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You don’t know how to describe it, but it doesn’t feel like waking up. Your best approximation might be that one moment, you were there, and now you’re here. Or here and now there. You can’t tell if you’re feeling everything—the squeaky sheets under you that catch on every twitch of your fingers as if from a hotel, the too-cold air freezing your nose from the inside out, the lump on the inside of your lower lip that indicates a serious gnawing session last night—or nothing at all. Maybe you’re making all those up. Maybe they’re auguries.
Your eyes are still shut, but there’s no way of knowing whether that’s on purpose, a lack of effort in opening them, or if something is holding them that way. You suppose a lack of effort would also constitute that ‘something,’ but the inside of your head is as fuzzy as whatever is snuggled against your left side. You direct your attention to this, needing something to cling to that’s solid. You wouldn’t call yourself desperate (no one would, if they intended to keep their person intact), but you aren’t thrilled at being reduced to, ‘Oh boy, a stuffed animal!’
It’s not heavy enough to mean much, which is worse than if it were weighing down on you. A couple stray threads, which you later learn are meant to be hairs, drift back and forth across your plastron with every breath you huff. Well, ‘huff’ is generous—you aren’t entirely certain that you’re the one controlling your forced breathing. Either way, bursts of air travel from near your nose to near the thing, scooting the whiskers about and spiking a weird tingle on the side of your head. This is why you’ve always hated touch—everyone is so damn gentle about it, which is worse, because it gives you goosebumps from just barely drifting over the surface. You can’t tolerate an almost-touch, so you swear off all touch, because you doubt anyone can do it right. No one is worth taking the time to teach as much.
You’re wearing your mask. In battle, you always tie it a little too tight, to avoid that same feeling, but it’s only tied on with a cursory bowknot. You can feel the gap between the top of the fabric and your forehead. Someone else put it on you. You allow your fingers to draw inward the barest inch, centering yourself with a grip on the sheets. They feel like those from a hotel, where everything catches and drags and sticks, right down to the water from the faucet.
You haven’t been in many hotels. Two, actually. The first was that oozequito situation. The second was—
Your hands jerk into fists, everything tensing at the stab of memory in the back of your head. Panic floods every inch of you, a near-tangible thing pushing back at whatever thought had been trying to get through. You know, hands-down shoulders-back gauntlet-thrown know, that remembering it isn’t the right move. Whatever happened, remembering is worse than living with ignorance, which is not your favorite scenario. Knowing is always better, and the fact that it’s you telling yourself this, that knowing is the worst possible outcome, makes you hesitate to question it.
The taste of blood spreads across your tongue, warm and slow, like tea. Oh, how you miss tea. Most would assume coffee—after all, how else did you used to pull those all-nighters? You needed caffeine, right? To stay up and work on—
Another stab of aching stop stop wrong new subject. No matter. Point being, you preferred tea. You kept the materials in your lab, in a special cabinet far from any electronics, so you wouldn’t have to slip out and risk waking anyone on the way to the kitchen. Worse than that, risk seeing anyone else already up, which would’ve devolved into some bullshit like, “Why are you up?” and “I asked you first,” which you never had the energy for. Hence, tea.
You prod the tip of your tongue against your lip, which is only swollen on the one side, and ragged around the edges of a vague oval. It’s a familiar shape—you would often bite off little flecks as you worked, the sensation keeping your mouth busy. You preferred, of course, candy canes and gum, mints and suckers, but those always lead to teasing from the others about—
New subject. Right. You try not to grimace as you bite tentatively at the lower edge, ripping off enough that you can tell it peeled a little too far. So that’s real.
This gives you pause. Had you needed to assure yourself this was real? Of course it was. Is. Whatever. If everything else is any indication, then there’s no reason to doubt reality. Your conviction falters under the reminder that you have yet to open your eyes.
You’re no coward. Everyone knows that. Scratch that, a few people know, and they have to be convinced more often than not, and you force yourself to finish this train of thought despite your eyes squeezing tighter, a rumbling sound in your ears.
You wait for the rumbling to stop, and open your eyes.
