fandomhigh | Summer Shenanigans, Wednesday, May 11, 2022

Entry tags:

summer games

Summer Shenanigans, Wednesday, May 11, 2022

Good morning, everyone! It's time for another summer of Anakin Skywalker Thinks This Teaches Team Building and Also Amuses Himself (Mostly the Second Thing) but "Shenanigans" Is Easier!

The bleachers for viewing were set up in the park backed up to the pond and near the Belthazor Commemorative Divot. Food vendors, remembering how this worked, had arrived with hot dog, popcorn, and rum for the squirrels. And coffee. Just...so much coffee. Huge flatscreens were set up facing the bleachers, which gave people a hint that today's event would not just stay inside the park, and the cameras were trained at...well, ankle height or the sky for now because squirrels and rum.

Anakin and his bullhorn were standing behind a folding table stacked high with brightly patterned shirts and people who had been here before knew that just because the shirts were free, it never, ever meant you wanted to wear them.

"GOOD MORNING!" he boomed through the bullhorn when enough people were gathered. "Welcome to another summer of team building activities!"

He might be waiting for a while if he was expecting cheers, just saying.

"Today, as has become tradition, we shall conduct a relay race around the island to acquaint you newcomers with where things are!" he said. "Please listen as your name is called and then come up for your festive t-shirts. We shall have four teams of eight."

TEAM CAT-DOLPHINS
Tony
Irene
Liz
Ulysses
Hannibal
Guillermo
Tahani
Graham

TEAM SPACE PIZZA
Watts
Jaskier
Lana
Vi
Jon
Wanda
Summer
Rey

TEAM TACO CAT
Steve M.
Sakaki
Libby
Steph
Clare
Buck
Miguel
Tisarwat

TEAM SLOTH LLAMA
Goose
Isabela
Alara
Beaker
Will
Stark
Jo
Jaina

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Yeah, the fact that Steph, indoor nerd kid extraordinaire, was one of the people who got tagged to do this leg of the race was hilarious. The fact that she was competing against Vi, probably the single actually qualified person in this leg of the race, was extra hilarious.

Except what was the most hilarious was that Steph, absolutely struggling through 25 burpees (what the hell?) in a terrifying taco cat Hawaiian shirt and a hat that looked like a shark eating her head (yes, it was on over her beanie, what kind of question was that?) somehow managed to be one of the first people to the docks.

How? Sheer competitive drive and a need to channel a desire for physical exertion into something, probably. Also she was maybe fueled just a bit by spite after that whole thing where Vi said she had noodle arms.

And some sheer luck, to be real. It was like she and her nonexistent bonus to athletics checks had managed to roll a natural 20, basically.

Vi wasn't actually that far behind Steph, though since her putative partner wasn't with her yet apparently it didn't count until he showed up.

Although she was fairly sweaty she didn't even have to grace to be breathing particularly hard. "Man, good thing they weren't judging you on technique," she said, because yes, she'd watched Steph struggle though the exercises before doing them a lot more effortlessly. "You'd still be there."

Steph, all but doubled over and working very hard at catching her breath, shot her a playful glare and flipped her off.

"Must be nice, having the luxury to stop and watch me long enough to have some smartass things to say about my technique, and still catch up."

Vi dropped into a crouch so she could be a smart ass face-to-face. "What can I say, it's a gift."

"Just because you're all built and in excellent shape," Steph said, pretty much right up in her face and grinning. She reached out with one fingertip to poke Vi between the eyes. "God, you are such a jerk."

Not that it sounded remotely like an insult.

"A jerk who'd be more than happy to show you the right way," she said, grinning back as she let Steph poke at her. "Though I guess you did okay for someone with noodle arms."

Vi, this was how people ended up pushed off docks.

Sure, if Steph was even capable of pushing her off the docks.

"This," she said, poking at Vi again, "was absolutely my revenge for you saying that."

And then, you know what, she was just going to try and push Vi off the docks anyway. Not that she expected to succeed.

Under ordinary circumstances she probably wouldn't have, but between Vi's tendency to play up and along with Steph shoving her, and the docks being more slippery than she expected, well...

As she overbalanced, she grabbed at Steph's arm to try and catch herself.

And given how much weight and muscle Vi had on her, Steph stood no chance in hell of actually being able to keep her from falling, much less haul her back up. Especially considering she hadn't expected that to work.

Which meant that --

"Oh, shit!"

Yeah, they were both going to hit the water with a splash, weren't they.

And a pretty spectacular one at that, with all the windmilling Vi had been doing to try and stay on the dock.

"Shit," Vi said as she resurfaced. "You okay?"

"I'm --" Steph blinked water out of her eyes and realized that somehow, improbably, the shark hat had flown off her head and stayed on the dock, which was nice and convenient since she'd forgotten to hand it off to her teammate.

"Yeah, I'm fine." Hanging on to Vi, because she was still a little winded and not the best swimmer, but otherwise fine. "Fuck, I'm sorry, I didn't think I was actually going to push you in."

And Vi had put the board down when she started poking fun at Steph, so Wanda would be able to find it pretty easily.

"I didn't either," Vi said, shifting her grip to help hold Steph up as she tread water. "Might have been more careful if I had."

"Yeah, I really didn't mean to... Are you okay?" Steph asked, looking her over with concern.

They should probably attempt to get back to dry land soon, but priorities.

It was very important they check each other over now, in the water, where their clothing would be less clingy.

"Better than the last time I took an unexpected dip." Even when you did it properly, leaping into water from that height had hurt.

Steph thought she had a pretty good guess about when that had been, but she wasn't going to be asking about it right now.

"You're sure you're not hurt?" It wasn't that Steph didn't believe her, but she felt bad about causing this.

Given she was likely very right with that guess, Vi was grateful for that.

"Sure I'm sure. You can check me over if you don't believe me," Vi said before she could stop herself. "Or the clinic can."

Hey, she'd said Vi's secrets were safe with her, and she meant it.

Steph cleared her throat. "We should probably get out of the water first, but... I don't think we need to get you to the clinic? It wasn't that long of a fall."

"It wasn't," Vi agreed, treading water in a more shorewards direction. "We should be fine once we're less wet."

Steph coughed a little bit again, which was just because of getting an unexpected splash of water to the face, really.

"Could use a few minutes to catch my breath, too," she admitted, trying her best to help propel them both towards dry land.

What other reason could there have been for it?

"We really need to work on your stamina," Vi said, once her feet touched more solid ground.

No reason at all.

"Please don't tell me you're going to make me start going on runs or something," Steph grumbled, and gave Vi a quick once-over. Just to make sure she was really okay.

Vi didn't look injured, just very, very damp and maybe a little chilly.

"There's other exercise options," she said, giving Steph her own once over. For injuries.

Steph, who was also uninjured but also soaked and starting to shiver a little bit, sighed. "Since you're going to show me how to punch things properly, I guess I'm going to have to, but we should probably go dry off first, huh?"

"Yeah, we probably should," Vi agreed, moving to rub Steph's arms to help keep her warm.

"I'm fine. Really. I'm gonna be feeling this tomorrow for sure, though," Steph said, laughing, although she certainly seemed to appreciate the help. "Come on, let's go find a nice sunny spot to watch the rest of this madhouse play out."

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