Raphael scuffs a toe against the dusty cement, cracks his knuckles and glances out to the city below.

It's a raucous Saturday night in the redlight district and the streets are thronging with people in search of salvation in sin, drawn out by the sultry evening heat. Hustlers, con artists, dealers, hookers and junkies – some of them all that at once – litter the block in indifferent confidence, assured of their rule of this grotty kingdom through which a thousand tourists from nicer neighbourhoods and nicer cities wander, and gawk, and get fleeced in ways they don't notice until they're long gone.

He can see Lenny, fat, black and white-haired, leaning in the doorframe of his Vintage Vinyl shop, porkpie Stetson at a jaunty angle atop his head, Jimi Hendrix blaring with the mingled accompaniments of car engines and drunken chorusing. Sapphire, a Trinidadian trans woman who elongates her six feet of height in six inch thigh high stiletto boots, has claimed her usual spot down on the corner where she sways and grinds for the passers-by, her platinum weave flying as she turns. Bengy is there, early teens now and more beautiful than ever, a fancy phone up to his ear, fancy gold rings on his fingers, fancy sneakers on his feet as he weaves in and out of the crowd to whatever drop off his bosses have assigned him this time. His future is set.

All the familiar faces are out tonight. The only one missing is the one he's come out to see. Wisp-thin and crammed with freckles, stupidly long red hair that drifts down her back like a burnished waterfall, dressed always in clothes rummaged from the kid's bin at the Goodwill, Amber usually takes up residence outside the record store where she sings and dances and stomps skinny legs in battered old boots, seeming to draw the men to her like a pied piper of vice. He'd been late getting there; Saturdays were big business for the Nightwatcher and his police scanner rarely stopped crackling. Most nights if he didn't force himself to switch it off, there was no way he'd be able to stop.

But it had been two nights since he'd seen her, and the usual guilt that made his hand waver as he reached for the power switch was suffocated beneath a keen anticipation he wasn't entirely comfortable with, but couldn't resist all the same.

She'd been there when he reached the rooftop, but she hadn't been alone. Another girl, trembling and hysterical, had been with her, yammering frantically in words Raphael was frustrated he couldn't hear whilst Amber had gripped her forearms and stared into her eyes with her own ice blue ones, clearly trying to calm her down.

After a few agitated minutes, Amber had slung an arm around the girl's shoulders and started leading her into the Red Eye diner, casting a frustrated look up over her shoulder to the rooftop where he helplessly watched them.

A short while ago he would've pulled up on his bike, garbed as the vigilante who was making ever increasing waves across the city, right in front of her. Then, at least, he would've known what was going on.

But that was no longer an option. All he could do now was pace the rooftop, with the night breeze warm against his skin and the cacophony of city life burbling at his ankles, and wait.

He cracks his knuckles again, tightens the knot of his mask as he spins on his heel, glances over to the skylight that glows warm yellow beneath the film of grime that coats the glass, and the flower that lies on top of it.

And again he is gripped by the inescapable notion he's completely fucking stupid.

He can't imagine what possessed him to bring it with him in the first place. April had been arranging a vase of them as he sat at her kitchen table and tried to work up the guts to talk to her about all the shit that was happening at home, about how off Master Splinter was and how ineffectual Don was being at running the team, and how he got it that Don needed to focus on working his crawl of a job, but he didn't get how Don had shut down his offer to lead training with a curt 'I don't think so' and a scornful once over so that it had taken all of his willpower to prevent himself flying across the room at his brother – the same brother he used to marathon video games and soup up the van with – and how fucking unfair it was. And how much it had hurt, when he had sacrificed so much pride to even make the offer in the first fucking place.

But it had been a long time since he'd come to April to confide, and it had never been easy anyway. It had been childish desperation that had first found him, a frustrated, furious wreck on her window sill, some eight months after they had met and the first real changes in their lives had begun to inexorably unfold. He wasn't even sure what had brought him there, except it had been raining and he was too pissed to go back home. If she was surprised to see him – the turtle who had been the most distant and least friendly – she hadn't let on. Just let him in and offered him a soda with the smile that always pierced his heart in such a way he would scowl to hide it. And before he knew it, he'd been pacing her kitchen and shouting his many and varied grievances at her walls.

He'd had no idea, just how much he had held strangled and smothered inside of him, until he'd started. And when April had stood up from where she'd been silently listening to him at her grotty old formica table, stepped over and enfolded him into her arms, he had shook with the force of his emotion, sobbing into her scented bosom and clinging to her like she was the one stable force in a universe that had never intended to account for him, that churned chaotic and heedless of how his meaninglessness devoured him from the inside. He hadn't cried in years – not in years – and though at any other time the mere thought of being so weak was unbearable, that if he'd had any notion at all he would've wound up crying in April's arms he would've turned heel until he outran all feeling and all weakness beneath the stinging pelt of the rain – right then, with the warmth of her slender arms encircling him, and her smock silken against his cheek and the spicy scent of her perfume suddenly comforting, he had felt only safe. He knew April wouldn't tell, wouldn't judge him, wouldn't do anything but be there in a way he had never experienced before and hadn't even realised he'd needed. And whilst he'd worked hard not to make a habit of it, it wasn't the only time he had gone to her.

But he's no longer a kid and it had struck him it was time to man the fuck up and just deal with his shit. So he'd sat at her kitchen table and watched as she arranged brilliant orange flowers in a vase and felt himself choke on all the things he wanted to say, and wouldn't.

April hadn't pushed; it wasn't her way. She'd asked after Splinter, and queried about Mikey and how the Cowabunga Carl shtick was going, even though Don must've been keeping her updated, and he'd answered in his sparse, direct way. But he had seen her green eyes flick to him, soft with concern, more than once.

She was surprised he refused the beer she offered; it wasn't like he drank a whole lot normally, but he never refused one at April's – especially considering it was a bit of a secret arrangement between them. Leo – Splinter too – would seriously disapprove. But he already knew he'd be putting on the suit that night and didn't want anything – even one measly beer – to affect his judgement and reflexes. The lift of her fine red brows when he waved the proffered bottle away reminded him of just how many more things he was concealing from his family, and he wondered what April would think if he told her about Amber.

And his eyes had fallen on those unusual orange flowers again, where they sat in a green lusterware vase that had belonged to April's mother, and a wry smirk had tugged at his mouth. "Hey Ape, I've got a girlfriend now. She's older than me, got a police record a mile long and is a hooker. Oh yeah, and she's a junkie who can't make it through a night without shooting up at least three times. Any advice?" Yeah. Right.

Not even April could understand.

He left when she went to the bathroom, knowing she wouldn't be surprised or offended to find him gone. He had trouble with goodbyes and for all that he hadn't disclosed that night, he still felt singularly exposed beneath her discerning gaze. Tucked carefully into his belt was one of those blossoms with its long, tapered, curling petals, their vivid orange colour speckled all over in little black spots.

Somehow, it had survived the night in the storage compartment on the bike, only a little wilted and battered by the time he finally retrieved it in a smarting fist, and went to the rooftop for their rendezvous. He hadn't allowed himself to think about it, to stop and consider his actions, but waiting for her on the roof had given him plenty of time and he had inevitably concluded that he was a total fucking idiot.

Jesus, why the fuck would he bring her a flower of all things? A fucking flower. That would be dead the next day. Was already mostly dead, suffocated in the seat of his bike, its delicate petals bruised by his own clumsy handling. He hated this kinda shit, however you looked at it. Seemed to him, most so-called 'romance' consisted of humans doing shit not because they wanted to, but because they thought they should. And for what?

The working girls always laughed when the clients brought them flowers. He'd overheard them often enough. Seen enough hothouse bouquets trampled in the gutters. God, what would she have thought?

Anyway, he was a mutant turtle and she was a junkie hooker. Romance? What a laughable fucking notion. It was ridiculous, and he was stupid. The whole thing was stupid – his cheeks burned to recall the thought that had prompted him to reach over and pluck one from the vase – that it reminded him of her, of her hair and her freckles and – oh fuck, thank Christ she hadn't been on time, the humiliation would've been more than he could stand.

In a furious moment, he steps over to the crate, snatches up the blossom and hurls it across the rooftop. It's too light to travel far, descends limply and unsatisfyingly to the crusted dirt and pigeon shit and lies in a crumpled heap, its stem broken.

He stares at it, panting, arms flexed and hands pressed tight into fists. How fucking stupid.

Behind him, something shifts in the ambient sound coming from the laneway, a change his skills have been honed to detect, and he knows she's ascending the fire escape now. He cracks his neck, then his shoulders, then strides over to the escape and looks down to where he can just make out her lithe figure wearily clambering upwards. When she's in reach, he leans over the ledge and lifts her the rest of the way, not failing to notice how she pants and wheezes, her frail ribcage feeling delicate as origami beneath his grip.

"Thanks," she grins when he sets her down, already fumbling in her purse for a cigarette. "Sorry I'm late."

Already that disconcerting warmth upon sight of her, at being close to her, has pooled out across his chest, making him smile at her despite everything else, making him itch to reach out and brush that awkward lock of hair back over her ear, the one that's still growing out from where it was hacked off weeks earlier, an uncomfortable reminder that yet somehow makes her almost adorable.

"No problem," he replies, resisting the urge to touch her. "Looks like some shit was goin' down."

Amber rolls her eyes as she puts the cigarette between her lips, lights up. "Fuckin' newbies."

"Anythin' I can do?"

She puffs a cloud of smoke from the corner of her mouth, tilts her head back and eyes him amusedly. "Naw. Nothin' like that. She just can't handle it."

He's itching to kiss her, but doesn't want to come off needy. But she hasn't made a move yet either, and it's putting him a little on edge. Maybe she doesn't want to kiss him tonight – maybe she's starting to have second thoughts. It's been two nights since he last saw her. Who knows how things might've changed, with all that time to think.

All he's thought about is how much worse everything would be – Leo gone and so far away, Don fully embracing his inner asshole, Splinter seeming so indifferent to it all – without her.

Amber ambles over to the skylight, drops her backpack to the cement, eases down onto the edge, cigarette drooping between her lips, crossing one skinny leg over the other. The flower lies, unnoticed, a few feet away. He wanders over to the roof ledge, looks over to contemplate the street that intersects Redfern. It's a similar sort of a sight. A strip club, its blinking neon sign post declaring the promise of GIRLS! GIRLS! GIRLS! vibrates with the beat of the music within.

"Some of these girls shouldn't be workin'," Amber continues, oblivious to how hard he's struggling not to go to her, yank her into his embrace, how much it's bothering him she doesn't seem to want to touch him tonight. "But they don't got a lotta other choices. And it messes them up. Y'know?"

He didn't 'know', but it's the way he'd thought that it was, the way the whole world told him it had to be, before he'd met Amber. He turns back to look at her, sits up on the roof ledge and props one foot up. She seems sharp tonight, clear. She's wearing a tiny skirt with ruffled tiers in pink, orange and yellow teamed with a Sailor Moon tee shirt, the freckles that litter her thigh dark beneath the refracted glow of the countless lights that burn across the city, her red hair illuminated in the glare from the skylight. She lifts her hair away from her neck and he remembers vividly how it feels beneath his hands, how she shivers when he kisses her neck, and has to swallow hard.

"They don't know how to – how to separate themselves," she's continuing, kinda manic, and he realises she's high all right, probably coke, cos there's no way she'd be sharing so easily about the subject otherwise. "They make it all personal. Not their fuckin' fault; it's how we're taught to think, 'specially girls. Hard thing to break free of, that kinda brainwashin'. But it sure makes it hard to fuckin' work."

The wind swirls over his shoulders, carrying with it the scent of the pizzeria that's open late below. He eyes her bony legs, her skinny arms and the inner elbows of both livid with purple and red tracks, thinks about how fragile she feels to hold and the uncomfortable protective urges it rouses in him. Then he wonders if she's had a busy night.

"Ever like that for you?" he queries her, he can't help it.

She snorts and exhales in a jet of grey that billows up into the night.

"No. I learned how to compartmentalise before I learned my times table. That's a skill you don't forget. Just don't ask me what three times nine is." And she laughs, a grating howl edged in hysteria.

It bugs him she's so high, and he shifts agitatedly on the ledge, the cement rough against his leathery skin. Bugs him how blasé she is, though he isn't willing to examine why. The job is just something he has to accept. But for all his brain gets it, his heart – and his dick – are not so easily reasoned with.

"How d'ya learn somethin' like that?" he grumbles and she suddenly snaps up straight, glares at him with wide, suspicious eyes, black in the dim light.

"Whaddya mean?" she demands with the ready temper of the coked-up. "None of your fuckin' business. I'm just good at this shit. You even know how busy I am?"

He knows.

She leaps to her feet, starts striding the rooftop, and his eyes fall of their own accord to where that stupid flower wilts pathetically in the shadows.

"I'm fuckin' unbeatable," she declares vehemently, her hair fanning out around her as she whirls, seeming ridiculous and harmless in her pastel children's clothes and freckles, like a half-assed candy raver rebelling on the weekend rather than the hardened street walker she is. "Half those cunts down there don't know how I fuckin' do it, when they're prettier and got bigger tits and still gotta hustle harder than a fuckin' politician to rake in half what I get in a blink. You know how I do it? Cos I'm not even there! I'm not even fuckin' there! Nothin' gets in here – " and she gestured with a bony finger to her head. " – or here." Then to her heart. "Not a fuckin' thing, Raphael. None of it's real. None of it means anything. Because I'm not there." She strides over to him where he sits, glaring at her, her face suddenly illuminated by the neon of the strip club sign. Her pallor is sickly blue beneath the endless clusters of freckles washed black, her pupils are huge, consuming her eyes which are enormous in her thin, angled face so that this close and in this light she seems almost alien. Her lips are dry; she's been chewing at them and black threads of blood spread across their purple hue. He's almost angry for some reason he can't discern, but for equally undefinable reasons he wants desperately to silence her in his embrace. Her fervour is unsettling him – there's something else going on, but he can't begin to imagine what it might be. And he doesn't understand what makes him then at once want to walk away and hold her close, to never ever let go. "That's what I know how to do. That's my gift. Not everyone can do it. You either got it or you don't. But if you don't, you shouldn't be in this biz."

Abruptly she steps back, dives into the Barbie purse that dangles at her hip and pulls out another cigarette. "But like I said, ain't always so easy," she mutters around it as she lights up. "Then bitchin' newbies wanna come cry on my damn shoulder, get in the way of my income, my date with my boyfriend. I can't fuckin' help them. You either got it or you don't."

Raphael is struck by another conflict of feeling; he wants to both shake her until her teeth rattle and kiss her until he can't breathe; he's absurdly pleased she'd think of their miserable little rooftop meeting as a 'date', that she's called him her boyfriend. But he's vaguely resentful too. Maybe cos, no matter what it is to her, it means something to him, and he knows the only outcome of telling her that would be a fight. After listening to her for so long, observing the lives of her peers, watching the streets, he gets it even if he doesn't like it, so there's also the disquieting slither of guilt in his gut. Maybe that's what it is.

Then something else occurs to him. "But you try, anyhow," he says to her.

And it reminds him why he decided she was worth it.

Amber is startled, steps back, blinks. "Naw," she drawls, shifting her weight to one leg, her other crooking at the knee, folding a skinny, splotchy arm across Sailor Moon saluting the world. "I just listen to them. Tedious as fuck, to be honest."

But he isn't fooled. He remembers the way she cried over a woman she barely knew.

