Chapter Text
“Casey!”
The scream tore through the air, and yet, he barely heard it over the way everything seemed to go… oddly quiet. He could barely hear his own gasp, the breath he sucked in a dry rasp of a thing, his eyes wide, yet unable to see anything. It felt like someone had flipped a switch in his brain. Like he couldn’t think, see, hear or feel anything.
Nothing other than the wicked reality of the steel that had just run straight through him.
As his thoughts slowly came back to him, he felt his brows furrowing, his fingers brushing against where the cold bite of the metal met the warm, slow oozing of his blood leaking down his fingers.
Somewhere behind him, he could hear a scream, though he couldn’t make out whose. Taking in a sharp breath only added to the pain that flooded through him like an icy wave as all his inner organs expanded around the intrusive object, allowing it to sink in deeper, his chest hitched up, locking the air in his lungs as if that would somehow help the pain go away.
Was this- Was this really happening right now?
There was a hiss of words, not ones he understood, but the vile poison that they slipped out with told him enough of what they meant.
He choked, his hand lifting from the blade to grab at the padded shoulder of the person standing in front of him to keep his legs from collapsing under him as the blade twisted and was shoved in just a few inches deeper.
His voice failed him, muted as the weapon slide back, leaving him at a different angle then it had entered. Blood splattered to the ground at his feet as a thick cascade, the sound of it hitting the dirty surface of the rooftop ringing in his ears and drowning out everything else.
The second it slipped out of him, he wasn’t given time to recover, the thick, heavy sole of a boot slamming into the open wound with a cruel and precise focus.
This time he couldn’t stop it. This time, his legs did collapse, becoming as useless as dead logs as he fell back, agony shooting through him like a gunshot as his back met the unforgiving ground.
He watched, frozen in pain and unable to so much as reach out as his attacker stepped over him, eager to continue the battle now that they had delt with the pest. Clenching his teeth he tried to move, to get up, to do anything but lay there, yet, he couldn’t move.
Shit. Was he going to die like this?
“Jones!”
He caught a flash of red before April’s face filled his vision. When he felt her knees bump into his side lightly as she slid to a stop beside him, he sucked in a sharp breath, locking down on the shout that nearly burst from his chest at the way his stomach flared at the disruption to its stillness.
“Casey?” Her voice was a little muffled, but the harder he focused on it, the clearer it became. “Casey are you okay?”
A laugh shot out of him like a hiss, the curve of his lips almost as sharp as the sword that had slid so easily through him.
“Course Red.” Oh god. Talking hurt. “Tis nothin’ but a scratch.”
His attempt at humor was cut short, something warm and bitter interrupting his laugh as it forced its way up his throat. He choked, panic overtaking him for a brief moment when he realized he couldn’t breathe through it.
Although it hurt, he couldn’t protest against it when April lifted him up, propping his back on her knees. He was however thankful for it when the taste of iron flooded into his mouth, having all of two seconds to twist his head before a wave of blood sprayed from between his lips.
Well… That couldn’t be good.
“Donnie!”
“I’m here!”
Barely had his name left her mouth before Don was dropping down on Casey’s other side, his fingers dipping into the various compartments attached to his belt all while his eyes scanned over Casey’s supine body.
“Oh, this is so not good.”
“Great. Love to hear it Doc.”
Though normally Don would have at least rolled his eyes at his sarcasm, the fact that he didn’t even spare a glance in Casey direction spoke loads of how serious the situation really was.
Not that he had long to worry about it, not as he noticed another Foot Clan rip off sneaking up behind April. Sword drawn high over their head, the light off the taller buildings surrounding them catching the sharp edges in a lethal glint as it reached its full extension.
“Ap-.”
Before he could so much as finish shaping her name, she twisted around, her hand flying towards the assassin, her powers rippling the air between them, hitting her target in full force and sending him flying back into the wall that led up to the next floor.
He watched as they hit it, exploding into shadows that expanded into the darkness the night already offered. An ink like thickness to the surface that shimmered and rippled like a living thing.
When she turned back and offered him a quick and tight smile, he wished he could feel as relived as she did, instead he found himself jerking up, his fingers twitching in the direction of where his hockey stick should have been at the sight of another threat slipping out of the shadows and dropping in on them fast.
As his fingers closed around air and his heart dropped all the way to where his gut had been sliced open, he could already picture the bloodbath he couldn’t stop.
“Booyakasha!”
Out of nowhere Mikey flew in, kneeing the perpetrator right in the face, Casey wincing at the crunch of a nose being broken.
