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Rooftop	By : justalilwriter Category: Comics > Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Views: 6390 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 0
Disclaimer: I make no claim towards ownership of the characters, plot lines, or other related TMNT properties contained within this story. I can only claim to own my own original characters and as such this story is not being written for profit.

Chapter List
- 5
- 6
- 7
Notes from the author: Yet another chapter that took a while. Sorry about that, folks. Not my best chapter, but I hope it’s entertaining enough to make up for the wait.
Chapter 6: Four Turtles and a Lady

“You didn’t!”
Raphael didn’t offer a single word in response, the smallest indication of a smile settled on his face just as telling as a vocal affirmation would have been, though he still nodded regardless.
“You realize how hot 3AM Reserve is, don’t you?”
The turtle gave her another nod.
“And you put it on a slice of Mikey’s pizza anyway?”
His smile grew in to an outright smirk, the stark contrast of white teeth and green skin only seeming to accentuate how absolutely devious the expression appeared. When Erin gapped at him, all wide eyed disbelief and incredulous silence, Raphael almost wanted to laugh since she was showing the exact reaction he’d been aiming for, reaching for his glass of tea to down the remaining liquid with a few noisy sips. He could practically picture the images the woman had racing through her mind, though her imaginings would never have been able to do proper justice to his own memories of a past prank and the all too hilarious results it had provided. There was nothing quite like watching one’s brother dance around in panic after unwittingly consuming hot pepper extract.
“I didn’t realize I was serving tea to Satan.”
The remark did sneak a chuckle out of Raph and he held up his empty cup in a silent request for a refill, prompting Erin to head around the counter to the fridge, the deep rumble of the turtle’s sniggering making her grin despite her accusations of devilry.
“I hid all the milk we had in the fridge too, by the way. Just to add to the panic.”
“Satan,” Erin reaffirmed with her head half inside the refrigerator, eventually heading in her house guest’s direction with the tea pitcher in hand.
“Ain’t the devil supposed to be red instead of green?”
“You wear red. That’s close enough for me.”
He supposed there were worse things to be called than the devil, the word ‘freak’ being one of his least favorites in particular, so he met her assessment with a shrug, grabbing his third slice of pizza as she sat back down on the stool beside his. One box of pizza was already half gone between Raphael and herself, the food and beverages having provided a good distraction from previously raised tempers. It was a little hard to argue about spider corpse clean up with a mouth full of hot cheese and tomato sauce, but seemingly easier to simply talk rather than yell. The subject of the sai still stuck in the wall had been left alone and ignoring the issue of who would inevitably get it down seemed to have done the trick. A few bites of pizza and a much less uncomfortable subject of discussion, namely growing up in the city, had improved both of their moods. Raph’s posture had become more relaxed as he talked about his younger years, sharing numerous pranks played between his brothers and Erin was more than glad to stop feeling as if she had a ticking time bomb to diffuse. While his temper was a bit daunting and would no doubt take some adjusting to get accustomed to, Raphael genuinely did make for enjoyable company. It was nice to confirm that he really wasn’t all grumpiness and quick ire. If Erin didn’t know any better, she’d almost go as far as to say that they really had gotten past the distrust and uncertainty that he’d felt towards her thus far.
“What did Master Splinter do when he found out about your little pepper prank?”
“The usual stuff.”
Raph took a bite of his pizza before continuing and Erin tried not to squint as he talked around it, words only slightly garbled by the weight of the food sitting on his tongue. Apparently his training as a ninja hadn’t come with the knowledge that it was sort of gross to talk with a full mouth.
“Told me I shoulda known better, made me get up extra early for trainin’, wouldn’t let me go topside for a week.”
“What? No paddled backside?”
“I was a teenager for one thing. And I dunno if you noticed, but I’ve got a nice shield over my ass, so I didn’t really get that kinda disciplin’ growin’ up like some people might’ve.”
He gave her a pointed look, chewing loudly all the while.
