Purple and Black? No, Orange! [PAUSED]

Chapter 5 - Punk tactics

The air is getting tense in the sewer Lair, Donnie's attitude towards Mikey changed a lot, he avoids Mikey like the plague, whenever they have to interact, Donnie is cold and pragmatic, he treats Mikey like he means nothing to him, constantly degrading his little brother verbally while keeping a monotone and prideful voice to assert his statements as truth, Mikey is obviously hurt by this, he thinks it might be because of how often he's been hanging out around April, but he doesn't wanna tear his friendship away like that just because Donnie is veing petty, but Donnie's toxic behaviors still get him down, and as a result, he started going to April even more often to get comfort and advice, Raph is not a very emotionally open person and Leo is very smart but he also doesn't really know what else to do about Donnie's behavior, as soon as Mikey realized that his family would probably not help him with his problems and that they don't seem to take it as seriously as he does, he just kind of dropped the ball on them and turned April into his "safe place", someone he could go to wherever he needed support, knowing that April would put her foot down to protect him, this bond between them only grew as April started being more and more open to Michelangelo about how she feels, to a point where they became eachother's safe places.

When Casey finally learned about Mikey and April's new friendship, he had mixed feelings about it, in one part, his best friends were hanging out, but in the other side of things, his crush and his best friend's brother were getting a bit... "too close", April was practically leaning over Mikey at mostly any chance she got, meanwhile, Michelangelo would always approach April with hugs and stuff like that, Casey knew April was not someone that enjoyed touch very much, he remembers how she disliked being touched in any way, like when she would move the teacher's hand off her shoulder while they talked about her work, or how she would push him and other friends away when they would try to hug her, he always just assumed April didn't like or had a personal problem with touch, he had a few theories as to why, but nothing was set in stone, but now, all of the sudden, she's letting Mikey invade her personal space however he pleased, without a single protest or anything, it was a bit weird and totally out of character from her, Casey started getting suspicious as to what was going on between those two, and that's when Donnie comes into the picture.

His obssessive behavior keeps getting worse, the only thing that changed was that he became better at hiding it, he was even having nightmares about their future, there were times he woke up in a panic after dreaming with Michelangelo and April getting married and having children together, a very unrealistic dream, of course, but they really sparked Donatello's insecurities, Casey ended up going to him out of curiosity to know about Mikey and April's relationship shift, after all, he was out of town for just a few days, so he's a bit lost in all the stuff going on, Donnie takes advantage of that and fills Casey's head with lies, telling him that Mikey is manipulating April into believing they're in love, he goes on to say that no one believes in him and that Mikey is probably trying to isolate April to keep her all to himself, the misinformation was meant to convince Casey that Mikey is the villain in this situation, but all it does is confuse him, he knows Mikey isn't like that at all, but he was caught off guard by seeing how confident Donnie was about his claims, so in order to figure things out himself, he plays along and has Donnie believing that he's on his side and that he'll help him figure things out, Donnie felt a bit of ecstasy by thinking he has a new ally on his battle to take Mikey out of his love game, but little did he know that Casey Jones had other plans.

As soon as Casey left the lab, he went around looking for Mikey, who was, coincidentally, hanging out with April in his bedroom, they were reading some comic books together, nothing crazy, and they weren't doing anything romantic either, Mikey was laying in bed and April was sitting around the floor over some cushions, there was a relatively distance between them, which didn't ring any alarms in Casey's head, Casey grew up with an abusive and controlling father and heard about the experience of many women who were in this sort of situation, stuck with a manic man who wanted the ladies all to themselves and went to great lengths to do so, and with that knowledge, Casey was trying to point out any red flag in his mind to try and test Michelangelo, to see if any of the mad talk he got from Donatello was close to the truth, so he had to put aside his current view of Mikey to see him for his true colors instead of the picture he had of the mutant turtle, and unlike a manipulative and possessive man would do, Mikey invited him over to join them, and when Casey did, Mikey incentived Casey and April to get comfortable with eachother, trying to get the two to comment on what they were reading and including both of them in the conversation, but to Casey's surprise, Mikey wasn't the one bothered by his presence or showed any sort of territorial behavior, April did.

She clearly showed signs of not wanting Casey there, she gave him some annoyed stares and tried cutting him off the interactions, whenever Casey did some approach towards her, she'd back off, but if he approached Mikey, she would subtlely cling onto him, almost like if she was trying to stablish dominance or possession over Michelangelo, who seemed completely unaware of her change of tone, and just like that, Casey figured things out, if there is someone in that relationship that was acting suspiciously, it was April, that was the moment he tried to pull the ultimate card he had up his sleeve, he asked Mikey out to go skateboarding, Mikey immediately agreed and was more than ready to go with him in that very instant, that was until April came in and decided that she wanted to tag along too, Casey tried turning her down by simply pointing out the fact she didn't have a skate to begin with, but Mikey preceded to offer her his own, he would borrow her his skateboard jusit to allow her to go with them, that kind of came off as odd to Casey since Michelangelo wasn't a fan of sharing something so important to him like his skate, so seeing him so casually offer April one of his most dear possession was a bit weird, but April agreed to these terms and that allowed them all to go out together.

During the skateboarding, Casey observed how April's overbearing attitude toned down a little, she wasn't being so explicit with her feelings for Mikey but the clues were all there, she would gaze at Mikey while he skated around, she'd get a bit more clumsy whenever Mikey got near her, but over all, they seemed to be having a good time together and Casey could appreciate that to a degree, he was still into April, but seeing her so cheerful around one of his best friends was kind of nice, after they were tired of skateboarding, they climbed up a nearby building, where Casey decided to chat with them both in private, first, he gave April some money for her to go to a convenience store across the road and get them all snacks, which she relunctantly went, giving the punk a chance to talk with Mikey on their own.