It was four o'clock in the afternoon and Audrey was losing her patience. The sun was finally breaking through after two straight days of rain. The warmth was a welcome change from the drafty chill, but it did nothing for the humidity.
And Audrey had had it.
Dripping with sweat and exhaustion, she threw the bo staff angrily to the ground and reached around for her lower back, moaning with agony. Raphael, who had been practicing with her since the sun rose that morning, didn't anticipate her abrupt move and nearly sliced her throat with a sai. He grunted with annoyance, barely scraping her skin.
"You know what, Raph? Fuck it," she groaned, leaning as far back as she could without tumbling over. "Just fuck it. I'm tired, I'm sore as hell, and anyway, Leonardo is going with me to Japan. How much trouble can I possibly get in?"
"Hey, I've gotten in serious trouble before, life-threatening trouble, and I was with three well-trained ninjas," he snapped, panting heavily from the force of his previous interrupted blow. He pointed at her with his weapon for emphasis. "If a member of the Foot sneaks up behind you and presses a blade against your jugular, Leo ain't gonna be able to do shit for ya."
"Stop yelling at me!" she cried so loudly that her chest heaved with emotion. "You keep yelling at me and pushing me and demanding all kinds of unreasonable things of me and you know what? I'm tired of it! I'm not training to be a ninja assassin here." She threw her hands wildly into the air. "All I want to do is go to Japan for a couple weeks and recover some stupid useless artifacts. It's not even like the Foot exists anymore! It's just a bunch of gang-bangers fighting each other. They're just gonna kill themselves off anyway."
"Gang-bangers? What exactly do you think you're in for here?" He pounded his fist into his hand. "We're talking about ninjas, Audrey. Masters of darkness and shadows. These guys can take out a small army without ever making a sound. The Foot doesn't just cease to exist. They have a history of taking out old leaders and replacing them with new, more skillfully-trained ones. With the power struggle that we suspect is going on right now, they're probably more dangerous now than ever. There's a huge vacuum over there, and we don't want you to get sucked into it."
"Will you stop with the 'we' nonsense already? You're the one that doesn't want me to go! You're the one that's fighting me every step of the way! You're the one that's training me so hard I can't see straight!" she yelled, pointing her finger so close to his face that he flinched every time she said "you're". "God, why can't you be more like Leonardo? At least he's actually excited for the trip."
There were few ways to get Raphael to see red more than comparing him to his illustrious old brother. Audrey could almost see the fire ignite in his eyes, but couldn't find it in herself to regret it. She pushed her hair, soaked with sweat and humidity and clinging lifelessly to her forehead, away from her eyes. She even put a hand on her hips, over the tank top that seemed to be glued to her body, and stared at him daringly.
"Yeah, well I got news for you sister - it was Leo's idea to start training you," he lied through his teeth. "He's the one that's been pushing me to push you. I wanted to stop, but he kept insisting that you weren't trained enough. He says you're weak, that you're not half the girl April was. April never bitched and moaned when we were training her."
She gasped, offended. "Leonardo would never say anything like that."
"Guess there's a lot about our fearless leader you never knew," he said smugly.
"You filthy fucking liar," she spat at him. "He would never compare me to April. He's too dignified and mature for that. Looks more like you're not half the man he is."
Flooded with bitter anger, he slid his sai smoothly back into his belt and lifted his hand as though to hit her. That was when he realized that what they were doing was absolutely absurd. She was burning out, and he was running her to the point of over-exhaustion. She almost seemed like a small child, crying because she was being pushed to her limits. Slowly he put down his hand down. It was the first time in a long time that he felt like he had control over his rage.
"You know what?" he said, picking up the staff that she had tossed carelessly into the grass. "This is ridiculous. We're both tired, and your focus is completely shot anyway. Let's go down to the water."
She blinked, uncertain of what had just happened. "Wait - what?"
"Let's go down to the water," he repeated. "You mentioned wanting to go down to the aquarium. We could do that instead if you want. Or if you want to just lay around here and watch T.V, that's fine too. I think you'll be fine for your trip to Kyoto. Come to think of it, there's a big geisha district down there. I have a few more phrases I want to teach you to prepare you for that."
He stuck one end of the staff into the dirt and leaned on it, smiling darkly.
Something struck hard inside Audrey - frustration or delirium, possibly a mixture of the two - and she started to laugh so hard that her stomach hurt. "You better not teach me any more dirty expressions, like 'I have an erection' or anything like that."
Raphael glanced at his fingernails. "I was thinking something more along the lines of 'big penis', but I guess that works too."
"How on earth do you know how to say - Raphael!" she squealed. "Totally too much information."
He laughed and shook his head. "So what'll it be? The aquarium, the water, or here?"
"Are you propositioning me?"
Suddenly uncomfortable, he felt the blood rush to his face and he turned away slightly. "Of course not!"
"Good. Because I'm pretty sure bestiality is illegal in Connecticut." Chuckling at her own joke, she walked toward the house, patting him on the shoulder as she went. "A glass of iced tea on the hammock sounds lovely. But first, I'd like to shower. I feel disgusting."
"Yeah well, you are disgusting," he muttered, following behind her. And yet, the breezy way she suggested the idea of sex was oddly appealing. As she walked, he watched the way her hips moved, the way that she put one foot so delicately and lightly in front of the other, and couldn't help but start to count the days until he would finally be human.
Years ago, before the Shredder had come into their lives, he and his brothers had sworn to find the cause of their father's mutation and set him right. Now that he was gone and Raphael alone was offered the opportunity to make this correction a reality, he felt slightly guilty about it. Karmically speaking, what had he done to deserve such a thing? Was it the universe punishing him for constantly threatening to abandon his brothers? Or was it a reward for going to the surface and protecting those that Splinter had always said they should avoid? Was it because he spent so much time on the surface that he narrowly avoided their exposure time and time again?
His head was swimming and he was starting to feel dizzy. He grabbed a pillar for support, shook his head, and tried to focus his thoughts solely on Audrey.
Which didn't make things any easier in the least.