"C'mon Dylan, live a little." Harper grinned up at Dylan and pointed at the second surfboard he had propped against the hotel room wall. "It'll be fun."

Dylan wavered; it was almost impossible to deny Harper anything when he used that tone of voice. Mentally swearing at himself he plastered a grin on his face and waved his hands. "No, no chance. Sorry Harper, it's a wasted effort. I'm not suicidal enough to try to keep up with you in the water. I'll just lie on the sand and enjoy the sound of the waves.

Harper shrugged. "You don't know what you're missing."

"Salt rash, bruising, embarrassment, shark attacks."

"Boring.and there aren't any large predators in the water here; I checked before we came down."

"How did I get roped into spending my day off with you?"

"It was this or shopping for clothes with Rommie and Beka."

"Oh yes. I wonder if it's too late to catch them." Dylan grinned and pretended to turn away.

"Not a chance, you're all mine today.um, I mean, you're not the type of guy who's into girl's clothing.I'm making this worse, aren't I?"

Dylan laughed, picked up the board and sighed dramatically. "Maybe later I'll give this a try, once I've watched how you do it for a while."

"Way to go Dylan!" Harper jumped about enthusiastically. "A three hundred and fifty year-old guy should have tried everything at least once."

"Three hundred and forty three!"

"Whatever." Harper laughed as they exited the hotel and headed towards the beach.

~

Dylan lay back on the sand and watched Harper glide over the waves. Surfing was quite relaxing to watch, particularly when you were watching someone who made it look so easy. Dylan could just make out the radioactive glow of Harper's huge neon surfing shorts as he shot through a.tube.was that what Harper had called it? There was a wall of water between Harper and Dylan and Dylan held his breath until Harper and The Shorts reappeared a couple of hundred yards further down the beach.

"What's your friend doing?" Dylan turned around and saw a young boy staring out at Harper.

"He's surfing. Don't you go surfing here? Harper says the waves are perfect for it."

"Nah, don't like the starfish."

"Starfish?" Dylan blinked, "Are they dangerous?" He got to his feet.

"Nah, if you leave them on too long your skin starts to peel and they leave a nasty bruise if you peel 'em off wrong, that's all"

"Uh oh." Dylan looked out at Harper; he had a suspicion Harper had only done a search for dangerous animals, not annoying ones. "What do these starfish look like?"

The boy held up his hand, his finger and thumb about three centimetres apart. "About that size, blue, with five arms."

"What's the right way to peel them off?"

"Find the short arm and pull very slowly."

"Thanks."

"No probs. That kinda looks like fun. Not fun enough to get covered in fishy nibbles though." The boy grinned and loped off in search of whatever pre-adolescent boys do on warm sunny days.

Dylan sat down and wondered what to do; he knew Harper had shut down his dataport so as not get it shorted out by the salt water, so sending a com message was out. Jumping up and down on the beach, trying to get Harper's attention was pretty futile since Harper was watching the waves. Dylan sat down and hoped Harper noticed if any starfish attached themselves.

It didn't take long. Dylan knew exactly when Harper realised that he had some passengers: he heard the scream quite clearly. Unfortunately Harper was riding a wave at the time and wiped out.

Dylan jumped up and walked over to the water's edge. Harper's head popped into sight and Dylan sighed with relief.

"Help!" Dylan could hear Harper shouting. Sighing and resigning himself to becoming fishbait, Dylan waded out into chest deep water to pull a panicking Harper to shore.

"It's all right: they aren't dangerous." Dylan said, wrapping one arm around Harper's middle and dragging him toward the shore.

"Get 'em of! Get 'em off!" Harper was batting at a tiny starfish attached to the back of his hand; he was covered in them.

"Harper, calm down. They're harmless. Stop that!" Dylan finally got Harper ashore and sat him down on a towel.

Harper squeaked when he saw another dozen or so starfish stuck to his legs. "Dylan, have I ever mentioned how much I hate parasites? Fleas, lice, Magog larvae? Hate.ow!" Harper ripped the starfish off the back of his hand and stared down at the purple mark left behind.

"Harper, they aren't parasites, they're just stuck to you."

