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Casey is his fourth spar in a row, and though he’d won against all his brothers, Raph’s last fight with Leo has really taken it out of him. He’s vaguely dizzy, the room is sorta spinning, and his breath is coming in ragged wheezes. He’s doing his best to hide it. Casey throws him a crooked grin as Leo steps between them.
“Please, please don’t fight dirty this time,” Leo says to them, but it’s mostly aimed at Casey.
Raph absently rubs his shoulder where Casey bit him the last time they had an official spar in the dojo. It had taken a bit to heal, but all that was left was the ghost of a scar.
He drops into a fighting stance. Casey isn’t gonna get him this time.
“ Hajime !” Leo snaps, quickly crossing back to the side of the room as Casey and Raph start to circle each other.
Casey has that stupid-ass air of confidence around him, since he won last time they’d fought (after taking a chunk out of Raph’s shoulder). His spine is loose, his grip on his hockey stick is lax, and he’s dragging his feet a bit. Raph watches carefully, and he sees the moment Casey tenses up. He sidesteps as Casey lunges at him, whipping around to watch the human stumble past.
A breath later and Casey mirrors the movement, but when he’s facing Raph again, he’s not angry or annoyed, or any other emotion that would make sense. No, he’s smiling , true and genuine and effulgent, and it makes Raph’s whole body stutter. His grips on his sai loosen and his face heats up, his eyes widen. He freezes.
Casey takes advantage of his brief distraction, rips his sai out of his hand and presses him back, back, back, until his shell bumps against the tree and Casey buries the sai into the trunk right next to his head.
The space between them feels electric, with Casey’s hot breath on his cheek and his chest up against his plastron. Casey’s weight is against him, and the tree is against his back, and he looks up into Casey’s bright brown eyes and—
Donnie coughs, and whatever spell he and Casey are under breaks. Casey pulls away, and Raph can breathe again, and then that dizziness is back and he slides down the tree until he’s sitting on his ass.
“Alright, alright, you win.” He presses his head to his knees. “Now give me my sai back.”
He hears Casey’s gloating somewhere overhead as he tries to regain his sense of gravity. He’s unsure if it’s because of all the sparring matches or the phantom of Casey’s breath on his skin. Maybe it’s both. Something tugs at his hand, and he looks up at Casey, who still has the moon in his eyes. He feels the familiar leather hilt of his sai get pressed into his fingers, looks down at his hands. Accepts the weapon from Casey, forces his hand to not chase after his friend’s as he pulls away.
He looks up. Leo is looking at him funny.
…
Since Shredder’s defeat, attacks from rogue Foot Clan members have seriously declined. But even Karai can’t stop all of them.
He and Casey getting separated from the others during a patrol is, admittedly, more common. Neither of them are the best at dropping fights. Unless there are explosives (aside from Casey’s) involved. And then. Casey doesn’t see it. Not the pin getting pulled, not the grenade getting tossed, not the rogue agents sprinting off in the other direction.
Raph does.
He drags Casey into the closest alley, shoves him hard against the wall, and down low enough that Raph’s body will completely protect him (damn Raph’s height—or lack thereof). He braces himself as the explosion ripples through the ground, curls tighter around Casey as he feels shrapnel lodge itself in the back of his legs. He wonders, a little absently, if it was a frag grenade.
The whole thing ends as quickly as it started, an unnatural silence settling over the city street. Casey, braced against the wall in an awkward sort of half squat, stares up at Raph.
“Thanks,” he says, voice gentler than Raph thinks he’s ever heard it.
“What was I gonna do, let ya get blown up?” Raph almost snarks back, but there’s no heat behind it, and he can feel the softness in his face and shoulders and knees.
And there it is again, the tension, the electricity from back in the dojo, though this time the positions are reversed. Casey pushes himself up, face getting closer to Raph’s painfully slowly, and he’s reaching his hand up like he maybe might hold Raph’s face. Raph leans in, matching Casey’s pace, their eyes locked together. Raph thinks he probably couldn’t look away if he tried.
When Casey’s hand is hovering in front of Raph’s shoulder, Raph’s T-Phone rings. He pauses, hesitating to answer, arm frozen somewhere in between resting and grabbing his phone.
Casey takes action for him, and the hand he thought was going to his face stays stopped at his shoulder, shoving him away playfully. Raph stumbles away from the wall drunkenly, fumbling for his phone for a moment before answering.
