"Something to drink?" April calls out from her tiny kitchen.

"Yeah, that'd be great," Donnie says from his relaxed position on the couch, absentmindedly scrolling through his phone. "Whatcha got?" The floorboards of her old building creak their way towards him, and the 6-foot-and-some-change mutant turtle looks up to see his best friend standing there in sweats and bunny slippers, both arms behind her back.

"How doess... eight dollar bottles of wine sound?" Whisking her arms from behind her back, April reveals two of the aforementioned bottles, wiggling her wrists to make them dance about.

Donnie's tooth gap flashes out from a devious grin. "Ah, O'Neil, I love your mind."

April clicks her tongue at him and winks with a "comin' right up" before disappearing back into the kitchen, and Donnie turns back to his phone, expertly ignoring the small uptick in his heartbeat.

Donatello was more excited than he maybe should've been when earlier that day April, after declaring they'd both been working too hard lately, had invited him over to her place to hang out. Just the two of them, like old times. It was something that used to occur often, but not so much once April and Casey began trying their hand at being a couple almost a year ago.

And man, had Donnie missed it. He missed geeking out with her over nerdy documentaries and BBC shows no one else would watch with him; he missed the sharp banter over bad movies, the hours of easy conversation, the occasional cuddle… everything. Shell, he'd more than missed it. But he couldn't figure out a way to tell April any of that without dredging up the same kind of tension from that awkward first year of their friendship, back when he had not-so-subtly fawned over her like an immature dork and she had politely pretended not to notice.

But he's not a teenager anymore, and he is not that guy anymore, so he'll gladly keep how much he missed their one-on-one time to himself. At twenty-one years of age, Donatello is proud to say his relationship with April is in a place that he's actually, truly happy with. Things are chill between them now. Yeah, okay, he's still in love with her (by this point he seriously doubts he could ever not love April… she's very loveable). But he no longer spends any time dwelling on the pity-kiss she gave him when he was sixteen; no longer allows himself to entertain ideas of some elusive "next level" that could someday-somehow (will never) be achieved.

They've known each other for six years. If April was ever going to see him in a more romantic light, she would have by now. And he understands now, it's okay that she doesn't, or… can't. Because at the end of the day, he gets the privilege of holding the 'best friend' title, as she does for him, and being her friend is not a role he takes lightly, or for granted. There's no one in this universe who makes him laugh, who listens to him, who gets him like April O'Neil does. After all they've endured together, the special brand of closeness he's come to share with her is something Donnie cherishes with all his heart, and he's not about to do a damn thing to mess that up.

The genius turtle sighs and slips his phone back into his belt, glancing around April's cramped living room while he waits for her to return. Not for the first time, he's hit with a feeling of gratitude that Mr. O'Neil is well-off, and could afford rent on a one bedroom in Manhattan for his daughter while she goes through university. April having a roommate really would've put a damper on her being able to have mutant visitors over.

A smile comes to Donnie's face when his brown eyes rove over the top of her bookcase, which has been dedicated to framed photos of their shared, oddball family (it's worth it to April to keep up plenty of pictures of them, despite having to put them all away any time a human comes over that's not Casey or her dad - and Don can't help but love her all the more for it). There's a selfie of himself and April making silly faces while she throws up bunny ears behind his head; another of her goofing around on a rooftop with his brothers; a larger photo of all 6 of them wearing horrible sweaters and ninja posing in front of a Christmas tree. A smaller one of the redhead formally presenting a newly-acquired, glinting tantō blade to the camera, standing tall in front of an immensely proud-looking Master Splinter.

Donnie can't look at that particular photo for too long without his throat feeling tight, and quickly moves on. His gaze ends up lingering on a picture of himself, April and Casey; her in the middle with her wiry arms slung around both their necks, giant, cheesy grins on all three of their faces.

