Work Text:
The stomach ache on the day he’d brought Mikey home from school had been the first thing to point out to Donnie that something was wrong.
Usually he just ignored them and they went away after he ate, but now, eating just made it worse. As much as he typically enjoyed Mikey’s breakfasts, now, he couldn’t stand even looking at it without being overtaken by nausea and pain. At that point, he had to assume it was something other than the usual ‘too much caffeine without real food’- maybe the concern for Mikey was finally starting to get to him and affect him on a physical level (he hoped it wasn’t that, because he had a feeling the ordeal wasn’t yet over). Or maybe he was just getting sick, and he’d have to push through it.
As much as eating made him want to throw his guts out, he pushed through the first and second day of feeling absolutely miserable. By the afternoon of the third day, when Raph ran back into the school to find Mikey, Donnie felt all around miserable, and was overjoyed when Raph tossed him the keys to get the car started while he went to locate the youngest brother. Donnie sat in the passenger’s seat, only half focused on his conversation with April as he adjusted the air vents and stared out the front window. His head pounded behind his eyes and just added to the endless churning in his stomach (heck, he’d dry heaved a few times during lunch today, but nothing had come up, much to his relief).
—
He was jerked out of a nap he hadn’t realized he’d fallen into by Raph climbing into the front seat. Donnie looked back over his chair to see Mikey curled up, asleep and pale across the back seat.
“What happened,” Donnie asked, looking at Raph as the older quickly pulled out of the parking lot and sped off down the road. The sudden increase in speed caused Donnie to jerk backwards, and he swallowed hard to hold back what he was afraid was bile crawling up his throat.
“Still figuring that out, Don,” Raph snapped back, and Donnie flinched back against his seat, watching as buildings sped by. He reached up and gripped the handle above the car door, squeezing his eyes shut and reflexively pulling one of his legs up closer to his chest as a long pang of pain resonated from his stomach. He grit his teeth, suppressing the waves of nausea that struck at his stomach. If he threw up in Raph’s car….
Fortunately, with how fast Raph was driving, they got home before Donnie was sick all over the floor. Raph moved around to the back. “Could you help me get him inside?”
Donnie froze, halfway out the door to rush to the bathroom. He swallowed, feeling his throat clench and his stomach protest as he closed the door and walked over shakily. “Yeah, sure.” He reached in and picked up Mikey’s legs by the ankles so he and Raph could carry him up the stairs. He could feel a cold sweat starting on the back of his neck and his heart thudded in his chest. Just a few more seconds, he told himself.
His stomach had other ideas and half way down the hall to Mikey’s room he suddenly dropped Mikey’s ankles so he could lurch for the bathroom. “Don?!” Raph cried, and Donnie could’ve sworn he said something else, but it was shut out by the noise of the lanky teen hurling the small amount of food in his stomach into the toilet, body lurching as he did so. He shivered, leaning back on his heels. He gripped the toilet bowl with white knuckles, waiting for the ringing in his ears to fade. As it did, he could hear Raph talking further down the hall.
“You need to get home now.”
Who’s he talking to?
“It’s complicated, but I can’t take care of Mikey and Donnie by myself.”
Donnie watched as the edges of his vision blurred.
“I don’t know, it’s-“
He sniffed, wincing at the pungent smell of vomit, and reached up to flush the toilet before getting to his feet, swaying slightly.
“Please would you just get your ass home?!”
Ah. That would be Leo.
Donnie stumbled out to the doorway, leaning against it as he observed dizzily that Mikey was gone from the middle of the floor. Raph must’ve taken him back to his room. Raph looked over from where he was standing outside Mikey’s closed door. “I gotta go,” he stated to the microphone before hanging up. “You okay?”
“M’fine,” Donnie muttered, pressing the back of his hand against his mouth. “Mikey?”
“Asleep.” Raph frowned at Donnie, but the second youngest just nodded and ducked back into the bathroom.
—
In the twenty minutes it took Leo to get home from work, Donnie had been sick two more times. Raph had wrangled him into bed and taken his temperature, and was now considering calling the hospital as he stared at the 103 on the thermometer. Leo came into the room just then, and the two eldest retreated downstairs.
Donnie waited until he was sure their voices were out of range before slowly climbing out of bed and creeping across the hall. He hadn’t gotten a good chance to look at Mikey earlier, past the overwhelming nausea, but he felt a bit better now- although shaky and overheated- so he snuck into Mikey’s room to look him over.
He was fine. From the looks of things, the sleep was much needed, so Donnie tried to do as little as possible, to keep from waking him up.
“Donnie,” Leo said sternly, and Donnie jumped, turning to look at where Leo had appeared in the doorway. “What are you doing up? Raph said you were sick.”
“I… am,” Donnie mumbled, knowing lying to Leo was futile. The oldest walked over and pressed his hand to Donnie’s forehead before his brows furrowed in concern. Donnie swayed on his feet, trying to ignore how heavy his head felt.
Raph stepped into the room as Mikey stirred, and all three of them looked over at him.
At first, Donnie tried to get Raph and Leo out of the room, but Leo was stubborn (and it was amplified by Donnie’s current state), and Raph was intimidating when he wanted to get his way. Donnie glared at him for a long moment, vaguely aware of Mikey shifting to pull the covers over his head, before his legs started to shake and he had to turn to rush to the bathroom.
Raph shut the door, leaving him and Mikey alone.
Donnie kneeled in front of the toilet, whole body shaking as he dug the heels of his palms into his eyes to keep from crying. His stomach still hurt, but now the pain radiated up his throat and down into his abdomen. His head throbbed and he choked out a sob, overwhelmed by the aches in his body.
He jumped when Leo knelt down next to him and pressed his hand to Donnie’s back. “Don, I think we need to get you to a hospital.”
Donnie sniffed and shook his head quickly, convinced that he was just sick with a bug that he could get over quickly- that the sweat coating the back of his neck wasn’t from a dangerously high fever, or the obscene amount of vomiting was just in reaction to how much he’d eaten that day.
He hadn’t realized Leo had forced the thermometer into his mouth again until it was beeping loudly and he flinched at the noise. Leo pulled it away, frowned deeply, and hurried into pulling Donnie to his feet.
Donnie stumbled alongside Leo as he was led out to the car. He stared out the window, watching as the edges of his vision blurred to black.
—
He jerked awake hours later to a cold, dark room, and for a moment, alarmed thoughts flew through his head as to where exactly he was.
He felt a lump further down the bed and he slowly propped himself up on his elbows to see Leo asleep next to his legs. He frowned and glanced around the hospital room.
“Leo…?” He called, wincing at how hoarse his voice was, and the eldest stirred before lifting his head.
“Oh. You’re awake.” He got up and reached forward, brushing Donnie’s bangs away so he could feel his forehead. “Your fever’s gone down.”
“I would assume so…” he glanced around at the intravenous wires stuck in his arm. “How long was I out?”
“Few hours.” He sat down closer to where Donnie had laid back against the slightly uncomfortable hospital pillow. He ghosted his fingers reassuringly over Donnie’s forearm. “Raph came to check on you.”
“Did he?”
“He was pretty worried, Don. You spent most of the afternoon projectile vomiting and then crying about it.”
“Don’t remember,” Donnie insisted, closing his eyes.
Leo snorted, squeezing Donnie’s hand. “He’ll be glad to know you’re feeling better.”
“Mmm…” Donnie hummed lazily, shifting his thoughts to how bad he felt hours ago to the thought of going home. He didn’t want to leave Raph worrying about both his youngest brothers for too long.