#NRFTW ficlet

[plothooksinc]

This is delayed, but I wanted to give others a chance to bite first; now seems good enough a time as any, though. /hops in your inbox like a goblin So NRFTW prompts. Give me a Casey and Leo scene, because hoo boy I feel like they have a lot to talk about. Setting-wise, I'd lean after NRFTW ends (because Casey has to be wondering where he goes from here), but if you have ideas for earlier that works too, I will eat any delicious food you give me. /chinhands

Not after NRFTW but one of the holes I was contemplating trying to fill because gosh Casey and Leo needed to have a conversation in here somewhere--

The moment Casey slid the door shut, all conversation from outside was muted to an indistinct mumble.  He leaned his head against the cool metal, eyes squeezed shut and misery in his chest.  The look on Raph’s face had spoken volumes, and Casey hated—hated­—treating him like a potential threat.  But he’d been burnt too many times before.  They all had.

Well.

Just him now. 

As if that helped.  He snorted and turned to face the room, wiping a hand across his face.  The lights were still off inside, rendering the bed and its occupant an undefined shape in the gloom.  Casey slid down to sit on the ground, head tilted back, and prepared to settle in for the night.

The sleepy voice took him entirely by surprise. 

“Csssey?   ‘zat you?”

Shit.  Had he just woken?  Or did he wake with the yelling earlier?  Or the literal assassination attempt--?  But Casey would swear Leo was still out for that one, because he was pretty sure nobody in their right mind would pretend to sleep through their brother trying to choke them to death.  But now that he actually heard Leo, there was no roughness to his voice; no damage, nothing but the slur of painkillers and recent sleep and some mild confusion, maybe—

He breathed out, suddenly relieved.  Raph hadn’t hurt him.  For Raph’s sake, as well as Leo’s, that was… good.

“…huh.”  Leo sounded doubtful, and shifted a little on the bed before he stilled with a faint hiss.  “N’mind.  Guess my sleep demons are carryin’ hockey sticks now.”

“—U-um!”  Casey shot to his feet.  “No, sorry.  Sorry, it’s me.  I just—wasn’t expecting you to be awake.”

“Oh good, ’m not going mad.  Hoorayyy.”  He heard the sound of a hand patting at the bed.  “s’a place to sit up here, you know.  More comfy.”

Casey obligingly shuffled across the room, finding the stool in the dim lighting cast by the monitors, and sat hunched by the gurney. “How are you feeling?”

Leo hummed thoughtfully, and said nothing for so long Casey wondered if he’d just dozed off again.  But eventually… “Still syrupy.  Prob’ly better that way.”  He took a deep breath and let it out, and Casey counted the seconds that he held it; four.  Nothing had changed.  (Or—well, how did one measure change when this Leonardo was younger than his Leonardo?)  

He was still stuck on the weirdness of time travel when Leo spoke again, sighing out the words.  “Raph okay?”

Casey tensed.  “…why wouldn’t he be?”

“Yelling,” Leo muttered, which didn’t help his stress levels.  Casey hunched closer to the bed, wondering how to tackle this.

“You heard that, huh?”

“Mhm.  Soundproofed medbay.”  He waved his hand aimlessly.  “Still doesn’t cut out that volume.”

The yelling had been a while ago.  If Leo had heard the specifics, Casey doubted he’d still be lying here so complacently, and he was silent, thinking through an answer.  Technically, Leo needed to be told that Raph was compromised.  But…

…now?  In the middle of the night while they were still trying to work out how to address things?  He knew very well how Leo would react if Casey told him the truth—or at least he thought he did. 

“I think he’s fine,” he said with just a sliver of confusion.  Because when everything was said and done, Sensei had also taught him how to lie, and he’d apologise for it later.  “Not unless, uh… TV rights?... are really upsetting?  They were fighting over the remote thingy.”

It was the right tack to take, and Casey relaxed as Leo gave a small huff of amusement.  “Sounds about right.  Who won?”

“…Mikey.”

“Mhm.”  Leo’s eyes drifted closed, but Casey could just make out a hint of a smile.  “Little brothers’re terrifying.  Gotta remember that.”

“I’ll do my best.”

And then Leo was out again—at least as far as Casey could tell—relaxing into the blankets and his hand dropping back down, and he figured he’d done the right thing.  No point in getting Leo stressed now when he was trying to heal, and he didn’t want to possibly damn Raph like that, not now.  Raph might be fine—he hadn’t really touched Leo.  And they were trying to find a solution, a conversation that Casey…

…wasn’t a part of.

Because they weren’t his turtles.  He didn’t have a right to tell them what to do, or what protocol in the future would have been.  Everything was different here, anyway; there was no actual invasion, this was just a—a loose end, a last spiteful trap, they could work it out, they could—

If Raph turned, would they have to kill him?  Would they be able to?  Would Casey have to be the one to take that weight?  Because he was the only one who truly knew how horrible things could become? 

(Would he even want to force one of them to kill their own brother?) 

