Hey everyone! Happy super bowl day! Wrote this Drabble between during the game itself, considering I'm one for the commercials. Anyway, this story is told from Raphael's POV, and the "him/he/his" he repeatedly refers to is Casey. Recently read a book when the main character only played the pronoun game with her significant other and figured this would be a cool format to try out. Before you read the story though, I just want to say that if you have anything against gay pairings, even ones as light as this, then this isn't for you and you might as well get out now. With that said, enjoy and please, please, please review!
You can't love someone if you don't love yourself first. Bullshit. I have never loved myself. But you? Oh God, I loved you so much I forgot what hating myself felt like.
I Trains roll over head, the screeching of small tires against metal tracks keeping as both awake, despite our eyelids, heavy with sleep. His head is on my chest as I run my fingers through his thick hair, his arms wrapped around my carapace. It's warm here, in our shared bed, even if the blankets were lost to the floor long ago and icy drafts are making an annoying habit of sneaking into the room in the dead of night, like an unwanted guest. Never mind, though, we keep each other warm, our radiating love heat enough for the both of us.
His breaths are steady, a deep inhale and exhale against the roaring sounds of city life above us. It's well past midnight, closer to sunrise, more likely than not. Yet we're not asleep, and that's fine by me. It's comfortable, laying here with him, absorbing the darkness around us. As well as the darkness within us.
We're both overly sad, depressed, actually. Me and him alike find salvation in antidepressants, but even so, sometimes the two-a-day pills weren't enough, and we would crave something stronger. Comfort, love, happiness, clarity; that's what we had been seeking. We found remedy in one another, and now, I can barely go a day without taking an overdose of him. He's a drug, and the lord is my dealer.
I glance away from the pitch black ceiling, looking instead at my companion. Barely a sleep, his eyes are fluttering gently in the harsh battle between wake and slumber. I smirk, finding amusement in his desperation to stay up just to enjoy my company.
Don't worry, I won't leave you, not for a second.
I lift my hand, gently placing my fingers over his eyelids, closing them for him. "Sleep, love."
Against the implanting darkness, I see the faintest, most grateful smile plaster itself across his freckled face. He obeys, considering my words barely. He knows he's safe with me, I'm his lover, the only one who's ever cared for him in this sick, cruel world.
His father abused him, starting when he was young, just barely eight years old. It began small; spankings when he miss behaved. Quickly, though, it escalated. Punches—damaging blows that left bruises on his rib cages—, slaps to the fave—once, hard enough to knock a tooth out—, kicks down a flight of stairs—he broke his leg once, his father refused to take him to the hospital—, and finally, by the time I recused him, it had become as severe as choking—he nearly died the night I found him. I promised, I swore to God, I have an oath, I made a vow, that I would never let a soul touch him for as long as I live.
He knows this, of course, how protective I am of him. Still, he's depressed and I know that, sadly, no amount of comfort will ever truly heal him. But that doesn't mean I can't try to make him feel valued.
Embedded in the sole of his heart, he believes that he deserved what his father did to him. He thinks that he's a terrible person deserving of hate, and he's more than willing to give it to himself if no one else will.
It pains me, not just because I love him to death, no, it goes deeper than that. When we first found each other, I had been indulged in a deep act of self harm, marking my arms with cuts and bruises inflicted by myself. I hated myself, wanted to watch every inch of me burn and rot. I desperately told myself that I didn't deserve life.
Him though . . . he spun those thoughts right around, he made me truly believe that I was a saint. And I've loved him ever since that first day we meet, when I saved him from the brute force of his drunken father.
Master Splinter was a mile away from reluctant to allowing him to stay with us, given the situation at hand. My Sensei approached me one morning, he'd been watching me with the new boy. He sensed my admiration for the incomer, and it wasn't long before it father wanted to speak to me about my growing feelings.
"You cannot love someone, my son," he'd started, his voice as bland as an afternoon in late autumn, "if you do not first love yourself."
For hours, days, months, his words reverberated off of my skull, hitting my brain like a baseball bat.
Looking at my lover now, his head on my chest, arms wrapped around me like vines on an old stone church, I bite my lip to hold back an on growing smile.
"'You can't love someone if you don't love yourself first.' Bullshit. I have never loved myself," I murmur against the silence that had been summoned when my companion first drifted off.
He's coming to it now, waking up from his blissful nap. He sits up, staring deeply into my eyes. Hickory brown orbs light the room up, lifting my spirits as high as the heavens I wish to one day land. He crawls forward, snuggling up to me, sharing my pillow. No blankets, and still, I'm basking in warmth as he tangles himself around me, his left leg tucked between my own, his hand stroking my plastron gently.
I press the faintest of kisses to his forehead, then his lips. He doesn't hesitate to return to favor. His lips move swiftly against mine, sending golden waves of pleasure running down my spine. When we pull apart, he nuzzles into my neck.
"I have never loved myself," I repeat hastily, "But you? Oh god, I loved you so much I forgot what hating myself felt like."
My lips press one finale kiss, this time to the crown of his head. He smiles against my skin, a low purr of satisfaction rippling in the depths of his throat.
"I love you, Casey Arnold Jones."