metalogs | [Open] Trying Not to Fall Apart

Entry tags:

[Open] Trying Not to Fall Apart

Who: Donnie

purplexing and you!
What: Oh you know, just an average week in the life of a teenage mutant ninja nerd
When: Early June before things start to really implode
Where: Central
Content Warnings: N/A, will update as needed

can't sleep something will eat me - Apartment
It's easier to sleep when you run yourself ragged and let yourself pass out. Then there's a seventy percent chance that you'd be too exhausted to dream. That hadn't necessarily been his plan but it had been more or less effective the night he, Leo and Accelerator had come back from their tech heist. Since then, sleep had been...elusive.

While it's not unusual for Donnie to pull late to all-nighters, he's been leaning on such practices extra hard lately. It's easier to get away with when he's got actual projects. Guy's telescoping stun baton gets done relatively quickly in this regard. The game systems they'd found at the recycling center have been reappropriated into a single gaming system and they now had a high-definition projector that freed them from the constraints of a flatscreen TV. Spare phones have been repaired, wiped and upgraded in the case that they might run into anyone who needed a phone or just didn't trust the ones the Guild handed out.

But even productive turtle teens need sleep, and whenever he succumbs to it, it's always fitful and ends up with him clawing his way to wakefulness, away from the blood-filled nightmares with the grasping, reaching hands and tendrils. Sometimes he stays in his room, other times he slips out to sit in the kitchen wrapped around a cup of coffee or huddled under a blanket on the couch, reading a book or poking around things on his phone. If his head's clear enough then he'll do some late night work dismantling something or another, or work on repairing circuitboards.

third time's a charm - Sewers
The whole point of having a lair deep in the sewers is so people can't get to it easily. The sewers are already a maze, but thanks to the flooding from all the rain last month, Donnie's managed to get a decent amount of it mapped out with the aid of his mystic-tech. They aren't as convoluted and full of abandoned places like New York, but he and Leo had finally found a promising location.

Moving things into a new lair is never much fun. They'd already had to rebuild their home once, after all. Here at least they don't have too much stuff to worry about, but then they are still basically starting from scratch. Priority had gone to hauling their ill-gained goods down there once basic setup had been handled, some tidying up (okay, a lot of tidying up), and initial security measures installed. With things stirring in the world above, Donnie's not taking any chances.

There's still a lot to do, but they've got this much done. It's just a shame that they have to do this at all after getting so used to living almost normally.

what a town - Around Central
Life still goes on, even when you're trying to play things cool after being mildly (?) traumatized, even when there've been drastic changes in the meta-world.

There are library books to be returned, after all, and if Donnie can't sneak-borrow more by using Leo's card, he can at least read things there, his earphones bumping some techno or K-Pop (it's catchy okay) so he doesn't accidentally nod off. It's an attempt, anyway.

Coffee runs go without saying, and there's something nice about being able to sit in a cafe enjoying an iced latte. It's a change of atmosphere and he can more or less blend in with others who are here tapping at their laptops and tablets. Kind of. Other times he'll just be grabbing a drink to go, so one might catch him all purple hoodied up on his way to or from.

It might be weird be hard to believe, but Donnie has other hobbies, which is why at some point or another one might come across him carrying a small cardboard box with a variety of plants ready to be repotted. The backpack slung over his shoulder holds a few pots and some potting soil. He's a turtle on a mission and nothing is keeping him from working on a balcony garden. Alternatively one can find him perusing the selection at a small plant nursery or shop.

that other option - Wildcard
(Got any other ideas/requests? Have at it or ping me on discord or the plork!)

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Truthfully Donnie feels he'd be at a loss for where to put anything else if he didn't start with what seemed most practical. Of course his focus would always be towards the technical aspects, and figuring out what they need is easier to do by now. It's having the things necessary to do so that makes it difficult.

The lighting isn't ideal but it's a start, and Leo isn't the only one hit by nostalgia. Simpler times. Again he can't help but wonder how Splinter had managed early on, finding a place for them, making it a home. They'd only built up on it once they were older, but their father had set down the foundation.

