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Contrary to popular belief, Casey Jones is very easy to love. Once the layers of grime and dirt and oil were streaked away, once gentle hands could smooth away the jagged smears of spray paint away, Casey always seemed to come away a little soft. He was sticky sweet behind the edges, soft only when someone went looking for it in him. Soft in the way broken shoes were, or worn kneepads or the dimples in his little sisters face. Man-made to be familiar.
Not that he made it public knowledge, though, because the thought of anyone knowing that about him made his bones hum wrong. Years of practiced subtlety and scraped hands would do that, would make a boy out of rubble that would rather laugh than run from a fight he couldn’t win. He made himself untouchable, as hard-earned and undeserved the loneliness was. People circled but never orbited him, never entered his atmosphere without good shields and better hands than his. And that was exactly how Casey had liked it, with his blood in his ears and splinters in his fingers that dragged his attention from the chasm at home, from the dirty looks his teachers sent, from the dragons that tore up his streets like they knew how to lay back the groundwork.
Until April, that was. April O’Neil, who didn’t give much of a fuck that he was nine ways screwed to obscurity, that saw palms before she saw fists when it came to him. April who met him on his turf, who came halfway when he’d barely budged, armed with a knowing eye and a good lasagne recipe that he hadn’t had since his mom left. April’s kindness felt like a jab to the jaw, sucker-punching all the air out of him because who in their right mind would believe in Casey Jones?
Only a psycho, obviously. Which was where Raphael came in.
Meeting Raphael Hamato was like rearranging himself around his own skeleton, a pipe bomb going off in his hands that set the world back into motion with just the noise. Casey had never met anyone like Raph, like him, who knew what it was like to build a wall around yourself only to tear through the foundations with scraped knuckles. It made him feel a little safer in a way, to have an angrier, fire-spitting version of himself at his side that knew how to watch his back like ships knew to watch for lighthouses.
They were a team from the start - well, a few moments after it, but Casey was late to most things in life. They fell into step naturally, bounced off each other like they’d been made for the jump and in turn, Casey fell into a family that didn’t flinch when he crossed the threshold. He adored Mikey and all his energy, respected Leo’s decisions and made room for the anxiety with his blunt-ended wisdom. Donnie had taken some time to work around and Splinter, he’d learned to map out around his fear. With April in tow, Casey had found a way out of the chasm, especially with Raph hot on his heels and hurling insults that disintegrated on impact, that didn’t stick around and sour the air.
So when Casey’s body decides on something without asking him, he can see his whole life going up into rubble. Can see it all falling into that chasm, never to see daylight again.
It’s the Lair’s bathroom, when it happens the first time. Head bowed in church, hands gripping porcelain. The mirror is sideways and cracked in the corner, but Casey can see the white of his eyes, the heave of his breath as he rises out of what he’d thought was just nausea, a sore throat from chugging fireball on the weekend. Instead, Casey stares into the basin, the splatters of blood and petals slathered against the drain like it was trying to keep itself a secret, just a little longer.
Casey reaches down, snagging the petal as he wipes at his mouth with the back of his hand and like a good joke, he jumps as the door rattles with a pound. That should’ve been the lightbulb, but Casey was late to everything he’d ever wanted to get to.
“JONES! MOVE IT, I’M NOT MISSIN’ THE MOVIE CAUSE YOU’RE FIXING YOUR FACE!”
“I’M COMIN’, ASSHOLE!” Casey croaks back, hearing Raph cackle through the hardwood, the smile sliding on his face without him knowing. It’s enough to untether the shock from his jaw and Casey rinses away the evidence, chalking it up to something weird he ate when drunk that decided to make a grand entrance. By the time he leaves the bathroom and careens into Raph’s side on the couch to watch a movie with everyone, jostling the carefully balanced popcorn in Leo’s lap, the petals are forgotten.
Only it doesn’t stop.
The shape of Casey changes, when he begins to realise what his body’s doing. He’s a loudmouth, not stupid; he knows his body is doing the cruelest thing it can do as it rearranges around his heartbeat. He hadn’t even recognised it himself the first few times, until dots began to form constellations.
Raph’s hands on his back, shoving him out of the way of a swinging pipe. Catapulting himself off of Raph’s shoulders and into a whole mess of KRAANG bots like someone had told him life was a side quest. The night’s when it was just the two of them on patrol, swapping jokes and insults and pretending for all the world they weren’t both the same shape of twisted up inside. How Raph’s voice fit into his daydreams like it had never not been there, how Casey would hurl himself back into consciousness when Raph’s eyes shoved their way behind his in his dreams. He caught himself a lot of the time, staring out his friend in a way that definitely wasn’t friendly.
