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The garage was slowly coming together and the scrap metal was helping quite a bit from whole pieces reused to things they had to cut and weld themselves. Okay so JP was better at filching than soldering, but at least he was overall mechanically inclined. He was so unbelievably analog in a blinding number of ways in that regard. But, what he was still rather good at was facilitating things people need. Often this was things people weren't aware they needed. Like the mid sized torpedo propane heater with a card on the top that read in sloppy letters "Quit your kveching". So much for freezing in the workshop. There was a new radio too with tinfoil already around the rabbit ears. That too was a new edition since the last one disappeared. Whoops.
Elmo, coming upstairs to continue working on…well, everything, relaxes in the heat without quite knowing he's doing it. It makes him suspicious. Anything that makes him comfortable comes under suspicion. Spotting the heater, he cocks an eyebrow. He investigates it, finds the card, laughs and shakes his head. "Never," he tells it, tucking the card into a pocket. The radio also gets laughed at. He doesn't mind JP's methods of obtaining new gearhe's known to pick up a five-finger discount himselfjust he worries. Who can blame him for worrying about a Cajun madman?
JP was upstairs singing between the buzz of a hand saw. Seriously that wiring wasn't done yet. "Jolieeeee, Jooooliiie Louiseeeee…" Not winning an award but ain't hald bad. THe rest is lost to some jaunty French tune as he was… building or removing somehting? Oh right, he was framing out shelves for the pantry and bottoms to two of the drawers. Well then! And… the hand saw was not plugged in. Yeah that would take effort but it had enough mechanical pieces to just push the pivot around. What a fantastic way to lose a finger.
Elmo climbs the metal stairs, following JP's one-man musical. "Hey," he calls to him. "What're you doin to that poor saw?" More like, what is he doing, trying to maim himself with an unpowered power tool. He goes over to see what JP's doing. "Stop that, lemme power it."
JP turned and slipped up the safety goggles atop his hair which looked a bit messy as hell. "Clearly someone didn' read their note." It haaaad instructions. He held the saw up and it whirred around as it would all on its own. "Sev ain' here to turn into no beaver to use so I'm improvisin. What wrong with it?" That… was a challenge. He pointed to the kitched through the path of sawdust as if go take a look at the progress and really? They didn't have doors yet but the shelves were no longer bowed and covered in orange flower contact paper.
Elmo rolls his eyes. "Please, like you don't know what's wrong with it. You're only gonna cut a hand off, why should I care?" Even while he's disobeying the note, he's pulling other things out of other pockets: a couple of D-cells, a spool of solder, wires, pliers, a mini roll of duct tape. Yes, he's a walking hardware store. He piles all this on a counter and starts assembling it into a little battery pack. "Shelves are lookin' good though. Worth a hand, maybe?" he teases.
|ROLL| JP +rolls 1d20 for: 10
JP eyed Elmo for a long time and quelled a lot of responsies by taking a break and going to fetch his coke and have a drink. Poiniting withthe neck of the glass bottle out he replied, "I been handlin myself jes fine for fi'teen years without no hand holdin. Attached or otherwise." Yes, yes he will be defending his craftsmanship. Touche, sir, touche.
"It's a mystery how you survived without me," Elmo mutters, teasing JP and also making fun of himself. He tugs his own goggles over his eyes and solders the batteries to the wires. The whole thing gets wrapped in tape. He brings it over to the saw, bends the wires into place around the saw's power plug, supports it with some more improvising so it doesn't fall off.
JP was… perhaps a tad resentful. he'll get ove r it. "The power supply is superf… pointless give we can jes' make it go round." He sighed and was not going to win this one. Fuck it. Soem fights were not worth engaging in. "You wan' jsut start withteh wall and quit pickin on my poor tools?" No, no he doesn't because Elmo meant it when he said he needed JP to have two hands. Still the oldest Bonaventure was going to give him shit on it. "Hey, how's your pal doin?"
Elmo shrugs, actually a little apologetic. JP's independence is part of what he loves about him, and he knows he's kinda being uncool about the saw thing. But the makeshift battery pack is already done, and he flips the saw's switch. It hisses into life. He turns it back off. "Should last for a few days, as long as you use it for six hours a day or so. Go over that, feel free to keep it spinnin'." It's as close as he'll get to actually apologizing for being a dick about it. He pushes his goggles up. "Which pal?" It's a mark of how far he's come socially that he has to ask which.
JP was chronicly defiant to the point of near feral war of his independance. He didn't seem to want to go to war though, but there wa a snarling bit of a chip there. He left it out of his words as well as he was going to. He turned the topic over and shrugged. "I dunno you said yous had t'go check up on tu ami. I dunno these people. I jes' assume it bin Kai though you know everyone for a guy who dunno no one." He gave Elmo that look of the truth betrays your confidence, sir.
