Brotherly Blunders

Cold Hands Warm Heart

                 

Raphael's POV

I woke up in the middle the night. The first thing that hit me was the cold. It was the middle of winter, which is never good thing for us. See, we're cold blooded, so extreme cold makes our bodies shut down, most of the time into a kind of deep sleep, but if it gets too cold...

And right now it's freezing. I shivered.

I reached over and pressed the button on the heater. Donatello had installed one in all of our rooms as soon as he was old enough to figure out how the damn things worked. The heater made a humming noise, then something fizzled and it broke down. I stared at it for a moment, my breath coming out in warm visible puffs. I pulled my sheets around me and cringed. It's way too cold to live without it, at least not unless I want to go into hibernation.

I have no doubt that my old turtle luck is acting up again.

Much as I hated to do it, I pulled out of the sheets and stood up, making my way out of my room and down the hall.

It was so freaking cold!

Maybe I should have brought the sheets with me...I thought, But that would have looked weak.

I went into the lab, and my hope was dashed away as I found Donatello asleep in his desk chair. I let out a sigh of relief as the warmth of the lab began to thaw my frozen fingers. I was about to wake Don up when I realized that he'd practically been working double time lately. He doesn't sleep well, or on a regular basis, for that matter. I shouldn't wake him.

Maybe I could just sleep on the floor in here...

No that won't work. It wouldn't look good. And it would probably make Don feel bad.

On a totally different train of thought, Don keeps lots of extra blankets in here...I could probably just bundle up in a bunch of those and be okay.

I went over to the cabinet and took out a stack of blankets. I turned to leave the room, but I glanced back as I left and saw that Donnie was doubled over, which meant he'd really ache when he woke up. I frowned, set the blankets down and approached my brother.

"Relax Don, it's just me." I whispered. I knew he couldn't hear me, but Sensei always trained us to be aware, even when sleeping and I really don't want Donnie to wake up. Like I said earlier, he needs sleep. I pushed the chair away from the desk and lifted my brother out gently. I was amazed that the brainiac was that so zonked out. I lay Don out on the lab table. He stretched a little and shivered. I frowned. I went back over to stack of blankets and pulled one off, laying it over the genius' sleeping form. Donatello hugged the blanket tightly and I smiled.

I retrieved my pile of blankets before padding silently out of the room, closing the door and turning off the lights as I went.

A violent shiver ran down my spine and I trembled in spite of myself. I jumped onto my bed, sitting up and laying the blankets out one on top of the other. After all the blankets were laid out on the bed, I snuggled down and pulled them all the way up to my chin.

I was still a little chilly, but at least I wasn't totally frozen. After that, it didn't take me too long to fall asleep...

I jolted awake in excruciating pain. One minute I was sleeping, and the next I was being bombarded by something so cold, it burned, sending a sensation of pins-and-needles all over my body. I couldn't help but let out an anguished wail, shooting up and out of bed. I began to tremble violently from the cold. I glanced back down at the bed. The bed was wet, and so were the blankets. I looked down at myself, and realized that I was dripping water everywhere. I'm wet. I concluded.