And the petals. How many nights had he spent curled up on his thread bare sheets, catching flower petals like crushing them would make them go away. How many times had he excused himself during a hang out, disappearing to the kitchen or the bathroom or god, even Donnie’s garage when the guy wasn’t there, just to hack up poppies into the bin, white knuckled and heaving against his own denial. Because fear always got the last word, when it came to Casey Jones being soft.
He doesn’t tell him, because Casey would never let anyone see the parts of him not hardened to the touch. And Raph doesn’t have time for a boy who can swing but can’t take a punch, who keeps getting up when it would be better to stay down. He’s got too much on his plate to bother with Casey’s confusing, messed up insides, just like everyone else in the world doesn’t need to bother with it. He’s got a family who loves him, a clan he’s hell-bent to protect and Casey is none of those things if he really tries to nail himself down. Raphael is a guy who can win a fight. Casey is just a punching bag.
He gets caught. Of course he does. His first mistake was stealing Donnie’s laptop, when his own had been thrown at the wall next to his head a few months ago by his dad and he’d rather stew without technology than grovel and ask Donnie to fix the cracked plastic coating. It’s a night when the brothers are out, Casey having bowed out at the last minute due to feeling sick and tired, making Mikey promise to bring him back those dumplings from Murakami’s. And he really had been sick, but Casey was so good at being hurt now that the petals came and went within minutes of him feeling the awful urge creep up on him, his lungs closing up quicker these days.
Getting into the lab had been easy and honestly, the locks on Donnie’s computer had only really been for Mikey, so they were easy to get past once Casey figured out April’s name was every password. And here, Casey scavenged. He found articles, research papers, clippings, a name. Hanahaki disease. Adopted from an old Japanese story, he’d found not much more than that, other than it could turn fatal if left untreated. There were clinics pin-dotted around the US, but Casey didn’t have the time or money or even the explanation for what had caused him to contract such a rare disease. He’d get over it eventually, he always did.
Donnie comes out of nowhere, a few days later, cornering him against the sink in the kitchen. He’d been cleaning his plate off, when the jeweled beads had parted and Donnie had strode through, face bent into thunder. In his hands, are stacks of printed out articles, colour coded and sticky-noted and Casey feels another wave of nausea clamber up inside him.
“You,” Donnie says, the pronoun pointed like a pin, “are sick.”
“Bite me.”
“No, I didn’t - listen,” Donnie says, hunkering in around Casey like he could build a wall against all of Casey’s defenses. He gathers in close, enough to make Casey glare at him from over the ridge of his broken nose. But when he speaks again, Donnie’s voice is on the edge of disaster. “You have Hanahaki. I saw my search history when you were here by yourself. Who do you think has been cleaning poppies out of the drain pipes?”
Casey reacts as he always does - like he’s been burned. “Piss off, no I ain’t.”
“Don’t lie to me, Jones, I’m smarter than that,” Donnie nudges, forcing Casey into one of the high backed chairs around the kitchen island by his shoulder. For once, Casey goes with it without biting. “You have hanahaki disease, and you haven’t told anyone. Why?”
Because who’s gonna give a fuck if I’m dying, he almost says. Because what can anyone do that’s gonna make a difference. Because Casey’s never put much stock in himself to be in anyone’s life for longer than a few months, not like here. Not like with Raph, where Casey not showing up ruined his whole night sometimes, not that Raph would admit it. And Casey likes his place here, likes that there’s a spare bedroom with his name on it, that Splinter built another shelf just to hang Casey’s hockey equipment when he’s not around, that April shoved a mug in the cupboard just for him. Telling people he’s on his way out would just ruin all of it.
“Because I’m handling it,” Casey admits, as much truth as he’ll let pass his teeth and Donnie grits his own, frustrated in a way only hard-earned love can bleed.
“Like hell you are,” Donnie bites back, dropping down into the seat in front of him. “You think I haven’t noticed you bringing your old inhaler out more often? Excusing yourself constantly? That the others haven’t?”
Casey’s face pales at that. Raph couldn’t …
With that, Casey sinks into his hands, slumping forwards until half his body is held up by the kitchen island. His face is smothered in his arms, a guttural groan leaving him that rips his voice into ribbons more than any poppy could. When he resurfaces, Donnie’s face is doing something careful.
“You don’t want anyone to know, I get it, but - Casey, this is serious,” Donnie says, lifting his empty palms like he was showing what options were left. “You could - it’s not - how many flowers are you coughing up?”