You don’t know what you expected (and you imagine any expectations would’ve been accompanied by a reminder that expectations are the precursor to disappointment), but it probably should’ve been this. The medbay. There are two cots lined up against the wall to your left and one on your right, increasing in size as they go. You’re struck by the similarity to that Goldilocks story, and wonder who decided that yours and the one immediately left of you landed under the ‘just right’ category. The far left one is comically large compared to the one on the right, like putting a basketball player’s shoes beside those fake ones you buy for dolls.
Speaking of. Keeping your head still, and holding your eyelids low enough that you could convincingly have them shut at a moment’s notice, you glance at the thing curled against your side. It’s a large white unicorn, as tall as your plastron is wide. Pink tufts of hair spurt out from its head and back, matted and stained with what you assume is paint. The horn hangs on by perhaps two threads, which rubs against something in the back of your mind—you distantly remember reinforcing the stitching there, going over it several times and beating it against the ground to be sure it held. This was a necessary process, you had promised at the time, since that was the toy’s primary usage—being gripped by the horn and bashed against skulls. This memory comes less with a stab and more with a dull thunk.
Its googly eyes stare emptily past you, and the wafer-thin sheet is pulled up enough to cover it past the back hooves. Your eyes drift to your own hands, which have balled the fabric up into clumps. It’s too noticeable to be missed, and there’s no way you could smooth it out beyond recognition, so you leave it alone. Absurdly, your mind suggests that it could be another point in the reality column, since a perfect world wouldn’t mess up the bedsheets. You don’t know why you assume the alternative is perfection. You wish you had some tea. Chamomile, maybe, or peppermint. Hell, you’d even settle for turmeric.
“Did you guys hear that?”
You don’t think you made a sound, but you shut your eyes anyway, and keep your hands carefully tightened as they are. Maybe it can pass for a bad dream. Something twists in your core at the sound of approaching footsteps, too many to be only one set. It crawls up into your throat and nestles there, happily fluttering about and making your breaths come shallow. You wish it would be polite enough to drop down lower. In response, it reminds you how awesome it would be to throw up right about now. You concede that this is, indeed, a fair point.
“He’s still not up,” a different voice reports.
“Real helpful.”
“It’s something.”
“So what was the noise?”
“Dad probably tripped on your skateboard again.”
“Can you drop that, dude? I literally moved it out of the living room, like, the next day.”
“Guys?” This is the same as the first voice, closer to you than the others. You try not to flinch as you feel a finger tap on the back of your hand. “I think he was up, at least.”
“Maybe he’s having a bad dream.” Nice!
“Or he’s only pretending to.” Shit!
“Donnie?”
You have no control over the way every muscle contracts, seizing up as if you could collapse on yourself and form a new star, burning this room down along with everyone in it (and, probably, all of New York City). If your breaths were shallow before, they hammer out now as if your life depends on exhaling a hundred times in a minute.
The fingers turn into two hands, grasping yours like a lifeline. “Donnie, c’mon, dude. It’s not funny anymore.”
“Because it was funny.”
“Shut up, Leo.”
“I’m just trying to lighten the mood, okay?” A thwack, and the voice becomes petulant. “Dude, seriously? You can just say I’m not funny, you don’t have to be physical about it.”
“Okay. You’re not funny.”
“That’s fair, we all process things differently. Guess you chose lying.”
You think you can hear your lungs convulsing as you struggle to keep down a full breath. The phrase ‘panic attack’ floats through your mind, but you brush it off. There isn’t the usual shakiness in your legs (pretend you aren’t lying down, where you can’t tell they are, in fact, trembling), or the nausea (pretend you weren’t just debating the merits of losing your nonexistent lunch all over the stuffed unicorn), or the sense of Holy shit I’m going to die here. Nope, wait—there it is. Okay, yeah, that’s the feeling of impending doom. When you were younger, you tried all manner of solutions when this would happen. There was that thing with the five senses, or counting your breaths, or recognition of the attack for what it was, or deep breathing, but those always made you feel like a child (never mind that they started shortly after your seventh birthday). Your solution was your own, and you suppose you’ll have to resort to that if you want this looming certainty of death to dissipate.
