Chapter Text
By the time Leo gets back, Donnie’s fever’s gone up instead of down.
This awesome information comes free with a weak hiss as Leo pulls his shaking hand away. What a deal! BOGO!
Yeah uh, Donnie looks. Awful. Haha. That’s usually something Leo would gloat about, but at the same time usually it’s a hasn’t-slept-in-too-long awful, or a just-woke-up-from-drooling-on-Raph’s-shoulder awful, and not this—this—like, sweaty, fever-flushed, trembling vibe, sharp eyes sorta foggy and dull with confusion that puts a nasty twist in Leo’s empty stomach.
Hey, looks like I’m finally the pretty twin.
Or. It’s crazy, even though he’s a rat and we’re turtles, you still look so much like Dad. When he’s got Rat Flu, I mean.
Or. Geez, Dee, you give Prince Phillip a run for his money.
...No, that might be TOO mean.
Leo doesn’t make any of those incredible, hilarious jokes. Instead he scoffs lightly and says, “Chill out, Dee, it’s just me. Your faaaavorite member of the fam.” (April.)
No protest, but Donnie scrunches his face up, eyes shut. Leo amends, “Alright, your favorite brother.” (Mikey.)
Nothing. Nada. Zilch.
Donnie’s eyes roll painfully behind closed eyelids, over and over and over. C’mon. Come on . Leo’s heart jumps up into his throat and does a little kick-flip in his windpipe. He says anyway, “Alright fineee , your favorite twin.”
(We’re not twins, moron.)
Aaaaaand, come on. Dee. Don-Ton. You’re late on your cue.
Leo literally can’t take it anymore and looks up, up, and away(!), curling a hand over his stomach as it creaks and complains. He leans his shell against a nearby tree—being mindful of the recent chip in the edge, tiny but impressively painful, great going with that one, Neon Leon—and stares at the pitiful collection of stuff he gathered today:
A grand total of four (4) berries (the kind that DON’T kill you, hopefully, fingers-crossed). More rainwater he’s gotta boil (that crap is SO b-o-r-i-n-g). Another chunk of the good moss that soaks things up (like Dee’s sweat, like blood, ex- chet -ra.)
Aaaaaaand no ōdachi. Of course. Of course not.
Leo stares up through the thick canopy of shifting leaves. Little jagged chunks of sunlight spear his eyes, but he doesn’t look away. Ha. He’s not a coward. Mikey and him were ten and eleven when they snuck up onto the surface, and like the third thing Mikey did was challenge Leo to a sun-staring contest. Leo wiped the fucking FLOOR with him. Natch. No contest. And even though he ran into walls for the next six hours (give or take), it was totally worth it.
They’ve set up camp under the cover of trees as best they could—which was actually pretty freaking good, since they built it before Donnie got sick—but the dappled sunlight and the nice cool breeze does not make Leo feel good. His elbow twinges with an itchy, muscle-deep ache, and one hell of a scrape scrawls up his arm like road rash. (Really goofed it with that one, yeah, yeah, yuck it up. At least no one was there to see it. )
It’s nice now, sure. Suuuuure. As soon as the sun sets, though, it’ll be colder than hell, and Donnie will shiver and whine and Leo will want to jump into the freaking ocean just so he can avoid hearing it.
He doesn’t . He wouldn’t. Thank you very much. Leo’s a good brother, the best brother (obviously). And he’s super good at a lot of things. Super super skilled. Really smart. (Obviously.)
…But not necessarily at, like, physics. Knowing how to…keep heat in, and all that. He—he’s trying his best.
“Mmm…”
Leo snaps his head to his twin so fast there’s a little crack . Donnie’s eyes are still glossy and faraway, but they’re focused ( sorta ) on Leo.
“…’Nardo?” Donnie murmurs, blurry, and there’s a weak and trembling grip on Leo’s good arm. Leo’s throat closes to nearly a pinhole. Something’s choking him. A surge of feeling, half-relief half- Something-Else (that’s going in a little box in the back freaking corner of his brain, thanks, thanks!)
He puts on a grin.
