Work Text:
The trip to Florida was John's idea, kind of. It was something John said he'd always wanted to do (he did not, actually, and only wanted to after being exposed to the Florida Man meme, and all of the people who were (rightly) saying he fit the part of a Florida Man quite well) and Amy decided to make happen. Dave wasn't really involved in any of that, fairly certain it would fall through eventually, as many John Plans do when someone more sensible tries to make them happen. But it didn't fall through.
Driving from [Undisclosed] all the way down to Florida was tough in and of itself, but Amy had set her sights on an affordable city that was honestly not unlike [Undisclosed] in nature. Small, tired, flat broke. Not really a touristy kind of place. But it was only an hour away from Clearwater, a city with a lot more going on in it, and that was the appeal of it. They shacked up in a shitty motel and had a really limited budget but Amy was still determined to do all of the obnoxious touristy things that had Dave feeling like every local was going to make fun of them in private later.
Their third day, Amy spotted the absolute most offensively-kitschy tropical-themed mini golf course they had ever laid eyes on. It was impossible to conceptualize, and yet, there it was, sitting awkwardly nestled into a strange corner beneath a state highway and bordered by two local highways. The course itself kind of faced away from the road, as if it knew its existence was embarrassing. Or like someone had been playing Rollercoaster Tycoon and accidentally rotated the attraction before setting it down. She of course demanded they stop, derailing the afternoon's plans (there weren't really any, but still, Dave had not woken up that morning with mini golf in mind), and play "at least one round, come on guys, we're only gonna be here once!"
It had rained earlier in the day, which is to say, it had stopped raining five minutes before they left their last stop and everything was still very wet. They had, mistakenly, believed this would cool things off. The moment they stepped out of Dave's car, they realized that was absolutely not the case. Hot wet air slapped them right in their faces, as if someone had just chucked a wet hot water bottle at them. Despite this, Amy was not deterred, just whipped a bottle of sunscreen out of her purse and said, "I hope they're still open, it looks kinda dead out here."
Dave felt like an ass for it but he very much hoped they'd closed due to the rain.
John stretched up onto his toes, squinting into the distance. "Nah, there's people in the front kiosk... thing. They're open."
After paying far too much money in Dave's opinion and struggling to figure out what size of golf club they needed (the options ranging from "Is this even big enough for a toddler?" to "Maybe a dwarf could use this one"), none of them realizing that mini golf clubs are meant to be quite small, they then picked out their own individual brightly-coloured golf balls. Amy went for a bright sunny yellow, Dave just picked the first one he saw, which was bright blood-red, and John nabbed an obnoxiously bright-pink one. Now fully-equipped, they were finally ready to get going. Amy paused for a moment to put on her prosthetic hand--she'd brought it with her in her purse "just in case," and despite having liked it when she first got it, really only used it at home. She wouldn't tell either of them why, and had about a half-million excuses for not wearing it out often, but John had noticed she really only seemed to wear it when nobody else was around. He wasn't about to say shit, but he'd noticed. He hoped she'd have fun trying to golf with it at least.
"Bet you I get nothing but hole-in-ones," John said, leaning towards Dave like it was meant to be something quiet they'd keep to themselves but saying it loud enough for god and everybody to hear him.
"I'll be shocked if you get even one of those," Dave wiped sweat off his brow. They'd been outside maybe ten minutes, and he was already unpleasantly moist.
"I get more hole than you do," John started to say, before Amy "accidentally" smacked him in the gut with her golf club.
"Whoops, sorry. Still getting the hang of this thing. Who goes first?"
"You do," Dave said to her, at the same time John shouted, "I do!"
"Let's, uh, flip a coin," Amy suggested. "Heads I go first, tails John goes first."
John ended up going first, while Dave struggled to scribble their initials in on the scorecard with the world's most pathetic little pencil. His hands were sweaty. It was an unsettlingly-slippery pencil and the paper was that kind that's somewhere between normal paper and cardstock, just bendy enough to be really hard to write on but just firm enough it wasn't flopping around in his hand. He wished they'd given him an itty-bitty clipboard or something but maybe that was outside the scope of their budget.
