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Of Hearts and Shells: 50 Shades of Green	By : prplraven Category: +S through Z > Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Views: 2973 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 0
Disclaimer: TMNT and all associated characters are property of their original creators. This fic is for entertainment only, and I receive no monies from this publication.

Chapter List
- 10
- 11
- 12
Donnie awoke alone, lying face-down, an arm spread over the unoccupied futon. He lay still for a while, hoping April would return. Instead, two rat feet and the hem of Splinter’s kimono entered his view. Donnie gulped and sat up to his knees, giving a slight bow, feeling once again as though he had been caught doing something he wasn’t supposed to. “Sensei, ohayo gozaimas!”
“Ohayo gozaimas,” Splinter returned. “Donatello, do you wish to explain to me why you are sleeping on the floor?” His tone was unreadable. Donnie blushed.
“April wanted me to stay with her,” he admitted bashfully, looking at the rug.
“What I mean to say is, why did you not use any bedding of your own?”
Donnie’s jaw worked open and shut like a landed trout. At long last, he managed to say, “Um…”
Splinter gave a kind chuckle. “I believe the cushions from your own futon should suffice. You have grown to be a responsible young man, my son, and I am proud of you. April, as well, has reached an age where she is capable of making her own choices and foreseeing their outcome. Destiny has bestowed a rare, fleeting opportunity upon the two of you to find happiness… who should I be to interfere?”
“So… Sensei… you don’t mind..?”
“Leonardo has informed me of his concerns about April.”
Donnie’s cheeks colored again and he looked away. “Oh.” And here came the bad news. “You want us to stop... errr.. uh…”
“Quite the contrary,” grinned the ninja master. “I believe your special bond helps in stabilizing her emotional state. The closer you are, the more your emotions temper hers, and the longer she can hold out physically. I realize this may take time away from developing April’s cure, thus I am excusing you from half of your usual training and other duties for the time being. I realize how happy you are together, nevertheless, the sooner April can return to her normal way of life, the better it will be for her.”
Donnie sat, pleasantly stunned at his sudden turn of fortune from the previous day. Master Splinter made to return to his room. “Sensei, you’re the best!” Donatello called after him.
Splinter turned his head back, giving Donnie that warm chuckle once again. “You are welcome.”
His master gone, he rose and folded the futon, placing it in its cupboard for the day. Then he headed to his lab to check on the mutagen.
The centrifuge was silent and still. “Wh… again?!” Frustrated, he picked up the loose cord and gave it a hard look. He checked the outlet as he plugged it back in again… it didn’t seem to wiggle, nothing felt loose, but for the extra security, he placed an X of duct tape over it. It simply falling out again was out of the question.
April appeared from around the corner of the entryway to the lab. Donnie looked up and gave her a coy grin. “Good morning, Princess.”
She smirked back at him, striding over. “Good morning, my handsome prince!” He pulled her down to sit on his lap and they kissed and nibbled at each other for a few minutes.
“You were up early,” Donnie commented between a last few quick pecks.
“Yeah… I had an essay I needed to finish and send in, and I had to call Dad and have him bring me some sewing supplies. He’s coming by later this afternoon. I figured I’d just let you sleep. Did Splinter freak out?”
“Strangely enough, no. In fact, he seems to approve of us sleeping together.”
“Great!” April exclaimed, hopping up and grabbing Don by the wrists. ”Let’s go, then!”
“I mean, next to each other!” Donnie tried to backpedal as he was yanked to his feet. “Though he did say he wants us to synergize more…” He added, though he didn’t say why. “And he gave me some extra time off to work on your retro-mutagen.”
“Oh, really?” she asked, her tone a bit unsure. “That’s… nice of him.”
“Sooo?” he said, seeking her gaze.
She closed her eyes and turned away from him. “Not just yet.”
“April!” Donnie whined. “Yesterday morning, you couldn’t get enough contact… Now you’re avoiding me.”
“I’m not avoiding you… Right now, though, I want to see how we can surprise each other.” She tugged him out of the lab by the hands.
“Oh?” he asked.