He leans back on his hands, lifts his chin to stare at her where she scowls in the rhythmic blink of neon. Something flickers in her eye and she spins on her heel to wander over to the ledge, look out onto her beat. His gaze drops to the flower as she stomps past, her scuffed pink Dr Martens missing it by inches. He half-wishes she'd crushed it.

"Anyway, she'll be all right," she mutters, her hair gently lifted by a sudden rush of wind, cigarette smoke trailing away. "How you doin'?"

He thinks about Don shooting him down, how small and withered Splinter looked that afternoon, how long it's been since Leo's last postcard, and again his throat is choking on the knot of all he yearns to say. But she's already listened to one sob story tonight, and he's never been much for heart-to-hearts.

"Totally fucked up," is the best he can manage.

She turns around to him, her head cocked gently to the side, and even in the dim light of the rooftop, he can see she gets it, and he wishes she would just get the fuck over to him already. He doesn't want to talk, not anymore, even though he knows she'd listen and understand. Somehow, knowing it is enough, for now.

And, as if he'd spoken out loud, she lifts the cigarette to her lips, takes a draw, then nods at him, her pale red brows drawn thoughtfully together. "Whenever you're ready."

He's glad he's facing away from the pulsing neon as he swallows the lump in his throat and nods back.

She tosses the smouldering butt to the cement and grinds it under toe. "Anyway, what do – "

And his heart plummets as he realises she's caught sight of that stupid fucking flower.

For a moment, she just stares at it, and he can't look away, his plastron rising and falling beneath his shallow panting. He can see her brow wrinkle, the confused pout her mouth screws into, how she's trying to figure out how the hell some exotic flower ended crumpled up in pigeon shit on a rooftop, between them. Then she stoops and picks it up; the gesture exposes the crook of her elbow to him so he sees again the grotesque splotches and jagged trails that broadcast her habit and the flower sags pitifully on its busted stem in her hand and all he can do is watch her like a chump, his fingers curling into fists against the stone, his heart suddenly pounding, his mouth dry.

She straightens up, still gazing at the limp and faded blossom with a strange and indecipherable expression, and he can tell she's figured it out, and wants to just let himself tip backwards, straight off the rooftop, disappear into the street far, far below. Why hadn't he just chucked it over the fuckin' edge?

But then she looks up at him, and her eyes are brilliant and shining, and his heart catches in his throat. For a moment, she's impossibly beautiful.

She lifts the flower and tucks it in behind her ear, and he wonders if it's a trick of the unnatural and flickering light, the sudden darkness of her cheeks beneath her freckles. It doesn't matter; the way she looks, pretty and pleased and sort of surprised, once again causes that pleasant, discomfiting warmth to suffuse his chest, a tingle to unroll across his flesh and he's spoken before he can stop himself: "C'mere."

She doesn't hesitate and then she's in his arms and they're kissing frantically, fervently, beneath the relentless flash of a lurid neon sign and he's awash in a sudden, intoxicating rush of endorphins as her tongue twines with his and she presses her slender body up against his plastron. The feel of her, so fragile and pliant, stirs a furious care in him so that he holds her as tightly, as closely as he dares and she wraps her arms around his neck and there, in the middle of that city that endlessly teems, exists nothing else in all the world but them.

Later, she sits between his legs on the roof ledge and he wraps his arms around her nothing waist as they watch the world unfold below them.

"No one ever gave me a flower before," she blurts in a rare lull of traffic, when the streets are momentarily still.

But he's still embarrassed and doesn't reply. Seconds later, another rush of cars peel down the street, and she tips her head back to rest on his shoulder and he feels the fine strips of her rib bones beneath his fingertips and presses his mouth against her neck and she shivers. He knows the coke high would've ebbed away a while ago, but she seems content to stay put. The flower is still tucked behind her ear, wilting resignedly, and from time to time she reaches up to brush it with her fingertips and since she seems to like it, he figures it all turned out all right. Even if the whole thing was fucking stupid.