And the guilt of even considering this, given they managed to get Raph back in the first place--

They got him back.  They broke the influence, it’ll be fine, it’ll be fine, it’ll be—

A finger poked into the back of his hand and Casey flinched away instinctively, hand yanked to his chest before he registered Leo’s heavy sigh in the dark.  “Can’t sleep if you’re thinking that loud.”

Oh.  He lowered his hand sheepishly, twisting it into the weave of his cloak instead.  “Sorry…?”

“Mnn.  Mutter.”

“…did you just say mutter?”

“S’not as if Donnie has a patient.”

Casey’s brow furrowed.  That made no sense, and he gestured to—well, all of Leo.  “He kinda does, actually.  What does that have to do with—“

Surprisingly, Leo laughed; a small, surprised sound that tapered off quickly with a wince, but he was still grinning in the gloom, eyes open a sliver.  “Man.  I guess that’s wasted on someone like you, huh?  No patents in the future.”

“But you said—“

“I know.  I actually do know that one.  I was…hmm.  Was future me better with words?”

Oh.  Oh.  Casey smiled back, suddenly on more familiar ground.  “Mostly?   You did a lot of, uh, rousing speeches?  I think you had to be.  But you’d mess up with Master Donatello sometimes.”

“Course I did,” Leo said comfortably.

 Casey narrowed his eyes. “He said you did it on purpose.”

“In the future, prolly.”  He was slurring again, and Casey neatened his blankets both for something to do and to kind of hint that maybe he ought to go back to sleep.  “Now, I’m not so good with, hmm, book words?  But I’m learning.”

“You did it on purpose just now, didn’t you?” Casey said mildly. 

“Didn’t say I didn’t do it now.  Just… sometimes I know, sometimes I don’t.  It’s a fun way to get under Donnie’s skin.”

Donnie gets too far inside his own head, Sensei had said once over a mug that said Pretend It’s Coffee on the side.  But he can’t help himself.  You gotta know how to get his attention.  Wanna know what really irritates him? 

They weren’t so different, maybe.  This Leo was younger and—well, more of a dumbass.  More of a kid, and that was allowed.  Still had the same tactics.  The same humour.

Still made the same sacrifices.

It was a mix of conflicting emotion that sliced through him in a way he didn’t know how to process—grief for his family left behind, guilt for the role he played on both sides of—of both portals—relief that, here and now, the Hamato family had survived, were still here—and yet they weren’t, not in the way that Casey remembered.  They would grow up to have entirely different lives now, and that was a wonderful thing. 

They wouldn’t grow up to be his. 

He recognised them all the same.  There was joy in that.  And grief of an entirely different kind.  (And terror, because Raph--)

“Thinking too loud again,” Leo whispered, and Casey shuddered, slumping down on the stool until he could rest his head on the blankets, one arm over his head and worrying at his hair for a brief, vicious moment before he felt thick fingers latch onto his wrist and tug that hand away.  “It’s okay, you know?”

“It’s not,” he whispered back, trying not to cry.  “You don’t even know what the problem is.  How can you say it’s okay?”

“Hmm…” Leo was quiet a moment, and Casey peered at him through his bangs, watching him blink, slow and heavy lidded.  “Lemme… try and rephrase that without sounding all mushy.  Invasion averted, right?”

“Right.”

“You did what you came here to do?”

“…yes?”

“So you’re done.  Good job.  But now you gotta deal with, um…  stuff.”

Casey frowned  “Stuff…?”

“Y’know.”  Leo yawned.  “All the stuff you weren’t thinking about while you saved the world.  Like a hero?”

“I’m not a—“

“You are,” he said, more firmly than he’d said anything else.  “But that’s not the point I’m… hmm.  When’s the last time you slept?”

…change of subject time, apparently.  The question was one he’d heard before; from the same person in a more worn timbre, and Casey half expected Sensei’s prosthetic arm to pick him up by the cloak and admonish him face to face, and when it didn’t happen he ached.  But his response sounded just as sheepish as the last time he’d been asked, maybe a week ago.  (Two decades in the future--)

“I napped a little.  With you here, um… not that long ago?”

“Uh huh.”

“…yesterday.”

“Uh huh.”

“I’ll sleep soon, I promise.  I’m not—“  He broke off, vividly remembering Donnie’s betrayed and exhausted face as Splinter shot him, sliding into oblivion.  “Not Donnie.”

Leo was quiet, long enough that Casey peered at him hopefully to see if he’d fallen asleep.  But instead, he was just regarding Casey with a thoughtful look on his face. 

“Donnie obviously loved you,” he said finally, and Casey blinked.  “He trademarked you and everything.”

And that made him laugh a little, quiet in the darkness.  “He trademarked his gear.”

“Yeah, but you wear it.  That’s…” He waved a hand.  “You know.  Good luck charm.  Keep you safe.  Or are you saying he didn’t?”

He shook his head vigorously.  “Of course not.”

“Mm.  I bet our Donnie will grow fond of you super quick, you’re smart like he is.”  Leo blinked again and this time his eyes stayed shut much longer before he forced them open to stare at Casey.  “I got distracted.  Good stuff too good.”  Casey gave a snort, and Leo grinned.  “The point is—you’re carrying a lot of memories and a lotta… exhaustion.  And now you have to put it down and sort through it, and… that’s hard.  And… it’s really hard to look at us and know we’re not—not yours, right?”

