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Crying Themselves to Sleep || Mikey - Pale Room, Part III One by one, they’re taken from the cell, and Mikey wonders if they’ll ever see each other again.

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@badthingshappenbingo

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Their cell was quiet when Mikey woke up. What he wouldn’t give for a window. At least in their lair, he had the sense of whether it was daytime or nighttime, or even a clock just to tell the time, but he woke up in the near-total darkness and no sense of how long he’d been asleep.

Raph had taken up Donnie’s pacing. However, while Donnie paced a long line, Raph did it in a tight circle at one end of the cell, large hands rubbing the back of his neck, his arms, his sides. Leo was holding onto Donnie. Leo’s face was so tight, so old, and so unlike him that Mikey almost thought he was looking at a stranger, and when he sensed Mikey watching, he forced a reassuring smile.

“Man, they sure like keeping us waiting,” said Leo. “Anyone else getting hungry? Thirsty? Both?”

“Ugh, please don’t talk about food right now,” said Raph. “Raph is getting hangry.”

Leo’s laugh was stilted. “You sleep alright, Mikey?”

“No,” said Mikey, stretching out his sore limbs. The floor felt harder than concrete and just as inviting. “Did you?”

“Ah, y’know, hard to sleep with this guy on me. Didn’t realize Donnie was this heavy. His head must really be dense if he’s got this much weight on him.”

“You think all his weight in his head?”

“No, really, if he has, like, more brain cells than us and they’re all packed together, that makes him heavy. I bet Raph isn’t as heavy as him. Hey, Raph, come over here and test it out for me.”

Raph grunted something noncommittal. The feverish silence created a horrible, heavy heat in the cell, making it difficult to breathe.

“Hey, Mikey, hold on to him for a sec, would you?” said Leo.

Mikey scooted across and Leo passed Donnie to him, prying his hands away. When Leo gently passed Donnie to Mikey, Donnie didn't even seem cognizant of it. He let out something between a gasp and a grunt, and clung to Mikey when he was passed into his arms.

Leo convened with Raph in the corner of the cell. Despite Mikey being able to hear everything, they spoke quietly to create the illusion of a private conversation.

“Tell me you got a plan,” Leo whispered.

“I’m thinking, I’m thinking,” Raph hissed. “We could rush them. Might get into the hall before they release that gas or whatever it was.”

“Yeah, and get shot by a bunch’a pea shooters. We don’t even have our weapons and there’s a whole lot of them and four of us. Donnie was probably our best bet for coming up with a way out of here and he’s not all there right now.”

Raph looked around, searching the ceiling, and Mikey knew he was looking for cameras. He pulled Leo closer in and started signing instead of speaking, at just an awkward enough angle that it might be difficult for a camera to get a view of their hands.

“Donnie may’ve left us a way out,” Raph signed.

“Like what?” Leo replied.

“The emergency beacons in our belts. Everything happened too fast for us to hit them, but if we can activate them, Dad could pinpoint our location and come get us. He knows we’re missing by now.”

“They confiscated those the moment we were out, along with the rest of our gear.”

“The belts don’t look like a threat a first glance. I don’t know if they’d lock them up with our weapons.”

“We’d need to get out of here.”

“They aren’t gonna leave us in here forever.”

“Dunno. I think they may just let us starve to death.”

“No. They didn’t.”

“How can you be so sure?”

“It’s an interrogation tactic. They’re depriving us of food and water to make us more agreeable.”

Leo looked scared. “You seem pretty sure of that.”

“I feel pretty sure.” Raph rubbed the back of his neck. “Look, no matter what happens, focus on trying to get to those belts. Be sneaky about it if you have to.” He locked eyes with Mikey. “If that fails, we all have to keep an eye out for an opening to escape, even if it means only one of us gets away. If one of us escapes, they can go get help.”

Leo opened his mouth, as if to protest or agree or something, but he didn’t have time to when the lock on the door clanked and opened.

Mikey squinted against the blistering florescent light that came into the room in a long rectangle. Leo put himself at the front, right into a barrel of an assault rifle the guards at the door pointed inside. The intern was back.

