aterat | [OPEN] Not-So Handyman

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[OPEN] Not-So Handyman

Who; Zack Fair and Everyone
What; It was suggested Zack should try offering to help at various jobs to find what he'd like to do for work. He's doing that. Please stop him.
Where; A variety of locations, see individual starters
When; Throughout Early October
Warnings; CW: Some blood in Prompt I, instance of (and implied previous instances of) unwelcomed touching of Zack in prompt IV.

I. If I Had A Hammer | Garry's Carpentry | CW: Minor injury/blood

This shouldn't be hard. It's something Zack's told himself twice now. This shouldn't be hard. He's a capable guy. Can take down dragons on his own if he has the right tools. Has built not one, not two, but THREE separate flower carts to spec. Really, Zack's an amazing guy. Which is why he is so confused with what is going on right now.

Which is him, standing by a work table of Garry's Carpentry, near enough to be under the watchful eye of THE Garry, trying to prove he could be worth learning some stuff. Of course he was supposed to do that by watching quietly. Which he'd done for two days, watching the apprentices and craftsmen work as he swept up and tied piles of stock and stuff like that. So finally Garry had let him sit down with doing some measurements and cuts for other projects. Which, you know, that had gone fine. Measure three times, cut once, yeah, he got it. But then he'd accidentally tripped over a stool and...

"I guess I should cut this again," Zack said with a frown. "And pay for the replacement wood. And, I guess, get myself free?"

Which was definitely the first thing he needed to do. Really, Zack wasn't entirely sure how he'd managed to put his fist through the big piece of wood just by tripping over it, but it hadn't gone through cleanly. The back of his hand was definitely scraped up just a bit and bleeding a bit sluggishly. The Mako in his blood had already gone a long way toward shutting the scrapes quickly. But they'd get bigger if he didn't find a better way to get free of this board wrapped around his hand.

II. Burning The Candle At Both Ends | A Local Chandler's Shop

Candles. They were lovely things really, and they reminded Zack a little of winter time back in Gongaga, when the sun set earlier in the day. When he was a kid his mother used to insist that the early twilight hours of winter days be lit only by the fireplace and candles. She would say it was appropriate, and it was how winter should pass. He'd always thought she was silly of course, because Gongaga had plenty of Mako power, and the little town had been growing since ShinRa had come to revolutionize their lives and make them better.

That, Zack figured, was probably why he had jumped at the chance of trying this all out when he'd seen the 'help wanted' sign in the window of a chandler's shop. All their candles had been handmade by old Mrs. Gregson, who also kept bees of course. They had been lovely things, creamy white and lightly scented and it made the whole how smell nice, even if it was hard to do his homework by candlelight in the winter. And come on, if old Mrs Gregson could do it, it coudln't be that hard, right?

Wrong. Zack winced, blowing on the fingertips of one hand even as he worked at keeping his stirring up with the pot of wax the proprietress was having him tend to the melting of.

"Stupid mean pot," he grumbled as he kept stirring. Only to hear the door chime to indicate it was opening. He leaned back to get a glimpse of who might have come in. Except...

"Uh, the boss just stepped out because she needed to grab some essential stuffs? That make scents. Uh, can I help?"

III. Hot Cross Buns | A Local Bakery

Baking! Baking was a task anyone could do, right? It was about as old as civilization itself or something. Anyone could do the simple task of slapping together flour and water and eggs and bam, bread once you apply heat. Staple of life, right there. No potential disasters to be had.

And yet there Zack was, moping, the dark spikes of his hair dusted with flour, a missed spot of sticky dough stuck to his cheek, and a truly chagrined look on his face as he was sweeping up the floors.

"How was I supposed to know that you can't just make the oven twice as hot for half the time? That's, like, math or something. Right?"

Apparently not.

IV. Service With A Smile | Market District Tavern | CW: Small instance of unwanted touching by drunk people

When all else fails, customer service. Anyone with patience and enough positivity could totally make customer service industry, and food service, work for them, right? Especially cheerful young men with plenty of good looks and charm coming off of him in waves. Or so the logic would go.

As it was, Zack Fair moved around the Tavern here on his second night of trial work looking like a hunted animal. Sure, he still went between tables, took orders, delivered food and drinks, but he looked... jumpy.

Which might be why he, after finishing taking notes for one table, was actually out of sorts enough to accidentally back into someone else. Good thing his balance and reflexes were so good, because Zack barely had a chance to trip into the person before he was hopping back a step to get out of their way.

