Leonardo had never before been so grateful that mating season was finally over. Admittedly, it hadn't been that bad since Master Splinter finally caved in and let Raphael and Michelangelo have their fun together. The insufferable pranks stopped at once, and there was a measurable amount of peace and quiet for most of the day as the two of them hid away together in one of their rooms.
Of course, as the season drew to a close, that peace was starting to die down again. Donatello had been right when he'd said things would go more or less back to normal when it was all over with. Even Raph and Mikey were out and about just as much as they would be normally, and one would have never guessed that anything had happened between the two of them at all. Well, except for the fact that they tended to prefer sleeping in the same bed now, even though the desire to do anything beyond that was more or less nonexistent. That was another small relief to Leo. At least such distractions would only be occurring two months out of the year. He decided he'd much prefer his brothers to get those urges out of the way all at once rather than having to deal with it constantly.
Leo was currently watching TV with Donatello, who finally dared to emerge from his lab only after they were all sure mating season was over. It occurred to the elder brother that he had no idea what Donnie's behavior was like in the spring. He supposed that was the entire point of the lanky turtle locking himself away during that time; he didn't want to get caught up in the drama. A wise move, as expected of the scientist among them, but one that hadn't gone unnoticed by others.
"Oh, hey Donnie!" came a voice from behind the two of them as Casey Jones vaulted over the back of the couch, plopping himself between the two turtles sitting there. "Long time no see, man! Feels like I haven't seen you out here in ages! Were you workin' on some big new invention or somethin'?"
"N-no, I, uhh… I just needed some alone time… My lab was the only place I could really hide while Mikey was off on his rampage a few weeks ago." Donatello replied, feeling absolutely no shame in using Michelangelo's earlier prank war with Leonardo and an excuse for his absence. It was so much less embarrassing than having to explain what had really been going on around there for the past couple of months.
"Oh yeah. Man, that was freakin' crazy. What the hell was Mikey's deal, anyway? I've never seen him be that brutal before. It was kinda cool." Casey asked with a slight grin, to which Leo couldn't help but shudder in horror at the memories of that hellish week and a half.
"It's… It's complicated…" Donnie mumbled before quickly diverting the subject. "Hey, where's April? Did she come down with you?"
"Yeah, but she's in the dojo training with Splinter. She's been wonderin' about you, by the way."
"Sh-she has?!" he blurted out in surprise, his cheeks suddenly flushing a light red. Ah, and now Leonardo could see the other reason why Donatello had elected to hide himself away. Had he been out here when April was visiting, he'd have been courting her harder than ever, likely freaking the poor girl out to the point of hating him. It would have been a sure-fire way to completely ruin his chances with the lovely redhead once and for all.
It was at about that point when the door to Mikey's room finally swung open, though it was Raphael who walked out with a groggy yawn. Such an inconsistency was not beyond a certain human's notice, unfortunately, and Casey couldn't help but raise a confused eyebrow at the red-masked turtle as he walked by.
"Dude, did you and Mikey switch rooms or somethin'?" he asked as Raph plopped himself down on the couch on the opposite side of Donatello, still rubbing the sleep from his eyes.
"Don't ask questions you don't want the answers to…" was his grumbled reply. Casey was left even more confused than ever by this reply, and by the fact that the other two turtles he sat with didn't seem to have any problem with this.
"About damn time you woke up. It's almost noon, y'know." Leonardo scolded lightly, though Raph's only retort to this was a careless shrug of his shoulders.
"Speaking of which, where's Mikey? Is he still asleep?" Donatello added, ignoring Casey's increasingly questioning looks.
"Let 'im sleep for a while longer. He ain't feeling well." Raph replied as he picked up the TV remote and began flipping through channels. Now it was Leo's turn to finally look confused.
"Again? I thought he got over that yesterday."
"I thought so, too. I dunno, it's weird. He's been sick as a dog when he first wakes up, but later on in the day he's fine. S'been like that for over a week now."
"And you don't feel sick at all?" Donnie questioned, his interest in the conversation increasing by the second. If there was some stomach flu going around the Lair, he had to start trying to head it off now before everyone else caught it. Raph merely shrugged his shoulders again.
"I feel fine. Whatever it is, I haven't caught it yet. You sure it's not just something he ate?"
"Mikey the Iron Stomach? Yeah, I'm pretty sure he's immune to food poisoning at this point. I mean, you've seen what he eats." Donatello replied, scratching at his chin thoughtfully. He then rose from his seat, starting off towards Michelangelo's room. "I'm gonna go check on him. The last thing we need around here is some virus making us all sick."
Donatello had managed to drag Michelangelo into his lab and was currently running tests for every viral and bacterial infection he could think of. Raphael hadn't been kidding when he said their younger brother had been sick as a dog. Mikey had been so nauseous that he couldn't hardly walk straight on his own. Oddly enough, about an hour later, the turtle now seemed as bright-eyed and bushy-tailed as ever. Well, after he'd puked, anyway. Donnie was still going to keep that bucket nearby, in any case.