The tall turtle's cheeks puff out slightly as he lets out a long breath. April and Casey hadn't quite made it to a year of dating. A few days over eleven months, to be exact. Eleven months of those two being an item… and what a weird whirlwind it had been. It had sucked way more in the beginning, before Donnie realized that he didn't actually have to witness too much of the coupley stuff that went on between his two human friends. It's not like they were ever making out in front of him or anything. They kept the PDA to a minimum at the lair, and you could barely tell they were dating at all while on missions or patrol (Donnie suspects those were more April's terms than Casey's).

He's not going to lie and say it hadn't hurt to see April with someone else. But Don had made a real effort to never let that hurt show on his face, which paid off - besides seeing a lot less of them, neither of his friendships suffered because of it. And luckily, when it all came crumbling down, despite both Casey and April having personalities that made their relationship a bit, er, explosive at the worst of times, their split had been for the most part amicable. And mutual, from what Donnie had gathered. Besides that first awkward week, their whole group dynamic has stayed pretty normal in the month since the split.

He doesn't really know the details of why they broke up. April hasn't opened up to him about it, nor has Casey to Raph (which is just soo surprising, considering how easy Raph is to talk to about feelings...). And while Donatello is admittedly very curious, he's not planning on ever asking. Honestly, Donnie hadn't really known how to feel when he first learned April was single again, seeing as he'd resigned himself to her and Casey being a done-deal a long time ago. He certainly isn't sad about it, but... 'happy' isn't the right word for what he feels, either. He just… he wants April to be happy. He wants Casey to be happy too, though he'd never say that to Jones's face.

Apparently, them dating each other hadn't done the happiness trick.

"Wanna order a pizza?" Don's head snaps away from the bookshelf as April strides back into the room, clutching 2 full mugs in one hand and an open bottle of wine in the other. Donnie just raises a purple brow ridge at her, and April purses her lips in concession. "Right, dumb question."

Don shakes his head, pressing an oh-so-hurt palm to his upper plastron. "Wow, it's like you don't know me at all anymore..."

"Oh, shut up."

Once the pizza is ordered and a carefully selected episode of How It's Made is playing on the television, April sets down the remote, taking a long swig of her drink before she reaches for a beat up deck of 'I heart NY' cards on the coffee table. "Rummy?" She asks without looking at him, already going about shuffling the deck, causing a familiar, comfortable happiness to bubble up in the turtle's chest. It's a game they mostly only played together, as none of the others seem to have the patience for it aside from occasionally Leo - but Don likes to think of it as just theirs.

"Sure, if you're prepared to be demolished again," Donnie answers with a shrug, taking an extra smug sip of some - wow, very tart red wine.

April shoots him a long-suffering look without pausing her thorough card-shuffling. "Uh huh. We'll see, smart guy."

A couple hours into the night Don and April are giggling, riding on an endless commentary train about the atrocious horror movie currently on the screen (somehow they ended up watching Troll 2, when over a google search of the worst movies of all time it was discovered that neither of them had actually seen it, which needed to be remedied immediately). One of the wine bottles sits empty on the snack-cluttered coffee table, the other well on its way to being just as empty, the abandoned deck of cards between them.

It's not easy for Donatello to get full-on drunk, being a giant turtle with extremely high muscle mass and a mutagenically-enhanced metabolism... but he is definitely feelin' a little something right now. With his stomach full of wine and jalapeño-pineapple pizza, and April laughing at his side - sitting much, much closer to him than she was 2 hours ago, he can't help but note - Donnie is basically walking on air.

"-Uhp, yup, there she goes, mutating… anddd she's salad. It's - that is mutagen I tell ya, that old witch lady's slingin' mutagen."

"I mean come onnn. Girl drinks mysterious green substance and mutates into plant matter? Where have we heard that before." Don cups one hand around his mouth and jeers toward the screen, "why don'tcha get some original material, Troll 2."

"What if, the Kraang made this movie," April's eyes squint gravely, like she's just made the discovery of the century. "Like, the dialogue totally could'a been written by Kraang. S'pretty bad."