Donnie sighs wistfully, looking up at the lights.

"Well, I guess we can plan out the space better now that we have some lighting," he suggests, turning to look at everything else. He'd been trying to avoid it, really. The general emptiness is depressing to look at and overwhelming for what isn't there. Sure, he knows what he wants and what they'd probably need, but thoughts are easier to organize than physical space, sometimes. It makes him realize how glad he is to not have to be doing this alone after all.

Leo looks around the space, too, sizing it up. It’s daunting, a whole place they have to put together themselves. And it feels empty, in a way that’s easier to ignore in the apartment, alien as it is.

He pushes those thoughts aside to focus on the task at hand.

“Alright. What do we need? A place for food, a place to sleep, any work space you need…” Leo tuts. “Too bad it’s not big enough for a skate ramp, huh?”

He gives Donnie a little nudge with his elbow.

The lack of a skateboard ramp makes him force a heavier sigh. "I doubt anything would measure up to our original lair in that regard," Donnie admits, though Leo can probably tell he's sizing up the place for even the slightest possibility as he speaks. It's probably a bad idea considering the ceiling's not terribly high.

"But food place- uh...well I guess it doesn't have to be a full-blown kitchen- maybe over on that side? General hangout area here..." He looks around as he considers. One would think limited space would be easier to work with than unlimited space!

"And we do have the next two chambers so either we do one a piece for rooms or split one and make the other a workshop-slash-lab..."

He meant it as a joke, but if Donnie thinks they can fit it he’s not opposed.

“Yeah, can’t imagine us doing a lot of cooking.” That’s more Mikey’s area. “Just a place to store food, a microwave, a sink… hangout spot, and…”

He mulls over what Donnie said about the next chambers.

“It would probably be better to just split one… Sharing a room with you, though…”

He trails off, looking displeased.

Well aware that it was suggested jokingly, Donnie still can't help but give it some thought. Unfortunately a skate ramp isn't happening here, more's the pity.

He makes a face as the discourse shifts towards rooming situations, but it's clear he shares that sentiment when it comes to sharing rooms. They've never shared rooms and he's not terribly inclined to want to start now.

"One and one, then, it's not like somewhere to sleep takes up much space and I can just build things accordingly to fit for my workshop."

Not that he doesn’t agree they should split, but…

“If you put a bed in your lab, are you actually going to sleep?”

He knows how Donnie can be sometimes.

"If I put a bed in my lab then it'd be easier to drag myself to instead of fall asleep at the computer or the worktable," Donnie points out, which...isn't really much by way of reassurance, much less a direct answer to Leo's question.

"Would we be able to sleep in one room?" It's a fair question he figures should be asked, and he does so with raised eyebrow. They could potentially expand but for the moment this place seemed the most ideal for their uses.

He looks very unimpressed by that answer, but now they’re back to the original question.

“Uuuhhh, do you want the honest answer to that?”

Because it is probably no.

“Fine, put a bed in your lab.”

He'd thought as much, and so when Leo concedes that point, Donnie nods. Inwardly he's relieved because then there's less of a chance he'll wake Leo up if he wakes up in a panic from those stupid nightmares. And working late into the night won't be anything unusual at all. Nope, nothing wrong here, perfectly fine..!

"So I guess that takes care of locational planning, so we can start moving what we do have into place and make a list of what all we still need." Which is probably a lot, but at least now they have somewhere to actually put things.

And just a few months ago it would have been Leo worried about waking Donnie up with nightmares… The tables have turned.

Leo nods in agreement, though, and turns to their various boxes and bags. Guess it’s time to sort!

“Alright!” He claps his hands together. “Let’s get going then.”

Nodding back, Donnie turns to do just that. He glances at a box full of basic, non-immediate perishables, making a mental note to acquire an electric kettle as he sets a box containing a small, unmade shelving unit against the wall. That would probably be best used in the main space.

