The Great Coffee Bean War
Leonardo left the dojo an hour after his brothers did, feeling quite satisfied. After all, they might all be undergrounded while Master Splinter was away (or as Mikey liked to call it, "oh-my-god-we're-trapped-in-here-with-whatever-crawled-into-Raph's-toes-and-died!") but at least they could be productive and work on improving their skills, right?
He headed for the shower, intent on taking exactly 7 minutes to get completely cleaned up, and then start studying South American traditional weaponry - it never hurt to know other techniques! - when something caught his attention as he walked past the computer.
Leo stopped. Tilted his head. Backed up a step to see if he'd really seen it. Took in a deep breath and said (very) firmly, "HAMATO DONATELLO, just what are you looking at?"
Don jerked backwards and almost fell from his seat as he quickly clicked the browser window close and swung round to face Leo. "Leo!" he shuffled nervously, making sure to block the screen from view.
As his shock faded Leo raised one eyeridge, utterly unimpressed with Don's very unsteathly moves. "I did see that," he pointed out dryly, "And no matter how much you wish otherwise and attempt to shield me from your computer, it's not going to change."
Don quickly glanced past Leo. Mikey had raised his head curiously from the couch and even Raph had emerged from his cave, grumbling tiredly as he came to investigate. In a move that would have made Master Splinter proud had he been around to see it, Don snuck forward, yanked Leo into his room and shut the door, locking it swiftly, all in about 0.03 seconds.
"You," Don began in a whisper that threatened there would be bloody retribution should his demands not be met, "are going to tell no one what you saw."
His brother, unintimidated by the warning due to years of dealing with Raph, shrugged calmly. "I'm going to hope that this is something for April. Because Don, you are never going to live it down if the others find out you cruise beading websites for leisurely reading."
"I was NOT!" Donatello began hotly. "I was doing research on fractals and looking for pictures of examples in nature, and I saw a couple of really impressive specimens! And when I clicked through, it turned out they weren't actually natural fractals, but replicas made in beadwork, and it piqued my curiosity, so I started to research other uses of naturally-occurring themes in personal decoration, and...okay, yeah, I ended up spending an hour looking at beaded jewelry," he wound down. Seeing Leo's continuing skepticism, he tried one more time to defend himself. "Look, it's really relevant! The Lannape tribe sold an island to the Dutch for a variety of trinkets, including strings of cheap beads! If they hadn't done that, who knows where we'd be?"
Leonardo blinked. "Don. The what tribe? And what does that have to do with us?"
"Lannape," Don said quickly. "And that island became Manhattan. You know - here?" He waved one arm vaguely around his room, apparently referring to the room, the Lair, the tunnels, and all of the city that sat above their heads. "If they hadn't been impressed by the beads, how would things be different? Did you ever think of that, Leo? All it would take is one small change in someone's attitude, way back in history, and it would have a cascading effect down to the present day and into the future! Come to think of it - what's going to be different in the future because of me? Do you think I've made a difference, just by doing something as simple as ordering that last bag of dark-chocolate-covered coffee beans? Would history unfold differently if that ebay shop had sold out the day before, and that bag went to someone else?"
Leo's brow crinkled up as he regarded his babbling brother with new understanding. "Coffee beans?" he asked carefully, reaching for Don's arm with one hand and feeling for the doorknob with the other. It was locked, but that wasn't as much of a problem as the contents of the other hand were going to be. "Donnie, did you already get this order? And if so, where is it?" Stealthily, he unlocked the door and guided Don back out into the main room. "Can you show me?"
Don's forehead furrowed. "Show you?" he asked, allowing himself to be lead passively out of his room.
"Yes. Show me. Right now."
Wait. Wait a second… Don knew this technique. It was one of his old standbys, to sound so authoritative that others did what you said before they could even think about it. And of course, no one did authoritative better than Leonardo—he'd almost gone along with it. Almost.
Don planted his feet, and pointedly freed his own wrist free from his brother's grasp. "Why are you suddenly so eager to see my beans?" he asked with narrowed eyes.