“Just like, the one,” Casey says quietly, shoving down into his shoulders and turning away like not seeing the look on Donnie’s face would smear it away. It’s only a little relief when Donnie doesn’t descend into screaming. “A few petals, nothin’ - nothin’ crazy.”
“Okay, that’s doable, for now. I think I can cobble together something to stave it off, until you can get your feelings in order,” Casey winces at that, flinching like it was a hand rather than an attempt at rescue. Donnie doesn’t notice, instead looking up to survey him. “But, besides that - who is it you think you have unrequited feelings for?”
Casey knows immediately, but hell if he’s telling Donnie that he’s got a crush on his brother and his own best friend. He’d never let him live the shame down. So Casey merely stares at Donnie deadpan, brow lowered until Donnie manages to scavenge out the hint, sighing and shoving the stacks of articles towards Casey with one hand, relinquishing to the impenetrable wall that was Casey Jones. After a moment, Casey squirrels them away into his lap, face burning as he mentally hunts for where he’d last slung his backpack to shove away the papers.
“For what it’s worth, Jones; you deserve to tell someone how you feel,” Donnie says, cringing around the words as he tries to settle a bond that feels more like string than steel some days. “Even if it’s not the person, just someone. It might help.”
Casey all but tosses that advice sideways once Donnie says it, but he still shrugs and huffs until Donnie leaves. And from there, the unspoken agreement holds; Donnie stays quiet and slaps together some concoction that Casey can slip into his inhaler and Casey reads through the articles that Donnie had found for him. From those articles, Casey learns a lot more than his own ham-handed research stint had drawn up. That there was a root in his chest that was slowly growing, slowly intertwining with his spine and lungs and why it was harder to breathe now especially when the air got colder. That soon, the flower and its stem and its thorns would grow until Casey could feel the petals against the back of his teeth, until the love in his heart choked him out with how much he felt it. That, or get the whole thing cut out and with it, the memory of Raph and every spitfire sunrise they’d seen together. Fuck that.
He keeps the articles at home, shoved into his pillow case like a weighty reminder. And he forms a plan, as cockeyed as it is. He’ll tell Raph in the middle of a spar, a fight, some kind of scuffle when his mind isn’t really on Casey and is more focused on the heave of his breath and then it’ll be done. Casey would have bitten the bullet, gotten the awful, sticky stuff out of the way and lived to tell the tale. It was foolproof and brilliant but it couldn’t outrun the apocalypse.
The apocalypse happened on a Tuesday, on the day the earth disintegrated into the dark of space and took everything Casey had ever known with it. Somehow, he and the others had been the lucky ones, shunted into space by a robot that said they were the only ones in the galaxy that could fix what broke. By that revelation, Casey’s mind no longer orbited the idea of spilling his guts to his best friend to stop choking up flowers and instead honed in on one single objective; fix what broke.
Casey and Raph are still the same however, even in space. Picking bar fights on alien planets, chasing down the rings around a black hole and riding comet tales together. There’d been so many nights when the two had been up together, flat on their backs under the skylight of the viewing deck and just talking and sometimes, sometimes, Casey felt a little brave in the vast nothingness of space and time. That the universe owed him this, since it took everything else from him in one great yawn. That all of time and space didn’t matter in the face of how much he loved his best friend.
Until the ice planet. Until together, Casey and the turtles are battling hypothermia and Casey can’t breathe in the cold without the inhaler and Donnie hadn’t had the medicine on him when the world got shoved out of existence so Casey didn’t have the medicine and -
And he looks over and Raph’s hand is curled in hers. Like a stamp of recognition on all of Casey’s feelings and how he had been right not to say what he felt because in the end, Raph chose Mona. Just like everyone chose something over Casey, just like how Casey found being a footnote was easier than shoving his way onto a page with no room for him. And he can feel it, as the cold creeps in, the blossoming in his throat. Out with a bang, is the last thing he thinks when hypothermia steals him into sleep.
He hadn’t expected to wake up, but Casey’s chest explodes with pain and a choke that feels like he’s thrown up a lung rather than air. His helmets off - who takes their helmet off in space? - and he knows he’s down a boot and there’s so much noise that he immediately cringes as he rolls onto his side. Someone grabs him harshly by the shoulder, trying to rip him back around only for that hand to be ripped off in turn. It takes a second for his consciousness to adjust, but he hears Leo and Raph screaming at eachother through the murky waters of his head.
