#shippy shit

So when Thatch cooks at her cabin, he has no idea about her spice cabinet until she manages to bully him out of the kitchen and fucking cries at how overwhelmed he is by the seasonings. Shit he could barely get ahold of a few times a year in small quantities, the works. He thinks she went all out for him but she gives him a look like he's weird.

He's not trying to be an ass, he just assumed a winter island wouldn't have most of the basic shit either and never noticed.

"This is my mom's pot roast recipe... Did you ignore my spice cabinet on purpose or...?"

Utterly horrified he totally missed the thriving spice culture because he wanted to forage for fresh ingredients on Winter Isle. Which would not have spice growing naturally outside of the frost berries.

So she pulls out her recipe books and he finds so many innovative uses for stuff he had to carefully ration if he got ahold of it at sea.

Begs his captain to put the islands under his protection for that alone--but does totally want to impress the suddenly much more intimidating mountain recluse with more complex taste than previously expected.

She's accidentally bougie and his attempts to impress get harder as he realizes her particular tastes doesn't totally capitalize on the local cuisine but certainly aren't natural for him. IE, no super spicy food, fish, or cooked veggies.

Raph lands on the roof next to Casey and gives him a once over. The guy is doubled over, his hands on his knees, gasping. He pushes the hockey mask up, revealing a face that is tomato-red and covered in sweat. Raph smirks. You’d never catch any of his brothers looking like that after a run that easy. Casey catches his eye and gives him the stink-eye.

“Outta shape, Jones?”

“Fuck you, man.” Casey straightens and rolls his shoulders back, trying to expand his torso and give his lungs more room to expand. “Still not used to this… rooftop-jumping shit. My radius used to be….” He gulps, “way smaller.”

Raph snorts and gestures over the side of the building. “Your ‘radius’ used to be, uh, the alleyway behind your apartment, right?”

Casey manages a breathy chuckle and nods. “Yeah, pretty much.”

Casey’s apartment building was Raph and Casey’s meetup spot. It was where every night out patrolling and busting heads began and ended. The ‘began’ part makes a lot of sense. Need a rendezvous point of some kind. But the ‘ended’ part makes less sense. They didn’t need a designated spot to say goodnight at. Once they decided to call it a night, Casey could head home and Raph could find the nearest sewer lid. But the first time they went out and patrolled together, just a week after they first met, was one of the best times of Raph’s life. They were just… in sync! Like they could read each other’s minds. Don’t get him wrong, patrolling with his brothers was great. But with Casey, it was the most natural, most alive he’d ever felt. They were always on the same page. Afterwards, when Raph was breathless and couldn’t stop grinning, the last thing in the fucking world he wanted to do was crawl back into the sewers. So he ran back to the meetup spot with Casey, enjoying the breeze on his skin and the friend at his side as long as he could. And then, he just kept doing it. It was totally dumb and unnecessary, but he liked doing it. He kind of felt like he was walking him home, actually. Which makes it sound pretty dumb. But Casey’s either never thought about it, or it’s never bothered him, because he’s never brought it up.

Raph snorts again and hops over the edge of the roof. He lands on the fire escape that leads to Casey’s bedroom window and looks out over the poorly-lit alleyway. There’s a dumpster, a bike, a drain. It’s dank and smelly and a pretty ideal place to do some shady shit. Raph turns and glances up to see Casey peering down at him.

“You just used to sit right here all night?”

“Yep.” Casey jumps, and the fire escape rattles precariously as he lands. “For hours.” He laughs to himself. “I’d go back in and there’d be deep red lines on my ass. It was so dumb.”

Raph shakes his head and plops down. Casey does the same.

“What’d you do that whole time? Just wait for some idiot to walk by and do something stupid in front of you?”

Casey shrugs. “I drew a bunch o’ shit. Wrote things. Listened to music.” As he says this, he pulls out his phone and taps it on. “I’d stick my headphones in and just chill. Nothin’ happened, most of the time, so it was just me and my tunes.”

“Jesus, music on the job? Leo’d have kittens if I tried that. You can’t…” He gestures to the world around them. “You don’t hear what’s happening.”

“Yeah, also you can’t listen to a police scanner if you’re listening to music, but this was real early on. I was just gettin’ my feet wet.” Casey taps at his phone a bit until music blares through the shitty little speakers. Raph leans over and looks at the screen. Smashing Pumpkins. Bullet With Butterfly Wings.

Raph nods along to it and looks at Casey, who’s screwing his eyes shut and mouthing the words along with the singer. Raph plucks the phone out of his hand and scrolls through his library. Mindless Self Indulgence, Mötley Crüe, Korn, that kinda shit. Some 80’s songs too. Casey is watching over his shoulder as he scrolls.

“Yeah, what can I say,” Casey drawls, crossing his arms and giving Raph a shitty grin. “I’ve got good taste.”

Raph rolls his eyes, and he can’t help the small smile that tugs at the corner of his mouth. He doesn’t want to feed Jones’ ego, but the guy’s right. It is good. Raph listens to most of these bands, and he tries to make a note of the ones he doesn’t know so he can check them out later.

The feeling of his T-phone being tugged out of his belt stops him cold. “What’re you doing?”

Casey pauses and eyes him, holding the T-phone casually in one hand. “Looking at your music.”

“No.” Raph reaches for the T-phone, but Casey holds it away from him. Raph swallows and thinks for a second, then says, “I don’t have music on my phone.”

“You- what? Bullshit.”

“No, I really don’t, I-”

“No, no, I saw you with headphones in the other day while you were at the punching bag, listening to this little thing. You totally have music.”

“No, that wasn’t- It wasn’t- It was a podcast.”

Casey cocks his eyebrow. “A podcast.”

“Nothin’ wrong with podcasts, asshole.”

“You were head-banging and whisper-singing to a podcast, huh?” Casey mimes the action, scrunching up his face and nodding his head.

Raph works his jaw, eyes glued to the T-phone. “Just-” He makes a grab for it, but Casey holds it away from him.

“Woah, buddy! Chill there. I showed you mine, you show me yours, that’s how it goes.”

“No it fucking does not, give it back, Jones!” Raph leans around him and snatches at the phone.

Casey lurches back, swiping through the phone as Raph reaches his (annoyingly shorter) arms around him. “I’m just lookin-”

“JONES! Give. It. Back.”

“Just a sec-”

“It’s MY phone!”

“I just wanna-”

“NOW!”

“-look!”

Raph sees the music library pop open on his screen and every cell in his entire body is screaming at him to STOP THIS NOW, so he lunges forward and smacks the phone out of Casey’s hand. They both watch in mute horror as it falls over the edge of the fire escape, down, down, until it shatters into pieces against the pavement.

“Fuck.” Raph lets out a breath. “Donnie’s gonna be so pissed.”

Casey just turns and stares at Raph, and with Raph leaning over him like this their faces are very close, so close, and Raph can’t move all of a sudden, and-

“Enya?!”

Raph screws his eyes shut and leans back, rubbing a hand over his face. Casey’s laughter drowns out the Smashing Pumpkins still blaring from his phone.

“You listen to fucking Enya?!”

He won't let her be angry 😩

I don't typically draw shippy stuff but I am a simple rat and needed some cheesy shit