Michelangelo's head popped up above the couch again. "Yeah, why the sudden interest in his beans?" he broke in with a snicker.
Don and Leo turned as one to stare at him, and in unspoken agreement, decided to ignore him.
Donatello folded his arms over his plastron. "Well?"
Leonardo stared at him, and then sighed. "Forget it," he said. Then he turned as if to walk away, but in stealthy ninja fashion, instead shot over to Don's computer alcove.
"Leo—wait!" Don was only a step behind him, but he was too late. Because of course, the dark-chocolate covered coffee beans were stashed exactly where it was most practical—within hand's reach when he was sitting at his computer.
"Ha!" Leo said, and he held up the tin, giving it a slight rattle for emphasis. "Now then, Donatello - exactly how many of these beans have you had today?"
"Not enough for you to be acting like I'm a criminal," Don lunged for the tin, only to fall back, fuming, as Leo darted out of the way with it.
"How many?"
"Jeez, Leo, give it a rest," Raphael leaned out of his room and snagged the tin from Leo's hand. "He's a big boy, he can - woah!" Raph's eyes widened as he glanced down at the tin, hefting it experimentally. His grumpy, I-was-napping-until-my-bros-got-stupid-loud voice faded to something more thoughtful as he looked back up at Donatello. "I know how much this weighed yesterday, Donnie, 'cause I'm the one who schlepped it back here from April's place for you. And this is a big difference from yesterday. So I gotta go along with Leo on this one - how many of these things have you had?"
"Not too many," now Don was fuming at both of them. "There are 4.5 milligrams of caffeine in the average chocolate-covered coffee bean, and approximately 100 milligrams in a cup of coffee. Therefore I would have to eat 22 beans for every cup of coffee I normally drink, just to get the same effect - "
"Dude, I saw you drinking coffee this morning!" Mike's head had been turning back and forth, like a spectator at a tennis match, but now he broke in. He pointed at the desk. "And you've got a mug right there!"
Donatello moved to stand between his desk and his brothers. "That's not the point," he said loftily. "The point is -"
"The point is, you are so hopped up on caffeine, we're gonna have to scrape you off the ceiling 'fore too much longer," Raphael interrupted, shaking his head. The tin was open in his hands. "22 beans equals a cup of coffee, yeah? And how many beans do you think are missing from here, Leo?"
Leonardo glanced down into the half-empty tin, and whistled in surprise. "Don...how did you get any sleep at all last night?" Belatedly the light dawned. "Did you get any sleep at all last night?"
"Do you have any idea how much I got accomplished last night?" Don deflected, his voice rising in pitch. "You should see the research I was able to gather together, and the notes I made - I'm really making progress on my robotics and nanotech theories, enough that I should be able to actually contribute something in the very near future!"
"Don," Leo said and something in his tone immediately commanded his babbling brother's attention, "You were looking at a beading website. A beading website, Don. If that doesn't mean you are beyond the caffeinated state and into the wall-climbing stage, then I don't know what will."
"It was research!" Don protested, arms waving in his defense. "It was research, I tell you!"
The remaining three turtle witnessed Donatello's descent into stupid-ville with something akin to horror. "He is so far gone," Raph commented, eying the tin in his hand like he was worried that it was suddenly going to bite him.
"I think I'm scared," Mikey whimpered, "He's been working all night like this?"
At that unpleasant thought, the three sane turtles raised their heads and directed frightened stares at the innocuous lab door. "He built a nuke in there, didn't he?" Leo mumbled, with the weary acceptance of a parent's worst nightmare coming to life, "I always knew this day would come."
"Did you know that you could make fantasy beads by heating glass and silver foil? The colors of fantasy beads are sooo pretty!"
"Just. Stop. Talking," Raph groaned, directing a hurry-up-and-do-something glare at Leo.
Leo responded with a do-you-really-want-to-provoke-the-turtle-who-has-the-control-to-a-nuke look. Raphael subsided with a we're-going-to-die-aren't-we grunt as Mikey frantically shot increasingly frightened looks between his two brothers.
