Hi, not sure if you're still taking prompts, but I love your Human Splinter AU and was wondering how that would change his relationship with Raph. It seems like while he still has trauma, he doesn't have to deal with the dysphoria of suddenly having a rat body, and that make's parenting a little easier. Does that make things a little easier on Raph too?
x
There is a suspicious amount of giggling coming in the direction of the living room, when Yoshi is entirely positive all four turtles went down for their nap half an hour ago.
He peeks into the room and finds Raphael, laying on his front, kicking his tiny feet in the air, pouring over the comic book Hala’s daughter gave him. He doesn’t seem to notice Yoshi in the hall, as absorbed as he is.
His little turtles have keen senses. Yoshi thinks they’ll be incredible when they’re older. He also thinks he’ll treasure this—these early years, when everything is brand-new and precious, when his babies are clumsy and earnest and wide-eyed—when he can still creep up behind Raphael on silent feet and scoop him into his arms and surprise him into a squawk and then ringing peals of high, sweet laughter.
“What is this? What could this be?” Yoshi says, sing-song. “A little turtle running amok? Evading naptime? Breaching our contract?”
“Papa,” Raphael says, smiling toothily. He was the last of the four to begin speaking and sometimes he still has nonverbal days. Every time he says anything it’s like winning a goddamn prize.
Yoshi finds himself smiling back without making any conscious decision to.
“What are you up to, apple pie?” he asks. “Must be big, exciting things. Loop me in.”
Raphael waves his arms and declares gleefully, “Superheroes!”
Ah, yes. We’re still on that, Yoshi thinks, careful not to let Raphael see his expression of distaste as he stoops to pick up what turns out to be a Fantastic Four comic.
It’s one thing for his boys to find an old Jupiter Jim movie on cable TV and run around the house shooting imaginary blasters at imaginary aliens for four consecutive days afterwards. This hero thing is something else.
And he knows just who to blame.
Grandpa Sho found out about his great-grandchildren the way the rest of the world did—through the tabloids.
Apparently the pediatrician Yoshi had reached out to had decided the hefty NDA she’d signed was no more than a fancy piece of stationery, and the siren call of TMZ was too tempting to ignore.
Yoshi set his lawyers upon the asshole’s practice in the manner of a hunter releasing a pack of particularly bloodthirsty foxhounds, but the damage was done. The secret was out.
Naturally, the media ate it all up. Hala was an order of magnitude more pissed off about it than the uselessly shell-shocked Yoshi was, because as much as she might pretend otherwise, those turtles were basically her nephews. Her daughter had become their honorary big sister within about five minutes of meeting them in the first place. Hala was fully prepared to take this whole thing personally.
She told Yoshi not to read any articles, to stay off the Internet. It didn’t stop the barrage of e-mails and phone calls. It didn’t stop Yoshi from refusing to leave his house for an entire week because of the paparazzi parked outside.
And it didn’t stop Grandpa Sho from showing up on his doorstep. Apparently that bridge hadn’t been as thoroughly burned as Yoshi believed. The first thing he thought, when he saw his grandpa, was you look so old. It settled with a pang in the pit of his stomach.
The second thing—embarrassingly—was also what came out of his mouth. He hadn’t seen his grandpa in years, and the last time they spoke was in anger, but in some ways Yoshi was still his child.
“How do you fix a cold?” he blurted, right there on the doorstep. “He’s all stuffy and miserable and he won’t stop crying and he hates everything.”
Sho would have been well within his rights to be passive-aggressive, or petty, or even outright angry. Yoshi certainly would have been in his shoes. But Sho was better at putting duty before his own feelings, so he only nodded, and let himself inside.
“You sound exactly like your mother did when you were a baby,” he said, as if it wasn’t painful to say. “Not to worry. I know all the tricks.”
He did do a bit of a double-take when he saw the shape of Yoshi’s distraught toddler, but the surprise faded from his face quickly. He had always believed in all that mystic mumbo-jumbo that Yoshi had only recently learned firsthand was actually not mumbo-jumbo, after all. He took in the green skin and half-shells gracefully and ordered the inconsolable Michelangelo a lukewarm bubble-bath.
It became a whole thing, because the boys were as thick as thieves on a good day, and absolutely ready to fight god at the barest hint that they might be separated on a bad one. The bathroom ended up minorly flooded, but his kids were happy. They loved baths. They were swimming around each other in circles until even fussy Michelangelo was smiling. Sharing the moment with Sho—the two of them half-soaked and weary and bursting with affection for the rambunctious little monsters in their care—felt healing.
Grandpa Sho stayed for a few days. It was a relief to have him there, an extra set of hands. Someone Yoshi could trust, because despite everything else they had become to each other, they were still family.
The turtles were curious about him, this familiar stranger in their midst. They started absorbing Japanese within the first hour of his visit, even though Yoshi largely spoke in English. It was—nice. It reminded Yoshi of being a child himself, trailing after his jiji like a duckling.
And then one night, he let Sho tuck the boys into bed while he washed the dishes from dinner. He wandered into the nursery in the middle of a familiar story. A story that had followed Yoshi through life like a ghost, that echoed in almost all of his trauma-fueled nightmares.
The story of their clan and their duty.
Yoshi must have blacked out. He thinks he might have had an out-of-body experience. He remembers ripping the turtles out of Sho’s arms and backing away to the other side of the room and the pained way Sho’s face folded—hurt, guilt, decades-old grief.
