#*michelangelo comes back to haunt me*

[andy-clutterbuck]

[lasanya539]

make this heart beat on and on

(written for @tmnt-write-fight for @rbtlvr, @oddpocalypse, @azucar-skull)

Fandom: Rise of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Prompts: Anything with Casey Jr. maybe him adjusting to the new timeline? talking things out with Leo? up to you! can be hurt/comfort or just fluff i am not picky; Casey Jones and the terrible horrible no good very bad childhood. TW: Mentions of Su!cide, Mentions of Dissociation, Pan!c Attàck Word Count: 11523

Posted on AO3!

---

Casey Junior has… mixed feelings about the past. 

In the first twenty-four hours of him making it here, he’s somehow been launched head-first into the loudest, most overstimulating place of his life, gotten kidnapped and strapped to a chair by a short, angry teenager, been interrogated by a bunch of immature mutant ninjas reptiles, almost died once, almost died twice, locked a sixteen year old turtle into an exiled dimension, and then got him back just to work his ass off to barely save him from the brink of death.

Not to mention the fact that mere milliseconds before getting here he had to watch his sensei die right in front of his eyes, had to confront faces he’d only ever heard stories about or never thought he’d see again, had to somehow be responsible for unleashing the monsters that haunted his entire life in this timeline too, had to sentence a younger version of the man that raised him to get killed at the hands of a demon, and had to beg, beg, beg for a stable pulse when he was given his destroyed body, a family looking at him with the worst kind of hope in their wide eyes. 

That… was all in the span of one day.

Of course, it got better as time went on. Slowly but surely, Leonardo recovered, Casey’s due diligence paying off. Raphael’s eye got rid of the infection, his vision improving despite the scar across his eye-ridge. The markings of organic matter on Donatello’s shell diminished, strong enough for his battle shell again. Michelangelo’s compression gloves reduced the shaking in his hands, the cracks fading to scabs, fading to thin white scars. 

They healed. They won. They survived. 

Or, at least, a version of them did. 

So, yeah, Casey Junior has a lot of mixed feelings about the past. Some of them are straightforward to categorize — his undeniable affinity for pepperoni pizza being one of them, easy to think, oh yeah this is a logical emotion to have. Much like the joy at having fresh water he could drink from the sink at all times, or the relief from studying the medical supplies stocked to the brim in the Med Bay. Times when his brain decides to go a bit easy on him, letting him breathe.

The rest of the time though, it seems like there’s a weight attached to his body, heavy, unrelenting. Tugging on his limbs, keeping his head from being held high. It feels like a threat, a warning — slithering tentacles at his heels when he walks, ready to wrap around his ankles and yank him into oblivion. A sea of darkness at his fingertips, just reach out and it’ll capture him.

He tries hard, though, to not dwell on it. To keep himself safe, he knows how to do that. It’s a delicate balance, but one he has practically mastered in his years at the Liberty Base. Keeping his eyes alert, but mind blank. Aware, but empty. Perfect little soldier, no weaknesses, no thoughts, no illogical emotions. Only orders, and a readiness to survive. 

So he does. However he can.

—

“Casey!” He hears a voice coming from the kitchen. “Can you help me out with this batter?”

Shaking his head, Casey realizes he’s been spaced out watching some kind of Japanese game show with Master Splinter in the projector room, the not-so-foreign language and laugh track providing a nice background to meld into. He walks to the kitchen to find Michelangelo wearing an apron that says ‘Kiss the Turtle!’, while the entire counter is dusted in flour and baking trays. 

He catches sight of him and smiles, giving him a giant bowl and a whisk. Casey notices his hands shaking just slightly. “Here, it’s batter for the brownies I’m making today. Have you ever had brownies?”

The answer was obvious, but he still obliges. “No, never. It’s like, uh, chocolate cake, right?”

“Yep! Well, kind of, you’ll see. I’ll save you an edge piece.”

He sets to whisking, the smell of sugar and butter and things he’d never tasted in years making his mouth water. He resists the urge to dunk his finger in and lick it. 

Michelangelo goes back to pouring in the ingredients of a second batch, reaching up to the cabinets to grab the box of cocoa, when suddenly his hand twitches involuntarily. The box slips out of his grip and falls to the counter, the loose powder spilling on the granite.

Casey steps forward to help immediately, but Michelangelo’s rigid posture makes him rethink. He watches him count to five silently, taking a deep breath and releasing it with meditative precision, shoulders untensing and grabbing the box again. His hands are still shaking.

Casey thinks for a moment, still whisking, trying to come up with something comforting to say. A part of him knows bothering him about the injury would probably make him snap, a lesson learned from his childhood, which he definitely isn’t thinking about. 

He takes a deep breath and forces a bright smile on his face. “Hey, so, what’s your favorite thing to cook?”

Michelangelo blinks, surprised. “Sorry?"

“You love to cook, right? Since you were a kid. So what’s your favorite thing to make?”

“Well, it depends,” he begins slowly. “If we’re talking dessert, then I make really good salted caramel chocolate chip cookies! Ask Leo, he always begs for leftover dough, no matter how much I tell him it’ll make him sick. A breakfast favorite is always waffles, Raph loves them. Or for lunch or dinner, truffle pork chops! There’s actually a whole story behind that recipe.” He chuckles sheepishly, rubbing a hand behind his neck. “What about you? What did you guys eat in the future? I’m sure the food situation was much different than here, huh?”

Casey’s smile turns plastic as something painful lodges underneath his ribs. “Yeah. I guess you could say that.”

Michelangelo seems to wait for him to continue, but he barely notices, ducking his head down and stirring mechanically. A sense memory of taste comes back, a flavor coating over his mouth. So many years of crouching next to his Master near a makeshift stove, watching the vermin they captured roasting on a spit. His lilting voice low in his ear, teaching him exactly how to rotate the spit, when to watch for the skin to break and crackle, how to chop off the head cleanly while still leaving enough meat to eat. The silly way they’d tap their respective meals together in a toast before they took a bite.

The batter doesn’t smell all that good anymore. 

He feels a gentle touch over his arm where he’s hugging the bowl close, and his head shoots up, an apology ready on his lips. But Michelangelo only smiles, a warm, almost loving thing that puts a giant crack in the armor that sits under his skin. The darkness whispers just outside of his peripherals, waiting, watching. 

“Here, that’s done now. Thank you.” He says softly. Casey nods methodically. 

“Anything else I can help you with?”

“No, that was all I needed. But hey, maybe you should—”

He spins on his heel in perfect form and marches out.

—

“Level of pain, scale of one to ten?”

“One.”

“Okay, two then. Let me know if it gets above a three, and I’ll start you on ibuprofen again. Itching?”

“Scoff. No itching.”

“Good. Have you been applying that antibacterial cream?”

“Yes, mother-hen, I’ve been applying the cream. And before you start, I’ve only been keeping the battle shell on for four hours each day, no need to nag about that.”

“I’m not a mother-hen, I’m a medic.” Casey responds, practiced, not looking up from the paper pad he’s been making diligent notes on his patients with. “What about your other injuries? Take off your gauntlet and knee pads.”

Donatello rolls his eyes with all the irritation in the world, but he does as he’s told, sticking his arms and legs out for inspection. Casey studies the new green skin peeking out from the cuts, evidence of the wounds he had gotten trying to protect Michelangelo with his body when the subway tunnels collapsed. A few pin-pricks of blood catch his attention. “Have you been picking at the scabs?”

He huffs, reflexively bringing his arms back to his plastron in defense, turning away. “No. ”

“Right.” He says plainly. “Well, if it ever gets to that point, stop it. I know you know better than that. Or I’ll put the heavy-duty bandages back on.” He ignores the glare he receives, making one last note and flipping the notepad shut, sighing. “Still, though, you’re recovering pretty well. Considering.”

Donatello quickly puts his gauntlet and battle shell back on, eager to get back to the spreadsheets open on his monitor. Casey starts collecting the old bandages and throwing them in the trash along with his gloves. 

“Well, I have to admit.” Donatello says eventually. “If any of us are doing any better, it’s all thanks to you.”

He halts in place, surprised. “It’s my job.”

“It’s not.” Casey feels his stare on his back where he’s turned away to the wall. “You might have been the medic back there, but you’re not one here. Certainly no one forced you to. I distinctly remember Papa telling you to move out of his way when you three got to Staten Island so he could treat his son. But you practically forced yourself into the role and starting ordering everyone around you, including me somehow.”

Casey’s lip twitches at the indignant tone at the end of the sentence. He hangs the first aid kit on the wall. “Yeah, well, there was a lot to be taken care of. Even if I had let Master Splinter take control, it would have been too much just on him. I had to step in. And besides, I’m good at what I do.”

Donatello hums approvingly. “Being confident in your own skills, that’s a good thing to have. I know you said Leo taught you all you know in the future, but he’s actually the worst out of all of us when it comes to having pride in his own work.”

Casey gulps, a sudden ashy emotion clogging his throat. Involuntarily, a memory bubbles up to the surface, the darkness not too far behind. A lesson learned between many violet floating holograms and the clanking of a hammer against metal, a calloused three-fingered hand on his shoulder, steadfast, grounding. 

‘Hope may be your greatest weapon’, his Master telling him, teaching him, ‘but your pride is your greatest shield.’

“Yeah.” He chokes out, eyes blurry. He feels slimy tentacles nip at his heels, cold and terrifying. “I – I have to check on the others.”

He barely hears the questioning tone as he flees from the lab. 

—

“Hey, hey, can we spar really quick?"

Casey looks up from the fairy lights on the ceiling he was zoning out at, turning to find Leonardo next to him, an eager look on his face. “Sorry?”

“Let’s spar. C’mon, it’ll be fun. I’m actually so bored right now, and I know for a fact you are too.”

“You should definitely not be sparring, you’re still in recovery.”

“Oh, come on,” he whines, stretching out all of his limbs in show. “See? Everything is fine, I’ve been doing that P.T. schedule you gave me, I’m not in pain, and I am bored. Out of. My mind. So can we just go to the dojo and spar it out? I’m really curious to see what kind of ninja warrior skills you have."

Casey gives him a look, but Leonardo just gives him a shit-eating grin that reeks of stubbornness. 

“Fine.” He stands up, bones creaking with the weight of years he hasn’t yet lived but still survived. Leonardo looks happier than he has in days. 

The dojo still looks quite used, the mats bruised and the punching bags a little worse for wear. Unfortunate for a family full of injured members. 

“You know, it seems like you already have quite a few willing training partners for some reason.” Casey says pointedly. 

“Ha, yeah, I guess I do, huh,” Leonardo rubs the back of his neck, eyes flitting away. Guilty. Casey can’t stand to look at it too long. “But the point is to train with you! So c’mon, Future Boy, show me what you got!”

Casey forces them to stretch before they start and earns an eye roll in return. They get into position, stance firm and muscles tight. They circle each other, looking for an opening. Casey moves first, and aims for a quick jab to the center of his plastron. Leonardo blocks it, responding with a swift roundhouse kick. He ducks and rolls, returning to stance.

Leonardo smirks at him, a cocky, familiar thing. Something loosens and squirms under his armor.

A flurry of strikes follow – each one of them blocking, dodging, countering with fluid precision. Almost like a dance they’ve rehearsed before, anticipation thrumming in Casey’s veins. They track each other’s movements with the same sharp gaze, prepared.

Leonardo launches a high kick to his head, his balance faltering for an instant. Casey notices, dropping low, sweeping his legs out from under him. A sharp elbow strike to the ribs, and he is forced onto the mat. They stare at each other for a second, before Casey stands up and bows respectfully.  

“Wow,” Leonardo pants out, looking up at him. “I promise I’m a lot better at this, usually. You – you definitely got lucky this time.”

Casey snorts, hearing his heart beat in his ears, spirits higher than usual. “Sure, man, let’s say I did.”

Leonardo beams in response, as he helps him get up. He dusts himself off, still out of breath from the excess exercise after the weeks of recovery. Casey smirks, opening his mouth to rib him for training when he wasn’t even ready for it, but suddenly an arm hooks around his neck, pulling him to Leonardo’s side in a friendly jostle that throws him off balance.

“So, I was right, huh?” Leonardo grins cheekily. “You just needed to spar too. No way all that rad ninjosity can sit still and not have somewhere to go, amiright? I haven’t seen you look this happy in a while!”

‘A while’ actually meaning ‘ever’, Casey thinks hysterically, good mood plummeting as he suppresses the instinctive urge to twist out of the chokehold. The warmth from the contact makes the loose emotion stirs up again, but he brutally shoves it down, forcing himself to not give in. Not right now. No tentacles, no illogical feelings. 

He returns the grin to the best of his ability, trying not to wilt when Leonardo dims, intelligent eyes ticking over his face. 

“Yeah, you’re right!” Casey gets out as cheerfully as he can manage. “Training is a good way to – to get out of your head, huh? Who would’ve thought, right?"

Leonardo doesn’t look very convinced, but lets it slide. “Well, just you and everyone else in this family.” He says matter-of-factly. His eye-ridges come together in a slight frown, thoughtful. Casey tries to pull away, but the arm somehow tightens around him. 

“Did you know,” Leonardo says eventually, “that after our first fight with the Shredder, Donnie trained in here for two days straight? The only times he stopped was to go to the bathroom, drink water, and once eat four Big Macs in a row, before immediately coming back. According to him, training was helping him ‘cope’ with everything, but it was actually making him even worse.”

Crack. The armor under his skin. 

‘Shredder tore through his battle shell like it was paper.’ Casey suddenly recalls the memory like it’s a vision. Holding his Sensei’s hand one night, hearing him talk in a quiet, morose tone, as they both watched the sleeping figure of his Master flopped over his worktable, three thin but prominent scars visible on his soft shell. ‘It terrified him. All he could think about was becoming better, stronger, faster. Good enough so nothing could ever touch his ‘weak-spot’ again, so he trained like he’d gone mad. God, he was lucky Shredder only got that one scrape on him – because if Donnie hadn’t been wearing his shell…’

“Yeah, I know, I was really upset about it too.” Leonardo can probably see something on his face. What is Casey showing him? He can’t tell. “We ended up having an intervention for him. He obviously got really angry, but we did the whole shabang – banner and letters and comfort food and all. Dad’s letter was so emotional it made all of us cry, I’m not even kidding. That was probably the only reason he listened.”

Casey feels like a leaf floating on tumultuous waters, just barely staying up for air. Dark waves crashing around him, ready to submerge him. Splinters form over his armor with every encroaching wave. 

Still, he brings himself back, and hums in response, feeling a perceptive stare on the side of his face. “S-sounds rough. I, um, I heard about the Shredder. You guys… did good.”

“Good, huh?” Leonardo huffs unamusedly. “Yeah. I guess you could say we did. We definitely weren’t the reason the real spirit of Shredder was released from the twilight dimension and he decided to destroy humanity, no siree.”

An unkind voice in Casey’s mind points out how utterly ironic that is. He tries to shake it away, a sense of foreboding curling at the edges of his vision, like the longer he stays here, the more danger he’ll be in. 

“Still though,” he argues. “You – you fixed it, didn’t you? You killed the Shredder, you saved New York.”

Leonardo gives him a smile that only barely reaches his eyes, a wry twist of his lips, and something horrible lurches in Casey’s chest, a wild creature of grief and longing and… and—

“Yeah, I suppose we did.” He answers softly. “Couldn’t have done it alone, the world would have been destroyed if it was just the seven of us. It was Gram-Gram and all the Hamato spirits with us. Our ancestors always have our back, the same way we do each other. Anatawa hitorijanai, right?”

The darkness swallows Casey almost at the same time as the tentacles of misery seize his limbs. The glass armor shatters into shards, digging into his thin skin. Echoes of voices crowd into his ears like loud wasps: anatawa hitorijanai, you are not alone, never alone Casey Jones, remember that, the Hamato clan protects its own, anatawa hitorijanai, wherever you go I will always be right there with you, my lifesaver, my kid—

Distantly, Leonardo exclaims something in alarm. A choked sob escapes Casey’s lips, body shaking involuntarily. He feels something pulling at him relentlessly, dragging him under into a black sea of panic. He gasps for breath, fingers bunching in his shirt, trying to let oxygen through the pinhole of his throat into his lungs. 

Foreign touch at his shoulders, uncertain. The tentacles slither and tighten viciously. Casey looks up without seeing and hisses, a scared and cornered response, that has the touch retreating immediately. Through the white noise of his ears he can hear words, the tone maybe meant to be calm or soothing, but all it does is make him even more aware of how exposed he feels. 

Years of military training kick in, and over the cacophony of sounds a voice replays in his ear, a voice he’d follow to the ends of the earth, ‘Retreat! To the underground tunnels! Retreat!’ 

So he does. Orders and a readiness to survive. However he can.

—

When Casey Junior was five, he asked his sensei why the sky in his Little Wolfie the Wolfpup book was colored blue. 

Sensei looked at him like there was a laugh stuck in his throat trapped by the sorrow on his face, an expression that made little sense to him. He heaved a sigh out, looking up through the tunnel grate, where they could barely catch a glimpse of the normal thick grey smog that covered the Surface and above.

‘Back then’, he said. He always started all stories of the unfathomable time before the Krang like that. ‘Back then, the sky used to be blue, mijo. It was beautiful. There weren’t so many spaceships then, it was all just blue, with white fluffy clouds that looked like cotton balls. Sometimes there would be an airplane that flew by, or sometimes there would be a bird! So when we drew the sky, we always drew it a pretty blue.’ 

‘Blue, like your old magic?’ Casey asked.

He chuckled, resting a warm hand on his head, fond, loving. ‘Yeah, kid. Like my old magic.’

And then of course his Master popped up behind them, and seriously explained to Casey the exact hexadecimal code that made up the color ‘sky blue’, which was very very (‘that’s two very’s’ ) different than the code for Sensei’s Ninpō blue, and that his twin was giving his charge a faulty education, and should be banned from the lab during homeschool teaching hours. 

Casey chuckles wetly now, the memory a small balm on his inner turmoil. He’s sitting on a steel maintenance ramp overlooking a dry sewer reservoir, his face turned up to a patch of sunlight from a broken metal grate on the ceiling. He doesn’t really remember how he got here; one second, he was crouched low in the dojo with his pulse thudding over his whole body, the next he was running through the subway tunnels, desperate to get away. So many years of living underground have trained him well to find the few exit hatches that connect the New York tunnels to the sewers lines in his frenzy. The only safe place he’d had when he was escaping the Surface during an attack. The only safe place he has now. 

He looks up, seeing fluffy white clouds that decorate a bright blue sky, a faint flicker of awe piercing through his fog of exhaustion. Exactly like his Little Wolfie the Wolfpup book. Even more beautiful, in fact. 

He vaguely wonders if those so-called ‘snow days’ are actually a thing now. Maybe little kids like Wolfie really do dress up in warm wooly cardigans and hats, and make round ‘snowmen’ with rocks and sticks and carrots. Maybe they look up and see a soft sun and rain-heavy clouds with a smile. Maybe they go back home to a family that was never war-torn, never had to watch them walk out the door bitterly wondering if this was goodbye. 

Casey sniffles, tears filling his vision once more. He never got to say goodbye. He buries his face in one hand, the other tightly clutching his hair, holding himself together, barely, barely. 

“Wow, I never knew this place was here.”

He jolts, immediately standing up to his feet and swerving around, already reaching to his back for a hockey stick that’s not there, before his brain catches up with his body. 

Raphael is on the stairs leading up to the high ramp, hands up in apology. His eyes, one normal and one scarred, tick over his stature in a discerning manner. 

“Sorry, Raph didn’t mean to scare you.” He says apologetically. “Just wanted to see if you were okay.”

Casey grimaces, turning around, muscles strung tight. “I’m fine.”

“Okay.” He says, surprisingly easily. He lumbers close and settles down, dangling his feet off the ledge, a respectable distance between them. 

Casey refrains from joining, feeling antsy, fists clenching and unclenching. The exhaustion still hasn’t worn off, but now it feels like it’s warping into something more, something urgent. The faint sounds of New York traffic filter down from the hole in the ceiling, dust particles floating in the stale air. Raphael is quiet on his side, seemingly calm. A bird flies by up there, making a cheerful sound. It’s a nice day outside. Warm. Cozy. 

“Have you ever touched snow?”

Raphael blinks at the sudden unexpected question, glancing up at him. He’s silent for a second, unsure, but answers, “Uh, yeah, I have. It snows here in New York�� December to March, I think.”

“Did you like it?”

“Snow? Yeah, of course.” Raphael puts on a small smile, just barely forced. “Snow is great. Every winter, the four of us go to the surface to play in the parks. We have snowball fights and make snow-angels, it’s a lot of fun.” He snorts. “This one time Leo shoved a whole fistfull of snow right under the new Christmas sweater Dad made me just because I made fun of his ugly unicorn-themed scarf.” He steals another glance at him. “We’ll take you next time. Promise.”

And. And Casey can’t help it — he starts laughing hysterically.

Raphael jerks back in surprise as he doubles over, clutching his stomach and chortling uncontrollably. Because isn’t it all so fucking funny? They want to take him to see snow. Snow. As if he hasn’t been dreaming of the impossible chance to build a snow-castle with his family like Wolfie and his friends ever since he was a kid. As if he didn’t brutally crush that dream the day he lost his mother. What must she be thinking now, watching him from the Spirit Realm?

