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“I don’t feel like college is on the table for me,” Casey admits one night, once Raph’s the only other person left awake in the Ulixes’ sleeping quarters. “Like, it never was, my only chance is probably a community one, and I barely know what I wanna do. So there ain’t a point. I’ll probably get some shitty job that I hate, and then live down in the sewers with you guys so that I don’t gotta worry about rent or any of that other bullshit.”
It’s the first time the concept has come up. Raph didn’t mean to touch on the topic, but the longer that he’s spent away from Earth the more he’s wondered exactly what life will be like once they go back. If they’ll be able to fit back in, or if they’ve been kicked out of their old life for good, from their planet even. If their Sensei will care about them the same as the sons who are the right age, the right amount of battle-weary. If Sensei will even survive.
Talking to Casey helps a lot. He’s a bit too nervous to crawl into Casey’s bed while the others are still awake, but when they’re both laying opposite each other on the large mattress, it’s surprisingly easy to unwind. Unlike in the training room, this place is real, and being away from the Earth, going in there and pretending to be back just makes all of the complicated thoughts and feelings harder. He doesn’t understand how Leo spends some nights sleeping inside the hologram.
“So your plan’s just to never talk to any other humans, ever?” Raph asks. He wishes he has at least one sai with him, sleeping with weapons on his person is not the best idea but if nothing else they make pretty decent fidgets.
Casey shrugs, Raph can tell even though he’s not looking. “I’ve missed enough hockey practices that I got kicked off the team, like, a month ago. Those guys are assholes anyways. April’s the only other human I know. After everything, I don’t think I’ll get to see my sis ever again, so… yeah. My best option is just stickin’ with you guys.”
Deep breaths. Raph’s never met Casey’s sister, but he knows how important family is and from the vague stuff he’s heard about Casey’s dad, Casey’s little sister is even more important. Neither of them are sappy, quite the opposite in fact, but the way Casey talks about his sister shows just how much he cares about her. It’s not fair that thanks to this whole mess, that big brother role has been replaced. If Raph’s family role got replaced and he never got to take care of Mikey again, he’d… do something he shouldn’t.
“We’re probably going to have to find a new lair,” Raph notes. He taps his fingers against the wall for lack of anything better to fidget with. “Unless you want to try and kick those other guys out.”
“I think we can do it,” Casey says cockily. “We’ve got six months of training over them, and April has a gun. April. We’d definitely win that fight.”
Is it bad that he doesn’t want to make their other selves leave? Space has sucked, for so many reasons, and a lot of them are the same as why the farmhouse sucked: homesickness. The feeling is alien to Raph and his brothers, given that they spend the first fifteen years of their life cooped up in the same few rooms. But after so long in space the feeling has been put to the side, and he’s seriously beginning to wonder what they’ve done to deserve their home over the versions of themselves still on Earth. The ones whose birthdays are still the day they were born.
What would Kirby think, if presented with a version of his daughter that were six months older? Six months he knew nothing about? And that there’s an identical, six month younger version of her, somewhere else in the universe, simply existing. How would the man understand that this was still his April, the same daughter that he’s loved for the months leading up to that point?
“I hate thinking about all this,” Raph decides.
Casey lurches forward suddenly, only to starfish over his large bed, one hand landing atop Raph’s plastron. Raph doesn’t even bother to brush it off. “Agreed,” he sighs. “Wanna watch that shitty Chris Bradford show before we both pass out from boredom?”
Raph snorts. “Of course.”
⠀
⠀
“Okay, so,” Casey says, reaching behind his back. He pulls out what looks like a large, coffin-shaped block. “I have a deck of cards. I have no idea what any of the symbols on it means, but we’re going to play war,” he declares.
On the surprisingly unwrinkled mattress, Casey spreads out the block to show all of the different symbols on the currently unshuffled deck. Some of them look vaguely familiar, like they’re in the shape of letters but not quite, and others look like they’re from other Earth languages and some like they’re not from any language at all. There are three different dominant shapes, unlike the Earthly four, and they’re white and green instead of black and white.
“Why war?” Raph asks, instead of the several other more reasonable questions swimming around in his brain.
