🐢TMNT, what you get Is what you see!🐢

“Not your scene?” He asks without preamble, and there’s something annoying in his tone that leaves the impression that he already knew this wasn’t the best situation for Raph.

Raph shrugs. “Yeah, but it feels just like yours.”

“Ehn,” Casey looks off to the side, hands shoved deep in his pockets. “Everyone else who I’d chill with came with dates, and I just sorta came for the experience. It’s depressing as hell to be alone at one of these things, I can sorta see why not bringing a date is a taboo.”

“I thought that was just one of those human things I’m never meant to get,” Raph admits.

“Nobody gets social things, that’s the fuckin’ point,” Casey dissmisses. He starts walking the other direction, and Raph follows. Raph reaches into his pocket and slowly pulls out a snack, trying to eat silently. He fails, and Casey twists around to make insistent grabby hands. “Cough it up, Red, I haven’t gone into that shithole in like, an hour, I’m hungry as hell.”

Raph rolls his eyes. “Y’know the snack table is right by the door, right? Nobody would’ve known that you came alone.”

“Yeah, but it’s the principle of the thing,” Casey explains. “Who the fuck only comes to prom for the snacks?”

“Me,” Raph says. He realises that Casey’s definitely leading him to the exit, and can’t really find it in himself to care, even though he knows he’ll be receiving a million worried text messages the moment the tracker on his phone leaves school grounds.

Casey rolls his eyes. “Yeah, but your family is, like, smart. You don’t got a reason to care that you’re weird, and the fuck are people supposed to say? If they blame it on being mutants, that makes them into a piece of shit, even though if you weren’t born as a turtle, you’d probably have a real different life.”

They shove open the doors and walk out into the night air. It’s pleasant, warm but windy, and it makes Raph’s skin itch to go up. Since getting actual legal papers, he hasn’t gotten a chance to parkour, and he’s missing it.

“So, Red, what d’you want to do now?”

Raph shrugs. “It feels sorta dumb to go home, at this point, but partying doesn’t sound too appealing.”

“Maybe we could find an arcade or something,” Casey suggests. “I know where some afterparties are gonna be hosted later, and those’ll probably be pretty chill if we show up early, even if that’s weird as hell, but not gonna lie, I sort of just want to goof off for a bit?”

“Same.”

“Or maybe we could break into the rink,” Casey says thoughtfully. He rubs thoughtfully at his chin, as though he has a goatee to stroke, but in reality Raph is pretty sure the guy doesn’t even shave, not that Raph’s the one who can really make that point. “They never mind, and I still gotta teach you how to skate.”

“That’s going to be a shitshow,” Raph says, but with good humour. He knows himself and he knows that he’s going to trip and fall the moment he gets on the ice, then Casey will laugh at him, and that’s why he’s been avoiding it as much as possible.

Casey claps him on the shell then starts walking with more purpose, and Raph can only assume that he’s headed in the direction of the rink. Raph doesn’t know how to get to it from the school, but he’s been there enough that he could easily recognise it if he saw it. “Aw, c’mon, have some more faith in yourself. You’ll do great.”

“If you knock out one of my teeth, I’m going to stab you,” Raph threatens half-heartedly.

“And I’m sure I’ll extend you the same courtesy when you finally start teaching me ninja shit.”

“Never gonna happen.”

“Oh, just you wait, Raph. Just you fuckin’ wait.”

Raph snorts. “Stop trying to be ominous, Case, you’re shit at it.”

“I’m in hockey, not drama.”

“You’re built for both, though.”

Casey punches him.

⠀

⠀

Is not as much ‘breaking into’ the rink as it is Casey coming up to the back door with a key and then just striding in through the unlocked door. Which is good, because Raph knows that Casey would be a menace if he got to watch Raph’s ninja skills in action again.

Casey grabs two sets of skates off of the shelf behind the desk and brings them over to the benches, then silently starts putting them on. Raph allows himself a moment to be grossed out by the skates, because he doubts that they’re cleaned at all between uses by different people, then he reminds himself that he lives in a literal sewer, sucks it up, and starts lacing up his own skates.

The first challenge is trying to walk over to the rink. Raph’s got good balance, but that doesn’t make him automatically adjust to being held up only by two metal blades. Embarrassingly, Casey has to help him over to the rink, but at least he’s a good sport about it.

“Okay, so,” Casey starts as he steps onto the rink. Raph is leaning on the door and hoping that he doesn’t fall over. Casey spins around to face Raph and starts moving slowly backwards while holding eye contact. “It’s a lot easier than it looks, I swear. And if you want to grab one of the supports, I promise I won’t tell you how much you look like a grandma.”

He just poked the fucking bear.

Raph decides that he’s going to prove that no, he does not need to look like a granny, and steps onto the ice. His first angry step immediately sets him off balance, and then he tumbles onto the ice. Casey starts to cackle.

“I’m going to ruin this suit, aren’t I,” Raph sighs, already resigned.

“I think you should have called that a lost cause already,” Casey teases. He has a point, but like hell is Raph ever going to tell Casey Jones that he’s right about something. “C’mon, I’ll get you doing laps in no time.”

‘No time’ does not come to pass.

Raph hovers one hand by the wall as he slowly skates around the rink, and whenever he can get a proper support from the wall he’ll chuck some pocket crumbs at Casey, who is not as good of a teacher as he seems to think he is.

