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Collections/Challenges: Whumptober, Day 9 (+10)
Prompt(s): “We’ll make it alright to come undone.” | Touch | Flashbacks, “There’s nothing you can ever say, nothing you can ever do.” | Secrets
Character(s): Donatello, Raphael, Leonardo, Michelangelo
Rating: Teen
Summary: Donnie’s been having episodes. Periods where he can’t see, can’t think, can’t feel. Most of the time he has them alone in the lab, but sometimes he doesn’t.
Sometimes he freezes mid training, mid patrol. He can’t help it. It just happens.
Naturally, his brothers notice and try to figure out what’s wrong.
Too bad Donnie doesn’t wanna talk.
————————————————————
It was happening again.
The shaking. The fuzzy feeling spanning from his fingertips down to his toes. The overwhelming feeling of nothing. A numbness you couldn’t quite describe, the kind that made you question whether or not you were real, here.
Donnie’s been having a lot of those episodes recently.
Right now they were training—though, training felt like an understatement. Really, they were fighting with everything they had.
“Life or death,” Leo had said. “That’s what fighting comes down too.”
As if they didn’t know. As if they hadn’t faced countless life or death situations before. Regardless, with Leo acting as Sensei, they didn’t have much choice in the matter.
Donnie thought it would be fine. His last episode was this morning and he usually didn’t have more than one a day. It should’ve been fine.
But here he was, standing in the dojo, blank eyes staring across the room. He couldn’t breathe, he couldn’t move, all he could do was stand there, overwhelmed by the feeling of an endless limbo.
He was supposed to be fighting Raph, but he wasn’t even sure he could see him anymore.
Most days he waited for everything to go back to normal. Waited until his body felt real and solid. Sometimes it was quick, sometimes it took hours. He couldn’t afford to wait hours. He was doing something now. If he wasn’t careful—
Whack
A dull sensation rippled across his chest, his body flying backwards into the wall. He didn’t feel the impact, but he felt the pain.
(Pain helped ground him more often than he’d like to admit.)
He was crumpled on the floor, legs and arms twisting painfully. His head was propped at an odd angle and seemed to throb with every beat of his heart. He really shouldn’t be surprised, Raph hit hard. His older brother was probably expecting him to duck anyway.
Thankfully, the pain seemed to have snapped him out of it—to some degree. He sat up with a wince, straightening out his limbs with an inaudible hiss. He blinked a few times, bringing his vision back into focus, and was immediately met with Raphael’s incredulous expression.
“The hell was that, Donnie?”
His voice was loud and grating, earning him a small wince from the younger turtle. Donnie pulled himself together with a performative eye roll, using a hand on the wall to support himself as he stood up.
“I zoned out.” He said curtly, crossing his arms over his chest. It still felt like there was a buzzing under his skin but he did his best to ignore it.
“You did more than zone out, it was like you weren’t even there.” Mikey called from across the room, snickering quietly. Leo shot him a glare and Mikey shrunk ever so slightly.
“You alright Donatello?” Leo asked pointedly. Donnie nodded. “Yeah. Fine.”
Leo pursed his lips, looking Donnie up and down with a disbelieving expression. Eventually he seemed to find what he was looking for (or didn’t find it, who knows) glancing at Raph after a moment. “Don’t hit him so hard next time.”
Raphael smirked, cracking his neck as he brought his sais back up to eye level. “No promises, Fearless.”
Donnie only sighed, grabbed his Bo staff, and got back into position.
——————
It happened again the next day.
They were out on patrol, as per usual, when they passed by the same spot it happened. That godforsaken tower. That stupid building. The very place he’d been molecularly scattered across New York.
He stopped, staring up at the black night. It was pitch black, clear. If you tried hard enough you could see a few stars painting the sky and the occasional cloud. Nothing like the weather that day.
Still, that didn’t stop the memories.
He blinked and suddenly he was up there again, April in front of him. He could hear himself pleading, begging her to snap out of it, to be better. His voice was desperate because that’s all he could use. His body was held by an invisible force, pinning his arms to his sides, rendering him completely useless.
He remembered the brief moment where he broke through, the hope swelling in his chest like flame only for it to be extinguished not even a second later. He remembered the crushing feeling of defeat when Za-Naron took over once more, knowing that it in the end it was all futile.
