Pass the Definition
Theme: Friendship is something that goes beyond race and when it comes to a single female and her strange friends.
Movie Night in a lair had always been just the five of theme: four brothers and their father but that had changed with April now joining Team Turtle. Those first meets between the brother's and the young woman they had saved had been something of awkward with a few words and heavy on glances. This being one the first time they could be next to someone of the human race with out fear.
Did April know that? Not really but it might have been that inner quality to look past her strange new friends and father in not seeing well talking turtles and a huge rat but to grasp they were people in their own right with invalidity traits and dreams.
Donnie in her first few talks found his intelligent and love of tech and science to be a welcome add into her talks in finding a kindle soul to share her own love. He had also talked a mile a heart beat which when he got into a subject just kept adding in things and theories and to make him slow down the human woman had gentle on one such rush had smiled and place a finger on his nose.
Being touched, feeling the tingle of warmth on his skin, in being their core temperature was lower than a than human's 98.7. Also to be touched by someone outside his family had been a touch of a surprise to the young thirren. April's touch had been soft and warm but he felt the slight calluses on her finger tips.
Only pulled away the hand with a soft smile and a raised eyebrow to just walk away. Donnie only blinked and smiled and touched his own nose with a beaming smile.
Micky of his family was a cuddle bug. Most his brothers had learned to live with it but April was still getting use to the brothers in those first fresh weeks and on a stop by the brothers one night it had been a cold October and rain and sleet and April's apartment in its heavy warmth was an oasis.
So walking in and seeing the four teenagers all wet and well looking like a drowned rat. Masks soaked to their skin and even Leo's teeth was chattering she had blinked, walked away and returned with towels a two for the poor guys. Each taking one and Leo bowing and muttering a soft thank you in Japanese.
Pulling out a few of the electric heaters she used when the winter got bone chilling cold, the brothers sat on the couch and chairs and the moment the waves of heat hit their chilled skin they just seemed to let their bodies relax in also April had grabbed some of the blankets and found herself sitting next to a shivering Mikey.
Poor joker had nearly fallen into a state of sleep with his body eating up the heat and the warmth on his left just pushed him for more. Cuddling more into the leather couch, he let his body lean onto April in a bit. Human and warm and well smelling clean with her hair softly touching his head, Mikey leaned into her left and let his head fall right along her shoulder.
Now having one of the ninja's making a soft sound of contentment and cuddling with her. The slight cool and well leathery skin to her own human with a strange feeling but already she felt worn out and lean into Mikey and signed deeply in her eyes closing and soon snoring.
Waking up and blinking in the sun filtering in the gray over cast sky, the brothers lay gone and all the blankets used and towels lay neatly folded. Scent of fresh coffee woke her more to be in a zombie mode to need the caffeine and April blinked to her in a plate was a omelet with a note: To Red from MH. Enjoy the food!. Mikey had made her breakfast which April did enjoy.
Raph was one of the harder for the woman to get to know. He was abrasive and rough and all very well butch like in from his words and tone and body lingo. He was the type you had to be invited into his space which his brothers knew and April had seen.
One night to a visit to the lair, somehow the air was thicker than normal. Donnie had texted April they had a run in with Purple Dragons and to bring bandages and medical supplies. Which in seeing her friends cut and buries had hit a raw and sisterly feeling to the poor guys and Splinter had glanced up from clean a deep cut in Leo's shoulder, blood wet and red and seeping out.
Gulping down the damp air of the lair, she pulled in her nerves and went to work in helping to mend up the brothers. Donnie had been one of the least cut up but his ankle was swollen and raw. Mikey had a shiner on his left eye and it swelled up enough to close. Small wounds and cut laced his arms that she clean out and patched up with a gentle care and all he was grateful for. Leo was taken care by his father in having the deeper cuts in placing himself between the gang and his brothers.
Raph?
April found him away in the kitchen, blood seeped from a deep cut on his lower leg and his left arm had been burned from the shoulder to elbow from a laser burn. He still had some dark spots on hisplastron but it was not hard to see it was not his blood. Above his eye a deep cut to his forehead and above the eye ridge had made a little stream of red and ran into his mask and dripped down his cheek bone onto the table.
