Adult-FanFiction.org : Cartoons

A New Lease on Life	By : Ghost-of-a-Chance Category: +S through Z > Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Views: 3159 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 0
Disclaimer: I don't own TMNT, any of its characters or devices, or any songs/books/movies referenced. No money is made from this story. I DO own any & all OCs included in the story...and a Woozle.

Chapter List
- 3
- 4
- 5
Precautions for trauma, intrusive memories, and some mildly graphic imagery.
Suggested Listening: Seether "Hang On," & Ozzy Osbourne "Crazy Train"
3: One Life Ends, Another Begins
April O'Neil's apartment, January 27th, 2016
Leo had been pacing for a good twenty minutes, Donatello mused blandly. From the living room window to the hallway, up the hallway to the bedroom door, from there to the kitchen, and back to the living room, over and over. At this rate, they'd owe April new flooring. Worried hazel-green eyes fixed on the sofa, their owner silently contemplating the strange woman slumped over half buried in an enormous yellow comforter. After the shocking revelation, she'd just stared into space, never even acknowledging another temper tantrum from Casey and several more accusations of deception. By the time Casey had calmed down again and tea was served, her shaking had stopped and a startling calm swept over her.
Over on the sofa, Amber silently read herself the riot act. Everything was becoming clearer by the moment. She died with only one regret and was somehow given a second chance but that second chance came with a price: the body she awoke in once housed a troublemaker, a Purple Dragon with no sense of modesty and a long rap sheet. On top of that, Amber found herself surrounded by people she'd believed fictional characters and had already pissed off one, two, maybe even three of them.
She shivered, dragging the blanket around herself like fluffy yellow armor. Donatello was adorable—so much more adorable than she'd expected! She knew for certain she'd never seen him depicted in coveralls and glasses when she was still alive, but deep in her heart, his appearance was familiar. After all, this was the Donnie she'd seen in her dreams for so many years. His confident smirk, his dry, tangy wit, the distinct scent of coffee and grease…even his eyes were just as she'd seen before, a unique shade of hazel that shifted with the lighting from green to gold. Those eyes of his had completely shut down all activity in her brain the first time they met hers.
What happened to Kimber, the previous owner of the body she now inhabited?
"Oh, God," she blurted out suddenly. "I'm stuck in a dead chick's body!" Everyone stared at her, alerting her to the fact that her brain-to-mouth filter had failed again. "Um, sorry. I must need'a get that brain-to-mouth filter cleaned or something."
"Since you're talking again," Leonardo started without missing a beat. "Let's get our facts straight."
"Oh, boy," Donnie mumbled, recognizing Leo's stern tone; Amber showed no sign of discouragement, but the genius was sure his brother intended on a lecture she might not need. She seemed fragile - familiar in a way, but that fragility didn't ring a bell.
"You keep referring to death," Leo reminded bluntly. "Did you die, are you dead, etc...now you're saying you're 'in a dead woman's body.'" Amber could practically hear the air-quotes. "What's with this fascination with death?" Donnie's palm impacted his face with a loud slap and he shook his head in disbelief.
"You're kidding me, right?" the stranger retorted dryly, burrowing even deeper into the comforter. "Do I look Goth? I'm not fascinated by death, I died. That damned window shattered, an'…an'…." Grey-green eyes watered and her throat clenched around the words she couldn't yet reveal. "Aaron must be h-horrified that—that I died in a library. He always…h-hated…" Without preamble, she burst into frustrated tears. "I'm sorry, I'm sorry," she choked as though her reaction was cause for censure. "Just…gimme a minute…to…"
"Is this really necessary?" Donnie asked Leo bluntly; the eldest brother was practically interrogating the stranger and she was falling apart. Though he had no answers, the genius was inexplicably angered by his brother's behavior - as though by making the strange woman cry, he hurt someone Donnie cared for - but he didn't know this woman, how could he care about her?! "She—"