“See there,” she said with a smirk. “Already working! Come help me…”
Donnie rolled his eyes. “Ah, there it is…” he said, bounding up the steps after her.
“What?”
“You always do that.”
“Do what?”
“Ask for help when you want to have sex.”
She looked a bit taken aback. “I do?”
“Yeah… you’re always, ‘Help me, Donnie,’ or, ‘So help me, I want you,’ or ‘Come help me with this thing…’”
She paused, putting a finger to her chin as she thought. “Huh,” she shrugged. “And that was a terrible impression of me!”
He looked at her flatly. “What do you want, I’m a ninja, not an impersonator…”
She suddenly looked startled, mouth open in a gasp and pointed at his chest. He looked down to see what she was pointing at. “What is it?” he asked.
“You!” she said in an awed voice, pressing her finger into his plastron, then booping him in the nose with it as he looked down again. “…are it!” she yelled and bounded down the tunnel as he stood planted, confused at what had just happened.
“Ohhh, I’m gonna get you, missy!” Donnie yelled playfully, leaping after her. The two of them leapt through the abandoned subway tunnels, running on and springing off of the walls. April was light and surefooted in her movements, but Donatello, more experienced and able to put more power into his leaps, caught up to her easily. Even so, he let her gain a little ground on him when he felt himself getting too close to catching her.
He was expecting her to dodge when he launched himself at her, but she landed badly, slightly turning her ankle, and in that critical moment, Donnie could see he was going to hit her. “Look out!!” he screamed, pulling into his shell. She gasped, seeing the turtle-projectile flying at her, and ducked into her own shell just before he impacted her. The two shells collided, clopping together twice like a pair of coconut halves, and bounced end over end down the tunnel several yards before stopping. Both turtles emerged, unharmed, but with eyes spinning.
“You okay?” Donnie called to her, not moving.
“Yeah… I’m fine…” she replied dizzily.
“Good. You’re it.”
“I forfeit.”
“D’ssat mean I win?” he grinned at her, reaching for her with one arm.
“Yes… a winner is you.” She sat up, pulling him up by the hand he extended toward her, then ran the opposite hand down the side of her carapace and huffed. “I think I chipped my shell…”
“Lemme see…” He said, crunching through the flint gravel bed of the train tracks on his knees to examine her shell. “Ah, it’s not bad. We can file that out.” He spun her toward himself and kissed her gently. “We’re gonna have to come up with some foreplay activities that aren’t full-contact sports…”
“That or move the subway car a little closer.”
“Again… Raph’s prerogative. Though, really, I can’t say as I’d mind it being closer… not having to walk half a mile to it would be nice.”
The two of them got up and walked the last couple hundred yards to the appropriated subway car. Donnie clicked on the single light. “So… surprises, you say?”
“Yep,” she replied simply. “Kneel down,” she commanded with a sideways nod toward the mattress. He knelt as ordered, and she stood beside him, reaching her hands around his neck. She nibbled at his beak, and while he was distracted with kissing her in return, grabbed the knot of his mask and slid it around so that he could no longer see out the eye-holes.
“Hey!” he laughed. “April!” When he heard nothing for several moments, he started to get antsy. “…April?”
She said nothing, but he felt a gentle stroke to the back of his neck. The following, across his biceps. The next touch he felt was to his thighs… first her hands, and then… Holy fucking Darwin… was that her tongue?! He nearly fell over backward, shivers racing through his whole body. More shivers followed as she blew across the wet streak her tongue had created. Then, she was gone again.
He listened for her, but Splinter had trained her well; she didn’t make a sound… she was so stealthy! He felt so helpless… still, it was a wonderful kind of torture… as long has she hadn’t just left him there. She hadn’t, had she? Seconds dragged out like hours, nerve-wracking, as he awaited her next move.
It came in the form of beautiful agony that made his neck arch and his eyes roll back in his skull. How she’d managed to get both hands under his shell without touching him anywhere else, he never knew, but the touch to both sides of that delicate membrane robbed him of the ability to breathe. When he finally let the breath out, it came as a deep moan. All the blood left the upper half of his body, going to fill the giant, eggplant-colored thing that slid out from beneath his shell.
