TMNT ONESHOTS.

" Because I am the smart one, and I cannot pretend anymore. "

AFTER S5, Tigerclaws peace treaty is in place.
———————

I do not know when we began pretending, pretending that we could stand too be in the same room as then.

Of the people who chewed and spit our names out when we were so young—so unable too respond, without feeling like a scolded child.

So we will pretend. And they will pretend they didn't.

When we lay awake at night, cutting at the skins of potatoes, with bruises laid on our arms because they had treated us like we treat the skin, I wonder what they did?

I cannot help but let my eyes, wide and still having a small child-like eye-batting in them, glance at them. There is furry or scaly or boney skin in my gaze, cause I cannot see their own eyes.

I grit my teeth and hold my fists, and I hope my eyes show the distrust and disdain in them.

We only ever accepted their meek apologies because we were so tired, so tired of being treated like we did anything wrong—when they pursued us first.

So I fit my mask, I work my smile—because if I cannot act like I am enjoying this, I can pretend. There's a difference.

When you act, people know. An act is something in a movie, when you pretend—it is a secret, a very dull and dirty one. One you scowl at.

He and his brothers have always been good at pretending, haven't they?

Because they don't act, they can only pretend—because they are a being of secret, one they will scowl at because we don't fit an agenda of humans.

Sometimes, I ask myself—why do we let them over for dinner every now and again? And why do they walk inside their lair and act like they hadn't ruined our most growing years.

I don't know how or why or when—but I feel my fist clench, and I feel my throat close up.

I know I am being stared at, by the people who ruined my life. Who treated me like a bug, like dirt—like a particle in the air. I only grab the counter and hold it tighter.

Because if I can pretend, they will believe it.

But it doesn't work, because my eyes are batting too fast and suddenly I am fifteen, pleading with my father with facts and evidence to let us outside. And then I am eighteen again.

At what point had he become eighteen?

He's the smart one isn't he?

Why can't he figure it out?

Whycanthefigureitout?

My fist clenched into themselves and I dropped my pretending, something I haven't done in a very long while. I let my eyes meet their own, mine are dark and red yet I have no idea how or why—I blame our fathers genetics.

My hands react before my mind and I am flipping over a pot of boiling water, I can feel my body reacting yet my mind is still thinking back to three years prior.

Where he had become eighteen, is finally answered.

My breaths are uneven, and soon, my eldest brothers reaches over and gently holds my hand and tries to escort me away, as the people who did this too me are unscathed.

I see my two younger brothers—though they only look like a spurr of orange and red, the sunset.— clean up burned water, and suddenly my mind is back in place.

"No, you two—don't clean it up." I say, and I don't let them answer, shoving my eldest brother away and helping my littlest brothers, though by truthfully, not too much.

"They should clean it up, they still haven't cleaned up for everything they've done and did to us when we were barely fifteen. "

And soon the words fall out, because I am the smart one, the one who hates to pretend because it isn't smart and logical—and letting these monsters who used to claw my way into my dreams of happiness hear me now, alive and scathed? It is all I beg for.

I refuse to meet the monster's eyes though, because I busy myself with pushing my younger brothers into my older brothers protective arms, who can hold and swallow all of us.

My eldest brother seems to understand and helps me, pushing our youngest brothers into the safety of the living room. I wish our father had done so to us, I wished he would chuckle loudly and say 'Yes...but no.'

Words that'll never have such a fatherly love to them, cause father died as we did in our hearts and youth.

I finally meet their eyes, cause those I can care about and hold and held are now sealed away in safety, something I wished to have beg for when I was younger and still salvageable 

"Clean. It. Up."

And I cannot help but grab that damn boney wolfs head and slam it down, because he was the first—wasn't he?

"Clean it up, you mutt, clean it like you should've cleaned my tears of despair. That's all you are good for, isn't it? Following rules, like a measly dog."

The words are spit and venom and yet they follow my poetic pattern of wording, because who am I if not the smart one. The smart one who couldn't deal with pretending for these monsters anymore.

"Or what about you?"

I say and look at the fish, pointing at him with accusation. My teeth grit and it makes an unpleasant sound, but I haven't cared about that for a long while. The only thing that I remember is these monsters.

" you, who sunk your fangs when they never belonged—knowing my little brother could die and yet you  get to enter my home that has that same little brother inside it. "

I recall the moment, throwing a truck with an ex-ice cream truck driver in tow at ramps and things in the way, because the fish was poisonous to a tee—and my little brother had been hit.

and then I hear my neck crack and pop, craning to look at the damn cat. My limit is reached and I reach for the closest knife, only lightly tapping the blade on the counter next to me.

"You—we should've never spared you and let your sister follow through."

I say and try to slam the knife through the mutts face, as if to prove a point, but my eldest brother has returned with stained cheeks and tears. My teeth grit and I look at them, the monsters.

"Get out."

And they don't have to be told twice, but I notice my body is shaking and soon I'm gasping for air, sobbing into my elder brother's plastron. My younger brothers join us, mumbling quietly.

We did not see them, nor did they visit us anymore. I feel glad, because they are fine with nothing when it comes too interaction.

Because I am the smart one, and I could not pretend anymore.