This is in an AU Not my own, someone else's AU that's had a choke hold on my mind for like a week. So basically this is a fic of a fic lol. So this is a fanfiction for my favorite show, Rise of the TMNT, except it's in an AU where the boys and their dad all got cloaking brooches that turned them into humans, all that is not even important though, what's relevant is that he's a human and he also has autism? idk that might be relevant for something it's part of why he has a therapist so...yeah (and, phew! I see what you mean about having to stay in character! Poor Donnie just turned into a full-on projection by the end, and what sucks is that I was doing so good at first :((( )

 

Date: February 12 20XX 

Time: 16:21

Log, 2-12-20XX. I, of course, have to call it a log to distract myself from the fact that this is a literal diary. Mikey even took it upon himself to embellish it with a plethora of rainbow stickers, so it looks like I plucked it straight out of the hands of a five-year-old girl. He seemed excited enough as he was doing so however, so I let him. The entire time, of course, he wouldn’t stop talking about how beneficial a place to write my thoughts would be. I let him know that I already keep four logs, but he says it’s not the same. 

Still I would have gotten away with not having to write in this…new log at all if not for the fact that it is now required, as homework for Mossy. It started with the whole “hot, cold, hungry, sleepy” thing…how was I supposed to know that there were other feelings? Fibonacci never covered “frustration” and “fear” as he was creating his sequence! Anyway, my emotions are supposed to reveal themselves to me as I write, which frankly, doesn’t make any sense. How can I unravel emotions by striking pen across paper? Mossy says that it has a logical explanation, and she does seem credible, what with her psychology degree. But once I got home, Mikey commented that psychology is more art than science, so I therefore pronounce it null and void, and this log a waste of time.

Well, I suppose I’m not exactly being fair. And besides, talk of a diary actually started before my comment about feelings. Mossy says I need to start relying on myself to handle my emotions too, that it’s great I trust my family, but they won’t always be there with me. Now, I like Mossy. You might call me cringe, to enjoy spending time with my therapist, but she is helpful. That being said, that was probably the most loaded piece of bull I had ever heard from her. Besides, I wouldn’t even know how. How to “handle my emotions,” I mean. Up until recently, I didn’t even know that feeling cold doesn’t count as a feeling. So what am I meant to do when I’m alone and I’m having a panic attack? Just figure it out? I couldn’t “figure it out” on Thursday, when I was on the subway going home from gymnastics and there was that lady, the one who wouldn’t stop touching me. 

I don’t think I’d ever ridden the subway alone before then. Normally, I have an entire wall of siblings around me, protecting me from random icky stranger shoulders brushing against mine. But Thursday, we had just arrived at our gymnastics program and realized that Mikey forgot his bag at home, so Leo had to ride back with him to grab it because Mikey isn’t allowed to ride the subway alone yet. But then 30 minutes later I get a text that they got an Uber after the subway, but now are “super stuck in traffic,” “definitely aren’t making it back before practice ends,” and I’d “be okay to ride home by myself, yeah?” I replied with affirmation only because I didn’t want to make Leo feel bad for leaving me completely alone, but ended up dreading the ride the rest of practice.

It wasn’t that big of a deal at first, either. I mean, it was loud, but I had my headphones. It wasn’t until the first stop of the subway, when she got on, that it started to get bad. She was just some white lady, didn’t even seem like she was from New York, probably Ohio or something. She got on with a man and immediately set eyes on me. Apparently, she liked my outfit, and that meant I had to endure her treachery. At first, she just wouldn’t stop talking to me. I didn’t really say anything to her at all. Talking to strangers on the subway isn’t really my vibe, nor that of any New Yorker that I know. (See, that’s what I mean with her definitely being from somewhere else. Small talk is an Ohio thing.) But then she started talking about my jacket, my jacket was so cute, oh my goodness she loved my jacket, wow it is the coolest looking jacket she’s ever seen, did I get it at Macy’s…and then, before I knew it, this Ohio lady was out here stroking my jacket sleeve. My arm jerked and she sort of laughed, and the entire time I was hoping she’d get off on the next stop. But of course she just kept talking to me, moving down to my platforms and how unique they were, dragging her hand up one, and with each buckle she felt, something icky inside of me rose higher, higher, higher…

“Is that nail polish? What a pretty color!” And then her hand was on mine, with full intent to pick it up and inspect the colors. I jerked my hand away and stared at her, probably breathing kind of heavy, as I gave her my best What the freak is wrong with you stare. Honestly, with how crazy this lady was, she might actually have been from New York. But anyway, she couldn’t take a flipping clue and kept trying to coax me into letting her see my nail polish, until finally a couple people near me got off and I had room to get the freak out of there. She kept looking over at me, but the man she was with was sitting on his phone with no intent of moving, and she didn’t seem to want to leave him. I thought I was safe on the other side of the car. Ah, how naive I could be sometimes. Because as I was standing there, toying with my headphone settings and looking up to make sure I don’t miss my stop, I suddenly heard right in my freaking ear,

“You know, your hair is really pretty. What do you do for it?” And then she was in my hair grabbing fistfulls and moving them aside. My body shivered once and then froze as her long fingernails scraped up against my scalp, and then the subway stopped and I didn’t even care that my stop wasn’t for another five minutes as I ran out of there.

I don’t think I’ve ever actually told anyone about all that yet. It’s not like I’ve been meaning to keep it a secret, it’s just that when I got home Leo was in my face talking about how sorry he was that he ended up leaving me to ride the subway alone. (Well, to give him credit, he wasn’t actually in my face. I guess I radiated everyone get the freak away from me energy.) But I kind of just ran to the bathroom because I needed to wash my hair as soon as possible. And I did, I scrubbed down to my scalp until I was sure that every single drop of oil was gone and my hair was bone-dry. (Which, of course, meant I had to re-oil my hair.)

I ended up being fine for the rest of the day, so long as nobody touched me, but still, I feel like I should have talked about it with someone. I’ve been in enough situations to know that people, people I trust, Leo and Mikey and Raph and April and Mossy and Dad, they make things better. That’s probably why I got so scared when Mossy implied that I won’t always have them. I really, really, need them, and I’m probably just screwed without them.

Although…just writing in this diary log thing…I do feel kinda better.