Our Fathers' Sky: Chapter 1 (for real this time!)
Now 110% longer, with 50% more plot hooks, and fewer calories than the leading brand!
But seriously, at long last, here is the real first chapter of Our Fathers' Sky, my dieselpunk Hetalia AU fic. The original first section has been slightly revised; the rest is all new, baby.
Disclaimer: Axis Powers Hetalia and its characters are the property of Himaruya Hidekaz. This AU and the locations and interpretations involved herein are largely my invention, but it is, in the end, fanfiction, and I claim nothing but the words themselves. My only profit is fun.
Well, without further ado...
Our Fathers' Sky: Chapter 1
Chapter word count: 6,289
Characters this chapter: America, England, Canada, France, Italy Veneziano & Romano, Spain
Chapter rating: PG
Summary: Young pilot Alfred F. Jones makes an emergency landing, and two auto mechanics find that they have unexpected competition as spring unfolds in the factory town of Farwell.
* * *
The gas gauge hit empty.
Alfred was not concerned. He knew he had a good few minutes between the needle hitting bottom and the engine dying completely, and from there, enough altitude to find a safe place to land. After all, he was an experienced pilot for his nineteen years and had seen trickier situations than this in his time in the sky; a dead-stick landing wasn't even good bragging material unless it was particularly well-executed. He was too far from south Farwell to reach the airfield in time, but any long piece of flat, solid earth would do. A disused stretch of pavement, or an unploughed field-in fact, there was one such field in the north end, on the property of one of the last Victorian mansions that hadn't been torn down for more economical developments or simply abandoned to decay. Nudging the control stick, he steered his old biplane a few degrees inland and pulled up to give her what altitude he could.
Minutes passed as they soared over the small, gritty townships and the low hills and dark patches of deciduous forest, and just as Alfred spotted the huge rust-red container cranes that stood sentry-like along Farwell's coastline, Lady Liberty's engine gave a dry sputter. Alfred made a quick visual assessment of the conditions. Weather, good; airspace, clear; his cargo-the usual mail bag and a satchel containing spare clothes and supplies, plus a few larger parcels for special delivery-secure. He checked his goggles, which held tight and pressed his spectacles against the bridge of his nose, and smiled even as the engine wheezed and choked down its last breaths of fuel. No, when it came to flying, Alfred was never concerned.
He let Lady Liberty tilt downwards by the finest degree, let her gather a little speed, and looked out ahead of him, past the wings' leading edges and the slowing propeller blades. There was his little city, spreading out on the green land before him-in the north end, the residential districts, tiny houses like children's toys assembled in rows; in the east, clinging to the gray coastline, the industrial district with its factories yawning majestic pillars of smoke, swept inland and upwards by the wind, much higher than Lady Liberty could hope to take him; and south, the airfield, smooth and gray, so distant that the grounded planes were mere specks and the dirigibles were like clockwork miniatures tethered with thread to the earth.
The earth seemed to rise upwards to meet him and his Jenny. Alfred nudged the joystick back a hair, just enough to slow the plane's descent but not so sharply that she stalled. Her engine was now silent, its final gasps of fuel devoured and its momentum exhausted; bereft of mechanical power, she was at the mercy of the wind, and without the motors humming and shafts twisting and pistons pumping, it was as if Alfred was the lone captain of a ghost-ship, intangible, a thing built only of his faith. The wind whispered over the curves of her wings and hummed through her rigging, and these were the only sounds in his entire world as he glided, scanning the earth below to mark his makeshift runway.
The field was broad and even, with brambles encroaching from beneath the edge of the forest-no different from the last time he had landed there. He was coming towards it quickly; his approach would have to be steep. He held his breath, tilted the joystick a fraction of an inch forward, and let Lady Liberty dive.
The air rushed by even faster than before, and his scarf snapped and crackled behind him. The field grew larger with each second, and the trees that bordered it seemed to shoot upwards, to reach outwards, growing as he descended. He pulled up a little, felt Lady Liberty slow just a bit, then eased her nose back downwards; a moment later he pulled back again, but this time she balked and wobbled. He let her go once more, looking out at the field and beginning to wonder if he might be coming in a little too fast. The trees were full-size now, their tops skimming too close to the belly of his plane. He was nearly to the edge of the field, with only a few yards of forest left, and surely he had enough altitude to clear the last row of pines-
There was a soft whump as a branch collided with one of Lady Liberty's wings, and although her body shuddered, she stayed true to her course. Alfred pulled up again, gently, easing her belly towards the earth-there were only feet to go, and acres of field ahead of him before the brambles and trees-finally he let her drop, and his stomach did a little somersault as she hit the earth, bounced up, came back down-
Suddenly there was a thud from beneath him and then the whole world spun to one side. His scarf whirled, and the Jenny bucked like a feral stallion. Alfred wrestled with the joystick, but could not right her, and the world seemed to balance perilously on her top-left wing for a fraction of a second that, to him, lasted hours-for a terrible instant, he was certain that she would tip over, snap her wings and shatter her precious bones, and probably crush him in the bargain-then, mercifully, the sky was above his head and the earth was under him, and the impact of Lady Liberty's landing gear on the ground ran through his whole body one final time. At long last, she came to a stop not far from the edge of the field, and Alfred leaned back and was still for several minutes, catching his breath and grinning as the adrenaline thrummed in his veins.
“Good Lord, not again-” Alfred heard, distantly, the familiar posh voice and two sets of footsteps racing towards him on the lawn, and a moment later, two pairs of arms wrapped around his shoulders and torso, pulled him from the cockpit, and steadied him against the body of the plane.
“Alfred Franklin Jones!” No one could manage that name in more disparaging tones than Arthur Kirkland, a frequent employer of Alfred's and on whose field he had so gracelessly landed. According to rumor, the Englishman had amassed power and remarkable wealth sailing the European coast during the last war; he now owned a trading company whose imports and exports fueled much of Farwell's flagging economy. He was older than Alfred by some years, though his face was youthful, bearing only a few wrinkles from his time at sea; his hair and skin were fair (though his eyebrows were dark and furiously thick) and his eyes were shocking green. He was not particularly tall-normally Alfred stood an inch or so taller-but with Alfred slumped against his plane and barely supporting himself with shaking legs, Arthur was able to tower over him, quite imposing, and glare imperially down his fine, pale nose. “This is the third bloody time you've landed in my field this year,” he chastised, brushing a layer of dust and bits of grass off of Alfred's shoulders. “If I didn't know better, I'd say it was a cry for attention. I should think your father would have objected to such careless treatment of his aeroplane-as it is, perhaps you should look into finding a more reliable one.”
“Hello to you, too, Arthur,” Alfred replied, a little too dizzy to be offended by the jab at his beloved plane.
Arthur looked him over with his prominent eyebrows furrowed. “Have you been injured?”
“Don't think so,” Alfred said, steadying himself and trying to stand, but as soon as he was on his feet, the sky spun violently, and he wobbled backwards, jamming his eyes shut. He heard Arthur humph wearily, and then felt dainty hands pull the zipper of his flight jacket.
“Easy, Captain,” Alfred quipped, forcing an eye open. Arthur's cheeks went a little red and he scoffed, but he eased Alfred's coat off and quickly checked the young pilot for serious injury, touching Alfred's shoulders and running his hands lightly over his ribcage to feel for bruises or broken bones, and then gripping Alfred's chin and tilting his head to peer briefly into each eye.
“You'll live,” he announced when all seemed satisfactory, standing back a bit while Alfred got to his feet again. “Though I don't know how you manage it. Come on, then-come inside and get yourself cleaned up.”
Once he had his balance, Alfred looked back to survey the damage. At first glance, Arthur's field appeared the worse off; there were great gouges of brown earth where the Jenny's wing and tailskid had made contact, a large rock still half-buried that had likely been the cause of his near-disaster, and two long trails from her landing gear like a pair of rough scars. As for the plane, her body seemed to have sustained little damage; several of her rigging cables had snapped from the stress of impact, however, and although her wings appeared intact, he spotted a hair-thin fracture along one of the interplane struts. That would need replacing, and he'd need to make a more detailed structural inspection at the airfield. Between finding the parts and the time required for the work itself, she might not be flightworthy again for weeks.
Arthur had begun walking back to the estate. Alfred caught up with a few long strides and saw Arthur cast him the briefest of concerned glances.
