tramitem_log | The Holiday from Hell

Entry tags:

The Holiday from Hell

Who: Alec, Anthony, Ellie and Fell
What: Going on a house sitting holiday to ~~terrifying~~ jolly old England.
When: 09/20-09/30
Where: Across the Pond.

Alec squinted at the house as it rose on the horizon. He was tired and jet lagged from the plane. Tired and sore from the long ride over bumpy roads in a small cab, crowded against one window by Ellie who was smushed in the middle with Anthony on the other side. Fell, being the guest, took up the front seat and was probably cramping Anthony's legs all to pieces with how much room he left which Alec felt strangely justified in.

Anyway, that house held memories, both good and bad and, mostly terrifying, but he was oddly looking forward to it. After all, everything was a little bit frightening until you knew its secrets.

---
Info on Abaddon House and the environs

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Ever since Anthony had discovered the beach during that one long summer he had fallen in love with it. True it was spooky, like everything else in the area, but that trait kept most people away. If one arrived early and staked out a place you could spent the entire day on the sand like it was your own private beach.

A pair of serpentine themed swim trunks had been packed specifically for this occasion but while he was still dry he also wore a light billowy black cover-up shirt. Even if he was in a largely abandoned corner of England he could still look flash as hell.

He had set up his lounge chairs, one for each of them, and an umbrella near the tall grass of the shore where the waves wouldn't be a problem. A few stones and some drift wood made for a perfect firepit which could be used later to fry up some freshly captured crabs. It was an old beach tradition to catch and cook your own with whatever else you might find. He was knee deep in the water plucking some mussels off a rock and dropping them into his pail by the time anyone else came by.

Flash as Hell. Really. Was that what they were calling that level of ridiculousness these days? Still, however ridiculous Aziraphale thought the ensemble was, Anthony as always wore it well. He was fairly certain Anthony wore nearly anything well.

Aziraphale's outfit looked a little like what he had worn to the zoo, or the beach party, complete with the a panama hat and with his light-colored pants rolled up neatly to just beneath his knees so that he wouldn't get them too wet or too sandy.

"Oysters?" He wadded in about to his mid-calves to inspect Anthony's bucket of goods, peeking down in and then smiling up at him, the picture of innocence. "Thought I was supposed to tempt you there."

If it seemed ridiculous to other people then he was absolutely oblivious to it. What he wasn't oblivious to were the pair of knees which came splashing towards him. He couldn't remember if he had ever seen Aziraphale's knees before. They would be pale, naturally, given that they were always hidden from the sun. He wondered if they would be dimpled as he looked into his bucket of oysters, these having been the easiest ocean creature to harvest so far.

"Well... you can't exactly tempt me to eat them if we don't have any."

This explanation worked for him.

"I do have a spare spade if you feel up to grubbing around?"

"...Suppose you do have a point."

The explanation worked for Aziraphale, too.

He pursed his lips and pretended to be thinking it over before holding out his hand expectantly for the spade. "Alright. You've convinced me."

Grubbing, as Anthony called it, seemed like it would be good fun, at least for a while--a bit like gardening, he imagined--and even if it wasn't, Anthony was here to keep him company and distract him from the task at hand. He was very distracting, and not just for the usual, obvious reasons.

"But! Only because it's hardly fair to make you do all the groundwork for your own temptation."

"Not making me fish for my own temptation is very fair minded."

It was quite like gardening actually! The spade was handed over with a little purposely failed precision so that their hands might touch during the exchange and Anthony's smirking expression marked this down as a rare win for his side.

"Have you ever done this before? You rake that along the sand and if you are lucky you might come up with some cockles to go along with this other. And keep a good watch out for crabs."

"That's why I'm the angel, darling."

Aziraphale marked it down--not that he was keeping score, mind--but he marked it down as drawing even. Or letting Anthony's side win, which was sort of like drawing even.

He shook his head. No, couldn't say he'd ever done this before. His grandfather liked to enforce manliness and survival sorts of things with hunting and horses, not digging in the sand, and most of Aziraphale's friends and companions over the years had been more of the indoor sort.

"Why?" he said, attempting to mimic Anthony's motions just badly enough to be noticeably, plausibly wrong. After all, Fell worked a very dexterous job; failing miserably would look silly and he did have standards to uphold. "Do I lose points if I rake up a crab?"

Anthony's head tilted at the unique way Fell was digging around. He didn't say a word, just watched as a rather impressive little sand mound was built near his feet.

"No, but one of them might slip up on you and..."

Aziraphale was almost too trusting really, so focused on the task that he didn't have time to notice the sneak attack of Anthony's 'pincer-hand' coming down to grab a bit of his arm as if he had become the crab.

