Author's note: This was intended to be a oneshot but due to my obsession with details and because this is introducing my OC, it didn't work out. So it's more like a three or four shot… in other words, three or four chappies. The way I plan to write and base my story is complicated and will most likely confuse many, if not all, who read. And many, if not all, may not like what I plan to do. If that's that case, then please just don't read. Why waste my time and yours'?
To get a better understanding of what my crazy mind plans to do, take a gander at my profile and scroll down for a better description. There is some swearing and a bit of sexual reference in this but in my main story and others, anything will go. So this is might be as mild as it'll get.
Disclaimer: I don't own TMNT, Splinter, Casey or any of the other ones that you know and recognize. They came from the minds' of Kevin Eastman and Peter Laird (Thank you, boys!). I do own Traci Taber and the other characters you don't know and recognize. That being said, I can't be sued… right?
It was going on 2:30. Perfect.
Plugging in her curling iron, Traci wondered how the hell she managed to have enough time to leave her condo for work without rushing for a change. Even though the station didn't need her there until about 3:30 in the afternoon and it was only two train stops away, she somehow always ended up leaving at the very last minute. It was a fitting schedule for the young reporter, who was a late sleeper due to her even later nights. She had always been a night owl and always had trouble sleeping. But now that her four ninja friends and their rat father had been staying with her at her new place for the past few weeks, it helped cease some of the anxiety that prevented her from falling asleep. Knowing they were in one of the spare bedrooms down the hall was a comfort to her.
Of course, it wasn't easy sharing space with five males (human or not), four of which were teenagers. She couldn't do certain things that she had done before they began rooming with her. One of the hardest sacrifices had been being able to sleep without the aid of clothes. She hated having to twist and turn in confining fabric, and missed dearly being able to move freely between the sheets.
It was just a precaution; Lord forbid the Foot ever actually somehow found her new place and they had to make a quick break for it. Or if she accidentally forgot to shut her bedroom door... not very likely, but it could happen. Or if Raph came back from one of his late night excursions injured in a way he himself couldn't attend to-- he wouldn't be able to go to Donny without waking Leo as well since they all shared the same room. She could see it now: a lecture, yelling from both parties, a push, a shove, and then finally the total abandonment of verbal arguing replaced by physical action.
So now clothes were a must. It wasn't only sleeping with clothes on that had become difficult, however...
Traci loved to walk around her place in just skin. She had done it since she first started living alone. The guys could be gone for hours on end, sometimes calling before coming home from their nightly patrols to ask if they could pick anything up, so it wasn't like she didn't have a heads up. And Splinter was constantly in his own private spare room with the door closed, either meditating or reading or… whatever he did.
But what if one day she dared to be bold by prancing around her hallway or wherever, and with those amazing ninja skills they just snuck up on her as they sometimes tended to do. Mikey, especially, who knew she was an easy scare due to their shared love of horror movies.
"Hey, Trace… ?", came the unmistakable voice of said turtle outside of her bedroom. As usual he seemed to have appeared out of nowhere, just like that.
Nope, couldn't risk being bold.
The young woman, who was in her bathroom turned, but couldn't see the turtle from where she was. Putting her hairbrush down, she poked her head out and saw him standing awkwardly outside of her bedroom door frame. Neither he nor his brothers ever dared step in, door closed or not. Not until she gave them permission. She was surprised at how they respected her privacy. Splinter taught them well. That, or maybe it was their own fear of being in the one room that was all hers'. She didn't know, but it was endearing to her.
Smiling to herself when she saw him, she waved him in.
"Come in, Mikey".
After receiving her blessing, he trudged through the bedroom towards the bathroom door as she started to seperate her long, side-swept bangs from the rest of her hair.
As soon as he saw her, he'd forgotten why he was there in the first place and began to admire her in wonder. He had seen her get ready for work or a night out only a few times before, but it never ceased to astound him: how the brush would glide through her soft, satiny hair. How she would pout her lips while putting that pink-colored tipped stick on them-- gloss, she had told him. How she would jut out her wrists and spray that sweet but strong smelling liquid on her, rubbing them together and dabbing each briefly on the sides of her neck.
It was done so casually, so innocently, but to Mikey it was as if he were witnessing the most incredible thing in the world. Traci looked away from herself to her right through the mirror at Michelangelo, who had been standing dumbly next to her.
"What's on your mind, Mike?", she abruptly asked his reflection.
You really wanna know?, his mind silently queried her with shame.
Shaking himself out of it, he managed to avert his eyes away from the petite girl to his fingers, which he now played with nervously.
