#bonus points if anyone reads these tags and can id the villains they're taking from

[thebluestbluewords]

For the h/c bingo ....

Jaylos and hijacked car !!

ty for sending this!!! I've been writing super super slowly lately BUT I finally reached a posting point for tumblr and hopefully I'll have the rest of this done in just a few more days!

Jaylos, Hijacked Car, mentions of painful terrible death but no actual injury in this section. Mentions of isle-related food issues.

01.

“I don’t think stealing a car is the best idea, man,” Carlos says doubtfully, trotting along behind Jay, arms full of the junk they’ve been collecting. “There’s not like, a lot to choose from out here. Are we stealing from the Commander?” 

Jay’s moving fast. “What Rourke? Nah. I’ve got a better idea. You scared to find out who it is?” 

“No,” Carlos says immediately. He’s not scared. .It’s just that he has some sort of self-preservation instinct, and his gang doesn’t seem to have any at all. Not that it makes a difference, because they don’t have many other choices. He needs the parts, and there’s nowhere else to get them, and even if he is scared, or if Jay were a little bit less careless about getting hurt,  they don’t have another option. “Just. Not really looking to get my head kicked in today, which is what will happen if I get caught with my hands in anyone else’s vehicle.” 

Jay glances back at him. “Sounds like you’re scared,” he says, grinning. He looks cool. Like, Auradon-shiny magazine ad levels of cool and confident and shit.  Like he’s having a great time, and not dragging Carlos after him through the market while he talks out loud about the stupidest fucking idea that they’ve ever had. “You wanna play it safe, furball? Let your mother find out you were in her engine again, tearing shit out for your projects?” 

“That’s none of your business what I was doing with her engine,” Carlos shoots back, aiming for haughty indifference to the opinions of people like Jay, and missing. Badly. “And also, I don’t tear shit out, I remove it. Carefully. With the correct tools.” 

“You’ve got them with you, yeah?” 

This is going nowhere that Carlos wants to be. 

“Yes, I have the car shit.”  he agrees, hefting the bag. It’s somewhere in the pile of junk he’s carrying. Under the other greasy car parts that he definitely didn’t rip out of other machines he’s been working on. It’s not like he needs the other machines or anything. They’re only his life’s work. Totally fine to rip apart because apparently his mother needs a functioning car as of yesterday, and right now her precious baby automobile is in about seven different pieces in various other machines spread across his bolt-holes on other sides of the Isle. 

“Sooo,” Jay says, drawing out the word so that it’s basically three words, with a great deal more significance than a single syllable is supposed to have. Carlos almost hates when he does this, except for how the stupid face Jay makes along with the words makes him want to do something forbidden. With his mouth. On Jay’s mouth. Gently. With tongue. “We’re gonna steal a new engine. I’ll distract the owners, who you’ve already worked for, by the way, and you carefully remove your shit with the proper tools, and then we’re golden.” 

“And then they catch us,” Carlos agrees. “and I get my shit kicked in again.”

Jay sighs with his whole body, throwing his shoulders into it. “They’re not gonna catch us.” 

“Except for how they are.” 

“They’re not! Besides, what’s the worst that’ll happen? They steal the engine back, and we’re back where you started?” 

Plus or minus some new bruises. And a sense of pride and dignity that he’ll lose, because being caught by an Animal, (because there’s only so many people with cars on the isle, and even fewer that Carlos has worked with, and if they keep walking the way they’re currently going there’s nowhere left to go except the Air Pirate junkyard) is just humiliating. 

 “I just think it’s a stupid plan!” Carlos says one last time, like it’s going to change anything. “Stealing from Karnage is like asking to get caught, and then he’s going to literally eat your heart out of your chest and Mal’s going to laugh at us for being dumbasses who got murdered over a car engine.” 

Jay laughs, because he’s a reckless asshole sometimes who likes pulling off the impossible. The annoying thing is that he usually does pull it off, and his ego just gets worse every time he escapes with whatever thing he was trying to get. “Mal’s going to give us shit no matter what happens. You wanna tell her that you chickened out and left me to face Karnage all on my own? How d’you think that one’s gonna go down? Hey, fearless leader, I left your second in command behind when he was trying to do me a favor, and now he’s being eaten by wolves and needs you to go come to the rescue.” 

“Shut up, she’s not gonna be that bad.” 

