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Title for Splish Splash by Bobby Darin.

Title: A-Splishin' and A-Splashin'
Fandom: DC TV
Rating: PG-13
Word Count: 1168
In Responds to: ColdWave Weekend 2018: Watery Wonderland
Characters: Len, Mick, a bit of Lisa
Summary: Len doesn't appreciate Mick's creative solution to beating the heat.



Len opens the door and takes one step into the apartment before rocking to a halt, one foot reflexively sticking forward to keep the door from swinging back into his face.

Lisa gives him a quick, barely attentive look before turning back to the television and, instead of a greeting, tells him, "Shut the door, Lenny. You'll let bugs in." Then she takes a sip of her pink lemonade with a little paper umbrella out of a highball glass. She's wearing a shiny swimsuit, deep purple and electric blue, a pair of Aubrey Hepburn sunglasses Len stole for her last year and has her hair up in a messy bun. She looks very much like she should be on some French Riviera resort instead of sitting in an inflatable pool in the middle of the front room in the shitty apartment Len shares with Mick.

Len glares at his partner, obviously responsible for this current absurdity, and finds Mick in a plastic-weave folding chair, boxers, a bright Hawaiian style shirt open over his bare chest and a pink and yellow plastic lei Lisa had gotten at school one year hanging around his neck. His feet are soaking in the kiddie pool right next to Lisa, sipping out of his own paper-umbrella-topped and decidedly more alcoholic highball glass, seemingly content to watch Saved By The Bell with Lisa.

With a sigh and a pinch to the bridge of his nose, Len steps in to let the door close behind him. He loves Mick, he really does, both as a partner and as something indefinable but sometimes... sometimes Len doesn't know why he trusts leaving Mick and Lisa alone for any length of time together. Of course he's glad that Lisa has something she can trust asides from himself and that Mick is just as ready to defend and take care of her as he is Len. Neither will Len deny that he'll willingly spoil his little sister at any chance he can, eager to give her all the things their father refuses to, but Len at least puts down hard limits that Lisa, generally, respects. With Mick, however, in some ways the two are cut from the same cloth. The one that, once one has an idea in their head, no matter how non-nonsensical or irresponsible, the other will eagerly egg them on until they end up buying and filling up a goddamn inflatable pool in the front room.

"You just gonna stand around?" Mick asks, leaning over to put his drink on a toolbox he'd pulled over to use as a table. "Have a seat. Relax for once." He pulls up another plastic folding chair and opens it up next to his own.

Len just gives Mick a very pointed look and grits out, "A word." He turns on his heel and stalks into their bedroom. There's the telltale sound of water sloshing, then the creaking of Mick's heavy weight on the floorboards. When Len turns around Mick is right there, not caring about the water he's trailed through the carpet. That little tidbit makes Len's voice a little sharper when he bites out, "What the hell, Mick?"

Mick just shrugs, both not really caring about and used to weathering Len's irritated anger. "You don't wanna shell out for an air conditioner."

"So you got a fucking pool?"

"And folding chairs."

"That doesn't make it better."

Mick's brow furrows in a light annoyance. "It's hot, miserable and humid, neither you or your sister are willing to go to a public pool. What else am I supposed to do?"

"So what, we're just going to keep a pool of water in the front room?"

"I'll dump the water out the window when Lise is done with it. It's not like that shit is permanent."

"And the mold that'll inevitably start growing because neither of you think about things like tracking water through a carpet?"

"So we'll get a new apartment."

Len stares. "If we could afford a better apartment, say one with a working air conditioner, we'd be in it already!"

"Too bad we're not crooks or nothing," Mick says, sarcasm so thick Len can feel it dripping down his back along with the sweat, "we'd just steal the money for it. Until then, I guess we'll just make due with what we got."

Len has to pause and visibly collect himself. Sometimes dealing with Mick was like bashing up against a brick fucking wall. Len knows these sorts of partnerships will occasionally have friction and requires work to get over it, and he knows Mick has said some decidedly unflattering things about Len's own stubbornness but sometimes, in moments like these, he thinks that Mick is far more stubborn and purposefully obtuse for Len's patience.

"Would it shut you up if I told you I got a box of Fudgsicles?"

Len's brain skids to a halt. For a moment he's tempted to berate Mick's attempt to bribe him with his favorite ice cream he hadn't had since before his grandfather died. Then he nearly asks how Mick even knew about that because Len doesn't recall them getting ice cream together.

Which means Lisa told him. Because she's in on this, too, the little brat.

As Len draws his body straight, scathing words on his tongue, Lisa says from behind him, "Just change already and sit with us." When Len turns around to face her, Lisa shoves a bundle of clothes at Len's chest. Then she turns back around and pads into the front room. She, like Mick, doesn't seem to care at all for the water she's trailing.

Mick roars with laughter, slapping Len's shoulder, though not as heavily as he would someone other than Len. "Let's see you try to argue with that," he chortles, then follows after Lisa, deeming the conversation won.

Len scowls impotently down the hall. After a moment he decides to unbundle the cloth. At the top is a Hawaiian shirt, not unlike the one Mick's wearing. Under the shirt is another, folded up fabric. When Len pulls it open, he recognizes it as the kind of fabric women on the beach will wrap around their hips or tie up like a dress. The material is light and thin, the color dark enough to obscure his scars, but gauzy enough that it's definitely meant to be a sexy tease. Len mentally sends an exasperated sigh Mick's way. Given the lack of witnesses, he will absolutely deny any fond twitching of his lips it may have brought.

Five minutes later, both men are in their fold out chairs, feet in the pool on either side of Lisa. Len has on his own sunglasses, the shirt and fabric wrapped around his waist over a pair of Mick's shorts and a tacky looking flower tucked behind his ear, a Mai Tai in one hand and Fudgsicle in the other.

It is still ridiculous and dumb but, well, it's a fun way to deal with the heat.

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