cheesed to meet you

[Jilly]

"Ah. I'll do that, then."

Leslie couldn't say he was surprised about Eric, not one bit. Leslie never talked to him much but with fellas like that... you just knew.

Leslie looked at Gus looking at him looking at Gus looking at the cheese wheel. Leslie wasn't one to give bailouts like he worked in Congress, but...

"One sec," Leslie said as he pulled his bag in front of him and smushed it between himself and the cannon. He pushed his sunglasses up and on top of his head as he dug through his bag.

He pulled out one of the boxes of oyster crackers and handed it to Gus. "Here, you can have some of mine until we can cut-... I mean, until we can figure out how to split the cheese wheel."

[Laurels]

"Yeah, if we survive, I plan to milk this goddamn show for all it's worth," Shoshanna said in response to Jasper talking about going on Ashley's show. "I know people hate the winners monetizing themselves after this, but I feel that considering I didn't agree to be on this, I may as well get enough money so I can retire at 18."

Shoshanna continued to search the area near the cannonballs. There looked to be a small stick and some cloths. Probably stuff to go with the cannon.

Jasper asked about gun powder. Shoshanna shook her head.

"Sorry, I think we're outta luck there," she replied. "Just empty barrels and cannonballs."

Shoshanna put her hands and tried to lift one of the cannonballs. Sadly, for an out-of-shape nerd, it didn't look like she'd be able to get it off the floor.

"Wanna head back to the others?"

[AnimeNerd]

The grin on Jasper's face grew bigger, and just a bit more mischievous as he let out a slight laugh.

"Heh, yeah, fair enough." It wasn't his own plan-Hell, at this point, the most of a plan he had once they escaped was his promise to give Shoshanna his escapee money and not much else-but he wasn't about to blame her for wanting as much money from this as possible.

He tossed the cannonball from one hand to the other as he turned his head to look around the inside of the ship, hook leaning into the crook of his right elbow as he saw little that could be used in the ship. At most, the stick and cloths could've been used as improvised weapons, but they'd have to get really creative.

And he succeeded in changing the topic. Good, good. He gave a small shrug as his smile shrunk a bit.

"Ah well. Guess we're gonna have to wait for another season where someone fires a cannon."

He doubted it would actually ever happen in another season; this was probably the most likely one for it to happen in. But if there wasn't any gunpowder, it wasn't happening. And Jasper wasn't wasting time with things he knew weren't possible.

He held back a few giggles as Shoshanna tried to pick up the cannonball. He knew it wasn't nice to laugh at her trying to lift a cannonball, but it was a little funny. He at least knew enough that voicing that hilarity would've been a bad move.

He gave a small nod to her question.

"May as well. Gonna keep the cannonball, though. Might be able to use it as a weapon, if we need to."

He wondered if he should grab one for Gus, since he's still down all his supplies. Eh, if he needs one, he can ask Jasper to get another. Simple as that.

[Sh4dE]

"Thank you very much, I really appreciate it."

Gus took the box and drove his hand in to grab some crackers and shoved it into his mouth. He quickly chewed them into his mouth so a fast sequences of crunch sounds could be heard. He swallowed them. Then, he repeated it a couple of times more. As his hunger had been slowly satisfied he looked at the cheese again and honestly, it didn't look as attractive anymore.

"I owe you. When I get my bag returned, I'll give the cracker box back to you."

Gus looked at the direction of where Shoshanna and Jasper went.

"You think they're okay? Has been a long time, hasn't it?"

The ship wasn't that big, right? Maybe they were dead already? That'd be shocking, but quiet realistic and just thinking about them being dead already made Gus be scared in his mind already.

[Jilly]

Leslie kneeled down on the deck and sealed his bag back up, though he looked up at Gus ravaging the crackers asunder as periodic breaks in thumbing through the contents once again in case he still was missing something about the bullets they just handed-

Oh. The back side of the glove.

Oh.

...He'd look at that later but anyway Gus getting his bag back sounded as farfetched as Jasper and that girl getting a jailbreak going. If Leslie was a betting man, he'd probably go all in on that first one if those were the only two options.

Though, he didn't know if it was better to win or to lose that bet.

Leslie closed his bag and shaked it by the straps before putting it back on. "Dunno. I'm sure they'll be back soon. If anything, the real danger is Jasper pissing that girl off... Though, honest question..."

Leslie looked right at Gus's cracker munching eyes.

"...You think they can do it? Getting outta here, I mean."

[Laurels]

Shoshanna watched as Jasper easily picked up one of the cannonballs. Boy was she now regretting not taking fitness seriously back home. All those times she could have been using one of Marya's small weights while she was on the computer or watching TV could have helped her out about now. But it didn't matter right now. She had numbers, and she still had her mind working for her, so she wasn't totally hopeless.