“She’s gonna be too busy fooling around with Evie to come to my rescue, and you’re gonna have to come back and recover my body once the wolves are done with it.” 

Carlos shivers. Gods, but he hates the Animals. It’s bad enough that they’re basically d-o-g-s, but it’s somehow worse because they talk and drink like humans despite not having opposable thumbs to hold the bottles with. “Maybe that’s been my plan. You can be a distraction for them to eat while I’m running away with my new engine.” 

Jay laughs, and turns around to clap a hand down on Carlos’s shoulder. “Hey, that’s almost the same as my plan! Glad you’re on board, man. I’ll distract them, you pop the stuff out and make a run for it. It’ll take, what, ten minutes for you to get the stuff we need out of the car?” 

Carlos sighs. They’re doing this. “Five. It’s not attached that well. I’m the one who put it in there in the first place.” 

“I thought your work was the best around.” Jay teases, turning his head slightly to walk backwards for a second. Carlos takes the second to appreciate the way Jay’s hair is moving in the faintly smoke-scented breeze. 

He’s not taking advantage of the moment if Jay actively encourages the looks. Sure, they’ve never exactly said anything about any feelings that might be between them, but there’s a lot that they don’t talk about. It’s not safe to have feelings about other people, for one thing. For another,Jay already knows that he looks. He’s never said anything about it, and once, when they were both in the hideout later than they were supposed to be, Jay didn’t move away from him on their shitty old couch, and they slept just like they’d been sitting, with Carlos’s head on Jay’s shoulder. 

It’s almost as stupid and reckless as their current plan, but someday, Carlos is going to try kissing Jay. He’s pretty sure it’s going to go well. And if it doesn’t, it’s not he doesn’t have a million ways to die, and keep dying until he can hide his shame and run away to the pirate’s side of the island to form a new identity and never try to kiss anyone ever again. 

“I didn’t wanna spend a lot of time on this one, man. It was a quick-n-dirty job. The crew freaks me out.” 

“Oh, cause they're–” Jay makes a snapping motion with his teeth. Animals. “Yeah?” 

The moment of heartstopping terror is fine. It’s normal. It’s not going to actually hurt him, unlike the air pirates themselves, who are happily going to chew his legs off when they get caught. 

“Yeah,” Carlos agrees, suppressing the queasy shiver that his body wants to give at the mention of the air pirate pack. At least all of the villains on the Isle are sentient Animals, and not the same mindless killing machines as untrained dogs outside of the Isle. Sure, there’s plenty of books out there claiming that dogs are the best companions humans can have. Libraries of them even. Enough books to build a wall, which is exactly what Carlos would like to have between himself and any canines, regardless of their capital-A-Animal status. “They’re– yeah. I don’t like working around them.” 

“All the more reason to get in and out,” Jay points out, infuriatingly rational. “You should drop the rest of your stuff before we go in though. You wanna hide it at my dad’s place?” 

Carlos does not want to hide his stuff anywhere near an adult. He usually keeps his spare parts in the sort of hidey-holes that only children can fit into, the sort of places that are accessible through tiny storage windows and cracked ventilation shafts that are from the Before times. The adults haven’t managed to break into every abandoned warehouse on the isle, and there’s just enough places still that are only accessible through places small enough for a kid to fit through that they’re almost safe. 

At fourteen, Carlos is still small and skinny enough to fit into the childish bolt-holes that he’s been using for years. Jay isn’t, not anymore, which they’ve all been taking as a victory. Finally, one of them is large enough to take on an adult. Sixteen isn’t actually that far off from fourteen, but between the two of them, Jay’s already grown into what will probably be his adult body, and Carlos is still fighting his mother and her henchmen for every scrap of food he can get, and probably won’t ever be tall enough to reach the higher beams in the warehouse all the Dragon Hall kids like to use for parkour practice. 

It’s fine. 

The offer of a storage space is a kindness, and it’s one that Carlos doesn’t especially want to take, but also can’t exactly afford not to. 

“Yeah,” he says slowly. “Sure. We can drop it there. You’re sure we can pick it up later?” 

“Dad’s out of the place until sundown.” Jay says, slowing down. “He’s not back til things open up for the night. We can keep it under my stuff until then. I’ve got a box that’s mostly empty, and he probably won’t look at it twice so long as I bring some interesting shit back when we swing by to pick it up again.” 

