Chapter Text
“Yessss, one more shot an’ Casey Jones wins!” Casey’s says as an announcer to an invisible crowd.
He’s practicing his hockey in the alley where the school gets deliveries. Usually they don’t clear out old boxes till Thursday, so he’ll use them to set up goals. He lines up his final shot and hits it with all he’s got. The puck flies and completely misses the goal. Instead it hits a box closer to the door with a loud crunching crash.
“Oh shit, that sounded expensive.” He skates up to the box to check on the materials inside.
To his dismay, he finds about a dozen broken teacups. Good quality too. He notices a single teacup unbroken, with small red and black flowers decorating the white porcelain.
“Aw, these are 1935 DeAntés. Fuck, these are practically priceless.” Casey carefully carries the surviving teacup to his hockey bag and wraps it in his clothes. “You can’t even count how many are in there now since they’re all broken…” he mumbles to himself, justifying the theft of the last teacup.
As he removes his skates, hoists his bag and starts to walk away, the door slams open. A turtle scans the alley, he sees the dented box with broken porcelain and sees Casey about to leave.
“You.” He says.
“Me?” Casey asks, pointing at himself.
“What did you do. I was supposed to pick these up for the club.” The turtle growls angrily at the boy, pointing at the broken box.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” Casey can’t help but smirk, he knows exactly what he did.
“You’re that kid that’s always using this alley as your hockey rink. What, you got such a bad fucking aim that you’re hitting boxes that clearly have stuff in it!?” He walks up to Casey.
“Not my fault you didn’t pick up the box when it got in.” He shrugs. The turtle looks like he’s ready to tackle Casey to the ground.
“It says fragile on it dumbass do you even know what those teacups cost?!” The mutant is holding Casey by his collar now, and the human is looking at him like he hasn’t got a care in the world.
Their (the mutants) yelling must have gotten someone’s attention because a voice by the door snickers, “I doubt he does. See his clothes? Most likely a commoner. Can’t even afford a school uniform”
“Aww, Donnie be nice.” Another voice scolds.
The two teens turn to look towards the sound. Three more mutant turtles are by the door.
“Put him down Raphael, you don’t know where he’s been.” The last new voice says.
Raph doesn’t let go of Casey and instead walks the two of them towards the others.
Oh great, Casey thinks, it’s those damn host club guys. He should have known, who else buys teacups and has them shipped to the school instead of home?
“Leo, he broke the antique DeAnté set we just bought. How the hell are we supposed to fix this?”
“Well we could just make him pay us back. But I guess he’d practically be in debt to us for the rest of his life.” Donatello suggests.
“Yes, we wouldn’t want this poor commoner to have to live like that.” Leo frowns.
Now, Casey wasn’t exactly a commoner, as the turtles said, but he wasn’t about to correct them either. The less he has to involve his (his father’s) money, the better. Also, hey! What’s wrong with how he dresses?
“Well why don’t we just have him work for us then..?” Mikey mumbles to himself, thinking.
“Gentlemen! I have an excellent idea,” Leonardo exclaims, “There’s a saying, when in Rome, do as the Romans do, we can have him work to pay off his debt instead! He can be our errand boy.”
“Wow, that’s such a great idea Leo!” Michelangelo rolls his eyes.
“Yes, I think that could work. He’d have to work till graduation, but I’m sure he has nothing better to do with his time. Do you?” Donnie glares at Casey.
“Shit, I mean I guess…it’s not like I can just say no and avoid you guys forever. We go to the same school…” Casey says hesitantly. It’s not just that, he knows his teacups and still feels guilty about the whole situation. Not about stealing the remaining one though.
“Woah, dude you go here? How did you get in if you’re, like, middle class or lower?” Mikey looks genuinely intrigued.
Shit make up a lie. Doubt that they would buy him getting a scholarship on academics… so maybe hockey? Casey thinks looking at his hockey stick still in hand.
“I’m really good at hockey, and the school really needed the support.” He says plainly to the mutants.
“That’s great puckface,” Donatello sighs, writing on his clipboard, “now why don’t you give us your name?”
“It’s Casey, Jones.” He says without thinking, damn, probably should have given a different last name if he wanted to keep up the appearance as a commoner…
“Very well. Jones, Mikey will help you clean up the broken package and we’ll meet you at the club room. We’re starting soon.” Leo waves his hand dismissively and walks away.
As the rest walk away, Mikey crouches down and starts picking up shards of porcelain. Casey scratches his head, carefully puts down his bag and grabs an empty box to put the broken pieces in.
