Well, here we are. Chapter 16. I have to say that I have been looking forward to this chapter for a long time now. It's one of those things where you have this grand moment in your head and you want to get it out, but you have to wait until all this other stuff happens first. That's what this chapter has been for me. Very excited about it.
Thank you all for being so patient and waiting for me to update. I was seriously exhausted after being in two weddings and helping to plan a third (what is it with people getting married this year?). Hopefully this chapter will make it up to y'all.
Thanks to my beta-readers, GoodSmileGirl and Colonel Pop for the time they've put into helping me.
Warning- there's some strong language towards the end of the chapter due to Irma being half drunk and really pissed off. I normally don't put a lot of profanity in my stories, but it fit perfectly in this instance.
Chapter Sixteen
I decided to go home for Thanksgiving that year to see my twin sister and little brother, but within two days of being there I had developed an eye twitch and an unhealthy reliance on alcohol. With this development, I cut my visit short and came back home instead. My mother had, of course, grilled me about my love life and lack of common sense when I told her I had a new boyfriend.
"Two husbands is one too many," she had said while editing her new ethnography book. "Fifteen boyfriends is absurd."
"My first husband was an abusive drunk, Mother," I replied, wishing that I had a flask with me. "And I have one boyfriend, not fifteen."
"And your second seemed to have a weakness for infidelity," she continued on as though she hadn't heard me. Her hair, once the same color as mine and now graying was pulled back into a bun, a habit that I picked up from her, and glanced up over her own glasses at me sternly. "I can assure you, Irma Rose, that should you continue this distasteful habit of picking up crude men and then discarding them, you'll eat up your inheritance. Your father and I are going to start paying for your weddings out of what we're going to leave for you."
My eye twitched and I slapped a hand over it. "Don't worry," I told her. "I don't plan on getting married again any time soon."
"I should hope not. If I've told you once, Irma Rose, I've told you a hundred times- if you're not going to be practical about it, don't bother with it."
The rest of the conversation has been blocked out from my memory, but seeing as how the next day I was on a plane back to New York, I can only assume that it just kept going downhill. If it wasn't for the fact that my Aunt Mavin made the best stuffing in the entire world, I would have been happy to make a turkey sandwich and leave it at that.
When I got back home, I staggered through the door to my apartment, dragging my roller-bag behind me and letting it fall to the floor as soon as it was inside. I then went straight to my room, tossed my glasses onto my bedside table and collapsed onto my bed with a groan, still wearing my jacket and shoes. I don't know how long I lay there, just that I didn't even lift my head when I heard my window open and close and a familiar cheery voice call out my name.
"Hey! Irms! Where are you, dudette? I got this totally awesome idea and-"
I half shouted, half grumbled something and I heard footsteps approaching me. "Woah," the voice said, and I opened one eye to see Michelangelo standing there. "Irms, you look, like, totally smashed."
"I feel like it, except I skipped the part with the beer." I closed my eye again. I felt the bed bounce as Mikey flopped down on it next to me and lift his legs up to rest on my bed so he could look at me without turning his head sideways.
"So, I got this plan-"
"If it involves fireworks or cats, I don't want to hear it."
A brief silence. "ANYWAY, I want to have a Christmas party in the Lair this year."
I lifted my head up and turned towards him. When I saw that he was still grinning, but in his "I'm still happy, but I'm serious" way. With another groan I slowly flipped over so I was lying on my back and then sat up. "Alright. Whatcha need?"
He bounced on the bed, his expression positively giddy. "I just need you to help me get some stuff together." He whispered the word 'stuff' conspiratorially, leaning in with a mischievous look on his face. My own eyes narrowed. "Again, if this involves fireworks or cats-"
"Naw, just cake and cooking stuff. I wanna make a huuuuge dinner and gift exchange for everyone!" Throwing his arms out to bring emphasis his words, I could only imagine that he was thinking of a verifiable feast. "Well, what do you guys do usually?"
