Chapter Text
Mikey was cold.
He felt his body move to wrap the blanket tighter around himself in a vain effort to chase away the chill. His mind was split between the dream world and the heaviness of his torso and legs, vaguely aware of reality and dream. He didn't know which he preferred.
His eyes opened slowly to the dark room, light crawling in beneath his door. With his dreams escaping him, Mikey chose to wake up.
He slipped from beneath the covers and made to put his gear on, wiping the sleep from his eyes and swiftly tying his orange mask behind his head.
Mikey stepped out into the bright light of the lair, groaning while his eyes tried to adjust. He heard a laugh.
"Mornin' shell head, you finally decided to get up?"
Mikey squinted at the red clad turtle, who had called to him from the half broken sofa. Mikey stuck his tongue out and made for the bathroom.
Raph laughed.
"Don't fall asleep in there!"
Mikey grumbled in response, the feeling of morning making him drag his legs behind him. He quietly sighed, missing the times he woke up refreshed, being the first one in the kitchen, first on the TV, first to laugh at his groggy brothers.
He doesn't know why he's so tired.
With the bathroom necessities dealt with, Mikey stumbled toward the kitchen. Plastering a smile on his face, he entered.
Breakfast was filling the room with a heavenly scent, and looked even tastier, especially when compared to what the turtle teen had to eat long ago. Luckily, April was the one who cooked this morning.
"Man, what's for breakfast? I'm starving!" Mikey half shouted. The red-head turned.
"Good morning, Mikey. You slept in pretty late today, huh?" April turned back to the stove. "I didn't do much, just made some pancakes. Oh, and Leo said to send you to the dojo after you had something to eat."
Mikey sat with a scowl. He hadn't checked the time yet, but he was guessing he was pretty late. Well, later than usual. It seemed that no matter how early he went to bed, he still overslept. He frowned.
Concentration didn't come easy to him, never did. He's forgetful and can't focus on anything for more than three minutes. Unless it's something that's really interesting, then he'll focus on that thing really hard for a few hours, hard enough that he forgets to take care of himself. He recalls some of the rude ways his brothers snapped him back to reality when he got into one of those states.
Speaking of, the clacking of a plate of pancakes in front of him returns his attention to April.
She looks at him with slight worry creasing her brow. Mikey remembers that he usually isn't this quiet, ever. Before she can say anything, the mutant turtle smiles brightly and thanks her for the food. He sees relief relax the red-heads face as he dug into his meal.
Mikey buries the thoughts on his confusing behavior and animatedly clears his plate, mostly to show April he's fine. April leaves after he finishes, saying something about organizing her shelves at home. He was too busy cleaning his dishes to fully listen.
The morning officially shaken off, Mikey trots towards the dojo, slightly afraid of the grueling exercise that may await him. Leo was not kind when it came to training.
Which is why Mikey was surprised when he found the dojo to be empty of any training equipment. And Leo. He suddenly felt a sense of dread, was this stealth training? Was he going to be attacked upon entering?
He quietly entered the dojo and carefully inspected the shadows, suspicious that a 'sneak lesson' was going to be thrust upon him.
"Mike! Welcome-"
Mikey yelped at the sudden sound and flipped to face the cause of it, his older brother Leo. He relaxed when he saw he wasn't going to get hit. Leo simply laughed.
"On edge?"
Mikey crossed his arms, pouting at the blue clad turtle.
"You told me to come here, and you weren't there! I thought you were gonna hit me!"
Leo tilted his smiling head.
"You know? I considered that, but I have a better plan for training today."
He directed Mikey's attention to the two pillows placed underneath the tree.
"I think I'll have you meditate with me,"
He smiled, for he thought this was a fitting punishment for Mikey. Mikey let out a whine and slumped forward. He was secretly glad he got this punishment, much better than being beaten. He actually really enjoyed meditation, a few moments to sit in silence and allow his mind a few moments to wander and fizzle out.
Lately though, it's been getting harder to ignore his racing thoughts and much easier to get trapped in a negative spiral.
Though, it really shows what Leo thinks of him if this is his punishment.
Mikey plops down onto the pillow next to Leo and waits for him to start the music. Usually, it was just instrumentals, but lately Leo has been playing lofi beats, a strange, but not unwelcome change.
The tune lulls his eyes closed as tries to forget everything.
.
The chill air whips across his face as he leaps building to building, flipping over certain obstacles in his way.
Mikey had gone for a run after finishing his meditation, the silence of the dojo a frightening contrast to the heavy beats of the music. Leo had let him go after, either impressed he stayed awake or having more important things to worry about.
He stops for a moment to catch his breath, peering over the side of the building. The city was dark, as clouds covered the sky, denying the sun access to the ground.
The rush hour traffic refused to look towards the ninja turtle, not that he would've been seen either way. He did take those sneaking lessons to heart.
He sits, pulling a knee up to his chest. Being alone, he didn't feel the need to joke around. Lighten the mood. Even though his mood needed a lot of lightening right now.
Given everything that's happened to them, the foot, the krang, he didn't really feel like smiling. He never did want to smile like that. Fear had kept him awake at night many times, nightmares wrecked havoc on his psyche. He didn't really know what to do though, so he smiled through the hurt.
But as things got more and more serious, the careless facade became somewhat of a shield. It was easier to wake up the next day and pretend as if the world wasn't coming to an end, than to face the reality that it was.
Soon though, after they had saved the world multiple times, he found he couldn't part with his mask. What was meant to be a shield from the big seriousness of the world, accidently became a shield from his own family.
His brothers were tight balls of stress and fear after everything that happened and losing so much already, that Splinter's death had been the straw that broke the camel's back. They had been so lost. He had been too. But the need to be there for his brothers outweighed his own pain.
