Part 21

"Just come home, Mikey. Just...just get back home."

Michelangelo didn't know what to make of the flat emotion of Raphael's voice. He hadn't heard his brother sound so emotionless since sitting by their wounded big brother, watching the snow fall outside the window as they bandaged up Leonardo's wounds together. Not scared, not sad. Just tired. Numb. Michelangelo didn't want to think about what that meant.

He felt a guilty twinge. Maybe he should have gone with them instead of—

No. Splinter had ordered him to take this side mission. He wouldn't question his master. He knotted off the bag and tied it to his belt, but it was still a long trek across the river and busy streets.

Almost an hour later, he arrived to find the lair dark, only the warm glow of the kitchen lighting the rest of his home. Raphael slumped on the couch, his head in his hands, and Splinter sat beside him, gazing past a point on the far wall. Michelangelo glanced around and found nothing out of place.

"What...what happened?" Michelangelo asked.

Raphael looked up at him, wiping the back of his hand across his eyes. Michelangelo breathed in. Raphael never let them see him cry, not so obviously. He quickly went to Raphael's side, sitting next to him and putting his arms around him.

"What happened?" he asked.

"Leo..." Raphael mumbled. "He got...oh, Mikey, it's so fucked up. I can't..."

Choking, Raphael shook his head. He turned, leaning close to their father, tucking close as Splinter put his arm around him.

Michelangelo guessed the worst, grimacing as he thought of how Leonardo must have broken his promise and slaughtered more people. He didn't want to think of it, imagining his brother's horrible twisted teeth as he attacked helpless humans...but he had to know for sure.

"Did Leo kill someone else?"

Splinter shook his head once, beginning to answer, but his voice came as if remembering a dream.

"I...doubt that. It...the attack would not have been so gruesome if he had. He would have been able to fight back, I think."

"'Fight back'?" Michelangelo frowned. "Will somebody just tell me what happened?"

Raphael murmured something inaudible. When Michelangelo leaned closer, he made out the words "torn apart" and "still moving." But Raphael didn't say anything else, and Splinter had pressed his hand to his head, fighting back more than a migraine. Strange that he hadn't tried to meditate, or tried to lead Raphael to meditation, to calm themselves down. But then maybe whatever Leonardo had done had left them too shaken for that.

"Mikey."

Michelangelo startled, looking up at Donatello in the lab doorway. His brother held his laptop and a camera. In the dark lair, the laptop bathed him in cold blue light, washing him out like a pale ghost. He stifled a yawn.

"Splinter said he sent you off to the hospital," Donatello said. "Did you get it?"

Michelangelo patted the plastic bag knotted on his belt.

"Bring it here then."

Donatello waved him closer, but instead of going back into his lab, they instead went to Leonardo's room. Michelangelo was startled to find a crucifix hanging on the door, and he gave Donatello a look.

"Can't hurt," Donatello muttered, opening the door.

Michelangelo followed him inside...and stopped.

The room was dark, the candles all cold, and Michelangelo suspected that the lightbulb was broken. Only a square of light from the door fell across his brother, half in, half out of shadow. Leonardo lay curled on the floor, eyes shut, not breathing, but more strikingly, his brother had gone a pale, pale shade of green.

"What the...?" Michelangelo whispered.

"This is nothing." Donatello put his laptop down and readied the camera. He focused on his older brother, took a photo and made a note. "You should've seen him when they brought him back. Torn almost in half and with a huge hole in the middle. Pretty sure there are chunks of shell all the way back here."

"Oh my god," Michelangelo whispered, "does it hurt—?"

Michelangelo took a step toward Leonardo only to have Donatello grab his wrist, holding him back. With a look, Michelangelo pulled free but didn't leave his side. He didn't have to get closer to see Leonardo's plastron, a long crack down the back. A patch of blood and exposed skin lay visible beneath the ragged edges of shell.

"What the hell happened?" Michelangelo said softly.