He had heard her walking, took a heavy sniff of the air and could find the female's scent over the copper of blood and also her aura was the only one he was still learning but something of energy was calm even seeing him and his brother's like this after a fight. Normally someone of a sane mind would have ran out of here and tried to forget about this world but April was far made of stronger stuff than he would give her credit.
Raph was also one of those types he had to give his permission to come into this space. So doing a move she had seen the brothers use when he was on edge was just to sit at the table and wait. Getting in the background talk, Raph had gone back for Leo and taken a hit meant to take down his leader.
Green eyes glanced at the burn and the deep crimson worried her all the more. Burns if not treat could get infected very easy but her mind kept her from rushing and treating the warrior. Raph had turned a bit to catch the outline of her profile and the worry in her shoulders weighting up. Hissing a bit in the pain he felt her aura spike in worry and it might have been easier to wait for her to turn to one of her other brothers but one thing Butch knew she had a stubborn streak to match his sadly.
April took a deep breath to center herself in watching but the big turtle fully turned to look and meet her eyes and in a rough wood sound on the concrete slide his chair closer. The burn was close enough to treat as he looked away and waited and felt her move closer, taking a gentle cloth and water to clean the wound and pooling it over to get the dirt and grit out.
Hissing, his body tensed in the sharp pain in his skin but soon a gentle hand touched around the corners and a cooling sensation of the burn cream relaxed and chased away the pain in moments. Fast but gentle in her mood, the woman kept her eyes on taking and clearing the wound like any sort of computer work and coding.
The pair was watched by deep golden eyes for the moment but Splinter smiled even in this test of his boys, When the human female had been working her way into the lives of the turtles the father had at first been a odd way of uneasy but glad to see his sons finding someone else that just expect them for who and what they were. More of the shock was Raphael of all his sons let the little female clean his wounds. How her presence was even effecting him was an eye opener but a welcome.
Leo smiled, April had a warriors nerve to treat Butch and it only made the young leader glad. Turing away to give the pair a bit of space.
Wrapping the wound gentle with none stick bandages so if the wound did seep it would not dry on it and cause more pain. She went on to treat and wash out his wounds but never touched his mask or when he might wordless grunt new to back off and wait but when he was settled kept to her work. After, Raph just got up to head to his room but muttered a domo arigatou gozaimasu in leaving.
He even went out his way to sit next to the woman and made it knew if any of the brothers tried to take his spot they had better move fast.
Leo was the last in the group of the family to feel comfortable around April of all his brothers.
April had been first to notice Leo was a reader, often seen with a book of some kind and half the time in kanji but in her random visits to the Lair she had seen Le holding a copy of two books the most:A Book of Five Rings: The Classic Guide to Strategy by Miyamoto Musashi which fit into the warrior model of Leo to a T. Yet it was also worn out book she had spied him with: The Hobbit by J.R.R Tolkien.
Both books had looked close to falling apart and her moments to see Leo relaxed and reading like trying to read and seeing pages held together by duck tape and maybe glue? So what to do? She had the sense these books were a part of good memories and other things. It was on a visit that a yell and a follow of random but very pissed off Japanese filled the door way to the lair as in walking April found Mikey looking sorry and Leo looking like a kicked puppy in holding a ripped book which was The Hobbit.
April only watched at Leo huffed and his eyes narrowed from Mikey to Raph, he looked hurt and gloomy in picking up the aged pages of the book and walking to his room. The two brothers passed a look of pity to the other in knowing they had crossed a line. She glanced back at the way in which Leo had left and knew what she was going to do might get her banned for some weeks from the Lair but right now a waiting game was on.
Two hours later, the blue masked one made his way to the dojo but the look in his eyes was pinched and held a sadness to those depths. Splinter walked to the dojo as the other three made their way but the red and orange masked brothers knew Leo was going to kill them once he had a chance but it was in this moment April used every ninja trick she had picked up in having the leader having his full focus on the training.
