Chapter Twenty-Nine


The friend who can be silent with us in a moment of despair or confusion, who can stay with us in an hour of grief and bereavement, who can tolerate not knowing... not healing, not curing... that is a friend who cares. -Henri Nouwen

We need to give each other the space to grow, to be ourselves, to exercise our diversity. We need to give each other space so that we may both give and receive such beautiful things as ideas, openness, dignity, joy, healing, and inclusion. –Max de Pre


"Really? Just like that?"

"Yah. Just like that."

"All of them."

"That's what I said."

There was a long silence.

"Dude," Casey muttered. "You…you can't. Nobody can."

Michelangelo gave him a sarcastic look. "Gee, Casey. And you're the one going on about how I have no brains."

Casey held up his hands. "I only tease, okay? I didn't mean it, I never did! Look. Mikey…" He paused again, leaning against the edge of the roof, staring into the night. "The whole time I've known you, you've been this happy-go-lucky, fun-loving, carefree, sometimes careless, goofy prankster. You're happy the way some people are left-handed. And I've always envied that. And I've always wondered how you do it, how you keep it up."

He sighed and stared his friend in the eye. "You know it's not possible to just bury all the bad memories like that. You know."

Michelangelo's left eye twitched. He wasn't smiling at all. "Yeah? Yeah? How do you know I know?"

"Because I...!" Casey started to snarl, then thought a lot better of it and took a deep breath. "I know that you should keep on being your silly bright self and not this...hardened war-torn sullen type. It's not you, Mikey, and you fucking know it isn't!" Aaand he hadn't mean to raise his voice, but there it was. So he just stared and kept staring, upper lip curled only a little. He'd had plenty of stand-offs with Raph, and this was Mikey, this was nothing.

Mike stared right back, his huge eyes narrowing slightly. "Oh? Tell me."

Casey, not used to his best friend's little brother sounding so…pissed off…sighed and hung his head. "Okay. You know about my dad, right?"

"Yeah. That he beats you when he's drunk."

"I take those beatings for my little sister," Casey said. "I try and get her to run off when I see the signs. But I know she listens. A while back, I asked her what she ever remembers, and she said she just wanted to make all those memories disappear so she would never have to think about them. But when she tried, she just got nightmares. So, she told me that she accepts that the nightmares are part of her life, and that she just wanted to focus on being alive and at least being cared for. Having a home and food and warm clothes. She loves butterflies."

He stopped. His hands tightened on the dry tar, making dents with his fingernails. Mikey didn't say anything. They stood there, leaning on the tarred barrier between the roof and the street. Sirens came and went from every direction. People yelled. Cars honked. Manhattan slept fitfully and full of loud dreams.

"I love butterflies," Mikey said breezily. "Donnie says they were actually called flutterbies and then some writer mixed the word up and got it backwards. I always liked that fact. I'd rather call them flutterbies, it makes so much more sense."

Casey just nodded.

There was more silence. Casey glanced at his friend without making it obvious. Mikey looked…well, not older. He had always looked too young. Mikey looked his age now. A wiser, harsher teen whose competence and capabilities were blatantly obvious rather than cleverly hidden. There was more intensity in his eyes. Mikey would probably never admit how much he actually felt, but Casey knew those eyes. He got them himself after he learned how far his father would go, how far he had to go to protect his sister, himself, innocent people around him. He'd never really planned on being a vigilante. But too many people were his father, and if he couldn't take that old man down, he'd have to try the others. The way Michelangelo stood now, halfway between proud and shattered, reminded him of too many friends who were gone, either walked away or carried away.

He hoped Raphael was seeing it too.

This was the consequence of burying the bad memories, of insisting that nothing really hurt, of grinning like a sun through the pain, struggling to spread that light over the most darkest, obvious traumas. His best friend's little brother was only now just catching up to the bare reality of realizing that eternal optimism was a lie and that a positive force could only stretch so far before something snapped it just hard enough, just intensely enough that it hurt like screaming on fire when it came all the way back to hit you that much harder. And you were the one who had lit the flame.

Mikey had opened up to him about his subconscious adventures with a group of gods that may or may not have been real. Casey had seen stranger things. He just nodded, and he laughed during the play by play of the water balloon fight. He asked Mikey about the possibility of seeing healers like Hecate or Apollo again. Mike had only shrugged.

