This takes place immediately after the last chapter just so you know. Which means…

It's Casey time!

Although I don't feel like I gave his, uh, caseyness justice. I kinda went a little overboard with out of character headcanons. Also he and soft scenes don't exactly go together, so…

Enjoy questionable soft Casey time!...?

.oOo.

"Has anyone even told Casey?"

What comedic timing Leonardo chose because in that exact moment, before Michelangelo could answer, they heard the loud tha-thump of the turnstiles turning, and just as the two brothers looked at each other in surprised disbelief, they heard their just-mentioned friend's voice come from the main room.

"What the fuck?!"

"Not good," Leo said and they both rushed out of the kitchen to stop the fire before it could spread.

They found Casey standing near the entrance, holding his skateboard under his arm and staring at Raphael in the pit like the turtle just grew an extra head.

Which, I guess, he kinda did, Mikey thought from where the two brothers stopped a few feet away from the pit.

Raphael suddenly looked very uncomfortable to say the least. Being exposed alone in the middle of the main room with Taraya snuggled in his left arm and tightly holding on to the baby bottle in his right hand, he had no way of hiding the scene from unfolding itself in front of probably the worst person to walk in on him like this.

Casey always annoyed the hell out of Raph if he'd see him going his usual unreserved soft mode toward animals, calling him papa or adorable or pigeon princess… Basically like Mikey but ten times worse because it wasn't Mikey.

Casey laughed awkwardly from where he hadn't moved further than the bottom of the stairs. "Is that a baby?"

"What's it look like it is?" Raph barked back defensively and stood up. He was itching to just walk away and let his brothers do the explaining.

Casey's eyes in the meantime widened from the reply, not sure what to think.

"I don't know…" he took Raph standing up as a sign to come closer. Suddenly he couldn't take his eyes off the tuatara turtle hybrid, but in his own growing shock he also didn't take notice of Raphael's overall mood.

"It could be like an iguana you rescued from the sewers or something."

Raph scowled at his friend who stopped just two feet in front of him now staring like an idiot.

Casey finally took in the familiar shape of the creature's head and the color of its eyes which looked his way once the mouth let go of the nipple. The fact that it was also in a diaper… His brain short-circuited for a second.

"Wait… Is this your baby?!"

"No! …I mean, yes, but—"

"Whoa!"

Casey's reaction time was just a tad too slow. Because as he lifted his head and finally noticed his friend's wide scowling eyes, and saw the other two turtles flailing and crossing their arms behind Raph while shaking their heads and mouthing panicked nos, his mouth already let the two words tumble out.

"Papa Raph."

Leo didn't even wait to see how his hotheaded brother would react. He rushed forward and just awkwardly said, "I'll take her and this," before scooting Taraya and her bottle out of Raph's arms and reach.

Raph was surprised by the new presence suddenly beside them but he didn't waste his new opportunity to punch Casey in the shoulder. ("Ow, man!") He then snatched the skateboard out of his grasp ("Hey!") and used it to threaten him with more possible pain.

He lowered his arm a moment later, though, and spoke surprisingly calmly and somewhat exhaustedly: "I'm not a dad."

Casey, as usual, ignored all the hints that offered him a chance to stay in one piece. "So what? You're the mom?"

"You idiot!" Raph threw the skateboard to the side and advanced his friend to pummel with his own fists instead. "Are you asking to lose your teeth again?!"

Casey raised his hands in front of himself defensively but continued talking, "But then who IS the mom?"

"Baxter Stockman."

Everyone froze in their places and slowly turned to look at Mikey.

The young turtle was still standing on the other side of the pit, and now wore kind of an awkward apologetic grin because, like their human friend, he usually didn't think before speaking.

"Heh… I'm kinda right though, aren't I?"

"Wrong."

This time they all turned their heads toward the laboratory door where Donatello had just shown up.

"If you wanna compare it to the natural reproduction of a species, then the mother would be the female tuatara who's DNA Stockman crossed with Raph's. Stockman, in this case, is more like mother nature, the quote-unquote god that designed it all to be possible."

Everyone blinked.

