[for joe]

[damnfinecup]

It wasn't a bad day to go to the beach. Not that there were often bad days to go to the beach on the island, if one didn't count the occasional hurricane or those times when dinosaurs walked the island. Even in the rain, Dale sometimes liked to walk along the sand and watch the clouds gather over the ocean. There was no rain today though, just a partly cloudy sky and a pleasant breeze.

Dale didn't do much in the way of food, deciding they would be better off raiding the nearby trees for something to eat, but he did wear the awful shorts, as promised, along with equally awful tank top and his too-large running shoes that he never could find the heart to part with, not with everything they'd been through together. And rather than heading west or south they went north, to a more distant and seldom-visited stretch of shoreline.

"So," he said, standing barefoot in the surf and looking out over the water. "You ready?"

Comments

[jdick.livejournal.com]

And the worst part about making Dale feel like shit with saying something like that was that it wasn't a lie, but Joe knew he couldn't say that now, that at this point it was too... too something. He meant it, but it didn't count for much right now, so he just continued to swim for a little bit before flipping over onto his back to float.

[dale-cooper-fbi.livejournal.com]

"Swimming's good for the lungs, too," said Dale finally, after the moment had time to pass, "and even if you're going to argue that you aren't worried about muscle, I think we both know that your lungs could use some work. Come on, follow me."

[jdick.livejournal.com]

"Such a pain in my ass," Joe grumbled, but he flipped over again and swam toward Dale in the water. He wasn't a terrible swimmer, he'd lived most of his life near one of the nicer beaches in Vancouver after all, but he wasn't nearly as strong a swimmer as Dale and he knew it.

[dale-cooper-fbi.livejournal.com]

Dale didn't try to race him, just set a comfortable -- fairly slow, for him -- pace parallel to the shore. Nothing Joe couldn't keep up with if he was making any effort at all.

[jdick.livejournal.com]

"So we're just gonna swim around the island?" Joe asked dryly when he lifted his head out of the water, loud enough for Dale to hear, praying that he wasn't going to expect him to go on for too long like this.

[dale-cooper-fbi.livejournal.com]

"I was thinking just as far as that tree over there," said Dale, pausing to gesture at one ahead of them that was growing a little nearer to the shore than the rest. "If you want to tackle the whole island we should have brought our lunch."

[jdick.livejournal.com]

"And what? Carried it on our heads to keep it dry?" Joe asked softly, smirking a little bit before he continued to swim, falling silent so that he didn't expend all his energy talking.

[dale-cooper-fbi.livejournal.com]

"There are a number of things we could have brought that wouldn't have needed to stay dry," said Dale, as though actually planning out the logistics of swimming around the island. "And as long as we weren't near dinosaur territory we could always go ashore and hunt something down."

[jdick.livejournal.com]

"You could hunt something down," Joe said, sounding a little out of breath and he knew he should stop talking, but he didn't particularly want to. "I'd sit and watch."

[dale-cooper-fbi.livejournal.com]

"You could fish," Dale suggested instead, swimming at what was to him a very leisurely pace. "We could stick you in the water with a net and let you find something."

[jdick.livejournal.com]

Joe laughed at that, inhaled some water accidentally and had to stop swimming while he coughed, his eyes watering as he felt the salt burning his throat. "Fucker," he wheezed, his hand pressed against his chest.

[dale-cooper-fbi.livejournal.com]

Dale immediately swam to his side, concerned. "Time to take it to shore again?" he asked. "Can you breathe?"

[jdick.livejournal.com]

"Yeah, I'm fine," Joe said with another laugh that ended in a hiccup. "I swallowed some water when I laughed."

[dale-cooper-fbi.livejournal.com]

"Do you want to cut this short and go in?" Dale asked again, though he hoped that Joe wouldn't just use the coughing fit as an excuse to quit if he was actually all right.

[jdick.livejournal.com]

"No, just gimme a sec," Joe said with another laugh and then another little coughing fit before his throat and lungs finally felt clear. "I'm okay," he said after a moment.

[dale-cooper-fbi.livejournal.com]

"All right then," said Dale, starting back on his way in the direction of the tree again. It wasn't really that much further, but he kept going anyway, instead of turning around. It was good to have a goal. "I won't ask you any more questions."

[jdick.livejournal.com]

"Don't make me laugh, that's what you need to not do," Joe instructed before he began swimming again, following Dale. "That's what the fucking problem was."

[dale-cooper-fbi.livejournal.com]

"I didn't realise I made you laugh so often that it's a problem," said Dale, looking back at him without pausing his strokes.

[jdick.livejournal.com]

"When it causes me to inhale salt water it becomes a fucking problem," Joe shot back, trying not to laugh again. He didn't know if it was getting rid of the gun that made him feel good, but it was something.