i meant to get this up on Christmas. it's only, what, twenty-eight days late? sorry about that, guys. school got really hectic and i had so much i needed to do for Christmas already... most of which remains undone. oh well. um... this chapter. i don't even know. ahaha. please be gentle with me, your absentee author.

Chapter 14
oceanside

The sun was rising behind the car and the highway stretched out before it, vast, rising up and down and following the curve of the hills, vanishing at the horizon in a vast wash of indigo-blue. Envy leaned heavily against the side of Winry's jeep, feeling the wind rush through his long and rapidly tangling hair, press against his face and make it impossible for him to keep his eyes open for a long time, but impossible to sleep as well.

Al, next to him, shifted, his head dropping down onto Envy's shoulder. The kid was asleep, and Envy couldn't keep from giving a twisted half-smile at the slack-jawed expression on his face. His eyes moved from Al to his brother, on Al's other side. Ed was staring absently on the window, a small smile playing around the edges of his lips. It had been Ed's idea to go to the beach - he and Winry and Al had dragged envy into helping them assemble sandwiches for at least an hour the night before, and he had been the one to drag the covers off of Envy at an unholy hour to yell, "We're going!"

His mind was still fuzzy with exhaustion but as he took a deep breath of the fresh, summer-scented morning air, he couldn't help but be glad that he had been invited along to the beach before. Even though beaches in California were nothing compared to, say, those in Hawaii. The Bahamas. Okinawa. Tahiti. Australia. In fact, Envy could only recall going to a California beach once, when his mother had booked a suite in some world-famous (though for the life of him, Envy couldn't recall the name) resort. It had been crowded and the sand had been brown, not pure white or shining black, which had been strange.

Still, Envy was beginning to realize that beaches like that were probably, you know, normal. He sighed. Judging by the clock on the dashboard and the slowly climbing temperature, they were almost there. If he strained he could see a haze over the horizon. Maybe that was fog over the ocean - or it could have been an overspill of the normal Los Angeles smog. He looked down at his hands, folded in his lap. This was a wholly new experience. He wondered what normal people did at the beach. His mother had sat under an umbrella and sipped mai-tais and other tropical cocktails, and Envy had joined her in the shade, listening to his iPod and smoothing fingers through the soft sand, smirking in answer to the various admiring gazes of the womenfolk. Now he realized that wasn't considered an exactly enriching experience.

Envy twiddled his thumbs. Car rides were boring, especially when no one was talking, but he wasn't going to be the one to break the monotony. He glanced at Al - still sleeping - and then Ed - still staring out the window with that enigmatic expression. Then he squinted up to the front seat, where Winry seemed half-asleep at the wheel. He really hoped she was looking at the road. Next to her, Rose sat silently, not even reacting to the wind whipping the hair back from her face. Her shoulders were hunched and her gaze was lowered, though Envy could see her open eyes in the rearview mirror and knew she wasn't sleeping.

Rose was the strange thing about this trip. Of course Envy had expected Al and Winry, Ed's brother and best friend, respectively, and even though he was surprised he had been invited it did make sense, given the fact he was sleeping on the Elric's couch. But Rose...

Wasn't she Kain's girlfriend? Or something like that; anyway, Envy had never seen her without Kain. They were practically married. Yet there she was, in the front seat of Winry's car - and come to think of it, Envy couldn't remember the two of them ever even interacting before. Kain had hung out with Envy's group, and Rose had hung with Kain... and Ed and his group had avoided Envy's group like the plague. Stupid high school politics, yeah, but that was the long and short of it.

Before he could finish his musings, the highway began to peter out into a long and flat dirt road, and he forgot his concern over Rose's presence, twisting in his seat to get a better view of the rolling bluffs stretching out before them. Even though they were only a few miles from the outermost suburbs of LA, the land was surprisingly undeveloped, and yellow dune grass stretched for miles. Except for the space in front of the car, where Envy could see a faint line of dark blue that grew bigger by the minute.

His movement caused Al to stir and open his eyes. "Wha..." the boy asked blearily, sitting up straight. To Envy's amusement, he had a red mark on his cheek where his face had been pressed against the long-haired teenager's t-shirt. "Oh, we're almost there..." Al murmured with a luxuriant yawn.

Envy yawned as well, and sat up straight. "Is this beach nice?" he asked.