“Don’t you dare,” Yoshi said, a whisper, because he was too furious and heartsick and terrified to speak any louder. He’d clutched his babies as tight as he could without hurting them, unreasonably afraid someone might reach out of thin air and snatch them away.
“Anata wa hitori janai,” his mother had said, the last thing she ever said. It was important but it felt like such a lie. Yoshi was alone. He’d always been alone. His sons were already better off than he was—there were four of them. He would make it his life’s mission to ensure they got to keep each other.
Then Grandpa Sho had surprised the hell out of him by saying, “I’m sorry.” He said it again in Japanese, full and formal, and Yoshi was shaken out of his stupor by sheer disbelief. “I only wanted—I only meant that they are Hamato. They are family. Whether or not you teach them what I have taught you, they will belong.”
He left not long after that, two weeks ago now. They haven’t spoken since.
And now Yoshi’s oldest son is full of half-formed ideas about heroics—concepts like ‘the greater good’ and ‘defeating evil’ that would go completely over his head, except that it’s the same sort of thing his favorite cartoon characters say.
“Hiijiji said our family is made of heroes,” Raphael says brightly. “So I’ll be one, too! And I’ll protect Leo and Donnie and Mikey when the bad guy comes.”
Yoshi can’t even speak for a moment. He has to wrestle with the lump in his throat for long enough that Raphael gets distracted and starts pawing at his hair.
His kids are so good. He can’t get over it. They were created to be super-soldiers, but all Yoshi sees are little goofballs with colorful personalities and giant hearts made of solid gold. He’s begun teaching them ninjutsu, in effort to curb some of their inexhaustible energy, and they’ve taken to it like ducks (or turtles) to water. Their brains are developing faster than those of human children their age—Donatello has the makings of an outright genius, and Leonardo is clever enough to talk circles around Yoshi in his sleep.
If they decided to become heroes, there isn’t a doubt in Yoshi’s mind that they could do it. And they’d be the best.
Raphael is all of six years old and the only things he should be preoccupied with are his siblings stealing his toys and that new Jupiter Jim DVD April promised to bring over this weekend. He shouldn’t be worried about the bad guy.
But now he’s got it into his head that he has this huge responsibility. He’s bigger and stronger than his siblings, so it falls on him to look after them. They clamber around on him like he’s their own personal jungle-gym, and he oversees bedtime rituals and boo-boos, and holds their hands when they reach out to him like it’s his job.
He doesn’t seem to mind that there is no big brother to do the same for him but he’s six. He wants someone to hold his hand, too.
Yoshi is keeping an eye on it. The last thing he wants is for Raphael to grow up too fast.
You can depend on me, he wants to say. It’s not all on your tiny little shoulders. That’s my job. It’s what I’m here for.
He doesn’t think Raphael is old enough to understand that in its entirety. So instead, when he’s sure he can speak without a wobble in his voice, Yoshi says, “There better be room for me in all these plans. I’m a hero, too, you know—you’ve seen me on TV!”
His son claps his hands together, brimming with delight. The turtles don’t really know what it means that their father is a famous actor, but they get so excited when they see Lou Jitsu on screen. They quote his movies a lot, it’s becoming a whole thing, and it’s so cute Yoshi might die.
“You’ll help fight the bad guy?” Raphael asks, like it’s the absolute best idea he’s ever heard.
“There’s not even gonna be any bad guy left for you, firebug,” Yoshi tells him. “I’m gonna beat him so quick you’ll barely see it. He’s just gonna be a big blur and you’ll wonder what the heck that was and then it’ll be over. And then we’ll go out for ice cream and forget all about it.”
He says it playfully and it makes Raphael giggle, but inwardly it takes the form of a prayer.
If there has to be a war, let it be Yoshi’s. Let his children be children for as long as they can.
“And hiijiji can come, too!” Raphael adds.
Yoshi is learning how to pick his battles. Maybe he doesn’t want to fight this battle anyway. Maybe he can begin to peel his fingers open from the fists he curled them into when he was a child. Maybe he can start to let it go.
With Raphael gazing up at him like this, like Yoshi really is a superhero, Yoshi thinks he can do just about anything.
“Okay,” he says. It doesn’t even cost him to say it. “Jiji can come, too.”
AU in which Splinter evaded the contents of the mutagen canister and ended up raising the turtles as a human.
No real warnings apply. Mostly family fluff with a teeny hint of angst.
There was a knock on the door, signaling the next round of the cupboard game.
There was barely a half second’s pause before the four children sprang into action, covering their tracks and scampering in separate directions.
Rule one: no leaving out toys or coloring books.
The objects didn’t have to go where they belonged, they only needed to be out of sight; tucked under a couch or shoved between a mattress… whatever got rid of it quicker.
Rule two: remain absolutely silent.
This was the second most important rule of the game. Speed and efficiency got you points, but if you tripped trying to get to you hiding spot or couldn’t sit still once you were hidden your chances of winning were practically null. Michelangelo struggled with this rule for a long time, and even now he had some problems refraining from readjusting his position after settling in the cramped storage chest.
Rule three: you have to wait for the signal before you can leave you hiding spot.
The signal wasn’t the stranger’s goodbye or the footsteps disappearing down the hall, it was the sound of their father rapping on the wall with his knuckles when he was certain the coast was clear.
Shave-and-a-hair-cut, two-bits.
