikey’s legs seem to have reformed to become digitigrade.”

They all stayed silent so Donnie could expand on the thought. “So good news, your body is changing to… accommodate your new form.” With that Donnie flicked off the screen and began to return the x-ray machine to its travel state. “Bad news, without knowing more about what’s changing you, we can’t do much to try and stop it.”

Donnie passed the gear to Raph, who seemed to deflate on the spot, “there’s nothing we can do for him? What about what’s changing him is there anyway we can figure that out-” the hint of hope in Raph’s voice dwindled with whatever look Donnie gave him.

Before leaving the room to put away the gear, Donnie gave Mikey a soft pat on the head. “We’ll talk about… what we can do when I get back. For now it’s probably best that you rest.” Mikey gave him a short nod and a smile, and Donnie and Raph made for Donnie’s lab with the x-ray equipment in their arms.

That left Leo and Mikey in the room together; Mikey quickly found the other through his partially blurry vision. Leo sat in the doorway, his arms crossed as he looked down at the ground and away from Mikey.

Mikey couldn’t let this continue, there had been a distance slowly growing between him and Leo recently and Mikey just couldn’t stand it any longer. To get the other turtle's attention he cleared his throat.

“So…” Mikey started, not really knowing where to begin. Maybe he should start with running out on him yesterday, it was as good a start as any. “Sorry for running off on you yesterday.”

Leo didn’t turn around or make any show he was listening to, but Mikey knew he likely was from the way his back straightened ever so slightly. Hopefully. So he continued.

“I uh…” his heart skipped a beat, the full truth wasn’t going to work here, but maybe part of it would. “I don’t really know what came over me, I just… I got scared and I had to run, so I’m sorry about that.”

It was true enough, though Leo would likely pry for more, of his brother’s Leo always could read Mikey a lot better than the others. However, instead of drilling him with more questions, Leo quietly stayed in the doorway, still despondent.

It irked Mikey a little, but he tried to shake it off.

“I mean I know we should probably talk about what happened…” he really didn’t want to, but Leo wasn’t responding and it seemed like a good way to get him to talk. “Maybe while Don and Raph make their way back we can-”

“Not now Mikey.” Leo finally stated, his glare coming around to pin the smaller terrapin. “Donnie said we’d talk when they got back, so we aren’t going to do anything right now.”

Mikey wasn’t really sure how to respond, but something new began to boil in his chest as Leo casually disregarded his suggestion.

“Why do you get to decide that?” He spat, a low growl forming in his chest. He didn’t even try to stop it as it rumbled out of his plastron, the heat from his chest slowly spreading.

“What was that?” Leo asked, voice half perturbed and half shocked at the comment. Mikey never spoke back, Mikey tried to avoid arguments like he would blows in a battle. Thus Mikey was the one among them who was notably in the least amount of arguments, and whose arguments always ended the fastest.

Mikey didn’t talk back.

The acid now spreading out from Mikey said otherwise, and he was finally ready to listen. “Why do you get to decide when we talk? I’ve been trying to have an actual constructive conversation with you Leo and you either shoot me down or just… blow up at me!” Venom began to leak into his voice, as well as a slight hiss.

Leo now fully turned to him in the doorway, his face instantly going from shock to pure anger, “because Mikey, maybe I’m not ready for this kind of conversation. Did doctor feelings ever consider that maybe, just maybe, you should consider if both parties actually want to have a conversation before just forcing it onto them?”

Mikey only had to be ‘doctor feelings’ because they all struggled to express their emotions in one way or another, as far as Mikey was concerned it was the only way, especially recently, that anything actually got better in the household. “And what happens if I don’t Leo, as the team’s leader you should know how important it is that issues are actually worked out!” he hissed, body fully tensing.

Now Mikey was nearly standing on all four of his limbs, though his arms were just a bit too short to fully reach where they needed to properly. His claws dug into the bed as the now boiling heat began to run through his veins. It felt like fire.

“Or maybe you would know that if you weren’t so busy causing half of the issues.” he spat, Leo finally coming into clear vision as he stood in front of Mikey.

His brother looked furious in front of him. His markings glowed solidly against his body, his hands clenched by his sides, and his eyes nearly glared through Mikey.

But Mikey stood his ground, the growling and hissing now slowly becoming louder in the room.

“Please! I’m the one causing issues?” Leo was fumbling for a comeback now because he just couldn’t lose an argument. “You’re barely even a person anymore.”

All sense flooded from Mikey’s being, being replaced with the intense heat, hot hot, fire, burning. Some predator-like sound made its way out from him as the room around them began to shake.

