Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Somewhere, the ocean rises.

Rain's been unheard of for a full month, the earth left helpless to sun and winds. No thing worth growing grows there, where the desert lies. Ground dry and cracked; and fire falls from the sky.

Ice will melt in the Poles, if it hasn't already. And some day, water will come, and flood the place.

Some day, Raph mutters, keeping a close eye to the back of their clunker. Inside, Donnie's machines buzz alive again and again. Some day. Soon.

His eyes feel so sore he fears they might fall out, or stop working. A blacked-out vision. Head's killing him, too – has been since he banged it a time too many, plus the heat is doing its part.

It's always too hot until it isn't, until night gets cool and he's reminded of his own cold blood, or that it's the end of the world, and they walk it alone.

The machines turn off. Turn on. Off. They buzz alive, once more, and Raph realizes he's holding his breath, so he let's it out, inhales back in like a starved man, air heavy with sand and dust unknown. Something toxic, probably. Donnie keeps talking of running tests to check its chemical make-up, but he keeps his secrets close, these days and, if he has, he hasn't spoken a word of it with Raph. Not that he gives a shit anyway. It goes like this. The air is poison, and they can't die.

Wherever his family is, he hopes they're together. If not, he hopes they're dead.

Kicking dust off his feet and onto the red soil, he tightens the hold on his temples. Maybe, with the right pressure, his skull will crack, and he'll be able to carve the migraine from his brain like a worm from a bad apple.

It doesn't. He slides the truck's doors open instead, and climbs inside. Near his brother's passed out body.

Machines on, machines off. Half iron, half flesh. Raph doesn't look but, once Donnie revives, he'll feel his last real eye staring. Burning at his nape, alongside the cybernetic one.

He likes to think this is temporary. Lie. He likes to think this is it, now, his life. Getting used to loss has taken too much of him already. He can't welcome back before.

He hopes they're dead in a ditch or something. No one should survive this. Hell knows he'd rather be, dead. Lie. Lie.

What was that thing Leo used to say? What was that last thing he told him? How did Mikey's laugh taste? What does his reflection look like?

Fuck. From inside the truck, he takes a look at the road. Takes a look at the sky. Dawn creeps at horizon's edge. Soon, they'll have to get on the move. Water will rise, and he'll welcome the flood.

Some day. Soon. Someday. Soon.

Chapter Text

“You think we'll find them?”

Donnie doesn't look away from the mess of wires set on the table. Preoccupied in his work as usual, so much he might forget to even breath if Raph didn't make him. And Raph's shit at this, alright? Has none of Leo's or April's gentle assertiveness, nor he's nearly as noisy as Mikey – annoying as it was, a reminder; a tether that called Donnie out of his head and back to the world. He has none of that and as for now, might as well be talking to himself.

“Or that they're. You know. Alive?”

Donnie finishes intertwining two cables and looks at him – fake eye a flash of red in a field of metal, woven in his skin, eating at his flesh millimeter by millimeter, soon to substitution.

“Pass me the welder, please?” he asks. Voice a revelation in tiredness. Raph sets the tool in his brother's hand and thinks that Donnie doesn't know much of anything, these days. Then, he's looking down again.

“All data points to that,” he says. “But again, all data points to none of them having survived the explosion. It's Schrödinger's dilemma all over again.”

“English, fucker,” demands Raph. He can feel Donnie raising his remaining eyebrow without even looking.

“The asshole with the boxed cat,” he explains, deadpan, to which Raph produces a knowing hum. He shifts his position of the makeshift table, causing it to wobble and Donnie to hiss.

He's a maker of wonders, his brother. An engine built on bones and dreams running faster than any wind, growing bigger than any house. Under his hands the meaninglessness of electric wiring and metal plates finds purpose, finds form and name and voice. Raph can't help but wonder how long will Donnie's hands last.

He finishes soldering the piece shut, the inner clockwork hidden and contained in the rough shape of a foot. His eyes fly to the cleaver; Raph shuts his.

“For future reference, if they are alive and we find them, I'm chaining Leo somewhere to never be left out of my sight,” Donnie states. His hand is on the handle. First time, he tried to get Raph to make the cut – and all they have to prove for it is ugly scar, and Raph's gasps and digestive fluids scattered over sand miles away. “Plus: I'm killing Jones for taking the damned Party Wagon and leaving us with this not-technically-ours health hazard.”

“I get dibs on his skull,” concurs Raph. He opens his eyes again. The cleaver shines like the sun in his brother's hold. He'll never know how he manages to be so steady. He'll never ask him. Raph's stomach is sinking, instead, heavy with anticipation and a sickness that never leaves.

