Porucci & Son wasn't a very large shop, tucked between a garage and a small mortuary, but the modest store was fairly well-known in the neighborhood as being a very reliable place to have your gadgets repaired. Inside the store was crowded with hanging wrenches, screwdrivers, industrial staplers, and one long display case that housed any number of tools.

At two in the afternoon, two of the three employees at Porucci & Son were on their lunch break. Since Porucci was taking the week off for vacation, the store was left to Son, who was in the back room of the shop with his tacky new girlfriend.

Therefore, at two in the afternoon on this particular week, Alfred was the only person left at the counter. With his boombox turned up and the Eagle's "Victim Of Love" filling the store, he was perfectly happy to fiddle around with the intricate mechanisms of his own watch, even if it meant he'd have to reset the time when he was done. The loose sole of his shoe flopped and hit the ground as he tapped his foot along to the music, perched on a high stool that let him lean over the glass display case.

The sign on the door proudly proclaimed, "If it's brokn, we can fix it!"

Daring.

Above the brokn, hovering between the k and the n, someone had penciled in an e. Under this e was an arrow.

This amused Atlas.

It was probably because of this sign that he even bothered to walk into the store. With a graceful strut and his usual smile, he made his way to the counter. Past the appliances—not even a glance at them. He had zeroed in on Alfred, and was advancing like a grinning tiger.

He stopped. One more step and he would have surely run straight into the counter.

He smiled. Dark hair fell into his eyes.

He held out his hand, and flipped Alfred off.

"My nail broke. Fix it."

Alfred's head came up at the sound of the man's voice, dropping the tiny screwdriver he was holding onto the counter so that he could fold his hands and try to look professional, despite the holes in his jeans and the oil stains on his faded Ramones t-shirt. Even the nametag pinned crookedly to his chest was badly printed and cried "cheap", only spelled "Alfred."

He saw the man's hand first, of course.

"Look," he said after a moment, eyes lifting to give his customer a pouty glare, "we don't give manicures." The man had a very pretty, dark look that made him want to roll his eyes--he wouldn't've been surprised if the man told him that he actually did get manicures. And that smile was awfully sweet for someone who was shoving a rather offensive middle finger into his face.

"Give me your watch or your car to repair and I'll have it fixed in no time, but I ain't got nail glue."

Atlas was horrified.

The smile froze on his lips, didn't disappear, of course not, but gained a sort of wicked gleam to it. How on earth was the boy allowed to go outside looking like that?

"Obviously not." There was a sharp edge to his voice, a friendly mean one. "Otherwise your sign would be stating that you gave manicures, not that you could fix anything." He lowered his hand. Placed it on the counter, palm first. Looked despondantly at his poor broken fingernail, but smiled bravely at it anyway.

He smiled hopefully at Alfred.

How could you say no to a face like this? the smile asked.

Look at me, I'm very pretty, it added.

"It looks to me, however, that you need a bit of fixing yourself." A curious look at Alfred, thoughtful, wondering how he could spruce him up a bit. Wondering what colors would fit his skin tone. Wondering what haircut would fit the shape of his face best.

Alfred looked down at himself, knowing exactly what he'd find. The clothing he wore was comfortable enough, but he'd never quite lost the feeling of shame that came with wearing someone else's clothes.

Looking back up, he managed a smile in return. "So do you or don't you have anything that needs fixing?" he asked as politely as he could. His right eyebrow, however, began to drift upwards despite his best efforts, turning his nice smile into something more sarcastic.

"Victim Of Love" ended, a moment of silence, then "Pretty Maids All in a Row" came on the stereo.

He mimicked the sarcasm. His left eyebrow came up, and he continued smiling.

Just because he was smiling, didn't mean he had to be happy.

This is Jack's unnervingly present smile.

It could be said that Atlas' smile was the only thing constant about him. One day he'd be horribly obsessive over every little thing to the point where he would take measuring tape to make sure both of a fly's wings were the same length before swatting it, and then next where he would tornado around his house, flinging everything this way and that.