“Raph! Raph! Stop, you’re gonna hurt him -“
“- the idiot! He’s hurting himself! Why should he care if I -“
“- you’re angry! I get it! But ripping it out of him isn’t -“
“ - he almost died! For me! He’s not allowed to die on me -“
Casey had enough sense to roll over at that, eyes swimming, because Raph’s voice had never cracked like that before, not where Casey could hear. Around him, his family is in various states of tattered threads. Donnie and the professor are hunched over something, Mona has her arm wrapped around Mikey who looks so small and burdened and sad and Michelangelo is never supposed to be sad, not if Casey can help it. April’s the one that notices the movement, skidding to her knees at his side and threading a hand through his hair like he was returning in pieces.
And Raph and Leo shut up for just a second, as Casey catches sight of them. Leo with his back turned, arms tucked under Raph like he had any chance of stopping a rampaging bull. And Raph - Raph, whose eyes are rimmed red, mouth twisted in a snarl and all Casey wants to do is tuck him under his chin because since when did Raph ever get hurt. He only realises when he sees his hands, smeared in what he can only assume is Casey’s blood and a handful of fully grown poppy flowers.
Ah, shit, Casey thinks before blacking out in Aprils arms, as Raph barrels his way towards him. Busted.
When he next wakes again, he’s not on the floor on the main deck. Instead, Casey’s in his dorm area, surrounded by the few keepsakes he’d found here, out in space. He’s been completely shed of his space suit, swapped out for joggers and a sweatshirt they’d found in some human-centric bazaar a few solar systems back that honestly, April and he refused to talk about out of solidarity for humanity’s privacy. His throat burns, his head aches but Casey’s still alive, which isn’t even the weirdest thing in the room.
That honour belongs to Raph, who’s slumped over in a hard backed chair, leg crossed over his knee as he looks over one of the professors devices, not unlike a tablet from back on earth, like he hadn’t been spitting venom moments ago in Casey distorted-time reference. He and Raph have a sixth sense when it comes to the other however, and as soon as Casey shifts, Raph’s focus is entirely on him, the tablet hitting the metal floor with a decisive bang that has Casey cringing.
Wordlessly, Raph holds out a water to him, which Casey takes after a moment of hesitation. After practically eating the glass and shoving it back at him, Casey clambers up onto his hands and scowls at Raph, like he’d personally punched him into unconsciousness. “Don’t say a fuckin’ thing.”
Raph, despite the tightly coiled rage, has enough restraint to cross his arms even though his hands sit in a tremor. “About what, voidmouth? You lying or you bein’ sick and not tellin’ any of us?”
“I don’t have to -“
“That’s bullshit, yes you do, Jones,” Raph growls out, hands slamming down over his kneepads like his word was final in every sense of a gavel being slammed. “The fact you think you don’t is a problem.”
Casey laughs, but it turns more into a wheeze than he wanted. “So I just have to tell you all my problems, then? Just spill all the nasty stuff and let you guys scoop it up?”
“Yes,” Raph says, so poignant and pointed Casey feels like he’s been sharpening his sais recently just for this conversation. “That’s the point of being part of a family, idiot.”
Oh. Hm. He stills at that, because no one had ever laid out his place so bluntly, before. It had been a long time since anyone had claimed him, especially so roughly to his face, but it did something exciting to Casey’s chest that had him scratching at his breastbone, like he could dig out the feeling if he just pressed hard enough. He’s sure he could, especially when Raph’s settled back in his seat, the anger dripping out of him and eyes softening when he looks at Casey now, like he wasn’t all sandpaper and hacksaws. Raph hadn’t looked at him like that before, either.
“So,” Raph says, his voice sounding like he left it four steps behind him as he sighs. “Gonna talk about it?”
“I was gonna - say somethin’,” Casey says, making the heartbreak sound survivable, turning away from Raph like people turn from car crashes. “Promise. But then, like, the world got messed up and we got thrown into space and you met Mona who’s awesome and it just - it never - you know.”
Raph doesn’t say anything, merely stares over Casey like he’s trying to figure out the first time he would’ve spoken about him in past tense to someone, like grieving someone who hadn’t yet found a way past his fingers. Raph’s glad of his hands for that; they never seem to let go easily.
After a moment, Raph slumps into himself, leaning forwards and clasping his hands together, like someone wiser would listen if he just hoped hard enough. “Donnie said it was stupid close,” Raph mutters carefully, slowly, like he’s trying to forgive himself for missing the garden work, “that if he hadn’t made you that dumb medicine before everything went up in smoke, you probably wouldn’t have made it this far. That I wouldn’t -“
He can’t say it, because saying it puts Casey in a box and Casey’s so much better than labels. He’s better than everything that’s every happened to him; he’s quick-witted and stupidly loyal and would go to town on someone for anyone’s behalf, if he thought he could help. Casey had been born a shield, had been made to be everyone else’s corner and had quickly accepted that with that role came the absence of his own. His dad had never cared, school definitely hadn’t and just wanted to filter him through and shove him back out until he was no longer their problem. And still, Casey fought the good fight. Still, Casey believed the world was worth saving when it had never tried to rescue him in return.
