Work Text:
all i want is nothing more
to hear you knocking at my door
cause if i could see your face once more
i'd die a happy man i'm sure
- Kodaline
[]
They pulled a corpse out of the prison dimension.
In the haze of the aftermath, Donnie reacted without thinking too much. He could still clearly remember how his fingers had pressed against Leo's pulse, only to find that was instead where Leo's pulse was supposed to be. No movement. No breath. Complete stillness.
Donnie remembered how Mikey made a choked sound, Raph pulling him close and hiding his face from the sight. Leo's eyes were vacant, staring up at nothing. Dried blood and bruises, bones twisted, cracked shell, and ice cold skin. He'd been dead for a while.
Donnie could still see with perfect clarity, every single injury on the flesh of his twin. All the burst capillaries and shattered bones. How the collapsed shell could not protect the viscera inside. Leo had died, and he had suffered, and now Donnie was left with his corpse.
"Get Mikey away from here." Donnie told Raph, voice small.
"Is he…?" Raph asked, eyes flickering, cradling Mikey's head close. Their baby brother was shaking like an earthquake. He was a force of nature. He could tear apart reality. He could not reverse death.
"Yes." Donnie left no loopholes. There was no hope here.
Raph took Mikey away, sending voice over the communicator to speak to the rest of their family. To tell them. And Donnie was left with what used to be his twin brother.
The chill of Leo's skin felt just like the ice cold bucket of water poured down Donnie's spine. His flesh and bones aching as if the injuries were his own. He ran his scanner over and the readouts were punch after punch, splintering his rib cage and yanking his heart from his chest and stomping it on the Staten Island concrete. The laundry list of injuries, of time passed, alone and hurting and then dead. Donnie's hand shook when he reached out to shut Leo's eyes, the distant glassy texture reminding him of dead fish in market stalls. The harsh intensity of the world in this moment, like this was the worst dream he’d ever had.
Donnie hesitated to touch him, as though the sheer number of injuries could be made worse. But there was nothing worse. Trembling, he gathered Leo in his arms, the waxy sensation of his chilled body moving straight past haunting into blood-curdling.
He didn't let go. He pressed his cheek against the red stripe and squeezed his eyes shut, waiting to wake up, waiting to wake up, waiting to wake up.
"Donnie." April said, voice incredibly small, her warm hand touching his shoulder. She was so warm. Leo was so cold. "You have to let go."
Donnie was wracked with tremors. Time must've passed, as April was there, Splinter was there, Casey was there, and Donnie kept Leo close to him, hiding the worst of the damage by keeping his twin gathered together in his arms.
It wasn't right. But he couldn't let go. He shook his head and rose on trembling legs, a startled sound from April earning a supportive arm to keep him upright. Grim-faced, she guided him towards their stolen ride home.
The trip was deathly silent, beyond quiet tears from almost everyone. Not Donnie. His throat hurt, curled up and desperately dreading the moment he was going to have to let go. Holding onto what was left wasn't the same, but it was all he had.
"When we were made, we were formed in the same star." Leo had told him once, laying on a rooftop watching the stars and making up constellations.
Donnie was right there next to him. He said, "Actually, it's far more likely we were carbon molecules floating in a cosmic soup."
"Our molecules were intertwined or whatever." Leo turned to grin at him, with all his teeth. "That's what twins are, right? It's one split into two."
Donnie looked back at him, and the memory was tainted and repainted with grief, his current self could not recall the moment without remembering his face glassy and cold, and wondering if Donnie was one split into two, what did it mean if half of him was gone?
Donnie couldn't remember what he said in return. He hoped it was something worthwhile, he hoped that it made Leo feel loved, he hoped that his twin never doubted that he would give anything to be whole.
There was no hope left. It died on Staten Island. Leo would've found that fitting.
[]
Donnie hadn't smiled since Leo died.
Of course there was no reason to be smiling. But also because that seemed dishonouring.
That happened a lot. The eggshells around certain things. Blueberries were practically banned from entering the lair, because it wouldn't be right. Leo’s room was untouched. They'd shuffled Leo's favourite mug to the shrine they'd built in the lair as none of them could drink out of it.
They kept Leo's swords mounted on the wall above the shrine. Once a day, Splinter cleaned the blades, absolutely meticulous about it, to almost a painful degree. Donnie couldn't watch him do it, because it jammed a rock in his throat that was impossible to breathe around. Something about the level of care, or maybe that he almost had almost never seen the swords not dancing in Leo's palms. And that he would never see that again.