The second Mikey landed he turned his back on them, swinging his weapon out at another opponent, walloping them with enough force on the side of the head that they dropped like a bag of rocks, their body only briefly visible before it to almost seemed to melt, a thick sludge like material left behind that inched its way towards the edges of the building like a slimy, fat slug.
Even when his weapons returned to rest, tucked under his arm yet still ready to be whipped out at a moments notice, his eyes never once stopped twitching towards every shadow and slight bit of movement around them.
“Not an ideal time to take a break guys!” Mikey shouted, catching sight of another enemy and wasting absolutely zero seconds in flipping over to them with a new battle cry.
“Lay back down Jones.”
The shove at his shoulder was anything but gentle, forcing him to bite his tongue hard enough to add to the metallic taste souring his mouth, but he only took in a sharp breath, blinking rapidly up at the orange tinged sky of a typical New York city night when a sudden pressure bore down right over his injury.
If he thought being stabbed hurt, it had nothing on this.
“What’s the issue Donnie?”
Leo’s voice boomed in the space around him, easily heard over the continued clash of steel and shouting as the fight continued.
“Abdominal injury.” Don’s voice was clipped and quick, his hands pulling out another package that he ripped open with his teeth before removing the thick, sterile pad. This time, Casey couldn’t keep a grunt from passing between his clenched teeth as it was shoved into the wound. “A bad one. We don’t have much time.”
Casey dropped his hand over the one pressing firmly against his oozing wound, his fingers shaking and weak as they attempted to remove the pain from the steadily bleeding area and failing miserably.
“Can he be moved?”
A flicker of irritation moved through him as Leo spoke about him like he wasn’t there, and it doubled when he realized he couldn’t turn his body to find the leader and huff at him over it.
“Maybe?”
“That’s assuring.”
Again, Don ignored his admittedly concerning gurgle of sass, slapping his free hand down over Casey’s mouth just as firmly as his hand against his stomach was, only looking away from Casey’s injury long enough lock eyes with April.
“Do you think you can try and hold this closed until we get back to Karai’s?”
Casey watched silently at the looked that passed over April’s features, saying nothing at the slight pinch of her nails digging into the flesh of his arm.
There was a brief hesitation. A brief shift of uncertainty that swam in her eyes before a stronger force of determination surfaced to drown it.
“Yes.”
Her resolve was unshakable as she nodded at Don, though it melted to a look of uncertainty once more as she turned a soft look towards the one still being propped up in her lap. “This… might hurt a little.”
The second he felt her power slipping into him, he couldn’t help but wonder what her idea of a little was.
This time, he did scream.
His legs kicked out, his arms jumping up to pound into the first living thing he could get his hands on, the feeling of his insides burning scorching through him like a living flame, pinching and squeezing the separated pieces back together in a sloppy mess that could only be caused by a desperate sort of haste.
Thankfully his hands never reached her, Don being quick to grab him, locking his arms tight around Casey’s thrashes and pulling him back to stable his manic movements against the solid mass of his own unmovable body.
April never once stopped muttering apologizes, her hands moving down to press on his wound from either side, Casey’s eyes rolling back at the sheer torture of the shredder pieces being shoved into one another and held closed. It felt like there were thousands of needles being pierced through his insides. Ones that were dull and thick, shoving through the soft tissue and attempting to hold him together.
As the worst of it subsided, he came back to himself with the awareness of the shallowness of his own breathing, his vision dipping in and out, his head dropping forward and back as if became to heavy for him to carry.
He felt more than saw Don and April drag him up, his legs giving out when he tried to stand, his weight a dead, heavy thing in their arms that they tried to hold onto.
“Leo!”
More clashes of steel. More screaming. The only thing keeping him awake as black dots filled his vision.
“Mikey! Get them to the van and go straight to Karai’s! Raph and I will cover you!”
“Got it Leo!”
With the wounds being forcibly closed, stuffed full of absorption pads and with his own blood left to slosh around loosely inside him now that it had nowhere to go, Casey could barely find it in himself to try and be useful to his friends. Every time he attempted to put a foot down to help, it felt like all the pressure shot straight up into his stomach. Building, building, building, until he was sure in insides would rupture and burst out of him like a popped zit.
He heaved, a new wave of fresh blood leaking passed his lips and dribbling down his chin as April lifted them into the air to make getting to the fire escape a little easier. Even if it did have the consequential side effect of tightening the already unbearable grip she had locked around his injury.
He tried to stay awake as the three of them awkwardly stumbled down each flight, locking his hearing on Mikey’s different shouts and grunts, trying to keep himself awake by coming up with which moves he might have been using based off the way his weapon cut through the air, but before they touched the sweet solace of concreate, his vison shifted to blackness and than his mind crashed head first into the dark.