"Ugh...this stinks."

I had to agree with Ty on that one, if not on much of anything else. Goat shit did stink. Dad had thought Uncle Leo's punishment was a great idea so now I was stuck with this too. I hated it, why did we have to do this? We should be out with them. No matter what Dad and my uncles thought, I felt that we were more than ready to go out and help. I hated staying behind all the time! And now I was stuck in this stupid barn cleaning out goat shit, just because they wanted to baby us. Why couldn't they understand that we didn't need to be treated like little kids anymore? In frustration I threw the shovel across the barn, I was sick of this! Mama Goat, Gramps' favorite goat at the moment, looked at me and gave me a slight baaa in protest over the noise. "Oh, shut up." Of course she baaaed at me again. I swear, she was trying to piss me off. Crap, who was I trying to kid, I was already pissed off.

"Boy! Your Dad and uncles didn't help me build this barn so you could throw shit through the walls!" Gramps snapped as he came in. "You hit one of my goats and I'll give you a whoopin so bad you're going to be stuck in Donnie's lab for a week." I flinched as he glared at me, you really didn't want to mess with Aunt Vicky's father, I think Dad was even scared of that old man when he got pissed. He came in, got some tools and left again.

"Good going Thane." Lavi grumbled at me as she rolled her eyes. She had hay all over her as she was laying out fresh bedding for the stalls we had already cleaned. "Get us into more trouble why don't you."

"Bite me." I mumbled back at her then I grabbed the handles of the once again full wheelbarrow and pushed it out to Gramps' compost pile where I dumped it and wheeled it right back in and Ty once again began to fill it up. "Good god, how often do these guys take a dump?" I said in exasperation. "We aren't even halfway done."

"If you worked as much as you grip, complain and pout we would be done by now." Ty told me as he scooped up another pile."

"Why does Gramps have to have so many of these friggin things?" Sure one or two were cute, he had like fifty. Gaaah that smell!

"Because he likes them, and he sells them." Lavi replied, pulling out another haybale.

"I like my weapons too and you don't see my room cluttered with them." I went to retrieve the shovel I threw earlier.

"Will you just stop?" Ty snapped at me. "What does it take to get through your head that we screwed up and we have to do this?"

"No I will not stop!" He just didn't get it. I didn't want to do this, shouldn't be any reason to have to do this.

Ty stopped his shoveling and set his level gaze on me. "What the hell is wrong with you? You've been pissy for the last few days now."

"Last few days?" Lavi laughed. "He's always pissy." Well, quit pissing me off then.

"I'm just sick of this. All of it. Stuck at home all the time while our parents go out. I'm tired of being treated like a damn kid. And I'm sick of smelling goat shit!" This time I slammed the shovel onto the ground.

"And I'm sick of your complaining! You think I like being here doing this?" Ty looked like he was about to hit me with that shovel he still held on to. "Let's just get this done."

"And who put you in charge, Ty? Since when do I have to listen to you?"

"You're not listening to me you idiot! You are doing what our fathers told us to do! Are you really that fucking stupid?"

Oh..no...he...didn't! "That's it!" I threw the haybale Lavi had just brought out at him and he ducked under it. It hit the wall behind him and split apart, hay flying everywhere and he responded by throwing a bucket full of goat feed at me which I also ducked. The clattering sound of it hitting the floor was accompanied by the rattling of feed pellets as they scattered across the floor. I tackled him. I was going to take his goody goody attitude and shove it up his ass. I've had enough of him! He tried to doge but I was to close and to quick for him and we hit the floor...hard. We rolled around while I tried to give him a good whack in the eye as he was trying to see how bad he could break my ribs. With a crash we rolled into the wheelbarrow and of course the contents fell all over us as it tipped over, which pissed me off even more. Next we crashed into a water pail that had been sitting full nearby and now I was covered in wet goat shit. Lavi scrambled out of the way as we kept on rolling towards her, she knew better than to get involved. I'd whoop her ass just as- Oh shit.