Splinter had taught Leo how to clean the blades. Donnie remembered how Leo's eyes had sparkled and he'd watched with rapt attention, clumsily recreating the methods taught until he was just as second nature at the act as their father. But Leo's eyes couldn't sparkle, they were dull and blank and gone.
His arms still felt cold from when they'd pried Leo out of them. Splinter had prepared the body and put him to rest, insisting that it was his duty as his father. Donnie laid awake and imagined his twin brother cold and buried alone until the clock ticked over to morning, eyes filmed with tears that built and built and built but never fell. He was still waiting to wake up. Wake up. Wake up.
He couldn't touch the swords. He couldn't drink from his mug. And he couldn't smile, because Leo was the one who made him smile, and he was gone.
Gone. Not here. Not with Donnie. They were the same star, the same cosmic soup, they were not meant to be apart. There was no singular connotation of the word 'twin'.
Splinter had buried his smile.
[]
It was a long time before Donnie stopped waiting to wake up.
He wasn’t sure what finally broke him — whether it was the lack of sleep from the image of his twin’s dead face burnt underneath his eyelids, the tremulous journey of grief everyone else around him beginning to make tiny steps towards the new normal, or just simply the fact that if this was a dream, it seemed that the dream was the rest of his life.
Donnie was laying in his bed, well past noon, incapable of moving or creating or anything, and he thought with the full force of a train — I’m not going to wake up.
Broke. Caved in, like the sight of Leo’s crushed carapace, and was this how it felt for him to die? The spiked agony piercing him over and over and over until Donnie was wailing, inconsolable, gasping for air that couldn’t find its way home. He should never be happy again. He could never be happy again. He would never be happy again.
The messy sound of his defeat obviously reached more ears, or maybe Raph had been waiting for this moment, because he was there. And Donnie wasn’t proud of it but he fought him — he kicked and pulled and screamed and did everything he could to keep Raph away, to stop him from comforting him, to stop him because he was awake and this wasn’t a dream and he was never, ever going to wake up.
Donnie didn’t want to feel better. Because Leo would never feel better. He died painfully and scared and alone and —
Raph was stronger than him. Steel faced and patient he merely deflected the feral scrapes and hits until Donnie’s already weak body exhausted itself, sobbing weakly into his own palms, stricken with horror and the most unnameable grief. There was no word for losing half of your soul.
Raph gathered him up, capable of swallowing him whole in strong, loving arms. He rubbed his shell and hummed a desperate song, mouth trembling and kissing the top of his head.
Donnie drew in ragged breath after ragged breath, unable to get a grip, the world fuzzy and grey. He sunk bonelessly into Raph’s hold to sob small hiccups.
“I’ve got you.” Raph promised, voice wet, holding so tight it hurt. “I’ve got you. Please. I can’t lose you too.”
Donnie stared dead-eyed out of his grip and thought… you already have.
[]
Time kept passing and passing and passing. Donnie was sitting in front of the shrine.
All his muscles were twitching, jaw clenching, but he kept himself there, in that pain.
Mikey had joined him. He hated it when Donnie did this, and glued himself to his side, tears dripping down his cheeks and hugging Donnie’s bicep like he might disappear.
Donnie didn’t know what else to do. There was no escape from the thoughts, there was only this ringing bell over and over and over, too loud to think around, shaking his knees and sending him off balance. The grief never let up, it never relented, not even for him to breathe. A compressed band around his chest.
“He loved you so much.” Mikey whispered.
There was no pang of pain, because he’d reached a threshold of agony. No flinch. Just tracing the photograph framed in the middle with Leo’s smiling face. He still couldn’t stop seeing the dead image of his waxy skin, because that was the haunting photograph burnt into his minds eye that his brain liked to pull out over and over again.
Mikey sighed, sniffing wetly and shuffling a little closer. Snot on Donnie’s arm. There was no emotion or sensation at the feeling.
Donnie looked at the smile so effortless on Leo’s face in the photograph and thought about how that boy would never smile again. And neither would he.
“He wouldn’t want this for you.” Mikey said softly.
“Then he shouldn’t have died.” Donnie said, trying to be whip sharp but it came out strangled and cracked.
Mikey made a hurt sound and dug himself closer, arms around his middle and squishing hard. Donnie kept himself still and unmoving. He was a statue at the shrine of Leo’s life. He was the piece left behind.
[]
Time wouldn't stop. It had been so long since he last saw Leo smile. Raph laughed at a joke Mikey made. And Donnie turned around and walked directly out of the room — then out of the lair and into New York. Blind with rage and grief and a boiling pot of emotions. Because — because the new normal was beginning to become cemented, the family was not in mourning every second of the day, they were moving on and Donnie —
Donnie wasn’t.
