By Aubretia Lycania
Description: One simple event changes a world; Leo never managed to remove the Nightwatcher's helmet, and lost in labyrinthine streets, he engages in an endless hunt for the vigilante who haunts his dreams. Slash, AU 2007 film.
Author's Notes: This is a fun bunny Kyt and I thought up one night and that she dared me to do; I'm writing it in the spirit of fun and it's here to be enjoyed. As such, no flames will be accepted. This is Leo/Raph (Nightwatcher) incestuous slash, so be warned. If turtles in leather, riding bikes and swinging chains before hot lovemaking bothers you, please hit the back button—no one will judge you. In addition, this story WILL assume the history of Walking the Line's Interlude chapters as well as the 2007 movie up to the fight on the rooftop, where my story splits. Special thanks to Kyt, whose voracious love of Raph butt kept this bunny alive.
Disclaimer: If I owned these turtles, I would not be living in a co-op next year.
A Glass Darkling
I'll quit this tomorrow.
It was his first thought, when Leo awoke, in a cold sweat, late in the morning.
He was never alone.
He could hear Raphael in the room next to him, rustling around in restless sleep. They had both become night owls, Leo sucked out into the darkness when his father sent him, evening after evening, out to "keep an eye on Raphael."
Just like old times.
Except Leo didn't follow orders. Each time he stepped out into the artificial light of another Manhattan, he leapt into action, chasing the vigilante who the TV and Mikey both called "Nightwatcher." He glanced at his clock.
Week four.
It was so strange to jump back into New York time, watches and television blocks and the time it took Mikey to finish a game, after a continuum of sun-rise, sun-set, hot and cold. He had been home for five weeks. He had been chasing Nightwatcher for four.
Leo caught him every night. He let him go equally as often.
Leo tossed, and heard the body in the room beside him go still, as though finally finding a comfortable position. Or quietly listening. He placed his arm against the wall, knowing their beds were pressed right up against each other, with the crumbling line of brick between them. The wall scroll, a poem by Basho that Leo had taken heart in before going on his travels—an ukiyo-e painting he'd attempted a couple years back, tranquil but nothing much to look at. Color without being color, a room subtle and watered-down, sparse. Beside Raphael's, of all people, just as sparse—dark, only a single lamp in a corner that was never on, a trench coat and fedora hung up in one corner like an ominous guard, extra weights beside the bed, an old radio, sais and darts sticking out of the walls at every interval. A room like a torture chamber, shadowy, with that mound of blankets Raph called a bed, and the warning sign on his door.
Leo heard Raph get out of bed; he echoed the move, quietly—listened, as Raph's door creaked open, and his little brother began his trek toward the bathroom. A bolt of blue lightning, Leo pulled his own door open, threw himself out smoothly, and grabbed Raphael inside, closing the aperture and jamming Raph against it abruptly.
"Jesus, Leo—could ya do that after I take a goddamn piss, please?"
"You wanna tell me what I should tell Master Splinter this fine morning, after you got home well past dawn, little brother?"
Raph sighed. "Do ya havta stick yer nose in my business every damn day before we've even had breakfast, man? I mean, it was cute fer a coupla weeks. Now I'm really gettin' bored with it."
Leo grumbled. "I'm the one who takes the heat for failing to keep you in line. Our Winters mission was a fiasco—we're lucky the Foot helped us and we managed to send those monsters back. You ducking out every night and worrying our father doesn't help matters."
Raph chuckled. "It's only bad because even you can't seem to reign me in, and Master Splinter knows it. Not that you try."
Leo sneered. "I didn't take a year-and-a-half pilgrimage to complete my ninja training just so I could come home and baby-sit my sixteen-year-old kid brother every night. If I catch the Nightwatcher, I'll be doing the city some actual good. All you do is probably beat up a punk or two and hang out with Casey—couple of sweet-faced low lives, the pair of you."
Another chuckle. "That's right, bro. Got me pegged, doncha?"
Raphael had stopped bringing up Leo's pilgrimage since that first week—since he had willingly come home, and helped them defeat the Stone Generals. It had been the same night Leo first met the Nightwatcher, and let him escape. He had gone back, night after night, obsessed with changing the vigilante's ways, learning who he was, why he did what he did—who lay beneath the mask. He and Raphael had an implicit understanding—Raphael came back before Splinter woke up to make it seem Leo was forcing him to come home, and was never to tell anyone what Leo was really up to; in exchange, Leonardo let him do his own thing unmolested—provided he kept up his end of the bargain. When Master Splinter saw Raph come in after Leo… well, the game was up.
Ideally, meeting up in the tunnel outside their home worked best. But this seldom actually happened, as perfect as it made things. When they managed it, they both knew the other was home. They both knew they were safe. This deal had its way of becoming the dark glue of a secret between them—they were like twins again, and Leo shuddered at the thought.
"Just don't be late again, Raph—or I'll make you start reporting in on your cell phone near dawn."
Raphael grinned, in a way Leo didn't necessarily like, and pinched his cheek. "Aww, big brother, but I'd interrupt your vigilante-huntin', wouldn't I?"
He wanted to punch that knowing smile right off his sibling's defiant young face. He turned Raphael around, enjoying being allowed to jokingly manhandle a little as their relationship improved, and pressed that grin into the door.
"Go take your piss and ponder some excuse for being out until 5 am, and remember to leave me some toothpaste and hot water, baby brother."
Raph grunted and shouldered him, trying to pull Leo into a headlock, but found himself back-flipped onto the freshly tousled bed. He gazed at the disordered blankets, grinning.
"So this is what your bed looks like without the military tuck. I'd almost forgotten."
Leo bit his tongue, and dive-bombed his brother, causing a strangled oomph beneath him, and chuckled. "You know, I was gonna let you have the bathroom first, but I think you'll benefit from a lesson in patience."
Raphael regained his breath after Leo's plastron swiftly winded him. "Oh, yeah? How ya gonna… stop me?"
"Well, Raph—the way I see it, I have two options. One, I can get there before you, which would take some unnecessary energy that would probably bring Donnie up here to see what's going on, and bring another lecture on your head, or two, I could tie you to the bed, take all the time I like in the bathroom and let you suffer in silence, since I doubt you'd want to be discovered bested by your older brother."
Raphael laughed rather darkly. "True 'nough… though I'm not so sure ya want Master Splinter ta see ya tied me t' yer bed, Leo."
Leo hadn't made a move; he enjoyed having his little brother back, since their secret had helped them improve their relationship significantly. They had only ever gotten along through secrets, by being covertly close, as though they feared anyone knowing they gave two shakes about each other. Leo supposed he would find it funny when he was older. Right now, he loved his brother's laughter, wanted to drink it in and ensnare the moment, a second when they weren't fighting. He had begun to wonder how he could have stayed away for so long, what had happened to make him forget about this.
Raph tried to roll him off and they landed with a loud thump on the floor, bringing sheets with them.
"Look a' this, bro—we could make a fort," Raphael said wryly, gazing at the white light that glowed through clean linen. Leo punched his arm and kicked out to release them from the coil of cloth. Raph was watching him, with a strange expression.
"Hey, uh… Mikey gotta holda some good movies. We could stay in tonight—hang with the bros."
Leo snickered, sitting up, still partially wrapped in his sheets. "You, the lone wolf himself, want to stay in? Alright, Raph, no sucking up. What do you really want?"
Raph stared for a minute, obviously grasping for a reasonable answer. "S'not that. Just… I dunno, might be a boring night. Maybe you c'n leave off the Nightwatcher hunt til tomorrow."
Leo frowned, but didn't answer.
Raphael laughed, though he sounded uncomfortable. "What, he expectin' ya 'r somethin'?"
Leo grinned. "He's got a date with the police, one of these days—but not with me, Raphi boy."
"D'ya have t' call me that? It's embarrassin'."
Leo reached down and pulled Raphael up by the edge of his carapace, head-locked him, and commenced with a healthy session of noogying—extra hard for Raph's tough skull. "It's my job to embarrass you—one of the few perks of big brotherdom, after all the hand-holding and nagging and correcting I have to do around here."
'Yeah, whatever," Raph scoffed, then sent a sly look at Leo, which masked hopefulness. "So—you in or out tonight, bro?"
Leo answered before he really studied his brother's face—before he really considered that gleam of hope, that hidden something, a depth of secrets. Leo supposed he liked having secrets with Raph because Raphael was the king of secrets, and it felt somehow special to be included in a few. It felt nice to be on the mental payroll of the lone wolf, the master of mysteries. It always had. But Leo had a date with vigilante hunting, and he wasn't prepared to miss it for a mindless night watching monster movies with his little brothers.
"Maybe another time," Leo said, patting Raph's shell.
An old gleam of hostility slunk back into his brother, who shrugged him off. "Time… right. You have fun with your huntin', bro."
And there it was again—that annoying shine, that glimmer, I know something you don't know that always drove Leo insane as a kid.
Raph slipped off to his morning piss, and Leo started to mentally ready himself for the night.
Another day in paradise.