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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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."