[open] I'm too sleepy to have something witty to put here

[faceguy]

WHO: Leo and anyone!
WHERE: Temba
WHAT: just post Mermay things + EVENT THINGS
WHEN: the days following the mermaid event
WARNINGS: none

A: Reunion (closed to Donnie)

It's very odd to be so sure you've always been a sea turtle one minute, then wake up and realize you were always a semi-aquatic red-eared slider. That's the feeling Leo is having now, as he wakes up in the workshop where he's been living alone and the world is no longer under water.

As he blinks and adjusts to his memories correcting themselves, he realizes what woke him up: a series of pings from his communication advice. Many pings from his communication device, actually. Rolling over and grabbing it from the side of his bed, he blinks blearily at the flood, then sits up straight and throws himself to the floor.

The messages are all from Donnie.

He scrolls back and sees that they cover weeks, the first a big batch as Donnie asks what happened in Temba and desperately tries to get Leo to answer, the rest becoming more periodic over time. Donnie's been trying to get through to him the whole time he was a semi-fish.

Donnie is still here.

Leo's already out the door by the time he sends a return message.

hey
where are u?

He left the factory so fast he forgot to change masks, his sleep eye mask pushed up on his forehead.

B: Stuck in the Suburbs (open)

So everything's okay now; Donnie's back, and the two of them are reunited. A happy ending for everyone!

Except for the part where they're still stuck on an alien planet lightyears from home, with no clear idea of how to get back.

Those are just details, though. Surely they can figure something out - they just have to find clues.

Thinking Donnie had gone home hadn't exactly made Leo eager to go out the last few weeks, something he's kind of regretting now that he has to walk most places. But now that things are okay again, he's out exploring, looking around all the places he hasn't seen in Temba yet. And this exploration leads him to the subdivision, and all it's semi-intact but still functionless and empty houses.

It's kind of creepy. It reminds Leo of those old movies where they'd build a town in the desert for nuclear testing.

He doesn't really have any clear aim, he's just wandering around. Though he does pause at one point and pick up a rock, then lob it through a window for a satisfying crash.

Perhaps you witness this act of petty vandalism. Do you say something to the Youth?

C: Sk8er Boi (open)

One of the good things that happened at the space port: Leo got a new skateboard! And he hasn't gotten much chance to ride it yet, thanks to spending the last several weeks as a sea turtle, but now he has his land legs back and it's time to test this baby out.

He sticks to the main parts of town where the roads are better, meaning, of course, that he is skateboarding around more populated areas. Well, populated being relative, but maybe you'll see the turtle zipping and zooming around, grinding off of the fountain or doing kickflips by the diner.

Or maybe he'll be looking the wrong way and accidentally run into you. Whoops!

D: Cheese Grater (Event/Open) (CW: violence, death (mostly off screen))

Leo didn’t mean to get caught in the storm, but when Donnie didn’t come back before it started he went back into it. Admittedly not his finest idea, but it’s the only one he had.

The memory that he, and you by extension, has stumbled into is a chaotic one.

He’s in the underground lair, but it’s crumbling, and there’s something attacking, huge and made of metal. It roars and swipes with massive, savage claws, and it’s all Leo can do to grab on to his little brother, popped in his shell. Across the room, his older brother protects Donnie from certain doom.

Whether you take a spot in this memory or just watch it play out, things are clear: this is a losing battle.

E: Something Lighter…? (Event/Open)

The New York skyline moves by fast, seen from the rooftops and not the street. Leo and his family are jumping the gaps together, and they’re moving fast.

Leo is truly in his element here. He’s been doing this for years, and he’s good at it. He knows exactly how much force to put into the jump, exactly how to angle his feet for a smooth landing. If you take his place, you can feel how it is for him: freeing and exhilarating, every jump as exciting as the last. He enjoys this feeling, the swoop of his stomach in midair before he comes down. With his brothers laughing and jumping beside him, and his dad out in front, he’s about as happy as he’s ever been.

If you aren’t taking his place, well, try not to get motion sick as the memory rushes to keep up.

Comments

[faceguy]

Leo hangs on back, perfectly happy to keep in physical contact as they try to find a way out of this. He doesn't want to lose Donnie in this mess, either.

"Alright. Maybe it'll die down if we wait."

They can hope.

He starts them off in the direction Donnie was pointing, hoping that no more pesky memories intervene on their walk.

[thepurpleone]

"Hopefully," Donnie agrees, moving once Leo does. Maybe once they're out of the rain the chances of memories forming will cease, but it's not exactly a bet he's willing to make. The storms are still so wildly unpredictable.

He finds his eyes drifting back where the lair had been, where that woman had last been seen, but he shakes his head to look ahead.