The question had been directed at Alphonse but Ed stirred, sitting up straight and rolling his shoulders. "It's probably not quite what you're used to," the blonde said. Envy rolled his eyes surreptitiously. Even though Ed had been nice lately - suspiciously nice, ever since that nighttime drive - he still sometimes made sarcastic references to Envy's upbringing in a higher class. "Still, it's a good, clean beach. Not too crowded. Not too much tar." In response to Envy's bemused look, he explained, "That's a problem in places like Santa Barbara, with the offshore oil rigs. Lots of gross black stuff washes up on the beach. Not so much here."

Envy nodded. Apparently taking that as an invitation to keep talking, Ed continued, "It's great for swimming, you know," and grinned. "The beach is sandy, and once you get past the breakers it's still shallow enough to stand."

Swimming in the ocean sounded dangerous to Envy, but he wasn't about to say that out loud. "Awesome," he said instead, ambivalently, and turned to the window again. Luckily, Ed realized that meant the conversation was over. Lately he had taken to talking to Envy a lot, and although it wasn't annoying per se... it was disconcerting. A complete one-eighty from his cold shoulder only a week before.

The jeep's tires were kicking up a trail of fine dust, and so Envy spent the remainder of the trip trying to breathe as little as possible. Luckily, it was a scant ten minutes of torture before Winry pulled into a large, nearly empty lot. "Here we are," she said, the first time she had spoken since they had gotten on the highway. "I need you all to help unload stuff from the back."

Envy barely heard her, his attention focused on the ocean. It stretched out before them to infinity (or so it seemed), and the sun rising behind them made the waves glint with reflected light. From here, he could smell the sea breeze and almost taste the salt on his lips, hear the cries of seagulls and the roaring of the waves. It was California, it was sunny, it was the fucking beach, and instead of mimicking his mother's world-weary blase, Envy found himself taking in the scene completely for the first time. He couldn't help the wide grin breaking out across his face.

"Don't forget the sand toys and the radio in the back," Edward said as he passed Envy, towing the large blue-and-white wheeled cooler. Envy had commented that it seemed like they were taking an awful lot of food for only five people, but Winry had informed him that this was lunch and dinner, and nothing made a person hungry like a day at the beach. He had accepted her logic at face value, even though he had never been particularly peckish after sitting in the shade all day. Finally tearing his gaze from the ocean, Envy grabbed the gear out of the trunk, net bag of plastic toys in one hand and satellite radio-equipped boom box in the other. As he made to walk across the parking lot, he noticed Rose still sitting in the passenger seat of the car. It seemed as though she hadn't moved at all. And although he knew that Rose was normally quiet and reserved, Envy thought that immobility to this degree was just abnormal.

Maybe she had died during the drive and no one noticed that there was a corpse in the car with them.

... Okay, that thought was too creepy to shake off.

"Rose?" Envy asked, approaching the passenger side of the car. She didn't stir. "Hey, Rosie," he tried again, through the open window. "Rosie, what's up, Rose? Flower girl? Come on..."

Rose glanced at him through her pink-dyed fringe. Good. She was alive, then. But why wasn't she going out to the beach like the rest of them? Envy asked as much: "Aren't you going to get out of the car?"

There was a pause - Rose looked away, back down at her hands. She shook her head.

"No, you're not getting out of the car?" Envy asked. "Why?" When Rose didn't reply, he put down the radio and the bag of toys. This looked like it would be a longer conversation than he had anticipated. "Did you want to come to the beach?"

She shook her head.

"Why not?" Envy questioned, before realizing that she probably wasn't going to answer any question that required speaking. But she hadn't had a problem with talking before, when she got over her shyness. Envy frowned and leaned on the car's windowsill. "Rose, is something wrong? Did something happen?"

A pause, and then a nod.

"What?" Now Envy was beginning to get a little impatient. He scuffed his sandaled foot against the dirt of the parking lot, shifted his weight from one leg to the other.

Rose shook her head.

"Okay, you're not going to tell me," Envy said, his tone sour. "Fine, then. What about a guessing game?" Rose gave no response. Well then, full speed ahead. "So something happened," Envy began. "Was it... your parents?"

There was a long pause, and then Envy slumped. He could have slapped himself. /Dumbfuck, her parents are dead!/ "Er, wait, never mind that. Was it..." He searched for something else, and then returned to his previous thoughts on the matter - Rose was always with Kain. Kain wasn't here now. "Was it your boyfriend?"

A pause, and then a nod.

