tushanshu | 001; Audio - The one where Mike tries to make sense of this.

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001; Audio - The one where Mike tries to make sense of this.

[Mike knows the rules, and he knows them by heart: When you're in a new place, and you aren't sure of your surroundings, you stay hidden to stay safe. Someone will come and find you. So when the kedan deliver him to his suite, Michaelangelo stays there.

It's only after he's lowered all the shades, explored the suite from top to bottom, and booby-trapped the front door with common household items, that Mike turns his attention to the communication console. Mike's access and familiarity with all things computer has been limited at best, with the bulk of his exposure coming in the form of play-testing what ever new video game Donatello had been coding. So it comes as more than a little bit of a shock to him that the console is as easy for him to work as the skim-milk blue guy with a similar number of fingers on his hands said it would be.

It doesn't matter that he's not home, or that the people who found him aren't quite human, or even that anyone who saw him on this vidscreen thing could easily just assume he was some sort of special effect added in post production.]

Um...hello? I.
I'm just looking for my brothers. There was a light from some sort of machine. They started to disappear without me. I just. I just want to find them.

Leo? Donnie? Raph? Please tell me you're out there. Please?

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Don sucks in air between his teeth when he sees the wound, gingerly taking hold of the arm and tilting it for better light. These kind of wounds are still new to him, but he recognizes one poorly cared for all the same.

He grumbles, but he doesn't look up and his grip remains soft, at least until he finishes his examination and drops it, reaching for the bag on his back. "What happened? And, by the way? If you tear my stitches? You won't be moving for a month.

"Raph, get over here."

Edited 2013-03-14 04:33 (UTC)

Donnie. What.

Raph pushes himself up and slinks over. He gets a look at the wound and hisses quickly through his teeth before turning away. "Leo's fault, huh? He the one who stuck a sword through your arm?"

"No, he's the one who did the crap job of stitching me up in the first place. I'd have done it my damn self, but this is my dominant hand," he says wiggling the fingers on his right hand. A movement he quickly regrets.

"We got ambushed on a rooftop by some Foot ninja. We thought maybe with the Shredder gone they'd just clear out and go home, but they're running like chickens with their heads cut off instead. I thought...I really thought I had this guy, but...he got lucky. Raph," he pauses to look over at the Raph that isn't his. "He got the kill point instead.

Anyway, I made for a jump, to be a diversion so that the brain alien face things would go for me so the rest of you guys could get away, but, my crap stitches popped and I fell."

Part of Don's brain stumbles over the word "kill point" and lingers there, along with the idea of Mikey stitching himself up, but the rest of doesn't, and he's rifling through his bag and dragging out a bowl, shoving it toward Raph. "I didn't call you over here to talk. I need you to go get water. My hands aren't clean enough for this."

He also pulls out a carefully-wrapped piece of cloth and sets it on top, but doesn't do anything with it yet. No need to muck up sterilized faux-needles with dirty fingers. Instead he reaches for Mikey's arm again to go back to plotting out how he's going to get the broken stitches out with minimum damage and if any can be saved. Or are worth saving, which...Wow, these are bad.

"If you knew the stitches were bad in the first place, then why did you have to go and test them? Did it occur to you that re-opening a severe injury mid-fight might have made everything worse?" He's pointedly ignoring the diversion thing - for now - because that was just stupid thinking.

Mikeys.

Raphael seriously considers hitting Donnie over the head with the bowl at his attitude, but figures he can save it for later. He will remember this the next time you guys spar.

Additionally, hearing Mike talk about kill points like it's totally cool is. Kind of alarming. Raph isn't like his other brothers, he knows there might come a time when he'll need to kill someone to keep his family safe and he's (kind of) come to terms with it, but until then...yeah. Yeah.

Raphael ducks out of the conversation and heads down the side of the building to slip back into the suite for hot water.

"As the family medic? Yeah, the thought had kinda crossed my mind.

Unfortunately, we weren't exactly brimming with other options. And if it came between popping a few stitches to get you guys out versus all of us ending up in tubes like Master Splinter? Yeah, bye bye crap stitches. Don't let the door hit you in the butt on the way out."

Death before dishonor.

"You're the family medic?" That actually surprises Don into looking up, which is a feat considering the sheer stubbornness of his attention span at the worst of times.

"No, hold on. Why did you think we - they - would even have left? There's no way we'd leave you behind." Especially you, he doesn't say. Even the idea that there's a universe out there where they might is disturbing. "I understand the sentiment, but you could have just made everything more complicated."

Edited 2013-03-14 05:10 (UTC)

One would think Mike would be insulted by Don's incredulity, but he's not. In fact, it just makes him grin a lopsided grin.

