lucetilogs | (no subject)

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(no subject)

Who:

thesevencodes
What: Training. For real.
When: Mike gets sent home. Don does some really unimpressive solo training, spends a night guarding Polka, and eventually gets his head back together. Then this happens.
Where: Starting outside C6, and probably ending up elsewhere.
Summary: Don apologizes to Raph for being a jerk in the best way he knows how: by giving Raph permission to abuse him until he becomes an acceptably competent ninja again.
Rating: PG-13
Where has Don been for the past week? Why, making a new bo staff. Crafting the simple weapon doesn't involve slaving for hours over a hot forge in the smithy - rather, he's been out in the woods, using the peace and quiet, the meditative carving of wood, to get his head back together.

He needs to train. He's been doing some work this week, out in the woods, and he's managed to bring himself back to a level that wouldn't make his father cry in embarrassment. (Shake his head sadly, yes - but at least he wouldn't be asking the ancestors how he got such lazy, undisciplined sons.)

Now, though, he needs help. He needs someone on a higher level, who can beat him back into shape, and then beat him into a better shape than he's ever been in before.

Fortunately, he knows such a person. And he knows that the individual in question will be all too willing to do it.

He prods the journal open with his toe. "Raph - come meet me behind the building. ... And don't panic. It's good news."

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"No!" He doesn't know what he's denying. "I would never hurt April! Even when I've been sick, and delirious, I never -"

He doesn't even hear the rest of his own words. The expression on Raph's face tells him that something is even more wrong than his brain is willing to comprehend.

"Donnie, you're not gettin' what I'm tryin' to say! I...dammit, I-I'm no good at this, okay!?"

"That monster, that thing, it wasn't you. It took over your mind. You didn't know what you were doing."

Edited 2010-04-21 01:26 (UTC)

"No..."

He's face-down in the dirt, and he doesn't know how he got there. Losing his mind, attacking a friend... it's his worst fear.

"It's not true!"

Raph reaches out toward his brother, fingers fluttering but never touching. He's at a complete and total loss. "Donnie...Don. I-I'm sorry."

"I...this, this's why we didn't tell you...I-I shouldn't've told you."

Don flies up from the ground, grabbing Raph's shoulders and pulling them together until they are literally snout-to-snout. "What happens to me? What happens?"

Raph's eyes widen in surprise at the reaction, his mouth opening and closing wordlessly. "I...we..."

There's so much more to know, so much more that he's gone through that even his Don doesn't know about. Like almost losing him for good. Donnie almost died because of this.

No.

No, there's only one thing that matters. When he speaks again, his voice is strong, without a trace of waver.

"We cure you, Donnie. You come back to us."

Don collapses forward again, his hands slipping over the rim of Raph's carapace, and this time he's the one sobbing on his brother's shoulder. It's a long few minutes before he can form words again.

"Did anyone... did anyone get hurt... ?"

Raph stays calm, stoic, demonstrating more control than he has in weeks, months. He'll be strong when he needs to be, swallow his brother's pain with his own, tracing slow circles over his shell as he cries.

"Shh...It's okay, Outoto. It all worked out. Nothing happened. You know we'd never let it."

Grammar fails. He's crying too much to make all the right sounds anyway.

"Raph... not... tell me something.... Need to... what I do?"

"Shh..." His hand keeps its rhythm, following the marks and ripples he could trace by heart. Donnie, his brother. Nothing will ever get in the way of that. Come Hell and high water, they will always be there for one another, to lift each other up. "It'll be fine. Now you know. You can make it change."

"No!" Just as Raph's fingers know their way through the pattern of Don's shell, Don's fist knows where to thump Raph's carapace so he'll feel the jolt through his whole body. "What aren't you telling me? What did I do?"

"Ugh, ow." He pushes his brother away for a moment, so he can look into his eyes. "Donnie, do you seriously think I'd lie to you? Nothing happened. We were all fine, okay? You gotta believe me."

Don searches his brother face. He wants to believe, wants to trust, but it's hard to do when his brothers refused to tell him anything for fully two months.

"Swear to me," he says finally. "Swear."

"I..." He squirms under his gaze. Lie. All you gotta do is lie.

If only it was that easy.

"Donnie, I told you, you weren't yourself. None of it was your fault. You couldn't've stopped it even if you tried."

"Stopped what?" Damn it, Raph, stop deflecting! "Saying 'it wasn't your fault' and 'you can change it' implies that there's an it!"

"There's no 'it'!" Raph's frustration is gradually escalating into anger, making it harder and harder to spare his brother's feelings. "You attacked us, okay!? And we fought you off. We restrained you and sedated you. That is 'it'."

He tightens his grip on Don's shoulders.

"Nothing else happened. All I wanna do is keep you...keep us from goin' through that again. Is that such a freakin' crime!?"

Edited 2010-04-22 00:37 (UTC)

"... Shit."

The curse slips out, one more tiny stone dropping into the turbulent waters of his life.

"Don't... don't wait." These words swim from him, finding a way against the current that threatens to drown him, trying to steer an easier path for them all. "If it happens again... sedate me first."

That's all the matters. As long as he doesn't hurt anyone, they can take all the time in the world to find a cure.

Ouch. That word coming out of Donnie's mouth makes him flinch. Raph could probably count on one hand how many times he's heard his brother openly swear like that. And considering his natural lack of fingers, that's saying something.

"It doesn't matter, 'cause it's not gonna happen again."

"Stop it." He pushes Raph away. "Think, Raph. Plan. You have to, because it sounds like I won't be able to. And I'm not going to let you go into that unprepared, because you were pretending it wouldn't happen."

"Donnie, you're confusin' me. I told you we already cured you in my time. It's done and over with! What'm I supposed to do!?"

Don stops short.

Raph is right: when he gets ejected from Luceti, he'll return to his own time, a time where Don has already gotten sick and gotten cured. He's the one who still has to deal with this.

"Okay." He shifts backwards, giving himself space so he can draw in the dirt. "Tell me what you did. Tell me what you should have done. When I get home, I'll tell... the other you."

Frustration burns like hot pin pricks, and he feels his muscles tightening painfully. "I told you everything already. What more do you want?"

Raph raises his hand to his forehead, trying to fend off an incoming headache. "I hate this timeline crap."

"You only told me what I dragged out of you!" Don makes a sharp movement, drawing Raph's attention. "What did you sedate me with? Did you have enough of it on hand? What about the cure, where did you get it?"

He thinks furiously, trying to ask all the right questions.

And then he realizes he's been missing the most important one.

"Raph, when did I get stung? What day? Maybe I could wear protective gear, and just avoid the whole thing..."

Raph sighs heavily, letting his hand fall into his lap again, eyes turned heavenward. "I don't know what they sedated you with. All I know is after a while, you started gettin' used to it."

His hand travels up again to pinch the space between his eyes. "And I don't remember the day. It was months ago. I wanna say May. Yeah, late in May."

We're skipping over the cure part, Don. Even his Donnie doesn't know the full extent of that.

Edited 2010-04-22 03:58 (UTC)

"May." He scratches a glyph in the dirt. "Okay. I won't leave the Lair until June."

Then he frowns. "No, wait. People say that when you leave here, you don't remember anything. I can't -" He swipes his hand angrily over his scrawling. "Damn it."

It's all been a waste. He can't change it, no matter what Raph says, because when he gets home he won't remember this conversation.

So he goes to the opposite extreme: not to the beginning, trying to head off the catastrophe, but to the end, where they start to rebuild.

"Just tell me it all works out," he says. "Tell me everyone is okay. So I'll know while I'm here. So I don't have to look at anyone... and know I'm going to hurt them."