A Restless Mind

Fandom: TMNT 2014 Movie

Characters: Raphael and Donatello

Summary: Raph and Don have a chat when Don can't fall asleep after the events of the 2k14 movie. Started with the intention of this scene being a couple paragraphs of a larger fanfic, but it kind of took on a life of its own. It's just a brief little brother bonding scene, because I can never get enough of Raphael and Donatello bonding.

A/N: So it's been a while, but recent TMNT material has given me some inspiration to add more to the Ninja Turtles fandom. I will also be posting this on tumblr (theturtledragon). Hope you enjoy. There may be more to come...

—-

When the turtles finally turned in for the night — mutagen given to Splinter and enough debris cleared out to make their sleeping area acceptably livable — they had well and truly crashed.

Raphael had noticed that a weary look darkened Leonardo's features, even when they had celebrated their father's recovery. As they left Splinter to his rest, he realized that his younger brothers wore a similar look — pale, drawn and exhausted. It had taken very little urging on his part to usher them off to their shared bedroom, which had fortunately survived the worst of the lair ambush.

Even Donatello quickly broke off his despondent gaze toward his wrecked lab area with a subtle nod of his head and trudged after his brothers. If Raphael hadn't forced the tech crap off of him, the nerdiest turtle probably would have laid down with it all attached.

As he turned away from Donatello to dump the equipment in the corner, he noticed that their other brothers were fast asleep. And Michelangelo was sleeping on his bed. It looked like he'd given up on walking that extra few steps further to his own and had opted for the one closest to the doorway. Leonardo's face was covered by one of the fallen hats that he must have scooped off of the floor.

Donatello snorted in amusement.

Raphael grunted and shook his head. "I know we had a rough day and all, but what is with you three? Shredder didn't pound you that bad."

"It's the blood loss," Donatello explained. "Although the adrenaline sustained us through the fight while our incredible regenerative capabilities were at work replenishing our blood supplies, there were bound to be some lingering effects from such severe blood loss. Now that the adrenaline — from the injection and fighting Shredder — has worn off, we are starting to feel it. Fatigue, dizziness, weakness. Nothing nearly as bad as it felt when we-ahhhh…" He trailed off into a massive yawn and looked sheepishly up at his brother. "…when we were being drained."

"Looks to me like you still are pretty damn drained."

Donatello smiled and closed his eyes. "Don't worry, at the rate we heal, we should be feeling much better in the morning."

Raphael glanced longingly Michelangelo's empty bed. He knew a thing or two about the aches and pains that weren't felt until the aftermath of an adrenaline rush. His shell was throbbing now after Shredder slamming into a Humvee, and he wanted nothing more than to collapse into a bed like the rest of his family. Unfortunately, his worry for his brothers nagged at him instead.

With a sigh, he headed back into the remains of their living space and sifted through the mass of debris that had once been their kitchen. He quickly located some Gatorade bottles in their wrecked cabinet and brought them back to the bedroom. When he caught Michelangelo's shiver out of the corner of his eye, he silently picked a quilt up from the floor and draped it over his brother's body. Smirking when his youngest brother sighed in content, Raphael left a Gatorade right where he would see it when he eventually woke up. He knocked the hat off Leonardo's face and left him a bottle of the sports drink as well.

Donatello looked asleep at first glance, but Raphael noticed his fingers of his right hand tapping where they rested against his plastron. Nope, not sleeping — thinking. "You still awake, Don?"

"Hm?" Donatello cracked his eyes open and squinted up at his brother, though Raphael was sure he could hardly make out the shape of him without his glasses. He reached out and grabbed Donatello's hand and set the Gatorade bottle in it.

"It ain't much, but it might help you feel a little bit better, right?" He shrugged. "Electrolytes or whatever it is you've gone on about before…"

After a moment of scrutinizing the bottle in confusion, Donatello's face finally lit up with appreciation. He pushed himself up onto his elbows and took a quick sip of the drink. "Thanks, Raph."

"Don't mention it." Raphael yawned and stretched his arms above his head, wincing when the ache in his shell increased with the movement. He couldn't see the damage Shredder had inflicted — damage he had no doubt made worse with his little slingshot maneuver with Donatello — and was certain his brother hadn't managed a good look in the midst of his high-speed, battlefield triage with a roll of duct tape. He had no doubt that Shredder had cracked his shell pretty good, and he was again grateful for their fast-healing. It had helped him through plenty of cracked shells in the past with how rough he tended to get.

Raphael frowned at the empty bed waiting for him. Donatello had carefully crafted the beds from scrap playground equipment to cradle the turtles' shells as they slept. Unfortunately, Raphael knew from experience that a cracked shell hurt to sleep on, and their beds weren't exactly conducive to sleeping on their plastrons. Shell, did he wish their pizza box couch hadn't been wrecked.

