Thank You Rise For Giving Me Mikey And Donnie Having Each Other's Backs That I Haven't Gotten Since 2k3

Thank you Rise for giving me Mikey and Donnie having each other's backs that I haven't gotten since 2k3

RAIN DAY ! 

I've been watching 12 and I love them too. I went into the show expecting to hate Leo and Raph cause of how I've heard some people talk about them but they're my favs in 12

Blood is Thicker than Ooze | Chapter Six

Word Count: 3524 Warnings: Bad Parent Draxum, Hurt Donatello, Unreliable narrator, Psychological abuse, Separated Donnie AU Description: Purple is the son of Draxum, a great warrior alchemist. With his help, Draxum will eradicate the prophesied human threat, and restore yōkai to the surface. Purple doesn’t understand why these three turtles are trying to stop them.

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Leo rolled his arm in its socket, trying to will away the pain he felt in his arm. It wasn’t broken or sprained, which was good. It was sore from being kept at a weird angle when caught by that Draxum guy's cocoon trap. 

Dad was still watching TV, just as he was when they had left. He wondered if the old rat had even noticed their absence before shaking his head. He sometimes thought so little of his father, despite what he gave up to raise them… It’s not like Splinter chose to become a rat, nor did he decide to raise three baby turtles all on his own in New York’s sewers.

He knew he was probably his least favorite. Mikey couldn’t be disliked by default; he was the youngest and sweetest. Raph was kind and strong. There was nothing to suggest that Dad didn’t like him or that he might like the other two. Leo could never shake that feeling of inferiority. 

“Leo, your arm okay?” His older brother’s voice pulled him from his thoughts. The large turtle mutant had a worried expression on his face; one Leo was familiar with. Raph worried too much, in his opinion. But he knew Raph didn’t think Leo was concerned enough. 

Leo gave him a thumbs up with the sore arm, ignoring the discomfort it caused him. “All good, big bro! Just a little stiff, is all. What about you and Mike’n’ike?”

“I’ve got no wounds,” Raph answered but looked worryingly at Mikey, who sat crisscrossed with an old iPad in his lap, either drawing or playing a game. “I’m worried that Mikey got hurt, though.”

“‘Wounds,’” Leo repeated with a chuckle before directing his attention towards the youngest of the three. Mikey was capable of many things, and Leo was painfully aware of his abilities. But he would always be his little brother, and he understood why Raph thought him so fragile. Not only was he the youngest, but he was also the smallest. Raph was always a little rougher when they were younger and had accidents when it came to playing with Mikey if he wasn’t careful enough. 

“Mikey,” Leo called, causing the younger turtle to look up at him. “You got any ‘wounds,’ as Raph would say?” Leo could practically hear Raph roll his eyes.

“Nope!” Mikey said with an enormous smile, returning to what he was doing. Leo saw that Mikey was holding a pencil and figured he was probably drawing. It was Mikey’s thing- other than cooking. Despite being named after artists, Leo and Raph never took up drawing as a real passion. But Mikey always had a niche for it. 

“His birthday’s coming up,” Leo said quietly to Raph. The older turtle nodded, glancing at the youngest for a moment before returning his gaze to Leo. “Maybe we could get him some of those markers he likes?”

“Copic?” Raph asked, clearly hesitant. “We got the pack he currently has at a discount from April’s old job- and even that was kinda pricey.”

“We can just buy a few colors,” The middle turtle suggested with a shrug. “We could ask him what colors he needs more of- or if he's run out of ink with some. I think they sell individual Copic markers at the Micheals near April’s apartment.” 

Raph nodded and patted him on the shoulder before yawning. “I’m gonna hit the rack. You should, too.” 

“Will do,” Leo assured him and watched his big brother disappear into his room. Leo was admittedly tired, but he knew that sleep often evaded him. There was no difference between being out and about while awake and being in bed, staring at the ceiling, and being awake. He made his way towards Mikey, observing his newest drawing.

It wasn’t incredibly realistic, which wasn’t a problem for Leo. Mikey had a very original style, and no matter what any pish posh artist said, it was his favorite art style in the world. 

Mikey had a sketched turtle that looked like Leo but… different. “You testing out a new style?” He asked, sitting next to him on the floor to watch him draw. 

Mikey shook his head. “I’m drawing the turtle we saw today.”

Leo stiffed unintentionally before forcing himself to relax. Was this a coping mechanism? “Don’t worry, buddy,” He said, bumping his shoulder softly with his own. “He’s not gonna hurt you.”

