I want to say again, this is NOT A DEATH FIC! This was the only scene I had an idea for, and I am entirely too lazy to put an epilogue.

You're all writers. Use your imaginations.

I own nothing. Forgive the mistakes, the editing process was about three minutes long for this one.

They all got cold pretty easily. Unfortunately, their reptilian blood remained, even after being merged with warm-blooded human DNA. It happened quite a bit in the sewers, especially at night. In winter it got bad, but they could usually do something about it, turn up the heat or some such action. The cold had been bothersome, but not painful. Mikey had never experienced cold like this icy wall of frosty air that hit his lungs like a sledgehammer. He gasped for breath for a moment, feeling his insides freeze. His breath washed back in his face after rebounding off the coarse sack covering his head, and somewhere in the back of his mind he made a mental note to brush his teeth more often.

Now, however, he had more pressing matters to deal with. Like the hulking figure shoving him towards the darkness, or the fact that, after he had slipped on a patch of ice, the door had slammed shut behind him. Any light the door had provided was obliterated, leaving Mikey totally blind.

At once, he tore off the sack. It did little good, there was nothing to see, and he felt his heart rate speed up with panic. Where was he? Why was it so cold? Wasn't it mid-September in New York? Was he even in New York anymore?

And most importantly, where was Raph?

Stumbling blindly, Mikey felt around the entire perimeter of the room he occupied. The walls were slick with jagged ice, the cold leaking up through his feet and a large-sounding generator that was hooked up to the back. There was barely enough space to stand up straight. Though he felt around once, twice, he was the only one in the dark area.

They'd taken his nunchaku, and after beating the walls senseless and screaming his lungs ragged Mikey stood in the middle of what he could now positively identify as a freezer, trying frantically to come up with a plan. He needed to get out of here. He needed to find Raph and go back to the lair where it wasn't so insanely cold.

A banging somewhere beyond the wall jerked him into the motionless state ninjas adopted when faced with threat of the unknown. The noise sounded far away, and at the same time, right next to him. There were voices, most he couldn't recognize, and through it all came one very familiar shout.

"Give me my brother back you dirty slime bags or I'll chop you into croutons!"

Mikey was at the wall in an instant, ear pressed against the ice, but he waited until the strange voices had vanished behind the slamming of another door before he knocked on the wall. "R-Raph? Is that you?"

Movement, and then an answering knock. "Mike!" His older brother's voice was thick with relief and lingering anger at their kidnappers. "Thank all that is good, you're alive! Are you alright?"

"Not hurt, but I'm freezing my shell off, dude. I'm in some sort of freezer." Of all the luck, too. He could almost feel his body temperature falling.

"Same here. Did you find a way out?"

Mikey crossed his arms, though he knew very well Raph couldn't see. "Yes, I did. There's this lovely turtle-sized door in the back that leads to a magical land with no ice."

"Save the attitude for when we get outta here." With that, the elder of the two began pounding on the sides of his freezer in the manner Mikey had not five minutes prior.

While Raph was having his little tantrum, Mikey pressed his back against the wall conjoining both their freezers and slid to the ground, hunching in on himself. This was no warmer, but even after a few minutes in here Mikey felt like he couldn't support his own weight. I'm not really that fat, am I? He let out a breathless chuckle. If that's the reason, I wonder how Raph feels...

A scraping noise behind him indicated Raph was finished exploring and had sunk into a position similar to his. "What's so funny?" The cold must have been getting to him as well, for his voice was much lower and softer than his normal bellowing rasp, though it could still easily be heard through the thin freezer siding.

"Nothing much." Even slowly freezing to death, Mikey valued his life. If they got out of here alive, he wouldn't want Raph coming after him because of the 'fat' comment. "It must be, like, fifty below in here."

"Yup." Ever the one for words, that Raphael.

"They took your sai, huh?"

"Yup. Your 'chucks are gone too?"

"Yeah." They lapsed into silence, the weight of the situation finally settling upon their shoulders.

No weapons. No communication. Strength rapidly deteriorating.

It was not looking good for the two of them.

