[ Closed ]

[gentilitea]

Who: Add & Jakob
Where: The Near Shore
When: May 26
What: Prayer #17; or, what happens when your shinki is basically dishware
Warnings: Add

Somehow this isn’t all that different from when he’d been helping with the relief operations a week or so before. Sure, they’re operating on a much smaller scale, as they’re catering only to the slums at the edge of a park, but Jakob is already at his wit’s end, and it’s mostly because Add had insisted on tagging along, again.

Okay, so as far as masters go at least Jakob can count on him to remain impeccably tidy, but for everything else? He’s expecting some sort of huge calamity to occur any minute now, even as he stirs up a huge batch of curry simmering in a large pot over a stove. They’ve reappropriated one of the picnic tables for their makeshift kitchen, and everything’s going well and good so far and they even get to spend some time in the great outdoors, but that only means that something’s bound to go wrong when he least expects it and it’s all because Add refuses to sit quietly inside his temple and let Jakob do all the work. It’s not as if he minds doing all the work, anyway. That’s what shinki are for.

But Add appears to really enjoy supervising for some reason and the heat from the curry is making him much more hotheaded than usual and he’s just about ready to snap his ladle in two trying to keep his agitation in check—but it’s really no use, because Add is stubborn and Jakob has long since given up trying to argue with him.

Instead, he decides to go on a different track altogether: “I don’t see why you even have to involve yourself with charity in the first place. Feeding the homeless hardly falls under the jurisdiction of a god of time and space.”

Comments

[gentilitea]

He inwardly groans. It doesn’t matter if it’s done because he has to make a few more batches before the day is out anyway, to say nothing of plating and serving the meals for the homeless. And Add’s just going to be hovering in the background, just itching to cause trouble…

Maybe Jakob should consider proposing that he get one of those game console things to occupy himself if he intends on “supervising.” For the time being, in a desperate bid to ward off any boredom-induced disaster, he decides to try a different approach:

“It will be ready soon. Perhaps you’d like to help plate them up?” Just put some rice on a plate and pour the curry over it. Simple, right? Non-disastrous? Hopefully.

[subtract]

He continues to frown at the idea of doing even the tiniest amount of manual labour, but it's not like he's doing anything else at the moment...

"Fine," he says with another sigh, standing up. "It would take too long if you did all of this by yourself. Just because I'm a god of time doesn't mean I can waste my entire day on one task."

Putting rice and curry on a plate is a simple enough job, at least. It'd be hard for a genius like himself to screw that up. He starts pulling out plates in sixes, carefully measuring a perfect portion of rice and curry for each one to ensure an even distribution of food. Everything seems to be going smoothly, if a tad slow since he's so meticulous about it.

Once he's done with the sixth plate, Add pauses.

"Dynamo isn't good with manipulating small objects precisely, but Apocalypse might be able to handle it..." Can he make the cat cube do his only job for him?? A compelling thought. "Hmm, perhaps that part of the program could also be reverse-engineered? That could be quite useful in other situations as well..."

[gentilitea]

Frankly he’s almost hoping that Add would reject him—at least Jakob can throw it in his face later on if he claims he’s trying to “help” one more time…

Still, he’s almost relieved when Add applies himself to the task accordingly, even nodding approvingly to himself at how meticulous Add is being. Sure, he’s a tad slow, but that only means he’s clearly out of practice. Evidently having robots do all your work has its downsides. And lo and behold, nothing has spilled, burned, exploded, or fractured under the weight some altered space-time continuum.

He’ll consider it a success—at least until Apocalypse is brought into the fray. He stares at the cat cube and back to his master a little uncertainly. On the one hand, he actually trusts Apo-chan more than his master, but on the other…

“I feel that…” How should he put this in a way that won’t hurt Apocalypse’s feelings? Never mind that he’s actually trying to be considerate of the damn thing—“Perhaps a small bit of exercise would be more beneficial for you.”

[subtract]

Apocalypse would surely appreciate Jakob's sensitivity if it were capable of having its feelings hurt. Alas, it's still a bit too young to understand such complex emotional responses. The cube continues to hover cheerfully in place, awaiting further instructions.

But that's okay, because Add is moody enough for the both of them. He scoffs at Jakob's comment. "Of course it would be, machines don't require exercise—and that's exactly why I shouldn't be doing something a machine could do more effectively."

It would be faster and he wouldn't have to physically exert himself. It's the perfect plan! ... not that he has the time to prepare it for right now, but still.

"I'll do it this time since it'd be too troublesome to stop and create the necessary codes right now, but if something like this comes up again there's little point in wasting our time and energy on simple labour."

[gentilitea]

…Ugh, Add logic. “As you wish.” He should be glad Add’s willing to put in the time and the effort now, but Jakob eyes his scrawny build rather critically anyway, as he sets to with plating up the curry himself, his movements brisk and practiced, with naught a single drop of curry spilled out of place.

Maybe Add can learn by example, who knows? Jakob takes another glance at Apocalypse and wonders if his master might not benefit from a bit more physical effort, his inventions be damned.