"You're not lame, Rory," Gio replied gently, knowing full-well what his brother was talking about, but to Gio being lame meant being weak, and he saw nothing of the sort in Rory. He did mentally berate himself for using the word around his brother, however. Sometimes it was difficult to censor his speech when he spent most of his time in school, and little things could slip in. Gio did feel guilty, but he was able to smile because of the grin on Rory's face.
"Maybe you can fly," he suggested.
"I know gills are better." They picked up on the discussion of Gio's possible powers, and he was about to launch into why he knew gills would be cool, actually getting into the idea, when Rory mentioned talking to his fish. That seemed to take the wind out of his sails, because he distinctly remembered thinking about that exact thing earlier in the day while he was waiting for Amelia at the noodle place. "Heh … yeah," he responded, feeling his face grow suddenly hot. It was annoying to get all awkward and flustered, but was that a power? His power? That bond he had with things in the water? He'd been telling himself it was a result of spending way too much time studying all things marine, that the fish in the lake were used to him, and he was with his own fish every day and night, but hearing Rory bring it up in this particular context kinda freaked him out.
But, no … no. He was getting too hyped up about it. Jumping to conclusions would lead to similar spectacular fail as the sonar experiment.
"You're welcome, but you owe me a power experiment," Gio said, trying to perk himself up by joking around. "I can't be the only one making a fool out of himself in here."