"Like, not everyone could've been kung fu fighting, right?"
"Wait, who was kung fu fighting?
"Everybody apparently."
"Why? Was it a battle?"
Mikey laughed. "No, it was a song. One of the best selling singles of all time!"
Karai stared at him blankly from the other end of the couch.
"You have heard of songs, right?"
Karai's eyes narrowed.
"Okay, okay," Mikey said with another laugh. "Here, I'll pull it up for you to hear. Just make sure you don't play it around Leo," he said, pulling out his T-phone. "It gets stuck in his head and he'll walk around the lair singing it for days, although, he likes to insert the word ninjitsu in place of kung fu."
Karai felt an actual grin grow on her face as she watched the youngest turtle mumble about ninjitsu being the wrong number of syllables for the line in the song. He was currently the only brother home with her and had invited her out of her room to eat dinner with him and Woody, who they were still waiting on. She had to admit, Michelangelo was incredibly easy to be around. She thought part of it was due to the fact that he had no expectations of her except for her to listen to his stories. And maybe laugh here and there.
She watched him as he stared down at his T-phone for a moment, and although he'd said he was going to pull up the song for her, his large green fingers weren't currently moving.
"What's wrong?" she asked.
Mikey's eyes moved up to Karai's face and then back down to the clock on his T-phone. He stood from the couch and hit Woody's speed dial.
Karai sat and watched as Mikey fidgeted while he waited for someone to pick up. When no one seemed to answer, he turned and headed towards the lair's exit.
"Wait, where are you going?" she called out, jumping up to follow him.
"I'm gonna find him."
"Find who?"
"He's probably just lost in the tunnels."
"Woody?" Karai asked, trying to keep up with Mikey's train of thought.
He nodded and she kept pace next to him through the first tunnel. She thought about staying back and letting him meet up with his friend by himself, but Mikey looked a little off, and she decided against letting him go by himself.
He groaned and shuddered through their kiss as Leo's fingers continued to squeeze and slide up and down his tail.
They'd gone for a run and Raph was pretty sure Leo had intended to actually run. But once they were far enough away from the lair, he'd pulled Leo into a side tunnel and was already kissing him before he'd even gotten Leo's shell shoved into a wall.
Leo's fingers tightened once more on his tail and Raph grabbed the wrist of the teasing fingers and pinned Leo's hand to the wall. The rough treatment actually pulled a throaty moan from Leo that heated Raph's insides. He moved his mouth and bit into Leo's neck, earning himself a repeat of that same throaty groan. Christ.
"Leo," he groaned. He pinned Leo's other hand to the wall and Leo groaned again and moved to rub his lower plastron against Raphael. "Yer driving me crazy with that noise, Fearless," he gruffed out. "Ya like it rough?"
Leo hummed. "Why do you think I like sparring with you so much?"
"Cause you like bein pinned beneath me?"
Leo growled at Raph's tease and Raphael chuckled. After all, Leo gave as good as he got in the dojo.
"Yer not puttin up much of a fight right now, though," Raph said, glancing at Leo's pinned hands. He knew Leo could get out of this if he wanted to, but the other turtle wasn't even trying.
Leo shook his head slowly and kissed what he could reach of Raph's face. "I don't want to fight you here," he murmured.
Raphael moved his mouth back to Leo's mouth and thought about what Leo said while he rubbed their lower plastrons together. He faintly heard something buzzing, but ignored it until Leo forced one of his wrists free to pull his T-phone off his belt.
"Mikey?" Leo said as he pressed the phone to his ear and did his best to sound as normal as possible while Raphael growled at the interruption and continued to rub up against him.
But Raphael frowned and pulled away from Leo when Mikey's frantic tone of voice exploded out of Leo's phone and reached his own ears.
"Wait, wait," Leo said, straightening himself away from where Raph had had him pressed into the tunnel wall in order to stand up straight. His face was already set in a stern expression as he tried to decipher what Mikey was saying through the hysteria. "Who chewed on the pizza boxes?"
Raphael tilted his head. If Mikey was interrupting his alone time with Leo over some ruined pizza boxes –
"I doubt Woody would chew on pizza boxes," Leo said before pulling the phone away from his head as Mikey's voice escalated to a new level of frantic.
Leo pressed the phone back to his ear as he heard Karai's voice suddenly come on the line. His frown grew deeper as she tried to calmly explain what they were looking at outside the pizzeria.
"Okay, please go with him. I'll send Raph to you." Leo tucked his phone back into his belt and was immediately met by a frown from Raph.
"We were busy," Raph said. "What does the doofus want?"
"He says Woody is missing," Leo answered and watched as Raph's expression of annoyance turned to one of immediate concern. "Something happened with pizza boxes at the pizzeria? I'm going to head up there to check it out."
"Then I'm goin with ya."
"No," Leo said as he headed back down their tunnel to get to the closest manhole cover. "You head to Woody's apartment. That's where Mikey and Karai are headed."
"So they're already paired up. Ya ain't goin off alone, Leo -,"
"Raph, listen," Leo said, stopping suddenly in order to turn to the other turtle, "Mikey is hysterical and Karai doesn't know how to handle him right now. But you do," he said, poking a finger into Raph's plastron. "So I need you there. I'll call Donnie and have him meet me at the pizzeria. If Woody is not at his apartment, you bring Mikey home. Okay?"
