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Jebediah arrives at the club, covered in sweat, breathing like he's just run a marathon which could lend someone to believe that he sprinted all the way over here. He catches himself on the door of the garage, taking in the fact that all the lights appear to… no longer exist. "ELMO! ELMO!" He screams and well, the last time that Jeb showed up screaming for Elmo, he took a fist to the nose but this time, Jeb's voice sounds absolutely terrified. It jumps up an octave with each syllable of Elmo's name.
There's a few lights, but mostly the garage is dark and empty. The CLOSED sign is prominent on the side door. Elmo opens the door almost immediately, having bolted to it when he heard Jeb. "Jebkha!" He—then kind of flinches, as if Jeb's already punching him, but rallies, and grabs him in a hug.
Jeb hugs Elmo way too hard, like he's trying to convince himself that Elmo is real, Elmo is here. "D-Doug.. Doug.. he said… he said…" Jeb tries to stammer out between deep breaths, hell, Elmo can probably feel Jeb's heart pounding against his chest, in fear, with the effort of running over here. "You're okay. You're okay." His voice breaks a little, like Jeb's about to cry.
Elmo scowls, lips curling back from his teeth. "Doug said, huh. I'm okay. Shhh, shh, hey, I'm okay." He hugs Jeb tight, swaying him back and forth. The considerable strength of Jeb's hug doesn't seem to trouble him. "Yeah. He rolled up on me. I sent him packin'. Come in. Glass is all cleaned up."
Jeb is /clinging/ to Elmo desperately. "He said that he was tryin- That he tried.. that you.. you.." And then Jeb does start to cry while Elmo tries to lead him inside. "D-D.. You.. Elmo.." He continues to stammer, unable to make a single sentence.
"C'mon, c'mon." Elmo urges Jeb inside, pulling him if he has to. Inside, the garage is cleaner than it's been in some time, after the combined efforts of Halgrim, Vitale, and Elmo. "Take a breath, Jebkha. I'm fine." He almost asks what Doug said to Jeb, but…doesn't. "Here, siddown." He guides Jeb to a chair.
"Only because you have that It-Italian guy…who heals." Jeb whimpers, sitting down where Elmo guides him to, his hand reaching out for Elmo's. "He said he came here and hurt you," He tries to tell Elmo through deep breaths, brown eyes hemmoraghing tears. "He said that he tried to /kill/ you, Elmo."
Elmo lets Jeb take his hand, briefly, his eyes going unfocused with the memory. "Yeah," he says, quiet. "Yeah, he did." He lets go to go to the cooler that always dwells in the garage and pull out a couple of Coke bottles. Coming back with them opened, he sits too and hands one to Jeb. "Didn't work."
"It's so fucking stupid, Elmo, for fuck's sake. If he had an issue with Jay bein' with you too then he should have said something. None of this is your fault. It's not. It's not your fuckin' fault." Jeb says, taking the coke but he doesn't drink it, he's too busy half shouting how Elmo isn't at fault. "You ain't done a goddamned thing wrong, Elmo Rosencrantz, you haven't. You haven't!"
Elmo tips his own bottle up, letting Jeb holler. He's subdued, his usual crackling energy just kind of gone. "He told you that too, huh." His voice is flat.
"Yeah, I think that he wanted me to agree with him. Trying to tell me that Jay is just selfish but I told him if he would have spoken the hell up he wouldn't be feeling this way." Jeb says, breathing hard. "Trying to tell me that everything Jay has ever done is selfish."
"Yeah. Sayin' Jay's selfish because he tried to kill himself." Elmo's not looking at Jeb, his big hands hanging between his knees, Coke bottle dangling from one hand. He's just staring into the middle distance. "Complete nonsense. Jay's the least selfish guy I ever knew. So he wanted someone who could give him stuff Doug couldn't. God for-fuckin-bid he do something for himself ever."
"And if Doug had a problem with it, as soon as he realized he had a problem with it, he could have and he should have said something. That would have fixed it all." Jeb insists. "What if he comes back? Should I stay here with you? If I shot you full of plasma you would be a force to be reckoned with. You would be safe. Nothing could touch you."
Elmo shakes his head, but sighs. "Nah, Jeb, I got the team. I'm okay, for reals. He underestimated me, but he still don't know everything I can do. I can't tell you, not now, in case he reads it off ya. Believe me, I'll clean his clock for him if he comes after me again. He knows it, I'm pretty sure. Knows I'm not gonna wait on him to make the first move." He broods over it, then adds, softer, "Sorry. I won't hurt him if I don't have to."
