Archive of Our Own ^beta

Mikey has been acting weird lately, or at least weird in a way Mikey can be. It all started before the day Mikey had faced the shredder alone.

It was a day without such pranks but, just Mikey appreciating his brothers left and right and spending actual nice time with them. He seemed all cheery, just like always it also felt as if Mikey was breaming with sunlight.

The day after they had found his phone at the house and his brother missing. The three brothers were rightfully worried, only to find their youngest brother in the headquarters of their nemesis, Shredder. Both of them were lying injured, but Mikey's condition seemed more stable. The turtled brought the other home to treat him, and Donnie made numerous check ups and tests to see if there are any lethal damages or any thing out of the blue that would affect Mikey greatly and gratefully the tests results would come clean. Yet Mikey when Mikey was conscious he wasn't acting right. He was silent, appearing more blank and lost, not having his all time energy. It was as if the Mikey they knew were dead and replaced with a hollow husk...

...

He was supposed to be dead.

When he faced of shredder he hoped to do a big damage to him so when Shredder kills him he would at least leave a mark for his brothers and not go out without a fight, or help. His story was meant to end right there with a fond memory of him and a relief to his family for dragging them down for so long. He felt disgusting to be in this meat flesh keeping him here, it felt even more tiring to have to sit and bare his brothers overwhelming concern for him, talking in the distance without him as if Mikey wasn't gonna know he was the topic of today's news. He felt selfish for dragging the attention on him even though he loved the attention that came from his brothers.

But this.. was different.

He was supposed to calm the tense air not create it. And right now.. he felt that it was harder to even open his mouth let alone move. He can't cheer them up in this condition and staying like this only worried them more. They shouldn't be worried about such things.. He screwed up and it was filling him up. He felt awful, he wanted to disappear, he tried to disappear but even he did that wrong and now he was suffering the consequences.

He had nothing planned after yesterday, he wasn't prepared for a tomorrow.

It felt hollow, nothing to do or live for when the pizza he adores tasted like cardboard and everything felt like it lost its meaning.

The days passed blank, going in between eating nothing and then binge eating, savoring every moment when the food actually tasted like food and comforted him and other times...

It was mostly numb with no appetite.

Mikey didn't wake up until his brothers knocked in his door and other times he just clung to his blanket for some sort of presence he felt scared to ask his brothers for.

Mikey was disgusting, he was trapped in a disgusting pile of flesh and he couldn't ask for his brothers to tolerate it. He barely spoke and when he did it felt exhausting, and he couldn't keep it hidden from his brothers, no.

They knew.

And Mikey felt their pity on him and it felt awful.

Awful, awful i say! Like carrying huge boulders weighing everyone's worries. They should've just let him die in Shredder's lair.

...In one of the nights, barely functioning he dragged himself out of his bed, blanket wrapped around him. Doing such a simple task like getting out of his bed felt hard, having gone through multiple considerations. Maybe his brain would show him some mercy and he could eat something and feel better ever so slightly.

Mikey's feet dragged on the floor barely moving as if boulders were tied to it. He forced himself to walk the close distance.

He is making this a huge fuss, kitchen wasn't even that far away.

Yet it felt so hard to take the each step, his mind was always against him, he would be surprised if it co-operated for once.

Disgusting.

He clung onto the blanket, hiding his body like a something that shouldn't be seen. He for once didn't want others to perceive him even though it was the death of night. No one was awake, but him.

The kitchen's light opened slowly, creating a soft hum that was discarded to the background. Mikey reached out to open the fridge, creating a secondary hum that almost felt like an exchange between electronics. Or it was their own way of saying that they were functioning.

Hmmm...
nothing felt interesting.

He couldn't find anything that would peak his interest. His appetite was closed. His mind didn't spare one bit of mercy to him. The turtle sighed and still reached to the left over pizza, sitting on the ground after closing the fridge's door. His body leaned to the towering food cabinet, once again making sure the blanket gave it's empty comfort before taking a bite of the cold pizza.

Nothing.