"Yes." His tone was nice, but had a bit of a caustic edge to it. Friendly mean, friendly mean. "I'm looking at it."

Of course, Alfred wasn't his.

Oh, well. He still wanted to fix him.

He started to turn around and look behind him, still smiling, before he got it. All right, so it had been a long day, he was allowed to do stupid things every once and a while.

And this guy was mocking him. Look at that expression, the raised eyebrow, and the whole finger thing. Bastard.

"You want to fix me?" This guy was definitely weird. He kept on smiling. "Look, mister, it's nice that you're concerned and all, I don't really want to be fixed."

He really wasn't in the mood to deal with this.

"Oh, come on." He tapped his fingers gently on the counter. Was his smile still there? Yes. Good.

Alfred might be interested to know that Atlas was merely mirroring Alfred's expression. Did this mean that Alfred was mocking Atlas? It would be food for a thought, if Atlas was psychic. Alas, he was not, so the point was moot.

"It'll be fun. I'll even choose the outfits for you."

Please, pleaded his smile, I can't bear the atrocity of your horrible fashion a moment longer.

Alfred stared at him for a long moment. His face was starting to hurt from the smile, but he felt that if he dropped it, he would lose.

"I don't get off work until the other guys get back. I can't exactly just get up and leave the store so you can have your way with me." He dropped his chin into one hand, elbow on the counter, his hair falling into his eyes so that it almost covered their bright hue. "It ain't a free world when you've got work, you know? So like, maybe you're better off finding another fashion victim to fix."

"It's unfortunate that I've set my sight on you already." He looked forlorn. "And where are the others? When are they going to come back?" He shifted—one foot to the other, then perfectly balanced his weight on each legs.

"How about you fix my nail while we wait for them to get back?"

The smile had dropped to something smaller. Just a small curl of his lips, upturned at the sides—people who knew him would probably mistake this for the smile disappearing completely and would probably explode. Literally.

It was still there.

It was always there.

"And I certainly know. I have work. Just not right now."

His boss insisted he took a day off. He had been particularly horrible at the office, adjusting everything until it fit his standards, yelling when someone moved even a pencil or a pen, went around to each office to clean dirty hands with a hot towel so that the keyboards would remain clean. He looked under every desk, scraped any dried gum from the bottom, then spent the next twenty minutes washing and rewashing his hands.

It was unfortunate that he was the best person for his job, otherwise his poor boss would have probably fired him long, long ago.

"We also should do something about that speech impediment of yours."

He laughed at the nerve of this guy.

"Look, I'm not fixin' your nail, and I ain't got no speech impediment." He pushed back up from the counter, hopped off his stool, switched the stereo ("Try And Love Again") off with a flick of his fingers.

Silence.

He smiled forcibly. The back of his jawbone was burning.

"Would you be paying if I decided to go along?"

Would it hurt him if he got a pair of clean clothes? No way. This guy was creepy, but no more creepy than some of his friends.

Besides, if he did something really weird, he could just leave.

"You certainly do, and that's sad that you won't." His smile stated otherwise, it had a slightly calm, relaxed feeling to it. He flipped around and leaned against the counter, pulling a file from nowhere (where the hell did that come from?) and began fixing his broken nail. A moment later, it was perfectly curved—and he worked on the rest of his nails so that they would be the same length as the one that he has just repaired.

It should be noted, here, that tomorrow he would probably be gnawing his nails to no end.

"I suppose I could pay."

It should also be noted that if Alfred stopped smiling, Atlas would know. He just would. And therefore, Alfred would lose.

Mesmerized by the swift nail filing, it took him a moment to reply. "Okay. If you wait here for just a minute, old man, I'll get my manager and tell him I'm leaving." He slid towards the door to the backroom, picking up his stereo as he passed it--smile still fixed like superglue on his face--and shouldered his way out of the front.

Muffled squeals and giggles. Enough to make him gag, had he not been smiling. "Sam?" he grumbled, grip tightening on his boombox, "I'm out for today."

Murmurs, rustling, the unavoidable sound of clothes being pulled on. From the shadowy corner, the pale face of his boss's son lifted. "You're out?" Italian accent like syrup over his words. "No, you're not. Who told you you're out?"