He shrugged, suddenly looking less enthused. "Usually we just order pizza. I like pizza, but I want Christmas to be extra special since, y'know… it's one of the few times that we really get to celebrate anything." His gaze left mine and suddenly the wood grain of the floor seemed intensely interesting to him. It struck me, suddenly, how difficult their lives had to be, being fundamentally different than all other sapient species on the planet in their form and origin. It must have been awful, how they spent their entire lives with a secret buried fear of discovery but an equally strong longing for it, for a wish to be able to walk among others that they saw and saved every night, but could never mingle with. Christmas, then, must have been one of the few ways they could feel connected with everyone; a universal celebration had to include them as well, didn't it? These thoughts had crossed my mind before, but they had never hit me as strongly as they did then.
Placing a hand on his arm, I gave him a smile as he turned back to me. "Just tell me what you need," I said to him. "I'll get it for you. What do you want me to do?"
He gave me a hundred-watt grin and we began to plan.
The preparations for that Christmas dinner were made in complete secret, with messages sent via secret codes and rendezvous points where we made drop-offs and used terrible British accents while pretending to be covert operations agents. Mikey became Agent Awesome and I was dubbed Agent Amazing. It was originally Agent Bondette, but I vetoed that in favor of something that wouldn't get me weirded out every time it was said. Mental pictures of me dressed like a dominatrix and holding a gun always came to me when he called me that.
Other than the arguing we had over our codenames, things went very smoothly as the month progressed. Mikey would give me a list of things he needed, and I'd buy them and bring them back to my apartment where we'd meet up, plan some more, and then he'd leave to go home. Occasionally the two of us would head down to the lair to work on things, but due to the secret nature of our activities, we tried to hide it from the others as much as possible. Which means that we were completely obvious and somewhat pitiful in our hiding attempts.
"You'd probably do better to just do it all at your place," Leo commented one day, his utter disinterest in us underlined as we crept behind his back carrying plastic bags filled with stuff while he tried to meditate. "It'd be quieter if you did."
Raph and Donny had both taken one look at us moving our secret things around and had decided it was better off not knowing what we were up to. Master Splinter was the only one who actually asked us about it, and when we told him that it was a non-explosive, probably non flammable project, he reluctantly allowed us to continue after making us take solemn oaths that we would clean up whatever mess we left behind.
"He's gotten used to you keeping the place neat," Michelangelo explained to me. "Whenever you come down with new cleaning supplies, he gets all excited."
He referred to my occasional trips down to the Lair to hang out with the boys and also clean for them. Although I suppose my task was probably perpetuating the gender stereotypes of women being the house keepers, I found myself not particularly caring since the boys often helped out and, y'know, had saved my life a few times.
My relationship with Ken became increasingly strained during this time as well. Although things had begun well, or at least had seemed to, the two of us were slowly becoming more distant as time passed. It may seem somewhat biased to say that I felt like I was doing my part to keep it together and that the blame lay mostly with him, but I honestly felt that way. I tried to call him at least once a day if he didn't stop by to see me, but he started answering my calls less and less. Not only that, but he had started to leave me in the midst of our dates, if he even showed up at all. My work with Mikey kept me occupied and left me little free time to think about the state of things between us though.
It became apparent one day after an explosive argument on the phone that things were not going quite as I had foreseen. I was down in the Lair with Mikey (I am amazed that they somehow managed to get reception and internet down there) when I got a call from Ken. I don't really want to go into the whole conversation because it still makes my blood pressure go up, but basically it started with him saying he wanted to spend Christmas together and I told him I had plans. Then he got mad and said I was avoiding him. I'm sure that you can deduce how well that went over. The entire Lair was echoing my screams of rage while I listed every time he had managed to bail on a date with me and that if he ever tried to pull that on me again, he wouldn't be around for Santa to bring coal to. Or something along those lines.
When I was done with that conversation, I noticed that Mikey was whistling rather happily to himself as he continued to make decorations, and as Raph and Leo walked by on their way to the training room, they seemed remarkably smug about something. Donnie was the only one to try to say something to cheer me up about the fight, but I was in a grouchy mood and determined to stay that way for at least five minutes. Afterwards I let him get me a bowl of ice cream to feel better.
