"Can I please pass out candy this year!?" a sleepy-eyed Michelangelo was begging as he clung to Donnie's leg like a toddler.
Donatello hobbled determinedly forward, dragging hundreds of pounds of 'little' brother along as he aggressively strove to reach his morning coffee. "I already said it's a needless exposure of one of our best disguises-"
"At a house no one knows is ouuurrsss...!" Michelangelo crowed, head thrown back to wail like a child.
"Aren't you supposed to be picking up our guest at this hour!?" Donnies were best left undisturbed pre-caffeination.
"I sleeeptt innnn...!" Mikey wailed. "Leo didn't wake me upp, he just weeennntttt insstteaaaaddd!"
"That's no one's fault but yours!"
"It was costume-induced-depression, yo, not my faaaulllt!"
As ridiculous and over-the-top as this conversation was, the family's youngest member found it hard to laugh: Hamato Sandro sighed and sat down on the back of the couch. Eventually, he flopped back upside down onto the cushions.
Halloween was coming up on Wednesday, and Sandro was understandably nervous.
See, it was traditional for the turtle family to head out to Casey Jones' house for a big Halloween party. Uncle Donnie and Uncle Leonardo were always the first ones on the premises, to get the cloaking field activated over the meager backyard, and to properly trap the premises.
And, for the purpose of that party, Sandro was worried about his costume, which Wildcard hadn't made a peep about in over a week. Was it too much to expect a status report?! Was it going to be late? Would it be on time? Was there any chance in hell they might convince his parents to let him out trick-or-treating? That'd be the first time ever! She couldn't just show up at the last second with everything, if that was her plan! Mom, in particular, was going to need some time to dwell on the idea before she gave her 'okay!'
Sandro rubbed his face with both hands. Having effectively five "parents" was a bit much to deal with sometimes.
Raphael looked up from where he'd been packing alcohol mixers. The actual alcohol would get picked up en-route to the party, along with copious amounts of ice, because apparently cold alcohol was better or something like that. Sandro wasn't an expert. "Ya look stressed," Raphael noted. "Got somethin' on ya chest?"
Sandro stuck out his tongue in a mute 'Blah,' but then decided maybe he liked feeling grumpy in a juvenile way over completely harmless stuff, instead of getting wrecked by anything more serious. "Nothing major this time." He looked over at his father, who was raising a scaly brow like he wasn't sure whether to let it drop. Sandro grinned. "Promise."
Raphael reached over and tugged on the ties of his bandanna! Then he went back to packing mixers. Sandro watched with a giddy smile probably more appropriate to a kid half his age, unable to articulate how... bubbly he felt, actually getting some kind of affection from his father again. Sandro prayed things didn't go backwards. Maybe they wouldn't. Maybe the truth was he'd been in some kind of protracted fight with his parents for over a year, and it had finally ended.
The front door swung open. "Sandro!" Miniature Chaos Incarnate bellowed as she entered. "Time to break out the SFX supplies!"
"YES!" Sandro roared with a clap, before momentarily being stuck upside down because he was top heavy and his shell and gravity were working against him here. Instead of sitting back up, he rolled off the couch and bounced around to join her. "Finally! You've got everything!?"
"That is correct!" Wildcard/Ana/Miniaturized Nonsense/The New Family Maniac announced in her dynamic hero's pose, with a duffel bag strapped across her chest. Leonardo entered far less explosively behind her, and quietly closed the door. "I even have a full costume. Mikey snuck me some family fabric patterns and Dad put me to work all week." She patted her duffel bag victoriously.
"You made clothing for me!?" Sandro cackled, trying to get in to that duffel bag early. Wildcard had been trying to dress him since she'd met him, and he didn't know whether to be eager or terrified.
"Shoo, shoo, shoo, don't give away the surprise!" she laughed, shoving at his plastron. "If it doesn't fit, we might have to get your seamstress involved, and then I might start laughing uncontrollably, so let's hope I followed all Dad's instructions correctly!"
Leonardo came up and coughed politely behind her. "Your shoes, Kinpōgekun."
"What? Oh!" Wild recalled those were supposed to be left by the side of the door, as opposed to dragging raw sewage germs all over the house. "Woopsie!" She hopped on a foot at a time to remove them, and filed them in the shoe rack.
Sandro helped her balance somewhat unnecessarily and asked: "And do you have-?"
