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There was a loud crash and an even louder scream from the kitchen at approximately 3:00 pm, a time everyone was supposed to be asleep. In a panic, Leo, the one with the rounder face and darker mask, skidded around the corner to see what the commotion was about.
Sword in hand and at the ready, he dashed into the kitchen, only to be met by... Raph, the hot-headed one specifically, on the counter, clinging to a shelf for dear life.
"Raph, what the shell happened? Why are you on the counter!?" Leo urged, still on the verge of panicking himself.
Immediately upon seeing Leo, Raph began pointing towards the floor and babbling incoherently. Leo looked down to see a big bowl face down, obviously covering something if Raph's reaction was anything to go by. He let whatever panic he felt at first ebb away. Whatever it was couldn't be that dangerous if it was small enough to fit under that bowl... Right?
So, ever the fearless leader, Leo set his sword down on a counter near him and cautiously approached the bowl, hoping to any higher powers who may be listening that explosives weren't involved. Once he got close enough he quickly grabbed the bowl and pulled it away, stepping as far from it's contents as fast as possible. Ready for the worst, he guarded his face with it, and waited for something to happen.
After a few seconds of silence, he slowly took the bowl away from his face and chanced a glance at the floor.
There he saw... a spider.
"Raph."
"WHAT? IT'S HUGE, JUST LOOK AT IT!" Raph snapped back, obviously still panicking.
Leo looked back down at the spider as instructed, and only got more exasperated.
It wasn't even a real spider.
Why me? Leo thought with a huff of annoyance, Why is it always me who has to deal with this crap? Placing the bowl gently on the counter, Leo turned to address his still very distressed brother, Maybe it's because I'm such a light sleeper. I should ask Donnie for some noise canceling headphones.
"Raph." Leo tries once again,
"WHAT?" Raph practically yells back, and Leo winces at the volume. How has no one else woken up yet?
"It's not real."
"Huh?"
"It's not real, Raph." Leo grits out, rubbing his temple. He already felt a headache coming on. "You've been pranked. Again."
"..." Raph sits there for a minute. Then another. And Leo's about to just up and leave before he finally responds with a very intelligent,
"Oh."
Yup, there's the headache.
He then gets down in silence, either embarrassed, traumatized, or both, and the sound of quick yet near-silent footsteps are heard pittering from around the corner.
Great. Leo thinks, Just great.
"What is going on in here." A stern voice calls, and Leo's headache somehow gets worse. Raph looks fine, like nothing even happened, because of course he does.
"Leonardo." Splinter calls calmly, a small grit to his voice the only sign he'd been asleep at all. Leonardo turns around and puts his hands on his hips, already too tired to deal with this shit.
"Raph was in the kitchen and freaked out over a rubber spider in the cupboard." He stated calmly, though the hidden layer of irritation didn't go unnoticed by both present.
"There was more to it than that!" Raph insisted,
"Oh really?"
"Yes really!"
"And what would that be?" Leo snapped, turning to look at him expectantly.
"...Uh." Raph replied.
"That's what I thought." Leo says, reaching for his sword and walking out.
"It was super realistic! How would they even get their hands on something like that?" Raph shouts back, anger quickly disguising his embarrassment.
"BLAH BLAH BLAAAH I CAN'T HEAR YOUUU" Leo's retreating form taunts, and his volume ensures that anyone who managed to stay asleep at first had definitely woken up now.
Splinter sighs and turns to his second oldest, a blank yet stern look on his face.
"We will discuss the repercussions of this incident tomorrow morning. For now," He stated, turning and beginning towards his own room as well, "Go back to sleep."
Raph watched his father leave and allowed himself a grimace, tomorrow was gonna be veerrry interesting.
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~《{The next morning}》~
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God, Leo was gonna kill Raph when he next saw him. Sleeping was already a difficult task for Leo on a good day, and his scare last night did not help.
For reference, this was not one of his good days.
With a tired groan he rolled out of bed, not even flinching when he landed face first on the floor. He hadn't been able sleep more than an hour after Raph's incident and he was already beginning to consider just lying there, on the dirty floor, for the rest of the day.
He allowed himself another minute of calm before he resigned himself to a day of chaos and yanked himself up.
"LEOOO!" Mikey yelled, just outside his room, "Angelo's gonna get real sad if you don't eat anything for breakfast!" Leo lets out a huff of annoyance, already regretting his decision.
"I know Mikey, gimme a second!"
"I already have!" He whines, and Leo has to take a few deep breaths to calm himself. Yup. Definitely not one of my good days. Despite his annoyance he quickly puts on his knee and elbow pads and wraps his belt around his waist. With one final glance around the room, he decides he's ready and finally swings open the curtain.
