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

“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.

His goal isn’t to embarrass Donnie, so he won’t say anything else teasing about the frames. He doesn’t want to, anyway.

He goes back into the room he’s claimed for himself and settles on the pallet bed, patting the mattress next to him for Donnie to join. They are absolutely about to get sidetracked and Leo wants to be comfy while they do it. And without any other furniture this is the best option.

“We’re only picking pictures of my good side,” he says, settling in. “Oh wait, I just remembered: I don’t have a bad side.”

Thinking about this, it crosses his mind that he should get a real picture frame for the picture of all of them, the one Casey gave him. It’s still in his room in the apartment, in his bedside drawer. He should keep it somewhere safer.

He doesn’t bring that up. He’d hate to bring the mood down any. He’ll just add it to the list later.

Plopping down to sit beside Leo at the invitation, Donnie's already got his phone out and the gallery pulled up. He rolls his eyes at Leo's input, not that it diminishes his smile any even as he shakes his head.

"Well, don't be too shocked if you see anything candid and totally unflattering," Donnie offers as a disclaimer even as a corner of his smile ticks up a notch. It's a fair warning, though, right? After all, it is his phone.

While a lot of his pictures will be very biased in his favor, there's still more than enough shots of their family and friends that he's deemed memorable.

"I'll copy the ones we like over to another album and if we need to narrow it down further we'll go from there," he proposes, starting to thumb through as he holds his phone between them.

“Candid, sure. Unflattering? Hard to believe.”

He leans in so he can better see, careful not to get too close. He may not be aware of how much sleep Donnie is missing out on, but he has noticed his brother is even more skittish about physical touch lately. Leo hasn’t pried into it. He’ll get over it soon… right?

Well, anyway. Leo watches him thumb through the gallery. There’s a lot of selfies which is not at all a surprise, so Leo watches for flashes of color that aren’t purple.

“We should add this one,” he says before they go too far back, pointing at one of the pictures from their ultimately unproductive shopping trip. They took lots of goofy pictures that day, but the one Leo points at is the one they took with their disguises off in the dressing room.

Soon, yeah. It's fine. Things'll be fine.

...

There really aren't too many new pics since Donnie'd come here. The majority would be from their impromptu fashion show, aside from a scattered few in true Donnie fashion. He keeps a smirk to himself as Leo insists he can't possibly produce unflattering images, but they haven't gotten into the photos from home yet.

"Haha, yeah, that one's a keeper," he grins as he copies it over.

Let him believe, okay?

Leo looks over the rest from their shopping trip, suggesting they add one or two of the ones of them in disguise as well. Why not? It’s pretty funny.

Then they start to make it back to the pictures from home, and Leo starts paying more attention.

He didn’t have his own phone when he came here - he has no idea when he lost it, if it was in the prison dimension or sometime before it or if the confluence just decided to yeet it. So he can’t go back and look at pictures like this.

So the photo frames are seriously the nicest thing Donnie could give him. Even more than the everything gaming console or the hypothetical air hockey table.

(See, he’s getting sappy again!)

“Man, this is going to be a lot to pick from.”

Lou Jitsu and April O'Ryan? Why not!

There's a shot from their break-in training as Donnie was taking a selfie, Accelerator launching into the background as he'd tore around the wall during preliminary maneuvering. "Heh, talk about intense, right?"

Maybe they should take more pictures with people they've met here, too. Like, real pictures instead of sneak shots.

Donnie breathes a laugh as they start getting into older pictures. Pictures that stir up memories and make him wistful for home. "Yeah...I mean, I could probably just get a bigger drive to dump everything on and save us the trouble but..."

Maybe it's better this way. He knows he hasn't looked at a lot of them in a while, and even so, it's likely more recently than Leo has.

...not that he's saying that.

He laughs at the picture of Accelerator. "Super intense."

They should definitely take more pics of the people they meet here. Real pictures. Hopefully, when they figure out how to go home, they can take them with them. And for now it would be nice for the frames.

"Nah, I like doing it this way." It's more time-consuming, but he doesn't care when this is what they're consuming that time with. "I haven't seen any of these in awhile, anyway..."

It definitely makes him wistful for home, but he's okay with that.

Time well spent. Donnie can't remember when the last time was that they'd ever all gotten together to go through old pictures. He knows he doesn't go through his own phone very often for that purpose.

"Here's a good one of all of us. Even has April there," he says, smiling. He can do without the ache of not having any of the rest of their family there, but he keeps reminding himself that Leo's gone through it longer. It's a sobering thought.

He shifts just a little closer on the mattress, under the guise of readjusting how he sits.

Donnie shifts closer, and Leo does too - also just readjusting, of course.

"Oooh, yeah." He grins, a little teasing. "I look great in this. Oh, and you guys are fine, too."

He's still going to say stuff like that - it's his thing, and Donnie knows it.

"That's a good one of Miguel." He points at one of the other thumbnails, of Mikey grinning in front of some graffiti he just painted.

