I'm a Coffee Person
A normal day. That's how it started out. Like any other morning, Leonardo woke up, brushed his teeth, secured his mask, and trained until his brothers stirred. He had to stay the best, didn't he? Couldn't let a couple more hours of sleep strip him from the ability to defend his brothers in a fight. He needed to be the best that he could be at all times.
Like any other morning, Mikey came bounding downstairs to get the last bowl of Frosted Flakes because he knew it would get Raph angry when he finally woke up. He sat, shoveling in his prize as he giggled in between every bite.
Like any other morning, Raph's snores, reminiscent of a wood chipper, resounded from all corners, bringing a small smile to the rest of his family. It was only so long before he woke up and had to face Leonardo in lecture-mode for his late night out with Casey.
Like any other morning, Master Splinter's soft breaths could be heard from his room as he meditated up a storm.
And like any other morning, Don stumbled out of his lab, dark bags under his eyes (earning a worried look from Mikey and a disapproving look from Leo), and the clearly defined imprint of his keyboard on his left cheek.
"Mmmm. Morning guys," Donny yawned, rubbing his eyes. He brought himself to the table and plopped down heavily next to Mikey.
"Morning Don!" responded a cheery Mikey, bearing a wide and evil grin, the telltale sign that he was doing something stupid… again. He continued to keep a sharp eye on the entrance for Raph, even though the turtle likely wouldn't arrive for another solid hour if let sleep. Assessing this, Don rolled his eyes.
"Whatever you're doing, I want no part of it." Mikey turned back, his smile fading for a second, and then widening again once he got a better look at his brother's face.
"Dude! You slept on the keyboard again, ta hah!" He threw his head back in laughter. Poor kid. Everything was funnier to him in the mornings. Or maybe when he knew it was the calm before the storm that was his brother, Raphael. Donny drearily lifted his three-fingered hand to his cheek, where indeed he could make out computer keys.
"Huh." Wouldn't be the first time. But before he even had time to think in his half-dead state, Mikey was poking his face in a rather irritating manner that only Mikey could pull off.
"Ha! I spelled your name!" Mikey broke into laughter.
"Ah, cut it out!" Don laughed. But Mikey, being Mikey, wouldn't cut it out. Not yet.
"Next is my name! M-I-C-H-E-L-A-N-G-E-L-O. Now Raph!" Mikey giggled as he viciously attacked Don's face.
"Mikey…." whined a severely annoyed Donatello, swatting uselessly at his overly-energetic brother's antics.
"Leo, you want me to do yours too?" Mikey asked, turning away from his victim for a second. Donny took this opportunity to escape into the kitchen.
"No. What I want is for you to stop staying up so late, Donatello," Leo said sternly. Donny sighed as he went over to his coffee machine. He'd pretty much maxed out all of his patient reserves this morning, and if Leo was going to lecture him about working in his lab until the early morning, then he would desperately need it. He hummed quietly to himself as he filled the pot with water, loud enough for him to tune out Leo, but quiet enough so that only he could hear and Leo would think he was listening. Might as well put up with it now than refuse to listen and blow up in his face, only to be lectured again later by Leo and Master Splinter later (as he'd seen happen to Raph one time too many).
"I'm sick of coming to breakfast, only to find you stayed up so late in your lab that you slept there, again. You have a bedroom for a reason, Don. And I'm worried about what this is doing to you health-" Don's fingers danced over the machine. His machine. He was the only one who drank coffee. Raph had known this and bought one for him a few years back. No more instant crap. This ground the beans and made the coffee. Lord knows where Raph got the money to buy such a thing, but he didn't care. It was the best Christmas present he'd ever gotten by far, and he wasn't about to bite the hand that fed him… so to speak. Especially when that hand belonged to his much-stronger, grudge-holding, hothead of a brother. Now Don had developed a sort of dependence for coffee. It wasn't something he was proud of. But he wasn't ashamed either. He needed something in his system to keep him from crashing in the middle of his greatest projects.
Don went to the cupboard to dig out his bag, still drowning out Leo's voice in silent song. The cupboard open, Don was surprised to see an empty space where his coffee normally resided. It was a spot that he had established as his long ago, and even Raph had come to respect that. The genius didn't ask for much, but when he did ask for something, he made sure he got it. An angry Donny can scare the shell out of anyone! It's a good thing Don almost never lost his temper.
Blinking in confusion, Don closed the cupboard door and opened it again, thinking the lack of sleep was compromising his eyesight. Nope, still no coffee. He reached over, feeling the spot where it usually sat. Nope, not invisible, no eye problems. Panic began to consume him as he frantically dug through the rest of the cupboard's contents. M-maybe Mikey had hidden it as a joke. Or Raph knocked it out and threw it back in without looking to see what it was first. Still nothing. Finally he stopped, straightening back up and locking his jaw.