He could still feel it. The way she seemed to separate every layer of his body, peeling skin from his muscle, muscle from tendons, tendons from bones, bones from ligaments, every piece of his organs separating and constricting. Every layer of his body flashing too fast, painful and terrifying.
He remembered the feeling of disintegrating, dissipating—whatever you wanted to call it. He was there, held in excruciating pain he couldn’t even process, then he wasn’t.
He just… wasn’t.
It’s hard to explain how it felt. Like he was everything and nothing at the same time, there but not there, conscious but asleep. He was stuck in an infinite domain, an endless void. He was aware of every square inch in New York city but he didn’t even know his own name.
He wasn’t Donnie, he just… was. That’s all he could say. He was a numb being that saw everything without seeing. It felt like fire and ice, distant but sharp.
It was terrifying. It was everything. It was nothing.
Then he’d been brought back, pieced back together like nothing had happened. Forced to act like he hadn’t been scrambled and taken apart particle by particle, atom by atom, by the very girl he once loved. Did love.
His skin was buzzing, there but not there. He could see the night sky and he couldn’t see anything at the same time. His brain focused but far away.
He felt a hand come down hard on his shoulder and he jumped, staring back at Raph with wide eyes.
“The hell are you doin’?” He snapped, shaking his shoulders. Donnie could practically feel his brain rattling around in his skull. “You tryna get yourself left behind? Come on, brainiac, get moving.”
With that he shoved him forward, kicking his body into gear. Donnie shook his head, shot a glare back at Raph with a small “hrmph”, and took off running towards the others.
——————
The next time it happened, Donnie almost got everyone killed.
They were in the midst of fighting some of shredder’s elite foot bots, April and Casey by their side. Donnie had been doing alright for the most part, pointedly trying to ignore April every time she threw one of the foot bots using her telekinesis.
He dodged a hit, rolling to the side with a harsh inhale. He stood up, scanning the battlefield for any more threats in his immediate vicinity when he felt it.
His body moving of it’s own accord.
Before he could even process what was happening he found himself on the other side of the battlefield, dropped to the ground after a second. He landed unsteadily on his feet, his stomach flip flopping inside of him while everything else started to feel fake.
He blinked and he could barely see. He was floating in an endless abyss, far away from what was going on. He could still hear the fighting and screams around him but it was muffled, garbled together like gibberish. He tried flexing his fingers but he couldn’t tell if it was working, couldn’t feel them.
He looked around but everything was blurry, shapes and colours warping across his vision while his breath came out in terrified pants.
He couldn’t think.
Couldn’t speak.
Couldn’t move.
He wasn’t sure how long he stayed like that, held in this painful limbo, but it was long enough that he couldn’t feel anything but his own blood rushing under his skin. Even then it felt wrong, more like air than a liquid.
His whole body felt light despite his perception seeming undeniably heavy.
Once again, the thing to snap him out of it was touch. Only it wasn’t kind or simple, no, this time someone decided to slap his face so hard his head snapped to the side.
He blinked. Kept blinking as the world came back into focus despite the stars behind his eyes and his throbbing cheek. The voices from earlier were steadily becoming clearer, sharper, louder—
“What the fuck was that Donnie!?”
Ah. Raph. He really shouldn’t have expected otherwise.
Turning his head back to look at his older brother felt impossible, like he was a rusted robot having his limbs yanked the wrong way. But he did it anyway, looked at Raph and saw the utter fury bleeding from his skull. His eyes were practically—no, literally—on fire.
“Raph! Don’t scream at him.” That had to have been Leo.
“Why? He just gets to freeze up while we all have to save his sorry ass? Did you see what happened to Mikey!?”
Donnie still felt sluggish, held upright by Raph’s tight grip on his shoulders. He would’ve been more upset but in a way it kept him grounded, real.
“I did! But that’s no reason to slap him—“
“I was snapping him out of it!”
“You could’ve tried another way—“
“Don’t give me that crap, I tried—“
“Guys!” Mikey. His voice loud and pained. Donnie cocked his head to the side, blankly staring at his baby brother. He was holding his arm, forcing out his words through gritted teeth. “We can talk about this later. Let’s just get back home.”
