A/N: Decided to do some quick humor. Just a little story I dreamed about last night, so I think it'll be pretty good. I don't know. Please, take this as a break from the complicated stories of The Dragon Spreads His Wings and The Vampire Comes Out at Night. Enough said, except that I don't own the turtles… though I wish I did.
Don sighed in anger again as he tried to bandage the cut, but Leo was squirming.
"Leo, stop moving or I'll just pour iodine over it and call it good," Don threatened. His brother stilled and looked at him.
"You wouldn't," Leo said confidently. He gasped as Don got out the iodine, and tried to squiggle away.
"Raph!" Don called, holding Leo down with his arms. "Come in here!"
Their hotheaded brother appeared, taking in the scene with a glance. He smirked and sat on Leo's shell to pin him.
"Now, hold still, you big wuss," Raph grunted as Leo bucked, trying to get away from Donnie and his staining red-brown liquid.
"Raph, get offa me!" Leo growled. "I swear, when I get up, you are so dead."
However, he silenced with a grimace as Don splashed the iodine on his cut.
"I told you to sit still," Don admonished, carefully bandaging the cut. He nodded to Raph, who jumped up and out of the room in the same motion before a sore Leo could kick his shell.
"Now, rest up. I want that to heal."
"Oh, sure you do," Leo said, rolling his eyes. He walked out of the infirmary and towards the TV, knowing Mikey would probably tease him but needed something to take his mind off of his accident. He limped slightly from the cut.
"Hey, bro," Mikey greeted. "Ya wanna join me?"
"Uh… sure." Mikey was currently sitting on the couch, ready to play a racing game. Those, out of all of his games, were the easiest to sit through. In the orange-banded turtle's others, one found oneself unconsciously shouting and yelling at one's characters when they could have avoided a hit. At least, so though Leo. In fact, so "out" was he once that he'd given his player a lecture about proper sword handling. Mikey had caught most of it on tape, and it was safely tucked away in Don's lab where Leo dared not venture if he could help it.
Pulling his mind back to the present, Leo chose a car, some boosters, and then waited patiently as the count down started. He shifted from one foot to the other calmly as he pushed the button for speed when the horn sounded for the race to begin.
"You could sit," Mikey teased, swaying with his car and biting back a curse as he missed a turn and skidded into another combatant.
"Hardy har har," Leo said sarcastically. "Listen to the funny mutant, who's about to eat my dust!"
Leo's car shot ahead of Mikey's, who gasped and jumped up, running at his brother with a grin on his face. He battled Leo, each trying to keep control of their cars while blocking punches and kicks. It was friendly play, but when Mikey accidentally hit Leo's cut, the eldest turned serious and put Mike on the floor, then lay down on him in triumph, soaring across the finish line in third, while Mikey's car had stopped and was sitting forlornly on the bottom half of the screen.
"Ha ha! I win," Leo crowed.
"Dude… That was way too serious," Raph said. "I mean, Leo, the "honor and ninjistsu before life" guy, beating Mikey, the "video games or death" guy?"
"Who knows?" Leo smirked, looking down at Mikey's neck beside him. "Wanna go another round?"
"Sure!" Mike cried, squiggling out from under Leonardo and grabbing his remote. He chose a new car but Leo kept his old one, knowing it better now. "It's on!"
They repeated this several times until Don insisted firmly that the roughhousing wasn't helping Leo heal and marched his brother off to the infirmary swiftly. Mike was left begging Raph for a game, who said "no" and left it at that.
--
Mikey looked at his brother the next morning and noticed Leo seemed pretty tired. He probably didn't sleep all that well last night.
However, he was awake enough to kick their shells during practice, though Sensei had said he could miss out if he wanted. Of course, being the Perfect Son, he had refused and practiced, though slower than normal because Don threatened to hit him if he tried to push it too far.
After practice, Leo lay down on his bed again for a few minutes, reading a book he loved. It was an account of a soldier's part in a war, and how he felt that he was working for a goal he'd never see achieved.
"Leo, let me see that cut," Don said, coming in without a knock. By the way Leo was calmly putting the book down, he'd heard Don coming from the other side of the lair. That happened when Leo read; his senses heightened, as if scared of being snuck up upon while reading.
"Don, it's fine," Leo insisted, pushing himself to his feet.
"We live in the sewers, Leo," Don admonished. "You could get infected easily." He had said this so many times he didn't even recognize the words anymore, only the feeling of repetitiveness.
"Fine," Leo grumbled, following Donnie to the infirmary. He settled onto his plastron again as Don inspected the cut and then pronounced it good and clean, just changing the bandages and throwing the old ones out.
"Breakfast!" Mikey called from the kitchen. When Leo and Don walked in, Raph was waiting impatiently at his place, a pile of waffles in front of him. "Waffles and powdered sugar, syrup, strawberries, and butter! Dig in!"
"Gladly," Raph muttered. Leo ate daintily, chewing thoroughly and commenting on the good taste. Don and Raph ate with a determined focus, while Mikey ate quickly, yet was still eating when his brothers had finished. That turtle was a bottomless pit.
"Enough," Leo said, shifting slightly to try and get his weight off the cut. "Raph, you have dish responsibility, I believe. Mikey, you have cooking duty as always. Don, you're on sweeping watch, and I'll be dusting, I think. Alright?"
"Sure, Leo," three turtles chorused. Mikey happily, Don regrettably, and Raph with casual insult in his tone.
"Good. I will take Master Splinter his tea, and then we'll get started with chores."
Leo was as good as his word; he was dusting when Don came by with the broom, and they both heard Raph cussing at a bit of dried waffle on the pan that he couldn't remove. Mikey was staring at the boob tube, watching something about turtles in the wild. He always liked watching documentaries about their brothers and sisters lower in the chain of evolution… or luck, as Raph said.
Everyone was done with the chores – excluding Mikey, since it wasn't lunch time yet – at about the same time. Don scuttled off to his lab, Raph headed for the weight room, and Leo went to join his lonely younger brother in a game on his game station.
"Dude, check this out!" Mikey cried, dispatching an opponent using a swift backhand stroke. "Ha ha! You've been Mikey-fied, you sucker!"
"Mikey, "Mikey-fied" isn't a word," Don said patiently as he came out of his "cave" for some water and to check on Leo and make sure he wasn't trying to practice, since Don had forbidden it at all times but mandatory training at dawn.
"It is now!" Mike insisted, jumping physically out of the way of a sword strike from his opponent on the screen. Unfortunately, he powers of mind control weren't good enough and his character died. "Leo, your turn."
"Uh, okay," Leo said, walking over with a more pronounced limp.
"How's that cut doing?" Mike asked.
"It stings," Leo shrugged. "But mostly, it's embarrassing."
"Oh, come on, "Fearless Leader". I'm sure that even the greatest swords masters have sat on their katanas once."