Mikey laughed at that. “I’m not scared of him!” The orange turtle said earnestly before slumping a bit. “Do you think we could be related? He looked like a turtle. He looked a bit like you, honestly.”

Leo hesitated for a moment, biting his lip at the comparison. “I don’t think he was a turtle. I mean- the thing on his back was more like a backpack than a shell. Plus, he didn’t look anything like me! I’m way more handsome.”

Mikey chuckled, and Leo smiled because his little brother was, too. “Yeah, you’re probably right. Dad would’ve told us if we had some crazy long-lost brother.” 

“Yeah,” Leo hummed before nudging the younger turtle softly before getting up. “You should head to bed soon, ‘kay?” Mikey nodded but had a reluctant look on his face, causing Leo to pause. “What’s wrong?”

“It’s a little stupid, but….” Mikey fidgeted with the pencil between his fingers but sighed and continued despite his apparent anxiety. “I’m still shaken up from earlier. Not about the not-turtle cyborg guy- just the goat man.”

Leo’s expression softened in understanding. “Wanna do a pile like old times? We could all sleep in Raph’s bed- I’m sure there’s enough room.” 

Mikey stood up, his iPad held against his chest, as he followed Leo toward their older brother’s room. Leo knew Raph would say yes. When they were younger, they often slept in a pile due to the childish fear of being alone. As they got older, they requested their own room and space. But, every now and then, one of them would get a nightmare. In that case, they all would go to Raph’s room for a sleepover pile. 

Leo might razz on them, but they all knew he would tear the Earth apart if it meant making sure his brothers were safe. And he knew that they would do the same for him. They were brothers, after all.

Purple hated his “brothers.” They didn’t even deserve that title. They were strangers at best and enemies at worst. They had forgotten him as a child and left him to die the previous day. They didn’t care about him then and had proven that they didn’t care about him now. 

The small flame of hope he had for their familial ties was snuffed out and buried when they attacked Father and him.

Father hadn’t spoken to him today, certainly disappointed in Purle’s catastrophic failure. It was well-deserved on Purple’s part, but knowing that didn’t stop the shame that prickled underneath his skin. 

He’d been avoiding his father’s judgemental gaze by staying in his room. It was a cowardly move, but it saved him from the embarrassment that would ensue if he had to confront his father and try to explain why the device they’d worked so hard on was now slit in two and all over the laboratory deck. 

“Are you still thinking about your brothers?” Shelldon questioned, to which Purple nodded. The turtle sighed, sitting with his knees pressed against his plastron. 

“I thought… we’re supposed to be family,” Purple murmured. He didn’t want to speak right now, his mouth feeling stuck and the words so hard to form. But he pushed himself anyways, knowing that he couldn’t remain silent. No, that was weird. He had to talk. “Why’d they leave?”

“To be fair, Draxum was trying to capture them. And you were helping him. In their eyes, you were being an aggressor. To help you would possibly mean getting themselves hurt,” Shelldon reasoned. It made sense, and Purple hated that it made sense. He didn’t want there to be a reasonable explanation for why they’d left him.

“I hate them,” Purple decided. “I hate them.”

“Fine with me,” Shelldon said nonchalantly, which Purple found odd. The tone, the way he spoke… It was all off. He turned to Shelldon and was surprised to see him connected to the spare computer he’d brought out for him the other day. He was playing Minecraft- but he wasn’t speedrunning it like he’d seen him do before. No, instead, Shelldon was building a house. Like, an actual house that looked nice and wasn’t entirely for practical reasons.

“What?” Shelldon asked, confused by his sudden silence and shocked expression. “It’s not that bad, is it?”

“You’re playing Minecraft,” Purple said dumbly, watching Shelldon continue to place bricks down. You didn’t need bricks to complete the game or make a practical house. “You’re not… trying to beat it?”

“Nah,” Shelldon shook his body as a sort of ‘no,’ which surprised Purple even more. “I wanted to build a house I found on Google Maps.” 

“You’re sentient,” Purple realized, at last, not caring for the house Shelldon immediately backed up from to show him a comparison. “You’re… Alive.”

“Well, duh,” Shelldon rolled his eyes. Purple didn’t know he’d programmed him to be able to do that. 

“When did you start….” Purple waved his hand in the air, searching for the words. “Having Yōkai-like intelligence?” 

“Rude,” Shelldon grumbled, his eyes narrowing in offense. “But I believe it had something to do with some of that mutagen getting into my circuitry yesterday when the lab exploded.”