“Oh, I know you don’t mean me. I was a good girl, I’ll have you know. I didn’t have any siblings to pull any pranks on, so my childhood was devoid of spankings.”
“Yeah right. Pull the other one, lady.”
“It’s true. I was a perfect little angel.”
Erin made sure to make her tone of voice sound as sweet as sugar, batting her lashes at the turtle as innocently as she could, and it only made him laugh. He snagged the breadstick she reached out to grab before her fingers could make contact, making a show of biting it in half.
“Perfect little angel, my ass,” he told her, smirking as he pointed her way with the chewed end of the breadstick he’d pilfered. “Speakin’ as the devil, I’m callin’ bullshit.”
“Well, I never stole someone’s breadstick…”
“It’s delicious, by the way.”
“...buuuut…”
Erin accentuated the word, rebuffing his interruption and refusing to fully rise to the bait he was offering, even when he stuffed the rest of the breadstick between his teeth.
“I did pour sand down Joey Brown’s pants in elementary school. Before I shoved him off the jungle gym.”
“What’d the kid do? Steal your Barbie or somethin’?”
“Nah. He promised he’d be my boyfriend at lunch, but then I caught him holding hands with Melissa Weaver during recess. Hell hath no fury like a second grader scorned.”
“And that’s what got your old lady to pull out the big guns?”
“Oh yeah. It hurt to sit when she was done, so I never did anything bad again. At least not anything that I thought she’d find out about.”
Raphael looked a bit intrigued, wondering what sort of trouble she may have gotten in to during her teenage years. He’d gotten his thrills growing up by beating the snot out of street thugs and Foot ninja, so the things that normal teenagers did for fun wasn’t something he was familiar with at all. Watching movies and seeing things from a distance as he and his brothers wandered the sewers or rooftops hadn’t allowed for a full picture of what an average life was like. Not being able to experience what human teenagers could, teenagers who were actually able to walk out in plain view without causing a stir, had been a sore spot for him years ago, but he’d laid those feelings to rest for the most part when he’d left his teens behind. Maybe he’d traded them for new demons, new frustrations about the ‘normal’ things he’d never be able to do like most twenty-three year olds could, but they didn’t seem worth dwelling on. At least not very often.
He picked up another breadstick, unintentionally doing so at the same time as Erin, and he snatched it quickly just to antagonize her further. She may not have been Mikey, who would forever be his favorite person to mess with, but it was no less amusing to see her frustration.
“Stop doing that, you big green thief!”
“Gonna push me off a jungle gym if I don’t?”
He shoved the whole breadstick in to his mouth after waving it in front of her for a few seconds, chewing and smirking at the way her frown made her lips thin out.
“If I had one, yeah. I might just have to stick with slugging you.”
“Feel free to try. I’ll even give you a free shot.”
The turtle flexed his arm, turning to face it towards her in an open invitation to give it her best go in a very literal sense.
“Are you kidding?”
“No, I’m showin’ off my bicep to see if I can make your panties drop.”
Erin would’ve blushed if he’d been a bit more crude and bit less obvious in his sarcasm, rolling her eyes at the very idea that one muscular arm would be enough to get her hot and bothered, even when the notion hadn’t been said seriously. His arm was still positioned towards her, his expression expectant and Erin figured that there was no reason not to give it a try if he was going to be insistent. It’s not as if he was expecting her to impress him and she doubted a weak slug to the arm was going to make a well-trained ninja like him so much as bat an eye, betting he was just waiting to get a laugh out of her feeble attempt at socking him a good one. It wouldn’t stop her from trying, though, and she focused her gaze on his notably thick bicep with as much intent as she could muster, balling her hand up in to a fist. How hard exactly did he expect her to try and hit him? She wasn’t certain if he seriously wanted her to give it all she had or not, so rather than strike him with as much force as she could, Erin hit him with a half-hearted strength that didn’t even cause him to flinch. If anything the blow had hurt her more than it had hurt him and she unfurled her fingers to shake them out with a faint grimace.
“That it?”
“Shut up. Your arm is hard as a rock.”
“That was pretty sad.”
