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On today's episode of: The Bonaventure Boys Bought a Boat…
JP and Elmo got one of the shallow fishing boats loaded with a trap in teh back and JP assured that Sev and prolly Pascal would be joining them in a bit. For now the fifteen year old, Tybalt, with the amber right eye, was stuck to the curiosity of whatever JP and pals were up to commenting only, "Thiiiiiis is bound t'go poorly."
JP swiveled a look to Tybalt putting the cooler in the boat, "Then why you comin' with?"
Tybalt shrugged for the same reasons any 15 year old boy would, "I wanna see it for m'self." It really was a good reason truth be told. Catastrophe was more exciting with a front seat.
The fishing poles were not fancy by any stretch of the imagination, but they'd do. "They done this before."
JP left his boots in the house slipping his jeans up to the knee. "They right here. Don' gotta talk about em like they ain' here, Tybalt. They mostly don' bite." Still though for now it was an exercise of getting Vitale and Elmo into the boat so the brothers could push it out into the muck and hop in. At least it was warm and the sun was out… somewhere above teh thick canopy of vegetation.
Severin, however, was not there. He had gone off to take care of some dubious "things" and hadn't been back, but there wasn't much worry. These were his stomping grounds. He'd turn up.
Elmo is nervous, having no experience with this, but he's determined not to let it show. There might be a slightly elevated chance of static shocks from touching anything metal. "Thought your sister was the one sees into the past," he remarks to Tybalt.
"I have never fished in my life, Tybs." Vitale answers the younger boy at the question with a smile aimed at the younger man. "You gonna teach me right? Because Sev isn't here to help me out? I'll bet you're an expert right?" He asks, engaging the younger boy as he gets into the boat and offers a hand to Elmo to help steady him when he joins him inside. "C'mon Small Fry, it's alright."
Tybalt shrugged, "Terese? yeah, so do. I cant do that. I just see stuff ain' happen yet. Thing is I never know how far out. She have the same problem though, 'cept sometimes? Sometimes when we in the same place at the same time we just know. Except that one time I got hit in the head with a rock? That one I din' see comin." The kid grinned a bit, "That how I know someone gon' be fallin outta the boat."
JP snickered and looked to his brother and grinned, "Less yappin, more rowin. yeah Growin up around here was pretty good, won' lie. Some day I 'll retire an' build a place on the other side of teh water there."
Tybalt snorted, "No you won't, Jean-Pierre."
JP sighed and squint, "You wanna be the one gettin pushed outta the boat, gator bait? Didn' think so." The bayou, though covered in teh humming of a billion tiny bugs doing their thing and frogs AND birds and things that swish under the water, was really pretty. Further in Tybalt started pointing out where the turtles were as they navigated the deeper waterways that were mostly calm though they caught the current. A guy could lose weeks to this. "Cannot believe that you guys never went fishin. What'chu do for fun?"
Elmo narrows his eyes at Vitale. He swipes at V's hand—*zap!* V gets a love shock for his sass while Elmo nimbly jumps past him into the boat. "I'm gonna up the amps every time you call me that."
Vitale pulls his hand back from the shock with a little grunt, though his smile just grows wider. "Alright, alright, won't call you small fry anymore. You didn't say pipsqueak was off limits though. So that one is okay right? Or short stack?" Vitale is going to end with hair that stands on end for a year if he keeps this up.
"For fun? Flirt with m-" He looks at Tybalt as if he's going to somehow ruin the boy's life for saying anything gay in front of him. "Flirt with people in bars. Drink."
Tybalt grinned having a dimple in one cheek that matched that eye of his, "Maaaan yanks have some strange past times. I mean as a kid Vitale or was you born all growed up?" Clearly now Tybalt was having some fun with him on that.
JP said seriously, "Some of em I think is born like tiny adults. True story." He slouched in the boat as it idly drifted. The turtles dipping below the water with their little bloop! splashes. "Jes watch you' fingers round here. Let's not make Vitale put us back t'gether more than twice t'day." How much trouble was fishing going to cause. He looked from Elmo to V and said, "I'm accountin for castin mishaps." Courteous that.
Elmo looks ruefully at the wicked fishing hooks. He shrugs good-humoredly at Tybalt. "We didn't have no swamp to run around in. Closest we got was cracking a fire hydrant in August. I'm real boring, I read a lot when I was a kid. Read and built stuff." Vitale gets a less good-humored kick in the ankle.
