Chapter Text
"God, I wish I had money." Mikey groaned.
Raph grimaced as he looked at the patty on his burger and pushed it to the side of his lunch tray. It was Wednesday, burger day, at their school, which was more dreaded than hyped up by the students.
"Ugh, same. All of the kids in my anime club have a bunch of cool Attack on Titan and One Piece and other anime stuff, and the only stuff I have is my stickers from, like, 4 years ago." Donnie agreed, tapping his fingers against the lunch table.
"You guys could just get jobs. You know that, right?" April said as she slid into her seat next to Raph. Leo didn't have lunch with them this term- otherwise, she would've been sitting with him.
"You think they'd hire us?" Raph scoffed, fidgeting with the sleeves of his jacket. "I don't think they'd be eager to hire a turtle."
"You could be sweepers here at school. As long as you're generally a good student they'll hire you." April replied, already sliding her own burger to the side of her lunch tray.
"Pfft, yeah, thanks for crossing that one out for me." Raph said, scanning his own lunch tray for anything that at least looked edible. "Dude, I've been in the principals office 4 times this year."
April rolled her eyes. "Maybe if you stopped getting into screaming matches you wouldn't have..." she mumbled.
"What else am I supposed to do? Raph started using a stupid singsong-esque voice. "'Hey, asshat, I weally don't fucking appweciate you talking absowute shit about about me and my bwothers. It hurts our feewings.' No, that'll never work."
"You're lucky you haven't been suspended yet. I'm glad you're at least holding back your punches, though. You could really get in trouble." April replied, shrugging.
"I think the Arctic Circle just a minute away is hiring." Mikey piped up.
"Ugh, no, I am not working at Arctic Circle. You know what happens when I'm around ice cream. It's literally why we don't ever get it unless it's for birthdays."
Mikey giggled. "Yeah, fair enough. I don't think they'd want you eating all of it."
"I think the Cinemark is hiring." Donnie said. "You like movies. If you work there sometimes you get free tickets."
Raph thought about it for a moment and shrugged. "I'll think about it."
--
Tuesday.
Raph groaned and tapped his fingers across the counter boredly. This was possibly the slowest day at the theater ever.
To be fair, not many movies had been released recently, there'd been a rise of a new website that pirated practically every movie it could (and it was going under several lawsuits. Raph was surprised it was still up), and this part of the city didn't get much traffic.
Raph and his brothers had all gotten jobs about 3 weeks ago. Donnie had become an after-school sweeper at their highschool, Leo was a barista at the Starbucks a few minutes from April's apartment, and Mikey worked at the Arctic Circle right next to their school.
Raph had taken the job Donnie had suggested at the theater. The busier, more popular theater closer to home and where all his brothers worked didn't have any job openings, so they'd referred him to this one. It was slower, smaller, and was a 20 minute walk away from the school.
"Raph, I need-ja to train the new guy," Raph's manager, Brinlee, tapped him on the shoulder, struggling to carry a box of boxed candy in one hand as she did. "Casey! Raph here'll teach ya." She set the box down on the counter. "I'll take over the cash register 'ere. Casey Jones is just gonna work at the register getting snacks an' stuff right next to ya most of the time- I'm havin' Jace and Rebecca teach him the janitorial an' poster an' ticket stuff."
"Beats sitting around doing nothing." Raph mumbled, turning around to see Casey-
who was possibly the most breath-taking boy he'd ever seen. Raph felt his heart skip a beat in his chest. He had chocolate brown skin and deep brown eyes that he swore had been stolen from a piece of Renaissance art, and dark curly hair that came to just above his shoulders. He was just as tall as Raph, if not a few centimeters taller.
He was beautiful.
He stopped in his tracks and stared at him. Casey stared back. Neither of them spoke for a few seconds.
"So, you're one of the turtles?" Casey said slowly. He had a slight Spanish accent, mixed with something else- some midwest state, maybe?
"Yeah, what about it?" Raph somehow managed to cough out, crossing his arms, trying to scoff.
"Nothin'. Just didn't expect a hero of the city to be working at a Cinemark." Casey shrugged.
"Yeah, yeah, hero of the city, blah blah blah. Here, I'm just a coworker." Raph replied, letting out a breath he didn't realize he'd been holding.
"Alright. Do your brothers work here to, or...?"
"Nah, they work in other places. If you ever meet him, don't tell Leo I told you that I know he just works at the Starbucks so he can be close to his crush." Raph snickered.
Casey chuckled, and Raph would be damned if he didn't think thay Casey's grin was one of the prettiest things he'd ever seen. "Heh. I won't."
"Raph, ya need to actually train 'im." Brinlee said, chuckling. "Ya can have small talk and flirt later."
"Flirting!? We weren't flirting, I was ju-" Raph started, spinning around, sputtering.
Brinlee chuckled. "I know, I know, ya know I like to poke fun."
"I know," Raph replied, chuckling. He turned back around. "Alright, Case- can I call ya Case? Anyway, so back here is the popcorn machine..."
--
Raph lay awake that night. He still felt out of breath, even though he'd been laying down for over 30 minutes. When he'd gotten home, he'd had this dazed look on his face. When his brothers had asked him about it, he'd shrugged them off and just said he was tired, even though it still felt like his heart was going a mile a minute.
He ignored it as he turned his phone off and rolled over in bed, facing the wall. When he fell asleep, he didn't dream about fighting, for once- he dreamt of a warm brown face and soft dark curls, framing espresso-colored eyes.