I just found this rotting in my hard drive from five years ago or so. I hardly remember writing it and don't remember why I gave up on it. I think I kept reading these one-shots where they all go to a nightclub or something with their four-pack of OC girlfriends and snuggle and have super-cute hijinks and the boys get possessive over skeezy dudes rubbing up on their super precious honeys and protect them and it's all cute and they all have fun.
My internet quit working tonight for no reason and I decided to try to finish some of these half-thoughts and toss them up.
I had some "ha ha that person is of ambiguous gender!" jokes, that I tried to gloss up to be not as immature as they were five years ago when I was broke and depressed because my grandmother died and other horrible stuff. So here go, old Connie junk…
9:13pm
"I'm ready," Raph grumbled as he planted himself on the couch, his legs out wide, opening up his trench coat and revealing his old corduroy pants.
Leo cringed. He was dressed to the nines, or as dressed to the nines as a guy with a shell could get. A nice shirt and pants. He actually could pass for normal, if it weren't for the big hole he'd cut in the back so his shell would poke through. "You look like a hobo," Leo said.
"Yeah, and…? If I can't wear this then I'm wearing the Nightwatcher suit. I don't want people knowing who I am."
Don laid out six different outfits across the living room floor and tapped his chin as he deliberated. "It's a club for mutants and freaks like us. So you don't need to worry about it."
Mikey streaked out of the bathroom in a Hawaiian shirt. "This is so cool! We're going to party and dance and meet girls and I'm going to drink until I puke…"
"You're underage, Mikey," Leo said halfheartedly.
Raph pulled out a large bottle of whisky from his trench coat, smiling defiantly at his oppressive elder.
"No!" Leo said. He pried Raph's fingers off the bottle after a struggle lasting a whole minute and then put it away in the cupboard.
Mikey's voice blathered through the entire struggle. "…because everybody knows that soup is the best thing for you when you have a cold and I think I'm getting one or else the flu, but I'll go anyway and April said I look real cool in my Hawaiian shirt. I hope she looks really hot so we'll get in cheaper. I want to save all my money for Xbox One." He inhaled loudly as he expended all the breath in his lungs and then kicked one of Don's suits on the floor. "Pick one and hurry up."
Leo put his hands on his hips and glared down at Raph, who flipped him off with a smile.
"Looks like you're pointing at the ceiling when you do that," Leo said. "Now come on. I won't be seen with you in public looking like a wino. And you need to take a shower. You smell like motor oil."
Raph's eyes immediately migrated to the cupboard containing the booze. "Fine. I'll stay home and amuse myself."
"No! Now come on and take a shower. I'm all ready." Leo smelled under his arms and wondered if he should shove his armpits casually in April's face as a test when he met her.
Mikey stood next to Leo and blinked several times. Leo folded his arms. "What's that smell? Like Pinesol."
"That's aftershave, pissbreath!" Leo said, pursing his beak.
Don pulled ripped a shirt as he yanked off an old cart part that had fallen under the coffee table and its wires had attached to his garment. "We don't shave," he helpfully pointed out as if none of them knew that.
Raph got off the couch with a vocalized grunt, announcing to the world his attention to leave the couch. He stripped off his clothes on the way to the bathroom, leaving a trail of musty clothing behind him. Leo shook his head, sighing.
"Want me to pick something out for him?" Don asked, as he pulled on a pair of pants, jumping up and down to force them over his meaty thighs. "He might not fit into these though. His legs are bulkier than mine. Maybe we should get him some kind of man-skirt. Like a kilt."
The sound of water from the shower echoed. Raph's deep voice mumbled a song.
"Oh, we'll never get going!" Mikey whined. "I'm bringing the whiskey."
Leo grabbed him by the wrist. "You… will… not… touch it."
Thud as Leo's face hit the floor and Mikey's foot planted on his shell. "Haha! I just owned you! How do I look? I was going for sexy, but I think I look like a weird Hawaiian DJ."
10:23pm
"Ugh, Raph, you have to wear a shirt in public," Don said, his fingers pinching the bridge of his nose, overcome with deodorant, Leo's aftershave and lingering cigarette smoke.
Raph tossed a pile of sweatshirts aside. "I don't like any of these. They look too… clean. And they have all these stupid things on them."
"Those are logos," Don said, pulling a sweatshirt out of Raph's limp hand with an annoyed flick of the wrist.
Raph sat on the bed and pushed the clothes on the floor to make space for himself. "I want to wear the Nightwatcher suit."
