Chapter Text
His mother having died before he was a toddler and his father never in the picture, the only example Casey ever got to see of love, or at least romantic love, as a child had been the love shared between Donnie and Commander O’Neil.
A quiet, calm love in the face of the chaos and misfortune the world had dissolved into long before Casey was born, he had watched them for guidance on patience and understanding. The love of all the turtles for him and each other has informed him as a person, but the love between Donnie and the Commander had always been different. It had never wavered, not through any argument nor any failed mission. It was a constant that Casey would enjoy watching, looking upon them as they stood closer to each other than any other person, watching the look in their eyes as they beheld each other.
So it’s confusing to Casey, understandably so, when he looks upon them as they were in their teenaged years, dancing around what is almost palpable to Casey. These two are not the Commander O'Neil and Donnie that Casey remembers; they are seemingly made up of stolen looks; almost never meeting each other eyes, their words flitting around what they mean to say and choose to withhold from each other. Casey had always thought Donnie and the Commander had an easy love, a natural love, and to see it floundering so brings a pain to Casey’s heart that he’s not sure how to even go about expressing. It’s maddening, if he has to put a word to it, watching the two of them pretend to just be friends when they mean obviously so much more to each other, and it takes him almost three months of suffering through watching this frankly awkward avoidance of it before he has to say something.
But who does he say it to? He knows both of them well enough, from the future (his past? The semantics have been screwing with Casey) to know that if he says it to either of them, it’ll be disregarded immediately. They always had this habit of brushing Casey off in specific relation to their own romance, and from what he’s seen of them as teens, it seems to still be more or less the case. But then, who can he talk about it with?
He automatically wants to discuss it with Sensei, but he can’t help but remember his near-constant joking about their relationship, which often bordered on the inappropriate even when he was but a child. Considering that even that version of his sensei had emotional maturity, and his younger counterpart is still learning it, he quickly decides it’s not an option. He would tell Master Michelangelo, but the very idea of it makes him shudder.
He’d never spent too much time near Raphael, as he had died when he was still very young, but he’s his best shot, especially considering with how Casey quickly realizes that he might very well be the most emotionally mature one on the team in this time. It’s what’s led Casey to his current place, working up the nerves to knock on the door of the subway car Raphael calls a room, anxious in a way he hadn’t felt since he was a child, and he can’t help but feel silly. He’d survived so much worse than this, and yet, this, this thing is what brings him anxiety? He almost wants to laugh at himself for being this nervous, but before he lets himself think about it anymore, he knocks a little harder on the door than he means to.
Raphael regards him with confusion when he sees it’s just Casey, mostly because they have yet to build up a rapport like Casey has managed to do with his siblings, but he smiles kindly down upon him nonetheless. Casey does remember that about him. A man of his size and stature, and never once would he make Casey feel like he was small. He motions for Casey to join him, opening his room to him, and Casey can’t help but feel like he’s invading into a world that never got to be his. He’s aware that this Raphael will not become the man he’d known in the future, and yet, he’s everything and more.
He first notices the fairy lights, and it brings a smile to Casey’s lips. Raphael always made sure they had them strung up in any of the hideouts, despite having to move around fairly frequently. They’re a constant Casey hasn’t even realized he longs for. A substitute for a night sky Casey had never gotten to truly see, in the splendor Donnie would describe for him.
Secondly, Casey notices a freakishly large quantity of stuffed animals throughout the room, which is a bit startling. This was not something he'd ever been privy to when he was a child. They’re all in some degree of over-flattened and in need of a good repair, and if he has to guess, Raphael does the necessary repairs himself. He can’t picture it, due to the sheer size of Raphael, but he can tell by the somewhat noticeable lack of precision in some of the ones who look to be older. Some look in better repair than others, and possibly, he’s looking at the labor of practice and hard work. Granted, he’d never gotten to know Raphael so well, but this is still more than he could have ever expected.
Raphael gives a soft clearing of his throat, grabbing Casey’s attention back enough to motion to a small stool he’d pulled out from probably under the bed for him, and Casey takes this offered seat gratefully. The bed is a bit too high off the ground for Casey to comfortably scale, and he already feels badly enough for invading his personal space like this in the first place.
“I’m sorry for disturbing you,” Casey says as Raphael maneuvers around him, moving to lean back against the edge of his bed.
“You’re not,” Raphael says with a shake of his head, as if surprised Casey would even apologize, “D’you know how many times a day Mikey barges in here? I’m just not used to people knockin’. Somethin’ up, though?”
“I mean… yes? But, also… no?” Casey says before frowning.
He’s not used to fielding non-life threatening issues, he realizes. It's not to say it doesn't matter—it is still important. Or, at least to Casey, it’s important. But it’s not exactly grand scheme important, either.
“So, not like, apocalypse-kinda stuff, but stuff?” Raphael says, as if able to read his mind, “Is it a feelings kinda thing? I gotta warn ya, Mikey’s the guy you need for feelings. You meet Dr. Feelings yet?”
Oh, pizza supreme in the sky, has Casey met Dr. Feelings. Both in this time and his own.