"Please, any shots of me are more than just 'fine', but I can understand your wanting to downplay it," Donnie snorts. It's his phone, terrible pictures of himself simply don't exist.

He does smile as he pulls up the picture Leo points out. "Agreed, and might I point out, an excellent composition of contrasting colors. Him in front of the wall, I mean."

Aaand copied.

"Let's see if we can find a decent one of Raph where he's not stuffing something in his face or asleep..."

Again, it is too bad Leo doesn’t have his own phone, because he absolutely has unflattering pictures of Donnie: ones taken while he was asleep, or eating, or mid-sneeze.

He’ll just have to catch more of those kinds of shots on the phone he has in this world and slip them in when he has time. A prank for another day.

He nods in agreement at the assessment about the picture of Mikey. Their little brother would appreciate the artistic consideration.

At the comment about Raph, he laughs. “Hey, those pictures reflect his natural state!”

A minor upside that Donnie hasn't realized.

He does laugh as he can't really disagree regarding Raph. Food and sleep are among their older brother's favorite pastimes when he's not intent on smashing bad guys.

"Too true. Well, there's no shortage of those. Oh! There should definitely be some of our cosplay pictures in here too." Can't not include those!

He’s sure they can find actual good pictures of Raph, too. He keeps his eyes peeled.

“Oh, definitely. Cosplay photos, skateboarding photos… Oooh, you have any basketball photos in there?”

Of course Leo cares about those, he’s the one who’s good at basketball.

"Haha, yeah, should have plenty of th-" He makes a slight face at the mention of basketball before rolling his eyes as he continues scrolling, but the smile doesn't completely vanish. Of course Leo would ask about basketball.

"Should be some in here," Donnie admits. After all, not every balling session had ended up with him getting a ball bounced off his face. And there are some decent captures his brothers making shots, so Leo should be appeased there.

What’s the face about? Not Leo’s fault Donnie is terrible at sports! (It’s definitely Leo’s fault for bringing it up, though.)

He just grins in response, before turning his attention back to the pictures. Finding skateboarding pics, at least, is something they can both agree on. And he is appeased by a good pic of him making a basket.

“Oh, there’s one at Hueso’s!”

He points it out, of the four of them cramming into a selfie at one of the booths.

“Man… I could kill for Boneman’s pizza right now.”

Given their tendency to show off, there's a lot of skateboarding shots. Probably not all of them very flattering (of his brothers, anyway).

"Ah, I love that one," Donnie grins. He does have to sigh again as Leo mentions pizza. "Right? Definitely one of the major downsides to this Earth. I wonder if there even any yōkai around here."

He better pick only the flattering ones! Leo is watching!

(Of him, anyway. If he wants unflattering shots of the others, that’s more negotiable.)

It’s a great picture. Definitely one to add. But Leo sighs, too; this world can try, but it will always be inferior in terms of pizza places.

“If it does, they’re probably Starfallen, too. But I guess I haven’t been to New York to check for the Hidden City yet…”

Bonus if it does exist, they won’t have criminal records in this version of the city.

There's always later to slip in other ones...

Donnie's playing nice at the moment though. He hadn't brought those picture frames out to start a photo war.

"Mm...true. Or maybe even some production of the Confluence. I don't know, are they still considered Starfallen then? Or...just metas or something..." From what he's read, it seems like things had been pretty normal on this Earth until the Confluence happened. And then kept happening.

Eventually the photo pranks will begin, but not today.

“No idea. Guess that’s just one of the many mysteries.”

In some ways he doesn’t care all that much. That’s for this world to sort out.

It does remind him of something, though.

“There’s other worlds with mutants, though! But they’re like, human mutants.” He shrugs. “Not really a big surprise, but I learned that recently. Oh, and Huvrye’s friend said we look like demons from his world.”

Everywhere is so different, and yet, similar at the same time.

"It's pretty wild how much humans seem to be some sort of baseline existence across dimensions," Donnie muses. "Demons though? Wow, now that's interesting. Some guy just flat out assumed I was an alien out to abduct him."

Sadly it still suggests that for all the similarities, it's still a toss-up as to whether they'd be able to exist normally. It's not like Donnie's surprised by this given that their origins have been less than normal. But it'd be nice to know that maybe somewhere there's a world like the Hidden City where they'd just be considered part of the natural inhabitants.

Not that he'd trade any place for their home, and this is still far from that.

“Hah, what? An alien?”

That idea actually makes him laugh. Then again, he can get where it comes from, what with the green skin and reptilian features. It’s a pretty standard alien design, as evidenced by how easily they fit in at a Jupiter Jim convention.

“You know, that guy who said I looked like a demon said they’re treated normally where he lives. They go to school and even date the witches sometimes.” He still isn’t sure why witches and humans are distinct groups, but whatever. “It sounds like yokai, from what he was saying.”

So maybe there really are places that they could live and just… exist.

But he wants to get back to their home more than he wants to go there.

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