Elmo looks wry. Yeah, yeah. "Mr. Cohen. Guy who owns the toy shop I was in all the time as a kid. He's…okay, for now. He's in trouble, but a wizard is lookin' after him. He's not happy, though. I mean, I wouldn't be either, taken away from my workshop and stuck somewhere they don't even keep kosher. Brought him some of his stuff so he can kinda keep his mind off it, at least." He pulls a face. "It's messed up."
JP wouldn't know anything about laying low in some place you have no roots. None. No siree. He took a deep breath and nodded slowly. "You able to bring him like… stuff he needs to do the kosher thing? I gotgreen chilis. We can try to make em decent latkes." It was his way of maybe helping Elmo help him OR look for an excuse to get his grubby mitts on that recipe. No he's not forgotten. "Sucks man. I mean at least I got mon frere to run to. That's rough though. You alrigh'? I mean people in trouble firs' thing they do is hit the targets aorun' em."
That makes Elmo grin, and he ducks his head. "He wouldn't like 'em with chilis, probably. We could try it." He tips a hand back and forth, over the kosher issue. "I can bring him some stuff. Mostly it's that the whole kitchen isn't kosher. You need to do a whole thing, have seperate plates for meat and dairy. Well, you don't /have/ to do that part, but everybody from the old country does. Lindon's got it in mind, though, he's doing what he can." He folds his arms, glancing away. He's upset, and trying to hide it. "Lindon's in trouble too. And I can't help either of them that much."
JP nodded slowly and took a deep breath idly drinking the rest of his coke. "Feelin' a bit that way bout Vitale ri' now t'be honest." He's not forgotten about the Don of Problems. That was a tall order and a half. "You trus' the people workin on it? Then tha's sometimes all we can do an' that really sucks. Is truth though." There was an apologetic but earnest look. SOme shit was going to be over their heads.
Elmo quietly agrees. "Yeah." He shrugs, elaborately, starting at the shoulders and ending with palms upturned. "I trust Lamont. This other guy, Constantine, I dunno. He smells like twenty pounds of trouble in a five pound bag. He helped Lindon, he's helping Mr. Cohen, but—" he shakes his head. "I just dunno."
JP walked over at the sigh and might have forgiven him slightly for suggesting he's got shoddy tools. His powers worked just…fine… thanks. A rough, dirty hand against Elmo's cheek. "We make everythin our fight we fighting in all direction and make advance in none. We jes' fight forever in a circle. I ain' gonna tell you what'chu gotta do, just pic your battles man where they need pickin. You gon' run yourself down like dis battery." His thumbbrushed over Elmo's cheek in that slight bit of concern for his well being before passing back onto the kitchen to survey the damage left.
Elmo gets smudged, but can't mind, not while JP is touching him like that. He leans into it like a sunflower turning towards the sun. He doesn't keep him, though, and watches as he walks on. "You of all people, tellin' me that," he murmurs fondly. JP's right, of course. "It's hard." He's got so many people he wants to fight for now.
JP said absently from teh kitchen, "Yeha I think I said that before t' you too." Smart ass. But like a feral thing he wandered in and out again leaving his mark in passing. He was surveying the kitchen which… was getting easier to work on it at all hours almost obsessivly. On the upshot he's stolen exactly one dark olive green canvas covered couch that looked like… it definiately belonged in some waiting room once. Suspiscious. As a neat feature it DID have an ashtray built into one end which was handy! yeah someone, somewhere was short a couch without a doubt. Likely, knowing JP it was one fo those places with the unfriendly, misspelled signs. Either way there was at least some imperical evidence that while he hadn't moved indoors exactly he had crashed there between the cabinet rebuild and framing some stuff out. "You know how we get so much shit done? We facilitat, chere. We don' gotta do everythin ourselves. travailler efficacement, pas plus difficile oui? Oui."
That's enough to distract Elmo into blushing. "You keep talkin' like that, none of this work is gonna get done." He goes to get the bag of equipment and light fixtures he's brought. "I /guess/," he mutters, in response to how they get shit done. "What if I /want/ to do everything myself?" Because, well, he does.
JP took a deep breath and said musing quietly, "Thaaaaaaan… we wind up alone doing absolutely…everything ourselves." An eyebrow arched high and he looked over his shoulder witha shrug, "Jes prepare t'get what chu wan', Sparkplug. Besides aroun' here you try t'do shit yourself sooner or later some asshole come by and retromods your tools on you." LOOKING AT YOU SIR…
Elmo swears vividly and shoots JP a Look. Annoyed, amused, kind of turned on. "Fine! You're right, ya shlimeil!" He clatters stuff onto the counter. A whole lot of stuff, actually. He's come prepared to install new wiring for the entire living space. "Tell ya what, you let me build somethin' to power 'em and I won't mess with your tools."
|ROLL| JP +rolls 1d20 for: 10
JP really ran hot or cold didn't he? There was something about something keeping the rabbit running as they say. He looked at his saw and set his jaw not quite knowing where to leave explaining it to Elmo at all and finally he jsut walked away from teh project and found his notebook where he'd been scratching numbers. "I let you build whate're you wanna, Elmo. This is me not stoppin you. An' don't call me that. I don' even know how to ski." Tha- what!?
