More sweet than spicy, and a departure from what I usually write. So I am extra exited to hear your feedback.
Raph found Don in the most likely of places, his lab. "Are ya busy?" he asked as the genius glanced up at him. Donnie eyes were shadowy and lustrous in the dim light of the lab. "Not really, did you need something?" As always Don's voice soothed him, smoothing over some of his current frustration. "It's the shell cycle. Rear wheel's making this noise, can't figure out why." Raph sighed in exasperation. "Can you bring it up here?" Don asked. "Here why?" Raph was surprised that Don wasn't going to look the bike in the garage. "I've got a mechanical hoist up here, if there's a problem with the wheel assembly it'll be easier to spot once it's off the ground."
With a lot of cursing and fussing over not scratching his babies paint Raph managed to wrestle the motorcycle down the lift and in to the lab. He and Don worked in companionable silence as they fed the chains through the frame. Don grabbed a black box attached to the lifts power cable, and flipping back a safety pressed a red button. He paused the bike at eye level, looking over its suspended form thoughtfully.
Don grasped the rear tire in an olive hand and rotated it slowly until it made a scraping sound. "Yeah, that's it." Raph confirmed. The genius spun the tire again, a little faster this time. Then faster and faster, the rear tire making a strangely rhythmic scraping sound. Keeping the wheel spinning he looked at Raph with dark unreadable eyes. Donnie kept his eyes on Raph as he pulled a small remote from his obi and clicked it. Somewhere in a shadowed corner of the lab a motor started up, it had the heavy thump, thump of a washing machine like it was unevenly weighted.
It was strange Raph decided, it was almost like the second machine was in counter rhythm to the tire scrape. Don gave the tire a hard push, and it kept his momentum as he stepped away from the bike. He moved to a near by nest of wires and powered something on which promptly started to beep. Raph was used to the intuitive and often difficult to follow way his genius brother worked so he didn't distract Don with any questions.
Instead he watched as Donatello strode purposefully about the lab flicking on switches and pressing buttons. The sound of the machines had a strikingly varied tonal range, and seemed to mix together with surprising harmonies. Not seemed Raph realized, his eyes widening in shock, were. Donatello continued to dart about the lab turning keys and slapping start buttons as a strange symphony unfolded.
Donnie circled back to the bike, and resumed spinning the wheel as Raph gaped at him in amazement. The genius blushed and looked pleased. Raph didn't want to break the spell by speaking, so he turned slowly in place trying to take in the complexity of the piece. He wandered deeper in to the lab, listing to how the sounds changed as he moved nearer and farther from various elements.
Under the shifting rhythms and swelling sounds a particular strain caught Raph's ear. Maybe because it was slower, sweeter the the other elements of Dontello's complex composition. There was something old fashioned about it, if old fashioned as an adjtive could be attached to any part of a symphony that included the rhythmic tink-tink of glass vials spinning in a centrifuge. The melody rose and dropped of several times as Raph tried to isolate it.
But it kept on waving its way back in, so Raphael turned his head back and forth slowly trying to isolate the source of the comparatively faint sound. He drifted toward the center of the lab, pausing as it dropped off and continuing on again as it teased him forward. Donnie stood silently as Raphael wandered slowly through the machines, content that Raph was absorbed in exploring his creation.
Raphael's focus narrowed, he was getting close to the source of the noise. He wasn't sure why this particular snatch of song or string of sounds was so magnetic to him. But something about it that he couldn't consciously articulate set it apart from the rest of music. Even as it was woven through the composition. A little closer, and Raph cocked his head. He was standing at Donnie's workstation, his personal computer ringed by monitors and clutter in the very heart of the lab.
Donatello had a little ah-ha moment, he didn't think such a small variance in the overall aesthetic, carefully covered and deeply buried would be noticed. He had put it in there mostly for him self, his own touch stone in the piece. But seeing Raph thread his way over to his computer, he knew the red banded turtle had caught it. The thought both filled him with joy and nervousness.
Raphael strained to understand the little scrap of melody, he was listing to it so hard he didn't notice Donatello slowly turning off machines. But as their sounds trialled off in to silence this melody became clearer. He glanced up at Donnie, who was flicking a cut off switch but didn't say anything. Raph was still trying to work it out, something about this little string of sounds was different then the others. As the lab grew quiet around him, he listened closely. Donatello watched him as his head snapped up, and eyes flicking back and forth in recognition. They narrowed again in rapt concentration, emerald forehead furrowing. Under the distortion, low-fi cracks and scratches, and a thick coating of vocoder there was a voice. A single voice cloaked in a symphony of machines.
Engrossed in listening to the rising and falling theme, he failed to sense Donatello walking up behind him. Something wrestled to the front of his awareness, it wasn't just a voice, it was Donatello's voice. Once he heard it the geniuses soft smooth cadence was clear underneath the layered on sounds. But what was he saying? Raphael jumped as Donatello snaked a hand past him to the keyboard. In the dark of the lab, the heat of the olive skinned turtles proximity felt extremely intimate. Donatello brought up a screen and started un-clicking boxes. His voice in the speakers cleared as the layers of filters and distortion were pulled away. Finally it rose naked against the click track, just a single phrase half sung, half whispered.
"I'm half crazy, all for the love of you." dissolving in and out of the silence as it looped, accompanied now by only the sound of Raphael's thundering heart.