"You… may have something there."

"Uh, I defint'ly do." April tosses back the rest of her drink, barely waiting a second before reaching for the neck of the wine bottle to refill it. She wordlessly refills his mug, too, before Donnie can ask or decline. It's not really typical of April to drink so much that her words have started to slur together, her cheeks well on their way to matching her hair color… but they're having fun, and it's been so long since they last got to do this, so Donnie doesn't think too much of the overindulgence. April works so hard in everything she does, it's nice to see her cut loose now and then. Besides, neither of them have anywhere to be tomorrow besides afternoon training.

Donatello and April dramatically groan in unison when the crazy-eyed old man on the screen offers a half gallon of what is deemed "special milk" to a sweaty looking teen.

"Oh, of coursee's takin' it - yo! Don't drink the friggin' milk!" Chex mix clinks off the small flat screen and rains onto the thrifted carpet, thanks to a sloppy throw from April. "Ugh, whuz'with kids in this movie drinking stuff from creepy old people just 'cuzit's free."

"Pfff, like you wouldn't take the free special milk," Donnie scoffs. "Get off your high horse, April - hey!" The tipsy mutant giggles and puts up a hand to shield himself when April's snack throwing arm turns on him.

April somehow ends up a few inches closer to him on the couch once the Chex mix war dies down. "Huh," she shakes her head, unimpressed, "they're really never gonna explain the over'bundance of bland white guys wearin' cowboy hats and serial killer glasses, are they."

"F'they did, then they'd have to explain the American midwest." Donnie snorts at his own bad joke, looks over to see April's reaction, only to find her gazing at him blankly. Her lips are parted, the moony expression on her face not at all in line with the lighthearted atmosphere from a second ago. "What?" He chuckles, tilting his head and narrowing his eyes jokingly when her expression doesn't flinch. "Ohh come on, that was a little bit funny… or not." Donnie's laugh becomes slightly awkward when still April doesn't give any indication she'd heard him, and he waves a 3-fingered hand in front of her face. "Hellooo, Apriilll… anybody home?"

April blinks twice and inhales sharply through her nose, her flushed cheeks turning one shade redder. "...Hm? Ohhwow. I jus'zoned out hard."

"No worries, McFlurries." Don gives her an easy smile. He leans back to rest his long arms along the back of the couch, then starts to roll his shoulders, his round face scrunching up into a pout.

"Aw, sewer apples. Ya dun' got Chex Mix in muh'shell," Donnie grumbles in his best impression of a bland dude in a cowboy hat and serial killer glasses.

Before he can lift a finger to fix the issue, April turns her body fully towards him and reaches behind his neck, responding in a terrible cowboy accent of her own, "mah apologies son, lemme get that for ya."

"Oh, uh - sure."

She dips a soft, slim hand into the rarely-touched pocket between his shoulder blades and the inside of his shell, and Donnie has no idea what to do with his hands all of a sudden, repositioning them a few times before he settles on clasping them in his lap. Something about the hair-too-slow, almost tender way April goes about her self-assigned task has Donatello's insides squirming, and the turtle shivers audibly when she successfully draws out a small handful of chex. April just releases a little purr of a laugh, giving his mask tails a light, playful tug.

"You ticklish back there, Dee?"

The air in the room has become several degrees hotter within the last 60 seconds, leaving Donnie scratching his head over how or why it happened. It's hard for him to look directly at her face, the ghost of her touch still tingling on his skin as he responds somewhat shyly, "nah, not really... just kinda sensitive, I guess."

"Huh," April smirks, fixing his mask tails so that they're draped neatly over one shoulder before she turns back to the TV, reaches for her mug. "Well, I'll be sure t'make a note of that."

Donnie is left blinking at his friend's profile a few times in a row, his brow ridges raised high on his forehead, before he turns stiffly back to the tv himself, forcing out what he hopes is a normal-sounding laugh.

Uhh, what the heck was that?!

