Well, this is over a year late. Life, university, and a traumatic brain injury got in the way! This is also me trying to gradually ease myself back into writing. I don't really know if I knew where this chapter was going, but I kinda like the idea of this becoming it's own fic if there's interest for that. Anyways, enjoy! (Also I forgot how hard Jac is to write - like how?)
Central London, December 1996.
The wind whipped the cold, concrete London buildings with a vicious malice, and so they creaked under the winter gale. It was a frostbitten morning, with shrivels of sunlight waning under the undulations of a cloudy sky. There was an otherworldly quiet, like that before a storm, but what really was the sweet solace of silence before the working day truly began. On the corner of one ordinary, grey street, in the small alcove long forgotten by an office block, was a tiny, slanted shop, its roof hunched as if the broken back of an old man. A red-green sign above the doorway smiled happily down at the frosty street below, though the peeling maroon paint seemed to track down the wood like salty tears.
This sign read: Fletcher's Mechanics…
…and the eponymous man in question was buried underneath his latest patient, a grey and groaning Ford Fiesta, gangly legs sticking out between the front wheels. Adrian Fletcher was whistling his latest rendition of I'm Forever Blowing Bubbles contently to himself as he worked, sliding back and forth on the creeper in keeping with the cadence of the melody. And it was when his rendering became particularly untuneful that he was rudely interrupted, yanked from beneath the car by a foot hooked around his ankle.
"Oi!" Fletch blinked as his eyes adjusted to the sudden intrusion of light, regathering his bearings. "You blinded me!"
When his vision returned, he stared up at the irritatingly blasé face of the perpetrator, framed against the pearl-white ceiling. The withering rays of sun gently warmed the golden hues in her hair, which fell at softer curls at her shoulders, and seemed to him the brightest entity in the room. Her high cheekbones were bleached with faint rose, a mark of the cold air creeping through the open garage door, but otherwise her features were a pale ivory and seemed to reflect the icy glare pouring from her eyes.
Adrian realised then that not only was he staring, bewilderedly and uselessly, at this woman, but that he was also, bewilderedly and uselessly, splayed on his back underneath her. Thus, he jumped to his feet.
"No. I didn't," she said matter-of-factly, watching him bounce upwards with an analytical gaze, reactively stepping back, twisting the helmet in her hands. Fletch frowned, confused. "Blind you," she clarified. "Because that would imply that your vision loss was neither temporary, nor partial. And, given that you just gave me a rather interminably depraved once-over, I don't think that implication is sound, do you?"
He needed a moment to absorb her reply, a flash of red colouring his face. "Okay, okay. Jus' an expression. Jeez. Don't need a lecture on the meanings of words."
"Semantics," she provided, inscrutable.
Frowning was becoming a peculiar habit of Fletch's. "What?"
"Are you always this articulate?" The shadow of mirth that crossed her eyes was soon consumed by impassivity.
Fletch hoisted an offended eyebrow. "Are you always this rude?"
"Yes," she replied candidly, with a small shrug of her shoulders. "It's my M.O." The woman paused, examining his expression for understanding. "That's modus-"
"Yeah, I know what it stands for," Fletch muttered sourly. "Semantics."
She tilted her head, gaze wondering away from his. "Well, acronym- "
Fletch stuck out a hand, interrupting the impending lesson. "Adrian Fletcher," he introduced himself brightly. He then remembered the oil that blackened his palm, and so wiped a paw down his fraying apron before trying again. "What can I do you for?"
"Ah, so this dump belongs to you," she drawled slowly, eyes skulking over the mildew mottling the walls and the slate-grey dust under which she supposed there were shelves. She did not move to take his hand. "Figures." She switched her attention back to him, finding great pleasure in the indignation he was trying and failing to hide. "Now, I'll try to be as monosyllabic as possible, save the cogs whirring. Bike," she turned temporarily towards the street, indicating an old, vermillion motorcycle, "broke." The woman lifted the corners of her mouth into a patronising smile. "Go fix."
Fletch shot her his best attempt at a glare, pulling back his hand. "I'm not a bloody gondola, you know. You can't hire me out by the hour."
She just smirked in return. "Realistically, Mr Fletcher, judging by the sorry state of this place, I don't think you are in any position to refuse my business."
He glowered at her for a long, drawn-out instant, scrambling to find any sort of apt reason to decline the work. Eventually, though, he groaned in discernible defeat and ran a hand across the prickly shadow of a stubble on his chin.
"What's wrong with it?" He sighed, walking over to the slender, claret Harley Davidson. The woman followed, slinking into a space beside him.
"Blasted thing refuses to start." Fletch bent down, gaging the bike's observable condition. He looked up at her, brow furrowed.
"Hang on, if your bike is broke, how did you get it here?" The redhead raised her eyebrows in bemusement.
"We flew, hand in throttle, on a magic carpet," she quipped dryly, her voice awash with sarcasm.
Fletch pouted childishly and quickly resumed staring at the bike frame. "I'll throttle you in a minute," he muttered to himself, words muffled against the motorcycle's cold metal.
Only his retort was not quiet enough. "Your customer service skills leave a lot to be desired, Adrian." Fletch gulped and his eyes widened, cartoonish and comical and chicken. He straightened, dared to glance at her. "First, you insinuate that my weak, womanly arms are incapable of pushing my own motorbike, and now you are conspiring in my murder. Dear oh dear, I am beginning to understand why this shop is in ruins."
"That's not what I was-" Fletcher began, disgruntled, before he exhaled deeply, forcing back composure. "Look, any person would have trouble hauling this thing across town, even some big, bulky bloke." And then his eyes broadened again, only now in realisation. "That must mean you're local." He waggled a conceited finger at her, a shit-eating grin on his face.
She seemed unmoved. "Wow. Superb deduction, Watson. What do you want, a gold star?"
"Holmes," Fletch interjected, almost too eagerly.
The woman looked momentarily lost. "What?" Fletch revelled in the small ounce of confusion that coloured her features.
"Sherlock Holmes was the detective," he clarified smugly. "Watson was just his sidekick." Fletch smirked, a flurry of triumph pushing out his chest.
It was then that the corner of her ruby lips twitched, sketched small indentations into the skin by her mouth, and this set off the sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach.
"Yes. I know." This woman had an uncanny ability to insult him. Fletch decided he liked that.
The two strangers allowed themselves a long moment to stare at one another, entranced, uncertain, reckless on the bitter winter night. Fletch endeavoured to see her, wondered what lay under the icy façade. She surmised that she should have blinded him.
"I didn't catch your name, earlier." Fletch's words punctured their reverie.
"That would be because I didn't offer you one."
"Well, I need it, you know, for the books. To fix the bike," he babbled awkwardly, blindsided by the intensity of her gaze.
She elongated a hand, splayed out her soft, svelte fingers. They reminded him of the wispy branches of a willow tree. "Jac Naylor," she purred, confidence a sweet camouflage for uncertainty.
He grasped her hand in his and shook, enthusiastic. "Nice to meet ya, Jac Naylor."