Mikey was appalled. "Bro…"

And Raph couldn't take any more of this conversation. Not the way it was going so far. He groaned and stomped off toward his room, upset with himself that he didn't do it earlier.

Everyone else just watched in silence until he was gone.

"Great job, guys," Leo sighed in exasperation. "It's like our discussion yesterday never happened."

Casey had no idea what Leo was talking about. He'd gone back to staring at the reptilian baby in his arm—An actual humanoid baby!—trying to wrap his head around its presence.

They mentioned Baxter Stockman…

"...So this little guy came from that egg you guys kept in the lab?"

Leo nodded. "Hatched yesterday."

"Whoa…" he breathed out in awe. "Cool! Can I hold 'im?"

"She's a girl. And I'd rather see you don't."

Casey's face fell for a moment before Mikey got right in front of it.

"Her name's Taraya, y'know 'cause she's a tuatara. I kinda helped name her."

"What's a tuatara?"

"A type of lizard."

"Not technically a lizard," Donnie corrected as he made his way over. "But it is a reptile."

Casey nodded absently, not actually caring about those specifics that much. He remembered there used to be four eggs when he'd first seen them in the lab a few months back and one of the turtles told him how Baxter had tried playing mad scientist with their DNA. But Casey kind of thought all the eggs went bad because they'd mentioned throwing them out. Guess one actually successfully developed a mutant turtle hybrid.

The baby was tiny. Like a young kitten. And she looked a lot like the brother that just stormed off, but Raphael didn't seem to agree…

"So, if Raph's not the baby's biological father…?"

"Raphael is the father," Leo sighed. "He's just working through some stuff."

"He doesn't like 'labels'," Mikey finger-quoted.

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"So, uhm, Mikey…"

Casey didn't really know how to change the subject once he'd gotten up to date with everything going on around the lair. Not to exaggerate but he was kind of in mild shock and wanted to think about something else for a while. He was surprised he'd even reacted to everything as calmly as he did. The seriousness of the situation only came after him after he and the three brothers had all sat down in the kitchen.

"Since you're free for a few hours, wanna go skate topside?"

Before Mikey could answer, Leo butted in. "Why don't you ask Raph to go?"

"'Cause I always go skating with Mikey. It's kinda our thing."

"I think your thing today should be to go with Raph." Leo unsuccessfully kept his authoritative voice from leaking out.

And although Mikey really wanted to go get some fresh air and do some skateboarding, he agreed with his oldest brother. "Yeah, dude, Raph's your best friend, and he's kinda stressed at the moment."

Okay, okay, Casey thought. Guess he could be a distraction while also sorting out his own thoughts.

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Casey banged on the metal door but didn't wait for an answer as he barged into his friend's room. He wore his usual smirk on his face.

"C'mon, Raph, get up, we're going topside."

The turtle looked up from his magazine. "Why exactly?"

"You wanna wait for a better excuse to leave the lair for a few hours?"

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It was still pretty early in the afternoon so there wasn't that much the two friends could get up to without being seen by people in the streets. They did some skateboarding and parkour across the rooftops, egging each other on to do crazier tricks or jump wider gaps until it came to a point where it got a little too risky, even for them.

After a while they decided to switch to playing ball hockey on the rooftop of Casey's apartment building which, with just the two of them and Casey insisting they couldn't lose his tennis ball, was mostly just a game of passing and receiving the ball between them.

It wasn't long until they ended up sitting against the rooftop entrance door talking about random things. And even those conversations died out quickly when the elephant that followed them from the sewer became too obvious to ignore.

They both wondered if the other person would bring up the current situation in the lair first. Raph hoping Casey wouldn't so they wouldn't have to talk about it, and Casey hoping Raph would so he wouldn't have to be the one to start the sensitive topic.

But eventually Casey got tired of waiting. "Congrats on becoming a dad," he said and carefully watched Raphael's reaction.

He'd really messed up with the turtle earlier when he'd arrived at the lair. If he'd been warned ahead of time, he wouldn't have reacted to seeing his emotionally insecure friend and his brand new unplanned kid for the first time by teasing him about it, that's for sure.

The turtle only grunted and continued staring across the roofs with a dejected air he'd never really shaken off.

Casey had no clue how to proceed from there… Was Raph really not going to talk about it?