Guys? Come on, you're going to do something, right? Right?
But they didn't even notice his panic. They just kept giving each other stupid faux telepathic looks.
Mike exploded at Don, semi-intelligible at first and making wild gestures. "You... YOU! You are not my brother, at the moment! You have been replaced by Folger's Crystals!" He had successfully captured the room's attention. Raph and Leo were staring, and Donatello even paused and laid down the papers he had begun to sift through. Mike presumed the impossibly tiny pencil scrawls and maniacal diagrams were a result of last night's "research".
They were all still staring. Mike considered them and realized he had just run out of dramatic things to say.
Then an idea struck him like a bolt of lightening. He jumped where he stood and his hand snatched the shell cell off of his belt holster. The device snapped open with a practiced flick of his wrist and he leveled it at Don, holding it menacingly like it was some kind of crucifix. "Donatello! You are going to bed!" he boomed in his very best putting-on-the-daddy-pants voice. "This instant! Or, maybe not this exact instant. But, in the very near future!"
Donatello blinked rapidly and continued to peer at him.
"Yer poseta follow it up, when you say shit like that," Raphael advised mildly, in spite of Leo's telepathic don't-encourage-him glare. "With, you know, threats or something. Or, I'm gonna kick your ass. Shoot phone lasers at you. Insert crazy bullshit here." Raph was not one to refrain from encouraging his youngest brother when Mike was on the brink of going spastic.
"Or - or else I'm going to PUT YOU ON YOUTUBE!" Mike concluded fiercely. His thumb tapped through menus, pulling up the camera application.
"What?" Don squeaked. His eyes widened as he saw the tiny red light come on. "Y-You can't do that!"
Mike's eyes blazed with triumph.
"What the- you're damn right, he can't!" Raph stiffened with realization. He whirled on Donatello. "Because we all AGREED he was banished from having cameras. FOR LIFE." He advanced on the other turtle, and Don shrank closer to the back of his executive computer chair. "DIDN'T WE ALL SAY SO, DONNIE?"
"W-well, that was an awful long time ago..."
"We made a deal," Mike confessed easily. "I agreed to leave him alone for six whole hours."
Donatello gave Mike a look of sullen disapproval and noted, "You are such a traitor."
Michelangelo clicked his tongue against the roof of his mouth. "Bro, I am only doing what's best for you. Now, go to bed or get ready for millions of hits."
"He's not allowed to do that," Donatello moaned. He made his increasingly desperate appeal to Leonardo, who had been eerily silent throughout this. "We have rules about putting things on YouTube, right? If we don't - holy crap, Leo. We really should! What about that big lecture Splinter gave him, just a couple weeks ago?"
"I dunno-o-o..." Mike sang, drawing the word out obnoxiously and panning to get a sweeping shot of his nerdy brother. "I think I know the chewing out session you're talkin' about, and that was mostly about uh, whatchacallum, SOCIAL NETWORKING sites, like facebook and stuff. Like, he said I'm allowed to play Mafia Wars and Angry Birds but I can't mack on girls and become internet famous by sharing my awesome beatboxing. Which is a damned tragedy. But I'm pretty sure he never said anything about-"
"No putting your brothers on YouTube, Mikey..." Leonardo finally asserted with a sigh, like it should have been obvious. "Do you really need me to confirm it with Splinter?"
"Dude, it would be fine! We could say he was CGI or something. Even if we said he was a real live mutant turtle, trolls would comment like, pshh. Totally Photoshopped."
"No YouTube. Absolutely not."
"Fine! Audio only. Please?"
"Why in the world do you want me on YouTube in the first place?" Don sounded truly baffled.
"Are you serious? You just told me that glittery beads are pretty!"
"Fantasy beads," Don's eyes hooded defensively.
"PRETTY. You said pretty, in front of all your brothers, in like an everyday sentence."
"W-well... space IS pretty!" Don defended weakly. "I've actually always thought so! I just-"
"You just don't say so out loud," Leo supplied.
