i_speak_softly (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
i_speak_softly) wrote2012-10-11 06:06 am
i_speak_softly) wrote2012-10-11 06:06 am
Sixty-Third Theory [Voice/Action]
[Voice - October 10]
[This is too important for his usual mangled speech, so Don communicates what he wants to say to Robert, and makes the man repeat it over and over until Don can echo it correctly into the journals:]
Leonardo has gone home.
[Action - October 11]
[The next day, Don turns his mind to practical matters. House 55, which at times has had as many as six residents, is now down to two. At this point it's just silly to keep using the space in the same way. So, on this rainy afternoon, Don heads to the library to pore over diagrams of the floorplan that he has accumulated, and to think about how much has changed since he first moved there with Raph, Casey, and Derek.]
[How long ago that seems: a human inviting him to live in their house. Not just as a temporary refuge, but permanently. And somehow, it had worked. Meals were shared, holidays were celebrated, and aside from the regular trials attendant upon living in Luceti, times were good. Human housemates came and went, and his entire family arrived. That hadn't gone as well as Don might have hoped, but he doesn't regret having had them all together once more. And then the slow attrition, until now --]
[He has never been the only Turtle before. Yes, he had been separated from his brothers, both here and at home, but there had always been at least one of them out there somewhere. Now he is the last of his kind of this world, with no way of getting back where he belongs. There's an emptiness in his spirit, a sense of being lost.]
[And somewhere under the wrongness, a seed of fear: Since his death loss, Leo was the only one who could understand him effortlessly. Don had really relied on that easy communication, and Leo's help in translating his thoughts to others. Even if he has served most of the time until he can get the loss restored - he really hopes his math is right - the remainder of it is going to be draining. He can't lose another person he cares about, but how can he keep a relationship together when every conversation is a battle?]
[And what about the impending cold weather, which he can already feel creeping up on Luceti? His ability to speak will be returned just as his opportunities to go out and talk to people are diminished sharply. He foresees himself spending a lot of time with the journal...]
[The winter room is too much for just one Turtle, but since the major construction is already complete, Don just makes some minor tweaks to his plans for stocking it. He dawdles over his blueprints for much longer than is strictly necessary, until late in the afternoon he looks wistfully at all the books he can't read - just a few more weeks - and heads home.]
[Action - October 14]
[Donatello is not okay. His coping methods have collapsed, and he can't deal with this. In a haze of grief and loneliness, he goes to the Battle Dome, picks a program he hasn't seen before, and sets it on a stupidly difficult level. Then he battles artificial enemies until the simulation aborts. In the empty chamber, he screams wordlessly at the walls, not caring who can hear him. When the rage is spent, leaving only the pain, he limps home, bleeding from everywhere. He is not in a mood to accept help.]
[This is too important for his usual mangled speech, so Don communicates what he wants to say to Robert, and makes the man repeat it over and over until Don can echo it correctly into the journals:]
Leonardo has gone home.
[Action - October 11]
[The next day, Don turns his mind to practical matters. House 55, which at times has had as many as six residents, is now down to two. At this point it's just silly to keep using the space in the same way. So, on this rainy afternoon, Don heads to the library to pore over diagrams of the floorplan that he has accumulated, and to think about how much has changed since he first moved there with Raph, Casey, and Derek.]
[How long ago that seems: a human inviting him to live in their house. Not just as a temporary refuge, but permanently. And somehow, it had worked. Meals were shared, holidays were celebrated, and aside from the regular trials attendant upon living in Luceti, times were good. Human housemates came and went, and his entire family arrived. That hadn't gone as well as Don might have hoped, but he doesn't regret having had them all together once more. And then the slow attrition, until now --]
[He has never been the only Turtle before. Yes, he had been separated from his brothers, both here and at home, but there had always been at least one of them out there somewhere. Now he is the last of his kind of this world, with no way of getting back where he belongs. There's an emptiness in his spirit, a sense of being lost.]
[And somewhere under the wrongness, a seed of fear: Since his death loss, Leo was the only one who could understand him effortlessly. Don had really relied on that easy communication, and Leo's help in translating his thoughts to others. Even if he has served most of the time until he can get the loss restored - he really hopes his math is right - the remainder of it is going to be draining. He can't lose another person he cares about, but how can he keep a relationship together when every conversation is a battle?]
[And what about the impending cold weather, which he can already feel creeping up on Luceti? His ability to speak will be returned just as his opportunities to go out and talk to people are diminished sharply. He foresees himself spending a lot of time with the journal...]
[The winter room is too much for just one Turtle, but since the major construction is already complete, Don just makes some minor tweaks to his plans for stocking it. He dawdles over his blueprints for much longer than is strictly necessary, until late in the afternoon he looks wistfully at all the books he can't read - just a few more weeks - and heads home.]
[Action - October 14]
[Donatello is not okay. His coping methods have collapsed, and he can't deal with this. In a haze of grief and loneliness, he goes to the Battle Dome, picks a program he hasn't seen before, and sets it on a stupidly difficult level. Then he battles artificial enemies until the simulation aborts. In the empty chamber, he screams wordlessly at the walls, not caring who can hear him. When the rage is spent, leaving only the pain, he limps home, bleeding from everywhere. He is not in a mood to accept help.]
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... A-Alright. I apologize; I will simply use caution in cleaning you. But... p-please try not to move that arm too much, for now...
[He knows it's a basically useless thing to say. Don wasn't exactly doing much moving before.
Robert abandons the sling on the side table and instead turns to the cleaning solution. Taking a sterile cloth pad, he soaks it in the solution and very carefully goes to wash one of the worst cuts, waiting for any kind of indication from Don as to whether it stings or whether he should be more gentle... or anything. All the while he is trying to be as soothing as possible.]
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Every once in awhile, he swaps cloth pads; meticulously bundling them in the wrappers of the last one. Eventually there is a pile of spent cloth pads in the wastebin, and Don's cuts have been cleansed of the worst of the dried blood.
Robert's still not sure whether Don is injured on his other side; he can't really lift the Turtle to tell, and something tells him that he shouldn't be trying to grab and lift Don in this state anyway. Besides, this is probably the worst of the injuries... hopefully.
Breathing in the sterile scent of the cleanser to counteract the rusty tang of blood on his hands, Robert once more looks at Don's injuries.]
What am I to do with this arm...
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... Don, will you... a-allow me to... use Nala's m-magic on your arm...?
[It's an injury that normally could take weeks to heal. In Don's state, that's likely to make things even worse.
Such an injury will be magically intensive to correct, and Robert's not exactly running on a full head of steam. But he's willing to try anyway.]
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Don won't even allow Robert to help him. He is literally helpless in the face of this.
Why, Don? Why do you want to be in pain? Why won't you let Robert help you?]
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Robert pulls himself together - with nary a sob or anything; those are for later - enough to gather the refuse of his cleaning job, bundling it together in the trash bag, and taking it in his hands to carry out of the room.
He turns once before he leaves the room, giving the little bundle on the bed a look laced with pain and loss.
I love you. I'm sorry.
And then he steps out the door.]