"Begin."
Raph and I looked at each other, then at the weapons in our hands. The blue on my katanas clashed with Raphael's dark green skin and I'm sure the red tape wrapped around his Sais clashed with my skin as well. They were unusually light, unlike my swords.
This exercise was almost torture for me. I hadn't held my katana since Sensei confiscated them and seeing them without being able to use them was driving me insane, that and the fact that they were in somebody else's hands.
"So how do you use this thing?" Mikey tried to twirl Donnie's Bo-Staff around his fingers but kept dropping it on the ground over and over again and smacking himself unintentionally in the face repeatedly.
"I'll say. These things are completely impractical." Don appeared to be having the same amount of trouble with Michelangelo's chucks.
"I guess we should've taken up sensei's offer to train us in other weapons, huh?" Mike asked with a laugh.
"I had a feeling that decision would come back to haunt me." I said with a sigh.
"I said begin." Sensei's loud voice boomed over the dojo.
Raph rolled his eyes and twisted my swords in small circles. He looked perfectly comfortable with them in his hands, unlike the rest of us. I kept seeing Mikey turn away from Don to check out Raph and what he was doing. It was like a quadruple take before he said anything about it.
"Well aren't you Mr. Chan." He said, sounding impressed.
"Raphael is trained in all four weapons." Splinter said. "He was the only one to show up for training."
"I would've shown up but you always did those trainings on pizza night!" Mikey complained while Don finally got the hang of one chuck and managed to hit him in the side of the arm with it.
"HA! I'm a chuck master." He stood proudly but then lost his grip on the spinning chuck and sent it flying into the wall. "Well…almost."
"Don't hurt my babies!" Mike ran over and retrieved the lost weapon. Splinter had to yell at him a few times before he finally turned it back over to Donatello.
"Why didn't you ever tell us you went to those sessions?" I asked Raphael while the others battled.
"You all were too busy. You were always patrollin' the city when Splinter had them; Don was building stuff and Mikey….was being Mikey. I didn't think yah guys would care that I knew anyway."
"I expected you two, especially, to know more about each other than you do." Splinter looked at the both of us with cunning eyes.
"Well let's see what you learned then." I twisted his Sais around my fingers and into a defensive position.
Raphael didn't waste any time beginning our fight, it was what he loved to do. Already he had nearly split my head open had I not crossed the Sais in front of my face and blocked his…my swords. He tried to kick my feet out from underneath me but I jumped up and my left foot became one with the side of his head.
"Not much I see." I grinned as he staggered backwards and swore under his breath.
"I bet Sensei's gettin' a kick outta this. Watchin' two lovers beat each other up."
"We're not lovers, Raph, and I don't blame him if he does enjoy it. I would get a kick out of it, too." I went to block another blow from the sword but I miscalculated my move and the sword forcefully hit my wrist instead. Blood trickled out in small stream and onto the floor but I shook it off and ignored it. Raph looked at me with an apologetic expression for a few seconds but then continued to swing at me. He was doing a pretty good job, too. I was out of breath more quickly than I thought I would have been and my arms were getting tired from blocking the swings.
"I must say, Leo…" Raph began as I ducked to avoid my head being chopped off. "These swords are actually pretty nice."
"I wish I could say the same about your tin forks."
"Tin forks?" He stood up straight and glared at me with a blank face. If you knew him as well as I did then you would know that was his extremely insulted look. "Hand em' over and I'll show yah what those 'tin forks' can really do."
"That is not the point of the exercise, Raphael." Splinter interrupted.
"Well it is now because now I'm pissed." Raph growled.
"Leonardo, you know better." He scolded me. "Michelangelo get off your brother!"
"Please just give em back!"
I looked over at Mikey who was on top of Donnie trying to pull his chucks from his hands. Don was in a fetal position but it looked like he was pretty much laughing his ass off.
"He won't let him. Donnie probably likes it too much." Raph said under his breath. Great, now I'm pissed. Whether he was joking or not, I didn't like it, especially since it was directed at Donnie. I flipped the Sai around so my hand was cupping the blade and landed the butt of the weapon right in between Raph's shell and plastron. I didn't hit him hard enough to hurt him but I sure didn't hold back. Shocked, he dropped one of my swords and used the free hand to stabilize himself against the wall.
I didn't want to look at Splinter but I did anyway and the pleased look on his face almost disgusted me. I figured he was trying to turn Raph and I against each other and clearly it was working. I was so busy looking at him that I let my guard down long enough for Raphael to dive right into me from behind. As we rolled across the floor, he ripped his Sais from my hands. When we soon came to a stop, he was straddled on top of me and had the tip of one Sai against my throat and the other at the ready near his face.
"Remember that lesson I promised you? I'm ganna redeem it for you but in the form of a beat down." He threatened. I searched his face for any emotion other than anger, but couldn't find any. He wasn't kidding around; I really pissed him off this time.
I wanted so badly to say; "don't do this, it's what Splinter wants," but getting through to him was like trying to teach an infant to run before it even knows how to walk. I couldn't blame him for being angry though (I feel like I say that all the time these days). The spot where I gored him was already swollen with black and blue rings.
I watched his ribs appear then disappear under the mark as he breathed. I could tell he was in pain by his shortness of breath and the wheezing that came with each inhale he took. I really didn't want to add this to the list of things I've stupidly done to him during our "relationship," if that's what you want to call it.
