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tangledinink · 2 years ago

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gasp!!! TWO chapters of teenage mutant what now? in one week!?!? .... NO :D thats not what this is! This is, however, a little side-fic/drabble I wrote at work yesterday on a whim. Read it on ao3 or below the cut!!!

This takes place a few months before the start of the main fic and is 'canon,' but is just a little character/relationship exploration thing? Donnie-centric / Brains-n-Brawn-centric. This is a little bit heavier than the main fic so pleaseee be mindful of the tags below!

Hunger has claws.

It will struggle a bit before it settles. Sometimes, after being idle for a while, it’ll suddenly start to fight again. It’ll rear up through your stomach and up into your chest, banging its head against your sternum and raking its nails down the inside of you, and it makes your face go hot and your vision swim and your mouth tastes like blood for just a minute as it screams and begs you.

But if you grit your teeth and bear it, it’ll settle down again after a minute or so and back off. And the comfortable sensation of ‘empty’ will come back to you. And except for in those rare, brief moments, hunger is relatively calm. It feels safe sometimes.

There is nothing inside me that will hurt me. There is nothing inside me that will hurt me. I have not put anything inside, so I know for a fact-- there is nothing inside me that will hurt me.

---

Donnie had been awake since four in the morning, much to his annoyance, but he had yet to do anything beyond stare at the wall since he realized he’d be unable to get back to sleep. He hadn’t even crawled out from under the covers, stayed bundled up beneath the soothing pressure of his weighted blanket, his face buried against the fabric and breathing in the scent of it. He could see his alarm clock from here, and knew that it would go off soon. He could see the beginnings of the sunrise beginning to color the glass pane of his window. He could hear the city outside slowly waking up.

He would really prefer it if it didn’t.

Anxiety prickled at his limbs, gnawing at his skin and keeping him awake, chewing on every corner of him, and he resisted a whine, bundling himself up even tighter and squeezing his eyes shut as if that might help.

Today felt wrong. He had hoped that a good night’s rest would reset things. You know. The good old ‘turn it off and turn it back on again.’ Yesterday had sucked, and he had really been banking on his ability to simply sleep this off because he, quite frankly, didn’t have any other ideas.

But now today felt even worse.

His alarm clock mocked him as another minute visibly ticked by, dragging him closer and closer to the inevitable. He was already dreading the prospect, waiting miserably for the device to begin chirping at him, demanding he start the day. The very thought made his stomach flip-flop with unwelcome nausea. He didn’t want to get out of bed. He didn’t want to leave his room. He didn’t want to do anything. And the worst part was that he knew he didn’t actually have to.

If he really wanted to, he could just turn the alarms off and stay in bed. He already knew exactly what would happen.

Eventually, when he didn’t come down from his room for breakfast, as per routine, his dad would come up to check on him, knocking softly on the door and poking his head in. And he’d ask, are you awake, Purple? And Donnie would grumble and nod from the covers. And then he would come in and close the door behind him and come over to his bed and ask, are you okay? What’s wrong? And Donnie knew that if he responded that it was a ‘bad day,’ said that he didn’t want to get out of bed, told him he was staying home today… Dad would let him.

He knew that their dad would sit with him for a while, and that he wouldn’t bring any expectations to the preceding conversation, but that he would stay and talk about it with them for a bit to see if that helped-- to see if discussing the problem was enough to resolve things and coax Donnie out of bed. And admittedly, sometimes it did. Sometimes just explaining why he was anxious or being reassured that he could call their dad to come pick them up at any point during the day was enough for him to settle and organize his thoughts enough that he’d decide to get up after all. And sometimes, it didn’t. And that was fine, too. Even now, he knew that if he asked for it, his father would absolutely allow him the day off and stay home with him.

But he also knew that if he asked for this, it would set off the warning bells.

He knew that his dad would ask him about what was wrong and why he was having a ‘bad day,’ and because Donnie couldn’t lie for the life of him, would eventually uncover that he had skipped two out of three meals the day prior, and then he would make him eat. Not right away, but at some point, he’d gently insist that Donnie consume at least something small to start, at least one of his protein shakes or some saltine crackers, something he knew Donnie liked and was ‘safe.’ They knew he’d call Mossy, and then she’d be trying to get them to do the same thing, too. And then Dad would be watching him, and making sure he was eating, and paying attention to ensure it, and Donnie wouldn’t be able to covertly skip any meals and sneak away, because he was allowed to have a bad day and stay in bed sometimes, but he wasn’t allowed to stop eating--

He couldn’t have both. He could either get out of bed…

Or he could eat.