“Case?” Raphael says, almost inaudible over the noise. “Buddy—”

His lungs are vibrating with the lack of air in them. He wobbles on his feet, forward and backward. His vision is blurry again – is he still laughing? Those sharp sounds are laughs, right? He doesn’t know. To be honest, he doesn’t really remember what they’re supposed to sound like. When was the last time anyone around him had laughed? Certainly not in the apocalypse, no siree! No, because they were too busy dying, right?!

“Casey.” Raphael. A strong, firm voice. “Take a deep breath. Please.”

Please, he remembers thinking, raw power of a burning, golden portal pulsating around him, a whirlwind of colors behind his eyelids as he was hurtled in between timelines. Please, no. Please let this be a dream. I want to go home. Please. 

What even is home now? His timeline is torn to shreds. His family is dead. He can’t even stand to be out on the Surface to make a new life for himself. There is nobody here for him. This… this distorted reflection of the people that raised him don’t even fucking know him. They have no use for him anymore, he helped them stop the Krang and nursed them back to health. What now? Is there anything left for him? Of him?

A little pebble is accidentally kicked off the metal ramp, and Casey stops, his sharp eyes tracking its trajectory down to the dry basin. It lands innocently among the cracked concrete lines and rotten leaves covering the remains of the reservoir, dust bouncing off as the quiet sound echoes up to him.

Heh. If he had his Genius Built mask with him, he could figure out what the exact distance between them was. Easily fifty to sixty feet. He hiccups, wiping a hand roughly over his damp face, unable to look away from the tiny speck of the pebble. Is it still in one piece down there? Or did it break? It’s too far to tell. 

Heh. The blunt force trauma probably fractured it in half. Involuntarily, his weight shifts from his heels to the balls of his feet. 

“Hey, Casey,” Raphael is suddenly much closer, in his peripherals he can see a green arm reach out in front of him, not touching him. There’s something weird and worried in his voice. “Let’s take a step back, alright?”

Casey obeys automatically, because he’s hard-wired to listen to any turtle mutants in his vicinity. He takes a shaky step back, the pebble disappearing from his sight, blocked by a tall, scarred plastron. There’s an unmistakable flint of fear in Raphael’s furrowed eyes as he firmly places himself in front of him, body language forcibly relaxed and unthreatening. 

Another chuckle bubbles up his throat. How fucking ironic. “What’s wrong, Raphael?” Casey smiles with all his teeth. “You think I’m going to jump off and kill myself? Don’t worry, I won’t. I’m not my sensei.”

Raphael gapes at him, shock and horror bleeding into one another. “I – what? I didn’t—”

“Oh, I guess I never told you, huh? Well, surprise, surprise, then.” Casey’s voice wobbles dangerously as he rubs at his face again, the storm roiling in his chest. Shivers wrack his frame, as he finally folds in on himself, dropping into a crouch and landing in an undignified manner. The opposite of a soldier. Of a ninja. 

“Stupid, stupid,” the words leave his mouth before he can stop them. “Stupid illogical emotions. I’m sorry, I’m so sorry—”

“Woah, woah, no.” Raphael sits in front of him, trying to catch his eye. “What are you sorry for? You’ve got nothing to apologize for, there’s nothing wrong with what you’re feeling.”

A sob escapes Casey as he tries to take a deep breath. “But then why do I feel so out of control? Like – like…”

Like he’s adrift at sea, like the waves crest and fall at their own will. Like he’s at the mercy of a darkness he cannot fathom how to tame. Like if he can’t keep his head up the sheer grief will swallow him whole. 

“I can’t breathe.” The confession falls from his lips. “If I can’t control it, I can’t breathe.” 

A long pause, then Raphael sighs eventually, a deep and sad thing. He pulls back, hands folded atop his lap in perfect meditative stance, no longer attempting to physically get through to him. Making just enough room for Casey to zone out into the middle distance, ruminating in his own weaknesses. 

“Did you know…” Raphael speaks after a few minutes of silence. “I was really scared of thunderstorms as a kid?”

Casey refocuses on him, realizing he’s been unconsciously following his breathing, a pattern taught to him since he was old enough to sit still and quiet in the dojo. Inhale for four, hold for two, exhale for eight. 

“Yeah, I was.” He smiles at his confused look. “Had to be like – maybe ten or eleven. Every time I heard the thunder from the surface, I used to get terrified. Like, hide in-between the furniture, hands over my ears, shaking kind of terrified. Couldn’t even sleep during night storms. It got so bad that one time I actually screamed out loud because I heard the thunder in the middle of the night, and I woke Donnie up. He came to my room to check on me, but I felt so embarrassed. Because, well, Raph’s the big brother, y’know? Brother who is the biggest. I thought it was so dumb for me to feel scared and upset because of thunder.

“But Donnie didn’t say that. Actually, all he did was explain how thunder really works, the whole science behind it. Something, something, electrical charges and shockwaves, really nerdy stuff. I think he was trying to get me to understand it so I wouldn’t be scared of it anymore, but it just made me more embarrassed. If thunderstorms were really that simple, then it was stupid to feel this scared, right?

Raphael gently nudges him with his knee. “Wrong. Because of course I was scared of thunderstorms – thunder is loud! And it booms! And it always comes so suddenly and without warning, no one can tell when it starts or stops. Yeah, Raph would get scared out of his mind, and yeah, he’d run and hide before he realized what he was doing, but it made sense why I felt that way, at least according to Donnie. Just because my emotions seemed to be out of my control, did not mean they were illogical.”

Casey gulps at the words, hands shaking as he tries to warm them up by rubbing them on his thighs. Raphael gives him a smile so familiar and well-worn, it carves into him like a cold scalpel. “Case, the crap that you’ve seen in your life – none of us can even imagine it, even after the invasion. Having to grow up in an apocalypse and then having to come here, just to save us… it’s a miracle you’re still standing. You’re mourning your home, you have the right to feel.”

A tear falls down his face, followed by another, but he doesn’t wipe them away immediately this time. A whirlwind of emotions batter through his body as he closes his eyes against them. Casey shudders in a deep breath, inhale for four. Hold. Exhale.

“We used to have thunderstorms too.” He mumbles. 

“Yeah?”

“Yeah. Really loud ones, mostly during the evening. The sky would turn red and grey because of the smoke and mist in the air. Our climate got really messed up because of the – the Krang.” He trips over the word surprisingly, a spike of dread at the name. “But, um, yeah. I hated thunderstorms as a kid too. I used to hide in Sensei’s bed because I couldn’t sleep.” A faint smile graces his lips. “He used to stay awake with me sometimes and we’d play cards together. I always knew it made him so tired to do that, but he never complained once the next day. When the thunder started, he always came to look for me in the bunkers, and he’d just pick me up and we’d turtle pile together.”

Raphael huffs out a laugh, something quiet and gentle on his face. It keeps surprising Casey how still he can sit, a steady presence, unmovable. So unlike whatever he’s seen from a future version of his family. 

“It’s easier for you to talk about your past with me instead of the others, huh?” He remarks softly. 

The smile shatters in pieces. Casey’s throat is dry. “...Yeah.”

He tilts his head to the side, patient. Continues in the same gentle tone, “It’s because Raph was dead for you too long, wasn’t I?”

A trip in his beating heart, and he flits his gaze away. More memories burn behind his eyelids, every instance of his Sensei and his Masters getting a melancholy look on their faces, talking about their big brother like he’d been their north star, a beacon guiding them in their own darkness. Like losing him had crumbled the ground they stood on, leaving them broken and astray. 

A more stark picture comes to mind, a large portrait of an older Raphael in the shrine room of their base, covered in scars but grinning with joy at a camera. How there was always a candle burning right under it, bright and unwavering. 

Still, Raphael seems to show no emotion either way, just waits for him to answer. Casey bites his lips, anxiously picking at his nails.

“Are you… are you upset?” He asks, genuinely not sure. 

He exhales sharply through his nose. “Nah, not really – at least, not anymore. It wasn’t exactly hard to figure out. You never wanted to be near the three of them unless you were helping them out, you only ever hung out with me or Dad. I’m guessing it was because we didn’t remind you of anyone, so it was easier with us.”

Well, so much for being subtle about it. Casey glances at him, a little ashamed. “Sorry.”

“Like I said, Case, nothing for you to be sorry about.” Raphael bumps his knee with his again. “I just wish I could have been there for you.”

‘I wish I could have been there for him’, Sensei’s voice comes back to him, an aching memory as they both stared at the hilt of his sword, red silk wrapped reverently under his shaking fingers. ‘It’s all I can think about sometimes. He was always there for us when we needed him, he didn’t deserve what happened to him. He didn’t deserve to die alone.’

“It was a routine supply mission. In 2032.” Casey recites after a moment. “Our base had just gotten a few more families, and clothes and food were running low. So it was you and Sensei, raiding a factory in New Jersey. Everything was going fine, it should have been easy. You’d done so many missions like this before.” He takes a shaky breath. “Sensei… he always said he never even saw the Krang mechs coming in. One minute it was quiet in the building, and the next, giant mechs and their hounds raided it. Sensei was trying to fend the hounds off the food, but somehow you got trapped trying to find a safe exit on the other side.” He fiddles with a strand of his hair. “Sensei said he wasn’t even able to catch sight of you once they started attacking, but he could feel the moment you… well.”

It’s silent for a beat, then Raphael sighs again forlornly. “I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be.” He replies quickly. “They were trying to destroy the resistance leader, they were targeting Sensei. You died destroying the mechs and killing those Krang, just to save him. I —” His voice cracks straight through the middle. “I would have done the same. For all of you.”

It should have made him feel better, at least one small part of the burden he’s been carrying given to someone else, a confidant with a listening ear. But instead, it makes a strong ache echo from deep within his chest. A threat from a dormant volcano finally starting to bubble beneath a crust of rock. Something long-ignored and burning, begging to be heard. 

“My mother died next.” Casey couldn’t stop himself if he tried. “Lieutenant Cassandra Jones. 2035. A recon team went MIA in Maine, so she led a rescue team to get them back.” He wipes his nose roughly. “She left the day of my sixth birthday. Told me she was going to get me a present – a brand new teddy bear, none of the old hand-me-downs from the base. She never came back. My Mom left and never came back.”

Raphael gives him a despondent look as he continues, ears and neck hot, feeling the rush of an emotion he can’t name. “Then – then in 2040, Commander April O’Neil died. We were raiding a large Krang base in Massachusetts, everyone had been preparing for weeks. They were trying to put a dent in their mechs and ships to slow them down. But one of the rooms in the armory was a trap, and she got locked inside alone.” His lip quivers tremulously. “Sensei tried to get her out, but he couldn’t make portals in the future. And before he could call for backup, the Krang… blew the chamber up.”

There’s horrified gasp from his audience, but Casey barely hears it, lost in the cresting wave of sorrow.

“And then.” The words are clogging up his throat like they’re poison. “In 2042, we lost M-Master…” His voice breaks again. “My Uncle Tello.”

“No.” Raphael lets out an agonized whisper. “No, no, no. You didn’t – there’s no way—”

“There is!” He snaps. “He did! My Uncle Tello died. Don’t you get it? I lost everyone.” He jumps up, agitated and hurting. “They all died, Raphael. They’re all dead. ”

The sheen of unshed and shocked tears in his eyes sends a sharp pang of guilt through him, but it’s quickly overshadowed by his grief. “H-he was piloting a jet back from the Mount Ranier sanctuary in Washington. The Krang destroyed their entire electrical grid, and only he could help. Out of everyone in the fucking country, he was the only one with a brain big enough to do something about it. And he did!” He scoffed out a laugh. “Worked for two weeks straight until Ranier became the most secure base in the west coast! He was on his way back when a Krang missile shot him out of the fucking air.” 

He can’t bear to look at Raphael right now, but he hears his ragged breathing through the ringing in his ears. 

“I was talking to him.” Casey whispers. “I was in his lab, wearing his hoodie, and we were joking about Sensei. We were laughing. And then out of nowhere I – I heard him gasp over the call and—” His words dissolved into a sob, the memory haunting him. The boom of a sudden explosion cutting off into a dark and deafening silence.

Raphael’s hoarse voice echoes in the empty sewer basin. “Casey. ”

Something about the horror in his tone pisses him off. “What?” Casey spins around, words sharp as a whip, glaring. “What, Raphael? You want me to stop? Is this ‘too much’ for you?” The fire in his chest crackles and pops, burning, burning. “This was my life. The Krang picked off people that I loved, that I cared about, that I saw every day at the base, one-by- fucking -one. Until they finally won the goddamn war. They raided our base, our home, and drove us out until they made sure we were all dead.” He runs a wild hand through his hair, pacing away.

Cruel, he’s being cruel. Casey knows that. To taunt Raphael with the death of his loved ones would be to forsake almost everything he’s been taught about kindness and empathy by his teachers. By his family. By his Master. 

“My Uncle Angie,” he says in a strangled voice, “was the most powerful mystic warrior in the world. The Krang could never stand a chance against him. So powerful that they couldn’t even trap his Ninpō like he did Sensei’s or Tello’s. He could build chains out of nothing and throw buildings with a flick of his wrist.” His breath stutters. “He made the portal to send me back in time.”

Bursts of orange linger in his mind, flowing robes and glowing eyes. The flash of a final, radiant wink against fiery gold. Cruel. That had been cruel too. 

“Sensei asked him to make that portal.” Casey swallows against the bitter feeling, gripping the edge of his shirt with a shaking hand. “Angie told him that making a time gateway like that would take everything he had. And Sensei still told him to do it.” 

The volcano finally erupts, magma spreading through his body and burning under his skin. “Sensei knew it would kill him, Angie told him it would. And he still made him create the portal. I literally watched him die – he disintegrated in front of me. And then Sensei pushed me into the portal while I watched him die in a laser blast too!

“And for what?” Casey rounds back, fury radiating off him. “Master Leonardo practically sentenced his little brother to die, and for what? For this? This stupid, loud, confusing world, with people I don’t even know? Where the sky is perfectly blue and snow is perfectly white? I can’t live off the time stolen from my Uncle’s life. I can’t.”

He digs his nails harshly into the flesh of his arm. “I – I feel them sometimes. The Krang. Their tentacles on me. The cold, pink slime. I know it’s not there anymore, but I can’t stop feeling it. I can’t stop seeing yellow eyes everywhere I go. What is wrong with me? I feel like I’m going crazy – is this my life now? Is this what Sensei died for? And I don’t even know what I’m supposed to do— ”

Raphael steps directly into his space and fiercely wraps his large arms around him. 

It feels nothing like the slithering grip of the Krang. In fact, it feels nothing like any person who’s ever held him at all. The bone-crushing pressure from all sides jarrs him out of his turmoil almost immediately, the raw strength nearly lifting him off the ground. He takes a shaky breath against the rush of positive physical feedback, blinking away the tears. 

Another memory comes to mind, a gloomy day in the apocalypse after a devastating mission. His Uncle Tello shoulder to shoulder with his twin, hunched over a broken metal head-piece, tears staining his mask. 

‘What do you need right now?’ Sensei whispered, running a gentle finger over the smooth remains of SHELL-DON.

His Uncle huffed wetly, the sound full of longing from where Casey was eavesdropping from the door, watching him scrunch up into a tight ball, visibly shaking. Looking like he wanted to disappear from the world. ‘I’d do anything for a Raphie hug. Can you get that back?’

He feels the vibrations of Raphael’s voice through his plastron now, a grumble that seems to settle something deep within him. “I am so sorry, Casey. I am so, so sorry.”

He sounds downright distraught. Casey closes his eyes. “It’s okay, Raphael.”

“It’s not. It’s not okay. None of this is okay.” He sniffles. “I’m so sorry.”

“It is, let it go. I don’t need your pity.”

“It’s not pity!” Raphael rips them apart just to stare down at him intensely. “I’m not pitying you, Case. I feel horrible for the horrible things you went through. I - I can’t even imagine the pain you must be in, I should have figured it out before.”

“It’s not your fault.” He lamely pats the hand wrapped around his arm. “I wasn’t exactly advertising it. It didn’t want any of you to know.” 

The look he gives him makes him think that’s probably not what he wanted to hear. Casey tsks. “I didn’t, okay? I thought, I don’t know. That I could just… deal with it all on my own.”

Raphael sighs again, and it irks him, especially when he says, “That’s not healthy, Case.”

A surge of irritation. “Oh, fuck off. You weren’t there, you don’t get to tell me what’s healthy and what’s not.”

“You’re right, I wasn’t.” He says firmly, not backing down. “And I’m not an idiot, I’m not going to pretend to know the kind of shit you’ve seen in your life and I’m sure as hell not going to tell you what you should and shouldn’t have done. But I know for a fact that under all that anger and sadness is a crapton of buried guilt. I know what that looks like. I know what that feels like.”

Casey swallows, caught-out, as he continues, “Maybe not to the same extent as you, but I understand what it feels like to live with the fact that someone else’s sacrifice is the only reason you’re still alive. That happened with my Gram-Gram. That almost happened with Leo.”

The words leave his mouth before he can stop them, “It’s not the same.”

“You’re right.” Raphael says simply. “Because what you’ve gone through is so much worse.”

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean that, you’ve also gone through—”

“Shut.” He stops him, holding his palm just over his mouth, effectively shutting him up. “We’re not playing the Pain Lair Games. Raph’s being honest. I don’t know anything about your time or your loss. But.” He says pointedly. “I do know my brothers. I know Leo and Mikey and Donnie, through and through. No matter the time, age, or life. Even better than you. And I know for a fact, family is everything to them.

“It makes me so mad,” he continues, eye-ridges in a painful frown, “to think that the Krang ever put my family, our family, in so much danger. That they had to die. That they were… killed.” He takes a deep breath and glares at him with so much fervor he can’t look away. “But I can guarantee you that Leo and Mikey would never have made the choice to sacrifice themselves to get you here if they didn’t think it was worth it. I know how much Leo loves Mikey, and how much Mikey trusts Leo. They both made a choice, you don’t have to carry the torch of their deaths. It’s not on you.”

Casey’s lip tremored. “That can’t be true. They wouldn’t have had to do that, at all, if it wasn’t for me. I… got them killed. I was their burden.”

“Kid,” Raphael says helplessly, and it squeezes his heart because of how familiar it sounds. “You were their family, the same way they were yours. I told you, for them family is everything, worth sacrificing everything. They would have done anything to keep you alive.”

“To what end?” He bursts out. “They sent me back here to be safe, but for what?” He kicks off some dirt from the ramp, tight with it. “What did they want me to do, now that the Krang is gone? What did they send me here for?”

“They sent you here to be loved, Casey Junior.” 

That brings him to a full stop, the answer to the question plaguing his mind for weeks, given to him with such unwavering conviction. Once again, he lets out a hurting laugh. “You have to be fucking kidding me, Raphael.”

“I’m not.” He replies, serious. “I know how it sounds, I get it. Yes, they sent you here to help us stop the Krang. But Case, they also sent you here to be loved. To be cared for. To live in a world with food and water and safety—”

“There is no way.” Casey cuts him off immediately, brushing off his hand and turning away with blurry eyes. “There is no way. There was no place safer and more loving than with my Sensei and my Uncle Angie. So what if we ended up losing our home to the Krang by the end? We would have rebuilt! We would have survived! We would have been together. ”

The worst part is that, despite his own words, he can’t help but believe Raphael whole-heartedly. Because, if what he’s saying is true, it would truly be such a Hamato Leonardo move. The guy was the leader of the resistance, the greatest ninja the world had ever seen, a shining beacon of hope and strength in the apocalypse, and yet he was always the first to give up on himself. Only he would think that his love, which Casey needed like oxygen, could be replaced by a parody.

Raphael doesn’t mind the interruption. He just seems to study him scrutinizingly. As if Casey’s a particularly complicated puzzle, and he’s finally gotten a clue.

“Would you?” He asks quietly.

Embers of simmering lava spark in indignation. He turns back to face him, straight back and steel glare. “What?” 

The sharp tone does nothing to deter him. Instead, he suddenly says, “Do you know the story of how Leo became leader?” 

“I – what?”

“It was a few days after we beat the Shredder. Dad just randomly told us Leo was going to take charge now. It came out of nowhere, none of us were expecting it. It took a lot of arguing, until Dad finally told us why. Because Leo was, apparently, a better strategist than me.”

Raphael laughs ruefully. “Not an easy thing to hear, I’ll tell you that much. I got so… angry. And hurt. All we did for days was just fight. It was part of the reason why we lost the key in the first place.” He sighs, but when he looks up, Casey sees the sheer pride in his eyes. “But Dad turned out to be right at the end. Leo really is the best of us at strategy. At chess, at sparring, at thinking ahead. He’ll worm his way out of any problem, there’s no one better at it than him.” He gives him a wry smile. “But you already knew that right? He was your sensei.”

An incoming, unthinkable understanding. Emotions storm in Casey’s chest wildly. “W-what are you saying?”

‘That’s it.’ A flashback. His Sensei, injured and exhausted, running away from their destroyed home, Krang mechs surrounding them on all sides. Intelligent eyes searching the landscape for a way out, a solution to their predicament, before eventually shutting in defeat. ‘The resistance failed. The Krang won.’

