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phoebepheebsphibs · 2 days

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Double-Mutated Mikey

Chapter 21: Psychology in the Field of Aesthetics

Continued from the short story written by @boots-with-the-fur-club

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Leo saunters into Mikey's traincar sometime in the afternoon. Mikey slept half the day away, missing breakfast and is just about to miss out on lunch. Raph and Casey made some beef ramen with eggs, and Leo has prepared a tray for Mikey in case he was willing to eat, along with some grilled cheese and juice. Mikey will like that...

The lair is kind of quiet today. It reminds Leo of the week when Mikey was gone... it was too quiet. No one wanted to say anything, and everyone was hiding out in their own spaces doing their own thing to try and find a way to help bring him home somehow. Donnie locked himself away in his labs. Raph was training away his anger and fear. Casey, April, and Cass fought over patrol every single night. And Leo... Leo was going out of his mind.

Some nights Leo just went to the buildings across from the EPF and watched the building. Just... watched it. Like maybe if he stared at it long enough, it would spit out Mikey. He'd perch there for hours until the sun came up, and then he'd hurry home before the others caught him. He knew that they knew, but none of them ever spoke about it. Donnie knew because of the trackers. Raph knew because there was no hiding anything from the oldest sibling. But they were kind enough to not say anything... or maybe, they were too busy stressing and trying to cope in their own ways.

But it was just too quiet in the lair, no matter what they did to cope.

Mikey was always the loudest of the bunch -- very talkative and outgoing, doing his best to brighten the mood whenever someone was feeling down. But when Mikey went missing... so did the sunshine.

Leo knew that there would be a period where Mikey would be quiet when he got home. It was the same for him after the invasion. Leo had only been in the Prison Dimension for a few minutes, but that was enough to keep him silent for days before he finally started talking about menial things. What food he wanted for dinner. Cracking a joke. Laughing at a Jupiter Jim scene. Whether or not his cast itched. It took even longer for him to talk about what he'd been through. And he knew that Mikey would act fine about it all, he'd clam up about what had happened but be some version of himself, until he finally felt comfortable sharing what he'd been through.

But that had been back when he assumed that Mikey would come home in the same state he'd left.

Not mutated and mangled...

And it's still quiet in the lair.

Day by day, Mikey has been getting better and filling the home with his light and laughter. But it's... strained. Stifled. Something is lingering under the surface, something is bothering Mikey. And he won't, or can't explain what it is.

Leo rolls his shoulders as he walks down the hall. They still ache from yesterday. Mikey didn't break the skin, but there are huge bruises and marks from where he had his death-grip on him. Leo chose to wear his hoodie to hide them, which helped. No one's asked about it, so it must be working.

Leo slides the door to Mikey's room open, poking his head inside as he knocks on the doorframe.

"Miguel? You awake?"

He hears Mikey shuffle under the blankets. A head pokes out, and in the darkness Leo sees sleepy eyes open with a startling glow.

"Mhm..." Mikey mumbles.

"Cool. You want some lunch? It's soup and sandwiches," Leo offers.

"Okay..." he yawns, slowly sitting up and rubbing his eyes. "Gonna... get down from th'hammock..."

"Good idea. And hey, your vocab is sounding better!" Leo congratulates, as Mikey climbs down and settles on one of the beanbags.

Mikey yawns once more before getting situated, dragging the blanket he had with him off the hammock and wrapping it over his shoulders.

Leo walks over to him, his feet crinkle some paper left on the floor. Uh oh, did he ruin a Mikey original? He'll have to check... In the meantime, he places the tray down on Mikey's lap. Mikey sniffs the bowl and smiles.

"Smells good," he says.

"Raph and Casey did a sweet job, huh?"

"Mhm," Mikey mumbles as he starts to slurp up the noodles and broth.

"Mind if I turn on a light?" Leo asks, walking to the lightswitch.

Mikey nods with a mumble, continuing to much on the eggs.

Leo flicks the lights on. Mikey flinches. Same old, same old.

On the floor is a roll of paper, figures scribbled across it with finger paint and acrylics. Leo kneels down besides the paper and stares at it.

"Mikey," he whispers, "when did you make this?"

Mikey looks up, noodles hanging from his lip and nose. He shrugs before dipping his face back into the bowl.

"Yesterday. Sick. I forgot about that."

