towerofanimus | [OPEN] How much of it's genetics? How much of it is fate?

Entry tags:

[OPEN] How much of it's genetics? How much of it is fate?

Characters: jade!Eridan & YOU!
Setting: Workshop
Format: Starting with action, but I'll match you.
Summary: Eridan emerges from his self-imposed exile for a while to clean his rifles.
Warnings: Eridan's deadpan. Potential violence if he gets pissed; lots and lots of rifles. Gamzee. Gory, ironic death via Gamzee. Goddammit, Gamzee.

[He started off with one. And then he doomed himself a few times. And well. It wasn't like he could just let them go to waste, when they started piling up.

Laser rifles need a different type of maintenance than the usual kind, but it's still maintenance in the end.

So there's a sullen troll, half hidden behind a pile of guns, carefully cleaning one by one. It's a methodical and repetitive process, but it's not like Eridan seems to mind too terribly. He's just minding his business, but hey. Maybe if you ask very nicely, he'll give you one.

Maybe.]

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[He's just gonna be the awkward turtle here and not sure if he should say hi or what. He's got the valid excuse of being engrossed in his work, okay. So there's that.]

...Eridan?

[Very small voice. Very, very small. He'd actually been hoping to breach the subject of gun lessons at some point, but he looked really busy with all this right now, so...]

Uh, can I ask you something? Quickly?

Oh, hi.

[He puts down the rag, actually stopping to pay attention to Equius. ~~It's not like he misses him or is eager to talk to him or anything okay.~~]

Sure, what's up?

Um, well. I've been doing a bit of thinking lately, and...

[OH GOD HERE IT COMES]

...well, to be honest, a bow is kind of a really bad weapon? And I mean, I took it up because it was available and [relatively] easy to use for me compared to some others, but, uh. It's. Pretty ineffectual.

[No, he definitely didn't realize this around the time of the Shadows and waffle about it until right this minute. That's obviously not what happened.]

So, uh. Sometime, if it's not too much trouble... maybe you could... help me out a bit more with one of those? If you're willing to, I mean. If you're not that's fine.

[Eridan's head tilts progressively further as he listens to Equius, focused on everything the yellowblood has to say. He opened his mouth a few times, but contained the urge to interrupt and instead let Equius get through the whole speech. By the end of it, Eridan is frowning a little, looking thoughtful.]

...I wouldn't mind at all. I mean, I'm all up for you being armed and safe. I don't want you hurt.

[Insert small shy smile here, along with another shrug.]

Thing is, though. I'm. Uh. I'm kind of a grubfuckin' douchenuzzle, about this? I mean, I want to help and get you to do well so you don't get hurt, but I know I will probably end up being overbearing and snappy and probably more than a bit insufferable.

[He scratches the back of his neck.]

I guess what I'm saying is, I don't want to piss you off in the process? Because if I piss off Jade all I gotta do is sit on her for a while, but I'm thinking. That. Might not. You know. Work. With you.

[He nods, letting the whole bit about Eridan caring for his safety pass without comment. Of course it's kind of a... thing that's expected, now that they have this quadrant arrangement thing -- the thing that he's still regarding like it's a tantalizingly cute kitten with a history of biting people's legs off. But it's easier to get used to when he doesn't talk too much about it. And besides, his silence opened the door for another topic to be breached, one that was slightly easier to respond to.]

[It's not like he's unused to snappy and insufferable people. They're all over the place. He knows how to deal with them. But Eridan's not concerned with that, so much as he's concerned with... making Equius mad?]

[Uh.]

[Well.]

[That wouldn't happen, obviously. Equius has his feelings knotted up in a strange enough ball that he probably wouldn't lose his temper (and subsequently, lose his shit) again. Though it was pretty considerate of Eridan to think of that, he guessed.]

Not a problem, really... if you're not comfortable, that's okay, but I don't mind.

Oh, it's not that.

[He smiles a little tentatively.]

I think it'd be kinda cool actually. Just. Promise to tell me if the nagging gets out of hand?

Oh. Yeah, of course. Sure.

[His expression grows significantly more relaxed, which is the equivalent of a smile for most reasonable people.]

Alright.

[There's a small moment where they not-smile at each other before Eridan drops his eyes back to the pile.]

...so. Do you want to get a headstart on that?

[That sure is a pile of guns. Equius nods.]

Yeah. ...Though maybe it would be a better idea to move to another floor? I don't want to accidentally shoot the equipment.

Actually.

[Eridan offers Equius a rag.]

I think you'd do well getting to know the equipment, before you get anywhere near shooting it.

[He pulls a rifle from the pile and offers it to Equius.]

Get an idea of weight and how it feels in different stages. Half the time you'll tell something's wrong with a rifle just by the weight shift. And you don't want to fire a rifle that might have something wrong with it, trust me on that.

[He shrugs a little.]

I wish I had something a bit less unwieldy than this one here, but I think it won't be too bad, learning to shoot with them. Why don't you take a seat?

[Oh, hey, rag. Equius understands the importance of cleaning one's shit, so he takes it and nods. Getting to know the equipment would be a necessary step; otherwise, nothing would get shot except possibly his foot and Eridan's entire face. That would be bad. He's got a pretty nice face, all things consid--]

[...where did that thought come from.]

[Moving on.]

Uh, yeah, I don't mind unwieldy.

[He sits down.]

You will.

[Eridan sound wry, though not unkind, as he pulls a dirty rifle and begins to pry it apart, fingers precise and careful as they pull the plating off in places.]

Now, I made this shit sturdy as fuck, but that doesn't mean one ought to be unkind with them.

[Oh. Okay then.]

