Title: Remnants
Author: Raykushi
Disclaimer: Rights to TMNT belong to Nickelodeon and others. This is a fan piece only and no monetary gain comes from its publication.
Incarnation: 2012 TV show
Summary: Three brothers have a hard time shaking off the effects of the nightmare world of the Dream Beavers. Takes place after "In Dreams."
Warnings/Ratings: None/G
Word Count: 3,867
Remnants
"Since when do you drink coffee, Donnie?"
Donatello yelped and whirled around, a can of instant coffee in his hands and a guilty expression on his face. "Ah! Hi, April." He looked down at his hands. "Oh, this? Uh, I was... you know... uh... Nothing!" Hastily he shoved the canister into a kitchen cabinet and slammed the door.
The redhead stepped into the kitchen, a curious eyebrow raised. She had wanted to ask Donnie and Casey if they had dropped Bernie back at his store safely. When the van was parked back in its usual spot beside the farm house, April went searching and found Donnie standing in the middle of the kitchen, staring at his new acquisition.
"I heard that stunts your growth," April told him with a light smile, trying for a joke.
Donnie immediately stuttered out something about an experiment, his expression caught between embarrassment and guilt.
"Maybe you should have a cup." Casey Jones' lanky form sauntered into the kitchen behind April. "Or, you know, a lot of cups. You're tall enough."
Donatello glared at him for eavesdropping.
The teenage boy was unfazed by the baleful look. "Where'd you even get it?" Casey questioned, glancing at the cabinet. "Did you steal it from Bernie's shop?"
"Of course not!" Donatello scowled at him. "I left money for it! You just didn't notice because you were too busy seeing what funny pose you could leave him in before he woke up."
Casey chuckled at his own antics. He turned to April. "I stuck his hand in that jar of candy," he said. "That stuff was so nasty, anybody'd think they'd been hallucinating. He'll probably wake up and think the whole thing was just a great big dream, talking turtles and all."
"Until he sees his book is gone," April pointed out.
"Well, yeah. 'Til then."
Donatello crossed to the sink and started piling the dirty dishes from breakfast onto the sideboard. Not that he was a big fan of doing household chores (he hadn't even participated in breakfast today and actually it was Mikey's turn for dishes), but he knew that if he started in on them, then April would join in and Casey would disappear before he got drafted into helping.
As expected, April moved to help as soon as she saw what he was doing and Casey made an excuse that he needed to do something in the barn. Donatello turned on the hot water and dropped the plug into the drain, squirting dish soap into the sink.
April grabbed a clean dish towel for drying. "So what kind of experiment is it?" she asked, as if they hadn't been interrupted.
"Oh, um..." He busied himself with dumping a stack of cereal bowls into the soapy water, letting the clatter fill the silence. Spending one-on-one time with April was great, but she was sharp and not much got by her. Even things he didn't exactly want to explain. "An experiment with dreams," he said finally.
"You mean an experiment with not dreaming?" she guessed deftly.
The turtle's shoulders slumped. "Am I that obvious?"
April rinsed suds off the scrubbed dishes as Donnie passed them to her. "It must have been pretty crazy, if the Beavers could control everything in your dreams the way Bernie said. I don't think I'd be really eager to fall asleep again after something like that."
Donnie nodded glumly. He didn't want to tell her just how much he was dreading the oncoming night. Like, contemplating how many days he could go without sleep... that sort of dread.
"What was it like?" April glanced at him. "If you don't mind me asking." Don hesitated and she added, "I think sometimes it helps to talk about these kinds of things."
He shivered. "The Dream Beavers were in total control of the dream realm. They could do whatever they wanted to us, and the red one spent like the whole time chasing me around, telling me how much he wanted to eat me. But nothing made any sense. Everything was all so random. At one point I was in the sewers in New York, then in an office building, ran into an elevator, and came out of the fridge here in the kitchen!"
"Well, dreams are like that, right?" April said with a shrug.
Donatello scoffed. "Mine aren't."
April dried the pan Mikey had fried eggs in that morning. "I guess I can see how that would be unsettling, then," she agreed. "But I don't think trying to avoid sleep is the answer. The Dream Beavers went back to their own dimension, right?"
"That's the theory," he said with a shrug back at her. "Though it's hard to say for certain."
"I don't think they're going to stick around, in our dimension or our dreams." April tried to sound confident. "They were really upset when they found out what happened when they crossed over into this dimension." Add that to the list of things I never thought I'd say before meeting talking ninja turtles, she silently added.
"Yes. It's too bad we didn't have that issue with the Kraang," Donatello replied with a weak grin. "They'd be a lot easier to handle if they came through the portals in miniature."