...

"It's kinda lame, isn't it?"

"What is?"

"Us having a kid."

Casey shrugged. He disagreed but he was too glad his friend was talking to consider shutting him down. He wanted to hear Raph's true thoughts on the matter. "What's lame about it?"

"I don't know. Me being a dad? …I dunno…"

Honestly Raph didn't know why he thought Casey would get it. Even he himself couldn't explain with words what exactly was bothering him so much without sounding stupid. He'd had a talk with April the other night, and while she played her role as mediator between him and his brothers well, her words for him didn't really sink in as much as they both hoped. …Maybe he should just suck it up already before he'd start sounding like he was trying to have a pity fest for himself.

"I don't know either, man," Casey shrugged. "I guess April's dad's kinda lame if that's what you're getting at?"

"Exactly!" the teen groaned. "I don't want to be like that. And Splinter was always so collected and serious and he had all that 'river over the stone' stuff figured out. He wasn't lame of course but I'm nothing like him either." Raph didn't understand how Donnie could think he was…

"Dude, chill. So you're nothing like the only two dad's you've ever met in your life. There's no guide book on how a dad should act."

"I'm pretty sure there are plenty," Raph deadpanned.

"I mean there's no one way to be one. And even if there are guidebooks, I doubt my old man ever read one, and he's more or less been a great dad despite everything."

"Just look at me. Yeah, I had to repeat my junior year and I was missing a good chunk of my teeth for a while but that was entirely on me. I'd say I turned out pretty alright."

"Define 'alright'."

Casey didn't let himself get bothered. "I got a job, I'm gonna move out soon, I'm even thinking of maybe doing college classes. - Adulting basically."

He saw Raph staring at him like he just morphed into something disturbing. He wiggled his fingers in front of him and howled hauntingly. "Ooooooooo!"

Raph pushed his hands out of his face. "Fuck off, man."

He was smiling. But only for a little while before a silence grew between them.

"Is that what's bothering you?" Casey asked after another silent moment. "Thinking you gotta grow up and change?"

"I-" Raph stopped then sighed. "I don't know…"

Casey repositioned his legs and scratched the side of his head and patchy beard. He wasn't good at these sorts of conversations, and Raph wasn't making it easy either… "Well then, what do you know?"

"I know I really suck at all of this," Raph muttered.

"You'll get used to it, bro. And it only gets easier as they grow older. Unless you're dealing with brats, then it gets harder."

Raph's frown turned annoyed. "Thanks for pulling some generic advice out of your ass. I really appreciate it."

"Dude! My little sister was born when I was like ten and I didn't exactly get to sit back and watch while Dad took care of her. And my half siblings are preschoolers now, and even though I don't see them that much, I still know what I'm talking about."

Raph rose a questioning eye ridge.

Casey shrugged, trying to make what he was about to tell Raph, sound as nothing more than a generic fact not worthy of a reaction. "Garbage collecting isn't my first job, y'know. I had an extensive career in babysitting. And not just my sister. A lot of the kids from my block, and some cousins, too."

The turtle offered him an incredulous stare in response. Teenage Casey with little kids was a mental image that shouldn't be as clear as it was in Raphael's mind, besides: "You never told me you babysat!"

Casey pressed his lips into a thin line, unsure why he thought revealing that well kept secret to Raph was a good idea. "Of course I never told you! What the hell do you have me for?"

Raph smirked after a silent pause, wondering. "Is this why you missed some of our big battles and then kept complaining for days?"

Casey was pouting as he mumbled: "…Maybe."

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The young adult got up after a while. "Hey, yo, come with me. I'll show you something." He picked up his hockey sticks and when Raph stood up too, he opened the rooftop door behind him.

"Through there?" Raph asked, perplexed.

"It's easier. C'mon."

The turtle reluctantly followed him down the cold concrete stairs into the hallway of the building's top floor. They quickly descended two more flights of stairs before finally reaching the door to Casey's apartment.

"You moron!" Raph whispered loudly, looking around for any signs of residents while Casey fumbled with his keys. "What if someone sees me!?"

"No one's gonna see you. Angel's at her mom's and Dad's at work."

