Never-NeverLand – Chapter 16
Mike fidgeted in the recliner chair. "I don't know if that was such a great idea, Leo."
Leo looked up from the arm of the sofa where he'd shoved Raph's feet aside to perch for a while. "Hmm?" Leo glanced in the direction of Donatello's lab. "What do you mean, 'idea'? I wasn't the one teasin' him." His frown melted into a yawn.
Mikey smacked Raph on the back of his head, jarring him from the light snooze he'd fallen into. "No. Not Donnie. I mean turning all four girls loose in the bathroom at once. God only knows how long their gonna be in there." He paused long enough to attempt to swipe the throw pillow out from under Raphael's knees. Raph's fist caught him in the shoulder. He pulled back with a wince. "Though, yeah. Teasing Donnie was pretty boneheaded."
Raph rolled over to face the back of the couch, pulling the cushion to his chest. He slowly extended his arm and flipped off the room in general. 'I'm too tired to be clever. I wish they'd just go to sleep.'
Mike started humming to himself. Leo was so zoned out that it didn't phase him, but Raphael lay seething into the cushion. "Puff the Magic Dragon/ Lived by the Sea/ and, um… mmmmm-hmmm-hmm-hmm-hhhmmmm-something-eeeee."
"WILL YOU SHUT UP?" Raphael hurled the cushion with a deadly accuracy that could only be earned through years of rigorous training. Mikey caught it easily thanks to the same training.
"HA Ha!" Mike pulled at the corners of his beak, sticking out his tongue. "I got the cushion!" He drummed his heels on the floor. Raphael mumbled a string of inarticulate curses at his brother. "NYAH nyah nyah!" Mikey continued to annoy Raphael, just to see if he could get the other throw pillow from him as well.
"Well, THAT'S attractive." Cabbage smiled, flashing her dimples. "The bathroom's all yours." Leo jumped off the couch, reflexes bringing him straight from drowsing to battle stance without bothering to notify his brain.
Mike took his fingers out of his mouth. "I don't think they're gonna attack, Leo."
Leo quickly relaxed, but not before shooting a glare at his brother.
Shima smiled shyly. Her eyes didn't quite focus; she was clearly in a fog. She spoke coherently, though. "It's ok, Leo. Just show us where we're to sleep and you can call it a day." She reached to pat his arm casually, her half-lidded eyes at odds with her steady movements and clear speech. Cabbage's hand darted in, grabbing Shima's wrist.
Pipes snickered into her hand. +"She almost got another one."+
Cabbage looked less than thrilled. She rolled her eyes and pulled Shima away, whispering in her ear. Mike and Raph exchanged glances. Leo blinked in confusion. Pipes sidestepped up to Leo. +"Leo? Hello? You wanna go to bed?"+
Raphael snorted, "That's an offer you don't hear very often." He stood up, walking past his brother. "I got dibs on that couch. Don't even THINK of swiping it." He called over his shoulder. "Com'mon, I'll show you the rooms." With his sisters in tow, Raphael led them to where he could see all the bedroom doors. He pointed, "There's four bedrooms: one there, two over there, and one more over there. Make yourselves at home. If there's anything in the beds, just throw it on the floor. G'night." As he turned to head back to the couch, he snagged the elbow of the last sister he passed. "What's wrong with Donnie?"
The silence made him glance at the girl he held. Sterling stared at him with an expression that clearly said, "What? You want me to TALK or something?"
"Shit. I got frickin' Marcel Marceau." She continued to stare, waiting for him to let go.
'I can answer "yes/no" questions you muscle-bound mutton-head.' She made a thumbs up/ thumbs down gesture with her free hand. 'Hope he gets it. I'm so tired.'
He looked at her blankly.
'Looks like I'm not the only one who looses brain cells when she's tired.' Sterling pointed towards the living room, gave a thumbs up, and waved in a gesture of dismissal. 'Hopefully that looked enough like "Don is fine. It's no big deal." for mutton-man to figure it out.'
Raph nodded thoughtfully and released her arm. "G'night." He was already walking away as she waved.
She joined her sisters at the nearest door.
+"It's a big mattress."+
"It's filthy."
+"It's A mattress."+
"Good enough for me."
When Raph got back to the living room, Leo had already sprawled out on the sofa. He and Mike were already fast asleep. "Goddamn it. I knew it. I'm sleepin' on the fuckin' floor." He wrapped himself in the one remaining blanket from the van. "…damn afghan…" It still smelt of her. "…damn mute…" He fell asleep with faint scent of honey and cinnamon curling through his mind.
Morning practice was at noon. Splinter pushed them through an extremely rigorous session. Donnie couldn't have been happier. He really didn't want to deal with his brothers this morning. 'What the hell did she—'
"Uf!" Don looked up from the mat. The length of Leonardo's bokken pointed down at his throat.
Splinter sighed. "Donatello, please focus."
"Hai, sensei."
Leo gave him a concerned glance, and pulled him to his feet. Before Leo could ask anything, Splinter clapped his hands. "Again."
"RIGHTY-OH! It's breakfast time!" Mike had it all figured out: chocolate chip waffles with raspberry sauce ('Or blue-berry, depends on what's in the freezer.'), bacon, eggs, and orang--. "Shit! We're outta Orange juice. Phew! And fresh milk." Mike pulled his head out of the fridge. "LEO! Grab your wallet, dude. I need you to go to the store!"
"Why me Mike?"
"Cause you're the only one with money right now."
"Donnie's got cash."
"It's quicker to argue with you than to pry Donnie away from his square-headed girlfriend." Leo's confusion forced him to elaborate. "You know-- the computer." Leo rolled his eyes.