“The painkillers will kick in in about five minutes,” says Donnie. “Once we start, I want you to check my pulse and respiration rate. I will pass out when I'm done so please, do cauterize what you can before I revive.”

A breath in, one out. He hopes disgust has not crawled out of his throat.

“You got it?” he insists.

“What a fuckin' trash fire of a day.”

“I reckon it is,” answers Donnie, finishing cleaning the knife and positioning it above his own ankle. “Hold my hand?”

Raph snorts.

“You're such a loser.”

Then, he does.

Chapter Text

Parsley-the-dog barks at the wind. She has been all last night, will be all next.

It is said: dogs see ghosts. And right now, Parsley-the-dog has a hell of a ghost to bark at.

Poor old Parsley-the-man throws her a stick, but she does not fetch it and keeps barking. Parsley-the-man wonders if she's seeing the Prophetess, her cloud of grey hair wraith-like under the sun. They've dug her a grave just yesterday, brothers and sisters united in joyful communion. Six feet under sands, her thigh-bone, her hair. The rest of her body was burned and scattered north, where it'll meet the Universe, at last.

Everyone in the House had danced until their feet bled, and then some more. The Prophetess was a lucky one. Blessed with sight by the Cosmos. The first one called back.

Parsley-the-man knows he should be happier than he is. She has gotten what they all want. But Parsley-the-dog keeps howling at her ghost, and Parsley-the-man feels a little empty inside.

The Holy One finds him sat outside the shack an hour later. Parsley-the-dog has calmed down, by then, and is lapping at the man's hand. He sits besides him, placing a green, three-fingered hand on the dog's head to scratch it.

“Sittin' all by yourself, my dude?”, the Holy One says with a smile. If Parsley-the-man didn't know Him to be an otherworldly, timeless being built on pure cosmic energy, he'd say the Holy One looks very young. Sometimes, a passing thought will haunt the man's mind, and he'll think He reminds him of his son. Hell, he was just a kid when he last saw him.

“I was...thinking,” he says. The Holy One whistles.

“Dangerous. I like it,” He responds. “What were you thinking about?”

Sometimes Parsley-the-man feels a tad disappointed the messiah has taken so long to manifest Himself. Maura didn't get it, and Parsley didn't get a chance to prove her wrong. That's why their marriage fell apart. If she could see him, now, see that he was right all along about reptilians and the Cosmos and the Word of the House, maybe she'd apologize, and take him back.

Maybe she'd let him see Lucas again. His boy must be almost fourteen by now.

Sometimes Parsley, good old Parsley, curses the House in his sleep. His brothers and sisters will never know of it.

He did try to ready his kid for the end of the world. Maura said he was dangerous. The Universe knows where they are, now.

Parsley-the-man answers: “The Prophetess. How she – she joined back the Cosmos. I don't get it.”

In the end, she didn't look free. She just looked afraid.

Parsley-the-dog goes back to barking, and Parsley-the-man finds himself wrapped in a green, warm hug. The Holy One fidgets his hands, now drumming his fingers at a steady rhythm on the man's back. He has baby blue eyes and crusted orange paint smeared over his scales and his shell. Parsley-the-man has always imagined the reptilians as either lizards or alligators, but you can't be right about everything.

“Is there death on your planet?” he asks.

“The New York sewer? Loads of it, dude. You have no idea. We invented biohazards.”

He chuckles at himself. Well, thinks Parsley, I guess we were right about that too.

“I always thought your kind to be immortal.”
“Nope. We die alright,” He answers. Then, voice suddenly small in His too large red robe: “My father did, at least.”

Ever since his advent, the Holy One has taken care of the House, of his disciples. Getting Abbey to wash her hair when her mother is too tired to. Meditating with Bull Lee and giving answers to the million questions the Prophetess had (no, 9/11 was not on us, but yes, we do eat kids. sometimes). Petting Parsley-the-dog and teaching Parsley-the-man about the great Pizza Supreme in the Sky. Soothing Victory's anxieties and Tiny Tim's fears with lullabies (my brother sang me this one, he'd say. he's totally tone deaf, but he was so much better than me at this). He avoids questions about the other Great Masters, those He called family back in His world, with a shrug and a joke. He smiles at them, a lot. He joins them in prayer, joins them in dance. Cries their departed, their pasts, their futures. As they walk to extinction, laughing, running, hand in hand.

Parsley-the-man can't wrap his head around it. There's something very ancient, in Him, and very boyish.

And tired.

Chapter Text

He drives.