Cornering his resolve, Donnie bit the insides of his cheeks and kicked off the covers.

---

The journey to school was basically hell.

Usually, he didn’t mind the subway. His siblings were very good about providing him with a ‘shield’ when it was overly crowded and making sure not too many people touched him or shoved up against him, his headphones kept all the noise and chatter at bay, and the rhythmic, back-and-forth sway of the train moving along the tracks was usually comforting to him, in an odd sort of way.

Today, it just made him want to throw up. And he had already wanted to throw up when he got on the subway.

The entire commute he had to focus all of his energy simply on not just straight up vomiting, fighting the urge to anxiously flick his wrists or bounce his leg, trying to keep his body settled and calm and not-visibly-distressed because usually he was okay with his family helping him, but not right now, because if they caught on that he was this anxious, they were going to pay more attention, and then they might catch on that he had faked out breakfast this morning (thank god for the absolute chaos of the Hamato’s first meal of the day, which made for excellent cover,) or seek him out and watch him during lunch, and then they would make him eat, and he didn’t want to eat. He couldn’t make himself engage in conversation, couldn’t manage to keep up with the chatter and back-and-forth with his family, so he instead summoned the very last of his social energy to invite Leo to listen to this new album that he thought he’d really like with him. And when Leo excitedly agreed, he synced their bluetooths, queued up a band he knew Leo had never listened to before on Spotify, and then focused on reciting digits of Pi silently in his head for the rest of the trip, trying desperately to keep the anxiety and nausea in check.

He had never been so relieved in his life as he was when they finally got to their stop, the robotic announcer cheerfully declaring that doors would be opening on the left. He felt his head swim just the tiniest bit when he rose up to his feet, but it backed off quick enough, and the absolute minute they were back above ground, breathing in the fresh breeze instead of hot, disgusting, horrendous subway air, worming into his lungs and sweating inside him, he practically cried with relief. He sucked in several long, deep breaths as they walked, and slowly let it out, biting the insides of his cheeks and grinding his teeth quietly inside his head.

It was fine. It was over. He made it through it, and it was over, and he was okay, see? And there was nothing inside him. Nothing inside him that would hurt him. Relax. You’re okay. There’s still nothing bad inside you.

A little voice in the back of his mind reminded him that this wasn’t rational. That he was being pretty fucking stupid right now. That he should really take out his phone, like, right now and text Mossy and tell her what was going on and figure it out and deal with it instead of playing these stupid mind games with himself.

But Mossy would make him eat. And he didn’t want to eat.

“Dude--”

He nearly toppled over when an arm shot out in front of him, smacking against his chest and stopping him dead in his tracks. He blinked in surprise, stumbling the tiniest bit to find his balance again.

Leo retracted his arm after a moment, giving the other a pointed look, one brow raised as the rest of the group paused to glance back at the two. “Uh. Earth to Donnie. Are you, like, good?” Leo questioned, frowning at him. “You literally just almost walked into a lamp post.”

Ah. So he had.

��... Hm. Well. That is… less than ideal,” he muttered, half-to-himself, a bit dazed for a moment, before he shook it off and re-centered his focus, clearing his throat slightly and giving a flourishing wave of his hand. “Right. Apologizes, dear brother. I’m afraid I didn’t get the most sleep last night,” not a lie. “I’m working on a new project,” also not a lie, “with that AI system I pioneered. Remember how I explained that to you? My intention is to develop an improved API to match the modifications I’ve made in the programming, considering that the framework itself has been altered slightly… I’m still working on updating some of the conditionals as well. It’s all mostly backend information, so I wasn’t sure it would really be necessary at first, but given the OS--”

“Okay! Okay, okay! This was not a request to explain your nerd coding stuff!” Leo interrupted with a groan, rolling his eyes, and Donnie sighed internally with relief. He knew that would work. For once he was glad that his twin was typically unwilling to listen to him spout off about his work.

He huffed and made some generic intelligence-based insult in Leo’s general direction in response as he brushed past him, sealing the legitimacy of his performance, and made a mental note to pay more attention to where he was walking for the rest of the day.