"Sorry!" he said, voice full of regret. Which didn't help him because he managed to hop back into another patron, and yeah, there was a mug of some alcohol or other falling over. Zack winced and turned to look at the customer he'd upset. "I'll replace that, no charge," he insisted quickly, turning to pick that cup up too.

Which meant bending over. And some drunk lady nearby reaching out and patting his ass. Zack yelped, jumped up straight took the mug that he had knocked over, and rushed back to the bar.

"Don't people understand the idea of personal space?" he almost whimpered as he got to the bar and put the mug down. "That's the fifth time TONIGHT!"

V. Birds Of A Feather | The Ranches

It wasn't that Zack meant to come here and help out, at all. This place wasn't even remotely on his short list of places to look for work. But Zack had needed to get out of town for a day, to get back to nature. And he'd just happened to go in the right direction. And so here he was now, just outside of the ranch, down on one knee by a large bird with one of the ranch's harnesses around its neck. A bird that seemed very off balance.

"Kweh!" the chocobo said as Zack knelt at its side, carefully running his hand over one long leg.

"I know, sweetie," Zack said, his voice soothing as he gently checked for any damages. "It's not nice to be off balance. But it looked like you took a nasty tumble when you were running away. just give me another moment."

"Wark Kw-kweh!"

"Tell me about it," Zack cooed right back as the bird leaned in to start preening Zack's hair. He finished with the leg and gentle reached up to pat the bird's side. "You're alright, beautiful."

The bird made a light warbling noise, clearly pleased, before raising its head from Zack's hair to instead turn its attention toward the noise of someone approaching. And yeah, Zack straightened a moment later, sensing the tension from the bird.

"Hey there," he called to the newcomer. "Promise I'm not stealing her. Saw the poor beauty being chased by some sorta wolf-like thing. Guess she got out and no one came to collect her yet. Or she bucked a rider. Had to make sure she was okay. Um... Don't suppose you know who at the stable I can take her to to make sure she gets back to her friends."

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Frankly, this wasn’t the young Lord’s usual scene… The problem was, there were very few places someone could go to get a drink and something to eat in the city limits. He didn’t have the energy to go far in general, and his walk between the academy and either his flat in the red building or his workshop in the harbor district didn’t leave him with much in the way of reserves to go anywhere else.

He’d just been moving over to a table with a drink to wait for his dinner to be ready when some poor sod hopped directly into him and knocked over the drink in his hands. “Wha?!” The surprised, high-pitched yelp that escaped him was embarrassingly un-lord-like as backed up himself and brushed some stray drops of amber liquid off the oxblood red scarf hanging over his lapels. Shit… He counts to ten, just barely… Waver was a bitch sometimes, but he had worked customer service before when trying to save up funds to travel after what happened in Fuyuki... He wasn’t about to be what his students would call a ‘Karen’ here. “My own damn fault for coming out.” He muttered to himself before fixing the young man with a tired look. “It’s fine. Just watch your surroundings in the future-” He responded with a sigh, contemplating forgetting the drink and supper in favour of going back to his flat instead.

Until someone got a little too handsy with the young man just trying to clean up and something particularly sour crossed the mage’s face. Fuck, he hated drunk people… Especially the ones who did not understand personal space. He was on the receiving end of unwanted advances enough as it was, and it bothered him to see happen to someone just doing their damn job. His magic circuits activated a second later as he cast a particularly scathing look at the drunk woman. “Why don’t you focus on your bloody drink instead, huh?” He said with a firm tone, the drink in her hand suddenly becoming very fascinating as it swirled lightly, and then… Well, the woman seemed to just fall asleep, slumped on the table. “Hm… Definitely had too much.” He murmured with the most bland tone imaginable as he turned his attention to Zack.

“Most people you’ll find in these places don’t in my experience.” Might be a bad fit for a job, not that he could look down on someone from taking an ill-fitting job just to get by. “Need to grow eyes on the back of your head sometimes.”

Angeal was on his way to work and he saw Zack leaning over a chocobo. So he jogged a short distance and saw what the other had found. Nodding quickly, he looked her over. "I work there, you can come to work with me for the day and you can keep an eye on her."

So he looked around. "Not sure she should be walking at the moment, but I can get to work and get a cart to bring her back." It wouldn't take him long to get to work and get the aforementioned carriage. But work wouldn't mind him doing this since he would technically be working.

"You stay here with her, I'll be back in a few minutes."

And so he did just that. It didn't take him long to be able to procure the cart and he brought it back. "We can lift her together and get her back."