April had only been in the few times in any of the turtles room and it had only been on invention and which the only two she had come to be in had been Donnie and Ralph's and Master Splinter for talking and tea. Making her way to Fearless room, it was like crossing into an unknown world but if she was going to keep to her aim the woman could not run away for the moment.
Like all the others, a heavy door of what the family could make it out of but the door to Leo's room had been reshaped and craved from wood. It was rough to the hand but smoothed down and a simple handle to let it slide much like Splinter's was to his own rooms.
Would the door make a sound if moved? Could the brothers or Splinter hear the creaking from the dojo? What would they do if they caught her doing this and sneaking into their rooms? How Leo take it?
Sweat had lightly bloomed on her brow for the moment as red strands hair lay on her skin and tickled but April kept her breathe calm and slowly gripped the handle with her fingers. It slide like silk with no noise to sound out a cry of alarm but it just this breaking in a bit harder for the human of the group. Peeking in, she had wonder how Leo's room was compared to the brothers having set foot or passed on the outside of the other three.
Leo's room in size was a bit smaller give his choice he could have had in the new Lair but the floor was made up of mattes and some of bamboo in which a small table sat with a cushions for sitting lined with pens and notepads and some drawing paper letting to dry with kanji on them. The bed was a double futon and made neat with a simple black comforter and a few pillows that seen better days. Paints of Japanese style and origin lay on both walls, one of The Great Wave off Kanagawa and a black and white drawing of bamboo under broken up and famed in three.
Seeing a poster of Maple Viewing at Takao she had gotten from a museum lay in a neat black frame got a smile from April and the simple roomed screamed well Leo but what caught her eye was the back end with the bookshelf and it seemed to flow like a stroke of the brush from calm and neat to rough and well teenager. On the lower of five shelves lay manga and comics with magazines and green eyes narrowed a bit with seeing a few more then adult males hidden a bit or pushed back. Pictures of the bothers lay from tots to teenager in frames fixed up and April smiled softer seeing a few of the newer ones of her and one alone of a April simple sitting under a apple tree from the farm in spring and it had blossom. She was not aware but had been caught with a day dream smile of pure joy.
Other books with a few more titles in kanji lay in her eye sight as she flickered over their titles in moving from bottom. Most the middle was on battle ans Buddhism and swordsmanship and samurai and Japanese history and myths with a few others but the top two shelves might have been a wider insight to the normally samurai like Leonardo to the outsider. Few were the classics, some English poems and such but the jump was into fantasy: Lords of the Rings, books by R. A. Salvatore, with his lone drow ranger and some others from high and epic to light and playful. April only smiled a bit in seeing the hidden side the lone leader of the Hamato clan.
Yet April was on a mission and found her treasure on his desk. The torn old book of The Hobbit, the yellow pages lay in the tale of how old the book was with most the front covered faded and torn right corner. Peeking it up with a gentle hand, she opened it and looked at the pages. Seeing finger prints only a three fingers could make and the little folds in the corners and such but it was the middle of the book that a good seven pages had been ripped out and damage to be placed gently.
Picking it up, the human woman let her eyes lay on the room once more and as softly as she had come in, left the room and slide the door closed. April took in a gulp of the damp air of the lair and none of the brothers had left the dojo. Using this space of time, she made her way out of the lair in leaving a note she would be back later in the week.
Making her way to her place in the tunnels and making a plan of places to go, she showered and slept that night with a smile in hoping her plan would work. Yet a few hours after her leaving and Leo making his way to his room with a plan to try to fix his torn childhood story, he made his way into the room of his space and glad of the peace he would have to a few hours while his brothers went to their own way.
Pulling off the gear and mask, Leo signed and made his way to his desk to find the book was gone! Eyes widen a bit in fear but he kept his calm and looked around the room in thinking he maybe just placed it some place else in his rush this morning and grief of the events. Still the search of his room he found no book and there was evidence his brothers had been in this place or taken it.
