…. Wyll and Mune learning how to take care of his new horns together with the aid and knowledge of one Karlach to make sure they don’ t accidentally repeat any of her old mistakes . How to trim them how to file them down how to deal with fractures and cracks how to keep the skin around the horn from drying out how to properly guide the growing of it so it doesn’ t end up with a growth path that will dig into the head . She know Mune is really pushing her for more information like if there’ s any possible ointments or poultices he could try to find or make to help Wyll or if she could help him understand a filing technique because he has a crush . She tries not to giggle when Mune asks . She always does
Jacob and Joker work well into the ships night cycle, they qualify to be listed on the skeleton teams crew list at this point. It’s not like they purposely do it, they know there is someone scheduled to run the ship gently while they sleep, but fifteen minutes until night cycle becomes two hours into night cycle in a blink. By that point, they’re awake. They were tired before, they were watching the clock for a reason, but that tiredness is not the same.
There is a type of tires that lets you sleep. All other forms are, merely, a form of torment. Who knows why they exist, but they do. And both Jacob and Joker find themselves waiting for the “ time to sleep ! “ tried. So they keep busy.
Really, that’s not the only reason. It’s the most basic explanation as to why they are tracked as having the least amount of rest, but there’s more.
Jacob finds himself with a jammed zipper more days then he doesn’t. The jumpsuit he wears becomes a second layer of skin most nights. He frustrates himself for a minute, then leaves it be for a couple hours. It should have unstuck by then, right? Once he removes the excess armour plating, it’s fine to wear casually for a couple hours. Besides, he deals in weapons. He appointed himself as some sort of gunnery lieutenant, no one willing to take that from him, so he studies. With the understanding of a looming and very possible death in his- and the crew’s- future, he works to see what improvements he can develop. Anything can be improved, he just has to find out how.
Even with the new leather, Joker still finds himself in the same amount of discomfort as was present on the original SR1. No one’s fault, not him or a designer or the people who make his medication, it’s a fact he’d learn to accept. He had issue enough sleeping normally, the crew quarters doesn’ t need to hear him huff, roll over, sit up, sigh, adjust his bed set up, repeat, for hours until exhaustion finds him. Most nights come with flaring, Joker not trusting himself to have the strength to get to the crew quarters anyways. No crutch, cane, or walker could get him moving, worried he still couldn’t keep himself upright. That’s fine, there’s always something to correct.
They both know the other is awake, Jacob will pace while he thinks, triggering doors to unlock and open. If Joker has the right angle and the right timing, he’ll see the blurred figure of Jacob moving from one door then across to the other. He thinks better on the go, Jacob said once. Helps him get ideas working. Joker talks to himself, regularly, about anything. Usually, it’s to do with the ship. Sometimes, he seems to just ramble. His words and thoughts aren’t in a specific path or order, but Jacob has never found issue with the muffled buzzing of words. He talks louder when he knows it’s the night cycle. Sometimes, Jacob listens.
Even with the knowledge of each other, the mellow atmosphere between them, neither will go to the other directly. Isolation was an art that both partook in, not on purpose. Jacob held onto things for longer than he should, and the ache his father left is one that he has in a clenched fist. His knuckles white. He couldn’t imagine that ache within someone else, him being the cause. So, he is friendly, yet distant. For the good of others. He doesn’t want to leave someone behind.
Joker is used to being left behind. Fight school was the biggest affirmation that people do not like to be around him. He made one friend, but now he can’t talk to them at all. The Illusive Man making sure his AI blocks all attempts at outside communication. Joker tried a few times, got talked down to each time, so now he sits. He can handle being alone, he’s done it before. It’s not like he needs company, he’s not desperate for companionship. Sure, he wishes conversations with Shepard last longer, but that doesn’t mean anything.
EDI is the third party. The eyes on both. The listening ear for both. And somewhere in her programming is the orders to improve crew morale. She does, of course. She will communicate to Shepard and aid them when needed. She offers suggestions to crew when they talk out loud, she gives them information when they come to her. She does a fine job at it. But she can do a touch more.
She knows this counts as an experiment, but she’ll run it.
How long will it take until she can make Joker and Jacob go to each other for company?
Simple beginnings, that’ s all it takes.
Jacob puts off using the elevator for as long as possible. There’s just something about it, maybe it’s to do with the Normandy’s gravity system coupled with the up and down of the elevator? Maybe Jacob is making some sort of self inflicted placebo effect to make him hate the elevator. Either way, he’ll have an idea, be ready to attempt to implement it on a spare gun, then realize a specific tool he needs was moved back to engineering. He’s not upset by this, they need to keep the ship organized. But he’s going to put off taking the elevator down to engineering for as long as possible.
EDI waits for this scenario to present itself. Once she reads the tell-tale signs of ‘ Jacob doesn’t have the right tool ‘, she introjects.