You crack your eyes open.
The bickering, which had fallen by the wayside as you focused on the frantic bursts of air you were trying to swallow, drops out completely. You don’t know if this is because they stopped or you really are dying, but you ignore it. Your eyes flick around, as juddery as your exhales, trying to find something big enough to see, but small enough that you can take it in all at once. They land on a green face shot through with orange.
The eyes peering out from the orange are filled with fear, hovering a few inches above your clenched fist. The mouth moves, says something, but it’s blurry. You blink hard and shake your head before redoubling your efforts, memorizing the outline. You trace your eyes slowly around the edge, as if you were drawing an outline on canvas. You dip your mental brush into paint the color of a summer sunset before smearing it over the fabric, the lines starting out shaky before solidifying by the time you reach the middle. You swap the orange out for a deep yellow, drifting down to the speckles on the shoulders. It’s outside your attempted frame of focus, but you can’t look near those eyes any longer. You grab a toothbrush, swipe it through the first orange, and flick it over the canvas, a smattering of spots. None of them are blurry, and most of them stick around, so you return your gaze to the mouth and blink a few more times. Sufficiently ignored, your breaths have evened out into a steady (albeit shallow) rhythm. The mouth has stopped moving, for which you are endlessly grateful. The eyes are on your hand, clasped in theirs. You feel a squeeze, and you squeeze back.
“Give him some room,” the second voice suggests. A burst of red blooms in the corner of your vision, but you do not let yourself look at it, none too thrilled at the prospect of painting another face. The orange one goes to step back, but you squeeze tighter, furrowing your brow as if you might keep him in place through sheer telepathy. “Mikey.”
“He won’t let go.” You won’t. By god, you’d sooner die than let go.
“Well, huh. Alright.” Red makes some more noises of indiscernible effectivity, before settling on, “Okay, yeah, sure. So, uh. Do you know what happened to you?”
No, you want to say. God, no, please tell me. Tell me what happened, tell me where I went, tell me what’s going on, tell me why I can’t feel—
Your shell. You’ve always been hyper-aware of it, soft as it was, useless in serving its assigned duty under the title ‘shell.’ You are well-versed in the compact feeling of a battle shell clasped over it (just north of being tight, a feeling of security in knowing it wouldn’t fall off before you wanted it to), and you are very familiar with the feeling of its absence. It’s like a phantom limb, one you never had in the first place. You are not wearing your battle shell now, but you cannot feel your actual shell. There is an ache higher up, near your neck, but below that, there is nothing, and you suspect this is infinitely worse than if you could feel what was going on down there.
“Hey,” Mikey says. Another squeeze. “You don’t have to answer, it’s okay.”
Relief floods through you, carried along by the drops of blood still leaking from your lip. You pull it between your teeth and clamp down. You know this is passable as a thinking face, so you do not expect the scramble to get you to stop.
“Leo, put a finger in there or something, keep it open!”
This is the worst possible outcome. You hold your jaw shut tighter, your whole head shaking with the effort as a pair of hands struggles to wrench your mouth open.
“Aw, dude, he bit me!”
“Shake it off!” Then, deciding that being safely removed from the action was no longer feasible, Red steps forward and pinches your nose shut. “He’ll have to open his mouth eventually, and when he does, just get him to stop.”
“‘Just get him to stop,’” Blue mimics, making the corresponding speaking gesture with one hand. “I don’t see you doing the heavy lifting. Isn’t that your whole job?”
“My whole job is keeping you chucklefucks alive.”
“Language,” Mikey pipes up.
“Sorry.”
“Can I say chuckle—”
“No.” This from Blue and Red in unison. Their reaction sounds echoey, and you realize it’s because you have yet to take a breath. You do not want them in charge of what you do and do not bite, but you cannot get air in without opening your mouth. This might be an impasse, but you treat it as a research opportunity. ‘How Long Can You Hold Your Breath?’ Maybe you could get an et al in there—everybody loves et als. You’d have to repeat the study a few times to get an average, given current constraints such as the fact that you haven’t been counting the seconds. You know it’s been more than ten, but that’s not very helpful.
