@somerandomdudelmao THE MOMENT YOUR COMIC CAME OUT I STARTED WRITING. it came out a biiiit longer than expected and i wrote some scenes that were already in your comic but added thoughts and description and whatnot, so?? either way umm i hope you enjoy!!!!
Hamato Donatello and death had never seen eye-to-eye.
From an early age, as early as he could remember, he had accepted that there was nothing after death. That once he closed his eyes for the final time, that would be it, there was nothing after waiting for him. He had accepted that was just how things were, and what was the point in changing what couldn’t be changed?
And then there was the Hidden City, and Mystic Powers, and the fucking Shredder. And as though Donnie’s worldview hadn’t been flipped on his head enough, there was Karai. There was his Ninpo. There was the defeat of the Shredder.
From then on, Donnie knew he had to learn to accept that there might have been something more after death. But because he knew he should doesn’t mean that he did. The icy end that was death was something that frightened and comforted him, and he found solace in that. Death was the one constant that never changed, he couldn’t accept that it did.
After the Shredder, there were the Kraang. Hideous beasts that bore a color too close to purple, a color they did not deserve. They were vicious things, creatures that spread like parasites, infecting and killing anyone that stood in their way. Everyone except the Resistance.
Started and led by the Hamato Clan, the Resistance wouldn’t back down. The Kraang had taken everything from the Hamatos, it was only fair they’d try and take revenge on behalf of what the Kraang had stolen from them; their home, their family, their friends.
Looking back, Donnie should have known that it was only a matter of time until the same fate reached him.
At first it was small. Donnie didn’t notice it right away; who would? It wasn’t the first time he’d lost weight in the midst of working day and night, and it certainly wouldn’t be the last. He would train more, eat more rats, gain the weight back, and continue working.
The issue was that it didn’t stop like he’d hoped.
His muscle withered away from his arms, at a rate that alarmed even him, and nothing he was doing served to help. He grew more tired, drowsy and less coordinated whenever he moved. He was slower, dragging his feet along the floor whenever he walked. He started to use his Bō for support.
Leo told him to get more sleep, Mikey told him to take more breaks, but Donnie did neither. If he sleeps, he would waste time that he needed to help the Resistance. And if he takes any breaks, his defenses may falter, and the people who needed him would no doubt be up his ass for it all. Either outcome wasn’t one Donnie really wanted to suffer. He wouldn’t be bested by a sickness, even during the apocalypse, because Hamato Donatello was nothing if not stubborn. He would dig his heels in the dirt and work until his brothers physically forced him to stop, thank you very much. He had things to do.
It could have been a flu, it could have been cancer, Donnie didn’t care. He was going to get better sooner or later, he always did. He always got better. So why stop his work?
It was when he cut his finger while working that he realized that getting better may not be an option. That this was a new kind of sickness, one he couldn’t heal from as easily as he thought. An accident, a slip of a sharp metal tool, gave him a realization more horrifying than he’d ever admit.
The blood dripping down from the scratch was staining his skin a bright pink and not a scarlet red. It took him an instant to realize what that meant. Kraang.
Donatello and death still didn’t see eye-to-eye, but that didn’t mean Donnie couldn’t glare his way. A simple solution was all he needed, he could fix this, like he would fix a broken computer. His body was a faulty machine, and he was an engineer. He could fix this. Death was a fool to think it could scare Donatello.
When he had to make the first adjustment to his battle shell’s measurements, he wasn’t scared. Sure, he hadn’t adjusted the size of his battle shell since he was maybe nineteen, which meant that he now weighed less than a Donnie half a foot shorter than him.
By the time he finished the adjustments, he needed to make them again. It was as though he were shrinking in size, hands growing more boney and eyes harder to open. But he wasn’t scared, he couldn’t be. Donnie always got better.
He started to wear his old hoodie to cover his spine that started to poke through his shell, where he was able to count each point where one vertebrae connected to the next. He threw himself into his work, because he needed to work for as long as he was able. Work to find a cure, to help raise the defenses, to see if he could infect others, everything he needed to know so he could get rid of this stupid sickness, and get back to being the tech guy.
When his family found out about the virus, he realized that he couldn’t run from this any longer. That this… this was something he couldn’t fix.
But as cliche and annoying as it sounded, he couldn’t let himself show his despair, they’d gone through enough. So when he opened up a file, and wrote the beginning letters to his will, he showed no signs of it.
