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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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It was warm and kind of sunny and the island had moved again, which meant grabbing her satchel and heading out to explore a little. And, since it was Sunday, Ariel felt a pit stop over at Fixer Uppers to see Jim might be in order. After all, maybe he'd let her borrow his surfer.

AHAHAHAHAHAHAHA.

Ahem.

She smiled as she breezed in through the door. "Hello, Jim!"

"Hey, Ariel!" Jim? Still in all too good a mood!

... Probably not a good enough mood to let Ariel borrow his surfer. But still a good mood! "You know, normally I do whatever I can to avoid conversation about the weather, but isn't it great to be away from all of that cold again?"

"Oh, it wasn't so bad," Ariel said. There were, after all, a lot of cute winter boots to be had. "But I think we could have had a more interesting place to have been. I mean, you could probably dig through that ice forever and not find anything but more ice. The mammoths were pretty cool, though."

"The mammoths were big. But at least they weren't buffalo."

Jim had learned what a buffalo was in Try Not To Die class. When he'd had to find some way to incorporate it into a snow fort or something. Ew.

"Here seems kind of... quiet, from what I could tell on my way in today. Which is fine. I mean, so long as the weather's good enough for me to get out without getting soaked or freezing off a few toes, I'm not about to complain. It looks like there's a lot of pretty run-down stuff out on the mainland this time around, too. Probably off-limits."

Which was exactly why he was planning on taking his surfer out that way so that he could explore.

"Freezing off a few toes?" asked Ariel, half laughing and half terrified. "Ohmygosh, that would be awful! You're right, though, a lot of it does look like it's supposed to be totally off-limits."

The sparkle in her big blue eyes made it clear, though, that all the good stuff was usually found in the off-limits places. And, really, she was used to anything outside of the ocean being off-limits.

And though she figured it was pretty gosh darn unlikely, she figured this was a good chance to at least try to wriggle her way into certain borrowing privileges. "It's just a shame," she said, with a sigh that had her leaning, slightly slouched on the counter, "that you're stuck in her working while your surfer's just inside, not being used..."

"Well, it's difficult to fly it around inside," Jim mused, his lips pursed thoughtfully as he set down his miniature prototype on the counter in front of her. "I mean, all of those walls. Not much sunlight in here. That kind of thing..."

Really, he knew what she was getting at. But if she wanted to borrow his baby, she was going to have to work for it.

Working for it was half the fun, really, especially when, really, you were content to just use your own two feet, but if it worked, it would be even better.

But Ariel nodded with the utmost grave sympathy. "That's true," she said. "A person probably couldn't even fly it very much in here at all. But someone who was, oh, I don't know, say, outside all those walls, why, they wouldn't have much of a problem at all!"

"You know, that's true," agreed Jim. He couldn't help but smile wistfully at the door, knowing the freedom (and the reckless endangerment) that waited just outside for him. "It's really way too bad I can't find somebody to cover the rest of my shift on such short notice, I guess."

Oh yeah. Definitely making her work for it.

Ariel almost laughed. Almost. If you looked closely, you could see it in her face, and especially in her lips pressed tightly against something trying to get out of her mouth. She struggled a moment, her face going a little red to match her hair, until she managed to swallow it down.

"Yeah," she sighed heavily, shaking her head in dismay. "It is a real shame...but, I mean, and, stop me if this is crazy, but just because you're stuck here doesn't mean your surfer has to be, Jim."

"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?"

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Fixer-Uppers, Sunday

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