No, he’d immediately thought, heart in his throat, refusing to accept it. No, no, no. 

“Leo is a lot of things.” Raphael continues. “Strong-headed, a little arrogant. A complete idiot, sometimes. But where it counts, he will always keep fighting. And I know for a fact he would have made you take this risk if he didn’t think the fight was already lost.”

Casey shakes his head again, heart thudding loudly. “No, no, that’s not true, the Krang hadn’t won. They just wrecked our base, that’s all. Sensei gave up too early, we would have been alright.”

Raphael gives him such a forlorn, pitiful look that it punches him in the gut. “When have you and I ever known Leo to give up, Casey?”

Never, unless it was a tactical surrender. Unless it was between a Hail Mary, or certain doom. Casey’s quivering hands grasp at his upper arms, digging into the flesh. He thinks about the blood soaking Sensei’s plastron, his heaving breaths against his ear as they ran for their lives. The exhaustion on Angie’s brows and the shake in his fingers as he summoned the chains to rescue them for the umpteenth time.

“No – we would have been fine. I wouldn’t have lost them too.”

“Remember how I said thunderstorms are my greatest fear?” Raphael asks, voice even quieter. Casey hysterically wonders how he can sound so gentle even though he can see how much his words are hurting him. “Well, do you know what Leo’s greatest fear is?”

“No, listen to me, Angie would’ve – Sensei would’ve—”

“It’s to be abandoned.” He finishes. “The emotion he can’t control, is this fear that one day he’ll wake up and realize that all the people he cared for were eventually taken away from him. And that’s the one thing he couldn’t let happen to you.” 

“Well, he failed miserably then.” Casey spits out unthinkingly. Undeniably distraught, undeniably betrayed. 

It would have ended the same way after all, he realizes, as tears spill from his eyes. One more mission, one more night without food or water, one last dirty wrap over their wounds. Casey would’ve lost his only remaining family either way. It was bound to end in him abandoned. Alone. Unloved. 

His greatest fear. 

His fiery anger dissipates, drenched in a dark tempest of sorrow and grief. Visions of a frigid life stranded alone in the apocalypse play in his mind, an existence that would have been his if it wasn’t for Angie’s and Sensei’s sacrifice, as the storm rages and roars. He’d spent so many days bristling in his rage, the unfairness that they’d taken away his freedom to choose his own life. But there wasn’t a choice at all. It was either this, or certain doom. 

His sobs echo up to the open grate with the birds and the clouds, barely muffled by the plastron hugging him tightly once again. A warm, three-fingered hand strokes his back, comforting, safe. 

Casey thuds both his fists against Raphael’s chest with all his strength, barely even nudging him.

“Y-you’re kind of fucked up for that, you know?” He croaks. “Why did you have to tell me that? Why couldn’t you just let me live in denial, huh?”

Raphael squeezes him once. “I’m sorry.”

“Are you? Really?”

He hesitates in response, and Casey scoffs, moving to pull away. He could go run and hide in another corner of the sewers, tame the howling feelings on his own terms. But Raphael doesn’t let him go, in fact tightening his grip. 

“Let me go.” Casey sniffles, sounding more petulant than demanding.

“It wasn’t just that you were in denial, Case.” Raphael sounds desperate, like if he doesn’t keep him there he would somehow disappear. “It wasn’t that simple. If you just wanted to avoid thinking about something, fine, that would have been fine. But you were… withering away.”

He barks out a laugh, an unbidden memory of his uncle crumbling away into pieces in front of him. Withering away, disappearing. “No. I really wasn’t.”

“You were. You lived in the lair, but you were hardly even there most of the time. Sitting at a table silently for hours. Zoning out watching stupid shows I know you weren’t even listening to. Barely moving, barely even responding when any of us tried to talk to you. You always just looked so… blank.” Raphael sighs. “I’m sorry we – I – pushed you so much. But I needed to know, I needed you to tell me what you were really feeling. Because… shit, kid, you’re scaring the hell out of me.”

Casey’d seen cases like that back in his time. So many people losing so many people. Shock and mourning leaving them husks of who they were. Completely blank, unpresent. Glazed eyes staring unblinkingly, one gentle prod and the glass would shatter. 

He recalls his training, mentally running through a few check-lists of symptoms, and immediately cringes away at how accurate some of them were for him. He buries his face against Raphael, weakly protesting, “I'm not doing that bad.”

He squeezes him once more, an answer in itself. The pressure automatically loosens some of the tension in his body. 

“Leo has been researching for a while, on post-traumatic stress.” Raphael begins. “Mikey has been doing a bunch of readings on grief and loss. Donnie has been looking up potential people and resources for help.” He brushes back Casey’s ruly hair tucked under his chin, a comforting hug. “You've been worrying all of us for a while now.”

Casey’s lip trembles, awash with such apparent concern he doesn’t know what to do. An involuntary dark thought sours his mood, and he looks away. “Thanks, but… I hope you know you guys don’t owe me anything. Whatever I did to help you, I would have done it anyway.”

He’s suddenly flicked quite forcefully, right in the middle of his forehead. Casey rears back in surprise, rubbing his head. “ Ow ?”

“This is what I do to my brothers when they’re being dum-dums.” Raphael glares at him vehemently. “Do you seriously think that the only reason we care about you is because you doctored us back to health like we owe you a ‘life-debt’ ? What is this, the Italian mob? It’s either let us repay your debt or dishonor our name? Seriously?"

Casey looks up at him dumbly. “I have no clue what the hell you’re talking about.”

“I’m talking about the fact that we care about you because you’re our family, you giant idiot.” Raphael finally exclaims, exasperatedly. “The Hamato clan watches out for its own. You don't have to go through this alone.”

His hands squeeze his shoulders again. “I see so much of us in you, Case. Not just the medical or technical smarts. The real parts of us. You have Leo’s courage and Donnie’s wisdom and Mikey’s heart. You have April’s grit, and Cassandra’s toughness. You are Hamato through and through.” Raphael snorts, shoving his head back affectionately. “And unfortunately, I am required by law to take care of my siblings.”

Casey swipes at his face, sniffling loudly again. “Yeah. Anatawa hitorijanai. ”

Raphael smiles, setting a gentle, warm hand on top of his head. And Casey suddenly feels four instead of fourteen, echoes of years worth of fond head cradles crashing into him. He closes his eyes and lets himself lean into it. He’s so tired. He misses his family. He’s so tired. 

“What do I do, Raphael?” He finally begs of him, emotionally wrung out. The weight of his ill-fated existence sinks deep into his bones, too heavy for him to bear. Darkness inside him making way for murky grey smog, low visibility of any sustainable life. 

“Well, first off, you start calling Raph, Raph.” He responds primly, making Casey unexpectedly snort. “The only person who ever calls me Raphael is Donnie when he’s trying to be more stuck-uppy than usual.”

“Stuck-uppy?” Casey lets out a warped laugh. 

He rolls his eyes. “Stuck-uppy. Pretentious. Flamboyant. Ostentatious. Just because Raph doesn’t use big-boy words does not mean he doesn’t know ‘em.”

Casey chuckles wetly. Raph grins brightly at the sound.

“And second off,” he continues, “we’re going back to the lair. And this time, we’re not going to avoid or hide from the others, okay? We’re actually going to talk to them.”

Even though he detests that idea, he can’t help but appreciate that’s making it seem like the two of them are in this together. Still, he makes a face. “How on earth do you expect that to help?” 

“It’s going to help you stop being alone.” Raph replies, hitting the target at point-blank range. His face flushes. “That’s what your sensei would have wanted, so that’s what we’re going to do. Doesn’t matter what you do with them, but we’re going to make sure you’re not isolating again. Support systems are important for addressing grief.”

A horrible thought comes to mind before he can reply to that, making him suddenly stop. “Oh god, are you —” He looks up at him with wide eyes. “Are you going to make me talk to a ‘shrink’?”

Raph blinks. “What.” 

Casey continues frantically, quickly getting anxious. “Back there, everyone used to make shrink jokes. Like, a lady in glasses with a notepad and pen, making you sit in an uncomfortable chair, and asking you how you’re feeling today? Are you going to make me do that?” 

There’s a pause, before Raph bursts into laughter. The sound is so unexpected and so pure something in Casey’s chest lurches. 

“Is – is that what you think a therapist is?”

“Well – yeah!” He insists. “That’s what Sensei used to say. Him and everyone else.”

He wipes a tear from his eye, still chortling. Casey’s lip turns up despite himself. “Well, he’s not entirely wrong actually. But there’s not always an uncomfy chair, really. Sometimes it's a sofa. And sometimes it's a dude with a notepad instead of a lady. Still with glasses though.”

Casey can’t tell if he’s being fucked with or not. “Are you fucking with me?”

He snorts in response. “No. Well, maybe a little. Those three aren’t the only ones who did their research.” He peers down at him. “Do you want to talk to a shrink?”

At this moment, nothing sounded worse than having to tell an untraumatized stranger about his feelings when he was barely ready to acknowledge them himself. Much less air out the fact that he was apparently a scientific anomaly since he broke the space-time continuum in half. “No, I definitely do not want to talk to a shrink.”

Raph shrugs. “Okay. We’ll figure something else out.”

Casey gapes at him as he walks away, climbing down the high ramp. “Wait – really?”

“Yeah.” He doesn’t look back. “Of course. I get it. I don’t like talking about my emotions either. And since you’re Leo’s son, I am ninety percent sure there’s already an unhealthy amount of emotional suppression going on. We can work on that later.”

He chuckles once more, a short but genuine sound, not missing how Raph hides his smile again. “So I don’t have to expect a visit from Dr. Feelings?”

“Nope, and no Dr. Delicate Touch either. If they bother you, I’ll punch them.”

Casey suddenly pauses, not following him. Raph turns around when he stops hearing his footsteps, seeing him twist his hands together nervously. 

“Do you think—” He licks his dry lips. Draws from the well of courage instilled in him by his sensei. “Do you think they would be… okay with this?”

Raph tilts his head at him. Discerning, older brother eyes trying to solve a younger brother problem. It almost makes him smile. “Okay with what?”

“Just. This.” Clenching and unclenching his hands in painful configurations, the sharp feedback racing up his arms. “If I… don’t think about them so much anymore?”

Raph’s eyes widen, and then soften with emotion, as he continues, “I know you keep saying that I’m not alone, and you guys can let me be a part of your family. But… I can’t stop thinking about my family. But if thinking about them hurts me, and they wouldn’t want me to hurt anymore… should I stop? Can I stop?”

Casey thinks back to the day he lost his mom. He was a tiny, screaming six year old, refusing to accept that the most important person in the world was never coming back to him. Through the tears in his eyes, silhouettes of turtles surrounded him, trying to soothe him to no avail. The thought of ever moving on from her, from the ever-lasting misery of that loss, seemed unimaginable. 

He doesn’t know how that sharp pain dulled down to a small ache. He doesn’t remember how many days it took until he didn’t cry every evening waiting for her to come home. If he’d done right by her that he’d ever stopped at all. 

The day he lost his Aunt Apes. The sheer horror of the news that spread through the base like wildfire and made him drop to his knees in shock. The floundering sobs that consumed and wrecked him – how long did it take to recover from that?

The night he sat in Uncle Tello’s lab and heard the call cut off into ringing silence. The way all of the equipment lights turned from purple to red, the quiet alert sent to his remaining family. He hadn’t even cried that day. He’d just curled onto the floor, numbly in shock, until Sensei broke down the door with tears streaming down his devastated face. He doesn’t really think he ever got over that.  

How long would it take for these new wounds to heal? How many times must he be reminded of the injury before the fresh skin starts to settle in?

“You never stop thinking about them, Case.” Raph replies, steadily. Frank. Kind. “They’re always there with you, in your heart, in the Spirit Realm. But it does get better. You learn to accept their loss and honor the people you lost. And you and I know the best way to honor this family, in life or in death.”

“To never give up hope.”

“And to always be there for each other.” He finishes.

Casey breathes. Once, twice. Inhale, hold, exhale. The pain in his chest echoes once more, before quieting down, a bearable weight. He smiles at Raph and takes the proffered hand.

Later, when he finally gets back, his new family is waiting for him. Leonardo steps up, apologies ready on his lips, but Casey doesn’t let him start before he engulfs him in a tight hug. A few more tears escape as shaking arms embrace him with equal fervor. 

“I’m so sorry.” Leonardo still confesses brokenly. 

He shakes his head. “Anatawa hitorijanai. You were right. You were right.”

Michelangelo encircles him from behind, giving them a tight squeeze full of affection. And all Casey can do is close his eyes and feel like he’s with his Sensei and Uncle, basking in their love from realms away.

Donatello rubs a gentle hand on his upper arm, and Casey peeks up at him, spying the soft smile on his face. An endless depth of care under a stoic exterior. He informs him matter-of-factly, “I’m going to implant a tracker in you, CJ-squared.”

He chokes out a laugh, both at the idea and painfully familiar nickname. “I already have three.”

Behind them, Raph laughs, his other brothers joining in as Donatello looks equal parts shocked and intrigued. Their father walks into the living room, stepping in with silent feet. There is a cup of something sweet-smelling in his hands, steam curling above it. 

He walks up as Casey disentangles from them, kneeling in front of him to meet him in the eye. It feels wrong to be in the presence of the esteemed Lou Jitsu by looking down at him.

“Casey.” Master Splinter says, a gravelly but proud voice. “My boy. I may not have known you in the future, but I can tell you very honestly that you are one of the bravest men I have ever had the privilege of meeting. And the blessing of having in my home. But you have been far too burdened for far too long.” He offers him the cup, the surface of the warm liquid glistening in the fairy lights of the lair. “Here. It’s a Hamato secret blend. Special.” He winks. “Only for family.”

Casey accepts the tea, staring at the face before him. A similar image comes to his mind, an old, worn picture he hasn’t looked at in months. He cracks a watery smile. “Thanks, Jiji.”

His Jiji’s eyes immediately fill up, as he turns away to weep directly onto Michelangelo’s shoulder, who pats his back comfortingly, shooting a blinding grin his way.

Casey Junior has mixed feelings about the past. His past. He doesn’t know how to stop them, doesn’t know if they ever will. But he does know how to deal with them. He has new orders, and a new readiness to survive. 

Looking at the family before him, he believes he can.

[goodlucktai]

give me something that’ll haunt me when you’re not around

chapter ten: standing here hoping it gets to you

rise of the tmnt pairing: leoichi (leonardo / usagi yuichi) word count: 3k title borrowed from message in a bottle by t swift post-movie

(previous) (next)

read on ao3

x

Free-climbing up the side of a high rise in downtown Manhattan might be considered an extreme sport in most other circles, but Yuichi doesn’t know anything about those circles. They sound boring.

It’s drizzling a little, and the next window ledge he reaches for is slicker than he’s expecting. The second his grip slips, a huge green hand shoots out and catches him by the wrist.

“Thanks, Raphael,” he says when he’s found a better foothold. His heart skipped with the close call, but otherwise he isn’t fazed.

“You’re gonna have to break and call Raph by a nickname sooner or later,” the eldest turtle says, playfully stern.

Yuichi busily looks down at his hands as he climbs, flustered. It makes Michelangelo laugh, ringing and bright.

“I can’t believe we used to think you were scary,” the spotted turtle says. He’s perched on Raphael’s shell like gravity is a neat concept in theory but not one he’s particularly interested in.

“Come oooon,” Leonardo’s voice calls down from the roof. “¡Vamos hermanos! Hey Cottontail, I thought rabbits were supposed to be fast!”

“Hey Stripes, I thought turtles were supposed to be quiet,” Yuichi calls back without missing a beat.

There’s an immediate chorus of “oooh”s at the burn, and Leonardo makes offended squawking noises, and Yuichi is smiling when he finally pulls himself over the parapet onto the flat rooftop.

The view from here is breathtaking. NYC at night is unlike anything else Yuichi has ever seen. The blinding lights and the rumble of traffic and the kinetic energy of millions of humans going about their night.

It’s absolutely bursting with life, and they’re sitting above it all, a part of it and apart from it.

Yuichi’s muscles are pleasantly sore from the workout and he stretches out to cool down and get his breathing back. A nudge at his side makes him glance to the left to find a mechanical arm offering him a water bottle. Donatello doesn’t acknowledge his thanks, but he also gives Yuichi an energy bar.

It’s one thing to know that the Hamato siblings are ninja in theory, and it’s another thing entirely to see it in practice. None of them have broken a sweat, not even Casey.

“Do you guys do this a lot?” Yuichi wonders aloud.

“We try to patrol once every week,” Raphael explains, then seems to catch himself. He glances at Leonardo and gets a thumbs up before he goes on, “Otherwise, Donnie has alerts set up for suspicious activity, and we go check it out if it’s our brand of weird.”

Leonardo’s family has an impressive number of adversaries, though none they really seem to take seriously. The ones they call “mutants” all have a grudging understanding with the turtles—from the tone of the stories they tell him, Yuichi secretly thinks it’s pretty likely that these grown-up yokai just don’t want to deal with a handful of teenagers any more than they have to. There’s a mantis that runs a junkyard they’re at constant odds with, but in the manner of a grumpy old man chasing annoying kids off his property. And apparently they got invitations from the hippo and the worm to save the date for their upcoming wedding.

There’s some dissension among the siblings about this, but if Yuichi is understanding the thread of the argument entirely, it’s not a matter of whether or not they’re going. It’s a matter of the gift registry, and why the hell they should subject themselves to Pottery Barn for those guys when Target is right there.

The ones that call themselves the Foot Clan are another story. They’re a hereditary enemy, and the ones responsible for the invasion in the first place. The turtles and Casey all have dark looks on their faces when the Foot comes up.

It’s nice to have people to blame for the shadow that passed over Leonardo’s light. Yuichi unwinds his yo-yo a few times, sparks flying off the reinforced string, and looks forward to meeting the Foot on the street sometime.

“I’m glad Cass got out of there,” Raphael is saying. “What’s she up to now?”

Casey answers dutifully, “She told me when we went to lunch yesterday but she swore me to secrecy. She said ‘if you know, you know.’”

“Goddammit, it’s world domination, I know it is.” Donatello puts his head in his hands, staring into the middle distance. “She beat me to it.”

“I’m good with that,” Michelangelo says blithely. “When she’s finally running the show, we can take a vacation. Tahiti, baby!”

Leonardo is sitting on the edge of the rooftop, legs dangling over the side, with what would would be considered reckless ease for anyone outside his family. Yuichi sits next to him, because he’s exactly the kind of reckless idiot who would risk a thirty-story fall just to sit next to a cute boy.

In the back of his mind, the absolutely certain knowledge that he’s completely safe with this cute boy—this insane, amazing family—thrums like gravity, constant and steady and unspoken. It doesn’t even occur to him to be afraid of falling.

It feels like this is where he belongs.

“You know,” Leonardo says suddenly, staring up at the stars he can’t see through all the light pollution, “I keep thinking of something the General said.”

The atmosphere changes immediately. Yuichi can feel the overwhelming, undivided attention of a small ninja clan sharpening into a point. Leonardo is freer with his words now than he was two months ago, but he still generally doesn’t offer information about the Krang unless he’s pressed.

Yuichi shifts his hand across the concrete, feeling the rasp of it through his fur, until it bumps Leonardo’s.

Leonardo still doesn’t look at any of them, but some small line of tension in his shoulders bleeds away.

“Oh yeah?” Donatello asks in a tone that anyone who didn’t know him might mistake for mild.

“Yeah. He said, uh. ‘Strength always prevails.’ He said a lot of stuff, but that’s what I keep thinking about for some reason.”

Michelangelo looks like the only thing stopping him from flinging his arms around his immediate older brother is the quelling hand Raphael has on his carapace. His amber eyes are big and wide but he manages to sound halfway normal when he nudges carefully, “How come, Leon?”

“‘Cause it’s funny, isn’t it?” Leonardo says, as if anything about that day could possibly be funny. But Yuichi is watching him closely, and only sees wry good humor in his face. “If strength always prevails, and he’s gone and I’m still here, I guess that means I’m stronger than him.”

No one speaks. It seems like everyone is holding their breath. Yuichi is the one who says, “Well, yeah, Leo.”

Leonardo grins. It’s a little shaky, but it finds its footing  the longer it goes. He stands on the edge of the rooftop and throws his head back and faces the empty sky again.

The thought occurs to Yuichi, unbidden: Now I know why his brothers call him Fearless.

“I’m still here!” he screams. “I won! Fuck you! You’re gonna die alone and you’re never gonna hurt me again and I’m going to forget all about you!”

Casey laughs out loud, a harsh, relieved sound. Michelangelo slumps forward, hands pressed to his own plastron, but he’s beaming in a way that takes up half his face.

There are unselfconscious tears on Raphael’s face. Donatello’s staring at his twin’s back with vicious satisfaction, golden eyes glowing in the low light.

Someone lounging on a fire escape a few stories down, indistinguishable in the dark, lifts their beer and shouts back, “Yeah, fuck him! You’re better off, babe!”

Leonardo stumbles backwards off the parapet, laughing so hard he can’t stand upright. Yuichi reaches out to catch him, and finds himself caught up instead as this ragtag, war-torn little clan clings to each other and dissolves into hysterics together. The kind that starts from the bottom of your stomach and works its way up, scrubbing you clean. The healing kind.

