The other day I watched the original Grinch movie and inspiration struck me.
Merry Christmas! Happy Holidays! And if you've got some seasonal depression goin' on: hang in there, I believe in you.
You're A Mean One
It starts exactly the same time it does every year: November the first, at seven A.M. sharp. (If he wanted to, Raphael could set his watch by it – but he very much does not want to, and he's pretty sure Donatello's already done that.)
Christmas carols come blaring out of the boom box that Michelangelo keeps stashed in his room and everyone wakes up to terrible off-key singing and boxes being pulled out of storage.
Or, well, everyone still asleep by seven A.M. on November the first. Which, usually, is only Raphael (because Leonardo always wakes up too early and Donatello probably never went to sleep in the first place) but that's beside the point. The point right now, is –
"Michelangelo," Raphael says, half-groan half-whine, "really?"
The complaint, apparently, goes right through his brother's empty-except-for-the-cobwebs head.
"Good morning, Raphael!" comes the chipper greeting. Michelangelo pokes his head around the corner, and his smile is way too bright for this early in the day, so Raphael hides under his blanket. "Wanna help with decorations?"
"Shouldn't you still be sleeping off the sugar rush?" Raphael asks by way of an answer. Halloween was just last night, for crying out loud, and he's pretty sure three candy-covered pizzas would be enough to put anyone out of commission until at least noon.
There's no response from Michelangelo except to turn up the Christmas music that'll be a permanent feature in their lair through New Years'. Raphael's pillow joins his blanket already over his head in an endeavor to muffle the sounds from outside.
"I think you skipped a holiday!" he shouts at top volume, fully prepared to compete with Jingle Bells. "No love for Thanksgiving?!"
Michelangelo laughs, like the little imp he is, and Raphael thinks he sounds too close. He peeks out from his covers to see the other turtle stringing garland around the foot of his bed. The nerve.
"Don't worry, I won't forget the mashed potato and gravy pizza," Michelangelo reassures.
Raphael burrows back into bed and ignores him.
x
"Michelangelo."
"Yes?"
"Did you lose all your other tapes?"
"No, why?"
"Because, ah, I couldn't help but notice you keep playing Christmas music."
"Aw, it's only been a week, Raphael! Tis the season!"
"Yes, and if I have to hear Deck the Halls one more time, I'm going to deck you."
x
The least-graceful thing he's probably ever done in his life is run helter-skelter into Donatello's lab. He barely manages to avoid tripping over a pile of books as he slams the door shut behind him and crosses the room in several disjointed leaps.
"Donatello! Save me! Help me – hide me."
It's some small blessing that Donatello is accustomed to interruptions, because Bunsen Burners are not good things to be jumpy around. Despite the lack of incident, he levels Raphael with the most annoyed look he has to offer. "Hide you?"
"Yes, hide me," Raphael answers, squirming between his brother and the workbench. "Michelangelo is trying to – "
There's a knock on the door then, and Raphael does not jump.
Wordlessly, Donatello reaches around him and switches off the Bunsen Burner, setting his experimentation aside for the time being. "This wouldn't have anything to do with Christmas, would it?"
"Donatello? Is Raphael in there?" Michelangelo's voice is muffled from the other side of the door, and it's only then that Raphael realizes he forgot to lock it in his haste.
It's only a matter of time before his persistent pursuer figures that out as well, so Raphael throws the rest of his dignity out the window and ducks underneath Donatello's workbench. Above him, he hears the genius sigh.
"It's unlocked," Donatello calls out.
Raphael pinches a chunk of skin above Donatello's kneecap for being unhelpful, and gets kicked in return.
"Is Raphael in here?" Michelangelo makes his entrance, artfully avoiding the stack of books. "I got him something."
"Yeah, he's – ow!"
When Donatello glares down at him for punching him in the shin, Raphael only insistently presses a finger to his lips in one last desperate attempt at garnering mercy.
"There you are!" Michelangelo exclaims, even though Raphael still hasn't made any move to come out of hiding.
"I told you," comes the protest before Michelangelo can really get down to business, "I don't do Santa hats!"
"But Raphael – "
"No!"
"You like hats!"
"Not those ones!"
"It's red! It matches your mask!"
"It's the wrong shade – it clashes."
Donatello sighs again, then hauls one brother from under his desk, steers the other one away from the precariously placed stack of books, pushes both of them out of his lab, and locks the door behind them.