“Screw you, Master Oogway.”
Raphael didn’t recognize the reference and thus chose to ignore it, shaking his head as he slipped off of his stool. Erin flexed her fingers a few times, surprised that they hurt at all when she hadn’t punched him as hard as she knew she could, content to blame the discomfort on his stupid, beefy bicep.
“You’re just gonna hurt yourself punchin’ like that. You had your fingers all wrong.”
He took her hand in both of his and turned it over until her palm was facing upwards.
“Eww. Your fingers are all greasy.”
“And yours are sore, so shut it for a sec. I’m tryin’ to teach you somethin’.”
His cupped his hand around her fingers she had them tucked against her palm, pressing his thumb against hers until the thickest of her digits was curled around the bottom of the others, which they both noted weren’t half as big as any of his. His hands were a fair bit larger than either of hers and when he turned her hand back over, cradling the front of her fist against his palm, fingers closing around the whole of it, Erin could see that his grip encompassed her own significantly. It was a little impressive just how much bigger he was than her despite their equal heights. His shell certainly added a great deal of extra bulk, but he was just bigger than her as a whole; thick with muscle while she was fairly petite. It would’ve been intimidating if she still felt the same fear towards him she had when they’d first met on her roof.
“Gotta remember to have your thumb on the outside. Unless you’re aimin’ to screw your hand up.”
“I’ll keep that in mind. Not that I even wanna try hitting you again. I’d have better luck punching a wall.”
He grinned, her comments about the stern state of his physique an unintentional bit of flattery on her part, and he released her hand. He figured she’d be better suited to frogging someone with as bony as her knuckles were, deciding he’d make the suggestion some other time, the notion losing weight in his mind when he realized that there was movement coming from her bedroom. The sounds were faint, probably going unnoticed by Erin herself, but Raphael could detect the creaking of the floor boards no matter how light the footsteps moving across them might have been, head already turning towards the doorway before Michaelangelo’s face had even appeared.
“They’re heeeere.”
The turtle’s impression of Heather O’Rourke wasn’t quite so creepy when he was grinning so cheerfully, flanked by his other two brothers, who seemed less inclined to Mikey’s slight theatrics. Donatello stepped around Michelangelo to greet Erin with a wave and a smile, his attention quickly drawn by his desire to scope out her home being as he’d not been inside it before, Leo seeming to have no such need to check out her set up when he’d been there once.
“Glad you guys made it. If you’d been any longer Big Red and I might’ve polished off all the pizza.”
“Sorry for the wait. Mikey couldn’t decide on a movie, so he took his time picking out a few from our collection. And by a few I mean…”
The messenger bag Michelangelo had been carrying landed on the nearby arm chair, clattering noisily on the cushions due to all of the movies cases moving around inside.
“…well…all of that.”
Mikey wasn’t at all phased by Leo’s comment, already drawn in the direction of the pizza boxes and the woman who had paid for their delivery, taking in a deep breath to enjoy the tantalizing scent of his personal food of choice. He pushed open the lid to one of the cardboard containers, finding that Erin had remembered to avoid the toppings he’d warned her about, and he bowed his head in a dramatic display of graciousness to the hostess of the evening.
“Erin provided the grub, bro. Seems fair to provide the lady with a good stash of flicks to choose from. I snagged a little bit of everything, too. We’ve got a little comedy, a little action, a little horror; whatever’s up your alley.”
Variety was the spice of life, so Erin wasn’t at all saddened to hear that the movie choice was hers for the time being, heading back in to the kitchen to grab a few plates and cups with help from Donatello, who moved to assist her without prompting. Though he’d been eating straight from the box Raphael took a plate, setting his next piece of pizza on it before his brothers started grabbing slices for themselves, all of them seeming to ignore the stack of napkins residing next to the pizza boxes. Figuring she’d let the boys get their dinner before she went back for more herself, Erin made her way over to the chair to start rifling through Mikey’s movie stash, telling the turtles to make themselves at home. She liked to consider herself a good hostess, but she preferred her guests to do as they pleased rather have to ask her for what they might like or wait to be waited on. It was something she figured she’d have to help Meg realize as well being as the woman was another new person she’d likely have hanging out at her place in the future.
