Work Text:
If there was one thing that was good about being in a hospital bed for weeks on end, it was the fact that it had given Casey Jones time to think. He didn’t, at first. When he had just woken up, he always had someone at his bedside - April, Angel, one kid on the hockey team who hadn’t thought through the fact that he and Casey had never talked, Raph once, in a big trenchcoat that didn’t hide enough, in Casey’s opinion; April again. But eventually April had school, and Angel had dragon shit to deal with, and he was left alone.
He had pulled out his laptop, then, desperately trying to figure out something to do. But he had never been the kind of guy to spend a lot of time online, and that had fizzled out his interest rather quickly. So then, Casey Jones was left all alone again - and this time, he couldn’t go out on the streets and fight to get rid of that loneliness. He was confined to a bed, because of a jackass with stupid claws, and so he thought.
He thought about a lot of things. He thought about the many ways he had failed his mom, failed to recognize the signs just a little sooner, failed to keep his dad on the straight and narrow, failed to fulfill his promises to her. But then he thought about what she had said when he had woke up, and while he wasn’t exactly a religious guy, he kept going back to what his mom had said to him. That his dad wasn’t his responsibility anymore. That it wasn’t his job. That he had fought for long enough.
And he
had
fought, hadn’t he? He’d fought so goddamn hard it hurt, in more ways than just physical. He had fought to pull himself through the darkest nights, when everything seemed painful. He had been the one to pull together his mom’s funeral, when his dad was too busy drinking himself stupid to do it. He had fought to get his grades up, he had fought for Raph and his brothers, he had fought for April. One day, a long time ago, when he was very young, Casey Jones had started fighting. And he had never quite stopped.
But now, confined to a hospital bed? He had no choice but to stop. His skin itched, his fists would curl up, begging to connect with a jackass’s face in a dark alleyway. But he didn’t have the strength for that right now, even if he wasn’t still recovering from multiple stab wounds to the abdomen. He was, for the first time in years, not fighting. And while it was boring, and felt wrong, and like he was failing his mom…
It also felt, well, kinda good actually? He felt free. Nobody was expecting him to be strong, because he couldn’t be. Nobody could in his position, and he wasn’t as much of an idiot to think that he was weak for not being able to do what no one else would be able to. Okay, maybe part of him thought that, but it wasn’t the majority. Probably around 48%. He was done fighting, no longer his mom’s little trooper, and it felt good. It felt like the weight of the world had fallen off his shoulders. No more fighting for Casey Jones, all he had to do was lie there in that hospital bed.
And then his thoughts started wandering. And wondering. Two very similar words with completely different meanings, funny how that works. He started wondering about what would happen when he had recovered - was he going to keep fighting? Well, obviously. Raph still didn’t have his brother back yet. Of course he’d keep fighting.
But that wasn’t the only kind of fighting he had been doing. Every day since that first one he had moved in with the turtles, Casey had been fighting himself. He had woken up in the morning, wondering what his dad was doing. Nursing a hangover, he knew the answer was. But how bad was it? How was he doing without someone to get him that glass of water that Casey always left him? He ended up always turning that fighting outward, of course. No use sitting there being a piss-poor little crybaby of a man when he could be out there getting dicksneezes off the streets. But every punch to their stupid little faces wasn’t about them, and it was only now, lying in there in that hospital bed, did Casey realize that.
It had never been about them. And that wasn’t the only person his fighting had never really been about. When Raph had asked him, once, why he hadn’t abandoned his old man, Casey had said something about his promise to his mom. And sure, that was part of it. He had loved her. Her illness and eventual death had been the thing to drive his once happy family into splintered parts of a dysfunctional whole. But…. was that really why he had stayed with his old man? He could have watched him from afar. He could’ve been his guardian angel, lurking in the shadows. He didn’t have to stay under the same roof as the man for as long as he did, didn’t have to take every beating with a smile because hey, at least he wasn’t fighting back.
And that was another thing - the reason that he didn’t fight back. He said it was because of the promise to his mom, and sure, that had been part of it. A huge part of it, even. But was that really the whole story? Or was it how he felt like a scrawny little kid again every time his big brute of a father swung his fist at his face? How he felt like a small child, the way he had felt that very first week his mom had been in the hospital, when his dad had hit him for the first time? He had only been fourteen, then, and certainly not nearly as strong as he was now. And he always felt like that little kid every time his dad’s anger was directed back at him. Too scared to even think of fighting back.
And that was when he remembered that he hadn’t fought back in the beginning, either. Before any kind of promise was whispered in the dark of a hospital room just like the one he was laying in now. He had never even thought of fighting back against his dad - he was strong, big, mean, tough. It would have been useless. And then he thought some more, and he thought about how his best friends included among their ranks a superstrong mutant ninja. But Raph’s strength had never scared Casey the way his dad’s did, even though it was so much stronger. Raph’s strength brought Casey
comfort
, even. Because Raph had never even thought about using that strength against him.
Which. It wasn’t like Casey and Raph never fought - they were both big guys, with a lot of anger, and sometimes they butted up against each other. Hell, they’d even exchanged a punch or two. But it wasn’t the same. Because with Raph, Casey knew he never had to worry about being beaten to the verge of unconsciousness. Because Raph would always stop himself before he got that bad. But Arnold Jones? Ol’ Arnie never stopped himself. Which was starting to make Casey angry. He was cooped up in a hospital bed, with nothing but time on his hands, and feelings that were only now starting to get figured out.
And then, before Casey had figured anything out beyond that, Arnold had shown his face. The man had walked into Casey’s hotel room, wearing a
suit
of all things
he hadn’t worn a suit to his mom’s funeral. He loved her to pieces, but he was too drunk that morning to get his shit together. He had worn an old wifebeater and a pair of jeans.
Holding a blue, neatly wrapped present in his hands. Casey was surprised, for a large part. But mostly, he was just angry. Why had it taken him this long to show up to the hospital? April had told him that his dad hadn’t visited when he was still unconscious, so Casey knew this was the first time he had shown up here. Whatever, at least the guy had bothered to put himself together. He’d hear him out.
“How ya doin’, Case? Been in too many hospital rooms, haven’t we?”
Casey took a minute to respond. Boy howdy, they were just jumping right into this, were they? No pleasantries? Fair enough, the Joneses weren’t exactly a pleasantries type of family.
“Yeah, we have,” he responded. Short. Sweet. Simple. Nothing more, nothing less.
“So, hey, listen, I wanted you to know…” his dad muttered, sounding more than a bit nervous, “I quit drinking. And I got a job.”
Oh, wow, okay, so they really
were
just. Airing it all out immediately.
“Been hittin’ the gym too. Still bulk up pretty good, huh?”
And Casey, looking at his old man, at those big, strong muscles that had beaten the shit out of him too many times to count, couldn’t help but flinch. He tried to hide it, but his dad saw, if the way his arm came up to his neck was any indication. Whatever, he’d just brush it off. No biggie.
“You traded the sauce for the juice, huh?” A joke. No real malice behind it. Had Casey ever really gotten mad at his dad? They had fought, sure, but those weren’t even real fights. More just him getting hit into the pavement, again and again and again, and then again the next night, and the next week, and the next month….
“So, I know we got our, uh, history,” came the response, and that was a hell of a way of putting it. Their
history?
What, years and years of fear and self-loathing because if his own dad was beating him up because he wasn’t good enough to make his dad get his act together, maybe Casey deserved it?
“But I’m gonna take care of you now. Gonna be strong for you. I think that’d make your mom happy.”
And that was it. Casey
had
people to take care of him. He had his little brothers that looked nothing like him, an old rat jedi master, and two wonderful women. He didn’t need his dad. He hadn’t need his dad in a long, long, time.
And then Arnold reached for Casey, and he didn’t even bother to hide the flinch this time. It hurt, moving himself backwards, but he wasn’t going to let his dad touch him. Not again. Not ever again.
“Get. Get out.” He responded, his voice wavering a bit. He didn’t sound tough, and he hated that, but he felt it. “I don’t need - I have people taking care of me. I don’t need you.”
The man looked hurt, staring down at his son, but he nodded. He opened his mouth to talk, but Casey wasn’t done. “Look, dad, I’m glad you’ve got your act together or whatever, but if you think that means that you can just walk back into my life, you’re wrong.”
Maybe one day. Not now. Not right now.
His dad silently stood there for a moment, before setting the parcel down at the bedside, slowly walking out of the room. Casey laid there for a moment, quietly, alone. Alone was better than being with that asshole, he decided, but he didn’t have to be alone. He pulled out his phone and sent a quick text to April.
>
hey you buusy?
> *busy
> but nah just reading my biotech textbook
> mind stopping by?
> R U ALRIGHT??? CASEy???
> fine. Dad just stopped by.
> gimme ten minutes
> don’t kill yourself, red
> wasn’t planning on it, dumbass.
Yeah, Casey Jones didn’t need to be alone. But he also didn’t need his dad. He had people in his corner, people who had never made him afraid. And he didn’t think that was too high of a benchmark for staying in someone’s life.