Leo traces his finger over the green and yellow doodle of Mikey... he isn't as skilled as he used to be, but the emotion is still conveyed.

There's a drawing of Mikey in a cage, a person in a white coat is kicking the bars and making him cry. Mikey drew anger emanating off of the man, exclamation points and storm clouds showing his fury and how loud the man must've been.

Another sketch shows Mikey being poked with needles, each one filled with random colours -- neon green, blood red, and hot pink with yellow eyes drawn within them.

One drawing shows Mikey turning blue as frost engulfs him from a weird hair-dryer or something.

Leo looks back up at Mikey. He knew there was something lingering under the surface...

"Hey, Mike?"

Mikey looks up at him, holding the bowl up as he downs the broth in large gulps.

"Do you think... we could do some more art like this?" he asks, holding up the paper.

Mikey stares at the drawings. He swallows hard. He slowly lowers the now-empty bowl onto the tray. His tail taps nervously against the floor. His toes curl with growing anxiety.

"Um... m-m-maybe. Mmmmiiiikey... doesn't really like those drawings. I-I... I don't like them. They, uh.... what's word... bring back scared feelings."

Leo nods.

"I understand. But... I think this is important, Mikey. It would help us understand better about how to take care of you. And maybe it'll help you feel better?"

Mikey fidgets, poking the sandwich.

"But I totally get it if you don't think you're ready!" Leo adds. "After the invasion and everything, I didn't want to talk to anyone. Nobody. I wanted to keep it bottled up inside, because I was scared of getting hurt again, or maybe hurting you guys by telling you what I'd been dealing with... because... it was a lot."

Mikey looks up slowly. Leo is still staring down at the drawings, he doesn't see the concern and confusion on Mikey's face. What is Leo talking about? What invasion?

"...But you were the one to help me get it off my chest. Dr. Feelings really knocked some sense into me. And... it did kind of hurt, it was scary, but everyone was there to help me get through it, and we talked it all out -- Donnie's integrating with the ship, Raph's krangification, you with the portal, and me with the Prison Dimension and all the stuff that I was dealing with."

Leo finally looks up at his baby brother.

"So, I just wanna do that for you. I want to be your Dr. Feelings. Do you think... we could do that?"

Mikey shifts his weight as he considers it.

"...Does Mikey -- Do I have to talk about it?"

"I guess not... You can just draw whatever comes to mind. Is that okay?"

Mikey swallows nervously.

"Make Leo happy?"

"This is about making YOU happy," Leo responds. "I just want to help you heal. Maybe... this could be like 'art therapy', if that exists... that exists, right?"

Mikey chuckles. It probably exists now...

"Okay. We can do art therapy."

Leo's eyes brighten.

"Really? You're okay for this?"

"Just let me finish my food," Mikey mumbles, taking the sandwich and biting into it.

"No problemo, my guy," Leo says, pointing finger guns at him. "I'll go see if the guys wanna join in."

Leo runs out of the room, taking Mikey's empty bowl with him.

He doesn't see the nervous expression Mikey makes...

This... this will be good, right? Mikey do good?

Leo has gathered Raph and Casey into the bedroom with him. Donnie declined to participate, saying he had a lot of work to catch up on. He had that 'don't speak to me or I will commit murder' look on his face, so Leo left him be.

Mikey is sitting in the center of the room, Raph on his right side and Casey to his left. Leo cops a squat across from him, dumping a series of crayons and coloured pencils out for them all to use.

"Okay, so here's what's up -- we're all gonna draw along with Mikey to help the creative juices flow. He's gonna try and draw some moments from the past week for us."

Casey nods as he grabs a pencil and starts to scribble. Raph's brow furrows a bit.

"Leo... are you sure this is a good idea?"

"Mikey and I talked it over, and so long as he doesn’t actually have to talk about it yet, he's okay with it," Leo explains, already started on a drawing of his own. "Right, Miguel?"

Mikey nods silently as he dips his tail in a bottle of green paint and starts to draw himself.

Raph sighs and grabs a pen.

"Fine... Mikey does love to draw. But if at any point this becomes too much for him, we stop pushin' him. Got it?"

"Absolutely," Leo agrees. "He can just draw whatever he wants to instead."