"I was born all growed up, Tybs." Vitale returns, jumping when Elmo aims a kick to his ankle and smiling a surrendering smile. No more short jokes for now. "Sometimes my daddy took us out for target practice. And sometimes I wrestled with my older brothers, like I bet mean ol' JP here still does to you."
He looks to JP when he says he's accounting for casting mishaps and smiles. "You were all prepared for taking two city boys out on a lake, brought your first aid kit and everything."
Tybalt just shook his head, "Pascal mostly. Louis and Millard? Aaaaaaalla time. No fun fighin Sev and JP. They win." The kid looked to Elmo curious, "What ya read?"
JP had to snicker at that and admitted to his lil brother, "If it make you feel any better? Sev kick my ass too." Reading was something he didn't get into but was enjoying letting the city boys bond with the kid. "That fire hydrant thing sounds kinda fun. Bet I could prolly get one to crack open… never thought of that. THe boat found it's way to what wasn't so much an island as a bit of packed mud that poked up out of the water with a tree growing through it. Still it was big enough to stop and there was enough room in teh rushing part of the lazy river to do some decent fishing with.
"I bet you could too," Elmo says to JP. "Like that fountain in Jackson Square." The memory makes him grin as he gets out—and slips on the mud, and grabs a tree branch for balance, remarking, "Gah." Glancing up at Tybalt, he replies, "Asimov, Bradbury, Heinlein, you know, those guys? Pohl, Vonnegut?"
There's a little bit of a stirring in the water off to one side of the boat, just the slight ripple as though something were moving beneath the surface.
"Sev can kick /my/ ass, Tybs. And I heal. He doesn't fight fair, he can turn into a bear or a snake, that's definitely cheating. You can't do that." Vitale teases, good naturedly picking on his boyfriend where he isn't around to hear. He looks to the side of the boat when he hears a ripple beneath the surface. "Tybs. You saw one of us going in, didn't ya? Is there really alligators in this lake?"
Tybalt looked entirely curious shaking his head, "Naw I ain't read them. What're they about?" The kid was curious and looked back to Vitale and just bust out laaaaaaughing, "Oh… Ohyou… you didn' tell em?" Man Tybalt was too too delighted by this turn of events, "Awwww Jean',
Tu ne lui as pas parl%<233> des gators?" He shook his head and said, "This ain' no lake, Vitaleee. This tha bayou. THis' gator country. Where you think they come from? Is all gators and turtles and otters and things from here t' the gulf."
JP held the boat still looking at the water curiously in case they ran over a turtle. He pointed to Tybalt not disagreeing with em. "Yeah don' pet no turtles either. They got real long necks that can grow and reach alla way back like a pecker that bites and can take a finger off."
Elmo is startled into laughing by the image of a pecker that bites. "Yeah, okay, no pettin' turtles. Where's these gators I heard so much about? I'm startin' to think maybe you're putting us on, Jean-Pi." He's not serious, well, not entirely serious anyway. It's not like JP never tells tall tales for the hell of it. He raises his eyebrows at Tybs; poor kid never read Asimov? "They're about robots and outer space and aliens. You know, the good stuff." Not BORING books about Shakespeare.
There's another slight swish of the water off the side of the boat, this time the slight ridges of a tail just barely seen.
|ROLL| JP +rolls 1d20 for: 15
|ROLL| Elmo +rolls 1d20 for: 12
|ROLL| Vitale +rolls 1d20 for: 19
|ROLL| JP +rolls 1d20 for: 15
"Well, shit, JP, an alligator can take your whole damn arm off! Do you know how hard it is to regrow an entire arm! Mine just falls off. You think your little brother wants to see that!" Vitale cusses, poor little city boy being exposed to the elements here but he doesn't sound like he's panicking at least, just chastising JP and his eventual loss of a limb, as if it's inevitable. "If you lose an arm, you just gonna have to look like that from now on." He tries to settle down but then a /tail/ emerges from the water and Vitale pulls in a deep breath and sits himself more firmly down in the boat. He's going to kiss the first sign of concrete and neon when he gets back.