John going first would end up being the worst possible thing that could happen, as he immediately slammed the ball so hard it rocketed into the decorative stream past the hole. John blinked stupidly at it, as if he couldn't possibly have predicted such an outcome.
"Good job, dumbass," Dave called. "Have fun fishing it out."
"Fuck off, Dave."
He ended up being unable to actually get to the stream, on account of it being roped-off, and when the employees saw him trying to vault the little rope-fence one skittered over quickly and just handed him a new ball, telling him not to worry about it and that that kind of thing happened all the time. Dave eyed the conspicuous lack of other golf balls in the stream but decided not to challenge them lest John grow even more annoying.
His second attempt did not go much better. The bright-pink golf ball at least found a new home in a bush rather than in the stream this time. "John, why don't you try hitting it a little less hard?" Amy gently suggested.
"Baby nothing about me is ever less-hard."
"John," Dave warned.
"Whatever. You're both just jealous of my awesome putting skills."
He did this five more times, until Dave threatened to strangle him if he didn't "putt like a normal fucking human, you goddamned idiot," past which point he did, finally, hit it more gently. It still took him three strokes to reach the hole, at which point he gleefully announced that number. Dave wrote down the proper number of ten, because he was scorekeeper and therefore got to be as spiteful as he wanted.
Amy went second, and nailed it in two hits.
"Beginner's luck," John huffed. Amy smiled good-naturedly at him as she went back to Dave, to take the card and pencil from him for a second so he could take his turn.
"Par for this hole is two." Dave felt his pants sticking to his leg as he bent over to put the ball down, and grimaced. Good lord but he was already overheating. It took him about four hits, because his ball did that annoying thing they do where it swung delicately around the rim of the hole and stopped beyond it, like it was teasing him. Amy marked it down as three anyway, deciding the last little nudge of a putt didn't count. Dave of course corrected this when he got the card back.
The rest of the course went in roughly the same manner. It was evident by the third hole that John could not be trusted to stop being a fucking moron and was demoted to going second, instead, something he griped about heavily until Dave threatened to knock his head clean off with his golf club. By the fifth hole they'd fallen into a pattern: John could not for the life of him not whack the ball like it was a pinata or it owed him money or something, Amy could easily get somewhere around par, and Dave was nearly always over par by at least one. By the eighth hole, Dave had sweated wet patches in his shirt, and felt completely disgusting. He was pretty sure the sunscreen Amy had forced them all to put on beforehand had been thoroughly rinsed off by his own pores, so he had a sunburn to look forward to, too. That, however, paled in importance to Amy managing to score a hole in one.
"Holy shit, babe, good job," he said, as she awkwardly bent over to fish it back out of the hole.
"You're too good at this," John narrowed his eyes. "Suspiciously good."
Amy didn't want to make them feel bad by telling them it was kind of easy--mini golf is a kid's game, after all, or something--so instead she said, "Maybe it's because I'm shorter. I'm closer to the ball." This did not make any sense, but neither of the other two pointed that out. "Or I just got lucky. Here, David, lemme hold the score card for you."
"If you get a hole in one, too, I'm leaving," John said.
"Good. Hope I do." John flipped him off and Amy giggled a little, that sort of half-hidden laugh she often did when she knew she shouldn't be laughing but it was funny anyway.
Dave did not in fact end up getting a hole in one, at which point John yelled, "HA! Guess you're stuck with me, motherfucker!"
"We wouldn't have it any other way," Amy nudged John. Dave did not agree with this but tactfully chose not to say shit.
The course had a scavenger hunt tacked on to it, presumably just as something for children to be doing while they waited their turn to keep them from bothering their parents. This was not something that appealed to Dave in the slightest, but John had heard the word "prize" being uttered when the employees told them about it, and by god, was he going to get that fucking prize. He squinted around at everything in sight when it wasn't his turn (and when he wasn't heckling Dave), determined to spot everything possible. Amy was pretty sure the prize would just be something cheesy and pointless, and really the only thing she wanted out of this was to spend time with the two of them, but she helped him anyway, writing down where he'd seen something on the scorecard when Dave wouldn't. There were a couple "false positives," where John was just clearly lying that some random tree looked like the item, that they argued over, but ultimately, Amy found it fun to do with him.
