Story Time.
Rated K
Summary: Splinter reads a Christmas story to his young sons, with many interruptions from them.
Disclaimer: I don't own Splinter the four chibi turtles or the story read in this.
Splinter sighed, winter had closed in and it was viciously cold down in the sewers under the city, even the water in some of the tunnels and pipes outside their home was frozen. The cold was hard enough on him and he had a coat of brown fur covering his body, but for his four sons, all of them, who were five, found it harder to get through these months.
The last few years the boys had been asleep long before the end of December, in true reptilian fashion, they hibernated the winter away. This year, though it seemed no milder then the previous ones the young turtles were still very much awake, though Michelangelo did seem to be suffering from sniffles.
Splinter did his best to keep his four young charges warm by getting them to dress in discarded clothes, and feeding them what he had scavenged from the city above. But he had a special surprise he had found a tattered book lost in the snow and ice the other night and had managed to dry it out enough that he could read it. It was a simple story told in rhyming words, so Splinter knew it would be just right to read to his sons for a bedtime story.
Splinter didn't understand all the words in the book, he was originally from Japan and the English language was still difficult to grasp. Nevertheless, he was sure that his boys would appreciate the story, they had enjoyed other stories with rhyming words in them. So at dinner that night Splinter informed the boys.
" Tonight, I have a new story to read to you."
" A new story!" Don echoed, his eyes glowing.
"Yeah!" Mike cheered and clapped his hands, " then can we read the three bears."
" I'm tired of the three bears." Raph said, crossing his arms over his plastron.
"Maybe, Splinter can read it to us and we can read it to him." Leo smiled.
" I would like that Leonardo." Splinter agreed as they ate up.
After dinner was done the five of them gathered in front of a battered chair, while Splinter lit candles. Don and Mike squeezed into one chair while, Leo and Raph shared another. When the room was filled with a soft glow and the lights on the candles flickered and danced, Splinter went over to his own chair and dug out the book he had hid under the chair's cushion.
He sat down looking at his sons silent faces, eagerly waiting, as he opened the book and began to read.
" T'was the night before Christmas and all through the house, not a creature was stirring..."
" What's stirring?" Raph asked.
" It means," Splinter answered his brow puckering with uncertainty, " moving around."
" I'm not sleeping!" Mike protested then sniffed and wiped at his beak, trying to then rub the stuff on Don.
" Eww!" Don shoved his hand away " I don't want your slime. You move when you sleep too Mike." He added as an after thought.
" No I don't," Mike declared.
" Then why are you always kicking me?" Leo asked.
Splinter arched an eyebrow as he realized that they hadn't gotten that far yet. " My sons enough of that, let me continue with the story." He was of course obliged to wait until the boys had finished a round of uh-uh. uh -huh. Did not and did too before he could continue.
" Not a creature was stirring not even a mouse."
"HA!" Mike laughed, " Splinter's bigger than any ol' mouse."
Splinter ignored this and continued, "The stockings were hung by the chimney with care."
"What's a stocking?" Leo asked.
Don shrugged. " Or a chimey."
Splinter smiled, " Stockings are what people put on their feet," he explained ever so patiently, "and a chim-ney" He stressed the word, " is a place where one can have a fire in the house, to keep warm."
"We don't have no chimney." Raph said.
" It is, we don't have a chimney Raphael." Splinter corrected.
" That's what I said!" Raph stated quickly.
Leo scratched his head, " Why would they put socks by the fire?"
Don smiled, " Maybe they needed to dry them cause they were wet."
Leo nodded as if that made perfect sense.
Splinter continued with the story this time getting to visions of sugar plums dancing in children's heads when he was interrupted again.
" What's a sugar plum and why does it dance?" Mike asked curiously. " I wanna see it."
" I don't think it dances Michelangelo, and please use the tissues." Splinter admonished as he caught young Mike trying to wipe his nose on his brother's clothes.
Don looked thoroughly grossed out and moved to sit on a mat in front of Splinter's chair.
Splinter was quite happy that he was able to get through almost a whole paragraph in the story before the next interruption, which came upon the words ...threw up a sash. All four boys gagged and made comments.