Tybalt was looking to Elmo impressed with a woooooah. "Hey Jean-Pierre you should build a robot. It don' even have to have any guts or nothin right? Make it chase people. We should do that!" Oh he was gettin ideas. At VItale talkin about dropping an arm? He was referring to a 15 year old boy from the bayou. "Woooooh neat! Can you re- AH!" His words were cut off when JP cuffed him in the back of the head to stop causing Tybalt to smooth his hair back down.
JP sighed not making Vitale go into that after the talk they had this morning. He looked to Elmo and pause and squint not at the shady parts but down a ways on the sunny bank down down the river. He pointed out with index and pinky finger, bare feet in the packed mud. "Seem them logs? Them ain' logs, Elmo." Theeere's your gators.
Elmo follows the line JP is pointing, squinting at the sunny bank. "Uhhh…they're not?" Because they sure LOOK like logs. Which is, of course, exactly how the gators like it.
One of those logs downstream went to ajust itself a bit. Lazy dangerous logs.
Then there's a slight bump against the side of the boat, just beneath, though one can't see in the murky water what might be down there.
Vitale smiles slightly when JP's brother goes to ask him about regrowing arms and JP slaps him. "He can ask, JP, I'm not going to shake apart in the boat. Ask me whatever you like, Tybs. What do you want to know?" Vitale asks and then there's a bump against the side of the boat and Vitale is trying really hard not to lose his mind. It's fine. Everything is fine. Alligators don't want to eat people, right?
Elmo mutters something worried-sounding in Yiddish. "Fine, they can stay over there. Are you gonna show me how to fish or what?" He looks over at Vitale, alarmed. "What's wrong, Vitko?" Maybe it's Tybalt's questions? Maybe who knows? But V is acting funny and it concerns him.
|ROLL| JP +rolls 1d20 for: 19
JP grinned at Elmo's demands, "You so impatient, sparkplug. Yeah yeah we." He went to get the fishing poles from teh boat and froze. His head tuuuurned a bit and held out a hand for Elmo not to go charging over there. He saw the swishy tail. "Uhhhh Vitale, you comfortable in there? Don'… get outta the boat jes yet." His jaw set thoughtfully.
A quiet voice at his shoulder whispered, "Wooooah, maybe… maybe he ate already?"
JP didn't take his eyes off the murky water and said in a voice that was quiet and resolute, "Tybalt, why you' ass not up in that tree? Get a stick."
All of a sudden there's a lunge and a large alligator comes up out of the water right next to the boat next to JP, jaws opening real wide and then snapping shut with a low roar of a hiss that is not even a little bit friendly sounding. It thrashes a bit menacingly and whacks the side of the boat with its tail.
|ROLL| Vitale +rolls 1d20 for: 12
There's an alligator lunging into their boat. Jaws opening wide, whacking their boat with it's thick log of a tail, sending it askew, sending water into the boat and coming at JP like it means to swallow him whole. Vitale did not sign on for this. They were supposed to be just learning how to fish! And the other day they were supposed to just be taking in the sights and a whole wad of thugs showed up. They came out to have a good time and every time they were attacked. There weren't alligators in the city.
Vitale doesn't stay hunkered down like JP instructs, but instead moves to pull JP back and away from the frightening animal because Vitale heals faster when the wound is his first.
Oy gevalt! That National Geographic is coming true! Elmo startles, slips on the mud, lands with a terrified yelp and lashes out at the gator like he'd done to Vitale earlier. This time, it's not a little love-tap. It's an arc of lightning that leaps from his hand towards the monster, with a earsplitting CRACK and searing ozone. Everything is thrown into harsh light, shadows dancing crazily.
|ROLL| JP +rolls 1d20 for: 3
Tybalt and JP scrambled back, the former finding a stick to try to jab at it. JP and Vitale scrambling back. "Mon dieu!" Tybalt was halfway up the tree when there was lightening going everywhere. The fun part about the bayou was that everything was wet: the gator, the water, the… ground JP had his bare feet in. When that lightening zapped the gator it hit ground and spread out giving the gearhead a hell of a jolt and knocking him back "AAAAAH!" Reasonably should they live he wasn't likely to bemoan whatever they had to do to save their asses.
"AH FUCK," comes a distinctly human voice as the gator rolls over and shifts instantly back into Severin, naked and covered in mud and swamp weed, and now slightly singed, okay more than slightly singed, and then he falls back, laughing, "Merde, you should have seen the look on your faces! Ow.. fuck…" he says between laughing, shoulders shaking.