Casey shrugs. He flops down so that he’s resting on his stomach, absently kicking his feet behind him as he looks down at the cards. “Well, competitive solitaire sounds pretty boring, and I barely know how to play solitaire, and I don’t think that you can play solitaire with this deck. And I don’t know any other two person card games. But–” he pats the mattress, making the smooth ring of cards that he’d spread out become a little less smooth. “–we gotta give all of these guys classes first so that we can play the game. How many symbols are there, which one’s our ace and our queen and so on and so on.”
It sounds boring.
But it’s not. They move on from the normal card names rather quickly, especially when they start looking at the cards that have similar shapes to human characters.
“This is literally just pi,” Casey declares, shoving the symbol in question right in Raph’s face despite the fact he’s holding three cards with the exact same symbol in his hand, and had been skimming the deck for the rest of them.
But uh… “I’m pretty sure that pie is just a pizza but it tastes worse,” Raph declares, trying to look back at what’s left of the cards so that he can sort these cards. “This is a fucked up table.”
Casey groans, finally moving the card away from Raph’s face. “I forgot that you don’t know math stuff. Pi is like… dunno, a math thing. Something about circles, it’s annoying to explain. I’m not teaching you Geometry, that’s boring as fuck. Don’t ask Donnie what it is, you’ll get bored. But we’re calling this one pi.”
Sighing in defeat, Raph does one more search for pi cards in the deck. It’s probably going to end up as an ace or jack or something of the sort, because there’s only three of it in the entire set.
Within what’s probably an hour, maybe more, Casey’s drawn out a cheat sheet for the entire deck and they’re both too tired to play a boring ass card game. Raph waves Casey goodnight and unlocks the capsule, sliding out and onto the ladder. He falls right off it, though, when he spots one of his brothers standing at the bottom, sipping at a drink.
A moment later, he’s lying on his carapace, staring up at Mikey, who looks uncharacteristically chilled out. “Sup, dude?”
“Excuse me?”
Mikey smirks, knowing that he’s just caught Raph doing something, even if he doesn’t actually know what Raph was doing. “How was Casey?”
“Uh… fine?” Raph rushes to his feet, crossing his arms. He knows exactly how his little brother is probably reading this situation, and Raph hasn’t even said that he likes boys so that is not fair. Looking for any escape he can take, he asks, “What are you drinking?”
Because he is a little shit, Mikey takes another sip from the smooth white cup that he’s holding with both hands before replying. “Cranberry juice.”
That exists?
… Not important.
“Not. A. Word,” Raph orders his little brother.
“Sure, dude,” Mikey dismisses. “But you’re really bad at telling when I’m asleep, Sensei would be disappointed.”
Raph pales. “How many times have you been awake?”
“While you and Casey were getting in bed with each other? Uh, maybe—”
Raph instinctually hits his brother in the shoulder, causing him to drop his cup. It shatters like glass, even though it looks plastic-y. Thank goodness that their ‘bedrooms’ are all soundproofed.
Doing his best to suppress a wince, Raph looks up from the cup and over at his little brother. “Sorry.”
“No prob.”
“And—”
“Yeah, I won’t say anything, dude. I get it, I wish I could talk to Leather or Mondo for a bit.”
Mikey leans over and begins gathering the shards of the cup into his hands. They're all stained red from the juice, and for a moment all Raph can see is Mikey’s hands cut open and bleeding, and before he knows it he’s helping to clean up the cup as well.
So much for unwinding. Fuck his stupid protective brain, showing him things that aren’t really there.
⠀
⠀
“Uh,” Raph says, eyes scanning the restaurant menu. It’s digital, so at least he doesn’t have to worry about translating the language it’s in. Some of the food names sound vaguely familiar, but a lot of translations are changing before his eyes as Fugitoid writes them. Items with hard to pronounce names shift to stuff that makes him have to suppress a snort like milk but purple and alarmingly over buttered pasta.
At least the professor is looking out for them.
There’s one other problem, though. “I’ve never been to a restaurant before,” Raph says seriously to Casey, who is the only person who’d wanted to eat here with him. Mikey dragged the rest of their group to a place that seems to be an equivalent of Chuck-E-Cheese or similar kids places, but the restaurant that he and Casey split off for is sort of like a bar, even though there seem to be families with kids eating here as well. Apparently this is a normal thing even on Earth, so Raph’s not going to question it for now.
