#idk whats up with tmnt fics being the vehicle for me forcing my music tastes on my readers lately but it is what it is

[goodlucktai]

If you’re still taking prompts… disaster twins being disasters?

x

Casey can remember being this excited maybe once or twice before in his entire life, but that’s it. He doesn’t realize he’s bouncing in his seat until Michelangelo flops over him, arms folded around Casey’s shoulders and chin propped up on top of his head, grin present in the bright tone of his voice. 

“We might be hyping this up too much,” the youngest Hamato—second-youngest, now, Casey reminds himself somewhat shyly—says good-naturedly. “It’s just a spar, CJ.” 

“I know,” Casey says quickly, clamping his hands on his knees. He feels like a little kid again, being warned that if he can’t sit still he can’t stay in the dojo to watch training. That’s not anywhere near what Mikey said, but he’s not risking it! He refuses to miss this! “But it’s just—I haven’t seen sensei spar with anyone but Commander O’Neil in ages.”

He doesn’t say that Uncle Raph was killed when Casey was so young that he barely got to keep any memories of him. He definitely doesn’t say that when Uncle Tello died, sensei destroyed a string of Krang corps single-handedly, stumbled home half-dead, and then didn’t come out of the silent lab for three days. When he did finally emerge, some intrinsic, important part of him was gone for good. 

By then, Master Michelangelo was too brittle for physical combat, pouring all of himself into the mystic arts instead. April was the only one left who was unafraid to drag Master Leonardo onto the mats, to bring some life back into him. And it was fun to watch, but it wasn’t those high-energy spars he could remember being awed by when he was a child, when all four of the turtles were together and the apocalypse seemed like something they might survive after all. 

“I bet I whooped his butt, too,” April interjects loudly from the cozy-looking beanbag chair she dragged into the dojo. Leo shoots her a mock-offended look, hand over his heart, the whole nine yards. 

He’s wearing a pair of bright pink cordless headphones, and his warm-up stretches have a lot more energetic bopping around than perhaps strictly necessary. Raph is smiling crookedly as he guides Leo through the forms, watching carefully for any sign of lingering tenderness or soreness and finding none. He’s probably as relieved as all the rest of their mismatched little clan that Leo has healed to this point—casts and leg brace finally discarded, energy ratcheted up to eleven. 

Across the mat, Donnie is pretending to be buried in his phone, but he’s watching Leo as raptly as Raphael. If he thought for a second that Leo was nursing some hidden-away hurt, he would find a way to divert the match without anyone the wiser. And it would be something needlessly showy and stupid, too—Casey has the sudden vision of a lair-wide blackout. He pats the penlight clipped to his belt to make sure it’s there, just in case. 

But Leo is in fine form, and Splinter steps onto the middle of the mat with a judicious air. 

“Now I want a clean match, boys,” he orders, arms folded. “No shenanigans!” 

“Aw, not even one?” Mikey pipes up. 

The Hamato patriarch considers this carefully, then says, “I will allow ONE shenanigan!”

“Alright Michael!” Leo cheers. “Use those favorite son privileges for good!” He barely dodges the half-hearted strike from Splinter’s tail. 

Then Raphael is placing his hands on Leo’s shoulders and giving him a friendly jostle, in the manner of ruffling a puppy’s ears to get it all riled up (a life-affirming maneuver that Casey only recently discovered for himself one early morning coffee run with Cass when they crossed paths with a nice lady and her wriggly baby pit bull) and Splinter is stepping back off the mat and Donnie is sliding his phone away. 

“Let me know if you need me to go easy on you, little brother,” Donnie says magnanimously. 

“You hatched four minutes before me,” Leo replies. His tone suggests this is an argument they’ve had at least one billion times. 

“No one likes a sore loser, Nardo.”

April makes a coughing, cackling sound, and then shouts, “Someone get ready to do the heimlich! My man’s gonna choke on that hypocrisy!” 

