Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

How does one manage to catch a cold in the middle of the summer?

Donatello would’ve really liked the answer to that hypothetical. He sniffed, holding his aching head as he leaned over his desk.

As much as he wanted to crumple to the floor and fall asleep on the cold concrete, he just needed to figure out the protein sequence for the retro-mutagen. April needed him to figure it out.

He squinted down at his notes, the chicken scratch from the past half hour blurring into a smear in his vision. He closed his eyes, feeling dizzy.

Donnie groaned, dragging his hand down his face, grimacing as he felt it slick with sweat.

God this was awful.

He stretched with a yawn, almost knocking over the canister of mutagen in front of him. Luckily, even in his sleep deprived and disheveled state, his reflexes were intact enough to catch it.

He heaved a sigh of relief as he put it back in its place

Coffee.

Coffee would help.

Legs feeling like tungsten, he trudged out of his chair. 

The moment he opened the door to his lab, the usual light and noise of the lair hit him like an eighteen wheeler on a highway.

Donnie had to lean against the doorway for a minute as he adjusted to the tv blasting Space Heroes along with Leo’s constant commentary on the show, the sounds of Raph absolutely demolishing yet another training dummy, and the fluorescent overhead lights making his brain swim.

Dragging his feet against the floor with every step, he staggered into the kitchen. He had to immediately lean against the counter once he made it to the coffee machine.

Too bright. Too loud.

“Yeesh dude! You look awful!”

Mikey was too close. 

“ Thank you, Mikey.”

He grabbed the pot and a mug, pouring himself a cupful of liquid caffeine.

“Mikey’s right, Donnie. You don’t look too good.”

Donnie nearly dropped his coffee. When did April get there? What time was it?!

He whirled around to face the girl, hoping he didn’t look as awful as he felt.

“Wha- oh! I uh, I didn’t know you were here, April!

He put on a smile despite how much his body ached. Oh.

Ugh.

Casey was here too.

Just great.

The vigilante wasn’t really doing anything at the moment to tick him off- Wait, no. Casey was using Donnie’s mug. Yeah, that ticked him off.

“Really, Donnie. I think you should get some rest. The retro-mutagen can wait.”

As much as he liked April’s gentle touch on his arm trying to lead him out of the kitchen, Donnie had only planned on a short break.

“Science waits for no one! I have to get back and- an- ah choo!”

Complying with disease and virus control recommendations, Donnie raised an elbow and sneezed into it.

A thunk was heard from behind and Donnie turned to see Casey put down the (his) mug. 

Amazing. He left a smear of face paint on it that Donnie was going to have to wash off later.

“Dude… was that your sneeze?”

Donnie looked from left to right. April shrugged and so he looked the boy dead in the eyes.

“Um. yes? ”

Casey’s mouth opened, first in shock, then in absolute hysteria.

“AHAHAHAH! OH MY GOD!! YOU SOUND LIKE- LIKE A KITTEN!”

He slapped his palm against his forehead and continued to crack up. His head was tilted back and his mouth was wide open in full laughter.

There was nothing attractive in that many missing teeth.

Gross.

Donnie rolled his eyes, tiredly leaning against the counter again.

“Oh hoh- big, bad, stickmaster Donatello has an adorable tiny sneeze! That’s the funniest thing I’ve heard all week!”

Casey barely squeezed the words out in between his breaths.

“Please, it’s not that funny.”

April crossed her arms and popped a hip to the side with a smirk.

“Well, it was kinda funny. Adorable lil kitten sneeze.”

“Raph and Leo make fun of your sneeze all the time behind your back!”

Mikey chimed in and Donnie punched him in the arm.

“Enough, guys. It’s really not tha- a- ah choo.”

He sneezed into his elbow again, it finally registering how high pitched the sound was.

Casey absolutely lost it.

He gripped onto the table for support with one hand and wrapped his other arm around his stomach, unable to even look up long enough for Donnie to give him a proper glare.

His entire body wracked with full laughter, stomping his heel into the ground.

Donnie just rolled his eyes a final time, grabbed his coffee, and left the kitchen.

Trudging back to his lab, he could still hear Casey’s laughter, now wheezy and scratchy from running out of breath.

He muttered to himself under his breath once he was out of earshot of everybody.

“Stupid Casey…”

⋅•⋅⊰∙∘☽☾ ”Time does not change us, it only unfolds us” -Max Frisch ☽☾∘∙⊱⋅•⋅

Casey jumped the turnstiles quieter and more carefully than he usually did. It was more of a climb than a jump, actually. Casey always did the sickest turnstile jumps whenever he entered the lair.

His bag swung around a bit, but he steadied it gently with a hand.

Quiet. Careful. Gentle.

Those were not word’s that normally went in the same sentence as “Casey”.

That was the first warning flag in Raph’s mind. He put down the slice of pizza halfway to his mouth.

“Casey? What are you doing here? It’s like- midnight, man.”

Casey startled in surprise, whirling around to face Raph. His bag almost crashed into the metal turnstile behind him, but he grabbed it in the nick of time.

“Wh- what are you doin’ here?!”

A second warning flag went up.

“I… Live here?”

“Oh- right right right…”

The two stood in uncomfortable silence, more and more flags going up as Raph looked his friend over.

For one thing, his posture was curled inwards, almost nervous. Very un-Casey Jones.

The hoodie he wore looked new and was several sizes way too big on him. Like, more than usual. It even had a NASA logo on it. Raph bet Casey didn’t even know what ‘NASA’ stood for.

And his hair was washed. 

Raph sighed, pinching between his eyes. All he wanted was a midnight pizza while his brothers were asleep to make up for all the stress earlier that day. Was that really too much to ask for?

“Why’re ya here, man? It’s the freezing middle of winter and the dead of night.”

“Alright, alright. You got me. I heard Donnie wasn’t feeling too good so I thought I’d stop by.”

Casey held his hands up in mock surrender. Apparently the heart attack from getting caught was wearing off because his cocky attitude was starting to creep back.

Raph let out a bigger sigh, fresh memories of the day resurfacing in his mind. Damn , he needed that pizza.

“Listen dude, Donnie’s really not feeling good. I don’t think he’s the mood for whatev-”

“What? No! I’m not gonna make fun of him for being sick! What kinda guy do you think I am?”

Uh… A guy that takes cheap shots at his rival whenever possible? Raph thought in his mind. Because that was exactly the kind of guy Casey Jones was.

“I made him soup!”

He what.

True to his word, Casey walked over to the kitchen table, plopped down his bag, and pulled out a tupperware full of soup.

Raph’s jaw dropped slightly at the sight.

“Hold on. Lemme get this straight. You- you, ‘mister I-burned-a-pop-tart-please-come-help-me’ actually cooked something? Is it edible?”

He took the plastic container. It was still warm and the smell coming off it was delicious.

“Hey! That was years ago! And I thought we all agreed there was something wrong with that toaster! I can follow a simple recipe…”

Raph raised a brow.

“ And… my sister helped… a little… ”

Maybe Raph should’ve questioned further. Like, ‘ why in the middle of the night? What’s up with the mega hoodie? Why are you sneaking around?’

But truth be told, his pizza was getting cold.

“Whatever. He’s supposed to be in his room sleeping. But, yaknow, Donnie.”

He handed back the soup, mentally calling dibs on any leftovers.

“Right, lab . Thanks bro!”

Soup under an arm, Casey made a beeline for Donnie’s lab, fully ignoring the many vibrant yellow DO NOT DISTURB signs.

Raph watched his friend go, wondering why Casey had a grin on his face when he was going to be seeing a sick man.

But those thoughts dissipated the moment he took that perfect first bite of lukewarm day-old microwaved pizza.

Chapter Text

“CASEY!!”

Donnie’s shout nearly shook the foundation of the lair to nearly everyone's dismay. Patrol had gone extra long that night and anyone in their right mind was resting or at least trying to relax.

Relax how? By watching the seventeenth season of Super Robo Mecha Force Five, of course. 

Everyone was huddled on the couch, watching the opening sequence with exhaustion ridden attention.

Everyone except a certain purple themed turtle.

Casey simply rolled over from his position on the couch, tilting the back of his head over the armrest to look up at the turtle who was quickly stomping his way over.

Sigh. The badly dubbed anime would have to wait, apparently.

“What.”

A glass beaker was suddenly shoved into his face, much too close for comfort. Casey was mildly surprised with himself that he didn’t flinch. Maybe it was because his entire body was dead tired from skating around for hours.

Donnie’s angry face looked warped through the curved glass as Casey glared at him.

“Did you go into my lab?”

Casey pushed the beaker out of his face with a finger. 

“No? Why would I wanna enter your dorky nerd zone?”

He had gone in there earlier just to snoop around, but he wasn’t about to admit that to an angry ninja who looked two seconds away from blowing a fuse.

“I know you did, Jones.”

It’s more of a hiss than anything and its tone ruffles Casey the wrong way.

“Whu- I said i didn’t, so I didn’t!”

Their squabble had now reached the point where the others were turning away from the screen. Leo, the most reluctant.

“Donnie, if he says he didn-”

“But he did!”

More than anything, Casey wanted to comment on how Donnie’s voice cracked, but the sensible voice in his head reminded him that a beaker could be smashed into a glass knife probably faster than he could run away.

“Dude, just chill out.”

Casey scratched at his face as he yawned, feeling the face paint he had forgotten about smear under his finger. Whoops.

Ah well, it wasn’t like he was going out again soon.

“Chill out?... Chill out?!”

Leo had apparently decided that he wasn;t going to be a part of the conversation anymore, turning back to the anime and not daring to look back at the fight that was inevitably escalating.

“ You were messing around with my current chemical experiment? You could have ruined my chances of synthesizing a retro-mutagen!”

More like ruined his chances of getting with April, Casey mused in his mind. April was gonna be his, whether Donnie liked it or not. Casey Jones was gonna get the girl.

“How did you even know I was in there? It’s not like you guys have cameras or anything.”

The beaker was shoved again in his face, but before Casey could push it away again, he noticed a black smear on the outside of the glass.

He crossed his eyes to see it better.

A dark, smudged fingerprint.

Busted.

“You left your face paint all over my desk, my notebook, my research. You always leave these dirty face paint smears on my cups and doors and everywh- YOU LEFT ANOTHER!! ”

Donnie pulled the beaker up to his eyes, losing his temper as he squinted at the dirtied glass.

“You always insist on wearing your ‘warpaint’ but you never clean it up? How do you expect me to work like this? What if the oil based polymers reacted with my nitrogen tetroxide and rendered it null? Huh, Jones?”

The turtle was now pacing back and forth, not even looking at Casey as he ranted.

“Ignoring the fact thatI have no idea what you just said, just wipe it off! It’s not that big of a deal.”

Casey lifted his arms above his head, closing his eyes as he nonchalantly stretched out his back, relishing in the way Donnie’s face scrunched up in frustration.

His foot ended up hitting Raph who was sitting at the other end of the couch.

“Donnie. Just shut up n’ let it go .”

The death glare that came from those bright green eyes made even Casey want to stop talking and the look wasn’t even directed at him.

Donnie stooped down, not two inches from Casey’s face. His voice low and quiet, he whispered into Casey’s ear.

“STOP wearing that stupid face paint, STOP going into my lab, and STOP leaving these DISGUSTING marks everywhere.”

In turn, Casey just snorted and rolled back over to watch Captain Dash slap Dr. Blip across the face yet again. Oh how Casey wished he could slap a little nerd like that.

“Yeah okay, whatever man.”

“I’m serious.”

Once Donnie’s footsteps faded and he heard the door to the lab slam shut, Casey let out the breath he had been holding.

Was it normal to feel that warm after someone threatened him like that? With that low and harsh voice all up in his face? It was normal, right? It had to be. 

Casey barely had time to debate it over in his head before another shout came from the lab.

“UGH! YOU UNCIVILIZED NEANDERTHAL! YOU STAINED MY LAB CHAIR!!”

⋅•⋅⊰∙∘☽☾ ”Time does not change us, it only unfolds us” ☽☾∘∙⊱⋅•⋅

Leo got up off his knees, taking a deep, refreshing breath. A midday meditation always helped to clear his mind. As he stretched out his legs, feeling slightly stiff after being bent for so long, he noticed his brother’s weapon that had been previously leaning against the dojo wall, slip and clatter to the floor.

Leo always had his katanas strapped to his back. As leader, he took it upon himself to always be ready for anything at all times.

Raph’s sais and Mikey’s nunchucks were small enough to fit comfortably in their belt holsters.

Donnie’s six foot staff, however, was too large to be constantly carried around and was therefore often left in the dojo. It wasn’t like he was leaving himself defenseless or anything, he had years of hand to hand combat mastered and his weapon was never really that far away.

Leo crossed the matted floor to upright the staff again, but once he got close enough to get a good look at it, he sucked in a small breath with a grimace.

Ohh boy.

Donnie wasn’t going to like that.

Straight on the grip tape, there was a five inch dark black smear. It was stark against the white of the tape and by the looks of it, wasn’t coming off any time soon unless Donnie replaced the entire grip with new tape.

Leo pushed a finger down the mark, feeling a small bit of it transer. He rubbed his fingers together.

Yep. Oil based paint.

Casey’s doing.

Careful not to leave another mark, he carried the stick out of the dojo and mentally prepared himself for Donnie’s wrath. 

Now- Leo may have been leader, but when Donnie was mad mad, he had a temper that put Raph’s to shame.

He brought up his fist and rapped on the door twice.

“Hey, Donnie?”

There was a bit of shuffling before it opened, revealing Donnie dressed in a black sweatshirt.

“What’s up, Leo?”

Okay, he looked pretty neutral. A good sign.

“Okay, you have to promise you won’t get mad.”

Donnie’s face quickly darkened. Wrong move wrong move-

“What happened.”

He said it more like a statement than a question.

“You’re already getting mad-”

“Just tell me what happened!”

The purple turtle crossed his arms, his mask creasing as he furrowed his brows.

“So… uh- Caseyleftpaintonyourstaffand… I don’t think… it’s… going to come… out?”

Leo’s rapidfire explanation slowly pittered out into a weak question as he watched the anger melt from his brother's face. It turned into confusion when Donnie started snickering.

“Pfft- I thought something actually bad had happened.”

“Huh?”

But… Donnie hated it when Casey ruined his stuff. That’s how it’s always been, right?

“Casey wanted to try my bo staff when he was over earlier, so I tried to teach him a few moves.”

Donnie took the weapon out of Leo’s stunned hands, looking closely at the smudge.

“And… you let him?”

“Uh, yeah? It’s not like he was going to break it or anything.”

Donnie said with a relaxed shrug.

“But- but he stained it. Aren’t you upset?”

Leo watched as his brother rubbed his hand over the smudge, smearing it further until it wouldn’t transfer off anymore.

“Not really, it’s just paint. Besides, it’s a nice reminder of him. The way you can always tell where he's been and half the time he doesn't even notice... Greasy and grimy little Casey Jones.”

It was technically an insult, but Donnie had called Casey ‘greasy and grimy’ with such a fond tone.

“...If you say so. At least you aren’t mad.”

Donnie let out a small snort at that and Leo suddenly noticed that he had splotches of paint on his face.

They were barely noticeable but clearly there.

“Uh… You got a little something on your, um…”

Leo gestured to his cheek.

Donnie had faint smudges of black and white on his cheek, forehead, neck, and even a little bit on his lips-

“Ahaha- What?! Don’t pay attention to that!”

He reached up to touch his face, immediately flaring red and frantically rubbing his sleeve against his face.

“You’ve got some on your shirt too- Why are you covered in Casey's face paint? And when did you get a NASA hoodie? That looks too nice to be from a dumpster-”

“OKAY GOOD TALK, LEO. BYE.”

And then the door slammed shut in the face of a flabbergasted Leo, his mask tails flying behind him from the force.

He stood there for a moment, stupefied whiplash rooting him to the spot.

Leo shook his head, turning away and going back to the dojo.

He needed to clear his head again.

Chapter Text

Donnie was awakened by the acrid smell of smoke and the noise of arguing. 

Not the most pleasant way to start the day. Especially after going to sleep way too late the night prior.

He coughed in vain, trying to lighten up the gross feeling the smell was leaving in his throat as he stumbled his way to his bedroom door. Both sensations doubled when he opened it, the air even having a thin haze to it as smoke wafted out from the kitchen.

“Sewer apples! What happened?!”

He found out just a few seconds later when he slid into the kitchen.

It wasn’t a fire. Thank god. It was…

Casey Jones…

Because of course it was.

The one and only Casey Jones was at their kitchen table wearing rhe same stained hoodie that he had had on during patrols the night before (not that Donnie ever paid that much attention to him or what he was wearing. Ever.) He sat in front of a paper towel that held a black lump of something. Raph was standing over the boy as they argued back and forth.

Mikey was standing back, not saying a word (shocking, Donatello noted in his mind) as he eyed up the chunk of carbon as if he was trying to see whether or not it was something edible.

“Nah, y’know what? I’m just gonna go back to sleep. I don’t know why you called me in here for a damn pop tart. It’s too early for this. Wake me up when Leo gets back.”

Raph pushed past Donnie and went back to his own room, shutting the door with more force than he needed to use.

“Fine, then! Sorry for thinking you would help me!”

Casey spat out with gritted teeth. 

Donnie sighed. Raph was right about one thing. It was too early for whatever was happening. He grabbed a simple piece of bread and slotted it into the toaster, bumping his elbow into Mikey to get his attention off eating the pop-part-turned-tar abomination. 

“Where's Leo?”

The absence of their leader was abundantly clear once Raph slammed the door to his room again without a passive aggressive reminder of ‘gentle close, please’ or ‘remember, anger is a dangerous ally’

“Pshh, You know Leo and toasters. The second he heard something went wrong with the toaster, the guy booked it so you wouldn’t blame him.”

Donnie shrugged.

“Fair.”

Mikey began eyeing Casey’s “breakfast” again with interest. He slid up to the boy, resting his elbows on the table as he pointed down at the clump of char.

“You gonna eat that?”

Casey made a face and put his fingers on the paper towel like he was actually going to let him eat it. 

Donnie decided to intervene.

“Mikey, no . That… thing is now full of carcinogens. You could get carbon poisoning from that. Honestly, I’m not even sure how Casey managed to screw up such a simple task.”

Was it a low blow? Yes. But Donnie was running on three point two hours of sleep and had yet to even touch the coffee pot.

He raked his eyes over Casey dramatically, frowning at every flaw.

“Oh, nevermind. I see.”

Casey in turn stood up, slamming his fist into the table and making the contents shake.

“And what the fuck‘s that supposed to mean?!”

Donnie pushed his little brother to the side and out of harm's way before putting his own palms on the table, much more gently than Casey did, gesturing to the boy.

“You know, barbaric, simple minded , unable to do basic tasks.”

The turtle grinned sardonically, knowing he was grinding the boy’s gears.

“Unable to- Pshh - It’s not even burned that badly! It’s just…”

Casey’s eyes flicked to the pastry. It went cool a long time ago, but now the outside was releasing some sort of dark gas with black particles drifting off from the outer shell.

“…A little crispy.”

The boy finished.

“Really?”

Donnie raised a brow, looking down to where Casey was slowly pulling the absolutely incinerated clump closer to himself. He had a set look of determination  on his face as he lowered himself back into his chair.
He wasn’t…

He wasn’t really gonna…

Not even Casey Jones would eat…

Donnie should’ve stopped him. The turtle knew he should’ve but at the same time, he wanted to see what would happen.

Casey bit into the black pastry, chewed, and swallowed.

The sound itself was vile. A revolting crunch that sounded like it should’ve knocked out more of the kid’s teeth rang out in the stunned silence of the kitchen. The boy's eyes remained locked on Donnie’s as he observed in horror.

“Dee…”

Mikey slowly approached his brother who was standing completely still, looking at Casey. 

Something in Donnie finally snapped and he was able to form words again.

“Casey. Jones. I cannot BELIEVE you just-”

“Deeee…”

Mikey poked him with a finger, but Donnie just brushed him off. He was preoccupied with dealing with the complete idiot seated before him.

“I will NOT be calling poison control to the lair, so help me-”

“Donnieee…”

Mikey was now tugging on his arm to get his attention, but Donnie persisted in his rant.

“Spit it out. Spit that out! Casey! You're so- UGH- you’re so SO- WHAT DO YOU NEED, MIKEY?!”

Donnie felt a twinge of guilt when he whirled around to shout, seeing Mikey’s head dip into his shell. However, before he could apologize, another smell assaulted his nose. 

That ‘burnt’ smell that had been steadily fading away, was now back tenfold .

Panicking, Donnie nearly jumped the table to get to the toaster that was now spilling a dark, thick smoke over the counter and floor.

As if to point out the obvious, Mikey sheepishly pointed to the mess.

“You- uh, I think you screwed up your toast, Don.”

⋅•⋅⊰∙∘☽☾ “Lame ass quote” ☽☾∘∙⊱⋅•⋅

Mikey coughed, suddenly choking on his pizza. He put down the comic he was reading to sit up.

A cold drink would so hit the spot with his jelly bean, anchovy, and maple syrup pizza.

He slid off his bed, dancing around the maze of discarded pizza boxes as he made his way to his bedroom door and to the kitchen.

He must’ve been super incredibly stealthy and quieter than usual because neither Casey nor Donnie seemed to notice him arrive. That, or the two were too absorbed in whatever they were doing to realize there was someone else there. 

Probably the second, But let a guy pretend, c’mon.

Now actively trying to sneak, Mikey slowly tiptoed through the shadows to get to the fridge. Unintentionally, he picked up a few snippets of their conversation as Casey chopped up some vegetables on a cutting board.

It was… different than they both usually sounded with each other, to say the least. But at the same time, Casey and Donnie had been having a lot of those moments lately.

“Watch your fingers.”

“Pshh- Have a little faith in me, stickmaster.”

As if to prove his point, Casey started moving the knife faster, dicing the whole carrot in no time at all. Mikey stood in the shadows to watch, juice box in hand.

“Well, it’s not like I haven’t seen you get stupider injuries before, you troglodyte.”

Donnie took the board from him, dumping its contents into a simmering pan. Despite his words, the usual bite to his insults was missing.

“Ha! Jokes on you, I don’t even know what that means. Pass me the paprika, please?”

Casey crossed from behind, Grinning in Donnie's face like not knowing a word somehow gave him the upper hand.

“Paprika? Which one’s that?”

As Donnie turned to look at the family’s spice rack (which had grown tremendously ever since Casey decided to read a cookbook) he passed the boy a wooden spoon in the meantime to stir the saucepan.

Normally, Mikey would be miffed that they were using his kitchen supplies. But Casey actually wasn’t half bad at cooking now, so as long as he got a taste of it after, Mikey didn’t really mind.

“It’s the red powdery one in a shaker- Who's the dumb one now?”

Donnie rolled his eyes. 

“Well, excuse me. I didn’t know you morphed into a master chef after making me soup one time while I was sick out of my mind.”

He grabbed the shaker nonetheless, inspecting it as he lightly shook the contents.

”Yeah, that’s the one, Don- Besides, you loved that soup! don’t even lie, you- you u- um… you uhhhh…”

Donnie grabbed the spice, putting it in Casey’s waiting hand. 

From his place to the side, Mikey noticed how long Donnie kept his hands clasped over Casey’s. Like a weirdly long  amount of time.

“You can do it, Case! Use that pea-sized brain of yours!”

Casey then yanked his hand out from Donnie’s flushing red and elbowing him in the ribs. Although it probably didn’t do anything due to the turtles having shells and all, he still laughed and retaliated by elbowing the side that wasn’t stirring the cooking food.

“Ugh! There’s not that many words that start with a U!”

“Fine fine, you can skip that turn… unlettered twat.”

Casey made a face and bumped his hips against Donnie’s.

“You’re too smart for your own good.”

Donnie bumped him back. The two were now standing literally side-to-side.

“Maybe I am. Someone has to watch you and make sure you don’t burn down the lair.”

Donnie batter his eyes innocently enough, but his smirk held something more mischievous.

“You’re never gonna let that go, are ya?”

Casey let the turtle fix his hair, tucking away the strands that had come loose from his bandana.

“Not my fault you act like some kind of vexingly vapid vicuna.”

“Now you’re just showing off you… weirdo.”

The two were technically insulting each other, but Casey’s hand was drifting to Donnie’s hip to pull him impossibly closer and Donnie brought his hand up to invite Casey to rest his head on his shoulder.

Mikey watched on, taking another sip of his juice.

“Weirdo? That’s the best you can come up with? You're getting old, Jones. It’s showing.”

“Pfft- You say that like it’s a bad thing, but I can’t wait to grow old with you.”

Now THAT was not an insult!

As if some master hand of fortune needed to move the story along, Mikey finished his juice box at the worst moment possible. The scratchy noise of air flowing up the straw was enough to startle the pair.

Donnie and Casey jumped apart like they’d both been electrocuted.

“M-miKeY! How long have you been standing there?!”

Mikey in turn, tossed his now empty juice into the trash like it was a basketball.

“Long enough to practice my sick stealth moves!”

He was going to ask what the two were doing earlier and why they were being weird and mushy, but the smell of something savory and delicious hit his nose.

“Ooh! Whatcha cookin, my brochachos?”

Any thoughts of interrogation were completely forgotten.

Chapter Text

Casey groaned, sprawling out his lanky limbs in exasperation. He was seated on a metal box bolted to the roof of some apartment building.

“Ugh- Did all the bad guys go on vacation or something? There's like, zero crime today!”

He peeked over at Donnie, who was diligently crouched by the precarious edge of the rooftop, scouting for any illegal activity on the street below… like he had been doing for the past two hours.

Casey rolled his eyes at the way he was ignoring him. He kicked his foot back against the metal box a, watching his skate mechanism pop the wheels in and out of the sole. The latch at the back of his shoe was his own invention and he was pretty proud of it. Most people tended to think Casey was some sort of incompetent idiot, but when it came to anything that had to do with mechanisms, wheels, or speed, Casey was kind of a whiz.

He kicked his foot a few more times, feeling the satisfying click of the wheels locking into place before disappearing under his feet again.

He complained again, trying to get the turtle's attention again.

“I’m so bored!”

Donnie still ignored him, still staring down at that empty old street through his white nictitating membranes.

Now, before anyone gets all impressed with him, Casey only knew what a ‘nictitating membrane’ was because Donnie yelled at him to stop calling it an ‘eye foreskin’

When Donnie still didn’t turn around, Casey took it upon himself to clock him in the back of the head with a hockey puck.

It landed dead on target with a satisfying thwack, but before the boy could celebrate, Donnie flailed over the roof ledge for just a second, caught his balance, whirled around, and hit him backwards with the butt of his staff so hard, it knocked all the air out of his lungs. It was all one swift, practiced moment, like the turtle had practiced the exact move a hundred times before. 

Which to be fair, he probably did.

“CASEY. Do you have any idea how dangerous that could have been?!”

Stepping up to loom over him, Donnie pushed his staff further into Casey’s chest, forcing the boy to lean back on his elbows.

“Relax, stickmaster. I knew you would be fine.”

The turtle rolled his eyes, but pulled back his staff to let him sit up.

“ Still .”

“Still what? don’t you have- like, ten years of ninja training on ya?”

“I will hit you again, Jones.”

Casey put his hands up in mock surrender as Donnie took a seat on the box next to him, propping his staff up against the edge.

“See? Aint it nice to not be staring at an empty street for hours through your eye foreskins?”

Donnie made a move to grab his staff again.

“Nictitating membranes!- I meant nictitating membranes.”

Donnie let go of his staff again.

“Well, Leo did say it was going to be a light night on crime… and  I guess being outside under the moon at night is pretty nice…”

The turtle gazed up at the bright full moon and for some unfathomable reason, Casey found himself admiring the way his purple mask tails swished against his intricate shell scutes with the slightest night breeze.

And also maybe just slightly admiring the way the moonlight seemed to soak into his gorgeous olive scales, making them glow and creating perfect contours of his toned limbs. Out of jealousy that is… Yeah… just jealousy…

Donnie would probably be strong enough to pick him up without breaking a sweat…

The moment didn’t last long though, as Donnie quickly flicked his eyes to the side, glaring at the boy.

“Or- it would be, without you.”

That was enough to break whatever spell was just hazing Casey’s mind. He scoffed, drawing a knee to his chest while still minding the paint on his face.

“Pfft- right back atcha, Dee.”

He elbowed Donnie in the side, the turtle seemingly not liking that one bit.

In a flash, he grabbed his staff again, hitting Casey square in the back before he could even register the attack.

“Ack- Stop that!”

He drew a hockey stick from the holster strung atop his shoulder, smacking the turtle with the curved blade.

“Hey! You started it with your stupid puck, Jones!”

Donnie blocked a second attack, spinning his bo staff to knock Casey’s hockey stick to the side.

“ You’re a stupid puck!”

Casey countered, going for another jab only to be blocked again.

“What is that even supposed to mean?!”

Donnie finally knocked him to the ground, planting a heavy foot on his chest and pinning his forehead to the ground with the end of his staff. The hockey stick went skittering off to the side as the breath was knocked out of him.

Casey wriggled around a bit before realizing his attempts were completely in vain, Donnie had him stuck. 

Casey Jones simply doing what he does best, immediately reached for the next best thing in his toolbox of ‘Fighting With Donnie’.

Petty insults.

“Pshh- a plain ole’ stick is a dumb weapon anyways.”

Despite being on the ground, weaponless, and otherwise defeated, Casey relished in the indignant scoff that came from Donnie as the turtle let him get up for the second time.

“The bo staff  is a highly versatile weapon! It utilizes arm strength, velocity, precise momentum, and angular rotary movement to-“

The boy was knocked on top of the head with said ‘precise momentum’ once he was caught making yapping gestures with his hand.

“Hey! Ack- Ow!”

Donnie continued his assault, jabbing him in the ribs, stomach, and arms as Casey futilely attempted to dodge.

He finally stumbled over to where his hockey stick had landed, nearly tripping over his own feet as he went to grab it. He did actually trip when Donnie used his staff to sweep his feet straight out from under him, but he recovered and scrambled upright with his stick in hand.

And then a lot of things happened at the same time.

Casey slid backwards to dodge a blow, but fumbled a little bit with his footing. His heel hit the concrete hard.

Click.

The floor was pulled out from underneath him as his wheels shot out from his shoes. The back of his leg knocked against the rooftop ledge and then he was free falling-

But-

Wait-

No he wasn’t.

Donnie’s eyes were blown wide, mouth open with the silent beginnings of a scream as his fingers grasped the front of Casey’s hoodie.

Casey looked down at the tangle of cloth in front of him, to Donnie’s chest heaving up and down, and then to Donnie’s face which looked… scared?

“C-Casey…”

The clatter of Donnie’s staff falling onto the asphalt street below was enough to snap the two of them back to reality.

Casey was then roughly yanked back onto the roof. When he slipped on his skate again, he thought that Donnie would just let him fall since he was safely back on the roof again, but he found himself wrapped up in a pair of strong, green arms. He stomped on the ground to put his skates away and then shoved Donnie off a little quicker than he meant to.

He didn’t want the turtle to feel how fast his heart was racing. Not from the adrenaline from almost falling to his death, but a new type of adrenaline he couldn’t even identify.

“I… I think that's enough patrol for tonight. Leo promised Splinter we’d be back before sunrise anyways.”

Donnie turned away, walking to the fire escape ladder like none of that even happened.

“Y-yeah, sure thing.”

So… Donnie had been able to hold Casey- Not only without breaking a sweat, but also with only one arm.