“I'll have it transported to the airfield for you,” Arthur said stiffly, looking ahead towards the house. “Chin up. You'll be back to risking your fool neck in no time.”
A hot shower and a glass of lemonade later (Arthur had offered tea and scones, but Alfred knew from experience never to trust the Englishman's cooking, and besides, he didn't like tea), Alfred felt more or less back to his usual self. With his coveralls and flight jacket bundled up in his satchel, he took his mail bag and what they had salvaged of his other deliveries and headed out the door.
“I know you don't want to hear it,” a hesitant voice said from behind him as he crossed the garden and started down the road, “but maybe you should stop crashing in Mr. Kirkland's backyard just to get his attention. You could get seriously hurt one of these days.”
Alfred jumped and turned around. The voice belonged to a blond man of about Alfred's height and age, with short but unruly hair and meek blue eyes that hid behind modest spectacles.
“Oh, hey, Matt!” Alfred laughed and began to walk again. “When did you get here?”
Matthew sighed, looking down at the sidewalk as his eyebrows furrowed slightly. “I've been here the entire time, Al. I came to see Mr. Kirkland about that job, and he asked me to stay for tea.” They turned a wide corner onto the main road into town, lined with spindly trees still fringed with spring green. Matthew took one of the boxes from Alfred's arms and smiled a little. “You're pretty lucky that we were out on the balcony, or we might not have seen your landing.”
“Well, I'm a lucky kind of guy!” Alfred beamed, his pace picking up. The two walked for some time in relative silence; Alfred grinned at passers-by, most of whom knew him as the pilot who took their mail to and from the international airfield in New York City, while Matthew hung back a few paces and focused on the cracks in the sidewalk. The buildings became taller and sturdier, trading wood for brick and metal and concrete, and the trees were replaced by tall streetlamps and power lines.
Matthew cleared his throat as they passed the grocer and general store, and with great effort, said, “so, are you going to ask about the job?”
“Oh, yeah!” Alfred's eyes lit. “Did you get it?”
“I am officially Mr. Kirkland's accountant,” Matthew replied with an air of reluctant pride. “I'd rather be flying, but I s'pose I should be happy with what I can get, right?”
“Yeah, so long as it pays the rent,” Alfred agreed. “Which you'll be doing now, right? Helping me pay rent?” He attempted to elbow Matthew in the side, but owing to his armful of goods and the two bags over his shoulders, this resulted in his nearly bowling the slighter man over.
When Matthew had recovered his balance, he sighed a little, but promptly smiled. “Yes, Al.”
They turned a corner past the neighborhood bakery, a compact shop dwarfed by the two- or three-story buildings on the adjacent lots. The place had an Old World flair and, unlike its neighbors, was in relatively good repair, being one of the few establishments in town with reliable patronage these days. A sign with the words Bons Baisers in flowery script hung above the door, and the owner, a quite handsome fellow with an extraordinary smile and honey-blond hair currently tied back at the nape of his neck, paused from sweeping the front patio to greet the two as they passed.
“Bonjour, Alfred. Bonjour, Mathieu,” he called, and favored the latter with a particularly fond smile.
Matthew brightened instantly, and his footsteps slowed. “Hi, Francis,” he replied, sounding a little breathless.
“I did not see you this morning,” Francis remarked with a twinkle in his brilliant blue eyes. “I hope you did not go to some other place for breakfast...?”
“No, no,” Matthew laughed. “I just woke up late, that's all.”
“Of course, je comprends,” Francis smiled. “I will see you tomorrow, non?”
One wink from the Frenchman incited a helpless blush from Matthew's hairline to his collar and from one ear to the other. As they departed, Alfred looked over his shoulder and his eyes went between Francis and Matthew a few times; with a suddenly mischievous grin, he smacked his friend's shoulder with slightly more force than was strictly necessary. “Wow,” he laughed, “you two are really into each other, huh?”
“What?” The exclamation was intended to evoke denial, but came out sounding (in Matthew's opinion) entirely too hopeful. “But-we're not-I mean-I'm not-”
Alfred suddenly hung on every word. “I'm not the sort of person that somebody like that would like,” Matthew finished resignedly. “Besides, he's probably got girlfriends. Several of them.”
“That's no reason not to give it a try anyway, right?” That blinding grin was entirely too encouraging. Matthew heaved a sigh that he hoped would sound annoyed rather than glum, and quickened his steps. Alfred followed, eyebrows taking on a distinctly puzzled turn. He let Matt lead them down the last few blocks to their apartment building, and up the rickety stairs to the studio that they shared to cut costs. Matthew unlocked the door and deposited the box just inside the entryway. Alfred set his armload down nearby, and watched his roommate flop onto the worn-out couch.
“Seriously,” Alfred tried, shutting the door behind him. “Just ask him out for coffee. What could go wrong?”
“Oh, don't even talk about what could go wrong,” Matthew muttered, straightening to a proper sitting position. With barely visible effort, he donned enough of a smile to placate Alfred, who had begun to change from his flight gear into something cooler and with more freedom of movement. In an attempt to change the subject, Matt said, “you know, I found some more of those old notebooks in the box I unpacked this morning-your father's notebooks, I mean. What do you want me to do with all of them?”
“I dunno.” Alfred pulled a clean shirt on over his head. “Put 'em with the rest, I guess!”
Matthew frowned surreptitiously. “They take up an awful lot of space, though,” he said, “and we don't have as much room here as we did in the last place. Besides, I looked through some of the equations in them, and it's just impenetrable-it's nonsense. I don't know what good you think it'll do you to have them around.”
“But they're my dad's,” Alfred replied a little plaintively, as if this fact were argument enough. “They have to be something important-he wouldn't have worked that hard on something that wasn't. And maybe, you know-” he glanced out the apartment's lone window, eyes roving the skyline. “Maybe they have to do with why he disappeared.”
“Al...” Matthew could never bring himself to argue with this point, even though it had been years since anyone had seen Benjamin Jones, and as troubling as the matter was, he doubted that Alfred's father was still alive.
Alfred glanced back to his roommate, eyebrows raised. “We have to keep them. Come on, Matt, we have to.”
“All right.” Matthew sighed. There was clearly more that he wanted to say, but he shut his mouth and lay back down on the couch. “Hey, can you pick up dinner while you're out?”
“Sure thing!” Once he was dressed, Alfred slung his mail bag over his shoulder and selected a few of the boxes from the stack near the door. He turned the knob with a few unburdened fingers, gave the door a nudge open with one foot, and departed.
* * *
It was a typical afternoon at Automobili Fratelli, the best (and only) auto repair shop in the south side of Farwell. Feliciano Vargas woke from a pleasant siesta to the mid-May sun streaming perfectly warm onto the concrete and an endless pale-blue sky streaked with brushstroke columns of smoke. He ducked into the garage, stepping around parts and vehicles in varying states of disassembly to fetch his goggles and his work gear, when he heard a pair of familiar voices tolling up and down the quiet street.
“Lovino-mi amor, mi vida-just come back to me, won't you?” Antonio-the taller of the two, a Spaniard with a head of curly, dark hair and green eyes that presently glistened with the makings of tears-cried, closely tailing the other man as he stormed down the road.
“No way in hell, Antonio!” Lovino spat, his olive complexion ruddy from anger. He blustered up the stoop to throw the door open, turned around, and planted his feet with unmistakable resolution in the doorway, shoving his face mere inches from Antonio's. “Fesso! I mean it this time, don't you get it?”
“Caro, just tell me, do you want me to change? I can change!” Antonio pleaded, flinching back by a hair but refusing to leave the steps. “Whatever you want me to do, I can do it!”
Lovino's knuckles were white as he gripped the doorknob. “You've done plenty,” he snapped, “and it's not enough.”
Feliciano, watching the scene through the open garage door as he pulled on his work gloves and tied on his apron, thought privately that Antonio really was doing the best that anyone could under the circumstances. Lovino Vargas was as stubborn as a bull, his mood swings were brutal, and he saw eye-to-eye with very few people. It was difficult enough at times to be his brother; Feliciano could only wonder how much more so it was to be his lover.
“Lovino,” Antonio said again, “por favor-”
Lovino merely snorted. “What are you, a dog? Just go home, Antonio!”
With that, he slammed the door in his lover's face.
