Hope you enjoy this chapter!
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We're all at the store's door now, waiting for Donnie to come on his jetpack, how did he forget about Leo's portals? Leo is sitting next to his younger brother, and both of them are happily eating a bag of pizza-flavored chips that magically fell off one of Leo's portals, apparently not shoplifted. Raph and April are playing hand games, trying to keep their rhythm as Splinter complains about how greasy (rat-like...) his hair (fur...) has been acting. While waiting, you kick your feet back and forth as you imagine Donnie's reaction midair realizing that portals exist.
You don't have to wait much to finally see this reaction in person tho, as the turtle comes down with a tired, annoyed facial expression. Turning off his jetpack and making it ride itself home with the click of a button. The jetpack's metal rips through the clouds, oh, that will surely keep our cover.
Although, you are content with Donnie's arrival. Until now, you all just seemed like six weirdly-colored hobos trying to beg for money at the entrance, now, you're seven! Holy damn! What's a billionaire compared to all this luxury? Bill Gates DREAMS of sitting on this gravel!
"So? How was your trip? Eh? Ehhh~?", jokes Leo, in a mocking tone. "Well, there was no Y/Ns vomiting around this time." Ouch, what did you have to do with all of this? You decide to vocalize your thoughts in annoyance "Hey! I- I don't throw up because of portals in ages!" Donatello looks at you, slightly caught on a smile, "By ages you mean, one week?"
This brings you to cross your arms in a joking manner, trying your best not to smile as you snap your neck to the side dramatically "Don't invalidate my efforts, Donno." He grins widely (but somehow still with a hint of anger?) at the nickname, murmuring 'fucking pest' under his breath as he shakes his head left and right in disapproval.
You follow the others as they enter the market in their disguises, in a way, it's fascinating seeing the turtles wearing human clothing now and then. They all always find a way to concentrate a little of their own essence into them, even tho the whole point of wearing disguises is to hide away from humans. If one ignored their three fingers, they would simply look like four stylish young men. The doors close behind us when, while still close to the entrance, Mikey stops to a halt, supermarket music filling the huge room. "Hey, take a look," he holds onto a magazine from an in-doors magazine stand and opens it wide as he explains "I know this brand! They always have puns at the end of each category!" his eyes shine bright, "Oh! Here's one!".
Leo, of all people, seems to be the one more interested in the whole situation, to the surprise of literally nobody. "Why was six afraid of seven?" Leo is quick to open his jaw, being interrupted by his twin brother, "It wasn't, numbers are soulless beings, actually, more like concepts than anything else, that lack emotion." Mikey's face is covered by a sweat drop as he chuckles nervously "No! Because seven ate nine! Here's another one!" he goes through some pages and stops moving his fingers as he finally continues, "How do you make a plumper cry?" Leo opens his jaw once again, but of course, Donnie speaks in his place "You murder his whole family with a crowbar."
"No-That's- Oh. It's correct." Mikey squints his eyes at the pages in front of him, slowly turning the pages to the next pun. "What's red and has two legs?" Leo doesn't even try to speak this time around, only staring at Donatello in confusion, waiting for his next answer. "Half a cat-"
"I don't feel like making puns anymore." he closes the magazine in a rush, disappointment filling his seemingly empty eyes, uncannily accompanying his awkward smile. Raph stutters an "Uhm, guys?", making everybody look at the child standing, traumatized, mouth gaping open, absolutely flabbergasted, barely holding the tip of his mother's hand, who is innocently unaware of the whole situation, simply trying to pay for her bag-and-a-half of groceries, scrambling her wallet for her card.
"Look at what you've done!" Raphael whispers, more in a concerned way than an actually angry one. "Oh please, it wasn't that bad, he'll recover," the turtle crouches down a bit, leaning into the child's form just far away enough for the kid's mom to not realize his presence"Won'tcha, kiddo?"
For a moment, just for a fucking moment, you thought that maybe just for one day, the softshell had the capacity to not scare every single child in his way off, but all your fears are met when you hear a quiet (and thankfully muffled by the cashier's words for anybody else than your group and the child) phase:
"You did dodge a coat hanger for nine months, after all, right?"
He closes his eyes and grins widely in a menacing manner, covering the kid further into his shadow. That would've been scary, that was... If the cheesy happy mall music didn't fill the silence the poor child didn't feel like filling. April, probably finally realizing that that's enough, grips her brother's shoulder and leads the group to a close-by aisle.
"Alright, buds," a cry of a child can be heard from far away, a motherly shush following it. April decides to ignore this. "What's on the list?" Michelangelo snaps open a list and hands it to her. She thinks for a bit while resting her hand on her chin, lost in thought. "When are we getting my shampoo?", complains the rat, you breathe in deeply and breathe it all out in exhaustion, "I'll get it," you say, "I also need shampoo, you're not the only hairy yokai in the house, after all."
