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So, that happened.
For the small family—including Casey and April—the past two days had been hell. First it was the “mom-thing,” which was a nightmare. It sucked for April because she just wanted her mom; it sucked for Casey because he just wanted to support April; it sucked for his older brothers because they had finally had a real day off with Leo; then it sucked for him because he had figured out early on that the mom-thing was suspicious and no one had believed him.
Honestly?
He wanted the day to be over. However, he had also, on the way home from that frog treehouse place or whatever, planned on cleaning the farmhouse for real while his family slept.
Raph quickly went to bed, loudly proclaiming his exhaustion, followed by Casey, who presumably passed out on the floor somewhere if the thumping noise had anything to say about it. April went to her own room, and soon, Leo went to his as well. Donnie, who couldn’t learn to sleep to save his life, retreated to the farmhouse to do whatever science-y thing it was that he did.
Good, now the place was empty.
Mikey dragged himself off the couch and began by picking up trash that the amphibian ambush had left, as well as pieces of wooden door and glass. At one point, Mikey sliced open his finger, and had to stick it in his mouth and bite down so as to not cry out in pain. He bandaged the finger and went to work once more. He swept and mopped and dusted and wiped and moved. He worked until the kitchen and living room (plus the adjacent hallway between them) were practically sparkling with cleanliness. Mikey bet, if he were a cartoon character and also not extremely physically worn that there would be little flares of light to accentuate the shiny, new, polished cleanness of everything.
He chuckled to himself at the thought.
Gently, he laid on the couch and picked up the remote. It was still on Crognard.
He cringed. That was what had made him mess up the house and subsequently run away with a bindle like some old-timey cartoon character. He flipped channels until it landed on some 80s cartoon about aspiring world-dominating lab mice. The theme song was catchy and, soon, Mikey began to fall asleep.
—
After what felt like five seconds, he was slowly dragged from sleep into the real world by quiet chatter and floorboards creaking and shifting under footsteps. Mikey kept his eyes closed, but tuned into his sense of hearing.
“… dn’t think he would do all that…”
Okay, that was Raph.
“… you expect?! You were… and I’m sure… didn’t appreciate it…”
April.
The muffled conversation shifted in and out of his hearing and only left bits and pieces behind. His ears strained to listen.
“He probably feels underappreciated… sn’t help that you’re constantly yelling at him!”
April’s voice was picking up in volume.
“… know, I know. I… I’ll talk to him. He… I don’t know, I just can’t… live thinking that I’m a bad older brother or that Mikey hates m…”
Surprisingly, Raph’s voice was gentle and tender and vulnerable. Mikey could practically see the look on his older brother’s face: his mask would crinkle in the middle with this invisible eyebrows in a pathetic, sad furrow, while his eyes would widen and his mouth would press into a small, thin line.
There was a hollow ache in Mikey’s heart, pushing him to go to his brother, to hug him and hold him and tell him how great he was and how much he looked up to him. However, the dull pain in his bones fought that, and won. He strained his hearing, focusing once more.
“… should apologize to him…”
Oh. When did Donnie get in there?
If two of his brothers were down there, then it would be inevitable that-
“…eah, probably. Did you guys see the state of the house? It’s alm… sparkling…”
Leo.
“I could go wake ‘im, if ya want,” Raph offered, his voice clearer as he audibly moved towards the living room.
Mikey kept his eyes shut, listening to his brothers fully enter the room.
Suddenly, there was a warm, calloused hand on his arm, gently shaking him. Slowly, he opened his eyes to be greeted by a pair of green ones.
“Mornin’, sleeping beauty,” Raph teased. “Hey,” Mikey responded, sitting up to allow his brothers to sit on the couch with him.
Donnie sat to his immediate right, but Leo and Raph stood in front of him.
Donnie scratched the back of his head with an anxious hand. “So… I see you… did some cleaning,” he started hesitantly and, despite knowing that his brothers would have inevitably confronted him at some point, Mikey still found himself getting flustered. “You did good, little brother,” Leo praised gently. “Yeah, well… I couldn’t just leave it all gross ‘n stuff,” he replied, “and, you know, I’m sorry for messin’ up the place. I really didn’t mean to, and I shouldn’t have ran away and got you guys in all that trouble with those frog dudes. Man, I… I royally effed up, dudes. I’m sorry. I mess up everything. I really am a screw-up. I’m sorry.”
He saw Raph wince and share a look with Leo. He frowned deeper. He truly hadn’t meant to cause so much distress, but it hurt when Raph had called him names and his other brothers had let it be without a word.
Raph cleared his throat, and Donnie and Leo stared at him, as if willing some sort of response out of him. Mikey simply sat perfectly still in his spot, afraid to shatter the perfect tension of the moment.