"I'm n-not a weakling," Amber interrupted faintly, trembling even harder; unbidden, horrifying images flashed through her mind's eye even as the familiar hazel pair focused on her. Shattered glass. Crumpled metal. Crumbled buildings. Crows and vultures lurk in barren trees strewn with pulpy grey streamers. "I can do this…" Hollow window frames spiked with glassy teeth. Fallen phone lines sparking in the sodden roads. A jagged tear in the leaden sky mocks like a twisted grin. "—I can!"
"O'course ya can, Kimbuh," Casey accused condescendingly. "Ya've prob'ly rehearsed this to death a'ready."
"For the las' time, Casey," Amber protested shrilly as she fought the onslaught of distressing memories. "My name's Amber, not Kimber! I dunno what happened to Kimber, but I ain't her!" He shot to his feet, looming menacingly over her.
"How ya gonna prove it den, huh?" he shouted. "Ya ain't proven shit!"
"I can't prove it!" she cried in frustration, surging to her feet. "There's no way I can prove my innocence short'a dyne again, an' dyne once wiz bad enough!"• Without preamble she shrugged off the blanket and stumbled to the door of April's apartment, pausing only to yank her clunky black boots back on. All was silent as she hesitated in the doorway, fighting tears; she turned to Casey, halfway between angry and regretful. "For the record," she muttered. "I'm sorry for any an' all bullshite this Kimber's pulled, an' not jus' 'cuz I'm gettin' blamed for it." Without another word, she slipped out the door.
The latch clicked like a gunshot in the still apartment, shattering the tense silence and pushing the occupants to action. "Casey, what were you thinking?" April asked, hitting him with a doghouse glare. "Now she's all alone out there, and probably going to freeze to death, again."
"Ape, ya dunno what dat bitch's done," Casey countered, itching to hit another wall. "Kimbuh's Hun's favorite messenger—he wants somethin' done, he sends her. He wants someone won over, he sends her. He wants someone watched, he sends her—Anythin' he wants done dat don't need muscle, he sends her. She's knee-deep in Shreddah, Sachs, an' even the mafias' business!" Another wall felt the wrath of his knuckles. "All she's gotta do is flash those tits an' she gets'er way!"
"Funny. She seemed petrified when they were visible. And quit hitting my walls!"
'Not one of my brighter moments,' Amber thought to herself between violent shivers, huddling closer to the brick wall for protection from the wind. 'It was warm in there…an' it's freezing out here. O'Brien, if you die again, yer totally gettin' a Darwin Award.'
"Cold?" The sudden voice at her shoulder launched her in the opposite direction with an unflattering shriek and she landed on her rump on the asphalt. Donnie seemed so smug leaning up against that dumpster, she thought with a hot blush...and he smelled amazing.
"The Hell, Dee?!" she hissed, rubbing her sore rear. "You scared the livin' daylights out'a me!"
"What can I say?" he grinned. "Ninja. It's what we do." She blinked in surprise as a warm garment was draped around her shoulders—a familiar trench coat big enough to swallow her whole. She gratefully burrowed deep into the coffee-scented fabric and huddled between Donatello and the wall. "Casey thinks you're lying, you know," he continued off-handedly, pushing his glasses back up his nose out of habit. "April's more frustrated than anything else. Leo's playing peacemaker."
"Sorry I'm so much trouble," Amber mumbled into the coat's popped collar. "It's not like me to cause such a ruckus over nothing."
"It's not nothing, okay?" he half-scolded. "Casey's always a hothead, but he's taking this very personally for some reason."
"Judging by the big fat dragon tattoo in my rack, I'm not surprised—he hates Purple Dragons and with good reason. I must'a built up some seriously bad karma to die an' wake up in this body. If I didn't know any better," she added under her breath, "I'd think I spent my whole life kickin' puppies." Silence reigned for a while. When she looked up, she saw Donnie's eyes fixed on hers in a serious, calculative stare. "What? I've never kicked a puppy, thank you very much; it's a figure of speech."
"There's one thing I just can't figure out." A loud yell drew his eyes to April's living room window; moments later he cringed as an even louder crash rang out followed by April shrieking at Casey. The two had an odd way of resolving conflict, he considered with a cringe, then he asked Amber, "How do you know us? April wouldn't have told you anything without our okay, and Casey seems convinced you're the spawn of Satan. So how'd you know?"