"You say it's fascinating, or infinite and vast, or some other boring Vulcan word."
Don balled his fists as he spoke. He was beginning to look truly angry. "None of those words are even remotely close to Vulcan!"
"None of those beads are even remotely heterosexual!" Mike shot back.
Don's face darkened. "That's ridiculous. How can you even - they're beads. Inanimate objects, without genitalia or any sexual drive to speak of!"
The red light continued to stare back at him. Don seemed to realize it and clapped his mouth shut. Mike flashed him a huge grin. "Oh yeah? Keep talking, buddy! Maybe you'd like to defend the honor of your pretty beads some more? Oooo, maybe you can do it in actual Vulcan?"
Don's fists open and closed. He spluttered and looked at Leo. "Will you please do something about him?"
"Nope," Leo decided, smirking and droll. "I'm gonna have to allow it. Not the YouTube part. But keep on recording, Mikey. Maybe after he's had some sleep, I'll help you tie him down and we'll all force him to watch it later."
"Sweet!" Michelangelo proclaimed, and jumped up onto the sofa to get another angle. "Here we have the rare Turtle-us Mutant-us, in his natural habitat!" he intoned for the benefit of his invisible audience.
"That's not even remotely the accurate scientific name - !" Donatello began hotly, swinging his attention between the camera's treacherous light and Leonardo's even more treacherous smug grin.
"This particular specimen is of the Dorkus Gigantus line," Michelangelo didn't even pause. "It can be identified by its bloodshot eyes, its allergic resistance to all things cool, and its lack of a sense of humor - EEK!"
The scream totally ruined the entire scene, Michelangelo had time to think, as he threw the phone to Raph and dove out of the way of Donatello's sudden angry charge straight at him.
"I will eat your SOUL!" Don roared as he recovered remarkably fast from his lunge, pivoting round to tackle Mikey to the floor. "Your Halo gamer scores will be permanently set to zero! The Elites will be set to Infinite Legendary difficulty and they will immediately hump your dead body every time they PWN your ass!"
"NO!" Mikey gasped in horror as he tried to squirm his way out of his brother's grasp. "You can't make them teabag me! That's like, the ultimate insult to my gaming skills! Have mercyyyyy!"
"Every time you spawn, you will be killed by the Guardians! You hear me? Death by glitching!"
As the two struggled ineffectively on the ground with Mikey barely keeping Don's fingers away from his throat, Leo casually vanished into the dojo, presumably to find some rope to restrain his sleep deprived brother.
"Keep going," Raph mumbled as he cheerfully recorded the scene, "It's not exactly Vulcan but it's still good."
Internally (since he was tumbling over and couldn't get into a good position for this), Mikey shot a glare at Raph. He was the one risking life and limb here for this video! "Dude the Guardians? That'll just boost my Guardian death ratio! Death by the Guardians is always cool!"
"The Guardians," Don informed Mikey as he forced him to the floor, "are the result of glitching in the map. They happen when an object that doesn't have any assigned ownership kills a player. Basically, it's the game's way of saying "I don't know what the hell just happened or why you just died.'"
Mikey blinked at this new information. "That's way lame!" He glanced up at Raph. "Is that enough?
"Is that enough?" Don huffed incredulously, then he glanced up at Raph, eyes widening as he took in the shellcell pointed in his direction.
He released Mikey. The turtle immediately slipped out from beneath him and backed up as he waited for the second Don-splosion. Thankfully this one would not be directed at the royal person of his Lordship Michelangelo this time.
"Give that here, Raph," Don demanded flatly.
Raph smirked and simply hefted the shellcell up to get a better picture. "Nope," he drawled lazily. "I think you're doing just fine Don. You gonna continue strangling the egghead or what?"
Don's dilated eyes blinked once and darted back to Michelangelo. Mikey swallowed nervously at the crazed look in his brother's eyes and for a moment he knew Don was actually considering inflicting bodily harm on him, just before his brother spun around and lunged for Raphael.