Shoshanna bent down and picked up the wadding and ramrod.

"Yeah, I'll grab these anyways," she told Jasper. "They're not as useful as gunpowder or a cannonball, but we can use the cloths for padding, and I wouldn't mind having this stick to make up for my one-time-only flare gun."

Shoshanna stuffed the wadding into her bag and put the ramrod into her pocket, letting it stick out.

"But yeah, let's join the dudes."

Shoshanna walked past the rest of the hammocks and to the door. The clipper ship didn't give them much in the way of escape assistance, but they at least had some stuff of minimal value and a place to hunker down if needed.

Shoshanna pushed the door open and stepped out to the deck. Gus and Leslie were still there.

"Bad news guys," she said. "No gunpowder. So we won't see the blood and the shit spray when the cannon goes boom."

[AnimeNerd]

Padding? Jasper wasn’t fully sure how padding was going to help them get the collars off, but hey. He never exactly thought he was the brains of this operation. The cunning, maybe. The brawn, obviously. Brains, though? Yeah, no.

Plus, extra weapons never hurt in SOTF. A ramrod was better than nothing if Shoshanna had to fight, and with how her gun worked? Best to leave that until they really needed it.

Jasper didn’t say anything as they walked to the door, but smiled at the boys once the door was open. His grin showed some teeth at Shoshanna’s comment.

“Good news, though,” he said, holding up the cannonball for all to see. “We do got some cannonballs, if you think you can use them for something. I know I will.”

He was tempted to make a ‘balls’ joke, but...maybe later.

[Sh4dE]

"Honestly, I don't really believe they can do it, but the tiny girl, you know, she seems smart and knows what's she talking about and she seems like she got a plan."

Gus continued to crunch the crackers when suddenly the door opened and he swallowed the crackers the wrong pipe and started coughing hard. For some reason he didn't expect Shoshanna to come out but crazy killer dude or something like that, but his anxiety ceased as he realised both Shoshanna and Jasper were safe. He slowly stopped coughing.

Gus wasn't sure what he wanted to do with a cannonball, but sure, why not.

"Nice! Roll it over!"

Gus placed the box of crackers on the ground, wiped his fingers on his pants, opened his palms prepared to catch the cannonball as if it was a bowling ball and kneeled down.

[Jilly]

Leslie crossed his arms as he watched Gus reply with his mouth half-full of crackers. "I see," Leslie said, to himself and his own ears moreso than anyone in particular.

"...Something else, too. The girl-"

The door below deck swung open with, speak of the devil, the girl, and Leslie really hoped that last little back and forth really was as quiet as it sounded just between him and Gus. His eyes went wide as she and Jasper approached, and his eyes went even wider when Gus started choking but buddy handled that himself right quick.

Leslie's eyes were drawn immediately to the cannonball in Jasper's hands. Then they noticed the girl had what looked like a ramrod for the cannon on her. Leslie lit up like a puppy dog.

And then that frown turned right-side round followed with a huff on the news about the gunpowder. Leslie didn't know what he expected. Of course they'd lay down all the puzzle pieces but take one out of the box just to be a dick about it. Though maybe they just overlooked it down there, but... forget it.

The smile creeped back up watching Gus get excited over the ball like a little kid. Or maybe it was more like a dog.

For now Leslie turned back to the girl, his arms still crossed. "It's what it is.... thanks for lookin'. Y'all see anything else or anyone else down on in there for that matter?"

[Laurels]

The mood seemed pretty good. Gus seemed pretty happy about the cannonballs, while Leslie was more interested in whatever they could find.

"Well, we got some cloths we can use for padding or for anything we could need a cloth for," Shoshanna explained. "Plus, I got a stick."

Shoshanna looked around the deck.

"Otherwise, it's just empty barrels and hammocks. We can probably be creative, but for the most part, I think the clipper ship is a write-off for anything substantial."

She looked over the horizon and out at the flotilla.

"Ok. So I guess for now, we decide if we want to move to another ship before the sun goes down, or if we want to hunker down here for the night. Thoughts?"

[AnimeNerd]

Jasper couldn't help but let his smile fade at the question. Both plans had their strengths and weaknesses. Searching more places meant they could find more supplies that could help them, maybe even someone to observe the collar of, before anyone else could ruin it. But they could also run into trouble, and there was potential to lose a nice place to stay the night if anyone better armed got on the clipper ship.

On the other hand, staying on the clipper ship would mean they'd have a safe haven that was easily defendable, but any time that they wasted in SOTF could be deadly, and Jasper wasn't sure if he wanted to risk death just to get some extra sleep.