And there were her hands on it… and there was her tongue again, up and down and around the whole length of him. He shuddered, trying to keep control as a bit of pre-cum leaked from the end of his cock. April smeared it around his glans with the flat of her hand. She flicked the tip with her tongue, making him bite his bottom lip against the pleasure. She took her hands away, but she wasn’t done torturing him yet.
“Who’s your princess?” she asked in a vicious tone.
“You are…” he gasped, breathing heavily now.
“Not good enough. Say my name!”
“You are, April,” he moaned obediently. She gave his cock a lick, and he felt the pressure in him building even further.
“And who’s my boy-toy?” she asked, stroking him to keep him hard.
“I am…” he replied when he caught his breath.
“Ah-ah…” she warned.
“I am, April,” he corrected hastily. She rewarded him with another lick, which made the tightness in his organ even worse.
“Do you want to cum in me?”
Hmph… that should have been obvious. “Yes, April!” He was rewarded with another sensation entirely; she was rubbing her ass up and down his hard length, which had to be an acrobatic feat, given her shell.
“Do you think you deserve to cum in me?” she said, with a cruel edge to her voice.
He didn’t know how to answer that, and he didn’t have enough blood flow to his brain to be able to think about it properly. He gasped, shaking his head.
“Time’s a’wasting…” she warned, swinging his dick back and forth, clutched lightly by her buttocks. “Tick.. tock… tick… tock…”
God, she could be mean when she wanted to be! He finally took a gamble and queried, “No, April…?”
She gave an assenting, “Hmm,” adding, “That’s right. You don’t. But I’ll let you anyway.” With that, she lined the tip of his shaft up with her cloaca and eased down onto him, her insides feeling extremely wet. His ejaculation was immediate, and like a bomb going off. He filled her so full, he could feel part of it dribbling down his length. He collapsed to his hands as he pulled out. He knew she couldn’t be satisfied with that, brief as he’d been in her, but he would have to have time to recover before he was able to make the effort, and he wasn’t sure if she was done with him yet.
She lifted his chin with one finger. “You did well enough, pet.” She paused, as if waiting. “Say ‘Thank you.’”
“Thank you, April,” he replied immediately, almost fearfully.
She kissed him gently, then turned his mask back around to its proper position, fastidiously smoothing it. “There. Did you enjoy Princess April?”
Donnie put a finger to his chin. “Well, the sex wasn’t bad…”
“But?”
“You know, Princess April is a real bitch!” April started giggling at this, and he joined her after a moment, nudging her with his beak.
She looked at him expectantly. “Now it’s your turn.”
“My turn?” he queried.
“…to surprise me. Besides, you owe me an orgasm.”
He sat thinking for a while. “Ah, I think I’ve got it…” He untied his mask.
“Oho… revealing your secret identity to me, are you?”
Donnie sniggered in response. “Yeah, because no one would ever guess we were actually turtles under these masks, you know.”
He moved toward her, mask in hand, but she stopped him to look him over. “You look so different without it…”
“I know… I just look like a dork without it.”
April shook her head. “It’s just different… I’m so used to seeing you with it on. But you’re still my beautiful Donnie either way.” She leaned in, giving him a quick peck on the cheek. He returned it with a loving smile.
“Here, let’s see how you look…” He wrapped the strip of fabric around her face and tied it off loosely under her ponytail. She batted her eyes at him and he melted. “You’re so adorable…”
April pulled out her phone and snapped a shot of herself, then pulled Donnie next to her for one of them both. “Not bad… purple isn’t the best color on me, but these are definitely keepers…” She looked back at him. “Is this it, then?”
“Don’t be silly… I haven’t even started yet!” He gave her beak a nudge and twisted his mask so she couldn’t see out the eye-holes.
“Hey! No copying!” she protested.
Don chuckled. “I’m not… I just think you might enjoy this more if you can’t see what I’m doing.” He laid her down on the mattress gently, then kissed her cheek, then the side of her head, then nibbled down her neck. Not stopping there, he planted a line of kisses over her shoulder and down her arm. He turned her hand over after kissing the back, then licked the palm and sucked on each of her fingers.