"That's not what I mean."

They stumbled inside.

Casey only grinned before kicking off his shoes.

Raph rolled his eyes and moved toward Casey's bedroom when the guy grabbed his arm and directed him the other way.

Casey's home was a small two bedroom apartment with a narrow hallway connecting all the rooms. He pointed Raph in the direction of the kitchen at the very end while he snuck into the living room that doubled as his father's bedroom.

Raph felt a little out of place. Heck, very out of place. He'd never spent much time at Casey's, especially not outside his room that he, up until this day, always entered through the window. He awkwardly sat down at the dining table, being careful not to scratch the wall behind him with his shell or the chair's back. The whole apartment felt cramped for the wide and stocky turtle.

Casey returned a minute later with two old shoe boxes stacked one on top of the other and a shit-eating grin on his face.

"What's that?"

"Curious, aren't we?"

"You practically dragged me here!"

"If that's what you call following me into a building full of humans unprovoked.—Juice?"

Raphael sighed. "Sure."

Casey handed him a glass from the drying rack by the sink then fetched a carton of orange juice and a bottle of beer from their small fridge before sitting down too.

"I get juice and you get beer?" Since when did Casey drink beer casually anyway? Raph wondered.

"Did you want beer?"

"No."

"Great 'cause that's the last bottle we have."

Raph rolled his eyes as he poured his glass.

"Wanna eat something?"

"Why are we here, Casey?"

Right. Casey didn't know why he was suddenly trying to buy time. He laid his opened beer bottle on the floor by his chair and pulled the two shoe boxes closer to both of them.

"All this talk about kids got me thinking how crazy my parents used to be when I was little."

Since Raph's only exposure to parenting was Master Splinter, Casey had the thought that it might not be so bad to open up to his friend about his own upbringing. He never talked about it much with anyone because his family was a bit of a mess in comparison to most people he knew. And he'd already admitted to babysitting. Raph couldn't react any worse to this, right?

"Photos?"

Casey watched his friend's confused expression turn thoughtful when he pulled a bunch of old photo albums from the first shoe box.

"Yeah…" he smiled. "I haven't looked at these in ages."

He sorted through the collection before realizing he would need to start with the other box.

Raph wasn't sure what to make of this, but he would be lying if he said he wasn't curious. He and his brothers only had a few photos from when they were little, and they were all arranged group photos, because good unused film was rare to come by in the trash.

He silently waited as his friend checked the dozens of photo albums he owned, noticing Casey's expression became unsure once he found the one he was looking for.

"Y'know… my mom and dad were only 17 and 20 when they had me," Casey said insecurely then scooted closer with his chair. "It was one of those '16 and accidentally pregnant' situations. Neither of them were ready to have a kid but my mom didn't want an abortion so they decided they'd try to make it work."

Raphael was listening. Casey had never told him that before. Raph only knew he lived with his dad and little sister, and a few years back he'd mentioned getting a half brother and sister on his mom's side. Other than that he never talked about his family and Raph never asked either.

He leaned in closer when Casey opened the album on the first page.

It held a photo of a teenage girl, not that much older than how April looked when they first met her, lying in a hospital bed with her wet bangs sticking to her flushed forehead.

Raph's eyes were wide as he took in the tiny bundle in her arms.

"Is that you?"

Raph's first thought was that human newborns look weird. The baby was wrinkly and very pink. There was barely any hair on its head but its entire body looked fuzzy and blotchy like peach skin. It was definitely nothing like the babies he'd seen on television.

Under all these differences he wasn't expecting, it still reminded Raph of Taraya sleeping in his arms.

"Who do you think it is?"

He rolled his eyes at Casey's smart-ass reply then he shoved his shoulder with his own.

"You're kinda cute, Casey," he smirked, "like a newborn rat."

Casey's face screwed up in disgust. "Anything but that, please."

He turned the page to reveal another close up photo of his newborn self and the comparison to naked baby rats in his head was becoming upsetting.

"Dude," Raph's surprised gasp took him out of his regretting thoughts and he saw his friend staring at the photo on the other side.

"Your dad looks just like you!"

If it wasn't for the fact that the photo looked old and that Casey never had his shaggy hair parted in the middle, Raph would have thought he was looking at a recent photo of him.

"Well I'm actually the one who looks like my old man, but yeah, it's freaky right!? He's even the same age as me in this photo."

The picture felt almost uncanny to Raph, with the way Casey's dad with Casey's face looked so softened up and unsure while gently holding and looking at his baby for the first time.

He wondered, privately, if this was what he looked like to his brothers while holding Taraya…

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"...and the other day while we were strawberry picking on a nearby farm, my dad told me to close my eyes and open my mouth. I thought he'd found like the juiciest looking strawberry, so I did, and that asshole pushed a whole dandelion clock in my mouth!"

Raph giggled. "I'll have to remember that one next time we go to Northampton. Mikey was obsessed with blackberries that grew around April's farm."

They'd gone through most of Casey's early childhood pictures. From the extremely pooped diaper that just had to be documented and his parents falling asleep in uncomfortable places to Casey's first time in ice skates and his first encounter with tooth gaps. Once his parents split up, pictures of some of the birthday parties and trips Casey was reminiscing about with Raph, were missing because those photos were at his mom's place in New Jersey.

At the moment they were going through a series of spring vacation photos they took while driving around New England when Casey was eight or nine.

"On this trip I also ran away one day because Dad didn't want to buy me cake. I don't remember any of that but it's one of his favorite stories to torment me with."

"You ran away because you didn't get cake?"

"Yeah, so we were in like an indoor water park and Andrea left to go change ahead of time because she needed longer to dry her hair. But she got done early and by the time me and Dad got out she was outside in a cafe eating a cheesecake.

"I also wanted one and she offered me hers but I wanted to order my own, and because Dad didn't let me, I apparently got so upset that I stormed off.

"They thought I was gonna come right back so they let me, but I didn't and they found me like half an hour later hitchhiking on the side of the country road.

Dad says it was the worst 30 minutes of his life. I kinda don't remember any of that though."

"Sounds like the time I apparently stormed off and then got lost in the sewers when we were like seven. Leo says he has clear memories of that and that it almost gave Splinter a heart attack but I don't recall any of it.

"Honestly," Raph muttered, "I'm seeing a pattern with these sorts of stories and I'm starting to wonder if it's all just a big made up ploy to make us feel like crap."

"I like this theory," Casey smiled and nodded. "Why did you 'not' storm off though?"

"Whatever the reason was, it definitely had nothing to do with cake," Raph laughed.

They just finished flipping through the last pictures of the family trip and switched to a whole mini album of just Casey playing hockey for the elementary school league. The photos mostly showed the kids in the rink and occasionally there'd be one of Casey's dad and a couple of other fathers cheering or shouting from the seats.

There was also a photo of Casey and his dad's girlfriend sitting together in a diner that must have been taken by his dad after a bad game. Casey looked absolutely sour despite the giant milkshake in front of him and the young woman hugging him with a big cheesy grin on her face.

It was in that photo that Raph noticed the girlfriend's stomach, which was mostly obscured by the table, looked awfully round. Before he could investigate further the short album ended and Casey switched it for a white one with a teddy bear vignette on the cover.

Raph stared at the page his friend opened to. After going through all these pictures proving to him that Casey had always been the troublemaking spiritive brat Raph met a few years back, it was shocking seeing a ten-year-old Casey sitting straight on top of his bed with the softest expression on his face while very carefully holding his baby sister in his arms probably for the first time.

The baby was a wrinkly, tiny bundle in a lavender cotton onesie and, just like baby Casey did in that first album, she reminded Raph of Taraya.

A soft smile snuck on his face despite his efforts to look neutral.

He should probably head home soon…

"I remember being so nervous to hold her but Andrea insisted that I had to. The whole time I thought I was doing it wrong 'cause she looked so frail and kinda weird and she kept moving around."

"She's smiling though."

"Yeah… Guess I wasn't doing such a bad job for my first time after all."

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.oOo.

I decided to be the brave person and gave Casey a decent dad for once.

Also the dandelion story is what my dad did to me when I was little (and to my brothers before me too, apparently), and Casey in the story about the water park is basically one of my brothers when we were on a family trip lol XD