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Pink.
The world is a blur of pink.
Mikey’s lungs burn as he forces himself to keep running. His feet pound harshly against the metal. His legs feel like jelly. His arms are barely able to move in tandem. Each step feels more impossible than the last, but he can’t stop. Not with the massive shadow directly overhead. Not with the ground shaking at the mere footsteps of the stone soldier. Not when stopping means certain death.
Not when stopping means never seeing his family again.
So he runs. He jumps. He ignores the lack of oxygen, of energy, of hope and keeps going.
He turns and-
Runs straight into a wall.
He frantically recovers and pivots to another direction, but it’s also blocked by metal. His head spins. Metal surrounds him in every way but one: a small sliver in the ceiling. He drops in a corner with his legs to his chest, making himself as small as possible.
Mikey’s pinned down. Completely cornered. He can’t remember how he got here but he’s here and alone and pinned down.
The steps of the giant stone men sound like thunder, steps so heavy that they jostle him a bit. The only light left in from that crack turns to shadow. Mikey’s hand covers his mouth tightly to muffle any breaths. His eyes reluctantly and slowly move to the crack in the ceiling.
And looks directly into a glowing red eye.
All Mikey can do is scream in terror.
Something’s suddenly on him, shaking him, grabbing him, taking him.
In an act of pure wild desperation, he lunges. He feels their weight collide with the floor as his legs pin the Kraang bot? down. Everything feels too vivid yet too vague all at once. He grabs the discarded nunchucks from the ground and bares the chain down on their its throat. His ears are roaring. He can’t die here, not now, not yet. Not without seeing his brothers one last time.
The metal it doesn’t feel like metal figure struggles underneath him. Sounds barely muddle through the blood rush. In between one breath and the next, words manage to crack through.
“Mikey, Mikey, it’s me. It’s Raph,” the figure croaks out.
He’s missing something. The world’s not making sense. Where’d the walls go? The rock soldiers?
The Kraang soldier beneath him feels like flesh. They’re small. Too small to be one of the stone soldiers. Where did they…
The confusion is enough to tilt reality back into focus.
His vision adjusts to the darkness of his room. His room. He’s at home in the lair, he has been for months now, and he’s on top of…
Mikey frantically pushes himself away as the realization hits.
Raph-it’s Raph- gingerly rubs his throat where the chain of Mikey’s nunchucks dug in and slowly sits up.
The breaths he was practically heaving out becomes silent and cold. His hands are buzzing as his back hits the wall behind him. He just…he almost-he can’t even finish the thought as his stomach turns with nausea.
“Mike,” Raph has to wheeze out, “you back with me?”
He can only nod in his shock, “Raph, I’m so-”
“Don’t,” he waves him off. “You’re all good.”
“I was choking you.”
“You weren’t really there, Mike. Still stuck in that nightmare or memory. It’s not your fault.”
Mikey’s eyes can’t move away from his brother’s throat, from the darker green it’s becoming “But-”
“Remember back at the farmhouse when Donnie was trying to help Fearless through a flashback, and Leo punched him in the gut for it?”
He can recall it. It was after dinner back at the farmhouse. Mikey and April were tag teaming the dishes while the others got the kitchen. April went to grab a pan when a knife scraped across it in a way akin to nails on a chalkboard. The cleaning bottle behind them suddenly clattered to the ground. Mikey turned around to see Leo’s pupils turn into pinpricks as he sprung himself to the back wall. He was convinced he was back on the day of the invasion. Of Shredder’s ambush. Everyone tried to reassure him that he was safe, but nothing was getting through to him. Donnie made the mistake of trying to get closer, and Leo responded purely on instinct. He dropped quickly as a fist careened into his plastron. Once Leo was able to snap out of it, he apologized profusely for days on end, despite Donnie’s assurances that there was nothing to forgive.
“Yeah,” he sighs, already knowing where this is going.
“It wasn’t Leo’s fault, same way this wasn’t yours.”
“It doesn’t feel like it.” He brings his knees under his chin. “Is your throat okay?”
“What, this? You know I’ve had way worse.”
Mikey only hugs his knees tighter in response. Raph scoots to join him, sitting criss-crossed up against the wall. Wordlessly, Mikey leans into the other as Raph wraps an arm around his shoulder.
“I hate this. I hate feeling like I’ve got one foot here and the other in X. I hate not being able to eat the same or watch the same shows or read the same comics because there’s always something that reminds me of there. I miss being able to be me without a fucking landmine of triggers,” he mumbles.