Fingers. Now he remembered. He held one of his three green digits up to her.
"Splinter", he pouted, "And I don't mean the 'Sensei' kind".
She smirked at the simple joke and took his finger in her own small hand, examining it.
"From what?"
"Donny's bo", he muttered, "We had a switched weapons lesson, and my hand slipped where there wasn't any cloth. Stupid stick".
She glanced up and gave him a stern, yet amused look that needed no words.
Had Donny been in the room and heard him, Mikey would've been nursing a sore head along with the slither of wood in his skin. Calling his weapon a 'stick' as opposed to a staff usually earned Mikey a firm tap on the back of his dome from the wooden pike, courtesy of its' owner. After that, Mikey's underestimation of his purple clad sibling's defense tool would diminish, if only for the time being. Traci seemed to know the routine more than Mike did, and was trying to get him out of the habit of verbal assaulting Donny's bo so he wouldn't end up with brain damage.
The orange-tailed turtle rolled his eyes, a silent way to show he clearly understood what her look meant and that she didn't have to warn him any further. She focused her attention back to the hide of his finger, scraping it lightly as he cringed.
"Damn, it's in there really deep", she stated and proceeded to squeeze the area with her own fingertips, being sure her long nails didn't poke him. Michelangelo hissed and jumped back a bit, instinctively pulling his hand away.
Keeping a firm hold but startled by his reaction, her gaze snapped back to him and the look on his face almost broke her heart. He had an expression of shock that implored, "Why'd you do that?", but it was only a fleeting grimace. He knew she didn't mean to hurt him, but his surprise from the unexpected pain she had caused gave him no control over his facial expressions at that moment. And Mikey wasn't one who knew how to hide his emotions, anyway, no matter how momentary they were.
Traci frowned, almost mirroring his look and, in her own way, also hurt. It was amazing how much he could look like a child at times.
"Oh, Mikey! I'm sorry! I didn't mean to press so hard!"
As soon as Mike saw how badly she felt, he relaxed and tried to act as if it were nothing. "It's okay, babe, really".
"Did I hurt you?", she asked, though they both knew the answer to that.
"No, Trace. It's okay", he lied, "It's just a little sore, and I guess you hit a tender spot." His big blue eyes gazed at her reassuringly, and he gave her a small smile.
Guilt slowly fading, she accepted his explanation and nodded. Her focus back down, she concluded, "We're gonna need a needle".
Mike tensed again. Up on the roof, Don had said the same after briefly examining it himself, but Mikey had refused to believe him. He remembered Raph calling after him as he was making his way down the fire escape towards the window; something about his shell being soft enough to be a pin cushion, followed by the reptile in red's wild cackling at his little brother's misery. He had a quick image of the first part and shivered. Traci noticed and put a hand on his shoulder.
"You don't want it to get infected, do ya?"
The youngest turtle puffed out a breath of air and hesitantly shook his head. The young woman bobbed her own head up and down sympathetically, knowing how much he was going to hate this.
"Okay", she said softly. The tone she used was the same one she spoke in when her one and a half year old nephew had to be coaxed into doing something he didn't want to. "I'll go get one in the sewing kit", she told him, gently guiding him over to the toilet and sitting him down on the seat cover, "Don't try to push it out yourself, or it might go in deeper".
Mikey nodded, fear evident in his eyes and a worried look on his face. Traci bit her bottom lip, wanting to get her camera and snap a picture of how adorable the sight before her was. Yet at the same time, it was crushing to see him so scared.
Giving him an encouraging smile, she walked out of the bathroom, through her room and down the hall to one of the spare rooms where she kept the sewing kit.
Watching her leave, he sat there holding his sore finger, silently cursing Donny and his staf-- stick. HA!
Don may be a smarty, but one of the few things he couldn't do was read minds.
Stick, stick, stick! Ugly stick that could break over my knee... well, if I tried hard enough! Long, skinny log that couldn't build a dam if you had a million of 'em! Lightweight, hollow piece of tree that couldn't even be used as firewood!
Mikey grinned and continued amusing himself with his quiet attack of words on Don's weapon, when his short attention span took note of a certain object lying on top of the granite sink.
The object was a thick, gold, round rod with a black plastic end that had a cord coming out of it. The cord was plugged into the socket closest to him with the rod a little more than an arm's length away. His brow furrowed in curiosity, one of the traits which he was best known for and usually tended to get the young turtle into trouble. Getting halfway up off his seat, he peeked to see if Traci was indeed out of the room.
The coast was clear...