"Dude, why is this takin' so long? I'm starving!" Mikey grumbled impatiently from where he sat on the edge of Donnie's examination table, his legs swinging restlessly over the edge. Donatello let out an aggravated sigh, having been asked that very question no less than a dozen times already.
"These blood tests take time, Mikey. I can't let you out of here until I know what you've caught. We can't have you running around infecting everyone before we can keep the others from catching whatever it is you have."
"Aww, man…" the younger turtle complained, flopping back against the exam table to stare idly at the ceiling. He then looked over towards the door just in time to catch Master Splinter walking into the lab, April following close behind.
"What is wrong, Donatello? I have heard that Michelangelo is unwell." Their Sensei asked as he made his way over to where his apparently ill son lay. He arched a bushy brow at the young turtle's lively demeanor. He certainly didn't look unwell.
"I honestly have no clue, Sensei. All of the tests I've run so far turn up negative for infection. In fact, the only thing out of the ordinary in his blood are some wonky hormone levels, but that's to be expected this soon out of ma—" Donnie cut his explanation off suddenly, having become quite aware of April's presence in the room. His cheeks flushed a bit and he cleared his throat, looking away meekly as he continued awkwardly. "W-well… Y'know…"
Master Splinter cast his eyes town at Michelangelo once more, who merely looked up at him with a nervous grin and a shrug of his shoulders. The rat was starting to suspect that his son was probably faking it for some unknown reason, perhaps to get out of chores or something. However, there was always the chance that he wasn't. He closed his eyes, his hand hovering over the turtle's plastron as he attempted to sense any disruption in Michelangelo's chi flow that might suggest something out of the ordinary. Much to his surprise, he sensed something, his palm drifting down to hover over his son's lower abdomen.
"Donatello… I sense a disruption in his chi in this area. There is something inside him."
"Inside him? What the heck could be inside him down there that—"
"Alienoids!" Mikey shouted suddenly, cutting off Donatello's questioning as he sat bolt upright in horror. "Dude, it's just like in my comics! Some creepy space things musta found their way down here and infected me! They're probably replicating inside me right now and are gonna explode outta my butt!"
Donatello rolled his eyes at this little brother's sudden leap right out of the realm of logic, but couldn't stop a sardonic smirk from spreading across his lips.
"Hey, after Raph, you should be used to things like that up there by now…" he mumbled to himself, though apparently not quietly enough that April couldn't overhear.
"Ummm… What?"
"N-nothing. Forget it." Donnie dismissed hastily, turning back to his Sensei to avoid having to explain his little stab at Mikey. "Can you tell what it is?"
"No…" Master Splinter replied with a small shake of his head, now clearly worried for his son. "I can only sense the block in his chi. I do not know what causes it."
"Hey, maybe I can try." April offered. "My mental powers have gotten a lot stronger. I might be able to sense something you can't."
Master Splinter nodded, stepping back to allow the girl to examine Michelangelo in his place. Mikey laid back down, his own imagination making him suddenly very nervous as April placed her hand over the spot that the ninja master had indicated a moment ago, her eyes closing in concentration. A moment later, her face scrunched up in utter bewilderment.
"Wow, you guys' internal organs are in some seriously weird places… Why the hell is your liver all the way up there?"
"Yeah, I get it; turtle anatomy is screwed up… Can we maybe focus on the issue at hand here?" Donatello urged impatiently, crossing his arms over his own plastron and suddenly looking very self-conscious. April did he suggested, focusing her mind on the spot in question.
"I… I definitely sense something… I think there might be two… No, definitely three… They look like spheres, about the size of softballs." She said slowly, to which Mikey let out a small whine.
"I'm tellin' ya, D! It's Alienoids!"
Donnie furrowed his brows at this new information. Three spheres? What in the hell could that be? He was about to ask what organ they were located near, but he thought better of it. She wouldn't know what any of it was. Instead, he retrieved a book from his desk on their pre-mutation parent species; the three-toed box turtle. He set it on the edge of the examination table at Mikey's side and flipped open to a page that had detailed illustrations of the internal anatomy of a pair of turtles.
"Okay April, any way you can point to exactly where you sense these objects?"
April looked over the illustrations for a long moment, occasionally glancing back at Michelangelo's abdomen as if double-checking the position. Then, she placed a finger on one of the diagrams. Donatello glanced down at where she pointed, his face turning red almost instantly. She was pointing to the diagram of the female turtle, which wouldn't normally make a difference, except that she'd pointed to one of the few organs that were decidedly absent in male turtles. He let out a nervous laugh. Surely she must be joking.
"Umm… Very cute, April… Now how about you tell me where it is on this diagram?" he asked in a low tone as he pointed to the male turtle on the other page, far too embarrassed to actually explain the mistake she'd made. April examined the page for a long moment, but eventually shook her head.
"It's not on that one. Only the first one."