Then they all climbed out and abided by rule four: no talking for five minutes.
They were permitted to read and draw, but no spoken words were allowed. Then, when time was up, Splinter decided on who won the cupboard game and the winner would get a piece of candy.
Half the time Leonardo won. Donnie was a close second, as he was very dutiful about putting his things away and always seemed to know the quickest most efficient route to the nearest hiding spot. Michelangelo, as aforementioned, had problems with fidgeting, but he was small and quick, good at fitting into small corners. Raphael was a tad bit more manic, his determination to outdo his siblings causing him behave recklessly every time the game started.
Competition had always been a difficult subject for Raphael, as there was practically no grey area separating desperation from indifference. There was one instance when… after a long winning streak from Leonardo… the hotheaded child actually decided that he was no longer going to play The Cupboard Game. There was the knock at the door, and as his brothers began to scatter Raph stood in the middle of the floor, arms crossed, staring at his father in a challenging manner.
Splinter motioned for him to hide, and Raphael stomped his foot and screamed “no!” like only a four year old could.
This immediately proved to be a terrible, terrible decision.
One hand was snapped violently over Raph’s mouth, remaining there even as the child bit at his father’s palm. Splinter’s other hand painfully gripped a pressure point in the defiant tot’s neck as he dragged him the final distance to the kitchen area and shut the tantruming child away in the cupboard.
The cupboard was never meant to be a place of punishment. Leonardo’s earliest memory was of him and his four siblings snug beneath blankets, dozing away in the comforting darkness of the space lit alone by the gentle red glow of the light on the baby monitor.
That monitor served as Splinter’s only way of knowing if any of them started crying, because otherwise the cupboard was locked tight and completely soundproofed. It was technically their first hiding spot before any of them could properly comprehend the rules of the cupboard game. Now it served as sort of a “tantrum room.” If you couldn’t keep your voice down you’d go into the cupboard, which would then be locked for a set amount of time.
Raphael of course slammed his tiny legs against the cabinet doors, but the light thumping and nearly inaudible screaming was soon drowned out by a radio Splinter turned on before answering the door.
It was only a package. The person who had delivered it was long gone, leaving the cardboard box filled with preschool-appropriate reading material on the stoop of the dingy apartment room.
Splinter brought the package in, ignoring rule three of the game in order to drag Raphael out of the cupboard and scold him.
“When I tell you to hide, you hide!” he reprimanded, face flushed with anger as he clasped the tiny turtle by the shoulders and shook him “do you understand me?!”
Raphael tried to answer, but he was crying too hard to form words, struggling to keep the volume of his own sobs down in order to avoid further punishment.
“I said do you understand me!?”
“It… it hurts Papa…”
Splinter suddenly stopped. Coming to his senses he realized the terrified expression on the four year old’s face. Raphael had acted like a child, but he was a child, a child who had not yet been told the severity of the situation. Even if the matter had been fully explained, however, it was no excuse for the bruises Splinter found that his clenched hands were leaving on the little creature’s shoulders.
At once the fear and the anger was gone, and in it’s place was a suffocating sense of guilt.
Leonardo, Donatello, and Michelangelo crept out of their hiding spots, drawn out by the commotion, and were greeted by the sight of Raphael wrapped inside a firm embrace, their father on his knees on the tile floor sobbing out apologies.
Rule 5 of The Cupboard Game: There is no opting out of the cupboard game.
This was the most single most important rule.
Soon after the incident Splinter sat his sons down for tea and a family meeting. There, he explained that if anyone found out there were four talking turtles living in the apartment, there was a chance someone would try and take them away. As far as he knew, the four of them were the only turtles in the world that could walk and grow and interact like humans, and such things often made people afraid.
That was why they had to play the game. That was none of them were allowed to leave the apartment.
Leonardo brought up the issue that their home was so small, with barely enough room for so much as a game of tag, and Splinter somberly agreed. He promised that one day he’d find a bigger home for them, although he failed to mention that such a thing was easier said than done when one has recently started their life over, working a janitorial job with not a penny to their name, which too had been changed over the course of the move. Of course Michelangelo, unaware of this, never refrained from using his crayons to draw big castles and bright green backyards, basing his idea of what their future home should look like off the cartoons that kept him quiet and satiated.
In the following weeks Splinter seemed to come home a good deal later than normal, acting far sleepier than before, often sore and suffering from bad headaches, falling short on household duties and phonics lessons much to his visible shame.
“I can only get us a bigger home if I work harder” was the answer Donatello received after no small amount of prying, though the explanation made the lispy little knowitall fairly indignant. Eight hours of sleep and no more than forty hours of work per week was the healthy statistic, he declared, and here Splinter was pushing seventy hours per week while getting between five and six hours of sleep every night.
Unfortunately, the preschooler’s wordy little lecture won him nothing more than a pat on the head and a promise that it wouldn’t last forever.
The knock came one more time, everyone and everything safely hidden away by the time Splinter gripped the handle of the door and pulled it open.
Donnie was tucked in the cardboard box under the bed, Leo was buried in shredded newspaper in the wooden chest next to the couch, Raph was behind an ironing board in the coat closet, and Michelangelo was hugging a teddybear behind a wooden panel on the bottom book shelf, when they all overheard a strange high-pitched raspy voice speaking out in a sharp informal manner.
“Aye! if it isn’t ‘The Splinter!’ I was afraid I got the wrong address for a second there!”