There he's greeted by an equally exhausted Mikey, and his tiredness is at least temporarily replaced by worry.
"You look like shit." Mikey states bluntly, grinning up at him cheekily.
"You don't look all that great yourself." Leo snarks back, flicking him in the face. Mikey clutches the offended area and glares at Leo, managing to pull a laugh out of him.
Strangely enough, Mikey always had that effect on him, on all of them. As annoying as he could be, he was always able to cheer them up.
"Well if somebody hadn't woken us all up at three in the morning, it wouldn't be that way, now would it?" He said, spinning around and walking away, Leo close behind.
"Whoops." Leo shrugged back nonchalantly. There was a decent amount of noise coming from the kitchen, which meant pretty much everyone was already up and about.
Somehow, it didn't feel nearly as irritating as Leo expected it to.
The sight that greeted them only cemented the thought that today would be filled with chaos.
Leon, Leo's counterpart, was standing- no, dancing on the table, screeching into some old spoon like it was a microphone. Raph was yelling at him to get down, and his red-banded counterpart rubbed the space between his eyes in annoyance.
There was an old radio sitting on the counter, volume turned to max, blasting some song in Spanish no one but Leon could understand. Angelo was cooking breakfast, it seemed, whilst trying and failing to sing with Leon, ultimately just following the tune. Donnie, the one from Leo's universe, had their headphones on, completely oblivious to the world around them. It seemed Don had pulled another all-nighter, if their absence was anything to go by.
I should talk to them about that at some point, this many in a row can't be healthy. Leo thought to himself, calmly ducking and moving into the kitchen. Whilst Leo expertly dodged Leon's swinging arms, said obnoxious turtle attempted the next octave.
He did not succeed.
Everyone groaned, and Leon began hacking and coughing at the strain.
"Alright," Raph snapped, "Off the table Cinderella, you're done. You sound like a chicken in a meat grinder." Leo let out an ugly snort at that, and Leon spun on him, squawking in offense.
"HEY! HEY! Don't laugh!" Leon glared, pointing his spoon at Leo, before swinging back on Raph, "And for YOUR information," He continued, jabbing the spoon in Raph's plastron, "I sound amazing. Like a songbird~" He placed his right hand on his hip and the other on his chest. "And besides, I'm so much more of an Aurora."
"Oh really?" Raph asked, annoyed.
"Yup."
"And why is that?"
Leon's smirk only intensified, obviously hoping Raph would ask.
"Well isn't it obvious? I'm beautiful, men can't resist me, and I need my beauty sleep." It was Leo's turn to groan. "What? Am I wrong?" He taunted.
"Yes. Absolutely. On all accounts." Leo rolled his eyes, bringing his cup of coffee to the table, taking his seat opposite Donnie. "You're a literal mutant turtle. I know for a fact every person in New York would happily resist your, quote unquote, 'beauty.'"
"Hey, just because you're jealous doesn't mean you have ta take it out on me." Leon retorted, sliding smoothly off the table and into a seat.
"Mhm, suure. Whatever you gotta tell yourself."
In the time it took Leo to sit down, Angelo had already begun plating and placing food in front of everyone at the table. Mikey, apparently recovered from his exhaustion, had already yanked out a chair and plopped down next to Leo, flapping his hands excitedly at the smiley face pancakes on his plate.
"Heeeyy!" Leon whined, slowly reaching his hand across the table, "Why does Mikey get the smiley-face pancakes?" He almost had it, before he was thwarted by a quick slap on the hand. Leon gasped in betrayal, only earning a blown raspberry in response.
Angelo smirked, "Because, only turtles who don't ruin everyone's night sleep with a stupid prank get smiley-face pancakes for breakfast." At this Raph nearly broke his neck snapping to look at him.
"It was YOU?" He yelled in anger. Leon immediately shrunk back, chuckling nervously and rubbing the back of his neck.
"What? No! Of course not! Why would I even do that?" Raph didn't look convinced in the slightest. If anything, he looked about ready to leap over the table and tackle Leon to the ground.
Leo hid his smile behind his coffee mug, trying not to escalate the situation any further. Suddenly the suffering he endured last night seemed perfectly reasonable for the entertainment he was getting this morning.
"Where'd you even get that spider anyway?" Raphie, the not so hot-headed one, asked, "It looked so realistic."
"Wait, really?" Leon paused, looking genuinely confused, "Pero la araña que puse parecía mierda..." He muttered to himself, and Raphie's eyes visibly narrowed at the switch in language. Either ignoring or being genuinely unaware of the suspicion, Leon gave no hints as to what he said.
