I seem to be on a roll lately.

This is an experiment. It's a lot of other things too, and it's very different from my other works. Some may know the style. I'm not sure. But thank you to any and all who read it, and another big thanks to those who tell me their thoughts.

Sometimes Donatello scares him.

Leo knows his brother doesn't mean to. He probably doesn't even know it's happening. But he sees it, this look in his brother's eyes, this clear eye stare. It always happens when he's fixing one of them up. Sewing their skin back together, wiping the blood out of their eyes, setting bones back into place when there was just no time for them to heal.

His eyes are always crystal when he does these things.

They weren't at first. They were the same chocolate browns, the same Don look, in the beginning. He was still too green, still couldn't patch his brothers up quick and clean when fighting was happening feet away, and still shook a bit when they got back home. He didn't understand it yet, whatever it was.

Now though, they clear when he's working on his brothers. Or himself, if he has to. They dust red, whether there's blood or not. All the mist, all the indecision, clears away and he's working fast and efficient. His fingers just move, already used to instruments made for human hands.

Don's always searching for something in the wounds, too. Leo catches him staring. Combing for something in the way the skin and scale breaks. How the blood oozes from the wound, coats his hands like a syrup and tinges the air copper. He's looking in the zipper stitches, tracing the scars like Braille, hunting for something only he can see.

Leo decides Don is always going to look for something. Always search with his clear eyes for answers only he cares about. And he feels lonely for Don when he thinks this, because he wants to bring his brother back from that. Away from the questions and the answers he can only find in the blood, in the copper, in deft hands and scalpels. He doesn't know how, though. Doesn't have the words. Not yet.

One night Don's sitting in his medic room, looking over Raph, fixing up a splint. It's sterile, methodical work and he does it with clear, dusty red eyes. He feels Leo's gaze on him and breaks from routine. Turns to Leo and says, "What's on your mind?"

Leo shrugs. Clears his throat. "I... I'm really not sure."

Don nods like he understands, which he might since he's so smart. Too smart. Leo thinks it'll hurt him one day, how smart he is. "Sometimes you can't be sure." Don checks Raph for anymore bruises, taking advantage of his sleep. He always fidgets otherwise, like he knows Don's scanning him. Digging deeper than he should, pulling out something private. "But when you are certain, when you know what's happening and what to do, it just sort of clicks. Even the things you don't understand yet. It's like you can see them. Like you can touch them."

The words surprise Leo. He thinks maybe Don is trying to tell him something, something important, something big. He listens hard, wants to hear the message. Understand this part of Don a bit better.

"When I fix you guys up, clean the wounds and wrap you up in bandages, it's like I'm seeing something." Don loses himself in his own words. He's speaking some truth. Maybe it's the truth he sees when he sets broken bones and hears the wails that follow. Maybe it's some other truth, found in the books upon books of who knows what in his room. Maybe it's a combination of truths. Maybe it's no truth at all.

Leo's head spins.

"I can see what we're doing. What we're going to do. This is war, I start thinking. This is really a war and I'm your field medic. And pretty soon, we're going to have to kill the enemy. Because he isn't going to leave us alone. He's going to kill us. All of us. And it's so obvious when I have to patch you guys up."

Leo focuses on his brother's crystal clear eyes. There's red there, always a glint, and he wonders if maybe the blood's just stained them. Their blood is in Don's eyes, not on his hands.

That truth swells in his chest. Don senses it, steps closer. They feel that truth in the air, in the blood. The room's bleeding copper and they keep breathing it in. "Even if we want to avoid that, we can't. You've seen what he does, right? What he almost did to us on that roof... So that means we have to hit him first."

Don doesn't say what he means to say. He doesn't have to. Leo can look down at Raphael, breathing easy on the table, oblivious to their conversation. He can look down and see it. It's not in the blood. It's everywhere.

Don looks back down. His eyes are seeing something Leo can't see, and now Leo's miles away from his brother. Or his brother is miles from him.

Don's face falls. He's digging through his mind, trying to put his thoughts into words that Leo can understand. But eventually he just shakes his head, and Leo's stomach shrivels a bit, but he knows he wouldn't have understood anyway. Because there are only so many truths between them. Only so many things that can be put into words.

"It's all here, you know." Don puts a hand on Raph's chest. It moves with his breathing. Up and down. Up and down. Over and over with Raph's breathing. Like waves against the sand. "Everything you need to know is right here."

It could mean a thousand things and it can mean nothing. Leo nods, says he understands.

They both know he doesn't.

Another time, Leo's looking up at the sky, flat on his shell and desperate to catch his breath. There's this sharp, hot coal pain in his stomach and-ow, ow, shell it hurts-it's spreading down to his toes. Coming up to his eyes. The sky is dark blue turning black. The streetlights are stars and the world is spinning again. He spots a lone pigeon flying over his head and somewhere in the haze of pain, something clicks.

Don's face pops into view and he's looking down at Leo with clear eyes with a red tint, and he's already covered in blood but it doesn't matter. The coals are bubbling to the surface of his skin, pushing past the scales, pooling in his stomach, turning the whole world orange. He forgets to breathe.

"It's all right, Leo. I have you."

Leo grabs onto one of the coals in his stomach, which is really a sword digging into him. He doesn't remember it happening, doesn't think it matters. He holds on until the coals burn into his brain, into the back of his eyeballs. It's telling him something, something that can't be said in words. The same truth Don was telling him before is burning through his eyes, lighting them up like fireworks.

"I know, I know, thank you." A rush of words. He wants to say he understands. Can't, because of all the coal in his mouth, all the little embers falling like the spittle of fire. Down into his blood, down into the earth.

Everything. It's all right here.