“At your service, Donnie Dee,” Leo quips. “What’cha need? More water?” Impulsively, he checks Donnie’s temperature again, with the shaking hand that isn’t currently being held captive. The fever hasn’t changed. Of course it hasn’t. Duh , Leo, it’s been like thirty seconds.
Donnie’s eyebrows furrow. The left one is smudged. Leo runs a thumb across it and briefly wonders if there’s some Sharpie equivalent in the wilderness.
“…Bleeding,” Don says, and Leo’s heart just about stops.
“What?” Leo breathes. His hand’s still on Donnie’s forehead. He can’t move it. It’s freaking super-glued. “Where? What—what—?”
Donnie squeezes his arm, weakly, barely a flicker of pressure but undeniable.
“ You, ‘Nardo.” Donnie says, and releases his arm, raises a shaking finger to trace the gash on Leo’s other wrist. “Bleeding.”
Oh.
“Oh.”
Glue comes undone. There was not actually ever any glue, so of course it does. Leo peels his hand away and automatically clamps it over the wound which— ouch, yeah that is indeed bleeding, and actually hurts a whole lot Ell Oh Ell!—then pulls away, sitting back on his heels in the grass, which is still dewy and cool in the early afternoon.
“Ah, yeah—haha, that? Oh, that’s a—that’s an NBD sitch, Dee. No need to worry.”
Even though Donnie’s eyes can barely focus, he still narrows them in a remarkably close impression of April’s ‘Bullshit Detector Going Off’ Look.
Leo swallows.
Donnie stares.
“NBD is No Big Deal. By the way,” Leo blurts.
A muscles jumps in Donnie’s jaw, and he says, slowly, like he’s taking great pains to speak clearly, “Stop. Getting. Hurt.”
Leo’s heart lurches again, and he looks away, because even though he could stare directly into the sun for two whole minutes, the feverish, worried glare on Donnie’s face is much too much.
He should go. He should get Dee more food and more water and go. Honestly, he could be out looking right now, clawing back down the ravine and picking through sharp rocks, and he’ll be more careful and not get all dizzy and rip his stupid veins open again, and he’ll find his stupid , useless ōdachi, his dumb idiot
(worthless)
fucking sword, and he’ll get them back home, and everything will be fine.
Totally.
Where’s that moss?
“I’m totally fine, Don,” Leo’s mouth runs without permission, as he grabs a handful of moss and presses it to the open cut. (H’boy, it really is bleeding, huh? No wonder he felt so lightheaded on the way back, jeeeeeez, he thought that was just hunger. As per usch.) “This is nothing, bro, I’ve walked off, like, way worse than this, I’m just trying to find our way out of here. Once we’re home you can fuss over me all you want, ‘cause I know you’re a big softy, and not actually an emotionless bad boy, ha. But you gotta get better first, ‘kay? We cool with that?”
While rambling, Leo shuffles through their supplies. They’re—pfft, long out of Don’s little protein bars, jeez, he’d be about a week and a half too late for those, but there’s a pile of nuts that’s saved up—squirreled away, even, you could say. LOL. From that tree by the bank.
Leo’s gotten better at storing the food lately. He’s been plying Don with whatever he can, but Donnie mostly whines in refusal, so it’s always a battle and Leo doesn’t always win.
(As for Leo himself, he’ll—well. You know how it goes. A guy can only faceplant into a solid sheet of rock so many times before he realizes that even though he hasn’t been hungry in days, you gotta eat a little something here and there to take the edge off. Haha.)
Weak fingers grab at the strap of Leo’s pack, and Leo jerks around. “What? What’s wrong?”
Donnie’s face is screwed up with pain. Pale. Sweating. Leo puts down the moss and reaches forward to check Donnie’s pulse. Donnie stops him. Leo realizes it’s because his hands are covered in blood.
Oh.
Probably for the best. It’s a real horror show. Drip, drip, a little splatter on Don’s hoodie-covered plastron, and Leo winces, tries to wipe it away, ends up smearing it, “Jeeeezy creezy, sorry, I’m sorry. What’s up, ‘Tello?”
Donnie doesn’t say anything, but his breath does a funny thing, a little hitch-catch at the back of his throat. And Leo doesn’t even know what he’s sick with, thought it was just a cold, but maybe it’s worse, maybe it’s pneumonia, maybe Donnie’s about to asphyxiate and die literally right now and Leo’s not doing anything.