Moonlight swept over the roof and Casey trailed his eyes over the scars tattooing Mikey's body. He wasn't going ask if they hurt, if anything hurt. Mike wasn't going to tell him. They were going to stand there, and bathe in moonlight and watch the city, and maybe take on a crime if Mike felt like it, whatever Mikey wanted to do. He had called Casey an hour ago and met him on his apartment building's rooftop, and had started with a bright smirk and the phrase "Ever been pranked by a god before?" And now Casey realized he had more than a little sister whose protection, innocence, and smile lay partially in his hands.

Ah, hell, I never thought I'd get this close to the little goofball to make him open up like this. Did I ever want him to? I always made fun of him. Because…Raph did. But, like, Raph's his brother, that's the rules. Right? And I'd get smacked when I did it. Except I don't get smacked so much anymore. And I don't even feel like making those insults. Not since…what happened. I mean.

Casey shifted and his thoughts trailed off. He realized he was staring very hard at the gouged-out claw marks on Mikey's side between plastron and carapace. Mikey was staring at them too. Because Casey was staring at them. He lifted his eyes right to Casey's. He didn't blink.

Casey didn't want to blink either. He really does have the hugest eyes. Mikey's eyes were always very bright, matching the color of the sky, of robins' eggs, of baby blankets, of cyan. Now they held a hint of gray, exactly like clouds before a light storm. And Casey couldn't remember if he had ever seen Mikey angry enough for that.

Mike didn't feel like the baby of the family anymore.

Casey blinked first and tried to think of something to say. His turtle brother just stood patiently.

"You know… your eyes are a little dark…maybe grayish," was the first thing he blurted out.

Mikey blinked very slowly. One eyeridge raised. A muscle at the corner of his mouth twitched, like a weak attempt a smile. All he said was, "I wonder if Leo's eyes do that when he's stressed." And it was fair and obvious that Michelangelo knew exactly what it was about. So Casey didn't say anything else about it. He just wanted Mikey to talk. He wanted him to be Mikey. Throw a weird joke. Pull a prank. Ask an absurd question. He had no idea what to do when his best friend's baby brother started acting gloomier than his best friend. But. The thing about trauma. He knew the thing, and it was a big thing. Maybe that was why he was here, doing nothing but listening.

Donatello warned him that Mikey refused to sleep. Casey had casually explained some memories of his sister's terrifying bouts of forced insomnia, including falling ill to the point of hospitalization for three days. Mikey had seemed to get the message. But it was hard to tell what he was really thinking.

"You know what hurt most?"

And the question was so random and out of the blue that Casey startled, his back muscles spasming involuntarily, and he almost fell backwards. He had to catch himself on the edge of the roof, and his heart actually pounded.

After composing himself and trying to seem nonchalant, he said, "What did?"

"Getting into his mind and yanking it all out."

Casey, still a little shaken, took a deep breath and worked to process this. Had Mike told his brothers? His father? April, even? Was…this a confession? Casey startled feeling uncomfortable, but it was the sort that warned you that something huge and unstoppable was around the corner, something you didn't know how to prepare for. He was feeling oddly relaxed. Again, thoughts of his sister floated through his mind. Back when she would talk to him about everything. Everything.

"Yeah, Raph…told me what happened. Like, he said he didn't care what happened to that Alchemist dude, he just wanted to make sure you were okay because it took a lot out of you. But I know Don and Leo have been super curious. Um. So, what did you do?"

Mikey was staring at the tar bubbles, poking one with his finger. A very tiny smile played on his mouth. "I just…went in. I felt around for all the places that had power, and there were a lot of those. And I just grabbed them all. Like…wires. And I yanked at them until they broke. And then I just threw a bunch of energy all over. Covering everything I could. And I knew, just because, that it would all explode. And I got the hell out, but I must have still been holding onto a thread, because the explosion caught me. Or maybe that was just both of us. At the same time."

Casey nodded. He had created enough small explosives to know how that worked, with or without timed booms. Being caught in the backdraft of your own tiny bombs wasn't fun.

"So, um. Were you able to tell if it…killed him?" he asked softly.

"Well. Not his body, not…not really. Unless I hit that part of the brain, which probably not. But I made a huge mess in there. I know I exploded the parts that gave him abilities, probably all the knowledge about making his chemistry sets. I guess it doesn't even matter now; we're not even in that galaxy anymore."

Casey realized it was probably time for that discussion to end, but he found himself too heavily wrapped up in it. "So, do you remember what happened after that? The guys said you died and that it was literally unbelievable that Donnie was able to CPR you all the way back."

