Chapter 7 -"I'm telling Master Splinter!"
He was a man with a mission. A mission he had been putting on hold for too long. It was time. He had to face his fears and grab the bull by the horns. It was his duty as a member of his family. His obligation.
He knew it wasn't going to be easy, and that there would be times when he would just toss it aside and perhaps even stomp on it in frustration. Nevertheless, it had to be done.
Donatello finally took down the blank piece of paper he had put up on the fridge and walked over to have a seat at the kitchen table, the spot he had chosen for writing the supply list.
He searched his mind for a place to start, but just like the note before him, it came up empty. It hadn't seemed so hard when he had picked it off of that stupid chore-list, which was of course why he picked it. But it appeared he had underestimated his father's skills in keeping their fridge full.
Don sighed and put down his pen to take a look at the fridge. But there were so many things missing in there, he couldn't possibly imagine what should be standing on those empty shelves. He closed the door in defeat and returned to his chair, holding his pencil ready at the piece of paper, waiting for inspiration to strike.
Nothing.
Okay, you can do this, he thought to himself, trying to encourage his empty skull. You just gotta think outside the box.
After three minutes of hard thinking and occasional writing, he looked down at the list in front of him.
Milk.
Donnie hung his head in frustration, thinking about the short and useless list he had authored.
Maybe I should check out the fridge again, he thought and pulled out his chair.
Leonardo pulled aside the shower drape and bent down to pick up the newly washed sheets lying in the bathtub. He hung them properly over the tub, thinking about how good it would feel to chop off Mikey's evil little head.
Unfortunately Michelangelo had a hold on him. After he broke into his little brother's room last night to... well, beat him up about the cat faeces, Mike happily reminded him of the fact that they had gotten him drunk for practice, and that if Leo did anything that would qualify as revenge, he was more than willing to tell Splinter about their little prank.
And what was a turtle to do?
Both Donatello and Raphael had forbid him from pissing Mikey off, since yesterday's prank involved them just as much as it did Leo, if not more. Although lucky for them, Mikey blamed Leo for most of it. After all, he was the one leading practice, as well as convincing him to drink the entire bottle of poisoned water. Plus, he was already mad at Leo for stealing morning practice in the first place. So naturally, Leonardo had been the one to take the fall.
Therefor, he and Mike had signed up for a truce.
Once Leo was done eliminating wrinkles from the wet sheets, he turned around to leave for some highly earned quality time. He ran into Raph in the doorway, who had an unusually grim look on his face, even for him.
"What's up with you?" Leo asked, taking a moment to study his brother. "Did he get you, too?" He couldn't help sounding a little hopeful when asking, because it was only fair that the other crooks got their punishment, too.
"No," Raph snapped. "And don't look so fuckin' happy about it!"
Leonardo flinched at the f-word, realizing it must really be something if his brother brought out the heavy artillery in a PG13 rated fic, such as this one. "Then what is it?"
"I hafta clean the toilet," Raph shortly answered, before pushing himself past his big brother, and reaching inside the cabinet under the sink to fetch his ally - Mr. Muscle.
"Oh," Leo breathed, realizing he should leave if he wanted to live. There was no telling in what Raph would do if someone pissed him off when he was cleaning the family toilet. Therefor, Leo carefully backed away, his eyes cautiously observing Raphael while slowly leaving the sub-car.
He retired to the living room couch, where he began watching the seventh episode of 'Band of brothers.' Five minutes into the movie Mikey came out of his room and decided to bug his older brother.
"You watching 'Band of brothers' again?" he asked the obvious, stopping behind the couch to look at the TV.
"M-hm.." Leo mumbled, doing his best to ignore Mike.
"But 'Wildboyz'are on in five," Mikey whined, leaning over on the couch to get Leo's attention.
"Why would I care?" Leonardo wondered, still staring at the TV.
"C'mon, Leo, you watch that thing all the time," Michelangelo complained, leaning further over to block the view for his brother. "And it's not like ya can't watch it later."
Leo only continued to ignore his little brother, leaning further to the right to be able to see the TV, where Mike only followed by moving closer, searching for eye contact.