~~

Leo quickly lost all anger as the realization of what he said, and the room shaking around him came in quick succession. The quaking around him nearly caused Leo to lose his footing as he fell against the doorway.

“Shit.” he cursed as terror sinked slowly through him. He grabbed on for dear life to the doorway beside him and took a glance at his younger brother.

There on the bed, still a snarling animalistic mess, Mikey glowed gold; flakes of it coming up and around him in the smaller space. Unlike Leo, Mikey seemed barely affected by the shifting ground, staying firmly planted on the bed. However, from around him, various items from the med-bay began to fall, move, and break; and Mikey was dead in the center of it.

“Mikey!” he called out, every ounce of anger quickly drawn out as he saw his brother in the middle of the mess. From behind him, Leo heard a crashing noise, only to turn around and see April, a plastic bag of food around her arm, crash beside the door frame.

“Leo! What the hell is going on here!?” she asked, slowly resetting the grappling hook she had obviously used to make her way over to him. “I leave for five minutes to get you all food, and suddenly the entire train station is having a localized earthquake?”

Leo was happy to see her, but he didn’t have time.

“April, there’s no time. Somehow Mikey is causing this. I need you to go check on the other guys, they went into Donnie’s lab when this shaking began. You have to make sure they’re alright.” She nodded, finally looking into the med-bay, her eyes widening at the sight before her. “I’m gonna get him to stop. Meet back up with me when and if possible.”

Without another word April gave him a nod, and shot her grappling hook into the wall opposite to them, and slowly made her way across the still rumbling ground.

Leo, still grabbing onto the doorway slowly grabbed for his sword behind his back, his one arm struggling to hold on as the area shook around him. Just as he almost grabbed his sword, a loud crack sounded from somewhere above him.

Leo was just barely able to dodge as a large piece of rubble fell behind him, forcing him to take a deep studying breath.

Leo tried again, this time finding the hilt with his hand without issue, and stabbing it firmly into the ground.

However, as soon as he let go of the doorway, he quickly lost his footing, and found himself plastron down on the ground. His forearms hurt at the collision, but he managed to keep a firm grasp on his sword.

“Mikey!” he tried again, trying to inch himself close as things fell around him, “I’m sorry, I just-”

A cabinet came off of its hinges, and Leo had just enough time to pull his sword out of the ground and portal it away from him.

Without the sword in the ground, Leo found himself sliding on his shell toward the wall furthest from Mikey. With a quick turn, Leo plunged his sword into the ground once more, managing to stop himself before he made contact with the concrete.

“I just don’t know what to do,” his voice cracked. Leo needed to get to Mikey, needed to make sure his youngest brother was safe, “the truth is, I’m scared Mikey. I’m supposed to be the leader and I don’t even know how to go about helping you.” his throat felt raw. “I don’t even know how you guys can even consider me a leader, when I just barely fit on the team.”

With one last large shake, the room stilled and Leo embraced the change by lying entirely flat on the ground. After a moment he dared to look up and see Mikey, in a different position than he had been simply looking down at Leo.

They stared at each other for a few seconds, not a word passing between them, and Leo could hardly breath. Then, Mikey must have realized at least some of what had happened, because without a second glance, he quickly made his way out of the room (clinging to the walls and even… traveling on all fours) before Leo could even hope to stand up.

It took Leo a minute to stand up, it took Leo one more to think about calling out for his brother, he gave a few calls before finally assessing his own injuries. He was definitely beaten up, his arms were scraped and bruised, and he had a cut bleeding on his head, but otherwise he was fine. Leo winced at the ache that followed after the adrenaline began its slow decline through him, ok so he was mostly fine, overall most of his injuries were surface level and would be healed quite easily.

If it hadn’t been for April calling him, he would have ran after Mikey once he knew he wasn’t too injured to do so. There was something in his sister’s voice that gave Leo pause before the chase.

So, instead of chasing after Mikey, he simply made his way to the lab instead.

For the most part it was intact, Donnie had begun to build his inventions much more durable after dealing with the shredder. So it was no surprise to Leo when he came into the room to find everything reasonably undamaged.

From his initial glance Leo could almost instantly tell the same was true of April and Donnie, both who sat with (what appeared to be) the same level of injuries as himself. But April wouldn’t have called him over for no reason, so he quickly made his way closer.

What he hadn’t expected was to find Raph nursing his left arm, which he held quite tightly against his chest. Leo’s appearance had him noticeably perking up, so Leo turned his light jog into a sprint.

“Is everyone ok over here?” he asked April, his older sister gave him a thumbs up before divulging her diagnosis of the turtles she had gone to help.