Suddenly, Raph stepped forward, closer to Mikey. “Stand up,” he said, and while not mean, his unclear tone was firm. Mikey obeyed hesitantly, unsure of what the hell was happening, when strong arms suddenly yanked him forward and he found himself pressed tightly against his brother in red and nose buried in said brother’s shoulder.
“Don’t say that stuff, man.”
Mikey forced himself from his older brother’s hold. “Don’t say what?”
“That you’re a screw-up, Mikey. You know that’s not true,” Leo interjected from behind Raph. Donnie had stood up too, nodding in agreement. “You’re awesome, Mikey,” the tallest added.
But…
“Raph called me that yesterday, and you guys didn’t even say anything.”
Raph looked at the floor. “You know he didn’t mean it,” Donnie soothed, placing a hand on Mikey’s shoulder. Mikey swatted his hand away. “He ‘didn’t mean it?’ All that stuff you guys said about me these past few days, you… you just… ‘didn’t mean it?’”
Mikey was not typically one to get angry, but his brothers were blowing off everything like it hadn’t happened. Like it hadn’t mattered. “Of course not-“ “That interrogation where you screamed in my face… you didn’t mean it? You didn’t mean it when I accidentally hit something because I tripped, and you yelled at me? Or when I was right about the mom-thing, and none of you apologized or even acknowledged that, ‘Hey, Mikey was right, actually!’? That’s not fair!”
Mikey’s brothers were growing more and more uncomfortable with his rising anger, and he could see it.
“I was throwing up all night, and I wanted to! Because if I hadn’t, I would have been having horrific and graphic nightmares keeping me awake instead!”
His brothers looked like they wanted to interject, but he continued. It was spilling out of him, like a cup filled too full, and he kept going.
“You didn’t mean it when you told me I mess up everything or that I’m a screw-up? You guys didn’t mean it when we were in that Kraang facility and none of you wanted to partner with me ‘over your dead body?’ What about when you yelled at me for saving you from the wasp-things? Or all those times where you yelled at me and blamed me and called me names and told me I was stupid, huh? What about then?”
He was panting now, his pent-up anger’s release tiring him out and making his voice hoarse.
“If you didn’t mean those things, why did you fucking say them, over and over?”
His brothers flinched at the expletive. Mikey swearing was well enough to make a sailor blush, mainly because he had only done it one other time in his life a long time ago on accident. He was explicitly adamant on avoiding using them at all, if he could help it.
“Whoa, what’s happening in here?” Casey asked as he and April poked their heads into the living room.
“Mikey was just yelling at us about some stuff,” Raph frowned, his face unreadable.
Leo and Donnie avoided eye contact with everyone in the room.
“‘Some stuff?’ Wh…” Mikey didn’t have the energy to be angry anymore. He felt something burning behind his eyes, threatening to spill out all over his face. “Whatever, nevermind. I was just leaving to get some fresh air.” With that, he turned around, walked out, and slammed the door.
~~
Mikey found solace in punching things. He figured this was why Raph liked it so much.
Raph…
The name gave him so much frustration that he swung one last punch at the tree in front of him. The bark was torn and marred from his relentless beating over the past thirty minutes. He looked at his hands, which were cut open and bleeding at the knuckles from his fistful rampage on the tree. I wonder if Steve ever has this issue, Mikey mused dryly.
Stalking around the back of the house, he snuck into the kitchen and ran the faucet, gently cleansing his hands and plucking out splinters, despite the sting of the water. He flapped his hands dry and retreated back to the outdoors.
~~
“He didn’t run away. Saw him out there punchin’ stuff,” Raph explained to a concerned Leonardo. “I know, but…” “What if he does?” Donnie finished for the eldest. Raph exhaled loudly. “We’ll take care of it. Plus, he… he seemed really mad. I think we should give him some space.” He scratched the back of his head anxiously.
“I don’t know. Last time you guys left him alone, he ran off,” Casey argued from the stairway. “Yeah, and you guys weren’t exactly doing a great job of listening to what he had to say today either,” April added accusingly, pointing at them, “you blew him off. No wonder he went out to cool down. He probably doesn’t feel respected by any of us.”
All five occupants of the room lowered their heads in shame, avoiding eye contact. Raph spoke up, softly.
“We messed up. Again.”
~~
Grunting, Mikey heaved himself over the lip of the roof’s overhang and rolled onto his back once he made it. He looked over the edge. He could see so much from the roof of the farmhouse; it was almost mesmerizing. Mikey folded his hands behind his head, gazing at the sky longingly. Man, I really let ‘em have it, he thought to himself.
They always blow me off. I hate it.
Mikey wrapped his arms around himself in a faux hug. “Man, this sucks,” he groaned, voice creaky and hoarse from yelling. It was getting a little chilly, and his knuckles felt the nip of the cold. He huffed, rubbing his arms with his thumbs. “Whatever, they’d probably just blow me off again if I explained how I felt.”