Instead, he started to type.
Tech Bō to April. Garden to Mikey, as well as my hoodie (it should fit him). Genius Built tech to Casey. Blueprints to GENIUS HOCKEY STICK UPGRADES also to Casey (guilt trip Draxum into helping?). Both my mask and tools to Leo (note: tell him how to access the spare battery). Comics to Raph. Study notes to the scientific board (label them accordingly, Diane is dyslexic and Tom needs to get his eyes checked).
The dread that crept up his shell was ignored, and he continued writing.
“You need to remove this panel…-“
“C’mon, Donald. Why should I have to learn all this nerd stuff when I have you?” Leo interrupted, trying his damndest to smile, Donnie could tell. It came out shaky, as though Leo himself didn’t believe in it.
Donnie couldn’t let Leo hurt himself like this any longer, he wasn’t going to humor his twin with empty promises of surviving. Donnie had always found it easier to realize that this was happening, and to move on, to prioritize what needed to be done. Leo had to learn how to do that, too.
So Donnie huffed, he rolled his eyes, and continued.
“Riiight… So. You need to remove this panel. This will give you access to the spare battery for your arm.”
Leo had always been dramatic with his expressions. Or maybe he was bad at holding them back. Either way, the look on Leo’s face told Donnie that it had set in. After this long, his dumb-dumb brother had finally seen what Donnie had known for weeks, if not months. There was no stopping the virus.
Even as Leo squinted his eyes, an emotion too complex for Donnie to begin to decipher…
“What do you want for your birthday?”
A simple question, Donatello thought. One that would ensure that, were Donnie to die before he expected, he would still have a gift planned for Casey. Hopefully the kid wouldn’t be too mad at him for keeling over dead without warning.
Casey looked up, then back down at the books he was carrying. “My… ah.”
Silence stretched out for longer than Donnie was used to. He never struggled this much with the question before, often having some new hobby he wanted something for. A hockey stick, for example, that Donnie was happy to provide.
“You… can do anything.” Casey didn’t say it as much of a question, rather a statement he needed his uncle to affirm.
More silence lingered before Casey spoke up again, meek and hesitant. “I want you to stay alive, could you do that?”
That was easy enough… probably. He may not be familiar with the virus, but with the patterns he’s noticed, he should be alive by then. “Ah, of course.”
“According to my calculations, I will be alive next month.” He pulled up his calendar, leaning a bit too hard on his Bō. He was surprised it hadn’t snapped in two already.
Donnie clapped his hands, and the calendar hologram went away. “So! What’s an actual gift you want?”
Casey didn’t hesitate like he did earlier. “I want you to be here. Not just for a month.”
Casey sounded so small as he spoke. He sounded no different than when he’d broken a plate, back when those were common enough to have multiple glass ones. The way he uttered his wish reminded Donnie that Casey was just a child. He didn’t acknowledge the slight pang in his heart at that.
“But it’s not a gift.” Donnie said, in lieu of an answer. He didn’t think Casey would like the honest truth to that. Instead of pushing further, like he may have done only months ago, he looked to the ground.
Donnie looked down at Casey, who was somewhat hunched in on himself, reminding Donnie far too much of how Leo used to act.
“The war can’t last forever.”
Donnie could tell that despite how Raph always found anything small, easy to carry, that the jar of honey must have felt heavy in his older brother’s hands.
Donnie drew a deep breath before he spoke. “When it ends, when you’re ‘alive’ again. I want you to open this jar.”
The way Raph looked at him made it hard for Donnie to continue speaking. And yet, he pushed through.
“…And celebrate it while remembering how awesome I was.”
His tone spoke words he could never manage to utter, emotions he could barely understand on his own. Raph’s eyes, no matter how robotic they were, reflected just the same.
When Donnie stood up and fell to the ground, and something in him knew that this was it. He said nothing about it when Leo came to help him up.
Even as he was carried in the air, wrapped in a blanket that didn't do much to give his body warmth. He knew, in a way he could never explain, that this would be it.
Mikey was careful in how he placed Donnie down in Raph’s arms. The temperature change from the blanket to cold metal may have been more jarring if Donnie had more flesh on his bones to keep him warm in the first place.
