Welp, I'm in grad school now. If you read this fic from chapter one to here you'll actually get a petty decent look at my life over a span of 4 years! That's crazy! We'll call this update what it is: a procrastinatory tool. Who wants to grade poorly written response papers? Not me. No. Noooooooooo.

Disclaimer: I do not own the ninja turtles. I do own a lot of clothes though. I need to make a donation run.

Understated:

Casey's never been a subtle guy. Wasn't exactly his idea to put the 'b' in the word if ya know what I'm sayin.' The man charges through life like a friggin' rhino, and what's worse, he got no sense of stealth, no sense of tact. That's kinda why we all figured whatever song-'n-dance he was startin' with April would be big and loud. Like literally shout it from the rooftops, neighbors calls the super loud.

All the movies what got romance and whatever say a guy's gotta bring flowers around just about every 5 minutes and kiss a lady's hand and lug a stereo and what else with 'im just to get a girl to believe, "Shell, I guess this fool's got a thing for me!"

But Casey never did that, 's far as we know. It was little finger waves and dopey smiles with no teeth, stoppin' by the store for a few minutes during his lunch break and pickin' up milk on the way over. Kept his affection so deep on the down low that ole' Don-san had to have a conversation with 'im, thought maybe Casey wasn't appreciatin' his BFF enough.

Truth is, in real life, good romance is subtle. Must be, anyway, cause why the shell else would April have agreed to marry Casey? Doesn't matter that Casey can't write a decent poem to save his life, what matters is he washes the dishes once in a while, nukes her coffee when it stops steamin' on a long night. The quiet stuff is powerful I guess. Take it from a ninja who knows.

I like to think of this as Raph practicing for his best man's speech at the wedding. A little embarrassing, a little introspective, a lil' cheeky.

I love Raphie. Shoot me a line!