tushanshu_logs

Entry tags:

[Open]

Characters: Raphael and YOU
Date: Catch-all for End of July and August
Location: Water, Wood, and Metal Sectors
Situation: Just a Turtle doin' his thing
Warnings/Rating: None

Things were getting better, much as Raphael would hate to admit it. Ever since they'd split his family up, ever since Don discovered his new power, things have felt off-kilter. Unbalanced. And that reflected on his own stability.

He started going to the fight ring in the Fire Sector again. Spent weeks stumbling home late at night with cuts and bruises he wouldn't talk about. Disappeared for days. Went quieter than usual, his thoughts turned inward, closely guarded. It's his own way of coping.

Lately, more than ever, he could feel things changing, feel the bones of his family shifting. The growing pains are hard to avoid.

But move on with their own cadence, building a new familiarity around him. Leo comes almost every evening, and they meditate. Talk. He and Mike spend quiet nights over home cooked meals and idle conversation about the kids he teaches at the dojo, the people they've met, and it helps. Makes the chaos in his head go quiet for a little while. The days get longer and hotter, and the heat soothes the aches.

As much as he'd hate to admit it, he hasn't felt this good in a long, long time, and it shows. After a long disappearance, he shows up at the dojo again, hoping he still has a job. Hoping he could pick a fight with Korra like they used to. He starts collecting books about building motorcycles with plenty of diagrams. Even starts gathering a handful of parts. But without Don, he doubts he'll get very far.

But things were getting better. Falling into a new rhythm that hurts a little less each day.

He has to tell himself to enjoy it while it lasts, because he knows all too well how fast these things can change.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

"There's not much to see," Don warns as they climb the stairs. "The bad news is, I did not find a chassis in pristine condition, complete with racing stripes. The good news is, we get to make our own."

Don's room looks more or less like the aftermath of a motorcycle factory explosion... and possibly the plant next door burned down too, leading to an intermingling of parts that don't belong on any vehicle.

"This is it. I haven't quite finished sorting it out."

Every inch of his brother's room is covered in rust-covered pieces of scrap and spare parts. It's like he somehow stuffed an entire salvage yard in there. Not that Raph's complaining. Though it makes him feel a little claustrophobic, he is definitely impressed. If there's anything they'll need to build this thing, Don's probably got it.

"No kidding," he deadpans. Though his attention's already been caught by the shelves of smaller parts along the wall, pulling a carburetor free from the rest of the clutter to study more closely.

A freakin' carburetor.

"Gotta say, I'm more worried about the engine. Don't think they even invented something with four cylinders yet. And you're lucky if you can find one with more than 300ccs."

The Shell Cycle wasn't exactly a top-of-the-line high performance bike. It was a great bike, but not the bike of his dreams. If he had it his way, he'd be blasting around at 200mph on something with a six speed transmission. And Leo would probably kill them both.

If Raph didn't kill himself first.

Don just shrugs at this comment. "Once you've mastered two cylinders, adding more is not that much of a technological leap. How many do you want?"

He doesn't have great resources for fabricating parts here, but he didn't at home either, and that never stopped him.

Actually building an engine out of scrap is out of his realm of ability, for sure. He's not even all that comfortable with the whole welding process. Making weapons in a super-heated forge, working with hand tools, sure. But factor in the power tools and it makes him a little uneasy.

He might be able to repair, maintain, and tweak an engine, but he sure as shell can't make one out of nothing like Don could.

"Well, I don't want nothin' crazy. I'm thinkin' four in-line. Any more and I'm not gonna know how to maintain it. Not to mention it would be way too heavy."

A heavy bike is a slow bike, and he wants this thing to be light as possible.

Setting the carburetor back where he found it, he moves father into the room, scanning the shelves for anything else that might be interesting.

"Speakin' of frames, though. They even got somethin' light like aluminum? 'Cause I ain't dealin' with somethin' that rides like the freakin' Battle Shell."

Edited 2014-08-09 02:49 (UTC)

Don shuffles through some papers on his desk, digging out the sketches he and Raph had worked on via the network. If they don't care about stealth in Keeliai, they could ditch some weight by losing the mufflers and -

He balls up the sketch and throws it at the back of Raph's head. "Don't talk about the Battle Shell. I still miss that old tank."

Raph flinches at the paper ricocheting off his head, then throws Don a dirty look over his shoulder.

"You know what I meant."

Sulkily, he picks up a headlight, grimacing at just how old-fashioned they look. In his mind, this bike would be sleek and shiny and modern. Probably won't happen, but he can dream.

"I just want something I can show off, you know? Now that I can actually show it off to someone other than Casey."

That's... kind of embarrassing to admit, but whatever. It's true. The Shell Cycle was the one nice thing he ever owned, and he misses that feeling.

Here, they can afford something even nicer. Maybe even new, and he wonders just what that would feel like, too.

To Don, a gorgeous new bike practically exists already, and he wishes he could show Raph what he has in mind.

Well... he could.

"Do you... want to see it?" he asks, tentatively. "Right now?"

"Sure," he says without much thought, assuming Don's got a new schematic for him or something. He's too busy fiddling with the headlight to realize what that tone in his brother's voice might actually mean.