"Leaving me behind would have been the smart thing to do. Splinter seemed okay, you know being pickled like a side-show punk. There's no real reason to think that they wouldn't have done the same to me. With the three of you out and safe, a rescue would have been more than possible."

Of course...Don and Leo would have had a HELL of a time keeping Raph in check with both Splinter and Mike out of the picture, but Mike doesn't say that.

"Yeeeaaaah, well...I kind of did make things more complicated. When I fell my shell kind of broke the control panel of some sort of Star Trek teleporter thing. You guys were already disappearing when I finally managed to get away from the aliens. I'm pretty sure that's why I ended up here."

It would be the smart thing to do, if it weren't that they were talking about Mikey here. In which case, absolutely none of them would have even considered leaving. (Well, considered, possibly, but actually gone through with? Don could probably come up with some scenario where it might happen, but the likelihood was exceedingly poor.)

Don looks back down at the injury, frowning. "You said they were brains? That's the Kraang, and at least one thing your...universe has in common with ours. It was probably an inter-dimensional portal, if the similarities extend that far, except none of us - at least Raph and I - had even seen it yet. Do you remember anything of importance about it? What it looked like, what the control panel looked like?"

He wouldn't even think of asking this of his Mikey, but if this one was competent enough to try and maim people with household appliances, he could probably be counted on for some observational qualities.

He half shrugs as he looks off in the direction Raph had exited the roof from, and then sort of begins to scan the surrounding area. The novelty of seeing the world...any world, below instead of above hasn't worn off yet.

"It was a large room. A clean room that was mostly white and chrome. There was this raised platform below some pretty intensely Sci-Fi looking contraptions attached to the ceiling. Everything was connected with these heavy duty looking metal shielded cables."

Mike pauses, turning his attention back to Don.

"The control panels looked like...well, control panels. Lots of blinking buttons. Seriously, straight out of Star Trek or Star Wars."

Sci-fi isn't exactly helpful, Mikey, but Don doesn't say anything about it.

"And the TCRI building," he agrees instead. "We can check with the - uh - other Leo if they had anything similar in their universe. I'm not sure what we can do with that information yet, but if we have a common point somewhere it should give us a better idea about how to work backwards, so to speak."

Mike thinks about this, because it's a logical stance to take, and he's just about to comment on it when the proverbial needle gets pulled across the record.

"Wait...other Leo?"

"Oh, Raph didn't tell you either?" Yes, he's probably being the slightest bit sharp about that, and, no, Raph will never live it down. "I just found out a few hours ago, myself. There's another Leo and another Raph around here, somewhere. The meeting went...well, I wasn't there, but it went about as well as you could expect Raph to take to another version of himself, apparently."

Because Raph is the vaguest and most unhelpful source of information ever.

Don pauses, and softens his voice. "If they looked like you, Raph probably would have mentioned it."

Edited 2013-03-14 20:07 (UTC)

See Mike.
See Mike hope.
Hope Mike, Hope.

See Mike.
See Mike smile at Don's frustration with Raph.
See Mike's smile fade as the realization of TWO Raphs finds purchase.

See Mike.
See Mike's smile completely crumble at softened exposition.

"...oh. Yeah. Yeah of course. Probably, I mean...we do look pretty different, don't we."
It's not so much a question, as a grudging statement of fact.

Mike grasps onto the closest thing to a change of topic as he can find.

"Honestly? Any encounter with an angry Raph that doesn't end with him using the other guy to texture coat an alleyway, is a good one."
It's meant as a joke, really.

Edited 2013-03-14 20:15 (UTC)

"Stop talking about me," Raphael grouses as he pulls himself back up to the roof, one-handed. He's so talented. He also managed to spill only a third of the water, Don, be grateful and here it is.

Please ignore that new nick on his plastron, he just managed to catch one of Mikey's better-hidden traps on it. No big, no blood; don't mention it either, he'll be humiliated.

"Uh - hmm," Ouch, Mikey, your attempts at hiding your disappointment are painfully obvious and it hurts. Mostly because Don felt the exact same thing not that long ago.

Thankfully, before he has to attempt anything comforting, his brother appears. "Thanks, Raph," he says quickly. "Hold still, Mikey. I'm just going to- start, now."

Excellent timing, Raph. Truly excellent. Has he mentioned your his favorite brother yet? And while he does notice the new addition to Raph's plethora of shell scars, he doesn't actually register it, more preoccupied with grabbing the bowl and one of his spare cloths for exactly this purpose from his bag and ducking into work before he has to venture into the awkward area of disappointed Mikey - this has always been more his field, anyway. He'll make sure the area around Mike's wound is clean before wiping down his own hands, and then he'll start trying to fix the damage - pulling out the salvageable stitches and stringing new ones with decidedly lopsided-but-serviceable makeshift needles.