Things between Donatello and myself remained friendly, but still somewhat distant. Why this was so, I really can't say, nor could I tell you who exactly was at fault for continuing it. Looking back on it, it was probably a mutual thing between us, an unconscious urge to shy away from that particular can of worms. Probably we both knew that once it was opened, it wasn't getting close again, so it was just better to let it be. The thing was, neither of us really wanted to let it be, so it turned into a sort of weird relationship where we liked being in each other's company but restricted our topics of conversation to the weather and our health. Of course, seeing as how the turtles were almost always getting into some sort of a fight, this usually led to a decent amount of discourse.
Nothing significant happened between us until the day of the Christmas Party. I came down into the Lair early to help Mikey set everything up, and the two of us kicked the other three brothers out and restricted Splinter to his rooms while we furiously decked the halls with our makeshift ornaments. The pièce de résistance, however, was what the two of us had managed to smuggle down into the sewers with no small amount of frustration and arguing with each other- a real, honest-to-God Christmas Tree that we set up in the middle of the Great Room.
It wasn't easy getting it down there; when Mikey had first suggested the idea to me, I had answered his query with one of my own. "Michelangelo, how in the heck are we supposed to get a LIVING tree down there?"
He had waved his hand dismissively. "Fine, then, we'll get a fake one."
"We can't get a fake Christmas tree!" I had argued, my nose wrinkling with distaste. "Fake trees look awful. Plus they don't have the Christmas smell."
"Christmas smell?"
"Yeah, living Christmas trees smell like Christmas." I didn't actually ever have a Christmas tree in my own house; I only knew the smell from having spent time at friend's homes during the season.
He'd had no response to that other than bring up my original point that it would be hard to bring one down. We then switched our positions, where I said we should bring one, and he finally acquiesced. It occurred to me, as we set the thing up, that Mikey was a lot more tricky than I had given him credit for, but when I accused him of using reverse psychology on me, he had said he had no idea what that was. I had no response to this other than "Well played."
When everything was finally set up, I had Mikey get the guys while I showered and changed into a green and red dress with gold accessories. When I came out, the other three were showing their appreciation for our hard work in their various ways. Leonardo was admiring the fine job we had done with the decorations, Donnie was impressed with somehow managing to do it all in such a short amount of time, and Raph was excited for the food since the smell was now wafting through the room. Splinter, of course, had few words to say, but they were wonderful and left the two of us glowing from the praise.
Later, April and Casey came down and put their presents in a under the tree, and we had the typical Christmas party where we made toasts and joked and laughed and danced with each other. We decided not to open up each other's gifts until after dinner. I had somehow managed to grab three of my own chairs and bring them down for our use and we extended the dining table with a fold-out one, not that I think anyone was complaining once they got the food. Michelangelo had slaved over this meal, and I had done my fair share with it as well. The two of us sat next to each other at the head, beaming with satisfaction and no small amount of personal pride.
"Mikey," I grinned at him. "Best. Idea. Ever."
He gave me a huge smile back and two thumbs up. "Never would have been able to do it without you, dudette. You rock."
Finally, after we had all eaten enough to the point of exploding, Mikey and I stood up trying to look important and dignified, but not succeeding very well. We kept sniggering at the sound of each other trying to be all noble-looking suddenly.
"The time has come," Mikey began.
"The Walrus said, to talk of other things," I interrupted, and he kicked me lightly (for a ninja turtle), making me say Ow. "As I was saying before I was so rudely interrupted," he continued, giving me his best rendition of the Evil Eye, "I think it's time to do the present thing and rip off some wrapping paper!"
"We haven't brought our things out yet, doofus!" said Raph.
"Then go grab 'em, egg head!" I said back to him, and with that, we all went off to fetch the gifts. I was about to offer to help Master Splinter, but Leo quickly filled that role while Mikey volunteered to grab his along with his own. Raph when to get his own stuff and when I asked if he needed help, he said "What, you think I can't handle a few boxes? Sheesh." But he grinned while he said it. Mikey popped up next to me. "Hey, why don't you go help Donny? He might need an extra hand." I was about to say something, but then he was off and so were the rest of them. Donny had already gone to his Lab, so I went down Arsenal Ally and found him inside his lab trying to wrap a gift hurriedly.
