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Okay, so maybe there was a reason Volkner told them to never try and fix electrical issues on their own.
…Okay, maybe drop the ‘maybe’.
It'd started innocently enough; Roark and Gardenia were hanging out at the latter's house on a whim. Unfortunately, for once in his life, Volkner was the only one of them who was busy. Which was honestly kind of strange, given the man's work schedule consisting of one or two battles a month with contractor work every blue moon. Either way, it was an oddity, but neither of them were gonna complain about an opportunity to hang out.
Or at least, they weren't until the ceiling light started to flicker. They'd been hanging out in the living room when Roark noticed it, the constant small flashes irritating his eyes. Last time he checked, he didn't have ‘flashing light in eyes disorder (unless that happened to be one of the few things his primary care physician missed at his yearly check ups). His certainty was reinforced when he brought it up to Gardenia in the form of an innocent question, to which she admitted after a few seconds that she could see it too. Thankfully for the both of them, it didn't take long to track down the culprit, seeing that there were only two lights on in the entirety of the house.
At first, they'd tried to mess with it through the lightbulb directly. Gardenia had taken the liberty— being the taller of the two— to step up on the chair and check it. Yet, despite unscrewing and screwing it back in, the flickering continued when Roark flipped the light switch back on. One could chalk it up to a faulty bulb, but the issue was that she'd just installed it approximately two months ago. There was no feasible way it could've gone bad in that amount of time, so they opted for the less easy option.
That was, having Roark embrace the part of him that constantly haunted his sleep schedule.
The fact that he was a mole.
“Gardenia,” Roark called out, feeling the wooden beams shift beneath his knees. To be honest, he was a little worried one of them would break, seeing how the wood groaned beneath his weight. However, the bigger worry was what lay in front of him, that being what had to be, at minimum, five million wires tangled together in one massive mess of dust and color, “I'm going to be honest here. I don't know if this is gonna help.”
“Just trust me, dude!” Gardenia called out, offering a minute amount of reassurance. She sat at the bottom of the ladder leading to the attic, scrolling on her Maractus themed phone, “this TubeYou tutorial has got nothing but positive comments!”
“...Alright,” Roark inched towards the mass of wires before him, listening to the humming of electricity running throughout them. The only source of light he had was his phone's flashlight; he was deeply regretting letting Gardenia talk him into not wearing his mining helmet everywhere. Especially since he'd inevitably have to set it down and only Arceus knows if he'd be able to find it in this mess, “just tell me what to do!”
“Okay okay—” Gardenia hummed as she fast-forwarded through the video, the unintelligible voice temporarily speeding up. She paused at some point, seeing that for a solid second, all sound halted, “it says to try disconnecting the red wire.”
“What?”
“The red wire!” Gardenia repeated verbatim, this time louder. Unfortunately, that didn't clear up any mystery.
“Which red wire?” Roark replied, squinting at the approximately 50 red wires lingering within the ball of wires, “there's like a hundred!”
“Uh— just pull one?” Gardenia suggested, to which a loud snap was heard. For a moment, all was peaceful… and then the microwave started screeching. And shortly afterwards the flickering began.
“Did that fix it?” Roark hollered from above, voice somewhat muffled by the space between him and the opening of the attic.
“No!” Meanwhile, Gardenia had retreated to the kitchen, staring at the howling microwave that was no longer lighting up. An ear-piercing noise— she'd give anything to make it stop, “plug it back in!”
“Where?!”
“From where you pulled it out!” It honestly seemed like common sense; then again, she couldn't tell if he could hear the deafening screaming or not. She felt like he had to, granted that it was louder than her, but she—
“Oh fuck it!” Came an irritated groan, along with the sudden cease of noise from the microwave. As well as the sudden cease of function in the ceiling light, which had now turned off alongside the fan, “did that one work?!”
“...Kinda?” Gardenia winced at the now dysfunctional microwave and ceiling fan; she was beginning to suspect this might have been a less than solid plan, “uhm—” she scrolled further along the video, which displayed the individual screwing around with two blue wires— “try uh… switch around some blue wires!”
“Switch them around?” Came the bewildered reply, another following shortly afterwards, “not pull them out?”
“Yeah, switch 'em around,” Gardenia nodded, turning on the closed captioning to double-check her assumption. Thankfully, it looked like she'd been correct… at the very least. Or at least she hoped.
“...Alright!” Roark replied, squinting at the pile of wires below. He'd complained about the red wires when, in reality, it turned out blue wires would be his true nemesis. If there were 50 red wires, then there had to be at least 100 blue ones. Regardless, he dove in hoping for the best and pulled two random ones, switching their spots. Judging by the bright blue arc that'd lit up the attic for a split second, they might have been the wrong ones. And judging by the yelp that managed to break through the relatively well soundproofed ceiling, Gardenia might've come to the same conclusion.