Youthful shoulders slumped more in sitting down at his desk in the lost of the old paper back and the memories it carried in comfort for him. Leo took to sleeping that night in unease.
Bright was the dawn over the city, April smiled into her coffee knowing it was going to be a full day in her plans but the spring sun blooming and what plant life lay in the city was waking up. Toast and eggs later in a pair of old jeans and a black t shirt later with the kanji for japan on it a gift from Donnie on her birthday. April walked into the stream of people and headed her way to a bookstore. It dealt with old books and the trade of used ones and she had often used them when she needed some background on old or rare books she found or needed repair and the torn Hobbit lay wrapped in paper in her paperback.
April was going to repair and fix the book for Leo as a gift and buy him a few others she had noted in his shelves that look close to falling apart. Humming a song Mikey would sing in Japanese while cooking, the bookstore known as Enlighten Words came into step and view and making her walk faster in the joy of her idea and the warmth of the sun.
Tammy Khang owned the bookstore and had peppered hair and was a mother of three herself while her husband of 20 years worked across the way in the bakery of a Frenchmen who was a old friend to both the man and woman. Seeing the bright red hair of one of her favorite young people only made the small woman smile and almond colored eyes turn up a bit.
April also waved as the silver bell rang out in the door closing and opening, no souls had come to the little bookstore this early in the morning which made it easier to speak and talk to Tammy. Pulling out the old paper back and giving a short history of why she wanted it fix. Tammy nodded and picked up the book and looked the binding and pages with keen eyes and after some holding of breath by April smiled and said it could be fixed in a day.
It was of great relief to April as she said she would be back that afternoon, now came the phase of her plan and she was once more out the door into the wide city in her hunt.
Back in the Lair, Leo was in a aphotic tone of mood which his brothers had picked up when he only glared over his coffee at them when a light fight of words had broken out and ended with that glare and growl. Raph looked between to Mikey and Don and they shrugged for the moment of lost of why. The fatherly rat also shrugged when three pairs masked eyes looked at him and his tea.
All teenagers had their moody moments and even the calm and controlled Leo would have his at times. Splinter only sipped his tea and knew this was not a good day for any training given the mood of his blue masked son. Last time Leo had been in his mood, his brothers had been well black and blue for a week from the so called training turned survival camp. Also letting the young ones have a day off was a good thing now and then. But why the mood? Leo would say why or come forward when he felt the need to to the rat or one of his brothers.
Leo took to being in his room the rest of the day, still trying to find his book which was in that day being repaired by gentle hands and made better. Tammy did wonder on some of the stranger markings on the pages in corners but let it go like always with a smile.
April signed, feeling the defeat a bit in her list in hand. She had found two of the three books on her list but the one she wanted was a bit hard to track down and might mean a trip to China Town: A Japanese copy of the Book of Five Rings. Harder to find than though even in New York City of all places. She could order it online but it might not fit into time zone at all in the plan and April liked to keep to her plans and time zones.
A hot dog later and a stop by her fav little coffee shop, she ached in her legs from walking over half of the city but knew it was time to hit Enlighten Words. At least that part of her aim was done and also hoping Leo would not be to mad at taking something of his or going into his room but also the other book she had picked up would smooth things over between the uneasy pair.
Tammy smiled, seeing the red hair and a tired and worn out looking woman with a slump to to her shoulders. Frowning a moment, April walked up and the book was on the desk and seeing it repaired did make her day left a bit but the older woman knew April was still down bout something and asked. Hearing the reason why a bit more, the book keeper smiled and winked and walked to the back of the store a moment. Green eyes blinked in a surprise as Tammy walked back and placed a book right into the hands of the red head.
A copy of the Five Rings in Japanese!
Standing up, she did a little hop dance in her high tops and smiled like a blooming sun of spring which was setting and such. Paying for the repair and book, Tammy only shook her head with a smile watching April with a peppy step in her walk leave. Seems her karma was turning for the better while in the lair the mood of Leo was still dark a bit and having search his room and the lair, even his brothers rooms had turned up nothing.