Sometimes, out of the corner of his eyes, he catches a glimpse of flames and calls it her hair. Hands on the wheel, and no word between the two of them. Dust rises from the road. It’s going to be a beautiful day.

Casey gets lost in the motion -steer, change gear, sunlight jumping from the rear-view mirror to his hands, drumming to the beat of low music from the radio. A dream straight from his early-teenage years: a highway empty enough for no one to raise concerns about his clear lack of a license, a mind clear of questions but those raised by the roaring engine. And her.

He could forget she’s here, really, could question whether she’s a ghost or a trick of the light. April makes no sound, raises no voice. Eyes shut in a painful hold, untangling the mass of voices rushing from everywhere to her head into web-like threads, as Casey drives to their next stop, and the voices come for her and drown him, too.

She holds him at night, her arms the color of sunrise. She breathes softly on his neck, so very real, as she soothes the ugly curves of his mind, spinning bad memories into nothing. She has not slept since it started, nor has she shown the need to. Humming secrets or songs into his chest, she keeps him awake, too.

(they fought about it, once, and he asked her how far she’d go, what she’d rewrite to keep him calm, to keep him happy, to make him hopeful and going and hers, and how long it could go before turning into some kind of murder. he doesn’t remember her answer.)

He kisses her brow, tasting sand on his tongue. A life ago, she held his hand from the passenger seat while fleeing the city. Then, he thought of his unmade bed back home, of his sister waiting up and the stench of booze on their father’s throat. He thought of buildings falling down, thought of the sky crashing down on his friends, of his last memory of Raph’s laugh, and that April looked beautiful in the dim light of an oncoming night. Sand sinking on his gums, he thinks the same, now.

The morning after carries a haze of peace he can’t explain. He drives. It’s going to be a beautiful day.

Chapter Text

Dust rises from the road, and April O’Neil is a god.

Two of these things are true.

Miles over miles swallowed by motion.

She thinks others’ thoughts.

i’m scared i’m sorry you will eat this no one here can hear you scream how much longer i don’t get it please stop you think we’ll find them don’t forget where are we keep talking this is gonna hurt make it stop make it stop i don’t know i can’t do it i see something shut the fuck up don’t go stay quiet here and wait for me

No voice of her own.

If she lets it wander, and she lets it wander, her mind will erase itself to a room devoid of color and water will start pouring from its door. White noise from every human in the radius. Their fear and pain and violence and misplaced trust. No promises are true in a desert. She drinks it up, thoughts pouring down her throat like liquor, and she’s drunk, and still

   eyes I dare not meet in dreams

  as wind in dry grass

  form prayers to broken stone

She falls through the door. She keeps falling.

Once sleep is unneeded, she stays awake. Watching. 

She flies up, high to the clouds, and sees everything below.

The boy’s closer, his mind louder. She taps into it for focus, and on the days the noise becomes unbearable, he makes her quiet. 

I don’t know why it’s happening , she told him once. He swallowed worry, his smile a toothless, pitiful form, and said, we’ll figure it out, Red. We always do.

Some nights, when his mind is full of misery, she thinks about clearing herself from it, then wiping out all that has ever caused him hurt. She knows, logically, it’s a long shot; the gaps would outnumber what remains, and she knows, of course she knows, that what’s been good or bad about their lives has often carried the same name. But if she could dream, she’d do of a ghost boy: a toothless grin and nothing behind. And she could burn with how much she’d want that.

Maybe someday she’ll make him forget her, and they’ll meet again. Or she’ll give him a reason to grow distrustful. If she practiced enough, she thinks she might just be powerful enough to rewrite him a story, or to let the world grow dry.

Either way, the voices always come back to her. As does he.

Chapter Text

Five thousand sixty-seven milliseconds: the discrepancy put between the alarms blaring topside and from the amplification system built in the lair.

Three thousand four hundred fifty-six: the time it takes for all of you to get on your feet. You follow Leo on supply duty, urging Raph to phone April.

Three: the three of you. The rest of you, gone on patrol. Forty-seven minutes, the time they’ve been out. An estimated time of a hundred days to walk every single street in New York, and a forty-seven minutes distance from where they are now, or less, depending on if they’ve walked straight or stopped in the way. Raph yells that April’s not picking up. Call Casey. Call Mikey. Call April, again.

Many: the boxes. Dozens tins of canned beans and spinach and pre-cooked rice, apples and UHT milk and a pharmacy robbery’s worth of vitamin pills. Books and paint and DVDs and the first-aid kit, and anything, really, to make the time pass.

Your brothers called you paranoid when you first forced them to fit anything they would miss into a bag.