“Yep everyone is relatively ok, Donnie and I managed to get by with only light injuries.” She stated, turning her attention to Raph, but that last bump sent us all flying, and Raph did his best to catch us all. I can’t tell if his arm is dislocated, broken, or both, but either way we need to deal with it asap.”

Leo nodded, quickly getting over to Raph’s good arm to help him up. Raph seemed kind of out of it from what Leo could tell, his eyes seemed generally unfocused and he didn’t really say anything to the red eared slider. Leo noted a possible concussion as he led Raph to the med-bay… and watched as the snapping turtle's eyes found the spot that Mikey had been in.

“Leo what happened, do you know what any of that was?” Donnie asked, logging something into his wrist as Leo lay Raph down on the bed.

“Wha? Where’s Mikey?” Raph blurted, his words slightly slurred. Leo instantly reached for the small light he kept on the desk- right the shaking.

“Shit Donnie, can you shine a light in Raph’s eyes? I want to check for a concussion” Leo was going full emergency doctor mode; he couldn’t help it with the way his heart pounded against his ears. “And I’m pretty sure that whole thing was caused by Mikey… who promptly ran away after he realized what was happening.”

Leo answered the questions in order, watching closely to see if Raph’s eye’s reacted to the light.

Leo released a breath he didn’t know he was holding when they did, Raph was likely just a little dazed then instead of full on concussed… still Leo went to the sink in the back and ran a towel under cold water.

“Wait he ran away and you didn’t go after him?” Donnie asked, disbelief coating every word. Leo shot him a look before dabbing it onto Raph’s forehead.

“Of course I didn’t go after him, I barely got my bearings before he was charging away.” Afterwards, he nearly threw the towel back into the sink before lowering Raph backward onto the bed, “when I heard April’s call I just reacted.”

“Leo” Donnie hissed, and Leo could feel a fight starting as clear as day.

“Alright” Thank Lou Jitsu April stepped in, Leo really didn’t want to get into a whole ass fight right now. “Donnie, why don’t you go after him, and Leo and I will take care of Raph.” Without another word, or any sort of acknowledgement, Donnie stormed out of the room; presumably to go and find Mikey wherever he ended up.

“Someone’s on their period today.” Leo commented, lowering the lights in the med-bay.

“Sometimes, Leo.” April stated, causing Leo to pause his work, “I can barely believe how dumb you are.”

Chapter Text

When they were all much younger, their father would tell them stories to help them fall asleep.

Raph loved the stories about heroes, about people overcoming the odds to help others no matter what it took. These stories were often the longer ones, which made them more rare, but all the more special to him.

Leo always liked the stories of the surface, hearing about the human world interested him to no end. Every night he wanted another tale about what it was like up there, their father would often give in, if only because he knew Leo would grow out of stories entirely one day.

Donnie often sided with Leo, which only further pressured their father, but Donnie was more interested in hearing about the technology, and how every piece came together. He was the one among them that interrupted their father’s tales the most, but Splinter seemed to enjoy, if not accept, the boys’ interest whenever it ended up making him stop to explain.

Mikey, however, loved fantasy stories. He loved stories that took his imagination to new heights, and as he got older he found himself drawing them too. In fact, Mikey often credited his love of fantasy as what truly got him into art.

~~

Mikey scampered through the winding tunnels of the railroad, not paying much attention to where he was going and instead just running, escaping. He could feel his stomach turn, and his arms begin to hurt. His breaths came out short and sharp against the hot air surrounding him.

Suddenly, the sick in his stomach got violently worse, and Mikey forced himself to stop to get it out.

Heat flashed through him despite his best attempts, burning him from the inside until he felt as though his core was melting. He continued to stumble from wall to wall within the broken down railroad tunnels, grappling onto bricked tunnels for any sense of security as he tried to shake off the pain. All through this Mikey barely noticed the warmth of his tears as they slid solidly down his face, splashing against the abandoned tracks and concrete ground. His claws scratched deep divots as he once again pulled against the smooth floors, and picked himself up to continue onward and away.

~

As they got older all of his brothers no longer needed their father to tell them stories. Mikey however, kept asking their father for more and more. Eventually Splinter had to admit that he had run out, that there were no more stories he could tell the tiny turtle.

Mikey didn’t know what to do, he was still so small at the time that it truly felt like the end of the world. But maybe, if his dad had run out of stories, Mikey could help him and give him more to tell.

~

Eventually the tunnels led him to a door to go through. He barreled through the door without another thought, roughly landing on his plastron on the other side. His feet burned, hurt, sore like the rest of him. He pulled them up toward him, defensively keeping them as close as comfortable.