“If you pick some weep fest of a drama flick, I’m snaggin’ one of those beers you offered. Just a fair warnin’.”
Erin scoffed at the notion, wondering if he was assuming she’d automatically default to something sappy due to her gender, and though she wasn’t entirely one to turn her nose up at heavily emotional flicks, she wasn’t much in the mood for one. Though she did entertain the notion of picking one just to spite him.
“It doesn’t really feel like a drama kinda night, so don’t worry, Raph. I won’t submit you to anything sappy enough to make you crave a Bud.”
“Oooooh there’s beer?”
Mikey reached for the door handle of the fridge to take a look inside, eyes searching for the alcohol Erin and his brother had mentioned, though a stern clearing of Leonardo’s throat and the sight of Donnie leaning his arm over the fridge door, shaking his head in a slow demurral, quelled the turtle’s hope that he might be able to crack open a beer that night.
“You have one and you’ll be asleep before the movie is half way through,” Donnie reminded him, holding his hand out for one of the cans of soda Michelangelo had grabbed instead.
“Yeah. True. Sucks being a light weight.”
“Don’t feel bad, Mikey. I can’t handle my liquor very well either.”
“Two drink wonder?”
“I wish. More like one and done.”
“Hey! Finally someone with a worse tolerance for booze than me!”
The prospect that he wasn’t the worst light weight in the room had Mikey grinning from what would have been ear to ear, were his ears plainly visible. He cracked open his soda, holding it out to his side to avoid getting sprayed by fizz, and joined Erin by the chair to see if the movies she’d pulled out of the bag thus far would give any indication as to what type of flick they’d be watching.
“One of these days I’m gettin’ you both to drink just so I can see who passes out faster.”
“Only if you promise to hold back my hair when I puke, bro,” Mikey said, rubbing a hand back and forth across his bald cranium.
“Do you guys drink a lot? I figured the whole being ninjas thing wouldn’t leave a lot of room for casual boozing.”
Leonardo shook his head, already settled in the opposite arm chair with a glass of tea and a plate of pizza balanced on his knee, his seat for the night having obviously been claimed. With his demeanor Erin found it hard to picture him drinking much at all, figuring that any common alcohol consumption between the four of them seemed most likely to be from either Raphael or Michelangelo. How any of them even got their hands on beer in the first place was a bit of a mystery. It wasn’t as if they had ID cards they could use or that they could just stroll in to a convenience store to snag a six pack.
“I know Raph has a few with Casey from time to time and I’ve shared sake with Sensei on a few occasions, but it’s not an every weekend thing for us,” Leo explained, showing that he lacked his red-wearing brother’s tendency to talk with his mouth full. “I don’t think Donnie has ever tried anything. At least as far as I know.”
“Never saw any reason to. I like to keep a clear head as often as I can. There’s always something to work on and I do a better job fixing things without a loss of clarity.”
“So said the turtle who goes without sleeping for days at a time when he’s working on something.”
Donnie shrugged his shoulders, unable to refute that he often forwent sleep if he had his attention thoroughly consumed by a project. When he got to tinkering it was hard to stop a lot of the time and if he was engrossed enough then he could easily forget if he started feeling sleepy, which he’d explained to Erin when he’d let her see his workshop. The prospect of operating on so little sleep, or staying up for more than twenty-four hours willingly, didn’t sound even remotely appealing to the woman. She’d never been distracted by something so engaging that she felt compelled to ignore the enticing siren song of a comfortable bed and a soft pillow at the end of the day.
“Find anything good yet?”
“Hmmmm…”
Erin didn’t answer Donnie right away, her expression one of visible debate as she stared at the cover for The Expendables before inevitably setting it aside, reaching back in to the messenger bag for another DVD when she felt her fingers touching a much larger than average case, which she could only assume to be a boxed set.
