Sallie plus other people, in places, doing things.

[realmrsreynolds]

Sallie is enjoying the quiet of her apartment in the Staff Wing. Quiet makes stuff easier. All sorts of stuff.

Even if Splinter's thought processes after their field trip are still rattling around like dried peas in a can.

The lilac ended up in a bud vase on the kitchen counter, and seeing it makes things better. Not easier. Just better.

Comments

[realmrsreynolds]

Sallie falters in her steely grip on her pride. Damn that turtly face.

"Mike..." Exhale. "I just don't..."

[mnt_mike]

"I know...trust me, I know."

[realmrsreynolds]

Wish I knew better.

What I was doing. Or anything at all what your ba thought.

I might be a coward chicken. A little.

How is he?

[mnt_mike]

It's so like Sallie to be worrying about other people.
Mike gets that.
In spades.

"He's okay. Wasn't very chatty when he came home to snag his walking stick. He's in the forest now."

Mike pulls his legs up to sit crosslegged, and then rests his elbows on his knees. A permanent curvature of the spine takes a little getting used to.

[realmrsreynolds]

Sallie groans, falling back on her bed in a flop.

"He doesn't need that thing! Damnit all."

[mnt_mike]

Mike hazards a chuckle.

"I'm thinking he's well aware of that, what with it being a foot or so too short for him to use anyway. It's just a comfort. It...it's not easy to look into the mirror and not see what you're used to there."

[realmrsreynolds]

And another truth comes to the fore - Sallie, all of this, makes Splinter uncomfortable.

The ceiling is a rather boring color. She should do something about that.

[mnt_mike]

When it's clear she's not going to say much else, Mike moves from the footlocker onto the bed with Sallie. He too stares at the ceiling.

"You know...you had me dead to rights yesterday. This," he wiggles his fingers for emphasis. "Is easier.

Growing up I thought it was such crap that no matter the sci-fi show, the humans were always the stars. Always the ones who figured out the problem. And were always the ones deferred to. Then I became one for a while and...wow do you guys make so much more sense in context."

[realmrsreynolds]

"I don't know if that's supposed to make me feel better, but right now I'm just feelin' like your ba's off in the woods somewhere moping because I scare the gou pi out o' him, and that's horrible."

[mnt_mike]

"It's horrible that he's afraid, and I think you're right that he is, but it's not you making him scared. It's him.

When I was little I used to have the really bad night terrors. Like...if you think my imagination is bad now...wooooweee, it's got nothing on what it was like when I was smaller. Anyway, I would wake up screaming and then crawl into Splinter's bed and in between lullabies he'd tell me that only we can scare ourselves. That only we have the power to make ourselves afraid. And that it's up to us to embrace those fears and move past them."

[realmrsreynolds]

Do you think he'll stay as a human?

[mnt_mike]

Mike shifts in the bed slightly, pulling his head lower into his shell for comfort as he considers her question.

"I think...that if he's smart he will."

[realmrsreynolds]

The pressure of Mike's shell into the mattress leads Sallie to roll slightly into the center towards Mike. She follows it through, and it ends up with Sallie's nose nearly touching karatin. Sallie breathes outward, pulling her feet up in a curl.

She admits, I'd like that.

[mnt_mike]

Mike smiles, not just at her proximity, but because of the change in temperature due to her proximity.

I think he will too, when he lets himself.

[realmrsreynolds]

Should I leave him be?

[mnt_mike]

"That...is the $64,000 question, isn't it?"

I don't know that I've got a good answer. I can say that we're not human, even when we look like we are. From how it sounded...what he said he said because Leo was being Leo at him. That it was a defense.

[realmrsreynolds]

"Oh, yes. I know that. No parent wants their vulnerabilities spotlighted by their children." Beat. "Day two of the seminar."

Still sucked though.

Shell patterns are neat.

[mnt_mike]

"I gotta get me into that seminar..."
He sighs dramatically.

What...what is she looking at?
Mike turns his head slightly and realizes that she's looking at his shell.

"Cubefall hasn't been very good to you, has it?"

[realmrsreynolds]

"I think..." Sallie's sentence drifts for a second, "I think Cubefall has done some good things. I don't regret anythin' with Charlie or the like in previous years, but it does lead a lady to get her hopes up.

"Last year 'n this one, I just knew that I couldn't do anything with it. I played with blocks, I did a good luck thing in the furnace, but -- no changing. It gets people confused about what they want."

[mnt_mike]

"Wants are hard anyways, but they're more so if you've never had the chance to have them before."

[realmrsreynolds]

"Hence folk gettin' scared."

One finger uncurls and runs along Mike's shell experimentally.

"He could always change back next year. If he hates it." It sounds flimsy as hell. "He might miss his tail."

[mnt_mike]

"He could at that. Maybe make that pilgrimage to Japan that he's got planned for his ashes."

Mike watches her with amusement. April did pretty much the same thing the first week they lived with her.

"Bah, tails are overrated. Or...at least mine is."

[realmrsreynolds]

It's easy to smile at the image. Splinter doing something he always wanted to do. Even knowing nothing about Japan, Sallie wants that for him. Kind of a lot.

(And she'd go with him in half a heartbeat if he were to ever ask, which is its own problem, truth be told.)




"Are you staying a turtle?"

[mnt_mike]

Here he turns his attention back up at the ceiling.

"i haven't decided yet. this is so much..."
easier
less complicated

[realmrsreynolds]

Why would it be smart for Splinter to stay human, but not for you to go back to it?