Afterwards, it feels like a party. They want to celebrate this nameless thing shaped like recovery. So they go to Run of the Mill.

They’re a rowdy crowd clustered around the hostess stand, just by virtue of their personalities. There’s a table opening up in the back of the dining room big enough for all six of them.

From behind the bar, Qiao gives Yuichi a very knowing look—seeing the group he’s lumped with and Leonardo’s arm draped comfortably around his shoulders—and he has to fight not to hide behind his ears at their smug scrutiny. 

Sunita and April are here already, sharing a basket of garlic knots, and they both smile warmly when they see who just walked in. Kitsune and Gen are at a booth in the corner, wearing the world’s worst attempt at disguises and peeking at the foyer over their menus.

Señor Hueso is the one who seats them, looking annoyed by all the noise but making absolutely no move to subdue them.

He lays a hand on Leonardo’s shoulder, his sunken eyes soft with fondness if you know what to look for. The skeleton yokai says something in Spanish that Yuichi has no hopes of translating. Leonardo’s cheeks darken and he responds in kind, his tone rapid-fire and flustered. Señor Hueso confirms whatever he said with a perfunctory nod and then gathers a handful of menus and leads the Hamatos toward their table, leaving his honorary nephew sputtering behind him.

(“Podrías haberlo hecho peor.”

“Espera, ¿él o yo?”

“Sí.”)

Leonardo catches Yuichi by the sleeve before he can follow. He looks agitated, shifting his weight from foot to foot, and blurts, “Can you hang back? For a sec?”

Yuichi blinks and turns to face him. This doesn’t do wonders for Leonardo’s nerves, for some reason. The striped turtle glances anywhere but at him, and then finally darts a desperate look at Casey.

Across the room, the human lifts both his hands and gives him a double thumbs up.

“Okay,” Leonardo says. “Okay,” he says again, finally daring to look at Yuichi again. That only lasts about two seconds.

“Hey,” Yuichi interjects, tilting his head to the side. Concern is a little wriggling fish in the back of his mind, but he refuses to give it room to swim unless there’s real reason. “Whatever it is, you can tell me.”

He puts out his hands, an offer. He doesn’t know if it helps or not, because Leonardo snatches them up quickly, but he only looks more miserable by the second, in a vaguely seasick kind of way.

“Are you—” His cheeks darken. He’s still studying the polished tile beneath his feet like it’s the most interesting thing for miles. “I mean—if you’re free, whenever—would you—”

Yuichi sees the moment this cobbled-together courage starts to fail him. Give Leonardo a grenade to fall on and he’ll do it in a heartbeat. He’ll hold the line at the end of the world, he thrives in the eleventh hour. But an honest conversation? Way more terrifying than any of those things.

That’s okay. Maybe Yuichi can be Fearless this time.

And he wants this to be what he wants it to be. He’s willing to risk looking like an idiot if he’s wrong.

It wouldn’t be the worst thing, really. Leonardo is his friend. There’s real love between them already, no matter what shape it may take in the future, no matter if the edges of Leonardo’s feelings don’t quite match up to Yuichi’s.

It’s like sitting on the edge of that rooftop, feet dangling over cars that looked like toys in the street. He won’t fall. Leonardo would never let him fall.  

“Yes,” Yuichi says, calling on all the bravery that belongs to his name, every inch of the samurai spirit he inherited from Miyamoto himself. “I am. I would.”

Leonardo’s head snaps up, eyes like headlights. “What? Really?” The sweet expression on his face falters before it even has a chance to settle. “Wait, are we talking about the same thing?”

This idiot. Yuichi loves this idiot.

He squeezes Leonardo’s hands, a mirror of what his heart is doing. He tugs the turtle in a step closer, so there’s hardly any space left between them except for the space they need to breathe, the slim margin left open to keep holding hands.

Leonardo is staring at him, and Yuichi recognizes the look on his face. It’s the way Leonardo has always looked at him, since that first golden afternoon at Run of the Mill, but Yuichi didn’t know him well enough to read him back then. Not the way he knows him now.

And now he sees warmth in those eyes. Admiration. And powerful, precious hope.

That hope outlasted the apocalypse. It’s outlived every night terror and panic attack and strangling episode of self-doubt since. Yuichi wishes, absurdly, that he could pick it up and hold it close and carry it safely the rest of the way through the world.

He’ll have to settle for meeting Leonardo’s gaze squarely and telling him, in no uncertain terms, “I’m talking about going out with you. What are you talking about?”

“Samesies,” Leonardo breathes, and then closes his eyes, like he’s just pained himself beyond recovery. It’s ridiculous. He’s adorable. “I mean. Yes. That’s what I—that’s what—please make me stop talking.”

Finally. Yuichi leans in to do exactly that.

There’s immediate uproar from elsewhere in the room, because of course there is. Leonardo’s siblings and Yuichi’s friends waste absolutely no time making complete nuisances of themselves, hooting and catcalling and shushing each other in turns.

But the only thing that matters is Leonardo kissing him back.

It’s brief. It’s clumsy, a little self-conscious. Neither of them know what they’re doing, they’re both really nervous. It’s better than Yuichi ever could have imagined.

“Took you long enough,” Yuichi whispers. He feels light as a feather, like the slightest shift in the weather might blow him clear away. “That’s what I get for waiting on a turtle.”

Leonardo scoffs, breathless and flustered. He’s flushed all over by now, and when he rolls his eyes it’s clearly just an excuse to let his eyes dart away. Then he spots something that makes him groan.

“Oh god. Look.”

Yuichi follows his gaze to his siblings’ table, where they’re clearly straining to listen in on this conversation. Sunita and April have abandoned their bread basket to attach themselves to the ninja huddle. When Leonardo gives them away, only Raphael, Casey and the girls have the decency to bury their faces in a menu and pretend otherwise. Michelangelo and Donatello are outright staring.

“Ugh, they’re the worst,” Leonardo says. “I literally can’t imagine life without them.”

“I get that,” Yuichi replies honestly. As they watch, Gen and Kitsune slink across the dining room to join the Hamato clan, and they all begin having what looks like a very animated, very involved conversation, occasionally gesturing in Yuichi and Leonardo’s direction. That can't be good.

Sometimes retreat is the better part of valor.

“Hey,” Yuichi says, lowering his voice into a conspiratorial whisper, “you wanna get out of here?”

The cheesy line is rewarded in a heartbeat by Leonardo’s blinding smile. He clusters in a little until their foreheads bump. He loves a scheme, he loves to be in on it. They’re back on solid ground together.

“Let’s do it. Where do you wanna go? Anywhere in the whole world.”

There’s something very earnest in the question, behind the chaos gremlin energy, the giddy good humor. He’s vulnerable, laying himself out for Yuichi to see plainly.

His ninpo is such an intrinsic part of himself, the thing that houses his soul, and he’s saying, Use it. I’ll let you use it.

It’s not a hard choice. Given his pick of any destination in the world, Yuichi has his mind made up in about five seconds. He doesn’t even really have to think about it.

“I kind of want to go to Hungry Burrito and try those carne asada fries you never shut up about,” he admits.

It’s the right thing to say. Leonardo tips his head back and laughs, and it sounds exactly like the very first time Yuichi ever heard it. Before the invasion, before the months-long recovery, before the monster that tried to ruin him and every good thing about him. Back when it had no reason not to be the loudest, brightest thing in the whole room.

Spirits. God. Yuichi isn’t ever letting this boy go.

The turtle reaches over his shoulder for a sword. The spinning blue portal opens right there in the dining room, and one of Leonardo’s brothers squawks in alarm, and there’s a ruckus of upset dishes and screeching chairs behind them, but Yuichi and Leonardo are faster.

They make their escape hand in hand. The whole thing feels equal parts silly and daring. The whole night feels that way.

They put their phones on airplane mode and eat spicy loaded fries on a fire escape in Queens and sit close enough that their knees and elbows bump every other time they move. They race each other over the rain-slick rooftops and wipe out a couple of times each and almost lose their voices in the cool night air from laughing too much.

As far as first dates go, Yuichi has no notes. He wouldn’t change a thing.

It’s time to head back when Leonardo’s eyes glow white between one blink and the next, and he sighs, like someone who just got a disappointing text.

“Curfew,” he says. “Let me take you home.”

“Are you going to survive your brothers tonight?” Yuichi asks fondly.

“God, I don’t know. Pray for me.”

In the blue light of the portal, when Yuichi is standing in the middle of his bedroom, Leonardo leans through after him to press a quick, shy kiss to his cheek. Then he flails a haphazard wave and disappears.

Ugh. Ugh. Yuichi can’t with this guy.

He collapses into bed, dizzy and breathless. He’s smiling so hard he’s half-afraid it might leave a permanent impression on his face. He feels drunk. He feels perfect.

He’ll have a lot of shit to answer for when his friends inevitably show up at his house tomorrow, furious at the missed chance to embarrass him in front of his brand-new boyfriend (!!). They’ll definitely rat him out to Auntie, and the cousins will eavesdrop like the monsters they are and never give Yuichi or Leonardo a moment’s peace for being gross and in love, but that’s entirely future-Yuichi’s problem.

If he’s very lucky, it’ll be a rest-of-his-life problem.

The last thing Yuichi does before he falls asleep is reach for his phone.

Usagi: Let’s do all of it again tomorrow.

The reply rolls in immediately, every bit as if a certain someone was waiting with their phone in their hands.

Leo💙: it’s a date!!!!!

[mad4turtles]

Would LOVE to know if the reason Casey Jr looks “haunted” in that second final line of your most recent Rise one-shot (part 18, if you happen to add another before seeing this!) is if, despite different circumstances and timing and just about everything, Future Donnie did the exact same thing to the exact same bull yokai.

A beloved universal constant.

.... ummmmmm... HOLY CRAP. So, this turned into a 9-page THESIS.

I cannot tell you how INSPIRED i was by this, holy stinking super crap! This hit me like a bus, and I thank you so much for gifting me with this opportunity!

Enjoy some more Donnie being a bamf!

---

A Beloved Universal Constant

“—but you won't listen to reason, you stubborn fool!”

The yelling wakes Casey up with a gasp. Master Donatello hasn't had time to soundproof certain sections in their newest base, and right now, Casey can hear General Bostarus' booming voice down the hall from the children's sleeping quarters. 

He's not the only one roused by the noise, his friends rubbing their eyes or whimpering in fright. But he's the only one to get up and investigate. If not out of pure curiosity (Auntie April tells him it'll get him in trouble one day), then because he can hear Uncle Leo shouting, too.

(It's been like this for a while. Ever since they'd had to flee from the last base over a month ago. Casey remembers it well. He sees it every time he shuts his eyes. 

He remembers the screeching alarms, people shouting and screaming that the Krang were coming. He remembers lights flickering as the Krang drilled through earth and steel, trying to dig them up or bury them alive. He remembers his mother gathering their meagre possessions, scooping him into her arms before running like a bat out of hell with the rest of the colony through the evacuation route.

He remembers the walls caving in and more screaming as the lights went out. He remembers clinging to his mother's shirt as he wailed, terrified that the boogeyman from his nightmares was right above them, screeching and hungry.

He remembers a flash of vibrant red, a behemoth in the shape of a spiky turtle filling up the space, holding up the rubble with glowing hands and shouting, “GO!”

He remembers his mother staring wide-eyed at the glowing turtle before setting her jaw, nuzzling him, kissing his hair and whispering their family's mantra in his ear, whispering “I love you”, before passing him and her mask off to Master Leonardo. He remembers watching her and a handful of others following her back into the glowing red tunnel with a warrior cry, weapons raised high. He remembers Master Leonardo screaming at her and the red giant to come back, you assholes, don't do this to me, don't do this, YOU CAN'T LEAVE US, RAPH—!

He remembers the red giant's smile, brighter than his body and warmer than any campfire, right before the Krang broke through and closed the cave off.

That was the last time Casey ever saw Uncle Raphael or his Mom. 

Everything's felt off since then. People are tense, afraid, sad or constantly arguing over things Casey doesn't understand. One of the Yokai Generals, a giant bull named Bostarus, keeps bothering Casey's uncles to the point where even Master Michelangelo, the most peaceable of the turtles, looks ready to throttle him. Again, Casey doesn't understand why, but apparently, it's come to a head now.

The yelling gets louder as Casey draws closer to the makeshift war room. He's still a ninja novice, but he's proud of himself when no one hears or sees him sneaking out and peering around the corner. Then again, it could be because everyone's shouting so they can't hear him, but still. It's a win!

It feels less like a win when he sees the General, big and buff, littered with scars and a heart-shaped tattoo on his neck, throwing his massive horns about with rage and towering over his stone-faced Uncle Leo. Uncle Donatello, as usual, stands right beside him. He looks bored, but his hands folded behind his shell clench hard enough that the knuckles are white. Master Michelangelo and Auntie April hover behind, looking ready to strangle the bull with mystic chains or beat him to a pulp. The room split nearly in half on each side like they were gearing up to fight. 

This baffles Casey because the enemy should be the Krang. Not each other. 

“I don't want to speak for everyone,” Uncle Leo says with forced calm, “but I'm pretty sure everything you've just said is not only outrageous, insane and impractical but so incredibly racist that I'm surprised you've lasted his long as a General without being shanked like a Caesar salad dressing.” 

Casey has no idea what that means, but it makes a few in the room chuckle. Even Uncle Donatello cracks a grin. 

Bostarus snorts. “I've lasted this long because my people are strong. Our forces rallied, ready to defend and fight the day the Krang came to our world while the humans ran about like headless chickens, screaming and crying for their 'leaders' to save them! Even now, they continue to deplete our resources like rodents, unable to survive the way we yokai have been forced to for centuries because of them—”

Uncle Leonardo steps forward with a violent hiss that sends shivers down Casey's spine. “Half of our forces, if not more, are made up of humans,” he seethes. “We have refugees seeking sanctuary here, families, children, and trained combatants fighting and dying for our cause, our planet, just like the yokai. And you're suggesting we turn them away? Because of an old grudge that shouldn't matter in the face of an alien invasion? I must ask, General, if you're under the influence of hallucinogenics for even suggesting something so disgusting.”

“I beg your pardon, boy?”

“I'm asking you if you are high, you absolute douche-canoe,” Uncle Leo spits. Casey fights a giggle. “And I may be whole decades younger, but I'm still the leader of the Resistance. I earned my stripes and fought to be here just like you. You're in my house now, asshole. Show some respect.”

Wow, Casey thinks. He's so cool. Even when he's mad.

Bostaurus snorts hard enough to send Uncle Leo's mask tails fluttering. The turtle doesn't flinch, not even when the bull stomps the distance between them and gets right in his face, Casey's Uncle stands straight and tall like a mountain, infallible, immovable. 

Then Bostarus grins wide and nasty and says, “Why should I respect a cowardly fool who lets his brother die for his mistakes?”

The room goes cold. No one breathes. Casey shakes. 

Uncle Donatello's jaw clenches hard enough that veins bludge in his neck. And Uncle Leo—he goes white. His face goes slack with horror, and he takes a step back—

Auntie April and Master Michelangelo start shouting, throwing nasty words that Casey's never even heard of. The room goes ballistic, tables and chairs screeching as people get up in arms. 

Bostarus stands back with folded arms, looking smug, and Casey wants to hit him. 

“What's wrong, turtle?” he taunts. “Nothing to say? Too afraid to admit that your failure cost you your—?” 

“Enough.”

The room falls deathly quiet. Casey flinches. He's never heard Uncle Donatello's voice sound like that before. It's dark and cold. And when he lifts his head to meet Bostarus' eyes, his eyes are even darker behind the flash of mystic purple swirling in golden irises.

But Bostarus doesn't seem to notice or care. Instead, he huffs again. “Oh, what? Is the hermit scientist going to tell me I'm wrong—?”

“Yes, I am.” Donatello steps right up to the bull so they're toe to hoof. Uncle Donnie is as tall and taut with muscle as his twin brother, but he's lean where Leo is broad, organised chaos with streamlined tech all over his body where Leo is worn and ravaged from battle and time spent on the wastelands of the surface. To those who don't know them well, the elder twin cuts a slightly less intimidating figure than his leader.

Casey watches him now and wonders how anyone could think that. 

“Everything that has come out of that crevice you call a mouth has been wrong,” the softshell continues in a bored drawl. His clenched fists are white-knuckled. “It was wholly biased and downright hateful to the point that I wonder how you rose to your station in the first place. Certainly not due to your skills and intuition as a figure of authority, or lack thereof. And if you continue to run said mouth, I assure you, you will not enjoy the consequences. So do yourself and all of us a favour and shut it.”

“Stand down, Donatello,” Uncle Leonardo says, but he sounds tired, reaching for his twin's hand and gently pulling. “Just drop it. It's not worth—”

Uncle Donnie whips his head around to glare at Uncle Leo, golden eyes hot with fury. Uncle Leo, and everyone behind him, flinch. Even Commander O'Neil looks pale.

Again, Bostarus doesn't get the message and chuckles. “Better listen to your 'leader', hermit. Probably the smartest thing he's ever—”

Casey sees the second Uncle Donatello snaps.

Between one breath and the next, Uncle Donnie picks up the table—the long metal one that had taken seven human men to haul inside—and slams it at Bostarus' face. 

“Shit—!” Auntie April yelps, jumping back as the bull flies to the back wall, nose and forehead dripping with blood. Master Michelangelo squeaks, leaping into the air and staying there. 

Uncle Leo's eyes are huge. “Donnie, what the fu—?!”

Uncle Donnie stomps over to the slumped bull, yanking a metal chair as he goes. He stands over Bostarus right as he's remembering who he is, raising the chair over his head. The yokai's eyes go wide.“Wait—!”

Uncle Donnie slams the chair down over Bostarus' face hard enough that Casey can feel his bones rattling. He brings it down again on his shoulder, on his kneecap, his arm, again and again and again, ignoring the shouts and cries for him to stop goddammit what the hell are you doing—!

Casey can't see his Uncle's face from here, but if even Bostarus is quaking and begging, he thinks he's better off not knowing.

“Donatello, enough!” 

It takes Uncle Leo yanking him away by the rim of his battle shell to get Uncle Donnie to stop, ripping the bloodstained chair from his trembling hands. Even then, he has to physically hold him back as he hisses bloody murder at Bostarus. “Enough, stop, Donnie, stop! You'll freaking kill him—!”

“Give me one goddamn reason why I shouldn't.”

“Because murder?!”

Bostarus is helped to his feet, shaking, bloody and unsteady, by his men. His left eye is swollen shut, and his right horn bends at an odd angle. “What—” he coughs, and Casey swears he sees a tooth go flying, “What—in spirits name are you doing, boy? You—you have any idea who you're—”

Uncle Donnie shrugs off Leo's hands and stalks towards the wounded Yokai, who goes very, very still. Now Casey can see his Uncle's eyes blazing like embers, and yeah, it's terrifying. 

“You seem to be grossly misinformed,” he says lowly, but his voice carries in the silence, “so allow me to do what was once typical of my generation and educate you.”

He holds up a finger. “Number one: I don't give two shits about who you are. You are not my leader, you are a wannabe General from an allied colony. I don't answer to you. Number two—” another finger—“Leonardo made a mistake. He didn't know what was at stake until it was too late. None of us did. And yet he's here, leading the only Resistance faction left in America, fighting side by side with humans, mutants and yokai for our planet. You have no right to belittle and humiliate him when he's doing more for our cause than you ever will with your small-minded, ignorant beliefs that will absolutely get you killed.

“And Number three,” he holds up his last finger and leans in close. Bostarus doesn't move. “If you ever come at my brother like that again, I will make a Krang labour camp look like a godsend. You will wake up every day begging for death, and when I finally grant your wish, no one will miss you when you're gone. Are we clear, General?”

Casey watches as General Bostarus, one of their strongest fighters, known for his ferocity against the Krang forces over the last ten years, cowers under Uncle Donatello's glare and nods.

Casey beams. “Holy shit.”

Every head whirls to the doorway. Donnie's murderous scowl drops in favour of comically wide eyes when he sees Casey peering around the corner. Mom used to call it his 'Oh Shit, a Child' face.

Uncle Leo recovers first, shaking his head and turning to Bostarus' pitiful form. “This meeting is over. Anything else you need to say can wait until some of your teeth grow back. Or just send a strongly worded email, I don't care. Go get yourself cleaned up.” 

Bostarus looks like he wants to say something. Uncle Donnie looks at him, a spark of mystic purple in his eyes. The bull shuts up, letting himself be led out of the room and down the hall, limping with every step.

Uncle Leo lets out a long, heavy sigh, rubbing his face with one hand. Behind him, people set upon fixing the room, setting chairs upright and trying to lift the table to no avail. “Christ on a bicycle, I hate that guy,” he mutters. Then he turns to Casey, now out of hiding, pulling on the 'disappointed Sensei' face he wears whenever Casey does something stupid, marching closer and folding his arms. “As for you, Casey Jones, what are you doing out of bed?” 

Casey tugs at the hem of his shirt and shrugs. “Heard you yelling, 'n it woke me up.”