---

He was hungry, but it wasn’t so bad now. It was just a physical sensation that he was dimly aware of in the back of his mind and capable of tuning out. Because sure, his body might be hungry. But he sure wasn’t. He had absolutely zero desire to consume anything. The thought of eating was, quite frankly, wholly unappealing and he couldn’t imagine a single thing in the world right now that he would want to eat. Not even any of his favorites. Not even any of his safe foods.

If you ignore hunger long enough, you kind of don’t notice it so much anymore. You can get used to it. You can go a few days, even, before it becomes beastly enough to truly demand to be heard.

… Usually, he didn’t do this. Not anymore, anyway.

Usually, he was fine. Well. Maybe not always fine, per se, but usually all of this was manageable. It… had been a problem, once upon a time. I mean, it had always been a problem, but then it had become a real problem, and it had been unmanageable, and things had been a little rough for a second there (story of his fucking life,) but then he had gotten out from under it because he and Mossy talked about it a lot, and he and his Dad talked about it a lot, and he talked to his siblings some, too, and it got better and then eventually it got easier. He remembered, back then, when it was still unmanageable, way back in middle school, he used to have a chart. Because Mossy, the evil genius, had decided to prey up both his competitive nature and his love for filling out charts and graphs. And the rule had originally been at least two meals a day at least three days a week. That was the starting point. It was okay if the meal was a protein shake. It was okay if every meal was a protein shake. He just had to hit that goal.

And it was hard. Eating had always been hard, because there were so many foods that he just hated and so many foods that he didn’t know and sometimes it just felt bad. Sometimes, just the mere act alone of putting something in his mouth, chewing it, and then swallowing it was, in and of itself, simply revolting. But he could, at least, kind of handle it a bit better when he had a goal like that. And when he got to record the data on a graph once he had done it.

They had eventually upped that goal, and then upped it again, and again, until Donnie was able to hit it consistently enough for long enough that he had graduated from the chart altogether.

And it was hard sometimes, still. It had always been hard. But usually, it was hard in a way that he could navigate.

He wouldn’t be able to meet that first ‘starting point’ goal right now if he tried, he didn’t think.

He knew that he was supposed to eat. He knew that, biologically, it was an objective fact that he needed food to survive. And that fasting for long periods of time was unhealthy, and that he was damaging himself-- etc etc etc. Yeah, whatever.

He knew lots of stuff. That didn’t change things.

It was just as helpful as knowing that a hug was intended as pleasant and supportive when he was experiencing sensory overload. Or knowing there were no insects or hidden cameras in his room when he was in the middle of a full on fucking breakdown. Or knowing that he had already triple-checked that he shut down his soldering gun properly when it was the middle of the night and he couldn’t sleep and his brain was crawling with what-ifs?

That is to say, completely and utterly useless.

The nausea had persisted through the day, much to his chagrin, but it wasn’t anything he couldn’t block out and ignore. Schoolwork made for a good distraction, and skipping lunch was as simple as tossing out what he had been packed for the day (sorry, Mikey,) and finding some corner of the library to hide in. He didn’t typically eat lunch with any of his siblings, given the size of their school and how poorly their schedules aligned for such purposes, and they all had their own friends to eat with, anyway. Maybe some of his friends would text him regarding his absence, but he wasn’t really worried about it. It wasn’t unusual for him not to come to lunch, given the nature of his hybrid-schooling model, and lying was a lot easier through text.

He liked the library. It was quiet here. And he really did have stuff to work on. He always did. The way his hands trembled was annoying, but did not deter him.

---

He felt Leo’s fingers tap against his ankle.

He had, admittedly, not exactly been focusing up until a second ago. Really, he hadn’t been focusing much for a while now. Their coach had told them to do ten sets of two-hundred’s, which was easy enough, but also meant a lot of back and forth. Donnie didn’t mind lots of back and forth. If anything, he enjoyed it. He liked swimming, and he did some of his best thinking in the water. How many incredible software programs and inventions and designs had been birthed here, after all?

But usually, he was capable of thinking and swimming in a straight line at the same time.

He was having a bit more trouble today than he’d like to admit.

He was beginning to get sore from how many times he had scraped himself up against the lane-line after losing focus and heading ever-so-slightly off track. And though he had kept his lead thus far, heading the charge as per usual, the repeated crashes had slowed him down. His lead was not quite as dominant as it normally was.