He must have run for quite a while, Mikey could taste iron in the back of his mouth.

He pushed his roughened hands against the ground, pulling himself up from prone, and dragging himself over to the closest wall. Once firmly seated against it, despite the discomfort of once again being on his back, Mikey found himself staring at his legs.

They were oddly shaped and seemed to sit wrong against the ground. Everything about them just seemed… off as he attempted to move them. It was odd moving muscles you didn’t have before… Or maybe he had had the same muscles and what had changed was how he was using them.

Either way, the feeling was completely alien to the turtle.

~

Mikey found his creativity in creating storylines in his head, his art surrounded moments that to him seemed profound. With every new piece he created he shared it with his father, who seemed to enjoy the stories as much as Mikey did making them.

It became their thing, Mikey found his voice within his stories, and connection when he shared them with his father. It was the string connecting the two, and as vivid as Mikey could picture every plot point and character, Mikey could see the string too.

His story grew far beyond him, and at times it felt more like they were telling him.

~

He stayed like that for a while just staring and sobbing into the open air. It was all over for him, his brother’s would never look at him the same. Their trust, their comfort, them- he was sure he’d lost it all. He’d never felt so lonely, so devastated.

He tried to muffle his cries into the still air, tried to hide the tears running down his face despite no one being around. He had to get a hold of himself, he shouldn’t be… shouldn’t be…

A squeaking shocked him out of it, and Mikey peered through the darkness to see the small silhouette of a rat.

And then Splinter didn’t want to hear them anymore, he was too entranced in his tv, in his chair, in his… time alone to want to hear Mikey’s stories anymore. That had really crushed him at the time, it was the only thing he and his father did together, it was the string connecting them.

But Splinter severed it himself, and Mikey’s stories turned dark.

Mikey’s world of fantasy and heroes became filled with Monsters and terror, where only the strongest creatures could survive. Donnie once called them more realistic, but Mikey never really had been striving for that.

It sniffed at him a little, waddling up to him and canting it’s head upwards at him. It squeaked at him, probably hoping for food, its little whiskers twitching as it looked around.

When things were tough Mikey found himself back in that world he had created, back where creatures hunted to survive.

Mikey found himself unable to take his eyes off of it as it started investigating the rest of the room. He didn’t notice when his posture changed slightly. The rat checked generally around the room. It was small, likely younger than most of the rats one sees in New York, and nice, so someone was probably feeding it.

Back where beasts killed without mercy against those who were defenseless and innocent.

It disappeared for a moment, going behind a small pillar in the corner of the room, Mikey felt himself lean toward it, crouching down on his hands to keep it within his sight.

And sometimes Mikey himself was the monster of this world in his mind. Chasing smaller creatures far less powerful than himself, weak and unable to escape his sharp teeth, and claws. Sometimes the other monsters weren’t even aggressive toward him…

Once again it poked its head out, and saw that he had moved so it made its way over to him.

Mikey didn’t even realize he had moved until he felt the fur against his beak. Iron stained his mouth as slight recognition of what he’d done sunk into him, this was not his own blood. The bones were made quick work of with only a few snaps, and before he could ever think to stop himself, there was no more rat in the room with him.

Mikey began to shake, his hands weakly moving toward his mouth as realization fully snapped back to him, and he regained control of his body, his mind. Without another thought, Mikey pushed and pulled at anything remaining in his mouth as his vision became more and more blurry.

He spat as much of it as he could on the ground, anything he hadn’t swallowed at least-

It was slightly stained red, and he felt himself nearly fall over with the sight.

He needed, he needed-

The monsters clacked their teeth and bared their claws-

Mikey shook his head, looking away from his own features and began to grab around his shoulders and plastron, trying to find his sash so he could call Donnie, Donnie would make everything ok.

It was a sick realization when Mikey felt nothing around his torso, it must have torn off somewhere in the tunnels as he ran from the lair-

He hadn’t meant to get far-

Mikey began to slam his hand into his head to try to remember, because maybe he could remember the path and find it, or find his way back or-

Mikey’s heart began to pound loudly in his chest, and it became hard for him to think past it. His breath sped up as he desperately thought of any way out of this, he just needed to think, he got himself into this mess he had to get himself out of it.

It all became noise in his mind as he scrambled about, looking around the room for his sash. He charged back through the door he came into with desperation, not noticing the way it broke in two with his force.

It became harder to breath as he carried on, his breaths came out stilted and he had no idea if he was even going the right way. His vision would have been clear if not for the stupid tears that blurred it once more. He was such a baby.

