I know I said I would wait until at least one of my chaptered fics was complete but I couldn't help but to start working on this story. This fic is in Don's point of view. Don't worry if you don't understand the whole situation, details will be revealed in time. I thought I would have a lot of trouble putting this together but in truth I found it rather easy to write. I guess I needed a break from editing Self Discovery (It's so horrible, I can understand why people wouldn't want to read it). I hope I got Don's character down right. This is the first time I've written in this style so I'm hoping it sounds okay. Let me know what you think. I hope you enjoy it!
Chapter one: The Dorms
I never thought this day would come. Who would have thought that a mutated turtle could ever go to college? So here I was, attending a college out in the Midwest. I was told that the people here would be friendlier and more willing to accept a "unique student" such as myself. I wasn't quite sure if that was true and if it would really make much of a difference. I knew it wasn't going to be easy and having people stare at you definitely was something I could never get used to. At least I have the opportunity now to actually learn like a normal human being would.
Orientation was awkward, I knew nobody and to everybody else, I must have been the mascot of the school. I spent a lot of my life, avoiding people, closing myself off to the world. I would get my hands on any book I could and immerse myself in it, totally oblivious to my brethren. I never really felt like I fit in, considering the rest of my brothers thoroughly enjoyed the years of ninjitsu instruction or at least more than me anyways. Tomes opened up a whole new world to me that seemed far more interesting. Actual human friends were few and far between.
I met my roommate that day; he was taller than me (of course, I'm quite short compared to a lot of humans) and had strong built shoulders. His hair was red and freckles had an affinity for his pale skin. His name was Thomas (Tom for short) and he had a scholarship for football. At least he had a scholarship for something interesting, while mine was just because of my obscure appearance.
I was the first to arrive at my new home for the next year. It wasn't very big at all. There were two loft beds on either side of the room, a closet, some drawers, and a desk in each side. April and Casey had been kind enough to escort me to the campus. They were now my legal guardians even if they were more like older siblings to me.
"Wow, nice digs." Casey said sarcastically. I had heard about how small the rooms were and the rumors were affirmative. One could ponder on how two people.. .er…one person and a turtle could possibly live in a closet but it certainly was an improvement over the sewers. I glanced out from my seventh floor window marveling at the view. I could get used to being above rather than below the earth. April was busy looking the room over trying to figure out where to put what little furniture she had so eagerly bought for me.
"So you think you'll be okay living in such close quarters, Don?" Casey had asked from behind me. I turned around and shrugged.
"Well, I think I'll be able to get used to it in due time as long as my roommate is manageable." Normally as a freshman, you don't get a dorm room to yourself but the school had graciously offered it to me considering my situation. I had considered the possibility of having my very own room, a place I could take refuge. Even when I lived with my brothers, I had my own space where I could think and lose myself. That would've been the easy route but after much thought, I decided I better get a roommate. How else am I supposed to integrate myself into society if I continue to instinctually isolate myself? I heard a noise coming from the entrance of room and glanced up to see my new roommate. He smiled nervously at me as he walked towards me. I returned the smile, feeling equally nervous.
"Hi, I'm Tom, and you must be Don-a-tell-o? Am I pronouncing your name right?" He reached a hand out and I accepted it.
"Yes, that's correct but you can just call me Don." At this point he terminated our handshake, nervousness had seemed to vanish at this point. Before I knew it he was patting me on my back like I was an old buddy of his and laughed boisterously.
"Well I think we'll get along just fine." His voice boomed. The guy that I thought had been a quiet giant was quite loud and this was something I would eventually get used to. Although, at the time, I found his personality to be a bit annoying, it wasn't bad either. He had a good heart anyways.
April and Casey proceeded to introduce themselves to Tom. Casey and him seemed to hit it off, discussing various sports. I pretty much tuned all of this out. It's not that I didn't like sports or anything like that, I just had way too many nervous thoughts running around in my head at the time.
April had coordinated the room arrangement with Tom and after much moving between the four of us, everything was moved in and unpacked. It finally started to feel like a home. After all that and the long day of boring orientation, I was exhausted.
"Well Don, it looks like you're settled in and it's getting late so Casey and I are going to leave now. We'll be back to say goodbye before we go to the airport." I nodded. I felt a little uneasy with the last part of the familiarity of my life leaving. April proceeded to hug and give me a quick peck on the cheek. Casey then grabbed me in a "manly" embrace and looked me right in the eyes as if he was about ready to give me some fatherly advice.
"Hang in there, Don." He released me from his grip and I looked between the two and smiled.