Casey sets down his digital menu and smirks at Raph. “Sucks to be you, doesn’t it?” He teases.
Raph wants to argue, but even after two weeks of being in space, being out in public like this still makes his heart race. He refuses to call it social anxiety, or any of the other terms that Donnie would probably use for it, but the fact is that being in establishments while they’re still bustling with activity sets him on edge. And knowing that in a few minutes, an alien is going to come up to him and he’s going to have to respectfully ask for something even though Raph is awful at being respectful to anyone but their father– okay, this is getting lengthy, just this whole thing is not the most fun concept for Raph. “Yeah, I’m a giant turtle. Sucks a lot.”
“Yeesh, okay, fair. But just think about it this way: if there is a language barrier, the gal or guy or whatever they are won’t know you’re impolite, because these translators suck. Remember that one gal? From uh… Zilci– Zilco– whatever? The one who we thought kept misgendering us but actually there’s only one gender on that planet? Her?”
Yes, Raph remembers that incident very well. He’d punched her right in the jaw and then they’d been chased right off the planet, and Fugitoid lectured him for two hours.
“Okay, so like: if we say something wrong, whoever our waiter is will probably just assume that it was ‘cause of the translators. We’re fine, we’re chill. But I will not order for you, that’s weird as fuck.”
Raph taps against a white box against his hip, the one that he’s stuffed his Earth sai inside in case of emergency. The noise is pleasant, he can understand why Mikey grows out his nails now, it’s stimulating as fuck. Raph’s usually not one for sound, but when he’s making it the sounds are grounding. He looks across the restaurant, picking out the waiters from the scene and trying to watch as many as he can. “This stuff better taste good.”
“Dude,” Casey says incredulously. He leans across the table and grabs Raph’s shoulders, causing the turtle to look back at the human. They’re uncomfortably close, and Raph can feel his face start to heat up. Which is uh… he’s ignoring that. “I’ve tried to get restaurant food from the machine on the ship so many times. It just aint the same. Trust me.”
He nods, if only to get the human back on his other side of the booth. “Mean, the pizza that the food machines made has tasted fine.”
“That’s because you have no taste,” Casey declares without missing a beat. “Mikey’s cooking, is great, but there is a lot out there, yo! And you’ve barely tried any of it! What about the pizza gyoza that it dispenses, do you like that?”
Honestly? No, he doesn’t. It’s just not the same as what Murakami-san makes. “Okay, fine, whatever. I’ll take your word on it.”
“You won’t have to, just give it a sec.”
Raph looks over to see that a waiter is now approaching the table, and looking right at him. But their dark purple skin looks a bit too brown for comfort and before Raph knows it his heart is beating double-time and he’s tensing in preparation for the waiter to screech in terror at him.
“Are you boys ready to order?” The waiter asks, the translator tucked into Raph’s mask giving her a strong country accent. It’s always interesting, the accents that the translators come up with. Sometimes he wonders what they sound like in their original language.
“Yes,” Casey says easily. It’s always so funny seeing the boy forgo all slang for the sake of the translators, because there is absolutely no way Casey Jones would say yes instead of yep. It’s just not a Casey-like thing to do. “I’ll go first.”
Raph proceeds to absolutely not overanalyze his best friend’s grin, his way of speaking, put the please before the order instead of after, it sounds polite that way. He copies Casey, to the best of his ability, though his voice comes out quieter than it has in a long time. Then again, Casey didn’t sound exactly normal either when he was talking to the lady.
And because Casey really wants him to fuck up, apparently, the human reaches across the table and squeezes his hand in a way that’s probably supposed to be reassuring. Instead, the warmth makes Raph’s words stutter and heart flutter, and fucking hell not now. He’s already told Mikey several times that what he’s seeing isn’t there, Raph is just… overreacting.
The dark purple, humanoid alien smiles as she finishes jotting down the order, and on her feet that are angled enough for Raph to confidently call them Barbie feet, she walks off.
Both teens immediately deflate, Raph a lot more dramatically than Casey. The human drops his hand back to his side, and at a loss Raph does the same, crossing his legs awkwardly.