"Oh, yeah? Heh, interesting. I…remember a huge electric flash of light and power. I didn't feel anything, I just remember floating and trying to find something to grab on to because I was starting to sink. Like in an ocean, except it was darkness. Nothingness. And then I heard Raph screaming and calling for me, and suddenly he was right next to me. And I was freaked out because I thought he was dead too. And then he started pulling me somewhere and I realized he had come to get me out. Which meant my body was working. So I put it together. And then I remember breathing. Literally, that was all I could do. It was so painful. Who knew breathing could hurt so much? Oh, and crying. That too. It was like burning." He suddenly giggled and almost sounded like himself. "And then I learned I really was covered in burns, because all my power was, like…burning, that's what it was supposed to do. Duh."

And suddenly, Mikey threw back his head and laughed, a full, rich laugh, and Casey felt himself smile widely and he began to laugh, too. But his laughter died out when Mikey didn't stop. He was wrapping his arms around his sides, as one often did, laughing so hard he had tears in his eyes. Casey was suddenly worried; this was not Mikey just laughing.

There was a movement of shadows, and Casey's heart began pounding. He grabbed his trusted hockey stick. And then three figures stepped out and he relaxed. Sort of. They had desperate, worried looks on their faces. Raphael put his finger to his mouth. Casey nodded nervously, eyes darting to Michelangelo, who was now sitting on the floor, hands over his face, throatily laughing in a way that sounded like it was stealing his oxygen.

Casey wondered how much the brothers had heard. Leonardo slid to him without noise and whispered, "We got here after he started telling you what hurt most," and Casey blinked. Huh.

Donatello was sitting on ground pressed right up his brother, arm around his waist. Just holding him. But the look on his face said he was calculating, analyzing, working out in his head how long the laughter was lasting, what type, the force of Mike's breathing, probably even the pressure of blood throbbing through the veins in his head. Mikey had stopped, and was now gasping, slightly whimpering, his head on Donnie's shoulder. He was grinning and grimacing at the same time; it was the kind of thing Casey recognized as just laughing so hard that it hurt, that you couldn't help but cry, as laughter kept forcing itself through your belly and out your throat until your insides ached and your chest was sore and something in your head burst, that all the "feel good neurochemicals" released and dumped out all at once because it was like a safety measure. He'd heard that sometimes people fainted. Or died.

Don probably knew all of that. So he must have known what he was doing when he motioned to Raph, who crouched and helped him lay Mike on his side. Mikey immediately curled up and grabbed his head, dragging in harsh breaths and letting out scratchy whining noises. Casey suddenly felt chilled. Leo glanced at him. "He'll be… all right," he said, and Casey wasn't sure what "all right" meant in this case. Raph was murmuring to Mikey about breathing slowly, Don was taking his pulse. A few minutes passed. Casey's chilled feeling stayed.

Don glanced up at Leo and nodded. Leo turned to Casey. "You should probably get home, get some sleep. We need to get Mikey home. But we really appreciate you being his sounding board tonight."

Casey bit his lip. "Ha-hasn't he talked to you guys?"

"Not about this specifically," Raph said in a gruff tone, and when Casey looked at him his eyes were flashing. "Least now, he talked to somebody."

Casey wanted to squirm and blush, make a quip, but he could only nod curtly, swallowing, with a humorless smile. He had no idea what made Michelangelo open up to him, of all people.

Then he remembered opening up to all of them about hallucinogenics. He'd probably saved Mikey's sanity that day.

Was…was this is way of repaying me?

After all, having wild psychic stuff happening wasn't far off from being on LSD. He supposed.

Leo just looked at Casey, his mouth in a thin line. "He'll sleep. We'll help him. He will be okay, more or less. Thank you, Casey."

Casey breathed out, almost deflating, and just stared at Mikey's shaking body; he looked almost on the edge of sleep. Casey wished he could do something more...

He didn't leave until he knew for sure that they were gone, only a slightly more aggressive gust of wind to prove it.


(Author's Note: I hope the show stops making Casey Jones so...annoying and careless. I hate the way he throws insults around.

Oh, hey! Interesting little tidbit: The shade of Mikey's eyes is azure, right between regular blue and cyan. Azure is basically the color of a bright summer sky, as well as how the stone lapis lazuli got its name. The complementary color of azure is orange. Isn't that awesome? No wonder his mask looks so good with his eyes.)