"The boys will be back in five and I've got stuff to do." The girlfriend blew him a kiss and his cheeks itched from flushing. "You can dock me if you want."

"Damn right I'll dock you," Sam grumbled. "All right, get out of here."

Alfred turned to leave.

"And stop that damn smiling!"

He made it back out to the front without laughing. When he got there, his smile was genuine. "I can go now."

Atlas' smile was never genuine.

It might take people years to realize this, but when they did it was almost as if it were a kick in the gut. He had 'real' smiles, yes, and a whole variation of happy ones and sinister ones and whatnot, but whatever smile he wore was never quite right. Like, although it touched his eyes, it never really festered there.

One had to wonder what he was hiding.

"That's good." His nails were perfect now, but he looked them over with a critical eye. A swipe to his left hand's pinky—there. Turned—facing the younger man now. Gave him the same look he gave his hand.

"Did you get dressed blindfolded?" He shook his head and started walking out. "Come on. I'm fixing you if it's the last thing I do."

The critical examination under the other man's eyes made his smile fade slightly. He really, really didn't like being looked at that way. It was definitely an older generation thing--nobody his age ever looked at him like that...well, besides girls. But the general consensus was that they were checking you out, while this guy was definitely just pricing his clothing.

He turned the Open sign on the door over, just in case someone decided to come by before Cory and Drake returned from their break.

"So, who are you?" He shuffled alongside Atlas (still smiling for his benefit, likely still being smiled back at). "You some kinda rich guy lookin' for your kicks, or what?"

A car honking on the corner distracted him, turned his chin towards it reflexively. There was clearly something wrong with the oil, he could tell by the way the engine was grinding from here.

He forced his attention back.

"I suppose you could call me that, if you really want to be so lewd." He was eyeing the boombox with distaste. "And you, are you stuck in the eighties?" Really, there were much smaller radios to be carrying around in this day and age, not one that looked as if it could knock someone out if swung correctly.

He could swear he'd seen cars smaller than that.

"Who am I. Atlas Kanavas, at your service." A man who can't handle imperfection, and let me tell you something sweetheart, are you the cream of the crop.

He continued smiling. A relaxed grin.

Well, he had been created in the eighties, and it's not as though he could upgrade the object he'd been made with. You were stuck with what you got--literally.

And he couldn't help feeling a bit defensive.

"It's a good sound system," he grumbled. "So what if she's a bit big?" After time, the hunk of plastic had even gained a gender in his mind. "She's just as good as any of the little new things. I wouldn't trade her for the world."

Well, of course not. He'd bite off the hands of anyone who tried.

So right. "Nice..." Er, nice? "Good..." Not good, either. "I'm Alfred Quigley." That was the best he could do without telling the other man that he was well-met, which he wasn't. "Would've been at your service if you'd actually had something worth repairing."

He studied the sidewalk as they walked, admiring the way the ground glass in the concrete would shimmer in the sun.

"She." Atlas spent the next couple of moments looking for any form of female anatomy on the boombox, and, well, failed. "Nope, nope, can't possibly figure out why you've affixed your stereo with a gender. I mean, cars I can understand. Boats, sure. But a radio?"

His tone obviously suggested he thought Alfred was a little nutters.

"We should probably find you a nicer looking radio."

He didn't realize how horribly he could have possibly offended Alfred. He didn't know magic existed, after all.

Horror. People had often told him to put her down, laughed at him, even yelled once or twice--but never had they openly insulted, then threatened her.

"A car or a boat is just as mechanical as she is," he snapped. "There's no limit as to what can be called a she and what can't, unless it has a dick, and you ain't gonna find no smokestack on this baby." He wrapped his fingers more firmly around the handle, only slightly soothed by the perfectly tuned humming of her machinery beneath his palm. She was perfect. Not too big.

He stopped walking, turned. Jabbed his finger in the air in front of Atlas to make his point.

"Look, mister, you can cut my hair, change my clothes, put on fuckin' makeup if it makes you happy, but you're not touching my boombox."