He sighed.

"Might not be the popular opinion, but I think we should search a little more before heading back here," he said, before looking in the direction of the floating boxes. "Maybe check out some of the cargo floats and see if they have anything useful in them, you know?"

Why not go for the gamble? It wasn't anything new to him.

Jasper's mouth formed back into a smile before he wordlessly bent down and rolled the cannonball in Gus' direction, making sure to give it just the right amount of power to make sure it went far enough, but not too much that it could hurt him.

Going for the gamble, but he was still going to be courteous about it. It would be stupid to be aggressive on this sort of thing.

[Sh4dE]

Gus watched as the ball rolled his direction and he stopped the ball with his hands. He cautiously lifted it up and, yeah, it was quite heavy. Gus thought about what he had in his hands and it fascinated him. Right now all it felt like was like a heavy bowling ball but in actuality it was a weapon, a dangerous weapon. There were plenty of seamen who lost their lives to one of those.

He kneeled down again and rolled it to Leslie. He looked at Shoshanna to reply to her inquiry.

"Well, are there enough beds inside for the four of us? Like, a cabin?"

[Jilly]

Damn, the girl was all ready to go, crafting plans and making tracks and- wait, "we"?

...You know that feeling you get, when people made plans in front of you and you know they know you're right there and they use "we" and "us" but you're not really sure you were included in that same "we" or "us"?

Leslie just listened along, flipping his sunglasses back over his raccoon-faced eyes and standing there cross-armed. He really couldn't tell if he was getting voluntold into this little mutiny or if it was the former. He didn't know which one would've made him feel worse.

He was gonna say somethin' about how checking the cargo crates would work about as well as driving on square wheels unless they had something to pry them open with but let it go when Gus bowled the cannonball over to him. He picked it up with much more ease compared to the cheese and rolled it around in his hands. It was curiously smooth and cool to the touch, kinda what he expected but also kinda not at the same time. Uncle Dougie would'a got a kick out of this.

"Y'all can do what y'all wanna." Leslie kept rolling the ball around in his palms. "People pro'bly gonna start hunkering down now if the area closure warning don't kick them out. 'Pends on if y'all wanna risk safety over scavenger hunting. I was gonna hang out up top there unless I got told to go on an' git. So."

[Laurels]

Shoshanna smiled a bit as the boys rolled the cannonball around the deck. It was nice to see that they were enjoying themselves, but they did need to settle on an plan for the rest of their daylight. Jasper suggested checking out the nearby cargo floats, while Gus seemed more interested in the hammocks. Leslie made it clear he was more interested in climbing the ropes up the ship and taking the crow's nest. Shoshanna nodded.

"Okay, from the top down," Shoshanna said.

She turned to Jasper.

"We can check the floats, but we don't have much daylight left, and those look tricky to navigate," she explained. "We can check the few closest to the clipper ship and within reach of the jetties, but it's quite risky. Especially considering we may not be able to open the crates and we'll be in the open."

She turned to Gus.

"Yes, there were more than four hammocks. We probably don't want to all sleep at the same time, but either way, we at least have a semi-comfortable sleeping arrangement."

Lastly, she turned to Leslie.

"You're free to do as you please," Shoshanna told Leslie. "If you want to climb up, that's fine. But if you do and the three of us stay here tonight, you have a duty to at least alert us of anyone approaching. Anyone who comes for the three of us still remains a danger to you, so it'll be in everyone's interest if we know who's coming on board."

Shoshanna brushed a stray flyaway back behind her ear.

"Either way, we do have a good place to hunker down for the night. Jasper, if you really want to go to the floats, I'll go with you. Gus, if you'd rather hang with Leslie, that's fine too. But either way, we need to at least stay in pairs. Sound good?"

[AnimeNerd]

Okay, so pretty much everyone was on a different foot, it seemed. Gus wanted to sleep, Leslie was still hesitant to join them and wanted to hide up top for the night. And Shoshanna was willing to join him in checking out the cargo floats. Honestly, he did think there had to be something useful there-would they really just have a bunch of empty boxes floating in the ocean? He kind of doubted it.

But Shoshanna did have a point. They looked difficult enough to get around, and if the took too long they'd have to walk through them in the dark, and that sounded a bit too dangerous. Plus, even if he thought they had a way to open them, it might do more harm than good if he wasn't careful.

He sighed again, but smiled still. He knew when to fold them.

"Definitely a good idea, but I don't think we need to worry about it yet. You got a some good points there-probably best to just hunker down here for the night and wait 'til daylight.

"Maybe tomorrow though? To see if there's anything good there?"

Because there was always later, after all.