Chapter Text
Since the gruesome day Leonardo was beaten to a pulp and entered a comatose state, everything was a blur in the mind of Michelangelo. Life as he knew it was flipped upside down, making it hazy, surreal, and inconsistent. Time felt like a thick jelly and each morning when he awoke it took moments to realize he wasn’t in the sewers anymore.
For the three days since they arrived at the old farmhouse, Mikey struggled to figure out what to do with himself. He slept too often, dozing the days away. Leaving bed felt like fighting an uphill battle and Mikey was losing. Miserably.
Birds chirped a lovely tune, too lovely for the frosty day ahead of them. They sang despite the snow, frigid temperatures, gentle but biting breeze, and sorrowful teenagers living in the farmhouse they sang outside of. Tiny red berries poked out of the snow on thin branches. The sun shone unpleasantly in his eyes through the thick trees that winter day, causing him to squint slightly as he walked.
Ghostly white snow squished and crunched beneath his mutant feet. A fresh powder laid on top of the already packed snow that had fallen the day following the team’s arrival. Michelangelo ignored the freezing temperatures. While he appeared to be staring out at the forest and nearby barn with his squinting blue eyes, he was hardly aware of any of it.
Everything looked like a snowglobe, glimmering and frosty. Mikey daydreamed about what it would be like to live in one of those lovely little snow globes. Sure, they were small, but everything in their little world was safe and perfect. The view was breathtaking. The tiny people in the tiny homes were happy as can be. Nothing in their world ever changed.
The forest air entered and exited Michelangelo’s lungs, fresh and crisp. It was the cleanest air the turtle had ever breathed. He had become accustomed to the thick stink of the sewers and the sort of smoky, dirty air of NYC. Inhaling fumes from car exhaust and cigarettes, the stench of a nearby dumpster, and sewers always lingering below left the city filled with an unpleasant odor inhabitants mostly grew accustomed to.
New York City was the only home Michelangelo ever knew. He grew from a tot to a teenage turtle underneath the city. There were some pretty sweet skate parks in New York, not that Mikey ever experienced the excitement of them in daytime. The chatter, bustling people and vehicles, and music was white noise for its residents. Food from every culture one could think of was available for purchase in New York City. The sweet and savory scents were at every street corner, in every home. Irresistible to all but those with the strongest willpower.
Pizza was the star of Mikey’s diet. Sweet tomato sauce with Italian herbs and spices, cheeses blended together and laid on top of a thin New York crust, extra toppings like pepperoni and anchovies added on top of the savory pie, and all baked in an oven until it reached the perfect crispness. The first bite of a triangle slice was always the best. It crunched and the combination of flavors melted in his mouth. Pizza tasted like home.
Instead of living in a snow globe, Mikey’s mind was flooded with the memories of pizza. Cheese, pepperoni, sausage, and every other ingredient imaginable from common to absurd like marshmallows and chocolate syrup. The first pizza he ate and the last, several days ago. His mouth watered slightly as he remembered that pizza, stomach rumbling and gurgling loudly.
Mikey grabbed the hefty bag of chicken feed and sprinkled it for the little birds to eat. They had to stay inside for warmth at this time of year, but they hopped out of the huddle immediately for fresh grub.
Pecking at the ground, they ate the feed without a second thought. Their tiny black eyes had no thoughts behind them. They didn’t hold back from eating as much as they pleased. There were no signs of regret, hesitance, or any emotion at all. Mikey didn’t understand yet why he envied them as he watched them peck at the feed.
He placed the chicken feed back in its rightful place: where the chickens couldn’t eat it. He knew they’d gorge themselves, just as April warned him they would, if he left it out by accident.
Mikey exited the barn, closing the door tightly behind him. He was also warned a coyote or wolf may try to sneak it and chow down on the chickens if he didn’t close the barn doors. “These dudes are a lot of work.” Mikey thought regarding the chickens.
His stomach grumbled again and he subconsciously placed a hand over his abdomen. Frowning, he thought back to his last meal. The last real meal he ate was some pizza, hot and fresh with his brothers. Leo was still okay then. So was Master Splinter.
Mikey entered the farmhouse, the familiar scent of fresh pancakes and eggs cooking in the kitchen. It sizzled in the oil and butter as it cooked. April alone cooked breakfast for the team. A large heap of pancakes sat on a platter by the stove, a gentle smoke wafting the sweet scent towards Michelangelo. April finished the pancakes and added oil to the pan to cook some sausage, which she bought at the nearby store early that morning.
She worked quickly and quietly while Casey chattered endlessly, almost mindlessly as he usually did. She replied mostly with head nods, head shakes, mhmm’s, and the occasional quick response. Her eyes were glued to the breakfast cooking on the stove in front of her, hands moving quickly between dishes. Her brows furrowed, eyes slightly squinting.