“Oh,” Purple murmured. He didn’t know how that made sense. The mutagen was supposed to combine human and animal DNA to mutate them into yōkai-like beings. Robots weren’t supposed to be in that equation. “Interesting… I wonder if maybe you combined with my DNA? Since that would be the most recent organic lifeform, you came in contact with.”

“FUCK,” Shelldon said, causing Purple to whip around in worry. But he noticed that Shelldon had been blown up by a creeper and was on the death screen. “That MOTHERFUCKER blew up my house.”

“...Dude, just rebuild it,” Purple said, not understanding why the robot was so upset. It was weird to think that he could be upset at all. Guess that's a thing now. Sentient robots and crab men.

“I’m running all your data through a complex algorithm,” Shelldon said, and his eyes turned to 1’s and 0’s, a sign that he was genuinely computing something. “My algorithm has concluded that you are a bitch.”

“I don’t know if I prefer your sentient or not,” Purple deadpanned, but the smile on his face betrayed any lie he might’ve said. But a thought lingered in his mind, causing him to sigh and return to the previous topic of conversation. “I thought they would at least… care for me. In some regard. You can’t deny the resemblance.”

“If they had offered to take you with them, would you have gone?” Shelldon asked. 

Purple played with his fingers in his lap. “No,” he admitted quietly. “I couldn’t leave Father. I couldn’t survive without him.”

Shelldon didn’t respond to that and just returned to his game. Purple didn’t understand what Shelldon was feeling. “Are you mad at me?” 

“No?” Shelldon responded, confused by the question. “Why would I be mad at you?” 

“Oh,” Purple murmured, feeling embarrassed. “...Sorry. I’m bad at reading people, and… you’re not so easy to read, either.”

“What would help you understand what I’m feeling?” Shelldon asked, exiting the game to focus purely on Purple. It made the young turtle feel odd to have someone’s attention solely on him. It made him realize he didn’t want to talk about himself or his issues. It was uncomfortable.

“You don’t have to do anything,” Purple said honestly. “I need to work on that myself. Not everyone’s gonna be as accommodating as you are.”

“Alright,” Shelldon said. If he had shoulders, Purple was sure he’d be shrugging. He returned back to his game.

Purple sighed, burying his head in his knees. He pressed his kneecaps against his eyelids, watching the colors swirl in his vision. He knew the lights were an illusion created by the pressure that activated cells in his retina the same way natural light did. But it was nice to close his eyes and see patterns and shapes in his eyelids. He imagined that they were animals dancing across his vision.

-

He was seven. Training with Father had started when he was five, and he’d gotten progressively stronger through the years. He’d been clumsy and slow at first, but his balance had improved. Father had even brought him his wooden bō and bought a training dummy just for him.

“Again,” His father called as he backed away from the dummy, already tired and strained from the twenty-minute training session. 

He wanted to stop. He wanted to sit down and get drenched in cold water to cool off. But he knew it would only be ten more minutes until they were done, so he continued. 

The dummy was mystical in nature. It was able to replicate a real foe, and its settings could be adjusted to fit the trainee. It was a gift for his fifth birthday and something he cherished. It currently held the form of a human. 

He charged the dummy once again. The mechanical figure had arms that reacted and attacked, but Purple made sure to counter each blow. He was on the second to the lowest setting, which was frankly embarrassing for his age.

When the dummy went to rebalance itself, Purple swung his bō against its stomach, causing it to fall back onto the ground. It got back up, but Purple was able to use this moment of recuperation against it as he swung at its legs. 

The human kicked him back, and the soft-shelled turtle landed on his back. He cried out in pain, looking towards his father for help. But his father shook his head and pointed at the pseudo-attacker. Purple forced himself up despite his aching joints and knocked the opponent’s fists away from him just as it tried to punch him. He moved around the training dummy, shaking slightly. He moved forward and struck a blow to the dummy’s side, who recoiled and hesitated. Purple leaped into the air and used his bō to directly smack against its neck. When he landed on his side just feet away from the mystic fighting dummy, he watched it return to its standard stance when not in active training.

Purple fought to catch his breath, his lungs feeling as though they were burning. He began to cough, clutching his side. His face was hot with tears that hadn’t been given permission to fall. 

He felt a hand begin to rub his bare shell, the soft touch comforting to him. “Are you okay? Purple, is something wrong?” Father asked, his voice full of concern. “Are you hurt?”

He shook his head numbly, unable to get words to form. He tried to stand up but turned and hurled his lunch onto the mat next to him. Tears mixed with the disgusting bile on the carpet as he cried from the pain that shot through his throat. 