“Casey, come on!”

Shaking his head to clear out some weird thoughts, Casey looked over to see Donnie’s head peeking out over the ladder, already looking annoyed at him again and leaving the boy wondering if any of that actually happened.

“Yeah yeah, don’t get your shell in a twist. You won’t miss Splinter’s curfew.”

By the time Casey made it down a single floor on the fire escape, Donnie had already done a crazy backflip routine (that Casey couldn’t ever even hope to master) and was picking up his staff from the street.

“It’s not a curfew!”

“Uh huh.”

“I’m telling you it’s not!”

Aaaand they were back to their usual arguing.

Much more normal, at least to Casey.

He was smacked in the back with a wooden stick for the umpteenth time that night, but he could tell that it was lighter than before.

⋅•⋅⊰∙∘☽☾ “Them boys gay.” ☽☾∘∙⊱⋅•⋅

Hamat Yoshi, otherwise known as ‘Splinter’ hasn’t had an easy life. He’s had to adapt to horrific changes that would’ve mentally scarred lesser men, build a life from the ground up- underground up actually, and it’s safe to say the story of a single father is never an easy one. However, if one were to ask him now, he would say he’s content.

And that would not be a lie.

Yes, raising four sons on his own with no money, no home, and no humanity was difficult, but he would do it a thousand times again if need be.

Speaking of his sons, Yoshi could hear sounds coming from his dojo. 

It was supposed to be empty and ready for meditation.

Sparring sounds of wood against wood. But it couldn’t have been nunchucks clattering against each other since Michelangelo was in the kitchen.

He listened closer. He heard Donatello’s calculated steps and swift movements, but his opponent was unfamiliar. Someone who sparred more sporadically and with a wilder style of varied attacks.

Certainly not in the way he had trained any of his sons.

The dojo must be under attack!

He concluded quickly, walking as fast as he could with his cane towards the beaded curtain. Old age had not treated his bad knee well.

He was just about to burst through when he peered in through the wooden beads.

No one was under attack.

That human boy was inside, holding a bo staff and blocking a strike from…

Donatello.

Ah.

Someone must’ve picked another fight. It could have been either one out of the pair, honestly. 

Yoshi trusted that his own son would be able to put someone half his size and weight in his place.

He would tell Leonardo to save his meditation for when the dojo was empty.

He turned, hobbling back to his room when something caught his ear.

“That’s it! Now, do it again but a little higher.”

Another clack.

“Like that?”

“Yes! Exactly like that!”

Donatello was smiling from ear to ear, poised to attack again.

“Huh, ‘s a lot different from just hitting a guy with a stick.”

The two separated and Casey tossed his staff from hand to hand, feeling its weight. 

With a tilt of his head, Yoshi realized that that was Donatello’s staff. The turtle himself was using the broomstick.

He must trust the boy.

“I know! isn’t it great? Once your able to calculate the angles of attack-“

“Pfft- You and your nerd angles- WAUGH!”

Even Yoshi winced as Casey hit the floor, Donatello having swept his feet out from under him with his broom.

“How’s that for angles?”

The boy groaned, wheezing a little bit as he got some air back into his lungs.

“Ugh, that…”

Donatello rushed to his knees, helping Casey up by slinging an arm around his shoulder.

“Oh, sewer apples! Casey! I’m sorry- was that too hard? Agh, I always forget about your bone density!”

“That was hot… Damn, Dee.”

He shot him a cheeky smile. Upon seeing that Casey wasn’t hurt, Donatello visibly relaxed and let out a bashful sigh.

“Caseyyy!”

“You know it’s true! Now c’mon, lets go again.”

Casey pushed a lock of hair out of his face, accidentally getting some black face paint on his fingers before grabbing the staff again.

“Wait, Case-“

Case? Was that a nickname? From Donatello?

“Yeah?”

“Don’t you have school right now?”

“…yeah.”

Donatello smirked, the corner of his mouth twitching up into a slight smile.

“Then- heh, then why aren’t you in homeroom right now?”

At that, Casey swung the bo staff at him, only to be effortlessly blocked.

“You- You know what you did! People wouldn’t stop making fun of me for weeks, man! ”

Casey was knocked off his feet again. Yoshi would have to have a lesson on varied attacks sometime soon.

“Yeah yeah, it was hilarious and I apologized… kinda . You can skip homeroom, but you are going to school.”

“Fine.”

Donatello helped Casey up off the floor, clasping his hand. However… he didn’t let go, even after the boy was upright and standing.

“ Buuut, I still have that hoodie you bought me. We can cuddle and watch a movie until you have to go?”

What.

Yoshi blinked, not believing the scene playing out in fromt of him.

“Heck yeah! Dude, if I ever say no to that, you have full permission to beat the shit outta me.”

Donatello’s hands crept up Casey’s collar bones, resting on his jaw to tilt them upwards. They closed their eyes, pulli eachother closer and-

Oh no. Nono no. There will be none of that in this household!

Nearly frantic, Yoshi swung through the beaded curtain and into the dojo.

Donatello bodily threw Casey off of him. The boy landed with a thud some five feet away.

“Ah! Master Splinter!”

He held his hands behind his back as if that would hide the splotches of face paint on them.

“Donatello. We do not throw guests around our dojo.”

“S-sorry.”

Casey picked himself up.

“Nah, it’s all good.”

The pair glanced at eachother with fear in their eyes. They weren’t ready to tell anyone yet.

Yoshi came to a decision, lying through his teeth on the spot.

“I only just arrived to see if the dojo was empty. Your brother was talking about meditating earlier.”

He ran a finger along his beard, trying his best not to let his expression betray him.

“Yes, sensei. We’ll get out like- right now. Yeah, uhokaybye-!”

In a hurried breath, Donatello haphazardly tossed his staff against the wall, grabbed Casey’s hand, and dashed out of the room.

Yoshi was left stunned, leaning onto his cane in the middle of the dojo.

He turned.

Well, time to tell Leonardo the dojo was empty.

And maybe meditate a little himself.

Chapter Text

Donnie set down the rag he was holding, finally deeming the beaker he was cleaning ‘clean enough’. He placed it meticulously with the rest of its set.

Stifling a yawn, he headed for the door to his lab. He was beyond tired and he didn’t feel like brewing a whole pot of coffee to get more work done. 

The tantalizing sounds of badly dubbed anime were singing to him from the living room like sirens to a weary sailor…

Donnie would’ve made a shoddy sailor with how fast he gave in.

The edges of the bandages wrapping his feet trailed against the ground as he walked, coming undone from all the night’s activities. He trudged into the living room, announcing his presence by kicking Casey’s legs off the couch cushions and sitting in their place.

The boy however, didn’t seem to mind that much as it positioned him to snuggle up to April who was sitting right beside him. He threw a smug grin over his shouler that irked Donnie the wrong way, but the turtle just sat down without a complaint. But he did keep an eye on the way Casey’s arm lay interlocked with April’s.

“You done bitchin’ about that beaker?”

“Language.”

The automatic reply from Leo came immediately after.

“I wasn’t bit-“

Leo shot Donnie a glare that made him hold his tongue for a second.

“… that word.”

He finished lamely, trying not to set off his brother. They were all tired.

“If you two don’t stop talkin’ I’m gonna zip tie yer throats shut.”

Raph delivered his threat without taking his eyes off the old tube television, his head nestled between his knees in his curled up position on the floor.

“Yeah yeah, I just can’t believe Donnie got so pressed over that thing!”

Casey was just trying to push Donnie’s buttons. Donnie knew that. He didn’t need to give any sort of reaction that would satisfy that boy.

However, that boy happened to be really really good at pushing buttons.

“Ugh, why are you even here, Casey?”

His hands curled into fists out of disgust as Casey put his feet back where they were before, much to Donnie’s dismay as the mud-caked converses landed directly in his lap.

“Uh- cause patrol’s over?”

Casey grinned a sardonic grin up at him like his feet weren’t leaving streaks of dirt all over the turtle.

“Don’t you have your own home? Like, your own family to get back to?”

If Donnie was looking at his face and not his gross shoes, he would’ve seen the sting his comment left and maybe he would’ve stopped there.

“Donnie! What the hell, man?!”

Raph punched his shin, giving him a glare.

“No, because why is he always here?! He has an actual house unlike us but he’s always just loitering around here!”

He finally looked down at Casey but instead of feeling satisfied with the frown he saw, he felt… guilty ? That was new.

“That was kinda far, Donnie…”

April leaned over Casey to give him a look.

Donnie just crossed his arms and sank into the couch with a huff.

“Fine.”

“Can we all just watch this shitty anime in peace and quiet?”

Raph’s tone was overflowing with impatience and everyone turned to the screen just in time to see The princess break off the giant mech, swooping in to rescue a new alien character.

The alien clung to the pink metal leg for dear life as the princess grabbed his hand.

Mikey suddenly spoke up, flicking a popcorn kernel at the screen.

“Bruh, can we all agree that Senoj the alien was the most useless character ever?”

Raph huffed in agreement.

“I know! It’s so obvious he’s just there for that stupid love triangle with the princess and Dr. Blip. He didn’t even have any plot significance!”

Casey nudged him with a foot.

“Pfft- What happened to ‘can we all just watch this shitty anime in peace’ ?”

“Shut it, Jones. Anyone with eyes can see that Senoj was wasted potential!”

Casey snickered.

“You’re starting to sound like Leo’s obsession with Captain Ryan, dude.”

“TAKE THAT BACK! I DO NOT-“

Leo turned to the pair, a mildly offended look crossing his face.

“What?! What’s wrong with sounding like me? Captain Ryan was awesome, by the way.”

Normally, Donnie would’ve been paying more attention to their argument for the sake of entertainment, but his head was somewhere else.

Did he really go too far?

He shot a glance at Casey who was still joking and goofing around, but…

But that usual air of excited-ness was gone.

He didn’t know how to explain it, but Casey’s smile looked like an emotionless facade and his sporadic movements had less energy.

Donnie wanted to-

Well-

He didn’t actually know.

Apologize?

Casey’s hand laid less than two feet away and his legs were still sprawled over his lap. It wouldn’t be that hard to get his attention.

Instead, Donnie just stewed in the mild regret that pulled at his stomach, watching the screen as Dr. Blip lost his temper on Senoj for what had to be the fourth time that episode, shooting at him with his plasma ray.

There was something about that show that always felt uncannily familiar.

⋅•⋅⊰∙∘☽☾ “Why does Donnie call you babygirl?” -Raph ☽☾∘∙⊱⋅•⋅

Raph sat down on the couch with a bowl of popcorn as Donnie surfed the internet with his laptop.

What were they up to, you ask?

Only the most heinous crime known to both human and mutant kind.

Pirating anime.

Leo and Mikey sat on the other side of Donnie who was crossing his fingers and chanting a mantra that frequented nights like these.

“Please don’t be a virus please don’t be a virus please don't be a virus-“

The laptop dinged and Donnie jumped up, holding a freshly burned VHS tape.

“Haha! Yes!! Take that National Intellectual Property Rights and Regulations Coordination Department!”

Mikey gingerly took the tape and slid it into the player underneath their old TV.

A slight rustling sound came from behind them and all celebration instantly stopped.

Raph and his three brothers whipped their heads around to the new threat, nictitating membranes drawn over their pupils.

The figure froze, caught in their gaze.

Much to Raph’s surprise, Donnie reacted first. To his double surprise, in a way that Raph never would’ve expected.

“Casey!”

And it wasn’t like the usual ‘ Casey!’ shouts. Not like ‘Casey! Get out of my lab!’ or ‘I’m gonna kill Casey!” or even “AAAAAUGHHHH CASEYYYY!!”

No, Donnie had said it with a smile.

“You’re still here!”

With more speed than he showed in training earlier that day, Donnie leapt over the back of the couch to go greet the boy.

“Hey Donnie. Hey guys.”

Casey waved over to them and Raph returned a slightly confused wave.

“What are you doing here? I thought you already went home.”

Raph wasn’t sure if he could handle a classic Casey Donnie argument that night… but it didn’t look like that was where this was going.

“Oh yeah, I uh- I fell asleep in your lab after patrol.”

ooooh, Donnie wasn’t gonna like tha-

“Did you rest well? I know you’ve been stressed with your exams. You should’ve taken my room, atleast.”

HUH.

“I did sleep well, actually. Best sleep this week.”

“Good… That’s good…”

They slowly turned, apparently remembering that the other three were still there.

An awkward silence filled the air, once again broken by Donnie of all people. He opened his mouth with a popping sound, clasping his hands together.

“So, do you wanna watch a movie with us?”

Casey scratched at the back of his neck, looking at the TV.

“Uh… I don’t wanna stay too long. I gotta get um, home and-“

“You could never stay too long, Casey. We want you here.”

Donnie grabbed his hand, lightly pulling him to the couch. Casey followed, but still looked unsure.

“Well, there isn’t even room on the couch-“

Before Raph could even register what was happening, Donnie reached out an arm and shoved him aside. Raph was sent tumbling to the floor, mouth open in silent outrage.

“Sure there is! C’mon, please?”

The boy gave a sigh and then a smile.

“Okay… What are you guys watching?”

Donnie grinned, tugging him down into Raph’s seat, leaving Raph himself to squish in on the end where there was space.

“It’s Super Robo Mecha Force Five: The Movie Donnie got it off the interwebs for us!”

Mikey pointed to the title screen right before it faded away.

“Huh, I didn’t know they made a movie.”

Casey settled comfortably into the couch right next to Donnie.

“They did! It was supposed to come out right after the series finale. But due to production issues, the movie premiere kept getting delayed and delayed to the point where people thought it was canceled.”

Donnie rambled off excitedly as Casey watched on, nodding his head.

“Uh huh, hm, mhm… So what I’m getting, is that you’re a giant nerd-“

He was cut off with a playful punch to the arm.

“Shush! The movie’s starting- and you have to stay to the end. Those are the rules.”

Raph could only watch as the two shifted under the blanket, eyes on the screen. 

“I dunno why I do everything you tell me to.”

There was no distaste in his voice, but Donnie shushed him again anyway.

The first few scenes of the movie passed in relative silence, all the kids watching the characters with full attention.

They were getting to a scene between Senoj and Dr. Blip where the doctor finally apologized and made up.

Raph was completely absorbed in the film, but he was brought out of it by the soft whispers next to him.

“Thanks for letting me stay, Dee.”

Casey whispered to Donnie from his place on the couch.

“I know how you feel about going home. I thought you might wanna at least watch a fun movie before all that.”

Casey shifted, wrapping an arm around Donnie.

“Aw, but I think getting to spend time with you is even better.”

Uhm, and what was Raph? Chopped liver?

He rolled his eyes, trying to turn out the pair next to him and focus on the plot of the movie.

Hey, it was a good movie and he couldn’t care less about whatever brain parasite was affecting his brother and best friend.

He watched movie, recording every detail in his brain as the alien and the doctor slowly grew from  bitter rivals, to reluctant friends, to better friends, to-

“WHAT?!!”

Raph sat up so fast at the final closing scene, he fell off the couch in a heap of blankets.

“NO WAY!!”

He pointed at the screen where Senoj the alien and Dr. Blip were sharing a chaste kiss, having just confessed their newfound love for each other after fixing the Mecha-bot together.

“Raph, chill! Gay people exist! Don’t be afraid of homes!

Mikey threw a pillow at him. The pillow bounced off harmlessly, but Raph lat out a noise that sounded like a wounded elephant.

“Whu- NO!! I’m not- I don’t give a rats ass about their gay-ness! Good for them! BUT That’s a terrible ending! What happened to the space whales on planet Glorp? The Cosmonaut Crew? Are we just gonna skip over all major plotholes?? The writing was awful, this can not be the end of Super Robo Mecha Force Five!”

If Raph wasn’t busy ranting about poor screenwriting, he would’ve noticed how Donnie and Casey held each other's hands tighter together under the blanket.

The reassured glances they shot each other.

No matter what happened, they were going to end up okay.

Chapter Text

Casey gripped his pencil tighter, straining his eyes towards the paper in front of him. He was going to pass trigonometry if it was the last thing he did.

Wait, that made him sound like a nerd.

No, Casey was going to pass trig or else Coach was going to kick him off the hockey team.

He scritched the graphite across the surface, drawing small triangles as he mumbled to himself in the near silence of the night.

“So… the sine of um, thirty degrees… times the hipp-hypotenuse… is, um… uhhh… uuughhhhh!!”

Giving up, he thunked his head down on his desk, but not before sliding his hand underneath where his forehead was going to land in order to muffle the noise.

Who decided to make triangles so hard to understand?

Lazily turning his head to the side, he nearly leapt out of his seat with a scream.

Right outside his bedside window, was a hunched figure. It sat like a gargoyle next to the terracotta pots lining the fire escape.

Casey approached the window slowly, creeping on his toes in a protective stance as he squinted, trying to figure out what it was.

Closer and closer he stepped to his window. Halfway there, he spotted his baseball bat leaning against his desk and made the executive decision to grab it.

The head of the figure turned around, flashing it’s white eyes- 

Wait-

White eyes?

Casey slung his bat over his shoulder and threw open his window, causing the hunched turtle figure to squawk out in alarm.

“Donnie?!”

Donnie caught the railing with one arm, pulling himself back up with incredible upper body strength.

“Casey?! Why- What are you doing here?! Why do you have a bat?”

“Dude, I live here? Why are you at my apartment?”

He redirected the question back at the turtle who scrubbed at his face, muttering not so quietly to himself.

“Why tonight? Of all nights! Why did it have to be here? Why did it have to be HIM-“

Normally, Casey would’ve raised a brow and picked up his bat again. But tonight, there was something different- something off about Donnie. While usually neurotic, the turtle never seemed this agitated.

If anyone asked him about it afterwards, Casey would’ve denied to the high heavens, saying stuff about how it was the trig functions messing with his brain cells or how the New York night pollution made him make weird decisions.

But, he reached out his window, resting a hand on Donnie’s (muscled, very strong, kinda... Ahem- Casey would have described them with lots of positive adjectives) upper arm to stop his pacing.

“Hey… Do you wanna maybe come inside?”

He opened the window wider for the turtle, still making sure to stay quiet.

He didn’t want to wake his da- anyone.

Donnie backed up a few paces away from the window, eyeing it like a rabbit would a poorly-hidden rope trap.

“…why?”

Casey suddenly realized how weird his question sounded. They were supposed to be rivals after all.

“Well- You look…”

Honestly, there was something about the moonlight that made Donnie look almost ethereal. The purple flowers in the terracotta pots lining the fire escape rail made for the perfect backdrop along with the faint lights from the active part of the city far from the dingy apartment Casey lived in.

If he had a camera, he knew candid shots of a certain turtle would take up most of his storage.

BUT LIKE- in an objective way, like- water is wet and the mutant that crawled out of the sewer was kinda sometimes a little bit pretty.

Objectively objective.

Not to mention that Donnie’s serious expression showed his tooth gap a little. Here, the gap between his front teeth didn’t look silly or stupid, it actually looked awfully kissab-

“You look awful.”

Casey darted his gaze away from the turtle, but not before he saw him roll his eyes.

“Gee, thanks.”

A beat.

Another beat.

Three seconds passed.

The window frame creaked slightly as Donnie squeezed through.

“I can see you smiling, Jones. This better not be some kind of prank.”

Casey hadn’t even noticed that he was smiling. Why was he smiling?

“Whaaat? Pshh…”

He turned away, trying to act nonchalant but he was really panicking like crazy on the inside. He put a hand to his lips and yeah, he was smiling.

“Okay. I’m inside. Now what?”

Donnie crossed his arms.

“Uh-”

Casey hadn’t actually thought he’d get this far.

“Do you want some tea?”

Now- Casey knew he didn’t seem like the type. But he really really liked tea. Like, more than coffee, more than his caffeine pumped energy drinks, and even more than soda.

Green, white, black, fruity, earthy- it didn’t matter to him, there was a situation for every type of tea. Earl Grey for an early hockey practice, Oolong for after school, and chamomile for those nights when his dad- for those nights when Casey couldn’t sleep.

He gave it to his sister too, those nights when she couldn’t sleep either.

“Tea?”

Donnie tilted his head, rightfully so. Casey could only imagine what he was thinking.

“Yeah, you seem upset, man.”

Uncrossing his arms, Donnie sighed.

“That easy to read, huh, cavemouth?”

Casey crossed his room, twisting the door knob all the way until the latch to hit the inner plate before slowly pulling it open.

“Yeah, dork.”

The turtle gave him a funny look when he lowered his voice to a whisper, but when Casey tapped his index finger to his lips, Donnie nodded in understanding.

Casey carefully untwisted the knob until it was back in its neutral position, a practiced motion to make sure the latch didn’t click. No one was going to wake up from a small click, but it was better to be safe than sorry.

In his apartment, it was always better to be safe than sorry.

At least he didn’t have to worry about Donnie. The turtle was even more silent than him, creeping along despite being clunkily humongous and- well, a turtle.

Ten years of ninja training really did make a difference.

Casey hadn’t realized that he had been watching Donnie. There was just something about the way he moved that fascinated the boy. Every step seemed calculated and swift.

Casey nearly stumbled into a chair. He hastily caught it before it could slide against the hardwood floor. He had made that mistake before.

He wasn’t about to make it again.

Their apartment wasn’t huge. It wasn’t even average sized. 3 bedrooms in a New York penthouse may seem luxurious on paper, but in reality it really wasn’t much. They barely even had a hallway, if you could even call it that. All three bedrooms spilled out into their “living room” which served a double purpose as their kitchen. They had thin walls and even thinner insulation- Maybe that was why Casey loved his hot teas so much.

He grabbed two mugs from an overhead cabinet, sliding the handle of one over his pinky and the other over his thumb to prevent the ceramics from clinking against each other.

The electric kettle was almost always kept boiling when he was home. Casey himself made sure of that. He never knew when he or his sister would wake up from a bad dream and need something to calm their nerves.

He took the kettle off its electric pad with his free hand and snagged a coaster with his teeth.

What? He may have been stupid, but he wasn’t uncivilized .

Or- As uncivilized as most people thought he was. 

With a nod of his head, Casey and Donnie headed back to his bedroom.

Casey quickly spat out the cloth coaster onto his floor, setting the hot kettle on top and the mugs next to it. He then turned and silently shut the door, doing the same latch trick as before.

He caught Donnie looking at him funny again.

“We can talk now.”

He assured him in a hushed voice. The walls may have been thin, but Casey always felt safer in his room than out in the open of the family common area.

“What was that all about?”

“Just… Didn’t wanna wake anyone, y’know?”

Casey brushed the question off with a shrug, opening his bottom desk drawer.

Ah, the infamous bottom desk drawer. The drawer that all teenage boys would store their contraband items in, and Casey Jones was no different. However, instead of the various… items one would expect him to want to hide away from prying eyes, his drawer was stacked with boxes of teas.

Teas of all different blends and brands. The colorful boxes took up every ounce of space, even some single package bags stuffed into the in betweens.

“Wow…”

Donnie’s remark was still a hushed whisper which Casey appreciated.

Instead of trying to decipher whether Donnie was being sarcastic or not, Casey just busied himself with picking out a box.

Lavender and Lemongrass.

Good enough.

He kept the drawer open as he drew two bags, filling the mugs with water and steeping the tea. Once the mugs and kettle were back on the floor (the kettle on its coaster, of course), Casey sat cross-legged and handed a cup to Donnie.

“Thank you…”

The turtle followed his lead, kneeling on the floor. He looked into his own mug for a moment before looking back up at Casey.

“Why?”

The question from Donnie was sudden and out of place.

It was gentler than the first ‘Why?’ from outside the window, but held the same meaning.

“Because…”

Casey searched his mind, not really finding a reason for his strange behavior.

“Because you didn’t seem okay.”

He settled on that.

“You didn’t seem like yourself and it… it worried me.”

Was it just the raw hours of the night hazing his mind? Casey wanted to believe it was.

“Why do you care?”

Donnie looked into the dark tea bitterly, swirling the liquid in the cup.

Casey didn’t really know how to answer that. It was a mystery even to himself.

“Why shouldn’t I?”

“Because!”

Donnie’s hushed shout felt louder than it actually was, making Casey sit up a little bit straighter on alert.

“Because I don’t care about you!”

Donnie gripped his mug tighter, looking the boy straight in the eyes.

Oof - that stung a bit.

“I’m awful to you all the time, I yell at you, I say all these mean things to you, and you’re still always around!”

He spoke with a harsh vigor, but still kept his voice to a whisper.

“It- It puzzles me why you even put up with me…”

Donnie tore his eyes away, looking back into his drink. Casey put his own down on the ground next to him.

“What are you saying?”

“I’m saying…”

The turtle shifted his hands around the cup and Casey realized he was using it to keep his hands warm.

“I’m saying I’m sorry. Especially for last week. I’ve been thinking about it non-stop. It was the reason I left the Lair, actually. I just needed some fresh air to stop thinking.”

“Last week?”

Donnie looked like he was just about ready to jump back out the window, glass pane and all.

“The night with the beaker and um, when we were watching that show together after patrol…”

Oh.

That night.

“What I said to you was wrong… I’m sorry, Casey. I shouldn’t have said that. You can come to the lair whenever you need- or want.”

Was Casey hearing right? An apology? An actual apology from the Donatello?

The turtle finally took a sip of his tea.

“Raph likes having you around and- and I guess you’re not half bad on a good day.”

Donnie then took the mug to his lips again, drinking more and avoiding Casey’s eyes. He seemed to be looking everywhere except at him, making the boy slightly self conscious of the piles of dirty clothes, sports equipment, and the general disheveled state of his room.

“Really? You mean-”

“Is that trigonometry?”

Donnie blurted out, interrupting Casey and abruptly changing the subject.

“Uh, yeah?”

Casey turned his head as Donnie was already up off the floor and heading to his desk.

“Huh, it’s kind of late to just be starting homework, isn’t it?”

Donnie picked it up, eyes moving back and forth across the page.

Casey decided he wasn’t going to tell him that he had been working on it since the minute he got home.

“Yep- just got started on that. That’s why there's not a lot done, so if could just give that back-”

Donnie easily dodged Casey’s grab for his homework. Casey rushed forwards again and Donnie turned and stepped again, still reading the paper.

“Wait- Why are there so many eraser marks?”

The turtle held the page closer to his face, squinting.

“Just- um, cause-”

It was almost a dance now. Their silent dodging and weaving together. Donnie wasn’t even looking up from the paper as he effortlessly evaded Casey’s grabbing hands. His height definitely gave him an advantage over the human.

“This isn't even a real theorem! Did you make up fake math?”

“Stop lookin’ at it!”

In a final frantic attempt, he jumped and snatched the bottom of the paper. He was sure he was blushing furiously as he smacked it back on the desk, face down. He breathed a sigh of relief that that was all over.

Until Casey realized what he was ‘all over’.

Donnie’s shell was pushed up against the edge of the desk with no room to back up further. When Casey had jumped, he had instinctively grabbed onto the lip of Donnie’s shell around his shoulder for stability and hadn’t let go yet. Their chests were pressed flush against each other and he could feel each rise and fall of the turtle’s plastron. Donnie was so tall, Casey’s toes didn’t even reach the floor.

Casey immediately let go of his shell, sliding to the floor. He was wearing socks, so he didn’t worry about the noise all that much.

“Sorry.”

That was all his brain could come up with as he scrambled back.

“It’s- it’s okay…”

Donnie pushed himself off the desk, once again refusing to look Casey in the eye.

“I should- um, I should get going. I told Leo I wouldn’t stay out too long.”

After catching a breath, Casey found the brain cells to act normal again.

“What? Still got a curfew? From your brother?”

Just to really smooth over whatever just happened, he said it with a teasing smirk.

Donnie rolled his eyes, crossing his arms in that way that made his muscles look so- Casey decided to immediately look back at his eyes.

“How many times do I have to tell you? It’s not a curfew!”

“Yeah, whatever ya say, Don.”

With a huff, Donnie hoisted himself out of the window (Yes, he opened it first. He didn’t barrel through glass with his skull... like Leo might have -sorrynotsorry) and stood on the fire escape. Casey had expected him to vanish into the night like he always did, but the turtle just… stood there.

Donnie turned, crouching down to put his hands on the window sill.

“Thanks for um, this. The tea was good.”

Casey had completely forgotten about his tea. It was probably cold by now.

“Oh yeah, no problem.”

The two looked at each other for another moment. Casey couldn’t help but inch closer to the window. Donnie was the first to shake his head and let go of the white sill like he had burnt his hands on it.

“Ah! Yeah! Your calculator was in radians by the way- Goodnight, Casey!”

And then he disappeared into the night.

⋅•⋅⊰∙∘☽☾ “Thou shall be transfem” -idk, the bible or smth ☽☾∘∙⊱⋅•⋅

Leo wedged a katana into the brick wall of an apartment building, using it as a step to reach a white painted windowsill. Once he had a good hold, he lifted himself up, perching on the thin piece of wood. There was a handy fire escape lined with clay pots of purple flowers just one window away, but that wasn’t the one he was trying to get to.

He knocked on the glass, just like he had done every Thursday evening for the past two years or so.

The lamp from inside the room emitted a warm, yellow glow, making him visible to the little girl inside.

Well- not so little anymore.

The pink clock hanging on the wall read 8:00pm, right on time. The same pink clock that had been there since the beginning.

The other decor in the small bedroom… not so much. Fairy tale books had been replaced with figure skates on the shelf. Trophies lined the space above her bed instead of plushies. The walls had been repainted a few times. Right now, they were the same shade of blue as Leo’s mask.

Chloe looked up from the magazine she had been reading on her bed, face breaking out into a grin.

“Lee!”

She threw open the window with a hushed shout, letting the turtle inside.

At least this was still the same. Chloe’s excitement never seemed to fade.

“Hi!”

Chloe immediately put a finger to her lips, signaling for quiet.

“Oh yeah, sorry.”

Leo winced, instantly lowering his voice. He pulled himself all the way into the room, landing on the rug without a sound.

Right in the center of the room, there was a low lying table with a tea set on it.

Yep. A bit of time may have gone by, but Chloe remained the same girl at heart.

“It’s okay. I don’t wanna wake up my dad. He doesn’t like it when I’m loud.”

Leo took a seat, kneeling at the side of the table.

“Then we’ll make sure to stay quiet.”

More than anything, Leo wished he could do something, anything to help the girl, but being a teenage mutant ninja turtle really narrowed his options. All he could really do was keep her company and check in on her.

Chloe took the other side of the table, reaching for the pot. 

“ So much stuff happened since last time, Lee!”

Leo held out his cup, keeping the saucer underneath, as per etiquette.

“Ooh, do tell.”

The hours of the night ticked by as they went through the usual gossip. Angel from Ms. Campbell's class, history tests, and of course, the horrors of her gross brother.

Despite him being a regular topic of these late night tea parties, Leo had yet to see or even simply know the name of this alleged brother. All he knew was that he was dumb, addicted to sports, and according to Chloe- gross.

“He comes home from school all sweaty, like- every single day!”

Leo wrinkled his nose in disgust.

“Ew.”

“I know, right? He’ll even disappear afterwards for hours and come back even sweatier!”

She took a sip of her tea, leaving the saucer on the table.

“I can’t believe I’m related to him.”

“My condolences.”

Leo solemnly nodded.

To anyone else, these tea parties may seem unnecessarily over dramatic, but to Leo and Chloe, they were perfect. The best part of every week.

“What about you? How are your brothers?”