By the tenth hole John had started coming up with a song about mini golf, workshopping it out loud, and Dave wanted to kill him. He almost entertained killing them both, or maybe himself, when Amy started chiming in with help whenever John got stuck on a verse. Maybe if they were indoors and doing something that involved less walking and carrying things and bending over, Dave would have been more open to the notion of listening to John's squawky deliberately-off-tune voice, but they were most certainly not in that situation, and so Dave was not having this shit. Particularly because John had started focusing more on singing than continuing to golf and he still took his turn before Dave, something Dave was considering protesting. Not like it'd really help... Regardless of when John took his turn, they'd be standing around like idiots waiting for him anyway.
"John, for the love of god, put the solo to rest and go already," Dave snapped. The ball was halfway down the course. John was pretending his golf club was a mic.
John scowled at him. "Man, you're really pissy today."
"Putt or I'll kick your ass."
"You look like you're having fun," Amy nudged Dave gently, a little teasingly, while Dave finally relented to letting John do whatever he pleased.
"I'm having a great time," Dave lied through gritted teeth. "I'm definitely not planning his gruesome murder. In graphic detail."
Amy was beginning to feel a little guilty. And, well, she had to admit, she was getting sweaty and tired too, though not yet enough-so to be unhappy about it. That was the point of vacation to Florida, she was pretty sure. Getting sweaty and tired and sunburnt and falling asleep satisfied with your dayful of activities. But there comes a certain point where the exhaustion is no longer a mark of a day well spent and instead the product of aggravation. "Maybe I should've suggested something else..."
Dave softened immediately. "No, I'm glad we're here," he said, only lying a little bit. He moved to put an arm around her, then remembered how sweaty he was and decided against it, for her sake. "Him being an idiot isn't--Well, he'd have found a way to be like this with anything else we'd do. You know him."
She snorted. "Yeah, true."
"I am gonna shove my golf club up his ass if he doesn't stop doing this, though. We still have six more holes."
"Think if I shoved mine down his neck, they'd meet in the middle?"
Dave shuddered and gagged a bit in the back of his throat. "That's a horrible mental image, Amy."
"Sorry," she said completely unapologetically. "Oh, look, he finally got it."
"FOUR!" John announced proudly. Dave hadn't really been paying attention to how many times he'd fucked it up this time and decided eight was probably a good number. "As golfers always say."
"They say that before swinging. It means 'watch out.'"
"Maybe I'm just really late, Ames."
"You are that slow in the head," Dave commented, and John glared at him.
"No fighting at the mini golf course," Amy stuck out her golf club, putting it between them. "We do golf here, not battle."
"We can do both," John hefted the little golf club. "These things are pretty good weapons, probably."
"If you get us kicked off this golf course, I'm killing you and dumping your body in the swamp."
He flashed Dave a massive grin. "Ooh, I've always wanted to be a bog body."
"You can be a bog body some other day, John. C'mon, vrooooom, get out of the way so David can go," she gently nabbed him, pushing him towards a nearby little wooden bench. It was a touch soggy, but that didn't stop Amy from sitting on it, though it had stopped Dave, mostly because he didn't want his already-sweat-damp clothes to stick to him.
At the fifteenth hole, Amy got another hole-in-one, this one far more improbable than the last. The ball smacked into a rock obstacle by the hole, and instead of being knocked backwards, popped up into the air and bounced into the hole. "Holy crap," Amy said, laughing a little in shock. "How did that happen?"
"It's your robot hand!" John pointed, as she fished the ball back out of the hole. "It's giving you an unfair advantage with its hyper-precision, or something. It's doing... robot things. To make you win at mini golf."
"I kinda doubt that. It took me a week to figure out how to pick up a water glass using it," Amy responded. "It's definitely not smart enough for mini golf calculations."
John narrowed his eyes. "I bet that's what it wants you to think. The robot uprising is happening, and it's starting with your hand."
"John, shut the fuck up," Dave snapped. "You just suck and you're bitter about it."