Eventually, though, he trusts Raph enough on the ice to head into the locker room, and returns a few minutes later returns with two hockey sticks and the familiar temptation violence in his eyes. Raph pretends that he’d made a full circle around the rink while he’d been alone, and Casey laughs at him like an asshole.

It’s a bit easier to balance with the stick. Casey clearly knows that Raph’s putting some of his weight onto it, but luckily he doesn’t comment.

“So hockey is just lacrosse but with more safety gear, right?

Casey starts pouting, which may or may not have been Raph’s intention. “C’mon, Red, after all the games I’ve made you sit through, you seriously don’t know the rules? Do you even know the rules of lacrosse?”

He huffs, then lifts up his stick. “Nope.” Then he shoots, overbalances, and falls onto his shell.

Coming here was absolutely a mistake.

Maybe the ads about prom were right, Raph’s going to treasure this day forever.

“Oh yeah, Red, you’d definitely be my first pick in a scrimish,” Casey taunts. “You’d be a real boss in a real game.”

If asked by Splinter or Leo, he would claim that he absolutely does not try to stab Casey with his skate. If he were asked by one of his other brothers, though, he’d complain that he missed the mark.

“How about you grab a bō, I grab my sai, and we see what fuckin’ happens, punk.”

“I can kick your ass with a stick,” Casey declares.

Raph gets a great idea.

He starts to stand back up, grabs the hockey stick, and sweeps Casey’s feet. It’s a lot easier when his opponent is balanced only on a metal blade.

“So can I,” Raph says proudly. He focuses all his energy on not wobbling so that this looks as badass as he wants it to.

“Point taken,” Casey allows. Him getting back up to his feet is unfortunately more fluid than Raph, and it probably helps that he’s not shivering in the faint cold. “A truce to kicking ass?” He requests, extending a hand.

Even while he takes Casey’s hand, Raph asks, “What does that even mean?”

“Fuck if I know, man, I’m failing English.”

⠀

⠀

They go at it for another two hours, until Raph is shivering too hard to keep going. Casey doesn’t make any jokes about it being because Raph’s a turtle, but Raph’s not entirely sure how he’d take one of those yet, so it’s fair. The amount of jokes Casey makes at his expense would be far past pushing it for anyone else.

When they grab their phones, April has updated them on Leo’s whereabouts via a picture of him flopped over on her bedroom floor (which Raph is definitely going to taunt him about tomorrow holy shit what was he thinking) and Donnie and Mikey confess that they both got dragged into the afterparty and will be back to the lair later in the morning.

Raph wraps an arm over Casey’s shoulder and they pose for a selfie, and they’re definitely on the same wavelength because both of their smiles are a touch devious, and they start laughing when they see the picture before they send it.

“Do you think that there’s any ice cream places open at 11pm?” Casey asks.

Concerned, Raph demands, “Wait, we just spent the last two hours ice skating, and now you want more ice? At midnight!?”

Trying and failing to play it off, Casey raises his chin and declares, “You don’t no my life.”

“Yes, I do,” Raph sighs, then yanks Casey forward by his arm. “C’mon, let’s walk through a drive through and piss off the nightshift worker.”

“I like the way you think, Red.”

“Is that supposed to be news?”

They walk through the drive through, because they’re little shits, vigilantes, delinquents, and definitely not pussies. Though, the expression the woman is wearing when they make it to the window makes Raph feel like they’re not the first teenagers to have had this idea, though considering that the afterparties are now in session, they might be the first ones so far that haven’t been drunk.

Their school is huge, so that’s just Raph’s assumption. He was raised on shitty movies, though, so maybe he’s a little off base with his guesses, even still.

On that thought, as Raph and Casey continue down the dark streets of New York, munching on burgers while precariously balancing their boxes of fries, he admits, “Y’know, we used to think that highschool would be like the Disney movies.”

Casey chokes on his burger and his laugh rumbles through his disgusting mouth full of food. “Dude, no fucking way.”

“Yes way,” Raph argues, grinning. “We saw this outdoor movie night of Highschool musical and were like, well, if the humans are watching it, then it must be pretty accurate.”

Casey’s cackle probably echoes for blocks, and since Raph is Raph and not Leo, he doesn’t bother to silence him, and even goes as far as to grin when he sees a few windows get lit from the inside.

“Thank god we wound up being normal before it was too late,” Raph tacks on, and Casey’s laugh picks up for a few more seconds.

Eventually, Casey manages, “Dude, you’re joking about the being normal thing right?”

Raph elbows him and does not feel bad when a few of Casey’s fries fall out of the box. “No shit, sherlock. I’m a fuckin’ weirdo and I’m proud about it.”

Casey wraps an arm around Raph and whoops.

Raph can’t imagine a life where he’s still trapped underground, going stir crazy and feeling closer and closer every day to snapping.

(Well, he can, but it’s depressing as hell so he tries not to.)

He can imagine his life now, though, in crystal clear quality. He’ll keep showing up to Casey’s hockey games and be a real ass about it, and eventually they’ll both go off to college and Raph will be intentionally be more dramatic about missing his best friend than any of his brothers, and then he’ll get bullied into a group hug like he always pretends to be.

Later, he and his friends and family will have an even better prom night down in the lair, while listening to rap music that’s more than just mid at best, and then eventually they’ll settle down to watch a romcom movie that Dad insists is good, and they’ll all get to throw popcorn at the projector screen.