[Hope someone likes this, its my first story on f.f. I don't own the characters etc. :) This is set after the events in the episode "Same as it never was"...enjoy! Purple_Tinted.]
Donny shifted and groaned, his usually placid face contorted in anguish. "Stop! ...Go away...no!...please", he mumbled, clearly absorbed in his nightmare. Raphael, lurking in the thershold of the genius turtle's bedroom, sighed as he felt the stabbing guilt pierce his gut. He stood silently, still and stoic as a statue, watching his little brother suffer. The bluish light from the computer illuminated Donatello's strained features, as he struggled through yet another night of feverish memories. Raph hesitated in the threshold, contemplating entering and attempting to calm his brother, but as Donny cried out again, he chickened out, and hurriedly made his way back to his room telling himself that he wouldn't have been able to help anyway, and that he was probably the last person that Donny would want to see when he was so clearly upset.
They were all staring at him. Staring with those empty, sightless eyes, silently accusing him with their blank, souless gaze. He knew it was his fault, he didn't need to see the stares to rip his heart wide open. He was pathetic, a failure, a sad waste of space. Any one of them was worth ten of him. They knew it too, that's why they'd chosen to leave him, alone in the darkness. Always alone. Alone with the blood, the bodies mutilated beyond all comprehension, alone with his failure with only the dead for company.
He woke sobbing, tangled in his sheets, the pale moniter casting threatening shadows on the wall. Trembling, shoulders heaving, he gasped desparately for air, shuddering as the horror of his dream was replayed through his mind. It took a full ten minutes for the crushing panic to subside, but the sense of guilt and failure still remained. Suddenly the room was too dark, the weight of the inky blackness was stifling. It pressed down on him, all around, enveloping him in pitch black nothingness. The shadows leered at him from the imposing walls. He had to get out. With a strangled choking sound escaping his lips, Donatello bolted away from the darkness, to the one place there was always a comforting light source, an aura of family, and enough space to breathe. The dojo.
Leonardo awoke with a jolt as a muffled noise echoed from the training room. Hands already clutching the handles of his Katana blades, he rose softly and padded swiftly to the doorway of the family dojo. The candles were lit within,as they always were, and through the soft flickers of light, Leo saw his brother curled in the middle of the room. The younger turtle remained unaware of his presence, his eyes streamed and he was trembling dreadfully. Concerned, the eldest brother made his way to the centre of the room, and knelt down beside his sibling. "Donny? Don...you ok bro? Talk to me, what's wrong?"
Donatello didn't raise his eyes from the spot they were fixed upon, and if anything seemed to shake more violently. He wasn't ready yet. He wasn't sufficiently calm enough to look up into his brother's anxious features and know how he, Don, was going to fail him when he needed him the most. He just couldn't deal with that yet, the choking weight of the dark room was still lingering over him, and he knew that until he managed to regain some semblance of control over his shaking body he wouldn't be able to stop himself from spilling the whole story of that hideous future to Leo. And Leo didn't deserve that.
For a brief moment Leo feared his brother had collapsed and was having some kind of seizure. Gazing down with worry clouding his brown eyes, Leonardo almost missed his brother's whispered, tremulous response. "M'ok Leo". A slight flicker of annoyance coursed through him at that, overriding the fear. Donatello was clearly not alright in the slightest, everyone in the family knew that the brainiac of the turtles was having trouble sleeping since returning from the place he had been sent to. None of them had been able to persuade Don to enlighten them about his trip, but all had been aware of the persistent nightmares that had followed. Now, it seemed whatever had affected his brother so badly was also having some serious physical repercussions as well. Donny seemed to be gasping for air, and his shaking limbs were icy cold to the touch. His brother was hurting, and then and there Leo decided that enough was enough. There was no excuse for this blatent denial.
"Donatello, you are definately not ok. Look, I know what this is about. Can't you just tell me, let me help?". At this, Don curled up tighter, shaking his head and refusing still to so much as glance at his eldest brother. He flinched as Leo laid a hand on his shoulder, and bit his lip to stop himself from crying out that he didn't deserve Leo's concern, he didn't deserve his brother. With a deep, shuddering breath, Don was finally able to stifle the tremors that wracked his body, and, as Leo sat and simply watched, he wiped away the tears that adorned his olive cheeks, and rubbed a hand over watery grey eyes. About three quarters of an hour after Leo had entered the dojo, and an hour after Donatello had woken from his nightmare, the turtle was finally able to turn those deep, pained eyes to his brother, and rasp a soft apology. Leonardo had a feeling that Don was apologising for more than just the recent events of the evening, and simply frowned lightly, pulling his brother close and saying; "Don, you have got to tell us what's going on with you. You can't keep hiding this, it isn't healthy. Don't you trust me little brother? I want to help you, I'm your brother, I don't want to let you down."
At this, Donatello's face seemed to clear of all emotion, and he stood (albeit a little unsteadily) with a blank, unresponsive gaze. Muttering quietly to Leonardo with his eyes fixed on something behind him, he turned to go, and practically ran back to his room, slamming the door behind him. Leo could only stare after him, the words Donny had muttered circling round and round his head- "You shouldn't care what happens to me, you could never let me down worse than I will this family. You should hate me...but then again I hate me enough for both of us." Having stood when Don rose, Leo rubbed a hand over his tired eyes and decided to ask his father for guidance later in the day. For now though, he would return to bed, to catch what little was left of the night's slumber. As he walked down the hallway that led to each of the turtle's bedrooms, he couldn't help but notice that Raphael's door was ajar, and (upon closer inspection) could clearly spy that his angriest brother was still awake. Annoyance once again flared within Leo's chest as he realised that his brother may have been aware of Donatello's anguish and simply done nothing. Now wasn't the time to deal with it, but Leo was certain he and the red clad turtle would be having words about that later.