If you twitch, Mike, he will jab you with them. See if he won't.

"Sorry, Raph. Couldn't stop if I tried. You are the focal point around which my entire life revolves."

Nick? What nick? Mike sees no nick!
Or...well he does, but he also knows better than to bring something like that up in mixed company.

That's the sort of thing that's brought up during one-on-one sparring sessions.

"So now'd be a bad time to start juggling, is what you're telling me."

Mike's actually pretty good about the pain, or...well, he's pretty good about not moving that one arm. The rest of him, however, reacts in place of it.

"Mikey, shut up for two minutes." And let Don stitch you up again, Jesus Christ. Raph stands over Don, arms folded as he stares down at his not-brother's arm being mended. Even if this is bizarro-world Mikey, he's still Mikey and Raph still gets the littlest brother vibe off of him.

"What's it look like?" he asks Donnie. Torn stitches are a super bad thing, Raph knows; tears up the edges of the wound, makes it harder to stitch it back together and expect it to hold. Don's definitely given them (him) hell about tearing his stitches before (multiple times).

"It would be better if I was allowed to concentrate," Don says, but it sounds more like habit that genuine irritation. "It was a clean cut to start with. Thankfully, whatever you did to open it again, Michaelangelo, it didn't do too much damage. It would still go better if you let me work." He smoothly twists one leg out from under his body and drops it across whatever part of Mikey he's allowed to reach, and pushes down.

Stop. Moving.

Don's tongue is even poking out of the corner of his mouth, broadcasting to the stars the level of concentration he's devoting to this task. He wasn't lying when he said it wasn't as bad as it could have been, but it was still tricky in places to work around the new, minor injuries. Especially with their fingers.

It does require his concentration. Unfortunately, there's still something bothering him. After a few seconds Don will sigh, though he won't stop working.

"...Raph, did any of the others - did they look like Mikey?"

Edited 2013-03-15 05:01 (UTC)

Mike grunts in frustration at not only being shushed, but being immobilized as well.

His head lolls back and he sighs dramatically.

this sucks.

Sure okay, ~~big~~ little brother. Two minutes, let Donnie run through his creepy overbearing doctor phase or you'll never hear the end of it.

"Nope." Sure didn't. Raph mentioned them to Mikey inside, but only in the vaguest of ways and he definitely remembers Leo wearing blue and the other Raphael not being weirded out by it. Apparently since this Mike is from a place where all the turtles wear red, those two must not be his. "So there's three versions of all of us. Fantastic."

It's not fantastic.

Don sighs between his teeth and ignores Mikey's theatrics with the skill of long practice.

"Then it's even more important I find of one of them," he says, and then goes quiet, returning to his work while part of his brain spins off in categorizing all he's heard today. He won't ask anything else or respond to anything Raph or Mikey might do or say (excepting unnecessary movement) until he's done - sadly, Raph, your estimations were slightly off and it was closer to five minutes - then he'll pat Mikey on the arm and back off to stretch and put away his tools.

It'll belatedly dawn on him that he probably shouldn't be too familiar with a brother that isn't really his brother, but it won't be until afterward.

Mike waits a good five count post-pat before moving, just in case. Then he gives his newly stitched up arm a tentative turn, bend, and flex before nodding his approval.

"Feels much better, thanks."

Don't let the brave face fool you, it still hurts like a mother, but at least it feels like it'll hold.

With one hand, Mike slides his bandanna off his head, unties the knot, and then wraps it around his right forearm.

"Guess that makes us like the City then, huh?" he says double checking his new arm wrap. "So nice the universe created us thrice."

Sure, of course. Jacked-up limbs always feel better after being prodded with a needle for five minutes.

...did Mike just use the word thrice?

Raph was about to clap Mikey on the back of the shell, but now he just turns and heads over to the edge of the roof to hop up and crouch as he stares over the rest of the Water Sector. Gotta be careful on these roofs; not as secure as the Metal Sector's. "It's not good, you idiot." Not a lot of heat in that insult though.

Don's preoccupied with wiping the blood of his fingers and tossing a rag Mikey's way for the same purpose that he only hums in reply to the assurance of Mikey's continued well-being. His Mikey might have complained, but he's used to to tough-talkers enough to know that letting them suffer sometimes worked just as well. It isn't as though he really has any painkillers to offer, anyway.

But then Mikey says something almost poetic - using the word thrice of all things - and he looks up, fingers stilling. "What?"

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don you are a poor conversationial partner cease this at once

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/JUMPS IN

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