Edited 2022-10-04 20:16 (UTC)

Terra went to work like normal. He was learning some carpentry from Jacob because there was a house he was looking at and if he wanted to get it fixed up, he wanted to make sure he knew what he was doing.

But lo and behold he saw Zack come in and after a minute or two of chatting, Terra watched the other go to work. He left the other alone so that he could learn the ropes as he himself had to at many points.

The tripping over the stool thing had been worrying since Zack was so much taller now and more things could get hurt. But once the other got back up, Terra decided to let Zack do Zack.

They had lunch after a bit and the next thing he knew, there was another accident. Blue eyes rolled and he smiled, figuring these were just some sort of growing pains as he learned the job.

"Maybe you should slow down a little?"

Leon sighed. He was out of the few candles he'd bought and figured he'd better go get some more. No one knew but they were helpful in keeping him on an even keel. There was just something about the end of the day and being able to sit in front of the burning candles. He always ordered ice blue ones, for what reason he didn't know, but it was important.

So he headed to the shop and opened the door as he always did, and saw an unfamiliar head of dark hair behind the counter. Well that was weird but Leon wasn't going to question it. Icy Blue Pine were the ones he always got, and normally didn't think twice about it.

His eyes locked with the man who was speaking to him, and he shook his head as he saw the candles he always ordered. "No, just here to pick up a few things."

The shop owner always greeted him and pretty much left him alone, try as she usually did to chat him up. Maybe she trained this one to do the same?

Having one's own house was nice, but it required a lot of work. So Yuki had gone to work and was on his way home when the idea of cinnamon buns crossed his mind.

Heading over to the bakery, he decided on the cinnamon buns but when he went on, there were chocolate doughnuts that Jacob would literally wolf down within minutes. And in that case, he put two packages in the little hand held cart.

Someone was busy sweeping the floor and he tried to stay out of the way because that was only polite. He risked a look and had to look up. Gray eyes went up and amusedly noted flour in the other's hair.

He wondered if the man was speaking to him personally, and somehow he felt bad. But still, a question required an answer and Yuki smiled.

"It's all a part of the mystery of cooking."

No, he wasn't talking to someone in particular, which makes it embarrassing that the kid is responding. Zack looks up to see him, and for a moment he freezes. Silver-gray hair just did that to him. But the height is wrong, the eyes are wrong, the genuine smile is wrong. Okay. Not Sephiroth.

"How come no one explained cooking was a mystery?"

Oh, cool, the guy knows what he wants. That's a relief. But yeah, Zack's still watching the dude.

"Uh, sorry to say that I'm not supposed to handle purchases yet. I accidentally, well, got wax all over the books last time I tried."

He's not normally a klutz, he swears.

"I'm not going fast," Zack protested as he regarded the wood he was now, well, wearing. Shit, this sucked. "At least, not for me. Can't help that the wood here just can't handle my awesome."

Keep telling yourself that, Zack.

"I haven't been this off balance since the first treatments, and even then I never put my fist through anything. Though I guess some door handles suffered."

At least it was Angeal that found them, right? It wasn't like Angeal would think Zack was stealing anything. And hey, he even apparently had an answer? Like, Zack hadn't got that Angeal was working there. But he supposed there was a place country boys went, and it was to the ranch.

Okay, not all country boys, because Zack's home territory wasn't exactly plains and farms and the like. Still, he's happy for the support. Especially when it comes with a cart.

"What are you thinking for lifting? I'm usually a fan of the arms under the breast and rump, they flail less then."

Maybe Zack avoided some of his early third class training by being down in the Company stables from time to time. But that was before Angeal had taken him on of course. Back then he'd felt so lost at the company and in the city. It had been nice to have some touch of country out there.

Oh shit, comfort from the guy he'd accidentally spilled things on. This wasn't good. Zack felt so damn bad about that. But hey, at least he's brought a replacement drink for the customer. He tries to put a smile on too. You're supposed to smile, even when you're tired.

"Needless to say my old job didn't have people who would actually, you know, do that. Talk about it, think about it, joke about it, yeah. But do it? Not so much. Well, except there were rumors about Scarlet. And, uh, I'll pass on the eyes thing. Not really down for actually being a monster."

Even if there had been times in Nibelheim when he'd feared it would actually happen.

That comment got Leon's blue eyes to focus right on the guy. It was eerie almost how much those words sounded like something Sora would do. So he gave a half amused look in spite of himself. And half of him wasn't sure he even wanted to know how that kind of a situation got resolved.