For a moment or two, Antonio stared forlornly at the front door as if the rough, whitewashed surface might advise him somehow; then he turned away and plodded slowly back the way he had come, occasionally looking wearily up at the sunny sky. The neighbors who had begun to peek out of their windows or crack their doors for a glimpse of the commotion slowly returned to their own business. There would likely be gossip-there always was-but as awful as the fight must have seemed, Feliciano knew it was nothing to worry about. In fact, Antonio and Lovino had been getting along remarkably well lately. This was only their third such conflict in as many weeks, which was far better than usual.
Feliciano moved about the garage, collecting tools and arranging for his afternoon's work, accompanied by the ambient music of the city-the rhythmic percussion of cranes hefting cargo, the ships navigating the docks and jetties, the machines in the nearby factories pushing and pulling, riveting, hammering, and drilling, and high above it all, the calls of the wheeling gulls. The sounds were familiar to him, almost a comfort after having lived for two years in the industrial south end, where rent for their garage (and their humble apartment on the floor above it) was relatively cheap and where there was no shortage of automobiles and automata that required their services.
The garage itself was a compact space measuring about twenty by twenty-five feet, with bare brick walls and a concrete floor. The three automobiles currently in their care took up most of the floor space; the rest was a cluttered mess of engine parts, axles, aluminum scraps, fenders, and bumpers. An assortment of more delicate pieces were laid out on workbenches and covered by tarps or haphazardly organized in drawers and cabinets. Mismatched hubcaps were stacked in towers as high as a man's knee, and tools of dizzying variety covered every wall-the standard complement of hammers and pliers, scores of wrenches in a dozen different shapes, screwdrivers and ratchets, awls and picks, power drills, sawblades with wicked rows of teeth-not to mention rulers, protractors, calipers, micrometers, and gauges of every shape and size. On the floor, the only spaces not filled by the myriad parts were occupied by still more equipment: lathes, a disk sander, a band saw, a welder. Hoses and extension cords in half a dozen colors hung suspended from the ceiling, snaking around the overhead lights and the exposed steel beams.
The afternoon's task concerned an elegant black Lincoln Touring, not quite six years old. The brothers had wheeled her into the driveway and lifted out her engine earlier that morning, and the sun lavished her open hood and sharply-curving fenders with variegated highlights. Pieces of the dismantled engine lay on plastic tarps on the ground and on various work surfaces in the garage, and soon Feliciano began the task of reassembling it, fiddling with valves and shafts and gaskets and digging into his apron pockets full of washers and bolts. Not long after he'd started, there were footsteps on the stairs that descended from their apartment, and Lovino pushed open the front door. His eyes were red, the skin around them swollen; he glared down at his feet and crossed to the work bench where his apron and goggles lay, silent until all necessary gear had been donned and desired tools placed in his belt.
“That idiot,” he growled, crossing the workspace to stand near the hood of the Lincoln, across from where Feliciano was just beginning to attach a set of new valves to the camshaft. “Like I care if he wants me to come back! I don't want to see his stupid face ever again. He can find someone else to chase after, it's all the same to me-ehi, Feliciano, pass me that wrench.”
The hours passed; late afternoon slipped into evening. The sun sank among the buildings and the distant hills to the west, morphing from yellow to golden to deep orange-red and seeming to be magnified by the rippling air. The brothers were covered in sweat, their faces and clothing dark with smears of oil, but the task had gone quickly with the two of them working together, and the engine was nearly in one piece again, now resting securely in its bay. In the process of adjusting the intake valve clearance, Feliciano paused to stretch his back and saw a familiar figure headed their way along the sleepy avenue, a large satchel hanging from one shoulder and a beat-up cardboard box under each arm.
“Lovino, look who's coming,” he beamed, setting down his tools and shedding his gloves. Lovino looked up but said nothing, quickly directing his attention back to the engine as his cheeks reddened.
“Hey! Ciao, guys!” The tall, spectacled blond lengthened his strides as he approached them, almost breaking into a run but for the parcels held at his sides.
“Ciao, Alfredo,” Feliciano exclaimed, wiping his sweat-slick hands on his coveralls. He ran to greet Alfred with a brief kiss on each cheek, a practice that Alfred was accustomed to receiving from the younger of the two brothers. Since they had come to Farwell two years ago, Alfred had become one of their closest friends and most reliable allies in a time when-for businesses, at least-the common philosophy was “every man for himself.” Although at first he had only delivered their mail, he requested their help on several occasions with the more complex maintenance that his plane required, and in working with them, had struck up an immediate good rapport with Feliciano. Even Lovino admitted to enjoying his company.
Their habitual greeting completed, Feliciano skipped ahead to the garage. “We heard you had a pretty exciting afternoon, didn't we, Lovino?”
Lovino left his tools by the car and joined them, clearing a space on one of the tables where Alfred could set down the packages. “You're lucky to still be walking around from the sound of it, Alfred.”
The young pilot simply laughed. “It wasn't so bad,” he shrugged, an unshakable grin on his face as he set the boxes on the table, beginning to unpack a variety of gadgets and engine parts, gleaming in the evening light. “I've walked away from a lot worse! I might have to get you guys to help me fix Lady Liberty again, though. Nice car, by the way-it's what year, '22? Whose is it?”
Feliciano took the tools one by one, inspecting them carefully and then sorting them between the wall racks and cabinets. He did the same with the engine parts, handling them in a manner that was almost loving. “It's Mr. Callahan's, from down the street,” he said. “He said that it hasn't been starting right lately. We took a look and figured it needed a valve adjustment, but Lovino found a few exhaust valves that needed to be replaced outright.”
“American-made,” Lovino remarked pointedly, returning to the Lincoln. “Cheap manufacturing, they degrade too quickly from the heat. It's better in the long run to replace them with some of our own. Here, you can take a look, if you want.”
Alfred nodded eagerly, watching over the Italian's shoulder as he picked up a box wrench and used it to turn a pulley fixed to the front end of the crankshaft, centered between the arms of the V formed by the two rows of cylinders. With the valve covers removed, many of the engine's finer parts were exposed; as the pulley spun, the chain around it turned the crank and camshaft, and the valves along the cylinder head popped smoothly in and out as if in slow motion.
“You know how a diesel engine runs, don't you?” Lovino asked as the gears turned and the parts moved in what resembled an expertly-choreographed dance. “This one's a lot like the engine in your plane-just shaped a little differently, and a little less powerful.”
“Sure,” Alfred nodded, watching the valves and camshaft with interest. “I know. Diesel fuel gets converted into mechanical energy through combustion. Fresh air is let into the cylinders, the pistons compress it to heat it up, and when fuel is injected into the hot air, it ignites. That energy forces the pistons back down, which turns the crankshaft and powers the whole car-and then the exhaust is pushed out of the cylinder and the cycle starts again.” He looked up at Lovino and grinned. “Right?”
Lovino smirked approvingly. “I knew you weren't a complete idiot.”
“Hey, I'm pretty good at this stuff, too, you know.” Still smiling, Alfred leaned in for a closer look. “So, what's up with the valves?”
“Well, since the valves are what let air in and exhaust out of the cylinder, they have to be adjusted to make sure they fit right. If they're too tight or too loose, they get damaged and you lose performance.” Lovino pointed here and there along the cylinder head, indicating a series of individual valves. “These three were so damaged that they needed immediate replacing, and all of the exhaust valves here were starting to show wear, so Feliciano made a new set that should hold up better.”
Alfred was about to continue with further questions when Feliciano interrupted from the garage, his voice ringing with elation. “The pistons that I ordered,” he sighed, bouncing with delight onto the balls of his feet, “they're here!” The forged aluminum shone like newly-polished silver as he removed them from the box, lifted them delicately in his arms, and laid them one by one inside yet another drawer. “I can't wait to finally start building the engine for my car-they'll be perfect! Thank you, Alfred!”
“Just doing my civic duty,” Alfred replied, though his grin now seemed to glow with pride. “Speaking of your car, I haven't seen it in a while! How's it going?”
