Work Text:
He sits, slumped over in his desk chair, pupils dragging down the blueprint and eyelids following the motion. The lab is dark, it’s 3 AM and he refuses to wake anyone up. The only thing keeping him awake is the glare of his desk lamp. Even that has begun to fail him. He blinks too slowly, just a moment longer.
“Donnie.”
There’s lightning in his chest and he’s up again. His shell presses against the back of his desk chair. A hand is on his shoulder. The lamp is just bright enough to show five fingers with purple nail polish. He knows it’s April before he turns. A lukewarm smile greets him. Green eyes look somewhere into his heart.
“Do you blame yourself?”
The lab is as quiet as it is dark.
“What?”
“Well it’s quite common in this situation for a survivor to feel a kind of guilt.”
“What situation?”
“The incident.”
The endless buzzing of fluorescent lights ring in his ears as the bleached, uncaring white beats down on him. His face is wet. A metallic smell haunts the room. Four brothers, one pulse, a red floor, and a red haired woman. Her smile falls on him again. The fluid squelches beneath her shoes.
“It’s very common for people to invent blame or create a causality, when in reality,"
He wants to keep looking at her, he really does, but his eyes wander to them again. They were staring at him, their only hope. He blinks.
“It was completely out of your control.”
She’s not there anymore, but she is. Her hair is grey now, aged by ordeal, and there’s no more smile or nail polish. Dead grass feels dry beneath his feet. Three bodies in one grave, and where was he?
Where was he?
Thunder rumbles through his mind and he’s slumped over in his desk chair. Warm lamp light blinds him momentarily as he straightens, panting and shaking on each breath. There’s no graves, no bodies, no April. They don’t exist here. The lab is dark. It’s 3:46 AM. Goddamnit, another nightmare.