And Leo was trying to pass him.

Fuck.

Donnie bristled, immediately bringing his focus back into the world around him, throwing whatever dredges of energy he still had left into his front stroke and pulling back out ahead-- leaving Leo behind. It wasn’t terribly hard. He was easily the strongest swimmer on the team on a good day, and even on a bad day, he could edge out the rest of the pack.

It was just. Jesus, it was exhausting.

This wasn’t even a particularly demanding set. He was just fucking tired. And keeping his lead, though do-able, required everything he had left to give.

(Which was quite annoying, because he had been right in the middle of mentally unraveling a really complicated mathematics equation that he needed for a robotics project.)

One-by-one, all right after another, the group eventually finished their laps, ending up bunched up at the end of the lane, clinging to the side of the pool so everyone could catch their breath and guzzle down water. And at the beginning of the day, Donnie had been fine with water. He had been drinking water, earlier, at least. But somewhere along the line it had become bad no unclean bad harmful no no no absolutely do not no as well, and so he had stopped. Given the fact that everyone was already soaking wet and quite literally surrounded by water to begin with, however, it was quite easy to fake it.

And he had been hoping that the fact that Leo hadn’t managed to pass him would be enough to make him sulk and not be willing to bring it up. And, if not, he was expecting Leo to crow and tease him about his near-accomplishment, and then the two of them could fight with each other over it, and Donnie could be all annoyed and roll his eyes and make snarky quips, and that would be so much easier to manage.

But instead Leo gave him this concerned, sidelong sort of look and raised a brow and said, for the second time that day,

“Dude. You good?”

Donnie had kind of stared at him for a second, blinking slowly, processing, before he finally responded.

“Why?”

“You’re way slower than usual. And you kept hitting the lane-lines,” Leo observed, and dammit, Donnie didn’t know why he was even surprised that Leo noticed that-- of course he would.

“Are you feeling okay? You’re not getting sick or somethin’, are ya?” Raph questioned, looking Donnie up and down, his brows pinching with worry. Donnie frowned, hesitated, and then shrugged.

“I dunno. Maybe,” they muttered, and technically, that wasn’t a lie, either.

---

Though they had eventually backed off enough for them to get through the rest of swim practice, despite Raph’s repeated suggestions that they skip out early and head home if Donnie wasn’t feeling good, he could feel both of his brothers looking at him for the rest of the evening. It was starting to make his nerves bunch up and his vision kind of cave in in a way that he didn’t like. It was starting to make his head feel kind of hot and fuzzy in a way he didn’t care for. The fact that they were at swim, specifically, and not gymnastics or dance or literally anywhere else was really the only thing holding him together. He suspected he would have had a panic attack and vomited at least once by now otherwise.

But they were in the water.

He liked being in the water.

It was… comforting, he supposed. He had always really enjoyed the sensory experience of it. Of swimming, sure, but also just being in the water. He loved how sound became just a little bit blurred and far off when he ducked his head under, and would often tip his head back in between laps just so that his ears would get covered up and filled in and things would go a bit quiet and mumbly. He liked how softly the water touched him and how it held him up-- the weightlessness of it. He even liked the smell of chlorine, strangely enough. It felt nostalgic somehow.

At least once every single time he got in the pool, no matter what the reason or where they were, he always would dive all the way down to the bottom at least once. He liked being down below it all-- to curl up small on the pool floor and settle down and just… be there for a while.

It was so peaceful down there.

He swore he could stay down there forever. He would live at the bottom of the pool if he could get away with it. But eventually Raph would always peer down at him with this kind of worried look, like, are you good, or did you drown and I’ve gotta come get your corpse? And he’d remember that he wouldn’t be able to operate a welding torch or set up a PC down here and he’d come back up to the surface.

He did it five times today.

He liked being in the water.

The problem truly came when he had to get out of the water. Because once it was no longer physically holding him up, he already knew that there was a very real chance he was going to fall apart. And, even worse--

Getting out of the water meant swim practice was over. Which meant that they were that much closer to going home. Which meant that they were that much closer to dinner.

This was, by far, the most difficult meal to worm his way out of, especially considering he had just done it yesterday. And his brothers were already looking at him.