“Oh! The Mel Brooks Collection!”
She cast an appraising look in Michelangelo’s direction, clearly appreciating his impeccable taste, before she turned the box over in order to see the names for all the individual contained volumes. It had a number of great movies, a few of which she’d never seen before, though she had to frown at the lack of one in particular.
“Man, this thing would be perfect if it included Spaceballs.”
“We have it, but I don’t think it’s one of the ones Mikey brought. It’s my favorite Mel Brooks movie.”
“You’re a turtle after my own heart, Donnie. It’s my favorite too.”
Michelangelo rushed over to the counter where the pizza boxes were still situated, grabbing two breadsticks and calling out to his bo-wielding brother, tossing one of the doughy snacks in Donnie’s direction. Raphael seemed to already know what the two were about to do, groaning aloud as he covered his eyes with one hand, already settled on the couch. It wasn’t until Mikey and Donnie had the breadsticks held in both hands, positioned low near their plastrons, that Erin realized what scene they were about to reenact, already giggling by the time Mikey began to imitate Dark Helmet.
“You have the ring. And I see that your Schwartz is as big as mine,” he said, his impression almost spot on while his expression was only half serious, unable to keep his face looking stern when Donnie was snickering right along with Erin.
The two began to light-heartedly mock duel with the breadsticks for a few moments and Erin left them to it, carrying the pizza boxes, breadsticks, and napkins over to the coffee table in the living room. She packed the movies she’d gone through back in to Mikey’s bag and set it under the table to free up the arm chair it’d occupied, leaving the Mel Brooks Collection out now that she’d been thoroughly inspired to declare it to be a spoof specific movie night.
“Okay, we’re definitely watching most of the movies in this boxed set, but we’ve gotta start with Spaceballs and lucky for us, I happen to have it too.”
It took only a moment or so to find her copy of the movie amongst the DVDs lined up on one of the shelves of her television stand, putting the disc in to her PS3 after she’d flipped the television on.
“You brought all those movies and the first one we’re watchin’ isn’t even one of ours,” Raph taunted as Mikey took up residence on the opposite end of the couch.
“She who provides the pizza picks the movie, even if it’s one of hers.”
“Just promise you ain’t gonna start singin’ if the next one she picks is Robin Hood: Men in Tights.”
Donatello settled down in the empty chair and Erin flopped down on the middle couch cushion, remote and PS3 controller in hand. When their hostess selected ‘play’ from the DVD menu and then leaned forward to grab herself a slice of pizza, Mikey shot Raph a grin over her back, the expression making it all too evident that he wouldn’t be making any promises to refrain from singing along to any of the musical numbers which might pop up that night.
Perhaps, belated as it was, Michelangelo was finally getting his revenge for the hot pepper incident.

~         ~

“The jig is up!”
“And gone!”
The living room was almost wholly quiet save for the sounds coming from the TV and the soft snoring at the end of the couch. Pizza boxes sat out on the coffee table, showing more grease stains than food when they had become devoid of pizza some time ago. A few empty soda cans and partly filled glasses added to the modest messiness encompassing the living space, offering a visible sign of a relaxed night in; one which had been well enjoyed.
“You guys ready to call it a night? It’s nearly 2 in the morning.”
Donnie kept his voice hushed, making an effort not to wake the two forms asleep on the couch. History of the World: Part I had been largely ignored for the past several minutes, the humor of the film having lost some of its appeal after a few hours of watching nothing, but Mel Brooks movies. No one had set any sort of curfew for the evening, but with as late as the hour had gotten it seemed about time to consider the night over, particularly with only three of the five people present still conscious. Master Splinter had become less inclined to wait up for his sons when they’d come out of their teenage years, but he was still prone to worry and it was possible that he was sleeping restlessly if he was even sleeping at all. It didn’t seem wholly probable that their sensei was passed out as peacefully as Mikey happened to be, the turtle snoring unobtrusively at his end of the couch with his head on the armrest and his orange mask ever so slightly askew. He’d fallen asleep as some point during High Anxiety, his unconscious state noted by the lack of his boisterous laughter and the occasional indiscernible mumble as he dreamed about something uncertain. Erin had covered him with a small blanket as she’d switched DVDs, commenting that she hadn’t thought it to be possible that a person could fall asleep watching a Mel Brook film, only to quietly doze a short while later herself. No one had noticed her slumbering until her head had suddenly slipped against Raph’s shoulder, where she presently remained, resting peacefully.