Which was a mistake. Raphael was entirely unimpressed at Don's sudden fratricidal tendencies and simply settled for clotheslining his brother to the floor. He then rather calmly sat down on his brother's plastron, pinning Don in place.
"Wow," Mikey chirped, "That was very…ninjaesque of you, Don. You totally didn't charge Raph like an amateur. Master Splinter would have been very pleased to see that very technical and precise attack. Good form, bro."
"Shut…up…Mikey," Don grounded out from beneath Raphael. "All… your … achievements … will…be…deleted…on…Halo. …GET OFF ME RAPH!" He flailed and squirmed rather ineffectively but Raph didn't move an inch.
"Dude, you're doing it all wrong!" his brother said cheerfully, sitting down next to him but making sure he was just out of reach. "I'm pretty sure you're supposed to build up momentum or something else vaguely scientific and then twist!"
"Leverage," Don muttered, "I need the right amount of leverage."
"Yeah, that. Say, you weren't being serious about my Halo gamerscores? I mean, Raph's the one sitting on you. Why don't you trash his bike or something?"
Don's head popped up and he leveled a glare at his brother. "Raph isn't. Constantly. Talking. Say goodbye to your General rank and go back to being a private, you noob!"
"Maybe it wouldn't be so bad. Even back when I first started, I always thought Private W0MBAT had a sort ring to it. If I'd made it all the way to Sergeant-Major then, well... that would suck balls. I mean, Sergeant-Major W0MBAT! Say it with me, Don. Listen to the majesty."
Leo, who had slipped back into the room with a rope over his shoulder, kicked Mike firmly but harmlessly in the shell, eliciting a surprised grunt from him. "Stop trying to hog the camera, will you?" Leonardo was filming, too. He was using the LCD of his shell cell as a viewfinder, and his focus never wavered from their original target: the over-caffeinated brother whom he still believed to be the point of this correctional exercise.
Leonardo's abuse of Mike's shell effectively distracted Raph. Donatello pounced on the opportunity and nearly broke free with his renewed efforts. He might have escaped if he had not divided his own attention to banter with Mike simultaneously. "Do you hear that, Mike?" he quipped. "Stop being such a camwhore. You're - ghhk! Getting Private! N'that's final!"
Raphael had Don pinned again, more securely than before, and gave an intelligible growl of triumph. Then his cheerful throttling eased up to suggest casually, "Bet you could hack that game. Change his name to something stupid."
Donatello met Raphael's gaze abruptly. His eyes positively gleamed. "Parts?"
"Ha!" It was Raph's kind of humor.
"Y-you - he couldn't do that!" Michelangelo's quicksilver emotions shifted immediately, his mouth hanging agape with dismay. "This is not a PC game. Donnie is in no condition to do cruel and unusual things to my X-Box!"
"And you!" Leo served an additional surprise kick, this time to Raphael. He wasn't so kind as to aim for the carapace this time. His heel smacked Raph in the back of the head hard enough to smash his face into Don's plastron.
"OW!" Raphael complained loudly, blinking the stars out of his vision. Then he started laughing. "Leo. You fucking jerk! What the hell was that?"
"I'm getting bored with all of the incomprehensible video game babble and your completely ineffectual rough-housing," Leonardo explained, using his I Am Still Calm And Reasonable voice. "What the shell happened to hog-tying him? I'm still waiting for that."
"Oh," Raphael squinted and thought about it for a moment, then bobbed his head agreeably. "Right!"
"RAPH!" Don squeaked.
"Rope!" Mike exclaimed gleefully, catching the coil that Leo tossed to him.
"I mean it!" Don raged. His expression was beginning to look more desperate than manic, though, with the triple threat looming over him.
Raph tossed Mike's phone over his shoulder without looking, confident that Leo would catch it, and soon he, Mike, and Don were a thrashing, squirming, curse-shouting knot of turtles. They rolled across the living room floor as Don fought to get free, and his brothers fought just as hard to get the rope around him. Leo followed them, capturing it all on both phones held at different angles.
"Donnie! I'm shocked that you - ow! - even know that word!"
