Turtles' Big Sister Oneshots

Work-a-holic--Pepper and Donnie

Summary: Donnie's sick, but refuses to believe it. Good thing his sister is always there for him. 

Pepper's 13, Donnie's 10.

1:00 AM.

Tap tap tap tap tap. Tap tap. Tap tap tap. The keys clicked as Donnie typed away on his laptop, working on information for his latest invention.

Knock knock.

"Come in," Donnie called, not looking away from the computer screen. 

The door creaked and Pepper stepped inside, yawning. "Donnie, do you have any idea what time it is?"

Donnie took a second to look at the clock in the bottom right of his screen. 1:10 AM. Was it really that late? He looked up at Pepper for the first time since she'd entered the room. "It's late, Pepper. You should be sleeping. You look tired," he recited, turning his attention back to the computer screen.

She huffed. "I was sleeping, until your monotonous typing woke me up." She yawned again.

"Sorry," he replied, with no sign of sincere sympathy.

"No, you're not," she snorted. "Go to bed, Donnie. It's late." Her ears twitched in annoyance at the continuous sound of keys on the keyboard being pressed down. You never realize how annoying something is until you hear it after midnight.

"I'll go to bed in a minute. I just have to finish this one thing." He quirked a brow and started typing faster.

Pepper's tail swished. She was just about ready to throw the laptop across the room. "It can wait until the morning, Don. It's time for you to go to sleep. We have a busy day tomorrow, and you can't be sleepy," she ordered, knowing the true length of a Donatello minute.

"Okay. Okay, I know." Donnie yawned while he saved his work and closed the lid to his laptop. "I'm done, are you happy now?" He stood and took a few steps toward his bed.

She snorted. "No, I'm still awake." Smiling slightly, she shoved his shoulder lightly, pushing him toward the bed, and headed for the door. She turned off the light. "Now, go to sleep," she ordered firmly, before closing the door and returning to her own room.

As soon as Donnie heard his sister's door close, he sat right back down in his desk chair and opened his laptop back up. He logged himself back in and continued his work.

3:30 AM. Hours seemed to pass as minutes as Donnie worked the night away. He was slowly but surely getting closer to creating his invention. He'd devised a lengthy algorithm in creating the perfect combination of chemicals to fuel the device. As he rapidly typed the next test to his algorithm, he started to feel a rumbling in his stomach. He paid it little attention and passed it off as hunger, ignoring it the best he could. But it just kept coming. Soon, he felt the bile feeling of acidic stomach contents creeping into his throat and filling his mouth with vomit. He threw his hands over his mouth and sprinted for the bathroom, not even bothering to save his work.

He spewed the contents of his stomach into the toilet he just barely made it to. He was surprised the sounds of gagging didn't wake anyone, especially Pepper, whose sharp, highly-trained ears were sensitive to the click of letter keys on a keyboard. But then again, it was almost four in the morning. Everyone was still sound asleep in their beds. But Donnie continued to vomit everything he'd eaten the previous day. He wondered what he'd eaten to upset his stomach like that, and how much longer he'd have to endure the painful experience. The only thing worse than the vomiting was the dry heaves that followed shortly after. When his stomach was empty, his body still felt the need to pretend he had something left. His dry throat heaved, bringing Donnie to his knees, clenching his chest. The pain was unbearable.