That was… a lot of touching. And it sure as heck felt like April was flirting with him just now. Which is not something April does, ever, not like that anyway. But - maybe he's reading too much into it?

She's just goofing around. Don't make it weird!

Donnie puts more effort into focusing on the movie and tries not to think any more about that weird exchange. If he lets himself think about it, then he'll just end up over analyzing every single minute detail, and he doesn't want to read into things that aren't there. Not anymore. He's past all that. Him and April, they're cool now… friends. Perfectly simpatico, friends.

Donatello tries with all his might not to think anything of it when a few minutes later, April nuzzles her head into the crook of his neck. Or when she sighs out drowsily, "ugh, yer'so great, Dee..." Really, it was nothing she hadn't done or said before, right? But, his brain interjects, never at the same time... Combined with all the touching and weird maybe-flirting from earlier, the whole situation felt ten times more intimate, what with the alcohol in his system leaving his limbs loose and fuzzy-feeling, the soft puffs of breath meeting his neck sending shivers down his shell, the sweet scent of her hair, free of its usual ponytail and waterfalling over his shoulder, somehow more potent than ever.

He plucks up the courage to steal a peek down at the girl cuddled into his side, surprised to find her already staring back. And suddenly Donnie's heartbeat is stuttering into overdrive, heat flaming his cheeks and quickly spreading all the way down his neck, because one, April's face is very, very close to his - like, so close he could count and catalogue each freckle on her face if he wanted - a-and, and two, the woman he is stupidly in love with isn't just looking at him, she is looking at him, like... like...

He doesn't allow himself to think the thought aloud. But he definitely can't remember April ever looking at him that way before. Donatello gulps, hypnotized by the two sparkling pools of blue blinking slowly back at him, half lidded, flitting back and forth between his own wide eyes. His stomach does a somersault when her line of vision flicks down to the general area of his mouth.

Okay fine, he'll think it: if he's not mistaken, these are straight up bedroom eyes April is so blatantly giving him. An achy sort of warmth begins to pool between his legs the moment he admits it to himself, much to his embarrassment. Why, why is April giving him bedroom eyes?!

"Hi," she says with a grin, breaking the charged silence. Donnie tries not to flinch as her fingers curl around the lip of his plastron, her nails grazing the sensitive skin behind it.

Equally bewildered as he is aroused, it takes the mutant a second to find his voice, mouth dry as the surface of Mars. "Heh... he-hey." His voice cracks, and Donatello curses everything because evidently some prolonged eye contact and a bit of flirty touching is all it takes to revert him back into a dopey, clueless fifteen-year-old. His insufferable awkwardness gets rewarded with a delighted giggle from April, and she reaches up to let the tails of his mask run slowly through her fingers again. Donnie, cemented in deer-in-headlights mode, wracks his brain to figure out how the hell their easy, platonic nerdfest turned into this.

"Man… you have, really pretty eyes," April says next, making the turtle's blush burn brighter. "S'anyone ever told you that?"

Don's blank stare slides off to the side and back, as if waiting for the punchline. "Uhmm... no?"

"Well, you do," She boops the tip of his beak. "People should tell you that."

Yep, nooo idea what to say to that one, so he goes with a silent nod. The redhead sighs airily and wiggles a bit in her seat, her fingertips drumming against his plastron… then drags her teeth over her pink lower lip, averting her gaze so that her long, gorgeous eyelashes dust the tops of her cheeks. Donnie breaks out into a nervous sweat next to her, paralyzed, helplessly waiting for whatever this ultra-flirty version of his friend is going to say or do next.

"Sooo," April says way too casually, "feel free to say no t'this? An' I'm sorry if this's weird to ask buuut... would you, maybe wanna," her hooded eyes lock back onto his, "make out?"

Donnie stops breathing for a good 3 seconds, his eyes doubling in size.

"D-whuh?" he wheezes, positive he must have misheard her, or misinterpreted, or something.