The mere mention of his beloved project-a hand-built automobile made almost entirely from the Vargas brothers' custom parts, save for a few forged pieces that their limited workspace did not permit-brought color to Feliciano's cheeks, even as he pulled his work gloves back on and went to join his brother by the Lincoln. “We've been so busy that I haven't had much time for her,” he said, setting to work with a long, thin gauge, which he used to check various points along the camshaft. He worked with such speed and precision, alternating between testing with the gauge and tightening nuts and bolts with a pair of wrenches stuffed in one of his apron pockets, that Alfred could barely keep up; on the other side of the engine, Lovino did the same, hands and tools moving furiously from valve to valve. “We got her suspension and transmission all ready, but I have to wait on a lot of the engine until we can save up for some new casting equipment. Of course, now that I have the pistons, I can start doing the calculations that we'll need-once we can afford it, I'm sure it'll go quickly. In the meantime, we got some scrap aluminum from one of the factories down the block, so maybe we'll test out some ideas for the exterior! Lovino, are you done on your side, yet?”
The elder brother frowned, pausing to wipe his forehead on his sleeve. “Give me five minutes and a new gasket,” he said, “and I will be.”
“You're so much faster at this than I am,” Feliciano admired, pausing at a particularly stubborn valve. “Hey, Alfred, do you want to stay for dinner?”
With an apologetic shrug, Alfred adjusted the strap of the mail bag slung over his shoulder. “Sorry, guys-I'd like to, but I have some more mail to deliver tonight, plus I said I'd pick up dinner for Matt.” A few steps brought him to the sidewalk again, lined by spindly iron streetlamps and patchy strips of grass. “Some other time, though, right?”
“Sì, sì, of course!” Feliciano released the two wrenches long enough to wave goodbye. “See you later!”
“See ya!” Alfred saluted, and in a few moments had crossed the road and was soon out of sight.
As daylight began to ebb, they made the last adjustments to the Lincoln's engine, bolting the valve covers back down and reattaching the last of the cables. Together, they rolled the car back into the garage and bundled up the tarps that covered the concrete driveway; they left their aprons, gloves, and goggles in the garage, cranked the door shut, and went up the stairs and into the apartment on the second floor to clean up.
Later in the evening, when dinner was over and the sounds of the factory machines had softened to a comfortably distant rumble, Feliciano looked over from his blueprints to see his brother putting on a light jacket and hat. He was down the stairs and halfway out the door before Feliciano called to him, “Lovino, where are you going? I thought you and Antonio were fighting.”
Lovino looked back over his shoulder. “We are,” he shrugged, and shut the door behind him.
* * *
The clockwork turtle on the bedside table made a tinny mewling sound and wiggled its minute toes. Lovino opened his eyes and glared blearily up at the bizarre contraption with its beady black eyes and vacantly smiling mouth. It had been a gift to Lovino from his brother, barely practical and not particularly cute in Lovino's opinion; all it did was rest on its belly, move its useless feet, and mewl a few notes when its owner set it to do so. Lovino had promptly foisted it on Antonio, who promised to keep it by his bedside until it fell to pieces. Regrettably, he had been true to his word, and Lovino scowled as the stupid thing stared blindly off into the distance, producing the same three or four notes over and over until Antonio reached over from behind Lovino to tap the round button on the crown of its shell and then collapse back onto the bed. This motion resulted in Lovino's shoulders being pinned uncomfortably to the mattress, stuck under the weight of Antonio's arm and part of his torso.
“Get off me,” Lovino muttered, struggling out inefficiently from beneath his lover. “Bastard.”
“Mff,” Antonio replied.
Having finally disencumbered himself from the bedsheets and the other man's limbs, Lovino found his clothes on the floor and began to dress. When this task was mostly complete, he glanced over at Antonio and shot, “are you getting up, or what?”
“'s Saturday. Are you leaving already?” Antonio mumbled, his eyes still closed as he rolled over and reached out as if to grab Lovino's hand.
Scowling mostly for show, Lovino sat down on his side of the bed and snatched Antonio's hand as it passed within his range. He pulled it up to his lips and brushed them against Antonio's fingers, half-kissing each knuckle. “I have to work,” he said, releasing the hand and then jumping to his feet with a wounded shout as Antonio pinched his side.
“Nos vemos, caro,” Antonio sighed, opening one eye and smiling fondly up at Lovino, who quickly disguised a pout.
“Ciao, cazzo.” Lovino locked the door behind him as he left.
The walk from Antonio's apartment in the nicer part of the south end to Automobili Fratelli was not long, and the morning air was fresh with the smell and cool humidity of the nearby ocean (though he knew there were mere hours left before the temperature would begin to rise and the smells of metal and burning fuel would permeate the little city). Lovino walked slowly, his eyes on the concrete, until he passed a large brick building on a corner by the main road. Like the building in which Automobili Fratelli made its home, it was two stories tall, with living space above a larger work area; this one had been derelict for months, a mess of broken windows and cracked bricks and creeping ivy and dust.
Lovino paused mid-step, staring-first in surprise, then in suspicion, and finally in dismay. The windows had all been fit with new glass, much of the ivy had been torn away, and even the overgrown and browning grass had been neatly trimmed. The trash and broken glass in the driveway was gone, and the sidewalk and stoop had been swept clean of dust and gravel. The garage doors on the first level were shining in the sun, free from graffiti and rust, and appeared even to have had the dents hammered out of them-and last but far from least, letters had been stenciled in crisp white paint above the doors, proclaiming to the world in a businesslike font, Beilschmidt Auto.
Beneath this, entirely too matter-of-factly, a hand-lettered placard read: Open.
With a powerful foreboding building in his chest and a far more anxious pace than before, Lovino resumed his journey home. He counted the blocks and broke into a run when Automobili Fratelli was within sight; red-faced and winded, he unlocked the front door and stormed inside.
“Feliciano,” he gasped, stomping up the stairs and into the cluttered bedroom. His brother stopped in the process of pulling on a clean shirt, and turned bewildered eyes on Lovino. “There's another garage a few blocks north-that old empty warehouse-it just opened, and Feliciano, it looks so much nicer than ours-”
“What?” Once he'd finished dressing, Feliciano thought this announcement over and smiled, having utterly missed the point. “Va bene! I wonder who owns it. Maybe we can compare notes! Do you think they'll want to be friends?”
“Oca,” Lovino sighed, burying his face in his hands. “We're fucked.”
* * *
Notes!
Well, I've only spent a year in the planning of this monstrosity. Given that, I'm sure that this first chapter could be more polished, more factually accurate, more interesting, more relevant... In any case, I dearly hope that you enjoyed it, and that you'll stick around for future chapters.
This story is set in the fictional city of Farwell, a factory town on the coast of New Jersey. It is the late 1920s, in an alternate version of our world in which the four-cycle diesel engine was invented and refined much earlier, and now powers everything from automobiles to ships to factories to all variety of automata. Advancements in aviation and nautical technology in particular have changed the nature of warfare in sudden and unexpected ways; consequently, World War I left an especially brutal mark on an unprepared world.
I seem to write a lot of fic involving things that I know nothing about. Cars, flyfishing... cars. As always, I have done as much research as I could, but because I know even less about Depression-era vehicles than I do about modern engines, there are bound to be errors. Some of this is forgivable, I hope, due to the assumption that diesel technology is slightly more advanced in this version of the world, and thus some references are made to modern engine parts that I honestly couldn't say whether you'd find on a real 1922 Lincoln Touring. Please forgive me for fudging the details-I hope it doesn't break anyone's immersion too grievously.
Alfred's plane, Lady Liberty, is a modified Curtiss JN-4D-known colloquially as the “Jenny”-a biplane produced for training World War I pilots and later popular among civilian aviators and airmail carriers. The Lincoln Touring was a popular luxury car of the early '20s.
In places throughout this fic, I have used words and phrases from various languages. This is not to say, however, that when dialogue is not written in other languages, the characters are necessarily speaking English. I have mostly left this up to context and assumption, as in most cases it's not important, but I will specify if it is especially relevant. I'm not posting translations with the fic because there are quite a few, and most are either unimportant or clear enough in context, but if you would like a translation of anything, please ask! I am happy to provide. Likewise, if you notice that I have used language that is incorrect or contextually inappropriate, I encourage you to send me corrections.
Thanks to, among others, alliterations, harusamemosuke, ruiza, and anotadashi for their encouragement, suggestions, proofreading, and willingness to let me complain to them, bounce ideas off them, or ramble at them about science. :D Also deserving of mention is my cousin, J., who answered a nearly unending stream of annoyingly specific questions about 1920s aviation and technology. Without his help, this piece would never have gotten off the ground (excuse the pun). Most of all, if you have made it this far-thank you for reading, and I hope to see you here again for the next installment. Hopefully it won't take another year!