April laughed, which put a real grin on Don's face. "They would still be a threat if they tried to infiltrate the planet disguised as used chewing gum."
"The streets would never be safe from their tyranny," Donatello agreed, and they both laughed.
Donatello felt much better. He pulled the plug and allowed the greasy water to circle down the drain. "Thanks, April."
She smiled at him in that way that always made his insides do flips. "Anytime."
. ~ . ~ .
Later that evening, the household had all draped themselves over the couch, chairs and floor in the old farmhouse's living room, bathed in the glow of late-night television. If there was a tense uneasiness in the air, it was at least partially covered by Michelangelo's enthusiastic cheering for the hero on the screen.
Donatello's confidence from his talk with April had waned as the afternoon went by. The images from his dreams stuck cloyingly close, hanging around his head like a cloud he couldn't shake off. After dinner, when everyone else had left the kitchen, Donatello pulled out his canister of instant coffee and read the instructions on the back. Boil water, add powdered coffee, stir. Simple.
It was bitter and acidic, and spooning heaps of sugar in didn't help. It just tasted like bitter acid with granular sweetness sunk to the bottom. But like unappealing medicine, he set his face and tipped back his head, shooting it down.
Despite two cups of the stuff, Donatello still found that he could barely keep his eyes open by the time they were all gathered around the TV in the evening. And he wasn't the only one. Raphael caught himself in a yawn and suddenly sat up straight in his chair, growling. "What the heck, how can I be tired!? We slept all day!"
"I suspect we weren't able to get any real restorative rest while the Beavers were in control," Donatello replied, automatically answering even if the question had been mostly rhetorical. He didn't add the creepy description April had given them of how their vital signs had all slowed as the Dream Beavers had drained their energy. Most likely that was the real reason the coffee wasn't having any effect on him. Despite the stimulant in his system, he just needed more time to recover his energy.
Donatello glanced around. Mikey was sprawled on the floor in front of the TV, knees bent with his feet in the air, the picture of unconcern. Raphael sank back in his seat, grumbling about Donnie's answer, but his hands were gripping the stuffed chair arms tightly. Leo sat on the far edge of the couch, his good leg drawn up close to his body, resting his chin on his knee pad. It wasn't a relaxed posture, more like he wanted to be ready to jump up in a hurry if he had to. Leo was on edge too.
April sat in the other chair pulled up beside the couch. "At least tonight we're all getting a chance to relax!" she said with forced cheerfulness. Maybe she could sense the tension in the air as well.
Mikey was the first to start drifting off, his head starting to slip off the hand propping it up. Raph kicked his foot and told him to go to bed if he was just going to fall asleep in front of the TV. Covering a yawn, Michelangelo headed for the stairs, waving good night.
April was next, leaving the three older turtles and Casey to yawn themselves through several more episodes. Casey soon passed out, having moved from the couch to the more comfortable chair April had vacated, leaving the three brothers to glance at one another and trying not to make it obvious.
When the next episode ended Leonardo stood, stretching his arms above his head. "We're not training late in the morning just because we stayed up watching TV tonight," he announced.
Donnie dutifully climbed to his feet too, his mind fogged over with the need to sleep. Raphael looked like he wanted to object, but his eyelids were lethargically sliding down over his eyes even as he tried to order his brain to think up a retort. Grumbling, he gave in and stood up. Casey woke with the noise of the other three getting up, and they all made their way upstairs.
Logically, Donatello knew it wasn't likely that the Dream Beavers would be returning to terrorize them. They were probably too wary of someone creating another Obturaculum Somniorum and trapping them in the dream realm again. But that didn't make his unease any less as he climbed the stairs behind Leonardo.
. ~ . ~ .
Red eyes in the darkness, the rough feel of a wet tongue against his cheek...
Donatello sat up in bed, shivering. It was no good. The moment he closed his eyes, all he could remember was the sound of that Beaver's crazed laugh. As tired as he was, there wouldn't be any sleep happening tonight. He swung his legs over the side of the bed and slid out from under the blankets, trying to ignore his imagination telling him how something could be unrealistically hiding under the bed, ready to grab his ankles the moment his feet touched the floor.
It was dark with the curtains drawn tight over the windows, but he tied his mask on and crossed to the door without hitting anything else in the room, going by memory. Gently he turned the knob and pushed the door open to let himself out into the hall. Water gurgled through pipes inside the wall and under his feet old wooden boards creaked in the cooling air. The house made all sorts of odd noises, especially at night.
So do teenagers, Donatello reflected as he walked by a bedroom with loud squeaky snores emanating from within.
