Disclaimer: The TMNT characters do not belong to me but to Nickelodeon.
Here's something my boredom came up with. Raphael vs. Leonardo.
Extreme Sitter
Raphael had no idea. He had no idea about the amount of patience it took his Sensei to keep his sanity when it came to dealing with four, unruly, male mutants who behaved more or less like ordinary, energetic, boys. Children that eventually grew into independent teenagers that yet still maintained some traces of their childhood habits.
"Did he drink all of it as yet, Raphael?" Splinter's voice called, making the turtle cringe when he heard the enquiry coming from the outer room beyond.
Raphael exhaled and inhaled slowly before answering his guardian, "Ah, not yet, Sensei."
"I will be waiting then," the constant master replied, implying to the Raphael that he had to succeed at least this time.
He was beginning to learn just how much control Splinter had to exercise when it came to them; especially when they were ill. His eyes were now opening up to a new world that showed him why the sentient rodent spent most of his time meditating. Meditating; it was a matter of survival! The red masked turtle eyed his brother from the foot of the bed where the object in sight was inspecting a battered, moss-green mug; filled with a steaming, hot liquid.
"What is this?" Leonardo sniffed the contents within the mug he held in his hands and made a face that looked like a mixture between suspicion and disgust. "It's not tea," he noted with austerity and looked up at his brother, demanding an answer.
The other terrapin rolled his eyes and dragged the layers of the skin on his face downwards, pressing in the roughness of his palm. "Of course not, genius," he uttered disdainfully, watching his sibling through the space between his fingers. "It's some herbal concoction Master Splinter made for ya."
Leonardo's hairless brow shot upwards at that, and he resumed inhaling the aroma of the vapors that floated towards his face like tiny, whispering feathers. His expression displayed nothing but contempt and abhorrence for whatever murky chemicals swirled around in the cup. "I wouldn't poison you, you know - no matter how much I would like to at this moment – but yeah, Splinter made it. I swear on my honor and all that ninja crap you like to hear like a damn princess waiting on her prince to swoon her with a shitload of fancy words – nothing but lies," Raphael grumbled, patiently waiting for the turtle to drink the brew.
Leonardo clicked his tongue, "I am not a princess," he corrected. "Are you sure Master Splinter made this?" the blue masked terrapin's eyes narrowed as he studied Raphael intently, "Because it doesn't smell like tea, and I'm sure it's not some new tea either," he deduced intelligently. "Master Splinter always makes tea for us when we're sick; Raphael," Leonardo pointed at him accusingly, "and you and I both know that this is not his tea. What are you trying to do to me, brother? Why do you want me to drink this so badly? Tell me the truth; what is this…this foul smelling liquid? You've contaminated my cup. Now I won't be able to taste my tea in it," he violently pushed the cup back towards Raphael, and held it there for him to take it, dangerously tipping the vessel, sending drops of the fluid flying on to the bed.
Raphael gritted his teeth in irritation and held his ground stubbornly. He refused to take the cup from his brother's hand. This had to be the fourth time he was trying to get the mutant reptile to drink his cup before he threw all away on the ground – or in this case on the bed sheets. "Just drink it," he insisted, "It'll make you feel better." He tried, with all his might, to be passive about it, hoping that this approach will have different results where the young ninja would drink his remedy. A remedy that Master Splinter, oh so gently, lectured him about. He gave Raphael one simple task and the task must be completed; regardless of the obstacles.
The blue masked turtle huffed and thrust the drink out to his impatient brother once more, "I don't want to drink it. I don't know what's in it. Your head looks big; just like the pillow. How can I be sure that you're Raphael?" Leonardo's dark eyes squinted as if he was trying to see through his brother and then he placed the mug on his nightstand with a loud clang, and a slush of liquid splattered on the wooden surface. His eyes were glazed over by whatever was in his system, giving him a dreary look and then he suddenly flopped back down in the bed as if he was pushed. He stretched his arms towards the sister nightstand that sat at the other side of the bed, and began fidgeting around in the drawer which was conveniently open.
