TMNT ONESHOTS.

"Weeping in a cage, betting a boys youth."

AU / Bad parent!Splinter, no ships.
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Hamato Yoshi was a man.

He had two feet, He had ten fingers, five on each finger.

He has two legs, Connected to two feet, together having ten toes.

And suddenly, Hamato Yoshi is not a man.

He is the husk of one.

He is the shadow figure of a ghost, a monster a child will cry and squeak to their mother about.

He is a rat.

He is a sewer rat.

And he does hate every inch of it. He hates his tail, he hates his nails.

He hates his muzzle, he hates the twitchy nose, he hates the whiskers, he hates how he hears sounds—now louder than he could have imagined.

He hates how he has detached himself from the world. All because of the stupid—

The chirp brings him out of a tirade of hatred, and he swallows his deprecating words. He looks at the once-previously sleeping child, who now stares at him with big wide eyes.

He has a beak, his tail is small, and most importantly and noticeably,

He has a shell. His son is a turtle. Splinter looks at the child, who shrinks back a little.

His eyes are blue and wide, his cheeks are freckled. He is four years old.

And since that boy was the size of Splinter's palm, Splinter had been nothing but selfish towards him.

Yet he couldn't force himself up and tell himself to be better for the boy whose every waking moment should be filled with love.

He could not be blamed for this predicament, and somehow, Splinter's mind always says it is his fault. It is a boy who is barely the size of his hind-leg fault.

Splinter cannot deny the mind until it is interrupted, despite how wrong it is.

"Away, Donatello."

He sends the small, freckled boy away, the toddler having a look he shouldn't have developed until later on in life.

Splinter cannot find it in himself to run after and sob and apologize until the boy whimpers and hugs him.

He cannot find himself to love Donatello like a father.

He cannot find himself to find an alternative way of referring to the child as a way other than a son.

Splinter registers it as a new reason to despise his new being.

His mind has ruined himself, and his caring nature for a child. It has ruined a child's life, and if not life, his most vulnerable memories were tainted.

Splinter cannot find it in himself to care.

He has ruined that boy's life, but he has ruined his own too.

He doesn't know if he cares more about his own or Donatellos. Will be around long enough to even see how his son's life plays out?

A moment of rashness makes him want to say 'no.' because he'll find a weapon, and end his or his son's life before it gets any worse.

Well.

He turns in that thought for another day, another dusk, another dawn, which all come by too equally slow and quick these coming years.

These last years? Splinter doesn't know.

He's only been tracking time by Donatello's age.

That's why he can't leave the kid somewhere..he'd forget.

He'd forget how many years it's been since Splinter had been Hamato Yoshi. And also, some cruel, unforgiving part of him says 'They will stone him' if humans saw him.

He is sure humans will. He is sure his boy will be harmed by humans in ways neglect could never be.

And despite how much he hates that boy, how much resentment he holds inside his mind for that boy, the purest but worst part of his mind says 'You love him, don't you?' And it echoes.

Hate boiled up in his gut and reminded him that this is a boy, not a man.

And the outside world will not accept that he is green and scaled.

Just like they will never accept that he is a rat.

The boy accepts him as a father, despite how much he has missed out and shooed away him, discarded and abandoned his interest.

He still accepts him as a father who does not look an inch like him.

The aching truth is that he is adored by the boy and that Splinter hates Donatello—but he is but a toddler, and he doesn't understand that.

Splinter doesn't know if it makes this harder or easier.

Splinters claws dig into the chair he is seated on, he can at least teach the boy something new and something to defend himself with—he was just a smidge older than Donatello when he began practicing ninjutsu.

He feels dread creep on his back and bites him on the neck, tossing him around like a dog's damp toy chew when he tries to get up.

He hates that boy, but he hates what he has become now.

"Daddy?" A voice, soft and small, cheep up. Donatello is looking up at him, a hand already reaching out to his father.

Something humane bites at Splinter's mind and heart, vocalizing how he is but a child, he shouldn't have to be the one reaching out his hand.

But Splinter stares at his son and stands up without a word. He grabs his boy's wrist, Donnie squeaks and squirms on instinct.

But he stops, he is relaxed.

And Splinter hates how relaxed he is, how he will never understand that Splinter lost something worth more than a hundred of Donatello's.

How he would trade Donatello for even a fingernail that does not represent a vermin?

He wishes to shout and scowl at the boy all those words, but he thinks to teach Donatello fighting first.

Maybe he will not be a son, but he will be something much greater, something with more purpose, more potential, more power.

He will be a soldier.

He will be feared, he will rear his ugly head and have no such thing as a gentle and childish demeanor.

He refuses it.

The boy is already far too polite as it is.

He will ruin him and tear his youth to shreds, and he will blame it on protecting him from the claws and scums of the earth, from protecting from the humans.

When Donatello is nothing more than an aged, dirty penny.

Ruined,

Ugly,

And useful when you use it right.