[OPENish] ~LIFE NEEDS MORE BEACHES & BONFIRES~

[unbreaker]

WHO: Josuke, Kaneki, Hazel, Annie, Hide, Reiner, Usagi, Jolyne, Giorno and possibly Hisoka
WHERE: Cape Canaveral Beach
WHEN: Saturday Night, February 7th
WHAT: BONFIRE! BOOZE! ROASTED MARSHMALLOWS! ...skinny dipping?
WARNINGS: Teenagers. Shenanigans. Probably mentions of nudity. TBA IF THERE'S ANYTHING ELSE!
NOTES: More or less OPEN? I mean, if one of the above characters would have or did invite yours (talk to the muns!) then please come join us! Opener's in prose, but feel free to use whatever works the best!

They'd come from their homes to the military base in Cape Canaveral, and that was where they'd agreed upon meeting one another. The plan from thereon in was simple. (Maybe too simple to start with—Josuke had originally under planned, after all—but thanks to some helpful 'intervention' things were on course and running smoothly.) A hop, skip, and a jump away was the beach, but in order to be sure they were appropriately distanced from military property, those who were able and willing were to visit the garage and borrow vehicles that could be used to usher their small group a little ways down the coastline. And by the time they had all arrived at the designated location—an end of the beach decorated with bits of driftwood and only a very light dappling of footprints—the sky was already beginning to darken. The bands of color that had once streaked the horizon like the layers of a sedimentary rock were now fading to a beautiful blue-grey monochrome; the rippling waves looked less like glimmering silk and more like impenetrable velvet; and the sun was barely a glowing sliver, minutes away from disappearing entirely behind the skyline. It was cool, but not cold, and as the fire was struck, as it reached brightly skyward, flames dancing and crackling, warmth soon began to fan outward. Around the bonfire were blankets and towels for people to sit on. There were snacks of all kinds: marshmallows, chocolate, graham crackers, chips, and hot dogs—and there were skewers with which to stab several of these foods. There was a volleyball, too, pairs of binoculars, someone's media player and headphones, and a small cooler full of drinks on ice: water, some selections of soda, and of course...the alcohol. In short, everything anyone calling themselves a 'teenager' might need to cut loose on a Saturday night.

Comments

[soldiarity]

"Yeah," he says with a nod, hands on his hips as he stands, barefoot, where the waves and the beach meet. The water is cool on his skin, but definitely not as bad as it was in the mountains.

"I don't feel like drinking, and if I went swimming Ken would probably get the wrong idea, at least after last time..." He kicks idly at the wave lapping gently over his feet. "But it's getting sort of dark for swimming, isn't it?"

[lyingheart]

"You worried about me?"

Annie is more curious what Reiner has on his mind. Swimming at night isn't so bad... even on a new moon, she'd be accepting the dangers for what they are here. Riptide would be the big one, but it's generally not so much of a problem here. If anything, river swimming at night would be the biggest danger, not seeing a straining tree under the surface, being unable to predict how far a fall is coming up.

"After last time, hm?" The interplay between Reiner and Ken is something Annie's not sure how to feel about, other than seeing a sense where both of them can use friends. It was why she'd pushed Ken on the point of being honest; it was her own way of laying ground rules about the kinds of half-truths they could all tell each other.

[soldiarity]

"No, I wouldn't waste my time worrying -- I just wondered what the appeal of night swimming is. Maybe if it were more private I'd get it... is it the other people here?"

He shrugs his shoulders as if considering it briefly and then dismissing the desire to ponder over it; honestly, he does understand at least to a degree, at least the simple desire to want some distance from the party. Reiner isn't like Annie at all when it comes to social environments, but he has his moments when he'd rather be alone, too (as opposed to feeling like he should be).

"Did he not tell you?" Reiner blinks, grinning a little lopsidedly. "I tried to go swimming when he and I went up into the mountains last month. It was a lot colder than this, though."

[lyingheart]

Her reply is at a delay, Annie listening long enough to hear most of Reiner's words before diving under the surface of the water. She doesn't swim far, and when she resurfaces, it's with a loud gasp as she pulls in air into chill-shocked lungs all over again.

"The fire," she says. It's all the explanation she'll offer. Her amusement at what Reiner says about his hiking with Ken stays out on the water with her, a shake of her head and an exhalation through her nose.

She smells salt now more than anything else. She appreciates this.

"Snowmelt!" She calls back to him eventually, just loud enough to carry over the sound of the waves. Snowmelt, you idiot. Not that he hadn't learned the error of his ways soon after jumping into the water.

[soldiarity]

Sitting down by the edge of the water, Reiner brings his knees up, close to his chest, and folds his arms over them. It's soothing to be able to stare out over the water like this, even if not dive in himself -- more so, really. The atmosphere is too different than those he'd prefer to go swimming under, though the specifics are hard to pinpoint precisely. In a group of people he knew better, maybe. He would go night swimming with Bertholdt, for instance.

Reiner glances over his shoulder toward the fire, then back to Annie (well, to the direction of Annie). At first what she says when she surfaces makes no sense to him, but it sinks in quickly enough and he laughs.

"I know that now," he called out over the water, cupping one hand to the side of his mouth. "But when you see a clear lake and there's no snow on the ground, it might not be the first thing you think of!"

[lyingheart]

"Knowing that water comes from rivers, and most rivers in mountains are fed by snowmelt, I think it is, idiot." Her retort has less bite than it could have - she's more amused at that degree of idiocy right now than exasperated by it. Exercise is putting her in a better mood, making her quiet again as she sinks her feet into the sands and feels the swell of the waves as they break over her shoulders, lifting and nudging her body forward, her arms treading water to keep her in place.

The sea is something that had awed and frightened her when she first arrived here. By now, it's almost intoxicating as a symbol of how different - how immersed - she can pretend to be in this life. This fragile, effervescent existence.

Reiner will always remind her of that. She appreciates him for it.