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“Hey, Casey…?” Leo stands at the edge of the Pit, rubbing his arm awkwardly when the human looks over. It’s weird to see him look so bashful, especially when he’s usually so uptight around him that Casey thinks Leo hates him, and that’s part of the reason he doesn’t immediately shrug off whatever favor he’s going to ask for. “Could you - could you eat lunch with me?” he finally asks. “The guys are out.”
And… oh. Oh, he had not been expecting that.
Leo was always weird with food. Like, weird in a way that Casey didn’t really want to bring up because he was scared he would get his dick chopped off by one of the guys - weird as in only ate around family, weird as in always freaked out bad if someone bought him food - and Casey wasn’t touching that can of worms with a ten foot pole. They’re his friends, yeah, but he knows a family issue when he sees one, and he doesn’t want to step in where it’s not needed. Besides, if what he’s thinking is right, it’s probably better he just stays out of it completely.
But now the dude is looking like he’d rather be anywhere else than asking Casey for such a small favor, and he feels his heart pang. It’s like his sister is asking for hot milk to help her sleep, and he blames the fact that he’s a little older than the turtles for the random burst of older brother instinct.
“Sure, dude,” he grins, pretending he doesn’t notice the way Leo sags in relief. “Want me to go grab something, or…?”
“No, we have leftovers,” Leo hums. “Do you want to eat down here?”
Casey pretends he doesn’t notice the way Leo stiffens at takeout, either, but files it under his growing file on their home life. He’s not as oblivious as they like to think he is - he knows poverty and its effects when he sees it, and he’s slowly building them towards accepting gifts they don’t have to repay. Even when they act like they owe him their lives for some chicken nuggets.
“That’s chill. I’ll put something on,” he says instead of voicing any of that mess. Leo nods once before turning to go prepare the food, and Casey takes a moment to collect all of his thoughts before he comes back. Even so, he’s still a pretty impulsive person, and can’t resist asking the question that’s been on the tip of his tongue since Leo first asked when he returns. “So why did you want to eat lunch with me?”
Leo glances away. “I… need to eat with someone.”
“Why?”
“To -” Leo clears his throat, stabbing at his pasta for a second. Casey almost backtracks on his question, seeing how much Leo is struggling to answer, but he thinks the fact that he hasn’t even tried to lie means some part of him wants to say it. And, hey, the older brother instincts are still strong. Casey’s all ears. “I need to eat with someone to make sure I don’t… vomit. After.”
Oh.
Oh. That… that makes sense, actually. All of the dodginess after meals and the hawk-like monitoring of him by his brothers - it all falls into place, suddenly.
Casey manages to keep his face level, though, not showing shock or disgust or even sympathy so that Leo can’t read into it, giving him a passive “okay,” before taking a bite of his own food. “Flea Market Flip is on,” he suggests, thumbing through the TV guide.
“That show sucks. They always make the pieces uglier,” Leo argues. He watches Casey eat for another minute before taking a hesitant bite of his own food, and Casey tries not to feel self-conscious about that. Leo would probably be upset if he changed up his own eating habits to cater to him, anyway.
“So we’re watching it?” he asks.
“Oh, absolutely.”
When he notices Leo squishing his pasta around the bowl a little into the episode, he’s not really sure what to say. Should he point it out? Should he leave it alone as long as he eats some of it? He’s being, like, trusted to watch over his eating habits right now, right? But he’s also not family, and he doesn’t know how Leo will react if -
“Please stop watching me,” Leo mumbles, squishing harder. “I’ll eat it, just…”
Casey rips his gaze away. He hadn’t even noticed he was staring, shit. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to.”
“It’s fine.” The shake in Leo’s hand says otherwise. Casey doesn’t comment. “I can’t believe they ruined that poor chair,” Leo awkwardly segues, “it was such a nice color. It just needed a little TLC.”
He looks at the chair Leo’s talking about, frowning in thought when he sees the before and after. Honestly, he kinda liked the after more - the original green color reminded him a little bit of vomit, and the cushion was just hideous before they replaced it with a cushy brown fabric that looked uber-comfortable - and he says so.
Leo, by the absolutely disgusted face he makes, disagrees. “No, you’re so wrong right now. The original had a vintage charm, this just looks… tacky. And vomit is more brown or yellow, anyway.”
They both freeze. And then Leo snorts, doubling over in laughter, and Casey cackles just from the relief. “Oh my god, sorry, I didn’t -”
“No, no, go ahead vomit expert!” Casey grins, making an Italian hand gesture because of the pasta. He doesn’t think Leo gets it, but the turtle is polite enough to laugh anyway, even if he’s too embarrassed about the vomit comment to make eye contact. “Tell me all about the vomit colors.”
