(n.) The feeling of returning home after an immersive trip only to find it fading rapidly from your awareness.
"Favorite discipline of the Ninja Jūhakkei." Leo smiled, glancing in the reflection of the monitor at the blonde reclining on Mikey's chair in the back of the Shellraiser.
"Shinobi-iri," Fae replied without hesitation, tilting his katana back and forth in her hands, rubbing the polishing cloth over its entirety.
"Explain."
"Morphing into a leopard in the middle of a mission isn't exactly the most inconspicuous thing," she laughed, "and having the training of stealth and infiltration would help just a bit, I think."
He chuckled, a slight flick of his hand indicating she should put down the blade as he slowed the vehicle to a stop and pulled the key out of the ignition.
"I don't have to guess to know your favorite is Kenjutsu," she continued.
"Guess again," he countered, turning to watch her as she stood, making her way toward him, "I find spiritual refinement much more fulfilling than swordsmanship."
"Ah, Seishinteki kyōyō," Fae mused, nudging into the driver's seat beside him and tracing his jawline idly. "I should've known. After all, when you're not training, you're meditating."
"Meditating, or being with you." He nuzzled her cheek, delighting in her breathy giggle.
"You're with me even during training and meditating."
"And for that reason, I'm the luckiest guy on Earth," he muttered, picking her up and standing with Fae in his arms, tilting her face toward him and pressing his lips to hers sweetly.
Faline smiled demurely once Leo pulled back and set her on her feet. Something tickled at his right cheek, and the leader laughed, swatting away the spotted tail nudging him. "Stop that!"
"Hey, Splinter told me I need to practice my half-transformations. I'm just following Sensei's orders." Fae's ears, now repositioned atop her head, furry and feline, pricked back and forth in amusement. "Unless you'd like me to practice a FULL shape shift..."
"You've done enough practice this weekend," he assured, jabbing at the button to open the door to the Shellraiser. "You're really coming along in the Freeforming. It'll come in handy, once Vienna's abilities start to surface."
"You make it sound like we've been solely training this whole weekend." Fae voice turned sensually teasing, and she stepped out right after her boyfriend.
"YOU make it sound like we did something more than binge-watching Crognard in a pillow fort," he retorted with a fond grin.
"This is no time for joking," she cried, suddenly all business, even as the same knowing smile crept onto her face, "We have ninja moves to perfect! Missions to complete..."
"Friends to rescue." The sobering fact hit the couple like bricks to the face. Leonardo and Faline sighed simultaneously, looking at the lair's entrance with reluctance.
Fae's hand drifted to Leo's, her thumb bumping over his knuckles as he ran a finger across a lone scar on her palm.
It depressed her, that even after she'd finished running from everything, she hadn't been able to avoid all the conflict in her life.
It saddened him, that if things continued escalating, her total of scars might someday match his.
The previous weekend had been a nice break from reality for the both of them.
"Let's do this," Fae mumbled, looking over at him and placing a chaste kiss on his cheek.
"Yeah. Let's."
They ambled into the abode, met with total chaos. Thankfully, the hormonal teenager kind.
"Why'd you run into the lab, of all places?! You were an idiot to hide there!"
A sai flew through the air, embedding itself in the tire swing.
"You'd just thrown a steak knife at my head! I wasn't about to hide somewhere obvious, where you'd be able to find me and MURDER ME!"
Leo caught a shuriken between his fingers before it could slice off Faline's nose.
"Your own damn fault for playing that stupid prank!"
"And it's YOUR own DANG fault for blasting the alarm-computer-thingy to smithereens!"
"Well if you hadn't decided to dump your dirty whitie tidies on me, this wouldn't have happened in the first place! Why are they STICKY, Mikey? This is just disgusting!"
"I happen to like wearing them when I'm making breakfast."
"You're telling me you wore every single pair of briefs you own to make a single WAFFLE?!"
"Excuse me!" Fae shouted, making the brothers wrestling on the ground stall. "There's a lady present now. So please, no more talk about whitie tidies."
"You're the one who chose to move in with Hero Boy," A maple syrup-covered Raph directed his anger at her, pausing the noogie he was giving Mikey to peel a lone pair of soiled underwear off his carapace. "So, lady or not, you'll just have to sit and watch while I turn Mikey into a punching bag."
"Enough!" Leo pried his brothers off of each other. "What alarm?"
