TITLE: Doesn't Work Without The Water
E-MAIL: eli @ popullus.net
RATING: PG
POSTED: Feb. 3, 2006
SUMMARY: Does not liking water make you a cat?
NOTES: Early S1. For Thea, who requested Earl, Randy and Joy.
DISCLAIMER: Read

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"Hey, Earl?"

"Yeah?"

"You ever wonder if you can hold your breath longer standing up?"

The heat of the day didn't usually get to Randy until after three o'clock -- and the clock had only read noon when they'd closed the door on Catalina's loud foreign singing and come down for some quiet contemplation -- so Earl wasn't too concerned when he raised his head from the deck chair, tipped his sunglasses down, and cocked an eyebrow at his brother.

"Well, Randy," he observed, "you're standing up. Why don't you see?"

Randy looked over his shoulder, a disappointed, disgruntled frown on his face. "You know I don't like that water."

Failing to see where the Randy Logic train was headed this time, Earl raised both eyebrows. "What water?"

"That water." His hand shooting out away from his side only for a second, Randy pointed one finger down at the pool. "The net brought up a snake the last time we put it in. It hissed."

"That was new and not as fun," Earl agreed with a nod. After a moment's thought, he suggested, "You could always try it without the water. Just hold your nose and close your mouth -- nature'll take it from there."

Randy's frown deepened, turning unsure. "It doesn't work as well without water." He shook his head and turned back toward Earl. "My mouth keeps opening," he explained.

"And that's a pity, 'cause Lord knows, nothing interesting ever comes out."

Randy's mouth tightened, and Earl rolled his eyes on a grimace. "I know you've heard that one about the pot, Joy," he said without turning around.

Her heels clicked louder as she marched from the parking lot blacktop onto the poolside concrete, and then there she was, smirking down at him. "The one I've been stuck with that's too tiny to cram over your big, swollen head?"

Earl sighed and dropped his legs to both sides of the seat so he could sit up, elbows braced on his knees so he had a better chance of taking whatever it was she had decided to deal out. "What d'you want, Joy?"

"A hundred thousand dollars," Joy said, and snapped her gum hard at Earl's automatic not-even-when-I'm-dead smile. "And a kiddie pool. A good one. One that won't crack and drown Mrs. Miller's cat when Dodge and Earl Jr. jump in both at the same time."

"Mrs. Miller got a cat?" Randy asked excitedly.

Joy's eyes widened, her mouth twisting up with a new crack to stick Randy into, and she turned on him with a hand going to her hip...and Earl looked up at Randy and cut her right off.

"We're not getting a cat," he said.

There wasn't a pout on Randy's face, but there would be. "I didn't say we should."

"We're not," Earl repeated, because repeating things didn't always make them true, but it sure made them harder to deny hearing.

Randy shrugged and started walking away back toward the stairs, like it was no big deal, scuffing one foot against the fence. "Finding a cat isn't the same thing as getting one..." he muttered as he went.

Earl decided to just let the three o'clock sun bake that idea gone.

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