"Hanging By A Moment."
It starts fairly innocent at first, just the faintest brush of Leo's lips against his cheek. He doesn't even notice it, but Casey does, and the blush has reached his ears by the time the feeling's gone. Or – five times Leo kissed Casey, and one time Casey kissed him back.
I'm livin' for the only thing I know
I'm running here and I'm not quite sure
Where to go?
And down I know I'd like to be in tune
Just hanging by a moment here with you
I'm falling even more in love with you
Letting go of all I've held onto
I'm standing here until you make me move
I'm hanging by a moment here with you
"Hey cookie," Casey says by a way of greeting, once he has made himself home at their kitchen. His bag is already abandoned on the old, plushy chair they keep reserved for his grandma – even after her death.
His sister perks up from where she's sited on the counter and waves him a hand decorated with colorful markers. If he's honest, though, the grin she offers him, can easily put the shiny colors to shame.
It's a knee-jerk reaction when he plants a kiss on the top of her head and smiles back, "What's up?"
"I'm drawing!" The piece of paper she lifts is evidence on its own, and Casey has to squint closer to get a good look. His eyes are becoming worse as time passes.
"I can see that," he tells her in a light-hearted tone, "Who's that?"
He points to a certain figure on the paper, before opening the fridge door. The sight that greets him isn't impressive, but also isn't unsurprising. It's packed to the fullest with drinks and beers, bottles with pretty brand names and mostly half-empty.
He allows himself a small sigh, as he slams the door shut.
It has been overly interesting these years, to observe how his father can turn the good days bad, the way he has found himself sinking at the bottom of a bottle every other day, as if drowning is the only way he can breathe.
He's been a witness to everything – the episodes, the tippy-toes pantomimes of shame, the relentless sorry's and repetitive relapses – and he's made sure his sister never has a reason to.
His father lost a wife, Casey lost a mother, but he feels like he's been robbed of both parents.
He isn't sure what he is more afraid of, his sister being refrained from a childhood that is by now a lost cause, or himself turning into the man who holds the reins of his mind already, the firefighter whose long-lost flame caused him to simply stop fighting.
For one thing Casey's certain of, though – he cannot give up the fight, not just yet. No matter the burn that overpowers him in his chest.
When his sister's face lights up at his question, he knows the only possible reaction he can give her back is to wrap a hand around her shoulders, leaning against the counter – and stealing a sip from her chocolate milk.
The playful glare she tosses in response has a place on her face for only half a second, before her expression shifts to excitement, vibrant and clear – always a mother's daughter.
"Oh, that's me!" she exclaims and Casey frowns at the stick figure – maybe she didn't inherited everything from their mother, "And this is Aesha, and we're walking on the playground together," she points to the other stick figure that's being adorned with over-the-top brown hair and a generous amount of purplish glitter.
"Do you like it?" Her wide eyes are practically asking for teasing – and Casey has never backed out from a challenge.
"Nah," he says flatly, "I love it" he adds brightly, sleeping neighbors be damned and his sister's hunched shoulders puff all the way up to the tips of her ears just like her smile.
It's effectively contagious and Casey mirrors the grin, ruffling her braids for good measure till she shakes out of his hand giggling.
"Awesome!" It's truly fascinating, how her smile can just manage to broaden even more. The contrast is evident, when she drops her eyes on the paper, focusing on drawing the pink clouds, pursed lips unreadable.
"I really like it," she shrugs, like a passing comment, but he's known her for a life, and that gives him a solid head start to the tentative edge lingering in her tone. He waits, for her shake, taking chocolate milk mouthfuls she now seems not to notice.
"Holding hands with Aesha, I mean," she elaborates and levels him a look full of knowing hesitation. The hand drawing has stopped long ago, the restless kicking of her legs only furthering his mouth dry.
Oh.
"You do?" He asks airily, eyes shifting – the way Leo and Donnie behave, indifferently open, when they want Mikey to give in their questions, building the free space to do so, accordingly.
And Casey follows their example, because his sister's face reflects his heart, in the manner close-raised buddies can achieve, and he wants her to talk to her part confidant part therapist patient, equally devotedly inexperienced.
"Uh-huh," comes the soft-spoken reply, along with a toothy grin.
"Miss Cece says that if you're holding hands with someone, it means they're very special, 'cause hands are doors to the soul," she says like a rehearsed speech, eyes nonetheless bright, like most nine-year olds do, subconsciously borrowing green-light patterns and sewing them to fit themselves – to justify their actions.
