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Characters: Donatello (

i_speak_softly) and OPEN
Date: throughout the month of July
Location: mostly around the Metal and Water sectors
Situation: various
Warnings/Rating: none yet; subject to change

((The story so far: Donatello was having a reasonably nice life, then he was forced to move again and was given the "gift" of telepathy. For the past few weeks, he's been getting settled with these changes. Now things have quieted down to a new normal, so Don is out and about, taking care of lingering business and looking for new adventures, though preferably of the not-too-adventurous variety. PM me for plotting, or just tag in!))

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Mike would be the first to admit that things had been rough there for a while. First there was the whole Soul Lantern thing, then there was the whole having to split up because of the Soul Lantern thing.

Soul Lanterns. Seriously, what the heck was up with those? It was like being a Green Lantern except way crappier because all you got from your lantern was life, and not like...the ability to make anything using your sheer force of will focused through an alien tech ring.

Mike would call it Lame, except that was apparently a word that people weren't really supposed to use to mean bad now. Sometimes being from the 1980s was hard...

But in spite of the separation, and soul lanterns, and slang that kept shifting, things were actually pretty good right now. Living with Raph was as to be expected. Work was equally as to be expected. The whole city was preparing for all out war against a force of darkness. And Mike? Well he was just dead determined to make the best of this situation.

He was dead determined to looking at the brightest side of every situation that he could find.

What was weird was that the more determined he got, the more people around him actually cheered up. The less their burdens seemed to drag them down.

Which brings us to Mike at this exact moment. Standing on the stoop of his cousin's place, several bamboo steamer baskets full of freshly made bao and dumplings, thinking about all of the above at once.

And also internally humming both the melody and lyrics to Adam Ant's 1982 hit, "Goody Two-shoes."

...there must be somethin' inside...

When Don opens the door, his eyes and hands go immediately to the baskets. "You're the best, Mike."

As he takes the food and starts eating it with his bare hands, he doesn't so much invite Mike in as turn away and not close the door behind him.

"When they said housing was assigned based on karmic resonance," he says with his mouth full, "distribution of cooking skills was clearly not part of the equation. Leo and I are starving over here."

"I'm sure some of that was English. Maybe. If I squint," he says with a smirk as he crosses the threshold and closes the door behind him.

"If you don't save some of those for Leo I'm totally not responsible for the number of laps he's going to make you run in retaliation. You know that right?"

"If I don't save some of these for Leo," Don says slyly, "how will he ever know he didn't get any?"

He laughs and shakes his head. "Is that really a chance you and your legs want to take? You're a far braver guy than I am."

Don shrugs as he sets the first basket aside, having already emptied it. "My life belongs to Leo anyway. Training is his answer to everything."

"Yeah, that sounds about right. And I bet that doesn't change no matter where we're from." He crosses the room and takes up a perch on the nearest sofa.

"My favorite is when training is what caused the problem in the first place, and still his solution is more training."

"Tell me about it!" Don says, throwing his hands up. (Fortunately, they're empty at the moment.) "A Plan B for everything, and this one blindspot where every plan is more training. It's incomprehensible."

"There's are reasons I gave up trying to understand my brothers ages ago, and that right there would be the biggest among them. No offense."

"None taken."

Brotherly-bonding-at-the-expense-of-other-brothers out of the way, Don straddles a chair backwards and focuses on Mike.

"What do you need?"

"Me?" He pulls a face as he looks around the room. "Nothing. Can't a guy just do a good deed without some sort of ulterior motive?"

Don isn't sure whether he believes this or not. He also isn't sure yet how hard it is to lie telepathically.

You really came all this way just to bring us food?

"Well yeah," he says before he even realizes that Don didn't even open his mouth to say that. But around the edges of Mike's mind, his day begins to play like a sit-com clip show during sweeps. So many kids, all of them come in with varying levels of shock and fear, all of which melt away during the course of the class.

He was on a roll, and though he'd share some of that with his cousins...the ones he hasn't bonded with as strongly as he has Raph.

Don looks at Mike another minute, then decides to take this at face-value.

"Works for me."

So, you want to talk about something? The lanterns, life with Raph, how not-vegetarian Donatello is?

That whole time Don was appraising Mike, all the other turtle did was smile as if butter wouldn't melt in his mouth.

"Great! So the dumplings were okay? I couldn't really tell if there was a whole lot of chewing going on, what with the inhaling."

"I'm an overworked engineeer, not a food critic." But he smiles. "They taste like home."

"Trust me, everyone is a food critic," he says with a smirk. "But I'm glad I can help. The trick is to get just the right balance of algae and worms."

Then he waits expectantly to see how Don reacts.

"The right -"

Don's eyes tick to the empty basket, then back to Mike.

"What?"

Mike has BARELY enough time to cover his mouth with his hand before he erupts into a peal of riotous laughter. So much so that it threatens to knock him over the back of the couch.

"I'm kidding, I'm kidding. You're lucky I'm kidding, but I'm totally kidding. The little guys, from the other world? They seriously ate stuff made from worms and algae. No lie, Mikey told me all about it...in detail. A lot of detail..."

Don covers his mouth too, though for somewhat different reasons.

"I think I'm going to be sick anyway..." he says faintly.

Someone scratches the needle across the record playing in the back of Mike's mind. He was going for gross-out, not prompt an actual involuntary protein spill.

"...seriously?! Uh...hold on."

With that Mike flips backwards off the back of the couch and makes for the kitchen as quickly as his feet will take him. Cabinet doors are flung open, water is set to run...

... Oops. Well, at least it's an opportunity to practice his semi-long-distance telepathy.

Not that seriously, Mike. Come back.

There's a very undignified yelp from the kitchen. That voice Mike just heard sounded close, too close for it to be coming from Don in the living room. So clearly the only explanation was that Don had snuck up on him.

But when Mike spins around to confront where he thinks his cousin would be standing, he finds he's alone in the kitchen.

But...he...was just...he sounded so close.

Mike gives the room a quick once over.
Nooooope. Not in the kitchen.
So he very quietly works his way over towards the kitchen door and peers through looking for Donatello.

Don is sitting in his chair, looking bemusedly back at Mike. Did Mike hear that, or did the message get lost somewhere in the ether?

He asks the question with nothing but his expression:

Everything okay?

"...i will never get used to that..." he mutters quietly while scowling in Don's direction.

Edited 2014-07-14 03:28 (UTC)

Michaelangelo

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