Once again, despite these gossip sessions going on for a long long time, there were still some things that remained a secret from the other.

“Oh, they’re doing fabulous. Now, tell me how your ice skating is going.”

Leo’s skills in redirecting conversations had become very useful in these tea parties. Luckily Chloe never seemed to notice or mind.

“It’s going fine.”

Her sudden tone change did not miss him. He raised a brow, silently asking her to elaborate.

“I just- I wanna do hockey, like my brother. Ever since I was little, he tried to get me to like it just as much as him, but now that I do, he thinks it’s ‘too dangerous’. Like, he’s way too overprotective!”

She huffed a breath.

“He let me practice with his team once. Once! as goalie! I didn’t even get to do anything!”

“That sounds frustrating. Did you talk to him about that?”

Leo took a sip from his own cup. The tea was excellent as always.

“Yes. But he’s bad at listening. He’s not like you. You listen to everything. He’s bad at a lot of things like school, listening, and being quiet.”

She sat up a little proudly.

“ I’m way better at being quiet than him. My dad told me so. He says that I’m better than my brother. I think my brother just doesn’t know when to close his mouth and that’s why he gets yelled at so much.”

Leo’s stomach curled uncomfortably inside of him at the way Chloe spoke so casually. It was as if they were back to talking about how Angel had the gall to wear the same ugly light up sketchers two days in a row at recess.

“Dad always tells us to be quiet, but he’s really the loud one which is kinda silly. Sometimes I can hear him yelling at my brother about sneaking out at night, even when he takes him outside to scream… Do you want me to braid you?”

Chloe immediately got up, not giving Leo a chance to react to what she just said.

“Ah- um, sure?”

The girl got some ribbons and clips from a box under her bed, sorting behind Leo.

“I’m gonna use pink, because it’s my favorite color. You better not take it out.”

“Wouldn’t dream of it.”

Leo decided he was going to take it out the second he was outside the apartment.

“Y’know. He’s really nice when he’s not being gross. I wish he didn’t get yelled at so much.

Leo felt small hands begin to pull at the tails of his mask.

“He makes the tea for me and gets me cute hairclips when he’s out with his boyfriend.”

The turtle stopped sipping his tea.

“Boyfriend? That’s some new gossip you’ve never told me!”

“What! I never told you about Deedee?”

Leo shook his head, now all ears.

”Well, my brother's on the phone with him like- all the time. I’ve talked to him too. Deedee seems nice, but I don’t  know how he deals with my brother. He’s smart, like- really really smart. He helped him pass that triangle math class and everything. Actually- He’s out with Deedee right now. They're on a date, but dad doesn’t know.”

Chloe’s fingers worked carefully as she weaved a bright pink strand into the blue tails of the mask.

“I like him, but Deedee’s also gross too sometimes. He lets my brother call him mushy things like doll , darling, love, and mi amor-“

She fake gagged on the last one, pointing a finger down her throat.

“Aw, I think that’s kind of cute.”

Leo’s inner hopeless romantic peeked out as he smiled.

“Bleh.”

He heard the click of something behind him, still feeling Chloe pull on his mask.

“Hey, what are you doing back there?”

She plopped a bag into his lap full of plastic hair bobbles, ties, and clips.

“I’m putting in some clips to make it even more pretty.”

He sifted through the bag. They were the cheap kind of clips sold at the dollar store, but he could see how they would make an eight year olc girl happy.

A few more clicks sounded from behind him before the braid was thrown over his shoulder.

“Wait! Don’t look yet!”

Leo closed his eyes, Letting Chloe do… whatever she was trying to do. He heard a bit of faint scrambling and debated opening his eyes, but decided against it.

Chloe was old enough now to know how to not die while navigating her own bedroom.

His mask tails being gone felt kind of strange, especially with the new weight of the braid on his shoulder. He hoped that Chloe wouldn’t take too much offense if he took it out too soon.

“Aaaaaand open!”

Feeling slightly amused, he opened his eyes, expecting to laugh out loud, but-

But-

Leo looked at himself dead in the eyes in the mirror. 

The pink and blue braid laying on his shoulder was really pretty. Chloe had even clipped little heart charms down the length of it.

It almost looked like hair.

Girl hair.

He reached up a hand to touch the cloth braid.

“Wow…”

The girl looking at him from inside the mirror smiled, and Leo realized that he was smiling too.

“I told you it was pretty!”

Chloe handed him the mirror so he could check all the angles for himself.

“It- it is!”

Leo was beaming now, unable to keep his hands from petting the not-hair.

“Thank you!”

He kept the braid in for the rest of the tea party, while bidding Chloe farewell once she started yawning and nodding off, and even all the way down into the sewers.

He couldn’t keep the smile off his face as he felt the plastic beads clack against his shell from the braid. It just felt right to him for some reason.

He kept the braid in right up until he was in front of the turnstiles.

Then and only then did he begin to pull at the charms, storing them in the center of his palm along with the pink ribbon. 

Leo hopped the turnstiles, ignoring his brother’s questions on where he’s been all night. He fought back a yawn. Gossiping was tiring.

He was about to disappear into his room when he suddenly noticed someone absent from the lair’s usual routine.

“Wait- Has anyone seen Donnie?”

Chapter Text

Casey was bored.

He was bored bored. Bored out of his mind.

He wasn’t even in one of his main boring classes yet. It was only the first period. Homeroom.

He had been sitting at a desk for less than twenty minutes and he was already just about ready to scoop his eyeballs out with a ballpoint pen just to have something to do.

It was about to be a long day.

Casey tapped his foot against the white linoleum floor, the sound and movement giving him something for his under stimulated brain to latch onto. The teacher was just taking attendance, but his mind was elsewhere. 

He glanced a few desks diagonally forwards at April who sat dead center in the front.

Nerd.

For a second, Casey debated on picking off a piece of his eraser and flicking it at her for fun. But he ultimately decided that while April O’neill was, in fact, a nerd, she was a nerd who could whoop his ass during sparring later.

Casey turned his attention to the outside, staring out the window. He sat on the very far left side of the room, so his desk was right up against the glass of the window.

Outside, there still wasn’t anything super entertaining. A thick cluster of trees lined the back portion of the school- Where Casey’s class was. Probably the only green chunk of land in New York outside of Central Park.

All he could see were the boring green leaves.

Lots of green…

Turtles were green…

Donnie was green. Underneath that armor and mask and those straps-

Quickly sitting up in his seat, Casey blinked away that trail of thought.

Now Casey was feeling green.

Where had those thoughts come from?

“-sey, Casey… CASEY JONES!”

He snapped back to reality, off-putting thoughts about a certain green turtle now forgotten.

“Oh- um, not here.”

Regaining his composure, he tilted the corner of his mouth up in a cocky smirk in a display for the handful of students who had turned to look at him. April was included in that group. She just rolled her eyes at his delinquent-esque response before turning back around in her seat.

The teacher audibly sighed, used to Casey’s usual antics and continued rattling off names.

Casey himself dropped his smirk and resumed his aimless staring out of the window. for a moment, he thought he had seen a streak of orange among the green, but it was gone in a flash. It must’ve been a bird or his imagination. He squinted, trying to get a better look when he suddenly saw a purple streak as well. That was definitely not a bird color and definitely not his imagination.

He searched the trees fruitlessly for the source of purple, but it was nowhere to be seen. Casey settled for watching two raccoons on the ground below battle it out for a half empty bag of chips someone had thrown out in the school trash cans.

While Casey wasn’t the biggest fan of small, furry creatures, he could appreciate making fun of them from a distance. A far far distance protected by a window and two stories of his school building.

Being around Master Splinter so much had kind of helped with his fear. Though, Casey hesitated to call it a ‘fear’. He would say it was more like an ‘extreme dislike of those furry freaks’

But any of the turtles would agree that ‘Yeah, he's got a fear.’

Speaking of Splinter and the turtles, Casey couldn’t wait to get back to the Lair with April after school was over. 

The two of them could ditch that… Irma and just go hang out with the guys.

He had been in the Lair all morning, trying to finish up a particularly rough trigonometry assignment with the not-help of Donnie who just teased him the whole time for something called ‘Radian Mode’.

Whatever that was.

Mikey was in the kitchen when he was there-

Casey suddenly got a pang of sickness in his gut. Y’know, the kind of nausea when you realize you’ve forgotten something important and it feels like your kidneys are spilling out of your sides like acid, but you can’t remember what you’ve forgotten?

He reached around and squished a hand to his bag. Duct tape, zip ties, hex wrench, hockey puck, backup puck, backup backup puck-

He didn’t usually carry around quote unquote “school supplies” because his other supplies (April called them “Casey supplies” much to the boy’s amusement) took up so much room. The only academic related thing in his bag was his crumpled composition notebook and even that was just full of doodles and junk. Not a single note in sight.

Casey’s questionable bag contents aside, everything seemed be in place.

Meh, he’d take a better look at lunch to figure it out-

Wait-

HIS LUNCH!!

He patted down his bag one more time, not hearing the usual crunch of the brown paper bag.

Ugh. Typical.

He fought the urge to groan aloud as he put his head down on his desk.

Vivid memories of the morning played through his head.

Sneaking in early to play a round if video games with Raph, getting caught by Leo who just sighed and told him to eat breakfast, bothering Donnie with trig, and saying hi to Mikey while putting his packed lunch on the counter-

And leaving said lunch on said counter.

Casey stared into the crook of his elbow, already cringing at the thought of eating the school’s cafeteria food. He hadn’t listened to Leo when he had told him to eat breakfast either, so he was already hungry.

The intercom suddenly crackled to life, the noise more staticky than usual.

“Can Casey Arnold Jones come down to the office to pick up his lunch?”

He felt twenty pairs of eyes immediately fall on him and he shrank his head back on his shoulders. Should he have been more grateful that the turtles had somehow found a way to drop his lunch off at his school?

Probably, but ooooh that was embarrassing.

As if it couldn’t get any worse, the static crashed over in a stronger wave, causing a few kids to cover their ears.

“We-‘re get-ting s-ome k—ind of i-nterferen—ce-“

Casey sat up, giving the garbling speaker a weird look. The black intercom sat bolted to the wall right next to the window, so when he picked his head up, he also got a view of a partially camouflaged figure latched onto the side of the buiding, grinning down directly at him.

A turtle in a bright orange mask with a shell-shaped device clutched in his free hand.

Mikey began to talk into the T-phone.

“Oh Caseyy~”

Although he couldn’t hear Mikey through the window glass, the turtle’s tease came through over the school’s intercom and Casey could hear it loud and clear in the other classes through the thin walls of his underfunded school.

As could everyone else.

“Casey-poo, you left your lunchy-wunchy in the kitchen~”

‘Casey-poo’ jolted up in his seat, flushing bright red. He caught a glimpse of April who was utterly failing at hiding a laugh behind her hand.

He barely heard the chair crash on the floor as he fumbled out of his seat. Roaring laughter from everyone in his class followed him as he dashed out into the hall.

He was going to kill that turtle.

Mikey’s voice continued to throw taunts at him over the intercom using that same obviously fake high pitched voice. Casey wasn’t paying attention to him though.

There was only one of the four turtles who was smart enough to hack the school’s speaker system.

That turtle.

That was the turtle that Casey was going to murder.

He grabbed his lunch from the office first. Come on, the man had priorities.

Then he tore through the halls, catching laughter from passerby students who had heard the announcements.

Everyone.

Everyone had heard.

Face burning, Casey made a beeline for the stairs to the roof. He’d half-listened to enough of Donnie’s technical talk to know that that was the best place for signal hacking. 

He would never admit it, but that sort of stuff was mildly interesting. It would’ve been more interesting if it wasn’t Donnie rambling about it. Because Casey hated listening to Donnie ramble on and on while talking with his hands. Saying geeky things that Casey had never heard of before with the biggest excited grin plastered across his face.

The kind that showed the honestly adorable gap between his front teeth.

Casey hated it.

He used his foot to kick open the door and just as he expected, there sat the turtle all curled up with his knees up to his chest and snickering into his T-phone.

Casey’s face grew even hotter because Donnie was not supposed to be looking cute while ruining all his street cred.

Donnie’s head whipped over to him, startled. His purple bandana tails flipped over his shoulder with the movement. He quickly scrambled to his feet in a panic as Casey charged.

“You’re DEAD!!”

⋅•⋅⊰∙∘☽☾ “And then they made out with tongue” ☽☾∘∙⊱⋅•⋅

Doctor Prankenstein was back at it again.

Donnie was out on his own dumpster run for spare parts. Mikey had come back from his own run just a few minutes ago. His brother probably wouldn’t be back for another hour or so.

Prime pranking opportunity.

Mikey slipped into Donnie’s lab, eagerly looking for some to mess with. Nothing that looked important, he didn’t want to actually upset his brother.

Those kinds of pranks weren’t funny.

He was looking for something- maybe a power tool or maybe a mid-level experiment to glue a bunch of googly eyes on. Yeah, that’s funny.

He picked up an impact driver, looking for a safe place to glue the plastic when the lab door behind him slid open.

Caught, Mikey darted under the desk to avoid the wrath of his brother. It didn’t matter how many times Donnie asked him to stay out of his lab, Mikey always wormed his way back in, much to the former’s annoyance.

He peeked out to survey the danger levels, but-

That didn’t looked like a hunched over, overworked, sleep deprived turtle.

“Casey?”

The boy nearly jumped out of his skin, shoving something behind his back.

“M-Mikey?! What are you doing here?!”

Mikey stood on his toes to see what he was holding.

“Uh, I live here, broski?”

Casey leaned back so that despite Mikey’s added height, he still couldn’t see much. Whatever it was, it was really colorful and sounded really crinkly.

“Yeah- Pshh I know that.”

The boy then continued under his breath.

“Man, I gotta stop saying that in here-“

He made another expert dodge, still blocking the mystery item.

“But what are you doing in Donnie’s lab? Doesn’t he hate it when you’re in here?”

Mikey simply gave up, resting back on his heels with a sigh.

“I could ask the same to you dude! You’re not allowed in Donnie’s lab either! You know how much he hates you.”

“Wha- Yes I- UH I mean, I’m… not. Right, I’m not allowed in here. Because… Donnie does not like me. Right, right.”

Casey shifted uncomfortably on his feet, darting his eyes everywhere around the room except at Mikey. The thing behind him crinkled again, the only noise in the quiet lab. His face was a fierce red, blushing like crazy.

The turtle thought to himself, trying to reason his friend’s strange behavior.

“Were you…”

Casey was sweating absolute bullets, keeping his hands firmly behind his back.

“Were you also here to pull a prank on Donnie?”

Of course! It all made sense.

Duh, Casey was gonna set up a prank and now he was all nervous because he got caught.

“Uhhhh… Yeah! That’s um, That’s exactly what I was doing! Man, you caught me!”

Casey let go of one of his hands to snap his fingers in an oh darn motion, but quickly put it back when the thing behind him crinkled, just about to fall. He quickly caught it, throwing a panicked glance over his shoulder.

Mikey laughed, walking over to sit at the desk chair. Casey laughed awkwardly and turned as the turtle passed him so that Mikey was facing his front at all times. 

“Don’t sweat it, brah! I was here to do the exact same thing!”

Mikey shook his bag of plastic eyes he’d found in the dumpster behind a craft store. 

Casey’s face was still red, more red than just a usual nervous blush.

Actually- Casey was almost never nervous. This was weird.

“Hey man… you alright? You’re like- all red and… sweaty? Dude, why are you so swea-“

Casey cut him off with a loud laugh, swiveling around so the item in his hands was now curled up in his chest and still hidden from Mikey’s view.

“Sooo- I’ll be goin’ now! Nice seein’ ya, Mike!”

The boy bolted out the lab door, taking extra care that no one could see what he was holding.

Mikey watched him leave from his seat at Donnie’s desk.

Weird.

He quickly shook it off, getting to work on peeling the backings of on a pair of eyes so he could stick them to the desk. 

The weird chat with Casey had taken up a bunch of time and now he only had around half an hour to set ever up. To anyone else, that would seem like more than enough time, but Mikey was a mutated turtle with stubby fingers and no fingernails.

Adhesive backings were not his friends.

Mikey made his rounds around the lab, sticking eyes to tools and beakers, laughing lightly to himself at how ridiculous it all looked. Super serious science equipment staring back with a goofy empty gaze.

He slipped out of the lab, proud of his handiwork.

After throwing away all the little white dots of slippery backing and washing his hands (hygiene is important, kids!), Mikey got started on dinner. 

He started pulling out ingredients from their pantry, setting them down on the counter as he read them off of one of the index cards Casey started leaving around their kitchen. He grabbed one of the easier ones. 

‘Casey Soup’ as the turtle’s had dubbed it. The rich and  creamy broth was amazing when any of them were sick- or just any day in general. Donnie especially loved it for some reason.

And taking a peek in the pantry, it looked like they had all the ingredients…

Or- almost all the ingredients.

Mikey stepped out of the pantry, about to holler for Casey to ask what the shell ‘paprika’ was, only to find the boy was much closer than he had initially expected.

Casey looked left and right, clearly attempting to be sneaky with his mystery item still held close to his body. Mikey slunk back into the pantry shadows, pretending like he wasn’t there at all. 

He watched as the boy looked around for a final time before sprinting into the lab, closing the door silently after him.

Mikey watched and waited- something he had honestly gotten much better at over the years.

Casey reappeared empty handed just a few minutes later and exited the lair immediately, jumping the turnstiles with a wide smile.

Out of sheer curiosity, Mikey temporarily abandoned his scavenging for ingredients to go peek into Donnie’s lab.

The door slid open easily- Casey had forgotten to close it completely, almost like he wanted Donnie to notice and go inside. Strange- that was the opposite of what Mikey usually wanted when pulling a trick on someone.

All his fake eyes were still fixed in their places, staring blankly at him, but right smack dab in the middle of Donnie’s desk, there lay Casey’s mystery item…

A small bouquet of flowers.

Not squirting or zapping flowers.

Real flowers all wrapped up nice and neat with decorative acetate and a lilac ribbon.

There was a small tag. Maybe that was the trick part.

Mikey turned it over to read it.

Calm your tits, D. I know it’s not a special occasion or anything- and before you say anything, I bought them with money from work. Enjoy ;)

Huh…

Weird prank, but okay.

Chapter Text

“Donatello and Casey.”

Splinter’s stern voice carried through the air of the near silent dojo. He stood in front of the six kneeling teens, walking stick in hand as he pointed to the center of the room.

Randori.

Donnie immediately looked at Casey with a dirty look, only to find that the boy was already staring him down with equal defiance. If it weren’t for the fact that Splinter could turn them both into black and blue pretzels in a matter of seconds, they would’ve complained aloud.

Instead, they got up in unison and calmly walked to the center of the room for their randori sparring match.

He could feel the eyes of his brothers- the eyes of April on him as the tension in the air thickened.

Donnie bowed, watching Casey through his mask tails. He dipped slightly lower than him, just out of spite.

He drew his bo staff and Casey drew his hockey stick- Master Splinter had offered him a variety of weapons, but the delinquent had firmly stuck with his signature stick.

All the more proving his incompetence, according to Donatello.

Donnie breathed in deeply through his nose to ground himself as he assumed a traditional ready stance. Casey grinned, dropping into a hockey crouch, tapping the blade of his stick against the ground.

“Ready for The Jones?”

He mouthed silently, teasing him.

Just another thing about the boy that irked him.

Before Donnie could further berate him in his mind or even just mouth him a scathing comeback, a sharp shout pierced the air.

“Hajime!”

Splinter knocked the tip of his staff against the floor, starting the match.

Donnie was instantly on the defensive. Casey had run and jumped up, swinging his hockey stick like an absolute lunatic.

The turtle blocked the attacks coming from all sides. He took small steps backwards as he assessed and thought himself through a plan, closing his eyes to think.

“What? Is the little turtle scared?”

Donnie didn’t reply to Casey’s egging, as much as he wanted to. He really really wanted to.

He watched Casey for a few more moments, tuning out the boy’s comments and simply focusing on scoping out the right plan.

Yes, the boy was fast and stronger than average. Hours spent gliding on ice had trained his balance to near perfection and his stamina was beyond impressive.

But what Casey had in brute strength, he lacked in strategy. It took nearly no time at all for Donnie to deduce that there was no rhyme or reason behind Casey’s hits besides, well- hitting him. His strikes were sloppy and all over the place.

Rookie mistake.

Donnie slid into a duck, slipping right underneath Casey’s arms and popping up behind him.

“Wait- What the-“

Before he could even turn around, Donnie stuck his staff out, sweeping Casey’s feet right off the mat.

The boy fell backwards with a thud. He might’ve even had some airtime on that spectacular crash.

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw his brothers and April all wince in tandem. Mikey even let out a hushed ‘yikes, that’s gotta hurt’ before being shushed by Leo.

Donnie felt satisfaction rush through his veins as he watched Casey groggily get back on his feet.

“I-it’s gonna take a little more than that to get me down, ape-face.”

Casey grinned that wide-mouthed grin that always got Donnie’s blood boiling as he readied his hockey stick again. Donnie skillfully leapt forwards, fully intending to pull the same sweep-the-leg move, but Casey clacked the blade of his hockey stick against the staff, effectively blocking it. Donnie darted his eyes upwards only to find Casey already smirking right at him.

“ Nuh uh , not gonna let that happen, brainia-”

Donnie shot out a leg, shin hitting the backs of Casey’s knees. The impact sent the boy tumbling to the floor mid-insult.

Somewhere in the back of his mind, Donnie was still aware that Master Splinter was observing the match like a hawk, so he swallowed the urge to gloat. But he did smile. He smiled at Casey all sprawled out and wheezing for breath.

“Ha! Weak! I’ve fallen harder than that before, calc nerd.”

Donnie just couldn’t resist after that jab, speaking up for the first time the whole match.

“Calc nerd? Really? Now that’s just an objective fact. I am smarter than you.”

Once again, Casey picked himself up. However, he looked a great deal more unsteady, swaying in place as he bent his knees and tapped his hockey stick against the woven mats of the dojo floor.

“Eh, I ran out of names, D. You’re smarter- probably , but definitely not stronger . I bet I-”

Casey’s back hit the ground, but he rolled over and sprang back to his feet. He was really unsteady now, stumbling and leaning on his stick. 

In all good conscience, Donnie should’ve stopped. He should’ve gone easy or something at that point.

But with Casey stubbornly up after every tumble like some sort of demented whack-a-mole full of (nickelodeon approved) petty insults, he found it so much more fulfilling to knock the boy down over and over and over again.

“That all you got?-”

Bam! Casey’s knees hit the floor first. That was sure to bruise, but it didn’t deter him in the slightest.

“I don’t think I even felt that one-”

Slam! His side. Casey didn’t even fully get up before he opened his mouth again.

“Come at me!-”

Just before Donnie’s staff could make brutal contact with Casey’s ankles, a much stronger force grabbed the back of his staff behind him.

“Enough, Donatello.”

Donnie’s blood ran ice cold in an instant. 

Right. Master Splinter had been watching the whole time.

Right…

Sewer apples. 

He slowly turned his head to look up at splinter who still had his stuff trapped in a vice grip. Donnie nearly wished he hadn’t looked because the raging fire in his father’s eyes was furious enough to set the entire dojo ablaze.

“That is quite enough, both of you.”

Splinter let go of the staff, but Donnie stayed in his tense position, fearing whatever was coming next. Casey also sobered up pretty fast. That teasing grin was nowhere to be seen. Instead, his lips were pressed together in a thin, worried line as he faced Master Splinter.

Splinter turned to Donnie first, much to his inner anguish.

“Donatello-”

Donnie immediately looked at the ground.

“I expected more from you, my son.”

He felt the side of a palm hit him squarely over the back of his head, just like splinter always did to knock them down a peg or two.

He darted his eyes over to his small audience. His brothers all looked equally fearful, but April-

Oh god, he wished April was literally anywhere else.

“-And Mr. Jones,”

He snapped himself back into the moment. Splinter raised his hand, poised to smack Casey’s head too.

If anything, at least Donnie would get a mildly entertaining show out of watching Casey get chewed out.

Oh, that Casey Jones was about to get it-

Splinter let out a heavy sigh.

“I do not have the right to discipline you the way I do my sons. Donatello’s actions will be dealt with accordingly, I assure you.”

What.

“However, I do reserve the right to advise you to refrain from derogating your opponent in a spar. It would be unwise to do so in a real battle.”

Donnie looked over, watching the gears click and turn in Casey’s head, suppressing the urge to roll his eyes at the hockey jock’s sea-level IQ. Donnie decided to interrupt him when he saw him take a breath to speak.

“Casey, he’s saying you’re loud.”

The boy’s jaw dropped in indignation.

“What?! I am not loud! I can be quiet! I can be so quie-”

Splinter actually did smack Casey upside the head, although Donnie noted that it was much lighter than if say it were one of his brothers. Still, Casey’s hands flew up and rubbed the spot as he hissed in pain.

Donnie felt a small spike of satisfaction return. Casey must’ve noticed though, because he turned to face him with his brows furrowed. 

He didn’t make a sound. Not even the slightest breath. His arms blocked the front of his face from Master Splinter’s view, but Donnie caught every syllable of what he quietly mouthed next.

“Egghead.”

Oh ho, screw all the consequences- Donnie couldn’t wait for their next sparring lesson.

⋅•⋅⊰∙∘☽☾ ik their alphabet game is canonically mentioned like once BUT IDC IT'S SO CUTE ☽☾∘∙⊱⋅•⋅

“Okay Casey, are you ready?”

Yoshi sat cross legged on a mat, keeping a watchful eye on Leonardo and Casey’s sparring match. An odd pairing for sure, but that Jones boy definitely had a taste for odd pairings…

A few characteristics of their training sessions had changed over the years. For one thing, Yoshi sat now, he didn’t stand to watch. Even leaning on his cane had been too much for his bad leg. He knew it worried his sons, despite how often he lied and reassured them that his leg wasn't that much of a bother. A more positive change was that the teens were allowed to choose their own sparring partners. They were also permitted to use the dojo as they pleased. Resourcefulness was a key aspect of martial arts. 

However, he was beginning to rethink the whenever they pleased portion of the dojo’s use. Remembering the scene he had accidentally stumbled upon with his own son and Casey, he stiffened. 

Odd pairings indeed…

He still needed to sit both boys down for a… talk one of these days.

“Born ready, Leo-narc-o.”

Another aspect of training that had changed. Somewhere along his journey of raising four teenage sons, he had come to realize that forming them all to his exact expectations was completely absurd, jiu jitsu included.

All his pupils had different techniques when it came to battle and he stopped trying to strictly enforce one style of fighting when it became oh so apparent that that was simply not the right approach.

Even when certain students’ tactics were particularly irritating.

“Still too slow, Loser-nardo!”

In all honesty, Yoshi had seen Casey fight in real situations and his strategy of aggravating his opponent was surprisingly effective, even if it was much too loud for his own taste.

All in all, he was becoming more lax in his relationship with his sons and his sons’ companions. He was trying to get them into a more independent unit. Recently, he’s been wanting consolation that his family would still be functional without him there.

The implications of that… he didn’t want to think about much.

His leg spiked in pain again and he had to shift out of his kneeling position into a lotus seat. His joint creaked, small as the movement was, it still creaked.

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Donatello notice the shift. His most observant son.

Their eyes met, but Donatello quickly averted his gaze back to the spar at hand, looking slightly solemn.

Yes, it was best for everyone if they ignored the implications.

“What's the L stand for, Leo?! Los- Whoa!”

Casey slid to the side, expertly dodging a swipe from the turtle in the nick of time

“What’s the C stand for, Casey? Your grade average?”

Leonardo quickly recovered, springing back with his sword in hand and an easy smile on his face. 

Yoshi was glad he was loosening up a bit. As a child and an early teen, Leo had always been so uptight. It was admirable, yet a tad concerning for his young age.

Also- the clips in his mask tail. 

Those were a new development. They’d appeared around the time Leo had started smiling more.

“Oooh, snap!”

Mikey called from the sidelines. Casey scoffed.

“I actually finished trig with a B+, soooo…”

He brandished his hockey stick with a cocky flourish before going in for a surprise strike.

“Take this!”

Straight for the legs. Yoshi had seen this before, yet made no move to intervene. Leonardo, who had expected Casey to thrust a jab, was already dodging backwards in preparation. He noticed his mistake just a split-second too late.

His foot hit the curved blade of the hockey stick.

Sensing the opportunity (almost as if he wasn’t actually expecting it to work), Casey threw his bodyweight into the stick, sweeping Leonardo completely off his feet.

After a soft ‘oomph’ from Leonardo, a stunned silence filled the lair.

Casey stood unmoving for a moment, just staring and basking in his accomplishment before he whirled around, bright sunshine grin wide from ear to ear.

“Donnie! Did’ja see that? That’s that move you taught me! I actually did- “

Casey went flying.

Leo had flipped to his feet and jammed the hilt of one of his katanas into Casey’s side in the two seconds he had turned to gloat to his (*gag*) boyfriend and his friends.

April’s hand flew to her mouth in shock.

“CASEY!”

The shriek was shrill and high pitched, but it hadn’t come from April. 

No, it was Donatello who was sprinting across the lair towards Yoshi where Casey had landed.

“Casey! Are you okay?”

He dropped to his knees, pulling the boy over his lap and leaning down to inspect him.

“Oh… oh! Crud, Casey!”

Leonardo sheathed his swords, jogging over in apprehensive concern. Donatello whipped his head up, instantly turning to anger.

“I didn’t- I didn’t think I hit him that hard!”

“Well obviously you did!”

Donatello snapped, his voice raised.

“I didn’t mean to! Is he going to be okay?”

Now, Yoshi always had impeccable hearing, even as a human. All five of his senses had been trained and honed down to the wire. But after his mutation into his rat form, they became even more heightened.

Especially his hearing.

So he heard it crystal clear and loud as day when Casey took a ragged breath.

“Guess I really ‘fell’ for ya, huh, Dee?”

As Yoshi stilled his hands so they wouldn't reach straight out to his left and strangle the boy, Donatello’s expression looked somewhere in between strangling him as well and a gooey look of fondness.

Casey had been quiet enough so that only Donatello would hear. Or so he thought. 

Yoshi never admitted his mutagen-enhanced hearing to his sons. It gave him a leg up when he trained them as children when they all just believed their father knew everything. They still did to that day. All four still wondered how Yoshi knew the little secrets they shared behind closed doors.

He wasn’t about to admit any of it though. He would take that tiny parenting cheat to the grave.

Donatello sighed, running a hand through Casey’s long, black hair.

“He’s lucid enough to be stupid, so he’s fine.”

Yoshi reached for his cane, pushing him up to a standing position with considerably more effort than what would’ve been necessary about five years ago.

Casey seemed fine, but it would be wise for him to stop training and get looked at anyways. He would need to be taken to the medbay, located in Donatello’s lab.

“Donat-”

He paused mid-sentence.

Yoshi had been in love before. He had gone through the phases of liking to loving to sharing a life. He had been about to send Donatello and Casey off to the medbay.

Alone.

Together.

“Raphael, please take Casey to the medbay and tend to any injuries.”

His shortest son slouched over in his kneel, groaning aloud.

“ Awh- ain’t that Donnie’s job? Why do I gotta leave n’ go-”

Yoshi sent him his long perfected parent-glare and Raphael quickly got to his feet.

“I mean- Hai, sensei! C’mon, Casey! Let’s getcha patched up!”

