milliways_bar | (no subject)

(no subject)

A young woman with a tangle of dark, curly, brown hair was sitting alone in a booth. Several items were abandoned on the table before her, including a small, leather-bound journal and a plate with a half-eaten chicken salad sandwich. Her bright blue eyes were perusing the pages of the New York Times, although closer inspection would have revealed that they didn't seem to be settling on anything.

She certainly looked like April O'Neil, yet if you were to judge by steely, distant expression alone, you would have easily mistaken her for someone else. There was also the matter of a certain gold locket being conspicuously absent from its previously permanent place around her neck.

~~[OOC: 4:00 PM ET - Mun is leaving work now, and going to do real life-ish stuff. Will be back in a few hours.]~~

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April looked up and had to immediately force her mouth from quirking up more than just a bit. Some things were instinctual, it seemed.

"Hi."

The ice cream was chocolate, because he knew, and that hurt her.

"Got room for a booth-less ninja on the lamb?"

"Looks like the seat's empty," she replied. Her eyes flicked over to the space across the table and then turned back to her paper.

"Oh good. It's cold out here in the bar. It's cold and there are wolves."

Deadpan, "Wolves and turtles. What is the universe coming to?" She didn't look up and her ice cream was melting.

Yeah, that just wasn't right. No self-respecting April would let perfectly good ice cream go from frozen smooth deliciousness to soup without at least some sort of a fight.

"Not anywhere good, I can assure you."

He's testing the waters....and testing them carefully.

"Obviously." April turned a page of the paper and frowned, subtly. There was nothing worth reading. Or, more accurately, nothing that would hold her interest. Just then she was in desperate need of something to take her attention from the ex-turtle seated across from her with the concerned look upon his face.

Mike is a little brother. He knows right off when he's being ignored.

Mike doesn't like being ignored.
If she wants him to leave, she's going to have to tell him to leave. He leans back into the booth, and gets comfortable.

"I was thinking the other day that now that I've gone and gotten myself a little bit of expendable income, that I'd get moving on my Vampire Farm idea."

"Hmm." April folded the paper with a resigned sigh and set it aside, pulling her sandwich back over and taking a bite. "Sounds like a good way to waste money."

Mike blinks. Okay, the absurd wasn't going to get her attention.

"It's true. But you've got to waste money to make money, right?"

He studies her a bit more. Something is up, oh yes...something is up.

"It's spend money, not waste," April corrected him blandly.

"These are details, that as an Idea Man, I don't have to worry about.

I mean, just think about it. Every home with a domesticated vampire in it. They'll be the greatest Halloween Presents EVER."

"What do you want, Michaelangelo?" April asked abruptly, losing her patience. Of course, he had no way of knowing she had lost her patience with herself instead of him.

There it is. The tone that says Mikey, get out of my lab. Or, Mike, I'm trying to practice here. Or even Mike! That'sMY lipstick!

His face drops all expression, as his eyes begin to work over her face. It's like a small child trying to work out how a machine works. A machine that they will out perform the previous generation by leaps and bounds.

April has seen it before.
It's a technique he learned from Splinter. And why Leo uses it to watch bodies, and Don to watch mechanics....Mike has always used it only on people and their eyes.

He's mean that way.

God damn it.

"Stop it," April said, jerking her gaze from his, irritated. After a slow breath, she added, "Are you going to answer me or not?"

Funny that the absence of her locket should feel heavier than the thing itself.

His arms cross his chest, further proof that he's not going anywhere anytime soon.

"Oh you know, a little song. A little dance. Batman's head on a lance."

"This would move along a lot faster if you'd cut the fucking crap." April pulled her journal across the table and into her lap, realizing that she might very well have to abandon her booth if he was going to continue to be stubborn. Of course, that wouldn't neccessarily stop him from following her, but one thing at a time.

"It'd move along a lot faster if you told me what got you knickers up in such a twist. You know full well that I'm not going to leave you alone until you do. And I'll sing if I have to."

April rolled her eyes, sitting back in her seat. "Nothing has got my 'knickers' in a twist, as you so eloquently put it. Has it ever occurred to you that maybe I wanted to be alone for once?" She looked back at him again, finally, frowning.

God, this was hard. So much harder than she'd anticipated.

"Yeah, I thought about that for a second. And then I thought to myself, I thought. Self, if April wanted to be alone, would she really sit in the middle of a crowded interdimensional bar and brood over her journal? And there's just no way that'd could even possibly be true.

Cheer up Emo Girl."

He offers at last.

Dear God,

"You really want me to come out and say it? It's not the rest of the people in here I'm interested in avoiding, okay?"

Please forgive me.

"I'm tired of your bullshit, Mikey. All of you."

Because I will never forgive myself.

"If I wanted a fucking headache, I'd beat my head against the table. You've ruined my life, is that not enough for you?"

Amen.

Mike takes everything in stride. He's not his brothers. He won't try to rationalize her outbreak. People try to do that for Raph, and he hates it. He won't point out the inherent flaws in her logic. The fact that without them, she'd have no life to ruin. Things like that are Donnie's domain, and the reason he's usually shut up in his lab. Being the big brother is right out.

No, Mike has a place, and he knows it.

"Does this mean you don't want the ice cream?"

"No, I don't want the fucking ice cream!" And lo, as if to illustrate the point, the bowl was suddenly on the floor and April was shaking in what might have seemed to be anger, but wasn't.

She'd never done this before, to him. This sort of behavior was typically reserved for Raph and Casey. Occasionally Leo. But not Don, and never, ever Mikey. You just didn't do that stuff to Mikey.

He's not listening to her words. He's watching her move. Tense. Coiled. Waiting to spring or snap, which ever comes first. The bowl slides across the table with a speed that Mike doesn't see. That he can't see. Stopping and catching it would have been all too easy, but he doesn't.

Sometimes things need to be thrown. Doors need to be slammed. Actions need to happen even, and especially if, you can stop them.

He hasn't heard her, but that doesn't mean he wasn't listening.

"I love you, April."

And that? That did it. Something within her broke, and she cursed herself for not having walked away when she had first had the impulse. April placed her hands palm-down against the tabletop and leaned across it, rising slightly from her seat.

"Is that what you call this?" she asked, unshed tears standing in her eyes. It was a miracle they'd not fallen yet, with as much as she was shaking.