Sibling Rivalry
Disclaimer: Nope, I still don't own the Ninja Turtles…
It's not easy, growing up with a brother who can make you feel like the village idiot almost every time he opens his mouth. He doesn't even know he's doing it half the time; he can't help being who he is. It doesn't make it any easier though.
I remember sitting at the dinner table, listening to Splinter and him discuss how "y" equals the square root of "p" or what he read about Quantum Physics that day while I sat there, struggling with basic Algebra. Let me tell you, at seven, there is nothing more depressing than that.
I used to resent my brother for being so much smarter than me. I resented him for making me feel like a fool. Then I would feel guilty about resenting him for just being himself, which in turn made me think I should feel proud of his abilities. Then I would get angry because I felt like I was being forced to feel proud of something I'm not. Then I would feel guilty for thinking this way, which made me resent him for making me feel guilty; and the while process would start all over again. I was a walking emotional-roller coaster ride.
We had a hard time tryingto play nice with each other. He would want to play chess or dominos, and whenever we did, he almost always won. He would beat me in about two moves. I stopped playing when we were ten. I was losing to often, and the few time I did win had me celebrating like it was the Fourth of July. When it was my turn, I'd take him out into the sewers, where Splinter said we could play. There we'd pretend that we were treasure hunters or explorers discovering new lands. He was always afraid we would get lost and be eaten by bears or something. He was such a worrier when he was little. I'd tell him "Don't worry, I know where I'm going," although half the time I had no clue what I was doing. Of course, I'd prefer to spend God knew how long wondering around looking for something I recognized rather than admit to being lost. It's a good thing I didn't get lost that often. It only happened when I was too busy making sure Donnie didn't fall off a cliff to pay attention to where we were going.
We also had a hard time talking to each other. In fact, we never actually spoke to each other. Most of our conversations consisted of "Splinter! Raph got us lost in the sewers again! Don't make me go back out there with him!" or "Splinter! Don won't stop annoying me with his stupid physics book! I don't care about the size of an atom!" Fortunately for our master's sanity, we've gotten past that stage. Sort of.
These days, we do get along much better. I no longer get us lost and he is still annoying. But that's how most brothers are. We do a lot more activities together than before too. Like when we were building the walkway leading up to the upper levels of the sewer, Don and I would crawl up to the landing, proceed to become too scared to climb back down, and would have to have Splinter coax us off. Or the time we got lost down an ally-way during one of our first topside adventures, and fought over calling home for directions. I didn't want to because I knew where I was going, but he didn't believe me. We got home about two hours later, although the trip normally takes about twenty minutes.
The bond between siblings is one of the closest bonds ever. And I guess ours is the closest one there is, 'cause it's a four way bond. You've grown up with them your whole life, know all of their secretes, heartbreaks, and dreams. Not even Romeo and Juliet had that. Besides, knowing all you do know makes for some amazing blackmail!