"They tingle."

"Find the short arm and peel them off slowly." Harper shuddered and poked at his legs. "Wimp." Dylan grinned and carefully pulled off one clingy blue starfish. "Better?"

"I won't be better until they're all off." Harper pouted, and got to work on the ones covering his arms.

By the time Dylan had worked up to Harper's knees and Harper had finished his arms they were both giggling. By the time Dylan had moved onto Harper's back they were laughing so hard tears were running down their faces. Harper had discovered that with a snap of the wrist the starfish were actually very aerodynamic and could be frizbeed quite a respectable distance.

"Ha! That had to be twenty metres, easy."

"Harper, that was lucky if it went past fifteen."

"You just don't like to lose."

"I'm not losing." Dylan replied, flinging a rather large specimen into the sea. "That one hit the water."

"Big deal, the tide is coming in. I threw one that far earlier."

"I'm done back here."

"Yeah me too. Your turn."

"Me?" Dylan looked down. "Oh" Despite only being in the water for a few minutes there was a starfish stuck to his hip and another to his nipple. "Suddenly I know why you freaked out. Why didn't you say something earlier?"

"Cause then you'd have stopped peeling 'em off me to deal with yours and I really, really wanted mine off first." Harper reached out and slowly pulled off the starfish attached to Dylan's nipple. Dylan's breath caught. They did tingle, or was that Harper?

Dylan tried to ignore the sensations shooting from his nipple to his groin and peeled the last little blue pest off.

"Uh oh." Harper had gone pale. "I don't think we got all of mine."

"I can't see any more, they're gone unless they swam.oh." Dylan bit his tongue hard to stop himself from laughing.

"I can't look." Harper gripped the waistband of his shorts and turned pleading eyes at Dylan.

"Uh. No. No, I'm not rummaging around in your shorts for starfish. Not a chance." That would be just too much temptation after the nipple incident, Dylan thought.

"Please, Dylan. If I see any of them wrapped around Mr Happy I'll start screaming."

"Mr Happy? You are going to owe me big for this Harper."

"Thankyou thankyouthankyou." Harper lay back and covered his eyes with his hands. "Just don't tell me how many there are or where they're attached."

Dylan took a deep breath and concentrated on the job at hand. He wasn't going to think about the fact that he was pulling off Harper's clothes. He wasn't going to think about the fact that Harper had very pale kissable skin just below his navel.

Dylan was going to concentrate on pulling the starfish off Harper's.Mr Happy. Guh. Dylan located the shortest arm and started pulling.

"Oh God." Harper wailed. "I know where that one is."

Dylan noticed with interest that when Harper blushed, he blushed all the way down. Dylan also noticed that the sensations produced by pulling off the starfish were having an effect on Mr Happy. The little evil, mischievous part of him that usually stayed buried decided to peel this one off very slowly.

"Ow, Dylan, hurry up!"

"All done. Roll over, there might be some on your butt."

Harper rolled over grumbling and Dylan bit his lip at the sight of Harper's gloriously sexy butt. "Nope, all clear." Dylan jumped to his feet and adjusted himself. "I'm going to go find your surfboard, I think it washed up over there."

"Uh Dylan?"

"I'll be right back." Dylan strode off, not thinking about Harper's butt, or how cute he was when he blushed, or how soft his skin was, or how his.Guh. "High Guard captains do not lust after their crew." Dylan muttered over and over to himself as he picked up Harper's board and returned to where Harper was stuffing their towels into a bag. "Lunch?"

"Yeah, sure. Not seafood though."

~

They got back to the hotel and dumped the boards in Harper's room. "Uh Dylan?"

"Yes?"

"We didn't check you."

Dylan flushed and grinned. "My shorts are tighter than yours. I don't think anything could have got in there without me noticing."

"I think I should check.just to be on the safe side."

"You should check?"

"Yeah, it's only fair: you did me. I mean you checked me out. Uh, shut up Harper and get his shorts off."

There was a moment's silence.

"I said that last bit out loud didn't I?"

"Oh yes."

"Oh. Um... Well, what do you think?"

"I think the bed is that way."