[faceguy]

Leo keeps doggedly moving forward, trying not to let himself look back, at the lair, at Karai. He wonders if Donnie has questions. He may want to learn more… or he may feel better not knowing.

Leo’s plan is to subtly raise the subject once they get inside… except, it seems like they’re already inside.

Leo blinks in surprise, looking around at the rows of shelves that have suddenly appeared, stacked full of food, the ceiling dark and shadowy far above them.

“What the… How’d we get in here?”

Wait… isn’t this place familiar?

[thepurpleone]

That's the problem, really- Donnie does want to ask questions, he has so many questions, but at the same time, the very things he'd seen make him wonder how much more he really wants to know. What else did we lose? ...or who?

The thought threatens to make him queasy again, his attention mostly turned inward that he doesn't even notice the scenery's changed around them until Leo speaks up again.

"Huh?" He blinks, looking around as well, except this doesn't look like any sort of space that he remembers in the city. The most store-like structure that still stands isn't nearly as properly stocked as what he sees around them now.

"Where is here anyway..?"

[faceguy]

“I dunno… But it seems… familiar…”

Almost as though responding to him, figures appear in front of them: April and Mikey, as well as a short kid that Donnie has perhaps not seen in person.

And finally Leo realizes what’s going on.

“What, seriously!? The can stacking ghost!?”

“The Gumbus is real!” the memory of Baxter Stockboy declares, and Leo scowls and turns around.

“Okay, let’s find the exit.”

[thepurpleone]

That kid sure looks familiar though. Wait.

"Isn't that-"

Donnie blinks, his thought railroaded by Leo's outburst. Those are two words that don't seem to have any business together. He turns a look at his brother.

"Can stacking ghost?" he repeats, but at Leo's reaction and in spite of what they'd just gone through, Donnie finds himself smirking. "No wait, this should be good, right? I thought you didn't believe in ghosts."

[faceguy]

“I don’t!” Leo immediately insists, over the insistence of their mutual enemy Baxter Stockboy, who is currently filming for his vlog. “I only brought Mikey here to prove there’s no such thing!”

Ancestor spirits are a totally separate thing and do not count!

Thought in the memory, Leo looks less sure of this conviction when chains suddenly appear to wrap around Baxter and drag him away, screaming.

[thepurpleone]

"Ah. That would explain why Mikey is armed with a vacuum cleaner."

Donnie can't help but stare in twisted curiosity as the kid's dragged off. He's not terribly worried given that he knows the kid ends up high-jacking his tank at some point in the future, but now he has some context as to how Leo and Mikey have come to know the brat.

"Well, he's not too bad an actor... I mean, he's clearly sold you all on this ghost thing."

[faceguy]

“Uh, no! I knew it was him the whole time!”

Is what Leo says, but Leo in the memory seems awfully convinced, since he starts screaming and running right along with Mikey. The only one who seems excited to be here is April.

[thepurpleone]

Typical weirdo-April behavior. A fond but simultaneously melancholy smile touches his face as he watches. It's been so long since he's seen his favorite human. Even if it's a memory and not even his own, it's good to see her being herself. Coming through for them as usual.

"Right," Donnie says belatedly as he watches them careen wildly through the market aisles. Mikey and April. It's like they're right there. He mashes down that lump in his throat, stubborn as it is to swallow down, but the antics that his family go through when faced with a pseudo-ghost at least serves as entertaining enough that he can try to mask that homesickness with a laugh.

[faceguy]

It is nice seeing their family again, in a less life-threatening circumstance. It hasn't been as long for Leo, but it's still been almost half a year now. He misses them, too. A lot.

But he does not miss looking like an absolute fool as the "Gumbus" chases them around the Stock n Shop. April gets separated from him and Mikey, and they end up cowering behind the pizza counter.

"Is being wrong always this scary!?" yells the memory-Leo, and the real Leo blows a raspberry.

"I wasn't even wrong, though!"

[thepurpleone]

Donnie fails to hold back a snicker at that. "Pff- oh I wish my phone was working." There is some wonderful blackmail material here. He'll just have to savor it since there's otherwise no way he'd have ever known about what had happened that night.

"That's, what? Still you admitting in the moment that you were wrong."

[faceguy]

"The only thing I was wrong about was being wrong!"

And if that much weren't apparent before, it becomes apparent now, as the ghost is revealed to have been a robot all along - something which the memory Leo is happy to crow about.

"See! Ghosts aren't real!"

A win for Team Leo!

"I'm always right. I don't know why you guys don't see that."

[thepurpleone]

"Hah! Agree to disagree!" Donnie snorts.

