Egg Salad

Raph leans back, feeling the brick wall brush against his shell. He grabs another bottle and pushes it between his thighs, unopened, taking a moment to look out across the city. The evening is perfect, endless. A calm breeze, warmer than he would have expected, dances its way across neon lights and parked cabs, coming to rest across his beak. He breathes it in deeply.

The wall is rough against his shell, the rooftop hard beneath his legs, but he is comfortable. He grabs the bottle, cool, but no longer cold, and pops it open. They're close to home; they've picked a nearby rooftop, and Raph thinks that's probably a good thing. He's worked up a nice buzz, after all. Not drunk, just comfortable.

That's alright. It's an off night tonight. For once. No one in danger, no aliens tearing across the planet, no Shredder bursting into their home and tearing everything apart. Just the quiet of the city, the low rumble that never slept, and the satisfying fizz of beer.

His brother sits beside him. It's not the night for sake, and he wrinkled his beak at the thought of cheap beer, so he's making do with a stronger cider. Raph still thinks it's a girls drink, but the peace between them stretches on, and Raph's in no mood to mar it.

Leo sips his drink, looking out over the city.

A few empty drinks sit beside Leo, arranged neatly, almost in a line. Raph snorts, his own toppled over in a heap at his side. Raph's has a few more in his pile too, but that's fine. Leo can't hold his liquor anyway- there's no way Raph has more of a buzz going on.

"Lightweight," Raph says under his breath, smirking fondly.

Leo glances over at him. The dreaminess that has come over his eyes vanishes and he quirks an eyeridge. He wasn't listening, that much is obvious, and he's clearly annoyed at himself for not being more alert.

"Excuse me?"

"Said 's nice out, ain't it?" Raph holds out his bottle for a toast.

Leonardo looks sceptical, but he toasts anyway. He takes a deep drink, and looks back out over the city, a faint smile playing on his lips, "Yes, yes it is."

They sit in silence for a while, broken only by the sounds of the cars below. The odd siren pierces the air. The chill makes itself known, gradual at first, but soon the warm breeze is making Raph shiver.

"Should probably head in," He mutters. Even as he says the words, he finds that gathering the impetus to rise might be more trouble than it is worth.

Leo nods absently, but does not make to rise either. He frowns for a moment, before turning to look at his brother. His eyes are intense, and Raph's not sure if it is just the shadows of the night, but Leo looks more serious than usual. His hands rest on his knees, "Raph, I would like to ask you something."

"...Yeah?" Raph is hesitant. It's been a good night and he's in no mood to deal with anything serious. Unfortunately, serious is what Leo does best. Right now, though, he could do with heading back to the lair, taking a piss, maybe watching some crappy television, drinking more beer and hitting the hay. No bullshit.

"Do you remember" - Raph grows tense, because Leo looks so goddamn serious and tonight has been far too nice for anything to spoil it. But that would be just his luck- "Mike's egg salad recipe?"

Raph blinks. Wait…what? He replays Leo's words a few times, opens his mouth, and shuts it again, "What?"

"You heard me." Leo frowns, contemplative, and just as dead serious as before, "Do you remember the recipe?"

And Raph bursts into laughter, disbelieving and a touch giddy. He lowers his head, humour and tension shaking through him. Nope. No way did he expect that. Something earth shattering, maybe. But not that. When he finally looks up again, Leo looks deeply affronted and put out.

So naturally, Raph sniggers some more before he answer with a, "Yeah… yeah I remember the damn recipe." He snorts with good humour, "Why'd ya wanna know?"

"Obviously," Leo says stiffly, "because I want to have some." He sighs and looks out into the city again, "With Mikey's recent gaming marathon, Sensei will not be letting him out of bed this late." As if on cue, Leo's stomach growls.

Raph snorts and holds up a hand, grumbling, "Yeah, yeah, I get it." He mutters, making a good effort to sound annoyed, "I'll make some fuckin' egg salad."

He pushes himself to his feet, the world taking a moment to settle beneath his feet. Leo stands without difficulty, striding easily to the fire escape. Asshole. No way is he more sober than Raph. Not even if Raph had more than twice the alcohol. No fuckin' way.

They make their way home without much difficulty, Raph making damn sure that every step looks deliberate, instead of cautious, and head into the kitchen. The lair is quiet, and Raph dimly wonders what time it is.

"Do we have mayonnaise?" Leo muses as he wanders to the fridge.

Raph snorts at the question. Go figure Leo has no idea, "'Do we have mayonnaise?' Shut up and just get me the eggs and mayo from the fridge." He frowns in thought, "Uh, and onions, lemon juice, mustard…"

Leo leans into the fridge, and returns with a plastic bag, full of brown, chunky liquid and strips of dead onion floating around, "I have been told I lack skill in the culinary arts, but I… suspect…that this was once an onion."

Raph wrinkles his beak, "Uh… I'll get another one."

Leo grabs the rest of it and sets it on the counter. Raph busies himself grabbing a few different spices and rummaging around for a new onion. He finds one at the back of the cupboard. It's better than the one from the fridge, but just barely. It will be fine.

"Boil a couple eggs, would ya?"

Leo frowns as Raph pulls a knife from the block, "Should you be chopping anything right now?"

"What the fuck do ya mean?"

"You are, ah, somewhat…under the influence-" Leo stops, probably considering all of the times his brother has wielded a knife while inebriated, with excellent results. Excellent results for Raph, of course. Less so for the other parties involved.

"I have a couple beers and you think I can't use a knife?" Raph grouses.

"A couple – you had the majority of that pack -" Leonardo stops, clears his throat and shakes his head. He could keep going, cause an argument. Raph could argue back, a sharp remark that would give Leo no choice but to start something.

Instead, Leo pauses, and Raph snorts darkly, "If I cut a fuckin' finger off, ya can bitch the whole way to Donnie's lab."

Leo turns with ill grace to boil the edge, but there's a smile in his voice as he throws back, "The walk to Donnie's lab is not very far."

Raph smirks and starts chopping up the onion, "Exactly. Less time to listen to yer bitchin'."

The damn onion just does not want to be cut, and yes, it's not as easy as it usually is, but damn it, he doesn't need Leo being smug and it's a point between them now. So he chops up the damn onions anyway, and he does not chop off his fingers. He throws Leo, who was hovering beside him, a smug look, and moves onto the next step.

Peeling the eggs is just as much of a bitch to do, and a couple of them go rolling across the floor. Between them, they eventually get them peeled without too many incidents. This time, Raph lets Leo cut the eggs up, just to settle his fussing brother, of course. Leo cuts them up with perfectly steady hands and Raph is sure that he is just being a damn show off, because Leo is far too much of a lightweight to be this sober.

"Grab me a spoon, Fearless." He chucks it all into a bowl. Leo hands him a mixing spoon with a flourish, and at this point, Raph is sure he's just being a sarcastic asshole.

"Will you be measuring it?" Leo sounds curious.

"No need to. 's all instuition. Intuition. Instinct. One of them."

"Instuition, of course." Leo nods seriously, but he's smirking and there's a flush of alcohol to his cheeks. Raph hits his brother's arm with the spoon, but he's smirking too, "Quit bein' an ass, or I won't make ya this again."

He scoops in some mayonnaise and mixes it all up. He adds the spices and mixes it a little more, sneezing into his arm when the pepper explodes. It's with more than a little drama that he sets the bowl down on the counter, "Done!"

Leo nods, "Thank you. Very artistic- Mikey would be proud." He tilts his head, "Just the bread now, yes?"

"Yep." Raph opens the bread bin. They both blink at it, finding it empty. A quick search around the kitchen, on top of the fridge, in every cupboard, finds the whole kitchen devoid of bread.

"How do we…not have bread?"

"Of course we have bread!" Leo snaps, obviously trying to think of when last they did have bread. They've gotten a good system going now, with far more food than in the early days, and they almost always have bread. Almost.

Raph scowls, "Well, then we'll use somethin' else, like crackers or some shit. We always have crackers."

They have no crackers. They do, however, have a dead packet of Doritos that someone stuffed to the back of the cupboard. Leo gags when the packet is opened and Raph shoves it straight in the bin. They decide against the Doritos.

At this point, Raph is considering eating it with a spoon. Mercifully, he manages to dig up a packet of tortillas. He grabs them and turns to his brother with a triumphant grin, "Here!"

Leo looks sceptical and Raph feels that he should definitely be more impressed, "So…egg salad…burritos?"

"Why the fuck not? 's like a breakfast burrito." Raph sniggers and tears open the packet, "'s that or a spoon, bro."

Leo frowns, "No. Definitely not. The tortillas are fine."

Twenty minutes later, Mikey stumbles into the kitchen, up at the crack of dawn after his Sensei-imposed sleep. Wandering into the kitchen, he finds the two of them discovering the substantial logistical challenges of eating an egg salad burrito, when neither of them is sober enough to entirely remember how to fold a burrito.

"Leo's fault," Raph mumbles, glancing up, mouth full, "Want some?"

A/N: Inspired by a non-TMNT fic written by Edoro on Archive of Our Own.