Well, he’s just watching. Of course. Like he’s been doing this entire time. When he’s not failing to find the stupid stupid
(defective)
sword that brought them here.
Smearing the blood away on some nearby grass, Leo takes Donnie’s pulse with his left hand. The heartbeat seems slippery under his fingers—or maybe that’s the lingering dew—and he has to chase it a little bit, but finally pins down the artery.
It’s fine. Ba-dum, ba-dum, ba-dum , all fine, fast but regular, a bit of a sinus arrhythmia which is nothing to worry about.
Leo’s a fantastic medic—the best medic, basically a doctor, really—but he doesn’t (actually, technically) really have a lot of knowledge of what might be wrong. He doesn’t (actually, technically) really even know what Donnie’s sick with. By his best guess, it’s a nasty cold, or a flu. Donnie’s scanners would know better.
If Leo could only find his stupid
(broken)
useless fucking sword—
Leo lets go and swipes idly at his wrist. The bleeding has already slowed to a sluggish throb, pulsing in time with his heartbeat. The scrape is what’s really looking nasty now, actually; a splatter of blood and grey-brown dirt, flecked with micah that winks sparkles at him in the sun.
There’s that itch under his skin again. Like a bee buzzing through his veins, not a cute little fuzzy bumblebee but a wasp or a hornet, something Nasty (but nonetheless good for the environment yadda yadda he’s heard Donnie’s spiel).
A yellowjacket . Tiny and evil. (But nonetheless good for the environment, oh God, is he ever going to get that out of his head? He just wants to wax his stupid metaphors in peace. )
Anyway it’s buzzing along right under the surface, burrowing into muscles and tendons, just dodging his bones, hi hello lemme just scooch past ya there , and the buzz drones and drones and Leo just keeps thinking about his ōdachi at the bottom of that ravine, somewhere sunk into a mucky pool of shallow water or in a bush of dead leaves, snatching a ray of sunlight or maybe not, maybe just sitting dim and grey and dull and defective . Sitting there innocently,
(uselessly)
like it didn’t strand them here and then peace out, like it doesn’t constantly fuck up and drag
( everyone )
Leo down with its dead weight.
“I’m gonna go look some more,” Leo says. Donnie’s eyes are shut again, drifting off.
He props Donnie up, his good hand on the back of Don’s too-warm neck. He makes Donnie drink some water—gross and warm but clean, Leo made sure of that as best he could (half-remembered from before Donnie got sick, so he could be killing him right now, isn’t that awesome, isn’t that HILARIOUS)—and feeds him the berries (tries one himself first, duh! If one of them dies it might as well be the one that can’t even navigate his way to a sword that’s supposed to be tuned into his fucking soul, right, Haha, that was A Joke by the way).
And then Leo scrubs vaguely at the bleeding some more. Uses some non-filtered water to wipe it down, doesn’t wanna waste The Good Stuff, right? Yeahhh, he’s making good choices, he’s being smart.
(For once.)
Any -way, Leo’s re-organizing his pack. As if there’s much to re-organize, LOL. He shuffles around some nuts and berries—ugh, what is he, a bird?—and rerolls the two (2) gauze strips he has left. Shoves in some more moss. He pops a nut in his mouth and chews it slowly.
“Okay, Dee, I’m gonna ship out.” Leo lays a fond hand on Donnie’s head—checking his temperature again, obviously, super subtle and cool-like—and pats twice. “Get some sleep, alright?”
Leo was like, ninety-percent sure Donnie was already sleeping, but lo and behold, bleary eyes squint out at him through narrow slits of eyelid. A relieved smile breaks Leo’s face and—in a cringe and sappy way he does not usually operate (but then again usually things are normal yadda yadda)—he leans forward and smacks a big, exaggerated kiss to Donnie’s over-warm forehead. And moves away.
And stops moving as a sweaty palm grabs his wrist.
Before Leo can even get out his line, his part in this familiar song-and-dance, what’s up what’s wrong what do you need, Donnie slurs, “Y’re leaving.”