Her mouth fell open, and he imagined her eyes, beneath the mask, lust-lidded. He was rewarded with a pleasured gasp as he traced the upper edge of her plastron with his tongue, his hands resting on that strange sculpt in her shell where her petite human breasts would be. He continued his ministrations on her other arm, then repositioned himself and picked up one of her feet. She let out a shriek and tried to kick as he licked the arch of her foot, but he held it firm.
“Are we ticklish?” he asked teasingly and gave her foot another swift swipe of his tongue, with a similar result.
“Donnie, stooopp!” she squealed, trying her best to pull away from him.
He chortled a bit at her plight. She looked so cute when she struggled, but he didn’t want to overdo it either. “All right… back to business, then…” He pulled her foot back to his mouth and sucked each of her toes as they curled in ticklish protest, then kissed his way up to her knee and spread her legs to kiss the inside of her thigh. She panted and quivered, but he still had one leg left to administer love to. He kissed her toes, then nibbled across the arch, sending her into convulsions of laughing screams. Again, he nibbled from the top of her foot to her knee, then kissed his way across her outer thigh. He turned her leg to lick her inner thigh, once again eliciting deep, anticipatory breaths from her, and goosebumps as he blew lightly across the moistness. Turnabout was fair play, after all.
He spread her wider, gazing down at the closed nub of her cloaca. He bent and gave the side of it a tenuous lick. April moaned, her bud clenching. “Donnie?” she queried achingly. She sat up on one elbow, pulling his mask up past one of her eyes. “Can I be in you for this part?”
He leaned forward on his hands to look lovingly into her revealed eye. “Of course you can, Sweetheart…” he replied softly, merging with her mind. He kissed her tenderly, then slid his mask back over her eye and turned his attention back to her cloaca.
He licked his lips, nervousness suddenly gripping him. No pressure… he thought, forgetting that she could also hear him.
You don’t have to… she thought, though her disappointment was evident. But the thought of the pleasure it would bring them both bolstered his reserve. He plunged his tongue into her. She rocked against him, already quite wet. Her moisture spilled out onto his beak. The smell and taste of her pheromones drove him into a frenzy, and he licked her with increased fervor, feeling the pleasure himself. It all but knocked him out, but he kept going. His penis, getting jealous, started bulging insistently once more, but he didn’t have time for it at the moment. April guided him mentally to an especially sensitive spot. He rolled over to tongue it that much harder, and surges of pleasure rushed through her, and through him by extension. She panted harder, reaching a hand down to touch his head, as if to pull him further into her.
She reveled in seeing herself through his eyes as she came. Her ecstasy plowed over them like a shockwave, coming in rolling waves of pleasure after the initial explosion. Donnie lapped at her a few more times to keep her going, then he turned, lifted her, and slid her onto his hardness. He pulled her down by the shell as he thrust upward into her repeatedly. She screamed, and he yelled along as rapture overtook them again. Somewhere in the middle of her third orgasm, he burst, squirting all he had into her a second time.
He retracted from her, and she fell forward onto the mattress, stretching out beside him. You’re so amazing, she thought to him as they both soaked in the afterglow.
You did most of the work! he retorted. Still, glad you enjoyed it.
Ohhhmygod, did I… she sent back with a laugh and a blissed-out sigh. Can I have my eyes back now?
He snorted with laughter and untied his mask from her eyes, pulling it taught around his own head and reknotting it. Hey… he poked her mentally. Don’t fall asleep there… and we should go. I should be working on your cure.
She whined uncooperatively. Can’t we stay just a little longer?
He caved in, feeling what a state of comfort she was in. All right… another few minutes….