“…. Daiki. Or ‘Mister Takara' if you’re trying to sell me something.”
Leonardo noted the tone with which his father correct the stranger; the inflectionless mutter of annoyance he usually used when the old lady downstairs reminded him about the rent.
“Look, I know what you want. I told you we’ll talk about it another time.”
“Oh don’t pull that stunt again Splints.”
The door was jammed by the stranger’s foot, and all of a sudden there were footsteps making their way into the living area. The hiding children tensed, unnerved by this turn of events. Splinter didn’t let anyone into the apartment, not ever, and it was clear by the tone of their father’s voice that he was as uncomfortable as they were.
“What do you think you’re-”
“Getting your attention”
Despite knowing it would kill his chances at winning, Michelangelo gently shifted aside the wooden panel keeping him hidden, hoping to catch a much-needed peek of the ensuing conversation. He couldn’t see his father through the slit but he could see a stranger with big sunken eyes and the structure of a scarecrow, brightly colored tattoos all down his arm and along his face.
Immediately he thought of some of the super villains in the Wingnut and Screwloose cartoons and hugged his teddybear a little tighter.
“Ha! Man, this place looks like a real hunk of garbage, and what’s with all the thrift shop furniture?”
The intruder laughed, giving the couch a light kick of disdain “I guess this is what happens when you work in a profession you’re not made for, eh?”
“My job at Channel Six suites me just fine, Nezumi” Splinter returned, “and you need to leave.”
He attempted to subtly herd the invader back to the doorway, but the goon saw through the attempt and sidestepped him.
“Yeah, on your knees scrubbing bathroom stalls. Sources say you just got yourself a part-time job loading crates down at the docks too. You’re obviously in need of funds, why didn’t you give me a call?”
Nezumi’s insult followed up by the revelation that he’d been snooping left Splinter at a momentary loss for words.
“The last time we worked together was three years ago” he eventually answered when he found his voice again, hands clenched at his sides “and I put our partnership to an end at the first opportunity. You know perfectly well that I have no intention of going back.”
“You beat Visioso’s best guy in thirty seconds flat! How am I supposed to let a powerhouse like that just walk away?”
“Listen”
There was a light thump. Michelangelo could see Splinter’s hand grip the intruder’s shirt collar, loosely pinning him against the wall. Mikey instinctively flinched, then pressed his ear to the wooden panel, straining to make out his father’s nearly inaudible whisper
“You know what happened all those years ago? You caught me at a moment of desperation. I don’t like fighting for the sake of entertainment, especially dangerous and illegal entertainment, but I had no choice. Now I have a choice, so stop. Haunting. Me.”
Mikey didn’t understand what anyone was talking about, not because he couldn’t hear but because he simply hadn’t Donnie to explain the sentence’s meaning to him in layman’s terms. To him it just seemed like a jumble of standalone words, mashed into sentences that had no coherency. What he did know, however, was that his dad sounded frustrated, and Nezumi sounded like he didn’t care.
“They’ve raised a fifty thousand dollar purse for the final round” the intruder continued, speaking loudly and excitedly as he proceeded to ignore everything Splinter had just said “Some of the baddest of the bad are going to be pitted against each other, and I know you can beat every last one of them. Daiki, we can’t lose!”
This time there was no holding back. A firm hand gripped the gangly stranger by the collar of his shirt, forcing him to move toward the doorway
“Thank you for the visit.”
“You- you can’t be content living like this!”
Nezumi futilely struggled against the iron grip like a fish writhing on a hook
“There’s got to be something that can get you fighting again!”
“Goodbye”
From his corner of the closet Raphael had to bite down on his hand to keep from laughing as he heard Nezumi thrown out into the hallway, stumbling into the apposing wall by the force of the shove, Splinter evicting him with minimal effort. Mikey found it funny too, so much so that he pushed the panel hiding him aside just a bit further to get a better glimpse of the action. The hideous sunken eyes of the man in the hallway glared daggers at Splinter, flicked around in thoughtful frustration, and then suddenly landed upon Michelangelo’s big blue orbs peering out of the gap in the bookshelf.
The youngest turtle’s heart leapt as he met the stranger’s dark gaze, a newfound look of shock and confusion overtaking Nezumi’s face before suddenly their silent exchange was cut off by the shut door, which Splinter immediately locked.
Michelangelo scampered to push the panel back in place, his heart still stuck in his throat, stomach twisting as he thought about the ugly man and his startled expression.
He didn’t care if Splinter knew that he had broken the rules of the game. As bad as his father’s scoldings were he was now certain that someone saw him. That meant someone was going to come and take him away, and he would never get to see his dad or his brothers ever again.
That thought stayed with him, and the more he pondered it the harder he cried, small muffled sobs escaping him as he played out the worst possible outcome in his mind, every detail exaggerated and emphasized by his overactive imagination.
Soft heart shattered by the prospect of separation he stayed where he was even after Splinter knocked on the wall.
Shave-and-a-hair-cut, two-bits.
The final five minutes passed, then ten after that, but Michelangelo didn’t move.
Finally there was a knock on the wood panel of the book shelf, the hands of his elder brother shoving back the barrier before Mikey could so much as answer. Raph was wearing a smug smile, cheeks puffed up with an arcor strawberry cream candy, arms crossed over his chest as if he’d just defeated the king of the world.
