#donarai

“WHOA!” Mikey squeaked.

“What the shell?” Raph demanded.

“How the heck did you…” April trailed off.

“Uh...Donnie?”

Don opened an eyelid below his sunglasses and saw Leo gaping up at the heat lamp, his head tilted fully back to take it all in.

“Why didn’t you tell us you were having a beach party?” Mikey rushed forward and tried to climb on top of Donatello to bask in the warmth, but Don held him back with a hand to the face.

“Because I wanted to relax for once,” Don replied with a snotty edge. “I barely get a moment’s peace around here!”

“Then why’s Karai here?” Raph wondered.

“I helped,” she replied with a self satisfied smile. She took another sip of her drink and sighed in content.

“So were you ever going to tell us about this?” April shivered even with her two wool sweaters and the sleeves pulled over her hands.

Don felt a little guilty then. “Well, yeah...just after I tried it first. I made it, so I get dibs!”

“What kind of capitalist logic is this?” Mikey demanded.

Karai laughed and lowered her sunglasses. “Look, guys...you’re kind of blocking my light.”

Leo and April took a step back with a murmur of apology, but Raph strode forward until his shadow fell over her. “Sorry, am I ruining your tan, sister?”

She pursed her lips and glowered behind her sunglasses. Before she could come up with a snappy retort, Mikey spread out a spare blanket on the floor in front of Raph’s feet and planted himself on the ground between the two of them.

“Ahhhhhhhhhhh, that’s the stuff…” he hummed as he laid out flat on his front.

Catching on, Raph smirked at the two of them and squeezed himself between the two loungers. He had to wiggle to make enough room, and he jostled Karai’s seat enough to make her glass wobble.

“Watch it!” she cautioned.

Raph settled on his front and folded his arms to pillow his head. “Sorry,” he sing-songed in a voice that was clearly not sorry one bit.

Don’s paradise was quickly growing into a popular tourist destination. He looked up to find April and Leo staring at Mikey and Raph with a mixture of longing and envy. After a few seconds of deliberation, he sighed and scooted his seat further back.

“Come on, there are some extra blankets around here,” he grunted as he reached over the armrest of his chair. “Aha!”

He laid one out on the floor at his feet and tucked up his legs. Grateful, April clambered up onto the end of his lounger and wrapped the blanket around her shoulders. Leo practically collapsed on the blanket, and if Don didn’t know any better, instantly fell asleep.

Within minutes, most of them were dozing, shells rising and falling with their breath. April was curled up against his legs, and she snored softly into the crook of his knee. He glanced over at Karai, the only other person still awake.

“So much for first dibs,” Don said with a breathy laugh.

Karai only responded with a distant hum. He yawned and added, “But this is still pretty nice. I might...take a nap.”

The heat was starting to get to him, too, and his eyelids started to droop. Before he let them close, he looked blearily at Karai and added, “Don’t let us sleep too long, okay? Master Splinter...will wonder...about training…”

When Karai looked up at him again, his head had lolled forward onto his chest. She smiled and patted his arm.

Donatello nodded. That was the closest his stoic brother would get to encouragement.

“You ready?”

Donatello slid his hands along the smooth shaft of his weapon and softened his knees for the pounce.

“Always.”

Karai grinned. The flash of her knife announced her attack.

Donatello blocked her first and second blow, then jumped the sweep of her leg. He swung at her middle with his staff, then tucked and rolled beneath her outstretched arm when she jabbed at his chest. As he ducked, blocked, and met her attacks, he was all too aware of his brother’s eyes boring into him, the amused curl of Karai’s mouth as she danced around him like this was a game for her. The way she weaved and bobbed, always evasive, just beyond his reach, was so snakelike that Donatello half expected to see a forked tongue when she licked her chapped lips.

His attention wavered, and Karai seized her chance. A hand clamped on his wrist, his arm was twisted behind him, and he landed face first on the mat. A foot landed on his shoulder to hold him there and the hand turned into a vice. He gasped for breath and jostled his shoulders, but the grip held. As he thrashed, Donatello grunted in frustration at the humiliation of being pinned over and over by a girl whose fighting style he couldn’t figure out. He heard a laugh, and then he felt warm breath wash over his neck as Karai bent forward, pressing her weight into her foot. She was so close, he could smell the sweat on her.

“You look good down there,” Karai teased. “Being pinned suits you.”

Something snapped inside Donatello; his patience, stretched too thin for too long. With a heave, Donatello threw Karai off his shell and whirled to face her, his beak pulled in a snarl. His hand found his staff and he lunged to his feet, lunged toward her with fire in his belly.

Karai’s movements showed cool indifference, but her face was alight with energy as she met and blocked each increasingly violent blow. The confident smile morphed into grim determination as Donatello continued to counter every attack, relentless in his battery. Her red mouth pressed into a line, and soon she started to pull back, trying to regroup, to find an opening–

There it was; his left side was exposed.

Karai feinted to one side, then struck out with her foot. But a hand caught her ankle, and with a tug, she was flat on her back with her head spinning and his wooden staff bearing down on her.

Dazed, she peered up at him through narrowed eyes and was surprised to see a cocky grin swimming above her.

“I think you look better down here than me,” Don said, breathless and triumphant, “but that’s just my opinion.”

His face came into focus, and the excitement that shone in his eyes was new. It blazed with newfound confidence.

“Nice work, Don,” Leo said from somewhere off to the side, “But next time, try not to get pinned first.”

Donatello’s smile faltered and he shot his brother a hurt and confused look. But then he got to his feet and did something that Karai had never seen before: he offered his hand to help her up.

Karai stared at the hand like she had never seen one before, and blinked when he wiggled his fingers.

“Need a hand?” he prompted her.

The sheer sincerity of the offer and the way he seemed to glow post-victory made Karai’s stomach churn. A Hamato didn’t just offer a hand; there were always string attached. She wasn’t going to be tied to anything.

Karai knocked his hand aside and got to her feet with a scowl. She pocketed her knife and marched out of the training room without a backward glance.