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halogalopaghost · 1 year

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Blame It On The ADD Babey

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When one has ninja for brothers, one learns very quickly that sneaking up on them is a poor choice. It's liable to lead to head injuries, black eyes, misplaced guilt, and/or revenge. Donnie knows this—he knows it well and yet, he is also a ninja, and it's simply too easy to scare Mikey. Besides, this is Donnie’s laboratory and he reserves the right to scare trespassers.

He barely gets the first syllable of an innocuous “Whatcha doin’?” out of his mouth before Mike is screeching and leaps nearly a foot off Donnie’s computer chair.

He throws himself in front of the screen, blocking it with his hands and shell. “Video games!” heresponds forcefully.

Don grabs up a metal scrap from the workbench at his elbow and uses it to rap Mikey's knuckles out of the way. He yelps, then opts to turn the monitor off altogether.

Not before Don was able to recognize the WebDoc site. Immediately, his self-satisfied smirk fell into a worried look toward his brother’s open, startled expression. Last time he had WebDoc open, he was looking for symptoms of blood poisoning and the potential for necrotic tissue. It hadn't come to that but—having WebDoc open was just never good.

“I was just doing some—light bedtime reading,” Mikey rushes, looking anywhere except at his brother. “Y’know, just uh, trying to bore myself to sleep.” He fakes an over-dramatic yawn and reaches for the power button on the CPU under the desk. “I guess it worked, I'll just—”

Donnie raps his knuckles again, getting the same quick yelp and pull back as before. “You gonna tell me what’s up, or do I have to check your search history?”

Mikey’s mouth fell open. “Whoa, you can do that—?”

“Mikey,” he says sternly. He raises the rod of scrap metal threateningly, pointing it at his brother’s throat.

He puts his two-fingered hands up on either side of his face in surrender. “Okay, okay!” His eyes drift a little, not quite meeting Don’s. “Can our brains, like, do the same stuff as a human’s?”

Donnie narrows his eyes. “Do you mean…intelligence-wise?”

He laughs. “Nah bro, I know you’re already way past that. I mean like... hormonally.”

If at all possible, he narrows his eyes even more. “Didn’t Master Splinter give you the talk already? That's kinda above my pay grade, dude.”

Were he warm-blooded, Michelangelo’s face would be the color of Raph’s bandana. “Charles E. Cheese, Donnie! Not like that !”

Donnie splutters. “Then what do you mean?”

“I dunno! Like, dopamine and stuff!”

He’s briefly caught off guard that Mikey even knows what dopamine is, but the question quickly sidetracks his brain. “Hm. Well, I haven't had much access to that kind of data. I’ve done basic blood panels on all of us, so I know we possess relatively ‘human’ blood cells, and our chemical makeup is very similar. But I've never had a chance to do CAT or MRI scans on any of us, and I haven't monitored brain waves at all…I suppose there is room for deviation as we aren't really spliced with human DNA, rather rapidly evolved to a parallel proto-humanoid form due to the ooze—”

“Is this gonna be one of those times where I ask a five word question and you deliver a five thousand word essay?” Mikey sticks a finger in his mouth, making a gagging noise. “Bo-ring.”

This time, Donnie whacks him on the bicep. It's just cathartic to his older-sibling soul. “What are you getting at, you goof?”

Mikey taps his fingers together in front of himself, appearing to think carefully on his next words. Which freaks Donatello out more than the WebDoc page, honestly, because Mikey hardly ever thinks before speaking. He hardly ever thinks before doing anything, really. Maybe he just hardly thinks.

“You ever heard of ADD?”

Donnie’s brow rises, processing the question like a loading webpage. And wouldn't you know it—404 error, page not found. Blue screen of death. Smoking server rack. “I think” he says slowly, “I've seen it mentioned in passing. Why?”

Mikey takes a deep breath, and Donnie braces for the word onslaught.

“Well you know how Casey and I were hanging out last week and playing video games, and I told him about that time I got distracted during one of Sensei’s lessons and almost cracked my skull open on Raph’s shell—you remember that time?—and then Casey said I remind him of this cousin he has who’s always getting into trouble because she can't pay attention and kept forgetting stuff she, like, just learned in school, and her grades were bad, and at first her parents though she just wasn't trying hard enough, but then —”

Donatello grabs Mike by either shoulder, shaking him. “Breathe, bro!”

He takes in a deep breath, plastron extending as far as it can go, then lets the pizza-breath sigh out way too close to Donnie’s face. “Anyway, I guess his cousin has ADD or whatever and he said I might too, since I always zone out and goof off. 'Cept now I think he mighta been joking cause saying it out loud sounds stupid.”

Donnie blinks, processing all that. Finally, he points to the monitor. “Mind if I—?”

Mikey shrugs.

Plopping down in his seat, Donnie turns the monitor back on and begins skimming the page. Words like inattentive and fidgety and forgetful zoom past his eyes as he scrolls, and it’s like he just walked into Mikey’s skull and flipped on a light switch; he can finally see how everything works in there.

“Don?”

“Uh-huh—uh, let me do some reading and I'll get back to you in the morning.”

“Oh. Okay. I guess I'll just—uh—see you tomorrow, bro.”

Donnie vaguely hears him shuffle out of the room and over to the living area, but he's already too engrossed in the literature for anything beyond that.

***

Three out of four brothers are halfway into breakfast when Donnie shuffles out of his lab.

