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Monday afternoon, and Elmo's got a car on the lift and is cussing at it in a steady rising tide. Plenty of familiar Yiddish like 'mamzer' and 'fershtunken' pours out of him while he tries to unstick something that's very, very stuck. He's smudged and his coveralls are greasy. He's fallen in with JP's pace of work, because really, it's his own preferred pace, so shit is getting /done/ around the garage.
Once Elmoasked him 'How will we ever get anything done?' when deciding to build the garage. JP answered, 'How will we ever stop?' Truer words were never spoken. JP looked down between the transmission and the engine block to Elmo under the car and asked, "Woah taht didn' hit you in your anythin important did it?"
"Only my patience," Elmo mutters. He scrubs his face on his shoulder, gives the lug nut another dose of WD-40, and scoots out from under the car to let it set. He gets off the dolly, stretches, and goes to peer into the engine alongside JP. "This thing's a pain in the ass."
JP blinked and looked very confused, "Yous have patience?" He waited to be slugged for that. If not now than later. Looking at Elmo he considered, "You wan' trade places a bit and you can work on this header?" He wiped the side of his nose withthe back of his arm to get the itch and paused ovvering, "Could take forty and hop upstairs to grab food, rest up, come back to it. And I asked Vitale to move in." Sure just slip that shit right on in there
Elmo snorts and jostles JP. His eyebrows go up at the offer of a break. "Yeah, sounds good. …You did?!" He lights up with excitement and suddenly he's hugging JP, careless of how dirty either of them are. Seems like he's pretty into that idea.
Yay more dirt! Dirt begot dirt. He picked up his partner and spun him around, almost swing dancing though he didn't throw him over his back. There was a modest ear to ear grin (if that's even a thing) that ended in him preening like a peacock. (yeah that wasn't a thing). "Yeah I…I thought about what you siad and ya know lettin Nate crash. I don' like V kickin out on his own. I mean he good but still better with someone watchin his back sooooo we got the space? LIke… it … I come from a big family, parkplug. I want my family back and here? Yous guys is that family."
Elmo, swung around, laughs. He hooks an arm around JP's neck to plant an enthusiastic smooch on him. "I told him he oughta! Because—yeah. Yeah, that, exactly that." They're so on the same page here. "He said he wanted to, and, I guess we all had the same idea." He tries to neaten JP's clothes despite how futile it is, fussy. "We're family," he says. "Mishpocheh."
JP dipped Elmo, paused and made a face wrinkling his nose. "We… taste like dirt and grease right now. Ya know, that's the sort of thing that always sounds much better on paper. "Yeah…uhh… Messopotania to you too." He was very confused and tilted his head wryly, "That mean I in trouble? I f'get which one that is." Oh yeah he was really cruisin for a bruisin but he was trying though!!
JP paused and looked up at teh garage thoughtfully and quietly "We really made somethin of this place… I think… it's gonna be quit' some'in."
"We sure do," Elmo says, still laughing. He thwaps his partner on the chest. "Mishpocheh! It means family. But kind of means the family you ain't related to by blood. That's us." He looks up too, following JP's line of sight. "I think so, too. Because of you, yannow? All of us. But you most of all."
JP wrinkled his nose and chortled jokingly, "That my super ability now?" An eyebrow went up and he really considered that. "Tha ain't too bad." He side nodded and said, "Come get ya hand a rest. I think we got p'tato salad left. I mean Vitale might' eaten it." Turning to head up the stairs he quickened his step and added, "He wan' take over the books an numbers. I said like… a'ight. I mean he smart. Fancy school an' all. AND… tol em I teach him how t'frame in a wall. Build em a room an' whatnot… I think he be good at it."
Elmo gives JP that sly sideways smile. "Ain't too bad at all." He follows JP upstairs, heading to the sink. "We're gonna have to teach him to do everything, he don't know nothing! Okay, he can cook. But that's it. I don't think he ever washed a dish or did a load of laundry. He'll learn."
JP took the stairs, more slowly cause while he always had energy it was hot and they'd been working full bore for two days. It was fun that's why. "Ya know he smart and I don't think he realizes how much that like puts him ahead a the game. Prolly be good for him too. Learnin he ain't dependant on other people money. SOmethin important in makin somehtin for y'sself ya know?" He paused and squint at Elmo as if he was trying to pull a fast one ad assused, "Yeaaaaaah you know."
Elmo washes up, scrubbing himself pink with the rough soap. He winces while he does it—he hates the feeling, but he hates leaving oil smudges on everything more. He hangs up the towel, and lofts his eyebrows at JP. "Yeaaaah, I know," he says, mimicking him fondly. "It's gettin' him away from his pop that I'm really happy about."
JP turned to Elmo and opened the fridge, pausing only to hang a sign scrawled terribly: 4 God sak do no use. That got hung on the oven. Oh boy, the signs agian. TUrning he sniffled and looked almost upset wobbling his head, "They grow up so fast man. Already leavin the home… granted no' our home. but leavin." he fanned himself. Oh what a grimy Southern belle he'd make too. Then? As fast as it went on it went off and he asked, "We got a couple them Flafel. Is cold but is good?"
Elmo gets a little flustered over JP's southern belle act, but scoffs at him anyway. "Yer ridiculous." He roams around the kitchen, fussing with this and that, straightening things so they line up with each other. "Falafel's real good cold, actually. Get that out." Finished with obsessively lining spice bottles up, he turns to JP. "V told me his pop's gonna try to bring him back, when he leaves."
JP grinned ear o ear pleased, humbly (for him) withthe result. "Heh yeaaah tey always do. However, we have somethin they don'." He paused walking halfway back to teh card table that passed for a dining room table, "Well a few things I guess no'the leas' which ain' no mortgage." So they did or didn't have that, JP? The box got set down and JP unceremoniously dropped into a seat and tapped Elmo's toe with his giving him first pick out of the box. "So long as he stop bein the fun police on me cause that shit drive my ass nuts. I think tho? He ain' ever really met fun. We should help em."
Elmo really laughs at that one. "And I thought I yelled at you!" He plucks up a medallion of falafel. "We'll help 'im. We'll dangle him off the roof until he realizes it's a hell of a good time. Mostly he thinks fun is buying stuff. He's been real scared most of his life, it ain't his fault. He's just gonna have to learn." He says it with a certain measure of cheerful sadism. Usually he's the one who gets tormented until he acknowledges that it's fun.
JP wrinkled his nose with a shrug stuffing his face. "Ya do. But ya know you don' lick my face an'" He shrugged considering, "Eh, I ain' sleepin with him. But YOU do it cause I am doin it wrong or you made bout somethin else and I'm there. His outta fear, cherie. Taht ain' no way to live.
Elmo mmfs, licking a fingertip with a thoughtful expression. "It ain't. You won't let me live like that no more, either." He elbows JP. "That's another one a your mutant powers."
JP looked up and gave Elmo that look, "Sparkplug, you too alive to live in fear. YOu wan' be careful or you wanna be a legend someday cause no one singin bout the man who never takin no risks, hmm?" The eyebrow went up, "Sides, we got shit t'do. after we eat this falafel, drink tha' soda, and fix tha car cause they said it couldn' be done. Who gonna show em? Thaaaaat's right. This garage."