"Get offa me, you - "
Smack! "I'm the only one that gets to call him that, geek-boy!"
"I got his hands!"
"Nnn!"
"...I don't got his hands."
It took nearly five minutes, but finally the deed was done. Leonardo, switching his gaze between the two phones, stifled a laugh. "So, Don...are you ready to see reason now?"
The glare he got in return was scorching. "This has nothing to do with reason," Don spat. "This is pointless torture, invented and perpetrated by my brothers because they are bored and can't amuse themselves for ten minutes, much less - "
Raph traded a glance with Mike. "Gag 'im?"
"Gag him!" Mike confirmed. He whipped a bolster off the couch, stuffed it in Don's mouth, and tied it in place with his mask.
"Well," Mikey remarked as Don's eyes bulged in a potent mix of raw fury and disbelief, "Listen to that, guys. Silence. It's so nice."
As Don launched into an impressive but muffled tirade despite the gag, his brothers couldn't help but to high-five each other. "Think it's time to send Don to bed," Raph suggested, watching said brother attempting to free himself of his bonds.
It was most amusing.
"Nooo!" Mikey immediately protested, "Come on, we can't send him to bed already! Let's doodle on his shell! Or give him a fake beard! Or, or, dress him up! Like, in girl clothes!"
Leo shot his brother a disturbed look. "We don't have any girl clothes," he pointed out in a tone of voice that suggested he was terrified to learn otherwise.
Either wilfully ignorant of the warning or he just didn't care, Mikey shamelessly announced, "I do! April left some of her old stuff when she was staying in my room."
Leo's soul died a little bit inside at those words.
Raph divided his attention from the growing outrage on Don's face to his other less mentally stable brother. "And you never thought to bring this up with her or throw them away?" he asked.
"She told me she didn't need them anymore and I could get rid of them," Mikey said with a dismissive shrug.
Admittedly, they all were packrats, a habit born from survival when they were a lot younger and their future less secure. But, keeping April's old clothes was a bit a weird, even on their radars. Especially since she had brought down spare changes of clothes specifically later on.
"Anyway! To make sure Don really does learn his lesson, we can't send him to bed now," Mikey argued. "Only by the power of humiliation can we hope to break Don of this terrible addiction and ensure that this intervention is successful!"
Don's eyes widened in horror as he took in the thoughtful looks Raph and Leo wore. No, they couldn't really be considering this! Please, just send him to bed now!
"Well," Mikey panted as they stepped back to evaluate their handy work, "That...didn't go exactly as planned."
Don shot him a vengeful look as he shifted slightly, still trying to escape his bonds. He'd put up a magnificent fight despite the rope and getting clothes that were made for a thin human female onto a bulky mutant with a shell and tied up was no easy job. In fact, they'd decimated April's old stuff in the battle and Don was now adorned with the tattered remains.
"That should be the background on the computer," Raph remarked maliciously.
Michelangelo snapped his fingers, "Oh it will!" he exclaimed, "But first-"
He dashed up the stairs to his room. Raph and Leo watched him go indulgently then they glanced down to their last brother who was repeatedly decapitating them over and over again with his eyes. "You did this to yourself," Leonardo reminded him.
Donatello's eyes narrowed eloquently.
"Oh, crap," Raphael murmured, his own eyes on the open door of Mike's bedroom. "You don't suppose he - ?"
Before he could finish the thought, Michelangelo plunged back into the room by dropping over the railing. His arms were full of small pastel boxes. While his brothers watched, some of the boxes slid out of his grasp and skittered along the floor like pink roaches. "Ta-da! I knew this would all come in handy some day!"
"What is this?" Leonardo instinctively took a step backwards. He spread his arms without realizing it, protecting Don from the menace that was bearing down on him.
"Makeup!" Mike exclaimed gleefully. He opened his arms and let the rest of the boxes pour down onto the tattered living room rug.
"No! No, Mike, it's too much - " Raphael began, even as Leonardo started to ask, "Where did you get all of this?" And why do you have it, was the unspoken corollary.
