Deck | Afternoon | Sunday | April 17

[tripledmyself.livejournal.com]

So, there were kids running around the island again. Nathan could only guess that since none of them had found him and called him 'daddy' that this wasn't a repeat of what happened a few months ago. Nathan, for one, was damn fucking glad of that. He'd been a dad, fake or not, too much lately.

Since it was chillier than previous days, Nathan had the hood of his hoodie yanked up and a pair of sunglasses across his eyes while he had himself a lazy smoke on the deck. He'd thought about going up to his room to...well, he didn't know what he'd do but it didn't matter because he didn't go up.

Earlier this morning, he'd sent his mum a quick text with his answer about coming home this summer. He hadn't received a response but he wasn't too worried. She was probably off spending Jeremy's money while he had graphic fucking thoughts about his --

Ugh. He made a face and shook his head, trying to get back to just sitting there and not thinking of a single goddamn thing.

[Open, of course, to people of all sizes]

Comments

[tripledmyself.livejournal.com]

"Maybe," Nathan said, fixing the little blonde girl with a look. "Are you gonna fall out of a hot air balloon?"

[chief-cheerio.livejournal.com]

"Only if I go up in one." Actually, that was logical. "Do you have one?"

[tripledmyself.livejournal.com]

"Well, wouldn't you know, I left it in my other pants," he joked, snapping his fingers. "Maybe next time, yeah? Besides, it's a little cold for hot air balloons today. I bet you'd freeze your ti -- toes off."

It wasn't the greatest save but it was a save nonetheless.

[chief-cheerio.livejournal.com]

"Oh." Quinn's disappointment showed, even if she tried to hide it. "You shouldn't ask people about things they can't do. It's rude."

[tripledmyself.livejournal.com]

"It's rude?" Nathan repeated, raising an eyebrow. "Why? I prefer to think of it as having a creative imagination. You never think about doing things that you don't have the stuff for, kid?"

[chief-cheerio.livejournal.com]

"Sometimes," Quinn had to admit. "Like about having my own swimming pool. I'll get one when I'm big."

[tripledmyself.livejournal.com]

"Will you?" Nathan asked, flicking some ashes away and snickering in amusement. "And how are you going to get a swimming pool when you're big? You planning on becoming a pool girl?"

[chief-cheerio.livejournal.com]

"I'm gonna have lots and lots of money and a really big house with a pool," Quinn said, as if this were simply self-evident. "And then I won't have to share at the Y with yucky people who pee in the water."

[tripledmyself.livejournal.com]

Okay, that got a laugh out of Nathan because wow, she was both prissy and hilarious.

"How do you know they pee in the pool?" he had to ask. "Have they told you that they're peeing or something more gross?"

[chief-cheerio.livejournal.com]

"'Cause everybody knows it," Quinn said, because duh. "Big boys pee in the water at the pool so's they don't have to get out. Santana told me."

[tripledmyself.livejournal.com]

"But you've never done that?" Nathan thought everyone had done it at some point.

[chief-cheerio.livejournal.com]

Quinn's nose wrinkled. "Maybe when I was a baby. Why, do you? Ew."

[tripledmyself.livejournal.com]

"No," Nathan said, making a face. "But you're closer to a baby than I am so maybe you're still doing that in pools."

[chief-cheerio.livejournal.com]

"I'm seven," Quinn scowled. "That's not a baby at all. You're the baby."

No, it didn't make sense, but did name-calling have to?

[tripledmyself.livejournal.com]

"What?" Nathan asked, trying not to laugh. "Um, you are the baby, kid. You're size of a stalk of celery and haven't even hit puberty yet. Have fun when that happens, by the way. You're the biggest baby."

[chief-cheerio.livejournal.com]

"Am not," Quinn said, with quite an impressive degree of scorn for somebody barely four feet tall. "And I have too hit puberty, duh. It was fine."

She ... had no idea whatsoever what the word meant, but figured from Nathan's tone that it was something grown-up.

[tripledmyself.livejournal.com]

"You've hit puberty?" Nathan did not believe that. "Okay, what was the suckiest thing about puberty for you?"

[chief-cheerio.livejournal.com]

"I'm not s'posed to say sucky," Quinn informed him. Prissily. "But the worst part was, um .... it kind of hurt."

Hitting things sometimes hurt, right? Logical.

[tripledmyself.livejournal.com]

Well...

Nathan had to pause there were some things about girls that he knew could hurt during puberty. He wasn't going to bring that up but still.

"You can't say sucky?" he asked, going with that instead. "What about ass?"

[chief-cheerio.livejournal.com]

"No way," Quinn said, eyes big. "My sister said that word once and she had to wash her mouth out with soap. And she's big, she's in middle school."

[tripledmyself.livejournal.com]

"I just said it," Nathan pointed out, glancing around the deck. "You think anything's gonna happen to me?"

[chief-cheerio.livejournal.com]

Quinn looked genuinely uncertain. "Probably not. I don't think your parents are here and I don't tattle. Usually."

[tripledmyself.livejournal.com]

"Usually?" Nathan repeated, giving her a look for that one. "If you tell on me about cursing, I'd tell about you peeing in the pool."

[chief-cheerio.livejournal.com]

"I said I don't," Quinn insisted.

She was a little sister. Of course she tattled sometimes. It was a question of survival.

"Besides, you never tattle?"

[tripledmyself.livejournal.com]

"Never."

Nathan was such a goddamn liar.

"Does this look like the face of a liar?" he asked, pointing to his face, lest she think he meant her.