He and Casey lock eyes, and Casey smirks. Asshole that he’s decided to be today, he drops his own set of crossed legs right on top of Raph’s. Not about to let that happen, Raph kicks out and sets his own legs over Casey’s. Casey also kicks out and then sets his legs right back on top of Raph’s. Because Raph is absolutely not even a little bit petty, he does the same move and easily takes back the top spot, and so the cycle continues, getting faster all the while, until they’re pretty much just kicking their legs, Casey letting out honest to god giggles.
“Shh–shh– Raph. Raph we gotta stop,” he says through his laughter, beginning to slow down, “We don’ want anyone givin' us any weird looks.”
Raph grins at Casey, not really understanding what the fuck just happened but he still enjoyed it at least. “We’re already aliens, how much worse can we do?”
Casey’s eyes widen, and he begins smacking the table in excitement. “Oh my god. Raph, here me out: we find a planet that doesn’t know about aliens and land there. We can make some people sound insane, it’d be awesome! I’d love to be a hilarious fake alien story.”
“Or live in area 51?” Raph prompts sceptically.
“They couldn’t keep me in there,” Casey says with his usual smirk. “If I can fight aliens, I can fight humans. Or uh… human adjacents. Civilians– whatever!” He finishes, throwing his hands up angrily.
Somehow, Raph barely doubts that. Casey’s been thrown around just as much as the rest of them have, and with no mutant DNA or even a shell to help him bounce back, it’s a small miracle that he hasn’t been seriously injured on the job before.
And then Raph pauses.
Not a job. Where the fuck did that thought just come from? It can’t be a job, they’re literally getting food right now. Boom, see? Not a job, they’re doing this because they want to.
⠀
⠀
They do actually end up going to an Earth-like planet, one that doesn’t know anything about aliens.
Raph doesn’t pay attention to what the civilians look like, just gets one look at the city streets and bolts up the nearest fire escape, ignoring the way it’s shaped like a trapezoid for some reason.
He’s so glad that he’d remembered to grab his mini notebook and pencil, because before he knows it he’s settling down on the rooftop and flipping to the first blank page, staring out at the unfamiliar skyline and trying to remember as much of it as possible so that he can get it down and onto paper.
He can hear the rest of his family joining him up top a moment later, so it’s not much of a surprise when Leo asks him, “The professor said that it’s okay for us to go roof hopping as long as we’re careful. You want in?”
His first instinct is to say yes, get some of that pent up energy out as soon as he can. Splitting up has also been even worse of an idea as of recent, so he should really be agreeing to come with his brothers. However, there’s a city skyline out in front of him, and it’s real, and if Raph doesn’t give himself at least that to remind him of home, he’s going to go properly insane one of these days.
“Think I’m going to stay here,” Raph decides, glancing between his sketch and the skyline itself. He frowns, one of the buildings was too large and if he doesn’t fix it, it’s going to mess up his whole perspective, but it’s by barely anything. His art doesn’t need to be perfect, it never really has been, and it’s not like anyone except him would ever get to see it anyways.
Leo does a bad job at disguising his disappointment when he replies, “Don’t get into any trouble.”
“Whatever you say.”
Raph goes back to sketching the city, wishing for his bigger notebook or a pencil sharpener or at least one colour to use to add a bit of a pop. Even if it’s not his city, drawing a city like this in black and white makes it feel distractingly void of life, and no matter how much Raph tries to add in his own style into the sketch the effect remains.
With nothing better to do, Raph’s mind begins to drift. How similar is this planet to Earth? Is it possible there could be some sort of twist on he and his brothers living somewhere around here? No, it’s not. The Kraang and their mutagen have yet to touch this place, and if Raph’s family has anything to say about it, they won’t ever have even the chance.
Maybe they’d end up settling for a planet like this one, once everything is said and done. Earth, but just a step to the left. Home, but barely not quite. If they can’t find a way to switch out with the time clones, then it’d probably end up being the best option.
Ugh– this planet is supposed to be a break! Raph needs to stop thinking like a moron, because it gets him nowhere anyways.
The notebook crinkles in his grip.
Raph growls in frustration, looking at the new dent in the once perfectly flat cover, and the line from his finger nail that is now embedded in the middle of his drawing. It’s not the first time he’s wrinkled the thing, not by a long shot, but that doesn’t make each time he does it less upsetting.
Hold on, where’s his pencil—
Ah, on the ground. In half. Raph sees how it is.