"I don't suck! I'm doing awesome!" John waved the club around.
"You're supposed to keep the club on the ground," Amy reminded him.
"That's what the robots want!"
What little patience Dave possessed was worn completely threadbare. "Dude will you just take your fucking turn already? It's hot and I'm fuckin' exhausted."
"Fine. But I've got my eye on your hand." John did that thing people do where they point at their own eyes, then someone else, but just did it towards her hand. Amy waved at him with it, waggling its fingers, and he gasped theatrically.
"John. If you don't--" Dave began, but John waved him off and set his golf ball down.
"I'm going, I'm going, you sweaty bastard."
He slapped the golf ball clear onto the next hole's green.
"Wooo! Bonus!"
"No, John. Go get that back."
"I think I should get a score of negative one on this hole, actually. I bypassed it."
"John, go get your fucking ball."
"I don't know, maybe--" Amy started to say, but Dave gave her the most exhausted, pleading expression a man could possibly give, and she stopped talking. "Aw. You look like a kicked puppy."
"I'd rather be a kicked puppy, right now."
"Aw, baby," Amy reached for him and gave him a hug, despite how very damp he was. "I promise we'll go back to the hotel and you can rest after this."
"I'd like that." He did not hug her back, not wanting to get her even more covered in his sweat, despite the fact she was most certainly enured to it at this point.
"EXCUSE ME," John yelled. "While you were busy being sappy, I got a hole in one." He pointed down at the hole as if to prove it.
"John," Amy began, patiently, "I watched you drop it into the hole with your hand."
"I did not."
"You did. You didn't even walk past us to the start of the hole."
"Look, let's just give this one to him," Dave fumbled with the scorecard. "He's gonna lose regardless."
"YES!" John pumped his fist in the air, then pranced toward the next hole.
"And you usually scold me for enabling him," Amy teased.
"Look, I just wanna get out of here before sundown."
She laughed at that. "Okay, fair, yeah. Go take your turn before he gets bored and breaks something."
For the last three holes, John finally gave up his shtick, which is how Dave knew it really was hot as hell's armpit out here, if John actually wanted to hurry up and go back inside. Not like he was some big outdoorsy kind of guy, but he wasn't usually that bothered by staying outside for days on end for something fun. Probably the lack of alcohol involved in this was keeping him from being able to ignore it. He did, however, almost get very pissy when the 18th hole "ate his ball," until Amy gently informed him that that was how the company got the balls back at the end.
"Aw, what? I thought we got to keep 'em!"
"I don't think that's financially feasible." Amy stood beside him, looking down into the 18th hole. She patted his arm gently. "Don't worry. I'm sure you can buy a normal golf ball and paint it pink very cheaply."
"But if we don't keep the shit, why was this so expensive?"
Amy just patted his arm again and did not answer, walking past him toward a set of picnic tables on a little patio behind the front kiosk, Dave following behind her. John could spend the whole rest of the day standing there mourning his stupid golf ball, Dave would not be giving a shit anytime soon. He sat down heavily, ignoring the way the bench groaned under him, and Amy settled in next to him. "Here, gimme the scorecard, I'll tally it all up." Dave surrendered it to her with no comment, and she tactfully did not point out how very damp the paper was. To his credit, it wasn't just sweat; the very humidity of the air was slowly saturating the scorecard, turning it a bit unsettlingly-squishy for paper. Amy held the paper down on the table, at first instinctively putting her wrist-stump on it before remembering she was wearing her hand and it was in the way.
John came and joined them eventually, sitting down on Dave's other side, but Dave didn't acknowledge him, too sweaty and tired. He was staring vacantly ahead while Amy mumbled under her breath, counting everything up. John leaned on the table, watching her work with a big, nearly smug grin on his face. Neither of the other two noticed.
"Well," Amy said finally, setting the pencil down. "That's settled it."
"Did I win?" John asked immediately.
"...No. Um. Actually you got last place, because you had 103 strokes."
"Hah, usually takes me more than that, if you know what I mean."
Dave laid his head down on the table. Amy chose to ignore John. "David got second, with 59. And I won, with 54."
