#i have a very small snippet of one where mikey moves out in a universe where mutants gain legal protections and his siblings have to

[cryptidwizard]

i feel the turtle fixation creeping back up

[goodlucktai]

Raiders (2/?)

A/N: Several of you were interested in more of the Mummy AU, so I did my best to scrape something together. :’) The writer’s block is real. 

Again, this fic is based off of Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark, and stands as a sequel to “Know the world in yourself.”

I’ll be posting the rest of Raiders in snippets like this one, and then add it to the series on AO3 when it’s complete.

Story tag

x

Don is reaching for the door of his office when it opens by itself. Mikey beams at the man who steps inside the cluttered room and receives a similarly warm greeting in turn.

"Professor Angel," the man greets Don with a nod, followed by a friendly, "Doctor Angel."

"Not a doctor, Brody," Mikey says cheerfully for probably the dozenth time. "I didn't even finish high school."

Don hides a wince at that reminder with the ease of long practice. Raph does it less smoothly.

Brody only waves it away. "Semantics." He glances at Raphael, extending a hand politely. "And I don't believe we've met, Mister…?"

"Hamato," Raphael says after a moment's hesitation. He's giving his brothers a sidelong look as he shakes Brody's hand, and Don realizes belatedly that he never explained his change of name. Later, he thinks with a pang of regret.

"I'm Marcus Brody, Dean of Students here at Marshall. I'm something of a regular patron when it comes to the Angel brothers' business."

If anything, Raphael seems to understand they've cut ties with their family name, even if he doesn't know why. So when Brody brightens abruptly with revelation and asks if Raphael is any relation to Yoshi Hamato, Raphael simply says, "He was my father," instead of the more honest 'he was our father.'

"An incredible man," Brody reminisces fondly. "I remember a week we spent in Wales, hunting down Celtic legends about the Holy Grail. We went to a tavern to charm information out of the locals and your father got drunk, climbed on top of the bar, and sang some old college song at the top of his lungs until the police came in and arrested him."

"No way," Mikey whispers, awed and delighted. Don covers his face with his hand and does his best to stifle a surge of ridiculous laughter. Thinking of father used to hurt, but now he can imagine him as a young man traveling through Europe, headstrong and charming and every bit as reckless as Don's crazy little brother, and somehow the thought isn't painful at all.

"You're joking," Raphael says faintly. Brody grins.

"I wish I was. I got lost on my way to pay his bail. It took me hours to find the jailhouse, and by the time I got there, Yoshi was very sober and very confused. It didn't stop him from flirting his way into a clean change of clothes and a cup of coffee, though."

Mikey laughs outright, and Don gives into a wide smile. Raphael turns on them sharply.

"Don't you two even think about tellin' Leo any of this. That guy still thinks of dad as just this side of perfect, and I don't want to go shattering any lifelong illusions before dinner."

"So after dinner is fair game, then," Mikey points out reasonably, probably just for the sake of being contrary. Raphael twitches, as easy to poke into a fit of pique as ever.

"Was there something you needed, Mr. Brody?" Don says pointedly, before his brothers have a chance to devolve into children half their age and start a fight in his office in front of the Dean of Students. "There wasn't a problem with the last group of donations, was there?"

"Of course not," Brody says at once. "They were all stunning, of course, the museum is delighted to have them." He's uncomfortable, though, an unfamiliar frown tugging at his amicable face. "But I brought some people with me today."

"People?"

"From the government." Seeing three identical expressions of worry, Brody hastens to assure them, "It has nothing to do with your business. They're from the Army. Army Intelligence, actually. They're looking for someone you know, Professor."

Don blinks. "Who?"

"Someone by the name of O'Neil."

For a moment, it feels as though the world falls out from under his feet. It takes a few seconds for gravity to reassert itself, and in that time Mikey has placed a hand on his arm and taken the half-step forward that puts himself ahead of his small, fractured family. It’s a move he’s made before, when faced with mortal danger or any imminent threat, and it’s not lost on Don that it’s a move he’s making now. 

"Ask them to wait in the lecture hall, please," Mike says, with a shadow of his usual good cheer. "We'll join you guys in a minute."

Brody nods, looking as though he regrets being the bearer of unfortunate tidings, and slips out of the room without another word. Mikey only looks at Don when the door closes with a quiet catch and the brothers are safely ensconced in the dim daylight of the otherwise empty office.

He squeezes Don's arm, just hard enough to pull his attention back from the soft dread he was floundering in.

"You’ve told me about O’Neil," Mikey says. "He was like a father to you."

Raphael's eyes are sharp but his expression is without judgement. Warily, Don nods.

"He was one of my professors at university. We kept in contact for years, and he was - he was family to me," Don admits in a small, shameful voice, "even when you three weren't."

