Don't Read Without Acknowledging The TW Please! - Blog Posts

This is incredible. Amazing writing, and just- aghhhh such a worth it read. Totally didn't just sit here for three hours to read it.. Def check it out, but beware of triggers for gore, angst, and disabilities. (It ends on a good note though 👍)

glass turtles

verse: 2003 rating: t words: 24k

x

Donnie tears off his makeshift gloves with a wet sounding pop, all the air once stuffed in his lungs rushing out of him at like a deflated balloon when he announces to the room in a raspy, tremulous voice,

“I’m done. I’ve done all that I can do.”

Raphael, who’s been standing by his side for the last four and a half hours, has paled, all the green spilling from his skin like a pen that’d long since ran out of ink, his hands shaking like the beginnings of a seizure creeping up on him; Donnie worries for a moment as he watches him carefully, afraid that he might work himself into actually passing out on the floor.

Instead he’s stealing himself, a white knuckled grip on the edge of the steel table in front of them both, wearing a grim smile that doesn’t even make it halfway across his face before he’s soundlessly making his way towards the office chair in the corner and dropping into it with a heavy, shaky breath that sounds like it’s one he’s been holding onto for some time.

“You did good, Don,” comes Leo’s scratchy, raw voice. A chance glance upwards and Donnie would note that his brother's eyes, normally so stoic and sharp and alert were now brimmed with a hue of purple rings, like fresh bruises, tumid from the weighty toll of his newfound grief.

His face is gaunt like he’d dropped about ten pounds of weight in the space of just one night. There’s still pink blood stains smeared sticky across his plastron, crawling up his arms and his neck, drying in three fingered swipes that makes his stomach roll with a sudden queasiness.

He doubts his brother is even aware of it being there, painted across him like that.

“I. Uh. Yeah, thanks,” is all Donnie is able to say in response. He feels void of any possible remaining energy he possesses still. His bones feel heavy like lead, causing his body to bow like a weak, old branch. His eyes tiredly skate across the room. They fall heavy on the cot bed that holds his other remaining brother.

“You need to eat,” Leo says suddenly, appearing at his side in an instant. Or maybe Donnie had just been staring so long that he hadn’t heard him moving towards him, he can’t be sure. His throat is tight and each breath that squeezes past the lump there comes and goes with a tremendous effort.

“M’not hungry,” is Donnie’s quick knee jerk reaction response. He needs to stay. He needs to monitor his brother. Just a few hours ago he had his hands holding together his skull. His brain seeping between his fingers like unset jello. His heart had— his heart had stopped. Over and over again. Donnie couldn’t leave now.

The mere thought of food makes his stomach roll. He can’t eat. He doesn’t think he’ll ever eat again. He’s already made peace with that.

“Don?” Comes Raph’s voice from across the room, tentative and slow. It draws his attention towards him, watching where he’s slumped over in his chair like he’d just woken from a long, restless nap.

“Don, c’mon. Rest. Please.” His eyes are wet with fresh tears, his face already stained from the previous. His hands are still shaking, the tremor working its way through every nerve beneath his skin. Donnie briefly wonders why he isn’t shaking too.

Had he gone completely numb?

He doesn’t get a chance to vocalize his protest a second time, this time hands are moving across his shoulders, making him flinch before he feels the pad of Leo’s thumb work itself in small circles across his scales. He’s guiding him out of the lab before he can try and fight him on it, steered right towards the couch where Raph has already beat them to it with a pillow and a blanket.

“We’ll take turns checking on him,” Leo assures him as he practically pushes him back to sit. “You need to rest, Don. You don’t even need to sleep, just lie flat and close your eyes for a bit, okay?”

As soon as his shell hits the soft plush of their couch, Raph is dragging the old moth bitten blanket up over him, stopping short at his chin. Up close, both brothers have a thick coppery smell about them, and Don supposes he’s probably got the same stink on him too, having failed to wash it off from himself at all. 

He doesn’t have the heart to tell them both, though. They’ve been through enough tonight. 

“I’ll wake you if we need you,” comes Leo’s empty promise. Don doubts that he will, knowing his older brothers they’ll sit virtue in that lab without him for the sake of letting him rest, but Donnie also doubts he’ll be able to find sleep so easily after tonight, so it will only be a matter of time before he’s joining them.

He simply hums as if to pacify them both.

Raph flips the switch for the main light, blanketing the room in darkness, but with his finely tuned ninja skill, he’s able to watch the shape of his brothers as they shift out of the room, hushed voices only heard with a strained, precise ear.

“What do we do now, Leo?” Comes Raphael’s voice, laced with unbridled fear. It forces Donnie’s gut into a hard, unmoving knot. 

“I have no idea, Raph,” comes Leo’s wavering response. “We just wait. Together.”

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