In that moment, all Mikey wanted to do was say things. He wanted to tell April to look out for Klunk after he was gone. He wanted to tell Casey he always considered the behemoth to be a fifth brother. He wanted to tell Raph he was so sorry he was dragged into this mess. He wanted to tell Leo how much he actually admired him, despite his overbearing attitude. He wanted to tell Donnie his regrets of not spending more time with him. And he wanted to tell Splinter and all his brothers how much he loved them.

But words seemed petty, in addition to impossible. The icy air invading his lungs was shutting him down cell by cell. Already he had difficulty moving his fingers and toes. Besides, Raph had never been much for words, especially last ones. They'd been in near-death situations before, and every time one of them had started talking about 'the end', Raph had interrupted with a wild idea to escape whichever prison in which they resided.

A Raph who was seeing his brothers hopeless was a desperate Raph, and a desperate Raph meant the situation was pretty darn near hopeless.

Just now, Mikey didn't think he could stomach a desperate Raph. The cold was making him feel lightheaded as it was.

But he needed to keep Raph talking. They both needed to stay awake, and Mikey's eyes were already drifting shut. They didn't need Donnie's smarts to figure out that sleep in a cold place was a sleep that never ended.

Raph knew it too. He knocked on the siding. "Are you still with me, bro?"

"Yeah." I'm with you, he wanted to say. I'm with you until the end. "Can turtles go into hibernation?"

"I don't know if we can, but regular turtles do. I think." There was a heavy sigh from the other end. "Why couldn't I have gotten stuck in here with Donnie?"

"I love you too, bro." Mikey deliberately teased, even though the words were one hundred percent serious. I love you. If we're going to die, I love you.

Once again, silence was emphasized by the crushing weight of the frozen air on his chest. Now he couldn't feel his legs at all, and wrapping his arms around them helped nothing. He needed to keep talking, keep them both awake, alive. But talking about what? His brain was muddled, like instead of gray matter he had polyester.

He said the only tangible thought in his head. "Hey Raph?"

"Yeah?"

"You know what would be a great song right now?"

There was a pause as the full realization hit Raph in the face. Mikey hoped the horror would be enough to keep his older brother awake for quite a while. "Hamato Michelangelo, don't you dare."

Mikey dared. He knocked on the wall in a painfully familiar pattern and began to sing. "Do you wanna build a snowman?"

"Stop."

"C'mon, let's go and play."

"Mikey, do you actually intend~"

"I never see you anymore. Come out the door. It's like you've gone away!"

He could hear Raph groan. "He does."

"We used to be best buddies. And now, we're not. I wish you would tell me why." Mikey detected faint grumbling from behind him. Good. "Do you wanna build a snowman? It doesn't have to be a snowman."

"Stop it, Mikey. I will kill you when we get out of here."

He said 'when'. He was always saying 'when'. Sometimes, even with all his video games and involvement in MMORPGs and comic books, Mikey felt he had a better grasp on reality than his temperamental brother. "Okay, bye."

He didn't stop there. He sang the entire second verse, all through Raph's bellyaching. By this time, he could barely move, and his eyelids felt like they had anvils attached to them. But Raph was talking. Raph was alive. That was all that mattered.

By the third verse Raph had grown quiet, and Mikey was panicking a little. So much, in fact, that his secret superpower of creating new song lyrics to old melodies snapped into action. He tried to turn his head to look over his shoulder, the place he knew his brother sat, near sleep, but he couldn't lift it off his arms. His tongue was sluggish and swollen, but he sang all the same. "Raphie? Please, I know you're right there. Say something to me. I'm out of courage, and I'm scared for you. Let me hear from you. Soon we'll be free.

We've only got each other. It's just you and me, but the others will be here soon."

He paused, feeling like a fake. The others weren't coming. But he needed Raph to stay strong. Finally, so cold that he could barely move his mouth, he sang the last line. "Do you wanna build a snowman?"

In the silence that followed, Mikey let his eyes droop shut. They didn't open again, he didn't have the strength. They were finished. When would Leo and Don find them? How would Splinter take the news? He was too drained to care.

There was a noise behind him, like a shuddering gasp, than an extra line was sung in Raph's deep voice, made deeper by exhaustion.

"Yeah, I do."

Mikey's mind was engulfed by blackness and his world slipped through his grasp like the ice that surrounded him.

Note: I did not put 'END' here for a reason. It's not the end of the story, but I probably won't write a chapter about the others finding them.