This is a short, simple story I wrote a long time ago, based on a time when my family and I still had game nights together.

Whoever you are, I hope you enjoy this one. :)

Family Game Night

They were all sitting on the floor surrounding their coffee table, the silence they created serious and unsettling as time ticked away.

Mikey had his shell turned towards the shut off TV, his arms spread out on the table as his nose brushed over the tabletop. The light near the couch was amplified by the makeshift battery Donnie installed, augmenting the shadows that wrapped around him and his brothers.

Leo was slouched over with his folded hands pressed against his lips, elbows jabbing into his bent knees as his eyes narrowed in absolute focus. Leaning against the foot of the couch, Raph laid his heavy head against his palm, his other gripping an empty coca-cola can…

…Yes, that is a euphemism for crushing it into oblivion.

But that's beside the point.

The tension was palpable.

It was floating around like a happy, little boat, brushing against the nerves of all the turtles without fail.

And the solution was held in only one turtle's hands.

So many things could go wrong. But just as many things could go right. It all depends on whether or not that turtle will follow through with the correct path that was laid out before him. That, however, was held as a flimsy hope in the rest of the turtle's heads. Already, there was a tug-of-war going on internally, pulling each of them between 'flat-out killed with the suspense' and 'outright blown up from the pressure.'

Just a few more seconds, perhaps, and they would find themselves–

"I got it!"

Suddenly, Mikey reached out further across the table, and with a widening smirk, he threw down what he had then pumped his fists in the air.

Leo felt a twitch in his left eye.

Donnie inwardly cheered.

"YEA! TAKE THAT, SUCKER!"

Raph snapped his body forward, throwing his soda can soaring through the air behind him. Rocking onto his knees in an instant, his hands tightly gripped the edges of the table as he leaned over. Amber eyes took in the tiny objects that caused so much anxiety…

…And with a battle roar, his foot suddenly had a spasm and kicked the whole couch behind him backwards.

"Raphael!" Donnie protested. "Don't make me scour the whole dumpsite again for a new couch!"

"It's either that, Donatello," Leo dryly replied, pressing his folded fingers harder against his chin. A vein popping from his head, his eyes never strayed from the wooden tiles placed in front of him. "Or you'll have to scour the whole city looking for parts that'll bring back the dead."

And Raph ignored the both of them.

"THAT IS NOT A FUCKIN' WORD, RUNT!"

Somehow, Raph avoided the Scrabble Board entirely as he reached over with quick, flexed arms, bringing his younger brother into a headlock.

"Is so!" Mikey cried out, trying very hard not to kick the board as he flailed in Raph's hold. "Is so, is so, is so!"

"Yea!?" Raph snapped, looking at the board again and seeing red as he growled out, "Then tell me, oh smartass, what the shell does GROSZ MEAN!?"

With a snooty smirk, Mikey chirped out, "A subunit of Polish currency!"

Leo shot a pointed, suspicious glare at Donnie.

Donnie benignly smiled back.

"What…that…" Raph paused in his chokehold on Mikey, turning incredulous amber eyes back at Donnie. "…Tell me he's jokin'. He's just gotta be jokin' or somethin'."

Donnie looked apologetically (Leo snorted at that) at Raph, replying, "Well Raph, Mikey is absolutely right and since it's a measurement of a country, it's acceptable in Scrabble." Not even waiting for Raph to bumble out a reply, Donnie grabbed all of his titles and laid it all out right next to Mikey's. "And as for my word…"

Leo slammed his hands against the floor, getting on one knee as he leaned over with a disbelieved scowl. "ZIGGURAT!? ZIGGURAT!?" He whipped his head towards a merrily humming Donnie.

"It's an ancient Mesopotamian pyramid that can also be found west of the Iranian pla–"

Raph let out a groan.

Donnie grinned deviously. "–teau, forming terrace steps as its general outline, tapering further the higher the elevation." And lifting his hand, he wrote down the final scores with a quick flourish.

Leo looked blankly at his brother.

Then he slammed his hands on the floor once more. "I knew there was something else going on!" he accused, continuing as if Donnie's words went through one ear and escaped the other. "Right when Mikey put down a measurement for a foreign country!" He drilled holes into the innocent stare auburn eyes sent his way. "Couldn't you have at least been subtle about it?!"

"Leo, you're talking nonsense," Donnie provided dismissively as he put down his Score pad. "Well, going on, Mikey, you have 354–"

"YEA, new record!"

"Shut up, BONEHEAD!"

"OW, Raph! That was my head, dude!"

"REALLY? I thought that was just my kid brother's EMPTY BARREL of a stupid ROCK!"

"Oh, that hurts bro…"

"ANYWAYS," Donnie loudly intervened as he looked once more at the pad. "I have 356, 280 goes to Leo and…" Donnie paused and even though he politely raised a hand to his mouth, the upturned corners of his lips managed to peek through. Raph's fists began twitched. "…Raph, I don't think you want to know yours."

Raph let Mikey drop, ignoring the groans of 'whyyyyyy' as the younger's plastron hit the Scrabble Board and its pointy, little tiles.

"This game is rigged!" Raph exclaimed, spinning his head over to Leo. Exchanging calculating stares, he growled, "Leo, when they hell could they've…we've been here the whole time!"

Leo tapped his hands against the table, nodding slowly at the younger one in contemplation. "Donnie had to have known Mikey's letters…and then somehow given him the word he could put on the board." Leo grabbed one of the stray tiles that flew towards him after Mikey's crash landing. "The only possibility I see is that they passed notes but even if they passed it under the table, they're still a few ways from each other. We would've seen any movement that out of place."

When Mikey's head resurfaced, brown tiles fell from his face and left 'W,' 'T,' and 'F' marks all over his cheeks. "We didn't cheat! Your lack of faith in my academic intelligence hurts bros. It stabs me deep–" He hoisted himself up one arm and slapped a hand over his stomach. "–in the nuts!"

Donnie doubled over his lap, burying his face in his hands.

Raph threw his hands up in the air, stomping his way over to the kitchen.

"This is the LAST time we're EVER going to play scrabble," Raph grumbled.

"Yea," Mikey cheered. "Because for next week's family game time, we're going to play Monopoly!"

"NO!"

Fin