Mikey studies the paper with intensity. He doesn't know what to draw. What do they want? What does Leo want? Mikey doesn't like how messy his art is right now, it discourages him. He feels like he should be doing better at this... but his hands shake whenever he picks up a pencil or paintbrush. His tail is the only thing that doesn't sway when he draws, but the end is so big the brushstrokes tend to be huge and fat and sloppy.

Mikey doesn't like his art right now. It makes him upset.

Use that, Instinct whispers. Use it for fuel.

Fuel for what?

Art. They want pain. Give it to them.

Pain... Leo mentioned something about that earlier. He said this would help him hurt less, by sharing his pain.

Well... Mikey trusts Leo.

If he wants pain, Mikey can provide!

Mikey starts drawing with purpose now, concentrating on the posing, finding colours that pop to show terror or the ones that are grey and dull to show despair. The human stick figures are made to be scary, the limbs distorted and disproportionate, their faces empty. They look like monsters.

Mikey draws his shell shattering into pieces like broken glass.

He clenches his jaw.

He draws robots with glowing eyes attacking him.

His shoulders tense up and tighten.

He draws animals strewn apart and ripped to shreds.

He breath fastens, he growls.

He draws his claws red and bloody.

His hands curl into fists.

He draws himself strapped down to a table with knives and electric things coming to change him.

Mikey's eyes blur over with stinging salty tears.

He draws a scary man with --

"Mikey!"

He stops and looks up in shock.

Leo, Casey, and Raph are staring at him, wide-eyed and terrified.

"...Mikey... you good?"

Mikey nods, confused why they're so concerned until he looks down at his tail.

The spikes are all raised. The quills on his shoulders, too. His shell scutes are in offense mode. He suddenly realizes he's been growling under his breath this whole time. He pauses and takes a look at the paper he's been drawing on. He's been crumpling it up under his fists.

"...o-ohh... um. Oops."

He doesn’t know what else to say. He did what they wanted; he did what Leo wanted, right?

Mikey do good?

Raph reaches over and takes Mikey's artwork.

"Okay, I think that's enough for now. No more art therapy--"

"No!" Mikey yells, reaching back for the papers.

Raph freezes at Mikey's volume.

"I-I --" he stutters, trying to calm himself down.

The ridges on his shell flatten, and his tail smoothes out as he takes a breath and sits in shame for his outburst.

"I wanna draw..." he pouts. "M-maybe not... that stuff anymore, but... I wanna draw..."

He looks up at Raph.

"Don't take away the drawing stuff from me, please?"

Raph's heart breaks, though he maintains a pretty good poker face. How could he say no to him? Especially after everything.

Plus, the way he phrased it makes Raph think that there were things taken from Mikey in the EPF.

"Alrighty then," he replies, setting the art supplies back down. "We can keep drawin'. Art therapy can continue. But now, we're just gonna draw what makes us happy, okay?"

Mikey nods with excitement, dipping his tail in the paint as he tries to draw something new. Pain didn't make them happy, it made them scared of Mikey. Again. So what can he draw now? Happy things, Raph said. Draw things that are happy... that make Mikey happy.

He draws his brothers. He draws Splinter. He draws Casey and April and the human girl that smells like Casey. Mostly he draws foods. Different types of food. Burgers, steaks, BLTs, fried chicken, grilled fish, hot dogs, meats and cold cuts and proteins. Pizzas upon pizzas upon pizzas.

Casey starts taking notes of all the foods he draws so that he can try to make them for him later...

Mikey smiles as he draws.

Leo is drawing himself doing all kinds of cool poses. He isn't very skilled, but he's having fun.

Raph is drawing cute animals and teddy bears and some princess in pink with the word "Peach" scribbled over her.

Casey draws what looks like Leo, but the arm is wrong... it looks like Raph's arm. Casey draws what looks like Donnie, but taller and more buff and almost kinda scary with how serious he is. He draws a third turtle, one that is smaller and wears an orange cape and has hair? Huh. Mikey wonders who that last turtle is.

But they all seem smiley, cheery, happy.

Mikey likes art therapy.

Raph rubs the 'memory sauce' on Mikey's head as he snuggles into bed for the night.

"You all good? All bundled up nice and cozy?"

Mikey purrs.

"All goooooood... thank you for rubs..."

"Hey, that's what Raph is here for," he chuckles.

