bringnewjokes | (no subject)

(no subject)

Like most teenagers during the summer, Sam, Danny and Tucker enjoyed going to the beach.

To a lesser extent, so did Jazz, who had agreed to drive them there and "supervise"; of course, that was quickly forgotten with the momentary cautions of Don't wander off! and NO GHOST FIGHTING!, and then Jazz was off to the marine biology museum with her notebook and trusty pink pen.

So they were left by themselves at the beach house to change. Sweet.

Except for the minute that Sam opened her backpack she could have sworn that tiny hearts erupted from it, along with a perfume so sickeningly sweet that she could have hurled.

"I. Am. Not. WEARING. THIS."

And so she grabbed her best friends' wrists, after closing her backpack ("Augh! The smell! How will I get it out?") and dragged them to the nearby swim shop. Then she deposited them on the benches while she went to go find something in something a little more dark.

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Sam laughed with them and pushed semi-long black locks out of her eyes and spit salt water from her mouth. Earlier she had gotten some in her nose, and it had stung.

"Thanks so much. This was great."

She gave a knowing look at Tucker, and grinned at Danny. "Ready to go to the beach yet, flier boy?"

"Sure."

"That depends," Tucker said to Sam, and he turned and pointed to the two girls and said to them, "Where are you two going?"

"Tucker," Danny said with a roll of his eyes. "They're like, ten years older than us."

"Actually, I have a little sister about your age," Kiki said with a laugh. "She's on the boardwalk somewhere if you want to meet her."

"Ewww," Sam said, obviously disgusted at the thought. "Tucker hitting on people."

She grabbed Danny's wrist possessively. Excuses, excuses! "We are going to the beach. Have fun being all geek-chic, Tucker."

"Oh, I will," Tucker said and he stayed out as Sam and Danny paddled in and brought their boards back to the rental place, chatting with the giggling and friendly girls.

"So, what are we doing? Since I don't think it includes flirting with surfer girls."

"No," Sam said, agreeably, "but it just might involve flirting..."

Danny flushed, then stepped forward, slightly awkward, put his hands on her waist and gaver her a kiss.

Sam grinned after a minute and pulled back, a slight pink flush over her nose that wasn't from sunburn.

"...Want to go skinny dipping?" She joked.

Danny just sputtered.

"That was a joke," Sam clarified.

"Oh." He sounded vaguely disappointed.

She laughed at him. Very loudly.

"You got my hopes up!" he protested.

Sam's laughter eventually calmed down to giggles, and she poked his nose cheerfully. Happy goth bird was she. "Sorry."

She so wasn't.

Danny took her hand as they made their way up the boardwalk towards the beaches that were more private.

There were plenty of Sam's kind of people there--people who wouldn't be able to make it through airport metal detectors, they had so many piercings. Most of the teens were that way if they weren't the preppy, Aeropostale types, or the teens walking twenty feet in front of their families and pretending not to know them.

Danny was horribly mundane compared to both, he thought. Honestly, he was surprised that somebody hadn't kicked sand in his face yet, but then, he hadn't spent a whole lot of time on the beach itself yet.

In any case, every time they passed a pierced, even remotely attractive boy, he had this little niggling fear in the back of his head that she'd turn and oggle them.

"Danny," Sam said after a minute, and stopped him. "Every time we past a boy, you squeeze my hand so hard my knuckles crack. Anything you feel like telling me?"

"Um..." He sighed. "I'm the jealous type and I have low self-esteem?"

He paused and looked at someone in passing.

"You wouldn't...I mean, you wouldn't like me more if I looked like that--" He pointed. "--right?"

"Danny," Sam said, and put her hands on his shoulders, shaking them gently. "Do we have to go through this again? Because if I have to, I will."

She paused. "I like you for you and I really don't care what you like. Goth, prep, geek, freak, ghost, human."

She tapped his forehead gently. "Okay?"

Danny nodded and shuffled his feet.

"Okay." He nodded again. "Okay."

Then he clasped her hand in his own.

"Sorry, it's just--I'm not used to this."

"Not used to what?"

Sam watched a seagull pick at a bun left on the beach, then a guy in Abercrombie wear almost run over it to catch a frisbee.

"Well, okay, let's see, the last girl who liked me was kind of set up by Technus to be a distraction so he could go through with his evil plan, and then dumped me because she knew she was going to be too busy trying to kill my other half. And the one before that was possessed," said Danny. "So I guess...I'm just not used to being...liked. Without mind control."

"Hooooow do you knooooww I'm not being possesseeed?" Sam said, in her worst creepy goth voice.

"Oh ho ho, hilarious," he said, but he was laughing as they made their way down a walkway and through some reedy sand dunes to a beach that was near empty, near the opening of the bay. There was only an old man with his trouser-legs rolled up and a floppy straw hat on, waving a metal detector around as he strolled away towards the public beaches, whistling a little tune.

Sam grinned at him, leading him down to the smoother sand near the water, and waited until the old man disappeared into the reeds to push him over with one finger to the ground.

Fwump.

"So, want to go swimming?" he asked conversationally. "Sunbathe for a while..."

Sam thought for a minute.

"Swimming sounds nice." Having moved into 'you are my prey and I am the huntress' mode sucessfully, she tugged him into the water, which, although cold, was not too cold.

So she dunked her head underneath and blew wet strands out of her face.