He isn't proud of that time. When father died, Donatello pushed his grief as far from himself as he could - dealt with it by not dealing with it at all, and writing home became all but impossible, because every time he put pen to paper he had to swallow the new and painful knowledge that father wouldn't be there to open this letter, or the next one, or the next. He would never be waiting to hear from Don ever again, and Don didn't know how to push past that grief.

The O'Neils, though - they were a bright place, an island where there should have been nothing but drowning sea. They came to visit when Kirby was on sabbatical, mailed him gifts on his birthday and hunted him down on the holidays. When Casey became a large part of Don's life, they only invited Casey along as well, and that yawning, aching sense of loss slowly became just another healed wound.

At that point, it was only difficult to write his brothers because it had simply been so long that Don didn't know what to say to them. How to explain his absence in their lives, his distance during this time when they should have all come together. And when it was hard to write them, he wrote the O'Neils instead, and pretended for a long time like he wasn't gradually abandoning one family for another.

And then he found Mikey in Egypt, and Mikey was as good as a stranger to him - a grifter with an agenda of his own and ghosts in his eyes and no time to waste on chasing the brothers that had left him behind. And Don realized the depth of his denial, and set out at once to make right what he had let fall into disrepair.

It's been well over a year since he's heard from the O'Neils, he realizes now with bitter dread. The letters he's sent out have gone unanswered, but this new life with Mikey beside him is a constant whirlwind of misadventure with very little standstill; he's been so busy that the lack of reply never registered as something to worry about. Not when his second family was probably as preoccupied with their own lives as he was with his.

He says as much of this as he can find words for. Mikey lets go of his arm when he comes to a halting finish, but only to punch him on the shoulder.

"Then shape up, big brother, and let's go see what the suits want with your friend." He jabs a thumb over his shoulder and offers a slanting grin, blue eyes sharp at the prospect of trouble or adventure, or even better yet, some combination of the two. "Maybe it'll take us somewhere new."

"You just got home from nearly dying in Peru," Raphael interjects at that point. He's very carefully not looking at Don anymore, and Don doesn't know how to feel about that. "Can't you sit still for more than five minutes?"

"Oh, Raphie," Mikey says with a gratuitous measure of false sympathy, "sitting still doesn't do me any good. It just gives everyone else a head start."

And it’s hard to deny the truth of that statement, even if it does sting. 

Don musters a smile and says, “You’ll help me, then?”

“Of course,” Mikey replies, exasperated. “Last time I left you on your own, you literally cursed the entire world with a book. And I was only gone for like an hour.”

Raphael looks a little weak at the knees. “What?”

Don’s smile gains strength. He rubs a sheepish hand through his hair and says, “Really, though, what are the odds of that happening again?”

“Given our luck? Sixty-forty against you,” Mikey says promptly. “And I’d put money on it.” 

[brightlotusmoon]

Another sneak peek, “Across The Universe”

Just... this is actually fun, I like doing this. And maybe posting scenes and snippets on Tumblr will somehow help me write the whole thing so I can put it on AO3 and FFnet. I’m gonna keep putting the headcanon before each scene on Tumblr, to remind myself why I’m writing the characters this way. And it turns out I love writing Karai. She’s very...much. Um. I can’t find words on that right now. I just love her and I love Shinigami and her. Anyway. Stuff that is my heacanon here:  1) Shinigami is in a polyamorous relationship with Karai and Michelangelo, and the girls have their own bedroom in the lair. 2) Raph has taken a shine to Shini and her attitudes on life and is so proud his little brother has such an awesome loveperson who is also banging his awesome sister. 3) April has finally decided to try dating both Donnie and Casey, although she’s spent more time with Don, and casey doesn’t mind. 4) Splinter and Shredder are dead. Shredder’s henchmen have teamed up with Purple Dragons and other gangs, and have recreated robot Foot ninjas. Splinter appears as a spirit to the Hamato family. 5) The Mighty Mutanimals are very involved in the turtles’ lives. Mondo has learned first aid from Dr Rockwell and engineering from Don. 6) Leo and Karai have been duel sensei-ing and still argue over who gets to be Actual Sensei. 7) Abandoned military bases are turned into hide-outs for the more vicious, feral, and angry mutants in every borough. Mikey, Mondo, and Shini like to try and find them to befriend the tamer, friendlier ones. Karai and Raph wind up getting angry out of love and fear. 8) Mikey is Donnie’s assistant in the lab and is a field medic who uses his emotional reach to comfort the injured. Also, I am happy to discuss where the rest of the story might go and how and why, and I’ll easily switch to another perspective like April (Storm) or Karai (Iron) or Ghost Of Splinter (Wind) or Shinigami (Magic). Mostly I’m just in love with writing Donnie talking about Mikey.  (PS, Mikey is Oxygen. Don is Earth, Raph is Fire, Leo is Water. The Tumblr post for Mikey The Lifegiver is the second most popular blog post I’ve written so far. The first one is me waxing pagan about all those winter holidays from dozens of religions with hundreds many gods) Also, for my regular readers: You knew this sort of thing was gonna happen again. It’s all I write. However, since 1999, I’ve had the most wonderful contemporaries and competition. You hardcore Mikey fans, you’re the best, I love you all. Another snippet from “Spirit And Oxygen: Across The Universe” part of the “Mikey The Lifegiver” series...