He observed the clouds, which were moving steadily by without a care in the world. He wished he could do that. He closed his eyes thoughtfully, focusing on breathing deeply. Mikey had never been good at meditating, but if Sensei was… gone… he figured he’d try to at least put that time spent learning it to good use.
Wow, he was actually really good at this! He’d been meditating for at least a minute, if his body clock was anything to go by.
That is, until he was broken out of it. There was the sound of someone climbing onto the roof from the opposite side. Mikey opened his eyes and felt warmth on his face. Quickly, he wiped away the tears and watched Raph make his way over the peak of the roof and over to him.
Raph hesitantly sat down next to him, being careful not to slip. Mikey, however, stayed laying down. He couldn’t be bothered to move.
“Hey, Mike,” Raph started slowly. “Hey.” It was the least he could do, he supposed, to respond.
“We shouldn’t’a blown you off earlier, bud.”
Mikey snorted at Raph’s apology. “It doesn’t matter; you’ll just do it again tomorrow, and the next day, and the day after that.”
Raph frowned. “Well, I’m trying to apologize, Mike. What do you want me to say? ‘Sorry in advance for being a bad brother’?” Mikey growled at Raph’s raised voice. “You know, I wouldn’t be so mad if you actually took time to change how you treat me instead of just apologizing and then doing it again every time this happens,” he spat.
Raph bristled. “Oh, so I’m the problem? Sorry I can’t be perfect for you, your majesty!” The youngest pulled away as if he had been struck. “I don’t want you to be perfect! I just want you to like me—!” He smacked a hand over his own mouth. He had spent so long trying again and again to prove to himself that his brothers liked him and saying that out loud made everything more real. Like years of trying and failing and trying and failing were for naught.
Raph was quiet. How was he supposed to respond to something like that?
“Mike… I…” he tried, but his words stopped at the lump in his throat like a dam. Mikey sighed. “I really, really don’t want to hear it. All you guys do is belittle me and lie to me and say bad stuff about me and I just… I’m tired of it, man.”
Mikey’s shoulders slumped as if the weight on his shoulders was draped over him like a blanket. “I’m so tired. I’m so tired of everything.” He shook his head gently, the exhaustion dripping from his words flying out.
The roof creaked again. “What do you guys want from me?” Mikey asked, but it sounded more like a statement than a question.
There was no answer.
“You’re right,” Raph said, after some time, “we haven’t always been… you know, the best brothers. It… affection is hard. I’m not good at it, Leo’s got no idea what he’s doing, and Don can’t give a guy a hug to save his life. It’s so easy to be mean when all you’ve ever known is fighting.”
Mikey looked at the emerging stars in the sky. Maybe he had been meditating for longer than he thought.
Leo huffed next to him. “I think what he’s trying to say is that we don’t… break our emotional walls down enough to be nice to each other, or ourselves. Somehow, you do. You do, and you keep doing it no matter how much shit the world throws at you.” The brother in blue turned his head, and the brother in orange met his gaze. “You do amazing things, Mikey. We just… don’t see it. We don’t appreciate it.” Donnie hummed in agreement, from next to Leo. Raph and Mikey couldn’t see him, but they heard the gentle smile on his face. “For a bunch of ninjas who claim to be hyper-observant, there sure is a lot of stuff we miss.” Donnie sat up to look over at Mikey, because they had all laid down against the cold roof. “We are really, really sorry. We should have seen you and heard you and appreciated you.”
Leo and Raph followed his lead and sat up. The eldest rested a cool hand on Mikey’s shoulder. “We are so sorry, Mikey. We do love you, and we should do a better job of showing it.” Raph looked away, flustered at his inability to be sentimental. “I’m sorry, too. I said some messed up stuff you didn’t deserve to have said to you.”
Mikey slowly sat up. Hugging his legs and resting his chin on his knees, he smiled out at the woods blanketing the nature around them. “That… that’s all I’ve ever wanted to hear, is that I matter.” He sniffled, rubbing his eyes. “Of course you matter!” Leo scrambled. Raph and Donnie quickly nodded. “How about we make dinner tonight—our treat?” Leo offered. Mikey gave him an odd look.
“Dude, no offense, but with your cooking I think you would undo all the sappy stuff that just happened right now,” he chuckled. “Sorry, Leo. ‘Kid’s right, your cooking is kind of an insult to food everywhere,” Raph piped in. Donnie just laughed, and Leo smiled with them, trying to hide his amusement. He rolled his eyes. “Okay, okay. But we will make it up to you. We can watch one of your favorite movies or something. How about that?”
Mikey smiled. “Sounds awesome!” Raph groaned. “B-but-!” Michelangelo put a finger over his mouth, silencing him. “I find your lack of faith disturbing.”
The four laughed until Mikey suddenly shot up.
He leapt off the roof, flipping in an overly grandiose way, and shouted “Last one in’s a rotten turtle egg!”
His brothers chased him inside, leaving their conflict to dissipate in the thick nighttime air.