"Still have to hand it to the kid, that was a pretty solid prank. I mean, he did have you guys going for a while. The robot design is kind of clunky but effective I guess."

[faceguy]

"It was a terrible prank and I'm glad he got grounded." Leo shakes his fist as the memory fades. "And I'm not subscribing or donating!"

Though this probably explains why he keeps trying to expose them: for internet clout. And money. Only one of these things is valuable, in Leo's mind.

[thepurpleone]

The rain returns in full force, but it's not quite enough to still a laugh from Donnie as he watches his brother shake a fist.

"Yeah, that's his fault for choosing such a super-niche subject to post about." He supposes that can't be helped when the kid's stuck working at a store. Wait, how old is that kid anyway?

....well, not his problem.

"Well, at least it seems the memories that are coming up aren't all completely terrible," he observes as he nudges his brother's shoulder, pointing forward again. They hadn't made much progress to shelter at all but at least they can still see where they intend to go.

[faceguy]

Well, it is a family business...

"Speak for yourself," he says, but he does actually agree. Embarrassing as that particular memory might have been, it's a far cry from the one they saw at first. At least it keeps Leo from sinking down into thoughts about Gram-Gram and their destroyed home.

"Let's get inside before anything else happens."

[thepurpleone]

"Agreed," Donnie says. Bad enough it's like Calibrations, but he feels like he's dodged some invisible roulette wheel's reading so far and the odds are already bad when it's just two of them.

Thunder rumbles above them as they start along again, the rain seeming intent on making them fight for every continued step.

"Okay, maybe an umbrella wouldn't have been entirely a bad idea," he mutters. A glimpse of movement has him lifting his head, straining to see past the falling rain. "-Tony?" The man looks like he's stopped there, looking expectantly at the pair, but Donnie's already hurrying forward. "Why're you just-"

The atmosphere lightens up, the turtles finding themselves surrounded by greenery and a humid heat. Perhaps Leo's never been in the greenhouse here in the city but he's been in enough indoor gardens to at least be able to guess what it is despite some very alien-looking cultivation. There's the soft patter of water- not rain, it turns out, but rather a hose that someone's angled upwards for a makeshift, localized rainfall in some vain attempt to counter the heat that must be even worse beyond the glass and greenery.

That someone kneels there tending to some of the plants, this Donnie exuding a very subdued enthusiasm in an effort to keep being productive, the only way he knows to keep his mind off of things. He looks up at a sound, past the present Donnie and Leo as a spherical little robot steps into view, addressed as DATA before Tony himself catches up, a strange pair of boots tucked under an arm as he stares for a long hard moment at the lone turtle before saying almost accusingly, "This cannot be fun for you. This is a nightmare."

[faceguy]

Oh no, what now?

Leo recognizes the greenhouse for what it is, even though he hasn’t been in this one specifically - he remembers when they all went to smell that stinky flower, after all. But since he’s pretty sure he doesn’t have any formative memories from a greenhouse (stinky flower notwithstanding), he guesses this is one of Donnie’s memories.

The appearance of one of Leo’s least favorite people on the planet lends credence to this pretty quickly.

“Ugh. This guy,” he says flatly. Then he catches himself, because this is probably one of Donnie’s cherished memories of Tony or whatever. Blech.

[thepurpleone]

Well, if Donnie had any questions as to potential improvements between his brother and Tony's relationship, then Leo's comment makes it clear enough. He rubs awkwardly at his arm as he pointedly looks towards his memory-doppleganger.

"O-oh, we can just...leave, right?" he suggests. Leo doesn't like Tony so there's no point to standing here watching, not when Donnie knows he was at a low point, but seeing it from this perspective just makes it look like he'd gone through a lot of trouble for a miserable scene-set when all he'd wanted was to not shrivel up from dehydration.

Memory!Donnie looks up at Tony almost confusedly before figuring what he's talking about. "Aside from the current climate situation, this for the moment is considerably paradise in comparison to previous venues," he insists, making the man reconsider anything he might have come up with in rejoinder. Tony steps closer, waving for Donnie to remain where he is before dropping a kiss on his head and an almost secretive, "You okay, kid?" as though afraid of someone hearing his concern. The gesture certainly throws Donnie off as he looks like he has to mentally reboot before responding.

"...better," isn't exactly a reassuring response, not when it's followed up by whatever sort of situation had apparently happened prior, a trap of some kind that some of them had been lured into. "Like...I know there are places people put other people who are insane but this was like the opposite."

"Okay, listen, good news, you were already kind of insane, so..."

Donnie pouts at Tony before muttering, "Fair."

[faceguy]

Leo would love to just leave, but the way to do that isn’t easily apparent. And now it’s playing out whether they want it to or not.

