renaissanceman | (no subject)

The first thing Priestly does is hits his head. This is probably the result of trying to stand up without opening his eyes first and tripping over something that appears to be attached to his feet. It's not the best way to start a day, but the blow to his head not actually hard enough to be responsible for the fact that when he does open his eyes, he appears to be on a small, stationary boat.

This morning, it's probably a small blessing that he's not rocking back and forth.

"Okay," he says slowly, sifting through his memories of the night before. Which doesn't take long, because he doesn't have any. "Right."

It's at this point Priestly notices that he is not alone on said stationary boat. He also notices other things, mostly about his attire, but at the moment they don't seem quite as important as the person and the boat and the complete absence of explanation.

"Uh...good morning?" he says. He's not sure what the appropriate response to this situation is, but politeness can't hurt.

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The first sensation to come to Jane out of the inky blackness of sleep is pain. A dull, throbbing pain behind her temples that signals a night having much too good a time. Groaning, she cracks open her sleep-crusted eyes only to wince and throw up a hand in defense of the ruthlessness of the sun. Her head feels unnaturally hot, but she can't be bothered yet to determine why.

"What the hell," she rasps out, peering through her fingers as Priestly's face swims into view. Why was it always him?

"I was kind of hoping you could answer that," he admits. He'd say he's woken up in strangers places but...well, he hasn't. Not this time. This is one for the books. Pulling himself up to a seated position, since standing was an abject failure, he looks over the edge. At bright sand. "Remind me to never be a sailor."

"What is on my head?" Jane asks, already pulling the thing off. She holds it up, staring at it through the mess of her hair.

"Why am I dressed like a bear?" Blinking, she shifts her gaze to finally fully take in Priestly. "Why are you dressed like a fish?"

"I'm not dressed like a...oh, right," says Priestly, staring at his legs. Or what should have been his legs. "Maybe it was self defense? Like...in case we ever actually got near the water. Or something. I have absolutely no idea."

There's a thick, leather-bound book resting in the bottom of the boat beside Jane's knee, and curiosity naturally dictates she must pick it up. The spine and cover are nondescript and without title, but when she flips it open and reads a random passage her eyes go wide and her cheeks flush pink. She snaps the book neatly shut and resists chucking it and its "throbbing member" into the water.

"Every time I'm out of it, you're around," she points out as she scrambles gracelessly to wobbly feet and squints down at Priestly. "Every time. I'm beginning to think I shouldn't ignore this weird pattern."

Also, she never got her diamonds from last time.

"I guess I'm just a magical kind of guy," says Priestly, raising his arms like he's helpless against the powers that be. "And weird." The tail he's wearing is a testament to that, if everything else about him wasn't already. "It could be worse?"

"It could be much worse," Jane allowed, her face screwing up in distaste at the mere idea of having found herself in such dubious circumstances with Loki. Not to mention that, despite the pervasive weirdness, Priestly had an unfailingly mellow attitude that made it all go down a little easier.

"My head feels like it's about to fall off, so I'm getting out of this boat and out of the sun," she continued, frowning as she glanced around. She had no shoes on, and just knew that sand was going to be blistering. "Are you okay to walk in that?"

Priestly doesn't look down as he puts his tail through the paces. "If by 'walk' you mean 'shuffle', then I should be all right," he says finally. "Maybe I should, uh, tear a few more parts off. Do you think anyone would believe I'm rocking some bermuda shorts if I get it up to my knees?"

Hand lifted to shade her eyes, Jane paused and considered Priestly's "tail" a long moment.

"No," she abruptly declared, and then continued to clamber her way gracelessly from the little boat and onto the hot sand with a hiss.

Priestly does the merman shuffle for a few steps, then grunts and reaches down and tears at the seams. "I'll be with you in just a moment," he says. "There's no hop happening here until I'm guaranteed not to get a mouthful of sand."

"You could just take it off," Jane suggests over her shoulder, then immediately thinks better of this advice, pausing in mid-step to look back at where Priestly is still shuffling in the little boat.

"Unless you have nothing on underneath, in which case that would be a really bad idea and I think we should avoid it."

"I am the king of bad ideas," says Priestly, "but there are certain bits of me that haven't seen a lot of sunshine, so no. I'm less worried about your, like, sensitive eyes than about my sensitive, you know, junk."

"I am pretty sure my eyes could handle it," Jane calls as she continues trudging up the dunes, grateful when she reaches the shade of the sparse palm trees near the top. "I have a very large boyfriend-person who isn't exactly what I'd call a modern thinker." She glances down at the book in her hand and then squints up at the tree line. "God, I really hope the gossip mill is engaged elsewhere, I so don't want to have to try and explain why I was passed out in a boat with a book of Victorian porn and a guy dressed like a fish."

"Dude," says Priestly, giving one more tear and finally giving himself enough range of motion to walk normally. He might look weird, but then, what else is new? "Who wouldn't want to try to explain that? Especially when we can make shit up. It'll be the best story ever."