Leo stomped his foot. His serene river of patience had dried up long time ago. "You can't wear that damn thing! How many times have I had to say it! Now put this on!" He shoved a pile of cloth into Raph's arms.
"I'm not going to let you dress me like a little girl!" Raph threw the clothes back at Leo. The shirt covered Leo's head like a veil. He made no effort to remove it for a second and his shoulders heaved with a sigh. "Fine. Just go naked and get laughed at," he said, the shirt muffling his voice.
10:34pm
"Looking good, sweetheart!" Mikey said, whistling a cat call at April as she pushed him aside to get in the lair. He expertly blocked the way. "I'm not letting you in without a kiss."
A vague voice echoed, "Oh, just let her in, Mike!"
"I'M NOT WEARING THAT PLAID SHIT!" called a masculine voice, full of the distress of forced hygiene and fashion.
Mikey stepped aside to let April in the room and needlessly whispered, "We're having some trouble getting Raphie dressed. He's being kind of a diva."
She patted Mikey on the arm and said, "Let me handle it." Then she said in a voice full of sweetness and honey, "Raph, is that you?"
"YEAH! WHAT DO YOU WANT?!" bellowed the helpless victim, a too-tight tartan plaid shirt buttoned over his torso, his arms crossed over the front.
Master Splinter appeared majestically in the doorway of the dojo, his hand to his forehead. "What is all this yelling? I am getting a headache. But of course it is the same yelling that I endure every day."
Mikey ran to his father and threw his arms around him, causing him to take several steps backward. "Don't get headaches! Come to the club with us! Raph wants to go naked!"
"I will not go to any club and if you insist on mixing with public society, you are old enough to make your own decisions. But I must warn you that even though this is an open establishment where supposedly anyone is welcome; I fear that you will find that even outcasts can be prejudiced."
Mikey waved his hand in the air. "Aw, pssht. That won't happen. Everybody will love me because of my extreme hotness and coolness and my mastery of oxymorons and stuff. Does this shirt make me look fat or muscular?" Mikey continued wheedling his father to join them at the club and managed to force his father into a ridiculous shirt that read TOO HOT TO HANDLE, but failed to convince his elder to join them.
10:45pm
April stroked Raph's arm. He sat on the bed wearing a pair of dress pants with the fly open and an unbuttoned dress shirt. His arms were crossed as he leaned back against the wall, examining the ceiling with repressed hostility towards his dressing-team. Don lay on the other bed on his stomach, taking a nap.
Leo threw a pair of shoes at Raph, making sure they hit him in the chest. "Put those on."
"Oh, but I want you to go, sweetie," April said. "It won't be the same without you."
"I look like a freak in these. I don't want to wear this shit that will make everybody look at me. I'm not Mikey. I just want to wear what I always wear. It's comfortable. This stuff is binding. I don't know how I'll get to my dick if I have to piss."
Mikey did a casual hand-stand as his father sneakily peeled off the TOO HOT TO HANDLE t-shirt. Mikey said, "You just want easy access in case you get laid, I bet!"
Raph snarled and threw a shoe at Mikey, who ducked. The shoe hit his father, whose eyes and ninja skills had momentarily failed him due to the shirt trapped over his head.
Mikey assisted his annoyed father, who glared at his difficult sons. "I will forgive this insolence, Raphael, only because of the foul and provoking comment of your brother."
April held out her hands. "Too much information, you guys! Just fasten up the pants and put the shirt and shoes on. You're almost there."
11:14pm
Leo screamed, "RAPHAEL HAMATO, PUT THOSE PANTS ON RIGHT NOW OR I WILL DO IT FOR YOU AND DON'T THINK I… IS THAT WHAT YOU WANT? WELL HERE I COME THEN!"
11:17pm
Don folded up the remaining clothes and said to April as she checked her makeup in her compact, "I think we're going to get going now after Leo finishes his nosebleed."
12:03am
None of them had expected to find themselves at a high-class establishment, but even Raph had to point the questionable whether or not real clubs had a policy "wallet check." A quick aggressive word with the "wallet check clerk" proved that his suspicions were correct. They stood in a wary clump near the entrance, trying to see the patrons through the fog of chemically induced smoke and dim colored strobes. All except for Mikey who ran away to the DJ as soon as he was out of Leo's reach.
"Now, nobody panic," Leo said, closing his eyes and breathing in deeply.
"Who's panicking?" April asked, pointing at Mikey, who had already grabbed a girl and initiated a mutual break-dance. "I wonder if that girl has a hard time getting her shirt on over her horns every morning," April mused.