Donatello transferred the first batch of separated mutagen from the centrifuge to a rack and put another batch in to spin. He used a long syringe to transfer the heaviest of the layers—so deeply pink than it was nearly red—to another flask. It was disheartening to see how little there was when he had collected the bottom layer from all ten tubes. He let his head fall against the desk. At least he had learned from his previous experience from making retro-mutagen that it took very little to cause the reversion… just a drop. That was a miracle in itself… it meant he had to produce a fraction of what he had originally produced—and this time, it wasn’t leaving the lair. No chance of Buzzkill Baxter swiping it out of his hands this time! And he had already figured out how to produce retro-mutagen of the garden-variety mutagen, so at least he had something to base April’s retro-mutagen off of.
Still, though… it was such a long process. Donnie went over the checklist he had made, based on his procedure from the previous successful batch of retro-mutagen:
                -separate mutagen layers via centrifugal force
                -extract heaviest layer from solution
                -distill at 70°C in Erlenmeyer flask
-filter to eliminate film @ top
                -combine with amino acid mix 47B
                -incubate ~52 hours
                -chill @ 10°C -DO NOT OVERCHILL
                -filtrate
                -incubate ~48 hours
                -heat evenly to boiling
So much to have to do… and so far, he’d only begun on the first two steps. He wished he had a bank of centrifuges… that would speed the process up substantially. He was cutting the ingredients by half, in hopes of reducing the time it would take to refine the mutagen, but didn’t dare cut it smaller than that in case it started to affect the composition—if the enzymes didn’t cook the same way, he could lose the whole batch. At least if that happened, he had the other container of altered mutagen as a backup.
Hurry up and wait… that was what it came down to… so despite the extra time Splinter had allotted for him to work on the retro-mutagen, he had done all he could for the moment, and headed to the dojo. April was nowhere to be seen… most likely, she was in training with Splinter. But Mikey was there, swatting at the training dummy with his nun-chucks.
“Yo, D! You wanna spar?”
“Sure, man,” Donnie assented, grabbing his bo from the weapon rack. He did a couple of warm-up stretches, then whirled his bo into a starting position. “Ready?”
“Aw, yea! Let’s hit this!” Mikey hollered, whirling his chucks at his brother.
Donnie blocked his first two attacks, knocking the wooden ends away with his bo horizontal in front of him. He went into a forward attack spin for an overhead strike.
Mikey whipped the chain of one of his nun-chucks around the end of his bo and caught the other end, aiming to pull the staff out of Donnie’s hands. “I’ve missed you, D,” he said, eyes not on the fight.
“What’re you talking about? I’ve been here the whole time!” Don replied, yanking his bo out of the loop of chain and aiming a jab at Mike’s foreplating. Mikey leapt backward, dodging.
“Yeah, but now it’s always you and April, you know?” he said, circling as he looked for an opening in Donnie’s defense. “And all I see of ‘you and April’ is you two disappearing out the front door.”
Donnie gave him a somewhat smug look. “I thought you liked it that April and I were an item.” He hooked one of Mikey’s knees as Mikey tried to jump at him, and Mike went down on his back.
He somersaulted backward onto his feet again. “I do! You guys are perfect together!” He pushed Donnie back with a series of fierce diagonal swings. “It’s just…” He paused to jump Donnie’s swing. “… the A-minus Team isn’t the same without you.”
A bit touched, Don gave him a sympathetic smile, then immediately had to duck into his shell as a nun-chuck came at his face. “I guess I owe you some hang-out time once she’s gone.” He sighed, distracted at the thought of her leaving. Mikey wrapped both his ankles at once with his chucks and yanked him off his feet. Donnie went down hard. After a moment, he sat up, resting his arms on his knees. Michelangelo took a seat next to him. “I’m losing her, Mikey,” he said, hanging his head. “I have to send her back, and I don’t know what I’m gonna do without her…”
Mikey let out a scoffing laugh. “Dude, you really think she’d give you up that easy?” Donnie blinked at his brother. “Especially with as close as you guys have gotten… She’s not giving you up without a fight.”
“She has to, Mikey… we have no future.”
Mike glowered at him for a minute. “And you guys call ME the dumb one…” Donnie gave him a stony look in return. “Well, if you’re gonna give up that easily, you probably don’t deserve her.”
“Mikey, We. Can. Not. Be. Together,” Donnie explained slowly, annoyed.
“You just mean you can’t have hot shell-on-shell action.”
Donnie raised an eyebrow at his brother. He had really taken Mikey for more innocent than that. But, they were all growing up, Michelangelo too. And honestly, how innocent had he himself been just a few weeks ago?
“Look, if you love each other because you like being with each other, it’s not gonna matter if you can’t fit inside her. And there’s other things you can do that don’t involve that…”
Donnie blushed. This conversation had suddenly gone someplace really uncomfortable. “Okay, denying ourselves basic pleasures of the flesh aside, what if someday she wants to get married, or move somewhere else? Or have kids? That’s really a dead-end. I’d just be a burden to her… Chaining her to me is almost as bad as chaining her down here for her whole life. I can’t do that to her…”
“You’re smart, though… you’d think of some way to make things work. If she wanted you to, you’d do it, wouldn’t you?”
He thought for a moment. “I don’t know. Not if it’s just going to ruin her chances to be happy later…”
“D… bro… you deserve some happiness too, you know.”
Donatello regarded his brother with a smirk. “How’d you get so wise?”
“Comic books, man,” Mikey said sagely. “Life imitates art.”
A voice called from the entryway. “Hello? Anyone home? April? Boys?”
“April’s Dad…” Donnie identified, getting to his feet. “She mentioned he was coming by today…”
“Hi, Mr. O’Neil!” Mikey called as he and Donnie exited the dojo space.
“Michelangelo, Donatello,” Kirby greeted, shaking hands with the turtles, shifting the box he was carrying to his left arm. “Where’s April at?”
“I think she and Leo are in meditating with Master Splinter… she should be almost through,” Donnie guessed, availing Kirby of the box of supplies. “Come on in, have a seat.”
Mr. O’Neil followed Donnie to the benches, where they both sat down. Donnie set the box on the floor. “How goes the production of the retro-mutagen?”
Donnie sighed. “Slowly and tediously now… but at least it’s something.”
“Good to hear. I got a colleague to forge an excuse for April being absent from school for so long, and as long as her homework keeps coming in in her own handwriting, the school hasn’t been too suspicious… but I’m worried that her teachers or CPS will come by someday and want to actually see her.”
Donnie grimaced. “That could get awkward… I guess you could say she stepped out… or is visiting someone… or that she must’ve run away…”
“Or you could just tell them she turned into a mutant turtle and she’s living in the sewers with a bunch of other mutant turtles,” Mikey added, joining them.
Oh, how quickly that wisdom ebbed away… “NO.” Donnie glared at him.
“Why not? The evidence of that one is irrefutable!”
“Um, because no one will believe it, Mr. Brilliance,” Donnie snapped at him. “But good choice of vocabulary.”
“Thank you,” said Mikey, claiming it as a small victory. He started digging deep into the box. “And what have we here? Ground beef? Canned spinach? Lasagna noodles?” he named off as he pulled the items out.
“That’s because I’m fixing dinner tonight,” April’s voice came from behind them. She stepped down onto the bench and then the floor beside her father. “Hi, Dad,” she greeted, kissing her father on the cheek, then bumped beaks with Donnie as she claimed the box from Mikey. “I’ll be in the kitchen. You’re staying for dinner, aren’t you, Daddy?”
“Of course!” Kirby grinned after her.
Mikey rose with a skeptical look on his face and made to follow her. “Where’re you going?” Donnie asked.
“I do not trust that woman…” he said suspiciously. “I’m no expert at lasagna, but I saw a pack of needles in that box, and I’m pretty sure needles are not a lasagna ingredient!”
“Mikey, she’s doing a sewing project!” Donnie yelled after him, unable to dissuade him from going. He looked back to Mr. O’Neil and rolled his eyes briefly. Mr. O’Neil shared a smile with him.
“How is she adjusting?”
“Like a turtle to water,” Donnie replied, and then realized that that might not have been the best choice of words. He looked apprehensively at April’s father to see if he’d misstepped. Kirby didn’t seem particularly fazed by the turn of phrase though, so he relaxed.
“Good.”
They both sat silently for a few moments. Then a thought entered Donnie’s mind. “I have a psychology question for you, if you don’t mind…” he began carefully.
“Certainly, Donatello. Go ahead…”
Donnie licked his lips, trying to phrase the question as innocently as possible. “What does it mean, generally, when someone keeps saying something, though they’re unaware of doing it?”
“Ahh, that’s basic Freudian psychology. It’s called ‘acting out.’ They’re subconsciously expressing a need or desire for something.”
The turtle nodded. “That’s what I thought.” His brows knit. Help? he thought. She wants help? What does she want help with? How can I help her?
“Out of curiosity, why do you ask?”
Donnie panicked. “I… um… er…it’s for a friend. Who is definitely not a girl. And whose name is certainly not April.” Jesus, Donnie… learn when to stop talking! he berated himself.
‘Oh? I wasn’t aware you had more friends…” He paused a moment. “There was that boy in the hockey mask, wasn’t there… when I reverted from my mutation…”
“Oh, right, Casey. I guess you two didn’t get much of a formal introduction then, did you?”
More voices approached from the turnstiles. “What is that smell?? Ohmigod, so good!”
“Somebody’s cooking, and it’s not Mikey… that’s all I know, and that’s all I need to know.”
Donnie nodded at Raph and Casey. “Speak of the devil, the Bash Brothers are back. Where’ve you guys been?”
“Makin’ the Purple Dragons live up to their name, at least until the bruises fade,” Casey replied casually, crashing down on the bench. “Oh hey, Mr. O’Neil!”
“Young man,” Kirby responded, shaking hands with him.
“So, April’s cooking?” Raph deduced. “I didn’t know April could cook…”
“Apparently…”
“Why now? I mean, she’s been here like, a month, and she’s never cooked before…”
Donnie shrugged. “Her dad brought all the ingredients, for one… not like we have everything on hand down here. And maybe she just didn’t want to. After all, if you knew, you’d want her to do it more, wouldn’t you?”
“Well, yeah, but… that’s talent that we could be putting to use, right?”
Don gave Raph a narrow glare. “I’ll talk to her about it. She’s not gonna be here much longer, ya know…”
Raph looked down. “Oh. Right.” After a moment of thought, he added, “Well… she can still come cook for us when she’s human, right?”
Donnie sighed at him.
Dinner was a merry affair. With their two guests, there were eight of them at the table. Casey was keeping everyone entertained by recounting his many hockey victories and a few of the more amusing failures.
Splinter was hesitant to try the lasagna, preferring his usual Japanese cuisine to Western cuisine, but April convinced him. “Are you sure, Sensei? Six-cheese blend…”
“Six cheese?” the rat ninja master sniffed curiously as April slid a slice of lasagna before him, then looked miffed as she took the chopsticks out of his hand and replaced them with a knife and fork.
“Trust me, Sensei… it’ll just go better with normal cutlery.”
April’s lasagna—to which she’d acquiesced to Mikey’s insistence on adding pepperoni to the top and dubbing it “pizzzagna”—was declared to be world-class and received a round of applause from the diners.
“April, you’ve GOT to cook for us more often!” Raph insisted. “At least a couple times a week…”
Leo nodded in agreement, mouth full. “This is fantastic…”
Donnie kicked Raph under the table. “I told you I’d ask her about it!” Raph kicked him back, harder. Donnie winced and scowled at him.
“But that’s my job!” Mikey whined.
Raph gave Mike a flat look. “Make that the whole week, in fact, April.”
April gave him a flattered smile, blushing a bit. “I don’t actually like cooking that much…”
His jaw dropped. “You gotta be kidding me!”
“She doesn’t cook at home very much either,” Mr. O’Neil added, “as much as I’d like it if she did…”
“Just now and then,” she affirmed, a bit guardedly. “…but… I guess I could try to cook for you guys a little… as long as I can get Dad or Casey to bring me the ingredients.” Her gaze fell on Raph and Mikey, both staring at her in different sorts of anticipation. “One day a week,” she declared. “And I’ll try to… ‘assist’ Mikey now and again.”
Mikey fist-pumped in triumph while Raphael deflated with an “Aww…”
Casey gave April a wining smile. “Don’t suppose I could get the same arrangement at my place?”
“Wouldn’t count on it,” she told him flatly with a wry smile. “But, I guess I’ll make enough for you too if you happen to show up here.”
As the meal was winding down, Leo pointed out, “It’s nearly 8:00. We should all be geared up and ready to go meet Cav in half an hour, got it? Raph, you and I are on dishes.”
Donnie leaned over to April, kissing her on the cheek. “Thank you, Sweetie, that was really good.” Then he froze, realizing that Mr. O’Neil was staring at them.
“And I believe that’s my cue to go,” Kirby stated plainly, as if ignoring what he’d just seen. “Boys, it’s been a wonderful evening. Thank you,” he said, shaking hands with the turtles, Casey, and Splinter. Donatello and April walked him to the gates, where he shook Donnie’s hand again, bidding them a pleasant night. In an undertone, he added to Donatello, “Just don’t break her heart. That’s all I ask.”
“Not in a million years,” Donnie promised.
April reached up, giving her father a hug and a kiss on the cheek. “Happy Anniversary, Daddy,” she said, almost soft enough that Donnie couldn’t hear her. He pretended that he hadn’t for the moment.
“Thank you, Sweetheart. Come home soon,” Kirby said, hugging her back before leaving.
April stood watching until her father was out of sight. She turned and linked immediately with Donatello’s waiting eyes.
Your parents’ anniversary… you didn’t tell us you were celebrating… he thought to her. Melancholic feelings surrounded him from her.
It’s just been the two of us for nearly ten years now. I always make Mom’s lasagna for Dad, because she always made it for him for their anniversary dinner.
But.. you didn’t want to tell anyone about it?
She shook her head. It’d just put a damper on things, wouldn’t it, celebrating the anniversary of someone who isn’t there anymore? We tend to keep it to ourselves. Donnie stepped up behind her and enveloped her in his arms, sending he all the comfort he could muster. He bent his head to cuddle hers. It’s been so long, Donnie… and it’s like I can barely remember what she was like, and at the same time, I still miss her so much… she thought, tears forming in her eyes.
Donnie sifted through her memories for the feelings associated with her mother. The closeness of the love… he had nothing to relate it to. We had Master Splinter for a father, but we never had a mother.
No, he took it back… he supposed it was something like the soul-touch, and April’s memories of her mother’s love like trying to hold onto that memory of his touching April’s soul.   That, but with the distance multiplied ten years rather than a few days. Just considering it caused a crushing ache in his heart. I’m so sorry, sweetheart…
Her gratitude warmed him. Thanks for trying to understand.
A wave of desire from her hit him. It pushed at him, getting stronger. We don’t have time right now, Hotness… he pushed back.
“Hmph,” she snorted aloud and crossed her arms.
Come on, don’t be like that. Maybe we’ll have time when we get home. He considered staying connected to her while they went out. After all, they weren’t expecting to meet up with any enemies. But, when did they? No, it wasn’t safe, he decided, despite the fact he was supposed to be spending more time in synergy with April. He stepped out of their link and headed for his lab to check on things before they left.
The centrifuge wasn’t running. “Oh for fuck’s sake!” Donnie bent down to check the outlet, but the tape he had put there was still intact. Instead, the power switch had been turned off. There was no way he could have forgotten to turn it on; he knew he had. Suspicion entered his mind.
“Hey, who’s been in my lab?!” he demanded. He received blank looks from all of his brothers and Casey. “Somebody turned off the centrifuge. I need it to stay on! It’s important!” Leo looked at Mikey. Mikey shrugged and looked at Raph. Raph gave him an apathetic glare in return and rolled his eyes. April wandered up to the group, also looking apprehensively at the other turtles, then back to Donatello.
“Come on, Donnie… you’re gonna miss warm-ups,” Leo called dismissively.
Don growled at being largely ignored by the group, but gave up the fight for the moment and joined the others in the dojo.
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Of Hearts and Shells: 50 Shades of Green