Work Text:
Title: Unresponsive
Day: Febuwhump 2024, Day 21
Prompt: Unresponsive
Fandom: TMNT 2003
Word Count: 2002
Author: aquietwritingcorner/realitybreakgirl
Rating: T
Characters: Master Splinter, Leonardo, Raphael, Donatello, Michelangelo
Warning: Assumed Character Death
Summary: The first winter since their mutation is coming, and Splinter is preparing for it. However, nothing has prepared him for what was about to happen.
Notes:
Unresponsive
Splinter frowned as he cleaned up from the dinner that they had just eaten. Once again, his sons hadn’t eaten very much. There were leftovers, and Splinter carefully put the greasy Chinese food back into the boxes he had gotten it from. They couldn’t afford to waste, especially with the winter months coming. Already it had gotten colder, and that cold had seeped down into his burrow. He’d tried his best to pad the burrow and find blankets and clothes and such for his sons, so he could at least bundle them up a bit, but the cold was pervasive, and there was no holding it back completely.
That was probably why Splinter himself had taken to eating more. His instincts were trying to build up layers of fat and storehouses for both protection from the cold and so he wouldn’t starve if he couldn’t find food. He had expected his sons to do the same, but they seemed to be doing the opposite. It was very peculiar, and it worried him a little.
Still, there wasn’t much he could do, except to watch for signs of sickness, and hope that this would pass. Hopefully, everything would be alright.
Two days later, Splinter was staring down in horror at one of his sons. Leonardo had come to him, saying that Donatello wouldn’t wake up. Splinter had gone to investigate, expecting a sick child. What he found instead was so much worse.
Donatello lay on his sleeping mat, burrowed under all of the blankets and scraps of clothing that Splinter had found to give to him, just as he had to all of his sons. But instead of being warm from burrowing under them, he was still, cold, and unresponsive. Splinter’s heart beat wildly in his chest as he pulled the boy out of his pile and tried to find any signs of life in him. He could not find any, and he realized to his great grief that the boy was dead.
For a moment, it was as if he had been blindsided, and all he could think about was the dead son in his arms, the one he had failed. He should have paid better attention to him. He should have been more aware. He should have done something. But he had not, and now his son was dead.
It was the sound of a sleepy chirp that got his attention, and Splinter zoned back into the world around him. He still had three live sons with him, sons that were wanting to know what was wrong with their brother, no doubt.
He could not bear to tell them.
“I… will take Donatello to my room. He’s not feeling well. You are not to disturb him, do you understand?”
Three solemn little heads nodded at him, and Splinter took the small turtle back to the curtained off area he called his room. He didn’t know what to do. His son was dead, but he couldn’t just abandon the body. There was no telling what the humans would do, and he would not allow his child’s body to be desecrated so.
Swallowing, he carefully, made an area for Donatello in the back of his nest, just in case his brothers came to look, and carefully laid the son he had failed in it. Then, doing his best to hide his heavy, heavy grief, he returned to his other sons.
He would watch them even closer, to prevent this from happening again.
Raphael was next. The boy wouldn’t wake from his nap the next day, and he was just as cold and unresponsive as Donatello. Splinter’s heart ached with grief, even as he lied to his other two sons, and laid Raphael with Donatello.
Two sons. That was two sons that he had failed. Two sons that had died. Two sons that he had done wrong by. He wanted to wail at the loss, but he also still had two living sons, and he couldn’t do that to them. All he could do was try to keep this from happening to them as well.
Splinter tried to get them to eat. He bundled them up warmly, sleeping in their room with them for added heat. He watched them with sharp eyes. But it was for naught, as within the next five days, Leonardo also fell prey to whatever this was.
Like his brothers, he was cold, unresponsive, and Splinter could find no sign of life in his child. He wanted to weep. Yet another child that he had failed. Yet another death on his hands, because he wasn’t good enough. He still had Michelangelo to look after, though, and as he laid Leonardo with his brothers, Splinter swore that he’d do better by his remaining son.
He did not keep his vow. Despite his best efforts, within two days, Michelangelo was as cold and unresponsive as the rest of his brothers. He clutched Michelangelo to him and wailed, knowing that he had failed all of his sons. He had sworn to protect them, and yet, he hadn’t even been able to protect them from whatever this was. He had failed them. Just as he had failed Tang Shen, and just as he had failed Master Yoshi, he had failed his sons.
Eventually, Splinter gathered himself up, and took Michelangelo back to the boys’ room. He carefully laid him out, covering him, and then headed back to his room to retrieve Leonardo. One by one he laid his sons out on their pallets, covering them carefully. These would be their resting places for now. The cold would preserve the bodies, and in the spring, Splinter could find a proper place to bury them, somewhere the humans wouldn’t find.
