fandomhigh | Outdoor Adventure Time!, Tuesday, period 1

The students had been ~~handwavily~~ notified to dress for swimming and the meet up at Portalocity again.

"Well folks," Eliot said. "This is our last class of the session. So Parker'n I decided it was time for some slightly less structured fun." He led the way through the portal to the front gates of a large water park. "Welcome to Water Country USA!"

“We’ll be doing a class like this one again, next term,” Parker added. “I mean, the whole Outdoor Adventure class, not just waterslides. Although that would be pretty cool, you have to admit.”

"We'll even try not to repeat ourselves," Eliot said. "Alright, a couple ground rules: use sunscreen. The water's going to reflect all the UV rays right onto you and I don't want anyone to end up with sun poisoning. I'll be hanging out by the wave pool if anyone gets into trouble and needs an adult. Other than that, have fun, and we'll meet back up here when it's time to head back to Fandom."

“I’ll be on the Colossal Curl first, if anyone wants to be on my raft,” Parker said. “Let’s go!”

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

"Okay, so I'm still not clear on how this random persona you invented still managed to get backstage at the CMAs," Kathy said, because she didn't understand the full extent of how good Eliot was at everything ever. "Was Kaye Lynn there? Did she and her brother make it big or something?"

"Kaye Lynn was there," Eliot said. "In the audience. She hasn't made it that big yet." As for the rest of her question, Eliot could only shrug. "I had Hardison and Parker with me. The three of us are good at makin' things happen."

"Well, yeah, but I always assumed you meant, things like...I don't know. Like bringing down politicians and Big Pharma and stuff, not also just getting backstage to get autographs and things." Though with their varied skills, she could see how easy it would be for them. "Did Mr. Hardison put you on some special list or Parker steal you a pass or...?"

"Little bit of a lot of things," Eliot said. "I . . . did end up having to perform though. A song I sort of tossed off at the last minute. Not one of my best moments."

Thank god it hadn't been anywhere near the mainstage. He probably would have choked and died from nerves.

Pffft, Kathy didn't believe it. At some point, she'd joined the group of people convinced that Eliot could do anything.

And, in case they needed proof, there was his entire career.

"You had to perform, huh?" she asked, smirking a little. "What made that happen?"

Easy money was on Parker. Somehow.

Eliot's entire career had more to do with not being clever enough to go down and stay there. Combined with a strange, subconscious refusal to get killed. No matter what the rest of his head tried to tell him.

"Parker shoved me out onto a stage," Eliot said. "I think she was plottin' it from the beginning."

"That's not fair!" Kathy protested. "...I'm fairly certain Mr. Hardison helped."

"He probably cleared the stage to make sure she'd have the chance to do it," Eliot said with a sigh. "Pretty sure he's regretting that, now he has to scrub Tube-Tubes or whatever it's called. Again."

Eliot knew what it was called.

"You don't--" Kathy suddenly wanted to buy Mr. Hardison all the drinks. "Did you mean Youtube?"

"Sure, that's the one," Eliot said. "Every time I end up performin' it goes up on the net and it gets a little more likely that the wrong person'll end up recognizin' me."

"But you keep doing it," Kathy noted. "Because it makes them happy."

She was onto you, secret romantic.

And, you know, because he actually really really enjoyed the attention and the brief glimpses into other lives he could have had, if he'd made other choices.

"And because they literally forced me to do it."

"And you've never gotten out of things that you didn't want to do before," Kathy said, deadpan.

"Not where they're concerned," Eliot said. "When you work with a team, you go with the team's plans."

Yes, because it was all about being a team, here.

"Of course," Kathy said, nodding very seriously. "I'm sure that's exactly what that's about. Teamwork."

Eliot rolled his eyes. It didn't do any good to argue with a 17 year old. "Glad to hear the weekend went well here, too."

Especially when she was right!

"It did," Kathy agreed. "Nice and quiet. I skipped Baltimore because Val seemed to really miss you at night. She needed extra puppy-snuggles then."

While looking reproachful at Kathy for not being Eliot.

"Really?" Eliot tried not to look vaguely pleased at the idea -- and failed. Look, the list of folks who missed him when he was gone at night was not terribly long. "Hope she wasn't too much trouble for you, then."

"Not a bit," Kathy assured him. "Who could get mad at a puppy missing her person? And it wasn't that she was loud, just--sad. Whimpering, literal puppy eyes, sitting by the door like she was waiting to go home. That kind of thing. I could get her back into a good mood by playing with her and offering treats."

Thank goodness they were healthy treats, because Kathy had gone through a lot.

"Uhh, did you have rules about her sleeping on the bed? Because she cuddled up with me and I'll feel bad if I messed with training, but..."

BUT LITERAL PUPPY EYES.

Eliot snorted. "No way you did any more damage to her trainin' in a weekend than Hardison and Parker do on a daily basis. They frequently don't even manage to call her by her actual name."

"Val...is not a hard name to remember," Kathy said, confused.

"Yeah, rememberin' it ain't the problem. They seem convinced she should be named 'Megabyte'."

"...Like the dog in the old cartoon from the 90s with the robots?"

"Probably?" Eliot had no idea. "Hardison ain't always real good at boundaries. So he thinks renamin' his friend's dog is a great thing to do."

Or he was riling Eliot up. The two weren't mutually exclusive.

Because failing at boundaries and riling people up were exclusive to Hardison! That was roughly 3/5's of how they interacted

"You guys all have a really weird relationship, you know that, right?" Kathy was smiling fondly at Eliot again.

Re: Talk to the teachers

vdistinctive - 2015-06-18 22:32 (UTC) - Expand

spin_kick_snap - 2015-06-19 00:26 (UTC) - Expand