The customers all had varying deformities. Not really deformities, but they didn't exactly look like mutants. A man with a tail sticking out of his pants stood at the bar, giving them a shrewd appraisal. Raph's hand went to his waist, looking for his weapons. But they were in April's purse and all he could do was growl. "April, give me your purse," he said.
"I don't like it. Let's go," Don said, turning around. Raph caught him by the collar as he turned.
"We said we would try it and now we're trying it," Leo said, unable to back down from a challenge, even if it consisted of nothing but not looking really dumb while he danced with a strange woman with pig snout for a nose. He took a few steps into the room towards the dance floor and then stopped. "What am I doing? I don't want to dance. I want a drink now. Why didn't we bring the whiskey? Think I can get the bartender to sell to me? April…"
"That gets a resounding 'no'," she said. She took a seat at the bar and ordered herself a beer. "Be responsible, Fearless."
12:28am
"So you here by yourself?"
Raph sat in the corner alone, his shirt wide open and one mud-clotted boot on the table. He blinked out of his mental solitude and looked around for the speaker. It could be a man. Or a woman. Maybe both. Looked like a girl with a beard.
"Not really. I have people around making asses of themselves." He tried to ignore Leo standing around awkwardly on the dance floor, monitoring the exits. Mikey had somehow persuaded the DJ to let him take over. It sounded like a musical apocalypse.
"You look lonely." Kind of the same voice April had used earlier when she was trying to dress him.
"Not really." Ignore it and it'll go away.
Meanwhile, April and Don sat at the bar together. "I'm a lot cooler than people give me credit for," Don said, spinning a paper umbrella between his fingers. "My brothers call me a geek so much. I'm starting to believe it. But I'm the cool one when anybody needs a finger sewn back on or a bomb defused. Or they get sucked into a magical portal. You know, then it's all, 'Don, you're our only hope!' or 'If you don't marry this five armed alien woman, then they'll bake Raph and feed him to their warriors so they can absorb his strength!' I'm so lame!"
She pinched his cheek. "I think you're cool."
He sighed and his shoulders sagged. "That's the same as your mom saying you're cool…"
12:42pm
Leo sat at a table, his eyes darting in a panic between three brothers and a sister, mentally calculating how long it would take for them all to flee to the exists in case foot ninjas crashed through the windows suddenly. Like the last time they tried to go out.
A tall woman with a neck slightly longer than humanly possible sat at his table with a drink in her hand. "Lonely?"
"I wish…" Leo muttered as he watched Mikey chatting up six women at once, all giggling in unison at his amazing wit and charisma.
"Some girls are so easily impressed," she said smoothly, giving him a little flirty nod. "There's something to be said for mystery. You look sharp." She looked him over and seemed visually pleased as her neck curved slightly.
Leo leaned back in his chair and said, "Yes, well, I take great pride in my appearance. I think a man has a duty to give a woman what she deserves." Great line! He'd file it away for later. Maybe use it on April if she wouldn't let him eat out of her grocery bags after he finished a run.
The long-necked woman put a silky hand on his arm and said, "You know, we should just get out of this dive. Maybe get some dinner."
Leo blinked vacantly. HOLY FUCK, THIS WOMAN WANTS TO TAKE ME ON A DATE. WHAT DO I DO? WHAT DO I DO? WHAT DO I DO? SAY SOMETHING REALLY SUAVE AND COOL AND LET HER DOWN GENTLY! YOU ARE SO THE MAN RIGHT NOW! He cleared his throat and said, with the pubescent tone of a dateless ninja, "Sorry… I… have to…"
His love interest looked at her cellphone as it rang persistently. "Mind if I take this? It's my husband. What a pest!"
Leo escaped, hiding his face with his collar as he stood behind April, looking like a suspicious and well dressed vampire.
1:08am
"Now you guys are just showing off!" April yelled over "If Madonna Calls" while Leo walked on his hands and Don did a back flip. "How do I compete with that?"
A patron grabbed her by the arm and said, "Hey, we don't like your kind here! Get out!"
Don instantly jumped to his feet, making sure to demonstrate a gracefully athletic flourish as he righted himself. "I'd get my hands off her if I were you."
The patron made a lengthy speech in Spanish involving many rude and elaborate hand gestures.
Don responded with a lot of head bobbing attitude and elaborately conjugated verbs. Then the patron gasped and punched him in the face. "Oh, sorry!" he said, cupping his bloodied face. "Did I just really tell you to fuck yourself or something? I mean comer. Not coger. Sorry about that."