He took both of his Sais in one hand and then used the other to grab ahold of my slashed wrist. The bleeding had stopped but my hand was covered with small individual rivers of dried blood.
"Man, I got yah pretty good." He observed his work with awe, twisting my hand around nearly 360 degrees to get a good look at it from all sides. "It's almost beautiful." He said softly.
"You're seriously twisted."
"Only when yah make me, Leonardo." He spoke with dominance and valor, grabbing the attention of Donnie and Mikey.
Don looked at me, shook his head, and mouthed; "get a room." I mouthed something back to him but he looked away before he could see it.
"Raphael, off your brother." Splinter demanded rather forcefully.
I grinned and chuckled as best I could with his body still crushing my pelvis. "He won't, he likes it too much."
I was happy to see his scowl shift a few degrees in the opposite direction as he dropped my hand. He got up off me but in the process he pushed himself against me, forcing a loud "umph" to escape me followed by a subtle whine as I rolled over and got up before any more damage could be done. Apparently Splinter being here has no effect on him what so ever. On top of that, Mikey is starting to give me odd looks.
"Well…this is awkward." Don said.
"Raph made it awkward, man. Actually no, Leo did after he said that Raph liked it." Mikey shifted his weight onto one leg. "THAT was awkward."
Splinter looked at me and then gestured to Mike with his head. "No secrets."
"What do you mean 'no secrets'? You're standing over there trying to ruin us by forcing us to battle each other ironically with each other's weapons." I said to him. "The sad part is that it worked, too."
"You think it worked? I think differently." Splinter said. "I was surprised you managed to distract Raphael from his anger."
"Yah, no one can do that." Don said with a chuckle but then cowered behind Michelangelo after Raph shot a death glance at him.
"What can I say, he knows me too well." Raph threw an arm around me and pulled me forcefully to his side.
Splinter dropped his head and sighed. "It hurts me to see this happen, but if it is what you want…"
"Wait…am I missing something here?" Mike interrupted.
"Yah you've been off the Hamato train for quite a while now." Don filled him in on the situation after I gave him the ok to do so.
"Are you saying…" He pointed to Raph and I. I felt embarrassed so I pulled his arm off of me. If I needed to explain this to him…I had to do it as a leader, not a lover.
"My brothers are GAY?! WHAT?!"
"Listen, it's not as bad as you…" I began.
"Haha! I'm just kiddin, man." He bounced up and down and slapped my shoulder. "I already knew."
"What?!" Don, Raph and I were in shock. Raph actually ran up to him and slammed him against the wall.
"Easy!" Mikey slowly pushed Raph away and fixed his bandana. "This is rich. Now all you guys are looking up to me for answers. I feel empowered!"
"Tell us what you know before I empower your frikin' face!" Raph balled up his fist and threatened a punch.
"Okay okay! I overheard you guys talking before we left the lair!" Mike cowered in fear.
"Wait, when we all were in Leo's room?" Don asked and then looked to me like the entire world ended. If Mikey really heard everything we said that night, he will have known about my experience with alcohol and that really would make him empowered, empowered with a deadly secret.
"Uh yeah that would be the night" He said and my heart sank.
"Mikey…" I grabbed his shoulders, fear most likely consuming my face.
"It's cool, bro. I don't care what you guys do. This is actually good because now you can keep him away from me better." He pointed to the scowling Raphael.
"Not that…" I whispered.
"What else was there?" He looked utterly confused. "Oh wait, you mean…oh don't worry about it, dude, I get wasted all the time."
"What was that?" Splinter asked.
"Nothing! He said he wants to hasten our time…" Don tried to cover for us but obviously…not his best attempt. "Because we needed to go and…count stock in the uh…"
Raph put a hand on his shoulder and shook his head. "Just stop, man." He said, making Donnie drop his head.
"My sons, I want to apologize for any rash actions I took recently." We all stopped what we were doing and looked at him. I could tell he's gone days without sleep and even more without ease. I never really noticed how bad this split has been on him until now. "I meditated hard before you came here and decided that you are old enough to make your own decisions. I understand your situation with the world we live in. I know what it's like to feel like an outcast, but I suppose it is harder on your teenage minds then it is on my old and dying one." He managed a smile, making the rest of us do the same.
"My only wish is that you be safe and never do anything that threatens your lives. If you do, I will not hesitate to punish you again. You are my sons, and I will not put up with recklessness. Do I make myself clear?"
"Yes, Sensei." We all said in unison.
What happened next completely blew my mind. Splinter went up to each of us and embraced us with open arms. When he got to me, he looked me in the eye and nodded his head before wrapping his small arms around me as far as they would go.
::
At the end of the night, we all retreated back to my room again. A lot happened today and quite frankly, it was a lot to take in. I couldn't guarantee our relationship with Splinter would ever be the same but I made a promise to get it as close as possible for their sake.
"Man, why do I feel so…guilty." Mike asked with a frown. "Even though this is all your guys fault…I just feel beat."
"You don't know the meaning of beat. Keep talking and you will." Raph growled.
"Maybe we all just need to wind down." Don suggested.
"What do you advise we do, Donnie? It's not like we can just walk in somewhere and…" I looked at Raph and shook my head. He grinned and did the opposite. "No... Raph!"
"Boys…" Raph threw each of his arms around Don and Mikey. "I hope you're wearin' your big girl panties, we're goin' out."
Sorry this chapter is SOO late. I got busy with work but do not fear...it is here.
One more chapter left