“ If you would ask Mr. Moreau, he had a set in the helm. He should be willing to lend them out. “
That was the first step. Jacob agreed, waited a minute, then made his way to the helm. They didn’t say much to each other, but it was a push in the right direction.
EDI watched as Jacob would start going to the helm more often, braving the elevator with less frequency. It was far more efficient for Jacob to borrow from the extra set kept in the helm. Each time he did, they talked a little more. Joker never gave out formal greetings, but they did get more friendly. Jacob would talk about himself, bit by bit.
Slowly, Jacob would hang around for longer before disappearing back to his project of the night. Linger in the doorway, finishing a conversation. The first night he leaned against the doorframe, prepared to stand and talk for longer than a beat, EDI felt like her experiment was really moving along.
As important as their work was, and EDI wasn’t about to discredit either of them now, they couldn’t turn themselves into pack mules. Constantly trying to be productive and find more things to improve and develop and work on would leave them as husks. Really, this was a favour for both of them. A distraction.
EDI took it as a sign their commodore had grown substantially when Jacob started visiting the helm during the day. Hanging around as the Pilot worked, continuing previous discussions, bringing up things that happened on that day’s particular mission.
If EDI was a lazy scientist, she would say that the experiment was a success. But it wasn’t. Not quite yet.
Jacob was willing to go to Joker, but would Joker do the same?
It wasn’t surprising Jacob met that requirement first. He wasn’t constantly keeping the Normandy in the sky. Joker could really only go see Jacob during the night cycle, when the ship would switch off from manual control. And he had to hope his flair ups weren’t too unbearable to make the match to Jacob and the armoury.
EDI wasn’t going to push, Joker would catch on to her or accuse her of some other plot entirely. But, she could continue feeding Jacob suggestions. He didn’t question her every word, unlike the Pilot, so she could tell him things that would push him towards the helm. Towards Joker. She started feeding him little bits of information she had picked up. Little tasks Jacob could do to build more rapport with the Pilot.
She didn’t see her actions as influencing the results. Even if it was, she didn’t care.
And, if her calculations made sense- they did- she’d see the wanted result.
She did.
After a week of feeding Jacob, and a few months of the entire experiment, she saw what she wanted to see.
About fifteen minutes away from the shift into night cycle, Jacob was taking a solitary few minutes away from the work bench. Watching the core pulse, letting his eyes relax after focusing on screens and the small text of weapon specs. Joker was a few steps away from the armoury. Not close enough to trigger the door sensor, but close enough for EDI to fold her metaphorical arms and pat herself on the back. Experiment successful.
Joker, armed with an omnicane in one hand and the bag of tools Jacob keeps stealing from in the other, was questioning if this was a good idea. Jacob had been nice to him- extremely so- and it made Joker a bit nervous. A part of him though this was all a build up to him being a punchline, a wall that had been first built in childhood.
But, when he took a chance in Flight School, when he installed a little door in that wall and let someone else in, he didn’t regret that. So would be really regret being nice to Jacob? If it all goes to shit, Joker had prepared to just ditch the tools and cut it short. Just say that he’s moving the set permanently to the armoury. Easy excuse.
He was also hoping that Jacob would be somewhere else when the door unlocked and flew open, but alas, he wasn’t spending his time fighting off a Salarian doctor or his experiments at that hour.
So, Joker opens the door. His hands shake and he feels like covering his eyes, but he does. And when he opens the door he’ s greeted with,
“ Thank you. ”
And,
“ Hey, stay awhile? “
And Joker responds by propping himself up on the edge of a table, and nodding, and the door closes with Jacob inside, and this is nice. It’s very nice.
EDI is smug. She just is. She succeeded in boosting morale. She helped make a friendship. Can’t tell them that, though. Especially not Joker. But, even if she cannot brag, she knows she did this. Partly, she did this. She could do it again. She probably will.
Going to be annoying maybe . But I do not enjoy when someone is explaining something they wish they could see in a game and they get met with “ oh that is too hard to code / that would take too long to make / that is a nightmare / that could never be made to fuction “ like . Hey stick with me here . They are not forcing the people who programmed the game to redo it with their ideas number one so you do not need to come out the gate like “ THAT IS TOOOO DIFFICULT “ . Number two is it actually . Is some ideas being toss around impossible to code and make . Or are you so used to games being made under unethical crunch that crushed creativity and care that the idea of more complex systems in games seem like a joke or an impossible wish . Number three Who Cares . If you see reimagining and new ideas and instantly try to shut them down bc it couldn’ t work or it doesn’ t make sense or whatever maybe you need to look inward . This one person / group of people are not going to actually change the copy of the media you have . The most they can do is mod , and even then that is something you have the choice to not download .
Tl ; dr stop shutting people down when they talk about their own visions for games by saying things like “ that is too hard to do “ let people be imaginative .