"I didn't set up a prank last night." He said sincerely, "Like I said, I need my beauty sleep, and pulling pranks at 3:00 am obviously doesn't do that."
Raph was about to protest when he turned to look at the doorway, prompting everyone else to as well. They were met with the calm, smiling face of Master Splinter, and everyone greeted him with varying levels of excitement. (Some admittedly more enthusiastic than others, *COUGH*COUGH*Leon*COUGH*COUGH*)
"Good morning," He responded calmly, "I trust you all slept well." And with a knowing look he glanced around the table, everyone turning to glare at Leon.
"What!?" He snapped defensively, "I already told you it wasn't me!"
"Oh yeah? Then who was it?" Raph snapped, glaring even harder.
"I have no idea, but I do know it wasn't me." He glared back, crossing his arms in a huff. Then a look of realization crossed his face, and he whipped around to look at Mikey. "It was YOU wasn't it!?" He smiled maniacally.
"What? No!"
"Yes!" Leon cut him off, slamming a hand on the table, "You're the only other prank master here! If it wasn't me then it HAS to be you!"
Mikey went to say something in response, either to defend himself or accuse someone else, but Leon had already started yapping over him. The only issue was Mikey didn't give in, leaving Leon and Mikey's words to jumble together and cover each other. The unfortunate result was no one could to hear either of them, and the frustration that seemed to have dissipated that morning started rearing its ugly head again. Angelo covered his ears with a wince, and Donnie finally glanced up from their T-phone, the argument apparently loud enough to get their attenton, before suddenly-
"YAME!"
Everyone jumped slightly and snapped their gazes to Master Splinter. Even Mikey and Leon finally shut their mouths.
"That is enough." He stated sternly, eyes hard and unyielding. "We will discuss this topic later, and in a much more civil manner, once everyone has finished their breakfast." He made sure to glance at Leon and Mikey specifically, before finally moving to fill his plate. Everyone went back to eating in relative silence, save for a few snickers and jabs sent in the trouble-maker's directions.
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~《{•••}》~
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It ended up being a tie between who believed Leon and who thought Mikey was innocent, but all that really meant was both of them got punished instead of one. They were ordered to do 50 push-ups each by noon, or midnight to top-siders, followed by however many Katas Master Splinter deemed fit, and finally, to end off the day, a spar against Master Splinter.
They both had apologized to Raph once it was over, which everybody knew and dreaded would boost his ego tremendously. Then, both concluding that sleeping would be the best option, went to bed early.
It wasn't until 3 weeks later, on designated "Clean Your Damn Rooms, You Disgusting Pigs" Day, (name still pending) that the truth was revealed.
Don had injured his leg in a fight only a day prior, which, much to the chagrin of literally everyone else, (save for Splinter and Angelo) got them out of cleaning their room that day. That's not for lack of trying of course, they had fought tooth and nail to clean their own room, injury be damned, yet still inevitably lost to Angelo's puppy eyes. Leon had pulled the shortest stick, which meant he got the privilege of cleaning Don's room for them.
Yay.
Now, if it were anyone else's, that wouldn't be such an issue. Even Mikey and Leon's rooms were kept to a decent level of cleanliness throughout the year, but Don just had to leave every invention, old and new, lying around their room like a screwed up "Needle in a Haystack." Except in this case, the "Haystack" was actually made up of lego-sized contraptions which at any moment could power on and electrocute you, and the "Needle" meanwhile, was actually just a hairbrush that wasn't even in the "Haystack" to begin with. Not to mention, their neat-freak levels of obsession regarding where everything went when it finally was organized was practically unbearable. How they managed to keep track of it all was beyond him.
As Leon was finishing up Don's room, he accidentally stubbed his toe on a small, yet ridiculously heavy box peeking out from under their bed. After hopping on one foot and silently cursing to himself for a minute, his curiosity finally got the better of his frustration, and he decided to open it, hoping it was more interesting than a few blueprints or a super-secret rule-book or something..
What he found was so so much more interesting.
Inside there were two fake spiders. On the left side was a dumb dollar store level spider decoration. The paint used to color it was too bright and colorful to be realistic, yet somehow still managed to be boring all the same. Just next to it, however, sat what may as well be a marvel in comparison. The colors on this one were perfect, dark or neutral where they were meant to be, and the shape itself was incredibly realistic, so much so that Leon actually jumped when he first caught a glimpse of it. It only took him about a minute more to catch on, before finally-
"DONNIEEEE"
Down in their makeshift Medbay, a book in hand and stitches in their leg, lies Don, cackling like a madman at the sound of their intelligence finally, finally, paying off.