Outdoor Adventures Time! Tuesday, period 1

[whoisalicewhite.livejournal.com]

“CLIFF DIVING.”

The class met this week on the edge of the preserve. Eliot, who had a large bag of supplies slung over his shoulder and a walking stick, gave Parker a bit of side-eye.

"Yes," he said. "After we hike out to the cliffs."

“Right, that,” Parker agreed. “I brought wetsuits again.” She pointed to a few duffel bags. “Because it’s warm out, but the water is still cold. And if you want to dive in just your clothes, that’s okay. I brought towels. But you might regret that is all I’m saying.”

"Those of you not into throwin' yourselves off cliffs," all, like, three of you, "I'll be setting up some campfires at the top. If you're interested, I can show you. If not . . . I got stuff for s'mores."

Parker was maybe rubbing off on him.

“Or you can do both,” Parker pointed out. “If you wanna dive for a bit and then decide you’re not up for it again. Or vice versa. No limits, people.”

"Only requirement is the hike," Eliot said. "Which you might wanna get used to, since stuff we're doin' on the island is all gonna involve walking to it. It's a shorter one today, though, only about ten minutes. Keep an eye out and see if you can spot any of Fandom's weirder wildlife."

Like those green deer people always talked about. Eliot hadn't really seen one. He wasn't chatty enough.

“Let’s get going, people! Hup hup hup!”

That last bit was for you, Eliot. Heee.

Comments

Re: Diving! With Parker

[spin_kick_snap]

After mastering lighting a fire--okay, after learning the basics, really--Kathy gave in to the siren call of flinging herself off of something high. She didn't know how to dive properly, so unless Parker was going to call her on it, she was just going to do a flip off the cliff instead.

Re: Diving! With Parker

[whoisalicewhite.livejournal.com]

"What was Eliot giving you crap about earlier?" Parker asked, giving her a curious look.

Re: Diving! With Parker

[spin_kick_snap]

That was a good way to make Kathy pause. And also turn bright red. "Uh...Because of knives?"

Which was a very, very oblique truth. So much so that Kathy felt guilty saying it.

"And, umm, guys. Or a guy. Ish. But mostly knives."

Re: Diving! With Parker

[whoisalicewhite.livejournal.com]

"A guy with a knife?" Parker checked. "What guy?"

Metaphors always took a while to make any kind of sense to her. (Eliot was the fiddle, but the other guy thought he was the fiddle, it was a whole thing.)

Re: Diving! With Parker

[spin_kick_snap]

"Well, not with a knife. More like he had knives. And Eliot made us a picnic lunch and called it a date, and..."

Okay, Kathy realized that this would probably be confusing even for someone who wasn't as literal as Parker was.

"I should start over."

Re: Diving! With Parker

[whoisalicewhite.livejournal.com]

"Probably, yeah." Parker wondered whether Eliot had been giving her crap about not knowing which knife to use at a picnic?

Re: Diving! With Parker

[spin_kick_snap]

There was also an element of that, yes.

"Okay, so yesterday, I went on a picnic with a guy who promised to show me his knife throwing skills." And thank you so much for making that sound like a euphemism now, Eliot. "I tried explaining to Eliot that it wasn't a date like he assumed--" because it was more a hookup but with bonus knife throwing, not that Kathy would be telling any teacher that. Ever. In her life. "--but he likes to tease, especially since radio is, well, radio."

Except for how it had actually been pretty factual in its reporting of what had happened, including the part where Ezra had bartered making out in exchange for teaching Kathy how to throw knives.

Re: Diving! With Parker

[whoisalicewhite.livejournal.com]

"So you're just friends. With a guy who has knives."

Seemed plausible to Parker.

"What did Radio say you were doing?"

Re: Diving! With Parker

[spin_kick_snap]

More friends with benefits, but Kathy was filing that also under THINGS TO NEVER BE DISCUSSED WITH TEACHERS, EVER.

"Uhh, radio might have mentioned that Ezra promised to teach me knife-throwing," she admitted, fidgeting. "In exchange for some, umm, you know. Making out." And then she coughed and blushed a little darker.

Re: Diving! With Parker

[whoisalicewhite.livejournal.com]

"He's not gross, right?" Parker checked. "You're okay with exchanging sexy times for knife-throwing?" She assumed. Since you went along with it, Kathy. But it was always good to check.

Re: Diving! With Parker

[spin_kick_snap]

This time, Kathy's bashful smile had nothing to do with Ezra and what they got up to. She ducked her head, warmed to her toes by Parker's concern. "Not gross," she confirmed. "And very okay. He wouldn't have asked otherwise."

Because for all of Ezra's many, many flaws, when it came to sex he respected boundaries and the importance of consent.

"Thanks for double-checking, though."