Raph let go of Donnie with a scoff but he hardly noticed, was too busy analyzing the appendage. It was clear by his swollen shoulder and his limp limb that he’d dislocated the joint. It didn’t look out of place, so Raph or Leo must’ve popped it back in, but it was still no good for it to be hanging like that.
Donnie didn’t even think before he’d pulled out a triangle bandage, walking over to Mikey on autopilot. He distantly heard Raph scoff behind him, the sound of angry muttering and rocks flying across the rooftop, but he ignored it.
His main priority was giving Mikey a sling.
He did so without thinking, mumbling quiet instructions for Mikey while he carefully wrapped the cloth around his little brother’s arm. He finished within thirty seconds, tying the knot tight enough to stay without digging into his neck.
Mikey shot him a small smile, Donnie gave him one back—even if his brain still felt fried.
He didn’t register April and Casey heading home, hardly remembered the walk back to the lair. It felt like he blinked and suddenly they were all in the living room, Raph and Mikey flopping onto the couch without a care in the world.
(If the quiet hiss was anything to go by, Mikey immediately regretted his decision.)
Donnie was still, hands by his sides, watching his brothers with distant care. He probably should’ve sat down, but—…
Well. He didn’t really feel like moving anymore than he had.
Beside him, Leo was pacing. Chin between his fore finger and thumb, other hand on his hip. He looked so deep in thought that Donnie didn’t want to interrupt.
“Donnie.” It was Raph.
“Yeah?” He said quietly, looking back at his older brother with thinly veiled apprehension.
“What the fuck was that.” His tone was firm, his eyes practically piercing into Donnie’s soul. He was looking for an answer, one Donnie didn’t want to tell him. In fact, he would much rather die than let him know he’s been struggling with dissociative episodes. Raph probably didn’t even know what dissociation was.
He was about to open his mouth and write it off with some bullshit excuse about being tired when he heard Leo’s voice, knowing if exasperated. “Is this about what happened with April?”
Donnie’s words died in his throat, almost choking him. He wasn’t subtle, he knew, but still, he didn’t expect Leo to guess what happened that quickly.
“I’m gonna take that as a yes.” Leo sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose. Despite the fact that Donnie was four inches taller, he felt an awful lot like a child getting scolded by his mother.
Leo dropped his hands, opting instead to cross them over his chest with a sigh.
“Just… talk to me Donnie.” Leonardo’s voice was soft while he looked at him with this face, something expectant and gentle.
Donnie shifted on his feet, looking back towards Mikey and Raph like they’d help him avoid this at all. Raph only raised an eyebrow, smirking at him. Donnie glowered and glanced over to Mikey. The youngest turtle was smiling at him with two thumbs up, clearly trying to support him in his own way. He sighed and faced Leo.
“I—“ he started, but the words died in his throat. Leo still didn’t move. Donnie tried again, thinking about how he was even supposed to go about this. What should he even say?
”Oh yeah, I’ve been having these moments where I don’t feel real and it’s just like when I got scattered across New York because I literally can’t feel anything and my vision stops working for a good second and the only thing that can snap me out of it is touch but half the time I’m alone so sometimes it’ll go on for hours until it decides it’s hard enough and goes away on it’s own. Oh, and it also happens randomly.”?
Yeah. Fuck that.
Instead, he opted for the classic. “I don’t know.”
He could see Raph rolling his eyes, Mikey’s face palm, Leo’s eye twitch. He felt bad but he really didn’t want to talk about this. It felt… too personal, in a way. Too vulnerable.
(A different part of his brain reminded him that while he went through it, his brothers all had to watch it. They all thought he was dead—grieved for him like he was dead. Was hiding this really worth it?)
“You don’t know?” Leo echoed.
Donatello sighed, closed his eyes and took a deep breath like that would give him the strength to push through this conversation.
“Well I do know, it’s just… I don’t know.” Wow Donnie, that really cleared things up.
“Wow Don, that really clears it all up.” Raphael snarked, his voice pitched up similarly to anytime he’s made fun of his brothers. Donnie only blanched, staring at him with wide eyes while he briefly wondered if his older brother had suddenly gained the ability to read minds.
It was highly unlikely, but still.