"Did he..." The thought was inconceivable - Rose and Kain had acted like they were married for God's sake; Kain treated her like a slave and she took it like she had committed to him for life or something - but with Rose's unusual silence... "Did he break up with you?"

There was an even longer pause, and Envy found himself holding his breath, but eventually Rose nodded. Her hands trembled in her lap. Envy didn't know what to say to that, and so it was almost a relief - almost - when she spoke, her voice quiet and shaking. "I'm pregnant."

The revelation was so unexpected that for a few seconds Envy just stood there, openmouthed, probably looking like a bona fide idiot. "P-pregnant," he stammered after a while. "Pregnant, really?" He narrowed his eyes and looked hard at Rose like that could help him tell whether or not she was lying. The girl was a bit of a drama queen and making an announcement like that was definitely a plea for help.

Instead of meeting his gaze like she used to, she looked away and sniffled. Her eyes were already swimming with tears.

"But..." Envy protested, looking around wildly. "Condoms? The pill? Kain - does Kain know about this?"

Rose swallowed and nodded, her hands clenched in her lap. "H-he..." she said, her voice softer than a whisper, and Envy had to lean in to hear. "He broke up with me when... when I told him..."

Envy looked at Rose for another moment, but then something broke inside of him and he slumped against the side of the car, reaching through the open window to wrap an arm around Rose's shoulders and pull her closer. "Oh, Rosie," he said, and stroked her hair as she began to sob.

---

"The radio," Edward said, looking around the pile of beach stuff that had been placed to the side of their spread blankets. "Where's the radio? I told Envy to get it. Where's Envy?" He looked around their encampment several times before shading his eyes and looking back towards the Jeep. "Is he still at the car? What's he doing?" His tone was almost hostile. "Hey, hey, Winry..."

"Chill out," Winry said, setting down three foldable plastic chairs. She had already taken off her plaid top and was now clad only in a baby blue bikini and cargo shorts. She stood to join Ed in his scrutiny of her car. "Oh, he's just leaning on the side of my car. Hey, he's not allowed to do that!"

Ed squinted into the glare of the sun. "What in the world is he... Hey, is he talking to Rose?"

Winry tensed. "Is he? That - that asshole! That jerk! I am going to go over there right now and -"

"Woah, woah," Ed said, grabbing her arm and yanking her back. "I'm sure he's, uh, being a perfect gentleman; I mean, she's pregnant and she doesn't talk, for God's sake. How will he even start to seduce her?"

The blonde slapped his hand away. "No seducing! He's not going to seduce her!" She made as if to march towards the car again, and Ed was about to grab her again when she stopped in her tracks and slumped. "But maybe... Maybe..." She turned back towards their towels. "I don't know, maybe she'll be better off if she gets together with Envy. I mean, he's probably less of a jerk than Kain, right? He won't hit her, and she'd have stability. With a boy. She likes boys."

For some reason, Ed found that idea instantly horrifying, probably because Winry was thinking of giving up the girl she'd had a crush on for, well, years. Yeah, that was why. "That's ridiculous," he said flatly, and punched Winry lightly on the shoulder. "Come on, she's smart enough not to get seduced by a pair of pretty eyes and green hair. And anyway, even if she does, that still is good for you, isn't it? I mean, Envy looks enough like a girl already..."

Winry burst out laughing. "Oh God, Ed, you could write the book on how not to make someone feel better," she said, wiping her eyes and grinning at him. Ed, slightly miffed - he had honestly been trying to comfort her - frowned slightly. "Stop that," Winry said with a grin. It was her turn to punch him on the arm, and her punches hurt. "Al's already ran down to the ocean, you had better grab him before he catches another crab or gets all sunburnt again."

Ed shuddered, remembering their last trip to the beach. Oh yeah, that was why they hadn't gone to the beach since June last year. "I'm on it."

---

Rose sniffled and wiped her eyes. Her sobs seemed to be stopping now. Envy rested a hand on her head, making a soothing noise. "It's alright, Rosie." Gradually, the shaking in her shoulders ended and she closed her eyes, resting her head and one of her hands against Envy's chest. Envy found himself hoping, for some reason, that no one was watching. That was a slight surprise to him; usually - well, the old Envy would usually be all over this opportunity.

He wondered when old Envy had been replaced by... whoever he was now.

