Work Text:
Thermometer / delirium / “They don’t care about you.”
“Just stay down, bro.” Mikey pushed Donnie’s shoulders back onto his mattress.
Donnie shook his head. “I’m fine! Just let me go back to work!”
“No can do.” Mikey insisted, picking up the thermometer that Donnie had spit out again and shaking it off. “Now come on, just leave this in for a minute dude!” he pushed it up to his stubborn brother’s beak that remained firmly clamped shut.
“Still no luck?” Leo appeared at the doorway.
Mikey shook his head, drawing the thermometer away. “Still just as bad of a patient as ever.”
“‘M not a bad patient, I’m fine!” Donnie squawked.
“Don’t make me tie you down, Donnie.” Leo warned him, stepping past Mikey, taking the thermometer and holding it out. “Open up and stop fighting us.”
Donnie glared, and Leo stared back, the two holding their ground for several tense moments before Donnie finally relented, letting Leo put the thermometer in his mouth. Mikey left to make some soup and returned only moments later. “Bad news, we’re out of, like, most food stuff… including sick broth.”
“We keep sick broth for emergencies, how are we out?” Leo asked.
“I may or may not have used it to try and make chicken-flavored cookies.” Mikey admitted, his head drawing into his shell some as he laughed sheepishly.
Leo squinted at him. “You’ve never made any chicken-flavored cookies.”
“Not any that I've shared, no.” Mikey grinned.
Leo pinched the bridge of his nose. “Fine, we’ll make a run to get supplies.”
“Raph and I can go!” Mikey offered. “You stay here with ‘Mr Fine’.”
Leo nodded. “Let me make a list and grab Raph then.”
Mikey nodded. “Okay.”
Leo left and came back fairly quickly, letting Mikey and Raph go on their way.
Leo finally convinced Donnie to stop fighting him after a while, but only once his fever got too high and his whole body felt on the verge of collapse.
“You have to take care of yourself, Dee.” Leo sighed, rubbing a wet rag over his head. “You never know when you won’t have us around.”
“What?” Donnie squinted at him. His brother's skin looked like it was bubbling.
“I said you need to take better care of yourself.” Leo looked at him worriedly. “You’re really out of it, huh?”
Donnie hummed. Maybe he was just hearing things.
“Get some sleep, Dee.” Leo sighed.
Donnie complied, curling up on his side and falling asleep quickly.
When he woke up again, he heard Leo talking outside the door.
“I’m on my way, just hang on… yeah, Donnie’s asleep, he’ll be fine for a half hour while I back you guys up.”
He went quiet and Donnie stared at the light filtering under the door, drifting asleep again without realizing.
He woke up later with a pounding headache, and looked around the room. He needed to get some pain meds or something. The room was empty except for him.
Donnie managed to pull himself upright and look around, hoping the new perspective would get a better view of his room, but only succeeding in making his head spin. He anchored himself to the bed frame, waiting for the room to still, looking over at the door.
“Leo?”
No answer.
He tried to move closer to the edge of the bed, but the bile threatening to exit his stomach the wrong way forced him to lay back down in bed, groaning.
Where did his brothers go?
“They left you.” someone whispered.
Donnie squinted in the darkness, suddenly noticing the deep shadows cast across the crevices and corners of his room. “Who’s there?”
No answer.
He sighed. He was definitely hearing things.
“Are you really?”
He flinched at the return of the voice, pulling one of his pillows over his head. “Go away.”
“Do you think they know you’re crazy?”
“I’m not crazy.” he muttered, annoyed that the pillow didn’t even muffle the antagonist.
He shouldn’t even be entertaining the likely non-existent voice. After all, he was alone.
“Do you think that’s why they left you?”
He clenched his jaw, closing his eyes. He needed to sleep, or wake up, or something other than sit helplessly listening to the taunting.
“They don’t care about you.”
“Shut up.” he growled.
“You’re alone because they left you. They don’t care.”
“Shut UP.” Donnie sat up, throwing a pillow toward the voice, but only hitting empty air.
He breathed heavily for a moment, staring at the space of the room that seemed to swirl and twist unnaturally.
He felt a chill up his spine and a voice beside his ear.
“You’re alone.”
He gasped, feeling the hands grab his shoulders, and throwing his arms out weakly to push them back, make them let him go.
“Donnie!”
He paused. That wasn’t the voice.
He opened his eyes, realizing he was still laying down, and Leo had a firm hold on his shoulders.
“Leo?” Donnie looked back and forth between his brother's blue eyes.
The eldest nodded. “It’s just me, Dee, you were having a nightmare.”
Don swallowed. A nightmare, right. “Did you go somewhere?”
Leo frowned, casting a nervous look to the side. “Yeah, kinda. Mikey and Raph were attacked by purple dragons on their way to get supplies, and they called for backup. I thought you were sleeping.”
Don nodded. That made sense. They hadn’t left because they thought he was crazy. He wasn’t crazy.
Just a little sick.
He bumped his head to Leo's plastron, and the elder turtle wrapped him in a comforting, warm hug. “Hey,you okay?”
Donnie nodded again. “Sorry I was fighting you earlier.”
Leo chuckled. “Don’t sweat it, Dee. I’d take all of your stubbornness in a heartbeat if it means I can force you to take care of yourself better.”
“At this point I may just try a little harder.” Don admitted.
“Feeling that bad?” Leo asked.
Donnie hummed. “Better now that you’re here.”
He felt Leo hold him a little tighter.