firebirdscratches prompted: "Please keep your sick away from me and get better soon. I made you soup." Donnie and Casey :)
Set in firebirdscratches' Best Selves verse, in which April, Donatello and Casey are in a happy three-way.
The mildest, tiniest spoilers for The Force Awakens - but honestly nothing you won't have seen all over tumblr by now. I haven't even seen the movie myself yet, tbh.
ooo
An extremely pregnant April O'Neil deposited two massive bowls of chicken noodle soup down on the coffee table and then lumbered away, one hand resting on the large belly that stretched out in front of her. "Try not to kill each other."
Donatello glared at his wife's retreating figure and opened his mouth to retort, but was overcome by a fit of coughing that wracked his shoulders, tears squeezing from the corners of his eyes.
"That'll learn her," Casey hoarsely quipped, blowing his nose loudly into a shrivelled tissue. Donatello fixed baleful eyes on his companion in suffering.
"Quit hogging the blanket, Jones,' he muttered miserably, and gave the woollen plaid a tug that yanked it right off Casey's hairy bare legs.
"Yeow! Hey!" Casey scrambled weakly to snatch it back. "Three brothers and you don't know how to share?"
"I'm a reptile," Donatello sniffed, clinging to the blanket. "You've got your dumb self-regulating body heat. Deal with it."
"Come on, Donnie," Casey whined, shivering in his boxer shorts. "I'm way too sick to go get more clothes. Have a heart, pal. Hey, I got your wife knocked up so you can be a dad! What have you done for me lately?"
Donatello eyed Casey reproachfully, tucking the blanket up beneath his chin. "Um, pretty sure you're sharing the parental duties, pal. Though if you're as lousy at that as you are at sharing with those less fortunate, I guess I'll be a solo dad after all."
"Oh my god!" April shrieked from the bedroom. "I'm trying to nap! Can you two just knock it off? It takes me a good ten seconds of rocking to get upright, so if I have to come out there - " her voice dwindled off threateningly and Casey and Donatello held their breath for a tense moment, cowering on the couch.
"Here," Donatello grudgingly relinquished half of the blanket to Casey, who snatched it greedily over his lap.
"I need more," he grumbled and scootched closer to Donatello who yelped and squirmed into the corner of the couch.
"Keep those gross hairy appendages away from me, Jones!" He shrieked. "Ugh, mammals and hair, I swear to god…"
"What was that?" April's voice was dangerously pitched and Donatello abruptly shut up.
"Nothing at all, oh precious, golden ray of sunshine mine!" he chirruped in a sickeningly sweet tone.
"Because if you really think I'm going to huff and puff around this extra baggage I'm carrying just to shave my legs in order to keep you happy, you're got another think coming, buster!"
"I hadn't even noticed, sweetheart!" Donatello called soothingly.
Beside him on the couch, Casey snickered.
"Busted," he taunted Donatello and then was abruptly overcome by a coughing fit of his own, his sinuses overflowing with mucous as he desperately flailed for a tissue. Donatello settled back smugly into the cushions.
"That'll learn you," he muttered darkly.
Casey blew his nose again and slumped back against the couch, his head tipped back and his jaw dangling, breathing shallowly through his mouth.
"Seriously, bro, I might need to go to hospital," he wheezed. "I don't think I've ever been this sick before."
Donatello rolled his eyes. "Please. At least you can go to a hospital. At least you can seek the aid of qualified professionals. What about me? Once I'm down, that's it! Kaput! I'm not even strong enough to reach for my soup. How am I supposed to administer basic medical care?
"I can't even sit up," Casey moaned, the trembling fingers of one hand weakly running through strands of damp hair. "Not even to get a glass of water - "
Donatello sniffled and tucked the blanket beneath his chin a little more. "There are stars dancing in front of my eyes. I'm running a fever."
Casey coughed piteously. "I'm gonna puke any second, I know it, and I won't even be able to make it to the can."
Donatello shivered violently. "I'm freezing. If my body temperature dips any lower, I could slip into a coma."
Casey groaned and writhed against the cushions. "Ugh, my guts are in agony. They're probably rupturing and oozing gross crud everywhere."
"Oh my god!" April shrieked. "It's a cold! That's all it is! You both have a totally average, completely harmless, run-of-the-mill case of man-flu! You don't need to go to the hospital! You don't need medical attention! You don't even need aspirin! But if both of you don't shut up right now, I'll make sure you know how being sick really feels! Geez! Just watch a movie or something!"
