Chapter Text
It wasn’t the first time in his life that Michelangelo woke up and wished he hadn’t, but it sure was one of the worst times.
It was kind of warm. Warmer than it had been. That meant spring was coming, right?
He stared at the sunlight filtering through the window for way too long to be humanly comfortable, and he felt settled. Conscious in a way he hadn’t felt in a few days at least. He hadn’t felt this real, this connected, in what felt like forever. In what felt like eternity. He didn’t know what was making him feel that way, but he just felt so accepting of it all.
He watched the wind gently move the trees outside, and he wondered what it felt like to be so careless. To not be weighed down by feelings and memories you didn’t understand.
The worst thing about it was that Michelangelo had a horrible memory. He never knew what was happening. He never took time to catch up on his own memories until he was having a flashback.
Stupid daydreams. Stupid Michelangelo. He wanted to cry.
He remembered his first ever memory. He was still a kid, Leo was still the coolest mutant to ever exist, Donnie was still the smartest, Raph was still the funniest, and Splinter was still alive.
They sat at the table, Mikey jumping up and down on the chair as Papa prepared a new food for the first time. Donnie was nervous, Leo and Raph both acted like they didn’t care either way, and Mikey felt nothing but excitement.
He let himself live in the memory. He felt the excitement bubble up in his tummy, make his way through his veins to his jumping legs and his babbling mouth. He let himself live in it. He felt so alive.
He never thought he would feel the flush of his cheeks, the gap that came from losing a tooth, the way his muscles still had so much energy. He never realized how carefree he was until it was gone.
He talked and talked, using his hands to jump higher on the chair, despite the fact that he was told (by not only Papa, but also Lee) to stop. But he was just so excited, he couldn’t sit still.
It was grilled cheese. Papa smiled at them patiently as they ate the cheese and bread for the first time. It was a food they all liked. Mikey almost cried when Papa said they couldn’t have it often.
Now Papa would never make him a grilled cheese again.
The pain that came with grief settled in his chest. It lived there. It grew like moss. It grew as if it had been there the whole time, and only now that he recognized it did he see how much it lived inside of him.
It crawled through his heart, into his lungs and up his throat. He swallowed thickly. His throat was dry.
He teared up as he stared at the window, at the sunlight. At everything in the world his Papa would never see again. His next memory flooded through, and he didn’t fight it.
His brothers were all laying in their shared room, warm and finally comfy in their turtle pile. Mikey was talking, and the others would respond, and as he asked about training for the first time, everyone peeked up.
They all giggled together as they curated a plan for how good of ninjas they would be, how they would save the world just like the superheroes in the comic books. How they would be best friends. They barely slept that night, playfighting as a training exercise until they passed out.
The sunlight looked so dull in comparison to the sparkle in Leo’s eyes as he claimed the Katanas, and the sound of the old house creaking was silent compared to Raph’s giggled protests of wanting the coolest weapon. And the air Michelangelo breathed was nothing to the light air that Donnie created when he laughed.
He held onto the bittersweet memory. His brothers hadn’t all been together in so long. His heart ached, and a tear rolled down his cheek.
It wasn’t like they couldn’t be together. There was something between them, something invisible, and Michelangelo couldn’t tell what it was. He couldn’t tear it down and bring them together again.
Michelangelo stared out the window. He hadn’t moved. It was loud downstairs. He wanted to grieve some more.
He wished he’d never woken up here. That he wasn’t stuck in the permanent state of nostalgia and grief that had led him here.
Nostalgia was what made him daydream. It was what created his daydream brothers. All he wanted more than anything was to have them back. It was to play with them one more time. He wished he’d known when the last time would be, so he could beg them for just one more.
Just one more turtle pile before we all get comfortable in our rooms. Just one more game before you all grow up too much. Just one more grilled cheese before we become content with algae. Just one more piece of everything that made you my brothers.
And then Michelangelo cried as he reminded himself this was exactly what he felt in dimension x. This was exactly what he felt as the outcasted dumb child. This is all he’d been feeling since the second everything was out of reach. He realized a second too late and now he would grieve the past forever.
He stared out the window and he sobbed, and he put his hands together and prayed for just one more chance. One more childhood. One more of Papa’s grilled cheese.
Nothing happened. Because no matter how many times Michelangelo begged for it to come back, it stayed gone. It stayed in the past. Mikey stayed in the past, and Michelangelo was stuck in the present, and dimension x stayed away permanently.
That was how it was supposed to be. That was how Michelangelo’s brain tried to fix him.
Michelangelo didn’t fight the next memory, even though the topic felt forbidden. Even though, now, he was only grieving himself.
He remembered how it felt to put on the mask for the first time. To pretend to be someone he didn’t feel like he was. The first time Michelangelo had forced himself to be Mikey.
Sensei wasn’t having a particularly good day, and Michelangelo seemed to be his target for his frustration. Because Leo was his favorite, and Raph fought back, and Donnie didn’t care. But Michelangelo only cried, so he was the easiest to yell at.
He was the dumb child, the isolated child. He was the screw-up. So Sensei asked him to stay after their training, and Michelangelo listened.
He thought that, of course, he would get a bit of scolding. He messed up his kata a little bit, not enough for the others to notice but enough for Sensei to know.
But Sensei didn’t yell at him for that. He yelled at Michelangelo for being.. Michelangelo. He tapped his cane against the floor, harsh and mean and clearly a blow he wanted to land on the child in front of him. But he didn’t hit Michelangelo, he only yelled.
Michelangelo can’t remember what he really said. Anything past the initial backstory and anger surrounding the fact that Michelangelo would never amount to anything slipped his mind.
Maybe that was the first time Michelangelo separated Sensei and Papa in his mind. When his Papa faded away and there was only the harsh words of Sensei, the ache in his muscles as he practiced the kata to perfection, the harsh tap of the tip of the cane against the dojo floor.
If anything, he knew for sure that it was the day he separated Michelangelo and Mikey. Because Michelangelo was a screw-up. He made Sensei angry. He made Raph angry. Everyone hated him. He hated himself.
But when he left the dojo, and Leo stood there with a worried expression, eyebrow (or lack thereof) furrowed and biting his lip, Michelangelo scrubbed all of the dirt in his brain away. Tried to wash away all of the horrible feelings and self hatred.
“Are you okay, Mikey?” He remembered his brother asking, and the acknowledgment in itself made him feel like the brother he was meant to be. Not the screw-up. So he nodded, and he played, and he was fine. He even forgot he had stayed in the dojo after in the first place.
And maybe part of Michelangelo missed the time where Mikey and Michelangelo could exist together, where they didn’t contradict one another. Maybe that was the grief he felt.
Maybe it was the fact that not only did he not have Papa, but he didn’t even have Sensei. And maybe it was the fact that he was still the crybaby that was easy to yell at. That was easy to hate.
He didn’t disprove himself. He just grieved. He clutched at his plastron as his body shook with sobs, and he wanted so desperately to hide in his shell, but he didn’t. He felt like he didn’t deserve the comfort.
And despite all of the times he’d woken up wishing he hadn’t, wishing he’d closed his eyes for the last time only to come back to his sad existence once more, this time was the worst.
When there were no more tears left to cry, and the grief now only sat in his heart as if it belonged there, he stood from his bed, wiped his eyes, and put on a smile.
Mikey may live in the past, but is it not Michelangelo who wants it so badly? Who craves to go back?
And as he steps out of the room he doesn’t quite feel like Michelangelo anymore, he feels lighter, and the grief goes away as if there was nothing there to grieve, and Mikey feels alive again.
Even if only an act.