“APRIL, you were adopted and you can be replaced!” Donnie shouts back over everyone’s laughter. Casey feels like he’s sitting in the sun, surrounded on all sides by warmth and light. He was raised on the scraps of a ruined world, the scraps of love and joy that his family had left to offer him. They gave him everything they could, but he knew they were digging into the bottom of the well. Here, those things are a renewable resource. All the good just stretches and stretches and stretches forever. 

Master Leonardo was not a bitter person. But he was very rarely a happy one. Uncle Tello and Rapha were gone and Master Michelangelo was aging rapidly before his eyes, three times as quickly as he should have. April and mom and all the faces that Casey saw everyday were weary and worn thin, constantly braced for the next horrible thing to come. 

It heals something in Casey’s chest that he didn’t know was hurting to see them like this instead. A festering, years-old wound finally draining, finally given clean air and room to heal. April’s still heckling and Mikey is still draped over Casey, sturdy and boyish and the brightest thing for miles. Raphael is leaning against the wall, grinning, as eager to watch the show as everyone else. Splinter looks unrelentingly fond and also like he’s expecting this to be a trainwreck. 

In the second before Splinter calls the beginning of the match, Donnie’s eyes narrow suspiciously and he says, “Wait, what are you listening to?”

A shit-eating grin stretches across Leo’s face, and in lieu of answering out loud, he lifts a hand and dramatically finger-spells K-A-R-M-A. 

“Oooooooh,” Mikey and Raph and April all chorus delightedly. 

“Oh, goddammit,” Donnie bites out, visibly preparing to fight for his life. 

Then Splinter’s hands come down and the twins burst into movement. There are no weapons in their hands, it’s nowhere near as showy as their fight with the Krang had been, but it’s amazing in its own way. 

They’re fast, much faster than the masters of Casey’s timeline because they’re so little in comparison, lean and lithe and all gremlin energy. The two of them move like they know each other as well as their own selves, the blocks and blows meeting as if they were choreographed well in advance, and every step is so quick and so clean that Casey can barely follow it. Five minutes in, Leo’s eyes glow white and then Donnie’s do, and Donnie barks out a surprised laugh. 

Mikey yells, “No inside jokes that’s not fair!” 

“It’s a nice break from that song. I've heard him humming it in the back of my brain all day,” Raph says ruefully, then quickly holds his hands up when Leo’s head whips around in his direction. “No offense! I like it! Just not—not 16 times in a row, big guy.”

Splinter steps in the instant Leo winces, having landed too heavily on his bad leg after a showy flip. 

“Alright, silly melons, that’s enough. Match goes to neither of you because you play too much.” 

Whatever complaint the twins might have made is entirely forgotten as they turn to face their dad blankly. Donnie says, “I’m sorry, did you just call us silly melons?” 

“Melons are green, yes? And stupidly expensive at all times for no reason.” He pulls a paperback book out of the inner fold of his robe and thumbs through it. “Children like nicknames. The experts have said so.”

Looking torn between helpless confusion and hysterical laughter, Raph says, “What are you reading, pops?”

“Melons cost like $8 in Chinatown when they're in season, where the heck have you been shopping?” Mikey interjects loudly, shooting over the back of the couch like spending too much of the grocery fund on overpriced produce is the first and final straw. 

“Seriously, Splints, what are you reading?” April asks, trying to get the book from him. 

“Silly melons??” Donnie and Leo demand again. Training for the day is entirely derailed, though that might have been Splinter’s ploy in the first place. 

Master Leonardo wasn’t a bitter person. Despite the weight of the world on his shoulders and all the losses he carried around in his heart, Casey’s memories of him are good and warm and only bittersweet because of those final moments, and because of how much Casey misses him every day. Still—even if he was careful not to let it show—Casey knows that Master Leonardo didn’t have a lot of opportunities for joy. 

That’s the thing that’s taken the most getting used to here, Casey thinks, watching everyone. That’s the difference his family makes. This Leo doesn’t have to reach very far for a reason to smile. 

He glances over his shoulder and his smile widens to include Casey, and Casey hurries off the sidelines to join the rest of them.