It wasn’t a fair anger. Raph had cried just that morning over a fridge magnet that had fallen under the fridge that was once Leo’s. Mikey’s mouth had wobbled as he made the joke, because surely he was thinking of their missing brother. No one would say that there wasn’t an obvious, gaping hole in their lives.
Something in the haunted desperate gleam in Raph’s eyes when he talked about protecting his little brothers, that his nightmares were the little brother he couldn’t protect. Something in Mikey drawing every piece of art with a blue figure right in the centre, always proud and strong and able. Something in Splinter making his rounds every single night to kiss all his remaining turtles on the head goodnight, an untethered sorrow that splashed up the shore in heavy waves. Something in April making a painful point to tell every silly funny happy Leo story that ever came to mind, any moment she thought of them.
But Donnie couldn’t. He couldn’t eat, he couldn’t sleep, he couldn’t think — and when Mikey joked and Raph laughed his whole brain snapped off a fraying and thin string and sent him running. Away. Far far away.
As if there was somewhere he could go that would change the truth. He fell in a heap blocks from home, heaving into his palms in thin, struggling breaths.
“Woah, it's okay.” A kind voice said, and when Donnie turned huge, watery eyes it was a stranger knelt beside him. “Here, here. I’ve got a tissue.”
Donnie stared. The human gently extracted a tissue from her pocket, folded neatly and pressed into his palm. Her weathered face lit with a gentle smile and she urged, “Blow your nose, kid.”
The thick Brooklyn accent made it a reflex to obey. She didn’t even seemed phased by the green appearance underneath his purple hood, shielding herself between him and the New York crowds carelessly splitting around them.
“There ya go.” She encouraged, guiding him up and out of the way.
Donnie pressed against the brick wall with the lady and her shopping bags, interlaced over her arms. He hiccuped and tried to clean his face. New York passed by. None of them cared his brother was dead, they looked at their phones and dodged puddles and laughed as if there was laughter left in the world.
"Oh, you'll be alright." The lady pat his arm. "You'll see."
Then she handed him another tissue, folding his trembling fingers around it, and hiked her shopping bags further up her arms before leaving.
Distant laughter stung like bullets. His fingers curled around the tissue.
[]
Donnie's lab was collecting dust.
It felt like a tomb. All the projects abandoned midway through. He couldn't remember what he'd been trying to do, the Donatello that had been working on those frivolous ideas did not exist inside him anymore. There was no need for innovation. There was no need for any of it.
He started spending all of his time in Leo's room instead. Gone was the feeling of dishonouring him, now the only thought was to submerge himself in as much of what remained of his twin as possible. He laid in his bed. He wore his clothes. He didn’t want to talk about it. He viciously kicked anyone who tried to come inside directly back out. Even if all he did was lay motionless in Leo’s bed and Leo’s hoodie and think about how much he wished that Leo was alive. How much he missed him.
And now Donnie wasn’t a stupid fucking idiot. He knew that there was no way to get Leo back. And yes, he’d already considered cloning him. It wouldn’t work. It was the Fullmetal Alchemist conundrum — what could possibly equal their soul? If he manufactured a Leo clone, there was simply no way to input all the things that actually made him Leo. It was just as useful a prospect of digging up his corpse and attempting necromancy. And yeah. Donnie had thought about that too.
But the neurons that made up his memories were dead. He wouldn’t remember that he loved Donnie. That he carried him in piggy back rides while complaining the whole time. That he was his confidant, his best friend, his worst enemy, his better half, his twin.
Donnie wasn’t stupid. He knew that Leo was gone. That person was never coming back. Laying in this bed and thinking about him wasn’t going to fix any of that. Donnie knew Leo wasn’t going to come back. He just wished…
Well. He just wished he was with him. That’s all.
There was a knock on the door. Donnie replied, immediately reflexive, “Go away.”
“Even your pops?” Splinter asked. Quiet and maybe a little nervous.
Donnie heaved an exhausted sigh. “If you must.”
Splinter did not hesitate to enter, though once he stepped inside his determination faltered and he looked around Leo’s room with wounded eyes. A shaky, shuddering breath wracked his little form, then he set his shoulders and approached the bed to sit on the edge and place a gentle hand on Donnie’s face.
“I don’t want to hear it.” Donnie said, because he’d heard it so many times already. That he had to get up, keep living, carry Leo’s love forward, blah blah blah — it didn’t matter. He didn’t even know how long it had been since Leo died, if it was weeks or months or years. It would never be long enough.
Splinter cradled his face in his hands and gave Donnie the saddest look he’d ever seen. A depth of sorrow that was a bottomless well. A void. His father knew better than anyone what it was like to want to lay in bed for all time.
