Priorities
The blanket, its edges frayed and shedding bits of thread, draped across his father's lap. He knelt next to the chair working on the square temperature control unit, a tiny screwdriver along with two miniature screws protruded from the corner of his mouth as he snapped the cover back in place.
His breath materialized before his face in a ghost-like swirl with each exhalation. Fingers numb with cold worked at removing first one then the next tiny screw from his dry lips, placing them into the slots and then turning them in place with the screwdriver. He raised dark eyes as he twisted the knob. A small red light lit up on the bottom of the unit.
After a second, he asked, "Feel anything?"
Splinter, head cocked, whiskers jutting sharply in all directions from the dark, dry nose, sat staring, unmoving, as if listening for any sign of blessed warmth to emerge from the folds of the blanket. Neither made a sound. Their exhalations puffing and melting into the dry, frigid air around them.
A twitch.
Donatello held his breath.
His father's eyelids fluttered, then drifted closed. "Ah," he sighed, melting back into the chair until just his head and snout sat at the top of the bundle. "It's there, yes. The heat is working again."
"Fantastic." The sharp reply came from over his shoulder before Donatello could speak.
He glanced over to see his younger brother standing in the middle of the room, knit hat pulled low, down near his glaring green eyes, slumping in the back, like a failed soufflé, a flannel blanket held tight in a thick fist at his chest, stretched to near-shredding across the wide shoulders, standing in the awkward way he had when irritated but trying to keep his composure. Like he suffered from imminent, explosive gas but was trying his best to contain the inevitable.
"Now how 'bout fixing the heat for the rest of us?" He moved his arm out in invitation. His smile icy and threatening.
Donatello stood, his knees creaking and popping, wincing as the stiff muscles caught on that he was actually moving again after kneeling and working on the faulty electric blanket for the past hour and a half in the frigid air.
Raphael gave him room to walk past, making a big show of shivering. "Dunno why you couldn't've done this afterwards."
Donatello stopped and glanced at Raphael, then to Leonardo who was bringing a tray of crackers and tea for their father. Seeing the blanket was operational, and their father's comfort restored, Leonardo shot him an approving look with a short nod.
Donatello replied to Raphael, still looking at Splinter, "Priorities."
Raphael made a derisive sound in the back of his throat. "Heating the lair would've made everyone warm, you know. For someone so damn smart, you sure can be pretty stupid sometimes."
Donatello said nothing. He turned and left him to stew in his irritation as Leonardo poured a cup of steaming tea. One for his father, himself, and Raphael who had stomped over and flung himself on the couch, grumbling. His gaze traced the tendrils of steam as they curled and roiled before dissipating.
His thoughts turned to the mug in his lab, the coffee coagulated into a greasy tar-like substance at the bottom. A small sigh escaped through his nose. He started to make a detour towards the kitchen, thinking a fresh pot of java was just the thing to get the kinks out of his joints and his brain's cylinders firing at optimum levels, which, when he thought about it, was something of a must, if he were to figure out what was wrong with their furnace yet again. But he halted after a few steps as his youngest brother appeared.
Michelangelo bounded from the kitchen just then, a bag of newly purchased marshmallows in one fist, a mouth full of what was left from the last bag. He was wearing a polka-dotted pink and blue faded bath robe whose hem dragged along the ground at his heels.
He held the bag out to Donatello. "Mew wan haw-cocoa? 'M makin' some. Ta sday warm."
Wrinkling his brow, Donatello deciphered his brother's mangled attempt at speaking through a clump of masticated marshmallow. He gave a soft smile. Raising his hand, he declined.
He tore open the bag and looked around, chewing and blinking. "Is da heab fixed, yeb?"
"Does it feel any warmer to you, Lunk-head?" Raphael snapped from where he sat, knees pulled up on the couch, balancing a cup of the tea on one knee while trying to pull more blanket around his body, where there was none. The end of his cap bobbed with each barked syllable. He yanked and tugged, nearly toppling the tea. The cup tipped and some of the hot liquid poured down the side of his thigh.
"Ow! Ow! Mutha-fu-" he cried, stifling most of his cursing due to the proximity of his father next to him.
"Oh," Mikey said and swallowed. His attention turned to Donatello, and his tone took on one of whining. "But it's, like, been, artic-ville all night long." Immediately, he shoved a new handful of marshmallows in to replace the ones he'd just lost.
Splinter coughed. Anything Raphael was about to add shriveled away on his tongue. He fidgeted in his seat, turning his irritation towards the blanket that wouldn't suddenly expand to meet his bulky needs.
Leonardo sipped his tea, head lowered. "Splinter's blanket needed repair more than our discomfort needed addressing. Donatello will have the heat working." He raised his eyes and met Donatello's briefly before dropping his gaze back to his tea. "Soon."