Mikey curled forward a bit, unhappy with the results. His hand clenched on his knee, nails digging in his skin. It hurt him to see the food that always brought him some sort of comfort was doing nothing. He took another bite in the hopes of something would be different but when it wasn't he just discarded it back in the box.

Staring at it...

Could he just sleep here?

And not concern his brothers more than they already are?

...

Yeah sure...
...as if.

"Mikey?"
the soft voice was coming from the other side of the kitchen.

Speak of the devil,
Mikey internally cursed to himself for jinxing it.

He should've normally seen who was coming from the footsteps but he was too caught up on his own world he guessed.
The turtle with the purple bandana approached slowly, not saying anything but his facial expression spoke more than he did. Mikey guessed he was indeed in a pityful state.

He clenched further into his blanket, trying to seem small,
unimportant.

Right...
Donnie sometimes stayed up when he got caught up in his work, he forgot.

And guess his luck was just not it...

Looking at his younger brother in that state didn't sit well with him, especially when none of them knew what was really happening with Mikey. He had done countless of tests to see if Shredder gave him something, or some sort of spiritual attack, or a physical head damage but nothing was..

wrong.

And Donnie didn't know what was wrong. And he didn't know how to approach in this situation. Donnie fiddled with his hands, deciding the best course of action would be at least to be with Mikey!

He.. seemed rather lonely after all.

"Can I sit with you?" He asked, not helping himself but sounding hesitant about it.

The younger one seems to be contemplating the question before giving an equally hesitant nod. Donnie didn't wait longer and sat next to Mikey but kept distance enough to not make Mikey feel like he was suffocating.
His eyes analysing the surroundings he found the left over pizzas.

That was odd, Mikey loves pizza!

But not that surprising after his presence and energy had been significantly dimmed down, he theorised.

"You aren't gonna eat that?" He tried to fill the silence along with maybe hoping to get some answer from Mikey, however it was silent along with an avoided gaze. So... he just ended up shuting up and looked away too.
Donnie's expertise wasn't emotions, maybe he shouldn't have attempted to comfort his brother. But it wasn't like he could just ignore it too right?

Mikey didn't know why Donnie was sitting with him, his mind growing foggy by the thoughts of his own therefore it plagued the view of his brothers by whatever his mind seemed fit at the moment. He didn't know how to answer Donnie or react to the situation, he was hoping to be alone here and go through it as so.
He knows his brothers aren't the best in the emotions department so could he really expect them to understand even if he managed to open his mouth and speak out some..

nonsense?

They never did.

So it just made it even harder to find a reason to say some words that would hit a wall and bounce back.
Mikey oh so wanted to lean into Donnie for some sort of physical comfort but right now that felt utterly selfish to ask. He can't expect Donnie to tolerate his flesh.

Oh how he wanted to rip it open..

He lowered his head, letting it rest on the blanket that was covering his knees. Closing his eyes to try and, just seperate himself from the reality that he was in.

To not go to a better place
but just to seperate his existence from it.

Donnie frowned, awkwardly shifting his hands and fiddling with them before placing them on his own knees.
Mikey doesn't seem to be trying to fill the silence even though it suffocated him. Mainly because Mikey would be usually chiming and there would barely be one to begin with.

Even at times he disliked Mikey's antics and clumsiness, he did add life to his lab. And as a brother, he was just concerned about his younger brother.

Not working on a project was making him sleepy however.

His mind not thinking about variables and calculations it caused him to catch a break and the time was catching up to him. Yet Donnie just didn't wanna leave Mikey here...

"We.. don't know what wrong with you." Donnie finally spoke. "Im glad that none of the tests about your physical and spiritual condition contain anything concerning but.." Donnie tried to find the right words.

"...I don't know how to fix this."

Mikey had slowly opened his eyes. Confused and lost, along with a lot of shame he was causing such trouble to his brothers that should've ended couple of days ago. He slowly looked up.

Donnie was looking at the ground while speaking, his arms dangling down from his knees, one hand going up to rub the back of his neck nervously.

