One Of Those Days.
Splinter's on retreat, Leo's in charge and he's just having one of those days.
A.Z
(revised version)
"MIKEEEYY!" The roar echoed around the Lair. As per usual. I cracked an eye open in the dojo where I was meditating and debated intervening. I closed it again reflecting that whatever was about to happen to Mikey, he probably deserved it.
"THERE YOU ARE!" was followed by an "EEP" from my youngest brother.
"AAIYYYIIIHH!" Thud, Crash. I opened my eyes again and frowned. Possibly I should go down there. I sighed. Winter- to borrow one of Mikey's favourite expressions- sucked. We'd been cooped up for weeks in the Lair and though it was warming up a bit now, cabin fever had set in for far too long for us to be anything but short with each other. It had manifested in different ways according to our personalities. Raph, of course, grew more and more short-tempered and likely to blow. He tended to let loose at me if possible but Mikey was another good target. And my brother with little or no survival instincts seem to go out of his way to provoke him. I wondered what he'd done to Raph now?
"HEEELP!" came from the main room and I groaned. Nope- I was not getting any more meditation done for the moment. Mikey and I were going to have WORDS over this too. I got up and walked to the door- no use running. Let Mikey stew for a few moments longer. I walked in the door and rolled my eyes a the sight. A soaked Raph had Mikey in a headlock on the floor and was shouting at him. Mikey, with both arms and legs pinned, seemed intent on seriously menacing Raph's ankle. It wasn't having a great effect.
"Now what?" I asked. They both started talking at once.
"I just… gaaak!" Mikey's protest was cut off effectively by the arm on his windpipe.
"The little brat put a bucket of water on the door!" growled Raph. My eyebrows wrinkled. Why the shell does Mikey have to do things like this?
"My whole ROOM is like a LAKE now!"
Ahh. That was why. Where oh where was Splinter when you needed him? On a retreat, that was where.
Oy.
"Raph, stop choking him. Mikey, grow up, wouldya?" Oh, yeah, that's what cabin fever did to me. I sound like a teacher. Both of them reacted to this.
"Who are you to be giving the orders anyway!" demanded Raph, dropping Mikey unceremoniously. If Mikey hadn't been wheezing, I think he'd have joined in. So that was it. Raph was just spoiling for a fight.
"The eldest, that's who. And Master Splinter said you were to listen to me while he's away." I looked him in the eye as I spoke to him. He held my stare for a long moment and I could feel my hand unconsciously clenching. Hell, I hated having to do this. The moment stretched before it was broken by Raph turning away angrily. He muttered something and stormed out, grabbing his trench coat and hat as he exited. Mikey sat up rubbing his windpipe. I looked at him and sighed yet again. He shrugged uncomfortably and I turned away too. Not only was Splinter on retreat and myself in charge, but all three of my brothers seemed to be doing their utmost to wind me up. Between Raph vanishing till all hours and biting peoples heads off and none of us ever being quite sure just what our selectively ingenious little brother had rigged up in the way of a nasty surprise every so often (whatever Mikey had just done was only the latest on a loong list), I hadn't actually slept since…uh, Friday. Selectively ingenious alright, I thought back over some of his better pranks and shook my head. Honestly, there was no shortage of brains there, if he'd just apply himself…!
Man, was I tired…
I needed to meditate!
So having pissed off Raph to the point where he stormed out of the Lair and subdued Mikey- for the moment!- I tried to go back to meditating. I'd cleared my mind and my breathing was slow and regular when it happened.
KABBOOOOM! I didn't even bother sighing this time. Now what had Donnie managed to blow up? So I uncrossed my legs and padded out of the dojo, down the corridor to Donnie's domain. The dreaded place called…the LAB (dun dun DUN!). Now I'll be the first to say that while Donnie's a… well, a geek, he never usually looks like a mad scientist. This time, as he leaned against the wall in the corridor, his face and white lab coat both equally dusted with soot, and the gleam of invention (or possibly in this case chemicals) in his eye, I was half-expecting something large and patchworky to come stalking out of the smoke.
Thankfully, nothing big and powerful with an inferiority complex loomed out of the yellowish smog although I gave it a worried look before turning to my younger brother who didn't even have the decency to look embarrassed.
"Too much sulphur." he explained unselfconsciously. Oh, so that explained the stink of rotten eggs.
"Do I dare ask?" I dared ask and Donnie shrugged. He opened his mouth and my brain screamed Warning! Technobabble alert! So I cut him off before it could shut down in self-defence. It was that or melt.
"Never mind. Just…try not to blow anything else up wouldya? Might be the whole Lair next time…" He grinned, not even pretending to listen now as some other explosive idea entered his already inventive brain and dived back into the clearing smoke.