“Ey, ‘bout time you joined the land of the livin’,” Raph calls, pulling out Don’s chair for him. “Get any sleep, egghead?”

He stops just short of the table and stares at it with a crazed, haunted look in his eyes.

“Donatello?” Leo asks, sitting up straighter. “What's wrong bro?”

He looks around the table at each of his brothers, finally settling on Michelangelo. “We all have it.”

Mikey looks to his siblings for help, but they just shrug. “Uhh, what do we have?”

Where he stands, Donnie’s eyes start drifting shut, and he sways on his feet. Raph automatically reaches out to stabilize his brother, rolling his eyes.

“What’dya do to him this time, Mikey?”

Mikey puts his hands up defensively. “Hey, how come you always assume it's my fault? You know what Master Splinter says about assuming—”

“Which applies to everyone but you,” Leo cuts in, a hint of a smirk in his tone.

Raph jostles his brother. “Hey, earth to egghead.”

Donatello snaps to attention. “We all have it,” he repeats ominously.

Mikey finally relents and puts down his fork. “What, The Force? I need specifics, dude.”

“ADD. You have it, I have it, Raph has it. Leo’s the only one without it and even then it's borderline —”

Oh no.

“—speaking of which, Raphie’s got oppositional defiant disorder, so that clears some things up.”

“Hey! I do not!” he protests, despite not even knowing what that is.

Donnie plops into his seat. “Leo’s got anxiety apparently.”

Mike groans. “Geez dude, how long were you on WebDoc?”

“Not WebDoc, Michelangelo,” he says very gravely. Mikey feels inclined to scoot away. “Scholarly articles, scientific studies, mommy blogs.” He looks down at his hands. “Apparently I'm self-medicating with coffee, and you’re self-medicating with soda.”

“What the shell is this nutcase on about?” Raph once again looks to Mikey and Leo follows suit, concern spelled across his brow.

“I asked him about ADD last night. Uh, attention definition disorder.”

“Deficit,” Don adds.

“What's that supposed t’mean?”

“Before bed? Come on Mikey, I thought you knew better.” Leo sighs.

“Uh, I appreciate the diagnosis, doc. But shouldn't you, like, sleep?”

Donatello turns a long, dead-eyed stare on Mikey, then it hardens into a glower. “Oh sure, go to sleep. If you didn't notice, I'm a little busy having an having an identity crisis and reading the entire DSM!” His volume escalates until he's shouting at the end of the sentence, throwing his arms up for good measure.

Leo looks at Mikey, stunned. “You broke him.”

“Did not!”

Raphael waves his hand in front of Don’s face, watching his bloodshot eyes and the way he’s still muttering. “Way to go chucklehead, you finally turned his brain to turtle soup. Hope you’re happy.”

Donatello has continued to have his own private chat with himself, staring vacantly at the table. “...and Leo needs more vitamin D—oh man, we all need more vitamin D. I'm getting everyone started on a magnesium and vitamin D supplement, maybe caffeine pills or something for Raph—”

“Donnie,” Leo tries.

“Some stim toys, maybe…”

“Don.”

“I wonder if I can get my hands on some adderall…imagine how powerful I'd be without distractions.”

“Dude!” Leo snaps his fingers in front of Donnie’s face, finally getting his attention. “Bro, catch me up here. What does all this mean?”

“It means,” he begins loudly, using both arms to gesture at Mikey, “that Mikey isn't stupid, his brain-mouth barrier is just infantesimally thin! And Raph isn't a rage machine for no reason, he’s rejection-sensitive!”

Raph looks at Donnie with a face that Mikey knows well; it means someone is about to get punched.

“The three of us have virtually no impulse control, it’s just not programmed into our brains. And Leo! You’re actually chronically stressed!”

“We knew that already,” Raph grumbles.

“Yes, but there's a medical explanation— treatments. You could learn to cope better with your extreme emotions. Mikey, we could help you pay more attention, sit still when you want to.”

All three brothers raise their brow at that one.

Leo breaks the silence with a snort. “And what after that, tame the wind? Stop waves from hitting the shore? C’mon, Don, even you aren't a miracle worker.”

“I resent that,” he says, eyes fluttering as he battles his own ability to stay conscious.

“Does this ‘ADD’ mention anything about avoidin’ sleep?” Raph asks snidely.

“Yes actually, apparently it isn't uncommon to enter a state of hyperfocus and completely—”

Leo stands, and the other two coherent brothers follow suit. As one, they hoist Donny up while he continues to babble and cross the lair to deposit him on the couch. Raph throws a blanket over him while Mike flicks the lamp off.

“Sleep tight,” Leo says.

“Did you know—” Donnie mumbles, eyes already closed, and they all groan. “We say ‘sleep tight’ because bed frames used to be made of—” he stops to yawn “—wood and leather straps, which were…pulled taught across the frame to hold the…the…”

Leo lets out a relieved sigh as Donnie’s mouth goes slack and his breathing evens off into sleep.

Raph looks at Mikey over their brother’s sleeping carcass. “Askin’ him before bed? Really bro, we gotta talk about your timing skills.”

He shrugs. “It's the ADD.”

#turtleposting #tmnt #tmnt2003 #tmnt fanfic #my writing #the ghost writes #teenage mutant ninja turtles #this fic is almost a year old #I've published 19 more since then skghskfjs

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