chapter title: circus of the dead by tryhardninja and jordan lacore
chapter warnings: mentions of child death, depictions of grief

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Movie night. The most sacred of bonding activities. Shitty vhs tapes. Cheap snacks. Pizza. Blankets. Friends.

The best part? No bullshit. Now, don't get him wrong, he LOVES being a vigilante! Beating up the jerkwads that make his city a dangerous place to live in (that puts his family in danger), the adrenaline rush of racing across the rooftops, evading the rare cop that actually pretends to care about what the hell he's doing, he lives for it! Loves it just as much as hockey, and that says a lot! But sometimes a guy's gotta chill, ya know?

No patrols, no worrying about the Shredder, or the Kraang, or any other baddie mutant who tries to fuck up the streets of NYC. Only relaxation, baby!

So imagine Casey's confusion and disappointment when he sees the guys all in their gear, getting ready to head out. Right as he and April arrive at the Lair too! That's just rude!

"I thought tonight was movie night!" He complained, gesturing to the couch pit clearly set up for the aforementioned movie night. "I would have brought my gear!"

Leo at least looks sheepish. "Sorry, Case. Duty calls."

Donnie's punching numbers into one of his weird-but-cool (do not tell him he thought that) inventions, not even looking up from the screen. "The Foot Clan's been having an odd amount of activity around this one abandoned building on the south-eastern side, we wanna check it out to be safe."

Abandoned building on the south-eastern side of Brooklyn?

Don't think about it, don't think about it, don't think about it-

Leo's double-checking the tightness of his mask as he and his brothers are ushering themselves to the garage. "You guys can start the movie though."

"But you'll miss it!" April says, pouting. Clearly Casey isn't the only one upset about this sudden change of plan.

"Then we'll make it in time for the next one!" Mikey says, dunking Raph's head as he runs by and barely missing the incoming slap with a cackle. Little shit.

Raph is the last one out, with the goodbye of, "Don't eat all the popcorn while we're gone!"

April humphs, crossing her arms. "It would have been nice to go with."

Yeah, Casey agrees with that. Shitty of them to back out at the last moment. Not even the most sacred of bonding activities is safe from the bullshit of the Foot Clan. A sad day indeed.

"Aw, c'mon, Red! They'll be back before we know it." Casey collapses onto the prepared couch, immediately grabbing the popcorn bowl. He's not gonna leave any for Raph.

He's upset, but he's not that mad. First dibs on popcorn, baby!

April and Casey did, in fact, take Leo up on the offer of starting the first movie. It took like ten minutes to choose one, going through several options (Barbie and the Princess and the Pauper was suggested, one Casey shot down quickly, even for him) before finally landing on a weird Space Heroes bootleg. It wasn't good. Not in the 'so-bad-it's-good' kinda way, just... not good.

April's sure that Leo got that one cause he thought it'd be close to the actual Space Heroes. Casey thinks one of the other three got it as a prank.

Either way, the credits are rolling as the turtles return, talking amongst themselves. Putting up weapons, taking off unnecessary gear, the like.

"Foot Clan activity is definitely weird," is the first coherent thing said when they come back.

Leo comes into view, nodding, making himself comfortable on the couch. His brothers quickly follow, and the humans are suddenly swarmed by mutants. "Tomorrow night, I want us all to do a retcon mission over there." He looks over with a grin, bumping shoulders with April. "You guys too."

"Sweet," Casey says, flicking a piece of popcorn into Mikey's open mouth, high-fiving when he got it on the first try.

"Don't know why they're so interested in a dumb abandoned pizzeria anyway," Raph complains, swiping for the vhs catalog Donnie made who-knows-when.

Mikey swallows the second piece of popcorn to successfully land in his mouth. "They might be looking for free pizza! We should have asked!"

"Yeah, like that would go over well."

Hamato Raphael, ever the optimist.

April giggles, leaning back into the couch and offering Leo some of her snacks. "I didn't think there was a pizzeria south east of here."

There shouldn't be-

Donnie hums, taking out the shitty bootleg Space Heroes vhs (that Leo visibly wrinkles his snout at) and tossing it to Raph. A different vhs tape is tossed back. "Freddy Fazbear's Pizzeria, it was called."

Freddy Fazbear's Pizzeria. Laughter, balloons, music. Singing bears and bunnies and chickens. It was their birthday party, it was supposed to be fun-

"NO!"

Casey is standing, popcorn all over the floor, panting, panicked. Casey Jones isn't a fuckin coward. But... but he hates that place. Hates it with everything he has, hates it worse than Shredder and the Kraang combined.

Every fucking time he thinks he can move past it, move on, something reminds him off that place and he's suddenly ten again, waiting for-

"Woah, dude." Mikey's voice is shocked, they're all shocked, why wouldn't they be? The most fearless and reckless of them is scared of a goddamn abandoned building.

Except it's not just an abandoned building. It'll never be just an abandoned building.

Casey's voice is... embarrassingly shaky, but firm as he can be when he says, "I am not fucking going over there."

Leo's in the beginnings of scolding him for his language (like he's worried about that with the memories that refuse to die-) when Raph scowls and pops up from the couch.

"And why the hell not?! The Foot Clan's up to somethin, and we gotta figure out what!"

He jabs his finger into his chest to add to his point. Casey scowls right back, pushing the hand away. "Not this time! I'm stayin' out of this one!"

Donnie sighs. Tired, condescending, oh, just like him! He can feel the anger burning in his chest just looking at Donnie, and it only gets worse once he opens his gap-toothed mouth. "Really, Casey?" He asks, voice fucking dripping with judgement. "A pizzeria where you draw the line?

"Yes, asshole!" Casey shouts. Angry tears build at the back of his eyes, but Casey will be damned before he cries in front of fucking Hamato Donatello. "Quit it with the goddamn tone! I'm sick of you acting like I'm an idiot and judging every fuckin thing I do! I'm out!"

Without another word, which is weird for him, Casey jumps over the couch and runs out. Ignores April calling for him, ignores Raph telling the others he'll go after him, ignores Raph's call.

Casey runs into the sewers, needing out. Needing out, of the sewers, out of his head, fucking hell, goddammit!

The run slows into a speedy walk, fists repeatedly clenching at his side. He needs to punch something before he explodes.

"Casey!" Of course it doesn't take Raph long to catch up to him. An athlete Casey may be, but Raph's had an entire lifetime of badass ninja training. "Dude, the fuck was that?!"

"Leave me alone, Raph."

"Ey, nuh-uh." Raph comes in front of him, walking backward so he's face to face with Casey, who still hasn't stopped and who's three seconds from punching his friend in his stupid mug. "I'm findin' out why you acted like that. You've never backed out of a mission before, why the change of heart?" Drop it, Raph. "You finally gettin' scared?" You wish, ass. "Can't keep up all of a sudden?"

Casey expects his fist to fly. He expects his hand to go for Raph's face, and Raph would block it and immediately pin him to the fucking ground, and Casey would deserve it, and then they would spar until Casey wasn't angry anymore.

But instead the anguished words of "My sister died there, Raph!" flies out of his mouth without his permission.

Casey stops. So does Raph, but Casey's not paying attention to him. Casey's just trying to keep the tears down. If he starts crying over her again, he's not gonna be able to stop for hours. And he really, really doesn't wanna deal with that right now.

He sniffs, and finally hears Raph's quiet "What?"

He sniffs again, wiping at his stupid face to get rid of any stupid tears before they can fall. "My sister died in that fuckin' pizzeria."

His back hits the wall and he slides down it, curling into a pathetic little ball on the floor. He doesn't talk about her. He doesn't talk about her and he doesn't talk about it because even though it's been years, it still hurts so fucking bad. It feels like his soul's been torn in two, and the second half has gone somewhere he can't follow. Somewhere he could never follow. And it eats at him.

They said time is supposed to make grieving easier. So why the fuck is it still so hard?

The scrape of keratin against concrete reminds him he has company. That he can't be throwing himself a goddamn pity party. He's not the one that died, after all.

"... Azul?" Raph's voice is... oddly quiet. It's easy and hard to forget that Raph is just as much a big brother as Leo is. If he lost one of his brothers... Casey's pretty sure it would break the guy.

It's also a testament of how much he trusts these guys that he's told them about his little sister. But... "No. My other sister."

Casey's voice is equally oddly quiet. He's really gonna talk about her.

He hasn't talked about her since the court-mandated therapy that did absolutely nothing for him.

"You've never mentioned another sister."

Fucking hell, Raphael.

"Maybe that's because it hurt too much to talk about her, ever think of that, smartass?"

"Damn, okay."

Casey sighs. Digs the heel of his hands into his eyes. Like this is all a dream and he'll wake up any minute and his sister will still be alive.

Fuck, what he wouldn't give for that.

"... Until seven years ago, I had a twin sister."

Casey takes his hands away from his face and finds Raph gaping. It would be funny if this didn't physically hurt as much as it did; like his heart is cracking more with every word, like he wanted to cry for a thousand years and then sleep for even longer.

"She was your twin?"

Casey sighs again, leaning heavily against the wall. Staring into the running, disgusting sewer water. Like the current can take away his pain. "Yeah. We celebrated our tenth birthday there, and... she never made it out..."

The Lair is eerily quiet as Raph runs after Casey. April had never seen Casey like that. Sure, she'd seen him scared. He fainted the first time he saw Master Splinter for fuck's sake. But... it felt more than that. More than scared.

It felt... heartbroken. Grieving.

But who could he be grieving...?

She meets eyes with Mikey and Leo, all three of them sharing concerned looks. Donnie looked shell-shocked. He stood there for a full minute before coming back to reality, face hardening and running into his lab.

Uh-oh.

She, Leo, and Mikey wordlessly go to the kitchen to refill snacks. Leo grabs some extra pillows. Mikey leans against her, and April presses her cheek to the top of his head.

Five minutes of speechless snack refilling, couch resetting, and blanket fort building later, Donnie finally pipes up from his lab.

"Guys? You should come look at this.

All three rush into the lab, all coming to a stop at Donnie's side. He stares intently into the computer, a near haunted look in his eye. She doesn't like this, she doesn't like this one bit.