"Yes I do," she growled with a haughty lift of her chin and grinning eyes. "And you're going to have to not smile at all while I'm applying it. I also picked up two extra tubes of full cover foundation just in case, and fresh fake eyelashes, and there are these henna tattoo styled eyebrows I want to give a shot because it'll speed things up. It's still going to take like two hours to apply. Are you ready for a commitment of that level!? We need to test everything!"
"I will be a saint," the family's tiniest turtle gushed, nearly hopping in place.
"Ya picked up what?" Raphael asked from the couch.
"That's about how long breakfast is going to take to be ready with this moron on my foot!" Donatello was roaring like a dinosaur after gulping coffee straight from the pot. "I stayed up all night and he was supposed to-!"
Wildcard leaned back from the surprisingly draconic genius and glanced over at Sandro as if she were asking 'Is this normal for him?!'
"Come on!" San urged her towards the hallway so they could get the other supplies out of the lab and hopefully not block up the family bathroom for any longer than was absolutely necessary.
"No one peek!" Wildcard hollered back across her shoulder. "Nobody but Mikey, he's special!"
"Woo!" fist-pumped an Orange Turtle from where Donatello was trying to pry him off with a Bo as if it were a crowbar.
"Hey, wait a sec-" Raphael called, rising from the couch in confusion, but, nope, Sandro and Wild were already gone.
Donatello was a little calmer with half a pot of coffee in him and had put together a rudimentary breakfast for his family. Michelangelo was pouting and bombarding him with puppy faces from across the table, which Donnie was affecting not to notice out of principle.
"Has anyone seen the kids?" April asked as she came in the room, tying up her hair with a scrunchy. "Anastasia's here, right?"
April was probably the only person who still referred to their tiny guest by her given name but, to be fair, April was something of the family normality anchor. To everyone else in that little girl's life, she was Mini-Meme, Mouse, She-Casey, Loudmouth, Arson-Risk, Dear-God-No!, Kinpōgekun, Squirt and/or simply 'Wildcard.'
"They disappeared into the bathroom about an hour ago," Michelangelo mumbled glumly.
April paused, eyes widening in confusion and some trepidation. "To...gether...?" she asked, because these were two fourteen year old children, after all.
"Well," Donatello growled, "seeing as they first fetched a wig and quite a thick purse of makeup, I'm going to have to assume they are not having sex on the sink, and are instead playing dress-up with one other. Ala Michelangelo in the Salsa Dress."
"Oh!" April dropped her hands, instantly relieved.
Raphael, who had been a little confused about what he'd previously overheard but not entirely alarmed, suddenly whipped around to stare at Donatello with an expression of utter and unadulterated horror. For a moment he just sat there, reeling. By the look on his face, they might as well have assumed his entire life was flashing before his eyes. Or, at least, traumatized memories of Mikey in Drag.
Then Raphael stood up with a sharp scrape of kitchen chair on tile flooring, grabbing at the table with a clear attack vector in the direction of the bathroom, as if he needed to get there in under five seconds to stop the world from imploding.
"Ahh!" Mikey cried out, scrambling out of his chair to intercept. "Raphael! Don't!"
"Get outta mah way!" Red Turtle wheezed, like he'd been hit in the solar plexus, even though Mikey was just hanging on to his shell.
Leo stood blinking in the kitchen like a deer in headlights for a moment, before frowning and striding forward to where his two fire-banded brothers were wrestling. "Raphael, if your son wants to play 'dress-up,' regardless of reason—be it be for Halloween or merely for fun—on what grounds do you presume to stop him?"
"GET OUTTA MAH WAY!" Red Turtle roared, throwing Mikey down with an elbow to the face.
Leo abandoned his breakfast in alarm, diving to slam Raphael into the wall and protect the children.
"Raphael!" April protested. "There's nothing wrong with a boy trying out a wig-!"
Expletives filled the air at such a volume and fury that April momentarily leaned backwards, blinking rapidly. Then she scowled, pushed up her sleeves, and stalked up to the pile of turtles to begin a beat-down.
Donatello smile cruelly over his coffee, diabolically pleased. This was Purple's reward for Mikey hanging all over him all morning.
The sound of the bathroom door swinging open made every scale on Raphael's shoulder and arms stand on end, and he shot Michelangelo and Donatello dirty looks. "I can't believe you all actually made me agree ta dis," he groused bitterly.