"Don?" I called. "I'm coming in!"
There was a groan and then "Okay. Just don't judge me."
"For what?" I asked, and then as I approached the table I saw what for. He had been trying to wrap all of the gifts using a few half-used rolls of wrapping paper and duct tape. I covered my mouth with my hand, but a snigger escaped nonetheless. His eyes narrowed at me behind his purple bandana. "You laugh and you can just forget about your present." I instantly sobered up and looked appropriately repentant. He stared at me for a heartbeat to make sure that I could hold the serious face, and then gave an approving nod. "I just need help wrapping these things. I ran out of time."
"You don't say."
"Present is going in the closet-"
"No, no, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, here, I'll help you wrap them!" This offer appeared to mollify him and he handed me a pair of scissors and a roll of paper. "Want me to do mine?"
"You can do Casey's. Touch yours and I'll toss you into a closet with shuriken stars." I made a sad face at him and he sighed and relented. "Fine, I'd just deprive you of earrings for a day."
"What? Are you crazy? That's even worse!"
We continued to poke fun at each other like this while we wrapped up the gifts, and I realized suddenly that this was the closest I had been to him, both physically and in just friendly ways, for a while. I turned my head to look at him and felt a jolt go through me as I recognized the feeling. I had missed him.
Sure, we had spent time together and talked before, but I hadn't felt this comfortable around him in a long time. As if sensing my shifting mood, Donatello glanced over at me, curiosity on his features. "What's wrong?" he asked.
Not wanting to ruin the moment with some emotional statement, I shook my head, trying to convey my disinterest in the subject. "Nothing." Turning back to the package at hand, I neatly folded the corners and taped them off. "Finished!" I said triumphantly, and picked up a sticky bow to put on top. "All done."
"Very nice," he said, and we piled up the gifts between us and began to walk out of the Lab.
Unexpectedly, we caught Mikey right outside with a wicked grin on his face and a camera in his hands. Don and I glanced at each other, confused. "Mikey," I asked, "what're you doing?"
He said nothing, but pointed up. With a sinking feeling, my eyes traveled the path of his finger to discover that Donatello and I had unwittingly found ourselves under that most dangerous of Christmas decorations- mistletoe.
"Michelangelo Hamato, I am going to get you if it's the last thing I do," I told him. Donatello just looked like he was going to drop everything and beat his younger brother into the ground. He might have too, had not Leonardo and Raphael suddenly appeared behind him, both wearing frighteningly similar smug grins. "This means war," I said to the three.
Mikey paid no attention to my threats, but shook the camera at me. "Aw, c'mon, Irms, just for the photo album. Doesn't have to be long or anything."
His pleading voice managed to break down my resolve somewhat. His wish for a Christmas with all the trimmings matched the wish I once had a long time ago. Finally relenting, I gave an exasperated sigh and shoved the gifts I was carrying into Raph's arms. "One time, one photo," I said firmly. Mikey nodded in agreement and Leo took the gifts that Don was holding.
Don turned to me wearing an expression of nervous apprehension, mixed with something else that I couldn't quite discern.
"Jesus, Donny, would ya calm down? It's not like you're cutting off an arm or somethin'," Raph said condescendingly to his brother. I saw a flush of color creep into Don's cheeks, and before he could move to punch Raph in the jaw, I took his face in mine and pressed my lips against his. I could feel his body go completely into shock, and as I heard the click of the camera, I knew that the picture would have me kissing a very surprised Don in it. I pulled back quickly and made faces at Raphael and Mikey who were jokingly whistling at the two of us. "Get a room, you two!" "Oh, my virgin eyes!" Leo said nothing but laughed and proceeded to push the other two out of the hallway, still carrying Don's things in his arms.
Neither Don nor myself moved until he gave a nervous chuckle, which made a giggle fly out from my mouth. He turned to stare at me and before I knew it we were laughing. "We have totally got to get them back somehow," I chuckled once our laughter had subsided.
"Yeah," Don agreed, and then did a faceplam in exasperation. "I won't hear the end of this for weeks. Although I have to say," he said, his gaze growing distant, "it certainly is something to be the first one of us to be kissed."