"I've been recording the healing process," Donatello said, "taking pictures every few minutes, but I've got another experiment going and Raph's totally worthless right now. So I need you to keep snapping pictures and let me know when he—"

Leonardo's eyes opened and focused on his little brother. Wide, intense, his gaze startled Michelangelo so much that he stumbled backward and landed with a jaw-jolting thud on the floor.

"Nevermind," Donatello said lowly, suddenly whispering and quick. "Okay, open it up and lay them out. I hope you got enough."

Michelangelo tore the bag and brought out five plastic bags of blood.

In an instant, Leonardo focused on the blood, but he couldn't move. His shoulders jerked as if he were a marionette with his strings pulled upright, and he closed his eyes again. His hands clenched into fists as he bent, head lowered, silent.

Donatello glanced at Michelangelo, then back at his brother. Biting his lip, Donatello watched Leonardo several seconds, his hand hovering over his staff still strapped on his back. When he thought his brother wasn't faking, he let go a long breath, not relaxing but no longer expecting to fight.

"Can you talk?" Donatello demanded.

Leonardo didn't respond except to tense until they heard bones creak.

"Can you control yourself?"

Leonardo tucked into a tighter curl. Michelangelo spotted the skin writhing under the crack riddling his shell, heard the sick shuck of flesh pulling the crack a little closer together.

"Okay..." Donatello prepared the camera again. "I don't like the way the flash is going to mess with the lighting in here, but if I guess right, we're going to need a clear shot—"

One of the candles glowed, smoldered, then came to life. A few others began to glow, but the smoke trailing up to the ceiling stopped and grew dark again. The rest remained cold.

Donatello paused, looking around himself. "Leo? Was that you?"

No response except silence. In the stillness of the room, they couldn't even hear their brother breathe.

"He can do that," Michelangelo said, coming to his feet. He picked up one of the candles and began lighting the rest. "He did that when he brought me in after I found out. All at once, in a flash. Guess he can't do it right now."

"He needs to eat." Donatello turned off the flash and set the camera aside, instead bringing up a page on his laptop. He glanced at the screen, then at Leonardo, and jotted down a short code of letters and numbers.

"It doesn't look like he can," Michelangelo said.

Donatello didn't answer. When Michelangelo finished the last candle, he sat down again.

"Okay," Donatello said. "This is how it's going to work. Mikey, you'll cut the bag. If he doesn't lunge at it, push it closer to him—"

"He's not an animal," Michelangelo snapped.

"He's a vampire that has killed people," Donatello said. "Excuse me if I want to be super cautious. The only reason I don't have him locked up in a cage is because he can walk through doors. Now cut the bag."

Michelangelo gave his brother a look, but Donatello had developed a resistance to his pouts. With a huff, Michelangelo drew the knife from his belt and made a short thrust into the plastic. Leaving it on one side so it wouldn't spill, he edged it closer to Leonardo's hand.

"See?" Michelangelo muttered. "He isn't gonna tear into either of us."

"I'll believe that after several logged encounters," Donatello said, turning his attention back to their big brother. "Leo, don't eat too fast. Slow as you can. If you're anything like a starving human, you'll make yourself sick."

Leonardo made a soft sound that might have been an acknowledgement, but the only move he made was to ease his hand out along the floor, inch by inch, wincing as he stretched farther. When he managed to put his hand around the bag, he drew it back toward himself, easing his fingers underneath it. Then the slit in the plastic touched his lips—

Unnerving to see how silently Leonardo ate. He didn't have to breathe, didn't have to lap at a spilled drop. The bag barely crinkled, simply turning flat as everything inside was drawn out.

Michelangelo glanced sideways at Donatello, who looked between the timer on his laptop and his brother, recording how quickly Leonardo was able to eat. Michelangelo wondered why anyone would need that kind of information, noting all the different numbers on the screen.

When he finished, Leonardo lay unmoving, unresponsive. He didn't answer any of Donatello's questions, and he didn't react when Michelangelo gave up waiting and took the bag out from under his hand.

"Put that by me," Donatello said, nodding toward the bag. "Don't get rid of it."

"Really?" Michelangelo asked even as he did so.

"I want to see if there are any worthwhile samples inside," Donatello said. "To see how efficient his system is. And to see if he has any fluids like insects do, since vampire mythology mentions those sometimes. Or if there are contaminants."