“That’s so gross,” Leo chides, but he’s smiling despite the scrunched-up beak, so Casey doesn’t think too much of it. He just shrugs and finishes up his bowl, shifting his attention back to the show.
It’s a while later before Leo finishes, but he does eventually, and Casey doesn’t even bother to tamp down the warm pride in his chest at that. Even if he doesn’t know Leo all that well aside from his garbage taste in furniture, he’s super happy he managed to finish his food, and he wants to say something about it.
But then Leo stands up, and that pride is quickly ushered out by concern. “Hey, where are you goin’? They’re about to sell the last chest.”
Leo stops but doesn’t turn around to look at him, and alarm bells start ringing in Casey’s head. “I just have to pee,” he says, and the bells grow louder.
Should he say something? Would that freak Leo out? He’s going to regret it if he doesn’t say anything, right? “Uh, I don’t know if…”
“I’m just peeing,” Leo bites out, and it’s such a complete 180 in tone that Casey genuinely reels back. The worst part is that Leo doesn’t even seem to realize in his effort to hightail it to the bathroom, and Casey has to remind himself that eating disorders can do a lot more talking than people think.
“Okay,” he concedes, getting up to follow despite the glare Leo gives him. “But can you leave the door open? I don’t want you puking, y’know?” Leo sighs angrily, and Casey thinks it’s time to pull out his trump card. “You asked me to, man. Your brother’s’ll be mad, won’t they?”
Leo pauses, then leaves the door open a crack when he walks into the bathroom.
“Sorry,” he mutters a minute later, after he washes his hands and comes back out completely calm again. Briefly, the mental image of Leo pissing out all of his anger flashes across Casey's mind, and he bites the inside corner of his mouth to keep from smiling when he shouldn't. “I shouldn’t have gotten so angry with you.”
“It’s chill.” And, really, it is. Casey hadn’t expected an apology, much less Leo agreeing to leave the door open without too much of a fuss. Again, he feels that same silly pride, and he slings an arm around the shorter turtle’s shoulders to guide him back to the couch. “That’s what friends are for, right?”
Leo looks a little lost at that, and Casey quietly files that under his growing tab on them. These poor kids are all kinds of messed up.
When his brothers return, Raph is the first one to notice the dirty dishes and get concerned. “You guys ate?” he asks, way too nonchalantly to be anything other than panicked, and Casey wonders how he didn’t piece this all together sooner.
Instead of panicking or anything, though, Leo looks over at him with an embarrassed smile. “I ate with Casey. Don’t worry.”
“And you didn’t…?”
Casey takes that as his que to jump in. “No, it’s all good,” he assures, holding his hand up for Leo to fist-bump him. It takes a second, but eventually the gesture is returned. “We watched the Flea Market Flip on the DVR, by the way.”
Raph grimaces. “Don’t tell Mikey. He’ll be pissed .”
“Pissed about what?” Mikey asks, walking in to the room holding their empty pasta bowls. “And I can’t believe you ate the leftovers without me!” He whines. It’s innocent enough, until you consider the fact that he’s, like, staring at Leo, really intensely, hard enough that Casey squirms just from proximity.
“Leo didn’t vom , it’s fine,” he sighs, trying to break the tension and a little bit wishing the three of them would talk about things before grilling poor Leo with thinly-veiled questions in front of someone they didn’t know knew. …Though, to be fair, if they’d been acting like this the whole time and he hadn’t pieced things together until Leo said something, maybe he was as oblivious as they thought, so he guesses he can't fault them too much for that.
Donnie clues into the conversation finally, looking between Leo and Casey. Casey actually gets that one, though - he hadn’t expected Leo to open up to him in a million years; he had kinda pieced together that the dude was like a brick wall, but what Raph said made him sound like a brick wall with, like, three moats. Hearing the sudden confession at the start of the meal had really thrown him off, too. “He - you told him?”
Leo shifts in his seat. “Look, can we not make this a big deal?”
“Yeah,” Mikey grins, the first to recover. Casey lets out a quiet little breath, ready to play video games with the hyperactive teen for the next hour or so, until the next sentence makes his heart freeze. “Let’s watch that old Flea Market Flip episode we recorded!”
Raph, Casey, and Leo all share a look, and Donnie quickly vacates the room as soon as Mikey sees the progress bar.