"Leo, c'mon!" the orange masked turtle exclaimed in frustration, not being able to handle the cold shoulder anymore. The worst thing Mikey knew was being ignored. Any kind of attention was better than no attention at all. "I know ya can see me," he insisted, only inches away from the blue masked turtle's face. "Leeeeooo..." he teased, leaning over a little closer from the back of the couch.
Leonardo scooted over a little to the right, causing his obnoxious brother to fall head first onto the couch, his body flipping over onto the floor.
"Ough!" Mike cried, when hitting his shell on the surprisingly hard surface of the subway floor. "I wasn't even touching you!"
Leo didn't answer, or even glance at the turtle on the floor, but just kept his eyes locked on the TV.
"C'mon, Leo," Mikey said, while clumsily getting to his feet. "There's no time for you to ignore me, it's starting any minute." He sat down on the couch next to his brother, waiting for some sort of reaction. "Leo?" Still nothing. "Leo!"
"What!" The oldest outburst suddenly, not being able to ignore the mental abuse any longer.
"It's about to start," Mike said simply. "And it's my turn to have the TV."
"No way," Leo argued. "I was here first. Plus, you haven't even cleaned your room," he added, reminding Michelangelo of Splinter's unwritten rules.
Mikey fell silent at the mention of his room, staring at the leader in shock. "You don't know that," he finally said, trying to put on some sort of poker face.
"You mean to tell me that if I went inside your room right now, I wouldn't find anything that's not on it's rightful place?" Leo asked, staring intensely at the turtle next to him.
"...yes," Mike said, sheepishly.
"You know I'll do it," Leo calmly reminded.
"Go ahead." Mikey held his gaze. "I have nothing to hide."
Leo squinted his eyes at his little brother, as if looking for any hidden traps. Without another word spoken, Leonardo cautiously rose from the couch and walked off towards the sub-car that had 'Mikey rules' written across the doors.
Michelangelo held his position on the couch, thoroughly following Leo with his eyes, until the turtle had finally entered the disaster that was his room. He quickly threw himself at the remote and switched the DVD channel to 'MTV' where the 'Wildboyz' theme song took place. He hid the remote in between the cushions and leaned back into a comfortable position, plopping his feet onto the coffee table.
Leo disapprovingly shook his head when staring at the junk scattered across the non-swept and non-wiped floor. Michelangelo's room was far from cleaned. In fact, the very sight of the mess made the perfectionist itch all over his body, just by thinking of sharing the sewer with this war zone, that was his brother's room. Not even the bed was made.
The oldest turtle considered walking over there and doing it for him, but the risk of stepping in old pizza was too high.
Leo decided he had made his point and turned around to leave. He soon spotted Mikey on his former spot on the couch, watching his stupid program behind his back.
It was a trap, Leo realized, cursing himself for falling for his baby brother's cheap trick.
"You're in my seat," Leo said, crossing his arms and glaring at the guilty.
"What?" Mikey faked he was surprised and looked around himself. "Well will ya look at that!" he joked, smiling broadly.
"Move, Mikey," Leo threatened. "I'm not in the mood to argue, especially not with you."
"But they're just about to wrestle with an anaconda," Mike pleaded, trying out a different technique.
"Move," Leo said, his teeth gritted.
"Fine," Michelangelo snapped and got up from his freakishly comfortable seat. "But I'm not telling you where the remote is." With that, the youngest family member walked past his brother and into his room, where he roughly closed the doors together to point out how mad he was.
Donatello wandered out into the living room, the pen and paper still in his hands, as he looked for any kind of help with the evil supply list. There was 'Wildboyz' on TV, meaning Mikey couldn't be far away. Donnie walked closer to the couch, peeking over its back to find one of his brothers on the floor, although not the one he had expected.
"Leo?" Don questioned, when staring at the Fearless leader as he crawled around on all four, sticking his much too big head underneath the couch. "What're you doing?"
Leonardo looked up at his brother, irritation obvious on his features. "I'm looking for the remote," he muttered, before going back down again, scanning the luckily newly cleaned floor of the lair.