As if the shampoo wasn't two aisles away, Mikey shouts a "see ya!" as you walk off.
...
It doesn't take a lot to arrive at the desired destination (again... Two aisles away...), soon enough you find yourself lost in a sanctuary of smells and advertising, sneakily infesting your brain with every word read by your poor, poor, consumer eyes.
Crouching down to a lower shelf, you swept across some items abandoned by other clients, left in front of the actual shampoos you were looking for. People didn't even get their asses off to the proper aisles? Really? What's with all this uncultured behavior? What's wrong with humans?
Before you can drown yourself in your own newfound 'yokai' pride, you finally decide to look up to find a bottle of shampoo within a standing moth yokai's arm's reach. Quickly getting back up, you took hold of the said bottle to get a closer look. You study the phase written over its plastic pink-rose surface: 'Flower petals', it spelled. Picky as you are, you decide to open the cap to take a 'look' at the scent. It smelled, and you cannot stress this enough, like a retirement home flooded with the amalgamation of different perfumes. Definitely not for Splinter, he's not that old yet, you think.
You look back at the empty spot the bottle you're holding was previously occupying in an attempt to put it back, and oh, you wish you didn't.
You were greeted with a sickly blue and silver bottle bombarded with shitty PNGs of various muscular men with a soulless look you could only find in bear gay porn, displaying an 'UNTAMED TESTOSTERONE-FILLED EXPLOSIVE LION COCK' written on it, along with a smaller '(for men)', like a rotten, unappetizing cherry on top. Not wanting to stare at it any longer, you cringe as you put the pink bottle and another four random others over it, sorry random 15-year-old 'James', if you don't find the manly shampoo capable to prove your masculinity, it's for the greater good.
You scan the rest of the shelves, running the tip of your fingers over them carefully as if you were checking for a bomb, ok Y/N, just find anything capable to cover Splinter's cheeto dust smell and taste... You feel your spine shiver at the thought of the word "taste", you hugged splinter very few times, but enough to know how his fur tastes, and you hate that with all your heart and soul.
Using your hand to hide your hair (fur? fluff?) behind your ear (wait, do you even have ears?), you think to yourself silently... 'What smell would be enjoyable enough to make all future hugs seem like nothing? Hm...'
Your eyes catch a glimpse of a yellow round bottle, your fingers surround it and bring it to your snout, allowing you to breathe in the soft artificial smell of mango. Good enough.
You turn around some isles to come back to the original, but to your surprise, the only ones left there are April and Donatello, you decide to sneak into the conversation, a power you seemingly hold since young. "This is so silly, why is the chicken flying around like that?" - said April, staring into a package of plastic-wrapped chicken breasts, "Right? Chickens are flightless birds." agrees the turtle, nodding his head. This. This is the perfect time to sneak in.
"Flightless bird my ass, this mf fly as hell" both of them seem to flinch at the sudden contact of your hands on each of their shoulders, giving you enough space for you to physically creep into the small group -"Did you just say "mf" in real life instead of motherfucker? wow, not even Donald over here is chronically online enough to be capable of that." April says with a grin, "Yeah exac- wait, what?"
He snaps his head in her direction, and April does not react to this, keeping her half-lidded eyes and goofy smile still, ignoring her brother's anger.
"Take this," she says while handing you a piece of the grocery list. "I ripped it into small little pieces of paper, this is yours". You hold unto the small piece of paper, reading it out loud, although almost in a whisper "Milk... And that's it?" April nods, "That used to be splinter's part of the list" she explains, crossing her arms and smiling weakly. The turtle beside her completes her sentence, almost as if he was reading her mind "hence," he mimics April's body language, also crossing his arms and throwing his head back in sass "the short number of items." You don't even have to ask them how quickly he gave up on looking for the damn forsaken milk, you just know that he didn't even try. Time to go on another of your little journeys, you suppose.
One step in front of the other, you calmly walk in the direction of the dairy section, note still in hand, almost as if you were scared of forgetting the one thing you had the job of getting in a matter of seconds. Just as you are making the final curve, you see a glimpse of a blue bandana fighting against a breeze of air, attached to a very familiar terrified smile.
Before you can react, he grabs both of your shoulders in a rush and pushes you into one of the shelves, making various products fall to the ground in a loud crash, "y/N!" he shouts with clenched teeth "YN I FUckED UP-"
Oh. This will be fun.
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Hey hey, here's a little treat for reading this menace of a fanfic for so many chapters <3
If you want to see more of my art go to https://www.deviantart.com/arinateakidney / https://www.tumblr.com/inkidrop :]
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Give me them stars, please! :]
<3
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