Work Text:
"The strange cartoon man forbids the use of power tools," Edward said, squinting at the directions.
"Why is his mouth so long?" asked John.
George, who had retrieved the drill from the closet and had felt an illicit excitement at the potential to twist - to install - to verb - some screws, frowned. "What if we use it carefully?"
Edward had taken control of the instruction sheet with doleful fortitude. John had disappeared at the most important moments - the carrying of the box up three flights of stairs to the airless shared flat, the scrambling to find a knife with which to open it, the substitution of a set of keys and George's now-bleeding index finger - and had returned with a tray and three mugs of tea. He stood behind a thin veil of steam, head cocked to one side for a better view of the directions.
"I don't think that's a good idea." Edward lifted a mug with cautious fingers.
The drill dragged at George's arm. It made noise was the thing. And it made one feel tremendously powerful, as if one might, given adequate time and material resources, make a real attempt at knocking together a shed, or at least a medium-sized table.
"I will set it on its lowest torque," George said.
John deposited the tea on the LACK side table, purchased after vigorous hushed debate in a yolky yellow that clashed not only with every other piece of furniture in the room, but also the rug and somehow every mug in their shared possession. It made George think of signs that warned of terrible radiation risks, only without the atoms charging around behind it. He loved it dearly and had already begun to construct his argument in favor of long-term custody in the case of a flatmate rift. "What's torque," said John.
George had the aeriform idea that torque had something to do with how hard the drill would try to do its job before making a clacking sound and giving up. He felt a great sympathy for its lower settings. He explained this to John and illustrated how to change the drill's enthusiasm. It was really an ingenious tool. A wonder that humans had spent countless eons trudging around the earth boring holes with bones or what have you in the interim.
Edward clutched the directions, which wrinkled ominously. "I don't think we should."
"Just one," said George. He did not wheedle, but his voice dipped in a wheedley direction.
John, having received enough enlightenment on the subject of torque to draw him into George's corner, nodded along. "Just one."
Edward glowered but did not protest further. "On the carpet. It says here." A finger indicated the relevant cartoon. "Or it'll crack."
"Look," said George, pointing in turn to a small, sad blob of a figure, glumly clutching a hammer. "They've put you in."
Edward took a dignified sip of his tea. "It is fortunate for everyone, and especially particular members of this group," he said, "that I have no immediate access to a hammer."
"Slats," said John, depositing them from the box onto the carpet. "Wiggly bits. Kind of a wobble."
"The gentle curve of a woman's--"
"Precisely what I was thinking," said John. "Of a woman. They remind me of women."
Edward pointed with his toe. "They bend that way. No, not, the other-- Yes, that way. The one with the part that sticks on the other part is second, but from the top, which is the part without the little divot out of it. John, are you listening? Listen."
A faint whiff of murderousness had begun to collect in the region of John's eyebrows. George leapt to prevent its enactment. "Right, very good, let's joust that all together now. Low torque, hexagonal wrench." Finally, finally, the drill had a concrete purpose. George hefted it with joyful anticipation. To his left, John muttered something disconcertingly like a prayer. Ignoring him, George fit the bit into the screw and pulled the trigger.
"That was probably just the wood settling," Edward said into the silence following a constellation of cracking sounds. "It does that. It, uh. Warps. Due to. Weather."
"Precisely," said George.
"Even so," said Edward, "maybe the wrench that came in the kit?"
At the prospect of using hand tools to assemble furniture, John once again shimmered off to the kitchen, this time ostensibly in search of a little something to go with the tea. George found himself as he had found himself before, as he would find himself again, kneeling on the carpet as Edward frowned and said "Not-- Oh-- Um--" in a vague way disassociated from meaning-making parts of speech.
"Did you know," said George, harassing a cam into place, "that the idea of flatpack furniture originated in the 1950s? Before that, you'd have someone make it, with real wood and tools, and you'd have it for ages. You'd pass it down, keep it in the family. All those hulking oak sideboards and carved wooden bedframes and towering armoires were made by people. But now it's this, and we've started to think of it as temporary. We purchase it because it's cheap, and when we no longer need it, or when John screams at the football match and drenches it in beer--"
"One time," John contributed from his time-consuming quest to the cupboard.
"One gets the sense that everything has become impermanent. That we are all just assembled to be disassembled, that we are spending a few years here before we vanish again. We are pressed-together bits of what might once have been real." He finished the last cam and lifted the crosspiece into place before looking up. Above him, Edward had covered his face with his hands. His body trembled lightly.
"Oh." George dropped the wrench and rose to put his arms around his friend. "Oh, I'm sorry."
"Here," said John, who came for the important parts, who always came for the important parts. He had appeared with a box of tissues and another of digestives. "You're so close. Let's finish, and then we'll admire what we've done."
"All right," said George, ceding his place to John. He whizzed the drill a few times wistfully. Then he hefted the wrench again. "I'll be done before you know it."