"Thought there was something weird about you watching 'Wildboyz'," Don said, more to himself than anyone else. He walked around the couch, stopping next to the coffee table with the almost blank note in his hands. "Anyway, about the supply list--"
"Where the hell did he put it?" Leo hissed, rudely interrupting his younger brother.
But Don wasn't about to argue, because Leo had to be pretty mad to use that type of word. "Who?" he simply asked instead.
"Who do ya think?" Leonardo hissed, crawling around the corner of the couch. "Mikey of course!"
"Oh.." Don lit up, bending over to reach in between the cushions of the couch. "Here it is," he said, holding out the remote to his shocked brother.
Leo quickly got up on his feet and took the flicker from Don's hand. "How did you know where it was?" he questioned, suspiciously staring at Donatello.
"What? Dontcha' think he's hidden it from me, too?" Donnie questioned, feeling slightly offended that his oldest brother thought of him as a suspect. "Hello-o! 'Discovery Channel' ring any bells?"
The blue clad ninja nodded in agreement, a smile curving his lips. "That is true." He then sat back down on the couch and returned to the movie, flipping back to the chapter he had been watching before Mike got a hold of the remote.
"So, anyway," Donnie began and took a seat to Leo's left. "About this list..." He held up the note in his hand.
"What about it?" Leo asked, an eye ridge rising.
"Well, I sorta need some help with some of the stuff," Don shyly mumbled. "So if you could think of anything, that would be great." He looked at his brother with a pleading smile.
"I thought you said you didn't want our help?" Leo questioned, mentioning to yesterday's little tiff.
"That's not what I said," Donnie corrected. "I said I wouldn't help you."
Leo looked at his brother for a moment before he answered. "That's not any better."
Don sighed in defeat, his fake-smile vanishing. "I know. Look, will you help me or not?" He stared impatiently at his big brother, his face twisting with worry. "Please...?" he added after a few seconds of silence.
"Fine," Leo gave in, not being able to turn down the pathetic look Donatello gave him. "How much do you have so far?"
A strange kind of silence fell over Don, as he shamefully held up the list to Leonardo. "...milk," he sheepishly admitted.
"That's it?" Leo exclaimed and snatched to note from his brother. He read the one word written there and looked up at Don, a perplexed expression. "You're gonna have to do better than this, Donnie."
"I know it's not one of my best," Don hastily admitted. "But I could really use the help."
Leo just gave the note back to him and returned to the movie.
"Leo?" Don persisted, waving the paper in the air to get attention. "I really need your help."
In the middle of Leo's ignoring Donatello, Mikey decided to come out of his room. "I've cleaned my room now," he announced to his oldest brother, rushing up to him. "Get off the couch," he ordered, standing next to Don and looking down at Leo.
"You couldn't possibly've cleaned your room in five minutes," Leo said, not sounding very convinced.
"I did too," Mike snapped, crossing his arms. "Go see for yourself."
"Oh no," Leo said, putting up his hands in defence. "I'm not falling for that one again."
"But I really did clean it," Michelangelo insisted. "Now move, cuz it's my turn to have the TV."
"Well, even if you did clean your room - which, by the way, you didn't - it doesn't change anything. Because I was here first, and I'm not leaving."
"Oh yeah?" Mikey said, not being able to come up with anything better. "Well... Maybe you're the one who didn't clean your room. Ever thought of that?" He raised his eye ridges in question.
Donatello couldn't help but laugh out loud, just by the bare thought of Leo's room not looking perfect. Mike sent him an angry glare, one that didn't do much to quiet the laughter.
"Whatever, Mike," Leo waved him off and turned back to the television. "My door's open if you don't believe me."
"Well maybe I don't," Mike said, hoping to get some kind of reaction from Leonardo, who just kept his eyes on the TV. He then looked over at Donnie, who had returned to the piece of paper in his hands. "What's that?" Mikey asked, curiously.
"The supply list," Don mumbled, while playing with the pencil in the corner of his mouth.
"Can I see it?" the turtle lit up, bending over to have a peek at their future food.
"No," Donatello answered firmly, quickly moving the piece of paper out of his little brother's range.