[Equius watches the outer shell of the gun being steadily pulled apart; obviously, that was the work of someone who knew what they were doing. ]

Yes, of course, but... you built all these?

I alchemized the original, if that's what you mean. Which wasn't fun because punchcard alchemy and me get on as well as oil and water, but yeah. I requested it and the admins gave it to me and then. Well.

[He smiles a little wryly.]

You know how it goes, infinite item glitch.

[AKA, he died a lot and harvested his own corpses for shiny useful stuff. This is a thing he does. Often. Please don't think too hard about it.]

Anyway, these ones here, they're made from a lot of different guns so they can be fussy until you get used to them. The barrel is from my old 22, refitted in the process to handle the laser thing. Speaking of the laser thing, you're gonna want to be real careful with this.

[He points to where the magazine would usually attach, in an actual rifle, but in which case is more like a solid block.]

Because they have a habit of exploding if you don't handle them with care and love. Just put them away whenever you're cleaning them and make sure they don't get banged up much. Once the rifle's assembled you don't run that risk, because the structure of it tends to absorb the shock and keep it away from the main chamber, but it's something to keep in mind. Anyway, your main basic parts are the barrel structure, the bolt action, the camber itself and the handle. Pretty simple stuff, all things considered.

Oh. Alchemy. Right. [Equius has built several guns in his life, of course. Most of them were modified so that they could be operated by machines, not by hand, but he was still familiar with... about half of the parts that Eridan outlined. He kept listening as the explanation went longer, and made a point to commit those care and use tips to memory. A lot to learn. He was probably going to ruin a few guns. But... well. His gaze shifts to the pile of laser rifles for a second.]

[It's not like he doesn't have plenty more practice models, right?]

Uh, yeah. I know how regular rifles work, kind of. They were mostly attached so that a different mechanism replaced the trigger, since none of them were actually handheld. ...And, obviously, no lasers. [Lasers are expensive. He wished he could work with lasers.]

Yeah, I didn't have the fancy laser stuff back home. Would have made my life easier, I guess.

[He snorts, taking the bolt action and using those claws to push the rag into every little nook and cranny.]

On the other hand, not having ammo constraints in the middle of a fucking horde wave would have probably made me less good at aiming. You know how it is, when every shot has to matter, you get real fucking good at not missing the mark.

[Arrows aren't that different in that respect. Then of course his eyes gleam a little at that piece of information.]

What have you worked with before?

[A lot of time during the explanation was spent watching Eridan clean the gun. Maybe it would look weird to someone else... but, to be honest, Equius seriously just wanted to know how Eridan cleaned the gun. He was probably doing it wrong this entire time.]

Oh. Just, you know, normal magazine-operated rifles. And other types of guns with bullets as well. But they were built into robots, because I was... [He sighs and looks somewhere that isn't Eridan.] ...not really that good at shooting them, myself. Or, rather, not as good as the machines were if I programmed them properly. It was easier to let the computer do the work.

[Eridan doesn't really notice where Equius attention is, because he's focused on what his own hands are doing and trying to slow down a little. He's used to doing this almost on reflex by now.]

No, I mean. Calibers and stuff. All that stuff changes how you handle each individual gun, and how to care for it and how much you're going to hang your head into a wall when dealing with it. Though programming machines to shoot them is pretty damn impressive. There's a lot of variables to screw up there.

[So hey, he does look up a moment to give Equius a very admiring look.]

Oh! Oh. Uh, generally the parts are kind of mixed and welded together until they work properly, but most of the rifle arms were about .30 caliber. [He shrugs.]

[...]

[And then promptly looks away again.] Well... there was a formula I made, really, it took forever to get the accuracy even at a passable level. Eventually, all I needed to do was weigh and measure a few things, but...

[Did you know Eridan could whistle? Because he just whistled at you.]

Niiice.

[That's a lot of teeth. He tends to grin with lots of teeth with talking about guns. This is totally a normal, sane thing to do, of course.]

I saved .30 for rainy days, and mostly stuck to .22 and 5.56 for every day shooting. You can get some pretty damn nice shots with those, but it takes practice.

[He pats Equius's arm, sympathetically.]

Weighing and measuring a few things is also a thing you do, when shooting with these. The difference is that you need to get used to how the math feels in reality.

[No, he didn't know that Eridan could whistle. Nor did he really want to, but details.]

...I-it was on hand.

[Really. .30 just happened to be the most common caliber of gun around there for whatever reason. He seems intent on repeating this until Eridan understands that he had no choice but to use such a weapon, and more importantly, it wasn't anything special.]

Yes, I know.

The same thing happens with arrows, but... guns are harder somehow.

[Eridan won't care how incidental it was, it was a nice choice. So there. He gives a melodramatic sigh instead.]

Advantages of living in a city, I guess.

[He shrugs.]

They're not really harder, just... different. You'll see. The balance centers are different and that tends to throw the aiming off. It happens even between different types of guns.

[Oh. That sigh didn't really sound too pleased. Uh--]

Sorry.

[He shut up again in time to listen to Eridan thoughtfully. It was a little bit sad how much this had failed to register on his previous attempts to fire a gun, now that he thought about it. Just another reason he needed Eridan to help him out if he ever planned on doing serious damage to... well, anyone.]

Yeah... I can adjust those things fine on a machine, but when it comes to using it myself, well...

Hey, nothing for you to be sorry about.

[Eridan offers a lopsided smile.]

It's all about practice, really. Once you get the hang of it, it gets much easier. Your arrows were probably the same, right?

Wait for the day I use an Iron Man quote.

I will wait. Eagerly.

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...what the fuck, I swear I tagged this yesterday 0_o