He sprang across the room with a false cheeriness to his voice as he hauled Casey up from under his shoulders. His fake smile was nearly comical and Yoshi would have laughed if not for his focus on the rest of his pupils. 

With Raphael and Casey gone, he turned to them.

“April and Mikey next.”

Chapter Text

It was safe to say that Casey Jones was having an absolutely horrendous day.

He hadn’t even left his apartment to go to school yet. A new record for him, probably. The fastest screwed-up day in history.

First, his phone had died in the middle of the night, so his alarm hadn’t gone off. He woke up in a panic, way too late to steep any kind of tea. A dead phone and no drink. Not the best way to wake up, but Casey had survived worse.

Next, the sink hadn’t turned on when he pulled the tap to brush his teeth, so he was stuck with a mouthful of chalky, minty toothpaste that he just had to try his best to spit out. Gross.

When was the last time his dad paid the water bill? He didn’t remember it being this bad when his mom was-

Whatever. The important thing was this wasn’t the first time he’d been stuck without water. He’d just pick up a gallon jug from the corner store on the way home. Casey had survived worse.

Then, after hopping around in a rush to get his skinny jeans on, he found a new rip in them. Usually, he thought the holes in his jeans looked pretty metal, but this one ran all the way down the inner seam of his calf. It was most likely from one of his many patrol escapades.

Okay, so he had a dead phone, no tea, no time to get ready, and a ten inch slice in his ex-favorite pair of jeans. But he had survived worse… right?

“Casey! C’mon, you gotta drive me!”

He jolted at the knock on the door, freezing in terror one pant leg into his ruined jeans. He listened in complete and utter stillness for a moment to check if the noise had woken his father.

Silence.

Good. Silence was always good.

Casey stumbled over to his door, still trying to shove his other leg into his pants (curse his awful character design).

“Yeah yeah, gimme a minute, Chloe.”

He could literally feel his sister's eye roll through the thin plaster wall.

“Whatever.”

Finally, Casey fastened a worn out leather belt around his waist. He stuffed a stack of half finished trigonometry homework into his already crowded backpack, swapping it out for the roll of trusty silver duct tape buried at the bottom of the rest of his bag junk beneath a handful of hockey pucks.

pulling one end with his teeth, he used his free hand to hold his ripped pant leg steady. He tore off a sizable piece of tape and slapped it over the rip.

Good enough.

“We’re gonna be laaaate!”

Great, the pounding menace at his door was back.

“In a minute!”

Casey looked down at his half-dressed self before snatching a hoodie from his laundry basket. Not the grossest thing he’s ever done.

Zipping up his bag, he saw his calculator among the knick-knacks on his desk. 

He needed that for math class.

He unzipped his bag, threw in the device, and then zipped it up again.

Casey was about to pick up his bag when he saw his phone charger also lying among the rest of his desk clutter.

Dead phone. Right. 

He also needed that charger.

Unzip. Stuff in. Zip.

“Caseyyy!”

The pounding on his door was dangerously loud now. If his dad stayed unconscious though that, he was out like the dead.

“Alright! Alright!”

Casey slung his bag over his shoulder and patted down his pockets for the keys to his family's old minivan. Yeah, not exactly his car of choice, but that beat up gray minivan had been in their family for as far as Casey could remember.

Back pockets, front pockets, hoodie pocket- Oh no oh god-

Right before he could panic into a full blown spiral about losing his car keys, Casey remembered that he had tossed the keys into his bag the night prior so that he wouldn’t forget them.

Cursing louder than he normally would for the time of the day, he swung his bag back over his shoulder and onto the desk, disturbing a pile of trinkets- but honestly, he couldn’t care less.

Casey forcefully rustled through his bag until his fingertips felt the familiar jangle of keys. He fished them out, stuffing them into his back pocket along with his phone. He realized a split second too late that the metal keys had scraped against his screen, probably adding yet another scratch to his unfortunate collection.

With an aggressive grunt, he shoved his shoulder into his bag strap with way more force than necessary. The bag slammed into his back, but not before sweeping a wide arc along his desk.

Casey watched in horror as piles of his desk clutter toppled to the floor. Actually, scratch that. He didn’t care about most of that junk.

Casey watched in horror as one thing clattered to the floor. The one nice thing the boy owned.

His mother’s music box.

It was practically in slow motion as he watched the ornate wood splinter into fragments as the corner hit the cheap gray carpet of his bedroom. Tiny cogs and metal doohickeys sprayed across the floor like a spilled cup of milk. Casey really wanted to cry over spilled milk.

The box made one final note as it shattered, almost as if the toy itself was crying out for help- crying out in betrayal.

Casey barely had time to process what he had just done before a heavy pair of footsteps thumped in a steady rhythm towards his door.

Too heavy to be his sister’s.

Oh no…

He decided to wake up now?!

Shaking himself out of his daze, Casey rushed to his door, flinging it open and pushing past his father. They were nearly the same height now… Casey could easily beat him in a physical fight…

“Sorrysorry- I’ll take Chloe to school now you can go back to sleep if you wanna okay bye!”

Flooded with terror for the man in front of him, Casey rushed out in a single, frantic breath. He didn’t give his dad a chance to respond as he grabbed his sister’s hand and made a mad dash for the door of the apartment.

“Casey.”

Casey stopped in his tracks, blood suddenly replaced with ice cold water. He was so afraid, he felt nauseous. 

“Do better next time.”

One hand on the door knob, Casey gripped the tarnished brass tighter so it would stop shaking. He didn’t turn around.

He didn’t want to see his dad’s face.

“I'm sorry. It won't happen again. I'll be quieter next time.”

He repeated the monotone, robotic apology, not turning around as he wrenched the door open. The hinges squeaked and the two light bulbs in the hall nearest to their apartment were broken, but to Casey it felt like he was walking into heaven itself.

A few days ago, his eye caught a flyer tacked to the outside of their building, warning that the hallway ac unit was broken on their floor, but someone must’ve fixed it because the air that greeted his face was so refreshing, Casey could’ve cried.

His breathing was shaky and uneven as he descended the three flights of stairs leading into the apartment lobby, little sister in tow.

“You know, Daddy wouldn’t be so mean if you were just better. Like me.”

Casey gulped, pretending like the words didn’t carry a harsh sting. 

“Y-yeah, I guess…”

His voice came out cracked and he winced, clearing his throat.

“Now c’mon, let's get you to school.”

The radio in the busted up van was broken, so the ride was near silent save for the concerning sounds of the rickety engine.

No music…

Aughhh- That. just reminded him about the music box.

The one thing- The One. Thing. His mother left that was all his. Finances went to his father, clothes went to charity, jewelry went to his sister who kept her pearls locked up tight in a box high up on her shelf.

What was Casey thinking! His little sister really was better than him. She wouldn’t have left that box on her desk, out for anything to happen to it.

Sure, he wanted to see it every day- wanted to be reminded of her every time he sat at his desk, but look at where that nostalgia got him.

A broken music box and a crap ton of issues.

Casey almost missed the turn to get into the parking lot of his sister’s elementary school, drifting a bit as he yanked the wheel. 

The brakes screeched as he came to a hard stop right in front of the building and Chloe hopped out of the sliding door, pink backpack bouncing in her wake.

Not a ‘thank you’ or even a ‘good bye’ in earshot.

Fine. Fine. Whatever. 

Casey peeled off, feeling free to speed as he navigated the five blocks down to his own school. His parking job was worse than usual, but not awful. 

Pulling the key from the ignition, he realized some of his black nail polish was starting to chip away. His nails were already kind of uneven and disheveled to start with from hockey practice, punching goons, and just overall neglect.

He saw April hanging out in the front of the building, happily chatting with… Irma.

Casey retracted his excited wave, but it was too late. Irma had already seen him and pointed him out.

Forced to go over and join them, Casey donned his backpack once more and trudged over.

“Hey, Red!”

He put on his best fake smile and nudged her with his elbow.

“And Irma.”

The girl pushed her black framed glasses up her nose, looking Casey up and down. Casey hated the way it always felt like she was scrutinizing him.

“Are your pants duct taped together?”

She pointed with a neatly painted black fingernail. Irma’s fingernails were always neater than Casey’s.

“Mind your own business, Irma!”

A sudden hand cut between them.

“Aye- Stop it, both of you.”

Casey and Irma rolled their eyes in tandem, noticed it, and then proceeded to frown at the exact same time.

“Don’t you have like, your news geek club to get to?”

That got him a smack on the back of the head from April.

“I do, actually. In fact, I need to get back to writing a riveting article- don’t suppose you know how to read-”

Casey’s jaw fell open with indignation, but before he could even open his mouth to make a comeback, Irma was already sauntering away.

He wordlessly gestured at her, eyes screaming ‘did you just see that?’ at April who crossed her arms and slid a hip to the side.

“Don’t even, you set yourself up for that one.”

She cracked a smile and Casey found that he couldn’t stay mad at his friend.

“Fiiiinee.”

Casey sat on the ground, the concrete warm from the sun. A few leaves had turned colors, but not enough for anyone to be wearing a jacket yet.

“Man, I hate Irma, she talks like Donnie.”

“You just got on her bad side. She’s actually really nice.”

April took a seat next to him, leaning her head on his shoulder. Her red hair brushed up against his neck and Casey’s face suddenly felt the same color.

“I’m thinking about joining the news club too… I dunno, it sounds fun.”

Casey looked down to see April fiddling with her fingernails. Also painted black.

Hers were painted perfectly. No streaks or chips anywhere to be seen. Each nail a perfect almond shape.

They looked more like Irma’s than his own. He suspected that that was why they were painted at all.

He took his eyes off of them.

“Naww, really? I don’t think I can stand two nerds in the lair. You and Donnie are gonna be all huddled up with your computers like a buncha dorks.”

When April didn’t respond immediately, Casey worried that he had said something wrong.

“What?”

“Nothing, it’s just- That’s the second time you’ve brought up Donnie today.”

Casey scrunched his face in disgust.

“No it isn’t!”

“Yeah, it is!”

April picked her head up, pointing at him.

“You said his name like, twice and you- You’re blushing?!”

Panicked, Casey reached up to cover his face, but April reached him first. She cupped her hands around his jaw, examining his face.

“Oh my gosh! You so are! Blushinggg! ”

She teased, squishing his pink cheeks.

“Lemme go, lemme go!”

Casey wrenched himself free, accidentally knocking into the brick behind him. A tiny clatter came from behind him, drawing the pair's attention. April let go and Casey scooted over to see what had fallen.

Immediately, he noticed that his bag was half open.

“Aw man! My zipper broke and-”

A shrill ringing sound interrupted him.

“ And we’re late.”

April finished for him. She stood up, brushed a stray orange leaf from her leggings, and held out her hand to Casey. Ordinarily, Casey would’ve jumped for joy at the chance to hold hands with a pretty girl, no- the pretty girl, but that day, he just wasn’t feeling it.

“Actually Red, I think I might just skip today.”

“Really?”

April retracted her hand and Casey almost kicked himself.

“Yeah, I’m kinda tired.”

He threw in a fake yawn and stretch for good measure. Actually- that stretch felt pretty good.

“Alright, don’t fall too far behind.”

“Don’t worry about me, I got it covered! A day in the lair ain’t gonna fail me.”

Of course he was going to the lair, where else would he go? Back home to his father and… the broken music box?

The sudden reminder was a jab in the heart. 

First, he couldn’t keep a stupid music box together and now he couldn’t even keep himself in school?

Casey got up too and picked up his stuff. April had already started walking into the building and he watched her go by. She paused, pushing open the big front doors. Turning around, she called out to him very loudly.

“Go say hi to Donnie while you’re there!!”

He felt his face and neck heat up faster than ever. Casey plunged his arm into his overstuffed bag, drew a black hockey puck, and chucked it at April’s head.

⋅•⋅⊰∙∘☽☾ “ He’s pathetic and disgusting” -Donatello two seconds before admitting to the feels ☽☾∘∙⊱⋅•⋅

April closed her laptop, rubbing at her bleary eyes. She glanced at the lockscreen of her phone. Irma’s beaming face smiled up at her, but more importantly, it was two in the morning.

Man, she’d arrived in the lair around mid afternoon the previous day to just ‘finish up a few articles’. The Space Heroes marathon had been turned off long ago and there wasn’t a single soul still conscious in the vicinity.

Irma sure wasn’t lying about all that reporter business being hard work. April had only finished about three articles and she still had a few more to go before her deadline.

Why did she even do this, again?

She glanced again at her phone.

Right.

Stifling a yawn, April rolled off the beanbag she was sitting on and cringed at the feeling of cold concrete against her feet through her socks.

The turtles had a rule about not wearing shoes around the living area of the lair. Something about Splinter and not getting the floors dirty.

They lived in a sewer, but she digressed.

Casey had picked up on it really easily, but April had a slightly harder time getting used to it. She always wore her shoes around her apartment with her dad. (A/N: shoes around the house is nasty btw, just so u guys know. N a s t y)

April rolled her shoulders and popped her back, sighing at the series of crackles.

She got up to start packing away her stuff when she heard it.

Talking.

Not to anyone in particular either, just… mumbling.

She crept silently along the tunnel hallway, hearing more and more noises as she got closer to Donatello’s lab. Just as she suspected, the light was on.

There was vibrant yellow hazard tape strapped around the door that she disregarded, strolling right in.

“Why are you up so late?”

“WAUGHH!!-”

Donnie flailed around in surprise, nearly tumbling out of his rolling chair. He caught one of the armrests, seating himself upright again. He crossed a leg over the other, folding his hands over his knees in a clear attempt to look casual.

“April!”

The bags under his eyes were apparent.

“What are you doing here?”

He hissed through a forced smile. The question was innocent enough, but Donnie’s squinted eyes practically shouted ‘go away, please’.

“ I’m here to ask what you are doing here. It’s two in the morning, Donnie.”

April shut the door behind her to make it clear that she wasn't going anywhere until she got some answers. Donnie frantically darted his gaze around the room, looking anywhere but at April as he nervously tapped his fingers together.

“Well then, I’m asking what you are doing, asking me what I’m doing in my lab!”

The girl didn’t even attempt to process that. It was way too late- early- whatever.

April waved her hands in front of her.

“Okay okay- We’re both up at this ungodly hour when we’re not supposed to be.”

Donnie’s face said everything she needed to know, confirming her theory. The turtle visibly relaxed, uncrossing his legs and slouching in his chair.

“Good to know. I won’t tell if you won’t.”

He held up his third finger like it was a pinky. Man, April loved her brothers. They were adorable,

She grasped his finger with her pinky, shaking on it.

“Reporter’s honor.”

Donnie scoffed at that.

“Reporters don’t have honor.”

April reached over and rubbed her knuckles into his bald head, making him squirm and unsuccessfully swat her hand away.

“Uhuh, I could say the same thing about ninja’s too. What are you even working on anyways?”

She released him to let him straighten out his purple mask as she leaned down further over his desk. Donnie was apparently working on some kind of extremely complex trinket.

“Ow! Did you really have to-”

The rest of Donnie’s words fell into muffle brain noise as she further examined the cogs and wheels, unjoined pieces on the table clicking together the pieces in her mind.

“Donnie…”

The pieces of an old-timey music box lay neatly scattered across the surface of the work table. April remembered the music box that Donnie had made her back at the farm house, how she had let him down as gently as she thought she could. In hindsight, after a little bit of age and wisdom, that had definitely not been the best way to go about Donatello’s unreturned feelings.

She still felt a little bit bad though, it seemed like Donnie was putting everything that he could into building this music box.

“Donnie, I thought we talked about this…”

Making sure not to disrupt the careful order of all the machine pieces, April carded her fingers through a few thin bronze cogs.

“What do you mean?”

Donnie looked genuinely confused. She really thought that he had realized his mistake a long time ago.

“The music box and…”

She didn’t want to say it aloud. It felt slightly gross. At that point in their relationship, Donnie and the rest of the crew were like family to her. Splinter a second father and the turtles her brothers.

“And everything else.”

Tilting his head to the side, Donnie looked from the music box parts, to April’s face, and then back to the music box parts before lighting up with understanding.

“Oh!... Oh…”

It quickly changed to disgust.

“Oh nononono N. O.”

April slouched against the edge of the desk in relief. She really did not want to have that talk again.

“It’s not for you- no.”

Donnie picked up a screwdriver, scooting his chair back to his desk where he was before April barged in. Assuming that was the end of that conversation, April pulled out her phone and turned to seek out the comfiest chair in the lab.

“It’s for Casey .”

Donnie had a finger up as he spoke, like a proper little nerd.

April took a second to register the words coming from his mouth (ah, two am. What a mental state) and immediately spun back around.

“What?!”

She grabbed Donnie by the shoulders, twirling him around. 

“Casey? As in Casey Jones- The Casey Jones?”

“...yes?”

They were locked in a stalemate of stares. April gazed into Donnie’s deep red eyes, searching for answers.

“... Is it a bomb?”

“ What?! No!”

Donnie cried out indignantly, as if it wasn’t completely plausible that he would commit a war crime just to be petty towards Casey over like, the last slice of pizza or something.

“It’s his mom’s old music box! I’m fixing it for him.”

“That’s it?”

“Yes!”

He sounded exasperated, so April dropped the ‘blowing up Casey’ theory. Instead, she went back to looking at all the intricate parts of the box. Who knew that something with such a pointless purpose needed to be so complex?

“Huh, I don't think I've ever seen his mom.”

“He doesn’t -Uhm, have one... anymore.”

Donnie’s reply was immediate. His voice was short and clipped as he bent back over the project. April stood confused. Everyone had a mom- well, except her, but that’s because of weird alien shenanigans and-

The realization hit her like a freight train.

“Oh…”

“Yeah, this is the last piece of her that he had, so I’m fixing it up for him.”

A comfortable silence settled between them, April watching over Donnie’s shoulder as he placed the different doo-dads in one by one. She turned back to her search of finding the comfiest spot to curl up in the lab. Donnie’s presence was comforting and there was no way she was going back out to the cold living room.

Another question struck her.

“Wait, exactly how long have you been working on that music box?”

The tinkering noises abruptly stopped. The chair creaked as Donnie slowly spun himself around

“Erm… what day is-”

Upon seeing April’s eyes fly open wide, he whirled himself back to facing his desk, immersing himself in his project at double speed.

“Ah hah! You know what? That’s not important!”

“Donnie!!”

Chapter Text

Casey hobbled off the ice, groaning and clutching his nose. He could still hear the ref blowing his whistle like there was no tomorrow over the blood rushing through his ears.

And out of his nose.

There was a lot coming out of his nose.

Coach clapped a hand on his shoulder, the dull thwack resonating through his thick padding and making him stumble a little.

“Did you know that kid, Jones? That foul looked personal.”

Casey could only find the strength to nod helplessly as he felt hot, sticky blood run rivulets down his arm and into his gear.

Laundry was going to be a pain later.

Coach clapped him twice on the back, really not helping in the slightest.

“Get some first aid and go home early, Jones. Ya did just fine.”

Once again, Casey could only nod as he continued his clunkety, unstable walk in his skates. It felt more like a walk of shame than anything. Each unsteady step oozed humiliation all over the black rubber mats.

Casey could feel the eyes and whispers of the stands as he passed them by, his face burning up from more than just abrasions.

Coach was right. It was personal. 

He knew that the semi-finals of his bracket had put his team against a team way out of state, but Casey never would’ve guessed- not in a million years- that it would’ve been that guy’s team.

Nick hadn’t really enjoyed their little ‘reunion’, apparently.

Yeah, the same Nick that he accidentally broke the nose of. The same Nick who had been his best friend up until that day.

This was payback, he guessed.

While Casey tried to talk to him one last time before the game, Nick had just shrugged him off without so much as a dirty look. Like he was nothing.

And so Casey made the stupid assumption that that meant he would be ignored.

So much for that.

Dirty buncha cheats…

He plopped down on an empty bench in the far corner of the emptied out lobby, sagging down as he stewed and churned in his furious thoughts faintly wondering just what the hell he was supposed to do next. No one was around and his already crooked nose had decided to transform into a red cross donation center.

The lobby was empty because everyone was watching the game . The game he was supposed to be in.

Maybe he was being a sore loser, but was he really being a sore loser if he wasn’t supposed to lose in the first place?

“Casey!”

He didn’t even need to turn his head. He’d recognize that voice anywhere. 

His heart lightened by just a shade at hearing that voice.

“Red!”

Casey gagged for two reasons. One, because of how embarrassingly nasally he sounded, pinching the bridge of his nose. Two, because his mouth flooded with the iron tang of blood the second he tried to speak.

Coughing and trying to regain his stature, he felt a hand come to rest upon his shoulders. It was much more gentle and cautious that his coach’s rowdy thumps.

“Are… are you okay?”

He nodded.

April took his face in her hands as she began to rant, turning it this way and that as she checked the damage. Casey wasn’t even going to pretend like he didn’t enjoy her running her hands all over his face and shoulders.

“-and when I get my hands on that guy! Oooh, he better pray that I’m in a good mood! I’m not, though! I’m really really upset that he did-“

April’s concerned rambling was interrupted by a hulking figure backflipping off one of the ceiling beams, landing with a haughty flourish. The man- woman- Er, person… thing? Whatever it was, it was dressed head to toe in layers of god awful clothing and their face was buried deep within the masses of fabric. They resembled one of those cartoon kids about to go play in the snow, dressed up in jackets and sweaters until they were basically bursting at the seams. All topped with a totally inconspicuous trench coat that practically screamed ‘Look at how conspicuous I am!’

All in all, a very very shoddy disguise. There were only four people that Casey knew who would need such an obviously obvious disguise.

The only question was which one-

“HA! That guy creamed you, Jones!”

They pointed a mocking, double-gloved finger right in his face, the ring and pinky fingers drooping down empty.

Raph.

It was Raph.

“Shud ub.”

That only made the turtle laugh harder as Casey blushed.

April got off his for a moment to go smack his shoulder. Casey immediately missed those hands.

“Don’t laugh! What is wrong with you?! He’s hurt!”

Raph coughed. A poor attempt to mask his last snickers.

“I- ahem- Sorry.”

Casey leaned his head against the wall behind him, tilting his head upwards. To control the blood flow. That's all.

No other reason.

He definitely wasn’t tearing up from the pain.

Casey shot another glare at Raph who was calming down from his laughing fit, now rummaging through the endless pockets of his disguise for something. He looked really funny all bundled up like that. In any other circumstance it would be Casey laughing at him.

“H- heh- Here you go, man.”

Raph held out a stack of stolen napkins from a Mexican chain restaurant to him, still laugh-coughing into his fist.

“Danks.”

The turtle’s body jolted. From the recesses of cloth, Casey could see the glimmer of mischief in his eyes, just barely holding it together from falling victim to another laughing fit.

He snatched the brown napkins as rudely as he could.

When he brought the first one up to his face, he looked back at April who was turned away.

He nudged her with a foot, giving her a slightly confused look since he couldn’t talk to ask questions.

She held up her T-phone. The screen was perfectly intact and unscratched, unlike Casey’s own.

“I’m calling Donnie. He’ll know what to do.”

Despite being broken in what felt like at least five separate places, Casey’s face must’ve given away exactly how he felt about that.

“Oh, don’t give me that. You know he’s good with all this medical stuff.”

Casey rolled his eyes. She was right, of course. But that didn’t mean he was happy about it.

The phone barely got through half a ring before the line came to life.

“H-Hey April! Did you need something?”

Donnie’s voice carried through loud and clear through the T-phone. Stupid tryhard Donnie with his stupid flustered stutter. Everything down to his voice was annoying.

“Eh, kinda… You see-“

“Casey got beat up!”

Raph chimed in, a little too cheerfully. If Casey weren’t debilitated right then, he would’ve slugged Raph so hard, not even the padded protection of the two hundred layers of thrift store clothing would’ve saved him.

“What?!”

What followed from the phone speaker was the most irritating laugh Casey had ever heard in his life. He wanted to reach through the glass screen and throttle Donnie. It was cackly and screechy and a little too much like his own for his taste.

“What is wrong with both of you?! Casey is injured and both of you guys are laughing at him!”

While Casey appreciated the concern from April, he vaguely wondered in the back of his mind how he was ever going to recover his coolness factor in front of her.

“Ahem- Sorry, sorry.”

“Sorry, Apes.”

Donnie and Raph apologized at the same time. The line went silent for a bit before the turtle on the other end spoke up. He was quieter, more serious.

“Can we video call? I want to see him.”

April put the phone up to her ear.

“This better not be some trick just to laugh at him more.”

Her voice was dangerous, laced with poison and a million hidden threats.

“It’s not, I promise. I’m being serious. I need to see the damage before I can tell you what to do.”

April took a deep breath and sighed.

“Alright. Don’t try anything, buddy.”

She tapped a few buttons on her T-phone and the screen came to life with color. First a close up of Donnie’s face, then just his eyes as he squinted into the camera.

Casey braced himself for another wave of teasing laughter, but surprisingly, it never came.

“Hmmmmm…”

The screen showed a detailed picture of Donnie’s eyes as he analyzed Casey’s state. He had nice eyes… for a turtle.

“It’s dislocated, definitely. But! Good news. it doesn’t look broken.”

Casey almost rolled his eyes at him. He was bleeding and bleary eyed from pain, but all was well because at least his nose didn’t look broken according to the turtle dork.

God, could he possibly hate Donnie any more?

“I’ll guide you through resetting it, April. The bleeding should stop after that.”

(A/N: Do not- I repeat, DO NOT attempt to reset a broken nose on your own EVER. This is not one of those fics that have surprisingly accurate anecdotes of medical knowledge, this is a crappy tmnt ship fic written with TMNT logic. Please.)

Casey definitely was not about to reject more careful touches from April. She stuck the phone into Raph’s open palm, wedging the awkward shell shape of the device through his stiff fingers. The turtle could barely move his own hands through the multiple layers of winter gloves, so there was very little he could do to object to being used as an over-glorified phone stand.

Her cool touch laid on Casey’s neck as she waited for instruction and his breath hitched. Her face was really close to Casey’s. Her bright blue eyes stared down into his own, locking them in a trance.

Maybe her hands weren’t actually cold and it was just him who was hot. Or the room. 

Man, the room just got really hot.

Much to Casey’s utter delight, Donnie sounded entirely jealous when he interrupted them.

“Ahem! We can get started now.”

Flicking his eyes over to the screen, Casey reached deep inside his endless hate for Donatello and through the lain, managed to flash a smirk at the camera. He could’ve sworn he heard the turtle grind his teeth in anger. That sound was better pain medication than any pill.

“ April… Put a hand on his chin to hold him in place, and then grab the bridge of his nose.”

April did just that, being careful to stand slightly to the side so she wasn’t on top of him. Her touch was light on his jaw, a little too careful.

“Okay, great. Now, grab the bridge of his nose and shove it as hard as you can to the left.”

“Okay…”

As April tentatively reached forwards, Casey closed his eyes. 

This was about to hurt.

He waited for the shock of pain. That jolt of hellfire that would stop the horrible throbbing in his face. Except… it never came.

Casey peeked an eye open to see what the holdup was. April was still hovering over him. Her hand trembled right above his nose which was starting to swell and turn a nasty shade of purple. Her lips were pressed into a thin, white line and her face looked paler than usual. April grit her teeth before rapidly scrambling off of him.

“Oooooh- I can’t do it! I can’t do it!”

She stood off to the side, not facing Raph or Casey with her arms wrapped around her torso. She shot an apologetic look over her shoulder at both of them.

“Sorry Casey… It’s just- It looks so gross- sorry.”

Donnie’s sigh crackled across the phone line.

“It’s okay, April. Casey is really gross.”

If Casey wasn’t starting to lose feeling in the front of his face, he would’ve said something about Donnie living in the literal sewers. But alas, Casey was in unimaginable pain and could only glare daggers in the general direction of April’s T-phone where Donnie was still watching the whole situation.

“ Alright , I’ll do it. Let's just get this over with.”

Raph, with his bajillion coats and scarves and gloves and all, took April’s place. But unlike her, Raph had no qualms about getting all up and personal in Casey’s bubble. He seated himself roughly on Casey’s lap, using his powerful legs to straddle him and forcefully pin him in place.

Very much unlike the oh-so careful and concerned April.

Raph shoved the phone on the space between Casey’s shoulder padding and his neck, wedging it just so, so that Raph could still see his brother.

When Donnie spoke, it was like he was talking directly into Casey’s ear, the textured edge of the device pressing into the tender part of his neck.

“Grab the bottom of his chin.”

Donnie’s tone wasn’t nice or encouraging anymore. That was an April privilege, Casey guessed.

Whatever, he didn’t need that kind tone from him anyways. He didn’t strangely like it when Donnie was soft. Nope.

Raph’s touch was not gentle. It was not careful. 

He used his teeth to yank off all his gloves, exposing his bright green, tri-fingered hands with a grunt.

“Hold still, this aboutta hurt.”

Raph’s hands were cold, unlike April’s. Casey closed his eyes.

Everything about this was different from when April attempted it.

“Ready?”

Donnie’s voice boomed into his ear, unexpectedly creating the mental image of him straddling him instead of Raph. It was surprisingly believable with the weight, cold scales, and three fingers.

Donnie… hovering over him.

The tails of his purple bandana would probably be resting over his shoulders. They were longer than Raph’s which were ripped shorter from his fights. Donnie’s mask tails were long and at even lengths.

His grip was strong, forcefully keeping Casey’s head in the right position as he rambled some more first-aid into his ear. Casey wasn’t really paying attention to that, though.

Donnie would also probably look down at him with a frown that showed his tooth gap. That little gap between his front teeth that Casey sometimes wanted to widen his a few well-placed punches.

That little gap that… was framed by Donnie’s lips…

“-And then just shove it to the left until it snaps back into place.”

Casey barely had time to register what the real Donnie said before the mental daydream version shattered. 

The sharpest pain Casey had ever felt in his life struck him across the face with a sickening crunch. His toes curled and he groaned, fists clenching at his sides as his short black-painted fingernails scrabbled against the cheap plastic of the bench.

It felt like Donnie was using his infamous blowtorch inside his nose bone.

And then all of a sudden, it stopped.

Casey’s loud groan of pain pittered out into a series of heavy sighs. His body relaxed as the fire ebbed out into a dull throb.

Opening his eyes, he touched a hand to the side of his nose. There was still a nasty amount of swelling, but it was in place. In the right place.

“Owww…”

He winced, moving around the muscles in his face.

“Hey! He looks kinda alright now!”

Raph got off of him, allowing Casey to groan and tilt forwards in relief. He took the phone off his shoulder, holding it out to April, who still looked a little green.

Casey’s mind was elsewhere, though.

Up until his daydream was bashed in (along with his nose cartilage), it was absolutely Donnie who was on top of him… And he just couldn’t get that image out of his mind.

It was a nice image.

“Asey, Casey… Casey!”

The boy snapped back to reality to see Donnie’s ticked-off face.

“Wh- Huh?”

“I asked if you’re fine now.”

The turtle rolled his eyes, leaning backwards in his squeaky lab chair with his arms crossed.

“Oh- Oh yeah, I’m great.”

Were Donnie’s arms always that toned or was it just the lighting?

April spun the phone back around to face her. She smiled brightly into the camera, taking Casey out of view.

“Thanks so much for all the help, Donnie. You’re a lifesaver.”

Casey could practically hear the fireworks in Donnie’s head as April showed her gratitude. 

“N-no problem, April! Anytime! Heh.”

First, gross. Second, that brought Casey back to his senses.

April hung up and stuffed her T-phone into her pocket.