Sighing, Raphael walked up to the bedside, snatched up the mug and tapped his brother on the knee with his free hand, "Come on, you big, fearless oaf. You gotta drink this: Splinter's orders," he said, slightly amused by the sight of his sibling blindly digging around in the drawer for something. "What are you looking for? There's nothing in there." He wished he could get this over with already. He was tired of waiting on Leo, and by 'waiting'; he meant it in both contexts. Also, he obviously didn't want to stick around when his brother started to throw up. No, that was out of the question.
Sadly, that was what the herbs were supposed to do – make Leonardo spill the contents of his stomach, and along with it; the pills he had swallowed earlier that evidently didn't mesh well with his personality. They all knew that he was sick, yes, and they also knew that some types of human medication had the effect of six times the dosage on their systems, but what they hadn't accounted for was April, and the fact that she didn't know about that.
"Leo?" Raphael spoke a bit more sternly, trying to get the ailing turtle's attention. "Stop fooling around. Get up and drink this," he nudged his brother's foot with his own.
In response, Leonardo sat up, frowning. "Why should I listen to you? You're not Raph. Your head's too big," he pointed out – which explained quite a lot about how things looked to him at that moment – out of proportion and unstable. "The onna-bugeisha says not to drink it. They're standing right behind you, you know," he glanced over Raphael's shoulder with a nod of the head and folded his arms in defiance.
Raphael groaned and rolled his head to rid himself of the stress kinks in his neck that slowly pricked their way through his muscles, "Oh, for the love of ninjutsu, Leo, just drink the damn thing! I haven't got all day!" he snapped, placing the mug back on the nightstand. He glanced at his reluctant brother, trying to remember a time when he had seen him like this, only to come to the horrible conclusion that he had never witnessed Leonardo ill before because they were rarely sick, and when they did fall victim to their immune systems; it was usually all of them at once. He had no experience with this or how to handle him. He could handle Donatello, or Michelangelo, maybe, but this one; hell no.
"Do you want to play a game, Raphael?" the blue masked turtle asked, looking down at something in the palm of his hands and then he brought his head back up to peer at Raphael with curiosity in eyes and a mischievous smirk on his face.
Alarms instinctively went off inside the terrapin's mind, and he took a step back out of caution, "Do I look like I wanna play a game with you? You're not even thinking straight," he accused his brother. "And what's that you got in your hands there?"
At that, the blue masked ninja shouted: "Catch!" and Raphael found himself dodging four shuriken that came whizzing past him. One flew over his head as he ducked, another missed his shoulder as he leaned left, and then he had to twist while flipping midair to avoid the remaining two that went by his calf and thigh. Each of them lodged into the concrete wall with a solid clink; half buried and posing no threat, but all the same deadly.
"What the f… Leo!" Eyes wide with shock he yelled, storming over to the smug turtle that held his sides, chuckling. "Are you crazy?" He had enough of this. His brother had crossed the line, and his patience meter was on 'E'. There was no way he was going to wait on his brother to finish the herbal brew on his own. No, the drugs in his system had to be purged, and purged fast because it was a matter of their safety rather than Leonardo's. He never thought he would have seen the day when their Mighty Fearless leader would think that it was funny to use weapons in such a silly game. "That's not funny, you asshole. You can't go around throwing stars at people like that! That's insane!" He grouched, making up his mind to do what he thought they should have done from the beginning.
"But you did well, Raphael-san," Leonardo commented, praising his brother's valiant feat. "Sun Tzu was impressed," he beamed with pride when he said it, and then his face turned into a frown when he looked down at his plastron, confused.
"Uhuh," Raphael smirked at the elder's nonsense, ignoring the turtle's sudden change in behavior, and grabbed hold of his arm. If you don't want to drink it on your own then I'll just have to make ya. He quickly pulled his sibling into a headlock, surprising the terrapin, and twisted his body back to get his head in an upward angle before reaching for the green cup. "Open wide, Fearless," he cried when something hard connected with his jaw which sent his head flying back, and his hand knocked the mug out of reach. Somehow, in that second, he managed to breathe in relief as this batch was saved.
"What are you trying to do, Raphael?" Leonardo demanded, twisting around so fast, that he was suddenly on top of Raphael with his knee pressed against his brother's plastron. Then he proceeded to roll his brother over, despite their size difference, and locked his arms behind his neck, bringing the red masked turtle under submission in a headlock. "What were you trying to do, Raph?" Leo asked again, wrapping his arm a little tighter, waiting for a response.