“Sorry that the others are so mean.” Mikey says, dropping pieces into the box. “Leo has a hard time getting used to new people and things, but he’ll come around soon. Donnie on the other hand… it really depends on how he thinks of you.”
“Yeah, sure. And what about the angry one?” Casey chuckles, remembering how easy it was to get him riled up.
“Oh, Raphael’s a big softie. He just has problems with being vulnerable.” Mikey laughs.
The two finish cleaning and Michelangelo leads the way to the club room.
“Well, we’ll just be setting up real quick. You can probably just watch for today, get an idea of what happens, you know.” Mikey starts to set up the small dessert towers.
Donnie quickly wandered over to where Casey was standing on his phone.
“If you’re not gonna help set up, at least go and get some items needed for today. And also go pick up the emergency order we put in for new teacups. We promised the girls we’d have new sets in for the change of season. I put the address on the paper, do not break them again.” Donnie glared, pressing the list into Casey’s hands.
“Sure man, got a club card I can put this all on?”
Donnie scowls at him. “Just don’t go and spend it all.” He hands him a credit card.
—— —— ——
When Casey comes back from his short shopping trip, the room is filled with chattering, many girls, human and mutant, are simply using the space as a nice hang out place, somewhere to eat snacks, drink tea, and gossip. But others are sitting with the boys who work in the host club. Casey walks by Mikey’s table, a girl just sat down as Casey walked in.
“I baked some cupcakes today, what do you think?” She asks.
Despite the somewhat shoddy job, in Casey’s opinion, Mikey must have recognized something because his eyes widen and he says, “No way, are they supposed to be the Plaffals from the new Galactic Empire episode?”
“Yes! I just adored the little critter and haven’t been able to get them out of my head.”
“Renet, they’re so cool!”
That’s nice, Casey thinks, they’re actually bonding over something they both like.
Casey continues walking, looking for Donnie or Leo. Preferably Leo. He passes Raph at a table, talking to a girl with red hair. The girl has a teasing grin on her face and upon closer look it doesn’t look like Raphael is really talking but mumbling, and he looks a little frustrated too.
Not exactly gentlemanly, he eyes the two, but I can’t blame him for getting fed up with being polite and perfect all the time.
Finding Leo proves to be a simple task, he’s sitting in a couch area talking to a squirrel mutant. He overhears their conversation as he approaches.
“I’ve heard the club has had a commoner join recently.” The squirrel says.
“Yes, just today in fact. He’s out doing some shopping.” Leo responds smiling kindly, “I’m sure he’ll be a great addition to the club.”
“Aww, it’s so kind of you to look past his status.” She gushes.
“Speak of the devil!” Leo says as Casey walks in front of the couch. “Thanks for doing the shopping Jones, did you get everything?”
“Yeah, where should I put the new teacups? He asks pushing the groceries bag into Leo arms.
“Hold on a minute, what’s this?” Leo asks, holding up a box of teabags.
“It’s tea… you know, you drink it?” Casey remarks.
“That’s odd, I’ve never seen this brand before. It’s in bags like you would use a strainer for…” The spectacle Leo was making out of the teabags had started to draw the attention of most of the club, including his brothers.
“You know that bagged tea is bad quality because it confines the leaves while it’s steeping right?” Raph asks moving to the front of the group.
“I know that, Donatello told me not to spend a lot. So I went for the cheaper stuff.” Casey responds while Leo makes a huge statement about trying the commoner tea. “Now about where to put the new teacups?”
“Follow me, I’ll show you where we keep them all.”
Casey follows Raph to a row of glass cabinets in the back of the room. There’s hundreds of teacups lining the shelfs.
“Oh wow, you guys ‘ve gotta pretty sweet collection here.” He comments, admiring the many different style.
“Yeah, I usually make the orders for the club.” The turtle seems softer now, “In fact, today we just got-“
“Holy shit, 1970s Elsher!?”
Casey cuts him off as he opens the box to put the new teacups on a nearby table.
Stunned, Raph continues “Uh…that’s correct. How did you…?”
Oh no, not again. More lies? Surely a commoner wouldn’t have such vast knowledge of vintage teacups.
“Err…my mom works at a vintage thrift store?” He lies.
The mutant seems to consider this and doesn’t reply, instead he continues to set out the cups with their saucers.
“Go get the teabags from Leo. Now that he’s made a public spectacle of himself deeming it “safe” I’m sure none of the girls will worry about drinking it.”