///
It turns out to be less than a minute, but you hadn’t been making the best use of your lungs prior to the commencement of the study. Again, you keep your eyes shut when you find yourself aware of your new position in time. You assume it’s the same position in space, what with the same cold air and the same sticking sheets. New, though, is the sensation of something dragging over your plastron.
You open your eyes, curiosity overpowering self-preservation. The stuffed unicorn has been replaced with Mikey, who sits cross-legged beside you with a plastic palette in his lap. Smears of red, yellow, and blue are daubed on the edges, smeared toward the center to mix greens and purples. His hand is outstretched with a paintbrush, marking out shapes without any apparent rhyme or reason. You watch them form—a purple triangle, a blue circle, a red square, an orange spiral—without making any noise. You don’t know if you want him to notice you, but you also don’t know if you want him to stop.
When he reaches for the cup of water at your bedside, probably wanting to rinse off his well-loved brush bristles, his eyes skate across your face. He belatedly jerks upright and tumbles backward off the cot, crashing to the floor with a thud and an oof!
“You could’ve told me you were up,” he grumbles as he stands, dusting off his knees and shaking his head. “Scared the crap out of me.”
You want to ask if you scared the chucklefucks out of him, but the words do not come, so you simply stare back. Your breaths are normal, and you can feel your legs, so everything is probably in working order. Your mask has slipped down from the struggle earlier, now halfway down your nose. It makes you itchy, so you turn your head to Mikey (never away, never let them get behind you) and reach your hands up to redo the knot tighter. It’s the same tiny relief that used to come when you wore glasses (they made you look smart), and you’d push them up when they fell down. For the brief moments they sat snugly against the bridge of your nose, everything felt completely balanced. You replaced the feeling with your mask when you started wearing that, instead.
“My bad, I didn’t want to tie it too tight,” Mikey says, making himself comfortable at your side once more. His knee presses against your thigh a little too hard, which you appreciate, though you do not tell him as much. You don’t know if you can. “Sorry about painting on you, too. I was getting bored, and Raph ’n Leo said we had to take turns on watch, and you weren’t letting go of my hand, so…” He trails off, looking at you as if you might be able to fill in the blanks.
You stare at him.
“Good talk! I like it, this is progress. I thought you might kill me for painting you, but we’ll get there, don’t worry.”
You prod your tongue against your lip, which is still raw. Mikey freezes when he notices the motion. You let your tongue relax, not wanting to upset him (you don’t know why you want that). He relaxes in tandem. You wish this felt less meaningful. Helpfully, your lip does hurt, so at least that’s real. Unhelpfully, this thought yanks another into the forefront of your mind. If you need to make sure your lip is real, what else is in question? Who else?
“Uh, dude? Kinda freaking me out with that face,” Mikey says tentatively. Your eyes haven’t left his as you tripped over your own concerns. You keep them glued in place as you lift one hand, not wanting him to vanish when you look away (not wanting him to get behind you, don’t let him behind you) . You stretch it across yourself and dip one finger into the biggest glob on the palette, which Mikey has rescued from its spill on the floor. It turns out to be the blue. Go figure.
Still with your eyes locked on him, you lower your hand to the bedsheets and start tracing out letters. Unable to break eye contact and make sure it’s legible, you hope for the best and wait for Mikey to sound it out. He’s always been a little behind on the uptake for reading, so you keep it short. You force yourself to be patient.
“‘Are you real?’” Mikey reads aloud. The confusion is evident, but it’s accompanied by concern, a close relative that you try to ignore. “I don’t know what you mean. Yes?”
You jab your paint-covered finger into the bedsheet, not really caring what it means. Really, you want to say, are you really? Do you swear? How can you prove it? You jab again.
“I think so,” Mikey says. “I guess that’s a pretty phisolophical question.” Philosophical, you wish you could correct. “Are any of us real? I mean, probably. I definitely felt it when you shoved me off before, if that’s what you mean.” It’s not, but it helps.
You open your hand, still crossed over your front to write nearer to Mikey, and he glances at it. The hesitation emanating from him does not feel good, but he does eventually grab it and squeeze. You yank your arm in toward yourself, toppling Mikey such that he’s sprawled over your plastron and probably smearing his art in the process. You’ll apologize for that later. Before Mikey can react, you wrap both arms around him and squeeze, trapping him in the tightest hug you can manage despite the awkward angle. He squeaks in surprise, but when it becomes clear that you aren’t trying to strangle him (or, if you are, you’re doing a pretty shit job at it), he wriggles his arms free to hug you back. Panic gnaws at your throat when he gets his hands under you, but you don’t feel anything back there. You still can’t feel your shell. You hug him tighter and shut your eyes.
///
You stay motionless and silent when Red and Blue come back. Only the former is intentional. You only look at Mikey, and you wait for them to leave before saying anything. You had allowed him to extricate himself before they walked in on your boa constrictor scene, so they did not know to question it.They seemed to have reached a conclusion out of earshot that you would not be pressed about what had happened, a decision about which Blue seemed pissed. Fairly so, you privately agreed, because you would also like to know what was going on here, but Red’s word was law. The headaches at remembering had mostly subsided, save for when you tried to bring their names to mind. You knew you knew them, knew you’d heard them, but you could not force yourself to acknowledge them, so Red and Blue it was. Red and Blue and Mikey.
He keeps a hefty supply of paint around, now your designated babysitter when it was made clear he was the only one making any progress. You used the paint to goof off, mostly—tic-tac-toe, dots, finishing each other’s pictures, anything to take your mind off what had or hadn’t happened. You knew you weren’t sick in the traditional sense, so there was some other reason they were keeping you in the medbay. You hadn’t tried to escape, but it was a possibility in your mind. You suspected that, once out of the room, you’d know the layout of the building and be able to leave, but you were reluctant to test it. Out there was the unknown. In here was Mikey and, like it or not, Red and Blue, the consistency of which you had to appreciate. (Even if they refused to tell you what happened.)
You suspected Mikey was letting you win, and as he set up another tic-tac-toe grid, you moved your hand to an empty space and wrote a word.
Mikey draws an ‘O’ and sits back to wait for you to take your turn. When you don’t, he looks at what you wrote and frowns. “Mirror?”
You stare at him for a moment, then flick your eyes to the corner of the room, where a tarp is haphazardly tossed over what you’re fairly confident is the object in question. Mikey follows your gaze, his frown deepening.
“I don’t know,” he says. “Raph probably covered it for a reason.”
You poke the spot on the sheets where you wrote the word.
“Maybe we should wait for them to come back?”
You poke it again.
“I don’t think it’s a good idea.”
Again.
“Donnie—”
Again, enough to make the cot creak.
“Give me a second, okay? Let me think.” Mikey doesn’t turn back to look at you, his focus fixed on anything but your face. You doubt this helps in either direction. You’ve never been one for expressions, much less convincing ones. Coming to a conclusion much faster than you’d expected, Mikey nods to himself and stands. “I’m gonna go ask them, because this is way above my paygrade.” You doubt they’re paying him. “Wait ’til I get back, okay?” He doesn’t wait for your response (he knows better by now), but you keep your eyes on him all the way out the door. You try to ignore the click of the lock behind him.
You are already on borrowed time, so you waste none of it considering a course of action. This results in your jelly legs, used to nothing but lying down for the endless days you’ve spent in here, throwing you to the ground in a heap. You grimace, but no sound escapes as you pull yourself onto your elbows. You unceremoniously scoot across the floor on your butt, keeping the noise to a minimum and ignoring how you still can’t feel your damn shell. You reach up and yank down the tarp so you can properly meet your own eyes.