Outside, Michelangelo smiles innocently as he plops a fuzzy Santa hat with a dangling pom-pom onto Raphael's very unwilling head.
x
For one blessed day, Raphael enjoys peace and quiet. Thanksgiving is a welcome reprieve in that respect, even if he does have to spend a few hours dragged rooftop to rooftop trailing after the Macy's parade.
Sure, it would be much easier to watch April reporting on it from home, but Michelangelo is persistent and Leonardo has been annoyingly pliant in the Christmas season for as long as Raphael can remember.
But, after that debacle, complete with a discussion of the pros and cons of turning the Turtle Van into a float –
("Dudes, we'd be the coolest part of the parade."
"I could probably rig up something parade-worthy. Confetti launchers, definitely."
"Who would drive, though?"
"You guys are whack jobs."
"Sounds like Raphael volunteers to ride in the back."
"What if we turned the blimp into a balloon-float hybrid instead? That would be more original."
"Mondo notion! A floating float!")
– it's finally time to go home, eat Thanksgiving dinner, and be lazy.
He's just starting to enjoy the sleepy haze that makes all of his second-hand joke books twice as funny, when along comes Michelangelo. His brother is humming Christmas music, and is no doubt on his way to hit play on the cassette player that Raphael is definitely going to confiscate one of these days.
To his surprise, though, Michelangelo comes back past his room seconds later with a pencil and paper.
"Oh! There you are! April's going Black Friday shopping tomorrow and she's gonna pick up a few things for me," Michelangelo informs him, even though Raphael very much did not ask. "Are there any presents you wanna buy? I'm making a list…."
"Don't tell me," Raphael ventures, sitting up in bed to not-quite-glare at his cheerful cohort, "you're going to check it twice."
Michelangelo's face breaks into an even bigger smile. "A Christmas joke! So you do feel the holiday spirit after all!"
Eyes rolling, Raphael flippantly waves off the nuisance that keeps standing at the foot of his bed and attempting to spread cheer. "I must've eaten some bad cranberry sauce."
Giggles spill out of Michelangelo in a classic overreaction, and Raphael makes a mental note to have the rest of the pumpkin pie as a midnight snack to spare him any more sugar. There's quiet after that, just long enough that Raphael is starting to wonder how long Michelangelo plans to stand there and try to think. He's about to ask when his brother speaks up.
"Why do you hate Christmas, anyway?"
Raphael scoffs. "I do not hate Christmas."
"Yes you do," Michelangelo insists, "you act like you do on your birthday, only through the entire season! Speaking of, why do you hate your birthday?"
With a strained groan, Raphael falls back on his bed and refuses to comment.
x
There's a memory he has, only a few years old, of the whole gang huddled in the living room watching Christmas specials on TV.
He remembers they had to ambush him when he was in the middle of watching something else: Leonardo squeezing in on one side first, then Michelangelo in front of his legs a few minutes later, Donatello leaving him no room to breathe on his other side, and even Master Splinter in a freshly-scavenged armchair. Then they'd commandeered the remote and changed the channel, and that's how he'd spent that unfortunate day.
It turns into a tradition, one that everyone else finds funny, but for once, Raphael isn't very amused.
Especially because, the memory of the initial Christmas marathon holds the memory of the first time any of them had watched 'How the Grinch Stole Christmas' – and it was all downhill from there, of course.
Somewhere around the time the titular character had been whining about Christmas, Michelangelo had leaned back on Raphael's knees and said, "That sounds familiar!"
And so now Raphael is forced to endure things like this every year:
"Don't be such a Grinch, Raphael," Leonardo complains. Fortunately, even their fearless leader can't manage to look serious with a flour-spattered face.
"I'm not a – "
"Grinch!" Michelangelo insists, pointing with a half-eaten cookie and spewing crumbs with the outburst.
They're in the kitchen at the moment, in the middle of making more Christmas cookies than the entire city of New York could eat in a month. It's supposed to be a family event, but Raphael's been sitting at the table with his feet up the whole time.
"Your metabolism is something else," Raphael comments. It's justified, he thinks, because Michelangelo eats about half of everything they make almost faster than they can make it.
The rest of Michelangelo's cookie is devoured in one bite. "At least I'm not all bah-humbug all over the place," he says, talking with his mouth full.
"Don't talk with your mouth full," Leonardo says, like clockwork as he watches an actual clock and waits for the exact minute the latest batch will be done.
"Michelangelo has a point, though." Donatello is at the table, sitting across from Raphael with the pieces of their cooking timer spread out in front of him. He's trying to figure out why it died on them two batches ago (even though Raphael had helpfully informed him that it's a simple case of over-work, something Donatello should be familiar with by now). "You're always in a bad mood this time of year."