"Contaminants?" Michelangelo echoed.

"To see if the bite is contagious," he said. "If licking you would make you turn into something like him."

"If it could," Michelangelo said, "we'd probably be vampires already. He ate off'a us both."

No answer. Donatello held his laptop closer to his brother, studying the screen and Leonardo's skin. He frowned.

"Next blood bag," Donatello said. "Be careful. His hand is right next to his mouth. I don't want him grabbing you."

With an exasperated sigh, Michelangelo cut the second bag, but instead of sliding it across the floor, this time he held it out to his brother.

Still no response. With Donatello vaguely muttering about both potential catatonia or thanatopsis, Michelangelo again put the bag under his brother's hand.

The response was instant, a faint pulling of the bag to his mouth. Color suffused his skin once more. This time, when Michelangelo took the bag again, he also noticed that Donatello was marking off his brother's deepening color on a color wheel with six digit color codes.

"What's it say?" Michelangelo asked.

"He darkens a little with each one," Donatello said, recording the next number. "But I'll need to see if it's regular or if it depreciates. At this rate, he's not going to regain his full color. Next one."

They went through the rest of the blood in that way, with their brother growing more recognizable, less pale. When Michelangelo picked up the sixth, he frowned.

"Maybe it's best if we don't use the last one," he murmured. "So I—"

"All of it," Donatello snapped. "Now."

Michelangelo flinched, looking at him in surprise. That hadn't sounded angry or even scared. Donatello sounded personally insulted that he'd been questioned.

"S'okay," he mumbled to himself, handing over the last bag. "They're like seven days old. They were gonna get tossed out today, so it was gonna go bad if he don't eat it anyway."

As Leonardo drained the last of the blood, as still as before, Donatello examined the other emptied bags and their dates.

"If it wasn't for his color changing," he said, his words clipped and curt, "I would've doubted the efficacy of these things. As it is, I'm seriously doubting his mental capacity right now. He's acting on pure autonomous response—no mind, pure hunger. Possibly because he was so injured. The white vampire he fought might have been acting on feral instinct as well, and that makes me question if this whole thing is just an act."

"'Thing'?" Michelangelo echoed.

"Acting like he's still our brother," Donatello said. "It could just be the compulsions of vampirism making him move and talk, like an advanced version of cordyceps."

"Don..." Michelangelo stared at him, slowly shaking his head. "He...he's not...I mean, he's still in there..."

"It's just conjecture," Donatello said, shrugging off his brother's concern. "If I really thought it was cordyceps, I would have walled off this room by now. Is he done?"

Silent, Michelangelo took away the last bag, empty of every drop. He nodded once.

"Finally."

Donatello gathered his computer and clipboard, standing up quickly. He stared at his older brother, his mouth in a firm line. Leonardo still lay curled on the floor, pale but no longer a starved shade of white, but he didn't move, didn't even seem to breathe. Donatello might have put a mirror to his brother's mouth to check for breath if he wasn't afraid he'd be bitten.

"You're going to stay here," Donatello ordered. "Do not leave."

No response. Donatello seemed to take that as an insult, scowling and continuing as if sure his brother could hear him.

"You stay put in here. If any of us even thinks you left this room, I'll find out exactly how that stake worked, got it? And we're sleeping in shifts, so don't get any bright ideas about making us forget anything."

Donatello turned and headed out, stopping just at the crucifix on the door. His little brother wasn't with him.

"Mikey, I need your help with something. Come on."

Michelangelo glanced at Leonardo, hesitating—he wanted to finish lighting the candles, put a pillow under his brother's head, maybe force him into bed—but he followed after his brother, closing the door softly behind himself. He had to jog to catch up to Donatello, who set a hard pace back to the lab.

"What did you need?" Michelangelo asked, following him into the lab. "Hey—"

"I don't need your help right now. I just didn't want you in there." Donatello put his things down on his desk. He sat down with a sigh, craning his head back and rotating his shoulders as he looked over his scribbled notes. While everyone else had been out, Donatello had been working and would likely continue to work long into the next day.