You lead Leo to the panic room. Its walls are solid concrete, reinforced by steel - hopefully anti-seismic, if you’ve done your research right, but, well, no real way to know until you try it, is there? Inside, you’ve installed a filtered vent system, a water tank and electricity. You’ve put up Raph’s punching bag, knowing he’d go insane if deprived of an outlet (same reason, maybe, why you’ve done your best to hang Master Splinter’s old photographs as well - that is to say, there are days you still fear for Leo).

It’s made to be the last thing standing. As you are.

A month: the time you’ve spent making it.

A month, another: enough to make you hope it had been just another unnecessary precaution.

Seven months, twenty-four days, five hours, sixteen minutes: news on TV speaking of war. You’ve been to war, and that’s not it: just another rich man’s power play. No one can tell who fired the first shot, but you suppose it doesn’t matter, and you don’t really care. You know new weapons have been built with scraps the Kraang have left behind, all those years ago - not like the military was shy about it, sending their so-called scientists to talk shows to explain a technology they didn’t understand the first thing about. This bomb, too, must have been fabricated in a similar fashion.

Countless: the irony.

Missed calls, to: six-April, five-Casey, four-Mikey. Your brother’s rumble behind you, an endless chant of pick up, pick up, fuckin’ pick up ‘lready.

It’s Casey to finally answer; you can’t make out what he’s saying, but his voice is a panicked stream, a taste of fear in his tone you’ve never quite heard before. 

“Case, hey, slow down, didn’t get a damn word,” Raph responds. From the other end, you only catch Mikey . Raph’s face whitens, and something in your stomach sinks low, low, low.

Four steps, approximately sixty-five centimeters per stride, given height and haste as factors, and Leo takes the phone from Raph’s limp hand.

“Casey, it’s me. Are you safe?” he asks. All your life you’ve longed for his impassiveness. The alarm keeps playing, a rusty sound scratching at your ears, and it hits you that you haven’t been counting.

“Not now. Just answer. Where did you get separated?”

Silence. He blinks once, twice. Nods.

“Okay. Find shelter, and we’ll meet you guys later,” he finally says. “Don’t apologize. See you soon.”

The sirens, growing higher and higher, soundwaves spreading from the speaker and into the hollow vault of your mouth. How many decibels are they at, now?

Raph, his words an electric discharge, asking, where are they? Where is he?

Leo, cool water and bloodshot eyes. Leo, and you, and the sirens. You don’t catch it in time.

The push punches air out of your lungs, Raph’s gasp surpassed by the banging of his shell on the floor. The door slammed shut. Blue eyes, heavy eyes behind the porthole.

countdown to launch commencing 

“Listen to me. I’m gonna go get Mikey. He’s not far from here, and we’ll find somewhere safe if we can’t make it back in time. The door is locked. I want you to stay here until it’s over, okay? And then I’ll find you.”

ten, nine, eight

Your fists, banging on the door, yelling of numbers and time running, cursing a deathwish. Bone snapped open, blooding the handle. Your screams and Raph’s, so loud they turn into one, so sore they turn into wind. Your prayers, alike, torn from a drowned man’s mouth. You call his name over and over until it sounds like a curse, like a cry, like the alarm still playing, still echoing, still eating you alive.

seven, six, five

“I love you. I do.”

four, three, two-

  explosion.

     nothing.

Chapter Text

He crawls, at last, out of torn-down buildings, mouth gaping for air, swallowing dust - birth gone wrong, silent like a stillborn.

He gets on his feet and doesn’t know how to name the sun.

The city is an unknowable place - or rather, is a place once known but now too fractured to be the same, too hollow. As is he.

Neither his mind nor the wind give answers.

When he touches the aching back of his head, his hand comes back dusted with dried blood, shimmering black on green fingers. He was holding a sword when he first woke up, broken at the hilt (a second one, found later, still strapped on his shell, still whole but useless alone). The sight filled him with hot dark grief, pouring from his feet to his guts, making him curl around the object, clenching it white-knuckled, and weep without knowing why. 

There’s few things he knows.

Not many people are on the streets. Most run, when they see him. Some wander, blind or mindless - as empty shells or corpses lost to time to hurt to madness. They do not look like he does: that makes them afraid.

There’s few things he knows.

He hungers, he dreams. His body is scaled, heavy. He searches for glimpses of it on the remaining sword’s blade, finding a reflection unwhole, eyes a dirty kind of blue, a sick kind of pale, missing things he cannot name - a tooth gap green eyes freckled skin many scars, too many for numbers, twin to his, stranger to his.

There’s an empty cavity in his chest, right next to where a heart should be. There’s an empty place between his arms.

He doesn’t know how to name the sun.