Father shushed him soothingly, still rubbing his back. “It’s okay, Purple,” he said softly before reaching for the tiny turtle. Purple didn’t complain and clung to his father, his small body shaking. 

He buried his head into his father’s shoulder, tears staining the shoulder pads. But Father didn’t care, more concerned with his son’s health than the awful vomit. 

“Huginn will clean that up,” Father said. “Let’s get you some water.”

Purple nodded and looked up at his father with wide eyes. “I’m sorry,” he murmured softly. “I didn’t wanna throw up.”

“I know,” Father said, petting his head. “It happens. As you train more, that’ll happen less. But just because you threw up doesn’t mean you can skip the last eight minutes of training. We’ll just add that time onto tomorrow.”

Purple didn’t protest and instead felt himself sinking more into Father’s touch and comforting presence. The training was a necessity; he knew that. Father only did it to make him stronger and improve him. Really, he was fortunate that his father had the materials and means to train him. Not many others had this luxury. He had to take advantage of the situation he was blessed to be in.

-

Purple sat idly in the training room. He didn’t have his bō on him, nor his battle shell. His back was bare as he stood there just observing the room. Weapons clattered on the floor when his “brothers” trudged into and stole the mystic weapons Father had paid a fortune to acquire.

Long ago, Father had shown him the wall of weapons. He told him that he’d be given the glowing purple scythe that hung on the wall once he was ready. The weapons next to it were reserved for his brothers when he was strong enough to save them and bring them back home.

But now they were gone. Both his brothers and the weapons on the wall save the scythe reserved for Purple. It was oddly fitting, in a way. They’d even left behind the powerful weapon, just like they’d left him. 

He wasn’t sure if he’d ever be ready for the scythe. Both in skill and sentiment. His bō represented him on a fundamental level he wasn’t sure anyone but him would understand. He made his bō from scraps and pieces forgotten in a junkyard and used those chunks to create something beautiful. 

He reached for the scythe on the wall, feeling the spark of mystic energy tickle his hand. But it felt wrong, so he pulled away. He wasn’t deserving of it- not yet. Maybe he never would be ready.

But he was willing to try. Purple may never use the weapon his father had gotten for him, but it wasn’t about the weapon. It was about himself and his ability to yield it. He needed to become more mature- more of a warrior. More of what his father aspired for him to be. More of what he wanted to be.

There was so much more he could do. 

The purple-marked turtle stood outside his father’s room. He wanted to knock, to let his father know what he’d been thinking. But he was afraid of his father’s disappointment and scorn. 

He sucked in a breath and knocked.

“Come in,” his father’s muffled voice came from behind the door after a moment. Purple pushed the door open, ignoring how his legs shook from anxiety. 

His father was sitting on his bed, his armor removed. Purple rarely saw him like this, exposed and vulnerable. It reminded him that they were similar in many ways. The horns on Father’s helmet were fake and not his own. He was a bovine yōkai with no horns in the same vein as Purple, a turtle mutant with no shell.

He had to remind himself that Father may push him, but Purple shouldn’t be ungrateful for his actions. Father did what he did out of love and a need to protect him. Because he knew what it was like to not have one of the most excellent defenses of your adjacent species.

“Purple,” Father said, his gaze holding a disappointment that only made Purple’s anxieties worse. 

“I’m sorry about yesterday,” Purple said, awkwardly standing in the middle of the bedroom. He shuffled his feet and glanced around the room as he thought about what to say next. “I… I should’ve told you about the intruders. I should’ve fought better. I should’ve defended the lab better….” 

Father sat on the couch in his room, his legs crossed as he observed his son. “I love you, Purple,” he said slowly, “but I don’t want you to be sorry. I just want you to do things right. So, do what you can to ensure this… misstep isn’t repeated, okay?”

Purple nodded solemnly, guilt pooling in his chest. “I promise it won’t. I want to be more involved- I want to help more. I… I held back because I couldn’t… I thought of them as my brothers, not my enemy. I won’t make that mistake again.”

“Oh, Purple….” Father sighed, motioning for Purple to come closer. The turtle did as instructed and was embraced by the older yōkai. “One day, maybe they will come around, and we can all be a family together. I know what it’s like to be backstabbed by your siblings- my own sister tried to kill me as I slept, and we were forced to live separately. It is sad, but your brothers will never be for you when it really matters. But I will always be here for you, Purple. I will never let you go.”

The turtle found comfort in his father’s words and found the embrace they shared warm and protective. Father was like the sun; warm, essential, and generous. Father shared his light and warmth with Purple. The least he could do was share his light.