“Alright, room service!” Leo joked.

The intern surveyed his clipboard, flipping through a few pages, then pointed at Raph. “Him first.”

“Woah, hey, let’s not get hasty. I think it’s only reasonable that I go first. I am the leader of this quirky band of misfits, so it’s only fair—look, that’s a nice gun, but hot tip: if you point it at the shell, it’s not gonna do much.”

“Don’t answer it,” said the intern.

Leo stepped into Raph’s path as he stepped forward. “Wait, hold up, you need to feed us first! It’s in the Geneva Convention. Yeah, I’ll take an omelette, if that’s on the menu, and maybe some—”

“Step aside!”

“You’re not helping, Leo,” Raph hissed.

“No, we need to eat before—before any serious, uh, before we, uh, are taken to the prison yard, or whatever,” said Leo, talking faster and faster. “Matter of fact, we haven’t gotten that phone call yet, in fact since there’s four of us, we’re each owed a call, so that makes four calls total—”

Mikey squeezed his eyes shut as one of the guards butted Leo on the head with the rifle. He heard, though. He heard the sound of Leo’s body hitting the ground with a loud thump and his surprised, pained cry. Donnie’s arms tightened around Mikey’s neck.

“Move!” the guard shouted.

Raph’s hands were halfway to picking Leo off the floor. An instinct that never went away. It seemed to take a lot of effort for him to step over Leo instead and into the light. The last thing he did was turn back towards Mikey, flash an I-got-this smile, and he was gone.

It happened so fast that Mikey didn’t even have time to feel truly afraid, just stunned and lost and he couldn’t even get up to check on Leo because Donnie made himself ten times heavier than he already was and Mikey was small already. Fortunately, Leo stirred and sat up with a fresh gash on his head running blood down his face.

“Let me see,” said Mikey.

Leo looked around, dazed, and found Mikey. He scooted over and let Mikey prod at it.

“Are you dizzy?” Mikey asked.

Leo didn’t answer, looking into something past him. The fear caught back up to Mikey’s body and a terrible twisting sensation pulled his intestines every which way.

“Leo…Leo, c’mon, please answer me, don’t leave me alone here. Please.”

It took a minute or two for the focus to come back to Leo’s eyes. He breathed deep. “Sorry. Sorry.”

“Are you dizzy?” Mikey repeated.

“No. No, it’s—ow.”

“Sorry. Put pressure on it, I don’t have—fuck, I wish I had a cloth or something—”

“It’s okay, it’s fine.” Leo pumped confidence into his tone. “Everything’s fine. This is all part of the plan.”

“Well…Well, it’s not for forever. They’re gonna bring him back.”

“Yeah, of course they are. They probably just took him to…to get more blood samples, or something. It’s like going to the doctor.”

“We’ve never been to the doctor.”

“Yeah, we’re way overdue for a check up, aren’t we? Raph’s gonna be fine.”

“Yeah.”

“Yeah. Definitely.”

Leo scooted up shoulder-to-shoulder with Mikey. He looked at them with an unnatural wistfulness, and Mikey looked for far longer than he should’ve, trying to dissect the emotion. Their gazes didn’t break from one another. The silence filled up all their words for them, drowning all feelings that came with it.

Finally, Leo put an arm over his shoulder and tugged him close, and the nagging fear chewing at his stomach lining eased a little.

They spent time reminiscing on what they were going to do when they got out, all the pizzas they were going to eat, the petty crimes they’d commit, the criminals they’d beat up. They complained about Raph’s body odour a lot; he’d been stinking up the bathroom lately, and no amount scrubbing got it out of the tiles. Leo suggested stealing a bathroom from Big Mama, insisting that they could cut a whole room out of her hotel and cart it off to the lair without anyone noticing. Wistful, daring, confident, sensational, preposterous little pranks that would get them on magazine covers, boost their egos, give them bragging rights all throughout New York City’s underground scene. Then they’d take a vacation to Todd’s, go camping for a while despite Donnie’s griping, drag the Caseys with them, maybe take a trip to Australia, go to places where humans would never see them again.