The two men sat in chagrined silence for a moment, sheepishly looking everywhere but at each other.
"Okay, let's see what's on Netflix," Donatello muttered, picking up the remote control and pointing it at the television. "Ooh - Interstellar!"
"No way!" Casey reached over and snatched the remote from his hand, scrolling through the menu. "You've watched that crap, like, ten times already. Now that's what I'm talking about -San Andreas!"
"No way, Jones!" Donatello fumbled for the remote, his huge green fingers slipping over Casey's thin, tanned ones. "We are not watching that trash! It's an insult to my intelligence and to good taste."
"It's a movie, Donatello," Casey sneered. "It doesn't have to be scientifically accurate!"
Donatello narrowed disdainful eyes at Casey. "That has very little to do with it, Casey. It's a schmaltzy, sentimental and ultimately soulless contest of spectacle masking the most rudimentary of plot and character development and buffered only by excessive displays of machismo and Dwayne Johnson's right eyebrow. It's rubbish and I won't watch it."
"Take a nap then," Casey said belligerently, pointing the remote towards the screen.
Donatello lashed out quickly and snatched the remote back. "Interstellar. Come on, it's got spaceships and explosions. That should be enough to satisfy you."
"It makes no sense!" Casey snapped back, his reddened eyes bulging, hands clawing the sky in exasperation. "It's basically magic! The whole movie revolves. around. magic."
"It's actually grounded in genuine scientific theory, Casey," Donatello retorted haughtily. "And is easily comprehended with a minimum amount of focused attention. A tall order for the contemporary audience, I realise, but nonetheless -"
A loud groan emanated from the bedroom. "How about Star Wars?" April suggested desperately.
There was a pause as the two boys eyes each other from either end of the couch, plaid blanket clutched over their laps, sniffling and pouting.
"I could watch Star Wars," Donatello conceded in a petulant mumble.
"Hrrmmph," was all Casey's reply.
Donatello cycled to The Force Awakens and a moment later the iconic blare of trumpets filled the den and the familiar yellow text began scrolling up the screen. Casey laboriously reached for the bowls of soup April had left for them, groaning all the way, and handed one to Donatello, who grunted his thanks. The turtle and the human slurped noisily at their meals as the opening crawl gave way to the deepest reaches of space, and an Imperial Star Destroyer.
"Finn and Poe are so gay," Donatello remarked after a while and Casey rolled his eyes and let his spoon clatter into his bowl with a splash.
"No they're not. It's a bromance, there's a difference."
Donatello sighed. "Casey, the actors even said - "
"I don't care!" Casey exclaimed. "Why can't two dudes just, like, totally love each other without being in love?"
"Um, because they're gay," Donatello explained as he might to a small child. "In this case, gay for each other."
"Whatever dude," Casey took another slurp of his soup and put his socked feet up on the coffee table. "Whatever helps you sleep at night."
Donatello opted not to even dignify that with an answer and for a little while the movie unfolded in comparative peace. Then Donatello cleared his throat.
"Ah - you know - there's kinda some parallels here, really."
Casey quirked a brow at him. "What - between you and me?"
"No!" Donatello hastened to protest. "Between you and me and - " he jerked his head toward the bedroom door.
"Oh," Casey's eyebrows shot up and he blinked rapidly. "Like - April is - Rey - ?"
"No," Donatello said, exasperated. "April is Finn."
Casey's expression cleared as he got it. "Oh."
"Yeah?"
Casey grinned at Donatello, his hair in sweaty clumps across his forehead, his runny nose red and raw. "I ship it."
Some time later, April trudged wearily out into the den, knuckling at eyes still gritty from the nap she'd finally managed to snatch, only to be greeted with the sight of Casey and Donatello, sound asleep on the couch. The blanket was tucked cosily around them, half-empty bowls of soup balanced dangerously on their laps. Casey's feet were up on the coffee table, one big toe poking out of a hole in his sock, his head tipped against the back of the couch, his jaw dangling open. Donatello's legs were slung over one arm rest, his head fallen to prop against Casey's, a trickle of drool running down his chin. Both of them were loudly snoring.
April sighed, a fond smile curving her lips, shaking her head in despair. "Well. That's my boys."