“Bro! You good? We heard an explosion!” Mikey’s voice is so loud that Casey can probably hear it without being on speakerphone.
Raph looks up at Casey, who is very pointedly not looking back. Huh.
“Yeah, we’re good. There might be some metal in my calves but I’m fine. Casey, are ya hurt?”
Casey looks up, shakes his head, looks away again.
“He’s good too.”
Raph turns his whole body away from Casey. If he’s not gonna acknowledge it, then Raph won’t either.
…
Honestly, Raph can’t even remember what started this argument. All he really knows is that he’s pissed off, and he needs to release that feeling physically. He takes another swing at Casey.
“Missed me!” Casey cajoles, and Raph’s last thin thread of patience snaps .
He lunges, or maybe jumps, at Casey. Catches him around the torso, and they both go down. Casey is sprawled out under him. Raph’s legs are on either side of him, and Casey’s arms are up to block his face. Raph sighs, knowing he’s won, and decides against pushing any further. Casey peeks out between his arms.
“You good now?”
“Am I. What? ”
“Are ya good now?” Casey repeats, as though that explains anything.
“I heard what you said. Just don’t follow why ya said it,” Raph absolutely Does Not whine.
“You’ve been moody for weeks,” Casey says simply. “Figured kickin’ my ass would help ya.”
Raph makes a face, “Ya let me win?”
“Nah, man, I gave ya a good fight. Sometimes ya just gotta throw down, I get it.”
In truth, Raph had been grumpy for a while. His moodiness was a symptom, though, of whatever the hell was happening between him and Casey. Not that he could admit that.
That train of thought led to him realizing exactly what position the two of them were in, and. He totally smoothly, completely calmly and gracefully climbs off of Casey. He absolutely does not fling himself off and halfway across the room. And he certainly doesn’t clamber to his feet sheepishly and offer a hand to help Casey up.
“Yeah, alright. I’ll give ya this one. I feel better.”
The grin Casey gives him does nothing for the strange fluttering in his chest. Neither does the way he grips Raph’s hand and hauls himself to his feet.
…
Seriously, what is it with rogue Foot agents and fucking bombs? It’s Casey that saves his ass this time, tackling him to the ground as the bomb sounds off somewhere overhead. Casey plasters him to the pavement as Raph yells over the din something about being the one with built in armor. Plaster dust showers down around them and Raph tucks his face into Casey’s neck to shield his eyes, wrapping his arms around Casey’s waist.
They stay there until the space around them stills, until they’re sure there are no more Foot in the area. Casey carefully presses himself up, bracing his hands on either side of Raph’s head. Raph looks up at him with wide eyes, and goddamn, there’s that feeling again. The one that’s been driving him mad for weeks.
Casey, for his part, doesn’t move, staying put over Raph, face agonizingly close and at the same time, too far away. Raph is almost afraid to breathe, the air between them feels fragile with something , something he can’t acknowledge but is impossible to ignore. Casey inches closer, just slightly, and Raph’s already shallow breathing catches. Casey’s gaze flicks down to his mouth, then back up to his eyes. Raph shifts, and his thigh bumps Casey’s knee. The spot where they connect feels charged with electricity.
“Do you feel it?” Casey breathes, and Raph can’t form words, so he just nods.
Casey shifts his weight, grabs Raph’s shoulder, and Raph’s brain decides to completely tap out. That’s fine, he didn’t need it anyways.
“Can I kiss you?” Casey asks, and. Well.
Raph leans up and does it for him, easily bridging the gap between them. Casey feels like fireworks on his lips, tastes like sparks, and when he closes his eyes, there’s a million different colors dancing behind his eyelids. One of Raph’s hands slides into Casey’s hair and tugs gently on the strands, and Casey hums into his mouth in response. The sound is addictive, and Raph is about to do it again, when.
“Ugh, ew !” Donnie whines. “Like, finally, but c’mon, guys, really? In the middle of the street?”
Both of them freeze and turn to where Donnie’s voice came from. Leo is standing over his shoulder, covering Mikey’s eyes and shaking his head disappointedly. Raph drops his head back to the pavement, wheezes out a laugh. Knots his hand in Casey’s hair, a promise to continue later.
He realizes something, slams upright so fast he knocks Casey onto his ass. “ Wait, ” he snaps, without heat, “what do you mean, finally?”