Mikey soon found himself collapsed against the ground, his arm stinging with the force of the fall as his vision blackened slightly. His breaths, ragged and uneven became harder to force himself to do as he tried to push it all down, you have to get home, suck it up and go.

He didn’t even have the strength to do that.

Looking up he saw movement ahead of him, and he didn’t know whether to be thankful or not. It slowly came toward him, though it didn’t seem particularly intentional.

From the distance it sort of looked like….

“Dad?” it came out as a whimper, a plea, his breath bouncing back up from the floor against his face as he called out. The figure stopped for a second, and Mikey felt himself almost cry then and there, but in the next it was in front of him holding his head up close to it’s chest.

“D-dad?” he tried again, his voice more wobbly and weak, and then he thought about the rat from before and began to push against the arms, “you can’t- you have to stop-”

“Mikey it’s me” it said calmly, and instantly Mikey knew it to be Donnie. “I’ve got you just, just hold on.” His voice was tight, careful, but Mikey could only find the presence of mind to nod.

Something cold pressed against Mikey’s forehead, which felt nice against the hot air of the tunnels, it had become room temperature by the time Donnie had stopped. Mikey was ready to return to the lair, he slipped his eyes open ready to see his home once again.

Even after his father hadn’t wanted to listen to his stories, Mikey still found himself looking for him anytime he had decided on the next huge plot point. He’d sit outside of the tv room, and watch his father stare deftly ahead at the screen.

They were at the entrance of the lair, a similar look upon their father’s face as he stood just outside the door. As if in slow motion his head turned to take in Donnie and Mikey, it took a second for him to truly see them, his eyes widening as he saw the now only slightly smaller turtle in Donnie’s arms.

It was the same expression he got whenever Mikey had created a particularly interesting plot point. It was the same expression the mouse had.

Chapter Text

“Dad”, Donnie stopped, frozen to his spot, barely able to choke out a breath. The rat quietly stared at them, both of them; the old man’s eyes burned as they stared at the soft-shell turtle. Donnie shifted Mikey closer to his chest, directing his eyes away from their father.

“Donatello” he whispered, the word bouncing from wall to wall only to return to them. Splinter seemed to struggle for words, his hands shook around the box in his hands. The box in his hands.

From what he could see, it looked to be personal items that Donnie had no recognition of, no real connection, so where had their father been that he brought this back. He was able to recognize what was likely a kimono in the box, not that it really mattered.

Mikey shifted in his arms, his eyes still distant as he ever so subtly shook. Right. 

Donnie shook his head, and even though the entrance to the lair was right there, he walked right past it and his father. “I don’t have time for this dad”. Something pushed him forward and away from the rat, he just couldn't face him right now.

“What happened to your brother?” Splinter asked, Donnie wasn’t far enough, about only a step or two away, farther, he had to get farther. 

“We’re figuring it out.” he clipped, shielding Michael from their father’s view. Donnie struggled to read his tone, but likely it was hurt, if not a little worried. And before the soft shell could get another breath out, he was sprinting down the sewer tunnels, Mikey held closely to his plastron.

Despite his ragged breaths, Donnie kept going. Kept going until he knew his father would give up, they weren’t even that far from the lair, but their dad would more likely let them run if they had gone out of sight-

Why was he running?

Ducking into a side tunnel Donnie found a nice, cleaner, dry place for him and Mikey to sit out for the time being. The rock felt too rough against his scales, and Mikey’s place in his arms felt uncomfortable against him, but he didn't want to let go of his brother again. He would have to however to properly scout forward, so he let his brother down as gently as he could manage against the concrete floor.

Mikey still sat there, distant; his hands pressed firmly palm down against the ground. There seemed to be a pressure to it, and Donnie just watched him for a moment.

Donnie knew that his brother had… shut down. That they needed to bring Mikey back, but he didn’t know how; and going to the lair likely would only make things worse. Donnie was finding it increasingly difficult to block everything out.

He needed to assess his situation.

They were in the subway tunnels, far enough away from the lair that without Donnie, none of his brother’s stood a great chance at finding them, (except maybe Leo). Mikey wasn’t ok, he needed help that was far beyond Donnie’s talents. He needed someone well versed in magic. 

So logically…

Donnie needed Draxum.

Leo had been adamantly against the yokai’s help since Donnie had first brought up the suggestion. Donnie understood Leo's concerns, Draxum had done too much to them to be forgive able, despite what Mikey might say. He was beyond redeeming, beyond forgiveness, and he definitely wasn't part of the family.