April covers her face with one hand in the most adorable way possible, blushing and giggling behind it like a kid with a crush. "Oh nooo. Wha'zat, not cool to ask?"

"Zah… h-huh," Donnie can't seem to form proper words, only breathy syllables - goddammit, he feels like such a loser right now - but incredibly, April doesn't seem put off by his complete inability to say or do anything. She leans closer, her eyes honing in on his lips like a magnet.

"M'sorryy, Dee... I don'wanna make things weird, s'just - this'sucha great night, an' you're so cute and... I think, stuff could be even more great ifweee…"

She walks her fingers up one chiseled green arm as she trails off, still glued to his side and glancing back and forth between his eyes and lips, while Donnie scrambles to process this new information. April thinks he's cute, apparently? And is gunnin' to make out with him? Since when, where is all this coming from?

And then Donnie's eyes land on April's favorite yellow mug on the coffee table, and things start clicking into place within his sluggish, thoroughly rattled brain. Shit. How many of those had she had again? He hadn't been keeping track… more than him for sure. But her blue eyes are sleepy-looking and glazed over and she's noticeably slurring her words - not what anyone would readily call 'of sound mind and body.' He's pretty tipsy himself. Ah, man. Of all the ways he'd imagined him and April finally crossing into more romantic territory, this was not it. So, so far from it.

When she closes her eyes and lifts herself up towards his face, Donnie is finally able to unfreeze. "April," he mutters weakly, dodging her clumsy attempt at a kiss. She takes the hint and leans back.

"Oo. You don't want to," she says, more of a statement than a question. The crestfallen look on her freckled face pierces him straight through the heart, and he can't not refute her very, very untrue statement.

"N-no, it's... s'not that. I just..." Donnie swallows hard, reminding himself again why he's not allowed to indulge in this, "we've, we've been drinking, and-"

"So?"

"So?" he repeats, exasperated, "So you're my friend April, and I don't… I don'wanna do anything y- we'll regret in the morning. Y'know?"

He looks away, his fingers finding their way around his shoulder strap. Having this conversation with her at all is so surreal.

"Hey..." April takes him by the chin, gently turning his face back to hers. "I wouldn't," she insists, her voice soft and a tad more sober-sounding. Her dark lashes descend and rise with another one of those slow blinks, then she clarifies, "regret it."

Donatello swallows hard, really wishing she would stop staring him down like that, because this sort of heated, gorgeous sky-blue eye contact has absolutely got something stirring down below again and if that keeps happening, he is 100% going to embarrass himself. Any response he has for that gets stuck in his throat. He's not sure how much he should reveal concerning feelings neither of them have acknowledged in years, or how serious she is about any of this. And as long as her eyes are on his, he seriously does not trust his judgement.

When he stays at a silent loss for too long, April seems to come back to herself a little and backs off for the second time, one of her eyes pinching shut in an embarrassed cringe. "Oof, I toa'lly made it weird, I'm sorry… ahh, I jus', I got this, like- really bad urge to kiss you and- mh!"

Swooping in to kiss a mid-sentence April seemed kinda romantic in Donnie's head, but the real-life execution sure is not. Failing to tilt his head far enough was his first mistake, so her nose ends up jabbing into the side of his beak, and their mouths meet a little harder than he intended, their teeth banging together through their lips. This awkward, horrible thing could hardly be called a kiss at all since he reels away so fast, their lips smecking back apart in the same second they touch.

"Sorry! Oh god, that sucked, I'm sorry, I-I dunno what I'm doin'," Donnie spews with apologies as he watches April raise her eyebrows and dazedly rub her nose, feeling hot and queasy and like the most laughably inexperienced idiot on the planet.

"Me neither," April breathes, "Let's make out."

And before he can say a word, April grabs either side of his face and pounces on him for another kiss — a firmer, much better-angled kiss. Oh, damn, yeah this is much better, comes Donnie's last coherent thought, his eyelids fluttering shut.