"Isn't the highest score the best?"
"Not in golf," Dave said, stiffly. He was about two more dumb comments away from beating John to death in the middle of this mini golf course.
"Damn."
"We should probably turn in our clubs and stuff now," Amy stood up from the table and John hustled to follow. Dave peeled his wet face off the wood and clumsily waddled after them, feeling utterly exhausted.
"Don't forget the scavenger hunt prize," John added. "I bet that's, like, a free game or something." Dave contemplated the idea of doing that all again and nearly blacked out.
"Oh, I doubt that, that'd be an awful lot. Plus probably pretty easy to exploit, just remember where everything is the second time and that's infinite free mini golfs."
"Infinite free golf glitch..." John said, almost reverently. They reached the counter then, and Amy handed in her golf club as the employee stepped over to help them.
"Hey, guys! How was your game?"
Before Dave could be honest, John and Amy chirped, "Good!" in an almost eerie unison. "We found everything on the scavenger hunt, too," Amy continued, handing over the scorecard.
"Al-right, good job!" The employee scanned it over really quickly. "Yeah, looks like you got it. Here--" They handed back the card to Amy, then reached over somewhere out of the trio's sight to pick up three scratch-off cards. "Scratch these off and whatever it says, that's your prize!"
John and Amy were on it immediately, and Dave had to admit, the allure of free shit had him fumbling in his (damp) pockets for a quarter to use. Unfortunately, the prizes were just one dollar off the place's other services, which was a bit of a letdown, but they had enough tact to not express that. Well, Dave and Amy did, John pouted immediately. Amy was the only one genuinely polite enough to hide her disappointment, and Dave was just simply too sweaty to emote.
"Oh, and," the employee started, "which one of you got first place?" Amy raised her hand. The employee slapped a very small gold medal onto the counter in front of her. It just had the number 1 on it, and looked like something you could buy at Dollar Tree. John gawked as if it were actually anything to write home about.
"Hey, is there a prize for the highest score ever?" John leaned on the counter, grinning that grin of his he did when he was hoping it'd get him something good.
"Maybe! What's your score?"
"Hundred and three!"
The employee looked almost bewildered for a moment but recovered quickly. "Wow! That's... That's a lot! Here, uh--Have an extra scratch card."
John pouted. "That's it? She got a medal!"
"Tell you what," the employee said, in a tone as if they and John went way-back, were good friends, "we don't have a medal for the most putts just yet, but when we do, bring that scorecard back in, and you'll get the first one."
This did not exactly placate John, but he started sullenly scratching off the card instead of arguing. Dave would've felt bad for the guy if he hadn't spent the past forty-five minutes wishing death upon John's idiot ass. Amy held up her scratch card for one dollar off holding an alligator. "Can I redeem this right away?"
"Sure," the employee responded, before Dave could tell her they were under no circumstances holding a goddamn wet murder-lizard-dinosaur-thing, no matter if it was only a "baby," which, mind you, is still a fucking yard long.
And so they wound up with a photo of the three of them, all stood together, with John holding the head-end of a baby alligator, Dave holding its ass-end, and Amy petting its snout with a big smile on her face. Dave was staring warily at it, as if convinced it was about to lunge forward and take Amy's remaining hand. John was looking at the camera with a massive proud grin as if the thing was his child or something, or he'd been the one to catch it. Amy looked absolutely delighted. The gator looked as empty-headed as all gators do.
"That's going on the fridge," Amy said, looking at her print of it. They'd been given three, which to Amy meant one for John, one for their fridge, and one for her scrapbook. "At least until I get a frame for it."
"I'm gonna scan mine, then send it to that website that'll turn any photo into a blanket," John declared.
Dave grimaced. "God, don't."
Amy laughed. "We should get you back to the hotel, get you a cold shower. So you'll sober up to how good of an idea that is."
"You could drop me into the arctic ocean right now and I would still not think that's a good idea."
"Hey, there's an idea. Next vacation we do a complete 180, go to the coldest place on earth instead of the hottest place."
"At this point, I think I'd prefer that," Dave admitted.