You are not wearing your headphones or goggles. You wish it weren’t so jarring that it took you this long to realize, but it is. The world has been attacking your senses with the full force it could muster, and you didn’t have any way of blocking it out. That’s probably why everything’s been so off. You just didn’t have your full set of equipment. It makes sense, since you don’t have your battle shell, either. Bolstered by this, and doubting it could be much worse than the loss of your precious headphones, you turn so your back is mostly to the mirror, and twist your head around to assess the situation.
In a word, it doesn’t look good. So much so, in fact, that it slips your mind to notice that that’s more than one word. Your shell is a mismatch of slash marks, most of them overlapping each other and gouging deeper than you would’ve thought possible. They’re all bright red and puckered at the edges, and when you roll out your shoulders experimentally, they tug and pull on each other like strings pulled taut. It still doesn’t hurt. You reach a hand up to prod at one, but feel nothing, not even the dull pressure that should come with the touch. It’s stupid, but you need to confirm what you’re seeing, so you press a finger directly into the center of one of the deeper gouges.
Your vision goes white, your body immediately breaking into a cold sweat as your breath vanishes from your throat. You heave and shudder, choking at the sensation of ice coursing through your veins. You grab at your chest as if you could fight off whatever’s preventing air from getting in, but feel nothing. Your hands scrabble around your shoulders before reaching your throat, and you squeeze. A wet, strangled noise makes it out, but this is a different wretched, a better wretched, onto which you can redirect your attention. More gurgles come as you grip your throat harder, trying to yank out whatever curled up and died in there.
“Donnie? They said it’s probably not a good idea to—omigosh, Donnie!” Hands are on your shell, your shoulders, your hands, everywhere, trying to rip you in half and in quarters, tearing you apart at the seams and stopping you from getting it out out get it out you can’t fucking breathe and it’s in there just get it out and
///
You wake up back on the cot. Your wrists are chained to the frame, the leashes barely long enough to let you stand. You suppose that’s fair. The mirror is covered up again, and three sets of eyes are focused on you. You didn’t think to hesitate in letting them know you were awake this time. Too late now.
“That was really stupid, you know that?” Blue says. “What were you thinking?”
“Leo,” Red says. Then, resigned, “But he has a point, Donnie. What was that? You scared us half to death.”
“Mikey about jumped through the window,” Leo adds.
“Not helping.”
“Who said it was supposed to?”
You stare at their feet. This isn’t new for two of them, but you cannot bring yourself to look at Mikey. You don’t want to see his face, nor do you need to when you already know he thinks it’s his fault. It’s your fault he thinks that. It’s your fault you let them get behind you.
Red steps closer, kneels next to you, plants his elbows at your side. “You gotta keep us in the loop, man. What’s going on with you?”
You tell me. I’m the one you’re obviously keeping it from. The worst has already happened, you decide, so you look up at him, make eye contact. It almost hurts to see the strain in his face. He’s fighting to remain neutral, not to make you feel like you’re being accused, but you know better. It’s always your fault. That, at least, has remained consistent.
The paint is gone, and the sheets have long since been changed, so you’re surprised when he asks, “Do you honestly think none of this is real?”
You stare at him. What does he want you to say to that? Oh, no, dearest brother, there isn’t the slightest twinkle of a doubt in mine eye that thou doth exist in the same reality as mine self. Probably, actually—you suspect that might put him more at ease than your continued silence. It would do the same for you.
He sighs. “I don’t know how to convince you, and I don’t know how ‘with it’ you are right now.” He makes air quotes around the words. You think he could cover your entire face with one hand, and wonder if that suffocation would be less painful. “We’ve been trying not to set you off, but you’re making it really hard on us, man. We can’t figure why you’re not talking, and why it took such a toll on you, since we all took it hard, too. Not to be blunt, but you don’t see us sulking around about it.”
You try not to smile. He just let on more than he realized. This wasn’t something that only happened to you, this was a team effort. This is an answer you didn’t have before, and he seems to pick up on this slip moments after you. He doesn’t bother looking irritated with himself. “We just wanna help you, man.”
You doubt this.
“I know you don’t believe me”—well, shit—“but it’s true. I don’t know how to get it through to you.”
