thepurpleone | Cyberformed [] Inbox

Maybe you're just losing your touch.

Anyway, sure. Be right over.

Whaaaaaaaaaaaaat? No way. impossible. just hurry up.

I'm coming, I'm coming! Not everyone can portal you know!

By the time Donnie finally makes it to the room, Mikey is deep into another boss fight. He is hunched over with his tongue sticking out a little and his eyes narrowed.

He doesn't seem to notice as his brother enters but suddenly he is sitting up, jamming the buttons in a desparate attempt to save himself in this horrowing battle.

"nononononNONONONO! DAMN!"

The screen pops up with the lifeless body of his character, asking if he wants to continue, as the turtle groans and flops back in his overly stuffed beanbag with a plop.

"Hey Donnie," he says lifelessly, staring at the ceiling.

It's things like this that could convince him that nothing's changed, that everything they'd just gone through had never happened. Donnie smiles fondly as he watches Mikey get beat by a computer, breathing a little puff of a laugh once his brother's flopped.

"Hey," he says as he steps further into the room, making his way to one of the vacant beanbags beside him. At least his voice has finally returned, even if it had taken a little once they'd gotten back to the ship, being reassured that they were safe and far from the horrors they'd experienced.

"How many times is this now?" It had sounded like Mikey had been working on this boss a while but at the same time Donnie knows it's quite possible his brother's only gone through it a few times before coming to his conclusion.

It's good to hear Donnie's voice. It's not like Donnie hasn't gone completely silent like that before, but it's always stressful when he does. Mikey tries to take it in stride, but he can't help but worry. It's only natural. That's his brother after all and he wants to make sure he's happy and it's always upsetting when something happens that's bad enough to trigger it.

And that last mission was... Well it hit all of them in different ways.

He gives a heavy, dramatic sigh. "I don't know," he says.

A beat of silence.

"17."

Finally, he sits up, swinging himself up in one heavy motion and handing his controller over to his brother.

Donnie's figured that it only compounded with being a mouse that was not at all used to such things and no time to really process when your mind is sling-shotted from one thing to another. Sometimes he thinks he can still smell blood, no matter how fastidiously he's soaked in a tub or scrubbed down his equipment.

He looks at Mikey, lips quirking as an actual number is given. Taking the controller, he turns his attention to the screen as he hits continue so he can see what his brother's been having to deal with.

"You didn't breeze through everything before this, did you? Maybe you missed some power-ups or something..."

Mikey shifts so he's sitting a little closer to his brother, whether it's intentional or not is hard to tell, his eyes trained on the tv the whole time.

"No way! I made sure to pick up everything! It was a little challenging but not hard! And then this guy comes in and kicks my ass!"

At least Donnie doesn't seem to mind. He does spare Mikey a glance then, brow arching just a bit, but he looks back to the screen to focus a bit on the gameplay.

Usually his brother is pretty good with games, so when Mikey insists he'd gone through things, Donnie doesn't question it. Maybe it really is a hard boss? But everything has a pattern, so once he figures that out, then it really comes down to timing and execution.

"Okay, let's see what this guy's all about."

Mikey goes quiet as his brother starts the fight. It was important to let him focus and he let out the occasional squeak and whimper when Donnie took a hard hit or two.

When that dreaded continue screen came back up, Mikey threw a hand up in exasperation.

"See! Totally rigged."

Having not been through it seventeen times previously, Donnie only looks thoughtfully annoyed as the last of his HP goes down.

"Hm..." he volunteers, thumb tapping the controller to continue. Only going through it once doesn't mean it's rigged, and Donnie knows in a good game it takes some time to work out how the enemy's programming goes. It is tricky, he'll give it that, but he's not going to say it's impossible.

He looks like he's concentrating hard as he goes through things again, the continue countdown coming up perhaps inevitably, but his expression hasn't changed as he starts the fight again.

Donnie doesn't say anything other than that small hum and Mikey knows that tone well enough to know that his brother doesn't quiet agree with him, not yet at least. Just a few more tries and he would see.

The continue screen comes up again and Mikey manages to hold back his commentary.

He's not so lucky on the third try, exploding with tips and warnings as Donnie tries fighting the boss again. At some point, Mikey's hand lands on his shoulder and grips it tightly as he watches the health bars go down.