Casey was kind, and dumb and precious to Raph in a way few things were in his life. He wished he could’ve seen that earlier.
When he works around it, his voice comes out steadier. “They told me there’s two options for you, cause I didn’t know what the hell was goin’ on with you until the professor let me know. One; you tell the person you love that you love them or two; you get that thing cut out of you and you lose all memory of them.”
Casey nods, because he knew that already. Why was Raph regurgitating what was in all of Donnie’s articles to him?
“I told them to cut it out of you.”
Oh. That’s why.
Casey’s no stranger to rage and he’s no stranger to directing it at Raph, but he’s never been furious. He’s never tasted it on his tongue like this, felt it blaze up from his stomach and into his teeth because who the hell was Raph to decide what he got and didn’t get to feel? Casey’s eyes go wide and his head snaps towards Raph like it’s on a split wire, mouth twisting into a snarl as Raph just keeps going.
“I’d rather you forget me and get on with your life than sit ‘round, moping over me. It’s not healthy for you and I’d never -“
“YOU FUCKING DICK!” Casey clatteres like a thunderstorm, limbs flying up in all directions as he swings around on his hips, throwing his legs over the side of his cot to shove himself to his feet and into Raph’s space. It sends Raph into a wide-eyed stumble, chair flying back, as if he hadn’t been expecting Casey to throw a fit over Raph trying to save his life. “WHO THE FUCK ARE YOU TO MESS WITH ME LIKE THAT? YOU DON’T GET TO GO INSIDE O’ ME AND MESS ME UP TWICE. YOU’RE MEANT TO BE MY BEST FRIEND AND AFTER EVERYTHING WE’VE BEEN THROUGH, YOU THINK I’M JUST GONNA -“
Somehow, as Casey stumbles towards him, Raph manages to sling out a hand, clapping Casey on the shoulder and shoving him back down onto the cot with a grunt. Casey still scrambles to get back on his feet, still fighting when he thinks he’s lost but Raph snarls at him, shoving another hand onto his other shoulder to keep him there. “Jones! Just sit still for a damn -“
“- YOU THINK I’M GONNA TAKE THIS, RAPH? THAT I NEED YOU AND THIS SHIP? I AN OUTTA HERE NEXT MOON, JUST -“
“God, are you hearing yourself?!” Raph says, giving Casey a shake like he could rattle him back into reasonable thought. “They didn’t do it! You still remember me, dumbass!”
… rewind.
Casey blinks, mouth still slung wide in a yell, hands curled into Raph’s wrists by the nailbeds before his brain catches up to what Raph’s said. After a moment, when his chest stops heaving and the tears haven’t fell, he has the bravery to look Raph fully in the face.
“I said you have two options, Jones,” Raph says and though his face is still hard-cut, his brows drawn, Casey could map Raph out in the dark. Had followed him home, beaten and bruised and would follow him anywhere that Raph wanted to go as long as he just asked him to come along. It’s an admission that feels both dirty and clean, wrong and right, because feeling the way he does for his best friend goes against everything he’d ever been told. That he was ruining it, squandering it, that he didn’t deserve it after everything he’d ever gone through. Casey would be the first to say that, his own worst enemy on the front lines.
But Raph looks at him like Casey was every wish he’d ever made on birthday candles, that every coin he’d tossed into a sewer drain had come out swinging. Raph hadn’t looked at him like that before and as he takes his hands from Casey’s shoulders, he leans down into Casey’s space. Heat fills his face, his eyes drawing away until all he can focus on is the neon green in Raph’s eyes that seek him out like a homing signal. He refuses to let him hide from this any longer.
“Two options; they cut it out, or you get a chance to tell the person you love that you love them,” Raph says, voice soft around the edges like he’d been waiting for this. And Casey knows it’s real, because Raph doesn’t look away from him. He doesn’t even blink, like even a millisecond would be too long and too much of a hindrance to be away from him. “So tell me you love me, Casey.”
Contrary to popular belief, Casey Jones is very easy to love. And as Raph leans in, hooking a hand around the back of Casey’s head to shove them both into a kiss, he’s beginning to realise that too.