“Wrong ones!” Gardenia barked, panic littering her voice, “switch em back— switch em back!”
“Okay okay!” Roark had no idea what was going on, but he hoped for the best as he grabbed the two he hoped were the ones he'd grabbed earlier and switched them back around. Once again, there was yet another arc of electricity; Arceus, he was gonna die up here, wasn't he? “Did that fix it?”
“In a way…” came a defeated groan, “the oven turned off at least.”
Well, at least the house wouldn't be set on fire? That was something to be happy about. He thinks. Hopes.
“I'm gonna text Volkner, but I'm hoping maybe we can figure this out by time he gets here…” Gardenia mumbled, or maybe shouted. He couldn't tell from here. What he did know was that the tone in the following statement was that of surprise, “oh! He says he's already on his way!”
Roark couldn't tell if he was grateful or about ready to call Volkner a bastard for not saying anything until now. Actually? Both was good.
“That's lovely…” he groaned beneath his breath, looking upon the electrical mess he made. There were few things he was proud of and this certainly wasn't one of them. He hollered back, desperation intermingling with his previous irritation with the absurd amount of wiring he was supposed to comprehend, “can I get down now?”
“Well… we can try one more thing before he gets here. Just in case,” cue a defeated groan that he was thankful she didn't hear, “the next step is to… unplug a yellow wire? And switch it for a nearby green one.”
That didn't sound safe. But it wasn't like he was anything close to being an electrician, as this small expenditure has proved. So, reluctantly, Roark obeyed her orders, scouting out a nearby green and yellow wire. With a meek prayer repeating itself in his mind, he pulled the two of them and switched them. Surprisingly? Nothing happened. He warily removed his hands from the wires, shock littering his facial expression.
And of course, right when he thought he'd done something right for once, a loud pop echoed throughout the house, sounding like a gunshot. Gardenia swore loudly as Roark yelped, falling back onto his ass and feeling the wood bend beneath his weight. Thankfully, it didn't break, but that was the last of his concerns; what the hell exploded down there?!
“...And there goes the microwave,” Gardenia commented blankly, voice barely loud enough to reach him through the insulated ceiling. As a groan echoed throughout the house, she spoke up again; Roark could tell she was pinching the bridge of her nose based purely on her tone alone, “just… come down. This was a horrible idea.”
Roark resisted the urge to reply with a “told you so” as he stood back up on his feet. The ground beneath wobbled as he bent down, avoiding hitting the top of his head on the wood above. Gods, this place was a massive fire hazard; if he wasn't a bit worried about the electronics below him, he'd make a comment about it on the way down. Fortunately, right as that thought crossed his mind, the quiet sound of a door opening greeted his ears; seems like a certain someone had arrived that would chatot his exact—
Huh?
The wood groaned particularly loud as he stepped in between two beams. For a moment, Roark wasn't entirely sure what was happening. The next moment was entirely different as he felt the ceiling give out beneath his foot, evoking a sharp yelp from him as suddenly he was in the air. Within a single second, Roark found himself belly down against the carpet of the living room, a headache starting to infiltrate his head. Wood splinters covered his back as he raised his head, noticing his glasses had fallen off in the midst of his fall. Volkner stood at the open doorway, a mildly amused expression raising his eyebrows.
With an awkward wave, Roark greeted the man.
“Hey Volk.”
“Hey Roark.”
Silence fell between them. Probably because while they were sorting out the fairly strange interaction, Gardenia was probably silently panicking over the fact that Roark had fallen through the ceiling. Not because the guy was hurt— well, maybe a little bit of that. But the panic was mainly from the fact that all three of them knew all too well that ceiling repair was not cheap.
Thankfully, Volkner was the one to break the silence this time.
“Nice hole you got there,” he complimented nonchalantly, casting a mindless glance towards the somewhat Roark-shaped hole, “adds character.”
“Thanks,” Roark sarcastically replied, deciding to play along for the sake of the bit. For some reason, his hand was starting to hurt a little bit. Moving it from beneath his chest didn't help either; if anything, the slowly building pain only grew faster, “made it myself.”
However, there was no comment from the blond-haired man. Instead, his face twisted into one of worry and shock. Roark was confused until he pointed at where he'd laid his hand, eyebrows furrowing as he inquired, “hey… have you always been able to do that or should we… y’know…”
Intrigued, Roark looked down at his hand only to see it bent all the way to the side. Further than it was supposed to, in fact. If he looked a little closer, the head of his ulna was poking out.
And, through some looney tunes-esc logic, it was only then that the pain really settled in and he screamed bloody murder.