Now, Amber thought morbidly as she stared through his grease stained trousers, would be the time to tell him she was from another world, another reality—a reality where he, his brothers, and the rest were just fictional characters. If she were living in a fanfiction, she'd totally spill everything right here and now in this gritty, muck-slicked alley, and would happily spend the rest of her days in a flurry of coffee runs, neck rubs, and sweaty stolen moments with a certain terrapin genius. If she were living in a fanfiction, she'd be set…but she wasn't a fanfiction character, and life was never that simple.
Aaron had hooked her on their story years ago when she was barely seventeen, but she'd seen Donnie in her dreams since she was only a child. She spent ages watching herself grow older while he and his brothers stubbornly remained teenagers in all canon sources. Every new grey hair Amber found was cursed with a thousand poxes and unfulfilled threats of shaving her head. Every birthday was spent buried up to her ears in fanfiction about people almost half her age and fan art featuring characters with size negative-fifteen waists. Every time she started to consider dating - instead of her usual habit of only seeking out temporary companionship when she couldn't handle her body's wants and needs - she woke drenched in sweat, clinging to steamy dreams of shifting hazel eyes, ridiculously adorable snorts, cheeky grins, and taunting reminders that she'd become hopelessly stuck on someone who didn't even exist. Every time she relied on one-night stands to keep her libido under control, she struggled with guilt afterward - not because her family wouldn't approve or because she was careless with protection, but because the Donnie in her Dreams didn't approve.
She was a mess. She wasn't some totally awesome fanfiction heroine thrown together with the turtle of her dreams simply to fulfill the bizarre notions of some mysterious author. She was a janitor, a college dropout with more gimp than grace, and even if she wasn't frustrated as hell by years of nothing but DIY treatment, wet dreams, and impersonal booty-calls, she wasn't aging gracefully at all. She was undeniably, irrefutably normal…and normal people got awkward sideways looks over admitting to crushing on fictional characters, especially if they somehow ran into said fictional characters. Never mind if said fictional character wasn't fully human...
"Lucky guess?" she attempted sheepishly; the smirk in his eyes told her quite clearly that she'd been figured out. She wilted. "Fine, fine. If I told ya, I'd have to kill ya. Someone else told me, an' whaddaya know? I died. Better?" He laughed lowly, shaking his head at her.
"You're a nut," he grinned, ambling toward April's fire escape. "C'mon, I'm freezin' my shell off out here." No sooner had they reached the window, though, a lamp went sailing past, shattering into shrapnel against the wall. Before they could so much as duck the window flew open and Leonardo sprung from the window to the metal grating, eyes wide with fear.
"Run," he warned as he dashed up to the roof evading another chorus of shouting. Amber cringed before the window, watching the flurry of thrown objects.
"Why do I get the feelin' they've got a 'Bed of Nails' relationship?" she mused aloud. Not a moment later, she uttered a surprised squeak when she found herself slung over Donatello's shoulder in a fireman's carry and staring down at the roof.
"Alice Creeper?" he clarified as they took off over the rooftop. "Hold on tight!"
"No, Alice -YAH!" A little late, she muffled her shriek in his neck. "Did I mention I really, really hate heights?" she mumbled. "Where're we goin'?"
"Home," Leo answered gravely. Amber screwed her eyes shut, retreating into Donnie's warm collar, wondering just when her life became so cliché. She was killed by the one thing she spent her whole life fearing, woke up younger, thinner, and with a major dying-hangover, and now she was being carried off to the sewers like some hopeless heroine. Granted, she had a second chance with the turtle of her dreams - a second chance she never admitted wanting! - but this situation had disaster written all over it.
'Oh well,' she thought tiredly, sure her fingernails were going to leave permanent gouges in Donatello's canvas-draped carapace. 'I died, so who's to say I'm NOT a hopeless heroine now? My life ended with the beginning of another; the least I can do is enjoy the ride…an' not toss my cookies all over Donnie's shell.'

UP NEXT: a whole can of worms in The Truth

Glossary
• Dyne once wiz bad enough! - Amber' first major speech relapse. 'Dying once was bad enough,' wiz being a phonetic pronunciation of a Scots pronunciation of was. Compare Dyin' - Dyne to her odd pronunciation of O'Brien as O'Brine.
- 3
- 4
- 5
You need to be logged in to leave a review for this story.
Report Story

A New Lease on Life