[Fic] So Let’s Try This Again:

[Fic] So let’s try this again:

- See I wanted to make this a comic but then I felt it would lack a certain nuance and complexity of character povs that I wanted to to delve into. Cuz man there is just so much to say about these two and their dynamic, Soo Fic it is! Pls go easy on me, guys I’m not much of a writer and these guys are hard to write for me 🥲

—

“Wow, guess Donald was right.” Came a chuckle, “You are like a little shadow.”

And Casey freezes, hands barely hovering over Leo’s arms. Suddenly he’s seven years old again, caught red handed peeking through a little crack into meeting room.

A crooked grin, spreads itself across the slider’s face. “Hey shadow” His voice lilts playfully. So much younger and so much lighter yet still so achingly familiar, that if Casey hadn’t already spent 10 days into past? the present? being punched with that oh so wonderful cocktail of grief-nostalgia-fondness, he would have burst into tears already.

Instead, Casey smiles wryly. Awkwardly shuffling away from the bedside. “Sorry I didn’t mean to wake you. I just wanted to check on your injuries”. He raises a brow “I can go if you want..?”

“Nah it’s cool. I’ve been sleeping lots anyways.”

“You were in a coma” The human deadpans.

“Eh.. same thing.” Sensei-no just Leo now,shrugs.

“It’s really not.” Casey snorts. A beat. A pause. And then because he’s been holding onto this for too long and his mom didn’t raise no coward. And Uncle Mi didn’t teach him to be the kind of person who doesn’t apologise. Because Leo’s been awake for two days now, cmon Casey you can’t hold onto this forever-

“I’m sorry.”

“Whaat? I’m sorry? Sorry for what?” The slider laughs, tilting his head to the side. “Did you ruin my very rare first edition Jupiter Jim saves a cat comic?”

“Well..no.”

“Then you got nothing to be sorry for” Leo smiles, a clear attempt at lightening the mood.

But Casey won’t let him. This needs to be said. Nervous, the teen wrings his hands together. “I meant what I said in the tunnels.”

“Ah. That.” The blue toned slider falters ever so slightly. “It’s fine!” He grins brightly, casually waving Casey away. Too casual. Because of course he is. They are different. But Sensei and Leo shared a past together once. And it shows.

“You were right,” Leo continues, “I was being arrogant and I wasn’t listening to my team itz all good.”

“Well yeh, I wasn’t wrong there.” Frustrated, Casey yanks a hand through his hair. “But I was being too harsh. I was expecting you to be like Sensei when I shouldn’t have. It’s not fair.”

“Yeh… You shouldn’t have.” Leo agrees, looking away. Uncharacteristically quiet from what Casey has seen of him over his two day (and currently halfway through his third) long coherency.

Oh Shell, He’s just made this worse didn’t he?

“That’s not what I meant” Casey’s hands ball into fists. Should he hug Leo? Would that be too weird? Hugs were for family, he was only a stranger. “I- I’m not good with words.” The ravenette groans, wringing his hands together again.

“It’s not about you. But it’s not not about you, you know?” He gestures to the bed ridden turtle emphatically. “It’s about all of you guys. Your family loves you. Their Leo, not Master Leonardo. You don’t need to be anything else. You’re enough just the way you are. Michelangelo wouldn’t have opened that portal otherwise. They need you, just as much as you need them.”

An indiscernible flash flickers across the other’s face. But he quickly relaxes back into a smile. “Hmm.. If you say so” Leo drawls, perfect mask. Perfect play. But something in his shoulders ease ever so slightly. So Casey has hope that there is something that sticks.

A silence then descends upon the Med Bay. It drags on and lingers. Both parties not knowing what else to say. Casey’s about to go excuse himself, when Leo opens his mouth. “You know we’re your family too right?”

The younger teen blinks. “Huh?”

“We’re your family too.” The turtle repeats. Narrowing his eyes firmly. “Look, I dunno what’s been going on this past week. but knowing the others, they’re probably just trying to figure out how to broach that ‘ole subject with you without making you uncomfortable”

Wisely Cj only hums and says nothing. Knowing whatever he says would sound about as unconvinced as he feels. Tell that to my Ninpo he wants to say bitterly. Tell that to every conversation he’s turned stilted and cold, because he’s slipped up and believed for a second that things were one and the same.

