Disclaimer: I own nothing.

Vacation Troubles
—Trouble with the Dolphin—
SEVEN

Richard knocked on her door the next morning.

"Hey, beautiful," he greeted her perhaps a bit too brightly when she opened the door. With a sigh, that is. He was trying to get a word in before she completely shot him down and danced over his ashes. Luckily, that wasn't her intention.

Well, not yet anyway.

"What is it?" She ran her hand through her dark locks. "If you've come to appease me after that stunt you pulled yesterday, believe me, it better be good." She looked exasperated and he knew he had to make this almost-apology sound good.

"Well, what kind of a jerk would I be if I let a pretty lady such as yourself be angry with me for more than twenty-four hours?"

"You would be a Dick." She answered bluntly. Richard gave her a look. "Oh, I'm sorry," Rachel mockingly said, "was that question rhetorical?"

"Real cute, Rae," he responded.

"So?" She waved her hand in an impatient manner and then started tapping her foot in expectation.

Richard knew this was his queue. He gave a to-die-for smirk and told her matter-of-factly, "I've reserved something so we could have some bonding time."

"If you think I'm getting in a jeep with you—" she started angrily but was cut off mid-sentence.

"I'm flattered, Rae. I didn't think you cared." She raised an eyebrow to his half-mocking, half-sarcastic phrase. "But, I didn't say it was bonding for the two of us."

She huffed. "Did you arrange something with that Goth boy? I swear I've seen him stalking—"

He chuckled. "Are you paranoid or what?" She glared at him for that comment and whacked him in the arm. "Okay, okay!" She heard his musical laugh once more. "I know you can't keep your arms off me, but I simply meant we would each spend some bonding care with. . ."

"With?"

"We're going to swim with dolphins." He told her and she looked at him in surprise. "Are you pleased, milady?"

Before she could stop herself, she smiled. "It's a start."

After a secluded breakfast in a little café on the far side of the resort, they headed back to their respective rooms to change. Rachel got into her tankini with a purple cover-up and met Richard who was in a pair of swim trunks and a blue tee shirt. Rachel silently thanked whoever might be listening that he had the sense not to bring a speedo and spring that on her.

Crap. Now she had the mental picture of him in a speedo. She mentally tried to ban that image in Nevermore. However, with emotions like Happy and Lust running around, she had little success.

Okay. So she had no success. In fact, now they were streaming banners everywhere and other emotions took that opportunity to be converted to the fangirl side of the force.

"Rach, you okay?" He asked since she had stopped dead in her tracks with a look of horror on her face a few seconds ago. And hadn't moved since. She wondered if maybe her mental state of hysteria and dread had leaked into the physical world.

Crap. She just thought of the word 'physical'.

To put it simply, she was doomed.

"Hey, Rae?" Of course, he just had to open his big mouth. "If you want to do this with me, we need to pick up the pace."

You are so not making this any better, she thought in dismay. Think of something else. Anything else!

Beast Boy's mountain of filthy purple socks on his floor that smelled of— She stopped that train of thought. Don't even go there.

She tried again, Cyborg playing Mega Monkeys 5 and beating the snot out of Beast Boy. Amusing, but not quite. . .

The Aquaman pin-up Starfire secretly keeps in her room (1).

Crap. She was back at square one.

"Um, Rae?" Richard waved his hand in front of her eyes. No response. He wasn't sure if he was more worried or freaked out at this point. He finally grabbed her arm and moved her over by the door to his room. "Rachel?" She looked like she was stunned. "Raven!"

Her eyes opened fully and she looked at him; no longer in a daze. "Uh. . . Did you say something?"

"I said, we need to pick up the—"

"Don't!" She almost shouted in her rush to stop him. "I mean, uh, just don't. You'll start everything up again." She had calmed down and tried to compose herself as she waved her hands in front of her to dismiss whatever the 'everything' was. Richard just stood there and blinked a few times. Everything was still registering. She just hoped that he didn't figure out anything near what she had been thinking about.

"So, let's get going." She hastily started dragging him down the hallway by his shirt sleeve.

"Um, Rae?" She looked back at him but kept walking. "Do you know where we're going?"

"The dolphin cove. Duh."

"Well, then. Since you are so smart, I suppose you know it is down the other hallway too."

"I thought Hawaii was supposed to have a tropical climate," Rachel droned.

"You mean you didn't get enough pineapple this morning? I mean, you were really going at it with—"

Rachel slapped his upper arm with the back of her hand. "I mean, they really couldn't have told us that the ocean water was like, fifteen degrees?" Rachel shivered as she took another step.

"I think you are exaggerating a bit. I think it's only about sixty degrees."

"That's what I said." She sighed and rolled her eyes. "Only in Celsius."

"I don't buy that, Rae."

"Well, you've bought everything else so far, you lecherous old man." Rachel managed a small smirk while stepping up to her waist in the cold water.

"Crap!" Came a voice behind them. A very familiar, annoying voice. Almost in unison, Rachel and Richard looked behind them.

And cringed.

"I'm late, I'm late!" The Goth boy came splashing up to them in the water. "Ooh, and for a very important date." He wiggled his eyebrows at Rachel when he saw her. "Isn't that right, babe?"

"Permission to maim?" Richard asked Rachel; not liking the attention someone (other than him) was giving her.

"No." Rachel looked to the man who was, in the Goth boy's mind at least, her fiancee. Richard raised an eyebrow at her reply. "Leave the neutering to me." She finished with a wicked smirk that brought chills to both men.

"I would just walk away if I were you, kid." Richard said warningly.

"And leave behind a deathly beautiful angel of great sorrow behind? Would you?" The Goth boy asked dramatically before making his way farther in the cove to where they would be swimming with the dolphins.