"What? I could probably help," Mike said, playing with his hands to keep them in check.
"Yeah, I don't think so, Mikey," Donnie said, returning to his list.
As no one seemed to care about Mike, or even want him there, he decided to go and check out how clean Leo's room actually was.
Donatello rose from the couch as Leo didn't seem up for helping out with the groceries. "Where's Raph?" he asked Leonardo, who judging by his concentrated facial expressions, could be miles away.
"Bathroom.." he mumbled, practically sitting on the edge of his seat.
Donnie started walking towards the loo, when an alarmed voice spoke up from behind him.
"What are ya doing?"
Don turned around to look at Leo, thinking of whether he deserved an answer or not. "I'm gonna go ask Raph for help," he said, trying to sound all snobby and distant.
"Whow, I don't think that's such a good idea," Leo said, his face twisting with uncertainty.
"What? Just because you don't wanna help me, that doesn't mean he won't," Donnie said, thinking Leo was keeping him away from Raph out of brotherly jealousy.
"That's not what I meant, Don," Leo said, suddenly very down to business. "I just don't think you should talk to him right now. 'Specially not about that."
"Well, maybe if you had helped me, I would've cared about what you think," Don pointed out. "But since you didn't, I don't." With that, he turned around and left for the bathroom.
"Suit yourself," Leo mumbled quietly to himself, shaking his head and turning back to the movie.
Raphael reached inside the toilet with the gigantic brush, holding his left arm in front of his mouth, to keep any kind of smells from entering. Luckily, Mikey hadn't followed through with his threat, and it looked pretty clean, well at least to the untrained eye. There was some dirt stuck around the edge of the porcelain ring, where the toilet ring usually were, or at least should be. Since they were all guys, it never bothered them that everyone left the toilet seat open, except for Leo and Splinter, who always had to do everything just perfect. But as Raph moved on to the floor around the toilet, he realized there were dark sides to living in a 'boys only' household.
There was a huge puddle of pee, very similar to a moat, except that it wasn't surrounding a flashy castle, but instead a stinky toilet. The piss looked very old, and also very stuck to the floor, and Raphael silently cursed Michelangelo for wanting to pee with his hands free. Mike always bragged about it like it was some sort of stunt, one he apparently wasn't very good at.
Raph got up to the sink, drenching the scouring-cloth under the tap, before showering it with Mr. Muscle. He took a couple of deep breaths, before going back down to finish the job.
As he laid there on his knees, scrubbing someone else's weewee off the floor, a voice spoke up from behind him.
"Raph, can you help me with the supply list?"
Raph felt a snappy comeback boiling up within him, and decided it was worth breathing for, even though he might have to smell the ancient urine. "For someone who's s'pose ta be smart, ya sure are stupid ta come in 'ere." Raphael turned to look over his shoulder, staring at Donatello's frozen expression by the doorway. "Someone might think ye were suicidal," he said slowly, evil gleaming in is eyes as if it was a fire born in the purgatory.
Donnie just stood there, afraid to speak or move, much less breathe. He didn't want to risk making the situation any worse, since it was clear Raphael wasn't in his best mood. Then again, who would be when cleaning the toilet? It's not like it's one of those places where you clean and sing at the same time.
"Get out!" Raph yelled, causing his purple masked brother to turn on his heels and run for the hills, much faster than one might think possible for a two legged being, much less a turtle.
Mikey stood in Leo's uber clean room, his x-ray eyes searching for any kind of dirt or mess. However, the room was spotless, and that was pretty impressive for a place located in the sewers. His bed was made, although it didn't have any sheets, a reslut of last night's prank. Mikey proudly chuckled to himself. It was a good prank. Even worth the small beating Leo gave him.
The rest of the room looked like an add for cleaning polish; the glass table-top of his bedside table might as well not have been there. It was so clean that it seemed as if the lamp floated on thin air. There were no objects lying around, not even on his desk. He had put away all of his stuff in his closet. Because Leo thought having stuff around was disorganized. In fact, the only things visible in the sub-car was the furniture and a few Japanese posters he had put up on the walls.
Basically, the room was immaculate.