“Fine,” Carlos agrees, sliding half of his pile into Jay’s waiting arms. They can stash it for a few hours without too much risk, especially if Jafar is out for most of that time. “Are you lifting anything good from the air pirate garage?” 

“Just some batteries they’ve had around for a while. Nothing they’ve been using.” Jay says, grinning. 

Batteries are more valuable than gold. There’s limited electricity on the Isle, so battery power is how most of the smaller gadgets have to run. Car batteries can give a smaller household power for weeks before they die, and they usually don’t explode before then, especially if they’re being sold to the market goers, who usually live further away from the docks and the saltwater that’ll corrupt them faster than that. 

It’s risky. The air pirates have one of the biggest (read: only) legit garages on the isle, but they’re also limited on what they can do in terms of opposable thumbs for some of the more fiddly installations. It’s why they call in other engineers (read: Carlos) to help with some of their more sensitive projects, but that limitation combined with their ample supply of teeth and overpowered biting jaws means that they can sometimes acquire a pileup of parts beyond what they can use at one time. So it’s probably true that they have’t been using all of their batters, but it’s also likely equally true that they can and will exact revenge against anyone who takes the hoard. 

“You’re going to die,” Carlos tells Jay seriously. “You’re crazy, man.” 

“Does that mean you’re not doing it with me?” 

“No,” Carlos sighs. He’s stupid, but not stupid enough to trade probable death for the absolute one that’s waiting if he doesn’t come up with the parts to fix his mother’s car by tomorrow morning. “I’m in.” 

02.

“This is the worst plan.” 

Jay lifts the bag of tools up so Carlos can reach them easier. “We’ve had worse. What about the time with the eels and the jelly?” 

“One of the worst.” 

“Maybe. Can you reach?” 

Carlos shifts his weight carefully onto his toes. The car they need is hanging on chains over his head, and the guts of the engine are exposed, which should make it easy to reach. If things were fair, they’d both be able to use the giant crank in the corner to move the car down to where he can actually reach it, but because they’re the unlucky bastards who’re stuck on the isle, nothing is fair and the crank is so rusted over that they can’t risk touching it without it squealing and exposing them to the pirates. 

His fingertips brush over the rusted belly of the car. Just a few more centimeters, and he could get his longest wrench up where he needs it. Just enough to get a little leverage, and then he could get what they need. 

“Almost–” Carlos risks a tiny bit further, and jams the tip of his middle finger into a crevice in the car. Rust flakes rain down into his face. “Ouch. No.” 

“Damn. Can you get down?” 

Getting down is easy. Two steps down off the stepstool, and then another off the roof of the junk car that’s standing on, and then a quick hop to the ground. 

Carlos hops down, engineless and somewhat greasier than when they started. “So.” 

Jay steps back, trying very hard not to look like he was spotting Carlos on the way down. “So,” he agrees. “Plan B?” 

“Which is?” 

Jay glances up at the car hanging over their heads. “I’m taller. I can probably reach the parts, if you can tell me exactly what I’m looking for and distract them when they notice we’re here.” 

Distract the Air Pirates. Right. A shiver of icy-hot nausea sweeps through Carlos at the thought of being in front of that many angry Animals. Teeth and fangs and claws….and him without a single seasoning. Maybe he should have put barbeque sauce under his eyes, just to spare the pirates the horror of eating him alive and unseasoned. Even if he can distract them long enough, there’s still no guarantee that Jay will be able to get the correct piece out of the car, and they’ll have done all this for nothing, and at the loss of the pirates as a customer. 

On the other hand,  if they don’t at least try to get the part tonight, he’s going home to Cruella empty handed and still without a hope of getting her a working vehicle by tomorrow. 

Okay. 

“You’re sure you can get it out?” Carlos asks, already pulling out the tools he’ll need to pass up. “It’s the plugs and the connector gaskets. And the piece at the back that looks like a little steam valve. You’ve helped with the plugs before, just don’t–” 

“I know, I know,” Jay interrupts, voice low and urgent. “Pull the plug out from the top, disconnect the wires first, and don’t drop anything or it’ll go straight through where we don’t want it to go.” 

Carlos blinks. “Wow, you do listen. I’m so proud.” 

“Yeah, yeah.” Jay says, but he’s smiling a little bit, and it’s worth the embarrassment of offering it to see his reaction to the praise. “Gimme the stuff and I’ll hop up in a sec.” 