"I don't know if that was an insult or a strange version of a gothic pledge of love." Then Rachel smirked. "Which one do you think it was?" She asked.

Richard was stuck. Did he say it was an insult and call her bitter and ugly? Or did he admit that the Goth boy had a thing for Rachel and was a contender for her heart?

"Depends." He shrugged nonchalantly.

"On what?"

"How much do you like me?"

"You answer a question with a question?"

"Apparently, so do you."

"Richard," she gave an exasperated look.

Richard looked at her plainly. "Fine. It depends on who you like enough to share a dolphin with; him or me."

"We're sharing dolphins?" She asked unbelievably with a furrowed brow.

"I told you I booked some bonding time for the two of us."

"Well, I'm sorry, but there will be a third party fighting for my attention."

Richard did a double take. "You seriously want the Goth kid in the picture?"

She looked at him flatly. "I meant the dolphin." She sighed, "and right now he seems to have earned a lot more brownie points that you."

"What? You're comparing me to a dolphin?"

"Yup, think your ego can handle it?" She said snarkily.

Richard gave a playful pout. However, Richard had no time for a remark of any sort. By this time, they had found themselves chest deep in sea water at the dolphin cove. As much as he knew Rachel hated it, they had come, yes, as the Goth boy had feared, late.

She was going to kill him.

The trainer was a native Hawaiian man. Who, Rachel couldn't help but notice, was absolutely hideous. There was no other way to put it. This is Hawaii, aren't there supposed to be hot locals like, all over the place? She wondered while he explained what they would be doing.

He looks like a Moai statue from Easter Island. Or maybe, some sort of primitive human. Like, a caveman or something? She was so lost in thought over what exactly he resembled, she totally did not hear anything he had just said. With a terrible nasally voice to boot.

So maybe it wasn't all that bad.

The only problem was, then, admitting to a certain person she had absolutely no clue what in the world she was doing.

Crap.

Richard looked at her as the trainer finally assigned each couple with a dolphin. "Ready?"

Rachel looked at him inquisitively and not in any visible panic. "Sure," she shrugged.

"Okay," Richard whispered while leaning towards her, "is it just me, or. . ." he seemed to have trouble putting his thought into words, "does that trainer look just like one of those stone golems from that one island. . . you know, the one with the stone golems?"

Rachel couldn't help but chuckle at his ignorance. Or just plain stupidity. "You mean, Easter Island?" He nodded once in confirmation. "Yeah, I just thought that myself," she said matter-of-factly.

"Oh, so you're taking all the credit now?"

"Yes. Yes, I am."

The dolphin they were paired with made a noise and looked at them expectantly. What were they supposed to do?

"Rachel, aren't we supposed to do, um. You know, that thing we have to do to get him to do a trick."

"You have no idea what he said, do you?"

"Absolutely no clue."

"We're screwed."

They heard a dorky laugh to their right. So, being the curious creatures humans naturally are, they looked. It was Goth boy. With his dolphin swirling around in circles around him.

"Okay, so how are we supposed to get him to do that?"

"You're the Boy Wonder. You figure it out." She still wasn't happy.

"Well, we can't have a socially dysfunctional Goth kid show us up, now can we?"

She crossed her arms over her chest. "So, what's your plan of action?"

"Simple." He smirked. Then, he waved his hand. "Instructor? Our dolphin must be shy or something. He won't perform."

Rachel did a mental facepalm. That was his grand master plan?

The instructor came over to them. "First, get close and pretend you two you actually like each other."

"Oh, don't worry. I saw them got real snuggly in first class," Goth boy said, obviously eavesdropping on their not-so-private conversation.

The golem-faced instructor looked at him. "That was a joke," he told him bluntly.

"Okay, I'll go over it again," came the nasally voice once more.

Soon, they had the dolphin swim around them in circles, generating lots of energy and movement. "I guess that wasn't such a bad plan, after all," Rachel said aloud as she looked at him.

"I believe I have told you that 'pride comes before a fall'." He said smugly. "But I guess you weren't listening then either." She glared at him for his unnecessary comment. "Seriously, Rae-Rae. It's amazing what a little bit of humility can get you."

"So says Mister—"

She was cut off by their stone-like instructor. "Now is the time to get a hug from our good-natured marine friends." As if on queue, the dolphins rolled so they were upright with more than half of the body out of the water. They reached out their pectoral fins, allowing each person got a hug from their respective dolphin. As much as Rachel would never think being embraced by a wet creature that felt like rubber against her skin would be enjoyable, the gesture was. . . cute. Maybe.

"Okay, one more trick for the road." The nasally instructor laughed in a way that was so much more unflattering than his face. Rachel and Richard both winced at the sound accompanied with snorts.

"First, let's have our lovely ladies get real close to their salt water companions." Richard gestured his arm for her to go first. "Now, look at them head on." She looked at her dolphin eye-to-eye. "Okay, how about a kiss?" The dolphin lunged forward straight onto her lips.

Richard swore lightning struck. Because that was when everything went wrong.

—Fin—

(1) "Go!" Reference.

A/N: Sorry it has been so long since I have updated any of my stories. I have been writing. I just haven't been able to get the right kind of banter with this chapter. (Which you probably could tell.) I'm a little disappointed with it. But not to worry. Chapter eight is completely written and will be uploaded sometime shortly. I have decided to finish this story before completing "Troubled Hearts". I am working on that too, but I really want to finish this one before focusing on that one. I am thinking only a couple more chapters of this fic. Sorry, guys. They can only be gone from the team for so long. Well, hopefully long enough to find out how they truly feel about each other, right?

Signed,
Her Sappiness