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But seriously, at long last, here is the real first chapter of Our Fathers' Sky, my dieselpunk Hetalia AU fic. The original first section has been slightly revised; the rest is all new, baby.
Disclaimer: Axis Powers Hetalia and its characters are the property of Himaruya Hidekaz. This AU and the locations and interpretations involved herein are largely my invention, but it is, in the end, fanfiction, and I claim nothing but the words themselves. My only profit is fun.
Well, without further ado...
Our Fathers' Sky: Chapter 1
Chapter word count: 6,289
Characters this chapter: America, England, Canada, France, Italy Veneziano & Romano, Spain
Chapter rating: PG
Summary: Young pilot Alfred F. Jones makes an emergency landing, and two auto mechanics find that they have unexpected competition as spring unfolds in the factory town of Farwell.
* * *
The gas gauge hit empty.
Alfred was not concerned. He knew he had a good few minutes between the needle hitting bottom and the engine dying completely, and from there, enough altitude to find a safe place to land. After all, he was an experienced pilot for his nineteen years and had seen trickier situations than this in his time in the sky; a dead-stick landing wasn't even good bragging material unless it was particularly well-executed. He was too far from south Farwell to reach the airfield in time, but any long piece of flat, solid earth would do. A disused stretch of pavement, or an unploughed field-in fact, there was one such field in the north end, on the property of one of the last Victorian mansions that hadn't been torn down for more economical developments or simply abandoned to decay. Nudging the control stick, he steered his old biplane a few degrees inland and pulled up to give her what altitude he could.
Minutes passed as they soared over the small, gritty townships and the low hills and dark patches of deciduous forest, and just as Alfred spotted the huge rust-red container cranes that stood sentry-like along Farwell's coastline, Lady Liberty's engine gave a dry sputter. Alfred made a quick visual assessment of the conditions. Weather, good; airspace, clear; his cargo-the usual mail bag and a satchel containing spare clothes and supplies, plus a few larger parcels for special delivery-secure. He checked his goggles, which held tight and pressed his spectacles against the bridge of his nose, and smiled even as the engine wheezed and choked down its last breaths of fuel. No, when it came to flying, Alfred was never concerned.
He let Lady Liberty tilt downwards by the finest degree, let her gather a little speed, and looked out ahead of him, past the wings' leading edges and the slowing propeller blades. There was his little city, spreading out on the green land before him-in the north end, the residential districts, tiny houses like children's toys assembled in rows; in the east, clinging to the gray coastline, the industrial district with its factories yawning majestic pillars of smoke, swept inland and upwards by the wind, much higher than Lady Liberty could hope to take him; and south, the airfield, smooth and gray, so distant that the grounded planes were mere specks and the dirigibles were like clockwork miniatures tethered with thread to the earth.
The earth seemed to rise upwards to meet him and his Jenny. Alfred nudged the joystick back a hair, just enough to slow the plane's descent but not so sharply that she stalled. Her engine was now silent, its final gasps of fuel devoured and its momentum exhausted; bereft of mechanical power, she was at the mercy of the wind, and without the motors humming and shafts twisting and pistons pumping, it was as if Alfred was the lone captain of a ghost-ship, intangible, a thing built only of his faith. The wind whispered over the curves of her wings and hummed through her rigging, and these were the only sounds in his entire world as he glided, scanning the earth below to mark his makeshift runway.
The field was broad and even, with brambles encroaching from beneath the edge of the forest-no different from the last time he had landed there. He was coming towards it quickly; his approach would have to be steep. He held his breath, tilted the joystick a fraction of an inch forward, and let Lady Liberty dive.
The air rushed by even faster than before, and his scarf snapped and crackled behind him. The field grew larger with each second, and the trees that bordered it seemed to shoot upwards, to reach outwards, growing as he descended. He pulled up a little, felt Lady Liberty slow just a bit, then eased her nose back downwards; a moment later he pulled back again, but this time she balked and wobbled. He let her go once more, looking out at the field and beginning to wonder if he might be coming in a little too fast. The trees were full-size now, their tops skimming too close to the belly of his plane. He was nearly to the edge of the field, with only a few yards of forest left, and surely he had enough altitude to clear the last row of pines-
There was a soft whump as a branch collided with one of Lady Liberty's wings, and although her body shuddered, she stayed true to her course. Alfred pulled up again, gently, easing her belly towards the earth-there were only feet to go, and acres of field ahead of him before the brambles and trees-finally he let her drop, and his stomach did a little somersault as she hit the earth, bounced up, came back down-
Suddenly there was a thud from beneath him and then the whole world spun to one side. His scarf whirled, and the Jenny bucked like a feral stallion. Alfred wrestled with the joystick, but could not right her, and the world seemed to balance perilously on her top-left wing for a fraction of a second that, to him, lasted hours-for a terrible instant, he was certain that she would tip over, snap her wings and shatter her precious bones, and probably crush him in the bargain-then, mercifully, the sky was above his head and the earth was under him, and the impact of Lady Liberty's landing gear on the ground ran through his whole body one final time. At long last, she came to a stop not far from the edge of the field, and Alfred leaned back and was still for several minutes, catching his breath and grinning as the adrenaline thrummed in his veins.
“Good Lord, not again-” Alfred heard, distantly, the familiar posh voice and two sets of footsteps racing towards him on the lawn, and a moment later, two pairs of arms wrapped around his shoulders and torso, pulled him from the cockpit, and steadied him against the body of the plane.
“Alfred Franklin Jones!” No one could manage that name in more disparaging tones than Arthur Kirkland, a frequent employer of Alfred's and on whose field he had so gracelessly landed. According to rumor, the Englishman had amassed power and remarkable wealth sailing the European coast during the last war; he now owned a trading company whose imports and exports fueled much of Farwell's flagging economy. He was older than Alfred by some years, though his face was youthful, bearing only a few wrinkles from his time at sea; his hair and skin were fair (though his eyebrows were dark and furiously thick) and his eyes were shocking green. He was not particularly tall-normally Alfred stood an inch or so taller-but with Alfred slumped against his plane and barely supporting himself with shaking legs, Arthur was able to tower over him, quite imposing, and glare imperially down his fine, pale nose. “This is the third bloody time you've landed in my field this year,” he chastised, brushing a layer of dust and bits of grass off of Alfred's shoulders. “If I didn't know better, I'd say it was a cry for attention. I should think your father would have objected to such careless treatment of his aeroplane-as it is, perhaps you should look into finding a more reliable one.”
“Hello to you, too, Arthur,” Alfred replied, a little too dizzy to be offended by the jab at his beloved plane.
Arthur looked him over with his prominent eyebrows furrowed. “Have you been injured?”
“Don't think so,” Alfred said, steadying himself and trying to stand, but as soon as he was on his feet, the sky spun violently, and he wobbled backwards, jamming his eyes shut. He heard Arthur humph wearily, and then felt dainty hands pull the zipper of his flight jacket.
“Easy, Captain,” Alfred quipped, forcing an eye open. Arthur's cheeks went a little red and he scoffed, but he eased Alfred's coat off and quickly checked the young pilot for serious injury, touching Alfred's shoulders and running his hands lightly over his ribcage to feel for bruises or broken bones, and then gripping Alfred's chin and tilting his head to peer briefly into each eye.
“You'll live,” he announced when all seemed satisfactory, standing back a bit while Alfred got to his feet again. “Though I don't know how you manage it. Come on, then-come inside and get yourself cleaned up.”
Once he had his balance, Alfred looked back to survey the damage. At first glance, Arthur's field appeared the worse off; there were great gouges of brown earth where the Jenny's wing and tailskid had made contact, a large rock still half-buried that had likely been the cause of his near-disaster, and two long trails from her landing gear like a pair of rough scars. As for the plane, her body seemed to have sustained little damage; several of her rigging cables had snapped from the stress of impact, however, and although her wings appeared intact, he spotted a hair-thin fracture along one of the interplane struts. That would need replacing, and he'd need to make a more detailed structural inspection at the airfield. Between finding the parts and the time required for the work itself, she might not be flightworthy again for weeks.
Arthur had begun walking back to the estate. Alfred caught up with a few long strides and saw Arthur cast him the briefest of concerned glances.