In his room, Donatello reached for his secret stash of caffeine tablets, knowing that he had no intention of allowing himself to fall asleep for a while. Leo had been so close to cracking him, it was only through shoving his emotions down deep inside him that he had managed to remain composed. This nightmare was one of the worst so far, and the resultant panic attack had been distressing to a new level. His chest still ached now, and this merely fueled his determination to remain awake and thus, nightmare free. The fact that he was so weak physically as a result of the sleepless nights didn't even occur to him, as he pulled out a half finished project and resigned himself to working on it until his brothers and father rose for breakfast.
Meanwhile, Raphael stared at the ceiling from his position in his hammock, and found his thoughts centered on his little brother and the torment he appeared to be undergoing alone. He had wanted so badly to go to Donny when he had stood on that threshold, but he just couldn't deal with how he would be unable to soothe his brother as he had when they were children. From an early age, Donny had always sought out Raph after he had a nightmare, or simply when something was bothering him, and Raph had listened (sometimes not understanding completely, but listening anyway) or sometimes simply hugged him tightly until he felt better. But when Raph had begun to grow angry and resentful of the world that forced them to cower underground, and to become incensed by Leonardo's controlling and often patronising leadership style- grudgingly he accepted that Leo was the best qualified to lead them, and the blue banded one was generally good at it, he just crossed the line sometimes- Don had stopped coming to him. Raph didn't blame him, he remembered the evening that had permanantely isolated him from Don.
A younger Donatello, about age ten, was sitting cross legged on the chair in the living area, fiddling with a remote controlled car. He was using his newly aquired book on mechanics to slowly take it apart. The book had been a birthday gift from his brothers Mikey and Leo, who had discovered it abandoned in the sewer run-off, and, with Master Splinter's help had dried it off and presented it proudly to their smart brother. The car had been a gift from his big brother Raphie, who had found it when he went topside with Splinter, and again, presented it to Donny as a gift. It didn't work, and Donny had discovered that if he took it apart and rebuilt it again, he may be able to fix it. Then instead of simply pushing it to one another, he and Raphie could drive it, make it go fast. And Raphie loved things that went fast.
The peace was suddenly broken when a younger Raphael and Leonardo stomped into the room, glaring and yelling fiercely at each other. A smaller Mikey trailed in behind them, and, seeing Donny, bounded over to investigate what his next biggest brother was doing with his birthday presents. Upon seeing his brother remove a wheel from the car, Michelangelo exclaimed loudly"Dude! Donny did you just break your car...on purpose?" Donny looked up, confusion accross his face. "No Mikey, I'm reading the book you and Leo gave me on taking things apart and I wanted to see..." he got no further as Raphael, who had stopped yelling at his stupid older brother when he heard Mikey's squeal, stalked over.
"Donny, you broke my present? What the hell? What, you think that Leo's gift is just so much better than mine, and it just doesn't matter?" Donatello looked up fearfully at his older brother's sudden fury and cried out "No, Raphie, I was trying to make it work so we could play with it".
Raphael remembered how he had been furious with Leo for making him look like a fool in their ninja training that morning, and how Mikey had taunted him, and Leo had told him he needed to work harder. He remembered thinking that Don had tried to break the car on purpose, and how he hadn't understood why his brother wouldn't even apologise. He remembered the utter fury that had flooded through his mind, and how, without thinking he had ripped the car from Donny's small fingers and thrown it accross the room, where it hit the wall and shattered into many pieces. He recalled pulling Donny out of the chair and screaming that he was the worst brother in the world, and punching him in the face, throwing him to the floor and jumping on him, pounding his little brother, who did nothing to fight back, and merely wailed that he was "sorry Raphie!" over and over. Only when Master Splinter was fetched by a frightened Mikey and he was dragged off of Don's bloodied and bruised frame by Leo did he realise what he'd done. He'd attacked his brother in anger, and Don hadn't even done anything wrong.
Donny had stopped coming to him after that, and for months afterwards had flinched when Raph came near. He also stopped calling him "Raphie", the name only he had called the red banded turtle. Raph lost his special bond with Donny, but two weeks later gained a working remote control car with a note saying sorry attached. Raph knew that he would have given anything to have the bond instead of that car.
Now, almost eight years later, Raph found himself wishing that his brother could still confide in him. Even when they were kids, Donny had listened to Raph's thoughts as Raph did for him, but after the car incident, the relationship had become strictly one sided. Donny was still Raph's confidant (it was his nature, he was such a good listener that all the brothers felt drawn to him when they needed to vent) but Raph had no clue what was going through his little brother's mind. Sighing, he rolled over, and attempted to get back to sleep, resigning himself to a restless slumber.
Along the hallway in Michelangelo's room, the youngest of the turtles dreamed peacefully of skateboards and pizza, completely unaware of the emotional turmoil of the night. His snoring drowning out all other sounds of life, Mikey lay clueless to the tension that the dawn would bring.
As morning broke in the underground household, the enticing smell of bacon wafted through the air, courtesy of Mikey's cookery skills.