Typically, on Thursdays, Leo and Raph would go down the hall from the pool to the basketball court after swim practice was over for an hour or two before they headed back to the apartment for the evening. Sometimes Donnie would come, usually to sit and watch, rarely to participate, and sometimes he would head off without them and spend the time in his lab before everyone got home and they gathered for dinner. But Leo and Raph clearly had no intention of leaving him by himself right now, wordlessly agreeing to abandon any other previous plans for the evening and head straight home instead. And it was… nice. Donnie could certainly acknowledge that. It was, like, sweet, or whatever, that they were worried about him.

But it was so, so not what he wanted right now.

His body was absolutely weighed down with dread, so very much so that when he tried to follow his brothers and get out of the water at the end of practice, it didn’t quite work. He tried twice more, attempting to lift himself up on his shaking arms far enough to get his knee up onto the ledge, something that was usually easy for him, something he could usually accomplish without a second thought and even a bit of effort… but each time he just couldn’t quite get high enough and he fell back down.

“Donnie,” Raph said, slowly, carefully, his voice measured and gentle, after the third failure. “Can I touch you?”

Donnie grit his teeth in frustration, giving a short shake of his head no.

He could tell that Raph was frustrated, too, though he didn’t say it. “Okay,” he said. “Do you think you can make it to the ladder over there?” He asked instead, gesturing to the far side of the pool. The rest of the team chattered around them as they filed their way towards the locker rooms, talking with each other or discussing things with coaches, and Donnie wished so, so very desperately that they would all shut up. He tipped his head back to cover his ears, just for a second, just for a break, and Raph and Leo waited in silence until he finally righted himself again and nodded.

“Alright. Don’t swim though. Wall-walk over,” Raph instructed, with the kind of voice that said do not fucking argue with me, and usually Donnie would roll his eyes and scoff and be annoyed with the mere concept of Raph trying to tell him what to do like that, let alone implying that he couldn’t handle swimming across four lanes to get to the side of the pool… But he didn’t really have the energy for that right now.

(And also, maybe a tiny part of him wasn’t sure he could swim across four lanes right now. I mean. He was pretty sure he could. He had just swam, like, literally several miles. Surely he could still do this, right? But jesus christ, what if he couldn’t? What if what if what if?)

“Leo, go grab Donnie’s towel and the rest of his stuff from the locker room, alright?” Raph said. Leo visibly hesitated, clearly not wanting to leave his twin, not wanting to leave either of them and be somewhere else-- but he nodded anyway, and headed off at a brisk pace on his retrieval mission. Once he had headed off, Raph wasted no time in returning back to the water, entering via the lane next over to avoid jostling or splashing Donnie and then quickly diving down and under so he could rejoin his younger brother’s side.

He reminded him of a seal, Donnie thought distantly to himself. Not because he wasn’t graceful on land. He was. For someone as big and bulky as him, he could be shockingly nimble when he wanted to be, and he honestly didn’t give himself enough credit for it. It was more because of just how much more graceful he was in the water. The way he moved. Just like a seal-- gliding along effortlessly, almost elegantly with how poised and controlled his movements were, despite his size. Strength and power and finesse and precision all at once. Sometimes Donnie was jealous.

The journey over to the ladder wasn’t a difficult one. He probably could have swam. He was tired, and he was trembling, but not so bad that he couldn’t swim across a mere four lanes. But he wall-walked anyway and Raph lingered nearby, taking care not to crowd him but sticking close regardless, just in case, until they made it to the side of the pool. And Donnie climbed out, and then so did Raph, and Donnie managed to last about thirty seconds of being outside of the water before he, just as predicted, started to break apart.

He didn’t want to be touched right now, and gravity had its hands wrapped firm around each of his limbs and was pulling him, and it was horrendous. He just managed to get himself to the nearby bleachers, luckily not more than a few feet away, shaking like a leaf as he clawed his swim cap and goggles off of himself, tossing them aside, not caring where they ended up, just suddenly wanting them off. He hated how the air felt on his wet skin. He hated the weight to each of his limbs. He hated everything, he hated existing, and everything was toppling down around him and threatening to drown him now that he was on dry land. He curled himself up into a little ball, ducking his head down between his knees, and he wasn’t crying, exactly, and he wasn’t totally panicking either, but he was real close to both of them and a short, high-pitched whine escaped from him without his consent.

Something is wrong. Something is wrong. Something is wrong.