Seeing Tony drop a casual kiss on his brother’s head like he actually is Donnie’s dad is… super weird. Leo doesn’t even know how to process that one, or the fact that Donnie let it happen without biting. Which means Donnie really does like this guy, more than Leo even realized.

Which makes the whole situation even more difficult because Leo doesn’t know what to do about it anymore. He tried to talk to Tony, to get across that he didn’t have to give Donnie the cold shoulder, but the way Tony responded… Leo feels a burn every time he thinks about it.

Maybe Tony’s care for Donnie is real. But then that doesn’t make how he reacted make sense… unless he just hates Leo that much.

Leo isn’t trying to trample all over Donnie’s heartwarming memories here, but the whole thing sets his teeth on edge.

But at least, when Donnie was alone, someone was looking out for him…

[thepurpleone]

Of course Donnie's attention strays towards Leo, sneaking a look out of the corner of his eye. He's never really been good at reading people and he's not sure how to parse the look nor the tension of his brother, but it makes him feel...something. Uncomfortable. Or upset. He can't really nail it down except that it doesn't feel very good, and he's not even quite sure why it bothers him. But then...they'd never really had problems with the people they knew. That circle had always been a very tight few, and now that it's had the chance to expand, there's more chances for them to run into people that they might not all like or approve of. It's...a weird thought.

The winding conversation between Tony and Donnie touches on whatever prison the latter had been locked in, down a tunnel with a door that vanished from the naked eye but he could still see with his goggles. Calibrations. Something about dreams, about seeing other peoples memories. The time in confinement spent finishing his battle shell when he wasn't seeking out possible routes of escape. It was a massive infodump but Leo would probably understand it for what it was, Donnie's way of coping, of trying to regain some control of a situation he had largely none to begin with.

News about the finished battle shell was met by Tony with some mixed response, genuinely marveling and somewhat...awkward as the boots he'd brought finally come into play. With a finished battle shell perhaps Donnie didn't need them after all, but that's hardly how Donnie saw it at all. He's usually the one making things for people. It's strange to be on the other end, and it seems Tony's not completely above gifting people directly. "Those can break the sound barrier. You see those rockets? I made them for a jet engine." It may not have been uranium but Donnie's face lights up like it was Christmas day and someone had just gifted him his otherwise impossible request.

[faceguy]

The massive infodump is concerning because apparently Donnie was stuck in some kind of prison for awhile, as long as this “Calibrations” was, and he never mentioned it to Leo. It hits Leo again that anything could have happened to Donnie and they wouldn’t even have known, because they didn’t even know he was missing.

Man. He wants to get out of this storm and get somewhere safe even more now. He’s not sure how many more anxiety inducing incidents he can take.

But now they get to the boots, the ones Donnie has mentioned before. This is when Tony gave them to him, apparently. The absolutely thrilled look on Donnie’s face is impossible to miss - Donnie may have a hard time reading others, but he’s always been easy to read. For Leo, at least.

This whole memory is feeling like one giant guilt trip. But Leo doesn’t know what more he can do. He tries to relax his posture, at least, so he looks less like he would like to eject himself from this memory by force.

“…He really is your sugar daddy,” he says, in as joking a tone as he can manage.

[thepurpleone]

Was it worse experiencing them firsthand or just knowing someone close to you had? Things Donnie hasn't considered, and perhaps would have been reluctant to have explained if he'd thought about it. But there's just been so much that he's had to endure that he wouldn't know where to start, and the last thing he wanted to do was make his brother worry. It's not like anything can be done about it now anyway, and a lot of it, Donnie would rather just put as much space between him as possible.

"Leo..." he starts, not even sure what he intends to follow up with. He's not completely blind to some things, and he knows Leo well enough to tell when his brother's forcing himself.

His memory-double and Tony continue to talk, the mood between them having lightened dramatically since they'd started, and then in typical Tony-fashion, the man apparently decides that the conversation has wound down and his business there finished. It catches Donnie off guard, feeling the need to say something more, an uncertain "Wait-" as he pushes himself to his feet.

The actual Donnie beside Leo turns away as his memory-self throws himself at Tony in a brief and almost desperate hug before he dropped his arms away.

"...thanks. For...you know," he says as the scenery around them slowly begins to blur with the still-falling water, transitioning smoothly back into the rain from the yet very present storm.

[faceguy]

Leo isn't being very convincing, huh? Shoot...

The memory fades away, leaving them in the rain. Leo decides not to linger this time, grabbing for Donnie's hand before he starts doggedly trudging towards the buildings once again.

"...I tried, you know?" he says after a second. "I thanked him for the Gameboy."

The Gameboy he never actually received.