"Poetic, I have to say. Sounds nice," his smile is easy to prompt her own pleased reaction. Her glee basically takes up her pointed cheeks, as she gazes the picture in her hands proudly, smiling dreamily.
"We're gonna live together when we grow up, and it's fair, 'cause girls are so much better! Sometimes, I want to hold hands with Aesha all the time. Her hands are so soft, Casey!" At that, he laughs good-naturedly, a sound she mimics immediately, before muttering, "Is that weird?"
Casey doesn't know how to answer without being the complete hypocrite, amateur gay he is. He indulges in a crooked thing of an expression, because that's what he can manage for now.
It almost feels like an anecdote – a gays assemble, double sibling coming out over spilled chocolate milk across the wooden kitchen.
He's not quite sure of his face, because his sister is looking at him suspiciously, eyes interrogating him like the stuffed animals she sends to prison when they break stuffed animal-laws.
"Do you – do you have someone you like to hold hands with?" she asks, sharp, full of knowing, like the million dollar question it is and when Casey huffs an embarrassed noise, she almost screeches.
He scoots closer, popping her on his legs with vengeance, raining kisses all over. "Y'know, there is someone," he trails off jokingly against her hair and she hums, muffled in his chest and more than less unsurprised.
"Really?"
It's his sister – is the reason he gives himself for spilling his love-struck guts out like an imbecile. Is this how Mikey always seems to hold a secret or two over his brothers' heads like coy blackmail?
In his sister's defense, she sits and listens to him like a loyal fan, oohing and aahing at certain points, melting Casey's weight on his chest like chestnut ice cream.
He doesn't know where to start, swiftly avoiding matters of appearance because his sister is not ready for it as much as he isn't.
He paints Leo, though, as what he is – a hero.
He constructs his acts of glory fumblingly; stories of Leo secretly feeding the homeless, gracefully helping sad kids find their mothers, making sure the water runs hot once Casey claims he's heading to the lair showers, having arms that big that can fit everyone without an ounce of doubt.
And she listens with such excitement, no bratty envy whatsoever, which would be much understandable, looking happy he's happy and at that, Casey knows he now really owes her so much more than simple happiness.
Towards the end, he's slowly becoming more ridiculous, drooling over Leo's Colgate smiles, pretty eyes, white freckles and hard muscles.
He chases bad guys, he says, and in all honesty, he means it in more ways than one.
It means they're very special.
And he was, oh, how he was.
"Oh, wow," his sister exclaims at last. She doesn't ask questions, only bumps his arms with her small fists, imitating bro-codes adorably. He softens for her in a heartbeat. "He's so – wow!" she says again, firm in her remark and means it wholeheartedly.
It does a funny, relieving thing in his heart, a wholly acceptance, too truthfully sweet for the rest of the world.
He can read her face, My brother's boyfriend's a fighter, and he's already braced himself for endless teasing, when it comes to him – and high praise, when it comes to wow-Leo.
He would be jealous if he didn't agree.
"Sure, that's one way of putting it," he sounds cheeky despite the blush flushing his cheeks, but he'd be able to sound cheeky in his deathbed, "Shi – Shoot, you gotta see him laugh, he laughs with his whole body! And he has the coolest fighting moves, and man, oh, when he makes faces in the mirror and thinks nobody's looking, he's – he's just – he is. The guys – his brothers – they call him boring and stuff, but –"
"You don't think he's boring?"
"He's just a more private and silent type of guy. Still fu – freaking amazing," he smiles faintly, more to himself. "Sometimes we don't even hafta talk to get each other. I never had something so – so quiet be so great."
He is so damn great.
He knows something unsure flits across his face, beneath the dark bangs because his sister pushes the dry drawing forward the microwave oven, before jumping expectantly on him – a protest to tumble him out of insecurities.
It's still fresh, he guesses, the underlying tension between him and Leo, but the outcome of it, mellow in its nature, leaves him breathless, pushes him deeper.
He's fairly accustomed to the chaotic loudness or ghosted misery of his life, that the shimmering buddiness of their life is foreign – in a good way. A way he can get used to because it's Leo that is with him.
Yeah, he can grow to love it – it's not a first-time for him, besides.
"I dunno if I even ever had that something," he looks up, smiling and catches the movement of his sister's lips flicking with bubbling awe.
"Then you'd better not lose it," she says, eyes wise beyond her years.
