A birthday ficlet for Andrea! Takes place between Season 2 and Season 3.

Water Torture

"Jones, I'm losing it! Hold it! Hold it steady!"

Donnie's sharp cry of terror cut through the air, but Casey was already on it, grabbing the lever and hauling back with every ounce of strength he had in him. "If you have any technowizard tricks in that magical nanny bag of yours, now's the time, Don!"

"Would you stop calling it that?" Even in his panic, Donnie still managed to master flat-out exasperation. "Hang on. There's one more thing I can try."

A spray of cold, wet, stinking liquid washed over him, and Casey struggled not to retch in disgust. "Don!"

"I know!" Donnie's hand plunged into his bag and withdrew a long metal tool with a jagged, corkscrewing tip that gleamed in the light. Giving a wild cackle straight out of a late night monster movie, Donnie jammed the tool into the gaping mouth of their foe and pulled the trigger.

The noise that followed was like nothing they had ever heard. A scraping, grinding, drawn-out moan of a scream that went on forever. Casey longed to clap his hands over his ears, but he couldn't let go, or they were all lost.

And then, at last, their adversary gave its last, wheezing death cry.

Flushhhhhhhh

"Yes!" With a whoop, Casey leaped into the air, fist pumping. "We did it! Nothing can stop the gadget guys!"

Withdrawing the jury-rigged plumbing snake from the toilet with a grunt, Donnie set it aside and rolled his eyes. "Jones, do me a favour and never call us that again." But he was grinning as he bumped Casey's proffered fist, and he made the noise when they exploded their fingers.

It was a proud moment. Nobody wanted to use the bathroom upstairs in front of Leo - even if the dude was in a coma, it was still weird - and the screen they'd put between the toilet and the bathtub just didn't cut it. But the downstairs bathroom had been out of commission since the first day until Donnie and Casey had finally decided to tackle this particular beast. And won.

"Aw, sweet," Raph's voice drifted through the farmhouse toward them. "Sounds like you fixed it!"

Casey heard Donnie's gasp of alarm as Raph padded toward the doorway, but Casey had this one. Grabbing the plunger, he used it to bar Raph's path into the little bathroom like an expert goalie. "Nuh-uh, dude. After what you did in here, you are banned. I do not ever wanna go through that again."

"I still don't know how you managed to clog it that badly," Donnie added, shouldering his plumbing snake like a rifle at rest. "We lived in a sewer, for crying out loud, and this was still new to me."

Dismayed, Raph looked from one to the other. "But I gotta go," he protested.

"There's an entire forest of trees out there, man," Casey said, gesturing toward the door. "Pick one."

Raph stared at them for a moment in disbelief before turning on his heel and stomping toward the door, trailing a string of profanity behind him.

With a small snort of laughter, Donnie turned to Casey and gestured for him to go first. "So, whaddya say we get cleaned up and then go see what we can't do about that rusted old truck out on the lawn? I bet between the two of us, we can at least get it up on cinder blocks in the barn to see what the damage is."

"Yeah, I'm down for that," Casey tossed the plunger into the corner and led the way. "Auto shop was something I was actually good at."

"Because you got to hit a lot of metal with a big hammer?"

"You know it!"

As the two made their way toward the barn, chattering animatedly about sledgehammers and torque wrenches, neither one noticed the girl in the corner, smiling as she sketched them in her journal. April wasn't blind, even if her battered emotions still hadn't healed enough to deal with anything yet, but it was moments like this that reminded her why she had put her faith in both of them.

And, truth be told, she'd been dying to use the bathroom.