August 1914
War.
That was the announcement.
Menial factory jobs weren't the greatest position on the grapevine to be, and Kenny knew it. Fortunately, he didn't give too much of a shit - he wasn't huge on the news, but there were some days where he just couldn't step outside with some annoying little prick wearing a sandwich board with today's front page shouting read all about it in his face, in a pointless test of his patience.
And today, it was war.
So, inevitably, war was the day's conversational topic at the factory.
"Do you know anything about it?" Kenny asked the boy next to him.
Kenny used the word "boy" to describe this person with good reason. He'd also lied about his age to get a job - although that being said, Kenny was technically old enough now. The factory owner had a very strict eighteen-and-over-only policy on his workers, Kenny had learned, and Leopold Stotch didn't hit that milestone until September. On top of that, Kenny had learned that he wasn't actually that great a liar.
Fortunately the foremen seemed to not give enough shits to spend too much time worrying about it, and the factory owner trusted his foremen. Hence Kenny's lie to get his own job seemed somewhat pointless.
What an incredible system.
Leopold had a nervous disposition, Kenny had learned very quickly. He was the kind who fidgeted at the best of times and had what were basically seizures at the worst. How he'd managed to pass himself off as eighteen without giving himself away, Kenny had no idea. A series of nervous blunders early on, mostly just dropping tools and such but on one occasion almost drilling a hole into his own hand, had quickly earned him the nickname Butterfingers. A nickname Kenny used in lieu of Leopold now - he'd known a different Leopold at the orphanage, and that guy had been a complete and utter twat.
He'd further learned that Butterfingers had only gotten a job in the first place because his father had made him. He seemed to have the life that people who'd never been to an orphanage in their life seemed to think orphans had. His father had some minor job in the government, though, so it wasn't exactly like they needed the money. Maybe it was just his dad's idea of good parenting.
"Uh, I don't know much," Butterfingers replied slowly. "Dad doesn't talk so much about his work, but, uh…" He glanced around nervously, like he was expecting the foreman to turn up at any moment to slap him round the head for no good reason.
"Yes?" Kenny pressed.
"Well, uh, it's something like Germany are trying to invade France, but they're going through Belgium, and we've got some kind of agreement with Belgium that says we help them out if they get invaded. That's about the extent of it that I know, anyway."
Kenny smiled down at the boy. Butterfingers was a few inches shorter than him, but aside from that they looked fairly similar. Maybe Butterfingers had a slightly rounder face and was a bit more well nourished, and maybe his blonde mop was a shade or two lighter than Kenny's, but they could really be passed off as brothers.
"Now, how hard was that?" he asked, polishing off his latest item and putting it to one side. "It's more than I knew, anyway." He loaded up the bore again.
Division of labour, Kenny had decided, was at the same time a manipulative and a marvellous system. It gave everybody a single task to repeat over and over again, meaning they could be good at that one thing, earn their wage and buzzing off to sleep for the night, and it gave a huge boost to factory output over other methods. While Kenny had had to cover for a few other stations in the factory, his primary station was the bore. And he'd never gotten around to asking anyone exactly what the components were for.
That was how it worked. They didn't ask questions, they just did their job. They were paid by output, not by the hour, and Kenny's guess of cannon was good enough for him.
"I'll be honest with you, Ken, I'm kinda thinking of signing up," Butterfingers announced.
Kenny's eyes widened for the second it took to look at Butterfingers to make sure he wasn't having him on. "What?"
"Well, my dad said I have to have a job and this place is nice enough, I guess-" Ha bloody ha. "-but it doesn't pay so great and it gets real hot and sticky here and… You know, I just think it'd be nicer to have an open air line of work."
"In which you get shot at?" Kenny filled in, heavily sceptical. Okay, factory work was crowded and all the machinery and people did generate quite a lot of heat, but that hadn't been enough to dislodge Kenny when his bed was at stake, let alone his life.
Butterfingers shrugged. "I know it's a risk, but I'd be up for it. And hey, king and country, right?"
Kenny thought about retorting. This was life and death Butterfingers was talking about, after all, plus he'd never shown a glimmer of patriotism before. And he was Kenny's friend. But then, Kenny hardly had any right to say he could or could not do something. He wasn't going to stand in the way.
But he didn't particularly want to lose his friend either.
What the hell was he supposed to say to something like that? What was he supposed to do? He couldn't tell Butterfingers 'No, you can't go, I forbid it', but he couldn't exactly just send him off to possible death waving a hat at him as he disappeared over the horizon either.
Kenny fell silent, ticking everything over in his head for a good few minutes.
"Leopold?" he said after careful consideration.
Butterfingers, being so used to getting called by his nickname, was a bit surprised, so it was his turn to look up at the other with wide eyes.
"If you want to sign up, I'll come with you."
A broad smile hit his face. "You'd do that?"
In the split second for which Kenny hesitated, he had considered a number of things into his response. He didn't particularly want to sign up himself, he was making do with the factory wages he was earning. Soon enough he'd have enough to rent a place out - he wouldn't exactly get a palace, but a place to stay come his inevitable eviction from the orphanage, at least. Plus signing up meant leaving London - and therefore Karen - behind him for a number of years.
Kenny wasn't sure if he could do that. It wasn't himself he was worried about, of course, he had enough confidence in his own abilities to survive alone. It was Karen. She was old enough to take responsibility, but what Kenny was worried about was that he'd always been there. She'd never had to take responsibility because he'd always been there to catch her.
That was his own fault, really, but then he'd never planned on disappearing without warning. Could he abandon Karen?
But then, could he abandon Butterfingers? He was his friend. And he knew Butterfingers had few of those. He wasn't great at making new friends, since the first impression everyone seemed to get of him was 'Dweeb not worth my time' and moved on. Kenny had persevered because he felt bad for the poor boy and had gone so far as to ask the foreman to put him next to his own station. Several decent conversations and a few after hours drinks later and now they were best buddies. Kenny wasn't abandoning him to have to go through all that shit again, let alone with army types.
And, of course, there was his looming eviction from the orphanage to get around too. He was only still there because of Karen, and she was going to be out soon enough too. The factory pay meant they had a little money stored up, but an army salary was probably juicier. It couldn't be much less, that was for damn sure.
It might even have been enough to keep Karen alone under a roof on a permanent basis.
So he answered with "You're my only real friend, you know," Kenny said, shrugging that off. "If you're going to do something stupid, I'm doing it too."
Butterfingers' face started to redden slightly. "Well, thanks, Ken, you're a great buddy." He finished boring and threw the piece into his basket. "I mean, I've not made a definite decision yet, but it's nice to know you'd be with me. I'd hate doing all that alone."
"Well," Kenny said, keeping a small smile on his face, "you won't have to."
That was the last they talked of it for that day, and Kenny was grateful for that. He didn't really want to think about leaving Karen behind. Until they clocked off, they just kept to talking about insignificant things like their home lives and the weather.