He looks to the bags still containing a good portion of their loot from the recycling center, grabbing two of them. "Which side you want?" he asks Leo, nodding towards the two passageways located towards the back of the larger space. They're both about the same size so there's not too much to fuss about there.

Leo looks at the rooms too, then shrugs. There’s not enough difference for it to matter.

“Guess I can take the right.”

Leo doesn’t have much to move in yet, besides some stuff he brought to make a pallet bed. It won’t be as nice as his bed in the apartment or his bed back home, but it will function if he needs it (and he’s hoping he doesn’t, but he’s not totally optimistic).

With another nod in acknowledgment, Donnie sets to bringing the bagged equipment into the leftmost chamber. There's no particular place they need to be, except out of the way in the other room. He goes back for the rest to do the same before he'll go for bedding stuff.

"Apartment life's spoiled me," he groans once he's dumping a bundle of blankets on the floor. "Maybe it would've been better to have figured this all out earlier so I wouldn't know what I was missing." He's not sure how feasible that would've been. It had taken a lot of work just to get to this current point, and really, he can't say he actually regrets being able to stay in the apartment with Leo and Huvrye.

He sighs, again. Too many sighs lately. "Why do people always have to mess things up?"

Leo thinks to himself that it’s probably a good thing Donnie hasn’t been able to go to school yet for that very reason. He doesn’t say it, though.

“Yeah, gotta say, it’s been nice to live somewhere that doesn’t smell like sewage. Then again, that’s what most apartments we’d be able to afford smell like.”

He’s set up the pallet and the thin mattress, so now he leans against the opening to his space so he can better talk to Donnie.

“People are pretty good at messing things up even for themselves. You know they were never going to make it easy for us.”

There's been enough on his mind of late that high school's been practically forgotten for the moment. Probably a good thing, the constant roadblocks keeping Donnie from something that should have otherwise been a simple process would just build on that growing depression.

"Well, I mean the only upside there would be that we'd be used to it," he shrugs, not sounding particularly convinced that it's really an upside.

There's the sound of things being unfurled and fluffed as Donnie reluctantly gets his own bedding set up. This is a sad downgrade considering they actually had beds back home.

"...I guess," he admits. "Knew it was too good to be true anyway. Figured nothing good was going to come out of the whole process they'd made of things. It still stinks."

“Yeah, well… As always, we can only depend on our family, huh?”

The guilds were never trustworthy, and that’s why he’d rather Donnie avoid it. But that doesn’t mean other people here aren’t dependable.

It is pretty depressing, though. Leo will have to get some posters or something to liven the place up. And more pillows. Maybe a bean bag.

“…Anyway, I’m hoping we won’t actually have to live here.”

"...." It's both a sad but comforting fact, and his smile reflects that. "Yeah."

If nothing else, there's always family, even if it is just the two of them. They've found some people to trust, but it's not as easy as that trust that's preestablished in the natural relationship they have.

Donnie gives up on doing anything more for the bed, leaving blankets folded up at the foot, the pillows haphazardly tossed at the opposite end. Already he can tell it's not going to be very comfortable to lie on but maybe he'll have a worktable and things installed before he'd have to really make use of it. Lighting would have to come first. It's terribly drab without his usual preferences and more so with what limited lighting is already there. He catches himself before he can exhale another sigh, instead getting back to his feet so he can step out where Leo is.

"Me too," he admits. "But at least it's something to fall back on. Maybe it'll help to just look at it as a private hang-out."

Leo grins at Donnie, pushing himself off the wall. There's more to do, lights and surfaces and tech, so he can't lounge back too long.

"Nothing wrong with a private hang-out. We can do whatever we want to with it."

Leo holds up his hands like he's taking a picture, swinging around the space. "Once we get some better lighting and some furniture, a place to watch movies and play video games, a place for pizza eating... maybe we can find an old air hockey table again... maybe do some graffiti to liven up the place... We could turn this into something pretty special."