Jeb just kind of stares at Elmo a long moment and a couple emotions cross his features, one of them is a trickle of fear. He pulls in a deep breath and pulls his feet up onto the chair, pulling himself into a ball. If the circles beneath his eyes could get any darker they would. Jeb just looks… broken. "What.. What is going on?" The words are almost a whisper.
Elmo slowly raises his eyes to Jeb. "I dunno." He sets the bottle down, stands up to pace restlessly, his equivalent of Jeb curling into a ball. "I dunno how it happened or how we can fix it. We're working on it." Then, returning, he crouches in front of Jeb to look at him very seriously. "Don't listen to him. He lies. He takes a grain of truth and covers it over in bullshit."
Jeb won't look down at Elmo for a moment, his eyes unfocused elsewhere. He slowly drags his eyes down to Elmo though, after he's done speaking. "Elmo, Ah'm scared. Ah'm scared for you, Ah'm scared of Doug. Ah'm scared of the decisions we're all gonna have to make." He whispers, still looking visibly shaken.
Elmo reaches out to clamp a hand on Jeb's forearm, bracing him. "He's scary. He's scary as hell." He drops his eyes again when Jeb says he's afraid of the decisions to make. "Yeah. Me too. I mean it though, Jebkha." Raising his eyes to Jeb's again. "Don't listen to him. He's sick in the head. Our Doug never woulda said that awful shit about Jay."
Jeb looks at Elmo's hand on his forearm and very slowly moves to cover his hand with his own, patting it gently. "He said some stuff about me too. Personal stuff, tried to tap on me gettin' abandoned, knowing that Ah got a problem with that, tryin' to say that Jay tried to kill himself because he don't care about me but Ah know that ain't true." Jeb says softly.
That snarl curls Elmo's lip again, and he stares through Jeb. Thinking violent thoughts. "He never woulda said that to you, either." He refocuses on Jeb. "See? He lies. Our Doug, the real Doug, don't think that, or if he thinks it he knows it ain't true."
"He was talking about stuff that.. Ah probably would never talk about with anyone. He does lie. He wants to upset me, Ah know but Ah'm getting more and more scared that he ain't gonna come back." Jeb admits, a little tremble setting into his spine at the snarl on Elmo's lips. "You know.. you are terrifyin' and a little… hot when you smile like that. Ah think Ah should probably tell you never do it again."
That surprises Elmo into a scoff, and he eyes Jeb with dry amusement. "Yeah, well, no promises. Drink your Coke." He rises from his crouch, stuffs his hands in his pockets, looking around his shop. There are cables and wires hanging everywhere, the workbenches full of odd little fuses. "He made me lose my grip, busted every single part of our electrical system. Did it on purpose, too, the bastard. Now JP's gone so he don't have to look at our baby all ferkackt. And…I'm glad." He says that with the kind of firmness that means he's trying to convince himself. "He needs time away while I try to fix my mess."
Jebediah laughs and picks up the coke finally, he laughs hard though. "You sound just like my brother. 'Shut up and drink your coke, Jebediah.' Might as well add Guthrie to your last name." He says around another laugh. "Ah'm sorry he wrecked your shop. Is there anyway Ah can help fix it up? Ah'm good with my hands and learn fast."
Elmo grins back at Jeb, lopsided and wry. "Yer brother's taught me a lot." The grin fades, and he turns around suddenly, using looking over the shop as an excuse. "Uhm. Uh, yeah, actually, you know how to install a fuse? If you don't I'll show ya. Real simple. I've got about, I dunno, a quarter of the amount I need. I gotta reconfigure my workshop to manufacture 'em. Just ain't had time."
"You could show me and then Ah would know how to do it." Jeb offers as he sets the bottle of coke back down. "That's what friends do for one another, right." He hooks his finger under his bracelet and pulls it forward to gesture at it.
The matching bracelet is around Elmo's skinny wrist. "S'right," he says, lifting his arm to look at it. "C'mon. I'll show ya. If you got time, maybe you want to come over to my workshop and help me build fabrication for the fuses?"
"Ah ain't currently got nothin' to do with myself, sure! Ah love learnin' new things." Jeb says with a smile, finally getting up.