The casual reply sets off alarm bells: there's no way Raph's feelings have changed that much since they last tried this.

"Raph," he says, more emphatically. "Do you want to see what I'm thinking?"

His insides instantly grow cold, and he swallows hard at the ice in his throat.

But he's promised himself, Leo, Mike... he promised he wouldn't get angry. He promised he'd breathe, and think, and try not to overreact.

At least this time Don asked him first.

"Donnie, come on," he sighs wearily, turning the light over in his hand. Its severed wires jut limply from the back, whittled down to the exposed copper. "Can't we just do this like normal? I don't want to get into that right now."

Edited 2014-08-09 03:44 (UTC)

Don turns away, reaching for a huge chunk of metal while taking a moment to check his mental walls.

"Fine. To answer your question, the Metal sector has substances I don't even recognize."

And he tosses the silver lump to Raph, way more easily than it looks like he should be able to.

It's pure reflex that Raph turns and catches the metal with a free hand before it hits the ground.

He's sure he probably hurt Don's feelings right now, and that makes him feel pretty crappy, too. But he was just being honest, and it's not really that big of a deal.

"Huh," he says, testing the hunk of metal's weight in his palm. It's amazingly light for its size, that's for sure.

"You think this stuff could take a beating? It's light, but it's gotta be pretty durable, too."

"The kedan swore to me that it's malleable, has great structural and tensile strength, and is a superconductor. If he lied, I will find him." He tugs at a sheet, revealing a sizeable pile of the stuff. "In the meantime, I have all of this."

"Wow, so you're really plannin' on startin' from scratch."

Donnie, you're such a freakin' overachiever. But Raph seriously admires his dedication. They'd never get the bike he wanted by using the parts and frames of the old kedan hunks of junk.

This thing's gonna be epic.

An excited smile starts sweeping over Raph's face at the idea. Oh man. This's gonna be so great.

"Lemme see what you got for the rendering again," he says, padding over to Don's desk. Now that he's actually seen the parts and materials, it's actually starting to feel real, and he's brimming with ideas.

"I'm not first inventing the universe," Don mutters, mostly to himself. But he waves a hand, vaguely indicating that all his drawings are somewhere in the heap on his desk.

While Raph looks at that, Don will go back to sorting out the parts on the floor.

Everything Don does is like inventing the universe to Raph. He has no idea how his brother does it. Tightening a few bolts here and there, cleaning and oiling things, making simple tweaks to things; that's where Raph's knowledge ends. The rest is just some kind of engineering wizardry far as he's concerned.

Rifling through the stack of papers on Don's desk, he finds the one he's looking for, then plops down on the desk chair, swiveling it around so he can watch what Don's up to.

The design is great, and they've worked pretty hard on it over the consoles, but with new ideas fresh in his mind, he wants to make some changes.

"I think we gotta think some more about makin' this thing more wind-resistant."

And thus faster. Every change he's gonna suggest is gonna have to do with making it go faster.

It's really completely logical. In some ways, it's easier.

"Wind-resistant?" Don asks, as he tosses a non-motorcycle-related part into the far corner. It clatters down a pile of other temporary rejects, rolling to camouflage itself among the camshafts. "What are you planning to do with it?"

Go unwisely fast, of course. But fast enough that the headwind becomes a serious engineering concern?

"Donnie."

He folds down a corner of the blueprint to look his brother in the eye, his head tilted questioningly and his mouth twisted into a mischievous-looking smile.

"Just how fast do you think we could make this thing? Hypothetically."

Don straightens up and crosses his arms, because he sees how this is going to end.

"I'm building you a motorcycle, not a rocket ship. How fast it could be significantly exceeds how fast it will be. Keep fantasizing about how irresponsibly you're going to drive it, and I can lower that ratio."

And in one little moment, all his dreams are crushed.

"I was just askin'," he grouches. "It ain't like I don't know what I'm doing. You don't have to go makin' threats."

"I'm not making threats," Don says mildly. "How fast do you think you could drive around here anyway? Keeliai isn't exactly the Black Rock Desert."

Well then, fine.

"There's a motorcycle track not too far from here." He shrugs. "People tweak up their little mopeds and race around. Figure you and me could blow 'em out of the water."

An odd look spreads across Don's face at this new information. How did he not know this already?

"Well, why didn't you say so?"

You're spending too much time holed up in this lab of yours, Donnie-boy.

Though Raph definitely doesn't intend to use the bike only on the track, it looks like that little white lie was the ticket to building his rocket ship on wheels.

Suddenly, he's grinning like a fool, eyes lit up like a kid's at Christmas.

"Really?" He beams. "'Cause I'm thinkin' we should make this thing at least 1,300ccs."

At least. Even he isn't sure he could handle a bike that powerful, but he's aiming high to give him some room to haggle.

Don scans the piles of parts on the floor, revising his mental plans, then turns back to Raph with a sharp look.

"Swear to me that you will not go speeding around the city on this thing. Nor tell Leo that we are racing it on the track. Maybe you don't know that when you drive recklessly, he yells at me too. I'm not interested in hearing that lecture again." He crosses his arms. "Do we have a deal?"

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject