The Scumbag's Guide To Heroism

Chapter 154: 154 | The Agony of Shiplap [PS BONUS]

Sloane opened her mouth. Closed it. Opened it again. Settled for pulling the elastic from her ponytail and shaking her pink hair loose around her shoulders, which was her universal reset gesture when reality exceeded her processing capacity.

I made my fourth and final trip. Last of the supplies. The hard hat sat firm on my head. Carl continued his lecture from my phone. Two amber constructs carried the remaining items while a third held the phone at eye level so I could watch the tutorial while walking, because eighty Intelligence meant my brain could simultaneously process instructional video content, maintain three independent telekinetic constructs, navigate a familiar floor plan, and appreciate the way Sloane’s compression top hugged her chest when she breathed hard from her run.

Multitasking.

I descended into the gym and surveyed the workspace. All materials present. Sawhorses set up. Plastic sheeting ready for deployment. Work light waiting. Tools organized. Carl paused on the phone screen, frozen mid-sentence about feathering techniques.

I cracked my neck. Rolled my shoulders. Pulled the respirator up over my nose and mouth. Settled the safety glasses down from my forehead to my eyes. Adjusted the hard hat.

"Let’s lock in and get to work."

I laid the plastic sheeting across the gym floor first, securing the edges with painter’s tape to keep it from shifting. Then I set up the sawhorses and positioned the drywall sheet on top of them for cutting. The T-square came out of the bag. The utility knife came out of its packaging. Gerald’s voice echoed in my memory about doing the job right the first time.

Carl’s video resumed. I propped the phone against the base of the work light and watched while measuring the crater in the wall. Four-foot by two-foot section would need to come out to create clean edges for the patch. I marked the lines with a pencil and the T-square, then picked up the drywall saw.

Three minutes later, I had cut away the damaged section and exposed the studs behind it.

The studs were fine. Gerald had been right. Surface damage only. The impact had pulverized the drywall but the wooden framing beneath absorbed the force without cracking or splitting. I ran my hand along each stud and felt solid wood under my fingers. Good.

I measured the opening. Cut the backer board to size. Applied construction adhesive. Screwed the backer board to the studs with drywall screws at eight-inch intervals. The drill bit sank into wood with the satisfying resistance of something being done properly.

Then I measured and cut the drywall patch.

Carl talked me through it. Score the paper. Snap the board. Clean the edge with the utility knife. Test fit. Adjust. Test fit again.

Seven minutes in. The patch sat flush against the backer board. Seams tight. Edges clean. I applied mesh tape over the joints and mixed the first batch of joint compound in a bucket, stirring it to the consistency that Carl described as peanut butter that’s been sitting out for a bit but not too long.

I loaded the six-inch taping knife with compound and began spreading it over the mesh tape in smooth, overlapping strokes. The compound went on white and wet. The knife glided across the surface with the kind of control that eighty Dexterity provided, each pass feathering the edges thinner and thinner until the transition from patch to existing wall disappeared under a uniform layer of mud.

I was actually doing this. I was actually fixing a wall. With my own hands. While wearing a hard hat in my adopted mother slash lover’s home gym that I’d destroyed at one in the morning with a magical three-section staff.

This was my life.

I stepped back and evaluated the first coat. Clean. Even. No bubbles, no ridges, no thin spots where the tape showed through. The compound would need to dry for four to six hours before I could sand it and apply the second coat, which meant the wall repair was effectively paused until this afternoon.

I turned my attention to the ceiling.

This was the harder job. The chain mount had ripped out of the secondary plate, leaving a ragged hole surrounded by crumbling drywall and a pair of stripped toggle bolt holes that confirmed Gerald’s earlier diagnosis. The original installation had been lazy. Toggle bolts into drywall. For a two-hundred-pound heavy bag that people hit with Aspect-enhanced strikes. That was like using scotch tape to hold up a chandelier.

I positioned the work light directly below the ceiling hole and angled it upward. The LED beam illuminated the damage in harsh detail. I could see the joist through the gap, solid wood running the length of the ceiling, completely intact. The solution was straightforward: patch the drywall around the mounting location, then install the new mount directly into the joist with lag bolts rated for five hundred pounds of dynamic load.

I climbed onto the sawhorses to reach the ceiling. Cut away the damaged section. Measured. Cut backer board. Adhesive. Screws. Patch. Tape. Compound. The overhead angle made everything harder, with compound dripping in slow globs that my constructs caught before they hit the plastic sheeting. Working above my head meant my arms burned even at eighty Strength, which told me that the burn was more about sustained positioning than actual load bearing.

Twenty-three minutes into the ceiling work, I paused.

Carl had moved on to sanding techniques for his next video, but the autoplay algorithm had cycled to something else entirely. A home renovation show. Two hosts with matching aprons and aggressive enthusiasm were demolishing a kitchen with sledgehammers while a camera operator captured every swing from three angles. The hosts laughed about open floor plans and shiplap. Music played over a montage of tile installation. Someone said the word farmhouse with the reverence usually reserved for religious ceremonies.

I stood on the sawhorses with compound on my gloves and my respirator fogging my safety glasses, watching two strangers destroy a perfectly functional kitchen for entertainment content.

The ceiling hole gaped above me. The wall patch cured behind me. My hard hat sat on my head like a crown of practicality. Drywall dust floated in the work light beam. My constructs hovered at shoulder height, one of them holding a spare taping knife and the other two idle and glowing faintly amber in the dim gym.

I looked at the renovation show.

I looked at the ceiling.

I looked at the renovation show again.

"What am I doing?"

The question came out louder than I intended, bouncing off the gym walls and the plastic sheeting and the sawhorses and every surface in the room that wasn’t currently covered in joint compound.

What was I doing?

My dead parents were rich.