“I'll have it transported to the airfield for you,” Arthur said stiffly, looking ahead towards the house. “Chin up. You'll be back to risking your fool neck in no time.”
A hot shower and a glass of lemonade later (Arthur had offered tea and scones, but Alfred knew from experience never to trust the Englishman's cooking, and besides, he didn't like tea), Alfred felt more or less back to his usual self. With his coveralls and flight jacket bundled up in his satchel, he took his mail bag and what they had salvaged of his other deliveries and headed out the door.
“I know you don't want to hear it,” a hesitant voice said from behind him as he crossed the garden and started down the road, “but maybe you should stop crashing in Mr. Kirkland's backyard just to get his attention. You could get seriously hurt one of these days.”
Alfred jumped and turned around. The voice belonged to a blond man of about Alfred's height and age, with short but unruly hair and meek blue eyes that hid behind modest spectacles.
“Oh, hey, Matt!” Alfred laughed and began to walk again. “When did you get here?”
Matthew sighed, looking down at the sidewalk as his eyebrows furrowed slightly. “I've been here the entire time, Al. I came to see Mr. Kirkland about that job, and he asked me to stay for tea.” They turned a wide corner onto the main road into town, lined with spindly trees still fringed with spring green. Matthew took one of the boxes from Alfred's arms and smiled a little. “You're pretty lucky that we were out on the balcony, or we might not have seen your landing.”
“Well, I'm a lucky kind of guy!” Alfred beamed, his pace picking up. The two walked for some time in relative silence; Alfred grinned at passers-by, most of whom knew him as the pilot who took their mail to and from the international airfield in New York City, while Matthew hung back a few paces and focused on the cracks in the sidewalk. The buildings became taller and sturdier, trading wood for brick and metal and concrete, and the trees were replaced by tall streetlamps and power lines.
Matthew cleared his throat as they passed the grocer and general store, and with great effort, said, “so, are you going to ask about the job?”
“Oh, yeah!” Alfred's eyes lit. “Did you get it?”
“I am officially Mr. Kirkland's accountant,” Matthew replied with an air of reluctant pride. “I'd rather be flying, but I s'pose I should be happy with what I can get, right?”
“Yeah, so long as it pays the rent,” Alfred agreed. “Which you'll be doing now, right? Helping me pay rent?” He attempted to elbow Matthew in the side, but owing to his armful of goods and the two bags over his shoulders, this resulted in his nearly bowling the slighter man over.
When Matthew had recovered his balance, he sighed a little, but promptly smiled. “Yes, Al.”
They turned a corner past the neighborhood bakery, a compact shop dwarfed by the two- or three-story buildings on the adjacent lots. The place had an Old World flair and, unlike its neighbors, was in relatively good repair, being one of the few establishments in town with reliable patronage these days. A sign with the words Bons Baisers in flowery script hung above the door, and the owner, a quite handsome fellow with an extraordinary smile and honey-blond hair currently tied back at the nape of his neck, paused from sweeping the front patio to greet the two as they passed.
“Bonjour, Alfred. Bonjour, Mathieu,” he called, and favored the latter with a particularly fond smile.
Matthew brightened instantly, and his footsteps slowed. “Hi, Francis,” he replied, sounding a little breathless.
“I did not see you this morning,” Francis remarked with a twinkle in his brilliant blue eyes. “I hope you did not go to some other place for breakfast...?”
“No, no,” Matthew laughed. “I just woke up late, that's all.”
“Of course, je comprends,” Francis smiled. “I will see you tomorrow, non?”
One wink from the Frenchman incited a helpless blush from Matthew's hairline to his collar and from one ear to the other. As they departed, Alfred looked over his shoulder and his eyes went between Francis and Matthew a few times; with a suddenly mischievous grin, he smacked his friend's shoulder with slightly more force than was strictly necessary. “Wow,” he laughed, “you two are really into each other, huh?”
“What?” The exclamation was intended to evoke denial, but came out sounding (in Matthew's opinion) entirely too hopeful. “But-we're not-I mean-I'm not-”
Alfred suddenly hung on every word. “I'm not the sort of person that somebody like that would like,” Matthew finished resignedly. “Besides, he's probably got girlfriends. Several of them.”
“That's no reason not to give it a try anyway, right?” That blinding grin was entirely too encouraging. Matthew heaved a sigh that he hoped would sound annoyed rather than glum, and quickened his steps. Alfred followed, eyebrows taking on a distinctly puzzled turn. He let Matt lead them down the last few blocks to their apartment building, and up the rickety stairs to the studio that they shared to cut costs. Matthew unlocked the door and deposited the box just inside the entryway. Alfred set his armload down nearby, and watched his roommate flop onto the worn-out couch.
“Seriously,” Alfred tried, shutting the door behind him. “Just ask him out for coffee. What could go wrong?”
“Oh, don't even talk about what could go wrong,” Matthew muttered, straightening to a proper sitting position. With barely visible effort, he donned enough of a smile to placate Alfred, who had begun to change from his flight gear into something cooler and with more freedom of movement. In an attempt to change the subject, Matt said, “you know, I found some more of those old notebooks in the box I unpacked this morning-your father's notebooks, I mean. What do you want me to do with all of them?”
“I dunno.” Alfred pulled a clean shirt on over his head. “Put 'em with the rest, I guess!”
Matthew frowned surreptitiously. “They take up an awful lot of space, though,” he said, “and we don't have as much room here as we did in the last place. Besides, I looked through some of the equations in them, and it's just impenetrable-it's nonsense. I don't know what good you think it'll do you to have them around.”
“But they're my dad's,” Alfred replied a little plaintively, as if this fact were argument enough. “They have to be something important-he wouldn't have worked that hard on something that wasn't. And maybe, you know-” he glanced out the apartment's lone window, eyes roving the skyline. “Maybe they have to do with why he disappeared.”
“Al...” Matthew could never bring himself to argue with this point, even though it had been years since anyone had seen Benjamin Jones, and as troubling as the matter was, he doubted that Alfred's father was still alive.
Alfred glanced back to his roommate, eyebrows raised. “We have to keep them. Come on, Matt, we have to.”
“All right.” Matthew sighed. There was clearly more that he wanted to say, but he shut his mouth and lay back down on the couch. “Hey, can you pick up dinner while you're out?”
“Sure thing!” Once he was dressed, Alfred slung his mail bag over his shoulder and selected a few of the boxes from the stack near the door. He turned the knob with a few unburdened fingers, gave the door a nudge open with one foot, and departed.
* * *
It was a typical afternoon at Automobili Fratelli, the best (and only) auto repair shop in the south side of Farwell. Feliciano Vargas woke from a pleasant siesta to the mid-May sun streaming perfectly warm onto the concrete and an endless pale-blue sky streaked with brushstroke columns of smoke. He ducked into the garage, stepping around parts and vehicles in varying states of disassembly to fetch his goggles and his work gear, when he heard a pair of familiar voices tolling up and down the quiet street.
“Lovino-mi amor, mi vida-just come back to me, won't you?” Antonio-the taller of the two, a Spaniard with a head of curly, dark hair and green eyes that presently glistened with the makings of tears-cried, closely tailing the other man as he stormed down the road.
“No way in hell, Antonio!” Lovino spat, his olive complexion ruddy from anger. He blustered up the stoop to throw the door open, turned around, and planted his feet with unmistakable resolution in the doorway, shoving his face mere inches from Antonio's. “Fesso! I mean it this time, don't you get it?”
“Caro, just tell me, do you want me to change? I can change!” Antonio pleaded, flinching back by a hair but refusing to leave the steps. “Whatever you want me to do, I can do it!”
Lovino's knuckles were white as he gripped the doorknob. “You've done plenty,” he snapped, “and it's not enough.”
Feliciano, watching the scene through the open garage door as he pulled on his work gloves and tied on his apron, thought privately that Antonio really was doing the best that anyone could under the circumstances. Lovino Vargas was as stubborn as a bull, his mood swings were brutal, and he saw eye-to-eye with very few people. It was difficult enough at times to be his brother; Feliciano could only wonder how much more so it was to be his lover.
“Lovino,” Antonio said again, “por favor-”
Lovino merely snorted. “What are you, a dog? Just go home, Antonio!”
With that, he slammed the door in his lover's face.