Once more, I was struck by my own stupidity. "Ah… That was your first kiss then."
"Well, yeah, not like there's much of a chance of us getting kissed by a beautiful woman down here." He turned to grin at me, but it faded away to be replaced by confusion when he saw my face.
I must have looked upset about something, but I was thinking about my own first kiss. It had been a messy affair, with the boy prying my jaw open to stick his tongue inside, an awkward meeting of teeth and lips. I hadn't had a real kiss until several years later. I had always felt, looking back, that I deserved a better first kiss. Everyone should have a first kiss that stayed with them, not for the strangeness, but for the sweetness it brought to mind. Donatello deserved that. He shouldn't have had to deal with a half-assed kiss, an attempt to get people to leave us alone for the rest of the night.
"Don," I said, my voice sounding oddly quiet, "let's pretend that that kiss didn't happen. Let's pretend it was practice."
The bewilderment he was feeling was written all over his face at this point. "Huh? Why?"
"So that this can be your first." And before I could change my mind, I wrapped my arms around his shoulders and pulled my face closer to his, keeping eye contact with him the entire time, until my lips met his own, pressed against his in a chaste but honest-to-goodness-real-kiss kind of way. He didn't respond at first- I hadn't expected him to- but suddenly one arm wrapped around my waist firmly but gently and the other lay along my spine while his hand rested at the base of my head. The kiss was returned, and it abruptly changed from chaste and sweet to deep and passionate. It was as though every strained emotion, every thought, every feeling that we had pulled back and shoved away came into that one kiss, and I can honestly say that if the sun had collided with the earth right at that instant, I would never have noticed.
We both pulled back from each other gradually, our faces flushed and our eyes wide. I licked my lips and he stood back, opening his mouth as though to say something, but nothing came out. I felt such turmoil within myself; I felt like if I let him go without saying something, if I just walked away, I would be denying what had just happened, and if I did that, whatever had sparked between us would just disappear forever. For some reason that thought brought a huge, deep ache to my chest, and I knew I had to say something, anything to him.
I had no idea what I was going to say, but I began with "Don-" before I was cut off by Casey shouting down the hallway for us to get our rears in gear. My head snapped in the direction of the voice, and before I could continue what I had been planning to say, Donny was walking past me, his eyes not meeting mine. I stood stock still as he walked on, and I felt something that was suspiciously like a sob starting to rise in my throat. Had I done something wrong? Hadn't he liked the kiss? Had I misinterpreted what I had thought had been equal enjoyment for something else? I felt hurt and confused, and unsure of what to do next. I took a shaky breath and felt tears start to fill my eyes, and I didn't even care at that moment that I wasn't wearing water-proof mascara.
And then suddenly my pride kicked in. This wasn't the first time I had been rejected and hurt. I was better than this. I was stronger. I would move past it and learn my lesson- the hard way, just like I learned all the others. If he wanted to pretend nothing had happened, then fine, nothing had happened. Squaring back my shoulders, I managed to wipe away the unshed tears and leave my mascara as untouched as I could before I went back to join the crowd.
When they asked me what had taken so long, I told them that I had forgotten a bracelet back in the lab and had to go grab it. The others bought the excuse and teased me a little on my forgetfulness. Donatello said nothing, and I said nothing to him other than the occasional request to pass something. I don't think any of the others noticed that something had shifted between the two of us. We had decided to all open our gifts at the same time, something that I was grateful for especially as I opened Don's present to myself to find a pair of beautiful quartz earrings in the shape of orchids.
Once more I felt the tears start to come to my eyes, and the only thing that stopped them was the soft voice of Donny coming from behind me. "I remembered that you said your favorite flowers were orchids," he said, and I spun around to see him watching me with a somewhat sad and resigned expression. "I thought you might like them. They aren't pearls, but…"
I sniffed and wiped my eyes with my hands, immediately pulling the black pearl earrings that Ken had given me out of my ears and put the ones that Don had given me in them instead. "I love them, Donatello," I said, looking up at him. "They're beautiful. I don't care that they're not pearls."