I shook my head as I wandered back up the passage. What was up with him today? When I reached the dojo I stared fixedly at the spot where I usually meditated. Now, if Murphy's Law held true, there should be an interruption right…about…now…
No?
Great.
I cautiously walked back over to my spot again and settled back down, crossing my legs and trying to clear my mind. After a minute or two I found myself counting.
10...9...8...
Anything?
7...6...5...
Maybe I was safe this time.
4...3...2...
Hah!
1...
CRASH!
"LEEEOOOO!"
I didn't even get up that time, just leaned over and banged my head off the floor. But no, even repeated attempts at concussion didn't stop the voices. Voices? Sounded like a full-scale war going on down there. Ah well, someone else could sort it out this time.
Donnie:
It wasn't even that much too much sulphur, but unfortunately the stuff doesn't care if you're only a gram over. Especially mixed with dried hemp and Hcl. Burns prrreetttty tho'… Heeheehee. I decided that retreating again might be a good idea.
So, divesting myself of the big overcoat and protective glasses, I walked out into the main room of the Lair wiping my face with a once-clean cloth. The uncontrollable urge to giggle passed as I reached it and I spotted my brother's bandanna ends hanging over the back of the sofa (A.N: couch, settee, whatever). Orange. Good grief, had he finally stopped messing around and driving Raph up the wall? I said as much to him and he looked depressed.
"Nah, Raph's gone out. I think he's…ah…a bit annoyed." I raised a proto-eyebrow.
"Why is Raph annoyed, Mikey?"
"Isuspendedabucketofwateroverthedoorofhisroomandit…fell." he said very quickly as if that would help. I couldn't help but laugh as I imagined his expression.
"So have the suicidal tendencies passed yet?" I asked him, settling down on the couch as well to try figure out what on earth the plot was on the screen. It seemed to consist of a pneumatic blonde woman in several smallish bits of red material falling off cliffs, diving into water and swimming around occasionally. . Oh, wait- there were some more people with the same colour-fixation. Running across a beach. My eyes may have popped around this point.
"Wow…does that…is that…? Uh…is she…are those REAL?" I finally sputtered. Mikey shrugged.
"And there you have one of the great mysteries of TV, bro." he replied. "But what I want to know is how come there are never any turtles in these things? C'mon people, diversify!" he whined. I grinned again.
"Guess we're just not a great crowd-winner." I said. "Now tortoises…" Mikey made a rude noise.
"Don't get me started on TORTOISES!" he started. "Oh, it's always the tortoises- outrunning hares and arrows! What are they really but rocks that learned to walk? As far as I'm concerned, tortoises are…"
But we never would get to discover what tortoises really were because at that point something came through the wall with a CRASH!
Mousers! We paused and glanced at each other.
"LEEEOOOO!"
"C'mon, he was all over the place like a rash earlier!" Mikey moaned as we stood shell-to-shell to repel the invasion. "Where is he when he's actually needed?"
"Dunno." I replied shortly, bashing the head of one of the little metal monsters in with a whack. Mikey sproinged away to take out a couple, one with each weapon.
"Two!" he said smugly. I lunged and swept.
"Four". His face dropped. Several deft (but violent) moves later, accompanied by a wild "COWABUNGA!" he was shaking bits of machinery out of the chain of his 'chucks.
"Six…Seven!" as he took out one that was poised to take a lump out of me.
"Five, six, seven… Eight!" Hah, beat that!
He did. Singing; "My boot scootin' baby is driving me crazy my obsession for a western my dance floor date!" I shuddered and apparently wasn't the only one to find the noise appalling as one by one the nanobots juddered to a stop, shook a bit from side to side and then exploded. It was like a wave spreading outwards of springs, twisted bits of metal and cogs. The 'bots further away took the opportunity to flee backwards through the large hole left in the wall. After the uh…crescendo of rumbling metal legs had faded into the distance, -the drumming providing an interesting counterpoint to Mikey's…warbling- my younger brother stopped and looked rather hurt. I tried (not entirely successfully) to hide my grin as I patted him on the shell comfortingly. "Nice one, Mikey- think you won that one!" He brightened up a bit.
"Yeah, I did, didn't I? They just don't appreciate good music!" My smile grew a bit fixed while I tried to shut out any memories of Mikey singing Steps songs. It was bad for my health! I looked around with ill-disguised joy. I had more then enough cogs and springs to start working on my own greatest invention! It would be something the world had never seen before! It would be about six feet tall and be animatable by lightening! It would…! Mikey was looking at me strangely.
"What?"
"You suddenly started cackling, Don…" he said nervously, edging away. I blushed a bit. Or maybe it could be a microwave oven. Yeah, we needed one of those.
"Oh, eh…nothing. C'mon, we'd better clean this lot up."