The difference between him and his twin? Donnie could see the benefit in having Draxum as an ally; and Donnie held grudges a lot worse than Leo.

It was likely that some sort of entrance to the hidden city existed in the tunnels, in the instance that a yokai needed a quick escape they offered as a good solution. They ran under the entire city, and had multiple entrances and exits, it would only make sense for one to exist. It would work to get Donnie and Mikey as far away from the lair as possible in the shortest amount of time, plus there were several exists close enough to Draxum's apartment to be worth considering instead of heading to the surface.

Following the track on the ground closely, Donnie lowered his goggles in hope of seeing a portal or doorway to lead them into the hidden city.

As he traveled further and further along, he began to get into a grove of taking a few steps and then checking both walls just in case he had missed something. His eyes scanned over the brick and concrete that suffocated them on every side until-

Something bashed into his legs from behind as he took another step; Donnie had only barely managed to catch himself in time because of his position next to the wall. 

His breath caught in his throat as he saw Mikey behind him, his longer tail tucked between his legs, he shook so hard he nearly pushed Donnie forward with its force. His hands stayed on the ground, though their length still seemed awkward against the rest of him. His eyes flitted up toward Donnie, and instantly the soft shell knew that he still wasn’t in his right mind. 

At least Mikey wasn’t attacking him.

“Don’t worry, we’re going to get you some help. I promise.”

~~

Donnie was mad at him, Raph was mad at him, April was mad at him, heck even Mikey was mad at him, this really was a new record for Leo. 

Raph got his grip back on reality sometime when Leo was wrapping his arm; and though he was relieved to see his brother come back to his senses, he was less enthused about the following lecture. Leo was too busy fussing over the bigger turtle's broken arm to care however, so most of it just went over his head.

Still… he wasn’t wrong.

Leo was being a jerk, or an ass really. Leo couldn’t watch his spiked tongue as he spat venom toward his brothers. He’d gotten worse, he used to only reply with a quip or two, but now he went low for his insults. He could still picture Mikey’s face right before his magic had gone haywire, tears springing to his eyes faster than Leo had ever seen and a dullness falling over his iris.

Leo shivered involuntarily from his spot now on the couch, he had placed himself there unceremoniously after April had had to break up another fight between him and Raph. It was his very own timeout corner of sorts, which sucked.

Leo was getting really tired of these fights. 

Slowly Leo rubbed his fingers across his face, the bags under his eyes felt more prominent than ever as he quietly sat back against the couch.

One of these days, Leo really had to try and not make everything worse. He just… he hated how fast everything was changing, how fast his brothers had accepted and changed their whole situation just because their father suggested, he hated everything that they had lost.

But most of all, he hated that he knew his brothers would never trust him like they would Raph.

Too bad he was too emotionally constipated to ever properly articulate that to his brothers.

Just thinking about it brought vigor back to the red eared slider, who chucked a pillow across the room with as much force as he could muster. It was childish, and accomplished nothing, but it felt good.

What followed he was less proud of; he began to tear another pillow up, he just grabbed the closest pillow to him and pulled at it with fingers; but that soon wasn’t enough. The fabric refused the break in his hands, so Leo took out his Odachi to begin to properly tear into it.

After that, it was only a matter of minutes before pillow fluff went flying around the room and Leo’s anger quickly returned to the ever present grief it had been since they had lost everything.

Sighing he shifted to the edge of the couch, where he curled up into a ball. With his face hidden, and his knowledge that no one was around, he let himself cry. The tears came suddenly, but silently down his face as he let everything wash over him while he hugged himself on the couch.

He stayed like that for a while, up until the moment he heard the door open, and wiped away any remaining tears so Donnie and Mikey wouldn't see them as the two returned. Maybe Leo could try to make up for being an ass by properly apologizing. 

It was a nice thought.

Turning around on the couch, Leo already had a quip ready, something about running and sewers… it probably wasn’t one of his best.

His mouth went dry when instead, the small figure of their father came through the open doorway. 

Leo wished he had kept a hold of that pillow, at that moment he wanted nothing more than to squeeze it until it popped.

~~

Going through the hidden city hadn’t been easy. Donnie found himself and Mikey pushing through large crowds of yokai who tore down the street like they had places to be. He presumed they looked similar.

The real struggle was keeping track of Mikey, and making sure he kept close. The smaller turtle followed the soft shell on clumsy hands and feet, scampering about and often getting lost in the wave of people. Whenever he lost sight of Donnie, he’d let out a shrill chirp that nearly deafened everyone in the area; it never took long for Donnie to find him again. 