"I'm sure I'll be fine, thanks for helping me move in."
"It's no problem, Don, we'll see you tomorrow. Get plenty of sleep."
"Yes mother." I replied back. April smiled at me and glanced over at Tom.
"It was nice meeting you." Tom laughed.
"Same here, miss." With a wave the couple left me alone with Tom. I glanced at him.
"Well I don't know about you but I'm beat." I proceeded to change into my pajamas. Wearing clothes was another thing I would have to get used to. My brothers and I could care less what we were wearing around each other but in the human world, it was unacceptable to walk around in the nude. In a way, I was thankful to wear clothes. There would be less for people to gawk at. I secretly hoped it would help me blend in with the crowd but I seriously doubted that considering my skin condition and the lack of hair. I maneuvered my way up into my new bed and slipped beneath the covers. It felt so good and I was ready to pass out at this point.
"Yeah, I guess I could turn in as well." Tom had stripped himself to only a t-shirt and boxers, shutoff the lights, and climbed up into his respective loft. I thought perhaps I could get some much-needed sleep but no such luck. Not only was my roommate loud, he was also talkative. I couldn't understand what part of the meaning of sleep he had lost. Despite my irritation, I guess it would do me good to learn about the person that I would be occupying this small space with for the next few months. That's when I learned he grew up on a farm in Iowa, played football, and his favorite food was goulash. He didn't expect me to divulge any personal information about myself at this point because apparently he thought this session would lull me to sleep. Eventually, I zoned him out and I was in sweet blissful sleep. I had a dream that night about being at home, effectively increasing my feelings of being homesick.
I had forgotten to set the alarm the prior night and yet some noise was waking me up the next morning. I sleepily realized it was the phone and I quickly leapt off my bed to answer it.
"Hello?" I answered, still feeling a bit drowsy and wondering what time it was. A soft, familiar voice answered back.
"Hello, Donatello, is that you my son?" I gripped the phone closer to my ear and sat down at my desk.
"Hi, sensei. With all the excitement from yesterday, I forgot to call home. I'm sorry." Soft snoring filled the background noise of the room. I smirked to myself realizing that my roommate was a heavy sleeper.
"It's alright, is everything okay? Are you adjusting well?" Well I wasn't dead yet so I guess that was a plus.
"I'm doing alright. My roommate has become accustomed to me. April and Casey helped arrange my room so I'm all settled in. Their flight leaves tonight."
"Well I'm glad to hear that you're doing well." Splinter sounded a bit distracted and the noises in the background clued me in as to why. Splinter sighed. "I think your brother is really anxious to talk to you even though I tried to teach him patience." I smiled, an image of Splinter glaring at my brother Mikey, flashed through my mind.
"Hey, Donnie. How are you? You miss me?" I chuckled. It felt good to hear his voice, hyper as it was.
"Nah, it's so nice being away from you." I teased. He was probably pouting from the other end of the line now.
"Aww…so what's it's like over there? Is your roommate cool? How's the food, probably not as good as your favorite brother's right?"
"Whoa whoa, slow down. So many questions."
"Yeah, but you have such a good memory, I'm sure you'll have no problem remembering them."
"Okay, um..the land is very flat with a lot of farm land. My roommate seems like he's a nice guy but he sort of reminds me of a certain annoying brother of mine. As for the food, I haven't tried it yet. They gave us these bag lunches yesterday and I was way too tired to eat supper. I guess I'll find out during the family brunch they're having today." Mikey was satisfied with my answers.
"You've hogged the phone enough, Mike." I could hear my ever-responsible brother tell my brother, pretty much to hand the phone over.
"Hey Don, you okay over there, keeping a low profile?" I had to laugh in my mind. My brother Leo could be too paranoid at times.
"Well it's not like I can avoid people staring at me but they seem to be accepting me. I guess it'll take awhile for them to get used to my presence." Raph grabbed the phone at this point, which from the sounds of the background noises, Leo was resistant to the action.
"Hey Don." Raph said gruffly in the phone.
"Hi Raph." I replied.
"Just so you know if anybody hurts you, I'll come over there personally and take care of it okay?"
"Okay, Raph I'll keep that in mind." I replied shaking my head. I missed all of my brothers. This was the first time in my life that I would be away from them. Splinter had gotten a hold of the phone again.
"Be careful my son and study hard."
"Yes, father." The phone call had ended and right after I had placed the phone down on its cradle, it rang once again.
"Hello?"