"And if we're caught in a situation where we have to battle, and you can't function right or your reactions are delayed, what then? You're liable to put the rest of us-"
"Where's my coffee?" Don asked softly, interrupting his brother. Leo was slightly annoyed at this, having gotten his 'groove on' (as Mikey puts it). But this vexation soon turned to fear. Well, worry. Leo was never scared. He could be worried, but it wasn't a leader's place to be scared.
"You mean it's not in there?" Leo questioned, coming and peeking over his brother's shoulder to see for himself, his lecture forgotten.
"Well if it was in here, would I be asking where it was?" snapped Donatello in angry sarcasm. He always started out really quiet when he lost his temper. And, if agitated properly, it was never long before he started screaming. Leo just gave a hurt look, sparing a response.
"Mikey, freeze!" Leo shouted at Michelangelo, who was tiptoeing toward his room, freezing when he got caught. He spun toward his brothers, looking sheepish with a hand behind his head casually.
"Oh, hey Leo. Donny. What's up?"
"What are you hiding?" Mikey gulped, turning away from Leo's hard gaze, which he swore could search through someone's soul and read minds, only to meet Don's edgy glare and darting back to take his chances with Leo.
"N-n-nothing…" Mikey stuttered, cursing at his voice for betraying him at a time like this.
"Bullshit." Mikey's jaw dropped open. He was shocked. He and Leo both. Don had.. cussed? Don crossed his arms over his plastron, tapping his foot, irritably. "Mikey, I've been with you since birth, suffered through your pranks, been forced to be your partner-in-crime too many times to count, had to stop our older brothers from ripping you apart piece by piece and feeding your remains to Klunk, and never once have I not known when you were lying. You can put over Raph, Leo sometimes, and heck, even Splinter in a great while, but not me." He whispered the next part low and menacingly. "I know you inside and out and I know you know what I want to know. Now, I'm going to ask again, and unless you want your PS3 to go missing, only to find it's insides one by one around the lair, then I suggest you answer it. Where. Is. My. Coffee."
Even Leo shivered after that lovely speech. And he thought he could be threatening and scary when he wanted to be. Was this even Don? Mikey, now shaken and visibly paler, tried to get words out, before he went into all-out panic-mode and screamed his answer.
"IT WAS AN ACCIDENT! I SWEAR! I ACCIDENTALLY KNOCKED IT OUT AND THEN IT SPILLED ALL OVER THE FLOOR AND I WAS GONNA PICK IT UP AND PUT IT BACK BUT RAPH SAID IT WAS GROSS AND TOLD ME TO THROW IT AWAY AND SO I DID AND NOW THERE'S NOT ANY LEFT AND I'M SORRY! PLEASE DON'T KILL ME!" Mikey screamed, cowering, even at his distance from his brother. He prayed that Don would pity him if he acted helpless enough. Sometimes that would work on Raph, and always worked on Leo. "OR MY PS3!" he added, as an afterthought.
"Raph knew about it too? And you guys didn't tell me?" Don growled as he turned abruptly, prepared to storm into Raph's room before he felt a gentle hand on his shoulder.
"Calm down, Donny. It's just coffee. Why don't we look in the emergency stash?" Leo asked, trying to reassert himself as the authority figure, then turning away and opening a locked cupboard where they stored emergency necessities with a reasonable shelf life. The coffee that was normally in there was missing, and in its place a bag of potato chips with the name 'Mikey' scrawled out in sharpie across the top.
"Mikey…" Don growled, threateningly.
"I NEEDED SOMEWHERE SAFE TO STORE MY BABIES WHERE RAPH WOULDN'T EAT THEM AND I REMEMBERED THAT HE WASN'T ALLOWED IN THE STASH SO I PUT THEM THERE AND MOVED THE COFFEE OUT SO THERE WAS SPACE AND I FIGURED THAT THERE WAS ENOUGH COFFEE LEFT TO LAST A WHILE! AAAAAAAAH1" Mikey gave a high-pitched girly scream before running for his life, Donny in hot pursuit. It was at this exact moment that Raph decided to walk out, yawning and stretching his arms above his head.
"Woah, what's goin' on-" Mikey ran straight into him hugging on to him for dear life.
"HELP! DONNY'S IN WITHDRAWAL AND HE'S TRYING TO KILL ME!" Raph looked up to see a rampaging Donny stop in his tracks, glowering at the turtle in his arms.
"Ugh. Get offa me." Raph shoved Mikey to the floor, and dusted himself off as if Mikey had gotten him dirty somehow. Raph never was one for contact. Looking down at the puppy-dog stare Mikey was giving him from the ground, he sighed. "Alright, I'll give. Why's Don chasin' you?" Mikey opened his mouth before Don cut in.
"He depleted my coffee reserves." Don said simply, sucking in air and crossing his arms again.
Raph laughed before shrugging them off and trekking to the kitchen, leaving Mikey to fend for himself.