"Hiya Don! Mikey." The last was punctuated by a glare in the direction of my youngest brother who smiled worriedly.
"Hi Raph!" he said a bit too brightly. But Raph didn't notice as he was staring around the carnage with a soundless whistle.
"Mousers." he said with surprise. Now the glare was directed at us both equally. "And you didn't save me any!"
"Mikey sang at them." I replied by way of explanation. He looked around again at the post-suicidal 'bots before back up at Mikey, carefully expressionless.
"What did he sing?" he asked neutrally.
"5, 6, 7, 8. Steps.." I replied in the same tone. Raph nodded respectfully and began to slowly back out of the room.
"Ah Raph, aren't you gonna give us a hand? 'Cause this job is a mondo bummer, dude." The last word was cut off as Mikey leaned behind the sofa to collect some bits of twisted metal that had bounced off the wall.
"Kids, ya hafta clear up after yourselves!" He ran.
I sighed (following the trend for the day) and bent down to salvage a particularly good melange of screws and springs. Microwave. Definitely microwave.
"Come on, Mike. We had the fun, I guess. I'll go grab some sacks."
"Shouldn't we go find Leo, first?" asked Mikey indistinctly. "I mean, he mighta gotten eated or somethin' dudes! And that would be a major bummer, man!" After I mentally translated that to something approaching English, I shrugged. Raph, who had made a brief reappearance (to gaffer), muttered something.
"Huh?" I asked. He scowled at me.
"I said, he's just bein' anal over that thin' earlier!"
"Huh?" It was Mikey's turn to be confused.
Yeah, okay, so I might have, just…occasionally read the dictionary. Once. Well twice then. Or there was that time when…okay, four time had been my absolute limit! But sometimes stuff…sticks. This was one of those times. That was all. And well, he did ask. It was my duty to share the knowledge. My mouth opened on automatic and I quoted what I'd read.
"Anal-retentive: (adjective)(Psychoanalysis) Excessively orderly and fussy. Supposedly relating to conflict over potty-training in infancy."
There was a pause. They were both staring at me in a strange fashion, blinking in tandem.
"And you just knew that didya?" asked Raph slowly, at the same time that Mikey went "EWWWW" at the top of his voice.
There was thud from the dojo.
Leo:
I thought they'd finally quit it. Mind you, I heard Raph come in, slamming the door, after all the thumping and crashing had finished. Weird. Usually he's the cause of it. I nearly went out -via the roof- at the sound of what seemed to be Mikey, possibly being slowly tortured over an open fire- but I figured he probably deserved that as well. And anyway it didn't last long. I dragged my thoughts back; I was supposed to be meditating, not thinking about my crazed brothers! But it was hard to concentrate. I began to get nervous. It was too quiet down there! What if Don and Mikey had managed to kill each other? It seemed unlikely, (but then again the whole notion of them fighting in the first place was unlikely), so I sat and worried. I suppose I could go out there. But no! I had made a resolution to stay in here and meditate and self-control was one of the pre-requisites for being a ninja!
"EWWWW!" came from downstairs and my head had another little chat with Mr. Floor.
"Fine! I give up! Whatever! Maybe I'll just go crazy! Whoohoo!" I cried, bouncing my forehead off the ground in frustration. I didn't hear the scuffle at the door.
"Hey, Don! Get over here! I think Leo's cracked up!" came a whisper on the cusp of hearing. I opened my eyes, but the view wasn't much better two inches from the floorboards. My head hurt.
"Yeah, there's a reason for that, Leo."
I told unco-operative vocal chords to stop relaying everything I was thinking to the outside world and looked up. Six feet weren't much of an improvement.
"How's the view in the higher planes of consciousness today, Leo?" asked Raph evilly.
"Would be great if I'd ever left the airport!" I snapped back, nerves at breaking point. "Between you and Mike earlier and Don blowing up things and people dismantling the LAIR it sounded like! Mikey screeching…("Was not!") and…and…" The floor looked inviting again.
"So dya reckon he had problems with potty training when he was little?" asked Mikey innocently. I looked up in confusion as Raph looked back at me even more evilly.
"I reckon so.." he replied and wandered back out sniggering again. I looked at my other two brothers in utter confusion but neither of them would catch my eye.
"Oh yeah, Leo- we had an invasion of Mousers- they kinda did for the wall of the main room, but Mikey sang at them and they self-destructed." said Donnie cheerfully, before they also walked out, leaving me in a state of confoundedness.
Mr. Forehead went back to his social life and the rest of me just gave up trying to understand anything involving my brothers.
It was easier that way.
Poor Leo. My first Leo-centric fic so please let me know how it went!
BTW- yup, the show was Baywatch.
Put this up again as several people expressed confusion over nanobots. Shoulda been Mousers.
A