He made his way downstairs and stopped in the front foyer, realizing he didn't really have a planned destination in mind. The downstairs rooms were colored in shades of silver-blue and shadow, illuminated from beams of bright moonlight streaming through the windows. They were closed; no sounds of nighttime insects or the wind in the trees reached Donatello from his position. Everything was safe here. So why was he on edge?
He took a few steps toward the living room, trying to find comfort in his ability to analyze the sights and sounds of the dark house, combating the alarm that wanted to rise up in his chest. That low hum on the edge of his hearing was the refrigerator in the kitchen, that shift of a shadow across the couch came from a curtain moving in a draft from the old window.
But the slight noise behind him was a sudden foreign sound in his analytics.
Donatello darted a look over his shoulder and caught a dark shadow, person-shaped, with the gleam of two eyes gazing at him from the bottom of the stairs. He almost squealed as he whirled around, one arm reaching over his shoulder for a bo staff he wasn't carrying.
The shadow changed shape and slid forward, his brother's distinct form outlined. Donatello dropped his hand with a sigh of relief as Leonardo limped into the moonlight, moving silently even with his crutch.
The two turtles shared a long look, facing each other in the darkened foyer, each waiting for the other to give in and speak first. But a wooden board creaked overhead and they both glanced up just as the stocky form of Raphael leaped over the banister on the second floor and landed lightly beside them, barely making a sound.
Donatello was the one who broke the silence. "Couldn't sleep either?" he asked weakly.
Raphael scoffed and crossed his arms. "Just thought I'd take a look around the perimeter, nothing big," he grumbled.
Leonardo shifted his crutch. "Leg's being annoying again," he said shortly, his tone aggravated. Donatello translated that to mean the pain was keeping him awake. At least Leo had an excuse.
"There's aspirin in the kitchen," the taller turtle pointed out, but Leonardo was shaking his head before he even finished speaking.
"No need. I'm fine."
His brother's stubbornness made Donnie frown. "There's no point in depriving yourself of sleep over something like that. The more rest you get, the better."
"Donnie's right, Leo," Raph was quick to agree, as he was whenever the discussion of Leo's injury came up.
Leonardo glanced around the foyer to avoid meeting their eyes. "Doesn't really matter. I don't think I'd be sleeping much anyway."
Awkward silence followed. Donatello remembered his conversation with April earlier in the day, and how he'd felt better for a time afterward. "Maybe if we talked about it..."
Immediately Raph threw his hands up in the air. "I'm not doing any touchy-feely stuff. I need a drink." He marched into the kitchen, then there was the sound of glassware clinking and the faucet running.
Leo and Donnie shared another pointed look. By unspoken agreement they drifted after Raphael into the kitchen.
Leonardo slumped into one of the chairs at the kitchen table, glaring at the bottle of pills Donnie set down in front of him as if it personally offended him. Donatello pushed it closer to him, a stern expression on his face. It was the expression of one who would be more than happy to seize onto a distraction from this situation, such as a long, verbose lecture about taking care of your body. To save himself, Leo grabbed the bottle and dug out two pills and swallowed them dry, since Raphael was monopolizing the sink area and staunchly ignoring their presence.
Satisfied, Donatello sank into the chair across from Leo. On their own accord, his eyes drifted down to the tabletop, thoughts turning inward. "I think those Beavers had been watching us, watching our thoughts," he said lowly, puzzling out the idea that had been haunting him all day. "They knew exactly how to throw us off, what to do to make us on edge and unable to concentrate, unable to fight back. They must have been able to monitor our dreams, or our minds."
Leonardo's eyes widened. "You think so?"
Donatello nodded, and briefly he told them what he had experienced fighting the red-furred beaver, the scenes of mayhem and lack of logic he had to deal with. "I didn't like it," he added unnecessarily, a shiver running under his skin. Suddenly tired again, he allowed his chin to drop onto his folded arms on the table.
"So you had a completely normal dream?" Raphael snorted, leaning on the edge of the sink and watching a drip from the faucet, unknowingly echoing April's comment from earlier.
"I don't like things that don't make sense," Donatello mumbled into his arms. He lifted his head and glared at Raphael's back. "Plus he was trying to eat me."
Leonardo took a breath, held in, then let it out slowly. He felt the attention of both his brothers, and pushed himself to speak despite their focus. "My dream started out cool. I got super powers from a meteor crash-landing in the woods behind the house. I could run, I could jump higher than the trees. But my powers were useless when that Beaver attacked me. He countered all my moves, without even breaking a sweat. And you guys weren't there, I was facing him alone and I couldn't do anything..." He trailed off, then he muttered, "I hate feeling helpless."
Raphael abruptly turned away from the sink and faced the table, holding his empty drinking glass in his fist. "There were snakes," he announced.
Leo and Don blinked at him.