After losing him for the fifth time, Donnie finally just picked up his brother, despite the box turtles protests. Keeping his breathing as steady as possible, Donnie kept focused on their task. All they had to do was get far enough in the hidden city to be closer to Draxum’s apartment in New York.

Statistically speaking this path seemed to be the one of least resistance, from all of Donnie's planning he knew that it would be the quickest way to get to Draxum.

Looking at the sea of Yokai around him Donnie cursed himself for forgetting to factor in the crowds into his planning. It was fine, it would still work.

At least it was better than having to go back to the closest exit in the subway. To get there they would have to go through the lair, and right now? Nothing was worth that in Donnie’s mind.

He hugged Mikey extra close after the turtle whined, the shift closer to the other turtle caused Mikey to rub his beak against Donnie’s arm where he could reach. It was odd seeing his brother like this; it pushed Donnie to keep moving. Braving the overstimulation hell of the Hidden city, eventually Donnie found the exact portal he had been looking for.

The silence on the other side tasted sweeter than anything, Donnie paused in it, let it seep into his skin and pressed against his mind like a cold cloth. He was reminded of his task by more of Mikey's beak-rubbing; the pulling of the box turtle's fangs on some of his scales brought him back to the moment.

From there it took Donnie no time to make it to Draxum’s apartment.

Donnie didn’t even feel bad about breaking in through the window; at that point he had already struggled to get Mikey up the fire escape so it made sense to take this easier way in. They had also been in plain view of the street for far longer than Donnie was comfortable, so he gladly got them both out of view.

He lifted Mikey up and through the window before following closely behind.

“Why are you breaking into my apartment this time?” Draxum’s voice was a little muffled, but he didn’t seem all that bothered at the intrusion. “There better be a good reason, Michelangelo.”

Donnie ventured into the living room, which the window almost led directly into; there was a small shoe mat placed at the edge of it that was almost definitely rubber. “I assure you, it’s a very good reason.” he responded, trying to keep his voice steady despite the crushing fear that weighed heavy upon his shoulders, instead his voice came out breathless and unsure. 

Draxum quickly rounded the corner to face them, his shoulders tight against his body as he moved almost mechanically into the living room. As soon as the goat man spotted Mikey, he was beside him.

All of the fear came crashing back to Donnie as Draxum began to quickly examine Mikey from his spot on the ground. Fast shaking hands would grab at Mikey’s own, only to then force his eyes wide, and then they’d pull apart his beak to look at his teeth, and then as if double checking his own eyes; he would check those spots again.

Draxum began to curse as he took in Mikey's changes, a reaction that did nothing to stop the crushing worry that swirled around in Donatello.

“What happened to him?”, unlike Draxum’s usual demeanor, the question was dripped in desperation; his eyes flitting from Donnie and back as though he hoped the turtle in purple had an answer.

He didn’t.

“I don’t know.” His voice didn’t even feel familiar as the words barely left his mouth. Donnie’s mouth felt dry; he would have gone to the kitchen if not for his legs refusing to move. He had just enough presence in that moment to grab onto something as he sank down, falling harshly onto his knees on the hard floor. His breaths turned ragged as everything around him slipped away into darkness. When had it become so hard to breath?

Donnie’s mind went completely blank at that moment. He could only hear the solid sound of scraping metal and metal being hit into shape, it deafened him from the world, it's horrible thwack echoed in his mind. Time fell slowly through his fingers, to Donnie every second ticked passed as though it was an agonizing hour. The screeching of metal work pulled him apart thread by thread as it rang  louder and louder inside his head . 

Donnie was gasping for breaths when he finally felt something heavy around his shoulders.

Realty came back to him an inch at a time Donnie remembered where he was, who he was, why he was there. His vision followed suit; Donnie first saw some sort of longer pillow draped around his shoulders; a small shift in his posture sent beads pouring into different sections. 

Then, his hearing returned, and he realized quite quickly that the metal thwak had been his own heartbeat pounding against his chest. He held his hand to where it was against his plastron.

Finally, Donnie fully returned with the rest of his senses, his nose smelling the familiar lavender scent of Draxum’s abode; his hands cooling upon the wood floor; and the taste of the roof of his mouth. Donnie really needed water. Donnie took a deep breath in the hopes it would slow his heartbeat back down a smidge. 

Mikey sniffed curiously around the room before he found his way back to Donnie, and the softshell didn’t even stop himself as he pulled the smaller turtle close. 

It took another second for Donnie to realize that Draxum must have finished his analysis of his brother.