Merlin would be livid.

"Not sure things could go wrong with buying just candles, but I'll keep it in mind."

Edited 2022-10-05 05:46 (UTC)

Blue eyes stared in silent disbelief, but Terra wasn't going to take it up with Zack. But he tried to smile a little. "Well you'll just have to start on being less awesome."

It was weird sometimes like now to get used to the man who was self confident versus the little kid that misguidedly admired him. But Terra would take the confidence any day.

However, something Zack said caught him off guard and his head went back a little in confusion. "First treatments?"

He had no idea what that look was for, but Yuki wasn't sure it was a friendly one. Still, there was no way he was going to just ignore the guy.

But an easy smile had appeared at the question. "Well it's a mystery until you learn how to cook, and a cookbook usually helps."

He listened to Zack's advice, and it was sound so he readied the cart as best he could before returning to the chocobo. "We'll go with your plan then, as long as we go easy."

Angeal didn't want to cause any unnecessary pain and he tried his best to get a good firm grip without doing so. Once he was settled into position, his mako blue eyes looked Zack over. "Ready to lift on your count, Soldier."

"I mean, I just told you how things could go wrong," Zack points out, rolling his eyes. Did the guy even listen? "So you've gotta wait before purchasing."

Still, he's watching the guy carefully from the pot he's stirring.

"That looks like a battle scar."

"It's a SOLDIER thing," he said, considering the wood one last time before bracing it against the table and then punching next to his stuck hand with the other hand. The thing cracks through easily, falling free of his hand.

It hadn't been thin wood. It shouldn't have broken so easily.

Yeah, it wasn't a friendly one in the moment. But now he's smiling a little, even if it's tired.

"Well, apparently I didn't learn well with direct instruction."

Alright then, sounds like they have a plan. Zack counts off their lift, and when it's time to move, helps Angeal get the beautiful thing into the cart. There it was, nice and safe. Zack climbs into the back to stroke her neck, intending to calm her down.

"Any clue what her name is?"

He raised a brow at the forced smile as a drink was offered… Waver was not a fool. He knew smiles that were off in a variety of ways, be they forced in an uncomfortable situation, or applied with magecraft like in the case of his student that one time… It wasn’t magecraft, so the guy was just trying to look happy for the sake of the job. Commendable, but not necessary in his company.

Taking the drink and setting it on his table, he finally sat in his seat with a glance in the direction of the offender of the server’s discomfort. “Well, you won’t have to worry about her for at least the rest of the night.” He commented off hand. She’d probably be out till closing time. Taking a small drink, he considered the slightly winding tangent about the young man’s last job and someone named Scarlet. “What was your old job, that not something you could find work doing here?” Okay, it was blunt and nosy, but… Waver was like that. If he wanted to know something that he couldn’t discern for himself, he’d ask...

“Huh? I wasn’t actually serious about the eyes, it’s just something you say.” He responded with an expression that was both concerned that he’d been taken seriously on that front and feeling the vague prickling at the back of his mind about what kind of person he might be dealing with here.

[That had Yuki puzzled almost immediately.]

So you don't learn hands on?

Leon shrugged. "Whatever. I'm not interested in purchasing anything other than candles, but if somehow books get included and they get ruined, I don't mind waiting either way."

Now there's a change of subject. Was the guy staring at him? If so, why?

A little self consciously, there was another shrug. "Scars happen when you battle."

"Soldier thing." Terra echoed softly, still completely lost. But he wasn't about to push for explanations or anything of that sort.

Zack then broke free of his 'restraint' and sighed. Maybe that strength had something to do with it, but he wasn't about to ask. "Are you hungry? We can go to lunch if you want."

Here he was trying to help and totally inwardly flailing about it.

Once the bird is lifted and seems to settle in, Angeal's relieved to see Zack getting in the back to help her out. As he gets them ready to go and gives the driver instructions, Angeal shook his head.

"Can't say I've ever seen her before. But if you take care of her, then I'm sure you'll have your own chocobo."

Zack rolled his eyes as he stroked her back.

"Can't imagine the ranch will give me such a beautiful bird just because I happened to be wandering by and helped her."

Oh, food? Zack looked excited by that. See, now he's just a cheerful puppy again. If he had a tail, it would be wagging.

"Lunch would be awesome!"

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[OPEN] Not-So Handyman

IV. Service With A Smile

Birds

Hammer

Candles

Hot cross buns

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Of course Angeal gets the competency one

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