It’s a set of pliers and two wrenches. Not a huge amount of tools. “If you lose these I might never forgive you.” Carlos whispers. 

Jay accepts the tools with the appropriate respect, and tucks them in the front pockets of his jacket. “I know.” 

“Come back alive.” 

That gets another grin, one of the brilliantly bright ones that looks so out of place on the Isle. “I will.” Jay promises, leaping up onto the hood of the car before Carlos can do anything else. It’s a quick step up onto the stepstool, and from there it’s easy for Jay, with his stupidly superior height, to grab the side of the car and hoist himself the rest of the way up so he can get the pieces they need. 

Carlos waits.

The darkened garage is not a great place to be waiting alone. There’s a lot of other places that Carlos would rather be, if he’s being honest. His closet isn’t usually his first choice, but it’s quiet, and doesn’t have faint scratching noises in every corner that could be rats, or the echoes of what Jay is doing above him, or the pirates finally coming in to discover them both. His mother’s kitchen isn’t much better, but it’s at least warm. The garage is cool and dark, and there’s sticky mystery rags left all over the place. And some sort of scrabbly noise that’s definitely coming from under a car over there. 

Carlos has a flashlight in his pocket. He could turn it on to check out the noise, but the flash of light, even if he just turns it on for a second, would probably alert the pirates. Better to wait. Also, it’s hard to be sure of what he’s hearing over the thumping of his own heartbeat. 

The scratching noise could be nothing. No reason for Carlos’s lungs to feel like they’re pulling air in through wet cement. It’s fine, and there’s no animals sneaking up on them with their superior senses and teeth and claws and hey, sweating like it’s the middle of summer probably isn’t the best thing to be happening, but it’s probably nothing. 

Breathe. 

Hydrogen, Helium, Lithium– 

The scrabbling turns into a clang, and Carlos whips his head around so fast something in his neck snaps. There’s fur. Brown, disgusting fur. Not Don Karnage. 

 There’s a fuckoff-huge rat in the corner. That’s what the noise is, just a rat. 

Carlos doesn’t hate rats the way that he hates certain other animals. He actually likes some of them, because they’re sort of cute, and it’s not the worst thing when one of the rats in Hell Hall runs through the closet before him in the morning and sets off a couple of the bear traps before he can get a chance to trip into them. They’re almost smart sometimes, especially here on the isle where their colonies have space to grow and fight with the smaller humans for whatever food scraps they can get without being poisoned like they’d be in Auradon.  Villains can appreciate the value in a free pet, and also prefer to use their poisons on more valuable targets than household pests. 

“Hey,” Carlos whispers, flicking a hand at the rat. As much as he appreciates the company, it’s a little unnerving to be stared at by a rodent as big as his foot. “Get out of here.” 

The rat lifts a paw, almost like it’s flicking a hand back. 

Aw, shit. 

“TRESPASSER!” the rat squeaks at the top of its tiny lungs. “CRIMINAL! CRIMINAL IN THE SHOP!” 

Fuck. Shit. Fuck. 

“I’m not–” Carlos stutters, lunging for the rat. “Hey, shut up, I’m not trespassing. I work here, same as you, right? I’ve got my tools and everything.” 

“TRESPASSER!” the rat squeaks, bolting for the door. “CRIMINAL!” 

Rats are smart. 

“I’ve got food.” Carlos says quickly, stepping back towards his bag. Hands up. Nobody likes being grabbed, not even a rat. His heart is beating so hard he’s pretty sure even the rat can hear it, but it’s fine. He’s got bribes, and nobody on the isle is going to turn down food, especially not an underpaid evening guard. It seems pretty reasonable to assume that not even guard rats get fair pay. Carlos has, in fact, been employed by the Air Pirates before, and he’s pretty sure it’s a safe assumption based on how well they compensated their human help. 

The rat stops. “I’m listening.” it says, in a normal, squeaky little voice. 

“Hey, yeah, you want my food? I’ve got a sandwich, only a few days old. Peanut butter.” 

“Not to be a sell-out,” the rat says. “Because I’m not, in case you were wondering. Us rats are actually very loyal creatures. Very good to our masters. But yes. I do want your food.” 

“You’re fair to them when they’re fair to you?” Carlos asks absently, rummaging through his bag for the sandwich. It was going to be his dinner tonight, but he’s not going to have time to eat while he’s working on the car anyway.  “I bet the Air Pirates aren’t very generous bosses, right? They probably never share the best stuff with you, not when you’re so small and they’re so big.” 

“As a matter of fact, they don’t.” the rat agrees. “Awful bosses, and they smell terrible too.” 

Carlos swallows hard at the thought. He’s worked down here a few times when it’s been raining, and the smell of that many wet canines in one place meant that he was fighting back nausea all day. The memory makes giving up his dinner hurt a little less. “So if I give you the sandwich, you’ll keep quiet about the fact that I’m in here?” 

The rat laughs. “Sure. And if you give me your name, I’ll even tell them it wasn’t you.” 

“An hour. Please.”  

The rat creeps forward. “An hour I can do. It’ll take me that long to finish this thing. Peanut butter, you said?” 

Carlos looks down at the sandwich in his hand, a little bit desperately. Goodbye, dinner. Hello, a new level of despicable bribery. “And jelly. Grape. Didn’t even have mold in the jar when I got it.” 

“Mold adds flavor. It’s important for your immune system. Kids these days should eat more dirt if they really wanna know what’s good for them.” 

“Well,” Carlos says, praying that he’s not being too obvious about the fact that he’s stalling for time. “I would, but I have this sandwich here, and unless you want it, I’m really going to choose this over the dirt, Mister rat, sir.” 

The rat sniffs. “That’s Ratticus to you. And I’ll take that.” 

“An hour of silence,” Carlos insists, holding on to the food. “And you promise not to tell them I was here?” 

“I said an hour. Don’t push your luck, kid.” 

An hour is fine. Jay should have the pieces out in a few more minutes, and they can be halfway across the isle in an hour. Even if they have to stop back at the Junk Shop, they can still be back at Hell Hall and the far reaches of the market area within an hour’s time.  “Deal.” 

The rat scurries forward and takes the sandwich into his mouth. “‘Uf ‘ont ‘egress ‘if,” he says. “Pwomif.” 

Carlos already regrets giving away the food. Stupid talking Animals, posting guards. Stupid misplaced loyalty, giving up his dinner to protect Jay. Stupid car, being just too high for him to reach. The only one of them in here tonight who’s not stupid is the rat, who’s already gone, taking the sandwich with him. 

“Stupid,” Carlos whispers, kicking a downed tire. “Stupid fucking rats.” 

“Hey,” Jay whisper-hisses from above. “Cee.” 

“What?” 

“Would you grab my batteries while I’m up here? My source said they’re allegedly  in a box by the main office.” 

“Allegedly.” Carlos mutters, heading off in the direction of the office. “Allegedly, there’s no guards here, dont’cha know.” 

“Grab three if you can carry them!” Jay whispers back. 

Argh. Batteries for Jay. Engine pieces for his mother. The sandwich for the rats. Carlos would fucking love to get something for himself, but that’s never going to happen, and he prides himself on being the rational one. Jay’s the charming one, Mal’s the planner, Evie’s the beautiful one, and Carlos is the rational one, the one who gives up his time and his engine pieces and his fucking food for everyone else so that they don’t beat him up and make his life even more miserable than it already is. 

The batteries are in a cardboard box by the door of the office. They’re heavy, but a stack of three (out of the twelve the pirates have, what the fuck) isn’t too much to handle. 

Carlos staggers back with the batteries in his arms. Two of them fit in the tool bag, which is perfect, because there’s no way he’s running all the way back to the junk shop carrying all three of them in his arms. The third one he wraps in a rag from the floor and tucks inside his jacket. It’s not much, but it’s enough to keep it hidden from the most obvious of prying eyes on the trip back out. 

“Catch.” Jay calls. 

The spark plugs hit Carlos’s hands, two greasy, perfect little pieces that might buy him enough time to fix his mother’s engine before she ends him. “Received.” 

Jay hits the car roof a moment later. The tools are sticking out of his pocket, and there’s a faint outline of more pieces shoved down the front of his jacket.  “Got them all. Ready to run?” 

“So ready. This place still gives me the creeps.” 

“Tell me about it,” Jay says, without any real heat. “Wicked work with the guard though. Smart thinking to buy him off with food like that.” 

“Next time we do something like this I’m giving the guard your dinner,” Carlos mumbles, zipping his jacket securely over the battery and plugs. “You can tell Evie what happened to it. She doesn’t still get on your case about missing meals, right?” 