He says it to get himself excited for it as much as Donnie. He hasn't missed all Donnie's sighs, and he gets the sentiment. But if they try to think of it like something fun and exciting instead of the giant chore it is, it won't be so bad.

What's that song from that movie? A spoonful of sugar or whatever? Something like that.

"We can't fit a ramp but maybe we can add a grind rail."

Donnie snorts a quiet laugh. He can always count on Leo to boost the mood.

"Just a little sewer clubhouse. We're definitely going to be needing more stuff to get comfortable for a gaming and movie-watching spot," he says, even as he brings up his computer to add to the list of things to look for. How hard could it be to track down an air hockey table... Although he supposes the real trick would be getting it down here.

"Some neon and some black lights, maybe? Make those colors pop!" He's no graffiti artist like Mikey but he can handle more straight-forward paint jobs. "Ooh, a grind rail could be fun, yeah. They don't even have to be straight, we could try following the tunnel curves."

“Oooh, that sounds sweet.” That’s not even a front, Leo genuinely thinks that sounds cool. It would make it more fun to come in and out if they could grind along the curve.

Neon and black lights sounds great, too. Maybe they can even find some old neon signs. It’s the sort of thing he would have put in his room back home if he could find it.

“We could get some of those LED track lights, too. Use those to line out parts of the lair. And you can change the colors!”

Everything is going to end up purple and blue in here.

This list is getting long and while Donnie figures it might be better to split it up into things they needed and things they wanted, they may as well all be the same thing at this point. Sure, others might disagree that the extra lighting and grind rails wouldn't be necessary, but if they were going to make this place fun and most importantly, theirs, then they absolutely need such things.

"At least LED color-changing track lights will be relatively easy to get." Sooo purple and blue.

"I'm sending you a copy of this list so we can both keep an eye out for things or get stuff as we're able to."

“Alright. I can probably just buy some of it, now that I actually have money.”

Which is crazy to think about. Sure, most of it has been going to food for himself and Donnie, and some fun things (mostly comics), and clothes, but he’s willing to redirect what he can into their lair efforts. It’s not like he can take it with him when they finally go home, so not much point in saving.

(At least that’s his teenage logic at work.)

“What else can we do right now, though?”

Donnie nods along. Sure, second-hand stuff and recycled junk could be serviceable but they'd still been cast off for some reason or another, usually in need of at least minor repair. New stuff is always nicer when you're the one choosing things and not simply finding something that fit well enough into need or taste.

"Hmmm...." He looks around, fingering his chin. "Well, we got a couple of shelving units to put together, or we could break for pizza, or... Oh!"

He ducks back into his room, digging around one of the bags before he comes back with a couple of digital picture frames, offering them to Leo with a faint, almost sheepish smile. "They're not loaded yet but...I thought we could figure out which photos to add."

Leo is quietly warring with himself over the responsible thing and the thing he actually wants to do when Donnie suddenly presents another option.

His eyes go wide when he sees what Donnie has. He’s not sure when he even got those, but the thought behind it makes Leo’s heart clench. Not in a bad way, of course. It’s touched and a little bittersweet.

Donnie wants to say he’s an emotionally unavailable bad boy but then he does stuff like this. Leo sees through his game.

“…Sappy,” he says, but his tone of voice makes it clear he doesn’t mean it at all - he’s actually really happy. If anything it’s just his attempt at staving off his own sappiness, with little success. The smile that grows across his face is too big to be his normal teasing grin.

“But yeah, we can do that. Sounds great, actually.”

As much as he knows Leo's joking, Donnie still feels embarrassed to the point that if he tucked his head any lower between his shoulders it'd be in his shell.

His methods and ways of showing it have varied and at times have even been questionable, but there's no doubt he's always had the best intentions for his family. Personal tastes or custom specifications, there's always thought put into the things he does. It's just super awkward to be called out on it, but he sees that smile, and it eases his own into something less hesitant.

"Cool. I mean, we only took over a hundred pics alone when we were shopping but it shouldn't take that long to go through everything before that."

They are probably going to get so sidetracked but it would still be considerably time well spent.

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