We came to a stop only because we had crashed into someone else, and they didn't trip and fall or scramble out of the way. We looked up to see Dad and Uncle Leo standing over us, with Uncle Mikey and Uncle Donnie standing not far behind. Fuck. And go figure, Gramps, Mom and Aunt Vicky were there too.

"Hey, Mikey, they kinda remind you of two turtles when they were younger?" Uncle Donnie asked his brother.

"Oh, I dunno, should they?" He grinned back.

Our fathers glared down at us, then looked at the mess we left behind us, then glared back down at us again. Mama Goat let out another baa of protest. Damn tattle tale goat. "Get up." Dad growled.

We slowly got to our feet and looked sheepishly at the mess around us, no way we were going to explain our way out of this one. Uncle Leo looked us over from head to toe as we stood in front of him in our hay and wet goat shit covered glory. He opened his mouth to say something, closed it again, then bust out laughing as Dad just shook his head. "Idiots." He mumbled.

"We can't leave you two alone for anything can we?" Mom snapped at us.

Aunt Vicky was looking around her father's now even dirtier barn and sighed. "You will clean this up. And don't you dare come into the house like that."

"Mother!"

"No!" She snapped at her son. "You want in, you go ask Gramps to hose you down first, after you finish your original chore of cleaning out the stalls. You are not stepping foot in my house like that!"

"Goes for you too, numb nuts." Mom told me.

Gramps grinned at us. "That water is nice and cold too." Great.

"Look on the bright side guys, it's not winter." Uncle Mikey was also grinning at us.

"And when you are done with all of that, since you have so much energy to waste fighting, meet us in the dojo." Uncle Leo told us and we both winced. My day just went to shit in a hurry.

.

.

"Again!" Uncle Leo snapped and we went through another set of katas. I was just wanting to get this over with. I was tired, still wet and somewhat dirty and just done with it all. Wearily I finished the set next to Ty and hoped that this was going to be the last one.

"That's enough." Uncle then said. "You two have got to stop this. Not a day goes by when there isn't something going on between you." What the hell did they know? Did he have any idea how annoying his son was? Stuck up, goody goody, do as you're told, take all the fun out of life, pain in my ass. That's what he was. He pissed me off to no end sometimes. "Today in the barn was the last straw."

I sighed and rolled my eyes, and promptly got smacked in the back of the head. Crap, I forgot Dad was standing behind me. "Boy, you will show your Uncle the proper respect. Even if you don't like what he has to tell you. Understood?"

"Yes, sir." I tried real hard not to roll my eyes again. Same blah blah as always.

Uncle Leo looked us over thoughtfully for a moment. "I should add another week onto your punishment but I have a feeling that won't help."

"More than likely not." Dad agreed with him. "It didn't do any good with us."

Uncle Leo sighed as he still regarded us. "You will spend the rest of the evening in your rooms. Get out." That last was delivered with a tone of anger in it and I just now noticed how mad he actually was. He also sounded tired himself and suddenly I felt like a damn heel. They had a lot on their plate already and I wasn't helping matters. Still wasn't going to apologize to that brown noser though, he started it. Feeling slightly disappointed in myself I left the dojo behind Ty and went quietly to my room.

I quietly closed the door behind me and flopped down on my bed. Actually being in here really didn't make me feel better. They had all worked hard to expand the lair to give us these room and you could see their marks all over the place. Uncle Donnie hooked up the wiring, the slapshod wall that was put up was Uncle Mikey's work. Uncle Leo had helped me decorate and paint it. Dad did the woodwork for the door and frame. All of them had helped put this room together. I mean really, was my family so bad as I thought they were? Thinking back now they have done a lot for me. Sure they were hard on us but look what they had to deal with. Five half mutant turtle half human teenagers, all under one roof. All had to learn the arts and take more precautions than normal teenagers.