“Nah. She likes you more.” 

“Bold words from the guy who tried to charm her pants off last week.” 

Jay breathes out something like a laugh. He’s got the bag with the tools and the remaining batteries slung over his shoulder. “Ouch, man.  She turned me down, I’ll have you know. I think she’s saving herself for a special someone else, if y’know what I mean.” 

Carlos almost smiles at that. It’s an open secret that Mal and Evie are spending every free moment together, doing what teenagers do. “What, a woman?” 

“Ooh, double ouch.” Jay snarks, vaulting up to the top of the rusty chain link fence surrounding the junkyard. They came in through the front gate, but there’s a light on in the doghouse next to it now, so they can’t take the risk again. The fence is closer to where they need to run anyway. “You ever think about going into a career in villainy with that mouth?” 

“You ever think about–” Carlos shoots back. And then stops. There’s motion by the front gate, and it’s something moving on two legs. “Shit. Hide.” 

To Jay’s credit, he does. Immediately. The fence rattles a bit, but Jay’s already fading into the shadows faster than Carlos can track him, so he should be able to run before the guards find him. Jay’s fast. He should be able to make it home. . 

Carlos drops to the ground. There’s no time for him to jump the fence too, not unless he wants the figure to hear him for sure, and probably get a good solid look and smell of him too. If he can play dead, there’s a chance that the pirate won’t notice him. 

If Carlos is lucky, the pirate will be like the rest of them. Drunk and stupid. Both categories of people make mistakes, and Carlos is betting hard that this one is going to be one or the other, or if he’s very, very lucky, both. 

The figure is moving. Clawed feet coming this way. Moving erratically. Maybe drunk, maybe something else. Maybe playing a game. Carlos can’t keep running the chances in his head anymore, because he’s stuck now. Nowhere to run without being seen. He’s got a corner of Jay’s battery jammed into his chest. His heart is pounding double-time around it. Maybe triple-time. His breath is caught in his chest too, but he can’t afford the sounds that gasping for enough air would make, so he’s stuck slightly dizzy, shoving his own face into the dirt and playing dead as best he can. 

Someone takes a heavy, crunching footstep closer. 

It’s a dry night. No stench of wet canine in the air tonight, but the idea of it still hangs heavy across the entire garage and junkyard. 

Another crunching footstep closer. 

Carlos breathes as shallowly as he can. Less movement is better. He’s fully hidden behind the stack of tires. Hidden and silent, that’s him. Like a statue. One of the marble ones that people are always selling and arguing about selling on TV. Here lies the Statue of An Idiot, prone on the ground. By the old master Fear, produced in the mid 21st century. 

The footsteps stop. 

Fuck. 

The beast pounds on something metallic. A shrieking clang, rusted metal scraping over more rusted metal. Carlos can taste it in the back of his throat. 

The beast howls out a yell into the night. “Your shitbucket’s not here, Lassy! You owe me a day’s work!” 

Glass breaking. Not close. Inside the house, maybe. 

“I tol– told yah!” the creature shouts back in the direction of the glass. “You moved in last week when we got those new vulture scraps in! You owe me, bet’s a bet!” 

More howls from the house. The Air Pirates must be in there, Carlos realizes. The footsteps turn and crunch away. It’s still not safe to move. Not when his legs are numb with fear. 

It takes a long moment of awful, blessed silence after the pirate goes back in the house before Jay melts out of the shadows again. He’s still got the bag, which means he was probably waiting there the whole time. Watching Carlos panic and crush his own face into the filthy ground over nothing. 

Wonderful. 

Vaulting the fence is easy. 

“Run?” Jay whispers. “There’s a way back that’ll run us past the docks. Fish guts so heavy they’ll lose any trail they had.” 

Carlos doesn’t trust his voice just yet, but it’s a clever idea. He nods. 

“You sure you can keep up?” 

It’s a little easier to breathe when he’s trying not to laugh. “Yeah. Like you could outrun me.” 

Jay grins. He’s practically bouncing in place, adrenaline probably keeping him hyped up and raring to go. “That sounds like a challenge, furball. You sure you wanna race me tonight? I’ve got your parts and everything. I bet I can outrun you even with your tools on my back.” 

“Fuckin’ bet. Back to your place?” 

“You know it.”