TEXT; USER: JT

[hexrot]

If there are any other engineers or tech-savvy Drifters among us that aren't waterbound, Viktor and I won't dismiss the assistance with the generator. We're doing our best to get it running, or at least construct temporary vehicle augumentations to reinforce our defenses in the mean time. They'll be bare bones and have a short life span, but it's better than nothing. That being said, my current projects will be temporarily postponed until further notice. If I'm not working parts, I'm gathering wood, and I can only step outside at dusk.

[ or if he snows in the damn place but uhhhh no thank you! ]

Donnie and Danse, you'll hear back from me when your respective requests are finished. I haven't forgotten any of them.

In the meantime, if you come across any generator parts, bring them to us as soon as possible, please. Any remnants of metal, elements, chemicals or hands to help with the wood would be valued if you can find or offer— I'll trade my work for it, if you have the patience for a queue. I can do minor fixes where needed.

Any questions, you can ask them here or come to the forge. It's hard to miss.

[ it's the only lisa frank pick up for miles. the thing is hard to miss, especially when jayce is working the little cargo bed forge he's built over the last two months. characters are welcome to come visit directly while he's working at night; smoke signals and his hammer (hand sized, not the big one) pounds throughout the late hours, while he's asleep or within the convoy from sunrise to sunset. ]

— JT

Comments

[hexrot]

[ that is indeed a good sign; jayce nods to himself. ]

Come forward, three paces. [ and once that's done, ] We're going to familiarize with the space first. Know where everything is, and you're way around it.

[ that way, he could gauge what edward could do in the future— besides organize. ]

My forge consists of four compartments. [ after a moment, jayce considers, ] Can I take your hand?

[propatriamori]

[How is it that people in this world know exactly what to do to accommodate Edward's blindness, with none of the awkwardness of his own world? Edward follows Jayce's directions and waits for further ones, blinking when Jayce asks for his hand.]

Of course.

[He offers it.]

Thank you for asking. Sometimes people don't, and it startles me.

[It isn't done maliciously, Edward knows, but it's still very, very nice to be around someone who has so flawlessly picked up on exactly what he needs.]

May I ask, do you know anyone else who is blind? You seem as though you've met someone like me before.

[hexrot]

[ with the approval to act, jayce gently takes edward's hand by the wrist; it's a firm grip, gloved in leather. while he speaks,he leads them to the first box. ]

My partner has a condition, and, [ a pause; a little metal click where his leg is, ] I might need a cane soon, myself.

[ emphasis on the might— because jayce is going to drag out the need for it as long as he could. donnie's new brace is going to do wonders for him, so certainlyhe can procrastinate on actually making himself a cane. ]

—I've just seen a lot of assumptions made. You're more than capable of making your own choices. [ and they shouldn't be made. doesn't make them any less capable of doing things themselves, and now, more than ever, did jayce resent the sentiment. he feels shitty as is, to see how he's withered away. it did not make him any less strong. if he needs help, he's going to ask. that goes for anyone. edward's hand will soon find the top of a metalic crate. ] What you're touching is the tool box. Feel free to open it.

[ get to know it, feel it. there are general tools in there. different sized tongs, spanners, screwdrivers— everything he had managed to pull from the garages in passing. ]

cw: 1910s language regarding disability

[propatriamori]

I understand.

[And the knowledge has cheered him up quite a bit. Two other people here, who also aren't whole and sound, surviving and even thriving if they've built a forge. It is a breath of fresh air, and Edward finds himself warming to Jayce immediately.]

[It also helps when Jayce directs his hands and then lets Edward explore on his own, without trying to over-explain or guide him. That, in Edward's opinion, has been the worst thing about being blinded: people back home treat him like he's mentally defective, when there's nothing wrong with his mind at all. He opens the tool box and starts digging around in it, carefully taking tools out and then organising them according to type across the bench.]

I recognise most of these.

[There are a few he's unclear on--is this a left-handed monkey wrench?--but most are familiar.]

I believe... do you have a small engine about? Something I could attempt to disassemble that won't be too great a loss if I'm unable to complete the task?

[hexrot]

[ jayce goes quiet, both in watching edward feel around as well as when he requests something to pick apart. lucky for them, he has an entire harvest of cyborg parts for the forge's scrap metal stock. you'll never know when you need iron here or there. that also came with the perks of robot hearts, turbine engines for lungs, and so on. with a few hoofbeats, a drawer's loud slide and metalic clattering, jayce eventually returns with some sort of pump mechanism, pried from the chest cavity of one of the raiders and missing a few tubes. ]

See if this works for you. [ he holds it close to edward, only bumping his hand with it so he knows its there. ] They're all spare parts, and I've got plenty.

[propatriamori]

Thank you.

