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Mikey’s favorite color was green.
His eyes are green, so he understood his favorite color had to be green too.
That’s how favorite colors worked. They had to be whatever color your eyes are.
Leo’s eyes are blue, and Splinter’s eyes are blue, and both of them like blue the best.
Therefore because Mikey’s eyes are green (he’s certain of that), he likes green the best.
No one told him it was true, but he knew he was right.
It’s just one of the facts of life that he’d figured out. Like how Aristocats is the only good movie, since he can watch through to the end, and how stuffed animals were required for sleeping safely at night.
Mikey didn’t question if he was wrong about anything he knew.
—————
One day, Splinter had to leave the lair, and had taken the twins with him for reasons lost to Mikey.
He complained about this for a while after they left, of course, and pestered Raph over and over for an explanation.
“Gah! Mikey, cut it out!” Raph exclaims, as Mikey tugs on his tail for the bazillionth time.
“But ‘Aphieeee, where did Dad an Lee an Dee go?” Mikey pleads, moving to pull on his arm instead.
Raph huffs, and gently shoves the smaller turtle away, “I’ve told ya like a bajillion times already, Mike, they’re on th’ surface.”
Mikey grumbles frustratedly, “Yeahhh, I know that , but why ? What are they doin’ up there?”
Raph’s face crinkles up in a silly way, “D’uhhhh….”
“Also why can’t we go too? You’re the biggest and I’m the cutest, so he should’ve taken us, instead.” Mikey swings his and Raphie’s arms back and forth as he talks, with Raph’s tail swishing quietly in time to each motion.
Raph’s expression snaps back, flickering oddly for a second before he answers, “Pops said that—wait, Mikes, you were th’ one who refused to go? You’re the reason I had ta stay at all, what do ya mean?”
Mikey stops swinging their arms, looking down at them guiltily, “Sorry….I di’n’t really th’nk ‘bout it….”
Raph sighs with a smile, and rubs his head playfully, “Well, I ain’t mad, I offer’d ta stay with ya for a reason din’t I? ‘sides, you ‘n I both know that Dee and Lee couln’t be left alone for longer th’n three seconds before they’d break somethin’. That makes us th’ trustworthy pair of th’ family!”
Mikey betrays his gloomy expression with giggles and tail wiggles.
“We’ll just wait til they get back and brag to to the twins how Pops can trust us to stay home, when they have to be dragged everywhere with him!” Raph declares stretching his arms out for emphasis.
Mikey giggles again but within a few seconds his smile drops into a frustrated frown. He droops and begins swaying side to side with a quiet whine.
Raph blinks at the sudden change, “What’s wrong, Mike?”
“That’s soooo long…..what’re we s’posed to do til then? An’ ’m already sooo boredddd…” He whines, getting muffled as he slowly slumps to the floor.
Raph puts on a serious face as he pretends to think for a moment, which grabs Mikey’s attention. Then, with the faint and steady thumping of his tail behind him, Raph gives his baby brother a crooked grin, “Wellll, we could….color?”
Mikey gasps excitedly, shooting back upright like he was yanked by a string.
—————
20 minutes later, they were on their bellies and coloring quietly together on the floor of their shared room, crayons scattered beside them in a makeshift pile.
Mikey finishes his drawing, which he added lots of pretty shades of greens too, and his tail flicks happily when he looks at them.
Instead of starting a new one right away, he lifts his head up and watches Raph work on a picture of his own.
Raph’s being very slow and careful with his drawing. He works much quieter than Mikey, who would rather hum and mumble using his voice to fuel his hands, and to get them to go where he wants them to. Luckily, Raph doesn’t seem to get bothered by Mikey’s noises. Or at least not outwardly. No, no. Raph would tell him if he was annoying him.
right?
Regardless, the slow methodical way Raph moves his pencil is not interesting anymore, and Mikey’s eyes drift to Raph’s face, which is shifting a lot quicker than the pencil.
Mikey stares through him for a bit, with all of his senses muffling as all the little thoughts and music and pictures whirl, twirl, and dance within, while the voice of his brain becomes the sole source of perception.
It’s not a bad feeling all the time.
“Hey, Mikes, you okay?” A soft voice cuts through the sea and startles him back to reality.
When Mikey’s eyes focus again, he sees Raph’s staring at him with a quiet concern. Mikey nods vaguely, more preoccupied with figuring out what shade of brown Raph’s eyes are. He eventually decides they’re more chestnut colored than chocolate, before that leads into another thought, this one he shares out loud.
“Hey, ‘Aphie, your favorite color must be brown right?”
Raph, who had returned to his work after Mikey’s response, pauses abruptly with a crayon hovering above the paper. After a few frozen seconds of dead silence, during which Mikey starts to question what he did wrong, Raph slowly lifts his head to face him.
“….what?” Raph asks with a very puzzled expression on his face.
Mikey shifts still unsure what was so confusing. Everyone is supposed to know the rules already.
“Um, your fav’rite color is brown, um, since your eyes ‘re brown?” He repeats hesitantly.
Raph’s perplexed expression doesn’t waive in the slightest as he responds, “No? It’s…not?”
It’s Mikey’s turn to feel confused. And fairly embarrassed. “Wh…?”
“My…favorite color is red…?”
Neither of them know how to move on from this so a weird silence hangs over the pair until the younger finally manages to spit out a response.
“Oh….okay…” He blurts blandly, the only way he can with the waterfall of thoughts swirling around his head.
Raph studies him with a thoroughly mystified look on his face for just a moment longer before simply shrugs it off and resumes his own project.
Mikey stares vacantly at Raph’s paper for what feels like forever, but probably wasn’t, before shaking it all off and grabbing a fresh sheet of paper.
He hovers over the green crayons at first, but instead ends up grabbing a few different shades of orange that caught his eye.
After he finished the drawing, Mikey found that he really liked it.
——————
It wasn’t until much later, that Mikey would recall that at that time he had already known that Donnie, whose eyes are also green, instead had always had purple as his favorite color.
Mikey had never questioned that apparently. He wonders about it to this day.