Raphael was taken aback to find himself in the opposite position and grunted enraged. "Leo, let go!" he barked, struggling to wrestle his way out of his brother's grip. His captor didn't budge, and maintained his dominance much to the younger's displeasure. "I was only trying to give you your meds, you idiot …just like Master Splinter asked me to," he explained quickly, mad at the entire situation and everyone involved. "I don't even know why you took those pills in the first place if you knew that they couldn't be good for you. Only an idiot would do something like that. Where were you when Donny explained all that crap about the dangers of certain drugs and their effects on us, uh, Leo? This is entirely your fault, you know!" He struggled again, trying to loosen Leo's grip, "You wouldn't have to drink that stuff if it wasn't for your stupidity. Now let go!"
"Pills?" Leonardo's headlock was still intact, "What pills?" His eyes darted left to right as he searched through his muddled mind for some memory of the incident, but none came to him.
His brother's perplexed question stumped him. Don't tell me he's suffering from memory loss now, Raphael scrunched up his face, "The ones that April gave to you when she saw how sick you were," he reminded him.
"I never took them," Leonardo stated defensively. "I refused that onna-bugeisha's medicine," He raised his head haughtily, looking absolutely offended at the idea of being accused of accepting assistance from that particular onna-bugeisha. He looked like his pride was hurt a bit, and continued on in a display of pomposity. "It was nice of her, but I knew that they were bad for me so I told her 'no'."
Raphael sighed at his brother's rambling and squeezed his eyes shut to blank out the oncoming headache, "but April said she gave them to you…"
The blue masked turtle shook his head and went on, "I felt sorry for her so I took up her offer on the tea instead. I should have kept my mouth shut though. Her tea tasted awful!" The katana wielding warrior made a face, and stuck out his tongue like he had tasted something bitter.
By the time Raphael's brain processed what Leonardo had told him he felt bad for what he had said to the turtle. This wasn't his fault. It was April's! He scowled inwardly, thinking of the dissolved pills that would have altered the flavor of Leonardo's prized beverage. Why didn't he see this before? Leonardo would have never taken any kind of medicine just like that – and it wasn't because it usually took all of Master Splinter's sheer will power plus hours of perseverance to break down the turtle's resistance to swallow any form of medicine, but because he, of all of them, was the most cautious when it came to substances that could harm them.
"Raph, my stomach has a headache," Leonardo mumbled, interrupting his raging thoughts.
"What?" Raphael half turned to look up at his confused brother when his hold slackened. His brother's green face contorted slightly and his skin paled in complexion when suddenly Raphael felt a slick, steamy shower of thick fluid on the back of his neck, shell and plastron. The elder terrapin threw up on him! He flew up so fast like his tail was caught on fire and screamed like forty devils. "Argh!" he whirled around to look at the ill mutant with a twitching eye, "You little fu - !"
"Raphael!" Splinter's voice cut off his words before the rodent could hear them, and the red masked ninja held his breath. "Did Leonardo drink his medicine?" requested his father's gentler tone.
Raphael glared at his sibling for a moment, deciding if it was worth the lie to say that he did swallow it. He might as well spill the 'potion' on the bed to make it seem as if he did. He did throw up after all. A devious smile formed at the corners of the terrapin's mouth. At the same time Leonardo's brown eyes went from the mess on the bed, to the cup on the nightstand and then to Raphael who had his arms up in the air, dancing on the spot to drip off the stomach acid that was running down his shoulders and other crevices. "Not as yet, Sensei!" Leonardo answered before Raph's words left his mouth, and he flung his hand out to take the cup. "Oh, so this was to stop me from throwing up… why didn't you say so before, Sun Tzu?"
"No!" The red masked turtle couldn't help the whisper that became his voice as he tried to stop Leonardo from drinking the substance.
"Make sure you drink all of it, my son," Splinter returned, sounding rather chipper and Raphael groaned.
"I hate you…" he muttered under his breath darkly.
I don't know – I kinda like crazy Leo too. Not to mention a very annoyed Raphael. Heehee!
Definition: An onna-bugeisha was a type of female warrior belonging to the Japanese upper class. They were members of the bushi (samurai) class in feudal Japan and were trained in the use of weapons to protect their household, family, and honor in times of war. (Courtesy Wiki)