Point made?

He thought so. He turned back, started walking.

Hit a lampost.

He hit a lampost.

THUD. BONK. Whatever sound best described his head hitting metal.

White stars exploding in front of his eyes, he stumbled back, nearly lost his balance. "Holy gods above," he swore, blinked widely.

Did he just...

...hit a lamppost?

"There's a lamppost there, you might want to watch out."

It was spoken in such calmness where any normal person would be laughing. Like hell.

Oh, he was laughing all right. Just not out loud. But his grin was especially wide, mind you, and his eyes were dancing with glee.

"Remind me to hold your hand while you're crossing the street. Wouldn't want you to run into any cars." Yes, that was mockery in his tone.

"In any account, why are you so freaked out about people touching your boombox? It's...hideous. If you're so against getting a new one, can I at least paint it?"

He stumbled carefully around the lampost this time, giving it wide berth, and paused at the corner of the street to touch his forehead with gentle fingers. It felt as though he'd cracked his skull, or at least punctured the bone. "Thanks for the...warning."

He squinted across the street, watching the stopsign swim in and out of focus on the opposite corner. "I don't care if you think it's hideous or not," he mumbled, pressing his palm against the spot that hurt. "You're not touching it. I swear to the gods I'll break your fingers, rip off the fingernails and shove them down your throat if you try to touch it with pen, paintbrush, or your own greedy hands."

Hitting a wrong note already. His smile had disappeared entirely with the bump against the lampost.

Not only had he lost, but now he was resorting to bad threats.

Situation sinking like the Titanic.

Don't go, Jack, don't go!

"Look--Atlas, Mister Kanavas, whatever--just don't insult her, okay? If there's one thing that's stayed by me all my life, it's definitely her."

This is Jack's highly amused reaction to a) the pissy boy beside him and b) the reference to the Titanic. Well, not that Atlas knew anything about it, but, well, it was still quite funny.

"Did you just...threaten me?" His tone danced with amusement and disbelief—who the hell did this kid think he was? His tone then tangoed and mambaed, it was a rather ambitious tone, mind you. "Because if you just threatened me over...a suggestion...then I might have to wonder slightly about you. If you're a dangerous individual because of your...oh, I apologize, her, then I have to say that I'll doubt your sanity more than most people doubt mine, and this little excursion will be have to be cut short. I'm not fond of losing limbs over mechanical objects, you see."

Perfectly logical, perfectly logical. There was no offense to his tone, just humor. Haha, you want to rip off my fingernails?! Hil-fucking-arious, ol' chap, mate 'o mine, friend of my heart. Are we straight? Straight as a rush, aye.

He smiled.

He made a face down at his shoes--oh man, pain--

"I'm not a dangerous individual or whatever, man, don't worry." Should he worry? Well, not really. It was true that he wasn't a dangerous individual. Dryads, niads, nymphs, and technodryads were well-known for being peaceful creatures, if a bit vindictive and selfish from time to time. "And I swear I'm not nuts. You're just gonna have to take my word for that, it's not like I carry around a certificate of sanity or anything."

He wished this was the fucking Titanic, at least he'd be able to get some ice for his head.

Atlas shrugged, but his smile didn't regain any of its usual warmth.

"As I recall, you were the one who suggested ripping off my fingernails, et cetera, et cetera, for merely implying that I would touch your radio."

He waved a hand in dismissal. His nails were nice.

"In any account, what would you prefer to shop for, first? Shirts? Pants? Shoes? Hygeine?"

If Atlas was anything, he was brutal.

"Oh," he grumbled (he'd been doing a lot of grumbling today for a usually neutral kid), "I see, now you can buy hygiene? No wonder I'm so filthy, I hadn't even heard of such a miraculous thing. Does it come in a bottle or an aerosol can?"

Snark snark snark.

"I think we'd best start, yanno, skin up, right? I mean, I'd hate to put on new clothes while stinking like exhaust and oil. That would be fuckin' disastrous, wouldn't it?"

Snarkity snark snark snark!