"And, I just wish you could tell us what's wrong.. but maybe you don't even know." Donnie sighed. "We don't know why you aren't talking. And its.. frustrating to see you just be silent when you aren't answering back to anything we ask or say." his annoyance could be heard in his tone, but they were unfiltered and raw thoughts that weren't sugar coated.

"I.. just wanna believe you need time to recover from the fight.." The annoyance melted into something more fond, his tone soft and once again filled with worry and a hint of doubt. Donnie let out an exhale from his nose and then sighed again.
"I hope one day you can tell us what's wrong, no matter how stupid it may sound." Donnie also rested his head on his knees with a weak chuckle that melted into nothing.

A yawn escaped from him, his eyelids feeling heavy.

Mikey's eyes were still on the other, taking it what his brother said, trying to filter it out from his mind twisting the intentions that Donnie held even tho it was hard. Guilt filled him, he was making his family feel awful, which made him feel awful. His thumb carressed the blanket, his gaze fell back on the ground. The mouth barely opened, the words or any type of noise felt like it weighted tons to push out of his throat.

It shouldn't be such a struggle, but he struggled even to say the simplest thing.

"I'm.. sorry."

Donnie shot back up hearing the words, his expression growing nervous as he flailed his hands around in the air.

"Nononono I didn't mean to.. I mean... I didnt.. I wasn't supposed to make you feel bad- Ugh I shouldn't have spoken!" Donnie rambled on, his hands soon clenching his head with a little groan.
"Don't apologise! It's not something.. you should.." Donnie panicked trying hard to find words, he shouldn't have come here to try and comfort his younger brother when he knew he sucked at these. He was gonna make things worse and then what is he supposed to tell others or.. what would happen to Mikey??

"It's fine.." Mikey tried to stop Donnie from panicking only to meet up with the other snapping.

"It's not fine!" Mikey, taken aback looked as if his brother slapped him. Donnie fumbled, shaking his head.
"I mean.. it's not fine that you are.. struggling? And I shouldn't be making you feel worse?"

It was hard making sense of things like this. Donnie shook his head.

"Look. Mikey. It's very hard to make sense of what you think or do.. almost all the time. But if it means we can have you back I'm willing to try.." Donnie managed to form some of his thoughts into an understandable sentence, and looked at his younger brother nervously for some confirmation that he was either going the right path..

or the complete opposite.

Mikey looked away from Donnie, to the pizza in front of him to completely divert his gaze away. There was a huge silence before Donnie spoke again, feeling like he was failing his brother.
"Or.. I'm willing to wait..?" Another sigh.

"Just, don't go die on us or something. And know what you are doing.." Donnie also looked away after he deemed himself done talking, hugging his legs and mentally preparing himself to leave before he screwed things up more.

His genius wasn't really useful in this place.

Mikey was frozen, Donnie's words going against his beliefs that his mind has created for him in this very moment, trying to make sense of the other's words.

Seeing Donnie shift to leave however made his stomach drop, opening his mouth for no voice to come he clenched his teeth and finally.

"Wait."

Donnie immeadietly turned around, Mikey's mind went blank, looking around not knowing why he asked the other to wait while he was asking to be left alone.\

Mikey.. just..
he just didn't know..
he..

Donnie's expression softened and sat back down, slowly reaching out to Mikey to give him a hug. His actions were hesitant as if he was trying to calculate every milimetric movement.

Mikey couldn't react at the time but with time he gave himself into the touch.

He felt disgusting..

It was digusting..

This all felt.. disgusting.

But it was better than the empty comfort of his blanket. It was better to feel his brother breathing, feeling that there was another living being with him rather then the limp blanket around his shoulders.

Mikey by reflex leaned into the touch, and Donnie made sure Mikey stayed in his grasp.

They stayed like that on the kitchen floor, the blanket wrapped around both of them. The others would find them like this in the morning but Donnie couldn't care less.

He was just glad he didn't screw this up that badly and atleast helped his brother a little for him to reach out for something,

even if it was something as simple as this.