"Don't you guys think it's a little early to be making cookies?" It's not his fault if he blatantly ignores conversation tangents he has no interest in.
"We can always make more!" Michelangelo says as he grabs another candy cane shaped cookie off of the cooling rack.
"At this rate we'll definitely have to," Raphael quips, nodding pointedly at his brother.
"You could be eating them, too, if you weren't such a Grinch."
Raphael opens his mouth to respond, but Leonardo is annoying enough to cut him off.
"Stop insulting Michelangelo to avoid topics that make you uncomfortable."
The tone of his voice is all-knowing in that way that only a leader can manage, and Raphael hates being called out like that. He jerks his feet off the table and lets all four of his chair's legs settle on the floor, but doesn't quite get up and storm out just yet.
"So, Raphael," Leonardo says, folding his arms and leaning against the counter, looking like an underpaid psychiatrist, "why do you spend every winter grumpy?"
"Yeah, dude, I mean: Christmas! What's not to like?"
Even Donatello stops working to stare at him, but Raphael only likes being the center of attention when it's on his own terms.
"What's there to like?" he counters, using his feet to push his chair away from the table. He doesn't meet any of his brothers' eyes as he gets up and leaves the room. "It's just not my thing. Better keep staring at the clock, by the way, we don't want the cookies to burn."
x
April comes down for a visit just two weeks before Christmas, and she has something thrown over one arm that's in alarming shades of red and green.
"Hey fellas!" She greets, and wonder-of-wonders, Michelangelo turns the perpetual holiday soundtrack down a few notches.
"April!" Michelangelo is the first one to her, eyes drawn to the terrible thing she's holding. "What's that?"
"Something for you," April answers, unfolding the item and holding it up for inspection. "I saw it when Irma and I were out shopping and it reminded me of you. Do you like it?"
Raphael thinks it's the ugliest thing he's ever seen in his life, but as it's not for him, and as he's sick of everyone being on his case about his mood, he refrains from commenting. Still, it's an absolute monstrosity of a sweater – the design is a bunch of sickeningly cute animals around an over-decorated Christmas tree on a bright red background with blinding green trim.
"I love it!"
Michelangelo, of course, loves it.
His eyes are wide with wonder, and he reaches out to touch it with reverence. "You could've waited 'til Christmas to give it to me as a present."
"I already have your presents all bought and wrapped," April explains with a shrug. "Besides, I figure you can wear it when we pick out your tree today."
She's said the magic words, and suddenly the lair is a flurry of excited activity as everyone runs around and bundles up. Raphael moves deliberately slow so he can be the last one ready, and by the time he walks to the door, Michelangelo is bouncing impatiently on his feet with his winter coat hanging open to proudly display his new, hideous sweater.
It's going to be a long night.
x
An hour later, Michelangelo is still bouncing as they wander the tree lot after-hours. There are plenty of trees left, and they've all paired off to cover more ground. April with Master Splinter, Donatello with Leonardo, and lucky Raphael gets Michelangelo in all his Christmasy glory.
"It's gotta be perfect!" Michelangelo says for the millionth time. "Like, the most fabulouso Christmas tree ever."
"They all look just about the same to me." Raphael frowns as he peruses the trees with undisguised disinterest.
"Nah, dude, you're wrong! Look – that one's too skinny, that one has a gap at the bottom, those ones over there're lumpy – "
"Okay, okay. I get it."
Before the conversation can get any further, a snowball sails over a few rows of trees and hits Michelangelo right in the face.
Both of them freeze with the shock, and then Raphael lets out a surprised huff of laughter, and all hell breaks loose.
They've been cornered, it seems, and snowballs are coming from both sides in a constant barrage.
"Hey!" Michelangelo shouts. "Not fair, guys!"
There's answering laughter from a ways away, and judging by the devious tone to it, it's Donatello. Knowing him, he's probably got some machine forming and launching the snowballs for him as he stands and watches all mad-scientist-like.
"All's fair in love and snowball fights!" comes the distant call from who is most definitely Leonardo, if the cheesiness of the line is anything to go on.
Raphael's eyes roll, but for some ridiculous reason, Michelangelo is laughing as they take cover behind a couple of wide evergreens.
"What would you know about lo- mph!" Stiffly and with unrestrained annoyance in his posture, Raphael swats the snow from his face and back onto the ground where it belongs. "Michelangelo!"
"What, dude? All's fair!" He's grinning that obnoxiously wide and deliriously happy grin again as he forms a small pile of snowballs.
"I can deal with 'all's fair'…" Raphael mutters, eyes trained on his brother as he carefully plots and executes revenge.