"Raph, wait! Don't leave me with-" Mikey managed to say before he was face to face with the end of Don's bo-staff. "Eep!"
"You're going to rue this day." Suddenly, something was thrown at the back of Don's head, him spinning around and catching it out of instinct. Confusion took over his features as he looked from a smirking Raph down to a full bag of coffee in his hands.
"C-coffee?"
Mikey was in the background on his knees, thanking God and kissing the floor, whilst Don simply stood with a dumbfounded expression (one rarely found on his face).
"Yeah, I saw when Mikey trashed your other one, so I picked it up last night with Case," came Raph's husky reply. He pulled out a new box of cereal too, much to Mikey's dismay, and filled a bowl.
Leo, who had been hiding out in the kitchen after his brothers' outbursts, sighed in relief, sinking into a chair, Raph joining him.
"Oh thank God. After I didn't find any in the emergency stash, I didn't know what I'd do. So I just kinda left them to themselves." He laughed, rubbing his face to try to remove the stress as if it were something physical. Don broke from him trance and spoke up.
"Thanks. Um, why didn't you just put it in the cupboard when you got home? Why'd you wait till now to give it to me? I nearly ripped Mikey's head off!" Don inquired. Raph chuckled at the mental image of his gentlest brother's hands covered in blood and a decapitated Mikey on the ground. Then he grimaced, disturbed at himself for imagining it. Gross.
"'Cause it's funny seein' you grow some balls every once in a while," smirked Raph, his mouth full of frosted goodness, causing some to spew out onto the table. Leo, disgusted, leaned over and flicked Raph in the face and stole his spoon from his bowl jokingly.
Don didn't care why Raph had waited so long. He didn't care that Mikey got rid of all the coffee. He didn't care if Leo wanted to lecture him for a week. He had what he needed to get through it all in his hands. He went to the kitchen to finish his cup, breathing in the scent of the freshly ground beans. Rolling his eyes at Leo and Raph's playing at the table and Mikey's clutching his gaming systems possessively to his chest, he poured everything in the pot into his mug, not bothering to let the coffee finish brewing. Too impatient to even add cream and sugar, he breathed in the scent and took a long, much-needed sip.
His need quenched, he rethought his decision to drink it black, and allowed his muscle memory to prepare his coffee for him as his thoughts traveled back to his project. Like they would any other morning. He settled down next to his brothers, Leo filling in Raph on everything he missed.
"Jeez, Braniac. You can be as scary as me sometimes!" Raph chuckled, fully meaning it as a compliment.
"I don't understand, Donny. Why was it such a big deal?" Questioned Leo, something he wouldn't dare to have asked earlier. But this was the Donatello he was used to. This was the Donatello who was mellow, anti-violence, and neutral. The one he could handle.
Don thought over the question as he savored his heavenly drink. Why was it such a big deal? He supposed that he'd developed a sort of dependence. It fueled his life. His messed up, sleep-deprived, ninja-fighting life. It was liquid happiness. Fluid gold. Relief and support in a cup. Everything he needed to keep going. He snorted, comparing it to a drug-addict's need for heroin and earning confused looks from his older siblings. He breathed in the steamy fragrance again, emanating from his cup, before exhaling slowly.
"I'm a coffee person."
Coffee people are SCARY! I know some people like this. Personally, I don't drink the stuff. Never have. Probably will when I get into college. Anyway, this proved that Don isn't ALWAYS a basket of flowers (wth, is that even an expression?). I think Don is awesome, though. Don't get me wrong. And I love Raph and support the Raph/Leo brother relationship. They're totally best friends. Which is why I made them play with Raph's food. Mikey's cute, but God can he be annoying. I still love 'em all, though. No Splinter in this one really. Sorry Splinter fans! But tell you what, give me a story idea and I'll see if I can write it for you. I already had a request to add a second part to Raph's Cat where Leo confronts Raph, so I'm gonna do that first. But I'll get to other stuff after that!
I like my stories to be a healthy mix of funny, scary (ish), lol, and what-would-happen-if? So what did ya think? Don't be afraid to review. Oh! And if you didn't like it, PLEASE flame me! I've never been flamed before, and I want to share in the experience. I'm new at this chizz. So even if you DID like it (like I did, lol, cause Don's mega awesome), if you could leave a review that said "GRRR. It sucked! You ruined all the characters! Drop off the face of the planet!" that would be GREAT!
~Saya
P.S. I have a question, internet-people. Do I have to write a disclaimer? I see them all the time. Sometimes there isn't one, sometimes there is but only once, and sometimes there's one at the beginning of every chapter. I mean, I think it's pretty obvious that I don't own anything. Not turtles, frosted flakes. I won't take credit for anything. Heck, I won't even take credit for the idea (which is mine)! Someone else can have all that. This is just here for sheer enjoyment. But will the ff people get all on my case if I don't put them? Will they rip off my stories? (I mean take from the website, not copy) If someone could answer that, that'd be awesome.