Missing Variables
AO3 Mirror Co-Writer: @bloominglifedyinglife
Fandom: Rise of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles
Relationships: Donatello & Future Donatello, Donatello & The Technodrome (TMNT)
Tags: Technopathy, Hurt and Comfort, Angst with a Happy Ending, Sign Language, Donnie-centric
Notes: I don't know ASL! I know ASL is its own language and has a different grammar system to English. I try to convey that in this fic by using shorter sentences without filler words. Signing will be bold so keep all that in mind. if you know ASL and my attempts at showing it are at all wrong/offensive/or you see how it could be improved please tell me! Oh and All the adult turtles have changed their names! Adult Raph=Rad Adult Leo= Leonidas Adult Mikey= Mysticangelo
Story Summary:
Future Don (Othello) wants to take care of Donnie. Donnie to take care of himself. Donnie wants his future self to please give him some attention even if it's bad to stop ignoring him and to get some answers. They both do and don't get what they wanted. And more than they bargained for. aka the Donnie and Othello story.
Series Summary:
When Leonardo is sent back to the past, he decides he's not going to live on and start a new life. Not without his family. So he brings his three brothers back from the dead! Now these turtles from the apocalypse must learn how to live in this world after so long and how to take care of their 5 new kids.
Chapter TWarnings: Panic attacks, Technodrome stuff (aka this could count as Psychological Horror, Body Horror, Psychological Trauma. I think. might be stretching it.)
Chapter Summary:
Donnie hasn't taken off his battle shell in the 2 weeks Othello has been in this time. He checked. They're going to talk about it. (and a lot more than that.)
Snippets:
It started out like this: Donnie hasn't slept more than 3 hours every other day since Othello came to this dimension. Donnie would barely leave his lab, constantly working on something. Donnie had barely eaten. Donnie hasn't taken his battle shell off in 2 weeks! Not even to sleep. So Othello planned to do something about it. Because even though he was almost as bad, he knew the importance of taking the shell off, of relaxing. The fact this 16 yr old- this kid who wasn’t living in the Apocalypse didn’t feel safe enough to take it off was concerning, to say the least.
So with all that in mind and not a lick of emotional intelligence to his name, Othello decided to confront the younger soft shell. Without telling the others. ....
He notices the smaller turtle tense in his chair as the locks slide into place. He doesn't turn around, doesn't stop fiddling with his latest device, but he's tense and agitated in his movements.
"You haven't taken your battle shell off in 2 weeks," Othello begins immediately. "Why."
The screens go wild. Uncontrolled glitching on all of them, every device in the lab whirling to life. Othello sees corrupted images but can't make sense of them before his visor lights up. Text, code, and numbers merge into gibberish on his screen. ... The doors unlocked. ... Donnie swivels to face him as if nothing had happened.
"And you have removed your tracker 7 times already!" he responds, clearly proud of his deflection.
End notes: Originally the story was going to be just this chapter but we kept building onto it and adding more scenes. so look forward to chapter 2!
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