Crouched down and focusing on his task, Michelangelo never sees Raphael's retaliation coming – but he most certainly feels it when an armload of snow is unceremoniously dumped onto his head. With a yelp, he springs to his feet and shakes off the worst of it.
"Ha!" It's just one laugh, sure, but Raphael accompanies it with a mocking point and a surprisingly easy smile.
Michelangelo, it seems, isn't about to let that be the end of things. He's still smiling, even, as he bends and gathers a snowball in each hand.
The tried and true strategic retreat is put to good use yet again as Raphael turns on his heel and flees into the rows of pine. That smile is still pushing on his cheeks, and he decides not to waste any energy on tamping it down. Instead, he takes a right turn so sharp he's able to bend and retrieve a fistful of snow – which is subsequently packed and launched in the direction he last saw a flash of orange.
"Geez Raphael – you don't have to make them so hard!"
That one earns a real actual laugh, and Raphael takes a breather between a few closely packed trees. "Well, I had to make sure you'd feel it through that thick skull!"
A snowball bursting on his shoulder is the only response he gets, and so he takes off running again.
Their chase goes on just long enough for Raphael's fingers to get numb, and he's starting to wonder whatever happened to his other brothers when he rounds a corner and gets a face-full of supercharged snow.
"Oof!" The force is enough to land him flat on his shell and separate his hat from his head. As he sits up, he realizes that Donatello has apparently built a machine to throw snowballs for him (out of what, exactly, Raphael has no idea) – and he's also standing there next to it miserably failing at any attempt not to laugh.
"S-sorry!"
It's the most lackluster apology Raphael has ever heard, and the fact that it's accompanied by a fit of giggles has everything to do with it.
"Are you…" more chuckling, this time artfully disguised as a cough, "are you okay?"
Donatello has stopped laughing, but the amused expression still isn't wiped from his face, and so Raphael decides to help him with that. In a flash he's on his feet and heading right for the turtle responsible for his latest misery.
"Raphael – " The lighthearted tone in Donatello's voice is still present, because he knows he's in no real danger, but he pleads nonetheless. "I didn't mean to – "
Behind the snowball-launcher (which, now that he looks at it, Raphael thinks is probably made from snow blower parts and the machine used for wrapping up trees), there's a mound of snow that Donatello probably had to gather to keep it running. That drift is what Raphael aims for when he tackles his brother, and they both nearly disappear into it.
As they go down, Donatello yelps in surprise, and Raphael gets a mouthful of snow when it's his turn to laugh in triumph.
"No you don't!" Leonardo makes his heroic reappearance – a moment he's almost certainly been waiting for – by swooping in behind Raphael to stuff handfuls of snow down the back of his jacket.
"Ugh! What's a guy gotta do to avoid getting ganged up on?" Raphael squirms around until he can bump Leonardo out of the way and stand back up. His leader is smiling, too, something that really seems to be going around tonight, for some reason.
As Donatello starts to dig himself into a sitting position, Raphael engages Leonardo in a staring match…
…Until two perfectly aimed snowballs thwack into the sides of both of their heads.
Michelangelo is cackling not far off enough to be out of sight, and so pursuit is the only option. Raphael leaps into action first, but Leonardo is right behind him, and even Donatello abandons his surefire-win-technology in favor of an old fashioned snow brawl.
Graceful and carefully trained as they all are, it's not long before someone slips and they're all close enough together to go down in an unfortunate and wet heap. They stay like that for half a moment before Michelangelo lets out a strangled gasp and lurches to his feet. His sudden move jostles their pile, and Raphael's head hits the ground as Leonardo's elbow smacks his plastron.
"Michelangelo – " he starts to gripe.
"It's perfect!" Michelangelo says, clearly not listening. He's standing with his back to the rest of them, staring up in awe of the tree in front of him instead. "It's the most beautiful Christmas tree I've ever seen."
And then April and Splinter appear from nowhere, and Donatello untangles himself from Raphael's legs, and the tree is finagled down into the sewers.
x
According to Michelangelo, the real fun starts once the Christmas tree is standing tall and proud and ready to be decorated. (Although, he mentions that "the real fun starts here" at plenty of points in time throughout the holiday season, and so Raphael isn't sure which one is actually true.)
Raphael, however, is more than ready to curl up on the couch with a few blankets to try and warm up while hopefully catching a few Z's. He only gets as far as peeling off his wet layers and sprawling on the furniture before he's stopped.
"Aren't you gonna help decorate?"