The angry patron didn't seem appeased and threw aside his bolero jacket, whipping it through the air and then slapped Don's cheek with one of his gloves.
"Leo?" April asked. But he had vanished into the crowd and stood at the DJ booth, berating Mikey to a play a song he liked. "What a great and attentive ninja!" she cried, throwing up her hands.
"Don't worry, April. I'll take care of it," Don said, bringing his voice down to his lowest register. He turned to the patron and said, "Listen, you! She's got as much a right to be here as me. I'm a freak and so is she! You can't see it but she has two uteruses and she is the only human woman to have an estrus cycle. But if you don't want her here, she can take her uncontrollable and indiscriminate sexual urges elsewhere."
"Nah, it's okay!" the patron said as he picked up his bolero jacket from the floor and then sprayed his breath with cologne.
"Sorry, I'm out of season," she said, reaching for the weapons in her purse.
1:29am
The androgynous flirt now sat at the bar next to Raph, who had unfastened his pants, his clothes slowly dissolving by the hour.
"Might as well take it all off," the he/she said. "You give off this musk. Did you know that?"
"Yeah, I think the cat cat pissed on my pants." He took another handful of peanuts and tried to block out the person's voice so he could hear the football game. It was a late night recap, but it was better than dancing to Leo's endless mental attacks of high-pitched European techno.
"It's the musky smell of a real man. The one that will just throw you up against a wall and take you whenever they want until you cry, your body shuddering with unbearable pleasure. The kind of man who is rough, but tender at the same time."
"Uh, huh." Crunch.
"You know, I bet those powerful legs of yours pump like a pair of pistons when you make love. Am I right? I bet you're all man, aren't you." His admirer leaned in closer and fussed with Raph's wrinkled shirt collar.
Raph pushed away his empty bowl of peanuts and stared longingly at a bottle of rum. "I hate that commercial with the singing squirrel."
"You look thirsty," his companion said, following his gaze to the bottle of Captain Morgan. "Want a drink? It's on me."
"Hey, great! You read my fucking mind!" Raph gratefully took rum and slammed it down.
After five more shots his companion leaned against the bar seductively. "My psychic told me that I'd fall for a man. A real man. A sexy man like you."
"You're blocking the TV." Raph weaved back and forth to get a better view of the Lions losing. He felt a spindly hand on his thigh and looked down. "You didn't buy me near enough for that! You had better move that, pal."
Raph stared at the hand caressing his thigh as the hermaphrodite said, "My psychic said that I would find the one who completes me. Who fits me totally. I mean that in a sexual way, you know. They call me Banshee because I make men scream."
He pulled his arm back, not caring about the true gender of the individual, thinking this conduct deserved a blow or at least the threat.
"STAY AWAY FROM MY BROTHER!"
Raph nearly fell off his stool in surprise. Leo's forceful grip flung the hermaphrodite across the room. "Nobody touches my brothers! Ever! I have no quarrel with you sexual preference, whatever that might be, because I'm unsure of your orientation because I don't know you and don't want to make any presumptions, but Raph is a very inexperienced virgin and I will not allow you to sully him!" Raph's shoulders shrank in humiliation, his brain incapable of processing the embarrassment to turn it into action of revenge, his brain slightly slowed with rum. His family giggled behind him.
Mikey collapsed on the floor, laughing so hard that he choked.
"Lame virgin…," Raph muttered to the hermaphrodite, bent so low that he was almost doubled over, his eyes narrowed with the look of a man plotting fratricide.
"Oh, okay." The hermaphrodite moved on to the man with the tail.
Leo thumped Raph on the shoulder. "Any time, Butch."
2:02am
April checked her watched, leaning up against the wall outside the men's room, listening to the testosterone-fueled turmoil within.
"You can't fucking humiliate me whenever you feel like it!" Raph's voice screamed. It was accompanied by a flush. "Why you got to follow me in here? I can't take a damn piss alone! I got to have a fucking babysitter! Get away from the fucking sink!"
Leo diplomatically said, "You motherfucking crybaby! I was trying to help! It isn't my fault that you're so easy! They bought you five drinks!"
"Go to hell! I can take free drinks from whoever I want! It don't automatically mean I'm going to go to bed with somebody and why is your business if I do or not?! Next time we go out, I'll go fuck somebody in the alley then, since you think I'm up for it!"
"Of course it's my business!" Loud thumps as angry teenagers rampaged in the men's room. A confused looking patron put a hand on the doorknob and then decided to wait until the rage-machines vacated the facility.
"And you're half naked!"
