I don't own the TMNT

Turtle Age: between 1 and 2

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I sniffed and made a face. It did not seem like that long ago, I was walking amongst fellow humans, in the daylight. The sewers were not that bad, but the smell was. It was made worse by my more sensitive rat's nose.

Fortunately my run today was successful in many ways. I had acquired some relatively fresh bread, I had found a large pile of clothing and a shelving unit that a moving family had tossed on the curb and discovered a restaurant that was apparently well known amongst the scavengers for throwing out very good fruits and vegetables. They only had minimal bruising. But the special surprise was some air fresheners. They came from a higher end grocery store where I had discovered the managers allowing gang members to sell drugs on their store grounds. It made me feel justified enough to swipe the odd box every other week or so. I did not always have the chance to look for labelling to see what was inside it. Most times it was boxed meals, canned goods or dry goods. This time it was full of air fresheners, which somehow made me realize how much the smell had been bothering me as of late.

The smell was not as bad in the new home that I had located for us. For nearly all the first year after my mutation and rescuing the young turtles that I soon thought of as my sons, we had truly lived within the sewers amongst the grime, garbage and the more...pungent remains of whatever people happened to flush down their toilets. We never could stay in one spot for very long, there was always something very wrong with each location, most times with security. It always made me extremely nervous to leave them alone for as often and as long as I had to in order to acquire the necessary materials for our survival. I was extremely fortunate to find this space several months ago. It appeared to have originally been either a worker area or for storage, most likely for the extremely delapitated and long abandoned subway system. The security was excellent, I was fortunate to find a way into the place and with a few days work and scavenged construction materials I was able to improve upon them, though I was still hesitant to leave the young ones behind. Perhaps, though, this was simply because I never thought it was appropriate to leave infants alone without any supervision.

Cleaning was the next task. Now that I had decided to stay, it was nice to put some true effort into making the area more livable. Hopefully it would help to ease the continuous sickness that all of my sons had in one form or another. Already I had over two weeks of no cases of diarrhea and no fevers so it looked promising.

Stepping through the heavily concealed entrance, I surveyed the space once more with a hint of pride. Clearing out all of the debris had truly revealed how much space it truly had. I had sectioned off three spaces, one as a room for myself, another for my sons and the last for storage. The walls were partially pre-fabricated, having been tossed aside at a deconstruction site. I was surprised about how much over the last year I had learned about what types of things people threw out. My ears twitched as I listened for a sign that my sons were awake. I had left as soon as they were asleep on the plastic covered toddler beds. I heard nothing so I preceeded to drag in the large bags and boxes that were somewhat precariously strapped to the child's toy wagon. Stopping by the area that I had set aside for a kitchen that looked like it was originally part of an employee lounge I dropped off the bread, fruits and vegetables that I had scavenged. Moving silently across the large area save the annoying squeaks of the wagon's wheels I dragged the wagon and took out the clothes and the large dresser, which was completely taken apart. I knew that I had some screws and was fairly certain that I could put it back together. Leaving them in my room to sort through later I finally took out the box of air fresheners. Slowly I stuck my nose in the box and took a long inhale.

How I had missed pleasant smells!

With a smile on my face I rifled through it. There were several types of plug-ins that I could use if I ever fully figured out how to make the outlets work. Right now only two in the entire large area still had power going to it and, though it was tempting, I was not about to utilize them for fragrance. I brought out several aerosols which I would spray later. Most of the box was filled with simple conical wax air fresheners. Excited, I decided not to save too many of them and swiftly set about scattering them throughout our new home, looking forward to when they would start kicking in.

Silently I crept up to the room where my young sons were. Peering inside I saw them all sprawled across the small mattresses set upon the freshly swept floor. Except for that the room was still barren of furniture. I smiled when I saw them, love filling my heart. Leonardo was lying spread-eagled, his limbs twitching as if he was dreaming of flying. Donatello was curled in a ball with his bottom sticking straight into the air. Michelangelo had apparently crawled off his bed and was now curled tightly against his older brother Raphael, who was lying on top of his face in return. Reaching in, I gently rearranged them, fearing that Michelangelo might have difficulty breathing through Raphael's plastron. Michelangelo whimpered and squirmed a little and for a moment I feared that I had woke him up. But instead he simply licked his lips and promptly reattached himself to his brother, though this time with his snout unencumbered by his brother's flesh.

Walking away I smiled, finally feeling some sense of security. It had truly been difficult before I had found this place. The issues were exemplified by the fact that, although the turtles were infants, they did not act like human infants. They were able to crawl right away, making it difficult to keep track of them and making me literally have to enclose them in something before going to the surface to find the supplies. Here, at least, I was certain that with their current physical limitations they could not easily escape.

Looking at the rescued armchair that I had managed to clean off somewhat reasonably, I considered sitting down for a while. It seemed to beckon me. Then I abruptly decided against it. No, I could not. There was too much to be done.

With a sigh I approached the 'kitchen.' I had chosen this location because it had a sink and a functioning outlet. I made a face at the sink. Through my newly heightened senses of smell and hearing, I knew that, perhaps due to a fluke, there was water running to the pipes supplying the sink, but something was wrong and the actual sink faucet wouldn't work. Fortunately, through several weeks of searching I had found a manual for plumbing and was planning on trying to fix the issue. Truly I should probably try to work on the only toilet in the area instead, indeed I very much missed such a simple pleasure, but the thought was honestly daunting. I had never tried to fix a toilet during my human life and feared that if I did something wrong and broke it that it would be broken forever. Best to practice on the sink. From my searches I knew that replacement parts for sinks were easier to scavenge.

