#forgot to post this sdfsf throws another micro fic at yall

[bigdvmnhero]

Casey Jr.'s first word was ‘Weo.’ 

His second was ‘Cashee’ or ‘Raff’ or ‘Bifurcated Time Branch’—depending on who you asked.

At 36 months old he was their tiny poet. The Kraang was rearing its head, its mouth still smoking from the detonating hockey puck when Cassandra tucked his leg back into the fold of her baby wrap, unsheathed her stick's retractable blade, and asked, "What shall we do to the big bad annoying Kraang?" and out came his first, fully-formed sentence.

"TAKE ITS BRAINS!"

Donnie said, "What."

Leo said, "What."

Raph said, "NO?" and Cassandra said, "Yucky—but sure." 

SCHLICK went the Kraang. Mikey added, "that's what you call a butterfly cut, kiddo—what did you just say?" 

Casey howled, "TAKE ITS BRAINS."

No alien brains were taken (though Donnie would've liked to, very much). But Casey had a knack for putting the soul of the thing into words.

The first day they'd run out of sugar, he passed around flat stones he'd plucked from a river and declared, "DESSERT!"

Mikey sniffed at it. "What kind is it?" he asked, not unkind.

"A cuppycake." 

"Ah, a cupcake?"

Donnie—dismally unfunny after they'd officially ran out of coffee rations, and then cigarettes—scoffed. "What would you know about dessert. Do you even know how frosting tastes like?" and Casey pointed at a passing cloud, then pretended his heart burst into tiny, lovestruck pieces. 

"Like BWAH," Casey said, giddy.

Later, he'd fish the truth out of the air again; the last time Leo and Raph fought like this they'd been teenagers. Not imposing figureheads of a rebel group. Teary-eyed, Casey chased after Leo all the way out of the camp, wrapped his arms tight around Leo's knee, and dug his feet in.

“You need to come back and, and, and hug each other real tight or else—! Or else your arms will forget forever."

"Forever." Leo touched his throat; it hurt from all the yelling. 

Casey's lower lip wobbled. "And ever."

Kid was right again, of course. The days rolled into weeks, into seasons, into the Year We Don't Like to Talk About, and his arms had forgotten; he'd dropped the hug on the way here, maybe, got distracted by some ugly three-headed Kraang and tripped on a punchline, and Raph was gone in the morning. No one there for the final sendoff.

Casey didn't get the concept. At six years old, the kid could perform triple axels around any fresh recruit, but he still couldn't sort out his tenses. Said "I eated!" or "I beated your ass, sensei!"; his past and present verbs tangling like fishing lines.

Kid had a point, Leo thought. What was the difference anyway? Leo missed Raph. Misses Raph. Is missing Raph. Will miss Raph, for the rest of his days, in perplexing ways that will continue to surprise him, like the sunrise outside the canyon. How it rose and rose and rose and rose.

Halfway up the ascent, Leo's knees buckled. Hadn't the future dissolved in that instant? Ten years, he'd promised Mikey. This time we play for keeps. Still: the end of the world, ecosystem degradation, no brother to haunt him; dystopia after dystopia. Something inside him was blackening. 

"Had a bad dream," Leo said, shivering as the kid grabbed his cheeks.

Casey said, “Well, have a better one!” 

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