And that was the crux of it, the fear behind it all, because Draxum was wild and crazy and his experiments were out there even too far for the yōkai but he wasn’t a human, and he had some sense of what it was like to be persecuted and feared. Humans weren’t all that kind to each other a lot of the time, but God, they were so much worse to anything that wasn’t even tangentially them. The fraction of human DNA that made them walk upright and talk and think and feel just wasn’t enough. And Mikey was thinking, maybe it was a little too much for the situation it was in. He wished he had less of it. That he was more animal-like, because an animal would know how to survive. He felt close to breaking down and soon his throat got too dry from dehydration and fear to continue, so Leo spoke for all three of them because he was the only one who had enough words to make up for it.

Even Leo’s voice faded after a while, and the only thing that made him stop was when the lock clanked again. Leo scrambled up.

The same quartet of guards entered. At least, Mikey thought they might be the same. It was hard to tell behind the helmets.

“Where’s Raph?” Leo demanded. No jokes, not even a quip.

The guards pointed their weapons at him. One said, “Come with us. Do not resist.”

“Yeah, I want to know where my brother is first.”

“Come with us. I won’t warn you again.”

Leo’s gaze flitted in all directions, searching.

“Leo, you’re not gonna go, are you?” Mikey asked.

“…Relax, I’m…I’m just gonna go find out what they did with Raph,” said Leo. “I’ll come back for you guys.”

“Leo!”

“Stay with Donnie. I’ll come back, promise.”

Leo threw up his hands in mock surrender and a roll of his eyes and an upward quirk of his lips. He winked at him and walked out with his escort.

“Leo!” Mikey called out.

The shutting of the door was definitive. Mikey listened to his rapid breathing in the dark.

He held tight on to Donnie and tried not to think about all the things that could happen to Leo and Raph. Donnie was here, Donnie was with him, Donnie was safe, and no, don’t think about Leo and Raph because they knew what they were doing: Leo was confident and smart, and Raph was strong and willful. That would be enough. It would be enough to keep them alive, long enough for Splinter to find them.

Still, Mikey wondered. He thought about the Krang invasion, about Casey’s bad future, and wondered if it was fate that he and his brothers died, if his brothers being taken from him was the space-time continuum trying to right itself and force them to face the fates they’d dodged when the invasion was stopped.

It was so dark in the cell. Mikey felt like it was getting darker. The only thing that felt tangible was Donnie in his arms, and he was far too quiet.

“Donnie, c’mon, get out of your head,” said Mikey. “Don’t leave me alone in this!”

It had been a long shot to begin with. Donnie was a terrible listener even when he wasn’t powered off. Mikey wished he could find the switch to turn him back on.

Mikey stared at where he thought the cell door might be. He wasn’t imagining it; the lights were definitely getting dimmer. The darker it got, the more afraid he became, the more he revisited his childhood fear of the dark. Donnie had made him a nightlight for his room to chase away the perpetual dark of the sewers. Back then, the monsters had been imaginary.

Now he sat in the dark again, terrified of it, trying to hold the panic inside his body by holding his breath.

Donnie shifted a little, adjusting his grip around Mikey’s shoulders. It was probably just an instinctual reaction, but Mikey latched onto it, hoping that it was a deliberate sign of life.

“You there, Donnie?” Mikey asked. “Don’t worry, Leo and Raph will get back here soon.”

He didn’t know what else to say.

The third clank from the door sent his heart back to his throat. The light streaming in from the hall almost blinded him.

Paccioretti stepped inside, followed by her intern and the usual entourage of guards.

“You see?” said the intern. “Just as I told you.”

“I have eyes,” said Paccioretti.

“Where’s Raph and Leo?” Mikey demanded.

“What do you want to do?” the intern asked. “Should we turn it over to Bishop?”

“Bishop already has his hands full with the other two,” said Pacioretti. “An unresponsive subject is useless to everyone.”

“Where are Raph and Leo?” Mikey repeated.

Pacioretti gave Mikey a careful, prolonged stare. She whipped out her clipboard and scanned down it, biting the insides of her cheeks.