"Aren't you going to sleep?" Donatello asked softly as he set the bottle on the floor beside him.

Raphael nodded and eased himself down onto his side facing away from his only conscious brother. He willed himself not to grunt at the discomfort. "Hell of a day."

"Yeah, it was… I feel like my brain is on overload."

"Can't even shut it down when you're dead tired, huh?"

"I have a restless mind." Donatello yawned loudly and shifted around in his bed, dangling one leg over the side. "There's so much to do."

"Yeah, and plenty of time to do it in the morning when you've rested up."

"Of course my computers had to be right where the lair took some of the worst damage."

"And we all know you can't fall asleep unless it's in front of a computer screen," Raphael complained. "Not even when you've nearly had all the blood drain outta ya."

"Very funny. It's just… all that work. And scavenging to find those parts was even worse."

"We'll help you find more. We'll make do, just like we always have."

Donatello was silent for a moment, but Raphael knew better than to think that meant he was asleep. No, when his brainy brother had something on his mind it wouldn't rest, and Raphael really doubted that the thing keeping Donatello awake was his damaged tech.

"Raph, I don't think anything is going to be the same now."

And there it was. Donatello had to work out this new existential crisis and Raphael was the only person awake to hear it. Just wonderful. He couldn't think of a worse combination of turtles to talk feelings. Leonardo and Michelangelo were better at that kind of thing. Michelangelo wore his heart on his sleeve and Leonardo was a master at getting his brothers to spill their guts. Maybe it had something to do with being the middle brothers, but Raphael and Donatello weren't as comfortable with feelings as the other two. Donatello always tried to find logic in feelings, and Raphael tried not to think about them at all. They were both pretty crap at dealing with them, and he was way too tired for that right now. "You know what's still the same? Sleep. We need it."

As if to prove Raphael's point, Donatello yawned again. Raphael nearly looked over his shoulder to smirk at his brother but decided against straining himself any further tonight.

"Go to sleep, Donnie."

Silence. Then… "People know about us."

"Genius observation." Raphael shifted and groaned at the pain radiating across his back.

"Are you okay?" Donatello asked.

"Yeah." He got into a more comfortable position and sighed. "That April's alright. I don't think she'll be selling us out. And Vern'll keep his mouth shut if he knows what's good for him. Things will be okay."

"Sacks and his scientists—"

"Got their asses handed to them. Sacks and Shredder are dead and there's no way the stragglers are going to mess with us again after that beating."

"They treated us like some test animals," Donatello whispered sadly.

At the broken sound in his brother's voice, Raphael felt guilt knot his stomach. Sleep be damned, Raphael sat up to look at him. The younger turtle was squinting at him without his glasses on, a sad look on his face.

"I know that we are animals — that we were even test animals once — but we have intelligence and emotions and family. That didn't matter at all."

"Donnie, I'm sorry I didn't rescue you guys sooner. I should have been with you instead of knocked out cold back here. I should have been protecting you.

Donatello shook his head. "It isn't even logical to think that you might have been able to do anything had you been there. You probably would have been captured as well and we never would have escaped." He looked down at his chest, where he fiddled with the ragged edges of a blanket he'd covered himself with since Raphael had lain down. "We all thought you were dead, Raph. You and Father were dead and we were going to die and…" He trailed off. "I thought you were gone," he said softly.

"Well, I'm not, and I ain't going anywhere," Raphael assured him.

Donatello smiled. "Thanks for coming to save us. You're a good brother, and I'm glad you have our backs." Another yawn and he began to rub at his tired eyes.

"I'm not kidding, Don. Go to sleep or I will pound you now for the Pop Tarts instead of in the morning."

Donatello had the good grace to look sheepish. "Heh heh… I did it… for science?"

"Don. Sleep."

"Sleeping!" The lanky turtle snuggled into his blanket with a faint smile and shut his eyes.

Satisfied, Raphael went back to trying to make himself comfortable with an injured back. Unfortunately, he was sore all over and Donatello was right that a lot of work needed to be done when they got up in the morning.

It was going to be a long couple of days.

—-

Headcanon about the turtles' anatomy (because I needed to create logic for the crazy bulletproof shell situation) — The reason for the turtles' apparent "bulletproof" shells is that their mutation caused the keratin in their shells to be far thicker than that of a normal turtle's shell. (There is bone under those scutes — I really don't want to think about how much those bullets would hurt if they got to that!) This causes the turtles' scutes to be more like armor. However, like any non-mutant turtles, the guys' shells could susceptible to infection if they do get an open wound. Fortunately for the guys (especially Raphael, who seems to have taped his shell together in the past), the regenerative qualities of the mutagen in their bloodstreams means that even if they do damaged their shells, they aren't likely to have a wound open long enough for infection.

This headcanon may or may not relate to the other story I want to write…