"Fine, I'll go get food. Put together a list." He left to bundle up. 'That's the one nice thing about winter; nobody looks twice if you're completely covered, even in the daytime.'
Don deleted all spam that made it through his email filters. He read the network logs. He checked the forums, the newsletter pages, the online comics, and the counter on his own webpage.
"Today, the ritual held no comfort." Don grimaced. "Shit, no more of Mikey's movies." His little brother had recently been infatuated with Jim Henson's Movies: 'The Dark Crystal,' 'The Labrynith,' anything with Fraggles in it. Every time Don passed through the living room, some Muppet or other squawked or shrieked or gibbered at him from the TV. "No more, if I have to hide the tapes until he forgets about 'em."
Don hung his head. 'Mike's not the problem.'
She was bundled in a blanket with one arm out and wrapped around the back of his neck. I held her against my chest. There's just not much to her, so I held her tight; if I dropped her, she might shatter.
She's the only one of my sisters that I've had any kind of real conversation with. Sterling and I have played plenty of chess games, but when we talk it's competitive somehow. Shima actually seems to listen. It'll be great to have someone around that listens without rolling their eyes at me. Splinter encourages me, but half the time, I know he's just letting me ramble. Leo pretends like he cares about why the things that I've made work the way they do. Mike and Raph couldn't care less. I'm just supposed to fix things and take shit for being the family 'nerd.'
Shima never once made me feel like I was talking to someone I'd trapped in a conversation. She genuinely cared about my ideas. If she didn't understand, she said so and then kept asked intelligent questions about it until she did. I've always wanted a friend like that…
He smiled as he brought up his SNES game emulator.
Raphael toweled himself off, thinking longingly of his discman and the new CD waiting in his room. 'Don finally fixed my junkyard CD-player. I finally got enough spare cash for the NIN CD that I've wanted since forever. Casey finally got off his lazy butt and picked up the damn thing from the mall. And now it's in my room. With a sister.'
He dropped his towel on the floor by the hamper. 'Well, am I a ninja or not?' He smiled. 'S'my room. Nothin' wrong with goin' into my room.' His grin broadened.
"Hey Mikey! Have you seen the girls today?" Raph burst into the kitchen, looking around like he expected his sisters to be hiding behind the appliances.
Mike pulled his head out of the freezer. "Nope. Would you like raspberry or blueberry sauce with your waffles?"
"Then they're mis—Wha? Mike. Put the berries down for a second. I can't find our sisters."
Mike was wide-eyed. "They're not Don's lab, or the Dojo, or the bathroom, or the bedrooms? Are they with Master Splinter?" Raph glared at his brother.
"No Mikey, they're actually in the living room with frickin' Paul Simon, I just wanted to see the face you'd make if you thought they were GONE. GONE, MIKEY, in the MIDDLE of the DAY."
"Ok. Ok. I'll go get my 'chucks. You go tell Master Splinter. Does Donnie know?"
"Yeah, I know." Donatello stood in the doorway with his bo staff. "So does Master Splinter."
"Right. I'll be right there…" Mike dashed off to his room. He returned at a walk and without his nunchucks. "Raph, your thorough search missed the four girls asleep in my room."
"What?!" He followed his brothers to his room with his hands behind his head and a skip in his step.
"I don't believe it."
"Shit."
Mike leaned against his doorframe. He was gonna burn this scene into his mind if it meant staring all day. His full-sized futon was a jumble of blankets and petite green limbs. His sisters had used each other as pillows, so Shima's head rested on the back of Pipes' thigh while her body was rolled on her side in a little ball. The tiniest tip of her tail stuck out from the base of her shell. 'Talk about a tease!' Pipes lay face down, tucked into the crook of Sterling's arm. 'Sterling's got legs that just don't END. Raph better get his head out of his ass. She's a hottie!' Cabbage sprawled across the remainder of the bed, her head hanging over the edge, but her beautiful legs over Sterling's stomach. 'God, I wanna wake up to that someday. Her legs resting on my body—' Mike stopped that train of thought; it was almost painful. Since her head and shoulders rolled over the edge of the futon, he noticed that the flesh from under her plastron had slid downward, forming two soft curves between her collarbones and her chest plating. 'What'daya know… they do have breasts…'
His room held their fragrance now. It was faint, but it hit Mike's hindbrain like a bell. He sat just breathing it in for a few moments before his mind wandered… 'Four nekkid girls. Nekkid turtle girls. In my bed.' He'd had fantasies of course, many times, and well before the past weekend. Now this was different; it was REAL. 'This is four nekkid turtle girls in my bed… the stuff wet dreams are made of…' Mikey smile spread from one end of his face to the other as he pictured Sterling's dance. His eyes shut as he relived the feeling of the massage on his body. He sighed happily as he heard Pipes and CABBAGE's voices "+'Cause we WANT to!+" Shivers ran down into his shell.
Raphael and Don stood some distance away and spoke in whispers. "Why the hell are they all in one bed like that? We offered 'em four." 'I wouldn't have had to sleep on the floor if I'd known.'
Don shrugged. "Yeah, I know, and three of them were cleaner than this sty. But then, why do they do anything?" He paused as Shima's face flashed across his mind. "I'll go tell Master Splinter that we found 'em."
Raph frowned at Mike. "I swear he's drooling. Yeah, go on and tell Sensei it was a false alarm. I'll relocate the fool to the kitchen."
Donnie grinned, "You sounded like Mr. T there for a second."
"Heh. I piddy da foo.'" Raph cracked his knuckles and prepared to burst Mikey's bubble.