Turning away from the kitchen and any hope for a fresh brew, he said, "I'm on it."
# # #
A cloud of dust sparkled in the air as he freed the furnace's filter from the slot, raising himself back to sitting position and examining the condition of it. It wasn't that long ago that he'd vacuumed out the filter's webbing in what was one in a long list of annual preparations he make for the oncoming winter months. Dirty filters caused soot buildup along the heat exchanger which greatly affected the furnace's lifespan. So, he kept them clean.
"Hmm." He flexed his fingers, open, closed. The knuckles felt thick and sore from the cold.
He set the filter to one side. He breathed on his cupped hands and leaned forward. He examined the motor's fan blades, the oil ports on the motor and again double checked that the pilot light was lit. He sat back and rubbed at his brow, leaving a long grease streak across his forehead. He climbed to stand, stretched his back with a groan. The cold had him moving sluggishly. His body heaved a great shudder as he groaned again, the sound broken with the kind of painful noise made when one was experiencing frigid temps.
He glanced up and did a double take, jumping back as he did.
"Whoa," she said, mitten-clad hands held up and away from her in a placating gesture. In one mitt was what appeared to be a large thermos. "Hi, there," April said, laughing as he composed himself.
She wore a long, puffed coat, the hem of which ended just at her calves, a few inches above the wooly tops of her boots. She had a knit hat on her head, a dark purple and white Fair Isle design in large stars and tiny dots between. Her arm extended as she offered him the thermos.
"What are you doing down here?"
He blinked and accepted the proffered container. He held it before him like an offering he wasn't sure of and cocked his head. "What do you mean? We, uh, we live down here."
His mouth snapped shut as soon as the obvious words spilled from his mouth. Face warming despite feeling numb from the chill, he corrected, "You mean, that is, you mean to ask what I'm doing back here." He nodded his head and indicated the dank, dusty surroundings with his body. "In the dark," he added. "Alone and freezing my shell off."
April smiled, nodding along. When he said nothing more, and they stood for a few beats in clumsy silence, she pointed at the thermos. "That's for you."
"Oh?" He jerked as if he'd forgotten it was there; held in both hands, aloft and awkwardly away from his body like some dangerous material that was highly explosive. He raised it an inch in her direction. "Thank you."
"It's coffee."
He started. His hands moved of their own accord. He ripped the lip from the top and brought the blessed, steaming, black go-juice to his lips and drank in two, searing gulps. His body slumped and he staggered a half-step backwards.
"So good," he breathed into the fragrant steaming opening, held reverently now, hovering just below his lips.
April chuckled, covering her mouth with one mitten. She dropped her hands to the front of her body and slapped the mittens together, glancing around. "So, the furnace is on the fritz, huh?"
He turned his head towards the appliance and nodded. "It went out last night, sometime around three in the morning."
April's eyes widened. "You've had no heat since then?"
He sipped at the coffee and shook his head slightly over the thermos, sipping.
"It's six degrees out there."
"Negative twelve with the wind chill," he added. A sharp tremor shook his body. He drank more deeply.
April stared at him. "Okay." She turned to the filter on the floor. "Have you checked the pilot light? The gas lines?" April crouched down and leaned into the cubby where the furnace sat tucked. She brushed away some dust, leaning closer to the malfunctioning appliance on her knees on the crumbling floor.
He nodded and drank again. The heat spread through his stomach and chest, but went no further than that. "Everything seems operational."
With a somber expression, he gaze into the steadily vanishing dark liquid. He trembled again. Somehow the coffee seemed to be making him feel the cold more acutely, particularly in his extremities. He coughed and cleared his throat, shuffling his feet, feeling his knees knocking slightly together.
She looked up at him, then jumped to her feet. "You're shivering!"
He blinked and found he couldn't feel his toes, feet or really, much of his legs at all, but wondered about that. It wasn't the first time parts of his body seemed to disassociate from his brain when she was near him. An annoying habit that he'd given in to accepting as part of the unfortunate situation between them.
That was, the situation he had no idea of how to go about circumnavigating in any way, shape or form. The one where she'd drop by and he'd go numb, or too hot, or suddenly mute, or so much worse: babbling on like some teenaged clod from a badly scripted romantic comedy. A situation he'd need time and focus to figure out. One he had no time to spare towards puzzling out, unfortunately. What with his family and father and the needs of maintaining and running the lair taking priority.
"I'm f-fine."
She pulled off her mittens and placed one hand on the side of his bicep. Her hand felt like a soft, searing brand. He started and shivered harder. A part of him wanted to recoil while a much larger part of him wanted to maneuver towards that warmth, that softness.
