In a fishing boat off the coast of Key West, Sunday afternoon

[vdistinctive]

Like Eliot was going to work a job in Key West without dragging his team out for some fishing? Sure. Right. It wasn't like Hardison could fuss about racist militias on the OPEN OCEAN, after all.

. . . He was waiting for the argument about pirates. Or maybe mosquitos. Or sharks. Whatever, they had a cooler full of beer, a boat to themselves, and an extremely low probability of running into any magic monsters this far from Fandom. Eliot was going to call it a win.

[ooc: for Leveragians and likely slow play.]

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[vdistinctive]

Eliot sighed. He probably should have anticipated her antsiness. "Yeah, Parker. Here, look." He pointed off the starboard side. "There, a pod of dolphins. We get goin' a little faster and I bet we can get 'em racing us."

[whoisalicewhite.livejournal.com]

Parker flipped herself back upward, eyes bright. "DOLPHINS." Sounding like one herself. She was leaning over the starboard side in a heartbeat, trailing her fingers. "We need to feed them!"

Because that whole ocean clearly didn't have food for them in it.

[vdistinctive]

Eliot wrapped two fingers through her back beltloop to help make sure she didn't fall off. "We don't need to feed 'em. They have too much fun feedin' themselves."

[whoisalicewhite.livejournal.com]

One broke the surface a ways off, and chittered at the boat, then dove again.

"Is it safe to swim here, or is Hardison right about the sharks?"

[vdistinctive]

"We're a little far out for swimming, darlin'," Eliot said. "But we pull into the backcountry after and we can find ourselves a nice secluded lagoon."

Which was not to say that the "backcountry" -- or the water between the keys and the Florida mainland -- didn't have sharks.

[whoisalicewhite.livejournal.com]

Parker gave him a grin for the darlin' and relaxed back a little, eyes back on the water. "Camera, camera..." She pulled hers out, waiting for her quarry to surface again. "I like the idea of a lagoon." She grinned wickedly. "And I was promised more skinny-dipping."

[vdistinctive]

"You an' Hardison both," Eliot agreed. "You just gotta put up with my fishin' for a little longer first."

It wasn't often he got to pit himself against something 15 feet long that weighed half a ton. That wasn't some kind of magical monster bent on eating teenagers, anyway.

[whoisalicewhite.livejournal.com]

"Compromises," Parker observed. "Fair." She clicked the shutter on her camera as a dolphin surfaced and rolled over, giggling. "Someday you guys are going to a chocolate convention with me, though."

[vdistinctive]

"Sure thing." Eliot had been in central America being a crazy chocolate farmer for most of the aftermath of Parker's last chocolate convention. He had no idea what he was promising. "Suppose we'll have to put up with one of them geek conventions for Hardison, too."

[whoisalicewhite.livejournal.com]

Parker nodded, then grinned. "Could be fun. You could dress up as a battle alien or something. And I could be a sexy android."

[vdistinctive]

"With body paint and a silver jumpsuit." For Parker. Not for Eliot. "All the aliens on his shows look like people with weird bumps on their heads, though."

[whoisalicewhite.livejournal.com]

"Well, some of them look like that thing you fought in the freezer. They're just not around for very long." Mostly because people reacted to them the way Hardison and Eliot had reacted. "Or pepper pots. An-hi-hil-ate!"

[vdistinctive]

"I am not dressin' up as a tentacle monster. Or a pepper pot." Just so they were clear. "Do they have space pirates? I could be a space pirate."

[whoisalicewhite.livejournal.com]

"Space pirates. And! Space cowboys. And? space pirate cowboy ninjas."

Someone was planning on finding leather pants for Eliot, yup.

[vdistinctive]

Which Eliot would then bitch about the difficulty of fighting in. Leather pants didn't stretch nearly well enough to keep up with him, dammit. "I'm gonna regret this, ain't I."

[whoisalicewhite.livejournal.com]

"Skin-tight silver android suit," Parker promised him. "And maybe getting to growl at people!"

Probably, yeah.

[vdistinctive]

"I already growl at people." Eliot was nothing if not self-aware. "Hardison better wear a tight shirt at least."

Yeah, he was already pretty sure he'd be in something ridiculous.

[whoisalicewhite.livejournal.com]

"I'll make sure." Parker leaned into him, watching the line bob. "...I don't get this."

Fishing. There was fish in restaurants.

[vdistinctive]

"It's about the challenge, darlin'," Eliot explained. He was starting to get used to having to. "Self-sufficiency."

How did she think the fish GOT to the restaurants, anyway?

The line suddenly dragged down harder than it had before. Eliot let out a whoop and ran over to the reel, grabbing on and bracing his feet against the boat railing. "Come on --" and then the line went slack and Eliot groaned. "So close!"

[whoisalicewhite.livejournal.com]

"That was cool," Parker had to admit. "How big are these things?" She dabbled her fingers in the water. "Heeeere, fishy fishy fishy."

[vdistinctive]

Eliot grabbed onto her beltloop again. "Big, Parker. Like fifteen feet long." He spotted something blue cutting through the water a little ways away. "Look, there."

[whoisalicewhite.livejournal.com]

"HOLY--" Parker stared. "What, why? Why are you wrestling a fish? A fish THAT BIG?"

It was times like this that she wanted Nate there to ask questions of. Because he would either know, or he would give her that look of No one knows, it's an Eliot thing, keep moving things along.

[vdistinctive]

"For the challenge, like I said." None of his lovers understood him. It was very sad. "Back in the day a fish like that coulda kept a village goin' for weeks. You take on a fish like that and win and you can take on anything."

[whoisalicewhite.livejournal.com]

Parker never would have appreciated Hemingway.

"Okaaaaay." That made a bit more sense. Well. The feeding people for a week part. Right? Sort of. SHUSH. She paused and added, "Are you really letting it go after you catch it?"

[vdistinctive]

Eliot nodded. "Catch-and-release helps preserve the population. Lotta fishers around these days, puttin' a big dent in the amount of fish available."