“What has D61’s diet been like lately?” Pacioretti asked.

“Uh, mostly table scraps from the cafeteria one or twice a week,” said the intern.

“Hm. It’s been a while since it had a fresh meal and we have three subjects who are better candidates. Take it to sub-level 2 and dump it in.”

The intrinsic fear launched into Mikey’s throat. Meal. Table scraps.

He twisted away from the advancing guards, pinning Donnie against the ground. He wouldn’t let this happen, he couldn’t let it happen, Leo had told them to stay together, he needed to stay with Donnie, he needed to.

“NO!” Mikey shouted. “No! You can’t do this!”

“Don’t be theatrical,” said Pacioretti. “The only thing you’re doing by throwing a fit is wasting my time.”

“You can’t do this! I won’t let you!”

“This is not a situation where you have a choice. Comply.”

“You’re not feeding my brother to some fucking monster!”

Pacioretti rolled her eyes, and with a wave of her arm, she left to let the guards do their jobs.

They were an execution squad. They even had the black hoods in the form of their helmets. Mikey let out a scream and clawed at the nearest one, all his training forgotten in the throes of his uncoordinated panic.

There was a moment, a small one, that almost passed by unnoticed. Donnie made an indistinct noise and his eyes were wide, alert, and alive, but he didn’t seem to be capable of speaking. They met his. Mikey felt like thousands of thoughts passed between them, but they were blurred with heightened emotion, and the rift never felt so wide while being so small.

Donnie was yanked out from underneath him.

“DONNIE!” Mikey screamed. “DONNIE! NO! YOU CAN’T DO THIS!”

“Get that thing under control!”

Several bodies slammed into him and shoved him back into the dark, while dragging Donnie towards the light. The last he saw of him was a flash of his wide eyes, then the humans were gone and the cell door slammed shut.

Mikey charged to where he thought the door was and pounded on it, screaming Donnie’s name and clawing into the metal. His mind raced with a mantra: Donnie’s-gonna-die, Donnie’s-gonna-die, Donnie’s-gonna-die. His nails dug into metal. He thought he could rip it away to expose the light. There was still time, he could just get to him, and he could remember his training instead of panicking, he could make it better. Mikey could make it better.

It lasted for forever. The desperate, howling sound of his own voice as he slammed his hands against the metal until something hot and liquid poured down his arm, and the feeling in his hands numbed into a burning, buzzing sensation. Mikey was sure he slammed his head against it once or twice. He kicked and screamed. He could get to Donnie. He could get to him before they fed him to a monster, and no, don’t picture it, don’t picture Donnie’s body getting cleaved in two by a monster, don’t picture explaining it to Leo and Raph and his own dad, he was going to fix this. Mikey could make it better.

Mikey slammed his shoulder against the door, pressing all his weight against it, but it didn’t budge. It was an immovable force, and his body was too small. Mikey was still working on the mystic mojo, but when he tried to focus on breaking down the door with psychic power, the only thing that came was a headache and tears that would’ve blinded him if the cell wasn’t already pitch black. He couldn’t move his arms. He pounded his body against the door, pressing his shell against it. Mikey could make it better.

Mikey thought this must be what purgatory was like: a black, horrible, inhospitable place where he lived with the fear that he would never see his brothers again. He attacked the door until he became exhausted and collapsed to his knees, tears flowing uncontrollably as he pressed his forehead against the metal.

It had been a long time.

Long enough for them to take Donnie to another cell.

Long enough for them to push him in.

Long enough for something to end his life.

And if it was plausible that something had killed Donnie in that time, it was plausible that something had killed Leo and Raph long before that. There had been more than enough time for the humans to do horrible things to them.

It was the universe realigning itself. Setting things right. They would die young like they were always meant to.

Mikey couldn’t see anything, only feel all the pains in his body and the perpetual ache in his soul he thought might be permanent. He curled into a fetal position, shell propped open against the door. He cried and cried and cried, until his body gave him no choice but to fall asleep.

#bad things happen bingo #rottmnt #rottmnt mikey #rottmnt leo #rottmnt raph #rottmnt donnie #nimble writes

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