Title: Nothing Left to do to Save You
Fandom: TMNT 2003
Word Count: 1529
Author: aquietwritingcorner/realitybreakgirl
Rating: M
Characters: Michelangelo, Raphael, Leonardo, Donatello, April O'Neil
Warning: Major Character Death, SAINW
Summary: Mike had always wondered what had happened to Donatello. But never in his darkest or most twisted of thoughts had he thought this was a possibility.
Notes: Once again playing around with Peter Laird's SAINW ideas. This time, it's what if Leo, Raph, and Mike lived, but they found Donatello dead and taxidermized. Yeah, once again I am telling you, this is not a pretty thing! It is disturbing. And I honestly can't tell you if it ends well or not. But it sure doesn't begin well, I can tell you that.
Nothing Left to do to Save You
Mike dropped to his knees even as he stared in abject horror and disbelief at what he saw in front of him. He thought that he'd seen all of the cruelty and the twistedness that the Shredder had to offer when he had watched public videos of torture, when he'd seen the desecrated bodies of Resistance members, when he'd watched the Shredder cruelly kill children and babies just because they were important to an enemy.
But he was wrong. He was so wrong.
Behind him Raph let out a guttural scream of rage and pain and horror and anger. It echoed off of the ceiling and the walls, bouncing around for longer than it probably should have. It was quickly followed by the sounds of destruction and more rage.
"No… no, no, no, no, no, no—"
A shaky litany of unending denial and disbelief fell from Leo's lips, his eldest brother somewhere behind him. It grew louder and louder, and his voice sounded more and more destabilized as he spoke, his breathing growing more and more ragged as if he was finally cracking.
He heard April quickly move, and then fall to her knees. Mike had no idea why. But then he heard the sound of her retching, the splash of whatever she managed to have in her stomach hitting the floor, and the following heaving, and he understood.
He felt like he was hyperventilating as he stared at the taxidermized and posed body of his brother, Donatello, the echoes of his fear still clear under the carefully arranged face.
Mike let out a sob.
Raph's destruction came to an end, although Mike was sure it wasn't because his rage was over. Instead, he returned to where the small group was, and Mike could hear the leather on his sais creaking from where he held them tightly.
"He's… young, isn't he?" Leo said, his voice shaking as he shifted closer, almost parallel with Mike, and Mike remembered his brother's visual impairment. Details were not as clear far away. But if Leo didn't want to get close to this, Mike couldn't blame him.
"Yeah," Raph said bitterly. "He doesn't look a day over seventeen." Mike could practically hear Raph shaking from rage. "The death Shredder got was too good for him," Raph said, his voice raising with his emotions. "He should have suffered more, longer!"
There was more shifting behind him, and Mike realized that April was getting to her feet. "We need—" her voice was already cracking with tears. "—We need to… to figure out how to give a p-proper… burial—" Her voice broke and choked off, and Mike could hear the soft sob that followed it.
And yet Mike couldn't take his eyes off of Donnie. Off of his perfectly preserved and maintained dead brother.
A cold, hard rage started to replace the sick feeling he had, latching into place and spreading throughout him. "I want the person who did this," he said, his voice rough, hardened.
"Mike—Shredder's already dead!" Raph snapped.
"No!" Mike cut him off, cut anybody who was going to speak off. "No—Shredder ordered it, but he didn't do it himself. And whoever did it, that person had to know that our brother was a person, not just some animal." Mike grit his teeth and pushed up, getting off his knees. "I want him," he growled out. "And I want him to die in terror, like Donnie did."
There was a pause, and then Mike heard April take in a deep breath, as if she were re-centering herself. "I'll have all of the records and archives scoured for any information, even if I have to do it myself," she said. "We'll find who did this to Don."
Mike nodded, even without looking away from Donnie. This would not go unanswered. This would not go unpunished. And for the second time in years, he could feel his brothers ready to work together.
"…at least Sensei didn't see this," Leo said, and Mike could agree that was the only good thing about this whole situation.
They laid Don to rest beside Splinter. It was painful in more than one way. Not only was the knowledge of how their brother had died devastating, but it was quickly clear that the pose he was in was meant to be the pose he stayed in. Trying to rearrange him had resulted in discovering just exactly what their brother's skin was mounted on and how he had been stitched back together. It had been gruesome and terrible, and none of them had been able to get through it without some sort of breakdown.
They had managed, though, to get it done, to get a proper headstone for both Splinter and Don, and to do the appropriate rites over them.
"I hope your spirit can rest, bro," Raph said. "I… you deserve it."
"You and Sensei look after each other," Leo said quietly. "One day, we'll see you again."
"…we'll make sure the person who did this goes down," Mikey said. "And then you can truly rest."
"I'll look after them for you," April said. "I'll do the best I can."
April's people were good, but they were also just a few and not as experienced as they could have been. The Utroms were a great help, going through and the information from Shredder's databases quickly. April was smart, though. She hadn't told them that she wanted the information so that the brothers could take revenge. Instead, she had said that she was looking for information on people who had been complicit in dealing with Shredder's enemies so that she could find the people and bring them to justice, as closure for the families of Shredder's victims.
Mike wasn't entirely sure that the Utroms completely believed her, but they did it anyway, and he wasn't going to question it. It only took a couple of weeks before they had a name. Dr. Drake Thurgood. He had been a renowned taxidermist before Shredder's takeover, although there had always been rumors about him taking on endangered and illegally hunted animals, too. It turned out that he was already in custody.
It only took a small clerical error and a few bits of misdirection to get him released.
It took less time for the brothers to find him.
It took even less time for him to realize what was about to happen to him.
It took quite some time for a heavily desecrated body to turn up in the middle of the city, with the label of murderer and a video of him confessing to his crimes attached to him.
No one felt remorse when what was left of his body was dumped in a mass grave and forgotten.
Mike looked at the graves of his brother and father. He fell heavily to his knees in front of them, reaching out his hand to brush the headstones. Sorrow and sadness filled him, grief finally beginning to take the place of all of the rage and anger he'd held onto for so long. He'd thought it was protecting him all those years, and maybe it had been. But it wasn't anymore.
Somewhere behind him, Raph shifted, and then sat on his knees. Mike could hear how shaky his breathing was, but this time there was a hitching to it, as if his brother was finally, finally crying. It sounded louder to Mike than it was, but Mike still ignored it.
"Sensei... Ototo…"
Behind him, Mike also heard Leo settle on the ground, quietly speaking in Japanese. Mike didn't concentrate on the words, but he caught a few. Leo was honoring their father and brother, thanking them and expressing how much they were missed.
April sat down, too, and Mike could hear her openly crying, not even trying to hide it. She sobbed, although it was a controlled sobbing, not loud or hysterical. Just sobbing for what was lost, expressing her emotions.
Mike let out a sob of his own.
There was shifting behind him, and Mike suddenly found Leo next to him, his brother's eyes also on the graves. And then, Leo reached over and put his arm across Mike's shell, drawing him in.
There was more shifting, and then Raph was there, too, on Mike's other side, his face wet from the tears he was shedding, his remaining eye red and irritated from it. But he was firm and strong at Mike's side.
He heard April get up, and soon she was leaning against his shell, her arms reaching out to hook around Leo and Raph, respectively, holding all of them close to her.
Just a few short months ago, Mike would have shoved his brothers off of him. He would have kept his distance from April. He would have refused to let any of his remaining family comfort him, especially not after they had abandoned him.
But now? Here with them, knowing, finally, what had happened to Don, sharing in the horror in a way that only all of them could, Mike shuddered within their closeness, let out another sob, and finally, finally, grieved together with his family.