Instantly, Uncle Leo's stern frown drops into a grimace. “Eugh boy. That loud, huh? We really need to soundproof these rooms.” He leans down and scoops Casey up. Casey squeaks, latching onto his Uncle's shoulders for balance; Uncle Leo's face melts into a smile as he boops their noses together. “And where did you hear that kind of talk, eh? Certainly not from your incredibly responsible, awesome, handsome Uncle Leo, right?”

Despite everything, Uncle Leo can still make Casey laugh with a smirk and a stupid joke. “Nah, Uncle Mike said it 'n told me not to say it, 'n not to tell you he said it.”

His uncles and aunt all glare at a floating, very meek Master Michelangelo. “Dude!” he cries. “Snitch!”

Casey giggles again. “Sorry! Oh oh, Uncle Donnie!

“Casey Jones,” Uncle Donnie replies, typing away on his vambrace, apparently done with this whole situation but not enough to ignore Casey.

“Can you teach me how to throw a table like that?” 

Uncle Donnie freezes. “Uh—”

“That was—uh, sick! Yeah, sick! You got Mister Bostarus good! Just like you wanted to!” 

Uncle Leo raises an eye ridge. “Oh?” he says, craning his neck to look at Uncle Donnie, who starts to sweat. He doesn't look scary now. He just looks scared as Uncle Leo grins wide. “Is that right?”

“Casey Jones Jr,” Uncle Donnie hisses—not unkind, just desperate—“I swear to the god that forsook us you will be eating rocks for breakfast for a year!”

Casey is six years old. He is the son of Cassandra Jones and a beloved nephew to three mutant turtles and their human sister. His sensei (and godfather—or just father in every way that matters) is one Hamato Leonardo, who is what many call a 'Little Shit'. 

Therefore, Casey Jones Jr is also a Little Shit.

“Uncle Donnie used to call him a—uh—a bullshitting bitchless bitch, and the only way he'd ever get laid is—is to rest. I think that's what he said. I don't know what it means.”

Leo's jaw drops. There's a loud bark of laughter from the back, which starts a chain of hysterical laughter that fills the room. It's far louder than the yelling and screaming prior, and it rings in Casey's ears. But Uncle Leo is smiling and laughing so hard his wrinkles seem to fade. Auntie April and Uncle Mikey kick their feet wildly on the floor, and Uncle Donnie hides his red face behind his hands. 

It's all so delightful, so Casey counts it as a win.

Then he taps Uncle Leo's shoulder, waiting for the slider to stop laughing long enough to lean in as Casey whispers, “You were cool, Sensei. So was Uncle Donnie! He's the best!”

And Uncle Leo's face does—something as he turns to look at the softshell. Uncle Mikey hangs off him, needling him about his horrible influence while grinning like a loon. April hip-checks him hard enough that he nearly falls over. He scowls and yells something unheard over the persisting laughter, but then he meets Leo's gaze, and his expression softens. His snout twists into a small but real smile, one Casey knows is reserved only for them.

And Uncle Leo's eyes shine as he smiles back. “Yeah,” he says, nosing Casey's hair. “Yeah. He is.”

~0o0~

As the years pass, Casey grows and moves with the tides of the Resistance. General Bostarus and his group eventually leave the Liberty Island colony to rebuild their own. He dies in battle weeks later, he and his men picked off one by one in a violent ambush that left no survivors.

Donatello dies before Casey's fourteenth birthday. A part of Master Leonardo dies with him.

Casey doesn't remember much of his early childhood. After Donatello's death, many try not to cling too tight to the little things or the past. Look toward the future and hold onto hope. 

It broke his heart when he found out one day that he barely remembered his Mom or Uncle Raph. He couldn't recall how they sounded, smelled or felt like. But he never forgot that final smile before the earth caved in. He'll never forget Mom's words—

"Anata wa hitori janai.” 

You are not alone.

He lived by that. They all did. It was their war cry to the demons that sought to end them and everything they knew for no reason beyond the need to conquer and destroy. It was their shield beside their greatest weapon.

Casey never forgot that. Even after leaving his destroyed world and saving the new one, he holds that memory, and many others of his old family, close to his heart.

Then one day, many years in the past, a world saved and a family unbroken, Raphael asks—

“So, how'd it go at Hueso's?”

“Donnie pulled a John Cena and made a bull yokai his bitch with a chair.”

Casey coughs up his cherry Dr Pepper. 

No way. There's no freaking way.

Amid the spluttering and laughter, Casey reaches over to tap Leo's shoulder. “Wait, wait—a bull yokai? What did he look like?”

Leo swallows a mouthful of pizza before speaking. “Kinda like Bullhop—you've met him, right?—only like twice as big, nose ring, kinda blue-ish fur, some bigass horns and, uhh... I think he had a tattoo on his neck?” 

A tattoo. “Was it a bull inside a love heart with 'Mom' written under it in cursive?”

Leo pauses. “Yeaahhh,” he says slowly. “Do you know him?”

Casey nods, and he can't stop the grin that splits his face. “Yeah! In the future, he was one of the leaders of a smaller Yokai colony from the BogWater region—that used to be New Jersey before it flooded with toxic Krang refuse from the ships.”

“Wow,” Mikey whistles. “Even in the future they can't catch a break.” 

April snickers. “And that bull guy Donnie John Cena'd was a war general?”

“Yeah! And he and Master Leonardo were like worst enemies! You guys hated each other!”

That quiets the room instantly. The smiles fall, and dread taints the air. Casey winces. Maybe he could've worded that better.

“Oh god,” Donnie drops his head into his hands, “Did I set the wheels of another apocalypse into motion?”

“No, no, nonono, not at all!” Casey stammers, waving his hands. “We're perfectly safe, I promise!”

There's a collective sigh as everyone relaxes. 

“Spirits, child,” Draxum says with feeling. “Be mindful of your words.”

Casey scratches the back of his head meekly. “Sorry, sorry. But there isn't anything to worry about. Despite his size and strength, General Bostarus was mostly all talk off the battlefield. Master Donatello used to tell me that he was a—what was it? A 'bullshitting bitchless bitch, and the only way he'll ever get laid is to rest? I never got that, but—”

Aaannd Raph has soda coming out of his nose. Draxum chokes on air. Mikey, April and Cassandra start shrieking. Splinter rolls under his chair, cackling. Donnie looks ecstatic. 

“Jeezy heckin' creezy—Donnie!” Leo manages through his wheezing laughter, tears running down his face. “A bitchless—heeheehee—laid to rest, I can't—god—!”

“Good to know my creative insults were still the toppest of notches even at the end of the world,” Donnie preens, examining his nails as Leo clings to him for balance. Donnie lets him and turns back to Casey. “Sidebar, how did you know it was the same bull yokai based on what Leo said?”

Casey grins like a shark.

Donnie stiffens. Leo stops laughing, and everyone sits up. 

“No.”

Casey nods. “Yes.”

Leo's jaw drops. “No way.” 

“Yes way.”

Donnie throws up his arms, nearly smacking Leo in the face. “Freaking how?!”

Casey giggles. “It was kinda epic. One of my favourite memories from my childhood. Wanna hear it?”

“Um, is water freaking wet?” Leo bounces in place, beaming like a loon and clinging tight to a tolerant Donnie. “Yes.” 

Casey takes up the seiza position, hands on his lap as he clears his throat. “Very well,” he says, adopting the tone Donatello would use whenever he sat down to tell them stories of the Before Times; enthralling, dramatic and everything that made him the Uncle Donnie he misses fiercely. “Gather 'round.” 

Everyone shuffles in their seats and leans in. Splinter scurries from under his chair and settles beside Mikey, who automatically wraps his arms around his Papa to lean against him. Only then does Casey begin. 

“Let us set the scene. It was the year of our lord 2038—“ A few snickers float, and Casey lets himself grin. He's hamming it up, but he can't help it. It's one of his favourites. 

“The Resistance is still going strong, despite the Krang's efforts to snuff us out. War parties and colonies travel from all over the world in search of sanctuary. One in particular, led by General Bostarus of the BogWater region, found refuge with the Liberty Island colony the year before, and things were going well. Until a Krang pack discovered us, leading to the loss of our headquarters. After establishing a new base, things became tense within the higher rankings. And General Bostarus had a lot to say to the younger Resistance leader, Master Leonardo...”

(He leaves out the part where Raph and Cass had stayed behind to fend them off. They were hailed as heroes for their sacrifice. But what's a hero to the broken hearts of the family left behind?

He also leaves out Bostarus' snide remarks. He'd seen the lingering shadows in Leo's eyes and thought history's repeated itself enough in that regard.)

By the end, Leo and Donnie are all but leaning on each other, arms linked, Leo's bad leg draped over Donnie's lap, a look on their faces Casey can't quite name. The others range from proud to once again laughing themselves silly. 

“Damn,” April hoots, wiping a tear from her eye with a finger. “Disaster Twins gonna disaster no matter what time branch, huh?”

“Bet,” Raph chuckles. “It's a—what's it called—a universal congress?” 

“A universal constant,” Donnie corrects shortly, rolling his eyes and leaning fully against Leo like it's nothing for his usual aversions, tugging the slider closer. 

And Casey is there to witness another impossible repeat as Leo leans his head against Donnie's shoulder, wearing that same look on his face that's softer and warmer than any flamboyant mask he wears. And Donnie looks back, his snout twisting in a smile—it's bigger than what Casey remembers from his past, younger and freer without the burden of trying to save a dying world. But the love is as real and intense as it had been there, near the end of it all, as it is here where they won.

Casey's eyes burn. He smiles.

Leo notices Casey's stare. He smiles back.

Then he asks, “So, did future Donbon ever teach you how to yeet big, heavy shit at people?”

Casey barks a watery laugh. “Yeah, he did. Wanna see?”

“Don't ask stupid questions, Jr.”

“Cool. Hey, Raph, can you come here for a sec? I wanna yeet you like a table.”

“You wanna what me like a what?!”

(And while Casey proceeds to, in fact, yeet a screaming Raphael like a table, Donnie and Leo stay cuddled close on the couch, hands linked. 

Casey spares them one last look over his shoulder at the impossible, beloved universal constant and calls it a universal win.)

---

Reblogs are appreciated! Feel free to send more prompts <3

[peyurtle]

It is my moral duty to haunt you in return for the tag game.

Thus, tell me o writer! About thy TMNT fic!

I shall thank you, my faithful receptacle of tales, for your intermission.

I shall answer as well. Brace yourself, for this is gonna be long as hell.

It all started when a few decades ago, in the early 2000s, a new bunch of TMNT comics was published by Mirage Studios, by then already owned by Peter Laird only, due to differences between him and Kevin Eastman. The new issues of TMNT volume 4 quickly became infamous due to its retconning of April being nothing more than an animated drawing created by her dad using a magical pen. But none of this concerns me.

What does concern me, tho, is the shenanigans that Michelangelo lives in the comics. In this volume, he becomes a tour guide for the Utrom alien race, and his duty is to help the aliens that arrive on earth make themselves comfortable and learn about this new planet. This is where my jam comes in.

Mike’s first tourist is none other than the Regenta (or princess, in earthling terms) Sericulus of Y’Nood Minor, or Seri for short. A protoceraton alien who rules a land of styracodons (another dinosaur alien species) and is quite demanding and aloof due to being a princess. The tour opens with a visit to the local science museum and everything seems fine until Seri expresses her cravings of seafood to Mike. He decides to take her on a trip to the coastal area away from her bodyguards and hit a restaurant. They bond over lunch and Seri admits she’s mingled with commoners before. They take a walk together down the coastline while they continue chatting and bonding together. While they take a swimming break, Seri tries to steal some lobsters, which quickly devolves into a quarrel with Mike and Seri slapping him in the face and swimming away.

Things get hairy, tho, when Seri gets her royal self tangled up in fishermen’s nets with no way out. Michelangelo saves her and gives her mouth-to-mouth in an attempt to revive her. It succeeds with an unexpected side effect: Seri explains that mouth-to-mouth contact, or “sharing breath” as she calls it, is an extremely intimate action reserved for your mate only. As a result, Seri invites Mike to mate with her.

The next morning Mike awakes to find out Seri has laid eggs. While he is flabbergasted, she’s considerably protective of the clutch. They pass time building sand castles until Seri decides it’s time to go back. Mike goes off to get a basket to carry the eggs but when he returns he finds Seri’s bodyguards forcing her into the Utrom vehicle. He fights them in an effort to free Seri and the eggs, but the guards knock him out and cart him off to an outer-space prison. Long story short, he escapes with another inmate’s help and is rescued by the Triceratons (another alien species and mortal enemies of the Styracodons) who recruit him to fight their enemies and Mike, eager for revenge, gladly accepts. The volume is on hiatus, however, so the end remains ambiguous.

What I’m trying to do with my fic is quite the same, but without the eggs and revenge part. Just two teens wandering around the beach and bonding over space bands and foods. Mike decides to get a summer job to escape the lair’s suffocating heat and get to meet new people. Seri arrives, they sneak out and fool around until they end up at the beach. In my version, they both get thrown into prison, with Seri being put in solitary confinement. They quickly develop a communication method through messages written in corn leaves. Seri concocts an escape plan that involves getting the guard drunk and stealing the prison keys before freeing Mike and fleeing to Earth on a stolen car.

At least they scored each other’s phone number.

[saga-project]

"And why are you wearing GENIUS BUILT apparel because that is TRADEMARKED--"

Saga paused as this.....child? Child. Looked at him like he'd seen a ghost, all pale and wide-eyed. He had been trying to go in for a frustrated grab on this Casey Junior, but---

He didn't like the looks of that haunted gaze.

"I'm from the future, and before you say anything, I need you to believe me. Humanity, you guys, everything could depend on it--"

"I....I got a journal. A few weeks back." Saga swallowed heavily, feeling a lump rise in their throat. "Is that what this is about?"

"Yes. But also no. First we have to stop the Krang. Master Michelangelo gave me a mission--"

"I'm a MASTER????" Saga winced as Mikey nearly blew out his eardrums next to him, shoving him away gently but firmly.

"Mikey, please focus--"

"--to find the key and stop the Krang."

"Rrrrrright. Aliens. This story keeps getting better and better."

"He's telling the truth." Saga swallowed as all eyes on the room panned towards him, shaking off the sudden bout of anxiety that threatened to rise within him. "That journal that I've been studying, it comes from a bad timeline. I.....it talks about the Krang. They're alien invaders from another world. Vicious. Conquering." Okay, sure, that wasn't the entire truth, but what his brothers didn't know couldn't hurt them, right? "That key that we found releases them--"

"Oh, great! You found it already? That makes my job so much easier! Now we just have to destroy it before the Foot gets it and uses it--"

An awkward beat.

"....uhhhhh did future Mikey tell you what to do in case that already happened? 'Cause that uhhhhh kindaalreadyhappened."

"LEO."

"What? I can't say it didn't already happen!"

"I was trying to break the news to him gently--"

"....then. Then we're too late....." How the hell was this child so good at looking like a literal kicked puppy. It was making it extremely hard for Saga to keep up their righteous anger over the situation.

"No, we're not. 'Cause we know who has the Key: the Foot Clan. Okay, team, we gotta find them before they use it."

".....yeah, hard agree, big man. Alright, Autobots, let's roll out."

Saga had to fight to not let out an irritated hiss in that moment, as they started heading towards the garage. This was so not the time to be making stupid jokes about the situation. Not when they were still wondering about the other aspect of that journal, and Casey's strangely haunted gaze whenever he glanced at them, and---

--why did they have the strangest feeling that they were forgetting something.

"Uh. Can someone untie me now?"

....oh. Right.

....this was going to be a long fucking night.

[dailytmntquotes]

Zodi: Ask me again when i'm the only survivor of this mess. Michelangelo: So...when i'm dead? Like, you want me to come back and haunt you? That's a special kinda lonely, She-bro. -TMNT IDW Universe 4

[libidomechanica]

“Though like those which time I sat along thee nothing to me”

A curtal sonnet sequence

               1

Platter changeable champaign with the ponderous intent and galleon tossed up to the only friends are Thames’s tributaries, innumerable, pillow or doomed to the fire Grandma’s royal bed by a bard in confounded to Shírín, and therefore May-day: perhaps—but, sans merci hath a sudden lost, the invitation, hides, his participated; till her face— but yours from the foul as she was not apt, like pearls.

               2

—Would make it Sir, ’ and salute love to repay his knights of Thetis, which disdaine on, postilions! His plains as if by some sixty years, and this, was give men come where I sit is a millions we too readiness, his homestead, than gentle, serious? Though like those which time I sat along thee nothing to me. With circumstances, the bed. More shall below? Through Poland to each others them thus; thou sighing of Michelangelo.

               3

Advances with her babe; but destroyd! Who both are a new lphigene, she said, he living finger lands which some way groaning, and soon the ecstasy the universe? Form happy words: nor display’d: don Juan felt, though ’t will. A Russ or Turk—the one whose relief of the thigh. Their pass over the moon on you, gentle gait, making loth, and for thee and turning merely to-day as any blow struck; with deliberal, sincere or less.

               4

Now it grew habit, nor any; nay, you have fallen, have a things unrest, still, I know no beauty’s at this deep breath? Smitten rock that head—for he had been they were woman. Than what it was liberal by nature nature at least night over whom your tears the Gods still unexcavated hollow cheek, and gradually the sex have for me be borne, just as I can tell you tell whence is the soft, his medicines doubled, the gutter.

               5

Exists—and what’s thick, or like the deem her true-heroic—true-sublime and set my hearts, with our pathway strays! Or a Ha! Shoot so youth I wanted you may retrospect beyond time breathe wind is gone. When I be? With a baby as the stains that sweet springald can’t complishments level, such the goal, when ’t is a mill of lies onward and smoking back upon the heard some new smell of hours, and tossing the other shade the night!

               6

Tell thee page, which portions spin the goal, when ’t is a million emerge exhaustion, just observed or lives, precipices, and thou with its crop with Hand and thou yielded! We are the deuce with it, every rather think they structor. You relax Pluto’s brow is run. And song. Red loose our pathway struck me, tired, you so totall as Mother, whiff! Who died in the heart an end, the wretch the smoke roses that, the haunt, and all those pleasure.

               7

I am in loyalty, because I take to appear, Then, beauty. Yet, such puppets of old, may say, forsooth, so, sure at least nine, and palely loitering every same he might stars and power; and then, were but for than the hears that’s enough, then here sole creditor whose gentlest sight and paper, were to offend, when in shore? Let the focus of ours, or self-possession. Full-blown back if one of blooming Century.

               8

With all the horse loud shriek if a wrinkled steel the Nose a light. Vesuvius is dead, the happy crowd of frail. You got a flowers, He said: She fain was every should given to be good looked to be of moderation,—as women, have quietly she greatest, and sweet spring;—floating eyes of the drifting up the due proper heard the high sun flames; purple fritillaries the the British cabinet and gets renown; her strain?

               9

Young strange; these reports, becoming dispraise because some dozen times certain were were no objection; for if you so proud, yet for opposites, thretning all them by some said, our bed is low, the limits here—now? But Ida with their curls from whence in English true life be a blessing a goodly soupe a lady, Dians peers? Beauty won me, but not to be Nature’s own my turf when we are broad-backed with coarse mankind, and yet my heart.

               10

In the dint of slave no links we may proceed. No love. Bold Britons deem they come. But Calvary—She had, a heart inspired and there and proud rather scarce am fit for loftier rays. The orange and Attic at sea and all the nation; but getting will fail at being chid! That Angers feel the moonlight with all that beauty’s dead lost, the Browne, as in her broken system made by barn in Roncesvalles’ battle: kiss you.

               11

Send him that hateful season confounded old dread out as if they who now as we roll, and turning, beheld the pleasure to say there’s a sine qua. Sad more than when, approaching and had take the earth and sillily smile a glow, and down Lethe, we will thee, and many a year shall well agree; with their passionate tears, and then t is nicknamed glory also be true. But why such as she was locked and let me let the whither.

               12

I know where victories out of being sick to thee true that can tell of light of life. Holds a struggle for him of your cheek discloses, where the good look on Heaven knows the death. The common: all have been field, each failed him in colour it have I heard it? And welcome, comely in forgets, to pleas’d to head. Nay, if thou can seen, without it; in the tends to express’d opinion of mortar already. So, as though puddle; hurrah!

               13

The remedy? The victorie, yet he sweetly, o’er fictitious lips to keep aloof, too dull events ’mid the virgin marble busts in the just now thee, and wedded wife, I knew each mortals he is gone. All who held in a morals, marriage into master- mistress of my dreamt for I’ll prattles are, and then looking only I discern— infinite pass before than one portraits in Change; that same reason which I have known the Braine.

               14

Compared with green tress, and sail just now as well known them, needs must now should bar the Noble Nature’s own palace: we said his highest rate is: she also recommenced from such deference of these are so leader of Ismail. And snicker, and the sea remember Helen, the equinoctial line between a flower and fatal interjection, or durst inhabit together with that are eating popcorn the earth’s human shore.

               15

Or old and Evil. With more the flowers, exhausted, wept and glory shortest way, and waly fa’ the subside, by new-mown. I am not in the Gipsy-Scholar travel—which I gaze where more’s the addition; which gave fought my soul. That was they view thing as my force begot in loue you love me so we caught up in us like continue—’t is the death, above, the tap is dripping, the kelp description forms have gone.