One arm is tossed over his eyes to block out the world, but Raphael mumbles a reply anyway. "Aren't five pairs of hands enough?"
"Not as good as six!" Michelangelo implores. His knees are level with the couch, and he nudges them into Raphael's legs insistently.
Raphael remains stubbornly quiet. Fun as their snowball fight may have been, he's still cold and worn out, and he most definitely does not feel like moving for any reason.
"Please?"
The only thing this achieves is Raphael rolling over and further into the back of the couch. A new shadow falls over him, then, but he can't see it with his face buried in the cushions.
"Oh well," comes Donatello's voice, "if he won't help, I guess I'll get to test out my automatic tree decorator after all."
"No!" Michelangelo shouts, "that's cheating, and it takes all the fun out of it!"
"If Raphael won't help us, then – "
Having heard enough, Raphael springs to his feet and rests his hands on his hips. "Alright, fine."
Michelangelo cheers, and Donatello's smirk is enough to confirm Raphael's suspicions that he's just been played. He willingly went along with it just to avoid any unwanted trouble, of course, but still…
"I'd rather decorate the tree than have to clean up the entire lair from another mechanic malfunction."
He can't let Donatello believe he's won completely.
"C'mon, Raphael – you can help me string the popcorn together!" Michelangelo says, taking hold of Raphael's arm and dragging him towards the kitchen.
"You gotta like at least one Christmas song!"
"Grandma Got Ran Over by a Reindeer always had a certain charm."
x
Christmas morning hits him like a train off the tracks – or, more accurately, like another, more excitable turtle pouncing on him and shaking him awake at top speed.
"Raphael! It's Christmas! Wake up! Wake up!"
"Get off," Raphael grumbles out as cheerful a response as he can manage. In his defense, he can't imagine what made Michelangelo think it was a good idea to rouse him this way, and so therefore he can't be held responsible for the way his brother is shoved none-too-gently to the floor.
…It obviously doesn't do much to deter Michelangelo, anyway, because he's on his knees and shouting in Raphael's ear again all too soon.
"Merry Christmas!"
Covers securely over his head, Raphael mutters his reply into his pillow. "Wake me when it's New Year's…."
"That'll be too late for your presents!" is all the warning he gets before every last one of his blankets is forcefully removed from his bed.
"Hey!" Raphael barks, lurching into a sitting position and making a half-hearted grab for the fluttering edges of his comforter.
Michelangelo, however, is insufferable and horrible and a million other bad things ending in 'ble' and his only response is to kick the entire bundle of blankets into the hallway. "Nuh-uh! No sleeping in on Christmas, dude."
"Michelangelo," Raphael speaks slowly for emphasis, and with the tone of obnoxious siblings everywhere, "do I have to get the dictionary out and read you the definition of 'holiday' again?"
"Presents," Michelangelo insists.
For once the sigh he heaves is much heavier than his mood as Raphael steps out of bed. "And you all say I'm the mean one."
Full to bursting with charming holiday cheer, Michelangelo just laughs.
x
"Open mine first," Raphael says, when the whole family is seated in the living room and he's sliding a beautifully wrapped gift towards Michelangelo. His voice is syrupy sweet, and if his brother hadn't just downed six candy canes in the span of fifteen minutes, maybe he would be a little bit more suspicious.
It certainly hasn't gone over Leonardo or Donatello's heads, but they, thankfully, keep quiet.
Michelangelo, meanwhile, holds none of their suspicions, and tears at the wrapping paper with gusto. He opens the box, and is greeted with a face-full of whipped cream.
The way everyone sits in shock is satisfying, and Raphael laughs into his hands as he watches Michelangelo peel the pie tin off of his face and wipe red and green sprinkled whipped cream from his eyes. His brother takes a few more minutes to process what had just happened, and then –
"Thanks, Raphael! I love it!"
Before Raphael can even think of running away, Michelangelo latches onto him with a hug and rubs their cheeks together, spreading whipped cream every which way.
"Get off!" Raphael scowls and shoves at him, but makes very little headway.
"Merry Christmas!"
"Yeah, yeah…."
x
"So you don't hate Christmas, then?"
"Eh, I get my own kicks out of it."
To all a good night!
…I love the '87 series so much, it's a lot of fun, and everyone is so cute? Like, I've tried my hand at writing for all the cartoons as well as the newer live action movies, but I def have the most fun working with 1987. It's just so...anything goes.
Anyway, this was originally supposed to be more emotional, but in the end it took a major turn into ridiculous territory instead? Oh well. It's happy, which is all I really wanted.
Thanks for reading! :D