recolle | [Open] Exposition Free Space!

WHO: Lucy and you!
WHERE: Various points in Tisse, Enprise, and Birch Hills
WHEN: Ambiguously the 19th
WHAT: A regain reaction log! Visiting an arcade to forget the Retrospec experience for awhile! Dumpster diving at a woodworking shop! Bringing this weird clock home for the roommates to see...?
WARNINGS: Lucy (ie language, crankiness, contents may contain casual threats of violence, etc)

A. Tisse, Hubbub Hub Arcade

[The best way to deal with distressing daydreams was by staring at a screen for awhile. A different screen, not her possessed phone, one that usually involved cartoonish violence or pixels of some kind, and one that didn't have that stupid app demanding she play Pac Man every few minutes. That game was banned. With the erratic hours Lucy worked, the time she got off work this time was...also when everyone seemed to be out and about on lunch in Tisse. Great.

But she was too stubborn to just leave and go straight home; the teenager ducked into the nearest arcade instead. Hopefully it wouldn't be as crowded...?]

B. Enprise, outside a woodworking shop somewhere

[Now Lucy was on her way home; she had taken a different route today, passing by several unfamiliar shops. One was a newly-established carpentry business, sign new and proudly declaring itself East Enprise Woodworks.'

Lucy paid no attention to that whatsoever, staring at the dumpsters next to it with great suspicion. There was something sticking out that made the lid sit unevenly propped open; it looked like the frame of something more solid than the broken up bits of siding and old wood.

She needed it, whatever it was. What, exactly, she was going to do with it was beyond her, but—she needed it. The details could wait.

So that was why Lucy was prying a dumpster lid open and leaning halfway into it today.

How's your Tuesday going?]

C. Birch Hills Apartment (closed to roommates)

[Somehow or another, Lucy's managed to cart the thing home. The clock had a ponderous, ancient, and slightly gloomy air about it that didn't seem to fit with the rest of the apartment; stodgy, sullen oak compared with white walls and a brightly lit hallway. It took up quite a bit of space in that corner, and it was stubbornly silent, with its hands stuck at midnight exactly no matter how much she tried fiddling with it, though she also wasn't exactly a mechanic.

Lucy stood in front of it, arms crossed. It was taller than she was even with her shoulders straight for once, though that wasn't particularly hard. Someone could even hide in it, if its insides were stripped out.

Though speaking of which—]

...it's fucking broken, isn't it.

[It hadn't rung since it got home, not even by accident.]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[Lucy snorted, shifting slightly on her feet when Chloe approached. She hesitated only a little when Chloe held the dumpster lid open, making the decision to pull the piece of drywall away and dump it gracelessly on the ground.]

...I don't know.

[With the obstruction out of the way, Lucy could go after the next thing—and the next and next, pulling bits of broken molding and wood panels away nor that she had both hands free.

Eventually, the light filtering into the alleyway glinted off of a glass surface; circular and dinner-plate sized set into something near the back. Odd. It looked like a...clock?]

[She chuckled and her grip firmed up a little bit.] Ah, I see. You are looking for the little treasures that someone has cast aside, hoping to find something of interest and value, aren't you?

It is a bit like a swap meat... only the price is how much effort you are willing to put in, not an actual price, yes?

[She was trying to figure out the motives here, though she had a feeling they were pretty obvious in the end.]

[Lucy shook her head with a frown and a grumble.]

No, that's not it.

[Well. Nothing for it. There was space at least for her to stand without getting splinters in her shins, and the whatever-it-was in the back of the dumpster too far for Lucy to reach otherwise.

So swinging herself into the dumpster she went, knocking a few other bits of siding away.

It was indeed a clock; one of those old-fashioned grandfather clocks and surprisingly intact, at least the part that was visible. Lucy tugged on it; it budged about...two millimeters. She tried again, with the same result.]

It sounds as if you've found something at the very least. Do you need help in there?

[Chloe focused both hands on keeping the particle board and the roof of the dumpster out of the way, though she glanced in at Lucy with a modicum of concern. The girl was jumping in where there could be nails after all. Still, no hisses of pain were a good sign.]

I can help somehow, if you need it. [Though, how, she wasn't entirely sure.]

[Tug. Tug. Ineffectual tug.

And an irritated sigh.]

It's too damn heavy.

[And this was where she looked around and hefted the lid so that it was fully over and out of the way. She was careful to make sure it didn't clatter loudly against the dumpster side. Once that was done, she hopped up nimbly and squatted on the rim of the dumpster, like a little gargoyle.]

So, something is over it then. What do you want me to move?

[Now that Lucy had dug her heels in, she wasn't about to be easily deterred. She glanced up at Chloe, then at the discarded wooden wreckage the clock was still half-buried in.

...she'd need help.]

Can you budge this thing?

[Maybe she just wasn't at a good angle to pull the clock off of its base.

...what she was going to do after that was anyone's guess. It had to weigh more than she did. Lifting more than her own body weight overhead wasn't exactly part of her job's description.]

[Ah, so it was the clock that she wanted. Well, they'd both need to lift it almost certainly, but at the same time they'd need some pieces out of the way. Chloe reached for a couple of the heavier planks and got them up to push them out of the way before resting her knee against the sides and motioning towards the other end of the clock.]

You lift one end, I shall lift the other. We will have this out in time. I wonder if it still works at all.

[Lucy ducked mostly unnecessarily; Chloe wasn't actually aiming for her head, and the planks in question clattered away without issue.

When Chloe questioned whether or not it was broken, Lucy muttered again.]

Don't want to think about that.

[This was either going to end in questionable success or someone spraining something. But from all that time working in a warehouse she at least knew how to lift things without destroying her back. She settled her feet where there weren't any nails, and tried to lift a corner of the clock. By herself, it of course didn't move. But with some help, maybe-]

[Chloe was no olympian, but ever since certain changes had happened, she was a lot stronger than she had been. You needed strength to do the things on bars that she could do. She settled herself in properly, making sure that she lifted the correct way and started to heave it up along with Lucy. They would almost certainly make progress now. The stuff was out of the way after all.

She grinned at her.] Anything broken can always be fixed. It just takes patience and time.

[The teenager had to stop and lean against the metal wall for a moment while she changed her grip a bit; the ponderous piece of furniture was just as heavy as she thought it was.]

Sure about that?

[It was probably just about the clock.

It just sounded like it could apply to her, that's all.]

[Nothing like two seemingly impossible tasks to get one motivated, was there? As the two started to work, Chloe sensed a potential problem once they got the thing up and over the lip. She took a second and worked to push and lift it up to the lip of the trash bin so that it would have something to rest on while they worked it over.]

It may take a lot of parts you don't have, maybe even almost all, but even if you don't have everything now, patience, practice can all be rewarded. Nothing is beyond saving.

[She sounded pretty sure of it too.]

[...Lucy did admit that she didn't expect them to get this far. Between how heavy the clock was and the fact that she didn't quite know the hours of this shop, she'd pessimistically assumed failure before now.]

Hmph.

[...it might still slide to the ground and crack open. Maybe she should've gotten some glue?]

[Once Chloe was on the ground on the other side, she put her back into keeping it stable and grunted, heaving a bit and panting while she spoke through gritted teeth.]

Do me a favor, climb out and help me leverage this down. If we are both here... we can make sure it goes down safely. [Though fuck if she had absolutely no idea how Lucy was planning to transport this. Perhaps she could call someone?]

[Open] Exposition Free Space!

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