He watched me, and then reached out to brush the tip of one of his fingers against the lobe of my ear where the orchid sat. "They look beautiful, Irms," he said to me. "I thought they'd look pretty, but you make them look beautiful."
The sound of a champagne bottle opening broke us out of our trance-like state and suddenly the two of us were toasting along with everyone else, laughing and saying our thank-you's for each other's gifts. I had gotten for Master Splinter a wooden box filled with packets of different types of Japanese tea, and for Leo I had an authentic hand-painted wall scroll to add to his collection. For Raph, I gave him the extended uncut editions of Underworld I and II, and for Mikey, I bought a yearlong subscription to his favorite comic. When Donatello opened up his gift, he gave a sharp inhale of breath and then turned to stare at me. "Irma, how did you know?"
I grinned at him. I had bought him the complete works of all the ancient Greek and Roman philosophers, along with several books of mathematical theory from Albert Enstein and Issac Newton. I knew he probably already knew everything in them, but these were beautifully printed and I thought that he would like flipping through them nonetheless. The admiration in his face as he thumbed through the pages gave me a warm glow inside, and it covered up the awful sadness I felt at the rejection just enough to tide me through the rest of the evening.
The boys wanted to escort me home at the end of the night (it was two in the morning by the time we all left) but I declined, saying that I could walk back with April and Casey. The three of us started the trek through the sewers back to our apartments, and by the time they wished me goodbye as I got into a cab and arrived back home, it was three AM. I quickly changed into pajamas and crawled into bed, putting the earrings I had been given on the bedside table. I lay there staring at them for a few moments until I turned the lights out and was left alone with my thoughts. And finally, now that I was alone and no one would be there to judge me or call me weak and pathetic, I finally let those tears fall. I hugged my pillow to me, feeling terribly alone despite having been near my closest friends only hours before, and cried myself to sleep.
The week after Christmas brought me a peace that I needed, and I spent the time off mostly relaxing at home. As usual, my family wasn't celebrating Christmas, so there was no reason to call my parents. I did phone my sister and brother and wish them a happy holiday however, so it wasn't as though I was completely isolating myself.
As for Ken and I, we had sort of roughly made up, although the residual anger still hadn't faded. He was ridiculously petty about the whole thing, bringing up how it wasn't like I was completely perfect and that I was nit-picky. We had eventually agreed to disagree, and had made plans to go out with each other on New Years. He picked me up as usual, and also as usual we had a great time until about 11:30, when he suddenly pulled the disappearing act on me again.
At that point I got so angry that I left the club we had gone to, went to a liquor store, bought myself some Cuban Rum and went home to mix up my own drinks and celebrate by myself. I got home at ten to midnight and proceeded to mix up three Cuba Libres and downed them all within five minutes. I then staggered out onto my balcony, carrying the rum in one hand, the liter of coke in my arm, and my tumbler full of ice cubes in the other. I plopped down onto my balcony chair and haphazardly put the drinks on the table. Making myself another drink, I lifted up the glass towards the moon and toasted myself. "Here's to you, Irma. Another year of horribly stupid mistakes and broken hearts." I tossed this one back as well, shuddering as the alcohol burned my throat on the way down. It was freezing outside, but thankfully not snowing or windy, so I could stand the cold for a few minutes until midnight.
I closed my eyes and leaned my head back, a long sigh escaping my lips. Then a voice said "That was an awful toast, Irma." My eyes flew open to reveal Donatello sitting in the shadows at the edge of my balcony, watching me with a shaded look. I wasn't even surprised, really, and let my head flop back and my eyes close again. I could just as easily have been hallucinating. "Like you could think of a better one."
His expression didn't change. "I think we could come up with a better one together."
Once more my eyes shot open and I looked up at him. "The hell are you talking about?"
Don gave a frustrated sigh and stared at the ground before turning back to me. "I wanted to… I wanted to apologize for what I did on Christmas."
"Are you referring to when you walked out on me after I gave you a kiss that ended up being a hundred times better than I could have ever imagined? Apology accepted, you can go now."
"You don't mean that."
"Says who?"
"Says the fact that you're wearing the earrings that I gave you, and that your dress and shoes are purple, and that you're here alone and not dancing in a club with a guy that's interested in you."
I said nothing to this, and he hesitated for a moment before continuing. "And… and I wouldn't go anyway, even if you did mean it."
"Why?" I challenged him. "Because I kissed you? Because I'm depressed thanks to my fucked up love life, to which you've contributed? Because you're worried I'll finally hurl myself off the balcony in a fit of self-despair like I've considered doing before?"
In a heartbeat he was standing over me, his silhouette outlined by the moonlight shining down on the two of us. Had his movements not been so aggressive and obviously angry, I would have thought it romantic. As it was, I was worried. Not because he'd hurt me, I knew he'd never do that, but because he was mad at me, and for the first time I realized how easily he could harm me if he really wanted to, how easily he could grab me and stop me from doing anything. I was forcibly reminded that he was, besides everything else, a very capable fighter. "Never," he growled at me, slowly and dangerously, "say anything like that again. I never want to hear you even saying remotely like that, ever."
Had I been in control of my senses, I would have shut up right there and not said anything more on the matter. But the drinks were talking now and I couldn't seem to stop the fury I felt at what I perceived to be injustice in the situation rise up. "That's right," I hissed at him. "That's right, I can only feel what you want me to feel. I can't make anything inconvenient for you, or worry you, but when you walk out on me after suddenly making me feel wonderful, that's just fine. I see how it is. Well, you can just take your goddamned self-righteous fucking ninja honor and-"
I suddenly found myself being dragged to my feet and before I could so much as cry out in fear, Donatello had slammed his lips against mine, his arms wrapped around me, clutching my loose hair in his hand. It was my turn to be shocked, but within seconds I had my arms wrapped around him, hungrily returning the kiss, feeling a familiar sort of fire start licking through my bones enhanced by the alcohol and utter joy I was feeling at knowing finally that I wasn't alone in how I felt. It was nothing like the first time when I had kissed him, which was deep and enjoyable but also tame. This was fierce, with both of us wordlessly demanding of each other and taking and giving until neither of us could breathe and then Donatello suddenly pushed me away, both of us breathing heavily. "Too much," he gasped out. "It's too much. I can't take it."
"The hell are you talking about now?" I demanded, and reached for him again. I was stopped by an outstretched arm. I froze and stared at it before dragging my eyes up to meet his, trying hard to keep the feeling of a crumbing world from taking over my senses. "Donny?" I asked, and I hated how my voice trembled as I whispered his name, wondering what was wrong and What did I do?
"I'm a turtle, Irma!" he said suddenly, meeting my eyes with a look of desperate misery in them. "I can't give you what you deserve. I can't give you what you need. You should find someone normal, someone who can walk with you in parks and take you to movies and sit in restaurants and chat with you about books and… and…" His voice faded momentarily and then he spoke again, conveying a sort of resigned unhappiness. "You should find someone who can make you happy. You should be happy." He didn't break his gaze from mine, but took a ragged breath before saying "You deserve someone who can make you happy."
"You make me happy," I said fiercely, wanting to argue against his inane reasoning but unable to do so due to lack of ability to think at that particular moment. "I don't care about the other things, I want you. Why shouldn't you deserve to be happy too?"
He shook his head and turned away. "I keep trying to convince myself that you're just a craving for something new, a typical hormonal response to being presented with a female that is not attached to feelings of sibling affection. An understandable reaction that is felt universally by every mammal on the planet. But it's not enough. It's never enough. If I gave in and we were together, I…" he stopped and turned back to me. "It just isn't good enough for you. I can't allow myself to think of this as anything more than a… a one time-"
I shut him up by throwing myself around him again, and his next words were lost in another kiss, as wild and passionate as the first one. He resisted at first, but soon he was returning it back and we were lost and wrapped up together again. I pulled my lips away from his for a moment to lightly bite along his neck, making him groan. "Hate to tell you this, honey," I whispered heatedly against his skin, so strange feeling but so familiar, "but I don't think this craving is going away for either of us." He said nothing but pulled my lips back to his.