“I don’t think it’s a seminar kind of issue, sir,” he says with a shiver.
Raphael tilts his head back to bark out laughter. Casey can’t help but be startled by the sudden reaction before he realizes that Raphael had found him funny. He doesn’t even have any memories of Raphael laughing. Raphael looks apologetic when he notices Casey’s face, giving him another gentle smile as he wipes away the tear the laughter caused.
“You ain’t gotta call me sir, Casey,” Raphael reminds him, “It’s just Raph. But if you don’t wanna deal with Mikey, then what is it?”
Raph feels far too personal for a hero like Raphael, so he’s not quite able to wrap his brain around the concept.
“Well it’s…” Casey starts before he shifts uncomfortably, and suddenly, he’s aware that his ears are burning up. Is this… is this embarrassment? He hasn’t felt it in what feels like centuries. There’s not much room for being embarrassed when trying to survive an apocalypse.
Raphael seems to take note of it, and he stands up a bit straighter. Casey remembers this look he's giving him well enough. He knows Raphael is taking him seriously now.
“It’s…” Casey has to shake his head, trying to ignore his own embarrassment, “It’s Donnie and Commander O’Neil, sir. Why are they not together?”
There’s an almost tactile silence between them, and Casey has to look everywhere but at Raphael. Embarrassment is too overpowering an emotion, Casey decides, and his body betrays him. He can feel his cheeks heating up to match his ears, and he tries to pretend that it’s absolutely normal to worry about your future family and the fact that they’re clearly dancing around something that, while insignificant, also makes up the person he’d grow up to be.
“… Are they… in the future?” Raphael asks him, and it’s the hesitation that had him looking back towards him.
Seeing a person of Raphael’s stature be this visibly embarrassed helps him feel less guilty about feeling this way. In fact, it’s a little bit more encouraging than Raphael would ever realize.
“They were,” Casey replies, hanging his head when he remembers how much it had made Commander O’Neil harden when they lost Donnie. How her smile would never reach her eyes again. How she always carried his bō with her until the end. They’d lost her well before she’d died, never to be the same again in the aftermath of his death. It’d hurt, that she’d loved him so absolutely, so fully, that losing him killed a part of her like it had.
But it hurts more to watch them not even give them a chance, Casey’s decided, and steeling himself, he tells Raphael as much as he can bear without his heart aching.
Raph is good at many things, but gentle emotional touch isn’t one of them, and he knows enough to know that romance typically needs the gentlest of touches even for those who are open to it. For Donnie, though, they needed to have the touch of a butterfly, and even that could set him off.
Convincing Casey to let him rope his brothers in is tough. Casey knows them as well as Raph does, even if it is in a apocalyptic future, and so he is quick to contend that Leo wouldn’t take it seriously and Mikey would try to take control over the whole situation, and it takes a lot of begging and arguing to get Casey to tell them about it too. Raph knows that Leo knows they like each other; having seen enough instances over the past few years to know that what they had seen at that party years ago hadn’t been a fluke, so Leo’s not quite the problem in convincing to join their team in getting them to stop being idiots and get together.
The problem, almost predictably, is Dr. Feelings himself, who has launched into a full-blown seminar dissecting the topic of love and how what they see in April and Donnie literally cannot be romantic, you see, because they were siblings, right, and siblings, well, they couldn’t possibly love each other like that—
“—Because then it’s weird, and it ruins the dynamic for all the other siblings, especially the youngest one, you see, because maybe the youngest one loves his sister and wants her to stay a sister,” Mikey lectures them, pointing to his slide with a frantic, almost crazed look in his eye, and Casey turns his head and shoots him a look that, despite being all parts weary and concerned, also very clearly expressed the I Told You So that he has the good grace not to vocalize.
Leo rolls his eyes, throwing his popcorn at their youngest brother, who looks about ready to pop. They’d known that Mikey historically had a bit of an issue with the idea of April and Donnie being even just more than friends, ever since the party incident, but they had the hope that he would grow out of it. However, it seems all Mikey’s done since then is sink his heels further into it.
“I’m getting the feeling that Dr. Feelings is a little biased,” Leo says loudly, goading Mikey.
Mikey quirks his lips into a smile that is more dangerous than friendly.
“Dr. Feelings is allowed to have feelings, he’s not a monster,” he says tersely, smacking Leo on the hand with his pointing wand, to which he howls and snaps his hand back. Leo cradles his hand in angry dismay, glaring at Mikey as he cradles it closer to his chest.
“I don’t get it,” Casey can’t seem to help but say, “You always offered to officiate their wedding in the future.”
Mikey turns his gaze upon him, and he quickly silences, looking anywhere else but at Mikey. All Raph can do is pat the kid’s head in sympathy, knowing he means well. Meaning well means absolutely nothing, however, in the face of Mikey when gets stubborn, and Raph should’ve remembered that himself before convincing him to explain the situation to Mikey. At the best of times, Mikey can be the kindest, sweetest little guy, but at the worse of times, he could be a demon if he knows he isn’t getting his way.
“Mikey, don’t you think you’re bein’ a little unreasonable?” Raph tries, more than used to the look that’s hurled at him.