With liquid courage surging through his veins, Donnie lets his hands drift up her arms and cracks his lips apart a smidgeon, gasping out a high-pitched sound when April's tongue dives between them. In a bold, April-like move, she coaxes his wider mouth open until the tip of her tongue meets his, a firm hand splayed on the back of his head to keep him right where he is. A shiver of electricity zaps from his stomach out to the tips of his extremities at the feel of her tongue slowly exploring his mouth, the tang of cheap wine and Chex Mix filling his taste buds, and it takes everything Don has to keep from trembling on the spot. He can't even attempt to smother the desperate-sounding moan in his throat. He's just… never been kissed like this before. And by April…

Their kissing stays slow and explorative, but steadily becomes much wetter. April seems to be making a point to keep things gentle, probably because she can feel his racing pulse and doesn't want him to keel over mid-makeout. Her hands are just as inquisitive as her tongue, stroking him everywhere above the belt, skin and shell alike, unafraid to scope out all the places where they meet. Don's brow ridges draw together further and further over his closed eyes, overcome with more feelings than he can keep up with. It feels like his heart has blasted off into space, and good freaking luck ever getting it to come back down. Hohhh man - now that he knows what it feels like to kiss her this way, he'll never be able to go back to before.

Donnie moves on instinct, guiding her down to the couch with his lips and a gentle hand under her back. He feels a small shock of delayed surprise at his own forwardness, half expecting April to tell him to stop, or push him away, but she doesn't. Just makes a soft cooing sound once her head meets the armrest and coils her arms around his neck. His heart thrashes around inside his chest, a manic tightness gathering in his throat. God, damn, the amount of times he'd lain awake at night and imagined April underneath him, what it might feel like, what it might look like, and now... it's something out of a dream, seeing her there, when he pulls away to catch his breath. Her eyes are closed, messy red hair framing her heart-shaped face, a content little smile twitching her swollen lips. Wow, wow, wow.

How he wishes he could weave their fingers together, all picture-perfect and romantic like in the movies, but he settles for gently closing his thick fingers around her entire hand. Balanced on one elbow, he leans down to kiss her some more, slowly and deeply, reveling in the feel of her mouth moving and responding to him, of her hot breath intermingling with his, of the feel of her body pressed up against him. He easily gets lost in it all, in her. He's wanted this for so long. He'd forgotten, almost, how badly he wanted this.

He moves to bury his beak in the crook of her neck, breathing her in before tenderly pressing his lips to her burning skin. "Hmm," April moans softly, the sound of it making him ache.

"Oh god, April," Donnie pants, and kisses her there again, darting his tongue out this time, hoping for more sounds. He's not disappointed.

"Mmm..." April says again, only encouraging him further.

Each soft sound she makes starts to sound further and further away, her hand going a bit limp where it's curled up in his. But Donnie misses those things, completely enthralled with the fact that he is kissing April's neck and she actually likes it and this is sooo much better than any dream, who knew when he woke up this morning he was waking up to the best day of his life, oh gosh what does this mean, does this mean they're going to be together, he's not a religious guy but damn if he doesn't hope to every deity in the universe that's what it means.

But then April makes a different sound, one Donnie does not miss. An icy feeling seizes his insides, and suddenly he's afraid to move.

No. That wasn't...

"April," he whispers, heart in his throat, and then he waits, praying for her to say something, anything, his face still hidden her neck, but she doesn't say a word and - there it is again. Another nasally, barely-there snore.

No. Nonononono -

Don shoots away from April, hovering over her on stiff arms, horrorstuck to confirm his suspicions and find her face slack with sleep. He springs off of her like a cat out of bathwater, scuttling backwards until his shell is pressed to the other end of the couch. He breathes in short, quick gasps, his stomach shriveling as what just happened starts to sink in.

Holy shit. None of that was real... none of it. And he just took advantage of his drunk best friend.

This isn't happening. This is not happening.

