Just Roll With It Stuff

homesickness and juice

Ollie is homesick

Or

Old Man Earl helps with his juice making skills

———

"Hey Ollie, Earl! We're leaving to go explore this island." Ollie jumps hearing Chip's muffled voice from up deck. "You two wanna come with us?" Chip asks.

"I- I'm good, I'll stay at the ship." Ollie says while wiping his tears frantically. He walks slowly up to the deck to see Chip, Jay, and Gill.

"Ok suit yourself. Earl, what about you?" Chip says to the old man.

"Eh? I'll stay with the kid, keep him in check, hrm hrm." He jokes. "Also bring more fruit, we're running low, hrm hrm"

"We shall bring more fruit to you Old Man Earl, for it is destiny for you to get those fruits." Gill promises Earl.

"Hrm hrm, well you better go or else I'm going to turn something else into juice." Earl jokes again.

Gillion's eyes widen. "What else could you turn into juice, Old Man Earl?" He questions.

Before Gillion can start grabbing random things for a potential juice, Jay stopped him. "Alright Gil, maybe we could do this another time, for now stick to the fruit. Besides, we've got a whole island to explore, and potentially destroy," She mutters. "but that doesn't matter."

"I'm sorry Jay, but I didn't catch that last part. Could you repeat it please?"

"I said but that doesn't matter."

"No the line before that-"

"Besides we've got a whole island to explore?" She suggests innocently.

"No-" Gillion sighs, a bit frustrated. "Must have been my hearing then, my apologies."

Jay sighs. "Gill I was joking, also we've talked about the apologies you don't need to-"

"Alright, is everyone ready?" Chip asks the other two, interrupting their conversation. The two nod. "Then we'll be on our way then. Bye guys!"

Ollie finally is up on deck, only to see the three leave. He waves goodbye at them. They all wave back and turn around, slowly fading from view.

Old Man Earl walks away from the rails and puts his hand on Ollie's shoulder. "C'mon kid, let's go make some juice. They'll be back before you know it." He says as he pats Ollie on the shoulder softly. Ollie follows reluctantly, still wanting to go back down deck.

They walk down to the kitchen where all the fruit and juice making materials are. In the corner lies a barrel half-filled with dragon fruit and another half-filled barrel with oranges.

"Son, what kind of juice would you'd like today?" Earl says as he gestures to the two barrels of fruit.

Ollies walks up to the barrels, he catches a familiar smell, his eyes sadden. He looks at the dragon fruit and points to it. "That one." His voice wavering slightly.

Earl takes a notice of this but doesn't say anything yet. "Good choice-" He nods. "-found them on Desire Island. They're called dragon fruit." He says while inspecting the purple pinkish fruit. He hears soft sniffling behind him. Earl turns around to see Ollie crying softly, frantically wiping his tears on his already wet sleeves.

Old Man Earl walks over to Ollie and just hugs him. Ollie hugs him as tight as he can. "I miss her...I just wanna go home." Ollie whimpers.

"I know kid, I know... You'll be back home eventually. I swear boy." The old man promises as he calmly rubs circles on the kid's back. They stay like this in complete silence until Ollie says something.

"She smells like that fruit, never seen it before, but I recognize the smell." Ollie whispers in a rather tired voice. "Earl?"

"Hm?"

"Have you even been homesick before...like do you miss your home?" The boy asks

"Never, I fuckin' hated that place, hrm hrm. However, I do have a son." The old man continues in a softer voice. "I haven't seen him in forever, I miss him though." Earl's eyes sadden a bit. "I don't even know where he is."

"I'm sorry about that Earl, I hope you'll see him again." Ollie says sincerely, feeling rather selfish about his behavior. "And I'm sorry about what happened right now, that was stupid of me." He looks down.

Earl sighs. "Kid, it's not selfish to be homesick, everyone has something going on, it's just whether or not they'll be open about it."

"O-ok." The boy stutters lightly. "Also," he pauses. ",can we... can we still make that juice?" he shyly asks Earl.

Earl gives the kid a light smile. "Of course kid, of course."

———

"So you first gotta get rid of the skin" Earl grabs a knife and starts cutting off the skin. "Like this." He says he cuts off the remaining skin. "Here, you try" He hands the knife to Ollie.

Ollie inspects the knife carefully and starts to cut the skin off like how Earl did it.

"Ah, be careful, you're holding the knife wrong." The man walks up to Ollie, helping him adjust his hand. "There, try again."

Ollie begins cutting the pink skin again, doing a decent job of cutting the skin off. Not as good as the old man's but decent enough job to pass.

Earl nods in acceptance. "Hrm, hrm, good job kid. Now we gotta put it in the juicer, which I don't know why we need. Stepping on the fruit was more efficient."

Ollie just looks at Old Man Earl slightly horrified. "You made that juice with your feet?! Wait no, don't answer that question. I don't need to know." Ollie says as he plugs his ears in case the old man does go into detail. Luckily, he doesn't.

———

"Is all the fruit in the juicer?" Old Man Earl asks while getting other ingredients to add to the juice.

"Yeah it's done!" Ollie yells across the kitchen while putting the last bit of dragon fruit into the juicer.

Earl walks over to Ollie with ingredients in his hands. "Now boy, what I'm about to add is secret and you cannot tell anyone about it, but I'm going to tell you because you are special."

"Whoa," Ollie's eyes light up. "Really?"

"Yes kid, now come here so I can show you." He says while beckoning Ollie to get closer. "So first, you gotta add.."

———

The sky slowly turns into nice shade of pink. There on the Albatross, sat Ollie on a barrel alone, watching the sun meet with the ocean line.
He takes a sip out of the glass jar filled with dragon fruit juice. The ice cold drink gives him a warm sense of comfort in him. The drink that reminds him of home. The drink that will become his comfort drink. The drink that'll remind him, that he's not alone.