For the umpteenth time, he wishes he hadn’t spoiled him so much as a child, but it’s just so hard not to. He is just too adorable, even if he is being a complete brat right now. Mikey lets out a laugh that seemingly sends chills down Casey’s spine, and Raph continues patting his soft locks by way of easing him through this.
Leo’s still rubbing his hand, frowning at Mikey as he says, “Maybe you shouldn’t have told him.”
(Raph’s actually inclined to agree, but he would rather dress up as a ballerina and dance in Times Square than admit that out loud to Leo. He would never let him live it down.)
“Mikey, he’s your brother. Don’t ya want him to be happy?” Raph says instead, pretending he hadn’t heard Leo at all, who he notices scowls at him, but otherwise remains silent.
“He can be happy with someone who isn’t his sister,” Mikey says, pointing back to the slide as he repeats, just as what’s written before them, “Because incest is immoral and we’re not immoral.”
“She’s not even related to us by blood,” Leo contends, rolling his eyes as he pulls his hand out the way before Mikey can smack it again, “They’re not even the same species. Shouldn’t you have more of a problem with that?”
“Sensei, who’s side are you on?” Casey pipes from his place on the floor, turning his head over his shoulder to look at Leo with a disappointed frown.
Leo’s frustration visibly grows, and Raph immediately knows Casey’s pulling the [patent-pending] I Thought You Were Better Than This look he’s become so well known for. Sometimes, Raph’s got half a mind to tell Casey that he needs to use this super power of his for good, since it’s kind of an instant-kill move when it comes to Leo.
“I’m not against it, Case. Love is love, kumbaya and all that, I’m just trying to show Mikey that maybe there’s bigger and definitely more important questions to be had rather than the family thing,” Leo says, dramatically waving his hand and nearly pouting before adding, “I can’t believe I’m the bad guy. I’m not the one who created a whole presentation about the dangers of incest. They’re not even blood-related.”
“We’re related in here,” Mikey says with a soft smile, putting a hand over his chest, “That counts for something.”
“Mikey, it won’t ruin the family if they got together,” Leo says with a roll of his eyes, “April is still gonna be our sister. Besides—” he crouches low, acting like he’s presenting Casey as some sort of new discovery, and all Casey can seem to do is give an awkward little wave and possibly an even more awkward smile, if Raph has to guess, “—if there’s anything we’ve done, we’ve proven that the future is kind of what we make it. Case in point, his whole situation. Maybe they grow out of it and break up but stay friends. If they even wanna get together. Shouldn’t they have the freedom of choosing that?”
“But—but—exactly!” Mikey argues, pointing at Casey, “What if they don’t even stay together and they just break up and April stops coming around? I am not losing her! She’s my lifeline in this family. She’s my favorite.”
“Harsh, but I get it,” Raph mumbles, his feelings more hurt than he’d like to admit, watching Mikey hold his hands over his heart at the idea of April.
He’d always thought he was Mikey’s favorite. Knowing he’s lost to April stings.
“Oh, and now you’re hurting Raphadoodle's feelings,” Leo exclaims, throwing his hands up in the air and jumping to his feet to point dramatically at their brother, “Too far, Miguelito, too far. You know Raph’s a soft, delicate angel baby!”
If Leo hadn’t been trying to campaign for him, he would argue with him for calling him soft. He benches a solid four-seventy-five and growing; he’s not soft, he’s a boss. However, knowing Leo’s trying to make his case holds him back from his argument with Leo. Instead, he tries his best to do his sad eyes at Mikey, which is not very hard considering his feelings are genuinely hurt, and Mikey nearly melts when he looks at him.
“I’m sorry,” Mikey cries, jumping over Casey and tackling Raph into a bear hug, arms wrapping around Raph’s neck as presses his cheek into his, “I didn’t mean it!”
“Then how could you say that to Raph?!” Raph cries back at him, hugging him back as hard as he can without crushing the younger turtle completely.
“I dunno! I just don’t wanna lose April!” Mikey sobs.
“Uhhh… why would you lose April, now?”
Raph startles at the sound of April’s voice, nearly throwing Mikey off of him when he jumps to his feet. April stands in the doorway behind where they sit on the couch, eyes wide as she takes in the entire picture, which, Raph realizes regretfully, is a bit damning out of context, what with incest is immoral and we’re not immoral emblazoned in bold italics on the screen via the projector. To this, he does drop Mikey, the boy yelping as he crashes down on the floor, and for once, Leo is dead silent, but not for lack of things to say, but an apparent reignited interest in the popcorn, looking like he’s about to watch a really good movie rather than a wholly awkward interaction.
“April! We was just—” Raph starts, stumbling over himself as he struggles to find a good explanation.
He can’t help but curse himself for not being as swift with his wit like Donnie or Leo are, but when he looks at Leo, he’s just met with his usual mischievous grin. Despite this, he finds himself motioning for him to speak, to save them even a little bit. However, it's quickly dashed by the glint in Leo's eyes. Chaos Incarnate has entered the chat.
“No way, I wanna see how this is gonna go!” Leo chirps happily before he waves, “Hi, April! Welcome to the seminar!”