He stroked Rose's hair for a few minutes, and then chucked her under the chin. "Come on now, we're at the beach." Although it was not something he was used to, he tried to keep his voice gentle, imagining he were soothing a panicked animal or calming a baby - both actions with which he had little experience. Well, he was an actor, and good at improvising, anyway. "The beach is for fun, for partying, right? We drove all the way out here, so do you want to come play?"

It was almost a convulsive gesture, the way Rose shook her head. "I can't," she said, and the words were another sob.

Damn, and Envy thought he had stopped her crying. "You can't... because you're pregnant? Sad? Ah... broken?"

She nodded and her nose dug into Envy's chest. It almost tickled. This was a novel experience. He was used to making girls cry, sure, but comforting them? Letting them get their tears and snot all over his shirt? That was new Envy. Again.

"Look, Rosie, flower girl, you're not... I mean..." Envy chewed his lip, struggling to find the right words. What could he say that would make Rose happy? What could he say that would force her to straighten her spine, lift up her chin, look the world in the eye? If he could be pardoned for using such a trite expression. He stared off in the direction of the ocean but soon found his eyes drifting towards Ed and Al and Winry, standing at their makeshift campsite. They were probably waiting.

"You know," he began carefully. "Ed used to hate me. And I used to hate Ed. But this summer I got kicked out of my own house, got raped by my best friend - yeah, Kimbley, that best friend," he said sourly, "and ended up on the doorstep to Ed's apartment." Now that Envy thought about it, his and Rose's stories were awfully familiar. "It's funny how the world works, isn't it?"

The grin he gave Rose was just crooked, just painful enough to elicit an answering smile. She straightened slightly and for the first time since their conversation had begun, met his eyes. Hers were slightly bloodshot and a little teary, and Envy wiped them with his thumb. "You're good, right?"

This was the Rosie he knew, the one who tucked her hair back behind her ears and gave the quiet reply, "Good enough."

Envy's grin widened at the response and he opened the door of the Jeep so that she could hop out. As she got to her feet, she laid a hand on Envy's arm. "I'm sorry about Kimbley."

For new Envy, there was only one response to that and it didn't have anything to do with himself. "I'm sorry about Kain."

Rose continued down the pathway to the beach, stepping gracefully in her sandals over the detritus that was scattered across the sand. "Damn," Envy said, rummaging around for the radio and snatching up the plastic garbage bag full of beach toys. "That is some woman."

But the funny thing was, that was all he felt. Sympathy for Rose, respect for Rose... but no attraction at all.

"New Envy," he muttered as he began the trudge to their campsite, "you are one weird son of a bitch."

---

Rose had been crying. Winry noticed her tearstains and the slight redness of her eyes with that part of her that noticed everything Rose did - the same part that noted the way her brown hair curled softly away from her face, the way the roots were showing under her dyed-pink bangs, the way her loose and flowing summer shirt also managed to obscure the shape of her stomach, which was almost but not quite swelling gently. And she had taken that all in at a glance. She looked away, turning back to Edward, whose multiple idiosyncrasies generally went unnoticed. By her, anyway. Most of the time. "You swimming?" she asked, trying to ignore Rose's approach and Envy, dragging the beach toys behind her.

Ed looked out across the water and the shade of the umbrella obscured the sparkling reflections of the ocean in his eyes. "I guess," he said after a while, his slightly wistful expression changing to mischevious with a thought. "Envy's never swum in the ocean before, has he? You can tell. He's planning on just sitting under the umbrella."

Winry couldn't tell. "Right," she said, because it was best to humor Ed in these types of situations. She glanced at the beach, where Alphonse, now liberally sunscreened, was splashing in the incoming waves, and then back at Ed. "You know what this calls for?" she asked, her look becoming almost as mischevious as his. "Sunscreen buddies."

"Excuse me?" Ed turned to look at her, confusion writ plainly across his face. And then a light of dawning comprehension - "Wha- you mean... Oh. But that -" She stifled a giggle. "You'd be with - which means I would - can't he just - gah!" He ran a hand through his hair, tangling it in his braid with exasperation. "Fine, but only because it's you."

She smiled at him and was about to reply but Rose had reached their makeshift campsite and she turned to her, pretending she didn't notice the tearstains under her cheeks. "Hey, Rose."

"Hi," Rose said, and gave her a soft, tremulous smile. Winry's eyes widened. Rose had just talked to her, said something, smiled for God's sake - at her - for the first time in, what, weeks? Months? The weight of the summer felt like years.