[With the part in hand, Edward starts carefully feeling it over. He doesn't know what it is, or what it's for, but he can recognise screws by feel, and pats along the table for a screwdriver.]

[Unaware that he's doing it, Edward keeps the little motor touching the table, and begins periodically thumping the table leg with the side of his knee. When the table is shaking, he reaches for tools with more confidence, and works over the mechanism faster.]

It's funny, in a way; I knew very little about machines before joining the war effort. Then what little I had was more than most, and I ended up learning what I could in the field.

[A small screw pops out of the mechanism, and Edward simultaneously thumps the table and catches it before it rolls off the side.]

My father used to mock me for wanting to know more about the farming implements.

[hexrot]

[ from close by, jayce clicks his tongue against the roof of his mouth and snorts the air out from his nostrils as he organizes and cleans some of his own things, in preparation for another step in any project he could get a head start on while he waits for more parts. blueprints, specifically— it wouldn't do him good right now is edward's voice of inquiry would be drowned out by hammering. ]

Your father's ignorant. [ jayce could think of six good reasons off the top of his head for wanting to know how something works. ] Tools like that keep people alive. Fed. [ nevermind other tools, for different purposes. with a quiet pause, jayce feels comfortable enough to add: ] I was lucky enough to have been born into a family of inventors.

[ the complete opposite. jayce only knew encouragement when it came to creating. he sighs whistfully at the thought of his father, and what great shoes he thought he had to fill all his life in some impossible way he never would. well. he thought he did, with hextech's success. until that success turned into doom. ]

[propatriamori]

[That actually makes Edward laugh, the sound surprised out of him. He wonders for a moment if Jayce is an American; only Americans are so blunt, so direct and shameless with what they mean.]

You'll have no argument from me on that. The man has some rather rigid ideas, in all things. Particularly in how his sons should behave.

[He grows somber again at that. Edward had shown ways of behaving as a young man that his father had seen fit to stomp out, aggressively and with extreme prejudice. Oxford had been an escape. In a horrible way, the war itself had been an escape.]

I'm glad for you. [He means it sincerely, even if he sounds a bit wistful at the thought.] What was your family like?

[hexrot]

[ the truth shouldn't be as embarrassing as people make it out to be . . . well. jayce included, in some instances. his own expression goes soft and melancholy in between his working hands and steady gaze. there isn't a moment where he didn't miss him mother— she'd be terrified of what he's become, but he's love an embrace from her with no judgement attatched. ]

My father made hammers— put them in the hands of the people who helped build my city. I didn't know him for long, but I would've liked to. [ life happens. jayce became fatherless very young, but not young enough to barely remember the mark that man left behind. ] Mother never always agreed with me— But she was always there for me.

[ in her own way, at times. jayce may not have agreed with it, but there was no doubt in ximena's endless love. ]

[propatriamori]

That's lovely.

[It's clear from Jayce's tone that he misses his mother, and regrets that he didn't know his father better. Edward longs for that kind of closeness with his own family, but... well. It is what it is. His mother has tried to be supportive of him, in her own way, but was always run over, first by his father and then by Jack, her younger son. There is none of this closeness and affection in the Courtenay family.]

Do you have any brothers or sisters, or was it only you and your mother?

[hexrot]

It was just my mother and I, for a while.

[ no one biological to share in the talis family bloodline— his father left too early, and mother never remarried after the loss. but, there is one person who filled that spot without ever meaning to, and jayce's sigh sounds whistful. ]

Then I met my research sponsors— and their daughter. Cait's been like a sister to me, since.

[propatriamori]

You've been very fortunate.

[Edward pauses what he's doing, his hands going still as he lifts his face towards the sky.]

Did you marry, back home?

[hexrot]

I, ah, [ that. catches jayce off guard, and some of the sudden fluster surfaces in the little quake of his voice (or even the lack of it). ever since his . . . rapture, things have been quite complicated on that front. both mel and viktor come to his thoughts, where both of them had changed to jayce irreversibly. ] no.

[ not because he didn't want to, but. things had never quite (and would not quite) work out that way. if he were to ever return, jayce knew his time with the life he once knew was a short one. ]

I don't think I will.

[propatriamori]

[This is the damnable thing about not being able to see; Edward feels like he misses cues constantly, and then blunders into these types of situations. He didn't intend for this to get awkward, and maybe if he'd been able to see Jayce, he could have avoided this.]

My apologies. I don't mean to ask upsetting things.

[He takes a breath through his nose, then sighs.]

It is expected, in the time and place where I'm from, that one will be married. I believe my father had been plotting to raise his standing by inflicting me upon some poor girl since before I was able to walk. This... [he waves a hand in front of his eyes] ... put a stop to that talk, at least.