"You're right, bud," he smothers a hand through her hair and lifts himself up and towards the phone and pizza delivery numbers. Pepperoni, maybe?
"Yeah! I was sad when I lost Baby Shark, remember?"
"I do, sweetie," he nods affectionately, with a shaking head to accompany him, as he looks through the pizzas. Pepperoni, it is.
"When can I meet him?" she asks, unperturbed by the manner Casey tenses. She inches the end of her skirt, grin glowing. "Can I meet him?" she continues, guilelessly, "When things are good? I want to meet him!"
His heart aches, brows furrowing at the perky desperation in her voice, the purity that is her request.
She wants to meet him, and it makes Casey stand still and look hopeless, because his sister has funky morning braids he learned how to do, bracelets she makes herself, a love for sci-fi cartoons and tea parties, and a heart too big to deserve half the tornados that whoosh against them.
Perhaps Casey did, but not her.
He spares a long-suffering glance to his dad's room. When things are good? Something painful blooms inside Casey's chest, an ache sharper than what he's been used to, and he guesses it's only fitting, because ever since getting a taste of what he never had, he can't possibly go back.
"'Course. You should," he says, quietly, unregistered by her, and it's the kind of fierce promise he's keen on keeping like a lifesaver.
"Do you kiss – 'cause, blergh, Casey," she rolls, her eyes slyly, spreading her hands apologetically.
But she isn't very apologetic at all, and it probably shows on her snarky face if Casey's scowl is anything to go by.
So much for being a good brother. "My kisses aren't blergh!"
"Help me finish my drawing!" she shouts either way, with a smile in return, and her scraped knees wobble as she reaches for his hand to get off the counter. His hands are full of glitter glue in under a second and he complies with raised brows.
Her smile morphs into snorted laughter, sure enough, at the drop of a hat. "And yeah, they are!"
"Well," he grins widely, and the force of it crinkles his eyes as he gives her the owl face – their mom's favorite, a sort of ritual inheritance for them, "too bad for you, then."
"Wha – Hey, Casey! Ew, gross!" Another peal of laughter bursts from his lips when Casey's fingers dig into her sides and he sprays kisses.
When he slips away from her hug to make the much-needed pizza phone call, he takes one last look as his sister finishes up her drawing with a tune, and an unconscious smile tugs the corners of his mouth.
"Y'know, you're even more wow," she says, fond and certain, and Casey, eyes watered, figures he must be doing something right, after all – and that he can, truly, do something even braver sooner than later – because his sister only believed in fighters.
When his mother got sick, she had told him to keep his chest high and his heart higher, and even though he had claimed to be a big boy and understood it, it's only now that he sees the meaning – and what it actually means for him.
He confides his plans in Leo, unsurely, exchanging late-night phone calls with him that turn much too easily into lair and patrol conversations and bleeding feelings over tea cups.
His voice holds a comfort, a building certainty that is most probably all his – whenever he finds the courage to open the issue and drop it just as suddenly.
Leo meets his sister through his words, talks to her over the phone (ridiculous discussions and fairytale-like eagerness that leave trails of something too tender deep in Casey's chest), lends her his comics and Space Heroes video tapes and his smile whenever he speaks of her borrows the same, well-meant affection Casey only has reserved for her.
Leo makes his way into her heart the way he did to him, quite effortlessly because he isn't planning to back out. He loves her enough to know what Casey has to do and the reason why.
And Casey, he's still a kid, struggling through university assignments, buying art supplies, fighting super villains with only a hockey stick, a strong spray can and a stronger will. He made it his business, because he could and that was the only way he could get close enough to what he felt as justice.
But now, he finally knows the fire camped in his heart, burning his insides out, is the strength he needs to do the impossible. He can, and all the misplaced, childish hesitation can get the fuck out of there – because Leo, wrapped arms and armored chest, is the fuel.
His smiles mend and warm his heart more than his father's drunken daze can break it. It's good enough of a sign.
Casey's battle isn't one Leo is obligated to face, but with the manner he looks at him, certain in his ways like Donnie, untamed in his eyes like Raph, pure in all that's worth like Mikey, he seems ready to jump into war for him regardless.
Fuck if that just doesn't make him cry.
"I think I can do this," Casey says, and Leo's steeled eyes, filled with brimming relief, agree firmly.
"I know you can."
He has decided – he can't let his world keep crumbling down.
"Are you sure about this?" his father asks, walking through his room as he packs. His eyes are rounder than he has ever seen them and Casey guesses it's the first time in months that he has seen him sober.
He nods silently, filling his suitcase with hockey equipment and baggy clothes, breaking the eye contact. It's bizarre how it's scarier to see him sane than drunk.
"I know what I'm doing," he says curtly, tilting his head to his desk so that his father can pass him the picture frame of them. He sighs as he does so.
"I'm sorry," the declaration is met with wide eyes that don't soften the slightest when his father continues, heavy and quiet, his wrinkles twitching. "I know why you're doing this. I just hope you can do it."
There's a wound running on the side of his neck that Casey remembers having noticed when he was a kid. He recalls the way his father had smiled when he had pointed at it, reciting a miracle-like story, circled with fire and devotion. "Just another scar to wear with pride."
The scar today looks faded and old, like a torn photo that has reserved a place to Casey's selling move-out boxes. The room feels less suffocating now that his stuff are gone – more open and free, and so does he.
The stars on the ceiling are still up, and he's waiting for his sister to hang them down. It's a moment for the two of them, only. When his eyes travel from the ceiling back to his father's face, he seems like he's looking for an answer. And Casey knows that, because he has been looking for answers his whole life.
He thinks of everything he has done, everything that has happened, good and bad, all leading up to this moment so many years later, too many years – silent and triumphant.
"I can, and I will. I'm not you," his face is sharp, tongue thick with venom, and the angles in his stomach burn. But he doesn't regret it.
The next day, a few hours before his sister and him leave, he realizes his father has left a chain on the couch where his suitcases rest. It's bronzed and still shiny, a small photo of his mother adorning the inside of its lock – and a part of Casey's heart melts – but he does not forgive.
His hand trembles when he guides his sister to the front door of his mother's old friend's house. Her home is huge and empty, but her heart feels full with the way she hugs Casey and murmurs in his hair and the manner she smiles when she shows his sister her new room.
"I wish this could've happened sooner. It should have. Your mother would be so proud," she coos, almost scolds herself, with tears lingering in her eyes and hands busy with the childish jewelry-making machine his sister has brought with her, and Casey can't help but smile back, genuinely.
His hand trembles when he drops his bags, falling on the sofa of the apartment April and her friend, Kendra share.
Casey adores Kendra on the spot, down to their leather boots; they are fun, play the drums and know how to change light bulbs – the coolest microbiology major he has ever met.
Their first night together, they tidy up Casey's stuff, eat cookie dough and watch the only Black Mirror episode that has a happy ending.
Casey's eyes are closing, but he manages to crack them open for a second, to look at April's fond glance and return it earnestly. "I'm glad it's all over," he gives her a toothy grin that stays plastered on his face much longer than he expected, when April responds with an equally easy smile, arm casually draped around Kendra.
"No, Casey, nothing's over. This is finally where you start."
His hand trembles when he explains why he was gone for two and a half weeks to his brothers, and their hugs are just as warm and powerful as their eyes. He doesn't feel like he's on solid ground, but it's the first time he feels like he can breathe, so he guesses walking steadily will come so much easier.
Leo reaches his hand, as to confirm this, and squeezes it once – to stop the shaking – his features softening lightly when he talks, and it seems like it's on behalf of everybody. "That's amazing. You're amazing."
But Casey can recognize the hidden meaning under his little smile and lightly blushed cheeks, and he winks slightly, along with a slow-spreading smirk, to cover the beating of his heart.
Besides, he's sort of the cause.
Casey doesn't think his problems were magically solved by Leo's affection, and he trusts his strengths, but he would lie if he said that he didn't feel light just because of Leo and his brothers simply believing it – and him – and in him.
It doesn't take much for Leo wink back to burst into laughter – and, holy shit, does he glow.
"Oh, dude," he utters instead, disappointed, "Here I thought you'd last longer."
Leo chokes under his breath, briefly and embarrassingly, as the other nudge and tease playfully, jumping on the opportunity, but Casey, as he watches the way Leo levels him the most endearingly deadpanned stare, finds it impossible for his heart to slow down.
Oh, man, he's got is so bad.
A/N: Sorry for the delay. Sometimes I get so anxious that things I usually enjoy like writing make me terribly sick and I just have to take break before I drown in stress. Enjoy nonetheless! :)
More chapters coming when I feel like it again that will include the actual pairing in the tags instead of just snippets of it. XD