Donnie was weird and dorky and lame. Always was and always will be. No matter how strong or strangely pretty he got.

“Whoa- Casey. Are you sure you’re feeling okay? You’re looking a little red.”

April leaned over, looking him over once again in concern. The blood had stopped pouring from his nose and was now starting to dry up on his face.

“What?! Oh- Um, I’m fine! Don’t worry!”

She made a noise that made it clear that she didn’t quite believe him, but thankfully turned away back to Raph. 

“I’ll go wait in the car. Donnie can check him over again once we get back to the lair.”

Raph shot her a thumbs up and she left, the glass dor of the ice rink swinging shut behind her. 

The second she was out of view, Raph used a finger to yank off the layers if scarves around his neck.

“Dude!”

He said accusingly with teasing laughter.

“What?”

Casey was genuinely confused.

“You can not be serious! April touches your face like, twice and you turn into a tomato?!”

Raph pointed at his face and Casey wiped off a smear of blood with the back of his hand.

“What?”

He repeated, a touch of monotone unimpressedness lacing his voice.

“Man, just- just go rinse off your face.”

Giving his friend a strange look, Casey took off his own gloves and trodded to the bathroom, skates and all. What he was prepared to see in the mirror was a himself, a beat up, scrawny kid who just got his nose broken and then shoved back into place.

What he wasn’t prepared to see was himself, blushed bright red from… Something…

Something he couldn’t quite name just yet.

He put a hand to his pink cheek.

“What?!”

⋅•⋅⊰∙∘☽☾ Someone told me that Donnie canonically know how to play hockey and i am not going to double check :) ☽☾∘∙⊱⋅•⋅

“Jones, I am going to kill you!”

The turtle’s words formed puffs of condensation in the freezing cold air.

Surprisingly, the shout hadn’t come from Donatello. Donnie wasn’t even in the vicinity.

It was Raph who was gritting his teeth at the boy, hissing threats under his breath in a tone that usually belonged to Donnie.

He clung to the steel pipe railing of the ice rink, shivering in the treacherous cold despite his many layers of bundled up clothing as he took pathetic little baby steps forwards in his custom-made skates.

“Dude! It’s not that hard!”

Casey was skating circles around him. Backwards.

“Casey, I swear-“

On instinct, Raph let go of the railing to aggressively point a finger in Casey’s face, only to slip backwards and do an awkward flail-shuffle to get back on his feet. He slammed his sweaty palms back onto the cold, metal rail, ignoring the way it felt like his fingers were growing icicles.

Casey did a stupid (according to Raph) little flip-turn trick with an ease that made Raph want to strangle him even more. The turtle took another shaky step, hands not leaving the rail.

“If you grip that thing any tighter, you’re gonna dent it.”

“Shut up.”

He spat out with the normal amount of venom to his voice, despite it being slightly muffled by a scarf.

Casey leaned against the wall with his hockey stick strapped to his back, fake yawning obnoxiously loud, as if to express just how lame Raph was.

Oh, Raph was so getting payback later. He’d beat Casey’s ass in sparring. Master Splinter refereeing or not.

“Pfft, when you told me you had skates, I thought that you- y’know- could skate?”

Casey ribbed further, smug grin only getting wider. Raph gave the boy a death glare that he was more than used to by then.

“They’re not mine, ice-rat. They’re Donnie’s.”

Raph rolled his eyes, taking another careful step. As he trained his focus on inching forwards without falling flat on his shell, he ignored whatever jab was sure to fall from the other boy's lips. 

It was only when Casey fell suspiciously quiet, he turned to him with a questioning look.

Casey’s expression was almost unreadable. A mixture of confusion with a hint of realization.

“What.”

Raph said, unamused while sliding his standing body forwards with the rail. He found that that was easier than trying to walk on the ice, pulling himself a good couple feet forwards once more. 

Casey immediately drew his eyes from the cobbled-together skates back to Raph’s eyes.

“Nothing! I- Uh, I just didn’t-”

His stuttering was cut off by Raph flailing backwards again. Apparently, his pull-and-slide tactic was not as helpful as he originally thought. Casey caught him under his arms, hauling the turtle back to his feet with a grunt of effort, the hockey stick knocking loudly against the acrylic windows lining the perimeter of the ice in their struggle.

“Whoa!”

“Don’t let go! Don’t let go!”

Raph screeched, suddenly panicked. He clamped onto the railing with his green eyes blown wide from the shock of adrenaline. He huffed, plastron rising as he recovered.

Casey, over his random bout of stuttering, was back to his usual, smug self. Raph shot him a dirty look. One he barely flinched at.

“Say a single word and I’m not patching you up next time Leo sends you flying across the dojo.”

Raph hunched over the rail, leaning all his body weight into it.

“What?! You won’t be there to slap a bandaid on me and then complain for twenty minutes that you don’t know what you’re doing?”

Casey feigned offense, teasing smirk still pulling at his lips. Raph felt a spark of indignation flare up inside of him.

“Hey! It’s not my fault I dunno how to do all that medical jazz- That’s Donnie’s job!”

Once again at the mention of Donatello, Raph felt Casey’s vibe shift into something a little more shy, bashful even.

“Haha… Yeah…”

Casey’s smile turned a gooey type of sincere and he started to drift backwards on the ice, not quite looking at Raph until the turtle raised a brow at him. He coughed into his fist, skating back with his cheeks flushed pink from what Raph could only assume was the cold.

“Ahem- Anyways!”

With a gap toothed grin that looked a little forced, Casey grabbed the loose cloth of the jacket on Raph’s forearms.

“If ya wanna stay balanced on the ice, you have to bend your knees- like this.”

Raph’s brain was too overwhelmed with the new rush of adrenaline coursing through his brain from the fact that Casey just yanked him off his beloved railing to process the fact that the boy had also just rapidly changed the subject.

“Hey- Casey! Casey! What are you doing?!”

“Relax, man!”

“I cannot relax when you're pulling me to my death!”

His voice cracked embarrassingly high amidst his panic. Whipping his head this way and that to get a better look at the ice he was sliding across, Raph simply gave up and closed his eyes.

“C’mon, it’s not that bad.”

“Yes it is. I’m stealing your taser and your mask and you’ll be lucky if I- wait WAIT WAIT!!”

Casey had begun to slowly let go of Raph’s sleeves, skating backwards, far out of the turtle's reach. All with the biggest, smuggest grin stretched across his battered face.

“See? You’re fine, Raph.”

Peeking out of one eye and looking over five layers of scarves, Raph saw that he was, in fact, fine. He was sliding forwards ever so slightly with his knees bent and slightly apart.

“Now just angle your feet like this…”

Casey positioned his feet in a V shape, right in front of Raph so he could see clearly. On unsteady legs, Raph tried his best to copy it, his knees wobbling as he did so.

“Exactly. Now just push off on one foot and keep your knees bent a little.”

Once again, Casey demonstrated with grace that he normally didn’t show on solid land. 

Just shifting his weight sent Raph off kilter and he righted himself in a panic before his friend could see. His brother’s skates taunted him as he glared at them for betraying him. It wasn’t until he felt Casey’s gaze on the top of his head that he realized he was glaring fire at inanimate objects.

Stalling, Raph planted both feet on the ice and scoffed.

“That’s a lot of balance for someone who almost fell off a building.”

His voice carried a confidence that he didn’t really feel, but it seemed to do the trick because for the first time on their entire midnight excursion, Casey tripped.

The boy didn’t look bothered that he was sitting on his butt on cold ice as he frantically stammered out.

“WHA- Donnie told you about that?! I- I thought he wouldn’t- That was such a long time ago!”

His face was beet red and he was moving his hands in front of him in rapid, flustered motions. Raph just… stared. He was so bewildered, he forgot about his fear of the ice for a moment.

“What. The. Hell? I’m talking about like, last week when you tripped over nothing on that roof over fifth street! What are you-”

He stopped his rant when he caught sight of Casey’s guilt-ridden face. The boy was still flushed red, but was now avoiding his gaze with a sheepish smile.

“Ooooh, yeah. That roof…”

“HOW MANY ROOFS ARE YOU FALLING OFF OF, MAN?!”

Instead of answering his question, Casey spun around on his back on the ice, slipping behind Raph where the turtle couldn’t see him. From his blind spot, Casey brought his knees to his chest and kicked out, his blades pushing the heels of Raph’s skates and sending him hurtling forwards.

“OH YOU ARE SO DEAD, JONES!!”

Raph screamed as he glided forwards. In all honesty, he probably wasn’t even going that fast and he probably looked ridiculous, losing his mind over sliding a few meters. He was glad that the rink was empty and closed and that Casey had put some handy little sticky notes over all the cameras, because if anyone saw Raph like this, he would simply die of humiliation and shame.

Oh, and keeping his identity hidden was important too, he guessed.

“You’re doing great!”

Raph didn’t know exactly how, but he turned sharply to the side and a small spray of snow shot out from his blades… and he stopped.

He found balance and leaned a bit to the side, finding that his skates turned with his weight. Ever so tentative, he pushed off with his left foot just like how Casey did earlier. His mouth fell open in awe as he pushed with his other foot, moving forwards again.

“Casey- Casey, I think I’m doin’ something here. What is this?”

With a tinge of leftover pink still on his cheeks, Casey skillfully got up off the ice, watching as Raph skated in small circles around the rink.

“You got it, dude! You’re actually skating!”

The turtle came to a stop when he reached behind his back, drawing his hockey stick from its sheath and a black puck from his pocket.

“Now for the next level.”

Casey held the stick out to him, mindlessly skimming over the rules of hockey and how to properly aim and shoot a puck, but Raph wasn’t really listening. His focus was on something else.

Why on god’s green earth was D+C carved into the wood of the handle? 

Raph skimmed his thumb over the divots the letters made in the grain, furrowing his brow.

Why was there a purple heart?

“-and that’s about it! You got that, dude?”

The turtle snapped back to reality. Those carvings probably meant nothing.

Probably.

“Yeah. I mean, you figured it out, how hard can it be?”

Raph replied with his usual snark, pushing the possible meanings of “D+C” out of his mind, gripping the stick like he saw Casey do so many times on missions and patrols.

“Ha! I bet you won’t even make it anywhere near the goal.”

Casey slid the puck across the ice at him and he swung at the black disk. It was kind of clumsy, but Raph managed to hit it somewhat towards the net. Casey skated after it, stopping the puck with his foot before picking it up.

“Not bad… for a first try.”

“Then give me a second try and I’ll mop the floor with you.”

Casey smirked which only fueled the friendly fire of competition in Raph. When he passed the puck again, the turtle’s movements were still clumsy, but his aim was significantly better.

They repeated this a few more times, Raph lining up to shoot, missing the net, and Casey expertly maneuvering around the ice to retrieve the only puck he brought. They went on, joking and laughing, but each time Raph flicked the curved blade of the hockey stick, he got closer and closer to the net until-

“See?! In yo FACE, Jones!”

Giddy with excitement from his accomplishment and also satisfaction from proving Casey wrong, Raph pumped a fist in the air and almost lost his balance. He caught himself with the stick though, and grinned ear to ear (Well, he didn’t exactly have ears, but for figurative sake) at the rubber disk sitting smack dab center of the goal.

“Uhuh, and that was after how many tries?”

Casey joked, leaning against the goalpost with his chin on his palm.

“You’re just salty that I proved you wrong!”

Raph pointed the hilt of the stick at himself, still grinning.

His friend shook his head, laughing lightly as he skated over, puck in hand

“Nahhh, I’ll show you how to really shoot.”

Plucking his stick out of Raph’s grasp, he threw the puck at the ice in the opposite direction, ran over to it in his skates- not sparing any of his fancy tricks- and swung at the puck. It whistled as it sailed through the air, crossing more than half the rink. The puck traveled so fast, Raph nearly gave himself whiplash from trying to follow it with his eyes, but still only managed to see the swish of the net at the back of the goal as it soared straight in. He stared in utter shock at the black dot sitting in the same place he had hit it moments prior.

“What the…”

Casey gilded backwards into his view, arms crossed over his haughtily puffed out chest.

“Star player. Pretty cool, huh?”

Raph resisted the urge to reach out and push his best friend over, not that it would do anything, really. Casey was probably used to getting jostled around on the ice.

“Have I ever told you how much I hate you?”

“Yup.”

The two continued their playful bickering, taking turns at shooting the puck into the net. Raph managed to not fall down the entire time. A big win for him.

Casey fell disastrously bad a handful of times, trying to impress the turtle with fancy trickshots. He seemed alright though, popping back up like some kind of demented weasel after each wipeout.

“Dude, how are you like, not seriously concussed?”

“I probably am, you kinda loose track after the fifth concussion. I’m fine… probably.”

“...Dude-”

They weren’t sure when- it was late into the night- but at some point, their conversations turned from meaningless teases and jabs to something more. More like the conversations one would expect to have with their best friend at ungodly hours of the night.

“-so just, yeah, that was me and Nick…”

Casey sent the poor puck flying into the net for what felt like the millionth time that night. He crossed over to the net, not making eye contact with Raph as he bent over to retrieve the puck. He glared at the black disk like it was the reason his longest friendship ended so awfully and so abruptly.

In a way, it kind of was.

“Eight years down the drain. Just like that.”

He flipped the puck around in his hand with a sigh. Raph looked over the hunched, sad form of his friend. It was so unlike his usual demeanor- so different from the cockiness from just a few hours earlier.

Without thinking, he pushed away the wooden handle that was offered to him. Instead, wrapping his arms -multitude of jackets and all- around Casey, pulling him into a tight hug before releasing him. As anyone would expect, the boy looked shocked… and maybe a little scared at the strange creature that had suddenly taken the place of his best friend.

“Urgh, stop lookin’ at me like that!”

Raph looked to the side, crossing his arms across his chest in annoyance despite his face turning pink. Casey did not, in fact, ‘stop lookin’ at him like that’ continuing to stare in bewilderment.

“Okay! I just- I dunno! You were sad and that made me sad so I just- I dunno!”

Casey shook himself out of his stupor. The biggest, most shit-eatingest grin of the night began to grow on his face. He crouched down and skated to the spot where Raph was staring at specifically to avoid looking at him. The turtle's frown only deepened as he came into view.

“Awww, you’re soft! You’re so soft and-”

“Stop.”

“I didn’t know you secretly had all this in you all along-”

“Stop.”

“We can hug whenever you want-”

“I swear I’m gonna kill you, Jones.”

Face deep red, Raph snatched the stick and marched over to the spot where he wanted to shoot from. Still smirking, Casey slid the puck over to him. Raph felt some of his irrational  irritation leave him as he swung, the tension releasing from his shoulders and the satisfying thwack of the blade against the puck soothing something inside him. With his unnecessary rage gone, Raph was able to focus on how he was really feeling and on the words he really wanted to say.

Huh, maybe he should play hockey more often.

“It’s just that I can’t imagine going through that, man.”

Raph didn’t need to be loud, so he kept his voice quiet and sincere. Casey was the only other person in the building and he wasn't standing all that far away.

“All my life, I've been surrounded by my brothers- whether I liked it, or not.”

He let out a small chuckle at that, remembering how all four of them would act when they were little kids. All the stuff they pulled… It was a miracle Splinter’s fur wasn’t stark white.

“And… It’s just weird to think about how someone can just be in your life for so long and then just leave. I guess… I guess I just don’t want that sort of thing to happen to us, y’know?”

Casey perked his head up at that, standing up straight to look at his friend. Raph skated over to hand him the hockey stick.

“Raph… I-”

Casey’s voice was thick in his throat and without warning, he wrapped his arms tightly around Raph. he ended his sudden embrace with one last reassuring squeeze.

“I’m not going anywhere anytime soon. You can’t get rid of me that easily.”

He socked the turtle in the shoulder with that last line, pretending it didn’t hurt when his knuckles met solid muscle.

“Alright, alright. That’s enough. You’re gonna get your tears all over my skates and then Donnie’s gonna murder me in my sleep for ruinin’ them.”

Raph pushed the boy off of him, rolling his eyes with a smile. But he was only half joking about the ‘Donnie murdering him in his sleep’ bit.

Casey wiped a leftover tear from his eyes and sniffed not-so quietly.

“Oh yeah, you said those were Donnie’s right?”

He squatted down on the ice, giving one of the seams a delicate poke. Raph was no expert on skate craftsmanship or anything of the like, but even he knew that they were well made, despite being made of things his brother found while dumpster diving.

“Yeah, he made them when we were kids and just changed the size as he got older. Whenever the sewers would freeze over in the winter, he would be in the tunnels skating on whatever was frozen.”

Raph recalled the fond memories of when they were younger. Before they met April and the Kraang and space and… Shredder.

“But he kinda just stopped after a while. I think the training and science stuff got to his head and he started staying inside more. I don’t think I’ve seen him go skating in years, but he still watches games in his lab sometimes.”

If anything, the bright purple laces were a dead giveaway to who made them. Casey looked at them a little longer, tilting his face to see the dents in the metal of the blade from the long nights Donnie spent reshaping them in his lab with a bunsen burner and an anvil each time they got a little too small.

“I didn’t know that about him… He never told me.”

Casey got up, still looking at the skates, deep in thought.

“Well duh.”

Raph rolled his eyes, pointing out the obvious.

“He’s not gonna spill his guts about his childhood to the guy trying to steal his girlfriend.”

He teased, pointing a finger into Casey’s chest. Much to his surprise, the boy didn’t joke back. Instead, turning his head and reaching up to scratch the back of his neck without meeting his eyes.

“Yeahhh, it’s not really like that anymore…”

Confusion flashed through Raph’s mind. Wasn’t it just two days ago that Donnie chased Casey around the lair, yelling at him?

“Really?”

He asked with a tone overflowing with skepticism.

“Yes, actually. We’re…”

Casey trailed off. Raph could practically see the gears churning in his dumb brain before prompting him to keep speaking with a look from the depths of his scarves.

“We’re chill now.”

Raph didn’t say anything, but shot him a second look that shouted that he didn’t quite believe him. Casey shrank his head into his shoulders.

“...For the most part.”

Now blushing an embarrassing shade of pink, Caey continued to avoid Raph’s gaze as he hastily snatched the hockey stick from him. 

He skated off down the rink, lining up for the shot, still rambling as he glided across the ice. He skirted to a stop farther down than Raph had even attempted, but still close enough so that they could hear each other without raising their voices.

“We both got over April- for starters. Oh! And we apologized. Together.”

Casey slung the stick over his shoulder. Raph knew that both Casey and Donnie did some… questionable things in their rivalry over April, so he was glad to hear that they properly apologized for their behavior.

“He helps me with school and I help him with the Turtle tank. We got this sorta… mutual trust thing going on right now… but…”

Casey started to trail off again.

“But?”

Raph prompted, acting like the therapist he very well knew he wasn’t as he tossed the puck at his friend.

“But he acts like I’m so weak- Like, all the time. ‘Oh Casey, your bone density!’ or ‘I always forget how fragile you are!’ I get it- but it gets so annoying sometimes.”

He mocked Donnie’s nasally voice as he swung at the puck. The hardest shot that night by far.

Raph instinctively ducked down into his shell, his multitude of scarves falling down on the wet ice. The disk whizzed far past the goal, missing it entirely and hitting the boards with a resounding thwack!- In all honesty, it might’ve even left a sizable dent.

“Whoa!”

Casey breathed a heavy sigh, eyes wide as he realized what he did.

“Sorry, dude!”

The turtle stared as the puck ricocheted off the wall with enough power to drift all the way to where Casey was standing.

“H-have you tried talking to him about it?”

Raph’s voice was slightly shaky as he recalled every time Casey jokingly threatened to whack him with a puck, realizing that the boy actually could’ve taken his life without a sweat. He watched as Casey nonchalantly picked up the puck as if he didn’t almost break the sound barrier with that shot.

“Meh, Donnie’s really not the ‘talking type’ y’know?”

“Have you met him? Usually I can’t get him to shut up.”

Casey smiled at that, lining up for another shot.

“Well- I’ve listened to him ramble on and on about his inventions for hours, but as adorab- INTERESTING-”

The boy immediately corrected himself, coughing into his fist and aborting his swing.

“As interesting as that stuff is, his feelings are a whole ‘nother game entirely. The guy’s a locked book.”

Before Raph could pull some more nonsense advice out of his shell (he really wasn’t the turtle to go for this sort of thing- that was more Leo or Mikey’s forte) Casey straightened up with an epiphany.

“Wait- You said Donnie likes hockey, right?”

“Yeah?”

“And skating and stuff?”

Raph tilted his head, trying to figure out where this was going.

“Yeah?”

Casey dribbled the puck in front of him, clicking the disk against both edges of the blade and letting it move side to side a bit.

“If I took him skating, d’ya think that would get him to open up?”

Okay, Raph officially had no idea where this was going at all. Mikey would’ve read the situation in a heartbeat.

“Maybe?”

“D’ya think that would like… I dunno… romantic?”

Casey shot the puck at the net. It sailed in easily without a problem.

Raph was too stunned at the boy's words to even think about going in to retrieve it. Confusion at what Casey had just said swirled around his mind.

“What?!!”

Chapter Text

Maybe if Donnie concentrated really hard he could unlock some sort of mutant telekinetic power in his brain.

For the past half hour, Casey Jones had been testing his luck, skating as close to the edge of the rooftops as he dared. That was to say: right on the edge with about a hair’s worth of wiggle room.

Also for the past half hour, Donatello had been staring daggers into the daredevil’s back, silently trying to push him with a million invisible hands.

He knew it was impossible- Donnie was a scientist after all. Telekinesis was a cheap fishing-wire crowd-pleaser from low budget scifi movies and struggling magic acts. He was almost disappointed in himself for even entertaining the notion.

It was more of something that Casey would suggest, not Donnie.

Moving external objects with the sheer force of one's mind? The very concept of telekinesis threw the theory of molar entropy down the drain. No man of science would ever think it achievable- not even for a second.

The sheer notion was dumb.

Moronic. Idiotic. Stupid. 

Just like Casey Jones.

Donnie continued staring.

Couldn’t hurt to try, though.

He glared hard at the boy’s back, trying to activate his “third eye” which he full well knew wasn’t there.

“-nnie… Donnie… Donnie!”

Donnie finally snapped to attention to find Leo waving his hand in front of his face.

“O-oh, did something happen?”

Leo looked at him like he had lost his mind, then pointed down to the mutagen tracker in his hands which had been going off like crazy for who knows how long.

“Oh!”

Donnie nearly dropped the gadget in his haste to fiddle with the rapidly blinking and whirring dials. Leo sighed, looking to the stars as if they might help him.

“ Donnie. We’re here to find mutagen, not stare at April. ”

That instantly turned Donnie into a red, stuttering, mess as Mikey and Raph cracked up. April turned around, not looking surprised or shocked in the least, only mildly disappointed. Casey pulled to a stop on the razor edge of the concrete roof top and joined Mikey and Raph in their teasing laughter.

The weird part was, Donnie hadn’t actually been staring at April. He had hardly remembered she was there.

April hardly ever went unnoticed by Donnie.

What was he even supposed to defend himself with? Say he was staring at Casey instead?

“I-I wasn’t-“

“Uhuh.”

Leo’s voice was dripping with sarcasm.

“I promise! I was just- just, um…”

Realizing that telling the truth would only humiliate him further, Donnie just bit the insides of his lips together and ducked his head down to fiddle with his mutagen tracker. Blushing fiercely, he focused hard on honing in on the mutagen signal, trying his best to block out the sounds of laughter.

The group kept moving along the rooftops, the quiet only occasionally punctuated by another tease or rib at Donnie. Soon, even that died out and they traveled in silence, quickly growing sleepy from the late hour.

“Man, how long is this going to take!”

Casey loudly complained. Donnie rolled his eyes.

“Quiet down, Casey. It hasn’t been that long.”

Donnie kept himself focused on the tracker in his hands, but glanced over a few times to see how well Casey was still balancing on the roof’s edge. For the past few blocks, it seemed that Casey’s legs were starting to get tired because he was wobbling a bit more than usual. But still, the boy remained steadfast in his unusual and fruitless mission to (quite literally) skate the line between life and death as closely as he could.

“Casey’s right, Donnie. It’s a school night.”

April piped up and Donnie’s demeanor changed entirely.

“Oh- of course! You’re right, it’s pretty late and I don’t want you to be tired at school tomorrow!”

He twisted a red knob and the tracker’s beeping quieted a few decibels and he smiled at the girl.

“I just shrank the honing range, so we should be close. Don’t worry, April! I’ll have you back home in no time!”

Little to his knowledge, Casey was behind him, making yapping gestures with his hands and making faces, mocking him.

“According to my calculations-”

Still behind him, Casey mimed pushing glasses up his nose as Donnie spoke.

“-The canister should be on one of these buildings over here.”

By the time Donnie turned back around to continue searching for the mutagen, Casey stuck his hand behind his back, looking as innocent as someone who looked like him could look.

“Hey…”

Casey spun around, squinting into some of the apartments.

“Are we on Fifth Ave?”

He got off the roof ledge for a moment, gesturing over his shoulder at the street below.

“Uh, yeah- why?”

Donnie shrugged, not even batting an eye at the question.

Next to him, Leo stiffened… For some reason.

“Fi- Fifth Avenue?”

His blue eyes immediately darted towards the apartment buildings. A small handful of windows were lit and Donnie curiously glanced down at a few of them. In one, there was a little blonde girl, no more than around six or seven. She was sitting at a little pink table surrounded by matching plastic chairs hosting what seemed to be a tea party. The bow in her hair matched the bubblegum hue of her furniture and walls and she was seated in a ring of plushies, wielding a pink teapot and cup.

She was serving a stuffed turtle with a blue ribbon wrapped around its neck.

Before Donnie could get a closer look, Leo lunged in front of him, not-so-subtly blocking his view.

“Yo! I live here! Man, it looks different from up here. C’mon, I’ll show you guys my place!”

Leo suddenly stuck his hands outwards, blocking Casey’s way with his body still in front of Donnie. Casey nearly tripped over his own skates as he stumbled against Leo’s unmoving arm.

“Tha- That won’t be necessary! We don’t need to go exploring! We came here for a mission, we can’t get distracted now!”

Acting weirdly jumpy, Leo started splitting up the group.

“Uh- I’ll take this roof over here-“

He pointed to the building with the little girl in it, already inching along towards it like he needed to get there urgently.

“Raph, take that one over there. April, take the one on the corner. Mikey, take the one to the left-“

“My left or your left?”

Mikey interrupted, making L shapes with his hands and looking to see which one made the correct L. Donnie rolled his eyes.

“You are facing the same direction, Mikey.”

Mikey looked up with a blank expression. Donnie sighed and grabbed his wrist, using Mikey’s own finger to point to the left.

“ That way, shellhead.”

Still acting very jumpy, Leo leapt to his claimed rooftop without another word.

“Wait! What about us?!”

Leo didn’t hear his brother’s question, completely out of earshot.

“I think you’ve got me all to yourself, Don.”

Casey teased, leaning on his hockey stick and pulling his mask over his head.

“Don’t call me Don.”

The turtle sent a death glare over his shoulder, realizing that Casey was right. They were stuck together.

“So, we all know what the canisters look like, right? Make sure to check for cracks or leaks and be sure-”

Raph interrupted him with an audible groan.

“Can it, Don. We’ve done this before!”

He jumped off the roof, landing effortlessly on a neighboring building, disappearing from view.

“Yeah, dude! We don’t need like, a safety lesson or anything at this point.”

Mikey took a running start, aiming for a building.

“That’s not your left!”

April called out, right as Mikey was nearing the edge. The turtle dug his heels into the ground to brake, flailing his arms as he almost lost his balance over the road.

“I knew that!”

He turned on his toes and sprinted in the opposite direction, launching himself up into the air and landing with a roll onto the right- correct roof, leaving Casey, April, and Donnie alone together.

Never a good combination.

Almost as if April could sense one of the boys about to do something bombastically cringey, she stepped away from their now-shrunken group to peer out into the night at her destination roof. It was the farthest one, not by a whole lot, but definitely not a jumping distance for any of the turtles, much less April.

An idea bubbled up in the front of her mind, making her grin with excitement. She turned to the boys.

“Donnie, Casey! Can I use one of your grappling hooks? I’ve been dying to try them out myself!”

She could already see a safe spot of X-shaped rebar on the roof. It was most likely from an abandoned construction project, but it made the perfect anchor for a hook.

“Sure thing, Red!”

Casey reached around his belt, finagling with his keys and other bits and bobs, trying to detach his hook.

“Wait!”

Donnie shouted, grabbing Casey’s arm and looking at April with concern.

“Eheh… I mean, I don’t think that’s all that safe, that’s all!”

“Whaddya mean? It’s a straight shot- like, two blocks tops.”

Donnie elbowed him, probably a little harder than what was necessary before turning his attention back to April.

“I just think that it would be safer if you went down the stairs, crossed the street, and went up the other building. It's a long way down if you accidentally fall from here.”

April sighed, dejected for a moment.

“ Alright…”

She slouched a little in disappointment.

“I’ll text you guys if I find anything.”

With that, she waved and headed for the roof access hatch. Once the latch clicked shut, Casey turned and punched Donnie in the arm with every bit of force the turtle had used just a few minutes earlier.

“Dude!”

Donnie gave him a nasty look.

“What?”

“What was that?! You don’t think April is strong enough or somethin’? She’s been training with you guys for a while now.”

Casey countered, crossing his arms. His face still wasn’t visible through the mask he was wearing, so Donnie could only imagine the deep frown on his face.

“No! It’s not that! I just want to keep April safe… That’s all.”

Casey re equipped his grappling hook to his belt, the carabiner making a satisfying click as it snagged closed.

“Red can handle herself.”

The turtle sighed, tapping the edge of the tracker against his arm out of nervous habit.

“I know…”

The small machine started beeping again and he brought it up to his face, more to hide himself than to read the screen.

“I just… want to make sure she’s going to be one hundred percent okay. You know what I mean?”

He was quiet. He wasn’t looking at Casey, so he couldn’t see the boy turn away at that.

“You didn’t tell me to be safe…”

Donnie looked over the egg-beater antennas of the tracker, narrowing his eyes.

“Well, you already learned your lesson. Remember? You almost fell off that roof and I had to catch you.”

Mask still hiding his expression, Casey went silent. He remembered and he remembered well.

“Still… You didn’t tell me to not skate on the roof or… or get away from the edge or anything…”

Donnie raised a brow.

“Did you want me to? Really, I couldn’t care less if you got hurt from your own dumb decision.”

He scoffed, mentally wondering to himself if this was some kind of trap Casey wanted him to fall into. The boy just let out a small breath, so quietly Donnie almost didn’t hear.

“I guess not…”

Casey clicked his skates away, planting his feet on the solid concrete of the roof. Still not really making eye contact with the turtle, he walked past him, away from the ledge.

“Let’s just find that stupid mutagen alread-”

“GUYS!!”

Leo huffed, waving his arms to get everyone's attention. In one hand, he held a glowing green canister of fresh, unbroken mutagen.

Though Donnie was more focused on the fact that they had found the mutagen, he couldn’t help but notice that his brother was breathing heavier than normal. Like he had done more than just search a rooftop for mutagen. Leo ran and landed on Donnie’s rooftop, stuffing the canister in his arms a little bit frantically.

“Okay, let’s go home like, now.”

“Why? Is something wrong? Is there someone in that building?”

Donnie squinted at the windows again, but Leo shot his arms up to block his tallest brother’s view.

“WhAt?! Of- of course not! Why would you think that ahaha!”