"Hey, Don. Casey and I will be over there around nine to go to the family brunch. Did you sleep well, I'm guessing I didn't wake you considering how fast you answered the phone." I swiveled in my chair and took note that Tom was barely awake but then fell right back down on his pillow.
"No, Splinter and my brothers called right before you did. I had a pretty restful night." For the first time that morning, I looked at the clock. It was almost 7:30am.
"Casey is still sleeping, even in a different time zone." I had to roll my eyes, leave it to Casey to sleep in even if the time change was to his advantage. "Otherwise we probably would have already been over there."
"That's alright, it looks like my roomie isn't much of a morning person anyways." I ended the phone call with April since there wasn't much else to talk about. I threw on some jeans, and a t-shirt with one of those brand names, old navy. I checked to see if my Internet was working and skimmed through the news to see what was happening in the world. The loud ring of the phone interrupted my thoughts as I reached over to answer it.
"Hello?"
"Um, Hello this is Tom's mother, is Tom there?"
"Um..yes, this is his roommate Don. I'll go wake him up for you." I heard her softly laugh on the other end.
"Yeah, that sounds like my Tom." I went over to his loft shook him a few times and then handed him the cordless phone. He grabbed it from me and groggily answered it. I heard a knock at the door, glanced at the time, and realized it was probably April and Casey. Deciding not to disturb his phone call, I grabbed my keys, and met April and Casey outside the door.
I was pretty much in a daze for the rest of the day. There were a lot of people at brunch who were way too interested in me. People stared and pointed at me as if I were an exhibit and some people talked loudly. What, they thought I wouldn't notice? Just concentrating on the task at hand was all I could do to get through the day. I wondered if today was this bad, how much longer I could deal with this before I lost my sanity. I was really glad to have April and Casey there with me though.
Later that day, I met Tom's parents. I could see the similarities between him and his father but then again all humans looked like. Okay, maybe they don't but when you grow up looking at four turtles, a rat, and, the same people all the time on TV, you don't learn the distinguishing characteristics between people as well. Personality wise, I could see where he got his obnoxious behavior yet I'd rather have that any day than be talked about but never talked to.
I knew my time with my surrogate family was coming to an end and before I knew it, I was saying my goodbyes. April gave me a tight squeeze and I thought she would never let go; part of me didn't want her to. I wasn't going to see them again until winter break, which to me seemed so far away from now.
I had an extra day to habituate myself to my new settings before classes actually started. The school, of course, had all of these activities to aid us in adjusting to our new lives. It lessened the feelings of being thrown into a whole new world. At least I wasn't the only one experiencing a new stage in their life. Tom and I pretty much hung out together that whole day. First we had dorm only activities where the RA made us sit around in a circle and introduce ourselves to everybody on the floor. It was only the beginning of the day and I was sick of giving the standard information about myself.
"My name is Donatello. I'm from New York and my major is undecided. My hobbies are computers and building mechanical things." Not to mention getting myself nearly killed in fights with ninjas. This pretty much continued through out the day. Tom did not seem like the type of person who could notice when a person was struggling so it was very surprising when he did. That night, they had some party thing, which was a little too much for me. I had never felt so shy in my life and one hour into it I was about ready to panic. It was still so hard to be around so many humans at once. So he took me outside for a while, away from the crowds and we just hung out. Not quietly of course, he was telling me a story of a prank from his high school days that I half listened to. This was when I made my second friend. He had come up to us, and introduced himself. He was shorter than Tom, probably about normal height and still taller than me. He had this mischievous glint in his eyes that made me unsure I really wanted to talk to him in the first place.
"Hi, I'm Terry and you are..how do you pronounce your name again?"
"It's Donatello but you can just call me Don."
"You Italian or something?" I scratched my head. Really, I didn't hate the name my loving father had given me but it sure caused a lot of problems in my life. People didn't know what to make of the name even if it was the name of an artist, it's not like everyday normal people really follow that sort of thing.
"Um no, it's an artist's name, my father really liked art."
"So um, can I ask? Is it cool to have a shell?" I just blinked not expecting such a straight to the point question. This wasn't the only blunt question he would ask me. There were a couple of particular questions that he would be the only person to have the guts to ask about and of course I was too embarrassed to dignify with an answer. He certainly was curious and seemed to have no personal boundaries whatsoever. I have to say that initially, I didn't really like the guy but I did have to commend him on being honest and actually engaging himself in a conversation with me so in the end I didn't mind having him around.
And that's it for chapter 1. I have most of chapter 2 done so expect a quick update within a week, that is if I remember.