Work Text:
April is putting the final touches on her closet turned impromptu movie nook when she hears the tap at her window. He’s a bit early, but he usually is. Unless he’s delayed by oozed-out villains or a needy brother blocking the exit, he’s never less than 15 minutes ahead of schedule. She finishes fluffing the last pillow then makes her way to open the window. Her dorm is a single student box room that’s longer than it is wide. It has a singular window barely wide enough to sneak her mutant turtle boyfriend through, but it does, and the walls are surprisingly thick enough not to give that away, so it’ll do.
He climbs through the window with a practiced grace. Even with arms full of snacks he can sneak in without so much as a creak in the old floors of her ancient room. It’s only after she’s closed the window and drawn the blinds that she has to remind him to keep it down. She understands he missed her. She’s missed him too after a whole week of non stop lectures and studying and nearly no time to even call. But if he keeps yelling about it they’ll be found out before their date has even officially started. He pouts at being unable to sing (scream) her praises and his laments of their torturous week apart but relents.
He sets the bag of goodies down beside her bed and brings her into his arms instead. He’s so tall that in order to bring her to eye level with him he has to literally sweep her off her feet. Suddenly airborne, she tries to keep her giggles to the lowest possible volume. She wraps her arms around his neck and they meet each other halfway into a soft kiss.
It’s been hours since the sunset but he’s livelier than ever, spinning them around on one foot. Now she’s keeping her lips pressed to his just to muffle her laughs at his antics and she can feel him smiling into the kiss as well.
Eventually, painfully, she detangles herself from him. Only for a moment, she reminds herself. She really does want to start their Jupiter Jim movie marathon and they are burning moonlight as it is.
She leads him to her open closet. Empty of all clothes as she manages to fit all she needs into her dresser between visits to home. The floor of the closet and lower wall has been covered with pillows, fairy lights hang from the lower shelf, her ipad is stacked on top of her textbooks and held up by its case at the foot of her bed. Perfect for a night long movie marathon and cuddle session. The only things missing being snacks, and her Donnie.
Why all this instead of just watching movies on her bed? Well, first of all, there’s no way the stack of books holding her ipad would holdup on such a soft surface. And secondly, April was a… very enthusiastic movie watcher. She jumped from where she sat and waved her hands around frantically. Donnie was a bit calmer but his legs usually shook when tension built in a movie, and she had often caught him shimmying in anticipation when he knew one of his favourite parts was coming up. All that paired with her… vintage…dorm bed with rusty springs would make enough noise to get them busted by the RA before they were half way through the first JJ Space Adventure. So cuddle closet filled with movement-muffling pillows it was.
—-
They’re in the middle of their third movie, Jupiter Jim is talking down an army of blue furbie looking aliens from attacking their neighbouring planet. April has her head nestled against Donnie’s chest. She’s half paying attention to Ole Captin JJ and half staring up at Donnie. When they watch movies with his family, he and his brothers are in constant debate on character motivation or possible plot holes. It’s fun, but she can’t help but love how different he is when watching with just the two of them. He still loves to talk, but it’s more quips and fawning over certain aspects. He’s calmer but still so animated when something excites him.Right now, he’s got one arm periodically feeding him plain donut holes, and the other wrapped around her. His hand is placed on top of hers and he’s mindlessly drawing circles into her palm.
It’s moments like these that make the world slip away so easily for her. So often with Donnie, she finds herself in her own pocket universe with no one else but him. The comfort of his embrace, the vibration of his laughter, all of him become all that exist in those moments.
But alas, the real world always pulls her away eventually. “ Bed check!” The dreaded dorm troopers are at her door. She tells that she’s on her way and tries to push Donnie into the pillows. The loss of warmth as she pulls herself up feels like cold water being splashed on her back. She stumbles a bit, her right foot is half asleep, but makes it to the door.
She opens the door wide for the RA. The closet is not visible from this point of view. She gives a tight smile to try and sell her innocence when the RA asks to come in. Goddamit! Who ratted on her?? She reluctantly lets them in, hoping her ninja boyfriend uses the ninja part of that name to keep them both out of trouble. She hears the RA scream. Here we go.
Outside the closet is Donnie, as she feared, but thankfully, not… all of him? He had retreated into his shell. No limbs meant no provable guest. The RA points to the dark green shell and asks what the hell that is. April panics for a moment. A rock? Some trash found by the shoreline? She settles on a ‘ class project’ and asks the RA if they think she’ll get an A on it. The RA turns green themself for a moment and then dodges the question. Instead, they tell her to keep it down and then move on to bother the next sucker.
Once they can’t hear the RA’s footsteps any longer Donnie pops himself out of his shell and stretches. His pout is back in full force.
“Soft shells aren’t even supposed to do that, you know. My poor limbs”.
She snorts at him and pushes him back into the pillows.
“ Your own fault for doing that. You couldn’t disappeared into the shadows, ninja-boy?”
“But I was too comfy. These pillows were fluffed too well. My girlfriend is too considerate. My steak is too juicy”,
He puts the back of his hand against his giant forehead and flops down.
She lightly plops herself next to him, “Poor baby”, she says and flicks his chin.
He pulls her against his chest and rubs his chin. “ oh how she wounds me!” He whisper-yells as he pulls her tighter. “won’t someone kiss it better?”
She smiles up and bats her eyelashes. “No”, she says before going to do exactly that.