"It went off about ten minutes ago, now," Raph muttered, cracking his knuckles menacingly and peering at Mikey.
"And you didn't think to check what it was for?" Fae rolled her eyes, trudging toward the lab.
"I tried," the peppy turtle bragging, bouncing after her. "But Raph went and broke it!"
"Not my fault the computer was right where my sai was heading—"
"Will you two— oh my God." Fae gawked at the mess of shattered glass and punctured circuits on the desk. "What the hell?!"
"It's Mikey's fault!"
"Is not!"
"Is too!"
"SHUT UP!" Fae shrieked, making both boys clap their hands over their ears.
"You're both to blame. Mikey, don't prank Raph with dirty laundry avalanches again. Raphael, control your temper." Leo gave them a stern, 'don't challenge me on this or so help me' look before hastily unplugging the computer and stopping the haphazard sparks from flying.
"Don't try ordering me around," Raph growled.
"If he can't, then I will." Faline's eyes darkened, smiling in mock innocence with her now-sharpened incisors. "You wanna try and deny that command again?"
"Dude, Crazy Cat Chick is coming for youuuuuu," Mikey giggled.
"You little shit— come back here!"
Fae stuck out her tongue when he barreled after the youngest brother, shrugging to Leo when he gave her a bemused brow arch.
"Where's Donnie? He should've been on this by now," Leo grumbled, crouching to give a closer examination of the wreckage.
"He's obviously out, otherwise it would have been fixed the moment Raph maimed it," she reasoned.
" 'Out'." Leo said the word as if it were the most unappetizing combination of letters in the dictionary. "When's Donnie gonna realize we need him here? He can't go OUT whenever he feels like it. He's got a job here to do."
"He's working through some things."
"Fae, we both know it's gone beyond 'working through things'. He's basically mourning April, like she's dead or something. It's getting uncomfortable to watch."
"Like it wasn't before, watching your brother fall into a depression?" she asked, "What is he supposed to do, cater to your needs with a happy face, because you're sick of his sadness all of a sudden?"
"I'm just saying it's time for Donnie to pull his head out of the sand and start engaging again."
Fae's expression darkened. To an extent, Leo was right. But she wouldn't sway on her stance that he still needed time, time his brothers should be more than willing to give, in her opinion. They'd all experienced heartbreak, the entire clan had undergone grief; just because Donatello dealt with it differently, more thoroughly, they were now holding him accountable. Waving the past three months of dolefulness in front of the genius like it was something to be ashamed of.
They weren't helping him out of the rut Donnie was stuck in. In Fae's opinion, they were preventing his freedom from it in the first place.
"Why is it, Leo, that every time Donnie is brought up lately, you sneer at him like he's done something to be ashamed of?"
"We all know he's taken things too far. Don't make me out to be the bad guy here." Leo's usually even voice had a warning edge to it.
"You don't think it might be a bit difficult, what he's going through? Seeing April and Casey every day, wondering why she broke up with him out of the blue, what he did wrong. Donatello needs you supporting him, not reprimanding him. How would you feel if you had to experience that?"
"I wouldn't drag it out like this. I'd find a way to be okay with how things turned out, because there wouldn't be any changing what's already happened."
Faline stared at Leo stoically, her hands loose at her sides, though her fingers twitched like she wanted to curl them into fists. "So, if I left you, without warning, for another guy, you would be peachy keen?"
"I...no, I would be devastated. But that's diff—"
"How is it different?" Fae shoved her blonde bangs out of her eyes, fully exposing their angry blue depths, like the sky before a storm. "Donnie loved her. And you love me. So how can you excuse yourself from being frightened of losing me, and still blame him for his worst fear coming true?"
Leonardo struggled internally, wanting so badly to fight her reasoning, knowing too well that, as per usual, she'd backed him into a corner with her words.
"It's just different," he finally managed.
Fae's lips were a thin line, her eyes downturned and miffed. She brushed past her boyfriend, making a point to not make any more contact than a light touch of his shoulder, brusk and short.
"Whatever," she mumbled, "Just call him. And try having a little compassion for once. You know it would suck to be in his shoes right now."
Leonardo watched her bustle out. The desperate pleas from his youngest brother still echoed through the lair. He was too busy staring blankly at the trashed alarm system to tell him to quiet down.
So much for taking some time to clear their heads.
