[Santo - The Beach]

[walk_ins]

[master post]

You have to walk down a ramp to get to the sand. The ramp stretches over sand dunes, with sea oats dotting them, blowing in the near-constant breeze. On the same level as the ramp: a boardwalk, dotted with places to get sketchy-looking fried food, to try your luck at a number of games of chance, to watch performers, to ride roller coasters of the future!!!!

When you walk down the ramp, it's all white sand and blue water. Down about half a mile is a pier that juts out several hundred feet.

It's a nice beach. Not too crowded.

Comments

[simon_doctor]

Simon tilts his head downward, trying to catch her eye.

"It's like what?" he says softly.

[gonna_live]

Kaylee takes a sip. It gets larger -- and it's good, hot and sweet.




"I can't help but feel like there's somethin' wrong with me." She sounds almost apologetic.

[simon_doctor]

A slight frown, somewhere between puzzled and concerned.

"What kind of something?"

[gonna_live]

"I can't remember how long it's been since I was this okay for this long." Kaylee's eyes are fixed on the bottles behind the bar. "All right?"

[simon_doctor]

A pause, and Simon looks down at his coffee.

"It's," he starts to say, and hesitates before continuing. "It might be a little like what sometimes happens after corrective surgery. Where the ... where someone has been in pain for so long that when it goes away, they feel like something's ..." A slight shrug. "Off."

[gonna_live]

Kaylee's right hand snakes out, slow.

Her fingertips come to rest on the back of his hand briefly, and then slide forward, curling around to touch his palm.

"Makes some sense." Soft.

[simon_doctor]

His fingers curl down in turn, around hers.

Soft, and tentative: "It's part of recovery."

[gonna_live]

"Means I'm recoverin', though." Another crooked smile. "Don't it."

[simon_doctor]

Yes.

He nods, and presses her hand.

[gonna_live]

"How about you?"

[simon_doctor]

There is no good reason that question should take him by surprise every time it's asked.

"I'm ... feeling all right, I think." Half a beat. "Hopeful."

[gonna_live]

"...on whose account?" Kaylee curls her hand a little tighter around his.

[simon_doctor]

He meets her eyes.

"Ours," he says, and his voice tips up at the end, as though it's half a question.

[gonna_live]

There: a smile with some sun behind it.

"With pretty good reason."

[simon_doctor]

They're in public.



Who gives a damn.

Simon leans over and kisses the corner of her mouth, lightly.

[gonna_live]

They're in public.

Which means that when Kaylee sits back, she asks -- pleased, mind, but she still asks -- "What's gotten into you?"

[simon_doctor]

"I don't know," he says, sounding a little bemused. Smiling.

"...Euphoria's also a symptom of recovery."

[gonna_live]

"Just so long as you don't regret it in the mornin'."

[simon_doctor]

He chuckles, and picks up his coffee to take a drink.

[gonna_live]

"...what would you regret in the mornin'?"

She looks a little too innocent. "Just out of bein' curious and whatnot."

[simon_doctor]

Simon raises his head, and his eyebrows.

"Do you mean things I might actually enjoy doing at the time?"

[gonna_live]

Mildly affronted: "'Course." Another sizeable sip of hot chocolate. "We're not gonna waste time on doin' nothin' ain't fun."

[simon_doctor]

"Well, let's see. I would probably regret ... anything that left either or both of us stranded, broke, or publicly embarrassed ...."

He starts to tick points off on his fingers.

[gonna_live]

"...which are things ain't fun..."

[simon_doctor]

"...but can be aftereffects of things that are fun," he points out, very seriously.