Donatello stared at her for a while, his eyes widening as all of the pieces started falling into place in his mind. It was all starting to make sense now; Mikey's slightly smaller size than the rest of them, his submissiveness, his abnormal behavior during mating season, and now his intermittent nausea…
"Oh no… No no no no no…" he mumbled frantically to himself, shoving the book aside and brushing past April in what almost amounted to a panicked state. He pressed his fingers against Michelangelo's side just above his hip, pulling a sudden squeak from his younger sibling.
"D-dude, that tickles!"
"H-hold still, dammit!" Donnie barked out a bit more forcefully than he might normally have, trying to carefully feel inside his brother's abdomen from the only spot in the area that wasn't covered by hard bone plating. He could just barely feel the smooth surface of one of the spheres April had mentioned, a chill of dread washing over him as he realized what it was.
"What is it, my son? What is wrong?"
Donatello glanced up at his Sensei, a new feeling of dread rising up in him. How in the hell was he going to explain this one to their concerned father?! A nearly hysterical smile spread over the lanky turtle's face, and he let out a high-pitched laugh of pure terror to match.
"U-uhh… W-well, Sensei… S-see, it's like this…" he stammered out, trying in vain to delay the inevitable. He swallowed hard. He just had to get this over with as quickly as possible. "R-remember how the guy at the pet store told you we were all boys? H-he, uhhh… He might not have been entirely correct in that assumption…"
"Wait, wait, wait…" Casey said in disbelief, holding up a hand to stop the intensely weird conversation that he'd gotten himself into with the two remaining turtles. "So, lemmie get this straight… Raph's been screwing Mikey for like the last month, and Mikey was on the warpath because Leo was cock-blocking you guys..?"
Raphael couldn't help but blush brightly when the human teen summed it all up that way, his arms folded over his chest as he tried his best to avoid eye-contact with the others.
"Th-that's 'bout the gist of it…" he mumbled out reluctantly. Casey stared at him for a long moment, his mouth hanging slightly open in shock.
"Dude…" he whispered out, seemingly unable to find anything more meaningful to say. Then, he scooched a bit closer to Raph, lowering his voice conspiratorially. "… What did it feel like?"
"L-like I'd tell you, ya pervert! I don't fuck and tell, man!" Raphael shouted, suddenly looking more flustered than he ever had before. Leonardo couldn't help but let out an amused chuckle at the new predicament Raph had found himself in with their overly-curious human friend. However, his smile was soon wiped away when a truly furious bellowing echoed throughout the Lair from Donatello's lab.
"RAPHAEL! GET IN HERE, NOW!"
The two turtles sat frozen in terrified silence for a long moment, their eyes wide with fear. They had never heard their Master even close to this angry before, not even when he'd first found out about Raphael and Michelangelo's relationship. Leonardo slowly turned his gaze to his brother, knowing that, surely, this was a dead turtle he was looking at.
"I don't know you. I've never met you. I have absolutely nothing to do with whatever you did." He declared softly, as though that would save him from becoming collateral damage in the ultimate explosion of their father's rage. He then climbed over the back of the couch and dashed off into his room to hide, not wanting any part in what was to come. Raphael hadn't even seemed to notice how readily his older brother abandoned him, his eyes fixed on the door from which that call to death had issued forth. He rose shakily to his feet, his entire body trembling in fear as he started on the long walk to what surely must be his execution. The worst part was that he had absolutely no idea what he could have possibly done to raise such a murderous bellow from his Master.
When Raphael slipped reluctantly into Donatello's lab, he found himself stared at by four pairs of eyes, each holding a rainbow of differing emotions. Master Splinter was, of course, positively fuming, his fists shaking with anger at his sides as he glared down at his second oldest son. Michelangelo sat on the edge of the examination table with his arms clasped tightly around his abdomen, looking as though he wanted to just curl up and disappear even as he gave his mate a deeply apologetic look. April was a mixture of confusion and shock, staring at Raph as though she'd just learned something about him that she'd never wanted to know. Donatello's entire demeanor could be summed up in two words: 'Why me?'
Master Splinter marched forward and snatched at the tails of Raphael's mask, dragging him forward as one would do to a human child by the ear.
"O-ow! Sensei, what the hell did I do?!" he asked frantically, but his Master didn't reply. He seemed far too furious for words at the moment. The next thing he knew, he was standing in front of Mikey, who looked as though he was in just as much trouble. He then felt his Sensei take a firm hold of his wrist, his hand being maneuvered to press against his brother's side. Mikey let out a small grunt of discomfort, though he stared up at Raphael with that same fearfully apologetic look in his eyes, silently mouthing the words 'I'm sorry…'
"Do you feel that, Raphael?! Do you have any idea what those are?!" the rat hissed out lividly through tightly gritted teeth, which was quite possibly the only way he could speak at the moment while retaining some fleeting semblance of control over his boiling rage. Raph couldn't bring himself to reply, his eyes staring down in utter horror at his little brother. No, they couldn't be… Were those… Eggs?! He quickly looked over to where Donnie stood, looking for some sort of indication that he might be wrong. The lanky turtle merely shrugged his shoulders lightly.
"I, uhhh… I hope you're ready to be a dad, Raph. Mikey's pregnant."