She made a distressed sound. "You're like ice!"
Before he could protest, she started unbuttoning her coat. Helpless, and speechless, he gaped. She slipped her arms free. Beneath the coat, she wore a long turtleneck tunic in some fuzzy blue fabric with black leggings. A scarf matching her hat lay wrapped loosely around her neck and shoulders.
She stepped closer to him and whether he could have chosen to or not in that moment, Donatello stood his ground, allowing her body to come close, so close that the warmth hit him before the softness of her curves, pressing upon him and thawing him as she wrapped the coat over his shoulders.
He stood, holding the thermos and gazing into her face. Studying her with open curiosity. Basking in her closeness, the radiating warmth of her, the scent of her – all heady perfumes of cacao beans, wintry snow, and sharp peppermint.
Feeling his gaze upon her, April's movements slowed. She kept her eyes from meeting his. Deliberately, so, it seemed. She unwound the scarf from her neck and reaching up, Donatello bowed down a bit so she could drape it over his broad shoulders and sling it around his neck. She stopped, hands holding the end of the scarf, hovering just before his chest.
His arms were at his sides. The coffee forgotten.
Incrementally, her eyes wandered up from his chest to his face, to finally meet his. They gazed at one another. Her cheeks flushed and nose rosy from the cold. Her freckles sprinkled across her cheeks and nose. The puffs of breath mingling and disappearing between them. Neither spoke. Neither felt the need to.
By inches, her chin tipped higher as his face lowered. Her eyelids fluttered. But she hesitated, pulling back slightly and in a quiet voice asked, "What about the furnace?"
His eyes danced between hers.
"Priorities," he whispered, finally, feeling an uncanny certainty for once that he knew exactly what to do with this beautiful, amazing woman standing before him.
He brought his lips down to meet hers in a soft, delicate kiss.
When he opened his eyes, April was doing the same, a dreamy expression drifting across her features. There was a beat of fearful dread. What if he'd been wrong? What if he'd just ruined something he didn't even admit to being able to understand? Like some tottering fool, crushing a rare, precious discovery beneath him due to his stupidity and assumptions?
The loveliest smile he'd ever seen spread across her lips. It made his knees shake and body tremble with a force that had nothing to do with the cold. "April," he said, unsure of what else he could say, terrified of shattering the delicate moment.
Her hand rose up and her palm cupped his cheek. He pressed into her touch, an unaccustomed smile emerging on his mouth and feeling all at once foolish and happy. Super powered and humble simultaneously. Near-giddy. Mind blank and at peace. Heart hammering.
A voice roared from down the winding tunnel, making them both jump in fright. "Hey, Egg-head, that heater working yet?! Or did you freeze to death out there trying ta fix it?!"
April and Donatello broke apart. April giggled and rubbed vigorously at her arms. Donatello nodded and shrugged the coat from his shoulders, slinging it back over hers.
"Yeah, bro. What's the hold up? I'm turning into a turtle-sicle! That hot cocoa I made is now a chocolate slushie!"
"Almost done!" he called. Then to April, "Sorry."
"No, no. We should, ah, we should really, because it's freezing!" she said, hopping in place and shaking. "You know, have you checked the circuit breaker?"
He stilled, thinking. Then, he sped past. Hurrying with April just on his heels, he raced down the tunnel to where the mass of wiring led to the large electrical box. He opened it, studied the many switches and snapped his fingers. With a flick of his wrist, he flipped one switch, turned and looked at April.
"I don't know why I didn't check it first thing." His eyes traced the wiring above him. "Yes. The power was working, just the line to the furnace was out, I suppose." The fuse popped again. The two of them jumped. They exchanged a look. Donatello thought a moment. He raised a finger and followed a line along the ceiling, mumbling to himself. He nodded, comprehending the situation at last.
"I see. It's the electrical system. There's a short in the line providing power to the furnace. I'll just be a minute."
He moved back towards the furnace to gather his toolbox, fingering the scarf around his neck. April followed along. He stopped and looked at her, the serious expression gave way to one that was boy-like and shy as he turned his face away. "You should go have some cocoa with Mikey."
April pulled the ends of her coat around her tighter, shivering, but shaking her head obstinately. "I'll go back with you when you're done."
"I don't want you to get sick."
"Then work fast," she replied. Cocking her head slightly, she tugged at the scarf around his neck with both hands. "Priorities, right?"
He blushed deeply, taking her fingers in his hands and placing several light kisses on her knuckles, breathing on them to warm her. He met her eyes, gave her a quick nod.
"I'm on it."
A/N: Happy 2018 Readers! Hope it's a wonderful, happy, healthy, and productive one for all of you!