"Big snakes," he clarified. "And fire. And metal music. And you guys and Mikey were there." He frowned sharply at the glass in his hand. "And then the snakes ate you."
Leo and Don stared.
Raphael coughed. "It's crazy, right?" He realized how tightly his hand was squeezing the glass and he stepped forward and put it down on the table before it broke. "Stupid dreams."
Donatello shifted in his seat. "They knew exactly what to do to get to us." He rolled his eyes upward, toward the ceiling. "What about Mikey?"
Raph snorted. "I asked him earlier. While we were dealing with nightmares, he was playing ball with the stupid blue one using a giant peppermint."
"Oh good." Donatello sighed in relief, causing Raphael to narrow his eyes in annoyance for a moment, but then the expression passed.
"Yeah," he grunted. He wasn't so petty that he wanted Mikey to have gone through nightmares, even if the rest of them had had a bad time of it. Frustrated, he growled and kicked the leg of the table, jarring it under Don and Leo's arms. "Well this is just great. So you're saying they were digging around in our heads to throw our own weaknesses back in our faces?"
"Well they didn't succeed!" Leonardo snapped, slapping a palm down on the table angrily.
Raphael crossed his arms over his chest. "I dunno, seems like they got us pretty good, considering we're standing here in the middle of the night like a bunch of kids who watched some late-night horror flick and are too scared to go to bed." He sounded disgusted, most likely with himself.
Leonardo shook his head. "No. They tried to trip us up so they could take us down, and it didn't work." He turned to Donnie. "Don, you did make sense of it. You figured out it was all a dream. And I wasn't alone. You guys had my back, like you always do. And we all made it out in one piece.
"We're stronger than they are, and that's why we beat them," Leonardo insisted.
Donatello scratched the back of his neck. "But Leo, in actuality we wouldn't even be here right now if it wasn't for April and Casey," he pointed out.
Leo narrowed his eyes at his taller brother, considering the point, and then nodded. "Yes. Having friends like that is a type of strength too." He squared his shoulders. "And we're going to be there to return the favor someday, but not if we don't put our fears behind us."
Don sat up straighter too. Leonardo's words resonated with him as he realized he couldn't protect April if he couldn't even get past the unsettling images of a bad dream.
Then Raphael was nodding. "You're right, Leo. No way am I letting anything happen to Casey—or you guys—just because some stupid Beaver was trying to mess with my head."
Donatello started to agree. But a low thump from the ceiling above drew all their gazes upward, muscles tensed, hands automatically reaching for weapons they didn't have. Seconds ticked by in silence and no one moved. Then there was the slow, methodical plodding sound of footsteps on the stairs, sounding unlike the step of any of their family and more like an unhurried beast coming relentlessly down toward their position. Slowly the three of them, defenseless, turned to the foyer. A shadow grew there at the bottom of the steps, reaching out toward the kitchen.
Michelangelo stepped into the kitchen amidst sharp exhalations as three brothers stopped holding their breaths all at the same time.
Donatello opened his mouth to say something sharp, but Leo elbowed him in the side and when he glanced at him questionably, blue eyes darted back to Mikey silently. Don looked a second time. Their youngest brother didn't seem to recognize any of them. His eyes were dull and unfocused as he stepped around them and opened the refrigerator door. Sleepwalking, Donatello realized in amazement.
Mikey picked up a leftover frozen pizza from the bottom shelf, closed the fridge door, and turned around. He made his slow way back through the kitchen, stepping around his brothers without seeing them. "Come back, spicy gummy worms, I'll share my magical treasure with you," he distinctly mumbled. Then climbed back up the stairs in the same slow fashion.
Awed silence was left behind in the kitchen. "Well, now I've seen everything," Raphael announced, shaking his head. "But I'd give 50/50 odds that he was really asleep and not just pranking us."
"So that's where the leftovers go," Donatello mused aloud.
Leonardo sighed and told himself he needed to have a talk with his youngest brother about midnight snacks. Tomorrow. For right now, the aspirin was kicking in and the ache in his head and leg were returning to a background hum behind a wave of insistent exhaustion, and he lifted his hand to cover his mouth as he widely yawned. The tension that had covered the household like a static cling in the air seemed to be gone. "'M sleeping now," he declared, moving to follow the path to the stairs Michelangelo took moments ago.
Don and Raph fell into step behind him, finally able to let go of the remnants of unpleasant dreams.
Author's Notes:
"In Dreams" is by far my favorite episode of season 3 so far! I was itching to analyze the turtles' nightmare scenes, so when this little idea wormed into my brain I had to write it down.
(Yes yes, I know it's anathema in this fandom that I dare write a story where Donatello doesn't like coffee. XD Going by my own reactions to the stuff, I figure it's a taste he has to acquire over time.)