“Look, Raph, I don’t know what to tell you!” He snapped, shaking himself out of his thoughts. “It’s weird, okay? I—I don’t know.”
Raph held up his hands in mock surrender, rolling his eyes. “Just spit it out Don, no one’s gonna make fun of you or anything.” He paused, smirking ever so slightly. “That is unless you’ve been beaten up by anymore random animals. Then I will make fun of you.”
Mikey snickered, turning to Donatello with a smile. “Yeah dude. We just wanna know why you’ve been zoning out so much, it’s not like we’re asking for your deepest darkest secret.” He wiggled his fingers at the last part, hunching his shoulders with an evil look on his face.
(Donatello was feeling very outnumbered right now and he did not appreciate it.)
“Fine.” He muttered angrily. “I’ve been zoning out because I keep—I don’t know—it just feels like I’m not real. Like I’ve been scattered again.”
Their expressions all shifted into something more understanding, though Raph’s was definitely more uncomfortable.
Donnie kept going.
“I can’t control it, I can’t stop it, it just happens. So I’m sorry that I keep zoning out and inconveniencing the rest of you but I don’t know how to fix this. Therefore, if you could just cut me some slack while I deal with my entire world falling apart, that would be great.“ He paused, taking a breath. He saw that Raph was about to say something but cut him off. He wasn’t finished, thank you. “And just for your information, it’s not fun for me. I don’t have my head in the clouds. I’m not just thinking about what happened. I literally can’t see anything properly and my entire body goes numb—if I’m lucky. Most of the time it feels like there’s static under my skin and it hurts in a way you couldn’t ever understand.”
He stopped again, sudden and quick. He blinked, looking away from his brothers. “So yeah, my bad, I clearly should’ve been timing this out of control thing around your schedules better. Whoopsie fucking daisy.”
The silence that enveloped the lair after that was tense, charged with emotion and dam near suffocating. He wasn’t sure how much time went by before someone finally spoke, but it was enough that he was regretting ever opening his mouth.
Mikey was the one who cut through the silence, a quiet question filled with confusion and anger. “Why didn’t you tell us sooner?”
He didn’t know, so he shrugged.
“We would’ve helped you, you know.” Mikey continued. Donnie refused to make eye contact but he knew his brother was looking at him. “We could’ve dealt with this as a team—“
“How?” He snapped. “How would we deal with this as a team?”
“By supporting you.” Leo this time. “You clearly snap out of it whenever someone touches you, and you could, I don’t know, talk to us for once?”
Donnie fell silent. His brother technically had a point but he refused to admit that out loud.
“We care about you D.” Mikey’s voice was back, stronger this time. “But we can’t help you if you don’t let us.”
“But what if you can’t help?” Donnie said. “What if all you can do is snap me out of it? What if you can’t say anything—do anything—to actually fix this?”
“Then we learn to live with it.” Leo said firmly. He took a few cautious steps over to Donnie, placing a hand on his shoulder. “We’re a family. We’ll deal with this together.”
“We’ll make it alright for you to zone out.” Mikey piped up, jumping up from his place on the couch to join his brothers. “We’ll help you, D.”
He wasn’t sure how to feel, what to say. He’d half convinced himself that his brothers would call him weak or laugh at him, but… no one has. No one did.
He smiled thankfully at the two of them before his gaze shifted over to Raphael. He looked almost sick, staring down at his lap with guilt Donnie wasn’t expecting. (It wasn’t a lot, but for Raph, even a hint of it was crazy.)
“Raph?” He said quietly. The three of them all turned to face him and the red-banded turtle closed his eyes with a sigh. Donnie was almost worried he’d tell them all that they were stupid or to get over it, but instead he stood up, walked himself over to the little huddle they had going on, and put a gentle hand on Donnie’s free shoulder.
“What they said.” He mumbled quietly. He didn’t say sorry, but Donnie could hear the apology in his voice anyway. He grinned, a warm feeling spreading throughout his chest. Something loved. Cared for. Something to chase away the cold void.
“Aw yeah.” Mikey said, breaking the mood with a triumphant shout. “Group hug!”
As Donnie felt himself pulled into the centre of a four way hug, he couldn’t help but smile. Maybe things would never go back to normal, maybe things would never be fine. But as long as he had his brothers beside him, supporting him… that was good enough.