"I got it from that warehouse two years ago, the one where it was on fire and we had to get all the homeless people out before it fell in on them? There was this pallet of big boxes, and I grabbed a box off of it when I was trying to get this kid to come out from behind the pallet, and...I guess I just forgot to put it down when I ran out!" Mike smiled broadly. "When I got home, I saw that it had all of these things inside, so I kept them in case April would ever need any makeup, but she said no thanks, 'cause she doesn't really like to wear makeup, and I just never got rid of it." He finally took a breath.
Leo wondered fleetingly if Mike had also been eating chocolate-covered coffee beans.
"No!" Raph said again. He eyed the pastel boxes with an expression somewhere between horror and disgust, and used his toes to flick some of them away. "We made our point - we don't need to do this!"
Donatello made some noise of assent deep behind the gag, and wriggled further back away from his brothers. The remains of the floral shirt caught on the rope around his wrists and pulled his head back. He could either stop struggling, or strangle on his bonds. He seriously considered the latter.
"I think we do!" Mike argued. "If we're gonna do something, we might as well do it thoroughly, right? And it's a lesson he won't ever forget, right? So we won't have to have the Great Coffee Bean War, Part 2, the next time he gets loose online with April's credit card, right?"
Don decided to try for unconsciousness, and put his weight into one last attempt to squirm away from the threat.
"It's enough," Raph bent and ripped the tangled back of the shirt free, ending Don's hopes that he could escape.
Mike tore open one little box and pulled out a tiny compact. "Autumn Romance," he read off the side of the box before tossing it over his shoulder. "Do you think Don's an autumn? Or does anyone do that kind of color analysis anymore?"
"How do you know about this?" Leonardo wondered.
"I've read every book in April's place," Mike popped the compact open and extracted a comically small brush. "Except for the really boring ones about data warehousing and string theory. Talk about snooze-fest!" He swirled the brush around in the compact. "Now then, Donatello - prepare to be prettified by Private Wombat!"
"No," Raph said one more time, more forcefully. "I mean it, Mike. This is just...it's kinda sick, is what it is."
"I have to admit that I'm a little bit disturbed by your...zeal," Leo admitted. He glanced down at the phones he held in either hand, and angled them around to point at Michelangelo. "Not to mention the sheer quantity of your supplies. No, I agree with Raph. We're done with this."
"Awww," Mike pouted at the camera in his brother's left hand. "I never get to have any fun at all..."
Raphael unknotted the rope at Donatello's ankles and hauled him to his feet. "I hope you learned your lesson, young man," he said sternly while working at the knotted mask that held the gag in place.
Don spat the bolster out and glowered at all three of them. When Raphael freed his wrists from the ropes, he barely paused to flex his hands out of their cramped positions before ripping himself free of the ragged bits of clothing that they'd forced on him. "And I hope you're all immensely pleased with yourselves," he said hoarsely. He straightened up to his full height. "And I hope you remember exactly how 'funny' this was, the next time the dishwasher breaks...or the cable goes out...or the van needs any kind of work at all. Because I promise you, I will remember this!" He stalked off to his bedroom and slammed the door.
The three of them peered up at the closed door for a long moment. Then Mike looked down at the scatter of little boxes, and turned one over with his foot. "He's really mad," he said forlornly. He glanced down at the Autumn Romance compact and closed it with a guilty grimace.
"Donnie doesn't hold grudges," Raphael sounded like he wanted to believe that. "He'll get some sleep, and we'll show him the video, and he'll laugh at how stupid he sounded, just like us."
"Will he?"
"He will. But we gotta do something about all of this makeup before he wakes up, Mike. This is really..." Raph trailed off, shaking his head. "What else've you got stashed away in your room? Jimmy Hoffa? Maybe Amelia whatsername, the pilot?"
"A good ninja is always prepared," Mike said loftily.
"I think that's the Boy Scout motto," Leo said drily. He tossed one phone to Mike before he bent and picked up another box. "Midnight Sparkle," he read off the side of it.