Mikey always was the one out of the whole clan to reach out to his brother and draw him out of his funk, inviting him along with the others to hit the top side and a movie theater that was playing all of Bruce Lee's movies. Yet even that could not make the blue boy out of his mood but he smiled a bit and shook his head. The rest of the brothers leaving and Splinter taking to his own rooms to watch some TV in a touch of worry for his son but he had a feeling it would change.
So alone, Leo sat on the couch in holding a manga: Rurouni Kenshin . Reading the manga did drive away some of the mood but he felt sad in loosing the book that had been his first childhood story read by their father in those early days. He had kept it safe all these years and loved to read it when he needed to escape for a bit like all his books but that one had been their first real book.
April had planned to stop by in the morning but a text from Donnie saying he needed some wires and Micky more milk made the older woman rolls her eyes and given into her friends. They would be going to the movies tonight which the Lair would mostly empty and she slip the books into Leo's room with him knowing at all! It would all work out and her plan seemed to have worked minus walking into the home of the boys and seeing Leo reading on the couch.
Hands full the things for the brothers but the books hidden in her backpack, April was like a deer in the head lights seeing Leo on the couch in which he looked up and guilt blended into his face seeing their friend once more getting things for his family they could not. Muttering a simple sorry in Japanese and switching to English, he grabbed the arm load from the human and made his way to the kitchen.
Her plan now: shattered.
Her ki was shooting up and down like Mikey on a sugar high as Leo sensed her, normal it was calm and warm which he had come to like in the change of energy of his family. Glancing back after placing the bags on the table, he raised a eye reign as well, she looked like a kid standing there and looking at the floor and to him a bit with a blush.
What had happened? Had one of his brothers told her a enumerable moment of his past? Leo straightening up his back and did his best to slide into an easy going smile but that move only made the woman looked guilty and slide her way to the couch and pull off her pack and he could hear the sound of paper and how it sank into the sofa it was a bit heavy.
What did she carry? Tilting his head, the leader watched her glance at him and blush but opened up the back with a few things wrapped in simple brown paper but one she held a bit tighter and walked up to him and shoved it roughly into his chest which the action caused some dismay in the sudden change in April.
Her mouth ran into a mile a minute in explanation she had seen what had happen yesterday and how sorry was for going into his room and such details in a hyper speed which just made Leo dizzy trying to sort out the rush of details but he took the thing from her hands and she let them drop as he opened it carefully.
It was the missing Hobbit. Blinking, he sorted out April's story and narrowed his eyes at the taller woman who had seen only the brothers get that keen and sharp look from Leo when they crossed a line and knew she was in trouble and said nothing but he kept his chill and opened the old paper back but the scent of glue came from the book and to his shock and surprise the binding had been fixed to almost knew and the torn pages back in place. It was whole again in his hands.
Leo closed the book and gentle touch the cover and the anger he had felt at April was gone in a rush of warmth from the very kind gesture she had done just for him. Not waiting, April rushed to her pack and pulled out two other books which he took with a blush from the woman and his eyes widen more to see Book of Five Rings in Japanese and a new copy of the Hobbit in both English and Japanese!
In that moment, Leo's shielded heart open all the way to April as he did a rare thing even with his brothers: hugged. Feeling the cool skin of the leader of the clan, he closed his eyes and felt a bit out of the place in this kind of thing but April only lightly hugged him back and he pulled away still holding the books with bright eyes under the mask.
Some time later, the brothers returned to find the friends just watching TV and making light talk which in seeing Leo with April and interaction was a bit of a surprise but welcome to the brothers that April was now fully into the Hamato clan.
Splinter had watched the whole epicenter of that day and smiled, for his family had grown by one and now he had a daughter to watch over and start to train in the falling weeks.
To April it was a simple thing and message: it was good to be home.
Note: This was harder to write I think than a lot of my fics but I wanted to try anything with out any talking. Also to show a good building bound with April and the Turtles a bit. Thanks for the watching and reviews! I'll be reposting this later with better fixes but I only got word pad right now...