"Oh, chill, you didn't agree to anything," Donatello snarked back. "Michelangelo and Leo merely sat on you until your wife successfully shamed you into silence."
"Fuckin' exactly."
"Raph, shush," April warned, because Sandro might be able to hear them already, and their son had been very forward with talking to them about a lot of very sensitive topics lately. The last thing they wanted to do was 'hurt' him over something so ridiculous.
"Raphael," Leonardo sighed, "if your son was inspired by Michelangelo's dress prank, there is nothing wrong with that, and-"
"Stuff it Fearless, ya've said it six times, and you, Mike, Ah'ma take ya head and stuff it down-"
Leonardo went slack beside him for half a second and then hit him with an elbow so hard Raphael nearly stumbled.
"What!?" Raphael snapped at him, and then noticed Leonardo's wide-eyed stare. Oh boy. Raphael dared to look at the figures approaching them. What he saw made his shoulders uncurl and his hands drop to his side. He docked his head.
"So," a handsome, six-foot, and completely human looking boy greeted them in explanation, wearing Chinese styled clothing that looked about appropriate for Lu Xun or Liu Bei, from The Romance of the Three Kingdoms. "I cannot open my mouth more than about two centimeters without risking breaking the illusion, but the whole thing's designed to be worn with a scarf and potentially a hood for that reason. We, um, we originally figured it out as a sort of fail safe."
What looked like completely normal lips were parting and curving softly over what appeared to be normal teeth but obviously couldn't be. (Right?)
April stood there in shock for a second and then put a hand over her mouth, and her eyes went glossy.
"Holy schnickerdoodles," Donatello blinked rapidly. "The plaster cast. I didn't think... Wow."
"The plaster cast!" Wildcard agreed, unnecessarily streaked with makeup beside him. "It's my most masterful application of foam latex to date! It's covering his snout and beak—you're probably going to need to feed him by protein smoothie or something, I forgot he'd need to eat. Also remind me to buy contact solution for him, I totally forgot."
"This is better than food," Sandro growled happily, the bridge of his nose wrinkling very slightly with his enthusiasm. Suddenly he had his mom's nose, and her brown eyes. He looked human, he looked like a half-Asian human boy. He had thin exercise gloves on to hide the skin color of his hands. He lifted them up to tighten his topknot, and there was nothing about it, nothing, which gave away that it was a wig. Nothing about the prosthetic ears looked fake, it all fit.
Raphael moved first. He crossed the floor and came up to Sandro, lifting his hands to cup and touch hesitantly at this new and yet eerily familiar face. He brushed his knuckles against the prosthetic nose and ears, trying to find the difference in texture. The smooth cake of makeup made it almost imperceptible. Stunned, Raph touched the crease of the lip and Sandro parted his beak a little more to show off the blacked-out ridges of it behind ceramic gloss, proving that this was, indeed, only a clever use of foam, latex, and paint, and not some kind of crazy mutagen transformation.
"Holy shit," Raphael murmured, a giddy smile stretching his mouth wide. "Holy shit. That... that wantin' ta 'feel normal' bit you was talking about, you don't do things halfway, do ya?"
"I have a nutcase to help me," Sandro said smugly. "Try to find another girl who can talk a dude raised by you into entering a makeup boutique with her." He shoved his dad's shoulder. "Whole time I was thinking 'Raphael would hang himself if he found me here. No questions asked, just dead.'"
Raphael busted out laughing. "I-that-that's what ya was thinkin'?"
"The whole time," Sandro moaned. "Hemmed up at a dumpster as she smeared peach on me. 'I am an embarrassment to the family, I am letting a girl put makeup on me, can I imagine telling Dad, hey Dad, I sat still for an hour while someone penciled on eyebrows for me,'" Sandro shook his head. "Then she showed me the end, and then I'm like fuck you Dad, I look smokin' hot, you aren't taking this from me cause it's girly or whatever."
Raphael kept laughing and hugged him.
"So!" Wildcard grinned toothily up them. "Can he go trick or treating with me for Halloween!?"
"What!?" April burst, but then she, too, had to come forward and have a look at her absolutely handsome boy, because this was the closest she and Raphael would ever get to seeing what their kid would have looked like if he'd turned out human, and much as they loved him exactly the way he was, there was still just something amazing about that.
[Author's Note:] This story is actually a sequel! If you'd like to jump back and read more, click my name and look for the story "Clown Girl and Ninja Turtle."