If it were anyone else, Donnie might have made a fuss about the contact. But this is Mikey, and even if he's older now, there are some little brother privileges that he'll still uphold.

"Ease up there, yeah?" he does have to say, because that grip is getting a little tense.

Still, Donnie doesn't seem too worried as his health is whittled away. I've got you, he thinks, watching, waiting for his chance. A grin breaks through his look of deep concentration, and it's a very particular expression that Mikey knows goes hand-in-hand with whenever his brother's solved something.

It's a very close battle but Donnie knows where he's supposed to be, where the enemy will go, and he executes a finishing blow with a quick swipe of the directional pad and a jab of the attack buttons.

"Ha-ha! Take that!"

"Oh, sorry," Mikey mutters as he quickly pulls his hand back. He doesn't have time to feel guilty about it as Donnie carefully finds an opening in the enemy's attack, narrowly avoiding a rather powerful move that could have easily cut down the rest of his health.

It's a tense moment, but Mikey can feel that shift in his brother, that confidence, that knowing, that victory.

And then it comes and Mikey jumps up, cheering loudly.

"I knew you could do it!" He cries, totally forgetting the fact that he was just calling it rigged a few minutes ago.

Too wrapped up in the game, he doesn't say anything more although he's glad that the pressure on his shoulder's vanished. Donnie grins openly as the notorious enemy is defeated, rolling back his shoulders as he sets the controller down while the stage rundown comes up on screen.

"But of course. Nothing rigged, just a tricky boss with cleverly programmed
responses and the slightest openings when you look for them," he says.

Mikey huffs. Of course Donnie would gloat. Getting it after only a few tries.

"You say all that but I bet you used some of your techno magic stuff and made sure you could win," he said with a bit of a pout as he threw himself deeper back into his own bean bag.

He's not upset, not really, but it really wasn't fair that his brother got it so easily after he had been trying so hard for so long! Donnie hadn't even played the rest of the game!

It isn't nearly the same sort of high as when you've successfully hacked a mafia's entire security drone crew but Donnie will take what he can get.

He glances over as Mikey sulks into the bean bag, his grin shifting into a slight frown. "Hey, you know I didn't," he snorts. "My 'techno magic stuff' is not nearly so subtle," he adds, lifting his hands so he can add the quotations with a twitch of his fingers.

"You probably would've gotten it. I think just forcing yourself to go through it didn't help the already growing frustration."

"Who knows, maybe you got sneakier with it. You would." It wasn't accusatory, he was trying to keep it teasing and light.

He gives a heavy sigh and rolls in his bean bag. A little big silly, given the medium in which he's trying to turn around in. Still he manages it with surprisingly fluidity and is finally on his stomach so he could face his brother.

"Yeah, probably, I guess," he says. "Thanks for the help Dee."

Donnie's still not quite sure how to take it, snout wrinkling just a little. But it also makes him wonder if he actually could, because as much as he loved being flashy, being less so would be more ideal for stealth operations.

He watches Mikey try to get himself settled. The whole of the situation's been bothering him just a touch, but he can't really put a finger on it as to why. It's not like his brother hasn't gotten frustrated with a game before, and a bit of showing off always sets any of his siblings off, but that's just a brother thing. Donnie offers a faint smile when Mikey thanks him then.

"Any time," he replies, reaching over to pat him on the head. "...everything been all right?" Has he gotten a chance to ask any of them? Has he thought to? He knows his own tendency is to hole up in his room but after everything, after taking some time to soak in a sink until he felt some semblance of clean, he'd been trying to spend more time with his brothers. He's still not good at reading people, but even though he may not really understand the deeper things, he's known his brothers enough to tell when something had to be off, like the way something would be wrong with a machine, even if on the outside everything looked fine.

Mikey grins with the pat. It was familiar and natural and made him feel like a kid back home in the sewers again. Something he was really needing again.

He hated a lot of things about their most recent mission to rescue Anemone, not least of all how their journey through the sewers has tainted his memory of home.

He was caught a little off guard by Donnie's inquiry. Out of the two brothers he had here, Donnie was the least likely to ask about how he was doing. It wasn't totally out of the picture (as the purple turtle has just so graciously proven) and it wasn't the whole reason Mikey had called to him to aid. Still a little surprising none the less and Mikey's expression flickers a moment before he is grinning again.