(When mom died, April it was you brushed my hair. And taught me how to tie my hair.

Michelangelo you always encouraged me to draw on our walls till the last of our chalk was gone.

Donatello you let me sleep in your lab even on the days you banned even Sensei from coming in.

And Leo- .. Leonardo you were everything. You who used to tie my shoelaces and the first to come running when I cried.

I can recite the lines from so many different Lou Jitsu movies I never got to see.)

He must not hide it as well he thinks. Because Leo shoots him the most exasperated -are you serious look-.

“Dude, Dad and Raph found a subway car for you. April snuck you a discount at her new workplace. And shell-!” Leo throws his hands up, “Donnie let you fix our cameras, and don’t even get me started on how Mikey lets you help him in his kitchen even though I’m his favourite brother and I’m banned.” Leo grumbles, crossing his arms together.

“I- I guess you do have a point .” Despite his best efforts, Casey ducks his head down and his eyes begin to burn. Boy, Casey is really starting to hate how much sense Leo is making. For all the differences between Sensei and Leonardo, why did the universe have to give them the one similarity that lets them talk their way into whatever they want and making Casey agree with them? Perhaps.. perhaps what Casey had Misconstrued as polite obligation was maybe something deeper after all.. ?

“Course, I do. I’m awesome.” Leo smirks, flicking his mask tails with a flourish that has Casey resisting the urge to groan and roll his eyes.

“I know it won’t be the same. But you are family Case. I promise you. All of this means something. We won’t let you be alone” His eyes soften, “You’re my family.” And it’s true, Leo does not know Casey. In his eyes, it’s been a little under 72 hours since he’s met Casey. And only 48 hours since all hell broke loose. But hell could have been so much worse and he can see everything.

The expertly wrapped bandages around Mikey arms and Donnie’s shell, the carefully filled resin over the hole, they had so graciously given his biggest brother’s shell, with such precision his beloved purple twin couldn’t hope (nor want) to achieve. Corners of the med bay that had been gathering dust now suspiciously clean. Faithfully ushering their sister to and fro the lair. Heck even the way the oily haired teen (which ew gross, someone really had to go teach that kid how to wash his hair) was hovering over him now, taking shifts so his father and brothers and sister could rest.

Casey didn’t have to do those things. He owed them nothing. They weren’t the people who raised him. He could have just up and left once the initial invasion was over, he didn’t have to try so hard. Once it became clear that Leo, and by extension the others, were nothing like the people Casey grew up with. But he didn’t, he stayed. He cares. He cares so much.

And Shell, if that didn’t make Casey family, Leo didn’t know what will. If he could tolerate Baron ‘you threw me of a roof’ Draxum into his family he can definitely accept Casey.

A strangled noise breaks him from his thoughts, Leo comes back to himself to see a sniffing, now crying Junior.

“Ok bring it in, little brother” Leo grins smirking fondly, spreading his arms wide (because yes, of course one of the first things Leo asked, once he established Raph, Donnie, Mikey, April and dad were ok. Was what was Casey’s age. He needed to know if he could rub his age into Casey’s face. He needed his shit-eating grin older brother rights damn it!). Immediately, Casey rushes forward sobbing, wrapping his arms around the turtle as tightly as he can without further aggravating the other boy’s injuries.

“I’m so glad you’re here Leo.” He chokes out wetly, the tears he had been holding back for this entire interaction now freely flowing because truly, this was all he really wanted. He could never and would never ask the present Hamato family to be crushed under the same weight his guardians had been. All he asked was to be loved, and not alone. And sure he still had a lot of doubts but maybe, just maybe, Leo was right and he wasn’t as alone or unloved as he thought.

(He is future boy, freshly uprooted and fumbling blindly but maybe, just maybe not nearly the lone orphan without a home)

“I couldn’t have lost you twice” Casey shudders, burying his head deeper into Leo’s shoulder.

“And now you won’t. It’s all thanks to you.” Leo replies determinedly, tightening his grip around the other boy. And then in a much quieter, more vulnerable voice, he adds,

“I’m so glad I’m here too.” Because he was, Leo most truly and definitely was.

(And somewhere, deep down subdued, not so isolated teal begins to tentatively reach towards waiting blueredpurpleorangegreenwhitepink maroon and pulse a little less weakly again)