Raphael continued to glower but slowly nodded in agreement.
Leo pulled his T-phone out again and headed down a tunnel away from Raphael. "I'll call Donnie right now, and if you -,"
He was spun around by strong hands on his shoulders and kissed again before Raph growled and turned to stomp off in the other direction.
Donnie shifted and pulled his arm slowly off both April and Casey as he heard his T-phone buzz across the room. He moved slowly off the bed and carried the phone into the hallway before answering.
When he returned to April's room a few moments later, he was surprised to find April pulling on pants and Casey sitting on the edge of the bed tying his shoes.
"I didn't mean to wake you," he said and caught his elbow pads as Casey tossed them to him.
April pulled her hair up into a ponytail and moved to open her window. She stood there waiting as Donnie geared up and Casey adjusted his hockey bag over his shoulder before throwing more gear in Donnie's direction.
Donnie had a small smile as he moved towards the window as well. If this was his new life, he could certainly get used to it. Because even though he'd grown up in a group with his brothers, a group that was always going to be there for each other, there was something about the way that he, Casey, and April moved together that had always seemed rather natural to him. He'd noticed it previously out on patrols. And he'd certainly noticed it earlier in April's bed.
So really, it didn't surprise him that the other two were up and moving even though it was the middle of the night. That they were automatically going where he was going. That they were moving through the window to the fire escape with no questions asked.
Karai raised her hand and knocked on the apartment door. She took in a deep breath to calm herself, still feeling rattled over seeing a slightly hysterical Michelangelo.
Raph had met them on the rooftop across the street and she'd watched in slight amazement as the typically gruff Raphael had quickly pulled the frantic little turtle into a hug until he was finally able to explain what they had found at the pizzeria. Then he was able to explain which windows they were currently trying to look in to see if Woody was home. But the window coverings were blocking their view, which was only serving to increase Mikey's panic. But Raph had refocused Mikey again by asking for the layout of Woody's apartment and anything he knew about its other occupants.
Which left Karai standing outside the apartment, waiting for someone to answer.
The door swung open soon after she'd knocked by a young man. A young man with bright red hair that immediately captured her attention.
"Can I help you?"
She snapped her eyes away from his hair and reminded herself why she was here.
"I'm looking for Woody. Does he live here?"
The redhead frowned at her which had her immediately frowning back.
"Woody is my roommate," he finally said, almost smiling at her mirrored response. "But he's not here. He sent me a text earlier that he was headed to a friend's house after work."
"Well, he's not at work and he didn't make it to our home," Karai said. "Is there anywhere else he might've gone?"
The redhead was frowning again while he pulled his cell phone and immediately dialed Woody's number.
"We tried that," she offered, although she could tell he was going to let it ring until Woody's voicemail picked up, the same thing Michelangelo had been doing for the last hour or so.
"You're the friend he was going to see?" the redhead asked as he listened to the phone ring in his ear. "I always thought Woody's friend was a guy."
"He's friends with my brother."
"So why isn't your brother here looking for him?" he asked as he hit the end button at the sound of Woody's voicemail message.
"He's out looking for him," she said, feeling immediately defensive of Michelangelo. "I said I'd check here."
The young man's eyes moved back to her face at the sharp tone in her voice. He recognized the tone because he'd always felt a certain brotherly protectiveness of Woody, much like she was currently displaying for her own brother. He'd met Woody when they'd both been placed in the same foster home a few years ago, before he'd aged out of system and had to leave Woody behind there. But they'd kept in touch and he'd quickly joined forces with Woody and their other two roommates once Woody had aged out as well.
He pushed the door open further and nodded for her to follow him, which she quickly did, if only so she could scan the place herself to make sure Woody was not inside.
"It's not that big a place," he said, watching her. "I think I'd notice if he was here or not."
Her phone rang before she could respond and she immediately heard Mikey's voice on the other end.
"Anything?"
"He's not here," she said gently. She looked back to the other in the room. "Any ideas?"
He shook his head at her. "I can make a few calls but he's kind of stopped hanging out with our friends lately in order to hang out with your brother."
"His roommate is going to make some phone calls to look for him," she said into the phone to Mikey.
"We need to go back to the pizzeria," Mikey said, looking over to Raph. "If he didn't make it here, then we need to go back there and look for some clues or something."
"Leo wants you home after this," Raph said in a low voice.
"Home?" Mikey said in a shout that had Karai pulling the phone away from her ear. "I'm not going home, Raphael! Not with Woody out here somewhere! You didn't see the pizza boxes!"
"I'll meet back up with you in a minute," Karai said quickly before ending the call.
"He sounds pretty upset," the redhead said with a frown as he could feel his own worry for Woody growing.
"Just – take my number and call me if you find out anything, okay?"
"Fine," he said, pulling his phone out so he could enter her number into it. "But only if you do the same. What's your name?"
"Karai," she said while entering the number he gave her into her own phone. She looked up at him expectantly a moment later.
"I'm Sam."
A/N: If you read my Promise series, then you probably recognize Sam as Dr. Chaplin. I couldn't find his actual first name when I introduced him in "Excursions", so I had to make one up.