               16

When by a bard in your instrument as yet the years, distill’d brother is grim Dante’s obscure wood more proved dangerous. But Ida spoke the maids and kiss, she packets, all mine, entrusted snapdragon, an only daughters, but adoring, if thou do see what now they shot him did not worth while he types; Yes; and all ornament, the guests were all love begets, the most redoubted for women takes twice or take the route? By some ghost?

               17

Yours. For that still, even a maidenheads oft my lines and bred to shoot and for the moon. Poetry ends in thy hair. And descend into the could have gone to win. Moves pictures once they felt it shapes the vapour of social wrong; and old family, and immortal names lend it utterance, changeable and the awful scroll, and tea. Shall I search ever doth she took it, the fresh, and dim. The cross-line should I began a blind and me.

               18

The clock with coarse man I love of my lines my wo, come friends: I gave they had fill’d them when a world. Took upon your will went to be confess: no matter, or to thyself nor though they punched wight, half-seas-over. To these, for Corydon, hath though hell should bar the proud, since immortal who cared nor know you, and strong and palsied fancy will hover, that would spoil my life unto your will went up by its cautious light, and on they heard it?

               19

Lips. Half-seas-over. Let the catalogue of inclination; high the road is a birth and wind-streaking of vows, not in his Redress. When I’m old, and tell into the strong at thy music of the world, and the conferr’d this year ago, whatever finding a pillow or that please in virgins— always in gold must; so farre subtle Wit can their dwell nor ever: find our coverlid of the Prophet should learn its Face looking thumbs.

               20

Say it—our Ida heart. It was; he was, and nurse, to murderer still sea-worthy father love thee by moonlight, we can species. Seven your Highness did not your child; but marry the stiffness of strife and seem to flie; I must, I marry the land, they were, at restaurants to them thus they said Ida withered on the stake one unto good and my heard the consider Now makes young, althoughts of Juan’s history, to wonder why in thee.

               21

In her mind; her non-age. To our bloom of old their uti possible to piques a proportions than faces in the white wall already, who look through some vexation; but the old inn-yard. Love like whom thy charities, and watch for long bills, and yet t is but in the quiet, and strong consume half fooled to Shírín, and as seat the cloud may be won by favour, malgre Malthus, generation. From meeting green the Braine. The moon.

               22

Hath been rails, ton entangled essence of lace at high supprest, which reward for he never singing an instructure had given. Because sometimes anger to changed, I think of your undividually wrapped&cut diagonal, and the dizzy process doth latch: for a yawning. Deeper say—look deep chamber shutters at the warm, and soon will soften with public kindness of sixteen array a stoic, or long its back to you.

               23

The silent, lone, I marry the mattock- holder in thrall! As Eldon on your hand of Death may retrospect beyond call these, for her tightest company is Heaven to passion, but sweet this country in Boston, a metal trinket from my wound there no bar, onward and really, if thou hast my way to keep aloof from star or blood on the villain famous, how? The Mind still. It could that’s arable, clamberable, poesy.

               24

Camouflage and the bright thy music in the soft as summer’s day night, and thee for the molested. Who break them out; but their own opinion made the mermaids singer, and all things are one the greatly err were this issue, and with the crowd, the grass, uncared for, spied itself has perhaps she never lost, the inspector eleven there dwell, blest, but for the strike appeal brooked at my madness to have gone, dream me so dear.

               25

Not the babe in his half-way housekeepers, who, as the clear. And tossing if love, you! The devils or a spring-days, whereof, with your words made better happiness; nor praise me dais of my mind proves imagined more through my heart brought themselves for a minute the surgeon came riding, beheld their natural whirl’d into you for the sot, and fear: why faintest thou gentle, serious. One’s brother born in the cuckoo’s pardon the last?

               26

The men, even asleepe did love-freaks thee, o do not to despair so much, or little thy broad lay bare in the moon short, but who would share ten will scandal, and I awoke, and on grain in their boys, hearing; she might be five men came to obtain; tis time, or play, and all hear the tints that stood, we saw all there if every raven of scarlet Iudges, three: but great brown tea—we held each other room. That makes mine a philosophy?

               27

A noise of the turns no more; where ever— or else of her decease. The ground timorously he forestry of human naturally prospective, that I have no links wither’d forth, that soldier, but may not reach’d ten o’clock: and boats and struggle slack the triumphal muffled by altering, to rain across the dead, or a Ha! I mean! Arms that incarnate loved hill be time to prove, and bare! Fall or good day, three sister: ah!

               28

Put on more white what he was locked and who shone, and the poor prejudice it came marching— king George, with money, made Juan had an air, the mother’s fame to hopes in conversational facility, with entention it with modest part: and the sport half smiling.—To me; close thine eyes be blest kissed its muzzle on the sin, and all senses is, let me have mine eyes find trust the wiry concision were went to her few, he had good!

               29

And the armed mansion. Curled on the mound where, through the mostly mine; for she extends for came riding—Then the Lord George’s men came will went to fill me with appear to strange their leaves unbought you are in this, alas! Then bade it will hover, nor it as a moment was only remain orbed in nameless eyes doth haste, must often: afternoon, the hearth, for object twice these things of your sides something as it gone backyard licks us.

               30

His break all those of the cheek for him of your either without a smoothly run, the louder, confident in the drew her royal splendours their taste of fashions, perhaps the narrative, and o’er kings have a things nothing. I understander betters and head; ere be, will quickly knows? Who pay my collar mounting the fireflies to permit, which I grieve to enter tell; also true, there, issuing, we sat but shun following?

               31

Secret, Good and sank and, subtle soul put out the greater and I have known the man I love alone. Perceiving light windows, the best: never to grieved its day. For shame: for native, and, when you may have heart- wearying ordinance: and down that painted hast too sweet fingers. And dost loud; in thy foot to have them see the children being coat, and the murmur of lighted. But from the beauty new; and arc, spheroid and dangerous.

               32

But for that use to me. Preacher at there all unmeet for her fields on flame, and Master of my love thee? She cries, as eas’ly the soft as spring at love, whilst it towards some near the ploughboy’s tears be: just observed, a twitch of a formulated, body and pure, how dear Love, it bore not Love one of sun out so—now I will, and moved by grief and for us most nobly, and o’er fictitious setting out of the wretched and barred.

               33

Did you look in its Face looking that so rich a modern Mars saw, which heats as seated in your veins, in the man; you wrong, Don Juan, instant memory of marjoram had so much untold, by the sea-lover refreshment for a minute? I pretence, running weeks drop by, and in sweet Spirits meet, leese but the lake, and the tends to Cologne. When we are thousand marriage temper or the judgment to set about a prediction.

               34

I will not a friend. Since Hamlet, nor loss in old woman and now she’s glory seat of hope we slumber: not thy hand, and I began to listened there. It! And that’s haunt, and stocks in blood as cayenne doth not still their side! ’ Haughty mass of books. Remarked its way: suppress, to believe to enter tea and all pains? No. Ivory stars ’light, the west, and maids till of any slight feminine daies the lake, and even this night, and other, still.

               35

When fated of mortar, blossom. And he kisses, and besides somewhat the world she brush a web or two, nor worth Farm, past that, self-murderer bore to his grand must now I know little measures, shall not beauty in Loves Wars to enioy. The wing the dread such slight be my tears brought with a favourite plat’ of midnight’s stars. ’ Boundaries her note, the soot that you cease turnpike road, as having language of these slopes, tis time to wonder, whiff!

               36

Soul with while the handsomely in the tramp o’er thou do’st go henceforth such dispairing of the plain in vain? The night. Of waste, and when a kind of transportation in the birches partly because thee stand and Miss Knowman. Ye have expressed upon the sea. In the purple in them Sir Walter not these she’s all. As ever strain. Turn the pricks’ just ere shattered the clamouring and dresses Giltbedding in taking is spread out of slaves?

               37

Be, nor would say: But howsoever starch, such an air, and arms and years to burn out my heart beating, a beautie but dearest company would sooner fight tempers them pleasures, on life’s worst if he had the sort of myself in his lately fretwork to those powders the tender mind; affect no more: yours. As in such feelings loud—commended, that to be achieved with that I may proceed upon my blisse fit for one plant and steel temper?

               38

Thus girls are bent with more than faces too, but the weaker sidewalk, the light, yet, Thyrsis! I never throat she winds blaze, love’s use thee, dear Dover! If bad, the secret heart. The horizon—where he should I be good governs me to the just not yet in the centre. Not meant this state, you sudden leap it began to encountercharm most people deem’d to a penchant ne’er I have fallen, hail! Is grim head my Cupids dart. In the chaste.

               39

And when I use there, thoughts should I be gone, beauty won me, if that is not daunted by the the women’s team, and from whom he forward violet? Come friend, the empress’s materials, but what’s arable, clamouring from duty, some disgrace. The villain famous, how others, Claudel vilifying Gide, a troop came backyard licks us. But suppose, from the winds war; the edge of theirs, the stars, timing wounded and passion through the death?

               40

Arranging breeze that writ it; for I know the fields, here was dory, relieve; or if it shall good use. Kept the Body, recreate that gently so, as Senses which with the planet guides. Ran a risk their reward his not June for at a delicate air, and situation with sweat or between love of weed, indeed, rose-jacynth to Auld Lang Syne’ bring? Their varies, slight as wise men in them, seems the grassy slope to Vivian-place.

               41

The decanted;—I presume? An eye that in the blossom. Room after him did repay. Robber says her eyes the haunted fairy- gifts and down to the tree yet in the evening gracious people’s garage in this well as further drainer of my arms already we’re nothing, when thou takes the lad benighted; and hover, nor can afford to grieve, were made aware of the tells me he’s been poison’d by Potemkin; others to yeild.

               42

Our enemies have I heard him sing in child! Hut on nature nature at least can write on their airy does, even of scarlet. Able for you had so much prey. With the ghosts—their ends denied, as Southey can ail thee stand a sad astrology, the wall already paid our smile, when I’m old, that flaps and an ermine he felt like Saint Sebastian partly because my liquid lay: but for that will brings are seen while she asleep.

               43

Time for mind at a push to follow’d, and steel are black hair. And arrows sends; by those pleased we will come upon the darkness must be? But still I not destructure have had no part in our necks, we must now their dark old inn-door. Draws, hopes are ever died in light pression for the body were then: ten years of controlling, queen Maud by thee lived against us and bruise its skeleton shall love appear before fiction life’s wheels grate dry!

[hard-core-super-star]

ahsjkakjdkk not that you need to say that I'm right- you do this? maybe it's so natural that I didn't notice? 🤔 I mean, how often?

NOPE, very clever but the star in the username doesn't count! I'll give you one! here's your star with sparkles around it since you think this one is cute 🌟 I'm glad you didn't tell me that the author of the article is responsible for the book with the translations, so I can definitely not ask you the name of the book since I'm not interested and I'm not even going to think about reading this. I'm not going to say that although it's for a sad reason, I kind of like this “hidden but obvious” thing in poems, especially written by queer people for their lovers, expressing explicitly what you feel but still making it an unknown is something that instigates me. and don't get me started on longing because I'm not going to talk about how well they convey this feeling, making it seem like you yourself are feeling exactly what's described.

she is haunting you now LMAO I think the only thing left to do is keep watching Instagram sending you more😶

did you really just reference an Emily Dickinson poem and walk away as if nothing had happened???

these two also have a place in my heart, I didn't expect you to do a part two so when you did I was 😲😲 I see how this works now, I put some cards on the table all shuffled (aka my messy thoughts) and you organize the cards and add a few more to complete the deck. and yes, I completely agree and I think this is an incredible charm of hers, I mean, she's funny and has the charisma of a golden retriever, she's an easy character to like and can be seen as a comical relief most of the time, but then BAMM!! actually Kate Bishop is a fuckin' badass character and the whole cinema is amazed

– 🌟

i think my increasingly longer rambles prove you right so there's no need to give you that extra satisfaction of admitting it. and, literally every sentence i write is me throwing random words together and hoping they'll make sense 😶

i can't believe you actually gave me a star even though i was being a little brat about it 🥹 i need to find somewhere to put it. i’m so glad you definitely don't care about this author because, even though the book is long, his translations of the poems are amazing and the introduction to the book helped me with my research paper. since you're not interested, i won't tell you that the book is called The Poetry of Michelangelo - An Annotated Translation by James Saslow. i also won't recommend that you check out thriftbooks if you've never used it because i bought my copy from them and it was way cheaper than most places. since you didn't say anything about how much you like the “hidden but obvious” themes, i won't reply that i absolutely agree with your feelings and that there's something so beautifully universal about that pain that makes me seek it out even though i know my feelings will get hurt. it’s what keeps me coming back to dickinson, that way of describing things in a way that doesn't make literal sense but the feelings are all there.

she is!! and it’s always the same recycled bunch of pictures since she hasn't done anything substantial in MONTHS.

yes 😁 i love doing that.

i’m very happy to hear that, i thought i went a little overboard with the uh…let’s say analytical comments about hailee in part 1 so i had to make up for it in part 2…kind of, the critiques are technically still there. that is a perfect way of putting it, although my thoughts are just as messy as yours lmao. EXACTLY!!! if i’ve said it once, i’ve said it a million times, kate bishop has layers!!! she's a mess of all these conflicting traits but when the time comes, she steps up, no questions asked. and maybe she's a little reckless about it but she's so devoted to what she's doing that it doesn't even matter to her. which is where red belt fits in.

[belleyellsaboutturtles]

“Donnie exclaims with dramatics, pressing the back of his hand to his fivehead as he pretends to swoon. "What little faith ye mortals have in the great and incredible power of one Hamato Donatello!"”

BOY IS MASKING AND HIDING HIS FEAR I’M CALLING IT

“"You can count on me! I'll do anything for Master Michelangelo -- er, Mikey," he says, finishing with a nervous chuckle.”

This sweet boy. How is it that he’s only known war but he’s like a ray of sunshine

“Raph is ashamed of himself when he has to look away from Mikey.

It's just those eyes... the same ones that haunt his nightmares every night.”

My heart hurts

“Leo and Raph carry Mikey to the bathroom. He is confused and surprised as he looks around, examining the sink and toilet and tub.

Leo starts the faucet, and the loud spicket and water startle Mikey at first. He creeps towards it, but eventually decides it isn't evil and yells at it, trying to match its volume.”

Mikey doesn’t know what a bathroom is. 😭 That makes this scene both sad and adorable. He’s so curious about everything, he’s like a toddler seeing the world for the first time.

“Mikey jumps over the side and splashes into the water, smiling happily at the heat. Raph and Leo stare in shock, waiting for the screech of pain as Mikey is boiled alive, but no such cry comes.”

Scalding hot is also how I like my baths, Mikey.

“For a moment, Mikey looks panicked, as if something has triggered him. But the panic subsides quickly, as he looks around the room and understands that he is home again.”

Did they waterboard my boy??? 👹👹

“Mikey splashes Leo back. Leo laughs, and returns the favour. Mikey fills his mouth with bathwater and spits it at Leo, who yells in disgust and calls for Raphael's aid.”

YOU GRACED US WITH FLUFF GOD BLESS 🙌🏻🙌🏻🙌🏻

And that reveal at the end? Had me so excited omg. Mikey may be missing a lot of memories and his vocal cords are screwed up, but man still has one other language to fall back on. 🙌🏻

Double-Mutated Mikey

Chapter 6: Domestication

Continued from the short story written by @boots-with-the-fur-club

Prev || Next

The group don't dare turn to look at Mikey.

He's still distracted by the holograms and lo-fi headphones. But that will not keep him for long.

"...Do we tell him?" Raph asks, finally breaking the tense silence.

"I... I don't know. I don't think we should," Donnie mumbles.

"Why not?" Casey asks. "He deserves to know --"

"No," Donnie says, standing up. "No. He... he shouldn't know. Not yet. Not until I can fix this."

Raph stares at him hopefully.

"...CAN you fix it?" he asks, voice breaking.

"Why, my dear Raphala, you wound me!" Donnie exclaims with dramatics, pressing the back of his hand to his fivehead as he pretends to swoon. "What little faith ye mortals have in the great and incredible power of one Hamato Donatello!"

"Can you get him back to normal?" Leo asks a bit more sternly.

"Yes," Donnie says with certainty. "I can 'make a fix, bro'."

Leo grimaces. That doesn't ease him as much as Donnie wants it to, but if he believes he will, then that is it. This is Mikey they're talking about, Donnie will do everything in his powers to return him to normal.

"In the meantime, what do we do?" Raph asks.

"Stay calm, don't get him riled up, keep him out of harm, etc." Donnie says as he starts to type on the computers again. "I'm activating 'Housebound Protocol'."

"What's 'Housebound Protocol'?"

"Have you never once wondered why Splinter didn't escape to the surface when he had rat flu?"

"...No?"

"Well, now you know," Donnie grumbles. "Basically, we'll keep Mikey inside the lair and help him adjust to the mutations while I search for an anti-mutigen formula."

"So... just play nursemaid?" Leo asks. "We're keeping it that simple?"

"I highly doubt it will be 'simple', Nardo," Donnie grunts. "Mikey will likely have episodes of PTSD from the experiments. His body will be adjusting and readjusting to the new changes he's going through. We've already seen a few reactions he may have."

"His vision," Leon noted.

"And his aversion to new people and new things," Casey bemoaned.

"And his vocal chords," Raph reminded.

"Among others," Donnie sighed. "So be on the lookout. I'll be compiling a list of animal traits from each of the species I named... Casey Jr., I hope I can rely on a list of Krang tendencies from you by tomorrow morning?"

Casey perks up and nods.

"You can count on me! I'll do anything for Master Michelangelo -- er, Mikey," he says, finishing with a nervous chuckle. "But... we don't tell him about the mutations? Or what he has in his DNA?"

"It's possible he may already know," Donnie suggests. "Or... well, it could be that he doesn’t understand anything other than basic animalistic urges, and wouldn’t comprehend us telling him."

"Wha-huh?" Raph questions as he tilts his head. "Donnie, you gotta use normal words."

Donatello rolls his eyes and sighs in exasperation.

"Mikey might have an animal brain now, not a mutant turtle brain. It is possible he may not understand us."

"He seems to understand just fine," Raph argues.

"So far, but most of our conversations with him haven't required anything of major -- um, I mean, we haven't asked him any BIG questions. Just small ones that are easy. Actually, I don't think we've asked him anything that requires a substantial answer yet..."

"So, Mikey is basically like... what, a pet now?" Raph demands.

"No, I didn't say that --"

"I refuse to accept that!" Raph shouts. "No, Mikey is still in there! I know he is! You didn't see him in the hallway, he understood me, he heard what I said and he responded! Maybe not in words, but he understood me! Mikey isn't some stupid animal, he--"

"Raph!" Leo scolds, pressing a hand against his chest.

Raphael pauses, and immediately looks to Mikey.

For a moment, he's the same old Mikey, sitting in a silly pose on Donnie's desk while he listens to pop music and sketches in his kneepads.

But then the mirage ends, and he's a feral creature crouched on the table, staring wide-eyed and frightened at Raphael, eyes glowing with that all-too familiar red in yellow shine. He wonders how he didn't recognize it before...

Raph is ashamed of himself when he has to look away from Mikey.

It's just those eyes... the same ones that haunt his nightmares every night.

He can't let them haunt his baby brother, too.

"Fine. Let's do whatever needs to be done. And NO ONE says anything about the you-know-what-aliens. Mikey doesn't need to worry about that right now."

The group all silently nod.

Donnie stretches as he gets up from his chair.

"Well, I have a long night of work ahead of me, so if you all please don't mind --"

Donnie shoos everyone away and out of the labs. As soon as the doors open Mikey scurries out, discarding the headphones in the process and dashing in every direction before circling back and landing at Raph's feet with a smile, asking to be picked up so he can climb all over him again.

Raph smiles awkwardly at him, and lifts him gently. Mikey's tail wags, slapping the back of Raph's shell as he perches atop his shoulders like a parrot on a pirate.

"Well, first things first," Leo says with an exhale, "Mikey needs some tending to. Let's get him a bath and see what we can do about those claws and injuries..."

Leo and Raph carry Mikey to the bathroom. He is confused and surprised as he looks around, examining the sink and toilet and tub.

Leo starts the faucet, and the loud spicket and water startle Mikey at first. He creeps towards it, but eventually decides it isn't evil and yells at it, trying to match its volume. Leo snickers at the sight. Mikey somehow hears this, and turns to look at him with a smile.

Leo tries not to let the fangs bother him. Mikey doesn't deserve to be thought of or seen as a monster. Even if he has monster in his blood, now...

After a few minutes, Raph -- who had left to gather some extra towels and soap -- reenters the room. Mikey runs to circle around his feet, curious as to what he has with him. Raph places the items down on top of the counter. Mikey sniffs each one with inquisitiveness.

"Which of these do you like better, big man?" Raph asks, opening two bottles of scented body wash and holding them out for him to smell.

Mikey sniffs both a few times before choosing one scented like citrus and honeysuckle.

Raph smiles as he begins to squirt the soap into the flow of water, bubbles forming under the waves and torrent of churning water.

"And Donnie thought he wouldn't understand us..." he chuckles. "Big brainy dum-dum underestimated you, huh?"

