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'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?"

"Why not?" He says looking up from as he applies pressure to his arm. "I mean, aside from the brain breakage of it all, and the fact that it's like...straight out of something on TV, you've got to admit it's at least kind of cool.

...

If you squint."

Don's what is met with a raised brow ridge or two.

Raph snorts, but doesn't get up and face Mike. Of course Mikey would think it's cool.

"Probably because we don't know how it happened," Don says, going back to re-packing his bag with slightly more force than previously, blatantly ignoring the raised brow ridge. Right. Not his Mikey. Not his Mikey. "And if we don't know that, then we can't get home. Sure, knowing that there are more of us out there, that the concept of alternate dimensions isn't just regulated to science fiction and certain strings of theoretical physics, is amazing, but it's one thing to understand something theoretically and it's another to get thrown under the metaphorical bus with no forewarning or planning. The sheer power of whatever brought us here, for example - what it does, the energy output, its criteria for selecting us all at seeming random - would be far more interesting if I at least had a set idea what it looked like."

He pauses, thinking something over, but he still doesn't look at Mikey.

"Otherwise, yes, if it weren't for the immediate problem of having no real way to fix it, this would be so much cooler."

As per usual, Mike zones out about half way through Donnie's pontificating, and instead directs his attention to Raph and the other turtle's brother's looming.

He wasn't really aware of it before, but it's kind of hard to miss now: The wall going up between them and...well, and him. They're not even looking at him.

They're going to leave soon, and he knows it. They're going to leave him all alone in this place. It shouldn't hurt as much as it does, this realization, but it does. They're not his family...and he knows it, but he can't help but feel as though they're betraying him somehow.

"Good point," he says absently as he goes to collect his gear.

The flap goes over Don's bag and he frowns before straightening and throwing it over his shoulder, glancing uncertainly in Raph's direction. If this weren't his first time meeting an alternate version of his absent baby brother, maybe- but it is, and how do you deal with that?

Poorly, it seems. Though at least no one tried to tear anyone else's throat out this time. Sort of.

"I want to check up on that injury sometime. We don't really have any medication around here and an infection would be...bad. More than usual." Don fiddles with his bag's strap. "I'm in the Metal Sector - ME-2A? - there's a window on the second floor around front that you shouldn't have any problems getting through, if you need to. Just a trip-wire. Nothing like what you have. Do- do you know where that is? I have some maps, if you want them. They're not mine - I mean, I didn't draw them, but I haven't had time to explore yet, so they'll have to do. The shell really isn't that big though, considering, and the Sectors are more-or-less clearly delineated. Sort of circular, really. It's hard to get lost permanently.

"Raph's right around here, though. In 2B. Right, Raph?"

Wow Don, where's the fire?

Raph slowly stands up, brushing off his legs and hands. "Yeah. Let's get going, Mike."

"...get going?"

Fire is probably technically inaccurate, Raph. The energy expulsion from whatever brought them here would likely generate quite a bit of heat, but unless someone was stupid enough to keep flammable items nearby, there was unlikely to be any actual fire.

"Maps, I told you. You can't just run around the city without knowing where you're going, and you need to know where our places are, at least. Raph's usually with me, anyway, but if we're not there then we're at Raph's."

Edited 2013-03-16 03:01 (UTC)

Raph gives Don a Look. Are you not getting this, man? Is Raph not being obvious enough? "This joker's staying with me until some his own show up." Apparently Michelangelo doesn't get a say in it.

Wait.
What?

"I am?"

Don was saying he was going to go get the maps and then bring them back and then run away and do...stuff to get this organized so he doesn't have to actually think about it.

Not very clearly, because he's not thinking straight either.

"Apparently. I wouldn't argue. I'll be back...later. I need to get some stuff for you."

Raph shifts his weight awkwardly, folding his arms. He knows this means he likely won't be spending as much time in Donnie's apartment; they're not exactly inseparable, but more often than not he was at Don's or Don was at his, and depending on how Donnie feels about this it's not going to be happening as often.

Raph wasn't exactly comfortable with the idea of other-dimension brothers either, when it first occurred to him. That's why he didn't tell Don about it. Makes sense that Don's bothered by it, but now Raph's basically chosen this Mike over his own Don and-

Rrrgh. He fucking hates feeling guilty. Don just needs to get over it, he hasn't done anything wrong. Right?

"We'll be at my place," he says gruffly, not looking at Donatello.

Edited 2013-03-16 03:29 (UTC)

"We will?"

Because while all this unsaid brother stuff is going on, he's still trying to get his head around the very simple fact that Raph...this Raph who is very clearly not his Raph...is basically adopting him anyway.

It's confusing.
Maybe he's been reading the signals wrong this whole time.

"You'd better be. I don't want to have run all over Water looking for you two."

Isn't it nice how much power you have over your own life, Mikey?

Don shifts around and sets his foot against the edge of the roof, plotting a course out of Water. He's not entirely aware of Raph's internal struggles, instead relieved that this means someone will be keeping an eye on this alternate Mikey. That's one stressor out of the way, at least. For now. "No fighting, no straining those stitches. I'll see you later."

Then he'll run off and start trying to find a way to contact this other Leo, because so long as he's planning that he's not actually...contacting anyone. Immediately. Should give him some time to wrap his head around this, right?

Half adopted, Mikey. Only half. Only until someone shows up to claim you like a lost puppy.

Don runs off without looking too heartbroken and Raph takes a moment to wonder if maybe he's just being stupid, then shrugs it off -a little irritated about it- and turns to Michelangelo. "Well? Come on."

Blinking, Mike considers what he has left in his suite here.
When he arrived he didn't have much on him, really just what he'd armed himself with when they were on their way to infiltrate the TCRI building. The usual padding, his 'chucks, climbing claws, some throwing knives and stars ... and that was pretty much it.

And yet, when Raph turns to him and invites him "home," for lack of a better term, Mike pauses. Leave it to a poor kid to obsess about leaving something behind.

He stows his nunchucks, gives himself a pat down to make sure he's got everything he thinks he should have, and then moves towards where Raph stands on the roof.

"This is because I took off the mask, isn't it," he says with a smirk.

Raphael punches Mike in the arm. "This is because you turned your freakin' suite into a House of Horrors." Not so much because he's afraid of Mike actually killing someone -although he is a little concerned about that- but mostly because if Mike had to booby-trap his apartment like that just to feel safe enough to be in there, what the hell would he do when it came time for him to sleep?

The answer to that is easy enough: He wouldn't have.
Not until complete exhaustion had force him to do so.

Mike rolls his shoulder out in an effort to displace the brunt of the sting from the punch.

"It's not that bad," he says now rolling his eyes. "Or...maybe it actually is."

His rolling eyes come to rest square on the newly chipped portion of shell that Raph is sporting.
Mike's face expression is a mask of innocence.
His eyes, on the other hand, are laughing. Loudly.

HE WILL FUCK YOU UP

"Yeah, it is that bad! Now stop chit-chatting and let's go already!" Raphael punches Mikey's shoulder again before jumping over the side of the building to scale down to the ground. Better to run this way than run on the rooftops here and risk falling through.

It's only when Raph is more out of earshot that Mike hisses his way through the pain of that second jab.

"Yeeeoouch," he says to no one in particular, right before he leaps off the roof and in hot pursuit of Raphael.

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

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you guys can skip raph for a couple comments o/ he's just gonna brood and eavesdrop

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PFFFT OW MY HEART

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