For a moment or two, Antonio stared forlornly at the front door as if the rough, whitewashed surface might advise him somehow; then he turned away and plodded slowly back the way he had come, occasionally looking wearily up at the sunny sky. The neighbors who had begun to peek out of their windows or crack their doors for a glimpse of the commotion slowly returned to their own business. There would likely be gossip-there always was-but as awful as the fight must have seemed, Feliciano knew it was nothing to worry about. In fact, Antonio and Lovino had been getting along remarkably well lately. This was only their third such conflict in as many weeks, which was far better than usual.
Feliciano moved about the garage, collecting tools and arranging for his afternoon's work, accompanied by the ambient music of the city-the rhythmic percussion of cranes hefting cargo, the ships navigating the docks and jetties, the machines in the nearby factories pushing and pulling, riveting, hammering, and drilling, and high above it all, the calls of the wheeling gulls. The sounds were familiar to him, almost a comfort after having lived for two years in the industrial south end, where rent for their garage (and their humble apartment on the floor above it) was relatively cheap and where there was no shortage of automobiles and automata that required their services.
The garage itself was a compact space measuring about twenty by twenty-five feet, with bare brick walls and a concrete floor. The three automobiles currently in their care took up most of the floor space; the rest was a cluttered mess of engine parts, axles, aluminum scraps, fenders, and bumpers. An assortment of more delicate pieces were laid out on workbenches and covered by tarps or haphazardly organized in drawers and cabinets. Mismatched hubcaps were stacked in towers as high as a man's knee, and tools of dizzying variety covered every wall-the standard complement of hammers and pliers, scores of wrenches in a dozen different shapes, screwdrivers and ratchets, awls and picks, power drills, sawblades with wicked rows of teeth-not to mention rulers, protractors, calipers, micrometers, and gauges of every shape and size. On the floor, the only spaces not filled by the myriad parts were occupied by still more equipment: lathes, a disk sander, a band saw, a welder. Hoses and extension cords in half a dozen colors hung suspended from the ceiling, snaking around the overhead lights and the exposed steel beams.
The afternoon's task concerned an elegant black Lincoln Touring, not quite six years old. The brothers had wheeled her into the driveway and lifted out her engine earlier that morning, and the sun lavished her open hood and sharply-curving fenders with variegated highlights. Pieces of the dismantled engine lay on plastic tarps on the ground and on various work surfaces in the garage, and soon Feliciano began the task of reassembling it, fiddling with valves and shafts and gaskets and digging into his apron pockets full of washers and bolts. Not long after he'd started, there were footsteps on the stairs that descended from their apartment, and Lovino pushed open the front door. His eyes were red, the skin around them swollen; he glared down at his feet and crossed to the work bench where his apron and goggles lay, silent until all necessary gear had been donned and desired tools placed in his belt.
“That idiot,” he growled, crossing the workspace to stand near the hood of the Lincoln, across from where Feliciano was just beginning to attach a set of new valves to the camshaft. “Like I care if he wants me to come back! I don't want to see his stupid face ever again. He can find someone else to chase after, it's all the same to me-ehi, Feliciano, pass me that wrench.”
The hours passed; late afternoon slipped into evening. The sun sank among the buildings and the distant hills to the west, morphing from yellow to golden to deep orange-red and seeming to be magnified by the rippling air. The brothers were covered in sweat, their faces and clothing dark with smears of oil, but the task had gone quickly with the two of them working together, and the engine was nearly in one piece again, now resting securely in its bay. In the process of adjusting the intake valve clearance, Feliciano paused to stretch his back and saw a familiar figure headed their way along the sleepy avenue, a large satchel hanging from one shoulder and a beat-up cardboard box under each arm.
“Lovino, look who's coming,” he beamed, setting down his tools and shedding his gloves. Lovino looked up but said nothing, quickly directing his attention back to the engine as his cheeks reddened.
“Hey! Ciao, guys!” The tall, spectacled blond lengthened his strides as he approached them, almost breaking into a run but for the parcels held at his sides.
“Ciao, Alfredo,” Feliciano exclaimed, wiping his sweat-slick hands on his coveralls. He ran to greet Alfred with a brief kiss on each cheek, a practice that Alfred was accustomed to receiving from the younger of the two brothers. Since they had come to Farwell two years ago, Alfred had become one of their closest friends and most reliable allies in a time when-for businesses, at least-the common philosophy was “every man for himself.” Although at first he had only delivered their mail, he requested their help on several occasions with the more complex maintenance that his plane required, and in working with them, had struck up an immediate good rapport with Feliciano. Even Lovino admitted to enjoying his company.
Their habitual greeting completed, Feliciano skipped ahead to the garage. “We heard you had a pretty exciting afternoon, didn't we, Lovino?”
Lovino left his tools by the car and joined them, clearing a space on one of the tables where Alfred could set down the packages. “You're lucky to still be walking around from the sound of it, Alfred.”
The young pilot simply laughed. “It wasn't so bad,” he shrugged, an unshakable grin on his face as he set the boxes on the table, beginning to unpack a variety of gadgets and engine parts, gleaming in the evening light. “I've walked away from a lot worse! I might have to get you guys to help me fix Lady Liberty again, though. Nice car, by the way-it's what year, '22? Whose is it?”
Feliciano took the tools one by one, inspecting them carefully and then sorting them between the wall racks and cabinets. He did the same with the engine parts, handling them in a manner that was almost loving. “It's Mr. Callahan's, from down the street,” he said. “He said that it hasn't been starting right lately. We took a look and figured it needed a valve adjustment, but Lovino found a few exhaust valves that needed to be replaced outright.”
“American-made,” Lovino remarked pointedly, returning to the Lincoln. “Cheap manufacturing, they degrade too quickly from the heat. It's better in the long run to replace them with some of our own. Here, you can take a look, if you want.”
Alfred nodded eagerly, watching over the Italian's shoulder as he picked up a box wrench and used it to turn a pulley fixed to the front end of the crankshaft, centered between the arms of the V formed by the two rows of cylinders. With the valve covers removed, many of the engine's finer parts were exposed; as the pulley spun, the chain around it turned the crank and camshaft, and the valves along the cylinder head popped smoothly in and out as if in slow motion.
“You know how a diesel engine runs, don't you?” Lovino asked as the gears turned and the parts moved in what resembled an expertly-choreographed dance. “This one's a lot like the engine in your plane-just shaped a little differently, and a little less powerful.”
“Sure,” Alfred nodded, watching the valves and camshaft with interest. “I know. Diesel fuel gets converted into mechanical energy through combustion. Fresh air is let into the cylinders, the pistons compress it to heat it up, and when fuel is injected into the hot air, it ignites. That energy forces the pistons back down, which turns the crankshaft and powers the whole car-and then the exhaust is pushed out of the cylinder and the cycle starts again.” He looked up at Lovino and grinned. “Right?”
Lovino smirked approvingly. “I knew you weren't a complete idiot.”
“Hey, I'm pretty good at this stuff, too, you know.” Still smiling, Alfred leaned in for a closer look. “So, what's up with the valves?”
“Well, since the valves are what let air in and exhaust out of the cylinder, they have to be adjusted to make sure they fit right. If they're too tight or too loose, they get damaged and you lose performance.” Lovino pointed here and there along the cylinder head, indicating a series of individual valves. “These three were so damaged that they needed immediate replacing, and all of the exhaust valves here were starting to show wear, so Feliciano made a new set that should hold up better.”
Alfred was about to continue with further questions when Feliciano interrupted from the garage, his voice ringing with elation. “The pistons that I ordered,” he sighed, bouncing with delight onto the balls of his feet, “they're here!” The forged aluminum shone like newly-polished silver as he removed them from the box, lifted them delicately in his arms, and laid them one by one inside yet another drawer. “I can't wait to finally start building the engine for my car-they'll be perfect! Thank you, Alfred!”
“Just doing my civic duty,” Alfred replied, though his grin now seemed to glow with pride. “Speaking of your car, I haven't seen it in a while! How's it going?”
