Work Text:
Title: Just a Pharmacy Run
Fandom: TMNT 2003
Day: Whumpuary Day 2: Infection/bruises/held at gunpoint
Word Count: 2388
Author: aquietwritingcorner/realitybreakgirl
Rating: T
Characters: Casey Jones
Warning: NA
Summary: Nothing ever seems to go right for Casey Jones, not even when all he’s wanting to do is run by a pharmacy and then go home.
Notes: Have my adopted-from-other-places headcanon that Casey Jones works in a garage.
Just a Pharmacy Run
Casey Jones was tired. He didn’t mean he was sleepy. He didn’t even mean that he was exhausted. What he meant was that bone-deep tired. He felt tired in every fiber of his being. Every moment felt like it took every bit of his energy to complete. He was a type of tired he had only been a few times in his life, and all he wanted to do was go home, go to bed, and nurse his bruises and sleep off his fever.
Part of his exhaustion was his own fault. He knew he was feeling a little run down. But he still chose to go out with Raph, busting Purple Dragon heads and making sure that the neighborhood was safe. He shoulda known better. He’d been feeling off, wasn’t moving as fast as he usually was, and that meant that he got caught. And getting caught by the Purple Dragons usually meant a beatdown. It wouldn’t have been the first time it happened to him. Fortunately, it hadn’t taken Raph long to bust up the guys that were on him, stopping them before they could do too much damage. Unfortunately, it was enough that it meant that their night was over. Raph had helped him, limping, back to the lair, which was closer than his apartment.
Going back to the lair meant seeing the rest of the guys. And that, Casey knew, meant taking a little good-natured ribbing from them. Casey did mind that too much, though. He’d have done the same right back to them and besides, he could see the concern they had for him too.
It was mostly shown in little things they did along with the ribbing, like Leo slipping under his other shoulder to help him to the couch, Mike going and getting him ice packs, Don washing his hands free of whatever he was working on to come give him a look over, and Master Splinter coming out of his room to see what was happening. Sure, Raph called him a bone head, but he helped him sit down carefully. Leo asked what truck ran him over, but he brought the coffee table closer to prop his leg on. Mike made a comment about how he was going to look more colorful than they did, but he started laying and adjusting ice packs. Don said that he must be slipping to get this ambushed but sat on a rolling stool he had gotten who knows where and immediately started looking over the bumps bruises and cuts he had. Splinter had mentioned that maybe he needed some more training, but he left to go towards the kitchen, where Casey was pretty sure he was going to make some tea.
He knew the guys were going to tease him, but they were going to look after him too. It’s just what guys did with their buddies.
They didn’t believe him, but he had waved a lot of their concern away, saying he was just having an off night and that he had been tired, that was all it was. ‘Course, he didn’t refuse the ice packs or the tea. It just didn’t make sense to once it was offered. And when Donnie had made up his mind to do something, well, there wasn’t any point in trying to get him to stop. So, Casey had held the ice packs, drank the tea, and let Don poke and prod him while Raph told the rest of them all about their night. He just closed his eyes and tried not to feel as bad as he knew he did.
He didn’t expect Don to interrupt with questions of his own, though, and it took him a moment to respond to it when Don asked him one.
“Hey, Casey, did you say you were feeling a little run down?”
“Uh, yeah, I did. Why?” he had responded.
Don had hummed even as he examined Casey’s back. “Did you know you have a pretty big cut back here?”
Casey had nodded. “Yeah, got that a couple ‘a days ago at work. Some geezer brought in a real rust bucket and while we had it up to look at it, the bumper fell off and got me right across the back. We cleaned it out real good, and I got my tetanus shot, so I ain’t thought no more about it. Why?”
“Because I think I know why you’re feeling run down,” Don had said. “Your cut is infected.”
“What?” Casey had sat up straighter and tried to twist around to look at it but stopped when it made his ribs hurt and he hissed. “Aw, man, how bad is it?”
“I don’t think you need to go to a hospital yet,” Don had said. “But I’m honestly surprised you don’t have a raging fever.”
“Hey—come to think of it, he was feelin’ a little warm earlier,” Raph had said, straightening up a bit. “I thought it was ‘cause we just got out of a fight, but maybe it wasn’t.”
Almost immediately Don had stuck a thermometer in Casey’s mouth. “It’s been at least five minutes since you drank that tea. Your mouth should be back to body temperature by now,” he had said. “Keep that there until I take it, and in the meantime let me just go ahead and clean this cut.”
There had been no way to fight it, so Casey just let Don do whatever it was that Don wanted to do. It was painful, but Casey had no doubt that whatever he was doing, he was doing a good job doing it.
It turned out that Donnie had, as usual, been right. Casey had an infection in the cut and a fever. He had been sent out of the lair with instructions to buy more triple antibiotic cream, take some Tylenol, and go home and rest. And to be honest? Casey didn’t mind doing any of that stuff. The only problem was that he would have to stop at one of those all-night pharmacies on the way home, instead of going straight home and collapsing into bed. But it would be better to get the stuff Don had said to now, instead of later, and Casey knew it.
Which brought him, unfortunately, to his current problem.
“Alright, look man. Ain’t nobody here that wants trouble,” Casey had his hands up in the air as the robber held him, the cashier, the two people working pharmacy, and a handful of other customers at gun point while his buddies raided the cash and the pharmacy. He was standing a bit to the side of the group and was doing his best to draw attention to himself. Bruised, sore, and feverish, Casey knew he was still in better shape to take these guys on than any of the others. Hopefully the adrenalin of the situation would keep him going.
“Shut up!” The gunman yelled at him, stepping a bit closer with the gun. “There ain’t anyone here that’s gonna miss you rejects either!”
Casey glanced over his shoulder. The cashier looked like an overworked dude just trying to make ends meet, the two pharmacy techs looked like tired college students who might have been snitching some of the supply they had access to, one girl looked like a strung out druggie, another guy a cab driver just working the night shift, one man looked homeless, another woman seemed to view it all with dead eyes, and then there was him, a bruised up, exhausted looking, feverish man in sweatpants and a long coat.
Yeah, they didn’t make up the best looking bunch, that Casey could agree with.
“Look, I ain’t sayin’ that it’s not true. But yer looking kinda twitchy man. All I’m sayin’ is none ‘a these guys wanna cause you trouble.”
Casey had been slowly stepping away from the group, the guy’s gun staying fixed on him pretty good. Casey took stock of where the other robbers were. They’d already finished with the cash registers. The other two were already back in the pharmacy. It didn’t have a direct line of sight to the front door, and it’d take them a minute to get from back there to up here where they were being held.
“Yeah?” the gun man countered, “and what about you?” He moved the gun from being aimed at Casey’s middle to his head. “What if I just decide to go ahead ‘n make an example of you?”
“Then yer gonna up yer charge from armed robbery ta murder,” Casey said evenly.
The man laughed. “And who’s gonna catch me? If your dead and they are to, no one’s gonna give it away.”
Casey stared at the man. “What are you, stupid? They’ve got cameras everywhere now, man! You’ll get caught somewhere. And believe me when I say I got some friends that ain’t gonna just let you get away with murderin’ me.”
“Yeah? Well, what if I just go ahead and kill ya, and then kill yer friends when they show?” he grinned maliciously, moving in even closer on Casey.
He didn’t have time for this. Casey Jones most definitely didn’t have time for this. He was bone-tired, weary, in pain, and wanted nothing more than to go home. And this punk’s bravado was wearing on his last nerve. He just wanted to get his meds, and then go home.
“I ain’t got time for this,” he said, and then, with no more warning than that, he moved, reaching up and swiping the gun from the man’s hand, grabbing his wrist, and then pulling the man across his knee with all of his force. He could feel his body protesting, the forming bruises and split skin not liking the movement at all. If it weren’t for Donnie’s thorough first aide, he’d probably be bleeding on his clothes again. But the results of his actions were exactly what Casey wanted. The gun clattered to the ground, falling out of the man’s hand, the man wheezed and pretty much passed out, and Casey dropped him. The other hostages stared at him.
Casey, while not always the brightest bulb in the box, also wasn’t stupid, not about situations like this. He looked at the other hostages and yelled “Run!” at them, scaring them into heading for the door. Casey himself kicked the gun under a shelf and grabbed for something to use as a weapon. Fortunately for him, there were a couple of kiddie bats nearby and, while not the best weapon, they’d do.
All of the commotion had caught the attention of the other two robbers and they, of course, came towards it, guns at the ready. A touch unsteadily, Casey crouched behind a shelf, and when one of the robbers came into view, wacked him as hard as he could with the bat. Of course, it wasn’t nearly as hard as it would have been with a regular bat, or even his hockey stick, and it didn’t have his usual strength behind it, but it did drive the air out of the guy, which was kinda what Casey was aiming for. It left him wheezing long enough for Casey to kick his gun away too, and to turn on the other guy before he could shoot again. He was more prepared than the second gunman was, but Casey was moving before the guy was ready, and a kiddie bat to the head was still disorientating.
Unfortunately for Casey, nothing he had done yet had completely knocked any of the guys out, and it wasn’t long before the first guy was lunging to his feet, trying to attack Casey too. Normally three average goons weren’t a problem for Casey. But without his usual arsenal and slowed down by his exhaustion, it wasn’t looking nearly as good. Especially when one of them struck him across the back with something hard, hitting him right across the infected cut.
Pain bloomed up so strong that for a moment Casey lost track of everything but the pain. It only lasted a fraction of a second, but it was enough to give the robbers an edge, and Casey felt his feet getting swept out from under him, landing hard on his back, the cut flaring up with pain again, and his second beatdown of the night beginning. And this time, he didn’t have Raph to save him.
It didn’t matter. Casey wasn’t one to stay down and take a beating no matter how bad he felt, and by the time the cops burst in—alerted by one of the hostages—Casey was gaining the upper hand and starting to beat them back.
There was, of course, a bit of confusion at first, as to if Casey was with the robbers or not, but the girl with the dead eyes and the cashier vouched for him being the one to save all of them. An ambulance had been directed to the scene along with the police, just in case of a shootout, and was standing by. The cops insisted Casey get checked out, just in case, and the paramedics gave Casey a good look over, putting some cream on his cut, recommending an antibiotic for him, and telling him his best bet was just to go home and rest. Casey had no arguments to that. He was exhausted and that’s all he had really wanted to do this entire night.
Although, the sudden appearance of the antibiotic in his coat pocket along with some triple antibiotic cream didn’t go unnoticed by Casey, nor did the look one of the techs gave him, but Casey decided to keep his mouth shut.
Once it was all over, Casey went home, took the meds, got a shower, and gently flopped into bed, sore all over and glad that he didn’t have work the next day, because he didn’t think he was going to be able to move for the next four days, at least.
And if April came over to check on him the next day at the guys’ urging and spent the whole day doing her best to take care of his bruises and soreness and fever, well, Casey sure wasn’t going to complain. Maybe some bruises and an infection weren’t too bad of a thing after all.