"Grab you! Besides... If we find any we an add them to the bucket to make it more tempting."

You could always come show me how it's done, he thought, noticing out of the corner of his eye the way Anthony was watching--

He gave an undignified yelp and toppled over with a splash.

"Anthony!" His curls were wet and soggy, caught somewhere between damp cotton and curling under the humidity, dripping into his face so that he was sputtering with more than just indignation. "Oo, you miscreant. Keep your pincers to yourself." He wagged the spade at him in scolding. "How would you like to be pinched?"

The wild splashing and indignant pout had him practically doubled over with laughter. The only thing that kept him upright was knowing that if he did topple he would end up as wet as poor Fell!

"Depends, angel."

He held out a hand, planning on giving him a lift up after having escorted him into the sea.

"Are you doing the pinching? And where are your pinchers targeting?"

He gladly accepted the hand up even though he was fairly certain he was secretly being laughed at! Then he busied himself trying to straighten his wet clothes so he didn't have to feel quite so waterlogged.

"I'll leave that up to the imagination."

Fell was escorted from the water with a sly smile at the comment as his imagination could be quite a vivid one. It might have been a shame if that familiar old suit had been the one dashed in the salt seas, but dressed for ocean bathing Fell wasn't give too much sympathy.

"Try again? What you do is wait for a wave and watch the sand. Where you see those little bubbles..."

He pointed to a patch of sand before coming around behind Fell to guide his spade over the sand. Just a few inches down in a racking motions and there was one of their cockles.

"They usually hang out near the surface after the water brings them in."

Alec is dressed appropriately for the occasion in gray and black sweats and a coat and trainers. He stands there a fair bit from the water, arms folded and staring at the sea.

He hates it.

He hates the small of the air and the grit of sand and stone, he hates the terrifying immensity of the sea, he hates the sound of the water and the chill prickling over his skin, he hates the loneliness it implies and the present danger and the fact that his baby cousin is being completely blasé about the whole thing, dressed in swim trunks as if he actually might go in.

"Be careful around the water, there's riptides around here."

Actually he was surprised to see Alec make his way down to the beach at all given his love of the place. It all made sense when he was shouted the warning about the riptides. Alec thought he might drown.

"Relax!"

He called over a shoulder as he waved a paddle at him.

"I'm only in up to my knees!"

"Mmh." He didn't like it. Even up to his knees was too far out. He shouldn't even be in the water at all. Alec came a bit closer, squinting at him.

"It must be freezing. You'll catch a cold."

"Its not freezing... At three in the afternoon?? It's as warm as it will get!"

He took a few steps forward, splashing into the cool surf as he moved into the deeper waters to snag what looked like a cluster of shellfish making a nice home on a length of old abandoned rope.

Why was he going deeper? Alec tried to tell himself Anthony could swim, but he also had visions of pulling his baby cousin's lifeless body from the water. He made a face as Anthony pulled a slimed up rope from the water.

"Don't touch that, you don't know where it's been. What are you even doing?"

"Its been here in the water collecting clams, that's where it's been!"

And quite a lot of them too! Anthony managed to pick nearly two dozen from the slime covered rope. Each was deposited into his bucket which he let sit on the shore rock he was nearest to as it grew heavier from the added weight.

"I'm gathering a shore dinner. Mussels, clams, cockles... maybe some crab if I can find them. How do you feel about--..."

The slimy rope had been sitting on a slimy bottom rock which acted very banana peel when Anthony accidentally stepped out onto it. His foot flew so quickly out from underneath him that he didn't even have time to curse before he hit the water.

"Shit." He runs toward the water, heart in his throat. A pebble shifts under his foot and his ankle wrenches but he ignores it, hobbling into the surf, the water rushing cold around his ankles. What if he hit his head? What if he'd knocked himself out? What if he swallowed too much water?

"Anthony!"

The water wasn't that deep even with the waves crashing in around them. Still there was power in those and Anthony was washed slightly back to shore by the churning waves, surfacing again nearly at Alec's feet.

"Alright... Now its feeling a touch chilly."

He looked up, eyeing Alec's expression carefully.

"You alright? You've gone white as a sheet."

"Christ." He nearly sat down in the water, but somehow made it to shore and sat on the wet sand instead, resting his forehead on drawn up knees. He felt like an idiot even as relief washed over him.

"I told you to be careful, you great wanker."

He frowned alone in his ocean puddle before finally getting up and sloshing his way over to flop next to Alec in the damp sand. He thought about protesting that, one little misstep in shallow water, he wasn't likely to drown in such shallow water... but that one word stood out in his mind.

"Was that what your newest memory was about, another drowning?"

Coal Beach - Open to Anyone

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject