Yard, 33 Apocalypse, Friday Morning

[bitten_notshy]

Don't ask where Jack got his bitchin' leather jacket, or the motorcycle he worked on while he wore it. What was important was, they looked awesome. And as for the grease on his hands, that was just another tool to get his pompadour more firmly in place.

He hummed a Bill Haley tune to himself as he polished the bike's chassis. As soon as his ride was fixed, he was going to be zapping through Fandom like a bat out of h-e-double hockey sticks.

Comments

[not_a_whiner]

"Well, hello there!" Kaidan said heartily, pushing in through an invisible picket fence that didn't technically even fit with their claustrophobic European setting. "The bike seems to be coming along nicely!"

He, for once in his life, did not have a pompadour. Frightening.

[bitten_notshy]

"Heeeeeey," Jack grinned back at him, and somehow he'd sprouted an American accent overnight. "I think it is, man. I'm just a little worried about the brakes."

[not_a_whiner]

"I'm sure if you screw those in real tight, you'll be just fine!"

Kaidan didn't know anything about motorbikes. Not now, anyway.

[bitten_notshy]

"Probably," Jack said, because that sounded right. "I should tighten the handlebars too. You don't want those flying off."

[not_a_whiner]

"Ah, no, didn't that happen to little Timmy down the street just last week?" Kaidan said. "Terrible. Just terrible."

[bitten_notshy]

"I heard Doc Watkins" -- who? -- "came out to his house and made him stay in bed a whole week," Jack nodded. "I rode the bike back and forth in front of his window to cheer him up."

[not_a_whiner]

"Now that's good work, lad," Kaidan said approvingly.

(Somewhere up in Heaven, Ashley was laughing herself sick)

"Just be extra-careful and make sure that doesn't happen to you. Play safe!"

[bitten_notshy]

"Oh gosh, no," Jack said, all earnestness. "I know us greasers like to josh around and stuff, but my Ma would go nutso if she thought I was doing anything dangerous. I don't even smoke while I'm riding!"

[not_a_whiner]

"Your mother is a kind and wise soul," Kaidan said, chuckling. "How is she getting along today?"

[bitten_notshy]

"She's making a whole mess of apple pies for the church bazaar," Jack said proudly. "I told her to save one for us, so I might ride over and pick it up once I'm done with the bike."

He had to act fast. His mother's famous pies rarely lingered long. (Or he hadn't seen her in 16 years and there'd never been pies, but that wasn't a very wholesome story.)

[not_a_whiner]

"How much more time will it take?" Kaidan wondered. "Here, I'll help you put the pieces together. Wouldn't want you to miss any of mother's apple pie!"

And see, if he'd been in the right mind, that might have actually been a useful offer. ... and far less odd.

[bitten_notshy]

"Maybe another fifteen minutes with your help," Jack told him, and nodded toward a jumble of parts laid out on a nearby blanket. "Here, put that black curvy thingamabob into the red doohicky."

[not_a_whiner]

"Ah, I found a green whatchamacallit, does that go into the red doohickey as well?"

Whatever this was going to turn out to be... it was probably not going to resemble anything like a bike.

[bitten_notshy]

"Sure, put it on the side with the silver dinglybob," Jack told him. "You might need to thump it on the ground a couple times."

This was going to be the most conceptual art version of a motorcycle ever.

[not_a_whiner]

Kaidan dutifully thumped it down on the ground. "Ah, but I know what this is," he declared a moment later. "A gizmo converter gadget! Why, science these days, eh, chum?"

[bitten_notshy]

"Gosh," Jack said with wonder. "A gizmo converter gadget, right in my very own motorcycle! The space age is really something. I bet next year, I'll get a motorcycle that can even fly."

[not_a_whiner]

"All the way to the moon," Kaidan pronounced, reaching out to clap a paternal hand down on Jack's shoulder.

[bitten_notshy]

"And I'll hang out with moon greasers there," Jack beamed. "Maybe even meet a pretty moon girl."

[not_a_whiner]

"Just be sure you treat her right," Kaidan said, fitting a doohickey back over a whatchamacallit. "Doesn't matter if a girl lives on the moon, you do that, all right?"

[bitten_notshy]

"Shucks," Jack said. "I sure will! It's hard, though. Some of the betties who want to make time with a guy like me expect to go park, practically right away."

He said the last in a hushed, scandalized tone.

[not_a_whiner]

"Tell them, not until you're married, son," Kaidan said sternly.

[bitten_notshy]

"Of course not, Mr. A," Jack said, with a solemnity that turned to a delighted grin as he tightened the whatsit one last time. "I think this old thing may just be streetworthy again."

[not_a_whiner]

Kaidan patted the Jackson Pollock-esque construction proudly. "We did good," he agreed. "Now you hurry on and get that apple pie, Jack."

[bitten_notshy]

"I'll give you the biggest slice," Jack said, and .... kind of straddled the thing and pushed it down the road with his feet.

Though if you asked him, we was speeding away.