“What a gift the universe gave you, to have the kind of love you found in your twin.” Splinter said, voice so scratchy and rasped it was almost gone. “But there is no love without grief. They are the same thing.”
“That doesn’t help me.” Donnie couldn’t think about how much Leo loved him, it burned. He turned his face out of his father’s touch and thought, nothing will ever help me.
“I suppose it doesn’t.” Splinter said, sad and wry, thumbing his cheek even though Donnie had turned away. “Anatawa hitorijanai.”
Donnie barked a chilled laugh, and turned dead eyes to meet his gaze. “I’ve never been more alone in my entire life. And he — he died alone. And cold, and scared, and in pain, and — and —“
The hiccups were almost sobs but Donnie fiercely bit them down. Glaring at the soft and worried face before him with all his strength.
“Leonardo died alone but he lived loved and happy.” Splinter said, careful and slow. “Sometimes tragedy happens. The bad does not erase the good.”
“There is no good left.” Donnie snarled. “Life is senseless tragedy that you never get to wake up from. I don’t want this. I want him back.” The snarl dissolved into punching sobs. “I w-want him back, I-I want him back, I want him back please, Daddy.”
“I know.” Splinter said gravely, pulling him closer to hug like he was a tot again. “I know, believe me, I know.”
Donnie shook apart. Splinter kissed his head and promised, over and over, “But you’re not alone, my brilliant, beautiful Purple. You are not alone, not for a second. You are never alone.”
Leo always hated it when Donnie cried. He’d crack a joke or squish him in a hug until he didn’t have enough air to sob. He’d go, “No, no, don’t cry Tello. Don’t cry I’m here. I’m here.”
Donnie just kept crying. Because he wasn’t there. He wasn’t.
[]
Sometimes you don’t get to wake up.
A glassy stare on a corpse. Donnie wondered if Leo knew he was going to die. Or if he just fell asleep and didn’t wake up.
Sometimes there was only tragedy.
Donnie knew all the words. He didn't need Doctor Feelings to tell him, because he could access Wikipedia himself, thanks. Survivor's guilt. Complicated grief. He knew, logically, that the way he was dealing with Leo's death was not productive or healing. It was the dark clinging murk, it was rotting flesh and flies, it was crawling in the grave and waiting and waiting and waiting.
There was no other thoughts in his mind, rolling over the image of his dead face, the pattern of injuries and the story they told, the torn hole in his life. There should've been something he could've done, some way he could've fixed this or stopped it or saved him.
Donnie hadn't thought about his inventions. He couldn't cope with anyone else's grief because he was too consumed with his own, pushing them away over and over again, even if he had to bite and kick. He didn't want their platitudes, because he knew they didn't mean, he knew that they all loved Leo, they all missed him, and it hurt all the more that the others would try to get him to – to –
Overcome this intense and persistent nagging, that never left him alone. He couldn't save Leo. There was no purpose. The bitter, hollow ache, only eclipsed by the detached numbness that had him laying in bed, in Leo's bed, for hours and days and maybe even years.
No normal routines could rouse him. Sensory discomfort were endured with grim gritted teeth, because what was seeking peace when Leo was dead in the ground? Cold and alone. If Donnie joined him, then he wouldn't alone anymore. Right?
It was a delusion. Donnie was pretty sure. There was no conclusive proof that dying would reunite them, it was a risk to try. But even so, what was the point if Leo wasn't there anyway? Not like he'd been such a great brother recently, or anywhere close to the genius inventor he was supposed to be, that Leo once sung his praises for.
He should've done more. There could've been something else he could've done. He failed him.
There was no way to tell how long it had been now. But it was long enough that April was pissed. She was shaking his shoulder, eyes glistening, and she snapped at him, "Come on, Donnie. Snap out of it."
Nothing left. Dazed stare at the wall. Leo's posters. Dust.
"Wake up, damn you!" April choked on the plea. "Look at me. Look at me, Donatello. I'm not playing around anymore."
Donnie looked at her, brow furrowed, and asked, "Why? You can't tell me it's wrong. You can't tell me how to miss him."
April looked like she might start rattling him. Instead she lunged forward and hugged as tightly as her warm arms could. "It's not wrong to miss him. But you're scaring me. You're scaring me."
A pang erupted, deep deep deep inside him. Donnie inhaled shakily and hugged back, he whispered, "Don't be scared."
"Don't be scared." The image of a young Leo whispered in his ear, the two of them hidden under a bed, gripping their hands together tight. "Don't be scared, Tello. I'm here."
"I'm…" Donnie couldn't finish. He buried his face in April's shoulder, eyes stinging with defeat.
Sometimes there was no way to save them.
The burning concern blazed through April in how she gripped him tight. But he could barely feel it, skin numb and unresponsive to touch. He was thinking about falling asleep and never waking up. Never waking up. How would it be any different from this?
[]
"Do you know what the simplest carbon oxide is?" Donnie asked.
No response. That was fine. He'd taken the good chair, right in the middle of the Turtle Tank. Perfectly calibrated to Raph's lumbar settings. It was the first time he'd left Leo's room for anything in … an uncomfortably long time.
"An oxocarbon with a triple bond. One carbon, one oxygen molecule, fused together. It has a molar mass of twenty-eight, making it slightly less dense than air. It is present at about eighty parts per billion in the Earth's atmosphere. Mostly, however, it is formed from chemical reactions from organic compounds. Such as engine combustion." Donnie said, pulling his legs up to hug, staring at the controls in front of him.
Silence. He continued, "This creates a gas that is odourless and colourless and quite, quite poisonous. Often in snow storms, the mufflers of cars get plugged with snow and the occupants die before they even realize something is wrong. Though filling the exhaust pipes with foam would also have the same effect. At least, I hope."
"Donnie."
He didn't turn. "It will be just like falling asleep."
“Except for the part where sometimes you like, have seizures and die painfully. And hey, well we’re spouting statistics, what about the number of people who attempt suicide and regret it? wasn’t it something like fifty percent of people who survived jumping off the Golden Gate Bridge regretted it halfway down?”
Donnie inhaled deeply. Exhaled. He couldn’t smell anything yet, but that didn’t mean it wasn’t working.
“Hey. Turn off the ignition. Before you regret it. What happens when you’re too weak to move? You should turn it off now.” Longer pause, weaker. “Please.”
“So what if I die in pain?” Donnie shook his head. “You did.”
"Donnie." Leo said, strangled. Shaken. Shadowed.
"You don't get to try and stop me." Donnie scoffed. "You're not actually here anyway. Because you're, you know, dead."
"Maybe I'm like, a ghost." Leo said.
"Are you?" Donnie challenged.
Silence was the reply. Yeah. Donnie didn't think so. Because otherwise, Leo would've visited him a long time ago. No, this was the fumes or something. This was him losing his god damn mind. He didn't even know why he was imagining Leo showing up and trying to stop him.
"Anyway. You're one to talk. You basically killed yourself." Donnie rested his cheek on his knees and breathed deeply through his nose. It was beginning to make the room spin a bit.
"I was being a hero." The word that haunted Raph more than this fake ghost ever could. "Who is this act saving, Donatello?"
"Me." Donnie spat.
Leo scoffed at him, though the tinge of panic was audible. "Please. What's dying gonna fix, huh? You're gonna deprive the world of your genius brain?"
Donnie's mouth twitched upwards, just a little. Maybe a smile. "Flattery won't work either, Nardo."
"Come on. Please. For me?"
"The dead don't get a say in the living." Donnie said, because if he took Leo up on the offer, he'd still be alive and Leo would still be dead. It wasn't a status quo he could tolerate anymore. If Leo wanted him to live, then he shouldn't have died.
"Oh yeah?" Leo said, heated. "Okay. Fine. Listen to this, then."
The voice changed. It was Raph, shattered and sobbing, "Please, I can't lose you too."
Donnie froze. Muscles tense, on guard.
Mikey, a clinging whisper, "He wouldn't want this for you."
No. No. No. Donnie breathed deeper. Sunk the molecules in quicker. Odourless. Colourless. Poisonous.
A stranger on the street. Blind kindness. "Oh, you'll be alright. You'll see."
Donnie began to shiver. He tugged at his bandana.
His father, sad and wry, "Anatawa hitorijanai."
Another breath. He could imagine what it was like to stand on the edge of the Golden Gate bridge. And how it might feel when you stepped off, heart rocketing into your throat, and what if you regretted it, what if it was too late –
The ringing desperation of April in his ear, "Snap out of it. Wake up!"
Everything rung in his ears at once. Reality slammed into him, a gasp. Donnie's hand snapped out and turned the keys in the ignition. The tank fell quiet. The voices stopped. Donnie heaved for air. Air that was thick with poison. He was shaking, trembling all over, and he –
There was nothing left in the universe. Leo was dead. There was no hope. But still, but still, he'd turned the key. It wasn't quite regret, maybe something related, something close. Though he wasn't any wiser on how he could go forward.
Donnie rose on quivering legs. He opened the tank door and stepped into the fresh air. He was awake. He fell to his knees and breathed.