"Wait," Michelangelo said. "But what about—"

"Oh, for god's sake," Donatello sighed. "Go to bed. I scheduled you for the last shift and I can't deal with you right now."

"I'm not a lab rat you can stick back in a cage," Michelangelo snapped, putting his hands down hard on the desk, rattling the test tubes. "You're acting like a jerk—"

"Forgive me if I don't care about our serial killer's feelings," Donatello started.

"I'm not a serial killer, so what's your excuse?" Michelangelo said.

"Oh, I dunno!" Donatello said, glaring at his little brother. "Maybe I've been up for more than thirty hours now and I've got to decide if I can keep my undead brother alive or if it's more merciful for everyone involved to just make him all-the-way dead. I can't exactly ask for help 'cause Splinter and Raph are still in shock over whatever the hell happened tonight—I couldn't even get anything intelligible out of them—and my little brother is more concerned about Leo's feelings than anyone he might've killed."

Michelangelo tensed, feeling like he'd been slapped.

"You can pretend all you like," Donatello continued, his voice growing tight. "Pretend that you aren't afraid of him. But I saw you earlier. I saw you trying to fight his control. You know he's not the brother we thought we knew."

The thought hung in the air, made all the more real that Donatello had said it. Not sarcastically or in anger like Raphael, but as a cold, rational fact. Their brother had changed, they didn't know what that meant, and the only sane reaction was to keep Leonardo at a distance, to perhaps deny him utterly. And the thought was made worse by Michelangelo's absolute inability to argue any of it. Their brother had killed innocent people, had forced his brothers to do obscene things to each other, and felt no guilt over any of it.

Michelangelo stood straight and went to the door, almost went through, but he stopped himsef and forced out a response.

"You're right," he said. "He's changed. And yeah, I'm scared."

Michelangelo looked over his shoulder. "Did you ever think how scared Leo probably is?"

"Scared at getting caught, sure," Donatello muttered.

Michelangelo scowled. "Don—"

The pen in Donatello's hand snapped.

"Dammit, Mikey, just stop already! Just stop!"

Stunned, Michelangelo didn't respond. His brother hadn't shouted so much as he'd shrieked, crying out as something inside had pulled too tight, nearly snapping.

Donatello tensed, forcing himself back under control, taking shallow, slow breaths.

"I don't..." Donatello coughed, raising his hand as if to silence Michelangelo. His hand wavered, fell uncertainly back to the desk. "He's...he's done bad things. Awful things. And if I stop and think about that too long, then I'm not going to be able to..."

Softening, Michelangelo noticed the black smudges under his brother's eyes, the stress lines around his face that belied his headache, the way he slouched when he normally sat straight. This was what two days of no sleep looked like, using science to distract himself from the horror of what had happened. Was still happening.

"I don't want him dead either..." Donatello started, then cut himself off. He put his hands on the table, clearly giving his last word on the subject. "If I'm going to help him—help us, then I can't waste time feeling sorry. Acting nice will only make these results compile slower. So...so get out of here and let me work."

Michelangelo didn't push any further. The problem wasn't Donatello, not really. He was just a convenient target, slowly revealing the real problem centered on their brother. Michelangelo left the lab silently and went to the kitchen to put on a pot of coffee by way of a peace offering, then passed his father and brother, still on the couch. Raphael had shifted so that he could put his head on Splinter's shoulder, tucking under his father's comforting arm.

"Michelangelo?" Splinter said, lifting his head. "Are you all right?"

Michelangelo thought about asking them about what had happened, but Donatello had said they were in shock, and he didn't want to make them relive whatever they'd seen. Raphael had latched onto their father like a child scared of the world, and Splinter held Raphael as if he might lose yet another child. He'd wait for either of them to say something first, and right now, they had each other.

He nodded quietly and went to his room, crawling into his bed and pulling his pillow into his arms. Sleep was a long time coming.

TBC...

note: Slowed down because of end of semester issues, and then everything has been coming slowly. Plus I had to rewrite major massive parts of this and completely switch whole scenes around.