Mikey exhales with comfort as Raph's hands delicately massage the glowing purple-ish slime into his skin. Despite the size of his hands and the many rough calluses he has, Raph takes care to stay gentle and soothing with his rubbing. Mikey's eyes move under his eyelids as Raph administers the salve, as if he's watching a movie in his brain. Raph wonders what memory he's seeing...

Mikey yawns, his tongue curling and flicking from his mouth as he exhales.

"Nighty-night, Raphie... love you..."

Raph smiles and kisses the one exposed part of his forehead.

"Love you too, big man."

He smiles as Mikey seems to fall asleep. He reaches down to where they've been drawing for most of the day and takes Mikey's therapy drawings.

Leo?

Radio silence.

Leo!

I'm awake! a voice from his head shouts, followed by an Oof! Ow.

Raph tries not to snicker.

Did I wake you?

No, no, I was just lying down on my bed hoping someone would shout with the mind meld and disturb the oh-so-cumbersome peaceful quiet, Leo grumbles back. Why, what's up?

I figured we could look over Mikey's therapy art.

Oh. Right, that. I'll be there in a minute.

True to his word, Leo comes in a second later wearing his hoodie and some unicorn slippers.

"You ready?"

Raph nods and leaves Mikey to his rest. The two boys go to Raph's room. It's further away from Mikey's car than Leo's, so they can have privacy without fear of waking him.

The two boys spread out the crumpled sheets, looking in numb devastation at the depicted scenes.

"So... what now?" Leo asks.

"Whaddya mean, 'what now'? The art therapy was your idea, Leo!"

"Yeah, but... I mean, what comes next? We just look at it?" he asks. "I figured we could have... I dunno, had Mikey here or something. I didn't actually think we'd get this far without him. I mean, what is most of this? I wish he'd labeled a few of these..."

"Well, it's a little tough to decipher exactly what happened to him, but..." Raph peers down at a specific drawing of a needle filled with pink sludge. "I can guess what this is."

Leo looks down at the drawing. He swallows when he sees the familiar shade of sickening pink.

"So, Mikey knows he's mutated with krang?"

"Looks that way."

"Then... why hasn't he said anything? Or acted out about it? If I found out that I had that in my genes, you can bet I'd be hysterical 24/7 over it."

"I would too..." Raph nods weakly.

"So why isn't he?" Leo asks, taking a closer look. "Why is he so... nonchalant about it?"

"After everything we've been through... you think he didn't want us to know?" Raph wonders aloud.

"If he didn't, then he wouldn't have drawn it so plainly," Leo shoots down. "But... maybe he doesn't realize what it is..."

"Huh?" Raph looks up from the drawing to his brother. "What, like, he didn't know it was krang, just knew it was bad?"

"Maybe not even that. He has memory damage, and he didn't even react when he saw the krangified horde... maybe... he doesn't remember what the krang are...?"

"...On the one hand, that's twisted and horrible," Raph mutters, his face pale. "On the other... what I wouldn't give to forget them like he did."

"Ditto," Leo sighs heavily as he moves on to another art piece.

His eyes fall on one where Mikey drew a very gruesome depiction of an animal.

"Euuugh boy," he groans, taking the paper away before Raph can spot it. "Don't look at this one."

"Why?" he asks.

"It would trigger you," Leo sighs. "Let's just say... Mikey won't be getting a pet anytime soon."

Raph's head tilts.

"I don't get it."

"Good. Here's hoping you don't," Leo says as he turns the page upside down. "But Mikey... Mikey did some stuff in that lab, I'm realizing."

"What kind of 'stuff'?" Raph asks nervously.

"I... dunno. But he had to hurt things, I think. Survival of the fittest type of junk, maybe..."

Raph swallows.

"Leo... I dunno if we should be doing this without him..."

"You saw how he was reacting to just drawings of the memories," Leo retorts, grabbing a new sheet. "He's not ready for that... I thought he might be, but he isn't yet. And that's okay, we'll wait till he's ready to talk."

"That's what I mean," Raph says, pulling the sheet away from Leo. "This feels like an invasion of privacy. Mikey should be here to talk us through these, he should be the one explaining what's up rather than us just rifling through his innermost fears and traumas like some --"

Raph pauses when he sees the drawing he stole from Leo.

"...What? Like some what?" Leo asks, waiting for his brother to finish his thought.

He doesn't. Instead he stares at the drawing in his hands.

Leo bunny-hops over the pile of paper and peeks at the artwork...