Elmo groans. "It don't mean skiing. Forget it." He's losing this argument badly, like usual. As much as he picks fights with JP, none of them ever work out for him. "Look, I'm just—I'm scared for Lindon and Mr. Cohen," he says, quieter, while getting the drill bits he wants out of a little case of them. "Mr. Cohen lost his whole family in the war. And Lindon ain't got no sense, and neither do I, because I'm in love with him."
JP looked up with a glance and had to give him that one and offered, "That's a real punch in the nuts. I mean we lwarn anything it both you gotta do whatever you gotta do in that case or accept sometime there ain' nothin we can, but… they ain't no rul sayin only one of those can happen at a time…there' a word for it but anyway like Mozelle? Sometime all we can do is nothin cause there ain' nothin to be done but sometime? Sometime what we gotta do is burn half the damn city down to flush out all tha' rats. Is a tough call. Why you takin it out on my saw? I dunno."
Elmo grumbles, "Maybe because I want to protect you too, you ever think of that? Maybe because I'm fallin' in love with you too and I can't do nothin' to stop that, either, and maybe you're a /putz/." He glares at JP, then looks away suddenly. "I…I didn't mean that. Well, I did, but…never mind, I didn't say nuthin'." He gets very interested in his tools.
JP took a deep breath and sat very quiet for a long while and ground his back molars together and took a deep breatha nd finally whatever was bothering him got buried a bit. JP looked up giving Elmo that level look and said calmly, and undisturbed, "Own your shit. Don't fucking lemme or anyone else mandate wha' you feel about anyhtin. Merde, chere. You feel somethin? Feel it. Own it. That part of you. No' respectin that be sellin out to fear and tha' ain' you. That be them." He watched Elmo with that confidence that would make the Saint of Orleans proud of him a bit. He bowed to conformity and shame never. "So you got a feelin or I'm a putz or both or what?" He had his ideas that was very much an all the above. His head tilted back and shook his head, "Life messy man, especially when you travel off the edge of the map."
Elmo laughs shakily and runs his hands through his hair. "Both. Yeah, pretty sure both." He eyes JP, his expression…complicated. Rueful might be the top emotion in a whole stack of them. It goes well with the smudge on his cheek from JP's hand. "Yeah," he agrees, wry. "Sure is, ain't it?" He's trying to ride life like JP does, but it's tough for him.
JP hinted at a smile and shook his head. "You… look ridiculous all giving a shit what anyon fuckin' thinkin'…and this really big smudge on your forehead." He snickered, chiefly becausee that wasn't where the smudge was, but also because ELmo needed something else to focus on rather than have a short. "But yeah. It is. Alla time. I mean I could be pissin off Tybalt and crackin open a crawdad and not at all sharin with em, but shit' messy and nothin we knew is what it was. Them people that make the rules? THey never made them rules f'us. Who make the rule' now, Elmo?" If he learned anyhting on that trip between the thickly veiled conversation here where JP was and wasn't saying a ton at teh same time and expected the wrold to catch on cause he's a dick.
Elmo huffs just a little breath of laughter, shakes his head again. "You're a prick." He wipes his forehead. "Accordin' to Tybalt, you make the stupid rules," he says, half smiling, but it fades. "Okay. I get the point."
JP actually seemed pleased as punch by the answer and preened a bit. "That I do. An' even Sev agree to em. An' what's the #1 rule? Never apologize fo' bein honest bout who the fuck you is, Elmo. You wanna eat food on 80 tiny non-touchin plates? Do it. You wanna screw another guy? Do it. You wan' let yourself fall in love with an oncomn train of a situation? Eeeh see what happen. Might get a lift; might run you over. You dunno. Been thinkin on that a lot after I got shot at that motel." His eyebrow went up looking to Elmo who was in the scary shit with him and was every bit a part of that moment as he was. "We live once, we young once. Do everything now. Make it count. Jes… make sure the bullshit is worth is cause sometimes… sometimes a situation just mess' up. But… you…be you. And I?" He shrugged and resolved, "I like that you tha' I know. Someday, maybe, you like em as much as I do and maybe you stop hidin em alla time. Now… stop fussin wit' my tools. My ability work jes' as well as yours. If I do lose a hand you have my permission t'slap me wit' it and bring it t'Vitale."
Elmo mulls that over. He stalks over to the saw. Unwinds the battery pack. Carefully tucks the loose wire ends in. And then whips it across the room, where it lands randomly with a clunk. Turning his back to JP like a cat, he picks up his drill and starts working on the drywall.
