Chapter Text
The sky was the same color as his bed sheets, a dull, boring grey. The usual fluffy white clouds that splattered the heavens had long since disappeared, and so had the sun. The birds were silent as the rain passed them by; they had nothing to sing for, not the sun, not the skies, not even the stars. Donnie decides that he wouldn't sing for this boring atmosphere either; he'd probably get too sad looking at it.
Instead, he finds himself yawning, his eyes surveying the room around him but he's inattentive of what he's looking at. His spiritless attitude seems to rub off on the room around him; it's painted in the same dull grey his bed is, only small hints of purple seem to liven up the place, if only a little. His clothes—mostly just sweatpants and hoodies—are thrown haphazardly across the room; it seems like he didn't even care for the mess he made. At his window rests a singular pot; nothing has grown out of it yet. Maybe someday he'll actually decide to plant something; who knows?
His desk seems to be the only other thing in his room that he hasn't touched in ages. It's filled with unfinished WIPs of different inventions; papers and mechanical parts seem to have picked up some dust. How long has it actually been since he touched those things? Who knows; let's hope that one day he'll actually decide to finish some of these; The van he’s making looks kind of cool.
Donnie finds himself sitting up from his bed, he adjusts his glasses and wipes off the bit of fog that had clung to the lenses. Just as he’s about to get up to leave the room, a ping coming from his computer alerts him of a new message.
Rather than leaving, he rests his head uncomfortably on his headboard, his legs hold up his laptop and he finds himself typing away at a new message from April O’Neil.
On the screen he can see some of the notes he was taking earlier, they’re notes for a quiz, he had found himself up all night trying to study for this test. April, being the funny person she was, was teasing him about it as of this very moment. He watched as her name appeared on the screen, the dots fading in and out to show that she was typing until, ‘Ping!’ the sound notified him of another message from her, a picture of her new kitten, Mayhem, pops up on his screen. He fights the urge to coo at the image and sends her a meme back. Soon enough the conversation is filled with questions about his day and her day.
While he’s been studying she’s been doing her make-up, the look she was trying is a 2000’s style look. He thinks that she looks absolutely adorable in that look, she thinks that she looks like a chicken. They send more memes back and forth (mostly about her make-up) and soon Donnie thinks back to his work. He should really get back to it now, he doesn’t have all day.
The beginning signs of a frown seem to mar his face, his eyebrows scrunch up, and a burst of air releases through his nostrils. Maybe he should stay on a little longer, a break would be nice.
And so he does, he stays on until they both eventually agree to meet up later that day, he can go back to studying until it’s time for him to leave! It was the perfect solution.
The day goes by and the sun comes out again. The sky turned from murky grey water into vibrant blue, the white clouds spotted the sky once more as they tried to barely conceal the sun. The remains of droplets from the early rain seem to have started drying up by now, and a message for him to leave had pinged on his computer.
When he gets up this time around, he doesn’t go back into his bed.
He stands up, walks out of his room, and pauses.
The room to his brother’s door is open, inside he can hear some shuffling. Donnie wraps his arms around his body at the odd, heavy, feeling that invades his heart. He can hear it beating in his head. Hesitantly, he walks up towards the door and knocks, “Mikey?” he whispers, almost too silently. He hasn’t seen the younger child for a couple of days now, the door had been locked and every attempt at a conversation would be met with a shout of frustration from the usually bright smiled child. Instead of a shout he is met with a seemingly tired Michelangelo. His face is dented from the chord of— presumably— an iPhone charger. Even with his eyes so tired and dull, the dark skinned boy smiled up at him, “Happy birthday Dee..!”
Oh, he had forgotten about that.
“Huh…” He whispers again, “I had forgotten about that.”
The two brothers stare at each other silently, neither seems to want to move. All the time in the world seems to pass before Donnie breaks away from the eye contact, “I, Um, I have to go meet up with April, Mikey. I’ll see you later, yeah?”
“Oh, um, yeah. Goodbye, Donnie.” and just like that, the door closes, and he’s gone.
Donnie, seeing the room closed off, decides to leave. He was the one who ended the conversation, he should be able to leave it there. So he did.