Casey plops the now empty box on the floor and walks over to where the girls are gushing over the fact that Leonardo drank normal fucking tea.
“Hey dude, can I get the box back now? Raph’s trying to make tea for everyone.” He asks.
“Sure thing, Jones.” Leonardo sighs, “but if you’re going to continue to cheapen our work here, you sure are going to have to do a lot more work to pay off that debt.”
“I think I liked you better when you were passive aggressive.” Casey mumbles under his breath.
“Don’t be that way,” the leader looks Casey over, “you know, you might need a makeover while you’re here or no girls gonna look twice at you.” He tosses the box to Casey.
“Well I’m not trying to get girls to look at me.” Casey rolls his eyes, catching it.
“What if you taught him how to host?” Mikey says, seemingly appearing out of nowhere.
Donnie walks over, “Hah, he’s not gonna get very far if he doesn’t look the part. Not really host club material…”
Casey scoffs and turns around abruptly to take the tea to Raph. Instead he completely crashes into the redhead girl from earlier.
“Oh fuck, ow ouch!”
“Oh my god!”
Classic Jones luck, she was carrying a teapot with boiling water.
“April! Are you okay?” Donnie shouts as three of the brothers head over to help the two humans.
Jones luck strikes again because the hot water somehow only got on him.
“Yeah, I’m good. None of it got on me, I just bonked my head a little.” The redhead assures the boys.
“Well I’m not!” Casey avoids making any noises of pain. “The only other clothes I have with me is my hockey jersey.”
“Ugh, are you really that incompetent?” Donnie snaps his fingers.
“Here! Change into this uniform.” Mikey appears out of nowhere, yet again, and hands Casey a pile of clothes. “I’ll also call a hairstylist, gotta take care of that greasy hair.”
“Dude, what”
“Oh! Don’t worry about calling in a hairstylist Mikey,” April walks up, “I can help take care of it. Follow me.”
Casey follows April to a separate room with changing rooms.
“We just have this connected to an old music room?” He questions.
“Yep! Gotta make sure the musicians look nice. Unfortunately, there’s no showers nearby so we can’t deal with your hair today.” April hands him a handful of bottles from a duffel bag in the room. “Make sure to use all those tomorrow morning, and don’t say you don’t know what they’re for, there’s instructions on the bottle.”
Casey reads the bottles, shampoo, conditioner, anti-frizz stuff…
“This is way too much, my shampoo at home already has half this stuff included.”
“Don’t start with me Jones, just get changed and use this tomorrow. If you don’t fix your greasy hair no girls will respect you and you won’t be a good face for the club.”
Casey sighs and walks into one of the dressing rooms.
—— —— ——
When he walks back into the main room, half the room stops what they’re doing and stares. After being stunned by the awesomeness of Casey Jones for a moment, everything resumes as if nothing happened.
April, Leo and Mikey walk up to him.
“Damn Jones,” Mikey jokes, “if we knew that’s how you really look we would’ve helped you out sooner.”
April snorts, “Yeah, who knows, maybe he’ll draw in some customers.”
“You know, that’s I was just thinking. How’s about our errand boy moves up the ranks. Starting today, you are an official member of the host club. If you can get 100 customers to request you, we’ll forget about your debt.” Leonardo says.
April leads Casey to a table of girls, “Here, try to charm them. Don’t be an idiot. I’ll be with Raph two tables down if you need to tap out.”
“Hah, Jones never needs to tap out.”
—— —— ——
Leaving Casey with the small group of girls, April heads over to sit at Raph’s table again.
“Hope you won’t be too mad that he’s taking your spot as the mysterious bad boy persona.” She teases.
“Like that’s even how people see me.” Raphael rolls his eyes, taking a sip of his tea.
They get to talking about the latest episode of The Bachelor, but it starts feels a lot more like it’s just April taking. Raph seems to be distracted, and April’s pretty sure she knows why.
“You keep staring at him you’ll burn a hole right through his head.”
“Shut up.”
“What, you really think the uniform did that much for him?”
“It’s not that,” he growls, “it’s just interesting to meet someone who also knows so much about teacups. And vintage ones at that.”
“I know a lot about old teacups too. And I don’t see you making goo goo eyes at me.”
“What!? I’m not making… goo goo eyes… who the hell even says that?!” He whisper shouts at her, almost knocking over his tea.
April stops bugging him about it. But she knows she’s not wrong about what Raph feels. She’s always been good at reading vibes.