Michelangelo thought of a final place to check, that even the tidiest people would forget to clean. He walked up to Leonardo's bedside table and checked the lamp-shade for any dust, running his finger around the top of it. But even that came out clean.
How many hours do ya spend in here, Leo? Mikey thought to himself.
One thing Mike realized when standing in his brother's room was that there would be no TV for him today. Especially since he had cleaned his own room by shoving all the junk and stuff into whatever space he could find, such as his closet and dresser.
But Mikey was never one to give up when the odds where slim, or even none for that matter. He thought of a way to earn some television time, although it involved some serious cheating. Then again, that had never stopped him before .
He walked up to Leo's closet and opened it, evilly checking out all the books and Japanese looking objects in there.
This'll be fun, he thought to himself as he reached for one of Leo's super-thick books.
"C'mon, Leo," Donatello begged, holding up the list in front of him. "Just one thing. It doesn't even have to be food." He looked at his older brother, who couldn't look more unaffected, the way he stared at the TV set. "It could be anything..." Donnie desperately suggested. "Uhh.. like toothpaste - oooh, toothpaste!" he exclaimed happily, immediately scribbling down the word on his supply list.
"You sure you cleaned your room, bro?" Mikey said, coming out of Leo's sub-car with an unsettling smile growing on his face.
"What did you do?" Leo instantly asked, waking up from his tuned out state when sensing the trouble from his youngest brother's voice.
"I juz think ya should double check your room," Mike said, stopping a few feet away from Don and Leo. "I know I don't know much about cleaning. Then again, it seems neither do you."
Leo flew up from the couch, walking past Donnie and pushed Michelangelo to the side as he entered his room.
"What have you done!" Leo shrieked from inside his room, causing Don to drop the list and get up from the couch to see what Mikey really had done. The crime scene was left in total destruction. Everything Leo owned laid sprawled on the floor, with the exception of his bed, that looked like someone had used it as a trampoline.
Leo knew it would take him all day to clean this up, and being a perfectionist, he couldn't just ignore it and watch the movie anyway. Because the image of his room would haunt his mind, not leaving him at peace until it had been cleaned up. He knew Mikey knew this, and had probably counted on it as well, just so he could hog the TV. But what Mikey didn't know was that if Leo was going down, he would go down with him.
Leonardo left his room and returned to the main area, with Donnie closely behind him. Mike sat on the couch with Don's supply list in front of him on the coffee table, leaning over to write something down.
"Mikey!" Donnie called, speeding up to his little brother to take it back. "I told you not to touch it!" he snapped, snatching the note from the table. Don quickly looked over the list, where twelve different varieties of frozen pizza had been added, along with ice cream and 'loads and loads of chocolate'.
Leo ignored their bickering and walked past them, calling over his shoulder as he headed for a particular sub-car. "I'm telling Master Splinter!"
Mikey instantly flew up from the couch to follow his brother into their Sensei's room. Leo eagerly knocked on the sub-car door, while keeping his knocking at a respectful level.
"Yes?" a kind voice called out from inside.
Mikey spitefully glared at Leo as the oldest turtle pulled the doors open and went inside.
Dinner time was almost upon them and Donatello sat alone in the quiet living room. Splinter had forbid both Leo and Michelangelo from watching anymore television that day, and they had both angrily retreated to their rooms. And judging by the mess, it would probably be a few hours before anyone saw Leonardo again. Mikey though, he would probably come out when he got hungry, so that couldn't take long.
Raphael was still in the bathroom, where he had been in the shower for almost forty minutes, trying to wash himself clean from the toilet scrubbing earlier. That too would probably take a while.
Then there was Don himself, alone with his supply list, with no one around to help. So far he had written down three things: milk, toothpaste and soap. He figured Raph would use up most of it for purifying reasons, if he hadn't already. But a list of three things wasn't much to give April, and he was supposed to call her after dinner to let her know what she should buy. The minutes were ticking, and the list wasn't getting any longer, to Donnie's great fear. He searched deep inside his mind for anything to add to the list, but as he once again came up empty, he realized there was only one thing left to do.
Maybe I should check the fridge again, he thought to himself and got up from the couch.