When he meets up with April, the ginger had taken him to the library. They studied up on books, talked about life, told stories, bonded over weird socks, and much, much more. Donnie never wanted this day to end.
There was one moment during his time with April where he decides that he’s possibly in love with her. The silence surrounds them like a soft blanket, April’s eyes is on a book in her lap while his eyes are on her. He watches as she lifts a piece of hair that had parted from the rest back behind her ears. He watches as she giggles at a funny scene in the book, he laughs along as if he’s paying attention (he’s obviously not) yeah, he’s in love with her. He looks away from her when she looks up at him, noticing his stare.
“What?” she giggles out, “do I have something on my face?”
He can only blush, as her laughter echoes around the his head.
He remembers a vibration in his pocket at that moment, he pays no mind to it, maybe he should have, maybe it was important. But who knows? Because right now, all Donnie knows is that he’s in love.
When Donnie gets home it’s dark, the sun has long since began to rest and the other stars have come out to shine. From the outside of his home he can see all the lights are off, either his brothers have gone to bed early or there is no one home, he’d guess the latter. Sighing, he takes off his shoes and slips on a pair of slippers. He looks around his home, it’s been recently cleaned. The strong smell of cleaning product is a big Indicator of that. He raises an eyebrow at this but doesn’t question it. He’ll enjoy having a clean home for now.
At that moment his phone vibrated in his pocket, he jumped a little in surprise and then smacked himself in the head for being so scared of it. Turning on his phone he noticed a couple of missed messages, five from Raph about some comic, two from his dad about his whereabouts, and one from Leo, it’s a picture of him and their older sister, Karai.
He had forgotten that he’d gone to visit her while she was at college, maybe he should make the trip too.
The last message caught him by surprise, he hadn’t expected Mikey to text him. Nowadays, his baby brother rarely ever wanted to talk. Maybe he wanted something from the store?
Opening the chat, he can feel his heart sinking into his stomach.
The message seems to place weighs in his pocket as he can’t find it in him to move, the light of his phone illuminates his face as tears begin to form in his eyes and an ache begins in the back of his throat. He can feel his hands begin to shake, his eyes begin to blur, but he doesn’t cry yet, because it’s not true, something like this couldn’t possibly be true, not for Mikey.
“You’re a great brother,” It reads, “It’s not your fault. I’m sorry”
Donnie knows that there’s only one thing that this could imply, he’s lived it before. He calms himself down, breathing in and out, his heart still races but he starts to walk up the stairs, with every fiber in his being he hopes it’s not true. He hopes that he won’t have to see Mikey like that. He can only imagine how scared the younger must be, how horrified he is.
Memories flash before his eyes of the boy he used to know, the boy he’d push around on the swing, the boy he’d play tag with, the child he’d teach math to. All of it seemed to disappear as soon as he made it to the door. It was slightly ajar, just as it had been this morning. Although, unlike this morning, a note was taped onto it. A smear of blood on it is the only thing that catches his attention, he doesn’t read the note, instead he opens the door, and screams.
He screams, he yells, he shouts, he cries.
His baby brother, his only younger brother, is gone. He hangs limply from a noose, his eyes are half lidded, his lips are blue, and he’s not breathing. He’s not moving at all, his chest isn’t going up and down as it should be, his heart isn’t beating as it normally would, and he’s not smiling. His baby brother isn’t smiling.
Mikey’s usual wonder filled eyes are dull and filled with sorrow, baby blue is replaced with boring grey, and Donnie can’t help but to sob. He falls onto the floor and sobs, he weeps like a baby. He cries for his mom, he cries for his dad, he cries for anyone, because he cannot fathom what he had just seen, what couldn’t be unseen.
There’s no blood on him but it feels as if the blood is on his hands, he could have prevented this, he could have saved Mikey, saved his baby brother.
He doesn’t notice when the police come in, when they find him weeping, when they place him in an ambulance. He doesn’t notice when the rest of his family come to visit him, when April or Casey smile at him. He doesn’t register the funeral, nor the pitying looks aimed at him.
It takes a while for him to register anything, and when he does, he notices the same grey sky greets him as it did on that day, the rain splatters onto his window, the droplets racing down. The sky is once again, cloudless, not a bird in the sky either. He sighs and buries his head into his pillow.
He should have read that message.