Vitale says, "Severin Bonaventure!" Vitale chastises when Severin shifts back into a crispy human as he gets right out of the boat, the water soaking his pants as he goes after his ridiculous partner. He looks to JP like he might have been in on it. "Bonaventures." He huffs, pride maybe hurt a little at the fact that he'd nearly had a heart attack at thinking JP was about to get eaten by an alligator. He should have known Severin was up to something when he hadn't come along with them. Pride might be hurt, but after he gets over the shock of the situation, a laugh does escape him and he chooses to heal Severin by pouncing on him and dunking him in the bayou. He'll take the burns of course, but he gets his revenge on the giggling Bonaventure."
"SEVERIN!" Elmo hollers, furious. He's muddied, shaking, and crackling with electricity crawling over him, just waiting for somebody to get a positive ion balanc. "Ya SCHMUCK! I hope you have a hundred houses! With a hundred rooms each! And a hundred beds in each room and I hope you get CHOLERA and roll in every single bed!"
JP flopped back on the ground, toasty, zorched, and winded. He coulghed and laid there wide eyed while Tybalt was laaaaaaaughing his skinny ass off. JP was not laughing. JP was waiting for feeling to return and coughed. "Sev… I thought you' be a seagull…" Okay not in on it as he thought. "Mon dieu…" A hand lifted from the packed mud and pointed to Elmo muttering rather sloppy, "Don' give mah baby brother the clap, damn you." That prolly could have been phrased better like 'pick a different curse' or 'ow, my ballz sting like hell, stop that'.
"What fun would being a…" and then Vitale is on him and dunking him into the murky nasty water. That might be more of a curse than anything Elmo might bestow upon him. Glug, glug, he disappears under with flailing arms and all as Vitale gives him a solid soaking for his little prank, and apparently no, JP was not in on the details.
Vitale drags the cajun jerk back up out of the water after a moment. "You're a jerk." He says, grabbing a handful of water to splash it at the already sputtering cajun, now just wet and dirty, no longer half made of bacon. He turns to the boat, reaching in to make contact with JP's bare ankle to start leaching the shock off of him and into Vitale. "Damn, Sparkplug," He says, sucking in a breath as he pulls the injury off of JP and turns to flick more water at Severin.
Elmo hasn't even stopped, but has switched to Yiddish, because the really good curses just don't feel right in English. Trailing off now, he pants from the adrenaline. Then, reluctantly, laughs a little, out of breath. "What?" he demands of V. "I should hold back when fighting a giant alligator? Serves ya RIGHT," he points at Sev.
JP just lay on the ground takin a deep breath muttering somehting indecipherable, nope that was French, "Thank God I already had kids…"
Whatever he said had Tybalt laughing so hard there were tears, "I TOLD you someone gonna fall outta the boat. Aaaaaah c'mon guys les get t' fishin. Jus don' give Sev his pants back. That'll show em." Aaaaah today was a good day. "Sev, I missed ' you, frere." And he ment it too. Crowded house was no place for a mountain lion, but they did miss him.
JP usually had feelings about this stuff but he was still gettin feeling back. "Naaaah, SParkplug, you gotta point… he earn this one… I didn't, but that the way it sometimes go." Finally nerves soothed he sat up and was grinnin at his brother from under the angry hail of Yiddish, "Sev, I ain' been that convinced wince that time in high school when I wrestle that gator tryin' to impress a gal and it turn' out to not be you. Aaaaw man I thought I was gonna die."
"Yeah but that time you mighta died for real," Severin says to JP with a laugh. Clearly they both survived that episode, so hey. He continues to cough a bit, swamp water still coming up from his lungs. He wraps an arm around Vitale and pulls him in a little closer, and then plants a swampy kiss on his lips. Gross. "Fishing it is!" Then he says to Tybalt, "Pants? Where we're going, we don't need pants."
Vitale allows himself to be drawn in when he's finished giving JP feeling back in his balls. He scrunches up his nose at the swampy kiss, biting his lip for the trouble, wrapping arms around Severin's waist. "A fish is gonna wiggle it's way somewhere the sun doesn't shine and you're gonna deserve it." Vitale teases as they part, giving him another little squeeze. The morning's conversation flies away as he has fun here with the Bonaventures.