There were no changes to the building's residents… except for one singular window.

The room that had the little girl in it.

The room was no longer lit by the ceiling light, but by a small night light plugged into the wall. All the plushies were put away on her shelves and the pink chairs were neatly stacked in the corner. The girl herself was tucked in as snug as a bug in her pink covers, smiling as she slept with the turtle plush -the one with the blue ribbon- nestled in the crook of her elbow.

Donnie didn’t miss the fact that her window was open by just a crack.

Nor did he miss the pink hair bauble dangling from the end of Leo’s mask tail.

⋅•⋅⊰∙∘☽☾ awww, Casey wants his bf to worry about him ☽☾∘∙⊱⋅•⋅

Although the end of winter was approaching, the cold hadn’t let up. 

Not the tiniest bit. It was New York, after all.

The chill seeped through all the cracks of the Lair despite Donnie’s best attempts at insulating their home. Space heaters and radiators occupied every room.

The last freeze of the season was making everyone feel awful, but as usual, the cold was hitting Leo the hardest.

The turtle sat huddled up in the living area, shivering despite the three thick blankets drowning him and the heater next to him. He was trying to focus on the Space Heroes marathon playing on the television in front of him, but was having a hard time keeping his drowsy eyes open long enough to understand what was going on.

No matter, he had the whole thing memorized already.

“Careful with your skates! There are a lot of dangerous things in my lab, Casey.”

Leo didn’t bother turning his head. That required too much energy.

Donnie’s voice was muffled through the concrete walls as he lightly berated Casey. Leo let the noise fade into the background After a few more minutes- or hours, Leo honestly could not tell for the life of him- the talking got slightly louder

“Got it!”

“A-And watch your step! It’s icy out there!”

Around the time when Captain Ryan planted the Cosmic Crew flag on planet Spock in the name of friendship, Casey emerged from the lab, noticeably without his signature skates. He was walking backwards, still talking with Donatello.

“No prob!”

“Wear a jacket! It’s cold out and I know how fragile your human immune system is!”

“Already wearin’ it!”

Leo burrowed further into his blanket nest, grumbling a little to himself at the noise. He rubbed at his eyes, trying his best to stay awake. Gathering the energy to do so, he used his feet under his blankets to scoot himself around until he had a view of what was going on. 

Casey was smiling as he exited the lab, but it looked a little forced. Donnie followed him, leaning a bit out of the doorframe to continue talking to him. Casey reached for his car keys on his belt, flicking the keyring around his finger once and catching them with a flourish.

“Oh! And drive carefully too. It’s supposed to start snowing later- And don’t drive when it’s dark out and-”

Casey grabbed Donnie’s hand in his and Leo couldn’t help but notice that Casey’s smile looked even more strained now.

“It’s okay, I got it. You don’t have to worry!”

Donnie sighed, lacing his fingers into Casey’s.

Leo slowly blinked one eye at a time. He must have been hallucinating from exhaustion or something.

“I knowww… I just- You’re human and humans are just so-”

“Fragile, I know.”

Casey rolled his eyes, a twinge of annoyance lacing his voice, just barely detectable.

“You’ve told me like, so many times, Dee. C’mon, have a lil faith in me!”

Donnie rubbed his thumb along Casey’s knuckles, taking a deep breath before responding.

“Just… Stay safe, okay?”

“I will, I promise .”

The pair leaned towards each other, their faces getting closer and closer and- Oh yeah, Leo was definitely hallucinating. No way Casey and Donnie of all people did… did that with each other.

“Watch for potholes and the smaller roads probably aren’t salted yet-”

“Bye, Don.”

Getting the hint, Donnie pecked him one more time on the cheek and untangled his hand, closing the lab door and leaving Casey to his own devices.

The instant the door was shut, Casey’s smile dropped and he let out a sigh. Not loudly though. It was more of a quiet breath than anything.

Leo expected Casey to go to the turnstiles and leave. It was going to get dark soon and he had assured Donnie that he wouldn’t drive in the dark. But instead, he plopped down on the couch, not three feet away from where Leo was huddled.

“He just cares he just cares… a lot. Maybe too much? C’mon Casey, get it together.”

Casey flopped his head into his hands, digging the heels of his palms into his eyes.

“Why… why am I mad at him?”

“Casey?”

Leo finally managed to croak out.

“Gah! Leo?! What- When did you- I thought you were a beanbag!”

“Was here the…”

Leo paused to yawn.

“The whole time.”

Casey whipped his head around to see how far the lab was from the living room.

“The… whole time?”

“Mhm…”

The blankets fell from the top of his head, exposing the turtle to the chill. He thunked his forehead against Casey’s calf in a silent plea to help him bundle back up. Casey snickered a bit.

“Dude, go to sleep. Like, in a bed, not on the floor.”

“Nooo…”

If Leo was even a little bit more conscious he would have been mortified.

Casey chuckled, adjusting the cloth around his friend's neck.

“Your bandana is all messed up. Is this like, bedhead for turtles?”

He took the tails of Leo’s mask, straightening them out. Leo yawned again, not bothering to keep his eyes open. Bleary and half asleep, he mumbled something incoherent, even he didn’t know what he was trying to say.

Casey laughed again, the sound was comforting to Leo.

“What was that? You are… I’ve never seen you like this, Leo. You good?”

“Braid… Braid it, please…”

The words tiredly slipped out of his mouth and he fished in his belt pocket for something. Casey paused, tilting his head before shrugging and leaning over his friend.

“Eh, sure. You’re lucky my sister made me learn how to do this… stuff… Where did you get that?!”

“Hm?”

Leo opened his eyes. In front of him, he was holding out the thing he had brought out from his pocket.

A pink, plastic hair bauble.

The two shiny balls reflected his own tired face back at him, but in his exhaustion, Leo couldn't realize what was wrong. 

“The hair-thingie! Where did you get it?”

Casey hushed his voice, looking around to see if anyone else was around. Leo’s hand was dropping, his speech falling even more slurred.

“I got it… from… from my friend… um… I…”

A loud and obnoxious yawn interrupted him and he slumped over, leaning against the couch.

“I keep her safe…”

He let his eyes fall shut a final time, his mutters getting quieter as his consciousness slipped from his grasp.

“She thinks I'm a girl and… and it’s… right… Feels right.”

If Leo was still awake, she would’ve heard Casey say something along the lines of ‘Huh, that kinda checks out’, but alas, the team’s fearless leader was out cold under her mound of blankets, slumped against Casey’s leg.

When she awoke, the first thing that hit her was a jolt of panic. She had forgotten to turn off the heater when she went to sleep. She shot up on the couch so fast, the three blankets on top of her crumpled to the floor in a heap as she flung her head side to side to check if her home had burned down yet.

The second thing that ‘hit’ her was the plastic bauble at the end of her mask. It smacked her square between the eyes and she realized that one, the lair was fine, and two, her mask was in a braid.

In a rush, she yanked the tie off the end and carded her fingers through the fabric until all the twists were out.

She couldn’t recall anything from the previous night, except for the fact that she was cold. Really cold. Casey came over to the lair and went into Donnie’s lab, so she put on Space Heroes and then…

Nothing.

She couldn’t remember anything. Glancing down at the pink hair accessory in her hand, she put it back in her belt pocket along with all the other ones. She had quite the collection now, Chloe insisted on giving her more and more “pretty things” everytime she dropped in for a visit.

Though, she couldn’t fathom how the neat braid had gotten into her mask tails. She wasn’t able to do it herself, ever.

Strange.

Chapter Text

Donnie paused his tinkering at the sound of a commotion out in the Lair, putting down his wrench and lifting his goggles. He sighed. The Shellraiser’s engine would have to wait, apparently.

He gently put his goggles on the table and slid aside his lab door, feeling how warm the air was compared to the inside of his thoroughly air-conditioned lab. Turtles were meant to be in warm environments and Donnie could only assume that his and his brothers’ preference of warmth was a lingering feature of their mutation. He tangibly relaxed at the increase in temperature, nearly forgetting why he stepped out in the first place.

Nearly.

“Yo! Whaddup Big D!”

Casey had already been met by Mikey and the two were already causing a racket together by the turnstiles doing… whatever idiots did when found another one of their kind.

Donnie pulled his lips back in a grimace of disgust.

“Do not call me that.”

Casey snickered, fully ignoring Donnie’s annoyed demand.

“I’m just droppin’ in to kill some time. You don’t mind, right Big D?”

Donnie scoffed, rolling his eyes and firmly crossing his arms over his chest. He debated just standing there to make a point, but then ultimately decided to pander over.

“Aren’t you supposed to be in school? It’s like…”

Donnie hadn’t known how long he had been holed up in his lab, nor what time it currently was. He had been fully zoned in on upgrading the Shellraiser, but even he knew that it was late enough into the day for school to be an issue.

Talking over Donnie’s silence, Casey shrugged.

“Meh, school’s lame anyway. It’s way more awesome down here.”

He stretched his shoulders back, cracking his neck like all teenage wanna-be tough guys did when trying to look cool. He sauntered past Donnie, further into the depths of the lair.

Donnie didn’t think school was lame, despite the constant barrage of stereotypical television shows that they had recorded on VHS tapes telling him it was. To Donnie, attending a public school seemed like attending a paradise. 

Regularly showing up at a place where he could simply exist among other people his age without a hint of fear or ever being noticed? Sign him up!

He wondered (with a boatload of jealousy) if Casey knew just how lucky he was to be able to go to school, talk with other kids, and not be considered a monster.

“Wha- Now- Hold on!”

Donnie shook his head out of his thoughts, going after Casey and pulling him back by his shoulder.

“You’re skipping school?”

Casey yanked his shoulder out of Donnie’s grip a little harder than he usually did, the turtle noticed. He also had the barest hint of a death glare on his face as he did so, before he smoothed it over with that all too familiar cocky grin of his.

The smile was fake, Donnie realized with a jolt.

“Uh, yeah?”

Casey said as if it were obvious.

“Everyone skips sometimes, Don- Big D.”

He reverted to the nickname with a malicious tone, staring right into Donnie’s big red eyes as if challenging him. Daring him even, to say something about it.

Now, Donnie knew that he and Casey were never on the best of terms- Shell, anyone with two semi-functioning brain cells could tell that they hated each other, but there was something in the atmosphere surrounding Casey that told Donnie something was wrong.

Well, wrong-er than usual, that is.

If you asked Donatello, there were tons of things wrong with Casey Jones.

The boy disregarded the turtle, whirling back to Mikey.

“Wanna spar? I got some steam I just gotta let off- Then we can play some video games or-“

Mikey smiled, big blue eyes bright with mischief.

“Okay!! But just letting you know, brah- I’m not going easy.”

Donnie watched as the two did some stupid sort of bro-handshake where they high fived and then rammed their shoulders together with a neanderthalic grunt. He briefly wondered for the millionth- no, billionth time in his life, how he was related to Mikey .

Right before the pair started heading off towards the dojo, Doonie grabbed them both by the back. Casey by his hood and Mikey by the lip of his shell.

“What is your damage, dude?!”

Casey hissed, yanking himself away and balling his fists.

“Casey, go back to school. And Mikey, don’t encourage this!”

The boy scoffed, rolling his eyes far back in his head.

“You ain’t the boss of me.”

Donnie grabbed him again by the shoulder, forcing him to stay in place.

“Go. You’re going to miss class.”

“No.”

He stood his ground defiantly.

“No?”

Donnie raised a brow, echoing Casey with a dangerous, questioning tone.

“Casey. Jones. You have no idea how lucky you are to be able to go to school! Do you even understand how much I want to be able to do that?! You get to spend seven hours- Seven. Hours. Around people that don’t run away screaming at the sight of you! Do you understand how much I want that?!”

Donnie found himself out of breath. His arms were no longer crossed tightly across his chest, now hanging limply at his sides.

He hadn’t meant to be so… so honest. Yeah, he wanted to get his point across, but he didn’t mean to let out that much.

Casey huffed, not meeting Donnie’s stare. His voice was small and timid, very much unlike him.

“I’m not you.”

That just irked Donnie more.

“ You are NOT skipping school, Jones. Are you crazy?”

The boy suddenly snapped his eyes towards him, returning Donnie’s fierce gaze with his own. He stood on his toes, but was still leagues shorter than the turtle as he spoke in a punctuated, irritated tone.

“Yes. I. Am.”

Which question was the boy answering? Both worked.

When Donnie stared down into the shorter boy’s eyes to make a sharp rebuttal, he saw that they were shiny and glistening.

He could have easily said something about them. Easily could have embarrassed him…

But he didn’t. 

The pieces clicked together in his head.

Donnie didn’t understand much about Casey Jones, but he could understand a bad day.

He could understand the feeling of needing a break.

He took a step back, breathing deeply and raising both hands in an ‘I come in peace’ sort of gesture.

“Fine.”

Casey’s brown eyes widened in surprise, like hadn’t actually expected Donnie to back off his case.

“Wait, really?”

The turtle looked away for a moment, giving the boy time to blink the wetness from his eyes.

“Yeah, whatever. I’ll be in my lab. Do whatever you want, just don’t bother me.”

Donnie barely finished his sentence before he was already turning back towards his beloved science lab.

“Y-yeah, uh, okay.”

He barely heard Casey’s stammered answer as the metal hydraulics in his door hissed shut.

Now that Donnie was alone, the full gravity of what he just did suddenly hit him.

He was… nice to Casey. As in Casey Jones.

There was a first time for everything, he guessed.

It wasn’t long before Donnie grabbed his goggles off the table and was once again hunkered down, toiling away at the car engine seated at his desk. The absolute beast of an engine wasn’t even from the current decade, but Donnie really couldn’t afford to be picky at the junkyard. 

The sheer amount of rust on the monstrosity would have scared off lesser mechanics, but Donnie could cope.

The sounds of his own clanking and wrenching filled his ears, soothing his mind. The sounds of machinery always seemed to have a placating effect on him. Plus, his dark work goggles really tunneled his vision and helped him focus.

He wasn’t sure how long it was before he heard the door to his lab open, the sliding doors revealing a slightly sweaty Casey. In the back of his mind, he briefly mused about installing a lock on his lab door sometime in the near future.

“Heyyy, Donnie.”

Donnie turned around, not even bothering to put down the wrench he was holding. He was completely immersed in bolting his upgrade onto the engine. The Shellraiser would run so much smoother after he was done with it.

Casey tilted his head a little, pointing to the upper half of his face with an awkward smile.

“I uh, like your goggles.”

He sounded out of breath, Mikey clearly hadn’t been lying about not taking it easy on him. 

“What do you need, Jones?”

Donnie went straight to the point, using his wrench to tighten one of the bolts. The metal let out a rusty screech as he attempted to twist it.

“I… Uhm- I’m sorry. ”

Those unexpected words made Donnie stop, the rusty shrieks halting abruptly.

“I didn’t mean to snap at you like that earlier, Donnie. Sorry about that.”

The turtle put the wrench down with a muted clank and turned around, mildly bewildered.

“What?”

Casey was now fidgeting loosely with the hem of his sweatshirt.

“I know how you feel about the human world and stuff and… Uh, it wasn’t cool of me to talk to you like that. School is important, I know.”

The boy looked like he wanted to say more, but was stopping himself. For some unfathomable reason, Donnie forgot all about the engine for a moment.

“Is something wrong, Casey?”

Shell, he felt awkward and weird about the whole situation. Mikey or even Leo would be better to talk to about all this feelings junk.

“Eh, not really. Just woke up late and then stuff happened… Irma wouldn’t get off my case about my pants-“

Immediately, Donnie’s eyes flicked down to Casey’s skinny jeans.

What’s wrong with- holy shell! Is that-“

“ Shut up!”

Blushing bright red, Casey hid one leg behind the other. 

From the cuff all the way to the knee inseam, a wide strip of silver duct tape was plastered on the paint-stained denim.

Donnie gave him an incredulous look and the boy bashfully waved his hands in front of his face, stammering and glowing red.

“The- The leg ripped and I didn’t really know how to fix it, plus I was late and I- uh, Whatcha workin’ on?”

He raked a hand through his dark hair as he abruptly changed the subject. 

Donnie took a mental note of their fingernails. They were stubby and messily painted black. The polish was chipping in places and overall, they weren’t very pretty fingernails.

They kind of looked like Donnie’s fingernails.

“Not much, just making a few advancements to the Shellraiser’s engine.”

And simply because he felt like making a jab at the boy in front of him, Donnie added on with a sly smirk.

“I’m afraid duct tape won’t fix this, so you might not be able to help.”

Tightening his bandana around his head to keep his wild hair in check, Casey rolled his eyes.

“ Pfft, Please. No one knows cars like Casey Jones. Hand me a hex wrench.”

He leaned over Donnie, squinting his eyes down at the rust-bucket engine as he examined it.

“Whoa! 1987 called, it wants its car back.”

Casey joked, leaning an elbow on Donnie’s shoulder. The turtle shrugged him off with a look, digging around his tool box for an extra hex wrench.

“Hey! It was the best I could find.”

Donnie lightly knocked his fist into Casey’s arm, punching him before handing over the wrench. 

“You can go clean out the transmission. It’s been making a weird sound.”

He jerked his thumb over his shoulder at the shell on the Shellraiser (pun intended) which was situated on top of four car jacks.

“Gotcha!”

Casey twirled the end of the wrench around his finger before happily sliding underneath the carriage.

Before either of them even noticed, the pair had settled into an efficient rhythm of tossing tools to each other, occasional conversation, and trading light hearted insults they didn’t actually mean.

“Hey, Dee. Don’t you feel that feeling you get sometimes?”

Casey’s voice came out slightly echoed from under the car where he was working. Donnie spun his office chair, trying not to laugh at the sheer vagueness of Casey’s words.

“Um, clarify?”

He heard Casey drop the wrench against the concrete floor before sliding out from under the car. The boy wiped at his already grease-streaked face with his hand, adding another line of black to the collection on his cheek.

“Y’know, that feeling like you’ve felt a feeling before!”

He grinned, missing teeth and all. White pearls that stood out from all the mechanic grime on his face.

“That french word! Come on, Donnie! You’re supposed to be the smart one!”

It suddenly clicked in Donnie’s head and he almost face-palmed at the absolute stupidity of the boy in front of him.

“Do you mean Deja Vu?”

“Yes! That!”

Casey pointed triumphantly as if he had said something smart.

“This is just like when we were at the farm house, dude!”

He got up, leaving a handprint of black grease on the lab floor as he pushed him self up. He slunk over, plopping himself down on the workbench next to Donnie.

The turtle opened his mouth to tell him to move his sweaty, grimy body away from him before realizing that he was probably equally as disgusting from working on the engine. He pushed his goggles on to his forehead, making a futile attempt at a disappointed, deadpan expression, but Casey’s excitement was contagious.

“You’re so incredibly incompetent, it actually amazes me.”

He ended up with a small smile on his face as he spoke, despite his best efforts.

Ignoring Donnie’s jab, Casey just scooted closer on the bench, slinging his arm around him. He continued on his tangent without a hitch.

“You n’ me in that barn, fixing stuff up without school and without- ugh, stupid Irma! Man, it’s been a while!”

He punctuated his sentence with a light punch to Donnie’s upper arm. Instead of getting annoyed, the turtle found himself reminiscing as well.

“Hah, yeah… Remember Speed Demon?”

“Like I could forget!”

There was a bright fire to Casey’s brown eyes as he spoke.

“That race was crazy cool! I mean-“

He caught himself, arm tensing around Donnie’s back. The turtle had to stop himself from laughing at Casey’s expression.

“Um- Not the ‘ you getting double mutated’ part- Uh, obviously. But getting to jump-tackle a car demon was awesome.”

The boy wheeled his hands as he attempted to further explain himself, turning beet red in the process.

“Thanks. Glad to know I’m a ‘ demon’. Does that make me a turtle demon now? ”

Donnie rolled his eyes with a smirk. Casey laughed and elbowed him in the side.

“You know what I mean!”

He lightly head-butted the turtle's arm, bringing the two ever closer.

The pair cracked up in laughter that slipped them into a lengthy trip down memory lane, talking amicably about their past time at April’s farm and the more fun parts of the alien invasion.

Casey wound up with his head leaning against Donnie’s shoulder as they chatted and Donnie wound up not even noticing at all.

“Hey, uh…”

The dark haired boy cleared his throat, suddenly sounding a lot more serious. The laughter that had been in his voice just a few seconds prior was now hiding from them both.

“Thanks for um, understanding and- y’know, letting me stay and stuff.”

Casey fidgeted with his painted fingernails as he stammered.

Donnie, not entirely knowing what to do, absentmindedly raked his thick fingers through Casey’s curls.

He felt him slouch comfortably against the side of his plastron. Casey’s weight felt familiar somehow, but Donnie couldn’t quite place why it felt so nice. He kept carding his fingers through his dark hair.

“No problem. You- You’re kind of… nice to have around…”

Donnie finished in a small voice. Looking down, he saw Casey’s mischievous grin, all trouble and teases and missing teeth.

“Sometimes.”

He added quickly, looking away.

They sat in a comfortable silence for a few beats, Casey leaning against Donnie and Donnie’s hand entangled in his hair, neither realizing how close they were to each other nor how much they enjoyed their closeness.

Casey cleared his throat, puncturing the silence.

“Sooo…”

He shifted, turning his head so he could face Donnie.

“Uh, weird question but- ah, how much do you know about fixing music boxes?”

⋅•⋅⊰∙∘☽☾ boy i hope you bullet-proof cus this aboutta hurt ☽☾∘∙⊱⋅•⋅

“I get it, don’t worry!”

Mikey stopped feeding Ice Cream Kitty, snapping his head towards Donnie’s lab where the dialogue had come from. He held onto the marshmallow he had been feeding the cat, making her just reach out and grab it herself.

“You can’t keep doing this, Casey.”

“I know, I know!”

The argument was muffled through the metal doors to Donnie’s lab. Mikey picked up Ice Cream Kitty’s bowl, handing her a final marshmallow and pulling her away from the bag. The cat meowed in protest and grievance over her marshmallows, but Mikey hushed her with a bright smile.

“You hear that, Kitty? That’s drama!”

Mikey loved drama.

He quickly but stealthily (He was the king of stealth, remember?) tip-toed over to Donnie’s lab door, bending down to press his ear against the metal. Ice Cream Kitty followed in suit. 

“You don’t act like you know!”

There was Donnie’s signature snarkiness peaking out.

“Maybe because you don’t let me!”

Casey countered, the sound of a stool being pushed from the workbench screeched loudly as it vibrated through the metal door.

Mikey pressed his whole body against the door, trying to find the spot in the steel with the best acoustics. This was getting good .

“What?”

“Never mind. forget I said anything.”

Casey was walking around the lab now, his worn sneakers making faint squeaks against the smooth cement of the floor.

“No, I want to know what you meant by that.”

Donnie was up now too, his footsteps following Casey’s. 

“It’s…”

“Tell me, Jones.”

Both sets of steps stopped.

“Fine. You’re a little too much…”

A sharp intake of breath. It could have been Casey or Mikey, he couldn’t tell.

“You .”

There was a pause. A slice of complete and utter silence.

“I’m a ‘little too me’?”

Donnie’s voice was dangerously quiet.

“I- I didn’t mean it like that! You just, ugh-“

Mikey turned slack-jawed to face Ice Cream Kitty. He wished he could get some visual on this telenovela.

“You’re too much, Donnie. You hover over me like I can’t take care of myself and- and you act like you know what’s best for me.”

Donnie scoffed, putting up an emotional wall.

“What? You're upset because I care about you?”

Casey’s sneakers squeaked against the floor again. They were both moving a lot again.

“No! I- I’m just not as fragile as you think I am and you can’t keep treating me like glass.”

Now that Mikey thought about it, Donnie had been treating Casey a bit more gently recently. Huh.

“Just because I told you to get to school? That’s not ‘treating you like glass’ , that's just common sense, Jones.”

There was some kind of shuffling sound and Mikey readjusted his position against the door.

“You don’t understand! I- I just needed a break from school. It’s not like I want to be stupid!”

Casey explained, sounding thoroughly exasperated. Both boys’ patiences were wearing thin.

“Well Skipping school isn’t a good way to get a break! Do you know how lucky you are?! You’re a human! An actual member of society and-“

“And you aren’t.”

Casey’s tone carried a sting of malice. Before Mikey could even imagine what would be on the boy’s will, he started digging his grave deeper and deeper with a frustrated rant.

“You aren’t a real human and you’ll never understand what it’s like to be one.”

He caught his breath, chest audibly rising and falling as his own words finally caught up to him. There was a deafeningly loud silence that let every word that just spewed from Casey’s mouth hang in the air, festering nastier every second.

Casey’s voice immediately softened. It was such a stark contrast to his rant, Mikey was taken aback.

“…Donnie-“

The echoing thud of something solid being put down on the metal workbench interrupted the boy.

“Get out.”

Donnie’s low voice was laced with sharp needles and hidden threats. But underneath the thick emotionally apathetic armor, there was a layer of hurt that Mikey could sense.

“I’m sorr-“

“Get out of my lab!”

Donnie nearly screamed. If the whole lair didn’t hear them, they might’ve needed to get their ears checked.

There was more shuffling. The sound of a jacket being forcefully shoved on.

“Fine… You know best, Donatello.”

The metal doors suddenly whooshed open and Casey stepped out, zipping up a winter coat up until it hid his mouth, stuffing his hands forcefully into the pockets as he muttered behind the thick fabric.

“I’m done with this.”

In a split moment of true ninja agility, Mikey grabbed the base of  Ice Cream Kitty’s bowl, tucking it into his chest as he sprang into a backflip, landing in the doorway of the kitchen as if he was just walking out.

It was in vain though, as Casey hardly even acknowledged his presence. Casey was so distracted, Mikey bet that he would’ve gotten the same ignorance if he had been caught with his ear right against the door. 

Still mumbling and muttering under his breath, Casey launched himself over the turnstiles, disappearing into the subway tunnels. As his sneaker footsteps faded into silence, Mikey had a sad sinking feeling in his stomach that they wouldn’t be seeing the boy for quite a while.

Backtracking back into the kitchen, Mikey opened the freezer for Ice Cream Kitty who was starting to look a little soupy from too much time outside.

“Here you go, little dude.”

He booped the cat on the nose, getting a happy meow in response.

“I’ll be back, just gotta… uh, check on Dontron for a bit, okay?”

He closed the freezer door, smile dropping as soon as the latch clocked shut.

Mikey crept along the corridor, poking his head into Donnie’s lab.

“Hey, bro!”

Inside, his brother was seated at his desk, facing away from the door. He was eerily still.

“Hi, Mikey.”

There was no emotion in his voice at all. From his view from behind, Mikey watched as Donnie’s elbow moved up and down almost robotically as he worked on some miscellaneous machine.

“Is…”

Mikey stepped closer, standing next to his brother.

“Is everything okay?”

Looking down, he saw what Donnie was working on. 

A music box.

“Y-yeah, everything’s fine .”

Donnie’s hands were shaking. Mikey wasn’t able to see while he was behind, but now he had a clear view. His arms were steady in their motions, but his hands were trembling so bad, he could barely hold the box still as he attempted to jab different tools and parts into it.

“Everything’s-“

Donnie set the box down carefully, the antique laquered wood clacking against the cold steel. He dropped his face in his hands, covering his eyes and lowering his head. His body shuddered and he curled into himself.

“Just fine.”

Mikey wrapped his arms around his brother, closing his own eyes as he hugged him close.

If Donnie shook and gasped as he choked back sobs, that was between him and the mutagen that created them.

Afterall, everything was just fine.

Chapter Text

“You still look awful. That hockey guy did a stupendous job of beating you up.”

Casey rolled his eyes at Donnie’s comment as he pushed his way through the turnstiles, having a little bit of trouble with the plastic grocery bags he was also bringing in.

“Thanks. I’ll be sure to pass on your compliments.”

He replied coldly, trying to shoot the turtle a glare only to see that Donnie wasn’t even facing him to begin with.

He was sitting in the middle of the family’s living room, clanking away at Metalhead with a wrench in hand and a cartoon softly playing on the TV in the background.

Casey crossed over, plopping down beside Donnie. The rustle of plastic bags finally got the turtle to look up.

“What’s that?”

Donnie put his screwdriver down on the floor with a small clink, pulling his arms out of metalhead’s wiring. There was a streak of grease on his cheek, but Casey gladly neglected to tell him, smirking at the dark mark.

“Eh, just some groceries for my dad n’ sister. They don’t really know how long it takes to run errands at the bodega, so I basically have the next two hours free.”

Casey stretched out luxuriously where he sat, despite the flooring being hard, cold concrete. It was worth seeing Donnie’s expression as he stretched his legs out onto his lap, carelessly crossing his ankles for extra measure.

“What are you workin’ on, Dee?”

Donnie scoffed, shoving Casey’s legs off of him and sending the boy sprawling against the floor. Casey didn’t seem to mind, though, popping back up with a mischievous smile as he thought up the next way to annoy the turtle.

“I’m reconfiguring Metalhead’s motherboard so he’s less likely to go haywire on missions.”

Donnie reached up and absentmindedly scratched at his cheek as he spoke. It was the same spot as the machine-grease mark, probably how it got there in the first place. 

Casey still didn’t tell him, just nodding along to the tech mumbo-jumbo Donnie was spouting.

“Sick, lemme know if you do something actually cool and not, like, nerd stuff.”

He grinned, showing his missing teeth as Donnie scrunched up his face.

“Excuse you, this is cool! It takes  incredibly advanced hardware reconfiguration along with top-notch artificial intelligence programming to get Metalhead functioning and- hey!!”

While the turtle was talking, Casey had been making talking hand puppet motions to the side of his face without his notice. Donnie knocked his arm with a fist to get him to knock it off. Casey just laughed, scooting away to his grocery bags.

“Yeah, yeah. Like I said: nerd stuff.”

Donnie gave an indignant scoff as Casey rummaged through the white plastic bags with one hand, using the other to gesture abstractedly in the air as he spoke.

The two absorbed their comfortable bantering energy. They may have fought so much more than any pair of “friends”, but it was the norm for them. Really, Casey would be worried if he went a day without getting into some petty argument with Donnie over something that didn’t really matter.

He pulled out a bag of chips, pulling the top open with a pop. He scooted back over while crunching on a small handful of chips. Donnie pretended to look disgusted with Casey eating so close to his project, but it really was only pretend, Casey could see it clearly in his red eyes. (very nice, pretty eyes, he so recently discovered)

He held out the bag, not bothering to swallow before he spoke.

“Want some?”

Donnie’s fake scowl deepened and he leaned back away from Casey.

“First- ew. Second… Let me wash my hands first.”

He gestured to his grease-covered hands before getting up and heading to the kitchen sink that wasn’t all that far.

Casey shot his foot at Donnie’s T-phone that he left behind, pulling it closer. He tapped the screen with his elbow to read the time, putting another handful of chips in his mouth as he heard the turtle running the sink in the back.

He could stay for a bit. He had another hour.

“YOU-”

Casey nearly dropped the phone in surprise. He whipped his head around to see Donnie gripping the shiny sink spout, glaring at it with a fire which was immediately redirected towards Casey himself.

“You didn’t tell me I had a three-inch smear on my face?!”

Donnie whirled back around to the sink, hunching over and angrily scrubbing at the black mark as Casey cracked up. The turtle muttered under his breath, shutting the sink off with a now-clean face and drying himself with a towel.