You want to make a joke about how there’s a lot he doesn’t know, but you doubt it would land as well now as it used to. You want to beg him to just tell you what the fuck happened, but the words escape you. You want, and you want, and you want, and no one seems willing to give it to you.
“He’s asked a lot about what happened,” Mikey volunteers, his voice breaking on the last word. You want to feel betrayed—as of yet, he hasn’t divulged any of your communications to the others, and you were sure you could trust him to keep that up—but hope beats that feeling into submission. Maybe that will be enough, maybe having someone vouch for you will get them talking.
Raph (whose name sticks to the front of your mind like gum on the pavement, a fact you choose to set aside for now) looks from Mikey to you and back. “Really?” Then, to you— “Really?” You keep your eyes focused on a spot on his forehead. “Okay. Geez, I didn’t know it was gonna be that easy. Uh, okay. Well, so—”
“Let me take this one,” Blue says, shoving off from where he’d been leaning on the wall. Raph seems torn between relief at not having to handle it and panic at the fact that Blue is the one filling in for him. Blue doesn’t let him settle on an emotion before plowing into the next sentence. “It was me, okay? There was some garbage with Big Mama and a call to the Nexus, and webs and puppets and stuff, and it doesn’t really matter how, but—it was me. She made me cut you all up, and we took her down, because we’re awesome, but it’s—that’s it. That’s what. Can you please get over yourself and start acting like my usual asshole brother now?”
You wish you could feel your usual level of shock at the fact that he actually managed to say ‘please,’ but most of your focus is on absorbing his words. Reconciling them with the clang of metal on metal in your ears, the shouts of your brothers for one of their own to stop, what the fuck is wrong with you, man?
One small mercy of memory is that it does not remember pain. You can remember burning your lips on a drink that hadn’t cooled off, but you can’t call to mind how it felt. You can remember your brother hacking at your shell with his sword, the sluicing rivers splattering the floor, the screams ripping from your throat at the sheer agony, but you cannot feel it again. You feel the aftereffects. You feel the nothingness from your shell. You feel the rawness in your throat when you swallow. You feel three sets of eyes resting heavy on you, waiting for your reaction to something they’d kept locked away, same as they’d kept you locked away. You wish you could blame them for it.
You look at Leo first. His eyes are unreadable, but you doubt that’s of his own doing—you probably just don’t want to see what’s behind them. It wasn’t his fault, and deep down, he probably knows that. That’s how being controlled works, isn’t it? So, no, it’s not his fault, and you suspect Raph and Mikey have thoroughly assured him of as much in the intervening time.
No, it’s your fault. You didn’t figure out the mystic shit in time, you didn’t hit Leo hard enough to stop him after he hit Mikey, you you you you fucked up and it’s your fault.
“Sorry,” you manage, your voice cracking too much for the word to me intelligible.
“Well, that’s stupid,” Leo says. You want to call him stupid, but apparently you’ve used up your one allotted word for the day. Raph shoots him a look, and he shrugs. “What? It is! Thinks he has to apologize for winding up here? I mean, come on, I love hearing Donnie admit he’s wrong as much as the next guy, but only when he’s actually wrong, y’know?”
You want to cross your arms and huff, a desire made impossible by the chains holding you down. You settle for a scowl.
“Can you be normal now?” Leo asks, ignoring the continued throat clearing and head shakes from Raph. “Can you drop this freaky stuff and just be normal again? Well, normal for you?”
It’s not funny, but you force a lopsided smile. It’s convincing enough, because Leo seems to sag from where he’d been looming over you. You don’t remember him getting that close.
“Now, you’re gonna hate this, but I’m not gonna pretend I’m sorry, because I’ve given up way too much time that could’ve been spent bugging you.” With that, Leo throws himself down on you, less a hug and more an unwelcome weighted blanket. Before you can protest (you don’t know that you would), Raph scoots back in and leans on one side. Mikey climbs in on the other, scrabbling over Leo to sit at the top of the turtle throne.
“Sorry,” you say again, quiet enough that it only reaches Leo’s ear.
He licks a finger and sticks it in your ear. “Shut up.”