Believe it or not, he could actually read a room. Cool the flames of red, melt the purple ice, and give a reason for the sky to be blue.
But once they were better, they thought he was too. After all, he never said he wasn't.
After it all, he found himself unable to function right. He made mistakes and bad decisions, and his brothers' dismissive attitude towards him started to hurt. He was trying, really- he was, but things just kept going wrong and he was wrong and he didn't know what to do.
But he didn't have it in him to tell them.
He doesn't even know if he could describe what was wrong. It just is. After all this time living like this, part of him may have convinced himself that he was okay.
Plop.
The gentle patter of rain startled Mikey out of his head. He moved under a billboard the keep dry and observe the sky.
As the rain was quickly approaching a downpour, he knew he didn't have time to return to the lair. Looking at the apartments on the block around him, he noticed he was near April's house.
A refuge.
He quickly and carefully made his way over to her window and knocked on it. Shuffling towards the window on the other side made it clear she was home.
April pulled back the curtain and widened her eyes at the sight of Mikey. She quickly opened the window and pulled him inside.
"What were you doing out in the storm?" She started.
Mikey gave a cheeky grin and shrugged.
"I wanted to surf the rooftops, 'cause it was kinda dark for being day, but I didn't know it was gonna rain!"
April sighed, but gave a fond smile. Dismissing herself to grab a towel for the soaked turtle, Mikey awaited the inevitable call.
/Ooo~ baby do you know what that's worth?~/
He grabbed his shell-cell and put the caller on speaker, not wanting his ears to rupture.
"MIKEY, WHERE ARE YOU?"
Mikey let out a sigh of relief, he hadn't looked who called, but was glad it was Donny. Much better than a call from Raph.
"Chill brah, I'm just hanging at April's place," He smoothly drawled. Donny was not amused.
"Why are you at April's? Why did you even go on the surface? It's daylight for Pete's sake!"
Mikey cringed at that. He knew it wasn't a good idea. Donny continued.
"I mean, after you disappeared from the lair, we thought you just went to hang out with Leatherhead-" Mikey blinked at that, does he really spend that much time with Leatherhead?
"-But when we called him, he said you weren't there! And honestly, I can't believe you went topside, and are bothering April no less!"
Mikey sighed. He knew where this was going, but he was tired. Tired of being told how stupid he was and how dumb his mistakes were. He just wanted a break from the constant reminders.
Donny was still ranting when April returned with the towel. Mikey rolled his eyes at the phone as April giggled. She handed him the towel to start drying off.
"-You could've been kidnapped or-"
"Don."
"-What if you were seen? You-"
"Don."
"-we could've lost-"
"Donny!"
Donny snapped to attention. And promptly shut up.
"Donny, I-I know. I know." Mikey took a breath. "I'll be back when the storm chills out, see ya."
Donny's response was slow.
"See you soon, Mikey."
The call disconnects.
Putting his phone away, Mikey begins to dry himself off. Vaguely aware of April staring, he looks up to find a strange mix of worry and confusion on her face. He flashes her a pre-made smile.
April smiles back, though worry still lined her features. She'll drop it for now.
The storm outside only seemed to grow as the two stood inside the apartment. A crack of thunder alerting them to this fact.
April turned to her shelves, still thoroughly disheveled. She pouted and turned back to Mikey.
"I still have to finish my shelves, you can play on the computer if you want,"
April gestured towards a desk in the corner of the room. Walking over, Mikey saw the computer was already on, and open to a website he wasn't familiar with.
"Hey April! What's on your laptop?"
April glanced over.
"Oh, I was just on some forums looking at some room aesthetics," she side eyed Mikey, "I can log out so you can make an account,"
Mikey blinked. He didn't know what forums were or why they'd interest him, so he didn't want April to bother. April thought different though.
Mikey started.
"Nah, it's alright, I'll just-"
"I think you should!" April interjected.
"This site is really convenient 'cause you can see a lot different forums about a lot of different things," April began tapping at the keyboard.
"April-"
"You can talk to anybody about anything, pizza, skateboarding, ninjas. You can even just find people who only want to talk!" She forcefully seated the turtle so that he could start a new account.
April went back to her shelves, leaving Mikey confused and pressured. He turned to the screen and tapped his chin. Then he started filling in the information, who knows? It could be fun.
After a while, Mikey started scrolling through the recommended forums. The site asked for his interests, so he found a lot of the offered content intriguing.
There was something nagging at him, though. Telling him to just leave it and not even try. It wasn't worth it.
He felt that a lot. It was drilled in his head by now how much of a dead weight he was. Why try? He was just gonna mess it up at the end.
'Do you ever feel useless?'
Mikey stopped scrolling. The title of this forum caught him off guard. It was a single post with a description, and a fairly new post as well. How was he seeing this? Why wasn't it buried in the wasteland that was the internet?
Mikey wondered for a moment if the computer did a secret scan of his thoughts during his scrolling period.
He turned his attention to the description.
'Do you feel useless? Like everyone else would be better off without you? Like you can't seem to do anything right?'
Mikey nodded. Definitely read his mind.
'Do you feel tired doing nothing? Does that make you upset? Does every decision you make feel like the wrong one? Does it feel like everyone reminds you of that fact?'
Mikey blinked. He was certain he was the only one.
'Well, me too. I'm just looking to make a friend who feels the same way I do. I want to have someone who I don't have to be okay with.'
Mikey hovered the pointer over the forum. He liked the idea of making a friend, but, like this? Would this open a can of worms he isn't ready for? Or does he need this?
'I need to know I'm not alone.'
He paused, eyes hanging on that last word.
Alone.
He pressed down onto the mouse.