He turned to Draxum, still a little shocked that the goat man had gone out of his way to help him; Draxum wasn’t exactly known for his kindness toward any of them besides Mikey. Draxum wasn’t looking at him, though it was clear that he was pretty frazzled too. His movements were sudden and sharp, his hands moving as he tried to think of any solution to their issue. He seemed lost in his own mind.

It was sudden when he turned back to the other two, resolution spreading from one mad scientist to the other as Draxum formed their next steps.

“I don’t know what’s wrong with him.” Donnie’s heart felt so loud in his ears, he could just barely hear Draxum past it. “But I think I know who can help.”

~~

Leo said nothing as their father quietly made his way into the room, he held a box close to his chest that clinked as he moved. Leo watched him place the box down on a table with a sigh, running his paw over his face in a slow motion. Then, he slowly looked around the place, his eyes scanning from side to side until-

They met Leo’s.

“Leonardo. It’s so good to see you, my son.” His voice was slightly raspy, and he had a ghost of a smile on his face; “I just saw your brothers outside, what is going on?”

Leo didn’t move, still frozen to his spot. He couldn’t even make any words come out of his mouth as Splinter stood there, expecting him to answer his question. 

His father grew more concerned the longer it took Leo to answer, until he had made his way to the turtle in blue. “What is going on?” he asked, placing a hand over top of Leo’s. Did he know? How did their father know about his failure already?

The hand felt hot against Leo’s scales. He pulled back as if he had been scorned, his emotions drip fed into his brain as he watched his father’s face morph into horror.

And then, anger began to boil in the back of Leo's throat; his body seemed to return to anger when it didn’t know what else to do. It almost felt comforting.

“You don’t get to fucking do that.” He whispered, only loud enough that Splinter could hear it in the space between them. Splinter’s ears flicked back in surprise, but he managed to keep his face neutral. “You don’t get to come back when you decide to and act like you care.”

Leo had gotten up from the couch at some point; he didn’t even remember doing it; he stood opposite the couch from his father. The furniture acted as a barrier between them, Leo needed to keep something between them.

“You don’t get to leave your children when they are suffering, and come back and pretend to be the fucking best dad” his voice was getting louder now, the boiling rage turning into fire spreading through every inch of him as he looked at his father. “You don’t get to be one of us if you leave.” 

It was melting him, burning him from the inside out as he waited for their father’s response. Leo felt ready to fight, his muscles flexed in anticipation of what might come.

And then, Splinter took a step back. “You are right. I… I shouldn’t have left you all.” His whiskers twitched as he met Leo’s eyes, “but I needed the time to grieve.”

Leo bit back the insult at the tip of his tongue because at least he understood that. He understood grieving, but…

He would never understand leaving.

“We needed you here” Leo admitted, somewhere between begging and accusing, “we were grieving too.” His voice grew louder, and his shoulders seemed to shake as he almost yelled at their father, “you left us to figure out our own shit while you relieved yourself of any responsibility.” Leo was no longer looking at the man, his face felt hot and he couldn’t tell if it was anger or despair he was feeling; “why did you even come back.”

And then there was no more barrier between them.

His father went utterly silent, Leo only heard the shuffling of his gi as he got closer to the red eared slider; then his hands grabbed Leo’s own. “For you. I came back for you all.”

~~

Apparently Draxum knew of another Yokai scientist that preferred to live in the human side of New York. It had taken them far longer than Donnie liked to get there, especially with Mikey acting stranger than usual. 

The other turtle was just so animalistic in his movements, everything about his disposition screamed non-sentient ; an anxiety that seemed to grow in Donnie the longer his brother stayed like this. What if Mikey never returned?

Donnie constantly had to remind himself that Mikey was still in there. For one thing the other turtle seemed to recognize him somewhat, Donnie constantly found the box turtle pushing up against his heels anytime they stopped long enough for him to catch up. The turtle had also let Draxum near him, which was probably a good sign if Donnie had to wager.

Donnie should be redirecting his anxiety elsewhere for the time being… for instance, maybe he should have been worrying more about this Yokai that Draxum knew. Draxum hadn’t told Donnie much; only that they had come into contact due to some odd overlaps in their research ( Donnie’s heart still beat loudly in his chest, it hadn’t stopped since Draxum had first looked over Donnie’s only younger brother; everything he had learned about this person had only pushed it to go faster). Apparently they specialized in unintended transformation. 

Donnie still found it hard to believe something so utterly specific existed. Yet, if they had all the answers to the questions (Donnie had carefully logged every unanswered question about their situation in his digital notebook), it would all be worth it. It would even be worth going behind Leo’s back.

There was however always the chance that this was some sort of trap. 

But Donnie would have to take that chance.

For Mikey.