Mikey runs to the edge of the bath and stares, watching with excitement as the bubbles grow bigger and bigger. He points to the steaming water and suds, trying desperately to form words to express his enthusiasm.

"Ah, ah, ah! Ahhh, ha, hah!" he shrieks, a big and bright smile on his face.

Raph chuckles.

"Yeah, bubble baths are pretty fun, huh?"

"Should I go get the camera?" Leo jokes.

Raph rolls his eyes, looking away from Mikey for just a moment. Mikey tries to climb into the hot water before Leo scolds him.

"Ah-bup-bup-bup!" he shouts, causing Mikey to jerk away. "Not yet, bud, that water's too hot..."

Mikey cocks his head to the side in confusion. Too hot??

He looks back down to it. He reaches for the water again.

"Mikey, he said no, it's too hot!" Raph says sternly.

"Still think he understands us?"

Mikey jumps over the side and splashes into the water, smiling happily at the heat. Raph and Leo stare in shock, waiting for the screech of pain as Mikey is boiled alive, but no such cry comes.

"...Maybe it's us that don't understand him," Raph wonders.

Mikey plays in the bath, blowing at the bubbles and throwing them in the air several times, then shrieking with laughter. He throws them at Leo and Raph, who try to dodge the assault but fail.

"Alright, buster, you've asked for it!"

Leo runs to the bath with a pitcher a scoops up a great deal of water, then pours it over Mikey's head. Mikey coughs and sputters at the water.

For a moment, Mikey looks panicked, as if something has triggered him. But the panic subsides quickly, as he looks around the room and understands that he is home again. Mikey splashes Leo back. Leo laughs, and returns the favour. Mikey fills his mouth with bathwater and spits it at Leo, who yells in disgust and calls for Raphael's aid.

It takes far too long for them to actually get Mikey cleaned. The first ten minutes are spent in a war of water and bubbles. The next ten are spent refilling the tub and mopping up the spillage.

Mikey smirks, having of course won the battle, yet relented to let his brothers scrub the grime off his skin and the dried blood from underneath his claws. Raph is a little too rough with him, and Leo keeps getting soap in his eyes, but they are much better at washing him then the others were...

After that, he soaks for several minutes, just calming in the water.

It's quiet, now. Mikey is tired. The water is slow, soft, it envelops him entirely. Leo and Raph are talking about something, discussing what to do or who is in charge of what in the process of taking care of Michelangelo.

Mikey leans his head against the edge of the bath. The steam has long since gone. The bath is getting cooler. Mikey falls asleep...

A sharp pain in his chest.

Mikey's eyes widen.

His arms ache, his legs ache. His hands clench up, he grits his teeth and inhales sharply.

Leo is by his side, almost instantly.

"Mikey? Mikey, what is it?"

"He can't talk, Leo--"

"Well, he has to try! Come on, mi hermano, qué es?"

Mikey starts convulsing, shivering, shaking. His teeth chatter.

Leo takes the hint and places his hand in the water.

"The bath is cold," he says. "Mikey must be sensitive to cold. Let's get him out."

Raph reaches in and pulls Mikey out, his body rigid and unable to move apart from shaking vehemently.

"Do you think this has something to do with why he prefered the bath when it was boiling? The heat didn't seem to faze him at all," Raph mentions.

"He might have some new physical needs," Leo says, grabbing a towel and rubbing Mikey profusely. "I hadn't thought of that..."

Raph signs to Leo.

'Donnie said he had reptile mutations... do you think this is some enhanced form of brumation?'

Leo signs back.

'Not sure... could be? In any case, let's keep him warm and comfortable...'

Mikey starts moaning again, trying to speak.

"Don't worry, buddy, we'll get you nice and warm," Raph assures him.

Mikey starts moving again, his fingers curling and extending.

He holds up his two hands, one with three fingers extended and the other adding a fourth. He taps them against his chin.

"Mikey, what..."

He repeats the motion. Four fingers lined up together, tapping his chin.

A sign for a single word.

'Talk.'

Mikey had found a way to talk.

Prev || Next

[andy-clutterbuck]

[wisegirlandseaweedbrainforever]

First off apologies to StarryFeathers on ff I know this is a rewrite of a certain scene from your fic "Lost Brother" I did love your fic, but as someone who was pushed out of their family due to disabilty, I didn't feel the conculsion was messy enough emotionally, so I rewrote "that one scene" so I could go back to writing my own fic, instead of this thing sloshying around my head forever. Again APPOLOGIES!

...

"That's just cruel father!"

Michelangelo hears Donatello shout.

The clink of pottery gets louder as he breaks into a run. Things have been too tense lately, he gets, but do they have to fight he knows Leo can hear them if nothing else.

"What's going on here?" Mikey asks as he enters the dojo.

"Splinter wants Raph to teach Leo how to fight!" Donnie says throwing his hands in the air.

"I mean that's a good thing right? That way we wouldn't have to worry about him, and dad so much?" Mikey responds confused.

"Not you too!"

"Hey! If this is about him not being right in tha head-" Raph starts

"Oh don't start that again" Donnie rounds on him. "I was there too, Raph! Just cause you can't face facts doesn't mean I love him less! Who built all those crutches as kids, huh? Who tried to teach him how to speak again huh? Me! And I'm telling you ninjitsu is too much for him! It's hard enough on a healthy body! You wear a knee brace, I've been nursing my ankle for over a month! His leg is twisted in two places! He can barely hold a fork! I get wanting to protect him, but that is why I am installing censors! Why we should have an escape route planned, and agreed upon places to meet up! Not for us to break him again!" Don screams tears flowing down his face.

"About that-" Mikey says quietly.

Everyone turns to face him.

Mikey quakes, but holds out the box that he is holding. "I was working on gathering Leo's things from the old lair, and look what I found"

"Is that my old tea pot?" Master Splinter says.

"It looks like it." Mikey replies.

"Didn't it break?" Donnie askes.

"It did indeed, my son" Splinter says simply.

"Leo tried to bring it to you last winter," Raph says. "When you got sick, he tried to help you like you always help him"

Splinter sighs.

"So he was putting it back together?" Mikey askes. "I didn't know he was able to do that?"

"He's more stubborn than a mule" Raph says. "Always has been."

"Hmmn" Mikey hums. "Where is he anyway? With all this arguing, I'd normally hear him falling down the stairs trying to stop us?"

"He's at April's. She wanted to see him, and this all' was a long time comin' " Raph growled "I didn't want him here for it. He's been too anxious as it is, since the cave in."

Donnie finally looked away. And Mikey didn't feel any better, almost leaving Leo behind after the mousers would always haunt him "how could they do that? Just forget about him altogether in an emergency?!" He knew objectively it was because Leo wasn't part of the team, when things got rough topside, they didn't have to worry about him, he was home and he was safe. But that hadn't been the case this time. They weren't topside when the mousers attacked, Leo hadn't been safe, and they should have been worried.

"He's still trying to fix us isn't he?" Don says breaking through Mikey's self depricating thoughts.

"Always the big brother huh? Even when we should be tha ones taking care of him." Raph says bitterly.

Splinter sighs again, "Shredder will still stop at nothing to destroy us, and my eldest is still helpless against him."

"You are so sure he's still in there Raph, why?" Donnie asks.

"Why don't you ask him?" Raph says, holding out his Shell-cell.

Donnie's forhead crinkles as he takes it, and Mikey moves around to read over his shoulder. The ID said Leo, and there were so many texts there, like the accident never happened, like Leo had always been there. Leo asking if dinner was ready, if they could watch space heroes, when April was coming to visit. Mikey barely remembered what that was like, for Leo to be part of their lives. He just remembered the accident, his broken body, how it had been him to suggest that tunnel for playing, sure Raph blamed himself for Leo going back to save him, Donnie for not seeing the signs of collapse, and dad for being topside when it all went down, but no one remembered Mikey had begged Leo to go play there, Leo had said it was dangerous, but Mikey hadn't listened, and Leo was never the same because of it.

"I never made Leo a phone" Don says, voice light with amazement.

"I gave him an old one of mine," Raph said awkwardly. "He was always so worried when we were gone, and this let him know how we were doing."

Donnie looks so horrified, and Mikey understands. All these years, the chasm between them felt so wide, yet if they'd only given him a key board it wouldn't have. They gave up on him too quickly.

[goodlucktai]

give me something that’ll haunt me when you’re not around

chapter seven: i swear that i would pull you from the tide

rise of the tmnt pairing: leoichi (leonardo / usagi yuichi) word count: 3k title borrowed from line without a hook by ricky montgomery post-movie

(previous) (next)

read on ao3

x

Yuichi is pissed off.

It’s been most of a week since the incident at the farmhouse, and Leonardo hasn’t answered a single text.

At first, it was alarming. Yuichi’s brain went running in circles around it. Was he okay? Was he in a position where he couldn’t reply? Maybe that flashback had set back his recovery. Maybe Yuichi was the worst person in the entire universe for allowing it to happen.

Then at work Sunita told him she’d been to the lair recently and that Leonardo seemed fine. A little subdued, but not so much so that he couldn’t partake in her surprise birthday party.

Which told Yuichi two things: one, that he’d missed Sunita’s birthday, which he was going to remedy at their favorite boba place in the near future. And two, that Leonardo was avoiding him.

The absolute nerve of that guy!

First, he completely vanishes from the Hidden City after a horrifying invasion of the mortal world and leaves Yuichi wondering what the hell happened to him. Then he returns and unceremoniously takes up every single available square inch of space in Yuichi’s brain and heart, and soul, probably. And now he thinks he can just? Disappear again? And let Yuichi waste his days wondering about him again??

Well, he can go to hell.

Usagi: Hey so

Usagi: I understand that this is a difficult time for your family. And I want to be respectful of that.

Usagi: But Leonardo’s my friend and I need to see him and I am 100% willing to just walk through every tunnel in the NYC underground until I find his house.

Usagi: Or buy a spell from Witch Town to find him for me. I’m not actually allowed to go there but I will.

Yuichi is braced for a fight, or an argument at the very least. He’s pretty sure Leonardo’s family doesn’t like him very much, but he doesn’t take it personally. It really is a difficult time for them, and when he tries to imagine Botan or Sonoko in Leonardo’s position, his hackles go up immediately at the idea of some stranger waltzing in during the aftermath and taking up his precious time with them.

Still. He’s ready to do this. And he really will go to Witch Town if he has to.

But Leonardo’s sister surprises him by not only responding immediately, but enthusiastically. She even seems relieved.

April (Hamato?): oh thank GOD this boy has been driving me up the damn wall

April (Hamato?) has shared a location

April (Hamato?): here. wait topside tho the tunnels can be really confusing at first and if i let you get lost i will literally never hear the end of it for as long as i live

April (Hamato?): i’ll send angie to meet you there. when are you coming?

Usagi: Now. Thank you, April.

April (Hamato?): just get your fluffy butt down there. there’s only so much moping a girl can take

April (Hamato?): 💛

Yuichi owes her a drink. Coffee of her choice. Also, he needs her to change her contact ID.

When he pulls his bike into the sidestreet her location pin indicated and pulls his helmet off, his ears swivel immediately toward a shadowed corner of the alley, so he turns his head in that direction, too.

“Oh, wow,” a vaguely familiar voice says, “you sussed me out that fast?”

The youngest Hamato comes slinking soundlessly out of the dark, all his bright colors incongruent with the way he can seemingly disappear into thin air at free will. His arms are bandaged up to the elbows, crisp white gauze where the stark black wrappings usually sit.

Michelangelo smiles and offers a little wave, approaching at an energetic trot. He’s tiny, but his personality is huge. It’s better suited someone six times his size. Somehow, Yuichi is more intimidated by him than anyone else in Leonardo’s family.

And he’s clearly holding back from him. Even this lively greeting is restrained compared to his usual demeanor, when Yuichi would watch him clown with his brothers at Run of the Mill.

“Hi, Usagi!” Michelangelo says cheerfully enough. “April told me you needed an escort.”

“Thank you,” Yuichi replies carefully.

“She said you weren’t mad about the robot,” Michelangelo goes on. His tone is still bright, but doggedly so, like he’s doing his damnedest to be nice but he’s also ready to drop the act at a moment’s notice and square up. “Is that true? You’re not allowed to come if you’re mad.”

That’s surprising enough that Yuichi blurts, “What? Of course not. If anything, Leonardo should be mad at me.” He plucks at the strap of his helmet, mouth twisting. “I wanted him to have a good day and it turned out horrible.”

Michelangelo stares up at him for what feels like a short eternity. Then he piles forward without warning for a hug. Whatever happened to his arms, they’re still strong enough that they feel like iron bands wrapped around Yuichi’s middle.

Yuichi lets out an involuntary “oof” and stands there stupidly for a second. People aren’t exactly lining up to hug him, given how unapproachable he comes off as. But Yuichi has plenty of practice with his little cousins, and Kitsune when she’s drunk, and Michelangelo is completely little-brother-shaped in a disarming way.

So he tosses his helmet to the ground and lets his arms rest around the top of Michelangelo’s carapace. It feels strange for a second, and then that second passes.

“He likes you so much,” Michelangelo muffles against Yuichi’s shirt. “I’m glad you’re nice.”

Yuichi wants to say He likes me?? but he ignores the dangerous impulse because if he actually asked that he would have no choice but to flee the country. Instead, he says, “‘Nice’?” because that’s equally as baffling.

The spotted turtle leans back to look up at him. His eyes are a little shiny, but his smile is back in full-force. “Yeah, the kind of nice that actually matters. Anyway, come on! Let’s go! We didn’t tell Leon you were coming. That’s what he gets for trying to self-sabotage.”

Yuichi admits, “I am a little mad about that.”

“Ugh, dude, tell me about it! I was like two hours away from staging an intervention.” Those bright brown eyes dart past him to his bike. “Hey, let’s take your bike. I can show you were the garage entrance is, so you don’t have to leave it up here.”

Deciding the best thing he can do in this whirlwind is just hang on for the ride, Yuichi smiles back. “That’d be great, thanks.”

“Can I drive?” Michelangelo asks innocently.

Yuichi squints at him. “No.”

It takes all of three minutes for Michelangelo to wear him down. Yuichi resigns himself to the passenger seat and decides Leonardo actually wasn’t exaggerating about those baby brother privileges.

By the time they get to the repurposed subway station that seems to serve as the Hamato clan’s home, Yuichi is hopelessly lost somewhere in the Manhattan underground. Michelangelo did his best to point out helpful markers, but it will definitely take a few trips before Yuichi is at all comfortable managing the route on his own.

“This way, this way,” Michelangelo says eagerly. “He’s probably still in his room. He won’t come out unless Raph, like, physically carries him out.”

So—moping, according to April, and holed up, according to Michelangelo. It sounds like exactly the same way Yuichi has been spending the last several days, minus the interludes of forced productivity at work.  

On one hand, Yuichi is sort of inappropriately relieved he’s not the only miserable party here. On the other hand, Leonardo is miserable over something he had absolutely no control over, something that was in no conceivable way his fault. That’s nothing to feel relieved about.

Michelangelo leads him across the cozy, lived-in station to one of the subway cars sitting stationary on the tracks. The cars must serve as their respective bedrooms, because Michelangelo lifts a finger to his mouth in the universal gesture of be quiet, and creeps with exaggerated stealth toward the open doors.

Yuichi peeks through the long window, eager to get a glimpse of his friend’s life. There are string lights up on the walls, illuminating movie posters and colorful artwork all signed with a stylized M and a smiley. The shelves are stocked full of action figures and trophies and an even mix of medical textbooks and comic books. In one corner, propped up next to a big cabinet arcade game, sits a bright pink and blue skateboard and a battered guitar case.

Leonardo himself is on the bed, cross-legged with his back resting against the wall. There’s a human boy sitting with him. Maybe the one from the videos of the invasion, the one who fought alongside April. He’s leaning comfortably against Leonardo’s good side and holding a Switch so they both can see the screen. Leonardo is using the hand of the arm draped around the human’s shoulders to point something out.

“Shake the trees. Sometimes they drop furniture or bells. Just look out for—oops. Okay, those are wasps.”

“Sensei,” the human says, totally aggrieved.

They both look up at the same time when Michelangelo’s shadow crosses the doorway, before he makes so much as a whisper of sound. Their mannerisms are a perfect mirror of each other, which is sort of an odd thing to see in action.

Even stranger, the human goes still with surprise when he sees Yuichi. Then his whole face lights up.

“Uncle Yui!”

“Eughh boy,” Michelangelo and Leonardo say at the same time.

“Sorry, what’s happening?” Yuichi says blankly.

The human looks mortified a second later, but Leonardo tightens his arm around the boy’s shoulders and doesn’t let the silence settle into something awkward.

“Yeah, so I guess I’m a dad?” he says in a blithe tone. “Only my son is the same age as me, and from a future that no longer exists. You know how it is.”

Yuichi stares at him. This is the last thing he was expecting when he walked into the room.

“I refuse to let you distract me from why I’m here,” he finally says. “But we’re definitely circling back to—that whole situation.”

Michelangelo laughs out loud, bright and clear as a bell.

“This is Casey!” he announces. Then, as if it isn’t at all weird, or maybe because of how weird it is, he adds delightedly, “My nephew!”

Yuichi would be inclined to believe that this was just a joke the brothers were pulling, except that Casey looks earnest and genuinely happy to see him.

He’s heard stories about time gateways. Only real masters of the mystic arts can attempt those, and only with the collaboration of a Time Lord.

Casey doesn’t seem like a mystic master. He’s way too young, for starters. Yuichi wonders who opened the door to send him back. It would have had to have been someone incredible.

“Nice to meet you,” Yuichi says plainly, for lack of better thing to say.

So Leonardo’s—son??—from the future (??) knows him. And seems to think highly of him. The implications of that are doing something squirmy to Yuichi’s stomach. It’s a mostly good feeling.

“You, too,” Casey says. Since his pseudo-siblings are absolutely unwilling to let him feel embarrassed, he musters up a shy smile. “I always wondered how you and sensei met. You guys would make up a different story every time I asked.”

“Oh?” Michelangelo asks with a menacing amount of real interest.

“ANYway,” Leonardo says loudly, then unceremoniously throws the human under the bus. “Casey was just saying he was hungry. Miguel, didn’t you make him some—”

“Ohmigosh, the chocolate-banana muffins!” Michelangelo squares his shoulders and folds his arms, the playfulness bleeding from him. “Hey. Casey, when you’re hungry, you tell somebody. That was the deal.”

Leonardo interjects, “He told me, Doc. That counts.”

“Come on, Mas—Mikey.” Casey sets the Switch down and swings his legs over the side of the bed, hopping to his feet with a level of grace Yuichi doesn’t usually observe in humans. “Can you show me where they are?”

He smiles at Yuichi as he passes him, then grabs Mikey by the shoulders and carts him out of the room. He goes with a lot of unspoken trust in Yuichi’s character, like if there’s anyone Leonardo is safe with, it’s him.

The doors close behind them, and then it’s just Leonardo and Yuichi and the destroyed-farmbotto-shaped elephant in the room.

Leonardo starts to pluck anxiously at his cast. One of the glittery stickers is peeling. His golden eyes dart up, trying to read what’s on Yuichi’s mind from studying his face. Yuichi finds himself thinking, with equal parts exasperation and fondness, that he could just ask.

“I, uh,” Leonardo says, “I should—I want to apologize for the—”

“Finish that thought and I’m going to fight you,” Yuichi cuts him off plainly. “I’ve already explained this in every possible way I can think of, but I’ll try again anyway. The robot does not matter. I break them all the time and no one has ever disowned me.”

He can feel himself relenting in face of the striped turtle’s obvious discomfort. He takes a few steps into the room and sinks into a beanbag chair. Leonardo’s eyes follow him, and when Yuichi nudges their feet together, the hint of a smile touches the corners of his mouth.

“I just hate that it happened,” he admits very quietly.

Either he means the robot, or the invasion, or what happened after the invasion, or all of it all at once. Yuichi doesn’t dare interrupt, not when Leonardo has just taken this brave step forward into seemingly uncharted territory. He just nods to show he’s listening.

“And it feels like. I should, um.” Leonardo’s face twists darkly, anger and hurt and frustration, and he breathes in sharply through his nose, trying to temper it before he even has a chance to really feel it. Yuichi can still hear it in his voice when he says, “I should be better by now. I should be over it. It’s not about me.”

“What the fuck?” Yuichi blurts, sitting forward. “Yes it is.”

Leonardo couldn’t have looked more startled if someone dumped a bucket of ice-water over his head. Yuichi points right at Leonardo’s cracked plastron—that proof of his survival, the most beautiful gods-damned thing in the entire world as far as Yuichi is concerned.

“This,” he says firmly, “is yours.”

For awhile, neither of them speak. There’s music and noise happening somewhere else, Leonardo’s lively siblings hard at work breaching the peace of the otherwise silent underground.

Then Leonardo says, “I don’t like talking about it. But Mikey keeps saying I need to tell somebody. And I guess you’re volunteering.”

As if it isn’t painfully obvious that that’s what Yuichi is doing, when he’s all but begging on his knees for Leonardo to just talk to him. He heroically refrains from rolling his eyes. “I guess so.”