“I won! I won I won! Look!…”
Raphael stuck out his tongue, the little hard candy balanced upon it, but the taunting gesture didn’t last long when Raphael noticed that Michelangelo was still crying, face pressed into his tear-soaked teddybear, shoulders heaving with every panicked sob.
Confused, then regretful, the hotheaded tot removed the partially eaten treat from his tongue and held it out to his little brother.
“Hereyago. Shush okay? you’ can have it if you wannit…”
But it was no use. Michelangelo was unresponsive to the offer, and if anything his sobs had only gotten louder since his brother invaded his hiding place.
Knowing that the refusal of food was something serious, especially for a turtle like Michelangelo, Raphael backed off and raced to fetch his father, getting his attention with a few tugs on his pant leg. Now hearing Mikey’s sobs himself Splinter removed himself from dinner duty, kneeling down by the bookshelf to examine the situation while Leonardo hopped up on the kitchen counter to keep the ramen noodles stirred, Donatello rattling off the instructions on the cardboard box.
“Michelangelo?”
Mikey looked up from his stuffed animal just in time to see familiar hands reach into the bookshelf, pulling him into the light of the living area.
“Hush my son, it’s alright”
The deep paternal voice was a million miles off from the sharp angry tone with which Splinter had addressed the stranger. Finding something to tether his emotions to Mikey abandoned his teddybear altogether and gripped the fabric of Splinter’s buttondown shirt like his life depended on it. He buried his face in his father’s chest, tears giving way to light hiccups as strong reassuring palms coarse with callouses rubbed up and down the turtle’s shell.
Splinter picked Mikey up and moved to the couch, cradling the sobbing four year old in his lap as he sat down.
“What’s wrong?”
Michelangelo found it a struggle to answer. Even though he knew what he wanted to say he was afraid to say it. He wasn’t going to just get in trouble, he was going to make everyone angry and scared, but deep down he knew it was better than them not knowing what had happened all, especially if this was going to put him and his brothers in danger.
“…He looked a’me!”
“Who?”
“The.. the… Th’man!”
Mikey hiccuped as his gaze moved to the door, breathing heavily as he was caught in the throes of a fresh crying fit.
“I know I- I was s’posed to stay h-hidden but- *hic*… I- I… wanted t’see wh- who- what was… an’ I- *hic*…I… I peeked”
It took Splinter a few seconds to understand just what his son was going on about. Realizing what had happened he looked concerned himself, gaze moving toward the bookshelf briefly before returning to Michelangelo.
“And you’re certain he saw you?”
“I… I think so. He- *hic* he l-looked over at me th-then his face got all weird, then y’closed the door an… an… an…”
Unable to finish his thought Michelangelo buried his face back into his fathers chest, a long sorrowful exhale wetting his parent’s work shirt with snot. Splinter gently rocked back in forth, working to soothe the distraught tot as his gaze coasted back and forth between the bookshelf and the door, a sense of dread building up in the pit of his stomach at the idea that someone had caught sight of one of the turtles. Especially someone like Nezumi.
“Well, he is more likely to think he was imagining things than assume that a talking turtle lives in my apartment” Splinter coaxed, working to reassure himself as well as the kid he clutched in his arms.
“Is someone gonna take me away?”
“I don’t think so”
Splinter smiled pityingly at his son, picking him up and repositioning him on his lap so that he could look him in he eyes.
“Now, I am disappointed that you let yourself be seen like that. You know that it would have been safer if you had stayed hidden… but I don’t think anyone’s going to try anything. After all, you’re safe here.”
“Yeah!” Raphael suddenly interjected, climbing up onto the couch next to his father, clasping an egg timer from the kitchen in his large green hands “An’ if he does try somethin’, Papa’s gonna kick him in the mouth so hard, that Noobzumi dork’s gonna poop teeth!”
Despite the tears still running down his cheeks Michelangelo began to dissolve into giggles, the mere mention of the word ‘poop’ striking him as the epitome of comedy. Splinter, on the other hand, raised his eyebrows at the surprisingly violent statement coming out of his four year old son.
Seeing he’d accomplished the job of cheering up his younger sibling while recognizing the threat of another oncoming scolding, Raphael quickly twisted the knob of the egg timer, forcing it to ring ten seconds early.
“Eggs is done!”
He tossed the timer onto his father’s lap and scampered back to the kitchen area, where Leonardo and Donatello were struggling to portion the steaming of noodles and the eggs, threatening to accidentally topple the large pots of boiling water in the process.
“Boys, stop! let me handle that!”
Splinter immediately put Mikey on the cushion next to him before rising to his feet and hurrying to the stove, leaving the youngest to ponder the conversation while he finished dinner preparations.
Mikey didn’t like that look on Nezumi’s face. In fact he was quite certain he didn’t like Nezumi at all, which was not a feeling he was accustomed to… disliking someone at first glance. However, his father seemed to be confident that this slip-up wouldn’t result in catastrophe.
Reassured, Mikey wiped the last bit of snot away from his face with his elbow, then slipped down from the couch to retrieve his teddybear.
“It’s okay. ‘Aphie’s right” he soothed, picking up his stuffed animal and cradling it in his arms much like his own father had done with him just a few moment’s ago “Papa’s gonna make sure nothin' bad’s gonna happen.”
“Now come on…”
He looped the tear-soaked teddy around his shoulders, giving it a piggyback ride to the kitchen
“it’s time for dinner. Not pizza this time, but chick’n ramen’s super good too, so no whining!”
If you’d like another Rise prompt, maybe something about Donnie’s battleshell? If that’s too vague, maybe its origins, or maybe what Splinter thinks about it?
this is also set in the human splinter au <3
x
When Donatello was a baby, Yoshi didn’t worry quite as much about his soft shell. He and his brothers were all the same sort of fragile, questionable mutation and its potential effects aside, and Yoshi panicked over each of them an equal amount.
They played hard. They always wanted to climb and run and tumble. Yoshi is inclined to blame the ooze that psychotic goat-man alchemist pumped them full of, because blaming him is neat and comfortable and makes Yoshi feel warm inside.
But Yoshi has also spent a not-insignificant amount of his fortune on parenting books and magazine subscriptions, and according to the experts, children are just tiny crazy people who will run at full-speed into a wall multiple times for no reason.
Which is fine. Yoshi has been a papa for almost four years now and it’s quite possible that he’ll never want to be anything else ever again for as long as he lives. His boys have secured their place in his heart and no amount of broken windows or crayon-scribbled walls or gutted kitchen appliances (???) will change that.
The problem is that Donatello’s shell doesn’t afford him the same protection that his brothers’ do. He’s as fast and strong as the other three, and easily twice as smart, but he’s just not as hardy.
Yoshi has no idea what he would do without his credit card and his talent manager-turned-reluctant-godmother. Between the two of them, he has an answer for everything.
“I don’t want to,” Donatello announces before Yoshi has even opened his mouth.
“You don’t want to go roller-skating?” he says, affecting a tone of complete surprise. It causes Donatello’s chubby face to fold into an epic pout, which is adorable, which makes up for how frustrating he can be when he digs his little heels in about something.
“No, papa, I want to go. But I don’t want to wear that dum-dum thing.”
“Your Auntie Hala is going to cry for days and days when I tell her how much you hate the present she got you,” Yoshi tells him solemnly.
Donatello considers this. Then he says, “Don’t tell her.”
Ah, logic Yoshi can’t actually find fault with. He never would have guessed he’d spend his early thirties losing so many arguments with a turtle toddler.
“You are wise beyond your years,” he says, wondering what it will look like when Donatello is a teenager, and whether or not Yoshi will survive it.
The ‘dum-dum thing’ in question is a modified back brace, meant for children with spinal disorders. Yoshi is pretty sure this qualifies. The reason Donatello hates it so much is the modifications Yoshi made to it; namely, the memory foam cover for his leathery carapace. It’s bulky and it slows him down and he hates falling behind the other three. Lately he’s taken to sitting out of their games because he would rather tinker by himself than wear the brace.
Yoshi is a little worried about that. He hasn’t come up with a way to make everyone happy yet, and he’s losing sleep trying to figure it out.
Leonardo pokes his head through the doorway. “Papa you said we were going,” he whines. “How come we’re not?”
“Negotiations have broken down,” Yoshi says, kneading his forehead with his palm.
“Dunno what that is,” Leonardo declares and visibly puts it out of his mind as not his problem. “Don-don, come on. We’re gonna skate.”
“No,” Donatello declares. His mouth is screwed up, brow furrowed, fully ready to be a little monster about it. “I don’t want to go if I have to wear the dumb fake shell.”
Leonardo tips his head to one side, considering this. It’s no secret to his brothers that Donatello has no fondness for the brace. This usually culminates in one or three of them helping him to escape it, and then hiding it somewhere stupid for Yoshi to find like the world’s worst Easter Egg hunt.
“We’re twins,” Leonardo says with all the unyielding certainty of a schoolteacher discussing matters with an obstinate child. “So we have to share. I’ll wear it, and then Donnie will wear it, and then it’s fair.”
Somehow—Yoshi can’t believe this, but somehow the logic goes to work. Donatello’s expression shifts from mullish to thoughtful. The most stubborn little treasure in Yoshi’s entire life is giving ground.
“It’s fair,” he agrees. He and Leonardo turn their big brown eyes up to Yoshi expectantly.
Honestly, Yoshi can’t believe he’s not going to have to wrestle Donatello into the brace for once in their lives. He’s a little embarrassed his second youngest child thought of this neat little solution before him. It costs him absolutely nothing to agree, and he straps the brace onto Leonardo’s back instead. When they get to the rink, one that Yoshi has unapologetically rented out for the afternoon so his kids can play freely, they’ll switch, and Donatello will wear it while the four of them turn inline skating into a contact sport.
And nearly a decade down the road, when Donatello is building advanced technology the way other kids his age are building blanket forts out of the couch cushions and Yoshi’s best sheets (re: his siblings) and he has long-since traded the brace for an armored shell of his own design, he goes from absolutely refusing to put it on to pretty much never letting anyone see him without it, ever, or else.
Because no son of Yoshi’s would understand the idea of a happy middle ground. It’s all or nothing, go big or go home in this house.
This is when the twin thing continues to save the day.
“Oh Telloooooooo,” Leonardo sing-songs, audible throughout the entire house, “Shell Time!”
“Ughhhhhhhhhhhhhhh,” Donatello replies, but it’s a token resistance at best.
And when Yoshi wanders that way to check on things a few minutes later, he’ll find the boys in the garage. Donatello is chattering a-mile-a-minute at Raphael about the computer he’s building, and his older brother is nodding along agreeably even though he clearly isn’t absorbing a single word. Leonardo is sprawled on his plastron, head pillowed on his folded arms, letting Michelangelo go to town with glittery stickers.
Donatello’s soft shell will be covered by nothing but the blanket Raphael tossed over his shoulders, and Leonardo will wear the battle shell just long enough for his twin to relax his spine and sit without pain—because fair is fair.
If you’re still taking prompts could I suggest maybe some Mikey and Splinter goodness? Preferably 2k12 (because we are all in need of more of them, right?) but whatever floats your goat :) I’ll read anything from you lol :3
unfortunately i still have rise brainrot so have this humble beginning of a human!splinter au instead <3
x
For all that his imprisonment felt like it aged him by decades, Yoshi really wasn’t gone for more than three years. He finds out when he drags himself into the blinding lights of the Manhattan rush hour and staggers drunkenly to a bodega to snatch up a newspaper.
Three years. After all the things he’s seen and done, that is what he can’t believe. The date is far more impossible than Hidden Cities and yokai masquerading as beautiful roadies. Three years.
His talent manager, a short, round woman who never liked Big Mama for reasons Yoshi had previously shortsightedly misconstrued as jealousy and now considers a god-given gift of clairvoyance or at the very least insane intuition, is near-apoplectic with rage but somehow not angry enough to have deleted his number. Hers is the first call he gets when paparazzi pictures leak of “Lou Jitsu Spotted in Midtown! Thrilled Fans Speculate Secret New Project in Works!”—which is a fair assumption, given that he’s still dressed for the Battle Nexus and looks like he just rolled out of a warzone.
“What secret project is it, exactly?” Hala demands in that very level tone that only ever precedes her losing her absolute shit in a big way. “Something your agency should know about, maybe? Something you should have explained before you dropped off the face of the planet for MULTIPLE YEARS?”
“Probably,” he says weakly.
He’s more than a little bewildered. For so long, his only interactions with any living creatures were the pit fights he was thrown into. He doesn’t know how to handle the sense of normalcy in a phone call from a friend. It’s hostile, sure, but not in an immediately life-threatening way, and Yoshi has to stare really hard at the Caller ID so his face doesn’t crumple with overwhelmed tears when Hala says his name.
It’s not entirely surprising that his townhouse is still here, exactly the way he left it before that ill-fated dinner date, given that all fees and payments are set up to come out of his accounts automatically—but it’s still a lot to process. That he could just walk out of one world and into another one. Step through a vaguely familiar door into a former life.
For years he didn’t have anything but an empty cell. It shouldn’t be possible that he could be surrounded by wealth now. He doesn’t know what to do with the luxury furnishings. He’s almost certainly staining his sofa beyond repair just from sitting on it.
He got home six hours ago. He’s been in a stupor since then, with a precious bundle of stolen cloak and baby turtles sleeping soundly in the crook of his arm.
“—even listening to me? Lou, I swear to—”
“No, I am,” Yoshi lies. “Uh, look, can I call you back?”
“Oh, do you have something more important than your entire career to deal with?” Hala asks icily.
The littlest of the four babies opens its eyes. They’re a perfect mirror of Yoshi’s own, warm brown and human. It’s hard to guess how old they are, but they’re definitely old enough to smile, and the little one proves it.
It makes a quiet noise, something between a babble and a coo, and lifts one pudgy hand up toward Yoshi’s face.
The call is on speaker and the noise must carry. Hala cuts herself off mid-word, surprised; then she exhales slowly, as if in understanding. Whatever it is she understands Yoshi must have missed entirely, because his whole brain is preoccupied by giving this tiny reaching creature whatever it wants. Lifting his arm and dipping his head, until the spotted turtle can paw around at his cheek and nose with its miraculous little fingers, clumsy and curious and delighted.
Like it has some kind of good opinion of Yoshi already. Like somehow it’s happy to see him.
It’s only been about three years since Yoshi was spirited away. That means Yoshi is not quite thirty years old. He feels ancient, and at the same time absurdly young.
He never, ever imagined himself with children. It’s something he and Big Mama talked about as their relationship progressed. He couldn’t imagine bringing a child into the world, potentially saddling them with the Hamato mantle and all the pain and loss that came with it. He couldn’t imagine leaving them the way his mother disappeared from his life. If you’d asked him even a day ago whether or not he thought he could open his heart up like that again Yoshi is pretty sure his answer would have been a resounding no.
But now there are these four fragile creatures, no longer animal, not fully human, who don’t have anywhere else to belong in the whole world. Four babies, so small that Yoshi’s heart leaps with panic at the idea of letting them go, with green-toned skin and three-fingered hands and eyes the same shape and color of his own.
Their tiny faces ease Yoshi out of his shock—bring him sinking back into his body, and all its pain and hunger and exhaustion, all its proof of life.
Yoshi forgets about the ongoing call in his opposite hand until the spotted turtle starts to squirm and almost dislodges its siblings and Yoshi moves to support them and finds a phone in the way.
Hala is silent on the other end of the line. He remembers, belatedly, that he never answered her question.