"Yeah, I'm fine. I mean. That last mission wasn't great but we all made it out and we're all alive and mostly unharmed so it's not all that much different from anything back in earth, right?"

He hoped Donnie wouldn't pick up on the strain in his voice.

He holds out his hand. "Here, let me see if I can get past this next bit. I'll beat the next boss like a breeze now."

Now that he's paying attention to Mikey he doesn't miss that momentary falter in the other turtle's expression. He may be emotionally obtuse, but he knows there's something.

Alive and mostly unharmed seems like the bare minimum for any of the things they've ever come back from. Donnie's not sure he likes that trend, and he can't quite stop thinking the question of when one or all of them won't. He shakes his head, a little more fervently than what might be deserving of a response for Mikey's likely rhetorical question, more out of a need to dislodge that awful thought from his mind.

"I'm not so sure about that," he says quietly, even as he hands over the controller. "I mean, compared to the things we've had to deal with on Earth, it's just been so much more complicated, hasn't it?"

Mikey takes the controller and twists around to sit up full, crossing his legs under him. He puts all his focus back on the TV as he starts the game up again but it's clear to any who knows him that he's still listening. He just... He needs to keep his hands busy, keep himself occupied. It's easier when he can't seen his brother's face. Easier when Donnie can't see his.

"I guess." He doesn't bring up the Shredder. He doesn't bring up the Kraang. They've already been there and Donnie's been distant enough without the reminder. The more Mikey had been thinking about it, the more he's glad his younger/older brother wasn't there. Better to save him the pain. Though, he supposed it didn't make Donnie happier in the long run.

Mikey hisses as he nearly missed a jump.

"Things are a bit weirder here, and that's saying something. We're from New York." He shoots Donnie a grin. "But we've got each other and we got hope and we'll make it through, right? We always do."

All the better that Mikey refrains from bringing the Shredder up. Donnie still had moments where he'd remember their first encounter with the wild version. The memory of his tech being destroyed with one swipe and his back nearly being dug into by those terrifying claws is one of those things he can't make himself forget, no matter how hard he tries. It's not as frequent these days, but that's only because it's been replaced by so much worse.

Donnie tries to fix his eyes on the screen to watch as Mikey resumes playing, but his thoughts are elsewhere. He glances over when Mikey grins at him, his face pinching slightly. His brother's still an endless well of optimism, or at least he's trying to be. Donnie doesn't ever want to see that diminish. Anything could happen to him and he believes that his brothers would still for the most part be okay. But if anything happened to Mikey...

But something did happen, as much as Mikey seems to try to ignore it. That grin is sharper than it should have been, but the expression is still that of his brother's.

Mikey is still hanging onto hope. He'd told Anemone as much. They'd be in a much worse place than this if they didn't at least have that. How Donnie envies his brother as much as he admires him then, able to still be strong despite everything that's happened. ...but that's why Donnie's determined to do whatever he can to fix things, so his Mikey can still be himself.

"Yeah..." he says, his tone determined although he can't quite manage a grin back. "We've always got each other."

Edited 2024-11-29 07:57 (UTC)

Mikey relaxes a little bit when Donnie doesn't press any further. Fine. Things were fine. This was normal brothers hanging out, playing video games. They didn't need to worry about any of that stuff that had happened the Cathedral of Mirrors. They were together. They were fine.

He runs his tongue over the new protruding fangs in his mouth. A new habit not that he's getting used to the fresh intrusion. He doesn't even realize he's doing it most of the time.

"You wanna switch to a two player?" He was making good progress on this one, but he wasn't sure he was super into it at the moment after Donnie beat that boss. He would rather play something with his brother anyways.

It's hard for Donnie to pull himself away from thinking about things, trying to work out what the next plan of operation should be. But there's that part of him that's tired and still shaken from their time in the Cathedral.

There'd still be time to figure things out, right? Mikey needs this, some semblance of normalcy. Donnie knows he wants it too.

"Yeah," he says, but this time it's lighter, the smile that goes with it so very fragile but it's genuine. "Sure, I'm game." Maybe this is the distraction they both need.

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