He felt awful.

The hunger was clawing again.

There is nothing inside me that will hurt me, he reminded himself desperately. There is nothing inside me that will hurt me. I have not put anything inside, so I know for a fact-- there is nothing inside me that will hurt me.

“Hey. Hey, it’s alright. You’re gonna be okay. We’re gonna go home as soon as Leo gets back,” Raph soothed, crouching down next to him. “You’re doing good. Just deep breaths. Let me go grab your water bottle for you real fast so you can drink somethin’, alright? That’ll help--”

His heart jumped through his chest and his throat threatened to close up for a moment, the wobbly very-beginnings of a sob catching against his teeth. He shook his head sharply, every muscle in his body tensing as his breath escalated in its already rapid pace. No. No, he didn’t want that. He didn’t want his water bottle, and he didn’t want Raph to walk away from him, and he did not want to drink. It wouldn’t help. No. His throat was all dry and sticking together and his head was spinning and sore and pounding but he did not want that.

“Okay! Okay, alright, I don’t have to. I can stay,” Raph assured quickly, floundering just the tiniest bit, holding his hands up in surrender. Donnie grit his teeth, hissing out some noise that even he didn’t know the meaning of in response, drawing himself in tighter. And for a little bit, they were both just quiet, with Raph sitting there with him, waiting, watching, purposefully and audibly breathing slow and deep, and Donnie struggling to try to match him with his own ragged pants-- teetering on the very edges of a full panic attack and windmilling his arms wildly to avoid toppling over.

“Hey, Don?” Raph finally spoke again. “Can you lookit me for a sec?”

Donnie bristled, immediately shaking his head.

“I’m not askin’ for eye contact or anythin’, Donnie, I just wanna see your face real quick. You can keep your eyes shut, but can you just pick up your head a little? Please?”

Donnie whined, not really wanting to do that, either, but he did it anyway, just barely lifting his head. He couldn’t make himself meet his brother’s eyes, staring firmly down at the ground instead, and he felt like a fucking dog that get caught digging up the garden or something. And that alone was almost enough to make him tear up. He waited for whatever would come next with this lump in his throat, anxious anticipation biting at his spine.

“When’d you last eat?”

Dammit. Dammit. Dammit. He knew he would figure it out, but the confirmation was somehow devastating anyway. He knew he would. He wasn’t stupid. Of course he would catch him, of course he would--

‘Nauseous,’ he signed in a weak defense, but Raph didn’t budge and Donnie wasn’t the least bit surprised. He couldn’t even blame him.

“Donnie.”

He considered lying for a moment, but then thought better of it. It wouldn’t work anyway.

‘Breakfast,’ he signed, sniffling weakly.

“Okay, but when?”

He hated how smart his brother was, and how well he knew him.

‘Yesterday.’ He had a protein shake for breakfast yesterday.

Raph buried his face in his hands, a frustrated sigh escaping him, and Donnie immediately retreated back beneath the cover of his own folded arms, a choked little hiccup escaping him.

“Sorry. Sorry. It’s not you. I’m not mad at you. Sorry,” Raph corrected right away, wincing slightly. “I’m not… mad. It’s alright. But-- Donnie. You have to eat. I know you know that!”

Donnie frowned, hunching his shoulders slightly, his face all shoved up against his knees.

‘I know.’

“Then why aren’t you? Did something happen?”

He stiffened a little, shaking his head.

‘I just don’t want to.’

“Donnie.”

‘It’s easier.’

“Don.”

‘It’s so much easier to just not--’

“Donnie,” Raph pressed. “I know. Okay? I know. But usually, you do it anyway! Usually you don’t do this! What happened?”

‘It’s stupid.’

“Okay. Look. I dunno if you know this or not, Don, but you’re pretty damn smart. So your definition of stupid is usually pretty skewed,” Raph scoffed softly. “So can you please just… tell Raph anyway?”

Donnie frowned, keeping quiet for a second, his nose scrunched up and his lips curled. And it took him a second before he finally signed a response.

‘Did you know Sierra is a vegan?’

Raph blinked slowly, seeming a tiny bit taken aback, just for a moment, before tilting his head to the side. “Sierra from your robotics team?”

Donnie nodded.

“Uh… No?”

