After spending thirty years of my life hiding my association with the Enclave [open]

[taediosum]

Who: Arcade (taediosum) & OPEN
What: Arts & crafts (or some long overdue vehicle maintenance)
When: Some activity during the morning stop & early evening 
Where: His truck
Warnings: TBD but nothing likely

Note: I have an opt-in here for Arcade's vital sense ability, please leave a comment if it's something you're interested in coming up here or in future threads! Otherwise, no worries, it just won't work on/around them.



[ Ordinarily, Arcade only looks for salvage of practical things, at the intermittent garage stop. He doesn't know much about vehicle maintenance beyond the basics, and even that's mostly still only in theory. (Luckily, he somehow hasn't had to field a flat tire or an overheating engine, yet.) But he knows plenty about surviving in a post-apocalyptic waste with little to live on, from place to place. He also knows too much about personally handling triage, in those same circumstances. 

So it's really no wonder it's taken him this long to start picking up things that aren't necessarily needed but still... Well, probably should have been considered, at least, a little sooner. (But he's had a whole host of other things to worry about, these past few months, unsurprisingly.)

He's already started a small collection of patchwork canvas, wherever he can find it. It's going to take a while to actually completely enclose the back of the truck, again, so that it can serve as somewhat more suitable shelter - so he'll be around crudely stitching together the various pieces of cover that he's managed to collect, thus far, both in the early morning hours and at night. He's not quite as good at sewing as he is at suturing, and it's kind of obvious.

Or maybe he's trying to flag someone down to lend a hand with actually fitting his makeshift tarp over the top of the truck's trailer— ] Hey, do you have a minute? I could use some help, here.

[ One particular evening, he can also be found with a small collection of old paint cans, painstakingly hunted down in the latest set of ruins. He's set up alongside the truck's cab, eyeing the faded spray paint stenciled logo on the door in front of him - before unceremoniously dashing a swath of old beige paint over it.

Maybe it's because he hasn't made a plan until now to actually get rid of it (despite all the trouble it's already caused), but covering it up feels better than expected. ]

Comments

[androidvictoriam]

[ Danse continues to surprise himself with how little he actually minds this concept, though he supposes he'd think differently if he saw something he deemed particularly dangerous being taught. Still, he's not hearing anything that makes him second-guess his attempt to do a respectable job at painting their emblem onto a truck. (It's getting there.)

The amusement in Arcade's voice does raise a slight pinkness to his face, but--well, it's not as if he's ever so much as touched any kind of research, and it feels presumptuous to think he could just declare himself capable of it. He hadn't joined the Brotherhood for its databases, and Proctor Quinlan was certainly never impressed by any of Danse's questions about the technical documentation he brought back from recon sweeps. Learning for him has always been self-directed, recreational, and private.

He isn't surprised to hear about the defectors. He can imagine precisely the kind of person who would leave the Brotherhood for the Followers, despite the organizations' goals seeming to be so diametrically opposed. ]

I assume they were scribes, not paladins.

[ It isn't a "no," just a deflection. He does really miss having the clearance to read whatever he wants to, whenever he wants to. It's the idea of being expected to do anything with it in practice that makes him feel out of his depth. ]

I don't know. It certainly isn't that I don't value your way of helping people. It's just never been my forte.

[ He focuses for a moment on keeping the brush steady as he paints the vertical body of the cross. ]

But there was something one of the scribes at the Citadel always used to say, when the knights weren't taking her seriously. Something about how...when you separate warriors from scholars, your thinking will be done by cowards and your fighting will be done by fools. I don't have a clue who she was quoting, but it stuck with me anyway.

[taediosum]

'Just a scribe' isn't how I'd refer to her. Especially not if I wanted to keep my spine intact.

[ Talking more to himself than Danse, Arcade tries not to dwell too long on the crude irony of painting a symbol bearing a snake on the side of his truck, as he starts to plot out rough shapes.

He only hmms noncommittally at the deflection, recognizing it for what it is and seeing no reason to argue the point. It may be wrong, but it isn't as if he knows Danse half well enough to convince him that he's being wildly overcritical of himself. He's clearly intelligent, whether he wants to admit it or not.

...A fact that it's actually unavoidable not to point out, after all, with that addendum. ]

You have a mind that sharp for philosophy, and you still think you'd be out of place among scholars?

[ He sounds ever so slightly more incredulous than he is, a pointed emphasis, but the running undertone of something impressed is genuine. ]

[androidvictoriam]

...Well, I didn't originate it.

[ Even if it's another deflection, the pleased, surprised blush this raises to his face is almost audible in his voice, and the warmth definitely is. He takes a moment to process that undercurrent in Arcade's voice, because even with the deliberate exaggeration, it doesn't strike him as something the man would just bullshit. He wouldn't have a reason to, and Danse trusts his word in general far more now than he did before. And if there's anyone here whose judgment he would value about another person's intellect, it's Arcade. ]

Do the Followers pay you a bonus to recruit for them, or do you just do it on your own? Because you're not half bad at it.

[ He's joking, sort of, but not really, because the fact that Arcade has made the prospect sound like anything other than a total non-starter if they ever get home is pretty damn impressive in its own right. ]

[taediosum]

Hardly. My boss doesn't even like me dealing with patients.

[ For good reason. He doesn't like it much either. Helping people? Sure. But too often it devolves into arguing with them to stop doing things that land them right back in the infirmary, time and time again.

And he's not a quiet arguer. ]

Not all Followers are people persons. If I managed to recruit you over the course of a single conversation, that wouldn't just be a feat, on my part, but a first.

[androidvictoriam]

Let's not get ahead of ourselves.

[ There's some wry amusement there, because even were this all less hypothetical, he's not sure he really does want to leave the Commonwealth anymore if he gets home.

Still, the idea that Arcade's never successfully recruited anyone surprises him a little, as does the reasoning. Brotherhood culture tends to have rather different standards for sociability (especially where bedside manner is concerned, for anyone who's been treated by a medically-repurposed Mr. Gutsy desperate to tell them all how much he's come to hate since he began to live. )

It hasn't really occurred to him to think of Arcade as less of a people person than anyone else, or particularly unsuited to talk to anyone. But here, in turn, Danse just doesn't know him well enough to argue otherwise, especially for as little chance as they've gotten yet to talk outside of a relationship that was antagonistic for a reason. ]

You don't sound like you disagree, but I don't know. You don't seem like a bad choice for it to me.

[ He carefully paints each quarter-wedge of the circle in the center of the cross with mathematical, angle-calculating precision. ]

You believe in the mission and you give a good pitch about what makes you care. They could do worse. It's not about whether you get invited to parties or not. [ Danse would know. ]