Karai is helping Shini with the sponge bath, and for the first time since both her fathers died, she finds she cannot speak to her best friend past the lump in her throat. Shinigami has deeply dark circles under her eyes. Karai knows she has not been sleeping well in the past four weeks. Some nights she’ll wake to find herself alone in their bed, and she will go out into the hallway, her feet sliding like snake scales, and something will tell her to go to Michelangelo’s empty room. When she opens the door she’ll find the nightlight on, and Shini curled up in the bed, under the covers, face buried in the pillows, breathing deeply. Karai doesn’t feel jealousy, only desperate empathy. Her sense of smell has been extraordinary. She understands. Sometimes she’ll leave it and Shini will be back with her in the morning. Sometimes, when Shini cries, Karai will go to her and pull her away, murmuring hopeless comforts like “Don’t worry, he’ll wake up soon, he’ll be back here.” And in their bed Shini will cry against her neck, and the black kitten will uncurl from the end of the bed to crawl onto their laps and purr a healing purr. Karai gently hums as she drags the water-soaked sponge along her baby brother’s feet and ankles, over the scars that healed more quickly. She is careful to avoid the plaster casting, which Donnie thinks they can remove soon. She glances up at her lover and bites her lip, because Shini has paused to take Mikey’s face in both hands; she is staring at him. The sponge she was applying lies on his plastron, and water is pooling into the deeper, harsher scarred wounds from claw marks. “Shini,” Karai says very softly, and her best friend merely nods and resumes cleaning Mikey’s upper torso. When they have dried him, they reapply the gels and ointments and they rewrap the bandages. For the splints on his fingers, all on his left hand, they use a waterless foam, and Shinigami’s grip is a little tight and a little shaky.

Karai leans over and smooths her lover’s hair out of her face. So, Donatello still can’t really talk about exactly what happened when that mutant creature attacked them, he was too silent when he carried Mikey into the lair and he was too quick setting bones, cleaning wounds, terrible terrifying gaping wounds; and April found a silver shaving from a claw sticking out of the gash on Mikey’s shoulder, which Donnie took and placed on a tray while murmuring about later analysis. They thought he was in shock, that he was offsetting his own hidden injuries by caring for a dying brother. But Karai and April looked him over and found small bruises and scrapes; all the blood was Mikey’s. Raph gave blood, almost too much, and Leo carried him to bed and brought him juice. And all the while Shinigami stood there, lips parted in a silent cry, only moving when spoken to. When it was all done, she and Donnie stood on opposite sides of the infirmary bed, staring at a nearly mummified Michelangelo, tears rolling down their faces, and Donnie didn’t say a word. It took him a whole day to tell them what happened. Karai knows he left things out. But today is the day the family will gather to project into the astral plane to find Mikey’s spirit and try to call him home. Shinigami and Donatello have been exhausted and desperate, Raphael even moodier and angrier, Leonardo too rigid and determined. He went with Karai on patrol runs and didn’t smile, and his hands’ grips in her hands were too stiff and tense. Karai wanted to find the address of that abandoned military base but Donnie wasn’t giving it. She thinks now that maybe she can coax it out, maybe later, once Mike is recovering. Everyone is coming to the infirmary bed now, even Casey is there. He will be monitoring everything, since he can’t go with them. April will be their anchor and Shinigami will take them in. Karai leans in and runs her lips across Shini’s cheekbone, suddenly needing her. Shini’s head turns and Karai crushes their lips together and she feels too much worry and too much love, like her heart could implode. April waits, smiling, and then Shini reaches across the bed and takes her hand and says that she is ready. Everyone but Casey joins hands. Karai watches Shini’s face while she murmurs a ritual under her breath, and her eyes begin to glow. Karai closes her eyes, feeling safe and loved, and April whispers, “Now!” and Karai feels herself falling, then lifting, then spinning, as her best friend and lover holds her spirit and pushes them up into the astral plane. Karai feels the spirits of Leo, Don, and Raph, and she begins to reach for them, and then there is a bright, nearby rush of golden light, and for an instant the entire world goes away.