The family movie nights had initially started as a desperate attempt by Raph to help keep the turtle bros from drifting apart as they grew older. Sure, Donnie was annoyed when Raph physically had to drag him from his lab bench where he was trying to develop some new covert malicious tech to get back at the purple dragons, and of course, Leo scoffed at how “lame” family movie nights sounded: so cliché, definitely not cool. Fortunately, Mikey was on board from the beginning. Raph brought out a smorgasbord of pizzas and soft drinks, really emphasizing the spectacle of the occasion, doing his best to make it fun and exciting. While they initially argued about what movie to watch, they eventually agreed on the cult classic: Clue, The Movie.

To Raph’s surprise, and relief, the movie night was a resounding success. Donnie snobbishly appreciated the niche entertainment value of the older movie, Leo was caught up with trying to pre-solve who was the murderer (managing to guess the ONLY character that was not a murderer in any of the three alternate endings), while Mikey simply appreciated the artistic details of the pseudo-period piece. Even after the movie, they laughed, joked, and hung out for a few hours and when everyone finally shuffled off to bed in the early morning, Raph stood proud over the mess of empty pizza boxes, half drank soda bottles, and scattered blankets: a resounding success. He’d clean up tomorrow.

Movie nights started to become a regular thing, with the bros gathering once every few weeks, then once a week, then twice a week until nearly every night seemed to end with the turtles settling around the television, sometimes to watch a movie, sometimes to binge a new TV show, sometimes to game, and sometimes to simply chill. It became the default “family” activity, steadily replacing their skateboard sessions, drives around the city, or even just trips topside in general. They became homebodies and increasingly lazy ones at that.

As the movie nights increased in frequency and length, the turtles found themselves sitting on their rumps for more and more hours of the day at the expense of other activities, especially physical activity. Though occasionally, they each felt a sense of restlessness as they cruised into the sixth hour of a movie marathon, soon those urges waned: unintentionally training their bodies to be more sedentary. Lazier. Though said passive descent into lethargy wouldn’t have been a huge deal if said sessions were also not accompanied by a perpetual supply of pizza, junk food, and snacks: who ate salads or lean meats during a prolonged Battlefield 2 gaming session after all?

As such, they found a greater and greater proportion of their respective diets consisting of fatty and sugary empty calories, fueling their bodies with excess energy that they were using less and less of while sitting on their lazy rumps: those calories, however, had to go somewhere. Through sheer passive neglect, their lithe frames started to soften. Initially, the change was imperceptible, as their softening exteriors replaced the regressing, unused muscles beneath a covert cushioning of their frames before the weight truly began to show. By the time Leo’s sharp jawline began to dull as a pouch of pudge formed beneath his chin, Mikey’s trim torso began to bulge to sides with supple fat, Don’s thighs began to press together while he sat, and Raph’s barrel chest began to sag at the edges, they were already out of shape.

As they stared at the television screen, passively stuffing their faces with grub, the conversation having dwindled for the mind-numbing entertainment, a subtle yet increasingly loud chorus of gluttonous grunts and wheezes filled the living room.

*Lips smack
*Subtle belch
*Grunt
*Creak of couch springs adjusting to a shifting, widening rump
*Wheeze
*Pant

While they grew closer as brothers, the movie nights had prompted them to grow fatter and lazier, their ninjitsu skills fading as their hips rounded while their torsos became paunches then pot bellies, and then into fully-fledged guts. The shift was so slow that they barely seemed to notice how heavy their footsteps became, how their gaits gradually took on a more waddling quality, or how they seemed to sweat at only the slightest of physical efforts. They didn’t care, they just wanted more pizza and to watch the new season of Bridgeton as quickly as possible, even if that meant not moving their blubbery bodies for an entire day: sun up to sun down of sitting and eating greasy calories. Each day the same. Each day packing away more calories. Each day waking up in a crumb-fueled haze an extra pound heavier and exponentially hungrier.

It wasn’t until the couch collapsed beneath the half-ton of Mikey and Leonardo lard-incarnate that they began to take note of their blubbery gains, though that observation was quickly put on the back burner as the commercials ended and the movie came back on. Instead, they huddle up close to the television, their blubber squished against one another as they simply watched. Simply ate. Simply softened their frames just a bit more. They’d start their diet tomorrow… or maybe next week…

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Amazing ROTTMNT chunky screenshot edit by  Oscarvanderhof that I wrote up a quick blurb for!

Might be more of these collabs in the future so stay tuned!