fandomtownies | Fixer-Uppers, Sunday

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Fixer-Uppers, Sunday

Oh, man, was Jim ever in a good mood today at the Fiver-Uppers. The island had moved again, and for all the creepiness in the world, nothing was ever going to change the fact that for the first time in ages, the weather was good enough for him to ride his solar surfer to work. Between the chill of the ice age and London's rain, he'd been having withdrawls. Just a bit.

A lot.

He was sitting up on the counter with his surfer propped up against it just in case he decided that he wanted to grab it and go for another ride during his lunch break or something. For the time being, he was toying here and there with smaller bits and pieces, trying to come up with some combination of Earth materials that would be able to score him a working miniature.

A bit unconsciously, he'd taken to whistling as he worked. It hadn't taken very much for the silence of this new place to start to get to him, surfer-related happiness aside.

[Open, OCD-free!]

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"You think so? I mean, it can't really go off on wild adventures all on its own, Ariel. I've got kill switches built in to make certain that it's only propelling itself forward if someone has their feet on it, so that it doesn't end up flying away into the etherium, never to be seen again."

He would have been sad, if it went and did that.

Ariel really couldn't ask for a more beautiful set-up than that.

"Hmmm," she said, narrowing her eyes thoughtfully, tapping her chin in time with the gears that were going through her head. "Only propelling itself forward if someone has their feet on it, huh? Well, then, it sounds like you'll just need someone with feet to help the poor board out..."

Ariel bit her lip, still looking like she was thinking so hard at who could possibly fit that bill; her eyes started grazing around the store, searching for such a feature, until, eventually, they found themselves looking down at her own shoes. "Oh, hey!" she announced. "Look at that! I have feet!"

FEEEEEEET.

"What a crazy coincidence, huh?" Jim pursed his lips thoughtfully as he leaned over to peer down at Ariel's suddenly so very useful bodily feature. "It's weird, but I have a pair of those, too. I mean, that's how I manage to use my surfer so well, and all."

Pointed look at his own toes? Oh yes.

"Of course, it's not all about feet, you know."

Ariel grinned, slightly, because, hey, her having feet really was something, but, somehow, she had a feeling that her mentioning that she'd only had them for about a year wouldn't help her case here.

"True," she allowed. "It does take a certain amount of skill to go along with it, too, but I've been on it before, I know how it works. I'll never get the hang of it if I don't ever get to try it on my own."

Jim was now squinting one eye at you skeptically, Ariel.

"Without supervision or anything?"

WITH HIS BABY, ARIEL.

Oh, yes, Ariel definitely knew that expression. She bit her lip sheepishly, shrugging her shoulders.

"Yes?" she tried, with a hopeful lift in her voice.

The skepticism wasn't going anywhere any time soon, either.

"You know, if anything happened to it, I would have to be pretty upset, right?"

Even if he was pretty sure he'd figured out a way to make a new one using scrap from the junkyard on the island, and all. Details.

Ariel did know that if anything happened to it, especially if she did something to it, Jim would probably not just be pretty upset, but probably livid, and she wouldn't blame him one bit. But Ariel wasn't exactly known for thinking things through and, now presented with the very, very, very likely chance that she'd screw things up and crash and leave his beautiful baby a mangled piece of scrap...Color and doubt started to fill her face, and her eyes shifted as she bit her lip.

"Um...."

Come on, Ariel, you've gotten through worse conundrums than this before.

"Oh, hey!" There it was! Ariel lit up with an idea. "How about this? There's other people who work here, too, right? What if I went and convinced one of them to cover for you for a little bit and you can come give me a flying lesson?"

Actually, that wasn't really a bad idea at all, Jim had to admit. Or, even...

"You could do that. Or I could just... take an extended lunch break. Sundays usually are pretty quiet, after all."

There was a pause, and then he lit up with a little grin. "But first, have you seen what I've been working on, yet?"

Cruel, cruel Jim! Distracting her from one shiny and exciting thing with another shiny and exciting thing. Brightened already by a solution that allowed them both to get a good flying in, darkness stood no chance against Ariel's response to his question.

"No!" she gasped. "What is it?"

Jim was a very sneaky boy! How else could he possibly manage to get into all of those restricted areas on Montressor?

"It's just a prototype right now," he explained, reaching for the toy-sized surfer on the counter beside him, "but I've been experimenting with different materials from here on Earth, and I think I've found a few that I could probably use if I wanted to make more." A beat. "Uh, bigger than this, though."

Ariel had to giggle a little bit at the addendum, and she gave the mini-surfer model a poke. "It's so cute!" she said. "What materials did you use to make it?"

"What, you think I know what they're called?" Jim laughed and gave his head a shake. "I'd know more of any of it to see it, but mostly I've kind of been winging it and testing whatever I can find to see if it'll serve the purpose."

A beat.

"There's some copper in it?"

He'd found a coil of labelled copper wire. So at least he knew the name for that.

Ariel looked up from the little surfer with a smirk that made it clear that she approved of Jim's less than scientific method. "I'm pretty sure that's the shiny goldish stuff," she offered smartly. "Do you think any of it works better than what you use to build these back home?"

"Reddish-goldish," Jim confirmed, smirking a little, "and when I line the rocket with it, it makes the flames turn crazy colors."

Because that was the important part, right there.

"I'm going to have to test it on a full-scale model to see how it holds the weight, but there's a sort of sheet metal that I found that looks a bit more sturdy, so I might not have to worry about breaking it if I end up flying into another garbage can."

"Ooooooooh."

Ariel approved of crazy colors. But another giggle was ensuing.

"Another garbage can?"

"Oh, I didn't tell you the story of how I got the job here?" Jim laughed and gave his head a shake. He might as well share. After all, it was old news, and it seemed like just the sort of story that Ariel might enjoy. "It wasn't long after I arrived on the island, actually. I was flying my surfer, and I got kind of distracted and ran it into an alley."

"And straight into some garbage cans, huh?" Definitely the sort of story she'd enjoy! "Did that hurt a lot? And how did that lead to getting a job?"

"One garbage can, actually. One of those really, really big square ones that you can put a bunch of bags in at once."

A dumpster, Jim.

"See, the thing that distracted me was the sign for the store, here." It had a lens flare! "And I was mostly okay, but that's because my surfer took most of the damage. I needed to weld it back together, and here was the only place that had the equipment. But I couldn't afford rental of it all, so..."

"Oh!" Ariel's face lit up. "You can find some of the best stuff in those really big square ones! And so you got a job there so you could afford to fix the surfer! Actually, I think that's how I started working at Pixie Dust, only instead of fixing things, it was for clothes and shoes."

Lots and lots of shoes.

"Oh, yeah? I haven't really gone in there yet," Jim shared. "It seems like a great place for... mostly fancy clothes, at least from the window."

And girly ones, going by the name.

And, oddly enough, Ariel spent maybe two seconds considering trying to foist That Pink Shirt on Jim and had to stop so she didn't wind up hurting herself laughing.

"It's all fancy clothes," she assured him. "And shoes and accessories and all sorts of things that definitely seem right up your alley, Jim, I'm surprised you haven't been there yet."

Jim raised an eyebrow, looking down at his clompy boots, his simple trousers, his belt that was entirely too big, and his scruffy jacket. The eyebrow stayed raised as he looked back at Ariel.

"I can not seriously scream 'trendy dresser' to you," he protested.

"I study all the magazines," Ariel informed Jim, as loftily as one who was trying not to giggle could manage. "You'd be really surprised by what comes down those runways!"

No, seriously. There've been times when she wondered if her sail dress from her first day on the island hadn't really been as far off as Jono had suggested it was.

"I think in order to be surprised, I would have to know what people around here think is stylish in the first place," Jim pointed out. "I mean, most of this kind of just screams 'Mom sewed it for me,' doesn't it?"

It really did. And she'd done so out of the clothing that Jim's father had left behind when he'd taken off on them years ago, too.

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