“Yeah. I think it’s about time to head home and follow Mikey’s example,” Leo whispered, casting a warm grin in the direction of his slumbering brother before he pushed himself up and off of the arm chair he’d spent the past few hours sitting in.
He stretched, feeling a little stiff after sitting in one place for so long, and Donatello followed suit, rising from his seat to start cleaning up as quietly as he could, gathering up the cups and cans to carry them to the kitchen. Leo would have been quick to assist him, had bent forward to reach for one of the pizza boxes until a wave of Raph’s hand drew his attention, the other turtle angling his head towards the human using his shoulder as a pillow.
“Mind giving me a hand?”
Having a woman curled up against his side wasn’t exactly what Raphael would consider a common occurrence and while he wouldn’t say it was necessarily a bad one given that there were more awkward things to experience, he’d been aching to be able to move again without concern for jostling Erin awake. Leo didn’t need any explanations, carefully slipping his hands around Erin’s back and legs to begin lifting her up and away from his brother. The woman didn’t seem to rouse, a soft moan of protest all that came from her as Leo shifted her slight weight until she was settled comfortably against his plastron, carrying her in to the bedroom to put her in bed. Finally free to move again, Raphael rubbed his stiff arm to alleviate the minor discomfort he felt, picking up the PS3 controller and remote to shut off the console and television.
“Mikey. Hey, Mikey, wake up. We’re going back to the lair.”
“Don’t wanna.”
Donnie sighed and smiled regardless, glancing at Raphael as if debating whether he wanted to ask his sibling to help him wake their slumbering brother up, though he refrained from doing so. Raph would’ve been likely to tip the couch over if Michelangelo kept protesting.
“Come on. The sooner we get back home, the sooner you’ll be able to go back to sleep.”
Mikey shifted on the couch, grabbing one of the decorative pillows to hug it, chin pillowed on the cushioned softness, eyes still shut.
“But the couch is comfortable. And it smells like a girl. S’nice.”
“But you’re going to have to get up off the couch anyway, Mikey. You drank allllll that soda tonight,” Donnie said with a small smirk, crouching down beside the arm of the couch to speak in slow, urging tones right beside his brother’s head. “You drank so much. Enough that you’ll probably have to use the bathroom soon.”
Michelangelo’s eyes didn’t open, but his brow had begun to furrow with thoughtful discomfort, as if the logic his brother was offering had truly begun to make him aware of his full bladder regardless of the sleepy state of being he was hovering in.
“Baaaaathroom,” Donnie said again, drawing out the word knowingly.
“Crap. I gotta pee.”
With a tired huff, Mikey sat up and tossed the pillow aside, yawning as he practically shambled off to the bathroom, the door clicking shut behind him. Donatello looked pleased with his success, particularly when Raph gave him a nod of approval for how well he’d managed to coerce their sibling in to getting up when he personally would’ve just been content to physically drag Mikey off the couch. Figuring that they’d get home faster if he helped with clean up, Leo’s absence likely a sign that he was either checking out the streets below just to be cautious or ensuring Erin was properly tucked under her sheets, Raphael grabbed the empty boxes and dirtied napkins littering the table, making his way to the kitchen.
“Raph?”
“Yeah?” he answered, trying to make as little noise as possible as he broke down the boxes in order to make them fit in the trash can.
“One of your sai is stuck in the wall.”
Donatello craned his neck forward a bit to get a better look at what the weapon was pinning in place, eyes widening a little once he saw just what the curled up mass actually was.
“Stuck with a spider. Do you want me to…”
Although he didn’t finish the question, the way he jerked his thumb towards the bo staff he’d slipped back across his shell was telling enough that Raph knew what was being offered, and he shook his head in approval, grateful that his brother would offer the help. Donnie wasn’t one to be a pest about Raph’s dislike of bugs and though he wasn’t bothered by insects in particular he did at least seem to understand why the creatures got under his brother’s skin. A quick hit with the end of his bo dislodged the firmly embedded sai from the wall, the weapon and spider alike plummeting towards the floor. The dead bug made a scarcely audible thud and Donnie tossed the sai in Raph’s direction once he’d caught it short of clattering to the ground, the weapon’s owner giving it a quick spin around his fingers as if happy to have it back before tucking it beneath his belt. The spider was wrapped up in a few paper towels and thrown in to the trash by Donnie before Mikey had even emerged from the bathroom, their tired brother none the wiser, and Raphael was glad for it.
Mikey started collecting all of the movies he brought, pushing them back in to his messenger bag, and soon the only lingering sign of the night’s mess involved a few plates and cups in the sink. There were few enough dishes that it wouldn’t have taken long to wash them, but with as tired as everyone had started to feel and with as noisy as dish washing could be when there was a woman asleep in the bedroom, it didn’t seem necessary to clean up that last little mess. Leo stepped out of Erin’s room just as Michelangelo had started pulling his bag over his shoulder, glad to see that his brothers were ready to go.
“I don’t think there’s any point in waking Erin up to tell her that we’re leaving, so I guess we can just head out. The sidewalks are pretty clear, so I don’t think we’ll have any trouble getting home without being seen. Let’s get going.”
“Just a sec, Leo.”
Donnie disappeared in to Erin’s bedroom, walking on the balls of his feet to keep his steps as quiet as possible, and his brothers were left waiting for a few moments, uncertain of what Donatello was up to. He returned after a moment, moving past them with a cell phone in his hands, a slight clicking sound coming from the rapid pressing of his thumbs as his eyes remained locked on the display. Once he’d done whatever he’d seemed so intent on, Donnie started to searched around a bit, ignoring the sleepy swaying of Michelangelo, Raphael gripping his sibling’s shoulder to keep him upright, and Leonardo’s confounded stare as he quite clearly tried to understand what Donnie needed to find. He didn’t offer to help, figuring Donnie had whatever he was doing under control unless he said otherwise, the other turtle eventually finding a stack of post-it notes and a pen. He scribbled out a quick note, peeling it from the top of the stack to press the line of adhesive to the cell phone’s screen.
“Okay. I’m ready.”
He showed the note to Leo, letting his brother see what he’d been getting at, and after offering a nod of approval, the four turtles started heading in to Erin’s room, stepping noiselessly towards the window.
“I say next movie night should be at our place,” Mikey mumbled tiredly, muffling a yawn behind his hand. “That way I won’t have to get up once I pass out in front of the TV.”
“Erin would, though,” Leo reminded him. “And one of us would have to bring her home.”
Donatello lifted a finger to his mouth, shushing his brothers as quietly as he could, reminding them that they needed to keep their voices down. He cast a glance at Erin, who seemed perfectly still in the middle of her large bed, blankets pulled up to her neck and expression impassive. She didn’t even seem to register the turtle near her bed as he hooked her cellphone back on to the charger cable, setting the device and the note he’d written on her bedside table.
“Nah, bro. She could just sleep over at our place. S’not like April and Casey haven’t done it before.”
Mikey kept his tones hushed at Donnie’s urging, though the softness of his voice seemed almost pointless when Raphael tugged the window open, the frame scraping and creaking a bit. He tensed, having tried to open it as quietly as he could, and four sets of eyes turned towards the bed, waiting to see if the sound had roused the woman they were trying not to disturb. Erin shifted, turning to roll on to her side with her back facing the turtles, remaining fast asleep and unbothered, causing the foursome to release a collective sigh of relief. Apparently the woman was a heavy sleeper.