Opening the plumbing manual I stared at it. I spent the first hour simply trying to correctly label all of the individual pipes, then another thirty minutes locating all of the connections and identifying them. It was then that I realized that I didn't know exactly which tools to use and had to search through the book, hoping that I had the right ones. Coming across tools was harder than anything. People apparently had more of a respect for their tools, which were normally within a securely locked building, which had a locked garage, which had a locked toolbox. Luckily I had the right basic type of wrench. I fiddled with it for a moment, familiarizing myself, then realized that I had forgotten the key components about the piping system and had to look it up once more. It was enough to make me want to rip out my hair. How do plumbers do this!

I had the sink's plumbing halfway disassembled, scattered around me and still unsure what exactly I was doing when I felt something touch my tail. Startled I whipped around, hated wrench in my hand, to see Michelangelo playing with the slender tip of my tail. Immediately I relaxed and cradled my head with my hand for a moment. How could he have sneaked upon me so easily? My head was pounding. Perhaps I need a break from this infernal plumbing system. It was obviously driving me to distraction.

Smiling, I reached out to my smallest son, stroking his head with my hand. He turned to me and smiled, letting out a small giggle. I gasped when I saw the bluish tinge to his lips. With panic stabbing my heart I grabbed him forcefully, yanking him closer to examine him with wide eyes. Immediately I was assaulted by the strong aroma of...Rain in the Springtime? The blue color wasn't in his lips, it was on his lips...and clumpy. My thoughts raced to find a solution. Then I saw, slightly beyond him, two wax air fresheners with all the contents scooped out of them with tiny fingers. The same ones that I had scattered throughout the Lair only a few hours before.

Still holding tightly to Michelangelo, who seemed oblivious of my panic, I snatched up the now empty conical container and stared at the label. 'Keep out of reach of children and pets. If ingested call poison control immediately.' Poison control? NO! I have poisoned my own son!

Suddenly I was frantic. What could I do! Call poison control! But how? I had no phone! Where was a phone! I had to get to one! Michelangelo cooed in my arms. Holding him up I examined him once more. He didn't appear to have any difficulty breathing, he appeared in good spirits, but how long would that last? Turning I ran into my room and opened my small change purse. I had enough change for a few phone calls through a pay phone. Snatching up the bag, I nearly ran out of the Lair once more before remembering the others. What if the others wake up and consume them as well! I did not have time for this. How could I have put my family in this position! Sprinting faster than I had in a very long time, I swiftly ran about the Lair, snatching up all the remaining air fresheners and tossing them in the garbage. Using the child gate I locked the others in their room as extra security before running out with Michelangelo under my arm.

It took five precious minutes to locate a payphone in a reasonably secure location. With shaking fingers I put the coins in the slot and dialed the number, which was fortunately listed in the emergency numbers on the phone itself. It seemed like an eternity before a person on the other line picked up although it was hardly a few seconds.

"Hello, poison control, how may I help you?"

"Yes, my son has consumed an air freshener!" I stared at him. He was sitting by my feet, his attention once again engrossed in my tail. He was still breathing normally and showed no sign of distress. Yet the fear was still alive within me.

There was a pause at the other end of the line. "Excuse me? What type of...air freshener?"

My fingers massaged my scalp. We did not have time for this! My son could be dying! "The ones composed of wax in cone plastic." My eyes darted around checking for nearby people. Seeing none I looked at my son again. He was playing with his toes.

"Oh, okay." Another pause. I felt like striking the phone. "Um...I need to look this up. We haven't really had someone call about...that before." I ground my teeth, not trusting myself to say anything while she looked up the information concerning the freshener. Idiot woman! How could she be employed like this! I pictured all the things that I might have to do. Would I have to induce vomiting? Induce diarrhea? Maybe give him something to absorb it? Maybe there was nothing that I could do...maybe I had killed my son...

"Well...sir...it doesn't look like it's deadly."

My ears twitched. "Excuse me?"

"Well, it's just wax. There might be some complications. There's a chance that he might become constipated. If it didn't burn going in, it might coming out...but other than that he should be perfectly fine."

It was as if she splashed me with cold water. This was not what I had expected to hear. The relief was enough that my knees weakened. "Thank you." I croaked out and hung up the phone. Silently I stared down at my smallest son. He looked up at me and giggled, clutching my robe to his face and nuzzling it like a cat before rolling on his back and kicking his legs, his body language begging me to tickle him. Smiling I picked him up with slightly shaking arms and hugged him to me. How close I might have come to losing him!

Nuzzling my face against him, I smiled as he pulled at my whiskers. My nose twitched and I chuckled. Finally. Something that smelled good!

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TRUE STORY! When my son was that age he literally ate one of those things and that's literally what poison control told me. It must have been oozing from his pores because he smelled FANTASTIC for about a week and had a few days of the freshest diapers I had ever experienced. My son reminds me SO much of Mikey that I couldn't help but use him for it.

I know it was a relatively slow chapter but not all of parenting is exciting! I wanted to include the image of Splinter as handyman because if you think about it, he had to do everything until Don was old enough to take over. He had to be a jack-of-all-trades. A true renaissance man...er...rat.

On one more note, I've received a couple of requests for Leo-based tales, but might need to open my suggestion box for that one since he's one of the harder characters to get right for me. Gotta throw me a bone here!

Please read and review! Once again, if you have any ideas you would like me to use please feel free to tell me either via review or pm.