Hey, guys! Been a while, but I was at a retreat, with not much time for typing. Even now, my mother is nagging me-she thinks I should get more sun, instead of camping out in front of the laptop all day. Oh, well. Hope you guys enjoy this next installment.

Summary: Raph is sure he can't take Leo's almighty attitude any longer. He channels his rage through the Nightwatcher, a mask he puts on to beat down criminals of all kinds. However, when Raph (as the Nightwatcher) is captured by desperate criminals, he begins to realize how much he really needs a leader. He also might have found love in the process. RaphxOC, M/M SLASH! Don't like, don't read.

Disclaimer: I don't own TMNT.

Raph decided April was an expert shopper, and resolved to always value her opinions wherever fashion was concerned. He had kind of figured she knew style before, her being a woman and all, but the truth of this statement seemed even better evidenced as soon as Flame had walked into the dojo that morning, newly cleared to spar by Donatello. Well-fitted jeans hung low on Flame's hips while his top half was covered by a simple black v-neck, long sleeves rolled up to the elbows. It wasn't long before Raph had to remind himself to drag his eyes away. With effort, he averted his eyes, only to see Leo flash him a knowing smirk.

"Morning guys.." Flame yawned. The man reached up to scratch his head, upsetting his bedhead even more than it already was.

"Glad to see you finally able to join us," Leo acknowledged, giving the newcomer a slight nod. "There's a certain way we warm up around here, but if you want you can do your own thing over there for a few minutes."

So saying, Leo pointed to a far corner of the dojo. Almost as an afterthought, he added, "Unless you want to try our methods."

"Nah, I think I'll just go hide in the corner. I have my daily routines, too."

As Raph stretched and flipped with his brothers, he found it easier to forget Flame's presence. He settled back into the daily grind, so to speak, and went through the motions of drills he could probably do in his sleep by now. His mind drifted.

I think I understand you, Raphael...

I won't hurt you..

I like you... but someone like you isn't safe here.

Raph didn't realize exactly who he was thinking about until the warm up was finished and said someone emerged from his corner. He focused instead on the interesting spark created when he struck his sais together just so. Donny was talking, now.

"I don't want you to push yourself too hard. That injury may have healed pretty fast, and I'll talk to you about that later, but don't forget that it's there. If you feel any strain, stop the match."

"You got it, sir," Flame assured Donny, who Raph could hear grumbling under his breath nevertheless.

"We took the liberty of retrieving these for you," Leo started. There was the tell-tale hiss of metal sliding from sheathes and Raph looked up to see Flame's eyes gleam as his blades were returned to him. "Raph said the place was deserted when he went back to get them."

Raph felt the weight of Flame's full attention, and quickly looked back to his sais.

"Thanks."

"Wasn't a problem."

How was it that whenever Flame so much as looked at him, he felt more tongue-tied than usual? Though not exactly talkative, Raph had never counted himself as shy, per se. He just didn't run his mouth all day long. He scowled down at his sais, now still in his hands.

"Raph? Are you feeling alright?" Michelangelo asked, and Raph raised his head to see blue eyes wide with worry.

"I'm fine, Mike."

"Are you sure?" Leo jumped in, his dark eyes narrowed. Suddenly, an innocent question turned into an interrogation.

"Your skin is paler than normal. Are you coming down with something?"

"What's your temperature?"

"Have you been taking those pills I gave you?"

"Could be allergies, couldn't it? Donny, does Raph have allergies?"

"Clearly, he's stayed up too late going out again."

"Does he ever sleep?"

"I told him not to go, but no, he never listens to me.."

During this time, Flame didn't say a word. The babble of Raph's brothers faded to white noise around them-a ceaseless sound neither payed much attention to. Flame's eyes held a mix of emotions. There was anger, which Raph had come to notice as a common occurrence, but that darker emotion was smothered by mild amusement.

The white noise went silent with a sudden chuckle. All brothers turned to Flame, who was busy trying to muffle his laughter.

"S-Sorry," Flame breathed between bursts, covering his mouth with a hand. "You guys act like it's the end of the world if someone has a cold."

"A cold! That's precisely it!" Donny crowed, which made Flame laugh even harder. Leo then turned on Raph, a serious contrast to the redhead's mirth.

"I think you should sit this one out, Raph, if you're feeling under the weather."

"What? No!" Raph cried, even as Leo's expression slid into I'm-the-leader-and-I've-made-up-my-mind mode. "I'm not even sick."

"You overwork yourself," Leo waved him off. "You'll feel better once you've gotten some rest. Unless there's some other reason for your strange behavior."

As he uttered this last statement, Leo's eyes locked on Raph's. Raph knew then and there that he had been beaten-he couldn't possibly offer a real explanation for his nervous silence, and Leo knew it. Instead, he could only glare in Leo's general direction and listen to his own blood boiling.

"Anyway, this makes the numbers even, at least," Mike interjected before the situation got too tense. "So I guess the question is, who gets to fight the new guy first?"

"Eh, I'd like to watch him fight, first. Those blades definitely aren't Japanese." Donny wrinkled his brow.

"I dunno where they're from.. The guy I bought 'em off of said they were 'dao,' and I think they're effective," Flame cut in, obviously quick to defend his swords. Raph was glad he had brought them back.

"I think Leo should fight him," Mike said, and Flame and Leo glanced at each other warily with identical anticipation. Oblivious to all this, Mike carried on. "I mean, it only makes sense, since they both use two swords."

Leo bowed his head. "You're right. I would be honored to test my skill against yours, Flame."

Anyone else would have missed it, but Raph watched with keen interest as Leo's eyes flicked across Flame's frame, sizing up his opponent. It was a look Raph didn't like, even though he knew it was only strategic.

"And I yours," Flame returned as the two faced off in the center sparring circle of their practice area. The strange dao blades slipped from their respective sheathes, which Flame had apparently adorned himself with when Raph wasn't looking. Leo's own twin katana, polished to a shine, were gripped lightly and held ready.

The dojo was deathly silent for a moment, waiting to see who would make the first move. Flame ran out of patience first. With a speed unbecoming of one so recently injured, he lunged toward Raph's brother with a well-aimed thrust, and found his blade blocked before it could reach its mark. Instead of halting his forward motion, Flame flipped over Leo's head, twisting his other sword to block the resulting slash while going on the offensive with his other blade.

The fight was like nothing Raph had ever seen. The styles of both fighters meshed together so perfectly, the clang of metal against metal echoed through the room almost in rhythm. Swords flashing in the bright light, death-defying leaps, the occasional pause to re-strategize-all those elements were made graceful by the fighters, who were pretty evenly-matched.

"Duuuuuude.." Mike drawled as Donny called Round One, and both fighters retreated to opposite outskirts of the circle to catch their breath.

Round Two commenced much the same as Round One, only this time, Leo surprised everyone by striking out first. His first katana whistled low, and Flame had to jump to avoid it. Raph knew what was coming next, as he had fallen for the same move several times. The second sword went high, right where Flame was jumping.

One of the dao swords blocked the high katana, and Flame wasted no time in dancing out of reach after that. Raph watched as his brother was constantly baited, Flame circling around him on light feet, never close enough to well and truly engage.

He thought for a minute Flame underestimated Leo's infinite patience when he saw it-a slight tightening of the jaw to match the determination in Leo's eyes. Raph looked on, incredulous, as he clearly saw Leo beginning to get angry.

The pair went a few more rounds. Sometimes Leo was the angry one, sometimes Flame, but one couldn't seem to gain an advantage over the other. In the end, it was Donny who called an end to the matches. There would be no conclusive winner.

With a quick, "I've gotta make sure he hasn't pulled something," Donny whisked his patient away, leaving Raph and Mike to sit in a state of shock. Both Flame and Leo had been breathing hard and drenched in sweat after their spar, something Raph had personally rarely seen in his brother.

As Donny pulled Flame toward the lab, Leo turned to Mike first. "He's just as good as me."

"I saw, bro," Mike shook his head, and a spell was lifted in the room. Raph stood and made his way to the door, intending to follow Donny to see if Flame was alright. He was stopped by a hold on his arm.

"I meant it when I said you needed to rest," Leo's voice reprimanded him, and Raph rolled his eyes.

"Yes, mother dear."

"By the way, Raph," Leo said, ignoring Raph's blatant sarcasm and leaning in closer to whisper so Mike couldn't hear. "He's a keeper."

In a daze, Raph stumbled up to his room. Suddenly, he really needed a nap... He had to stop thinking so much.

XXX

As a general rule, Flame didn't like the doctor's office. A visit meant far too many personal questions and meaningless inquiries about a carefully-fabricated family life he had no real desire to discuss.

With Donny, it was different, he supposed. Well, except for the "far too many personal questions" part. And boy, did Donny have questions. After sparing a few precious minutes to actually talk about Flame's injury, he jumped right into the personal business. It began as purely scientific, then progressed from there.

"Raph says you belong to another species, and I was curious about that."

"Oh? What do you want to know?"

"Is it true that you don't feel pain?" Donatello looked at him with the expression of a skeptic, and Flame knew such a proposition would probably sound crazy to someone like Donny.

"I don't so much feel it as I pick up on it," Flame explained, feeling so tired he could drop off right there. "It's like sound waves. I can detect when another is feeling pain, too. The cells scream at me."

That seemed to warrant an eyeridge quirk. "Scream at you?"

Flame shrugged. "That's about the only way I can think of to describe it."

"Do you know how many of you have this ability? Where it started?"

"As far as I've heard, my clan is it, so that's about 200. We aren't as many as we used to be."

"You have a history?"

Flame snorted. "Of course we have a history, all the way back to the first of our kind."

Flame promptly shut his mouth. He hadn't meant to say that. Damn.

"The first? What do you know about him?"

Flame sifted through the facts, and latched on to the only one safe to mention. "I have his eyes."

"I see," Donny mused, and Flame really hoped he couldn't 'see.' He absolutely would not go into that story now, not when he was in so safe a spot. Donny was pretty intelligent, Flame had learned quickly, and he knew Donny would be quick to recognize the implications of the tale of the First King. He would be cast out, left to the mercy of the Nathan and his followers.

Donny startled Flame out of his worries by clearing his throat. He gave Flame a reproachful look. "Alright, Flame, I get it. If you want to continue being all mysterious, go right ahead. I won't stop you. You seem like an okay guy, to tell you the truth. But if you only tell me one thing about yourself, tell me this: Why did you kidnap my brother, and did you rush to save him from your own subordinate?"

Flame flinched at Donatello's harsh tone as well as by how much information he had. Someone had filled him in.

"I-I didn't really, I mean I sort of, okay... Wait. I took him to my place because he had passed out in an alley, he had been drunk-"

Another look.

"It's true! He was passed out, so I carried him back, and everything just kind of snowballed from there. Demetri told me that we were running out of food and clothing, and I had these great blueprints Preach had found of this nearby museum, and Demetri said we wouldn't need the Nightwatcher snooping around."

"Whoa, whoa, whoa. Raph is the Nightwatcher?" Donny clenched his fists, but soon got a hold of himself. "Okay, okay. That's a new development. Go on."

"Well, there's not much else to tell. That's really the only reason we held him there. Then Nathan went crazy, and before I knew it I had to protect him."

Donny looked at him sharply. "So that's the only reason you helped our brother? Necessity?"

"I wouldn't say that," Flame thought aloud, more to himself than to Donatello. "No, that's not all."

"Well? What else is there?"

"It's weird," Flame admitted. "I'm not sure. It just came over me, I guess."

"When you figure it out, I would like to know," Leo's voice came from behind him, and Flame jumped. He turned to see Leo smiling at Donny conspiratorially. How much had he heard..?

"Your leg seems fine," Donny said too quickly, and Flame was beginning to wonder if these two shrewd brothers were trying to do him in. "Mike's making breakfast, why don't you go keep him company in the kitchen? Leo, you can tell me what else had been broken in the last five minutes."

"Good idea." Flame's stomach growled, and he rarely turned down a good pancake. Still, he was a little worried about these two-Donny and Leo seemed nice enough, but it was almost like they knew something he didn't.

He didn't miss the fact that they didn't speak to each other until he was far out of earshot.

Hopefully, you guys are started to see how evil and clever Demetri is. Sure, Nathan is pretty bad, but Demetri is a real foe-worthy of our lovely protagonists. You'll see more of him soon enough.

You guys know the drill. Review, please!

-DauntlessAdrenaline