Fic : Engine Heart
Hullo all, first time poster. Be gentle like wee little lambs with me, yeah? And please to be enjoying my humble offering of fic. :D
Title : Engine Heart
Author : ophelietta
Fandom : Twilight
Characters/Pairings : Jacob/Bella.
Summary : Jacob can fix pretty much everything, except the things that actually matter.
Notes : Set sometime during New Moon. Written waaaaay back in November, then polished up with minor edits. Just imagine me bawling to "Fix You" by Coldplay, and you'll have a pretty good idea of the state of mind I was in when I wrote this.
Engine Heart
Be still my heart
Engine turning over, won't you start?
This one's come to tear me all apart
Be still my heart
- Mirah, “Engine Heart”
“… There is no perfectly shaped part of the motorcycle and never will be, but when you come as close as these instruments take you, remarkable things happen, and you go flying across the countryside under a power that would be called magic, if it were not so completely rational.”
- Robert M. Pirsig, “Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance”
~
He’ll tell Bella that the first thing he ever tore apart and then put back together at the age of seven was a remote controlled car, but the truth was that it was Rachel’s Easy Bake Oven. Her ensuing wrath (not to mention the painful noogies) was enough to make him block out that particular memory.
“Jacob is a very bright student,” his report card in the third grade said, “but he always seems to have trouble keeping his hands still.” It was true : Jake’s hands always felt restless, unless they were doing something. Twirling a pen, or shooting some hoops, or - best of all - fixing something. Anything would do, but cars were his specialty.
By the time he was in high school, it was dirt bikes and cars and he spent all his free periods (and some that weren’t, but he tried not to skip class too often) in the autopower mechanics room, known usually as “the garage”.
"That Black kid's got it, whatever the hell it is," he overheard his metal shops teacher say gruffly to the woodworking teacher two classes down. “He can look at something, anything, no matter how messed up it is, and figure out how to fix it in two seconds flat. It's like some freakish gift.”
He could fix anything, maybe, except - that broken look in her eyes (shattered glass, twisted metal). She looked like the survivor of an automobile accident, the crash on a permanent loop, replaying itself behind her numb eyes. He knows the warning signs, familiar as an ambulance's panicked flashing red blue red : her eyes become darker and haunted, her breathing becomes jagged, she curls into herself as if cradling her pain to her like a child. He's like the little boy with his finger in the dyke, trying to keep back a flood.
I will fix you, he didn’t say to her, not yet, but he meant it all the same. Maybe a week after she brings him the bikes, he asks her to hand him a spanner and her fingers brush his (warm skin, cool metal) and he thinks - knows, I could spend the rest of my life doing this.
And it’s a good thought.
“Honestly, Jacob Black” (when she’s mad or when she’s pretending to be mad, like right now, she uses his full name : the familiar syllables are transformed into warm rain when they fall from her mouth and oh god he's got to jump off a cliff now for thinking something as cheesy as that) “do you honestly think you can fix the problems of the world armed only with a wrench and a few spare cylinders?”
And her voice is teasing, but it has that hint of wrongness about it - that thin lingering thread of despair, old wounds that never heal quite properly, a name she never says that has all the more weight for that.
He runs his rag over the engine for the nth time. “Maybe not the whole world, but I’ll settle for saving this little corner of the Olympic Peninsula with my amazing mechanical superpowers.”
". . . I'm kinda jealous of you, you know," she says, conversationally.
He pops his head over the top of the hood, so he can watch her swing her legs from the side of the Rabbit. Her fingers have a loose hold on her can of cola, and her eyes are half-lidded and very thoughtful. Her colour seems to be better these days, some of that awful ashen paleness replaced by a healthier bloom. She's blossoming, like a flower, like the lavender that lends its smell to her shampoo.
"Jealous?" he says, pretending to sound innocent. "Of me? I wonder why. Is it my dashing good looks? Car tuning expertise? Towering height? Or just my all around, all-encompassing awesomeness?"
Her eyes roll but that faint smile twitches at the corner of her lips. (He would kill for that smile. The thought hits him so hard that the rag almost slips from his hand, but he manages to catch it again, somehow.)
"Maybe it’s just your general assholery,” she says, seriously.
“Young lady, we have rules about swearing in this garage,” he says, mock-stern, ‘conveniently’ forgetting the fact that he just let slip an F-bomb not five minutes ago at finding a loose tappet.
“Don't make me throw the rest of this perfectly good Coke at you," she says, pertly. "It would be a waste of resources."
"You're a tree-hugger now? I thought you hated the things."
"Hey, I just don't want anyone blowing up the planet. It's where I keep all my stuff."
Some days it surprises him. Some days he can't believe it, believe that she's here at all, just talking, laughing. With him. It's all so - easy in a way, it's warm and familiar, like breathing, like sunlight, like two pieces of metal meeting flawlessly, as if they were made to fit together. The instruction manual reads thus : Part J is affixed to to Part B. No nails or bolts necessary.
And then there are days when he can tell that she hasn't slept at all, where she barely says anything but just sits in his garage, watching him with her too-dark eyes and sometimes, when she catches him staring at her, giving him that smile that isn't a smile at all. Those are the days Jacob almost wishes that Edward Cullen would come back to Forks, just so he could beat the shit out of him. While Bella was safely out of the way, of course. The instructional manual reads thus : Part E is thrown into the fiery pits of hell.
Everything is for Bella, now.
"Seriously, though," he says, trying to make his voice light (Bella has enough weight on her as it is), "why the rampant jealousy? Beside the obvious reasons."
"Beside the obvious reasons," she repeats (and he can hear the smile in her words), "you . . . it seems like all you would have to do fix something is to lay your hands on it. Me - I'm so clumsy, I could break something probably just by looking at it. But you . . ."
There's an indefinable longing, a catch in her voice.
"You could fix anything," she whispers and he wonders how her voice can be so soft but still have the power to make something in his chest break.
His hands still. He doesn't look up at her.
"Not everything," he says. "Not the most important things."
"The most important . . .?" she begins, and then falls silent.
He dares to glance up, to see her looking at him, and he sees - something - breaking out on her face, something dawning on her. He wonders if it’s like looking at the whole chaotic jumble of an engine - power train, fuel-air system, ignition system, feedback system - and having all these parts suddenly snap together in a completely rational way to make, this : an engine humming where your heart used to be, humming so, so loudly.
This (him, her, it, them,) is absolutely crazy.
But it makes perfect sense.
And his heart. Is so. Loud.
Only moments ago, it was so quiet he could hear her every breath and sigh (maybe, something says, it's just because he's always listening) and now his engine heart is so loud that the roar of it drowns out everything else. She is looking at him. (His heart is so loud.) She is not looking away. (His heart)
And then she is. Looking away. And her laughter comes - sudden, nervous, too bright - and she says, "Well, you're right about that. There's no way you're going to be able to fix up your English marks, not without my help."
The engine quiets.
"Yeah," he says. Not quite knowing what he's agreeing to. "Yeah."
And he smiles at her, suddenly, because they're only teenagers, and they've got years ahead of them. There will be many more afternoons, just like this, just the two of them hanging out. He will give her as much time as she needs, to repair herself. They're both young. They have all the time in the world.
The engine quiets. But it doesn't quit.
All the time in the world.
end.
Be still my heart
Title : Engine Heart
Author : ophelietta
Fandom : Twilight
Characters/Pairings : Jacob/Bella.
Summary : Jacob can fix pretty much everything, except the things that actually matter.
Notes : Set sometime during New Moon. Written waaaaay back in November, then polished up with minor edits. Just imagine me bawling to "Fix You" by Coldplay, and you'll have a pretty good idea of the state of mind I was in when I wrote this.
Engine Heart
Be still my heart
Engine turning over, won't you start?
This one's come to tear me all apart
Be still my heart
- Mirah, “Engine Heart”
“… There is no perfectly shaped part of the motorcycle and never will be, but when you come as close as these instruments take you, remarkable things happen, and you go flying across the countryside under a power that would be called magic, if it were not so completely rational.”
- Robert M. Pirsig, “Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance”
~
He’ll tell Bella that the first thing he ever tore apart and then put back together at the age of seven was a remote controlled car, but the truth was that it was Rachel’s Easy Bake Oven. Her ensuing wrath (not to mention the painful noogies) was enough to make him block out that particular memory.
“Jacob is a very bright student,” his report card in the third grade said, “but he always seems to have trouble keeping his hands still.” It was true : Jake’s hands always felt restless, unless they were doing something. Twirling a pen, or shooting some hoops, or - best of all - fixing something. Anything would do, but cars were his specialty.
By the time he was in high school, it was dirt bikes and cars and he spent all his free periods (and some that weren’t, but he tried not to skip class too often) in the autopower mechanics room, known usually as “the garage”.
"That Black kid's got it, whatever the hell it is," he overheard his metal shops teacher say gruffly to the woodworking teacher two classes down. “He can look at something, anything, no matter how messed up it is, and figure out how to fix it in two seconds flat. It's like some freakish gift.”
He could fix anything, maybe, except - that broken look in her eyes (shattered glass, twisted metal). She looked like the survivor of an automobile accident, the crash on a permanent loop, replaying itself behind her numb eyes. He knows the warning signs, familiar as an ambulance's panicked flashing red blue red : her eyes become darker and haunted, her breathing becomes jagged, she curls into herself as if cradling her pain to her like a child. He's like the little boy with his finger in the dyke, trying to keep back a flood.