"What is it Donnie?" Leo asks, leaning over to look at Donnie's screen.

Mikey pops up from the floor. Why he's there when there's plenty of standing space, April doesn't know, but as long as he's comfortable down there?? "Is it a new video game??"

Donnie sighs a long-suffering sigh April almost laughs at. "No, Mikey, it's a news article." He meets April's confused glance. "About the pizzeria we went to. The one Casey freaked out over." He averts his eyes, twirling a pencil between his fingers. "... I need to apologize to him for that."

Well, that's a surprise. "You've never apologized to him for things like that before."

"Yeah, well, this one's different, April." His voice is... quiet. Sad. He scrolls all the way to the top of the article.

April gasps, hand covering her mouth in horror. She doesn't have to look to know Mikey and Leo's faces are the same.

In big bold letters are the words,

"FAZBEAR PIZZERIA SCANDAL: MISSING CHILDREN'S CASE GOES COLD."

"This is the first result that comes up when you search up Freddy Fazbear's Pizzeria. Five children all went missing from the place in November of 2005."

"What happened to them?" Leo quietly asks. The Lair suddenly has an air of somberness to match Casey's grief.

"They disappeared. The bodies were never found, so the case went cold. And get this-" Donnie scrolls down on the article to reveal pictures of the five missing children. Those poor things... "One of the victims was a girl named Roselyn Jones."

Woah, what?

Mikey says exactly what April had been thinking. "Do you think they're related?"

Donnie clicks on one of the pictures. "They had to be, look at 'er."

The picture he chose was one clearly of twins. Similar heights, similar faces still rounded with baby fat, similar hair. The girl's had such pretty curls in hers. The twins posed for the camera, freckled faces smiling bright. The boy had a little gap in his teeth, and the girl's braces' decorated in pink rubber bands. She wore a lot of pink, actually. Obviously her favorite color.

It's a cute picture.

And the boy looked so damn familiar.

... It's Casey. It has to be.

April's the one to find the caption. "One of the victims, ten-year-old Roselyn Jones, standing with her twin brother... Casey Jones," She reads aloud. "But... He's only ever mentioned his sister Azzy..."

"If your sister had mysteriously disappeared and you had no idea if she was even still alive, would you talk about her much?" Donnie asks, quietly but no less sarcastically.

Yeah, that's a fair point. She says so, and Donnie nods.

Tears come to her eyes easily, difficult to blink away. Fuck... this explains so much. That's why he didn't want anything to do with the pizzeria.

Donnie's really gotta apologize to him now.

"Do you think the pizzeria's haunted?!" Mikey bursts out after a moment. April understands Raph's desire to randomly smack him now.

Leo sighs. "We're gonna have to find out. The Foot Clan's presence is too suspicious."

All three of them turn to him. "But Leo-"

"I know, Donnie. Casey can sit this one out if he wants to."

The four of them stare at the article for a minute longer.

April knows they all have their favorite hockey player vigilante on their minds.

Casey returns to the Lair with Raph at his side, wiping at the last few tears that stubbornly made themselves known. Should have suspected he couldn't get through that day and the months that followed without crying.

His throat is dry. He's tired, which is exactly what he wanted to avoid by not crying.

Raph pats his back before calling to the others, all on the couch. The very beginning scenes of A Bug's Life plays on the TV. Wow, he hasn't watched that movie in forever.

"HEY!" Raph shouts, everyone else's heads whipping in their direction. Casey rubs the back of his neck nervously, avoiding eye contact with everybody. "Casey's comin' with us on that retcon tomorrow. We're gettin him some closure."

He offers no other information. Casey kinda expected someone to ask what kind of closure he was talking about, but no. They all nodded and turned back to the movie. Mikey asked if he was crying though. Casey promptly told him to shut up in return.

"Hey, no judgement here, brah! Tissue?" He offers a clean one out to him.

"... Thanks Mikey." He accepts the tissue, wiping at his nose. Eugh.

Raph pats his back again and squeezes himself next to Leo to steal his popcorn.

The only other empty space is next to Donnie, and Casey's half convinced he'd rather stand back here. But then his legs felt like they'd like to give out, so Casey had to suck it up and sit next to the asshole.

But he did so with a huff. A little bit of a pout. He can be petty. And he's still mad. It's just overshadowed by a grief that doesn't wanna go away.

A few minutes into the movie (when the grasshoppers arrive at Ant Island for the first time), Donnie leans over to Casey, like he wants to talk to him. "I'm sorry about what I said," He whispers.

... Okay, the apology was nice. Casey manages a grin. "Finally getting your head out of your ass, D?"

Donnie grins back. "A little."

Casey sees Dee glance at him out of the corner of his eye. Sees his grin fade. "... Was Roselyn really your sister?"

He can't even bring it to himself to be surprised. He's so tired. "You saw the article."

"Yeah."

... No sugarcoating it, he guesses. "She was my twin sister."

Donnie puts a hand on Casey's shoulder. It's friendly. Supportive. All the things he and Casey tend not to be. "We'll find out what happened. We'll help her rest."

Casey sighs, feeling himself lean into the touch.

"... I'd hoped she'd been doing that already."