He wasn't quite sure why he was being so pissy, actually. Well, beyond the fact that this guy had told him that he looked like a slob and needed a Miracle Makeover with a smile on his face. Nice way to start a relationship, huh?

Not relationship. Acquaintance.

You don't get what you want unless you're nice.

(Or if you have the Heart of the Sea...)

"You know..."

Atlas glanced at his companion, then turned his gaze back straight ahead. This grin was teasing, borderline sardonic, borderline rude.

"...when I first saw you..."

Avoided a woman who looked as if she wouldn't stop for a dragon. Hm. Odd choice of comparison—he wondered where that came from.

"I thought you were a man."

Reasonable conclusion, his companion did have a rather impressive Adam's Apple.

"But the more you talk..."

That woman again, in the opposite direction this time. She must have forgotten something.

"...the more you convince me you're a woman."

Ah, her purse. Silly thing to forget.

"One that's perpetually on her period. Or right before it, even."

Like my ex-girlfriend, Samantha. You two should meet up, some day, I think you'd get on real well with all your bitching.

"And don't be silly. You can't buy hygiene, but you can by soap. And better deodorant."

He didn't know if the other smelled, and he wasn't about to stick his nose in his armpit.

You know why women carry heavy purses?

It's not just for looks.

Honestly, the biggest, bulkiest ones serve many a purpose. Not only can they carry books, groceries, utility-sized tampon boxes, a fine array of makeup supplies to keep a woman looking "fresh" all day long...

...but they can also be a good storage space for mace, metal knuckles, pepper spray, and knobby umbrellas.

If you've got a stereo in one hand, it's like having a big, bulky purse full of clinky brass knuckles.

The urge to swing it at Atlas's head to try and break his nose was overwhelming.

Alfred's "how dare he" nerve was shrieking in the back of his mind like a banshee. A woman?! On her period?!

Insulting! INSULTING!

He prided himself on being a fairly level-headed guy, but this was downright insulting!

"You know, when I first saw you I thought you were a bored asshole of a rich spoiled bastard, and the more you talk down to me, the more my suspicions are being confirmed!"

Fuming, he shoved his way in Atlas's path, arms crossed defiantly across his chest and shoulders squared inside his scrubby shirt. "Fuck you, man! If you expect me to stand here and take your insults like your bitch, you're gonna have to pay me a good lot of money!"

Atlas put his hand to his lips, palm touching his teeth to hide his grin. This person was much more entertaining than he had thought he would be. He looked at the back of Alfred like someone might observe an abstract painting, shrewdly and curiously, taking it apart visually piece by piece. It might have been unnerving, if Alfred had been facing him.

Perfectionists were good at taking things apart and putting them back together in the way they felt suited them the best.

"Pay you?" drawled he, rolling the words against his tongue like a piece of hard candy. Emphasis on the 'you' to display his amused disbelief. "Would that make you a whore?"

That was good. Harass the jaded. He dropped his hand.

"I wouldn't come to these conclusions if you didn't give me reason to. And please refrain from physically attacking me, tiger; I'll sue the pants off you in a second."

He sure looked ready to flatten him with that damned boat of a radio.

"I am a bit spoiled," he agreed. "And bored, and rich. And a considerable asshole, as it turns out. Very apt conclusions on your part. I worked rather hard to become spoiled, bored, rich, and an asshole, and I'm completely proud of my accomplishments."

Rolled his shoulders in a languid shrug—he wasn't interested in investing too much into the action.

"You're welcome to leave, if you can't handle the repartee, though I wouldn't reccommend it. A chance of a lifetime—free clothing, free make-over—when will you get an opportunity like this again?"

Well, the last was true. And at least this guy was admitting his fault.

"You're going to make me look like a faggot," he grumbled, but he stepped aside. "All right. Just don't insult the damn boombox, all right? I'll break your nose with it and then you can bleed all over your nice clean shirt, and then you'll have to take your ass back to the plastic surgeon's all over again."

He ran a hand back through his hair, nostrils flaring, then jay-walked his way across the street without a second thought.