I love your human!Splinter AU! If the public knows about the boys, will there be pressure for Lou Jitsu to return to the big screen with a quartet of turtle-shaped costars?
news of his four kids gets out, but the turtle-shaped secret manages to remain a secret. in part because a certain goat-man alchemist will eventually gift yoshi with some cloaking brooches, also in part because april’s mom will do anything short of physically attack reporters in the street to protect the boys’ identities
and there’s definitely pressure for more lou jitsu movies but if there’s one thing yoshi’s good at since the pit battles, it’s refusing to cave in to demands. he’s a full-time dad now. maybe he spends more time at his dojos though or pops up in interviews and stuff more often. just him being around after dropping off the face of the planet causes enough of a resurgence in lou jitsu popularity that those residuals checks are fatter than ever
In the human!Splinter AU, Lou Jitsu is such a prominent figure, it’d be really easy for someone like Big Mama or even Draxum to find him…
that’s true !! thankfully draxum is going to come around a lot quicker in this au, and big mama doesnt like her odds against both him AND yoshi. and god forbid she even LOOK at the turtles in any type of way, bcus then aprils mom would kill her with her bare hands ☺️
i know there’s angst potential here but i’m not into it. this is essentially the one big happy family au
((W.I.P fanfic about an AU in which Splinter evaded the contents of the mutagen canister and ended up raising the turtles as a human. Just a snippet for now, but any and all feedback is appreciated!))
There was a knock on the door, signaling the next round of the cupboard game.
There was barely a half second’s pause before the four children sprang into action, covering their tracks and scampering in separate directions.
Rule one: no leaving out toys or coloring books.
The objects didn’t have to go where they belonged, they only needed to be out of sight; tucked under a couch or shoved between a mattress... whatever got rid of it quicker.
Rule two: remain absolutely silent.
This was the second most important rule of the game. Speed and efficiency got you points, but if you tripped trying to get to you hiding spot or couldn’t sit still once you were hidden your chances of winning were practically null. Michelangelo struggled with this rule for a long time, and even now he had some problems refraining from readjusting his position after settling in the cramped storage chest.
Rule three: you have to wait for the signal before you can leave you hiding spot.
The signal wasn’t the stranger’s goodbye or the footsteps disappearing down the hall, it was the sound of their father rapping on the wall with his knuckles when he was certain the coast was clear.
Shave-and-a-hair-cut, two-bits.
Then they all climbed out and abided by rule four: no talking for five minutes.
They were permitted to read and draw, but no spoken words were allowed. Then, when time was up, Splinter decided on who won The Cupboard Game and the winner would get a piece of candy.
Half the time Leonardo won. Donnie was a close second, as he was very dutiful about putting his things away and always seemed to know the quickest most efficient route to the nearest hiding spot. Michelangelo, as aforementioned, had problems with fidgeting, but he was small and quick, good at fitting into small corners. Raphael was a tad bit more manic, his determination to outdo his siblings causing him behave recklessly every time the game started.
Competition had always been a difficult subject for Raphael, as there was practically no grey area separating desperation from indifference. There was one instance when… after a long winning streak from Leonardo… the hotheaded child actually decided that he was no longer going to play The Cupboard Game. There was the knock at the door, and as his brothers began to scatter Raph stood in the middle of the floor, arms crossed, staring at his father in a challenging manner.
Splinter motioned for him to hide, and Raphael stomped his foot and screamed “no!” like only a four year old could.
This immediately proved to be a terrible, terrible decision.
One hand was snapped violently over Raph’s mouth, remaining there even as the child bit at his father’s palm. Splinter’s other hand painfully gripped a pressure point in the defiant tot’s neck as he dragged him the final distance to the kitchen area and shut the tantruming child away in the cupboard.
The cupboard was never meant to be a place of punishment. Leonardo’s earliest memory was of him and his four siblings snug beneath blankets, dozing away in the comforting darkness of the space lit alone by the gentle red glow of the light on the baby monitor.
That monitor served as Splinter’s only way of knowing if any of them started crying, because otherwise the cupboard was locked tight and completely soundproofed. It was technically their first hiding spot before any of them could properly comprehend the rules of The Cupboard Game. Now it served as sort of a “tantrum room.” If you couldn’t keep your voice down you’d go into the cupboard, which would then be locked for a set amount of time.
Raphael of course slammed his tiny legs against the cabinet doors, but the light thumping and nearly inaudible screaming was soon drowned out by a radio Splinter turned on before answering the door.
It was only a package. The person who had delivered it was long gone, leaving the cardboard box filled with preschool-appropriate reading material on the stoop of the dingy apartment room.
Splinter brought the package in, ignoring rule three of the game in order to drag Raphael out of the cupboard and scold him.
“When I tell you to hide, you hide!” he reprimanded, face flushed with anger as he clasped the tiny turtle by the shoulders and shook him “do you understand me?!”
Raphael tried to answer, but he was crying too hard to form words, struggling to keep the volume of his own sobs down in order to avoid further punishment.
“I said do you understand me!?”
“It… it hurts Papa…”
Splinter suddenly stopped. Coming to his senses he realized the terrified expression on the four year old’s face. Raphael had acted like a child, but he was a child, a child who had not yet been told the severity of the situation. Even if the matter had been fully explained, however, it was no excuse for the bruises Splinter found that his clenched hands were leaving on the little creature’s shoulders.
At once the fear and the anger was gone, and in it’s place was a suffocating sense of guilt.
Leonardo, Donatello, and Michelangelo crept out of their hiding spots, drawn out by the commotion, and were greeted by the sight of Raphael wrapped inside a firm embrace, their father on his knees on the tile floor sobbing out apologies.
Rule 5 of The Cupboard Game: There is no opting out of The Cupboard Game.
This was the most single most important rule.