Oh. Oh, awful. There’s a tremble-y quality in Donnie’s voice, fragile spun glass, and it’s awful and Leo’s hand actually twitches in an aborted jerk to cover his ears.
“I’m—I gotta go look for my stupid sword, ‘Tello.” Leo tries to grin, feels like vomiting up the nothing in his stomach. Bile presses up against the back of his throat. A full-body stinging ache. He tweaked his left ankle a few days ago and it’s singing complaints when he sits on it like this, but Leo doesn’t move, afraid of breaking Donnie’s grip.
“You said y’wouldn’t. You said.” Donnie’s eyes glass over with tears. Tears. Tears. Holy shit. And Leo can’t move now, transfixed, can’t even look away even though it’s harder than staring into the sun. Much harder. Much worse. Much much more painful. “…Stop leaving, Nnnardo. Stop…you said you’d…”
Great going, Neon Leon!
“I’m not! I’m not I’m not I’m not!” Leo babbles. Lying! Lying lying liar. But oh God he would say anything, anything to make Dee stop crying, sweet Jesus Christ on a freaking bicycle this is the worst thing ever— “I’ll stay, okay? I’ll stay. Stop crying. Please stop crying, oh my God.”
Donnie does not stop crying.
And, like clockwork, even though neither of them have cried in years, even though Leo would very much like to keep it that way , even though this wouldn’t be a problem at all if Leo could use his awesome ninja powers and find his sword, or if Leo was any good at anything in the first place, and hadn’t stranded them here and hadn’t gotten Donnie sick and and and—
Leo cries too.
Sympathetic response. Awful. Tears carve downwards like brave explorers discovering new little scratches and cuts on his cheeks, down his jaw, down his neck, discovering them and boring them open with stinging salt. He fell into a bush yesterday. Lol.
“You’re nn- not , you’re not,” Donnie says miserably, like a child, breath hitching, punched out and hurt. “You’re g-gonna leave.”
“I won’t!” Leo takes a gasping breath and pulls away enough to spit salt sideways into the grass. “I really won’t—”
“You’re gonna leave an’ you’re gonna get hurt again.”
Ah.
Something with-a-capital-S lodges in the back of his trachea, thunk , and Leo actually coughs once or twice to try and loosen it, stopping only when there’s a sharp pain right at the hollow of his throat, like someone stabbing a big needle right in that little notch between his collarbones. Wow. Wow. Wow. Okay. Don’t want to think about that. Wish he could unhear that. Wipe it clear out of his fucking brain and salt the earth behind it, and all that jazz, wow!
“I’m not,” Leo says weakly, knowing that the second Dee falls asleep, Leo is Audi 5000. Gone-zo. Splitsville USA. Back to the ravine and sharp and cold and stumbling through dark and just trying to fix this . Knowing this, seeing Donnie’s pitiful, tear-stained, fever-flushed face—
Leo crumples under the weight of all the Bullshit coming out of his mouth. He bends double, curling over his empty stomach, forehead landing on Donnie’s plastron.
A sweaty hand on the back of his head. Trembling. And then, a little pat-pat.
“I’m sorry, ” Leo chokes out. Feels like vomiting. Like he could die with it. Guilt, viscous and sour and horrible, welling up in his throat no wait that actually is vomit—
He doesn’t throw up on Donnie’s plastron. He doesn’t throw up at all, if you wanna get all technical about it, just sort of retches strings of acid onto the grass and oh, there’s his blood from earlier! Wow! It’s a real party over here!
“…Eat,” Donnie mumbles, still grabbing at whatever of Leo he can reach. He’s gone all cloudy and dim again.
Leo coughs. Rinses his mouth out and forces down three entire nuts, because he will not deny Donnie this, and honestly if you wanna be real about it he’s a little scared , okay?
A little scared. Ha. Hahahah .
“Sorry.” Leo clears his throat. “Didn’t—just sleep, Don, okay? Please, please just sleep. I’ll stay.”
(‘Till you fall asleep.)
Donnie squints at him. Makes an awful little sound in the back of his throat, a little whimper or God it might be a chirp, but either way it puts that needle-sharp pain back in Leo’s throat. ‘Tello manages, painfully, “You’ll…stay?”
Leo nods.
(‘Till you fall asleep.)