Re: Diving! With Parker

[whoisalicewhite.livejournal.com]

"Of course." Parker nodded, mildly relieved, and now it all made more sense, kinda. "Eliot was just being sneaky and checking, and covering up that he was checking with the teasing. He's cool like that."

YOU WERE OUTED, ELIOT. YOU CARED.

Re: Diving! With Parker

[spin_kick_snap]

"Yeah," Kathy said, her smile getting a little bigger. "I know."

She was still utterly mortified, absolutely. But she was also really happy to get getting this kind of support and concern from the adults in her life. It was...different...than what it would have been like back home.

She liked it.

Re: Diving! With Parker

[whoisalicewhite.livejournal.com]

"Okay, carry on," Parker said cheerfully. "He did teach you how to hide a knife on yourself too, right?"

Or was that more like second base date material?

Re: Diving! With Parker

[spin_kick_snap]

"Uhhh, no?" Kathy said, looking confused. She didn't think Ezra would have thought to teach her that even if they hadn't gotten...distracted...by other things. "I don't even have a knife."

Re: Diving! With Parker

[whoisalicewhite.livejournal.com]

"Seriously?" Parker does not approve of that, Kathy. "Well, we'll just have to get you one. They are massively useful for all sorts of things, not just stabbing people. I mean, you can stab people with anything, really. I stabbed a guy with a fork, once."

And he had it coming, so there.

Re: Diving! With Parker

[spin_kick_snap]

"I've, uhh, never stabbed anybody. In my life." Kathy had a little kitty keychain just in case, but had never had call to use it. She knew a few of the working girls she'd supplies them with used them, but she hadn't. "...Why did you stab someone with a fork?"

Realizing Parker would explain that she'd stabbed him with whatever was handy (see? She was learning!) she amended, "Why did they need stabbing?"

Re: Diving! With Parker

[whoisalicewhite.livejournal.com]

Parker's expression clouded with resentful, remembered grimness. "He said some people matter, and some people don't. And I knew he was part of a black-market adoption ring that was using Eastern European orphans in the scam. Turned out later he was running guns through the orphanage." She paused and added, "And then he tried to touch my face."

Re: Diving! With Parker

[spin_kick_snap]

"He sounds like a guy who could really use a good stabbing," Kathy said. She still didn't know if she could have, in Parker's place, but she was hardly about to argue against it happening. 'Black-market adoption rings' and 'running guns through orphanages' were both stabbable offenses in her book. "Did Eliot beat him up later, too?"

Because if he hadn't, he should've.

Re: Diving! With Parker

[whoisalicewhite.livejournal.com]

"He didn't have a chance. I got to kick him in the face later, though." Parker smiled happily at the memory. "And then Hardison blew up all his money and replaced his guns with toys. Eliot beat up most of the rest of the minions, though." She paused. "Then we took the orphans for ice cream. Nate was so annoyed."

Re: Diving! With Parker

[spin_kick_snap]

"Nate?" Kathy hadn't heard of this Nate before. She'd thought it had just been the three of them for...however long they were together. Before they'd gotten together. "And what happened to the orphans after the ice cream?"

Re: Diving! With Parker

[whoisalicewhite.livejournal.com]

"Nate was our boss, well, our mastermind, for five years. Before I got that job. He's old, he decided he was done."

He was approaching fifty, yeesh.

"He and Sophie retired together, she used to do the stuff that needed acting... We drove the orphans to the nearest World Health Organization refugee camp, and they placed them in a better group home. There was about fifty of them." You couldn't save everybody, like Hardison had said. But they'd saved those ones, that day. "And the one we were there to get out to his new adoptive parents in America, Luka, he's doing okay now."

Hardison had little alerts on their former clients, and Luka's was one that Parker checked pretty regularly.

Re: Diving! With Parker

[spin_kick_snap]

Hannibal would be thrilled to hear how old fifty was. Just thrilled.

"That's...that's really awesome of you guys," Kathy said softly. "How did you guys hear about Luka?"

What did it mean, to be sent in to get a kid from a black market orphanage?

Re: Diving! With Parker

[whoisalicewhite.livejournal.com]

Nate would be thrilled that Parker thought he was three years younger than he was. So, so thrilled. Even if he was old.

"His adoptive parents." Parker scowled a bit, then gave Kathy a sideways smile for the 'awesome.' "They paid so much money to adopt him, and then Irina-- she's the one that set it all up -- just took him back, and when the couple tried to keep her thugs from taking him away, the one I stabbed later beat the father up really badly." She tried to remember. "I think they found us through the website Hardison had up for us and the company. Leverage, Inc."

Re: Diving! With Parker

[spin_kick_snap]

Kathy was absolutely going to look that website up. Absolutely.

"Wait, if they paid for the adoption proceedings, how could she just take him--oh. If it was all black market, they probably didn't have any proof of anything." And when they tried, the dad had gotten beat up. "So that's what you used to do? Before you taught? Helped people out with problems that the authorities wouldn't?"