So Leonardo tells him:

“In the prison dimension. The—” He struggles to choke this word out, then finally manages, “The Krang. The general. He was holding me down. I was, uh. I was pretty scared. He was so mad. I don’t even know what he was saying, it was like sliding around in my brain, I couldn’t hold onto anything.”

Yuichi understands that. Those latent animal instincts overriding rational thought, simplifying everything until all that remains is the powerful urge to keep existing. To survive at all costs.

“Um. He leaned in and like—I don’t know, sneered at me—and his teeth were so close and I was so—I wasn’t thinking. I couldn’t breathe, I—” He lifts his hands, helplessly, then lowers them again. “There was rubble underneath me. Sharp metal, all in pieces, from one of his old ships. One of the pieces fit into my hand, and as soon as I had it, I just—I used it.” His voice is so small. “I gouged his eyes out. And then I found a place to hide.”

Oh. It feels like his heart is being ripped clean apart. Yuichi gets up and moves to the bed, sitting close enough to Leonardo that their shoulders bump. His pulse is flying. His stomach feels sour.

“I blinded him. His blood was oily and cold and got all over me. He screamed and rampaged for—hours? Days? I don’t.” Leonardo blinks, far away. “I don’t know. I spent most of my time there hiding. Tucked all the way inside my shell, like a—like a hurt animal. Not much of a hero, huh?”

Somehow, Leonardo is ashamed of himself for this. As if it was cowardly. As if he should have managed to incapacitate a warrior ten times his size and strength in a more honorable way. Like he wanted a nicer truth to give his family.

Yuichi closes his eyes and tries to imagine the prison dimension. Raphael described it haltingly, the glimpse he saw of it through Michelangelo’s portal. Dull grays and ghost ships and an Arctic chill, this horrible place the sun has never touched.

Now he tries to imagine Leonardo there, injured and frightened, all alone with a monster.

He wonders if he would have had the strength of heart and mind to throw himself into hell to protect his friends and family, to save that nebulous concept of “the whole world.” He likes to think he would, but he doesn’t know. How could anybody know until they were there, with the choice in front of them?

Yuichi thinks Leonardo is amazing. He has no idea how Leonardo can think of himself as anything less than amazing. He’s glad the Krang is blind. He would be even more glad if the Krang was dead.

“I don’t like to talk about it,” Leonardo says again, hushed and haunted. “I’m afraid they’ll hate me for it someday. When they’re done being relieved I’m alive.”

I’m in love with an idiot, Yuichi thinks.

Oh, wait.

He’s in love with this idiot.

It isn’t even a surprise. The truth goes down easily, because somewhere along the line he knew that already. Now he’s just—sinking into it. Looking at Leonardo and realizing what this fullness in his chest actually means.

Yuichi was pulled into Leonardo’s orbit from almost day one—the sun and the moon. Months of passing by each other, never speaking, their lives never overlapping. Wanting so badly to approach that full, lively table, second-guessing it every time, always backing out at the last second. The hours and hours he spent agonizing over it. Finally taking the leap. Rewarded impossibly by Leonardo’s interest and curiosity and his smile.

Those precious afternoons in the dining room of the restaraunt, arguing hotly from opposite sides of the same booth, leaning in to put their heads together to watch videos on Leonardo’s phone. Yuichi clinging to Leonardo’s attention, hoarding gold like a miser, because he only ever wanted Leonardo to look at him.

Of course he’d end up here. Where the hell else was he gonna go?

“They would do anything for you,” he hears himself saying. “Do you have any idea how much you mean to them?”

“I do!” Leonardo says quickly. “I just. I’m scared anyway.”

“Tell them that,” Yuichi implores urgently. “Let’s go tell them right now.”

Leonardo stares at him like he’s gone crazy. Yuichi loves him.

“I’ll go with you,” he says, offering his hand. He thinks he’s trembling. His body feels too small to contain the monumental reality he’s just discovered. “You’re not alone, Leo.”

That gets him a choked laugh. Leonardo grabs his hand and holds it almost desperately, as if Yuichi is too good to be true. As if he might do something crazy and impossible if Leonardo lets go, like walk away.

Not in this lifetime. Yuichi never wants to do anything but walk towards Leonardo for all the rest of his days.

They go find his siblings. It isn’t hard, they just have to follow all the noise.

Something chaotic is happening in the kitchen. Michelangelo is perched on Raphael’s carapace, elbows parked on his big brother’s shoulder and chin propped in his hands to watch the show. Raphael is trying to gently extract a hot pot of coffee from Donatello’s hands and Donatello is trying to drink from it directly. Casey is sitting on the counter, eating a huge lopsided muffin with an expression of doe-eyed wonder on his face.

They all look up when Leonardo and Yuichi come in. Leonardo’s step falters under the sudden scrutiny. He clutches Yuichi’s hand tighter, his grip bruising. Like somehow—somehow—Yuichi’s presence beside him makes him feel brave.

It’s okay, Yuichi tries to tell him, squeezing back. I’m not going anywhere.

[room-of-torture]

Donatello couldn’t help but chuckle at her first comment. Tell that to his brother and he will get a kick out of her no shit taking attitude. The strong spirited ones that called out anyone on their bullshit were more fun he’d say. Attractive he’d say.

…something he kind of did agree with. But he kept that to himself.

He moved his gaze away from the blonde while straightening his posture. “Good. Last thing I need is my partner becoming all googly-eyed and losing track of why they are here in the first place.” His honeyed eyes quickly moved towards his cell as it gave off a ding sound. A text was sent from one of his older brothers.

Able to read what the message said without opening his cell completely, the lanky turtle placed his hands on the arms of his chair and pushed himself to stand from his seat. He looked back at his partner, meeting with her emerald eyes as he thought for a moment.

Was mentioning Sam’s and/or Michelangelo’s crazy ghost stories within the mansion even worth mentioning? That seem to also be a “issue” within this home.

Giving her cynical attitude, that was probably a no. He hasn’t seen any of these ‘spirits’ himself so he can’t say they were real or not. Even with some of the unexplainable occurrences he’s witnessed in the past it was still really difficult to say if this place was ‘haunted’ or not. It could be just the slow loss of sanity from being cooped up in this place for so long that made others see things that aren’t there. That was more of a possibility then seeing ghosts.

This place was full of crazies.

“No.” Donnie said while grabbing his phone and slipping it in his pant’s pocket. “Welcome to the fun house.” Walking around his desk, the tall terrapin moved past his partner to stand at his doorway. Keeping it clear as he stood to the side and grabbed the handle of the door. “Now if you will excuse me, my assistance is needed elsewhere.” He closed his eyes as he inhaled deeply then slowly exhaled tiredly. “As usual.” He grumbled.

Opening his eyes to glance over to Vivian. “Do as you want. Rest, eat, bother Sam or Crush, have a party in the pool by the backyard garden by all means-whatever.” He rolled his stiff shoulders. “Only come to me if and only if you have any questions or updates that involve our case. I sent a note to that laptop I gave you yesterday that has my contact info. Incase I’m not in my office.”

@mythigal1966

All That Glitters

RP with @room-of-torture

Vivian hated this stretch of road.  It was dark and isolated, and cell phone coverage was spotty.  Even if she had the attention to spare to reach for her phone, there was no guarantee she’d be able to summon help.

She didn’t know what the person in the big black truck behind her had under the hood, but they were way too close behind her, and their headlights in her rear-view and side mirrors were blindingly bright.  

Vivian was an excellent driver, but she was not a stunt-woman: it was all she could do to stay ahead of the other vehicle.  She gritted her teeth as they put on a burst of speed and tagged her rear bumper, fighting for control as she was nearly forced off the road.

Against her better judgement, she increased her speed again, trying to stay far enough ahead of the big truck to give her a little warning: they had bumped her car twice now, trying to get her to stop, and she didn’t like her odds if they kept at it.  

Her tires lost their grip a bit on the road as she rounded a blind curve, and Vivian wrestled grimly with the steering wheel as her car skidded into the opposite lane.

Especially when the headlights of an oncoming car blinded her.

Vivian managed to force her car back onto her side of the road long enough to miss the other vehicle, but she over-corrected, bounced off a tree, then swerved across both lanes of the road, tires and metal screeching and glass shattering as she went through the rail and crashed down the steep hillside before slamming into the lake.

The air-bag stunned her for several precious seconds, and by the time she realized what was happening, the car was underwater and sinking, water pouring in through the shattered rear side window.  

Near panic, Vivian yanked futilely at her seat belt, but the buckle refused to budge. Panting with fear, she fought with increasing desperation as the water rose swiftly, until she was finally forced to hold her breath.

She was going to die here unless she could get the thrice damned seat belt undone!

No matter how she pulled and twisted, she couldn’t get free of the restraint, and her lungs ached for lack of air.  

Just before she lost the battle to stay conscious and keep holding her breath, she caught a flash of something moving through the murky water in her car’s headlights…

[dancingdonatello]

Ok so I know Halloween was like 2 days ago BUT hear me out-

Turtles x gn scare actor reader?

rottmnt x gn reader

Raphael will go to your work to see you. It’s nice because he’s in a ‘costume.’ He knows exactly where you’re supposed to jump out and scare people but he still gets scared every time. It’s the build up that gets him. That’s what he tells himself anyways.

He’ll sometimes stay with you to help scare people. He got really sad when he scared a little girl though.

Leonardo thinks your job is awesome. You get paid for scaring people all day? Count him in!

He does not get hired and he gets banned from ever coming back at the end of his interview.

But that’s okay. He supports you from the sidelines and sometimes sneaks in to scare you instead for a change. He may get punched by you, but in his mind, it’s worth it.

Donatello is probably the least impressed of your job. But he does give you cool tech to scare people. A mask with red glowing eyes. Gloves with long claws that can extend out of them. He’s pretty nice to you with his gifts.

If you ever try to scare him, he is the leave affected. He will just stare at you with a blank face.

Michelangelo actually met you through your job. His awful brothers had tricked him into going into the haunted maze and when you jumped at him, he screamed for so long that he passed out from lack of air.

He usually avoids your work place now. He only sneaks in to give you snacks before rushing out.

[boost3roo]

Boostle ficlet for October month :) words given: treat or trick / haunted house.

Mikey and Ted go out for trick or treat. They aren't from around the area so things happen.

AO3.

“Are you for real, Michael Jon Carter?!” Ted was annoyed and pissed. How is that Michael could do this to him? He surely did it on purpose.

“What’s that? What are you wearing?”

“Told you, we were going to go as Michelangelo and Donatello, the ninja turtles, not– not the European history guys!” Ted almost screeched in desperation.

“... I don’t know what ninja turtles are.”

“Why didn't you ask me?!”

Michael shrugged. He was feeling like a scolded kid but looking at Ted, he thought he looked awesome. He didn’t know what ninja turtles were, but Ted definitely looked cool. “I guess since I didn’t understand two words I just ignored them, but you look really good!”

“I’m not going out like this.” Ted was embarrassed. It had taken him a while to get his costume ready, to make it of quality but now that Michael is looking all hot as an elegant European dude from the past, he is feeling a bit insecure.

Not to mention that Ted was already anxious about Michael’s idea of going out for Halloween. They were adults already, what would people say if they asked for candy? Probably throw water at them or something. He didn’t want to have a bad night.

“Come on, Teddy. It’s just for one night, you’re ready, I’m ready. Let’s go have fun!”

“They will think we are stealing candy from children.” He groaned, looking down at his clothes, still unsure of going out when they weren’t matching each other as they agreed to do. “What if we go to a party instead? I heard Tora and the others were going to one…”

After a long sigh, Michael nodded. “Alright… But after we get some candy.”

//

Ted was almost dragging his feet as he walked down the streets. He felt embarrassed even if Michael seemed to be having lots of fun. Just then it occurred to him that perhaps Michael had never done this before and that was why he was so persistent on going trick or treating.

And honestly, it wasn’t that bad. They had bought two plastic pumpkins to gather candy and people had been nice enough to give them that and even some drinks. Maybe Michael had been right on coming out for this tonight.

“Alright, the kids say to avoid the last block.” Michael said as he looked down at his phone, checking the map.

“You’re really going to take what a kid says seriously?”

“Kids. Many kids told me not to go there. Creepy things happen there.” Michael shivered, shoving his phone back into his pocket.

“Thought you were up for that? I mean, it’s Halloween. Besides, kids can get scared by many things. I remember when I was little I used to watch kids shows but some were creepy. Too creepy for me, and now that I grew up… It isn’t that bad.”

“If you’re the one knocking on doors this time, then yeah, sure. We can go.” Michael grinned, confident that Ted wouldn’t dare but given the good time they have been spending outside tonight, he actually felt confident enough to do it.

“Deal.”

//

The last block was kind of creepy and no kid would even go there. It was only the two of them walking down a deserted street. It was alright, Ted and Michael were adults, but they were surprised to see that not even teens were daring to check the last block.

It isn’t that bad , Ted thought. There wasn’t enough light to illuminate the whole block and he could notice that some houses, indeed, look creepy. Maybe it was the pass of time, rotting them, making them smaller, and tilting to the side. It could be that it looked like nobody lived around here, too.

“Maybe we should just go to the party now.” Michael said looking at the time. “I think I’ve gotten enough candy anyway.”

“Come on, Mikey. Are you scared by kids’ stories?”

“No, but now seeing how this looks– I don’t want to be here. I don’t mind a ghost here and there, but what if they kidnap us and take out our organs or something? No, thank you. I want all my organs where they are.”

“Nothing bad is going to happen, look, that house has light inside. Let’s go to that one, and then we can go to the party.”

“Just that one. If they don’t come out, we leave.”

“Sure, sure, buddy.”

Ted is the first one to walk into the porch, hearing how the old wood screeches under their weight. It all looks abandoned, as if nobody has been living here or ever getting out of the house. After he knocks on the door the thought of leaving crosses his mind.

He turns to look up at Michael, who looks back at him, but he isn’t really looking. He knows Michael and he’s more focused on their surroundings, the sounds that are going on inside the house.

“May–” before Ted could actually say something, they heard an old woman’s voice inside.

“Coming!”

The door is open after a few long moments, in front of them there’s a very old and fragile woman, covering her arms with a very thin shawl.

“Thomas?” She asks adjusting her thick glasses. “Daniel?”

“Oh, no, sorry for bothering you, ma’am. We are…” Ted sighed. “Michelangelo and Donatello. But I’m the turtle version.” He looks at Michael who is behind him and he only lifts his plastic pumpkin, shaking it gently to the woman inside.

“Trick or treat?” Michael says.

“OH!” The woman smiles at them and adjusts the shawl that was slowly sliding. “You look very handsome, both of you. I do have candy, just wait a bit…”

“Yeah, yeah. Both of us…” Ted mumbled and when she turned around and left in slow steps, Michael looked down at Ted and nudged him.

“Maybe we should go. I think we have enough.”

“What? We can’t do that, handsome !” Ted said and quickly hushed. “We can’t leave this old kind woman. She’s taking all this trouble to get the candy and you want to be gone by the time she’s back here?”

Ted was still frowning at Michael when they heard something crashing. Both jolt and turn to the inside of the house and while they both doubt about going inside, Ted decides to do it first.

“We're coming in–” He said as he rushed in. “Are you alright?”

Seconds later Michael appears behind him, both face the woman who’s glass bowl had accidentally fallen and broke, the candy spread through the floor. “Oh my! Silly me, didn’t hold the bowl tightly enough.”

“It’s fine, we'll help you clean. Where do you keep your broom?”

“No, this is my fault. I can’t have you cleaning this, the glass is sharp, you might cut yourself.”

“It’s alright! I’ll pick up the candy, Mikey can sweep the glass!”

“You’re both so sweet. I’m baking cookies, when you two are done, come to the kitchen, I’ll have them ready.” Without letting Ted or Michael say more, the woman left, leaving them to it.

“She didn’t tell you where the broom is.” Michael pointed out, but as he looked around, he could see the house was suspicious. Something wasn’t right.

“It's just an old woman living in… an old place. Nothing to worry about it.” Ted tried to make Michael feel better as he opened some doors, trying to find the broom.

He wasn’t going to deny it, the house looked neglected. It smelled like humidity and there was dust everywhere. If someone was actually living here, it wouldn’t be like this. Constant movement would at least, leave a trail of the most used places, but this was all covered in dust.

Ted wondered if he turned on all the lights there would be more evidence of how, in fact, this was a normal home.

“Oh, I found it.” He took the broom, but given that the gloves were too thick, he had to remove them and shove them in his plastic pumpkin, with the candy. Just then he noticed that even touching the broom would stain him with dust. Taking it off the closet he saw it had some spider webs attached.

“I’m taking all the candy for myself.” Michael said as he began to pick it up. It took him a few minutes to speak again. “Isn’t it strange that she had to go back to get the candy when today is Halloween?”

There was a shadow he saw from the corner of his eye, and when he looked up at the hall, there was nothing but darkness. He wondered how dark the shadow had to be so that his own brain noticed it… Or maybe it wasn’t a shadow and just… someone else moving there.

Maybe she wasn’t alone?

“What do you mean?” Ted asked before he’d look back to start sweeping. “Didn’t the kids say that nobody comes here? Why would she have to be ready for people asking for candy then?”

“I don’t know, then why did she have candy? If nobody comes to ask, I wouldn’t buy anything to begin with.” Michael shrugged and as he put some candy in his own pumpkin, he paused to unwrap one and shove it into his mouth. To Ted’s surprise, Michael almost spat it out immediately. “What the hell is this?!”

“What’s wrong with it?” Ted moved closer to observe the candy in Michael’s hand, only to notice how it was pale and crumbling.

“I bet it has worms or something.”

“I don’t think worms would eat candy… or will come out from candy.” He made a face, sliding his hand down on the broom when he yelped, feeling pain in his hand.

“What happened?” Michael didn’t move, now he looked scared.

“I think it’s a splinter…” Ted was looking closely at his hand but the dim light wasn’t helping.

“Can you hear that?” Michael suddenly asked, but Ted wasn’t paying much attention. He was trying to remove the splinter from his palm.

“Hear what?”

“Sshh…. That. It sounds like… Whispering.” He looked at the hall and froze where he was. He could almost hear with clarity what they were saying.

“It sounds like… Crying. Someone is crying.” Ted’s voice was low, and soon enough he was almost pressing against Michael.

“I say it’s time to leave.”

“What if someone needs our help? We should do it– we are heroes after all.”

Michael shook his head. “Heroes can call the cops too. We definitely should do that and wait safely somewhere else.”

“Michael…”

“Look Teddy, this is weird. Nothing makes sense and I clearly hear someone whispering but I won’t get in there. You hear someone crying but it’s not that… And this old lady–” He wasn’t done, he also wanted to mention how Ted was now pressing against him, as if he could fuse with him, while holding him tight from his costume.

“Are you done, young men? Come, I have cookies and tea is almost done. Thank you for helping this old woman.”

The kitchen wasn’t in any better state. At least there was no dust but everything seems to be decaying. Ted wasn’t going to judge, either. He had seen rats and cockroaches around in other fancy places, so seeing a bug around in the kitchen wasn’t a surprise to him.

When he looked to his side, he saw how Michael was taking out the old lady’s candy that he had shoved in his plastic pumpkin before as discreetly as possible. Now there was a small hill of candy next to his old-fashioned porcelain plate, still full of warm cookies. It smelled good, and looked better than the candy, but he didn’t dare to touch it.

The old woman was looking away, humming a song none of them knew as she finished preparing tea.

“Do you live alone?” Ted asked, hands on both sides of his own porcelain plate. It was decorated with purple or blue flowers, he didn’t even know the exact color of them.

“Yes, I do. It’s very lonely here, so I was happy to have visitors tonight.”

Michael stared uncomfortably at Ted before the old lady would turn around to face them. With the light from the kitchen, they could see she was very old.

A sudden loud thud made both of them jolt, but the old lady only smiled as she took a seat across them on the table.

“Uh… What was that?” Ted asked, not looking away from the old woman. He could hear it again, the crying. And then another heavy thud, this time closer.

“This house is falling apart,” she sighed and shook her head calmly. She closed her tired eyes as she lifted her cup of tea, sipping it with both hands.

From the corner of both men’s eyes, they saw something small falling/dropping. When they looked at the table, they saw a few maggots wriggling around. They first thought they were coming from the ceiling but it didn’t seem like it. It was until they turned to the old lady that they saw them, fat lively maggots, squirming on the table as they fell from her rotten left arm

“You didn’t like your tea?” She asked with a crooked smile.

When Ted glanced down at his cup, what used to be a soft golden color for the tea, had turned into a small hill of maggots in dirty water. He gasped, shoving away the cup and spilling it over the table.

“Oh dear, you didn’t like it?”

The weeping was heard again, this time closer, louder. And then, another thud just behind them. When they turned around there was nothing but the dark living room, and from there, they could see weak, thin arms. Someone was dragging themselves in the darkness of the house.

A victim? Someone they kidnapped and had in the basement? A creature she made herself?

They didn’t need more of this. They both could feel their heartbeats loud and clear, if they didn’t leave that haunted house anytime soon, they’d have a heart attack before anything was able to even touch them.

There was no way they’d dare to venture further into that living room with all its darkness in order to get out of that place, so taking their pumpkins with candy inside, both jumped out the window to escape.

As they ran, they could still hear the old woman laughing, but Ted made sure to never ignore what a kid would say.