But then there was the other side of the coin. I wanted out. I wanted to run the rooftops, the tunnels. I didn't want to be kept safe here. I felt like a little child with eight babysitters and that frustrated me to no end. I wanted that freedom other kids my age got to enjoy. I know i sound like a selfish brat, but I just couldn't help it. It also frustrated me that the others really didn't feel the same way about it than I did. Well, they did but not to the extreme I was feeling it. I sighed, I don't know. All I do know was that this whole thing was confusing me to no end.

The knock at the door brought me out of my thoughts. "It's open." I said, without even bothering to get up. I was honestly surprised to see Dad walking in, he usually just barged in or pounded on the door with his fist. I started to get up, didn't need another respect your elders slap.

"Don't." He told me and I stopped, looking at him in confusion. He stepped in and closed the door behind him then leaned his back on the wall and crossed his arms. He watched me for a moment as I sat there on the bed, his eyes studying me. "Talk to me." He finally said.

I sighed, couldn't he just leave me alone? "About what?"

Again he just calmly watched me. "Son, don't for one moment think I don't know what's going on with you."

"You don't know anything." I snapped, frustrated.

Surprisingly he didn't take offense. "Let me guess. You're tired of being cooped up all the time here. Sure you have the the farm to run around on but it's not enough, there is more you want to see." I couldn't hide my stunned expression from him. How did he know? "You're taking it out on your cousin because you feel like he is part of the problem, always following the rules, for the most part, and detest the fact that you know he is right but you just want to do what you want to anyway. You feel he is a threat to your freedom. It's all bubbling over and you lash out without any thought to it. That about sum it up?"

I was speechless. "H-how did..."

"Thane, where do you think you get it from? Do you think you were the only teenage mutant ninja turtle who had to hide from the world?" His gaze never left mine. "You are feeling exactly the same way I did. The difference is I know what's going on with you, I understand better than anyone here. I'm giving you an opportunity I didn't have. I will help you work through this and save you and your cousin years of bickering, arguing and constant power struggles. But I can't do that if you won't talk to me."

"He is just so, so, so..."

"Annoyingly right?"

I blushed a little at how accurately he nailed it. "Yeah, I guess so. He seems to just want to do whatever you tell him to and is comfortable with it. I don't know why, but it pisses me off."

"It pisses you off because he doesn't feel the same way you do about things and you feel that he should. You feel like because of that he doesn't understand you. What you don't realize is he feels the same way about the way you're behaving. The problem comes in when you both try to make the other see your point instead of trying to understand what the other is feeling. It's amazing what that little bit of insight will do to change your opinion, and it only took me forever to figure that out with your Uncle Leo. We drover Father nuts sometimes with our squabbling."

"That makes sense, I guess." I never looked at it that way before. "I guess I was being a jackass."

"You take after me on that too. I can be a pretty big one at times. You tell anyone I said that I'll deny it and then run you through the sewers until you puke." He gave me that childish grin he sometimes gets when he is in one of those moods. It's not often I get to see him this completely open and honest, usually he comes off as a large pissy grizzly bear. You can give it a hug but at your own risk.

"And as for your restlessness, there might be a solution to that also." I tried not to get my hopes up but I know he saw it in my eyes because he gave me a small smile. "Lucky for you, your blunder last night made your uncle consider to start taking all of you topside on short training runs. And I agree with him, but for different reasons though his carry their own weight with me. I know you, the chance to go out and stretch your legs up there will settle that wanderlust you've been feeling."

"Topside?" I was stunned. "Uncle wants to take us topside?" A grin found it's way on my face, I was thrilled at the idea.

"Don't get the wrong idea." He suddenly snapped. "This isn't going to be a damn field trip, Thane. You will listen and there better not be any bickering up there like we saw in the barn today. You get your emotions under control, or you don't go." His eyes softened again. "I've made that mistake to many times in my life for the both of us."

There was another knock on the door and Dad opened it to find Uncle Leo standing there. "Are you about finished here?"

"I think so, he's got a better understanding of things I hope."

"He better." Uncle said then looked at me. "Gear up. We are leaving in fifteen."

It only took me five.