The mere mention of his beloved project-a hand-built automobile made almost entirely from the Vargas brothers' custom parts, save for a few forged pieces that their limited workspace did not permit-brought color to Feliciano's cheeks, even as he pulled his work gloves back on and went to join his brother by the Lincoln. “We've been so busy that I haven't had much time for her,” he said, setting to work with a long, thin gauge, which he used to check various points along the camshaft. He worked with such speed and precision, alternating between testing with the gauge and tightening nuts and bolts with a pair of wrenches stuffed in one of his apron pockets, that Alfred could barely keep up; on the other side of the engine, Lovino did the same, hands and tools moving furiously from valve to valve. “We got her suspension and transmission all ready, but I have to wait on a lot of the engine until we can save up for some new casting equipment. Of course, now that I have the pistons, I can start doing the calculations that we'll need-once we can afford it, I'm sure it'll go quickly. In the meantime, we got some scrap aluminum from one of the factories down the block, so maybe we'll test out some ideas for the exterior! Lovino, are you done on your side, yet?”
The elder brother frowned, pausing to wipe his forehead on his sleeve. “Give me five minutes and a new gasket,” he said, “and I will be.”
“You're so much faster at this than I am,” Feliciano admired, pausing at a particularly stubborn valve. “Hey, Alfred, do you want to stay for dinner?”
With an apologetic shrug, Alfred adjusted the strap of the mail bag slung over his shoulder. “Sorry, guys-I'd like to, but I have some more mail to deliver tonight, plus I said I'd pick up dinner for Matt.” A few steps brought him to the sidewalk again, lined by spindly iron streetlamps and patchy strips of grass. “Some other time, though, right?”
“Sì, sì, of course!” Feliciano released the two wrenches long enough to wave goodbye. “See you later!”
“See ya!” Alfred saluted, and in a few moments had crossed the road and was soon out of sight.
As daylight began to ebb, they made the last adjustments to the Lincoln's engine, bolting the valve covers back down and reattaching the last of the cables. Together, they rolled the car back into the garage and bundled up the tarps that covered the concrete driveway; they left their aprons, gloves, and goggles in the garage, cranked the door shut, and went up the stairs and into the apartment on the second floor to clean up.
Later in the evening, when dinner was over and the sounds of the factory machines had softened to a comfortably distant rumble, Feliciano looked over from his blueprints to see his brother putting on a light jacket and hat. He was down the stairs and halfway out the door before Feliciano called to him, “Lovino, where are you going? I thought you and Antonio were fighting.”
Lovino looked back over his shoulder. “We are,” he shrugged, and shut the door behind him.
* * *
The clockwork turtle on the bedside table made a tinny mewling sound and wiggled its minute toes. Lovino opened his eyes and glared blearily up at the bizarre contraption with its beady black eyes and vacantly smiling mouth. It had been a gift to Lovino from his brother, barely practical and not particularly cute in Lovino's opinion; all it did was rest on its belly, move its useless feet, and mewl a few notes when its owner set it to do so. Lovino had promptly foisted it on Antonio, who promised to keep it by his bedside until it fell to pieces. Regrettably, he had been true to his word, and Lovino scowled as the stupid thing stared blindly off into the distance, producing the same three or four notes over and over until Antonio reached over from behind Lovino to tap the round button on the crown of its shell and then collapse back onto the bed. This motion resulted in Lovino's shoulders being pinned uncomfortably to the mattress, stuck under the weight of Antonio's arm and part of his torso.
“Get off me,” Lovino muttered, struggling out inefficiently from beneath his lover. “Bastard.”
“Mff,” Antonio replied.
Having finally disencumbered himself from the bedsheets and the other man's limbs, Lovino found his clothes on the floor and began to dress. When this task was mostly complete, he glanced over at Antonio and shot, “are you getting up, or what?”
“'s Saturday. Are you leaving already?” Antonio mumbled, his eyes still closed as he rolled over and reached out as if to grab Lovino's hand.
Scowling mostly for show, Lovino sat down on his side of the bed and snatched Antonio's hand as it passed within his range. He pulled it up to his lips and brushed them against Antonio's fingers, half-kissing each knuckle. “I have to work,” he said, releasing the hand and then jumping to his feet with a wounded shout as Antonio pinched his side.
“Nos vemos, caro,” Antonio sighed, opening one eye and smiling fondly up at Lovino, who quickly disguised a pout.
“Ciao, cazzo.” Lovino locked the door behind him as he left.
The walk from Antonio's apartment in the nicer part of the south end to Automobili Fratelli was not long, and the morning air was fresh with the smell and cool humidity of the nearby ocean (though he knew there were mere hours left before the temperature would begin to rise and the smells of metal and burning fuel would permeate the little city). Lovino walked slowly, his eyes on the concrete, until he passed a large brick building on a corner by the main road. Like the building in which Automobili Fratelli made its home, it was two stories tall, with living space above a larger work area; this one had been derelict for months, a mess of broken windows and cracked bricks and creeping ivy and dust.
Lovino paused mid-step, staring-first in surprise, then in suspicion, and finally in dismay. The windows had all been fit with new glass, much of the ivy had been torn away, and even the overgrown and browning grass had been neatly trimmed. The trash and broken glass in the driveway was gone, and the sidewalk and stoop had been swept clean of dust and gravel. The garage doors on the first level were shining in the sun, free from graffiti and rust, and appeared even to have had the dents hammered out of them-and last but far from least, letters had been stenciled in crisp white paint above the doors, proclaiming to the world in a businesslike font, Beilschmidt Auto.
Beneath this, entirely too matter-of-factly, a hand-lettered placard read: Open.
With a powerful foreboding building in his chest and a far more anxious pace than before, Lovino resumed his journey home. He counted the blocks and broke into a run when Automobili Fratelli was within sight; red-faced and winded, he unlocked the front door and stormed inside.
“Feliciano,” he gasped, stomping up the stairs and into the cluttered bedroom. His brother stopped in the process of pulling on a clean shirt, and turned bewildered eyes on Lovino. “There's another garage a few blocks north-that old empty warehouse-it just opened, and Feliciano, it looks so much nicer than ours-”
“What?” Once he'd finished dressing, Feliciano thought this announcement over and smiled, having utterly missed the point. “Va bene! I wonder who owns it. Maybe we can compare notes! Do you think they'll want to be friends?”
“Oca,” Lovino sighed, burying his face in his hands. “We're fucked.”
* * *
Notes!
Well, I've only spent a year in the planning of this monstrosity. Given that, I'm sure that this first chapter could be more polished, more factually accurate, more interesting, more relevant... In any case, I dearly hope that you enjoyed it, and that you'll stick around for future chapters.
This story is set in the fictional city of Farwell, a factory town on the coast of New Jersey. It is the late 1920s, in an alternate version of our world in which the four-cycle diesel engine was invented and refined much earlier, and now powers everything from automobiles to ships to factories to all variety of automata. Advancements in aviation and nautical technology in particular have changed the nature of warfare in sudden and unexpected ways; consequently, World War I left an especially brutal mark on an unprepared world.
I seem to write a lot of fic involving things that I know nothing about. Cars, flyfishing... cars. As always, I have done as much research as I could, but because I know even less about Depression-era vehicles than I do about modern engines, there are bound to be errors. Some of this is forgivable, I hope, due to the assumption that diesel technology is slightly more advanced in this version of the world, and thus some references are made to modern engine parts that I honestly couldn't say whether you'd find on a real 1922 Lincoln Touring. Please forgive me for fudging the details-I hope it doesn't break anyone's immersion too grievously.
Alfred's plane, Lady Liberty, is a modified Curtiss JN-4D-known colloquially as the “Jenny”-a biplane produced for training World War I pilots and later popular among civilian aviators and airmail carriers. The Lincoln Touring was a popular luxury car of the early '20s.
In places throughout this fic, I have used words and phrases from various languages. This is not to say, however, that when dialogue is not written in other languages, the characters are necessarily speaking English. I have mostly left this up to context and assumption, as in most cases it's not important, but I will specify if it is especially relevant. I'm not posting translations with the fic because there are quite a few, and most are either unimportant or clear enough in context, but if you would like a translation of anything, please ask! I am happy to provide. Likewise, if you notice that I have used language that is incorrect or contextually inappropriate, I encourage you to send me corrections.
Thanks to, among others, alliterations, harusamemosuke, ruiza, and anotadashi for their encouragement, suggestions, proofreading, and willingness to let me complain to them, bounce ideas off them, or ramble at them about science. :D Also deserving of mention is my cousin, J., who answered a nearly unending stream of annoyingly specific questions about 1920s aviation and technology. Without his help, this piece would never have gotten off the ground (excuse the pun). Most of all, if you have made it this far-thank you for reading, and I hope to see you here again for the next installment. Hopefully it won't take another year!
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