No siblings. No competition. Dar saw the disk headed her way and she lunged through the water after it, uncoiling her body and jumping clear of the surface as she snatched it just before it went sailing on a trajectory that would have taken it under the dock. "Wench!"
"Work for it!" Kerry yelled back, clearly enjoying herself. "Teach you to call me short, huh!"
"If I have to go diving under that dock, you're gonna be more than short, ya little chipmunk!" Dar let fly with the Frisbee, chortling as her partner had to scramble for it, bouncing through the waves and kicking up spray as she went for the catch.
"I'll chipmunk you." Kerry grabbed the Frisbee, and then, instead of tossing it back just headed in Dar's direction, rambling through the water like a miniature freight train. "You're toast!"
Run? Dar considered the effort of escaping from Kerry's evil intentions, and weighed it against the pleasure of suffering them. She grinned, and as Kerry came within range, she dove right toward her, disappearing beneath the waves and colliding with Kerry's legs as she tried unsuccessfully to stop in time.
Way overbalanced, Kerry let out a yelp and tumbled over, landing mostly on Dar and grabbing at her as they wrestled half in and half out of the water. "You...you..."
Dar got a hold around Kerry's middle and then got her legs under her, standing up and hauling her out of the water like a sack of oats. "Yeeeesss?" She purred into Kerry's ear. "Me what?"
Kerry paused to catch her breath from her run through the waves. "You...punk." She slapped Dar on the thigh. "You tricked me."
"Into charging at me like a rhino?" Dar laughed. "Uh okay, honey. If you say so."
"Bah." Kerry let her head rest against Dar's chest. "Where's the Frisbee?"
"Didn't you have it?" Dar looked around. "Oh rats." She spotted the disk floating under the dock. "You stay here, cuttlefish. I'll get it." She released Kerry and headed for the pier, diving under the water as she got close to it.
Neither of them was really fond of swimming right under the wooden surface, since several large sea bass had taken up residence and they loved to nibble intruding humans. At night, the fish were sleeping, but during the day-- Dar blinked her eyes open quickly in the salt water then just as quickly closed them. She surfaced and located the disk, swimming over to it and grabbing it just as something bit her foot. "Yeow! Bastard!" She kicked out in reflex then kicked with her other foot just for good measure. She felt a spongy impact then turned and headed out from under the pier.
Kerry was already at the edge of the wood reaching for her. "The fish?"
"God, I hope so." Dar felt a sharp sting where she'd been bitten. "Ow."
"Sorry." Kerry took hold of her arm and started heading for the shore. "I should have kept track of the damn thing."
"Residential hazard." Dar winced, as she hopped out of the water, grateful for Kerry's supportive arm around her waist. "I should have known better..."
"Should have just let the silly thing float off. We have a dozen of them." Kerry muttered as they got on shore, and sat down in the sand together. She scooted down a little and lifted Dar's foot up, setting it on her thigh to look at it. "Let me see."
"Ah ah ah. We don't let plastic into the ocean ecology." Dar peered at her foot, which was covered with an alarming amount of blood. "Wow." She fended off Chino, who snuffled around them anxiously.
"Yikes. We better go inside and clean this off." Kerry leaned closer. The fish had really chomped down on her foot, making a semi-circle of punctures which were liberally leaking blood. "I don't think it's deep, but..."
"But it hurts." Dar observed. "Stings like hell."
Kerry gently wiped the blood away and bent over, kissing the spot. "Let's go. We've got some peroxide in the cabin."
Dar cautiously withdrew her foot from Kerry's clutches. "It doesn't hurt that bad."
"Baby."
"Well, it doesn't."
"C'mon, big baby." Kerry got to her feet and offered her partner a hand up. "Those are puncture wounds, and a very good friend of mine taught me that those have to be cleaned out really well."
"Yeah, well, you shouldn't always listen to your friends." Dar accepted the aid, hopping along the sand over to where the porch steps were. "Look, it's stopped bleeding."
"C'mon."
"Kerry!"
"C'mon, chicken little. What if that was a barracuda?" Kerry took a firm hold on her reluctant damsel in distress and tugged her toward the house. "Bet we've got mercurochrome, too."
"Whine."
Kerry opened the door. "Was that you, or Cheebles?"
IN THE END, Dar gave in gracefully to the attention. She lay down on the couch with her injured foot in Kerry's lap as her partner tended to it. The cleaning hurt, as she'd expected, but it was offset by the look of gentle concern on Kerry's face, and the obvious care she was taking to do the job right.
The punctures were deep. "I know you were kidding about the barracuda." Dar kept her eyes closed the better not to see the holes in her foot. "But you might be on to something there."
Kerry looked up from her task, holding up the cotton swab she'd been using the clean out the punctures. "You really think so?"
"Too narrow a jaw to be the bass." Dar said. "Besides, it's much more macha to say I got bit by a 'cuda than by a poky old sea bass."
Kerry chuckled softly, giving Dar's ankle a little pat. "You realize this means I'm driving home, right?" She painted the top row of punctures with some lurid mercurochrome, admiring the well formed, powerful arch under her hands. "You have such pretty feet."
Dar chortled. "I do not."
"Yes, you do." Kerry traced a line across the side of one. "Have you ever worn toenail polish?"
Dar was quiet for a moment. "Are you suggesting I should?" She wiggled her toes, then wished she hadn't, as the injury protested. "Have you?"
"Me?" Kerry finished the top, and then she shifted to do the punctures on the bottom of Dar's foot, scattered across its ball. "Oh no. The idea of my wearing open shoes in public...I think I'd have had them cut off if I'd tried it. I wasn't even allowed to use anything other than clear or a light pink fingernail polish."
"Did you want to?"
"Yeah." Kerry smiled as she worked. "Bright, flame red." She painted a somewhat deeper puncture. "Oo...Dar, that's a bad one."
"Ow." Her partner sighed. "Well, you could now."
"Could now what?"
"Wear bright red nail polish."
Kerry looked up and over her shoulder at her partner, a quizzical expression on her face. "Do I look like a red nail polish kind of girl to you?" She asked. "I said back then, Dar. Now I just don't consider myself a red toenail type."
Dar studied her back for a moment, wondering about toenail polish among other things. She could honestly say wearing polish of any kind on her feet wasn't something that had ever crossed her mind, since taking her boots off to find that would have caused her merciless kidding probably right up until this very day. "Well." She considered. "I think a nice sea green would be pretty on you."
"Mmm hmm." Kerry agreed absentmindedly. "Probably. You would look good in coral."
"I would?"
"Yeah."
Dar considered further. "Kerry?"
"Uh?"
"Why are we having this discussion?"
Her partner shrugged her shoulders. "I don't know. I'm sitting here playing with your feet, so I guess the thought just came to me. I remember it was the topic of conversation regularly when I was in college." She finished the last bite mark. "There." She studied her handiwork. "I'm going to put a bandage on this. You shouldn't walk on it."
"I'm not walking on it." Dar agreed, wriggling into a more comfortable spot on the couch.