A/N: Just something I wrote today. Idk if I'll expand on it (as was the plan), since I'm working on AoT, and it's not really going the way I wanted it to... But I liked this passage.

Oh well! If people like it, I'll expand :)


Donnie had worked for hours, late into the country night, on the blue, plasmic substance settled before him in the observation beaker; trying to decode, reform, mold it into the inverse of its own function. To de-mutantize it. He'd done it once. He can do it again.

Now he works on finishing his latest test-reactant. Donnie completes stirring a hydric mixture on his right side—tetrahydrocannabinol, to be exact—a mixture he hopes will react accordingly to the Mutagen, giving him the results he so desperately needs. He places a pipet into the hydric mixture. The pipet acts like an eyedropper: it sucks up a certain amount of substance into its long tube, and encumbers, stores it, inside when finger-tip pressure is released. Donnie steadily moves the end of the pipet against the surface of the Mutagen. He waits; he focuses on settling his breathing and shaky fingers; he knows that adding too much, or too little, of this reactant into the Mutagen could have terrible effects.

The clanging of metal breaks his concentration, and Donnie squeezes too much tetrahydrocannabinol into the Mutagen, and it explodes in his face. "Casey!"

Casey Jones pulls himself out from under the Van he's been working on since they'd left New York City; a little project to get his mind off things. "Chill out Don-Don. It's just a freak accident."

"Don-Don is not amused," Donnie deadpans as he wipes the remains of his experiment off his face and hands. "This is something serious I'm working on here, and I'd appreciate a little more respect in my lab."

"Your lab is technically a barn." Casey smirks, "And April gave me permission to work here. I think you should have a little more respect for her decisions."

Donnie fumes internally. "Do not tease me about April!" he lashes out.

He swivels on the creaky office-chair; Donnie faces Casey, who's laying still on the ground beside the rusted Van. "I'm doing something really important right now." Donnie tries to keep his frustration down as he explains, "I'm trying to fix the Mutagen. To revert the people of New York back to their original selves. To save humanity. To save your family, Casey."

Casey glares at the turtle-Mutant.

"You're not even part of humanity," he whispers under his breath, harshly, as he storms out of the barn. Maybe he didn't mean for Donnie to hear this, or maybe he did. But the turtle-Mutant still heard. And it shook him.