The months dragged on. Splinter didn’t want to get out of his bed most days. He barely left the burrow. The signs of his sons were still around, with toys and crayons and books, meager though they were. He couldn’t bear to pick them up. He couldn’t stand to erase the last signs of his sons. He’d only had them for a few months, but they had been so, so precious to him.
And he had failed them. He had let something come and take them, kill them. He was grateful that whatever it was had been gentle, but it didn’t change the fact that they were gone, and it was his fault. His soul ached and mourned, and he had no one to share his grief with. His sons were unknown, and they would stay that way, never having the chance to grow, to learn to become more. When he died, they would be forgotten, and no one would ever know that they lived, no one would be able to mourn them.
It was all almost too much to deal with. Splinter wept his grief and his pain to no one. He yelled, both in a human and in an animal way, with no one to hear him. He laid in his nest, not moving, staring at what was around him, with no one to come bother him. He was alone now, all alone, and Splinter wasn’t sure he saw the point of continuing on with his cursed life after he buried his boys in the spring. He lost weight, stopped practicing, and at times had no idea that large swaths of time had passed. He had nothing to live for.
Eventually, spring creeped back in, and the burrow started to warm. Splinter forced himself up and out, looking for suitable spots to bury his sons. There weren’t many in the city, but he was determined to find the correct one. It took time, but he did, and all that was left was to carry his sons up there and bury them, before the spring thaw caused their bodies to decompose. It was the hardest thing he ever had to do, and he kept putting it off, not wanting the finality of that act.
And yet, the unexpected happened once again.
He did not expect to hear a chirp in his burrow. At first, he thought he had imagined it, as he had imagined their noises before in his grief, longing to hear them again. But it was persistent and insistent, and Splinter, against his better judgement, went to look.
He had never been so surprised, scared, and overjoyed at the same time.
Donatello was sleepily rolling over, rubbing at his eyes and letting out little chirps. Splinter rushed forward, not even sure if he believed his eyes or not. Could he be going crazy? Possibly. He had no one else to ask.
“Donatello?” he asked, reaching out trembling hands to his son. Donatello chirped and then rubbed his head against Splinter’s paws.
Splinter snatched his son up, looking him over. He was sluggish, but he seemed to be alright and aware. Donatello chirped a little, and then smiled up at Splinter. Splinter could not help himself. He sat down right there, and curled around his somehow alive son, and wept. Donatello didn’t understand what was happening, but he curled into Splinter in return, churring as his father rocked him, peppered him with kisses, and cried.
Eventually, Splinter got up, taking the boy to the kitchen. The boy was thirsty and hungry and, despite seeming sluggish, was aware. Splinter had no idea how this had happened or why, but he could, at least do a little about the hunger and thirst, even if he had precious little food on hand. He fed Donatello and gave him water, and he held him closely the entire rest of the day.
The next day, Raphael woke up as well. Again, Splinter swept him up into his arms and cried over him, showering affection upon his once-assumed dead son. He carried Donatello and Raphael with him, keeping them close, not wanting to let them go. Soon after, Leonardo also awoke, and Splinter brought him into the hold, crying over him as well and showering his three boys with affection. They stayed in the boy’s room, waiting, and it wasn’t long before Michelangelo was awake, too. Splinter kept all of his boys close to him, weeping over the return of his sons to him. His boys were too young to understand, but they soaked up every bit of affection and love that Splinter had to give them, more than happy to get it.
Soon his burrow was home again to four rambunctious children, playing, laughing and eating again, and Splinter was overjoyed to have it. He watched them closely for the next few weeks, especially when the temperature dipped here and there. On those nights they all piled together, Splinter curled around his sons, staying awake all night to watch them. But never once did they slip back into that death-like state again.
Splinter would recognize the signs happening again the next winter, this time a little more prepared for it. By the next year, he had managed to gain more knowledge of the subject and understood a little better what his sons would need. It was still harrowing each winter, to watch as his sons became unresponsive, and he feared every winter that, come spring, one or more of his sons wouldn’t wake up. However, every year they made it through the winter just fine, and Splinter was relieved.
The need for brumation would fade eventually, as they were able to keep their homes warmer, and as the boys grew. While in normal turtles, brumation was something that they never grew out of, his boys did, eventually, and although it made food and keeping warm harder, Splinter was more than happy to leave that stage behind.
But Splinter would never forget those harrowing months in their first year, when he thought his children dead and grieved them. He never wanted to feel that way again, and he feared for the day when he would once again see his children cold, still and unresponsive.
He prayed it would never come.