I will fix you, he didn’t say to her, not yet, but he meant it all the same. Maybe a week after she brings him the bikes, he asks her to hand him a spanner and her fingers brush his (warm skin, cool metal) and he thinks - knows, I could spend the rest of my life doing this.
And it’s a good thought.
“Honestly, Jacob Black” (when she’s mad or when she’s pretending to be mad, like right now, she uses his full name : the familiar syllables are transformed into warm rain when they fall from her mouth and oh god he's got to jump off a cliff now for thinking something as cheesy as that) “do you honestly think you can fix the problems of the world armed only with a wrench and a few spare cylinders?”
And her voice is teasing, but it has that hint of wrongness about it - that thin lingering thread of despair, old wounds that never heal quite properly, a name she never says that has all the more weight for that.
He runs his rag over the engine for the nth time. “Maybe not the whole world, but I’ll settle for saving this little corner of the Olympic Peninsula with my amazing mechanical superpowers.”
". . . I'm kinda jealous of you, you know," she says, conversationally.
He pops his head over the top of the hood, so he can watch her swing her legs from the side of the Rabbit. Her fingers have a loose hold on her can of cola, and her eyes are half-lidded and very thoughtful. Her colour seems to be better these days, some of that awful ashen paleness replaced by a healthier bloom. She's blossoming, like a flower, like the lavender that lends its smell to her shampoo.
"Jealous?" he says, pretending to sound innocent. "Of me? I wonder why. Is it my dashing good looks? Car tuning expertise? Towering height? Or just my all around, all-encompassing awesomeness?"
Her eyes roll but that faint smile twitches at the corner of her lips. (He would kill for that smile. The thought hits him so hard that the rag almost slips from his hand, but he manages to catch it again, somehow.)
"Maybe it’s just your general assholery,” she says, seriously.
“Young lady, we have rules about swearing in this garage,” he says, mock-stern, ‘conveniently’ forgetting the fact that he just let slip an F-bomb not five minutes ago at finding a loose tappet.
“Don't make me throw the rest of this perfectly good Coke at you," she says, pertly. "It would be a waste of resources."
"You're a tree-hugger now? I thought you hated the things."
"Hey, I just don't want anyone blowing up the planet. It's where I keep all my stuff."
Some days it surprises him. Some days he can't believe it, believe that she's here at all, just talking, laughing. With him. It's all so - easy in a way, it's warm and familiar, like breathing, like sunlight, like two pieces of metal meeting flawlessly, as if they were made to fit together. The instruction manual reads thus : Part J is affixed to to Part B. No nails or bolts necessary.
And then there are days when he can tell that she hasn't slept at all, where she barely says anything but just sits in his garage, watching him with her too-dark eyes and sometimes, when she catches him staring at her, giving him that smile that isn't a smile at all. Those are the days Jacob almost wishes that Edward Cullen would come back to Forks, just so he could beat the shit out of him. While Bella was safely out of the way, of course. The instructional manual reads thus : Part E is thrown into the fiery pits of hell.
Everything is for Bella, now.
"Seriously, though," he says, trying to make his voice light (Bella has enough weight on her as it is), "why the rampant jealousy? Beside the obvious reasons."
"Beside the obvious reasons," she repeats (and he can hear the smile in her words), "you . . . it seems like all you would have to do fix something is to lay your hands on it. Me - I'm so clumsy, I could break something probably just by looking at it. But you . . ."
There's an indefinable longing, a catch in her voice.
"You could fix anything," she whispers and he wonders how her voice can be so soft but still have the power to make something in his chest break.
His hands still. He doesn't look up at her.
"Not everything," he says. "Not the most important things."
"The most important . . .?" she begins, and then falls silent.
He dares to glance up, to see her looking at him, and he sees - something - breaking out on her face, something dawning on her. He wonders if it’s like looking at the whole chaotic jumble of an engine - power train, fuel-air system, ignition system, feedback system - and having all these parts suddenly snap together in a completely rational way to make, this : an engine humming where your heart used to be, humming so, so loudly.
This (him, her, it, them,) is absolutely crazy.
But it makes perfect sense.
And his heart. Is so. Loud.
Only moments ago, it was so quiet he could hear her every breath and sigh (maybe, something says, it's just because he's always listening) and now his engine heart is so loud that the roar of it drowns out everything else. She is looking at him. (His heart is so loud.) She is not looking away. (His heart)
And then she is. Looking away. And her laughter comes - sudden, nervous, too bright - and she says, "Well, you're right about that. There's no way you're going to be able to fix up your English marks, not without my help."
The engine quiets.
"Yeah," he says. Not quite knowing what he's agreeing to. "Yeah."
And he smiles at her, suddenly, because they're only teenagers, and they've got years ahead of them. There will be many more afternoons, just like this, just the two of them hanging out. He will give her as much time as she needs, to repair herself. They're both young. They have all the time in the world.
The engine quiets. But it doesn't quit.
All the time in the world.
end.
Be still my heart