I was reading fics and questioning certain pairings and at that moment I issued myself a challenge. Pick an unseen (at least to me), unlikely pairing and find a way to write it without resorting to crack drabbles. I picked Usagi/Raph. Watch me butcher characterization.

Title: Trace

Summary: Raphael didn't know what it was that made him like the samurai so much, but he was sure as hell determined to find out.

Disclaimer: Ah, I'd totally screw the franchise up anyway.

Raphael sometimes thinks that it started with tea. Hot tea, with just the right amount of sugar added, and he can remember that particular detail more vividly than most of the conversations that had followed, for some reason. Maybe it was because the other just seemed to know, somehow, when to stop adding it.

Though that was really a pointless observation. Maybe his memory was just a little off-kilter like the rest of his brain.

Because most mornings, or rather on the mornings when he managed to be up before everybody else was in motion, consisted of cereal and milk and orange juice, if they had any. If Don had been up the entire night before, he would find the coffee pot a few minutes away from overheating. He could tell when Leo or Master Splinter were already awake because the kitchen was somehow always cleaner than it had been the night before in the aftermath of their presence.

Even if it wasn't really, it always somehow felt a little cleaner. Calmer. Soothing, maybe. It was like a subtle sign that somebody had been on guard while he took a rest.

Mikey never left the kitchen any cleaner, but it was still roughly the same feeling. Those staples meant that things were normal. He hadn't known quite what to expect of Leo's friend.

Turned out that the samurai made tea. The dark kind, the sweet kind, the real kind that could be iced tea in half a minute if he really felt like it. None of that mysterious, off-color stuff that his brother and sensei liked to shove down his throat.

It was a step away from the automatic assumption that Raphael couldn't possibly get along with someone like Usagi, that they couldn't have anything in common. He'd stumbled out of his room in the early hours of the morning and there the rabbit had been, calmly sitting at the table with a cup of his own and a second set out like it was the most routine thing in the world.

The offer was wordless and the cup was warm, and neither of them said anything until Leonardo walked through on his way to the dojo. The next time Raphael had woken up early, the tea and Usagi were waiting again.

It made him feel oddly predictable.

Then again, he was known to be wrong about a lot of things, so maybe it had all really started with the city at night. The one with the rigid skyline and easy pavement, where human footsteps churned up invisible dust on the way to their favorite hot dog stands before allowing themselves to be led into inevitable conflict.

Of course, the best way to see something in a new light is to see it through the eyes of somebody else, and Usagi had been hopelessly impressed.

Not by the food or the stores or the clothes or the cars, but by the fact that they had managed to memorize it street for street. And the fact that they had saved it, in its entire heavy expanse, on numerous occasions and without revealing their existence to the world. Admiration was something that Raphael decided he could get used to.

And it could have been the way that he understood, the first time he'd witnessed a fight between Raphael and Hun, that there was something to be avenged in this; years' worth of vendetta and a borrowed hatred from his best friend. He told him that that enmity was honorable, too, and for some reason the weight of the world was lifted off of Raphael's shoulders. If Usagi could understand that it was more than blind violence, maybe someday he could understand it better himself.

Even with that, the source of everything could have been the word 'honor.'

Five letters and a simple definition, somehow always brought into everyday conversation and making him feel like the world was a little bit different. Because Usagi was blatantly faithful in the ideal. For all that he was a warrior, he still believed that he could turn his back on a criminal in New York and not be taken advantage of. It had nearly gotten them killed and it had been far too close for comfort.

Monsters, they'd called them. Hearing it in plural wasn't entirely old news, especially considering the fact that the samurai was closer to being physically human than he was. It wasn't old news of any kind to Usagi, who looked for a moment like he couldn't quite understand why they'd say that. Despite the fact that he'd killed before, he carried a strange kind of naive innocence that Raphael hadn't seen in a long while. He supposed that living in New York had the tendency to make anyone a little less innocent.

Didn't make this any less interesting.

He could remember, somewhat, the way that they had wiped their blades clean afterward- after the other's face had darkened, the sounds of displaced air and cries of pain that left them with nothing to say; and he could see in his mind the way the streetlight had made the blood look darker, how he'd thought it would be impossible for Usagi to ever get it out of his fur.

The rain helped a little. Filled in that silence, too, and he would never admit to how relieved it had made him.

Usagi's words came out half-whispered, nearly muted by sounds that had always seemed so much more subtle. "Your world is very different from my own, Raphael-san." A furred white hand clenched nearly imperceptibly, ears twitched in a manner that vaguely resembled an irritated Master Splinter. "I had...I had once envied you," he admitted, sounding just shy of sheepish.

Raphael decided against snorting. "No one said you had to be smart to be a samurai. Nothing here to envy."

There was a momentary chuckle in reply to the unspoken question. "It was your freedom, I think."

A semi-friendly gaze turned cold. "My freedom," he repeated, tasting the words; they were bitter.

"Yes."

"We live in a sewer."

"I'm aware, Raphael-san."

"Can't go out in the daylight."

"I know."

"Can't make easy friends. Get most of our stuff from junkyards. No real doctors if we ever need one."

"That is true."

He spat out his next question as though it physically burned his tongue. "Where's the freedom in that?"

"You are not known to this world. It had seemed...as if there were no need for you to face the consequences of your actions."

Raphael stared down at his own hands for a second. He thought about Leo's self-imposed isolation; he thought about the Nightwatcher. Thought about a lot of things and it felt like he'd thought of nothing at all. Where water was absorbed by Usagi's fur, it rolled off of his skin and continued on its journey to the ground. Like the word monster. Like terrified victims begging for mercy. He felt like there should have been something more to everything than the sound of traffic and a single streetlight.

No need to face the consequences.

"Sometimes," he said slowly, feeling the words leave him without immediate understanding, "sometimes I think I'd kill to have to. Sometimes I think I've just been waitin' for it."

"Then it will happen," his companion stated, all unfounded optimism. It warmed his bones, hearing something so hopeful. When Raphael looked at him again he half expected to see a different person there, suddenly, wreathed in light from heaven or something equally dramatic. Seeing just Usagi, fur drenched and stained and looking dingy in the wake of a dying orange light bulb, was somehow reassuring. It was like seeing him brought down to a level that could be reached.

"Let's go back," he said firmly, getting to his feet with surprising ease. "You need shampoo or soap or something."

The second time they had tea together was the start of a future of various conversations. They talked about nothing and everything and world-changing affairs and the weather and usually ended up going in full circles. Which Raphael didn't mind, really. Usagi was good at talking. When they thought differently on a subject, neither of them made efforts to force the other into their way of thinking- they just took it as it was and kept on going without missing a beat.

He tried to rope Leo into one or two of these talks but his brother just declined with that infuriating 'I know something you don't know' look on his face.

It was a long while before Raphael found out what he knew.

More than anything, he thinks it might have begun when they started sparring. Words could never portray as much as solid combat could, but that hadn't really been the point behind it. The point was to train.

Usagi won. A lot. Which was frustrating, but not as much as losing to one of his brothers or to an enemy. It probably had to do with the fact that the samurai didn't gloat after he'd finished kicking Raph's ass.

He could remember their first match- being sprawled on the floor, a little worse for wear but thrilled to be fighting- and how he'd waited for the inevitable with half a frown. But there was nothing of the sort. No condescending apology. Usagi didn't treat him like a spoiled brat- he treated him like an equal.

No strict instructions on how he could improve on whatever it was that he'd messed up. He trusted him to figure it out on his own and to adjust accordingly. And when he reached down and pulled Raphael to his feet, he stepped back and bowed with just as much respect as he would have given to Leo. He told Raphael that he fought well, and that he eagerly awaited their next spar.

Maybe that was really the moment when it happened.

-insert second author's note here-