Casey had no idea what to say to that—his silence probably spoke for itself, and he didn’t want to fall apart here.  The med bay was not the place.  Leo hummed as if he’d received an answer, and his hand shifted to rest briefly on Casey’s shoulder before he let it fall on the bed. 

“I guess I’m saying it’s… okay to be a mess.  Pizza supreme, I would be.  Probably am.  Hmm… uh, anyway.”  He continued on, blissfully ignorant of Casey’s alarmed look.  “You don’t have to have it together, Casey.  Both me and future me asked way too much.  I’m sorry.”

“I’m not,” Casey said sharply, but his voice cracked.  “Not about that.  You did what had to be done both times.”

“At your expense.”

“And yours!”

“Shh, shh, okay--” 

Being shushed like a child grated, but his voice had started to climb, and last thing he needed was anyone outside coming in to check on them, so Casey quieted, glaring furiously down at the blankets.  He wiped a hand across his eyes, and when he spoke again his voice was thankfully controlled, if tight. 

“I made my own choice about your portal.  You don’t get to apologise for something he did.  You’re—“

He broke off, shocked at himself.

“Not the same person?” Leo suggested gently.

And Casey burst into tears.

----------

Leo let him cry it out, and it was somehow less embarrassing than it had been with Donnie—here in the dark with a witness that wasn’t panicking about it, but just let him be.  Or maybe Leo was too drugged to panic and had just fallen asleep again somewhere during Casey’s muffled tears in the crook of his arms.  The idea was both a little hilarious and devastatingly lonely to contemplate, and he looked up once to find Leo still watching him, still taking those long, slow blinks that said he was trying so hard to stay awake.  It made him feel a little guilty.  It made him feel seen.

“Don’t stop on my account,” he said mildly, and Casey hiccupped a laugh, cried some more, and took him up on his implied offer.

By the time he was done, his head ached and his face was hot and tight and his nose was all kinds of annoying, and Leo tapped him on the arm and pointed toward the bedside table; there were tissues on the corner and he pulled the box down to his level, trying to clean himself up at least a little, and so, so thankful that nobody had come in to bother them.

“Feel any better?”

“No,” Casey muttered.  Although he did, kind of—lighter, less pressure crushing down on his lungs.  He still felt flayed down to the nerve.  Like he could cry for another hour if Leo happened to say the wrong thing.  And it was Leo, so—

“Sooo… we’ll do this again sometime.”

That stopped him cold.  “What.”

“’m serious,” Leo murmured, swallowing as he closed his eyes.  “Have you… have you told anyone else what you told me?  Back in that tunnel?”

Which part?  Casey winced to remember what he’d said.  All we’ve got is this guy.  But—

He knew what Leo was referring to.

“No,” he said quietly.  “I thought… there’s no point now, you know?  I don’t think there ever was.  They don’t need to know how they—“

Died.  He stopped, glancing at the door as if it might sprout ears.  Donnie did know, now; in more detail than even Leo knew.  He didn’t want to share that again, not so soon.  (It occurred to him that his Donnie recorded everything.  He wondered if this Donnie did the same.)

“Mmm.  So don’t.  It’s a lot of weight to carry,” Leo said, voice soft.  “s’gotta hurt.  You can get snot on me any time, ‘kay?  I won’t hold it against you.”

Casey gave him a skeptical look, which was far better than bursting into tears all over again at the offer.  “You’re still healing.”

“So’re you,” Leo said simply.  “Besides, what else am I gonna do?  If you grew up with me, you gotta know I like being useful.”

His smile was a wan, thin thing in the dark.  “…yeah.  I do know that.”

“So indulge me.  Have a breakdown or three!”

“Sensei—“

“Ah--!” Leo’s smile lit his whole face up. “I’m still Sensei, awright, go me.”

And Casey couldn’t help it; he snickered into his palm before just letting his head hit the covers wholesale, muttering into the blankets.  He was so tired.  “You’re terrible.”

“I know.”  Leo yawned.  “You’ll get there, ‘kay?  I know we’re not yours, not in the way you want.  But you’re already kind of ours, so.  We’ll work it out.  It duzzennn…have to be today.”

Casey smiled a little, not bothering to open his eyes.  “You need rest.”

“So do you.”  Leo paused.  Casey heard another yawn, wide and jaw cracking, and then:  “Bet I can fall asleep first.”

He wouldn’t think that was a contest, with the amount of meds in Leo’s system.  But the side of the gurney was far more comfortable than other places he’d slept in the past, and Casey shifted his head a little to the side on his folded arms, already halfway there.  Crying himself to exhaustion.  He hadn’t done that since he was a kid.

…Leo had been there for that, too.  Worn but kind, and full of terrible jokes.

Casey missed him.

And Leo lost his bet, because he heard Leo’s last slurred words on Casey’s slide into oblivion, a soft mutter, good-natured:

“Maybe tomorrow, you’ll tell me what the yelling was really about.”

Casey hummed in response, too far gone to feel any more than sheepish.