"I think that one's a dark blue," Mike supplied helpfully. Raph looked at him skeptically.
"It looks that way," Leo confirmed with a peek into the box. "Hmm."
Mike knelt and scraped all of the little boxes roughly together in one big pile. "Guess I really should get rid of all of this," he said, surveying the haphazard mass of pastel. He held out his hand for the last box. "Leo?"
Leonardo tossed him the last box. "Let's get all of this stuff out of here. Raph's right - Don'll calm down once he's slept it off. Don't worry."
Donatello didn't emerge from his room the rest of the day. Michelangelo would have worried, except that he could hear steady snoring through his brother's bedroom door.
In the morning, Leonardo was the first in the dojo, as usual. He tossed a phone from hand to hand, catching it deftly without looking, while he waited for his brothers to arrive.
The first one to slink in was Don. He looked sullen, but rested. Good morning, elder brother, he began, in proper Japanese - his accent was terrible, and made worse by his hostility - only to pause in startlement when Leo threw the phone to him. He switched back to English to ask, "What? Is it broken? I'm not fixing it - "
"Don. Just...stand here," Leo pulled him into position. "There's nothing wrong with the phone. Hold it up - yes, like that - and just keep the camera aimed at the door. Got it?"
"Y-yeah," Don fell in with the habits of a lifetime and did as he was told in the dojo.
The next one through the door was Raphael. He took one look at his brothers, and a grin began to play across his face. "Are you kidding me?" he asked Leonardo.
"Nope," Leo shook his head.
"What? What are we doing?" Don demanded, bewildered.
"Just keep that camera aimed at the door, Donnie," Raph's eyes lit up. "I'm guessing we don't got too long to wait."
"We'd better not," Leo murmured, pleased at how quickly Raph had caught on as much as he was by the enthusiasm. "It's another fifty flips after practice if he's late."
Michelangelo wasn't late - barely. He skidded into the dojo a bare second before the official starting time for morning practice, and made a hasty bow to his eldest brother. "Good morning," he sang out, not bothering with the Japanese words at all. "I can't find my mask - do I still have a spare in here?"
Donatello sucked in a breath. His eyes widened. And then he began to laugh.
Michelangelo eyed him with surprise. "Donnie? Are you okay?"
"Yeah. Oh, yeah - I'm great, Mikey, how are you?" Don got out around the laughter. Then he took another look at his brother, and dropped to his knees on the dojo floor, still laughing. The phone wavered in his hand from the force of the humor.
"Um. I know I'm the Great Entertainer around here and all, but this is a little much, even for me," Mike quipped. He glanced quizzically at the other two, who were starting to laugh as well. "What? What's going on?"
"N-nothing at all," Raphael gasped out. He leaned on Leonardo. "Not one thing, Mikey." He buried his face in Leo's shoulder, shaking with laughter.
Mike's eyes fell on the shaking red light of the phone in Don's hand, and narrowed. He darted over and swiped it out of his brother's unresisting grip. Don curled up onto the floor, laughing too hard to speak, as Mike thumbed through the menus to pull up the footage that his brother had just been shooting.
"What the hell!" he gasped out loud. His hands flew to his face. He rubbed at his eyes, then examined his fingers - dark blue smudges covered the tips of his fingers.
"Midnight Sparkle," Leo supplied. He strolled over and looked at the small movie playing in Mike's hand. "Though it's not a good color for you at all - maybe we should get April to lend us that color analysis book? That blush, though, is totally perfect for you!"
Michelangelo stared at his own face in the movie in disbelief. His eyes were darkened with carefully applied eyeshadow that sparkled in the light. Blush streaked down his cheeks. There was even, appallingly, a hint of lipstick around his mouth, though that was badly done - he didn't actually have any lips, after all. "I...you...how did you get past my booby traps?" he raged. "And when did you have time? I went to bed way after you!"
"Ninja, remember," Leo winked at him. "And I had the time, and the energy, once I remember that there were these awesome chocolate-covered coffee beans in the living room."