"Ah, yeah," Winry said, glancing at Ed to see if he noticed anything - but of course he didn't; he was looking at Envy with an annoyed expression because the garbage bag was probably getting all torn up by the sand from his dragging... She shouldn't have expected him to notice either. Ha. Men. "Will you be swimming today?" she asked nervously.

Rose looked out over the ocean, her hair billowing softly about her shoulders in the gentle sea breeze. "Probably not," she said, not taking her eyes from the rolling waves. "I've always been..." Her voice, already soft, grew quieter. "I've always been afraid of the ocean."

Winry wondered if she could feel her heart breaking, or was it melting, was she falling more in love, was she just giddy from the smell of salt and the roaring waves? Whatever it was, in that moment all she wanted to do was take Rose in her arms, cradle her, stroke her hair - maybe it was motherly instinct. "The ocean is huge," she said, not sure whether she was agreeing or saying something totally unrelated or what. "But anyway, you should put some sunscreen on."

The brunette nodded. She hadn't worn one of Winry's swimsuits - that would have been really awkward for both of them - but Winry had convinced her to borrow one of her sleeveless summer shirts, which was covered by a light jacket.

"At least take that off," Winry said, wondering if she sounded too much like she was trying to get Rose to show more skin. Which she wasn't! Sort of. "It's going to get really hot soon, even under the umbrella." Did that sound like an innuendo? Could this whole set up be used as some kind of bizarre "that's what she said" joke? She hoped she wasn't blushing. She really hoped she wasn't blushing.

Rose shrugged off the jacket, folding it neatly. Winry noticed how she stood now with her shoulders slightly hunched, to minimize the appearance of her belly. She wondered what Rose would do when it started getting bigger for real. Her arms were olive skinned and smooth.

Edward was fiddling with the radio and Envy was standing awkwardly in his borrowed swim trunks and extra large T-shirt, staring out over the ocean. When Winry clapped her hands together loudly they both came to attention, Envy startling like a rabbit or a deer in the headlights, Ed rolling his eyes as he looked up reluctantly because he knew what was happening next. "All right, guys!" Winry said, forcing cheer and exuberance into her voice. "Since we're going to be at the beach all day, we need to keep remembering to reapply our sunscreen. So Ed and Envy, you'll be sunscreen buddies, and Rose and I will be buddies." She hoped she wasn't too obviously trying to throw her and Rose together. "We'll do each other's sunscreen, check for mixed spots, and reapply every..." She glanced out at the waves. "Hour and a half or so. And everyone watches out for Al."

Winry heard Envy ask Ed some kind of sardonic question, but her heart was beating too fast and too loud to allow her to hear the actual words or Ed's reply. She rummaged in the beach bag for her own sunscreen, putting a dollop on her fingers and smearing it across her cheeks, pretending her hands weren't shaking. But they were. This was getting ridiculous....

She smeared sunscreen across her chest and shoulders, then on her stomach, and removed her shorts to smooth it down her legs and thighs. She had to be especially careful with her pale skin - compared to her, Rose probably wouldn't need much sunscreen at all. Speaking of which... She snuck a glance up at Rose, who was... staring at the ocean. Not watching Winry at all. Of course. "Hey, um, Rose?" Winry began hesitantly. "Will you do my back and shoulders?" She held out the sunscreen bottle.

Rose took it and examined it like she had never seen such a thing before. "Alright," she said after a few moments, and squirted some sunscreen onto her hand. Winry turned around, biting her lip as Rose's soft hands smoothed over her shoulders. She was acting pathetically; probably taking advantage of Rose in some way, but if this was the only way they could get close...

And for God's sake, wasn't she overreacting? It was just sunscreen.

When Rose had finished Winry took the tube and began smoothing it over Rose's shoulders, which were upon closer examination, spattered with tiny dark freckles. She was almost done rubbing the last of the sunscreen in when Rose said, in her quiet voice, "My baby... Do you think it will be a boy or a girl?"

Winry smiled, wiped her hands, and tucked a strand of Rose's hair behind her ear. "Either way," she said softly, warmly, "it'll be beautiful."

---

"Yeah, shut up, sit still," Ed said with exasperation in answer to Envy's complaing that he was more accustomed to having tanning oil rubbed onto him by mahogany beauties in like, the Caribbean or something. He rubbed the sunscreen roughly into Envy's knobby shoulders, wondering (not for the first time) exactly what girls saw in him. Sure, Envy's skin was smooth and he had a fairly good body - fairly because muscles were apparently a foreign thing to Envy - and maybe his face was attractive?