Don can't even blame it on the alcohol when his vision blurs with moisture, as he's feeling pretty damn sober all of a sudden. Hunching over his knees, he grips the back of his head with huge, shaking hands as the line of his mouth wobbles, so far from calm. He knew. He knew she was - he knew he shouldn't've and he still - no no no no -

The reality of the situation just keeps hitting him and hitting him, like gut punches on a merciless rotation. April and Casey had been broken up for barely over a month. It was so obvious now, why April was knocking back drinks faster than she normally would have, why she was coming onto him out of the blue, the alarm bells had been there, and… and all it took to break him down was 'you're so cute, I wanna kiss you'? Seriously man?! Donnie's face goes to pieces, his mask scrunching up between his eyes. April was drunk, April was obviously more hurt about Casey than she'd been letting on, April let her guard down around him because she trusted him, and she was used to Donnie being there for her when she felt lonely - of course she didn't - of course it wasn't because she -

A few tears escape, dampening the purple fabric as he swallows back a sob. He hears April groan and shift next to him in her slumber, trying to get comfortable, but he can't bring himself to look at her. How could he? He's supposed to be a genius, for Darwin's sake, how could he not connect the dots? Was he really that willingly blind? He'd was so sure he had the whole 'in love with his best friend' thing under control, but clearly he'd been kidding himself about that...

Donnie's stomach twists with nausea at his next thought.

How far would you have let things go if she hadn't fallen asleep on you, huh?

His hands tighten around the back of his head. Oh god, he's going to be sick.

Between school, training, and her internship, April passing out during a late night of hanging out is nothing new, and on any other night Donnie would have silently ninja'd his way back and forth between the kitchen and living room until all their snack remnants were cleaned up, then carried her to bed and tucked her in. But tonight, it's all Donnie can do to make sure April is turned on her side and hastily fling a blanket over her, leaving an empty tupperware bowl and a glass of water within her reach before he flees the scene, out her bedroom window and into the night. It didn't matter that they were all adults now, Leo would have his shell if he knew Donnie was out topside by himself, four (or five?) drinks in - really, that was more of a Raphael sort of move - but he couldn't stay there. If she woke up, and he had to face her…

He wouldn't be able to do it.

And what if she didn't remember what happened... what then? Should he tell her? Donnie dashes the idea of not telling her as soon as the thought bubbles up. There's no way he could sleep at night if he tried to keep something like this from her. April would want to know.

One thing was for sure - their friendship was not going to be the same after this.

The frantic mutant only makes it a few rooftops away before letting his staff clatter to the concrete as he slumps beneath a water tower, head in his hands, elbows resting on his knee pads. By now the shock and panic are starting to give way fully into pure misery. His eyes well up again and this time Donnie doesn't try to stifle it. Soft sniffles escape him now and then as he drags in ragged breaths, just - hating himself. Since the night they'd met, he'd made a personal promise to always, always protect April, and keep her best interest in mind no matter what, even if it didn't necessarily line up with his. He'd broken that promise tonight, and he couldn't see how he'd ever be able to forgive himself for it. And if April never forgave him for it either, he wouldn't blame her.

And the worst part? Despite these gut wrenching feelings of shame and remorse, despite knowing what he did was wrong, and wishing he could take it all back… deep down, Donatello still can't completely sit on that longing, can't help but wish all those kisses had been as real to her as they were to him, can't help but feel heartbroken and mortified that the best thing that ever happened to him turned out to be nothing more than a stupid mistake.

Donnie loosens his mask enough to let it fall around his neck, wiping his eyes and snorting in snot. He's pathetic, and so painfully aware of it. April deserves better than him. Forget romantic partner, she deserves a better friend. He'd be lucky if she ever spoke to him again after this... the thought of losing her brings a fresh wave of tears to the turtle's eyes.

"M'so sorry," Donnie's cracked apology trickles out into the warm New York air, heard by no one.

A/N: This'll be a 3 parter!