(a few beads of water escaped, though. Casey noticed them running down the front of Donnie’s plastron. They fell into the ridges of his scutes, highlighting the way his body was formed. Casey pointedly ignored the way his stomach squeezed, choosing to instead busy himself with his snack again.)

“Put your mask back on, loser. You look naked without it.”

Casey peered into the bag. Seeing it was still half full, he opened the top wider and offered it to Donnie a second time. This time, Donnie took some, crunching as he reached behind his head to tie his mask back on. (His arms flexed as he pulled the fabric into a tight knot, closing his eyes with a tired exhale. Casey did not look at his arms. He did not)

The turtle opened his mouth to make a snarky retort, only to be interrupted by his own stomach making a noise like it had a mind of its own. 

“When was the last time you ate, man? That sounded gnarly!”

“Don’t say ‘gnarly’, it’s uncultured.”

Donnie crossed his arms over his stomach, blushing fiercely.

“Don’t change the subject!”

They stared at each other, letting the question hang in the air until Donnie sighed.

“I’ve been a little… busy.”

He trailed off, glancing briefly at Metalhead. Casey knew Donnie and he knew Donnie’s work ethic. The guy probably hadn’t even moved from that spot in hours.

“Uh huh.”

“Oh, shut up.”

Donnie swatted Casey’s arm as he reached for the grocery bags, looking through them. The boy didn’t even look over to see what the turtle was taking, just calling out from over his shoulder.

“Don’t take any apples, Dorkatello. Chloe likes those. Or any of my t- my uh, dad’s teas. I don’t like tea, that’s lame.”

He added that last bit rather hastily. Donnie didn’t need to know about his old-man taste in beverages. That was basically free blackmail: having the same taste as Leo.

Bleh.

“Noted.”

Donnie sifted through the bags with Casey coming up beside him.

“Oh! There was a huge sale on oranges at the bodega- Here.”

He brushed his hands on the side of his pants, enjoying the way Donnie’s nose scrunched up in disgust. He then pulled out a bag of ripe oranges, tearing the red plastic netting with his fingers and pulling one out with a bit of effort.

“Catch.”

Casey tossed the fruit and Donnie caught it in one hand with a mildly quizzical look.

“An.. orange?”

Donnie ran a thumb along the textured rind, inspecting it closely. Closer than any normal person would look at a perfectly normal orange.

“Yeah, an orange. What? You don’t know what an orange is?”

Casey ribbed him playfully. Then he realized, Donnie lived exclusively underground for fifteen whole years-

“Oh, do you know what an orange is?”

Donnie snapped his eyes away from the orange, giving the boy a glare.

“ Yes, I know what an orange is , Jones! I’m a social recluse, not an imbecile!”

Casey put his hands up in surrender.

“Yeesh, dude! Just makin’ sure.”

The turtle rolled his eyes with a sigh, fidgeting with the orange, tossing it from hand to hand like a baseball. He suddenly looked up at Casey with his startling red eyes.

“Just don’t make fun of me.”

Now Casey was the one who was confused.

“What do you mean? I mean, it’s just an orange. What’s-”

And then Donnie did something horrendous. Something Casey would never be able to unsee.

“DUDE!!”

Donnie bit into the orange. Rind, pith, and all.

“That’s not- What the- why?!!”

Casey gestured wildly, unable to say a coherent sentence.

“You said you wouldn’t judge!”

“I’m judging!”

He watched in horror as Donnie chewed and swallowed his bite of orange that was mostly peel.

“That deserves judgment, man!”

The turtle turned bright red.

“Hey! It’s- It’s not that bad!”

Not that bad? Casey was feeling sick just looking at it. Imagining the taste…

“It is! Just peel it, dude!”

“I- I can’t!!”

Donnie finally spat out, exasperated with the boy as if he was in the right. He held the orange up, a sizable bite mark on the side.

“It’s my fingers. I can’t peel oranges right. I’ve gotten used to the taste, It’s really not that bad, Casey.”

He made a move to take another bite, but Casey leaped, snatching it right out of Donnie’s hand.

“Hey!”

“Nope!”

Donnie lunged to take his fruit back, but Casey held it close to his chest.

“I’m not watching you eat the peel of an orange. Gross…”

The turtle looked at him with the best stink-eye he could muster in his position.

“I watched you eat a whole bag of chips with your mouth hanging open like you were trying to catch flies.”

Casey used his thumbnail to pierce the thick skin of the orange, starting to take the peel off.

“And you ate some of my chips too. Boom. point broken.”

“Wha- That’s not how that works! I’m saying-”

“Just lemme do this for you, okay Dee?”

He said with a small chuckle, laughing at how worked up Donnie was getting over an orange peel.

The turtle went strangely quiet as Casey continued to peel the orange.

He wasn’t consciously aware that he was doing it, but halfway around the fruit, he realized that he had been peeling it the same way he peeled them for his younger sister. In one long snake, only broken around Donnie’s bite-mark.

He could see the small indent of Donnie’s tooth gap in the spongy pith of the orange.

It was… strangely endearing.

Casey picked off some of the stringy bits, pulled the peeled sphere neatly in half, and handed the intact side to Donnie, keeping the bitten half for himself.

“Here. Now eat it like a normal person.”

Donnie looked at the orange apprehensive, like it might have been poisoned or something.

“Thanks…”

“No prob.”

Casey broke off a wedge, careful to not break the flesh around the bite and popped it in his mouth. He squashed  down a pesky thought in the back of his mind screaming that that was basically an indirect kiss.

Donnie followed the same, chewing thoughtfully.

“Why’d you do it?”

Casey raised a brow.

“Why’d you peel it for me? You didn’t have to.”

The boy swallowed.

“What? You wanted to eat the peel?”

He jerked his thumb to the small pile of rind and puth he set aside to throw in the garbage later.

“No! It’s just that… That was really nice of you Casey. Only Splinter’s ever peeled oranges for me… And that was when we were all really little.”

Donnie ate another orange wedge, looking away and mumbling around the food in his mouth.

“So… thanks… I guess.”

The moment turned strangely emotional all of a sudden and Casey’s mouth felt dry. His face felt warm.

He coughed into his fist the clear the weird feeling in his chest and pulled off another piece of his orange.

“Eh, it was nothing. Just do not eat oranges like that again. Ew.”

He tried bringing back their banter from earlier, snickering a bit. It seemed to work because Donnie got that mean grin of his again, the one where Casey just knew he was going to lose some kind of petty argument.

See? Much better than that genuine smile that made his lungs feel tight.

“It was one favor to stop you from emotionally scarring me… Juuust don’t get used to it.”

Casey pointed his finger at Donnie who rolled his eyes.

“I’m not stupid, Jones. You know I won’t.”

“And don’t fall in love with me either.”

The peels that were thrown at him were so worth it to see the look on Donnie’s face when he said that.

⋅•⋅⊰∙∘☽☾ Alright, alright, alright! Time to fix this shit ☽☾∘∙⊱⋅•⋅

Yoshi landed on his feet with a huff.

Those katas took much more effort than they did five years ago.

He grabbed his walking cane from the wall, leaning on it heavily. 

His fur was not this gray five years ago either.

He pushed the thoughts from his mind and exited the dojo. That was enough training for the day.

On his way out, he made a point not to look at the clock hanging on the wall. He didn’t want to know how short of a time it took to tire himself out.

Clicking his cane along the concrete floor, he made his way to the kitchen to find an unexpected guest.

The human boy, Casey Jones was sitting at his dining table, hunched over a mess of papers and various school supplies, but most notably, without Donatello.

He made his way over. The sound of his cane was always much too loud for him. Using the wooden stick meant he wasn’t able to walk silently anymore.

He was brutally reminded of that fact when the human boy picked his head up when Yoshi was still a good ten paces away from the table.

“Oh! Master Splinter!”

Casey started to get up, but Yoshi motioned with a hand to sit him back down, sitting down as well. He let out a breath louder than he would’ve liked to admit as he sat on the old wooden chair.

He remembered the day he had stolen the furniture set for his family. He had carried a wooden table and six chairs for multiple blocks, making multiple trips in the dead of the night, running back and forth with four baby turtles clinging onto his shoulders…

And now here he was, winded from a training session and a walk to the kitchen.

At least the table and chairs were still perfectly functional. They had survived nearly seventeen years of a rowdy family which was more than impressive.

“Hello, Casey. How have you been?”

Yoshi asked politely, leaning his cane against his chair and folding his hands on top of the table. He eyed the homework the boy was completing, They were completely covered wit scribbles and eraser marks.

“Uh, I’ve been… good- But! How have you been?”

Bless the child’s heart. Trying to be so polite.

“I have been just fine, thank you.”

“Oh, uhm… Good… That’s uh, good.”

Casey tapped his fingers against the table anxiously, failing to make eye contact with Yoshi. He cleared his throat awkwardly as the rat stared at him.

There had been a question harbored in Yoshi’s mind for the past few weeks, gnawing and pestering him. He could be gentle about it and bring up the subject delicately… or he could be blunt and get a straight answer from the boy.

Casey Jones seemed like a strong young man. He could handle a bit of bluntness.

“What are your intentions with my son Donatello?”

Casey nearly knocked his calculator off the table, almost falling out of his seat.

Yoshi should have thought this out more.

“WHA- HOW?- How did you figure it out!? I- Uh- It’s not like that! I swear-”

Yoshi held up a hand and Casey cut his own rambling off.

“It wasn’t difficult… At all or in the slightest.”

Casey slouched over, getting back on his chair and now avoiding eye contact more than ever.

“Oh… I thought we were being pretty chill about it.”

“You were not.”

Casey cleared his throat again, the second time just as awkward. 

“Well, you won’t have to worry about that anymore.”

His entire face was red down to the neck from embarrassment, but his tone was sad. Intrigued, Yoshi leaned forwards.

“Oh? Is that so? The last I heard, you both were in my son’s room, presumably ‘watching a movie’ in his bed. So, excuse me if I ask of your intentions.”

If it was even possible at that point, Casey turned even redder, stammering through his response.

“IT’S- That was- That’s NOT what happened!!”

Call Yoshi immature at his old age, but he couldn’t pass up the opportunity to push the boys buttons a little.

“You were not watching a movie in his bed?”

Casey nearly imploded and the rat had to grip the edge of the table to refrain from showing the barest hint of an amused smile.

“You- We- We watched a movie! And- and that was it! I swear!”

The boy took a seat again after explaining himself, face on fire.

“And… then we broke up…”

Casey’s voice went quiet and he slouched in his chair, fiddling with that same pencil again.

Yoshi was reeling. They had seemed so content with each other. For all his age and wisdom- Oh, he was not equipped to deal with his teen-aged son’s ex-boyfriend through their break up.

Spirits, help him.

“You… and Donatello…”

He began tentatively, treading the waters.

“Yeah… I was the one to do it… God, I’m stupid.”

Without his permission, twelve separate ways to murder Casey Jones right then and there flitted through Yoshi’s mind, three of which he could do without getting up from his seat.

He suppressed the urge.

“You broke up with my son?”

Casey seemed to have noticed his mistake because his shoulders tensed and he was suddenly very wary of the six-foot rodent jujitsu war machine sitting next to him.

“I… Um, yeah… please don’t kill me.”

With the way Casey’s voice cracked as he pleaded, Yoshi deemed him just barely pathetic enough to spare. Instead, the rat sighed.

He wished he had some more time to prepare, but such is life.

He plowed on.

“Would you like to… talk about it?”

Ohhhh, things were so much easier when his children were just the four turtles. Screaming toddlers, unable to sit for more than three seconds with their wild and rowdy fights. That was so much better than having this conversation.

He would do anything to reverse the clock.

“It was… I don’t…”

Casey thought about his words very carefully. A wise move.

“I don’t know why I ended it.”

The boy sighed sadly, tugging at the bandanna holding his long hair back.

“But there was a reason, no? You wouldn’t have left Donatello for no reason.”

Yoshi prodded a little more and Casey flopped over on the table, burying his face in his arms.

“I’m not great at um… At talking about stuff like… This.”

The feeling was mutual, but Yoshi was determined to not let it show on his face.

“Clearly.”

That was not the right thing to say, Yoshi realized as soon as the words left his mouth. Curse his extended hiatus from real, human interaction. He tried again.

“Search your heart, Casey Jones. What was the real reason you left?”

Casey picked his head back up, breathing deeply through his nose before answering.

“I guess it- I guess it’s just that I realized that Donnie’s so much smarter than me.”

Now, Yoshi knew the human boy wasn’t the brightest of the bunch, but he still quirked a brow at him.

“That’s a surprise to you?”

Casey must not have heard because he kept talking, rambling about Donatello as he lost himself in his memories.

“He’s smarter and faster and stronger- Like, really really strong… ahah…”

He seemed to suddenly remember that Yoshi was listening and cleared his throat, face flushing red.

“My point is that Donnie’s so much better than me. He was fine without me and he’s so- just so amazing. I just don’t get why he acts so worried over me all the time. Like he needs me to always be okay or… something… “

Ah, insecurity. Of course.

Casey seemed to come to a similar conclusion, sitting up straighter as he started talking more to himself than Yoshi. 

“When really… I need him more than anything.”

He suddenly turned his head to the rat.

“Aw jeez , I messed up.”

Without waiting for a response, Casey abruptly stood up from his chair, grabbing it before it could fall to the floor.

Behind him, Yoshi watched as his four sons returned from their errand, skillfully jumping the turnstiles without a sound, just like they had been doing ever since they could walk. His sons were holding a medley of grocery bags they had stolen from the corner store near their lair. The one that so fortunately did not have any working security cameras… or competent staff who took an accurate inventory.

Most importantly, he noticed Donatello’s eyes widen at the sight of Casey. 

The boy was hurriedly stuffing his papers haphazardly into his bag in a rush before simply abandoning the task entirely.

“I- I’ll be right back, Master Splinter! I have to-”

He whirled around, smacking straight into Yoshi’s tallest son.

“Casey!”

Donnie caught the boy before he could fall. He also wrapped his arms around him more than what was necessary, but Yoshi kept that little detail to himself.

Casey flicked his eyes over to the old man, reluctantly removing himself from Donatello’s ‘friendly’ embrace.

“Uh- Donnie! I was just going to-”

Donnie interrupted him, putting both grocery bags on the table. Casey fell silent as oranges rolled out from the nearly overflowing bags.

“I got oranges.”

“...I see that.”

The rest of Yoshi’s sons followed, putting their goods on the kitchen counter.

“Yeah, Donnie! Why did you get so many oranges?”

Michelangelo was busy sorting the canned goods in the pantry as he called over his shoulder.

“Mind your own business , Mikey!”

Donnie snapped back in his typical sibling fashion. Remembering their father was sitting right there, he slowly and sheepishly turned back.

“Eh heh…”

Yoshi furrowed his brow at his son and got up from the table without another word, grabbing his cane and going to help his other sons with the rest of the groceries.

He wanted to leave those two alone anyways… and point an ear to listen.

“So…”

“Casey…”

They started at the same time. Realizing the other had something to say as well, they both rushed out their next words.

“I am so so so sorry, Dee-”

“Casey, I’m sorry-”

They interrupted each other, looking at their former partner in silence for a beat.

“There are some things I really need to tell you, Casey.”

“Same here…”

They went silent again. Without any prompting, Casey grabbed one of the bags of oranges.

“Wanna talk in your lab? I can peel ya some of these. It’s easier to talk while doing something with my hands.”

“Yes, please.”

Chapter Text

Maybe Casey could try moving Donnie’s desk two inches to the left every day until he noticed… 

Maybe he could steal a single screw from each of his contraptions and leave them all in a heap on his desk.

Or maybe he could take Donnie’s size seven- just the size seven- hex wrench head and put it somewhere he would never think to look. Like in his bed or something. That turtle never went to bed.

Oh, that would just drive him bonkers.

Maybe he could-

“-asey… Caseyyy, CASEY!!”

Casey nearly jumped out of his skin, the pen he was oh so carefully balancing on his upper lip clattering to the cafeteria floor.

“AH!!”

He shot a hand out, grabbing the edge of the lunch table and catching himself before he could tumble backwards.

“What the heck, Red!”

He bent down to look for his pen, snatching it up and glaring at April.

“I called you like, three times? Didn’t you hear me?”

April took the seat in front of him, the chair scraping against the floor and adding to the general noise of the school cafeteria.

“Did it look like I heard you?”

Casey asked sarcastically in a monotone. April shrugged.

“Nah, you looked distracted- ooh! Are they selling fries today?”

April, in the middle of teasing Casey about being easily distracted, got distracted with the food on his lumpy paper lunch tray. Casey looked down at what he bought. It was such a routine: hop in line, endure the accostment of the elderly lunch ladies, sit in his usual spot, and wait for April, he hadn’t even processed what he had bought to eat… 

And maybe he was a little caught up in thought, thinking about how he could tick off a certain science-loving turtle

Casey looked at his tray, seeing- yep, a sandwich, fruit cup, and fries .

“Uh, yeah- I guess so.”

April hummed, leaning back in her chair to take a quick look at the lunch line. For a second, Casey was almost afraid she was going to fall, but then she set all four legs of her plastic chair back on the floor.

“Eh, nevermind. That line is way too long. Mikey made me lunch today, anyway and he’s really gotten better at cooking and-”

She leaned her head against her fist, visibly disappointed as she rambled. Casey didn’t know what it was, but he found the sound of a rambling voice so attractive.

“Here-”

Casey started without thinking. He pushed his tray across the table towards his friend.

“I’m not that hungry today. You can have ‘em.”

He smiled at the way April’s eyes lit up. April had the prettiest dark red- uh LIGHT BLUE eyes.

“Really? Are you sure?”

She asked as if she was unsure, but really, she was already pulling the tray closer to herself. Casey waved off her doubt.

“Yeah, go for it, Red.”

He smiled at the way her face lit up. He bet Donnie never made her that happy.

Well, he did rescue her dad multiple times… and was so insanely smart… and insanely strong and talented and tall and- just so incredibly amazing…

Who was Casey kidding, he had absolutely nothing on Donatello.

Honestly, if he was April, he would’ve chosen Donnie over himself in a heartbeat. Casey had zero chance against the turtle.

But he snapped out of that train of thought.

“Yess! You're the best, Casey!”

April eagerly began to eat Casey’s lunch, simultaneously digging through her bag for something. The end of a fry stuck out of her mouth as she had both hands busy with her bag.

“Hey, can you look over this-“

Finding what she was looking for, a yellow folder, she passed it across the table to Casey who gave it a look.

“An article for the news.”

April explained, pushing it closer to him and flipping it open. She wiped her hand on a napkin and pulled a few leaflets out.

“Huh, you were really serious about joining the news club with that Irma?”

Casey took them from her, fiddling with the staple in the corner as he read the headline and skimmed the article.

Sewer Dwellers: Myth or Monsters?

“Hey, don’t call her ‘that Irma’ she’s really nice!”

April took the folder and swatted at Casey’s hand.

“What do you mean?! That goth chick has it out for me!”

April rolled her eyes and vaguely waved to the packet he was holding, prompting him to keep reading.

The title threw him off a bit. Why on earth would April write in the news about the turtles? If a bunch of scientists or game hunters caught wind of the turtles, that would absolutely not be good.

The article was around three pages of a report on the chemicals in the New York sewers as well as their effects on life. There were also a couple somewhat blurry photos of soaking rats in the concrete tunnels that looked slightly bigger than average. There were a few images of squirmy worms and lizards that also looked kind of off. The whole article ended by mentioning that the homeless also sometimes take shelter in the tunnels underground.

However, there was not a single mention of turtles.

Casey chewed the inside of his cheek and looked up at his friend who had been watching him expectantly.

“Well?”

“Uhm…”

He thumbed the staple again, thinking of how to phrase his concerns in a way that wouldn’t smash the hopeful look on April’s face.

“What do you think? It’s my first report, so don’t hold back.”

Aw, great. This was her first ever report. Casey really didn’t want to crush her joy.

“It’s uh, it’s pretty good, but… uhm-“

“But what?”

He looked to see April’s big blue eyes staring at him from over the top of the page, waiting for his answer. Casey grabbed at the back of his neck and averted his eyes.

“Should you really be writing about this? I mean, great writing- Honestly, it’s a super good article… But I don’t think you should publish it, even if it’s just a school paper. The guys could be in danger if word gets out about sewer mutants , y’know?”

He looked back, braced to see April upset- Instead, April was still beaming.

“I know! That’s the best part!”

“What?”

She quickly waved her hand in front of her, seeing Casey’s confusion.

“No no- not the our friends might be hunted for sport and experimentation part, but getting the word out about sewer mutants part!”

Casey tilted his head, not understanding.

“Here, think of it this way: If the people think that this is all that’s down there, they're way less likely to go down and check for themselves!”

April gestured to the blurry photos.

“Ohhh, that… That actually makes a lot of sense.”

He smiled, handing her back her paper.

“It looks great, Red. Congrats on the journalist position. I’m real happy for ya.”

If April smiled any harder, she would’ve blinded the whole cafeteria with just how pretty she was- in Casey’s opinion.

“Thanks, Casey… Oh! I can’t stay for very long, I still have to actually give this to Irma by noon so she can fit it into the paper.”

April neatly tucked her article back into her folder, going back to enjoying Casey’s lunch.

Casey raised an eyebrow and picked up his phone, tilting it to turn it on.

“April… It’s three minutes ‘til twelve. Don’t you have to get going?”

The girl jolted so hard in her seat, Casey thought she was going to fly.

“IT’S WHAT?!!”

He turned his phone to face her and her panic doubled, shoving her folder into her backpack haphazardly.

“It can’t be this late already!!”

She swung her bag onto her shoulder, fumbling with the other strap. She looked like she was going to say a final word to Casey, but then her eyes fell on the lunch tray he had given her and she went strangely quiet.

“Eh, just take it. I don’t really care-”

“Really?!”

April didn’t even wait for an answer the second time, swiping the tray off the table.

"Oh- shoot! I didn't put my name on it!"

Casey wordlessly tossed the pen he had been fooling around with earlier. April caught it and tucked it behind her ear. She looked like she was going to thank him again, which would have led to a whole extra conversation that April definitely did not have the time for, so Casey shooed her with vague gestures to tell her to get going already.

“Aw, I know I already said this, but-”

She speed-walked around the table, briefly walking backwards to maneuver to where Casey was sitting without breaking her beeline for the door.

“You are seriously the best! Thanks! -mwah!-”

And she grabbed Casey by the chin, tilting his jaw to her and…

And planted a big kiss on the side of his face.

“Bye!”

She darted out the cafeteria doors, red ponytail swinging behind her.

Casey’s mouth fell open and he could feel his face starting to violently warm up. He was blushing hard, he could feel it.

He pressed a gentle hand to where he could still feel the print of April’s sticky pink lip gloss.

“Uh… bye…”

Casey breathed out, but April was already long gone.

He touched his face again, hardly believing his own senses. April kissed him…

April kissed him!

That had to mean something, right?

That meant he was on an equal playing field with the turtle, right?

Pushing all thoughts of April’s kiss out of his mind and wiping his cheek with his sleeve, Casey grinned and let his mind run wild again with all the tricks he could pull on Donnie next.

⋅•⋅⊰∙∘☽☾ getting kissed by ur ‘crush’ and then immediately daydreaming about your rival? Hmmm… m’kay, casey… ☽☾∘∙⊱⋅•⋅

April was nearly jumping for joy as she hopped the turnstiles into the lair. She could feel every nerve in her body tingling with excitement. Her heavy backpack bounced against her spine with each step, but she couldn’t care less.

April O’Neill just scored a movie date with a certain purple-haired journalist she’d had her eye on for the longest time.

She practically floated into the kitchen, finding Mikey whipping up something to eat. She snuck up behind the turtle, catching him in a surprise hug. The turtle laughed and leaned into her arms, putting his jar on the counter.

“Hi, Mikey! -mwah!-”

She pecked his temple with exaggerated flair, grinning from ear to ear.

“Whoa! Someone’s in a good mood today!”

April let go of her koala grip, putting her feet back on the ground. Her black fingernails shilled under the hanging fluorescent light.

“Yep! I’ve got plans going with Irma! I’m so excited I can’t wait!”

She jumped in the air a little bit before catching of whiff of something delicious.

“Ohh, what are you cooking? It smells good.”

She peered over his shoulder at the stove. Simmering away was a pot full of a rich broth with lots of vegetables and small pieces of meat swirling around. Mikey gave it another stir.

“Just some Casey Soup for dinner. Wanna stay?”

Looking at the pot, April seriously debated staying for the meal. Who knew that that one soup Casey brought over that one time when Donnie had the mutant flu would so quickly become a family favorite?

But after a split second of rational thinking, April shook her head. 

“Nah, I’ve got plans, remember? I’m just here for a bit, then I gotta bounce.”

Mikey nodded in understanding, going back to his cooking. He grabbed a shaker of paprika from the counter, measuring it out in his palm as he continued chatting.

“You know where everyone is, right?”

“Yep!”

April set her heavy bag on the kitchen island, moving some stray comics and junk to make space.

“I’m gonna go say hi to everyone else before I leave. Love you!”

She waved as she ducked under the parted curtain that acted as a door for the kitchen.

“Love you too, Apes!”

Mikey called back.

April started heading towards the dojo where she had no doubt that she would find a blue-themed turtle meditating.

To no one's surprise, when she poked her head through the doorway, there was Leonardo, meditating under the giant twisted tree.

She quietly tiptoed over so as to not break her friend's concentration, but Leo stirred with a smile, letting her know that he knew she was there. Still, April tried to be quiet as she padded over, giving him a very quick kiss to the top of his head.

“Hey! -mwuah!- I’m home!”

She whisper-shouted. Leo gave a short nod in response and April left the dojo so he could continue meditating.

Next, she went after the third turtle brother, finding him in his room, reading a comic.

Exactly where she thought he would be.

“Raph!”

She threw open the door, elbow tackling him and smashing him into his mattress with a surprised squawk.

“What the- ack!!”

He threw his comic book in the general direction of his bedside table, retaliating against April’s sudden attack.

“Oh no you don’t!”

“Aw, c’mon! Lemme hug you, Raphie!”

“No! No! Noooo!”

The two began an impromptu wrestling match on the bed. April was trying to crawl over and wrap her friend in a hug, While Raph was making exaggerated fake gagging sounds and pushing her away. The two weren’t afraid to trade blows, even in play fights like this one.

Eventually, April got the upper hand. Literally.

She kneeled on the squishy mattress, surrounded by the sheets that they had both kicked up in their tussle. Raph was smushed into bed with his arm twisted behind him. April held his wrist up with a vicious butterfly grip.

“Jeez! Ow!”

He squirmed under her, futilely trying to get back up.

“Do you give up?”

April didn’t lighten her grip. Raph glared up at her from the corner of his eye.

“Never-“

“Oh well, I do.”

April looked at Raph’s bedside clock, seeing that she had to get going.

She still didn’t let him up, though.

“You lovee meee! -mmmmmwah!-“

She leaned down, planting a dramatically exaggerated kiss to the side of Raph’s cheek.

“Eugh! Grossss! Get offa me!!”

Raph flailed around like a fish out of water, trying to throw April off his back in vain. April just kept pecking him all over his jaw and neck, drawing disgusted shrieks and screeches from the turtle with each one.

When she decided she had tormented her friend enough, April jumped off his shell, leaving him to recover face-down on the bed.

“That was an ambush. Not fair.”

Raph groaned, his voice muffled by his blankets.

“Well, it was fair for me.”

April smirked at him, earning a disgruntled glare. She bent down, looking for the comic Raph had flung out of the way she she tackled him. She found it overturned on the floor by his drum set and tossed it back his way.

He caught it in one hand, re assuming his comfy position on his bed to continue reading.

“Are you staying for dinner?”

April ran a hand through her bangs, straightening her yellow headband back on her head.

“Nope. I have plans for tonight. I have to get going soon.”

“Aw, alright.”

Raph suddenly grinned, bright green eye mischievously peaking over the top of his comic.

“Have fun on your date-“

“What?! How did you know?-“

April’s pale skin instantly turned a vibrant shade of red when Raph began to crack up. Of course Raph didn’t know.

He was simply teasing her and April just confirmed his suspicions with her flustered outburst.

“ Man, that was too easy!”

“Ugh- whatever! I’m gonna go say hi to Donnie before I leave.”

She left Raph’s room, still hearing his cackles behind her, but not even Raph’s teasing could dampen her mood.

Donnie’s lab was farther down the hall and she pushed the button he had installed on wall next to the door that opened it. With a mechanical whoosh the doors parted and she walked in.

“Oh! You’re back already?”

Donnie was fully focused on the object in front of him, screwing and fitting gears into the thing with utmost precision. April recognized it as the music box she had seen him working on frequently recentl. The lights were off in the lab and the only source of illumination was the desk lamp that Donnie had focused on his project.

April quickly became distracted with some of his new experiments, bubbling in bright colors in beakers on on of his back tables.

Donnie sounded more excited than he usually did, so April crossed the dark lab, putting a hand on Donnie’s shoulder. She felt how tense he was under her hand and rubbed her thumb in a small massage.

Donnie hummed satisfactorily and leaned into her touch, not taking his eyes off the music box.

“mmm, I know I don’t say it enough, but I love you.”

He leaned his head against her arm, still staring directly at the box, carefully placing a paper-thin gear with a pair of tweezers in between two notches, delicately fastening it in place with a screw the size of a sesame seed. 

Instead of answering, April bent down to bring Donnie’s cheek towards her for a kiss.

Donnie happily tilted his head, complying.

He snickered for some reason as she pulled away. He put down the ornate box and turned in his chair.

“Wow, Casey. You finally figured out what chapstick do-“

Donnie looked up and his dark red eyes met Aprils shocked blue ones.

“oes… Oh, shell…”

April didn’t need to be an investigative reporter to put two and two together from the deer-in-headlights look Donnie was giving her.

Donnie thought Casey was kissing him and rubbing his shoulder and… He was fixing his music box.

Donnie and Casey were…

DONNIE and CASEY were…

Her train of thought must have been evident on her face because Donnie blushed and jumped out of his seat, covering her mouth.

“Please, please don’t say anything. I kind of want to die right now.”

April pried his hands off, letting the appalled silence between them stretch.

It was quiet for just a beat to long when April shook her head out of her shock.

“Casey?!!”

Donnie covered his face with his hands in embarrassment, falling back into his chair with shame. He gave a small nod, confirming everything.

“Since when?!!”

Donnie leaned back, sprawling out his long legs and slumping down in humiliation, keeping his red face covered.

“Like… a month…”

He mumbled through his hands. He looked about two seconds from retreating into his shell.

“Oh my god…”

April breathed out, shock settling into mischief. The corner of her mouth quirked up into a smirk. Donnie’s eyes widened before he closed his fingers around his eyes, all but crumpling to the floor from his chair.

“No! Stooop- Shut up!”

“What? I didn’t say anything… yet.”

Donnie groaned and - yep, there he went. He retracted his legs into his shell, trying to hide.

April elbowed him.

“Aw, c’mon! I think it’s cute, really. You and… uh, Casey- Wow, it’s just, it’s just surprising, that’s all!”

Donnie just groaned again, pulling his arms and head into his shell. April thought he looked like a little walnut of embarrassment with all his limbs tucked away.

Without warning, April’s phone began to buzz and ring. Seeing the contact name, she almost dropped it in her haste to pull it out of her pocket (curse women’s jean pockets!) and put a hand on Donnie’s plastron as she answered.

“Hey!”

Irma’s unimpressed voice crackled, almost robotically across the line.

“Are you going to be late again, April?”

