100 Theme Challenge
2. Love
From the corner of his eye, Donatello watched as April worked with his father to perfect her skill with the tessen. He loved the way she moved, even when she faltered, or when April occasionally got her legs tangled and fell. Her tenacity in picking herself back up and trying again caused the butterflies in his stomach to flutter.
Then again, pretty much everything the pretty sixteen year old red head did made Don a little weak in the knees. Despite the teasing from his brothers, Don was in love for the first and hopefully the last time in his life.
His reverie was broken by the whooping sound made by two miscreants as they leaped the turnstiles and entered the lair. Raphael and Casey Jones pushed and shoved each other as their voices dropped suddenly, each casting guilty looks in Master Splinter's direction.
Rolling his eyes, Don could only imagine the mischief they'd gotten into. Raph had always had a bit of a rebellious streak and the new kid just seemed to feed it. Heading topside alone to meet up with Casey and do who knew what brought a frown to Master Splinter's face, but it infuriated Leonardo.
At the moment, the turtle leader was glaring at Raph from where he sat in front of the television set. That glare had nothing to do with the sudden influx of noise from the pair of trouble makers; it was solely an effort to remind Raph that Leo was not pleased.
It might have worked if Raph had been paying attention to him but he wasn't. Head close to Casey's, Raph was busy sharing what appeared to be some type of inside joke. Casey's grin made it obvious that the youth found it to be highly amusing.
Don glanced over at April when he heard his father speak sharply to her. To Don's dismay, April's attention was no longer on her lesson, but instead on the boy dressed in black. Color rising in her cheeks, April muttered a quick apology and returned to her tessenjutsu. Master Splinter's eyes narrowed in disapproval as they moved from the novice kunoichi to the source of her wandering eyes.
"Raphael!" Master Splinter called sharply. "You are disrupting our lesson."
Raph looked up quickly and had the decency to appear chagrined. "Sorry sensei," he said contritely.
With his attention diverted, Casey's eyes drifted around the lair until they fell on Donatello, seated on the couch with his laptop open on his knee. Swiftly bounding across the intervening space, the older boy plopped down next to Don, draping an arm across the back of the couch and leaning far into the turtle's personal space.
"What ya' workin' on Don?" Casey asked, his eyes going from the screen to Don's face in the space of a second.
Disconcerted by the sudden intrusion, Don spluttered, "I'm redesigning some of the features on the patrol buggy."
"Cool," Casey said, settling further into the cushions. "Love ta hear about it."
Don cleared his throat and looked back down at his screen, but not before catching a glimpse of Raph's angry scowl as he stood with his arms folded across his plastron.
Life was starting to get downright complicated.