" Eww, gross he threw up!"
"I don't wanna eat no sash."
" Yuck!"
"I hate throwin' up."
"I don't think it quite means that my sons" Splinter declared, sighing softly and wondering if he'd ever get through this story. He hadn't realized how many distractions the boys could find in a new story. He had a feeling this was going take much longer then he first planned. "Kids." He muttered to himself and rolled his eyes, as he one more time called for their attention.
Splinter was rather impressed when the four boys seemed to settle down over the next couple of pages, 'perhaps,' He mused to himself, ' they are finally getting into the story.' But the bubble was quickly burst when Splinter read the line about a bag full of toys, and Saint Nicholas too.
" I want toys" Mike whined.
" Whose Saint Nick-las?" Don asked curiously.
" The man in the sleigh with the deer -them there ones he was telling to run away." Leo nodded, he'd been paying attention when it was said that the man called them by name and said the words dash away, dash away all.
Don scowled, " What's mint-ture?"
" It means small Donatello." Splinter stated.
"A small sleigh needs eight deer to pull?" Don tried to picture it in his mind and he just couldn't.
"I suppose it does, at least for this story Donatello, now I'll continue," Splinter remarked, ever so kindly and as patiently as he could. This time he hardly managed a couple of sentences before he was interrupted again, " He was dressed all in fur from his head to his foot."
" Ah ha!" Mike shouted loudly, " I knew it Splinter scared the mouse, that why it weren't stirrin." Mike figured if his father was all in fur then it was clear that only his father had to be the one all in fur in the story, "He won't let us play in stuff like that." Mike muttered.
Raph glowered at Mike, " Idjit, Splinter's name is Sensei Splinter not Saint Nickelas."
Splinter narrowed his eyes, " That wasn't nice Raphael, apologize to your brother."
" I'm sorry Mikey." Raph confessed looking like he meant it.
" It's okay." Mike allowed.
Leo heard Raph whisper very softly, " Sorry he's an idjit."
Splinter's ears twitched and he narrowed his eyes on the boy, " RAPHAEL!"
"What? I didn't say nuthin."
" Behave yourself." Splinter admonished, as he went back to the story, determined to finish it some time tonight. "His eyes how they twinkled, his dimples how merry. His cheeks were like roses, his nose like a cherry."
Raph wrinkled his beak and blinked. He glanced at Leo and Mike and they looked almost as confused as he was. "Is he a flower or a fruit, or both?"
Don shook his head, "Is this a person? You say we got to hide from people, but they look like that?"
"No my sons, it just means that his cheeks and nose were all red."
" Then whys it say roses and cherries?" Leo asked.
"Perhaps to make it sound nicer Leonardo," Splinter suggested.
" Makes people sound funny." Mike laughed.
Splinter carried on, knowing there wasn't much left now. If he was lucky the story might be done before midnight. The rat continued on with it. " a round little belly that shook like a bowlful of jelly."
" Mmm Jelly. I love jelly." Mike said.
" You love food" Raph countered.
Splinter pushed on with the reading, " And filling the stockings he turned with a jerk."
"Whose the jerk? When did he come in the story?" Mike asked.
Splinter pretended not to hear that one and went on " Laying his finger aside of his nose." That sentence brought out more gross and ewww comments from all four of his sons.
"He put his finger in his nose?" Leo looked sick.
" Mikey used to do that, and you told him it weren't nice." Raph said.
"Raph told me it was good to eat." Mike said. "he gave me a dime ta do it."
" It was a penny." Don corrected.
" Raph said it were a dime."
Splinter sighed and gave his four sons a sharp look that caused them all to fall silent faster then mere words alone could have done. Splinter finished the story off.
" What's a Chris -mess?" Don asked.
" I don't know. Somethin' to do with weird guys who pick their noses." Leo said, he had listened as attentively as he could. " And oh, puts toys in socks by fires."
Splinter wondered if he ought to try correcting that, but he wasn't quite sure himself. But he was starting to understand how this book could have been lost in a snow bank to begin with.
The End