Work Text:
Raph is completely exhausted by the time he and Casey haul their way back to the dorms. 5 hours of cranking out homework in the library in preparation for finals later, he's ready to fucking crash. He hates statistics. Every letter or number on every sign he passes morphs into an equation and he can feel the start of a cluster headache behind his right eye. Groaning, he drops to his knees and then to his stomach, face down on the dorm carpet that's probably disgusting, but he can't bring himself to care.
Casey kneels down next to him, grabs a fistful of his hair, and pulls his face up until he's looking at those beautiful brown eyes. And then Casey says something that Raph's brain interprets as "Uiav hoeaef getoihsp".
"Say that again, handsome?"
"Uiav hoeaef getoishp." Casey's got this expression on his face that's somewhere between annoyed and enamored, and his hair is falling into his face. If Raph had control over his arms, he would absolutely brush it away. Unfortunately, exhaustion is weighing him down, and he probably wouldn't be able to pick up his head if Casey wasn't holding him up.
"If you're sayin' words, I'm not gettin' em."
"You. Have. To. Get. Up," Casey says, carefully emphasizing every word.
"Uh huh. Sounds good, man." Raph makes no attempt to move.
"If you don't move now, I will carry you to bed, and it will be super embarrassing for you," Casey huffs as he sets Raph's face back into the floor.
"You couldn't lift me if you tried," Raph tells the carpet.
And then Casey is rolling him over, shoving an arm under his knees and another around his back, and hoisting him off the ground with only a quiet grunt of effort. Raph laughs too-loud for a dorm hallway at such a late hour, throws his arms around Casey's neck.
"Well, look at you, hotshot! Think you can make it to your room like this?"
Casey is putting up a valiant fight, but Raph is mostly muscle and Casey is mostly sinew. His arms are shaking under Raph's weight, but he nods anyways, stumbles a couple steps down the hall. Then sets Raph's feet back on the floor, exhaling the breath he was holding, face red.
"Alright, alright, maybe not. But you're on your feet and a little more awake, so c'mon, let's go."
Casey's other arm is still around Raph's shoulders, and what he's lacking in strength he makes up for in height, so he doesn't have nearly as much trouble dragging Raph the last few steps down the hallway to his door. Raph leans heavy against the wall as Casey digs around for his key, whining quietly in annoyance. Casey tosses him a look over his shoulder as he successfully finds his keycard from the bottom of his bag and opens the door, shoving Raph in by the shoulder before he enters and shuts the door behind them.
Raph wastes no time undoing his belt and taking off his jeans, then his shirt, until he's in just boxers as he crawls into Casey's bed and under his covers. He's immensely grateful he had the foresight to brush his teeth before doing homework, and then to chew some gum for the last hour they were working. Despite a couple energy drinks and a snack break, he's pretty clean, and now that he's in bed, he's not getting up for anything.
Casey turns around from where he was grabbing his toothbrush and is about to say something, but stops mid-breath as he sees Raph climbing mostly unclothed under the covers.
"You gonna-"
"Nope."
"You sure you-"
"Nope. I'm already asleep."
Casey laughs, turns back around to grab his toothpaste, mutters, "Okay, but don't take up the whole bed. I gotta sleep tonight too."
…
Casey is expecting Raph to be asleep when he gets back. The poor guy was so exhausted from doing math that he was muttering formulas the whole walk back to the dorms. Hell, he practically passed out on the hallway floor. So yeah, he's expecting Raph to be asleep when he gets back. When he opens the door and hears Raph's gentle, even breathing, he isn't surprised. He shuts the door behind him, thinks maybe he hears Raph's breathing catch, turns around to see Raph peering at him through one half-open eye.
"Sorry handsome, didn't mean to wake you," he mutters, voice soft as the way Raph's face looks in this half-awake state.
Raph closes his eye again and rolls over as Casey strips to his boxers and throws on a pair of gym shorts. Casey is vaguely surprised his rustling around didn't wake Raph up. He's a pretty light sleeper, which he blames on his ninja training or whatever. But they've gotten pretty comfortable around each other, and Raph saw that it was Casey who came in, so maybe he's comfortable enough to snooze through whatever rustling noises Casey makes as he changes. He crosses over to his bed, and. God dammit, Raph is lying right in the middle of it. Casey pouts, brushes some of Raph's hair out of his face.
"Rude as hell," he whispers. "How the hell am I supposed to get in without waking you, you fuckin light ass sleepin' piece of shit."
Raph grabs Casey's hand, effectively scaring the shit out of him, and opens that one eye again.
"You won't be sayin' that when it keeps you safe," he rasps, voice rough already from maybe 15 minutes of sleep.
Casey recovers pretty quickly, gives him the heartthrob smile he gives girls after hockey games. "If, man. The dorms are pretty safe already."
Raph shoves that same hand against Casey's cheek, pushing his face away. "D'n give me that st'pid smile."
Casey laughs into Raph's hand, grabs it, and presses a kiss to the palm. "You know you love me."
"Can't prove that," Raph twists his face into the mattress, doing a very bad job of hiding how his neck and face and ears flush red.
"Uh huh. You're in the middle of the bed, did you know that?"
"What's it to ya?" Raph says into the mattress.
"I need to be in there too."
"So get in."
"I would if your fat ass wasn't taking up the whole goddamn bed."
"It ain't fat, it's muscle 'n you know it."
"I do know it. Move over."
Raph groans, rolls over, makes some room on the bed for Casey to get in. Casey does, sits on the edge and brushes some hair out of Raph's face, lets his hand linger. He jerks it away in surprise, though, when Raph sits up and leans too-heavy and sleep-warm against Casey's chest, shoves his face into his neck. His gentle breaths tickle, and Casey fights the instinct to flinch away, instead pressing a hand between Raph's shoulder blades.
"Whatcha' doin?"
"Shhh," Raph breathes, and it's warm and cold all at the same time against Casey's neck.
Usually when people get this close to his throat, it's a threat or the start of a fight. But Raph's nose is pressed against his Adam's apple, warm and gentle, and his breathing has evened out again, and there's this weird pang of something in his chest that's foreign and familiar all at once.
It's a surprise to himself when he presses a light kiss to Raph's forehead and whispers, "I love you."
Raph just hums; Casey is pretty sure he's dead fucking asleep sitting up. As much as Casey would like to stay like this, as much as the weight of Raph against his sternum makes him feel more solid and grounded than he's felt in years, he's also exhausted, so he gently nudges Raph, then again, and then a third time, until finally Raph cracks an eye open and peers up at Casey, green eyes dim.
"Move it."
Raph sniffs, shifts over, and throws himself back onto the mattress, making it bounce from the force of it. Casey just smiles, amused, and tucks himself in around Raph, throws an arm across his waist. He thinks Raph is asleep again from the way his breathing is so deep, but he flips over and shoves his face into Casey's chest.
"Love you too, asshole," he mutters, and Casey flushes, suddenly and tragically wide awake.