It was probably the biggest cliché in the world when the fireworks started going off, but neither of us paid much attention to them besides noting the shades of colors that exploded across our skin as they flew into the air, igniting in a cascade of fiery sparkles. The booms and crackles drowned out the small sounds of pleasure we were eliciting from each other when we occasionally broke off our kisses to nip and kiss at each other's throats and (in my case) ears. Don followed my lead in our movements with each other, quickly learning from what I did to make him feel good. He soon had me in as much of a state as I had him, and I reveled in the feelings that I hadn't had for longer than I cared to think about.
We sat like this for a bit while the cheers of people filled the air along with the sounds from the fireworks. Finally, he gently pushed me away, stepping back. I made a sound of protest and reached out for him again but he kept his distance. "No," he whispered at length. "I can't do this to you. I can't… It's not right. I have nothing to offer you."
Before I could retort, he leaned forward abruptly to press one last kiss against my lips before he retreated back into the shadows. I couldn't see him, but I could hear him start to jump from one ledge to another as he ran away, leaving me behind. I rushed to the side of the balcony that he had jumped from and called out for him desperately, even though I knew he wasn't going to come back. Finally, I gave up and just stood there, feeling once more the empty heart ache I had before.
At first, the pain I was felt was all-encompassing. I couldn't think clearly, couldn't even breathe, and then suddenly the sobs came. They were hard, deep, gut-wrenching, awful sobs. The kind of sobs that can only come from feeling your heart breaking into a hundred pieces, from having a great hope smashed to bits, from having a long-held dream crushed into the dust. This is what I felt for a while, sinking down onto the ice cold ground, ignoring the numbness and the cold slowly pushing into my body, making my lips chatter and my body shake. I'm not sure how long I was there, wallowing in my misery, but it certainly didn't last for more than ten minutes or so. I lifted my head up at this point, staring up at the sky, and I could feel my inner voice start to cry out to me.
Is this the first time this has happened to you? it said to me. Didn't this same man leave you just days before, just like this? Didn't other men leave you in this state, miserable and soul-sick? What did you do then, hmm? Did anything get solved through sitting around and moping?
NO! it shouted at me. NO! You will not let this defeat you! Rise and rise again, drag yourself through the dirt with your fingernails if you must, but each time they shove you down, rise up stronger than before!
Oh? I asked my inner voice tiredly. And then what? What happens next?
I received no answer but this: You live.
And all of a sudden a resolve, stronger than anything I had felt before suddenly filled me, and knew that although I couldn't bring Donatello back, I could at least do something for myself. I was stronger than this. True, I felt wretched on the inside, but I had my pride. I would shove it away in favor of more productive things, and push it in the same box as the "What If's" and "If Only's", to be dumped in the dark recesses in the back of my mind. If he didn't want me, I wouldn't spend my time pining over him. I had better things to do, more important things to take care of, like what I was about to do.
I went inside, ignoring the frozen state of my limbs and the drinks on the outside table, and picked up my cell phone to dial a number. I waited for the person on the other end to pick up before speaking in a very calm and even tone. "Ken," I said, "I think we should break up."
Well… I think it's pretty obvious that this is probably the most emotionally charged chapters out of all of them. Needless to say, I was hoping it would come out that way. There's more to come, of course, but I felt that it ended perfectly right here. I seriously doubt that a relationship with a turtle would be easy, and I also doubt that Irma is oblivious to this fact, but she is, by this point, mature enough to recognize that no matter what relationship she goes into, it'll be hard. She's also had enough experience to know that despite their… unique circumstances, Don has done a lot more for her than other guys she's dated, and that counts for something important.
And Mikey… So devious! I never would of thought of him as a matchmaker. I applauded you, Devious Matchmaking Mikey.
There hasn't been much Ken lately. Don't worry, that'll change soon. (Evil author plot pointer)
I would really appreciate some serious criticism and discussion on this particular chapter, because this is the point where the characters can get really OOC, and I'd very much like to avoid that. I want them to be emotional without being ridiculous. Reviews really are helpful with this sort of thing. And if you just want to review without adding criticism, I certainly won't stop you, as long as it's not a flame.