April jolted up. 

“What do you mean? It’s onlyyyy…”

She caught sight of the time in the corner of Donnie’s computer screen that was still on.

“yyyyYYYY HOLY SHELL!!”

She jumped to her feet, hopping around in a panic to stuff her phone back into her pocket.

“Uh, ‘holy shell’?”

Irma barely got the questioning remark out before April hung up on her.

“I have to go! Like now!”

She made a mad dash for the door, but right as she stepped foot out of the lab, a hand fell on her shoulder and she nearly slipped backwards.

“Wait, April.”

She stopped.

Donnie was out of his shell, looking at her with pleading eyes through the embarrassed flush on his face.

“Please, please don’t tell anyone.”

April put her hand over his.

“Donnie, you know I love you. If you tell me to keep this secret, I will.”

She took a deep breath.

“But if you don’t let me leave in the next three seconds, I will stand on the kitchen counter and scream about how much you love Casey Jones.”

Donnie let go of her so fast, it looked like he burned himself.

April shot like a rocket, even going so far as to jump the couch to race to the turnstiles. She halted in her tracks once she got to them though, turning around one final time.

“BYE! I’M LEAVING!!”

She shouted to let all her friends know, waving to Donnie who was now standing outside of his lab.

Raph barreled out of his room, nearly tripping over his own feet in his haste to throw open his door.

He screeched.

“Tell your DATE I say hi!!”

He cackled again, slamming his door shut once more.

Donnie’s jaw dropped.

“Your… date?!”

Recovering from his shock, a sly smile spread across his turtle face. He had revenge blackmail now.

April could feel her face heating up.

Oh, how the tables turned.

“Oooh, you and Raph are both gonna have to watch your backs tomorrow!”

Chapter Text

Donnie shifted on his knees. No matter how many years passed under Master Splinter’s training, the kneeling was always uncomfortable. At least he had knee pads as a small shield of protection. Next to him, he could practically feel the restless discomfort quietly rolling off of April in waves. The girl didn’t make a single sound outside of the occasional tiny twitch.

Casey, on the other hand (quite literally, as he was on Donatello’s right-hand side), was not as discreet about his discomfort.

The family and co.'s meditation session was frequently punctuated with the scratchy sound of paint-stained clothing rubbing against the bamboo mats that covered the floor as Casey constantly fumbled around.

Donnie had half a mind to smack him to get him to stop, but he stilled himself, breathing deeply and trying to succumb to a deeper state of meditation.

He had no idea how Leo liked doing this. Donnie’s mind was too full of important thoughts to just empty everything out in favor of meditation. 

Years ago, he used to run rotary momentum equations in his mind whenever he was required to meditate. Splinter caught on to his time-passing trick quite quickly, already having a hunch before asking on that fateful day “Donatello, what mechanical equation fills your mind at the moment?” Donnie, for all his brains and logic, accidentally blurted out “Um, actually, it’s angular kinematic physics- Ah, shell! Wait- I didn’t mean it-“

That was also the day Donnie found out what his bo staff felt like when used against him.

The rustling noises continued relentlessly right next to him.

“Stop moving!”

He hissed out of the side of his mouth, cracking an eye open to glare at the boy.

Casey in turn glared right back.

“I can NOT feel my legs!”

As he shuffled around more, Donnie rolled his eyes.

“That's because you’re wearing skinny jeans! Why on earth are you wearing skinny jeans?!”

He jabbed, careful to keep his voice as low as possible as to not garner the attention of his father.

“Uh, cause they’re cool? You’re just allergic to anything cool.”

Casey scoffed with every ounce of his usual Casey-ness and Donnie couldn’t help but open his eyes fully to stare at the utter audacity of the boy.

“What?! I am cool! I am SO cool! Take off those dumb pants and be quiet!”

He clenched a fist, clearly agitated by Casey’s attitude. Casey just leaned forward, baring his teeth in an ugly frown only accentuated by the smears of grease paint decorating his face. His less-than-full grin was fully on display.

“Make me!”

Donnie leaned in as well, meeting Casey’s forehead in the middle. Both teens were practically battling each other for dominance, seconds away from an all out brawl.

“Oh, You better watch it, Jo-“

“Ahem.”

Their hearts sinking into their stomachs, Donnie and Casey turned to Master Splinter who looked far less than amused.

“Is my lesson on meditation interrupting your argument?”

The rat said coldly.

“Uh- No, Sensei! Of course not.”

Ignoring his son’s stammering attempt to appear polite, Splinter kept going.

“Might I suggest you take your clearly important conversation outside?”

Splinter’s voice was still amicably quiet, but Donnie knew that there was also a vehement warning tone, clear as day. Donnie shot a glare at Casey.

“Sorry, Sensei. Casey will be quieter now.”

When the turtle was met only with silence instead of a response, he looked away from Casey towards his father. Splinter’s right ear twitched irritably and both boys immediately knew they had screwed up.

“Donatello?”

“Yes, Sensei?”

The rat’s brown eyes pierced straight through Donnie’s shell, unsettling his core. He tried his best not to shift around uncomfortably. He couldn’t wouldn’t let Casey call him hypocrite… if Casey even knew what that word meant.

“You know how I just said ‘might I suggest’?”

“Yes, Sensei.”

“That is no longer a suggestion. Get out .”

Splinter’s gaze sharpened and Donnie leapt to his feet in a flash like the floor was on fire

“Yes, Sensei.”

“Take Casey too.”

Outside in the hall, their tempers resumed. The second they were out of the dojo, Donnie whirled around with his finger pointing in Casey’s face. Casey stumbled backwards, scrunching his face in distaste at the turtle.

“I can’t believe you got us kicked out of training!”

Donnie towered over him as he ranted.

“ I got us kicked out?! Uh, News flash- You were the one getting on my back first!”

Casey, on his toes, fired back with equal force. They locked themselves in another stare for a beat, sending each other silent death threats through their gazes.

Donnie finally gave up first, rolling his eyes with an exasperated scoff. He backed off the boy, crossing his arms and glaring.

“Ugh, fine- I don’t even care- just get out of my way. I’m going to my lab.”

He pushed him to the side with ease, stomping his way to his lab with ease.

“F-fine then! See if I care!”

Casey shot back way too late.

Donnie had just barely ducked his head into his lab when the curtain to the dojo parted again, making him come back out.

“Donnie? Casey? What gives, guys?!”

Raph slid the beaded curtain back into place, hissing angrily under his breath.

“Splinter’s majorly ticked off now. He sent me after you bozos and if I end up doing extra katas because you two can’t get your heads on straight, I swear I will rip ‘em off myself!”

Raph pointed a threatening finger at them both.

Donnie simply rolled his eyes at the lackluster threat. One can only threaten to kill their brother so many times before the shtick gets old.

Casey, however, felt he needed to justify his outburst, pointing at Donnie. There was a lot of pointing going on and none of it was de-escalating the situation in the slightest.

“ He started it!”

Donnie’s hand twitched in an aborted movement to go and strangle Casey, but he resisted and took a deep cleansing breath instead. Just because they got kicked out of the meditation session didn’t mean he couldn’t put Splinter’s teachings to use.

Donnie stilled himself.

“You know what? Fine, I did start it. Whatever. If that makes you happy.”

Casey didn’t expect the turtle to give in so easily, leaving him fumbling for a comeback.

“W- wait, what?- I-“

He looked to Raph, who was just as stony faced as ever, looking like he was just a few short words away from blowing a fuse.

“Now, if you’ll excuse me,”

Donnie reached for the handle of the doors to his lab, pulling the sliding doors open.

“I have some actually important things to work on that I actually care about.”

He stepped into his lab and with a final death glare at Casey that was eagerly returned, he slammed the doors shut, leaving the boy and his brother out in the hall.

A mere second passed before Casey got over the shock of the door slamming shut and went right back to his usual attitude. He mocked Donnie, muttering under his breath in a nasally tone.

“‘AcTuaLy important things that I aCtUaLly care about’ Fine! I don’t care!”

He shouted at the closed doors.

“Dude!”

Raph elbowed him, maybe a little harder than necessary.

“He’s gone, man. Let it go.”

Casey huffed, the air whistling a bit through his missing teeth with his brows furrowed, glaring absolute daggers at the lab doors.

“It is let go! It’s so let go, I-“

He caught Raph’s suspicious eye.

“I mean, whatever.”

Casey tried to relax his posture to the best of his ability, uncrossing his arms and flexing his fingers.

Raph still didn’t look convinced.

“It’s uh- It’s not like I care. That nerd can do whatever he wants. I don’t care. Doesn’t bother me.”

He turned to his best friend, oh so nonchalantly placing his hands in his pockets. Raph just raised a brow.

“Uhuh.”

The turtle walked past him, heading for the living room.

“It kinda sounds like you do care. Like, a lot.”

He teased over his shoulder, hopping up on the couch and leisurely lying down. Raph briefly scrounged the pillows around him until he pulled out the magazine he’d been reading before 

“What?!”

Casey scrambled after him, jumping the back of the couch and landing on the cushions with a rough bounce. 

“What makes you think I care about what Dork-atello does? I barely ever think about him!”

Raph lowered his magazine just enough so that Casey could see his eyes ping-ponging across the glossy pages.

“It’s just that Donnie’s been, y’know, gone for like, five minutes and you’re still hollering about how much you apparently don’t care about what he does.”

Raph flicked his piercing gaze right at him and for some reason, Casey felt like those bright green eyes were staring into the folds of his brain.

“So, y’know… Seems like you do care.”

Raph said with a smirk before straightening out his magazine with a shake and hiding his face once more.

Casey, on his knees with his shoes on the couch (Splinter would’ve had an aneurysm) lunged forward, snatching his friend’s reading material.

“Pfft- What are you, my therapist?”

Raph shook him off, yanking his magazine back.

“Are you kidding? I leave all the feelings stuff to Mikey.”

He flipped through the pages until he found where he was at before.

“ All I’m saying is that you won’t shut up about my brother even though he isn’t even here. I knew he was just gonna leave, but Splinter wanted to check in or whatever. Splinter sent me out to do some ‘conflict management’ practice because he doesn’t think I can handle my own anger because of course he doesn’t. He never thinks I have my anger under control! I have it under control! It’s just that him and my freaking brothers push me until I lose control! I don’t need ‘conflict management’! I’m already great at ‘conflict management’!! I don’t need this kind of special treatment like I’m some kind of time bomb just ready to explode!!”

Raph let go of his magazine, letting it fall onto his brown plastron. He was breathing heavily from his rant. He hadn’t meant to say all that.

The edges where he was holding were crumpled beyond repair.

Casey blinked at his friend.

“Y’know? Maybe you need a therapist, man.”

Raph grumbled, not looking at him as he picked his magazine back up, smoothing out the sides (where his fists had made irreparable chasms) to the best of his ability.

“Whatever. I don’t even care, dude.”

⋅•⋅⊰∙∘☽☾ i think he cares guys ☽☾∘∙⊱⋅•⋅

Casey raised a fist to knock on the large steel doors, but lowered his hand in apprehension. Raph held a mangled mess of unrecognizable wires and circuits. Casey turned to his friend in reconsideration.

“Wait. Do you think this’ll make him mad? I don’t wanna upset him or-”

“Nah, this happens all the time he’s used to it.”

With a strong roundhouse kick, Raph ‘knocked’ instead of Casey, bashing the doors open.

“Yo Donnie!!”

He shouted, startling the genius into dropping a screwdriver under his desk.

“Ugh! Raph. And… Casey!”

Donnie’s tone flipped on a switch upon noticing Casey’s presence in his lab. Okay, weird.

The tall turtle fumbled for his screwdriver where he dropped it, practically throwing it at his tool wall once he got a proper grip on the thing. Donnie then lunged in front of his desk, hiding what he was working on from view.

“Hey, Dee.”

Casey gave a shy little wave. Very unlike him, Raph noted in his mind. Weird again .

Raph looked from his brother to his best friend, taking in their odd behavior.

“ Ooookay… ”

He butted in and the two immediately stopped smiling at eachother like dorks, breaking eye-contact. Donnie cleared his throat and turned to him instead, taking on a more miffed expression, like the one Raph had expected from Donnie when he burst in unannounced.

“What do you guys need?”

Donnie asked, professionalism at a peak.

“Yeah, my T-phone kinda broke.”

Raph presented the obliterated mechanical abomination to his brother, not a hint of remorse in his eyes.

Donnie physically flinched back at the destruction of his invention, squawking in alarm and shock.

“Whu- ‘kinda’?!! What did you even do to it?!”

He gingerly took the ‘T-phone’ back, if it could even be called that anymore. He closely inspected the shattered plastic casing and glass screen, quickly narrowing his eyes and glaring at Casey, who immediately put his arms up like a criminal caught in police headlights.

“And why do I have a sneaking suspicion that you were a part of this?”

Casey suddenly found a crack in the cement flooring of the lab to be very interesting.

“Weeeell, I kinda… maybe sorta…”

“I chucked it at him and he smacked it against the wall with his hockey stick.”

Raph finished for him, still not looking guilty about his actions in the slightest. He gave Casey a sidelong glance, silently asking him why he was so nervous. It was literally just Donnie. They pulled this kind of stuff on him all the time.

“YOU WHATT?!!”

Donnie screeched. The genius couldn’t decide who to yell at first, alternating between the two idiots.

“You threw it at him?- Why would you let him throw- Why did you throw it at him?! And why did you hit it at a wall?!!”

His bewildered yelling only seemed to really affect one of the pair. Casey grimaced sheepishly, cowering over a bit under Donnie’s fury.

“I’m really really sorry, Dee. We didn’t think it through and-”

“Oh really?”

Donnie retorted sarcastically. Casey shrank back.

Casey never shrank back. And definitely never to Donnie. 

Raph nudged him with a foot, but Casey barely spared him a glance, nodding understandingly as Donnie chewed him out.

“Dude-”

Raph cut his brother off, starting to feel a little bad for Casey.

“Can you fix it or not?”

He pointed to his T-phone.

Donnie stared at the mechanical spaghetti still sitting in his palm and sighed.

“Yeah, gimmie like a week.”

“A week?!”

Raph felt his infamous temper flare up. First, Donnie somehow made Casey feel bad about something he’s never shown remorse for ever, and now he’s telling Raph it’ll take a whole week to fix his phone?

“Well, sorry I’ve got more important things to work on, Raph. But there are just some things I need to finish before I can start a new project!”

Donnie rolled his eyes, huffing in annoyance.

“Like what?!”

Raoh retaliated, crossing his arms.

“Like…”

For just a split second, Donnie’s eyes flickered towards his desk. Anyone else would have missed it but Raph, being the trained ninja he was, caught the look clear as day.

Raph pushed past his brother to see what on earth was oh so important, despite Donnie’s futile attempts to block him.

“Wait! Don’t-”

Raph just swatted his hand away, determined to figure out what was so important about… the…

Music Box.

There was a partially disassembled music box sitting on Donnie’s desk.

“The heck?! A music box?!!”

Donnie himself was leaning back with his shell against the ledge of the desk, massaging the spot on his face where the bridge of his nose should have been if he, y’know, had one. He squinted against the pressure of his fingers.

“Great…”

Casey, who had been mostly silent through Donnie and Raph’s sibling bickering, stepped slightly forward.

“A… music box?”

The boy, in an awestruck state entirely unlike his normal self, pushed past Raph to take a look at the thing himself.

“You were fixing my music box?”

Pause.

Raph looked from the frilly, ornate wooden box, to Casey, to the music box, and then back to rough and tumble spray painting vigilante Casey.

“Your music box?!”

He was seemingly ignored as Donnie pushed himself off the desk, completely disregarding Raph.

“It was going to be a surprise.”

He said, a hint of annoyance still lacing his tone.

“It’s-”

Casey was…

Holy shell, Casey was crying.

“It’s amazing , I- I can’t believe you- you were able to-”

Raph recalled their adventures with those weird little flat turtles that would shout “Turtle Power!” at every opportunity. 

He must have accidentally slipped into some kind of alternate dimension or something because there was no way this was happening in real life.

Donnie was… hugging Casey. A crying Casey.

“Ohhh, no noo, I didn’t mean to make you cry, come on…”

Raph could only gape as every ounce of anger and annoyance instantly drained from Donnie’s voice without a trace, replaced with a soft gentleness that belonged nowhere near the Casey Jones he knew.

“I didn’t think you cared that much.”

Casey still hadn’t let go of Donnie, the two still locked in a friendly embrace.

“Of course I care. I care so so much about y-”

And then Raph was suddenly relevant to the situation again.

At least, Donnie finally remembered Raph was still there watching the whole scene unfold. Donnie cleared his throat, gently but still forcefully peeling Casey from him.

“I uh, care so much about the mechanical aspect of this music box! The gear mechanism is rather complex for a machine with such a simple purpose, I just wanted to study it.”

Donnie didn’t break eye contact with Raph, stammering out his string of disconnected thoughts.

“Whu-”

Casey broke away, wiping an eye. Then he turned around, fully seeing Raph just standing there and instantly understanding.

“O-oh, right! You… you absolute nerd.”

He then wiped at his eyes with a sniff, but also a soft smile.

“Sooo…”

Raph began, not exactly sure what just happened.

“My phone?”

He directed the conversation back to the thing he actually cared about. Alternate dimension or not, he still wanted his phone fixed.

Something under Donnie’s skin twitched on his forehead,

“I told you a week.”

That annoyed exasperation was back in full swing.

“I'm still mad at you- both of you for being so reckless with my tech!”

There was the Donnie Raph knew. 

All back to normal.

Chapter Text

Casey was focused.

He was sooooo focused, literally thinking about nothing other than getting firewood.

Not thinking about how many rodents were probably in the trees and shrubs around them. Or how every rustle in the silence could’ve been a furry little freak of nature.  Yep, no one in the history of ever was as focused on firewood as Casey Jones-

“Casey, watch the end of your stick.”

Leo tactfully pushed the blade of Casey’s hockey stick away from his face with a finger. The leader’s tone was passive, but there was an element of irritation now that that was the third time he’d asked the boy to keep his stick to himself.

“Sorry, dude.”

Casey pulled the handle closer to his chest so the bent end swung higher than the mutant turtle’s face height.

The sheer amount of trees in the forest shouldn’t have freaked Casey out as much as they did, but he was a city boy, sue him. He was freaked out. 

It was just all the- the gnarled branches and crackly leaves on all sides creeping in and closing him inside- Yeah, that made him jumpy.

Sure, it was a forest, but man, did there have to be so many trees?

Casey hated the forest at night.

The only reason Casey wasn’t back at the farmhouse with Raph and Mikey (and maybe cuddled up with April… Nah, who was he kidding, his luck wasn’t that good) was that their ancient stove had run out of wood fuel. Nope, not even propane gas, wood. It was that old.

Well. that plus he lost at Nose Goes along with Donnie, because he was reading some nerd book, and Leo, because he was fumbling with his crutches.

Speaking of fumbling crutches-

“Dude, do you need some help?”

Casey asked tentatively over his shoulder as he crouched down under a branch (ignoring the feeling of a dry leaf tangling through his hair, eerily similar to a rat claw or something equally hair raising).

Leo clacked a crutch against the tree, trying to gain some semblance of balance as he stumbled forward, trying to bend down as well, but failing miserably, Casey reached out a hand, but it was mindlessly batted away.

“No no, it’s okay. I’m Fine.”

The turtle responded with extra emphasis on the Fine. He absolutely did not seem Fine, but Casey retracted his hand regardless.

“In all actuality, I'm more concerned about you tripping over something than Leo, Jones.”

Donnie’s nasally voice came from a few steps ahead on the path and Case scowled.

“Oh yeah, because you’re so perfect, huh, Donnie?”

He snapped back, tossing a nasty glare over his shoulder. Donnie crossed his arms.

“Well, in comparison to you, I’d-”

“Guys.”

Leo’s voice had an edge of irritation to it as he interrupted their brewing friction, not quite angry, but not content either.

“Can we have one outing where you guys don’t start arguing. Please?”

“Pfft, if Donnie doesn’t start anyth-”

Casey began to retort with a roll of his eyes, but he caught Leo’s sharp gaze and straightened up. 

“-I mean, yep! Not a problem, dude!”

His injury might've taken away Leo’s old voice along with his ability to walk on his own, but there was no doubting the authoritative quality the turtle still had, despite his new disability. 

The leader grunted, hauling himself up on his crutches and pulling ahead into the woods. 

It wasn’t long before the last glimmers of the twilight faded behind the skyline and Casey found himself squinting into the darkness to keep up. 

A loud recognizable sigh rang out from somewhere to Casey’s front and two white triangles appeared in the inky blackness.

“Ugh, can’t you hurry up, Jones? I want to get back to the barn as soon as possible and you are not helping!”

Casey scrunched up his brow in distaste, feeling that ever-simmering hatred for a certain turtle begin to boil at those words. He caught sight of a cool-toned mask and before he could take another moment to think it over, he rammed his shoulder into the hard edge of someone’s plastron.

But the yelp he heard wasn’t the high, nasally one he’d been aiming for. No, the sound that came out of the turtle was low and pained.

“Leo!”

Donnie cried out, dropping to his knees. Casey grimaced, realizing exactly what he had just done.

“I- I’m sorry! I thought you were-”

His apology rang empty as Donnie helped his brother back onto his feet. Immediate guilt and regret stewed deep in his gut.

Leo shakily stood up, leaning heavily on his crutch. His words were forced through gritted teeth when he spoke.

“Both of you. Not. Another. Word.”

Donnie and Casey collectively held their breath until the unsteady ker-klunk ker-klunk ker-klunk of Leo’s crutch against the tree roots was a decent way ahead.

“I can’t believe you!”

Donnie hissed out the side of his mouth, pushing away a branch in front of him to follow his brother’s path.

“Me?! You’re the one complaining all the time!”

Casey hissed back in kind, almost stumbling over a tree root.

“You’re the one elbow-tackling injured people!”

The turtle retorted with an extra bite to his words.

“Well, I- well… Uhm…”

Casey found himself stumbling over his own hushed whispers in a feeble attempt to defend himself. He sidestepped a branch before it could impale him through his scrawny torso.

“Well it’s not my fault you and Leo look the same!”

He finished lamely without thinking through his words.

The sheer absurdity of what Casey just said made Donnie pause, tree breach obstacle in hand.

“I- I mean like, your colors are- pshh- basically the same, yknow-”

Casey helplessly gestured with his hands, trying to prove his point that really wasn’t a point.

Donnie released the branch, maliciously letting it fly back and whap the human straight in the face.

⋅•⋅⊰∙∘☽☾ Leo’s ok u guys dw ☽☾∘∙⊱⋅•⋅

Leo blearily opened his eyes as he laid in bed, waking up to a dull throbbing in his bad knee. He flopped an arm over his face and turned on his side, hoping to alleviate some of the building pain and go back to sleep.

No dice, the throbbing intensified and Leo groaned into his forearm in frustration.

This was going to be one of those days, wasn’t it?

He sat up, sleep still blurring his vision, and blindly pawed around his bedside table for his knee brace. Finding it, he unceremoniously shoved his leg into the elastic and threw his blankets to the side.

He also noted that his characterizing blue bandana was nowhere to be seen. It had probably fallen under his bed or it was somewhere in the lair. He got up to look for it, but the moment he tried to crouch down, his knee vehemently protested with a sharp spike of pain.

Leo shot back up with a chorus of “ ow ow ow owww” and glared in disdain at his debilitated leg.

If he was up now, there was no point in staying in bed.

Treading lightly on his bad knee, he limped to the kitchen.

No one else was awake at this hour, it was just Leo, his screwed up knee, and his never-ending stream of thoughts.

Pushing aside the beaded curtain leading into the kitchen, he ducked under the pole and let the wooden beads clatter on the back of his shell.

He remembered when he was a kid, running back and forth through the beads without worry. He wasn’t even tall enough to reach the pole then, even on his toes, stretching as far as his shell would let him.

He was older now. Him, his brothers, and Splinter… 

Leo didn’t miss how often he saw his father reaching for his cane for even the shortest of distances, or how the rat’s fur was a few decent shades lighter than it was on their 15th mutation day.

“Okay… time to think of something else.”

Leo muttered to himself as he shook his head, turning on their ancient gas stove. 

Still not feeling entirely clear headed, Leo closed his eyes and rubbed his knuckles along the space between them. 

His mask was still not on his face. Now that he came to the realization for a second time, he now felt almost naked without it. Well- technically, he was always almost naked, but it was even more weird without his mask.

A cool-toned strip of fabric rested on the counter near the coffee maker and without a second thought, Leo tied it around his head and instantly felt a notch better. 

He sighed, fiddling with the tail ends between his fingers. They were straight.

Strange. Ever since he started putting things like baubles and braids in it at Chloe’s place, the ends of his mask were always crinkled.

He always took them out at the turnstiles when he returned though. He didn’t even want to think about what his brothers would say if they saw him like that...

All done up and pretty like a girl...

Tea.

He came to the kitchen to make his morning green tea.

Chloe said her brother got some new teas, so that’ll be fun for when he comes over…

Maybe she’ll do his bandanas in a braid again. Or a bun. She made a bun the last time they had a tea party. Granted, it was a little messy, but she was in the second grade. He could give some leeway. 

Chloe had clapped her hands with delight and had such a sparkle in her eye, Leo couldn't bring himself to tell her that half his bandana was already falling out of the tie.

The style had been finished off with a sparkly little pin with a blue heart charm. She always insisted on letting Leo keep all the charms, baubles, and pins she used. He was growing quite the collection now.

All the… girl stuff made him feel pretty, like he was something to be admired rather than just some sewer-turtle-mutant.

Leo wished he was a girl-

Nope! Not thinking about that either!

He needed to get the kettle.

Leo let go of his mask, tossing the strangely straight ends over his shoulder so he wouldn’t think about them anymore and reached upwards for the cabinet-

“Ack!”

He raised on his toes, feeling something click in his knee.

“Ow ow! Jeez- tch-”

He hissed, gritting his teeth and digging his fist into the countertop. His eyes watered as he waited helplessly for the pain to subside. Once the pain was back at a manageable level, he breathed a sigh of relief and unclenched his jaw, hoping he didn’t wake anyone else up.

So, it looked like he wouldn’t be having his morning green tea after all.

Leo yawned, his eyes subconsciously sliding over to the coffee maker.

Leo wasn’t the biggest fan of coffee. He didn’t like the way it tasted, the way the astringent texture stayed in his mouth long after the drink was finished, and he absolutely hated the smell of it. If he wanted to smell something burning, he’d just try to make toast again…

Or…  entrust Casey to make a poptart.

He remembered that morning with a smile. For once, Leo wasn’t the one at fault for nearly burning down the kitchen.

But it was far too early in the morning and he still needed his caffeine fix. Remembering that one wonderful morning where someone else was getting chewed out in the kitchen by Donnie instead of him  wasn’t getting him anywhere closer to having a hot beverage in his hand.

With a begrudging grimace, Leo flipped the top of the coffeemaker’s water reservoir and took the red chip clip off the bag of coffee grounds.

He moved with an ingrained swiftness and before long, he was swirling a mug of dark brown, foul smelling liquid in his three-fingered palm.

There was the sound of a door opening and closing, somewhere off in the direction of Donnie’s room, but Leo didn’t pay it very much attention to it, too busy trying to evaporate his black coffee with his eyes.

He could’ve added milk or sugar, but the milk would’ve required him to bend down at the fridge and the sugar was in the cabinet next to the kettle and was not about to attempt that little stunt again.

With his umpteenth disappointed sigh of the morning, Leo plugged his nose and took a big swig of his drink-

Only to nearly spew it all out in surprise when he felt a pair of warm arms wrap around his torso.

All of his instincts screamed at him to attack, but the sound of his assailant's voice drew those instincts to a screeching brake.

“Man, you’re up early…”

Casey’s sleepy voice murmured into the back of his shell.

It was just Jones.

Okay. Whatever.

Casey was always a physical guy, dog piling Mikey during celebrations, piggybacking Raph only to be forcibly bucked off two seconds later, and lately, he’s been bumping shoulders with Donnie a lot more than he used to. Plus, the kid was a weirdo, even by mutant standards. This was nothing to be worried about. 

Leo just grunted out a response, trying his hardest not to gag on his black sludge that all his other brothers somehow downed by the pot like animals every morning.

“Mmm, that smells soooo good…”

Ooookay, Casey was swaying him now while nuzzling his face into his shoulder and tugging lightly at his mask tails.

This was… a thing that was happening.

Still not weird enough on the Casey Jones scale to set off any crazy alarm bells.

Leo continued to ignore him, taking another sip of the horrendous abomination that cursed machine slopped out. 

“Aww, baby why are you so quiet? No one else is around-”

The instant Leo felt a pair of chapped lips press into his neck, the alarm bells finally went off and Casey was nose first into the countertop with his arm pinned painfully on his back.

“DUDE!!”

The human screeched, the low, husky, sleepiness in his voice was nowhere to be heard.

Leo was about two seconds from smashing the half-full mug into the back of the idiot’s skull.

“DON’T YOU ‘DUDE’ ME- WHAT WAS THAT?!!”

Casey stopped struggling for just about a millisecond, freeing his face to turn back and look at the turtle.

“Leo?!”

Leo looked back at him with a look that he could only hope conveyed the sheer amount of disgust he was feeling.

“Uh- Yeah, who else would it be?!”

Casey tried one more time in vain to squirm out of Leo’s pin-down and only succeeded in knocking his chin against the counter.

“You- I thought you were- that’s Donnie’s, man-”

Looking to where Casey was attempting to gesture with his head, Leo finally saw what Casey was trying to stammer out.

Over his shoulder, laid two twin strips of purple fabric.

Leo let him go instantly out of pure shock, stumbling backwards on his bad knee as he did so. He yanked the mask the wasn’t his off his head, plopping down into a chair and throwing the mask down onto the dining table, his quest for tea long forgotten.

Casey was as red as Raph’s mask and was clutching the edge of the countertop like a deer in headlights.

Sure, Leo would’ve expected him to be a little embarrassed, but Casey-no-shame-whatsoever-Jones looked like he was about to pass out from blood loss because of how much of it was rushing to his cheeks. 

“Wait…”

Leo began, furrowing his unmasked brow as two cogs started turning in his brain.

“If you thought I was Donnie, then-”

A harsh bark of a laugh cut him off and Casey threw himself off the counter, that red blush to his pale face getting ever darker. He very nearly tripped over his own feet as he scrambled out of the kitchen at top speed.

“O-Oh man, is that the time?!”

Flustered, Casey looked down at his notably watch-less wrist as he shouted way too loudly for the time of the morning that it was. (Not that Casey would’ve known, not having a watch and all)

“I better get going! Bye, Leo!- I mean, bye!- Not like, Bi- but like- Uhm Bye- See ya, Leo!!”

He jumped the turnstiles so fast, Leo was sure he levitated out of there.

Sitting in shock, Leo simply stared at the space above the turnstiles where Casey had seemingly teleported away.

“Huh…”

He muttered as his brain cells worked overtime to collide and form a conclusion.

“My leg stopped hurting.”

Leo then went to hunt for his mask. It was under his bed, just as he expected. He tied it around his head without a problem, running his hands over the crumpled ends.

Going back to the kitchen, he grabbed the kettle no problem, dumped the rest of his coffee in the sink, quickly steeped a fresh pot of flavorful green tea, and sat back at the table as his brothers blearily stumbled in one by one.

He didn’t even notice Donnie was the last to emerge, looking a tad confused like he was looking for someone.