Raph stepped aside to let Leo head out on to the fire escape first, Mikey following right after, clutching his bag against his side to keep it from getting caught between his body and the window frame.
“She could always sleep in your room, Raph. She seemed to like using you as a pillow.”
The grin on Donnie’s face was light hearted and his tone teasing, but it hardly made Raphael do anything more than thump the back of his brother’s shell as he was climbing through the window.
“I’d ask if you’re jealous, Donnie, but I keep forgettin’ you’ve got a thing for redheads.”
Donatello turned around on the fire escape, looking at Raph with the barest hint of color on his face, the comment having effectively silenced any further jokes he may have felt inclined to make about the implications of Erin’s unintentional snuggling.
“’Sides, it’s gonna take more than a chick nappin’ on me to get me goin’.”
His brother moved out of the way as Raph started climbing out of the window, grabbing the ladder rungs to start climbing up, pausing in his ascent as Raph turned to grab the bottom of the window to pull it shut.
“But…you’re okay with her now? You’re not still worried about her knowing about us?”
Raphael glanced in to the darkness of the apartment, seeing the still shape hidden beneath the blankets on the bed, and he found that his prior worries were far from his mind.
“Nah.”
He carefully closed the window to block out the wind and noise that had to be filtering in to the sleeping woman’s bedroom.
“She’s all right.”
~     ~
It was the repeated beeping of her cell phone rather than the sunlight peeking through the curtains which woke Erin up early Saturday morning. As a deep sleeper she’d been gifted with the ability to slumber through most loud or disturbing noises, which tended to make living in a city as ever active and noisy as NYC much easier. However, a loud, consistent noise tended to be annoying enough to draw her out of even the deepest of sleeps, particularly if the sound was as grating as an alarm clock or a text message alert coming from her cellphone.
Erin couldn’t say for certain how long she’d been partly awake and aware of the noise chirping from her bedside table, but she attempted to ignore it for what she assumed to be about ten to fifteen minutes before the realization that she really had to use the bathroom gave her more incentive to get out of bed. The brunette moaned in weary distress, dragging her pillow out from beneath her head to hug it to her chest, shuffling her feet under the blankets to try and get her body moving.
Damn whatever twist of fate had ordained that beds were always the most comfortable whenever a person had to get out of them.
“I’m going to pee and turn you off and go back to sleep,” she muttered as she groped her hand across the table, latching on to the cellular device.
She sat up, letting her pillow settle in her lap as she ran a hand back through her hair or at least tried to with as tangled as the strands had become during her rest. Her cellphone charger fell out of the port with a tug of her fingers, brow furrowing and eyes blinking as she tried to let her vision adjust to the glowing text on the small screen. When she could finally read, she noted that she wasn’t even looking at the screen itself, the light dimmed by a yellow post-it stuck to the front, and she peeled the paper away to see what it said.
‘Erin,
I programmed my number in to your phone and wrote down yours to give us an easier means of reaching one another. We’re looking forward to the next movie night.
-Donatello’
The note brought a small smile to her face, the exchange of phone numbers making her feel warm and accepted. The previous night had been a lot of fun, more fun than she would have thought to have with a group of talking turtles when she’d first encountered them. There were still many things she didn’t know about their lives and likes, just as there were many things they had yet to learn about her, but it had been refreshing to spend time with them without having to prove or reassure anyone that she meant no harm. They genuinely felt like they were her friends now. Even Raphael, who had seemed perfectly content with antagonizing her, which in her estimate was his way of showing affection.
She decided to send Donatello a text to ask him when the next movie night might be, focusing first on checking the messages she’d already received, finding a single one from Jamie.
‘So how did movie nite go? Any sparks?’
Erin sent a quick reply, unbothered by the obvious fact that Jamie was clearly hoping to details about a romance that didn’t exist.
‘No sparks, but I had a great time.’

End of Chapter 6
A/N: Erin and the guys are certainly getting along, but it’ll be a while before they’re all really close. (And romantically close too, of course.) Next chapter, we’ll finally be seeing Casey and April.
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