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Sunday, and Elmo has filled the apartment with the savory scent of chicken soup. The stockpot is on the stove just to keep it warm, full of vegetables, dill, onion (of course), chicken, and rich broth. And those baseball-sized fluffy white spheres, dumplings Jewish style, made from matzoh meal instead of flour. The architect of this soup is curled up in one of the armchairs. Elmo finally figured out how to not wear a shirt, and his skinny chest is bare. He's reading The Time Machine, or kind of reading it, dozing off between pages.
They had a pot. How much better could life really get? JP came up the stairs- okay half way up.
Thump thump thump…thumpthumpthumpthump!
Ferry rushed the rest of the way up taking the curious Cajun directly to the stove. Do not pass go, do not collect $200.
Noise went into the pot sniffing around. One hand reached for the cupboard above, the other four the spoon.
Elmo jerks a little, woken up. "Hey," he says, yawning. "Yer back." He stretches, pressing himself into the chair, then relaxes to drape himself over the arms, book dangling from one hand. "Made my ma's chicken soup." He tips his head back, craning around the wing of the armchair to see JP.
That hand was threatening to add an inordinate amount of paprika. His head swiveled looking to the voice. Head pulled back and an eyebrow went up. "Ohhhu bonjouuUUUUuure, cherie. What chu doing?"
"Nothin'," Elmo says, grinning lazily at the sight of JP spicing up the soup. "Don't make it too hot, I made it for Vitko. He's sick." He tips himself out of the chair and cruises over, wrapping around JP's waist from behind and leaning his cheek against his back.
JP grinned at the permission and leaned back against the bare cheat of the smaller mechanic. He was staring too do a swimming dance when he stopped, frowned and shifted gears immediately getting that look. "I thought he can't get sick." There was big brother mode. "Who bit our cannoli?!"
Elmo sighs. "He healed someone. Something. And it didn't work right. He took stuff from it hurt him worse'n usual." His tone is rueful. Vitale, out there throwing himself on injured monsters. "He said it reminded him of Sev, so he had to heal it." He lets go to prop his hip against the counter. "Been havin' nightmares since. He's sleeping now."
JP furrowed his brow having a LOT of mixed feelings on that. Finally, finally, he nodded and came back to, "He his own man. He felt that somethin he had t'do? Well… we gotta take care of em. Make it stop. Is his gift. We got'respect how he uses it. We heal him up…" He looked to the door that was framed in for Sev and was in use for Vitale now. "Then we throw things… but we don't yell at em. he .. he had enough of that. Kinda heroic really…" He sighed shaking his head. "So it bad huh?"
Elmo rubs the back of his neck, admitting, "I maybe yelled at him a little. He didn't know it would do that to him, to be fair, but…shit, JP, he scared me. He was waking up screaming and bleedin' everywhere. Hadda sew him up." He glances at Sev-now-Vitale's door, too. "Got a big gash in his leg, said it was from a bear trap. Still not healed. He's sleeping a lot." So Elmo is apparently keeping an eye on Vitale and making him chicken soup. The universal Jewish cure. "Yeah. Yeah, it was kinda heroic, huh?"
JP's eyes just closed. There was a og, slow exhale of breath. He put the spoon down, turned, and pulled Elmo into a hug saying nothing else. Another deeeeep breath. His team was hurting. That was ''very'' amounts of not good. One hand palmed the back of Elmo's noggin now with Bed Head Action™ and muttered something to him quiet, slur of French. Again, "You did good. You keepin him t'gether. Ain' fun. Never easy. Proud of you." He smooched Elmo's temple and walked over to peek in on Patient Zero. "Yeah… he sleepin."
Elmo mmfs, and wraps his arms around JP in turn. "I'm…I'm working on it. I just…one of these days he's gonna tackle something too big and he won't need his pop to kill him." He presses his face into JP's chest, inhaling his scent. Cotton shirt, leather jacket, motor oil, cigarette smoke. "I told him the rule is that we make it home alive." He lets him go to check on Vitale, waiting, thin arms folded loosely across his skinny chest.
JP set his jaw, a lot of thought going on behind those green eyes. He wasn't education but he was alert, very clever, and highly tactical. His eyes searched the dark of the room where their wounded comrade was sleeping. He didn't have to look to Elmo to feel how uncomfortable he was and just lifted an arm for him to tuck into. "Our lil canoli gettin all grown up. Look, we scared, buuuuut like this? This the first of many scary things. Maybe a bullet t'my chest, maybe bear trap t' half of Vitale. Next you're gon' be struck by lightening an' offend one them gods who gon' be all like you stealin my thunder? Hammer smack. We dunno." He hugged Elmo close rubbing his shoulder. "We don't know. What we can do is what we gotta do and when this stuff happens work t'get back on our feet."