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The ditch day? An excellent idea, one of the best he’s had. Turns out, there’s a lot of absolute nonsense they can fit into one day when they’re not worrying about whatever the Bureau’s latest mission is.
It’s was just about an hour past noon now, and they were currently rowing through a local lake, because they just happened to spot the sign saying there were boats for rent as they were passing through the park. The fall weather was actually pretty nice, currently they were just chilling in the middle of the water, while Dakota was in the middle of telling a story.
“And it was like, this scampi happening! You know, scampi, like sh-“
Dakota's train of thought was suddenly thrown off track by- Cavendish, laughing. …He really didn’t do it enough, always seeming so dour, so he was caught entirely off-guard by how nice and light it sounded.
…But, wait.
“Y’know, I just realized, I already used that joke I think, like, last week or so,” (he wiggled his fingers in the air a bit in the time traveler’s universal symbol of ‘something around that, but time travel makes it hard to hammer down specifically.’) “-when we were staking out that pistachio shipment by the beach. But you didn’t laugh then, not even after I explained it.”
“Well, of course not?” Cavendish sounded pretty befuddled by where Dakota’s line of thought was going.
“So what, did it take you a week, ish, to finally get it? I’m not judging, but-“
Cavendish interrupted him with a bit of an annoyed hmph. “Don’t be ridiculous, I got it the first time.”
“What? I don’t buy it. If you already knew it was hilarious, which it is, why didn’t you even giggle?”
“We were in the middle of a mission. There’s a time and place for humor, and that’s clearly not it. I’ld be disrespecting our job if I laughed.”
“Wha- So you’ve deliberately not been react- Cav, you!”
He shoved his time partner- oh, maybe a little too hard actually, the momentum sent the boat rocking hard enough that Cavendish actually went tumbling out and he splashed into the lake, falling under for a short bit before resurfacing.
“Dakota, what was that for?!”
“Yeah, yeah, whatever, you’re fine.” …And thank goodness for that, if that had gone horribly wrong it would have been a particularly stupid way to ruin a perfectly fine day.
Cavendish’s tone was absolutely furious, “Help me back up this instant!”
And sure, Cavendish did look rather pathetic, paddling in place, mustache drooping and looking rather like a drowned cat. But—
“You know what?” an insufferably smug smile spread across his face. “Nah. Not until you admit that I’m a comedic genius.”
“You-“ Cavendish muffled a sound of pure frustration before continuing with “Alright, fine, you are!”
“Are a what?~” …Yeah, he was just playing with him at that point.
“A comedic genius!”
“…Okay, okay, I guess that’s good enough. There you go—“ he said while he heaved a sopping wet Cavendish back into the boat, managing to rock it only a little while doing so. But he couldn’t resist jabbing- “Now was that really that hard?”
Cavendish was the picture of grumpiness, hunched over and slightly shivering while he wrung water out of what clothes he could. And yet, Dakota still barely managed to hear him mutter, under his breath, “Well, at least you didn’t make me lie.”
…This ditch day was the best idea he ever had.