Raph screamed, "I DON'T NEED YOU GUARDING MY VIRTUE LIKE I'M A PRINCESS! NOW GET OUT OF MY WAY!"
"NOT UNTIL YOU FASTEN YOUR PANTS!"
April sighed at the chorus of grunting and scuffling.
2:05am
"I'm sorry, sir. I will pay all damages for the bathroom. I don't know how it happened. Uh… my brother slipped and the sink broke his fall. Don't worry. He'll come around."
2:14am
Usually, Raph's unconscious body prompted a hasty retreat for medical attention, but as the family hauled Raph's delirious half-dressed body towards the door, Mikey lingered amongst a circle of admiring women, saying, "I have to leave, ladies."
An affected awe from all his admirers.
"I know. It's real heartbreaking. But I promise you, I'll come back. Yeah, sure. I can do that." Mikey gave one of the girls a hug. Then another girl asked for a hug.
"This is ridiculous!" Don said. "I want to go home. Cut it out! I left something on the Bunsen burner at home and I don't remember what it was. That's like the tenth girl."
An excited girl lost control of herself and hugged Don. His eyes widened and he looked over his shoulder at April. She was too distracted taking pictures of Leo in his snazzy suit to notice.
"He'll come around," Leo said as he slapped Raph's cheeks with far too much enthusiasm. "Come on, Raph. We have to leave. Wake up so we can go home. I don't want to carry you."
"Wassat?" Raph mumbled. "Mom, is that you?"
"Stop hitting him," April said, putting away her phone, now filled to capacity with future blackmail pictures.
Leo unnecessarily slapped his cheeks several more times until Raph's hand flew out and caught his arm.
2:32am
"I'm just sweating because you're so hot, baby," Mikey said, forcing a smile at one of the women clinging to him. "Whoa, I wish the room would stop spinning. Donny, am I spinning or is it the room. You better get… Oh, I'm sorry, Tina. I'll pay to have that dry cleaned. I don't remember eating any bologna."
2:38am
"Hey, that was my woman that you just puked all over!" A large man with about three noses cracked his knuckles in Mikey's pale face, his orange Hawaiian shirt now a splotchy and less festive vomit-shade.
Mikey laughed weakly and held up his hand. "I'd normally be all happy to kick your ass and stuff, but I'm not really feeling up to it right now. Sorry, pal."
"Not good enough!" The three nosed man took a swing at Mikey, who ducked without any effort and the swing missed him.
2:48am
They splashed back down through the sewers, Mikey groaning so loudly that the rats fled from him. "I think I left my stomach back there." He held his midsection with both hands as he lurched along.
April rubbed his arm and held her nose simultaneously. "Poor baby."
"He threw up on that chick," Don said. "That much have been humiliating, Mike. At least it got rid of that guy when you puked on him."
Mikey whimpered and grabbed on to Don's arm, making a puppy face.
Don laughed and shirked him off. "Poor Mikey. So cute and nobody cares."
"Well, I care," April said. She stood still and held her arms out dramatically and cuddled Mikey, making a face over her shoulder at Don as she smelled him.
"Goodbye, pants," Raph said as his bulk wobbled behind them. He stripped off his pants, ripping a few seams and stood there in nothing but his unbuttoned shirt.
"Those pants were mine," Don said, his teeth clenched.
Raph tossed the pants at him and they bounced off Don's arm and landed in the sewer water, dealing them their death blow.
April said, trudging through the murky sewer water, hair limp from sweaty dancing and running around chasing hysterical boys all night, "So it looks like all of us had interest from somebody tonight. Mikey had… like… a harem of interest."
Don sighed and said, "I told an angry bullfight to go coger himself."
3:14am
Splinter sighed, not really surprised.
Mikey ransacked the kitchen cupboards piling up enough food to feed thrashers. "…and I threw up on that guy right and before that I was mixing the songs and then this chick with a bunch of lizard scales or tattoos of lizard scales came up to me and she asked me to feel her boobs because said they weren't real and she wondered if they would drop eventually and I felt them and said they looked natural to me except I don't see them except in pictures and they were all covered in scales and had pierced nipples. Do you want a sandwich, sensei?"
He reached into a cupboard for a bottle of Aspirin. "No, Michelangelo. I would like you all to quiet down so that I may go to bed."
A small explosion rocked the lair. Raph's tired voice vaguely called, "Huh?"
"Dude, I forgot about that stuff on the Bunsen burner!" Don yelled from the lab. "Look! I blew the lamp all the way into the living room!"
Leo went to bed, realizing that his family's inability to socialize publically had nothing to do with their mutation.