There’s a moment of silence between the two. Raph rubs Mikey's arm with his thumb before briefly stopping the motion.
“I have an idea. X didn’t have water, did it?”
“No. But I told you guys, those worms things were both food and water.”
“I’m not talking about that. It’s summer, and I bet that old lake we went to as kids feels amazing. I’m feeling a midnight swim. What do you say?”
***
Mikey looks out to the water, glittering the moonlight back to him like stars. He takes a deep breath in as the salty air fills his senses. The creak looked the same as it did when they were tots. The tree they would use Mikey’s chains to swing off of, the rocky shore they’d always cut their feet on, and the first lake of water they could ever truly have fun in on the surface. Memories of past visits, of splash fights and races, of breath-holding contests and relaxfully floating rushes in his mind. It’s perfect, same as it’s always been.
“You okay?”
Mikey huffs out a sigh of relief and a smile graces his face. His legs are off running towards the water before his brain can catch up. With a whoop, he jumps right in. The chilly water greets him just as excitedly. In an instant, he feels right at home.
He hears a similar whoop behind him before a splash gets him right in the face. Raph resurfaces with a laugh- and is promptly cut off with water straight in his nose courtesy of the youngest. Mikey can’t help the giggle that slips out.
“It’s like that?” Raph taunts with a wicked gleam in his eyes. Mikey barely has a second to swim away before he’s dunked underwater. He tries to twist around to drag Raph down by the ankle when he’s picked up and swung back and forth in his brother’s arms.
“Uncle! Uncle!” Mikey can barely say through a mix of splashes and laughter. With a huff of laughter of his own, his brother lets him go. They take a moment to breathe in the moment. To just exist in the water with no one watching. No Kraang, no stone soldiers, no drones. Just the stars above.
“Up for a race?” he asks as the idea hits him. “First to ten laps around.”
“Oh, you are on!” Raph exclaims, pushing himself forward the second the words are out of his mouth.
“Hey!” Mikey calls after him before plunging himself after him.
The open world of the creak below quickly becomes a race track. The path of their youth is muscle memory as Mikey bounds forward. He sees Raph up ahead as he turns his head, sees how close he is to catching up, and kicks into high gear. Tries to, anyway. Mikey’s always been a hell of a swimmer. It’s no time at all that they’re side by side, playfully shoving each other on a turn. Mikey then uses a push to his brother’s shoulder to propel himself forward. He hears the barely held in “WHAT?” and the smile on his face only grows wider in response.
By the fifth lap, Mikey feels a tug on his ankle and is surprisingly pulled back. Raph only looks back to stick out his tongue before taking the lead once more. He only holds it until the seventh when Mikey uses a small gap between some rocks to use as a shortcut. He makes it through easily with a twist that manages to get him above Raph in the water. His brother doesn’t even notice him until Mikey gives him a playful pat on the head. Raph’s face became comical in response as once again, and for the rest of the race, Mikey took the lead. He even does a little flip at the ‘finish line’ to celebrate his victory and pretends to look at a watch when Raph crosses it.
“Ah, laugh it up, little brother,” Raph grumbles in clearly mocked anger as the pair resurface.
“It’s kind of wild, Raphie,” he chuckles. “Even after all that water, you still got some rust on you.”
He only gets a half-hearted splash to the face in response.
Mikey’s chuckles die down but his smile remains as he lays on his back to float. He feels Raph do the same. They’re both still catching their breaths as the gentle movement of the waves rock them ever so slightly back and forth. The stars that are usually hidden from the lights of the city twinkle in the night. It feels like the world around is in sync with him for the first time since coming back from Dimension X.
The water feels like home. Both of his feet are home.
“Raph?”
“Yeah?”
“Thank you.”
“Anytime, little brother.”
***
Mikey’s not feeling too hot.
Went for a swim. Be back soon.
-Raph
Leo places the note back on the kitchen counter and resumes his routine of making tea.
“Some leader,” an all too familiar voice behind him sneers.
He takes a moment to steady himself with a breath and pours the water into the kettle. The prickles on his neck only grow in their intensity. Most of the whispers are indistinguishable, but certain words always jump out.
“Useless.”
He begins crushing his jasmine tea leaves, willing his mind to focus on what’s real.
“Cannot even help him now?”
“Tea kettle, kitchen counter, the stove, my hand, bowl,” he recites. “I’m in the lair. Shredder’s not here.”
“Are you so sure about that, turtle?”