Leo was careful in how he wrapped his arms around his twin, as if his bones were so brittle that they would snap with a single wrong movement. Donnie didn’t want to admit to himself that was likely true.
Raph was careful in how he held his younger brother, cradling him as though he were a baby. Donnie didn’t reluctantly smile at that like he once might have.
It wasn’t long until Mikey closed his eyes. Leo’s were squinted shut, but his breathing was shallow and quick enough for Donnie to know he was still awake. Raph’s eyes hadn’t even closed yet.
Still, he craned his neck, which was surprisingly hard, to look at his family. At his brothers, at what he had left in this god-forsaken world.
Even in his sleep, Mikey’s face portrayed a worry deeper than Donnie could ever understand. Worry that should never have crossed his younger brother’s face, though he supposed it was inevitable. If he had the energy to speak, to move, he would have brushed the hair out of Mikey’s face and given a small, quiet apology that his brother would never hear. An apology Donnie hadn’t been able to say, one he kept silent for as long as he could remember.
Despite this, he couldn’t will his mouth to open, nor his hands to move. The unspoken apology was to die alongside him.
He knew he should, any normal person would, but he didn’t cry. He only thought, he only felt, he only dwelled on what couldn’t be changed. They said when you’re at death’s doorstep, your life would flash before your eyes, and he’d humor the aspect. He was too tired to deny the fact he wanted to think, one last time, on what he’d be leaving behind, and what had already left.
He thought about dad, who died long before Donnie would.
“Lou Jitsu cares about you in many ways you will never know.”
“My sons… I am so proud of you.”
“If I’d had faith in how special you each are… none of this would have happened.”
He thought about Karai, who he prayed didn’t blame him for the end of the world, despite her best efforts to save it.
“From where I stand, you have made the Hamato Clan proud.”
He thought about April, his sister, who would never get to see him before he died.
“Will you watch with me possibly the world’s last copy of ‘Jupiter Jim’s Last Trip to the Moon 35’?”
“Hold up, skip. Jupiter Jim’s ‘Pluto Vacation 4’ is the best JJ movie of all time!” “Ranked. By us. Just now. Soooo… it’s basically official, no arguing.”
About Casey, who would no doubt cry over him, even if he told the kid not to. Whose birthday he never got to see, even though he’d promised.
“I-I thought you m-might have died there… and I w-wasn’t fast enough and… I don’t know what I’d do if you died.”
“My dad can build a whole airplane just for fun!”
“I want you to stay alive. …Can you do that?”
About his brothers, who would be missing a part of them.
“Donnie, this is amazing! Thank you, Dee!”
“You’re my favorite twin, y’know?”
“Shut up and let me try again.”
“C’mon, Donald. Why should I have to learn all this nerd stuff when I have you?”
“Donnie, how did you get honey in the apocalypse?!”
A bit of the fire Donatello used to have in his eyes had burned out. Whether it had died years or seconds ago, Donnie didn’t know. Frankly, he couldn’t find it in himself to care. His thoughts became less coherent, and he could only will himself to look up at the ceiling as his mind became foggy. For the first time, he both accepted and hoped that death wasn’t the end.
He didn’t cry, even as something reflected in his eyes before he closed them, glowing and warm. He could only hope that death wouldn’t hold a grudge for resisting his grasp for so long. Donnie was tired, tired of holding on, tired of keeping his eyes open. He wasn’t able to speak- he didn’t think he wanted to, anyway.
And though by force, with a brush of the reaper’s scythe against his neck, Hamato Donatello and death finally saw eye-to-eye. He drew his final breath, and his eyes closed.
He didn’t smile. He didn’t speak.
‘Some say the world will end in fire,
From what I’ve tasted of desire
I hold with those who favor fire.
But if it had to perish twice,
I think I know enough of hate
To say that for destruction ice
- Fire and Ice, by Robert Frost.
the poem is moderately unrelated, but I feel it could fit somehow?? so i added it
anyway your comic broke me and im unreasonably attached to casey now. confession: i originally didnt like casey that much in the movie, but you made me adore him. ty :))
i was on a call with my dad when the comic came out and i was reading it but i didnt know donnie was going to up and DIE so i straight up cried on a call with my dad over this comic
i have so much to say yet so little words, and i hope you know the fact i wrote this is only a fraction of how much i wish i could give back to you for this comic. thank you :]