‘I didn’t either!’ Donnie signed, this tiny, humorless, pained little laugh escaping from him. ‘But I do now! And all the reasons why she is, and about how she won’t eat anything with GMO’s or preservatives or artificial anything and a million other different things, and why, all in excruciating detail. We discussed it yesterday during lunch. And I learned so much shit that I didn’t want to know! And god, half of it is probably conspiracy theory bullshit that’s not even real, half of it sounds totally ridiculous and completely implausible by all rational, scientific standards, but I-- I don’t want to look it up! What if it is? And even if it’s not real, it doesn’t even matter! It’s not gonna help! And that’s the worst part!!! So what’s the point!?’

Raph sighed a bit. “Donnie…”

‘And it’s-- it’s so dumb! Because I don’t even believe in any of that stuff! I don’t agree with half of the stuff she said! It’s all stupid bullshit that probably isn’t real and not based on any sort of evidence, so I don’t know why I care, because I certainly don’t want to! I have no idea why this is bothering me so bad because it’s random and dumb and it shouldn’t! But I do care now, apparently, and everything feels gross and bad and wrong and I don’t-- I don’t want to. I can’t. It just. It feels so bad all of a sudden. I cannot fucking do it. I threw up, like, four times yesterday, Raph.’

Raphael visibly winced. And Donnie winced, too, and frowned, curling and uncurling his toes, rocking back and forth just the tiniest bit as he yanked at his own twists, rolling them between his fingers.

Raph kept quiet for a minute, and then he breathed deep out through his nose, and inhaled sharply.

“Okay. First of all. That ain’t stupid,” he said, and then hesitated a second. “Well. I mean. It’s a little stupid. I mean. The shit that Sierra said is probably mostly stupid. And your brain latchin’ on and bein’ anxious about it and givin’ you a hard time is kind of stupid, too,” he admitted. “... But that doesn’t make you stupid! I mean. It’s not like that’s your fault! You’re just… stuck dealin’ with other people’s stupid! And that’s dumb and it sucks, but it ain’t your fault!”

Donnie frowned, huffing very softly.

‘I should be able to figure it out,’ they argued, though half-heartedly. ‘I should be able to deal with this by now.’

“Okay, that’s stupid,” Raph said, crossing his arms over his chest. “Just because you do somethin’ really hard for a long time doesn’t mean it’s never gonna be hard ever again! You just get good at handlin’ it. But it’s still hard! Shit’s still gonna be hard sometimes! And, like, yeah, this is hard for you. But different things are hard for different people! And I know that sounds corny or whatever, but listen,” he fixed Donnie with a hard look. “Raph thinks math is hard. Like. I think that algebra is crazy hard! But you don’t! So does that make me stupid? Or mean that I shouldn’t need your help with that stuff anymore? ‘Cause I should just figure it out?”

Donnie sighed softly, rolling his eyes. Curse him and his ‘turn it around on him’ type logic. He pursed his lips into a pout, very reluctantly signing ‘no’ in reply.

“Then shut up. It’s fine if this is a hard thing! And it’s fine if you need help! Especially ‘cause you do deal with it, like, literally every day! And you usually do a good damn job!” Raph argued. “But no one expects you to be perfect at it all the time, Don! Second of all--”

Raph relaxed his posture again slightly, resting his elbows on his knees.

“This sucks. And it’s hard and shit. But it’ll be okay. Leo’s gonna be back any minute now with your stuff, and we’ll call a cab and get you back home. And we’ll talk to Dad. And we can call Mossy. And we’ll figure it out. Alright? And look,”

Raph sighed deeply, frowning a tiny bit, his brows twitching down just the tiniest bit, creasing in the middle.

“Raph’s not gonna let anything hurt you, okay? Not even stupid preservatives or GMO’s or whatever the hell else Sierra said. I promise.”

Donnie stared at him for a second, slowly processing what he just did.

I’m sorry. Did his big brother actually just… swear to defend him from… GMO’s?

That was so fucking stupid.

He laughed for real this time, starting as a weak, watery little giggle and then quickly evolved into full-blown cackles. It kind of hurt his stomach, honestly, but he didn’t even care right now.

Oh my god. This was so fucking stupid.

Why did that actually make him feel so much better?

‘Okay,’ he signed, chuckling weakly and scrubbing at his face a few times. ‘Okay.’

Raph smiled, giving a firm nod in response.

“Okay,” he echoed.

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