Still, it definitely wasn't enough to make girls fall for him head-over-heels all the time. Maybe the large part of work was done by Envy's reputation. Or - more likely - and he found it strange to think he had almost forgotten - by Envy's mother's reputation. "You're a real jerk, you know that?"

He was surprised to feel Envy's shoulders stiffen slightly under his hands. "So I've been told," the long-haired teenager replied archly.

Edward narrowed his eyes at the back of Envy's head - was he nervous? angry? insulted? And Ed had really just meant it as a joke. Though he supposed it had been an insensitive comment to begin with, especially after the events of the recent weeks. "A rich bastard," he continued out of a spirit of scientific curiosity.

Envy's shoulders tensed again and Ed fought the urge to begin massaging them - a relic of too many Winry-requested backrubs, he supposed. "I thought you had gotten over this?" he asked icily.

Ed raised an eyebrow and began working the sunscreen into Envy's lower back. He figured he had better apply it pretty liberally. Envy was really white and would probably burn like a lobster as opposed to Ed, who bronzed wonderfully. (Or, as Winry had said, like fried chicken.) "I'm kidding," he said placatingly. "It's just sort of annoying that you went on all these cruises and vacations and to all these fancy resorts your whole life."

"Except this year," Envy pointed out. "So no need to be jealous." His face was hidden by his swinging, greenish hair (now black at the roots) and Ed wondered what his expression looked like. Envy had changed a lot; a month before he would have answered Ed's jealousy with a barbed remark or an insult in kind. But now all he had to reply with was a tired kind of retort.

For a moment, Ed regretted saying such harsh words. "Yeah," he replied, and forced some cheer into his voice. That wasn't so hard as he looked out onto the ocean, the waves already reflecting blinding bright sunlight. "But I bet you'll have the most fun on this trip." A grin slid unbidden onto his face as he put the cap back on his tube of sunscreen. "You're done."

Envy stepped away from him and tucked a few strands of hair behind his ear before turning to face Ed. "Er, thanks," he said awkwardly, glancing into Ed's face as if checking for something. Maybe to see if Ed really had been kidding with those careless comments? He glanced at the tube of sunscreen. "Your turn?"

"Er, yeah," Ed replied, turning around. He made sure he was facing the ocean, not Rose and Winry, because they were awkward enough without his help, thanks very much. "You ever gone swimming in the ocean before?" he asked as Envy smacked a cool glob of sunscreen onto his back. Ouch. That had been applied with a little more force than totally necessary.

"Yeah," Envy said with bravado and Ed wondered whether he was lying. Probably. His suspicions were proved right when, after a moment of silence where Envy had halfheartedly rubbed sunscreen across his shoulders, the long-haired teenager muttered, "Actually, no."

"Thought so," Ed said with a chuckle. "But you can swim, right?"

"Of course I can!" Envy replied, sounding rather affronted. Ed waited several moments for him to retract his statement, and was slightly surprised when he didn't. Maybe Envy really could do something besides act and be spoiled and lie on the couch all day - but he wasn't supposed to be thinking those thoughts now, was he? They were getting along. Ish.

"Awesome," he said. "Then you should have an okay time. I - er, we'll all go out with you the first time because it's a bit hard to get used to at first. It's so much fun though!" He craned his neck over his shoulder to check whether Envy was actually bothering to rub the sunscreen in all the way - the touches across his back were so light that they barely felt like anything. "Hey, make sure there's no white left on my back, okay?"

Envy muttered something (probably uncharitable) about how Ed just assumed he even wanted to swim in the ocean and he knew very well how to rub in sunscreen, thanks, but Ed wasn't listening. He was watching Al with the shovel, beginning to dig a sand castle, and behind Al, the waves rolling in on the gloriously open, gloriously clear, gloriously empty beach. Today was the perfect day for a trip to the ocean and - Envy or no Envy, and even if Envy didn't actually rub in his sunscreen all the way - it was going to be great.

"Oceanside" by The Decemberists.

i was able to go to the beach (yay Texas?) this summer and got horribly sunburnt - it was so bad that my skin is still kinda pink and blotchy on the shoulders. ew. for the record: aloe vera lotion helps. reapply. swim shirts are your friends. ironic i'm saying this in, what, january?