“Anything I can do to help you dudes?” Mikey asked, approaching the pair.
“Yeah, can you bring the pancakes to the table?” April asked, turning the sizzling sausages.
Mikey nodded, a small forced smile on his face as he grabbed the plate of fresh pancakes. He told Casey and April about the chickens while he set the platter of food at the center of the table. April, interrupting Mikey and not acknowledging his chicken news, asked him if he could set the table for breakfast.
Mikey eagerly agreed, a smile plastered on his face. He pretended not to care that he was interrupted. Casey continued his endless chatter to April, not acknowledging Mikey’s goofy stories.
Mikey set the table as April finished breakfast. “Breakfast! Everybody, breakfast!” April shouted loud enough to be heard from the chicken coop. A creaking door opened and closed upstairs before Donnie shuffled down the stairs. Mikey woke up about an hour before his brother, eager to please the team by taking care of the chickens that morning and doing a few other various chores like putting away groceries and dusting.
Donnie yawned, entering the kitchen. He sat by the table, rubbing his eyes. “Smells good.” He sleepily remarked, glancing at the kitchen.
“Where’s Raph?” April asked after glancing at the table.
“Same as always.” Donnie replied.
“I’ll get him!” Mikey volunteered, quickly exiting the room and running up the stairs. He turned the knob to the bathroom door. The old door creaked and Raphael turned back to look at Mikey.
The turtle stared at him wordlessly. In the dim light that illuminated the dark bathroom from the window and open door, shadows cast on Raph’s solemn face. Notable under eye bags appeared under his dull and reddened green eyes.
“Raph, breakfast is ready.” Mikey said in as cheerful of a tone he could muster. Raph didn’t say anything as he stood from his seat beside the bathtub. Mikey tried to make small talk with Raph as they walked downstairs, but Raph wouldn’t say a word.
Raph sat at the table with a seat between him and Donnie, a seat not directly next to anyone else. April called for Raph to grab his plate.
“I’ll get it!” Mikey said, rushing to April to retrieve Raph’s plate. Mikey turned around too quickly and crashed into Casey, who was holding his own plate of sausages.
“Hey, watch it!” Casey said, shaking his head. Scrambled eggs flew off the plate and onto the floor. Mikey dove to the ground, eyes wide in panic.
“What the hell, Mikey?” Raph shouted, standing from his seat. The red masked turtle had finally broken his silence. “My eggs are everywhere! ” He approached Mikey, who was picking the eggs off the ground.
“I can make you more eggs.” April said to Raph, looking at the messy scene between the turtles behind her.
Raph didn’t look at her when he spoke. “No, Mikey screwed it up. You shouldn’t have to fix his mistakes.”
“You can have my eggs!” Mikey suggested in a high tone, trying to diffuse the situation. He rushed to scoop the final bits of eggs off the ground. Raph continued glaring at him.
“Your eggs are fried, not scrambled.” Mikey’s face felt hot, his stomach twisted. He looked around the room for someone to intervene, but nobody did. Donnie was chowing down on his pancakes, not looking up from the plate at the bickering brothers. Casey was standing at the table and grabbing a few pancakes to place on his plate, ignoring them as well. Mikey turned to look at April with pleading eyes.
April assured Raph that she could make him some more eggs and told Mikey to sit down. Raph didn’t say another word to his brother as Mikey quickly exited the room. Nobody protested his decision to leave. They may not have even noticed.
Grumbling about Mikey’s screw ups were the last thing he heard as he left the farmhouse. “A walk in the woods is what I need.” He thought. “I’ll eat breakfast later.”
Michelangelo was lost in his imagination again as he retreated from the farmhouse into the nearby woods. It was a winter wonderland far different from the depressing farmhouse he resided in. He deeply inhaled the fresh air. Turning back for a moment at the farmhouse before entering the woods, Mikey watched as gray smoke puffed out from the chimney and steadily rose to the white sky.
Staring up to the trees as he walked, Mikey wondered what it would be like to take a paintbrush and paint the sky. That day it was a perfect canvas, solid white. The clouds did not puff and break, revealing the typical blue sky anywhere. He debated whether he would paint it green or orange or perhaps a mixture of the two colors. Maybe he’d paint the images of him and his family in the sky. Michelangelo, Leonardo, Donatello, Raphael, and Master Splinter together as one happy, united family.
Mikey allowed his imagination to wander as he walked through the woods. He was unsure how much time passed when he finally decided to return to the farmhouse, but April and Casey were in the kitchen again.
Instead of April cooking a meal alone, the two prepared sandwiches for the team together. Casey did most of the talking again, but at least this time he was helping cook lunch. Casey prepared a mountain of deli meat and cheese sandwiches while April prepared a mountain of peanut butter and jelly sandwiches.
Mikey asked what they were up to as he entered the kitchen, peering at their sandwich piles. “Meal prep or whatever.” Casey replied.
“Yeah, you guys eat like horses. I don’t want to have to cook lunch every day so we’re making a ton of sandwiches to put in the fridge for later.” April added. Mikey nodded. Seeing the platters of sandwiches made his stomach rumble. His body felt slightly weak from skipping breakfast and tired from walking so long.
He asked if there was anything he could do to help. April told him to gather Raph and Donnie to eat lunch and Mikey agreed.
Mikey rushed upstairs to the bathroom first. He entered the room and didn’t wait for Raph to turn around before speaking to him. “Come get your grub!” He said playfully then ran downstairs. Mikey was hopeful that Raph had cooled off since breakfast.
He went to the barn, where Donnie was tirelessly working to create a lab. “April and Casey are making sandwiches for lunch.” He told Donnie. Donnie nodded, but didn’t say anything. “You hungry, D?”
“I’m just busy right now, Mikey.” Donnie said, his voice tense. He shooed his little brother away from the lab.
Mikey re-entered the farmhouse in hopes of having some lunch and a good conversation with April and Casey. His stomach rumbled again, belly feeling like a bottomless pit. He grabbed a plate and some sandwiches before sitting down. His mouth watered as he stared down at the sandwiches and picked one up in his hands. “Dudes, I’m starving!” He exclaimed, taking a large bite out of the meaty sandwich.
“When aren’t you starving?” Casey joked. He sat across from Mikey with his own plate of sandwiches. Mikey felt his stomach drop, ceasing chewing out of embarrassment. His gaze dropped to the floor. The overwhelming urge to spit the sandwich bite out hit him, but he chose to look up at Casey with a fake closed smile then slowly chew and swallow instead.
Mikey let out a light chuckle. Casey ate his sandwiches without problem, not noticing Mikey’s embarrassment. April joined the boys at the table with two sandwiches on her plate and a glass of milk.
The three made casual conversation, Mikey being much quieter than usual. He felt an almost ravenous hunger after the initial bite of the sandwich, likely triggered by his first bite of food all day. He only had small bites of food since arriving at the farmhouse because he was so busy trying to settle into an entirely new home and process his new reality. The stress killed his appetite until that day.
Part of his brain was screaming at him to throw the sandwiches away while another part was screaming at him to eat until he exploded. He continued eating, guilt piling up in his mind while both parts of his brain screamed at him, overlapping each other in their shouts and demands.
Mikey brought his plate to the sink and washed it quickly before putting it on the drying rack. He knew it’d make the load of responsibilities lighter on his friends. April was packing up sandwiches to put in the fridge while Casey washed the remainder of the dishes when Mikey exited the farmhouse again.
His brain burned with thoughts racing through them at a feverishly fast pace. He paced around the farmhouse for a few minutes as he tried to get his thoughts in order. He spoke quietly to himself, trying to separate the turmoil of his mind from the outside world.
In his eyes, his belly bulged and bloated slightly. The food sat uncomfortably inside of his stomach, turning into fat. All of it was turning into repulsive fat.
He had always been the chubbier brother, the little bro with baby fat still on him. His cheeks puffed, belly protruded, legs jiggled as he walked. He looked weak, unflattering. Not only was he a giant mutant turtle, but as Raph said many times, he wasn’t even handsome for a mutant turtle. He was ugly, a freak.
Mikey decided to go on a run to burn the fat away. He reasoned that if he took a run while he was still digesting, his body would use the food he ate as fuel instead of storing it as fat. Maybe he’d even build some muscle. The feverish pace of his thoughts cooled as he set out on his run with only one thing on his mind: he must burn his lunch.
Mikey formulated a plan in his mind as he ran. He’d go on a diet, a real diet like Raph sometimes went on when he was cutting and bulking for muscle gain and fat loss. He tried to remember exactly what Raph did while he dieted, but the turtle couldn’t remember what he did no matter how hard he thought back to Raph’s various diets.
He could recall Raph working out like crazy no matter what, focusing on his training in the dojo. Some days he ate so much food the cupboards were nearly bare while other days he’d whine while eating smaller bits of food. Mikey mostly ignored him, although he found Raph was much more fun to prank on the days when he ate less because he was so moody.
Mikey was tempted to ask Raph about his diet, but held back. He was going to get fit and he wanted to surprise his brothers by doing it entirely by himself. Nobody would ever call him weak or stupid again if they saw how muscular he’d be, Mikey thought. Maybe he’d even beat Raph with ease during sparring, sitting on his shell and taunting him like Raph often did to him.
He returned to the farmhouse after his run and chugged some water. He would skip dinner that night and drink only water until the following day. He felt a rush of endorphins and clarity as he was setting his plan into motion. No more messing around, he was going to accomplish his new goal and get fit.